A School Board’s Defense Of Its Anti-LGBT Bathroom Rules Could Backfire Hilariously
Lawyers try to defend discrimination. Could wind up making civil rights law even stronger. Sad!
The post A School Board’s Defense Of Its Anti-LGBT Bathroom Rules Could Backfire Hilariously appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Rockwall Mayor’s Proposed Anti-Trans Ordinance Unanimously Defeated
A Texas Mayor’s attempt to push an anti-transgender ordinance drew a sizeable crowd Monday — making clear their resounding opposition to his efforts. Rockwall Republican Mayor Jim Pruitt proposed an ordinance that would have mandated transgender people use bathrooms that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate, rather than those consistent with their gender identity, and violators could have been fined up to $500.
The night clearly didn’t go quite as Mayor Pruitt had planned, as not a single Rockwall City Council member seconded his proposal and it was stopped in its tracks.
“It was a great crowd,” said Lou Weaver, an HRC board member and Transgender Programs Coordinator at Equality Texas. “There were business owners, health care providers, parents of trans youth and non-LGBT allies advocating for equality and a welcoming town. Not one of the Council Members agreed with the mayor. It was a good night indeed.”
The New Civil Rights Movement reported that about 100 activists protested outside, then moved inside to the meeting and contributed to approximately four hours of citizen testimony. The ordinance’s defeat was followed by cheers and applause from the crowd.
“Quite a night here. After nearly four hours of public debate, the proposed bathroom ordinance failed in a way that I don’t think anybody expected it would fail,” Fox4’s Richard Ray said. “The mayor here, Jim Pruitt, made his motion but no one on the city council would second that motion, so it fails. And the crowd went wild.”
According to Fox4, several people spoke out expressing the ordinance would be bad for business as well as damaging to the state’s tourism, despite Mayor Pruitt’s claims that he didn’t foresee economic backlash.
This denied proposal comes on the heels of a national debate surrounding the wave of anti-LGBT bills introduced across the country. As states continue to pass these types of discriminatory legislation, they are met with adverse and critical reactions. In North Carolina alone, nearly 200 major business leaders and CEOs have spoken out against the state’s hateful H.B. 2 and urged for its repeal, while 75 have demanded the repeal of Mississippi’s H.B. 1523.
HRC reported this year that more than one-third of Americans now say they personally know or work with someone who is transgender and that this historic level of visibility is accompanied by increasing acceptance of transgender people.
One thing is certain, fair-minded citizens nationwide are taking a stand for equality and speaking out against these heinous and harmful pieces of legislation.
2016 Bisexual Book Awards announced
Bi Writers Association
The Fourth Annual Bisexual Book Awards, a multi-arts celebration of bisexual writing, will be held on Friday, June 3 at the Westbeth Community Room in New York City, it was announced today. The awards are presented by the Bi Writers Association (BWA), an organization that promotes bisexual books, writers, writing and bi-themed arts and culture in America so as to dispel myths and stereotypes about bisexuality and promote bi visibility.
The 73 books that were submitted to the awards fall under the genres of Non-Fiction, Memoir/Biography, Fiction, Romance, Erotic Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Teen/YA Fiction, Mystery, and Poetry, and either have a bisexual or bi+ character, bisexual storyline, bisexual subject matter or bisexual themes.
“We are thrilled the Bisexual Book Awards continues to thrive,” said Sheela Lambert, Director of the Bi Writers Association and host of the awards. “Our mission is to encourage writing and publishing of bisexual books by giving them a platform to shine and rewarding them for excellence.”
The event will feature the following finalist authors of every honored genre reading their works:
The winners of the nine book categories will be announced at the Bisexual Book Awards Ceremony, following a presentation of bisexual comic book art and live music by local bisexual musicians, Michael David Gordon and “Honeybird” Monique Mizrahi.
More venue and schedule details can be found on the event’s pages on Facebook or Meetup, where you can also RSVP. Tickets are $15 in advance or at the door.
Fourth Annual #BisexualBookAwards announces finalists! t.co/wVANz8FYP7 #BiVisibility #BisexualBooks #bisexual #bi #books #BookAwards
— Bisexual Book Awards (@BiBookAwards) March 25, 2016
For more information on the bi+ community, visit glaad.org/bisexual, and check out GLAAD’s resource guide to covering bi-related topics in the media:
Boston Raises Transgender Pride Flag
Boston’s mayor raised the flag in a show of support for the trans community in Massachusetts.
www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/5/03/boston-raises-transgender-pride-flag
20160427lavender4367
WFU News Center posted a photo:
Wake Forest students, faculty, and family members come together in the ZSR Auditorium to celebrate LGBTQ identified seniors as well as student allies at the Lavender Graduation on Friday, April 27 2016.
“Gigolos” Reality Star Insures His Biggest Work Asset For $1 Million
Gigolos star Nick Hawk just insured his penis for $1 million because, hey, you can never be too careful with your moneymaker, amirite?
Cosmopolitan caught up with the ripped reality star and asked him the questions that would be on our minds if we interviewed him: namely why, how, and…what about theft?
Why did you need to insure your penis, especially for $1 million?
Fifty Shades screwed me. Most people are inexperienced [in bondage] and just getting into it, so they’re a little too rough. Everybody wants to beat each other up now, and not everybody knows how to do it effectively. It also doesn’t help that I took on this “bad boy” image, so I decided to get the insurance. We called Lloyds of London first because they were the most well-known one for insuring celebrities’ body parts, but they were not interested.Why do you think they weren’t interested?
Business ethics, morals, values, I don’t know. Who knows? They’re probably haters. We found another insurance company though, Geldin insurance. They were cool with it but they weren’t sure what to think of it at first. We actually did an episode ofGigolos around getting the insurance too. It was good TV.How expensive was it?
It wasn’t that bad, because it’s very unlikely that something crazy is going to happen to my penis, but it is a possibility for sure. I’m this big sex symbol now with the sex toy line and the TV show. If anything happened to my penis, that would take a big stab at my career for sure.
And of course we wouldn’t want anything to happen to his penis, now would we? The conversation took a kinky turn when Hawk got into the, um…mechanics and necessity of penis insurance:
What does the insurance cover?
Everything is covered, including theft.Theft??!
Yeah. “Anything that contributes to the direct dysfunction” I believe is how it’s worded. So it could be some kind of an injury from, you know, anything. My main concern is women getting wild with me because they think that I’m the person that they can get wild with. I’m always worried when sex gets going hard and fast that, you know, my penis will flip out and bend back. I’ve heard some horror stories about them breaking.When did it finally occur to you that you really needed to insure your penis?
This last year, but it’s been in the back of my mind for a while ever since I started doing the gigolo thing. I like doing rough stuff with hair-pulling and scratching and all that, but it also can be done too hard and inexperienced people seem to tend to be a little more abusive and go a little too hard.
Seems like this guy is really putting the work into sex work. We wish him the best of luck, and…be careful with that thing!
Trump Supporter Assaulted Artist Who Created Probably Realistic Nude Portrait Of Donald
Well, we probably should’ve seen this one coming: the artist who created an illustration of a nude Donald Trump, including a very minuscule penis, says that she’s been assaulted by a Trump supporter.
“Today I was punched in the face by a man who got out of his car and yelled, ‘Trump 2016!’ in Los Angeles, just days after I returned home from London just down the road from my house,” she wrote on Instagram, along with a picture of her bruised eye. “To live in a place where Facebook has given my address to an anonymous third party makes me feel like I am homeless again.”
That’s a little hard to follow — Facebook gave her address to someone? What? But okay, maybe that makes sense, maybe her address was available somewhere on her profile, somehow.
“No, they have not been caught, and the men drove off laughing. A detailed police report has been filed,” she concluded.
So a man (or men) found her address on Facebook, decided that they support Donald Trump so strongly that he or they need to find her, punch her, yell a slogan and then laugh as they drive away.
It’s absolutely unbelievable that such a thing could happen.
When last we checked in with Illma Gore, she was about to sell her illustration of Trump for around $140,000. Barraged by what she described as messages about rape and death, she took the image to England to sell it at a gallery there.
Gore also said that someone from Trump’s legal team threatened to sue her if she sold the painting. That would be a hard lawsuit to win, since Trump is clearly a public figure and her illustration is clearly protected speech. It’s weird that a Trump lawyer would even attempt to fan the flames of the story by contacting her at all.
But hey, stranger things have happened. In fact, stranger things may be unfolding right at this very moment.
Photo: Instagram
Jacked Cirque du Soleil ‘Super Dad’ Goes Viral: VIDEO, PHOTOS
A video of a totally ripped dad working out with his young son has gone viral, racking up over 1 million views in just two days.
Posted on Facebook, the video shows Cirque du Soleil performer Wayne Skivington complete impressive feats of strength, all while his son tags along for a piggy back ride.
The combination of Skivington’s hard body, his undeniable skills, and his sweet relationship with his son make the video too perfect to pass up.
Watch, below.
And in case your thirst isn’t quenched, check out more photos of Skivington and his cute son, below.
The post Jacked Cirque du Soleil ‘Super Dad’ Goes Viral: VIDEO, PHOTOS appeared first on Towleroad.
Student Claims She Was Sexually Assaulted By Man Who Said She Was ‘Too Cute To Be A Lesbian’
A college student’s brother wrote an open letter to Kenyon College about its handling of his sister’s sexual assault case.
The post Student Claims She Was Sexually Assaulted By Man Who Said She Was ‘Too Cute To Be A Lesbian’ appeared first on ThinkProgress.
thinkprogress.org/education/2016/05/03/3774535/lgbt-sexual-assault-survivors/
#GiveElsaAGirlfriend Sparks Conversation Around the Globe on Twitter
Over the past few days, the twitterverse has been lighting up with the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend, urging Disney to give Elsa, the protagonist of the hit film Frozen, a girlfriend in the movie’s sequel.
There have been thousands of tweets on the subject worldwide. Tweets from the U.S., Australia, South America, South Africa and Europe have all urged Disney to make Elsa the first LGBT Disney princess.
According to The Washington Post, 17-year-old Alexis Isabel Moncada started the conversation when she first tweeted her musings about a same-sex relationship in Frozen on Sunday. Moncada identifies as bisexual.
“There are more than just one kind of person,” Moncada told NBC 12. “To see the same story over and over about a girl and her prince charming, it’s repetitive, and it leaves so many people out and makes so many people feel alone.”
The deck is stacked against young people growing up LGBTQ in America. HRC’s report, Growing Up LGBT in America, found that nine in 10 LGBTQ youth (92 percent) say they hear negative messages about being LGBTQ. Forty-two percent of respondents reported hearing those messages on movies, TV and radio. Three-quarters (78 percent) of LGBTQ youth say they hear positive messages about being LGBTQ. Fifty-nine percent of respondents reported hearing those messages on movies, TV and radio.
Coming out stories in the media send a strong message of inclusion and acceptance and the importance of embracing your true and authentic self. For LGBTQ youth who struggle to find acceptance, openly LGBTQ characters in movies and TV shows can become role models, providing inspiration and support to those who truly need it.
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