Pastor Who Called for LGBT Extermination: Gays Are 'Basically Rapists'

Following his call for an LGBT genocide, pastor Steven Anderson continues to issue hateful statements.

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Stevie St. John

www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2014/12/05/pastor-who-called-lgbt-extermination-gays-are-basically-rapists

My Children Don't Know I'm a Lesbian

I’m not the type of person who likes to keep secrets. I grew up in a house where secrets floated in the air at all times, and I never liked to keep track of who knew what. But when I realized at the age of sixteen that I was a lesbian, I suddenly had my own secret to keep track of. I did eventually come out to my old world Greek immigrant parents. Some years after that, my conservative relatives back in Greece found out when CNN broadcast footage of my partner and I getting married at San Francisco City Hall in 2004 when Gavin Newsom allowed same-sex marriage for the first time. I never intended to keep any secrets from my children, so imagine my surprise to find that my children don’t know I’m a lesbian.

When I met my partner in 1995, we found home within a community of interracial butch/femme lesbian couples. I was femme identified and my partner was a mixed Asian transgender-identified butch. We dreamed of a life together that included creating our own family and traditions. As we grew older, we stopped going to clubs and started trying to have babies.

With our first child, we suddenly found ourselves with a new set of questions to answer. What should our child call us? While my partner Willy had not medically transitioned at that point, we knew with certainty that he didn’t want to be called mom. It worked out well for me, because I secretly harbored a selfish wish to be the only person the babies called mama. We toyed with titles for Willy for some time, but in the end it was our son who finally named him Dada. Even as a baby he identified the parental label that best fit Willy’s gender identity. And when our son started preschool and the other kids said, “You have two moms!” he would calmly respond, “No I don’t,” and look at them with some pity for their confusion. In our son’s eyes, he always saw Willy as his dad.

All three of our children have attended San Francisco LGBT Pride parades, as well as our hometown Oakland Pride parades. They’ve heard us talk about the Proposition 8 campaign when some of our neighbors turned against us with their hateful marriage rhetoric. They see the equity in same-sex marriage and we rejoice as each new state affirms the right to marry. Every year we attend the APIQWTC (Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community) banquet, one of the largest gatherings of queer Asians I have ever seen. We openly discuss that we used a sperm donor to conceive them. Our community is queer, transgender, but admittedly much more straight since we have entered the elementary school culture. I know that since Willy’s full transition to a male presentation I often get read as straight, but in my mind and in my heart I still identify as a lesbian.

Recently I was sharing some updates about an ex-girlfriend with my partner, and my son asked, “Who is she?” I paused, because the idea of having ever been with someone besides Willy seems strange to me now. I said, “She used to be my girlfriend, before I met Dad. I used to date her.” My 8-year-old son, who’s always been rather contemplative, stopped for a moment to think. “What do you mean? You dated girls before you met Dad?”

As I let this question sink in, I struggled to comprehend what I was hearing. “Yes, I dated girls before I met Dad.” I suddenly found myself coming out to my own child, and was quite honestly flabbergasted that this was something he didn’t know about me. It never occurred to me to discuss old girlfriends with my kids, or that omission only reinforced my invisibility as a lesbian.

Even though Willy and I make our intellectual and emotional home in the queer community, to our children we must appear to be a heterosexual couple. True, Dad is now a man and I am a feminine woman. I suppose we look like the families of many of their friends. But how many of their friends have stuffed animals that are transgender? How many of their friends saw their parents mourn the passing of Leslie Feinberg?

I realize that being a femme lesbian has always come with some level of invisibility within the LGBT community, and certainly in the straight world. But I never expected it within my own family. So the next question is, how do I teach my children about my identity without telling them bedtime stories about Mommy’s ex-girlfriends?

Visibility as the femme lesbian partner of a trans man can be hard to achieve, and in most circumstances it’s not my goal. But in my home and with my children I want to be all of me–the mother and partner I am today, as well as that young girl who found excitement and acceptance when she walked through the doors of a lesbian bookstore. I want to bring all of me into this venture called motherhood, even when the very nature of motherhood is to lose yourself in your children. I want my children to know that I had to struggle to find acceptance in my family and culture, and that no matter what, you should strive for pride.

So maybe I won’t tell stories about my ex-girlfriends. But I will tell them stories about coming to know myself, accepting myself even when I knew it might mean losing my family, and finding the courage to be my true self. And I can teach them about loyalty and loving someone through all the challenges and joys. These are the lessons that I can teach my children about being a lesbian, and lessons that will serve them well.

www.huffingtonpost.com/georgia-kolias/my-children-dont-know-im-_b_6263216.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Allison Williams Who? Our Favorite Peter Pan Was Divine

Well, not exactly Divine, but rather John Candy playing Diving playing Peter Pan.

The sketch was aired on the Canadian show SCTV, and judging by the reviews of last night’s Peter Pan Live with Allison Williams, you’re better off just watching this clip.

Who knew John Candy made such a good drag queen?

And here’s a holiday bonus — John back as Divine singing “Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me”:

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/jjKGoRSCmIg/allison-williams-who-our-favorite-peter-pan-was-divine-20141205

Are You Ready for the Return of Whitney In Lifetime's Upcoming TV Biopic? – VIDEO

Kyler Geoffroy

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/are-you-ready-for-the-return-of-whitney-in-lifetimes-upcoming-tv-biopic-video.html

Scott Lively: Being LGBT is an “Infection”

Anti-LGBT extremist Scott Lively has been keeping busy since losing his bid for the governor of Massachusetts.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/scott-lively-being-lgbt-is-an-infection?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Scott Lively: Being LGBT is an “Infection”

Anti-LGBT extremist Scott Lively has been keeping busy since losing his bid for the governor of Massachusetts.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/scott-lively-being-lgbt-is-an-infection?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Justin Sayre Of 'The Meeting' Sounds Off On Misogyny In The Gay Community
In his latest video for HuffPost Gay Voices, writer-actor Justin Sayre humorously tackles Rose McGowan’s recent claims about gay men and misogyny.

“It’s true — we’re not nice to women,” Sayre says in the clip. “Those girls — let’s be honest — they saved our lives in high school. If you didn’t have a beard you could take to a prom, what were you doing?”

Noting that he attended 24 proms during his high school years, he added, “I looked great in a suit, I loved to dance and I was not gonna bring you home pregnant. I was a perfect prom date.”

Sayre’s “International Order of Sodomites” (I.O.S.) gathers once a month for “The Meeting,” honoring an artist or a cultural work that is iconic to the gay community. Previous editions have been dedicated to Cher, Karen Carpenter and Stephen King’s “Carrie.”

The holiday installment of “The Meeting,” which features guests Lady Rizo, Julian Fleisher, David Drake, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, hits New York’s Joe’s Pub on Dec. 7.

In other news, “Sparkle & Circulate with Justin Sayre,” the official I.O.S. podcast, has just released its second episode, featuring an interview with writer and talk radio host Frank DeCaro.

Meanwhile, you can also view some previous performances from “The Meeting” on Sayre’s official YouTube page. For more Sayre, head to Facebook and Twitter.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/05/justin-sayre-gay-misogyny_n_6276100.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Five Reasons Why Homophobia Is The Only Possible Reason The FDA Won’t Change Its Ban On Gay Blood Donors

Since 1983, the FDA has placed a blanket ban on blood donations from anyone who has had sex with another man at any time since the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. The ban was instituted as hysteria about the AIDS epidemic was growing and blood screening technology hadn’t been instituted to detect the virus in blood donations. The FDA insists that the decision, now in its fourth decade is “based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor’s sexual orientation.”

Bull.

As the FDA hearings on the ban this week have shown, there is no good scientific reason why gay men and men who have sex with men are singled out for treatment that no one else receives. The FDA insists that it’s concerned about the safety of the blood supply, but here are five good reasons why the agency seems to be motivated by anything but science.

1. The FDA is more lenient with straight men. Have unprotected sex with a female prostitute, and you have to wait a year before you can donate blood. Watch a Judy Garland movie anytime since Gerald Ford was president, and you’re a leper for life.

2. The agency doesn’t differentiate what kind of gay sex. The science proves that unprotected anal sex is a high-risk behavior for HIV transmission. Other types of sex don’t carry anything like the same risk. But the FDA doesn’t care what kind of sex you had, just that you had it with another man. In the FDA’s book, mutual masturbation is as good a reason to ban gay blood donors as unprotected anal sex.

3. Monogamy? Never heard of it. In a monogamous relationship? The FDA doesn’t care and it’s not about to take your word for it in any case. It just care that you’re knocking boots with another man. Imagine if they applied the same standard to heterosexual married couples.

4. Multiple experts have called the ban nonsense. The American Medical Association, the American Red Cross, and the American Association of  Blood Banks have all called on the FDA to change its policy on the grounds that its not based on sound science. A one-year deferral, which is common in many countries, would make more sense than a lifetime ban, they argued and would result in one additional transfusion-related infection every 32 years.

5. The technology is incredibly advanced. The most commonly used test to screen blood donations will detect HIV within nine days of the donor becoming infected. The risk of transmission from a donation is from anyone who just become infected with HIV within a little more than the past week. From the way the FDA acts, you think that science has stood still since Reagan was president.

The FDA panel that held hearings to consider lifting the ban was unable to come to any conclusion after two days of “heated deliberations.” The heat seems to come from something other than cold hard science. In the meantime, the agency seems intent on reminding us that the hysteria that fueled the response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is still alive and kicking.

JohnGallagher

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/C5qK9FD2IPw/five-reasons-why-homophobia-is-the-only-possible-reason-the-fda-wont-change-its-ban-on-gay-blood-donors-20141205