Metro Weekly magazine: 2017-12-21 edition (PDF)
By Metro Weekly Contributor
on
December 21, 2017
Congressional Republicans have introduced a new bill to ban transgender athletes from participating for any U.S. sports teams taking part in international competitions.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) introduced versions of the "Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act" in their respective chambers.
The bill would ban transgender women from participating on any team recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Previously, the International Olympic Committee's guidelines required all women who competed -- whether transgender or cisgender -- to maintain a low level of testosterone (lower than ten nanomoles per liter of blood) for at least one year prior to competing.
Nine Republican senators and a Republican-turned-independent who ground Oregon's legislative session to a halt by staging a walkout will not be permitted to run for re-election.
The ten senators staged the walkout to stop several bills from passing. The bills had been prioritized by the Democratic majority. In doing so, the Republican-led boycott denied the Senate a two-thirds quorum needed to move on with business.
The walkout was the longest in state history and the second-longest for any state legislature in the United States.
Chief among the bills Republicans were seeking to block was a sweeping "shield law" enabling doctors to treat patients seeking out abortion-related services and gender-affirming care. The law protects medical professionals from lawsuits originating in other states where abortion or access to gender-affirming care is banned.
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Two teenage boys in love on the back of a motorbike speed past verdant hills, the rider pressing his head gently against the shoulder of the one who's bound to break his heart.
Variations on the scene abound in those queer coming-of-age films featuring frisky Euro lads fumbling through romance. Whether it's André Téchiné's seminal 1994 gay teen drama Wild Reeds, or the tragic Sicilian love story Fireworks, released earlier this year, filmmakers return again and again to that image of breathless, youthful freedom.
Fireworks also finds time for its amorous pair to sneak away for a dip at a secret swimming hole, which looks a lot like the quarry pond where French teens Stéphane (Jérémy Gillet) and Thomas (Julien De Saint Jean) go skinny dipping in Lie with Me, writer-director Olivier Peyon's moving addition to the genre.