LGBT Community Honors Murdered Lesbian Couple as Investigation Continues

As the LGBT community gathered at vigils across Texas to remember a murdered lesbian couple from Houston, authorities continued their search for evidence needed to solve the crime.

About 100 people packed the pews at Living Faith Covenant Church in Dallas on Wednesday night to remember Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson, whose bodies were found near a Dumpster in Port Bolivar, near Galveston, two weeks ago. It was one of at least five vigils for Cosby and Jackson, both 24, held across the state.

More on Lone Star Q.

The Lynchings Haven’t Stopped

Murders like Britney and Crystal’s aren’t rare, and they aren’t new. Last year, when a transwoman was killed in Texas, there was no story or report about her or her death. The only reason I know of this woman’s death is due to a Transgender Day of Remembrance service I attended, where her friend asked that she may be remembered… The unfortunate truth, however, is that I am no more surprised about this father’s “honor killing” than I am about the death of Trayvon—because it’s nothing out of the ordinary for our society. Yet, what has bothered me the most about these murders is how the Black community refuses to rally around issues of justice for these two women and LGBTQ issues in general.

Continue reading on Believe Out Loud.

Stand By Me: Historically Black Churches and LGBTQ Allyship

As of late, LGBTQ rights advocates have challenged religious organizations for endorsing oppressive and discriminatory doctrine under the guise of spiritual guidance. These disagreements with the Church as an institution, while generally valid, particularly target historically Black churches and often reduce these congregations to a monolith of homophobia. Without a doubt, many historically Black churches have stood in opposition to marriage equality; but, it’s also important to recognize how historically Black churches fit into a larger context of LGBTQ rights and that the situation at hand may be more nuanced than it appears at first glance.

More on Autostraddle.com.

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘You Can’t Let Adversity Get You Down’

This is the first of a two-part look at how poverty affects elder members of the LGBT community and part of a yearlong Washington Blade focus on poverty.

People rarely look at economic insecurity and aging, said Robert Espinoza, senior director of public policy and communications for Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), “People studying poverty don’t look often enough at poverty among LGBT and older people. On the other side, people studying LGBT issues aren’t looking often enough at aging and poverty.”

But studies that have been done show that poverty is high among elders and even higher among LGBT older adults, Espinoza said.

Read more at the Washington Blade.

Writing Herstory and Resisting Invisibility: A Review of Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

Janet Mock’s compelling memoir, Redefining Realness, entrancingly chronicles the story of a multiracial transwomen’s becoming within a society that is still widely antagonistic to the non-White, non-male, transgender, and economically challenged among us—those transwomen of color who tend to be disclaimed and invisibilized even within otherwise affirming queer spaces. Mock’s memoir will be praised as a seminal text precisely because it is both superb art and gripping autobiography that will inspire shifts in political consciousness and movements. Mock discusses her entire self, including her body and surgery and moments of coming-out to cis-identified men. But the work is not sensational; it is the story of a life told from the perspective of the woman who experienced it; it is autobiography and it moves beyond the problematic frameworks offered by TV interviewers. Readers will get the sense that with each turn of the page, we are turning some pages in our contemporary times.

Visit The Feminist Wire.