Scotland Becomes First country with LGBTI Teaching Curriculum
State schools will be instructing teachers as well as students about the history of LGBTI equality and movements, challenging homophobia and transphobia, and exploring LGBTQ+ identity and terminology. There will be no exemptions to the policy, so individual schools will not be allowed to opt-out. The Scottish government's move comes after an LGBTI Inclusive Education working group, led by the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) campaign, outlined 33 recommendations in a published report on how to tackle LGBTI bullying in schools.
In a study, TIE found that nine in 10 LGBTI Scots experience homophobia at school, with 27% reporting that they had attempted suicide because of being bullied. Research also discovered there was little understanding in schools about prejudice against people with variations of sex characteristics and intersex bodies. These findings are likely a part of the destructive legacy of section 28, the infamous legislation enacted by Margaret Thatcher's conservative government in 1988. The clause, part of the Local Government Act 1988, banned the "promotion" of homosexuality by local authorities and educators in British schools. It was repealed in Scotland in 2001 and in the rest of the UK two years later.
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Jordan Daly, the co-founder of TIE, said of the new curriculum: "This is a monumental victory for our campaign, and a historic moment for our country. The implementation of LGBTI inclusive education across all state schools is a world first. In a time of global uncertainty, this sends a strong and clear message to LGBTI young people that they are valued here in Scotland."
Surprisingly, Scotland is regularly ranked one of the best European countries for legal protections of LGBTI people despite the country decriminalizing homosexuality in 1980, 13 years after England and Wales did the same. Former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale described the country in 2016 as having "the gayest parliament in the world." At the time four of Scotland's six party leaders identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual: Dugdale, Ruth Davidson, David Coburn and Patrick Harvie.
A number of Scotland's neighbors, including Wales and the Republic of Ireland, have also been looking into further integrating LGBTQ+ issues in their curricula. In England, some schools are already teaching LGBT-inclusive classes.
In contrast, the education system in the United States is not nearly as LGBTQ+ friendly. Much like the repealed section 28 in the UK, seven U.S. states have anti-gay laws that explicitly prohibit the positive portrayal of homosexuality in schools. The laws, currently in effect in Alabama, Texas, Arizona, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi (Utah repealed its law in 2017), can have various negative effects on LGBTQ+ youth within the millions of public school students affected.
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A report by GLSEN, an LGBTQ+ education advocacy group, found that LGBTQ+ students in these states were less likely to find peers that are accepting of their identities, more likely to hear homophobic remarks, and more likely to face harassment and assault at school because of their sexual orientation and/or gender expression. Schools in these states are also less likely to have teachers and administrators supportive of LGBTQ+ students, as well as fewer resources (like Gay-Straight Alliance clubs) and less health services inclusive of LGBTQ+ needs. While the exact laws differ in each state, advocates say they all function to further stigmatize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students.
Scottish Deputy First Minister John Swinney said Thursday, "Our education system must support everyone to reach their full potential. That is why it is vital the curriculum is as diverse as the young people who learn in our schools."
"The recommendations I have accepted will not only improve the learning experience of our LGBTI young people, they will also support all learners to celebrate their differences, promote understanding and encourage inclusion," Swinney said.
The United States should take note of the progress being made by their allies across the pond.
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright. Find Josh at his website and on Twitter: @smalleywrites.
Rest in Peace, Matthew Shepard
Friday, on the other side of the country, his ashes were interred in a crypt at the Washington National Cathedral while thousands looked on. They came to celebrate the life of Shepard, who in the years since his death became a symbol of hope and love amidst anti-gay hate and oppression. For many LGBTQ+ people, the circumstances of his death bring memories of their own struggles, both inside the closet and out.
The public service was led by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal bishop of Washington and the Right Rev. Gene Robinson. Like Shepard, Robinson is an openly gay man, and poignantly, also the first elected as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.
Robinson had tears in his eyes as he welcomed attendees. To those who are LGBT, he said "many of you have been hurt by your own religious communities, and I want to welcome you back." He referred to Shepard's burial at the cathedral as a homecoming, saying "it is a remarkable step forward."
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Shepard's father thanked the attendees for their support. "It's so important that we now have a home for Matt... A home that is safe from haters. A home that he loved dearly." Robinson praised both of Shepard's parents, who founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to combat hate crimes across the country, for devoting their lives to LGBT activism.
During the service, Robinson shared a touching anecdote from the police officer who first saw Shepard the day after his brutal attack. When she arrived, a deer was lying beside Shepard's body and looked the officer straight in the eye before running away.
"What she said was: 'That was the good Lord, no doubt in my mind.' And there's no doubt in my mind either. God has always loved Matt," Robinson said.
In October 1998, Shepard was tortured and robbed by two men he had encountered in a bar, and was subsequently abandoned for eighteen hours tethered to a chain-link fence. He died from his injuries five days later at the age of 21.
Prosecutors in his case alleged that Shepard was targeted because of anti-gay bigotry. The two attackers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were both sentenced to life in prison. Although characterizing the murder as a hate crime has been disputed by some, outrage over Shepard's death ultimately led to the passage of the Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. James Byrd Jr, an African-American man killed by white supremacists in Texas, also inspired the legislation.
Shepard's funeral in 1998 was protested by the now-notorious Westboro Baptist Church carrying signs reading "God hates F*gs," "Matt in hell," "AIDS cures F*gs," among other hateful speech. During the trials for Shepard's killers, the group Angel Action peacefully counter-protested the church's signs while wearing white angel costumes. The costumes had ten-foot wingspans that covered and silenced the church protesters.
Throughout the Friday service, Robinson urged the crowd not only to commemorate Shepard, but to also confront the prejudice and violence that faces the LGBTQ community today. Marginalized factions within the community are particularly at risk of hate, like transgender people. "There are forces who would erase them from America," Robinson said. Twice he encouraged the crowd to "go vote."
Robinson received a long-standing ovation as he closed the service, choking down the final words:
"There are three things I'd say to Matt: 'Gently rest in this place. You are safe now. And Matt, welcome home.' Amen."
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright. Find Josh at his website and on Twitter: @smalleywrites.
How Much Can We Blame Climate Change for Hurricane Michael or Florence?
A reported tropical storm becomes a categorized hurricane making landfall, leaving us with flooding, destruction, and rising death rolls. The Facebook donate buttons proliferate, coastal friends are marking themselves "Safe," and inevitably in our current political climate, op-eds bemoaning the death sentence of climate change or denying its existence are shared on your timeline.
"Climate change" has become a buzzword and political bludgeon, but the fact is 70% of Americans believe it's happening, and 97% of climate scientists agree that it's caused by human activities. It's enough to embolden your friend's incessant need to tag his sweaty Instagram selfies with "#climatechange" for every day over 80 degrees in New York City.
That being said, is it possible to blame global warming as the reason behind Hurricane Florence being the second wettest storm behind Harvey? Or for Hurricane Michael's ranking as the third most powerful storm to ever hit the continental United States? There's also the question on everyone's mind—will we be seeing more destructive hurricanes every year?
The answers: Yes, yes, and it's complicated.
Category 4 Hurricane Michael makes landfall along the Florida panhandle.
Tropical cyclones, like hurricanes, are indeed affected by factors that climate change directly impacts like warmer air, warmer sea surface temperatures, and rising sea levels.
Warmer air contains more moisture than cooler air. Therefore, it makes sense that as the temperature of Earth's troposphere (the weather layer 5-10 miles above the ground) rises, the air can hold more water. This is happening across the globe. And when the air has more water… Yes, you guessed it: there's more rain. Average precipitation in the U.S. has been increasing, and heavier downpours are expected to increase across the country both in intensity and frequency (in the Northeast by a whopping 71%). This increased ability to hold onto moisture will affect hurricanes like Harvey and raise their ability to unleash massive loads of rain.
As for storm strength? Some scientific models project a 45-87% increase in the frequency of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes by 2100 if we continue along our rate of estimated global temperature increase. The warming of the ocean and higher sea levels are the main culprits here. By increasing the temperature of the sea surface, human activity can create hurricanes with 2-11% greater wind speeds that may deliver more damage when making landfall, and with sea levels expected to rise by 1-4 feet in the next 100 years, storm surges will only worsen intense coastal flooding. None of this is made better by reports that storms are slowing down, allowing them to inflict more damage for longer periods of time.
So, yes, the picture is bleak. But wait, there's more—what about the possibility of more storms in general, and more with greater ability to create massive damage? Take a breather, this is a nuanced question.
While there is evidence corroborating global warming causing wetter and stronger storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's research of storms over the past century and complex climate model projections for the future do not support the claim that climate change will lead to an increase in overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic. In fact, there is some evidence that the number of hurricanes is actually decreasing.
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It also gets murky when trying to blame the global crisis on the dramatic increase of hurricane-related costs. The statistics are pretty sobering: three of the five costliest U.S. hurricanes on record occurred last year alone. 2017's Hurricane Harvey is tied for the top spot with Hurricane Katrina (2005) at $125 billion in damages, Hurricane Maria comes after them at $90 billion, and Hurricane Irma rounds out the list at $50 billion (Hurricane Sandy in 2012 is no. 4 at $65 billion).
From those numbers alone, it's easy to become despondent. However, a large reason for the heightened costs of natural disasters is an increase in development along U.S. coastal populations. Americans across the board, and probably your retired parents sick of Minnesotan winters, are flocking to the coasts, whose population grew by nearly 35 million people between 1970 and 2010. Coastal counties made up nearly 40% of the last U.S. census, and this is only estimated to increase. Where there are more people, there are more houses and businesses in harm's way when a hurricane descends on the area. Climate change notwithstanding, storm-related costs would only grow in these places.
I'll admit, it's a bit of a respite to be able to blame something other than global warming on one part of the gloomy picture that is our world's climate future. Climate scientists agree that it's not accurate or compelling to blame individual storms or other weather events on climate change. There are many factors that affect how a hurricane plays out, including planetary orbits, factors local to the creation and path of the storm, as well as year-to-year variances in global weather patterns. The 1900s saw many terrible storms, including the deadliest in our history (by far) at the turn of the century.
However, when looking at overall trends around the world, the case is clear: climate change is happening and it's not going away. It's likely to make hurricanes more severe, unleashing more powerful wind, rain, and flooding.
Perhaps it's best to quote Michael Wehner, a senior staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who says it perfectly. "It's not: climate change flooded my house," he explained. "It's: climate change changed the chances of flooding my house."
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright. Find Josh at his website and on Twitter: @smalleywrites.
Two Years Ahead of 2020 Election, Trump Raises $100 million
The president's fundraising total, which includes his campaign committee and joint accounts with the Republican National Committee (RNC), raised more than $18 million from July to September, according to numbers filed by the Federal Election Commission on Monday night. With more than $106 million at his disposal, Trump has raised a historic amount for an election this far in advance. In contrast, President Barack Obama had just $2.3 million in his bank account two years before his 2012 re-election bid.
The preemptive effort to undermine his future Democratic contender began as soon as 2017, with Trump's abnormal decision to file for re-election the day he was sworn in. There was barely a pause in his campaign's rallying tours across the country—they continued in the first months of his presidency.
Strikingly, the president's campaign committee has raised the majority of its bursting wallet from donations of less than $200. These small sums represent nearly 98% of the money he collected during the third quarter of the year. That's not to say his fundraising team hasn't sought larger donors. One check deposited in the RNC joint account for $250,000 came from venture capitalist and human blood enthusiast Peter Thiel.
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Trump's campaign doubled spending over the last three months to $7.7 million, seeking to stir up its Republican base with more rallies and online appeals. $604,000 was paid to Ace Specialties in Louisiana, the manufacturers of the Trump base's favorite "Make America Great Again" red hats. $1.3 million was paid for legal fees, which includes services related to the Russian meddling investigations, and $1.6 million was spent on advertising to a shadowy company called American Made Media Consultants.
According to the New York Times, the company was created by the campaign to purchase media advertisements as well as online fundraising solicitations. While it's not intended to create profit for Trump, the company could allow the campaign to avoid declaring precise spending details to the election commission. The idea seems to draw inspiration from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
In a statement, the Trump campaign's senior advisor encourages their grass-root supporters "and millions more like them to get out and vote in the midterms so President Trump can continue to build on his agenda with even greater success for the forgotten men and women of this great country."
Despite his success, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas, reportedly raised more than double what Trump did between July and September. The $38.1 million haul is a quarterly fundraising record for a Senate campaign.
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright.
Myanmar Military Used Facebook to Incite Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing
The accounts were masquerading as independent entertainment, beauty, and information pages, such as Burmese popstars, wounded war heroes, and "Young Female Teachers." Fake postings reached 1.35 million followers, spreading anti-Muslim messages to social media users across the Buddhist-majority country.
Facebook's move comes a year after 700,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority group in Myanmar, were forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh amid widely-documented acts of mob violence and rape perpetrated by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs. The United Nations Human Rights Council denounced the crisis as "a textbook case of ethnic cleansing and possibly even genocide."
Last month, the social media giant announced a similar purge, removing Facebook and Instagram accounts followed by a whopping 12 million users. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar armed forces, was banned from the platform, as was the military's Myawady television network.
Over the last few years, Facebook has been in the hot seat for their tendency to spread misinformation. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, inauthentic Facebook accounts run by Russian hackers created 80,000 posts that reached 126 million Americans through liking, sharing, and following. This problem has persisted in the 2018 midterm elections, ahead of which 559 pages were removed that broke the company's policies against spreading spam and coordinated influence efforts. Recent campaigns originating in Iran and Russia target not only the U.S., but also Latin America, the U.K., and the Middle East.
The situation in Myanmar is particularly troubling—it's not an effort by foreign powers to stoke hate and prejudice in a rival, but rather an authoritarian government using social media to control its own people. According to the New York Times, the military Facebook operation began several years ago with as many as 700 people working on the project.
Screen shots from the account of the Myanmar Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, whose pages were removed in August.
Claiming to show evidence of conflict in Myanmar's Rakhine State in the 1940s, the images are in fact from Bangladesh's war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Fake pages of pop stars and national heroes would be used to distribute shocking photos, false stories, and provocative posts aimed at the country's Muslim population. They often posted photos of corpses from made-up massacres committed by the Rohingya, or spread rumors about people who were potential threats to the government, such as Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to hurt their credibility. On the anniversary of September 11, 2001, fake news sites and celebrity fan pages sent warnings through Facebook Messenger to both Muslim and Buddhist groups that an attack from the other side was impending.
Facebook admitted to being "too slow to prevent misinformation and hate" on its sites. To prevent misuse in the future, they plan on investing heavily in artificial intelligence to proactively flag abusive posts, making reporting tools easier and more intuitive for users, and continuing education campaigns in Myanmar to introduce tips on recognizing false news.
The company called the work they are doing to identify and remove the misleading network of accounts in the country as "some of the most important work being done [here]."
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright. Find Josh at his website and on Twitter: @smalleywrites.