Lesbians In The News

[firegal]

Originally Posted by Martina

What does she actually do except invest money she did not earn in movies she does not make? I don't get it.

35 oscar nominations for her films, she is a producer also.
Of those 35, 17 were films she financed.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by firegal

35 oscar nominations for her films, she is a producer also.
Of those 35, 17 were films she financed.

Did you read the article? She's lost tens of millions of dollars, which she can well afford, but that's her record. She is 27, has one year of college and seems to spend her much of her time hanging out with movies stars. Fine. Good choice. Better than drug addiction or living a Kim Kardashian style life. Some kind of lesbian role model? Well, not for me.

[Martina]

Let me just add as a resident of Silicon Valley who sees poverty every day, it does not inspire me with admiration to see how the extreme wealth generated here, but kept by the tiniest sliver of the one percent, gets used while the rest of us not only do not share in the wealth we created, but suffer from the consequences of higher cost of living, congestion, and failure of these corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. Today on Facebook, I saw this: http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/17/we-...t-skyrocketed/

Poverty would have been eliminated -- eliminated -- if income inequality had not become so exaggerated. So, no, I am not inspired by her story. Give me a break.

Just found this re oracle --

Fast-forward a decade, over which Oracle finalized four more pacts, including two governing foreign tax benefits, generally covering fiscal years 2002 through 2013, excepting 2006. It also consolidated hundreds of offshore subsidiaries into six core affiliates in Ireland, and by this year had amassed $26 billion in cash held overseas -- more than seven times 2003's level. As of May, when its 2013 fiscal year ended, Oracle had nearly halved its tax bill. It paid $2.6 billion in cash income taxes on pre-tax income of nearly $13.9 billion, a rate of just under 19%.

I'd much rather the corporation paid its taxes, so that we had enough beds for homeless people here in the oh so wealthy Silicon Valley. I'd be much more inspired by that.

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

Yes Kobi, the aforementioned tennis players are out and proud lesbians. They are successful with superior talents all.

Here are some links to introduce a few of them to you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Stosur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9lie_Mauresmo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennae_Stubbs

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

Regarding Vanity Fair's article Megan Ellison.

In the space of a year, the young Ellison has become the most talked-about independent financier in Hollywood. Pretty but a bit overweight, with hunched shoulders, she has a slacker vibe. She drives a gray ’89 Aston Martin or rides one of her motorcycles, often has a Camel cigarette in hand, and rarely wears makeup. Partial to butch, grunge chic, she usually wears a uniform of army boots, denim jeans, and a hoodie pulled over the T-shirt of an old-school rock band, like Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. She can come across as well read and shy, but then might say something strangely blunt and uncomfortable and laugh at it. She talks extremely fast, especially when trying to make a point, with her words getting caught up in one another, or slowly and deliberately, especially when she’s upset. “Megan reminds me a little of John Grady Cole,” says director Andrew Dominik, referring to the 16-year-old cowboy who rides into Mexico in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. “She is not going to argue with you, but she’s going to do what she wants.”


Look at this very poorly written article! Vanity Fair must hire misogynistic nincompoops with only a modicum of journalistic talent.

Is it necessary to discuss her physical appearance in such a disdainful manner?

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Happy_Go_Lucky

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="2"]Regarding Vanity Fair's article Megan Ellison.

Look at this very poorly written article! Vanity Fair must hire misogynistic nincompoops with only a modicum of journalistic talent.

Is it necessary to discuss her physical appearance in such a disdainful manner?

The author couldn't attack her accomplishments or success, so she resorted to attacking her as a woman. The not so hidden message is Ellison is not a woman who represents what females and males have been taught a woman is supposed to look like and dress like.

It was an attempt to undermine her success by pointing out she is "less than" as a woman.

And, seeing it was a female author, that is an example of internalized misogyny and sexism.

[Kobi]

Pat Parker was born on this day in 1944 (to June 19, 1989) She was an influential African-American lesbian and feminist poet and activist.

Given the name Patricia Cooks at birth, Pat Parker was born in Houston, Texas, the youngest of four daughters in a Black working class family. Her mother, Marie Louise Cooks, was a domestic worker, and her father, Ernest Nathaniel Cooks supported the family by re-treading tires.

Urged by her father to take "the freedom train of education," Parker left home at seventeen and moved to Los Angeles, California, earning her undergraduate degree at Los Angeles City College, and followed that with a graduate degree at San Francisco State College. She married playwright Ed Bullins in 1962, but they separated after four years. Pat Parker settled in Oakland, California, in the early 1970s to pursue work, writing and opportunities for activism. She married a second time, to Berkeley, California writer Robert F. Parker, but decided that the "idea of marriage... wasn't working" for her.

Pat Parker began her service as the medical coordinator at the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center, which grew from one clinic to six sites during her tenure from 1978 to 1987. Pat Parker also participated in political activism ranging from early involvement with the Black Panther Party and Black Women's Revolutionary Council to formation of the Women's Press Collective. She was involved in wide-ranging activism in gay and lesbian organizations and held positions of national leadership regarding women's health issues, especially concerning domestic and sexual violence. In 1979 she toured with the “Varied Voices of Black Women”, a group of poets and musicians which included Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins & Gwen Avery.

Parker gave her first public reading of her poetry in 1963 while married to playwright Ed Bullins. The challenge of "competing in a male poetry scene" as the wife of a writer, Parker notes, helped develop not only her voice but also her willingness to write about contemporary issues -- about civil rights and Vietnam as well as an emerging African-American lesbian feminist perspective on love and lust. Reading before women's groups beginning in 1968 brought Parker notice and satisfaction, especially as she joined Judy Grahn, a white working class Bay Area poet, to read lesbian poetry in public, arranging readings not only at women's bookstores, but also intermixing poetry with musical performances at local women's bars, coffeehouses and festivals.

Pat Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969 and became close friends. They continued to exchange letters and visits for twenty years, until Parker's death in 1989.

The ‘Goat Child’ of “Child of Myself,” Parker's first collection, chafes at the confinement and conformity she's expected to learn in marriage, and then tentatively comes out as a lesbian via several love poems to women. Often a bold speaker, the poet opens “Pit Stop,” a 1974 publication, with the line "My lover is a woman" in a poem that addresses interracial relationships. She also offers readers the sweet "I Kumquat You" and strident "Bitch! / I want to scream" in love poems that line up before the collection's long title poem addressing alcoholism: "a pit is a coward's suicide / a hearty drink to anything. " Pit Stop is also infused with dreams, "not [just] Martin's" or Malcolm's or those of political allies, but "a simple dream" that juxtaposes the dreams of human/racial equality with gay liberation: "In my dream - / I can walk the streets / holding hands with my lover" without fear of retaliation or disdain.

From all these stages of her life, Parker developed a narrative poetry, often taking on a call and response form recognizable in black oral traditions, and speaking of generations of women and men engaged in human rights battles. Parker's poetry generally escapes didacticism because of her deft use of humor, insistence on frank language, presentations of events long silent, and sharp analysis of injustices. The goal, Parker said is to "try to put the poetry in the language that we speak, to use that language, take those simple works and make out of them something that is moving, that is powerful, that is there."

Parker's five collections of poetry take their central images and process of self-creation as well as political analysis from autobiographical moments in Parker's life and from publicized incidents or community discussions related to race, class, gender, sexuality. The Firebrand Books' edition of “Movement in Black” - with its title poem and a collection of poems from three earlier Parker collections - is the only work by Parker that remains consistently in print. A well-crafted compilation, “Movement in Black“ reflects key patterns in Parker's work: "It is the moment of her creative impulse to communicate: the love, the anger, the fear, that powerful sense of justice (and injustice) the cynicism, the humor that she gives us," noted critic Cheryl Clarke notes in a review of this collection.

Pat Parker wrote "Womanslaughter" after the murder of her sister by her husband and places the reader alongside Parker as the poet's older sister is murdered and the sister's soon-to-be ex-husband is put on trial. Convicted not of murder but of "womanslaughter" because "Men cannot kill their wives. / They passion them to death. " For this murder in Texas, Parker’s former brother-in-law served one year in a work-release program; three years after this murder in Texas, Parker vows "I will come to my sisters / not dutiful, / I will come strong. " Parker brought this crime to the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women in 1976 in Brussels.

Finally, “Jonestown and Other Madness”, considers what isn't - what love isn't, what liberation isn't, what justice isn't; and what is - love and alliances, family legacies and strength. This last collection was published before Parker's death in 1989 from breast cancer, and ends both with a desire for more time to write and a legacy to her daughters. At her death, Pat Parker was survived by her long-time partner Marty Dunham and two daughters, Cassidy Brown and Anastasia Dunham Parker. In "Maybe I Should Have Been a Teacher," Parker chronicles her struggles, and writes:

“Take the strength that you may wage a long battle.
Take the pride that you can never stand small.
Take the rage that you can never settle for less.”

The Pat Parker/Vito Russo Center Library at New Yorks LGBT Community Center was named in honor of Parker and fellow writer, Vito Russo. The Pat Parker Poetry Award is awarded each year for a free verse, narrative poem or dramatic monologue by a black lesbian poet.

We remember Pat Parker on this day in celebration of the 70th anniversary of her birth, and in deep appreciation for her thoughtful poetry, her feminist advocacy, and her many contributions to our community.

[ProfPacker]

http://www.advocate.com/arts-enterta...dy-center-hono

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

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.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Happy_Go_Lucky

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.

Adds shattering that ceiling to my bucket list.

[*Anya*]

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

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Martina

Did you read the article? She's lost tens of millions of dollars, which she can well afford, but that's her record. She is 27, has one year of college and seems to spend her much of her time hanging out with movies stars. Fine. Good choice. Better than drug addiction or living a Kim Kardashian style life. Some kind of lesbian role model? Well, not for me.

I am really lost as to why you would have such an opinion of this particular woman. I also don't understand what makes you not think she is a good role model for lesbians and women. Are you saying lesbians and therefore women must have a certain level of education, certain friends and certain jobs in order to be considered successful and proper role models?

I think she is a great role model for women and lesbians. Why?

1. She is a female and a lesbian. Period.
2. She is a female and lesbian in the predominately male financial field.
3. Her movies are successful. Per firegal, 35 oscar nominations for her films. Of those 35, 17 were films she financed. She is 27. I am impressed.
4. She has grossed profits from those movies which well exceed losses. Even Ron Howard has made some clunker films.

And the biggest reason of all, seeing you are concerned about poverty and such?

As a producer, she is a job generator in a wonderful thing called trickle down economics. She not only provides the financing for the actors, her money and ability to procure money gives jobs to writers, directors, make up artists, clothing designers, sound people, technical people, scenery people, lighting people, hairdressers......all the way down to the person to makes the coffee.

If the film is shot on location, it provides jobs and income for the local economy in the form of lodging, food, entertainment, transportation, security, even porta potties, electricity, water.

If it is shot in the studio, it supports everyone who is employed there and all the vendors who supply it.

When the film hits the theatres, it provides jobs for the theater owners, managers, ticket folks, concession folks. The concession stands provide for jobs for the vendors who provide their supplies and those who make or grow the products needed.

Sounds like a fricken good role model to me.

[Kobi]

Wednesday, out lesbian Assembly Majority Floor Leader Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, was elected the next Speaker of the California Assembly. She is the first open lesbian to serve as speaker—and she takes over from the first openly gay man, current Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez. The Speaker of the Assembly has often been described as the second most powerful person in state politics after the governor.

Though Atkins would be the first full-time out lesbian Speaker in history, she would not be the first to bang the gavel. Westside Democrat Sheila James Kuehl—California’s first elected openly gay lawmaker—served as speaker pro tem during the 1997-1998 session, and San Diego legislative heroine Christine Kehoe was elected assembly speaker pro tem during her time in the Assembly from 2000-2004.

Prior to Atkins, two other women held the important statewide position in line for the governorship—Doris Allen held the Assembly Speakership in 1995, and Karen Bass held it from 2008-2010.


http://www.frontiersla.com/frontiers...sembly-speaker

[Kobi]

Heather Mizeur, 41, is a state legislator seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland.

If elected, Mizeur would be many firsts for Maryland: the first woman governor, the first openly gay governor, and the first same-sex married governor. She would also be the first governor elected using the state’s public-financing mechanism for statewide campaigns, an arrangement that constrains campaign spending but opens up a funding level that might otherwise have been elusive, given the well-established money-pumping machines working for her opponents.

http://m.citypaper.com/news/the-quie...UrCLJs.twitter

[Kobi]

Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, writing, litigation, organizing and advocacy on profiling, policing, and physical and sexual violence by law enforcement agents against women, girls and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color in over the past two decades.

She currently coordinates Streetwise & Safe (SAS), www.streetwiseandsafe.org, a leadership development initiative aimed at sharing “know your rights” information, strategies for safety and visions for change among LGBT youth of color who experience of gender, race, sexuality and poverty-based policing and criminalization.

As such, she serves on the steering committee of Communities United for Police Reform (CPR), www.changethenypd.org, a city-wide campaign to challenge discriminatory, unlawful and abusive policing practices in New York City led by grassroots community groups, legal organizations, policy advocates and researchers from all five boroughs.

She is the author of Violence Everyday: Police Brutality and Racial Profiling Against Women, Girls, and Trans People of Color and the co-author (with Joey L. Mogel and Kay Whitlock) of Queer (In)Justice. She lobbied and organized with co-contributor Meron Wondwosen and fellow law students at Howard University School of Law on behalf of Mumia throughout her law school tenure, and has had the privilege of offering pro bono legal research support to Mumia’s legal team.

Andrea is a Feminist We Love because she gives voice to members of our community who are often silenced and rendered invisible by their own families, some activists groups, and the mainstream media. Her groundbreaking work charts new territory in the literature on mass incarceration.

Interview

http://thefeministwire.com/2014/01/f...ndrea-ritchie/

[Kobi]

Jewrotica, “a relationship and sex ed resource for the Jewish community,” has released its annual “Sexiest Rabbis” list, and two of the 10 honorees are lesbian moms.

Clearly, the authors of Jewrotica are defining “sexy” to mean more than just physical attractiveness. Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D., made the list for being “an embodiment of sensuality and stimulation. Her written words and teachings stimulate the mind, body and soul, engaging one on a journey to the sacred feminine.” Hammer is also the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic rabbinical and cantorial seminary in Yonkers, New York. She and her wife Shoshana Jedwab live in Manhattan and have one daughter.

Rabbi Benay Lappe, a single mom, is founder and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA, “a traditionally radical yeshiva dedicated to the serious study of Talmud and committed to the Queer experience.” Jewrotica notes that “A former student describes her as a ‘total bad-ass.’”

Jewrotica says their list is meant to be “exceedingly respectful” but also “fun and playful.” I mention it here because I think it’s always good to remind ourselves of our wide range of human possibilities. We can be lesbians, and parents, and people of faith, and sexy, or combinations thereof.

Other queer folks on the list (but not, to the best of my knowledge, parents) is Rabbi David Dunn Bauer, Director for Social Action Programming at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah of New York City, the largest LGBT congregation in the world (whose head rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum, is also a lesbian mom).

I was also pleased to see that several of the not-obviously LGBT rabbis on the list (and in Jewrotica’s longer People’s Choice section) mention their commitment to LGBT inclusion and equality.

Mazel tov to all!
- See more at: http://www.mombian.com/2014/01/27/le....2HHVMvpy.dpuf