From McClatchy-Tribune News Service in the Baltimore Sun:

Kathi Wolfe, who identifies herself as a legally blind lesbian, says the president should be praised for signing the hate crime bill, which enlarges the definition of federal hate crimes to include those involving sexual orientation, gender or disability.

Wolfe rejects claims that the law will inhibit free speech, and says bias will only be prosecuted when accompanied by a violent act.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act won’t end bias-based crimes. But it will put everyone on notice that such crimes will not be tolerated.

And for those of us who are vulnerable, it makes us a little less fearful today than we were yesterday.

That’s something that all Americans should celebrate.

Kathi Wolfe is a poet and writer for Progressive Media Project.

From the New York Times, AP/Washington Post, Los Angeles Times:

Over the objections of Republicans, the House Thursday voted to broaden the federal hate-crime law to prohibit violence against people because of their disability, sexual orientation, gender or affiliation with the military.

The measure, which now goes to the Senate, was attached to a $680 billion defense spending bill that includes a pay hike for members of the military. Similar hate crime legislation had faced a veto threat from former president George Bush, but  President Obama has promised to sign it.

“No American should ever have to suffer persecution or violence because of who they are, how they look, or what they believe,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Passage of the legislation would mark the first major expansion to law enacted after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Existing federal law defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on race, color, religion or national origin.

Democrats hailed the 281-146 vote as the culmination of an effort to curb violent attacks like the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left to die 11 years ago.

The vote comes just days after the release of a Justice Department report that found people with disabilities are 50 percent more likely to experience nonfatal violent crime than their peers. Women with disabilities were found to be victims at rates almost twice that for other women, and rates of rape and sexual assault were 2.7 times higher than those for the general population. Of the violent crime victims with disabilities surveyed, nearly one in five said they believed they were targeted because of their disability.

Republican opponents accused Democrats of committing legislative blackmail by attaching the measure to the defense spending bill. A number assailed the measure as “thought crimes” legislation, contending that it could lead to the prosecution of a pastor delivering sermons against homosexuality if one of his church members committed a hate crime.

Related posts here.

From the Associated Press:

Experts say the media frenzy surrounding South African track star Caster Semenya, 18, spotlights a birth defect that is rarely discussed: “disorders of sexual development.”

Two Australian newspapers recently reported that tests show Semenya has both male and female sexual characteristics. The reports have not been confirmed.

Experts say the public revelation about Semenya’s rumored genetic condition, which often goes unnoticed until testing is performed, could cause her severe emotional trauma. Most major sports abandoned regular genetic testing after the 1996 Olympics.

Unless she took some illicit substance, Semenya is a female with a birth defect, simple as that, said Dr. Myron Genel, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at Yale University. He was part of a special panel of experts convened by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1990 that helped end much, but not all, genetic gender testing.

“It’s no different in a sense than a youngster who is born with a hole in the heart,” Genel said. “These are in fact birth defects in an area that a lot of people are uncomfortable with.”

See also:

Some things we need to keep in mind about Caster Semenya—Sports Illustrated

IAAF: Semenya decision in November—AP/ESPN

Caster Semenya’s family react angrily to ‘hermaphrodite’ reports in Australian media—[UK] Telegraph

(Associated Press photo)

From the [UK] Telegraph:

Otto Baxter, 21, who made headlines around the world when his mother said she was even willing to hire a prostitute to fulfill his desire to have sex, has decided he’d rather wait. Baxter has Down syndrome.

His mother, Lucy, said that “since Otto was in the news he has literally been flooded with offers from women” — including Australian sex worker and campaigner Rachel Wotton — “but even though he has been tempted he has never gone through with it.”

“He says to me that he wants to wait for the right girl which I think is fantastic. He has come to a mature decision and I am very proud of him for that.”

Earlier posts here.

(Telegraph photo)

From KTRK-TV, Houston:

A family is suing a Houston-area assisted living center, alleging that its policy on sex by residents led to widespread X-rated activity and eventually the sexual assault of their daughter.

The family, which was not named, alleged that Willow River Farms in San Felipe adopted a policy in 2008 that permitted residents to have sex whenever they wished, without interference by staff unless they got too noisy. The family said the changed policy resulted in public intercourse and group sex. Eventually, they said, the vulnerable 42-year-old woman was raped.

Willow River Farms declined to comment.

Jeff Gordinier from Details magazine writes about his Las Vegas road trip with the serene and restrained Bill McMullen, 28, and his virgin frat boy companion, Otto Baxter, 21, who is hoping to score.

The twist: Otto has Down syndrome, and Bill is his paid personal assistant.

My job,” Bill says, “is to help Otto live his life how he wants to live it.”

This is Otto’s first trip to America, but his story became widely known in the U.K. after his mother, Lucy Baxter, gained media attention “when she went public about a topic of great delicacy, telling reporters that she wanted her son to find a woman who would introduce him to the pleasures of sexual congress—and saying that she would go so far as to help him track one down.”

Lucy Baxter’s point is that her sons are free to make their own decisions; she says she has no intention of becoming Otto’s sexual procurer. “I think it would be fairly sordid to go to a brothel,” she says. “I wouldn’t be all that happy about it. But if that’s what Otto wanted to do, I would certainly not stop him. There is a big difference between what I would like and what Otto would like and what I believe Otto has the right to have. I’ve been speaking about the rights of disabled people—the fact that he has the right to choose—and I won’t stop him in what he decides.”

(Details magazine photo)

From the Boston Globe:

A Massachusetts bill that was intended to protect vulnerable people from sexual exploitation has stirred widespread protest among senior citizens and people with disabilities, who say it could instead criminalize self-expression.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein, says people over age 60 and people with disabilities who have been declared mentally incompetent cannot give consent to erotic photographs. Other parts of the bill use the term “elders and persons with a disability” without referring to mental competence or consent.

Critics say the generalized language perpetuates stereotypes about people with disabilities as asexual or childlike, and potentially infringes on free speech rights.

Reinstein said the bill’s language was written by legislative committee, and will probably be changed in response to the criticism before it comes to a vote.