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Va. Family Drops Charges Against Trans Woman Arrested for Aiding Their Suicidal Trans Son
“I never imagined helping teens or others would come to something like this,” said Julianna Fialkoswki, who alleges mistreatment from Lynchburg police.
Mitch Kellaway
Five Reasons The World’s Happiest Places Are Also The Gayest
For the third year running, the World Happiness report analyzed countries based on factors including GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy and freedom of choice to determine the happiest and unhappiest places on the planet.
This year, Planet Romeo, an Amsterdam-based community site, collaborated with the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany to carry out an online survey of 115,000 gay men around the world. They looked at how gay men feel about society’s view on homosexuality, how they’re treated by other people, and how satisfied they are with their own lives to come up with a list of the happiest and unhappiest places for gay men on the planet.
So how do these two lists stack up?
Well, unsurprisingly, the countries where gay men are the happiest also happen to be where people are happiest in general. Iceland, Norway and Denmark (GayCities recommends capital city Copenhagen as possibly the “most gay-friendly city on earth”) make the top five in both unrelated projects.
Here are five reasons why:
1. Nobody likes conflict and hatred
It’s no real shocker that the more accepting a country is of LGBT people, the happier those LGBT people are. But the benefits don’t stop there. Straight people also directly benefit from participating in an accepting society. They’re free of hateful rhetoric that only causes turmoil and hurt. And that means more time to enjoy life.
2. Freedom is good for business
When people are free to be themselves, there’s a higher chance that they’ll tap into their creative selves. Creativity means innovation, and innovation brings untold potential to grow. Who doesn’t like a grower?
3. Everyone has a closet
Just because someone is straight doesn’t mean they don’t have a quirk or two that they deserve to be unashamed of. A more open society lets everyone wave their freak flag without fear. Life is short — it’s built to be enjoyed.
4. Trust isn’t a four letter word
Once factor the World Happiness Report looks at is trust as measured by a perceived absence of corruption in government and business. LGBT communities around the world have to believe that society has their back, and that can only come with trust. Trust doesn’t come easily, but once it’s won, the benefits are universal.
5. Stress kills
One of the key components for maintaining a happy lifestyle is stress management. On a small scale, it means realizing that a traffic jam isn’t going to ruin your day. But oppression is a whole other kind of stress. Anti-gay vitriol isn’t just stressful for gay people — it affects those spouting it, and those forced to hear it who aren’t necessarily gay.
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A notable difference between the two lists is the United Arab Emirates, where GDP may be good, but life as a gay person is fraught with struggle.
Ireland landed #18 in overall happiness, but didn’t crack the top 20 for gay men (though at #25, it wasn’t a total failure). Of course, the study was conducted before the country’s historic ‘yes’ vote to legalize same-sex marriage. How much do you want to bet it rises up the ranking on both lists next year?
The United States ranked 26th for gay happiness and 15th in overall happiness — let’s work on that.
Uganda was last for gay happiness and nearly last overall.
Here are the top 20 countries ranked for gay happiness:
Here’s the World Happiness Index top 20:
Lesson: The most successful societies are not just tolerant, they are assertively pro-gay. Let the rainbow flag fly everywhere.
Dan Tracer
Artist Spotlight: Konstantin Somov
Somov’s work fell into two categories. His work with and for the gay Russian art mafia of the ime is what we are interested in.
Christopher Harrity
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Alleged To Have Been Paying A Former Male Student Hush Money
The news that former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was indicated for illegally withdrawing large sums of money from his bank account was shocking enough. But now it turns out that the reason for the withdrawals is even more shocking. Apparently, Hastert, who was a teacher and wrestling coach before entering politics, has been paying hush money to a former male student who claims he was molested by Hastert.
The indictment against Hastert, a Republican, focused on a pattern that seemed designed to skirt federal requirements for reporting exceptionally large withdrawals. The indictment spoke only of Hastert seeking to pay an unnamed, genderless individual as recompense for “prior misconduct.” The indictment claimed that Hastert had agreed to pay “Individual A” the tidy sum of $3.5 million to keep his mouth shut.
While the full story has yet to come out, even the sketchiest information available is pretty juicy. “It was sex,” an unnamed official told the Los Angeles Times. Hastert was a teacher and coach at Yorkville High School in Illinois from 1965 to 1981. A second man, who did not seek payment from Hastert, apparently told investigators that he was sexually molested by Hastert as well.
The irony is that Hastert’s political career ended when he resigned from Congress in 2007 following a barrage of criticism for slow walking the investigation of fellow Republican Mark Foley for sexting with underage male pages. The news emerging now suggests that Hastert’s sympathy for Foley’s plight might have been personal than anyone could have imagined.
Photo credit: U.S. Congress
JohnGallagher
Imagine Running Into Your Childhood Bully On The Street. How Would You React?
Below are six black-and-white photos from the series, along with the stories behind them…
Derek de Koff
Virtually Every Demographic Group Now Supports Gay Marriage
With the Supreme Court nearing its historic ruling on same-sex marriage, recent Gallup polling shows a remarkably broad-based public shift toward support of such unions.
— 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.
Maxwell Caulfield Helped Andrew Rannells Realize He’s Gay
Actor Maxwell Caulfield’s legacy just keeps getting richer. When the ridiculously handsome British actor starred in the 1982 cult musical Grease 2 as the love interest of Michelle Pfeiffer, he did more that just win her character’s heart by the end of the film. He also ignited a fire in a multitude of gay males of all ages, including a very young Andrew Rannells.
In a video for the It Gets Better series, Rannells, who stars in HBO’s zeitgeist-y comedy Girls and won a Tony Award nod for his work in Broadway’s clever The Book of Mormon, chats about his how his childhood passion for Caulfield helped him realize he’s gay.
“It was just a very basic childlike attraction to certain people,” Rannells recalls now.
‘The earliest memory I have of that was watching Grease 2 and being strangely drawn to Maxwell Caulfield. It was a realization that came very, very early for me and I would assume was also quickly understood by my parents at that time.”
Preach, brother.
Related: 10 Guys Who Made Us Realize We’re Gay, ’80s Edition
Watch Andrew’s video below and scroll down further to see Maxwell being beautiful and sensitive in Grease 2.
Jeremy Kinser
Remembering Our LGBT Heroes as One World Trade Center Opens
The tallest building in the western hemisphere is now open on the site where 2,753 people died, two dozen of them members of the LGBT community.
Dawn Ennis
www.advocate.com/lgbt/2015/05/29/remembering-our-lgbt-heroes-one-world-trade-center-opens
Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1744
GOOGLE: Their big jump into virtual reality
TEXAS: AFA caller blames floods on witchcraft and sodomy
BEN & JERRY’S: Join the climate movement
EXPENSIVE WINE: It’s for suckers
For more recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.
Kyler Geoffroy
www.towleroad.com/2015/05/towleroad-guide-to-the-tube-1744.html
One Ally's Story in Celebration of Pride Month
Holden Caulfield was my best friend the summer that I stopped eating. It was 1982, I was 12, and I was at overnight camp. I wanted nothing to do with the girls in my bunk. They were all about boobs, make up and boy talk. It felt so foreign to me. I just wasn’t interested, and they wanted nothing to do with me either. I sat on my bunk and read J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye over and over again. Along with reading, starving myself was something I could do to gain control of a lonely summer. It nearly killed me. I was hospitalized for three months with anorexia, a secret shadow that has followed me around for the past 30 years. It was also a sort of self-imposed puberty blocker, I think. No part of me wanted to become the young women I saw around me. (I haven’t read anything about this as a strategy among transgender kids, even in the amazing recent resource book, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. But, it resonates with me.)
When I was even younger — seven or eight, I’d guess — I wanted to be a boy. That’s how I think of it: it was aspirational more than anything else. I remember standing on a baseball diamond at day camp, playing terribly as always. A girl on the opposing team ran past me as she rounded the bases and growled, “Are you a boy or a girl?” She was intending to bully me, but I was thrilled that I was confusing her. I wore boy’s clothes, bought in the actual boys’ section of clothing stores, whenever I could. After a long fight about my outfit for a family wedding, I persuaded my mom to let me forgo a dress and wear a suit, a hideous green ’70s number with unfortunate flowers on it. I was convinced that my body was becoming a “boy’s body.” I wanted people to call me Leonard, the only boy’s name I could think of that started with an L.
I don’t remember when or how I stopped being or actively wanting to be Leonard. My memory is murky. For many years, I had no language or venue in which to talk about this. I know that I was always an extreme rule follower and people pleaser. I wasn’t going to get to be Leonard. I was being socialized to be a girl. So, I became one. I know that’s not something everyone can do. It’s certainly not something young people should do: fall in line with the gender they are being socialized into.
As I grew up, I faced — and continue to face — the structural forms of inequality and the daily microaggressions that come with presenting as a woman every day. These experiences have made me who I have become, and I would not take them back. I became an ardent and proud feminist, sociologist, teacher and mom. I married the boy who was my chess and White Sox buddy and my first crush in elementary school. And when I found gender, queer and LGBTQ studies, they filled my head and heart and I felt like I was home.
Leonard is still part of me. He wasn’t just some passing phase. I will never be fully comfortable having the physical traits that get me called a woman every day. There are so many things about “womanhood” that I feel I don’t do naturally at all. When I talk with trans guys about their stories or read memoirs and testimonials by trans men or transmasculine writers, I think, with a little jealousy and a lot of admiration: I might have been these guys. I also know in my bones that gender is a spectrum and not a binary. The binary is too restrictive, for me and, I’d argue, for everyone. Everyone.
But I am in quite a conventional package. There is no denying that I benefit from cisgender privilege and straight privilege every minute of my life. These intersect with my race and class privilege. I know this, and I try to pay as much attention to it in as many ways as I can, in my work and in my life. No need to be sanctimonious about it, I’m making it up as I go along. There is so much I don’t know, and everyday I try to put myself in situations where I’m learning. I have learned from many mentors — and hopefully one of the things they have taught me is when to lead, teach and speak, and when to follow, listen and just shut up.
This lifelong privilege is what determines that the letter that most accurately defines me in the alphabet soup that is current queer identity and politics is A — for ally — rather than LGBT or Q (though I’d like to think I can be both an A and at least a little bit Q). My allyship for LGBTQ social justice comes from my political commitments. It comes from loving and caring about so many amazing LGBT and queer people and feeling that my wellbeing is inextricably tied to their wellbeing. It also comes from my own story: a story I’ll continue to work to understand for the rest of my life.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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