Kellyanne Conway Scoffs at Taylor Swift’s VMAs Push for LGBTQ Rights

If that weren’t enough, the counselor to the White House also sang a few bars of Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down” off-pitch. 

www.advocate.com/media/2019/8/28/kellyanne-conway-scoffs-taylor-swifts-vmas-push-lgbtq-rights

Out candidate Pete Buttigieg would beat Donald Trump in presidential election

www.queerty.com/candidate-pete-buttigieg-beat-donald-trump-presidential-election-20190828?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Joel Schumacher Says He’s Had Sex with 10,000 or 20,000 Men: ‘It’s Not [Amazing] for a Gay Male, Because It’s Available’

In a wide ranging interview with Vulture, director Joel Schumacher talked about his career, his movies, stars he has worked with, the AIDS crisis, Fire Island, and his sexual history as a gay man.

Asked if he’s ever guessed the number of sexual partners he’s had, Schumacher responded that “It would be in the double-digit thousands, but that is not unusual.”

Schumacher pinned it around 10,000 or 20,000, saying “It’s not [amazing] for a gay male, because it’s available.”

Schumacher said he had a number of “lost years” on Fire Island between 1965 and 1970 and shot liquid Methedrine, “the mother drug of meth.”

“You’re just starving for sex all the time,” said Schumacher. “Every drug, in my mind, was a pathway to sex. So was alcohol. There was an adventure going on, and sex would be the cherry on that sundae.”

Schumacher talked about the sadness of the AIDS crisis and how reckless he was, even after testing negative for HIV: ‘After [the negative test] I think I got wilder. What my psychiatrist said that was really fascinating was, “No, you are desperately afraid of death. It’s like swimming out further and further every night in the ocean and seeing if you can get back, and when you get home, it’s like, ‘I f**ked death again.’”’

Schumacher also talked about his movie Batman & Robin, and assertions that he made the franchise “gayer.”

Said Schumacher: “If I wasn’t gay, they would never say those things. … There’s always been this thing about Batman and Robin being gay.”

Read the full interview here.

The post Joel Schumacher Says He’s Had Sex with 10,000 or 20,000 Men: ‘It’s Not [Amazing] for a Gay Male, Because It’s Available’ appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Joel Schumacher Says He’s Had Sex with 10,000 or 20,000 Men: ‘It’s Not [Amazing] for a Gay Male, Because It’s Available’

Lil Nas X Makes Gay History With CMA Nomination

The “Old Town Road” singer is the first out gay man to be recognized by the Country Music Awards.

www.advocate.com/music/2019/8/28/lil-nas-x-makes-gay-history-cma-nomination

An Emmy win for Jonathan Van Ness is a win for personal authenticity

Jonathan Van Ness is nominated as an executive producer in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series category for the Funny or Die series Gay of Thrones, in which Van Ness and a celebrity guest star humorously recap the most recent episode of Game of Thrones. Guests on the final season of the series included Tiffany Haddish, Kumail Nanjiani, and Gabrielle Union. With lightning speed dialogue and clever pop culture references, the show itself is laugh-out-loud hilarious. But what’s more important about the series is that it showcases Van Ness as unapologetically himself: queer and femme.

Van Ness started his career as a hairstylist in Arizona before moving to Los Angeles to work in asalon. Gay of Thrones hit the Internet in 2013, and Van Ness started his own podcast, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness,a few years later. However, it wasn’t until 2018 when he became part of the new Fab Five of Netflix’s Queer Eye reboot (which is nominated for six Emmys at this year’s awards show, including Outstanding Structured Reality Program) that Van Ness started to become a household name. On that show, he is responsible for transforming subjects’ hair, skin, and hygienic routines, and quickly became known for his sassy sensibility, quirky sense of style, and message of personal empowerment.

Van Ness has been open about the bullying he faced as a teen because of his sexual orientation and feminine gender expression, and how he found it difficult to find entertainment work in L.A. at first. Yet on Gay of Thrones, Van Ness is unmistakably femme in his speech, clothes, and mannerisms. This type of visibility for femininity is especially important for the gay community, as there still exists a strong current of femme-phobia (which is really disguised misogyny) and a privileging of masculinity above all else. As one of the executive producers and host of Gay of Thrones, Van Ness has taken control of his own narrative, and transformed what he used to be bullied for—his flamboyancy and femininity—into a successful and entertaining media product.

As one of the most popular shows of all time, Game of Thrones prompted prodigious amounts of online discussion after each episode. What made Van Ness’ take on the series unique was his ability to provide a queer perspective, as well as include a women-centered point of view from the many of the guest stars and production team on Gay of Thrones who are women. These underrepresented voices were given a chance to be heard on Van Ness’ show: to providean always comical, and sometimes critical, viewpoint on mainstream characters and storylines.

As a queer person, I find Van Ness’ brand of over-the-top extra to be particularly empowering. Whether it’s wearing nail polish to work or trying out a pair of high heels on the weekend, I’ve found myself more and more exploring my feminine side as a result of Van Ness’ example. He’s taught me that finding professional and personal fulfillment should not come at the price of sacrificing your own identity and self-expression, and that my happiness is, in fact, dependent on living authentically.

While he still uses he/him pronouns, Van Ness also recently came out as genderqueer and non-binary. In his interview with Out, he mentions that he felt restricted in his identity as a gay man, because “that’s just the label I thought I had to be.” A win for Van Ness would be a win for all queer, gender non-conforming, and femme-presenting people, who must deal with femme-phobia, misogyny, and binary imperialism from both the wider heteronormative society and from within the LGBTQ community itself. A win for Gay of Thrones would prove that being yourself is nothing to be ashamed of, and that no matter what you identify as, following your dreams and passions while being true to who you are is always the best success.

Donny MacDonell (@dmacdaddyy) is an Entertainment Research & Analysis Intern at GLAAD, and a master’s candidate in the Cinema and Media Studies program at UCLA. In addition to interning at GLAAD, Donny recently completed a programming internship at Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival.

www.queerty.com/emmy-win-jonathan-van-ness-win-personal-authenticity-20190828?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

EMMYS: Billy Porter talks history-making nomination, what it means to him, and how queer bankability in Hollywood is finally happening; PLUS – he’s letting us in on a BIG “Pose” Season 3 secret!

www.glaad.org/blog/emmys-billy-porter-talks-history-making-nomination-what-it-means-him-and-how-queer-bankability

POC workers at Old Navy claim they were “hidden from view” during recent “Queer Eye” taping

Employees at an Old Navy store in Philadelphia allege that nearly all people of color who work at the location were hidden from view during a recent taping of Queer Eye.

According to Philadelphia magazine, three employees from the Old Navy in Center City say they, along with almost all of their black and brown co-workers, were instructed to “keep out of sight” from the the “all-white crew” when the hit Netflix series came to film there last week.

Not only that, but they alleged 10 white employees from other Old Navy stores were bused in for background shots.

Monae Alvarado has worked at the store for over a year. She took to Facebook to air her grievances, writing:

So they were filming Queer eye (not queer as folk) at my job (Old Navy in Center City Philadelphia) and at my job is nothing but people of color. Most of us did an overnight to help make the store look beautiful. Today they brought all these workers from other store around the region (West Chester, Mount Pocono, and Deptford NJ) and they were all white. They had us standing in the back not to be seen while the other workers from another store get to work on our floor like it’s their store. The shade I tell you.

“I was told to go to the back of the store by [Old Navy managers] involved with the production,” Alvarado tells Philadelphia magazine.

She adds, “About six of my fellow co-workers were there, and we were shooed away from the camera as they filmed with these outside employees, who came from West Chester, Mount Pocono, and New Jersey.”

“It immediately seemed odd to me that they were being used to tape at our store location when we already have a diverse group of workers who had been preparing for Queer Eye to come for nearly a week.”

Related: Karamo Brown blocks LGBTQ followers, deletes Twitter account after complimenting Sean Spicer

Alvarado says that many of the employees worked overnight to prepare the store for shooting and that they were told they would get to appear in the episode.

“I was super-excited up until the day of and a random group of white folks came in to replace us at our own store.”

Another employee, speaking anonymously to the magazine, adds that they were instructed to go to areas of the store where “I usually don’t work around.”

“It became clear that we weren’t going to be filmed because we hadn’t been asked to sign consent forms, and they made it a point to keep us as far away from the cameras as possible.”

But the company denies everything. In a statement, a spokesperson for Old Navy says:

At Old Navy, we celebrate the diversity of our teams and our customers and foster an environment of inclusion and belonging. We were proud to work with The Queer Eye show to film at our store in Philadelphia and to feature our local store manager on camera. We also worked with additional employees in the area to help ensure the store ran seamlessly for customers, as the location was open for business during filming, and we expect they may appear in background shots. These individuals are reflective of our diverse employee population. We would never select employees to participate – or not – based on race. That is completely inaccurate and against the values we stand for as a company.

Meanwhile, Netflix and Queer Eye also deny allegations of on-set segregation.

“During the filming of Queer Eye season 5, the production team filmed in a Philadelphia-based Old Navy last Wednesday, August 21,” a spokesperson for Netflix says. “Production featured one employee from the retail store, an African American woman, in the segment.”

Queer Eye co-host Tan France admitted on Facebook that he didn’t know what happened behind-the-scenes, but added “I had one person join me on camera, from Old Navy. She was African American. This is the last I will say on this matter.”

But as a third employee from the store, also speaking under anonymity, notes, “That doesn’t explain the need to bring in additional white staffers to be in the background of our store.”

“Having one black person featured on the show when most of us already work there full time is a slap in the face. They would all be better off saying they didn’t want a bunch of black people on their show because they thought it would be ghetto. I’ve seen Queer Eye — they don’t have too many of us on there like that.”

Related: Queer Eye’s Tan France on the pressure of fame: “I represent Asians globally at this point”

www.queerty.com/poc-workers-old-navy-claim-hidden-view-recent-queer-eye-taping-20190828?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29