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Arkansas High Court Blocks Fayetteville’s LGBTQ Rights Law
The city can’t enforce its law while its case against the state’s ban on such protections proceeds, the Arkansas Supreme Court rules.
www.advocate.com/politics/2019/1/31/arkansas-high-court-blocks-fayettevilles-lgbtq-rights-law
Breaking Barriers this Black History Month
As we mark the start of Black History Month, HRC honors the ways in which Black LGBTQ and allied trailblazers have been and continue to be at the center of the fight for equality, breaking down barriers every day. In this moment in our country’s history, our community must draw strength and inspiration from the commitment, tenacity and resilience of civil rights leaders who made our work possible.
In the last month, we have seen pro-equality champions sworn into office, including Gwen Moore, Colin Allred, Garlin Gilchrist, Lucy McBath, Steven Horsford, Lauren Underwood, Aaron Ford, Mandela Barnes and Ayanna Pressley. They will continue their justice work, advocating for equality from statehouses to the halls of Congress.
They join champions such as Andrea Jenkins, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elijah Cummings, Maxine Waters and John Lewis, tireless champsions of racial justice and LGBTQ equality in our towns, cities and nation’s capital.
Organizations from the NAACP and NAESM, to the Center for Black Equity and the National Black Justice Coalition are on the front lines fighting against racial, social and economic injustices in America.
We celebrate revolutionary shows like Pose, which brings the stories of Black, Afro-Caribbean and Latinx LGBTQ people during the tumultuous 1980s into our homes. Pose is helmed by a cast and crew of queer and transgender trailblazers, including HRC honorees Angelica Ross and Billy Porter, Janet Mock, MJ Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson and Steven Canals. Mock made history by becoming the first transgender woman of color to both write, produce and direct for a major network television show.
Artists including Janelle Monáe, Shea Diamond and Jussie Smollett give voice to the stories of the Black LGBTQ community through their music. They challenge us to name the ways that racism intersects with homophobia, biphobia and transphobia — and to confront the ways these intersecting oppressions deprive LGBTQ people of color of the tools needed to live and thrive.
“I think the most rewarding thing I can do is speak to the times now,” Diamond said in an interview with HRC. “If you listen to your favorite song right now, 20 years from now, would the next generation know that we were struggling and still fighting for rights? Would they know that trans women were being killed at the rate they were being killed?”
We pause to remember and honor our history and those who made today’s victories possible. This year marks 50 years since LGBTQ patrons of Stonewall, led by Black trans women Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, decided to take a stand and fight back against the brutal intimidation they regularly faced at the hands of police.
While we celebrate the progress we have made in these 50 years, it is more important than ever to recognize the distance we still have to go to achieve full equality. From turning out to elect pro-equality champions and hosting service projects to empowering HBCU students to become leaders in their campuses and communities, HRC staff, volunteers, members and supporters are on the ground working to drive this country forward at the intersections of LGBTQ equality and racial justice.
This Black History Month, we celebrate the barriers that have broken, recognize the barriers that remain and lift up the voices of Black and LGBTQ advocates challenging systems of power and oppression everyday. We deepen our commitment to those in our community who are still too often at its margins as we work to move equality forward.
www.hrc.org/blog/breaking-barriers-this-black-history-month?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
HRC Mississippi Urges The House and Senate to Vote on Crucial Update to the State’s Hate Crimes Law
HRC called for committees in both the Mississippi’s House of Representatives and Senate to bring up for a vote bills that would update the state’s hate crimes law. The twin bills, HB 1494 and SB 2163, are currently awaiting a hearing in the House Judiciary B committee and the Senate Judiciary A committee, respectively. This legislation would add sexual orientation, gender identity and disability to the existing statewide hate crimes law. This crucial update to Mississippi’s hate crimes law would simply bring it up to the federal standard.
“All Mississippians deserve equal justice under the law, and HB 1494 and SB 2163 are a much-needed remedy to the shortcomings of our current state hate crimes law,” said Rob Hill, HRC Mississippi state director. “Without enumerating sexual orientation, gender identity and disability, the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities will continue to be under-protected when they are targeted simply because of who they are. We implore the judiciary committees in both houses to bring this bill to a vote — it’s the right thing to do.”
Mississippi, like most states in the South, does not have statewide hate crimes laws that are inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. This makes it more difficult for law enforcement to adequately prosecute perpetrators of bias-motivated crimes and deliver justice to victims and their families. Within the past few years, Mississippi has faced a tragic, disproportionate number of anti-transgender crimes, including the highly-publicized murders of Mercedes Williamson, Mesha Caldwell and Dee Whigham. Out of those three murders, only Mercedes Williamson’s was prosecuted under existing hate crimes laws, because the the perpetrator crossed state lines, making it a federal crime. Caldwell and Whigham were not able to receive full justice under the law because of the lack of protections for gender identity.
The Mississippi Sheriffs Association and the Mississippi Prosecutors Association both support expanding the current hate crimes law to include disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.
In 2014, HRC launched Project One America, an initiative geared towards advancing social, institutional and legal equality in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. HRC Mississippi continues to work to advance equality for LGBTQ Mississippians who have no state level protections in housing, workplace, or public accommodations. Through HRC Mississippi, we are working toward a future of fairness every day — changing hearts, minds and laws toward achieving full equality.
Going Through a Breakup or Divorce? 5 Ways to Move Forward Like a Grown-up
Let’s face it; breakups are hard. No matter how old you are or how long you were together, splitting up hurts. Not only do you feel terrible emotionally but also physically. It takes time for your heart, mind, and body to heal. Even if you initiated the breakup, you still might feel a sense of […]
The post Going Through a Breakup or Divorce? 5 Ways to Move Forward Like a Grown-up appeared first on PlentyOfFish Blog.
Going Through a Breakup or Divorce? 5 Ways to Move Forward Like a Grown-up
Gun-Toting MAGA Trump Supporter Arrested, Disarmed After Menacing Houston Drag Queen Story Hour: WATCH
A man who had previously been banned from the Houston Public Library after protesting its Drag Queen Story Hour, was placed in handcuffs outside after refusing to leave the premises.
He told police, “We have a bunch of homosexuals that are molesting children. They are doing it with your help.”
Outsmart reports: ‘Jodi Silva, a spokesperson for the Houston Police Department, said [James “Doc” Green Sr.] entered the library branch at 1:45 p.m., about 15 minutes before its monthly storytime that features drag queens reading picture books to children and their parents. Library management requested police intervention when Greene would not leave the building. “A manager asked us for assistance because [Greene] was banned from the library, and would not leave when he was asked,” Silva says. “He was previously banned for filming children at the library, and has been known to cause disturbances. Several officers had to escort him out.” Greene was handcuffed, and his concealed weapon was collected in a parking lot outside of the library after he refused to cooperate with police. The man then complained of chest pains after he was put in a police vehicle.
Police released Greene into the custody of the hospital, Memorial Hermann, and the DA declined to press charges against him.
A video recorded by Greene inside the library and titled “arrested for being a Christian” shows him protesting when he is told to leave.
Greene recorded another video shortly before he was cuffed.
He had spoken about the previous library incident in another Facebook video.
Houston Police officers will be present at the next Drag Queen Story Hour which takes place on February 23.
The post Gun-Toting MAGA Trump Supporter Arrested, Disarmed After Menacing Houston Drag Queen Story Hour: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
Nyle DiMarco Takes His Shirt Off So You’ll Pay Attention to Deaf Rights: WATCH
Yesterday we teased a Samantha Bee Full Frontal segment featuring deaf, sexually fluid America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars champion Nyle DiMarco.
The full segment, Deaf Lives Matter, aired on Wednesday night and Bee was well aware of what a draw DiMarco might be to the show (aside from his intelligence, wit, athleticism, and charm), and demonstrated why by introducing a segment called “Nyle Takes His Shirt Off: So you’ll pay attention to deaf rights.”
Noted Bee: “I would watch the sh*t out of that.”
DiMarco and Bee had tips for law enforcement officers who don’t know how to interact with deaf people: don’t mistake ASL as making threatening gestures, don’t read lips, call an interpreter, and don’t ask deaf people to write things out because English and ASL are not the same and many deaf people, because of language deprivation, can’t read and write English fluently.
The post Nyle DiMarco Takes His Shirt Off So You’ll Pay Attention to Deaf Rights: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
Nyle DiMarco Takes His Shirt Off So You’ll Pay Attention to Deaf Rights: WATCH
#AM_Equality Tipsheet: January 31, 2019
VARIETY REPORTS CHICAGO PD SEEKING “PERSONS OF INTEREST” IN ATTACK ON JUSSIE SMOLLETT: The Chicago Police Department has released two images from surveillance video of “potential persons of interest” in the attack of “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, Variety’s Ted Johnson (@tedstew) reports. Chicago police tweeted this alongside the photos: “Photos of people of interest who were in area of the alleged assault & battery of Empire cast member. While video does not capture an encounter, detectives are taking this development seriously & wish to question individuals as more cameras are being reviewed.” Smollett was attacked Tuesday night; his assailants poured an unknown substance on him, put a rope around his neck and called him anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ slurs. More from Variety.
In light of the horrific attack on Jussie Smollett, here’s what you need to know about hate crimes. t.co/pKIA4YVrGt
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) January 31, 2019
TODAY AT 1:30 PM ET — HRC, EQUALITY VIRGINIA TO RALLY OUTSIDE STATE HOUSE TO DEMAND HOUSE SPEAKER COX GIVE LGBTQ NONDISCRIM PROTECTIONS A HEARING: More on these bills from HRC.
��URGENT��@SpeakerCox said he
WILL NOT GIVE LGBTQ non-discrimination protections a fair hearing tomorrow!✅the senate has already passed them
✅vast majority of voters want themJoin us @ 1:30 @ the Statehouse to DEMAND HOUSE LEADERSHIP GRANT A FAIR HEARING!!
— Equality Virginia (@EqualityVA) January 31, 2019
MUST WATCH — CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS DELIVER POWERFUL TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF VOTING RIGHTS BEFORE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, spoke out on the Trump-Pence administration’s dangerous and false claims of election fraud — a threat to the voting rights of all Americans, particularly citizens of color, including and especially members of the nation’s LGBTQ community. Watch below.
“What excuse can we have as a nation to disenfranchise half a million voters.” —@Sifill_LDF at House Judiciary Committee hearing on #HR1 #ForThePeople pic.twitter.com/0mNjHlYcgW
— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) January 29, 2019
THANKFUL THURSDAY — PARENTS OF TRANS & GENDER EXPANSIVE YOUTH MEET WITH CONGRESSIONAL TRANSGENDER EQUALITY TASK FORCE: The HRC Foundation’s Parents for Transgender Equality National Council, a group of the nation’s leading parent-advocates in the fight for transgender equality, met with members of Congress to discuss their families’ moving journeys and the urgent need for Congress to pass the Equality Act. Watch here. More from HRC and Washington Blade.
DISGUSTING — HERITAGE FOUNDATION LACKIES HARASS HRC’S SARAH MCBRIDE (@SARAHEMCBRIDE) ON CAPITOL HILL: Said Olivia Dalton (@OliviaAlair), HRC senior vice president of communications: “That the targeted harassment occurred following a moving meeting between parents of trans kids and members of Congress reinforces the massive gap between our message of love and their agenda of bigotry. No one advocating for their basic human rights should face such hate and hostility, and shame on the Heritage Foundation for fostering this kind of atmosphere.” More from Pink News.
REAP WHAT YOU SOW — KIM DAVIS ORDERED TO PAY LEGAL FEES FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES WHO CHALLENGED HER REFUSAL TO ISSUE THEM MARRIAGE LICENSES: More from the Lexington Herald-Leader.
MAN ALLEGEDLY ATTACKED, CALLED ANTI-LGBTQ SLURS IN PHILADELPHIA: City police are investigating whether to designate the attack a hate crime. More from 6 ABC.
MODEL WOODY COOK COMES OUT AS BISEXUAL in an interview with Boys By Girls.
SUNDAY — SUPER BOWL TO MAKE HISTORY WITH FIRST-EVER OPENLY GAY CAMERAMAN: More from Pink News.
MARK YOU CALENDAR — CAPITALS HOCKEY PRIDE TAPE STICK AND PUCK AUCTION FEB 5-11 TO BENEFIT THE HRC FOUNDATION: More here.
GLOBAL EQUALITY NEWS
#EYESONCHECHNYA — RUSSIAN LGBTQ ADVOCATES DEMAND COUNTRY OPEN INVESTIGATION INTO TORTURE, DEATHS OF LGBTQ CHECHENS: More from ABC.
GAY BRAZILIAN CONGRESSMAN FORCED TO STEP DOWN AND LEAVE COUNTRY DUE TO DEATH THREATS WILL BE REPLACED BY ANOTHER OPENLY GAY OFFICIAL: Congressman Jean Wyllys, will be replaced by Rio de Janeiro city councillor David Miranda. More from Pink News.
READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!
The Wrap reports that ‘Project Runway’ will feature its first openly trans model in its upcoming season; WSKG interviews a New York Medical College student on her advocacy to get more LGBTQ topics covered by the school; The Associated Press sits down with openly queer Filipino actor Nico Santos (@nicosantos); The Swaddle dispels myths about bisexuality; Vice reviews the new film “The Future is Fluid”
Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!
www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tipsheet-january-31-2019?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Lesbian Singer-Songwriter Katey Brooks Rejects Christian Shame
Self-acceptance is one thing. Putting it in song for the world to hear is another.
www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/1/31/lesbian-singer-songwriter-katey-brooks-rejects-christian-shame
Everything You Think You Know About Butts Is Wrong
Bryan Kutner is a serious scholar who’s putting his reputation on the line for butts.
Bryan Kutner is telling me how he got into studying butt stuff over coffee.
“So,” Kutner says, “I was counseling cisgender men and trans folks in public sex venues — bathhouses basically — for an HIV/STI prevention project, and people would often share intimate details about their sex lives.”
One night, a guy in his 50s commented, offhandedly, that bleeding after anal sex was normal. This was the second guy of the same age saying the same thing, and it baffled the public health worker. How could gay men in their 50s, he wondered, who’ve been sexually active for 30 plus years, not know that bleeding is unnecessary. “I thought, ‘Wait a second. If bleeding is regular for these guys then a medical provider needs to conduct an anal exam, to find and treat whatever is causing the bleeding.’”
It struck Kutner that we’ve done a somewhat fair job of educating people about HIV. But could it be, he wondered, that that same public health effort inadvertently reinforced the notion that anal sex is inherently harmful? Could we be conflating anal sex with disease in such a way that we’ve trained people to expect and accept other sexual health problems, like bleeding or pain, that are preventable? “It’s almost like our HIV prevention campaigns have colluded with a taboo about anal sex. Maybe that’s inadvertent, like a natural consequence of repeated public health messaging, ‘Hey, think about HIV when you have anal sex.’ But, in other cases, that conflation of anal sex with harm is conspicuously informed by stigma toward anal sex. Remember that ‘It’s Never Just HIV’campaign?”
While Kutner pondered the ramifications of these bathhouse conversations, he received a call from a friend as she walked down 8th Avenue after a gynecological visit. “She was in tears. She’d been in the stirrups and the doctor was nearly done with the exam and my friend asked, “Would you check a little lower? I think I felt a bump or something.”
The doctor did look a little lower and saw a wart somewhere near her anus. The doctor’s response was accusatory, “Are you having anal sex? You shouldn’t be doing that. It’s dangerous.”
The doctor then froze the wart, one of a few options — and certainly a painful one given the location. “It struck me that my friend did the very thing we encourage people to do: ‘When you have a medical question, ask your doctor,’ right? But that resulted in a slap on her hand and an all-or-nothing message that she shouldn’t be having anal sex. It’s the opposite of harm reduction. Just telling someone not to do something, expecting somehow that a warning alone is going to scare people into changing behavior. Well, my friend never saw that doctor again and it disrupted the continuity of her health care to boot. But she didn’t stop having anal sex. She just stopped talking about it with her doctor.”
These two experiences got Kutner thinking that people, in general, may need basic information about anal health so they can advocate for themselves, and that providers specifically may need skills to broach this topic with their clients, to encourage disclosure by framing anal sexuality in terms of pleasure and health, rather than just harm.
Kutner had been a public health trainer in the harm reduction movement for several years, so he developed a new training curriculum and piloted it through the Harm Reduction Coalition. The training on physiology and health went so well that he added another day focused on how to communicate information. “I based the training in motivational interviewing, one of the better researched interventions when it comes to helping me consider behavior change. With the help of all these public health workers who’ve attended, we now have little mantras that embrace the diversity of people who have anal sex. Like, ‘Everyone has an ass, so everyone has the capacity to enjoy anal sex.’ It’s really beautiful the way people frame this not in terms of gender, but in terms of the diversity of human sexuality, in a sex-positive way.”
Kutner, eventually decided it was time to get more training himself, so went back to school, first for an MPH in epidemiology and then a PhD in clinical psychology. He says he landed on this topic for my dissertation, thinking it might be useful to understand more clearly the possible relationships between devaluation of anal sexuality, the concerns and questions people harbor, and how this might affect our HIV prevention efforts.
“In some ways, at least for queer men, we’ve placed anal sex at the center of the HIV epidemic, but we know so little about how people think and feel about it, outside of the focus on HIV.”
As he prepared to train others, to his surprise, Kutner found there was so much to learn and convey in trainings. “If you gently stroke the top of your hand with your finger, see what sensations you notice,” he says, “Now flip your hand over and gently stroke your palm. You naturally feel a difference.”
That Kutner says is an easy way to communicate the sensitivity of the anus, the opening before the anal canal. “It’s a part of the body with lots of nerve endings packed into a small area. That may be a hard concept to communicate as a health worker, but it’s a little easier with visuals and little tricks of the trade people share in trainings.”
There’s also the prostate, “Contractions around the prostate produce a sensation of orgasm, and typically these contractions contribute to ejaculation. But pressure internally from a toy, object, penis, or hand, or pressure externally against the perineum — aka the ‘taint’— can also produce this orgasmic sensation, even without ejaculation.”
He adds, “Pelvic floor muscle exercises, like Kegel exercises, may also aid discovering this sensation, by building the ability to stay in the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, riding the rise of orgasm without ejaculating — basically a multiorgasmic experience. It’s the p-spot in ‘male’ anatomy, akin to the g-spot in people with ‘female’ anatomy.” Kutner recommends a few books on the subject Multiorgasmic Man and another The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure.”
And then of course, there’s Anal Pleasure and Health by Jack Morin which is a go to source because it’s so comprehensive.”
Kutner continues, “When I first started, people thought the training was all about men’s anal sexuality. But at a population level, there aren’t that many men who have sex with men, maybe 2-4 percent. Women make up a much bigger part of the world’s population, so if even a minority of women are having anal sex, it’s likely to outnumber men who have anal sex with other men. This is a woman’s health issue too – or, really more to the point, a health issue that isn’t about gender binaries but about the diversity of how human beings have sex.”
At first, Kutner struggled to find accurate, science-based information about anal sexuality beyond men’s sexuality. “There was very little written about physiological sources of anal pleasure in relation to the clitoris. I kept searching online and one day in 2009 found an obscure blog postand YouTube video from the Museum of Sex. I didn’t know the clitoris had legs — and, apparently, we didn’t discover that until 2009!” There’s a lot more information out there than there used to be. “Still, there’s very little I’ve seen about lesbian and transgender anal sexuality – they’re both a very neglected area of research, I think. Most of what I’ve found, in general, is from a cisgender perspective, and mostly about penetration, which is just one aspect of sexual activity.”
On that note, Kutner shares some more of what surprised him as he learned more. The legs of the clitoris extend into the pelvic floor musculature and seem in part to be responsible for pleasure and possibly orgasm through anal stimulation, even when the visible clitoris is not directly stimulated.” Kutner notes, “The clitoris has legs and bulbs that extend deeper into the body than just the visible part under the hood.”
Kutner recounts how a trans man once described how hormone therapy enhanced his experience of anal sex, bestowing him with a sensation that he remarked, wassimilar to the way cisgender men describe satsifcation from prostate stimulation.
“There’s so much to learn,” Kutner says seriously as this is generally an understudied area of sex research. “I’m not exactly a sex researcher myself — as in I’m researching sociobehavioral phenomenon but not conducting direct experimental or observation studies of physiology and sexual response. This is all just stuff I’ve picked up by reading and talking with health providers and educators.”
Kutner’s been surprised by a lot since embarking on this field of study. Since early 2016, he’s been conducting his dissertation, a mixed-methods study on anal pleasure and health. “One thing I’d never considered is just how the omission of basic information about anal sexuality can affect people,” he says, “I interviewed cisgender guys as a lead up to developing quantitative measures for the online survey.”
Guys asked him questions he’d never considered, “like whether someone can ejaculate directly from the ass — as in literally cum or ejaculate sexual fluid from the ass.” Kutner knows that’s not happening from an internal physiological process, “as far as I can tell: it’s lube, precum or semen from someone’s penis, not from the rectum.”
But that’s not what his study participants said.
“They encouraged me to look online for “creaming” videos because it’s a thing.” He laughs at his own naivete, “I didn’t know it was a thing AT ALL. And that’s amazing in itself. Here we are, 35 years into an epidemic spread in large part through anal sex, and people still haven’t been given accurate, specific responses to their questions about anal sex. And, at least in my case, I didn’t even know some of the questions they had!”
If there’s shame in learning any of this, Kutner believes it lies, “in our neglect of such an obvious area of study.”
Another preliminary finding from the qualitative interviews Kutner found, is just how woven together experiences of devaluation are. “It’s not just that people stigmatize anal sexuality, all on its own. It’s racism, xenophobia, sexism, and other forms of human devaluation intersecting with people’s experiences of anal sex.”
This in and of itself did not surprise Kutner, but, people shared quite painful experiences. Kutner pauses, “Some of these guys grew up thinking all gay men were supposed to enjoy anal sex, so syllogistically as they came of age desiring other men they thought they should bottom even if they didn’t like it, even if it was painful and not pleasurable.”
It didn’t occur to them that they could decline anal sex. They also didn’t know how they could learn how to find pleasure in it. Which to Kutner, “Sounds awfully similar to women’s sexual experiences catering to men’s desires rather than holistically to their own desires too.”
Kutner was also struck by how, at least for the men he interviewed, anal sex is intimately associated with experiences of racism and sexism. For example, one black man shared that even though a white sex partner would never consider himself to be racist, once in bed it became quickly apparent that his fantasies about anal sex were indeed racialized — and in ways that were not mutually pleasurable. Men of color, in particular, experienced being objectified by their race in ways that seemed to potentiate a partner’s pleasure even while it inhibited their own pleasure and, at times, lead to physical and psychological discomfort. Kutner says, “It’s a strange paradox that anal sex is obviously pleasurable to many people, but how it’s practiced is still mediated by social processes that make it less enjoyable and, at times, appear to increase psychological and physiologicalharm — and that appears to be experienced by men of color in very different ways than white men.”
Even with these painful experiences shared in research interviews, for the most part the people he’s surveyed are interested in hearing more about the positive aspects of anal pleasure. “They’re hungry to have their questions answered, and to hear more directly about anal sex.”
That is what Kutner hopes to finally understand upon completing his dissertation, how to leverage these interests in anal sex to promote more engagement in HIV services. “That’s one of the problems we have with the epidemic in the U.S. We have all these interventions available — ARVs, PrEP, PEP, behavioral interventions — but can we find new ways to engage people?”
Bryan Kutner has worked in public health for over 15 years, first helping to launch the Harm Reduction Coalition’s Oakland training calendar, then offering case management services for people living in supportive housing. In 2001, he began training for the University of California San Francisco AIDS Health Project, traveling throughout the state to facilitate workshops for HIV service providers and to collaborate with the California Department of Public Health on policies and procedures related to HIV counseling and testing. Bryan continues to consult with a handful of domestic and global NGOs to develop training programs for mental health, supportive housing, sexual health, and HIV prevention projects. He earned an MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University, is nearing completion of a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington, and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, a group dedicated to the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practice.
This story originally appeared on HIVPlus dot com. Reprinted by permission of the author.
The post Everything You Think You Know About Butts Is Wrong appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
Oprah Motivates, Batfleck Passes the Torch, Ted Bundy Has A Huge Following in Prison, Aqualad, Transformers, and, Yes, Marc Singer In ‘Beast Master’ Made Me Gay, and More: HOT LINKS
BATFLECK’SOUT! Deadline is reporting that Ben Affleck is passing the torch. In an EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. is dating their next rendition of Batman for June 25, 2021. This is the one that Matt Reeves has been attached to as writer and director. Ben Affleck, we hear, will not be donning the Dark Knight’s tights after playing the Caped Crusader in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Justice League and that’s because this movie will focus on a younger Bruce Wayne.
View this post on InstagramCosplay Batman Beyond Concept by @mitchthebat . Make sure to drop him a follow, he’s got a lot of cool Batman cosplays. _ @mitchthebat @mitchthebat @mitchthebat _ #Batman #dccomics #superman #manofsteel #dcuniverse #dc #marvel #superhero #greenarrow #arrow #justiceleague #deadpool #spiderman #avengers #darkknight #joker #arkham #gotham #guardiansofthegalaxy #xmen #fantasticfour #wonderwoman #catwoman #suicidesquad #ironman #comics #hulk #captainamerica #disney #wolverine
A post shared by Batman (@batman.official) on
Reeves boarded Batman in February 2017, taking over for Affleck who was originally set to direct off a script he wrote with DC’s Geoff Johns. Affleck, we understand has a busy plate: As Deadline exclusively broke he is starring in and producing the feature adaptation of Kate Alice Marshall‘s novel I Am Still Alive, which Universal won in a competitive bidding scenario. The two-time Oscar winner is also starring in the Warner Bros.’ Gavin O’Connor drama Torrance. Affleck worked hard on The Batman story, but knew he wasn’t the right one for this particular version. A search is underway for a new Dark Knight.
Excited for #TheBatman in Summer 2021 and to see @MattReevesLA vision come to life. t.co/GNgyJroMIO
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) January 31, 2019
BREAKING If you are Black and live even near the vicinity of the polar vortex then you have the God’s permission to be ashy today says The Root in the funniest isht I’ve read all week.
MY HUSBAND’S ALMOST DEAD He’s on death row. Thanks to things like Dateline and the My Favorite Murder podcast, we’ve known America is here for true-crime stories and serial killers to scare the living daylights out of us when we’re on a stroll and needing to pass time before the dog poops. The true-crime nightmare-inducer du jour is Netflix’s Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. It’s a docuseries about Ted, a serial killer who confessed to 30 murders (and the actual number is likely higher); alas, this is America, and we can’t have nice things. People who have watched the docuseries are zeroing in on how “hot” Ted is, and Netflix would like them to cut it out.
CNN says people in 2019 are doing the same things the now-executed killer used to manipulate them into very unfortunate situations. Fine, Ted was a looker with dreamy blue eyes…and is also being portrayed by Zac Efron in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile. Hollywood is clearly on board with the thirst for Ted train because the trailer for that shows off Zac’s pecs and only glosses over him dragging a torso through the woods…..
Netflix has had enough of people on Twitter being like, “Yeah, he was LITERALLY the worst demon ever…but look at those cheek bones!” It finally slapped back at the thirsty hos on Twitter:
I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers
— Netflix US (@netflix) January 28, 2019
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES Can GOOP fix Gwyneth’s hit and run?
REMEMBER LEGENDS OF ZELDA? Melissa McEwan does her own version of links!
#TODAYSMOTIVATION Sometimes you just need to hear Oprah say it.
YES GODDAMN IT I WANTED BEAST MASTER WHEN I WAS NINE I thought he could use his animal controlling powers on me so I had no agency–I hate Matthew Rettenmund–it’s like he knows me.
MEME WITH THE MOSTEST Young Justice’s Connor Kent (Superboy) and Tim Drake (Red Robin) have an awkward misinterpretation.
HOT GAY KISS OF THE WEEK
#GayKiss pic.twitter.com/f4lqMbX9IS
— He & Him (@he_and_him) January 25, 2019
OUR COVER BOY Who draws comic-book covers: the legendary Phil Jimenez.
View this post on InstagramThe #BatmanWhoLaughs. After my #Penguin sketch from a couple weeks back, I’ve wanted to draw more #Batmanvillains — and this guy was top of my list. My morning drawing/sketch, enhanced on #ProcreateApp. (A little fill mistake gave#BWLaughs and his #Robin blackened teeth; I liked the effect so kept it here!). Shameless plug: The original, in-enhanced #pencil and #marker drawing is for sale along with some other great stuff at my new art dealer, @modernmythologycomicart ! They’re terrific guys and doing right by me. Check em out!
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After graduating from The School of Visual Arts in New York City, 21-year-old Jimenez was hired by DC Comics, the American publishing house and division of DC Entertainment, where Pozner was his boss and mentor reported Plus magazine. “He was an incredibly talented man,” Jimnez said of Pozner, whom he immediately admired.
Pozner wasn’t an easy boss, he had what Jimenez calls, “some very strong opinions about the way things should be done.”
View this post on InstagramAnother #tbt from my #Transformers days! #Jetfire #Hasbro colors by @evergreenfajardo
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By the time they’d met, Pozner (who had designed album covers for The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix before he moved to the comic world) had risen the ranks at DC from production designer (where he wrote the ’80s-era Aquaman miniseries) to group director of creative services. The artist’s well-known exacting standards shaped Jimenez’s artisitic style, and they did little to discourage Jimenez from developing a crush on his 37-year-old boss. “I’d hang out with him at work, in the offices, far later than I had any reason to,” Jimenez recalls. “I would buy clothes I couldn’t afford to impress him. And eventually, I mustered the nerve to ask him on a date.”
View this post on InstagramAnother #tbt —My #Tempest entry from an old #SecretFiles (you can still see some of the power descriptors on the scan). Been feeling sentimental about this guy lately. Hope I get to draw him again someday #oldschool @dccomics
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But Pozner was hesitant to date someone who was both younger and HIV-negative. “He was 15 years older than I was,” Jimenez, now in his 40s, acknowledges. “And he had been my boss. [But] against his better judgment, he said yes. And it actually ended up being a really wonderful relationship.”
View this post on InstagramAnother #tbt —My #Tempest entry from an old #SecretFiles (you can still see some of the power descriptors on the scan). Been feeling sentimental about this guy lately. Hope I get to draw him again someday #oldschool @dccomics
A post shared by Phil Jimenez (@philjimeneznyc) on
The post Oprah Motivates, Batfleck Passes the Torch, Ted Bundy Has A Huge Following in Prison, Aqualad, Transformers, and, Yes, Marc Singer In ‘Beast Master’ Made Me Gay, and More: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
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