On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend's LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.
Michael Mahler posted a photo:
On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend’s LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.
Model Austin Armacost comes out as asexual
Model Austin Armacost, who is currently appearing on “Celebrity Big Brother” and split with husband Jake Lees last year, has revealed that he is asexual.
He told show business reporter Andy West that he is a “very asexual” person, reports The Sun.
“I am probably in all honesty the least sexual person you will ever meet,” he said. “As much as I love getting my kit off and showing my bum everywhere, I am like a nun in bed.”
Related: Austin Armacost displays finest assets in unclothed yoga pose
“I am not going to go out with someone and have sex with them,” he went on. “Even after a fourth or fifth date – that’s not what I want.”
Armacost is reportedly seeing someone else, and said that he signed up for dating/hookup app Grindr weeks after he and Lees broke up, saying, “I did it because I was bored.”
“I never met anyone at night. Well, I met a few. But they were dates,” he explained. “I don’t do that no strings attached thing, you know ‘come on over, dump your load and go’ kinda thing.”
A study conducted in 2004 by human sexuality researcher Anthony F. Bogaert revealed that approximately one percent of the world’s population is asexual.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Commits $140 Million to Develop PrEP Implant: VIDEO
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged up to $140 million to help biotech firm Intarcia Therapeutics develop an HIV prevention device.
The fund will help the Boston-based company to adapt its Medici implant technology program to deliver a steady stream of HIV medication to healthy patients over an extended period of time. The matchstick-sized device doses out medicine from a tiny pump embedded under the patient’s skin.
Intarcia gets another $206M and announces a new disease target: HIV t.co/B4IhxKQbMx
— Boston Business (@BosBizJournal) January 10, 2017
GeekWire reports:
The Gates Foundation contribution is divided into two parts. The Seattle non-profit behemoth is investing $50 million in Intarcia’s latest Series EE round and committing up to $90 million in grants to be awarded as the startup crosses certain milestones.
The anti-HIV prophylactic therapy would be administered to patients once or twice-yearly. Intarcia is also developing a drug delivery system to treat type 2 diabetes, using the Medici technology. The startup plans to begin delivering the diabetes medication to patients next year but development of the anti-HIV prophylactic is expected to take longer.
Intarcia’s pump will most likely begin rolling out in the U.S. and other wealthy countries, according to the Wall Street Journal. But the long-term goal is to bring the technology to parts of the developing world, like Sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV is endemic.
In a press release, Intarcia CEO Kurt Graves said the company “is poised to open up a totally new category of important once- or twice-yearly treatment and prevention therapies for some of the world’s most serious chronic diseases − including those that disproportionately affect people with some of the greatest unmet needs.”
He added that Intarcia is “tremendously excited and humbled to work with an incredible organization as smart, forward-looking and purpose-based as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Watch a Newsy report below.
The post Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Commits $140 Million to Develop PrEP Implant: VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Commits $140 Million to Develop PrEP Implant: VIDEO
Watch Jeff Sessions Confirmation Hearing Live
www.advocate.com/politics/2017/1/10/watch-jeff-sessions-confirmation-hearing-live
Miami Beach, Mardi Gras Caerdydd – Cardiff, 2012
Rhisiart Hincks posted a photo:
Wedi ei ailolygu / Adwelet a-nevez / Re-edited: 1/2017
WATCH: Neil Patrick Harris and James Corden battle in ‘Broadway riff-off’
Before joining Late Late Show host James Corden on his couch, television, film and Broadway star Neil Patrick Harris appeared on the stage to challenge the car karaoke crooner in a riff-off of Broadway show tunes.
Harris mocked his host for winning his Tony for his spoken-word performance in the play “One Man, Two Guvnors.”
Burn.
The boys were backed-up by Filharmonic, and sang their hearts out — so much so, that Harris later revealed he split his pants.
Watch the segment below:
AG Nominee Jeff Sessions’s Testimony Shows He’s Unchanged in Hostility to LGBT Rights, Protections: WATCH
Several times during his confirmation hearings today, anti-LGBT discrimination and LGBT rights were up for discussion.
In Sessions’ opening statement, he said “I understand the demands for justice and fairness made by our LGBT community” though his past actions reveal that he has fought against justice and fairness for the LGBT community at every turn.
Understanding something is not the same as siding with it.
Sessions: I will ensure civil rights protections for African-Americans, women and LGBT people if attorney general t.co/eNEbpB1Ly7
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 10, 2017
Sessions may understand the LGBT community’s concerns, but he opposes them.
The Alabama senator has been a vocal opponent of marriage equality. He also grilled then Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on her opposition to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell during her senate confirmation hearings and said he would do crack cocaine at Sonia Sotomayor’s hearings. He also opposed the Matthew Shepard hate crimes act and supports the First Amendment Defense Act, the heinous bill that would allow businesses to cite religious beliefs as justification to discriminate against LGBT people. In 1996, as Alabama’s attorney general, Sessions fought tooth and nail to stop the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference from meeting at the University of Alabama but did not prevail.
When asked during the confirmation hearings, Sessions said that he would “follow” the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.
Considering that he has only supported Supreme Court candidates that oppose marriage equality, the statement is meaningless. If a new SCOTUS were to rule against marriage equality, his past actions show he’d be even more willing to “follow” that court’s ruling.
Watch:
Finally, Sessions was asked by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) about the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Act, which he strongly opposed.
In an appalling display for someone about to become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Sessions danced around his past statements that LGBT individuals don’t face discrimination or hate crimes, refusing to repudiate those statements.
Here’s our transcript:
LEAHY: In 2009 I offered the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act…you opposed it…you stated at a hearing that you’re not sure women or people of different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. And then you said ‘I just don’t see it.’ Do you still believe that women and LGBT individuals do not face the kind of discrimination that the hate crimes legislation was passed to prevent?”
SESSIONS: “Having discussed that issue at some length that does not sound like something I said or intended to say.”
LEAHY: “You did say it.”
SESSIONS: “I understand but I’ve seen things taken out of context and not given an accurate picture. My view is and was a concern that it appeared that these cases were being prosecuted effectively in state courts where they were normally be expected to be prosecuted. I asked Attorney General Holder to list cases that he had that indicated they were not being properly prosecuted…I noted that Mr Byrd was given the death penalty in Texas for his offense, and Mr Shepard, there were two life sentences imposed as a result of the situation in his state. So the question simply was do we have a problem that requires an expansion of federal law into an area that the federal government has not been historically involved. Senator Hatch had a proposal that we do a study to see the extent of the problem and that we should have evidence that indicates a shortage of prosecutions and a lack of willingness to prosecute before adding this law.”
LEAHY: “Last year the FBI said that LGBT individuals were more likely to be targeted for hate crimes than any other minority group in the country. We can study this forever but that’s a pretty strong fact. And in 2010 you stated that expanding hate crimes protections to LGBT individuals was unwarranted, possibly unconstitutional. You said the bill has been said to cheapen the civil rights movement. Especially considering what the FBI is found, do you still feel that way?”
SESSIONS: “Mr. Chairman the law has been passed, the Congress has spoken, you can be sure I will enforce it.”
Watch:
The post AG Nominee Jeff Sessions’s Testimony Shows He’s Unchanged in Hostility to LGBT Rights, Protections: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
HRC Responds to Leahy Exchange in Sessions Hearing
Given the Leahy exchange in the Sessions hearing, here’s a quote from David Stacy, Human Rights Campaign Director of Government Affairs:
“Want to predict how vigorously an Attorney General nominee will enforce federal hate crimes law? Look at his voting record on hate crimes legislation. Jeff Sessions didn’t only vote against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes law, he led its opposition. We need an AG who takes these crimes seriously and pursues justice aggressively. We have serious doubts he can do so.”
Here’s a sampling of his record.
Jeff Sessions Forgets His Anti-LGBTQ Record
If past is prologue, Jeff Sessions understands the #LGBTQ community in the way a bulldozer understands a building. #SessionsHearing
Todd Logan – Project Transitions
AUSTIN, TEXAS – January 10, 2017: Todd Logan is the director of client services for Project Transitions, a nonprofit serving people with AIDS by providing hospice, housing, and support. Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon/KUT News.
