Returning to Istanbul, a Place of Competing Identities

GenderCool Project, an organization that promotes LGBTQ inclusion through speaking events, mentorship programs, consulting, and advising for parents of transgender children, to provide a collection of three books — A Kids Book About Being Transgender, A Kids Book About Being Transgender, and A Kids Book About Being Non-Binary — for libraries and community centers to put on their shelves. The book initiative was touted as an effort to “replace misinformed opinions” about transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming youth with positive depictions of the community in the hope of promoting positive real-life interactions between readers and LGBTQ youth they may encounter. The books in question are written promote the idea of inclusion and explain who LGBTQ people, especially transgender and nonbinary individuals, are.“The project’s goal is to increase representation of LGBTQ+ books and support our communities in having challenging, important and empowering conversations with children age 5+,” an email from Jose Soto, State Farm’s Corporate Responsibility Analyst, which was sent to all of the company’s agents in Florida, reads.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and now hosts drag performances on the main stage, as well as Honcho Disko, a monthly art club, in the basement. Be prepared to disco til closing time at four in the morning.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London will be home to this year’s UK Black Pride protest and celebration.

Bianca Quilantan 05/25/2022 04:31 AM EDT Link CopiedThree words in the Constitution are crushing Miguel Cardona’s efforts to protect transgender students in the classroom: freedom of speech.The Education secretary believes students have the right to be called “he,” “she,” “they” and other pronouns in school that match their gender identity. The courts see it differently.Shawnee State University in Ohio paid out $400,000 in April to Nick Meriwether, a professor who sued the institution for violating his rights and levying an unfair punishment when he refused to refer to a transgender student by her pronouns.

The Book of Queer, a five-episode docuseries that covers some of the gayest moments in history.“The series will pull back the curtain and take a deep dive telling the LGBTQ+ stories of the past through interviews with revered queer historians and experts who are as colorful as the rainbow flag. Blending comedy with social impact, The Book of Queer features witty recreations and original music videos to bring each of the stories to life with a modern tone,” according to a series description.The series is based on out 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist Eric Cervini’s Instagram videos.

Gemma Collins, 41, is determined to fulfil her musical dreams after a knee injury ruled out her planned appearance in Chicago.The former TOWIE star was due to play jail warden Matron “Mama” Morton in a UK tour which starts in Sunderland on May 31.However, a knee injury which first developed during her time on Dancing On Ice has been aggravated and forced Gemma to pull out.The 41-year-old has been undergoing ice-cold cryotherapy treatment to bring down the swelling on her knee after it ballooned during rehearsals. A friend of Gemma’s told The Mirror: “She had done so much work for so many months and the producers were really impressed."“But this old injury just keeps flaring up.

pansexual youth to highlight the need to support this young population.The group defines pansexuality as “an attraction to people of any gender or to people regardless of their gender.”A majority of youth who identify as pansexual say they’ve been discriminated against due to their sexual orientation (69 percent), the Trevor Project reported. In the organization’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, researchers found that 53 percent of pansexual youth reported that they seriously considered suicide and 21 percent reported they attempted suicide in the past year.Additionally, 66 percent reported symptoms of anxiety and 79 percent reported having symptoms of depression.“These rates were significantly higher than those reported by lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, and asexual youth,” Jonah DeChants, research scientist at the Trevor Project, said in an email to The Advocate.The organization even has a guide called “How to Support Bisexual Youth: Ways to Care for Bisexual, Pansexual, Fluid, and Queer Youth Who are Attracted to More than One Gender.”The guide offers best practices for people to better understand and also support youth who are attracted to more than a single gender, DeChants said.“We consistently see in our research that LGBTQ youth, across all identities, who feel supported and affirmed by the people in their lives report better mental health outcomes and lower rates of suicide risk,” he said.

Making history. The annual Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) was truly out of this world — but not for the out-of-this-world reasons anyone could predict.

A 35-year-old doctor, who has become the first Qatari to come out publicly as gay, has sought asylum in the United States. Nas Mohamed, who is currently living and working as a physician in San Francisco, said he no longer wished to remain “anonymous”. Mohamed said that it was not safe for him to return to Qatar and live his life as an out gay man. Qatar’s human rights record and its treatment of LGBTQI people have come under the spotlight after the country was selected to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Michael Gunning has announced his retirement from his swimming career, but his legacy in the Jamaican and UK swimming scenes has been thoroughly cemented.Raised and originally competing in the UK, Gunning has now swam representing Jamaica for years in events like the Manchester International Swim Meet and the World Aquatics Championships.After coming out as gay on Courtney Act’s queer dating show The Bi Life in 2018, Gunning has bravely battled both racism and homophobia from the countries he’s represented throughout his career. Now entering his retirement, it’s clear that his role as an advocate is just as meaningful to him going forward as his swimming has been.  A post shared by Michael Gunning (@michaelgunning1) In a recent interview with the Guardian, Gunning stated, “I’ve got so much more to give the world.

San Francisco police are investigating two recent telephoned bomb threats against queer youth organization LYRIC, located in the Castro LGBTQ neighborhood, as possible hate crimes.LYRIC received the first bomb threat April 29, forcing the organization's youth clients and staff members to leave the Purple House building in the Castro that serves as its offices. A second threat, 24 days later, followed at 3:30 p.m., May 23, as after-school programs were underway, said Adam Michael Royston, communications director for the nonprofit, in a telephone interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

She went public with their four-year romance after years of speculation last week.Now Becca Tilley is opening up more about her relationship with singer Hayley Kiyoko.The reality star, 33, talked the decision to reveal their relationship, her sexuality, and attending several Bachelor Nation weddings with Hayley on herpodcast, Scrubbing In with Becca Tilley & Tanya Rad. 'Hayley has really made me feel brave': Becca Tilley is opening up more about her relationship with singer Hayley Kiyoko'So I was prepared for anything and everything, but I was not prepared for the amount of love and support that we got,' Becca said of going public with Hayley.'Hayley has really made me feel brave, and she was always like, "People love you and they want to see you happy."' Becca, who went public with Hayley by making an appearance in herqueer-Bachelorette themed music video For the Girls, also talked confirming their romance.'I've always said, "I'll go public — we can go public if I can be in one of your videos, like, be the video girl." And I'm not an actress and she always hires actors, like, legit actresses.

my record label won't let me," the singer captioned the video. As their unreleased song played in the background, they continued: "I've been in this industry for eight years and I've sold over 165 million records and my record company is saying I can't release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok."To sum it all up, she said: "Everything is marketing. And they do this to basically every artist these days. I just wanna release music, man.

“Full disclosure: In real life, of course, I support trans rights," he says. "I support all human rights, and trans rights are human rights. Live your best life.

Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto of the exclusionary bill, according to multiple media outlets. Holcomb is a Republican as well, but he had opposed the measure authored by Rep.

as he did last year.The Louisiana Senate gave final approval to the bill Monday, going along with a House change that removed intramural sports from the legislation. It still covers interscholastic sports at the K-12 and college levels, affecting both public schools and any private ones that receive state funds.Edwards, a Democrat, has called the deletion of intramural sports significant but said he still believes the bill is unnecessary, the Associated Press reports.

The left these days gets a bad rap for policing language. It can be irritating to feel like you have to watch how you say things or keep up with the latest lingo when the old lingo still seems perfectly fine. This is especially the case with counterintuitive ideas such as referring not to “pregnant women” but to “people who are pregnant” — a phrase now used on Planned Parenthood’s website — or the even less intuitive “birthing people,” which we’re asked to embrace as inclusive, and therefore progressive, despite that both reduce women to being biological vessels.

Let’s be honest – modern dating can be rough. As people live further apart and more in isolation than ever before, connecting via in-person dates is more challenging than ever.

Kit Connor is not particularly interested in labeling others or himself.

(Image via Twitter)

After right-wing backlash, State Farm Insurance discontinued any relationship with a project supporting the acceptance of LGBTQ+ youth.State Farm previously encouraged agents to donate books to Florida schools encouraging acceptance of LGBTQ youth. As part of a partnership with the LGBTQ+ advocacy group The GenderCool Project, State Farm corporate responsibility analyst Jose Soto states in an email on January 18, that agents across the nation can donate a three-book bundle to local teachers, community centers, or libraries.But the move came to light following the passage of the controversial "don’t say gay" law signed in March by Gov.

Ukraine continues to strengthen, Russia has permanently banned 963 well-known American citizens from entering the country. On Saturday, the “Russian black list” was released as a response to “the hostile actions taken by Washington,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry and reported by The Washington Post.The list includes President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, trans Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, and all LGBTQ+ members of the House of Representatives — Reps. Mark Takano, Sharice Davids, Mondaire Jones, Chris Pappas, David Cicilline, Sean Patrick Maloney, Mark Pocan, Angie Craig and Ritchie Torres.Out U.S. Sens.

When the first official teaser for Thor: Love & Thunder—the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s fourth Thor-lead film—dropped last month, it had fans in a tizzy over its alleged queerbaiting, with many theorizing that it could be hinting at a relationship between Chris Hemsworth’s titular God Of Thunder and Star-Lord, played by Chris Pratt.Though Pratt’s (confirmed bisexual) Guardian Of The Galaxy is only briefly glimpsed in the latest trailer, there’s still plenty of canonized queer characters to be found, as well as theatrical imagery and other showy choices that have us hoping this could actually be Marvel’s gayest movie yet.After all, it does come from the mind of writer/director Taika Waititi, who gave us Cate Blanchett as an antlered drama queen in his last MCU movie, in addition to HBO Max’s goofy pirate comedy, Our Flag Means Death, which surprised us all by becoming one of the queerest shows of the year.Just how gay is Thor: Love & Thunder? The movie—which also stars Natalie Portman, Tess Thompson, Christian Bale, and Russell Crowe—doesn’t hit theaters until July 8, so, until then, we’re left to scavenge the new trailer for hints of queerness, reading too far into things and blowing small moments way out of proportion, as we are wont to do.Take a look at it for yourself, and then read below for our breakdown of all of the trailer’s gayest moments.The trailer’s first spoken dialogue comes from none other than Korg, the rocky Kronan voiced by writer/director Taika Waititi, who stole every single scene in Ragnarok.

The Only Way Is Essex star had been performing in the role of Matron 'Mama' Morton in the iconic musical, but sources are saying it's all over her, thanks to an injury. The Sun reports that the blonde reality TV star has been told by her doctors and medical professionals to leave the show, following a flare-up of the knee injury which she suffered in 2019 when on Dancing on Ice.

Multiple liberal media outlets are having a hard time dealing with taboo-breaking comedian Ricky Gervais' new Netflix comedy special because of its jokes about transgender people. Gervais’ new special, titled "SuperNature," debuted on the streaming platform Tuesday and has already received multiple scathing reviews for containing several outrageous jokes about trans people and the activists who aggressively insist that the public respect their pronouns.  Hollywood magazine Variety, and British outlets Metro and The Independent clutched their collective pearls over the special.  Variety's opening salvo skewered it for trying to "score points off of a marginalized group of people." The Hollywood outlet slammed the special as a "collision between two malign forces," namely Gervais and Netflix.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene heads to her first reelection primary on Tuesday with the likelihood of securing the GOP nomination for her seat, despite being one of the most-criticized members of the House of Representatives.Greene has been tweeting up a storm in the days and hours leading up to the primary, and if she was competing with herself to see just how dumb her tweets can get, this one about baby formula may have clinched the race.In a tweet attacking California, Greene attempted to make a point about the national baby formula shortage.

Jacob Bjørn Hessellund is a professional handball player from Denmark. He came out on Instagram this week just in time for Pride.“Something has been filling my mind for a long time. Something I need to share,” 30-year-old Hessellund’s post begins.

LOS ANGELES — Oliver Sim was happy to be a monster. Too happy. On the London set of the short film “Hideous,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, the 32-year-old musician was living his fanboy fantasies of becoming a creature from a horror movie.

Republican lawmakers in Indiana on Tuesday banned transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams at their schools, overriding the veto of Gov. Eric Holcomb, a fellow Republican who said the measure did not address any pressing problem and exposed the state to lawsuits. The override made Indiana the latest conservative state to enact legislation blocking transgender girls or women from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

Wizard of Oz dress may not be in Kansas anymore, but its final home is still to be determined.The Catholic University of America had planned to auction off the gingham dress Tuesday, but a federal judge Monday blocked the move, The Washington Post reports. U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe ruled that a lawsuit over ownership of the dress must be resolved first.The dress is one of six that have been authenticated as worn by Garland in the LGBTQ-beloved 1939 film, although only one other is known to still exist.

The Southern Baptist Convention was just exposed for covering up claims of sexual assault against its own members and intimidating their accusers.Third-party investigative organization Guidepost Solutions has released a 288-page report detailing the extremist group’s failure to act against sexual misconduct accusations made against several of their members over the course of many years.Reports of sexual abuse, specifically against minors, have been levied at the Catholic church for decades, and this report outlines that this Protestant branch of the Christian establishment is not as far removed as they might like to think.“For almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention (‘SBC’) Executive Committee (‘EC’) to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff,” the report states.“They made phone calls, mailed letters, sent emails, appeared at SBC and EC meetings, held rallies, and contacted the press… only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.”The Southern Baptist Convention has a famed background of discrimination against the queer community, releasing statements like “a desire to engage in a homosexual relationship is always sinful, impure, degrading, shameful, unnatural, indecent and perverted” and “inconsistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.”It seems that, according to the findings of this report, the anti-LGBTQ hate group has its own share of the impure, the degrading, and the shameful.Let us close with a select reading from the good book herself:Jeremiah 23:10-12 state, “The prophets follow an

Princeton University. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a federal eviction moratorium allowed people who suffered economic losses to stay in their homes and avoid settings where the virus spread.

Gemma Collins has pulled out of her role in West End musical Chicago following a knee injury.

Oliver Sim, vocalist and bass player for The xx, recently revealed that he’s been living with HIV since he was 17 years old.In a recent Instagram post, Sim explained the meaning and content surrounding his brand-new solo song, “Hideous.”“I’ve been living with HIV since I was 17 and it’s played with how I’ve felt towards myself, and how I’ve assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life. So, quite impulsively, I wrote about it on a song called ‘Hideous,’” he wrote.Sim continued:“Since writing ‘Hideous,’ I’ve spent the last two years having conversations, which was difficult and uncomfortable to start with, but has allowed me to feel a lot freer and has only strengthened my relationship with myself and with the people in my life.” Despite still being an active part of The xx, Sim has also been releasing music in 2022 as a solo artist.

SuperNature premiered on the streaming service today and it’s drawing fierce backlash for its profoundly and graphically transphobic “jokes.”A few minutes into the special, Gervais launches into his first salvo against trans women. “Oh, women!” he begins. “Not all women, I mean the old-fashioned ones.

"If we don't know ourselves, how shall we ever know anyone else?" is one of the quotes featured in the new exhibit at the GLBT History Museum, "Out In The World: Ireland's LGBTQ+ Diaspora." The exhibit formally convened on May 14 with introductory remarks from the Society's Interim Co-Executive Director Andrew Shaffer, California Senator Scott Wiener, Consul General of Ireland Robert O'Driscoll, and Irish Green Party politician Catherine Martin, who is Ireland's Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media, followed by a reception at the Castro's Blush Wine Bar."Across the generations, Irish LGBTQ people have emigrated and found opportunities to live and love abroad. Yet this journey was rarely a simple transition from an oppressive island to a liberal wider world.

according to Library of Congress (LOC).Few establishments welcomed LGBTQ+ people in 1950s and 1960s in the United States and those venues were considered illegal. The venues that did accommodate LGBTQ+ people were often owned by the Mafia during that time, due to their illegal nature.The Stonewall Uprising was a pivotal moment for the Gay Liberation Movement in America.

So, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a show to which I haven’t really been paying much attention. I mean, Rose Leslie is lovely, Theo James is notably dreamy—and apparently quite frequently naked in this show! But also, the reviews have been… not great.Then this happened:I had no intention of watching The Time Traveler’s Wife on HBO Max but then I saw this clip where the lead character goes back in time to give himself head and now I’m like….

Pride season is nearly in full swing, and that means virtually every company (except Chick-fil-a) will soon roll out their annual rainbow-tinted initiatives. State Farm insurance company appears to have tripped out of the gate.Less than 24 hours after it became public, the company has abandoned a program to distribute LGBTQ-themed books to teachers, community centers, and libraries following a right-wing outrage campaign.Just hours after news outlets started covering the book initiative, an internal email went out to all State Farm agents and staff members announcing the cancelation.Victor Terry, chief diversity officer and vice president of public affairs, told employees State Farm would back out of its partnership with GenderCool, an organization that promotes LGBTQ teaching via speaking events, mentorship programs, DEI/HR consulting, and advising for parents of transgender children.“Conversations about gender and identity should happen at home with parents,” the email, obtained and published by the homophobic Libs of TikTok account, read.

Well, here we go again.Netflix decided to give Dave Chappelle a break this week by giving trans people a different aggressive funnyman to endure (though Chappelle is doing his best to keep focus). Ricky Gervais’ new stand-up special SuperNature wastes no time in getting to calling trans women “the new women” and more specifically “the ones with beards and c*cks.”Following the wildfire notoriety of Chappelle’s transphobic special The Closer, it seems both Netflix and Gervais were desperate enough for engagement to go for the target that’s been proven to cause controversy.Netflix allegedly ordered the SuperNature special for some $20,000,000, which seems like quite a bit for the streaming giant to shell out for Gervais’ repetitive jokes. This latest release comes in the face of a steadily declining user base for the streaming giant and a mass of layoffs that impacted a lot of the queer creatives who had worked for Netflix, and it’s hard to imagine too much queer goodwill is still left for the company.Gervais ended his transphobic segment with a pretty cognitively dissonant statement: “In real life, I support trans rights.

Helen Hunt (Courtesy JFS)

The far right-wing activist whose work helped ignite millions of Americans into fighting against the specter of something they had never heard before and knew nothing about is now bragging about turning his tactics against corporate America’s support for the LGBTQ community – and he’s just issued a warning, or, some might say, a threat.

Vanessa Vanjie Mateo is set to have 18 men vying for her love in her brand new dating show, Vanjie: 24 Hours of Love.

State Farm Insurance encouraged agents to donate books to Florida schools encouraging acceptance of LGBTQ+ youth. The move came to light following passage of the controversial don’t say gay law signed in March by Gov.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating five monkeypox cases in the United States, while the World Health Organization has now confirmed more than 90 cases in a dozen countries. So far, these cases have "mainly but not exclusively been identified amongst men who have sex with men," according to the WHO.Experts stress that monkeypox does not spread as easily as COVID-19 and they do not expect a pandemic of that scale.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSpecialty U.S. distributors Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures have acquired Italian director Pasquale Marrazzo’s LGBTQ drama “The Neighbor” for release in North America from Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales.“The Neighbor” (which is titled “Hotel Milano” in Italy) is about two young men who are in love but get bullied by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads that makes their life impossible as hatred and intolerance seeps into the rapport between their respective families.It’s the fifth feature written and directed by Marrazzo whose debut “South of the Sun” launched from Toronto’s Discovery section in 2001.

The Advocate reported two weeks ago, Bradley Curry was facing the prospect of going across the Boonville High School graduation stage after the principal addressed him by a name he no longer recognized or skipping the day and maintaining his dignity instead.Curry had recently announced on his Facebook page that he was considering not attending his high school graduation because the school principal was enforcing his anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans beliefs on the local community.He explained that Boonville High School principal Michael Whitten warned the teen and his parents that he would not call Bradley by the name his family, teachers, and friends have called him since he was 12 years old. People from all over the country were outraged by Curry's post and expressed their support and shock, anger, and disgust on social media."This is so sad," one user on Facebook wrote.

I’M HAUNTED BY my own recklessness as I pull on a base layer and a flannel in the slowly illuminating dark. It’s dawn on a blustery January morning in Williams, Ariz., and after I cut the tags off my hiking pack, I load it up with microspikes, trail maps, a compass and a first-aid kit — like a guy who knows what he’s doing. Passing, that is.