They Put Her In Solitary Confinement For 7 Months. Before That, She Was In A Prison Full Of Men

Because, while Johanna is a woman, she is also transgender. And because of her gender identity, Johanna's life is in constant danger. The bias and hatred against transgender women is very real, as Johanna's story sadly shows. Often, the people who commit violence against transgender women assume that they must be gay men because they might wear make-up or might wear their hair long.

Not only is she a transgender woman, she is a transgender woman who crossed the U.S. border undocumented. This makes things more complicated. Because, unfortunately, she didn't find help. Instead, she found herself in the immigration detention system. Johanna was placed in a jail — with men.

...being locked up was a nightmare. She was beat up by a male cellmate. Then, guards told her the only safe way to house her was solitary confinement. There, she sat in a 6-by-13-foot cell for 23 hours a day with no human contact and no view of the outside world. She waited for an asylum decision for seven months. Johanna decided that going back home was far better than being locked up in solitary confinement. She was deported to El Salvador. Almost as soon as her plane landed in the San Salvador airport, more nightmares followed.

upworthy.com

First Gay Hug (A Homophobic Experiment)

Arizona, discrimination and Takei

Arizona passed a law allowing businesses to refuse service to anyone based on personal beliefs, especially LGBT customers. With George Takei.

Takei website – Takei Facebook

Russia Arrests Gay Rights Activists on Opening Day of Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony

"One of Russia's leading gay activists was arrested on Friday while taking part in a protest shortly before the opening ceremony of the £30bn Winter Olympics. Anastasia Smirnova was one of four activists detained in St Petersburg on the opening day of the Sochi Games as the group photographed a banner citing the Olympic Charter's words against discrimination. Further arrests were later made in Moscow where 10 people were arrested, two of them believed to be Swedish. The arrests came amid international concern at Russia's treatment of gays, especially newly enacted laws which make gay "propaganda" among minors and offence. Calls to boycott the Games have largely been ignored but some athletes are understood to be planning to hold up six fingers when the cameras are on them to bring attention to the Olympic Charter's Principle 6...".* Cenk Uygur, Dave Rubin (host, The Rubin Report), Ben Mankiewicz (co-host of What The Flick?! and TYT Sports) and comedian Jimmy Dore break it down on The Young Turks.
Read more here from Lewis Smith / The Independent:

The Young Turks

British MP Attacks 'Aggressive Homosexuals'

Gay weddings moved a step closer on Monday evening after David Cameron was forced to accept Ed Miliband's help to defeat an attempt by backbench Tory MPs, who complained about the "aggressive homosexual community", to derail the legislation. Anti-gay marriage Conservatives had tabled an amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill that, if passed, would have introduced civil partnerships for heterosexuals at the same time as gay marriage.

However the government had warned that to do so could cost up to £4bn and significantly delay the implementation of the entire bill. A vote in the Commons saw the amendment overwhelmingly defeated by 375 votes to 70. Pro-gay marriage campaigners cautioned MPs that the amendment, tabled by Tim Loughton, was a cynical attempt to kill the legislation rather than a genuine desire to allow straight couples to have civil partnerships in the interets of equality. On Monday morning it appeared as if Loughton and his colleagues would be successful after the Labour Party, which backs gay marriage, indicated it would vote with the Tory backbenchers to defeat the government and secure equal civil partnerships.

Huffington Post

Atlanta Pastor Giving Benediction At Obama Inauguration Under Fire For Anti-Gay Sermon

The Rev. Louie Giglio, the Atlanta pastor of Passion City Church who will deliver the benediction at President Barack Obama's inauguration, is under fire for anti-gay preaching and for calling Christians to respond to the gay-rights movement's "aggressive agenda."

In a sermon, "In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality," posted on Discipleship Library, a Christian website that archives sermons, Giglio tells listeners that being gay is a sinful choice and that gay people will be prevented from "entering the Kingdom of God."

The "only way out of a homosexual lifestyle ... is through the healing power of Jesus," he says. "We’ve got to say to the homosexuals, the same thing that I say to you and that you would say to me … it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change."

The sermon, which lasts just under an hour, echoes similar comments four years ago by Rick Warren, the California megachurch pastor who gave the invocation at Obama's first inauguration. Obama, who was widely supported by the gay community and gay-rights advocates, was strongly criticized for his choice.

Huffington Post

UPDATE:  Pastor withdraws from Obama inauguration after sermon on homosexuality surfaces -  Fox News

Dutch foreign minister criticises pope's view on same-sex marriage

The Dutch foreign minister has criticised Pope Benedict for his opposition to same-sex marriage – quoting comments by a papal envoy in Ireland last week to support his case for freedom of sexual orientation. The minister, Frans Timmermans, a former diplomat, responded in unusually strong terms to the Pope’s Christmas speech in which he denounced gay marriage as destroying the very “essence of the human creature”.

Mr Timmermans referred to an address by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states – a post seen as the equivalent of Foreign Minister of the Holy See – at the meeting of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Dublin.

In his speech the Archbishop quoted the Pope, saying: “Good governance has to follow natural law that is written in the heart of every human being. Pope Benedict XVI expressed this view very clearly during his recent visit to Lebanon: ‘In God’s plan, each person is unique and irreplaceable . . .’. ” To this Mr Timmermans, who also attended the OSCE conference, replied: “If every person is unique . . . then why should that unique person not have the right to stand up for his or her own sexual orientation?” In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriages.

The Irish Times

Ukraine Moves Toward Gay Propaganda Law

Ukrainian lawmakers passed in the first reading on Tuesday a draft law making promotion of homosexuality a criminal offense, in a move similar to a recent legislative measure adopted by the city authorities in Russia’s St. Petersburg.

The draft law, approved by 289 out of 350 lawmakers at a parliament session on Tuesday, envisions amendments to several existing laws which would impose prison terms of up to five years and hefty fines for spreading the “propaganda of homosexuality.”

RIA Novosti

Hundreds of thousands of people at the Gay Pride in Berlin

Several hundred thousand people – 700,000 according to organizers – took part Saturday in the Gay Pride in Berlin under the theme “Knowledge can accept.”

The parade, rich in fantastic costumes, and accompanied by techno music began in the cosmopolitan district of Kreuzberg, north of the German capital, to join in the late afternoon the Brandenburg Gate (downtown) , where DJs and artists were to succeed on stage until midnight.

Social Democratic and gay mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, gave the kickoff of the event which provides an annual opportunity for its participants to demonstrate originality and humor in their disguises. 34th “Christopher Street Day” held in Berlin also draw attention to the plight of homosexuals in Russia, especially with a giant portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, reworked in the style kitsch gay French artists Pierre et Gilles.

News 12

US Widow Forced to Pay Hundreds of Thousands in Taxes Because She Was Married to a Woman, Not a Man

This story about an elderly widow who was hit with a major tax burden because she was married to a woman and not a man is a sad read. The women were together for decades and made a series of great real estate buys, amassing quite a bit of wealth.

Ms. Windsor (the surviving wife) cared for her partner for years through an illness, to which her wife eventually succumbed. Then, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, she was forced to pay enormous sums on her wife’s share of their assets — sums she would not have had to pay if she had been married to a man. Yes, it’s Rich People Things, but it’s still a wildly unfair application of the estate tax. The end of the piece, though, particularly stood out to me:

The Justice Department under President Obama has refused to defend the law, but the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is paying for lawyers to argue that it should be upheld.

Full story on AlterNet

Popular Eurovision website hacked in response to ‘parade of homosexuals’

A group is reportedly targeting websites related to the Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan in protest at a ‘parade of homosexuals’ it believes will take place at the event. The independent Escotoday website, which publishes news about the Eurovision Song Contest, was believed to have been taken down by a denial-of-service attack today.

In April, the official Eurovision website experienced a similar attack. Escotoday’s website currently redirects to their Facebook page, where a statement says: “ESCTODAY WAS HACKED, in a second thousands of hours of hard work (actually 12 years) were erased as retaliation because we support the Eurovision Song Contest, a ”gay pride” as the hacker(s) call it. We will not be stopped!!! WE WILL BE BACK.”

According to Eurovision-interest site Esckaz.com, a group calling itself “The Devotees of Azerbaijan” was taking responsiblity. It said: “Ignoring its people’s honor and morals, Azerbaijan’s ruling regime is trying to spread ungodly (sinful) thoughts, and plans to arrange a parade of the homosexuals before the eurovision sound contest 2012. [sic]

PinkNews

Romney is a Bully

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has apologised after a newspaper reported that he had been among a group of students who bullied a classmate they presumed was gay.

"I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended... obviously, I apologise," the 65-year-old said. Mr Romney was responding to a Washington Post story that described an incident in 1965 in which the former Massachusetts Governor apparently pinned down a fellow student and attempted to cut his bleached-blonde hair.

According to former classmates named in the article, Romney apparently led the attack against student John Lauber, who was "perpetually teased for his non-conformity and presumed homosexuality".

Sky News

Agnes Hernandez, Mexican Transgender Activist, Brutally Murdered

Nearly 2000 individuals congregated outside a civic plaza in Puebla, Mexico on Tuesday, demanding justice for slain Mexican transgender activist Agnés Torres Hernández, whose body was found on Friday by neighbours who reported the crime to local police.

Mexican Attorney General is considering the investigation of Torres' murder as a hate crime, according to the newspaper El Universal (in Spanish).

She was last seen on Friday night when she left her home to attend a party in Chipilo, a small town in the state of Puebla. She was found clothed only in underwear, a blouse with suspenders and a brown jacket on Saturday in a ditch outside the city of Puebla. Her throat had been slashed and their were several burn marks across her body.

Torres, a 28 year-old psychologist and educator, is remembered as an activist and ardent defender of human rights in Mexico's LBGT community. She was an important figure in the strive for acceptance for the transgender community in her native country.

Huffington Post - Justice for Agnes Torres: Slain human rights activist