LGBTQ Officials Condemn Israel, Trump on Censoring Tlaib and Omar

U.S. Reps. Angie Craig, Sharice Davids, and Mark Pocan say the nation is wrong to keep colleagues Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar out.

www.advocate.com/politics/2019/8/16/elected-officials-rush-condemn-israel-censoring-tlaib-and-omar

Gym caught lying to members about undercover officers monitoring locker room hookups

Virgin Active, one of the largest chain of health clubs in the U.K., is facing criticism after it sent a threatening email directed at its gay members.

Members of the Virgin Active gym in Barbican, London received an email earlier this month warning them that “reports of incidents linked to individuals’ inappropriate behaviour, specific to the male locker room facilities” had resulted the gym employing undercover cops “to address and investigate any criminal behaviour.”

Related: Man sounds alarm on serious problem plaguing locker rooms: Male nudity

Apparently, guys were hooking up in the showers so much that the men’s locker room has been nicknamed “the wank tank.”

“Going forward please be advised that undercover police officers will be present in the male locker room and they will take any appropriate action should the need arise,” the cryptic email read.

But London Police quickly called the gym’s bluff, saying no such arrangements were ever made between the department and the gym and that Virgin Active was lying to its members.

“We have not put undercover officers into the changing rooms of this gym, or any other gym in the City,” a spokesperson told Buzzfeed.

The spokesperson added, “We became aware of this email sent out to members by Virgin and have asked them to issue a correction, which I believe they are going to do imminently.”

Related: These Locker Room Confessions Will Make You Renew That Gym Membership…Or Cancel It

“It’s disgraceful that they lied, and undermines any reassurance they have given as being supportive of the LGBT community,” member Max Pemberton tells Buzzfeed, adding that the gym’s threats harken back to “1950s honey traps in men’s toilets all over again, when they targeted gays in a homophobic clampdown.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Virgin Active chalked the whole thing up to “a miscommunication between Virgin Active and the City Of London Police which has now been clarified.”

A “miscommunication.” Riiiight.

Related: This guy’s response to homophobic straight dudes in the locker room is priceless

www.queerty.com/gym-caught-lying-members-undercover-officers-monitoring-locker-room-hookups-20190816?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Backstreet, London’s Longest-Running Gay Leather Bar, Saved from Bulldozer by Letter-Writing Campaign: ‘It Saved My Life’

The Backstreet, a 34-year-old leather bar in London’s East End, has been saved after dozens of men wrote in to the Tower Hamlets Council urging them to block development of the site into a high-rise, telling the council what the bar had meant to them over the years.

The Guardian reports: ‘Dozens of men who regularly visit the Backstreet, which boasts the “strictest fetish dress code in Europe”, wrote to the council during the six-year planning battle to explain the importance of the club to them. “When I discovered the fetish scene by going to the Backstreet as an 18-year-old, it saved my life,” one man wrote. “It gave me a community that made me feel welcome, and embraced me flaws and all. It stopped me thinking I was odd or an outsider, [it] gave me confidence in myself, and gave me some incredible friends and mentors.” Oscar Easton, who at 21 is much younger than the Backstreet’s average clientele, said he would be gutted if the club closed as it was his favourite place on earth, and he “saved like crazy for [his] leather gear”.’

Tower Hamlets Council ruled that the bar should be kept and blocked the 12-story high-rise apartment building development, saying that it would “harm the long-term provision of a nightclub that serves the LGBT+ community”.

Said Cllr Rachel Blake, the borough’s deputy mayor: “It is the last true gay fetish club, and diversity matters to us. This kind of venue really matters to us, it matters to Tower Hamlets and to the whole of London. It is very important to have safe spaces for the whole community.”

The post Backstreet, London’s Longest-Running Gay Leather Bar, Saved from Bulldozer by Letter-Writing Campaign: ‘It Saved My Life’ appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Backstreet, London’s Longest-Running Gay Leather Bar, Saved from Bulldozer by Letter-Writing Campaign: ‘It Saved My Life’

Homophobic Bus Driver Refuses to Drive Pride-Themed Vehicle

The rainbow-colored route number offended him, so he made passengers wait for a new driver to arrive.

www.advocate.com/world/2019/8/16/homophobia-bus-driver-refuses-drive-pride-themed-vehicle

The sequel to “Nightmare on Elm Street” made this closeted actor’s life a living horror

The 1985 film Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge became one of the queerest horror movies of all time for its homoerotic overtones and its young male lead, a then-closeted actor named Mark Patton.

Patton’s character in the film has a high-pitched scream, goes to a leather bar, dreams of his P.E. coach showering,  and speaks of his interior battle against the film’s murderous bogey man with the double-entendre line, “He’s inside me and he wants to take me again!” Patton’s character gets scared and runs away while making out with his gal pal and he prefers sleeping over at his male friend’s house.

Related: Who Knew Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Was the Gayest Film of the 80s?

At the time, Patton thought that playing the male lead in a successful horror franchise would launch his career, but the homophobia he faced afterwards effectively ended it. Not only would people come up to him at horror conventions and tell him how much they hated his film, but Hollywood rumors about his sexuality amid the rising HIV epidemic made life (in his words) “a nightmare.”

In a trailer for Scream, Queen! a 2019 documentary about Patton’s experience with the film, Patton says, “I wasn’t an out gay actor. I was a gay person and I was living in terror. My lover was dying, people went through our trash, and my agents are waiting to see if I can play straight.”

The documentary explores the effects homophobia had on his prematurely ended acting career, how the sequel was eventually taken up by gay fans as a cult classic and Patton’s confrontation with its creators to understand whether it was intentionally created as homoerotic and its legacy and effect on him more than 30 years later.

Here is a trailer for the documentary Scream, Queen!:

The film isn’t out yet but is currently making it way through the film festival circuit.

www.queerty.com/sequel-nightmare-elm-street-made-closeted-actors-life-living-horror-20190816?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Delusional Gay Conservative ‘Log Cabin Republicans’ Endorse Trump for Re-election

Log Cabin Republicans, the gay conservative political group, has endorsed Donald Trump for re-election despite his administration’s ongoing attacks on the LGBTQ community.

Write Robert Kabel and Jill Homan in a delusional endorsement in the Washington Post: ‘For LGBTQ Republicans, watching the 2016 GOP convention before Donald Trump took the stage was like a dream fulfilled. The distance between that event and Pat Buchanan’s hate-filled exhortation against the LGBTQ community in Houston in 1992 is a powerful measurement of how far we’ve come. Some of the moral leaders who stood with Buchanan back then were still there three years ago in Cleveland, to be sure. But this time, they refrained from passing judgment on gays and lesbians. And in an extraordinarily uplifting moment, Thiel uttered the words for the first time, “I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all, I am proud to be an American.” He was met with thunderous standing applause from the body of the Republican Party. … To be treated equally, fairly and justly under the law is our goal, and we know that “Inclusion Wins” is a mantra we share with the president. The Log Cabin Republicans endorse Donald Trump for reelection as president.’

Log Cabin Republicans declined to endorse Trump in 2016.

Jerri Ann Henry, the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, in 2018 characterized Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ community as “hiccups.”

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Delusional Gay Conservative ‘Log Cabin Republicans’ Endorse Trump for Re-election