LGBTQ Breaking News Service

On the surface, directors Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams’ film Someone Like Me is a story about a group of well-meaning Canadian folk coming together to help Drake, a young gay man from Uganda, start a new life in Canada.

This varied collection of strangers is supported by Rainbow Refugee, a non-profit society that matches LGBTQ+ asylum claimants with Canadian sponsors.

But even the very best of intentions are sometimes not enough to make things work out. In addition to the ordinary challenges of language, culture, money and housing in another country, hola! Global pandemic.

The emotional chronicle of survival and what it means to sponsor an asylum seeker screens at this month’s DOXA Documentary Film Festival running May 6 to 16 — now in its 20th year.

Like most young men, 22-year-old Drake wants to have a good time, which means drinking, smoking and partying. This effectively divides the group, with some members asserting that they feel uncomfortable with how things are working out, and others insisting that it’s not their role to dictate anyone’s behaviour.

There is nothing quite like witnessing a group of nice Canadians argue, in good passive-aggressive fashion. But as members peel away, a core group of committed people emerge.

Kay and her partner Emily take the lead in offering Drake a place to stay in their Vancouver home and helping him navigate the challenges and intricacies that come with uprooting one’s entire life. They’re helped along by new academic David and his partner, as well as Marlon, a young Torontonian who is himself a relative newcomer to Vancouver.

The filmmakers take a gentle and observational approach during the first year of Drake’s immersion in Vancouver, helped along by their foundational commitment to capturing stories from the city’s queer community.

As a couple, Horlor and Adams have made more than 20 projects together, but Someone Like Me is their first narrative feature. After pitching the idea in 2015 to the National Film Board, the pair researched for a few years before beginning a 15-month shoot.

But right in the middle of filming: enter COVID-19. The difficulties of working on a production during this period of time could almost be a documentary unto itself.

In Someone Like Me, as in all the best non-fiction stories, the most fascinating stuff happens in the interludes — the in-between moments when people inadvertently reveal their more complicated feelings and reactions.

At its heart, the film is a clear-eyed and deeply compassionate portrait of the fundamental Canadian-ness of the people involved for good or for bad, but mostly for good. Often, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the kindness, generosity and patience demonstrated by Drake’s core group of supporters.

The Tyee spoke to Horlor and Adams on the eve of their film’s hometown screening at the DOXA festival. Our interview is edited for length and clarity.

The Tyee: Given everything you experienced in bringing this film to fruition, would you have done things differently if you had known in advance?

Steve Adams: We’re workaholics and the type of guys who will do 14 days in a row and be fried by the end of it, but will do it again after a few days off. I think the lesson we learned from this film is to always seize the moment and to push ourselves even harder on shoot days.

Because we shot continuously over 15 months, there were times where we said, “Oh, we’ll go back and get this later.” As this past year showed us, with the pandemic especially, you may not have that luxury, so make the most of the time you have.

Was there a point in making the film that you were tempted to give up?

Sean Horlor: There are two major turning points in the film, and we were blindsided by both of them. They really made us wonder if this was all a huge mistake. All these people are trusting us with their stories, and nothing was turning out the way we hoped.

At one point, we had serious discussions with the NFB about starting over from scratch, with an entirely new group. But I’m glad we didn’t. The subjects believed in what we were doing, and so did Rainbow Refugee. We all made a commitment to see this out to the end and I think it’s a better film because of it.

In light of the COVID-19 restrictions, did you have to resort to different means of telling the story?

SA: I know we’re a year into this now, but when the pandemic hit last March, no one knew what the hell was happening or how long this would last. The NFB shut down all production across the country. We had no access to a camera or a crew, but still had another eight months of filming ahead of us. Our solution was to get production to buy an iPhone 11 Pro so we could ferry it to subjects to self-film.

We tried to make it like a game, create a choose-your-own adventure package with ideas for filming and questions for self-filmed interviews. It ended up being some of the most intimate and special moments in the film, where you really see everyone on their own terms.

While making the film, at what point did Drake and his group become the focal point of the story? Did the conflict that broke out among some of the group members take you by surprise, or did you see it coming?

SA: At the beginning of this, we knew that some or all of the group members would be there for the whole film. Yet we didn’t know anything about the newcomer or their country of origin. They could be coming from Russia or Brazil or Indonesia, or somewhere in the Caribbean, the Middle East or Africa. When the group selected Drake, we weren’t able to ask him for consent because of our agreement with Rainbow Refugee.

He knew that we were filming with his sponsors, but we had to wait for him to approach us and ask to be part of the film after he arrived. So that was a huge risk we took with the NFB. We also knew from our research with other groups that there could be a culture clash when Drake arrived. But the level of the conflict took us by complete surprise. There are a lot of twists and turns in this film, and that was a huge one.

The observational style of your film lends itself to some great fly-on-the-wall exchanges. It’s as much a portrait of queer life and community in Canada as it is a story about newcomers. Was the idea to hold a mirror up to this place and its people always part of the story?

SH: Our goal with this film was to create a present-day portrait of the queer community. We were curious how all these people would change each other and what shared experiences would emerge across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, despite very different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

We wanted this to be a layered exploration of community and identity and not just a one-dimensional exploration of a newcomer’s first year in Canada. The more time we spent with Kay, Em, Drake, David, Marlon and Michael, the more we began to see parallels between their experiences and universal themes that would speak to both queer people and a broader audience, too.

In spite of the challenges, do you think Canada is still a good place with respect to LGBTQ+ folk?

SH: There are still over 70 countries in the world where you can be imprisoned or murdered because of your sexuality or gender diversity. Steve and I are very privileged to be white gay men living in Canada at this exact moment in history, but that is different for queer members of the BIPOC community and for gender-diverse folks.

There were surveys done a few years ago here in North America and in the U.K. that found over 50 per cent of LGBTQ+ folks will not hold hands or show affection in public because they fear being harassed or attacked. Tolerance is not acceptance. Queer representation is really important. It changes hearts and changes minds. It’s a huge reason why we wanted to make this film.

‘Someone Like Me’ is available to stream through DOXA from anywhere in Canada, May 6 to 16. A Q&A with directors Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams, and special guests, will be livestreamed on Thursday, May 13 at 7 p.m. PDT. Register here. This film will also have a special DOXA Drive-In screening at the PNE Amphitheatre on May 14 at 5:30 p.m. PDT. Learn more on the DOXA website.

One of many sweaters I need to own The Nanny

Let’s begin with my terrible confession: For decades, I’ve been wrong about The Nanny. (And also about Steve Urkel, but we’ll get to him later.)

Long, long ago, when The Nanny was originally on the air, I considered myself more of a Frasier gay than a Nanny gay; I assumed that Fran Drescher’s show was all crass sex jokes, annoying child actors, and wall-to-wall heterosexuality.

But oh. Oh dear. I was so wrong. Terribly, horribly, homosexually wrong. At the urging of some friends, I’ve been giving the show a second chance, now that it’s available in crystal-clear fidelity via HBO. And not only is it honest-to-goodness very very funny, it is surprisingly queer. And not just because it’s basically The Sound of Music meets Mame on Broadway! It also has a startling approach to gay characters that really caught my eye.

The ‘90s — particularly the early-to-mid section — was a time for gay characters on sitcoms to be a crisis or awkward or a challenge. Whether it’s Friends, or The Simpsons, or Murphy Brown, or Designing Women, queer sitcom episodes in the ‘90s tend to focus on queer characters as a source of trouble. Don’t get me wrong, these are some great episodes of television (usually), but they always present the gay guest as the problem of the week, a difficulty that needs to be resolved.

Not so on The Nanny, though. Take a look at Season 2, Episode 19, “A Fine Friendship.” In that one, Fran meets another nanny, a handsome man named Kurt who is decked out in head-to-toe denim who knows more about musical theater than is seemly for any heterosexual. She determines that he’s gay, and that’s … just fine. No big deal. No crisis. No “whadda we do about this” scene, no Very Special Episode music that leads into the commercial with the characters staring meaningfully just off-camera at the script supervisor.

It’s easy to take that for granted today, but in the mid-90s, Fran’s easy-going acceptance of a gay colleague is a big deal. The show even manages a neat flip of the “homosexual as problem” trope at the end of Act I, when it’s revealed that Kurt is actually straight. Fran freaks out — and for once, the gay episode twist is not that there’s an unexpected homosexual in the main characters’ lives, but that there’s an unexpected heterosexual.

Ultimately, Fran decides that she likes Kurt better as a friend (though apparently not much better; he never comes back, at least not on this show).

But that’s far from the only gay storyline on The Nanny; there’s another episode where Fran is momentarily mistaken for a lesbian, and she takes it completely in stride. (A year earlier, Friends had an episode in which Chandler freaks out about being mistaken for gay; a year later, Frasier would have a similar freakout.)

My favorite of The Nanny’s queer twists comes in the episode “Val’s Apartment.” That one features a cameo by the actor who played Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley, 17 years earlier, but The Nanny retcons his character to make him and Lenny into gay lovers. It’s an amazing queer flex, taking iconic characters from a totally different show and making them gay.

In real life, Fran Drescher’s been a steadfast ally — she’s supported various causes, from Spirit Day to marriage equality — and last year she starred in Lifetime’s first holiday movie to center a same-sex couple. It’s incredible that it took until 2020 (2020!!!) for Lifetime to make their first gay Christmas movie. And even more incredible that Drescher was just casually including queer characters in her show long long before it was easy to do so.

Two men hold hands in front of a candle altar with an icon of Mary in a Bonn, Germany, chapel, Oct. 22, 2020. CNS photo/Harald Oppitz, KNA

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.

Tags: Bishop Dieser, Blessing services for lovers, Germany, Hamburg

Category: U.S. & World News

Hello and welcome back to Legends of Tomorrow recaps! Today we will be covering episode 601, Ground Control to Sara Lance. Before we get into it though, a quick disclaimer…

In November, around the time of the election, Caity Lotz made comments in tweets (and doubled down on them in her replies/kept them up) about how you shouldn’t hate people for hating you and more tone policing privileged hippie nonsense about how love will cure racism/homophobia/etc. It was harmful and upsetting, especially WHEN she was tweeting these things, especially with her huge platform, especially as someone who is a prominent figure in the LGBTQ+ nerd community, even if she’s not part of it herself. And I can’t speak for everyone, but going into this season, it feels a little like someone poured slightly expired milk all over a bowl of my favorite cereal.

Like, I’m going to eat it, because it’s delicious and I don’t want to waste it, and the milk wasn’t TOTALLY spoiled, but every delicious bite leaves a bit of a yucky aftertaste. Unless she does something new worth discussing (which someone will have to bring to my attention because I unfollowed her on social media) I don’t plan on bringing this up again, but I just wanted to address it, both to let you know where I stand on the matter (you don’t owe any oppressive majority anything; not your time, not your kindness, and certainly not your respect) and in case my feelings about Caity bleed onto my feelings about Sara. I’m going to try to keep them separate because the writers have been so good to us and Sara Lance has always been a great character, but I’m only human. Plus, there are SO many other wonderful people involved in this show, and I don’t want one misguided person to steal our joy.

So, without further ado, let’s get into it, shall we?

Previously on Legends of Tomorrow, Original Zari got locked in the totem, Charlie decided to live a Legend-less life, Astra joined the land of the (mortal) living, and Sara Lance got abducted by aliens.

Mick returns to the Waverider, presumably the morning after we just left them, and finds it trashed by what looks like one hell of a punk party. (My favorite piece of graffiti just said GO FATE YOURSELF.) Mick picks his way through the mess and eventually finds a very hungover Ava using the Waverider’s only toilet as a pillow.

Live footage of me re-emerging into society now that I’m vaccinated.

Ava doesn’t get how Mick is standing up right now, and he tells her that he left the party early to get his daughter to bed. Ava realizes then that normally Sara would have made sure she ended up in bed and not on the floor so she sets off to find her gal. Ava knows where to look next like the back of her hand…no wait, sorry, she knows where to look because it’s WRITTEN on her hand. So off they head to the hotel where the supposed after after party was going to be.

Unfortunately, Ava didn’t have said hand over her eyes when she entered the hotel room in question, so she got an eyeful of the very confusing Zari/Constantine situation happening. She immediately starts throwing up, which is hilarious, and the duo doesn’t know where Sara is, but they also have a clue. This clue doesn’t lead them to Sara either, but their tumbleweed catches more Legends as it goes, this time catching Astra before she gets herself in trouble for absolutely cleaning up at a casino. Next they find Behrad, who is having a one-sided conversation with a member of the Queen’s Guard.

One last moment of appreciation for everyone’s punk looks.

Behrad leads them to Nate, who is talking to David Bowie, but Ava doesn’t care who this glam rocker is because he’s not Sara. Though as they start to walk away, Bowie starts singing a song about Sara, so Ava takes his Super 8 film and his memories and they continue their quest for their captain.

Back on the Waverider, the team watches Bowie’s video of meeting Sara, and Ava can’t help but smile when she sees how thrilled Sara was when she saw the Starman and they find out that Sara had planned on proposing to Ava that night. She had a ring and everything.

Happy Ava = Happy Me

The video ends with Sara being abducted by aliens, which sends Ava into a bit of a spiral, and she spins right out of the room while the Legends do their best to debrief without her.

When Sara wakes up, she’s in a too-small space, in an unfamiliar place, but she manages to escape the pod before it makes her a Lancicle.

You’d think they would have turned on the cryo freeze while she was unconscious but that’s just me.

But when she looks around the ship and sees Earth outside the window instead of the Time Stream, she knows she’s not on the Waverider anymore.

In Sara’s absence, Ava takes on her role as interim captain, and hands everyone Save Sara binders, and holds firmy to her clipboard. One by one she gives an order that is promptly defied, and one by one she checks off a list of the things she knew her team would do no matter what she said. She knows her team, and she knows her team works, so she lets them do what they need to do. Ava trusts the process.

Ava also believes in calling for help, and she knows just who to call to deal with aliens: the DEO. Nate asks her if it will be weird to talk to Alex Danvers, and I scream I DON’T CARE I WANT IT ANYWAY, and Ava says no because they weren’t together at the time so it’s not like she cheated, and Ava knows damn well that Sara slept her way across time and space before they started dating. “Sara doesn’t like to be alone.” Ava understands Sara in a way few before her have. (And Ava has likely seen Alex Danvers and thus is not surprised.)

“I would sleep with Alex too if we were both single at a wedding, what’s your point?”

Meanwhile, elsewhere in space, another cryo-pod opens and Sara Lance finds herself face to face with Spartacus. (Oh how I missed the wacky sentences this show makes me write.)

“I hear you have a friend named Mira who looks a lot like my ex-girlfriend.”

In his magic mansion, Constantine has been trying to use his psychic connection to Sara (that is either real or imagined, it’s unclear) to find her, but when that doesn’t work, Zari turns to Astra; surely she knows someone who could help. Astra isn’t sure how she can be of any use in her newly human form, but Zari knows the value of a solid social network.

I will forever miss OG Zari but Zari 2.0 has 200% won me over. It’s like if Alexis Rose was an actual genius.

When Ava calls the DEO, she learns a few things all at once. A) Landlines are very durable. B) National City has been slacking on rubble cleanup in Supergirl’s absence, and C) next time she should just get Alex’s number so she can go right to the source.

“You know, maybe I SHOULD start that CWDCTVLGBTQ club. We can meet in Gotham at The Hold Up.

Ava is starting to freak out a little because that was her Plan A and as a Type A she was really counting on her Plan A, but Nate tells her that they were already on Plan B the moment Sara went missing, so Ava has to start thinking like the Captain of the Legends, not like the director of the Time Bureau.

And Ava has already set herself up for success on that front by letting the Legends be themselves, and she’s immediately rewarded when Behrad comes back from a smoke break with a tabloid article about a girl named Esperanza who got abducted by aliens when she was younger and has been able to communicate with them ever since.

Ava thinks this might be a dead end but is willing to try anything to get Sara back, so she sends Behrad and Mick to find the grown-up version of this girl and talk her into helping them.

On the mystery ship, Sara is following Spartacus, who is very much not listening to her, including about how maybe they should check the contents of the mechanical sarcophagi before opening them. But of course he does what he wants anyway, and sure enough, instead of letting out another conventionally attractive fighter, this pod releases a very large and pretty angry looking alien.

Toxic masculinity ruins the party again.

Sara immediately goes into fight mode while Spartacus just…watches. Literally doesn’t even flex a pec to help her, even though this is all his fault. Sara can handle it on her own, of course, but it’s the principle of the thing!

She asks him what the hell he was doing and he said he was strategizing; watching and waiting to see how things played out, and if the alien killed Sara, he would have avenged her death. In a very hilarious DC-vs-Marvel dig, Sara says, “Being an avenger is stupid.”

“The Preventers” sounds like a parody superhero movie and I’m kind of into it.

She says that she prefers to prevent death altogether (and also defy it, but that’s just a Sara thing) and tells him to join the Preventers with her. Annoyed, Sara leads the way this time, and he wisely follows.

Behrad and Mick follow their information to the middle-of-nowhere, in a pretty classic looking conspiracy theorist bunker. Behrad just wants to ring the doorbell and politely ask for Ms. Cruz’s help, but Mick is as impatient as ever and shoots his way in. Esperanza sees this happening on her security cameras though, and she and her knife get ready to greet the intruders.

Sara and Spartacus make their way through the unfamiliar halls and end up finding the aliens in the control room of the ship. Once again, Sara tries to tell Spartacus how to best approach the situation, but despite watching her single-handedly take down the alien he let loose, he decides his manly man brain knows best, and charges the aliens, getting fully consumed faster than you can say, “Feed me, Seymour.”

I’m going to miss this choker when it’s gone.

The two aliens look like they have a bit of a fight, and one of them heads back in the direction of the pods, so Sara slinks after it. When the alien notices that there’s a second open pod, it seems to become distressed, and then when it turns around, finds itself face to face with the business end of Sara’s stick.

I love an improvised weapon.

Sara demands to know why she was taken onto this ship.

Taking Zari’s sage advice, Astra has gone through her metal rolodex and remembered that there was a man in hell named Aleister Crowley who used to talk of alien encounters in his Book of the Law. Constantine says that he summoned that man and trapped him on Earth (fun fact: this is a real man and a real book and also it makes sense that Constantine was the one to summon him since, like Constantine, Aleister was bisexual) but worry not, Constantine has the book right here in the manor. When Constantine notices the book isn’t where it belongs, he yells Gary’s name and storms up to his apprentice’s room. Unfortunately when he gets there, it’s not only the book he finds, but also a cocoon. Perhaps more upsettingly…an empty cocoon.

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The excitement was in the air in front of Trunks as construction began on their “outzone” — curbside space repurposed as outdoor drinking and dining — with an expected opening in mid-May.

The word on the street is that Motherlode will also re-open as early as May 14th.

Micky’s is also getting ready to open by June 1, owner Michael Niemeyer confirmed. When Micky’s was forced to close in mid-March 2019, they were in the process of celebrating their 30th anniversary. Two weeks ago Micky’s manager Adam Emarian went to the location. A homeless encampment in the alley blocked the entrance and sheriff assistance was needed to remove the ‘living room’ in front of the back entrance.

The re-grand opening will be Micky’s third — the first Grand Opening in 1990, the second in 2008 after a fire damaged the building and forced a closure for almost two years. The new Micky’s is also planning a full lunch menu with a new restaurant partner and will be open daily at noon.

Revolver has also been closed for over a year. While owner Chris Miller would not confirm an opening date, the city of West Hollywood has begun the process of setting up the Revolver outzone along Larrabee St. Tara Worden, who is the head of the City of West Hollywood Outzone program, said that she has been working with the Revolver team on their re-opening plans.

When Trunks, Motherlode, Micky’s and Revolver re-open, West Hollywood will be fully operational for all of the businesses that were forced to close due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In addition, the Flaming Saddles location will re-open under new ownership, adding a cannabis component in that venue. Gym Bar is also under construction at the former Halal Guys location at the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Hilldale, and ‘Stache will open at the former Cafe De’Toile location.

Things will be buzzing just in time for WeHo Pride on June 26-27 and the summer season ahead.

His story is an indictment of old pension laws in the country. Ken Haire, 71, has been fighting CN Rail for nine years to access his late partner’s pension, because the plan did not recognize same-sex relationships in the early 1990s. NTV’s Leila Beaudoin reports.

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Last year’s challenging business climate spurred the creation of numerous professional support groups, but for South Carolina, the Upstate SC LGBT+ Chamber was a first.

The group, funded last year by Greenville entrepreneur Nathan Brown, is the state’s only affiliate of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, according to a news release announcing the group’s website and open membership launch today.

“The Upstate SC LGBT+ Chamber has been created to fill a long-absent voice of advocacy for the Upstate LGBT+ business community,” Brown, founder of software development firm Kiona Technologies, said in the release.

The group will provide access to resources for LGBT entrepreneurs and facilitate networking events, workshops and seminars for like-minded professionals. According to the release, the chamber aims to harness economic potential for the advancement of the LGBT community and marginalized individuals.

The chamber is accepting applications from LGBT+ “allies,” professionals, and business owners who reside or do business in the 10-county region of the Upstate including Abbeville, Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg and Union.

Annual memberships are available for individuals at $100, businesses for $150 to $750 and corporate partners with various benefits and sponsorship opportunities.

The Upstate SC LGBT+ Chamber is now also accepting applications for membership, business partnership, and donations for the Founder’s Circle, according to the release. Until May 31, any donor who gives $1,000 will qualify as a permanent member of the Founder’s Circle.