June 2009

Pregnancy As a Sign of Intimate Partner Abuse

by Cara June 29, 2009

There is a truly excellent article by Lynn Harris up right now at Alternet called When Partner Abuse Isn’t a Bruise But a Pregnant Belly.  It’s about the way that intimate partner violence often takes the form of rape and other sexual coercion, and the dangerous implications of a failure to recognize as much. I [...]

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Russian Trans Woman Murdered By Her Boyfriend

by Cara June 26, 2009

Trigger Warning Via Womanist Musings, I’ve just learned the devastating news that yet another trans woman has been murdered in an apparent hate crime.  (Note: because of transphobia in the article, I am not quoting directly from it. Please read at your own discretion.) The woman’s name was Kamilla; the only English language report I’ve [...]

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Strip Club Hires Kidnapped and Assaulted 14-Year-Old Girl, Then Sues Her

by Cara June 24, 2009

This story comes straight out of the WTF files.  A 14-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped, sexually assaulted numerous times, and forced to perform at a strip club.  Everyone involved agrees that the girl, who again is 14, did indeed perform there.  There is absolutely no debate about that particular aspect at all, in fact.  And [...]

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64 Words for Aung San Suu Kyi

by Cara June 19, 2009

Aung San Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-democracy leader from Burma.  She is also currently a political prisoner.  For her political activities, she had been under house arrest for several years — until this May, when she was put into prison: She is currently facing trial in Burma. She was on [...]

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The Advocate Misgenders Trans Woman

by Cara June 18, 2009

It’s pretty well known that the Advocate, while billing itself as an LGBT news publication, doesn’t exactly give trans issues a whole lot of coverage at all.  But taking a look at this latest move, one almost has to wonder whether silence is preferable. A man and woman named Jason Stenson and Kimah Nelson got [...]

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UK Officials Assigned to Fight Rape Actually Promote Rape Myths

by Cara June 17, 2009

It’s no big secret that the rape conviction rate in the UK is utterly and depressingly low.  And that unfortunately is something that will not be fixed over night. But, while I would never be so foolish as to become optimistic, I was indeed hopeful when I learned that the Home Office was working on [...]

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Man With Mental Disability Sentenced to 100 Years for Sexual Assault

by Cara June 15, 2009

Recently, an 18-year-old man was convicted of sexually assaulting a six-year-old boy. Terrible story, surely, but one that is unfortunately not particularly unusual.  That is, until you hear that the perpetrator has a mental disability.  And that he received a 100 year sentence. Attorneys and advocates are questioning why an 18-year-old East Texan with profound [...]

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Police Arrest Rape Traffickers, Then Book Trafficked Women on Drug Charges

by Cara June 13, 2009

A reader sent me this disgusting little story about a father and son who were running some sort of rape trade business together.  The two men were roping women into working for them by saying they’d be providing massages, and then held the women captive so that they could sell the right to rape them [...]

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UK Survey on Intimate Partner Violence in Trans Communities

by Cara June 12, 2009

Spectrum London, a UK peer support group for trans people, recently put out this press release: Domestic Violence and abuse is in the limelight more than ever before. The levels of abuse to heterosexual women are 1 in 4 – the same figure experienced by LGBT people. “Domestic violence is still invisible in our communities,” [...]

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Late Abortion Care Will Return to Kansas

by Cara June 11, 2009

When I learned the other day that Dr. Tiller’s clinic Women’s Health Care Services would not reopen with new providers, I found the news extremely depressing and lamented the significantly reduced access to much-needed, and sometimes life-saving, abortion care. Now, against the odds, it turns out that another brave abortion provider is stepping in to [...]

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