Oklahoma Pro-Conversion “Therapy” Bill Dies on State House Floor
This afternoon, a bill introduced to the Oklahoma State House by Representative Sally Kern that would legalize anti-LGBT therapy died without coming to a vote.
HRC.org
Out Univision Host Fired For Racist Comments Comparing Michelle Obama To Planet Of The Apes
File this under “things that are super easy to remember never to do”: make obviously racist comments while on live television.
It won’t be hard to remember, but for Univision style host Rodner Figueroa, the lesson was learned the hard way.
Speaking about make-up artist Paolo Ballesteros’ viral transformations into various celebrities, he said of Michelle Obama:
“Mind you, you know that Michelle Obama looks like she’s part of the cast of ‘Planet of the Apes.’”
And the crowd. Went. Silent.
It was more Rush Limbaugh than it was Joan Rivers, and that’s never a good thing under any circumstances.
Host Raúl de Molina attempted to save the situation by commenting that Michelle is attractive, but the damage was done.
Univision put out this statement:
Yesterday during our entertainment program “El Gordo y La Flaca” Rodner Figueroa made comments regarding First Lady Michelle Obama that were completely reprehensible and in no way reflect Univision’s values or views. As a result, Mr. Figueroa was immediately terminated.
To his credit, Figueroa wrote a lengthy apology letter to the First Lady, Latino Rebels English translation of which reads:
Respected First Lady Michelle Obama,
I offer my sincere apologies for a comment I made about the characterization from what a makeup artist made about you during my appearance on Univision’s “El Gordo y la Flaca” entertainment program yesterday, and how it was misinterpreted.
I want to clarify that I am not racist in any way and that my comment was never directed towards you, but towards the characterization of that artist, who left much to be desired. The entire video clip in context will prove it.
I feel embarrassed and I apologize, because there is no excuse for a professional like me to make this type of comment, which can be interpreted as offensive and racist duing such volatile times in our country. I take responsibility for this lack of judgment on my part, but I cannot accept being called a racist by anyone and be dismissed because of it, and be publicly humiliated by Univision after 17 years in this business.
I come from a biracial Latino family, with family members like my father who are Afro-Latino. I am the first openly gay presenter on [U.S.] Hispanic TV and I’ve been an activist in favor of causes for minorities, as I have been discriminated against. I voted openly twice for you husband, Barack Obama, because I consider him a great man who respects minorities, like me, in this country.
I worked on two programs for Univision where I commented on the looks of many celebrities, including royalty and Latin American Firt Ladies and I have never offended anyone becuase of their skin color, sexual orientation or nationality. I am a decent person, but a human being after all, and I make mistakes like this. And with the fact that my comment has been interpreted in such an unpleasant and inappropriate (crossing the line) way, I do not deserve to be called a racist, and I have to defend myself out of respect and love for my family, my father, my fans and my community.
I was verbally notified that a complaint made from your office led to my dissmisal and through leaked information initiated from Univision executives, I am now being condemned on social media by those trying to destroy my career unfairly, without even having being notified officially in writing and without an investigation that would clariy the situation.
Again, I offer a humble apology for the misunderstanding and take responsibility.
Very respectfully,
Rodner Figueroa
Sure as hell beats Russell Tovey’s awkward Twitter half-apology.
We actually feel for the guy here — seems like an honest mistake.
Here’s the clip:
Dan Tracer
Hear What Happened When This Gay Man Came Out To His Muslim Father Despite Therapist's Advice: VIDEO
The son of a Palestinian refugee who risked everything to come to the United States, Khalid el Khatib stayed in the closet on the advice of his therapist because he did not want to disappoint his father.
However, when the pain became too much Khalid decided he could no longer lie to his family.
In a new video for I’m From Driftwood, Khalid explains that four years later, although some issues remain, he has the full love and support of his father.
Watch Khalid explain his decision to come out to his father, AFTER THE JUMP…
Jim Redmond
www.towleroad.com/2015/03/son-comes-out-to-muslim-father-despite-therapists-advice-video.html
Conselho LGBT garante uso do nome social em escolas e delegacias
ESPECIAL WEB – 12.03.15: O Conselho Nacional de Combate à Discriminação e Promoções dos Direitos de Lésbicas, Gays, Travestis e Transexuais (CNCD/LGBT) estabeleceu regras para uso do…
Antigay Teacher Raises Ire of Reality Star, Susan Sarandon
A Facebook posting creates a mini-firestorm.
Neal Broverman
www.advocate.com/politics/media/2015/03/12/antigay-teacher-raises-ire-reality-star-susan-sarandon
What Gay Dads Can Learn From Their Trans Kids
The social worker had been waiting on the street for three hours and pounced as Adam Holland, his husband and their daughter pulled out of their West Hollywood, California, driveway. The mother of their child’s best friend at preschool, they learned, had called children’s protective services.
“The report said that we were forcing our child, our boy, to dress like a girl,” Holland said. It said that we were confusing him, and that he was suffering.”
For Holland (who asked that his real name not be used to protect his child’s identity), 44, it was a confirmation of the worries spinning in his head since his child began identifying as a she, not as a he, the gender assigned to her at birth.
“At about 3-years-old, we got that this kid wanted to wear princess outfits and cheerleader outfits that grandparents got and little Disney frocks from the play chest,” he said, “and we figured ‘we’re liberated gay dads, our kids can role play however they want.’ So we had plenty of costumes of all different kinds.”
That led to pitched battles to remove the dresses before bed and school, as well as family counseling, which Adam wound up attending solo.
“She said ‘well Adam, why don’t you come back next time, just you.’ And I didn’t realize what was happening, but over the next couple of months I kept asking ‘so when do we bring the child back?’ And she said ‘oh, well, we find that the kids don’t really have much work to do. It’s mostly the parents. And I thought ‘Ah, I get it now.'”
In fact, while “getting it” may come easier to gay fathers of children who don’t conform to traditional standards of gender, they can face challenges that heterosexual parents may not.
“Gay and lesbian folks deal with all of this better,” said Dr. Johanna Olson, medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “But the challenge that gay men still face, particularly if they have a transgender daughter, is a fear that people are going to think that they’re doing that to their kid. There’s an overall pervasive idea that the parent is doing this to their kid, but that’s especially true for gay men.”
With the help of the therapist and others, Holland put together a “safe file,” letters and other documents from their pastor, counselors, teachers and others explaining Claire’s gender identity situation. They showed it to the CPS investigator, who left their home considerably more educated. Still, the incident was terrifying for Holland and his husband. “We had finalized an adoption with this child and it felt like they were going to take her, in the guise of a well-intentioned but uninformed social worker.”
While Holland was learning to confront his own feelings about the gender identity of the child he increasingly accepted as his daughter, she soon let him know that she needed the process to move more quickly.
“Claire at one point tried to cut off her own penis. She wasn’t using a very sharp knife, it was like a butter knife, and I sort of happened upon it and said ‘whoa, what’s going on?’ And she said ‘I want to get rid of this.’ So at that point, we had to do something really tangible for her.”
That was how Claire came to Dr. Olson, who explained to her in terms understandable to a 4-year-old that doctors could eventually help her be externally who she was inside.
“I am touched and moved as a pediatrician that I can play a tremendous role in what I see as a human rights movement,” Olson said.
• • •
Thinking back, Steve Magazine, of Newport Beach, California, remembers his child, then named Troy and identifying as male, at five or six, wishing that he was a girl as he blew out the candles on his birthday cake. And that was the only hint of him being unhappy with his assigned gender, until one day in October of his junior year in high school. “We got a call from the school counselor telling us that Troy was in her office and had thoughts of suicide and had been trying to plan it,” said Magazine. “He explained that if he could have thought of a way that wasn’t painful he would have.”
Magazine, 53, and his husband, Harold, 52, who adopted Troy at five days old, were shocked. While Troy had come out to them as gay not long before, they were unable to understand why he never spoke to them of his depression himself. “I felt like I would never sleep or be happy again,” said Magazine. “I was so scared of finding my child dead. After about three months Troy came to the realization that it was the ‘male’ person he wanted to get rid of, he didn’t really want to die.”
Shortly after, their child chose the name Luna and began presenting as female full-time. Luna, now 17, began hormone therapy last summer and is initiating a career in modeling and acting. Like Holland, Magazine said that coming to understand his daughter’s gender identity has not been without its challenges. But seeing her happy and thriving dispels many of his worries.
“She is now talking about surgery,” said Magazine. “We will be able to go in for a conference after she has been on the medicine for a year. We’re scared for her but she explains to us that she’s more than 100 percent sure she wants the surgery.”
• • •
Olson says that while she has more than 100 patients under the age of 13, most are far older.
“If you don’t have supportive parents,” she said, “you don’t claw your way here until you’re 18.”
While cross-gender role play is extremely common in children as young as two, Olson says that various studies have shown that transgender children share several common factors that set them apart from a 3-year-old boy who occasionally dons his sister’s tu-tu.
“The more dysphoric or unhappy a kid is about their assigned gender, the more likely they are to have a trans identity in adolescence,” she said. “They also found that kids who were stating that they were a different gender from their assigned gender were more likely to persist, kids who were asserting I AM this gender.”
Surveys of her own patients have found that while the average age a transgender child realizes his or her gender identity at around seven, most don’t disclose it until age 16, a gap of nine years. That has serious implications, both for emotional and psychological development during a crucial period of childhood, and physically, if the child hopes to avoid an incorrect puberty and develop in accordance with his or her gender identity. Since 2006, hormonal therapy has been available to block changes that produce secondary sex characteristics, such as breasts in anatomical females or facial hair and bone changes in anatomical males, but Olson recommends that it begin by nine in those born as girls and 11 for those born as boys. Hormone therapy to induce puberty that corresponds to their gender identity can follow later.
“That affords trans folks the ability to decide whether they want to disclose or not,” said Olson. “And that’s a real gift because we still live in a world where if you are identifiably trans, particularly a trans woman of color, you’re at very high risk for a lot of bad things.”
Olson says that much of that begins in childhood, and that it falls to parents to shield their children. While Holland and Magazine both say they faced a learning curve, no one had to tell them how to protect their kids.
“I would be walking behind with her little brother and I would see people looking at her and trying to ‘figure her out,” said Magazine. “I saw people laughing, pointing, and commenting. I went up to people many times and said something like, “that is MY child you are talking about!”
Claire, now nine and “stealth” (passing as cisgender), is well aware of the changes approaching. “Claire is assessing her body,” said her father. “We don’t know when she’ll hit puberty but it could be soon. When she feels her body’s changing, we’ll go into Dr. Jo and start with blockers, because it’s very clear she doesn’t want to go through a male puberty.”
Olson’s program increasingly sees young people who never feel a particular need to identify either as trans- or cisgender, as traditionally male or female.
“The experience of gender is broadening so much as time goes on,” she said. “If you look at youth culture around gender, it’s really youth who are driving this movement to have a more expansive lexicon. It’s not about trans people necessarily, it’s about people having more ways to describe gender roles.”
In the end, both fathers say it’s not clear who grew more, their kids… or themselves. “We have all transformed because of her,” said Magazine. “I thought I knew it all…. yet she has taught me SO much.”
Originally posted at Gays with Kids.
Raven-Symone: Empire storyline of Jamal having been married to her character 'helps show the fluidity of sex'
‘Nowadays I don’t really want to be labeled either way, but I want people to understand what I’m talking about’
gregh
Florida House Passes Legislation to End Discriminatory Adoption Ban
On Wednesday the Florida House passed HB 7013, a bill focused on adoption and foster care.
HRC.org
Azealia Banks Needs Your Body To Bring Her Latest Music Video To Life: VIDEO
With all of the controversy surrounding Azealia Banks and her multiple ongoing feuds it’s easy to forget that the 23 year-old rapper is still releasing high-concept music videos for her most recent concept album “Broke With Expensive Taste.”
Yesterday Banks and co. shared a link to the video for her latest single “Wallace” out to the public, but in order to watch it you, the viewer with have to participate in it. After opening the link to “Wallace” in the Chrome browser, the video will prompt you to allow it access to your web camera, allowing you to control the way Banks’s face moves and emotes throughout the video. The video’s trippy blend of face-tracking and a rotoscope-like transition effect make for a visual experience that is jarring, though captivating to watch. It is, in every sense of the word, an Azealia Banks production.
“I’m such a huge fan of technology and creative new ways of interacting and engaging with fans, so this collaboration was perfect for me,” Banks said of the unconventional music video. “Music videos are as much of an art form as the music itself. The more I can push myself in my creative endeavors, the better.”
Music videos aside, Banks is currently hard at work on a collection of fantasy companion short stories and fables to go along with “Broke With Expensive Taste” due out later this year. “Wallace,” Banks has explained in the past, is a story picked from her fable that tells the story of a minotaur-like man who has a rottweiler’s head in place of a bull’s.
Listen to Banks explain some of the story AFTER THE JUMP…
Charles Pulliam-Moore
www.towleroad.com/2015/03/azealia-banks-needs-your-body-to-bring-her-latest-music-video-to-life.html
