Hi, ramen noodles! Last night I came home, thought I lost my phone, enlisted three people to help me get it back, and then found it laying on my bed. Here’s the stories we missed this week while I was too drunk.
Russia Won’t Admit This Happened
+ A former member of the Italian Parliament who is also a trans woman was detained on her journey to the Sochi Olympics, but the Russian police have no record of it. Too bad there’s already photos!
+ No gay establishment is safe in Russia – except the gay establishments in Sochi, during the Olympics.
In early January, about a month before the Winter Olympics in Sochi began, Andrei Tanichev, the owner of the city’s only gay nightclub, got a call from the local government summoning him to a meeting with the mayor. It did not sound promising. Just a few days earlier, a special security regime known as the “ring of steel” had put Sochi authorities on high alert for any Olympic disruptions. And although Tanichev is a businessman, not an activist, Russia’s new law against homosexual “propaganda” among minors had thrust his cabaret into a legal gray zone. He went into the meeting prepared for the worst.
What he got was a supporting role in Russia’s gay Potemkin village. While gay-rights activists in other parts of Russia have continued to face court appearances and fines even during the Olympic Games, the gay community in Sochi has been put under the state’s protection, at least while the eyes of the world are watching. In his office that day in January, Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, the Kremlin’s plainspoken Olympic enforcer, welcomed his guest with a smile. “It was weird,” says Tanichev. “He was super nice, really pleasant.”
Who Is The First Pick for Favorite First Lady?
Michelle Obama gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money this year in a new survey by the Siena College Institute on fave first ladies, but she ain’t got nothin’ on Eleanor Roosevelt.
“VOTE FOR ME, RANDOM HISTORIAN. VOTE. FOR. ME.”
NPR Totally Forgot About Us
If the Internet helps gay teens, how is it that NPR never mentioned everyone’s favorite home away from home, Autostraddle, in their report about it? I’m disappointed, but I also really like talk radio, so I feel conflicted.
In the past 20 years, the Internet has significantly changed what it means to grow up as a gay kid in this country.
Before the Web, many gay young people grew up in what seemed to be isolation, particularly those in small towns. But with the advent of online chat rooms and Websites dedicated to gay culture, communities formed, and that demographic began finding new support.
That change can be seen in the experiences of two women who grew up in the same town, two decades apart.
Cool Sh*t
+ Chelsea Clinton thinks LGBT rights are the “unfinished business of the 21st century.” Chelsea is welcome to finish my business at any time.
+ The “Lean In Collection” of Getty stock images may not change the world, but it’ll put a lot of tattooed girls with babies into it.
All Around The World, Gay People Want to Get Married and Be Total Normies
+ A new legal challenge could put South Korea on the LGBT Map of Marriage Equality. Whatever that is.
+ Meet the single juror who made your gay wedding in Vegas a more distinct possibility.
In 2011, attorneys for Abbott Laboratories dismissed a prospective juror prior to a blockbuster trial on account of his sexual orientation. Abbott’s attorneys were convinced that the juror, an openly gay man, would be prejudiced against Abbott, which had been accused of inflating the price of an HIV drug. The company’s legal opponents cried foul and litigated the dismissal. And now, thanks to that juror, Nevada just gave up on its same-sex marriage ban.
+ BUT WHY GO TO VEGAS WHEN YOU CAN GO TO LOUISIANA?
+ The state of Texas and all the people in it have been ordered to recognize trans* folks’ identities when trying to exclude same-sex couples from the meaningless institution of marriage, and because of their own confusion they had their first gay wedding. TAKE THAT!
Ellen Page’s New Lover
Julianne Moore is playing Ellen Page’s lover in a new film, which is shaping up to be the gayest thing of all time. Also, Ellen Page.
Meshell Ndegeocello Rules
I’ve come up with a new term; I’m sexually functional with both genders, I just choose to be with this particular one. Who knows what the future holds?
It’s such a weird concept to me that it’s so important to how you judge my music or my character or anything about me. I’m never assuming what heterosexual people are doing.
When it comes to making music, you don’t have to talk and [as musicians] you all have this one thing that you have the information to bring to life. That’s real special to me. Everyone has their own interpretation.
[Making music] is the only time I feel gender-less or race-less. I just feel at ease because you have this one thing to concentrate on. It’s hard to explain but it’s a nice feeling.
You Should Go: First Annual Feminist Ball
It’s hailed as “THE SEXIEST WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH CELEBRATION IN HISTORY,” and if you’re lucky you live in or around New York City and can actually go.
Feminist Press and FP executive director Jennifer Baumgardner invite you to:
THE FIRST ANNUAL FEMINIST BALL:
a fundraiserMARCH 20, 2014 Joe’s Pub
6pm VIP hour with DJ set by Ana Matronic
7pm doors
Featuring Justin Bond, Brown Girls Burlesque, and more!
with emcee Michaela angela DavisTickets available now! $45 in advance/$55 at the door, $250 VIP includes premium seating and cocktail hour!
This Is Our Country
We shouldn’t have to lose Stonewall – and it should be marked a historical landmark, as it rightly deserves to be.
Monday: Watches in tears as Ellen Page comes out of the closet
Tuesday: Watches Hannah Hart be impossibly cute and hip and precious in “Camp Takota”
Wednesday: Reads earlier post about Michelle and Cara and their adorable gay romps across the globe
Later Wednesday: Finds out Ellen Page and Julianne Moore will star in movie Freeheld as lesbian lovers
Later later Wednesday: *flips desk dramatically* and leaves work, claiming too many feels to carry on normally, as though this week is not full of magic and unicorns
*Okay I made the last part up
Stop making me want babies, random stock photo!
Clicked through to this post from facebook just for the picture of the tattooed girl with baby. Dayum.
Also, Ellen Page and Julianne Moore look uncomfortably similar.
Eh, it adds to the realism. Not that I have any experience with that. *cough*
Can you try and get an interview with ellen?
Ask her tons of cute questions. But it’s not, i’m not like so interested to know, but like i need to know something everything, ah just to like…. about her for like the.. i don’t know like for something. OMG! ellen reminds me of the feeling i had with my first crush. (**,) tee-hee
Why go to Louisiana when you can go to Wisconsin? The ACLU along with 4 same-sex couples filed a suit to overturn the marriage equality ban earlier this month. Also, we have cheese and beer.
We will only have true equality when there are stock photos of men laughing with salad, but maybe this is a step in the right direction.
Or men rollerblading by the beach in a high legged leotard. Basically all images we are subjected to in feminine hygiene ads/diet ads/all ads.
I was relying on out of date laughing alone with salad facts. Sorry. http://menlaughingalonewithsalad.tumblr.com/
The high legged leotard would be a much better indicator.
Wow…there IS a tumblr for that! What am I saying, of course there is haha.
Y’all know that part in the movie Amelie, where the blind man glows (literally) with the warmth of happiness resulting from someone kindly sharing a lot of great information with him? That’s how I feel after these pieces…Thank you.
I just looked at the stock photos! Dani is in there! yay!
Just to note about the state of gay marriage in Nevada — while the Attorney General has chosen not to support the constitutional ban in court any longer, it is still in effect until the legislature (which only meets in odd years) votes to overturn it and it is put to a statewide vote (which only happens in even years).
Following that timeline, the soonest we’ll have gay marriage here is following the November 2016 general election. Hopefully the fact that it’s a presidential election will work in our favor!
Buzzkill. I’d been hoping to elope there someday. It’s been a dream of mine ever since I first saw TV news footage of the drive-thru weddings as a young girl in the 80s. Oh well. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the actual residents to get marriage rights much sooner. Thanks for giving us the heads-up.
Mannnnnnnnn, I am so excited to see Julianne Moore in yet another gay movie. I swear, half that woman’s career is involved in super gay movies. Love it.
It’s just hard for me to take Ellen Page and Julianne Moore seriously.. It was too much of a difference watch her with Joseph Gordon Leavitt in Don Jon. (My fiancée made me watch it. The stupidity of it made me want brush my own brain out with my toothbrush.)