LGBTQ Breaking News Service

City of Pittsburgh Council members Erika Strassburger and Bruce Kraus have introduced legislation allowing LGBTQIA+ businesses to specifically register with the City of Pittsburgh‘s procurement platform, Beacon.

This allows LGBTQIA+ businesses not only to self-identify, but to gain access to the full suite of business development and trainings that the city offers the Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE’s). Councilperson Strassburger partnered with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) as well as their local affiliate The Three Rivers Business Alliance (3RBA), Mayor Bill Peduto, the city’s Law Department, Office of Management & Budget, Equal Opportunity Review Commission (EORC), and the Office of Equity to ensure LGBTQIA+ Businesses are properly recognized, honored, and included within the City of Pittsburgh‘s business community.

“It has been my honor to work with the Three Rivers Business Alliance, the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, the Mayor’s office as well as many other City departments and Commissions to put pen to paper and allow LGBTQIA+ business owners to more easily participate and do work with the City,” said Councilperson Strassburger. “This bill represents one more step in our march toward equity here in Pittsburgh. I’m hopeful this will help expand and grow our city’s LGBTQIA+ businesses that are already making a positive impact here.” 

“Thanks to the work of our Equal Opportunity Review Commission and Office of Equity to remove barriers and improve procurement processes, the city has increased the number of contracts awarded to minority and women-owned business enterprises and invested over $23 million in the growth of these small businesses,” said Mayor William Peduto.

“I am proud to support this legislation sponsored by Councilperson Strassburger and Councilman Kraus that will expand the city’s efforts and enable the City to work with LGBTQIA+-owned firms. Pittsburgh‘s economy only grows stronger when we uplift diverse businesses.” 

“I am delighted to sponsor this much-needed legislation that Councilmember Strassburger has introduced,” said Councilman Bruce Kraus. “In Pittsburgh, our pride as a city is based in unity. This legislation brings us closer to creating a City that is welcoming for all, with a more unified vision for the future that we want to build.” 

The City of Pittsburgh is invested in creating a healthy, diverse, inclusive, and thriving business environment so that business owners and consumers of all backgrounds will feel at home here. In addition to opening up this new option for business owners, the city will now be able to track and collect data from LGBTQIA+ businesses, allowing the city to better support these businesses through state and federal funding initiatives.

“Pittsburgh has a legacy of leadership in promoting inclusivity throughout the many industries that power its economy. Now Governor Wolf’s historic 2016 Executive Order including LGBT Business Enterprises throughout Pennsylvania will take root and grow in the city economies across the Commonwealth. This victory for inclusivity has once again proved our core values that ‘diversity is good for business’ and that ‘if you can buy it, a certified LGBT-owned business can supply it.’ We are excited to see LGBTBEs in every field, from construction to catering and everything in between, help grow the economy of Pittsburgh and beyond,” said NGLCC co-founder and president Justin Nelson and CEO Chance Mitchell. 

“With this legislation, Pittsburgh joins the growing number of metropolitan areas which include NGLCC-certified LGBT Business Enterprises among the city’s pool of certified companies to ensure they have equitable access to contracting and procurement opportunities throughout the city,” said 3RBA’s President Ronald L. Hicks, Jr., of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP.

“For LGBT citizens, this inclusive initiative provides fair and equal access to contracting opportunities and economic development programs that drive innovation, create jobs, and promote economic growth throughout the Greater Allegheny region. We are glad to be a part of this historic legislation, and we look forward to working with other municipal authorities and private companies to diversify their supplier networks.”

City code already recognizes Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE), Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE), and Veteran-Owned Small Businesses. Now the City of Pittsburgh‘s Code will include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual Business Enterprise (LGBTBE). 

The Equal Opportunity Review Commission oversees all contracting for the City of Pittsburgh, ensuring that all businesses have the same opportunity to work with the City and participate in requests for proposals.

If you or someone you know would like to register their business with the City of Pittsburgh‘s e-procurement service, please contact the EORC by phone at 412-255-2543, 412-255-2528, or online at https://pittsburghpa.gov/beacon/index.html.

“Perhaps, thinking of pop culture as escapism isn’t the right framing at all. Maybe it’s actually vacationism, or retreatism, or getting – the – fuck – away – for – a – whileism. And like most getaways , we usually bring some kind of souvenir back with us.”

I felt equal parts called out and validated by this book and really, that’s all you need to know to pick it up. If you grew up smack dab in the middle of the height of popular culture—the early 2000s—chances are, you can at least relate to half of the essays in this book. If you’re also part of the LGBTQIAP+ community and only realised in hindsight that the way you thought about Serena van der Woodsen wasn’t because you wanted to be her but because you wanted to be with her, then I can guarantee that this collection will become your gay bible. Grace Perry discusses pop culture that shaped us every step of our tweenhood, from Mean Girls and Harry Potter to Disney Channel Original movies and anthems like I Kissed a Girl and doesn’t hold back when it comes to eliciting just how frighteningly damaging some representations have been in her journey to coming out as gay.

Perry is blunt and funny in her examination of the early 2000s gay heroes—it’s equally nostalgic and uplifting to reminisce about the gay heroes we created back in the day before casual queerness and actual on-screen representation became more regular (still not enough, but we’re getting there!). From dissecting Lindsay Lohan’s “fall from grace” and the media’s lesbophobia (as well as Lohan’s later dismissal of her wlw relationship) to the very difficult topic of Harry Potter, its transphobic creator and the queerbaiting of releasing the news about Albus Dumbledore being queer without any hints in the actual novels, this book sure knows how to pack a punch, expose stereotypes and highlight how much we are influenced by depictions of queer characters, especially by those that aren’t all too positive.

Though I have my favourites from these essays, the ones that really stuck with me were those that highlighted how much internalised homophobia is a systemic issue. Detailing the queerbaiting that went on with the release of Katy Perry’s earth-shaking I Kissed a Girl made me remember my own youth and how I used to scream those lyrics way before realising I was part of the LGBTQIAP+ community. Similarly, it was incredibly enlightening to read Perry’s analysis of Mean Girls, a movie that has become a classic and remains iconic with its witty humour, and realise that a lot of movies that shaped who we are actually had some of the worst representation of gay characters. Perry also addresses the way in which teens infused these narratives with queer subtext to feel seen and boy, if that didn’t hit home.

Beyond the analysis of texts Perry offers, I also really loved the tidbits we got about her own journey because they read so similar to my own—and probably a bunch of other millennials’—experience. Perry’s move from someone who dresses as a tomboy to someone who kisses her girl friends but is totally not gay, to someone who supports the LGBTQIAP+ community but totes isn’t part of it herself, to discovering her own identity…it was a rollercoaster that I’m sure many can relate to.

All in all, I strongly urge every millennial (or human being who still uses pop culture references from the 2000s—you are the backbone of society, my friends) that wants to reminisce about their 2000s experience to pick up this book—Grace Perry’s collection of essays is equal parts reflective and a call to do better in the representation of the LGBTQIAP+ community. A timely piece of literature that you won’t want to miss out on!

The 2000s Made Me Gay is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 1st 2021.

Will you be picking up The 2000s Made Me Gay? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

See also

From The Onion and Reductress contributor, this collection of essays is a hilarious nostalgic trip through beloved 2000s media, interweaving cultural criticism and personal narrative to examine how a very straight decade forged a very queer woman

“If you came of age at the intersection of Mean Girls and The L Word: Read this book.” ―Sarah Pappalardo, editor in chief and co-founder of Reductress

Today’s gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the teen cultural phenomena that the early aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan’s fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her identity, and she came out on the other side, as she puts it, gay as hell.

Join Grace on a journey back through the pop culture moments of the early 2000’s, before the cataclysmic shift in LGBTQ representation and acceptance―a time not so long ago, that people seem to forget.

The ‘suspicious package’ which caused Charing Cross station to be evacuated was a fake bomb planted in a gay nightclub, it has been revealed.

Some of the stars of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK were rehearsing at Heaven nightclub for an upcoming show when police stormed in to investigate after an anonymous tip-off claimed a bomb had been planted inside the gay venue.

The scare resulted in Villiers Street being cordoned off, Charing Cross station being evacuated, and widespread disruption to train and underground services through Embankment, Charing Cross and Waterloo East.

The bomb turned out to be a hoax, but it left those inside the venue in shock.

The Met Police said the circumstances suggest the incident could be ‘an intentional hoax’ and an investigation is underway to determine whether there was a homophobic motive behind the fake bomb.

Drag queens The Vivienne, Tia Kofi and Veronica Green were some of the big names involved.

A source at the venue told The Sun : “The drag queens had been rehearsing for their upcoming show Drag Queens of Pop and had been posting on social media that they were at Heaven.

“The door was later found to be open and it seemed like someone had got in during the rehearsals. It seemed like a targeted attack because, due to Covid restrictions, the place is usually empty.

“But it appeared someone knew they were there and planted the hoax package.”

Jeremy Joseph, who runs the club, took to Instagram to share how frightening the incident was and branded the person behind it a ‘sick individual’.

Jeremy wrote: “That was the most dramatic rehearsal ever.

“There had been a bomb threat and everyone was evacuated, except poor me, as we waited for police dogs to arrive, as the venue has been in lockdown apart from rehearsals.

“I had to walk round with the police & sniffer dogs to check the venue.

“I’m not going to lie, it was frightening, but I cant praise the police dog team enough, they were amazing, they have to enter a building not knowing if it is real or a hoax.

“Whoever made that call is nothing but a sick individual, but police took every precaution before re-opening the streets & I cant thank them enough.”

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A Met police spokesman said: “The circumstances in which the item was found suggest that it was part of an intentional hoax and an investigation is under way to identify the person or persons responsible.

“There is no indication, at this early stage, of a particular motive but that will form one of the key lines of enquiry for officers as their investigation continues”.

Anyone with information about this incident, who has not already spoken to the police, should call 101 providing the reference CAD3901/03MAY.

Information can also be provided to Crimestoppers, anonymously, by calling 0800 555 111.

Some 75 years ago, in bombed-out Frankfurt, Germany, a little girl named Marlene Mahta received a sign of hope in the midst of squalor, homelessness and starvation. A CARE Package containing soap, milk powder, flour, blankets and other necessities provided a lifeline through the contributions of average American families. There were even luxuries like chocolate bars.

World War II may have ended, but its devastation lingered. Between 35 and 60 million people died. Whole cities had been destroyed, the countryside was charred and burned, and at least 60 million European civilians had been made homeless. Hunger remained an issue for many families for years to come. In the face of this devastation, 22 American organizations decided to come together and do something about it: creating CARE Packages for survivors.

“What affected me… was hearing that these were gifts from average American people,” remembers Mahta, who, in those desperate days, found herself picking through garbage cans to find leftover field rations and MREs to eat. Inspired by the unexpected kindness, Mahta eventually learned English and emigrated to the U.S.

“I wanted to be like those wonderful, generous people,” she says.

The postwar Marshall Plan era was a time of “great moral clarity,” says Michelle Nunn, CEO of CARE, the global anti-poverty organization that emerged from those simple beginnings. “The CARE Package itself – in its simplicity and directness – continues to guide CARE’s operational faith in the enduring power of local leadership – of simply giving people the opportunity to support their families and then their communities.”

Each CARE Package contained rations that had once been reserved for soldiers, but were now being redirected to civilians who had suffered as a result of the conflict. The packages cost $10 to send, and they were guaranteed to arrive at their destination within four months.

Thousands of Americans, including President Harry S. Truman, got involved, and on May 11, 1946, the first 15,000 packages were sent to Le Havre in France, a port badly battered during the war.

Thousands of additional CARE Packages soon followed. At first packages were sent to specific recipients, but over time donations came in for anyone in need. When war rations ran out American companies began donating food. Later, carpentry tools, blankets, clothes, books, school supplies, and medicine were included.

Before long, the CARE Packages were going to other communities in need around the world, including Asia and Latin America. Ultimately, CARE delivered packages to 100 million families around the world.

The original CARE Packages were phased out in the late 1960s, though they were revived when specific needs arose, such as when former Soviet Union republics needed relief, or after the Bosnian War. Meanwhile, CARE transformed. Now, instead of physical boxes, it invests in programs for sustainable change, such as setting up nutrition centers, Village Savings and Loan Associations, educational programs, agroforestry initiatives, and much more.

But, with a pandemic ravaging populations around the world, CARE is bringing back its original CARE packages to support the critical basic needs of our global neighbors. And for the first time, they’re also delivering CARE packages here at home in the United States to communities in need.

Community leaders like Janice Dixon are on the front lines of that effort. Dixon, president and CEO of Community Outreach in Action in Jonesboro, Ga., now sends up to 80 CARE packages each week to those in need due to COVID-19. Food pantries have been available, she notes, but they’ve been difficult to access for those without cars, and public transportation is spotty in suburban Atlanta.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook,” says Dixon. For example, one of those calls was from a senior diabetic, she remembers, who faced an impossible choice, but was able to purchase medicine because food was being provided by CARE.

Today, CARE is sending new packages with financial support and messages of hope to frontline medical workers, caregivers, essential workers, and individuals in need in more than 60 countries, including the U.S. Anyone can now go to carepackage.org to send targeted help around the world. Packages focus on helping vaccines reach people more quickly, tackling food insecurity, educational disparities, global poverty, and domestic violence, as well as providing hygiene kits to those in need.

From the very beginning, CARE received the support of presidents, with Hollywood luminaries like Rita Hayworth and Ingrid Bergman also adding their voices. At An Evening With CARE, happening this Tuesday, May 11, notable names will turn out again as the organization celebrates the 75th Anniversary of the CARE Package and the exciting, meaningful work that lies ahead. The event will be hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and attended by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, as well as Angela Merkel, Iman, Jewel, Michelle Williams, Katherine McPhee-Foster, Betty Who and others. Please RSVP now for this can’t-miss opportunity.

SOUTHPORT — Gay Lefebvre, 82, loving wife and mother, passed away Sunday, May 2, 2021. She was born Nov. 15, 1938, in Middletown, Connecticut, to Ruth and Carl Byloff. Gay graduated from East Hampton High School, East Hampton, Connecticut, where she met her beloved husband of 60 years, Richard H. Lefebvre. They raised two daughters in Johnstown, New York.

Gay was a gifted artist and teacher. With two young children at home, she returned to school and graduated with high honors from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1976. With over 30 years as an educator, Gay spent most of her career as a secondary level art teacher and chair of the art department for the Fonda-Fultonville Central School District. She loved teaching and impacting the lives of young people. She was known for her listening ear, her fiery spirit and her straight talk with her students. She was a tenacious champion for those who needed her most.

After retirement, Gay continued her career as a professional wildlife artist and her art was shown and sold in many esteemed galleries on the East Coast. Her spirit will live on through the lives of the students that she touched and her incredible artwork that is held in numerous private collections throughout the country.

Gay was a member of several art guilds; supported the community of artists in and around her home in Southport; and enjoyed her summers in York Beach, Maine. She was an avid reader, ardent traveler, skilled gardener and always interested in political and current events at the local and national levels.

Preceded in death by her mother Ruth Byloff; father, Carl Byloff; and her sister, Carol Dulaney, Gay is survived by her loving husband, Richard; daughters, Kim and Ann (Mika); grandchildren, Wesley, Dana and Nathan; as well as additional extended family and lifelong friends.

For those who wish to do so, memorial contributions may be made to SECU Hospice House of Brunswick, 955 Mercy Lane, Bolivia, NC 28422; or the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation, P.O. Box 195, Ray Brook, NY 12977.

Share online condolences with the family at Peacock-Newnam & White Funeral and Cremation Service.

BONN, Germany (CNS) — Catholic chaplains in parishes across Germany plan to invite people to “blessing services for lovers” on and around May 10.

The campaign, “Love Wins,” was launched in Hamburg, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA. The campaign’s website said the aim was to celebrate “the diversity of people’s different life plans and love stories” and to ask for God’s blessing.

Gay and lesbian couples are also invited, which is attracting public attention because the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in mid-March that the Catholic Church had no authority to bless same-sex relationships.

KNA reported the Vatican statement has been widely criticized among Catholics in Germany.

“I have blessed buildings and sugar-beet-harvesting machines,” said Father Burkhard Hose of Würzburg. “So why not also people who love each other?”

Father Hose and Father Bernd Mönkebüscher, a theologian from Hamm, have gathered about 11,000 signatures against the ban on blessing same-sex couples, KNA reported.

Birgit Mock, vice president of the Catholic German Women’s Federation, said: “The current discussion could lead to a historic step: a positive appreciation of responsibly lived sexuality in the Catholic Church in Germany.”

Mock and Bishop Helmut Dieser of Aachen head one of four working groups of the Synodal Path reform project. Their group deals with sexual morality, and the church’s approach to homosexuality is among its topics.

Bishop Dieser has made clear that his office does not allow him to give a mandate to bless gay couples, but added: “In the case of requests to bless same-sex couples, pastoral ministers are bound by their conscience.”

Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of the German bishops’ conference, criticized the blessing services. “They are not suitable as an instrument of church-political manifestations or protest actions,” he said.

The Vatican is increasingly critical of the debates in Germany, but grassroots members are becoming ever more vocal in their demands for reforms.

Father Hose, a college chaplain, noted the Orthodox Church commemorates the biblical patriarch Noah May 10. God made a covenant with Noah after the flood — under the sign of a rainbow. That is not far removed from the colors of the rainbow flag of the gay rights movement.

Metropolitan Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has praised the Vatican’s ban on blessing same-sex couples. On this point, the teachings of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches were in agreement, he said.

Copyright © 2021 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

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BONN, Germany — Catholic chaplains in parishes across Germany plan to invite people to “blessing services for lovers” on and around May 10.

The campaign, “Love Wins,” was launched in Hamburg, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA. The campaign’s website said the aim was to celebrate “the diversity of people’s different life plans and love stories” and to ask for God’s blessing.

Gay and lesbian couples are invited, which is attracting public attention because the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in mid-March that the Catholic Church had no authority to bless same-sex relationships.

KNA reported the Vatican statement has been widely criticized among Catholics in Germany.

“I have blessed buildings and sugar-beet-harvesting machines,” said Fr. Burkhard Hose of Würzburg. “So why not also people who love each other?”

Hose and Fr. Bernd Mönkebüscher, a theologian from Hamm, have gathered about 11,000 signatures against the ban on blessing same-sex couples, KNA reported.

Birgit Mock, vice president of the Catholic German Women’s Federation, said: “The current discussion could lead to a historic step: a positive appreciation of responsibly lived sexuality in the Catholic Church in Germany.”

Mock and Bishop Helmut Dieser of Aachen head one of four working groups of the Synodal Path reform project. Their group deals with sexual morality, and the church’s approach to homosexuality is among its topics.

Dieser has made clear that his office does not allow him to give a mandate to bless gay couples, but added: “In the case of requests to bless same-sex couples, pastoral ministers are bound by their conscience.”

Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of the German bishops’ conference, criticized the blessing services. “They are not suitable as an instrument of church-political manifestations or protest actions,” he said.

The Vatican is increasingly critical of the debates in Germany, but grassroots members are becoming ever more vocal in their demands for reforms.

Hose, a college chaplain, noted the Orthodox Church commemorates the biblical patriarch Noah May 10. God made a covenant with Noah after the flood — under the sign of a rainbow. That is not far removed from the colors of the rainbow flag of the gay rights movement.

Metropolitan Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has praised the Vatican’s ban on blessing same-sex couples. On this point, the teachings of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches were in agreement, he said.

If it closes, the Stonewall would be the third Valley gay club to shut its doors for good in the last five years. Candida’s Bar in Allentown closed in 2017, and Bethlehem’s Diamonz Nightclub closed in 2016. Restaurants, bars and nightclubs also are at the tail end of one of the hardest business climates in history: a global pandemic that led to widespread government restrictions on social gathering, especially indoors. The Stonewall, for one, lost a good portion of its 2020, including a lengthy closure at the start of the pandemic, from March 14 to June 26.