Nevada passes most inclusive equal rights amendment in the US, protecting queer and trans people

Nevada is set to become the first US state to  to include protections for historically marginalized people, including trans people,  in its constitution.

Advocate writes:

The measure, Question 1, was supported by 57.5 percent of Nevada voters, while 42.5 percent opposed it at the time of publication, with 83 percent of the vote counted.

A wide-ranging amendment to the Nevada state constitution that would include antidiscrimination protections covering gender identity and sexual orientation was on the ballot on Tuesday. Voters could adopt or reject the most comprehensive state version of the Equal Rights Amendment.

When this post is written 90 percent of the ballots have been counted, and the numbers are roughly the same. 

No other state has explicitly prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, says Nnedi Stephens, the campaign manager for Nevadans for Equal Rights to Nevada Current.

The cities voted yes, the rural areas no. Urban areas are more diverse, which means that people are exposed to real LGBTQA people as opposed to the feverish scaremongering images produced by those who have never met one.

In general the US midterm elections represents a big setback for extremist anti-LGBTQA MAGA Republicans. There is still hope for America. 

Illustration:  Vlatko Radovic

Maxine Angel Opoku, transgender musician from Ghana fights a law that will make it illegal to identify as gay, transgender or queer

In August 2021, lawmakers in the Ghana’s Parliament introduced a bill that would imprison people who identify as transgender, the New York Times reports.

Same-sex sexual acts are  banned in Ghana today, but it is not a crime to publicly identify as gay, transgender or queer.

“Dear Mr. Politician, fix the country right now. The people who voted for you, are disappointed in you,” Ms. Opoku sings in one of her latest songs. “Kill it, kill it, kill the bill.”

Ms. Opoku, who uses the artist name Angel Maxine, says it is difficult to see a future for herself in a country where this law becomes reality. It is extremely hard for her to perform in public today. The bill would make it  impossible:

“I don’t see a life here for me. If I cannot come out openly, go on the streets to move about my daily life, if I cannot get a job, how do I sustain myself? This is no life.”

Kill the bill!

Photo: Francis Kokoroko for The New York Times

Velma is a lesbian

Queer people have known for a long time, but now it is official: Scooby-Doo’s Velma is a lesbian.

The New York Times writes:

To many fans who had long presumed as much and treated her as a lesbian icon, it was not a shocking revelation. But her appearance in “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!,” which was released on Tuesday on several digital services, was the first time the long-running franchise openly acknowledged her sexuality, thrilling some fans who were disappointed that it took so long.

Role models matters, even the fictional ones!

Children’s TV Series Peppa Pig Presents Lesbian Couple

The British children’s cartoon peppa Pig is debuting a lesbian couple in its most recent episode. 

them reports:

The groundbreaking scene features Peppa and her friends Suzy Sheep, Danny Dog, and Penny Polar Bear drawing pictures of their family. Penny draws two female polar bears (we know they’re female because they have eyelashes and are wearing dresses, of course) and says, “I’m Penny Polar Bear. I live with my mummy and my other mummy. One mummy is a doctor and one mummy cooks spaghetti. I love spaghetti.” A lesbian polar bear power couple — what’s not to love?

In 2019, campaigners launched a petition calling on the writers of “Peppa Pig” to include a same-sex parent family, to make it more inclusive for all children, CNN reports.

This kind of presentation is extremely  important for al kids, as they serve to normalize and humanize queer lives. They are also important for queer kids, who may become aware of their orientation or gender identity long before puberty.

Here are a few Black LGBTQ+ artists Beyoncé worked with or featured on her new album

@WrittenByTerry AKA Terry Carter Jr. tweets:

Here are a few Black LGBTQ+ artists Beyoncé worked with (or featured) on #RENAISSANCE: Big Freedia, TS Madison, Honey Dijon, Syd, Moi Renee, MikeQ, Kevin Aviance. 

If you don’t already know who these people are, Google them and learn your history. 

Big Freedia  is an American rapper known for her work in the New Orleans genre of hip hop called bounce music.

Ts Madison Hinton became the first black trans woman to star in and executive produce her own reality series, The Ts Madison Experience.

Honey Dijon is an American DJ, producer, and electronic musician.

Syd is an artist, activist, model and comedic social media personality. 

Moi Renee was a drag performer and singer from New York City. (Sampled on the album)

MikeQ  is an American DJ, musician, music producer, and prominent figure in the ballroom community.

Kevin Aviance is an American drag queen, club/dance musician, fashion designer and nightclub personality.

@WrittenByTerry’s Instagram account.

Scientists used to deny the existence of “gay” animals. Now they find same-sex sex everywhere.

Up to a third of Laysan albatross nests are female-female. (Enrique Aguirre Aves/Getty Images/Photodisc)

For a long time preachers argued that gay and bisexual sex was unnatural, because it was not found in nature. The scientists confirmed these prejudices by arguing that sex that did not lead to procreation was en evolutionary advantage, so it could not exist. But it does. And there is a lot of it.

Eliot Schrefer presents the story of same sex denial and cover up in an interesting article called Queer Animals Are Everywhere. Science Is Finally Catching On in the Washington Post. The article is behind a paywall, but I will share some of the  points here.

First: When people talk about “gay animals” they refer to same-sex sex that has been observed in the relevant species. Terms like “gay” and “lesbian” and “homosexual” are terms made by human behavior to describe human behavior and experiences, so they do not necessarily fit the lives of animals. For example: Among the animals observed it is often seen that they have sex with both males and females.

Scientists did observe same-sex sex, but kept it secret

The evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden has argued that many scientists did not see “gay animals” because they could not and should not exists. So when two animals had sex, one of them had to be male and the other female. Given that some birds and fishes have “feminine morphs” of males (and vice versa), they might not have understood what they saw.

Schrefer writes:

A prominent mammalogist, Valerius Geist, couldn’t help but notice frequent homosexual sex at his bighorn sheep field site in the 1960s, but Geist avoided publishing those findings because it made him “cringe … to conceive of those magnificent beasts as ‘queers.’ 

Well, there’s a good example of how bigotry leads to bad science for you.

Male bighorn sheep. Mammalogist Valerius Geist noticed frequent homosexual sex at his bighorn sheep field site in the 1960s but avoided publishing those findings for years. (Joe McDonald/Getty Images/The Image Bank RF)

Survival of friendly ones

Christine Webb, a primatologist at Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, explains to Schrefer that the dominant model of evolution “emphasizes selfish competition and the survival of the fittest.” But the chimpanzees Webb studies use sex for a variety of purposes, such as managing stress and tension:

Males engage in sexual activity to reconcile after fights. A year later, a study of a separate group of chimps in Uganda found that “sociosexual behaviour” is common — and that the majority of it is between males.

Some scientists now talk about a “bisexual advantage”: the idea that fluid sexuality has increased reproduction chances over the history of life, making bisexuality “an evolutionary optimum.”

The earliest animals (and many today) do not have sexes, so it is unlikely that an aversion to same-sex sex would appear by itself.  But the opportunity cost of same-sex sex is relatively low, so animal bisexuality remains.

A study by primatologists Zanna Clay and Frans de Waal found that female-female sex is the most frequent sexual activity [among bonobos] — which is especially noteworthy, as bonobos also happen to be in a rough tie with chimpanzees as our closest animal relatives. Governed by a matriarchy of sexually connected mothers, they have far lower levels of aggression than chimps, giving them what Christine Webb described to me as “a reputation as the sexy hippie apes.”

So scientists see same-sex sex as an evolutionary advantage now, as a tool for social bonding, which again strengthens the species’ ability to survive. 

Other scientists have come to the mind-boggling conclusion that many animals have this kind of sex because it “feels good”. Imagine that! 

Anyway, if another bigoted homophobe starts talking about “science”, “evolution”  and “natural”, tell them about the bononbos, where the females rule and everyone has sex with everyone.

• Joan Roughgarden: Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
• More on same-sex sexual behavior in animals.
• On gender variance in animals.

We need rainbows everywhere!

Finn Mackay on twitter:

“More of it I’d say. Rainbows everywhere, rainbows until people stop bothering. Until people aren’t shot for being in a gay bar, rainbows until ppl feel safe holding hands, rainbows until we don’t have to feel grateful for a basic minimum that many of us don’t even have anyway.”

[With photo of street filled with pride flags].

Cisgender lesbian: “I noticed she was transgender, and remember thinking she seemed sweet and shy”

The Guardian has published a sweet queer love story about a cis lesbian meeting a trans lesbian.

Raya, the cis one, had been invited to roller derby match in Melbourne, Australia, where she saw Kate.

Lizzie Kernik of the Guardian writes:

Raya was immediately smitten with Kate but her feelings confused her. 

“I was attracted to women and women’s bodies. I had never really known any trans women before and I wondered if I was still a lesbian if I was romantically attracted to someone who had been assigned male at birth. I worried I could hurt her.” 

She decided to follow her heart and keep an open mind. The following week, she went to another roller derby event to get to know Kate a little better. “I had no idea she liked me,” laughs Kate. “But I did wonder why she seemed so nervous.” 

After they chatted, Raya sent Kate a Facebook friend request, followed by a message asking her out. “I’m shy, so I was nervous too, but I think we both felt we’d regret it if we didn’t give it a chance,” says Kate.

They waited until 2018 to move in together. 

“Our children are all supportive of our relationship,” says Raya. “We bought a really big house so there’s room for everyone.”

According to Outings they hope to get married next year.

“We joke between us that Kate only agreed to get married so she can wear the white dress. But in all seriousness, it would be amazing for Kate to be able to do those things that she couldn’t do when she got married the first time,” says Raya to Outings.

Photo via Raya Darcy.