(Philadelphia)  Today Lambda Legal will file a complaint with the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations (PCHR) against the City of Philadelphia and the Youth Study Center (YSC) among others on behalf of a 17-year-old transgender girl who was physically attacked by other residents and verbally abused by staff every day for almost a year and a half.

“Youth Study Center violated Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance when their staff discriminated against our client for being transgender,” said Flor Bermudez, Youth in Out-of-Home Care attorney for Lambda Legal. “This city facility was supposed to protect her but instead Youth Study Center staff failed to respect her gender identity, verbally abused her, let residents physically attack her and forced her to live in fear.”

The girl, who has asked to be unnamed for safety reasons, has been in the foster care system since she was 11.

In February 2008, a Family Court Judge ordered Department of Human Services to provide her with all appropriate medical treatment for Gender Identity Disorder (GID), including hormone therapy and mandated that her female gender identity be respected.

However, YSC staff and administrators failed to treat her in accordance with her female gender identity. They refused to refer to her by her preferred female name and to use female pronouns.  YSC staff also refused her access to clothing and grooming options that matched her gender identity and reprimanded her for acting in a feminine manner.

When she asked to be referred to by her preferred female name, YSC staff told her: “You ain’t no fucking female, you are a dude. . .   Till you get your dick cut off, I’m not going to call you [by your preferred female name.]”

In addition, YSC staff subjected Lambda Legal’s client to ridicule and cruel and degrading treatment and allowed abuse by residents on a daily basis.  She endured verbal harassment, including slurs such as: “You’re a faggot,” “Wanna-be-girl,” “You are not a girl,” and “You will never be a girl.”  On several occasions, the verbal harassment escalated to physical attacks.

The complaint filed by Lambda Legal to the PCHR claims that the YSC, operated by DHS, violated the Philadelphia Fair Practices Ordinance because she was harassed and discriminated against on the basis of her actual and/or perceived gender identity, sexual orientation, sex, and disability.

“Even though I asked the administration and staff at the Youth Study Center on multiple occasions to stop the harassment, to call me by the right name, to let me wear clothes that match who I am, and to allow me to sleep in a unit where I would feel safe, I continued to be degraded by staff and residents,” said the 17-year-old girl.

“Nobody, including sexual minorities, should have to experience the physical and emotional abuse that I encountered there.”

Among the alleged victims was a gay sailor who said he developed post-traumatic stress disorder from the abuse and left the Navy by outing himself.

The decision to discipline Chief Petty Officer Michael Toussaint (too-’SAHNT) was announced Wednesday, following the Navy’s decision last month to review more than 90 allegations occurring between 2004 and 2006.

The Secretary of the Navy also is issuing a letter of censure.

The Chief of Naval Operations has directed the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to conduct additional interviews with Navy personnel who were formerly stationed in Bahrain.

The angry citizens stood on the steps to protest the Sept. 10 undercover police raid at the gay Atlanta Eagle Club. Eight people were arrested that night, including the owner, and charged with providing adult entertainment without a permit.

According to Towelroad, a total of 62 patrons were handcuffed, searched illegally, and forced onto the ground, where they stayed for close to two hours.

Towel Road also reported some of the complaints last week:

“One man said officers grabbed patrons who didn’t immediately lie down by the neck and forced them to the ground. The man said he was kicked in the ribs while lying down. ‘Then I heard laughing and giggling and saying this is more fun than raiding niggers with crack. They also told us to shut the fuck up unless we were spoken too [sic].’ The man said he heard one person told that if he spoke again he would be hit by a chair. He also reported that one officer ’said to everyone in general that all you all do is flash your asses and show your cocks.’”

Other witnesses reported that the police uttered anti-gay slurs to those they searched.

The women were attending last Sunday morning’s service to meet the Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr., a mayoral candidate in Memphis.

But when Whalum told the congregation to bow to the ground and blow kisses to God, Stephens and her partner, both agnostics, didn’t move.

Stephens said that Whalum and church members then called them “devil worshippers” and “gay” and security guards pushed them out of the sanctuary. Stephen’s classes were broken. No arrests were made.
Whalum told the Commercial Appeal that the women were “being disruptive, boisterous and speaking loud. They had to have some kind of agenda to come in church like that.”

He said that the women were kicked out because of interrupting the service, not because they were lesbians. “If I put every lesbian out of church, we’d be putting people out of church all day long,” said Whalum.

Under the three-year consent decree signed Thursday by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, Lowe’s also must revise policies on discrimination, harassment and retaliation; provide training on those concerns to all employees at the company’s 37 stores in Washington state and 13 stores in Oregon; and report regularly to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, which filed the lawsuit.

“Severe sex-based harassment of young workers was permitted to run rampant at one of the nation’s largest retailers,” Acting EEOC Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru said in a prepared statement. “It is shocking that Lowe’s store managers actively engaged in and even encouraged such blatant unlawful conduct and then retaliated against the victims for objecting to it.”

Lowe’s denied the claims of the three workers and did not admit any liability but settled “in the interest of avoiding additional disruption and litigation costs,” according to a statement issued by corporate parent Lowe’s Cos. Inc. in Mooresville, N.C.

“Lowe’s is proud of our anti-discrimination policies and procedures and is pleased the company has been able to secure a settlement with the EEOC that supplements our ongoing efforts to prevent discrimination in the workplace,” the statement said, adding that the decree requires only “minor revisions” in sexual harassment policies.

Lowe’s is the nation’s second-largest home improvement retailer, trailing only The Home Depot Inc., with more than 1,675 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

According to the three workers, their problems began within months after they started work when the store opened in November 2005.

One, a 21-year-old woman, said she repeatedly was implicitly propositioned by the 44-year-old store manager and that he sexually assaulted her in his office after she was given a promotion.

Jeremiah Harrison and Chester Davison, both in their 20s at the time, said department heads called them gay although they are heterosexual and subjected them to graphic sexual references. Davison said that when he complained to the store manager, he was told that he and Harrison should avoid spending time together.

All three said they were subjected to months of verbal abuse and a sexually hostile work environment before Harrison and the woman were fired and Davison resigned under pressure, all by September 2006.

“It became almost like a bad fraternity, and those people had a lot of power,” their lawyer, Scott C.G. Blankenship, told The Daily News of Longview after the EEOC lawsuit was filed in February 2008.

The store manager is no longer with Lowe’s, said Christine B. Ahearn, vice president for public relations.

Teacher Diane Cleveland commented that the boy’s “fence swings both ways”; when he wrote a paper on Ben Franlin, Cleveland said he had a “thing for older men.” Another teacher, Walter Fison, said the boy “enjoys wearing women’s clothes.”

The settlement comes after an investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights; the school district denies it violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Both teachers hae received “outstanding performance” awards from the district in recent years.

Chad Gibson had bruises, muscle strain and bleeding in his brain after his arrest more than a week ago on suspicion of public intoxication at the Rainbow Lounge.

Police have said the 26-year-old injured himself when he fell and hit his head. Witnesses say officers slammed him into the wall and floor and tackled other patrons who were arrested that night.

Police say some of the bar patrons made sexual gestures toward the officers and allege Gibson grabbed a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officer’s groin. In interviews after his release from the hospital Sunday, Gibson denied groping the officer.

“I’ve asked for as thorough a report as possible … to reassure folks that the police are not singling out any group,” Councilman Joel Burns said Monday.

He said he was particularly disappointed that the raid occurred on the 40th anniversary of New York City police raid on the Stonewall Inn. That 1969 raid touched off a riot and subsequent demonstrations that fueled the gay rights movement in the U.S.

Burns said Fort Worth police were unaware of the anniversary.

Mayor Pro Tem Kathleen Hicks, also calling for an investigation, said she was “very concerned” after hearing from patrons and others in the community about the early Sunday morning raid at the Rainbow Lounge.

More than 100 people gathered outside the Tarrant County Courthouse on Sunday evening to protest what they said was police harassment and abuse.

One of those arrested during the raid, Chad Gibson, 26, remains hospitalized with bleeding on the brain, his sister Kristy Morgan said.

Gibson is not violent, and “for anyone to come back and say he did something to provoke this is ludicrous,” she told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW.

Fort Worth police went to the Rainbow Lounge with Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents early Sunday as part of routine alcoholic beverage code inspections, said police Sgt. Chad Mahaffey. They first went to two other bars, where 10 people were arrested, he said.

Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made “sexually explicit movements” toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent’s groin, according to the police report.

No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police records.

Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at the agent’s groin. Gibson was so drunk he was vomiting and struck his head when he fell, the chief said. Gibson was arrested, but was taken to the hospital instead of jail.

Halstead said he did not have additional details about how Gibson was injured.

The department has started an internal investigation into the raid, he said.

The TABC is waiting on a report from the Fort Worth office, but “given the concerns that have been raised, it would not be unusual” for an internal investigation to be done, said agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck.

George Armstrong, 41, said he had been at the Rainbow Lounge about 30 minutes when officers stormed inside. He smiled and flashed a peace sign at one officer, but was then grabbed and tackled to the floor with his arm twisted behind his back, he said.

“He was yelling at me to stop resisting arrest, but I wasn’t doing anything. It was horrible. I really thought he had broken my shoulder,” Armstrong said Monday. “I’ve never been so embarrassed and humiliated. I didn’t do anything to him.”

Armstrong, who was arrested, said he noticed that other people who were arrested were injured or said they had been tackled by police.

Armstrong said he was released from jail the next day and went to a hospital, where his arm was put in a sling after X-rays determined his shoulder and back were severely bruised and strained.

Armstrong said he didn’t see anyone inside the Rainbow Lounge make lewd gestures or grab the officers.

“To me, it seemed like they were trying to make a point,” he said of the police.

The Swiss supreme court upheld a lower court’s quashing of the criminal conviction of Sheik Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, 38, according to a copy of the ruling seen Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Al Nayan, brother of the UAE ruler, was convicted in July for hitting Silvano Orsi, 40, of Rochester, New York, with a belt after the American declined a bottle of champagne the sheik offered him in a luxury Geneva hotel bar in 2003. Al Nayan was fined 10,000 Swiss francs ($9,820).

But in March a Geneva appeals court quashed the conviction of inflicting bodily harm with a dangerous object on the ground that the belt wasn’t dangerous.

Orsi appealed to the Federal Tribunal to reinstate the conviction.

In rejecting the appeal on procedural grounds, the Federal Tribunal ordered Orsi to pay 2,000 Swiss francs ($1,834) in court costs. The high court’s ruling, dated May 26, held that as a civil party Orsi didn’t have the legal standing to contest the acquittal.

Orsi claims that after refusing the champagne, the sheik, whom he had never met, came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat on his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, the assault began, he says.

The sheik told investigators that he got into a heated argument with Orsi after he overheard someone call him gay. Al Nahyan acknowledged that he pulled his belt from his trousers but denied striking Orsi.

Geneva’s chief prosecutor, Daniel Zappelli, has said Orsi’s injuries and post-traumatic shock from the beating in August 2003 left him incapable of working.

The defendant is a brother of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who was appointed president of the United Arab Emirates in 2004 after the death of their father, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

It’s a subject so taboo that the cabinet minister responsible for seniors and representatives of the gay and lesbian communities couldn’t find a seniors residence willing to host a news conference.

It was eventually held in a community center on the fringes of Montreal’s gay village.

Still, Minister Marguerite Blais says it’s more about ignorance than malice.

“We would have found a residence eventually,” she said. “I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything. I just want to show how important it is to educate people on this issue.”

Laurent McCutcheon of the gay helpline Gai Ecoute says homosexuality isn’t discussed in most institutions that serve the elderly, leading many Quebec seniors to hide their sexual orientation.

As they age and lose their autonomy, gay, lesbian or transgendered seniors face stigma, loneliness, social isolation, rejection and in extreme cases, harassment from the very institutions they depend on to meet their needs.

The new initiatives funded by the government are meant to highlight the isolation many of them feel.

“We know there are gays and lesbians in these institutions who, sadly, spent their lives in the closet and will stay there until the end,” McCutcheon said.

“We’ll try to do as much as we can for them but also lay the groundwork for the generations coming up.”

In some ways, it’s become the final frontier of gay and lesbian rights.

“We’ll be the first generation to reach to our golden years after fighting for our rights,” McCutcheon said, a comment later echoed by Blais.

“Baby boomers don’t want to accept these situations after a lifetime of living openly,” she said.

Gai Ecoute will receive $400,000 over four years to produce an education campaign for people who work with the elderly that will include a website and an information kit.

The Quebec Lesbian Network will receive $120,000 over three years to broadcast a film that portrays the lives of six lesbians in their golden age.

Diane Heffernan, director of the Network, spoke about the resistance she faced when she approached old age homes about airing the film.

She says she was rejected outright by 118 of the 120 institutions she petitioned and in one home, only 25 of some 4,000 residents attended the screening.

“They were rebels,” Heffernan joked. “They’d been warned they’d be marked as lesbians if they showed up.”

Blais says her support for the projects came after statements made during Quebec-wide public consultations in 2007 on issues facing the elderly.

“There’s a long way to go in their social recognition. These two projects won’t end taboos but it’s a start…(But)I believe a human being is allowed to have dreams, a fulfilling life, right up to their last breath.”