Ariana Grande Headlines Manchester Pride with Criticism

I understand the anger. I think the organisers of Manchester [UK] Pride should rethink this whole thing. Any Pride event should focus on the LGBT community and any artist performing there should do so for free or take a cut or something. I don't like Ariana Grande and feel she's a little full of herself.

Ariana Grande has been forced to step in and defend herself after facing criticism when she was announced as the headliner of an LGBTQ pride festival.

It had been rumoured for weeks that Ariana was set to top the bill at Manchester Pride this year. The performance would mark her first visit to Manchester since the One Love concert two years ago.

But when it was finally announced that she would indeed be performing, both Ariana and Manchester Pride were heavily criticised for a number of things. Many took issue with the price of the tickets, calling the jump in price "exploitation of LGBT people".

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Billy Porter Oscars 2019

As far as I'm concerned, Billy was the best dressed bitch on the red carpet.

Jussie Smollett staged hate crime

I hope that Jussie Smollett gets the help he so desperately needs. Transgender folk - both old and young are victims of hate crimes daily. For every step forward for the LGBT community as a whole in this country, we are shoved back two because of the hatred that still lingers. On top of that, there's legitimate racism in Chicago and in this country. Faking a hate crime just to get exposure, to get a higher salary, is despicable and it will have the opposite affect.

Actor Jussie Smollett, who was hospitalized late last month after an apparent racist, homophobic hate crime, has turned himself into the police and faces felony charges for allegedly orchestrating his own assault.

Smollett was arrested by the Chicago Police Department on Wednesday night, less than a month after he told police he’d been assaulted by two men who shouted slurs at him, doused him with bleach, beat him, and left a rope hanging around his neck like a noose. The men yelled “this is MAGA country” as they fled the scene, Smollett told detectives, who announced that they were treating the attack as “a possible hate crime.”

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Trump administration wants homosexuality decriminalized around the world

This completely boggles the mind.

The Trump administration is reportedly launching a campaign to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. According to NBC News, Iran is one of the primary targets of the effort, drawing attention to President Donald Trump’s history of conflating support for the LGBTQ community with Islamophobic messaging.

The catalyst for the decision appears to have been Iran’s hanging of a gay man in January. Iran has long been one of Trump’s biggest international foes, and the president has repeatedly threatened the nation against pushing back on the administration’s decision to reimpose sanctions that were rolled back under the Iran nuclear deal.

Leading the new campaign is Richard Grenell, U.S. ambassador to Germany. Grenell, an openly gay man and ultra-conservative, lashed out after the hanging, calling it “a wake-up call for anyone who supports basic human rights.”

Grenell himself has frequently pushed the concept of homonationalism in his social media posts. The term “homonationalism,” HuffPost notes, was coined by Rutgers University professor Jasbir K. Puar in 2007 and is considered “the intersection of gay identity and nationalist ideology” — including the reinforcement of Islamophobia.

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Video Game Character Choices and Sexuality

I have played video games. I am female and chose female characters to play not because I'm a Lesbian and love women, but because I am a woman and saw these characters as who I wish I could be. I know a lot of guys I played with chose female characters for both ignorant reasons and reasonable ones. My sexuality never came into play when I sat down to play the game. It's not something I think about and I'm sure most people don't. This ignorant woman's son could feel that the female characters are hot. Maybe that's cheap way for him to get off and his parents to be completely ignorant about it.

Twitter user Kiyoshi Kidd (@KiyoshiTheKidd) was browsing the Xbox store when he decided to look at the one star reviews on the game Apex Legends.

What he found was a review so ridiculous that many other Twitter users just couldn't resist roasting it.

The reviewer, who's screen name is ItzHalo, said:
"My son has been playing this game recently there is only one problem he keeps using the female characters."
"I think this game is turning my son transexual [sic]."
"I am not the only one that thinks this everyone in my Facebook group is having the same problem in this game and others."
Two questions leap to mind:
What is the name of this Facebook group?
How did people turn "transexual" before video games?
It boggles the mind.

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Kansas Bill Claims LGBTQ Community is a Religion

I really don't know what to say about this other than this: if the LGBT Community is a religion, it's the most FABULOUS religion there is. Lol

A group of seven Republican lawmakers in Kansas have introduced what is perhaps the most convoluted, if not cockamamie, attempt to roll back LGBTQ equality that has ever been dreamed up. The proposal is absurd and extremely unlikely to become law — Kansas’ governor, Laura Kelly, is a Democrat whose first official act was to reinstate protections for LGBTQ workers which her predecessor had eliminated. Nevertheless, the bill lends some insight into the minds of anti-LGBTQ lawmakers as they ponder how much leeway a Supreme Court with a conservative majority, and a rightward trending judiciary, might give them.

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SD Lawmakers Erase Transgender Kids from School

This is the most cruel and inhumane thing lawmakers can do. I sincerely hope that any LGBT folk who live in that wasteland of a state decide to move. Likewise, parents of transgender children, though I'm guessing if they live in South Dakota already, they're pretty anti-gay, anti-LGBT and anti-everything else that is different. South Dakota is CLEARLY a state that does not care about children. Period.

The South Dakota House of Representatives voted to approve a bill Tuesday that would erase transgender kids from the state’s schools. Though several states still have “no promo homo” laws that prohibit any discussion of homosexuality in schools, this is the first “no promo trans” bill to actually have traction in the country.

House Bill 1108, which advanced by a vote of 39-30, adds only one line of text to the state’s books: “No instruction in gender dysphoria may be provided to any student in kindergarten through grade seven in any public school in the state.” This simple-sounding legislation could have massive consequences for transgender youth.

Many transgender kids come out at very young ages, and research has consistently shown that they are best served through affirmation, including respecting their names and pronouns. It’s unclear if the legislation would allow schools to accommodate trans kids whatsoever, but it would certainly come into play when a student transitions. Even telling other students what name and pronouns to use for the student might be prohibited, and certainly any education about trans issues to help protect that student from bullying would be a nonstarter.

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Amazon Sells Gay Conversion Therapy Books

Can't say that this news really surprises me. Jeff Bezos is all about the money, no matter who may be hurt by what his company sells.

A leading British author has condemned Amazon for selling books that promote gay “cures”. Damian Barr, the celebrated memoirist, told BuzzFeed News that the online bookseller is promoting hatred, abuse and self-harm by featuring guides for the “treatment” of homosexuality. His account in Maggie and Me of abuse while growing up gay in Scotland in the 1980s earned him awards and international acclaim.

There are numerous examples of such books on Amazon that advocate so-called “reparative therapy” including: “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”, “Healing Homosexuality”, “Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality”, and “How a Gay Boy Became A Straight Man”. It was spotting the first of these by Joseph Nicolosi, one of the former leaders of the gay “cure” movement, on the site that prompted Barr to speak publicly about the issue.

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'Bend it Like Beckham' a Gay Rom-Com

I admit I've never seen Bend it Like Beckham probably mostly because I'm not into soccer. Still, after reading this article I can see why it can be considered a lesbian rom-com. Also, rom-coms aren't really my thing.

This year, I don’t want a Valentine—I want the Jules to my Jess. It’s no secret that the classic 2000s sports movie Bend it Like Beckham is Sapphic as fuck—the movie is pretty much about being gay and wearing Adidas tracksuits. But it’s also about teamwork, friendship, and how those bonds can escalate to said Adidas tracksuits rubbing against each other. The movie follows Jess, played by Parminder Nagra, and Jules, played by Keira Knightley, on their journey to being accepted by their families—not as queers, but as female soccer players.

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New Link

I just added a link on the side called Curzon/Harkstead. They are a pair of writers - Catherine Curzon is a friend of mine - who write British gay romance. You'll find links on their page to purchase their books on Amazon.

If you can't find the link on the side, click here:  Curzon/Harkstead

Ellen Page Criticizes Chris Pratt's Church

I think Ellen is absolutely right to be critical of a church that superficially accepts LGBT members, while not allowing them leadership roles. Chris Pratt is very well known and I'm sure he has a lot of young, impressionable fans who will look into his personal life and get curious about this "church" that he is affiliated with. They are likely to either want to join that church, or one of it's "sister" churches or think they are okay joining a similar church.

If you've been anywhere near the internet in the last week, you'll already know that Ellen Page has been making headlines recently for calling out hate and homophobia.

Appearing on Stephen Colbert's The Late Show, Ellen made an impassioned speech about leaders who "promote hatred and intolerance". The video, which has been watched more than 15 million times, has since gone viral, with almost 90,000 retweets.

And she didn't stop there. Not long after her interview, Chris Pratt appeared on the same show to talk about his spirituality. However, Ellen clearly wasn't impressed, tweeting about his church being "infamously anti LGBTQ".

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Girl Scout Cookies

It's that time of year, y'all. Girl Scouts of America really deserves the support of the LGBT community. They welcome transgender girls into their troops AND reject donations from anti-lgbt groups. So BUY MORE COOKIES!

Give it to me gay

Political Opinion

Magnum - The Ceremony

A new lgbt ad. <3

Supergirl Proves Trans Women are Women

I watched Supergirl for a while when it first came on, but as usually happens, it either started to conflict with a series I liked more OR after one postponed episode (preempted by something or other) I lost track of it. I'm glad the creators and writers of this series have done so much to advance the cause of the LGBT community. Especially the L and the T.

Several months after giving the world our first live-action transgender superhero Dreamer (aka Nia Nul), Supergirl finally dove into Nia’s origin by delivering a powerful hour of television that somehow managed to work as a poignant transgender narrative as well as a universally queer tale of family acceptance. The kick-butt episode, "Blood Memory," subtly reinforced the still too-often debated fact that trans women are women, while also tackling how trans folks often still feel the need to hide or downplay their identity, even after coming out to the most accepting of families. In fact, this episode marks a distinct high-point for Supergirl, managing to deliver a story both subtle and direct.

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