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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 2008)
JANUARY 18, 2008 A 'uÆ/illainette Financial WW Group, LLC A View of the Sea thing about it when people do something like this. There are enough laws and legislation to take on discrimination and threats.” AMERICAS Canadian Bill Would Protect Transgender People Canadian Member of Parliament Bill Siksay has introduced a bill to ban inciting hatred or advocat ing genocide against transgender people, the Vancouver gay newspaper Xtra! West reported. Gays have had such protections since 2004- The bill would add “gender identity” to the list of distinguishable group traits in the Criminal Code. The measure also gives judges leeway to impose harsher sentences for crimes motivated by “bias, prejudice or hate” based on gender identity. Siksay, who is gay and represents a Vancouver- area district, said Canadian “transgender and transsexual people are regularly victims of abuse, harassment and physical violence.” Only one of Canada’s 13 provinces and territo ries—the Northwest Territories—explicitly prohibits anti-trans discrimination. New Bolivian Constitution Not All Good for Gays Although the final wording of Bolivia’s planned new constitution bans discrimination based on sex ual orientation, the document also will ban same- sex marriage, defining matrimony as the union of a man and a woman, according to a report in La Paz’s La Prensa. The definition also would apply to common-law marriage. If the constitution is ratified in a national referendum, Bolivia will become the sixth nation to ban anti-gay discrimination via its constitution, and the first to protect transgender people constitutionally. Gay groups called the planned protections a huge advance but lamented that the document might impede recognition of same-sex partnerships. The other nations that protect gays constitu tionally are Canada, Ecuador, Fiji, South Africa and Switzerland. The Swedish Constitution, in a section on press freedom, prohibits agitation and threats against gay people as a group. Uruguay Civil Union Bill Signed into Law President Tabaré Vazquez signed a bill Dec. 27 making Uruguay the first Latin American country to grant same-sex couples access to civil unions on the national level. The legislation, which passed the Senate in September and the House of Representatives in November, took effect Jan. 1. Toni Poveda says the Couples must live National Federation of together for five Lesbians, Gays, years before they can Transsexuals and take advantage of Bisexuals might sue a Protestant minister the law, which concerning his "gay grants spousal rights cure" seminar. in areas that include inheritance, property ownership, pensions, parent ing and health care. The law applies to “two people—whatever their sex, identity, orientation or sexual option may be— who maintain an emotional relationship of a sexu al nature [and] an exclusive, singular, stable and permanent character without being united in matrimony.” Other Latin American localities with civil union laws include the city of Buenos Aires, the Argentine province of Rio Negro, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, Mexico City and the Mexican state of Coahuila, which borders Texas. 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