Cary Grant’s most prized possession was either his father’s pocket watch, or a gold chain that he wore around his neck that held one of Jennifer’s baby teeth in Lucite, and three charms that represented the three religions of his four ex-wives: a St. Christopher medal from the Catholic Virginia Cherrill, a small cross representing the Protestant religions of Barbara Hutton and Betsy Drake, and a Star of David for the Jewish Dyan Cannon. He continued to expound on the benefits of LSD to anyone who would listen, as well as anyone who was disinclined. He became known as the go-to […]
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Once The Haunting of Bly Manor’s narrator (Carla Gugino) has finished her long, spooky story, a listener approaches her with some edits. “I liked your story,” she says. “But I think you set it up wrong. You said it was a ghost story. It isn’t. It’s a love story.” It’s a moment that reads as a wink from creator Mike Flanagan to fans of his first horror-anthology installment, 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House. That series used Shirley Jackson’s novel as a springboard for exploring familial grief, aided by a healthy dose of gothic horror—it’s set at a creepy mansion and […]
Arguably the most difficult facet of prosecuting a serial killer case concerns the issue of insanity, since anyone who commits unspeakable atrocities must, in some respect, be out of his or her mind—and thus potentially innocent of premeditation, or able to know right from wrong. That question was essential in the trial of Dennis Nilsen, a Scottish-born resident of London who, in early 1983, was arrested after human remains were discovered in the drains of the house at 23 Cranley Gardens where he was renting a flat. A subsequent investigation uncovered more human body parts, and once a positive ID of […]
The pioneering journalist Monica Roberts, whose influential blog TransGriot reports on the murders of trans women alongside other news of importance to the trans community, has died, according to multiple sources on social media and news outlets. The award winning Roberts was an inspiration to many LGBTQ activists, campaigners and journalists, who took to Twitter and Facebook to express their grief and shock Thursday night. In a Facebook post, the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition wrote: “It is with great sadness that the BTAC family has received notice of the passing of Monica Roberts, our sister, aunt, and friend. We should have […]
If you think same-sex marriage isn’t in danger of being overturned, Justice Clarence Thomas would like you to think again. Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, today published a blistering attack on the Supreme Court’s landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state bans on same-sex marriage in 2015, arguing that it should be overturned. Thomas’s opinion is not a court decision, and has no legal impact. My husband and I are still legally married, and our daughter has not yet been taken away from us. But Thomas’s screed is a terrifying warning for the millions of LGBTQ Americans […]
This piece was originally published in Coda Story’s Disinformation channel. Justyna Szpanowska was cycling through Warsaw in mid-August, when she heard what, at first, sounded like a coronavirus public safety announcement. As she got closer to its source, she realized it was nothing of the sort. Following the sound, she came across a truck slowly making its way down a busy road in the city center. Its back was lined with speakers playing a prerecorded message, warning passersby that gay couples commit pedophilia against babies. In the passenger seat was a blogger with the ultraconservative LGBT hate group “Fundacja Pro—Prawo do […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. This week: Me: Cast gay actors in gay roles!!! Also me: Unless it is Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth in this movie that will absolutely destroy me!!! I can’t explain why the rules are such that The Tooch and Sir Firthy forever get a free pass in the debate over whether it matters that straight actors are constantly cast in gay romances while there is still […]
In 2013, J.K. Rowling explained how she chose her now-controversial pseudonym, “Robert Galbraith.” The first name, she said, was a nod to her political hero, Robert Kennedy. And the last name? “When I was a child, I really wanted to be called Ella Galbraith, I’ve no idea why.” It’s a charming anecdote—but unfortunately, Rowling shares her pseudonym with real-life psychiatrist Robert Galbraith Heath, who in the 20th century pioneered what we now call conversion therapy using techniques including electroshock and “brainwashing” drugs. Rowling’s anecdote, issued before her alternate name choice had stirred much mainstream controversy, casts this tie as sheer, if […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. The Kardashians Have Been Caught Up With What happens when the TV show that, for more than a decade, was proclaimed the death of culture, art, and civilized society as we know it…actually ends itself? Keeping Up With the Kardashians will end its run in 2021 after 14 years, 20 seasons, and the most insufferable discourse about television that I’ve had the displeasure of covering. Is […]
The restoration of director Claire Denis’ 1999 film Beau Travail, overseen by cinematographer Agnès Godard and approved by Denis, as well as its entry into the prestigious Criterion Collection, comes at a time when non-dominant visions of the world are still largely excluded from validating institutions. We hear these words spoken again and again, but they don’t seem to sink in. As marginalized groups see their images represented more and more as branding, their artistry is still often sidelined by those with major influence and money—John Boyega reminded us just how high up this practice goes in his recent GQ interview. […]
On a nondescript April night in 1990, 21-year-old Dale Wayne Sigler walked into a Brazoria County, Texas, Subway shop and robbed it of $400. When the man behind the counter, John William Zeltner Jr., attempted to flee into the back room, he was shot six times. The “overkill” nature of the crime implied that the two weren’t mere strangers, and the ensuing revelation that Sigler knew Zeltner helped convince a jury that not only was he guilty of the crime—to which he confessed, after being apprehended—but that the execution had been premeditated. For this senseless slaughter, Sigler received the death penalty, […]
A pool boy allegedly fucked his wife as he sat, watched, and enjoyed every second. For such a virulently anti-gay, Christian conservative, props to Jerry Falwell Jr. for at least serving up a note of pure Jackie Collins camp in the scandal that has led to his reported resignation as president of Liberty University, although on Monday night he claimed to be on “indefinite leave.” “Becki [Falwell’s wife] and I developed an intimate relationship, and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Giancarlo Granda told Reuters of his affair with the couple. Now 29, Granda told Reuters that these […]
As the curtain rises on the Republican National Convention, LGBTQ organizations are pushing back on the Trump campaign’s newest attempt to woo queer voters. The president’s campaign is calling Trump “the strongest ally that gay Americans have ever had in the White House,” but a new ad produced by GLAAD says otherwise. The anti-Trump advertisement, which will target Fox News voters the week of the convention, shows a gay man speaking with his Trump-supporting mother about the president’s opposition to the Equality Act and other proposed protections for LGBTQ Americans. “Ma, do you know that I could be evicted for being […]
Any ‘Gay and Lesbian History’ college course will dive into closeted white suburban gay male representations. In fact, this group of men, sneaking around in mid-century America, have received a fair bit of Hollywood attention in recent years. There was fashion designer Tom Ford’s adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s haunting novel A Single Man, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Oscar vehicle The Imitation Game, and Luca Guadagnino’s take on André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name. Todd Haynes’s excellent Far From Heaven refocused the lens from a cheating closeted suburban husband to the wife’s own relationship with a Black man who works as her gardener, […]
The thing about being out as transgender is that everyone—and I do mean everyone—thinks they can freely express an opinion about your identity, how well you “pass” for the gender with which you identify, and even your existence. And they expect you to defend it. No, expect is the wrong word; they demand it. Case in point, Dr. Rachel Levine. She’s the pediatrician who is the secretary of health for Pennsylvania. Her “steady, composed, data-driven approach” to the COVID-19 pandemic has won her widespread praise. She’s also become the target of a torrent of online hate, in print and on the […]
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—Dozens of young people were singing lyrics by a local band on Palace Square: “We’ll be together, like Sid and Nancy, we’ll never live long enough to be pensioners.” The warm July night was young. In spite of the dark context of the song, people looked happy. The wind played with a young woman’s rainbow-dyed hair, while she was kissing her girlfriend. That scene was hardly unusual, even in Russia, where authorities ban what they call “gay propaganda,” same-sex marriage and even the rainbow itself. Liza, who is 21, said she felt much happier once she dyed her hair in […]
Russia’s foreign ministry has sent notices of protest to the Moscow embassies of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, after the three buildings flew rainbow flags in June, recognized in some countries as LGBT Pride Month. Embassy staff of the three nations violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, as well as Russian law, according to Vasily Piskarev, who heads Russia’s commission investigating foreign interference. The commission noted that the LGBT pride flags appeared “during the voting period on amendments to the Russian Constitution, which enshrined provisions on the protection and preservation of traditional family values.” In late June, the […]
A Houston doctor who praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus has become a star on the right-wing internet, garnering tens of millions of views on Facebook on Monday alone. Donald Trump Jr. declared the video of Stella Immanuel a “must watch,” while Donald Trump himself retweeted the video. Before Trump and his supporters embrace Immanuel’s medical expertise, though, they should consider other medical claims Immanuel has made—including those about alien DNA and the physical effects of having sex with witches and demons in your dreams. Immanuel, a pediatrician and a […]
It was over 10 years ago that Nathaniel Nicco Annan, who goes by Nicco, first read early pages for the play Pussy Valley by Katori Hall, the 2015 debut of which he would go on to star in at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis. But it was only two weeks ago that Annan’s character, Uncle Clifford, made her fabulous screen debut in the groundbreaking drama series P-Valley, the adaptation of Hall’s play currently airing on Starz. She’s throwing a handsy patron out of her Dirty Delta strip club—a “shake junt,” as she calls it. A cop car’s red and blue […]
When activist Bartosz Staszewski was invited to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda a few weeks ago, he tried to make Duda look at three portraits: one was of a young trans activist called Milo who’d jumped off a bridge in Warsaw last year; the other pictures were of two boys, Dominic and Kacper, who’d hanged themselves after becoming victims of homophobic bullying at school. Staszewski was only too aware that Duda was using the meeting with LGBTQ activists as a token effort in his re-election campaign to show an open mind. Staszewski told the president he hoped he’d see these […]
Seven Russian senators have introduced a package of bills that would prohibit same-sex marriage, ban gay couples from adopting children, and prevent people from getting married after gender reassignment. Led by Senator Elena Mizulina, the head of the Senate’s committee on updating the country’s ‘Family Code’, the proposals follow in the footsteps of Russia’s constitutional amendments which officially defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In March, the country’s Constitutional Court deemed the changes to be lawful, but insisted that it does not remove the state’s obligation to respect differences, including in regards to sexual orientation. Also […]
It’s rare when you can actually witness the moment on screen when a talent steps into their star status, the spark that sets the marquee ablaze as they, in the exact right role with the exact right material, ascend to their talent’s full potential. You saw that moment with Naya Rivera. If you watched Glee you know exactly what we’re talking about, because you didn’t just watch that scene. You then downloaded the song on iTunes—one of the last times a TV musical became a Billboard sensation. You listened to it so many times that when you hear the thumping intro […]
People might debate whether The Old Guard is a superhero movie, what with its blessed existence outside the Marvel-DC dick-measuring contest and not a swatch of spandex to be found. To me, the film is as if the Avengers and the Justice League met up with the Fantastic Four and teamed up with the X-Men. It did the thing the superheroes movies are supposed to do—present a world where the best among us fight for what’s right—but which none had done before: present a world that feels like my own. The first time it’s acknowledged that the characters Joe (Marwan Kenzari) […]
The final round of Poland’s presidential election, which is being held Sunday, has been dominated by incumbent President Andrzej Duda’s efforts to mobilize voters against the country’s LGBTQ people. It has been a very ugly campaign, with the groundwork carefully laid. “Ordo Iuris takes the homophobic sentiments from the streets and translates them into law.” Hubert Sobecki, who has been an activist for LGBTQ rights in Poland for more than a decade, says, “I have never seen anything like the harassment of the past one and a half years.” Naturally, most attention has been focused on the two rivals in the […]
A school in Russia’s second-largest city has turned to the police after a rainbow flag was hung from a school flagpole during exam period. The LGBT pride banner is highly controversial in modern-day Russia. The leadership of St. Petersburg school number 511 contacted law enforcement on July 9 after two students raised the flag outside the building. According to the online publication Paper, two girls hung the multicolored symbol next to the Russian tricolor and were caught on CCTV. Also on rt.com US Embassy in Moscow flies rainbow flag to honor Pride flag day The flag remained on the pole for […]
Of course Reverend Troy Perry is a preacher. He sounds like one. His voice booms smoothly. His Southern accent remains in place, despite years of Californian living. More than one sentence ends with a “And I will tell you…” On July 27th, Perry will celebrate his 80th birthday, and there’s a long, dramatic life to look back on which at its heart is about how one gay man who cherished his belief and faith in God did not believe—as he was constantly told—that God did not love him because he was gay. And to prove it, he created a church all […]
Did we all learn nothing from Scarlett Johansson? Over the weekend Halle Berry discussed a new role she’s been eyeing—which happens to be a trans man. The entertainment industry and critics have discussed the issues with casting cisgender people to play transgender roles for years, so at this point it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have missed the memo. But beyond that, Berry also repeatedly misgendered the character she hopes to play during an Instagram Live interview. After taking fire, Berry apologized on Twitter late Monday for her comments, and said that “as a cisgender woman, I now understand that […]
Joanne Rowling, the legendary author of the Harry Potter series, is currently facing a new backlash over her views on transgender issues which started in the beginning of June after she pointed out, in response to a Devex article, that “people who menstruate” can be simply called ‘women’. She was soon accused of transphobia for her views. JK Rowling was called a “threat to LGBT people” and a “dangerous” person by transgender model Munroe Bergdorf after the writer has recently decided to address “a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people” that, according to her, would put them “on […]
If the sky is the limit, as the saying goes, a striking performance this weekend will harness those lofty ambitions quite literally. “In Plain Sight” is a complex and politically-charged nationwide choreography that involves skytyping powerful phrases, selected by 80 artists and activists, across the United States. With a sense of irony and provocation, the performance is timed with Independence Day weekend on July 3rd and 4th. These dictums and calls-to-action will pointedly hover above American venues loaded with a poisonous history or deeply problematic present: immigrant detention centers, sites of former internment camps, borders, and incarceration facilities. Three fleets of […]
It is an unspeakably awkward time to be promoting a TV show. On the one hand, hundreds of people work hard on any given series. That work deserves to be recognized and publicized, so that audiences actually watch the damn thing and those people can stay employed. At the same time, how can an actor justifiably giggle through stories about backstage shenanigans and what it’s like putting on prosthetic makeup to play a 135-year-old vampire when there are pressing, life-or-death issues in the world that demand the media space that they might be taking up? The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Everything we […]
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of lower Manhattan on Sunday for the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality, a rallying cry against police violence that combined the spirit of Pride with the ongoing calls of the Black Lives Matter movement. Late afternoon reports on social media showed disturbing moments of confrontation after a largely peaceful march, with the police pushing through crowds of protesters and appearing to detain multiple people. An NYPD spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Beast that two people were arrested in the act of graffiting a police vehicle, and that pepper spray was […]
by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio for VT Italy For the Court of Cassation there were not enough elements to put the Mayor of Bibbiano Alberto Carletti under house arrest, but for the Prosecutor of the Republic of Reggio Emilia there are enough to ask for his indictment for crimes of false and abuse of office. Andrea Carletti, Mayor of Bibbiano indicted for false and abuse of office On charge of the politician, meantime self-suspended by the Italian Democratic Party, the prosecutor Valentina Salvi has moved disputes of an administrative nature and not for issues directly related to the alleged illegal custody […]
On Thursday night’s episode of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, Sen. Kamala Harris shocked viewers and host Andy Cohen by revealing she already thought of a slogan: “I’ll give you my opinion, but my beliefs are not up for debate.” OK, the current frontrunner to be Joe Biden’s democratic running mate wasn’t exactly talking about a vice-presidential campaign. She was taking part in the Bravo talk show’s long-held tradition of debuting her own Real Housewives tagline—delivered with gusto and to applause from Cohen and the night’s other guest, actress and activist Laverne Cox. (Hillary Clinton’s recent shot at a tagline: “I’m […]
By Alison Dundes Renteln, The Conversation The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in the important and much-anticipated case, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, that the LGBTQ community is protected from employment discrimination. The 6-3 ruling took many by surprise, in part because two conservative justices were in the majority, and one of them, Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote the majority opinion. In this transformative moment in U.S. history, when the public supports the recognition of fundamental human rights, including the right to marry the person of one’s choice, the law appears to be catching up with society. And the U.S. Supreme Court […]
This year’s season of “Pride Plays,” produced by Rattlesticks Playwrights Theater in New York City, is showing online at Playbill.com. This is the first of two articles focusing on the Black queer playwrights with plays in the season. Rodney Hicks’ play, Just Press Save, is about the hopes, fears, and intrigues of a group of six high school seniors, including twins who are undocumented immigrants and a Black trans man. Hicks, 46, is also an actor who starred in the original productions of Rent and Come From Away. Just Press Save is directed by Michael Greif, who directed Hicks in the original production […]
A year ago, 160 members of the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps (LGBAC), New York’s oldest LGBTQ marching band, eagerly waited at the start line of the World Pride 50 parade in New York. Neil Patrick Harris climbed a nearby float and waved his hands, conducting the starstruck band below. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio strode by, lifting a rainbow flag high above his head. Hundreds of pink T-Mobile balloons peppered the band’s starting pen. The day’s visual—five million global partygoers converging on parking lot’s worth of Manhattan asphalt—is now unimaginable. But the reception from last year—the open arms […]
Is SpongeBob SquarePants gay? Or is he asexual? Or is he, in fact, just a simple sponge? Nickelodeon set off a frenzy over the weekend with a Pride tweet that proudly displayed the famous little pore-bearer alongside queer characters including Legend of Korra’s titular bisexual lead. For many amused and elated fans on Twitter, this was proof positive of long-running theories regarding SpongeBob’s sexuality. (Namely, that he is gay.) As others noted, Spongebob creator Stephen Hillenburg once described the suspender-clad fry cook as asexual—though even that statement seemed less like a description of one character’s sexuality than a blanket assertion that […]
On Tuesday, Melissa Zarda was dealing with two things at home in Kansas City, Missouri: the loud barking and mischief of her new foster puppy Winnie, a cattle dog/pitbull mix, while—above the din—relishing the hard-fought, historic victory she had just won in the Supreme Court in the memory of her beloved, deceased brother Donald. His was one of three cases featuring LGBTQ people fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity that SCOTUS yesterday ruled, 6-3, were illegal under the sex discrimination provisions of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The ruling—embracing the cases of gay men Zarda and […]
In an historic win for the LGBTQ community, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that firing someone for being gay or trans violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Writing for the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch—a Trump nominee promoted by the right-wing Federalist Society—wrote the opinion, which Chief Justice Roberts and the four liberal justices joined. In the 6-3 Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia decision, Gorsuch wrote that “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.” The majority opinion was joined […]
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has accused the western media of “taking his words out of context” after numerous articles covered him equating LGBT “ideology” to communism, insisting he supports equality. Duda’s Saturday campaign speech, in which he stated that LGBT is an ideology even more sinister than “Bolshevism” was picked up by numerous outlets worldwide. The president seeks re-election and conservative voters constitute his base as he is expected to face liberal Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, known for his pro-LGBT position as the main rival. Yet, extensive foreign media coverage has somehow put him on the defensive. “Yet again, as part […]
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has equated LGBT “ideology” to communism, warning that in a bid to indoctrinate the youth this “neo-Bolshevism” is even more harmful and destructive. The conservative politician, who is seeking re-election, catered to his audience at a Saturday rally where he said that his parents’ generation did not fight communism only to bow now to a new “ideology” that is “even more destructive to the human being.” That was Bolshevism. It was the ideologizing of children. Today, there are also attempts to push an ideology on us and our children, but different. It’s totally new, but it is […]
It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Trump administration rolled out its new rule denying trans people access to proper healthcare on the fourth anniversary of the massacre at the LGBTQ Pulse nightclub, in which 49 people died in Orlando, Florida. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Trump administration published the rule during LGBTQ Pride month. The cruelty is the obligatory scattering of garnish for the Trump administration; the sting long after the slap has been delivered. The cruelty is relished just as much as the intended harm. The cruelty, as the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer once observed, is the point. The […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. The Muggles Are Acting Up If you’re a person in this world, there is a high probability that something you like was canceled this week. Maybe it was the creator of a beloved series of young adult books who cemented her bigoted views about the transgender community. Maybe it was quaint cooking videos on YouTube with institutional blind spots toward race that were plain to see, […]
“I think we can Google ‘Laverne Cox’ and see how often I respond to individuals,” actress and activist Laverne Cox, whose Netflix documentary Disclosure is released next week, says. The individual she is referring to in this instance is Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, whose recent series of dangerous transphobic statements have dominated headlines and been staunchly condemned. “I love individuals. I love people, I love human beings,” Cox tells The Daily Beast. “But I’m critical of ideologies. And I’m critical of systems of oppression. And when I think about the comments to which you allude, I think about how power […]
Could someone please, for the love of God, teach J.K. Rowling how to read the room? Over the weekend, as protests calling for the protection of black lives spread across the world, the Harry Potter author took a moment to fire off a transphobic tweetstorm mocking the use of non-gendered language and insisting that “erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives.” And on Wednesday, hours after yet another Harry Potter actor disavowed her comments, Rowling tripled down in a blog post that attempts to characterize her views as feminism. In reality, it’s a […]
Eddie Redmayne has joined a growing numbers of actors from the Harry Potter universe to critique J.K. Rowling’s recent anti-trans tweets. The Fantastic Beasts actor addressed the controversy with a statement, in which he wrote, “Respect for transgender people remains a cultural imperative… “I disagree with Jo’s comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid.” On Saturday Rowling mocked an op-ed titled “Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.” “‘People who menstruate,’” Rowling wrote. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” […]
It was a milestone decades in the making. The entire history of film in the making, really. Love, Simon was the first gay teen romance ever released by a major studio. It had the budget of a major studio, the marketing arm of a major studio, and everyone was meant to see and swoon over it, not just the gay community. That was huge. It had an appealing protagonist, a fizzy cast of supporting characters, thrilling emotional highs, and an endearing, easy-to-root-for love story that culminated in one of those big, spectacular, only-in-the-movies grand romantic gestures: a fireworks-scored kiss at the […]
While tens of thousands around the world marched for justice and equality on Saturday, author J.K. Rowling decided to tweet about the phrase, “people who menstruate.” Her tweet, however, backfired bigger than the Avada Kedavra spell in her Harry Potter novels. Then, in the face of a swift backlash, the novelist doubled-down: she claimed to be both a supporter of transgender rights and a victim of hate. And she gave the most clear indication yet that she stands with feminists who will not accept trans women are women and trans men are men. Rowling apparently never read Zoyander Street’s 2016 essay […]
It’s next to impossible to socially distance in Eureka Springs. Built in the late 1880s as a rural spa village, the northwest Arkansas hamlet is defined by painstakingly preserved Victorian buildings and narrow cobblestone streets that snake through its perpetually bustling entertainment district. Just as European settlers traveled to Eureka Springs for the promise of the healing waters of the Ozark mountains, hundreds of tourists crowd its narrow sidewalks on the weekends, brushing past each other to buy handmade jewelry at the Ladybug Emporium or a cup of coffee at Local Flavor Café. Historically, its busy walkways were part of Eureka […]
Larry Kramer, the late LGBTQ and AIDS activist, author and playwright, has been much praised and analyzed over the last 24 hours. But Larry Kramer was also both a friend and professional collaborator to many. Lost amid the tales of fire and brimstone are stories of a certain paisley pocket, an unexpected delivery of chicken soup, and the linking of arms late at night on a Broadway street. On Wednesday, in my obituary of Kramer, who died Wednesday at the age of 84, I mulled what people invariably mention most about Kramer: his anger. That anger, as I wrote, could be […]
Norma McCorvey never knew who to trust. She was declared a ward of the state at 10. Then her father walked out, leaving her in the hands of an alcoholic mother and first cousin once removed, who she said raped her numerous times. By 16, she was married to Woody McCorvey. When he allegedly began abusing her, she left, giving birth to their daughter a year later. Norma drank to numb the pain, but it got so bad that her mom tricked her into signing adoption papers. She got pregnant a third time at 21, and, with little money and nowhere […]
In its final 20 minutes, the documentary film AKA Jane Roe delivers quite the blow to conservatives who have weaponized the story of Jane Roe herself—real name, Norma McCorvey—to argue that people with uteruses should have to carry any and all pregnancies to term. McCorvey, who died in 2017, became Jane Roe when, as a young homeless woman, she was unable to get a legal or safe abortion in the state of Texas. Her willingness to lend her experience to the legal case for abortion led to the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973, which legalized abortions in all 50 […]
SEOUL—The message, accompanied by loud buzzing, flashes on the screens of millions of mobile phones, the headline in red letters in English—“Emergency Alert”—the rest in Korean: “Anyone who has been in Itaewon from April 21 to May 6 should be tested.” For thousands, it’s the next sentence that really counts: “We can test anonymously.” “Coronavirus strikes regardless of people or places.” — Lee Jung-geol, leader of the Rainbow Coalition Against Social Discrimination The reason for the guarantee of anonymity is clear to the hundreds in South Korea’s LGBT community who had flocked to clubs in Itaewon, an historic district of nightlife, […]
Advocates say the U.S. Navy could be on the verge of ruling on a second waiver sought by a transgender staff member so that they may carry on serving their country. If granted, it would be the second successful challenge to President Trump’s ban on trans service personnel, after it was revealed this week that the Navy has granted the first ever waiver to a transgender naval officer. The officer in the first successful case, named in court documents as Lieutenant Jane Doe, has served in the Navy for 10 years. She is one of a group of trans service personnel […]
All Aimee Stephens wanted to do was the job that she loved. “We’re human beings,” Stephens told this reporter just before her landmark LGBTQ case was heard at the Supreme Court last October. “We deserve the same basic human rights as everyone else has. That’s all we’re asking for. We are not asking for anything special. We just want the basic human rights that we should already have anyway.” Stephens, whose case alleging she was fired for being transgender went all the way to the Supreme Court, died on Tuesday in Metro Detroit, aged 59. Hers was the first case about […]
It is unknown if the Supreme Court will finally issue a ruling on Thursday about whether it is legal to fire LGBTQ people on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It is also unknown if Aimee Stephens will be alive to hear their decision. Stephens, 59, is presently receiving end-of-life hospice care at home in Michigan, her wife Donna at her side. Stephens’ is one of three cases before the court, bought on behalf a trio of LGBTQ people—Stephens, the family of Donald Zarda, and Gerald Bostock—who claim they were fired because of their gender identity or sexual […]