Boston Red Sox Announce Support for Transgender Equality in the Bay State
This week, the Boston Red Sox endorsed two bills in the Massachusetts House and Senate that would protect transgender people from discrimination in public spaces.
HRC.org
SNL Goes on a Suicide Mission to Protect Donald Trump’s Hair in Deleted Sketch: WATCH
In a deleted sketch from last week’s SNL posted on Wednesday, a group of elite Navy Seals is dispatched to protect Donald Trump’s precious follicles from its most dangerous adversary: wind.
The five-minute short features Taran Killam, Cecily Strong, Bobby Moynihan and Jay Pharaoh as Scalp Team 6 — an elite unit of follicular protectors “dispatched to protect [President] Donald Trump’s hair when a windy situation arises.”
The windy situation is a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in red square circa 2017 when, the video presumes, Trump is president.
Find out what Scalp Team 6 tries to do to protect the Donald’s hair and see who makes it out alive, below:
The post SNL Goes on a Suicide Mission to Protect Donald Trump’s Hair in Deleted Sketch: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
SNL Goes on a Suicide Mission to Protect Donald Trump’s Hair in Deleted Sketch: WATCH
WATCH: Sneak Peek of 'Transparent' Season 2
Amazon’s Emmy-winning family comedy Transparent kicks off its second season with the dynamic dysfunction that fans have come to expect, and love.
A teaser trailer for Transparent‘s sophomore season, posted to YouTube Tuesday, previews a wedding with two brides, and brings viewers along as Maura Pfefferman endures a moment most trans people loathe: getting misgendered.
In the clip below, the Pfeffermans are posing for a wedding photo — that appears to show Sarah, played by Amy Landecker, as one of the two not-so-blushing brides.
Then, as the Verge first reported, comes a moment to which countless transgender woman can relate: the photographer calls Maura, played by Jeffrey Tambor, “sir.”
Amazon will make the second season’s premiere available for download December 11, one week later than previously promised. And fans can count on many more episodes to come next year as the company already greenlighted season 3 in June.
Watch the clip below for a sneak peek of Season 2’s premiere episode of Transparent.
Dawn Ennis
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2015/11/12/watch-sneak-peek-transparent-season-2
Kirk Franklin Apologizes To Gay Community For 'Homophobia' In Black Church
Grammy-winning Gospel artist Kirk Franklin is back with his first studio album in four years, the provocatively titled Losing My Religion.
Franklin has been known over the course of his twenty-two year career as a contemporary Gospel recording artist who pushes boundaries, and his latest album is no exception.
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HRC Partners with LGBT Advocates in Mozambique
This past week, HRC was privileged to work with LGBT advocates in Mozambique on strengthening their skills as leading advocates in their country.
HRC.org
Did This Antigay Pastor Just Admit To Having A Poop Fetish?
Most parents throw parties and buy gifts for their sons and daughters when they get married. But not Pastor Kevin Swanson from Colorado. He’d rather smear cow manure all over his body then plop himself down in front of the church doors in protest.
While speaking at the National Religious Liberties Conference last weekend, Swanson told the crowd that he was totally, 100 percent “not kidding” when he said he’d smear poo all over himself if his son were ever to marry another man.
Related: Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee Will Speak At Conference Whose Host Wants Gays Executed
“There are families, we’re talking Christian families, pastors’ families, elders’ families from good, godly churches,” he preached. “Their sons are rebelling! Hanging out with homosexuals and getting married!”
“And,” he added with absolute horror, “the parents are invited!”
The statement was met with a collective gasp of shock from the audience.
“What would you do if that was the case?” Swanson continued. “Here is what I would do: Sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and I’d sit in cow manure and I’d spread it all over my body. That’s what I would do and I’m not kidding! I’m not laughing!”
Swanson and friends may not have been laughing, but the rest of the world was.
Related: Christian Pastor Thinks Gay Couples Should Be Put To Death On Their Wedding Day
Interpret Swanson’s cow manure statement however you please. We interpret it as him having a poop fetish. Although, we’re not sure how to interpret what came next in his antigay tirade, other than to call it a complete nervous breakdown on stage.
“I’m grieving!” Swanson screamed, tears of rage running down his cheeks. “I’m mourning! I’m pointing out the problem!”
“It’s not a gay time,” he continued, almost incoherently. “These are the people with the sores! The gaping sores! The sores that are pussy (sic) and gross and people are coming in and carving happy faces on the sores! That’s not a nice thing to do! Don’t you dare carve happy faces on open, pussy (sic) sores!”
We’d include the video but it appears Swanson’s team has since scrubbed it from the internet. Luckily, Rachel Maddow featured a few clips from it on her show earlier this week.
Watch the segment below.
Graham Gremore
Kim Davis Makes Jennifer Lawrence ‘Embarrassed to Be From Kentucky’
Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence is not a fan of anti-gay Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis.
In a new interview with Vogue magazine, Lawrence calls Davis that “lady who makes me embarrassed to be from Kentucky.” Vogue happened to interview Lawrence at her home on the day that Kim Davis was released from jail after defying Judge David Bunning’s order instructing her to do her job and issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
From Vogue:
“Don’t even say her name in this house,” [Lawrence] shoots back, and then goes into a rant about “all those people holding their crucifixes, which may as well be pitchforks, thinking they’re fighting the good fight. I grew up in Kentucky. I know how they are.”
“I was raised a Republican,” Lawrence adds. But the GOP’s stance on social issues has soured her opinion of the party: “I just can’t imagine supporting a party that doesn’t support women’s basic rights. It’s 2015 and gay people can get married and we think that we’ve come so far, so, yay! But have we? I don’t want to stay quiet about that stuff.”
Preach, Jennifer.
The post Kim Davis Makes Jennifer Lawrence ‘Embarrassed to Be From Kentucky’ appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
Kim Davis Makes Jennifer Lawrence ‘Embarrassed to Be From Kentucky’
Bat Boy for Washington Nationals Baseball Team Comes Out
By day, 21-year-old Spenser Clark is taking classes at Howard University, working toward graduation in June and considering law school. By night, he’s shoulder to shoulder with the biggest sports stars in Washington, D.C.
He’s currently a ball boy for the Wizards basketball team, and when baseball is in season, he’s a bat boy for the Washington Nationals.
And he’s gay.
Clark wrote about coming out for OutSports: “I work in Major League Baseball and I’m gay.”
During baseball season, his job is to pick up bats, give balls to the umpires, and do anything else a player needs before or during the game. His job is to be inconspicuous.
“After years of keeping the fact that he is gay a secret, Clark knows how to blend in,” wrote the Washington Post in a report on his revelatory article.
Clark wrote how he prepared by reading the stories of others who’d come before him, including Billy Bean, Robbie Rogers, Jason Collins, Conner Mertens, Chandler Whitney and more:
“Coming out to my Nationals coworkers was a completely different experience than any of the others. At work I was tired of trying to fit into conversations about women and having nothing to say. I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted. I didn’t want to hide anymore. I was unsure about how “sports people” would feel about having a gay co-worker. I was worried about getting fired or ostracized, all because of who I am.
“None of that happened. I told everyone individually and everyone had similar reactions. They were proud of me and congratulated me for feeling comfortable enough with myself to be myself. They told me that nothing would change – and nothing did.”
Right now, there’s not one active major league player, coach, manager or owner who is out. Clark says he hopes to be a general manager of a team someday, perhaps the first one who is openly gay.
Clark recalled that his “best moment on the field” came not in the form of anything he did, but the fact he worked a game with out umpire Dale Scott:
“His story inspired me, and seeing him do what he loved while being completely open was awesome. In that moment we were both just doing our jobs, and at the end of the day that is the ultimate goal.”
Read Spenser Clark’s coming out story in OutSports here.
Dawn Ennis
www.advocate.com/sports/2015/11/12/bat-boy-washington-nationals-baseball-team-comes-out
Washington State Man Jailed After Attacking Three Gay Seattle Men
SEATTLE (Reuters) – A Washington state man who yelled anti-gay slurs and threatened to stab three men in a Seattle neighborhood with a sizable gay community has been sentenced to 30 months in prison, the Justice Department said on Monday.
Troy Deacon Burns, a 38-year-old from Bremerton, Washington, pleaded guilty on Aug. 5, admitting in a plea deal that he attacked three gay men who were walking in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the department said.
During the plea hearing, Burns said he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of the assault and claimed that he did not remember his actions, the department said.
An attorney for Burns could not immediately be reached for comment.
He was charged in August under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Justice Department said.
Burns, holding a knife raised over his head in a stabbing position, approached the men just after midnight and yelled homophobic slurs.
The men ran, but Burns caught up to one and again used a gay slur and threatened to stab him. As the second man helped the first away, their friend found Seattle police officers, who arrested Burns, the department said.
While inside the police vehicle, an agitated Burns yelled out “faggots,” according to the criminal complaint filed earlier this month.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Woman jailed for 8 years for posing as man to have sex with female friend
A British woman has been sentenced to eight years in jail for pretending to be a man in order to have a sexual relationship with a female friend that she met online.
Gayle Newland, 25, of Cheshire, England, created an detailed Facebook profile under the name Kye Fortune, and began an online relationship in 2011 with the complainant, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
When the two finally arranged to meet in February 2013, Newland asked the other woman to wear a blindfold. She continued to ask her to wear a blindfold for subsequent meetings, telling her that ‘Kye’ was self-conscious of his appearance because of a disfiguring injury.
The two women had sex around ten times, until the complainant tore off her mask and saw Newland wearing a prosthetic penis.
Newland was found guilty after trial in September.
Today, at her sentencing hearing at Chester Crown Court, Judge Roger Dutton labeled Newland, ‘an intelligent, obsessional, highly manipulative, deceitful, scheming and thoroughly determined young woman,’ reports the Daily Mail.
‘To successfully pass off a deception of this complexity was a major undertaking involving dedicated mobile phone lines as well as regular texts from you purporting to be Kye’s relatives.
‘You pursued this course of conduct over a lengthy period during which you played with her affections, acting entirely for your own sexual satisfaction and choosing to ignore the devastating impact that the eventual discovery of the truth would have on her.’
Newland had claimed in her defense that no blindfold had ever been used and that the defendant had always known that she was a woman, but that they had engaged in role play while exploring their sexuality.
The complainant has said that she is not gay.
Newland’s defense team said it was it was ‘impossible to believe’ the complainant’s statement that she had believed Newland to be a man.
However, evidence introduced to the court included emails that Newland had sent to the complainant after her mask had been removed apologizing for her actions.
The jury found her guilty of three counts of sexual assault. She was cleared of two further counts of sexual assault that were alleged to have taken place at hotels in Hoole and Chester, reports the Chester Chronicle.
Newland’s legal team asked the judge to show mercy in her sentencing, pointing to psychiatric reports that Newland suffered from a range of disorders, including a social anxiety disorder, a personality disorder and depression. The reports also said that she had struggled to come to terms with her sexuality.
However, The Mirror reports the judge as saying, ‘These offences are so serious that only an immediate sentence of custody will reflect the seriousness of conduct.’
Newland was visibly distressed throughout the sentencing hearing, shouting ‘I’m scared’ to the court.
On being told the actual sentence, Newland had to be held up and forcibly removed from the dock by two officers and could be heard to cry and scream as she was led away from the courtroom.
Throughout the trial she has enjoyed support from friends and family, many of whom sobbed in the public gallery on hearing the judge’s sentence.
Detective Inspector Clare Coleman, head of Cheshire Constabulary’s Dedicated Rape Unit, said: ‘The sentence handed down today reflects the seriousness of this crime.
‘This has been a highly unusual and complex investigation. There has been a lot of interest in this case due to the extraordinary circumstances, but it is important to remember that there is a victim at the heart of all of this.’
The post Woman jailed for 8 years for posing as man to have sex with female friend appeared first on Gay Star News.
David Hudson
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