News: Satanic Panic, Using ‘Sugar Daddies,’ Transgender Children, Bacteria Lurk in doctors’, nurses’ Nniforms

Sex For Tuition: Gay Male College Students Using ‘Sugar Daddies’ To Pay Off Loan Debt

NEW YORK — Three years ago, during his junior year at New York University, Kirk met with a financial aid officer to plead a familiar case: his inability to manage the yearly payments on his $50,000 tuition bill. Once again, the school official reminded Kirk that in order to register for next semester’s courses, he needed to come up with another $8,000 — or risk expulsion. Kirk nearly divulged his secret to the loan officer, finally letting her know exactly what he had resorted to in a desperate attempt to finance his education. Midway through college, Kirk had begun turning tricks in order to pay for school.

Op-ed: The Culture of Satanic Panic

The superstition that helped convict three innocent men in West Memphis is the same concept still used against LGBT people — a phenomenon called Satanic panic. I’m not sure what it was that brought the name into my head. Maybe it was God. Maybe it was one of my synapses misfiring. For some reason, Rebecca Brown popped into my head not long ago. Brown wrote two books, He Came to Set the Captives Free and Prepare for War.  My mother insisted that I read both when I was in junior high school. The books told the story of Brown and her “associate,” Elaine, and their self-described journey through Satanism.

Five Things ‘Nightline’ Could Have Done Better In Its Special On Transgender Children

Last night, ABC’s Primetime Nightline ran an hour-long special on transgender identities, focusing in particular on the experiences of transgender young people. Overall, the special was positive and affirming, but it also fell into some journalistic traps and missed some important opportunities to highlight challenges the transgender community faces. Here are five critiques of last night’s special. 1. FALSE BALANCE: One of the five segments focused on an adult individual named Charles Kane, who transitioned to female and then back to male. Claiming that he regrets his transition, he had disparaging things to say about the transgender experience, including calling puberty blockers for young trans people “brainwashing.” His experiences are unfortunate, but not representative, and he has absolutely no expertise in transgender health to be critiquing other people’s transitions. His inclusion was unnecessary, irrelevant, and represented false balance .

Santorum Says Criticism Of His Views On Homosexuality Is ‘An Act Of Bigotry’

In an interview that aired on CNN last night, Piers Morgan pressed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on his views opposing marriage equality, including his suggestion of agay “jihad” against him. Santorum tried to avoid answering whether he believes homosexuality is a sin, but confirmed that as a Catholic, he subscribes to the Catholic Church’s teachings that indeed it is a sin. Asked how he would respond if one of his sons came out, Santorum said he would be supportive of what he sees as a “very difficult and troubling time in their life,” going on to say he “knows a lot of gay people” and some of them continue to “struggle” even after coming out and “admitting” their identities.

SF CA: Lyon-Martin Health Services no taking trans patients

Lyon-Martin Health Services, the pioneering San Francisco clinic that has served women and transgender people for more than 30 years, will start accepting new patients today – eight months after it nearly closed due to financial problems. The clinic’s board of directors voted in late January to shut down the health center, but Lyon-Martin’s patients and supporters decided to put up a fight. They raised more than $500,000 within a matter of months while the clinic’s staff worked internally to stabilize operations, cut expenses and find additional revenue sources for the Market Street clinic.

 Arizona Mother, Blew Marijuana Smoke In Her Baby’s Mouth To Calm Her Down, Police Say

A 21-year-old mother was arrested by Gilbert, Az., Police on Saturday after she allegedly tried to calm her infant daughter by blowing marijuana smoke in the girl’s mouth. Witness footage allegedly shows Jessica Callaway on Friday telling her 10-month-old to, “shut the f*** up before I kick you in the mouth,” as she repeatedly hits the baby to get her to stop crying, The Arizona Republic reported. Callaway, whose Facebook page is “loaded with postings about pot and parties,” according to ABC-15, told police that she was frustrated because she was “having trouble finding an outfit to wear out that night.”

Harmful bacteria could lurk in doctors’, nurses’ uniforms, study says

Think your doctor’s white coat is as clean as a whistle? It might not be. A study finds that dangerous germs could be lurking onnurses‘ and doctors’ uniforms. Researchers from Shaare Zedek Medical Centerin Jerusalem cultured three spots on the uniforms of 75 nurses and 60 physicians working in a 550-bed hospital. Potential pathogens (also known as infectious agents, or germs) were found on 63% of the uniforms, and antibiotic resistant bacteria were found on samples from 14% of nurses’ uniforms and 6% of doctor’s uniforms. Eight of those cultures grew methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA.

Cliff Notes on the Meaning of Transgendered

The headlines are dominated by stories of transgendered folks lately. The bad news is that it is usually the result of an attack or discrimination.  Now is the time, I feel, with so much attention on the issue, for a whole migration of transgendered folks to come out of the close. Strength in numbers and visibility is what breaks down walls. Having the word trans rolling off the tongues of ignorant haters will eventually become an acquired taste to them, and through exposure to “real life” transgendered folks will put hate in the closet , where it belongs. NO MORE VIOLENCE!

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Corvino: The meaning of transgender

via By John Corvino, columnist, 365gay.com

A friend recently asked, “Do you ever have doubts about the whole transgender thing?”

My friend has a habit of referring to anything she hasn’t wrapped her mind around as a “thing,” which has the unfortunate effect of making whatever it is sound like a trend or fad. (As in, “What do you think of the whole ‘skinny jeans’ thing?”)

At first I was tempted to respond, “I’m a philosophy professor. I have doubts about everything.” But knowing my friend, I recognized that she meant the question sincerely. I thought she deserved a serious response.

Here’s my take on “the transgender thing”: I don’t have “doubts,” but I do have a question. It’s a question that others might share, and that some might misinterpret as a doubt.

First, some preliminaries.

Generally speaking, I think it’s good policy (not to mention good manners) to treat individual adults as the experts on their own lives. As a gay man, I don’t like it when opponents of homosexuality tell me what I “really” am deep down, and I wouldn’t presume to tell others—including transgender people—what they really are deep down. That’s for them to determine, perhaps in dialogue with significant others, friends, or professionals.

I don’t have many transgender friends, although two of my closest lesbian-identified friends are married to trans men. (Lesbians married to men? There’s a reason Facebook invented “It’s complicated.”) Having spent time with these guys, I have no more doubt about their maleness than I do about my own. It strikes me as “natural,” to use a loaded but appropriate term. READ MORE