Lesbians In The News

[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.

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/the-...yes-they-exist


Nightclubs, bars for lesbians is a dying breed. I use to party in Key West a few times a year, there was this amazing place that catered to (us). Well...this place has reinvented itself to allow het couples, men couples..... So, now what? You will not catch me staying there. My money and I will go elsewhere.

[Kobi]

Teaser for new internet show Old Black Dyke, starring Gaye Adegbalola. The show premiers February 24th at 9pm EST on Stageit.com. OBD will air every 4th Monday of the month.

[Kobi]

******TRIGGER ALERT******

U.K. man was sentenced to nine years in prison for raping a lesbian in a Bristol bar where he worked. According to an article in Gay Star News, 30-year-old Charles Franklin claimed that he met the woman on the street and invited her into his bar to charge her phone when "one thing led to another."

The woman, who had left a wedding at 1 a.m., said she was drunk and did not remember leaving the wedding. She said that she woke up to find Franklin raping her on the floor of The Somerset House pub in Clifton.

The woman, whose name has not been released for legal reasons, told British newspaper the Daily Mail that she had three times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her system.

"The next thing I remember was being on the floor of this pub with a guy," she told the Daily Mail. "He stripped me. He was trying to force himself on me. I was struggling quite a lot. He told me if I kept struggling he would break my neck, so I let him do what he wanted."


The woman said that after the attack Franklin sat at the bar and watched TV while she lay naked on the floor. She said she then managed to find her coat and pretend to be sleeping. She said Franklin brought her upstairs and tried, but failed, to have sex with her again.

When he fell asleep, the woman put on his jeans and T-shirt before climbing out a window to escape. She borrowed a mobile phone from a kebab stand and called her mother, who came to pick her up.

Prosecutor Tara Wolfe said, "The attack had devastating consequences on the victim’s life. She was forced to take medication after the attack and as a result she was unable to pursue her career for 12 weeks."

Mitigator Edward Burgess said that, "Mr. Franklin is a man of good character, as you heard from several witnesses in the trial."

Franklin pled not guilty, but Gay Star News reports that sentencing Judge Michael Roach sentenced him to nine years in prison, and that he must sign the Sex Offenders’ Register, but also added that, "The sentence I am about to hand you should be in double figures, but your good character has reduced it to just under that."

http://www.edgeboston.com/news/inter...ears_in_prison

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Um the man is found guilty of rape and gets a reduced sentence for "good character"? Kind of makes you wonder what the judge considers "bad character".

[lamuymuyfem]

RE: Pat Parker

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

[Kobi]

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."

[Kobi]

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

[Jess]

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!