Gary Carnivele

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Veteran Equality California Staffmember Victim of Palm Springs Hate Attack

 Veteran Equality California Coachella Valley field manager George Zander and his husband were the victims of an apparent hate crime Sunday night. Zander, 71, was leaving Hunters Bar with his husband, Chris, at about 8:30 pm when a stranger began shouting anti-gay slurs at them.Shortly after, the attacker left, but returned with a second man. They attacked the couple from behind, hitting Chris over the head with a bottle and knocking George to the ground. The men fled in what Palm Springs police say was a sedan-type vehicle. The couple was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center, where Chris was treated and released for a possible concussion. George will undergo surgery for a broken hip on Tuesday.

“George is a core member of our team and our entire staff and board were horrified to hear of this terrible hate crime,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. “This was an attack on someone who confronts bigotry and hostility as part of his job, and who works every day to make the world a better and safer place for LGBT people. If it can happen to George in a place that we think of as a refuge for the LGBT community, it can happen to anyone, anywhere. In spite of the victories of the past 10 years, we still have so much work to do.”

Palm Springs police are searching for two white males, one described as stocky, with red hair. Anyone with information is asked to contact Palm Springs police at 760-323-8116, or Valley Crime Stoppers at 760-341-STOP (7867).

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How Homophobia Is Hurting Our Nation’s Foster Children

This week, our nation turns to celebrate the 20th anniversary of National Adoption Month. It’s a time of year marked with an annual proclamation by our president, special events, family gatherings and mass adoption finalizations. Television and radio programs will burst with stories both heartwarming and horrifying in an effort to draw attention to the glaring need to find homes for the 400,000 children that linger, on average, for nearly two years in the foster care system.

As someone who’s lectured at the university level about this system, of which I am a product, I have to admit that I’ve never understood why so many of my foster care brothers and sisters continue to languish in the foster care system. In truth, they should have found homes a long time ago.

Let me explain.

At this very minute, there are an estimated 2 million LGBT adults who want to parent children, many of whom would love to do so through adoption. Research also shows that children growing up with LGBT parents fare as well as children raised by heterosexual parents. That means that in the LGBT population alone there may be more than enough ready and capable parents to provide families for our nation’s foster children.

And yet eleven states continue to ban LGBT couples and individuals from adopting. That means we have enough children needing homes to fill a city the size of Cleveland or Minneapolis. We have a surplus of parents who would like to adopt them. But we’re still seeking ways to prevent them from finding each other.

That makes no sense.

It makes even less sense when you consider that foster care programs cost American taxpayers $22 billion each year. That’s about $68 dollars out of the pocket of every one of the estimated 320 million people in the United States every year.

This is but one of the many ways that nation’s love affair with homophobia is devastating our nation’s foster children. And it gets worse when we consider the effects of homophobia on LGBT children in foster care. Consider this:

  • LGBT children are over-represented in the foster care system. In Washington alone, an estimated 19 percent of foster children identify as LGBT — a figure that is nearly double that of the general LGBT population.
  • Once in foster care, LGBT children often receive worse treatment than their non-LGBT peers. A recent study in Los Angeles County found that LGBT children experience more foster care placements and are three times more likely than non-LGBT foster children to have been hospitalized for emotional reasons.
  • Many foster care caseworkers and LGBT children report that foster care is not a safe place to question your orientation, and many foster homes and families are not thoroughly assessed to see if they can support LGBT children.
  • In some areas, an estimated 56 percent of LGBT children end up running away from foster care when they encounter violence and rejection. Some have even been forced to endure so-called conversion “therapy” and exorcisms.

These are also some of the reasons why it’s critical that more adoptees, like me, stand up in support of same-sex adoption. Many people think that LGBT people adopting children will hurt them. It’s not surprising that many people have this view, including some adult children of same-sex couples who spoke out against marriage equality. After all, institutionalized homophobia affects us all. It fools us into cherry-picking non-representative examples in order to support a particular bias or agenda. It also fools us into buying our nation’s homophobic narrative in the face of a growing chorus of contradicting research and the real life experiences of many happy and well-adjusted people who have been raised by LGBT families.

As an adoptee and survivor of childhood abuse and neglect, I can tell you from personal experience a fact overlooked by too many people who oppose same-sex adoption: a parent’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with the love and care they give their children. My parents’ being straight did not prevent them from abusing and neglecting me anymore than being LGBT would somehow cause other parents to abuse and neglect their children. As such, I see no reason why members of the LGBT community shouldn’t be able to adopt. Being in LGBT homes isn’t what hurts children. What hurts many children is the homophobia that subjects them to unfair treatment and which prevents them from finding loving homes in the first place.

Just a few short months ago, President Obama remarked that “[a]ll young people, regardless of what they look like, which religion they follow, who they love or the gender they identify with, deserve the chance to dream and grow in a loving, permanent home.” But until we can overcome the homophobia that is hurting our nation’s foster children, those forever homes will remain forever out of reach. And until we can put the needs of our children above our bigotry and hate, our celebrations of National Adoption Month will ring forever hollow.

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Boxer Who Claimed He Was Drugged In Gay Porn Comes Out As Bisexual

 

Professional boxer Yusaf Mack claimed last week that he was drugged and forced into doing a gay porn. Now, he has admitted that he did it by choice and says that he is bisexual.

Mack, 35, released a statement on Monday where he retracted previous allegations of being drugged when he made a film with two other men called “Holiday Hump’n.”

In the statement, which was initially posted by gossip site TheShadeRoom.com, Mack explains why he claimed to be drugged when he made the film last June.

I want to address a few situations with the first being the false claims I made about being drugged during the Dog Pound adult film. I have never spoke negatively about the company that produced the film although the claim to have been given a drug by someone during set was a lie. I was completely aware and fully conscious during the film.

 

The second situation, which further explain the first, concerns my lifestyle. I did participate in the adult film because at the time I needed money but also because I am a bisexual man. Meaning I enjoy safely being intimate with whomever I choose.

 

Lastly I would like to address the reason I lied. My life was completely destroyed once it had been outed that I participated in a gay film. I selfishly tried to cover the truth and remain in denial, rather than accept the fact that I was leading a double life secretly.

Previously, Mack claimed he had agreed to appear in a heterosexual porn film last June because he was short on cash.

Just before the film shoot, he said, producers gave him a pill and a shot of vodka to relax him. Mack claimed he didn’t remember what happened next, but woke up on a train with $4,500 in cash.

DawgPoundUSA, the company that released “Holiday Hump’n,” denied Mack’s allegations and threatened legal action against him on Friday.

Mack released the statement declaring his bisexuality on Monday, but he wasn’t very forthcoming about it during an interview with TMZ.com.

During the interview, he refused to discuss the circumstances behind the shoot, citing legal reasons. He also declined to discuss his sexuality, except to say he’s writing a book about the controversy.

<span class='image-component__caption' itemprop="caption">Boxer Yusaf Mack, 35, has come out as bisexual after admitting he appeared in a gay porn film.</span> DawgPoundUSA.com Boxer Yusaf Mack, 35, has come out as bisexual after admitting he appeared in a gay porn film.

Now, Mack is claiming he wants to help other bisexuals be comfortable in their own skin.

The former light heavyweight champion has created a GoFundMe campaign that is attempting to raise $100,000 for bisexual awareness.

“I want to make [bisexuals] aware of some of the pit falls I experienced and I want to mentor them so they can live a healthy life and just [be] yourself,” he wrote on the page.

As of Tuesday afternoon, there were no monetary contributions to the campaign.

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littlefour, a new shop and design store, Opens at The Barlow

littlefour is a new, smartly curated shop and design studio now open at The Barlow in downtown Sebastopol at 120Morris Street, at the corner of Morris and McKinley. We provide a well-curated selection of unique handcrafted housewares, clothing, accessories, jewelry, paper goods,
gifts, men’s goods, and fun things for children. In our shop, you will find local and independent artists and makers from the Bay Area and beyond, including in-house label littlefour by designer and owner Danielle Rodrigues.

She creates a fun and inspired shopping and community experience that connects our customers to the
artists and designers we carry. littlefour will be hosting monthly events such as workshops, movie nights,
trunk shows, and special gatherings. At littlefour, we want every purchase to have purpose. The items in our store are more than just products.

Every piece in the store has its own story and has been chosen because it is handcrafted, ethically-made,
well-designed, and beautiful. We are here to help tell the story of our artists. Who made it, how it was
made, and where it came from.

littlefour will have a Grand Opening throughout the day on Small Business Saturday, November 28th,
2015. We will have food, drinks, and discounts to celebrate our opening. This will coincide with the First
Annual Barlow Holiday Open House by many participating Barlow businesses on that same day.
littlefour

In the back of the shop, you will find the design studio for my in-house label, littlefour, a handmade
clothing line for women and children. For ten years, I have designed and sewn every piece. It truly is a
one woman show!

Danielle Rodrigues is a Bay Area artist and designer, creating my women and children’s clothing line, littlefour, for over ten years. Trained at Apparel Arts in San Francisco, her designs have been featured in prominent nationa lmagazines, design and clothing blogs, and in stores across the US, UK, and Australia. She had a small store in downtown Vallejo, California called littlefour&friends. Her newest project is a brand new store and design studio now open at The Barlow in downtown Sebastopol, California. It’s simply called littlefour.

Danielle says, “As an independent artist and new store owner, I believe that the artists and makers
featured in our store can bring creativity to the community, support the local economy, and provide
meaningful and beautiful stories to the homes and lives of our customers. All my littlefour designs are
created and made at my in-store studio, and everything in the shop is handmade by independent designersand friends near and far. It’s so exciting to be open at The Barlow among so many other inspiring,women-owned businesses. For me, I’m just doing what I can, one stitch at a time, to support myself, myartist friends, and Sebastopol by opening my fresh, new handmade goods and studio at The Barlow. Join us for our Grand Opening on Small Business Saturday, November 28th, and if you’re lucky, you can meet littlefour’s mascot, my French Bulldog, Nolie!”

WEBSITE: www.littlefourstore.com

 

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18-year-old Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter, Faces Six Years

 

Joe Andrew Cortez | PHOTO: CHULA VISTA POLICE DEPARTMENT

An 18-year-old man who fatally stabbed a co-worker after a sex act and fled the scene without his pants or shoes pleaded guilty Oct. 29 to voluntary manslaughter.

A murder charge was dismissed against Joe Andrew Cortez and Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Ana Espana indicated she would limit the maximum sentence to six years in prison for the death of Rene Macias Pressa, 44.

Sentencing was set for Feb. 5, 2016. Cortez remains in jail without bail. His attorney said he would present some psychological information at sentencing.

Cortez pleaded guilty to manslaughter just before a preliminary hearing was to be held where more details about the crime would have come out.

Pressa worked with Cortez, a new employee, at a Chula Vista restaurant. Cortez spent the night at his Third Avenue apartment April 23 in Chula Vista. According to what Cortez told police, Pressa had oral sex with Cortez before Cortez repeatedly stabbed him.

Deputy District Attorney Victor Ou said Cortez grabbed a knife off Pressa’s dresser and stabbed him in the abdomen, the base at the back of his head, and twice in the chest.

Cortez left suddenly without his pants and shoes. He accidently cut his fingers and Chula Vista police officers discovered a bloody trail with bare footprints leaving Pressa’s apartment for about a mile.

Pressa’s body was found outside his apartment by his roommate, and police initially thought that Pressa may have been attacked somewhere else and walked home. However, Cortez’s wallet was found inside his pants in the apartment along with his shirt and shoes.

Surveillance camera footage showed Cortez leaving barefoot in his boxer shorts and a tank top. He walked all night to his parents’ home. Cortez surrendered to authorities April 30.

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Tyler Oakley to be honored at GLAAD Gala San Francisco

Tyler Oakley

GLAAD has announced it will honor Tyler Oakley at GLAAD Gala San Francisco at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square  Nov. 7.

The event will be hosted by Mean Girls and Looking star Daniel Franzese and will feature a special performance by Grammy Award-nominated recording artist and Selma star Ledisi. Additional special guests include Empire star Jussie Smollett and the cast of HBO’s Looking.

At the gala, Oakley will receive the Davidson/Valentini Award, which is presented to an LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality and acceptance for the LGBT community. The award is named after Craig Davidson, GLAAD’s first executive director, and his partner Michael Valentini.

With nearly eight million subscribers on YouTube, Tyler Oakley has become one of the most influential LGBT personalities on social media today, consistently using his platform to build understanding and acceptance of the LGBT community. His social media presence has launched a career in entertainment, with a podcast that has reached number one in the iTunes podcast chart and a national tour under his belt. Named one of Time Magazine’s 30 Most Influential People on the Internet, Oakley has spoken with hundreds of media outlets about the importance of LGBT equality and acceptance, and he’s used his fame to raise over a million dollars for The Trevor Project, the nation’s leading organization providing crisis and suicide prevention services to LGBT youth.

“Tyler Oakley has inspired countless young LGBT people to embrace who they are and live the lives they love,” said GLAAD CEO & President Sarah Kate Ellis. “As one of YouTube’s most recognizable names and a champion of LGBT youth, he’s proven time and again that digital media plays a crucial role in accelerating acceptance.”

For more information visit www.glaad.org/sfgala.

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Streaming services have more LGBT characters than all traditional TV channels put together

 

Streaming media providers Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime feature more LGBT series regulars than all of US network TV put together.

The news comes from the latest GLAAD ‘Where We Are On TV’ report.

The report found that the streaming services had more LGBT representation across just 23 series, than American primetime network television has on 118.

American network television featured 35 LGB series regulars out of 881 characters, which is an increase of three since last year – but features no transgender characters on any of the 118 primetime scripted shows studied.

Meanwhile, cable services including HBO, AMC and Starz fared better, with an increase from 64 LGBT series regulars to 84.

But online services Netflix, Hulu and Amazon trounced network television’s primetime representation with 43 regular LGBT characters spread across just 23 series, including shows like Orange is the New Black, Grace and Frankie, Sense8, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Transparent.

The news marks the first time GLAAD has included streaming services content in their annual report – and proves an argument long made by proponents of online streaming.

Jill Soloway, creator of Amazon’s award-winning trans themed Transparent has long praised streaming services, explaining to Ms Magazine: “all these new channels of distribution are especially freeing to storytellers outside the straight white cis male paradigm.”

Doctor Who star Freema Agyeman – who is currently portraying a lesbian writer in a relationship with a trans woman on Netflix’s Sense8 – has also praised streaming.

She explained previously: “I feel so honoured and proud to tell a story that people feel is truly representative of them in an area that’s so lacking in television.

“Netflix is out there dancing to its own drumbeat. I can feel a momentum shift. TV is becoming so much more complex than it once was.”However, GLAAD also pointed out that 73% of the characters on streaming services were white, significantly higher than network TV and cable, calling for greater representation of people of colour on the services.

Also, women are still under-represented on network television according to the report, even though the number of prominent female characters has increased by 3%. Women now make up 43% of characters on primetime broadcast television in spite of the fact that America’s population is 51% female.

Sarah Kate Ellis, president of GLAAD, has hailed the new figures as “tremendous progress” but noted that “LGBT people of color have remained underrepresented for years, and transgender men have been all but invisible in the media.

“… there is still a great deal of work to be done and many new and exciting stories to be told. We will continue to applaud networks and streaming services telling these stories – and hold their feet to the fire when they don’t.”

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Gay Adult Film Written By Late Actor Sir John Gielgud Creates Row In U.K.

 

11249147_galA pornographic gay film based on an original screenplay by the late actor Sir John Gielgud has wrapped production, but it still faces tremendous opposition from his estate.

Set in a men’s clothing store where an orgy takes place, Trouser Bar stars Nigel Havers and Julian Clary as passerby who spy the proceedings fondly.

Gielgud, one of the most celebrated stage actors of his time, but best-known for his Oscar-winning work as Dudley Moore’s butler in the film comedy Arthur and for his turn in the TV drama Brideshead Revisited, wrote the screenplay in secret in 1976 and intended for Peter de Rome, who’s considered the grandfather of gay pornography.

De Rome never used the script, but it fell into the hands of David McGillivray, who recently produced a documentary about the pornographer.

Now, McGillivray has turned the script into a feature, much to the chagrin of The Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust.

“Earlier this year, the trustees decided not give their permission for it to be produced because they didn’t think it was appropriate,” trust member Ian Bradshaw told the Daily Mail. “They didn’t have to go into detail because they own the copyright.”

The film has entered the editing stage, and McGillivray staunchly defends his decision.

“Pornography is still a stigma in this country, but Sir John loved porn and, in his letters, he talks about visiting gay cinemas,” he says. “I was shocked when the trust didn’t give me permission. We stuck to Sir John’s script very tightly when we made the film a couple of weeks ago. He was very specific about the clothes he wanted the actors to wear.”

“They have come down heavily on me,” McGillivray says. “They are using intellectual copyright as an excuse.”

In an interesting side note, Gielgud starred in a pornographic film himself. In 1979, the veteran thespian appeared clothed in Caligula, the super-controversial epic about ancient Rome that was penned by Gore Vidal and spiced up with graphic sex scenes. Gielgud’s biographer Sheridan Morley later referred to it as the actor’s “most embarrassing professional appearance.”

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New Memoir Explores Black Gay Experience

Born to a 14-year-old mother, raised in a household with an alcoholic grandfather, Jarrett Neal was in eighth grade when his gym class accidentally walked in on their coach showering. It was Neal’s first glimpse of a naked man and it “ended my boyhood,” he writes in “What Color is Your Hoodie: Essays on Black Gay Identity.”

He was well into college when he finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to men; still, the “daily taunts” from his more athletic, more self-confident peers and the absence of a father haunted him for many years. To counteract it, Neal joined a gym and worked out tirelessly, until he realized that he’d never have a body like He-Man. He was never going to make a living with his physique.

Instead, Neal knew that he had to write.

It was “write or die,” he says, though he’s been told that his style is “either too black or too gay” and he once assumed that “as a boy I wasn’t supposed to care about books.” Even so, he devoured the works of gay men, particularly those who were black. That voracity for books led to a teaching career.

In his essays here, Neal discusses the dearth of gay black men in film and television and decries the lack of interest by white readers in the works of black authors. He looks at the sexuality of gay black men who, like most African-American men, live under “sexual stereotypes” that cause “a tremendous onus … to live up to.” He writes about black men (some, gay) who have made history and changed perceptions within their neighborhoods or industries. And as a black man married to a white man, he notes that racism within the gay community is as big a problem as it is anywhere else.

Jarrett Neal is not shy.

There’s no waffling inside this book and nothing held back. Neal discusses gay porn as blithely as he does modern literature; he remembers his childhood with the same passion as he does coming out. Such power and force in writing serve to give readers a solid understanding of the points he tries to make. We might laugh or raise our eyebrows but we also empathize or, as the case may be, sympathize.

What mars this otherwise well-done collection of essays is its sloppiness. “What Color is Your Hoodie?” is riddled with misspellings and punctuation mistakes which, because of the frequency, almost made me want to quit this book too many times.

If you can forgive that distraction, then this unusual book is a good read that may actually change minds. Truthful, blunt and thought-provoking, regretful mistakes aside, “What Color is Your Hoodie?” should be seen.

– See more at: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/10/30/new-memoir-explores-black-gay-experience/#sthash.B2uG3dBv.dpuf

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Gay Jamaican Author Marlon James Wins Man Booker Prize

Gay Jamaican novelist Marlon James was awarded the 2015 Man Booker Prize on Tuesday for his novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

The prize is the top literary honor in the UK and comes with an award of $78,000.

Using the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the 1970s as a springboard, it delves into Jamaican politics, gang wars and drug trafficking.

Judges called the novel the “most exciting book” on this year’s list.

“It’s a crime novel that moves beyond the world of crime and takes us deep into a recent history we know far too little about,” said Man Booker chair Michael Wood.

“It is not an easy read. It is a big book. There is some tough stuff and there is a lot of swearing—but it is not a difficult book to approach.”

Killings does include a gay character, the lethal criminal Weeper, and James says “it was very important to me that there were gay characters in the book—to reflect the gayness and hypocrisy in Jamaica.”

Jamaica is one of the most homophobic countries in the Western Hemisphere, with suspected homosexuals facing stonings and queer youth forced to live in sewers.

LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 173 -- Pictured: (l-r) Author Marlon James during an interview with host Seth Meyers on March 3, 2015 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

James, 35, said he had to leave his homeland just to be able to do simple things: “You might want to walk down the street and hold somebody’s hand one day. When you grow up in a homophobic country, you’re sitting on a time bomb.”

Before coming to the States and taking a job at Macalaster College in Minnesota in 2007, he recalls living in fear.

“I was so convinced that my voice outed me as a fag that I had stopped speaking to people I didn’t know,” he wrote in an essay in the New York Times. “The silence left a mark, threw my whole body into a slouch, with a concave chest, as if trying to absorb impact.”

marlon james

“I bought myself protection by cursing, locking my lisp behind gritted teeth, folding away my limp wrist and drawing 36-double-D girls for art class. I took a copy of Penthouse to school to score cool points, but the other boys called me ‘batty boy’ anyway — every day, five days a week. To save my older, cooler brother, I pretended we weren’t related.”

In addition to Seven Killings, James is the author of John Crow’s Devil and The Book of Night Women,

He hopes the award will draw attention to the robust literary scene in his homeland.

“There’s this whole universe of really spunky creativity that’s happening,” he said. “I hope it brings more attention to what’s coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean.”

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