Out US Denmark ambassador marries partner

Today, 10 October, the gay US ambassador to Denmark married his partner at Copenhagen City Hall. According to Yahoo News, envoy Rufus Gifford has been in the Scandinavian country since 2013, appearing with Stephen DeVincent at functions.

DeVincent is a a 56-year-old veterinarian. Gifford, a 41-year-old Boston native, posted the following on Twitter. In 1989, Denmark officially recognized LGBTI relationships.

Married! In the land that created fairy tales, we just started our own… Feeling such happiness and gratitude. pic.twitter.com/fpAASAlXKw

— Rufus Gifford (@rufusgifford) October 10, 2015

The post Out US Denmark ambassador marries partner appeared first on Gay Star News.

James Withers

www.gaystarnews.com/article/out-us-denmark-ambassador-marries-partner/

Coming Out as LGBT in Africa

Living in a traditionally homophobic or transphobic society can make it increasingly difficult for LGBT individuals to come out to their family, friends and community.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/coming-out-as-lgbt-in-africa?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Heartbreaking Photo of Grieving Whale Carrying Dead Calf Goes Viral

Whales are complex emotional and intelligent creatures, a fact completely evident in this photo shot by Deron Verbeck of a male short-finned pilot whale swimming with two females, and holding a dead calf in its mouth.

Deron Verbeck writes, on his Facebook page:

I’m just going to call this “The Procession”.

Back in July I had the pleasure and honor of meeting and working with Brian Skerry world renowned National Geographic photographer. We came upon a scene that he, Jeff Hester, Scott Blain and I were the only humans to witness that day. We only did a couple drops just to document the encounter and then left them alone to mourn. I didn’t call anyone else out of respect for the animals to be left in peace.

There have been many reports and photo documentation of whales and dolphins carrying and “mourning” their dead offspring, but for me this was the first time I had encountered it. It was a pretty heavy and heart wrenching scene as the whales slowly passed by carrying their dead calf.

All three animals have been ID’d by Robin Baird of Cascadia Research Collective. What he knows is that they are all from the same “social group”. What he believes is that (from top to bottom in the image) the top animal is the adult mother of the bottom animal (although no genetic samples have been taken they have been photographed numerous times side by side since 2008 and mothers and female calves will stay together their entire lives) and the dead calf is the first offspring of the bottom animal. The bull that is carrying the calf may or may not be the biological father (only genetic sampling would have proved that). It is rare (but not unheard of) for the bulls to carrying the calves and there are very few images of this.

Wow.

The photo was shot off of Hawaii’s Big Island in July.

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Andy Towle

Heartbreaking Photo of Grieving Whale Carrying Dead Calf Goes Viral

Hillary Clinton Agrees Transphobic Violence is a ‘National Crisis’

Following up on her sweeping speech to Human Rights Campaign volunteers last weekend, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton acknowledged Friday that the unabated murders of transgender women constitutes a “national crisis,” reports BuzzFeed News. 

In a private meeting with Black Lives Matter activists in Washington, D.C., Clinton recognized that the reported 20 transgender women killed in the U.S. this year — most of whom have been trans women of color — signify what advocates have long called an “epidemic” of violence that Clinton hopes to combat if elected president. 

Although the meeting was closed to the public, BuzzFeed News reports that trans activist Cherno Biko, who works to support the families of trans women killed, was in attendance, and spoke passionately about the fear she lives with daily as a black transgender woman. 

“I think it’s really important to have [Clinton’s] voice as a part of this conversation,” Biko told BuzzFeed News. “We need all hands on deck.”

“[Clinton] acknowledged that it’s not her lived reality,” added Ferguson Commission’s Brittany Packnett, according to BuzzFeed News. “I don’t think she offered yet a lot of specifics about how to protect the most vulnerable among us, especially trans women of color. But it seemed like she wanted to do more listening on the topic which was encouraging.”

Biko was a guest on a recent HuffPost Live segment, where Advocate managing editor Sunnivie Brydum also addressed Clinton’s promises made to the LGBT community, including a pledge to value and honor the lives and humanity of transgender women. In that HuffPost Live Queerview segment, Biko speaks powerfully about the essential work she does supporting victim’s families, and earnestly reveals the emotional toll it takes on her to be surrounded by such seemingly endless tragedy. 

Watch that HuffPost Live segment below, with The Advocate’s Brydum addressing Clinton’s promises in the first portion, and Biko’s heartfelt discussion beginning at the 7:20 mark. 

Advocate.com Editors

www.advocate.com/election/2015/10/10/hillary-clinton-agrees-transphobic-violence-national-crisis

Nick Jonas releases new video

We at GSN love Nick Jonas when he’s taking on gay roles, from the deeply closeted fighter on Direct TV’s Kingdom to the college student in Fox’s Scream Queens. Keep getting those checks, Nick!

However, he is first, and last, a musician. It’s only fair to pay attention when there is a new Jonas single and/or video. According to Complex, last month he posted a new song called Area Code. The tune now has a video, and it’s the type of thing all heartbroken people can relate to.

Nick finds himself on the street of an ex-lover, wondering what might have been.

‘Everytime I have a drink or two/Get it bad for you,’ he sings.

Confess. The same thing happened to you after too many vodka cranberries. Enjoy the below video. We’ll keep posting them as long as he churns the hits out.

The post Nick Jonas releases new video appeared first on Gay Star News.

James Withers

www.gaystarnews.com/article/nick-jonas-releases-new-video/

Gay Iconography: Rachel Maddow’s Major Media Moments

Rachel Maddow is the first to acknowledge that her journey from morning show radio host to the first openly gay primetime news anchor and one of the most beloved newspeople in America is an unlikely one.

As she described it in a 2008 interview with OUT, “I’m a big lesbian who looks like a man. I am not, like, Anchor Babe, and I’m never gonna be.”

Sure, Maddow challenged the status quo of female TV news personalities (she once described appearing alongside right-wing conservative radio host Blanquita Cullum, “She’s like the Zsa Zsa Gabor of talk radio,and then there’s me, in a man’s shirt, saying ‘Don’t put any makeup on me, I’m a dyke!’”), but she’s also challenged the discourse. Her wonky, heavily-researched reporting and commentary grounded her TV appearances in measured dialogue and eschewed the sort of shrieking hysteria that dominated news programs’ gleeful sparring matches between opposing views.

While Maddow has often been portrayed as a symbol for the Left, she’s been known to challenge politicians and policies from both sides. “I’m a national security liberal, which I tell people because it’s meant to sound absurd,” she said to The New York Times in 2008. “I’m all about counterterrorism. I’m all about the G.I. Bill.”

She’s also been all about the global LGBT community, ceaselessly featuring segments diving deep into DOMA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and anti-gay laws across the globe.

“Well, I think Ellen DeGeneres has shown people are ready for her,” Ms. Maddow said, using a morning-show analogy. “But I will not dance the way Ellen does.”

Get acquainted with more Maddow in the clips below.

Maddox appears to have always been a rabble-rouser of sorts. Before she was sharing her commentary over airwaves, she shared a similarly wry and stirring speech to her high school graduating class at Castro Valley High School. She also volunteered and advocated during the AIDS crisis. “I had a very acute sense that something was happening to ‘my’ people even before I knew I was gay. I was very moved by what was going on. Growing up in the Bay Area as a gay kid was devastating. It defined the world in a very serious way for me, in a life-or-death sort of way. I had a lot of older friends and many of them died. There was a sense of: look, your life is happening now. This may be all you get.”

Maddox became a regular panelist on MSNBC’s Tucker in June 2005, often engaging in lengthy, heated exchanges with Pat Buchanan, a man she recalled declaring a culture war against LGBT people during the 1992 Republican convention. That was only two years after Maddow had come out, and it had a profound impact on her. She told The Washington Post, “I felt my country was declaring war on me.”

In 2008, as the presidential race began to heat up, Maddow sat in as substitute host on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, receiving rave reviews and excellent ratings among young people (a tough demo for cable news). MSNBC President Phil Griffin attributed at least some of that success to Maddow’s approach to telling a story in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Rachel is informed, she does her homework, she preps better and longer than anyone, she is fair and always smart.”

It wasn’t long until Maddow was given a show of her own, making her the United States’ first openly gay anchor in primetime news. The Rachel Maddow Show premiered on Sept. 8, 2008, and, a little more than a week later, she brought in 1.8 million viewers, beating even CNN’s Larry King Live. Her show would go on to elevate MSNBC’s standing as a network and win a News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis.

With the next presidential election already heating up, Maddow shows little sign of backing down. (Watch her discuss Trump’s surge, above.) There will no doubt be more from Maddow as we near the 2016 election. “I’m trying to be influential,” she once told The LA Times. “I’m trying to be part of the discussion. You reach people in television in a way that allows you to make more of an impact. If that’s the game you’ve decided to play, you might as well try to win.”

What’s your favorite Maddow memory?

The post Gay Iconography: Rachel Maddow’s Major Media Moments appeared first on Towleroad.

Bobby Hankinson

Gay Iconography: Rachel Maddow’s Major Media Moments

'Heather Has Two Mommies' Author On The Struggle To Publish Gay Books

As we reflect on milestones made within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community during October’s LGBT history month, HuffPost Live spoke with Lesléa Newman, the author of the groundbreaking 1989 children’s book Heather Has Two Mommies.

As the first lesbian-themed children’s book published, getting it to readers was a challenge. Newman explained to host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani earlier this week that getting the book published was an entirely grassroots effort because nobody was willing to endorse it. She said the reception to its publishing was mixed — some “thrilled,” some “horrified.”

“Libraries were reporting that the book was either stolen or returned with its pages glued shut,” Newman recalled. “There was one library that found the book in the bathroom defecated upon. There were politicians who used the book for their own personal agenda. So all kinds of interesting things were happening during that time.” 

Finding publishers interested in picture books with a gay agenda is “still a struggle,” Newman said. But in 2008, she was finally approached to write a baby book featuring gay parents. 

“I was really pleased that the publishing world was coming to me after I had struggled so hard to put Heather out there,” Newman said. “But obviously, you know, a lot has happened especially in the marriage equality movement that’s made the world a better place, I think, for all of us and all our families.”

Watch the full segment on Lesbian history: from Sappho to Ellen here. 

Want more HuffPost Live? Stream us anytime on Go90, Verizon’s mobile social entertainment network, and listen to our best interviews on iTunes.

Also on HuffPost:

— 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.

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British film banned from Beirut Film Festival because of ‘LGBT content’

A British film has been banned from the Beirut Film Festival (October 7-15) and the director believes it was cut for its ‘LGBT content’.

Writer-director Philippe Audi-Dor said: ‘I am very disappointed that Wasp won’t be screening at the renowned Beirut International Film Festival because of its LGBT content.’

The film Wasp follows the holiday of a gay couple in the south of France. A long-lost friend Caroline arrives and disrupts their tranquility while attracting the attention of one of the men. The film has been praised for its depiction of fluid sexuality.

The film has won best international feature and best actress at FilmOut San Diego this year. It has also been screened at the Boston LGBT Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, and others.

A spokesperson for the Beirut International Film Festival said Wasp was banned because it had not secured a permit from the General Security.

The BIFF has played LGBT content before, including the British film Lilting, starring openly gay actor Ben Whishaw.

Wasp is Audi-Dor’s first feature film. ‘I do understand that the film touches upon a delicate subject, and do respect the censorship bureau’s decision,’ he said.

He adds: ‘I do think however that the cancelling of the movie emphasizes just how relevant a film like Wasp is in today’s world.’

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Jack Flanagan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/british-film-banned-from-beirut-film-festival-because-of-lgbt-content/

More LGBT Individuals Around the Globe Continue to Come Out Despite Challenges

As LGBT rights are gaining salience around the world, more and more people are finding the courage to come out to their friends, family and the broader community.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/more-lgbt-individuals-around-the-globe-continue-to-come-out-despite-challen?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

‘Days of Our Lives’ Kills Off Gay Legacy Character Will Horton

Back in 2011 we posted about Days of Our Lives as its character Will Horton, then played by Chandler Massey, was set to come out of the closet, launching a storyline that would continue until this week. Horton has been part of Days since the character’s birth in 1995.

The show decided to kill him off this week, the victim of a serial killer called The Necktie Killer, though his fate has been known and discussed in soap circles for weeks.

Vulture writes:

Will’s death, brutally strangled to death on Friday’s episode, leaves one remaining gay character on canvas — Paul Narita (Christopher Sean) who joined last year and was revealed to be the secret son of ex-Priest/current-international spy John Black, because this is a soap opera, after all.

Guy Wilson, who was the most recent actor playing Horton, talked about why it happened:

“It was all purely business, and it was all in an effort to revitalize the show and create story space to bring back some iconic characters like Bo and Patch…All the characters who have fallen victim to the serial killer, none of it had to do with problems with the actor or personality. [I am] sad to know that this wonderful period in my career was coming to a close.”

Chandler Massey as Will Horton back in 2011:

The post ‘Days of Our Lives’ Kills Off Gay Legacy Character Will Horton appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

‘Days of Our Lives’ Kills Off Gay Legacy Character Will Horton