by Mira Oberman
Associated Press via EDGE Boston

A rendering of a cell infected with the HIV virus. Scientists announced they have discovered a way to remove the virus from infected cells. (Source:Nihal ElRayess)

In a breakthrough that could potentially lead to a cure for HIV infection, scientists have discovered a way to remove the virus from infected cells, a study released Thursday said.

The scientists engineered an enzyme which attacks the DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell, according to the study published in Science magazine…

Women, transgender women such as Ashley, Linda, Anna, Yolanda and Ophelia, are incarcerated in men’s prisons across the U.S. from Wyoming to New Jersey and Florida. Denied medical and psychological treatment, victims of rape and violence, the documentary Cruel and Unusual asks if the punishment for their crime is indeed cruel and unusual?

Making its major festival premier at South by Southwest, Cruel and Unusual (2006, 66 minutes) is an unflinching documentary on the lives of transgender women in men’s prisons. Shot over three years, this high-definition documentary film challenges the viewer’s basic ideas about gender and justice through braids of poignantly graphic stories, vibrant landscape portraits and stark prison footage.

Prisons decide where to place inmates based on their genitalia, not their gender identity. Ophelia, who has lived in the prison of a man’s body for all of her 46 years, now resides in a correctional facility in Virginia, having been sentenced to 67 years for bank robbery with an unloaded gun. Denied female hormone treatment, Ophelia felt she had no choice but to mutilate her genitals to force the system “to finish what she started.”

Anna Connelly had been living successfully as a woman, raising her son, and working towards sexual reassignment surgery. She was on hormone therapy through a doctor for five years before she was incarcerated. Anna was refused treatment and put in solitary confinement which caused her to attempt suicide.

Once an individual begins estrogen treatment, their body stops hormone production altogether, which is akin to denying a woman hormones after a hysterectomy. Coupled with the psychological effects of returning facial hair and losing breasts, transsexuality in prison becomes an untenable situation amidst the general terror of prison. Explained Ashley, an inmate in the Tucker Unit, Arkansas Department of Corrections, “A lot of times I wake up, and I look around at my surroundings and I see all these men. I think, what am I doing here?” Learn more about the film here.

via DallasNews Religion

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has released what it calls the first comprehensive analysis of where the presidential candidates stand “on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.”

You can download the 35-page report here.

On the second page is a checklist showing where the Democratic and Republican candidates stand on eight issues of key interest to the task force. Across the board, the Democrats fare much better, in the eyes of the group.

One Democrat, Dennis Kucinich, got a perfect eight out of eight on the issues. Other Democrats, including front-runners Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Omaba, got seven out of eight…

Photo: Timothy Ivy/NYTIMES

BREAKING NEWS: Newark Schools Superintendent Marion Bolden today attended the final graduation rehearsal at East Side High School in Newark and publicly apologized to graduating senior Andre Jackson in front of the entire graduating class of hundreds of seniors.

“And in a phone call we had with Superintendent Bolden moments ago, she agreed to meet on a regular basis, at least four times a year, with a Task Force on LGBTI Diversity and Sensitivity in the Newark Schools that Garden State Equality is forming with leaders of Newark’s LGBTI community. In the call, Bolden called this yearbook episode “my lowest moment since I’ve been Superintendent.”

Yesterday, as you’ll recall, Superintendent Bolden had issued a written statement of apology to Jackson, which he and Garden State Equality deemed insufficient, for crossing out a photo of him and his boyfriend kissing in the school yearbook. Today Superintendent Bolden did the right thing.

More about our phone conversation today with with Superintendent Bolden: She called us. She was humble and remorseful in the conversation. When we asked her to meet on a regular basis, at least four times a year, with a Task Force on LGBTI Diversity and Sensitivity in Newark Schools that Garden State Equality is forming with leaders of Newark’s LGBTI community, she immediately agreed.

In the call, Ms. Bolden called this episode “my lowest moment since I’ve been Superintendent.” She unequivocally said that allowing the photo of Andre and his boyfriend to be crossed out was homophobic on her part. She volunteered the word “homophobic.” She apologized for being insensitive to the LGBTI community and asked Garden State Equality to extend that apology to the entire community.

The conclusion of this very unfortunate episode of anti-LGBTI discrimination is that Superintendent Bolden and the Newark School District have agreed to every Garden State Equality request.

1. The Superintendent has now apologized to Andre Jackson publicly.

2. The District is redistributing yearbooks, with the photo of Andre and his boyfriend not redacted, free of charge.

3. The Superintendent will personally meet on a regular basis, at least four times a year, with the Task Force on LGBTI Diversity and Sensitivity in Newark Schools that Garden State Equality is forming with leaders of Newark’s LGBTI community.

We at Garden State Equality now believe something good may emerge from this tragic instance of homophobia: A Newark school system respectful of every student regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and every other factor that makes Newark and all New Jersey a gorgeous mosaic of diversity.

Most of all, Garden State Equality thanks the more than 3,000 people from across the state and nation who wrote letters of protest to Superintendent Bolden since last Friday night. This victory for justice is yours — God bless you all.”

Steven Goldstein, Chair
Garden State Equality
from a membership e-mail blast.

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2007 at 2:00 PM, press contact Steven Goldstein, chair, Garden State Equality–

In response to an intense 72-hour campaign by Garden State Equality that generated more than 2,500 outraged letters from across New Jersey and the entire nation, Newark Schools Superintendent Marion Bolden has formally apologized to graduating senior Andre Jackson for manually crossing out a photo of Mr. Jackson and his boyfriend in hundreds of East Side High School yearbooks.

A message from Garden State Equality Moments Ago.

“Garden State Equality members, in just the last 48 hours, nearly 2,000 of you have emailed the Newark schools superintendent to express your outrage at the school district’s taking magic markers to cover up a yearbook photo of graduating senior Andre Jackson kissing his boyfriend.

We have been in touch with Andre throughout the weekend, and moments ago this Monday morning.

Andre has asked us to convey his deepest thanks to each and every one of you. He told us that the support of the LGBTI community and our allies, which he read about in the weekend papers, means more to him than anything.

In our all years of activism, rarely have we met a young person as brave as Andre. This morning, he told us that he stands with Garden State Equality 100 percent in what we’re asking the school district: Namely that Newark Schools Superintendent Marion Bolden must apologize.

Andre, like the rest of us, read in this weekend’s papers that that Superintendent Bolden would be willing to apologize to him if they were to meet. This morning, he told us that he will insist her apology to him be public, just like the school district’s hurtful action — defacing the photo of him and his boyfriend and distributing it to hundreds of students — was public.

Andre also wants the Superintendent to apologize to the LGBTI community.

He suggests that if the school district won’t reprint and redistribute the yearbooks because of the expense, it should copy the page with the photo and make it available for free. We told Andre that if the school district balks at even this expense, Garden State Equality would pick up the tab to copy the page.

Finally, Andre came up with the best idea: He wants to team up with Garden State Equality and Newark LGBTI community leaders to form a committee on LGBTI diversity and sensitivity in the Newark schools — and he wants the Superindendent to meet with this committee four times a year.

If you have not yet emailed Garden State Equality’s pre-written letter to Superintendent Bolden, click on http://eqfed.org/campaign/YearbookPhoto. It will take only 30 seconds of your time.

Garden State Equality strongly believes that the school district’s excising the photo from the yearbook is not only homophobic, but also illegal.

(a) New Jersey bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression;

(b) New Jersey’s courts have ruled that schools hold the same responsibility not to discriminate and harrass that employers do;

(c) In New Jersey, same-sex relationships are not only legal, but they also qualify for government benefits when a couple enters a civil union.

Thanks from all of us at Garden State Equality. We appreciate all you do — and most of all, so does Andre Jackson.”

from Sunday’s New York Times

Photo: Timothy Ivy for the New York Times
Andre Jackson, an East Side High senior, is upset that a picture of him kissing his boyfriend was blacked out of the school yearbooks.

NEWARK, June 23 — It started with a kiss.

A black-marker splotch covered the photo, above, in students’ yearbooks.

Andre Jackson, a senior at East Side High School, leaned over his boyfriend’s shoulder one day several months ago and kissed him on the lips. He took a picture of the smooch with his digital camera.

Like other students, Mr. Jackson later paid $150 to have his own special page of photos in the school yearbook. He decided to include the picture of the kiss, to make not a political statement, but a personal one.

“I didn’t intend to say, ‘Oh hey, look at me, I’m gay,’ ” said Mr. Jackson, 18. “It was just a picture showing my emotion, saying that I’m happy, you know, whatever. It was to look back on as a memory.”

On Thursday evening, when the seniors gathered at a restaurant here for the Senior Banquet, students received the yearbooks they had bought for around $85. But the picture of Mr. Jackson kissing his boyfriend was gone. School officials had blacked it out. Roughly 250 yearbooks were distributed, and all of them had a black-marker splotch covering every inch of the photo.

“I was upset,” Mr. Jackson said. “I was hurt. I felt embarrassed and abused.”