Until There's A Cure

Until There's A Cure® is a national organization dedicated to eradicating HIV/AIDS by raising awareness and funds to combat this pandemic. If you wish to contribute to our cause or would like to purchase products from us please visit www.until.org. Join...

[projectqueer]

LGBT Directors Challenge Themselves (and Hollywood) to Do Better

Boys Don't Cry's Kimberly Peirce, The Intervention's Clea DuVall, and other Outfest filmmakers call for more diversity and intersectionality in LGBT storytelling.

When director Kimberly Peirce was preparing to walk the Academy Awards red carpet in 2000, her most immediate fear was not whether the nominated stars of her film Boys Don’t Cry, Hillary Swank and Chloë Sevigny, would walk away with Oscars gold. It was her outfit. The self-described “old-school butch” had been given “nothing but dresses and gowns” to choose from by the designers who offered to clothe her for the occasion. “Butches that I know don’t wear heels,” she told the audience at the 2013 Outfest Film Festival, where she was being honored. “And we sure as hell don’t wear open-toed shoes.”

CLICK THE HEADER LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

[glsen]

What It Means To Identify As Non-Binary

"I’m very adamant about making sure people understand that I am somewhere on the spectrum, but I’m not a man and I’m not a woman.”

We support all forms of gender expression!

[glsen]

The U.N. Votes To Create Its First LGBT Rights Watchdog

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted Thursday to create the institution’s first LGBT rights watchdog. The resolution passed in a vote of 23 to 18, with six abstentions.

The person appointed to this role will be known as an “independent expert” and the position is charged with monitoring “violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

This was the most ambitious effort yet to advance LGBT rights within the U.N. system, and the resolution included the strongest language to date suggesting LGBT rights should be a concern of international human rights law.

H/T: BuzzFeed

[projectqueer]

Cleveland Officials Vote Unanimously to Extend Protections to the Transgender Community

Cleveland City Council passed Ordinance 1446—a measure that removes discriminatory language in Cleveland’s code that allowed employers to tell transgender employees and business owners to tell patrons which restrooms they could or could not use.

[projectqueer]

Trans people attack UK government's trans 'equality' report

'Trans people deserve action, not more words.'

Many trans people have reacted in anger to the UK government’s trans equality report released today (7 July). The new package, which includes a review of the Gender Recognition Act, says very little of note.

Nicky Morgan, the Women and Equalities Minister, said she was ‘proud’ to reveal the report that includes more calls for review, and to collect more evidence, in the way gender identity services are provided to the public. The Government said it will look for ‘better ways to collect information about transgender people, including a study to measure the size of the UK’s transgender population’.

The British Social Attitudes Survey will also look at opinions about trans people for the first time.

Morgan said: ‘No-one should have to face discrimination or live in fear because of who they are. We must set the pace on this agenda and lead the way in better understanding and supporting our trans people. 

CLICK THE HEADER LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

[projectqueer]

We Now Know What It Will Take to Cure HIV

The director of research at amfAR tells us what her organization is doing to ensure AIDS is eradicated.

A cure for HIV, long thought impossible, is now well within the mainstream of current research efforts. The case of the Berlin patient, cured in 2007, sparked a sea change in the field, providing proof that a cure was possible. However, research funding dedicated to finding a cure has been slow to catch up. While investments in cure research rose by 82 percent between 2012 and 2014, from $88.1 million to $160.8 million, this represents only a fraction of what is needed to address the enormously complex and unprecedented challenge of curing HIV.

Recognizing the urgent need to close this funding gap and build on our growing understanding of the last remaining barriers to a cure, amfAR launched the Countdown to a Cure in 2014. This ambitious initiative is aimed at developing the scientific basis of a cure for HIV by the end of 2020. We have committed to investing $100 million in innovative, cure-focused research studies that will revolutionize the field and help us make history by ending one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known.

CLICK THE HEADER LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

[untiltheresacure]

The federal agency that provides health care to Native Americans will award up to $1 million in grants to tribes and organizations across the country in an effort to improve HIV prevention and care outcomes among tribal populations.

[untiltheresacure]

Duathlete Chris Mosier, the first known out transgender athlete to qualify for a U.S. national team, talks about becoming comfortable with his body and breaking down barriers.

Stephanie the Intern: Absolutely love this piece!

[untiltheresacure]

240,000 children became infected with HIV in 2013, the majority of which were from mother-to-child during pregnancy or breastfeeding.

[untiltheresacure]

For San Francisco’s AIDS network, survival and evolution

[pozmagazine]

TOMS Pairs With Keith Haring Foundation

The retailer offers a line of shoes and eyewear featuring the pop artist’s work.

[pozmagazine]

HIV by the Numbers

A quick reference sheet for reporting on the epidemic.

Worldwide:

36.9 million* people are living with HIV

15.8 million* people are on HIV treatment

2 million* people are newly infected with HIV annually

1.2 million* AIDS-related deaths occur annually

United States:

1.2 million* people living with HIV

50,000* HIV transmissions annually

1 million* infants born without HIV since 2003

Treatment:

20 years since triple-combo ARV cocktails debuted

29 approved individual antiretroviral (ARV) agents

6 approved single-tablet, once-a-day ARV regimens

2 approved ARV boosters

[projectqueer]

The Estimated Population Of Transgender People In The U.S. Has Doubled To 1.4 Million

The new figures were released Thursday by the Williams Institute, the country’s leading researcher on LGBT demographics.

Roughly 1.4 million adults who live in the United States are transgender, according anew report released Thursday by the country’s leading researcher on LGBT demographics. The figure doubles previous population estimates released in 2011 by the Williams Institute, a division of the UCLA School of Law. The revision, based on new federal data, comes amid an escalating national debate over transgender rights in which conservatives have often downplayed the need for nondiscrimination laws by citing the relatively low number of transgender people.

The report, titled “How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in the United States,”states that transgender people make up 0.6% of the country’s total population. That population is equivalent to that of a metropolis.

The report finds that the number of adults who identify as transgender range from state to state — with the lowest estimates in North Dakota and Iowa, at 0.3%, and the highest in Hawaii and California, at 0.8% of the population.

CLICK THE HEADER LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

[lgbtqarchives]

Join us at the Center on Halsted (7/15) and the Chicago History Museum (7/16).

Additional information available here.

[projectqueer]

ELLE magazine features three LGBT+ stars on its September covers

For its September issue, ELLE UK is to feature three LGBT+ icons on its covers.

[pozmagazine]

Lawsuit: Iraq War Vet With HIV Was Not Allowed in Aquatic Therapy Pool

AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania filed the discrimination case.

Can’t believe we have to do this, but QUICK REMINDER: you definitely cannot get HIV from a swimming pool. 

[npr]

What is a queer kitchen? Is there a recognizable queer style or sensibility that can be expressed through food?

These questions and more were at the heart of a recent conversation hosted at the Williams Sonoma flagship store in San Francisco’s Union Square during the city’s Pride Weekend. The gathering was organized by the New York-based gay men’s food magazine, Jarry, a twice-yearly print publication launched last fall.

Writer and former chef John Birdsall firmly believes there is a queer aesthetic in modern food culture, rooted in the work of three great American food writers: James Beard, the longtime New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne, and expat Richard Olney, whose cookbooks helped introduce Americans to the joys of French cuisine. The sensibilities of this trifecta of closeted gay men had far-reaching influence, changing the way Americans cooked and ate. As Birdsall has written, “It’s food that takes pleasure seriously, as an end in itself, an assertion of politics or a human birthright, the product of culture — this is the legacy of gay food writers who shaped modern American food.”

In The Queer Kitchen: ‘Food That Takes Pleasure Seriously’

Photo: Stephanie Rosenbaum Klassen for KQED