Transgender Spouse Is Denied Green Card Again
News Report, Yong B. Chavez, Philippine News Oct 20, 2005
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article
Questioning this time the validity of their marriage, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the second time denied the green card application of Jiffy Javellana, husband of Donita Ganzon, a Filipino male to female transsexual.

"Your application for adjustment of status is hereby denied in the exercise of discretion," the CIS wrote to Javellana to inform him of their decision. In initially denying Javellana's green card application in 2004, immigration officials cited the
1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Ganzon had a sex change operation in 1981. When she became a U.S. citizen six years later, her passport already listed her gender as a female. Ganzon also has U.S. court orders saying that she's a female, her lawyer said. The couple, who met in the Philippines in 2000 and got married in Nevada a year after, filed a lawsuit against the agency. The case became the first of its kind to reach the federal court.The CIS is now asking them to drop the lawsuit but the pair and their lawyers do not plan to, and instead vow to fight the denial. Javellana faces deportation anew. No deportation hearing date is scheduled yet, as of Friday.

This Friday, October 21, ABC's 20/20 will run a story on Diane Schroer at 10:00 PM EDT.  Diane has an amazing story.  A retired Army Special Forces Colonel, Diane accepted a job researching terrorism for the Library of Congress, only to have the offer rescinded when she told her supervisor that she is transgender.

Aggressive HIV Strain Found in NY
By Marie Auyong  http://www.apaitonline.org/newsarticle
In early February, reports of an HIV "superstrain" came out of the New York City Health Department. The subject in question, a 40-something gay man, had a strain of HIV which advanced within four months into full-blown AIDS. Since then, the individual´s health has only responded to one of 21 available drugs. Not since the early 80´s, when HIV/AIDS was first named, had medical officials seen someone deteriorate so quickly. Soon thereafter, many public health officials were careful to state that although there wasn´t necessarily a new "superstrain" on the loose, more research had to be conducted to determine the virus´ severity in terms of its progression and extent of infection.

OHA set up to help meet obligations to Hawaiians
 •  Court OKs challenge to taxpayer funding of OHA  
A federal appeals court ruled today that Hawai'i taxpayers may sue to stop state funding of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
for allegedly discriminating against non-Hawaiians. The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco overturned a lower court's dismissal and affirmed the standing of a multiethnic group of taxpayers to challenge
the Hawaiians-only programs.

 The lawsuit in the latest opinion, filed in March 2002, argues that OHA's programs should not received state funding on
the grounds that they are discriminatory.  The suit argued that revenue from ceded lands — government land under the Hawaiian monarchy that became public land under statehood in 1959 — should benefit Hawai'i's entire population, not
just native Hawaiians.

OHA attorney Sherry Broder argued that a number of congressional acts — such as the Native Hawaiian Education Act
and the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act — have already established Hawaiians as a political entity.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs was established by the Constitutional Convention of 1978 as part of what was known
as the Native Hawaiian Legislative Package.  OHA's purpose was to become the principal vehicle for the state to meet
its trust responsibilities to Native Hawaiians, defined as those with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood, and Hawaiians,
which is further defined as descendants of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, the year British
Capt. James Cook arrived here.

Much of OHA's $28.5 million in annual operating revenues comes from its share of what's known as the public lands
trust. When Hawai'i became a state in 1959, a condition of statehood was that 1.8 million acres formerly ceded to the
federal government be returned to the state with the stipulation that these lands benefit two beneficiary classes — Native Hawaiians and the public.  How much of the revenue from these lands that OHA and Native Hawaiians should receive
has been a source of debate and litigation for years.

A second major source of revenues is dividend and interest income that is derived from OHA's $365 million in assets. Expenditures go largely to nonprofit agencies that provide educational, legal, health, vocational and other
services to the Native Hawaiian community. Monies also go to loan programs to help Hawaiians start businesses
and toward advocacy of protection of natural and cultural resources.

Lesbian Couples Have Parental Rights
CNN News
Saying they could "perceive no reason why both parents of a child cannot be women," California's
Supreme Court upheld the right of same-sex couples to raise children, and also ruled they were responsible
for a child's support.  What do you think about the court's ruling?

Among the most significant elements of Monday's rulings was the ruling by California's highest court that it
was not necessary for someone to be a biological parent of a child in order legally to assert rights over that
child within the context of relationship with a partner of the same sex.

Three cases involving same-sex couples were before the California Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously
in two of them.  Perhaps the most critical element of the rulings, in the view of some observers, was the
court's decision that a genetic link was not an absolute prerequisite to asserting the rights of parenthood
-- nor for being bound by the obligations of parenthood as well.

Put another way, the state's highest court held that a biological tie was not a prerequisite to a legal claim
to parenthood. In one sense, today's decisions were presaged by long-standing rulings in nearly all
jurisdictions regarding the rights and privileges of birth parents versus adoptive parents.  Courts have
generally favored the rights of adoptive parents, based in part not only upon perceived benefits to the
children, but also benefits to the state.

There have, however, been notable exceptions over the years, such as in cases involving infants separated
from their birth parents during time of war, where even long-standing adoptions have sometimes been
nullified by court rulings.

Observers noted that legal disputes involving maternity or paternity as well as custody are often resolved
in favor of the perceived interests of the child, as well as of the state itself.  While today's rulings were
generally noteworthy for their unanimity, the court split four-to-two on a question of whether both women
in a relationship that dissolved after five years were bound by a "prenatal" agreement purporting to assign
custody of a child to one of them, in case their relationship dissolved.

In the first two cases, a unanimous court ruled that a partner in a lesbian relationship involving the custody
and care of a child could be required to pay child support.  The second case was important because it held
that a woman who donates an egg to a partner and helps raise the child who results is a "parent" under
California law.

Finally, the court split four-to-two in ruling that the dissolution of a relationship did not dissolve an
agreement to share the rights of a parent.  Observers noted that Monday's ruling by California's highest
court set the stage for an anticipated appeal to the United States Supreme Court, whose composition will
have changed by at least one new Justice to be appointed by President George W. Bush before it would
decide on the California case.

Kamehameha rally draws 400.  Protesters support  the schools' mission to preserve Hawaiian culture.