Archive for October 21st, 2012

Des malades hors-la-loi soulagent leur douleur avec le cannabis

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Lamanchelibre.fr

Atteints de cancer ou séropositifs, ils produisent et consomment du cannabis pour soulager leurs douleurs et demandent une plus grande tolérance de la justice, au moment où chercheurs et juristes débattent à Strasbourg du cannabis sur ordonnance.

L’usager de cannabis encourt un an de prison et/ou 3.750 euros d’amende. La production peut être sanctionnée par vingt ans de réclusion et plus de 7 millions d’euros d’amende. Un seul médicament à base de cannabis faiblement dosé est vendu sous conditions strictes, alors que d’autres pays comme l’Italie, la Belgique, les Pays-Bas ou certains Etats américains admettent leur prescription.

A 43 ans, Christophe a eu de la chance. Son interpellation, en juillet à son domicile parisien, après dénonciation par une connaissance, s’est terminée par une injonction de soins.

Les policiers ont découvert sa production dans une petite cave aménagée sous son appartement en rez-de-chaussée, à Paris. Ils ont saisi une partie de son matériel et toutes ses plantes, mais “je les ai sentis désolés tout au long de la perquisition”, explique-t-il à l’AFP.

Car Christophe, cheveux ras et barbe de trois jours, est atteint du VIH et souffre d’une algie vasculaire, sorte de “migraine puissance mille”.

Ancien consommateur de cannabis “récréatif”, il affirme s’être rendu compte que face à ses traitements lourds, le cannabis permettait “de réduire nausées et vomissements, et de retrouver l’appétit”.

Pour éviter des produits de piètre qualité au marché noir, il s’est lancé dans la culture, d’abord dans la petite cour attenante à son appartement, sans être inquiété malgré un voisin policier.

Soutien du médecin

“Avec l’autoproduction, on peut maîtriser le produit et ses effets. On connaît les variétés de plantes, on sait celles qu’on peut consommer le matin sans être raide, celles au contraire qui font dormir”, explique-t-il.

Il poursuit l’été sa production extérieure, mais c’est dans sa cave que pousse le gros de sa récolte, toute l’année. Quelques dizaines de plants sont exposés sous des lampes allumées en permanence, tandis que ventilateurs et extracteurs renouvellent l’air et contrôlent la température, entre 20 et 25 degrés.

Des policiers au procureur, “à aucun moment on ne m’a parlé d’abstinence. J’en ai conclu une espèce de tolérance de fait”, explique Christophe, qui n’a “pas eu d’appréhension à recommencer”. Il attend sa prochaine récolte, dans quatre semaines, qui lui permettra de tenir trois mois.

Si deux ou trois personnes ont été jugées et dispensées de peine ou relaxées, la majorité des malades sont condamnés à du sursis avec mise à l’épreuve et à des amendes, explique Fabienne Lopez, présidente de l’association “Principes actifs”, regroupant une vingtaine de consommateurs souffrant de cancers, maladies dégénératives, VIH, ou hépatites.

Cette femme menue de 53 ans, sous chimiothérapie après un cancer, cultive “quelques pots” chez elle, “avec une lampe dessus”, pour consommer entre 1 et 1,5 g par jour. Elle a le soutien de son médecin, comme tous les membres de l’association.

Le cannabis soulage chez elle les symptômes de sa chimio (démangeaisons, douleurs articulaires et musculaires, nausées, vertiges), lui permet de dormir et a “un effet antidépresseur”, assure-t-elle.

Comme beaucoup de ses amis, elle consomme le cannabis en vaporisateur, qui permet d’inhaler les particules de THC (substance active) sans fumer, et voudrait voir développer en pharmacie de tels médicaments, comme en Angleterre.

Mais elle demande avant tout que les consommateurs de cannabis thérapeutique ne soient plus condamnés, sur la foi de leur dossier médical. Elle attend un rendez-vous avec la ministre de la Justice.

https://www.gayglobe.us

Boxe: Cruz victorieux de son 1er combat depuis qu’il a révélé son homosexualité

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Leparisien.fr

Le Portoricain Orlando Cruz est sorti vainqueur vendredi soir à Kissimmee, en Floride, de son premier combat depuis qu’il a révélé publiquement son homosexualité, début octobre.
Orlando Cruz, 31 ans, s’est imposé face au Mexicain Jorge Pazos aux points après avoir été donné vainqueur par les trois juges(118-110, 116-111, 118-110), selon le décompte rapporté sur le site boxingscene.

com.
Cruz compte désormais 19 victoires, dont 9 avant la limite, pour deux nuls et une défaite, depuis qu’il est passé professionnel après les jeux Olympiques de Sydney en 2000.
“C’était mon moment, ma chance, mon événement”, a déclaré Cruz vendredi soir après le combat, dans des propos rapportés par boxingscene: “Et j’ai gagné”, a-t-il ajouté en espérant que cette victoire lui ouvrira les portes d’un combat pour le titre mondial WBO, où il est classé 4e chez les poids plume.
“C’est mon rêve, celui de ma mère, de ma communauté et de mon équipe”, a insisté Orlando Cruz, qui a précisé se sentir “libre et plus en paix” depuis son coming-out.

https://www.gayglobe.us

Manuel Valls défend au Vatican le mariage homosexuel

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Nouvelobs

Le ministre français de l’Intérieur, Manuel Valls, a défendu samedi au Vatican le projet de légalisation du mariage entre personnes de même sexe, rapporte dimanche l’agence de presse catholique I.media.

Il a précisé qu’un débat aurait lieu sur les modalités de sa mise en oeuvre mais a rappelé la détermination de son gouvernement à faire adopter cette loi, ajoute l’agence de presse spécialisée sur le Vatican.

Manuel Valls, venu participer à la canonisation du jésuite français Jacques Berthieu, a dit aux journalistes que sa visite était le signe du “très grand respect” du président François Hollande et du Premier ministre Jean-Marc Ayrault pour “le Saint-Siège et le pape”.

Il a confié avoir expliqué au chef de la diplomatie vaticane, Mgr Dominique Mamberti, que le mariage entre personnes de même sexe était “un engagement du président de la République”.

Si le projet de loi sera présenté par le Conseil des ministres fin octobre ou début novembre, Manuel Valls a semblé exclure “un débat de principe” sur le bien-fondé de la loi mais a reconnu la nécessité d’un “débat sur sa mise en oeuvre et ses conséquences concrètes, administratives et d’ordre civil qui interrogent la conscience”, souligne I.media.

“Un débat aura lieu”, a encore affirmé le ministre de l’Intérieur à propos du mariage homosexuel et de l’adoption par les couples homosexuels, ajoutant qu’il était “logique et légitime que l’Eglise expose pleinement son point de vue comme tous les autres acteurs de la société civile, qu’ils soient favorables ou opposés à ce mariage”.

Manuel Valls s’est cependant dit opposé à un référendum, soutenant que “le mariage pour tous” entrait dans les “grands choix” que doit affronter un Parlement comme, par le passé, la peine de mort ou l’avortement.

Le projet de loi qui doit être présenté en conseil des ministres mobilise contre lui presque toute la droite ainsi que l’Eglise catholique et ne satisfait pas pleinement la communauté homosexuelle, qui dénonce un texte a minima.

Malgré les oppositions, le principe du mariage homosexuel recueille une approbation assez nette au sein de l’opinion, 61% des Français s’y déclarant favorables, selon un récent sondage Ifop pour Le Figaro.

https://www.gayglobe.us

HIV drugs only available to sickest patients in Myanmar

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

ctvnews.ca

Thein Aung has been trained not to show weakness, but he’s convinced no soldier is strong enough for this.

He clenches his jaw and pauses, trying to will his chin to stop quivering and his eyes not to blink. But he’s like a mountain that is crumbling. His shoulders shake, then collapse inward, and he suddenly seems small in the denim Wrangler shirt that’s rolled up to his elbows and hanging loosely off his skinny arms. Big tears drip from his reddened eyes, and he looks away, ashamed.

As he sits outside a crowded clinic on the outskirts of Myanmar’s biggest city, he knows his body is struggling to fight HIV, tuberculosis and diabetes – but he can’t help wishing he was sicker.

Although Aung is ill enough to qualify for HIV treatment in other poor countries, there’s simply not enough pills to go around in Myanmar. Only the sickest of the sick are lucky enough to go home with a supply of lifesaving medicine here. The others soon learn their fate is ultimately decided by the number of infection-fighting cells found inside the blood samples they give every three months.

The World Health Organization recommends treatment start when this all-important CD4 count drops to 350.

In Myanmar, it must fall below 150.

—-

Antiretroviral therapy, in the past considered a miracle only available to HIV patients in the West, is no longer scarce in many of the poorest parts of the world. Pills are cheaper and easier to access, and HIV is not the same killer that once left thousands of orphaned children in sub-Saharan Africa.

But Myanmar, otherwise known as Burma, remains a special case. Kept in the dark for so many decades by its reclusive ruling junta, this country of 60 million did not reap the same international aid as other needy nations. Heavy economic sanctions levied by countries such as the United States, along with virtually nonexistent government health funding, left an empty hole for medicine and services. Today, Myanmar ranks among the world’s hardest places to get HIV care, and health experts warn it will take years to prop up a broken health system hobbled by decades of neglect.

“Burma is like the work that I did in Africa in the’90s. It’s 15, 20 years out of date,” says Dr. Chris Beyrer, an HIV expert at Johns Hopkins University who has worked in Myanmar for years. “If you actually tried to treat AIDS, you’d have to say that everybody with every other condition is going to die unless there are more resources.”

Of the estimated 240,000 people living with HIV, half are going without treatment. And some 18,000 people die from the disease every year, according to UNAIDS.

The problem worsened last year after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria canceled a round of funding due to a lack of international donations. The money was expected to provide HIV drugs for 46,500 people.

But as Myanmar wows the world with its reforms, the U.S. and other nations are easing sanctions. The Global Fund recently urged Myanmar to apply for more assistance that would make up the shortfall and open the door for HIV drugs to reach more than 75 percent of those in need by the end of 2015. It would also fight tuberculosis, a major killer of HIV patients. TB in Myanmar is at nearly triple the global rate as multi-drug resistant forms of the disease surge.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders has tried to take up the slack by providing more than half the HIV drugs being distributed. But every day, physicians at its 23 clinics must make agonizing decisions to turn away patients like Aung, who are desperately ill but still do not qualify for medicine because their CD4 counts are too high.

“It’s very difficult to see those kind of situations,” says Kyaw Naing Htun, a young doctor with a K-pop hairstyle and seemingly endless energy, who manages the organization’s busy clinic in Insein. He says about 100 patients who should be on drugs are turned away every month in Yangon alone. “It takes a lot more resources when they come back sicker. It’s a lose-lose game.”

—-

Aung first learned about the virus living inside him in April. He had dropped weight and wasn’t sleeping well, but figured it was the TB and diabetes running him down.

When the test came back positive for HIV, he was shocked and scared: How? Why?

“I wanted to commit suicide when I found out the results,” he says softly, looking away. “What upset me most was my wife. She says I shouldn’t die now because we have children.”

The questions swarmed and consumed him, followed by a flood of worry and guilt that he had possibly infected his spouse. Then the bigger concern: What’s next?

Unlike many living in a country closed off to the world for the past half century of military rule, Aung, an Army staff sergeant, had some firsthand knowledge about HIV.

He had watched the disease rot one soldier from the inside out, punishing him with a cruel death. But he also saw another get on treatment and live a normal life, despite the military kicking him out.

With the images of those two men locked in his head, Aung decided to fight to save himself and ultimately his family. No one but his wife could know, or he would lose his job and their home on the military base because of the deep fear and discrimination surrounding the disease. Drugs were his only chance to keep the secret.

“If I get the medicine, and I can stay in this life longer, I will serve the country more and my family will not be broken,” he says. “My family is invaluable.”

At the clinic in Insein, an area of Yangon better known for a notorious prison, Aung, who is using another name to protect his identity, waited nervously for the results of his first blood test.

CD4 count: 460. Low enough for drugs in the U.S., but well above the 150 cutoff in Myanmar. He was given TB meds and told to come back in three months.

—-

Many of the 200 people crammed into the two small buildings of an HIV center just outside Yangon are simply waiting to die.

Beloved opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited patients there in November 2010, just days after being freed from house arrest, appealing to the world for more medicine. She also spoke passionately in July about the stigma of HIV via a video link to the International AIDS conference in Washington, saying, “Our people need to understand what HIV really is. We need to understand this is not something that we need to be afraid of.”

There are no doctors or nurses stationed at the hospice supported by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, forcing patients to care for each other. One man hangs a drip bag on a plastic string from the ceiling over an emaciated body. Other caregivers – many of whom are also infected – wave paper fans beside their loved ones for hours, providing the only relief they can offer.

Infected children whose parents have already passed away play barefoot in the stuffy, crowded rooms. Bodies, some nothing more than breathing corpses, are stacked side by side on bamboo slats above dirt floors.

Another room is packed with 20 women stretched out on straw mats crisscrossing the wooden floor. A young mother sobs in one corner as she breast-feeds a 7-day-old baby girl. She did not take HIV drugs until late in her pregnancy, and now must wait up to 18 months to know for sure whether her only child is infected.

“The funding is limited for the enormous number of patients,” says newly elected parliament member Phyu Phyu Thin, who founded the center in 2002 and was jailed by the former government for her HIV work. “Waiting to get the medicine under the limits is too risky for many patients because they can only get it when their health is deteriorating.”

—-

Aung looks the part of a soldier with his shaved head and wiry build. He spent the first decade of his 27 years in the military fighting in domestic ethnic wars, away from his wife and two children.

It’s this past life that devours him each night when sleep refuses to come. He served as a medic then, and regularly came into contact with the blood of wounded soldiers. He also had sex with other women. The question that haunts him most is, which one is to blame? He’ll never know.

He takes sleeping pills every night to be released from these thoughts. But relief does not come, as chills and night sweats drench his body and the constant urge to urinate keeps him running to the toilet.

He’s lost 10 pounds in the past month, dropping from 130 pounds to 120. His cheeks are starting to sink, and his eyes look hollow. His strength is also fading, and he can no longer lead grueling daily runs with the trainees. He uses his TB as an excuse, but he fears his superiors will not be fooled much longer.

“I try to hide it as much as I can, but some people have started rumors about me, so I try not to face them directly,” he says. “I want to be strong like the other people. I’m trying, but now my body cannot follow my mind.”

His wife refuses to be tested until Aung gets on the drugs. She worries if she comes back positive, her guilt-ravaged husband will kill himself.

“She doesn’t want me to be depressed,” he says. “If she is positive, I will be very, very depressed.”

The disease has forced him to rethink who he is. He’s killed people in combat, cheated on his wife and witnessed many horrors in his lifetime. But he wants a chance to make up for his wrongs.

As a Buddhist, he believes his disease is a punishment for misdeeds in a previous life. He vows to be a better man by helping others and giving what little he has to charity.

He says sicker patients deserve treatment first. Still, as he sits waiting for his second blood test, he can’t help wishing his immune system was weak enough to help him reach the magic number.

But when the doctor reads his results, he knows he will leave empty-handed again.

CD4 count: 289. Still too high.

His only choice is to try again in three months, hoping he’ll be sick enough then.

https://www.gayglobe.us

Controversial Gallup poll says only 3.4% of US adults are LGBT

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Digitaljournal.com

A Gallup survey released Thursday, touted as the largest study ever aimed at estimating the LGBT community in the US, has sparked controversy. Pro-gay activists are contesting the poll result that says only 3.4 percent of US adults identify as LGBT.
The Gallup survey was conducted by telephone, June 1 through Sept. 30, and has a margin of sampling error of approximately 1 percentage point. The results were based on answers 121,290 respondents gave to the question, “Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?” Of the total, 3.4 percent answered “yes,” 92.2 percent “no,” and 4.4 percent did not answer. Lead author Gary Gates of the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, said the findings of the survey should debunk current stereotypes about gays and lesbians promoted by the media and reveal that the gay community is more diverse than they have been portrayed. The Associated Pressreports he said:

“Contemporary media often think of LGBT people as disproportionately white, male, urban and pretty wealthy. But this data reveal that relative to the general population, the LGBT population has a larger proportion of nonwhite people and clearly is not overly wealthy… “If you spend a lot of time watching network television, you would think most LGBT people are rich white men who live in big cities. These data suggest the LGBT community reflects more of the diversity in the U.S. population.”

According to the survey, 4.6 percent of African-Americans identified as LGBT, 4 percent of Hispanics, 4.3 percent of Asians and 3.2 percent of Whites.

Gallup

Gallup
Gallup

The study reports that 3.6 percent of women identified as LGBT, compared to 3.3 percent of men. Younger adults, aged 18 to 29, were three times more likely than adults in the age group 65 and above to identify as gay. Analysts interpret this as reflecting the growing acceptance of LGBT identity among younger people.

Gallup

Gallup
Gallup

In the 18 to 29 age group, 8.3 percent of women identified as LGBT, compared to 4.6 percent of men the same age. Analysts remark that this is a striking gender-related gap. The survey also asked respondents about their political leaning, and found that 44 percent of LGBT adults identified as Democratic, 43 percent independent and 13 percent as Republican. . According to the survey, 71 percent of LGBT registered voterssupported Obama, while 22 percent support Romney. Self-Identification as LGBT was highest among Americans with the lowest educational attainment. Americans with high school education, 3.5 percent; those with college degree, 2.8 percent; those with post-graduate degrees 3.2 percent.

Gallup; LGBT

Gallup
Gallup; LGBT

Among Americans earning less than $24,000, 5 percent identified as LGBT, compared to 2.8 percent among those earning more than $60,000 a year. However, 35 percent of respondents who identified as LGBT reported they earned less than $24,000, compared to 24 percent of the population. According to the survey, 20 percent of LGBT individuals said they are married, 18 percent were living with a partner. The respondents, however, were not asked about the gender of their partners or spouses. On the other hand, 54 percent of non-LGBT Americans said they were married, and 4 percent living with a partner.

Gallup

Gallup
Gallup

Pro-family and pro-gay activists dispute Gallup poll result Pro-family activists accept the estimate that only 3.4 percent of US adults are LGBT, saying it is consistent with previous studies. They hold that the Gallup survey contradicts the estimate of 10 percent “often touted by pro-gay activists.” The Christian Post, a pro-family website, for instance, comments that the Gallup figure “falls far short of numbers routinely tossed around by pro-homosexual groups who claim that approximately 10 percent or more of the population have homosexual tendencies.”

Gallup; LGBT

Gallup
Gallup; LGBT

According to The Christian Post , Dr. Michael Brown, author of A Queer Thing Happened to America, says the claim that 1 in 10 people are gay is founded on “myth.” He said: “First, the numbers are no surprise. Gallup’s sample is so large that it makes inflating the numbers difficult. The pro-homosexual community tends to use double-digit numbers for their own use, but in reality, most gay activists realize the numbers are smaller but just want everyone to believe they are much larger.”

Gallup; LGBT

Gallup
Gallup; LGBT

Pro-gay organizations and activists dispute the 3.4 percent figure, saying it is not accurately representative of “gay America.” Allison Hope, writing in The Huffington Post, disputes the figure:

“…there are some major flaws… Firstly, the data was compiled via phone calls. Strangers called people’s homes across the country and asked them point-blank, ‘Are you gay?’… if some stranger called me on the phone from some undisclosed location in a possibly homophobic town, I sure as hell might lie… “The survey also asserts that there are more LGBT Americans of color than white LGBT Americans and more LGBT women than LGBT men, and that LGBT people have lower education and income… But… The stereotypical rich, white gay man… is probably less likely than others to freely disclose to a faceless voice on the other end of the phone his sexual identity.”

Hope concludes:

“The poll also leaves out many nuances of the gender-variant rainbow. There are plenty of people who are not straight and would probably admit to that if they were given more choices than “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual” and “transgender.” Perhaps the question should have been, “Are you not straight?”

https://www.gayglobe.us

Church cites Scripture in barring gay musician from performing

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Kansascity.com

Chad Graber loved everything connected to church.

Especially the Tuesday night classes at CrossPoint Church called Celebrate Recovery. The prayer groups and Bible studies were his anchor after his substance abuse treatment ended.

“My goal was to put more good things in my life, and church was it,” he remembers.

Sometime around 2007 he joined the six-piece worship team for Celebrate Recovery, playing keyboards, learning Christian songs and practicing chord changes.

He belonged.

His playing caught the ear of other worship leaders at CrossPoint, the largest church in Hutchinson, boasting some 1,400 members.

It wasn’t long before Graber joined the Saturday worship band. For nearly four years he played in both worship groups.

But last November, before a rehearsal, two church leaders pulled him aside. With a serious look and hushed tone, senior pastor Andy Addis had one question: Are you gay?

Graber had told few people that he is gay. He is not an effeminate man. He had no partner. But the gay inside him, the feelings that first emerged in elementary school, refused to go away. Despite all his boyhood and adult prayers. Despite all the partying and drugs later as he tried to ignore who he was.

He’d prayed for healing from all of it. He is clean and sober.

But the gay stayed.

Graber learned a fellow member complained. Addis told him homosexuals couldn’t be leaders in church, even playing keyboards as a volunteer sideman. The minister worried too that his presence might prompt a troubled Christian to do something to hurt him.

“But he told me he’d love for me to keep going to church services,” says Graber. And other gays do attend there.

To Graber, it felt like a demotion and a shunning. If he kept attending but wasn’t playing, others would want to know why. He would either have to out himself or lie.

There’s no such thing as partial acceptance in my view, he thought.

He left.

“I could have easily started abusing again. My life was at stake, and they didn’t have a clue. Nor did they care.”

But he didn’t go back to his old ways. And he credits God.

He wonders why the church leaders focused so much on his gayness while ignoring those who are sleeping with others outside marriage. Or are divorced. Or are gluttons, gossips or any of the other myriad of sinners, because no one is perfect. Didn’t Jesus Christ pay for them all?

More than a year has passed since his rebuke. He plays piano only at home.

But now he has a partner. A serious relationship. They’re talking about starting a family.

He has found another place to worship, the Unitarian Universalist Church, he says, “where people of all faiths come together to celebrate and respect each other’s spiritual journeys.”

His prayers continue, too. But he no longer asks God to purge the gay.

Now it’s about forgiving Addis. “It’s been a struggle,” he admits.

Gay Christians ask him which churches are friendly to them. Avoid CrossPoint, he advises.

“It’s really an injustice. But I want to protect my gay friends from getting hurt.”

Addis first told The Star he didn’t want to talk about Graber. The incident had created hard feelings in the church. Some members left over it. Others are angry over Addis’ speech at a forum on Hutchinson’s proposed anti-discrimination protections for gays.

Former member Claudia Delgado called Addis “a silver-tongued snake.”

I’ve been called worse, Addis says, such as “the pastor of hate, the Fred Phelps of western Kansas.”

“We are not a church of hate. We do stand on Scripture. We love God. We love our neighbors as ourselves. No matter what you hear or read, that’s what we practice here.”

Addis, 41, says he had to correct the problem of a homosexual leading the worship.

“If it was a heterosexual practicing adultery, it would be the same. … Everyone sins. But the issue is whether you see it’s a sin and make changes as a response to what you see in Scripture. The difference with Chad is that he switched from struggling with his sin to embracing it.

“I need to stand on Scripture.”

There is no middle ground with God’s word, he says.

“I want to be a peacemaker. … People on both sides of the aisle need to be willing to forgive, understand and accept their differences. When I say ‘accept,’ I can still believe that I’m 100 percent right and that you may be wrong, but I still have to accept you as a person.

“The bullying, hating and ostracizing and anything along those lines is anything but Christ-like.”

Christ-like is not how Graber describes Addis. He scoffs at the rhetoric of “let’s agree to disagree” middle ground.

“He is talking about the very essence of who I am,” says Graber. “That’s like someone saying they love black people but believe in slavery. Or they love women, but they fight to their dying breath to deny them the right to vote. Or they’re with the Nazi party and work in the Holocaust, but they say they love Jews.”

When it comes to discrimination, he says: “There is no compromising my life.”

https://www.gayglobe.us

Openly Gay Boxer Orlando Cruz Wins First Fight Since Coming Out

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Towleroad.com

With a one-two punch boxer Orlando Cruz made history last night in Kissimmee, Florida, where the 31-year old pugilist beat out rival Jorge Pazos.

Cruz has been nervous since he came out two weeks ago that he would be booed or jeered as he stepped into the ring, but was pleasantly surprised to hear cheers and support.

“I was very happy that they respect me. That’s what I want — them to see me as a boxer, as an athlete and as a man in every sense of the word,” he said last night. “That was my moment, my opportunity, my event… And I won.” And this may be just the beginning.

From the Boston Herald:

Cruz is hoping this victory will get him a shot at a bigger match in the near future.

“This fight’s going to open my door for a world title fight,” Cruz said. “That’s my dream, my mom’s dream, my community’s dream and my team’s.”

And Cruz seems to be more at ease with his new position as a gay role model, no longer hiding who he is in one of the world’s most macho sports.

“I’m only one person,” Cruz said. “I feel happy with where I am. I’m free. I’m more at peace.”

https://www.gayglobe.us