Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Advocate.com Daily News

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Jazz Jennings has responded to a Wisconsin school’s cancellation of a reading of her book I Am Jazz via a column in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel, thanking the school’s principal for her intentions and expressing sadness that a small group of parents caused the cancellation.
The children’s book coauthored by the transgender teen was to be read to students November 23 at Mount Horeb Primary Center, located in the town of Mount Horeb, near Madison. The school had sent a letter to parents November 19, letting them know about the reading and saying it was a way to foster respect and support for young transgender people.
Some parents, however, enlisted the support of Liberty Counsel, a right-wing legal group, which threatened a lawsuit if the reading was not canceled. It claimed that the reading would result in “confusing many children,” “undermining modesty,” and “promoting non-factual, radical, and controversial assumptions about ‘gender.’” Liberty Counsel, which is also the group defending antigay Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Jennings began her column, which was published Tuesday, on a positive note, saying she was happy that principal Rachael Johnson chose her book and envisioned the reading as a note of support for a transgender girl at the school. “My parents and I want to personally thank Johnson for being a such strong leader and ally,” she said, adding that she was glad to hear the girl has supportive parents.
She continued, “I was sad to find out that a small group of parents forced Johnson to cancel the reading.” She thanked those who organized readings elsewhere and “the many people who are showing their support for kids like me.”
“My book can help, I think, but I know from my own experience that it is adults like my parents and Johnson who can make sure that transgender children are treated fairly at school and given the same opportunities to succeed in life,” Jennings went on.
“I have been sharing my story for almost a decade because I don't want anyone else to feel alone or scared,” she concluded. “I hope that ‘I Am Jazz’ continues to open people’s hearts by helping them to understand what it is like to be transgender. I am proud to see so many people support transgender students in Wisconsin, and I hope that it will also help the Mt. Horeb student love and enjoy life as her authentic self.”
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A Roman Catholic official in the Dominican Republic says the U.S. ambassador to the nation, who is gay, should “focus on housework, since he's the wife to a man.”
Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, archbishop of Santo Domingo, the nation’s capital and largest city, made the comment to reporters Tuesday night, the Associated Press reports. It came in response to Ambassador James “Wally” Brewster’s recent statements accusing Dominican officials of widespread corruption. Brewster also said police threatened and attacked U.S. financiers who were attending a conference in the Caribbean country.
“That man needs to go back to his embassy,” Lopez said of Brewster, according to the AP. “Let him focus on housework, since he's the wife to a man." The cardinal also said Brewster was promoting a so-called gay agenda.
This is not the first time Lopez has made homophobic statements about Brewster, who became ambassador to the Dominican Republic two years ago. When President Obama announced Brewster’s nomination, Lopez objected and referred to Brewster as a “maricón,” the equivalent of “faggot.” Other Catholic officials said that appointing him ambassador showed a lack of respect for the values of the predominantly Catholic nation. Despite protests by antigay groups, the U.S. Senate confirmed Brewster’s nomination unanimously.
Brewster, a former business consultant and fundraiser for the Democratic Party, is spouse to Bob Satawake. He is the seventh openly gay person to be appointed a U.S. ambassador. He did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.
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Police in Palm Springs, Calif., have arrested a man accused of taunting and attacking a male couple days before the city's Pride Festival in early November.
James Carr, 30, was taken into custody on Monday, The Desert Sun reports. Carr has been arrested nine times in a decade, with convictions for battery. He and 35-year-old Keith Terranova, who was arrested November 11, stand accused of elder abuse and felony hate crimes.
Carr is accused of intentionally bumping into Chris Zander, who was walking with his husband, George, and calling him an antigay slur. The men argued and Carr allegedly tackled Chris Zander, leaving him with minor injuries. Later, Carr returned with Terranova, and the younger men allegedly attacked the couple; Chris Zander says he was hit with a tire iron by Terranova, while 71-year-old George Zander, who is a field organizer for the LGBT organization Equality California, says Carr beat him.
Chris Zander suffered a concussion and needed staples in his head, while his husband required surgery for a double fracture to his hip.
Terranova has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, and a hate crime. It's not clear if Carr has yet made a plea.
The November 1 incident is the second recently reported incident in Palm Springs, long an LGBT haven, in which gay men were allegedly targeted, A 30-year-old homeless man has been accused of punching and kicking a 71-year-old man after discovering he was gay.
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Two new videos take aim at the movers and shakers who led the opposition to Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance, which would have protected LGBT people and many others from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.
The so-called "Hate Slate" is the focus of the first of the videos released this week, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. They include Jared Woodfill, an attorney who’s currently defending a man being sued for secretly photographing women in the bathroom; Rev. Kendall Baker, who was fired by the city for sexual harassment, and Dr. Steve Hotze, a conservative Republican who once devoted an entire press conference to anal sex due to his fears of marriage equality. Also featured is Pastor Ed Young, whom the video claims hired a youth minister who was a sexual predator at his Second Baptist Church.
To defeat the ordinance these men used the provably false claim that allowing transgender people to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity would allow "men in women's restrooms" and harass women and children.
Though the ordinance, passed by the City Council in 2014, was repealed by voters November 3, Houston's right-wing political groups are still hoping to ride the coattails of trans panic to the next ballot, urging voters to vote for conservative candidates in the December 12 runoff election for mayor and other city offices. The videos, which are an attempt to counter the right's efforts, are financed by an offshoot of the pro-HERO coalition, Houston Unites, the Chronicle reports.
Texas is one of more than 20 states without a law to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Several major cities and counties in the state have passed LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances, but Houston, a city with an out lesbian mayor, has no such protections now due to the repeal vote. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, by the way, is leaving office due to term limits.
Watch the video about the "Hate Slate" below.
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His TV movie credits include Disney’s Cinderella, starring Brandy and Whitney Houston; the GLAAD-awarded lesbian drama What Makes a Family, starring Brooke Shields; and the Emmy-winning miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, starring Judy Davis.
But it took 10 years from the time Robert L. Freedman and his collaborator Steven Lutvak began writing the darkly comic musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder until it finally opened on Broadway.
The show went on to win Tony Awards for Best Musical, for Freedman’s book, Darko Tresnjak’s direction, and Lindo Cho’s costumes, plus a slew of Drama Desk and other awards. While the Broadway production wraps up January 17, the national tour (which plays San Francisco now through December 27) will run through July 2016.
“I always tell writers that you’ve gotta really love what you’re working on because you’ll be living with it for a long time,” says Freedman. “We survived a lawsuit, delays, and canceled productions.” But the show certainly did go on.
The musical was originally based on the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, about a scheming heir who comically murders eight members of an aristocratic family. When the rights to the film traded hands, Freedman and Lutvak rewrote their show based on the source material — Roy Horniman’s 1907 comic novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal.
JEFFERSON MAYS AS LADY HYACINTH
They were set to open at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2010 when the rights holders hit them with a lawsuit that shut down the production for 13 months — until a judge dismissed the case. Productions at the Hartford Stage and San Diego’s Old Globe earned a rave from The New York Times, and they finally opened on Broadway in November 2013.
“Horniman was part of Oscar Wilde’s circle, and the novel is similar to Wilde’s wit and comments on society,” says Freedman. The wit of Wilde and Noel Coward inspired Freedman’s book, and there are influences of Gilbert and Sullivan and English music hall in Lutvak’s score.
The eight odious members of the D’Ysquith family who get bumped off throughout the show are all played by Jefferson Mays (pictured above) on Broadway(and John Rapson on tour). Two of the characters are women, portrayed in deft drag turns.
“There’s Lady Hyacinth, an unmarried woman of a certain age who’s devoted her life to helping those less fortunate — but all the good charities are taken,” Freedman says. “And there’s Lady Salome, who is an actress — a terrible actress. Both Jefferson Mays and John Rapson really embody the parts and give the characters some truth.”
But the performances are not what we typically think of as drag. “Drag itself is an art form,” he says. “Good drag involves hours of preparation and makeup — and they’re beautiful. But these have to be thrown together in 20 seconds. A quick change, a little lipstick, and go!”
When the decade-long journey of Gentleman’s Guide culminated with the show and Freedman receiving Tony Awards, “it was completely surreal. I was floating,” he says. “Opening on Broadway was the dream come true. Getting the nominations and awards was amazing.”
A previous dream came true when producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron hired him to write the 2001 miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, based on her daughter Lorna Luft’s book.
“At first I thought, Oh, my God, I get to write a movie about Judy Garland! Then I thought, Oh, shit. I wanted to do it justice and I wanted to do her justice,” he says. “As a performer, there was never anyone better — and there never will be.”
Judy Davis and Judy Galand
“I read everything there was to read about her. Lorna Luft’s book had a lot of personal experiences and so many happy memories,” he says. “One thing that her family hates is when people look at Judy Garland’s life as a tragedy. I didn’t want to do anything pathetic, that made you feel sorry for her. From scene to scene I tried to find the emotional reality with her, versus her as a movie star.”
“They’d already cast Judy Davis (pictured above), which was a huge advantage. I was able to be inspired by her as well as Judy Garland when I was writing it,” he says. “And Tammy Blanchard was incredible as the young Judy.” Both Davis and Blanchard earned Emmys for their performances. Freedman received Emmy and Writers Guild Award nominations for his screenplay.
His writing life post-Gentleman’s Guide and that Tony Award is definitely looking up. “I’m writing a dramatic movie for HBO that Robert Redford is set to direct, I’ve got a pilot for cable in the works, and a couple of new musical dream projects of my own,” he says. “But a career is a roller coaster. Right now I’m on a high.”
For information, tickets, and the tour schedule of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, go here.
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder in four minutes:
The making of Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows:
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John Bel Edwards is still a month away from being sworn in as Louisiana’s next governor, but he’s already signaling a change from the Bobby Jindal administration by announcing plans to issue a pro-LGBT executive order.
The Times Picayune of New Orleans reports that sometime after his inauguration January 11, Edwards will sign an executive order to protect his state’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender state employees and government contractors from getting fired, being discriminated against and harassed.
No timetable was announced by the governor-elect's transition team.
"People deserve not to be fired from their jobs because of who they are," Matthew Patterson of the LGBT advocacy group Equality Louisiana told the newspaper.
It is currently legal to fire someone for being gay or in a same-sex relationship throughout most of Louisiana. The Times-Picayune reports that New Orleans and Shreveport are the only cities that have enacted laws to prevent businesses from firing a person for being LGBT.
The newspaper notes the executive order would not protect nongovernment employees, nor would it necessarily apply to state government outside the governor's control, such as the judiciary.
Jindal and another Republican governor, Mike Foster, would not offer protections to LGBT state workers and contractors, as Democratic former governors Edwin Edwards and Kathleen Blanco did. In fact, Jindal called Blanco's executive order "unnecessary" when he took office in 2007. In May, a little more than a month before the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, Jindal issued an antigay executive order he said was designed to "protect religious freedom."
Edwards faces certain opposition. A conservative Christian state lobbying group, the Louisiana Family Forum, vows to fight the order.
"I have equal concerns that religious liberties may be jeopardized," Gene Mills, head of the Louisiana Family Forum, told the paper.
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Jimmy Kimmel Live! devoted the entire hour of his late night TV show on World AIDS Day to the launch of (SHOPATHON) RED, a month-long fundraiser for The Global Fund to fight AIDS.  Every dollar raised will be matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Celebrities like Bono, Snoop Dogg, The Weeknd, and Meryl Streep signed-up to participate in the fundraiser that is co-produced by VICE Media. You can donate to the cause at the online giving site Omaze for a chance to win several prizes, including a trip to the Game of Thrones set. Other retailers like Starbucks, Gilt and the Gap are also taking part, as well as car service app Uber and video game maker Supercell, the maker of popular games like Clash of Clans.
Bono, who also appeared on the program Tuesday night, co-created RED with Bobby Shriver in 2006 to make it easier for people and businesses to join the fight against HIV.
A skit on Kimmel's show featuring Scarlett Johansson and Barry Manilow is all the rage online. Watch below as the trio set up a new jingle for (SHOPATHON) RED - including some comedic missteps along the way.
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A massive crowd is lined up for blocks outside of Hollywood’s popular concert venue the Fonda Theatre. Despite the mid-November chill in the air and the fact that it's a school night, the eager mass is made up mostly of a diverse mix of young, high school- and college-aged kids. Some with hair different colors of the rainbow. Some with hip, trendy outfits that look like they took weeks to plan. Some proudly holding hands with their same-sex partners. The sheer excitement on their faces as they wait to see 21-year-old bisexual singer-songwriter Halsey has as much to do with the performer's music as it does with what she represents.
Halsey is free to be herself and to experience emotion, no matter if it's convenient for you. That relentless loyalty to self-discovery makes the already lyrical songwriter all the more vulnerable in real life.
“Every time I got to play a show, even if it’s already sold out, I’m so scared no one’s going to come,” Halsey (whose stage name is an anagram of the first part of her birth name, Ashley Frangipane) tells The Advocate of the success she’s had following the August release of her debut album, Badlands. “I’m so scared something better is in town, and they’re all going to ditch my show last-minute. I get those weird kind of delusions all the time, but I’m just very, very, very fortunate, and I know that. You can expect nothing in being a musician, and you have to be just very thankful every time it goes positively for you.”
And things have been going very positively for the superstar-to-be. Badlands had the third best opening week for a solo debut album in 2015, and in addition to selling out most of the stops on her tour of the same name, Halsey also snagged a collaboration with Justin Bieber on the song "The Feeling" for his latest release Purpose.
“There are things that throw me off, and I am in disbelief about the power of my fans,” she says. “It’s so stupid to talk about numbers, and I don’t like to, but numbers are powerful because of what they represent as far as volume. When we put the album out, I had no idea what to expect the first week. The day that the week ended and we found out it sold over 115,000 albums, my brain was like What?!?”
But there is more to Halsey than just her well-written, well-received music. Openly bisexual from the earliest moments of her career, she exudes a confidence both onstage and off that lends itself to activism in different things besides queerness, including feminism, and more recently in raising awareness of mental illness, since she came out this year publicly as a person with bipolar disorder.
— HALSEY (@halsey) October 1, 2015
Today is International Women's Day! Protect and support! ALL women. @UN_WOMEN #IWD2015 pic.twitter.com/BMIWMHx5eZ
— HALSEY (@halsey) March 8, 2015
We need a feminism that is not negligent of women of color, trans women, queer women. We need a feminism that protects ALL women. Globally.
— HALSEY (@halsey) March 8, 2015
Although she’s been hesitant to call herself a role model, Halsey freely expresses her views on issues, creating an intriguing public persona that leaves people, especially her fans, wanting to know more about what makes her tick and the things that mean most to her.
Halsey told Elle in May that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager and that her mom is also bipolar. Since then, she's explained that Badlands is, for her, an exploration of her mental state while writing the album. Ultimately, she wants young people who are free to discover themselves. You can hear that rebellious theme in the way she talks about being bisexual, for example.
“I think a lot if comes down to people not wanting to let young people explore themselves,” she says. “We live in this world where, you’re a teenager, and everyone tells you for three years from the time your 15 from the time that you’re 18 that 'You don’t know anything. You don’t know anything about yourself. You don’t know anything about the world. You don’t know anything, you have no idea.' And if you insist you know something, you know and understand a part of your sexuality, you often get told, 'Oh, things change. You’re still young. You don’t know.'"
And because of this backlash, she wants to shed light not only on bisexuality, but on the larger need for young people to be empowered and able to find out who they are.
“I definitely have a responsibility, because it is something that is not considered,” Halsey continues, recalling that the music video for her first major single (and crowd favorite) "Ghost" features a woman as her love interest. "When I put out a video of me in a relationship with a woman, most of the reaction was, 'But you have a boyfriend, so that means you’re sexualizing it.' There’s not just me being straight and me being a lesbian. The fact that you didn’t even consider the option that I might be bisexual means that we’re not talking about this enough.”
The concert at the Fonda is just one stop on the road compared to all of the shows she’s played on the Badlands tour, throughout which Halsey proves that just by being herself, she can have an impact on young people who like both good music and social issues. And she wants to do right by them.
“For me, it’s about more,” she says. “I find myself representing, and I say that word apprehensively because I don’t think one person can represent any community of people, a number of communities. I’m open about having bipolar disorder, I’m open about being of mixed-race, I’m open about being bisexual, and I have this wantingness to talk about it, and for me, it’s about more than being a role model for any specific community. I think it’s about wanting to be a role model that’s comfortable with myself. That’s unafraid of being myself.”
“My end goal is to encourage kids that they can be proud of who they are, and that doesn’t just mean that I want my bisexual fans to feel proud of being who they are. I want any kid who listens to my music to see that I am confident with all elements of my personality that I can’t change,” she continues. “If me being confident and secure enough to talk about my bisexuality helps some other kid be confident enough to talk about having social anxiety or for another kid to talk about coming from an Islamic background, if it helps any kid who is in a place where they can feel like they’re going to be chastised and judged for who they are, if it helps them talk about it, then that’s all that I want.”
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Considered one of the United States’s 24 “hidden Ivies,” Lehigh University now has another accolade to add to its Pulitzer-prize winning faculty, flourishing NCAA basketball team, and bucolic campus in Bethlehem, Pa: Lehigh is one of a wave of select major colleges and universities to implement a robust gender-neutral bathroom policy for its transgender and gender-nonconforming students.
Chelsea Fullerton, the director of Lehigh’s Pride Center for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity tells The Advocate that, unlike Northwestern University, which last year announced that it would be creating just two gender-neutral bathrooms on the third floor of its Norris University Center building, Lehigh has designated 70-plus gender-inclusive bathrooms in almost every academic building on campus, making the school’s trans-inclusive policy one of the most ambitious and comprehensive among its peer institutions. (The terms "gender-neutral" and "gender-inclusive" are used interchangeably by Lehigh and Fullerton to refer to accomodations that welcome all people regardless of gender identity and expression.)
Like Philadelphia’s steps in September toward designating its single-occupancy public restrooms as gender-neutral, Lehigh’s policy comes as good news for advocates still reeling from recent setbacks in bathroom access for gender-variant Americans. To the outrage of many trans Texans, the proposed Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which would have protected LGBT people and 13 other minority classes from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations, was annulled November 3 after opponents launched a scare campaign that erroneously labeled transgender people seeking gender-affirming public bathroom access as sexual predators. In September, a federal judge denied a trans male student at Gloucester County High School in Virginia the right to use male restrooms. So important have gender-neutral bathrooms become to some advocates’ justice efforts at colleges and universities that when roughly 300 predominantly black students at the University of South Carolina staged a protest walkout in November, and issued 12 demands to school officials to make the university more friendly for underrepresented students, one of the demands was for gender-neutral bathrooms.
“We thought that gender-inclusive bathrooms were an important piece of our [diversity] work here,” Fullerton emphasizes. “A student who worked for the Pride Center two years ago wrote up a proposal that included facts and stats about trans folks and came up with a rationale for why this is important.”
While making it possible for binary trans individuals who identify as women or men to use bathrooms specified for their gender is crucial, advocates also maintain that gender-neutral bathrooms play an especially important part in making transitioning, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and genderqueer individuals safe as they relieve themselves, especially college youth whose gender identities and expressions may be evolving.
“Folks who were in the administration of the Pride Center at the time as well as folks in student affairs, administration, and facilities met together and made a plan,” Fullerton says, “and we audited the single-occupancy restrooms on campus, all of which at the time were gendered. Then we made a spreadsheet that had all of the restrooms and we marked what needed to be done to make gender-inclusive spaces. Almost all of the single-use restrooms have been converted into gender-neutral spaces.”
Fullerton explains that among the ingredients needed to create viable gender-inclusive spaces was a “passive educational campaign” that included signs on the doors of the bathrooms that clearly mark them as “gender-inclusive” spaces with additional language that states that the restrooms are “open to anyone regardless of gender identity or expression.”
Along with the passive educational campaign came an active one to get the word out about the new initiative, including bulletin board postings, newsletter articles, and signs inside bathrooms that explain the welcoming intent behind the newly designated accommodations.
To the question of whether anyone in on campus or the greater Lehigh community dislikes the changes, Fullerton, who mentions that she herself identifies as a queer bisexual cisgender (nontrans) woman, responds that no objections have yet been raised since the changes were implemented between last spring and now. If objections arise, Fullerton says, “I think I would say that I would want to hear what people’s experiences are and why there may be confusion, misunderstanding or discomfort, and then I would explain the rationale for why we needed to do this because ultimately we want to prioritize the safety of everyone so that they feel safe and comfortable to do something as simple as using the bathroom and we felt that creating gender-inclusive restrooms helps us to do that.”
“Right now there are some gender-inclusive restrooms in common spaces in residence halls,” Fullerton adds, “The multistalled restroom spaces also have [private] showers.” But Fullerton says that outside of the common spaces, the university does not have plans for gender-inclusive restroom spaces on residence hall floors. Instead, Fullerton points out, like approximately 200 schools in higher education, Lehigh now has a gender-neutral housing option.
“Over the past year we worked to create gender-inclusive housing spaces. We did have co-ed housing options, but those options weren’t specifically marketed to the LGBTQ community. So we created what we call the Pride Community, and this is our inaugural class of students who are living in that community, and it is a truly gender-inclusive community and all the restrooms there are gender-inclusive. The community is one option for transgender students, and they are welcome to explore other options as well. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ model here at Lehigh and not all trans students want the same thing.”
Fullerton also acknowledges the ways that Lehigh’s new policy for gender-inclusive restrooms expands on the legal protections in its nondiscrimination policy, which clearly list gender identity and expression, and its “Principles of Our Equitable Community,” and she stresses that, like other schools, the changes dovetail with other diversity strides like the Pride Center’s ongoing communications with the school’s Greek community, and its trainings, peer education, and collaborations with Multicultural Affairs.
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It was a picturesque October afternoon last year, with weather typically and obnoxiously L.A. A smattering of perfect white puffy clouds hung in the sky just to remind me that those still exist in the world, though usually outside the magic and mischief of Southern California. I entered the elevator leading to the exclusive, invite-only floors of Soho House, where I was to meet the gentleman who had sent me his first communication starting with, “Cadence, I hope you don’t mind me writing you out of the blue, but I am an actor…”
Just an actor, an everyday actor, who was already well on his way to becoming a household name. Just an actor named Eddie. Just an actor who I would come to know, respect, and love.
I will never forget that first meeting. Eddie was already waiting, a glass of water on the table amid a mélange of books, magazines, notebooks, scratch paper and other accoutrements of his process. I was well aware (as I do my research before attaching my name to anything) of his reputation for deep focus, extensive exploration, and unforgiving immersion into a role. The preparation was both admirable and almost unbelievable. Upon seeing me with my signature fire-red mane, black-and-white print dress and four-inch Mary Jane heels, he jumped up and embraced me like he was reconnecting with an old friend, thanking me profusely for meeting with him and doing my part to help him take on what I can now say is one of the most quintessential trans portrayals in cinematic history to date.
The next few hours spanned a myriad of topics, from discussing The Danish Girl book, his entry into the film adaptation, the history of the script, his conversations with Lana Wachowski (with whom he had shot Jupiter Ascending, and who greatly shifted his views on the ideas of transgender narrative), avoiding stereotypical and archetypal portrayals, and ultimately also the bull’s-eye that he now has on his back for being a cisgender actor playing a trans woman.
He paused. He took a deep breath, and, putting his hands together, he listened to what I had to say. We both agreed that there are valid and inarguable problems regarding trans representation in the media. It’s a shameful fact that trans people are often secondary casting choices (if choices at all) for their own stories, so I knew that ultimately no argument would convince all of what I knew after that first meeting, a motif I now feel completely justified in repeating: “Eddie, there isn’t an actor alive today that I believe could do a better job bringing Lili to the screen than you.”
THE DANISH GIRL
RELATED: The Education of Eddie Redmayne 
So it was with little trepidation that last week my partner of almost 15 years and I entered a quiet screening room located in an otherwise inconspicuous medical building to finally get to see the finished piece. I knew that it would be emotional, as already from the trailer the two of us had broken into tears. We sat quietly as the room darkened and the first images of the vast and unique landscapes of the Danish coast, so delicately photographed, appeared on the screen along with the hauntingly guiding score. The next two hours we held each other ever closer, exchanging glances and seeing the light glistening off our tear-soaked faces. We squeezed each other’s hands, recognizing elements of our dialogues with Eddie, elements carefully and consciously woven into the fabric of Lili and Gerda’s tale.
I remembered the concern and agony on Eddie’s face at a later meeting, where my partner, Trista, had joined us, as we told him about those delicate, dangerous, and vulnerable first steps. That fateful night in 2011 when I sat in the bathtub with Trista sitting on the floor next to me, having what began as a typical conversation for a couple comfortable in our familiarity and intimacy. But this night was different, as I decided, with a broken voice —  literally and physically naked — that I had come to that point where I would risk all that I had left, the most valuable thing in my life, the love of this woman sitting next to me, to bring my authenticity to light. That was the moment when I told her that I, her perceptually male heterosexual partner of 11 years, was in fact a woman.
I could have heard that proverbial pin drop in that bathroom, similar to the anticipation I saw in Eddie as he leaned forward, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape, hanging on to our telling of the moment. It took Trista no more than that moment to look at me, tears already welling in my eyes, and say, “I love you, and I don’t care what body that means.” It was in Eddie’s reaction in that moment where I believe something crystalized, something that came full circle to me upon the finale of The Danish Girl. Ultimately, that night in the bathroom, I wasn’t the only one beginning a transition. We both were.
Over the last four years, I have gone through just about everything there is to go through. I upended my life, returned to school, became ever more active in the social justice movements of trans and intertwining and intersectional issues, and have seen considerable successes both personally and professionally. I am now living a blessed life that I every day thank the powers that be for — but ultimately, it is in greatest part something I must never forget to thank Trista for.
Ultimately, the story — my story, Lili’s story, the trans story — isn’t solely ours. For those of us who are privileged to have that most crucial element of a successful transition; the support and love of someone near and dear to us, the story has an ensemble cast, with no part less important than the other. The Danish Girl is as much (if not in certain cases more) the story of Gerda Wegener as it is of Lili. It is a story of love, and what that love can accomplish when it is pure and true. It is a story of seeing someone for who they truly are instead of who we wish them to be, and loving them unwaveringly for it. It is a story of summoning seemingly endless pools of empathy to facilitate a life authentic. It is a story of summoning superhuman strength and standing by someone, even when it puts you at odds with the rest of the world. This is a story of the supporting role without which there would be no lead.
CADENCE VALENTINE is is an accomplished organizer, public speaker, and activist on issues facing the transgender community and is currently earning her master’s in social work at California State University, Northridge.
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The birth of gay culture happened on the corner of "after hours" and "drink until you’re comfortable." In a society where being homosexual was taboo, not to mention illegal, those on the LGBT spectrum gathered in small bars across the country where they would drink, let down their exterior defenses, and commiserate with the people who accepted them for who they really were. The music, the style, and the laws against homosexuality have all changed, but that drink is still there.
Cut to today, decades after the first brick was thrown at Stonewall, years after the 1990s brought gay characters into the mainstream media, and months after same-sex marriage became a right to all LGBT Americans, the definition of gay culture is now in limbo. For so long, the homo identity flourished in the ghettos of gay bars, but today, the modern homosexual is a fully realized member of society. Only problem, however, is that the resounding presence of alcohol leading up to this historic LGBT moment in history has given him a bit of a drinking problem.
Make no mistake, the delicious, gritty, and decadent history of the gay bar is a beautiful one. I cut my teeth on cherry vodka sours well before I turned 21 at a rickety gay bar called Moby Dicks, sneaking into the side door and trying not to look the bartender in the eye. The sparkle of drag queen gowns and the pulse of strobe lights lit my heart on fire as I danced to remixed Britney and learned to feel comfortable in my skin. But that experience isn’t as uniquely gay as it is textbook adolescence. I just happened to go to gay bars, and that’s how we do nightlife. I wouldn’t want to deny any young gay person that beautifully messy but ultimately liberating experience. But there is this notion that by leaving the gay watering holes and recognizing the destructive nature of binge drinking as you grow up, you are somehow rebuking gay culture and “normalizing” into hetero oblivion.
In the Slate article “The Gay Bar. Is It Dying?” one of my favorite LGBT culture writers, June Thomas, wrote about what seemed like the slow death of gay life as she knew it. “I'm relieved that for my generation, gay bars are but one dish on a vast menu of leisure-time options. But I'd feel their passing far more fiercely than the loss of the neighborhood video store. Without the gay bar, gay culture and gay rights might not exist. … But if the gay bar disappears, where will we learn to dance? Where will we realize that we're not alone? Where will we go to feel normal?”
Some gay bars may close if they cannot compete, while others may become less gay and more “queer” as time goes on. However, this article represents a popular belief that the substance of the gay ghetto and gay culture is waning just because gay bars are no longer the singular avenues for our lives. The fear that our neighborhoods are becoming commercialized, and straight people are taking over, is as real as it is irrational. Quite frankly, the evolution of modern gay life will only increase the presence of gay culture, as more men and women feel comfortable expressing their identity in the way they choose.
But instead of fighting to keep this booming bar culture alive, younger generations are championing new avenues and experiences that allow for gay men and women to navigate other areas of adulthood, with their LGBT identities firmly intact. The ever-so-slight shift away from the gay bar is a good thing. And whether you like it or not, it’s time to take a sober look at the health of the LGBT population.
Of course, alcohol use and abuse isn’t unique to gay, bisexual, and trans people, but it has come to be one of our most recognizable traits. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, LGBT people are more likely to use alcohol and drugs, have higher rates of substance abuse, and are more likely to continue drinking into later life.  Gay men represent the only demographic where HIV infection continues to rise. The use and abuse of substances are linked to risky sexual practices.
Being gay should not be an indicator of an increased propensity towards substance abuse. But as the CDC states, alcohol and drug use among gay and bisexual men can be a reaction to homophobia, discrimination, or violence they experienced due to their sexual orientation. Substance abuse also can result in other mental or physical problems, and it can disrupt relationships, employment, and threaten financial stability. So, given this sobering information, wouldn’t the subtle waning of the gay bar culture indicate a step in the right direction?
In an op-ed for The Advocate titled “The Fine Line Between Gay Pride and Alcohol,” I wrote about my own journey to redefine my relationship with alcohol.
“Recognizing your alcohol abuse doesn’t mean that you have to forever define yourself as an alcoholic, it is merely an acknowledgement of a behavior that you have exhibited and actively working to change it. This year, I celebrate my gay pride by taking a little more pride in who I am and the person I want to become. And despite the desire we all have to be forever 21, that means cooling it on the booze so that this gay boy can start acting like a man.”
This, however, struck a nerve among many people who do not want to see the gay party culture they know watered down for fear of the homogenization of what it means to be gay.
One dissenting commenter, whose opinion was shared by many, wrote in response, “Drink if you want. Fuck if you want ... Smoke if you want ... Swear if you want ... Stop sanitizing my gayness. You're implying that you are not a real man if you drink. Don't you think gay men have been told too many times in their lives they're not real men? Tell me what it's like to be a real man?”
To me, acting like the gay man I want to be means acknowledging destructive behaviors for what they are (binge drinking, drug use, etc) and taking the steps to change them. To me, acting like a gay man means no longer selfishly masking or dismissing bad habits to enable my behavior or the behavior of others. To me, acting like a gay man means seeking better for myself and for my community so that gay children today do not continue to have higher rates of smoking, drinking, drug abuse, and HIV. My gayness cannot be sanitized regardless of how many or how few drinks I have. My health and the health of the community I am a part of, however, can be.
What it means to be gay will forever and always be synonymous with the fabulously alternative, the flamboyant, and the queer. The LGBT movement has fought hard to be respected, so it can be difficult to take evaluation of our collective flaws in order to get better. We owe it to the future generations of gay men, trans women, and everyone else under the queer umbrella to not only gain equal rights, but also improve the value and self-worth of the LGBT population. That means preserving our history while allowing for a healthier, more evolved future. Gay bars are fabulous, but they are no longer the singular realm in which our lives exist. In the light of day, lets take inventory of our alcohol abuse and quit confusing it with gay culture, because that is not a culture worth claiming at all.
TYLER CURRY
TYLER CURRY is an activist and the author of A Peacock Among Pigeons, a new children's book that celebrates diversity. Get your copy at www.apeacockamongpigeons.com. He is also the senior editor of HIV Equal, a comprehensive online publication dedicated to promoting HIV awareness and combating HIV stigma. To learn more about HIV Equal, visit HIVequal.org or follow Tyler Curry on Facebook or Twitter @iamtylercurry.
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Donald Trump may not realize it, but he’s given a hat tip to the Human Rights Campaign.
The LGBT rights group is selling a baseball cap that’s a variation on the one Trump often wears at his campaign rallies. The slogan printed on it is “Make America Gay Again,” a play on Trump’s “Make America Great Again.” It also bears HRC’s equal sign logo and on the back is printed with “LGBTQ” and “Equality.”
HRC isn’t the first to offer a twist on Trump’s headwear, notes The Hill. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, wore a cap bearing the words “Make America Fair Again” at an event focusing on income inequality, and the Democratic Party has sold caps emblazoned with “America Is Already Great.”
Trump hasn’t had a lot to say on LGBT issues during his campaign, although he has said, at least, that being gay shouldn’t be a reason for being fired from a job. He has a long record of opposition to marriage equality, calling himself a “traditionalist,” but unlike some Republican candidates, he hasn’t talked much about this topic in the current race. Indeed, LGBT people have generally escaped the bombast he’s directed at immigrants, Muslims, and other groups.
Back in 2000, when Trump was considering a run for president on the Reform Party ticket, he told The Advocate he’d favor amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. He also supported LGBT-inclusive hate-crimes legislation (which became federal law in 2009) and an end to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy (which was repealed in 2011).
In the 2000 interview, he also said a Trump administration would be willing to hire a gay person. “I would want the best and brightest. Sexual orientation would be meaningless,” he said. “I’m looking for brains and experience. If the best person for the job happens to be gay, I would certainly appoint them.”
LGBT Democratic activists are notably unimpressed with Trump and the statements he made in that Advocate interview. “He’s not the same person he was 15 years ago,” said Earl Fowlkes, chair of the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Caucus, in a conference call Tuesday, in response to Advocate news editor Dawn Ennis’s query. Fowlkes added, “He’s a demagogue with a bad memory who changes his opinions to suit” his audience.
On the same conference call, Sean Meloy, the DNC’s director of LGBT outreach, said Trump is “no better nor worse than any other Republican.” Meloy also noted that Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus has called Trump “a net positive” for the party, as he has raised voter interest in the Republican field.
Now, though, some Republicans worry that if Trump wins the nomination, he will turn voters off to the degree that it hurts GOP candidates in congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative races. And in one of his latest stunts, he’s threatening to boycott the next Republican presidential debate, set for December 15, unless CNN pays him $5 million, which he says he will then donate to wounded veterans.
Meanwhile, the HRC “Make America Gay Again” cap costs much less, just $26. You can order it here.
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A dozen or more transgender activists rallied in New York City Tuesday night demanding police take swift action in apprehending the man who brutally attacked a trans woman. A spokesman for the New York City Police Department tells The Advocate Kathy Sal. 35, was savagely beaten early Sunday morning in front of her home in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens.
Although in their report police identified Sal as a man, the spokesman says they are aware she was known to friends as Kathy. The spokesman says Sal was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital in critical condition with injuries to her head and face. Sources tell The Advocate doctors are treating her for facial and cranial fractures as well as bleeding in her brain.
Friends of Sal's tell The Advocate she is now conscious and talking, but having some difficulty with her memory. Still, given the severity of her injuries, doctors at Elmhurst Hospital told Sal's friends they were impressed at the progress she's already made in her recovery. Joining them at her bedside Tuesday was transgender activist Jennifer Louise Lopez.
“Oh God. Not again,” was Lopez’s initial reaction to the news of Sal’s assault, she tells The Advocate. Lopez says that Sal’s case does not have to end like the fatal beating two years ago of another New York City trans woman, 21-year-old Islan Nettles.
Lopez says the 2013 murder of Nettles had a profound effect on her and other advocates in New York City’s trans community, and beyond.
It took detectives and the Manhattan District Attorney 18 months to arrest and finally indict 24-year-old James Dixon of Brooklyn, even though he admitted beating Nettles within days of the attack, and the fact that the crime occurred right on the police's doorstep. In March, Dixon was charged with delivering the devastating blow to Nettles's face that caused her to fall and hit her head on the pavement outside the Housing Police Department's PSA 6 stationhouse, leading to a brain injury. The indictment against Dixon also accuses him of striking Nettles several more times while she lay on the ground, compounding her injuries to the point that she was later declared brain-dead at Harlem Hospital and taken off life support a few days later.
Just as Nettles’s attack consisted of a severe beating after being knocked to the pavement, Sal’s assault was similarly heinous. New York City TV station WCBS reported the crime as a so-called “curb stomp”—urban slang for a type of maiming comprised of prolonged strikes while a victim already lies on the street. Like other assaults of LGBT people typified by escalated, prolonged savagery, Sal’s assailant allegedly argued with her and, after striking her, banged her head again and again into the pavement, reported DNAinfo.
WCBS also reported that the assailant rifled through Sal’s pockets before running away. Police say they have no leads and no suspects at this time.
With Nettles's case still on her mind, Lopez sprang into action despite her initial misery upon hearing of Sal’s assault. “After my first reaction, I thought, ‘What can we do?” Lopez says, “and I thought that we must mobilize our transgender community here in New York City to get the message out that things must be done differently this time around in investigating the assault.”
She is energized. In less than a day, Lopez put together Tuesday night's anti-violence rally in Queens. Another, larger demonstration is being orgaanized by other groups for Thursday.
LAURA A. SHEPARD
Lopez (above, right) is the Executive Director of Everything Transgender in New York City, a direct services networking organization that helps trans New Yorkers combat homelessness, suicide, lack of access to affordable education, family rejection, and unemployment.
She tells The Advocate she believes fervently that the trans community must work with law enforcement, merging both respect for their expertise with critique of the frequent dismissal of trans experiences as less than a priority among other crimes. With that respect in mind, she identifies three actions that police and the local news media can immediately take:
First, if they have not done so already, Lopez urges law enforcement to quickly interview witnesses, both those who have already been identified in media reports and those who have yet to come forward publicly. As with other trans-related crimes, many individuals witnessed facets of the assault. DNAinfo spoke with a 29-year-old neighbor of Sal named Eliana Abili, who said that the Jackson Heights neighborhood becomes “crazy” after dark.
Sal’s landlord described the altercation to DNAinfo, emphasizing key details like the assailant repeatedly banging her head onto the pavement. DNAinfo also mentioned another witness, Jimmy Flores, the owner of a bike shop who characterized the neighborhood as “terrible, people fighting, people robbing," with “drunk people” who “flood out of the bars on Roosevelt Avenue and also harass the transgender people who tend to congregate on the corner.” And of the trans people in the neighborhood, Flores notes that, “There's so many […] they don't do anything” but “there's a lot of drunk people in the street and they bother those people."
Second, Lopez suggests that witness accounts about the severity of the crime and the character of the neighborhood may help law enforcement bolster expanded hate crimes charges. She believes swift assignments of hate crimes charges would help the public understand the biased nature of these kinds of attacks, and she points out that the original charges in Nettles's case were only misdemeanors, prior to her death.
Third, Lopez asks the local news media to stop its transphobic reporting of incidents of violence against trans people, and she singles out some of the reporting on Sal’s assault as particularly egregious. Among those are WCBS which deadnamed Sal in reporting that her “given name was Ricardo Sal but goes by the name Kathy” ("Deadnaming" is a term used in the trans community to describe when someone identifies a trans person by their former name instead of respecting their choice of preferred name; whether it has or hasn't been legally changed should not overrule a trans person's preference). Other examples include the New York Daily News and Newsday, whose pejorative misgendering of Sal and erroneous identification of her as a “crossdresser” in headlines that blared “Crossdressing Queens man attacked.” Lopez emphasizes that this transphobic reporting is its own kind of violence that, while not physical, maligns trans individuals in the eyes of the public by devaluing their identity.
Police tell The Advocate the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force was notified of the attack, but that this case has not yet been classified as a hate crime. Detectives from the 115th precinct are investigating, and should they determine the assault was motivated by Sal's gender expression or identity, then, the NYPD spokesman says, the task force will take over the investigation.
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