The Very Short List: Who Is Gay in the Olympics?
 

Mathematically, we know there are definitely more LGBT athletes heading to Sochi, Russia, than there are on this list. But after a few weeks of digging, asking around, and Googling, the crop of out athletes heading to Sochi for the Olympics includes, it seems, only five people. All five are women.

Conversely, by the time the 2012 games in London were over, there were about 25 athletes (and a coach) who were out. London is a safer place to be LGBT than Russia, where violence against LGBT people is growing by the day and a law is on the books barring so-called gay propaganda.

We'll be watching Team LGBT as the games play out, and we're hoping the roster grows in the days ahead. In the meantime, here's who we will be watching.

Belle Brockhoff, Australia

When Russia banned LGBT "propaganda," 20-year-old Australian snowboarding prodigy Belle Brockhoff leaped out of the closet.

"I want to be proud of who I am and be proud of all the work I've done to get into the Olympics and not have to deal with this law," Brockhoff said last year.

Since then she said the Australian Olympic Committee has supported her journey to the games, though she said they didn't recommend she wave around a rainbow flag. Even as she's gearing up for Sochi, Brockhoff recently said, "After I compete, I'm willing to rip on [Putin's] ass. I'm not happy and there's a bunch of other Olympians who are not happy either."

Anastasia Bucsis, Canada

Bucsis was out at the last Winter Olympic games in Vancouver, but only a few months after Russia passed its antigay law, she reiterated that she was "proud to be gay."

“I could never promote that message of concealing who you are with all of this going on in Russia. I’m kind of happy that I did it on my own terms,” the long-track speed skater said.

Bucsis, who competed in the 2010 Vancouver Games, grew up in Calgary, the site of the 1988 Winter Olympic games. She said growing up in the wake of the Calgary Olympics inspired her, spurring her parents to get her to begin speed skating. Being closeted and not knowing any other speed skaters affected her performance in 2010, where she competed in the 500-meter event. She came out with the support of teammate Kaylin Irvine and now looks forward to Sochi's Olympic games. She's on the Canadian national team and has set a personal record this year.

Sanne Van Kerkhof, Netherlands

Short track competitor Sanne Van Kerkhof, has been on the Dutch national team, and competed in 2010 in the women's relay. Since Vancouver, Van Kerkhof seems to have hit her stride as a member of the relay team, as the Dutch women have won gold at the European Championships four years in a row since 2011 as well as the World Championships last year. She is part of the Dutch team that will be tackling the 3,000-meter relay.


Barbara Jezeršek, Slovenia

At the 2010 Winter Olympics, cross-country skier Barbara Jezeršek competed in the 10-kilometer and 15-kilometer races, as well as the 4x5-kilometer relay. She will be in Sochi representing Slovenia on the slopes.

Ireen Wüst, Netherlands

Speed skater Ireen Wüst won the gold for the Netherlands in 2010 in the women's 1,500-meter race at age 23, and four years earlier she won her first gold medal in the 3,000-meter speed skating event at the 2006 Olympic games in Torino, Italy. Now she's ready to hit the ice again for Team Orange in five events.

"I’ve skated for a long time now, and I competed in the last two Winter Games, so I know what to expect and I know how to race," she said to the International Olympic Committee recently. "Everyone has their own way, but for me I need to find the balance between being really focused and being relaxed. If I’m too nervous, I won’t be able to achieve my goal as it affects my body. I have to be relaxed, but focused; that’s what I prepare for mentally."

http://www.advocate.com/sports/2014/...o-gay-olympics

http://lesbiannews.com/

Many Married Utah Same-Sex Couples Can File Joint State Tax Returns
by Lesbian News • January 16, 2014

According to new guidance issued by the Utah State Tax Commission, all same-sex couples living in Utah that are eligible to file a joint federal tax return for the 2013 tax year are also eligible to file a joint state tax return.

While supporters of the state’s ban on marriage equality have appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to defend the law, the USTC determined that all Utah same-sex marriages performed in 2013 are recognized for the purposes of state income tax filings.

So, if you live in Utah, and got married there in 2013—or, if you got married somewhere else—you may want to speak with a tax professional about your unique needs. You can peruse the state’s guidance here.

Lesbian news is a great site for information.

RE: Pat Parker

i heard her read on more than one occasion. Very powerful!

Marguerite H. Griffin has long been interested in rituals and ceremonies—and for the past seven years has turned her passion into her part-time profession.

She is a certified celebrant and non-denominational minister who was born and raised in Chicago, and she now calls the Chatham neighborhood home. Her business celebrates meaningful life moments and, naturally, her website is: Article Link Here

Griffin is a certified wedding and funeral celebrant who strives for authentic, meaningful and unique ceremonies to mark important life transitions, including anniversaries, memorials, baby blessings and more.

"We tend to move from one significant moment to another without really taking time to celebrate it, or truly understand how we've been moved by the occasion," Griffin said. "I heard about celebrants on NPR, an opportunity for individuals to create ceremonies—unique, hand-written to that event and the people involved."

Griffin, 47, who is lesbian, is a motivational speaker and writer, able to create the perfect mood for any ceremony—from sophisticated to intimate and sacred, from light and casual to overly flamboyant.

"I can suggest meaningful ways to personalize your ceremony using music, readings from secular, religious, spiritual or mythical traditions, and rituals that reflect your needs, your beliefs, your cultural, and your religious/spiritual background, and your values," she said.

"Your ceremony will express the great expectations and intense emotions that characterize the moments that have changed your life."

Griffin said the celebrant role has its roots in Australia, where it is most common.

"Things are going well," with the business, said Griffin, who, during the day, works at Northern Trust Bank. "This is something I do because I enjoy it. It is not full-time, and I don't ever expect it will be. It's a way for me to create value in the world, a way for me to give back, a way for me to be part of special moments for individuals and families, and use my skills as a creative writer and public speaker. That's what draws me to it."

Griffin has married about 15 couples per year, a total that no doubt will rise this year when gay weddings begin in June. She also has done baby blessings and house-warming celebrations. Plus, she has officiated memorial services for pets.

"I've enjoyed it, and really enjoy marrying gay couples," she said.

"I'm looking forward to what will be, hopefully, a busy wedding season [in 2014], which will include gay and straight couples. Now, gay couples can have a ceremony, mark the occasion, invite family and friends, have them learn more about each other, about their love, their hopes and dreams and more—just like a straight couple."

Griffin once performed a civil-union ceremony for two men who had been together for 40 years—and there was not a dry eye in the place, she said. "It was just so meaningful for them."

"For me, as a gay woman, to be able to marry a gay couple, it's very exciting; it's very hopeful and it just feels right," she said.

Griffin has performed countless memorial services over the years, such as the one she did for a terminally ill woman after being hired by the woman's children.

Griffin spent a couple of afternoons with the ill woman, to hear exactly what she had accomplished in her life, what she regretted, what she had wanted for her children, and much more. The woman passed away about four months later, and Griffin presented a perfect celebration of her life.

"For me, it was special to be a part of her journey, and also very meaningful to me that I was able to assist her children, so they didn't really have to spend the time wondering what their mom would have wanted," Griffin said. "It's wonderful work, a truly meaningful connection I have with the world."

Lesbian filmmaker Cheryl Dunye courting Chicago on V-Day
 

Cheryl Dunye has mastered the art of storytelling in a multitude of viewpoints pertaining to the Queer spectrum as it pertains to the African-American lifestyle within the rainbow. Dunye received her BA from Temple University and her MFA from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, but it was the school of life that most impacted the Liberia native.

Self-dubbed "director, screenwriter, filmmaker, creative consultant, and educator," Dunye is taking her talk to the streets of Chicago this Valentine's Day to tell her stories of love, loss, discovery and redemption. She participated in an email Q&A with Windy City Times.

Windy City Times: The Watermelon Woman is historically noted as being the first African-American lesbian feature film, and you wrote, directed and starred in it. What was the best part of that experience for you as a filmmaker and visionary?

Cheryl Dunye: For me, the best was and continues to be my ability to build community with my work: from cast to crew to audience.

WCT: There appeared to be a fair amount of investigative reporting on your part in The Watermelon Woman. Why was this real-life story so intriguing to you?

Cheryl Dunye: I am intrigued by the courage and resilience in the lives of marginalized people, in particular women of color. It was important to bring Fae's life to light so that folks could see, connect and empower themselves by knowing that their existence has value.

WCT: In addition to The Watermelon Woman, you've helmed Stranger Inside, The Owl and Mommy is Coming. What messages do you hope the audience will leave with when they walk out of the theater after seeing your films?

Cheryl Dunye: I want audiences to be intrigued, entertained and become better informed about the world. More importantly, I want them to become change agents in their lives and the lives of others. Life is to short not to.

WCT: Is there a specific Chicago-based audience "feel" when you showcase your work in the Windy City?

Cheryl Dunye: I guess it's a Windy City "We love and support your work and come back again" that I hope to receive on my visit.

WCT: What are you most looking forward to with your visit to Chicago in February?

Cheryl Dunye: Investors and collaborators for future projects [will be there]. I am in development on a new feature, launching a screenwriting contest, and have started a nonprofit media think tank called CLEVER.

WCT: Are there parts of Black lesbian life that have not been relayed on film yet that you hope to showcase?

Cheryl Dunye: I can't answer this question.

WCT: Why do you feel it is it taking so long to tell the collective stories we all live as a community? Is it lack of interest, lack of funding?

Cheryl Dunye: Both. But it looks like folks have turned their creative energies to collectively work it out on the small screen by creating web series, YouTube [videos], and a host of other new media storytelling programs and applications.

WCT: You currently serve on the board of directors for the Queer Cultural Center ( QCC ). Can you tell us a little bit about this community resource?

Cheryl Dunye: The QCC continues to be a huge support for both emerging and established Queer artists through our skill building workshops and community based events, which includes the National Queer Arts Festival, a month-long festival of queer arts every June. This year we are looking for work about the body. Check it out. It has been around since 1993 and keeps getting bigger and better every year.

WCT: Who/what aided you most in your own personal coming-out moments?

Cheryl Dunye: When I came out, I was living in Philly at the time. I had no one to turn to in my personal circle so I looked in the phone book and called the L/G hotline. They told me about a weekly youth group meeting. The rest in history ... or herstory.

WCT: What advice might you relay to young LGBT filmmakers of color?

Cheryl Dunye: Don't hesitate—create. Put your work out in the world. We need it.

Catch Cheryl Dunye on Thursday, Feb. 13, 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. at Gallery 400 ( Lecture Room, 400 S. Peoria St. ) and on Friday, Feb. 14, beginning at 7 p.m. at Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., with discussion following.

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/l...Day/46201.html

you know the WCT must have a crappy editor if they let the faux paux in the opening paragraph slide. I never realized that being African-American was a "lifestyle"
But thanks for sharing the interview!

I spotted what looked like an obvious lesbian in the photo accompanying the below article, and I found the journalist's perspective fascinating. There's very little weight placed on the young lesbian's orientation. In fact, it's ony mentioned matter-of-factly in a quote from her lawyer in the third paragraph; “I felt that if she could escape from that, she could transform her life. She has a wonderful aunt and grandmother and girlfriend who wanted to see her succeed.”

This simple nonchalance is very new in the mainstream press, even here in NYC, and it still gives me goosebumps.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Facing Jail Time, Until a Lawyer With Survival Skills Helped Her Find Her Way
FEB. 11, 2014


The .22-caliber pistol was in her waistband, not only unlicensed but defaced, its serial number scratched or sanded off. She had not been to school in at least six months. Sitting in a detention cell in December 2010 at age 17, Jessica Williams of East Harlem realized she had been caught cold and was about to be cooked: a year in jail on a Class D felony, and then lifetime membership in the Rikers Island Alumni Association. “Reality didn’t hit me until I was in Rikers Island, and thought, ‘Oh my God, this is not my life,’ ” Ms. Williams said this week.

Turns out she was right.

On Thursday, Ms. Williams, now 20, will take the day off from her job at a CVS drugstore and turn up for graduation from Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School. Among the speakers on the commencement program are the lawyer who decided that she was worth another chance and the judge who decided to give it to her. And cheering her on will be school advisers who helped her get a driver’s license and have her poised to start a training program with U.P.S. next month.

“She hadn’t been through the system,” said Eliza Orlins, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society who represented her. “I felt that if she could escape from that, she could transform her life. She has a wonderful aunt and grandmother and girlfriend who wanted to see her succeed.”

For all that, nothing about Ms. Williams’s case is much out of the ordinary, except that enough people made the effort to help her way to redemption. Ms. Orlins, a graduate of private schools in Washington, is dedicated to her work, but that is not a rarity in the Legal Aid Society or in the offices of New York City’s district attorneys. (Though, it should be said, Ms. Orlins apparently is the only public defender in New York to have appeared twice on the reality TV show “Survivor.”)

As a teenager, Ms. Williams had a dreadful record in school — cutting classes, getting suspended, a fib-a-day for her parents — but none whatsoever of violence, or, for that matter, any criminality. She had a clean rap sheet.

She grew up in the Jefferson Houses projects in East Harlem, raised by her mother and stepfather, living with “five other siblings — one brother, one sister, two nephews, one niece,” she said. After attending Bayard Rustin High School for a few years, she effectively dropped out.

“I was hanging out in the projects, partying, running around, doing negative things,” Ms. Williams said. “I was, like, popular.”

One afternoon in December 2010, she said, she and some friends found the gun near a trash can on 119th Street. “I thought it would be cool if we kept it, and that night — I don’t know why — I decided to take it outside,” she said. The police rolled up. She explained that she had thought it might be worth a few dollars by turning it in at a police station house. “The officer said if I was going to take it there, I should never have had it in my waistband,” Ms. Williams recalled.

A minimum of a year in jail is the formula applied by New York State as a hedge against the history of misery associated with guns; when it turned out that the gun was not working, and that its possession was therefore not a felony but a misdemeanor, the Manhattan district attorney’s office stuck by its demand for a year in jail. Even a broken gun is a source of havoc. Then again, so is too much jail.

In Brooklyn, the Red Hook Community Court has taken drastically different approaches and has shown that some problems are better solved by not locking people up. It accepts criminal cases from three police precincts and, under a single roof, manages to steer people into drug treatment, alternative schools, and other places besides jail. Its recidivism rate is lower than that in the rest of the city, and it saves up to $15 million a year in incarceration costs, according to a recent study.

But what is routine in Red Hook demands special agility elsewhere. Ms. Orlins told Ms. Williams to get back into school if she wanted to have any hope of avoiding jail. After getting advice from others at Legal Aid, Ms. Orlins approached Judge Lynn Kotler, who was hearing the case, and asked that Ms. Williams be given a chance to work with Bronx Connect, a mentoring program to help young people stay out of prison. After a few stumbles, Ms. Williams wound up at Manhattan Comprehensive, where Judge Kotler and Ms. Orlins will speak at graduation on Thursday.

Had being on “Survivor” helped Ms. Orlins navigate the court system?

“You mean being starving and miserable and dealing with people who are cranky and miserable?” Ms. Orlins said. “It’s the perfect preparation for criminal court.”

Juno Comes Out
 

very touching speech by Ellen Page (Juno)

I was moved by her honesty. Wish I could have been so eloquent when I was her age.

I know that Juno for kids is like a cult film. Hopefully her coming will have an impact on LBGTQ youth.

here's the link

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqJThFrFXh4"]Ellen Page Comes Out As Gay At Human Rights Campaign Time to Thrive Conference - Full Video - YouTube[/nomedia]

A Woman Becomes Infected With HIV By Her Female Partner
 

A rare case of female-to-female HIV transmission has been found in Texas, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported on Thursday.

A 46-year-old woman allegedly acquired the virus from her female partner during their six-month sexual relationship. She was infected with a strain that had a 98% genetic match to her partner’s. According to CDC, the HIV-positive woman had not taken medication for two years.

“In this case, the discordant couple [one HIV-infected partner and one uninfected partner] routinely had direct sexual contact – without using barrier methods for protection – that involved the exchange of blood through abrasions received during sexual activity,” the CDC said in a weekly report.

The CDC noted that HIV infections in women who have sex with other women are traced to intravenous drug use or heterosexual sex. The woman newly diagnosed with HIV did not report any other risk factors, such as injection drug use, tattooing, transfusions or transplants, officials said. She did not engage in any heterosexual relationships during the past 10 years.

However not common, the infection was possible since HIV can be present in vaginal fluid and menstrual blood, and the women are said to have engaged in unprotected sex involving oral contact with vaginal fluids or inducing bleeding, and shared sex toys.
--------------------------------------


Good reminder of why lesbians need to play safe too.

Kitty Genovese - 50th anniversary
 

March 13th marked the 50th anniversary of the murder and rape of Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old lesbian bartender from Queens, New York.

Genovese is one of America’s most famous murder victims because 37 of her neighbors allegedly listened to her screams for help as she was being raped and stabbed to death by Winston Moseley and did nothing.

Her murder was deemed emblematic of urban apathy and the New York Times headlined the story with, "37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call Police."

The NYT's headline and story was later proven to be incorrect. Depending on which source you use, the number of people who were aware there was a problem in the street outside there apartments drops dramatically.

Those who did hear her screams for help still were unaware of the attack per se. Some thought it was a lovers quarrel, a woman who was beaten up, or rowdy people leaving a bar.

One of her neighbors did shout out the window for the man to leave her alone, which initially scared off the attacker. Several called the police station. Back then, one had to call the station directly and talk with a desk sargent, who was responsible for determining if police assistance was needed. It is unclear why the police did not respond to the first round of calls.

The attacker, Winston Moseley, who had been cruising the area "looking for a woman to kill", came back to the scene. By then, Genovese had moved herself into the alley way leading to her apartment. She was hidden from the neighbors when Moseley returned to stab her again and sexually assault her.

The attacks spanned a half hour.

The police were called again. When they responded, Kitty was still alive in the arms of her neighbor named Sophia Farrar, who had courageously left her apartment to go to the crime scene, even though she had no way of knowing that [Mosely] had fled.

This case was supposedly responsible for the development of the 911 system which was implemented in 1968.

It was also responsible for the development of the Genovese syndrome or the bystander affect/apathy, a a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. In other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. Several variables help to explain why the bystander effect occurs. These variables include: ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffusion of responsibility.

Fascinating shit. Check it out.

In addition, this case was supposedly the impetus for neighborhood watch programs.

Wikipedia provided the best, least bias account of the events I could find.

LGBT Activist Vernita Gray Dies
 

Legendary gay rights activist Vernita Gray, who made history as one-half of the first same-sex couple legally wed in Illinois, died late Tuesday night after a prolonged battle with cancer. She was 65.

The Windy City Times first reported the news of Ms. Gray’s death. Her wife, Pat Ewert, was by her side and she was visited by family in the weeks leading up to her death.

Ms. Gray’s legacy will reach far beyond her marriage to Ewert last November. She was a pioneering gay rights activist in Chicago starting in 1969 when she organized a gay and lesbian hotline; the phone number spelled out FBI-LIST. She founded Chicago’s first lesbian newspaper, Lavender Woman, and was a victims advocate for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for over 20 years. Her work to empower African-American gays and lesbians often endangered her among Chicago’s black community. Ms. Gray was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996 which spread to her bones and formed inoperable tumors in her brain. Her last wish was to be wed to Ewert, to whom she proposed in 2009.

Ms. Gray received her wish in November 2013 when U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ordered the Cook County Clerk's office to immediately issue marriage licenses to all Illinois same-sex couples who, because of a life-threatening illness, cannot wait until next summer to get married. A court ruling last month allowed same-sex couples to be married ahead of Illinois’ marriage equality law taking effect in June.


http://chicagoist.com/2014/03/19/lgb..._gray_dies.php

German 'lesbian-only' burial area after gay women's group called for somewhere for them to 'live together in the afterlife"
 

A new burial area exclusively for lesbians is set to be introduced in a historic Berlin cemetery this weekend.

A 400-square-metre (4,300-square-foot) area of the Lutheran Georgen Parochial cemetery, established in 1814 in central Berlin, will be reserved as a graveyard for up to 80 lesbians, said Usah Zachau, a spokeswoman for the Safia association, a national group primarily for elderly lesbians.

The association said it had created a burial area to be inaugurated Sunday, as a space 'where life and death connect, distinctive forms of cemetery culture can develop and where the lesbian community can live together in the afterlife.'

The group was given use of the cemetery area for 30 years in exchange for cleaning up and landscaping the area, and promising to be responsible for its upkeep.

In Germany is it customary to have long-term, renewable leases on burial plots rather than buy them outright.

'We don't have to pay any rent, but we had to invest a lot of money to turn that part of the cemetery into a usable burial ground again,' Zachau said Tuesday.

The group commissioned a landscaping company to build winding sand paths and has reserved spaces for cremated ashes in urns and for the burial of bodies. The area is framed by oak, birch and yew trees.

Neighboring parts of the Lutheran cemetery, which is located near Alexanderplatz square, are currently not being used. Old, toppled tombstones are overgrown by weeds.

A spokesman for the Berlin Lutheran church said the agreement with the women's group comes as part of the church's efforts to 'revitalize its cemetery grounds by cooperating with other groups.'

'We are also in an ongoing discussion with Muslim groups to see whether they can have their own plots on our cemeteries,' said Volker Jastrzembski.

The Lesbian and Gay Association of Berlin welcomed the creation of the cemetery.

'It increases the diversity of opportunities and is a nice opportunity for those lesbian women who want to be buried among other lesbians,' said spokesman Joerg Steinert.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ed-Berlin.html

Anyone here a basketball fan? Brittney Griner has been making the news headlines after coming out as a LESBIAN despite being pressured/forced to keep quiet about her homosexuality by her basketball coach and Baptist Univesity.

She is one of the hottest basketball stars these days and an out and proud LESBIAN.


http://www.swishappeal.com/2013/5/21...imone-augustus

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...-hope/7437521/

How Brittney Griner Found 'A Place Of Peace'
 

Brittney Griner is 23 years old, 6 feet 8 inches tall and one of the best female basketball players in the world. She was the WNBA top draft pick last year, and in college she set records for the most blocked shots in a season and the most career blocks in history — for male and female players. She's so good that the owner of a men's team — the Dallas Mavericks — has said he'd recruit her.

Now, Griner is also an author. She's co-written a new memoir, In My Skin, in which she describes being bullied and taunted as a kid for her height and athleticism.

She says, "Growing up, I always got 'She's a man,' or 'She plays too hard,' or 'There's just no way that she can be that good because, you know, a girl can't do that.' And I struggle with it a little bit. I'm like: Well, am I going too hard? And then I just realized, like, I'm a competitor. I want to go as hard as I can, and if I look like a guy out there playing ball, well, hey, I feel sorry for the opponent."

Sports writer Dave Zirin likens Griner's talent to that of Wilt Chamberlain or LeBron James. "She plays with a kind of emancipated abandon," he says, and he admires her openness about the sexism and homophobia she's encountered in the not-particularly-progressive world of college athletics. "She represents a break from the sexual McCarthyism in women's sports."

Griner came out as a lesbian while playing at Baylor University in Texas. There, she was a much beloved star, but Griner had no idea her school had a policy against homosexuality until her coach urged her to keep quiet about it. Griner disclosed her sexual orientation in interviews with SI.com and ESPN shortly before leaving college. Now she's made it something of a mission to address closet culture in women's sports.

"I had a girl come up and tell me how her coach basically told them that they could not be gay on their team," she says. "And I've heard stories of some coaches will not recruit you if you are."

Griner brings a defiant gender nonconformity to the court — and to the culture that surrounds it. Her distinctive fashion sense impresses even hard-core sports writers who don't generally care about such things.

"She dresses like a 1920s male dandy," Zirin marvels. "And it's pretty amazing to see. I don't know anybody who pulls off argyle socks quite like Brittney Griner."

She has shoulder-length braids and a ton of tattoos, but she looks to Ellen DeGeneres — known for her sleek, red carpet suits — as a fashion role model, because, she says, "It shows that we're not just big-baggy-clothes butch."

Griner proudly identifies as butch, and that makes her rare among women in the public eye. When Nike endorsed her as its first openly gay athlete, the company asked her to model its menswear line.

"It looks a little bit better on me, honestly, than some of the tighter female clothes," she says grinning.

So when the WNBA recently showed players possible new "sleek and sexy" uniforms — part of a plan to attract more men to the games — Griner was startled.

"The shorts came in short or extra short," she says. "As soon as I heard that — 'sleek and sexy' — I was like, 'Um, excuse me, I play basketball.' "

And it's basketball that brings in Griner's fans. Attendance at Phoenix Mercury home games shot up more than 30 percent since she joined the team, and ESPN2 decided to keep broadcasting WNBA games partly because of her popularity. Griner says all this would have been unimaginable to the middle school kid who once considered suicide because of the constant teasing about her looks and carriage.

"Now I want to stand out," she says. "I want to show off how big I am; I want to show off my long arms, my big hands — just loving myself."

She pauses, then adds: "It's just a place of peace."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/...place-of-peace

Two moms, a baby and a legal first for U.S. gay marriage
 

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Last month a baby in Tennessee made history: Emilia Maria Jesty was the first child born in the state to have a woman listed on the birth certificate as her "father."

The marital status of the baby's parents was the subject of a flurry of court filings up to a few days before her birth. Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty were wed in New York, a state that recognizes gay marriage, and moved to Tennessee, which does not.

They are among scores of same-sex couples who, working with advocacy groups, have filed lawsuits to expand gay-marriage rights following a major U.S. Supreme Court decision last June allowing federal tax and other benefits for same-sex married couples.

Depending on the pace of rulings, as early as next year Tanco and Jesty's case or a similar challenge could reach the Supreme Court. Since the court's June decision in U.S. v. Windsor, about 50 such cases have been filed, in nearly all 33 states that prohibit gay marriage.

So far, the eight federal judges who have ruled citing Windsor have sided with the same-sex couples, saying the states may not treat same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex ones. All of those cases are on appeal.

On Thursday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will begin hearing cases involving Utah and Oklahoma. In May, the 4th Circuit will hear a dispute from Virginia.

As Tanco approached her due date, a Nashville federal judge in mid-March issued a preliminary injunction forcing Tennessee to honor their marriage. The state appealed to the 6th Circuit.

It is possible a ruling against the couple could void Emilia's birth certificate and require that it be reissued with only Tanco listed. A spokeswoman for Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the state Health Department, which oversees birth certificates.

But for now, says Jesty, "It gives me strength."

URBAN AND RURAL COUPLES

About half of the cases were brought by gay-rights advocacy groups that do not charge the plaintiffs, and many of the lawyers in the other cases are working for free. As part of their legal and public relations strategy, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights look for a broad mix: Same-sex couples from both urban and rural America, in an array of vocations and facing problems such as those arising from care of their children or an ill partner.

State attorneys general typically defend the state laws, although private lawyers have become involved too. Lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian organization, are assisting in the defense of state bans in Oklahoma and Virginia and have submitted "friend of the court" briefs in other cases, including the Tennessee dispute.

Greg Scott, an Alliance spokesman, said his group seeks to counter sympathetic "micro" narratives with a "macro" argument. "What we argue is that marriage has a particular role in society as a whole," and that has historically meant only unions between a man and a woman.

Most new challenges seek a broad constitutional right to same-sex marriage. But a handful, including the Tanco case, take a more incremental approach, arguing only that states must recognize marriages from other states. Gay-rights groups say the narrower argument could sway judges in more conservative states and potentially the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in Windsor.

A VOLUNTEER IN KNOXVILLE

Tanco and Jesty became the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit after they were approached last August by Regina Lambert, a Knoxville lawyer who had been volunteering for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The advocacy group relies on a network of lawyers and other volunteers to help find plaintiffs. During a series of conference calls, Lambert and other lawyers decided to bring one of the narrower cases in Tennessee, a largely conservative state. The group separately has filed broader based lawsuits in Idaho, Wyoming and Florida.

Lambert, who teaches at the University of Tennessee law school, thought of Tanco and Jesty. She had met the couple through a friend and knew they presented a good set of facts. Even though they had a legal New York marriage, they were not entitled in Tennessee to spousal benefits.

"You want someone who is in a stable, good relationship," Lambert said. "I liked the fact that they were homeowners, too." She thought the couple would also connect with the public because they were "likeable" and professors of veterinary medicine at the University of Tennessee. At that point she did not even realize Tanco was pregnant.

Lambert learned that when she invited the couple over to her house in August to broach the idea of the lawsuit. Tanco had become pregnant through artificial insemination about two months earlier.

The couple asked for time to think. Tanco was ready to say yes right away, but Jesty hesitated. She was not sure she wanted the attention that would come from a lawsuit. But two days later they called Lambert and agreed to sign on. "This was an opportunity to make a difference," Jesty said. "How do you turn away from something like that?"

In October, they filed suit in federal court in Nashville. Two other couples, gay men, are part of the lawsuit.

The pregnancy turned out to boost their case in court, at least for now. By mid-March, the court had yet to rule, and the couple's lawyers requested a status report. Judge Aleta Trauger issued a preliminary order requiring Tennessee to recognize the marriages of the couples pending a final decision. She noted that under existing Tennessee law, Jesty would not be recognized as a parent to Tanco's child and would be unable to make certain medical decisions.

The state appealed. Two days later, on March 27, just after 4 p.m., Emilia was born, weighing eight pounds, five ounces.

Following the usual routine, a hospital employee visited Tanco's room the next day to fill out the birth certificate. Tanco said Jesty's name should be on it with hers.

At first there was confusion over whether that was possible. Lambert worked the phones. After several hours and many calls between the hospital in Knoxville and the health department in Nashville, hospital officials produced the birth certificate.

A health department spokesman said in an email that officials were not aware of any previous Tennessee case in which the names of same-sex parents were listed on the birth certificate.

The document now sits on a desk in the couple's study. "It might be something that needs to get framed," said Jesty.

http://news.yahoo.com/two-moms-baby-...--finance.html

Iceland's Jónína Leósdóttir: I was the world's first lesbian First Lady
 

In global history, there has only ever been one head of state to have a same-sex spouse. That wasn’t in the progressive Sweden, or the occasionally-progressive America, but in Iceland, which has a population around the size of Croydon.

And this is how my conversation with Jónína Leósdóttir, the only First Lady in the world to be a same-sex spouse, begins (although I am pretty surprised she knows Croydon even exists).

She is married to Iceland’s former Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. They married in 2010 – just after same-sex marriage was made legal in their country – but have been together since 1985, when they both left their husbands to be together. It means their relationship spans almost 30 years.

It hasn’t been an easy ride. “We lived in a very different time,” explains Jónína . “There were no gay laws or no rights to a civil partnership or anything. It was the stone ages compared to now.”

For almost half of their relationship, they kept it a secret because they were so worried about what it could do to Jóhanna’s career as an MP. “It’s ridiculous looking back,” says Jónína. “We never lived together which made it a little bit more complicated for people to prove. I think it was bad for us because we were a little bit isolated. We didn’t belong anywhere.

“I'm sure we could have started living together before but we got stuck in our ways. It was difficult. I kept making scenes and slamming doors and saying I couldn’t wait any longer but you try and be sensible and think, after the election it will be fine, but then there’s another one in four years time.”

It was only in 2000 that they moved in together and found that there was no real reaction. The media were respectful of the couple’s decision to not do interviews, and nine years later, Jóhanna was elected as Prime Minister. She was well-liked by the country and generally thought of as responsible for leading the country away from bankruptcy and its worst financial crisis.

But, Jónína thinks that the '"non-reaction" was because of who they were: white older women. By the time they ‘came out’, she was a grandmother. “I think it helped being such a mature age with grandchildren,” she says. “I think people see white women grandmas as rather harmless so maybe it’s not so threatening.”

If she had been a man, or even younger, she thinks she might have faced a different reaction. But, on the whole, her relationship with Jóhanna was well-received. Even when the couple went on an official visit to China, where homosexuality is not encouraged, Jónína “wasn’t completely erased”.

“Everyone was completely polite,” she says. “. They must have been briefed before. They never battered an eyelid. People had predicted they’d try to ignore me and I wasn’t mentioned on TV, but I was interviewed once. I wasn’t completely erased. I’m sure they found it strange to welcome a same sex couple.”

It was only on a visit to the nearby Faroe Islands (an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark) that they experienced serious prejudice when an MP refused to sit with them at a dinner. “He made a bit of a fuss about it,” she says. “He seemed to mind that I was there. He would have accepted coming in if Jóhanna hadn’t ‘flaunted’ me there.”

But the problems surrounding their relationship didn’t just stem from being in the public eye. When the two met, back in 1983, they were both married with children. “It was so underground and hard and we were afraid our children would be hurt from this,” says Jónína. “We had to go through a divorce and wondered if it would harm our children.”

Their husbands weren’t exactly pleased either, but both are now re-married. None of the women’s children were ‘harmed’ either, Jónína laughs, as she tells me the three boys are now all married and work in the aluminium, oil and media industries.
'It's not a life choice'

It is partly why Jónína has now written a book about their relationship, (which isn't available in English yet) because the family are no longer in the public eye, and she thinks it might inspire others to accept their sexuality.

“We’re trying to get the message across that it isn’t easy – it’s not a life choice, it’s just something that happens to you,” she says. “It’s not something you particularly go after and if you’d had the choice, you’d have said, no thank you. Life would have been easier but we’re grateful we stuck it out.”

The pair met in politics, where they were both working on the same committee, even though for Jónína – a journalist and writer – it was only a temporary role. Over a year, Jónína found herself falling for Jóhanna. It was the first time she had ever felt any lesbian feelings.

“It just wasn’t something I’d expected to happen to me,” she says. “It’s different when you’re that mature because you’re not an insecure teenager - you know who you are.” She called her emotions “funny feelings” and never really identified as a lesbian.

“It was never a revelation,” she says. “It’s always been about loving that person and it has not been a huge part of my identity because when you’re 30, your identity is already in place. “ In fact, when she was younger, she tells me she was utterly "terrified of lesbians" because she didn’t know any.
Scared of lesbians

When she was at university here in Essex, she once went to a bar that shared its toilets with a gay disco next door. “I didn’t try to go to the loo in case there were lesbians,” she tells me. “It was as if someone had told me to go into the men’s room with all the drunk young boys. It shows my total ignorance and stupidity.”

She thought of lesbians as “a different species” and even when she finally admitted her feelings to Jóhanna, she told her: “If you would spread your arms and say come here and try and kiss me I might run into a toilet and throw up.”

Jóhanna didn’t say anything at all. It was only a few months later that she started to reciprocate those feelings, and in 1986 she divorced her husband. Jónína won’t tell me how long it took for them to have their first kiss, but she does say that it took a long time.

The physical side of things eventually came naturally though. “You fall in love with people, especially women,” she says. “You fall in love with the person. I think about all my friends [they] fall in love with guys who are short or thin or tall. It’s not such an issue with women but maybe I’m prejudiced.”

Prejudice is something she hopes that her story will eventually change. The only way she thinks it will ever disappear is with frequency: the more leaders we see with same-sex spouses, the more it will come to be the norm.

Now she’s just waiting for the UK to join Iceland in having a lesbian leader. “Nick Clegg said the UK is ready for a gay Prime Minister,” she says, “I totally agree.” Watch this space.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wom...irst-Lady.html

Lesbian police chief with 20 years service is summarily fired by new anti-gay mayor
 

An openly gay chief of police has been fired by a South Carolina mayor who was caught saying he preferred alcoholics to homosexuals.

Crystal Moore, a 20-year veteran with the Latta Police Department, was relieved of her duties as chief of police on Tuesday following seven reprimands handed down by newly elected Earl Bullard.

The chief had recently discovered during an investigation that the town's parks and recreations director Vontray Sellers had operated a city vehicle with a suspended license.

During the probe, Moore found that Bullard failed to conduct a proper background check on Sellers before giving him the job.

On Tuesday, Bullard dismissed Moore, who is the Latta's first female chief of police and has not faced disciplinary action in her two decade career.

Bullard claimed Moore conducted a background check without authorization, questioned the authority of a supervisor and contacted 'news media to help bring about disorder and disruption to the town of Latta,' among other things.

But many in the community, including city officials, are questioning whether the real motive behind the firing was retaliation or the fact he allegedly doesn't like gay people.

Council member, Jared Taylor, provided WBTW with a recording of a phone call in which the mayor makes several anti-gay remarks.

I would much rather have - and I will say this to anybody's face - somebody who drank and drank too much taking care of my child than I had somebody whose lifestyle is questionable around children,' Bullard said on the call.

'I'm not going to let two women stand up there and hold hands and let my child be aware of it, and I'm not going to see them do it with two men neither.'

Another council member, Lutherine Williams told the station of the new mayor: 'We have codes, but this mayor refuses to obey anything in that book he don't want to.'

Williams added that proper protocol would required Bullard to give Moore a verbal warning, then a written warning.

Instead, he gave her seven reprimands in one day.

'Before he was sworn in [as mayor], he said ... Crystal would not have a job,' Williams told WBTW.

Moore said Thursday she now agrees the mayor had a vendetta against her and fired her because of her sexuality.

'I can't believe that we still have no equal rights. That's the biggest issue. I've been harassed, intimidated. This is the first time it's been this public. I'd tried living a quiet decent life and do what I'm supposed to,' she said.

As well as council members, who have refused to acknowledge her termination, Latta residents were furious by the new mayor's move and showed their disapproval by protesting Moore's termination at City Hall.

'This woman has been a veteran of the department and a pillar of this community for years,' Kevin Drawhorn, a Latta resident and supporter of Moore, told WBTW.

Another support rally was planned for the chief Thursday night.

The city council, which says the mayor can only fire a police chief with their prior approval, held a special meeting on the dismissal Thursday night in which they voted for a referendum to weaken the mayor's power.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ay-couple.html

I read this today and of course i was angry. I have nothing of value to say.
My question is- when will it end and what do WE need to to to end it?

Jodie Foster weds artist Alexandra Hedison
 

The 51-year-old Oscar winner wed girlfriend Alexandra Hedison over the weekend, Foster's publicist confirmed Wednesday. Jennifer Allen offered no other details.

E! was the first to report that Foster tied the knot with Hedison, a 44-year-old photographer based in Los Angeles.

It's the first marriage for Foster, who came out publicly in a rambling, heartfelt speech at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards, where she accepted lifetime achievement honors.

Foster acknowledged longtime partner Cydney Bernard, with whom she has two sons. The couple ended their 20-year relationship in 2008. While Foster never hid the relationship, she kept her sexuality private until the Globes speech.

E! says Foster and Hedison have been dating since last summer.

Hedison, who was previously linked to Ellen DeGeneres, is also an actress with TV credits including "Nash Bridges" and "The L Word."

http://news.yahoo.com/jodie-foster-w...lkA1NNRTM0M18x

Enterprising women: Sapphire Books, Christine Svendsen
 

When Christine Svendsen’s first book was turned away by publishers, she launched her own publishing company.

Now, four years later, she’s got a stable full of award-winning lesbian authors and her own award-winning books published under the pseudonym Isabella via Sapphire Books.

“Believe in yourself. Rejection isn’t the end of a story, it can be a beginning,” Svendsen said. “Looking back, I didn’t think in terms of what if this doesn’t work? I only thought of the possibilities.”

Sapphire Books is offering anyone who likes their Facebook page a free book. After you like the page, email to Svendsen.

Svendsen took time out of her busy schedule to share the secrets to Sapphire’s success with us.

What do you do and why?

I’m the publisher and an author at Sapphire Books Publishing. I started Sapphire Books Publishing in 2010. We publish lesbian novels, written by lesbians. Our authors include Linda Kay Silva, Kim Pritekel, Beth Burnett, Karelia Stetz-Waters, Linda North, Lynette Mae, Riley Adair Garret, Lorraine Howell, Rhavensfyre and Stephanie Kusiak.

What did you do before you started your company?

I do the same thing now as I did when I started Sapphire Books, I work as a community college instructor in California. My current job affords me the luxury of working remote for most of my work load. The flexibility allows me to set my own hours, which really helps with the publishing company.

How did you come up with the idea for your company?

I had submitted my first manuscript to two publishers and was rejected by both. One said they weren’t looking for my type of story at that time. The other company wanted me to completely rewrite the story and resubmit. I thought long and hard about rewriting it. After talking to my wife, I decided that I’d try and publish it myself.

I researched self-publishing, looked at all the options and decided to start a publishing company. I’d always thought about growing the company at some point, but that was in the future. When Linda Kay Silva, a popular lesbian author, left her publishing company, I sent her an email. We met and discussed writing, publishing and motorcycles. It clicked for us and the company took off from that point. We’ve signed some really awesome writers. I have to say that I’m thrilled to work with some really talented ladies.

What do you find most rewarding about owning your own business?

I get to work with some amazingly talented women. They write books that blow my socks off.

Where do you see yourself / your company in five years? Hopes / dreams / plans?

Sapphire Books isn’t going anywhere. We’re in it for the long haul and plan on adding to our already growing list of fantastic authors.

What resources would you recommend to someone who is contemplating starting her own business?

Research the industry. Do your homework and ask questions. Learn everything you can and even then there will still be things that surprise you, so plan to be surprised. Roll with it, flexibility is important in today’s business world.

Social media is starting to play a huge role in business and it’s important that you treat social media as a tool in the business tool box.

Go to conferences, meet people in your industry and make sure to check out the competition. See what they are doing right and notice what isn’t working. IBPA and SPAN are great resources, if you really want to get into publishing.

Finally, be persistent.

What’s the process for an aspiring author to get published with Sapphire?

First, write your book. Polish the manuscript. Send the best work possible, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Sapphire isn’t the traditional lesbian publisher. We don’t have a formula. I like to think we publish great books that a lot of other publishers wouldn’t touch. For example, we’ve published books that were over 500 pages, most publishers in lesbian fiction won’t publish long manuscripts. We’ve published some truly scary books about serial killers and fetish killers. We also have published erotic books, Sci Fi, paranormal as well as romance. We just signed an author who writes the Happy Lesbian Housewife blogs and she has been referred to as “the love child of Erma Bombeck and Chelsea Handler,” so we are pretty open as long as they have strong lesbian characters, written by lesbians. Writers can contact me at publisher@sapphirebooks.com.

What would you say is the single most important key to sustaining a business long term?

Have a plan and be flexible. I can’t say that enough. The industry is constantly changing and we need to change with it.

What obstacles did you face in establishing your company and how did you overcome them?

I think the biggest obstacle I faced was being taken serious, both as a writer and as a publisher. I won an award for my first book and that started the ball rolling. When we signed Linda Kay Silva, a lot of people started to take notice.

After that, we signed some pretty awesome talent and our authors started winning awards, which moved Sapphire Books up on the list to be noticed.

Follow Sapphire Books on Facebook and Twitter

http://www.lesbian.com/sapphire-book...tine-svendsen/

Lesbian Angels
 

Armed forces ‘spied on suspected lesbians in WRAF’
 

BRITISH servicewomen who were suspected of being lesbians were routinely spied on by the police, it has emerged.

Previously secret files reveal that recruits in the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) who showed signs of same-sex attraction were put under covert surveillance by the military police officers.

Documents seen by Scotland on Sunday show that airwomen who were then judged to be gay or bisexual were offered the choice of immediate dismissal, or being forced to undergo medical treatment to “cure” their homosexuality.

The ban preventing gay men and women from serving in the armed forces was lifted in 2000.

However, the Whitehall files, which have now been opened and placed in the National Archives at Kew, reveal that up until that date women suspected of “abnormal” inclinations were subjected to institutional persecution.

A confidential briefing paper entitled “Homosexual Practices Involving WRAF Airwomen” ordered station commanders to monitor and eliminate “unnatural relationships”.

It states: “In the initial stages of service life strong bonds of friendship develop between contemporaries and it is dangerous to assume that such close friendships between young airwomen involve homosexuality or are the forerunners of lesbian relationships.

“In such cases when the closeness of the friendship causes embarrassment and gives rise to speculative gossip a cautionary word of advice on behaving more maturely and showing more consideration for other members of the community is all that is required.

“However, when an officer has reason to suspect that an airwoman is a lesbian, she is to inform the station commander immediately.

“When he considers the suspicions are well founded he is to request the officer commanding the appropriate RAF police region to initiate an investigation.”

From the 1950s until the 1990s a secret “observation list” of women suspected of harbouring an attraction to other females was maintained.

Those involved were placed under surveillance, interrogated by military police officers, had their letters intercepted, subjected to regular kit searches and blacklisted from being promoted.

When officers concluded “beyond doubt that an airwoman has committed a homosexual act” she was to be confronted with a stark ultimatum,

The file, which dates from 1977, states: “The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will advise the station commander that the airwoman is to be interviewed and asked if she wishes to seek medical advice.

“If she does so wish, the officer in charge of the WRAF section is to arrange for her to be seen by the station medical officer who is immediately to refer the airwoman to the consultant adviser in neuropsychiatry at the Central Medical Establishment.

“If the airwoman declined the offer of medical advice the MoD will authorise the airwoman’s discharge.” Another WRAF document, dating from the early 1980s, gives an insight into the prevailing attitude towards same-sex relations in that era.

The memo, entitled “Guidance on Instruction to Recruits on Homosexuality”, states: “Whilst it should be remembered that some of the recruits from very sheltered backgrounds will be totally ignorant of the subjects, the wide publicity in newspapers, magazines, films and TV indicates that the majority probably are well aware of what the terms ‘homosexuality’ and ‘lesbianism’ mean.”

It also warns female officers that they may be the subject of “crushes” by young recruits.

Defence Minister Anna Soubry claimed huge strides had been made in recent years and said: “The MoD and the three services want to create a workforce that is drawn from the breadth of the society we defend, that gains strength from that society’s range of knowledge, experience and talent and that welcomes, respects and values the unique contribution of every individual.”

http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/arm...wraf-1-3429359

Puerto Rico Senate confirms first openly lesbian justice to Supreme Court
 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s Senate on June 23rd confirmed Maite Oronoz Rodriguez as an Associate Justice on the U.S. island territory’s Supreme Court, making her the first openly gay person to serve on the Court.

Oronoz Rodriguez, who served as legal director for the capital city of San Juan, was nominated earlier this month by Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla to fill a vacancy on the court.

The chamber voted 16-10 in favor of Oronoz Rodriguez’ nomination.

“I am conscious of the enormous responsibility that has come to me, Oronoz Rodriguez told El Nuevo Día earlier this month.

The confirmation of Oronoz Rodriguez to the court is the latest in a series of advances for the LGBT community in Puerto Rico since García Padilla of the commonwealth’s Popular Democratic Party took office in 2013.

Since then, lawmakers have passed a law banning employment discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, and approved a separate bill that extends a domestic violence law to same-sex couples.

García Padilla signed both bills into law.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/06/p...DshTg.facebook

Nancy Garden, a lesbian pioneer in the young adult fiction genre and author of Annie on My Mind
 

Garden was best known for the lesbian themed novel Annie on My Mind, about two girls at a New York high school who fall in love with each other.

The book was published in 1982 and drew critical acclaim in its positive depiction of a same-sex relationship but was also attacked by social conservatives and the religious right and was banned by Kansas City schools for two years from 1993 until students brought a First Amendment law suit to put it back on shelves.

Annie On My Mind was awarded the Lee Lynch Classic Award by the Golden Crown Literary Society in 2014, cited as one of the most important classics in lesbian literature.

The book also won Garden the ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2003 which recognizes one writer and a particular body of work ‘for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.’

Annie on My Mind was number 44 on the American Library Association’s list of most banned books by American libraries during the 1990s and she was awarded the Robert B. Downs Award for Intellectual Freedom in 2001 from the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

The book was also ranked in 2000 in School Library Journal among the top 100 books to have shaped the 20th century.

In the 32 years since it was first published the book has never gone out of print and it has also been made into an audio-book.

Annie on My Mind was one of the earliest American novels to depict a lesbian relationship that did not come to a tragic end, with most works with lesbian themes written before it written for the sake of titillation.

Garden told young adult author Cynthia Leitch Smith in 2001 that she had been drawn to write stories for young people with LGBTI themes because of the lack of books depicting their lives when she had been young.

‘When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the ’50s, I looked in vain for books about my people,’ Garden said.

‘I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character’s committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital or "turning" heterosexual.’

Garden would go on to write more than 30 books – most aimed at teenagers, though some were written with younger children in mind.

Supernatural themes were a recurring theme in her works with many of the stories she wrote involving werewolves and vampires.

Garden is survived by her long term partner Sandy Scott and their golden retriever Loki and their cats.

- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/p....Tj2IWAaT.dpuf

we are all the same inside...
 

Jodie Foster Talks Best Director Emmy Nom
 

Jodie Foster has received a Best Director Emmy nomination for her work on the Netflix original series Orange Is The New Black. Foster directed the third episode of the show’s first season, entitled “Lesbian Request Denied” that focused on the backstory of Laverne Cox’s character Sophia Burset.

“As a director, dramedy is what I do. It’s not who I am as an actor. The genre requires a very specific skill in terms of recognizing what is quirky and perverse, and to be moved by it. The female prisoners on Orange Is The New Black have a very spiritual journey that’s so complex. They’re all soul-searching and they change through each other” said Foster of her experience on OITNB.

Foster has been steadily building her television expertise, this being her second Emmy nomination after being nominated for the 1999 Showtime film The Baby Dance, which she executive produced. She returned to OITNB to direct the season two episode “Thirsty Bird,” and also recently took a turn as director for another popular Netflix series, House of Cards.

“I’m not one for lounging around and having long soliloquies about a character” said Foster when addressing the drastic differences between the preparation process for film versus television. “TV is the biggest team effort and the pace happens so fast.”

To remedy this, Foster met with actors before shooting “Lesbian Request Denied” to delve into their characters, lending her unique perspective of being both an actor and director. “I am an actor’s director, the first of whom signed with Orange. A lot of the actresses on the show are fresh out of Juilliard.”

“Lesbian Request Denied” is one of the most notable episodes of season one, as it addresses in detail the transition process of Sophia, a transgendered woman in prison for credit card fraud. “It’s all about the journey of Laverne’s character and it’s the beginning of the audience really understanding what Orange Is The New Black is really about,” said Foster of the episode. “It’s about identity and struggle.”

Foster’s direction clearly jives with the cast as her nomination is one of many among the OITNB actors, most notably Laverne Cox’s history-making nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series as Cox is the first openly transgendered actor to be nominated for an Emmy.

http://www.webpronews.com/jodie-fost...my-nom-2014-07

Chalk one up for the bold femme in love!
 

MISS SPAIN COMES OUT ON INSTAGRAM!


http://nypost.com/2014/08/22/miss-sp...-on-instagram/

And another beautiful femme with a familiar name...
 

https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/mtv...us-weekly.html

I am digging the boldness in the fierce femme lesbians! Yeah baby!

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir: The gender pay gap is now the most important equality issue
 

http://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/a...image_2columns

http://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/a...-07.7696496692


Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir: The gender pay gap is now the most important equality issue
Iceland’s Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir has managed what many thought near impossible. She has cut public spending in the wake of the market crash without negatively impacting Iceland’s social security system.

Mar 08, 2012 | Text: Guðrún Helga Sigurðardóttir, Photo: Gunnar V. Andrésson
Today Iceland enjoys an economic growth of 2.5 to 3.5 percent. The European average is 0.5 percent. Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir is happy that Iceland has achieved such good economic results. The government has also succeeded on other fronts, notably on gender equality, she says.

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir believes Iceland’s pre-economic crisis society was run according to male considerations. Power was held by only a small elite. The government has worked to change the old power structure in order to create fairer power sharing. This has mainly been done by giving more women access to power.

“It is sometimes said said that things would look different if women had been in power before the crash.

“Women don’t take as many risks as men and are guided by other considerations. I think this can impact on leadership,” she says.

Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir points out that the government’s goal has been that at least half of the ministers should be women. And it has succeeded. The majority of the government posts are held by women. Department and parliamentary committees too boast 40 percent women members.

“We will soon achieve what Norway did a few years ago, which is 40 percent of all company board members being women,” says Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir.

Two-year adjustment
The government has earlier encouraged businesses to appoint women to managerial and other powerful posts. This has been slow work, however, says Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir. As a result, Iceland’s government has been forced to legislate in order to achieve gender equality on company boards, just like Norway did. The law says no more than 60 percent of company board members can be men and women should make up at least 40 percent of the board. It comes into force in 2013 when companies and pension funds must have at least 40 percent of either sex on their boards.

Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir points out that during Norway’s two-year adjustment period the number of female board members rose from less than 10 percent to nearly 32 percent, but so far this has not been the case in Iceland.

“I am sure the new law will give us an equally good result, even thought the transitional period has not provided us with the same quick result as seen in Norway,” she says.

Iceland’s government works on a four-year equality plan led by the Minister for Social Security. The government has also established a ministerial committee which will lead the government’s work on gender equality. It comprises the Minister for Social Security, the Minister for Finance, the Minister of the Interior and the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir says the committee’s work will highlight the importance of the equality policy. The four government ministers already work with important issues such as human rights, prostitution and trafficking. Results have already been seen in the work to prevent and fight sexual violence and sexual assault.

“We address these issues on the committee,” she says, and adds that Iceland now has a law banning the purchase of sex similar to the Swedish one.

But what is you most important task right now?

The Prime Minister doesn’t hesitate before answering:

“To fight the pay gap between men and women. The government has a project plan to achieve total wage equality.”

"The pay gap breaks my heart"
The government aims to develop a certification standard to achieve equal pay for equal work. Companies can use the standard and they will be awarded a certificate if they can prove that they are following the standard, paying equal wages for equal work. Sigurðardóttir hopes the certificate standard will become a sought-after tool for individual companies.

“Achieving equal pay for equal work is taking so long it breaks my heart,” says Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir.

“But we keep working and we will further our wage policy through our project plan.”

The public sector will head this development. Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir has so far been disappointed with the large pay gaps within the white-collar sector. Public institution management has a certain freedom to influence local wage moderation but often fails to take into account pay gaps between the sexes when money is being divided up.

“The pay gap between men and women has grown, and we will now take this seriously,” she says.

The Icelandic Prime Minister has high hopes for the certification system. She thinks it will help private businesses and the public sector to focus their work on questions of equality.

Snail-speed progress
Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir is impatient and expects quick results. She is worried because the government has still not managed to achieve the desired result without the process now being forced forward.

“Changes to gender equality happens at snail-speed,” she says.

Iceland has changed its legislation on parental leave to allow men to take paternal leave without loosing out economically. Before the current legislation came into force only a small percentage of fathers took parental leave. Today between 80 and 90 percent of all fathers do.

She believes parental leave is the single most important step forward for Iceland’s gender equality policies in recent years.

“The system means fathers loose their right to take leave if they don’t take a full three month parental leave. Fathers’ rights to parental leave cannot be transferred to the mothers,” she explains.

Parental leave has been reduced during the crisis. The government has been forced to make cuts by introducing a ceiling to parental leave compensation. But Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir says it is important to increase the compensation again as soon as possible.

“Now that our economy is on its way back up we will soon have the chance to increase the compensation for fathers and mothers on parental leave. This is high up on my list of priorities,” she says.

Iceland’s EU membership application is being processed by the EU right now, under the auspices of the Danish presidency. Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir had expected that important questions for Iceland, like fisheries and agriculture, would be negotiated during Denmark’s presidency. But the chances for that happening are slim as the presidency comes to an end this summer.

She has just met Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who heads Denmark’s current EU presidency.

“I am not sure we will manage to look at fisheries and agriculture in time.”

The two female prime ministers had fruitful talks during their meeting in Copenhagen. They discussed general EU issues but also the block’s economic challenges.

“We discussed Iceland’s application too, of course. I presented my views and she presented her opinions on the issue,” says Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir. She also adds that Iceland has met a great deal of good will from both the Danish people and from the other European countries.

Vivian Boyack, 91, left, and Alice "Nonie" Dubes, 90,
 

Vivian Boyack and Alice "Nonie" Dubes say it is never too late for people to write new chapters in their lives.

Boyack, 91, and Dubes, 90, began a new chapter in their 72-year relationship Saturday when they exchanged wedding vows at First Christian Church, Davenport.

Surrounded by family and a small group of close friends, the two held hands as the Rev. Linda Hunsaker told the couple that, “This is a celebration of something that should have happened a very long time ago.”

The two met in Yale, Iowa, where they grew up, and moved to Davenport in 1947.

Boyack was a longtime teacher in Davenport, directing the lives of children at Lincoln and Grant elementary schools.

“I always wanted to be a teacher,” Boyack said Saturday after the ceremony. “My plan at an early age was to teach in the school where I was then going, and my teacher would move on to another school.”

Dubes worked for the Times and Democrat for 13 years in payroll. “I signed the paychecks for everybody, including Bill Wundram,” she said. After leaving the news business, she worked for Alter Corp. for 25 years.

Over the years, the two have traveled to all 50 states, all the provinces of Canada, and to England twice.

“We’ve had a good time,” Dubes said. Boyack added it takes a lot of love and work to keep a relationship going for 72 years.

Jerry Yeast, 73, of Davenport, has known the couple since he was an 18-year-old landscaper working in their yard.

“I’ve known these two women all my life, and I can tell you, they are special,” Yeast said. “This is a very special day for all of us.”

http://qctimes.com/news/local/weddin...092f7ec3f.html

Catholic Schools Are Brazenly Firing Pregnant Lesbian Teachers And they're using morality as a defense
 

When Barb Webb was in sixth grade, she thought so highly of her teacher that she decided she wanted to teach, too. After graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in Chemistry she passed up more lucrative private-sector opportunities and instead went on to earn a Master’s in Science Education from Lawrence Technological University. Her first full-time teaching position was at the all-girls Marian High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. For the past nine years she has taught Advanced Placement and Honors Chemistry and coached various athletic teams at the all-girls’ school. This period brought Barb not just happiness in her professional life but also in her personal life: Two years ago she married her girlfriend, and she is now 14 weeks' pregnant.

But two weeks ago, during a ten-minute meeting with two school administrators, she was told she either needed to resign or be fired from a job she had wanted since she was eleven years old.

According to school administrators, Webb, a Catholic, is not a role model for students. Marian High School, of which I'm a graduate, is a parochial school, and every teacher must sign a contract that contains a very broad “morality clause” that stipulates: “Teacher agrees, in the performance of her/his services hereunder that she/he will not publicly engage in actions, or endorse actions or beliefs contrary to the teachings and standards of the Roman Catholic faith and morality.”

Marian High School, which refused to publicly comment for this article, isn’t the first school whose Catholic institutional identity conflicted with the lived realities of its teachers. Butte Central Catholic Schools in Montana was sued last month by Shaela Evenson, a partnered lesbian and a literature and physical education teacher there for nine years, who was fired in January while pregnant with their first child. In 2010, Christa Dias, also a partnered lesbian, was fired from two schools in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati under similar circumstances. The computer technology teacher was awarded more than $170,000 last year by an Ohio jury that ruled the archdiocese had discriminated against her.

None of these women were ministerial employees, but allegedly lost their jobs for their “out of wedlock” or “nontraditional” pregnancies—in other words, for violating one of the school's morality clauses. According to Ari Waldman, a professor of Law at New York Law School, “These so-called morality clauses are attempts to make end runs around anti-discrimination laws by employing the pretext of religious freedom. Your freedom to worship your religion gives you no more right to discriminate than you having red hair. And when it’s done in schools, it creates an environment where young people learn that is O.K. to discriminate against someone for who they are, something that has nothing to do with an employee’s ability to do her job well.” (As the Archdiocese of Cincinnati learned, though, this isn't a legally infallible approach to getting rid of an employee.)

Hundreds of Marian High School students and young alumnae have rallied around Barb Webb, including those who didn’t have her as a teacher. Many, both heterosexual and homosexual, are concerned about the impact of Webb's firing on young students who are struggling with their sexuality and who may now feel shame when they could have had a positive role model. Some are even reevaluating whether they could send their own daughters to Marian. Mary Mullen Ballard, a 1998 graduate who lives in the area, says, “I have been planning to send my two daughters there, but actions such as these truly cause me to reevaluate Marian, as well as all other parochial schools, as hate and discrimination are not traits I want instilled in my children.”

Mullen’s views are consistent with those held by young Catholics today. Over 70 percent of Catholics ages 18-30 agree or strongly agree that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry, while 74 percent believe same-sex female couples can raise a child as well as a male-female couple can, according to Andrew L. Whitehead, a Clemson University professor who studied General Social Survey data.
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While young Catholics are especially open, American Catholics as a whole have dramatically changed their beliefs in the past 25 years. Based on Whitehead’s analysis, in 1988 only 19.3 percent of American Catholics either agreed or strongly agreed that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. By 2012, 56.7 percent either agreed or strongly agreed that they should have the right to do so. Across all years, Catholics are more accepting of gay marriage than the general American population.

So how can Catholics, especially the young, advocate for change in a system that seems to disregard their beliefs? Carol Ann MacGregor, an expert on organizational change in Catholic education who teaches at Loyola University–New Orleans, says, “As costs continue to increase, philanthropy is becoming a more and more important source of funding for Catholic schools, some of which are struggling to survive. For progressively minded Catholics, withholding donations could be a very effective strategy for enacting change.” Older, conservative Catholics hold more sway for now, as they can make larger donations.

This is especially true for Marian High School, which receives no money from the Archdiocese of Detroit, instead relying on tuition and donations for its operating budget. The Archdiocese, in its only statement on the issue, distanced itself from the controversy by stating that the school is “sponsored, owned and operated by the Monroe-based religious order of women, Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM). Oversight of Marian’s mission, along with establishment of its policies, is the responsibility of its Board of Directors, which includes representation from the IHM sisters.”

So what of the IHM Sisters? The IHM are part of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represent about 80 percent of American nuns and has famously been under investigation by the Vatican for “radical feminism,” including support for homosexuality and female priests. While Pope Francis’ “Who am I to judge?” attitude has reinvigorated many Catholics worldwide, his message is still slowly trickling down through the Vatican bureaucracy.

The IHM refused to comment on personnel decisions at Marian High School, but consider the IHM motto: “Courageous Spirit. Action for Justice.” With support from the LCWR and young Catholics, the IHM have the opportunity to advance a more catholic—rather than Catholic—education by supporting teachers like Barb Webb.

Webb says charity, social justice, and equality are all principles that have long motivated her as a teacher, telling her students: "You need to be able enter into a world where you will face discrimination as a woman, especially women entering science."

She added, "I never made it an LGBT issue."

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...descrimination

Martina Navratilova and Julia Lemigova celebrate engagement
 

Now, this is how marriage proposals at sporting events should be done.

Of course, it helps the person doing the proposing is Martina Navratilova at the U.S. Open, but still…

Navratilova was in the midst of an interview with Ken Solomon in the Tennis Channel suite Saturday when she turned to Lemigova, said she’d be asking the questions and dropped to one knee. Her longtime companion, Julia Lemigova, said yes and the the moment was shown on the big screen at the stadium.

“I was very nervous. It came off, and she said yes. It was kind of an out-of-body experience,” Navratilova said of the big moment, which came in the Tennis Channel’s suite. “You’ve seen people propose at sporting events before, in movies, in real life, and here it was happening to me. So I was like watching myself do that. It was cool.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...wpmm=AG0003326

Lily Tomlin to be first out Lesbian recipient of Kennedy Center Award
 

Orgasms
 

Quell Surprise! Not so certain about trailing dudes though. ;)



Lesbians Outdo Straight Women on Orgasms

They have notably more, but still trail men, says study


(Newser) – A new study out of the Kinsey Institute finds that lesbians have more orgasms than their straight or bisexual peers, reports the Huffington Post. Study participants were asked to report the percentage of times they climax with a familiar partner, and the differences among women were surprisingly large:

• Heterosexual: 62%
• Bisexual: 58%
• Lesbian: 75%


So what gives? Researchers speculate in the Journal of Sexual Medicine that it could be because lesbian sex tends to last longer, reports the Toronto Sun. Or maybe, they write, it's that "lesbian women are more comfortable and familiar with the female body and thus, on average, are better able to induce orgasm in their female partners." Whatever the reason, the 75% rate for lesbians still trails men of all kinds, with straight guys reporting a rate of 86%, gay men 85%, and bisexual men 78%. "Yet another glass ceiling for womynkind to shatter," observes Callie Beusman at Jezebel.

The Problem With the '75 Percent of Lesbians Are Fat' Statistic
 

From Huff Post Gay Voices

Posted: 09/15/2014 7:51 pm EDT Updated: 09/15/2014 9:59 pm EDT

By Jodi Savitz

It is 8:15 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and I just spent no less than six hours completely consumed by statistical farce. My head is pounding, my eyes are burning, the air-conditioning seems unconscionably loud, and all I want to do is eat some cereal and go to bed. But alas, I am writing. I know if I stop now, I'll never be able to maneuver my way back through this vortex of numbers, articles, side notes and screenshots to logically prove to you how painfully misleading and downright stigmatizing this "75 percent of lesbians are overweight or obese" media frenzy is.

My bookmark folder on "lesbian obesity and stigmatization" was born in March 2013, when the study purporting to examine the "interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities," funded by The National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), only had a million and a half dollars to its name.

Buried in the abstract of the study appears the line, "three-quarters of lesbians are obese," a statistic employed by the lead researcher as evidence to support funding, and subsequently exploited by the news media to critique ludicrous government spending. Several articles surfaced highlighting the latter, first trickling in on my keyword "lesbian" Google News alert, and then flitting about my newsfeed outfitted with the same semantic bait: "The Government Spends Millions on 'Lesbians Are Fat' Study." One second-rate article after another framed the NIH grant as a "disturbing waste of tax dollars," that ignored the "well-being of the nation as a whole," because let's face it, who really cares about lesbians? Especially fatlesbians. It was insufferable.

The first time around, the lesbian blogosphere did not seem to pay the story much heed. I was inundated with work, so rather than rise to the occasion, I decided to do some research, and file my rebuttal into the "stories to write later" folder. Then last week, like déjà vu, the headline resurfaced with a vengeance. They say, "pick your battles," and this time, I was ready with plenty ammo. I watched my newsfeed and waited. I wanted to see if anybody else would pick up on what I had found...

Here was Autostraddle saying that the statistic "missed the point" entirely, and extolling queer culture for being more open to loving ladies of "all shapes and sizes." At XOJane, the author cleverly quipped about quinoa to make the jarring insult seem a little less derisive; "Sure, 75% of lesbians may be overweight or obese, but in my anecdotal experience at least 90% are also vegans, so how are those broads getting so fat on quinoa and nutritional yeast?"

I recognize these writers for their effort to rationalize a highly irrational and condemnatory statistic, and applaud their desire to further extend the message that lesbian culture is more body positive than most other subcultural communities. I do agree with that claim.

But in every post, the same questions remained unasked:
WHAT IF 75 PERCENT OF LESBIANS ARE NOT OVERWEIGHT OR OBESE?
What if the researchers are wrong?
What if the widely quoted statistic that "three-quarters of lesbians are overweight or obese" is based on unsubstantiated data and extremely small sample sizes?
What if the claim is a statistically insignificant pile of garbage that is wholly misleading?
For some odd reason, nobody ever questioned the validity of the statistic itself, when it was established as fact, or what the motivation behind the original research was in the first place. I, on the other hand, was determined to find the proof in the pudding!

My journey through the depths of Google Scholar finally led me to the same article again and again that claimed, "lesbians are more than twice as likely to be overweight or obese than heterosexual women." This one article is cited in nearly every other major academic article on the subject of sexual minorities and BMI (body-mass index).

Here's the kicker: Within the study, there is one specific chart that notes the sample size of lesbians used to calculate the average BMI, used to determine overweight and obesity of the group. I should have selfied my face in the moment because it would've made for a perfectly histrionic Tinder pic -- seriously, nothing says, "Are you F*CKING KIDDING ME?!" like my face did when I realized how much this study ABSOLUTELY DID NOT statistically prove that 75 percent of lesbians are overweight and obese.

Here's the simple reason why the statistic is a sham:

Q. How many straight women were in the sample size?
A. 5,460

Q. How many lesbians were in this sample size?
A. 87

The article is called "Overweight and Obesity in Sexual-Minority Women: Evidence From Population-Based Data" (Boehmer et al.).

YES, I SWEAR. THE SAMPLE SIZE USED IN THIS STUDY IS 87 LESBIANS AND 5,460 STRAIGHT WOMEN. Unless I am missing something MAJOR, this article, along with a whole slew of other articles that go on to cite it, is conclusive of nothing. To base an entire population's average BMI on 87 women is absurd. And I really don't think I missed anything major. The "n" value here is pretty damn clear.

The crux of the issue is this: How can any study, let alone one that intends to make sweeping generalizations about the impact of sexual orientation on an entire populations' BMI, consider 87 people a reasonable and adequate sample size? How can 87 women possibly stand to represent ALL lesbians in the USA?! I just can't figure how in the hell is it considered academically sound, and moreover, deemed legitimate by a peer-review board of scholars, to compare 87 lesbians to 5,460 straight women??!!?!?!

I don't care if there are fewer of us in the general population; no matter how you frame it, or weight it, or manipulate it, the average BMI of 87 lesbians "randomly" selected in 2002 means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to us as a community. And it means nothing to me. For one to claim that this number is a statistically significant sample size large enough to draw conclusions that will have huge implications on a marginalized community's public health perception is not just unethical, it's insulting.

The results section of this study truly pays homage to faulty logic. The author in one sentence admits that their sample size is too small to be precise (understatement of the century!), but in the next paragraph has the audacity to claim that their population-based data are of "great relevance" and that they (the researchers) posses "rigorous evidence" to prove that lesbians are an "at-risk population for overweight and obesity."

"It will be important for future population-based studies that include a bigger sample of lesbian women to improve on the precision of our estimates because the corresponding tests will have better power than we had. Despite these limitations, our use of these population-based data was of great relevance. We provide rigorous evidence that lesbian women are an at-risk population for over-weight and obesity, and thus, for negative health outcomes secondary to obesity."

Just like that, based on 87 women, a statistic that "three-quarters of lesbians are overweight or obese" is born. In the years to follow, it will be successfully morphed into more egregious puns, memes and despicable jokes to mock us and delegitimize our sexuality with than I care to think about. Lesbians are fat. This claim about our community is not a joke, and to believe that the actual motivation behind this study was to benefit our community is not something I can honestly give credit to.

I am not convinced that by proving, and consequently telling, lesbians that, as a population, we're more likely to be or become fat will promote a more positive body image or inspire government-funded public health initiatives to come into fruition. Conversely, I am certain that the publicity around this "75 percent of lesbians are fat" statistic on social media is at present exacerbating the stereotype that "lesbians are just a bunch of ugly, lazy, misguided women with low self-esteem who can't get a husband because they're fat and don't wear make-up, and therefore they're terrible people and don't deserve to be taken seriously!" (Cue double face-palm and a simultaneous slow-head shake.)

Others will argue that this statistic has been defended in many studies other than this study of lesbian obesity. They would be correct. In fact, there are a whole slew of academic articles that employ faulty logic (many of which cite this article to make their own claim on lesbian obesity), small sample sizes, inept research questions, and arguably homophobic and fat-phobic hypotheses, in an attempt to prove that lesbians are an overweight and obese population, and that we have BMIs higher than the average heterosexual woman. But the more you research, the more you realize the myriad analyses are just more of the same inadequate data set, heavily biased by stereotypes and a general ignorance regarding lesbian identity.

The real question we should be challenging these researchers with is this: Why is homosexuality being isolated as the indicative factor of one's failure to thrive? If the National Institute of Health (NIH) is funding studies based on this claim (and it is), it's terrifying to imagine how often baseless statistics are disseminated as truth, and how misleading our public health policies and initiatives most likely are -- especially those that single out, and arguably stigmatize, sexual-minority populations.

It is no mystery that widespread invisibility plagues the lesbian community, but finding us is not impossible. Yet, not one study has taken the steps to access a representative sample size that surveys the lesbian community to make a comprehensive assessment on lesbians' BMI, that is, if there is a statement to be made. Maybe it's more flabbergasting to me because I can call 1,000 lesbians to action in my sleep. Literally. I could write a status now with an embedded link to survey lesbians, go to sleep, and wake up to not only 1,000 lesbians having answered it, but the potential for a network of over 200,000 queer women to have offered up their heights and weights.

That being said, if you are a researcher with good intentions, in need of access to the queer lady demographic, I'd be more than happy to talk to you about your work. You need lesbians. I have lesbians. You have funding. I need funding. It's a win/win. Let's help each other out for the betterment of this community!

The bottom line: This whole thing seems disturbingly Machiavellian. At best, this study (and ones like it) is a lackluster inquiry parading as a progressive public health initiative. At worst, it is a conspiracy; a wholly disingenuous undertaking, biased by ignorance and rooted in compulsory heterosexuality and the pathological policing of gender presentation -- all thanks to society's fear of "fat"-bodied women.

Here's why it all matters: As long as this statistic is being touted as a scientifically proven fact, we have a problem. When flung into the blogosphere, it is daily espousing a condescending correlation between lesbian identity and unhealthy weight. This notion is and will continue to affect the physical and emotional well-being of many a queer girl, both young and old. This is not okay. And you should not be okay with it.

It's time to wake up and realize that lesbian visibility is not only about femme girls wanting to be recognized, but it is also about combating negative stereotypes and ending the institutionalized shaming of lesbian identity by bringing to light the breadth of our community. The only solution to reversing the stigmas attached to being a lesbian is to make visible the positive attributes of who we are, how we live, and what we look like. It's not about emphasizing the average; it's about celebrating the exceptional. It's about coming out every day, and making our presence known, even when it seems awkward or irrelevant. It's a commitment that 100 percent of our community must take on individually.

A final note on research privilege: Though some of the articles I'm sharing via Google Scholar are publicly downloadable, many are only accessible in full via a university's online journal database. In order to access these articles myself, I used my library card from Nova Southeastern University, a university in South Florida that makes its "NovaCat" database available to the public if you live in Broward County. Once logged into NovaCat, I was able to search for and open articles I otherwise could not have accessed via Google Scholar or another engine, like LexisNexis. This, in and of itself, is frustrating, and speaks to the elitism inherent in academia. Limiting the public's access to scholarly journals makes conducting and analyzing research an endeavor that is ostensibly limited to those either enrolled in or associated with a university, or lucky enough to have a university affiliated library card (or a whole lot of money to spend on each individual article!). While some public libraries have access to scholarly journals and articles, most of them limit access to patrons on-site. Therefore, for somebody who only has access to the internet at home, and limited or no access to a physical library from which to access these journals, it is impossible to review articles published by academics. This sort of research privilege is rarely discussed, and is quite disheartening and problematic.

Jodi Savitz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/girlongirlmovie

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jodi-s...hp_ref=lesbian

MacArthur Fellow, Alison Bechdel
 

Alison Bechdel, the innovative comic artist known for the graphic memoirs “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” and “Are You My Mother,” is one of 21 MacArthur Fellows named Wednesday.

At first Bechdel, currently at an artist residency in Italy, didn’t pick up the phone. There was no message, and when it rang again, and she figured it must be important.

“It was crazy,” she says. “It was a little garbled, then I heard the person on the other end say the words MacArthur Foundation and the world started spinning.”

Commonly called the “genius” fellowships, the MacArthurs are awarded to exceptionally creative individuals working in the arts, humanities, public issues and the sciences. Bechdel is the second graphic novelist -- alongside 2000 fellow Ben Katchor -- to be presented with the award.

This year’s recipients include National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes, poet and translator Khaled Mattawa and two historians, Pamela O. Long and Tara Zahra. There are no novelists or short fiction writers in the 2014 class.

The fellows receive $625,000 over five years, with no strings attached. “It will give me a lot of security that I don’t have. Pay off some debts, save for retirement -- really boring stuff,” says Bechdel, who lives in Vermont. “I’ve been a cartoonist all my life!”

Of late, Bechdel has become a household name for popularizing the Bechdel Test, a three-part challenge testing whether a film or book a) has at least two women, who b) talk to each other d) about something other than a man. Originally considered “radical, feminist, lesbian” when she wrote it more than 25 years ago, Bechdel now says of its acceptance, “The mainstream has caught up to radical feminist thinking.”

New MacArthur fellows are given the news a few days before the announcement and sworn to secrecy.

Bechdel envisions the MacArthur making a difference. It will, she says, allow her to “take some risks, do something new -- to really plunge into my work. It’s an incredible gift.”

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketc...916-story.html

Yes Kobi, this is amazing, two MacArthur Genius Awards
 

The MacArthur Foundation awarded lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel one of its coveted Genius Grants. The only requirement of the $625,000 award is that Bechdel and the 20 other recipients continue doing the good work they were already doing.

So, hopefully this means Bechdel will continue doing revolutionary work related to film, family and culture. Her name was on everyone’s lips starting last year as her 30-year-old film test re-entered mainstream conversation. The Rule was born from a 1985 strip of her comic Dykes To Watch Out For.

bechdel-rule

The rule, now known as the Bechdel Test, calls for basic inclusion of women in film. The concept shouldn’t be so revolutionary, but when women had only 30 percent of speaking roles and 15 percent of leads in last year’s top films it is clear we have a lot of work left to do. It’s great to see the MacArthur Foundation honoring someone doing that work.

Bechdel has also earned well-deserved praise for graphic novels including 2006′s Fun Home and and 2012′s Are You My Mother. In August, it was announced that the stage production of Fun Home is officially headed to Broadway after years as a beloved Off-Broadway experience.

Some of the other winners are pretty cool too — Mary Bonauto, the director of the Civil Rights Project for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders also won a grant. Then there’s Pamela Long, the 71-year-old who pursues research on medieval history without a university affiliation, and Terrence Hayes, whose poems on race, politics and love are some of the most powerful words being written today.

The winners are doing their work from around the world — Bechdel, for example, is on an artists’s residency in an Italian castle. Although it took 30 years for Bechdel’s simple, brilliant ideas to reach this level of recognition, with this new recognition and funding she’ll be able to continue moving the conversation and stealing our hearts.

Boston civil rights lawyer Mary Bonauto recepient of MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant
 

Bonauto was named a MacArthur fellow for her work “breaking down legal barriers based on sexual orientation,” the MacArthur Foundation writes. In 2003, Bonauto led the court fight for same-sex marriage rights in Massachusetts, and played key roles in expanding gay rights across New England through her work with Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.

“No gay person in this country would be married without Mary Bonauto,” Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court same-sex marriage case, told The New York Times last year.

Bonauto is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...vKO/story.html

Orange is the New Black writer leaves her husband for show actor.



Orange is the New Black writer Lauren Morelli leaves husband for show star Samira Wiley

An Orange Is The New Black writer who realised she was gay on the set of the hit prison drama has filed for divorce after falling in love with one of the show's stars.

Lauren Morelli and her husband, Steve Basilone, have jointly filed to end their two-year marriage just three months after she opened up about her sexuality in an essay she wrote for Identities.Mic in May.

Morelli wrote: "I realised I was gay in fall 2012, one of my first days on the set. While Writing for Orange Is the New Black, I realised I am gay.

"Five months after my wedding, I flew to New York to start production on my first episode of Orange, and from that moment on my life fell into a parallel rhythm with (lead characters) Piper's story in a way that went from interesting to terrifying in a matter of months."

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/c...17-10i3oq.html