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Author: Paul Wright

HIV+ Prisoner “Denied Meds & Water” Died, US Jail Accused of Neglect

Posted on by Paul Wright

Holly Barlow-Austin was just 46 when she died in hospital with fungal meningitis after being “denied meds and water” by the for-profit jail in Texas, where she was held in “deplorable and inhumane conditions of confinement,” lawyers for her family stated in a case filed this week, according to reports in The New York Tines. Holly had HIV which had been effectively managed by medication prior to be taken into custody in April 2019 for violating the terms of her probation. She also had ongoing mental health issues which were also being managed by medication prior to her time in the BI-State Jail in Texakarna, Texas. The legal action names LaSalle Corrections ( the private company contracted to run the jail), jail employees and Bowie County, Texas as defendants in the case.

Jail employees are alleged to have not administered her full meds regime which led to Holly becoming ill to the point in late May where “she could no longer walk or stand and her vision was badly impaired” per legal papers filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Holly was placed in a medical observation cell in early June before being taken to a hospital on 11th June. Holly died of fungal meningitis on 17th June. The lawsuit contends that Holly`s health had deteriorated to such an extent that it was too late to save her life. Video monitoring footage of her what were to be her last days in jail showed Holly to be undernourished and extremely weak and that she was being denied sufficient water according the to the family`s lawyer Erik J. Heipt. “The only way I was able to know, for example, that [Holly] only had three small cups of water during 48 hours is because I watched all 48 hours,” Heipt told The Washington Post. “If you look at just the medical records provided by the company, LaSalle, you would have no idea of her blindness, inability to walk, difficulty even crawling or malnourished state.”

He added that “her last 48 hours [in custody] were tantamount to torture,” said Erik J. Heipt.

“For years, LaSalle has been neglecting and abusing inmates, disregarding their fundamental constitutional rights and engaging in other cruel and inhumane acts and practices,” the Barlow-Austin suit states, adding that her case “goes to the very heart of everything that’s wrong with the privatization of America’s county jails.”

LaSalle Correcions and Bowie County officials were contacted by the Times and the Post but no comments were forthcoming from either.

Hong Kong: Court Refuses to Recognise Overseas Same-Sex Marriages

Posted on by Paul Wright

A court in Hong Kong  has refused to recognise same-sex marriages conducted abroad.

In a massive blow for the local LGBTQ+ community, the Judge said “The applicant’s attempt in the present case to achieve complete parity of legal recognition of foreign same-sex marriages and foreign opposite-sex marriages is too ambitious,” Anderson Chow wrote in his judgement. The case was brought by Jimmy Sham, a local district councillor. In 2013 he married his partner in New York and argued that Hong Kong should recognise all LGBT marriages registered overseas and that refusal to do so was “highly unfair and discriminatory.”

Speaking to the media after the court reached its verdict, Jimmy said “This is unjust, why are gay people seen as too ambitious when we fight for our rights?” Rubbing salt into the wound of injustice, the courts heard a similar case earlier in the day featuring a heterosexual couple who married in London. They were granted local recognition of their marriage. Local LGBTQ+ rights group Hong Kong Marriage Equality said that “The court missed its chance to advance the legal status of overseas married same-sex couples.”

In a separate case, the court did agree that LGBT couples who marry overseas do have inheritance rights even if their is no rule.  The Hong Kong government had tried to argue that to confer the inheritance rights to LGBT couples would undermine the institution of marriage. The Judge said this was illogical, though his affirmative ruling does not apply to civil partnerships or unions conducted overseas. Last year Hong Kong upheld a local ban on civil partnerships.

Travel to Hong Kong by UK citizens is not restricted at the time of writing, however the UK government does note that traveller’s electronic devices are checked on entry.

 

Cynthia Nixon: “I feel frightened” about Trump`s Election Plans

Posted on by Paul Wright

Actor and activist Cynthia Nixon has expressed concerns about the forthcoming US election.

Talking about Trump, she told The Guardian “I do feel frightened about his malevolent high jinks. I feel concerned about interference from other countries; I think everyone feels concerned about postal votes. Will he leave quietly? I don’t know.” The former Sex and the City (SATC) actor, who portrayed Miranda in SATC, continued, “Trump’s only path to re-election is to position himself as defender of white people and white lives and white supremacy. To say; that’s one alternative, and the only other alternative is chaos, and looting and an end to the suburbs. The fact of the matter is, big cities almost always vote Democrat, particularly in national elections, because we’re very diverse and we have so many more poor people.

But Trump is spinning this narrative that all our major cities are failing, because they’re run by Democrats.” Cynthia is married to the educational activist Christine Marinoni and they co-parent three children including Sam who is trans. Nixon is very alert to the weaponising of Trans rights. “There are many things that the right uses against trans people, and a lot of them have to do with a threat. ‘There’s going to be a man in your women’s bathroom.’ It’s the most preposterous thing in the world.”

Cynthia Nixon is a a prime example of an actor using their global fame to start a conversation, especially about politics. She ran for governor of New York in 2018. She lost to Andrew Coumo “I was triply burdened,” she says. “I was a woman. I was a gay woman. I was a person who had been an activist for a long time, but had never held political office, and obviously the governor is a really big place to start. And I am an actress, which is a barely coded word for ‘bimbo’ or ‘ditz’. I don’t, in my personal life, ever call myself an actress – I call myself an actor.

Earlier this year Cynthia lit up the internet with the short film Be a Lady, They Said about society’s impossible standards for women. Made for the US magazine Girls, Girls, Girls based on the polemic by Camille Rainville the video  includes the lines ”look sexy, look hot, you’re asking for it.”

Cynthia Nixon will next be seen in Ratched, the new Netflix origin story of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest, inspired by Ken Kesey’s novel and the 1975 film co-starring Louise Fletcher as the now infamous Nurse Ratched, a role which earned her an Oscar. In Ratched, Sarah Paulson portrays the title character. Set in 1947 as she arrives in Northern California to take up a post at a psychiatric hospital.

Presenting herself as the consumate caregiver, there is a growing darkness beneath the perfect veneer as imagined by Ryan Murphy who previously created Glee, Feud (Bette and Joan) and The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Cynthia Nixon co-stars as Gwendolyn Briggs, a lesbian press secretary for the governor.

Ratched streams on Netflix from Friday 18th September.

 

 

 

 

 

Poland: Bishops Demand Clinics to “cure” LGBTQ+

Posted on by Paul Wright

Marek Jędraszewski, Archbishop of Kraków in Poland told a conference he deemed it “necessary to create clinics (including with the assistance of the church) to help people who want to regain their sexual health and natural sexual orientation.” The statement was delivered at a plenary meeting of the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP). The statement admitted the demand “stands in clear contradiction to positions regarded as scientific, as well as to so-called political correctness.”

At the three-day conference the bishops tried to have it all ways by also saying that “The requirement of respect for all people, including people identifying with LGBT+, is entirely correct, and a democratic state with the rule of law should ensure that none of the fundamental rights of these people are violated. Any acts of physical or verbal violence, any forms of hooligan behaviour and aggression against LGBT+ people are unacceptable.”

Father Jacek Prusak. a Polish priest, spoke out against the document. When interviewed by TVN24 he said that the KEP were “treating the bible as a psychology textbook and a constitution for all Poles, and this cannot be done.” He noted that the timing of the statement wasn’t accidental, and that it was partially targeted at Polish politicians.

The clinics the bishops are demanding are essentially conversion therapy centres. Conversion therapy has been widely discredited by the NHS, Boris Johnson and the World Psychiatric Association. The practice can involve electric shock therapy and has left many participants traumatised. It is currently legal in the UK.

The KEP also heard the results of a survey by Pew Research Centre which showed that Polish religiosity had fallen from 83% in 1991 to 69% in 2020. Poland is a majority Catholic country and ranked among the worst in geographical Europe for LGBTQ+ rights by IGLA-Rainbow (for comparison the UK is ninth on the list with Malta being first). The country is ruled by president Andrezj Duda who was re-elected in July this year after making a number of anti-LGBTQ+ statements throughout his campaign. A number of Polish towns have declared themselves as LGBTQ+ Free zones which led to a denial of funds by the EU.

Germany: Out Health Minister Abused by Anti-Lockdown Protesters

Posted on by Paul Wright

Germany`s health minister has been spat at and verbally abused by anti-lockdown protesters. Cries of “shame and “gay pig” were hurled at a pre-local election event in Bergisch Gladbach, North-west Germany at Jens Spahn, of the ruling Christian Democratic Union(CDU). Spahn is an out gay conservative who became Federal Health Minister in 2018. He had taken off his face-mask in order to to speak but was drowned out by the homophobic abuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yJNyofxP5Y

After video of the attack emerged, the economy minister Peter Altmaier took to social media to express outrage at the attacks “Anyone who spits at and molests democratically elected politicians infringes the German constitution and makes an outsider of themselves” he said on his Twitter feed.

Spahn told the Rheinsiche Post that “a dialogue must be ensured between officials and coronavirus deniers. But it only works if both sides are willing to listen When people shout, spit and insult each other, it just doesn’t work.” Sphan has increasingly become the target for anti-lockdown protesters as he is the one delivering public health information. For his safety a planned outdoor event in nearby Munster was moved indoors. The German government are trying to avoid a second lockdown despite a rise in infections. “With the knowledge we have today, I can tell you we won’t need to close hairdressers and shops again”, Spahns said. “That won’t happen again. We won’t need working bans in care homes again.”

A vocal minority of people in Germany are becoming increasingly aggressive in their opposition to safety rules aimed at stopping the spread of covid-19. Recently the minister criticised those who “stay inside their Facebook and WhatsApp world, get ever more aggressive and no longer seek contact to those with a different opinion”. Despite the abuse, the approval rating for the measures that Germany has undertaken remain high with a recent poll by ZDF suggesting only 10% of respondents said they believed the coronavirus restrictions to be excessive, while 60% thought they were exactly right and 28% said they were not strict enough.

 

Star Trek: Non-binary and Trans Actors Join Discovery

Posted on by Paul Wright

The Star Trek universe is welcoming their first explicitly Non-binary and Trans characters in season three  of Star Trek Discovery. The announcement, made on startrek.com is a major step forward for inclusive casting as the characters are to be portrayed by Non-binary and Trans actors.

The non-binary character is named Adira, a young confident person with memory loss and is portrayed by Blu del Barrio who told GLAAD that landing the role helped them navigate coming out as non-binary “When I got the call that I’d been cast as Adira, I hadn’t yet told the majority of my friends and family that I was non-binary. I had only recently discovered the word and realized that it described how I’d felt for a long time. I knew I wanted to tell my friends and family, so when this happened, it felt like the universe saying “go ahead.” So in a way, Adira’s story ends up mirroring mine. Just after I told people in my life, so did Adira. Definitely not the most common coming out story, but it was scary, special, and life changing (as they usually are).”  Discovery is Blu`s first major acting gig since drama school.

 

Trans actor Ian Alexander will portray Gray, an unjoined Trill whose life takes an unexpected turn. Ian has been on screen before in Netflix drama The OA.

Star Trek Discovery is the seventh series in the Star Trek universe and events take place before the original 1960s series. Star Trek Discovery has screened in the Uk on both Netflix and E4.

The third season is due to premiere in the UK on Netflix on Friday 16th October a day after it`s US premiere on CBS All Access.

 

US Election: Cher`s LGBTQ+ Biden Fundraiser In Tune for $2 Million

Posted on by Paul Wright

“So ask yourself: Do you believe in life after Trump?” That was the question at a virtual LGBTQ+ fundraising event for the Democrats, reworking the lyrics to Cher`s hit song Believe. The event, in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris` campaign for the forthcoming US election, raised close to $2 million according to reports by the Washington Blade. Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of of South Bend, Indiana and onetime contender for the Democrats Presidential nomination, introduced the legendary singer, actress and activist by saying “I am the only thing between hundreds of prominent LGBTQ+ activists and Cher.” Buttigieg has secured his place in political history as the first openly gay big-party candidate to secure delegates and debate on the national stage. He went on to say that Cher had inspired “millions with her music and her advocacy.”Cher told the fundraiser that she had known of Biden for almost 14 years having “invited” herself to his office. “He thinks he invited me, but I really invited myself. I saw a speech Joe had given and it was love at first speech.,” the Oscar winning icon said. “So I went to his office to grill him and I asked early pointed questions, and unlike most politicians, Joe actually listened to me.He was honest and smart. Joe is smart enough, he`s kind enough, he`s strong enough.“ Taking a swipe at Donald Trump, Cher added, “I also know that the person in the White House is an idiot. I mean it, the guy is an idiot.”

The celebrated performer, whose adult children include trans actor Chaz Bono, referred to Trump`s anti- trans policies including the ban on trans people serving in the military. “After all this, Trunp has the audacity to say he supports Americans he calls, quote, the gays. I’m surprised he doesn’t call them his gay generals.”

Biden confirmed at the event he will prioritise signing the Equality Act into law within 100 days as president. Were it to be passed, the Act would amend the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, public education, federal finding, credit and the jury system. “I`ll make signing the Equality Act one of the top priorities of my first 100 days” he said. We will “build a nation where everybody, everybody is finally not only created equal but treated equal as well.” He also praised Buttigieg, highlighting his “physical courage as a naval officer and moral courage as a leader.“

The US election is scheduled for Tuesday 3rd November.

Miss Jason: Health Concerns Force Rest

Posted on by Paul Wright

Popular cabaret artiste Miss Jason has been told by doctors to rest after a brain tumour was discovered that affects the hearing in the left ear. The stalwart of the scene who has been delighting pub, bar, theatre, TV and Pride audiences for more than 20 years now has tinnitus which also affects balance. Known off-stage as Jason Sutton, he awaits the outcome of tests with the support of his partner Terry Ward.

“We are waiting to get the MRI scan completed” Terry said. “He has gone through lockdown and was already pretty down about it anyway, he wanted to get back to work. The ban on performances was lifted and drag queens have started performing, but that is not possible for him at the moment. So he is very down but wants to get it sorted sooner rather than later.”

A fundraising page has been set up by Ollie James-Parr, a player of the LGBT football team London Titans, which is sponsored by the Two Brewers bar where Miss Jason often performs in London. He said: “Miss Jason is a pillar of the LGBTQ+ community, having entertained crowds nationwide for decades. Right now she needs our help to recover from a debilitating illness so that she can return to the stage, where she belongs. Three weeks ago she went deaf in her left ear. Following medical examination it was confirmed that Jason has a tumour which has killed off the localised nerve endings and the only treatment is with hearing aids. Jason is currently suffering with terrible tinnitus, affecting her ability to listen and concentrate hugely. Understandably this has also had a knock on effect on her balance. This has been a huge shock to Jason, as the condition happened overnight and, financially, the hearing aids are not viable with her not having worked since March.

The Two Brewers, London Titans FC and many other bars, clubs, community groups and patrons want to show their support for Jason. Any amount you are able to give is greatly appreciated and, once the fundraiser is completed, all donations will be given directly to Jason in order for them to get the hearing aids.”

Terry Ward said of Jason “He has to spend a lot of time resting but he has has had so much support from everyone. It was so surprising when they set up the fundraising page. We are so pleased with the donations people have made.”

You can support  this appeal and help Miss Jason here

 

 

US Election: Cher to Headline LGBTQ+ Fundraiser for Biden

Posted on by Paul Wright

Cher will headline a virtual LGBTQ+ fundraiser for the Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden. The impassioned singer said about Joe Biden on Twitter ‘Am proud Joe Biden supporter. Love, respect,& believe in Joe. I will never stop believing in Joe, I`m no starry eyed girl, I’ve seen it all & Joe is my President. Joe will help working families, we have a million shattered dreams I trust Joe 2 put them back together again”

The fundraising event, first reported by Deadline, is scheduled for Monday 31st August and will be hosted by out politician and former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigeg. Joining Buttigeg, a one time contender for Presidential nominee, will be out colleagues Senator Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) and Representative David Cicilline (Rhode Island). Tickets start at $1,000 rising to $100,000 with donors of $50,000 and above invited to participate in a “virtual church”. The large amounts are a tip of the iceberg of the colossal sums spent on US elections.

Cher has often taken to Twitter to criticise current President Donald Trump and the singer, actress and activist announced her support for Biden back in February on the social media platform saying “This will Most Likely Be Unpopular but Last Nite I Asked Myself, ”Who, Would I Be, if I denied a Man I Know & Respect 4 a Shiny, New, Tech Savey BILLIONAIRE” Joe’s Made Mistakes like all of U, but I Believe He Would Be Honest, Smart, ”CIVIL” PRES Who Doesn’t Have 2 Learn On The Job.” In return Biden thanked the fellow septuagenarian and offered to be the support act for her Vegas show.

 

In a busy fundraising time for the Democrats, Will & Grace stars Debra Messing and Eric McCormack will facilitate a conversation this Wednesday about the value of women voters and leaders with tickets starting at a relatively modest $100. On Monday September 14th Cyndi Lauper will headline another LGBTQ+ event with tickets again starting at $100.

The US election is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 3rd November.

 

 

Football: Rainbow Jerseys trigger homophobia

Posted on by Paul Wright

Bristol City football club have unveiled their new season goalkeeper jerseys and the rainbow designs have triggered some people. The club has teamed up with sports apparel company Hummel to produce the eye-catching designs. Announcing the release for the 2020/2021 season, the company said ‘both designs joyfully reflect the club’s recent trend for vibrant and eye-catching goalkeeper creations.’ Then social media took notice. “As a kit it looks dope af. but idk if it’s to support LGBTQ or nah. personally, I like watching football without these kind of society things and political stuff etc. just here to enjoy the beautiful game,” one Twitter user declared.

Others have supported the designs.“(The Club) have not even mentioned the kit being at all relevant to the LGBTQ+ community and this isn’t even the rainbow flag. If you dislike the shirts for their design that’s fine, but all of this homophobia is actually appalling,” another tweet said. “Crazy that, even in this day and age, some people are so insecure in their own sexuality or so scared of the sexuality of others, that they think the colour pink or a sort of rainbow pattern, is offensive or is going to make people gay. Truly bizarre.” reflected another tweet.

Highlighting the multiplicity of loyalties at play, Ryan Richardson tweeted “They think the colours are linked to gay pride Rainbow. I sort of see the resemblance but it doesn’t bother me at all since I support both gay pride and BCFC.”

The shirts represent a technical innovation as they take advantage of Hummel’s ZEROH20 dry-dye technology, meaning it is more sustainable than ever to produce the kit. Hummel reports that it normally takes 25 litres of fresh clean water to dye just one single t-shirt. Every two years it takes the entire volume of the Mediterranean Sea to colour the world’s textiles. However, the ground-breaking technology ensures there is zero water consumption, zero wastewater and a 50% reduction in energy consumption during the production process.

Bristol City finished 12th in the Championship league. The shirts are available to pre-order on the club`s website

Although referred to as the beautiful game, football has an ugly undercurrent of prejudice. Racism, homophobia and misogyny are often present in the abuse hurled at rival team players and supporters. Campaigns endorsed by the game`s ruling body the Football Association (FA) to combat those prejudices have included Rainbow Laces for LGBTQ+ inclusion and Kick It Out against racism.

Locally, Whitehawk FC offers a more inclusive football experience

 

 

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