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On Physical and Physical Violence: Race and Gender in the LGBT Community

Two horrific, excessively violent events in the last month have left communities in the Bay Area reeling: four young men gang raped a lesbian in Richmond, CA and now former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot an African-American passenger who was laying prone on his stomach. I am particularly interested in these events as I wrote my dissertation on violence and gendered/racial trauma. My research, and own personal experiences, have lead me to conclude that such public acts of violence deeply affect the psyches of members of communities/groups who identify with the recipients of such violence.
But in truth, it is a recent debate on a local lesbian listerserv, of which I am a member, that has compelled me to address these two acts of violence in relation to each other. Recently on the listerv, one member commented that she was surprised and disappointed that, after weeks of dozens of messages each day about Proposition 8 during the election season, there had been so few comments on the list about Mehserle shooting of unarmed Oakland resident Oscar Grant. Shortly thereafter, another member posted that the police shooting "isn’t LGBT related at all."
I am not posting this to call out a particular individual, who, in all fairness, was in no way implying that the shooting is insignificant in the context of her post. Rather, I want to take this as an opportunity to begin a series ...

The Pope Declares that Humanity Must Be Saved from Gender Theory and Theorists

Does Rick Warren have more influence than the Pope?

While stories of protests from liberals and LGBT groups have been making headlines here, comments today by Pope Benedict XVI (aka Joseph Ratzinger) have been somewhat inconsistently reported in the US media.

In a speech yesterday given to Catholic dignitaries who have gathered in Rome to celebrate Christmas (click here for an English translation and here for the relevant passage), Ratzinger focused on a theme of reasserting the story of creation as a "central part of the Christian creed." He emphasized two points: God’s creation of the earth and man (in particular, man and woman as distinct sexes). He called heterosexual marriage a "sacrament of creation." And Ratzinger ...

Does Rick Warren have more influence than the Pope?

While stories of protests from liberals and LGBT groups have been making headlines here, comments today by Pope Benedict XVI (aka Joseph Ratzinger) have been somewhat inconsistently reported ...