“We Are Not Animals in the Hood”

Lisa Gray-Garcia has written a superb article for Poor People Magazine about a new phenomena of “Gang Tours” in LA, where tourists can pay to see REAL! graffiti, the Skid Row, “all-black” public housing, and even The World’s Largest Jail! Now white people too can enjoy Compton and South Central Los Angeles, after purchasing the $65 ticket and then riding in air-conditioned (bullet-proof?) buses on this “customized high-end specialty tour”.

LA Gang Tours is a non-profit run by LA activists, which says the profits will be funneled back into the community.

Lisa Gray-Garcia says the tours “zoo-ify” poor people and people of color, who will clearly not be paying $65 to drive around looking at projects, tags and bullet holes.

Some evidence makes the zoo-ification more than speculative:

From the LA Times:

But one backer said he also hopes to stage dance-offs between locals; tourists would pick a winner and fork over a cash prize. It wasn’t long ago that organizers decided against a plan to have kids shoot tourists with water pistols, followed by the sale of T-shirts that read: “I Got Shot in South-Central.”

Come see how they live! In their natural environment! We’ll even make the natives dance!

Commenter ipastor01 at the Huffington Post wrote:

OJ’s house, Brentwood

Manson Moorders, Beverly Hills

Neverland Ranch, Santa Barbara

Polanski case, Hollywood Hills

Do come down to my neighborhood to get away form those crime ridden cities running wild with thugs.

Take it away Lisa:

One of the many oxymoronic aspects of this concept is the notion… that our neighborhoods, our communities, our corners, our schools, and our homes, are crazy, dirty, sick, disgusting and must be cleaned up, cleaned out and eradicated, hygienic metaphors about humans scattered about with impunity. And the complete and utter disregard for the fact that in everyone of these so-called, blighted neighborhoods, filthy apartment buildings and poor people schools, homes and communities, there are families and elders and children of color who are living, thriving, learning, and resisting. There are heroes, and leaders, and lecturers and healers, and dreamers and teachers, and poets and artists, revolutionaries and scholars…

I started this piece by saying I had terror in my heart about the gang tours, but be clear its not terror for the poor, unsuspecting tourist, default colonizers and 21st century missionaries, stumbling and trampling over our communities and cultures as the well-meaning gang tours commence, rather, its terror for the residents of the proposed tour sites, and so I caution all of the community members, families and young people to hold on carefully to their purses, wallets, belongings, poetry, art and scholarship, cause, well, you know how dangerous those tourists can be.

Please read her whole article at Poor Magazine.

US Condemns Human Rights Council’s Findings

The United Nations Human Rights Council sent respected human rights experts to investigate the state of human rights vis-a-vis the Gaza conflict.

Surprise! They discovered Israeli war crimes and human rights abuses:

The Goldstone mission report — totaling 575 pages — contains detailed accounts of deadly Israeli attacks against schools, mosques, private homes, and businesses nowhere near legitimate military targets, which they accurately described as “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.”

This scary, scary statement of facts by a commission of respected officials Will. Not. Stand. in the United States, where our patriotism is predicated on the believe our ally Israel is incapable of making any false step. Outrage at a report, based on research (the nerve!), burned so hot in the hearts of the United States House of Representatives that they were compelled, nay, mandated by love of god and country, to “overwhelmingly approve” a resolution condemning it.

The resolution resolves that the report is “irredeemably biased” against Israel, an ironic charge given that Justice Goldstone, the report’s principal author and defender, is Jewish, a longtime supporter of Israel, chair of Friends of Hebrew University, president emeritus of the World ORT Jewish school system, and the father of an Israeli citizen.

The resolution also expresses outrage that the “culpability” of Iran and Syria weren’t condemned in this report on Gaza and Israel. Because, you know, Syria and Iran support Palestine, which is run by terrorists, thereby making them State Sponsors of Terrorism upon Israel. Personal vendetta anyone?

Because this resolution was “overwhelmingly” approved in a House that is dominated by Democrats, we are once again reminded to ask ourselves the question: “Exactly how different are Democrats and Republicans?”

Having 80% of the U.S. House of Representatives go on record attacking the integrity of one of the world’s most respected and principled defenders of human rights is indicative of just how far to the right the U.S. Congress has now become, even under Democratic leadership.

Sigh. Read the whole bullshit enchilada here.

Hot Lesbian Music Video Pt.4

Seattle’s Team Gina with Butch/Femme:

Hot Lesbian Music Video Pt.3

Yo Majesty with “Don’t Let Go”:

And Next in My Hot Lesbian Music Video Series…

Boyskout’s video: Back to Bed

Another hot video by Boyskout.

Obesity, Like Poverty, Is the Result of Personal Failure

And Lincoln University will stand by and watch their students deliberately make themselves fat no longer:

A Pennsylvania university’s requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.

Officials at historically black Lincoln University said Friday that the school is simply concerned about high rates of obesity and diabetes, especially in the African-American community.

“We know we’re in the midst of an obesity epidemic,” said James L. DeBoy, chairman of Lincoln’s department of health, physical education and recreation. “We have an obligation to address this head on…”

Yeah, like DeBoy said. It’s not like the United States government has subsidized corn over-production, it’s not like grocery stores are filled with boxed, canned and frozen food filled with corn derivatives and chemicals, it’s not like cities are planned around car culture, it’s as though poor neighborhoods are filled with fast food restaurants and suburbs with chain restaurants, it’s not as though we are all surrounded by advertisements pushing us to consume unhealthy foods, it’s not as if school lunches American children grow up on are made out of anything but the best, healthiest ingredients available.

No, it is the personal choices of these bad, bad Lincoln University students that lead to obesity. Change an unhealthy system? Heck, why not just blame the already-marginalized obese for their own health problems.

While they’re at it, why doesn’t Lincoln University add mandatory testing and classes for people with diabetes? And people with high blood pressure? How about students with mental health issues? People with STDs? Students with acne?

What’s the difference? Lifestyle choices can affect all of these health conditions. So why stop at obesity?

Surely it is safe to say our obsession concern about obesity, inspite of the fact that Lincoln University does not mandate testing and classes for any other health condition, is just because we are worried about the poor, ignorant college students’ well-being, and has nothing to do with a national pastime of blaming the victims of our greed-based capitalistic system for their own misfortune.

Just like poor people are poor because they are lazy, fat people are fat because they are lazy. As a matter of fact, poor people are often fat, therefore making the laziness descriptor even more apt. Apter.

Basically, I think we can all agree that what brings fatness and poverty together is that both are caused by personal failure, and not larger forces controlled by fabulously wealthy elites who benefit from keeping people poor and fat. I mean, besides government subsidy money, factory monoculture farming, enormous profit from cheap and fatty food, enormous profit from exploiting labor, and a huge benefit to maintaining a downtrodden lower class from which to draw cheap labor, what is there to gain from creating a system that encourages obesity and poverty? Because the very idea is so ridiculous, personal failure is a much more reasonable explanation. I’m sure James DeBoy would agree with me.

Because by mandating special classes to “teach” the obese about how they have failed and how they are personally responsible for the conditions that led to their health problems, he is thoroughly behind me in the fat = stupid and lazy but other health conditions are legitimate crowd.

And nobody, I mean nobody better make a peep to the effect that it is possible to have a high BMI and yet still be healthy. Come on, that doesn’t even make sense! It’s SCIENCEtm!!!

Blech.

The Hijabi Monologues

Interesting event at the Kennedy Center in DC this Sunday: The Hijabi Monologues.

Using real stories from Muslim women, Sahar Ullah’s performance moves beyond the stereotypes regarding the head scarf (hijab) and creates a better understanding of Muslim-American women.

From the artist’s bio:

Sahar Ishtiaque Ullah is the writer, co-founder and sometimes director for the Hijabi Monologues project. Born and raised in South Florida, Sahar received her BA from the University of Miami, majoring in English, Religious Studies and Political Science and her MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago… For over ten years, she organized study circles for Muslim teenagers, women and children from whom she learned the priceless value of “I don’t know” and lived experiences. Her love for learning, simplicity and the sounds of eloquence is very much intertwined with her interest in the power of stories, spirituality and oral tradition.

h/t FatemahF

The Czech Legion

The Czech Legion…

Get ready for one of the wildest stories you never heard…

Midst the chaos of World War One and the Russian Revolution, 70,000 Czech and Slovak P.O.Ws switched sides. They became The Czechoslovak Legion – an Allied army fighting for a country of their own – Czechoslovakia. They captured half the Trans-Siberian Railway, half the Czar’s gold, and the heart of a new nation.

…And it’s all true.

Here’s the Wikipedia page, if you wanna check that out. And here’s a version of the Czech Legion history that’s less confusing than wiki’s.

Today is Trans Day of Remembrance

Collage from Monica at TransGriot

Here are words from two blogs on my blogroll in honor of this day:

Monica at TransGriot:

The Transgender Day of Remembrance exists so that we don’t get so consumed living our own lives, dealing with our own drama and fighting our own battles to live our lives that our fallen brothers and sisters fade from our consciousness. It’s a vehicle to help us remind the world that the people we mourn on this day were somebody’s son, daughter, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, or friend.

But what does the Transgender Day of Remembrance mean to me personally?

A Transgender Day of Remembrance is the time that this proud, African descended transwoman pauses from dealing with the hustle, bustle and drama of living my life to do as Dr. King so eloquently put it, some ‘hard, solid thinking’ about the transpeople whose lives were cut short due to anti-transgender violence.

She also sez:

Never forget the people who died.

That’s what the TDOR is all about. To make sure we never forget the people we have lost to anti transgender violence.

And Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia writes:

[W]hat I want to acknowledge is that there’s a paradox, that no trans person can truly witness for the murdered–especially those we’ve never met. And yet, with due caution, I think we should. Not to further our own goals, not to get legislation passed that protects only the already-privileged or to wallow in self-pity, but to honour the memories of every single trans person murdered this year, and to acknowledge the violence that our community lives with as a whole. To acknowledge that even in death, transphobia and cissexism mean that the murdered are not properly remembered, not even by the correct names and pronouns–and those people should be remembered as the right sex. That is our task for today (surviving ourselves, as well as prevention of more of the same is our task for the rest of the year).

She also links to a list of names.

The Czech’s 1st Blogiversary!!

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

I made it a whole year. Please post your hearty congratulations and your dreams for The Czech of the future below.

Also, in honor of my blogiversary, I decided to do a little self photoshoot. See if you like the results:

What Women Are Saying About the Stupak Amendment

Rep. Bart Stupak

Rep. Joe Pitts

[This space intentionally left blank.]

I sifted through blogs and media to find out what women bloggers and writers both obscure and well-known are saying about the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

I noticed one thing while researching. Overwhelming, white, straight women are writing about this issue. Queer women and women of color and QWOC are not as focused on this issue as white straight women are. Is abortion a white, straight issue?

Katha Pollitt at the Nation: Whose Team Is It, Anyway?

Laura Flanders at GritTV: Compromise on Women’s Backs Again

Kate Harding at Salon: Face it: The Democratic Party is not for women

Jessica Arons at Think Progress: The Stupak Amendment Is A Monumental Setback For Abortion Access

Jill Filipovic at Feministe: Stupak Amendment: A Coup for Republicans

Kjerstin Johnson at Bitch Magazine: Health Care Reform and the Stupak Amendment

Sarah Jaffe at Global Comment: Hey Stupak, women’s bodies are not bargaining chips

Natalia Anatova at her eponymous blog: Way to go, Democrats

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville: Our Mendacious President

and: Stupak Starts Making Threats

RobinNWLC at Feministing: Abortion and Health Care Reform: How The House Bill Forces Women to Accept Less Coverage Than They Already Have

Pilgrim Soul at the Pursuit of Harpyness: You Can Put Down Your Champagne Now

M. Leblanc at Bitch Ph.D: Life-saving, life-changing, affordable health care

Echidne at Echidne of the Snakes: Now In The Pulpit: E.J. Dionne

Sara E. Anderson at F-Words: Why not abortion insurance?

Amy Siskind at The Daily Beast: How Obama Sold Women Out

Latoya Peterson at Jezebel: Message to Obama: Abort the Stupak-Pitts Amendment

and: Wimpy Wimpy Wimpy: Democrats Are Dithering on Issue of Abortion

Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling at the New York Times: Trading Women’s Rights for Political Power

Dr. Susie Baldwin at RH Reality Check: Another Doctor Mad as Hell

Amie Newman at RH Reality Check: Dear Progressive Allies in Health Care Reform: Where Were You on the Stupak Amendment?

and: RNC Health Plan Covers Abortion and Other Facts & Lies Behind the Stupak Amendment

Actually, you can just go to RH Reality Check and do a search for “Stupak”.

Cao: My Constituents Are Poor

Louisiana Representative Anh (Joseph) Cao was the only Republican to vote for the health care bill:

“I have a constitutional duty to make the right decision for my district whether or not the decision was popular. I had to make a decision of conscience based on the needs of the people of my district. A lot of my constituents are uninsured, a lot of them are poor.”

NYT:Louisiana Republican Breaks Ranks on Health Bill

LA Times: Cantor: No retaliation planned against Cao, only Republican to vote for health care bill

CNN: Update: Lone GOP vote came after call from President Obama

Think Progress: GOP Threatens Retribution Against Cao For Health Care Vote

The Washington Independent: The War on Joseph Cao

Fox News: White House Spent ‘Weeks’ Courting Lone GOP Vote on Health Care Bill

Washington Post: A vote to make or break a career
Lone House Republican backed health bill after abortion was limited

Politico: Shenanigans: Get to Know Rep. Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao

Michelle Malkin: What GOP Rep. Joseph Cao got from Obama

TPM: Cao To Steele: Come And Get Me — Just Remember You Need My District

Quotes of the Day

“The rich, giving part of their enormous earnings [to create universities], became known as philanthropists. These educational institutions did not encourage dissent; they trained the middlemen in the American system—the teachers, doctors, lawyers, administrators, engineers, technicians, politicians—those who would be paid to keep the system going, to be loyal buffers against trouble.”

-Howard Zinn
A People’s History of the United States

“Just a reminder that the year is 2009, and white people talking to black people is still a controversial issue in the Republican party.”

-Wonkette

We Must Fight the Trend Sweeping the Nation: That It’s Cool to Be Fat

Did you know that there is a “backlash that glorifies obesity” and that “people celebrate clinical obesity”?

I didn’t, but apparently it’s all the rage with the kids these days according to The Root. The Root, a normally good blog, took the opportunity to bash actress Gabourey Sidibe (star of Precious) for her obesity, because they kindly hope she can “get a handle on [her] health”.

Us Weekly, I would expect. But from The Root?

In an article titled ‘Precious’ and the Pushback and subtitled “Congrats on the role of a lifetime, Gabourey Sidibe. Self-esteem is a beautiful thing. But we should celebrate your performance, not your size. Obesity is a national epidemic.” writer Alicia Villarosa is very concerned that if we don’t repeatedly and publicly censure Sidibe for her weight, everyone in the country will want to be fat like her. Because, you see, it’s a total secret that obesity is bad for one’s health, and society doesn’t already make life miserable for the obese, and if Villarosa and all other Precious viewers don’t speak out now, everyone’s going to mistakenly think you can be fat and happy and successful.

Villarosa goes so far as to berate anyone who would look at her as a role model or who would make a positive comment about her body.

Yes, Sidibe is a promising performer, one who’s already generating Oscar buzz. So if we just stick to her acting, kudos. But if we’re talking about her size—which has become part of the conversation—are people delusional? A five-foot-something woman tipping the scales at over 300 pounds is not something to celebrate. That’s SUPER fat, and no matter how passionately you argue the opposite, medical science will pull the plug on that position: Your health will suffer from carrying such an extreme amount of weight.

Then she plies us with helpful health advice that no one could have possibly thought of themselves.

So the message is to be the healthiest you. That means not hauling around a mountain of excess of weight that limits activities and invites health problems. Nor does it mean starving yourself or over-exercising to the brink of cardiovascular failure. It’s about being comfortable in your own skin and loving yourself, but always striving to be better. If you’re overweight, say yes to dropping some pounds, but do so with an emphasis on obtaining better health.

DEAR FAT PEOPLE: ALWAYS BE TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT. ALWAYS. DO NOT HAVE A CAREER. DO NOT BE SUCCESSFUL. AND DO NOT, DO NOT PASS GO. Also, please stay out of public view, because as soon as someone sees you there’s going to be an OBESITY CRAZE!

cease to resist, giving my goodbye
drive my car into the ocean
you’ll think i’m dead, but i sail away
on a wave of obesity
a wave
wave

i’ve kissed mermaids, rode the el nino
walked the sand with the crustaceans
could find my way to mariana
on a wave of obesity,
wave of obesity
wave of obesity
wave

WAVE OF OBESITY
wave

whew… uh… so we had a little interlude there. Um, as I was saying…

Do we really need an article in the Root reminding us all to fat-shame Sidibe?

Feministe brought this article to my attention.  No fat-shaming in the comments please!  If you want to learn more about size acceptance, take a look at the Size Acceptance section of my 101 page.

Lance Kinzer Has the Gay Agenda All Figured Out

Ok, here’s how it works. This is logic, Kansas-style.

The gheyz, you see, want to pass a hate-crime law that defines homophobic crimes as hate crimes. But everyone knows that gheyz ought to get beat, so that doesn’t make any sense.

What could they possibly be up to?

Well, they have a master plan.

First, they pass a bill to give themselves special rights, like the right not to get beat up. Look it up, that ain’t in the Constitution.

Then, after conditioning people to accept not beating gheyz as part of a “normal” lifestyle, they pounce on a lulled and unsuspecting citizenry and force marriage equality on God-fearing Christians and restrict the personal freedoms of straight people everywhere by being equal to them.

It looks kind of like this:

1 (Can’t beat gays no more)
+2 (???)
= 3 (Gays get married/Christians have no rights)

If that’s still confusing for you, please refer to the sage words of Kansas State Rep Lance Kinzer: “I could see a court using this as background for a type of argument advancing same-sex marriage.”

Hmmm, point 2 is still a tad unclear, but what IS clear is that gheyz are nefarious, dastardly, out to get your children, and not to be trusted. That they hate America almost goes without saying, but I will allow for the possibility that Mary Cheney loves her country. So we can chalk 2 up to fairy nancy rainbow trickery, knowledge of which probably leads to involuntary gayness alone. Speak Of the Gheyness, And Gheyness Shall Appear.

The ever-entertaining Kansas Liberty website has more.

Complicity (and Reflections on Anthony Sowell)

Phillip Morris at the Cleveland Plain Dealer has written a very apropos column on Anthony Sowell and the eleven women he murdered.

And as the unmistakable smell of rotting human flesh enveloped the neighborhood around Sowell’s house, a community shut its eyes and held it’s nose, while Sowell kept making his run to the beverage store.

The registered sexual predator in their midst made little effort to conceal the horrors that police say he perpetrated on women, but a neighborhood — and a city — blithely ignored the parade of women walking into Sowell’s home without ever walking out.

It appears that a serial killer was able to kill with abandon and confidence in a congested neighborhood because he knew that no one would bother to come looking.

The killer knew that on his streets, a black woman can simply disappear. No questions will be asked. He arrogantly told one of his victims, who managed to escape, that no one would come looking for her because she was a “crack bitch.”

This reminds us of the vast differences between what happens when a white woman, or an owning class woman, disappears versus a black woman, or poor woman. Not only were these women murdered, but no one was even seriously looking for them after they died. Even when relatives did note their absence, authorities declined to look into the matter. What’s the worth of a drug-addicted poor black woman? It should be the worth of a human being, but we have unmistakable tiers for determining who is worthy of society’s resources and emotional investment. Our own memories serve as evidence: when we think of missing women we heard about in the news, who comes to mind? Who’s searches made the media?

Newsweek recently had a story on this exact topic. It discusses a situation in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where ten women have been killed and several more are missing. Their profiles are strikingly similar to the women killed in Cleveland. All black. All poor. Most with a history of drugs.

“If it was someone of a different race, things would have been dealt with the first time around; it wouldn’t have taken the fifth or sixth person to be murdered,” says Andre Knight, a city-council member and president of the local NAACP chapter. “All these women knew each other and lived in the same neighborhood; this is the sign of a potential serial killer. When it didn’t get the kind of attention it needed, it made the African-American community frustrated.”

In Rocky Mount, the police only recently warmed to the thought of a serial killer, perhaps because a killer hasn’t been handed to them on a silver platter as Anthony Sowell was (though there is a local sex offender who was charged with one of the murders in October). Work hours and community resources would have to be expended to determine the existence of a serial killer and locate hir. Not worth it if the killer only strikes poor black victims. The community of Rocky Mount had better hold onto their resources for something more important. Sports stadium, anyone?

Sowell was, unfortunately, quite smart, and knew things like this. He struck upon a ‘winning’ formula, which probably also stroked his ego for its boldness, its audacity. He preyed on women whom he knew society valued little. He didn’t even bother to hide his deeds. He killed women and in some cases just left the bodies where they lay, allowing the stink of his murders oppress the entire neighborhood. Everyone knew something or someone had died. And collectively, they accepted it with few questions. He knew they could smell it. When they did nothing, surely he felt that the neighborhood was complicit.

This case is really a story about complicity. Anthony Sowell did the raping and murdering. But so many others made it possible for him to do so. Don’t they deserve any credit for their work? The prison system, the police system, our “war on drugs”, drug dealers, the community, the city leaders, the economic system, institutional racism?

The number of people complicit in these rapes and murders of black women is staggering.

UPDATE: Someone who agrees with me:Cleveland, You Know You F&@ked Up, Right?

Americans with Native and Black Ancestry

I hope I get a chance to catch this very interesting exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. It’s called “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas” and it looks into the lives of Americans who have both African and indigenous ancestry. Apparently, up to 60% of African Americans may have some indigenous ancestry.

From an article in Indian Country Today:

The exhibition takes the long view of history, traveling in a few short panels that illustrate the 1600s, when intermarriage and slavery brought Native peoples and African slaves together, to present-day families for whom this dual identity is indivisible.

…
Ideas about the identities of mixed-heritage people grow out of colonial policies, which viewed black and Native people as dangerous.

“In colonial Mexico (the word) lobo, the wolf is the blend of Indian and black,” Tayac said. “The combination was thought to be dangerous, that you could have two colonized and enslaved people, if they come together it could be dangerous. How much did we absorb those ideas?”

This mixed heritage comes from times when Indians and Blacks were enslaved side-by-side, or when enslaved Blacks were able to escape white communities and chose to join Indian communities. Also, some Indians owned black slaves and subsequent intermarriage took place.

Whites were much more comfortable with Indians owning slaves than working alongside of, intermarrying, or welcoming blacks into their communities. If these two oppressed peoples could come together, why, it could threaten white hegemony!

More information on this topic here.

St. Bernard Parish Decides Against Referendum to Ban Multi-Family Dwellings

Hallelujah! Of course it was money that finally convinced the racist City Council in this Louisiana Parish and not a sense of justice, but whatever. The result is that St. Bernard Parish will not hold a referendum to try banning multi-family (read: affordable) dwellings. This ban would naturally have targeted, SURPRISE! blacks and poor people of whichever race.

From the Times-Picayune:

After pressure from federal housing officials and a pending lawsuit in federal court, the St. Bernard Parish Council on Tuesday officially rescinded an item on this month’s special election ballot that would have given voters the chance to permanently ban large apartment complexes in the parish.

The move came on advice from the parish’s lawyers, who last month told the council that they believed the potential apartment ban would jeopardize federal financing for recovery projects and hurt the parish’s appeals of its ongoing fair housing lawsuit.

There is a lot of backstory to this, which you can discover by reading my previous posts on this topic: I, II, III, IV, and V.

Dallas Artists Support Universal Health Care

Dallas artists create an action in support of universal health care!

PAC -WE 2009 – The Beginning from Cindy Chaffin on Vimeo.

Conservatives Scared of Imagined “Terrorist Transvestites”

Rob Long, at the Wall Street Journal, is concerned that the world may no longer be able to protect itself from terrorist transvestites.

His hilarious fear stems from a UN report notable for its nuance and sensitivity towards people who find themselves marginalized due to their gender expression.

Martin Scheinin, UN Special Rapporteur, wrote a report for the UN General Assembly titled “Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”.

In it, he makes ‘controversial’ statements like:

Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women’s and men’s roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood. This report will therefore identify the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures both on women and men, as well as the rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. As a social construct, gender is also informed by, and intersects with, various other means by which roles, functions and responsibilities are perceived and practiced, such as race, ethnicity, culture, religion and class. Consequently, gender is not static; it is changeable over time and across contexts. Understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps to identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counterterrorism measures; to understand the underlying causes of these violations; and to design strategies for countering terrorism that are truly non-discriminatory and inclusive of all actors.