[OutVoice] Trans-performing Billings+Prop 8 still standing+much more!

[This Way Out]

 "THIS WAY OUT: the international lesbian & gay radio magazine"
Program #1,224 - distributed 9/12/11
Airs on more than 200 local stations around the world... or
Listen now via our free podcasts at www.thiswayout.org.
(hosted this week by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle)
A trans-performer gets top "Billings";
Historic lesbians are celebrated in "Rainbow Minutes";
Prop 8 proponents stand their ground;
South Africa's new Chief Justice may drive its top court to the right,
three "non-existent" gay men may have been hanged in Iran, the Thai
Armed Forces reclassify "katoeys", and more global LGBT news
  
  
- In "NewsWrap": South African President Jacob Zuma appoints Mogoena Mogoena, a judge that critics say has issued misogynistic and homophobic rulings, as Chief Justice of the nation's highest court, while Ghana's Attorney General says gay sex should be decriminalized... three men are reportedly hanged in Iran for penetrative sodomy, an unusual admission by the state-run media... Thai "katoeys" will no longer be publicly labeled "permanently insane" when they report for the military service required of all men in the country... a U.S. federal appeals court tells Arizona that it must provide the same health care benefits to the partners of its gay and lesbian state workers as it offers to heterosexual spouses... and more LGBT news from around the world (written by GREG GORDON, produced by STEVE PRIDE, and reported this week by NATALIE PEOPLES and JOHN TORRES).
  
- The CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT heard oral arguments on September 6th about who could defend a voter-approved state ballot initiative in a federal challenge to its legality. The backers of the marriage equality-banning PROPOSITION 8 told the state high court that, as the measure’s sponsors, they are entitled to step in if state officials refuse to do so. Opponents argued against such legal standing. They insisted that, as elected representatives of the people, only the Governor and Attorney General have the authority to defend state laws - or to refuse to defend a law, as they've done in this case. The struggle of California’s gay and lesbian couples to legally marry seems to require climbing every single rung on a very tall legal ladder. CHRISTOPHER MARTINEZ of PACIFICA RADIO’s California Evening News reports from SAN FRANCISCO on the latest of those rungs (includes remarks by opposing attorneys THEODORE OLSON and CHARLES COOPER, CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUSTICE JOYCE KENNARD, and original Prop 8 lawsuit plaintiff KRIS PERRY).
  
- "SAPPHO, THE FIRST RECORDED LESBIAN IN HISTORY" (read by ALLEN BROWNE) and "THE DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS" (read by BRENDA THORNTON), separated by a "TWO" I.D. by famed writer EDMUND WHITE [:28], are each remembered in these "RAINBOW MINUTES" (produced at WRIR-FM in Richmond, Virginia by JUDD PROCTOR & BRIAN BURNS).
  
- ALEXANDRA BILLINGS has racked up more firsts in her acting career than we can count in a half-hour radio show. In fact, every role she's ever played may have been a first -- the first time each was done by a transgendered actress. She is also an entertaining singer and comedian, the subject of a U.S. public television documentary called "From Schoolboy to Showgirl", and the star of the YouTube series "Katie's Corner". Still, Billings tells "This Way Out" correspondents DIXIE TREICHEL and JOHN TOWNSEND (from "Fresh Fruit" on KFAI-FM in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota) that some of her television roles in particular have been kind of mixed blessings.
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"This Way Out" is a U.S. tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit under the corporate name of OVERNIGHT PRODUCTIONS (INC.), and is also supported in part by a grant from THE KICKING ASSETS FUND OF THE TIDES FOUNDATION.
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On the air since April 1988, "This Way Out" is the multi-award-winning internationally distributed weekly gay and lesbian radio newsmagazine.The program currently airs on more than 200 local community radio stations around the world, globally distributed at www.radio4all.net, www.indymedia.org, to Pacifica Radio station affiliates in North America, and "Down Under" through distribution by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia.  Listeners can also hear "This Way Out" across Europe, Africa/the Middle East, and Asia/Pacific regions on the World Radio Network (www.wrn.org), and on audio CD by individual subscription.For lots of other information about "This Way Out" please visit www.thiswayout.org, email TWOradio at aol.com, or write to P.O. Box 38327, Los Angeles, CA 90038-0327.
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