In 2020, the online news organization The Intercept revealed that HRW’s then-Executive Director, Ken Roth, accepted a $470,000 donation from a Saudi billionaire based on the condition that HRW would not use the money to protect the rights of the persecuted LGBTQ-plus community in the Middle East.
Roth was compelled to return the donation after The Intercept report.
So an organization that is dedicated to an impartial stance on protecting basic human rights for all is actively taking bribes on how to protect specific rights.
Another reminder that I do not matter. Another reminder that I’m not a real person. Another reminder that we are never listened to.
This organization is classified as a non-profit but it clearly cannot do its job impartially. Strip it of its status. However that will never happen. Why? Because people don’t care about us queer folk unless it actively helps them. No one gave a shit about us until it became trendy to market rainbows everywhere. Even those companies backed down from backlash and stopped promoting pride stuff proving they never gave a flying fuck about supporting the community but by looking out for themselves and making money.
Once again we are being used and discarded to further the heteronormative horseshit of this hellish planet.
And if I have to hear one more fucking asshole say “Oh but its so easy for you gays to hook up” I’m going to beat them to death. It’s only easy for us to hook up because we had to dispense with all dating and norms because if we did, y’all would have killed us 50 years ago. Hell, 20 years ago. Hell, today.
I am so tired man…
I am so sorry, Stamets. I am an ally with a queer daughter. Every day I worry about the world she’s growing up in. She’s been very bullied in school, but most kids don’t know other kids’ sexual orientation at 13, so they didn’t bully her for that (although, of course, middle schoolers still love to call each other anti-LGBT slurs), but I’m much more worried about what adults will do to her. At her age, she’s not truly aware of how bad it can be, but I do my best to educate her. Her best friend is a trans boy. His rights have already been taken away here in Indiana. He can’t get gender-affirming care and the school legally has to deadname him even though his parents are supportive. He’s already doing things like cutting himself and vaping, so he’s obviously already pretty messed up. I really worry that he won’t make it to adulthood. What hope do either of them have when human rights organizations won’t even talk about how they’re being oppressed and even victims of genocide?
I wish I had something I could say to help or to sway your fears but I’m a 30-odd year old gay man and I’m terrified for myself and everyone else in the community. For a brief period there was some light that things started to get better but it was just painted faces. This world is… well let’s just say there’s a reason I’m such a big Star Trek fan and there’s a reason why Stamets being gay meant such a fucking enormous amount to me. Finally I got to not only see the world I wanted to live in but also got to know that there is a place for me in the future. That we are real. That we matter.
I get it. I think you’ve probably seen me say before that Star Trek missed a huge opportunity in the 90s to represent the community when Berman refused to let Bashir and Garak be a couple. It’s so sad that it took until Ellen came out in 1997 to even hope for more positive LGBT representation on American television and there’s still precious little of it. I can’t remember which cereal brand it was, but a few years ago, within the past decade, an ad showed a kid eating cereal and they had two dads and people lost their shit. Even in 2023, much of America (and from what you’re saying Canada too) isn’t ready for characters like Stamets and it’s just wrong. Even the fact that Discovery is on Paramount+, which is still pretty niche, shows it. Heaven forbid a regular network have a couple like Stamets and Culber that have a deep and abiding love for each other. The only other example I can think of right now is the Harley Quinn cartoon and you have to have Max to see it. (But it’s really good, I highly recommend it.)
Look what happened with Dylan Mulaney and Bud Light. It wasn’t even a huge ad campaign. They were given a few cans of Bud Light and did a photo shoot with them and posted it online. That’s it. That’s all they did. And suddenly Kid Rock was shooting cans of Bud Light with his rifle. Fucking insanity.
Correct on all points. It’s so depressing man. Also I think it was Cheerios but I could be wrong. God forbid the cereal whose name partially means happy show a happy couple. Campbells Soup had the same backlash as well.
Look what happened with Dylan Mulaney and Bud Light. It wasn’t even a huge ad campaign. They were given a few cans of Bud Light and did a photo shoot with them and posted it online. That’s it. That’s all they did. And suddenly Kid Rock was shooting cans of Bud Light with his rifle. Fucking insanity.
It’s why I am so aggressively protective of my trans homies. The amount of violence that’s being suggested and hinted towards is fucking insane. It’s dangerous as hell and I’m afraid for them. Us gays have the benefit of being slightly socially accepted at least but there are very few famous trans people who are widely loved. No Neil Patrick Harris or Ellen (although fuck that woman). They’re an easy target at the moment and one that has seemingly fucking no one defending it. Just want to scream.
I just hope representation continues in media. My daughter came way after Ellen and I think she’s still too young to really get into Harley Quinn (I don’t mind the language or the violence, I just think a lot of the plot, especially the references, would go above her head), but I hope eventually she’ll find people on TV that represent her.
I’ve been showing her Daria. I keep thinking how much better a show it would have been if Daria and Jane’s friendship developed into love. The way it’s written, I kind of think the creators wanted it to go that way.
Oh there’s a show called Queer As Folk that has a UK and US version. Honestly I prefer the US one which is rare but it’s really good. Probably not age appropriate for your kiddo but you might enjoy it. It’s a drama about gay people, in the gay community, and the shit we have to deal with. Straight characters are essentially background characters. Apparently they are doing a reunion or something which I almost lost my shit over when I found out about. Gay teenaged me loved that show. Made me feel normal for the first time.
I haven’t seen either version, but I’ve heard very good things. Britain has been more accepting than America (although there’s obviously still a lot of bigotry) because there have been some very famous gay actors and comedians in the country throughout the second half of the 20th century. There were two openly gay characters on a very popular 1960s radio sitcom (radio is still a very popular dramatic and comedic medium in the UK) called Hancock’s Half Hour. They spoke in Polari, which was well-known as a coded language in the British gay community. Kenneth Williams, who played one of them, was beloved by the British public and he made absolutely no secret of his sexual orientation.
And, of course, there’s been a long history of men and women in drag in the UK. Christmas pantos always involve men dressed in women’s clothing and women dressed in men’s clothing and it wouldn’t be Christmas in Britain without them.
I’ve always seen Daria as a lesbian and no one can convince me otherwise.
I loved Will & Grace growing up. I rewatched it recently and it’s fucking dated with how many pop culture references there are but also they used a particular F word a LOT. Like… nearly every episode a lot. Personally I find it funny because that’s how I use it and how my gay friends use it amongst ourselves like those characters do but woah. Seeing that said on TV so casually by straight and gay characters was a whiplash moment.
I don’t know if my daughter sees her that way, but she does often speak in a deadpan way and is sarcastic and misanthropic (she inherited it from me!), and was at the bottom of the pecking order in a school full of idiots and assholes, so she definitely identifies with Daria anyway.
I do not say the following lightly: in order to make a home where I feel truly comfortable I moved to a different country which is societally more accepting than where I was born.
I hope that your daughter and her friend will have the freedom to find their community and build happy lives. Sometimes that means leaving forever.
I read yesterday about the PR that Saudi Arabia and UAE have been doing to work their way up a “trust index”, among other things.
There are few, if any, uncorrupted organisations or countries, and I now believe that it is simply human nature to be monstrous. Anything else requires herculean strength or absolute bull-headedness.
When I was young I watched Star Trek as an idealist looks Ng towards a brighter future, now I enjoy it as fantasy. If an interplanetary federation were to exist as it is portrayed, humans would have to be a minority to avoid contamination of ideals and truth.
Some of us do give a shit, even some people you wouldn’t expect. I try to get people to listen to and understand others’ struggles and it’s more effective than you think, but it’s mostly people in my daily life.
Oh good, even human rights organizations don’t care about queer people. What are they supposed to do? Who can they turn to?
No one. Everytime we try we just get ignored. Want a good example? Toronto.
NOTE: This comment is going to get extremely dark, extremely disturbing, and extremely depressing. It is very important but… it’s not light. Please read if you can. You have been warned.
From like the late 2000s onwards, LGBTQ+ people kept disappearing in the Toronto area or were just killed. More and more in the 2010s. I remember walking around and seeing posters up everywhere and new ones pretty frequently. A lot of them were the typical ran away thing but more and more started appearing that didn’t fit that bill. The gay community en masse turned to the Toronto Police and said “We think we have a serial killer in the community.” The police set up a “taskforce” in 2012 to investigate it called Project Houston. I say “project” because almost no effort was put into the investigation due to the victims being both gay as well as usually non-white. They investigated the serial killer himself and brought him in to be questioned but let him go. They said there wasn’t a serial killer. More gay men went missing which all but confirmed it. Stories of people who met said killer and managed to escape. Then after Pride in 2017, Andrew Kinsman went missing. I met him a few times. He was an incredibly kind man. People went to Andrews house and his cat was out of food and water, meds were left behind, and social media turned off. No rhyme or reason for him to suddenly vanish. Then a trans woman was killed. Then another person was found dead in an alley. The community outcry became overwhelming so the Toronto Police opened another investigation. They then closed it saying there was no evidence of a serial killer.
But surprise surprise, the cops were incredibly wrong. Evidence came out about this monster, more and more, so they started finally ACTUALLY investigating him 5 years after his initial “questioning”. Why do I have that in quotes? Keep reading. They arrest him later, barging into his apartment with a man handcuffed to his bed, a bag over his face, and his mouth taped shut.
Suddenly now there was some interest. So they investigate. He was a landscaper and they start looking into those places where he worked and they start uncovering bodies, including that of Kinsman. Also including the body of one of the victims that was investigated during Project Houston, again the same project where they previously investigated this serial killer and released him. They also found a truly overwhelming amount of photos and evidence. Experts kept saying that it was too detailed and there’s no way he’s only been active for 5 years. Most serial killer start in their 20s and this monster was in his late 40s or early 50s at this point and was showing skill in his kills and covering of his tracks. This was gotten from practice. When the ground started thawing up, they go look for more bodies. They end up searching in july for just over a week and found remains every single day of the search.
This monster was charged with only 8 deaths. All remains have not been identified. Police have also claimed “they have no reason to believe he was linked to any other deaths.”
The Toronto Police service actively ignored the safety concerns of the community. They refused to investigate the serial killings and refused to even use the term until 2018, well after it had been demonstrated that this monster had already killed multiple people across a long time span and that they were linked. If they had listened to the community and said “There may be a serial killer active” then it could have flooded in with tips that they could have investigated, you know, exactly what happened when they actually announced that’s what they were doing? And when other serial killers have had that exact same outcome? At any rate, they arrest the killer and then announce they’re investigating serial killings. What happens? Completely unsurprisingly, they’re flooded with tips both about this specific person as well as tips in general that would have helped locate this person. So what does the police chief do? Blame the community. He said that the community should have reported the incidents sooner and waiting this long was why he got away with it for so long. The literal headline after he said that was “Toronto police chief says civilians failed to help investigation into alleged serial killer”. He got a huge amount of backlash for victim blaming the community when he was the one who actively denied us the help.
It was announced in 2018-2019 there would be a review into the failure to protect the community. In 2021 the review said there was “serious flaws” (one way to fucking put it) in the way the police handled it. It also effectively said that the only reason the investigation even happened was because of the friends/family of Andrew Kinsman who aggressively pushed the police and community to mobilize and investigate ourselves. The review also said that the Project Houston thing? Yeah. They never looked into the killers history because they would have found a early 2000s violent assault with a pipe on someone. They also didn’t investigate at all because there were apparently blatant and meaningful connections between the killer and three of the victims they were supposed to be investigating. There were 151 recommendations on how to fix their shit. 151. Just think about that. 151 things they catastrophically failed on that all led to the entire community being ignored, left for dead, and then victim blamed.
So dear reader, whoever you may be, I ask you this. The next time you see an LGBTQ+ person being upset at the world and how no one cares about us, don’t say it will get better. Don’t say that the world does care. It doesn’t. What I want you to do is prove that you care. Stand up and protect those people because fuck knows, most of the straight people in Toronto who were in positions to help did nothing and let us get killed and it’s not unique to Toronto. In a City that has such a bustling gay community, you’d expect something. Meaning that if it’s happening HERE then there is no way that it isn’t a trillion times worse in smaller places.
This is why I don’t want to be gay. It’s because if I was straight, maybe someone would give a shit about me.
Edit: Hilarious. Downvoted within seconds. Thanks for proving my point guys. I give up.
Jesus… I don’t even know what to say about that. I’m just horrified and appalled.
And that guy is not even the only one. Who knows how long police sat on evidence about Jeffrey Dahmer? I doubt they were all that concerned that he was murdering men for over a decade.
Yeah I’ve got no hope left anymore man. Not after that.
Don’t think about the downvotes. There are a lot of reddit trolls on lemmy who like to show up and downvote everything. There are people in this world who care. You are not an “issue” - you are a person. Your life matters.
The sudden media narrative that virtually every NGO operating in the Middle East is secretly anti-Semitic does not make a lot of sense, and has the appearance of a spin campaign.
Eh, it could be but it seems like a stretch. I don’t think it has to do with antisemitism. It’s just kinda like when countries put oil execs in charge of environmental policy. It seems like this has been a problem for a while. People were probably just not paying as much attention in 2020 when that article came out.
Yep. To be clear, though, it’s not the reporting of corruption etc. that’s the problem; it’s the timing of the reporting that’s suspicious.
I agree. Any individual story may or may not be accurate but that’s not the point. We’ve seen the very abrupt and simultaneous reporting and discussion on many scandals in a variety of human rights organizations, usually based on innuendo or very shaky evidence. My suspicion would be Israel is behind this but there are many other governments that are hostile to independent NGOs which could be taking advantage of the situation to undermine trust in them.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/i24-news/
Israeli source slinging mud at a group that is calling them out.
Okay? So this was revealed in 2020 and the director guy returned the donation. Why is this being written about again 3 years later? Is someone trying to push a narrative in order to deflect from some other subject?
They didn’t imply they were for human rights
Neither i24 nor memri are unbiased sources, but if this is true, it certainly would account for a lot of the anti-Israel bias that has been coming out of human rights watch lately.
Yeah, it can’t be the genocide.
It’s them inappropriately defining this as genocide or whatever other buzzwords will generate outrage. This is clearly about defense for Israel and not eliminating an ethnic group.
Yes, those 5000+ children that Israel has killed were a real risk to Israeli security.
Is that tragic? Yes. Is it genocide? No. Words mean things.
In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
Sure sounds like what they’re doing to Palestinians in Gaza to me. Or do you think they’re going to let the innocent people they didn’t murder come back now that they’re occupying it?
You know, because Israel is famous for giving Palestinians their homes and their land back.
What is being done in Gaza is genocide.
Israel is neither trying to destroy Arabs nor Muslims, What they are doing is defending themselves against a hostile nation that declared war on them by slaughtering their civilians. Sometimes keeping themselves safe means annexing land, and a genocide this does not make.
Israel’s intent is not to destroy any group, if that were their intent, they would have done it by now. They certainly have the capability. Their intent is to keep themselves safe from people who are trying to kill them and refuse to surrender.
Palestinians are a specific ethnic group. Interesting that you aren’t acknowledging that. And the majority of Palestinians that have been murdered were not part of Hamas.
As far as calling Gaza or Palestine a nation, that’s laughable. When has Israel ever acknowledged their sovereignty?
The “genocide” debate here is activists trying to seize the high ground after Hamas’s hideous acts. Their hope, after an assault of such barbarity, is to label the response “genocidal” and hope that people chase that shiny lure instead of remembering why this war happened at all.
So all the children they killed were part of Hamas?
Or do you think they’re going to let the innocent people they didn’t murder come back now that they’re occupying it?
Given than this hasn’t happened yet, it feels a little premature to go tossing around words like genocide.
It seems like most people claiming Israel wants to reoccupy Gaza genuinely don’t realize that Israel voluntarily disengaged in 2005, closed the existing settlements, and withdrew all military. Or that part of the reason that Hamas was able to execute the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history was due to Israel’s willingness to ease border restrictions.
How long do we have to wait for them not to let Palestinians back into Gaza before we can call it genocide?
Seems like the people who say it’s too early to talk about gun legislation in America every time there’s a mass shooting.
Religious rhetoric always sounds borderline insane to me so maybe they are secretly peaceful, but the Israeli government is using some pretty violent biblical examples if what they want is peace. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netanyahu-amalek-israel-palestine-gaza-saul-samuel-old-testament
