Queer News Hour #2
UNITED STATES. A regular day in the life of a normal straight man: Mark Musselwhite, the former mayor of Gainesville, Georgia and former deacon of the First Baptist Church, was arrested this past weekend for public indecency. The police visited Mark’s campsite after complaints that a naked man was seen running around with a beer can in hand. Mark stated that he had been swimming in the creek but had done nothing wrong, and also pointed out that he was an ex-mayor. He denied being the reported drunken naked man. Mark’s words might have carried more weight had he remembered to get dressed before the police arrived.
HONDURAS. Reuters features a photo essay depicting transpeople in Honduras.
MEXICO. A city regulation that enabled police violence and abuses has been repealed in Puerto Vallarta. The regulation allowed the police to harass and arrest whoever they felt was engaging in “public practices that indicate the development of an abnormal sexual life.”
Historically, misdemeanors codes have been used to persecute, abuse and arrest people whose sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression deviates from social norms. These regulations have enabled various types of police abuse, such as the arrests of gay men and lesbians for simple acts of affection, like holding each other’s hands. Such discrimination—always in violation of basic human rights—occured in Puerto Vallarta despite contravening the provisions of Mexico’s constitution.
TURKEY. Hossein Alizadeh writes about the conditions of Iranian glbtq refugees in Turkey.
For LGBT refugees in Turkey, this is the daily struggle they must contend with: away from family and friends, with painful memories of persecution and harassment in their native country, they are now unwelcome strangers, living in extreme poverty, isolation and hopelessness, waiting for what feels like an eternity to find out if any country on the planet will give them a chance to live like human beings.
More in the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission blog.
UNITED STATES. The Stranger, a Seattle paper has published its annual queer issue, titled “Shocked and Repelled”. This year’s issue features personal stories about polyamory and kinks (among other topics) from an adult American standpoint.
What’s the place of The Stranger in the U.S. magazine world?
It’s a free weekly alternative culture newspaper with a circulation of about 90 000. The editor of The Stranger, Dan Savage has widely syndicated sex column that gives sex advice to the queers and kinksters of America. Dan Savage is probably more famous than The Stranger… Here’s the Wikipedia page of the paper.