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NEWS & LETTERS, June 2004Queer Notesby Suzanne Rose CALIFORNIA--The long awaited trial of three men charged with killing Gwen Araujo began April 14. Gwen was a 17-year-old transgender who was brutally beaten and strangled at a party after it was discovered she was biologically male. The three men were furious because they previously had sex with her. The trial is one of the first times that an act of hate violence against a transgender person has been prosecuted. * * * UTAH--Utah high school students held a protest to support a group of students who were punished for wearing "Queers Kick Ass" T-shirts to school as part of an anti-smoking campaign aimed at GLBT youth. At one high school the students were told they had to turn the shirts inside out or take them off or they would be suspended. When more students wore the T-shirts the next day, the assistant principal threatened to bring the school's Gay-Straight Alliance group, which had nothing to do with distributing them, to a "screeching halt." The ACLU is defending the students. * * * POLAND--About 800 gay rights activists in Krakow endured verbal abuse and had eggs, stones and firecrackers thrown at them during a march through the city. The 200 counter-demonstrators called for gays to be kicked out of the city and the country. The protests and violence come as the country joined the European Union despite being unable to prove that its human rights standards concerning gays were sufficient. |
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