White House Appoints NCLR’s Shannon Minter to President’s Commission on White House Fellowships
HRC congratulates Shannon Minter for this well-deserved honor and looks forward to his service.
HRC.org
Daily Archives: June 8, 2015
Parada Gay SP 2015
Triathlete Chris Mosier Joins Men of Team USA, Making Transgender Sports History
Triathlete Chris Mosier Joins Men of Team USA, Making Transgender Sports History
Chris Mosier’s awe-inspiring time in the men’s sprint duathalon has opened a new door for trans athletes nationwide.
Mitch Kellaway
Meet The HDP, The Pro-Gay, Pro-Women Kurdish Party Shaking Up Turkey's Politics
Meet The HDP, The Pro-Gay, Pro-Women Kurdish Party Shaking Up Turkey's Politics
Turkey held parliamentary elections on Sunday in a vote that saw President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party lose its single-party majority after over a decade in power.
As support for the AKP waned among voters, a progressive new pro-Kurdish party helmed by a charismatic young leader made surprising gains. The Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, is one of the biggest stories to emerge from the election, and it represents a new power player in Turkish politics.
The HDP garnered about 13 percent of the vote in Sunday’s polls, overcoming Turkey’s high barrier to enter the national parliament, where parties must carry at least 10 percent of the electorate in order to join the chamber. This will be the HDP’s debut in Turkey’s parliament, and it will mark the first time in Turkish history that an overtly Kurdish party has made it in. Its 80 seats put it in a position to block Erdogan’s efforts to consolidate power for himself, potentially stopping the ruling AKP from achieving the majority it would need to pass legislation endowing the president with more influence.
Headquartered in the southern city of Diyarbakir, the HDP formed in 2012 from a collection of smaller pro-Kurdish political groups. Due to Turkey’s electoral rules, it had previously run its candidates as independents in order to skirt around the 10 percent threshold for parliament, but increased popularity and a wider base of support led to a unified run this time around.
The party as it stands now is not solely a pro-Kurdish party, but one that incorporates a variety of liberal interest groups that have helped it break into government.
Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), celebrates following a news conference in Istanbul, late Sunday, June 7, 2015. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
It’s impossible to discuss the HDP’s surge without also bringing up its celebrated co-chair, Selahattin Demirtas. Born in southern Turkey, Demirtas, 42, is Kurdish and was a human rights lawyer before entering politics. His family-friendly appearance, youthful looks and exciting rhetoric have won him significant support.
Demirtas came in third in Turkey’s presidential election last year, and he’s been nicknamed the “Kurdish Obama” by his fans. The young politician’s rising clout has not gone unnoticed by Erdogan, who called Demirtas a “pop star” and a “pretty boy” in the lead-up to Sunday’s vote.
While the HDP has its base of constituents in Turkey’s minority Kurdish population, which makes up about 20 percent of the country, Demirtas has broadened the party’s appeal. Under his lead, the HDP has reached out to a variety of minority groups excluded by the socially conservative AKP, such as environmentalists, LGBT rights activists and secular Turks.
These groups were the target of vitriol from Erdogan, who has attempted to rile up his conservative base with derisive talk of “the Armenian lobby and gays,” notes Reuters.
The HDP has also provided a political platform for women’s rights groups, and has signaled a commitment to gender equality. The party is led by female and male co-chairs — Figen Yüksekdağ and Demirtas, respectively — and the party charges female candidates half what it does men to run for office. Creating a ministry of women is also among its promises, reports The Guardian.
Around 40 percent of the HDP’s newly elected members of parliament are women — a remarkably large share in comparison to the parliament as a whole, where women hold only 17 percent of the seats.
Young supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) hold Kurdish flags as they celebrate the results of the legislative election in Diyarbakir, Turkey, on June 7, 2015. (BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)
Analysts say that by shifting its focus from Kurdish nationalism to a more inclusive platform, and campaigning on issues of minimum wage and anti-corruption, the HDP has garnered a hugely favorable impression with the Turkish electorate. A poll conducted by the party found that the percentage of voters who would “never” select HDP on a ballot went from 85 percent in August 2014 to just 15 percent in March of this year, according to The Washington Post.
Kurdish issues are still a central part of the HDP’s platform, however, and on Sunday Demirtas stated his commitment to reviving stalled peace talks. Conflict between the Turkish government and the left-wing Kurdish militant group PKK killed more than 40,000 people between 1984 and 2013, until a ceasefire was reached.
Demirtas has said that many of his friends died in the conflict, and as a youth he even attempted to join the PKK himself, reports The Wall Street Journal. Now he says he wants to bring political change through peaceful means, and to alleviate the conditions that push young people toward militant groups in the first place.
Turkey currently faces an uncertain political situation after its election, with the AKP needing to form a coalition yet unlikely to find willing partners. The HDP has ruled out joining the AKP in coalition, Reuters reports. This could mean another election that would send voters back to the polls — and force the HDP to prove that its first-time success wasn’t just beginner’s luck.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Jake Gyllenhaal Gets Hit Hard, Clint Eastwood Mocks Caitlyn Jenner
Jake Gyllenhaal Gets Hit Hard, Clint Eastwood Mocks Caitlyn Jenner
Years & Years, featuring the spellbinding vocals of out singer Olly Alexander, will undoubtedly be your favorite new band before the year is out. The British electronica trio have dropped another video ahead of the July 10 domestic release of their debut album Communion. Check out the clip for “Shine” below.
Attorneys who represented Michael Egan (below), the former aspiring actor who claimed he was abused by Hollywood power players including blockbuster director Bryan Singer, have apologized for the lawsuits and say they believe the allegations were untrue.
Adam Lambert‘s new album The Original High, with the gorgeous lead single “Ghost Town,” is probably his best yet. You can listen to it ahead of its official release here.
You’d think that at 83, Clint Eastwood would know when to keep his trap shut about things he obviously doesn’t understand. But the crusty geezer Oscar-winning director took a cheap shot at Caitlyn Jenner from the stage at the Spike TV’s Guys’ Choice Awards on Saturday. Fortunately, the “joke” will be excised when the show is aired later this month.
Twenty-two year old singer Alyxx Dione has been writing her material since she was 11. “Chingalinga,” her debut single featuring Jason Derulo, shows that her misspent youth wasn’t so misspent.
Sizzy Rocket is just your everyday, run-of-the-mill, phallus-obsessed pop princess. Check out here NSFW video here.
It’s too soon to give Jake Gyllenhaal all the best actor awards for what appears to be a ferocious turn as a down-on-his-luck boxing champ in the hard-hitting drama Southpaw (out July 24), but the new trailer announces we may already have a contender.
Maybe you remember Ricky G as lead vocalist for the ’90s boy band No Authority. Now he’s back, all grown-up and glammed out as Ricky Rebel and has a hot new club track “Star” featuring a remix by superstar DJ/producers Tommy Love and Hector Fonesca.
The story arc of closeted Thomas Barrow on Downtown Abbey is intended to elicit audience sympathy, according to creator Julian Fellowes. “And what I wanted to do was to remind, particularly our younger viewers, that within not just living memory, but it was only half a century ago that in England, homosexuality ceased to be illegal,” Fellowes told a panel at the Writers’ Guild in L.A. “Before that time, if you were homosexual you were living under a permanent constraint to possible arrest and, having been arrested and having been charged, the end of your career.”
Jeremy Kinser
Towleroad Interview: ’Major Crimes’ Graham Patrick Martin
Towleroad Interview: ’Major Crimes’ Graham Patrick Martin
In the criminal justice system on television, some portrayals of LGBT people are considered particularly heinous.
One exception, however, is TNT’s Major Crimes, a spin-off of the beloved series The Closer, created by openly gay writer James Duff. Major Crimes kicks off its fourth season tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, and features the character Rusty Beck, portrayed by Graham Patrick Martin. Rusty made his debut in the series finale of The Closer and has been a central element of Major Crimes since its debut, acting as one of the principle narrative threads connecting the episodes. He’s been a homeless teen, the child of an addict, the witness to a murder and one of the most three-dimensional gay characters on television.
Ahead of tonight’s premiere, we spoke with Martin about the role and what’s ahead for Rusty in season four.
See what he had to say, AFTER THE JUMP …
Towleroad: You joined this project during the series finale of The Closer. When you were first introduced to this character, what really interested you about Rusty?
Graham Patrick Martin: What’s great about this show, not to knock on other procedural shows, but what this show does‚ and The Closer did and now Major Crimes‚ is James Duff and the rest of the writing staff really writes these full characters, like even the people down to the one liners. It just feels like they have a full life, and that’s what I loved about Rusty going into it.
TR: What surprised you most about how the character developed over the years?
GM: What I really love about it is that Major Crimes has taken great care in writing and developing Rusty as a multi-faceted character where the emphasis is just as much on his humanity as it is on his sexual identity. They haven’t really short-changed or accelerated his story for purposes of effect or purposes of making the show more interesting. They’ve really sort of authentically allowed this character to grow into the man he’s becoming. He’s not quite there yet, but he’s on his way. It’s really fascinating because the story’s really unique in the sense that Rusty sold himself on the streets at the age of 15 years old. At that age, you know, James and I both talk a lot about this, sex is not, in that specific circumstance, sex is not an act of love; it’s an act of violence, really. That was really his first introduction into sex. So, sort of watching Rusty develop, watching Rusty now sort of assimilate himself into normal life has really been interesting, because it’s challenging, his introduction into his sexuality, viewing it as kind of a bad thing. When Rusty first came out to everyone, it was very hard for him because the only gay people he knew were bad people. It was kind of this shame he felt and this fear that there was something wrong with him that he couldn’t fix. He even says that at the end of, I believe, the end of season two. He said, “I can’t fix it, I can’t fix it.” So, watching him sort of come to terms with that and sort of really — with the help of the love and support of Captain Raydor, who’s his adopted mother, and the rest of theMajor Crimes team, really, with their support — come to terms with who he is and accepting it and really thriving in it has been the most interesting part of playing this character, I think.
TR: The show is wildly popular. People love this show. Lots of them. Tell me about the reaction to Rusty that you’ve seen over the years.
GM: It’s so crazy every time. I live in Los Angeles, and people in LA are kind of too cool to approach you, so I don’t get approached that much in LA. But, if I do, like last night, my girlfriend and I were out to dinner, and some guy just walked by and was like, “You do good work.” And that was it. That’s like the most I get here. But I always say the second I pass the TSA checkpoint at LAX, when I leave LA, it’s like everybody in the world comes up to me. I get a wide range of reactions, specifically older women pinching my cheeks and viewing me like a son. They care so much about me, because they’ve been through a lot with me. They’ve been watching Rusty go through so much that they view me like a child to them. Then I’ve had other people send me messages on the Internet, because I read a lot of what fans write in. People have sent me messages and other cast-members messages and the writers messages saying like, “Hey, thank you so much for writing this Rusty character, because this is my story‚” or “This is my son’s story‚” or “This is my brother’s story,” and to see it being told just means a lot to people. I have one guy who just wrote me this really long message just saying, “Hey, Graham, I don’t want anything back from you. I don’t want a response from you. I don’t want you to send me a signed picture. I just want to tell you thank you, because Rusty’s story is my story, and seeing it told authentically is something that I’ve never witnessed before and means a lot to me.” The response that I get from people is a lot of gratitude. A lot of gratitude for this character, a lot of gratitude for being written and portrayed as sort of a real story and not so much a stereotype.
TR: In terms of your own understanding or exposure to these stories from the LGBT community, how has playing this role affected you personally?
GM: I mean, it’s definitely changed me a lot. I’m a straight guy. I have a girlfriend and this is a sort of world I’ve never really had a personal connection to. I’ve had a lot of gay friends, I’ve had gay family members, but this personal connection is something that I didn’t have before. I’ve really learned a lot. Specifically, I remember the episode where Rusty comes out to the squad. I got that script and I was like, “OK, I can play with this. I know Rusty well. This will be fine.” But I sort of realized I don’t know what it’s like to have to tell people a part of who I am and risk losing their love or their support or their friendship for it. I didn’t know what that’s like. That’s something that I, Graham, have never experienced, and I couldn’t fake. Because I’ve never experienced anything near that. I can’t imagine, for example, having to tell people that my hair is blonde‚ something that’s just a part of who I am, and that potentially meaning that I could lose those relationships or be judged for it or be rejected or disowned for it. I didn’t know what that was like, so I spoke to Phillip Keene, who is a castmate of mine, and asked him to lunch one day the week of shooting. I just asked him, “Hey man, if it’s ok with you sharing, what was your experience like?” I’m not going to get into it, because it’s personal for him, but hearing his side of it and really getting that personal connection to this experience that I have never had to go through, and I can’t imagine or fake going through, hearing that personal experience from him was really eye-opening and really powerful. I feel like we bonded, and I really sort of learned something new and was able to, I think, more authentically capture what that experience would be like.
TR: What are you most excited for viewers to see from Rusty in this upcoming season?
GM: I’m really excited, because Rusty has this whole new storyline that’s unlike anything from previous seasons. It’s his first year of college and he’s really embraced journalism. Through this newfound passion, he’s taken the challenge to identify a teenage murder victim from last season who is a Jane Doe. She died last season, and her identity is not known. Rusty really takes it upon himself to start this vlog, this investigative vlog where he tries to find the identity of this girl who died a year ago without an identity. He can relate a lot to her, because she was a homeless teen, just like himself. In trying to locate her name, he’s also trying to locate himself, and trying to, I guess, sort of save her, save her identity in any way he can. I’m really excited about that. It’s a really awesome storyline. Also, I’m excited, I can’t give away too much, because we’re shooting these episodes right now, but Rusty’s first sort of real, I guess I’ll call it “an opportunity for a love interest.” That’s what I’ll call it as of now, because that’s something that’s really complex. As I’ve talked about before, Rusty’s experience with sex is not necessarily a positive one at all. We’re sort of getting to this place where he’s inching toward the idea of maybe, possible dating, and sort of the challenges that that brings. I’m excited for both of those.
Are you watching Major Crimes tonight?
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Bobby Hankinson
www.towleroad.com/2015/06/towleroad-interview-major-crimes-graham-patrick-martin.html
Parada ponosa 2015; LGBTIQ+ Knjižnica pod krošnjami
WATCH: Washington's Newest Trans Prom Queen Celebrates Her 'True Self'
WATCH: Washington's Newest Trans Prom Queen Celebrates Her 'True Self'
Brooklynn Buenventura has come a long way from the first time she was elected to homecoming court, when she ‘hid’ herself in a tuxedo.
Mitch Kellaway
www.advocate.com/youth/2015/06/08/watch-washingtons-newest-trans-prom-queen-celebrates-her-true-self
Obama Appoints Transgender Attorney Shannon Minter To White House Commission
Obama Appoints Transgender Attorney Shannon Minter To White House Commission
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday appointed transgender attorney Shannon Price Minter to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
Minter, who is the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, has been lead counsel in a number of legal wins for the LGBT community. He gained national attention in 2001 when he represented the lesbian partner of Diane Whipple in a wrongful death case stemming from a dog mauling. That case resulted in a landmark decision in California that extended tort claims to same-sex domestic partners.
Minter was also the lead attorney arguing before the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, a state ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in the state. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 ultimately upheld a lower court decision striking down the ban.
“I am confident that these experienced and hardworking individuals will help us tackle the important challenges facing America, and I am grateful for their service,” Obama said in a statement, of Minter and a handful of other new nominees. “I look forward to working with them.”
The Commission on White House Fellowships interviews and then recommends people to the president for appointment as White House Fellows, who typically spend a year as full-time, paid assistants to senior White House staff.
Minter is one of a number of transgender appointees in the Obama administration. Others include Amanda Simpson and Shawn Skelly at the Defense Department and Jay Davis at the Environmental Protection Agency.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
American Medical Association Says There Is No Valid Medical Reason for Transgender Military Ban
American Medical Association Says There Is No Valid Medical Reason for Transgender Military Ban
Today, the American Medical Association (AMA) approved a resolution saying there is “no medically valid reason to exclude transgender individuals from service in the U.S. military.
HRC.org