Transgender Convict Denied Hormones

A transgender convict who was sentenced to serve time in a Georgia prison was allegedly raped seven times while in prison. She’s also been kept with male prisoners and they’ve denied hormone therapy to her.

Keep in mind this is a convict who was charged with burglary and “other punishable offenses.”

‘During intake, I kept saying: “Hello? I’m trans? I’m a woman?”’. Diamond told the New York Times.
‘But to them I was gay. I was what they called a “sissy.” 

So finally I was like: “O.K., I’m a sissy. Do you have a place where sissies can go and be O.K.?”

They did not and as a result Diamond says she has been raped at least seven times during her sentence to date.

The DOJ got involved in a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of corrections and it gets more complicated.

‘By taking action in this case, the Justice Department is reminding departments of corrections that prison officials have the obligation to assess and treat gender dysphoria just as they would any other medical or mental health condition,’ Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division said in a statement on Friday.

While I do believe she shouldn’t be kept with the male inmates because she clearly identifies as a woman, I’ve always struggled with other aspects of cases like this. If she hadn’t burglarized (and committed those other offenses) and she hadn’t done anything illegal she wouldn’t be in prison in the first place. Most people in the world go through their entire lives without being convicted of burglary. But then you can’t deny insulin to a diabetic in prison either. That would be morally wrong. 

You can read the rest here. 

Gay Teen Big High School Struggles

This is one of those links where they add the comments to images. I don’t really like them because they tend to make light of the more serious situations, and I think this is a serious situation.

There is no sum of money great enough to convince us to relive our high school years (time travel restraints aside).

Though many high school-era memories are tinted with a rosy glow of nostalgia, the reality is it’s a turbulent time of self-discovery, confusion and learning from mistakes.

For LGBT teens, those qualities are amplified by social stigma, constant ‘covering,’ and in many cases homophobic family and peers.

I have always believed high school is the most difficult time for anyone who is LGBT. This is interesting because it doesn’t seem to have gotten much better since I was in high school. Other than the fact that more LGBT teens are coming out sooner, they are still dealing with those rotten little foul-mouthed straight kids who need a good kick in the ass.

Here’s one:

Being picked on for being gay is not fun. Nobody really knew until I came out and I’m still in high school. Maybe I should have stayed in the closet.

Nope. It doesn’t sound as if much has changed.  The rest are here.

Your Porn Searches Aren’t Private

I think we all understand the horrible tracking and the loss of privacy on the Internet. The other day I did a simple search for shoes and now all I’m seeing are shoe ads all over my facebook and other accounts. The only way to get rid of them is to search for something else, and to make sure I really like it because it’s going to be following me all over the Internet for weeks.

In any event, they are now saying this could happen with porn searches.

“In 2014 a set of celebrities had naked photos released to the public, a deeply disturbing event that was fantastically labeled ‘the fappening.’ Many people brushed off the episode – oh well, I’m not a celebrity,” he continues. “But I think the next big internet privacy crisis could expose the private and potentially embarrassing personal data of regular people to their neighbors…”

Considering that many LGBT people still live in areas where their sexual identity is a crime, the unmasking of adult searches could pose a threat that far exceeds embarrassment.

However, all this could be misleading. (But I think it’s a concern anyway.)

To be fair, in a statement to Vice, adult mega-site Pornhub called Thomas’ conclusions “not only completely false, but also dangerously misleading,” adding that, “Pornhub’s raw server logs contain only the IP and the user agent for a very limited time, never a browser footprint.”

Still, that’s just one response form one company, and Vice notes that 88 percent of the top 500 porn sites have tracking elements installed.

It’s a questionable issue and I see a lot more coming about this.

You can read the rest here.