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News & Resources: Fighting Civil Commitment

Imprisoning people indefinitely for crimes they might commit in the future turns any notion of the rule of law on its head. In a remarkable series of newsletters, The Legal Pad, a civilly-committed former attorney looks at the extra-legality and social tragedy of America’s growing gulag system.

Transgender Wars and the Minor Child – The US and other Anglophone countries have recently seen an exponential increase in young persons and their families pursuing professional therapy to prepare children as young as 12 for sex reassignment through puberty-blocking drugs, hormones, and in some cases even surgery. Credible scientific authorities have sharply varied opinions as to the wisdom of these radical approaches to treating children who present as gender dysphoric, but the full range of informed opinion and evidence is increasingly suppressed by ideological zealotry. Read more here.

Voluntary Sexual Relations Among Prisoners – Skewing male and young, and cut off from relationships and sexual outlets outside, prisoners frequently engage each other in sexual activity. In the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, voluntary sexual relationships are officially forbidden, with those caught often facing severe discipline. But prison administrators also sometimes respond with varying degrees of realism about sex among prisoners. What are the alternatives to prohibition? The articles and anecdotes here discuss the issues involved and offer data on this hard-to-assess and variable phenomenon. Read more here.

Do Illegal Images Encourage Child Molestation? – Mere possession of child pornography (which includes images to fully sexually mature adolescents) is one of the most rapidly growing offenses prosecuted in the U.S. federal system, earning those convicted an average sentence of 12.5 years (according to Department of Justice statistics). Often, the images in question are old and feature mere nudity, little different from what is found in naturist literature and legitimate art photography. In this brief, a well-known criminologist and expert witness reviews the most recent scholarship on the question, and concludes that there is no credible link between viewing such images and committing hands-on offenses against minors. Read more here.

First Annual Charley Shively Prize Awarded to Bob Chatelle & Jim D'Entremont – The William A. Percy Foundation is pleased to announce Bob Chatelle and Jim D'Entremont as recipients of the the first annual Charley Shively Prize for Gay Liberation. Through their journalism and organizing, Bob and Jim – founders of the National Center for Reason and Justice (NCRJ) – have brought attention to falsely accused people whose trials were often tinged by homophobia. In a number of prominent cases, their work has helped win the release and exoneration of the unjustly convicted. Read more here.

Criminalization of sex workers – or their clients – both violates individual rights and prevents prostitutes and other sex workers from the regulation that has been shown to keep the "oldest profession" safe and offering a living wage. The equation of sex work with "human trafficking" – a concept heavily promoted by Western governments and NGOs but little analyzed – serves to strip sex workers of any volition and presents them as pure victims. The result in recent years has been an intensified regime of surveillance of migrants, travelers generally, sex workers, and customers -- as well as large upticks in punishments in the U.S. for completely consensual activities. Sex workers and their allies around the world are organizing to fight for reasonable regulation and legal protection. Read more here.

Transgender people face police abuse – While trans issues in the West are prominent in popular consciousness like never before, and legal barriers to fair treatment are tending to fall, police harassment and disregard, together with high levels of criminal victimization, continue. These articles offer an overview.

Over-the-counter contraception & youth rights – Access to contraception is a fundamental aspect of young persons' ability to make their own sexual choices. The recent articles discussed here present the scope of the problem of inaccessibility of female contraception in the U.S., E.U., and beyond, and as well, the shifting political debates and medical developments touching on the issue.

Battles over sex-ed – Research shows that giving young people the knowledge and tools to make informed decisions about sexuality leads to better choices, reducing unwanted pregnancies and risk of disease, while opening up space for vital discussions about feelings, relationships, and the range of human sexual responses. With a bias toward abstinence-ed in the U.S., the benefits of sex-ed often are not realized, and GLBT youth are often left out of the picture. The articles here offer an overview.

Mass incarceration – The U.S. represents 4.4% of the world population, but 22% of its prisoners. Unjust sentences for victimless or merely statutory offenses are a key part of the problem, together with racism and moralism about drugs and sex. Inmates face high levels of physical and sexual assault, and targets are often transgender people and others with disparaged sexual identities. Read more here.

Fighting civil commitment – Some 5,000 to 6,000 individuals languish in locked facilities in the U.S. because of Kafka-esque statutes allowing indefinite detention (sex offense civil commitment) when the government has nothing more than a hunch you might in the future do something wrong of a sexual nature. The vast majority of such people (up to this point, all men) have never been released. In order to detain an individual for as much as the rest of their lives, the state need not prove any mental illness, only a potentially undefined mental "disorder." Those who are civilly committed are, according to the Supreme Court, not being "punished," though these detention centers are usually no more than prisons. In a remarkable series of newsletters, The Legal Pad, a civilly-committed former attorney looks at the legal and social consequences of America's growing extra-legal gulag system.

Sexual minorities face more violence in prison – Incarceration tends to intensify forms of inequality and injustice prevalent in society. So it's no surprise that sexual and gender minorities often face higher rates of violence and maltreatment in jails and prisons. What's known and how are prisoners and allies taking action?

Fears about young people's sexuality hinder HPV vaccination efforts – HPV vaccine protects against cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection – a common virus. About one in four people in the U.S. is infected, and some 14 million new infections every year. Encouraging vaccinations among young people is a public health priority, and over time could prevent more than 30,000 U.S. cancer cases a year. But vaccination campaigns face serious resistance and vaccination rates are lower than they should be. What's the problem? Read more here.

Book reviews and commentary – What University of Michigan gay scholar David Halperin calls the “War on Sex” is generating more and more critical analysis. Read more here...

Learning from History: Lessons for activism today – The GLBT movement has been one of the most successful social movements in the West in recent generations. Yet the struggle to fight sexual injustices and hysterias – now in new guises – seems greater than ever.