LGBTQ
Transgender inmate admits to impregnating two inmates all-women’s New Jersey jail
Two inmates serving time in New Jersey’s only state prison for women became pregnant after they had sex with a transgender inmate, according to a report.
A transgender woman inmate serving time in a New Jersey women’s facility has impregnated two female inmates, the New Jersey Department of Corrections has confirmed.
Transgender woman inmate impregnated two female inmates
Demetrius Minor, now identifying as Demi, impregnated the women inside the walls of Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, New Jersey’s only all women’s facility.
Minor admitted online that she is responsible for both pregnancies.
Minor also complained that all three inmates are now being held in solitary confinement.
The 800-inmate Mahan facility began housing transgender women – including those that have yet to undergo gender reassignment surgery – last year after a lawsuit brought by an inmate and the ACLU. It now has 27 trans prisoners.
Women who are pregnant
According to The Daily Mail, one of the pregnant women has been identified as 31 year-old Latonia Bellamy.
Bellamy is serving life for the brutal murder of Michael Muchioki, 27, and Nia Haqq, 25 who were robbed and killed in Jersey City, NJ by Bellamy, her cousin Shiquan Bellamy, and Darmellia Lawrence, after the couple returned from their engagement party and unloaded gifts from their car at 3 am on a Sunday morning in April 2010.
The site also found an essay written by Bellamy confessing to the love affair.
In the online essay entitled Freedom, Love, Pregnancy and Trauma, Bellamy said she “found love in a hopeless place”
She also said conditions inside Mahan breeds ‘a pervasive culture of rape.’
However, she added in all capital letters: ‘I WAS NOT RAPED.’
‘Nor was I forced to do anything that I did not want to do,’ she added.
‘Despite it not being permitted I fell in love and had consensual sex with a woman who is trans. Consensual sex is a prohibited act in Edna Mahan.
‘I did what is natural to every human being [I] formed a natural and genuine bond that let to an extensive amount of support, understanding and love.
‘What incarcerated individual do (sic) not yearn for a second chance at life when your teens, twenties and thirties are withering away behind four walls, a steel door and barb wire gates.
‘Your very soul feel (sic) as if you are suffocating inside and the very air you breathe causes internal convulsions.
‘Imagine having someone understand the true capacity of internal feelings that are hard to describe but a simple look or gesture brings forth understanding.’
Demetrius Minor is now a transgender woman identifying as Demi
Demetrius “Demi” Minor is serving 30 years to life for killing Theotis Butts, his foster father, at only 16 years old.
In July 2011, he stabbed Butts, 69, several times and then fled to New York where he was arrested.
He was also convicted of carjacking. He approached a couple – whose infant son was in their Pontiac Grand Prix at the time – and pointed a Glock .45 in the woman’s face. The couple got their baby out of the car before Minor sped away with it.
Minor is said to have started her male to female transition in 2020 and was transferred out of the male prison system to Mahan, where she is a now prisoner.
Since being incarcerated, Demi has tried to turn her life around, becoming sort of a jailhouse lawyer advocating for other prisoners, and representing her unit on the inmate liaison committee.
In Bellamy’s online essay, she says both she and her lover were abused sexually at very young ages – she was six, he was eight.
She said since falling in love with Minor, her time behind bars has begun to fly by.
‘LOVE was the reason,’ she wrote. ‘Somehow and some way LOVE is utterly forbidden. Yet it was conquered, grasped and explored.
‘Surprisingly a pregnancy came about, an innocent human being is forming and will arrive shortly. Pregnant in prison is a blessing of mockery.’
She claimed correctional officers are now mocking her pregnancy by playing baby songs over the public address system and making references to a ‘million dollar baby,’ which she said is ‘exacerbating my pregnancy anxiety.’
She added that if correctional staff had done their jobs efficiently ‘the conceiving of a baby would have never taken place here at Edna Mahan.’
‘While I do accept accountability for my actions of falling in love, I find myself being in a place of fault which is unfair to me because several blind eyes were turned.
‘Our love was known and not hidden, yet forbidden. A child is going to be born. What is going to be done to assure that a mother can spend an adequate amount of time with her baby before separation?’
The New Jersey Department of Corrections has not released any further comment on the pregnancy revelation within Edna Mahan Correctional Facility.
Culture
Billy Porter To Play James Baldwin In Biopic
Billy Porter is set to play novelist and civil rights activist James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic produced by Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures.
Billy Porter is set to play writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic produced by Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures.
Billy Porter will play in James Baldwin biopic
Porter and Dan McCabe will write the script for the biopic based on David Leeming’s 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography.
The deep look into Baldwin’s life and struggles represents the culmination of a long-held creative ambition for the Emmy-, Tony- and Grammy Award-winning performer.
“As a Black queer man on this planet with relative consciousness, I find myself, like James Baldwin said, ‘in a rage all the time.’ I am because James was. I stand on James Baldwin’s shoulders, and I intend to expand his legacy for generations to come,” Porter said in a statement.
About James Baldwin
Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin was a gay African American writer and civil rights activist who spent much of his life outside the U.S., writing largely about Black identity, activism, sexuality and race relations.
Baldwin is best-known for the iconic books, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country and The Fire Next Time, which have all been turned into or inspired by movies, including If Beale Street Could Talk and I Am Not Your Negro documentary.
Production
Porter’s Incognegro Productions will co-produce the James Baldwin biopic along with Allen Media Group.
“Billy Porter and Dan McCabe’s talent and commitment to amplifying James Baldwin’s legacy and contributions are invaluable and unmatched for this unique and epic story,” said Allen, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, in a statement reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Culture
Byron Perkins Makes History As First Openly Gay HBCU Football Player
With his announcement, Perkins is the first openly gay football player at a Historically Black College or University.
Byron Perkins, a defensive back who plays Division I football at Hampton University in Virginia, came out as gay on Instagram this week. With his announcement, Perkins is the first openly gay football player at a Historically Black College or University.
Byron Perkins on being the first openly gay HBCU football player
“I have come to understand that life is precious and I could be gone at any moment, therefore, I will no longer be living a lie,” Perkins posted to Instagram. “No one should have to live a life crippled by what society thinks.”
Perkins is a 6’3” redshirt junior from Chicago, Ill. The transfer from Purdue University has appeared in a total of 11 games over two seasons at Hampton. The Hampton Pirates have a record of 4-2 this season in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).
In an exclusive interview with OutSports, Perkins said he came out in part to set an example for other Black gay male athletes who are suffering in the closet.
“Especially at an HBCU, young Black gay men need an outlet,” Perkins told Zeigler of OutSports. “They need a support system. There hasn’t been an out gay football athlete at an HBCU. I want to end the stigma of what people think. I want people to know they can be themselves.”
Perkins opened up with the outlet, sharing the challenges of being in the closet and how keeping his sexual identity private had hindered his growth as a person.
“I’ve been self-reflective and trying to prioritize what makes me happy and makes me feel alive,” Perkins told OutSports. “I thought it could be just football and school, but there was a component missing. And recently I’ve been able to figure out that I haven’t been fully happy because everyone didn’t know who I was. Authenticity is everything to me.”
He is proving gay men can play football as well.
About Hampton University
Hampton University was founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School for freed Black men following the U.S. Civil War. The research university in Hampton, VA is renowned for its museum, which is not only the oldest museum in Virginia but it’s also the oldest African American museum in the U.S.
LGBTQ
Tevin Campbell Opens Up About His Sexuality As A Gay Man
Singer Tevin Campbell is opening up about his sexuality and his life and career while being in the music industry.
Singer Tevin Campbell is opening up about his sexuality and his life and career while being in the music industry.
Tevin Campbell opens up about his sexuality
Known for his ’90s hits “Can We Talk” and “I’m Ready”, the R&B star confirmed to PEOPLE in a podcast that he is gay.
Navigating in a heteronormative industry, Campbell says he didn’t “hide anything” about himself all those years ago. “I didn’t try to act a certain way or anything.” But also adding that, “you just couldn’t be [gay] back then.”
After taking a break in the late 1990s after his third studio album didn’t perform well, Campbell’s personal journey with his sexuality began.
“When I came out to my family and friends [at] about 19 or 20, that was it for me. And then I went on the road of discovering myself. I didn’t know who I was,” Campbell shares.
While there has been speculation on Campbell’s sexual identity throughout the years, the singer has kept his personal life private since the start of his career. But that speculation came to a “end” earlier this year when Campbell tweeted (and later deleted) the phrase “Tevin is…” followed by a rainbow flag emoji.
“It was a casual thing for me,” Campbell says of what many took as his “coming out”. In truth, he adds, “I love my fans, but what they think about my sexuality is of no importance to me.”
Loving himself
For Campbell, who has new music in the works, his top priority is loving himself.
“What makes me happiest right now is how far I’ve come in life,” he says, “You know, there are a lot of child stars that don’t make it. But a lot of us do… and the fact that I’ve embraced me.”
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