Said Orlik (translation via Outsports): “For far too long I have pushed out who I really am. I am not someone who kisses in front of people, but I want to lie down with a man and be able to touch him. … I always knew that I was gay, for sure since I was 12. But I thought: this is wrong, it cannot be. I heard things on the school building square [like] ‘you gay pig,’ ‘you faggot.’ Or in soccer, ‘such a gay pass!’ Even when wrestling. Sure, nobody really meant that, but if you’re like that yourself, you think, ‘Sh*t, that’s not a good thing.’ I thought: I don’t want to be gay. But it’s me. Now it’s out.”
Orlik responded to praise for his coming out on social media, writing: “Wow, I am overwhelmed by the large number of positive reactions that you have sent me through a variety of channels With your wonderful feedback, I am now starting a new, open and free period of my life. Thank you very much – with all my heart . Special thanks go to my parents and everyone else who supported me in advance.”
The 27-year-old competes in “swing wrestling,” Outsports adds: “Swing wrestling is a sport peculiar to Switzerland and very popular, with its champions becoming household names. It’s a derivative of folk wrestling where the wrestlers wear special clothes that allow for holds and throws and the action takes place in a circle covered in sawdust.”
An advertisement starring Orlik.
Swing wrestling. Orlik faces Scheuber Lutz in 2015.
Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, An Intergenerational Relationship That Inspires Us
Life wasn’t always a cabaret for esteemed British novelist, Christopher Isherwood, whose semi-autobiographical tales of a closeted gayman living in pre-Nazi Germany were collected in the best-selling book The Berlin Stories, but that all changed when he met 18-year-old Don Bachardy on a Santa Monica beach in 1952. Despite their 30-year age difference — not to mention it being the era of McCarthyism, one of the most homophobic periods in American history — the pair began a high-profile love affair that would last more than three decades.
While their relationship, though open, was idyllic in many ways, with Isherwood helping his younger lover develop his affinity for drawing and painting and the couple frequently entertaining well-known artists, writers, and movie stars in their hillside Santa Monica home, it wasn’t always without its challenges.
At times the May-December dramas may have seemed like something out of a movie, and indeed, it became one — “Chris & Don: A Love Story,” a fantastic 2007 documentary that reveals how hard the couple worked to achieve their bliss, but achieve it, they did. Their intergenerational relationship withstood the passage of time. Ultimately, the two remained together for 33 years until Isherwood’s death in 1986.
Second person in the world ever to be cured of HIV finally breaks his silence
The second person in the world ever to be cured of HIV has just revealed his identity.
Until now, Adam Castillejo was simply known as “the London patient.” Last year, he made international headlines when he was declared free of HIV following a bone marrow transplant to treat blood cancer. Now, he’s ready to share his identity.
“This is a unique position to be in, a unique and very humbling position,” Castillejo tells the New York Times. “I want to be an ambassador of hope.”
40-year-old Castillejo first tested positive for HIV in 2003, at the age of 23. In 2012, he was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. The treatment required a bone marrow, or stem cell, transplant.
Castillejo’s doctors located a donor whose stem cells had two copies of a mutation that prevented HIV from entering cells. As a result, the transplant effectively replaced Castillejo’s immune system with one that was resistant to the virus.
The story made international headlines, though Castillejo asked doctor’s to keep his identity private. He remembers seeing the news after the story broke.
“I was watching TV, and it’s, like, ‘OK, they’re talking about me,’” he recalls to the Times. “It was very strange, a very weird place to be.”
Only one other person in the world, Timothy Ray Brown, a.k.a. “the Berlin Patient,” has ever been cured of HIV, though there have been many failed attempts over the years. Because of this, Castillejo’s doctors initially hesitated from using the word “cure” and instead called it a “remission.”
Today, they feel much more confident.
“We think this is a cure now, because it’s been another year and we’ve done a few more tests,” says Dr. Ravindra Gupta, Castillejo’s virologist from the University of Cambridge.
Castillejo doesn’t take his story for granted. Especially since people living with HIV are often not good candidates for cell transplants because the procedure is invasion and carries serious risks.
“I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, you’ve been chosen,’” he says. “No, it just happened. I was in the right place, probably at the right time, when it happened.”
Castillejo recently started a Twitter page to share his story.
“Eventually when my case becomes more wildly available to the HIV community,” he tweeted last month. “Hopefully this allows to have a more achievable cure in the future.”
Eventually when my case becomes more wildly available to the HIV community, hopefully this allows to have a more achievable cure in the future.@londonpatient#hivcuret.co/ytb3xaJy6z
Trevor Noah Has Questions About Kamala Harris’s ‘Hostage-Style’ Biden Endorsement Video: WATCH
The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah ribbed Senator Kamala Harris for her “hostage-style” endorsement video for Joe Biden which she released on Monday.
Said Noah after playing a clip of the video: “‘Now, please send $10,000 in unmarked bills so that my family can see me again.’ I don’t understand why Kamala Harris shot this hostage-style video to show her support for Joe Biden. It looks weird. It really does. I bet even the Taliban is looking at this video, like: ‘We had better lighting and we were in a cave! Much better, much better.’”
But Noah had further questions: “Also, it’s a little strange for me. I’m not going to lie. How is Kamala gonna endorse Joe Biden, and not acknowledge that she once called him a ‘friend of racists who opposed integrated public schools?’ Like, for me, you have to at least say ‘look, I know we’ve had our differences, but’ or something like that. Otherwise you make it seem like we’re crazy. Like you’re gaslighting us. … This is like when you were a kid. Did you ever sleep over at a friend’s house and you could hear their parents screaming at each other in the next room? And then they’d come out like, (happy voice) ‘hey, you guys want pizza for dinner?”
It’s more important than ever to make sure we are not erased When the NOH 8 Campaign started, I was still discovering my identity. Seeing LGBTQ people standing up for their rights gave me the confidence I needed to continue to explore myself, so that I could see myself in that future. I hope that young people will find their courage through the movement to help fight for a better future. I wear the red ribbon in solidarity
US House candidate pardoned by Trump compares gay people to pedophiles
Angela Stanton-King (Photo: Twitter)
A former reality TV star turned US House candidate in Atlanta has lashed out on the subject of LGBTQ rights.
Republican Angela Stanton-King is running for Georgia’s 5th Congressional Seat. She qualified last Friday to run against US Representative John Lewis: the state’s most senior Democrat and a longtime LGBTQ ally.
Stanton-King appeared in the BET docuseries From theBottom Up and wrote a book in 2012 entitled, Life of a Real Housewife.
She was pardoned by President Donald Trump in February for a 2004 conviction on federal conspiracy charges for her reported role in a car theft ring. She served a six-month home confinement sentence in 2007 over the charges, recently telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “I turned my life around. I have completely redeemed my life.”
On the same day she qualified for her run last week, she took to Twitter to promote some of her views. This included a tweet on the advance of LGBTQ rights. It shows someone holding a rainbow gun to someone’s head, demanding: “Let me f### your 8 yo kid, pedofobe.”
— Angela Stanton-King (@theangiestanton) March 6, 2020
Stanton-King went on to tweet: “America can accept a transsexual that changed their whole identity/sex but can’t accept a Felon who has changed their whole lifestyle…”
America can accept a transsexual that changed their whole identity/sex but can’t accept a Felon who has changed their whole lifestyle…
— Angela Stanton-King (@theangiestanton) March 7, 2020
She summed up her views as “Pro GOD, Pro LIFE, Pro WOMAN, Pro AMERICA, Pro TRUMP and PRO COMMON SENSE.”
On Saturday she again returned to the subject of pedophilia, using an image of Zaya Wade, the trans daughter of former basketball player Dwayne Wade.
“PEDOPHILIA,” Stanton-King tweeted. “Gay means Men having sex with men. If you wouldn’t want your 12 yr old daughter advertising that she enjoys sex with men/boys why your 12 yr old son? This is confusion, pedophilia, and sexual exploitation wrapped up in acceptance.”
PEDOPHILIA.
Gay means Men having sex with men.
If you wouldn’t want your 12 yr old daughter advertising that she enjoys sex with men/boys why your 12 yr old son? This is confusion, pedophilia, and sexual exploitation wrapped up in acceptance. #lgbtq#Pedophilia#Dwadepic.twitter.com/0ILPdHuDpY
— Angela Stanton-King (@theangiestanton) March 8, 2020
Yesterday she took to Twitter to defend traditional gender roles and to praise masculine men.
“I am a woman that loves men and appreciates masculinity. We need our men. We need our sons. We need our brothers. Our men are not women and Our boys are not girls.”
I am a woman that loves men and appreciates masculinity.
— Angela Stanton-King (@theangiestanton) March 9, 2020
Among those to criticize the tweets was gay, Georgia council member Antonio Brown.
Responding to Stanton-King’s initial tweet with the rainbow gun, Brown said: “Hate like this will never be supported in our communities. This is a true reflection of the dilusional rhetoric fueled by political warfare & is on the opposite spectrum of equality & humanity. But, we must meet this conscious injustice with love & unconditional understanding.”
Hate like this will never be supported in our communities. This is a true reflection of the dilusional rhetoric fueled by political warfare & is on the opposite spectrum of equality & humanity. But, we must meet this conscious injustice with love & unconditional understanding.
Democratic Rep. Lewis was elected in 1987. Late last year, the 80-year-old has revealed that he has been battling stage-4 pancreatic cancer but is still running for re-election.
Stanton-King told 11 Alive last week she believed it was time for Lewis to step back.
“With all respect to Congressman Lewis, when I think about him, I always have that image in my mind when he was on the Selma Bridge,” she said. “The truth of the matter is, with all that he has given towards the fight for civil rights – which we greatly appreciate – these are no longer the days of marching over the Selma Bridge.”
Mit euren wundervollen Feedbacks starte ich nun in einen neuen, offenen und freien Lebensabschnitt. Merci vielmals – von ganzem Herzen
Ein besonderer Dank geht an meine Eltern und alle anderen, die mich im Vorfeld unterstützt haben. Foto: @annemorgensternphoto #loveislove #thankyou @das_magazin
When the NOH 8 Campaign started, I was still discovering my identity. Seeing LGBTQ people standing up for their rights gave me the confidence I needed to continue to explore myself, so that I could see myself in that future. I hope that young people will find their courage through the movement to help fight for a better future. I wear the red ribbon in solidarity
