NEWSGAY RIGHTS

(Traduccion al Espanol por debajo)

It’s hard to believe that in Ecuador, a country that has legalized homosexuality in its constitution, there are “ex-gay clinics” that claim to cure their patients through means of torture.  That’s right, under the guise of drug-rehabilitation, these clinics use verbal threats, shackling, days without food, sexual abuse, and physical torture to “cure” homosexuality.While 30 of these such clinics have been closed this year, over 200 remain open.  That’s why Ecuadorian activists are speaking out against these remaining clinics and demanding that the government close them.

The month of May is National Foster Care Month, so it’s a good time to reflect on some troubling statistics concerning LGBTQ foster children and do something to make a difference.

It is estimated that approximately 260,000 youth are in the foster care system in the U.S. at any given time, according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Additionally, it is estimated that up to 18% of children in foster care are LGBTQ youth. These youth are falling through the cracks and are more at risk of becoming runaways, homeless, suicidal and harassed by peers.

According to the research conducted for the American Bar Association’s Opening Doors Project, judges and lawyers who work with youth in foster care acknowledge they don’t have the knowledge or resources to help LGBT foster kids. It is essential that professionals working with LGBT foster youth be educated on the issues and knowledgeable about community programs.

We all need to pledge to make our communities safer for LGBTQ foster kids.

South African government sets up task team to tackle hate crimes against LGBT South Africans in response to a 170,000-strong Change.org campaign calling for action on ‘corrective’ rape.

South Africa’s Ministry of Justice is establishing a national task team to address hate crimes against LGBT South Africans after 170,000 activists from around the world demanded action on ‘corrective’ rape, the increasingly common hate crime in which men rape lesbian women to 'turn' them straight or 'cure' them of their sexual orientation.

The decision came yesterday during a meeting at the South African Parliament of senior government and police officials with grassroots activists, who used the US-based social action platform Change.org to recruit a record-breaking 170,000 supporters from people in 163 countries. It follows the murder of Noxolo Nogwaza, a 24-year-old lesbian who was stoned, stabbed with broken glass and gang raped 10 days ago in a black township outside Johannesburg. Used condoms, a beer bottle and a large rock were all found on or beside her body.

You’re working the night shift at McDonald's handing out hamburgers.

A trans woman tries to use the bathroom, and two other McDonalds customers start to beat her up.

What do you do?

If you’re a McDonald’s employee in Baltimore, apparently you cheer the attackers on.

On Monday, April 18, two young women were caught on camera brutally attacking a defenseless trans woman who was simply trying to use the bathroom in a McDonald's outside Baltimore. Hat tip to Bil Browning, who seems to be the first blogger to cover the incident and to buckangel for the tipoff.

The video footage is horrific, but what’s more is that the attack took place in full view of McDonald's employees, indeed it seems the person who filmed the video may have been an employee of the fast food chain. Not only did most of the McDonald’s staff neglect to try and stop the attack, they can be heard on the video cheering on the attackers!

Many people ask me where the campaign against 'corrective' rape came from. Change.org asked me to tell a bit about it, so here I am.

I was born in 1974 and my father died when I was very young.

I grew up during apartheid and was very politically active, which was really dangerous back then.

But at the same time I come from a very Christian background.

Once my mother heard me and a friend talking about skipping the country when I was a teenager. It's what activists did back then, and my uncle was already in exile.

I was still very active in the church and my mother asked the church leaders to stop me from fleeing. They convinced me to drop the politics and stay, but one thing they couldn't strip me of was my sexuality.

I secretly had a girlfriend and my gayness was underground.

Yesterday we reported about the victory of Luleki Sizwe, a tiny group of lesbian activists based out of a safehouse in the townships of Cape Town that started an international fight against 'corrective rape', whereby men rape lesbian women to 'turn' them straight.

In just three months, their call for South Africa's justice minister to take action on 'corrective rape' became the most popular Change.org petition of all time, attracting what amounted to more than 170,000 supporters in 163 countries.

Then yesterday those same township activists walked into the halls of South Africa's Parliament and convinced some of the most powerful officials in the country to agree to the long term, sustained engagement of various government arms and civil society groups to research, develop and implement a national action plan to tackle 'corrective rape' and the intersecting issues of gender-based violence, anti-LGBTI violence and hate crimes.

In short: we demanded that the South African government take 'corrective rape' seriously, and they have agreed to do so... and then some! Click here to read how it all went down or click here to view a slideshow of yesterday's events.

Now, as further evidence of how this campaign has taken 'corrective' rape from an unspoken epidemic to a national discussion, the campaign is all over the media.

In late November, thousands of us were horrified by ‘corrective rape’, the increasingly common South African hate crime in which men rape lesbian women to 'turn' them straight or 'cure' them of their sexual orientation.

A tiny group of lesbian activists hiding out in the townships of Cape Town called us to action, and in the 100 or so days since, tens of thousands from 163 countries around the world join in to demand action on 'corrective rape', making it the largest Change.org campaign of all time.

It is with great pleasure that I announce, we won!

Earlier today, those same township activists walked into the halls of South Africa's Parliament and convinced some of the most powerful officials in the country to agree to the long term, sustained engagement of various government arms and civil society groups to research, develop and implement a national action plan to tackle 'corrective rape' and the intersecting issues of gender-based violence, anti-LGBTI violence and hate crimes.

In short: we demanded that the South African government take 'corrective rape' seriously, and they have agreed to do so... and then some!

VICTORY!

We got it!

The South African Minister of Justice's staff has informed Change.org that the Minister will, without question, meet with the anti-corrective activists of Luleki Sizwe!

For over two months, activists all over the world have joined together to support Luleki Sizwe, a tiny South African charity fighting 'corrective rape, the increasingly common crime in which men rape lesbian women to 'turn' them straight or 'cure' them of their sexual orientation.

Their first demand? That South Africa's Minister of Justice Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe acknowledge corrective rape, meet with Luleki Sizwe leaders and begin working to find solutions to the 'corrective rape' epidemic.

Let's be honest: none of us thought that after tens of thousands of people from more than 150 countries on earth called on the Minister to meet with activists leading the anti-corrective rape fight, it would take a man charged with leading the cause of justice in South Africa two months to agree to a meeting.

You are one of the most powerful men in South Africa. You have a staff in the dozens and command a ministry which oversees tens of thousands of people.

You are "very deeply concerned" by phenomenon of ‘corrective rape’, the increasingly common crime in which men rape lesbian women to 'turn' them straight or 'cure' them of their sexual orientation. You see the crime as a violation of human rights and of the "human dignity of women."

135,000 people from 163 countries have called on you to meet with activists fighting 'corrective rape', and those leading the campaign have offered to work with you, sending you their personal cellphone numbers.

What's your next move?

No brainer, right? It's a politician's match made in heaven: you're under international pressure to do something about an issue you are "very deeply concerned" about. As such, you will simply instruct one of your dozens of staff members to call these activists, set up a meeting and see how you can work together, right?

Wrong. South Africa's Minister of Justice Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe seems to have found a way to make the obvious much more complicated, and to date has not responded to the calls of well over 135,000 people from 163 countries calling on him to work with the activists of Luleki Sizwe, a tiny charity that rescues, supports, feeds and nurses to health survivors of 'corrective rape' in 10 Cape Town townships.

In consultation with Luleki Sizwe, we decided yesterday that the best move at this point would be to show good faith, give the Minister the benefit of the doubt, and for me to follow up with Minister Radebe as a Change.org editor. Less than an hour ago we sent him the following:

Ladies and gentlemen, we did it again!

Almost two months ago, a tiny group of lesbian activists in the townships of Cape Town used Change.org to launch a petition calling on South Africa’s Minister of Justice Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe to combat ‘corrective rape’, the increasingly common crime in which men rape lesbian women to 'turn' them straight or 'cure' them of their sexual orientation.

The campaign quickly gained lots of traction as activists from across the Change.org spectrum - women's rights activists, LGBT activists, human rights activists and criminal justice activists - worked together to support the South African activists and recruit tens of thousands of signatures, making the petition Change.org's most popular of all time. From Afghanistan, Albania, Angola and Aruba to Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe, all of you chipped in.

But what did Minister Radebe, charged with leading the cause of justice in South Africa, do after receiving the message that tens of thousands of people from more than 150 countries all over the world are demanding that he acknowledge 'corrective rape', meet with activists leading the anti-corrective rape fight, and take 'corrective rape’ prevention seriously?

Nothing.

But that didn't stop us. We got more and more and more people to petition the minister, bringing the campaign's support up to more than 135,000 people from 163 countries and quite literally flooding the email inboxes of his senior staff. Not only that, activists all over the world worked to support Luleki Sizwe get coverage of their Change.org campaign in numerous major South African media outlets, from the anti-Apartheid daily The Sowetan, the 2.5 million readership CityPress and Cape Town's biggest paper Cape Argus to South Africa’s most popular commercial radio station and a live TV interview on South Africa’s national broadcaster SABC for Ndumie Funda, founder of the anti-'corrective rape' campaign. Even foreign media, including the Huffington Post, have covered the campaign (see the full list of media coverage of the campaign here).

As tens of millions of people all over the world were exposed to the anti-corrective rape campaign and the minister's inaction, he had no choice but to respond.