Celebrity Masterchef’s Riyadh Khalaf among first gay men to donate blood – Metro.co.uk
Celebrity MasterChef’s Riyadh Khalaf became one of the first gay men to donate blood yesterday after historic new rules came into place this week.
New eligibility rules came into effect on World Blood Donor Day on Monday and mean that donors in England, Scotland and Wales will no longer be asked if they are a man who has had sex with another man.
Riyadh attended a blood donation centre and documented his experiences on last night’s episode of The One Show.
After eight minutes, the process was completed and Riyadh was elated.
‘What a great feeling,’ he enthused.
‘That felt amazing and today there’s a real feeling in the air that a discrimination has ended, that a wrong has been put right and it reminds me of the countless people that fought over the years for change like this to happen,’ Riyadh added.
‘There’s no question that now, I’m a blood donor for life.’
Riyadh, an Irish-Iraqi broadcaster and internet personality, won last year’s series of Celebrity MasterChef.
He fought off competition from 19 other famous faces during the 2020 edition of the BBC One series and beat two Olympic gold medalists – rower Sir Matthew Pinsent and hockey player Sam Quek – in the final.
NHS Blood and Transplant has said any individual who attends to give blood regardless of gender will be asked if they have had sex and, if so, about recent sexual behaviours.
Anyone who has had the same sexual partner for the last three months will be eligible to donate, meaning more gay and bisexual men will be able to donate blood, platelets and plasma while keeping blood just as safe, it added.
The changes to the donor safety check form will affect blood, plasma and platelet donors but the process of giving blood will not change.
Eligibility will be based on individual circumstances surrounding health, travel and sexual behaviours shown to be at a higher risk of sexual infection, NHS Blood and Transplant added.
Under the changes people can donate if they have had the same sexual partner for the last three months, or if they have a new sexual partner with whom they have not had anal sex and there is no known recent exposure to a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or recent use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) or post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
Anyone who has had anal sex with a new partner or with multiple partners in the last three months will be not be able to give blood but may be eligible in the future, it said.
The One Show airs weekdays at 7pm on BBC One.
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LGBTQ Agenda: Montana anti-trans legislation fueled by ignorance, activist says – Bay Area Reporter, America’s highest circulation LGBT newspaper
With 2021 proving to be a record year for anti-transgender legislation in statehouses across the country, activists in Montana are trying to change perceptions on the ground in the wake of three of those bills becoming law.
Izzy Milch, a 24-year-old queer, nonbinary person who is an advocacy organizer with Forward Montana, said many of the debates about those bills were chock-full of ignorance, both willful and not.
“It’s become really clear a majority of Montanans have no idea what it means to be trans,” Milch told the Bay Area Reporter. “So we are really trying to shift that narrative by working with educators about how to work with queer students and build community between trans Montanans and their neighbors, to clear up these misconceptions.”
According to Milch, among those misbeliefs is the idea that people “become” transgender, not that they are transgender, and/or that only after gender-confirmation surgery is someone transgender. Trans people, of course, determine their own gender identity and some people opt not to have surgery.
These topics became a discussion point on Senate Bill 280, which requires proof that someone had gender-confirmation surgery before they can change the gender marker listed on their birth certificate. It was signed into law April 30 by Republican Governor Greg Gianforte, who replaced Democrat Steve Bullock as chief executive of the Big Sky state earlier this year.
Gianforte also signed SB 215 into law, which as the B.A.R. previously reported, will likely lead to the state being put on travel ban lists being kept by San Francisco and California officials.
California lawmakers in 2015 banned state-funded travel to states that discriminate against LGBTQ people with the enactment of Assembly Bill 1887 authored by gay Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell). The Golden State’s “no-fly list” covers government workers, academics, and college sports teams at public universities.
San Francisco not only bans taxpayer-funded travel for nonessential trips to states that have adopted anti-LGBTQ laws since 2015 but also outlaws city departments from contracting with businesses located in those states. The city also now bans its employees from using taxpayer dollars to travel to states that restrict access to abortion services.
Once enacted, the Montana law will be reviewed by both the offices of California Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco City Administrator Carmen Chu to see if it requires placing the Big Sky Country state onto the no-fly lists kept by each office.
Milch explained that “SB 215 is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It allows any entity to claim a religious exemption to pretty much any law focused on non-discrimination.”
The Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ rights organization, noted that the first anti-transgender bill passed through a legislative chamber in any state this year was House Bill 112 in Montana.
HRC announced back in March that this year marks “the highest number of anti-transgender bills in history.” It singled out SB 215 and HB 112 for criticism.
“SB 215 will have a significant impact on vulnerable communities in Montana — including people of faith, women, and LGBTQ people,” gay HRC President Alphonso David stated. “It will also jeopardize Montana businesses that voted for Governor Gianforte with the hopes of getting the state’s economy back on track. Let me be clear: religious liberty and equality are not mutually exclusive, and Montanans will not stand by as Governor Gianforte and fearful legislators seek to actively discriminate against the LGBTQ population.”
As the B.A.R. reported in February, HB 112 was designed to prohibit transgender women and girls from participating on female sports teams. Gianforte signed it May 7.
HRC reported that the Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious right nonprofit designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote HB 112. (The alliance has not responded to multiple requests for comment.)
Montana state Senator Bryce Bennett (D) railed against these new laws in a statement to the B.A.R. He was one of several senators on the Democratic side that Milch said Forward Montana has a good relationship with.
“Out of touch legislators spent the session pushing an agenda to legalize discrimination and tell our transgender friends and neighbors they were not welcome in Montana,” Bennett wrote in an email. “They stripped away their rights and mocked their struggle, but we fought back and will keep fighting back. Transgender people need to know we have their backs and will stand side by side with them in the march towards equality.”
Some anti-trans legislation defeated
Some legislation went too far even for those willing to support the three bills that passed, Milch said.
One of those was HB 427, which Milch said would have “banned surgeries for trans people that would have been allowed for cisgender people in medical necessity.” That bill was indefinitely postponed April 20 after failing a State Senate vote 27-22.
“A lot of the argument came from things like medical privacy — getting between doctors and patients,” Milch said. “It couldn’t be defended, and things like that got to more moderate Republicans.”
Another bill that was defeated was HB 113, which would have banned gender-affirming care to trans youth, such as puberty blockers. It died in the Montana House of Representatives, as the B.A.R. contemporaneously reported, in January after 20 Republicans joined all 33 Democrats to vote against it, leading to a final vote total of 49 in favor, 51 opposed.
When asked how Montanan LGBTQs will move forward, Milch said, “that’s what we’re figuring out right now.”
“We are focused a lot on building community support for trans people, especially youth,” Milch said. “We’ve always been here and will continue to be here.”
Milch started getting into activism in 2019 in the town of Missoula — population: 75,000.
“The first organizing I did was with a bunch of queer people in Missoula, throwing like a queer dance party, partnering to bring community, and making a small town a little more queer,” Milch said.
After becoming involved in census-gathering efforts, Milch became an advocacy organizer.
Milch said there are several reasons that speaking out is important to them.
“I’m queer. I’m nonbinary, and I live in Montana,” Milch answered.
For more information about Forward Montana, click here.
LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at j.ferrannini@ebar.com
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Scott Cawthon Defends Anti-LGBT Donations – Houston Press
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Scott Cawthon, the Houston-born/Austin-based creator of the hit horror game series Five Nights At Freddy’s, is a major donor to Republican politicians. Records from Open Secrets show that since 2015 he has made $42,204 in contributions, almost all of them to Republican candidates. The sole exception is former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, who he gave $2,500 in 2019 during the Democratic Presidential Primary. His other beneficiaries include Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, John Cornyn, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump.
The universal support for so many conservative politicians was a sore blow to the LGBT fans of the FNAF series. The games have a huge LGBT fanbase responsible for terabytes worth of fanart. As the series has progressed from its gritty beginnings, the evolution of the haunted animatronics from raggedy monsters to sleek, colorful, more-feminine looks has resonated with queer gamers. Blue Capsules, a collaborative FNAF fan comic, spoke out harshly against the revelation on Twitter.
“We are unanimously appalled by the discovery that Scott Cawthon has donated large sums to prominent republican figures,” the statement read. “As a diverse team composed largely of LGBT and neurodivergent artists it’s difficult to properly express the magnitude of our disappointment.”
Cawthon has made a rare public statement in defense of his actions, which unfortunately has only worsened the appearance of him as a man working against the interests of marginalized groups. He released a long statement on the FNAF sub-Reddit. In it, he claims to love his LGBT fanbase and affirms his position as a pro-Life Christian, but he makes some rather disturbing justifications.
“For those who took the time to look, you saw that the candidates I supported included men, women, white people, black people, republicans, and democrats,” the statement read. “I supported Kimberly Klacik in Baltimore because I believed that she really cared for the African American community there and wanted to pull them out of poverty. I believed she could have really make a difference in a time when so many black communities were struggling. She lost, unfortunately. I supported Tulsi Gabbard, a democrat, even though I disagreed with her on several issues, because I felt she would have been a good and fair president. And yes, I supported President Trump, because I felt he was the best man to fuel a strong economy and stand up to America’s enemies abroad, of which there are many. Even if there were candidates who had better things to say to the LGBT community directly, and bigger promises to make, I believed that their stances on other issues would have ended up doing much greater harm to those communities than good.”
Cawthon’s reasoning seems to be that his support for various anti-LGBT candidates is outweighed by the economic good that Republicans supposedly bring to the country. A particularly pervasive train of thought in conservative circles is that the left’s focus on direct aid to marginalized groups is what is keeping them impoverished, while the true solution is simply to shove more capitalism at inequality until it goes away.
In practice, this hasn’t worked and likely never will. Not only did the economy tank under Trump, but he also actively worked against LGBT rights. In addition to his famous ban on trans people serving in the military, with just a couple of weeks left in term he rolled back protections for LGBT people against discrimination under the Department of Health and Human Services. He also rescinded a school guidance policy that gave aid to trans students. While it’s possible that Trump made some LGBT people richer and safer, he inarguably made more vulnerable and less protected.
Nor does Cawthon’s support of Gabbard speak highly of his regard for LGBT people. Gabbard was consistently the most anti-LGBT person in the Democratic field. She has a long history of working with her father as part of campaigns to ban marriage equality and promote deadly conversion therapy for LGBT youth. Gabbard has since said that she regrets her previous anti-LGBT work.
How much of this backlash will harm Cawthon is debatable. By his own admission in his statement, he no longer runs the FNAF empire for the money. The popularity of the series has made him worth an estimated $60 million. Much like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, he has likely gone beyond the point where a boycott from the LGBT people he hurts will affect him in any way. Still, it’s sad to see a property that has been fully embraced by the LGBT community tarnished by its creator’s political cruelty.
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LGBTQ mental health support went online for youth – NC Health News – North Carolina Health News
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[New School] Fighting stereotypes: How to be a true LGBTQ+ ally – Rappler
![[New School] Fighting stereotypes: How to be a true LGBTQ+ ally – Rappler](https://www.tampabaygaynewstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/new-school-fighting-stereotypes-how-to-be-a-true-lgbtq-ally-rappler-768x432.jpg "[New School] Fighting stereotypes: How to be a true LGBTQ+ ally – Rappler")
Gay people can prefer masculine traits over feminine ones, vice versa, or even be a bit of both. I mean, some girls in my class can beat the guys in games like Call of Duty and Mobile Legends, while some guys are better at cooking and sewing than us. Times have changed. The roles of men and women are no longer as heavily divided. Women now have a more active role in society, while men are starting to partake in responsibilities at home.
Pride Month webinar series presented by RWJ/Barnabas PROUD Centers – Out In Jersey
During Pride Month, the RWJUH Babs Siperstein PROUD Center in Somerville and RWJUH PROUD Gender Center of New Jersey located in New Brunswick, will host a free webinar series throughout the month for the LGBTQ community. The webinars will be on Tuesday afternoons and will address a variety of topics including family planning, HIV prevention and workplace acceptance and experiences.
On Tuesday, June 15, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., the 31 Ways to Create a Family educational workshop on LGBTQ family building will feature experts from the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, an RWJBarnabas Health facility. During this webinar, experts will discuss the many ways a family can be created and fertility options such as egg freezing, intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization.
The “PrEP! Talk” webinar will take place next week on Tuesday, June 22, from 12-1 p.m. Hosted by representatives from RWJUH Somerset’s Babs Siperstein PROUD Center, the Zufall Health Center and the Hyacinth Foundation, in this session attendees will learn more about PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) and its effectiveness in preventing HIV. The session is designed to be an interactive conversation.
The “PROUD Meet & Greet Panel: Creating Community” will take place on Tuesday, June 29 from 12 to 1 p.m. In this session, attendees will meet the LGBTQ leaders serving the community from the RWJUH Somerset Babs Siperstein PROUD Center and the RWJUH Gender Center of NJ. Panelists will discuss their personal experiences navigating their own identities, share important resources and engage in a discussion around what it means to be “out and proud” in the workforce as LGBTQ community members.
“For far too long, LGBTQ+ health has been an afterthought in the health care community,” said Jackie Baras, MSN, MBA, RN, LGBT Program Director and LGBT Health Navigator for RWJUH. “Providing high quality, culturally competent healthcare to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is our priority, and we are excited to be able to offer resources through this webinar series to further address their unique health care needs.”
“We’re very much committed to the LGBTQ+ community and it is our priority to make patients feel comfortable, respected and not discriminated against or treated differently because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Paula Gutierrez, Director, Diversity and Inclusion, RWJUH Somerset and Director, Babs Siperstein PROUD Center. “We’re continuing to look for opportunities to better serve these patients.”
RWJUH Somerset’s Babs Siperstein PROUD Center opened in January 2017 in the hospital’s Somerset Family Practice. It was the first of its kind in the state and provides services tailored to meet the unique health care needs of the LGBTQ community in a safe, supportive environment. Services include primary medical care for children and adults, hormone therapy and monitoring, HIV care, health education, counseling, support groups and referrals for specialty services such as behavioral health services.
Babs Siperstein PROUD Center has now expanded to its own space and is open for appointments five days a week. The Center has dedicated staff, including a patient navigator, a team of nurses and a new PrEP counselor. In addition to comprehensive medical services, the Center holds an array of support groups, including ‘PROUD Transitions—Transgender Family Support Group’. Led by facilitators from the transgender community, the group helps parents, spouses, partners and adult children better understand and cope with their transgender family members.
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School established The PROUD Gender Center of New Jersey to support the transition of transgender patients. To find out more visit them online. To register for the webinar series, please visit: rwjbh.org/SomersetEvents. To schedule an appointment at RWJUH Somerset’s Babs Siperstein PROUD Center, call 855-776-8334 or visit rwjbh.org/somersetproud. The PROUD Gender Center of New Jersey may be reached at 833-776-8365 or visit rwjbh.org/rwjuhlgbtqia
Adam Lambert plans shows at the Venetian in October – Travel Weekly
After performing arena shows around the world with Queen over the past several years, Adam Lambert will perform solo for five nights in October in a more intimate setting at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas.
The chart-topping singer-songwriter and performer is set for 8 p.m. shows on Oct. 22, 23, 27, 29 and 30 in the 1,800-seat theater. Tickets range from $40 to $300 plus tax and fees and can be purchased at ticketmaster.com.
First achieving stardom on “American Idol,” Lambert joined the cast of “Glee” for a six-episode story in 2013 and performed the role of Eddie in Fox’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” His debut album, “For Your Entertainment,” included the international hit “Whatya Want From Me” and earned a Grammy nomination. His second album, “Trespassing,” became the first album by an openly gay artist to reach No. 1 in the U.S. and Canada.
Single gay dad of 3 overcomes tragedy and becomes a TikTok star – Today.com
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04:16
Jose Rolon is a single dad of three who goes by the username @nycgaydad in viral videos he posts to TikTok and Instagram. Rolon talks with TODAY’s Craig Melvin about growing up with a machismo father, overcoming personal tragedy and normalizing LGBTQ+ family life on social media during the pandemic.
Shame on you Scott Metzger | News, Sports, Jobs – Williamsport Sun-Gazette
On June 8, Scott Metzger took to Facebook to publicly call on the Lycoming County Library System to remove several children’s books on LGBTQ+ acceptance that had been displayed for PRIDE month. In his statement, Metzger felt it apropos to remind the library how much money the system receives from the county commissioners.
Mr. Metzger should be ashamed of himself for so many reasons. Let’s begin with the fact that our public libraries are not political entities, and to imply that a governmental body should withhold funding from a public library because you don’t like the materials is, in a word, reprehensible. A man who is so concerned about free speech and constitutional rights should understand this.
Next, let’s discuss why books like “Jacob is a Mermaid” and others are important. These books aren’t some secret, subliminal message designed to “turn” children gay or trans. These books are designed to teach children to grow up to be compassionate toward people who are different than them and to show kids who might be feeling like they are different and alone that they aren’t alone. Because whether or not you want to admit it, this is something that kids are dealing with. Perhaps the child themselves isn’t questioning their sexuality, but perhaps a parent, sibling, or family friend is. Are parents just supposed to pretend like it isn’t happening and leave kids to try to figure it out in their own?
People who identify as LGBTQ+ exist, Mr. Metzger. Kids who identify as LGBTQ+ exist. They don’t stop existing if you ban books or movies about them. All that does is create feelings of shame and loathing in our world.
In your statement, Mr. Metzger, you said “kids should be kids.” I agree with that, but part of being a kid is learning about a world bigger than the one around you. And if we can teach our children to be kinder and more compassionate toward each other, don’t we owe that each other?
TARA DAY ULRICH
Williamsport
Submitted via Virtual Newsroom
Democrat announces run to unseat Stefanik | News, Sports, Jobs – The Adirondack Daily Enterprise
Matt F. Putorti, a Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 21st District.
(Photo provided)
A lawyer and Democrat from New York City has announced his plans to run for Congress in New York’s 21st District.
Matt F. Putorti, a 37-year-old Glens Falls-born, Whitehall-raised man who has worked in New York City’s legal industry since 2010, announced his candidacy with a video Monday.
In his announcement, Putorti slammed the district’s current congresswoman, Rep. Elise M. Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, for her ties to former President Donald J. Trump, saying she puts small towns, and their sense of community, at risk with her rhetoric.
He described Whitehall, and other small upstate New York communities, as “spaghetti dinner towns,” or places where neighbors can share a meal and come together regardless of their political opinions. But he also said Stefanik’s embrace of the “Big Lie” perpetuated by Mr. Trump, that the 2020 election was fraudulent, is ripping those communities apart.
“Elise Stefanik is ripping apart the fabric of our community by bringing the divisiveness of our current politics to the North Country,” he said in a statement.
According to his campaign, Mr. Putorti moved back to Washington County after the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, and Stefanik’s vote against certifying the election results from Pennsylvania.
As a lawyer, most recently at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, Purorti focused on litigating commercial and business insurance cases, as well as complex commercial disputes. He has also done pro-bono work, representing the cities of New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco in a suit to require the U.S. Department of Defense to report any information it has on service members that may disqualify them from purchasing a gun.
Putorti has also represented a number of transgender people in court proceedings to legally change their names, and an unaccompanied minor.
Putorti said he plans to focus on bringing good-paying jobs to the region, securing high-quality and affordable health care and ensuring public schools are serving their students needs in his campaign.
He described himself as a “gay man of faith,” a practicing Catholic and a service-driven member of the community.
“I do think that being gay gives a different perspective in leadership, which is important,” Putorti said.
He is the fourth generation of an Italian-American family, and his parents are the third generation to own Putorti’s Broadway Market, a grocery story in the village of Whitehall.
After graduating from the Whitehall public school district, Mr. Putorti studied at Boston College and received his law degree from Fordham University.
Alongside his announcement, Mr. Putorti announced his campaign team, which includes Eric Hyers, who has worked on a number of winning gubernatorial campaigns in Kentucky, Montana and Rhode Island, and was most recently the Michigan state director for the Biden campaign.
His team also includes Mauranda Stahl, former communications manager for Tedra Cobb, the Democratic candidate who ran against Stefanik in 2018 and 2020. Purtorti filed his statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Monday and Cobb urged supporters to donate to Putorti’s campaign in a tweet Monday, hours after the filing was made public.
Stefanik reacted to Putorti’s announcement in a statement Monday, decrying him as a “far-left socialist Democrat,” the same words she used to describe Cobb in 2020.
“The Stefanik campaign will continue to make sure voters know the choice next November between real results for the North Country versus another far-left socialist who will be a rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Andrew Cuomo’s failed policies,” said Alex DeGrasse, an aide to Rep. Stefanik.
Putorti is the fourth candidate to announce he is running for Congress in New York’s 21st District. He’s running for the Democratic nomination against Ezra Watson, a Wilton, Saratoga County native whose running on a progressive, climate-focused message. Stefanik is also facing a Republican challenge from Lonny Koons, a Carthage-area veteran running as a working-class man who says he is running to represent the “average American.”
All four candidates have a while to go before their first election — the primary elections for this race will be held in July 2022 before the general election on Nov. 8, 2022.
Screen Grabs: A creaky gay ‘Sublet’ and a heady lesbian ‘Curve’ | 48 hills – 48 Hills
Though the spectrum of LGBTQ+ cinema is currently on display via Frameline (see our preview here), that doesn’t mean gay movies temporarily cease being shown elsewhere in deference to the world’s oldest/largest such festival. Indeed, a couple recently opened at local theaters.
Sublet (now at the Embarcadero and Shattuck) is the latest from Eytan Fox, Israel’s leading gay filmmaker since Yossi & Jagger nineteen years ago. This is his first feature since 2013’s quasi-musical Cupcakes, a sugary confection that again proved Fox’s most substantial work (like Y&J and the subsequent Walk On Water) tends to be written by others, while those projects where he has a hand in the screenplay can be pleasant but a wee trite. Though Sublet has a gloss of melancholic seriousness, it’s another lightweight diversion in the vein of Cupcakes and The Bubble, content to bask in the picturesque and pleasure-seeking aspects of liberal, gay-friendly Tel Aviv as Fox has repeatedly done before.
This is his first largely English-language movie, however, simply because the main character is Michael (John Benjamin Hickey), a fiftysomething American travel writer who’s journeyed here to write a touristic piece about the city. To get a better feel for locals’ experience, he’s arranged a short-term apartment rental in a trendy neighborhood from Tomer (Niv Nissim), a university student and aspiring filmmaker half his age. Tomer is young in such a stereotypically irresponsible, flaky way that when Michael shows up, he hasn’t even prepared the flat for his guest, having forgotten the day of his arrival. After this awkward start, however, the two become friendly enough, to the point where Michael (upon realizing Tomer is crashing at friends’ houses in order to make money subletting his own place) lets him stay during the rental, in exchange for some casual tour-guide services.
Their dynamic is pretty simple: Michael is the sober, stable elder who views his cute young host with mixed bemusement and mild lust, while Tomer is the callow, commitment-phobic young’un mystified by the perspective of anyone with an attention span, or a birthdate before 1990. Eventually the latter realizes that the former is rebounding from something of a trauma back home in NY; and eventually, too, the minor sexual tension between them boils over. At the end we’re meant to buy that they’ve forged some deep if fleeting bond, but for me that was no more plausible than the notion of Michael’s supposed job as a New York Times travel columnist. (Fox and Italy Segal’s script seems to have no idea how even a fluff-piece journalist might actually work.)
The generation-gap riffing is creaky, as if adapted from a story penned 50 years earlier. And while as usual Fox makes Tel Aviv seem a lively, attractive place to visit or live in, the glimpses of supposedly cutting-edge culture we see (esp. a bad contact-improv-type duet danced by Lihi Kornowski as Tomer’s friend Daria) are less impressive than the director intends. Eytan Fox, who is 56, seems to be clinging to an identification with youth even as he no longer grasps it. Both shallow, Grindr-ready Tomer and perpetually sports-jacketed “boring nice guy” Michael seem cliches—as if there were a hard line in the middle of the age continuum, and you can only be conventionally Young (sexy, tactless) or Old (sexless, sad). Sunny, seriocomic Sublet is an easy-enough watch, but it struck me as a little vapid.
The cutting edge was exactly where the subject of documentary Ahead of the Curve was upon its SF-based launch in 1990. First published as Deneuve, until a certain French actress’ objections required a name change six years later, Curve magazine defined “lesbian chic” and a whole lot more throughout that decade. Jen Rainin’s film chronicles the heady history of founder Franco Stevens’ publication, which still exists (albeit under Australian ownership) three decades later. But it was in those early days that its innovation and influence was highest as a sophisticated, glossy and envelope-pushing community voice.
Featuring such fans (and past Curve interviewees) as Melissa Etheridge, Jewelle Gomez and Lea DeLaria, Ahead earned both kudos and controversy by including trans, race, and disability issues in its coverage. But despite its high profile, the mag originally financed by Franco’s credit card advances and racetrack bets continued to struggle for “out” celebrities and mainstream advertisers willing to come onboard. Eventually Stevens’ health concerns (she developed mobility problems) forced her out of Curve’s day-to-day operations, but she remains urgently interested in its survival.
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With plenty of fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes, plus an original score by Meshell Ndegeocello, Ahead of the Curve is itself a colorful artifact of a heady moment. It’s occasionally weakened by being too much an “authorized biography”—Rainin is Stevens’ wife, and she is sometimes gratuitously on-camera pitching softball questions she must already know the answers to. Still, the archival materials as well as latterday reminiscences make this an entertaining flashback. The doc is currently playing Roxie Virtual Cinema (more info here), and opens in-theater at the Balboa this Fri/18 (more info here).
Other new releases:
Holler
In a dead-end Ohio town where options are few, teenager Ruth (Jessica Barden) and older brother Blaze (Gus Halper) have nearly exhausted theirs. There’s an eviction notice on their home, drug-addicted mom (Pamela Adlon) is in county jail, dad long gone. Bright if prematurely hard-boiled, Ruth is at risk of failing to graduate high school thanks to the penny-scraping menial labor she and Blaze try to scrape by on, which makes her miss classes. They get a break of sorts when sketchy Hark (Austin Amelio) invites them to join his band of metal scrappers. It’s sometimes-dangerous, not-exactly-legal work. But it’s money, and they can stay under Hark’s roof—though that may not be entirely a good thing.
Writer-director Nicole Riegel’s first feature is not the most memorable among several recent features similarly depicting a blue-collar American heartland in freefall, rocked by the opioid epidemic and an ever-shrinking pool of living-wage jobs. But it’s got plenty of virtues, from a strong sense of industrial-midwest place to an incisive, nonpreachy grasp on the larger issues involved.
Most importantly, it has very strong performances, particularly from Amelio (of the two Walking Dead series) as a near-villain whose ruthlessness is understandable as the only means to success he’s got, and veteran actor Becky Ann Baker as a foreman who accepts the town’s last-remaining-factory closure as just the latest in a lifetime of institutional betrayals. Riegel hasn’t come up with the most original story here, or the most satisfying denouement. Yet Holler has a basic conviction and authenticity that makes it worthwhile. IFC Films is currently distributing the film to limited theaters and VOD/digital platforms
In the Crosswind
Pandemic streaming demands and the drastic slowdown in new production over recent months continue to tip movies off the shelves they’d been sitting on. This 2014 Estonian production is a particularly tardy beneficiary of such belated US release.
It’s certainly got a worthy subject: As opening text informs us, on the night of June 14, 1941 over 40,000 innocent citizens were forcibly deported from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on secret orders from Stalin to “ethnically cleanse the Baltic countries of their native people.” It was just one particularly busy day in the annals of what would later be termed that despot’s “Soviet Holocaust,” whose toll—also encompassing political prisoners, victims of avoidable famines etc.—would by some estimates run as high as twenty million lives.
This microcosm of an almost unfathomably large tragedy was inspired by a particular survivor’s letters to her husband—whom she had no idea was already dead. On the aforementioned night, soldiers rousted Erna Tamm (Laura Peterson), spouse Heldur, and offspring from their village home onto transport destined for distant prison camps. Almost immediately separated from Heldur, Laura and her children were put in train cattle cars, where one-fifth of their fellow travelers died en route to Siberia. Upon arrival, they were left to survive as they could as laborers in a harsh and unfamiliar land.
There’s no lack of heartrending drama in that story, or its equally bitter aftermath. But director Martti Helde’s artistic decisions in depicting it are the kind that make Crosswind a love-or-hate proposition. Aside from the beginning and end, which are handled in a conspicuously Terrence Malick-y mode of gauzy lyricism—wordless montages of beautiful actresses playing at period domesticity as if in a constant state of spiritual ecstacy—he stages the film entire as a series of tableaux vivants. That is, every shot is an elaborate camera choreography in which backgrounds move, but the actors remain still as mannequins, frozen in a moment of high melodramatic conflict/reaction. This may be aesthetically striking (and technically impressive), but it is also terribly mannered and artificial, like a Passion Play told with performers forever striking poses a la Last Supper paintings.
Shot in B&W, with suitably spare, ethereal piano music on the soundtrack, In the Crosswind is duly “beautiful.” But sometimes beauty is isn’t enough—indeed, sometimes it is exactly the wrong thing for a brutal subject, trivializing the ugliness we should be confronting. This movie might have made for a stunning gallery installation, with spectators admiring a few minutes at a time. But in narrative feature form, it reduces real-life horror to the empty, fussy aestheticism of a perfume commercial. That it is a perfume commercial which might have been directed by Bela Tarr only underlines the absurdity of Helde’s presumably well-meaning but very wrong-headed approach. Crosswind is available for streaming on Film Movement Plus (more info here).
Screen Grabs: A creaky gay ‘Sublet,’ but a heady lesbian ‘Curve’ | 48 hills – 48 Hills
Though the spectrum of LGBTQ+ cinema is currently on display via Frameline (see our preview here), that doesn’t mean gay movies temporarily cease being shown elsewhere in deference to the world’s oldest/largest such festival. Indeed, a couple recently opened at local theaters.
Sublet (now at the Embarcadero and Shattuck) is the latest from Eytan Fox, Israel’s leading gay filmmaker since Yossi & Jagger nineteen years ago. This is his first feature since 2013’s quasi-musical Cupcakes, a sugary confection that again proved Fox’s most substantial work (like Y&J and the subsequent Walk On Water) tends to be written by others, while those projects where he has a hand in the screenplay can be pleasant but a wee trite. Though Sublet has a gloss of melancholic seriousness, it’s another lightweight diversion in the vein of Cupcakes and The Bubble, content to bask in the picturesque and pleasure-seeking aspects of liberal, gay-friendly Tel Aviv as Fox has repeatedly done before.
This is his first largely English-language movie, however, simply because the main character is Michael (John Benjamin Hickey), a fiftysomething American travel writer who’s journeyed here to write a touristic piece about the city. To get a better feel for locals’ experience, he’s arranged a short-term apartment rental in a trendy neighborhood from Tomer (Niv Nissim), a university student and aspiring filmmaker half his age. Tomer is young in such a stereotypically irresponsible, flaky way that when Michael shows up, he hasn’t even prepared the flat for his guest, having forgotten the day of his arrival. After this awkward start, however, the two become friendly enough, to the point where Michael (upon realizing Tomer is crashing at friends’ houses in order to make money subletting his own place) lets him stay during the rental, in exchange for some casual tour-guide services.
Their dynamic is pretty simple: Michael is the sober, stable elder who views his cute young host with mixed bemusement and mild lust, while Tomer is the callow, commitment-phobic young’un mystified by the perspective of anyone with an attention span, or a birthdate before 1990. Eventually the latter realizes that the former is rebounding from something of a trauma back home in NY; and eventually, too, the minor sexual tension between them boils over. At the end we’re meant to buy that they’ve forged some deep if fleeting bond, but for me that was no more plausible than the notion of Michael’s supposed job as a New York Times travel columnist. (Fox and Italy Segal’s script seems to have no idea how even a fluff-piece journalist might actually work.)
The generation-gap riffing is creaky, as if adapted from a story penned 50 years earlier. And while as usual Fox makes Tel Aviv seem a lively, attractive place to visit or live in, the glimpses of supposedly cutting-edge culture we see (esp. a bad contact-improv-type duet danced by Lihi Kornowski as Tomer’s friend Daria) are less impressive than the director intends. Eytan Fox, who is 56, seems to be clinging to an identification with youth even as he no longer grasps it. Both shallow, Grindr-ready Tomer and perpetually sports-jacketed “boring nice guy” Michael seem cliches—as if there were a hard line in the middle of the age continuum, and you can only be conventionally Young (sexy, tactless) or Old (sexless, sad). Sunny, seriocomic Sublet is an easy-enough watch, but it struck me as a little vapid.
The cutting edge was exactly where the subject of documentary Ahead of the Curve was upon its SF-based launch in 1990. First published as Deneuve, until a certain French actress’ objections required a name change six years later, Curve magazine defined “lesbian chic” and a whole lot more throughout that decade. Jen Rainin’s film chronicles the heady history of founder Franco Stevens’ publication, which still exists (albeit under Australian ownership) three decades later. But it was in those early days that its innovation and influence was highest as a sophisticated, glossy and envelope-pushing community voice.
Featuring such fans (and past Curve interviewees) as Melissa Etheridge, Jewelle Gomez and Lea DeLaria, Ahead earned both kudos and controversy by including trans, race, and disability issues in its coverage. But despite its high profile, the mag originally financed by Franco’s credit card advances and racetrack bets continued to struggle for “out” celebrities and mainstream advertisers willing to come onboard. Eventually Stevens’ health concerns (she developed mobility problems) forced her out of Curve’s day-to-day operations, but she remains urgently interested in its survival.
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With plenty of fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes, plus an original score by Meshell Ndegeocello, Ahead of the Curve is itself a colorful artifact of a heady moment. It’s occasionally weakened by being too much an “authorized biography”—Rainin is Stevens’ wife, and she is sometimes gratuitously on-camera pitching softball questions she must already know the answers to. Still, the archival materials as well as latterday reminiscences make this an entertaining flashback. The doc is currently playing Roxie Virtual Cinema (more info here), and opens in-theater at the Balboa this Fri/18 (more info here).
Other new releases:
Holler
In a dead-end Ohio town where options are few, teenager Ruth (Jessica Barden) and older brother Blaze (Gus Halper) have nearly exhausted theirs. There’s an eviction notice on their home, drug-addicted mom (Pamela Adlon) is in county jail, dad long gone. Bright if prematurely hard-boiled, Ruth is at risk of failing to graduate high school thanks to the penny-scraping menial labor she and Blaze try to scrape by on, which makes her miss classes. They get a break of sorts when sketchy Hark (Austin Amelio) invites them to join his band of metal scrappers. It’s sometimes-dangerous, not-exactly-legal work. But it’s money, and they can stay under Hark’s roof—though that may not be entirely a good thing.
Writer-director Nicole Riegel’s first feature is not the most memorable among several recent features similarly depicting a blue-collar American heartland in freefall, rocked by the opioid epidemic and an ever-shrinking pool of living-wage jobs. But it’s got plenty of virtues, from a strong sense of industrial-midwest place to an incisive, nonpreachy grasp on the larger issues involved.
Most importantly, it has very strong performances, particularly from Amelio (of the two Walking Dead series) as a near-villain whose ruthlessness is understandable as the only means to success he’s got, and veteran actor Becky Ann Baker as a foreman who accepts the town’s last-remaining-factory closure as just the latest in a lifetime of institutional betrayals. Riegel hasn’t come up with the most original story here, or the most satisfying denouement. Yet Holler has a basic conviction and authenticity that makes it worthwhile. IFC Films is currently distributing the film to limited theaters and VOD/digital platforms
In the Crosswind
Pandemic streaming demands and the drastic slowdown in new production over recent months continue to tip movies off the shelves they’d been sitting on. This 2014 Estonian production is a particularly tardy beneficiary of such belated US release.
It’s certainly got a worthy subject: As opening text informs us, on the night of June 14, 1941 over 40,000 innocent citizens were forcibly deported from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on secret orders from Stalin to “ethnically cleanse the Baltic countries of their native people.” It was just one particularly busy day in the annals of what would later be termed that despot’s “Soviet Holocaust,” whose toll—also encompassing political prisoners, victims of avoidable famines etc.—would by some estimates run as high as twenty million lives.
This microcosm of an almost unfathomably large tragedy was inspired by a particular survivor’s letters to her husband—whom she had no idea was already dead. On the aforementioned night, soldiers rousted Erna Tamm (Laura Peterson), spouse Heldur, and offspring from their village home onto transport destined for distant prison camps. Almost immediately separated from Heldur, Laura and her children were put in train cattle cars, where one-fifth of their fellow travelers died en route to Siberia. Upon arrival, they were left to survive as they could as laborers in a harsh and unfamiliar land.
There’s no lack of heartrending drama in that story, or its equally bitter aftermath. But director Martti Helde’s artistic decisions in depicting it are the kind that make Crosswind a love-or-hate proposition. Aside from the beginning and end, which are handled in a conspicuously Terrence Malick-y mode of gauzy lyricism—wordless montages of beautiful actresses playing at period domesticity as if in a constant state of spiritual ecstacy—he stages the film entire as a series of tableaux vivants. That is, every shot is an elaborate camera choreography in which backgrounds move, but the actors remain still as mannequins, frozen in a moment of high melodramatic conflict/reaction. This may be aesthetically striking (and technically impressive), but it is also terribly mannered and artificial, like a Passion Play told with performers forever striking poses a la Last Supper paintings.
Shot in B&W, with suitably spare, ethereal piano music on the soundtrack, In the Crosswind is duly “beautiful.” But sometimes beauty is isn’t enough—indeed, sometimes it is exactly the wrong thing for a brutal subject, trivializing the ugliness we should be confronting. This movie might have made for a stunning gallery installation, with spectators admiring a few minutes at a time. But in narrative feature form, it reduces real-life horror to the empty, fussy aestheticism of a perfume commercial. That it is a perfume commercial which might have been directed by Bela Tarr only underlines the absurdity of Helde’s presumably well-meaning but very wrong-headed approach. Crosswind is available for streaming on Film Movement Plus (more info here).
PHOTOS: Casper Pride look to harness ‘Reimagined’ momentum as crowd comes out again and again and again – Casper, WY Oil City News – Oil City News
CASPER, Wyo. — They came out on Wednesday, they came out on Thursday, they came out on Friday. Then they came out again on Saturday. And again on Sunday.
Five days of events surrounding Casper Pride: Reimagined again and again brought people out to celebrate all things queer, community-oriented and kind.
“We saw record numbers this year,” Casper Pride Chair Mallory Pollock said Monday. All the ticketed events sold out and organizers estimate 800 people came out to “Pride at David Street Station” on Saturday. About 200 people came to the “Rainbow Collective” and “Art After Dark” events at Art 321 on Friday evening.
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Around 90 people showed up to an Open Mic Night on Thursday organized by Casper PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). People claimed all the tickets for the “Taste the Rainbow” dinner organized by United Church of Christ-Casper at the Good Food Hub that kicked off this year’s Pride festivities on Wednesday. Other sold out events included the “Pride Drag Show and Co” event at Backwards Distilling Company‘s Mills location on Saturday night and the Drag Church Brunch at Occasions By Cory on Sunday.
The Pride Dance on Saturday evening drew a promising number of teenagers in particular and even events not organized by the Casper Pride Committee, such as a burlesque show put on by Keyhole Peepshow billed as the “Pride After Party” packed local businesses like the Bourgeois Pig.
The final event of Casper Pride: Remagined was called “The Future is Queer” and drew about 75 people to the Healing Park at Conwell across from the Wyoming Medical Center on Sunday where people participated in breakout groups to discuss how to keep the momentum going from the five days of events and ensure there is a more regular, safe, fun and inviting presence for people in the LGBT community throughout the year.
It wasn’t just the number of people attending the events that grew this year.
“Our vendors doubled from 2019,” Pollock said of Saturday’s celebration at David Street Station. “Our sponsorships were probably doubled as well.”
For the first time ever, Casper Pride had a presenting sponsor in Clean Slate Body Studio, who will be a full service laser studio offering services such as tattoo and hair removal along with other skin treatments when they open later this year.
Pollock said that is a big deal because in the past, donors have been hesitant to publically support Casper Pride: “Only six years ago, people were saying ‘I’ll give cash but don’t put my name on it.’”
Amanda with Clean Slate Body Studio attended many of the Casper Pride: Reimagined events this year, including the opening “Taste the Rainbow” dinner at the Good Food Hub.
“I think that showing a strong presence in the community shows kids it is okay to be who they want to be,” she said during that dinner on Wednesday.
Amanda shares Casper Pride’s interest in building off the momentum from Pride and having more places to go and things to do for people in the LGBT community in Casper throughout the year.
“I would like to see something bigger for Thanksgiving, Christmas….maybe something just monthly,” she said. “People really need human interaction.”
Sitting at the table with Amanda was Jennifer, who said that as the parent of an LGBT child in the Casper area: “It has been hard.”
“My child has been very isolated,” Jennifer said. “She is blossoming now that she has some safe spaces to be herself in.”
“As a parent it’s so good to see your child be who they are and happy and at ease. We’re just really excited to see the community come together like this.”
Jennifer said that Art 321’s weekly “Rainbow Collective” gatherings at Art 321, which meets from 6-8 pm every Friday, have been huge for her child.
“She’s been one of those kids who waits every year for this (Casper Pride celebration,” Jennifer said, adding that it would be nice to see more things year-round.
Amanda said that one of the things Clean Slate Body Studio aims to do is provide not only their services, but also space for LGBT people to come and gather.
She said she’s also working with “Theater of the Poor” to try to get people involved in their production of the musical “Hair.”
“I think it is time to realize we don’t have to give up our dreams,” Amanda said. “We need a lot of events. We need to know that we belong.”
Amanda said that in general, the broader community in Casper has been safe.
“I worked at the Beacon Club from to 90s to about 2010….no one ever treated me different out there,” she said.
Amanda said that 2014 was the “first time I ever felt threatened in this town about who I was…I think we have an amazing community but there are some instances [of discrimination].”
While many in the LGBT community agree that it is time to have a more visibility in the community, some say that with increased visibility there is a certain amount of increased risk.
“As we’ve become more visible, the backlash has increased also,” PFLAG President Rob Johnston said during the “Taste the Rainbow” dinner.
Johnston said during the opening dinner he was hopeful there wouldn’t be any instances of hate or discrimination: “I’m always concerned about that.”
Overall, there was a relaxed atmosphere during the five days of events. The Casper Police Department said Monday the only documented interaction they had during any of the events was at around 2:40 pm on Saturday at David Street Station. Reporters on scene witnessed members of a religious organization “protesting” the event.
Organizers asked them to stay off of David Street Station, which is private property, as they had not obtained a vendor permit to participate. Casper PD officers “did not witness any illegal activity” or any physical or verbal assaults, according to a Monday statement from Casper PD Public Information Officer Rebekah Ladd.
Officers remained on scene for “several minutes before seeing that both groups were dispersing peacefully. No other documented interactions happened with CPD regarding Pride events this weekend.”
Rev. Dee Lundberg with the United Church of Christ Casper helped organize the “Taste the Rainbow” community dinner and also the “Drag Church Brunch” on Sunday. She said on Wednesday at the Good Food Hub that it is important for members of their church to support the LGBT community.
“I’ve got a ton of volunteers from the church,” Lundberg said. “Some of us have kids in the community.”
For others in the United Church of Christ Casper, supporting the LGBT community is a simple matter of theology.
“Theologically for us, the God we know and understand is one that affirms everybody as they are and doesn’t try to tell them who they are or need to be but just loves them where they are at,” Lundberg said at the Good Food Hub.
Lundberg did her dissertation on hospitality and spirituality and said that hosting a dinner is a simple but powerful way to encourage community building.
“Feeding people is always a good thing,” she said. “Hospitality is everything. I actually did my dissertation on hospitality and spirituality. With a lot of folks in this community they just need TLC (tender-loving care) and a sense of home and family, and food just plays into that. It is probably the most important thing we do.”
Lundberg said that getting together to share a meal and working to provide a meal to someone is a way to show “not just tolerance, not just acceptance even, but affirmation.”
“You have a family,” she said to the LGBT community. “You have a home. We’ve got you’re back, we’re here.”
Lundberg noted that the reason the “Taste the Rainbow” dinner was held at the Good Food Hub was because Wyoming Food for Thought also wanted to give their support. They provided the Good Food Hub space for free and provided greens for the salads and pasta. Another business that made the dinner possible was Albertson’s who donated cupcakes.
“We want folks to support businesses in town that support us,” Lundberg said of the Casper Pride Committee’s hopes. “It is building community across lines with allies and businesses and otherwise.”
She added that what makes simple events really have impact is an attention to detail.
“Just little things that say you care,” Lundberg said. “You make the room warm and inviting. All of those little things make the difference. People notice when you take the time to make things nice.”
Johnston said during the opening dinner that PLFAG was putting on the Open Mic Night on Thursday at Art 321, noting that this was an event that happened at Racca’s Pizzeria two years ago. In 2021, Pollock noted that Racca’s also supported Casper Pride, offering a special drink menu with $1 from each purchase being donated to Casper Pride.
Johnston said that the 2019 Open Mic event drew a “really diverse room.” That proved to be true on Thursday, with the event drawing about 90 people. Some sang songs, some played guitar, some recited poetry or otherwise opened their hearts about their experiences in Casper. Several mentioned Wyoming’s lack of hate crime legislation and their view that such legislation is long overdue in the “Equality State.”
On Wednesday, while he had expressed concern about backlash that may occur as the LGBT community becomes more visible, Johnston also said that he thinks the LGBT community in Casper is “a lot of small groups” and that Pride “is the one event that brings everybody together.”
“How do we keep this going throughout the year?” Johnston said. “That is what Sunday afternoon will be. How do we re-imagine ourselves as a community and what are we moving toward?”
One thing he’d like to see more of is support for people that are just coming out. He said that people who are thinking about coming out can consider contacting Casper Pride or Casper PFLAG who can help provide them with resources or simply offer safe conversation. Johnston said PFLAG sometimes get calls from people who might only feel comfortable getting together for coffee and that this is okay. Bottom line is they need to know support is available.
Amanda said she knows how it feels when someone is still closeted and not quite ready to come out.
“I know exactly what that is like,” she said. “You have friends here. You have so many friends here.”
She said community gatherings such as Pride at David Street Station are a good option for people looking for community who aren’t ready to come out. Gage Williams with Casper Pride agrees.
He said Wednesday that Casper Pride events draw “so many allies” and that the majority of the 800 people at David Street Station on Saturday were likely allies rather than themselves identifying as LGBTQ.
“You can just come and enjoy things just because you want to,” Williams said. “The cool thing that comes with doing these events…there is still that anonymous feeling.”
Pride events can be for anyone supportive of the community. Rob Tate said during the “Taste the Rainbow” event that he was there with a friend who is newly out: “I’m excited to bring my friend. It is her first time.”
Tate said he loved the turnout at the “Taste the Rainbow” dinner and that he’s glad to see “Casper is evolving and we are getting more things like this.”
“This is important,” Tate added. “We have a lot of youth and I think this is really going to benefit people of different generations.”
Tate said he’d also like to see some more year-round community events for the LGBT community, such as some gay bars, more regular drag queen bingo events or LGBT dating events. But the momentum is heading in the right direction.
“I think every year it is getting better and better,” Tate said. “I’m really pleased to see where it has come even in the last five years.”
That sense for capturing some momentum did not escape the notice of organizers this year or supporting venues. Art 321 Executive Director Tyler Cessor said on Wednesday that “it was really incredible to see the volume of folks that were out.”
Whether it was the Open Mic Night, the over 200 people who showed up on Friday night or the crowd again on Saturday night for the dance, Cessor said Art 321 is realizing there is definitely a community they can support.
In addition to their weekly Rainbow Collective events, Cessor said Art 321 will be looking to do more: “One of the ways we’re going to do that, Wyoming Equality and Casper Pride are asking us to hold a youth queer space.”
Cessor spoke during the Sunday culminating “The Future is Queer” event at Casper Healing Park at Conwell and asked people to close their eyes and imagine three moments of queer joy they had witnessed throughout the five days.
For him, there were moments during the dance, at the Art After Dark event, and at the park on Sunday that all fit the bill. Another example was people attending Rainbow Collective events easily and simply referring to one another with non-binary pronouns they prefer: “It is hard to get people to use those pronouns if they are not doing it regularly,” Cessor said.
“I just think it was a beautiful year,” he added.
Cessor led a breakout group on Sunday focused on what allies can do to support the LGBT community. He said one of the things he wants people to think about is how they can get in the way of people or things that could prevent those instances of “queer joy” that they imagined from happening.
Williams said that is is striking how many people Casper Pride was able to reach this year. One moment that stuck out was the “Pride Drive” on Sunday when people decked out their cars in Pride-style and met at City Park. This was an event that Casper Pride carried over from 2020 when in-person celebrations were not possible due to COVID-19.
“Friday night was probably my favorite night,” Williams added, pointing to the 200 people who showed up at Art 321’s Art After Dark to paint and do other art together.
Williams said he thinks events which give people something to do and a space to meet without being overly structured may have the most impact. Those kind of events give people a place to come hang out and do some activity if they want or just hang out and chat or listen without pressure.
“I personally didn’t feel any pressure,” Williams said of the Pride events this year.
He said that he understands that the move to David Street Station “definitely put us in a spotlight that some of our community isn’t ready for.” But Williams said he thinks this is necessary if the goal is to make people feel safer in the broader community year-round.
Such events help build people’s confidence that “we can live our authentic lives and not worry about the what-ifs.” Williams said he has the sense that Casper is moving in the right direction of becoming a community where people can feel safe to be themselves whoever they are.
He added that Casper Pride can connect people with resources, whether that is to help ease them in the process of coming out, or whether that is other resources they need such as mental health or other health support.
Williams said he’d also like to see more partnerships grow with businesses in the community and that it was great to see Clean Slate Body Studio come on as a presenting sponsor, particularly because Wyoming may not have a lot of LGBT owned businesses.
“I think as we grow and as acceptance grows, I think our sponsors are more willing to name themselves,” Williams added. “We’re getting more sponsors and more sponsors willing to name themselves and that is nice.”
Williams said that a more visible presence year-round is something that Casper Pride can support, but not something that they can do alone. Individuals, groups, businesses or organizations can think about ways they can support the community, whether that is a book club at the library or a gym that wants to support LGBT fitness classes or outings.
Casper Pride’s role can be to help such organizations find resources they need, Williams said. He’s seeing positive steps happening at Casper College and at places like the University of Wyoming Family Practice Clinic who are focusing on LGBT family issues. Pollock noted Wednesday that UW Family Practice will also be offering PrEP, a medicine that helps protect against the risk of HIV.
Williams said that overall, he thinks Casper Pride: Reimagined was a big success. Becoming more visible is a move he think needs to happen: “We are just as much a part of the community as anybody else..it is a move for safety.”
Casper City Council member Amber Pollock said something similar on Wednesday about Casper Pride: Reimagined: “It was really powerful to me…these types of affirming and supportive environments save lives.”
“It just really is a demonstration of the types of things folks need all the time,” Amber added, noting that people living in isolation can struggle with mental health issues.
Mallory Pollock said that the Drag Show Brunch was an event that she thought turned out really well in giving people an exposure to a religious perspective that accepts them when many may have had negative experiences surrounding some religious perspectives in their pasts: “It was really neat to see so many people there…it brought a really nice outlook to religion.”
Like Williams, Mallory said that this year Casper Pride “really took a step in being visible this year” and that while some in the community might not feel ready for this step, the turnout shows that many people are indeed ready.
“The more we get out there, the more people find us and we find them,” Mallory said. “We all find each other.”
People in the community not ready for the increasing visibility can still tune into what is going on and can consider joining some of the less public-facing events such as Open Mic Nights or simply by checking in on what is happening via Casper Pride’s social media presence.
Mallory said Casper Pride is also seeing an interest from businesses and organizations that are looking for training or guidance and that people like Williams have been able to offer some of that.
When it comes to organizations wanting to be supportive, she said one key is that the organization is doing that out of a genuine sense of support and not just to capitalize on the the LGBT community: “I think just make sure you are not just slapping a rainbow on something to get someone’s business.”
Mallory said that it was great to see a number of businesses do things that coincided with Casper Pride which they organized themselves, such as Scarlow’s, Racca’s, the Bourgeois Pig or Grant Street Grocery who made an “LGBT” sandwich speical as a twist on the “BLT.”
Another group that Casper Pride just became aware of this year is a local chapter of “Free Mom Hugs” an organization that provides resources including for parents and families with LGBT children.
“No one knew of them,” Mallory said. “That was really exciting to find out.”
The people organizing the local chapter of “Free Mom Hugs” own Casper General Surgery, an organization which Casper Pride identified through assessments that are part of a project to put together a resource guide of health services that are supportive and safe for LGBTQ people in the area.
Mallory said that another good thing to see this year were Pride organizations from Sheridan and from the Black Hills set up at David Street Station. She said that Casper Pride was able to help Black Hills Pride connect with Starbucks who have sponsored Casper Pride events for years.
Casper Pride, which was formed six years ago, has been able to help support efforts to launch Pride organizations in other Wyoming communities and Mallory said that is something they can continue to do for anyone who reaches out: “I know we’ve lent our by-laws to the group in Laramie to kind of work through when they were forming…We’ve been around for six years and I think we’ve learned a good amount.”
Another thing Casper Pride is offering is their TransProject Fund which launched March 31. That is a project which provides funding to people, trans or otherwise, who have a project that can support the trans community in some way. The first project the Casper Pride TransProject Fund supported was the creation of a document guiding people through the process of how to legally get their name changed.
“I would love to see people apply for that,” Mallory said. “Ultimately, we have a lot going on.”
Casper Pride is thinking about creating a staff position so that they have someone that can fully dedicate time and energy to all that the organization wants to do and support.
In order to support that position, Casper Pride has been focused on building momentum and having projects in place that would actually need the full-time attention of a staff member. The aim of Casper Pride: Reimagined was to plant a seed and see if not only Casper Pride as an organization, but also the community as a whole, can cultivate a way to include the LGBT community in a visible, supportive way year-round.
Opposition To ‘Pride Month’ Proclamation In Rowlett Could Lead City Council To Limit Mayor’s Power – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
ROWLETT, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – A move to recognize Pride Month in the city of Rowlett has stirred controversy, after several local pastors spoke in opposition to the decision.
Council members are now debating not only whether the occasion should be celebrated, but how similar decisions should be made in the future.
“I’m very thrilled and happy to give this proclamation tonight,” said Mayor Tammy Dana-Bashian, officially proclaiming June as Pride Month in Rowlett for the first time ever during the city’s June first meeting.
At least three pastors, who heard about plans for the proclamation, attended the meeting to speak against the decision.
“Our city does not need to encourage morals that contradict God and his Word,” said Pastor Cole Hedgecock, of First Baptist Rowlett. “…using our taxpayer dollars, our public property to celebrate someone’s sexual preference and a socially divisive lifestyle of choice,” said Pastor Kason Huddleston of Freedom Place Church, in characterizing the gesture.
Even the meeting’s opening prayer appeared to express opposition.
“Male and female, you created them,” said Pastor Brian Hiatt of Cornerstone Church, calling on God’s influence over council members.
Three council members have taken a stance against the proclamation.
In emails posted online, council members Martha Brown, Brownie Sherrill and Pam Bell expressed disappointment.
Brown also individually confirmed her opposition to CBS 11, saying proclamations have not traditionally been used to recognize “controversial” events.
City records show Brown, Sherrill, and Bell requested an item be placed on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting to discuss how decisions are made regarding proclamations, as well as how decisions are made on whether to light the city’s water tower in recognition of a holiday.
According to Brown, in the future, they’d like the decisions to be made by the council, not the mayor alone.
“Council will be considering the creation of a new policy requiring the pre-approval of the majority of Council before proclamations can be issued,” read a statement from Brown. “This pre-approval will also be considered for the lighting of our water tower to support, promote, or celebrate holidays, events, etc. I support this new policy as these recognitions should be decided upon in the same manner that Council makes all of our decisions, by majority vote.”
According to the agenda, any vote on the matter would have to take place at a later meeting.
“It lit a fire in me. It hurt me. It hurt me. It broke my heart,” said Myranda Congi, who lives in the city and is a member of the LGBTQ community.
She’s called on residents to rally in response and wants the city to light its water tower with a rainbow, something the city manager acknowledges it had planned to do.
“It’s more than just lights. It’s to signify that the LGBT community are safe here, we’re welcome here,” said Congi.
Her social media post on a Facebook page for Rowlett residents received more than 500 comments.
“Obviously some back and forth with opposing views, but the first 100 or so comments there was nothing but support, and that really, that really touched my heart… and I know… I know the LGBT community is really wanted here,” said Congi.
More than 400 people have also signed a petition calling for the water tower to be lit for Pride Month.
The city manager, Brian Funderburk, blames a mechanical error for the tower flashing random colors on June 1, the first night it was scheduled to display a rainbow.
By the time the issue was fixed days later, Funderburk said he decided to hold off lighting the tower until the opposition could be addressed at Tuesday’s meeting.
“We weren’t trying to speak out against anyone. We were trying to speak in favor of Biblical values,” said Pastor Hedgecock.
He said his goal was only to make sure those who disagreed with the proclamation had their voices heard.
Should the council chose to celebrate PRIDE month, he said he won’t be angry.
“That’s on city council. I’ve done my part. I’m not going to be mad at city council,” said Hedgecock.
Congi says she knows exactly how it’d feel to be recognized on a city landmark.
“It’s going to put a huge smile on my face. I know that and I can’t wait to see it” she said.
The city has scheduled discussion to take place during a work session Tuesday, June 15 at 5:00 p.m.