• ELIXHER
• On October 18, 2013

Commentary: Why Spirit Day Matters to Black LGBT Youth

Do you know what Spirit Day is? Started by Brittany McMillan as a response to the young people who had taken their own lives and adopted by Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), this day celebrates gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and takes a stand against LGBT bullying in schools. By wearing lavender — albeit your shirt, tie, shoelaces, etc. — you make it clear that you have zero for intolerance and harassment… No, our kids are not all right and we can longer ignore this problem.

More over at BET.com.

Unsolved Black LGBT Murders: Where’s the Outrage?

Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are more than just statistics. How can we ignore the fact that, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 2012 had the fourth highest rate of murders of LGBT people in history, and of all these victims, 73 percent were LGBT people of color, with black transgender women accounting for the highest number of the homicides? Where is the outrage, not just from the mainstream media but within our own community? In this new episode of NoMoreDownLow.TV, we wanted to shed some light on these victims, who cannot be forgotten, and hopefully incite some outrage.

Via Huffington Post.

Zanele Muholi Captures The Faces Of Black LGBTI Communities In South Africa

Zanele Muholi is a photographer and visual activist who hails from South Africa. Combining her passion for art and her commitment to addressing social injustice, she tackles the subject of LGBTI rights across the world, focusing primarily on her home country in order to redefine the stereotypes associated with gender and sexuality.

Muholi’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. The artist was recently honored by Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art as the 2013 winner of the Carnegie International Fine Prize. The organization praised her series “Faces and Phases” in particular, a project that transforms portraiture into a campaign aimed at combatting discrimination and violence against LGBTI communities.

Continue reading on Huffington Post.

New Report: Estimated 1 Million African-American Adults in the U.S. Identify as LGBT

An estimated 1,018,700 (3.7 percent) of African-American adults consider themselves lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) and 34 percent of African-American same-sex couples are raising children, according to a new report released by UCLA Williams Institute Scholars Angeliki Kastanis, Public Policy Research Fellow, and Gary J. Gates, Distinguished Scholar. The study, “LGBT African-American Individuals and African-American Same-Sex Couples,” includes socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of African-American LGBT individuals and African-American same-sex couples in the U.S.

Read the findings here.

De-Tangling Racism: On White Women and Black Hair

The question for us is whether these attempts to subvert and reframe the white corporate gaze and the black male street gaze (not that these are equivalent, mind you) on our terms is powerful at any level? Even if these kinds of strategies don’t undo structural racism, do they potentially improve the quality of life in our immediate environs – the places where we work, the places where we live and shop? Do these incremental goals matter in the fight against racism?

Read more at Crunk Feminist Collective.