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Achieving Health Equity for LGBT Arkansans
HRC Arkansas made history on June 11 after hosting the first statewide conference to address LGBT inclusive healthcare.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/achieving-health-equity-for-lgbt-arkansans?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Steve Grand’s Parents Learned He Was Gay By Reading An AOL Chat
They found out from an AOL Instant Message Chat I was having with a friend when I was 13. They confronted me about it shortly after. Like a lot of parents in their position, especially at the time, they didn’t know what to do. So they sent me to a Christian therapist to help figure out what to do. There was a lot of ex-gay literature going around back then and I think it gave them false hope that I could actually become straight. We’ve all come such a long way. I don’t like to dwell on what happened so long ago. They definitely regret the way they handled it, and so do I, but we all have to move on in life at some point.”
— Singer Steve Grand, who’s previously discussed undergoing gay conversion therapy in a new interview with aTeen magazine
Jeremy Kinser
The Smallest Country in the World Just Legalized Gay Marriage
In a small but symbolic victory for marriage equality worldwide, the Pitcairn Islands have passed a new law that explicitly legalizes gay marriage. The island nation is a British colony in the southern Pacific Ocean and it is the world’s least populous national jurisdiction.
The new law, Same Sex Marriage and Civil Partnership Ordinance 2015, explicitly allows for same-sex marriages among the island nation’s 56 inhabitants.
Read the new law in detail, full text embedded below:
Courtesy of Equality Case Files
The post The Smallest Country in the World Just Legalized Gay Marriage appeared first on Towleroad.
Jake Folsom
The Smallest Country in the World Just Legalized Gay Marriage
Tab Hunter Tells All
The great screen heartthrob of the 1950s sets the record straight by coming out as gay in Tab Hunter Confidential.
Adam Sandel
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2015/06/18/tab-hunter-tells-all
Same Sex Wedding Tips for All Couples
*This post first appeared on InsideWeddings.com.
Marriage equality is flourishing across the United States, yielding more same-sex weddings than ever before. But unlike “traditional” straight couples, same-sex couples have no templates or roadmaps to fall back on when planning their nuptials. Here I share a few ideas – some from my own experience – for navigating the unknown terrain of same-sex weddings, all of which will help any couple (gay or straight) who want to celebrate individuality over tradition.
Your Wedding Challenges are Opportunities
With no GPS to lead the way, you and your fiancé are forced to ask yourselves three important questions:
1. What are we doing?
2. Why are we doing it?
3. How do we make it happen?
Same-sex couples have always been forced to be awake at the wheel of their relationships and marriages. I feel it’s because they have had to fight for recognition in the face of adversity. So – along with straight couples who deviate from the norm – think of your wedding-planning challenges as opportunities to create meaningful celebrations on your own terms.
Incorporate Guests Into Your Story, Not the Other Way Around
Assemble a menagerie of faces that make you feel like you. And choose not to invite anyone who might compromise your event with what I call ‘Overtly Toxic Prejudice’: a reflexive, pernicious need to induce shame in those they do not understand. Anyone down with OTP does not have a place at your wedding.
By taking charge of your guest list, you also empower yourself to bring people into your world, on your terms. For instance, when family members slip up and call your event a “party,” just remind them how important the day is for you, how important the word “wedding” is, and how meaningful it will be for you to share it with them.
Remember, you are inviting them into your story as a couple, not contorting yourself to fit into theirs.
Personalize, Rewrite, or Create New Rituals
You get to think about which wedding rituals you like, which you do not, and which are rooted in the tradition of brides as property (which are many of them). You then get to decide which of those rituals, if any, tell your story. If none do, you can always create your own, and then celebrate them in your own way.
Here are some examples:
The Proposal. You can reenact a “traditional” proposal where one proposes to the other on bended knee. But you can also invent a refreshing proposal of your own. And you can cast yourself in the role of proposer, proposed to, or both.
For example, my husband and I invented Proposal Week: a mini-vacation during which we agreed to psyche each other out with almost-proposals at various dinners and excursions until it spontaneously happened for real. Instead of exchanging rings, we created a symbolic video featuring the people in our tribes and emailed it to them. It served as both our engagement announcement and our save the date.
Parties. Have a shower, a bachelor(ette) party, or any other pre-wedding bash if you want. Whatever you end up doing (i.e., cake decorating classes, wine tasting, bar hopping, or bungy jumping) just make sure you actually have fun and that the party symbolizes who you are, independent of your spouse-to-be.
The Wedding Party. And speaking of parties, you get to decide who you want to represent you on the big day, without the gender binary getting in the way. That means that unlike many brides and grooms in the past, you get to choose bridesmen, groomsgals, or any other attendant in your wedding ensemble without the oppressive rule of “boys on this side of the aisle, girls on that side.”
What is also trending is not settling on any specific color theme for attire; don’t feel the pressure to have everyone in the wedding party match ensembles. For example, for our New England fall wedding, my husband and I chose to wear non-matching brown suits and asked our parties to wear any fall leaf color of their choosing. It was wonderful to watch the autumnal ensemble flurry their way down the aisle.
The Ceremony. Don’t feel as though you have to abandon tradition altogether. There may be aspects of sectarian customs that inspire you. For example, my husband and I both grew up going to Christian churches, and though we are not religious now, we liked some of the aesthetics of the services. We chose classic texts that reflected stories like ours – drawn from Gilgamesh and Plato – as well as church-like music selections that felt personal, from Philip Glass and Sinead O’Connor. Our spiritual guests not only got to reflect on our love, but also had no idea the service wasn’t taken from the Bible.
The Reception. Do you need to smash cake in each other’s faces? No. So if you don’t want to, don’t. If you want a first dance, do it: fast or slow, just the two of you, or with everyone as a big group. And if you want to dance with parents, why not go ahead and dance with your same-sex counterpart?
Your Wedding is a Performance
Don’t be afraid to embrace the limelight. It’s your day, so you should enjoy it.
That being said, you’ll want to prepare for show time the way actors do for a play. Allow yourself to daydream about each stage of the wedding ahead of time. Fantasize about the attention you will receive each step of the way, and how nice it will be to take that in. The more you are prepared to enjoy the attention, the better time you’ll have and the better time your guests will have. Trust me.
Also, don’t be thrown by relatives who may cringe at the sight of you kissing your beloved at the altar, your PDA in photographs or on the dance floor, your choice of outfit, or any other way in which you choose to enjoy the spotlight. These “traditional” or conservative relatives might induce inhibiting shame in you. Don’t let them. They are not the arbiters of appropriate. They simply suffer from what I call ‘Spotlight Ambivalence’: mixed feelings about exposing truth when it challenges the norm, causing folks to object when you take center stage. It’s about them, not about you.
But you might be able to actually glean tips from these same relatives. Ask them about their weddings and conflicts they had with their relatives when planning them. You might disarm them and find connections in unexpected places.
What You Take In Is More Important Than What You Put Out
Whether we’re straight or gay, we all face the exact same wedding dilemma: How to celebrate who we are and who we love, and how to take our crucial people along with us for the ride. The ensemble you assemble will nourish you – if you mentally prepare to take them in.
*This post has been adapted from Mark O’Connell, LCSW’s book, Modern Brides & Modern Grooms: A Guide to Planning Straight, Gay, and Other Nontraditional Twenty-First Century Weddings.
— 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.
One Million Moms Is Now Very Angry At Yogurt And Lesbians
Nothing raises the hackles quite like the transient, transgressive delights of Greek yogurt. And should you ever produce a commercial that conspicuously slips a container of the stuff between two slinky lesbians cavorting around in 1500-thread count bedsheets, you should immediately expect the fiery condemnation of Our Lord to come down upon you with the force of a thousand bucking steads.
Such is the fate of fine Greek yogurt purveyors Chobani, who recently released the following Sapphic advertisement to capitalize on Gay Pride Month:
Within moments, that spectral organization known as One Million Moms rose up from the gulley in which it sleeps, instantaneously firing out a nutso press release that reads in part: “Chobani should be ashamed of their latest commercial for attempting to normalize sin by featuring two women naked in bed together… This commercial not only promotes same sex relationships by including two lesbians, but also same-sex marriage because the two women wear matching wedding bands.”
Related: Disney Channel Acknowledges That Gay Parents Exist, Infuriates One Million Moms
One Million Moms — who we suspect is merely One Crabby Spinster typing away on an old Smith Corona in a disused basement — gets increasingly flummoxed as the statement rambles on: “What does selling yogurt have to do with gay sex? Nothing at all, but Chobani wants to make the association. One Million Moms continues to stand up for Biblical truth, which is very clear in Romans 1:26-27 about this particular type of sexual perversion.”
With that, One Million Moms flapped back into the clouds to replenish its energy before the next attack, leaving us with much to think about as we enjoy our own Chobani in bed.
h/t: Jezebel
Derek de Koff
SCOTUS Gay Marriage Plaintiff Jim Obergefell: ‘There’s Still So Much More to Do’ – VIDEO
The lead plaintiff in the same-sex marriage cases before the U.S. Supreme Court says he’ll continue to fight for LGBT equality even if justices rule in his favor.
Jim Obergefell (above left) married his dying partner of more than 20 years, John Arthur (above right), on the tarmac of the Baltimore airport in 2013. Obergefell later filed a lawsuit in their home state of Ohio seeking to be listed as the surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate.
After a federal judge ruled in Obergefell’s favor, the state appealed the decision, and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it. Now, Obergefell’s case is one of four challenging same-sex marriage bans in as many states before the high court, which could rule any day now.
But Obergefell — who’s been at the Supreme Court on decision days to watch the rulings come down — told New York Magazine that regardless of how the court rules, he’s remain an activist:
“With this ruling coming out, and even if the ruling is what we’re hoping for, I know I’m not done. Even though my case will have ended, and there will be marriage equality coast to coast, there’s still so much more to do for the LGBT community. I mean, across the country, even being able to marry, couples will lose their jobs, lose their homes, because they’re gay or bisexual or transgender. And that isn’t right. I have discovered my internal activist, and I have to keep fighting. It’s too important to me now to say, Okay, marriage equality is done, I’m going to go back to my normal life. This has become my normal life.”
Obergefell said he’s been amazed by the support he’s received, but is still struggling to deal with his status emotionally:
“It doesn’t seem possible. I mean, on one hand, it’s incredible to think that my name, John’s and my story, is a landmark case that will be in history books. That’s an incredible thing, on an intellectual level. It’s the emotional level where I’m still catching up to that. It just doesn’t seem possible, and it doesn’t seem at all possible that I’m the person at the center of it. Knowing that I wasn’t an activist, and knowing that it all started just because John and I loved each other.”
Watch interviews with Obergefell and Arthur before he died, as well as footage from their wedding ceremony below:
ABC US News | World News
The post SCOTUS Gay Marriage Plaintiff Jim Obergefell: ‘There’s Still So Much More to Do’ – VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.
John Wright
SCOTUS Gay Marriage Plaintiff Jim Obergefell: ‘There’s Still So Much More to Do’ – VIDEO
Schuyler Bailar Was Recruited To Swim At Harvard As A Female, But Will Compete On The Men's Team
Schuyler Bailar, an incoming Harvard freshman who was initially recruited by their women’s swimming team, will compete for their men’s team this fall, and become the first openly transgender collegiate swimmer.
He first announced his decision to transition in an Instagram post last September, writing at the time, “I’ve just started my transition #ftm [female to male]. I’m 18 and it’s been quite the ride but I decided I’d try to grab some support from the insta community.”
Bailar began his transition in 2014 after graduating from high school — a place where he had tremendous success in the pool as a female swimmer, but couldn’t be himself. Swimming World Magazine profiled Bailar in an article published on Wednesday, writing:
Giving in to peer pressure to conform, Bailar adhered to the code of “typical” girl behavior. But in his head, Bailar knew it just wasn’t who he was.
Since the September Instagram post, Bailar has continued to actively share his progress on social media, which has been met with strong support from the “insta community” he alluded to. Bailar shared personal before-and-after photos of his top surgery, which removed his breasts, and also of bottles of testosterone.
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on May 17, 2015 at 5:36am PDT
Testosterone here we come! #tshot #tday #transindustry
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on Jun 3, 2015 at 8:14am PDT
He’s also proudly cropped side-by-side images of his former body compared to his current body, but not without some trepidation.
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on May 5, 2015 at 12:05pm PDT
On one such photo posted in April, he location-tagged “holy shiiit,” expressing his own shock at his updated image while also writing: “I’ve been very hesitant to share old photos with you guys because I guess I’m scared of showing my past and people saying that I should have just stayed that way because I was beautiful or whatever. Scared I could never measure up to the beauty of the girl I was as the boy I am now. So this is me being proud of who I, a sum of all my past and present selves, am today.”
In May, Bailar, more confident in himself than ever, made a more public announcement about his transition on his Facebook page:
I assure you I’m still the same goofy, nerdy, crazy Schuyler that you’ve known. I’m not changing who I am, I’m not changing my personality. I am only changing my body so it matches my insides and my feelings. And lastly, in terms of swimming: I will be swimming for Harvard men’s swim team in the fall instead of the women’s team. Harvard swimming as a whole has been incredible in this process, providing me with the amazing opportunity to be me and continue my transition.
Please refer to me with he/him/his pronouns. I understand this will take time to adjust — I don’t offend easily, as long as you are trying. If you would like to see more of my journey and transition, contact me and, like I said, I’m definitely willing to talk and explain.
Also, I have been working on coming out to people individually but it’s been an overwhelming and slow process. At this point, I am tired of hiding and worrying that people will find out. Hence this PSA. So please don’t feel lesser or left out if I haven’t told you before now. Like I said, I’m still Schuyler.
In Swimming World, Harvard swim coach Kevin Tyrrell spoke highly of Bailar’s ability as a swimmer, student and person.
“I want Schuyler on my team for the same reasons I want all of my athletes: I believe he wants to push himself academically and athletically,” Tyrrell said. “When all of our swimmers and divers have this mindset, everyone improves in every aspect of their lives. This process will contribute to them being outstanding members of society.”
This moment was pretty perfect ☀️ #doublepost
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on Jun 8, 2015 at 1:21pm PDT
In the pool, Bailar described himself to Swimming World as “competitive as hell,” but he also has a message for other trans athletes: “Come out. Be visible. Don’t be miserable. The world is changing and you do have options.”
— 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.
When Chris Pratt Calls For The Objectification Of Men, We Listen
Jurassic World star Chris Pratt thinks both men and women should enjoy being treated like pieces of meat. Asked by Radio 4’s Front Row whether his freshly acquired abs and biceps have opened up new doors for him, the actor responded: “A huge part of how my career has shifted is based on the way that I look, on the way that I’ve shaped my body to look.”
Related: Chris Pratt Recalls His Bigger Days: “I Was Impotent, Fatigued, Emotionally Depressed”
But doesn’t he feel objectified? “Totally. I think it’s OK, I don’t feel appalled by it. I think it’s appalling that for a long time only women were objectified, but I think if we really want to advocate for equality, it’s important to even things out…. At the end of the day, our bodies are objects. For years people have been putting on masks, putting on costumes, and this is essentially a costume that I took a great deal of effort to put on.”
Fortunately, it doesn’t take quite as much effort for him to take his shirt off.
Derek de Koff
Anti-gay Pastor Rick Scarborough Is Ready to Literally Burn to Death to Fight ‘Ungodly’ Same-sex Marriage: LISTEN
Texas pastor and Vision America founder Rick Scarborough is willing to literally burn to death to stop you from getting married.
According to Right Wing Watch, unhinged Scarborough told listeners he “will burn” if necessary to protect poor old persecuted anti-gay Christians:
“The preachers need to get out front, the leaders need to get out front, out front of these ordinary citizens and say, ‘Shoot me first.’”
“The end game [same-sex marriage] is the complete destruction of the church of the Lord Jesus, the replacement of it with this liberal theology that’s not a theology, it’s a philosophy, human-made, it goes back to the Garden of Eden when Satan wanted to be God. We now have a race of humans that don’t want to acknowledge that there’s a God.
“[SCOTUS is] after God. This country better be aware, we’ve suffered a lot of injustices, but I’m not sure God is going to tolerate this one very long.”
Last year, Scarborough said that the U.S. should be obliterated for appointing gay ambassadors.
The post Anti-gay Pastor Rick Scarborough Is Ready to Literally Burn to Death to Fight ‘Ungodly’ Same-sex Marriage: LISTEN appeared first on Towleroad.
Michael Fitzgerald
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