Daily Archives: June 19, 2015
Schuyler Bailar Was Recruited To Swim At Harvard As A Female, But Will Compete On The Men's Team
Schuyler Bailar Was Recruited To Swim At Harvard As A Female, But Will Compete On The Men's Team
Schuyler Bailar, an incoming Harvard freshman who was initially recruited by their women’s swimming team, will compete for their men’s team this fall, and become the first openly transgender collegiate swimmer.
He first announced his decision to transition in an Instagram post last September, writing at the time, “I’ve just started my transition #ftm [female to male]. I’m 18 and it’s been quite the ride but I decided I’d try to grab some support from the insta community.”
Bailar began his transition in 2014 after graduating from high school — a place where he had tremendous success in the pool as a female swimmer, but couldn’t be himself. Swimming World Magazine profiled Bailar in an article published on Wednesday, writing:
Giving in to peer pressure to conform, Bailar adhered to the code of “typical” girl behavior. But in his head, Bailar knew it just wasn’t who he was.
Since the September Instagram post, Bailar has continued to actively share his progress on social media, which has been met with strong support from the “insta community” he alluded to. Bailar shared personal before-and-after photos of his top surgery, which removed his breasts, and also of bottles of testosterone.
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on May 17, 2015 at 5:36am PDT
Testosterone here we come! #tshot #tday #transindustry
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on Jun 3, 2015 at 8:14am PDT
He’s also proudly cropped side-by-side images of his former body compared to his current body, but not without some trepidation.
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on May 5, 2015 at 12:05pm PDT
On one such photo posted in April, he location-tagged “holy shiiit,” expressing his own shock at his updated image while also writing: “I’ve been very hesitant to share old photos with you guys because I guess I’m scared of showing my past and people saying that I should have just stayed that way because I was beautiful or whatever. Scared I could never measure up to the beauty of the girl I was as the boy I am now. So this is me being proud of who I, a sum of all my past and present selves, am today.”
In May, Bailar, more confident in himself than ever, made a more public announcement about his transition on his Facebook page:
I assure you I’m still the same goofy, nerdy, crazy Schuyler that you’ve known. I’m not changing who I am, I’m not changing my personality. I am only changing my body so it matches my insides and my feelings. And lastly, in terms of swimming: I will be swimming for Harvard men’s swim team in the fall instead of the women’s team. Harvard swimming as a whole has been incredible in this process, providing me with the amazing opportunity to be me and continue my transition.
Please refer to me with he/him/his pronouns. I understand this will take time to adjust — I don’t offend easily, as long as you are trying. If you would like to see more of my journey and transition, contact me and, like I said, I’m definitely willing to talk and explain.
Also, I have been working on coming out to people individually but it’s been an overwhelming and slow process. At this point, I am tired of hiding and worrying that people will find out. Hence this PSA. So please don’t feel lesser or left out if I haven’t told you before now. Like I said, I’m still Schuyler.
In Swimming World, Harvard swim coach Kevin Tyrrell spoke highly of Bailar’s ability as a swimmer, student and person.
“I want Schuyler on my team for the same reasons I want all of my athletes: I believe he wants to push himself academically and athletically,” Tyrrell said. “When all of our swimmers and divers have this mindset, everyone improves in every aspect of their lives. This process will contribute to them being outstanding members of society.”
This moment was pretty perfect ☀️ #doublepost
A photo posted by ᔕᑕᕼᑌYᒪEᖇ (skaɪ-lər) (@pinkmantaray) on Jun 8, 2015 at 1:21pm PDT
In the pool, Bailar described himself to Swimming World as “competitive as hell,” but he also has a message for other trans athletes: “Come out. Be visible. Don’t be miserable. The world is changing and you do have options.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
When Chris Pratt Calls For The Objectification Of Men, We Listen
When Chris Pratt Calls For The Objectification Of Men, We Listen
Jurassic World star Chris Pratt thinks both men and women should enjoy being treated like pieces of meat. Asked by Radio 4’s Front Row whether his freshly acquired abs and biceps have opened up new doors for him, the actor responded: “A huge part of how my career has shifted is based on the way that I look, on the way that I’ve shaped my body to look.”
Related: Chris Pratt Recalls His Bigger Days: “I Was Impotent, Fatigued, Emotionally Depressed”
But doesn’t he feel objectified? “Totally. I think it’s OK, I don’t feel appalled by it. I think it’s appalling that for a long time only women were objectified, but I think if we really want to advocate for equality, it’s important to even things out…. At the end of the day, our bodies are objects. For years people have been putting on masks, putting on costumes, and this is essentially a costume that I took a great deal of effort to put on.”
Fortunately, it doesn’t take quite as much effort for him to take his shirt off.
Derek de Koff
Anti-gay Pastor Rick Scarborough Is Ready to Literally Burn to Death to Fight ‘Ungodly’ Same-sex Marriage: LISTEN
Anti-gay Pastor Rick Scarborough Is Ready to Literally Burn to Death to Fight ‘Ungodly’ Same-sex Marriage: LISTEN
Texas pastor and Vision America founder Rick Scarborough is willing to literally burn to death to stop you from getting married.
According to Right Wing Watch, unhinged Scarborough told listeners he “will burn” if necessary to protect poor old persecuted anti-gay Christians:
“The preachers need to get out front, the leaders need to get out front, out front of these ordinary citizens and say, ‘Shoot me first.’”
“The end game [same-sex marriage] is the complete destruction of the church of the Lord Jesus, the replacement of it with this liberal theology that’s not a theology, it’s a philosophy, human-made, it goes back to the Garden of Eden when Satan wanted to be God. We now have a race of humans that don’t want to acknowledge that there’s a God.
“[SCOTUS is] after God. This country better be aware, we’ve suffered a lot of injustices, but I’m not sure God is going to tolerate this one very long.”
Last year, Scarborough said that the U.S. should be obliterated for appointing gay ambassadors.
The post Anti-gay Pastor Rick Scarborough Is Ready to Literally Burn to Death to Fight ‘Ungodly’ Same-sex Marriage: LISTEN appeared first on Towleroad.
Michael Fitzgerald
Indy Pride 2015
Michigan Lawmaker: Hold Pro-LGBT Schools Liable for Student STDs
Michigan Lawmaker: Hold Pro-LGBT Schools Liable for Student STDs
Antigay State Rep. Gary Glenn wants schools who tell students it is okay to be gay held financially and criminally liable if the student contracts an STD.
Bil Browning
www.advocate.com/lgbt-youth/2015/06/19/michigan-lawmaker-hold-pro-lgbt-schools-liable-student-stds
Chad And Jeff's Story From The Let Love Define Family Series
Chad And Jeff's Story From The Let Love Define Family Series
In this week’s Huffington Post Gay Voices RaiseAChild.US “Let Love Define Family™” series installment, contributing writer Eric Criswell celebrates Father’s Day by sharing this story.
We plan. We hope. We make choices that will lead our lives to fulfill the image of the future we have seen a thousand times in our mind’s eye. Yet life rarely turns out the way we expect it to, giving us greater gifts and fulfillment in ways we ourselves would never dare dream.
This is the story of Chad Argotsinger, a 38-year-old college administrator, and Jeff Shorey, a 44-year-old registered nurse, who met 6 years ago, fell in love and began their journey towards building a family. As they began to look at options with surrogacy, a clear picture began to form of the two parents with their new child living the American dream in their New England world.
Both had been in relationships before meeting each other and it just never seemed like they were with the “right” partner to begin a family. But quickly after Chad and Jeff began dating, they started to feel that each other were someone they could raise a child with.
The more they researched and examined the cost of surrogacy, the more they began to look at the foster care and adoption world. Chad’s mother had been a social worker and, growing up, he was aware of others in need, especially kids that needed a home and some hope. This led them to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. All of their social workers had been great to work with and they questioned whether there was a stigmatism in the system toward LGBT parents. Chad explained, “The social worker was very honest with us that there were some old-school foster families that have a hard time with it, but they don’t make the decisions and there are no issues within the DCF about gay couples.”
There was quick agreement that they wanted two children. “I’m one of four children and Jeff is one of two, and we both enjoyed growing up with our siblings,” according to Chad. “We started to plan for two children, and never really entertained the thought of having any more.”
The two took an adoption class, started the process to buy a bigger home and waited for their social worker to find the right match for their family. “We met kids that were wonderful and perfect but, for whatever reason, just didn’t work out,” Chad said. “Then we heard from a social worker about two brothers who had been separated and were living in different homes. Something about their story resonated with us and we both wanted to explore it further.” The brothers had lived a short time together but were put in separate homes when they entered the foster care system. It was heartbreaking to know they had started to grow up together, only to have to spend their childhood apart.
As they continued to learn more about the family, they discovered that not only were there two brothers but also a two-month-old baby sister. The social worker was looking for parents that would be willing to take all three children. Although Jeff and Chad weren’t initially looking to have three kids, the more they learned about the children the more they realized that without them, these siblings may not grow up together or ever even know about each other. Something in their story connected with Jeff and Chad. Their expectations of two children faded as they faced the reality of bringing brothers and sisters together under one roof.
Luckily, the couple had discussed wanting a boy and girl and this situation allowed them that. It all just fell into place for them as they closed on their new house, and within a month they met both of the boys and the brothers: Jonathan, three years old, and Ray, nineteen months, moved in. They had to wait a while until Brynn, 9 months old, became part of the family, and this was the first time that the brothers realized that they had a baby sister.
Daddy Chad and Daddy Jeff have settled into family life, and still deal with a society adapting to LGBT families. On a recent trip to register Ray for preschool, all the paperwork still reads “Mom” and “Dad,” so Chad simply scratched out “Mom” and put “Dad” and Jeff’s name. But, overall, they both feel that their community has been very accepting and that it will take time for things to fully change. Their main focus now is raising three kids.
Jonathan has an amazing vocabulary and is extremely polite. “The things that he says just blow us away — he knows about things that we never really talked about. Not sure where he picked it up, but he is so smart,” beamed Daddy Chad.
Ray wasn’t much of a talker at first, but as he has settled into his new family and new life he has become more vocal and energetic — definitely the hardest to put to bed! He has become the most vocal and is always saying, “I love you, Daddy!”
Both boys love to spend time on their bikes when they’re not watching monster trucks on TV.
Brynn is the dream baby: she rarely cries, always smiles and is so lovable to her brothers and the family dog as they snuggle together on the floor. She is already looking up to her brothers — she follows them around the house and wants to do whatever they are doing.
“The most surprising thing,” according to Chad, “is we had no idea who these kids were. Then we met them and we were a little scared if there would be a real connection, but there was never a moment of hesitation with these kids and they latched onto us and loved us back.”
Jeff summed it up best: “It has been such a wonderful experience, and even though we thought we could only handle two kids, neither of us can imagine our lives without all three of our kids. Life has given us a greater gift than we were asking for, and we’re so grateful.”
On Sunday, June 21, 2015, RaiseAChild.US and The Pop Luck Club celebrate Father’s Day with the 5th Annual Father’s Day Brunch at The Abbey in West Hollywood, CA. Information is available at www.RaiseAChild.US.
RaiseAChild.US is the nationwide leader in the recruitment and support of LGBT and all prospective parents interested in building families through fostering and adopting to meet the needs of the 400,000 children in the foster care system. RaiseAChild.US recruits, educates, and nurtures supportive relationships equally with all prospective foster and adoptive parents while partnering with agencies to improve the process of advancing foster children to safe, loving and permanent homes. For information about how you can become a foster or adoptive parent, please visit www.RaiseAChild.US.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Robin Williams Falls In Love With A Male Prostitute In His Final Film, Boulevard
Robin Williams Falls In Love With A Male Prostitute In His Final Film, Boulevard
Undoubtedly set for tear-jerker status, Robin Williams’ final dramatic performance sees him playing a closeted gay man trying to find his authentic self, falling in long with a male prostitute along the way.
The film was first shown to positive reviews at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York just weeks before the actor’s death, and will be released in cinemas July 17.
It stars Williams, Bob Odenkirk, Kathy Baker and Giles Matthey.
Watch the trailer below:
Dan Tracer
Looking for Love in a Straight-Girl World, ‘Significant Other’ Opens Off Broadway: REVIEW
Looking for Love in a Straight-Girl World, ‘Significant Other’ Opens Off Broadway: REVIEW
Any gay man who’s been to a bachelorette party knows that at certain times, it feels like a straight girls’ world that we’re just living in by special invite. Life feels that way all the time for Jordan, the main character in Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other, a funny and touching if narrow-minded new play that opened Off Broadway last night at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre. Jordan’s experience watching his best girlfriends get married one by one until he’s left alone and devastated should serve as a cautionary tale to young gay men everywhere: You are not a straight girl (surprise!). Find your tribe, get your life, and grow the eff up (if not necessarily in that order).
Jordan (an endearingly jittery Gideon Glick) is an extreme outsider searching for The One (see: the title’s double entendre). The play’s opening finds him and three girlfriends, including Kiki (a delightfully abrasive Sas Goldberg), the obvious bride-to-be, partying at a nightclub. Jordan and his two other pals, coolly unflappable Vanessa (Carra Patterson) and Laura (Lindsay Mendez), the warmest of the bunch and his closest companion, start out in the same boat. Can you believe our friend’s getting married?! But over the course of the play, as they each couple off and prepare to get hitched, Jordan finds himself drifting out to sea without a lifejacket.
Harmon (whose play Bad Jews also premiered at Roundabout) writes frank and disarming humor with a natural hand, and finds novel ways to express his characters’ neuroses (at one particularly Woody Allen-inspired moment, Jordan asks for the sticker on Kiki’s apple because, he explains “I need something that will, like, touch me and cling to me right now”). There’s also a freshness to Harmon’s depiction of universal experiences, like a longing glimpse at a crush or the awkwardness of a first date, that makes it possible to feel them in a new way.
Director Trip Cullman makes dynamic use of Mark Wendland’s brilliantly urban set (all rectangles and transparencies), and draws out excellent performances from the cast. In all their quirks and specifics, the friendships on stage feel very real, and the actors have a palpable chemistry. But, Harmon’s play begs some big questions that aren’t answered here, like: Where are Jordan’s gay friends? Why is he only attracted to straight-acting men? And why does the play’s only flamboyantly gay character essentially serve as a punch line?
Jordan’s need for love is modeled off the dreams of the women who make up his world (including his grandmother); he doesn’t feel his life will be complete until he meets Prince Charming, falls in love, marries, and has 2.5 kids. Clearly, these are perfectly conventional (and heteronormative) desires, but they are not, as we know, the only road to happiness. The dark pall cast over the play’s conclusion seems to suggest otherwise; but if the only way for homos to be happy is to follow the hetero path, then where does that leave us?
Recent theatre features…
Jim Parsons Opens in ‘An Act of God’ on Broadway: REVIEW
Anne Hathaway Stars in Military Drama ‘Grounded’ Off Broadway: REVIEW
‘Fun Home’ and ‘An American in Paris’ Top 2015 Tony Award Nominations: ANALYSIS
Chita Rivera Stars in New Musical ‘The Visit’ on Broadway: REVIEW
New Musical ‘Something Rotten!’ Brings Shakespeare and Sex Puns to Broadway: REVIEW
Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Novel Comes to Broadway in New Musical ‘Fun Home’: REVIEW
Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe Open In Lavish Broadway Revival of ‘The King and I’: REVIEW
Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar (photos: joan marcus)
The post Looking for Love in a Straight-Girl World, ‘Significant Other’ Opens Off Broadway: REVIEW appeared first on Towleroad.
Naveen Kumar
Looking for Love in a Straight-Girl World, ‘Significant Other’ Opens Off Broadway: REVIEW
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