Angel (Joe Adia)
joeygami posted a photo:
Folded from a 6×12 inch tissue foil, it comes from the same base as my King Ghidorah and Volcarona. I usually see designs of angels wearing skirts, but I wanted one with legs simply because they look better for my taste.
Beaches, boys and bars: San Diego delivers everything under the sun
Corsetted
justplainrachel posted a photo:
I got some before and after pictures done at my last burlesque performance, showing how I looked going on-stage and how I looked when I came off. But neither showed off the corset under the shirt. So here’s the corset I wore under my shirt, taken just before our group’s final performance in the Oxford Hotel in Sydney. Sorry it’s a bit grainy – the light in our ‘dressing room’ wasn’t very good.
Celebrating Intersex Awareness Day with HRC Foundation Youth Ambassador Jonathan Leggette
Post submitted by Sula Malina, Children, Youth & Families Program Coordinator
HRC sat down with Jonathan Leggette, an HRC Foundation Youth Ambassador from Olympia, Washington, to learn about his work raising awareness of intersex people ahead of our celebration of Intersex Awareness Day on Friday.
Leggette, who uses both he/him/his and they/them/theirs pronouns, is a passionate advocate for other LGBTQ, intersex youth of color. They work with interACT Youth to advocate for intersex youth and fight against medically unnecessary surgeries performed on babies and children. Leggette is studying marine biology and anthropology and also travels across the U.S. raising intersex awareness on college campuses and at conferences.
In August, Leggette shared his story in powerful in testimony supporting California resolution 110, saying that, at just six years old, “I had never had the chance to be told the truth, to be given the chance to decide for myself how my body feels to me. My body was owned by the surgeons before I had a chance to lay claim to it.”
Most recently, Leggette declared that the transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex communities wouldn’t be erased following the Trump-Pence administration’s latest efforts to redefine “sex” to intentionally exclude LGBTQ people and their families from federal non-discrimination protections.
TO MY INTERSEX, TRANS, GNC FAMILY. We will not be erased. We have always been here, our ancestors know this and will continue to watch over us as we will continue to exist. #WontBeErased
— Johnny Leggette �������� (@Johnny_boy24) October 22, 2018
As we celebrate Intersex Awareness Day, why is it important for you to be out and visible as an intersex person and advocate?
It is important for me to be out and visible to fight against what so many doctors tell us about our bodies. We need to have people we can relate to and foster a community together. By sharing my story and echoing many similar stories, we can fight for intersex human rights and end the surgeries performed on so many intersex children.
Tell us about your experience as an HRC Youth Ambassador.
When I learned of the ambassador program, I wanted to apply because I know the importance of representation. I wanted to be able to share my story, and I hope others — especially youth — can find aspects of it relatable and see that young people like us can grow and prosper. As an HRC Youth Ambassador, I have been able to reach audiences that I haven’t been able to before. Speaking on a panel at HRC Foundation’s Time to THRIVE conference allowed me to see firsthand how influential and educational my story was for so many attendees — especially for the youth-serving professionals there.
What’s your message to youth-serving professionals who want to support young intersex folks but might not know where to start?
Please do your research and visit websites like 4intersex and interACT. Connect the intersex youth you work with to intersex organizations such as interACT Youth and AIS-DSD Support Group. Another piece of advice is to listen to the full story — listen to intersex people and never make assumptions for us.
What’s your message to other young intersex folks in the LGBTQ community?
Don’t let anyone tell you that you are not normal. There are so many of us out there. Reach out to us because we would love to help you. You are human; you are whole. You are normal. Intersex is normal. Just know that so many intersex advocates — including myself and organizations like interACT — are out there and want to be there for you. We love you, and you are not alone.
To learn more about interACT and to access resources on the intersex community, visit interACT’s website. For more information about HRC Foundation’s Youth Ambassadors, click here.
Andrew Gillum, Mrs. Maisel, Whale Rescue, Omarosa, Frank Bruni, Bachelorette Parties, Rupert Everett: HOT LINKS
PAUL MART. Co-founder of Gay Games dies at 100: ‘Mr. Mart, a gay man, died of natural causes in his sleep Thursday, October 18, in his Palm Springs home at the age of 100. Mr. Mart was a Hollywood stuntman, rode in rodeos, and was an undercover agent during World War II. During his involvement with the Gay Games, he would pepper his conversations with fellow volunteers with war and travel stories. Gay and lesbian sports leaders reacted with sadness at Mr. Mart’s passing.’
FLORIDA. Andrew Gillum blasts racist Ron DeSantis in gubernatorial debate: : “As my grandmother used to say — a hit dog will holler.”
NATALIE PORTMAN. Channeling Lady Gaga?
OMAROSA. Trump lying about not using iPhone.
Clearly #45 memory is fading fast… He ALWAYS used his personal iPhone in WH for calls even after being told over and over again about the security risk. He disliked his secure gov issued cell- he said it was slow and “buggy” pic.twitter.com/k3ZruFWGzS
— OMAROSA (@OMAROSA) October 25, 2018
KHASHOGGI. Saudis admit killing of journalist was premeditated: ‘The latest change is likely to cast further doubt on the kingdom’s explanation of what happened to Mr. Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia’s narrative has already been met with widespread skepticism, not least by President Trump, who called it “one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.”’
MIGRANT CARAVAN. Homeland Security puts in official call for Troops at border.
SWEETENER. Ariana Grande announces worldtour.
FRANK BRUNI. Donald Trump’s gay amnesia: “As your president,” Trump thundered, “I will do everything in my power to protect our L.G.B.T.Q. citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” He enunciated that consonant cluster with extra crispness, as if especially proud of himself. You can listen here. The audience applauded, prompting him to add: “I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said.”
NYC. Police seek man who used gay slurs, threw liquid on man in Chelsea: ‘The homophobe approached a 19-year-old man in an Eighth Avenue Duane Reade near W. 17th Street on July 18 at 7:15 p.m. and called him a “faggot,” a police spokesman said. When the victim fled the store the man followed him and continued to yell gay slurs at the teen. The rattled victim turned and peppered sprayed the man, who splashed the teenager’s face with an unknown before running east on W. 17th Street, authorities said.’
DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR. Judge rejects conservative request to halt the Houston event: ‘Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal put it simply in her four sentence order, issued just days after the lawsuit — blasting gay marriage and transgender public events— was filed against Mayor Sylvester Turner and Rhea Lawson, the head of the city’s library system. The judge explained the four litigants applied for injunction to halt the story hour on the grounds that it violated the freedom or religion clause in the Constitution and said, “There is no basis to support the requested relief. The application is denied.”’
TO BACHELORETTE PARTIES WHO CHOOSE GAY BARS. An open letter: ‘Put down your vodka crans, take off those penis hats and listen up. I have a simple request for you: “Can you please leave?”’
JARED POLIS. Will he be the first openly gay person elected governor in the U.S.? “The Colorado Democrat is consistently 7points ahead in the polls and has thus far spent more than $20 million of his own fortune to boost his campaign. The Republican nominee, State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, has spent just $13 million in total. And of course, Polis has plenty more to spend — he’s the third-richest member of Congress, according to Forbes, and his fortune clocks in at over $300 million.”
RUPERT EVERETT. On playing Oscar Wilde: “Oscar Wilde, for me is a kind of patron saint figure, almost actually a Christ of the gay liberation movement,” Everett said in an appearance on “Popcorn with Peter Travers.” “And since I’m a part of that, and it’s been a part of my career and I’ve been a gay man negotiating a career in a largely heterosexual boys club, he’s been for me a kind of Christ figure. And I felt that’s what I could really put everything in myself into when I made a film, this kind of passion of Oscar Wilde really, which is what my film is.”
PHILADELPHIA. Gay immigrant freed after ICE arrest: ‘Jose “Ivan” Noe Nuñez Martinez, a gay Mexican man taken into custody in January as he met with federal immigration authorities in West Philadelphia to try to resolve his status, was poised to walk out of a detention center on Wednesday after winning the opportunity to post bail. The $10,000 bail was in the process of being paid, and Nuñez Martinez would probably be leaving the York center Wednesday night or Thursday morning, according to his lawyer, Audrey Allen.’
LIFE THREATENING RESCUE OF THE DAY. A man tries to cut ropes off a whale while his friend yells.
TRAILER OF THE DAY. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 2.
GHOSTLY APPARITION OF THE DEEP. “This rarely-seen Grimpoteuthis sp., commonly known as an umbrella octopus, was approximately 60cm (almost two feet) long!
THIRSTY THURSDAY. Albert Belmonte.
The post Andrew Gillum, Mrs. Maisel, Whale Rescue, Omarosa, Frank Bruni, Bachelorette Parties, Rupert Everett: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
AG Candidate Brad Schimel’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda is Wrong for Wisconsin
HRC is exposing the anti-LGBTQ record of Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel who is seeking a second term.
“As the Trump administration ramps up its attacks against the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people, Wisconsinites need an attorney general who will stand up to their discriminatory agenda, not rubber stamp every reckless policy proposal,” said HRC Wisconsin State Director Wendy Strout. “We deserve better than Brad Schimel. From urging the Supreme Court of the United States to grant a potentially sweeping license to discriminate against LGBTQ people, to opposing protections for LGBTQ youth facing discrimination and bullying in our school, to working to block millions of Wisconsities from accessing care through the Affordable Care Act, Schimel has never put his constituents first. That’s why HRC is on the ground working hard to elect candidates like Josh Kaul who will protect our community, our families and our health care, and ensure that Schimel’s first term as AG is his last.”
A former Assistant U.S. Attorney and current litigator specializing in voting rights, Kaul has fought for the equal rights of every American, while his opponent Brad Schimel has repeatedly used the Office of the Attorney General to roll back progress and undermine the rights of LGBTQ people. In 2016, Schimel joined the suit against the Obama administration’s life-saving guidance protecting LGBTQ students from bullying and discrimination at school. Earlier this year, Schimel joined an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court of the United States to grant a potentially sweeping license to discriminate against LGBTQ people, in a decision that would threaten to gut many of our nation’s most sacred civil rights laws — not just for LGBTQ people, but also for women, people of color, religious minorities, and Americans of all backgrounds. He has also accepted thousands of dollars from the notoriously anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to speak at the group’s recent conference in California.
In Wisconsin, HRC has identified more than 560,000 thousand “Equality Voters” — voters who support LGBTQ-inclusive policies. HRC has prioritized investments and organizing in Wisconsin in the 2018 cycle, and has staff and resources on the ground in the state as part of the largest grassroots expansion in the organization’s 38-year history.
Gentle Beasts
TheIrishDevil posted a photo:
I got a little crazy ’bout it all
I’m sorry that you had to see me fall
Me when I’m crazy, crazy
That’s when I lose my mind
I thought my demons were defeated
Now they stand in front of me
I pulled them to freedom (freedom)
I released my beast
I see the light even though I fall in the dark sometimes
Up again need to stay alive and keep moving
I keep moving
—
This Holiday Is Rated the Best For Singles, Can You Guess What it Is?
Christmas? New Years? Halloween? What holiday could it be… If you guessed the latter, you my friend, are correct. At Plenty of Fish, we were curious to see whether or not Halloween was a fan favorite holiday for singles and it turns out, it is! Plenty of Fish surveyed over 1,500 users of the app, […]
The post This Holiday Is Rated the Best For Singles, Can You Guess What it Is? appeared first on PlentyOfFish Blog.
This Holiday Is Rated the Best For Singles, Can You Guess What it Is?
GLAAD’s ‘Where We Are on TV’ report shows television telling more LGBTQ stories than ever
This morning, GLAAD released its annual Where We Are on TV report; a comprehensive forecast of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ) characters expected in primetime scripted programming in the 2018-19 television season. This is the 23rd year GLAAD has tracked the presence of LGBTQ characters on television, and the 14th Where We Are on TV report. Four years ago, GLAAD expanded its count to quantify LGBTQ characters on original series there premiere on the streaming content providers Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix.
Of the 857 series regular characters expected to appear on broadcast primetime scripted programming in the coming year, 75 (8.8%) were counted as LGBTQ. This is the highest percentage of LGBTQ regular characters GLAAD has counted on primetime scripted broadcast programming. There were an additional 38 recurring LGBTQ characters. This is 113 total LGBTQ regular and recurring characters on primetime scripted broadcast TV, up from the previous year’s 86. The five broadcast networks are ABC, CBS, The CW, FOX, and NBC. The CW counts the highest percentage of LGBTQ series regulars of all series regulars.
Notably for the first time this year, LGBTQ characters of color (50 percent) outnumber white LGBTQ characters (49 percent) among regular and recurring LGBTQ characters on broadcast. LGBTQ broadcast characters are also at gender parity this year with equal percentages of men and women characters (49.6 percent) and one non-binary character.
GLAAD is calling on the industry to make sure that within the next two years, 10 percent of series regular characters on primetime scripted broadcast series are LGBTQ. This is an important next step towards ensuring that our entertainment reflects the world in which it is created.
The number of LGBTQ regular characters counted on cable increased from 103 last year to 120 this year, while recurring LGBTQ characters is up from 70 to 88. This is 208 regular and recurring LGBTQ characters, though it should be noted that 31 of these characters are not expected to return for the 2019-20 season due to series cancellations, announced finales, or characters being written off but who appeared as a regular or recurring character during the research period.
On cable, there are eight series that each count six or more LGBTQ characters. The 56 characters on these eight series represent 27 percent of all LGBTQ representation on cable. We hope to see LGBTQ characters introduced on more new shows in the next year as well’ as currently, if one of these eight series were to end, there would be a notable decrease in inclusion across cable as a whole.
On scripted streaming originals on Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix, LGBTQ regular characters are up with 75 (from 51) and an additional 37 characters. This is a total of 112 LGBTQ characters on scripted streaming originals, up from last year’s 70.
“With anti-LGBTQ policies being debated here and abroad, the stories and characters on television are more critical than ever before to build understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ people,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President and CEO. “Not only do stories that explore the rich lives and identities of LGBTQ people move the needle forward culturally, but they pay off in ratings – shows like Will & Grace, Supergirl, Empire, and How To Get Away with Murder all attract millions of viewers weekly and demonstrate that audiences are hungry for new stories and perspectives.”
The number of Bisexual+ characters is up this year. Across broadcast, cable, and streaming, GLAAD counted 117 bi+ characters which is up from 93 in the previous year. Notably, this was the first time in several years that there was an increase in the number of bisexual+ men. This year there are 84 bi+ women and 33 bi+ men. Bi+ characters make up 27% of all LGBTQ characters across the three platforms tracked; this still underrepresents bi+ people who make up the majority of the LGB community.
The number of transgender characters is also up this year in a welcome sign of progress. GLAAD counted 26 transgender characters compared to 17 in the previous report. Of those 26, 17 are transgender women, five are trans men and four are non-binary characters. This report includes two groundbreaking television moments for the trans community. TV history has been made with the premiere of FX’s Pose which counts the largest number of transgender series regulars in a scripted U.S. series ever and The CW’s Supergirl recently introduced television’s first transgender superhero with Dreamer/Nia Nal (Nicole Maines).
Last year’s report was the first time that GLAAD was able to count asexual regular or recurring characters. Broadcast is again the only platform tracked without a canon asexual character; cable and streaming each count one asexual character returning from the previous year (Raphael of Freeform’s Shadowhunters, Todd on Netflix’s BoJack Horseman). There were no additional asexual characters introduced this year. GLAAD’s Accelerating Acceptance survey found that 20 percent of Americans aged 18-34 (a key demographic for networks) identify as LGBTQ and four percent identify as asexual. GLAAD hopes to see more ace characters introduced, especially with the end of Shadowhunters this coming spring.
Other encouraging findings include a record-high percentage of series regulars on broadcast television who are people of color (44 percent, 373 out of 857), as well as a record-high percentage of regular characters with disabilities on broadcast television (2.1 percent).
“This year’s Where We Are on TV report has shown important progress towards a media landscape that is LGBTQ-inclusive and portrays the community in a fair and accurate way,” said Megan Townsend, Director of Entertainment Research and Analysis at GLAAD. “This year we noted two history-making television moments: the premiere of FX’s Pose, which features the largest number of transgender series regular characters on a scripted U.S. series ever, and this fall The CW’s Supergirl introduced audiences to TV’s first transgender superhero when Nicole Maines made her debut as Dreamer/Nia Nal. This is all part of a welcome increase in television telling groundbreaking stories featuring characters whose identities have long been left off screen.”
Key findings include:
GLAAD’s annual Where We Are On TV report not only propels national conversations about LGBTQ representation, but informs GLAAD’s own advocacy within the television industry. GLAAD uses this yearly data to create a clearer picture of the stories and images being presented by television networks, and to work alongside the networks and content creators to tell fair, accurate, and inclusive LGBTQ stories on screen.
Join the conversation by following @glaad on Twitter, and using the hashtag #RepresentationMatters. Read the full 2018-19 Where We Are on TV report at glaad.org/whereweareontv.
www.glaad.org/blog/glaads-where-we-are-tv-report-shows-television-telling-more-lgbtq-stories-ever
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