Shop Faux-Bans Opposition of Anti-Discimination Bill
North Dakota’s Senate Bill 2279, which proponents say would have protected LGBT consumers against sexual discrimination, was voted down April 2.

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WATCH: SNL Spoofs Hillary Clinton's YouTube Video

Will Kate McKinnon be our favorite Hillary impression yet?

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Lucas Grindley

www.advocate.com/comedy/2015/04/12/watch-snl-spoofs-hillary-clintons-youtube-video

Wanted: Economic Equality for the Gender Diverse Community
Every minority group aspires to social equality, and the gender diverse (a.k.a. transgender) community is no different. Gender diverse persons want the same rights and opportunities as every other citizen: Not special rights or special treatment, but equality in every area of life. No more, no less.

No one deserves to be marginalized or denied their rights simply because of who they are, who they love or how they express their gender. Social equality, including both legal equality and lived equality, is a worthy goal for every person. Everyone warrants the opportunity to build a good life and to work hard to pursue their dreams. Nevertheless, what many fail to recognize is that, particularly for minority groups like the gender diverse, there can be no social equality without economic equality. For a large percentage of the gender diverse community, employment is a struggle — and without a way to earn a living, economic equality will remain little more than a far-off, seemingly unattainable goal.

That is a tragedy for society on a number of levels. Generally speaking, gender diverse workers tend to be skilled, talented people who make excellent employees when provided the opportunity to work. Employers who discriminate against the gender diverse are depriving their organizations of strong contributors and are surrendering a competitive advantage in the global war for talent. Meanwhile, gender diverse workers are being forced to experience the trauma of rejection, economic insecurity and a lack of employment opportunity — not because of an inability to contribute, but because of their gender status.

Recent studies, including “A Broken Bargain for Transgender Workers” and “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,” tell us that gender diverse persons report unemployment at twice the rate of the population as a whole. For gender diverse persons of color, the rate is four times the national average. More than one in four gender diverse employees have lost a job due to workplace discrimination, and more than three fourths have experienced some type of discrimination or harassment on the job. Treatment like this is certainly not conducive to long-term employment. In fact, many trans workers have reported changing jobs to avoid discrimination or the risk of discrimination at work.

When someone cannot achieve economic equality through gainful employment, the consequences are predictable. If you have no job, you have no income. If you have no income then you can’t afford food, a home, a car, a phone, health care, or other things that most of us would consider necessities to maintain a decent standard of living. When you don’t have the necessities of life, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that you might become desperate — and desperate people often do desperate things.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, extreme levels of poverty due to unemployment lead one gender diverse person in eight to become engaged in underground economies like sex and drug work. People do what they must in order to survive. As we might imagine, mental and physical health often suffer when one has no way to make a living. Homelessness is a common experience for such persons. Due to economic inequality, gender diverse persons deal with depression, alcoholism and drug abuse at a startlingly high rate in comparison to the rest of society.

Also, and saddest of all, the “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey” indicates that 41 percent of gender diverse persons have attempted suicide. This is nearly nine times the national average for the general population.

So, this is what happens to gender diverse people who cannot achieve economic equality because they suffer discrimination in the workplace. Their hope of social equality is essentially extinguished. The dream of a better life through employment and a living wage dies. The dignity afforded by meaningful work fades away. As the cold, hard reality of poverty closes in, the desperation factor increases exponentially until few, if any, options appear to remain. Is it any wonder that homelessness, hunger, a diminished sense of self-worth, chronic depression, addictive behaviors and suicide are at such high levels among this population?

We can do better than this — and we must. Gender diverse people are human beings of innate worth and intrinsic value. They deserve the same rights as every other citizen under the law. That includes the right to employment based on merit and the ability to do the job. While some statutes and state/federal laws have been put in place to protect workers against discrimination on the basis of gender identity, high unemployment and economic inequality remain extensive throughout the gender diverse community. There can be social equality until that untenable situation changes.

As with most complex social problems, there is no quick fix or easy answer. Remedies usually tend to be as multifaceted as the problems themselves. Solutions are often incremental rather than immediate. However, there are some efforts we can pursue to address these difficult circumstances — and as a society, we owe it to ourselves to get this done. It harms everyone when a segment of the population is placed into a dire economic situation that is not of their own making. Conversely, and as the cliché reminds us, the rising tide of employment and economic opportunity can lift all boats. Here, in no particular order, are a few suggestions for improvement.

• Educate, educate, educate. When people become more aware of the gender diverse phenomenon, they begin to realize that trans persons pose no threat to anyone. It’s more difficult to discriminate once the fear of “difference” dissipates and we realize that we’re all just people here.

• Put organizational non-discrimination policies in place that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression.

• Support and mentor gender diverse workers. Help equip them with the skills necessary to gain employment, build careers, and achieve economic equality.

• Actively recruit talent from within the gender diverse community. That talent is out there waiting to be discovered.

• Recognize the staggering scope of the economic equality crisis for the gender diverse community. Resolve to keep it in mind and encourage your organization to help by seeking out, recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining gender diverse talent.

Social equality is attainable for the gender diverse community, but only if the economic inequality problem is addressed and solved. When that happens, trans persons will be able to assume a legitimate role as significant contributors to their employers and as assets to the larger society.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-sheridan/wanted-economic-equality-for-the-gender-diverse-community_b_7044852.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Empire's Cookie Lyon Brings Betrayal and Revenge to 'Sesame Street' on SNL: VIDEO

Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2015/04/empires-cookie-lyon-brings-betrayal-and-revenge-to-sesame-street-on-snl-video.html

Hillary Clinton Will Be a Sharp Contrast to GOP on LGBT Equality

The entire Republican field is more conservative than Hillary Clinton on LGBT equality.

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Lucas Grindley

www.advocate.com/politics/election/2015/04/12/hillary-clinton-will-be-sharp-contrast-gop-lgbt-equality

Hillary Clinton Announces Run for President: VIDEO

Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2015/04/hillary-clinton-announces-run-for-president-video.html

Hilary Swank Says Transgender Acceptance Has 'A Long Way To Go'
This was a different kind of acceptance speech.

Hilary Swank, who won an Oscar for portraying a murdered transgender teen in 1999’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” says acceptance of transgender people has progressed somewhat.

“I think we’ve taken strides since that movie,” she said Thursday on “The Meredith Vieira Show.” “We have a long way to go.”

“It’s astonishing to me that we are here in 2015 and there are so many issues that need to be looked at and handled and we shouldn’t dictate who people should love,” Swank elaborated. “Let people love people.”

The issue of transphobia has emerged in the headlines lately. Transgender teen Taylor Alesena committed suicide after allegedly being bullied by classmates.

On the White House website Wednesday, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote a post calling for a ban on conversion therapy, ABC News noted. The letter was in response to a transgender youth who committed suicide in December after being forced into the practice.

Watch Swank’s interview above.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/12/hilary-swank-transgender_n_7049850.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Chad Allen Says Goodbye to Acting, Public Life, and His Fansite in Reflective Video: WATCH

Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2015/04/chadallen.html

Shop: Ban of those who nixed gay rights bill served purpose
In this April 8, 2015 photo, Joe Curry, a barista and one of the owners at Red Raven Espresso Parlor in Fargo, N.D., serves up a beverage.

www.beloitdailynews.com/news/national/shop-ban-of-those-who-nixed-gay-rights-bill-served/article_7d0ad902-9f67-52c4-97de-058827d40b61.html

Here's What Happened When I Let an Artist Cast My P***y in Plaster
He calls it The Great Wall of Vagina (because “vulva” doesn’t rhyme with “China”). He casts women’s vulvas and displays them in a massive wall of identically sized tiles.

As soon as I heard about it, I wanted to be a part of it. I shot the UK artist Jamie McCartney an email asking if we might be able to collaborate.

Although McCartney does come to the U.S. now and again and I travel to Europe on occasion, we never seemed to be in the same place at the same time. Until last week.

As luck would have it, we both were going to be in Florida, so the date was set, the plan was laid, and my feet started to get a little cold.

What on Earth was I thinking?

Why in the world would I drop trou for a stranger and let him apply casting material to my vulva — literally the same glop that the dentist uses, but without the minty stuff? (Apparently the minty version was a bit too tingly for the models.)

Why would I want a permanent sculpture of said parts for all the world to see?

But as soon as I met McCartney on that gorgeous, sunny, Sarasota day, there was something about his demeanor that completely put me at ease. So when he was all set up and said, “Whenever you’re ready,” I slipped out of my yoga pants and hopped up on the massage table lined with plastic like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

He asked me to scoot down and butterfly my legs. We joked about how silly this all seemed. My girlfriend looked on as he put the casting material between my legs. I flinched at the cold. “I warned you,” McCartney teased. Once I was covered, he applied bandage material, and then we chatted as we waited for it to dry.

Photo by Lacey Brutschy

It seemed like the weirdest and the most natural thing in the world to do all at the same time. When it was set, he peeled it off, which has to be the most bizarre feeling on the planet. It was set but still gelatinous-feeling as it pulled away from my parts.

“There you are,” he said. “Inside out, of course. I’m just going to put your vagina next to your head.”

“First time for everything,” I replied. McCartney had said he would make a second sculpture for my girlfriend to have. So he set to molding me once again, and it was just as cold when it went on, and just as weird-feeling when it came off.

I pulled my yoga pants back on when he’d finished, and he filled the molds with plaster, and in less then 30 minutes there were two plaster replicas of my vulva, each a little different because, as McCartney explains, it makes a cast of the vulva responding to the material it has on it.

He then used dental tools to pull out the blue bits left behind. “I have a friend who is a dentist who gives me his old tools. This is a little bit of voodoo,” he joked. “Do you feel a bit of tingling down there?”

Honestly, the pieces look really cool. Kind of beautiful. Yes, a bit like flowers. A lot like O’Keeffe paintings. And, even though this word gets overused and can thus be a bit cheesy, it was really empowering. Being visible is the most vital thing we can do whether we’re talking about bodies or sexuality or disability or any social issue, for that matter.

Saying “I am here, this is me, and I’m OK just as I am” allows other people to do the same.

I felt charged and a little buzzed when he’d finished. It wasn’t sexual in any way. I was worried I might be turned on by being looked at or touched, but it wasn’t that way at all. It was more of an “I am woman; hear me roar” kind of moment.

If we want to change attitudes about women’s bodies, if we want to eliminate shame, if we want to really become a tribe of humans, we have to strip down — literally and figuratively. We have to strip away the nonsense. We have to quiet the noise.

I am a woman. I have a vulva. There’s not a thing in the world wrong with either, and I am not going to apologize or be ashamed. And I will walk the walk for other women who can’t yet, until they can.

So that’s why I dropped my drawers and spread my legs for a stranger — for a man, no less. Because I love my body, and I wish the same for all women. Vulvas are wonderful, powerful parts. And they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and designs.

Women don’t get to see enough of them to know that, to know that they’re normal. So doing this project is my tiny contribution to that normalizing. I’m OK, and you’re OK too. Trust me.

McCartney actually began the wall in 2006 for that very reason. He wants women — and men — to love their bodies, including their naughty bits, and he loves to do it with equal parts art and humor.

It started with just making the casts of women’s vulvas. But then the idea to tour them came to him, and the Great Wall of Vagina was born. Approximately $150,000 in time and materials later, the Wall hit the road in 2011.

“I was commissioned by a sex museum in London to make a wall of genital casts. They were going to go with photographs but heard I was doing body casting. It was the first time I could compare my own dick to 17 to 18 other men. I realized I was completely normal. A weight limited off. I had this epiphany from being cast, and I thought women could have that too. So I started this project, and I really had no idea where it would go.”

Four hundred women volunteered to be cast. It was incredibly important to McCartney that it be volunteer-only, so that the women were contributing to the art, not being paid for their body parts.

Some women did it for fun. Some for art. Some to get over sexual trauma. Others to overcome body issues. One woman who hadn’t had sex in years did it because she thought her pussy was a train wreck. But once she had it done, she called Jamie and said, “I have a sex life again.”

“For a lot of the younger women, it was quite a significant event in their lives,” McCartney explains, “especially with labiaplasty the largest growing surgery in the UK.”

These days, McCartney is also working on collages of scans done with a regular old office scanner, including one of the American flag made from scans of women’s bra-clad breasts. So he took scans of my breasts, both in and out of a bra; of my nether regions, both with and without panties; and of my backside. That process was kind of hilarious. But it too felt empowering.

There’s not a thing wrong with my body, and getting a little validation on that front by seeing it as art isn’t too bad for the ‘ol self-esteem.

I pressed my breasts down on the scanner, and then McCartney laid it atop my bottom half, front and back. My girlfriend was in and out of the room at that point and kept walking in and shaking her head with a shit-eating grin on her face.

Nothing better than dating someone who is proud of everything you do. And I mean everything, including the fact that my cast will be a part of a new piece that will have one cast of a woman’s vulva from every state. How’s this for irony? I’m Miss Texas!

To see photos of the process and the final project, as well as videos, please click here.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-block/heres-what-happened-when-_b_7020258.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices