By Dean Beeby - Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2010

Internal documents show an early draft of the [Citizenship] guide contained sections noting that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969; that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation; and that same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005...But Mr. Kenney, who fought same-sex marriage when it was debated in Parliament, ordered those key sections removed when his office sent its comments to the department last June.

I met Safiya in the visiting room of the Federal Correctional Institution (for women) in Dublin, California, in 1997—but when we embraced, it felt as if I’d known her all my life. At the time, Safiya was traveling to various prisons, visiting political prisoners to talk with us about Jericho ’98, the national campaign, beginning with a march rally to the White House, that she was organizing (with Herman and Iyaluua Ferguson, political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim, and others). I was in Dublin, along with six other women political prisoners.

By Jordan Flaherty - January 15, 2010

More than half of the people on Louisiana's Sex Offender Registry - which was designed for rapists and child molesters - are indigent women convicted of sex work...Of the 861 sex offenders currently registered in New Orleans, 483 were convicted of a crime against nature (oral or anal sex)...[O]f those convicted...78 percent are Black and almost all are women.

Nadra has been a committed programmer and producer, or love warrior, for over 15 years at Pacifica’s KPFA. On August 20, 2008, in the studios of KPFA, a terrifying incident took place when over a dozen Berkeley police attacked Nadra with such extreme aggression she is still recovering from serious injuries. She is also fighting misdemeanor charges. Nadra Foster begins her trial on Feb. 5 in Oakland and she needs our support.

By Laurie Penny - December 24, 2009

For decades, the feminist movement has been split over the status of trans people, and of trans women in particular. High-profile feminists...have spoken out against what [Germaine] Greer terms "people who think they are women, have women's names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody"...[T]rans people have responded to this harassment by vigorously defending themselves, demanding that anti-trans feminists are denied platforms to speak on other issues and...by renouncing feminism altogether.

By NORM KENT - November 30, 2009

...[I]t seems the new Scarlett letter tearing apart American communities is a debate over whether to protect “gender identity” under civil rights statutes...Why would anyone fight this? Discrimination is morally wrong and ought to be demonstratively illegal in any form.

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN - October 30-Nov. 1, 2009

...[C]oncern with sexual behavior has nothing to do with sex but everything to do with policing. American sexual prudery is part of political and social policing within the nominally legal context of supposed individual freedom. People learn to be prudish with sex before they understand anything else in society and this prudery is transferred to other areas later which are even more important for social control and stability.

Celebrating Indigenous Cultural Resistance!

The kickoff for Indigenous Sovereignty Week in Ottawa, followed by a week of events focused on Indigenous struggles for justice.

Join us in celebrating Indigenous knowledge and culture through traditional and contemporary performance.

Celebrating Cultural Resistance!
Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009 at 2pm
Odawa Friendship Centre

By Doug Ireland - October 03, 2009

Gay mathematical genius Alan Turing, considered the father of modern computers and a national hero in Britain for breaking the Nazis' Enigma code and other German military ciphers and thus shortening the war, has received an official apology from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for being prosecuted and chemically castrated for his homosexuality. The unspeakable torture drove the brilliant scientist to suicide in 1954 at the young age of 41.

By Dave Zirin and Sherry Wolf - September 15, 2009

From the notion that women are somehow weaker and slower than men, to the not-so-subtle racism of Western standards of appearance, and on to their profound ignorance about the fluidity of sex and gender, these institutions are threatening to catapult women in sports back into the Dark Ages. We can't let them.

John "Jake" Raynard suffered 15 fractures to his cheekbone, a broken eye socket, a broken jaw and a broken upper palate when six to eight men surrounded him..."It was like they were waiting in the woodwork," said Raynard, who is gay, from his hospital bed. "The crowd just seemed to get bigger."

Part 15 (additional part 2 and final chapter)

Chapter 12. The enforcement of psychological self-criticism: suicide.