Welcome to Fabulous Friday, a review of the week's news for the LGBT Kos Community. We'll be highlighting some interesting news stories, as well as providing a list of some notable LGBT diaries here at Daily Kos. If you ever run across stories/blog posts/diaries that should be included here, please send a Kosmail to LGBT Kos.
Please note: This is supposed to be a safe space to discuss our issues, so please, keep your piefights where they belong, which is not here. That applies to the meta food fight of the day, the Obama Wars, what have you. It's not that we don't like debate or that we don't have opinions on those issues. There are places for these debates and they are not here at LGBT Kos. We are more interested in the diversity of our life experiences, our cultures, and our dreams of a better tomorrow. We believe that we can create a space to discuss these differences without engaging in the political debates that have often divided our community. If you can't abide by this rule, you'll be asked to leave.
LGBT News - Youth/Education
The Huffington Post has an interesting article about efforts by the Obama administration to deal with the homeless crisis among LGBT youth.
Obama Administration Seeks To Address Homeless Crisis Among Gay Teens
The U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services' Administration on Children, Youth and Families sent out a memo on April 6 directly addressing the crisis facing gay teens in the system and encouraging local child welfare agencies to ensure their protection.
"This Information Memorandum (IM) confirms and reiterates my fundamental belief that every child and youth who is unable to live with his or her parents is entitled to a safe, loving and affirming foster care placement, irrespective of the young person's sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression," wrote ACF Commissioner Bryan Samuels. "I encourage child welfare agencies, foster and adoptive parents and others who work with young people in foster care to ensure that their physical and emotional well-being are protected."
Samuels cited a numbing list of statistics showing just how vulnerable LGBTQ youth are in the system. Although five to 10 percent of the general population is estimated to be gay, anywhere between 20 and 40 percent of homeless youth are gay, according to the National Network of Runaway and Youth services. They are also far more likely to age out of the child welfare system without finding an adoptive family.
Kevin Jennings, the openly-gay Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, announced that he is leaving his job at the end of the month.
Jennings leavings, but says White House commitment stays
Kevin Jennings, the openly gay head of the federal office that manages its largest safe-schools and anti-bullying programs, will be leaving the U.S. Department of Education next month. But Jennings said his departure is not about budget cuts to the programs and that both President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan remain committed to addressing the bullying of students who are, or are perceived to be, LGBT.
LGBT News - Health
With the 30th anniversary of HIV/AIDS coming June 5th, there have been several articles on this topic. The Economist takes a decidedly optimistic view and says that the world can defeat HIV if we have the will.
The end of AIDS?
Thirty years on, it looks as though the plague can now be beaten, if the world has the will to do so
ON JUNE 5th 1981 America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported the outbreak of an unusual form of pneumonia in Los Angeles. When, a few weeks later, its scientists noticed a similar cluster of a rare cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma in San Francisco, they suspected that something strange and serious was afoot. That something was AIDS.
Since then, 25m people have died from AIDS and another 34m are infected. The 30th anniversary of the disease’s discovery has been taken by many as an occasion for hand-wringing. Yet the war on AIDS is going far better than anyone dared hope. A decade ago, half of the people in several southern African countries were expected to die of AIDS. Now, the death rate is dropping. In 2005 the disease killed 2.1m people. In 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, the number was 1.8m. Some 5m lives have already been saved by drug treatment. In 33 of the worst-affected countries the rate of new infections is down by 25% or more from its peak.
Even more hopeful is a recent study which suggests that the drugs used to treat AIDS may also stop its transmission (see article). If that proves true, the drugs could achieve much of what a vaccine would. The question for the world will no longer be whether it can wipe out the plague, but whether it is prepared to pay the price.
The Washington Blade reminds us that HIV continues to be a gay disease, even if it has fallen off the radar as a leading issue for LGBT activists.
Gay, Bi Men Remain Key To HIV Epidemic
According to the CDC, while MSM account for about 2 percent of the U.S. population, more than half of all new HIV infections in the U.S. each year (53 percent) occur among MSM. CDC data also show that MSM make up nearly half of all people living with HIV in the U.S. – 48 percent.
CDC figures show that white MSM “account for the largest number of annual new HIV infections of any group in the U.S., followed closely by black MSM,” according to a CDC fact sheet released last month.
“There are more new HIV infections among young black MSM (aged 13-29) than among any other age and racial group of MSM,” the fact sheet says.
The AFP News Agency has a story about HIV in the black gay male community.
LGBT News - Sports
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ruled that a gay softball league can limit the number of heterosexuals who can participate in the league, but allowed a lawsuit against the league over how members were questioned about their sexuality to proceed.
Gay softball league limit on straight players OK'd
SEATTLE (AP) - A gay softball organization that runs an annual tournament called the Gay Softball World Series can keep its rule limiting the number of heterosexual players on each team, a federal judge has ruled.
The decision came in a lawsuit filed by three men who say they were disqualified from the annual tournament because they weren't gay enough. They said in the suit filed last year that their team's second-place finish in the 2008 tournament in Washington state was nullified because they are bisexual, not gay, and thus their team exceeded the limit of two non-gay players.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said Tuesday that their suit can proceed to trial. But he also ruled that the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, which also oversees gay softball leagues in dozens of U.S. cities, has a First Amendment right to limit the number of heterosexual players, much as the Boy Scouts have a constitutional right to exclude gays.
The San Francisco Giants released their "It Gets Better" video this week.
FogCityJohn wrote an important diary on this topic yesterday that merits special attention.
HIV: A Question of Priorities
This diary is primarily directed at my fellow members of the LGBT community, and in particular at my gay brothers. I want to talk about an issue we all used to think was really important, but which seems to have fallen off the radar screen recently. That issue is HIV.
HIV/AIDS used to be an existential threat to our community, and we treated it as such. Nowadays, medical science has made HIV a chronic illness, at least for those of us lucky enough to have access to very expensive antiretroviral therapy. Nevertheless, HIV remains a tremendous health problem, and it's still rampant among gay men. Yet our community seems to have decided to direct its attention elsewhere, and I'm trying to figure out why. So if you're interested in that discussion, please join me below.
LGBT News - International
There is a report from CNN on a big victory for the trans community in Nepal.
Nepal census recognizes 'third gender'
When census gatherers went door-to-door visiting 5.6 million households across Nepal this month, they collected information not only on the country's men and women, but also on a so-called third gender.
In what is believed to be a world first, Nepal's Central Bureau of Statistics is giving official recognition to gay and transgender people -- a move seen as major victory for equality in a country that only decriminalized homosexual relationships three years ago.
In a victory for the sexual minority community and the rule of the law, the South African ambassador to Uganda was found guilty of hate speech.
South Africa Uganda envoy Qwelane guilty of hate speech
The South African ambassador to Uganda, a former columnist for South Africa's Sunday Sun paper, has been found guilty of hate speech for an anti-gay article.
South Africa's Equality Court fined Jon Qwelane $14,450 (£8,920) and ordered him to apologise for promoting hatred in the column published in 2008.
Headlined "Call me names but gay is NOT OKAY", it caused an uproar at the time.
Notable Diaries
LGBT-related diaries from the previous week (Friday, May 27th through Thursday, June 2nd) that did not make the recommended diaries list and were not rescued.