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A New York judge has ruled that it can be defamatory to allege that someone is a homosexual. Courts in several other jurisdiction have issued contrary opinions for years.

In Yonaty v. Mincolla, 1003-2009, Broome County Supreme Court Justice Phillip R. Rumsey (See Profile) rejected the defendants' summary judgment motion, and held that the assertion of homosexuality constituted defamation. "While the law may, at some point, change in response to evolving social attitudes regarding homosexuality, the existing law in New York, as expressed by the Appellate Divisions, which this court is bound to follow, is that imputation of homosexuality constitutes defamation per se," Justice Rumsey wrote, citing 2007 Appellate Division, Second Department, decision Klepetko v. Reisman, 41 AD3d 551, which cites a 1984 case, Matherson v. Marchello, 100 AD2d 233.

The above-linked article notes that while New York state repealed its anti-sodomy statute in 1980, the state Court of Appeals has never been asked to rule on whether calling somebody a homosexual is defamatory.

"The violent imagery of Tracy's rant was disturbing to me at a time when homophobic hate crimes continue to be a life-threatening issue for the GLBT Community. It also doesn't line up with the Tracy Morgan I know, who is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centered to ever hurt another person. I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian co-workers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket." - Tina Fey, in a statement released to TMZ.

GLAAD tweeted back: "Language about stabbing kids for being gay isn't 'foul.' It's dangerous."

But not with THIS crowd, I'm betting.(Source)

Totally NSFW.

This ran during Glee last night.

According to a new study due out from Ohio State University, most people can correctly guess a man's sexual orientation by listening to recordings of the way he pronounces his vowels.

They asked seven gay and seven heterosexual males to record single-syllable words (including "mass," "food" and "sell") and then played the recordings for listeners. The study participants were then asked to identify the sexual orientation of the speakers when hearing only the first letter sound of those words, the first two letter sounds, or the entire words. The listeners were unable to determine the sexual orientation after hearing the sound of the first letter in the spoken word, for example, just the "m" sound in the word "mass." But, "when presented with the first two letter sounds [for example "ma"], listeners were 75 percent accurate," [researcher Erik] Tracy said. "We believe that listeners are using the acoustic information contained in vowels to make this sexual orientation decision," he explained.

I'd like to know how the gay voices were chosen for the study.

On the left, what they say. In the center, what they really mean. On the right, what Europeans hear.

(Via - Andrew Sullivan)

"Transgender" is the "hot word of the day" over at Dictionary.com. An excerpt:

The word transgender is a recent addition to English. In conversational use as early as the 1960s, “transgender” entered the dictionary in the early 1990s. Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning “across or beyond.” Gender shares the same Latin root as genus. As a classifier for male and female, “gender” replaced “sex” in the 20th century. This was a trend started by feminist writers who wanted to highlight the biological attributes of males and females separate from their social characteristics.