This game perfectly captures how coming out can change a life forever

Everyone who came out to their family and friends will remember how it went; from awesome to awful, the experiences vary greatly, but for quite a few people, it will have been awkward and maybe a bit confusing.

For interactive artist Nicky Case, like for so many others, his coming out was the night that changed his life forever.

Born to ‘hyper-conservative Asian parents’, Case has turned his experiences into a simulator game – or rather, an interactive drawing, as it’s text-based.

Created as part, and winner of, of the 2014 #Nar8 Game Jam the ‘half-true game about half-truths’ the game is very personal and gives an insight into the awkwardness that coming out can be.

It starts with Case greeting the player, seemingly sat in Starbucks.

‘Tell me, dear player, how do you think this all ends?’ he asks, presenting a choice of answers: A – with flowers and rainbows and gay unicorns? B – Apparently, with you redditing at Starbuck or C – IT ALL ENDS IN BLOOD.

Depending on what users choose, there will be a little hint on whether they’re right, before Case explains how the game includes the things genuinely said by himself, his parents and his ex-boyfriend – as well as some of the things they didn’t say, but should have.

From then on, it’s straight into the deep end and users encounter Case and his then-boyfriend, Jack, secretly texting and discussing whether Case should come out to his parents, before the latter goes to dinner with his family and the story unravels.

We don’t want to take too much away, but a word of warning: every character will remember what the user said – or what they left out.

To play the game, simply follow this link – it works on desktop computers as well as mobile devices.

The post This game perfectly captures how coming out can change a life forever appeared first on Gay Star News.

Stefanie Gerdes

www.gaystarnews.com/article/this-game-perfectly-captures-how-coming-out-can-change-a-life-forever/

Pentatonix and Chvrches Cover Justin Bieber Hits ‘Where are Ü Now’ and ‘What Do You Mean’

Two of Justin Bieber’s recent Skrillex and Diplo-produced hits were given cover treatments this week.

MORE NEW MUSIC: The OXD Mirror: The Black Madonna Does Nick Höppner, Double-Dose Tuff City Kids and more

A cappella group Pentatonix put their satiny finish on “Where Are Ü Now”. The video clip features group members Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstie Maldonado, Avi Kaplan and Kevin Olusola coming together physically and vocally in a subterranean tunnel.

Watch:

And Scottish electronic band Chvrches appeared in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge to throw down a cover version of “What Do You Mean?”

ALSO THIS WEEK – NEW MUSIC: Max Richter, Glen Hansard, Hurts, New Order

Chvrches Martin Doherty said of the track: “We just want to have a bit of fun with it. I’m a huge fan of that tune, and [Bieber’s] recent output with Jack U as well. It’s really, really good.”

Listen:

The post Pentatonix and Chvrches Cover Justin Bieber Hits ‘Where are Ü Now’ and ‘What Do You Mean’ appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Pentatonix and Chvrches Cover Justin Bieber Hits ‘Where are Ü Now’ and ‘What Do You Mean’

More Hotel Room Portraits from Richard Renaldi

Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/artist-spotlight/2012/12/06/richard-renaldi-hotel-room-portraits

LGB People Expect To Wind Up In A Nursing Home More Than Non-LGB People

Each week HuffPost Gay Voices, in a partnership with blogger Scout, LGBT HealthLink and researcher Susana Fajardo, brings you a round up of some of the biggest LGBT wellness stories from the past seven days. For more LGBT Wellness visit our page dedicated to the topic here. 

Tons of Health Resources for #BiWeek

We hope you’ve been enjoying all of the #BiWeek resources as much as we have. A few to specifically note are: Bisexual Reality Check For Everyone, Why Saying “Bisexual” Is More Important Than Ever, Celebrating Bisexuals and Biphobia Is Hurting The Health Of Bisexual People.

LGBT People Use Dissolvable Tobacco More

A new study looking at the use of dissolvable tobacco products found that LGBT people were 66% more likely to use them than straight people and that LGBT smokers were 70% more likely than LGBT non-smokers to use them. Wait, tobacco dissolves too? Ugh.

Bad Health Linked to Minority Stress

New research on the impact of minority stress (stress faced by stigmatized groups) and health found that LGB (no T) people who had a traumatic event leading to minority stress were much more likely to suffer bad health shortly afterwards. Fingers crossed that we can fix this.

LGB People Expect Nursing Homes More, Less Family Help

A new study of middle-aged adults found that LGB (no T) people were 49% more likely to think they would need long-term care than straight people, but 29% less likely to think their families would help them. It looks like we’re not expecting our golden years to be very golden. 

Hate Crimes, Assault Common for LGB

New research on hate crimes found that LGB (no T) people had experienced an average of 5 hate crimes in their lifetime. 54% had been physically assaulted and 30% had been sexually assaulted. Here’s to hoping this changes soon.

LGB People Use ALL Tobacco Products More

Bad news on the tobacco front. Researchers recently found that LGB (no T) people used all tobacco products more than straight people, except for cigars. Even scarier: bi women have the highest tobacco use of all. This wasn’t the way we wanted to celebrate #BiWeek.

— 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.

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USDA rejects farmer’s application because he lives in ‘offensive’ Gay, Georgia

A farmer from US state of Georgia was upset when he learned his hometown was on the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) list of banned words.

Gene King, a cattle farmer from the community of Gay, Georgia, applied for a special interstate transport license with the department – but it was rejected because the computer system detected a banned word in his address.

King only learned of this when he called the USDA to check on the application’s status.

‘She said it’s kicking it out saying that’s an offensive word and won’t accept your application,’ he told Fox5 Atlanta.

As the computer system would always reject new applications made from an address in Gay, the department emailed King, telling him to change it to Bay and add a note – in all caps – that his hometown was in fact called Gay, so they could work around it.

But the farmer told the government worker on the phone with him he wouldn’t have it.

‘I want to submit it as Gay, Georgia, because that’s where I live,’ he said.

The government worker then proceeded to ask him whether he wanted a number or not. King did and changed his hometown’s name on the form – afterwards, the USDA could manually correct it to Gay.

‘I said ma’am. This is ridiculous,’ he told Fox5.

‘My name is Gene King. I live here in Gay, Ga. That’s G-A-Y, not B-A-Y.’

The USDA holds a database of words with bad connotations, the department said in a statement; it was created as part of the now replaced National Animal Identification System because ‘IT developers were concerned about the possibility of people attempting to create “bad” premises IDs’ as proof there was a problem with the program.

The post USDA rejects farmer’s application because he lives in ‘offensive’ Gay, Georgia appeared first on Gay Star News.

Stefanie Gerdes

www.gaystarnews.com/article/usda-rejects-farmers-application-because-he-lives-in-offensive-gay-georgia/

Ellen’s Gardener Is Blinding Us With His Biceps; Cristiano Ronaldo Is All Oiled Up

This week, James Corden discovered true love with Keith from BuzzFeed, John Stamos came thisss close to being the bisexual hooker of our dreams and Tom Hiddleston is happy to get naked for the right reason. Here’s what happened on Instagram:

What’s as hot as George Burgess? Possibly his two brothers.

Three white pommies trying to get aussie tans in our #budgiesmugglers , the Aussie towels might help us! @budgysmuggler @thomasburgess @lukeburgess87 loving the sun up in Queensland! ??

A photo posted by George Burgess (@george.burgess) on Sep 21, 2015 at 6:19pm PDT

Ian Somerhalder has a pussy cat on his lap.

#tbt Season two of The Vampire Diaries- just after starting #ISF aka The Ian Somerhalder Foundation. Exhausted after a long winter day and napping with my kid. What would life be like without our adopted babies..? Millions of shelter pets lose their lives each year without finding forever families. Share your pro-pet adoption message, story or photo with me using #LightForPets to help them find loving, safe forever homes! Please, let’s make shelter, stray and abused dogs and cats part of our families. Adopt this week? This month? This year? Do it. Please. Share your stories-thank you go to: www.remembermethursday.org/ A photo posted by iansomerhalder (@iansomerhalder) on Sep 24, 2015 at 8:18pm PDT

All those hours spent toiling as Ellen’s gardener sure has inflated Billy Reilich‘s biceps.

Quick stop on my way to Vegas. @mr.olympiallc Can’t wait to see all my big friends! And hopefully meet some new ones!

A photo posted by Billy Reilich (@billreilich) on Sep 18, 2015 at 8:58am PDT

The truth is, Adam Lambert‘s always loved you.

Don’t Cry For Me Argentina A photo posted by ADAMLAMBERT (@adamlambert) on Sep 24, 2015 at 12:52pm PDT

We’ll bet Colombia loves you, too, Eliad Cohen.

Colombia, te amo ????

A video posted by Eliad Cohen (@eliad_cohen) on Sep 24, 2015 at 11:23am PDT

Let’s play peekaboo, Cristiano Ronaldo.

A photo posted by Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) on Sep 24, 2015 at 11:23am PDT

Russell Tovey is wigging out over his best friend Rocky.

Current situation #wig #rocky #devon

A photo posted by Russelltovey (@russelltovey) on Sep 25, 2015 at 10:47am PDT

Sam Smith woke up screaming over his hit 007 theme.

A photo posted by Sam Smith (@samsmithworld) on Sep 25, 2015 at 6:30am PDT

Jussie Smollett got to meet his idol.

When you’re about to take a picture with your idol and he whispers to you “Anyone ever tell you ya ugly?”. ??? I’ve never been happier to meet someone as I was to meet the great Mr. #HarryBelafonte. I’m here because of you. #MyHero ?????? #Sankofa

A photo posted by Jussie Smollett (@jussiesmollett) on Sep 16, 2015 at 5:58pm PDT

Zac Efron was just clowning around.

A photo posted by Zac Efron (@zacefron) on Sep 23, 2015 at 3:53pm PDT

The Rock threw back to when he had a full head of curls.

My nightmare aka my very first TV “appearance” when I was 11yrs old. At a WWE TV taping in Allentown, PA. Since my dad was always on the road wrestling, any father/son time we got in was great, so I was super pumped to travel with him. It was backstage that I’d meet a man who years later we’d enjoy tremendous success together and he’d become one of my strongest mentors in business – Vince McMahon. I’ll never forget he shook my hand, looked down at me and said “We gotta get you on camera tonight young man!”. I thought, “WHOA I’m gonna be on TV… can’t wait to tell my friends… AWESOME!”. So I’m sitting there in the crowd, the camera man comes over and tells me he’s getting ready to shoot so be ready.. It was in that defining moment that I just realized something awful… I was just getting over a bad case of Chicken Pox (you can clearly see a few “post pox” on my face) and I thought “Holy sh*t this is terrible! The world will see me for the first time and I look like someone set fire to my face and stomped it out with cleats”. Looking back at this gem of a picture, there’s two things I’ve learned: Things are never as bad as they seem (especially at 11yrs old) and instead of worrying about my Chicken Pox I should’ve been concerned with the world questioning whether I was a boy or a girl. Which, for the record happened all the time to me when I was a kid. #PrePubertyWasABitch #StopWorryingSweatheart #GetYourLittleAssInTheGym #TBT

A photo posted by therock (@therock) on Sep 24, 2015 at 8:52am PDT

Max Joseph took in the London skyline.

London gets me every time. Love this place. ?? Thanks @me_londonhotel for the lovely stay and the bloody good view. Hope to be back soon on another secret mission. A photo posted by Max Joseph (@maxjoseph) on Sep 25, 2015 at 12:37am PDT

Steve Grand enjoyed a bit of the old In-n-Out.

@innout #blessed

A photo posted by Steve Grand (@stevegrandmusic) on Sep 23, 2015 at 12:50pm PDT

Michael B. Jordan is a fighter and a lover.

My Toughest Opponent #creed Photo cred: @eli_joshua A photo posted by michaelbjordan (@michaelbjordan) on Sep 20, 2015 at 1:42pm PDT

We’ll keep it down if you will, Sachin Bhatt.

Singing Voice Over sesh for something coming up! Shhhh can’t say yet. ? EMMYS!!! #indian #singer #session #tv #emmys?? ??? ????: @timothyjoelwright

A photo posted by s a c h i n b h a t t (@sachinbhatt) on Sep 14, 2015 at 1:56pm PDT

Andy DeVine has had it up to here.

Bury me alive! Nothing will stop my text game! #workaholics A photo posted by Adam Devine (@andybovine) on Sep 25, 2015 at 9:49am PDT

Nev Schulman is hare-ier than ever.

bday weekend is finally hare! ?: @el_peego

A photo posted by Nev Schulman (@nevschulman) on Sep 25, 2015 at 6:20am PDT

We bet Chris Hardwick and Jimmy Fallon will have some really funny babies.

I hope you don’t mind @lydiahearst but I also got engaged to Jimmy Fallon because Micky Dolenz, Phantogram & Big Boi all pressured me into it. We’re all on The Tonight Show tonight w/ Joseph Gordon Levitt. #IsThisRealLife A photo posted by Chris Hardwick (@nerdist) on Sep 24, 2015 at 4:03pm PDT

Finally, there’s proof that Andrew Rannells and Jonathan Groff are two different people.

A photo posted by Jonathan Groff Updates (@jonathandrewgroff) on Sep 25, 2015 at 2:48pm PDT

Actor-author Darryl Stephens is beautiful inside and out.

Article on #REQUIREDREADING in the latest issue of OBVIOUS MAG. Interview by @jerrismogul and photos by @dexterbrownfoto

A photo posted by Darryl Stephens (@darrylstephens) on Sep 25, 2015 at 3:22pm PDT

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/a989Ue47TFo/ellens-gardener-is-blinding-us-with-his-biceps-cristiano-ronaldo-is-all-oiled-up-20150926

Stephen Colbert Introduces Line of All-Inclusive Wedding Cake Toppers: WATCH

On last night’s The Late Show, Stephen Colbert returned to Colbert Report territory with a hilarious segment on some of the ridiculous stuff being spouted about same-sex marriage these days, and offered up a marketing solution for how to deal with some of the nutty theories being thrown around.

Says Colbert:

“I was miffed when Kentucky County clerk and forehead magnate Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples but I also felt bad for her when that judge sent her to jail and even worse when she was sentenced to spend an afternoon with Mike Huckabee.”

He quickly moves on to Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who said in July that the Supreme Court ruling means that “You can marry my lawnmower.”

So, (perhaps as a component of his new lifestyle brand?) Colbert has decided to introduce a line of all-inclusive wedding cake toppers which include the classic “three women, two men where one man is married to two of the women and the other man is married to the other woman but his wife is also married to one of the other two wives,” as well as “15 babies in top hats,” and all other eventualities including Steve King and his lawnmower.

Watch:

The post Stephen Colbert Introduces Line of All-Inclusive Wedding Cake Toppers: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Stephen Colbert Introduces Line of All-Inclusive Wedding Cake Toppers: WATCH

Hundreds Turned Away From Only Session On Gays At Catholic Meeting

PHILADELPHIA (RNS) Homosexuality was such a combustible topic at the World Meeting of Families, a four-day Catholic gathering under way here, that it was doused twice.

First, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput earlier this month barred LGBT Catholics from holding a workshop at a Catholic parish near the event. It moved to a local United Methodist Church instead and is operating simultaneously, but with vastly smaller numbers than the 17,000 people on hand for the main event at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Then, just as the single session on homosexuality at this Vatican-approved meeting of Catholic families was to begin on Thursday afternoon (Sept. 24), a conference official took the stage in the main hall, capable of seating at least 10,000, and announced the location had been moved.

Thousands of people got up and made their way up one floor to another room capable of seating only about 1,000. Hundreds of others were turned away, the doors shut on them by convention center officials citing fire code regulations.

Inside the session, it was standing room only, with some people sitting on the floors and in the aisles. All were silent as Ron Belgau, the sole openly gay man allowed to make a presentation here, took the microphone and, with his mother Beverley, described how he follows a “traditional Christian sexual ethic” that says homosexual activity is sinful.

“Some people have described me as the official face of gay celibate Catholics,” Belgau, 40, said from a small podium at the front of the room. “But the last thing I want after this session is people looking at me. Every parish has gay kids, every family has a member suffering with same-sex attraction. I hope that when you return to your parishes you will be able to accompany them in whatever struggles they face and speak up” against the stigma of same-sex attraction.

At that, the crowd broke into applause — something they did multiple times throughout the session. They seemed especially absorbed when Belgau’s mother, Beverley, took the podium and described her son’s coming out at age 21 as “the worst day of my life.”

“You may think the fact that he is celibate makes my life easier, and in some way it does,” she said. “But to be attracted to the same sex and publicly celibate in a sexually free society is no easy road to walk.”

World Meeting of Families organizers were not immediately available to answers questions about the last-minute move to another room.

But for members of Equally Blessed, a coalition of several groups supportive of LGBT Catholics who are not celibate, the move was an echo of the earlier rebuffs.

“We are just trying to understand and give them the benefit of the doubt,” said Ryan Hoffmann, director of communications for Call to Action, one of the groups in Equally Blessed.

Hoffmann was there with several members of Equally Blessed. He characterized Ron Belgau’s appearance as “generous,” “sincere” and “courageous.”

But he added: “The frustration is that he didn’t speak to the many expressions of love LGBT Catholics and their families experience every day.”

Still, he said, the fact that so many were turned away is a positive sign.

“This just speaks to the fact that people want to talk about LGBT Catholics and their relationship with the Catholic Church,” Hoffmann said.

 

Also on HuffPost:

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Reed Morano will direct Ellen Page in lesbian military drama Lioness

American cinematographer turned director Reed Morano has been named as the director of the upcoming Ellen Page movie Lioness.

Lioness will tell the true story of US Marines Lance Corporal Leslie Martz and her deployment to Iraq, and Afghanistan where she gathered intelligence about Taliban rebels by befriending their wives.

Martz was appointed to lead a Female Engagement Team during her Afghan deployment which aimed to foster women’s rights in the country and build bridges between US military personnel and Afghanistan’s women and girls.

However Martz was in the closet to her bosses to avoid being fired under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and began to find herself torn between her desire to impress her superiors while remaining loyal to the Afghan woman and children she had come to see as friends.

Morano has not directed a major LGBTI themed film before. However she has worked on a number of similarly themed films in recent years as cinematographer including 2013’s Kill Your Darlings, starring Daniel Radcliffe as beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and 2014’s The Skeleton Twins, starring Bill Hader as the gay half of a brother and sister pair of twins.

Page, who is openly lesbian, also portrayed a woman in a same-sex relationship in this year’s film Freeheld which tells the true story of New Jersey police detective Laurel Hester (played by Julianne More) and her battle to have her pension benefits transferred to her domestic partner after she is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Lioness will begin filming in early 2016.

The post Reed Morano will direct Ellen Page in lesbian military drama Lioness appeared first on Gay Star News.

Andrew Potts

www.gaystarnews.com/article/reed-morano-will-direct-ellen-page-in-lesbian-military-drama-lioness/

PHOTOS: James Pianka Fills Out His Briefs In All The Right Ways

James Pianka models six pairs of casual underwear in our exclusive photoshoot below, each with simple and effective designs that stun without ever trying too hard. These underwear styles are more modern than the common boxer brief, and will always provide a more flattering fit, thanks to their silhouettes.

Photo Credit: Jerrad Matthew Exclusively for The Underwear Expert

Underwear Expert

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