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Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Entertainment, Homophobia, Humor

NY Times Lesbian Alerts

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Ellen-degeneresSome editor in the Sunday edition of the Times Entertainment section ought to be slapped for allowing Allesandra Stanley's comments about Ellen Degeneres to get printed. I quote:

"Ellen Degeneres leaves no opportunity untapped, not even a few seconds of chat on "American Idol." 

And then Ms. Allesandra goes immediately to a clever comment Ellen happened to make to Casey James about how, "for most women, their hearts are going to start racing just looking at you, right, but then for people like me…" She paused, holding the beat while judges and audience members tittered over the implied allusion to her being a lesbian. As the laughter swelled, Ms. Degeneres held up a finger, prolonging the joke with a knowing grin…delivered the punchline: "…blondes…"

Yeah…Allesandra?…that's called being clever. Not "taking every opportunity to make sure everyone knows she's a lesbian."

Frankly, the joke seems to be on Ms. Allesandra, who goes on to talk about how, whenever possible, Ellen makes comments about the performers outfits. And this is yet another way for her to make the point that she is a lesbian! 

Really!? I mean really?…if only! Ellen is perhaps the most un-in-your-face gay person anyone would ever hope to see (or not hope to see, frankly). Honestly, I wish she was a lot more out about it all. 

I'm sorry, but if that isn't outright, garden-variety homophobic (and some kind of me-thinks-she-doth-protest-too-much latency on Ms. Allesandra's part, one can only suspect) it's just plain stupid. And it is so typically hetero-stupid… Kara what's-her-name (had anyone ever heard of her before she was on this show?) is drooling all over blond boy-toy Casey James and no one seems to think that's making some kind of issue about her sexual preferences. She sits there and paws Simon Cowell and rubs up against him every few seconds or so. To say nothing of Simon making all kinds of homo innuendos to that Ken-doll cypher-host (I can never remember his name.) and no one's writing Sunday features about all the displays of heterosexual heat on American Idol.

But should Ellen make a comment about an outfit one of the performers is wearing (you know…like Randy Jackson manages to do every now and then with his 15 word vocabulary of "dog" "dude" "pitchy" "cool" and "you know what I'm sayin'?" and then he blurts out something about "the outfit you're working") and suddenly this is, in Ms. Allessandra's world "a quick way to remind the audience that [Ellen] is a lesbian."

Because, you know, only gay people are fashion conscious, right?My friend Jerry in Salt Lake City said he thought it was the kind of article he'd only see in the Salt Lake City papers, not the New York Times (which, for the record, didn't see fit to even use the term "gay" until 1987.)

Whatever. Someone needs to throw some cold water on Allessandra Stanley…I think she's getting the hots for Ellen.

What an utterly sophomoric piece of writing.

Ancestors, Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Family, Film, Friends, Gay History, History

Theater History

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AN EVENING WITH MARIO MONTEZ, DRAG SUPERSTAR
Lola Mario Linda 
 (left to right: Lola Pashalinski, Mario Montez, Linda Chapman)
…the great drag Superstar who reigned over the New York Underground film and
theater scene from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s.

Presented by the NYU Tisch Department of Performance Studies

Mario Montez and Marc Siegel (he is a Berlin based archivist and found Mario in
Orlando Fl and invited him to the Berlin Film Festival when the Jack Smith documentary
was being shown in 2009…)

in conversation with Ela Troyano and Lola Pashalinski

Tuesday April 6th
7 to 8:30PM

Free.

34 Stuyvesant Street
The Barney Building
Einstein Auditorium
New York City

Seating is limited and is on a first come basis. Please arrive early.

This is a historical event .. two
authentic legends talking about the creation of underground theater ,,,off off
Broadway .. and the queerness of the Ridiculous Theater company etc.. Mario is
75 and Lola ageless so who knows when next they will be in the same place
chatting about history, He worked with Jack Smith and Warhol as well  in Vain Victory, She was an original
Ridiculous Theater member and most recently played Gertrude Stein

Ancestors, Bo Young, Civil Rights, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Homophobia, Literature, Men, Nature, Politics, Religion

A Skeptic Comes Out

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RandiPeople may or may not be aware of the magician and professional skeptic, The Amazing Randi, but he has recently decided to come out and we think it's a fascinating conversation…listen here. He comes out as a gay man and has a rather nice conversation about it with the interviewer. He has always been a personal favorite of mine, a debunker of scams shams and magical thinking, including the $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge...which has yet to be awarded.

I can't help but wonder if the caricature portrait of Arthur C. Clarke (another gay man and long-time White Crane subscriber) in the background on the right might be an old boyfriend?

The conversation in the interview takes some interesting turns when they posit that rationalism (i.e. non-deism) might be as powerful a tool in the gay rights struggle as assimilationist gay religiosity and gay "spirituality"; Both have an interest in debunking pseudo-science (i.e. Right Wing creationism). Here's the quote:

"I think there is something that skepticism can do with homosexuality. A
lot of cultural conservatives use a kind of pseudo
science to argue against gay wrights. And people who rail against pseudo science
should want to argue against it even if it has to do with culture war
questions like gay rights. Cultural conservatives use junk science to
argue that gay parenting leads to mentally ill children.

They use fake
science to argue that being gay is not natural; that homosexuality
is an aberration when in fact you find it widely among many different
species. So, in a real way I think gay issues are skeptic's issues."
D.J. Grothe, President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, the
international educational non-profit founded by celebrated social critic
and activist James Randi.

Civil Rights, Community, Current Affairs, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, History, Homophobia, Jesse Monteagudo, Politics, Right Wingers, Weblogs

Jesse’s Journal

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Dolphin
The
Dolphin Democrats are South Florida’s oldest, largest and most
successful LGBT political organization. Founded in 1982 by Karl Clark,
Tom
Bradshaw, Jamie Bloodworth and other activists, the Dolphins have made
Broward
County the most gay-friendly county in a still-homophobic state. Thanks
to
Dolphin leadership, Broward has both an LGBT-inclusive human rights
ordinance
and a domestic partners law.  Friendly politicians on both the state and

local levels owe their success to the votes, money and volunteer labor
of the
Dolphin members. Gay activist-politicians like Dean Trantalis, Ken
Keechl
and Justin Flippen have used the Dolphins as a launching pad for their
political
careers; and our community has been the better for it.  I have been a
member of the Dolphin Democrats since the early days and have nothing
but
affection and respect for the women and men who lead that organization.

 
Democratic-donkey Unquestionably, the Dolphin Democrats are a big success. In fact,
the
Dolphins areRepublican_elephant too successful; so successful in fact that it’s almost a
given that
any up-and-coming LGBT activist in Broward County would join the
Dolphins as a
matter of course.  Thanks to their success, the Dolphins have sucked the

air out of Broward’s queer political life. There was a time when our
community was led by independent, non-partisan political advocacy
groups like the Broward County Coalition for Human Rights, the Tuesday Night
Group,
GUARD (Gays United to Attack Repression and Discrimination) and the
“PAC-PAC.” Today the only alternative we have to the Dolphins are the
equally partisan (but less successful) Log Cabin Republicans and
Sunshine
Republicans.

 

As a Democrat, I was proud to be part of a community and a state
that
helped elect Barack Obama President of the United States, along with a
Democratic Congress. Just over a year later, Obama remains popular
but he and his Congress have failed to deliver most of what they
promised
us. Though the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes
Prevention
Act is now the law of the land, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
(ENDA) is
going nowhere and both “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) and the so-called
Defense
Of Marriage Act (DOMA) promise to be around for a long time. (The
recent
“revelation” that the White Houses doesn’t really want DADT repealed
this year
was the last straw for too many activists.) Our community expects more
from this President and this Congress than a few empty gestures or
symbolic
appointments.

 

In all fairness, we are not alone. Each and every group that
worked
hard to elect Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2008 — anti-war
activists,
civil libertarians, environmentalists, feminists, labor unions, racial
and
ethnic minorities – has had its collective heart broken by the reality
of an
ineffective and incompetent Administration and Congress. Our president
seems to do a better job hosting parties in the White House than pushing
other
Democrats to pass his agenda. For their part, the “Dems” have missed
their
opportunity to enact useful reforms because of their distressing
inability to
unite and their disgusting lack of will power. The long-awaited health
care reform bill is a disaster; going from a concept that everyone
favored to a
bill that everyone hates. Unemployment is still high, our men and women

are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cap and trade is still a
long way
off.  Obama and the Democratic Party have disillusioned their friends,
energized their enemies, and alienated independents. he question
right now is not if the Dems will lose seats in Congress come November
but
whether or not the Republicans will gain enough seats to retake the
House and/or
the Senate. The Republicans are evil but the Democrats are incompetent;

and frankly I’d rather deal with evil than with incompetence.

 
Like too many other progressives, LGBT activists are sick and tired
of
being taken for granted by a Democratic Party that takes our votes, our
money
and our volunteer work and gives us little in return.  Admittedly, the
Republicans (except for Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) have done
nothing to win
our support, being married as they are to homophobic, religious
extremists. However, the fact that GOP is controlled by our enemies is
besides the point; as is the fact that Democratic clubs like the
Dolphins have
done great things for our community. As LGBT activists, our priority is
to
win equal rights for lesbian women, gay men, bisexuals and transgender
people
and not to elect politicians of one particular party. If the Obama
Administration and the Democrats in Congress want our support, they are
going to
have to earn it.

 

Gay Freedom Like too many other progressives, LGBT activists are sick and tired
of
being taken for granted by a Democratic Party that takes our votes, our
money
and our volunteer work and gives us little in return.  Admittedly, the
Republicans (except for Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) have done
nothing to win
our support, being married as they are to homophobic, religious
extremists.  However, the fact that GOP is controlled by our enemies is
besides the point; as is the fact that Democratic clubs like the
Dolphins have
done great things for our community. As LGBT activists, our priority is
to
win equal rights for lesbian women, gay men, bisexuals and transgender
people
and not to elect politicians of one particular party. If the Obama
Administration and the Democrats in Congress want our support, they are
going to
have to earn it.

Jesse Monteagudo is a regular contributor to White Crane and the GayWisdom blog.

Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Elders, Gay Wisdom, History, The Magazine

The Monette-Horwitz Trust Award

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Monette

We're pleased to announce…heck, we're tickled pink…that White Crane has been honored by The Monette-Horwitz Trust with their 2010 award. Along with co-honoree, RFD, White Crane is acknowledged by the Trust as reader-written-and-produced
quarterlies celebrating queer diversity. White Crane is celebrating 20 years of publishing; RFD is celebrating 35 years.

Other honorees this year include activist and author, Leslie Feinberg, the oral history film project Impact Stories, the civil rights group Iraq LGBTQ, the Reverend Eric P. Lee, President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Indian NGO AIDS care organization The NAZ Foundation.

The Trust has been presenting these awards for the past twelve years.

We're pleased and honored to be in such company.

Writer, Paul Monette and his lover, attorney Roger Horwitz, moved from Boston to Los Angeles in 1977. Both men were strongly associated with the LGBT activities of that city until their deaths. Horwitz succumbed to HIV-AIDS in 1896, which inspired Monette to write his groundbreaking memoir, Borrowed Time (1988). Monette went on to win the National Book Award for Becoming A Man: Half A Life Story (1992) and dedicated himself to the writing and activism for which he will remain known, capturing in poetry, prose and public speaking the hopes dreams and rage of a generation of gay men.

Before his death from HIV-AIDS in 1995, Monette established the Monette-Horwitz Trust to ensure the continued fruits of their activism as well as the memory of their loving partnership. The Monette-Horwitz Trust provides annual awards to people of diverse cultural backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations who hare, through their work, making significant contributions to eradicating homophobia.

Bo Young, Civil Rights, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Family, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Health, History, Homophobia, Marriage Equality, Politics

Rock For Equality

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Rock for Equality is a national event to demand equal Social Security benefits for LGBT Americans. This year there will be a rally on April 11th in Los Angeles to demand equal benefits for LGBT seniors.

Please join us in raising awareness about one of the most under recognized and harshly consequential issues in the LGBT movement! Join us at www.rockforequality.org

Ancestors, Bo Young, Civil Rights, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Family, History, Homophobia, Marriage Equality, Men

Queer The Census

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Census  Okay. We know it's a little clichéd – but here's what we want to tell the Census: We're here. We're queer. And we want you to ask us about it. 

It's crazy – the Census wants an accurate count of everyone in the country, and yet, there's NO question in the Census survey that asks if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender! 

You read that right: LGBT people are basically invisible in THE survey that is designed to accurately reflect the diverse reality of America's population – and beyond being downright ridiculous, it's also a big problem. 

The census isn't just a numbers game. The data collected every ten years has a direct impact on issues that are critical to every American – issues like health care, economic stability and safety. Census data tells us where we live and how we create family. And when LGBT people are not counted, then we also don't count when it comes to services, resources … you name it. 

The good news is that you and I can do something about it. It's time to Queer the Census! Join me and sign the petition from The Task Force urging the Census Bureau to make sure everyone is counted. 

Visit Queer the Census to take action now. 

Thanks for your help,