On Sunday November 22nd, a vigil in honor of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado will be held at the intersection of MacArthur Blvd., Lakeshore, and Grand Ave. in Oakland. Mercado, a very well known person in the gay community, was found dead on November 14th, in Cayey, Puerto Rico. Mercado was partially burned, decapitated, and dismembered. The police investigator handling the case said in a public televised statement that "people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen."

On November 16th, a suspect was arrested who confessed to the killing, saying that he murdered Marcedo who he thought to be a woman, after discovering that he was a man. According to the Porto Rico police, the suspect will likely use a “homosexual panic” defense, arguing for a plea of temporary insanity.

Pedro Julio Serrano, from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a founder of Puerto Rico Para Todas said in a statement: “This is a terrible, terrible crime. While we are pleased that law enforcement has acted promptly in making an arrest, it is vital that the hate crimes angle be investigated. This horrendous killing of a young gay man shows no compassion or respect for the dignity of a human life. As someone who grew up in Puerto Rico and has been very active in its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, this is a heart-wrenching moment. Our hearts and sympathies go out to all of Jorge Steven López’s loved ones at this difficult time. Justice must prevail.”

Read More | Gay Puerto Rican Teen Decapitated, Dismembered, and Burned

q@ writes: "On September 24th some of the most militant politicized street protests the States have seen in nearly a decade countered the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Anarchist Queers and Trannies were on the frontlines of this struggle; bringing the numbers, the flare, and the wrecking crews. A days worth of tear gas, rubber bullet attacks, and fending off straight-idiot-liberals, set the tone for what would be a night of ravenous Queer revenge. A single march of 200+ Queers, Trannies, Womyn, POC, and some allies bashed the fuck back; causing the most property destruction contained to a single neighborhood in Pittsburgh during the protests. So other Anarchists, why the fuck are you ignoring us? What Happened in Oakland [Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania] on Thursday Night?

"A week prior to the G20 protests Bash Back! Pittsburgh, a radical Trans and Queer Liberation group, called for a Queer Cabaret to be followed by a march through Oakland. Oakland has long been a neighborhood unfriendly to anyone not fitting into the straight-white-male category. By 10pm on the 24th nearly 200 people gathered outside of the Queer Cabaret. The mood was set. There were no illusions. Everyone knew what was about to happen. It seemed that people were unified in their goal to terrorize straighty. Windows were smashed, dumpsters flipped and ignited, a frat boy homophobe and his friends were dealt with properly, and the vast majority of participants left feeling empowered and energized.

"However, despite the fact that this march was called for by a local radical queer/trans group, took place immediately following a Queer Cabaret, was executed largely by radical Trans/Queer people and was lead by a banner reading, “Bash Back!” ; most of the reportbacks describing the march include NONE of these important details."

Read More | Bash Back!

On Wednesday, September 30th, feminists, activists, and community members protested against budget cuts in front of the California State Building at Civic Center. The rally and speak-out featured demands to "chop from the top" and tax the rich and corporations as a strategy for solving the budget crisis. There were speakers and representatives from many groups as well as students, workers, tenants rights and queer rights activists.

The rally was initiated by Radical Women, a socialist feminist, grassroots activist organization that provides a radical voice within the feminist movement and the Left, and trains women to be leaders in the movements for social and economic justice. It has branches in a number of cities. Read more

AIDS Organizations Meet in SF to Protest Governor Schwarzenegger's Budget Cuts | People with Disabilities Arrested While Protesting State Budget Cuts in SF | SF Mayor Gavin Newsom Hides From Tenants Seeking Renter's Relief Measures

On October 11th, Palestinian and Jewish LGBT/queer activists held a protest against promoting LGBT tourism to Israel in front of the Tel Aviv gay center. The protesters intercepted a group of travel agents and other guests attending a conference that took place inside the gay center. The conference was organized by various Israeli institutes and International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA).

While entering, the guests went by the protesters, who were wearing T-shirts that read "Queers Visit Palestine, Not The Occupiers & Oppressors". Some of the protesters faces were covered with dirt, contrasting the concept of a "tourist attraction," putting themselves on display, not as shining examples of gay Israeli privilege but as wounded dirty queers, embodying the ugly side of the occupation being masked by the gay tourism initiative.

Haneen, one of the protesters said: "These conferences are trying to create an aesthetic facade that everything is rosy, when minutes from here there is poverty, exploitation, discrimination and occupation. We are against an event that bluntly deny and hide the dirt of our realities. It is our duty as queers not to overlook the oppression of others and to engage in their struggles".

"At a time when Israel still holds Gaza under siege, controls, segregates and divides the West Bank - there is no place for a 'business as usual' attitude", added Ayala Shani.

Read more

Queer Activists Disrupt StandWithUs I-Pride, Refuse to be a Propaganda Tool for Israel | Gavin Newsom and Zionist Contingents Confronted During 2009 SF Pride Parade

Latinas and Lesbians and Allies (LyLyA) hosted the First Annual Dyke March in Watsonville on Saturday, August 22nd. Designed to give visibility to a community that many times is shrouded by homophobia, organizers said it would be a historic event. The event bagan with a rally at Watsonville Plaza.

Margarita Rivas, President of LyLyA, stated that “We are overwhelmingly proud to be a part of what will prove to be a turning point for the local LGBT community. It is our opportunity to give visibility to the Latino LGBT population and show that we are, indeed, a vital part of the community. We hope to begin to build a bridge between the homosexual and heterosexual communities of Watsonville.”

See also: Watsonville Pride 2009

previous coverage: 1st Annual Watsonville Pride Celebration a Huge Success

DS writes: "On Monday night, about one hundred people assembled honoring the youth were killed and injured in the Tel Aviv LGBT Center last week.To be honest, I was dreading this event. I needed to mourn – for the youth who were killed, and also for the sense of safety that I lost, years ago, when I first realized that my own LGBTQ youth center was an unsafe space for me. I worried, though, that I wouldn’t be able to mourn, but would instead be distracted by anger and alienation at the Zionist rhetoric that almost always accompanies any public Jewish event. I was pleasantly surprised in so many ways."

"Monday’s vigil focused entirely on the tragedy of the youths’ lost lives. Speakers from the Jewish community and the broader community emphasized the need to stand up for queer youth in our own communities and worldwide. One speaker talked about creating safety for “all residents” of Tel Aviv – not “all citizens,” as pro-Israel speakers usually say."

"Only two Israeli flags were present, one of them the rainbow version created for this June’s Jews March For Pride contingent– which, despite my dislike for all national flags and especially this one, I can see the relevance of for this particular vigil. Nobody used this event as an excuse to repeat the nonsensical rhetoric of many official Israeli sources, that this level of violence is “unheard of” in Israel. In fact, people hardly mentioned Israel. And that is as it should be – these youth were targeted because they were queer, not because they were Jewish, not because they were Israeli. The organizers of this vigil did an amazing job of keeping Zionist politics out of it, to an extent I have never seen at any Jewish event." Read more |

Jewish LGBT Community Commemorates the Death of Two at a Gay Center in Tel Aviv | Painful Irony in Tel Aviv LGBT Teen Center Shooting

Berlin solidarity with LGBT Tel Aviv - Demo against homophobia | Queers Respond to Tel-Aviv Homophobic Violence, Call for BDS against Israel

No Pride in Apartheid or Gavin Newsom's Budget Cuts | StandWithUs I-Pride Protested by Queer Activists for Exploiting Gay Issues

On July 6th, Ellen Newberry, a lecturer and Merrill College writing coordinator at UC Santa Cruz, was a guest on Teachers 4 Class War. Newberry is an out faculty member at UCSC. In the interview, Newberry addresses ways to support GLTB folks at work and at school. Listen to the interview

Teachers 4 Class War airs each Monday at 6pm on Freak Radio Santa Cruz.

On Sunday, June 28, at least two groups of radical queer activists demonstrated against other contingents participating in the 2009 Pride Parade in San Francisco. Members of the International Jewish Solidarity Network marched and protested Zionist presence at the Pride Parade. The activists challenged the presentation of Israel as "diverse" and "pro gay" as they marched with banners that read "No Pride in Apartheid" and "Queer Jews Reject Israeli Injustices." Another group staged a die-in in front of Gavin Newsom's float at the annual Pride Parade to protest cuts to HIV/AIDS prevention, queer youth programs, and other vital services. Newsom's float was forced to stop during the demonstration. Gavin Newsom is currently campaigning to become governor of California in the 2010 election.

Video | Photos: 1 | 2 | "No Pride in Apartheid at the Pride Parade!‏" announcement

2009: 6th Annual March for Transgender Pride | Past Pride Coverage on Indybay: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

The 6th annual Trans March took a different route than in years past, starting at Dolores Park where several thousand people gathered, and forming a march that traveled through the Mission district. The excitement was still high as the group neared the announced ending point at 26th and Valencia, where one contingent took Cesar Chavez Street continuing to an after-party at El Rio while a smaller subgroup kept on marching through the city.

This year's march marked San Francisco's sixth year since the event began in 2004 when it was first established to honor Gwen Araujo, a young transgendered woman who was brutally murdered in Newark, California in November of 2002.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Previous Indybay Coverage: 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008

Gay shame held a protest at the San Francisco LGBT Center on June 25th, just days before the city's Pride Celebration and March. Photos

Gay Shame wrote: "Does today’s mainstream LGBT movement make you feel like you’re lost in an alternate reality? Perhaps even another dimension? Do the things groups like the HRC fight for cause you to feel as if you’re going the wrong way backwards through time? Does the thought of straight ally Gavin Newsom’s ascendancy to governor give you vertigo?

"With corporate sponsors such as American Express, Bank of America, US Bank, Wells Fargo, AT&T, Comcast, Macy’s, Bechtel, Clorox, Lennar and Morgan Stanley, the current agenda for the Center is one of cold, consumeristic capitalism. Instead of being a Robin Hood-esque pipeline that feeds cash into programs that actually serve the community as a whole, the Center invests their corporate largesse into creating and nourishing a queer consumer/entrepreneur culture."

Read More | Gay Shame SF website

On June 11th in Tel Aviv, a group of queer Israeli activists (backed by Palestinian-Israeli LGBTQI co-operative preparation) protested the cynical use of gay rights by a conservative American group called StandWithUs (SWU). The activists disrupted an event called I-Pride, organized by SWU, exploiting queer issues to advance and support Israel’s existence as an apartheid state and its occupation over Palestinians. The queer activists have also pointed out SWU collaboration with homophobic organizations such as Christians United For Israel, and homophobic individuals such as Gary Bauer and John Hagee who has stated that Hurricane Katrina happened for the city’s “sinful homosexual rally.” SWU’s presentations of all Palestinians as killers, Islam as the enemy of the west, and SWU pressure to fire and censure academics who are critical of Israel, were also denounced by the activists in the event.

At the event panelists and speakers preferred to focus on liberal issues inside Israel and showed total disregard for human rights violations by Israel. They presented the gay Palestinian community as suffering mostly from the Palestinian society ( not from Israel’s brutal occupation) and as being in need of a western salvation embodied in Israel’s apartheid regime.

Haneen Maikey, an organizer for Al-Qaws ("Rainbow") - for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, has commented that “the patronizing and arrogant attitude towards the Palestinan LGBT community, the use of our struggle and speaking in our name are not new phonomena. What is worrying is the easiness in which a right wing and racist pro-Israeli agenda is presented as a celebration pride and rights which is designed to present Israel (in collaboration with local gay Israeli organizations) as an oasis of liberalism and tolerance. This is a cynical use of gay issues for political gain, as human rights violations that are committed by Israel hurts all Palestinians-regardless of gender and sexual preference.”

Inna Michaeli, a member of Coalition of Women for Peace, and a feminist lesbian activist stated “I’m not surprised that our struggle for gender and sexual freedom is used as a propaganda tool at the hands of radical right wing groups from America. What is left to ask is where is the shame of gay organizations in Israel who claim to speak in our name, and whether from a total silence on human rights violations, they are moving now to a complete co-operation with the American radical right.” Read more

Flyer - Queer activists confront StandWithUs I-Pride | iPride: Stand With Us’ Pro-Israel Gay Fraud | "Israel Truth Campaign" Commemorates Land Day with New Billboard | first independent palestinian lgbtq organization! | Rainbow over Palestine | ASWAT

The 17th annual Santa Cruz Dyke March takes place on Saturday, June 6th, the night before Pride. Frootie Flavors, Beaver Fever and Lisa Pawlak are featured at the 2:30pm rally at the Town Clock. There will be a march around 6pm, followed by an after party. Read more

2008: Dykes Rally and March in Santa Cruz without Sponsors or Permits

On May 30th, thousands of marriage equality activists came to Fresno from throughout the state to protest the Supreme Court decision on proposition 8. A 15 mile march for civil rights by about 100 marriage equality activists who walked in the scorching valley heat from Selma to Fresno started the day. 3,000 people were waiting for them when they arrived at Fresno City Hall. Organizers of today’s Meet in the Middle rally chose Fresno because of the need to shift public opinion in the Central Valley on the marriage equality issue. Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, won by a wide margin in Fresno and other valley towns.

Photos and Audio

Previous coverage: Statewide Forces to Rally In the Middle Of California for LGBT Equality