#EndRevengePorn With YouTube Stars Bria and Chrissy

A lot has happened in the year since the lesbian YouTube duo Bria Kam and Chrissy Chambers released their first music video, “Take Me to Heaven.” In that time, the couple have put out two more music videos, gained a huge following after releasing some YouTube videos that went viral and, most recently, started to pursue a Revenge Porn Civil Lawsuit.

In 2013, Chambers found out that her ex-boyfriend had filmed himself sexually assaulting her in 2009 while she was unconscious and he posted the videos online. She tried to file criminal charges in the UK, where the videos were uploaded, but was unable to.

Because her ex-boyfriend filmed the videos, he has the legal copyright to them and the only way for Chambers to get them taken down is to file a civil lawsuit, which costs money. Chambers and Kam released the song and music video, “Can’t Break Me,” to gain awareness and try and raise the $30,000 it will take to move the case forward.

“For me, the lyrics are to my ex,” Chambers said of the song. “Even though you tried to hurt me, nothing will break my determination or courage.”

The song was released on Sunday and the couple has already raised over $20,000. In the UK, a law was recently passed requiring a 5 percent fee of the total sum claimed in damages for civil cases. Chambers and Kam are hoping to raise $30,000 by March 21.

“I am the first public figure to come forward as a victim of revenge porn and speak out about it,” Chambers said. “The UK has never had a civil lawsuit against revenge porn and we’ll be the first if we can raise money.”

Chambers was 18 when she was filmed, however she didn’t find out about it until a few years later.

“My initial reaction was terror and denial mixed with just shock and despair,” Chamber said when she found out about the videos in 2013. “It was like my life that I knew was shattered. I felt so hurt and lonely and helpless. When I found out I literally flopped on the ground.”

Kam said she felt Chambers’ pain.

“It was just a physical sensation that took over my entire body that I can’t really explain,” Kam said. “I try and be strong for her because I want to be the best support system I can be.”

Chambers said that Kam was a big part of what kept her going.

“She is amazing, supportive and loving,” Chambers said of her girlfriend. “I would say for the first few months I didn’t get through my initial emotions successfully. I started drinking to not feel the pain. I was very depressed and had night terrors. It was a really terrible time. I don’t know how I would have gotten through without her support.”

Originally, Chambers tried to contact the websites that posted the videos and asked that they be taken down.

“They had no care about us trying to reach out,” Chambers said, who was 18 at the time the videos were filmed. “They said, ‘the videos don’t belong to you, you’re over 18 and it’s not our problem.’”

Though the couple tried pursuing criminal charges in England against her ex-boyfriend, they were unsuccessful and became discouraged. They talked to their producer Danny Olson about it and decided to put their emotions into a song and music video.

In the video, Kam is seen walking at night in fear and being followed.

“She represents the struggles all women go through and the dangers that we face daily,” Chambers said.

Chambers, shown as a boxer, represents the inner fight and strength.

“The video was an ultimate expression of how much we care about each other,” Chambers said. “It’s personal to us and a source of healing for us as well. We wrote it to personally listen to it. This has been such an emotional journey and we care so much about bringing it to life. This video shows love and survival.”

If the couple can’t raise the civil lawsuit fee they won’t be able to continue the fight.

“It’s all or nothing,” Chambers said. “We’ve already spent so much money fighting this that if we don’t make this $30,000 we can’t move forward.”

However, they are hopeful they will reach their goal.

“I’m so taken aback and so grateful and thankful from the bottom of my heart to everyone,” Chambers said. “Even if it’s not financial support but a hug or kind letter or a share of the link, it means so much to us.”

Right now the campaign in the main focus for the couple. They have continued to upload weekly videos to their channel, though will be taking a break for a month to raise awareness about the campaign. After that, they plan on taking time for themselves.

“We want to take a week off and take care of ourselves and go somewhere quiet,” Chambers said. “It takes such a toll on us but we don’t really have a choice. Until then, we will continue to put out content, raise awareness and make people laugh.”

The couple are grateful for their fans who have been quick to support them.

“We know people are trying to help us in a time of greatest need and with out them we wouldn’t continue to move forward to justice,” Chamber said. “I’m eternally thankful.”

Click here to donate.

Support SNAPSHOT: Queer Women Of Color Making Sexy Porn

I won’t start this article by assuming that we’ve all watched porn. That’s just not the way to engage with our community — through assumptions, not porn, because porn is an excellent way to engage and that’s what we’re about to do. For those of us that watch porn, there are a couple things that you’ve probably already noticed. One, there’s rarely an actual story aside from “That random person is hot. Let’s have sex now.” Also, there are actually very few people of color in porn outside of queer poc, sex-positive spaces or porn that’s made to exploit massive stereotypes and the bodies of POC.

Award-winning director, Shine Louise Houston, is looking to change those things by independently producing her new queer erotic film SNAPSHOT. Shine made her mark in the LGBTQ porn industry directing films in The Crash Pad Series such a Rope Burn, The Revolving Door, and The Wild Search. While Crash Pad did a good job of creating films that more authentically represented different identities within the queer community, Shine wanted to further that goal in ways that are specific to Queer Women of Color. She says:

In my films, I work to create an alternate vision of what’s sexy, one that is more reflective of the queer communities and communities of color that I identify with.

SNAPSHOT is a queer coming out story but it is a different type of coming out story. It’s not about simply coming out of the closet to your family or friends, it’s about coming out to yourself. It’s about opening up about sexuality, expressing yourself, your desires and breaking down walls. The story revolves around a murder mystery involving a young lesbian named Charlie and an older butch named Danny. Through the course of the mystery the two women develop an intense relationship and it’s actually the older woman, Danny, who opens up and changes as a result of the relationship.

The narrative didn’t begin as a coming out story. Shine recalls how she started simply wanting to tell a QWOC story and that the “coming out” aspect developed alongside the characters. Unlike traditional porn were the sex drives the story, the narrative in this story does truly drive the sex scenes. However, the sex is still very important to the plot. Shine also says that although there is a set story, she wanted to maintain the intense sexual experience. Another difference in the production is that the sex is not choreographed. We have all seen movies like “Boogie Nights” and witnessed their behind-the-scenes extras where the sex acts are staged by the director. In SNAPSHOT the sex is all negotiated by the actors. The director is simply there to capture the experience the actors are still in control of their bodies and their experience.

Shine has done trailblazing work through the Crash Pad series, featuring actors of different body types and being the first to feature QPOC butch-on-butch sex scenes. Producing SNAPSHOT as an all QWOC cast will present a different set of challenges. It’s these challenges that drive the film and also why Shine feels this is an important story to tell.

In most porn, people of color are used almost like props. We are the ghetto, dominating fetish of a white character. We are rarely the ones receiving the pleasure or having our own fantasies highlighted. The director recounted a story in which a British fan asked her why she wanted to perpetuate stereotypes of black women being men. Because often, black lesbians in porn films and in positions of power are stigmatized in that way; their behavior is viewed as mannish and they’re portrayed as being “the man.” Shine didn’t even realize that particular stereotype of black lesbians existed for certain audiences, but acknowledge how that interaction served to drive the desire to make a film where black lesbians can be seen in many different capacities.

Creating the film will serve as a way to break those stereotypes and tropes that we are trapped in. Shine wants to create a narrative that mirrors her own experience and that of other QWOC. She says:

There is power in creating images, and for a woman of color and a queer to take that power… I don’t find it exploitative; I think it’s necessary.

Shine Louise Houston running things

Currently Shine and her team from Pink & White films are crowdfunding through IndieGoGo for the funds to produce SNAPSHOT. They’ve been able to secure seed money but there are still significant costs to independently producing a quality film. They would like to be able to fairly compensate their actors and crew. After talking to Shine about the tremendous work she is setting out to do, my number one questions was how we as a community can help make sure this film is made!

The first way would of course to donate to the SNAPSHOT campaign! They have really cool perks including attending their VIP Party this August in San Francisco as well as DVD packs of previous films.

The next way would be to help get the word out! You can do this by:

• Tweet about the film. (@ShineLouise, @PinkWhite, and #SNAPSHOTtheFILM)
• Share the campaign on Facebook.
• Send a Snapchat about SNAPSHOT. (Snap that three times fast…)
• Do you have a newsletter? Include a spotlight of the campaign!
• Bloggers! Write about SNAPSHOT. Embed the video and photos.
• Interview Shine, especially if you write for LGBTQ and POC websites.
• Let them know if your company wants to co-produce the film.
• It’s easy to use IndieGoGo’s share buttons, or copy/paste on your own.
• Are you in the Bay Area? Come to our SNAPSHOT Party on Friday, August 7th!

Supporting projects such as SNAPSHOT is important because it adds to the type of stories that we hear from QTPOC people. It’s important to see us in various capacities to capture the complexities of our existence. It’s also important so that we are not just seen sexually through the lens of tropes and stereotypes. We can be the sensual intense love interest. We can be submissive and not just a dom carrying out the fantasy of a white protagonist. We are just as sexy and desirable as anyone else in our community. I hope that you are ready for this shift in our narrative as well and that you get an opportunity to contribute to this amazing film!

Remembering Us When We’re Gone, Ignoring Us While We’re Here: Trans Women Deserve More

Feature image via transascity.org

There’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve witnessed over the past few years. The names of trans women of color will be in the mouths of the queer community after they’ve been murdered, but support for us while we are still alive is sporadic at best. Trans women are pushed out of queer spaces by cis people, dfab genderqueers, and trans men, just to name a few. Women’s spaces are frequently hostile to us because we aren’t “real women” but trans men almost always get a free pass. And I’ve seen more than one cis queer say that trans women are “appropriating” the gay rights movement, totally ignorant of the fact that we started the damn thing. I have seen more than one cis queer say that we have nothing in common with them, that our issues are completely unrelated. We have a hard time finding dates, finding support, finding community. And when we dare to call people out for their transmisogyny, we are labeled crazy, hysterical, divisive. I have been called Austin “queer scene’s” number one enemy. All for daring to share my thoughts on the world around me.

Via gazettenet.com

Trans Day of Remembrance is filled to the brim with the names of murdered Black and brown trans women, but is a single evening of remembering enough? And what does it mean that TDoR doesn’t explicitly talk about race and is often dominated by white people? Here in Austin there’s this tradition of calling the names of the dead and then having an audience member sit in a chair that represents where the dead trans woman would sit. The seats are always filled with white people and non-trans women. What do our deaths mean when our bodies, our lives, the physical space we take up, is appropriated by white folks? How can I mourn for my sisters when the space set up for that mourning is so thoroughly colonized? And how can I even see hope of living a full life when I don’t see myself reflected in what is supposed to be my community?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to honor those women who came before us, those women murdered by colonial patriarchy. But it seems like more often than not, the queer community at large is content with just remembering. We only hear about trans women after their deaths. And even our deaths are not our own. A week doesn’t go by without a white queer citing the deaths of trans women of color as the evidence of how oppressed they are. These stats are often used in service of their own assimilation; meanwhile, they’re happy to leave us out in the cold. We don’t even have dignity in death, nor the ability to decide what it will mean for us.

Via giveout.razoo.com

Support for trans women dwindles when we are still alive. Nowhere is this clearer than in fundraisers run by and for trans women. There have been some success stories, but they always seem to be few and far between. More often than not, a trans woman’s fundraiser will get a few signal boosts, maybe a couple of dollars and then languish. Meanwhile, trans men’s fundraisers for transition related care often get fully funded. This funding disparity is also clear institutionally, where organizations that focus on the concerns and issues of trans women of color get a miniscule amount of all the money from LGBTQ foundations. This is especially true in the South, where LGBT organizations only get 3-4% of domestic LGBT funding. Again, cis, white, rich institutions are quick to use our murders in their statistics then turn around and spend their money on organizations that look like them: cis, white, and rich. Organizations that push for assimilation.

Via americanprogress.org

Obviously financial support isn’t the be all end all action to support trans women of color, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. And the fact that it’s a struggle for trans women to acquire financial assistance is symptomatic of our society’s priorities. It points to who is valuable and who is disposable. At the bottom of this article is a list of fundraisers and organizations for trans women that I would strongly encourage you to support. If you’re not a trans woman and you’re reading this, think long and hard about the ways that you’re supporting trans women in your community. Do you see trans women in public community spaces? How are your actions pushing them out? Don’t think that just giving money nullifies your collusion in transmisogyny. Financial support is important but it is not the only step. As we honor the memory of those girls who have been murdered, ask how you’re helping the living.

Fundraisers to Cover Living Expenses

Via gofundme.com

Backing Biko
Support Cherno Biko in advocating for folks like us!

Love Aaryn
Help Aaryn reach her dreams!

Support CeCe
Support CeCe’s work!

Lift Up Lourdes
Support a trans leader!

Save Fake Cis Girl from Financial Apocalypse
Help a trans woman of color keep her lights on!

Support Monica Roberts
Help Monica stave off homelessness!

Operation Zipzap
Help a trans woman go to electrolysis school!

Support Michelle
Help Michelle get money to go to school!

Miss Major Monthly Giving Circle
Help support a TWOC elder and living legend!

Fundraisers to Cover Transition Related Care

Via gofundme.com

TRANLATIN@ needs HELP for Surgery
Help a Pervuian trans women get access to gender affirming surgery!

Support Vanessa on her medical need
Help Vanessa get chest reconstruction surgery!

Proud Trans Latina seeking help with GRS
Help Naiymah get access to gender affirming surgery!

Sophia’s Breast Fund
Help Sophia access breast augmentation surgery!

Help a Homegirl out!
Help a trans latina get access to transition related care.

Ida’s Surgery Fund
Help writer and activist Ida access surgery!

Fundraisers for Organizations that Serve Trans Women

Via gofundme.com

Support the TWOC Collective
The TWOC Collective in NYC needs your support!

Alexis Documentary
Help a documentary about a trans woman activist get off the ground!

MagniFLY!
Donate to support TWOC filmmakers!

Trans Tech
Support an organization giving trans women the tools to support themselves!

Quirell
Help a social network by and for marginalized folks get started!

El/La Para Trans Latinas
Help fund an organization working to advocate for trans latinas!

Trans Latina Coalition
Support an organization doing national movement work!

Support Casa Ruby
Help a community center stay afloat!

If you are aware of any other similar fundraisers, please share them in the comments.

November 14th-20th is Trans Awareness Week, leading up to Trans Day of Remembrance on the 20th. This is a week where we raise visibility for trans people and address issues that affect the trans community. For Trans Awareness Week this year, we’ve asked several of our favorite TWoC writers to come in and share their thoughts and experiences with us. TWoC started the entire LGBTQ movement in the U.S. And they continue to be the victims of most of the anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination. If we aren’t centering things on them, we are failing.

Greyscale Goods Wants To Help You Build the Androgynous Wardrobe of Your Dreams

Sara Medd is a woman on a mission. That mission is to help you find all of the androgynous and otherwise gender-neutral garb you’ve been looking for all your life.

Sara Medd chatting with Robin Roemer and 2012 Calendar Girls Kelli Griggs and Ashley LaRocque. Photo via Sara Tollefson.

Medd, who you may remember from gigs like dressing the Autostraddle Calendar Girls and helping you rediscover your ideal wardrobe via personal style sessions at A-Camp, launched a Kickstarter campaign on October 1 to raise money for the creation of Greyscale Goods — a company that would put a spin on your run-of-the-mill delivery services by bringing curated gender-neutral apparel to your doorstep.

The idea itself is easy peasy lemon squeezy: customers sign up, fill out a style profile specially crafted by Medd to guide her through the fashion market and find their perfect fits, and then they receive goods that are just what they’re looking for after working with some staff members and shoppers from Greyscale. Over time, as they leave feedback and comments about the items they’ve received, the Greyscale style team will find itself even better at matching them with their ideal looks. Customers pay for what they want, return what they don’t, and, over time, find themselves looking exactly how they want to look without suffering through another men’s section shopping spree or fruitless mall venture with their friends.

For something so revolutionary in its simplicity, the reality is that Greyscale Goods would fill a void in the current fashion world occupied by a ton of center-of-center queer folks. No longer will tomboys have to manuever through the men’s section, plagued by questions by staff members and glances from their neighbors. No longer will the dapper folks hand their clothes over to tailors in order to create the ensemble they were thinking of. And with a no-risk return policy and a personal shopper on their side, no Greyscale customer needs to worry about what happens if they’re not totally taken by the finds that come to their door. Like many things in life, it only gets better the longer they work with the team.

For Medd, going into fashion was inevitable. “I’ve been interested in fashion since I was a very tiny person,” she told me. “I was sewing clothes for my Barbie dolls at age 6 out of scrap fabric, which evolved into sewing clothes for my American Girl dolls, which eventually led to designing a collection for our school fashion show during my senior year of high school. I’ve worked in clothing retail since I was 17, and I have always been enamored with yummy fabrics and well-constructed designs.” Medd, who describes her personal style as “eclectic” and can’t live without jeans and a button-down shirt on hand (preferably in black, of course), went on to major in Fashion Merchandising at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and a string of office jobs afterward led her to professional styling. “I finally found what I love to do,” she said. “Take the beautiful and arduous work of designers and bring pieces together into a wearable and marketable look.”

Now, the Founder and CEO of Greyscale Goods has also come into her own as a member of the queer community, and it’s her impetus for gearing her company toward folks seeking out androgynous or otherwise gender-neutral looks. “Before Greyscale Goods was even a thought, the need for a retailer that offers more selection in gender-neutral clothing was very clear,” she told me. A lot of that comes from her experiences with queers like you at A-Camp, where she held private styling sessions. “The same questions kept coming up: I live in a small town in Missouri, and I don’t have access to city shopping, where can I find a properly fitting button-down shirt? I have a wedding to attend this summer — where can I find a vest or jacket?”

They were questions echoed on the queer Internet, posted on websites like DapperQ and QWear. “Clearly, there was a gaping hole in the clothing market,” Medd said. And though she often referred folks to botique online retailers, she noticed that the inconvenience of returning items purchased that way or even picking them out in the first place was also a hurdle for folks seeking out their perfect look. Whether things were too expensive, too complicated, or too far removed from small-town queers, it became clear to Medd that the void in fashion wasn’t just about the mere offering of androgynous apparel – it was also about how it was provided.

And thus, a spark.

Everyone you’ve ever cared about at the Greyscale Goods launch party

“Earlier this year,” she told me, “I started noticing that many of my friends were subscribing to various subscription boxes and raving about the convenience of them. Some were subscribing to fashion boxes, but the targeted markets were distinctly separated between men’s clothing and extremely feminine women’s clothing. We are in an age where androgynous clothing is embraced in both male and female wardrobes, and gender-neutral fashions are becoming more popular. It only makes sense that there should be more platforms for bringing these gender-neutral brands together in one place, to create a one-stop shop.”

Medd eventually dreamt up Greyscale Goods when she was chatting with some friends about shopping. One was thrilled with her latest experience with Stitch Fix, and couldn’t get enough. Her girlfriend, however, wanted that experience but hadn’t been able to find one tailored to her androgynous look. “This underserved market is a glaring omission in the structure of traditional men’s and women’s clothing departments, and one that Greyscale Goods is motivated to address (and dress),” she said. “With Greyscale Goods, we aim to target the market in between these two segments: the gender-neutral style. We will be covering the “grey area” between traditional men’s and women’s fashions.”

At its inception, Greyscale will do that by working specifically with smaller, androgynous brands to bring them all under one roof for her clientele. Of particular interest are her burgeoning partnerships with Kipper Clothiers and Sharpe Suiting for any queer with dazzling places to go; if the Greyscale Kickstarter hits $120,000, Medd will design a Ready-to-Wear line of suiting separates with Kipper exclusively for her customers. Sharpe Suiting is already working on their own Ready-to-Wear line, which she hopes to bring into the fold as well. Over time, as her funding expands, Medd will also work to bring in more established and well-known brands carrying denim, sportswear, and menswear. In the long-term, she’s also gearing up to expand her offerings to plus-size folks.

Brittani Nichols and Hannah Hart. Photo via Alexis Bonin

But it doesn’t end there. “I am so excited about my plans for the future of Greyscale Goods.,” Medd told me, “because this is such unchartered territory right now. The way that I see this company building is based on an intricate algorithm incorporating the feedback from customers, which will allow us to have an actual relationship with each customer. This is a dream challenge for a software developer, but an extremely costly one.” Ultimately, Medd knows how to conquer that: “I hope to bring in some tech-savvy business partners who are up for the challenge!” (For the sake of us all, let her know if you’re one of those. Please.)

Though the Kickstarter goal is $25,000, Medd’s shooting for the stars with stretch goals beyond $100K, and they’re all well-deserved for someone hoping to help out an invisible market. (To make shipping actually happen, she needs $70,000.) And even if you don’t plan on becoming a Greyscale Goods shopper, supporting the Kickstarter can help you land some awesome items to fill that closet of yours you crept out of a few years ago. From sweatshirts to boyshorts to tee shirts to Kipper Clothier tops, the options are abound for folks hoping to make gender-neutral fashion a reality before the end of the month.

So just fucking give already! On behalf of all of us tomboy femme girls out there, I sincerely thank you in advance.

You can learn more about Greyscale Goods online and by following them on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Sara welcomes all of your feedback and questions at greyscalegoods@gmail.com and would feel good about her day if you took their survey, too.

Six Reasons to Stop What You’re Doing and Watch “Lyle”

Listen. LISTEN. There is a new horror movie out right this very minute called Lyle that takes its cue from Rosemary’s Baby, and you must see it as soon as humanly possible. Should you not be one to follow simple orders without detailed explanation, I offer you six reasons to do so below.

Before delving into my six reasons, though, I should tell you that you can watch this brilliant, female-directed, female-driven horror film for FREE just by going to lylemovie.com. The film has been released free of charge in conjunction with a Kickstarter campaign that will fuel the creation of two more female-driven horror films by the same writer/director (Stewart Thorndike, who you’ll meet in my very first point). The next film, which will be funded by the Kickstarter, is called Putney — it centers around a haunted Ted Talk.

YOU HEARD ME RIGHT. A HAUNTED TED TALK. GET OUT OF MY FACE.

Anyhow… here are six reasons why you should stop whatever you’re doing and watch Lyle:

1. Stewart F*cking Thorndike

Hi, I’m a badass

Stewart Thorndike, whose middle name isn’t officially ‘Fucking,’ is the female writer and director of Lyle. Now, we all know that there could stand to be more women in most areas of business, and the world of movies is certainly one of them. With a staggering number of movies consistently failing the Bechdel test each year, it is still unfortunately an exciting and important thing to have films where female characters are not only given names, but who also speak to each other about something other than a man! What’s more, the genre of horror is an exceptionally male-dominated space, and Thorndike’s mission doesn’t end with Lyle — in fact, this powerfully-written and directed film is her first in a planned trifecta of female-driven horror movies. Next up is a horror film called Putney, which centers around a haunted TED Talk. I think I told you earlier in relation to this point: get out of my face (and go help fund this thing).

2. Cin.e.ma.tography.

This is stunning… but get me tf out of here.

Ughhhhh, every goddamn shot in this goddamn movie is goddamn gorgeous. Confession: I am not an expert on cinematography; I cannot name famous filmmakers and styles of shooting for your reference. However, I love beautiful, hand-crafted things, and I have, despite my lack of film school, noticed how so many of the movies we see today are not interested in exploring the power of color, lighting, and visual aesthetic. Lyle is the antithesis of this sort of cinema-laziness, with each moment punching your eyeballs in with the sheer force of its beauty. There was a particular scene in the film, where Gaby Hoffman is slowly, simply, unpacking a box, while Lyle plays in the background. I turned to my wife while watching, paused the movie, asked her how such a simple thing could be so breathtakingly beautiful — two human beings in a nearly-empty apartment, and I felt as though any still from the scene (and every other in the film) could have been hanging in a museum.

3. Gaby F*cking Hoffman

Marry me

WELL, SHIT. You guys undoubtedly remember Gaby Hoffman from our collective shared childhood experience watching movies like Field of Dreams and Uncle Buck and Now and Then (!!!), annnnd you may also know her from this really indie, underground show called Girls. She also just finished shooting on Amazon’s upcoming series, Transparent.

In Lyle, Hoffman seems to channel every badass bone in her body to deliver a stunning, tragic performance as Lyle’s mother, Leah. What’s more, she chose the project despite the fact that the film’s budget only had room to pay her $100 for each day of shooting. In an interview with The Guardian, Hoffman explains, “What I prefer is good writing and smart people — wherever that is found, and that is found all over the place in terms of budget — that’s where I tend to want to be.”

4. Impactful Brevity

Lol

At a running-time of 65 minutes, you can fit three Lyles into one Blue is the Warmest Color. To that I say: Alleluia. Lyle was originally conceptualized as a horror webseries, but writer/director Thorndike realized during filming that she preferred it as one, fluid piece. What we get as the audience is a story told exactly as its creator intended, with a powerful complexity that lasts far past the initial hour of viewing. The musical score follows suit, delivering a bone-chilling backdrop of stark piano notes. Incredible how 65 minutes and a few piano chords can make you hide under your own bed at age 33…

5. Ghosts Don’t Discriminate

You know what rules? What rules is when a movie has queer characters (Leah is married to June, played by F to 7th’s Ingrid Jungermann) who, instead of dealing primarily or exclusively with being-gay-gay-stuff, have to face everyday-life struggles such as terror, possession, and hauntings. Thorndike told Tribeca Films, “When I first thought of the idea for Lyle, I thought it would be interesting to make a genre film with a lesbian couple, where the story wasn’t about how hard it is to be gay. I really wanted that.” Lucky for her, since ghosts have been equal opportunity haunters since the dawn of time. Bra-fucking-vo.

6. Because We Will Watch It

Yes, We Can

Thorndike has been repeatedly told by bigger-budget film-humans that there simply isn’t an audience for female-driven horror films. Say what?! Oh, sure… women don’t want to see themselves in horror films just like they all love to cook pot roasts while wearing sexy lingerie. When I asked Thorndike how she knew there was an audience, she replied, simply, “I know there’s an audience for people wanting female driven genre films because I want them.” You and me both, Stewart. YOU AND ME BOTH.

So, there you have them. My six points.

Not only do I personally want more films like Lyle, but I think we’d be better served with more humans like Thorndike sitting in the writer/director seat. So, go watch the movie. Love the movie. Hide under your bed. Et cetera.

Then, do what people do these days when they love something (which you inevitably will):

Share the movie, share the Kickstarter campaign, and support Thorndike’s future work by donating. Let’s all enjoy Lyle and support Putney, yes… but more so, let’s show the universe that, undoubtedly, there is an audience for female-driven horror. Even if we are watching the film while cooking a pot roast in our sexy lingerie.

PS: There are six points on this list. Each title has six syllables. Each point has six explanatory sentences. You are welcome, you’ve been tricked, you are probably now possessed. If I knew how to make the sixes drip blood using HTML code, I would.

PPS: Despite always knowing that my mother’s name is Rosemary, it was only upon writing this piece that I realized that makes me Rosemary’s Baby.
*creepy piano music, fade to black*

Also.Also.Also: Laverne Cox Needs Our Help and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, Seahawks! I’m calling you that because you’re winners or something. I don’t really get how football works, but let’s take a peek at the stories we missed this week while I was trying to figure it out. (I didn’t.)

Pee Wherever The Fuck You Want, Y’all

Maine: The Bathroom Equality State.

The Maine Supreme Court has delivered a significant victory for transgender students. In its interpretation of the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA), the Court ruled that trans students have the right to use the bathroom with which they identify and cannot be forced to use a separate restroom.

The case involved a fifth grade student who had already been fully identifying as a girl for several years and was using the girls’ restroom at Regional School Unit 26. Another student’s guardian objected, and a media firestorm prompted the school to begin forcing her to use a solitary staff unisex restroom. Eventually, the student’s family had to remove her from the school and move to another part of the state so that she could go to school safely.

Though the decision was not unanimous because of one justice’s concerns about how the law was written, the court did unanimously agree that the student deserved equal access to the girls’ restroom.

Don’t F*ck With Panti

Don’t ever tell a drag queen that you know homophobia better than they do.

A video by Rory O’Neill – also known as drag queen Panti – on homophobia in Irish society has gone viral, with more than 100,000 views in less than two days… In the video, Panti fights back over the use of the word ‘homophobia’ which he says has been appropriated by other groups since The Saturday Night Show interview.

“For the last three weeks, I have been lectured to by heterosexual people about what homophobia is and who is allowed to identify it,” he told the audience. “People who have never experienced homophobia in their lives… have told me that unless I am being thrown into prison or herded onto a cattle truck then it is not homophobia – and that feels oppressive.”

Vanity Fair’s Best Cover Yet

Vanity Fair’s 20th annual Hollywood Issue has a three-panel gatefold cover, and unlike every other year in their history, a black person is on the actual cover of the issue this year rather than folded inside the magazine for second glimpses. OUT OF THE FOLD AND INTO THE STREETS, Y’ALL.

Jerry Seinfeld is The Least Funny or Aware Person on Earth

Jerry Seinfeld, the man who thinks his own life is funnier than anyone else’s, just doesn’t get why comedy needs to be diverse. I mean, don’t we all relate to him and his weird-ass life? ISN’T IT ENOUGH THAT HE GAVE US A SHITTY SITCOM LIKE TWENTY YEARS AGO?

In a recent sit-down with  BuzzFeed Brews with CBS This Morning, Seinfeld said it is “anti-comedy” to approach the genre like it’s “the census.” Seinfeld was asked why he featured so many white men in his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and seemed to become irritated at the question.

“It really pisses me off,” he said. “People think [comedy] is the census or something, it’s gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares?”

 ”Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested,” he said. “I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.”

It Ain’t Easy Being Queer Anywhere

+ But it might be a little better in Latin America:

Latin America’s gay rights revolution has highlighted the ingenuity of gay activists and the leadership of politicians like Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In July 2010, she became a gay rights heroine when she signed Latin America’s first same-sex marriage law, over vigorous opposition from the archbishop of Buenos Aires (today Pope Francis). But the celebration of activists and politicians has overlooked another hero in this campaign: the region’s high courts. Their embrace of gay rights has been nothing short of audacious, especially in contrast to recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.

+ In Russia, 77% of LGBTQ people don’t trust the police – and the queer community is being overwhelmed by violence that no cop seems to care about. But Happy Olympics!

+ For queer folks coming to seek asylum from South Africa in America, safety isn’t always that easy to come by.

For The Marriage Crowd

+ Next up in the #MarriageEqualityWars: Wisconsin.

+ Gigi Chao doesn’t wanna marry a man – and since her dad doesn’t get it, she appealed to him in public. (He has since rescinded his dowry offer.)

A week after Hong Kong tycoon Cecil Chao doubled his 2012 offer of $64 million to any man who could marry his gay daughter, Gigi Chao has publicly rebuked him and urged her dad to accept her partner of nine years.

“There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me,” she wrote in an open letter published by two Hong Kong newspapers on Wednesday. “It would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of [girlfriend Sean Eav], and treat her like a normal, dignified human being.”

+ DOMA being struck down didn’t just change one moment in history; it continues to change our history.

+ Blue Cross Blue Shield is really sorry to all the North Carolina homos who waited too long for family coverage health insurance.

+ In Oregon, gay marriage is one thing. But helping make gay weddings awesome? That’s another.

Free CeCe: The Documentary You Could Make Into A Thing

Just f*cking do it.

I began researching this story with Laverne Cox when I was the Series Producer of the public television show, In The Life. When In The Life ended, in December 2012, this project stayed with me. It seems each month there is a new headline of a bias crime against a transgender woman of color. I became committed to producing and directing this powerful, feature-length film that confronts transgender bias crime with both rigor and humanity. I wanted to hear the voices of victims who were all too often silenced by brutality; I wanted to produce a useful film that sensitizes the audience and amplifies the authentic voices and lives of trans people.

Acabeymia

Rutgers is offering a class on Beyonce. I have no words for this situation as it leaves me blindingly optimistic for our world.

Also.Also.Also: Um, I Think There Are Gay People in Sochi, and Other Stories We Missed This Week

It’s Wednesday! So far I’ve had too much coffee every day this week. Here’s the stories I missed while I was oversleeping the next morning.

Putting the ME Back in Media

+ Meet Disney’s two new lesbian moms:

You probably missed it, but the Disney Channel passed a historic milestone last night with the introduction of the first openly gay characters to ever appear on the channel. The characters, a lesbian couple, were a part of the newest episode of Good Luck Charlie, which is currently on its last season.

+ Is it really so much to ask that the media represent people of color? And is it so much to ask that they do it well?

+ Brittney Griner has been nominated for Cartoon Network’s Hall of Game Awards. This could be the victory of her life.

Happy Belated Birthday, Virginia Woolf!

You’re still perfect.

You Should Go / You Should Give

+ Guys! If you’re around on Tuesday and you live remotely close to the DC area, I expect to see you at this awesome panel about intersectionality in the consent movement. Also, there’s booze. And my face. Talking to you.

Join the founders of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture for an evening of drinks, food and photo booth merriment, plus a special panel discussion about building an inclusive and intersectional consent movement.

PANELISTS & SPECIAL GUESTS:

SORAYA CHEMALY – Feminist Journalist
SESALI BOWEN – Feministing
KIMBERLY INEZ MCGUIRE – National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
REV. ROB KEITHAN – Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
SANDRA KIM – Founder of Everyday Feminism
CARMEN RIOS – Consent Activist, Online Community Organizer at Feminist Majority Foundation, & Writer at Autostraddle
REBECCA NAGLE & HANNAH BRANCATO – Founders of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture

+ Support Student Art!

Where can Florida high school and college students learn from a head camera operator for CSI, an MTV music video producer, or a director with CBS News?Student Art Festival [STARTFEST] bridges the gap between young, aspiring filmmakers, and leading industry professionals.

“It’s the only film festival in Florida specifically designed for students,” says Kyle Snavely, President of [STARTFEST] and former video production teacher. “From my years teaching at both the high school and college level, I realized there needed to be a place where students can compete against their peers, AND receive valuable, constructive feedback from people who know what it takes to be successful in this industry.”

Russia Remains Relevant

The Mayor of Sochi claims that no gay people live in his city, but it’s about to be invaded by a bunch of Olympians wearing rainbow so we can rest assured he’ll get what we deserves.

Germany's Olympic outfits for Sochi. pic.twitter.com/sIsxTIDjOO

— Steve Wilson (@SteveWilson_LDN) October 2, 2013

In The Name of Love / The Law

+ Virginia’s Attorney General is standing on the right side of history. And the courtroom. Should it come to that, I mean.

+ An Illinois lawmaker is already trying to repeal marriage equality.

+ When a small town stands behind your gay romance, nothing will stand in your way ever again.

This Should Come As No Surprise to People Who Have Read The Constitution

Surprise! Turns out trying to disqualify gay people from being on juries is not actually a thing. We all must suffer forced service for the government without thought to our orientation. It’s the American way.

Misandry, Duh

Sometimes, the best thing is no thing. Especially when that “thing” is dudes.

It all started with a vision I had for my 30th birthday a few years ago. Never one to sit around and wait for someone else to throw me a party, I decided to create the most wonderful thing I could imagine: all of my ladyfriends, from all parts of my life and all parts of the country, together in the desert, just hanging out. I rented a cabin in Joshua Tree and made it happen. The weekend was so wonderful that I’ve done it every year since, with a few tweaks to the invite list and location.

Which is how I came to spend last week in a resort in the desert outside Palm Springs with a group of 45 women, no agenda, and no men. It’s nothing salacious: We wear muumuus. We eat a lot of cheese. We take a lot of naps. We invent cocktails. We dance.

Also.Also.Also: CeCe McDonald, Beyoncé, and Laura Jane Grace Raise Their Middle Fingers to the Man and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, Jheri Curls! How are you feeling today? I’m feeling like TAKING LIFE BY THE HORNS. But first, the stories we missed this week.

The Myth of Beyonce’s Imperfections

The newly released Shriver Report features writing from a ton of amazing women – Beyoncé among them – focused on the economic impacts of gender inequality. Queen Bey’s essay slammed “the myth of gender equality.”

Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.

We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together.

Bow down, bitches.

F*ck The Man

+ Trans 16-year-old Jewelyes Gutierrez is facing criminal charges after defending herself from bullies.

+ Marissa Alexander will remain free on bond – but with tightened restrictions.

+ CeCe McDonald got free and jammed out to Queen Bey. With Laverne Cox. NBD.

On @Beyonce‘s new album not full on rachet but #CoutureRatchet. @Free_CeCe said post that. #posted. Jamming to the visual album with CeCe

— Laverne Cox (@Lavernecox) January 13, 2014

You Should Give

+ Easy Abby wants to do it with you. Erm, they want to do it together. This thing. This crazy thing called a webseries! ONLY THEY WANNA PUT IT ON THE TEEVEE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32UH5b4-iS8

+ THE FOXY MERKINS. Sounds sexy.

The Good, The Bad, The Downright Depressing

+ Who Decides? According to NARAL, if you’re in America, it’s definitely not you.

The anti-choice War on Women did not slow down in 2013. You can be sure it will only ramp up further in 2014 as the mid-term elections approach. As opponents of a woman’s right to choose continue to chip away at our freedoms piece by piece, we’ll be there to fight them every step of the way and reveal the shadowy organizations supporting them. But we’ll work just as hard to expand our freedoms, so that every woman has not just the right, but the opportunity to make whatever choice is right for her.

+ Gay activists may not get their rainbow flags and fly them, too, in the Little Saigon Tet parade.

+ Liz Cheney is no longer running for office in Wyoming, which is nice on account of she was the absolute worst.

+ There are so many abominable things about gay marriage that Utah can’t seem to remember all of them at once.

+ Whoops! Turns out Obamacare is awesome and saves the government money. Put that on your “broken website” and enroll in it, GOP.

+ Chris Christie vetoed a bill that simplified the process for trans* folks of obtaining amended birth certificates. I am guessing he vetoed it because it wasn’t about bridges, or because it does nothing to fix his really fucking unimaginative name. Really? Why has this never come up.

A Man Could Go To Jail for Doing A Bad Thing

Newsworthy.

A Toronto man named Gregory Alan Elliott was arrested and charged two years ago with criminal harassment for threatening messages he allegedly sent to women via Twitter. His case finally began in a Toronto court yesterday. If convicted, he could face jail time.

It’s a heartening development for women whose professional and personal lives are heavily taxed by the specter of online abuse. Traditional law enforcement channels (not always on the cutting edge of new social media technology) often don’t take internet-based harassment seriously, because it seems to exist only in an intangible playground and because our culture’s “boys will be boys”/”don’t feed the trolls” apologia is so aggressive. The line where online attacks cross over into real-life danger is muddy and ill-defined for most people—even, quite often, victims themselves. Is this real? Am I being oversensitive? Am I installing an alarm system in my house because some 13-year-old boy in Ohio is bored? 

That’s What She Said

It’s baaaaaaack.

Media Matters

+ So, what exactly does MSNBC plan to do about the Sochi Olympics?

+ Jared Leto got a Golden Globe for his shitty movie, and then he gave a shitty speech. Shit.

+ “Chozen” doesn’t do shit for anyone, you big fuck-ups.

+ 2014’s gonna be a big year. It might be the year black women take over Hollywood.

+ Catching Fire is the first film since 1973’s The Exorcist to be the top-grossing film of its year. Katniss Everdeen, you have won the Hunger Games.

Catching Fire, the second installment of The Hunger Games saga is not actually an experimental art house film about a family arguing over a pizza order as they play an epic game of Monopoly, crossed the $400-million mark at the domestic box office this week. With a domestic haul of $409.4 million, the Jennifer Lawrence archery expo has passed Iron Man 3 as the highest-grossing domestic movie of 2013, which would be a notable achievement all on its own if it were not augmented by another trivia-worthy fact: Catching Fire is the first movie with a solo female lead since 1973’s The Exorcist to become the top-grossing film of the year.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues

NPR is streaming the new Against Me! album and there’s only one takeaway: LAURA JANE GRACE IS PERFECT.

Also.Also.Also: Kathleen Hanna, Ellen Degeneres, and The San Antonio Four Walk Into a Pantene Commercial and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, bamboo shots! I had a snow day yesterday, which was nice because I hate snow and awful because I hate snow.

Here’s the stories we missed this week while I was hibernating.

Justice for the San Antonio 4

The San Antonio Four were released from prison after 15 years.

This Sunday, in central Texas, four women and their families sat down to a big lunch together. It would have been a wholly unremarkable scene, but for one thing: Three of the women were only recently released from prison for a crime they say they didn’t commit.

Elizabeth Ramirez, 39, Cassandra Rivera, 38, Kristie Mayhugh, 40, and Anna Vasquez, 38, are the San Antonio Four. In 1994, the women, all lesbians, were accused of aggravated sexual assault on a child; by 1998, they’d been convicted of the crime and were starting their prison sentences—15 years for Rivera, Mayhugh, and Vasquez; 37 1/2 years for Ramirez, because she’d been the “ringleader.” But on Nov. 18, 2013, Ramirez, Mayhugh, and Rivera were released on bail after the testimony of an expert medical witness used to convict them was found to be faulty and a judge recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacate their conviction. Vasquez, who had been out on parole for a year already, will no longer have to meet strict parole requirements.

Finally, justice prevails in a case that, one can only hope, is a relic of a weird, panicked time in recent American history, when the word gay or lesbian was too often conflated with pedophile.

Black LGBT Power 100

The G-List Society Black LGBT Power 100 has the approval of Elixher, meaning it has my implicit approval already.

We have to give props to G-List Society, a blog dedicated to entertainment, events, news and lifestyle in the LGBT community, for the first installment of their 2013 “Black LGBT Power 100.” We’re impressed by the depth and breadth of people and organizations spotlighted — from Harlem’s lesbian-owned restaurant Billie’s Black to trans author Janet Mock and openly gay The Voice contestant De’Borah Garner.

“Hundreds of Black same-gender-loving men and women from all over the world grabbed headlines locally, regionally, nationally and internationally for their significant achievements, record-breaking accomplishments and controversial notoriety that rival demographics with seemingly larger influences,” boasts G-List Society blogger Waddie G. “Throughout 2013, many brave people in the Black LGBT community stepped out on their courageous leadership in positive and controversial ways to show that power is also in the Black same-gender-loving voice regardless of reach.”

This Week in Women

+ Why can’t TIME magazine just choose a woman for person of the year already. Like, would it be so fucking hard to name Wendy Davis or Hillary Clinton or Janet Mock or any fucking person on Earth who does not identify as a man person of the year or is that an actually impossible feat. If George W. Bush can do it, can’t we all?

+ The ACLU is suing the Conference of Catholic Bishops on behalf of Tamesha Means, who was denied care at Mercy Health Partners when her water broke at 18 weeks. While they’re on the phone with those jerks they should pass along the memo to the Pope that economic equality includes women’s rights and LGBT rights.

+ Surprise: women journalists are at more risk for danger on the job because of sexual harassment and violence and general douchebaggery.

+ I don’t think Pantene is going to solve your sexism problem, y’all.

Don’t you hate it how people are labelled differently for engaging in the same behaviour? What’s “persuasive” in a man is labelled “pushy” in a woman. A father who stays up all night working is “dedicated,” but a woman who does that is “selfish.” That is, like,  so unfair. Luckily, that problem has a solution. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the solution to that problem, which uptight complainy feminists might call “sexism” but that this ad calls “labels,”  isn’t “collective political action and widespread cultural change.” The solution is shampoo. 

+ Our political system needs to care about black women.

+ Women don’t appreciate when you use sex to sell cheap shit.

+ “Passing for White and Straight: How My Looks Hide My Identity.”

My privilege in passing reflects a racism and heterosexism that continues to flourish, despite romantic notions that racial mixing and gay marriage will create a utopian future free of prejudices.

Police officers don’t suspect me. Store owners like me. White strangers don’t feel threatened by me. Racists get too comfortable with me. Homophobes unknowingly befriend me. My straight white doppelgänger and I ride the subway together as I try to lose her in crowds and leave her behind at parties. I dispel her with the perpetual coming-out, the casual “I’m not white,” the introduction of my partner.

I’ve spent most of my adult life actively trying to evade her. But every time I sit down with new people, I know that she sits down first.

+ Toni Braxton wants to play a lesbian on Orange is the New Black. Lesbians around the world rejoiced.

We Wish You A Queerer Christmas

This holiday season, rely on friends.

Author’s Note: And wine.

The Other Other Bound 2

Ellen and Portia made a Bound 2-themed holiday card for their loved ones this year. This that red-cup-all-on-the-lawn shit.

Gay Rights Roundup

+ The first same-sex weddings in England and Wales will begin March 29, 2014! That gives us juuust enough time to buy a nice hat.

+ Fortune 500 companies are getting the hang of this equal-benefits-for-same-sex-attracted-folk-and-their-kin thing.

+ Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest Nelson Mandela’s funeral and go immediately to Hell.

+ ICYMI: It ain’t easy being queer and homeless.

 There were times — after he told his parents he was gay, for example, and his mother wept and his father tried to hit him — when Fredy Bolvito curled up on a bench in Union Square here and cried because he had AIDS and no job and no place to stay and he felt, he said, that “my life was over.”

+ Virginia Rep. Randy Forbes thinks the GOP campaign fund shouldn’t give money to gay candidates.

+ Viet Rainbow is mad as hell and they’re not gonna take it anymore:

Hieu Nguyen and fellow protesters stood on the sidewalk holding signs and waving an enormous rainbow flag as the traditional Vietnamese parade passed them by.

Barred from the Lunar New Year’s event — and largely ignored in their own community — members of the fledgling gay rights group decided it was time to stop playing nice.

They took training sessions with established LGBT groups, sought out legal strategy from veteran gay rights defenders Lambda Legal and attended workshops.

Now emboldened activists are flexing their muscles and demanding change in Little Saigon, a sprawling immigrant community that has dragged its feet on coming to terms with basic gay rights issues.

“This is not the Rosa Parks era,” said Nguyen, a Garden Grove social worker. “I’m not sitting at the back of the bus anymore.”

You Should Go / Give / Be Excited About…

+ Bloom: Memories will feature the first-ever trans* character in an RPG. And it’s all thanks to a trans* game developer. SO SUPPORT IT ALREADY.

+ Feminist Campus is spotlighting young feminists with the Feminist You Should Know contest – and all this week, you can vote for a winner!

+ Support Rape Aid with a $20 ticket to their Wintry Mix party! Oh, and you get to go.

+ On Friday, DC’s West End Cinema will be screening The Punk Singer. I’ll be there!

Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill and dance-punk trio Le Tigre, rose to national attention as the reluctant but never shy voice of the riot grrrl movement. She became one of the most famously outspoken feminist icons, a cultural lightning rod. Her critics wished she would just shut-up, and her fans hoped she never would. So in 2005, when Hanna stopped shouting, many wondered why. Through 20 years of archival footage and intimate interviews with Hanna, THE PUNK SINGER takes viewers on a fascinating tour of contemporary music and offers a never-before-seen view into the life of this fearless leader.

Also.Also.Also: Bill O’Reilly Should Eat Some Sriracha and Shut Up And Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, turtles! (You’ll never know if I mean the animal or the chocolate, and if you’re wise, you’ll never care.) This week I got nostalgic and had subsequent panics about the future! So here’s all the stories we missed while I cried softly to the series finale of Fraiser on Netflix.

I cried a sea of tears to this last night and I’m not ashamed

Goodbye, Sweet Sriracha

We tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it didn’t even matter. The Sriracha plant is closing, at least partially. The only thing that could possibly be next is the apocalypse and/or a new world order, really.

Period Pride

You know you got it.

Forgot about “your time of the month,” “the Curse,” and all the delicate and discreet euphemisms for menstruation. Recently, there has been a spate of viral music videos and art from a rising group of female artists who are determined to sing, rap and depict menstruation with (graphic) candor.

From rapping about cunnilingus on their period to putting a full-bush, bleeding vagina on a T-shirt, these musical and visual expressions of menstruation may seem initially jarring and even over-the-top. But they represent a bracing backlash against the blue-liquid marketing culture. Now, a generation of women who began their periods in an age of euphemistic “Mother Nature” ads are embracing menstruation in all of its bloody glory as their way of reclaiming their un-sanitized womanhood.

WATCH: TransMilitary

A new documentary reminds us that DADT wasn’t the only anti-queer policy inhibiting full participation and fulfillment for queermos in the military. For trans* folks, their preferred genders remain a complicated battle line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sH3nKv9miA

F*ck Bill O’Reilly

Out actor Alex Newell from Glee has no patience for Bill O’Reilly patronizing “dopey kids” by trying to protect them from trans* characters on screen. (He regrettably forgot to mention that Bill O’Reilly called Glee an “undeniably…good program,” which is a lie.)

Shortly after Newell’s character, Wade “Unique” Adams, was introduced on Glee, O’Reilly criticized the popular musical series for its inclusion of a trans teen and claimed, “If you make it glamorous in a program likeGlee, which is undeniably a good program … a lot of these dopey kids are confused about who they are.”

In a new interview with Fusion, Newell fired back with a few comments of his own about O’Reilly’s harsh words. “It’s wrong to call people dopey,” he told Fusion‘s Alicia Menendez Thursday. “When it’s something this poignant and such a big part of the society, you can’t call kids dopey, because this is something that they’re actually going through, this is what they feel on the inside, there’s nothing dopey about it.”

Big ____ on Campus

College campuses may be the nexus for a movement toward preferred pronouns.

Where Have All The Lesbos Gone

Not to the TV set, that’s for sure.

Speaking at “Lesbophobia in the Media”, a debate held jointly by Women in Journalism and lesbian magazine Diva last week, Carr called for more realistic depictions of gay women on TV. She highlighted how unlikely it is for disability to be a characteristic of an on-screen lesbian. “I’m not seen as being capable of having any kind of sex as a disabled woman,” she said. “I’m asexual. Disabled women are very much desexed.”

Writer Iman Qureshi said lesbianism is never “incidental to a character” in TV and film. “You don’t wake up in the morning, have breakfast and think – I’m having breakfast as a lesbian,” she said. “Why can’t lesbians just be people?” Jane Czyzselska, the editor of Diva magazine, agreed that lesbians are either portrayed as heavily sexualised, wacky or asexual. “I don’t see any butch dykes on television. I don’t see any archetypes or role models and we definitely need more to move things on.”

MHP’s Black Feminist Syllabus

Well this is fantastic. READ IT.

Last week, whilst schooling Michelle Cottle on her insipid “Michelle Obama is a feminist nightmare” article, Melissa Harris-Perry quipped, “You might want to read up a little bit on black women and our feminism. I’m happy to send you a syllabus.” To which the Internet responded, “Um, yes, please do.”

Very happily, that quip has now become reality: here is MHP’s suggested reading list on black feminism. It’s an amazing, inspiring, hugely necessary resource, and it covers a wide breadth of theory and history. Take a look, educate yourself, share it, use it to augment your holiday wishlist, bookmark it for future use, print it out and turn it into a vision board, etc etc.

Gay Marriage Chronicles

+ A majority of Croations do not have positive emotions related to same-sex marriage, so their government is going to push ahead with gay civil unions instead.

+ How the f*ck do Mormons feel about gay marriage, anyway?

You Should Give / Go

+  “Out of This” will transport you from Art Basel Miami into some sort of artsy, queer fantasyland. All you gotta do is RSVP.

+ Chaperones needs your help!

Chaperones is about Alex Bell, a math teacher, and Ramona Hernandez, an English teacher, who are new to Lakeview High School. Because Lakeview is notorious for having a disastrous prom every year, the new teachers are required to attend as chaperones, as nobody else will do it. Alex and Ramona take prom as an opportunity to get to know each other better, but every time they manage to connect, a rowdy student or the callous Principal Jensen get in their way. The story follows their efforts to get together throughout prom night despite the challenges being presented to them.

+ You can’t always go home again. But you could always go HOMO FOR THE HOLIDAYS AMIRITE.

Homo For The Holidays is a seasonal spectacle guaranteed to make even the most stubborn yuletides gay! An unforgettable all-star cast of burlesque, cabaret, dance, drag, and musical local luminaries come together in a display of glittering grandeur that’s been called “F*CKING GREAT….F*CKING HILARIOUS!” by Dan Savage of The Stranger.

Jinkx Monsoon will be performing in Homo for the Holidays December 12th-14th and December 23rd-24th. Scott Shoemaker will be performing December 18th-22nd.)

Also.Also.Also: I’m Very Bi-Serious About This, and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, queens! (And I mean that in all of the queerest ways possible. Lookin’ at you, Elton John.) It’s Wednesday, which means I’ve spent seven whole days scanning my Feedly at work and waiting with intense anxiety to bring you the stories we missed this week. Also, sleeping. Oversleeping, to be exact.

Daily Reminder: Bisexuality Is Real, F*ck These People

America’s inability to deal with Lady Gaga’s bisexuality is probably emblematic of the fact that 15% of Americans think bisexuality isn’t “legit” – with lots of queers among them. Can we please get with the picture?

On Getting Over The Gay Thing: Political Tales of LGBT Discourse

+ Voters in conservative states like South Carolina are coming around to gay marriage at light speed! Though they aren’t quite all with us yet.

+ The upcoming votes on ENDA could be critical for the Republican Party if they plan to, well, stay in business at all (though they don’t seem to really “get it” at all).

+ Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter wants his city to be the “most LGBT-friendly in the world,” and he’s off to a strong start with a slew of new protections in place for the queers of his heartland.

+ In Texas, two same-sex couples are challenging the state’s gay marriage ban.

Because I’m Very Cultured

If you don’t know any good queer artists, here’s 11.

Nicole Goodwin, Bonafide Queer Artist

Susan Eisenberg’s exhibit “On Equal Terms” talks gender disparity in construction.

Feelings About Russia and the Olympics

Russia’s fucked, because Love Always Wins. Plus, I bet the “Gay Games” in Moscow will be about twenty times more fun and colorful than the Olympics anyway. Put your hand up to this pane of glass if you feel me!

The Debut of Their Debutante

When it comes to Cotillion, nothing beats genuine, loving parents watching you grow up – and as for the “two moms” thing, well. F*ck anyone who gets in your way.

Dear Civil Behavior: My wife and I are mothers of a lovely and accomplished 17-year-old daughter, who has been invited to have her debut this year at our annual cotillion. I was fortunate to have a debut as a young woman in the early 1980s and view it as a significant rite of passage that I would like my daughter to also experience. What, if any, are the special considerations for the daughter of same-sex parents who are female? We have many male family members and friends who have offered to present her, but is this necessary? — Boomer Debutante, Dallas

A. Indeed, this is not the kind of “coming out” issue I usually address, but what an interesting question — and one that on second glance is much more layered than it first appears. For the 99 percent of us who are not a part of “Society,” your query is really a stand-in for all the other situations where a daughter with lesbian moms might lack a dad for certain rituals, like “father/daughter” dances and being “given away” at her wedding.

…As your daughter has been invited (which makes it pretty much a done deal), the “committee” must be well aware of your family situation, which gives your debutante-in-waiting various options. The three of you should talk it over and decide whether one or both moms will present her. Whether she chooses one of you or prefers a threesome, walk in proudly, arm in arm with your beautiful daughter. Just as you’ve no doubt done for her whole life, show your daughter you are proud of her, and of your family.

This Video Is Sweet

Told you so.

Bulletin Board: You Should Go and/or Give and/or Submit

+ Girl on Girl, the could-be documentary about femmes and the invisibility which ails them, needs your help!

http://vimeo.com/75951750

+ The LA Gay and Lesbian Wedding Expo is coming up this weekend!

+ Remember The Revival? I loved that ish, and now they need your help to make their epic, poetry-filled road trip into a MOVIE. COME ON, Y’ALL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u-8sy5dGP4

+ The Hoax zine “is a collaborative zine attempting to bring feminisms into everyday life.” And they’re soliciting submissions on “Embodiments” by December 10! Get yr academic on.

+ Wanna hear bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry talking black womanhood? You totally can, you know, if you can make it to NYC by Friday.

+ Pier Kids explores the lives of the LGBT homeless youth who “call the Christopher St. Pier home.” But everything means nothing if they ain’t got you.

+ The feature film AWOL requires your dough to spice up your life.

+ Hey, San Francisco! Time is running out to catch the “romp through gender queerness” that is Sidewinders at the Cutting Ball.

+ ASK NOT WHAT ROSIE THE RIVETER DID FOR YOU. ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR ROSIE THE RIVETER AND SAVE THE G*DDAMN WILLOW RUN BOMBER PLANT WHERE IT ALL WENT DOWN JFC.

The Unicorn Is So Mainstream

Scotland sold us out a long, long time ago.

The official animal of Scotland is the Unicorn.

A fictitious creature may seem an odd choice for a country’s national animal, but perhaps not for a country famed for its love for and long history of myth and legend, and the unicorn has been a Scottish heraldic symbol since the 12th century, when it was used on an early form of the Scottish coat of arms by William I.

Maybe they’ll share with us.

Also.Also.Also: Ramming Lesbian Girl Scout Cookies Down Your Throat and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, beautiful! It’s a SUNSHINE DAY! (DeAnne, are you surprised?)

Here’s the stories we missed while I was working for the weekend.

For The Cause: The Good, the Bad, the Reactionary

+ The ladies of Xelle are raising a red flag for LGBT equality, and it sounds pretty damn good.

+ Really pathetic Internet trolls are upset that professional sports teams were part of #SpiritDay last week and stood united against anti-LGBT bullying. But (surprise!) nobody really cared, and they remained on the right side of history.

+ Montenegro’s first-ever pride parade was met with violence.

+ Sigourney Weaver really, really loves you.

+ Fuck Emily Yoffe. And go go Amanda Hess!

This Week’s Unanimous “Fuck Y’all” Is Directed At PJI

Since the Pacific Justice Institute thinks allowing trans* folks to use their preferred bathrooms is equivalent to “harassment,” they should probably look into learning the definition of harassment. They’re currently organizing with parents in Colorado against a high-school student who has been out as trans* for two years and fears for harassment because she wants to use the girls’ room, because that’s a GREAT USE OF TIME.

Thank Alanis that her mom is speaking out to support her:

My daughter was the one who learned about the Pacific Justice Institute. She saw it online. She was upset. It made her panic. She saw where their story had become international news and she saw what people were saying. It gave her anxiety attacks. She was upset about the whole thing. She kept asking me how people could do that to her. She saw all this negative stuff about her and she can’t understand how they could say those things when they don’t even know who she is as a person. They don’t know what this does to a kid…

What you’re doing isn’t right. You say that you’re a God-loving people but you’ve targeted my daughter – a kid – like this. You shouldn’t do this to any kid. You should be ashamed. You’re wrong for what you’ve done to my daughter.

I’ll Drink to That

Meredith and her kick-ass Autostraddle column were featured in Beer Advocate! Turns out lots of people find women and beer to be an excellent combination.

click to expand!

Oh Na Na, What’s Your Name

Depending on the year you were born and the specific region of the United States in which you were located at that time, I probably already have a good idea. But we can check with Drake just in case, because I hear you’re good with them soft lips. (What the fuck does that even mean?!)

Ramming Gay Marriage Down The Throat of Homophobes Forever

+ Linda Oliver, Mayor of West Union, South Carolina, thinks us queers are “ramming” gay marriage down her throat. There’s an obvious punch line here but I’m way too kind to do that. I’m a journalist. Plus, nobody else likes her anyway so I guess she’ll go and eat worms.

+ Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the good deeds of a rogue county clerk are bringing local lesbians together for life. In matrimony, I mean.

+ Gay couples in Tennessee are gonna FIGHT! FOR THEIR RIGHT! TO A MARRIAGE PAAAAAARTAY.

I’m So Glad I Was A Girl Scout

If Girl Scout cookies are made with lesbianism, then I’m clearly not buying enough. Should we be sacrificing them to Lesbian Jesus at Camp after all? I was just busy eating them in bed while I counted pennies toward my abortion fund piggy bank, but I can be there in five minutes if you need me.

ready for what

Religious Right activists have long campaigned against the Girl Scouts of the USA, and pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner of Generations Radio have now joined in by urging listeners not to purchase Girl Scout cookies.

“Please, I beg of you, do not buy Girl Scout cookies,” Swanson said. “Please, I beg of you, stop buying Girl Scout cookies.”

But if they do, he said, they should “take a big, fat, black magic marker” and “start marking out all of the references to the Girl Scouts of America on all the boxes.” Swanson warned that the “wicked” Girl Scouts are promoting “lesbianism” and abortion, calling the cookies “food offered to idols.”

You Better Werq, Bitch

+ Don’t miss it: Our own Autostraddle writer Vivian Underhill, mastermind behind Queered Science, was featured on Bitch:

“In the early 90s at Princeton, there were only a handful of students who were out as LGB people,” says Dr. Donna Riley, who helped found the first engineering program at a U.S. women’s college (the Picker Engineering Program at Smith) and is openly bisexual. “We were mostly just met with silence. We knew to compartmentalize, and we knew when and where it was safe to be out—and that was definitely not in the engineering building.”

+ Elliot Sailers, a former Ford model, is making waves with a gender-bending new ‘do and a mission to make it in mens’ modeling.

Caitlin Oliver Pretty Much Pwned Everyone, And Other Queer Victories

+ Caitlin Oliver of Chicago set a new arcade game world record this week. It’s been reported that, in return, every bro on the globe accepted some ice for their burns.

+ In Eagle Pass, Texas, Eileen Hernandez (“I am actually a lesbian. I really am.”) and Jennifer Mijares (her straight friend) were elected Homecoming Queen & Queen. I have so many positive emotions about this that it’s actually crazy.

“If one person would try bringing us down, so many others would say no, keep your head up, what you guys are doing is awesome,” Hernandez says. So they kept those heads up and by Friday night, both girls were wearing crowns. “We’re just smiling like crazy,” Hernandez says. “Tears fell down our face.” “We were excited. We won. We won first place,” Mijares says. “And we made a difference,” Hernandez says.

You Should Go (And Give) (Unto Others) (That’s What She Said)

+ If you’re free Monday at 6:30 PM and you live in / around / near New York City, you should probably come on down to the Sallie Bingham Center’s discussion “about the political significance of documenting women’s lives and the importance of informing one’s activism with a historical perspective.” I’m in now way, shape, or form biased due to my own involvement in said discussion, which will also involve Jaclyn Friedman, Ellie Smeal, and Merle Hoffman. But if you like my face, that’s another good reason to show up, too. Whatever brings you to the table.

+ If you’re able to hit up La Casa Azul in Coyoacan before February 2014 you should check out Frida Kahlo’s dress collection. But if not, there’s a gallery for that.

+ I really, really, really want you to support Creeps.

Creeps is a movie that follows the highs and lows of Mona and Freddy, two best friends who decide to quit drinking and doing drugs for a week so they can have great skin for a party. Mona has recently found out that her ex-girlfriend has become a successful artist and is having a big art opening in a weeks’ time. Of course they MUST attend, look fabulous and have the sexiest arm candy in sight. They sadly agree that the only real way to accomplish this is to form a pact: 7 days of sobriety. By the time they make it to the opening, they aren’t speaking, they’ve barely slept, and disaster ensues.

The Weed Fairy Comes In Broad Daylight For No Reason

It wasn’t me. Promise.

Also.Also.Also: Nothing Is The Same After Girl Sex And Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hey there, queers! I have spent the last two days in my room listening to Nothing Was The Same and I think I might be more deeply moved than ever before. Plus, I’m having fro nostalgia.

Here’s the stories we missed this week while I was combing my locks.

Playboy Does Not Love Consent

Let it be known that when partywithplayboy.com, a Playboy branded effort to raise awareness about consent and sexual assault prevention, launched yesterday, we were all over that shit. And let it be known that not ten seconds later, Lizz said she thought it was fake. Since she’s a doctor, she was of course right – and ThinkProgress is about 99.9% sure it was FORCE, the group behind Pink Loves Consent.

Let us all take a moment to mourn the lives we could have had in this alternate universe:

The Weirdest Breakup Ever

When two right-wing conservative politicians teamed up to make gay marriage a thing, they failed. Turns out nobody’s looking for a gay-on-tea-party threesome these days.

Stop me if you’ve heard this joke before: a Republican woman and a Tea Party Libertarian walk into a gay bar. Bartender says, “What’ll it be?” The pair responds, “Equal marriage for all in the state of Arizona.”

Funny thing about that joke is that it’s not a joke at all. In June, Republican lawyer Erin Simpson and Libertarian entrepreneur Warren Meyer joined forces to create Equal Marriage Arizona, an organization whose sole purpose was to put a measure on the 2014 ballot defining marriage as a state-recognized union of two people, regardless of gender.

Voters, however, will not see that question on the ballot next year. Yesterday, Simpson and Meyer announced that they were folding their operation, due in large part to a lack of unity support from the groups with whom they were trying to form a coalition.

A Queer-er History of Fashion

What’s your queer aesthetic? Mine is leggings as pants and baseball caps and I’m 99.9% sure it’s working for me.

Not So Much In The Progress Department

+ The Mormon church loves gay people! Or at least they better get around to it, and quick. A pro football player (and his wife) said so.

+ Sororities at the University of Alabama won’t let black students pledge.

+ SURPRISE! THERE WAS NO REASON FOR THAT SHITSHOW OF AN ABORTION RESTRICTION THROWDOWN AFTER ALL.

+ Older LGBT folks are still havin’ a hard time in the UK finding good care.

+ The most senior female police officer in Afghanistan was killed by unidentified gunmen. She died Monday.

+ Is the WNBA a great place for gay girls? Serious question.

Laverne Cox Doesn’t Have Time for Your Bullshit

Laverne Cox and Janet Mock were being their typically fabulous and amazing selves this week when they tackled the stigmatization of loving trans* women on HuffPo Live.

You Should Give: Girl Sex 101

I don’t think anyone can turn down “a roadtrip of the female body.”

Combining fiction & comics with solid sex-education, Girl Sex 101 does what no sex-ed book has done before.

A collaboration between author and sex-educator Allison Moon (the Tales of the Pack novels about lesbian werewolves) and artist kd diamond (founder & editor-in-chief of Salacious Magazine) Girl Sex 101 is loaded with fun, color illustrations and entertaining stories that offer far more than the standard sex-ed fare.

Girl Sex 101 features over 14 sexy and educational stories featuring our diverse cast of characters that illustrate the rest of the info in the chapter. For example, in the first chapter, Layla has a hard time speaking up about what she likes in bed with a hot femme she picks up. Later on, Jamie finds herself in bed with a trans guy and doesn’t quite know how to ask him about his body. Meanwhile, Layla has to figure out how to communicate about her STI status with a new flame, while Jamie navigates fooling around with an old crush with a disability. There’s plenty of fuel for your own girl sex tanks!

Girl Sex 101 presents feminist, pleasure-positive, and consent-oriented sex education to help women of all orientations and experience levels understand their bodies and those of their partners.

My Boss Sent Me This Vine At Work

How is this real.

Also.Also.Also: MJ Corey’s On The Rebound and Other Stories We Missed This Week

In the last seven days, I picked up and went to LA and Las Vegas. Here’s the stories we missed while I won big at the Elvis slot machines. (And drove through barren desert with Geneva, but that’s another story.)

You Should Give

+ Rebound: Leslie Kwon, Rex Yau, and M.J. Corey set to making a short film based on the short story Rebound. The project took us to The Metropolitan Bar, where we’ve all had crazy Wednesday (girls) nights, and with an incredible cast, we made a film about heartbreak, sisterhood, Brooklyn, gayness, awkwardness, and angst that we are proud of. If you’ve ever tried really hard to feel less alone in a crowd at a bar, you’ll feel this movie. Now, in the post-production phase, we need a final push to be able to afford primarily sound mixing, but also festival fees, gifts for donors, printing, and a few high costs leftover from production.

M.J. Corey is a former writer for AS, and she told us:

What made the movie possible at all was Autostraddle. You sent me to a Bluestockings film screening that AS had sponsored, and there I met Leslie Kwon, one of the featured filmmakers. We immediately connected and decided to make a movie together. It was like fate, and Autostraddle was literally our matchmaker.

+ OUTMusic: Support OUTMUSIC – the LGBT Academy of Recording Arts (LARA) in our quest to amplify the music of LGBTQ recording artists who sing and write the LGBTQ songs of Freedom that make up the soundtrack to the Equality Movement.

You Should Go

The P-Town Women’s Week Retreat is “a chance to focus intensely on personal writing in the company of others during an annual celebration of all things women.” Count me in! Plus, although the workshop costs $695, it’s $100 off before September 9th. Register online or by emailing info@tmiproject.org if you’ve got nothing to do from October 16-20 this year.

We’re Right Here

If you need help finding the #SmartBlackWomenonTwitter, The Root has you covered. And this week, Racialicious went ahead and compiled a list of 45 women of color in Sci-Fi / Fantasy films. So. No more excuses. Get diverse.

Gender Talk

+ Sindu was on HuffPo Live this week talking gender! Go Sindu!

+ Neko Case has some stuff to get off her chest, too.

#RaiseTheWage

Y’know, it isn’t hard to raise the minimum wage. And after 50 walkouts across the country, you’d think someone would fucking get moving on it by now.

Troublingly, five decades after the original march [on Washington] the grandchildren of those who participated are protesting for the same goal: essential economic fairness.

The problem is that the current minimum wage of $7.25 is a driving force behind the fact that one out of three Americans who work don’t earn enough to live. At minimum wage an employee earns only $15,000 a year. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, that’s the poverty level for a worker with one child.

And the minimum wage is a racial justice issue as well. Four out of 10 of those who hold these jobs are people of color.  A report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center found that three million people of color could be lifted out of poverty if the minimum wage were increased even to $10 an hour.

I Want Yr Lahv (And For That To Be Legal)

+ It’s like a horror movie for Republicans: same-sex weddings en masse in New Mexico!

+ In Pennsylvania, an attorney likened gay folks to children in an effort to make their marriages seem less valid in the public eye. But all he did was make himself look like a huge doofus, obvi. But sigh, like sands through the hourglass, so are the gays of our lives – and tomorrow, Pennsylvania begins landmark hearings on gay marriage.

+ If Walmart accepts gay relationships as real, what does that mean for everyone else in the corporate world? Besides THE DESTRUCTION OF VALUES, that is.

+ San Antonio WNBA player Sophia Young doesn’t support gay marriage. But that’s not really what people were talking about, so that’s awkward.

Very Important Business

Washington and Colorado states: enjoy a good, hearty, legal wake-n-bake for me as soon as you can. You fucking deserve it. For the rest of us:

(Oh, and young queers in England: slow down.)

Richard Cohen is a Skeezeball

He was never my favorite Cohen, anyway.

It’s A Celebration, Bitches

+ The IRS has affirmed that transition-related care is tax-deductible.

+ Diana Nyad, lesbian swimmer, has successfully completed her lifelong dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida at age 64.

Also.Also.Also: Sheer Dykeadence and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hey, y’all! I’m coming at you live from Los Angeles, meaning I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Gay married in New Mexico

After an Albuquerque judge ruled that gay marriage was legal on Monday, counties around the state started issuing marriage licensees to same-sex couples. Hooray for the dozens of couples who got married yesterday!

By Eddie Moore, AP

You Don’t Know Me

In the wake of the VMAs, rapper Le1f is speaking out about Macklemore’s “Same Love.” As a sap, it hurts my heart. As a queer, it’s important.

Southern Comfort

A 12-year-old trans* girl from Georgia will be able to use the girls’ room. Why is this controversial again? Her name is Skylar and she is ADORABLE.

Bad Guys

+ Lawmakers in Texas can’t seem to decide if anti-gay and -trans sentiments are actually discrimination or just part of a LARGER PLOT FOR DESTROYING ‘TRADITIONAL VALUES.’ In other news, it’s 2013.

+ The Portland taxi driver who won’t serve lesbians has lost his license. Jerk.

+ “Across the country, thousands of LGBT educators are forced to be closeted for fear of being harassed or otherwise discriminated against by coworkers, parents, and administrators, with the most dire consequence being the loss of their jobs. Their fate is usually in the hands of school board members, or, in private schools, administrative personnel, who generally have only the teacher’s work history and a list of parental complaints to go by.” The Advocate reports.

+ Russia still sucks: they’re defending their anti-gay law to the IOC and trying to take anti-LGBT discrimination to a whole ‘nutha level.

Russian lawmakers are currently considering a proposal to offer free “ex-gay” therapy to gay Russians to enable them to “return to normal life and become heterosexuals, as are 95 to 99 percent of our citizens,” according to Mikhail Degtyarev, the conservative politician behind the measure. According to Russian Today, Degtyarev is also developing a proposal to reintroduce a ban on gay blood and organ donors (a similar ban is in effect in the United States, though it has been denounced by the American Medical Association and other public health groups).

+ Zimbabwean President Robert Mugab used his inaugural speech (for his seventh election win thus far) to hate on homos. Spoiler alert: the word filthy is used twice in a row like when you really mean it.

+ In Cameroon, no gay bar is safe. Which is a damn shame.

+ Some churches take simple steps toward homophobia, like pre-emptively making it clear that they don’t do gay marriage. Others just exile LGBT-supportive parents.

Geeks! In The Good Way.

9 of the 15 Google Science Fair finalists are girls! Because of reverse sexism probably, right. If that’s not enough inspiration for you, check out the 28 women thinkers of the Internet Age whom Wired seems to have missed out on in general.

All That She Wants Is Another Baby

Meet the Israeli couple who refuses to do their surrogacy anywhere else – no matter who or what stands in their way.

You Should Give

+ Slut: A Documentary: from the

I’ve shared my diaries from when I was sexually bullied in middle school on The UnSlut Project website. Many women and girls have contributed their own stories. Now it’s time to spread the word. “Slut: A Documentary Film” will demonstrate the extent of sexual bullying and slut shaming in our schools, media, and culture; and explore the steps we can all take to work toward change right here in the United States and Canada.

+ Black is Blue: A Black transman security guard struggles with his identity after meeting an ex-lover from his past.

You Should Go

+ Time to Werk Those Pecs again!

Werk Those Pecs is BACK AT IT AGAIN, and this time we’re showing our love for everyone’s favorite life of the party:

*Bryn Kelly.*

We’re bringing our hottest lineup yet, so bring the ruckus & we’ll take care of the rest. Dance, drink, and raise money for a top-shelf gal!

+ Thursday, August 29th
= 9:00 PM – 4:00 AM
= The Knitting Factory [Williamsburg]

+ The 5th annual DYKEADENCE, celebrated over Labor Day weekend in New Orleans, is a collaborative community effort to create and organize safe high-quality queer Southern Decadence events for women, trans people and people of color and their friends and allies. All are welcome to take part in the glittery, enthralling, sexy, titillating events going down! Here they are:

Wednesday, August 28th – 8 p.m. – Esoterotica – Dial D for Dirty at the Allways

Thursday August 29th – Marigny Bar Crawl Join us as we start off with a walking tour of the Marigny’s finest bars. As the night progresses you will learn why it is called a bar crawl and not a bar walk.

Friday August 30th – 8 p.m. – The Yes Girls Vagina Show *actual name to be announced soon* at John Paul’s Join The Yes Girls at John Paul’s for their newest show, especially written for Dykeadence! – Queerlesque! – Two amazing shows planned, times TBA, both shows will be at the Allways!

Saturday August 31st – 8 p.m. – The Yes Girls Vagina Show at John Paul’s – Grrl Spot presents Fleurt at Eiffel Society – time TBA

Sunday September 1st – 11 a.m. Pre-parade party at John Paul’s – 2 p.m. Dykeadence walks in the Decadence Parade – Post-parade pool party at Country Club – 8 p.m. – The Yes Girls Vagina Show at John Paul’s – 9 p.m. – God-des and She perform at Country Club

Also.Also.Also: This Indie Gay Country Song Went Viral and Other Stories We Missed This Week

I don’t even know where to begin. But here’s the stories we missed this week, probably while I was crying. Or watching Orange is the New Black. One of those things.

#JusticeForTrayvon

From Black Girl Dangerous:

On Saturday, George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in the murder of Trayvon Martin. Or, put another way, white supremacy allowed a man to stalk and murder an unarmed black teenager and walk away. If you don’t understand how and why this case was about race, which, I believe, requires only the barest minimum of understanding about the world we live in, then this piece is not for you. I’m not the least bit interested in explaining something so incredibly obvious. If you insist on pretending that none of this is about race, please just excuse yourself from this conversation. You don’t deserve to sit at the grown-ups’ table.

If you’re still reading, I’ll assume you don’t have your head up your ass and that the role of race in this case is clear to you. Great. Now, since we’re all on the same page, my only question is:

Are we mad enough yet?

Carmen’s Video Luncheon

I’ll never be as cool as Brittani, you guys.

+ Karen learned to dance in a year.

+ DO YOU FEEL THE FEMMEGASM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfbSaJWLWRw

+ This “indie gay country song” went viral. I repeat: “indie gay country song.”

Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us! Other Times, They Suck.

This week, Tig Notaro took on Reddit, sh*t got (even more) fucked up on Big Brother, Mazzy Star announced a comeback, and Mary-Louise Parker gave up the Internet.

I don’t know if you can imagine a friend sending you something they thought was funny, that was something mean someone wrote about you and there’s like 50 comments from complete strangers across the world about you — and you can say ‘Oh I let it roll off my back’ and ‘I wouldn’t take it personally’, but you have no idea until it happens to you. It doesn’t feel nice…

You Should Give, Get Involved

+ Platonic Solid: both he and she are gay. their failed relationship was not for lack of love. rather, it was for the simple fact that maintaining a relationship with and being in love with the opposite sex was never a real possibility. they were hiding behind their true identities in the comfort and similarity they offered each other. parker and madison find that they were always “soul mates,” just not in the traditional sense of the word.

+ K&A: this comedy centers around Karly (straight) and Alex (lesbian) best friends since college, whose dysfunctional, co-dependent, drinking and drug-taking relationship impedes them from ever finding someone special in their lives besides each other.

+ Wimust, Wimust, establish gender equity in the arts.

Women dedicate time and energy to achieve individual goals, with enormous personal, social and financial sacrifices and are victims of a system that resists all possible forms of change. They are subject to discriminatory behaviour in selection and appointment procedures and access to cultural institutions, academies and universities, means of production and promotion and broadcast networks in all disciplines.

Talent alone is not sufficient for the artistic quality of a performance or success of a career leaving skills and talents unexploited, damaging artistic dynamism, influence and economic development and depriving the arts of talent and skills.

Regular contact with the public is necessary for recognition, and it is, therefore, essential to increase the presence of works created by women in programming, collections, publishing and consultation.

A Trans* Victory

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is finally taking on trans* cases. And trans* people are winning those cases.

“We applaud the EEOC for conducting such a thorough investigation and interviewing so many witnesses to the anti-transgender harassment,” said Tico Almeida, president of the LGBT organization Freedom to Work. “Coming just a few months after the EEOC issued its historic decision that transgender people are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the EEOC’s reasonable cause determination in this case is, to our knowledge, the first time in history that the EEOC has investigated allegations of anti-transgender harassment and ruled for the transgender employee. This case shows that the EEOC takes very seriously its role in protecting LGBT Americans’ freedom to work.”

You Are You

“You Are You” is your average, run-of-the-mill camp… for gender non-conforming boys.

LESBIANS.

Turns out “emotional infidelity” is a big problem for ladies who love ladies. And turns out we’re not doing too well in the body image department, either. The key here is to avoid worrying about your feelings and your body by making out with each other a little more, but please don’t wholeheartedly trust anything I say.

Hyperbole and a Half: The Book

It’s all happening.

Sex, Gender, Culture

I find this sub-category title hilarious because I took a class called “Sex, Gender, Culture” once. I also ran into a frat brother outside that class who asked me eagerly, “Wow! You’re signed up for sex culture, too?!”

Now, for some hard-hitting questions about our modern world.

+ Are tampons sexist?

+ Et tu, Google?

Google’s motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” but apparently that doesn’t mean don’t give it money. The tech giant is hosting a fundraiser for Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with Inhofe, here are some of his greatest [homophobic] hits.

+ Why is Angie “always the man?”

+ Did anyone wanna go to Russia, anyway?

If a trip to iconic city of Moscow or the edgier St. Petersburg is on your bucket list, an anti-gay law recently passed in Russia may have you thinking again… Russia’s laws permit the government to arrest and detain gay, or pro-gay, foreigners for up to 14 days before they would then be expelled from the country.

QT Corner

You needed this, right? Let’s. Get. Fluffy.

Also.Also.Also: Happy Birthday, Pride Flag and Other Stories We Missed This Week

You guys I have off on July 4 AND July 5. This was the breaking news of my own life, but here’s the stories we missed this week while I wasn’t planning a BBQ.

Facebook Gets Proud

70% of Facebook users have a gay friend, (I think 70% of my Facebook friends are gay) which probably explains their new gay pride emoticon. And SPEAKING OF PRIDE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRIDE FLAG. YEAH, YOU. YOU, RAINBOW FLAG OVER THERE. HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY.

35 years strong.

Examples of The Government Actually Working / Being Great

+ The Department of Education will now collect data about anti-LGBT bullying.

On May 22, I was at the White House for a Harvey Milk Day event, accompanying a delegation of GLSEN student leaders and staff. As we waited for the program to begin, a senior official from the Department of Education came running over to one of our students, Liam Arne.

“I need to shake your hand,” he said.“Because of you, the Secretary of Education is adding LGBT students to one of the most important Department of Education data collection instruments. You asked in that meeting, and afterward he told us to get it done!” …

LGBT-inclusive data collection may seem like a wonky goal. But let me tell you, data drives decision-making, and what is measured is what is valued when it comes to government action. Liam, one of GLSEN’s amazing student leaders, secured a huge advance for LGBT youth nationwide.

+ Obama promoted LGBT rights, albeit quietly, on his most recent visit to Africa.

+ Meet the highest ranking gay person in the Department of Defense.

+ PAID SICK LEAVE IN NEW YORK! WOOOOO!

Colorlines and the Case of the Cute Queers

Tee headline of this article is “We’re Here, We’re Queer, And We Look Real Cute.” My work here is done.

Russell Brand Sucks

Surprise!!! Russell Brand is THE WORST.

Russell then continued to joke that he likes to make advances on all gay women – and will carry on until he has tested every relationship in the country.

He added: “I just do that with lesbians, like ‘come on, you’re not that lesbian. For heaven’s sake, you’re just being difficult now.’

“She’s [Clare Balding] in a happy relationship, isn’t she? I won’t rest, until every lesbian relationship in Britain has been disrupted by an unwelcome boorish Essex boy.”

May you never rest, sir.

Even More on DOMA

+ What does DOMA mean for elderly queers?

+ “Same Love” has been blowing up on the charts following the DOMA / Prop 8 victories, which makes Macklemore hella proud. Can we listen to “Same Love” now because it’s like my favorite song no lie.

+ The perfect gay marriage cover came from The New Yorker:

Classified: Queer Playwright Seeks Queer Filmmaker

I am seeking a lesbian- or queer-identified documentary filmmaker to work with on a project that will shoot in late-summer/early-fall of 2014. We would work together during the time leading up to that point on planning the project, and work together afterwards on post-production.

I will be taking a road trip around the US in the late-summer/early-fall of 2014 to visit lesbian lands, women’s and LGBT centers and/or communities, festivals, as well as bars and social spaces that bring together groups of lesbians and queer women. The purpose of those visits will to be share a play that I wrote inspired by the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and to interview those we meet about their methods of building, sustaining, and sharing communities, as well as the sharing their own stories and creative expressions.

Planning the trip will involve looking at the archived materials from Alexis Danzig’s 8,000 mile road-trip in the 1990s to raise awareness about the Archives through in-person slideshows. It will also draw on past lesbian and queer-identified groups like Sister Spit, who brought their work directly to a variety of communities, as well as theater companies like Missoula Oblongata, who work largely or entirely on the road.

WHO AM I? A lesbian/queer identified playwright and arts journalist. With experience self-producing shows/events in a variety of cities and circumstances.

INTERESTED? Send me an email at alexis@alexisclements.com and tell me a little bit about yourself, your experience making documentary films, and why you’re interested in working on this project.

You Should Give

Is it sexy when I boss you around? Either way, you should support these awesome projects.

+ K&A:

Created by Thompson Films, K&A is set in the city of Boston, and this comedy centers around Karly (straight) and Alex (lesbian) best friends since college, whose dysfunctional, co-dependent, drinking, and drug taking relationship impedes them from ever finding someone special in their lives besides each other.

+ Entangled with You:

Entangled with You is a romantic drama-comedy series about couples who complicate each other’s lives post separation. Faced with loneliness, change, and one unexpected bout of VD, new roommates Alisha and Jaliyah get an up close and unwanted look into each other’s personal business and somehow manage to see past their differences and overcome the awkwardness. Now if only their significant others were comfortable with that…

+ Into Girls:

Into Girls is a series of vignettes that follow different lesbian characters. The story lines are mostly focused on the uncertainty of self and learning how to come into your own as a lesbian. Our experiences and inexperience drive the stories and style of the series.

+ One: A Story About Love and Equality

I raised money on Kickstarter and spent the spring of 2012 getting to know the people of North Carolina as they counted down to the amendment vote on May 8th.

After meeting dozens of people and acquiring over 200 hours of footage, I am thrilled to finally be able to share these amazing stories with the world.

I’ve edited all of the footage into a feature film, but we need finishing funds to polish the film, and promote it once it’s complete.

+ Youngist: Young People Powered Media

{Young}ist is a young people-powered website devoted to storytelling, artistic projects, and news analysis with staff and contributors all under the age of 26. We’re bringing artists and activists together to cross-pollinate and give voice to the stories of our generation.

We will publish multimedia content, written features, expressive long-form journalism, and innovative art forms that will provide a wide range of perspectives on culture and politics—all through the eyes and hands of youth.

You Should Go

+ Throw Down for a Cause w/ JULIE GOLDMAN

This year’s Throw Down will be bigger and badder than ever before! Do not miss the action as we take over Rich’s in Hillcrest on July 4th from 4pm to 9pm. Mark your calendars now!

This year all proceeds will be donated to The San Diego LGBT Center’s Sunburst Youth Housing Project, serving homeless LGBT youth, and Project Love Out Loud, an organization that provides comprehensive creative expression workshops to homeless and runaway youth. Help us make a difference!!

Doors open at 4pm and the party kicks off with 2 hours of hosted (open) bar from 4 – 6pm! The main event starts at 6pm.

Comedian Julie Goldman (of LOGO) is hosting this year’s event!

Join the ladies of Throw Down for a Cause 2013 as they head back into the ring and make this one MESSY July 4th! It was NEVER meant to be good clean fun!

Buy pre-sale tickets today.

The Sports Section

Gay and lesbian folks are really really into sports. Like, really.

Gay and lesbian consumers – professional athletes or not – are also sports enthusiasts off the courts and fields. In many ways, they’re bigger aficionados than average fans. For instance, adult gay and lesbian Internet users are 11 percent more likely than the average adult online to attend pro sporting events, according to Nielsen, and 7 percent more likely to participate in an adult sports league.

Gay and lesbian adults are 51 percent more likely than the average adult to watch sports-related videos online and 28 percent more likely to boot up their computer to get their sports news. They’re also big fans of fantasy sports, as they’re 39 percent more likely to play fantasy sports online than the average adult Internet user.

Lesbian Prom King

Meet  Ola Wolan, lesbian prom king.

Also.Also.Also: Anti-Gay Workplace Discrimination Is Still Happening and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Here’s the news we missed while I was listening to Yeezus.

The SCOTUS on Gay Marriage: “Nope, Nothin’ Yet”

When it comes to two critical gay rights cases being decided upon soon in the Supreme Court, I’m gonna get my Rafiki on and dramatically say it is time.

Except oh, oops, no, nevermind. Not today. It’s not time yet. What the fuck is taking so long? Is it the gears grinding in Anthony Kennedy’s head? Is it the Ghost of Lack of Gay Friends Past? Is it getting the files in order? Are the robes being dry-cleaned? CAN A SISTA GET A RULING ON HER FUTURE OVER HERE?

Maybe on Thursday.

Total Dick Move

This shit is the worst.

MP Robert Biedron of Poland

+ Poland’s first openly gay lawmaker was attacked Saturday in Warsaw following the Gay Pride parade.

+ According to Focus on the Family, trans* people don’t exist.

+ Should anyone really be protecting “gay marriage critics?”

+ Grace University expelled a student for being gay – and then demanded she pay back her scholarship.

Hey, This Is A Cool Thing

I wouldn’t lie to you. We’ve been over this before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NlCSfM4kKUw

Ending Discrimination in the Workplace Apparently Not A Universal Goal for Us as Humans

Obama wants to end discrimination against LGBT folks in the workplace… OR DOES HE? We may never know. That’s politics.

preach

What we do know is this: Marco Rubio does not support gays in the workplace. But he’s totally not a shitty human being or anything.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is touted as a top GOP presidential prospect in 2016, thinks it should be legal to fire someone for their sexual orientation.
ThinkProgress spoke with the Florida Senator at the opening luncheon of the annual Faith and Freedom Forum on Thursday and asked him about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill to make discrimination against LGBT individuals illegal across the country.
Though Rubio bristles at the notion of being called a “bigot,” he showed no willingness to help protect LGBT workers from discrimination. “I’m not for any special protections based on orientation,” Rubio told ThinkProgress.

You Should Give

Be Here Now is “a comedy web show about two sexually progressive NY gals who ditch their down-and-out lives for LA in search of a spiritual awakening.” Fund that shit.

Movin’ On Up

Obama named three more gay ambassadors this week (spoiler alert: they’re gay men) and the Supreme Court Thursday confirmed the first openly gay Latina to serve on the federal bench. Also, THE NEXT DALAI LAMA COULD BE A WOMAN JUST SAYING.

This is good news considering we could use some more women in government so that people can stop stereotyping women in government differently than women as a whole. Or at all. Whichever works.

Three Words: “Starring Ellen Page”

Ellen Page is in a new film called Touchy Feely. I hear it’s chart-toppingly Indie or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zu6qd1QngqQ

Also.Also.Also: Dolores Huerta Stands Up for Gay Marriage and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hi, happy campers! Does anyone know the cure for workaholism? No? OK. Well. Here’s the stories we missed this week while I was willfully chained to a desk.

The Gay Marriage Diaries

+ Love is love to Dolores Huerta, and familia es familia. Check out her PSA for Freedom to Marry’s new campaign targeted at Latino/a homos and their allies:

+ Gay marriage took a much queerer turn in Argentina. Why not in the United States?

Although politics are highly centralized in Buenos Aires, the Federation attempts to include the needs of all queers in its agenda (with questionable success). On its formation in 2006, the Federation held a meeting to set a legislative agenda. Those gathered agreed that gay marriage should be the first step, but committed to focusing on issues affecting trans Argentines second. They reasoned that gay marriage was a bigger fight, and would gain queer Argentines the visibility they needed in order to easily pass administrative changes later.

Whether or not we agree with the rationale, it worked, and it could work in the states if not for rampant transphobia and short-sightedness…

Some queer activists in the States already want us to follow suit.

+ The Advocate is preparing for this week’s expected Supreme Court decision on DOMA by collecting stories of gay partnerships in need of a smart choice from the judges’ bench. This binational lesbian couple responded to the call.

In August of this year, I will have to return to the U.S. for work and to settle a home in Florida. My partner will be permitted to visit me for 90 days, the same time allotted a tourist. Whenever my partner is asked by U.S. immigration why she’s coming into the country, she tells them she’s visiting a friend. Certainly, if she were to say she’s coming to see her “wife,” it would raise a red flag, and she could be denied entry.

We have fought too hard and long to slip back into the closet.

photo by Stephanie Berger for The New York Times

+ In Kentucky, the unlikely source for a request for gay marriage recognition is a murder trial.

+ A majority of Americans want marriage equality, and a majority also want it to be decided by the states. Excuse me while I rip all of my really nice hair out imagining a world in which things continue to be decided state-by-state prior to a successful national dialogue on an issue! (A majority of older Americans support the existence of homolove as well!)

+ In the UK, the House of Lords approved a marriage equality bill. In other news, House of Lords sounds so much better than Congress. Could just be that I’m always #Lording, though.

+ Surprise! Gay couples are poorer than straight ones.

Gay and lesbian Americans are often portrayed and stereotyped as disproportionately affluent, but it’s more likely that relatively affluent gay people are simply more visible. A new report by V. Lee Badgett, Laura E. Durso, and Alyssa Schneebaum for the Williams Institute at UCLA shows that in many respects LGBT couples are actually more economically stressed than their straight counterparts.

There’s a little bit of an apples and oranges comparison here because they’re comparing all same-sex couples to married opposite-sex couples and among heterosexuals the married are more affluent than the unmarried. But then again, with LGBT couples legally barred from marrying in most of the country it’s hard to know what else you would do.

+ Jane Lynch is getting divorced.

+ People in 1932 said the darndest things about gay marriage that probably had long-lasting implications for our place in the world today!

+ You’re having a lesbian. So um, time to get on the gay marriage train already.

LGBT In The South

Have question about LGBT organizing in the south, get answer.

From the recent spike in hate crimes against queer and transgender folks to the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the Defense of Marriage Act, LGBT rights have been in the news a lot lately. For generations the South has been fertile ground for innovative organizing strategies, and that’s certainly the case in today’s world of working toward equity in LGBT communities. This week Colorlines.com’s publisher, the Applied Research Center, released our latest briefing paper on LGBT and racial justice organiainzg. “Better Together in the South: Building Movements Accross Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation” is an important look at those working at the intersection of rights and racial justice. More directly, it showcases the work of an engaged cohort of groups who work on issue areas that range from employment, religion, immigration, and police reform — just to name a few.

Starting next week, we want you — yes, you — to be part of the conversation.

“We’re A Movement, Not a Market”

Chicken Soup for Your Radical, Anti-Capitalist Soul.

You don’t have to have radical politics to see how Pride’s corporate sponsorships hurt LGBTQ people of all ages. We as queer people suffer disproportionately from addiction and substance abuse. Drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes are deeply embedded in the culture of gay bars and social events, and are also frequently used as a coping mechanism for the discrimination and violence LGBTQ people face. Naturally, booze and cigarette companies sponsor every city’s Pride celebrations, guaranteeing many queers’ lifelong dependency on their products. How do we expect queer youth who face bullying, family rejection, job discrimination, and violence to rise up against these factors to live long, healthy lives if we celebrate companies who don’t give a fuck about them?  …

Our values aren’t defined by those with wealth. Our pride isn’t legitimized by corporate sponsorships. This isn’t a parade for straight people or white culture, even though we elected Mayor Menino to honor as Grand Marshal. So what does Pride look like without these corporations and politicians’ stamp of approval? What does it look like when it’s all the beauty and messiness of all LGBTQ people?

Get Into It

+ The Postwoman needs your help:

A single mom develops the courage to confront her ex-husband, dysfunctional family, and teenage daughter about her secret life with another woman.

+ This Kickstarter for all-women miniatures, though, does not.

There are plenty of shitty Kickstarter projects (depending on your tolerance for New Jersey, Zach Braff’s Garden State follow up is among them), but there are also plenty of great Kickstarter projects. Take the “Raging Heroes” Kickstarter, which was initially looking to cobble together $12,000 in order to produce 150 extremely detailed female warrior miniatures. The miniatures were to be divided into three separate armies, making for a pretty grand role-playing game of total galactic warfare. The project caught on quickly, reaching its $12K goal in a mere 30 seconds (!) before going on to rake in over $300,000 from 1,400 backers.

+ Nikki Lane, a PhD student in Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology at American University, is seeking Black women who partner with women* in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (DMV) to share their stories and experiences about the city, the “scene,” and/or living in the DMV for her dissertation. Help her out.

+ The Capturing Fire queer poetry slam is setting DC a-flame this week.

+ Spread ’em for a cause, only not really, that’s just me trying to make the name a sexual innuendo. There is a cause, though. Called Spread.

Butter. Jam. Legs. Rumors. What do you want to spread? On this walk, participants will investigate the language and actions of spreading. The group will spread itself like a virus, disseminating secrets and offering our desires to each other and passersby. All are welcome. Spread the word.

This walk holds 12 people and is presented in partnership with Visual AIDS. Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over.

+ For those of us who are Straight Up Gay:

Getting Schooled

This week in Taking The Good with the Bad: revisions put forward for No Child Left Behind include protections for gay and lesbian students.

This Week In Gender

+ As if you weren’t obsessed enough: some analysis of gender in Game of Thrones.

“Beautiful” girls can do whatever they want, and “ugly” girls are ridiculous for daring to want anything. The binary can be further complicated if you are a person of color. Forget it if you deviate from that rigid binary and are LGBTQ. Arya is a petite, adorable girl, expected to blossom into a beautiful noble woman. Brienne is larger, regularly derided for her lack of femininity, and mocked for even desiring to have a husband and a family. The juxtaposition of Arya Stark and Brienne of Tarth highlights the two-headed coin of societal beauty standards and the objectification of women used as a tool to disempower.

However, ending the analysis there, writing them off as simple “tomboy” and “butch” stereotypes, does the depths of their characters no justice. Arya and Brienne do have a lot in common in that they defy gender-roles, are fierce warriors, and are women. However, the path they took to those similarities has been quite different, marked by a disparity in privilege and appearance.

+ The Bureau of Prisons keeps a list of 61 inmates with “Gender Identity Disorder.”

+ Meet Kristin Beck, the transgender Navy SEAL.

+ In New York City, police are failing to keep LGBTQ people safe – and are consistently hostile towards transgender women of color.

“We receive reports and work with survivors all the time who tell us they were profiled–generally these are transgender women–by the NYPD as sex workers, stopped because of profiling, and searched,” Sharon Stapel, AVP’s executive director, tells the Voice. “If a condom is found on them, that condom is taken as evidence as intent to engage in prostitution. Many survivors of violence tell us that makes them hesitant to carry condoms.”

Kerri, an African-American transgender woman who did not want to reveal her real name, says that in the two years she’s lived in New York, she’s been stopped 15 times.

“It happens a lot,” she says. “Especially with black or Latina transgenders–it’s like you have a sticker on your head without even knowing it’s there.”

Queer-Ass Zombies

Inside “a suicidal, gay, post-zombie story.”

F*ck This Shit

+ The Salvation Army thinks gay parents should die. Wait, what?

The Salvation Army has been outspoken in the past, but Andrew Craibe, a Salvation Army Media Relations Director, might have taken things a step too far. Appearing on radio show hosted by journalist Serena Ryan, Craibe expressed the company’s views on the LGBT community and gay parents and when asked whether gays should be put to death, his response was shocking.

+ In Louisiana, where marriage and civil unions are not options for LGB folks, you must now be married to be eligible for surrogacy. Someone’s baby parent pool just got boring real quick.

+ An all-male panel on a BBC talk show tried to think up ways to turn lesbian presenter Clare Balding straight. Turns out they fail to be able to complete rational thought, though.

+ Lauryn Hill wasn’t talking about gay people, you guys. She was talking about neurotic people. Being negative about Lauryn Hill breaks my heart so this is the end of this segment.

Also.Also.Also: Black Muslim Lesbians in Gay Mecca and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, queermos and gentlefolk! HAPPY HUMP DAY! How are you holding up in this summer heat? My air conditioner is broken so please don’t ask the same question of me, even if you’re just trying to be polite.

Here’s the stories we missed this week while I was opening my windows just a liiiiittle bit more.

F*ck You Very Much

Let me see if I can get this over with fast.

+ F*ck Exxon:

For the 14th consecutive year, shareholders of petroleum giant ExxonMobil have rejected an antidiscrimination resolution that would have protected employees from being fired or harassed simply because they are LGBT.

The vote at today’s annual shareholder meeting in Dallas was not unexpected, but 81% of shareholders voted in opposition to the protection, with just 19% in favor — the lowest support ever recorded, reports the Dallas Voice. 

+ F*ck the Pentagon:

The Pentagon will be celebrating LGBT Pride Month again this year, but the memorandum announcing the designation has caused a stir with an organization that supports LGBT service members and veterans and their families…Although the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” ended the ban on out gay, lesbian or bisexual service members, the military continues to consider a service member being transgender grounds for a discharge from the military.

+ F*ck Hate Crimes:

Twenty five year-old Kevin Kiadii, who in April became the fifth man to accuse Elmo voice actor Kevin Clash of sexual abuse, was allegedly targeted in an anti-gay hate crime, continuing a disturbing trend of recent anti-gay attacks in New York City.

+ F*ck Exclusion:

Even though the first national DYKE March was twenty years ago, lesbians are still struggling to get attention in the LGBT rights movement. Flip through the next gay magazine that you find and take a look at the advertisements. Most of them will feature and target gay men because the writers and advertisers assume that, just like straight women, lesbians will have a higher tolerance for being left out and still remain interested and active. Lesbians all over the Salt Lake valley read Q and The Advocate, but when was the last time you saw a gay man flipping through a copy of Curve? And if there isn’t a strong lesbian presence in LGBT literature, the transgender community has been almost entirely left out.

But this isn’t about a bunch of magazines or where we spend Saturday afternoon. Regularly pushing aside the LBT to let the G take center stage has serious ramifications for the communities being overlooked.

+ And for the last time: IT’S YES FUCKING HOMO, OK.

Gimme Gimme Moar

I’m flying high, defying gay gravity….

Defying Gay Gravity was initially written as my own personal response to fulfilling on a childhood regret: coming out as a kid in middle school. Instead, I waited until years later when I felt safe and self-assured that it was a step I was willing to take. The book however transformed into the personal journey of Gordi and how he comes to accept himself for who he is: a gay boy looking to find a place for himself in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vmxov8qXOcw

Putting Sexism on the Map

When Laura Bates took on the Everyday Sexism Project, she intended to compile stories of discrimination – not a tome. But now, the project has a website where it compiles the hundreds of stories it receives on the regular via Twitter, and they’re becoming part of a larger feminist movement overseas.

The police plan to use the Everyday Sexism site to enhance their intelligence on where and when harassment happens, said Inspector Ricky Twyford of the British Transport Police, the project manager for the move to curb sexual harassment on London’s buses and trains.

They also want Ms. Bates to repeat what Inspector Twyford called a powerful talk she delivered to police officials, in which she read posts from women describing being harassed or assaulted. The police plan to record it to use in workshops for officers who patrol the transit network, he said.

Stella Creasy, a Labour Party lawmaker who exchanges Twitter postings with Everyday Sexism, said these stories demonstrated that women remained unequal.

“This is real life, this is happening every single day to women in our country,” Ms. Creasy said. “There is a resurgence of feminist activism, and I say bring it on. That is amazing, that is going to make Britain a better place for everyone.”

YSG: Phresh Cutz

It’s baaaaaaaaack. Be there Saturday, June 8 from 8PM to 2AM or be totally rectangular and perfectly even on each side.

hair force one

WHAT

A dope-ass, queer-as-fuck nighttime pop-up barbershop and party for you and your frands featuring:

Fresh cuts (of all styles, lengths, genders, and feelings)
Fresh tracks (four DJ sets)
Dranks (beer and wine)
Drinks (coffee and tea)
Snacks (vegans and non-vegans, we got ya covered)
…and sexyphresh queers

Cover: $5 (sliding scale, no one will be turned away), all ages

Black Muslim Lesbians in Mecca

You have to read this for yourself to understand.

S: That’s what we are looking for ourselves, that we don’t have to negotiate any parts of ourselves, its tiring and exhausting. It’s amazing that you created this space alongside these women.

RS: And I even— like when they say “Red Summer created this space.” I didn’t. I just asked you to come to the house. There would be no spaces if women didn’t show up.”

S: It would be just be yourself. [laughs]

So Atlanta is known as the “Gay Mecca” and I’ve heard that from non-Muslims, and I think it is interesting to take Mecca and take it as this place as a pilgrimage to go to Atlanta. Anyone who is black and gay wants to go to Atlanta to feel safe and to embrace themselves. Do you think that for Muslim women there is an attraction to live in Atlanta and to be in a space where they can kind of reconcile their sexuality with their faith?

RS: I don’t think if Muslim women in Atlanta had confronted that with space [living in Atlanta]. Even though there is the term of “Gay Mecca” nobody has said it as a religious term, even though there is much Muslim community in Atlanta. And I live in a community where there are restaurants, you see women in hijab walking down the streets, its not like it was far away from me. But I didn’t still feel welcome. And I didn’t, its not that anyone had a chance to ostracize, I was already prepared to not be welcomed into that space, because of my sexuality. I had enough at home, I didn’t need to recreate that experience here, but I think because its so okay to be lesbian in Atlanta, that kind of trumps it in a way. Okay I am okay with myself in this way, and now I can look at the other part of myself. Does that make sense? Like once we establish we are in safe space we are not going to be bashed or whatever, then we wanted to make it a complete safe space, not a partial safe space not a space for some of us, but a complete safe space. And what that looks like.

Have Another Drink, On Me

Do women drink too much? I am definitely the wrong person to ask.

The recommended limit for alcoholic consumption established by the National Institutes of Alcoholic Abuse and Alcoholism for women is three drinks on a given day and no more than 7 beverages a week. The study also states that men should not drink more than four drinks on a single day and no more than 14 a week.

Drinking beyond these limits can put women in serious risk for breast cancer or liver disease, as well as long-term memory loss. Despite these scary risks, a new study from the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Addiction Medicine found that college women are 5o percent more likely to exceed these limits than men. While women might not be pounding more than three drinks a day, they are most definitely consuming more than seven drinks a week.

Dr. Who?

Dr. Who should be a woman so that I can be interested in popular, contemporary television again.

Gay Marriage Goes Global

+ Nigeria’s House of Representatives banned gay marriage – and set a sentence of upwards of 10 years in prison for a bunch of random acts of homosexuality!

Under the proposed law, Nigeria would ban any same-sex marriage from being conducted in either a church or a mosque. Gay or lesbian couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. Anyone taking part in a group advocating for gay rights or anyone caught in a “public show” of affection also would face 10 years in prison if convicted by a criminal court.

In its voice vote, the House simply adopted all the clauses previously passed by the Senate without any discussion. The bill now sits before Jonathan for his approval or veto. Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati did not respond to a request for comment Thursday night regarding the president’s position on the measure.

+ Another week, yet another conversation surrounding gay marriage in France.

+ As of Monday, the Peace Corps is interested in seeing same-sex couples work together within the program.

Queer is Like…

Lezbreal. Queer is, like, everything.