LGBTQ Breaking News Service

Guilford Green will be sponsoring “A Conversation with Roxane Gay” on May 13 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. as part of the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival. This virtual event will be hosted by Gay, as well as Dr. Cynthia Greenlee.

Gay’s literary portfolio includes “Bad Feminist,” “Difficult Women” and “Hunger.” Almost all of her work encompasses queer, black feminism and features discussions surrounding the economic class system, cultural nuances, and political ideologies.

Greenlee calls both North and South Carolina home. She received her PhD in history from Duke University. Specializing in reproductive justice, the African-American experience and women’s studies, Greenlee will be conversing with Gay about the many intersectional aspects of social justice work within their individual and overlapping fields of work.

The Greensboro Bound Literary Festival’s website explains that the event it is for readers, writers, students, academics, authors and volunteers who are passionate about books, writing and reading. All literary interests are welcome, including the LGBTQ experience, speculative fiction, immigrant narratives, social justice, memoir and romance.

The past few years have brought over 7,000 participants to the festival and this May is projected to garner even more participation because the event now includes virtual viewer involvement. This festival is unique in that all literary interests are welcome.

The festival kicks off May 13 and continues through May 16. Another featured panel is “Writing Outside the Lines: Nonbinary Authors Changing YA (Young Adults), with Mason Deaver & Nita Tyndall.” These LGBTQ authors have worked closely with Lambda Literary and are both current residents of North Carolina.

Tickets for the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival are free, but registration is required. Participants are asked to register separately per panel as each event will have a different speaker and will take place at differing hours. To register for the Roxanne Gay conversation, go to bit.ly/2Qt4hjX. To register for the Mason Deaver and Nita Tyndall discussion, go to bit.ly/2S8Adum.

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Gay Pilot: Lt. Adam Adamski, one of the few out gay Navy pilots, is leaving the military after an incident of homophobia made him not “feel part of the military anymore” and “segregated” despite the Marines affirming his harassment claims.

According to San Diego News Now, Adamski was the subject of a homophobic episode in November 2019 during a West Coast Marine Corps Birthday Ball after-party. “When I walked in the room, I knew something wasn’t right,” Adamski said. When he entered the hotel room where the party occurred, he saw the TV turned to face the doorway with his dress whites placed around it. “Hardcore gay porn” was playing on the TV.

Adamski tried to move past the experience as he was prepping for his first deployment, but word of the night’s events spread. Adamski began hearing from other LGBTQ members, both out and closeted, within the same Marine squadron as his offenders. They told him they were “upset” and “the climate, especially for pilots, is not a good climate and they think that I should report it.”

Adamski ultimately did file a complaint that was substantiated by the offenders’ squadron commander, who offered to pull the offenders’ pilot wings, and a Navy Inspector General, but it didn’t soothe the personal impact of the event for the six-year Navy officer. His relationship with a closeted Air Force pilot debating whether to come out ended, he stopped logging flight hours and was involved in an accident that impacted his ability to qualify to fly.

“I lost a lot. I’m not happy,” Adamski said. “I no longer feel like I’m an effective leader, an officer, a pilot … I don’t feel part of the military anymore. I feel segregated.”

That feeling remains all too common a decade removed from the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. “It’s one thing to have Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell removed,” Lambda Legal attorney and former Marine Sarah Buchert told San Diego News Now. “It’s another thing to have a culture where people feel safe being who they are and not have to worry about being discriminated against … a lot of this comes from the top down.”

Adamski’s decision to speak publicly about the incident led to multiple meetings at the Naval Air Command headquarters. Adamski accepted an option to retire. His time in the Navy ends in just a few months, but he isn’t ending his fight.

“I want an in-person apology from all of them. I want a meeting in which they are there and I can talk to them,” Adamski said. “Most people back down because of all this hassle and I won’t.”

Brexit, abortion and a softening on LGBT issues weakened Arlene Foster’s support among DUP voters, a close friend of the party’s founder Ian Paisley has said.

Free Presbyterian Rev David McIlveen said a “policy shift” changed people’s attitudes towards the party.

He was speaking as Mrs Foster confirmed she plans to step down as DUP leader after a majority of MPs and MLAs signed a letter of no-confidence.

Loyalist anger over the party leadership’s handling of Brexit with the introduction of Irish Sea border checks has been cited as a factor in the unprecedented revolt.

Mrs Foster’s decision to abstain in a vote on gay conversion therapy last week further agitated religious sections of the party’s grassroots.

Rev McIlveen told Belfast Live: “I just think there has been a weakening of leadership because of maybe a failure to negotiate what many people perceive to be a proper Brexit.

“While the DUP voted against the Protocol, they were at the heart of government at a time when they could have influence politically which could have been advantageous to the whole of Northern Ireland.”

Rev McIlveen, who is not a DUP member, also said the liberalisation of Northern Ireland’s abortion laws by Westminster has “really created a problem for people who are of a pro-life position”.

And he said the party selecting an openly gay council election candidate in 2019 caused concern for people with strong religious beliefs.

“I think for people who hold a very strong fundamental position in terms of biblical beliefs, yes I do believe that was a step back as far as they’re concerned,” he said.

On the impact of the conversion therapy motion, Rev McIlveen said: “I think a lot depends on how people interpret political parties.

“I think when Dr Paisley was leader of the party, people recognised a very strong and spiritual influence on the party.”

He added: “I would be very strongly opposed to gay conversion although there is disagreement over what that means.”

Rev McIlveen said most people recognise leadership “is not an easy task”.

He said the timing of the no-confidence letter could have been better, as Mrs Foster is currently undertaking high-profile libel proceedings against a celebrity doctor.

“I think that has been a very traumatic time for her and her family. I think people need to be sensitive to that.”

It’s the newest show on the HGTV network and it’s filmed right here in Detroit. “Bargain Block” stars personal and professional partners Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas, transplants from Colorado, and follows the couple as they put a unique spin on the concept of house flipping. They buy boarded up and abandoned houses in neglected Detroit neighborhoods for as little as $1,000 and live in them while they invest their own money fixing them up and bringing them back to life.

“We love taking on the absolute worst of the worst,” Bynum tells Pride Source. “The house that no one wants or believes in, that’s our jam.”

Bynum, who shared he was disowned by his family when he came out, feels especially at home in Detroit’s land of misfit houses. He sees himself in the properties they rehab, he says: “I kind of personify the houses. I was down and beat up and even my family didn’t want me after I came out, but someone believed in me and I’m in such a better place now. The houses are the same. They just need someone to believe in them again.”

Partners Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas tour a Detroit home that needs to be renovated, as seen on HGTV’s “Bargain Block.” Photo courtesy of HGTV.

Bynum and Thomas had to believe in themselves, though, to move across country to an unfamiliar and misunderstood city. Bynum, an artist, and Thomas, who has a PhD in physics from the University of Colorado, met through Match.com. They moved to Detroit, sight unseen, in April 2017.

“Neither of us had ever been to Michigan before we moved here,” says Bynum. “Detroit kind of has, you know, a little bit of a reputation, and so when we moved here, we were a little scared. But almost immediately we realized how amazing Detroit is, and how kind and loving.”

It didn’t take long before Bynum and Thomas’s neighbors surrounding their first property befriended them — the same neighbors that, inevitably, became fans of their HGTV-worthy renovation work.

“Every neighbor — and there have been a lot — we’ve met in the city has been kind and amazing,” Bynum says. “Never one time has so much as an eyebrow been raised, which was sort of shocking and not our experience in other parts of the country. A neighbor once asked if we were brothers, and I said, ‘No ma’am, he’s my partner‘ and she grabbed me and hugged me and said, ‘Good! No one tells me who I can love and no one better tell you.’ That just stuck with us. It was the most amazing answer.”

And how did their Motor City makeovers attract the powers that be at HGTV and land them their own show?

“The TV journey has been a long and winding road that started about four years ago,” says Thomas. “Back when we lived in Colorado, a friend asked Keith if he wanted to build a tiny house for a casting call she found online. Keith thought it sounded fun, so they ended up building one for an episode of ‘Tiny Paradise’ on HGTV. That process exposed Keith to a few production companies that followed Keith’s work for the next few years up until 2018 when a production company had us self-produce a ‘sizzle reel’ for HGTV.

“Initially,” he adds, “we resisted. We weren’t sure if we wanted to go the TV route. However, the production company convinced us and we created the sizzle, which was picked up for a pilot in 2019. The network liked the pilot enough to order a season of ‘Bargain Block.’ We started filming about six months later.” 

Working in such close quarters, said Bynum, has actually been good for their eight-year-long relationship: “This has been on one of the best experiences, because you really get to know somebody in this type of environment. It’s about finding a respectful balance.”

“A lot of people have told us that it would be a struggle to work with their partner and essentially be around them 24 hours a day,” adds Thomas. “We joke about being worried we have become co-dependent being around each other so much, but overall it’s a great relationship and we are very fortunate.”

As far as the homes they flip go, Bynum designs each house with a theme, furnishes them with funky second-hand furniture and adds touches of his personal art — from custom wood headboards to paintings and sometimes even murals — to finish them off. The houses, usually around 1,000-square feet, sell for on average $100,000 or less once finished and make perfect starter homes.

“We do tend to treat the houses like our children or a friend, and it gives them life,” Bynum says. “You walk through and find out all their ailments and get to work fixing them kind of like a doctor. Then when the bones are back in shape, we give them a personality”

And Bynum makes sure that each house has a personality all its own.

“I hate the idea of duplicating designs because each house has so much personality and charm and each has a very unique energy,” he says. “So I try to custom tailor each one. It’s the most fun putting them back together and seeing renewed life in the house and the neighborhood.”

“Bargain Block” airs Wednesdays on HGTV at 9 p.m. ET.

WASHINGTON – The National Black Justice Coalition, a D.C.-based LGBTQ rights organization, issued a statement on Monday disclosing that an unarmed 32-year-old black man who was shot as many as 10 times by a sheriff’s deputy in Spotsylvania County, Va., on April 21 is gay.

An attorney representing the family of shooting victim Isaiah Brown stated at an April 26 news conference that the deputy should have known that Brown was holding a phone and not a gun before the deputy fired multiple shots that struck Brown.

“After viewing the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s deputy’s bodycam video and listening to the 911 call, it is evident that the tragic shooting of Isaiah Brown was completely avoidable,” said attorney David Haynes of the Cochran law firm. “The deputy in question made multiple, basic policing errors and violated established protocols,” Haynes said.

A spokesperson for the Cochran firm told the Washington Blade on Wednesday that Bown’s sister confirmed that Brown identifies as a gay man. The spokesperson, Ryan Julison, said the Cochran firm has “no knowledge at this point” whether or not anti-LGBTQ bias played a role in the shooting incident.

“Isaiah’s Black and gay/same gender loving identity will likely make it more difficult for his family to attain accountability for the officer responsible,” said David Johns, the National Black Justice Coalition executive director, in the group’s statement. “Still, Black LGBTQ+ people continue to die by violence, often unreported, perpetrated by police officers and other state-sanctioned actors who do not value Black Lives Matter,” Johns said.

“We echo the Brown family’s demands that all audio recordings associated with this shooting be released to the public,” Johns said. “Additionally, that the police officer in question, who made careless and basic errors while violating police protocols, should be held accountable,” he said.

The Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office has said a sheriff’s deputy gave Brown a ride home in the early morning hours of April 21 after his car became disabled. The Sheriff’s Office said less than an hour later, Brown called 911 to report he and his brother were having a dispute and he told the 911 operator he wanted to kill his brother.

The Washington Post reported that Brown could be heard on the audio recording asking his brother for a gun and the brother can be heard refusing the request. The Sheriff’s Office has said Brown then left his house while still talking to the 911 operator on a cordless house phone.

“Brown goes on to say he is armed, before quickly saying he does not have a gun on the recording,” the Post reports.

Multiple news reports of the incident, including TV news stations, have shown body camera footage released by the Sheriff’s Office showing that the deputy’s body camera was pointed away from Brown when the deputy arrived on the scene in response to the 911 call. But on the body camera’s audio recording, the deputy can be heard shouting at Brown to drop the gun seconds before he began firing at Brown.

Attorney Haynes has said the 911 operator appears to have given the deputy the incorrect impression that Brown had a gun.

“Isaiah was on the phone with 911 at the time of the shooting and the officer mistook the cordless house phone for a gun,” Haynes said in a statement. “There is no indication that Isaiah did anything other than comply with dispatch’s orders and raised his hands with the phone in his hand as instructed,” Haynes said.

The Sheriff’s Office has said it has placed the deputy on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation being conducted by the Virginia State Police and a special prosecutor.

“Words do not exist to adequately convey the frustration, anger, and sadness associated with the continued violence that Black people face at the hands of the police,” Johns said in his statement. “The terror and fear that we may have our lives stolen by a police officer who deems themself judge, jury, and executioner is overwhelming.”

A spokesperson for the Cochran law firm said Brown was in critical condition at a hospital in nearby Fredericksburg suffering from 10 gunshot wounds. Spotsylvania County is located about 66 miles south of D.C.

Two gay men were set ablaze in Latvia in a horrific hate crime that was originally reported by authorities as a pile of burning clothes. One of the victims, identified as Artis, told the local Tukums Independent News their homophobic neighbor set ablaze his roommate, identified as Normund, just outside their front door in the early morning hours of April 22. Artis was also burned trying to help extinguish his fully engulfed friend, who remains in hospital with burns over most of his body. Despite Latvia’s refusal to recognize marriage equality, the country’s president Egils Levits tweeted a statement decrying the crime and saying it had no place in Latvian society.

“I woke up from a friend’s screams and cries for help at 4:00 in the morning,” Artis wrote to Tukems. “When I opened the door, he was already on fire!”

Artis was upset the paper and the State Fire and Rescue Service (VUGD) had originally reported the crime as a pile of burning clothes.

“He has 85 percent burns, and doctors are fighting for a friend’s life!” Artis continued. “But you write that a pile of rags has burned!”

President Egils Levits tweeted “there is no place for hatred in Latvia” and that tolerance is the “value of Latvian society” meaning that any “expression of hatred” would be a “crime against society.”

Latvia, a former satellite state of the USSR, has rejected all attempts at recognizing marriage equality in the past. The Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of LGBTI People in Europe and Central Asia 2021 noted the “trend of politicians verbally attacking LGBTI people has grown sizably” in the Baltic state and elsewhere in the region.

Artis said they had previously reported their homophobic neighbor and the alleged perpetrator of the burning hate crime to the police in the past for his repeated harassment and threats against them due to their sexual identity. Artis claimed the neighbor not only wanted them to move out of their apartment building, but out of the city entirely.

“We reported the threat to both the police and the neighbor’s workplace, but no reaction followed,” Artis explained. We had to wait for the person to be mutilated or killed!”

A representative for the State Police confirmed to Tukems they had received a report about the threatening neighbor but decided not to do anything about the case.

“Previously, once in November 2020, the victim had reported the threats to the police,” Janeks Bach of the Tukums district said. “Following examination of this information, a decision was taken to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings and no appeal was lodged against this decision.”

Bachs also confirmed two people were “injured in the fire” and that “criminal proceedings have been initiated and an active investigation is underway,” but declined to provide any additional information.

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After signs that the show had officially begun production in New York City surfaced in December, Gossip Girl is about ready to go into full-on promotional mode. The series first aired in 2007 but has an upcoming reboot that is set to pick up about a decade after the first run. It will follow a cast of fresh faces as social media takes over the private-school social scene. In early chats about the new show, we were all promised queer characters and content — the show lacked quite a bit in its first version — and the time to put up or shut up is soon coming. 

According to show executive producer Josh Safran, the new series drops in July. He announced the news while quote tweeting the May/June cover of Cosmopolitan which features ten members of the cast. 

There hasn’t been a ton of details to be released about the series but we do know that it will feature cameo appearances from the likes of Jeremy O. Harris. In an interview with Man About Town, actor Thomas Doherty said that his character Max Wolfe is pansexual and the show is a mix of the original series and HBO’s Euphoria. In a cast announcement, Wolfe was linked with the word “freedom.”

The show will join what’s been a pretty amazing lineup of LGBTQ+ content from HBO Max. It’s a Sin, Legendary, and Veneno were all standout projects, and The Nevers, which is an HBO production that airs on HBO Max, is absolutely piquing our interest. If you’re trying to figure out what service to add to your diet … the choice is becoming clear!

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