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Astraea Grantee Partner J-Flag Featured in Essence

Astraea grantee partner, J-FLAG, was featured in an Essence article exposing the dangers faced by LGBTI people in Jamaica. The only political and legal advocacy group working for lesbian, all-sexual, and gay human rights in Jamaica, J-Flag is a literal lifeline, providing counseling services, community building, and legal advocacy.

Gays and Lesbians Recount Stories of Brazen Attacks

By Jeannine Amber for Essence

Gareth Henry is haunted by a memory. When he tells the story, his voice starts to crack. It was a sunny day, June 18, 2004, and Henry, a slightly built man with a round, boyish face and quick smile was relaxing on the beach in Montego Bay, Jamaica, with a few friends. From where he sat, he could see three police officers approach another friend, Victor Jarrett, who was farther down the beach. Henry vividly remembers one of the officers pushing Jarrett, 24, while another yelled at him that no battymen (local patois for faggot) belonged on the beach. Henry winced as the officers began to beat Jarrett with their batons and fists. A crowd quickly formed around the spectacle.

“I will never forget it,” Henry, 31, says, speaking in the vaguely British lilt of a well-educated Jamaican. “There were about 100 people and they were saying to the officers, ‘Hand him over; let us finish him.’ “According to Henry and several eyewitnesses who would later report the incident to the international rights organization Human Rights Watch, the police walked away from Jarrett, leaving him to the angry mob. “Beat him because him a battyman!” said one of the officers. Men picked up sticks and stones and started pummeling Jarrett. Others kicked and punched him. Henry stood by, horrified. He wanted nothing more than to help his friend, but he knew that if he intervened he would become the mob’s next target. “Victor saw us on the beach, but he didn’t call to us,” says Henry, his voice unsteady. “He’d rather suffer the hurt and humiliation alone than have all of us be victims.”

Suddenly Jarrett broke free of the crowd and started to run, the mob fast on his heels. Henry prayed that Jarrett would somehow make it to safety. But the next day the newspaper reported: “Alleged gay man chopped, stabbed and stoned to death.” The article (shown on opposite page) went on to claim that Jarrett had “molested” a young man. Henry, who is also gay, cried when he read the news. “Victor wasn’t doing anything but walking on the beach,” he says. “People make up stories to justify their attacks.” Henry mourned the death of his friend and cursed the hatred that had killed him. What he didn’t know was that he himself would soon be the target of another vicious mob.

Chased, Beaten, Shot, Killed

To many Americans, the island of Jamaica, with its miles of white-sand beaches and famously laid-back attitude, is a vacationer’s paradise. But for those who live here, it is a much different place, plagued by economic hardships and one of the highest homicide rates in the Northern Hemisphere. While much of the violence is gang-related, there have been reports of horrific acts targeted specifically at the country’s gay and lesbian population. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published detailed accounts of machete-wielding mobs that have broken into private residences attacking men believed to be gay, and lesbians who have been raped by neighbors determined to “cure” them.

Both organizations note that in many instances the police have either failed to respond to calls for help by gay men or have participated in the attacks they were summoned to break up. Rebecca Schleifer, author of Human Rights Watch’s 2004 report, Hated to Death: Homophobia, Violence and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic, observes that “perpetrators of violence against gay men and lesbians are rarely arrested and prosecuted, making it even less likely that people will report the attacks.” Even children are not spared the abuse: In one of the more shocking examples cited by Amnesty International, in February 2004, an eleventh-grader at a Kingston high school was assaulted when his father, suspecting his child was gay after finding a picture of a nude man in the boy’s backpack, summoned other students to beat him.

The island’s gay rights organization, Jamaica’s Forum for Lesbians All-sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), notes that between 2006 and 2008 more than 150 homophobic assaults and murders were reported to the agency. Gay men and lesbians have been chased, chopped, beaten, raped and shot. But despite the gruesome nature of the attacks, many Jamaicans, including those in politics and law enforcement, insist that the situation is simply not as bad as the activists and foreign media make out.

Read more about J-Flag

Astraea Grantee Partners Helem and Meem Protest Violence in Lebanon

Astraea Grantee Partners Helem and Meem, in collaboration with Lebanese Human Rights organizations, staged a protest in opposition to the violence in the Lebanese society targeting LGBTI people, women, children, domestic and foreign workers and others.

Meem creates a safe space in Lebanon for LBTQ women to meet, discuss issues, share experiences and work on improving their lives and themselves. Meem recently opened the first house for LBTQ women in Beirut, conducts research and trainings, provides free mental health and legal services, and publishes the only lesbian magazine in Lebanon.

Helem leads a peaceful struggle for the liberation of the LGBT community in Lebanon from all legal, social and cultural discrimination. The organization holds social and cultural events, works on HIV/AIDS related issues, and collaborates with other human rights organizations to advocate for prosecuted LGBT people and the advancement of human rights and personal freedoms in Lebanon.

Watch New Coverage of the Protest

Out in force: Gay rights activists denounce violence and stand up for sexual diversity

By Alexandra Sandels for NOW

Hundreds of people armed with rainbow flags and signs denouncing violence and discrimination against homosexuals and other minority groups in Lebanon gathered at Beirut’’s Sodeco square amid pouring rain on Sunday afternoon for a demonstration.

The event, the first of its kind in the Arab world according to the organizers, was staged by the Beirut-based Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer (LGBTIQ) support organization Helem, and also featured representatives from Lebanese rights groups Kafa, KAFA, TYMAT and SIDC.

Twenty-six year old Maya, holding a sign reading, “Feminists Against Violence” told NOW Lebanon she had come to the demonstration to give a “statement.”

“”I want to say that I denounce violence on all levels, against homosexuals and disadvantaged groups in my country,”” she said.

Next to Maya stood a protestor waving a sign in front of curious photographers saying, “”I don’t believe in a country where it’’s more acceptable for two men to hold guns than two men to hold hands.””

The demonstration was a direct response to a recent incident of anti-gay violence in Achrafieh, in which two men allegedly engaging in sexual conduct in the entrance of a building were dragged out onto nearby Sassine Square and severely beaten.

Conflicting reports have, however, marred the incident.

An initial report by the French-language daily L’Orient Le Jour had it that the beating was carried out by security personnel, while others, including Helem, say the men were assaulted by civilians.

“I mainly came to protest what happened at Sassine,” 23 year-old Sara told NOW, adding, “I’’m happy with today’s turnout of people.”

“”The beatings were inhuman. Where were the police to protect them at the time?”” another demonstrator asked.

While advocacy for Lebanon’’s LGBTIQ community appeared to be the main banner of the demonstration, many came out to show their support for other minority groups such as foreign domestic workers, and to protest against domestic violence.

“I came to protest domestic violence against women. My neighbor gets beaten by her husband. We hear it all the time. It’’s awful,” a 20 year-old who did not want her name to be printed told NOW.

In the middle of the demonstration a woman in her 50s walking by asked one of the participants what the crowd was protesting against. When told it was in support of Lebanon’s LGBTIQ community, the woman hurried away.

Yet while homosexuality is still technically illegal and punishable under Lebanese law, it is more accepted in Lebanon than in most Arab countries.

Helem Director Georges Azzi told NOW that while there is a “bit of freedom” for homosexuals in Lebanon, he emphasized that it remains “fragile.”

“”There are many things that need to be done on the issue,”” he added, mentioning the need to reform the laws that criminalize homosexual conduct in Lebanon.

Twenty-year old Helem affiliate Joe, who had wrapped a large rainbow flag around his head for the occasion, said that he, as a Lebanese, felt very proud an event like this was able to be held in Beirut, where there are numerous groups offering support services to LGBTIQ people, including the recent addition of Meem, a community for non-heterosexual women.

Helem, the largest of the groups, provides free HIV-testing services and also publishes Barra Magazine, which translates as “out,” for the LGBTIQ community in Lebanon.

Most recently, members of Meem launched Bekhsoos, or Concerning, the Arab world’s first publication for lesbian, bisexual and queer women.

Despite these inroads made, Joe said that conditions for Lebanon’s LGBTIQ community remain “a bit shaky,” especially considering the Sassine incident.

“To a certain extent the situation is OK, but the recent acts of violence are not positive indicators,” he said, adding, “We’re so glad and very proud this protest happened in Beirut.”

Visit Meem

Visit Helem

Join us for Masculinity/Femininity (Part I)

Join us for Masculinity/Femininity (Part I), a Have Art: Will Travel! FOR PEACE AND EQUALITY event featuring: Linda Stein, Feminist Activist Sculptor and Astraea Visual Arts Committee member, and Rob Okun, Editor of Voice Male

Includes reception and sculptural performance by
Pilobolus dancer, Josie M. Coyoc

Tuesday, February 03, 2009
6:00 – 8:30pm

The Art Club
100 Reade Street [map]
Tribeca in Manhattan
(between West Broadway and Church Street)

Limited seating. Please RSVP

Sponsors:

Alliance for Changing Men
Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
Brooklyn College Feminist Studies
Flomenhaft Gallery
Shirley Chisolm Center
Tabla Rasa Gallery
Third Wave Foundation

FIERCE raises its voice with Right to the City Alliance

Just one way Astraea grantee partners are engaging in movement building to achieve a common vision for social justice hit the news this week. FIERCE, a membership-based organization that builds the leadership and power of LGBTQ youth of color, joined a media-grabbing civil disobedience planned by Right to the City Alliance, of which FIERCE is a member. Right to the City Alliance is a national coalition that is building a nationwide urban movement for housing, education, health, racial justice and democracy.

Media Coverage

Excellent coverage by Feministe
Excerpt: “You can’t hear much more on the video than “this is what democracy looks like,” but that’s precisely the point of the disruption. Decisions about the future of this city shouldn’t be by a Trilateral Commission or a Bilderbergers forum, and we’’ve already seen what happens when bankers, and bankers on the other side of the revolving door, get carte blanche to decide how to shore up the economy their banks. The protest was organized by Right to the City, a national coalition of community organizing projects. Here in New York, that includes CAAAV (Organizing Asian Communities), FIERCE, Community Voices Heard, FUREE, JFREJ, Mothers on the Move and quite a few other local grassroots projects that you should know about. I know that one group, Picture the Homeless, has been trying for months to get a meeting with Bloomberg to get him to hear the voices of homeless people who are affected by the city’s policies. He refuses to meet with them. That’’s why disruption becomes necessary.

This is what democracy really should look like: grassroots movements of LGBTQ youth of color, women who’’ve had to deal with welfare, mothers trying to save the communities of the South Bronx, progressive people of faith, women of color working for low-income families, Latin@ immigrant communities, Asian women against violence, the list goes on and on. I’’m proud to see this kind of action bringing together so many different movements.” [Read the whole post and watch video]

ABC News

Newsday

New York Times

Sylvia Rivera Law Project Featured in ArtForum.com

Long-time Astraea grantee partner, Sylvia Rivera Law Project’’s 4th annual “Small Works for Big Change” was a smashing success. Held at the donated Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation whose gallery was nearly filled to capacity, the event featured over 50 contributing artists and a runway show.

On March 5th, Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) will team up with fellow Astraea grantee partner, the Audre Lorde Project, to present a joint benefit show, The Get Down. SRLP works to works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. After recent legal victories for gender self-determination and protections for youth, SRLP has launched a new monthly legal clinic in the Bronx.

Law and Disorder

By Lauren O’Neill-Butler for ArtForum.com

New York, NY—SINK OR SWIM. Since art nonprofits (and downtown art nonprofits in particular) have dealt with those looming conditions for ages, it felt only natural that last Tuesday night, during several events feting such institutions, conversations about community would trump those about the economic downturn. White Columns celebrated its prestigious history with the opening of “40 Years/40 Projects,” and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project held its fourth annual “Small Works for Big Change” auction at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation. The latter, a benefit that is supported by donations and volunteers, raises funds for free legal services for low-income transgender and intersex people. Pressed to catch the 7:30 PM SRLP fashion show, and hoping to make a pit stop at the Swiss Institute for Marlo Pascual’s opening, time and space seemed to collapse as I rode a wave of giddy, infectious cheer, post–season of giving, pre-–Obama inauguration.

First up was White Columns, where ever-gracious curator Amie Scally pointed out a few highlights–––a 1970 New York Times review by Peter Schjeldahl, Lovett/Codagnone’s 1995 video Samurai Love, and the newspaper exhibition catalogue from the 2004 “Gloria” show. Did it come as a surprise to see the august critic and artists meandering around the galleries? Not really. Maybe it was all the ephemera going to my head, but already the art world seemed a little smaller, more tightly knit—1970s redux. Salvaged from basement archives, the show includes a 1988 checklist from Cady Noland’s exhibition, with works priced at two and four hundred dollars. Amid chatter about those now-bargain-basement prices, director Matthew Higgs elaborated on the archive’s poor condition, as we gazed fondly at the three remaining documents from Kim Gordon’s 1981 show and discussed the potential for a panel featuring all of the White Columns directors—a disparate clan, to be sure. Clocking the time—–nearly 7 PM—–on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Perfect Lovers, I squeezed through the by-then-bustling crowd and caught a taxi to SoHo.

At the Swiss Institute, wistful new works by fresh-faced Pascual were reminiscent of her show last year at White Columns––everything comes full circle. The hallways were crowded and the elevator packed, but the large main gallery, featuring a mammoth steel sculpture by Pierre Vadi and Christian Dupraz, was relatively empty, perhaps because no one wanted to step on the frail, barely there glass rings on the floor (although by the looks of it, several already had). During a few quick New Year catch-ups, I tried to persuade friends to tag along to the final destination of the night––it was, after all, a good cause. “I don’t like art that has an obligation,” one asserted. “You killed Proposition 8!” I heard someone retort. And off we went.

En route to the benefit, as we navigated the nearly barren streets, my mind wandered back to the early ’70s again. (Last year, the auction was at Sara Meltzer Gallery, and the year before at Orchard; its flight to SoHo seemed perfectly timed.) This quasi-nostalgia was in full effect once I arrived at Leslie/Lohman, where a few hundred participants were having the loudest art party I’’d ever seen. Tacked above the entrance desk, a large handmade sign—the sort familiar to protests and DIY celebrations––welcomed visitors to the auction, while T-shirts and posters for sale at prices from two to ten dollars suggested that no one would leave empty-handed.

“How bad do you want it?” someone screamed above the blaring hip-hop as I made my way toward the stage, shouldering through the sea of radical––and radically different––people. I tried to find out what “it” was––the art, the clothes, the drinks, or something more lubricious––but the show was just ending. Or at least, I thought it was, since the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were prancing around all night, selling raffle tickets for a two-hour “Kink Session.” Playing name-that-tune with some friends, I caught up with a few of the benefit’s organizers (full disclosure: I helped out over the summer) and checked the works lining the walls, taking second glances at Isabelle Woodley’s and Lisa Ross’s contributions. “I’m just relieved my work was bid on!” exclaimed another artist in the show, while one more told me he was just as relieved there were no bids yet. “Saving the best for last,” he said as I nodded, lip-synching to Madonna’s “Lucky Star.” It seemed hardly any time had passed before MC Jennifer Miller was screaming over the music for everyone to bid. On command, the pages appeared to fill up. During those fleeting moments, in the midst of joyful and jostling bodies, downtown seemed immune to the downturn.

As seen on ArtForum.com

Utne Reader features International Two Spirit Gathering

Last August, Astraea grantee partner Two Spirit Press Room coordinated the 20th International Two Spirit Gathering. Invited as a media guest, the Utne Reader has this account.

The next International Two Spirit Gathering, sponsored by Astraea grantee partner, the Denver Two Spirit Society, will be held in Estes Park, CO in October. Visit: www.denvertwospirit.com

Sacred Rights of the International Two Spirit Gathering
Gay and transgender Native Americans find acceptance in tradition

by John Rosengren for Utne Reader

He checks his plaid skirt, stockings, and deep-cut white blouse. When another man’s eyes fall on his cleavage, Richard squeezes his breasts together and answers the silent inquiry: “They’re real!”

Beyond the bathroom doors, men and women dance around a drum in more traditional costume—feathers, fox pelts, moccasins, beads, and bells. They’re all here for the 20th annual International Two Spirit Gathering, a celebration of and for those who feel they carry both male and female spirits.

In late August 2008, some 85 Native lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people from three dozen tribes in Canada and the United States traveled to the Audubon Center of the North Woods, 90 miles north of Minneapolis.

There, communing under the tall pines, they would sit in a sweat lodge, pray together at the sacred fire, engage in a water ceremony, and dance at the powwow. They would listen to a mother talk about her son’s struggle with coming out, hear the results of a groundbreaking health study, and receive a blessing from an elder.

They would also watch Sanchez–—in full drag, lip-synching his version of “I Kissed a Girl–”—win the event’s annual talent contest.

“We want people who face difficulties in their day-to-day lives to be able to stop and breathe,” says Richard LaFortune, a Yupik from Minneapolis and national director of Two Spirit Press Room, sponsor of the 2008 event. “We want people to walk away with new friendships, good memories, and something to restore themselves.”

Organizers have wanted to keep out spiritual and cultural tourists who may be well intentioned but nosy. In 2008, however, they decided to allow a few media representatives, including an Utne Reader writer and photographer, to attend in order to tell their stories to a wider audience.

The Minneapolis Native community hosted the first Two Spirit Gathering in 1988. “We didn’’t have a lot of places to meet and socialize except with the mainstream LGBT community, which was in bars, and those aren’t a good place for us,” says LaFortune, one of the event’s original organizers. Since then, some 3,200 people have attended the alcohol- and drug-free gathering in locales including Montreal, Vancouver, Kansas City, Eugene, Tucson, San Jose, and Butte.

Many in the Two Spirit community just don’t feel at home within the broader LGBT scene. Karina Walters, a Two Spirit Choctaw and a professor of social work at the University of Washington, tells the group gathered at the Audubon Center about “the feeling of being expected to go along with the white homosexual party line, like getting your first dyke haircut or going to a gay bar and having a certain type of experience.”

Many are also misunderstood and shunned within their Native communities, even though some tribes once honored those with male and female spirits as shamans, warriors, and chiefs.

Men and women at the gathering speak of parents avoiding them or kicking them out of their homes, even being beaten by neighbors. “That’s what really hurts us, when our own people throw us out,” says L. Frank Manriquez, a Tongva-Ajachmem woman from Southern California. Manriquez, now 56, left as a teenager after her uncle asked if she was going to seduce her sister. ““I about threw up,”” says Manriquez. “”In his eyes, I wasn’’t human.’”

Misunderstanding and fear can manifest themselves—as they do in mainstream society—in overt abuse. Targeted because of both their race and their orientation, members of the Two Spirit community suffer higher incidences of physical and sexual abuse than the general population. According to a study Walters just conducted with funds from the National Institutes of Health, gay Native Americans also have higher rates of addiction, homelessness, depression, and suicide.

More often, though, LGBT Native Americans suffer a daily battering of “microagressions.” Walters defines these as “chronic injustices, messages that people of color endure every day that are denigrating, demeaning, and subtle.”

Take Richard Sanchez. Today, the 45-year-old theater prop artist from San Jose has an ebullient personality, but he has not always carried himself so confidently. When he was growing up in rural Northern California, the boys in his family adhered to rigid gender roles, fixing cars and taking care of livestock. Making clothes and cooking were not options, being gay out of the question.

It was not even cool to be Native American. Raised by his grandparents and schooled in the Catholic faith, Sanchez was taught that his ancestors were Mexican. It was not until he was 16 years old that his grandmother, literally on her deathbed, revealed the family’s Navajo heritage.

By then, his sexual identity was clear. As a preschooler, Sanchez was walking to school with his brother when they stumbled upon a girlie magazine. The pictures of naked women mesmerized his older brother, but Sanchez stared at the half-naked men. By the time he was 10, he had defined himself as gay and knew that meant he would be ridiculed. “My favorite character was Pinocchio, because he wanted to be a real boy,” Sanchez says. “I wasn’t a real boy because I was a sissy.”

During a break in the schedule, two men toss a football on the lawn in front of five colorful tepees. Two women, seated on the hillside above the lake, discuss a beading project. Half a dozen men and women smoke cigarettes outside the dining hall and trade jokes. “The laughter helps heal and transform all that oppression sickness that we get from this culture,” says Lawrence Ellis, a 47-year-old who refers to himself as Native, American, and African American. “There’s just such joy.”

A letter from Barack Obama to the Two Spirit Gathering pledges to “bring about a more tolerant America.” Clyde Bellecourt, a 72-year-old elder and one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, speaks to the group about the importance of connecting with their identity. His words carry special weight and move some to tears: “I stand in total solidarity with each and every one of you,” he tells them. “I love you.”

Bellecourt’s blessing, Obama’s words, and the gathering itself honor the community. “It’s a way to keep something sacred and alive,” Manriquez says. “Some people here are doing remarkable things, even if it’s as simple as being themselves.”

As seen in the Utne Reader

Shades of Yellow

Shades of Yellow’s mission was to cultivate a community of empowered HAPI LGBTQI (Hmong and Asian Pacific Islander, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex) and allies.

Shades of Yellow’s mission was to cultivate a community of empowered HAPI LGBTQI (Hmong and Asian Pacific Islander, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex) and allies to challenge what we’ve been told about API and LGBTQI communities, and ignite positive cultural and social change. SOY’s vision was a world where HAPI LGBTQI and allies are liberated and celebrated for who they are. Existing in HAPI cultural communities where being LGBTQI or gender-nonconforming means risking displacement, disownment, and disconnection to families and community, SOY worked to make it possible for constituents to remain visible, be present in community, and acknowledge the complex intersections of their identities, identities for which many Asian languages have no words (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Intersex). This meant challenging their cultural communities to make room for all people and to acknowledge that LGBTQI people exist. In order to address and impact change, SOY used 3 main strategies: arts and culture, leadership development, and community building.

This organization was supported through the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, which is housed at Astraea.

GLEFAS- Grupo Latinoamericano De Estudios, Formacion Y Accion Feminista

Founded in 2007, the Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) is a leading regional group that is initiating important dialogues, conversations, and political actions within the feminist and lesbian feminist movement.

Founded in 2007, the Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) is a leading regional group that is initiating important dialogues, conversations, and political actions within the feminist and lesbian feminist movement in Latin América and the Caribbean, as well as other social movements and land struggles in the region, looking to join efforts for more comprehensive policies to confront different forms of oppression. As Caribbean and Latin American anti-racist and decolonial feminists, one of their goals is to produce autonomous knowledge from their own positioning as black, indigenous, and lesbian activists from the South. They collaborate with non-white and mixed-race women (or women of color, as it is commonly used in the United States) who are committed to intersectional politics and views in Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Peru, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, the United States, and Europe. In response to the regional context of war, militarization, and violence, GLEFAS seeks to produce a political analysis from an anti-racist, anti-military, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, feminist lesbian perspective. GLEFAS seeks to support the creation of collectives in different countries of the region. *** En Español*** Fundado en 2007, el Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) es un grupo regional líder que está iniciando importantes diálogos, conversaciones y acciones políticas dentro del movimiento feminista y lésbico feminista de América Latina y el Caribe, así como con otros movimientos sociales y de luchas territoriales en la región en la búsqueda de aunar esfuerzos para políticas más integrales que impliquen enfrentar diferentes formas de la opresión. Una de sus metas como feministas antirracistas y descoloniales latinoamericanas y caribeñas es producir un conocimiento autónomo desde sus propios posicionamientos como activistas lesbianas, indígenas y negras del sur. Colaboran con mujeres no blancas y mestizas comprometidas con una mirada y una política interseccional (o de color, como se dice comúnmente en Estados Unidos) en Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Perú, República Dominicana, México, Ecuador, Brasil, Estados Unidos y Europa. En respuesta al contexto regional de guerra, militarización y violencia, GLEFAS busca producir un análisis político desde una perspectiva feminista y lésbica antirracista, antimilitarista, anticolonial y anticapitalista. GLEFAS busca apoyar la formación de colectivos en diferentes países en la región.

Astraea Named Top Gay Charity by Qweerty.com

The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice has been named the “#1 Top Gay Charity” by Qweerty.com. The rankings were based largely on ratings by CharityNavigator.org, where Astraea has the highest rating–—4-stars—–for organizational efficiency, organizational capacity, and overall financial health. As a public foundation with a global reach, last year Astraea awarded more than $2.2 million to 198 organizations and 21 individuals in 120 cities and 47 countries around the world.

Read the post here: Qweerty.com