LGBT Pioneers Honored with NYC Monument

I'd like to believe in my heart that these two pioneers, two strong women, would be proud of the monument that will stand as a testament to their lives and work. It's sad that they are no longer with us; having died too young.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, two LGBT rights activists who took part in the 1969 Stonewall rebellion and founded an organization that helped homeless gay youths, will be honored with a public monument in New York City, officials announced Thursday.

The yet-to-be-commissioned monument is part of an initiative to increase the diversity of the statues and monuments in public places around New York City. It will be paid for out of $10 million allocated for new public artworks.

The monument will be installed in Greenwich Village a block away from the Stonewall Inn, where patrons resisted a police raid on June 28, 1969, and helped usher in a new, militant phase of the movement for gay rights.

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Russian Film Festival Powers On

It's so heart-warming to see people standing up in the face of violence and threats to bodily harm. Eleven years and no one has knocked them down!

Last week, the annual Side by Side (Bok o Bok in Russian) LGBT International Film Festival was held in Moscow. Amid screenings of films, gatherings within the community and providing a safe space for the LGBT community, the presence of anti-LGBT protestors and bomb threats tainted an otherwise peaceful event in the capital.

“The first festival in 2008 (in St. Petersburg) faced a lot of challenges, with pressure on the venues not to support [us], and emergency services closing down spaces,” organizer Manny de Guerre told The Moscow Times. “In some respect, we still face the same challenges today.”

In spite of these ongoing difficulties, the festival has powered through and has no intention of stopping. “Hundreds came to the event [in 2008] and it was clear that the festival was needed and in demand,” de Guerre said. “That is what kept us going.”

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LGBT Kenyans Dealt Double Blow

I feel so heartbroken for our Kenyan sisters and brothers who are forced to live in a country who despises their existence and uses colonial laws to keep them in line.

Last week was a harsh week for LGBT Kenyans.

Kenya's high court upheld colonial-era anti-sodomy laws and the community lost Binyavanga Wainaina, a beloved, award-winning writer and gay activist.

"It's a dark day not just for Kenya, but also for Africa," Andrew Maina, program coordinator at HIVOS, told Reuters.

He hoped Kenya would set a precedent and be a beacon of hope for other African countries that have similar anti-sodomy laws.

The court ruling came a few days after Wainaina's death on May 21.

NPR reported that Wainaina, who came out as being HIV-positive in 2016, died of an illness. Reports are unclear if it was an illness due to HIV. He was 48.

Wainaina came out as gay in 2014 in a lost chapter of his memoir, "I Am a Homosexual, Mum." He published the essay largely due to Kenya's criminalization of LGBT people.

"I felt this is one of the most successfully, put-together and honest pieces I've ever written," he told NPR at the time.

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Trump Campaigned for LGBT Now Reverses Protections

I can't say any of this really surprises me. He did anything and said everything just to get a vote. Period. I'd say that he was like any other politician in this regard, but I don't think anyone has ever been so blatant about it. He's just turning this country inside out and upside down and not really caring about any of it.

When a debate broke out over which bathrooms transgender individuals should be able to use, Trump told the Today show that Caitlyn Jenner could use any bathroom she wanted at Trump Tower. He later tweeted that he would be better for LGBT Americans than Hillary Clinton. And during his acceptance speech at the Republican national convention, he cited the shootings at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

“As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” he vowed.

But since becoming president, Trump and his administration have repeatedly rolled back existing protections, especially for transgender Americans.

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Gillette Advert

I saw this video last night and I have to say it's simply amazing. I'm glad to see that Gillette - a brand for men - is doing so much not only to combat toxic masculinity, but also to include trans men.

Ben Carson Takes Away LGBT Homeless Protection & Lies About It

Whatever kind of doctor this moron Ben Carson is, if he goes back to it after losing his HUD position, I'd rather die than visit him. If he was the last person on the whole fucking PLANET who could keep me alive, I'd rather die. No matter how old I am. He doesn't give a fuck. No one in this administration gives a fuck. They're destroying this country from within.

Transgender and gender non-conforming people could soon be barred from federally funded shelters, after the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced plans Wednesday to scrap recently added regulator protections.

HUD’s rulemaking would rescind the Equal Access Rule that currently requires shelters that wish to segregate clients according to their gender to modify their structures accordingly – rather than turn people away.

Homeless shelters serve a particularly crucial role in protecting the lives and safety of gender minorities, who are often put out on the street early in life by intolerant families and are frequent targets for violent bigots once they find themselves in such a vulnerable situation. The Equal Access Rule, enacted in 2012, has been heralded as an essential protection by hundreds of advocacy groups concerned by this cycle of abandonment and violence.

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AL Public Television Refuses to Show 'Arthur' Episode

So let me get this right. These motherfuckers don't want parents to have to explain to their child about two male characters (not human) being in love and wanting to marry, but they will quite openly force a female child who is not much older than the age range this show is aimed toward to have a baby if she's raped by a man. Seems to me explaining love is a helluvalot easier than explaining all the pain and discomfort a little girl who just started her monthly cycle will have while she's pregnant because mommy and daddy are against abortion.

Alabama Public Television chose not to air PBS’s Arthur episode that included a same-sex marriage.

In the episode, which aired nationwide May 13, Arthur and his friends attend their beloved teacher Mr. Ratburn’s nuptials to his partner.

APT preempted the episode by showing a re-run of Arthur.

Mike Mckenzie, director of programming at APT, said APT was notified by WGBH and PBS in mid-April about the episode titled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone” and decided to show a re-run. Mckenzie said APT has no plans to air the episode at a later date.

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