Word: lesbian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...administration officials were hoping to mend some fences with gay and lesbian elected officials at a meeting Tuesday, after alienating them last week with the Justice Department's decision to stay out of a Supreme Court case on gay rights. Instead, the White House must now apologize all over again. The officials at the meeting -- including state senators and representatives, city council members and judges -- say some of the Secret Service agents present wore rubber gloves, apparently trying to protect themselves from being infected by the HIV virus. "It's safe to say the chief of staff (Leon Panetta...
Such work stirs mixed emotions in the gay community. To some extent, gays and lesbians welcome the research because it supports what most of them have long felt: that homosexuality is an innate characteristic, like skin color, rather than a perverse life-style choice, as conservative moralists contend. And if that is true, then gays deserve legal protection similar to the laws that prohibit racial discrimination. "On a political level, genetic research does seem to move the debate along a certain path," says Denny Lee of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay advocacy group in New York...
...other hand, many gays are wary of the genetic hypothesis. It could, they fear, help promote the notion that gayness is a "defect" in need of "fixing." "Any finding will be used and twisted for homophobic purposes," says Martin Duberman, head of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York. "If it does turn out that for some people, there is a genetic or hormonal component, the cry will then arise to take care of that." Indeed, the cry is already rising. The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, president of the Traditional Values Coalition...
...flies to renounce heterosexuality altogether. If a "gay" fly is surrounded by females instead of males, he'll fertilize the lady flies. So strictly speaking, the NIH flies are not homosexual but bisexual. And the gene produces no unusual behavior when transplanted into females: the scientists have produced no lesbian fruit flies...
Coming out as a lesbian was one of Carter'sfirst steps to becoming more sure of herself. Sherealized she was gay the year before enteringHarvard when she fell for her friend at the UnitedWorld College and her friend returned theaffection. "Most of my community is here at theCoop, gay and in general," she says. Carter isalso a member of the Boston group "Girlfriends," apeer support group for lesbian and bisexual womenof color...