How a Gay Dad Comes out Today – and Every Day
“Titanium metal!” my son exclaimed. “Like a fast robot police sports car!”

“Pink!” my daughter excitedly squealed.

“And what do you think?” I asked my husband, as we were shopping for our new car. “You need to like the color, too.”

A salesperson in the showroom, overhearing our conversation, inquired, “Why does your brother need to like the color of the car you’re buying?”

Since coming out over 20 years ago, I’ve realized that coming out is not a one and done thing.

But now, as a gay dad, with a husband and two kids, coming out happens pretty much on a weekly, if not, daily, basis.

This September, my son started playing hockey, and I’m the assistant coach.

During our coaches meeting, many of the coaches in the room mentioned that we hadn’t received an email, inviting use to fill out one of the forms we were reviewing.

The reply?

“Your wives probably filled it out, without you knowing!”

I don’t intentionally come out every day. Or even purposely call myself a gay dad. No big announcements, no celebratory parties, no viral YouTube videos… well, okay… maybe one… or two…

Yet, the reality is, I am a proud gay dad, whose family looks a bit different than the majority of families where we live.

Earlier this year, my husband I and were out walking with our kids, and new neighbors came up to introduce themselves.

After a bit of small talk, they then asked, “So… what’s going on here… Full House? — guys raising kids together?”

“Well, kind of, but in this case, we’re husbands,” we replied.

Them: “Husbands?”

Me: “Husbands.”

Them: “Husbands?”

Me: “Yes… husbands.”

Them: “Oh… you’re a same-sex couple! Honey — we have a same-sex couple on our new street!”

I know not every coming out moment is funny and not every coming out moment garners a positive reaction.

I also know that barriers still exist for so many LGBTQ individuals, and that some people still feel that they have to hide this part of their identity.

Personally, I’m inspired by those who have “come out” before me — who were visible on the first National Coming Out Day, 27 years ago, when it wasn’t easy to be heard.

Twenty years ago, the hardest words to ever come out of my mouth were, “I’m gay” — and unfortunately, the reactions weren’t as positive or as humorous as the reactions I get now.

For so many youth the reactions still aren’t favorable.

In fact, it’s estimated that 25-40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ.

It’s one of the reasons why I want to live my life so transparent and so visible.

I know that I don’t have to come out in those every day moments but I do feel a responsibility to be visible and to be out.

I want to be a role model for those who aspire to be out, but don’t think they can.

I want to change perception of what families look like, and inspire those who think that by coming out, they have to give up their dream of being a parent.

I want to help LGBTQ youth so that they feel they can live their authentic lives.

One of the best notes I have ever received about one of my blog posts, was from a mother, whose son was having a hard time coming out. He was afraid of being rejected and he thought that by coming out, he would have to give up his dream of being a dad. After reading my post, her son had the courage to come out and to live his authentic life. This woman’s letter was so heartfelt, and showed me how important it is to be visible — because you never know who is going to be helped by your story.

I recognize how fortunate I am. I can be a dad to two incredible kids, a husband, a professional in business world, an assistant hockey coach, a blogger — and an out, gay man.

No one bats an eye or treats me differently when they find out that, no, I actually don’t have a wife. That tall, handsome, man I live with, he’s my husband and papa to our kids — and I love him dearly.

Oh… and the choice of color we selected for the car?

While there was a part of me who really wanted to choose pink… driving a fast robot police sports car is cool, too. Plus, it looks pretty awesome parked in our driveway beside the even cooler mini-van.

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Open Question: Hormone replacement therapy in los Angeles?
Okay i called the lgbt community in LA. And they gave schedule for next it january 2016, and I waited on the for good 15 mins… I have been thinking about doing hrt and I am ready for it, and my question is how did u get prescribed with hrt and how long did it take in Los angeles? also if u had experience getting hrt fast please tell me how? MY last resort is to self medicate myself. PLEASE NO RUDE ANSWER OR DONT TELL ME TO NOT DO THIS BECAUSE I WILL SOONER OR LATER!

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151012171001AAACH4p

On 17th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, his parents ‘have so much work left to do’

It was 17 years ago today that college student Matthew Shepard died.

His tragic death came from the severe head injuries he suffered several days earlier when he was abducted and tortured by two men, before being left to die – tied to a fence – near the town of Laramie, Wyoming.

He was just 21.

The attackers were arrested and eventually sentenced to two-consecutive life sentences each for one of the most notorious hate crimes in U.S. history.

His parents created The Matthew Shepard Foundation shortly after their son’s death and  have worked tirelessly to get federal hate crimes legislation passed.

Dennis and Judy Shepard, married for 42 years, have also traveled to 18 counties in recent years for the US State Department to talk about equal rights and bullying and discrimination.

‘After 17 years, Dennis and I are so grateful to still see such a huge outpouring of support from all of you,’ Judy Shepard wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend.

‘Your continuing support allows our message to reach more people so they will no longer feel alone or afraid to speak up, and more people are given the chance to change their hearts and minds in order to accept everyone. We have so much work left to do and we can’t do it alone.’

In an emotional interview with Gay Star News earlier this year, Dennis Shepard spoke of living with such a tremendous loss.

‘You feel the guilt that you weren’t there when he was out there in that field by himself, that’s the thing that really bothers me,’ he said. ‘Was he asking for dad to come take care of him like he used to?’

It’s clear that no many how many years pass, the loss is ever present.

‘You never make progress, you’re always mourning,’ the father said. ‘You always have that hole. You don’t have the same joy when it comes to mother’s Day and Father’s Day and birthdays and Christmas. You always have that little bit of mourning that you’re doing and grieving. But you have to go on with your life. You can’t just shelter up in the corner. Matt wouldn’t have wanted that and I refuse to do it because then the bad guys win.

‘We were forced into (activism),’ he adds. ‘We didn’t know anything about the gay issues. Matt was our son, that’s all we knew. We didn’t know that he’d have to fear for his life, that he couldn’t get a job if he was gay, we didn’t know any of these issues. It just really upset us to find this out – all these kids with no chance to succeed because they are considered different. That is just not right.’

The post On 17th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, his parents ‘have so much work left to do’ appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/on-17th-anniversary-of-matthew-shepards-death-his-parents-say-we-have-so-much-work-left-to-do/

Here’s How To Make It As The New Gay Twink In West Hollywood

West Hollywood can be a tough place. A welcoming gay metropolis for some, the city has also been known to chew up and spit out the occasional queer guy who can’t adapt to the mean streets. It’s good to know people and have a mentor if possible. In the new series Boy Toys, comic Brian Jordan Alvarez stars as Ivan, who has just split with his boyfriend and takes in a new roomie, Frankie (Brad Wergley), who isn’t quite prepared for the havoc that awaits.

Filled with knowing humor (sales people will lie to make commission), countless truisms (“you live in L.A. now, you have to learn to lie”), and a typically amusing supporting turn by Jimmy Fowlie (beloved by Queerty viewers for his own webseries Go-Go Boy Interrupted) the sitcom is also notable for imparting the three essential rules for throwing a successful twink party:

1. Booze (if you can’t afford premium vodka, BYOB usually works)
2. Hot guys (scope out the local dodge ball team)
3. Controversy (you want drama so people will talk about the party for a long time afterwards)

Related: This Go-Go Boy Doesn’t Want To Stop Dancing For You

Watch the slightly-NSFW first episode below.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/IdP0uGz2WCM/heres-how-to-make-it-as-the-new-gay-twink-in-west-hollywood-20151012

News: Male Model Monday, Marvel, Julio of Jackson Heights, The Vatican, Gay Marriage in Africa

> Male Model Monday: Lucas Loyola. 

> Puerto Rico relaxes school uniform rules for LGBT students: “Education Secretary Rafael Roman said Monday that the new regulation he recently signed is meant to be inclusive of gay, lesbian and transgender students. He added that teachers will no longer be allowed to discipline students who prefer to wear pants instead of skirts or vice versa.”

> Britney Spears will appear on Jane The Virgin.

> The cast of Eastsiders voices support for the Equality Act with #ComingOutForEquality campaign. 

> Nefertiti’s tomb may be inside King Tut’s.

> Jessica Chastain goes high fashion avant garde for W. 

> Marvel Universe to get its first gay character.

> Jared Leto went to NYC Comic-Con and posed with fans. 

> Julio of Jackson Heights, documentary about gay man killed in Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, NY, to air later this month.

> John Stamos says he’s on good terms with the Olsens. 

> European Parliament demands discrimination against transgender people in the workplace be outlawed. 

> 4 month-old Snow Leopards make their debut at the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois.

> Just how ‘LGBT friendly’ is the Philippines?

> New bills in Estonia aim to clear up confusion surrounding the country’s Cohabitation Act.

> Ian McKellen and Armistead Maupin hung out this weekend, raising the bar of #squadgoals everywhere. 

> Outtakes from Robin Williams’ Aladdin recording sessions to be released.

> Straight woman who converted to Christianity says coming out as Christian harder than coming out as gay. 

> Report suggests major crisis brewing at Pope Francis’s synod on the family between Francis and conservative cardinals: “The cardinals warn the Pope, in diplomatic language, that (a) the synod is being hijacked by liberals obsessed with the narrow issue of giving Communion to divorced and remarried people; (b) going down the route of ‘pastoral flexibility’ could lead to the Catholic Church falling apart in the same way as liberal Protestant denominations; and (c) the synod working papers prepared by the Pope’s allies Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri and Archbishop Bruno Forte are a mess and going down badly with the Synod Fathers.”

> The Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk) of South Africa, at its recent general synod, has become the first main stream church in South Africa and in Africa, that has agreed to conduct gay marriages and to ordain openly gay and lesbian ministers. Previously it only ordained gay and lesbian clergy if they agreed to remain celibate.

The post News: Male Model Monday, Marvel, Julio of Jackson Heights, The Vatican, Gay Marriage in Africa appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

News: Male Model Monday, Marvel, Julio of Jackson Heights, The Vatican, Gay Marriage in Africa

Titanic Actor Victor Garber Weds Model

Victor Garber, whose credits include the TV series Alias and the Academy Award-winning film Argo, has finally tied the knot with his partner of 16 years, model and artist Rainer Andreesen.

The wedding happened this weekend in British Columbia, according to Andreesen’s Instagram page. Both men hail from Canada but now split their time between New York and Los Angeles.

Garber is known by audiences for his numerous roles in projects like Titanic and Smash. He casually came out to journalist Greg Hernandez two years ago, mentioning Andreesen would accompany him to that year’s SAG Awards. Andreesen enjoys a successful career as a model as well as a portrait painter. His subjects have included Garber, actor Bradley Cooper, and music impresario Clive Davis; see some of his work here.

Neal Broverman

www.advocate.com/wedding-channel/2015/10/12/titanic-actor-victor-garber-weds-model

My Transgender Life: Choices
Life is full of choices!

Sometimes I struggle to decide whether I think this is a cliché or just a fact of life. I know that there are certain facts that are not choices. I believe that knowing our identity as one of them. I do subscribe to the following:

We do not have a choice in being transgender.
We do have a choice in what we do about it.

Whenever I think about all the choices I have made in my life — getting married, having kids and ultimately transitioning, I always wrestled with the choices in front of me. Which path should I take? What are the pros; the cons? Am I being selfish? Will someone get hurt? So many voices inside of me are arguing for each position it is often hard to be living in my own head! I constantly wondered why in the world are they doing that?

There have been so many times have I been faced with life changing choices. None of them were easy; as I let all those inner voices have their say. For most of those choices I sat without any movement for a long, long time before I took any action at all.

I suspect that almost everyone has seen the movie The Matrix. I marveled at how quickly Neo chose the Red Pill in the classic scene and was willing to go down the rabbit hole. It took me over five decades to be willing to go down my own rabbit hole to chase my Truth!

…

After my marriage ended in 2001, I was again single and wrestled with so many choices about my life. Deep down inside I knew that I was transgender but not another soul in the world knew of my inner struggle. My body and brain were still waging the war they have done for decade upon decade. My body had “needs!” You know what I mean. I got horny, I got turned on by women or thoughts of women. I needed release, pleasure it is called. I needed to reach that rolling alignment of neurons firing in unison as it travelled through my body and culminated in that release all of which we call orgasm. My body needed it, demanded it! Then there were parts of my mind that took over with the pangs of guilt and telling me it was so wrong as I was not really a man!

It did not matter whether I was with a partner or by myself, my body demanded that its needs were fulfilled. I was in my mid 50’s and finding it harder and harder to give the body what it wanted as it was struggling to get the release it desired.

Every night after work, my apartment was my big closet where the man disappeared and the woman appeared and dreamt that someday she would be real. It was her version of Pinocchio, as she wanted to be a “real girl!”

The war continued; my body wanted sex and pleasure, my mind wanted to live her truth. Like Neo in the Matrix I had to choose between pills, although they were both blue ones. One pill would allow the body to get what it desired, or as Neo was offered to wake up in my bed and believe what ever I wanted to believe.

The choice for the body

The other pill, would undoubtedly allow me to stay in Wonderland and take me down the rabbit hole deeper and deeper with no way to return.

Estradiol, 2MG
The choice for the mind

There was no voice like Morpheus within me to ever tell me it was my last chance to choose. I knew that the first choice was the easy one, but yet even when I chose it, the inner battle continued. The voices in my head to choose the rabbit hole were getting louder and stronger, even though the voices expressing fear and uncertainty were just as loud. In January 2010, I chose to go down the rabbit hole and find my truth.

…

I have made many choices in my life. Some turned out well and some were less successful. One choice in my life was to seek and follow my truth. It really does matter that it took me so many years before I did this. I never look back; I never ask that useless “what if” question. The fact that I always knew my truth but spent so much of my life denying it and letting my body have its needs fulfilled and listen to the voices of fear and shame are all in the past. I am happy to share them now because I know that although my own specific journey is unique, there are many others on journeys with variations on this theme and it is so hard to talk about our internal wars between our bodies and our minds when we are transgender.

For me, the trip down the rabbit hole is one that I am so happy to be taking as I go deeper and deeper into my truth. By body and mind are both at peace as they travel as partners along my adventures in my own Wonderland of just discovering and being me in each moment.

I have chatted with many friends how challenging these choices are as all the voices in their heads argue endlessly and get stuck. I have been there and know what that feels like, and I never can tell anyone how to choose his or her path. My own experience has allowed me to reflect that my body never really knew or cared about my mind’s truth, but over time, my mind’s dreams have outlasted my body’s perceived needs. This is just my story, and may not be true for anyone else.

I can only repeat what Morpheus told Neo –

“All I can offer is the Truth. Nothing More.”

If you seek yours, it will be yours and yours only!

…

A big thank you to Lana W for helping create the world of the Matrix and teaching us all about these choices.

###

Grace Stevens is a transgender woman who transitioned at the age of 64 and holds a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology. She is a father of three, grandparent of two, athlete, advocate and author of No! Maybe? Yes! Living My Truth, an intimate memoir of her personal struggle to transition and live her true life authentically as a woman. Grace is available for speaking about authentic living with Living on-TRACK, and Gender Variance Education and Training. Visit her website at: www.graceannestevens.com/ to see all her blogs and interviews. Follow Grace on Twitter: www.twitter.com/graceonboard .

— 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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Sharon Osbourne defends Rosie O’Donnell after daughter’s ‘heartbreaking’ betrayal

Sharon Osbourne is speaking out passionately in defense of Rosie O’Donnell whose daughter complained in a recent interview that O’Donnell smokes pot, has a short fuse and delegates a lot of her parental duties up to nannies.

‘It’s just one of those ugly, horrible situations – the heartbreak that Rosie must be going through,’ Osbourne said on The Talk, the daytime show on which she is a co-host. ‘These arguments, it’s horrible when they go public.’

Chelsea O’Donnell, 18, made headlines over the summer when O’Donnell took to social media to report her missing and that she had stopped taking medication for an undisclosed mental illness.

The teen is one of O’Donnell’s five adopted children and last month left O’Donnell’s home in New York. Last week, she gave an interview to Daily Mail Online detailing a host of complaints about her famous mother.

Among the most damaging allegations the daughter makes are that O’Donnell lied to her about being born to a heroin-addicted mother and falsely claimed the teen is mentally ill.

Said Osbourne: Rosie took Chelsea in, loved her, took care of her. She has a lot of children and she has a career so she has nannies. I had nannies all the time … my kids could have said “I was raised by nannies.” That’s the way it is in our house, you take the good with the bad. A working mom.’

‘I’m sure that Rosie did the best that she could do to be a mother, you can only do your best. And as far as Rosie not giving her financial support – neither would I. Not after her behavior. I just would not do it’

The post Sharon Osbourne defends Rosie O’Donnell after daughter’s ‘heartbreaking’ betrayal appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/sharon-osbourne-defends-rosie-odonnell-after-daughters-heartbreaking-betrayal/

YouTuber Trevor Moran Busts Out Of The Closet

Remember those videos of a highly energetic kid dancing around to various tunes in an Apple store? If you were on the internet 4-5 years ago, they were hard to miss.

Well that precocious little boy is now a slightly older boy, and in case there was any confusion (there wasn’t), he’s gay!

Moran released an official coming out on his YouTube channel of nearly a million subscribers, in which he acknowledges that most of his fans probably already knew.

But still, it’s a good feeling to speak the truth:

A few days before the announcement, 17-year-old Trevor put out a music video for his song “I Wanna Fly.” It includes some tender moments between Trevor and another boy, who are both held captive by some nefarious group of kidnappers/breeders?

To be honest, we have no idea what’s going on here:

You also might remember Trevor’s X Factor audition, in which he stunned judges, particularly blowing Britney’s mind, with a cover of LMFAO’s insufferable “I’m Sexy And I Know It.”

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/F0_1rY1ve8Q/youtuber-trevor-moran-busts-out-of-the-closet-20151012

Todrick Hall Parodies ‘Hocus Pocus’ in Comic Short ‘Hocus Broke-Us’ – WATCH

Fans of the Sanderson sisters and Todrick Hall will be bewitched by Hall’s latest comic parody, Hocus Broke-us, that updates the story of our three favorite witches from Sale–with a twist. Imagined as a trailer for a sequel to Hocus Pocus, the short begins with a moviephone-esque announcer declaring, “After 22 years on their underworld tour, the Sanderson sisters are black–I mean, they’re back.”

The video takes on many of the original film’s more famous moments and characters, including the Sanderson Sisters singing “I Put a Spell on You”, an incident involving a vacuum cleaner (now reimagined as a hover board), and a meeting with the devil (originally played by Gary Marshall, here presented in a slightly, er, more carnal form).

Watch Todrick take on the ladies of Salem, below:

The post Todrick Hall Parodies ‘Hocus Pocus’ in Comic Short ‘Hocus Broke-Us’ – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Todrick Hall Parodies ‘Hocus Pocus’ in Comic Short ‘Hocus Broke-Us’ – WATCH