Gambier Becomes First Ohio Town to Pass LGBTQ Protections by Zoom

The law mirrors the Ohio Fairness Act, which bans discrimnation in work, housing, and public accomodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. 

www.advocate.com/politics/2020/5/05/gambier-becomes-first-ohio-town-pass-lgbtq-protections-zoom

Flight attendant demands more paid time off then sues airline after pilot calls him “hot” on Grindr

A former British Airways flight attendant who claimed he was the victim of workplace discrimination after chatting with a pilot on Grindr has just lost his court case.

In his lawsuit, Bartek Wytryszczewski alleged that he was outed by the pilot (identified as “Mr. X”) and then discriminated against by managers because of his sexuality and Polish nationality.

During the tribunal, held this month in Watford, Hertfordshire, Wytryszczewski told the court he was contacted by Mr. X on the app while the men were on a four-day work trip together between December 31, 2017 and January 3, 2018. In their chat, Mr. X called him “hot,” which Wytryszczewski felt was inappropriate.

Related: People furious over fake news story about two pilots caught having gay sex in cockpit mid-flight

He also alleged that, on that same work trip, he was standing on an escalator with Mr. X and another crew member when Mr. X said he “was not going to go to the gym but he was going to have sex instead,” which Wytryszczewski also found to be inappropriate.

However, Wytryszczewski’s manager, Joanne Hale, told the court the full Grindr chat between the men reveals a different story.

Screenshots of the conversation were shared with the court and show Wytryszczewski sending Mr. X several late night messages, including “grinning emojis” and a note saying they would “speak tomorrow x.”

Hale also said that “a lot of relationships” happen between airline employees and that Wytryszczewski didn’t bring up the issue with her until several days later, after he and Mr. X got into a workplace dispute, resulting in Mr. X “telling him off.”

“Bartek does not respond well to managers who do not agree with everything he is saying,” Hale testified. “He will manipulate situations to reflect the outcome of his choice.”

Related: Delta employee suspended over mid-flight bathroom hookup with Austin Wolf caught on tape

Things escalated from there, finally coming to a head in March 2018 when Wytryszczewski sent Hale a string of emails threatening to quit if he wasn’t given more paid time off. He also copied British Airways CEO Álex Cruz on the emails.

Eventually, area manager, Ann Pilgrim, had to step in and tell him to quit bombarding Hale and Cruz with emails, saying it bordered on harassment.

“I believe the manner and way in which you are approaching this situation is now completely inappropriate,” Pilgrim wrote in an email that was shared with the court.

Wytryszczewski quit his job shortly after that.

After hearing both sides of the story and reviewing the Grindr chats and emails, the judges on the tribunal ruled in favor of the airline.

“We concluded that at no time did the claimant say or indicate in any way to Mr. X that Mr. X’s attentions were unwanted before Mr. X gave the claimant the instant feedback,” Judge Oliver Hyams said.

He continued, “Mr. X’s attentions towards the claimant did not have the purpose of either violating the claimant’s dignity or creating for him an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.”

Related: Pilot uses Grindr to hit on passenger mid-flight, says he hopes to give him an enjoyable ride

www.queerty.com/flight-attendant-demands-paid-time-off-sues-airline-pilot-calls-hot-grindr-20200505?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Black Gay Men Win Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (‘The Tradition’) and Drama (‘A Strange Loop’)

The Pulitzer Prizes in arts and letters were handed out on Monday and two notable winners (for the audience of this site, particularly) were poet Jericho Brown, who won for his book The Tradition, and playwright Michael R. Jackson, who won for his musical A Strange Loop. Jackson is the first black writer to win the prize for musical theatre.

Copper Canyon Press’s description of The Tradition: “Beauty abounds in Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection, despite and inside of the evil that pollutes the everyday. A National Book Award finalist, The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive. In the urgency born of real danger, Brown’s work is at its most innovative. His invention of the duplex—a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues—is an all-out exhibition of formal skill, and his lyrics move through elegy and memory with a breathless cadence. Jericho Brown is a poet of eros: here he wields this power as never before, touching the very heart of our cultural crisis.”

Said Brown to the site Divedapper in 2016: [Poetry] allows me to deal with being an artist of many backgrounds and to hold great complexity in my very being. … For me, it becomes a way to think and re-think about tradition. I have the opportunity to carve something new in a tradition—in several traditions—that is a very long and very old tradition. And that seems to be our job. How do we move forward within the tradition as individuals? And that’s exactly what I’m after. I’m not after a rejection of being a Black gay poet. I’m after understanding what being a Black gay poet might allow me. I’m not the only, or the first, Black gay poet, so what does being a Southern-gay-Black-poet allow me? What can that bring forth in my work? That’s what I’m really interested in seeing. I’m interested in looking at the larger—supposedly larger tradition and all of the traditions within that supposedly larger tradition. I’m going to change that because I hate the word so much because obviously I am one hundred percent an American poet. I am a part of the larger tradition. I am an English-speaking poet.”

Wrote Playbill: “A Strange Loop made its world premiere last year at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons in a co-production with Page 73. The musical, inspired by Jackson’s own experiences, follows a young artist at war with a host of demons—not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head—in an attempt to capture and understand his own strange loop. Directed by Stephen Brackett with choreography by Raja Feather Kelly, A Strange Loop played an acclaimed, extended run at Playwrights May 24–July 7, 2019. In addition to the Pulitzer, the musical was named the Best Musical of the 2019–2020 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle and was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical (winning two Lucille Lortel Awards for actors Larry Owens and John-Andrew Morrison). The production also recently earned six Drama Desk Award nominations.”

Towleroad’s theatre critic Naveen Kumar called A Strange Loop one of his top 10 plays and musicals of 2019: “Michael R. Jackson’s semi-autobiographical meta musical about a playwright struggling to write a ‘big, Black, and queer-ass American Broadway show’ is as layered with pleasures as provocations. Larry Owens gave an exuberant, full-body performance as an artist trying to claim space for his vision while sorting out what’s going on in his head. Raw, revelatory and filled with personal and political insights set to irresistible song, A Strange Loop is everything its protagonist is trying to write and more.”

Check out some clips from A Strange Loop.

Congrats to both Brown and Jackson!

The post Black Gay Men Win Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (‘The Tradition’) and Drama (‘A Strange Loop’) appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Black Gay Men Win Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (‘The Tradition’) and Drama (‘A Strange Loop’)

National Transgender Group Endorses Joe Biden for President

“Joe Biden is the advocate and president we need at this consequential moment,” says Mara Keisling of the NCTE Action Fund.

www.advocate.com/election/2020/5/05/national-transgender-group-endorses-joe-biden-president

Pro volleyball player Dennis Del Valle comes out as gay… Now can we talk about his Instagram page?

Dennis Del Valle is a professional volleyball player living in Switzerland and a member of the Puerto Rican national team. He just came out as gay in an interview with the Swiss website 24 Hours.

Del Valle, who is originally from San Juan, played volleyball in college at Penn State before going professional and becoming a free agent. He says he chose to come out now in hopes that it will inspire other queer athletes to do the same.

“Now is the time to speak,” the 31-year-old explains. “There are lots of young athletes who live in secret, in Switzerland and elsewhere. … I hope they will say to themselves: ‘Why not me?’ Maybe I could change someone’s life. My speech could allow some to gain confidence, to feel safer, not to stop [playing a] sport for fear of rejection.”

Del Valle says he was hesitant to come out at first because he didn’t know how it would be received by his teammates.

“I especially didn’t want to break the chemistry of the team,” he says, “that it could become weird in the locker room for some, that they imagine things, fixate on my homosexuality, no longer dare to go to shower in my presence, or whatever.”

But, he continues, “When I get to the room, I’m there to work. It’s my priority. I’m not here to watch guys or flirt.”

Following the interview, Del Valle took to Facebook to say he was “feeling proud” and to thank everyone for their support.

“What an unusual Sunday for me,” he wrote shortly after the interview published. “While I thought I was doing something nice and special for myself, I didn’t realize how much more I was doing for others like me.”

“I wanted to use this platform not to tell the world my story or who I am. But to try to inspire other people, kids, especially athletes that don’t have anyone to look up to.”

Scroll down for more pics from Del Valle’s Instagram page…

Related: Finally, an Instagram page dedicated exclusively to male athlete butts

www.queerty.com/pro-volleyball-player-dennis-del-valle-comes-gay-now-can-talk-instagram-page-20200505?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29