Applying Marie Kondo’s “Tidying Up” Rules to Your Dating Life
If it doesn’t spark joy…there is no room for it in your life! If you haven’t caught wind of the new, highly binge-worthy Netflix show, “Tidying Up” with Marie Kondo, let me fill you in. The lifestyle guru and consultant, Marie Kondo is helping people everywhere to declutter their homes and live a more joyful […]
Jussie Smollet attacked by homophobes who tied a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach
The assault happened at around 2AM on Tuesday morning, shortly after Smollett arrived in Chicago from New York.
Howard Schultz Heckled at Book Event for Planning 2020 Run as Independent: ‘Don’t Help Elect Trump You Egotistical Billionaire A**hole’ – WATCH
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was heckled at a book event on Monday night a day after announcing he was planning a run for president as a centrist independent, angering many who warned he would be siphoning votes from the Democratic Party.
Shouted the heckler: “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire a**hole. Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter. Go back to Davos with the other billionaire elite who think they know how to run the world. That’s not what democracy needs.”
Replied Schultz to the heckler: “I recognize there is a lot of concern and perhaps misunderstanding and I hope that this conversation will be quite illuminating and people will understand why I feel so strongly about the direction of the country and how profoundly concerned I am about where we all stand…”
On Monday, Donald Trump revealed that he apparently feels Schultz would take votes away from Democrats as well, taunting the former Starbucks chief to get in the race on Twitter.
Howard Schultz doesn’t have the “guts” to run for President! Watched him on @60Minutes last night and I agree with him that he is not the “smartest person.” Besides, America already has that! I only hope that Starbucks is still paying me their rent in Trump Tower!
‘Chemsex First AID’ Book Is A Harm Reduction Approach To Treating Addiction
The harm reduction book is meant to give plain advice for those that “party and play” to help prevent HIV.
Chemsex — or the use of GHB, methamphetamine or mephedrone in sexual settings in the queer and trans community — provides a means for many to experience intimacy that is otherwise hindered by shame and stigma. But chemsex encounters bear risks and potential harms, exacerbated by this stigma, which are most often addressed — if at all —with a focus on prevention.
That’s why two London sexual health professionals wrote Chemsex First Aid, a booklet that spells out “how to react when things go wrong in a chemsex session,” according to one of its authors, Ignacio Labayen de Inza. Along with co-author David Stuart—who also provides ChemSex support services in London and who first coined the term “chemsex” in the early 2000s — de Inza identified a need for Chemsex First Aid because many chemsex-related care providers knew “what to do to prevent problems, but there was practically nothing until now about what to do when things are already going wrong.”
The booklet takes the harm reduction approach of recognizing that queer men practice chemsex, and will continue to do so. Three in 10 HIV-positive UK men who have sex with men (MSM), for example, engage in chemsex activities. Many who engage in chemsex find it a means to cope with the conflicts queerness poses for “toxic masculinity” and some “religious or cultural attitudes,” says de Inza. “Getting high on the right drugs can seem a great ‘solution’ to these problems. Chems provide a great disinhibition from these issues.”
The guide has four sections, respectively addressing: GHB/GBL-related emergencies; methamphetamine- and mephedrone-related emergencies; other emergencies that occur in chemsex environments; and a summary of first aid situations.
Many of the interventions proposed for chemsex drugs are similar to those suggested for opioids. For example, the booklet advises bystanders to look for problematic breathing and “firmly squeez[e] their trapezius muscle,” when assessing whether someone has fallen into “G-sleep,” a state of unconsciousness that could lead to death—similar to “nodding” in a potential opioid overdose. Working at “a sexual health clinic that has thousands of gaymen who engage in chemsex every month coming through its doors,” de Inza has seen “hundreds who overdose monthly” from chemsex drugs.
The guide also considers withdrawal, particularly from GHB/GBL, and the risks of intravenous drug use, such as intravenous infection, HIV infection or introducing a large amount of air into a vein.
But chemsex also features unique risks and harms. Consent during a meth/meph high can be problematic, because of the drugs’ tendency to null inhibitions and ability to calculate risk. Additionally, meth and meph carry the risk of drug-induced psychosis. The guidelines advise that both issues require active support, and a negotiation between an individual’s agency and the harms caused to themselves or others.
Other chemsex situations potentially requiring first aid interventions include “lodged objects” in the anus, HIV infection, priapism (long-lasting, painful erections), and allergic reactions to substances cut into drugs.
For de Inza, Chemsex First Aid is a part of queer men’s “long history of activism… of sharing information and stories, and of looking out for each other.” The booklet joins a harm reduction ecosystem of both institutional resources and the “word-of-mouth amongst guys that engage in chemsex.” De Inza aimed “to highlight the best tips and advice for the most extreme of circumstances, the most potential[ly] fatal.”
“This was the inspiration behind this resource,” de Inza continues. “There are some seriously complicated judgement calls to be made in dangerous chemsexenvironments, that many health organizations struggle to get right. We had to create this resource for our communities.”
Rare Footage of New Order From The Early 80s Found: WATCH
Ian Curtis performing Ceremony
New Order was an indelible part of most queer kids’ lives who grew up in the 80s and 90s. Its music was such a part of the DNA of life in the 1980s that it’s hard to think of either existing without the other.
Hit songs like Bizarre Love Triangle suggested a different kind of love then the heteronormative one we knew.
New Order’s music was quick moving beats, layered with ballads distorted via electronic synthesizers–electronically amplifying their already haunting voices. In fact it was New Order’s innovative integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music that made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands and producers.
Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris formed New Order after the 1980 suicide death of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis.
According to NPR, “The first of those [New Order]singles, ‘Ceremony,’ was actually written with Curtis prior to his suicide. It popped up as a single in advance of New Order’s 1981 debut album, Movement, which is about to receive the deluxe-reissue treatment; to commemorate the occasion, the band is circulating a little-seen performance of ‘Ceremony,’ recorded live at Manchester’s CoManCHE Student Union.”
Recorded on Feb. 6, 1981, the footage includes haunting footage of Curtis having previously been written, performed and demoed as Joy Division before his death.
“It’s a marvelous document of New Order’s early years — steeped in tragedy but alive with possibility” said NPR.
Chadwick Boseman, Madonna, Alan Cumming, Pink, a Sneak Peek At The New Harley Quinn, and Dido’s New Single Is To Die For: HOT LINKS
PETTY AF “Are we going to need a congressional bouncer to keep Trump from delivering the State of the Union in the House chamber next week?” Trevor Noah asks.
PRESIDENT’S BLEND Former Starbucks’ Howard Schultz told 60 Minutes: “I am seriously thinking of running for president … I am not … in bed with a party,” says Schultz, who is considering running as a “centrist independent.”
Schultz would be America’s first Jewish President if elected.
YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED Dido until you listen to this live acoustic version of ‘Give You Up’, the first single from her upcoming album, Still On My Mind (out March 8th, 2019). It’s everything you need to end Monday on a high note.
UP AND CUMMERIn honor of Alan‘s 54th birthday, he hosted a Studio 54 themed party and got totally decked out in a leopard print suit and wig!
“I had the best Studio 54 themed birthday party at @thewatertowerbar of the @wburghotel last night, and then we headed over to @clubcumming for more japes! ‘Twas a good night!” Alan wrote on his Instagram.
Black Panther is first comic book movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and, as such, the box office phenom will return to theaters for a one-week run next month. Better yet? In honor of Black History Month, all the screenings will be free. They kick off this Friday, February 1, and roll on through February 7 at 250 AMC locations throughout the country. In conjunction with the announcement, Disney has also revealed that it will donate a $1.5 million grant to the United Negro College Fund.
WHERE ELDERS ARE ALLIES LGBT Navajos Discover Unexpected Champions: Their Grandparents “It’s not unusual that Navajo grandparents are accepting of being LGBT while parents are not. Historians say federally run boarding schools and other assimilation tactics taught a generation of Navajos that same-sex relationships are wrong. says NPR.
“We are seeing clearly the aftereffects of what colonialism can look like and how it really shifted our values as Navajo people,” Nelson says. “Whereas at the time, if you were LGBTQ and growing up in Navajo traditional families, families celebrated that fact. They said that we were sacred. They said that we had sacred roles.”
But returning to understandings that predate colonialism has helped the families of LGBT Navajos. Traditionalists believe that the “two spirited,” as they’re sometimes called, are powerful and that not all humans can be classified as male or female.
Navajo historian Jennifer Denetdale says the Diné creation story includes a nádleehí.“Today we take the nádleehí as a being who was what we would call an intersex person today, meaning that this is a person who has sexual organs of the male and the female and is considered to be a third gender in Navajo society,” Denetdale says.
When the first man and the first woman weren’t getting along, it was the nádleehí who intervened.”
GOTHAM ORNITHOLOGY Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is the upcoming DC film that places Arkham’s most adorable psychotic psychiatrist in the centre of the action. DC and Warner Bros. have been smart enough to know that Margot Robbie’s performance is one of the things about the DCEU that unequivocally worked and deserves to be given room to flourish. With Robbie also producing and Cathy Yan directing, the film has been billed as a vibrant heist movie but little else is known. It is assumed that the story will follow Harley as she joins up with the most famous members of the Birds of Prey – Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya – to save the young Cassandra Cain from the crime lord Black Mask. A very brief sneak peek at the cast offers the shortest glimpses of Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, Rosie Perez as Renee, Ewan McGregor as Black Mask, Chris Messina and his new bleach blonde hair as Victor Zsasz, and of course, more Harley Quinn.
Now she’s dressed in tinsel and ready for Coachella.
POSITIVELY GEEKY Josh Robbins over at I’m Still Josh introduces us to “the most unique HIV advocacy online is a 4 hour show called: Jason Is A Social Scientist.”
It’s like if Adult Swim did a show about HIV.
“People often wonder what my show is about…the premise is deceptively simple…I take my HIV medication live on the book of face in front of friends, family, and strangers…I embrace stigma of all kinds including substance use mental illness and polyamory…hopefully dispelling ignorance and finding support.
If I were to have people take only one thing away from this show…then it would be the knowledge that HIV is preventable…if you are HIV negative there is a once a day pill that works like a highly effective chemical condom it is called #PrEP or preexposure protocol [sic]…and for people who are HIV+ treatment is prevention…by taking my medication everyday and maintaining an undetectable viral load…I am keeping myself and the people around me healthy… undetectable equals untransmissible #UequalsU…you could fuck me bareback all day long and never catch HIV from me…the future is now and it is 1969…free love baby RAmen”
IMPRESARIOPink‘s smash hit 2001 single “Get The Party Started” was originally intended for a different singer: Madonna. Linda Perry, the song’s writer and producer, revealed the surprising news in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“’Get the Party Started’ was just me figuring out what all this stuff does. I came up with that beat, laid it down, found all these weird chords and sounds and put the horns…I picked up a microphone and said, ‘I’m just going to say every clichéd line I can think of.’ And I came up with, ‘Get the party started on a Saturday night’ and wrote a bunch of stuff down. I called up my manager afterwards and said, ‘I just wrote a damn hit.’ It was too easy,” Linda explained of the making of the song.
“I sent it to Madonna and she passed, but a week later, Alecia [a.k.a. Pink] called. She left me this really crazy message how she would come find me if I didn’t call her back. I saw what she looked like — she was a bling-bling girl — and I said, ‘I think you have the wrong Linda Perry.’ She’s like, ‘Is this the Linda Perry who sang ‘Dear Mister President’ in 4 Non Blondes?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ She’s like, ‘Well, I have the right person.’ I had just written ‘Get the Party Started’ and I go, ‘Well, I’ve got something I wrote last week,’ and sent it to her. I guess she sent it to LA Reid and they said, ‘Okay we have our first single.’”
BURNING QUESTIONS “Given Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, and given that Bernie Sanders’ campaign was a target of that meddling, one might imagine that Sanders would have spent the last two years leading the charge to prevent further election interference by Russia and/or any other foreign adversaries. He is a sitting Senator, after all. He has the power to introduce legislation to support federal election integrity measures. And he has way more visibility than the average senator to call attention to and generate interest in and rally support for such legislation” says Melissa McEwan.
Many LGBTQ asylum seekers are among those seeking safety and shelter in the U.S., which must continue to be a beacon of hope for many around the world.
These three regions are among those that urgently need our support:
The “Northern Triangle” of Central America
El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have high levels of violence and political instability — and life in this region can be particularly treacherous for LGBTQ people. “I asked for asylum because of prosecution in my country,” said Karolina López, who left Mexico in 2009, in an interview with Remezcla. “A gang raped me and wanted to mutilate my genitals, so I asked for political asylum in the United States.” Traveling through Mexico can be particularly difficult for LGBTQ migrants, who frequently report suffering sexual and gender-based violence while crossing through Mexico.
Chechnya
Earlier this month, a statement from the Russian LGBT Network confirmed reports that anti-LGBTQ violence has resurged in Chechnya, with approximately 40 people detained and two killed in a “new wave of persecution” that started at the end of 2018. Reports of anti-LGBTQ persecution began in 2017. Chechen authorities detained and tortured more than 100 gay and bisexualmen in the region, killing as many as 20. While LGBTQ Chechens have been offered asylum in many parts of Europe and Canada, activists state that the U.S. has yet to accept a single Chechen refugee and some Russian advocates have been told that U.S. visas are out of reach for LGBTQ Chechens. In June 2018, HRC joined a survivor of the brutal crackdown and Kimahli Powell, executive director of Rainbow Railroad, to meet with White House and State Department officials to address the ongoing crimes against humanity occurring in Chechnya and to share the survivor’s story.
7/ In June, @HRC interviewed “AD”— a survivor of the brutal crackdown on LGBTQ people in Chechnya. He shared with us that men in police uniforms handcuffed and threw him in the trunk of a car. He assumed it would be his last day alive. #EyesOnChechnyat.co/agSx0PyKye
The Trump-Pence administration’s treatment of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees is shameful. From ripping apart families at the southern border to turning away others fleeing violence and persecution, the U.S. has made itself complicit in the crimes that marginalized people face in their home countries. It is time for Congress to restore this country’s position as a global leader for equality and send a signal to the world that our doors are open to all who seek a better life for themselves and their families.
I am proof we are not defined by our past I posed for the NOH 8 Campaign because of being bullied as a child. I was either too overweight, or too gay as a child, or never good enough. Later because of the hate I endured I turned to drugs as an an adult to cope. I posed to make my voice heard of the damage hate and bullying can do. I’ve been clean for over a year now and I am proof we are not defined by our past. Love to
GLAAD Calls on White House to Release Official Notes from Meeting with SCOTUS Spouse Ginni Thomas on Transgender Americans, Marriage Equality
GLAAD CEO: “The fact that President Trump is taking counsel from known anti-LGBTQ activists like Ginni Thomas regarding policies that could impact LGBTQ people should have Americans gravely concerned about the foundations of our government.”
The New York Times reports meeting included: “members of the group denounced transgender people” […] “someone said that gay marriage was harming the fabric of the United States”
NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today called on the White House to release official bookkeeping notes from President Donald Trump’s meeting with Ginni Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and her anti-LGBTQ group Groundswell last week.
According to news reports, Ms. Thomas led a meeting with President Trump at the White House where participants denounced transgender Americans and claimed the historic, nationwide marriage equality ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court was “harming the fabric of the United States.” The Supreme Court is expected to take up Trump’s ban on transgender service members sometime in the near future, and Ms. Thomas’s husband will vote on this critical case.
“The fact that President Trump is taking counsel from known anti-LGBTQ activists like Ginni Thomas regarding policies that could impact LGBTQ people and families should have Americans gravely concerned about the foundations of our government, and they deserve to see the official notes that came from that meeting,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO at GLAAD. “LGBTQ people know President Trump wants to roll back their hard-fought progress, but this clear display of coordination between the Executive Branch and the wife of a U.S. Supreme Court justice shows Americans the Trump Administration will do anything to push an agenda – even if it means shredding the checks and balances system. The White House has a responsibility to release official notes from the meeting and provide context in the violently anti-LGBTQ work that Thomas and her organization lead.”
Today GLAAD added Ginni Thomas to its Trump Accountability Project, a list of administration officials and related individuals with anti-LGBTQ activist records. According to GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project (TAP), President Trump and his administration have been the most anti-LGBTQ in recent history, authorizing attacks on the LGBTQ community more than 92 times. For more about these, go to www.glaad.org/trump.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Ginni Thomas’s Anti-LGBTQ Past
Founding member of secretive far-right group Groundswell, which lobbies against LGBTQ rights.
Wrote a column for The Daily Caller that promoted viciously anti-trans activist Stella Morabito. In the article, the two insisted that transgender rights are part of a ‘politically correct propaganda tool’ that is ‘manipulating the masses.’
Proudly supports “public schools who have bathroom and locker policies that common sensically link to biologically as opposed to their progressive agenda that there is no difference between a man and a woman, and a gender that can change from day to day.”
Used her Daily Caller column to promoted an author who claims trans rights are part of an agenda to negatively transform America: “To [author Dr. Kim Holmes], the transgender issue uses a small number of “victims” to demonstrate who can make laws. By expanding an administrative interpretation of “civil rights,” without Congress, the federal state solidifies its capacity to dictate American law – even if it’s public school bathroom policies. Most Republicans fail to step up and fight, he says, because they fear a popular culture that is against them and are exceedingly shallow.”
Included “the emergence of transgender rights” as one of the host of horribles that left wing activists are supposedly imposing on America: “So help people connect the dots in America. There’s so much going on. Whether it’s suddenly the emergence of transgender rights, or the downing of statues or ESPN suddenly becoming left wing commentators instead of sports people, or the closing down of free speech on college campuses, or the censorship that’s happening by media providers to conservative or pro-American voices.”
Promoted Sam Sorbo, an anti-trans activist who claims that trans-inclusive public school policies “bully” other students.
DISTURBING AND INAPPROPRIATE — WIFE OF JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS MEETS WITH TRUMP DAYS AFTER SCOTUS ALLOWED DISCRIMINATORY TRANS TROOP BAN TO GO INTO EFFECT: Ginni Thomas led a group of hard-right extremists who, according to The New York Times, argued that women should not serve in the military because they have “less muscle mass and lung capacity” than men, asserted that marriage equality was harming the “fabric” of the U.S. and were “dismissive that sexual assault is pervasive in the military”. Read more at the NYT.
TODAY — LGBTQ ADVOCATES CALL ON VA HOUSE OF DELEGATES TO PASS NONDISCRIM PROTECTIONS: Members of Equality Virginia, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Freedom for All Americans (FFAA) will gather at the Statehouse every day this week at 10:30 AM to urge the Virginia House of Delegates to pass legislation that would protect LGBT Virginians from discrimination in housing and public employment. If you are planning to attend, please RSVP to [email protected]
Bills that would provide nondiscrimination protections in housing and public employment have garnered strong bipartisan support and have passed the Republican-controlled Senate for four and six years, respectively. In the House, similar bills will be heard by the Rules Committee today at 4 PM and must ultimately be approved by the General Laws Committee by the end of this week in order to remain viable for passage this year.
ICYMI — HRC COMMENDS NY GOVERNOR CUOMO AND LEADER STEWART-COUSINS ON HISTORIC PRO-LGBTQ LEGISLATION: “[Last Friday], with Governor Cuomo’s signature, New York has made bold, historic progress by making GENDA the law of the land and banning the abusive and life-threatening practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy’ on LGBTQ youth,” said HRC President Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin). “We also owe today’s celebration in large part to Senator Hoylman and Assembly members Gottfried and Glick for their strong leadership on this legislation and to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, who made them a top priority this session.” More from HRC, The Advocate and The Washington Blade.
Historic victory in NY! #GENDA is now law, and young LGBTQ New Yorkers are protected from dangerous, debunked “conversion therapy.” Thanks to all who fought alongside us, and to all who voted to advance equality. This progress is because of you. t.co/sSx51w8y8X
TRANS WOMAN SHOT IN HOUSTON — CURRENT CONDITION UNKNOWN: Pinky, 24, was chased and cornered at a gas station, where she was shot three times. She was taken to the hospital in unknown condition. More from TransGriot.
HRC offers a helpful guide for reporting on transgender people. More from HRC.
SOBERING STATISTICS FROM CDC HIGHLIGHT URGENT NEED TO SUPPORT TRANSGENDER AND NON-CONFORMING YOUTH: Among the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) findings — high school students who identify as transgender are at higher risk of attempting suicide. More from The Washington Post. and The Atlantic Journal-Constitution.
2/ @HRC Foundation and @UConn’s 2018 #LGBTQYouthReport underscores the alarming challenges and barriers facing transgender and gender-expansive youth around the country. t.co/tCxwDw3n2Z
MUST WATCH MONDAY — TRUMP-PENCE ADMINISTRATION FORCES ASYLUM SEEKERS INTO DANGER AT BORDER AS THEY AWAIT U.S. COURT DATES:
HRC FOUNDATION TO HONOR E.J. JOHNSON FOR HIS LGBTQ ADVOCACY AT 6TH ANNUAL TIME TO THRIVE: “E.J. is a powerful role model to LGBTQ youth everywhere — showing through his work to end LGBTQ homelessness that all young people deserve a safe and inclusive place to thrive and an equal chance to succeed in all aspects of their lives,” said Vincent Pompei, Director of HRC’s Youth Well-Being Project and Time to THRIVE conference. More from HRC.
E.J. Johnson is a powerful role model to LGBTQ youth — showing through his work to end LGBTQ homelessness that all young people deserve a safe and inclusive place to thrive.@HRC is proud to present @prince_ej with the Upstander Award at #TimeToTHRIVE. t.co/E8guA1TRtG
GAY BRAZILIAN CONGRESSMAN QUITS DUE TO DEATH THREATS, DOES NOT PLAN TO RETURN TO COUNTRY: More from The New York Times.
HORRIFIC — JAPAN SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LAW REQUIRING TRANSGENDER PEOPLE TO BE STERILIZED BEFORE TRANSITIONING: More from Japan Today and CNN.
READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!
The Advocate features portraits of transwomen from the most dangerous places in the world for trans people; Pink News highlights book recommendations in lead up to LGBTQ History Month; Openly gay athlete Timothy LeDuc and his partner Ashley Cain win the National Pairs title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships
I posed for the NOH 8 Campaign because of being bullied as a child. I was either too overweight, or too 
