title: LGBT history in Argentina

text:
The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) in Argentina is shaped by the historic characterisation of non-heterosexuality as a public enemy: when power was exercised by the Catholic Church, it was regarded as a sin; during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was in the hands of positivist thought, it was viewed as a disease; and later, with the advent of civil society, it became a crime.

The indigenous peoples of the pre-Columbian era had practices and assessments on sexuality that differed from those of the Spanish conquistadors, who used their sinful "sodomy" to justify their barbarism and extermination.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the first activist groups of the country appeared, most notably the leftist Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH), whose immediate forebear was Nuestro Mundo, the first gay rights organization in Latin America. The arrival of the last civic-military dictatorship in 1976—with its subsequent intensification of state terrorism—dissolved these activist efforts, and the local movement often denounces that there were at least four hundred LGBT people among the desaparecidos. The end of military rule in 1983 was followed by a flourishing of lesbian and gay life in the country which, combined with the continued repression, resulted in a resurgence of activism, within which the role of Carlos Jáuregui and the Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA) stood out.

During the 1990s, the local LGBT activism continued to expand, and the first pride marches of the country took place. During the decade, the travesti and transgender rights movement emerged, spearheaded by figures such as Mariela Muñoz, Karina Urbina, Lohana Berkins, María Belén Correa and Claudia Pía Baudracco. Through the 1980s and until the mid-1990s, the nascent LGBT movement was primarily concerned with issues such as homophobia, police violence, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. One of its first great achievements was the repeal of police edicts (Spanish: "edictos policiales") in 1996, used by the Federal Police to arrest LGBT people. In 2000, a civil union bill was introduced in the Buenos Aires legislature, and two years later the city was first in the region to have a law granting legal recognition to same-sex couples.

In the early 2010s, Argentina established itself as a pioneering country in terms of LGBT rights, with the passing of the Equal Marriage Law (Spanish: Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario) in 2010—becoming the tenth country to do so—and the Gender Identity Law (Spanish: Ley de Identidad de Género) in 2012—which allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval. Since 2019, the country has an official ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity. In 2021, the Cupo Laboral Trans law was passed—which established a 1% quota for trans workers in civil service jobs— and the country became the first in Latin America to recognise non-binary gender identities in its national identification cards and passports.

Indigenous peoples

Andean peoples

The Inca Empire (in Quechua: Tawantinsuyu) extended to part of the modern-day Argentine provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca, Tucumán, La Rioja, San Juan, and the northwest of Mendoza, incorporating them to the Qullasuyu administrative region.

According to journalist Edmundo Fayanas Escuer, homosexuality was frequently practiced in the Inca Empire—being closely linked with religious life—and lesbianism was permitted and even idealized within the noble classes. Among the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, skeletons of two young men were found surrounded by feminine ornaments and without any masculine attributes.

Nevertheless, Juan José Sebreli noted that: "This does not mean, however, that sexual permissiveness reigned in indigenous cultures, in the style of lost paradises that utopian anthropologists like Margaret Mead believe they find in primitive peoples. In the most advanced pre-Columbian civilizations, on the contrary, homosexuality was repressed more viciously than among Europeans; the Incas completely destroyed the sites where a case of sodomy was discovered."

Guaraní and Guaycurú peoples

In his 1946 study "Ethnography of the Chaco" (Spanish: "Etnografía del Chaco"), anthropologist Alfred Métraux reported that berdaches were very common among the Mbayá people, writing: "They dressed and spoke like women, pretended to menstruate, and engaged in feminine activities. They were regarded as the prostitutes of the village." According to Alberto Cardín, even though Métraux wrote on the Mbayá people, this was the name that the Guaraní gave in past times to the nomadic tribes of the Guaicuruan languages, who inhabited the other side of the Paraguay River. Pierre Clastres lived for a year among the Guaycurú people and reported two paradigmatic cases: that of Chachubutagachugi, a member of the Aché tribe who did not like men's jobs and worked alongside women; and that of Krembegin, an unapologetic homosexual who was frowned upon but never punished. Likewise, in the mid-19th century the Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute reported on the homosexuality of the Guaycurú: "Among the Guaycurú and the Xamico, there are some men [...], whom they call cudinhos, who serve as women, mainly on long trips. These cudinhos or nefarious demons, dress and adorn themselves like women, talk like them, they do only the same jobs that they do, they urinate on their knees, they have a husband whom they are very jealous of and constantly hold in their arms, they appreciate that men fall in love with them and once a month they affect a ridiculous pretense that they are supposed to be menstruating, not eating, like women in those crises, neither fish nor meat, only fruits and palm hearts, going every day, as they practice, to the river with a basin to wash themselves."

Mapuche peoples

The Mapuche peoples—who inhabited part of the current territories of Chile and Argentina—had a notion of sexual identity and practice that differed from those of Spanish conquistadors, who reduced their complexity under the concept of "sodomy". According to Chilean writer Tomás Guevara, who studied the Mapuche people in the early 20th century:"[Mapuche] society did not stigmatize pederasty, which was not as widespread [among them] as in Inca communities. In Arauco, it was practiced freely by the machi, male healers. It seems that sodomy was an integral part of ancient and modern 'machism'. The chroniclers of the 17th century mention the existence of this deviation from genetic functions and describe the ways and the exterior of these pederasts. In the learning of 'machism' for men, the art of leaving their sex or of copying females in walking and dressing, in gestures, voice and looks was understood. They painted their faces and adorned themselves like women. They chose an invariably young man, who played the role of husband. They were these passive pederast machi and rarely experienced lewd feelings about women. The young men destined to satisfy the inverted sexual activity of these individuals were made the butt of ridicule by others, and nothing more. They never denied their status as active pederasts because they feared that by refusing, they could father defective children if they married. [The Mapudungun language] designates the homosexual with the word huelle and homosexuality with huelletun."

In the same way, anthropologist Alfred Métraux reported that: "The male shamans today are, as before, berdaches, to use an old French word formerly applied to people of their kind among the Indians of North America. Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, who knew them well in the 18th century, qualifies them as passive homosexuals (hueye). He describes them as dressed in loincloths tied at the waist in the manner of women and in a long tunic.' He adds: 'They did not dress like a man, but wore their hair long, while the others braided it. They were adorned with necklaces, rings and other feminine jewels. They were highly esteemed and respected by men and women; with the latter they behaved like men, and with the former like women.' Among the [Mapuche] of the Argentine pampas, a young man of delicate constitution who acted more like a girl than a future warrior, was not for that reason despised, he was not an object of ridicule. His tendencies were stimulated since they dressed him as a woman; an effeminate appearance was in a man the outer mark of his shamanic vocation."

However, more recent studies point out that, by translating the colonial codes of "sodomy" into the sexuality of machis—isolating them from their historical and socio-political contexts—European settlers were unable to truly understand Mapuche sexuality. Unlike what the Spaniards interpreted, the Mapuches considered that, while political power was masculine, spiritual power was linked to femininity. For them, in addition to men and women, there was at least one more gender identity and they accepted many different types of sexual acts. Until the late 17th century, shamans—then known as machi weye—were men with special powers due to their permanent dual gender identities and relationships with spirits, which allowed them to act as mediators between the human and spiritual world. The machi weye oscillated between the feminine and masculine poles, combining male and female behaviors, dress, and styles in various ways. This dual gender condition could be associated with active or passive sexual acts with men or women or with celibacy, the meanings of which varied depending on the context. A man who became "effeminate" did not lose any status, as womanhood and feminity were valued socially. According to Chilean anthropologist Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, the sexual acts of the machi weye in the Colonial era were not homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual; but rather linked to spirituality. Through colonization, the Mapuche people eventually incorporated the sexual ideology of the conquistadors, and many modern-day Mapuches claim that homosexuality never existed among them, but that they were practices introduced by the Spanish.

Pampa peoples
The various indigenous groups that inhabited the Pampas region were grouped under the name of Pampas by colonizers, who sometimes made the distinction between these and the so-called Serranos, those who inhabited places farther away from the lowlands, such as San Luis, Córdoba and the Sierra de la Ventana mountains. The Pampas label was variously used to include the Mbeguá, Tehuelche, Ranquel and Querandí peoples, among others.

In the second half of the 19th century, with the indigenous tribes already in their decline, Lucio Victorio Mansilla reported in 1870 on the Ranquel people's orgiastic dances between men, writing: "They kissed, they bit each other, they threw obscene hands..."

16th—18th centuries: Colonial era

The repression of homosexuality was legalized in Spain with the establishment of the absolutist monarchy: the Catholic Monarchs instituted the death penalty at the stake for the act of "sodomy" or "nefarious contra natura sin" in 1497, and King Philip II revalidated it in practice in 1598. On January 25, 1569, Philip II created the Inquisition Tribunals of Lima and Mexico, with the former having jurisprudence on the current Argentine territory. As explained by Professor Jaime Humberto Borja Gómez:... a distinctive feature of the Inquisition in the Americas was that the accusation (of homosexuality) fell especially upon the cultural groups that diverged from the cultural norm that the conquistadors had, that is, the accusation of homosexuality was brought against the indigenous Americans that resisted the Conquista, which also intensified the idea of the Just War. Later, the same accusation of "infamous" behavior was brought to bear on black slaves and their strange attitudes. This imputation was not rare in Christian thought, since it had been carried out throughout the history of medieval thought, which accused of sexual excess, especially homosexuality, all those out-groups that represented a danger to the social order: this was done to heretics, Jews or Templars. It was a way of diminishing the "other", feminizing them, to highlight their "barbaric" customs. In fact, homosexuality was a characteristic of the "barbarian" according to some sources of classical antiquity.The jurists, theologians and moralists of the 16th and 17th centuries defined homosexual sexual acts with the term "sodomy". From this definition, a "ranking" of sins was built according to their level of transgression, and at the top was the "sin contra natura" or, more euphemistically, the so-called "nefarious sin" (Spanish: "pecado nefando"). In addition to being theologically defined as sins, these sexual practices constituted crimes in the legal sense, which was nourished by both Roman law and the canon law and religious tradition of the Middle Ages. The prevailing criminal legislation in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata back in the 18th century considered that sexual excesses, execrable adultery, illicit friendship, homosexuality, etc., should be punishable as crimes against honesty, since the dominant idea in the legal doctrine of the era considered marriage as a sacrament. At the local level, the justice system incorporated the resolutions of the synodal congresses held in the Southern Cone, among which we can cite the 1603 Synodal constitution of the first council of Río de la Plata in Asunción, the Synod of Córdoba in 1700 carried out by Bishop Mercadillo, or the Synod of Bishop Fray Cristóbal de la Mancha y Velasco of 1655, among other meetings that issued codes referring to relations between men and women, norms that transcended in the time.

The homosexual practices of the indigenous peoples continued in the Colonial era, especially in the communal life of the Jesuit reductions. Beginning in the 17th century, Jesuit missionaries founded thirty of these reductions for Guaraní people, two of them located in the current provinces of Misiones and Corrientes. Seeking to evangelize the natives, the missionaries adopted Guaraní religious figures and beliefs to impose those of Christianity. For example, missionary Luis de Bolaños intervened the myth of the creation of the Ypacaraí river, relating it to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, especially the idea of divine punishment for homosexuality. According to this version, the gods punished the homosexuality of ancient villagers by making the earth thunder and flooding the villages of Tapaikuá and Arekayá. In this way, the repression of sexuality was introduced, which the Guaraní were far from considering as a problem. For the Jesuit missionaries, Guaraní beliefs and mythologies did not go beyond superstitions, but they took advantage of them to impose themselves.

The punishment of homosexuality among the indigenous peoples carried out by Spanish authorities consisted, in the early days of the colony, in throwing them to wild dogs so that they could be eaten alive. Later, the penalties for homosexuals, both indigenous and European, where death by burning or by hanging, and their ashes were thrown to the wind, because unlike other convicts they did not deserve a Christian burial. In 1770, viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo ordered that vagabonds—including homosexuals although without naming them—were to be confined in the Falkland Islands (locally: Islas Malvinas), after being exposed in the town square to be mocked. The first mention of homosexuality in Buenos Aires was in 1771, in a legal complaint for slander that the Englishman Guillermo Higgings initiated against Criollo Manuel Milton. The following year, the first public scandal occurred in the city, when Mariano de los Santos Toledo, who had relations with an Arab named Mateo, was denounced for wanting to abuse a twelve-year-old boy and, given his resistance, trying to assassinate him.

Early 19th century: Independence era

On March 23, 1813, the Assembly of the Year XIII suppressed the authority of the Inquisition. Homosexuality then entered a non liquet from which it did not emerge until well into the 20th century. In accordance with the Napoleonic Code, it ceased to be a punishable crime, so there are not testimonies of the sort, while at the same time it did not enter into conventional customs and was therefore not discussed. There are some testimonies that give an account of the homophobic mentality during the first years of independence, such as a note that a Buenos Aires resident named Juan Madera sent in 1813 to the police mayor, in which he accused various men of introducing sodomy in the city.

It is probable that some of Argentina's independence heroes were homosexuals, although there is no historical proof of this. A famous, long-lasting question is the alleged homosexuality of Manuel Belgrano, one of the main Libertadores of the country. The myth has its origin in defamatory gossip spread by his enemies during the revolutionary years, which pointed to his thin voice, his sensitive and polite manners and his intimate friendship with his physician John Redhead. Historian Felipe Pigna has suggested that these rumours were a reaction to Belgrano's defense of women's right to education. Proponents of Belgrano's heterosexuality—including Pigna— claim that his two illegitimate children are irrefutable evidence. Homosexual tendencies can be inferred in Juan Bautista Alberdi, a bachelor concerned with the arts and fashions who was criticized by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as "an abbot for his manners and a woman for his voice."

Homosexuality in the time of Juan Manuel de Rosas is attested by the stigmatization of the Unitarians to the Federals with the term "sodomites" and of the Federals to the Unitarians as "maricones" (i.e. "faggots"). This attribution of roles was also derived from the custom of the Mazorca members of sodomizing young Unitarians, as documented in Esteban Echeverría's El matadero (1839). The repressed homosexuality became visible during the Buenos Aires Carnival festivities, so much so that in 1836 Rosas prescribed its rules, prohibiting "wearing a costume that does not correspond to one's sex." There are no historical sources about lesbianism of the time, although a relationship between Manuela Rosas and her cousin Dolores Fuentes can be inferred, as documented in some love letters, in one of which the former wrote: "How inhumane are my uncles who have taken a friend from me who is as if she were my wife!"

Late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries

1880—1916: The Conservative Republic

During the government of the Generation of '80, deviant sexualities were soon linked to Jewish and Italian immigrants, the latter associated with anarchism, socialism and trade unionism. In this context, literature contributed to the emergence of these stereotypes and prejudices; for example, Eugenio Cambaceres' En la sangre (1887), uses the image of an "invert" child to represent the anomaly of Italian immigrants, while Julián Martel's La bolsa (1891), represents the stereotype of Jewish homosexuality.

In 1886 a new Penal Code was promulgated, in which there was no mention of homosexuality. Consensual homosexuality between adults came to be considered a private act, although sodomy with minors or practiced in a violent way or with physically or mentally disabled people was punished. More than an advance of individual freedoms, the adoption of this theory meant the virtual and desired elimination of homosexuality from Argentine written works, so as to give a better image to potential European immigrants.

There was a complex and visible culture of homosexuals and travestis that extended in all the social classes of Buenos Aires during this period.

One of the first historical records of gay life in Buenos Aires were the criminal careers of several crossdressing swindlers, who were profiled by hygienists. A 1912 article published by Fray Mocho reported that this gang of crossdressing criminals made up of about three thousand men, which represented about 0.5 percent of the male population of Buenos Aires at that time.

The medical journal Archives of Psychiatry and Criminology Applied to Related Sciences (Spanish: "Archivos de Psiquiatría y Criminología Aplicadas a las Ciencias Afines"), published by physicians Francisco de Veyga and José Ingenieros between 1902 and 1910, are the best record of Argentine queer life at the beginning of the 20th century.

The authorities' fear of "militant homosexuals" shows that the ideas of German and English homosexual activists such as Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld had arrived to Buenos Aires and, indeed, the document evidence point out that the maricas of Buenos Aires consistently used the discourse of German activists to resist that of science men.

As for lesbianism, tango singer Pepita Avellaneda is said to have disputed with Carlos Gardel the love of a lady named Jeanne. Avellaneda and other female tango singers such as Linda Thelma, Rosita Quiroga and Paquita Bernardo presented a highly masculinized image in their performances.

1930—1945: The Infamous Decade

During the 1930s, military and ecclesiastical power were increasingly articulated.

In September 1942, a sex and political scandal known as the "cadet scandal" (Spanish: escándalo de los cadetes) or the Ballvé Case (Spanish: Caso Ballvé) broke out in Buenos Aires, regarding the involvement of young cadets from the Colegio Militar de la Nación in alleged sex parties held by gay men of the upper classes.

On June 4, 1943, the GOU—a nationalist secret society within the Argentine Army—staged a coup d'état that ended the Infamous Decade and formed a military junta which ruled the country until 1945. The new authorities intensified the repression of homosexuality, as part of the censorship and control they exercised over radio programs, periodicals and theater. The expulsion of Spanish singer Miguel de Molina was part of this process.

1945—1955: During the Peronist era

According to historians Omar Acha and Pablo Ben, the definition of gay men as a singular group was established during the first government of Juan Perón, even though the concept of homosexuality that characterized the time was different from the one that prevails today.

During the Peronist era, the gay men of Buenos Aires mostly lived in apartments in the city center—mostly those who belonged to more well-off social classes—and, above all, in pensions. Unlike the United States—where gay bars existed in the most populous cities already before the 1940s—that possibility did not exist in Buenos Aires until the late 1950s, and private meeting spaces were basically limited to the dwellings.

Peronism maintained an ambiguous relationship with homosexuality: on the one hand, it organized the contraventional regime in 1946 but, on the other hand, it meant a certain relaxation in customs. According to Pablo Gasparini: "Peronism seems to have, however, something of a party. The eroticism that arises from this meeting of classes is powerful. The relationship of the middle-class marica with the chongo from the villa not only filled lamentations but also saunas. Personal testimonies show the existence of gay saunas in Buenos Aires in the 1950s, when there were none in New York."

In 1946, Miguel de Molina returned to Buenos Aires at the request of Eva Perón.

Much has been said about the good relations that Eva Perón had with the gay community. Nevertheless, the testimonies of Paco Jaumandreu—Evita's beloved couturier—paint a different picture:I learned of the fear of going through a corner where there were two or three boys together, no matter how acquainted they were. I learned about the fear of the screeching scream from the cars. I learned of the fear of the film that was cut and the lights that came on and the screams of the boys from the henhouse – now they call him Pullman. I learned of the disgust of the proposals barely attended in the shadows of the night, I knew of the anger of the high-pitched voice when he saw me pass, of the elbows, of the surplus smiles. But I felt pure. And to respond to a Mataputo phrase by Zully Moreno, he instructs her: “Do you know, my love, that everything you proclaim, that everything you buy in Paris, is invented by people like that? Perfumes and silks, shoes and coats, prints and creams. You see how you need homosexuals and they do not need you ”.

1955—1966: Anti-Peronism and political instability
In the 1950s and 1960s, film theatres and public bathrooms were the only possible spaces for gay sociability.

1967—1975: First activist organizations

It was during Frondizi's presidency that a large-scale "extermination" of homosexuals was planned for the first time, under the direction of police commissioner Luis Margaride, who also held high police ranks during the later governments of José María Guido (1962–1963), Juan Carlos Onganía (1966–1970) and Perón (1973–1974). A key figure in sex discrimination, Margaride was known derisively in the gay community as "Tía Margarita" (), a name that was later extended to the police in general. Margaride's policies reached their largest scale during the de facto rule of Onganía, dismantling gay bars and other homosexual meeting places. He also carried out two major operations; one consisted of closing the subway entrances in a crowded hour to arrest thousands of suspects who prowled the bathrooms and platforms; and the other was a raid carried out in the three classic film theatres of homosexual encounters on Corrientes avenue. Margaride's anti-homosexual campaign was part of a broader "anti-sex" effort, which included the arrest of heterosexual couples for kissing in public and the raiding of motels (colloquially: "telos"), calling the respective spouses when those detained were adulterers. In parallel, prosecutor Guillermo de la Riestra exercised "antisexual terrorism" prosecuting films, plays and books that he considered to be pornographic.

In late 1967 trade unionist and communist Héctor Anabitarte founded Nuestro Mundo (), the first gay rights organization in Latin America, anticipating the Stonewall riots by nearly two years. Anabitarte had been part of the Communist Party's youth organization Federación Juvenil Comunista (FJC; English: "Communist Youth Federation"), but was invited to leave in 1967 for being a homosexual. Most of the members of Nuestro Mundo were middle and lower middle class workers, mostly postal employees linked to union movements. In contrast to the more "radical" positions of the gay liberation movement of the following years, the first generation of activists of Nuestro Mundo ascribed, according to Anabitarte, "more to a reformist than to a revolutionary style." The group published a series of bulletins, that were distributed to journalists in mimeographed and fastened sheets, of which the total number of issues is unknown. In August 1971, the Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH; English: Homosexual Liberation Front) was created at Pepe Bianco's house in Balvanera, formed by Juan José Sebrelli, Manuel Puig, Blas Matamoro, Juan José Hernández and Héctor Anabitarte. The FLH was initially a coalition of Nuestro Mundo and a group called Profesionales—formed by professional writers—and new organizations joined in the coming years, including the consciousness raising group Alborada, a lesbian group known as Safo, the anarchist Bandera Negra, the radical student collective Eros, and three religious groups of different Christian denominations: Emmanuel, Católicos and Grupo Cristiano.

The FLH was analogous to the gay liberation movement that was taking place in the United States at the time, and its creation was located within an international context of flourishing cultural expressions and political organization of the baby boomer generation, with the rise of the counterculture, the May 68 protests in France, and the anti-Vietnam War movement in the U.S.

Most studies about the FLH have been anecdotal or have concentrated on the magazine Somos, which the group published between December 1973 and January 1976. However, the height of its political activity came before 1973, when the FLH expanded, became publicly visible, and built multiple alliances with other organizations, something that has been overlooked as scholars have focused on discourse analysis of what the FLH published rather than its history of political activity. Throughout its short life, the organization gravitated between leftist Peronism and Marxism and advocated for both to include the homosexual community's claims. During this peak period between 1972 and 1973, the group tried to reach out to other organizations, such as Montoneros.

One of the only public demonstrations of the FLH was during the presidential inauguration of Héctor José Cámpora on May 25, 1973, in the midst of massive celebrations in the Plaza de Mayo. The group—which were no more than fifteen people—carried a banner with a fragment of the Peronist March, which read: "So that love and equality reign in the people" (Spanish: Para que reine en el pueblo el amor y la iguadad).

The alliance with feminist movements such as the Unión Feminista Argentina (UFA; English: Argentine Feminist Union) was crucial in the development of the FLH's sexual politics, and both groups created the Grupo Política Sexual (GPS; English: Sexual Politics Group) in 1972.

Starting in 1973, extreme right-wing terrorist groups began threatening homosexuals.

Since December 1973, the use of homosexuality to discredit radical movements intensified, especially after the FLH was interviewed by Así, after which Buenos Aires was covered with posters associating left-wingers with homosexuality and drug addiction. In 1975 the right-wing publication El Caudillo, run by people connected to the government, called for the "eradication" of all homosexuals by either confinement or mass murder. The intensity of political repression was such that the FLH found it difficult to operate at the most basic level and thus decided to dissolve, with activists like Anabitarte and Perlongher fleeing the country.

1976—1981: State terrorism during the dictatorship
Unlike a good part of the organized experiences of LGBT activism, the Argentine case, which began in the late 1960s, was truncated by the last civic-military dictatorship.

Although the FLH was later seen as a "total failure" (as expressed by Perlongher), the memory around the so-called "sexual disobedience", term used in their magazine Somos, laid the foundations for new organizational attempts in the following decades.

A coup d'état in 1976 overthrew President Isabel Perón and established the last civil-military dictatorship of the country. As part of the United States-backed Operation Condor, it carried out the infamous "Dirty War", a regime of illegal repression, indiscriminate violence, persecutions, systematized torture, forced disappearance of people, manipulation of information and other forms of state terrorism that forever changed Argentine society.

LGBT repression intensified after the declaration of the state of siege in 1975 and, after the 1976 military coup, reached its highest peaks in history, framing itself within a general framework of state terrorism and repression against all political activities.

Activism often denounces that there were at least 400 LGBT  people among the desaparecidos and that these crimes are yet to be visible and punished. This iconic number was introduced by Carlos Jáuregui in his 1987 book La homosexualidad en Argentina. He later expanded in NX magazine in 1997:Our community, like every minority in dictatorial times, was a privileged victim of the regime. The late rabbi Marshal Meyer, a member of the CONADEP (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons), created during the radical government, stated to me in 1985, that the Commission had detected four hundred homosexuals in its payroll of ten thousand people denounced as missing. They had not disappeared due to this condition, but the treatment received, said the rabbi, had been especially sadistic and violent, like that of the Jewish detainees.During the time of the dictatorship, the city of Tigre in Buenos Aires Province became a famous place of refuge for LGBT people, since the police did not operate there, but the Naval Prefecture, which did not make arrests.

1982—1991: Flourishing of gay life and activism

In May 1981, Carlos Jáuregui attended his first pride parade in Paris, France—held in support of socialist François Mitterrand's presidential election—and later visited New York City, where he came into contact with its vibrant gay culture. Following these experiences, Jáuregui was inspired to fully dedicate himself to activism when he returned to Argentina in 1982. By that time, it was increasingly recognized that military rule would not last much longer following the country's defeat in the Falklands War. Nevertheless, between January 1982 and November 1983 a former member of the FLH and at least 17 other gay men were murdered, and in June 1982 a paramilitary group known as the Comando Cóndor declared its intent to "wipe out" homosexuals. In 1983, after the dictatorship had collapsed and democratic elections were held, lesbian and gay life in Argentina flourished, with the opening of many bars and clubs that took advantage of the liberalization. The alternative magazine El Expreso Imaginario reported that in the presidential elections, "100% of the members of the gay population of Buenos Aires" voted for Raúl Alfonsín, who represented, on the one hand, a "guarantee of tranquility" against Peronism's confrontational discourse and, on the other, a "social democratic nuance" that heralded a change from the oppressive climate of the past. This "Alfonsinist spring" for gay people only lasted a little over six months, as the Minister of the Interior Antonio Tróccoli resumed the raids against homosexuals, whom he referred to as "sick". In the first years of Alfonsín's rule, police raids in nightclubs, arbitrary arrests, persecutions and threats to gays, lesbians and travestis were carried out; partly due to the fragility of the new democratic system against the power of the military and police apparatus during those years. In this manner, the rebirth of activism was due as much to the new freedoms as to the continued repression. Activist Marcelo Suntheim explained in 2011: "Democracy began and we all thought that all guarantees and individual freedoms were automatically restored, but reality taught us that many things from the [dictatorship] remained. Murders of [travestis] were quite frequent ... nothing was ever investigated ... It was enough to look gay while walking down Santa Fe Avenue for the police to stop [you] and apply the famous police edict ... that stated that scandal was not allowed in the streets."

In this context, the coordinating committee Coordinadora de Grupos Gays (English: Gay Groups Coordinator) was created in late 1982, whose first antecedent was the Grupo 10 de Septiembre ()—named in homage to a massive raid—which brought together autonomous groups from Buenos Aires, such as Oscar Wilde, Venezuela, Dignidad, Contacto, Nosotros, Camino Libre, Vómito de buey, Varones antimachistas, Pluralista, Liberación, the GAG and the CHA. In the 1980s, the LGBT movement formulated strategies that were not so linked to traditional politics, through alliances between feminist, gay and travesti groups, human rights organizations—such as Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo—, countercultural movements and spaces linked to the artistic experimentation. Thus, the political scene of activism was transformed by a process of singularization where new practical and theoretical references were put in place to deal with a set of repressive policies still enforced by the state, mainly the implementation of police edicts and the application of the Ley de Averiguación de Antecedentes (), which had mostly been used to persecute LGBT people. In 1983, the Grupo de Acción Gay (GAG; English: "Gay Action Group") was created, formed by artists, university students, academic as well as gay activists from the 1970s, among them Jorge Gumier Maier, Carlos R. Luis, Oscar Gómez, Marcelo Pombo, Facundo Montenegro, Gustavo Gelmi, Jorge Alessandria and Alejandro Kantemiroff. One of the references incorporated by the GAG was the international gay liberation movement, which gained greater notoriety with the media impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic by renewing its agenda to fight for new legal and medical policies. In February 1984, a police raid took place in a gay club in Balvanera, where around two hundred people were arrested. The event inspired the organization of an assembly to coordinate a local gay movement, which took place in José Luis Delfino's nightclub Contramano. On April 19, 1984, the Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA; English: Argentine Homosexual Community) was founded and Jáuregui was elected as its first president. Unlike the other groups, by the end of the 1980s the CHA consolidated itself as the organization with the greatest symbolic, political and institutional weight, counting on a consensus and a majority degree of representation for the homosexual community. The CHA had two very specific initial demands: the repeal of the police edicts and the Ley de Averiguación de Antecedentes. In addition, one its most important initial objectives was to make homosexuality visible in Argentine society.

In April 1984, Jáuregui and fellow CHA activist Raúl Soria appeared on the cover of magazine Siete Días under the title "The risk of being homosexual in Argentina", in what is considered the first public exhibition of two men lovingly embracing each other and a landmark in gay visibility in the country. The entry of homosexuals into the public arena had the effect of the progressive transfiguration of the stereotype, and the effeminacy of the maricas came to be seen as an inconvenience to negotiate integration into society. In contrast, the GAG reclaimed the figure of the marica, which caused tensions with the CHA. The 1980s saw the emergence of new ways of relating and identifying as gay in Buenos Aires and, although the marica model was still in circulation, a rugged and masculine Tom of Finland-like look became popular, in keeping with trends in international gay culture.

On June 30, 1986, activists gathered in Parque Centenario, Buenos Aires, in commemoration of the Stonewall riots. They called it the "International Homosexual Dignity Day" and it became the first demonstration of homosexuals in the country since the return of democracy. It was attended by the CHA, the GAG, the Alternativa Socialista por la Liberación Sexual—a mixed group that worked within the Movement for Socialism (MAS)—and independent people.

In the 1980s, the Pan-American Highway—which separates the City of Buenos Aires from the Buenos Aires Province's different districts—established itself as the most important area in which travestis worked as prostitutes, and thus became one of the definitive aspects of the travesti identity for Argentine society and media culture. In the second half of the decade, these travestis working in the Pan-American Highway began to be violently attacked and murdered, cases that were not investigated by the police and were recorded as "accidents". The murders were reported by magazines such as Libre, Flash and ¡Esto!, the latter which counted 28 travesti deaths in 1987. A popular hypothesis claimed the existence of a serial killer, although researchers such as Marce Butierrez and Patricio Simonetto challenge this view as an urban legend, pointing out that the murders on the Pan-American Highway had different characteristics depending on the area in which they occurred. The Pan-American Highway deaths triggered the first mobilization of travestis in the democratic era, when around twenty travestis gathered in the Plaza de Mayo on December 21, 1986. A much larger demonstration was organized later, which was attended by travestis from other parts of the country and even Uruguay.

1992—2002: The birth of trans activism and the civil union law

The 1990s were marked by increased social visibility and intense work with the gay community, although initially with the protagonism of gay men. Early in the decade, under the presidency of Carlos Menem, Argentine popular movements in general were on the decline, but LGBT groups proliferated. Sexual diversity organisations began to multiply and spread beyond the city of Buenos Aires, and a heterogeneous movement was created that included specific organisations for male gays, trans people, women and travestis involved in prostitution, feminist lesbians and members of co-maternal families, as well as the novel "diversity branches" within most political parties.

In 1992, the group Lesbianas a la Vista () was founded, which for the first time put on the agenda the question of lesbian invisibility.

In the early 1990s, queer theory and its resulting activism emerged in the United States and soon reached Argentina. The first developments of queer activism, at least in Buenos Aires, appeared in 1993 with the formation of the student collective Eros in the University of Buenos Aires' School of Philosophy and Philology (Spanish: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras).

On June 28, 1992, the first Buenos Aires pride march took place, organized by activist groups Gays DC, Sigla, Cuadernos de Existencia Lesbiana, Iglesia de la Comunidad Metropolitana, Grupo ISIS, Colectivo Eros and Transdevi.

In the second half of the 1990s, the Argentine LGBT movement was reconfigurated in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

2004—2011: The Equal Marriage and Gender Identity laws
In the early 2010s, Argentina established itself as a pioneering country in terms of LGBT rights, with the passing of the Equal Marriage Law (Spanish: Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario) in 2010—becoming the tenth country to do so—and the Gender Identity Law (Spanish: Ley de Identidad de Género) in 2012—which allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval.

2012—2018
Between 2010 and 2012, a judicial strategy was carried out jointly by ATTTA and the Federación Argentina LGBT's (FALGBT; English: "Argentine LGBT Federation") legal team, resulting in a series of judicial appeals that established antecedents in the recognition of travesti and transgender identities. On May 9, 2012, the Argentine National Congress passed the Gender Identity Law (Spanish: Ley de Identidad de Género), which made the country one of the world's most progressive in terms of transgender rights. It allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval. The law has been celebrated as a great victory for the local LGBT movement. Nevertheless, activist Marlene Wayar soon criticized the law claiming that travestis can only choose to change their legal gender to "female", a disacknowledgement of their perceived identity.

Upon assuming presidency on December 10, 2019, Alberto Fernández institutionalized a new Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity (Spanish: Ministerio de las Mujeres, Género y Diversidad), with the aim of promoting the "integral autonomy of all people, without establishing hierarchies between the different sexual orientations, identities or gender expressions". Minister Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta described it as a "product of the historical fight" of the women's and LGBT movements.

2019—present
Since the implementation of the Gender Identity Law, there have been efforts by activists in search of the legal recognition of non-binary genders such as travesti. In early 2020, activist Lara Bertolini made news for claiming that her national ID should be legally registered as "travesti femininity" (Spanish: "femineidad travesti"). She initially obtained a favorable ruling from a Buenos Aires judge, which was later rejected by the Chamber of Appeals (Spanish: Cámara de Apelaciones), with its three judges citing the Real Academia Española's official definition of "travesti" as their reasoning.

On June 24, 2021, the Argentine Senate passed the Cupo Laboral Travesti-Trans law (English: "Travesti-Trans Work Quota Law"), which established a 1% quota for trans workers in civil service jobs and outlines that government officials must be trained in recognising discriminatory behaviour. The decree on the country's official gazette read: "Every travesti, transsexual or transgender person has the right to decent and productive employment in equal and satisfactory working conditions and protected against unemployment without discrimination for motives of gender identity or its expression".

On July 21, 2021, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to recognise non-binary gender identities in its national identification cards and passports.

References

Bibliography


title: Eric Gadd

text:
Eric Gadd (born Carl Erik Gudmund Sojdelius 31 July 1965) is a Swedish singer and songwriter. He has released thirteen music albums since his debut in 1987 and has also participated in Melodifestivalen.

Career
Gadd was born in Uppsala, but grew up first in Visby, then, from the age of nine onwards, in Vallentuna. Gadd released his debut album Hello in 1987 with the single "Ett ensamt hjärta". Two years later, he released his second album Hurra du lever – Pang du är död, an album influenced by the music of the American singer Prince. In 1991, he released his third album Do You Believe in Gadd?; the single "Do You Believe in Me" was a dance hit in the Philippines. He then released a few more English language albums before turning back to Swedish with his 2008 album Stockholm står kvar men jag ligger.

He was awarded a Swedish Grammis award as "Artist of the Year" in the years 1991, 1993 and 1997. Gadd participated in the first semi-final of Melodifestivalen 2013 on 2 February 2013 with the song "Vi kommer aldrig att förlora". The song was written by Gadd himself, Thomas Stenström and Jacob Olofsson. The song made it to the Second Chance round of the competition but failed to make it to the final. In 2018, he appeared on Så mycket bättre, broadcast on TV4.

Personal life
Eric Gadd is married to singer Cornelia Sojdelius (previously Åkerman).

Discography

Albums
1987 – Hello
1989 – Hurra, du lever! Pang, du är död!
1991 – Do you Believe in Gadd?
1993 – On Display
1995 – Floating
1997 – The Right Way
1998 – Greatest Hits
1999 – Spirit
2002 – Life Support
2006 – Eric Gadd
2008 – Stockholm står kvar men jag ligger
2010 – Rise Up!
2013 – Fiende Eller Vän
2018 – Så Mycket Bättre

Singles
1987 – "Ett ensamt hjärta"
1989 – "Kom Hit Och Ta"
1989 – "Bara Himlen Ser På"
1989 – "Plus Minus"
1989 – "Din Man"
1990 – "Jag Säljer Mig"
1991 – "Do You Believe in Me"
1991 – "Excuse Me, Hallelujah"
1991 – "Deadstone"
1991 – "Power of Music"
1993 – "Wish I"
1993 – "Heaven Is Asleep"
1993 – "God Gave Me You"
1995 – "Why Don't You Why Don't I"
1995 – "There's No One Like You"
1995 – "What Once Was"
1997 – "The Right Way"
1997 – "My Personality"
1997 – "Summer Is Here"
1998 – "Everybody's Business"
1998 – "I Found Someone"
1998 – "Saint in the Parish"
1998 – "On My Way"
1998 – "Someone Who Cares"
1999 – "Riding High"
1999 – "Eye of the Spirit"
2000 – "One Touch"
2002 – "Hold On"
2003 – "Stay This Way"
2006 – "Meet Me Here"
2008 – "Tvåhundratusen"
2010 – "Rise Up!"
2013 – "Vi kommer aldrig att förlora!"

Charting singles

References

External links

Official website

1965 births
Swedish male singers
Swedish male songwriters
Living people
People from Gotland
English-language singers from Sweden
Melodifestivalen contestants of 2013


title: Sally Chepyego Kaptich

text:
Sally Chepyego Kaptich (; born 3 October 1985) is a Kenyan long-distance runner who competes mainly in track and road running events.

She established herself at the World Youth Championships in Athletics in 2001, winning the 3000 metres title. She moved to Japan several years later to compete for the Kyudenko running team. She has won several corporate track running titles for the team.

Chepyego has twice represented Kenya as a senior athlete: first at the 2006 International Chiba Ekiden, where she broke an African record, and then at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics, where she placed seventh in the 10,000 metres.

Chepyego is currently part of the NN Running Team, an international team of elite long-distance runners managed by Global Sports Communication in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Career
Born near Keiyo District in Kenya's Rift Valley Province, Chepyego's first success came at the 2001 World Youth Championships in Athletics where, running barefoot, she held off Ethiopia's Mestewat Tufa to win the gold medal in the 3000 metres. She competed only at local competitions for the next few years and was the 2004 Rift Valley High Schools champion. At age nineteen, she placed third at the North Rift Valley championships.

In 2006, she emigrated to Japan to take up professional running. She gained her first international selection soon after for the International Chiba Ekiden. Running  in a team of Philes Ongori, Evelyne Kemunto Kimwei, Catherine Ndereba, Jane Wanjiku Gakunyi and Lucy Wangui Kabuu, she won the race and helped break the African record for the marathon ekiden distance. The following year she competed on the Japanese track circuit and won the Miyazaki 5K run. She did not compete in 2008 and changed location for the 2009 season, entering a series of road races in Europe. Her best performances were a win at the Würzburg half marathon, third at the Kö-Lauf in a personal best 33:41 minutes, and a fourth-place finish at the Hamburg Half Marathon in another best of 75:27 minutes.

Chepyego returned to running in Japan in 2010. After a runner-up finish at the Baringo 15K, she won the end-of-year Sanyo Women's 10K. She signed up with the Kyudenko corporate running team in 2011 and performed well on the track circuit, almost going undefeated that season with wins at the Oda Memorial, Hokuren Shibetsu Meet, Japan Corporate Track and Field Championships and the Hyogo Relays. Her sole defeat on the track came at the Nobeoka Golden Games, where she was runner-up to Ann Karindi. On the roads she set a new best of 72:03 minutes to place second to Florence Kiplagat at the Sapporo Half Marathon. She improved to 69:58 minutes at the Sanyo Women's Half Marathon, although that time was only enough for third as race winner Yukiko Akaba set a new course record. Chepyego was Kyudenko's top performer at the All-Japan Women's Corporate Ekiden Championships.

In 2011, Chepyego took a 5000 metres/10,000 metres double at the Japan Corporate Championships, but failed in her aim to make the 10,000 m team for Kenya at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She was runner-up at the Sanyo 10K that year. She focused on the track event in 2013 and was rewarded with her first major international selection. After winning the 10,000 m at the Hyogo Relays, she placed third at the Kenyan trials. This earned her a place at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics. In the final she ran a personal best of 31:22.11 minutes, which brought her seventh place overall. She won the Sanyo Half Marathon in December, setting a personal best and course record time of 68:24 minutes.

Competition record

References

External links

Living people
1985 births
Kenyan female long-distance runners
People from Elgeyo-Marakwet County


title: William H. Hampton

text:
William H. Hampton (1893 – February 27, 1957) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

Life
He was born in 1893 in Scotland, the son of Edward Mackie Hampton (1862–1934) and Agnes (Hately) Hampton (1866–1961). He graduated from Gouverneur High School, in Gouverneur, New York, in 1913; and from Syracuse University College of Law in 1916. During World War I, he served with the 301st Engineers of the U.S. Army, and finished the war as a lieutenant.

After the war, he practiced law in Utica, and was a Justice of the Peace. On September 4, 1923, he married Esther Kolpien, and they had two sons. He was a U.S. Commissioner for the Northern District of New York from 1927 to 1934.

Hampton was a member of the New York State Senate (36th D.) from 1935 to 1944, sitting in the 158th, 159th, 160th, 161st, 162nd, 163rd and 164th New York State Legislatures.

He died on February 27, 1957, in Faxton Hospital in Utica, New York, after a heart attack.

Sources

1893 births
1957 deaths
Republican Party New York (state) state senators
Politicians from Utica, New York
Syracuse University College of Law alumni
British emigrants to the United States
United States magistrate judges
United States Army officers
People from Gouverneur, New York
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American judges


title: Lyte Records

text:
Lyte Records is an independent record label founded and owned by Northern Irish musician and producer David Lyttle.

Artists
 Tom Harrison
 David Lyttle
 Nigel Mooney
 Jason Rebello
 Jean Toussaint
 Andreas Varady

References

External links

Record labels established in 2007
Jazz record labels
Alternative rock record labels
British independent record labels
Record labels from Northern Ireland


title: Proximo Spirits

text:
Proximo Spirits, Inc., is an American multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in Jersey City, New Jersey. It is a major distributor of tequila and other spirits, It is best known for Jose Cuervo, the world's largest-selling tequila brand.

History
Proximo Spirits was founded in 2007 by the Beckmann family, who also owned and operated Jose Cuervo. Proximo owns over a dozen spirits brands, including Jose Cuervo, 1800 Tequila, Three Olives Vodka, Kraken Black Spiced Rum and Boodles British Gin, as well as craft spirits such as Hangar 1 Vodka and Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey. In a deal announced in March 2013, Proximo took over the Jose Cuervo distribution rights from Diageo on July 1, 2013, with plans to increase spending on marketing and innovations. The deal also give Proximo Spirits control over Old Bushmills Distillery. London-based Proximo Spirits UK was launched in July 2013.

Within its first five years of operations, Proximo vastly increased the size of 1800 Tequila, Three Olives Vodka and Kraken Rum. In 2012, 1800 Tequila was up 15% in sales from the previous year, and up 73% since 2009. Three Olives grew 18% from 2009 to 2011. Kraken Rum was launched in 2010 and went up 50% from 2011 to 2012. As of 2013, Proximo distributes approximately 6 million total cases per year.

Both Proximo and Cuervo are controlled by the Beckmann family, descendants of Jose María Guadalupe de Cuervo.

Brands

Tequila
 Jose Cuervo (all varieties, 35-40% abv)
 1800 Tequila (all varieties, 35-50% abv)
 Gran Centenario (premium small batch 100% blue agave tequila, 38% abv)
 Maestro Dobel Tequila (a clear 100% blue agave blend of extra añejo, añejo and reposado tequilas, 40% abv)
 Zarco (in silver and gold varieties, 40% abv)

Vodka
 Three Olives Vodka (available unflavored and in a wide range of flavors, 35-40% abv)
 Hangar 1 Vodka (grape-based, fruit-infused vodka from California, 40% abv)

Rum
 Kraken Black Spiced Rum (Caribbean rum, 47% abv)
 Lola Belle Cherry Rum (Caribbean rum infused with maraschino cherries, 40% abv)
 Ron Matusalem Rum (Cuban rum produced in the Dominican Republic using the Solera aging process, 40% abv)

Whiskey
 Old Bushmills Distillery Irish Whiskey
 Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey (the first legal whiskey distilled in Colorado, 47% abv)
 Tincup American Whiskey (whiskey made with a blend of corn, rye and malt, 42% abv)
 Proper No. Twelve (Irish whiskey partially owned by Conor McGregor 40% abv)
Old Camp Whiskey (Created by country duo Florida Georgia Line - Peach Pecan Whiskey, 35% abv)
Wolf Moon Bourbon Whiskey (Created by country stars Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line - Straight Bourbon Whiskey made with a blend of corn, rye, and barley malt, 40% abv)
 Virginia Black Whiskey
Pendleton Canadian Whiskey
The Sexton Single Malt Irish Whiskey

Gin
 Boodles British Gin (London dry gin, 45.2% abv)

Liqueur
 Agavero (tequila liqueur made with 100% blue agave blended with various flavors, 32% abv)

Margaritas
 Jose Cuervo margarita mixes (all varieties, 0%-12.7% abv)

Marketing
Proximo signed marketing agreements with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 and the New York Knicks in 2010, to promote 1800 Tequila at their respective stadiums. Proximo's ad campaigns have featured actor Kiefer Sutherland for Jose Cuervo; actor Ray Liotta, actor Michael Imperioli and rapper Rick Ross for 1800 Tequila; actor Clive Owen and rapper Lil' Kim for Three Olives Vodka; and musician Perry Farrell for Maestro Dobel Tequila.

Milestones

References

External links

Companies based in Jersey City, New Jersey
American companies established in 2007
Distilleries in New Jersey


title: Kadhal Kisu Kisu

text:
Kadhal Kisu Kisu () is a 2003 Indian Tamil-language action comedy film directed by P. Vasu. The film stars Bala and Charmy Kaur, while Manivannan, Kalabhavan Mani and Vivek play supporting roles. The film produced by Kesavan, had music scored by Vidyasagar. The film released in 2003 to below average collections and reviews.

Plot

Sriram (Bala) is the only son of Manivannan and Meera Krishnan who is very fond of his parents. The family is settled in Malaysia and Sriram studies in a college. Indu (Charmy Kaur) is the daughter of a rich businessman Karunakaran (Kalabhavan Mani) and she is Sriram's classmate. Karunakaran is short tempered and never trusts his own daughter. He always fears that Indu would fall in love with someone which makes him to behave strict towards her always.

One day, Indu's classmates plan to throw a surprise birthday party to her. But Karunakaran arrives during the time of the party which shocks Indu. Also, one of her classmate fouls plays by sending a gift in the name of Sriram to Indu which is seen by Karunakaran. Now Karunakaran doubts that Indu is in love with Sriram but Indu refuses that which Karunakaran does not believe. Karunakaran plans to get Indu married to a rich guy. But Indu gets to know that the groom is a murderer and shows no interest in the wedding proposal which further angers Karunakaran.

A few other incidents happen by coincidence which makes Karunakaran believe that Indu and Sriram are in love. Karunakaran threatens Sriram's father Manivannan asking him to control his son. When Manivannan enquires about this, Sriram promises that he does not love anyone and he would marry only the girl selected by his parents. But Karunakaran's doubts still persist and he beats Maniannan's shop one day. Manivannan gets frightened and requests Sriram to leave the town for a few days so that Karunakaran does not harm Sriram.

Sriram agrees and decides to move to a nearby town. To his surprise, Indu also boards the same bus in which Sriram is travelling. Indu has decided to run away from her home as she could not bear her father's torture. Now Karunakaran again misunderstands that Sriram and Indu have eloped together and chases them.

Sriram and Indu get down from the bus to safeguard their lives and run towards to a forest. They stay for a few days in the forest as they didn't know the way to get out from there. Finally, Sriram and Indu manage to return. In the meantime, Karunakaran has lodged a complaint that Indu was kidnapped by Sriram. The couple reaches the court and reveals that no one was kidnapped and they also make it clear that they are not in love and all the happenings are mere coincidence.

Finally, Karunakaran realizes his mistake and understands the Sriram's good intention of only marrying a girl selected by his parents and also feels bad about his rude behaviour towards his daughter. He also expresses interest to get Indu married to Sriram as he will not be able to find a better match than him. The movie ends with both Indu and Sriram getting united.

Cast

Soundtrack
Soundtrack was composed by Vidyasagar.

Release
The Hindu gave the film a below-average review, noting "it is not that the director does not have a message for the viewer. He does, but the faulty approach to the theme takes the film far away from the mark." Thiraipadam wrote "The one-line story is definitely difficult to translate to a two and a half hour movie. With the only things happening being a series of incidents where Bala and Sharmi are inadvertently caught together, P. Vasu's only option was to provide interesting characters and create an interesting scenario for the results of the suspicions on the couple. He unfortunately fails on both fronts". Chennai Online wrote "The knot had the potential, but with the director depending on a whole series of co-incidences to carry forward his story, there's not much surprise or exciting viewing for the audience".

References

External links

2003 films
2003 action comedy films
Indian action comedy films
2000s Tamil-language films
Films directed by P. Vasu
Films scored by Vidyasagar (composer)


title: Three Miniatures for Clarinet and Piano

text:
Three Miniatures for Clarinet and Piano is an early work by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. It was finished in 1956, but was premiered four years later.

Composition and premiere

The Three Miniatures were composed when Penderecki was only 23 and still a music student. They were dedicated to Władysław Kosieradzki, who was the clarinet professor at the Academy of Music in Kraków, and were premiered by the dedicatée at the clarinet and Zbigniew Jeżewski at the piano in the 1958 Polish Composers' Union concert, which took place in November 17. The score was published afterwards by the Polish Music Publishing House and Belwin-Mills.

Analysis

This composition consists of three short miniatures which take 1 to 1:30 minutes each to perform. The general mood and style of the work differs from the following works and shows no signs of Penderecki's later radicalism, in the sense that these miniatures are not focused on the sonority of the instruments to generate atmospheres, probably influenced by Béla Bartók. The miniatures were titled as follows:

 Allegro
 Andante cantabile
 Allegro ma non troppo

The two outer movements of this composition are active and fast, while the middle one is slower and more meditative.

Reception

The Miniatures were negatively received by critics. Vincent McDermott, from The Musical Quarterly, described the whole set of miniatures as "dull". However, the miniatures were some of the few early compositions accepted for publication.

Notable recordings

Following are some of the most well-known recordings of this piece:

References

Compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki
1954 compositions
Contemporary classical compositions


title: LGBT history in Chile

text:
LGBT history in Chile encompasses a broad history of related to gender and sexuality within the country of Chile. Oftentimes this history has been informed by the diverse forms of governments that have existed within Chile, including colonialism, military dictatorship, and democracy. Global events like the AIDS epidemic also had an impact on Chilean LGBT history. There are also multicultural elements with the different cultural perceptions of gender and sexuality from indigenous groups and Spanish influence.

Precolonial
There is documentation of an Andean concept called tinkuy, which refers to the union of complimentary binaries through meditation. Andean cultures also participated in same-sex relationships, which would later be used by Spanish colonizers as justification for imperialism. This typically came from a more complex perception of gender and relations by indigenous people being reduced to sodomy and therefore condemned by conquistadors. The Mapuche also had machi weye, which were co-gender specialists, typically with alternative sexualities. Further information on gender and sexuality within indigenous communities is difficult to find due to the fact that most documentation comes from Europeans, but it is at least known that indigenous peoples' conception of gender and sexuality were different to that of the Spanish settlers.

20th century

State repression

Unlike some tolerance lived in some aristocratic areas, most of the country manifested a strong rejection of homosexuality. While sodomy was already criminalized in the Penal Code, the arrival of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo to power in 1927 deepened the policies of persecution against gay people.

Ibanez's dictatorship was characterized by strong repression of his opponents, many of whom were killed by paramilitary groups. While there is no evidence that actually had been made, within the practices that the government of Ibáñez del Campo terrorized the detainees were those of "fondeamiento" which consisted of throwing political opponents from ships at sea with a weight bound in his legs, so that quickly sink. Ibáñez del Campo, who was deeply homophobic -according to some, because his son Carlos was gay-, executed a series of raids and arrests against homosexuals. On many occasions, but has never been proven, it was mentioned that the government of Ibáñez made several arrest raids against gay people in Santiago, which have been subsequently sent to ships in Valparaíso to be executed by "fondeamiento".

What is effective is that several of those arrested for sodomy were sent to the port of Pisagua, in the north, where a kind of concentration camp for gay people was established, which not only was conducted by Ibáñez del Campo, but also by his successors, existing certain of these policies until 1941, during the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. Pisagua, a town surrounded by high mountains and the ocean, at the time suffered a mass exodus of its inhabitants, so that it became a perfect fit for the jailing of several people that were persecuted, practice that would later be continued by Gabriel González Videla and Augusto Pinochet against his political opponents.

In 1952, when Ibáñez del Campo returned to power, this time in open democratic elections, as president, he continued its repressive policies. During his government he promulgated Law 11625 on Antisocial States and Security Measures (1954) (Ley 11625 sobre Estados Antisociales y Medidas de Seguridad), first proposed during the administration of his predecessor González Videla, a law establishing various security measures (such as healing internments, fines and imprisonment) against groups of "social dangerousness ", including vagrants, drug addicts and homosexuals, among others. This law required the enactment of a regulation that would facilitate its implementation, but that was never issued, so it could not be applied until it was finally repealed in 1994. However, this law would apparently had a marginal application, with little records of some gay people moved to places like Chanco and Parral.

The former freedom lived in artistic circles and the aristocracy until the 1950s, virtually disappeared as a result of Ibáñez government persecution. One example was the actor Daniel Emilfork, who settled in France. Many preferred to emigrate to Europe and the United States in search of greater freedom.

In subsequent governments, although the repression by the state decreased significantly, it was not in the society. One example was the treatment given by the media to homosexuals or how they used homosexuality as a way of discrediting. The clearest case was lived by the president of Chile between 1958 and 1964, Jorge Alessandri. Alessandri was the first bachelor president in the history of the country, generating a series of rumors in such a conservative country like Chile about their sexuality; the myth of his homosexuality was used by the satirical magazine Topaze and newspaper Clarín, who called right-wing Jorge Alessandri as "The Lady" (La Señora).

In other areas of the country, police abuse and humiliation of homosexuals continued: the best-known case occurred in Antofagasta on 15 June 1969 with the so-called "Huanchaca street scandal", in which several homosexuals were detained until 2 July by participating in a party dressed as women, subsequently suffering various abuses and mistreatment during his stay in jail.

Popular Unity and the first gay demonstration

Perhaps the most important emblem of media homophobia was Clarín, a popular, sensationalist and left-wing newspaper, which continuously published notes on gay people in a disparaging way, usually titrating with reports of crimes committed by "colipatos", "locas" or "yeguas" as usually they called gay people. This homophobia conducted by the leftist press can be considered as an effect of the idealization of the prototype of man during the years of the Popular Unity, corresponding to the hard worker. Thus, the left visualizes manhood as the ideal of the revolution led by Salvador Allende, while the right took advantage of the image of femininity, visible in pot-banging demonstrations known as cacerolazos; homosexuality therefore was contrary to both conceptions, especially from the political left.

In the late 1960s, urologist Antonio Salas Vieyra and Osvaldo Quijada created the Chilean Society of Anthropological Sexology to improve education on and explore the emerging field of gender. By 1970, they had begun to study the possibility of performing gender corrective surgery to assist people suffering from an identity disorder. That same year, Law No. 17,344 was passed  which allowed name changes if a current name created a material or moral impairment, to correct an affiliation not previously known, or in instances in which the person was known by a name other than the one on official documents for more than five years. If a court approved the change, the law required publication in the Official Gazette of a notification of the current names and the new name the party intended to begin using. After publication, third parties could oppose a change during a thirty-day waiting period, before the court was authorized to formalize the name change.  In March 1973, Marcia Torres became the first person to obtain a gender correction in Chile and in May applied for a name change. In the first months of the Pinochet dictatorship, Torres was granted a court order to change her name and gender mark in the sex registry and on her official documents.

On 22 April 1973 occurred in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago the first manifestation of gay people in Chile. Nearly twenty-five homosexuals and transvestites who often roamed at night the Huérfanos and Ahumada streets in downtown Santiago gathered to protest abuses by police, which continually jailed them for "indecency and bad manners", beat them and shaved their heads. Despite this repression, the demonstration proceeded normally; however, the media made the attacks through their chronicles. Even the governor of the province of Santiago, Julio Stuardo, said he would use "the security forces and all the springs that the constitutional mandate gives" just to prevent a new demonstration scheduled this time in the capital's high-class neighbourhoods.

Military dictatorship (1973–1990)
Five other five transgender people were found to have changed their names before 1977, per publications in the Official Gazette, but increasingly, Pinochet's regime escalated stigmatization and criminalization of the activities of the LGBT community. Article 365 of the criminal code imposed penalties for male same sex relations and Article 373 contained penalties for moral improprieties. These were defined as behaviors which did not affirm the heterosexual family model or reinforce Catholic values.

During the military dictatorship of Chile, despite violent repression, the first LGBT organizations began to appear, although illegally and hidden. In 1977, a group of homosexuals founded the first gay organization in Chile. The group called Integración organized meetings in private homes, where educational talks about homosexuality were dictated. Despite its quiet performance, the group performed in Santiago the first homosexual congress in Chile in 1982 in a place called El delfín, where about 100 people attended. Founded in 1983, Ayuquelén was the first lesbian organization in Chile and represented for years the only lesbian voice, participating in international meetings and conferences. The group was from the beginning linked to the feminist movement. In 1992 they organized the first National Feminist Lesbian Meeting, where about 50 women from different regions of the country participated. In the late 1980s, in the city of Concepción, emerged the groups SER and Lesbianas en Acción (LEA), the first gay and lesbian organizations in southern Chile.

Some of the only public actions by gay people were through the radical artistic group Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis (The Mares of the Apocalypse), formed in 1987 by the artists Francisco Casas and Pedro Lemebel. They aimed to question the status quo imposed by the dictatorship, and are one of the first examples of an organized political voice from gay Chileans. While the exact origins of the group's name are unknown, it seems to have been inspired by the AIDS epidemic, which inspired imagery of a biblical plague. The group was characterized by controversial acts of political protest. During the proclamation of Patricio Aylwin as Concertación candidate for the presidential election of 1989, Lemebel and Casas unfolded a large banner that said "Homosexuals for change." The ceremony set the beginning of Aylwin's campaign to be Chile's first democratically elected president since Salvador Allende. Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis would go on to participate in other protests during their "reestablishing" of the Casa Central of the University of Chile. This involved riding into the building naked and on horses, intentionally invoking images of Lady Godiva and homosexuality.

Return to democracy (1990-present)
The return to democracy prompted many social changes and  somehow facilitated the founding of different LGBT rights groups, gaining the opportunity to claim for their rights. During this moment of transition, Chilean gay people articulated an organized and militant political voice for the first time. Their main achievement in this decade was the decriminalization of homosexual acts in 1999.

In 1991, in the southern city of Coronel the first officially Chilean Homosexual Congress took place, which was attended by various organizations born during the dictatorship. The first gay organization, the "Movement for Homosexual Liberation" (MOVILH) was founded in June 1991, which would later become one of the main groups of LGBT activism in the country.

In 1992, the Chilean government decided to make the first HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, despite the rejection of the Catholic Church in Chile. This was used by various groups to put on the table the issue of homosexuality in the country, participating in interviews, newspapers and on television for the first time. On 4 March 1992, human rights organizations called for a march to commemorate the publication of the Rettig Report on human rights violations during the military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet, between 1973 and 1990. The group MOVILH responded to the call and about ten of its members, with their faces covered and dressed in black, joined the march. The group marched carrying a banner with the message "For Our Fallen Brothers and Sisters, the Homosexual Liberation Movement." The responses varied widely, receiving expressions of support and rejection. In March 1993, during a march organized by the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, more than 300 homosexuals and transvestites marched for the first time with unveiled face after the return to democracy, achieving great media coverage.

In early 1994, the AIDS prevention commission of MOVILH left the organization and formed the Lambda Center Chile, a parallel gay group that focused its work primarily on AIDS prevention. In the 1996 municipal elections, the first gay candidacies were registered in the communes of Santiago, Concepción and Antofagasta, but without success. In 1997, the Unified Movement of Sexual Minorities (MUMS Chile) was founded with the merger of members of MOVILH and Lambda Center Chile. Meanwhile, the LGBT rights group MOVILH changed its name to "Homosexual Movement of Integration and Liberation".

In June 1999, the first March for Sexual Diversity was held in Santiago, demonstration for the rights of the LGBT community and the fight against homophobia.

Homosexuality in Chile was decriminalised in 1999.

References

Bibliography


title: Res Ingold

text:
Res Ingold (born 1954 in Burgdorf, Switzerland) is a Swiss contemporary artist.
He is known for his superfiction airline company Ingold Airlines he started in 1982.
Res Ingold is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

Exhibitions and actions
 In 1993, he participated to the group show Business Art Business at the Groninger Museum,  Groningen, Netherland, curated by Frans Has. Other artists invited included Banca di Oklahoma, Int Fish-Handel Servaas, Mark Kostabi, Name Diffusion (Marion Baruch), Philippe Cazal, Premiata Ditta, and Tecnotest.
 In 2000/2001 the exhibition ingold airlines - more than miles took place at Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen.
 On February 16, 2008, the gala 'Von Nagel zu Nagel' took place at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
In 2012 the International Ornithoport (airport for birds) by Res Ingold opened on top of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Works in public collections

Germany
 Situatives Brachland Museum, Bochum
 Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen
 Herbert Gerisch Stiftung, Neumünster
 Rolandseck station, Remagen
 Luftmuseum, Amberg

Italy
 La Serpara, Civitella d´Agliano

Publications

 2000: Wolfgang Meighörner, ingold airlines - more than miles. Quantum Books and Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen.
 2008: Walter Grosskamp and Stefan Römer, ingold - universal enterprises. Labonte Köhler Osnowski, Cologne

References

External links
 ingold universal enterprises
 Ingold Airlines | Artist

Conceptual artists
Swiss contemporary artists
Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
1954 births
Living people
People from Burgdorf, Switzerland


title: Elisabeth Jensen

text:
Elisabeth Jensen is an education advocate and the Democratic Party nominee for Kentucky's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives elections in Kentucky, 2014.

Early life and career
Elisabeth Jensen was born in Indiana and graduated from Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis after attending Aiglon College. Jensen earned a degree in design and merchandising from the Wood Tobé-Coburn School and attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. Jensen was an executive for Disney Consumer Products but, as a lifelong horse enthusiast, decided to move to Kentucky in order to work with Thoroughbreds. In 2000, Jensen became the manager of Tracy Farmer's stables and later managed public relations for WinStar Farm. In 2002, Jensen co-founded The Race for Education, an organization that provides services such as scholarships and financial literacy training to students with financial needs. The Race for Education has provided over $5 million in scholarships and education programs and has earned recognition from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Jensen founded another organization in 2009 called Starting Gate, an after-school organization for middle school students that is currently offered in Fayette and Bourbon counties. She has also been involved in an organization called Unique that provides support for families with children that have unique and chromosome disorders.

Jensen graduated from Emerge Kentucky, a political-training program for women. She has served as a volunteer for several political campaigns, including Gov. Steve Beshear and U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, and was an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2012. In 2011, Gov. Steve Beshear appointed Jensen to the Kentucky Department of Education's  State Advisory Panel for Exceptional Children.

2014 Congressional campaign

In December 2013, Jensen filed to run for the Democratic nomination for Kentucky's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives elections in Kentucky, 2014. Jensen was seen as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination and was endorsed by Adam Edelen, Jack Conway, Jerry Abramson, John Yarmuth, Emily's List, Teamsters, UFCW, AFGE, NALC, Pam Miller, Reggie Thomas, Sannie Overly, and Susan Westrom. In March 2014, Jensen received endorsements from the AFL-CIO, United Automobile Workers, and the Kentucky Building and Trades Council. In May 2014, Jensen was endorsed by Governor Steve Beshear and The Lexington Herald-Leader. Jensen won the Democratic nomination in the primary with 61% of the vote. After the primary, Jensen's campaign received attention from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee which placed her campaign on their "Emerging Races" initiative.

Jensen's campaign received national attention due to Jensen's decision to campaign based on the success of Kynect, Kentucky's health insurance marketplace created in accordance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. On May 12, 2014, Jensen appeared on All In with Chris Hayes to discuss Kynect. Barr defeated Jensen in the general election by 60% to 40%.

References

External links
Official campaign site
Official Facebook
Official Twitter
The Race for Education

Kentucky Democrats
Living people
Women in Kentucky politics
Disney executives
American political activists
Education activists
People in horse racing
Fashion Institute of Technology alumni
Politicians from Fort Wayne, Indiana
Politicians from Lexington, Kentucky
Year of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of Aiglon College


title: Ochrodota grisescens

text:
Ochrodota grisescens is a moth of the subfamily Arctiinae first described by Hervé de Toulgoët in 1999. It is found in French Guiana.

References

Phaegopterina


title: Willis Vernon Cole

text:
Willis Vernon Cole (1882 - 1939) was an American poet and author. He produced five volumes of poetry, and four historical fiction novels, two of which were award-winning. He was noted for his anthology of World War I poems, as well. Cole also gained notoriety for being tried in the Criminal Branch of the New York Supreme Court from 1911 to 1916 for practicing medicine without a license, being found guilty, and then winning his appeal.

Early life
Willis Vernon Cole was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 3, 1882, to Willis Herbert Cole and Mary Elizabeth Stinchfield. He grew up in Detroit and attended the Art Students League of New York in New York City, where he studied sculpture and fine art. In 1903, at 20 years old, his eyesight had been failing in one eye, and in the other he began having trouble when medical doctors gave up hope on his recovery. He later reported during trial that, “God did the healing”, through Christian Science prayer treatment. Cole eventually became First Reader (conductor of services) in the Christian Science Church and then a practitioner himself, writing and producing four volumes of inspirational poetry, much of which was devoted to Christian Science.

In 1911, Cole married Agnes Young. The couple lived in Manhattan and Greenwich Village, where Cole continued his practice of Christian Science treatment and writing poetry. The Coles' circle of friends contained many notable persons of the day. Authors, playwrights, politicians, royalty, scientists, painters and military generals were among them. Cole was the official government anthologist of World War I songs and poetry, and produced and maintained his own anthology of poems about and for the Allied troops, and the battles of that war. This anthology, Songs of Armageddon, was included in his broader collection, Our Leader and the Complete Poetical Works.

Legal issues
In the early part of the 20th century, the New York County Medical Society had been attempting to clarify its interpretation of the law regarding what constituted medical practice as opposed to the medical quackery of the time. Cole was working as a Christian Science practitioner from his office in New York City, and charged a small fee for his services, which according to the New York County Medical Society, put him in the category of unlicensed physician. He was arrested for practicing medicine without a license, tried, and fined $100. His case gained more importance as it became a test case to determine whether practicing Christian Science was legal or not, and Cole was represented during the trials by Samuel Untermyer and Henry D. Estabrook. In total he stood for a total of four trials, lasting five years. The trials were widely publicized, creating heated debate - and finally a permanent ruling - on what constitutes freedom of religious practice in the treatment of bodily ills. Cole won through a unanimous ruling by the New York Court of Appeals in 1916, setting the precedent which has since allowed Christian Science practice to be legal, separate and apart from medical practice. In the ruling, Chief Justice Willard Bartlett wrote: "I deny the power of the Legislature to make it a crime to treat disease by prayer."

Later life in France
By 1923, Cole was divorced and had begun writing historical fiction in Greenwich Village, New York. After winning an award for his first novel, The Star of the Alamo, in 1926, he retired to France and established himself in a historic Loire chateau, Château de Cinq-Mars, near Tours, where he began making his own wines from the chateau's vineyards and developed this pursuit into a prosperous wine business, "Vins de France". He continued writing novels, winning a second award for Constanza, and in 1927 married Maria Estella Jiminez of Pasadena, California. They had three children in France. During this time, Cole was elected President of the Writers Guild of America.

Willis Vernon Cole died on March 7, 1939, in Luynes, France, shortly before the German invasion, and is buried there. His death was reported on the AP throughout the United States two days following, his obituary stating that "An American Poet Has Died". Cole's works are still widely distributed and can be found in the libraries and classrooms of such colleges as Yale University, Harvard University, Brown University, the Lincoln Presidential Library, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, McGill, New York University, and Brandeis.

Publications
 Our Leader and Other Poems, Anglo American Authors Association, London, New York, 1907.
 Poems that Heal the Sick, Universal Good Publishing Society, New York, 1908.
 Poems, Manger, Hughes and Manger, New York, 1913. ASIN: B008WA63RE
 Our Leader: and the Complete Poetical Works, Cambridge Press, New York, 1920.
 Abelard and Heloise, Universal Good Publishing Company, New York, 1923. (Out of Print) ASIN: B00248WB9Y
 Cole's Complete Code for Metaphysicians, Universal Good Publishing Company, New York, 1923 (); extracts at religious/missions codes
 The Star of the Alamo, Writers Guild, New York, 1926. (Out of Print) ASIN: B000K0A91A
 The Princess: A Cycle of Tone Poems, Writers Guild, New York, 1927. ASIN: B000J0BBJ0
 Constanza, Writers Guild, New York, 1927.
 Park Avenue, Writers Guild, New York, 1928. (Out of Print) ASIN: B004M38VX4

References

1882 births
1939 deaths
Poets from Michigan
American Christian Scientists
20th-century American poets
Writers from Michigan
Art Students League of New York alumni


title: Baltik vairas

text:
Baltik vairas (English: Baltic steering wheel) is a bicycle manufacturer located in Šiauliai, Lithuania. Tracing its lineage to 1948, the present-day joint-stock company Baltik vairas was established in 1993, after privatization of a state-owned enterprise and is one of the largest bicycle manufacturers in Northern Europe. Baltik vairas focuses on product development, coating and coloring of bicycle components, bicycle decoration and assembly as well as delivery and warranty (full service). The company manufactures around 320,000 bicycles per year, with annual capacity of 500,000, and exports its production to 15 countries.

Details
Baltik vairas offers city, trekking, mountain, and kids' bikes as well as e-bikes and custom bicycles such as tandems, tricycles for ice-cream carts, industrial bicycles etc. In total, around 500 different models and over 50 brand-name bicycles are manufactured each year.

The company is one of the largest employers in Šiauliai district. It has 320 permanent employees and during the peak season, the number of employees usually exceeds 600. The turnover of Baltik vairas reached 56.1 mln. EUR in 2013. The main market of Baltik vairas is Western Europe, however, expansion to Northern, Central and Eastern European markets is planned in the near future. Baltik vairas is a member of German–Baltic Chamber of Commerce and of Šiauliai Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts.

History

The company traces its history to a state enterprise  established on 23 December 1948 in the Lithuanian SSR. It began producing bicycles for teenagers called  (English: little eagle; boys' version) in 1951 and bicycles Kregždutė (English: little swallow; girls' version) in 1952. Initially, since 1950, they were manufactured in the Belarusian SSR at the  (MMBP) under the corresponding Russian names "Orlyonok" and "Lastochka" based on the pre-WWII German models. Their manufacturing was transferred to Lithuania after MMBP started manufacturing Minsk motorcycle, based on the equipment taken from the German DKW factory as part of Soviet World War II reparations.

These bicycles were exported to Germany, Mexico, Finland, Romania, Greece, India, Egypt, Belgium, Hungary, and Turkey. It was the first export item produced by a Šiauliai city industrial enterprise. On 23 June 1964, the factory was renamed into Šiauliai bicycle–engine factory Vairas. By 1982, it employed 3,500 people.

The joint Lithuanian–German company Baltik vairas was founded on 18 March 1993. It purchased a portion of the state-owned enterprise and became one of the holdings of Panther International GmbH. By 1999, the company produced one million bicycles. In 2011, the 5,000,000th bicycle left the production line (since privatization). In September 2013, a private Danish investor acquired shares of the company.

References

Cycle manufacturers
Cycling in Lithuania
Manufacturing companies of Lithuania
Manufacturing companies established in 1993
1993 establishments in Lithuania
Companies based in Šiauliai
Lithuanian brands


title: Help (Erica Campbell album)

text:
Help is the debut studio album by gospel musician Erica Campbell, originally released on March 25, 2014 by eOne. This is Erica Campbell's debut studio album without her sister Tina Campbell. The album's release was preceded by the singles "A Little More Jesus", the title track "Help" and "You Are". The album debuted at number 1 on the US Billboard Gospel Albums chart and number 6 on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 23,000 copies. The album also won the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album at the 57th Grammy Awards.

Background
This album was released on March 25, 2014. The release marks the first solo studio album apart from her duo of Mary Mary, which was produced by her husband Warryn Campbell and released under the eOne record label.

Critical reception

Help garnered praise from four music critics ratings and reviews. At Los Angeles Times, Mikael Wood rated the album three out of four stars, stating that on the release "Campbell is always open to more feeling." David Jeffries of AllMusic rated the album three-and-a-half stars out of five, writing that the release "is a return to more traditional themes like prayer, creation, and the struggles of everyday life, while traditional gospel plays more of a role than the usual R&B, thus allowing Erica to show off her vocal talents." At CCM Magazine, Andrew Greer rated the album a perfect five stars, saying that the release "is set to enamor urban music history". Dwayne Lacy of New Release Tuesday rated the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, remarking that the release "was a very good debut offering" on which the production was "nothing short of masterful." In a nine squares review by Cross Rhythms, Stephen Luff believes the music on the album creates a "top debut solo album with the potential for more radio friendly songs" in the near future.

Commercial performance
For the Billboard charting week of April 12, 2014, Help was the No. 6 most sold album in the entirety of the United States by the Billboard 200, and it was the No. 2 Independent Album sold the same week. In addition, the album was the No. 1 most sold Top Gospel Albums.

Track listing
Unless otherwise indicated, Credits are adapted from liner notes.

Personnel

Erica Campbell - Primary Artist, Vocals (tracks 1, 5, 7, 11; Lead on 2-4, 8-10, 12-13), Handclaps (3) & Background Vocals (2-4, 8, 13)
Warryn Campbell - Executive Producer, Musical Arrangements (tracks 1-4, 7-11), Banjo (13), Handclaps (3), Drums (3, 5), Fender Rhodes (3), Bass Guitar (3), Electric Guitar (8; Additional on 2), Instruments (9-10, 12; All Other on 1, 11; Additional on 7, 13), Keyboards (2, 8; Additional on 5), Percussion (2, 5, 8), Ukulele (13) & Background Vocals (2-4, 8, 13)
Krista Campbell - Dialogue (track 6) & Background Vocals (4)
Tina Campbell - Background Vocals (track 3)
Teddy Campbell - Drums (tracks 2, 8)
The Atkins Girls (Erica, Tina, Thomasina, Alana & Shanta) - Vocals sung by (track 6)
Thomasina 'Goo Goo' Atkins - Wardrobe & Background Vocals
Alana Atkins-Jamison - Background Vocals
Shanta Atkins - Background Vocals (tracks 2, 8)
Honey Atkins - Piano (track 6)
Aaron Lindsey - Organ (track 3)
Chris "#9" Payton - Banjo (track 8), Acoustic Guitar (1-3, 5, 8, 13), Electric Guitar Soloist (2) & Background Vocals (3)
Derek Blanks - Art Direction, Design & Photography
Dontae Winslow - Horns (tracks 2, 11)
Gerald Haddon - Piano (track 5)
Gromyko Collins - Background Vocals (track 4)
TRiON (Augie Ray & Jintae Ko) - Additional Instruments played & programmed by (tracks 9-10)

Jamar Jones - String Arrangements (track 4)
James Cruz - Mastering
Jason McGee - Background Vocals (tracks 4, 8)
Larry Whitt - Recording Engineer (All Tracks)
Lecrae - Featured Artist, Rap Vocals performed by (track 4)
Major Johnson - Dialogue (track 6)
Marvin Winans Jr - Handclaps (track 3) & Background Vocals (2, 8)
Monique Winans - Handclaps (track 3)
Musiq Soulchild - Background Vocals (track 4)
Pat Berginson - Harmonica (track 3)
Psalms - Background Vocals (tracks 4, 8)
Rob Chiarelli - Audio Mixing (All Tracks)
Rodney Jones Jr. - Bass played by (tracks 2, 7-8, 11)
Sean Cooper - Talk Box (track 10)
Tammi Haddon - Ukulele (track 5)
Terrell Mullin - Hair Stylist & Make-Up
The Family and Friends Chorale - Background Vocals (tracks 9, 12)

Chart performance

References

2014 debut albums
Erica Campbell albums
Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album


title: Scar Top

text:
Scar Top is a farming hamlet near the tourist village of Haworth in the City of Bradford metropolitan borough, West Yorkshire in England.  It is in the BD22 postcode area. Located west of Stanbury on a minor road connecting Haworth to Laneshaw Bridge, the hamlet contains a chapel, a farm and a collection of cottages; an infrequent bus service, route 916, runs to Keighley. Scar Top Chapel and Sunday School was built in 1869, replacing one built in 1818; it formerly belonged to the Methodists but since the 1970s has been independent. Ponden Mill, on the road to Haworth, was one of the main employers in the area. Moor Lodge, located northwest of the hamlet, is a former shooting lodge, built by Amos Nelson, that has been converted to a furniture and gift shop and tearooms'. It is thought to be the inspiration behind Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre".

References

External links
Scar Top Chapel and Sunday School

Geography of the City of Bradford
Hamlets in West Yorkshire