“We are not criminals. We are human beings who have rights like any person.” This is the postscript of a three-page letter written by 29 trans and gender nonconforming migrants being held at the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, New Mexico, about 80 miles west of Albuquerque.
Arianna Lint, whose nonprofit supports transgender people in South Florida, saw two of her clients graduate from beauty school early this year, with their gender identities formally recognized on their certificates—a feat only possible after legally changing their names. Arianna’s Center helped the women achieve this milestone.
Little was known about Simon, an emaciated and malnourished baby chimpanzee, when he was confiscated from an unknown man by police last June in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, West Africa. Ragged and with a dull tone to his fur, the 10-month-old was handed over to a local wildlife protection agency, which took him to the Chimpanzee Conservation Center, a sanctuary inside one of the region’s most important protected areas, the 1,200-square-kilometer Haut Niger National Park.
Long-standing anti-LGBTQ violence and harassment along the coast of Kenya, East Africa—spurred in part by pejorative messages conveyed in some places of worship—have motivated grassroots groups to build bridges between faith leaders and local LGBTQ communities. Groups of varying sizes carried out or threatened to carry out at least six such attacks in the three coastal counties of Kilifi, Kwale, and Mombasa since 2008, according to a 2015 report by Human Rights Watch and PEMA Kenya (Pema in Kenya's majority language, Swahili, means 'place of solace').
Some scientists thought mountain gorillas would be extinct by now. Instead, at the end of last year, their official conservation status got a promotion—from critically endangered to endangered—for the first time, thanks to population survey results released earlier in 2018.
“There are many acts of violence against trans bodies—some are perpetrated by the state or allowed by its institutions,” he says. “Our bodies become the first level of resistance, and living our gender identities shows that LGBTI people are everywhere in Honduran society.”
