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Threats Against LGBT People Persist in Rural America... [and everywhere else]

One of the most moving moments in Out in the Silence occurs when C.J., the gay teen who has been tormented for over a year at his small town high school, says: "This place isn't like New York or DC where everybody's liberal. I get threats to be killed."

In August, the OITS Campaign was starkly reminded of just how real the threat of anti-LGBT violence is, especially in small towns and rural communities where even a small minority of intolerant individuals can poison the atmosphere of the entire community.

The ugliness took place in Coudersport, a small town nestled in the ruggedly-beautiful hills of north central Pennsylvania. Despite a series of harmonious and successful events in neighboring towns, the OITS Campaign was met in Coudersport by a barrage of Tea Party and fundamentalist activists who tried to shut the screening down and called for defunding the public library simply for being the site of an openly-LGBT event.

Fortunately, the library board was not to be intimidated, and the resulting publicity helped to create an extraordinarily well-attended, diverse and productive town-hall event that received national media attention: Potter County Library Faced Protests Over Gay Documentary (Harrisburg Patriot-News)

( Read more... POTENTIAL TRIGGERS: transphobia and threats of violence to trans women )

Still Not Wanted: Girl Geeks

A collection of angry-making links. But the comments are GOLD (though there's a couple trolls towards the end.) Lots of discussion of games and which ones let you play female characters and so forth. This comment caught my attention though:

I got Skate2 and you can choose to play as a man or woman... But if you choose a woman, you get a "gender bender" achievement, because obviously a woman wouldn't play it so you must be trans or gay... And, even when you created a female character, all the dialogue still referred to you in the masculine!

Just... what the fuck? WHY? Does the game reward you "gender bender" points for other stuff too?!

Also, the American Medical Association did not adopt Resolution 710 (A-09): Identifying Abusive, Hostile or Non-Compliant Patients today. Which is good. Somehow I still feel like throwing up though. I think it might be reading about forced C-sections that did it.