NOM Caught Lying About Support From Chicago Bears

As many LGBT activists suspected, the Chicago Bears never donated anything to help the National Organization for Marriage raise money.

BY LUCAS GRINDLEY

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Brian Urlacher told the Chicago Tribune that he’d never donated anything to an antigay cause. A division of the National Organization for Marriage had gleefully claimed that the Chicago Bears contributed memorabilia to an auction that would help it raise money. But today its leader admitted that’s not true. Jennifer Roback More is the president of NOM’s “Ruth Institute,” and in a newsletter reported on by Equality Matters, Dan Savage and others, she claimed the Bears were huge supporters. She listed an autographed jersey from former linebacker Brian Urlacher and an autographed photo from the late running back Walter Payton as her big gets.

“You should know that we have two fabulous raffle items from the Chicago Bears Organization (and a huge THANK YOU to the Bears for supporting our message),” she wrote.

But after activists contacted the Bears to check out the claim, the team condemned Roback More for spreading “false” remarks.

“The two items featured in The Ruth Institute gala invitation were personal donations to Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse,” the team said in a statement, according to the Chicago Tribune. “Neither was a club donation, nor do they represent the team’s view on any social issues. Any remarks stating otherwise are false.”

That was followed by a retraction from Roback Morse herself.

“The Ruth Institute is not working with the Chicago Bears organization or any of its players past or present to promote our upcoming auction,” she said, according to the Tribune. “The memorabilia we are auctioning off was acquired by me personally, not through the team or players. We understand that the Chicago Bears organization takes no position on social issues, and we regret any confusion we may have caused on this point.”

Lesbian Boxer Takes Bullying Into Her Own Hands

By Paul Biasco

Grace Penney knew she was different as a child and often got into fist fights, but it wasn’t until late in high school that she found her outlet in combat sports. Penney, 20, has trained six or seven days a week for months leading up to her boxing debut in the Chicago Golden Gloves, but in the process has made sure picked-on youths have an outlet by starting an anti-bullying training class.

“I would have loved something like that when I was little,” said Penney, who is a lesbian and lives in Lakeview. “I knew I was different and I found an outlet in combat sports. I became my own hero.”

The feisty DePaul University student said she was bullied as a child growing up in different Chicago suburbs as her family constantly moved. She found her escape during her junior year at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange when she began wrestling.

“I was a really aggressive kid. I was always looking for an outlet,” she said.

Within two years of finding that outlet, Penney won the girls’ high school wrestling championship in Illinois and competed in nationals. Boxing is her next step, and likely not her last, as Penney hopes to conquer a number of combat sports on her way to competing in a mixed-martial arts fight.

“I really want to try every outlet. It’s given me so much since I started,” she said. “Troubles with family and friends, it’s kept me going. When I come here it’s all my own space.”

Since she started training at Chicago Mixed Martial Arts, a new gym on Halsted Street just south of North Avenue, Penney has worked with gym owner Misho Ceko to create her anti-bullying class. The “Gracie Bully-proof Program,” named after the the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Gracie family, meets twice a week to teach children basic techniques to fend off bullies who are often bigger than them.

Click the header link above to read the full article.

Illinois, USA: Chicago Churches Tell Politicians – Vote for Marriage Equality? Don’t Come Here

Chicago

So much for turning the other cheek. A number of conservative Chicago churches are promising to turn away any lawmaker who votes for the marriage equality bill.

The Huffington Post reports:

…about two dozen conservative Catholic and African-American clergymen formed a new religious coalition with the Catholic Conference of Illinois, vowing to ban Illinois lawmakers who support same-sex marriage from their Chicago-based churches. Among those to decry the state’s pending marriage equality legislation, which is currently awaiting a House vote, was Bishop Lance Davis, senior pastor at a church in Dolton. “We want to make sure that we a send a message to our elected officials that as a collective community and a collaborative, we will not allow you to speak in our churches, you will not be invited to our church when you’re running for office because we as a community are incensed,” he is quoted by the radio station as saying.

Well, you won’t be welcomed in our gay bars, either. So there.

Lurie LGBT center launching Gender Identity Clinic

by Kate Sosin

imageDr. Rob Garofalo (left) and Dr. Travis Gayles in clinic. Photo credit Terry Janice.

Go to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, and you’ll find one of the most HIV-impacted communities in the city. But look for free HIV testing services, and you might come up short. The neighborhood, which is home to myriad social service providers, has few HIV testing sites. Zach Stafford, of the Gender, Sexuality and HIV Prevention Center based out of Lurie Children’s Hospital, comes up with two, and one is his own. “Uptown has been missed, which is really interesting,” Stafford says.

Stafford is a behavioral research associate at the Center, which has just moved to Uptown, bringing with it testing services, transgender support and cutting edge LGBT medical research. With the move now behind it, the Center is gearing up a laundry list of new plans, including the establishment of one the first clinics for transgender children in the country.

The move to Uptown

The Center has three primary functions: research, services and advocacy. Over the past two years, the ways its carries out that mission has consistently grown. When Lurie Children’s Hospital recently vacated Lincoln Park for its new downtown home, the Center was faced with some big questions. Dr. Rob Garofalo, director of the Center, knew that a center serving LGBT and HIV-positive people would have the most impact in a neighborhood outside of the downtown area. Others at Lurie agreed that the Center should find a community-based site, rather than following the hospital.

Dr. Travis Gayles, research fellow and clinical instructor, said the goal was keep the Center close to the people it served, where clients could feel comfortable. “Anytime you are doing community-based participatory research… you want to be in the community,” Gayles said. “It’s great to do research, but we really want to do research that means something to the people we’re discussing.” 

Part of what drove that decision was also proximity to other LGBT groups. “When you are in the community and you have footprint in the community, it allows for that first step in terms of making partnerships with different organizations,” said Gayles. “I think it gives you a lot more credibility when you are in the community, as opposed to saying, ‘we’re going to stay in the ivory tower and come out and do it and run back.’” But the Center also wanted to avoid replicating services. Uptown, which has some of the highest HIV numbers in the city but few LGBT-specific services, became the obvious choice. “There really isn’t another social service agency in the vicinity that targets the population that we really want to target,” Garofalo said.

The Center’s new home at 4711 N. Broadway puts it close to two Red Line stops. And it is close enough to both Lakeview and Edgewater to allow the Center easy collaboration with groups based in both neighborhoods.

New Gender Identity Center

Furthering the expansion of the Center, is the agency’s plans to launch a Gender Identity Clinic. The move fills a major gap in gender-affirming care in Chicago. The clinic, which is up and running but has yet to officially launch, is the first of its kind in the city and one of few resources for gender-variant kids younger than 13. Through the clinic, children dealing with gender identity issues will have access to everything from endocrinology to psychology. “As a unit, the family is not always ready to embrace terms like ‘LGBT’ or ‘transgender,’” said Dr. Rob Garofalo, director of the Center. “I think coming to Lurie allows people to come to a place where services are hopefully increasingly culturally competent, without threatening the developmental trajectory that these families have to go through.”

Garofalo created the clinic out of a patchwork of specialists already working within Lurie, a move that both has both staffed the clinic and furthered understanding about transgender lives within Lurie, he said. The Center will also employ a psychologist and a social worker. In past years, Chicago families with transgender kids often found medical and mental health services piecemeal. While many of the city’s LGBT organizations offer youth services, most of those services are designed for kids ages 13 and older. Some families flew to Boston Children’s Hospital or Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which both have gender clinics for children. But for families without the time or means to travel, finding specialists that understood gender issues and kids presented a serious challenge.

Resources for transgender children in Chicago are scarce, something that Carr learned early on after her child shared that she felt like a girl. Carr approached both Center on Halsted and Howard Brown Health Center looking for resources, but she found that neither agency served young children. The clinic is already seeing 30 families from throughout the Midwest, Garofalo said. It will officially launch later this year. The new clinic was made possible due to a significant donation from the Tawani Foundation and money that Lurie itself committed to clinic.

For a full list of services offered at the Center, check out: www.chicagochildrensresearch.org/gender.

Click the header link above to read the full article.

The transgender community and the police


ASK LAMBDA LEGAL Special to the online edition of Windy City Times

by Dru Levasseur

Q: I’m a transgender woman and sometimes when I’m out with friends. A police officer stops to harass me on the sidewalk, assuming I’m a prostitute. What should I do?

A: Your first step should be to get as much information as possible about the officer involved: badge number, precinct number, name, description, time of day and location. Police are required to provide their badge number and names—although make sure that you are not putting yourself in danger by collecting the information. If you are questioned by the police, ask if you are free to go. If they say you are, calmly walk away.

If you are harassed by police, it’s a good idea to contact a community-based organization that works on issues of police and institutional violence such as the New York City-based Anti-Violence Project (AVP) (avp.org or 212-714-1141) or another group under the umbrella of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP) (ncavp.orgor 212-714-1184 or info@ncavp.org). These groups can advise you on where to turn not just for legal advice but for support of other kinds.

Also contact your local police department’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) or Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB). Reporting the incident is very important for building an accurate measure of the problem overall.

Police harassment and outright brutality against transgender people are very common: Twenty-two percent of 6,450 transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents in the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) who had interacted with police reported being harassed by them. (The rate was much higher for transgender people of color.) And almost one out of two respondents said they were uncomfortable about seeking help from police.

There is litigation pending in response to incidents in several cities of police strip-searching, groping, conducting false arrests and chaining transgender people on handrails in “fish tank” fashion rather than placing them in cells. Meanwhile, advocates have been working with police to implement guidelines requiring respectful treatment of transgender people on patrol and in custody. The results have been significant policy improvements in San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C.

In April 2012, the Los Angeles Police Department issued a new policy on treatment of transgender prisoners intended to “prevent discrimination and conflict.”

Among the guidelines is this instruction: “Treat transgender persons in a manner that reveals respect for the individual’s gender identity and gender expression, which includes addressing them by their preferred name and using gender pronouns appropriate to the individual’s gender self-identity and expression.”

For more information download our tool kit, “Fighting Anti-trans Violence” at: www.lambdalegal.org/publications/trt_transgender_violence.

For information on Lambda Legal’s work with transgender rights, see: www.lambdalegal.org/issues/transgender-rights.

If you feel you have been discriminated against based on your sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status please contact our Legal Help Desk at: www.lambdalegal.org/help.

TransLife Center renewing Chicago House, changing trans lives

by Kate Sosin

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Photo of TranLife staff, interns and (right) Stan Sloan. Photo courtesy of Chicago House.

Until a few years ago, Chicago House knew when its mission would be complete, when it could close up shop.

“There at the beginning. Here until the cure,” was the HIV service agency’s tagline for decades

And according to AIDS experts, that day is close. Where advocates once pushed for increased structures and funding to fight HIV, today they are asking providers to think up exit strategies, to make themselves obsolete by ending to virus. That had long been the intention of Chicago House, a service organization founded in 1985 to provide housing to people with HIV/ AIDS. But a few years ago, one client turned that plan upside down. The result has been a community initiative that is rapidly transforming both the agency and the city’s transgender community at large.

A couple years ago, Chicago House staff learned that its services were falling short for transgender clients. Trisha Holloway, a transgender woman interning in the organization’s Sweet Misgiving’s bakery at the time, reported that she felt unsupported at the agency. The moment was a wake-up call for the 25 year-old organization.

“I just thought I knew all this stuff,” said Stan Sloan, CEO of Chicago House.

But the more the agency explored the challenges facing transgender people, the more apparent it became that Chicago House had work to do. Working with Holloway and other transgender people, Chicago House started making changes. Gendered bathroom markers were replaced with “unisex” signs, interview applications were re-written to be trans-inclusive and board members were trained. All staff members were sent on a retreat to Center on Halsted to learn about transgender issues.

As Chicago House staffers learned more, they saw serious gaps in services for trans people across agencies and government entities. The traditional structures were not working for many trans people for myriad reasons. And the more Chicago House learned about transgender issues, the deeper it found itself in the search for solutions.

“We didn’t have a goal of transforming the agency,” said Sloan. “The agency was fine, but we fell into this because the need presented itself to us.”

In April 2011, Sloan and Holloway gathered LGBT community leaders into the living room of an empty North Side home. The home, they explained, was the future site of Chicago’s first transgender-specific housing, the TransLife Center. The four-story home had formerly served as a hospice for Chicago House. Thousands afflicted with AIDS died there, but as treatment for HIV improved, the need for the site diminished. The creation of the TransLife Center renewed the house’s sacred purpose, Sloan said.

Now as Chicago House pounds out the details of the program, Sloan said, workers are pounding out renovations on the home. Designs for Dignity, an organization that does pro-bono design work for non-profits, is transforming the house home using donated materials. The kitchen going into the house was formerly displayed at the Chicago Merchandise Mart.

“It’s like stuff that none of us could have in our homes, but it’s going to be in the TransLife Center,” he said.

The house is not the only thing at Chicago House that is changing. Chicago House has hired a number of transgender-identified staff and board members. Bonnie Wade, a renowned Chicago-based LGBTQ youth advocate, will be heading up the new transgender initiatives at Chicago House. Angelique Monroe, a transgender performer and advocate, is now working as the agency’s receptionist. Channyn Lynne Parker, a longtime HIV and transgender advocate, is serving as the program’s Connect2Care coordinator.

Chicago House has also announced that Owen Daniel-McCarter, attorney from the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois, will be heading up legal services full-time for the TransLife Project. Also on board is Dr. Rob Garofalo and Dr. Tavis Gayles, who will provide health services, HIV testing and counseling, linkage to care and health education. Residents will further be able to participate in TransWorks, a four-week job readiness program.

Residents will be selected from the Chicago Central Referral System wait list, an online City of Chicago list that allows those experiencing homelessness to apply for housing. The site has nine bedrooms. For those not living in the house itself, Chicago House is also opening up 28 of its scattered site housing units to transgender applications this year. And they’ll be opening up the lower level of the house to provide support services.

Sloan and Wade anticipate that the house could be opening as soon as March 1.

“There’s so much intention that’s being put into this,” Wade said. “We’re not moving at lightning speed, but we’re also not moving at a snail’s pace. We’re moving thoughtfully forward.”

Chicago House today is abuzz with fresh energy and excitement, and sentiment that has been echoed by many transgender Chicagoans. Among them is Keisha Allen, a Chicago House client since May. She dreads returning to the shelter she stays at each night, and housing that is trans-affirming could be a game-changer for her.

“It will change my circumstances immensely, in part because I’m at a shelter,” Allen said. “Living in a shelter as a transgender woman is very very hard.”

On Feb. 7, Sloan and Allen will be speaking at the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS about their work on the TransLife Project. Sloan and Wade say that thus far, Chicago House’s journey to serving transgender people feels blessed. Chicago House received four six-figure gifts to make the project a reality. The transgender community has also embraced the Chicago House, Sloan says. And in many ways, that brings Chicago House back to the LGBT community it largely served during early years of the AIDS crisis.

“For us, it’s a circle,” said Sloan. “We were founded by the gay and lesbian community, and we listened to the needs of those who came to us for services. We eventually became a homeless service provider that was HIV and AIDS specified, and our overage client looked like the average homeless service client. You hear some rumblings sometimes…’Oh, they no longer serve the gay community, and they’re not that invested in LGBT anymore. Just listening to the needs, all of the sudden, we’re back around to LGBT.”

Wade said that working on the TransLife Project thus far has been humbling.

“It’s sacred work. It’s critical,” Wade said. “I think all of the sentiment that I’m feeling from Chicago House is that we stand in honor of what we’re about to do, recognizing our humility in everything that we’re about to do.”

This year, Chicago House is operating with a new mission statement that now includes its work with the transgender community. Its tagline has also changed. “There at the beginning. Here to meet the challenge,” it says.

LGBT activists to demonstrate against Cardinal George

by Tony Merevick 

Photo: Daniel Guerrero.

ACTIVISTS RALLY AT THE THOMPSON CENTER JAN. 5. PHOTO: DANIEL GUERRERO.

Activists from the Gay Liberation Network, a longtime Chicago-based direct action LGBT rights group, are calling on the local community to join them early next month in a protest against Cardinal Francis George, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, due to his vocal opposition against same-sex marriage. The rally will take place on Feb. 10 outside of Holy Name Cathedral, 730 N. State St., at 10:30 a.m. and will continue through the high-profile church’s Sunday Mass at 11 a.m., GLN Co-Founder Andy Thayer told Chicago Phoenix Thursday.

“As long as Cardinal George opposes our equal rights, we will be opposing him,” Thayer, the organizer of the protest, said. “His opposition to our legal equality is bigotry.”

George has long been an outspoken opponent of the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, pending legislation in the Illinois General Assembly that would legalize state recognition of gay and lesbian nuptials. In a letter to Catholic leaders across the state early this month, George said same-sex marriages defy nature.

“Civil laws that establish ‘same sex marriage’ create a legal fiction,” George wrote in the letter. “The State has no power to create something that nature itself tells us is impossible.”

Additionally, George reportedly made phone calls to urge state lawmakers to vote against the measure leading up to the legislative lame duck session. In the end, the bill stalled when sponsoring lawmakers and proponents simply ran out of time.

“He has decided to continue to vilify our community,” Thayer said. “What he does within the walls of his own church in terms of deciding not to marry people there is fine, but attempting to oppose his backwards beliefs on the rest of society is unacceptable and bigoted.”

Despite George’s and other calls from the top of the Catholic Church to oppose gay and lesbian marriage, a majority of Illinois Catholics support same-sex unions, according to a September 2012 poll conducted by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University.

About 82 percent of Catholics surveyed support either full marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples or the right to a civil union. Specifically, 39.9 percent said they support marriage rights and 40.1 percent said their position is for same-sex couples to have civil unions. Only 15.7 percent said there should be no legal recognition of same-sex relationships, according to the poll.

“Most lay Catholics are on the side of justice and we appreciate their support,” Thayer said.

The same poll found that 43.6 percent of Illinois voters support full marriage equality for gays and lesbians, putting the Illinois Catholic community’s support just below the amount of support from the state in general. The marriage equality legislation’s chief sponsors in the House and the Senate, Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) and Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago), respectively, reintroduced the measure in both chambers last week following the swearing in of the 98th General Assembly.

The new legislative session begins Feb. 5, and proponents — including Gov. Pat Quinn — are anticipating progress with moving the bill forward in the first few weeks. The session adjourns May 31. The Archdiocese of Chicago did not return a phone call requesting comment on the planned demonstration Thursday morning.

Vulnerable LGBT youth have limited options for justice

harmreduction:

“Young people may not want to retell the story or may fear writing it down could lead to trouble somehow,” the YWEP report states. “When challenging large systems like the police in Chicago, young people don’t feel like a report gives them a fair chance to fight the misconduct with any hope that justice will take place or that officers will be held accountable.”

“Institutions need to realize that they will be held accountable by young people,” McKinney said. “If we don’t do it, who is gonna do it? And who best to do it, but us?”

READ MORE

- Important report on youth resistance to police violence in Chicago.

Black teen says 3 boys committed racist attack

riley-ferretboy-konor:

TW: racism, violent hate crime, racial slurs

By Ryan Haggerty, Jeremy Gorner and Kate Thayer

Joshua Merritt said he had no reason to be suspicious when one of his friends texted him, asking him to hang out with two other teenagers they both knew. But after Merritt, 17, arrived at the home of one of the boys in Chicago’s East Beverly neighborhood Dec. 23, he realized the boys weren’t simply looking to have a good time.

The three teens, who are white, allegedly put a noose around the neck of Merritt, who is black, and hurled racist epithets at him before one of the boys held a knife to his throat and threatened to kill him, police and Merritt said Thursday. The teens were apparently upset about Merritt’s relationship with one of the boys’ female cousins, police said.

“I feel they were being serious, and that if I didn’t get out of the house when I did, I might not even be here,” Merritt said Thursday, sitting on a couch in his family’s living room in the city’s Morgan Park neighborhood. “I might be dead.”

Two of the alleged attackers, ages 17 and 18, were charged Jan. 10 with committing a hate crime, unlawful restraint and battery, police said. One of those teens, Matthew Herrmann, 18, of the 4200 block of West 126th Street in Alsip, was charged as an adult, police said. He is free on bond, according to court records. The 17-year-old was charged as a juvenile. The third alleged attacker, 16, was charged as a juvenile with committing a hate crime, unlawful restraint, aggravated battery and aggravated assault for allegedly pulling a knife in the incident, police said.

Click the link above to read the full article.

Nominations are in for the Trans 100

sqs-tec:

Nominations closed yesterday to name trans* activists all over the country doing spectacular work in activism and advocacy. You can read more about the mission and aim of this list by clicking on the link above. This is the next stage:

We will next contact all nominees for their permission to participate in the next round of public voting. The final list will be published on March 31, 2013, in conjunction with the International Transgender Day of Visibility.

We were asked to review a list of the Chicago area nominees to make sure everyone who should be included, was indeed nominated. We are pleased to say that it has been imperative from the beginning—on the behalf of both groups who created this list—that TPOC/TWOC were strongly represented. The current list of Chicago area nominees shows a beautiful representation of the TPOC activists doing work in our communities across Chicago. So, we’re happy to say that this list will be a great asset to our community and give many of us recognition for the work we do every day. 

So keep on the look out for public voting to open up! We are excited to see the completion of this list and have yet another community resource. 

So I was nominated to be one of Chicago's trans* representatives of The Trans 100.

(Thanks to all who nominated me!) Until yesterday, I had no idea that I was nominated! This is such a great honour and privilege for me.

The Trans 100 is a list of transgender activists living in the U.S. who work to make the lives of transgender individuals’ better. Over 450 nominations were submitted (some nominating the same person more than once).

Click the link above to acquire more information and check out their facebook page here.

Public voting starts soon! The final list will be published on March 31, 2013, to go along with the International Transgender Day of Visibility. 

Thanks again!

Riley Konor

‘Be-All’ Chicago transgender conference called off after 30 years

by Tony Merevick

Organizers of one of the nation’s largest transgender conferences, Be-All Chicago, said Friday the popular gathering’s May 2012 conference in Downers Grove was its last. The conference, which welcomed transexual, transgender, friends, family and allies, announced the end to its 30-year run on Facebook, but offered little insight to fans and past attendees as to what led to the decision.

Olivia Connors, chair of Be-All Chicago, told Chicago Phoenix that a 2013 conference would not be possible due to the economy and large declines in attendance over the last two years.

“As any event, you need a base of folks for a successful conference and our numbers were slowing down,” Connors said. “Another year could have put us in a dangerous financial position.”

In prior years, the conference offered resources and welcoming social spaces for the transgender community, such as dozens of professional seminars and workshops, vendor shops for business and services, social excursions and keynote speakers.

Click the header link above to read the full article.

[It’s] an unfortunate and tragic milestone, which not only marks a needless loss of life but serves as a reminder of the damage that illegal guns and conflicts between gangs cause in our neighborhoods.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel • Reflecting on the 500th homicide in his city this year, which took place on Chicago’s west side on Thursday. ”The brave officers of the Chicago Police Department work tirelessly to continually reduce crime, but this is not just a law enforcement issue,” Emanuel continued. It’s the first time the city has topped that total since 2008, when there were 512 murders. (via shortformblog)

(via shortformblog)