Former Child Star Danny Pintauro Tells Oprah About Meth Addiction

Danny Pintauro, who won hearts as the adorable son of Judith Light in the ’80s sitcom Who’s The Boss, came out publicly in 1997 and married his husband last year in a beachfront wedding, is about to share his deepest, darkest secret with Oprah Winfrey. The 39-year-old will appear on this Saturday’s episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now to discuss the epidemic of crystal meth use within the gay community and tearfully tells the host that he’s been in the scene and reveals that there are websites designed specifically to allow meth users to connect with one another.

Related: PHOTOS: Former Child Star Danny Pintauro Married His Boyfriend Today

Watch a clip from the episode below.

Jeremy Kinser

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Alan Poul to Direct Feature Film Adaptation of Gay Lit Classic ‘Dancer from the Dance’

Alan Poul is set to direct a feature film adaptation of Andrew Holleran’s classic 1978 gay novel Dancer from the Dance about a lawyer who gives up his day job and immerses himself in the ’70s social scene of gay men in New York City and Fire Island, Deadline reports:

Poul’s TV directing credits include Six Feet Under, The Newsroom, Rome, Swingtown, and the feature The Back-up Plan. RT Features’ productions include Frances Ha, Love is Strange, Mistress America, and The Witch. Screenplay is by Joshua Harmon, John Krokidas, and Austin Bunn. Poul, Rodrigo Teixeira, and Mauricio Zacharias will produce. Production is scheduled for summer 2016 and WME is packaging.

Poul also co-produced the ’90s Tales of the City series which aired on PBS and Showtime.

Brazil’s RT Features is co-producing.

The post Alan Poul to Direct Feature Film Adaptation of Gay Lit Classic ‘Dancer from the Dance’ appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Alan Poul to Direct Feature Film Adaptation of Gay Lit Classic ‘Dancer from the Dance’

WATCH: New Film Shows Real-Life Trans Parents Like Never Before

The joys and struggles of tansgender parents are gaining increased visibility on television, both in scripted and reality TV formats. But a new documentary film strives to add more voices to the stories that are, for the moment, dominated by white trans women whose families are coming to terms with their parent’s authentic self. 

Earlier this week, The Advocate celebrated Jeffrey Tambor’s Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his portrayal of Maura Pfefferman, a Jewish parent and retired college professor who comes out to her children and ex-wife as a trans woman on Amazon’s hit dramadey series Transparent. Meanwhile, Caitlyn Jenner negotiates new terrain in her relationship with her children and ex-wife as a newly transitioned trans woman on E!’s reality docu-series I Am Cait, as The Advocate has chronicled. 

But Rémy Huberdeau’s new documentary, Transgender Parents, shares multiple stories of real-life trans parents in Canada, revealing their cultural diversity and socio-economic challenges with a nuance that has yet to enter the mainstream cultural conversation about transgender people who are parents. The film premiered last December on the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Documentary Channel, and will screen on tour across Europe in October.

“We are fortunate to have trans parents in the media,” Huberdeau told The Advocate in a phone interview earlier this month. “But there is also a phenomenon of older trans women losing regular contact with their kids, and that sends shock waves through their lives. Parenting brings families closer together or it takes them apart. When people start worrying about who the parent has become, then that can be a recipe for things to fall apart.”

Stefonknee is one of six trans parents profiled in Huberdeau’s film. (Only first names are used in the film.) She is is a white, low-income Toronto trans woman, public speaker, and activist who lost regular contact with her seven children after she transitioned. Along with becoming estranged from her children, Stefonknee lost her job and must rely on public assistance to survive.

The film follows Stefonknee as she returns to her rural Ontario hometown in an attempt to heal. Stefonknee’s scenes reveal a woman of enormous courage who faces real-life domestic and economic challenges that are not depicted within I Am Cait or Transparent, despite the indisputable contributions towards affirmative trans visibility such programs provide.

Syrus and Nik are two black gay trans men in their 30s who are raising a blonde, blue-eyed daughter named Amélie who was birthed by Syrus. The film chronicles Syrus’s movement away from his masculine gender expression in order to carry Amélie to term and his poignant, gradual reembrace of masculine expression after his daughter is born. Syrus and Nik must negotiate challenging terrain as darker-skinned parents with a towheaded, light-skinned daughter, especially because they are often mistaken in public for Amélie’s nannies rather than her parents. Luckily, the two dads live in a neighborhood in downtown Toronto with other gender-variant and queer-friendly families who provide love and support. 

“One out of three trans people are parents in the USA, and in Canada it’s one out of four. That’s a signifiant number dealing with what it means to take care of families while being themselves,” Huberdeau explained over the phone. He is a Franco-Manitoban Canadian trans man whose previous short films include Loveletter to St-Boniface (2002) and Transforming Family (2011), which has been translated into seven languages. Transgender Parents is an extended, 45-minute follow-up to Transforming Family.

Transgender Parents also includes the stories of Aiyyana, an indigenous Canadian trans grandmother of  Haudenosaunee ancestry, who won the prestigious John Hirsch Prize in Performance Art from the Canada Council for the Arts; Jenna, a 30-year-old trans mother-to-be who runs an organic farm with her partner, Eby, near Montreal; and Hershel, a Jewish psychotherapist trans dad in his late 60s who bonds with his college-age son. 

Find a full listing of the October European screenings of Transgender Parents in Denmark, Germany, and Austria at the film’s website, and watch the trailer below:

Transgender Parents Doc TRAILER from Rémy Huberdeau on Vimeo.

Cleis Abeni

www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/9/23/watch-new-film-shows-real-life-trans-parents-never

LGBTQ Literature Creates Social Justice in the Classrooms and Beyond
Previously, I shared the information from a workshop that I created and presented on LGBTQ literacies. What follows is the information from a talk that I gave at another conference. Once again, I wish to share my work with the public because I do not believe in keeping information within the confines of academia (What is the purpose of knowledge if it only remains within the ivory tower and tiny bubble that is the university?). I wish to add to the dialogue on LGBTQ literature, and I want your feedback.

You Go, Gurl!: How LGBTQ Literature Creates Social Justice in the Classrooms and Beyond (Teaching LGBTQ Literature in Community College Literature and Writing Classes)

A Talk by Michael Carosone

Presented at the Transitions and Transactions II Conference at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York; the theme of the conference was “Literature and Creative Writing Pedagogies in Community Colleges.”

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” — Immanual Kant

Overview:
When they talk about diversity at a college, in a classroom, in a curriculum and in literature, what they really mean is diversity in terms of race, gender and class (and maybe ethnicity), but what they never mean is diversity in terms of sexuality, sexual orientation — especially homosexuality and gay identity and sensibility — and gender identity and expression, and all aspects of queerness. The deviant other is still ignored, silenced and marginalized. This is because of the institutionalized homophobia, heterosexism and hetero-supremacy that are inherent in all colleges and universities — alive and strong, even in 2014, even in New York City. It is time for a change. True diversity includes all identities, even sexual identities.

Personal Statement:
Years ago, when I taught my first English 101 class at LaGuardia Community College, I created the theme for my course to be “Reading, Writing and Researching Gender and Sexuality.” Of the 15 weeks of instruction during the semester, only two were spent on homosexuality, gayness, queerness and the LGBTQ community. However, those were two weeks too much for some students who complained to the chairperson and who posted homophobic and hurtful comments towards me and my course on RateMyProfessor.com. This was when I realized that there is still much work to be done in eradicating the homophobia and heterosexism that exists in higher education, especially at a community college like LaGuardia, where the student population is comprised of students from many different countries, and the cultures of many of these countries are not welcoming to LGBTQ individuals. However, a college must define its own culture — a culture that embraces LGBTQ people and ideas.

This Is How LGBTQ Literature Creates Social Justice:
In his poem, “An Open Letter to My Students,” Gerard Wozek eloquently explains how the teaching of LGBTQ literature creates social justice in the classroom and beyond.

But here are my thoughts: LGBTQ literature, and the teaching and reading of it, whether in the classroom or outside of it, creates social justice because it declares to the students and everyone else that LGBTQ people exist, that they are human, that they are worthy, that their lives matter, that they have voices and that their voices will no longer be silenced, ignored, marginalized, oppressed, discriminated against and violated. When LGBTQ literature is taught, read and analyzed in the community college English classroom, the clear message is that it is important enough to study and to include in the curriculum; therefore, LGBTQ people must be important enough to be considered as human beings and citizens. Thus, ideas of equality are created, minds are enlightened, hope is tangible, ignorance shrinks and discrimination weakens. This is how LGBTQ literature creates social justice in the classroom and beyond.

Questions to pose:
1. What is LGBTQ literature?
2. Where can we find it?
3. Who writes and reads it?
4. Why should/must we teach it?
5. How can when teach it?
6. How do we include it in our curriculum and give it the same importance as we do other literatures?
7. How do we bring it from the margins to the center?
8. How do we stop the excuses on why we cannot teach it?
9. How can LGBTQ create social justice in community college literature/writing classes?
10. How do you queer, gayify, bend or lavenderize your curriculum and classrooms?
11. Why are so many English instructors reluctant to teach LGBTQ literature or any LGBTQ topics/issues? And how is this a form of homophobia?
12. Why is a homosexuality (LGBTQ) as an identity often ignored by so many educators? Why is it not viewed as an important identity like other identities? What does this tell us about how homosexuality is viewed by many educators?
13. Is the education system, and the discipline of English in particular, truly honest about diversity, multiculturalism and social justice if it ignores LGBTQ voices, issues, people, history and culture?
14. How can we queer/gayify/bend/lavenderize straight teachers to make them understand that a sexual identity is also about a sensibility and not only about sexual activity, and that they need to wear lavender lenses at times, in order to understand the compulsory heterosexuality, heteronormativity and hetero-supremacy that they perpetuate in the classrooms?
15. How can LGBTQ teachers help heterosexual teachers to include LGBTQ content in their classrooms?
16. What are the politics behind the institutionalized homophobia that persists in education?

— 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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Ariana Grande is ‘raging lunatic’ against homophobia ‘because I just can’t take it’

Singer and actress Ariana Grande takes off on a passionate and expletive-filled rant against homophobia in a new interview.

‘It’s outrageous to me when I see people hate on someone because of their sexuality. I hate the intolerance. I hate the judgment. I hate it so much,’ she tells her Scream Queens boss Ryan Murphy who interviewed her for V Magazine.

Grande’s older brother, Frankie Grande, is openly gay and a performer who made it to the final five on TV’s Big Brother in 2014.

‘Most of my favorite people in my life are gay. It’s something I’m super passionate about, because whenever I would see my friends get bullied, or my brother get hurt for his sexuality, I would become a raging lunatic. I would literally become a raging lunatic because I just can’t take it.

‘When you see someone you love hurting, for such a superficial, bulls–t reason, it’s like, how small and spiritually unenlightened and dumb as f–k can a person be? How much further can your head get up your ass that you’re actually judging someone as a person based on their sexuality before you even have a conversation with them?’

Now 22, Grande was raised to be open and accepting.

‘I wasn’t raised in a household where it was considered abnormal to be gay,’ she says. ‘So for me to meet people who use the word “faggot” as an insult, with a derogatory meaning, I can’t take it. I don’t understand it. It’s so foreign to me.

‘You know, my brother is gay, all of my best friends are gay. When my brother came out of the closet, it wasn’t a big deal for my family. Even my grandpa, who is like, super old-school, was like, Good for you!’

The post Ariana Grande is ‘raging lunatic’ against homophobia ‘because I just can’t take it’ appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/ariana-grande-is-raging-lunatic-against-homophobia-because-i-just-cant-take-it/

Margie Winters Reunites with Former Students at HRC Offices

Today, when Margie Winters — who was fired from a Catholic school for being gay — was reunited with two of her first students, there was something almost miraculous about it.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/margie-winters-reunites-with-former-students-at-hrc-offices?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

From Lady Gaga To Twin Peaks’ “Little Person,” Celebrities Are Just Like Us

Let’s Rock

In 1990, I became obsessed with the ABC series, Twin Peaks. Besides being a huge David Lynch fan, I was drawn to this quirky nighttime soap because I had never seen anything like it on TV before. All the characters and storylines were surreal and bizarre, two traits usually linked to Lynch, but never to network TV. Some people loved Leland Palmer or the Log Lady, but for me, the best character was the midget from the dream sequence. Now, I know the term “midget” is politically incorrect, but back in 1990, no one referred to him as the “little person” from Twin Peaks, so shut it.

For a full year, I replayed the scene where this height-challenged man, played by Michael J. Anderson, spoke backwards while dancing in a red-curtained room. Friends knew whenever they came over, they would have to sit through this scene as I sat on the couch in my parent’s paneled basement, repeating, “I’ve got good news. That gum you like is going to come back in style!”  It was easily the best sequence on television, ever.            

As fate would have it, Michael started making appearances at New York nightclubs at the height of the show’s fame. I found out from Michael Musto’s column in The Village Voice that he was slated to appear at The Building one Friday night. The club, located in an old warehouse in Chelsea, was large and cavernous, but had just one VIP lounge. I knew finding him would not be difficult.

The night of his appearance, I got to the club around midnight and started my search. I checked the VIP lounge, the dance floor and each and every bar, but he was nowhere to be found. Around two a.m., I asked a few of the bartenders if “the midget from Twin Peaks was there,” only to have them stare at me like I was speaking Indonesian. Apparently, the rest of the world did not share my latest obsession.

 An hour later, I made my way back to the VIP lounge for one last look. As I passed the velvet ropes, I scanned the room and saw….Michael J. Anderson sitting on one of the couches!  I ran over to introduce myself, and within seconds, he whipped out a joint. “You wanna get high?” he asked. I could not believe what was happening. I was about to get high with the midget from Twin Peaks. We shared a joint and I told him how much I loved him. “You are my favorite character to ever appear on television, with the obvious exception of Rerun from What’s Happening!!, I told him  “Well, I’m glad to know I’m in such esteemed company,” he replied.

I asked him to autograph a picture I had taken of him off the TV, and he readily agreed. He grabbed it and wrote, “To Greg, There’s always music in the air! — Little Mike.” I pocketed the picture and excused myself, thanking him profusely. To this day, I have yet to have a more exciting celebrity encounter, and I doubt I ever will.

Sure, I meet celebrities and musicians every week at SNL but now I’m jaded and couldn’t care less. The last time I had a thrilling encounter was when Lady Gaga was the musical guest back in 2009. On the day of the show, she decided to change one of the songs she was performing, and I had to go into her dressing room to talk about what she would be doing so I could relay the information to the director, who would be shooting her performance sight unseen.             

After telling me what song she would be singing and describing the choreography, she took one look at the lightning bolt pendant I wore around my neck, turned to her manager and said, “It’s going to be alright!  He has a lightning bolt!  The universe is on our side!”  At that moment, I realized Lady Gaga was a straight-up Aries flake like I was, gave her a big smile and told her it would be indeed be alright.      

Celebrities. They’re just like us!

Greg Scarnici is a comedic artist (some confuse him with Fire Island personality Levonia Jenkins) and musician who currently works as an Associate Producer at Saturday Night Live.  His first collection of humorous essays titled I Hope My Mother Doesn’t Read This is now available as an ebook. Find out more about his work and connect with him via his social networks on www.gregscarnici.com. 

Jeremy Kinser

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Applause Rings Out as Marriage Equality Bill Introduced in Ireland: WATCH

Same-sex couples in Ireland are on track to be able to tie the knot by year’s end with the introduction of the Marriage Bill 2015 earlier this morning. The bill, introduced by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, comes as a result of the country’s historic referendum vote in favor of marriage equality back in May.

The Irish Independent reports members of the pro-referendum group Marriage Equality gathered outside the parliament of Ireland ahead of the vote. Grainne Healy, chair of the group, said it was a “historic day” and “momentous occasion” for the LGBT community in Ireland.

“It’s the end of a long journey – and for those of us in Marriage Equality – it took us 10  years to get here,” she said.

Watch the moment the bill was introduced on the floor in parliament below:

Related, Must-Watch Ireland Ad Urging ‘Yes’ on Marriage Referendum Will Give You Major Feels

The post Applause Rings Out as Marriage Equality Bill Introduced in Ireland: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Kyler Geoffroy

Applause Rings Out as Marriage Equality Bill Introduced in Ireland: WATCH

Pennsylvania Improving Policies for Housing Transgender Prisoners

New policies which went into effect this week in Pennsylvania may afford greater respect to transgender inmates, who will no longer be sent into solitary confinement based solely upon gender identity, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. 

Pennsylvania, like many other states, had previously housed inmates according to their gender assigned at birth, Shirley Moore Smeal, Pennsylvania executive deputy secretary of corrections, told the paper. 

Solitary confinement, which is often used as punishment, was the only protective option for transgender inmates, who are violence while incarcerated. While LGBT inmates in general are at a nine-times a higher risk for sexual assault according to government data, one 2009 California study found that trans women faced 13 times the risk of other LGB inmates when detained in male facilities.

Although transgender inmates are often placed in solitary confinement “for their own protection” according to prison officials, isolating individuals who are already at an elevated risk of harassment and ostracization can have long-lasting psychological effects, prison reform advocates told The Advocate earlier this year.

Indeed, the mother of one transgender inmate told the Inquirer that her daughter was raped and beaten in the state prison system. “I’m scared I’m going to get a call my child is dead,” Valerie Burton told the paper. “My understanding is they’re supposed to take care of her.”

The changes in policy bring Pennsylvania prisons in line with the 2003 federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, designed to study prison rape and provide recommendations to protect prisoners from attacks. Regarding transgender inmates, PREA recommends that facilities be aware of trans prisoners’ unique safety needs, and assess “case-by-case” how to protect them from sexual assault.

Angus Love, executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, told the Inquirer that his nonprofit was working on two cases in which transgender inmates in Pennsylvania were allegedly abused by male guards and inmates. In one case, he said, a transgender woman was forced to walk around naked and was sexually assaulted. He called the state’s policy change “a step in the right direction.”

Advocates seeking prison reform and greater safety for transgender inmates nationwide lauded an April statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, supporting the claims of a transgender woman in Georgia who said the state had acted illegally in denying her hormone treatments. In August, that woman, Ashley Diamond, was released from prison early, in what advocates say is a recognition by the state of Georgia that it cannot adequately care for and protect trans women inside men’s prisons. 

Pennsylvania’s updated policy asks administrators to consider “whether a placement would ensure the resident’s health and safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems.” Administrators would also give “serious consideration” to whether transgender inmates feel safe. Transgender prisoners will also be allowed to shower privately, according to the document. 

In June, the state created new commissary lists allowing transgender inmates to purchase items such as makeup, barrettes or gender-appropriate underwear, and rescinded its policy prohibiting gender-affirming surgery for inmates, the paper reported.

There are currently 137 transgender inmates in Pennsylvania state prisons, but Smeal said she was not aware of any who were currently in isolation and implied factors at play in this new Pennsylvania policy had already been used to determine where to house them. 

“I wouldn’t say [anyone is] likely to be moved,” she told the Inquirer. “I would say, based on their risk-assessment tool and the interview that was done, they are where we believe they should be,” Smeal told the paper. 

Elizabeth Daley

www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/9/23/pennsylvania-improving-policies-housing-transgender-prisoners

Racism Against Asians And Asian Americans Is Prejudice You Can Still Get Away With
This country is having a national conversation around race that is long overdue. As someone who researches prejudice and racism, I’d like to add an observation to the mix: for the most part, one can still get away with discriminating against, humiliating, and co-opting Asians, Asian Americans, and Asian cultures.

Just a brief glance at media and pop culture and the stereotypes come rushing forth. Exotic? You got it. Extremist? There he is. Nerdy and uncool? Yup. Docile and servile? At last! Most of these go unnoticed, because there’s little chance of being called out on it. Far from merely being a matter of political correctness, research has shown that media images can have a negative and undermining effect on the psychology of children who take in these stereotypes.

It doesn’t stop there. Yoga and meditation are all the rage these days and have undoubtedly helped countless individuals–but there seems to be a troubling trend of denying its historical, cultural, philosophical, and spiritual origins in Asia. It was as if yoga was invented on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, right next to a Starbucks, neatly packaged for your consumption. Further, in the rush to spread “mindfulness,” one can get away with not even mentioning, let alone honoring, the traditions from which these methods sprang. The Buddha is an afterthought. We’ve seen this before; just ask the African American blues pioneers who are rarely credited for their profound influence on rock-n-roll.

But what is at stake here with the “getting away with”? British psychoanalyst and essayist Adam Phillips suggests that the feeling of “getting away with” implies the presence of an authority from whom one is flying under the radar. In the current example, that authority is racial justice, which has largely failed to nab the wily discriminators of Asians. Put simply, it’s easy for people to get away with it. Of course, there are many subgroups within the large and diverse category of “Asian” (Asia is kind of a big place), but what connects them all is the unfortunate reality of having to bear microaggressions and macroaggressions–everything from racist jabs to hate crimes–without many others really taking notice.

Perhaps there is hope to be found in the current national discussion. We can now hope that, one day, there will be a national discussion around producing more thoughtful forms of media and pop culture that avoid perpetuating stereotypes of Asians. Or, one day, there will be a broad discussion around the cooptation of Asian cultures and practices, as we have seen in the aftermath of Rachel Dolezal. Or, one day, there will be a time when official racial profiling of those of Asian descent, such as the type found in the NYPD surveillance program (which targeted colleges such as Yale, where I am a researcher), will be exposed to greater outcry. That’s the future. As for the past, we are left with just wishing, for instance, that the President had also delivered a beautiful message in person–like he recently did in Charleston, SC–at the Sikh house of worship in Wisconsin, where innocent lives were gunned down out of racism and hatred.

Let me be clear, none of this is to take away from the rightful attention given to the African American community, who have faced and continue to face so much untold hardship, nor is it to suggest that the issues facing the two communities are identical. I am not intending another form of cooptation and blurring of important differences. But it is to suggest the possibility of gaining inspiration from one another’s struggles, triumphs, and strategies of protest and resistance. This spirit of intercultural sharing and solidarity finds important precedents in American history. After all, it was not too long ago when a young Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., deeply inspired by the example and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, went on to change a nation.

Moving forward, the question for this country to consider is how it can move away from the practice of “getting away with” prejudice and racism towards Asian Americans, and any group for that matter. The solutions may take different forms, but a key element may be strengthening our Zen-like capacity to see, recognize, and address them head-on–rather than letting them slip away, unnoticed and under the radar.

— 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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