Queer Rights - all over the map

Clearly the state of GBLPT2QQI rights is not clear-cut(3 articles):

A story about persistent homophobia in Canada....

Canadians still have 'a long way to go' on gay issues
SIRI AGRELL
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
August 9, 2007 at 8:59 AM EDT

On a Los Angeles stage tonight, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards will gather for the first debate among U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidates focused solely on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

With same-sex marriage a protected right in Canada, it can be tempting to regard the United States' continuing political struggle over gay issues as painfully behind the times. But a recent string of intolerant events and blatant displays of homophobia in this country suggests that Canada may not be as progressive as Canadians believe.

"Everyone likes to think that we're so far ahead of the Americans," said Helen Kennedy, executive director of the LGBT advocacy group Egale Canada.
"But we're constantly being reminded through human-rights complaints that we have a long way to go in Canada."

In Ontario alone, 68 complaints were made to the province's human rights commission on the grounds of sexual orientation between April 1, 2006, and March 31, 2007, with $243,599.23 paid out in monetary damages.

Other reminders of discrimination have been coming regularly of late.

The town council in Truro, N.S., voted last week against flying the rainbow flag at town hall during pride activities.

Last month, the Quebec Human Rights Commission awarded $10,000 to a gay couple who were being harassed by young people in their neighbourhood.

And in Saskatchewan, the mother of an 11-year-old boy who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted last year by pedophile Peter Whitmore recently told a sentencing hearing she is pulling her son out of school because a classmate keeps calling him "faggot."

These incidents will continue until tolerant attitudes and practices are incorporated into the country's schools, health-care system and general consciousness, Ms. Kennedy said. "We have great legislation but we don't have societal views that reflect it."

Egale is currently doing a survey of school boards across the country to gauge their policies toward LGBT bullying and what resources are available to young people questioning their own sexuality.

The group is also analyzing provincial human-rights complaints, which range in nature from employment discrimination to verbal abuse and incidents of violence, Ms. Kennedy said.
"I was talking today to someone whose friend was beaten up with a baseball bat," she said. "But the case never got filed because he wasn't out to his parents."

The number of complaints tied to sexual orientation have increased in several provinces over the years, said Miriam Smith, a professor at Toronto's York University who studies gay and lesbian rights in Canada, but not because there is more discrimination.

"It's because people feel they are able to come out and complain that it's unfair," she said.
Ms. Smith said Canada has made great gains in attitudes toward gay and lesbian individuals, noting that it was a Halloween tradition in Toronto during the 1960s and 1970s to go to Yonge Street and yell homophobic epithets.

In an effort to reinvigorate the discussion, Egale has invited the leaders of Ontario's provincial parties to an LGBT debate on Sept. 9, although only the Green Party has so far accepted the offer.

"We want to see what they are going to do to address some of our concerns as a community," said Ms. Kennedy, who hopes to play host to similar debates in other provinces and among federal party leaders.

An action alelert from the National Council of Jewish Women on legislation to address discrimination...
Help Stop Employment Discrimination
It's been more than three decades since Congress first considered the issue of employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, yet there has been no federal action on this issue. Although some states have passed laws to protect such workers, in 33 states, it is still legal to fire or refuse to hire someone because of their sexual orientation. And in 42 states, people can be fired or denied employment due to their gender identity.

For all too many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in this country, the reality is that they are denied the basic right to be free from employment discrimination, despite their qualifications for a job. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would rectify this ongoing injustice by extending fair employment practices under federal law to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. ENDA would not create any special rights but would simply level the field for those potential victims of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in hiring or firing practices.

When Congress returns in September, ENDA stands its greatest chance of passage yet with wide public support and with its recent reintroduction in the House of Representatives.

Contact your senators and representatives to urge them to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

To take action go to: http://action.ncjw.org/campaign/ENDA_Aug2007/w3bd3bw41ij5djd?


Good news from the Reform Jewish movement - acceptance of Trans persons...
New Reform manual adds blessings for sex changes
By Ben Harris
Published: 08/08/2007
NEW YORK (JTA) -- In a groundbreaking move to recognize the experiences of transgender Jews, the Reform movement has published several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process.

The Union for Reform Judaism this week released the second edition of Kulanu, the union's 500-page resource manual for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion. The guide includes two blessings authored by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for transitioning genders.

Kukla, who was known as Eliza when ordained in 2006 by the movement's New York seminary, originally wrote the blessings for a friend who wanted to mark each time he received testosterone therapy. Still, Kukla believes they are appropriate for multiple moments in the sex-change process, including "moments of medical transitions."

Broad sections of the Jewish community now accept gays and lesbians serving as rabbis and cantors, and many support rabbinic officiation at same-sex commitment ceremonies. But the Reform movement, the country's largest synagogue denomination, had never gone as far as to say that it is kosher to recite a blessing for a sex change.

"There was a conversation about what we should include and what we shouldn't include," said Rabbi Richard Address, one of Kulanu's editors and the director of the union's Department of Jewish Family Concerns. "This was going to be a little bit out there."

The first Hebrew blessing praises God as "the Transforming One to those who transform/transition/cross over." A second blessing, intended to be said after completing the transition process, praises God, "who has made me in his image" -- a reference to the description in Genesis of the creation of Adam.

A final blessing is the familiar Shehechiyanu, traditionally recited to mark special events or notable firsts."The midrash, classical Jewish exegesis, adds that the adam harishon, the first human being formed in God's likeness, was an androgynos, an intersex person," Kukla writes in a brief introduction. "Hence our tradition teaches that all bodies and genders are created in God's image whether we identify as men, women, intersex, or something else."

First published in 1996, the original version of Kulanu was a 150-page collection of texts intended as a resource for gay and lesbian inclusion. The updated version is significantly expanded, and includes liturgy for same-sex union ceremonies, a divorce document for same-sex couples and a prayer for coming out regarding one's sexual identity.

The new volume also includes a section on the history of Reform Judaism's response to the challenge of sexual and gender identity, documenting a 40-year period of increasing willingness to normalize the status of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals in the movement.
The issue of transgender Jews was first addressed in 1978 when the Central Conference of American Rabbis deemed it permissible for one who had undergone a sex-change operation to be married according to Jewish tradition. In 1990, the CCAR allowed such individuals to be converted. And in 2003, the union retroactively applied its policy on gays and lesbians to the transgender and bisexual communities. "It's a logical next step in this process," Address said of the new liturgy.Still, those involved in designing Kulanu -- Hebrew for "all of us" -- wondered if the movement, even with its trailblazing history on these issues, was prepared to sanctify sex-change procedures.

Along with the liturgy, the new version also includes essays by Kukla and Reuben Zellman, who in 2003 became the movement's first transgender rabbinical student, aimed at making congregations more sensitive. The material instructs congregants in matters of using the proper pronoun and encourages synagogues to install a gender-neutral rest room.

"We are living in the midst of one of the greatest transitions in American Jewish life," Address said. "And this is part of it."