Articles- Collected Articles For The Transgender Community

by Jos Truitt -Metroweekly July 7, 2010

As a transgender woman writing at Feministing.com, I regularly cover trans-related stories. I also critique the almost-always poor coverage from mainstream and even LGBT publications. Far too often these stories are about violence against trans folks and the failure of news sources to report accurately and respectfully. In these stories, trans folks — overwhelmingly trans women of color — are reduced to victims of violence or simply dead bodies. What’s missing are the stories of these people’s lives rather than of just their deaths.
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by Rex Wockner

Following a grueling last-minute push, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission won consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council on July 19.

After three years of opposition at the committee level, IGLHRC, with a strong assist from the U.S. government, managed to circumvent the obstructionist committee by moving the decision on its status directly to the full ECOSOC, where the vote was 23-13. There were 13 abstentions and five absences.

IGLHRC becomes the 10th LGBT organization to have successfully outgunned U.N. homophobes and achieved consultative status.

“Today’s decision is an affirmation that the voices of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have a place at the United Nations as a part of a vital civil society community,” Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC’s executive director, said in a statement hailing the vote.
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by Liz Highleyman of the BAR

More than 20,000 researchers, public health and policy experts, clinicians, activists, and world leaders gathered in Vienna, Austria, this week for the 18th International AIDS Conference, the world’s largest meeting devoted to the epidemic.

Human rights of people living with and at risk for HIV have been a key theme this year, along with the need for more funding to expand prevention and treatment.

Shrinking budgets

We are “nowhere near delivery” on the 2005 commitment by the G8 countries to adequately fund treatment by 2010, said conference co-chair and International AIDS Society President Julio Montaner.

The number of people with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) worldwide increased by 25 percent last year, to just over 5 million, but 10 million require treatment, according to the latest epidemiological figures.
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