Seeking to correct misinformation distributed by Camp Trans organizers, Michigan Womyn's Music Festival founder and producer Lisa Vogel issued a release saying that those who purchase tickets need to respect that the event is intended for 'womyn-born womyn.' 'Since 1976, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival has been created by and for womyn-born womyn, that is, womyn who were born as and have lived their entire life experience as womyn,' the statement read. 'We ask the transwomen's community to recognize that the need for a separate womyn-born womyn space does not stand at odds with recognizing the larger and beautiful diversity of our shared community.' They will not bar trans women from buying tickets.
The body of Martin Barreto, 49, a former press aide to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was found in the bedroom of the million-dollar Greenwich Village apartment of a cousin, 365Gay.com reported. His nude body was found in a bed and a condom wrapper was discovered on the floor; he had apparently been strangled.
A group of lesbians from Newark, N.J., attacked and stabbed a straight man in New York City after he apparently flirted with one of the women, according to an item in The Advocate. Wayne Buckle, 28, was allegedly whipped by belts and then stabbed with a steak knife by Patreese Johnson. Buckle was recovering at a local hospital in critical but stable condition.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said that a microbicide ( cream or gel ) or pill that women can use is crucial to stopping the AIDS pandemic, CNN.com reported. ( Some studies suggest that certain HIV pills might help protect people from infection. ) The World Health Organization estimates that half of the 39 million people infected with HIV are women, and the virus is mostly transmitted through sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.
Phil Gordon, the mayor of Phoenix, is against an Arizona constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, Advocate.com reported. Gordon is concerned that banning domestic-partner benefits could hurt the city's ability to recruit talented employees.
Top officials at the Democratic National Committee ( DNC ) turned down a proposal by the committee's Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus to add gays to the party's affirmative-action rules for selecting delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the Washington Blade reported. Instead, officials agreed to create a new section to the party's delegate selection rules that recognizes the 'LGBT community and people with disabilities' as underrepresented groups within the party.
In North Carolina, the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education voted unanimously to ban all gay-straight alliance organizations, according to an Advocate.com item. The board approved an amendment to the school's extracurricular activities policy, using the system's existing abstinence-only sex-education policy as the basis for the ban.
However, in a positive school-related development, Antioch University in Los Angeles is offering the country's first-ever LGBT specialization within a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology program, according to Advocate.com . Offered this fall, the core curriculum features five course classes as well as workshops on bisexuality, lesbian liberation and even ancient shamanism.
President Bush has issued an involuntary recall of Marine Corps Individual Ready Reservists due a lack of volunteers returning for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq—even as the military branch dismisses more gay and lesbian personnel, according to a release from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. The recall follows a report that the corps's dismissal of servicemembers under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' has increased for the first time since 2001.
PlanetOut has given Hyatt Hotels & Resorts its Best Hotel Collection Award for its 'commitment, sensitivity, and appeal tolesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT ) travelers,' a Hyatt press release stated. Founded in 1992, the awards were previously known as the OUT AND ABOUT Travel Awards.
Designer Michael Stars has fashioned a new T-shirt to help raise funds for YouthAIDS, a worldwide initiative of Population Services International ( PSI ) , according to a press release. For every purchase of the 'Grow Awareness' T-shirt, Michael Stars will donate $10 to YouthAIDS, with a guaranteed minimum of $50,000. The shirts, available at www.michaelstars.com, come in a tank top ( $24 ) and a band crew T-shirt ( $26 ) .
The mother of Farmington, Mo., student Joshua Minks, 17, feels that bullying caused by gender stereotypes appears to be at issue in a school shooting, according to another GenderPAC press release. Amanda Minks stated that her son—who is 6'5' and 400 pounds—had complained of being subjected to daily taunting and homophobic slurs by classmates because of his appearance. Joshua Minks later fired a bullet into a school ceiling, but was subdued before anyone was hurt.
The American Psychological Association released a statement criticizing conservative groups such as Focus on the Family for creating an 'environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish' by mistakenly labeling homosexuality an illness and advocating for so-called 'conversion therapy.'
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who has won millions of dollars in grants says he is leaving the school because of the school's lack of health insurance benefits for his domestic partner, The Duluth News Tribune noted. Rob Carpick, an associate professor of engineering, will transfer to the University of Pennsylvania, which offers domestic partner benefits, at the end of the year.
According to the results of a University of Pittsburgh study released at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, HIV prevalence is set to skyrocket among Western gay men as they age, Advocate.com reported. Although only one in 12 gay men at age 20 were infected with HIV in North America and Europe in 2001, researchers project that the rate could rise to 58 percent at age 60.
Carolyn Conrad and Kathleen Peterson, a lesbian couple who entered into the country's first same-sex civil union, officially split up, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The couple, both of Brattleboro, had entered a civil union shortly after midnight on July 1, 2000, the day Vermont's pioneering law went into effect.