By Isaac Davis

Former U.S. President Barack Obama was just named the 2017 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, “the most prestigious award for public servants.” Named after JFK’s 1957 book, Profiles in Courage, it is awarded annually by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation to “public servants who have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences.”

Obama will receive this award for his efforts in promoting democratic principles in the face of severe political opposition by members of Congress and a divided national political body.

“Faced with unrelenting political opposition, President Obama has embodied the definition of courage that my grandfather cites in the opening lines of ‘Profiles in Courage’: grace under pressure,” Schlossberg said. “Throughout his two terms in office, he represented all Americans with decency, integrity, and an unshakeable commitment to the greater good.”

Obama is being recognized for “his enduring commitment to democratic ideals and elevating the standard of political courage in a new century,” the foundation said, citing the expansion of health care options for millions, restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba and leadership on an international climate change agreement.” [Source]

Controversial plans to enforce relationships education in primary schools will include no right of withdrawal for parents, it has emerged.

Yesterday evening the government released an official policy statement, outlining its plans to create a new statutory subject of "'Relationships Education" in primary schools across England.

The statement reveals that the subject will include teaching on "different types of relationships" as well as "boundaries and consent." Alarmingly, it also states that parents will not be allowed to withdraw their children from these lessons.

'Different Relationships'

Responding to the move. Laura Perrins, co-editor of the Conservative Woman website, stressed that parents would be sidelined:

"Parents are best placed to discuss these sensitive issues with their own children, not the government or strangers in the classroom.

"This state bullying should be resisted by all families. Such 'education' could include encouraging young children to doubt their gender or biological sex."

LGBT Relationships

According to the government's policy statement, relationships education is likely to focus on "different types of relationships," "family relationships" and "healthy relationships." This could include teaching on homosexual and bisexual relationships as well as same-sex parenting and same-sex marriage.

A secondary-level subject called Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) will also be brought in, which would include teaching on "sex, sexual health and sexuality." The government states that parents would retain the right to withdraw their children from this, although the details have not yet been set out.

The government's plans have been introduced through an amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill, which would give Education Secretary Justine Greening the power to "make Relationships Education and RSE statutory through regulations."

Stay Informed

Over the next few months, ministers will consult on the proposals with a "wide range of interests and expertise."

Homosexual lobby group Stonewall has already said it will be pressing the government to ensure LGBT issues are "reflected in updated guidance for schools."

To stay informed on the government's plans, follow The Christian Institute on social media.

This article originally appeared on The Christian Institute.


(charismanews.com)

By ALYSON KRUEGERMARCH 3, 2017

Peche Di founded the Trans Models agency two years ago to advance her own modeling career and to help her community. CreditLia Haley Clay for The New York Times

As one of the fashion industry’s increasing numbers of a transgender models, Yasmine Petty has reached great success. Her sprawling penthouse in Lower Manhattan, with a terrace so large it has a pool and cabana, is full of magazines like Elle, W and Hercules that feature multiple-page spreads on her wearing clothing by brands like Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton.

Ms. Petty’s closet, too, is full of clothes she has modeled at international events like New York Fashion Week, fashion shows put on by Italian Vogue, and Life Ball, Europe’s prestigious charity gala to support people with H.I.V. She has walked the runway with stars like Naomi Campbell and Karolina Kurkova. The prominent makeup artist Pat McGrath used her as an “ambassador.”

At the beginning of her career Ms. Petty said she worked with several modeling agencies that found her work, but the experience left her feeling somewhat frustrated about the direction her career seemed to be taking.

Some agencies didn’t know whether to cast her as male or female, she said. Often she would walk into auditions not knowing which gender she was supposed to perform until she saw the other candidates waiting in the lobby. Other times she would be booked by clients, only to have them find out she was transgender later and refuse to use the photos. “The fashion industry didn’t know how to treat me,” she said.

Ms. Petty is now so established in her career that she doesn’t necessarily need a modeling agency to get new gigs. “I work freelance,” she said. But she now has an option for support: Trans Models, perhaps the city’s first agency to represent only transgender models.

Yasmine Petty, a successful transgender model, at the Life Ball 2015 in Vienna.CreditMathias Kniepeiss/Life Ball 2015, via Getty Images

“They are more familiar representing someone like themselves,” she said. “If they would have existed all along, it would have been completely different. I would have walked into a casting knowing I was being represented as myself, and I don’t have to hide or be afraid if the client finds out.”

Trans Models was started in March 2015 by Peche Di, a 27-year-old trans-female who wanted to advance her prospects as a model and help her community. She is working with both established talents like Ms. Petty and newer faces.

A few weeks after her agency opened, she booked a client, Laith Ashley, in a prominent spread in the magazine i-D. She landed the transgender plus-size model Shay Neary a major campaign with Coverstory, a fashion brand. She and two of her clients became the faces of New York City’s health campaign for protected sex. “We’re on buses,” Ms. Di said. “I get texts from my friends saying, ‘You’re on West Fourth Street.’”

It is no longer unusual, nor a matter of secrecy, to see transgender models on mainstream runways. At the most recent New York Fashion Week, Marc Jacobs employed three: Casil McArthur among the men, and Stav Strashko and Avie Acosta among the women. Vincent Beier walked for Coach and Proenza Schouler.

And while Trans Models may be the first firm of its kind in New York City, similar ones are popping up around the world.

Cecilio Asuncion, the director of “What’s the T,” a documentary that explored the lives of five transgender women, opened Slay Model Management in Los Angeles last year. Along with walking for New York Fashion Week and Los Angeles Fashion Week, his models have also modeled for Airbnb, Spiegel, even a Brazilian vodka company.

Silas Neptune signed with Trans Models. CreditPeche Di

A year ago Mitr Trust, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender charity based in India, held auditions for the country’s first transgender modeling agency. As of the end of January, Britain also has its own agency based in Nottinghamshire, England, named Transgender Model U.K. In their first week of operation, they signed two models.

With the attention transgender personalities have received in the press and pop culture in recent years, it’s hard to imagine that transgender models are still at a disadvantage. But for many of them, transgender-only agencies are still the only groups that will represent them.

Ms. Di opened Trans Models after spending a decade trying to find an agency to sign her both in Bangkok, where she is from, and in New York. “They would accept a photo, but nothing would happen after,” she said. She said reality hit home after she won the transgender pageant Miss Asia New York and modeled for Bruce Weber’s “Brothers, Sisters, Sons and Daughters” campaign for Barneys, but still couldn’t persuade a firm to sign her.

Mr. Asuncion realized the plight of transgender models after filming his documentary. “I learned that what the community needed was employment,” he said. “I figured why not create a space for them?” Even Ms. Petty said she went to about 30 agencies looking for someone to book her at the beginning of her career. “I was turned down by all of them.”

Sara Ziff, the founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a labor advocacy group for models working in the American fashion industry, said this didn’t surprise her. “For years the talent pool has been predominantly young, white, tall, thin and female,” Ms. Ziff said. “While the industry is slowly evolving and becoming more inclusive, it’s difficult for people who don’t fit the mold to break in.”

Over 300 models have applied to be part of Trans Models; Ms. Di has chosen 19 so far and gets new applicants almost every day. Slay Model management represents 17 models. But while the agencies are popular in this community, it’s unclear how much they really can do for clients.

Opportunities for transgender models can be limited, Ms. Di said: “It’s still a struggle for our agency to find consistent, paid work for models.”

One of her clients, Shane Henise, a 25-year-old transgender man with a handsome but boyish face and giggly personality, has never been booked for a modeling job (he does get television and film gigs). “The options really just aren’t there,” he said. “When you think about male models, they are very tall and very built, and I’m 5-foot-5 on a good day.”

The jobs that do come in are from companies or publications specifically looking for transgender models.

If more and more advertisers want to associate themselves with this community, that is a good thing, said Jack Halberstam, a professor of gender studies at Columbia: “A shift from including transpeople as potential models versus seeing them as completely unthinkable in these roles definitely signifies a sea change in public opinion of trans bodies,” Professor Halberstam said. But it isn’t the same as transgender models being able to get the same bookings as their peers.

Ms. Ziff said, “A model wants to be booked for a job because she is a great model — not simply because she is black so she ticks that box, or because she is trans so she ticks that box.”

Ms. Petty concurred. “Why couldn’t I model for Agent Provocateur lingerie or why not Victoria’s Secret?” she asked. “Or maybe do cosmetics for Mac or Nars. I’m very optimistic that it could happen, and it’s a dream of mine. But it hasn’t happened yet.”

Shane Henise says he gets a sense of belonging from people who understand him by being part of Trans Models.CreditMike Coppola/Getty Images for Glaad

Mainstream modeling agencies will tell you they also represent transgender models when appropriate. Women Management says it has two star transgender clients: Leandra Medeiros Cerezo, known professionally as Lea T, who was one of the first models to come out as transgender, and Valentina Sampaio, the current cover star of French Vogue. “We only sign clients to Women Management that we think have the merit to succeed in this business, transgender or otherwise,” said Michael Bruno, an agent at Women Management. “We work to provide them the same opportunities as other models.”

But models seek more from an agency than professional opportunities.

Mr. Henise also gets a sense of belonging from being part of Trans Models. He grew up in a religious household with parents who sent him to strict all-girls schools.

He said the times he spent with the people in the agency conducting photo shoots, talking about their struggles or just hanging out, were the only points in his life he had been with people just like him.

Ms. Di understands what a big deal having a supportive community is for her models, and she is starting additional projects to make their lives richer and easier. With Michael Osofsky, an entrepreneur, she has begun TeaDate, a dating app for transgender people. It started up on Valentine’s Day last year with 5,000 users and now has 23,000. Ms. Di is also trying to digitize the fashion booking process by building an app that connects transgender models around the world with work opportunities.

“A lot of times when you first enter a trans community, it is kind of competitive, and you are surrounded by people trying to win over each other,” she said. “I’m forming a community within a community that can help each other.”

While modeling is often dismissed as superficial, some transgender people consider it a revolutionary act, a means of showing they are just as beautiful and professional as anyone else. “You are not just a model doing your job, superficially having your photo taken,” Ms. Petty said. “You are a role model; you are a leader of this movement.”

Professor Halberstam is skeptical of this argument, saying: “It’s great that there are transbodies visible in the world, but one should be careful about what it means beyond that and about making claims politically. All visibility doesn’t all lead in a progressive direction. Sometimes it’s just visibility.”

Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles andModern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.

A version of this article appears in print on March 5, 2017, on Page ST1 of the New York edition with the headline: Transgender Models Find a Home.

The Clash's "London Calling": "A nuclear era, but I have no fear." : Epic Records - Epic Records

When we were still innocent babes, pop songs prepared us for the things that couldn't be prepared for. Sex. Heartbreak. Nuclear annihilation.

Prince's "1999" urged us to get ready for two out of three. He was our coolest Cold War child, sensitive and streetwise enough to convince the masses that dancing in the nuclear twilight might even be fun. Now, as our new president blurts forth his vision for an increasingly weaponized planet, "1999" sounds disconcertingly fresh. We're a little bit closer to "over-oops-out-of-time." Old songs suddenly have new work to do.

Pop's nuclear songbook is surprisingly thick, but its tensile strength has always been tested by the weight of our fears - fears that can feel dumb and irrational until smart, rational people start feeling them, too. So here's Philip Roth in the New Yorker back in January: "What is most terrifying is that (President Donald Trump) makes any and everything possible, including, of course, the nuclear catastrophe." Roth's 2004 novel "The Plot Against America" isn't about a farewell flash, but it does imagine a dystopia as chilling as those rendered in George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" - all of which have enjoyed a sales spike since Trump's election. Readers crave wisdom in senseless times.

But we listen to nuclear pop for different reasons. We borrow Joe Strummer's macho courage when we sing along with the Clash's "London Calling" ("A nuclear era, but I have no fear"). We pout with Morrissey when he begs for the bomb during "Everyday Is Like Sunday" ("Come, armageddon, come"). And when R.E.M. tells us that "It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," we feel pretty fine, too.

That's because throughout the greatest hits of the apocalypse, the end rarely seems all that nigh - not even during "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," a ballad that Bob Dylan first performed a month before Kennedy announced the existence of Soviet nukes in Cuba. Oblivion had never felt closer, but the dangers foretold in Dylan's prophecy sounded far away - the stuff of "seven sad forests" and "a dozen dead oceans." Then again, that was 1962. Maybe they're closer now.

In the '80s, mushroom clouds began to sprout on MTV with numbing regularity, as if the network's entire purpose was to toughen up the children of the Reagan era through a fit of atomic hiccups. You could spot the death-bloom in videos for David Bowie's "Let's Dance," and Genesis' "Land of Confusion," and Culture Club's "The War Song," and Time Zone's "World Destruction," and Donald Fagen's "New Frontier," and Fishbone's "Party at Ground Zero" - a song that cheekily dismissed these torrents of dread as "a B-movie starring you."

One way to stop fearing the bomb was to laugh it away. If not that, fantasize about your invincibility. Nena's cautionary "99 Luftballons" was sung from the perspective of a survivor, while the embryonic narrator of Kate Bush's "Breathing" was preparing to be born into the ruins. That's the funny thing about nuclear winter: Life goes on, but probably not yours.

Survival is a central theme in rap music, so when a new century approached, it only made sense that rappers began declaring themselves impervious to doomsday. And while Method Man, Three 6 Mafia and others funneled end-times bravura directly into their rhymes, it was Busta Rhymes who most eagerly espoused the end the of the world, turning his first three solo albums into an informal rapture countdown. The cover of 1998's "E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event): The Final World Front" depicts the entirety of Manhattan deliquescing in atomic fire, making it the most horrific album jacket since Count Basie's "The Atomic Mr. Basie" circa 1958. As for the music itself, few rappers have sounded more defiantly alive in the face of death than Busta did in 1996 when he warned, "There's only five years left!" Don't mock the guy's miscalculations. There may only be five years left, someday. Keep listening.

Meantime, the durability of rap's most salient armageddon jam has more to do with systemic racial profiling than lingering nuclear paranoia. In the second verse of 1997's "Apocalypse," Wyclef Jean reports that Brooklyn has just "turned to Hiroshima," so with an entire borough vaporized, he flees to New Jersey, where the cops attempt to pull him over for driving while black. Amid the chaos, someone has robbed a gas station, and our hero matches the description. But it couldn't have been him - "I was at the Grammys with Brandy," Wyclef raps. "Didn't you see me on TV?" Twenty years later, the truth in this song still burns: American racism will survive the apocalypse.

Still, as sobering, thrilling and distracting as they may be, our greatest nuclear pop songs are little more than hedges against the void. We buy them up hoping that we'll never actually have to use them, like bicycle helmets, or the extra coverage at the Hertz kiosk. They feel insufficient. As they should. No one song could truly prepare us for a self-inflicted mass extinction - but there are two that bravely and generously try.

The first is "Nuclear War," a relatively obscure jazz prayer recorded by the visionary Sun Ra in 1982. Over a series of ascending piano chords, the bandleader casually draws the members of his legendary Arkestra into a devastating singalong: "It's a mother------, don't you know/If they push that button, your ass gotta go." The man sounds loose, relaxed, profoundly disappointed, but ultimately at peace with the fact that his wishes have no bearing on our planet's nuclear destiny. This is a piece of music that looks oblivion square in the eye and accepts it.

And then there's "1999," a song that soothes our collective fear of collective death by inviting all of humanity to the greatest party ever thrown. Prince knew the score. "Everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day," he sang, "but before I'll let that happen, I'll dance my life away." This wasn't platitudinous seize-the-day babble. It was an ecstatic expression of resistance. Still is. To resist fear is to deny the button-pushers power over your mind, your body, the lion in your pocket. And until disarmament or judgement day, it remains our only option.

© Copyright 2017 Prince George Citizen

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