Shocking News: Transgender Teen Murdered By Violent Mob In Jamaica!!!
Associated Press | 13/08/11 4:52 PM ET
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica — Dwayne Jones was relentlessly teased in high school for being effeminate until he dropped out. His father not only kicked him out of the house at the age of 14 but also helped jeering neighbours push the youngster from the rough Jamaican slum where he grew up.
By age 16, the teenager was dead – beaten, stabbed, shot and run over by a car when he showed up at a street party dressed as a woman. His mistake: confiding to a friend that he was attending a “straight” party as a girl for the first time in his life.
“When I saw Dwayne’s body, I started shaking and crying,” said Khloe, one of three transgender friends who shared a derelict house with the teenager in the hills above the north coast city of Montego Bay. Like many transgender and gay people in Jamaica, Khloe wouldn’t give a full name out of fear.
“It was horrible. It was so, so painful to see him like that.”
International advocacy groups often portray this Caribbean island as the most hostile country in the Western Hemisphere for gay and transgender people. After two prominent gay rights activists were murdered, a researcher with the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch in 2006 called the environment in Jamaica for such groups “the worst any of us has ever seen.”
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Local activists have since disputed that label, but still say homophobia is pervasive. Dwayne’s horrific July 22 murder has made headlines in newspapers on the island and stirred calls in some quarters for doing more to protect Jamaica’s gay community, especially those who live on the streets and resort to sex work.
Advocates say much of the homophobia is fueled by a nearly 150-year-old anti-sodomy law that bans anal sex as well as by dancehall reggae performers who flaunt anti-gay themes. The island’s main gay rights group estimated that two homosexual men were killed for their sexual orientation last year, and 36 were the victims of mob violence.
For years, Jamaica’s gay community has lived so far underground that their parties and church services were held in secret locations. Many gays have stuck to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of keeping their sexual orientation hidden to avoid scrutiny or protect loved ones.
“Judging by comments made on social media, most Jamaicans think Dwayne Jones brought his death on himself for wearing a dress and dancing in a society that has made it abundantly clear that homosexuals are neither to be seen nor heard,” said Annie Paul, a blogger and publications officer at Jamaica’s campus of the University of the West Indies.
Some say the hostility partly stems from the legacy of slavery when black men were sometimes sodomized as punishment or humiliation. Some historians believe that practice carried over into a general dread of homosexuality.
But in recent years, emboldened young people such as Dwayne have helped bring the island’s gay and transgender community out of the shadows. A small group of gay runaways now rowdily congregates on the streets of Kingston’s financial district.
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s government has also vowed to put the anti-sodomy law to a “conscience vote” in Parliament, and she said during her 2011 campaign that only merit would decide who got a Cabinet position in her government. By contrast, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding said in 2008 that he would never allow homosexuals in his Cabinet.
Dane Lewis, executive director of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals & Gays, said there were increasing “pockets of tolerance” on the island.
“We can say that we are becoming more tolerant. And thankfully that’s because of people like Dwayne who have helped push the envelope,” said Lewis, one of the few Jamaican gays who will publicly disclose his full name.
Yet rights groups still complain of the slow pace of the investigation into Jones’ murder, despite the justice minister calling for a full probe.
Police spokesman Steve Brown said detectives working the case are struggling to overcome a chronic problem: a strong anti-informant culture that makes eyewitnesses to murders and other crimes too afraid or simply unwilling to come forward.
Even though some 300 people were at the dance party in the small riverside community of Irwin, police have yet to make a single arrest in Dwayne’s murder. Police say witnesses have said they couldn’t see the attackers’ faces.
Dwayne was the center of attraction shortly after arriving in a taxi at 2 a.m. with his two 23-year-old housemates, Khloe and Keke. Dwayne’s expert dance moves, long legs and high cheekbones quickly made him the one that the guys were trying to get next to.
Like many Jamaican homosexuals, Dwayne was careful about confiding in others about his sexual orientation. But when he saw a girl he had known from church, he told her he was attending the party in drag.
Minutes later, according to Khloe and Keke, the girl’s male friends gathered around Dwayne in the dimly-lit street asking: “Are you a woman or a man?” One man waved a lighter’s flame near Dwayne’s sneakers, asking whether a girl could have such big feet.
Then, his friends said, another man grabbed a lantern from an outdoor bar and walked over to Dwayne, shining the bright light over him from head to toe. “It’s a man,” he concluded, while the others hissed “batty boy” and other anti-gay epithets.
Khloe says she tried to steer him away from the crowd, whispering in Dwayne’s ear: “Walk with me, walk with me.” But Dwayne pulled away, loudly insisting to partygoers that he was a girl. When someone behind him snapped his bra strap, the teen panicked and raced down the street.
But he couldn’t run fast enough to escape the mob.
The teenager was viciously assaulted and apparently half-conscious for some two hours before another sustained attack finished him off, according to Khloe, who was also beaten and nearly raped. She hid in a nearby church and then the surrounding woods, unable to call for help because she didn’t have her cellphone.
Dwayne’s father in the Montego Bay slum of North Gully didn’t want to talk about his son’s life or death. The teen’s family wouldn’t even claim the body, according to Dwayne’s friends.
They remembered him as a spirited boy with a contagious laugh who dreamt of becoming a performer like Lady Gaga. He was also a street-smart hustler who resorted to sleeping in the bushes or on beaches when he became homeless. He won a local dancing competition during his time on the streets and was affectionately nicknamed “Gully Queen.”
“He was the youngest of us but he was a diva,” Khloe said. “He was always very feisty and joking around.”
Inside their squatter house, Khloe and Keke said, they still talk to their dead friend.
“I’ll be cooking in the kitchen and I’ll say, `Dwayne, you hungry?’ or something like that,” said Keke while sitting on the old mattress in her bedroom, flinching as neighborhood dogs barked outside. “We just miss him all the time. Sometimes I think I see him.”
But down the hall, Dwayne’s room is empty except for pink window curtains decorated with roses, his favorite flower.
Toronto Star Article: Ex Police Officer Alleges Toronto Police Force Is Racist Against Young Black Men!!!!
Former Toronto police officer Garnette Rose has launched a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario alleging he was discriminated against and had no choice but to leave the police service.
By Jim Rankin / Toronto Star
Former Toronto police officer Garnette Rose has launched a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario alleging he was discriminated against and had no choice but to leave the police service.
As a young Toronto police officer, Garnette Rose had a plan to work hard, gradually move up the ranks and perhaps return to the intelligence unit where he got his start with wiretaps — and his Jamaican background was an asset.
From 2003, the year he joined the service, to 2005, Rose was a “proofer,” listening in on and deciphering wiretaps that involved targets with Jamaican accents. He was the ears on homicide cases, a multi-jurisdictional drug bust and high-profile gang operations.
Today, his career as a police officer is in tatters and his slight Jamaican accent is at the heart of an extraordinary hearing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, where Rose, 36, alleges he was ostracized for not “toeing the line” — an unwritten police code of silence, or looking the other way. He was also, following an injury, recommended by a supervisor for a “light duty” internal position that he wanted in an email that showed “blatant” discrimination, he says in his complaint.
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“PC Garnette Rose … is a young officer currently restricted as a result of a hand injury,” reads the email. “He presents very well, and although possessed of a very slight Jamaican accent, he is very well spoken.”
Rose flagged the email to human resources and later, to a deputy chief, triggering an investigation. A half-year later, after he felt he could no longer safely work as a police officer, he filed the human rights complaint.
For Rose, it was the culmination of a yearlong history of “unfair” and “discriminatory” events. “I believe this happened to me because … I am Jamaican and have an accent; Because, I stood for the truth; Because I challenge the negative perceptions from Senior Staff,” he writes in his complaint, filed in June 2011.
Police disagree, arguing in a reply to Rose’s complaint that the email was an isolated incident, with a “prompt and thorough investigation, followed by appropriate disciplinary measures.” There is no proof of a pattern of discrimination and other “alleged acts” are factually wrong or the result of Rose’s own doing, the service argues.
“I became psychologically dysfunctional and frankly scared for my safety.”
Garnette Rose
Describing feelings after email that mentioned accent, in his human rights complaint
The Toronto Police Service is named in about 30 human rights applications a year. But it is rare that a complaint comes from one of its own. Just how rare, police will not say.
One reason for the rarity could be there are no problems. Another, as Rose believes, is there are problems but the act of complaining about superiors is career suicide.
Rose, currently unemployed, is seeking $1 million in damages.
This story is also extraordinary in that it is public at all. It’s based on Rose’s allegations and police versions of events, as laid out in documents connected to his human rights complaint, which he shared with the Star. The documents include police replies, police statements and summaries of anticipated evidence in the hearing, which is in the early stages.
The job
Becoming a Toronto police officer was a particular achievement for Garnette Rose.
Rose served as a cadet while in school. When he was 17, his family moved to Scarborough from Jamaica and he saw policing as something he was made for. He wanted to help bridge the gap between blacks and police, he says.
Since Bill Blair became chief in 2005, there has been a notable increase in diversity in new hires and efforts to root out racism within the service, which has been held up as a model. Two of the three current deputy chiefs are black. Rose saw the force as a place where he could excel.
After joining in 2003 at 26 and spending two years in intelligence, Rose spent time as a special court constable and at east downtown’s 51 Division, which includes Regent Park and is thought of as an excellent area to gain experience. In 2008, after a year there, he moved in a job swap to 53 Division, which includes Yorkville and Forest Hill.
He also started a family. He and his wife, a civilian Toronto police employee, would have two sons before their marriage blew up.
Two women
On April 25, 2010, Rose had finished a special evening shift at the Canadian National Exhibition, when alone and in a marked cruiser, he spotted a woman driving and texting. He pulled her over, and without his cruiser camera turned on, cautioned the woman.
Rose handed her a ticket instruction but no ticket. Inside, he included his police business card and personal cellphone number.
Two nights later, this time with a partner, Rose made a call at a building and on the way out had a conversation with another woman that wasn’t about police business. “During that conversation, he obtained her phone number and entered it into his personal cell phone,” police say in their reply to Rose’s human rights complaint. He called the number to confirm it was correct. He sent a text message a few days later. It was not returned.
Those two incidents resulted in station-level disciplinary action and a loss of 24 hours’ pay from Rose’s lieu time bank. It is one of the highest penalties that can be imposed outside of a police disciplinary tribunal hearing.
Rose, in an interview and in his complaint, acknowledges it was a bad idea to exchange numbers but says it was innocent.
In his complaint, Rose alleges the two women, who are white, knew each other and that one was the daughter of a Toronto sergeant at another police division. Rose alleges the sergeant was friends with Insp. Bruce Johnston, a senior supervisor at his own division. Rose says he heard from colleagues that Johnston was going to “take a chunk” out of him over it all.
Police do not address or deny these specific allegations in their reply, other than stating in a non-specific way that there are factual errors in the complaint.
Rose further alleges that the disciplinary action was started by Johnston, who would later write the “Jamaican accent” email.
Johnston, in material filed with the tribunal, denies Rose’s allegations and says he played no role in the investigation or penalty.
The Star could not directly reach Johnston — or Staff Insp. Larry Sinclair, then unit commander of 53 Division — for comment but did ask a police spokesperson, a police lawyer and the new unit commander at their former station to extend to them an opportunity to comment further.
Through a lawyer, Sinclair declined to comment. Johnston could not be reached.
Following Rose’s acceptance of the penalty, Sinclair put a scheduled promotion on hold to “ensure that there was no further misconduct.”
By then, Rose had been placed on light duty after a motor accident.
Incident at court
Tensions rose further after a dispute over Rose’s testimony as a witness in an unrelated case.
An investigation later revealed evidence collected did not substantiate the allegations against Rose, but police concluded he hadn’t properly prepared to testify and gave inconsistent testimony, and “failed to adopt his own memo book notes.”
As a result, police sent Rose for remedial training, which he found “horribly demeaning.”
“I felt stupid and useless,” Rose writes in his complaint. “I knew that this was their punishment for not following the Code that I must maintain the same story no matter what. I knew that I was not being treated equally.”
By fall 2010, Rose started looking into a transfer out of 53 Division, without success.
Police defend the remedial action and deny Rose’s contention that the court incident is part of a pattern of discrimination.
The email
The internal posting that landed on the desk of Insp. Bruce Johnston’s desk Oct. 21, 2010, was for a temporary social media job. Speaking wouldn’t be a main component.
Johnston, who was filling in for Sinclair, thought of Rose, who was still on light duty. In an email recommendation the next day, Johnston referred to Rose’s accent and Jamaican heritage.
Rose, who was copied on the email, says he found it “devastating,” and flagged it a week later to human resources. He heard nothing back.
On Dec. 2, Rose forwarded the email to Deputy Chief Peter Sloly, who also has Jamaican roots. On Dec. 15, a manager in the diversity management unit spoke to Johnston about it.
An internal investigation concluded a charge of misconduct was warranted. The penalty was a reprimand, one of the least severe penalties that can be imposed under the Police Services Act.
For his part, Johnston told an investigator he went through the email with Rose and “had the impression that he was actually good with this and enjoyed the fact that we were supporting him in this position … It wasn’t my intention to nominate him for a job and then insult him … the whole point (was that) I thought he would do well at this.”
Why the accent reference? He said he did it to, in the words of the investigator, “shed light on the fact that PC Rose had an accent, and if PC Rose became stressed, his accent may become thicker and difficult to understand.”
The service argues the email played no role in determining who would get the posting. (It went to an officer, also on light duties, with a journalism degree.)
Rose was left with a perception that he had become the outsider.
“The very heart of policing is relying on each other and having senior White officers as well as other white officers ostracizing me, informed me that it would just be a matter of time before something bad happened to me,” he wrote in his complaint.
“I became psychologically dysfunctional and frankly scared for my safety.”
“Wellness check”
By April 2011, Rose says he was afraid, depressed and his back hurt to the point he stayed home from work. A sergeant, a direct supervisor, phoned to see what was up
According to police, Rose sounded despondent.
Within a half-hour, the sergeant and another sergeant were at his doorstep.
The sergeants encouraged him to get help from the employee and family assistance program.
Rose found the visit intimidating; police insist it was solely out of concern for his well-being.
A staff sergeant declared him unfit to return to work until he got help. In two appointments Rose had with a service doctor, the doctor agreed Rose was unfit. Rose’s own doctor prescribed anti-depressants.
In a letter to Blair, dated May 25, 2011, Rose’s lawyer Osborne Barnwell argued Rose had been constructively dismissed. He said Rose was unable to cope with the job, had been discriminated against by senior staff and “been subject to reprisals.”
Barnwell proposed the service settle with Rose. When no package came and police declared him fit to return on modified duty at another division, Rose filed his rights complaint.
In addition to money, Rose seeks another “remedy.” He wants something done about “racism in the service” and says the highest-ranking officers are resistant to change.
Rose hasn’t worked as a police officer since April 2011. On July 19, 2011, he turned over his badge and warrant card, which the service took as his resignation.
The hearing
Under cross-examination by a city lawyer acting for police, Rose has twice lost it on the stand, becoming angry and frustrated by the line of questioning, which the adjudicator called “assertive but respectful.”
A psychotherapist of Rose’s choosing concluded he had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
Ross faces further psychiatric testing. No police witnesses have yet testified but their arguments are made clear in the material filed before the tribunal.
Asked to put this case into context, police spokesperson Mark Pugash instead said the Star must file a freedom of information request for numbers on officers who file human rights complaints.
In an emailed statement, Pugash added: “It is often the case that legal claims fail to be proved in court or before tribunals. Sadly, the Star rarely, if ever, tells their readers when particularly extravagant claims, claims they have printed, fail.”
Barnwell says police are fighting his client “tooth and nail, and are trying hard to discredit him,” in a case that should never have gone to a hearing.
“It makes no sense whatsoever,” he told the Star.
Rose, in an email to the Star the day he broke down on the stand, was despondent. He wrote that the police service had taken away his life.
Rose has created a Facebook page, with the title: Stop Racism Within The Toronto Police Service.
One of the first posts was a link to an article about Blair blasting officers for unacceptable behaviour. Blair has steadfastly said racism won’t be tolerated.
Rose’s psychiatric reports are due back at the tribunal by Aug. 17.
Toronto District School Board Proposal For A School For Queer Youth Should It Go Forward?
Fan Wu, 20, thinks the Toronto District School Board should consider creating a gay-centric high school. (CBC)A public meeting is being held Wednesday to gauge the interest in a possible gay-centric high school in Toronto.
University student Fan Wu, 20, says the Toronto District School Board could make life easier for some future students if they considered his proposal for a new type of high school.
Wu is hosting a forum at the 519 Church Street Community Centre Wednesday night and hopes to determine the public’s interest in the idea of a gay-centric secondary school.
But debate on Wu’s idea has already begun.
Irene Miller, president of the Toronto chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), says separating kids because of their sexual orientation won’t help encourage acceptance.
“What you’re doing is saying: ‘If we take away all the kids who are being bullied, then the bullying stops,'” Miller said. “What we should be doing is take away all the bullies and the bullying will stop. It’s the wrong end of the stick.”
‘Not a segregation project’
Wu maintains this conceptual school is “not a segregation project” but would simply be another alternative school focusing on diversity and acceptance.
“This is not an ostracism project,” Wu said. “As with most alternative schools, every student will have a choice to apply to this school, regardless of their academic standing, regardless of their financial background, regardless of their sexuality in particular.
“So we would welcome allies, straight people, lesbian, gay, bi, trans, people of all sorts into this school. There is no ghettoization going on here.”
Similar criticism about segregation was also expressed about a controversial Africentric high school program at Winston Churchill Collegiate in Scarborough.
Last week it was revealed that the program had just six students enrolled. However, the city already has an Africentric elementary school which opened in 2009.
Miller maintains that the creation of a gay-centric school isn’t working toward the bigger picture.
“It’s taking one group of children and singling them out,” she said.
“It’s a hetero-sexist society and we presume people to be straight. We should change that way of thinking because we know not every one of those children is straight so society at large has to make a pivotal change in order to educate that 10 to 15 per cent of kids in school today [who are] LGBTQ.”
The Toronto District School Board already runs the Triangle Program at the Oasis Alternative School, which is a Grade 9 through 12 curriculum taught through an LGBTQ lens.
The board says it would not comment on the proposed new secondary school until it has seen an official proposal.
Wu hopes to put forth a formal proposal if the interest shown at Wednesday’s meeting is strong enough.
NY Times Article: Gay & Lesbian Athletes Recent History of Coming Out Of The Closet In Sports.
Associated PressDavid KopayBig-time sports lag behind other areas of American society in terms of the number of gay and lesbian participants who feel they can be open about their sexual orientation. Not once, for example, has an active male player in any of the four major professional sports leagues in America publicly acknowledged being gay. But retired football, basketball and baseball players, along with active players in other sports, have come out. And there are plenty of lesbian athletes in women’s professional sports. Here are some milestones from the last four decades :
1975 David Kopay, a former professional football player, publicly acknowledges that he is gay in a Washington Star article. Three years after retiring from the sport, he becomes the first N.F.L. player to come out. “It took me a long time, too long, to accept myself as I really was,” Kopay tells the University of Washington alumni magazine in 2008. “I’m hoping I can at least make a difference in that others in my position will have the freedom to be who they are.”
1976 Tom Waddell, who was a decathlete in the 1968 Olympics, appears inPeople magazine — with his male partner. That same year, he serves as the Saudi Arabian team physician at the Olympics in Montreal. Waddell later founds what becomes known as the “Gay Games.”
Dennis Oulds/Central Press, via Getty ImagesAmerican tennis player Billie Jean Moffitt (later King) at Wimbledon in 19641981 Billie Jean King, regarded as one of the top female tennis players of all time, is outed by a former female partner. King is perhaps best known for winning a 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match against Bobby Riggs. In 1990, Life Magazine calls her one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.” Today, she lives with her partner, the former professional tennis player Ilana Kloss, in New York City. “We have to commit to eliminating homophobia because everyone is entitled to the same rights, opportunities and protection,” King has said.
1981 Martina Navratilova, a tennis icon, says that she is a lesbian, soon after defecting to the United States from Czechoslovakia. Winner of two Wimbledon singles titles, she goes on to capture seven more over the course of her career. At a 2010 benefit dinner, Navratilova reflects, “I’m told I lost millions in sponsorship, but in my heart I know I gained things of much greater value — the opportunity to live my life with integrity and the knowledge that others might have come out because of my example.”
1982 Glenn Burke, a retired outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics, comes out. He is the first openly gay former major league baseball player. “Prejudice drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have,” Burke tells The Times in a 1994 interview. “But I wasn’t changing. And no one can say I didn’t make it. I played in the World Series. I’m in the book, and they can’t take that away from me. Not ever.”
1992 Roy Simmons, a retired offensive lineman for the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants, comes out on “The Phil Donahue Show.” ”The N.F.L. has a reputation,” he later tells The Times. ”And it’s not even a verbal thing — it’s just known. You are gladiators; you are male; you kick butt.”
1994 Greg Louganis, a diver and four-time Olympic gold medalist, announces he is gay. “I was out to my friends and family,” he tells Outsports.com in July 2012. “It was just my policy not to discuss my sexuality to members of the media. I wanted my participation in the sport to be about the sport. I didn’t want it to be about being the ‘gay diver.’ ” Louganis’s best-selling 1995 memoir, “Breaking the Surface,” details his experiences coming out and being H.I.V.-positive.
1999 Billy Bean, a former major league baseball player, openly discusses his sexuality in a front-page article in The Times. He tells the reporter, ”I went to Hooters, laughed at the jokes, lied about dates because I loved baseball. I still do. I’d go back in a minute. I only wish I hadn’t felt so alone, that I could have told someone, and that I hadn’t always felt God was going to strike me dead.”
2002 Esera Tuaolo, a 300-pound, 6’3” nose guard who played in the N.F.L. for nearly a decade, comes out on HBO’s “Real Sports.” Speaking about his decision, he says, “I feel wonderful. I feel like a burden has been lifted. I feel like I’ve taken off the costume I’ve been wearing all my life.”
2005 Sheryl Swoopes, a Women’s National Basketball Association player and three-time M.V.P., says that she is gay. ”I was basically living a lie. For the last seven, eight years, I was waiting to exhale,” she later says in The Times. In 2011, Swoopes becomes engaged to marry a man.
Douglas C. Pizac/Associated PressJohn Amaechi2007 John Amaechi, a former N.B.A. player, reveals that he is gay in his memoir, “Man in the Middle.” He is the first former N.B.A. player to come out. Soon after, Tim Hardaway, a retired Miami Heat player, says on a radio show, “I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people.” He later apologizes for the remark, and Amaechi comments: “It is ridiculous, absurd, petty, bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far.”
2009 Sherri Murrell, the coach of Portland State University’s women’s basketball team, becomes the first publicly out female Division 1 basketball coach. In the summer of 2009, she agrees to have a family photograph appear on the college athletics Web site. The image of Murrell — with her female partner and their toddler twins — gains national attention. “There are a lot of coaches out there that want to do this,” Murrell later tells the Oregonian. “But they’re just so afraid. I think I can kind of help say, ‘Hey, I’m successful. It has not affected my program whatsoever.’”
2011 Johnny Weir, three-time national champion figure skater, confirms that he is gay in his memoir, “Welcome to My World.” Referring to his sexuality, Weir tells the “Today” show, “I think the best way I can be an activist is to live my life, and not make that the main thing that is Johnny Weir. I’m much more than just a gay man.”
2011 Rick Welts, president and chief executive of the Phoenix Suns, publicly comes out in The Times at age 58. “This is one of the last industries where the subject is off limits,” he tells the reporter Dan Barry. In September 2011, he announces he will leave his job to be with his new partner — but he did not have to leave the N.B.A. He is now president and Chief Operating Officer of the Golden State Warriors basketball team.
2011 Will Sheridan, who played Division 1 college basketball at Villanova University, publicly reveals that he was openly gay while on the team from 2003 to 2007— and his teammates didn’t have a problem with it. In anESPN.com profile he says, “Look at me. I’m black. I’m gay. I’m like a quadruple minority, and I feel like a little piece of me resides in everybody.”
2012 Wade Davis, a retired N.F.L. cornerback, publicly opens up about being gay. Davis now works with lesbian, gay and transgender youth in New York City. In an interview with Outsports.com, he says, “It’s the first job since football that I wake up excited for work.”
2012 Megan Rapinoe, a midfielder on the U.S. women’s soccer team,confirms in July in Out magazine that she is a lesbian. “In female sports, if you’re gay, most likely your team knows it pretty quickly,” she tells Out. “It’s very open and widely supported. For males, it’s not that way at all. It’s sad.” Soon after, during the 2012 London Olympics, Rapinoe and her teammates capture the gold medal.
Associated Press Article: Eighteen Year Old Gay Football Player Says He Got Kicked Off Team For Kissing His Sixty Five Year Old Boyfriend.
By James MacPherson, APJamie Kuntz, posing for a photograph Tuesday at a football field in Dickinson, N.D., says he was kicked off the North Dakota State College of Science football team because he was gay. School officials say he was dismissed from the team for lying to a coach.
By James MacPherson, AP
Jamie Kuntz, posing for a photograph Tuesday at a football field in Dickinson, N.D., says he was kicked off the North Dakota State College of Science football team because he was gay. School officials say he was dismissed from the team for lying to a coach.
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DICKINSON, N.D. (AP) — A concussion kept Jamie Kuntz from suiting up for his first college football game. A kiss from his much-older boyfriend at that game led the freshman linebacker to be kicked off the team, he said.
North Dakota State College of Sciences in Wahpeton acknowledges Kuntz was disciplined by the team, but says it wasn’t because he is gay. Football coach Chuck Parsons told Kuntz in a letter that he was removed from the team for lying about the kiss.
Kuntz, 18, and on a partial football scholarship, left the college in southeast North Dakota this month after his dismissal from the team.
“Football didn’t work out, so there was no reason to stay,” said Kuntz, who lives with his mother across the state in Dickinson.
Kuntz said he and his 65-year-old boyfriend were in the press box at the game against Snow College in Pueblo, Colo., over Labor Day weekend. Kuntz was videotaping the game for the team. His Wildcats were down by more than 40 points when “the kiss just happened,” he said. The team would eventually lose 63-17.
“People around here aren’t exposed to it,” Kuntz said of homosexuality. “People expect gays to be flamboyant, not football players.”
A teammate apparently saw the kiss and told coaches, Kuntz said. When Parsons confronted Kuntz on the bus ride back to North Dakota, Kuntz told him the man he kissed was his grandfather.
“I lied,” Kuntz said.
Later, he felt guilty about lying and came clean to his coach.
In a Sept. 3 dismissal letter obtained by the Associated Press, Parsons told Kuntz he was being ousted from the team under the “conduct deemed detrimental to the team” category outlined in guidelines in the team’s player’s manual. Parsons specifically noted the manual’s section on “lying to coaches, teachers or other school staff.”
“This decision was arrived at solely on the basis of your conduct during the football game; and because you chose not to be truthful with me when I confronted you about whom else was in the box with you,” Parsons wrote. “Any conduct by any member of the program that would cause such a distraction during a game would warrant the same consequences.”
Kuntz doesn’t believe he was dismissed simply for lying.
“I know if it was a girl in the press box, or even an older woman, nothing would have happened,” he said. “If it was an older woman, I would have probably been congratulated for it from my teammates.”
School officials told the AP that they were investigating whether this was the first such instance of someone being kicked off the football team for lying.
John Richman, North Dakota State College of Science president, said other players have been kicked off the team for various reasons, though he couldn’t say whether any before had been booted specifically for lying.
“I don’t know of every single case where coach Parsons has had to discipline a young man,” Richman said.
Other behavior that the player’s manual says could lead to dismissal includes criminal violations, fighting and repeated absences or tardiness to class. Richman said he believes Kuntz’s case was handled “fairly and consistently” by the athletic department.
“I’m very confident that with the information that’s been provided to me by our football coach, Chuck Parsons, by our athletic director, Stu Engen, that the thought process, the facts that were reviewed, have led them to an appropriate and the right decision in this case,” Richman said Tuesday in an interview at the college.
Parsons recently joined the school’s diversity council as a faculty representative, according to Sybil Priebe, an English and humanities professor who heads the council. Its programs include events for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Priebe said Tuesday she had not heard much about the incident with Kuntz.
Kuntz said he told his mother that he was gay at the same time he told her he was kicked off the team.
“I’m struggling with it,” said Rita Kuntz, choking back tears. “I love Jamie and I’m proud of him, but I know what the school did was wrong.”
Rita Kuntz said she has accepted that her son is gay, but she believes he was taken advantage of by his boyfriend, who is more than three times her son’s age.
Jamie Kuntz said he met the man online more than a year ago. Kuntz said the man, whom he would not identify, lives in Colorado and the two have met there a few times in recent months.
As far as his football career, Kuntz says he’s not giving up. He may pursue it as a walk-on at another university outside North Dakota.
“I miss it already,” he said.
Sad News: Gay Couple Christian & Syed Axed From British Soap Eastenders Leaving In November.
By SARAH FITZMAURICE
Their relationship caused controversy both on and off-screen but two of Walford’s biggest characters are set to leave the soap.
Christian and Syed, as played by Marc Elliott and John Partridge, are to leave EastEnders later this year, it has been revealed.
Marc,32, is said to have told bosses he wanted to leave the show in February, according to Digital Spy.
Bye Bye Walford: EastEnders has confirmed that they are writing out the characters of Christian and SyedIt has not be revealed how the characters will be written out of the soap
Speaking about the characters exit Lorraine Newman said: ‘Marc and John have been a fantastic part of EastEnders and the characters of Syed and Christian have been a huge success for the show. Their storylines have broken boundaries that have not been seen in a soap before and the love for them by the viewers can be seen in the ‘Chryed’ fans.’
‘When Marc announced he had decided to move on, we had a tough decision to make and after numerous conversations, which included John, it was decided that there is only one outcome for Syed and Christian. We wish them both all the best for the future.’
Speaking about the show, where he has been since 2009 Elliot said: ‘I have had a brilliant time on EastEnders over the last three and a half years and made some amazing friends. During this time, I have been blessed with some incredible storylines and am especially pleased that the show has tackled and raised awareness of the sensitive subject matter of being a gay muslim.’
Making history: EastEnders showed the first prime-time gay kiss in 1987 when Barry Clark and Colin Russell shared a smooch‘As an actor you are always looking for new challenges and I feel that now is the right time to move on and explore different projects, perhaps returning to my roots in theatre. I would like to thank everyone at EastEnders for the wonderful opportunity they have given me and for making this experience so much fun.’
Partridge added: ‘I have had the time of my life at EastEnders – but I have always gone with my gut – and leaving at the same time as Marc felt like the ONLY thing to do.
‘It is the right end to the story and for Christian. But also, excitingly, the start of a whole new chapter for me.’
Today John tweeted: ‘I am so very proud to have been a part of the show, I have LOVED it, but you have to know when to call time and it was time! #vivachyred’
When it was announced that Syed would share a kiss with Christian it caused controversy among some Muslin groups.
At the time Asghar Bokhari from the Muslim Public Affairs Committee said: ‘The Muslim community deserves a character that represents them to the wider public because Islamophobia is so great right now.
‘There’s a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public.’
EastEnders made history in 1987 when the show screened the first on-sir gay kiss on prime time TV between Barry Clark and Colin Russell.
Shocking News: Gay Couple Sue Airline For Removing A Dildo From Their Luggage Causing Emotional Distress.
A dream vacation turned into a nightmare for a Virginia-based gay couple after airport staff allegedly removed a dildo from their luggage, smeared foul-smelling lubricant on it and taped it to their top of one of their checked bags before placing it back on the baggage carousel.
The Bilerico Project’s Michael Hamarreports that the couple — who were returning from a vacation in Costa Rica to Norfolk at the time of the alleged May 2011 incident — are now suing United/Continental Airlines for “intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and negligence.”
The couple, identified by Courthouse News as Christopher Bridgeman and Martin Borger, are reportedly seeking punitive damages.
“Plaintiffs’ bags were sent to the baggage carousel where plaintiffs discovered, to their horror, that a private sex toy had been removed from one of their bags, covered in a greasy foul-smelling substance and taped prominently to the top of their bag,” the lawsuit states, according to Courthouse News. “Plaintiffs experienced extreme shock and horror when they observed the above-described bag and when observing the surprised and/or laughing faces of numerous onlookers in the baggage claim area.”
Borger, who said he was the first to spot the bag, told NBC News, “I was absolutely and utterly shocked and embarrassed and humiliated and I didn’t even know what to do at the time.”
Added Bridgeman: “I absolutely, fervently believe that this was intentional. It was very sick and it was very wrong and it was just maliciously taped to the top and targeted because we’re gay.”
The case mirrors that of Jill Filipovic, a writer (who has penned pieces for The Huffington Post among other media outlets) who found a handwritten note on a TSA form encouraging her to “Get [her] freak on girl” in her checked suitcase, which contained a $15 vibrator.
Still, Filipovic told Forbes that although she was “grossed out,” she found the situation “hilarious.”
“I’ve had that Missy Elliott song stuck in my head all day,” she told Wired.com.
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