Why We Should Award Courage
It could not be more fitting that Caitlyn Jenner will be receiving the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at this year’s ESPYs, as the internet continues to both praise and debate what it means to have a beloved Olympian come out as a trans woman. I can’t help but smile thinking about how apropos and fitting it is that Caitlyn receives this award.

Growing up as a black person in this country, Arthur Ashe was always a role model for me. An outspoken, talented and smart black man who confronted the inequality in our world. Silence is violence, and those who speak up not only spark change, but go down in history as leaders for future generations to look up to and aspire to be. Black kids, much like trans kids need adult leaders telling them that there is a life meant to be lived.

Camera, Arthur Ashe’s daughter, is my oldest and closest friend. When I came out years ago as gay, she didn’t bat an eye. Years later when I came out as trans, the exact same occurred. Our friendship has not only withstood the test of time, but also been tightly bound by unequivocal acceptance. Knowing now, as a happily out trans person, that Caitlyn is being given an award in her father’s name is truly love and advocacy coming beautifully full circle. As the young black kid who admired her father, words can’t express what it feels, as a young black trans man to see an out and proud trans woman receive an award in his name. We are all truly so much more alike than we will ever know and when we take the time to connect the dots, we are so much closer to those who seemed the farthest.

Arthur Ashe became a tennis megastar, in a time when Apartheid still existed, a time where no black man before him (or after him) had won a Grand Slam, and a time when our country was still reeling from decades of segregation.

The fight for LGBTQ equality has always mirrored in many ways, the movements prompted by racial disparity. As we approach an age where gay rights are no longer being seen as a radical fight but instead a humane and righteous step for our country, transgender folks often find themselves left out of the rally cry.

Slowly the media has begun to embrace those who are transgender as equals. Granted, those we do see are often flawless and gorgeous examples of femininity, the presence of Janet Mock and Laverne Cox in the mainstream is incredibly important for trans visibility.

Caitlyn Jenner was setting world records in the world of track and field whilst Ashe was crushing his competition in the tennis world. We didn’t know then that the former was a trans woman, or that the latter would lose his life to AIDS, another crushing common bond shared with many in the trans community, as black transgender women have the highest percentage of new HIV-positive test results.

Our country has seen the bloodshed of far too many blacks just as our country has seen the bloodshed of far too many trans people. When we put into place systems of hate and continually perpetuate them with wrongful facts in the media what often results is the loss of lives and the erasure of groups of people. This is why we need the Arthur Ashe’s of the world, this is why we need the Caitlyn Jenners.

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www.huffingtonpost.com/ryley-rubin-pogensky/why-we-should-award-courage_b_7496926.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

NEWS: Laverne Cox, Chelsea's Heyday, FIFA, Denmark

Sean Mandell

www.towleroad.com/2015/06/news-1.html

Roy Moore: Marriage Equality Will ‘Literally Cause the Destruction of Our Nation’

The controversial Alabama judge says a pro-marriage equality ruling by the Supreme Court would amount to ‘toying with something that’s like dynamite and will destroy our country.’

read more

Dawn Ennis

www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2015/06/02/roy-moore-marriage-equality-will-literally-cause-destruction-o

An Open Letter to Caitlyn Jenner
Where do I begin? As the mother of gender non-conforming children, I just do not know where to begin.

Thank you just doesn’t seem to be enough. But it’s a start.

Thank you for having the courage to be who you have always felt you were meant to be. Thank you for breaking the gender norms that so many were too afraid to break.

Thank you for paving the way for my children to be who they truly feel they were meant to be. Because of you, my children will not have to live a lie. Because of you, my children will struggle less. Because of you, my children will be happier.

Thank you for showing the world that this is real. It really is possible to be born into the wrong body. It is possible to live an entire life too afraid to be who you feel you were really meant to be.

Thank you for being the world’s most awesome athlete. Thank you for being a sex symbol. Thank you for being such a man’s man. It just makes your transition all the more amazing.

Thank you for giving my children a voice. Thank you for putting my mind at ease. Before you, I was terrified at what the future held for my children. Now I know they will be okay.

Thank you for doing all of this so publicly. It had to be a difficult decision to make. But as I mother I can’t thank you enough for making it.

Thank you to your family for being supportive. Thank you for showing the realness of it all. It’s a very hard thing to come to terms with a family member struggling with gender issues. No matter who you are.

Thank you for starting this conversation.

I now have a person my children can look up to. I have a person my children can look at and think, I can be whoever it is I feel I was meant to be.

Thank you for single-handedly paving the way for my children and children everywhere. Thank you for being a new type of role model. Thank you for having the courage to do all of this.

A man transitioning into a woman is not the end of the world. It’s just the beginning.

Thank you for being Caitlyn.

Eileen O’Connor is an amazingly talented woman, wife, and mother living on the mean streets of Chicago’s south side with her equally adorable family.

Follow her blog No Wire Hangers, Ever
Check her out on Facebook

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www.huffingtonpost.com/eileen-oconnor/an-open-letter-to-caitlyn_b_7493832.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Frankie Valenti (AKA Johnny Hazzard) Makes Indie Debut In Tiger Orange

As we reported last summer when Tiger Orange world premiered at Outfest, Frankie Valenti (aka Johnny Hazzard) is not the first gay adult star to transition into the gay indie film world (most recently Sean Paul Lockhart/Brent Corrigan comes to mind). Valenti does have the distinction, though, of receiving nearly 100 percent rave reviews for his acting chops (as does his Tiger Orange co-star Mark Strano). The duo have each nabbed Best Actor honors on the gay film fest circuit for their portrayals of Chet and Todd, a pair of small-town brothers who each grapple in different ways with their gay identities in the aftermath of their father’s death. With Valenti playing the out and proud bad-boy to Strano’s uptight closet-case, the tension between them (no, not that kind of tension) builds steadily over the course of the film.

A characteristic dialogue exchange sums up their polar-opposite personalities:

Chet/Strano: “Everything is sex with you, isn’t it?”
Todd/Valenti: “Everything is sex, period, with everybody.”

Co-written by Strano and the film’s director Wade Gasque, Tiger Orange debuts today on VOD across most digital platforms including iTunes and WolfeOnDemand.com.

About WolfeOnDemand.com
WolfeOnDemand.com is the global LGBT digital movie platform from LGBT specialty distributor Wolfe Video. The service showcases more than one hundred titles — features and documentaries — including popular favorites and hits like I Am Divine, The Circle, Getting Go, Undertow and many more. Most titles are available in HD and are priced at US $3.99 for streaming rentals and US $14.99 for digital download to own. Most of the films are available worldwide and are all also available on DVD directly from WolfeVideo.com for viewers in the US and Canada.

Jenni

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/nrZeh5qhZts/frankie-valenti-aka-johnny-hazzard-makes-indie-debut-in-tiger-orange-20150602

ABC's 'Brokeback Bachelors' Are Just a Joke: VIDEO

Sean Mandell

www.towleroad.com/2015/06/abcs-brokeback-bachelors-are-just-a-joke-video.html

WATCH: Mike Huckabee Wished He Was a Trans Teenager

Here’s why everything Mike Huckabee is saying about transgender people is wrong.

read more

Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/06/02/watch-mike-huckabee-wished-he-was-trans-teenager

Boys Can Cry, Too
Dear Society,

Let’s settle something once and for all: Boys are allowed to have feelings, too.

I know you are uncomfortable with a boy who cries. I know you cringe to see a sad boy walking. I know you can’t stand to see a man barely able to crawl from his bed because of the darkness hanging in his head.

I watched my brother shake beneath your hand, society, but I didn’t fully understand it until I had six boys of my own.

These boys in my home are full of emotions, and those feelings leak out their eyes when they’re told they can’t bring a book to the lunch table, because they’d rather bury themselves in a book than talk with friends about video games they don’t play; and they climb out their mouths when that playing time passes way too fast and they’re not ready, not at all, for the clean-up time; and they hide behind frustration when they just can’t execute that flip as perfectly as they want.

I know what you would tell them, society.

Forget about it.

Man up.

Man up, because men don’t cry.

And there they go, walking around with their emotions trapped by your dam, so they’re ticking time bombs, and you shake your heads in disgust when you read of those young men walking out on their families because disengagement is easier than feeling the sorrow of alienation or the frustration of a crying child or the disappointment of a rocky family that points to a rocky marriage.

There they go, turning from their inner lives toward stoic silence and solitude and cynicism.

There they go, straightjacketed by the rules of manhood, so they don’t even know who they are anymore.

You are stealing life from these boys, society.

You whisper it behind your hands: Wow. He’s really sensitive. Dramatic. Easily upset about so little.

And you shout it in their faces: Be someone different.

And you tell them a thousand other ways that men don’t feel because they’re men, dammit.

But here’s the thing, society: Real men do cry. Real men do feel. Real men talk and grieve and walk with vulnerable hearts instead of clenched-tight ones.

You are not a man if all you ever do is hide behind a straw house of strength. You are not strong if you never show us weak.

When do our boys just get to be who they are, without being called names or being labeled or put into a box or dismissed as something they’re not, society?

What if all that negativity poisoning a life leaks from a clenched-tight heart in those tears that make you so uncomfortable?

What if letting a boy walk away sad means we save him from not just a physical heart disease, but an emotional one, too, because he feels understood and supported and highly esteemed?

What if naming the darkness following that man who can barely climb from his bed means, for him, a release from the shame and fear and anxiety heaping his shoulders for the possibility of being found out?

What if they all walk lighter for it?

Maybe we see a brave new world, a world where boys stand with an emotional vocabulary and aren’t afraid to use it, where boys honor and value their emotional lives as rich windows to their souls, where boys unclench those precious, magnificent hearts.

Where men can be real men.

And that, society, is worth letting my boy weep over losing a toy, because it meant a whole lot to him. It’s worth letting him cry when it’s time to leave a house, because he genuinely, wholeheartedly enjoyed this visit with people he loves. It’s worth watching those tears stain cheeks when he caused a little trouble at school, because he really, really regrets it.

After all, “teardrops are healers as they begin to arrive,” Rumi says.

A version of this article originally appeared on Rachel Toalson’s blog. Find Rachel on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-toalson/boys-can-cry-too_b_7487558.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Connecticut Legislature Passes Legislation to Allow Trans People to Update their Birth Certificate

HB 7006 ensures that transgender people can change their birth certificates to reflect their correct name and gender without unnecessarily expensive and invasive obstacles.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/connecticut-legislature-passes-legislation-to-allow-trans-people-to-update?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Mike Huckabee: I Wish I Came Out As Transgender In HS To Shower With The Girls

In a speech at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this year, Mike Huckabee joked that he should have pretended to be transgender in high school so he could “shower with the girls” whenever he wanted to.

The comments have recently been uploaded to YouTube by World Net Daily.

Here’s how Huckabee framed it:

For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize that the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your 7-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom cannot be offended and you can’t be offended if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man.

Related: Selfie Campaign Shows How Absurd It Is To Force Trans People To Use The Wrong Bathroom

Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, “Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.” You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous doesn’t it?

Yes, it does sound ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous that a person with so much money, power and amplification could be so willfully ignorant about something he purports to his flock to be a defender of — the truth.

What Huckabee does with one astoundingly flawed argument is downplay the real and present experience of transgender youth who look at their peers, at their families and at themselves and think “something is wrong with me.”

But the painful truth is there isn’t anything wrong with them — it’s Huckabee and people like him who think their “right to be offended” somehow outweighs someone’s right to live authentically that are doing damage.

Consider a transgender teen grappling with overwhelming questions of identity and expression and compare it to Mike Huckabee, a 59-year-old man fantasizing about perving out in a high school girls locker room.

Which one sounds like the bigger threat?

Here’s the full speech. The above section begins at 18:10:

Dan Tracer

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