The winners of the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes include two queer men of color. The first is Michael R. Jackson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his off-broadway play, A Strange Loop, which centers around a gay black man, Usher, trying to navigate life in New York City. By day, Usher works as an usher for the Broadway production of The Lion King. By night, he dreams of being a writer and creating his own plays. The show focuses on politics, religion, race, and sexuality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4hWaHg6b98 Upon its release at Playwrights Horizon in Midtown, New York, the show received…
Author: Keith Langston
The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI) and Jagermeister are sponsoring a contest to create a LGBTQ ‘Safe Space logo. The contest is to create a logo that public establishments can hang in their doorways or windows to show the LGBTQ+ community that they’re a safe space. According to the official release, “Through a 10-step process, entertainment venues, food and beverage locations, stores, businesses and other public venues, can become certified as a Safe Space for LGBTQ+ members of the community.” Stacy Lentz, CEO of the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative said, “Safe Spaces uplift LGBTQ+ people by providing a…
The South Dakota House of Representatives just passed HB1057, legislation that bars transgender youth and their parents from making decisions about their gender-affirming medical care. Even scarier, the bill states that doctors can be imprisoned for providing care to trans and gender-nonconforming citizens. Dr. Alex Chavez of The Trevor Project wrote a piece for NBC News chastising South Dakota for their blatant discrimination. In fact, in the article, Dr. Chavez even quotes a peer-reviewed medical study that clearly states that providing transgender and nonconforming youth with gender-affirming care dramatically increases their mental and physical wellbeing. https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/1222519860267188229 The need for gender-affirming…
The Sin City Classic, the world’s largest annual LGBTQ sporting event, will return to Las Vegas on January 16th and will run through the MLK holiday weekend until the 19th. This year, there will be 24 sporting competitions with an estimated 8,000 competitors heading into Las Vegas. The sporting events are varied, including everything from basketball, dodgeball, and hockey, to e-sports, bridge, and billiards. Each of the events will take place in different venues and arenas around town. Aside from sports competitions, there will be nightly social events and parties, including a welcome party and closing celebration at the Brooklyn…
A new campaign, “Deutschland fliegt nicht” translated to ‘Germany Doesn’t Fly’ is aiming to curb carbon emissions by encouraging Germans to rethink their domestic and short-haul flights. The first goal is to try get as many people as possible not to fly during the week of February 10 -16, 2020. According to the group, “The nationwide campaign ‘Germany doesn’t fly’ is much more than a normal protest. Simply not flying is more effective than waiting for bans, regulations and laws.” The goal is to get Germany (and the rest of the world) to recognize and understand the immense amount of…
A New York Christmas, which has just been released on Netflix, puts an LGBTQ twist on the famous film It’s a Wonderful Life (which itself was adapted from the short story, The Greatest Gift.) The story follows a woman about to be wed to the man she loves…until she stumbles across her guardian angel late one night in Central Park. Her angel allows her to see what her life could have been if she had the courage to remain with her first true love, Gabrielle. The movie was written, directed, and produced by first-generation filmmaker, Otoja Abit, who even has…
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced today that Twitter will be banning all political ads, globally. In true twitter form, the announcement came via tweet. In it, Dorsey stated: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1189634360472829952&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F10%2F30%2Ftechnology%2Ftwitter-political-ads-ban.html For anyone out there wondering why this is, here is a great example. Political ads can come in various forms. Political ads can be harmless, such as this ad by Elizabeth Warren: But political ads can also be extremely divisive, offensive, hurtful, and untrue. Here’s an advertisement that has recently popped up on a popular movie website. Many say that allowing ads like this to be spread around the country, simply…
With everyone stuck at home, streaming movies and TV shows have become the national pastime. Over the last five years, more and more streaming services have entered the market, offering everything from Oscar-winning classics to anime. Some streaming platforms have even included LGBTQ+ collections to their online libraries, giving everyone access to queer cinema, a genre they may not have known otherwise. Below are five awesome streaming services that have LGBTQ+ collections. NETFLIX Netflix was one of the first streaming platforms to include an LGBTQ section. But then again, Netflix was also one of the first streaming services, period.…
The United Kingdom has just expanded Turing’s Law, a measure that seeks to pardon LGBTQ people who were convicted of archaic crimes, largely aimed at gay men who were convicted under sodomy laws. According to NBC News, gay sex was legalized in the UK in 1967, but the age of consent was kept higher (at 21 years of age) for gay men than for heterosexuals (which was 16 years of age) all the way until 2001. This means that someone who was 25 or 26 could have been convicted of pedophilia for having sex with someone who was 20 years…
You’ve probably heard that The Dixie Chicks have recently changed their name to The Chicks. The band has decided to distance themselves from a word that’s heavily associated with the Confederate South. The change has enraged some conservatives, but this isn’t the band’s first brush with controversy. Back during the Bush era, the band famously received extreme backlash from Americans (including death threats) because of their comments about the sad direction America was moving in. While many thought that incident was going to be the death of the band, The Chicks came back swinging with their manifesto album Taking the…
The trucker “protest” in Canada has become a rallying cry for alt-right trolls and white supremacists. Now, Confederate and Nazi flags can even be seen being waved at the blockades. The rhetoric used by the “protesters” has also devolved into racist and homophobic slurs, as well as militant language, with many of these truckers now calling themselves “soldiers”. To fight back against the growing movement fueled by racism and homophobia, counter-protesters have been filling up alt-right chatrooms, video calls, and voice chats by blasting “Ram Ranch”. The song is a hardcore, death metal ode to life on a very gay…
The stories, experiences, and history of LGBTQ people have often been suppressed in society. However, despite hundreds of years of oppression, the community has managed to mobilize, fight for equal rights, and usher in a new era that includes greater acceptance and inclusion. Now, The American LGBTQ+ Museum is set to open in New York City and will be located inside an expansion of the New York Historical Society on the city’s Upper West Side. While the physical museum isn’t set to open until 2024, online programming is already underway. The museum will showcase LGBTQ+ history, as well as New…
Singer and songwriter Cody Belew shot to fame after making it to the Top 8 of the popular singing competition show, The Voice. Since then, he’s become a seasoned performer and passionate advocate for LGBTQ equality. Belew, who is gay, also just launched a new country Christmas song titled ‘Hang Your Hat On My Christmas Tree’, which is set to be used in Paramount’s new LGBTQ holiday film, Dashing in December. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWeCkrg8VUU The film, which will simulcast on Paramount Network, TV Land, POP, and Logo on Sunday, December 13th, takes the classic holiday chick flick and turns it upside by…
The film Hair Love has just won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. Though only a little under seven minutes, the movie manages to be funny, joyful, and heartwarming, while sending a powerful message of of acceptance and inclusion. View Hair Love here, and share this wonderful film with your family and friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNw8V_Fkw28 During the Oscars, Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Rupert Toliver accepted the award and called awareness to an issue many don’t know about: The CROWN Act. CROWN, which is an acronym for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlyDdE3mveY The act is…
United Airlines has announced that it’s entering a partnership with CLEAR, the biometrics security company that lets you skip the TSA security line with the swipe of a finger. CLEAR is available at over 60 airports throughout America, including cities like Detroit, Dallas, and Phoenix. To determine how beneficial CLEAR will be to you, look into whether it’s at your home airport, or the airports that you travel to often. If you’re on the fence about buying a yearly subscription to CLEAR, which is $179, then perhaps receiving a discounted price through your airline could help sweeten the deal. Depending…
Every year, New York magazine unveils its annual ‘Reasons to Love New York’ issue. This year’s theme is the ‘Movies Issue’ which will celebrate the movies that spotlight New York City. However, the issue is also setting out to raise awareness about homeless LGBTQ youth. According to a statement from the magazine, “The issue also includes a special advertising project from Havas New York and The Ali Forney Center, who took over 40% of the magazine’s advertising pages to draw attention to the fact that LGBTQIA+ identifying youths make up 40% of New York City’s homeless youth.” Dubbed an ‘issue…
Tobi, a 16-year-old transgender student at Siegel High in Murfreesboro, was harassed and threatened while using the boy’s bathroom at their high school. According to the Daily News Journal, while Tobi was using one of the stalls, a group of boys entered the bathroom yelling slurs and began banging on the stall door. At one point, Tobi had to press against the door with all their weight in order to keep it from opening. When help finally arrived, Tobi was in the stall crying and shaking with fear. Tobi was given permission to use single-person bathrooms in the school, however, on…
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were two of the world’s first leading LGBTQ pioneers. The two women founded the first lesbian rights group, The Daughters of Bilitis, back in the 50s, and went on to run the lesbian newsletter The Ladder. After Phyllis Lyon’s death earlier this year, their historic San Fransisco home went up for sale. It was then that District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman introduced a resolution to designate the former home a local historic landmark. LGBTQ activists from the country have stood up and demanded that their home be preserved (it sits on a very prime plot…
Last week, the Trump administration rolled back yet another Obama-era law. This time, they attacked the protections granted to trans people in the Affordable Care Act. In what is known as the Health Care Rights Law, groups were protected from discrimination based on things like sex, race, and gender. The trans community was included in this list. However, last week, the Department of Health and Human Services claimed that there was no authority to create such protections, and so they will now, “enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of…
Betsy DeVos, the US Secretary of Education, is threatening to cut federal funding to Connecticut schools unless they ban transgender girls from playing sports on girl’s teams. The move, which was first reported by the AP, is yet another attack by DeVos against the LGBTQ community. The claim is that trans girls aren’t biologically girls, but boys, and therefore, will have an unfair advantage in the realm of sports. The Alliance Defending Freedom (a conservative Christian organization) backed up the claim by stating, that it “isn’t fair, destroys girls’ athletic opportunities, and clearly violates federal law,” The Department of Education’s…
Comedic actress and legendary gay icon Fran Drescher is set to star in Lifetime’s new LGBTQ holiday movie, The Christmas Setup. In the film, Hugo heads home to Milwaukee for the holidays. But once he arrives, his mom (Drescher) decides to play a little matchmaking between him and his high school crush. Hugo is forced to question what’s truly important in his life and what direction his life should take. It looks like the perfect offering to add to your Christmas watch-list. Plus, with Drescher involved, there’s sure to be a good dose of humor and fun along with way.…
Lashana Lynch, who is about to star in the upcoming Bond film, has been named one of the Harper’s Bazaar ‘Women of the Year’. She holds this title alongside other women, such as Jane Fonda and Gillian Anderson. Lynch, who is best known for starring in Captain Marvel (and creating quite a stir about a potential Captain Marvel LGBTQ love interest) and appearing in the series Bulletproof, is about to make history when she stars in No Time to Die, alongside Daniel Craig. This will be the 25th Bond film and the first time a black woman is portraying Agent…
The world went wild after Bernie Sanders attended President Biden’s inauguration in what many are calling a stunning “grumpy chic” look. But what some don’t realize is that his outfit was also very much a local celebration of his home state. His jacket is Burton, which is based in Burlington, and his mittens are handmade by a LGBTQ woman named Jen Ellis. Ellis lives in Essex Junction, Vermont, and made the mittens as a gift for Sanders back in 2016. On Twitter, Ellis revealed that the mittens are made from repurposed wool sweaters and fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.…
Earlier this year, famed musician k.d. lang released an album of remixes titled, Makeover. The album soared to #1 on the electronic charts and even spawned two #1 singles on the dance music charts. it was an impressive record that even led NPR to call lang “an immortal voice” in the music world. Now, k.d. lang is back with another remix, this time with the help of DJ and producer, Tracy Young. The song, Constant Craving – Fashionably Late Remix, is a remixed version of her 1992 hit single, Constant Craving. Upon its original release, the single peaked at #2…
9-1-1 quickly skyrocketed into one of FOX’s most-watched series. The show centered around larger-than-life disasters and pulpy, campy fun. Before long, the series received a spin-off, 9-1-1: Lone Star, which is set in Austin, Texas. Along with longtime Hollywood veterans like Rob Lowe and Liv Tyler are three LGBTQ stars. First, Brian Michael Smith, who stars as firefighter Paul Strickland, became the first Black trans man to star in a network television series. Smith told NBC News he was excited to work on the show because he’s also able to portray a trans character in the series, giving a voice…
The UK is implementing new laws as lockdown measures begin to ease up. In certain parts of the country, retailers are allowed to open back up at limited capacity, schools will begin to reopen, and certain people will be going back to work. To “keep citizens safe” during the easing of the coronavirus lockdown, however, the UK government has implemented some rather strange policies. Now, groups of up to six people from different households are allowed to gather outside, but no two people from different households can congregate together inside (unless it’s for special circumstances like a funeral). The law…
Club Cumming, the popular East Village lounge founded by the legendary Alan Cumming himself, will be opening “Club Cumming on the Coast” in Kennebunkport, Maine this summer. The seaside village is home to intimate resorts, stunning ocean views, and endless acres of New England charm. This summer though, Club Cumming will be turning the town into a red hot piano bar and cabaret. The Manhattan lounge is famous for its Broadway singers, jazz bands, drag performances, burlesque shows, and more. Now, the troupe will bring all that excitement to the Maine Coast. Anchored at the Kennebunkport Inn, the show will…
We’ve all heard the story of those pivotal events that took place at a New York City gay bar in the summer of 1969. What you might not know is the surprising events that took place after the notorious Stonewall Riots. As you can imagine, shortly after the riots the Stonewall was closed. A mafia-owned bar that was home to an uprising against cops wasn’t bound to last long. Flash forward fifty years to the present day. I’m standing in Christopher Park with three members from the National Parks Conservation Association. It’s pouring rain and I’m completely soaked because I…
Calling all Roses, Blanches, Dorothys, and Sophias! A Golden Girls-themed cruise is setting sail from Miami on April 8, 2023. The cruise, officially titled Golden Fans at Sea, will embark on the Celebrity Summit and will launch from Miami on April 8th, taking cruisers to Key West and Cozumel before returning on the 13th.Throughout the cruise, various Golden Girls activities will be held, such as dance parties, trivia nights, and even costume parades. Plus, the ship will be loaded with special guest speakers, such as Melinda McClanahan, Rue McClanahan’s sister. Melinda will share stories, comedy, and even outfits from the…
Rachel Levine, who is currently serving as Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary, has been chosen by Joe Biden to be his assistant secretary of health. Levine has a long history of medicine and public service. She’s Harvard educated and attended the Tulane School of Medicine. She was a pediatrician by trade, and later became a Pennsylvania physician general, as well as holding her spot as the state’s Health Secretary. According to NBC News, Biden said of Levine, “Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code,…