There was a running joke when I went to American University about Aprils. Every year, without fail, a scandalized incident would occur in our community related to sexual violence during that month. Every year, without fail, it would provoke a conversation. Every year — you get me by now, right? — it went nowhere.
The Human Rights Campaign announced an $8.5 million campaign over the weekend to advance “LGBT equality” in the South. The three-year campaign will specifically target three states Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi, which offer no employment or housing protections for LGBT residents and prohibits same-sex marriage.
I am writing today in response to your latest inquiry regarding my thoughts and opinions on one Kristen Stewart. I understand that it is highly unusual to respond at such length via a comment on a Facebook status, but I believe my reasons will become apparent as I, the great Sherlock Homo, attempt to unravel the question posed within your status: “Kristen Stewart Dating Alicia Cargile? ‘Twilight’ Star Reportedly Has A New Girlfriend.”
After its regressive ruling last December, when it recriminalized homosexuality, the Indian Supreme Court recognized the rights of transgender persons on 15 April 2014. The ruling, which recognizes the legal rights of the Indian transgender community, is currently making its larger queer community hopeful. The recognition of the “third gender” on one hand, and the recriminalization of homosexuality on the other, makes queer rights in India a complex paradox, where alternative gender is recognized but alternative sexualities are not.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld a Michigan state ban on the use of race as a factor in admissions to state universities, allowing voters to decide the matter on a state-by-state level. It follows an earlier ruling on affirmative action last June, where courts were ordered to give greater scrutiny for the reasons that such programs exist. Both decisions maintain the principle that there are some circumstances in which affirmative action is permissible.
The sun seemed to shine a little brighter the Tuesday morning that Brown University student, Lena Sclove, stood in front of a group of 50 or more students, staff, and Providence residents to talk about the traumatic event that has affected her life for the last eight months. Standing in front of the University’s Van Wickle Gates, Sclove addressed the crowd of supporters. “It’s sort of bittersweet,” Sclove began with a small smile on her face. “I haven’t seen a lot of you and this campus has come to mean a lot of things to me. And it’s become a very scary place for me, and that’s what I’m here to talk about.”
Don’t worry, there are no spoilers here. The first scene of the second season of Orange is the New Black is short and intriguing and funny and heartbreaking all at once. And it’s only a minute long so imagine how crazy good the new episodes are going to be. Creator Jenji Kohan has already warned us that things will get a lot darker. Check out the video below to catch up on how things are going for Piper Kerman (Taylor Schilling) following the events of the season one finale. Hint: Not well.
Jodie Foster is a very very private lady, so don’t be too sad that you weren’t notified until about two hours ago that she and her darling girlfriend Alexandra Hedison were officially married over the weekend. Did you know Alexandra Hedison was once on Melrose Place? Hey here’s a picture of Alexandra and Jodie having brunch last October.
The point of this piece, this entire long piece, is to convince you all, as a collective unit, to go out and subscribe to your state and/or local newspaper en masse if you have the means to do so. And you should do this because it is an act of rebellion.
Our collective girlfriend, Rachel Maddow, has asked us repeatedly to do this. Most recently, it was in response to The Star Ledger, New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper, undergoing cuts so massive that one almost can’t believe they’re happening.
Last weekend, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag announced that the government of Turkey plans to create separate prison facilitiesfor incarcerated LGBT people, apparently in an attempt to protect them. Unlike other Muslim countries, Turkey permits same-sex relationships and even gender-confirming surgeries; however, traditional Islamic values heavily influence society and lead to the stigmatization of LGBT populations, demonstrated now through this attempt to isolate queer prisoners. As of now, imprisoned LGBT people are kept in solitary confinement but the Turkish government’s plans effectively will increase the social ostracism of incarcerated queer folks.
Project ROSE is a program in the city of Phoenix, AZ that claims to help sex workers. In the name of rescuing them, police officers handcuff alleged sex workers and take them off the street and into a church to meet with prosecutors and Project ROSE representatives, who offer them “diversion programs.” Sex workers who aren’t interested in the diversion programs face jail time. These sex workers aren’t technically arrested, just made “contact” with; conveniently, if they’re not arrested, then they don’t need to be offered the chance to speak to a lawyer. In May of 2013, Monica Jones became one of the people arrested by Project ROSE; the charge was “manifesting prostitution” for accepting a ride home to her neighborhood from men who turned out to be undercover cops. This week, Jones was found guilty, and faces the possibility of serving time in a men’s prison as a trans woman.
We were the first to report on the real identity of the woman who inspired “Alex Vause” in the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black, and today Vanity Fair became the first news outlet to publish an interviewwith the lady in question, 51-year-old Catherine Cleary Wolters. Vanity Fair reports that Wolters is currently working on her PhD in information technology, assurance and security, has written three unpublished novels and “exhibits a flair for the philosophical.”
On April 21, Reina Gossett, CeCe McDonald, and Dean Spade will be at Barnard College for an event called “I Use My Love to Guide Me”: Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Impossible Situations. It will take place at 7:30 pm at The Auditorium at the New School and admission is free. This event is a part of the No One is Disposable series, where Gossett has conversations for the Barnard Center for Research on Women about trans activism and prison abolition.
Playwright Shirlene Holmes calls theater “a place to do divine things.” In that same vein, Holmes, who has authored the work A Lady and A Woman, strongly believes in the theater’s capacity to produce social change. During Brown University’s “Black Lavender Experience,” a week long festival that began on April 7th and ended on April 12th, Black LGBTQ artists gathered to perform and discuss their work with students, residents, and festival participants in Providence, Rhode Island. Holmes and a number of queer Black playwrights and filmmakers took the time to sit down with students and talked about the divine nature of their writing for marginalized communities.
