NewsWrap for the week ending November 15, 2003 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #816, distributed 11-17-03) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Fenceberry, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Anchored this week by Dean Elzinga and Cindy Friedman For the first time, transsexuals will be able to qualify to compete in next year's Olympics in Athens, the International Olympic Committee told the Associated Press this week. IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch declared, "We will have no discrimination. The IOC will respect human rights." That's a big turnaround from the Olympics' decades of controversial sex tests, which were finally dropped for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. While no transsexuals are currently known to be candidates for the Olympics' historic return to Greece, some international sports groups had sought guidance on the issue, leading the IOC to convene a meeting of medical experts last month. Details are still being worked out and the final rules are expected before the end of the year. But Schamasch indicated that there will be some kind of waiting period after sex reassignment surgery before an athlete can qualify. The same standards will be applied to transmen as to transwomen, although the primary concern in the past has been that transwomen might have an unfair edge competing against biological women. No indication has yet been given as to how the Olympics will handle intersexed athletes or transgenders who have not had surgery. Although the term "Olympics" has been widely used in the names of diverse competitions among various groups and even animals, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevented its use by what's had to be known ever since as the Gay Games. And while the mainstream Olympics that brought that lawsuit is now seeking to become more open to transsexuals, the international Gay Games are now in crisis. All ties have been severed between the official international organizing body, the Federation of Gay Games, and local organizers in Montreal, the city the Federation chose two years ago to host the 7th Gay Games in 2006. As a result it's quite possible there will be two separate major international lesbigay and trans- sports gatherings -- and there are threats of lawsuits. Since its San Francisco founding more than 20 years ago, the Games have grown to become big business, attracting well over 10,000 lesbigay and trans- competitors, many thousands more spectators and millions in tourism dollars. Groups make a significant investment just to prepare bids for their cities to host the quadrennial event. The Federation of Gay Games was charging a licensing fee of nearly one million Canadian dollars for the use of its trademarked logo and name by 2006 host Montreal. But the Federation is deeply concerned that that name could become a synonym for red ink, as its last four Games all ended with increasingly large debts. The 1998 Games in Amsterdam closed about one million U.S. dollars short of expenses, and earlier this year the organizers of the 2002 Games in Sydney went into voluntary liquidation with debts totaling about one-and-a-half million U.S. dollars. Those problems were attributed in large part to lower-than-projected participation. The Federation has been demanding that Montreal organizers cut back by more than half their original plans for the 7th edition, and apparently hasn't been satisfied by Montreal's counteroffer of 16,000 participants and a budget of 16 million Canadian dollars. Montreal organizers -- the group named Montreal 2006 -- are proud of having obtained unprecedented government funding, from the city, Quebec province and Canada, as well as some early corporate support and a broadcast deal, which together have already ensured about a third of the funds they need. Given their city's easy accessibility for the large U.S. contingent, compared to Sydney and Amsterdam, they were confident they could reach their targets. They do not feel they could give the Federation the kind of control it's sought to exert over their financial management -- particularly since the Federation was seeking to approve all expenditures without taking on any legal, administrative or fund-raising responsibilities. The long-running argument reached a head this last weekend as the Federation held its annual meeting in Chicago, including marathon negotiations with Montreal organizers. The outcome was Montreal leaving the Federation and the Federation re-opening its bidding process to find a new host for the 7th Games. Yet Montreal remains committed to staging its 2006 event. It's not likely the two events will go on at the same time -- in fact the Federation's official Gay Games could well be delayed until 2007 to give adequate preparation time to the new host, which will almost certainly be a U.S. city. But many athletes won't be able to afford to participate in two international gatherings and will have to make a choice. Montreal organizers also need to make a choice -- of a new name that isn't "Gay Games". The group's Web site is currently referring to the "Rendezvous Games"... but since they're outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps Montreal should consider a return to the term "Olympics". Pride events this month included parades in Buenos Aires and Adelaide. The Queensland, Australia event was notable as the first march there since 1973, with about 1,000 participants. The Argentine event, Buenos Aires' 12th, had some 4,000 people. Police intervened when some marchers spray-painted the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral with messages including "Church = dictatorship" while chanting, "Here is the repression of the Holy Inquisition." One activist told reporters the attack was directed not at the faith, but at the Church's meddling in politics. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops can be expected to be meddling more in politics, after voting 234-to-3 at its annual meeting in Washington, DC this week to adopt a declaration against opening civil marriage to gays and lesbians. The document is called "Between Man and Woman: Questions and Answers About Marriage and Same-Sex Unions", and it will be distributed to parishes nationally for the stated purpose of "enabl[ing Catholics] to defend marriage". It says that legal recognition of same-gender couples "would grant official public approval to homosexual activity and would treat it as if it were morally neutral," and that it "contradicts the nature of marriage," which it defines as a "lifelong union of a man and a woman." It urges Catholics to "oppose as immoral both homosexual acts and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons." The bishops assert that, "It is not unjust to deny legal status to same-sex unions because marriage and same-sex unions are essentially different realities," particularly in that gay and lesbian sex does not result in procreation. The activist group Soulforce, an interfaith organization which seeks equal treatment for gays and lesbians in all denominations, was once again a visible presence demonstrating outside the meeting. Many participants viewed the document as a political act in itself, a "stealth" attempt to stir up support for the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to prohibit same-gender marriages in the U.S. But the gubernatorial veto of a similar so-called "Defense of Marriage" bill in Wisconsin withstood an override attempt this week. The Wisconsin Assembly fell just one vote short of the two-thirds majority required from both houses to override a veto. The bill had originally passed the House with more than two-thirds support, but four Democrats who'd voted in favor of the bill voted against overriding the veto by Democratic Governor Jim Doyle. It was revealed this week that the Doyle administration is working to extend spousal health coverage to the domestic partners of Wisconsin state employees, regardless of gender. The North Dakota state Supreme Court this week opened the way for gay and lesbian parents to win custody of their children after divorcing heterosexual spouses, even if they live with a same-gender partner. The justices unanimously reversed a 1981 decision by the same court, declaring that the possibility of anti-gay prejudice from other people is not in itself inherently harmful to children or a valid reason to deny custody. The current case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Valerie Damron. Her husband Shawn Damron had agreed at the time of their divorce in 2001 that she would raise their two daughters. Valerie and the girls went on to live together with her partner Ann Elliot. A year after the divorce, Shawn sued for custody, declaring that the couple provided "the wrong moral character" for the girls. But the state's high court found that Shawn would have to present actual evidence that the living situation was harmful to the children's physical or emotional health or development, and that he had not done so. In fact Shawn himself admitted that the older girl was doing very well and that he'd seen no evidence of harm to the younger one. And finally... a kiss is just a kiss, but it can sure make a difference where you do it. Greek TV stations, like so many around the world, repeatedly showed the notorious MTV Video Music Awards smooch between Madonna and Britney Spears. Yet it was reported this week that Greece's National Radio and Television Council slapped the private Mega television station with a fine of 100,000 euros for broadcasting a drama including a kiss between two male actors. Inevitably this led a score or so of lesbigays and transgenders to hold a kiss-in protesting the fine. In the lunchroom River Hill High School in Clarksville, Maryland this month, students Stephanie Haaser and Katherine Pecore climbed atop a table, shouted, "Stop homophobia!" and spent the next 10 to 15 seconds in a liplock. Haaser claims she was carrying out an English class assignment to perform a "non-conformist act" à la Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The school administration responded with a two-day suspension for both teens, although they also got a moment in the national media spotlight. The "Washington Post" headline began, "Girls' Buss Causes Fuss". And when Swedish lesbians Anna Fernstroem and Susanne Gustavsson kissed in a Stockholm restaurant, owner Aziz Cakir told them to leave. He insists he'd have done the same had a heterosexual couple been making out in his eatery. But prosecutors have charged him with sexual orientation discrimination, and if he's found guilty, he could face as much as a year behind bars.