Laverne Cox's Essay On Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair Cover Hits The Nail On The Head
Like the rest of us, “Orange Is The New Black” star Laverne Cox thinks Caitlyn Jenner looked “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!” on her Vanity Fair cover.

But in a Tumblr post the actress shared on Tuesday, she explained that it’s about so much more than just what Jenner looked like — however stunning that may be.

“Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities,” Cox wrote. “The love and devotion she has for her family and that they have for her. Her courage to move past denial into her truth so publicly.These things are beyond beautiful to me.”

She went on to reference her own Time magazine cover, which she wrote was met with criticism from others in the transgender community who claimed she didn’t represent most trans people. “But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards,” she wrote.

She pointed out that that it’s important to have diverse media representations of transgender individuals, before going on to say that most transgender people “don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have.”

Cox concluded her post by writing, “I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us. The struggle continues…”

In a video for Vanity Fair, Jenner spoke of Cox and all “pioneers” that came before her.

“You look at some of the people, the pioneers who are trying to get the message out. Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, Geena Rocero, people like that. Carmen Carrera,” she said. “Back in the 80s I was alone and I’m kind of following in their footsteps. They made it easier for me. I hope, with my honesty, I can make it easier for somebody else down the line.”

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www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/02/laverne-cox-caitlyn-jenner_n_7494484.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

UN Human Rights Office Releases Report Detailing Violence and Discrimination Against LGBT People

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a new report titled “Discrimination and violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/un-human-rights-office-releases-report-detailing-violence-and-discrimi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Katya Said What? Quotes From The ‘Drag Race’ Red Carpet

Queerty attended the RuPaul‘s Drag Race Season 7 Finale and Queen Coronation in New York on June 1, where the top 8 [top 7, Pearl’s flight landed late] mingled with a thousand or two of their most adoring fans. After appearances on the step-and-repeat photo line, they shared a few of their thoughts:

Katya

On Caitlyn Jenner: “She looks amazing. She looks like if Jessica Lange were an Olympian. Flawless. But it’s all well and good if you look like a beautiful woman. It’s like ‘You go girl — as long as you look good.’ The reality is, Caitlyn Jenner just happens to have Annie Leibowitz at her disposal. What about Bob Regular, who is turning into Barbara Regular? Those are the people who are going to their jobs at the office, or they’re teachers or mail carriers, and for them it’s hard. But don’t you think it was the cuntest move that it was Caitlyn with a C?”

Mrs. Kasha Davis

On the widespread criticism of Season 7: “The mistake they made this season was changing ‘Untucked’ and putting it online. Campy challenges are cute and fun, but to me, ‘Untucked’ is the show. Because you really get to see how people are feeling. I realize they are trying to build their online presence, but ‘Untucked’ is how you get to know the characters.”

Kennedy Davenport

On her 4th Place finish: “I think I should have been in the Top 3 based on my performance, but it is more than just performance. It has to be politics or something. Personality has nothing to do with it. Because if that would be the case, Violet wouldn’t have been in the Top 3. I’m just sayin’.”

Ginger Minj

On her online critics: “I read everything. I’m a glutton for punishment. We’ve all got haters — if we didn’t have haters, we wouldn’t be doing something right. But I care what people think. I don’t change my behavior, but I like to know what people’s perception of me is, so I can have a one-on-one interaction with them, and help them understand where I’m coming from. I try to respond to everybody, and I do it with love. I’m not one of those people on the internet who tries to get into a pissing match with a skunk. You’re gonna lose.”

Trixie Mattel

On the elimination formula for each episode: “I think RuPaul definitely has an idea for what she wants to win before the Final 3. About halfway through, they know who they want to be in the end. The lip sync is somewhat moot a lot of the time. You can tell who they are keeping before the lip sync starts. I think some people were kept out of the bottom 2 because they wouldn’t have survived a lip sync, and some people were thrown into the bottom 2 because they would stay no matter what. It happens both ways. But this is part competition, part reality show. If it were just a competition, it wouldn’t be interesting to watch.”

Miss Fame

On being a role model: “I know what it’s like coming from a hill in the middle of nowhere and not having any role models, and being afraid of what gay was. The goal is to leave a beauty mark on the hearts of all those who relate to me, and it gives me the chance to be the face for someone relating to that. The struggle is real for a lot of kids out there. There are so many social media outlets now, and people think ‘It’s easier now for me, so it should be easier for you.’ But even with all the visibility out there, it is still challenging for a kid who is living in a conservative household, who has to carry this secret until he feels safe. A lot of people aren’t safe, so they have to stay quiet until they are free.”

Violet Chachki

On looking back at her TV image: “I went on the show to be an artist, but I quickly learned there is more to being on TV than just being a fabulous artist. There’s a backstory, there’s a plot, there’s a lot of factors that come into play. My main focus for the show was ‘Be the best drag queen you can be,’ not ‘Be the best reality star you can be.’ I wasn’t focusing on my reality-TV character. I was focusing on the drag. But I have no regrets at all. I am proud of every single thing I did, every single thing I said, and I’ll say it again. I was honest, and I was real, certainly a lot more real than a lot of the other girls on the show. I kept it about what we were here to do, which is drag.”

On Caitlyn Jenner: “Caitlyn is beautiful, and [the Vanity Fair cover] was so well done. It gives us so much visibility. I am so happy, and proud, to be part of the queer community at this day and age. It is a groundbreaking time. I identify as genderqueer, my gender identity is super-fluid and changes daily. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable as Violet, sometimes I feel uncomfortable as Jason. So I definitely relate to Caitlyn’s story. I want to hang out with Caitlyn, and just talk with her about everything, about how brave she is and how much I admire her for having the courage to say ‘Fuck this, I need to live my life for me.’ It must have taken so much courage for her to realize who she is and be at peace with it.”

photos by Jeffery James Keyes

Dan Renzi

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The 'Gay Of Thrones' Recap of S5xE8 Is Here – Hardbone

Sean Mandell

www.towleroad.com/2015/06/the-gay-of-thrones-recap-of-s5xe8-is-here-hardbone.html

Meet Utah's First Transgender Political Candidate
Utah could soon have its first openly transgender elected official.

On Monday, Sophia Hawes-Tingey, a transgender woman, announced her candidacy for City Council District 2 in Midvale, Utah, a Salt Lake City suburb, Fox13 Salt Lake City reported. She is challenging incumbent councilman Paul Glover.

Hawes-Tingey is a software engineer and Navy veteran.

While Hawes-Tingey acknowledges the historic nature of her candidacy, she is focusing her campaign on local issues like combating crime and developing Midvale’s economy.

“I know to the LGBT community, they see this as a message of hope. But this is a race about community values,” she told Fox13.

National and state-level LGBT groups like the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund have endorsed Hawes-Tingey.

Although Utah is a deeply conservative state, same-sex marriage is legal there, and the state bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At least three openly gay and lesbian candidates are running for office in the state.

Have a tip or story idea to share with us? Email us at [email protected]. We’ll keep your identity private unless you tell us otherwise.

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www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/02/utah-transgender-political-candidate_n_7493550.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Attacks on LGBT Community in Kyrgyzstan

On International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia IDAHOT, LGBT activists in the Central Asian Republic Kyrgyzstan were attacked.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/attacks-on-lgbt-community-in-kyrgyzstan?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” Recap Realness: Last Queen Standing

There’s simultaneously a lot and almost nothing to cover. Sure, the show was long and eventful, but like every reality finale, it was over an hour of stalling for the announcement of one name.

Ru opens the show with a runway presentation from each of the eliminated contestants. My hopes that this would lead into interview segments, like previous seasons, are quickly dashed. My immediate disappointment that the Top 3 are the focus of this episode really says something about this season’s Top 3.

Rather than the traditional Q&A (which does happen later), the beginning of the end this time around involves full-on live performance. Ru announces (as the unruly crowd hollers at the finalists) that each hopeful will lip sync a song written especially for them. It’s nice that an actual drag show has been integrated into this drag show, and merciful that Pearl and Violet weren’t asked to sing, and honestly gracious of Ru not to use this as an opportunity to hock her own music, but it still feels off somehow. Like, drag queens having singles written for them isn’t really a thing. Then again, drag queens being famous isn’t usually a thing, so I guess we’ll just have to keep blazing new trails.

Ginger kicks us off with “Pray and Slay,” a high-energy gospel number that plays to her campy strengths. Following her performance, she sits down for a chat with Ru, where she is asked about her occasionally salty demeanor. The Minj does a lot of queefing about how drag helped her find her voice after a repressive upbringing and it all comes from a place of love, but the truth is that she only gets away with it because she wasn’t as stank as Violet.

Next up is Pearl, whose song “Sleepwalking” reminds us that this queen’s defining quality is her lifelessness. At least someone taught her how to bend her arms at the elbow before the lip sync. The interview segment is funny because auxiliary material is provided: a video segment on “The Curse of Pearl” gets a great audience reaction, as does the running “joke” that everyone wants to sleep with her, but Miss Flazéda retains her signature pothead passivity. Though she earns points for the admission that if crowned, she’d spend her winnings on wigs. Not inspirational, but certainly practical and honest.

Violet’s sync delivers arguably the biggest surprise of the night. “So Many Daddies, Not Enough Time” gives her a chance to show off some classic burlesque moves to go with her classic styling, and while she doesn’t land every detail (you twirl your titty tassels, darling, don’t just let them hang there), she projects an unexpected amount of star quality.

The interview questions aren’t exactly revelatory: she has been sewing for a long time, she decided to be confident and that was that, she encourages young drag queens to practice behind locked doors in the middle of the night. When Mimi Imfurst (that “behind locked doors in the middle of the night” isn’t just for the young ones, Mimi) elicits the reveal that Ms. Chachki voted for herself for Shadiest Queen, I’m not shocked. An award’s an award and this girl came to win.

And then at long last it’s time to bring the other contestants out, but only to spend five minutes delivering droopy quips and tying up loose ends. Tempest reassures us that she and Kandy are friends, removing a huge weight off the shoulders of the three or four people who were worried about that. Sasha is a superfan who not only thought she cracked the code, but also hosts her own local Drag Race. I’m not going to say anything mean about her here because I get the impression that she is definitely reading this. And, like, every other recap out there. Jasmine says her most exciting moment was meeting Kennedy. Not meeting Ru, mind you: meeting Kennedy. She was inspired by Patti LaBelle and OH MY GOODNESS MISS PATTI SENT A VIDEO MESSAGE HOLD ON IMA NEED A MINUTE. Following that triumph, Mrs. Kasha Davis delivers a rock solid little comedy routine and provides evidence that she is in fact married in the form of a bow-tied husband. Though it was pretty shady of Ru to ask if that man was real.

After Kandy admits, as we all suspected, that she only recently learned how to paint her face, Ru gives Max precisely seven second to talk about how she’s not a prude before moving on. Her haste has a solid motivation, at least: she needs to make someone else cry. This time Jaidynn is her target. After a reminder that Ms. Fierce hasn’t discussed her sexuality with her family, they play a taped confessional from Mama Diore. She doesn’t go as far as to say that she accepts her gay son, but she does promise never to abandon him, and that reassurance is enough.

Fame brings a live chicken onto the stage. A live chicken. Chicken. Live.

Though Trixie’s impersonation of RuPaul doesn’t seem worthy of the roars it elicits from the crowd, Katya deserves whatever praise she gets. It hardly matters what she gets asked; she’s going to give a barely coherent, wildly profane response that I’m glad has been recorded for future generations to appreciate and study. Since Ru can’t make Kennedy cry with mama drama, she wonders aloud whether her pussy breaks during the splits. (No, we are told: it does not.) More queens from previous seasons read note cards, but their presence is just a sad reminder that previous seasons had better queens.

Finally, we reach the home stretch and start handing out some actual dollars. First up is Miss Congeniality, presented by last year’s winner BenDeLaCreme and her conjoined-at-the-boobs-a-la-Ginger-and-Sasha sister Michelle Visage. It is of course a victory for Katya because she is an angel from filthy drag heaven and everyone should kiss her toes.

That leaves only one crown to be distributed. (And a scepter, if we’re gonna be picky about it.) To bestow the honor, Bianca Del Rio emerges in head-to-toe silver glitter. It is a breathtaking entrance that leaves no doubt who the real Drag Superstar is. All three of this season’s finalists don’t add up to one Bianca Del Rio. But someone has to follow her, and that someone is…

Did Ru just say Katya’s name? Oh God Katya is walking out YOU GUYS IT’S HAPPENING I’M PEEING THERE’S PEE EVERYWHERE SHE’S GONNA-

…ask for water.

After that false alarm, Violet’s crowning doesn’t even seem like a climax. It’s like giving someone an iPad box full of chocolate. Like, sure, this chocolate is delicious, but I thought I was getting what I really wanted. Anyway, congrats, Miss Chachki. You’ve got style, you’ve got grace, you give good face, you’ve got a small waist. Guess it wasn’t time for a plus-sized winner after all.

Chris Kelly

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Department of Labor to Honor Gay Rights Pioneer Frank Kameny: VIDEO

Jim Redmond

www.towleroad.com/2015/06/department-of-labor-to-honor-gay-rights-pioneer-frank-kameny-video.html