News and views

- Homosexuality Is Not Fornication But Love, Says ZMD Germany's Islamic Org‏anisation
6/1/10
Islam and homosexuality can go together, finally. A new speech ("Islamic Word") has been published on the website of Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland (ZMD) (= Central Council of Muslims in Germany) as one of a series on speeches on Islamic topics.
The author, Hilal Sezgin - a Muslim woman writer and journalist, says, "I cannot imagine that God woud not accept two people loving each other - irrespective of what their bodies look like. (....) Because homosexuality does not automatically mean "fornication", but is a form of love and pleasing God."

Listen to the speech here: [ January 2010, Length: 3:46 min]
Link to the manuscript: http://www.swr.de/contra/-/id=5743576/property=download/nid=7612/1y2433/Hilal+Sezgin%2C+Januar+2010.pdf

-Racism and the Censorship of "Gay Imperialism"
23/10/09
by Aren Aizura http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/aizura231009.html
Dear friends, Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation. One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008. An edited collection examining intersections between race and sexuality in the United Kingdom, Out of Place joins Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages as a key contribution to this debate. Alongside other contributions in Out of Place, the chapter "Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror", by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem pointed to the continuing deployment of queerness as a symbol of "freedom" to rationalise the continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and future wars in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to rationalise restrictive and racist immigration policies in "Western" or "liberal" nations. "Gay Imperialism" uses the work of activist Peter Tatchell, founder of Outrage!, as an example of how white gay activists can become complicit with this agenda by painting Islam as inherently homophobic and misogynist, and appointing themselves as the saviours of non-white queers.

On September 7th, Raw Nerve Books declared Out of Place to be out of print, removed it from circulation and sale, and issued an online apology to Peter Tatchell. Presumably this is the result of threats of legal action by Tatchell and Outrage!. The apology quotes its own publication to apologise for what it accepts as defamatory statements and misrepresentation of Tatchell and Outrage! by Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem. These include:

a.that Tatchell is "Islamaphobic" and "part of the Islamaphobia industry"
b.that Tatchell is "racist"
c.that Tatchell "sling[s] mud onto Muslim communities"

As one sees if one reads "Gay Imperialism", these so-called accusations are all taken grossly out of context and reduce the complexity of Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem's argument. The apology continues by obsequiously praising Tatchell and Outrage!'s "anti-racist" work, and making further accusations against a number of African LGBT activists, who had refused to work with Tatchell precisely because of his paternalistic attitude, and who are cited in "Gay Imperialism".

It seems likely that Tatchell's lawyers presented Raw Nerve with an already-written apology and asked them to sign and publish it. Tatchell is notoriously litigious. He is equally notorious for staging highly publicised, "one man" actions that appear to have just as much to do with his public image as a gay celebrity activist as any political work. However, Tatchell himself is not important here. What is important is that this critique is evidently so threatening to Tatchell and to the book's publishers that it must be removed from circulation, and the authors must be condemned as liars.

This incident proves something about how difficult it is to do anti-racist work. Pointing out racism, no matter how carefully we might phrase it and no matter which arguments we have about the use of the word 'racism', is often perceived as a personal and individual affront. Those so accused often appear to find it wounding or traumatic -- psychically wounding, but more importantly, wounding to their public image. "How dare you accuse me of racism? I am not racist; I have lots of friends who are people of color!" goes the cliched defensive response we are all familiar with. This way, the person or organisation critiqued can escape engaging with the content of the critique and put the burden of proof back on the person who raised the issue. It is not coincidental that the person making a critique of racism is often non-white, deploying old colonial stereotypes that people of colour are untrustworthy ingrates who don't know what's good for them. This problem of white, "well-intentioned" activists ignoring or actively silencing the desires of the people they profess to help in order to maintain the myth of their own generous self-sacrifice is endemic to many struggles: feminist anti-"trafficking" activism; indigenous land and rights struggles; migration activism; the backlash against the wearing of hijab by Muslim women in France and elsewhere, and on and on. The only way it might ever stop is for its perpetrators to acknowledge their role.

Meanwhile a really amazing book is being censored. The authors of the chapter and the editors of Out of Place are unable to comment due to UK libel law. It's unlikely that Raw Nerve will reissue the book, even if the editors wanted this. Meanwhile the authors' reputations are themselves besmirched. There are several things you can do about this situation:

1.Circulate this and your own commentary among your friends, companeros, colleagues.

2.Circulate "Gay Imperialism" -- a PDF is online here:
<www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=edf3d795b172f5376b21be4093fab7ace04e75f6e8ebb871>

3.Write letters in support of Jin Haritaworn to:
The Gender Institute,
The London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street, London
WC2A 2AE, UK
Please pass this around, respond, send it to other listservs and read the other statements written about the censorship of Out of Place:

"Out of Place, Out of Print: On the Censorship of the First Queerness/Raciality Collection in Britain" by Johanna Rothe, Monthly Review, <monthlyreview.org/mrzine/rothe151009.html>

"On the Censorship of 'Gay Imperialism' and Out of Place", X:Talk website, <www.xtalkproject.net/?p=415>

In solidarity,
Aren Aizura
Aren Aizura is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Gender Studies of Indiana University, Bloomington.

-Trans research review (UK)
22/10/09
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/research/trans_research_review_rep27.pdf
The Equality and Human Rights Commission commissioned the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) to establish a clear picture of the recent and relevant evidence base (quantitative, qualitative, and policy) on equality and discrimination in relation to trans people. The baseline and resulting implications are to be used to inform future policy development and strategy in Britain.

-Pakistan: ‘Dealing with’ the Hijra Problem
28/8/09
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd[157]=x-157-565225
Through the last month, Pakistani media celebrated the recognition of the citizenship rights of the hijra community by a Supreme Court ruling which declared them entitled to ‘protection guaranteed under Article four and Article nine of the Constitution. (Sherryx Weblog)

Article four (rights of individuals to be dealt with in accordance of law) and Article nine (security of person). The ruling has been hailed as an important step toward the integration of ‘the Third sex’ into the Pakistani society, who are now going to be registered and surveyed (with ‘Third Sex’ designating their gender on the ID cards and forms) so as to enable them to access the services of state social welfare departments and financial support programs.

What does it mean – recognition of citizenship rights? It means enfranchisement, access to avenues of power and justice, along with better opportunities for education and health-care. But those lofty goals of modernity that always excluded the hijra are still going to remain out of their reach – the future of economic empowerment for anyone on the margins of Pakistani economy is bleak, the road to justice is not particularly favorable to the poor and the illiterate, and the hijra as yet do not enjoy any special ‘minority’ rights that are needed for political mobilization and combating discrimination in a liberal democracy. Yes, modernity in Pakistan does not seem likely to empower our social outcasts.

There has been little serious discussion of this SC ruling online or in the print media: no speculation whatsoever over the meaning of gender in Pakistan, or whether this ruling is right in creating a hijra subject for the purposes of bureaucracy. What is going to constitute ‘the Third sex’? And what happens to those who do not qualify for this category? What about those ‘gender-confused’ people who do not want to be identified as ‘Third sex’, preferring instead to be identified as ‘male’ or ‘female’?. According to the article quoted above, the hijra are ‘left by the society to live by begging, dancing and prostitution’, to be exploited by the ’self-styled guru’ – does it mean that after this ’social uplift’ program, they will be made to give up their lifetyle? What if they can’t? Does discrimination go away after formal barriers to progress have been removed, or does it merely become invisible and more difficult to fight? With the avenus of empowerment formally open to them, wouldn’t the society find it easier to blame them if their ‘begging and dancing and prostitution’ continues? Will they be persecuted or will we realize that a ‘respectable’ life is just not possible for the hijra without a radical change in the society, its institutions and maybe our ideas of ‘respectable’?

These questions do not surface because of the complete exclusion of a view from the transgender standpoint in our media. This not only means that the interests of the transgendered go largely unarticulated in our media, but also that the experiences of hijra remain shrouded in mystery. With a bourgeois mentality that is reluctant to recognize gender deviance (’inverted’ gender identification, same-sex desire, transvestism, and other inappropriate behavior, all of which, it can be argued, find a measure of acceptance among the more traditionally minded who allow their sons and daughters to join the hijra), the hijra are comfortably assigned a ‘Third sex’. Online, a few articles can illustrate this: it is thought that the hijra are ‘almost invariably hermaphrodites’, when in fact they are not, consisting in a large number of ‘biological’ males who would be described in the West as ‘transgendered’ and ‘transsexual’. Because of that, you find people talking about ‘the true hijra‘ and ‘the cross-dresser’ who only tries to pass off as a hijra. The castration ritual evokes feelings of fascination and horror; it is something that goes against the ‘rational’ sensibilities of most Pakistani moderns. Of course most of us are conditioned to react with feelings of revulsion and pity for their lifestyle, associated with shameless beggary, singing bawdy songs, dancing in the streets, prostitution and even theft and kidnapping. But these feelings also show under the ruse of rationality in articles like this and this. Such write-ups also show the hijra as the enigmatic, untamed Other of the Pakistani society. This is why it is easy to link the hijra with the rise of prostitution, the spread of HIV and other ‘evils’, especially for those who do not want to criticize the system of relationships that produce these problems. It seems as if we do not want any understanding of the hijra; we have alwayswanted to find a way to deal with them.

An understanding of the hijra begins with an understanding of the society. Ours is a society where, in traditional spaces, you find life strictly segregated on the basis of gender, and where it’s not segregated, there is blatant male privilege. The (patriarchal) family reigns supreme as an institution that organizes much of life, based on appropriate gender role socialization, a preference for sons over daughters, early marriages marked by ceremonies that are a public spectacle, and an exclusive system for the care of the young and the old. Transgendered children have an awkward presence in this life - they cannot take the responsibilities of a son, nor can they be married off. And who will take care of them when they grow old? All this makes the marginalization of all ‘gender-confused’ a necessary condition of our social organization. And the ‘unfortunate condition’ of the hijra as a community becomes even more understandable when you think about the effects of urbanization and modern life itself, which has taken away their traditional place in the society and exposed them to sexual exploitation.

And so, I do not find this Supreme Court ruling very heartening. There’s nothing radical about it: by proposing that ‘the hijra problem’ can be solved by ‘registering and surveying’ them, it locates the problem in a few particular conditions of the hijra life, and not in the society. And of course no real change will be achieved: the program will suffer from the usual pitfalls of an inefficient bureaucracy. Moreover, the cause of the hijra is in danger of getting co-opted, who do not need to worry now that the State is doing all it can to save them. Gender injustice is a site of revolutionary potential, and that can be lost with the State apparatus formally committed to the ’social uplift’ of the hijra. But, like I said before, there will be no real ’social uplift’ because the focus is on saving them from this unfortunate situation, rather than working to change the deeply embedded norms of our society.

But perhaps the greatest danger, to which I’ve only alluded so far, is further entrenchment of the gendered order. The hijra have traditionally aroused feelings of awe in the rest of the society, because they defied gender as taken for granted by everyone else. Increasingly, people’s attitudes toward them is changing, as people rid themselves of ’silly superstition’ and see the hijra as part of the lumpen masses. And I can see this official recognition as ‘the Third sex’ taking the demystification of the hijra further along. When they are seen as another sex category, the gendered body politic of the society comes to regulate and control them as well, their bodies becoming ’sexed’ and providing the basis of a sex role, a body ideal, and a clothing distinction that applies to their sex. Much more likely is a medicalized view that ‘pathologizes’ their condition as defective maleness or femaleness (’intersex’ as the medical classification goes), like it did in late 19th century Europe and became a part of the notorious eugenics movement. The concept of ‘intersex’ is heavily criticized by transgender activists in the US. In Iran, an adherence to this concept has led to a State-funded program of SRS operations which has both religious and scientific backing. The rationale behind these potentially life-threatening operations is the ‘integration’ of their ‘hijra’ into the society, but that does not necessarily mean a better life (from the documentary ‘Transsexuals in Iran’) for the gender-ambiguous of Iran.

At this point, we cannot project anything about the future of the hijra of Pakistan. But what is clear is that there are good reasons to be skeptical about this Supreme Court ruling. Perhaps then, the wise thing to do is to see this decision as inevitable in the given political context (as Basim Usmani reflects toward the end of his article), and not to endorse it as a positive step toward the liberation of the gender-ambiguous from an oppressive social structure.

July 29, 2009
Source: Sherryx weblog

-Why can't Muslims be gay and proud?
12/7/09
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6689089.ece
You don’t expect to start an interview with a leading Muslim academic by discussing the state of Rafael Nadal’s knees. But Dr Amanullah De Sondy, from Glasgow University’s School of Divinity, is a bit different from your average theologian. He has just returned to Scotland from Wimbledon, where he worked as an umpire for the second year running. Our dinner-time meeting has to be rescheduled because of the late finish of the men’s final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick.

De Sondy was living in All England Lawn Tennis Club accommodation overlooking Federer’s garden until the day before we meet. But it is where he chose to watch the Centre Court action last Sunday that is most interesting. He could have stayed in London, but had promised to attend church in Dumbarton with a Christian friend; “as I do now and then”. They joined the minister for lunch, and spent an enjoyable afternoon watching the tennis from the comfort of the manse.
When we finally meet he is charming and informal. He wears jeans and a loose, embroidered tunic in the traditional South Asian style. It makes him look rather like a Bollywood heart-throb. Recently poached by a leading New York college, it is easy to imagine him making quite an impact on the American academic circuit.

De Sondy is militantly ecumenical; he counts priests and rabbis among his friends. However, his commitment to good interfaith relations is the least controversial thing about him.

Several leading publishers are vying to buy his recently completed PhD thesis as a book. At the moment it is called “Constructions of masculinities in Islamic traditions, societies and cultures, with a specific focus on India and Pakistan between the 18th and the 21st century”. With a racier title (How about “Men, Sex and Islam”?) it is easy to see its commercial potential.

It challenges assumptions about what it means to be a Muslim man. The Koran does not, says De Sondy, demand a bearded patriarch with several wives and dozens of children. There are dysfunctional families in Islamic tradition, he says, prophets without father figures and revered holy men who led “effeminate” lifestyles. Most controversially, he challenges homophobia in Islam. “Homosexuality is not incompatible with Islam. The two can and have co-existed. The important thing is to link it with living a good life and creating a good society.”

He disagrees with those who claim the Koran condemns homosexual practices. Gay men are regularly put to death in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, so this is explosive stuff.

“If you ask them privately, the vast majority of my generation of Muslims are deeply homophobic,” he says. “I think it is particularly entrenched because so many Muslim societies are rooted in traditional ideas of the family and patriarchy. It’s time to challenge all of that.”

De Sondy knows his conservative opponents will use one particular story, which appears in both the Koran and the Bible, to justify oppression. This is when God sends angels to destroy the sinful inhabitants of Sodom.

“It is often said to illustrate God’s disappproval of homosexuality. But on closer inspection it is really about his disapproval of the rape of young boys that was happening in the place. There is a big difference.”

Intolerance is not necessarily part of Muslim tradition, De Sondy argues. Islamic cultures are diverse and, historically, there are examples of people living openly in same-sex relationships. He blames conservative political Islam, spread by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi Wahhabi sect, for creating a puritanism which limits sexual freedom and demands the subjugation of women.

“In the 16th-century Punjab, there lived a Sufi \ saint and poet called Shah Hussain who is greatly venerated. He fell in love with a Hindu boy. They lived together and are buried side by side in the same tomb. Pilgrims come to the tomb and shrine in Lahore district even today, but some people want to rewrite history, saying the boy was in fact a girl.”

He also points to the presence of “antinomian Sufis in the Indian subcontinent — men who have pierced ears and dance in women’s clothing”.

The concept of antinomianism probably comes close to describing De Sondy’s own academic approach. Rooted in the Greek word for unlawful, it can be applied to people of any religious denomination who do not consider themselves bound by traditional ethics or morality. They believe salvation comes through faith alone.

De Sondy argues that the central tenet of Islam is submission to God; this is what the word means. “Everything else is secondary to that, whether it be ideas about women being second-class or veiled, or men being patriarchs. These are cultural constructions. They are rituals. What we really need to ask if we want to know whether something is right or wrong is: ‘Does it affect our relationship with God?’”

Still only 29, De Sondy is a second-generation Scottish Pakistani who grew up in the shadow of the Gothic university in the west end of Glasgow, where he attended Hillhead high school. His father travelled the world before settling in Scotland and served as a policeman in Hong Kong. His mother, a talented seamstress, did not finish primary school. Although conservative in religious belief, they had friends from diverse backgrounds and De Sondy’s father was popular with the white Scottish customers at his newsagents in Pollokshields.

It was one of these customers, an elderly catholic woman, who changed the course of De Sondy’s life. When she stopped coming to the shop, she wrote to his father to say she was ill and in a hospice. De Sondy, then 16, found the letter and began visiting her. They struck up an unlikely but strong friendship. When she died, she left him a small legacy, which he spent studying Arabic at religious schools in France, Jordan and Syria. “I began to realise that these schools were very conservative. It made me ask questions,” he recalls.

On his return to Scotland, he enrolled for a degree in religious studies and education at Stirling University and is qualified to teach about all world religions.

“Some Muslims have asked me how on earth I can teach about other religions. But there is no reason why not.”

Forced conversion and demonisation of “the infidel” are not Islamic, he says. He points out that the Prophet Mohammed took as his wife a Coptic Christian woman. She refused to convert to his new religion and he accepted this. Although De Sondy argues that the Koran was written for a tribal society and should not be interpreted literally, he still believes in its primacy. “The Islamists are free to interpret it in their own way. I hope to challenge that, however,” he says.

Out with academia, he writes a popular blog called Progressive Scottish Muslims. Many Muslims privately approve of it, but remain wary of publicly supporting him for fear of a backlash from hard liners.

He likes to undermine stereotypes. He has just returned the kilt he wore to receive his PhD at Glasgow University two weeks ago. “I am very proud of both my Pakistani and Scottish heritage,” he says.

As a student, he was a member of the SNP but worries the Scottish government is too close to conservative Islam. “They should be careful. The Westminster government allied itself closely with the Muslim Council of Britain, then discovered some of its leaders opposed commemorating the Jewish Holocaust annd supported the jihad against Salman Rushdie.”
Soon he will fly to America, where he has accepted a post as assistant professor in world religions at Ithaca College, one of the country’s most respected teaching universities, in upstate New York.

“I think it is easier to speak out and ask questions in the US,” he says. “Many Muslims in this country, because they originate in Pakistan and India, have been shaped by the Raj, by notions of anti-imperialism. In the States, it’s different. They are not obsessed with Islam versus the West and they are obviously not anti-American. They can therefore concentrate on nuances of faith and how it is practised.”

There is the added attraction of more tennis. He hopes to umpire at the US Open, which, by fortunate coincidence, takes place in New York City, a short hop from his new home.

-Albania plans to legalize gay marriages
31/7/09
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h-jwInXWx06ie3vIE1zNFrYs5hAAD99OMO7O0

TIRANA, Albania — Albania's governing Democrats have proposed a law allowing same-sex civil weddings in the small, predominantly Muslim country.

An announcement on the government Web site Thursday said the bill "may spark debate" but was needed to stop discrimination against gay couples. Current law only recognizes heterosexual marriages.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha said the move followed requests from rights groups. His Democrats, who control 74 of parliament's 140 seats, are expected to easily pass the law.

The former Communist Balkan state, which joined NATO in April, has applied to be considered for joining the European Union.

Albania is mostly Muslim with large Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic minorities. Practicing religion was banned during the 1944-1990 Communist regime.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

-Lebanon: Voices of queer women & trans persons
7/7/09
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd%5B157%5D=x-157-564901

Lebanon's first and long-awaited book on the lives of queer women and transgender people in Lebanon is published by Meem. (Mama Cash)

"Bareed Mista3jil" - which translates into English as "Mail in a Hurry" - is a collection of 41 stories from the experiences of lesbians, bisexuals, queer and questioning women, and transgender persons (LBTQ) from all over Lebanon.

Covering a wide range of topics and issues from coming out and relationships with families to self-discovery and discrimination, "Bareed Mista3jil" aims to introduce the Lebanese people to the real-life stories of one of the country's most hidden and ostracized communities.
The book dispels the myths surrounding female sexuality and gender identities in all their diversity. It includes a 30-page introductory analysis of the different themes of the stories to provide readers with some sociological background to the key elements.

"Bareed Mista3jil" is published by Meem, a community of LBTQs that was started in August 2007 to provide support for sexual and gender minorities.

The publication is an amazing accomplishment and a landmark moment for LBT organising in Lebanon and the Middle East. Mama Cash is very proud of the groundbreaking work of this group.

The book is available in English and as from July 1 also in Arabic. Excerpts from the stories, in addition to more information, can be found online at http://www.bareedmista3jil.com/

-Gay sex decriminalised in Delhi-India
2/7/09
The Safra Project wishes to congratulate the hard work of our sisters, brothers and those in between in India and the disaspora. Finally the left over homophobic British law in penal code 377 has been sent into history on this historic day. Homosexual intercourse between consenting adults is no longer a criminal act.

To find out more about the change in law go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8129836.stm

-Support Sisters In Islam
19/6/09
Networking colleagues in Malaysia at Sisters In Islam (SIS)- a group of Muslim women committed to promoting the rights of women within the framework of Islam, are being threatened with investigation from Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) to have SIS banned and its members 'rehabilitated' should its activities be determined to be contrary to the Islamic Shariah.

SIS have previously supported many Muslim women's and human rights organisations with expertise and literature. There is an online petition SIS is promoting to retract the call for action against it and reaching a resolution through constructive engagement.

To find out more about the petition supporting SIS go to:
http://gopetition.com/petitions/joint-statement-by-civil-society-against-banning-sis.html

-SENEGAL: Relief as gay activists are released
23/4/09
http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84064
International rights groups have welcomed the release of nine AIDS activists in Senegal, who were sentenced in January for their sexual orientation.

On 20 April, an appeals court in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, overturned the convictions of the men, each sentenced to eight years in prison, on charges of "membership of a criminal organization and engaging in acts against the order of nature".

Most of the defendants were involved in HIV programmes targeting men who have sex with men; they were arrested at the home of a prominent AIDS activist in December 2008.

"We welcome the release of the men, who may return to their families and continue their invaluable work in the fight against HIV," said Dr Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, which promotes HIV research and best practice and is the custodian of the International AIDS Conference.

"However, we continue to be dismayed at the upholding of laws which allow the criminalization of homosexuality, and we call on the government of Senegal, and other countries with similar regulations, to overturn these immediately in the interests of public health and human rights," he said.

Homosexuality is punishable by up to five years in prison in Senegal.

-Safra Project Editorial
6/2/09
“ She looks just like both her mums.”
Ever since studying ‘A’ level biology I’ve been convinced that theoretically children can be born of two women or two men.

Then in 2004 a little female mouse was born called Kaguya1. Born from the genetic material of two mouse eggs, each from different female mice. As an adult Kaguya grew up healthy and even had her own brood when she mated (the conventional way) with a male mouse. Kaguya’s mouse pups were born fine and went on to have their own offspring.

Essentially, a single chromosome is not female or male it’s the combination of an XX or XY chromosome that ‘generally’2 makes offspring. So combine the X chromosome of two women and that equals a female offspring.

The special thing about Kaguya is that one of the eggs used to create her had to be immature which isn’t possible in adult humans, but scientists at Tokyo University where Kaguya was born are working to get round this.

Meanwhile in Gottingen- Germany, 3Newcastle and Sheffield- England, Atlanta-USA and Melbourne- Australia, research using stem cells to create sperm has been achieved.

Newcastle in particular has created stem cells from adult bone marrow and both Sheffield and Atlanta are saying they are 5-10 years from creating sperm from women’s bone marrow.

So in these exciting times, in a not too distant future, same sex couples could be having children that are genetically of each partner.

1) http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/2004/04/23/fatherless.php
2) I use the term general, since there are some genetic women who have XXY chromosomes.
3) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6547675.stm

-Safra Project Director awarded MBE
1/1/09
The Director of the Safra Project has been recognised in the New Years Honours list for services to the Muslim communities. With others, she set up the Safra Project in 2001 to support Muslim lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and was a co-director of the first social support group for lesbian, gay, and transgendered Muslims, Al-Fatiha UK.