Wakefield Poole may not be a household name, but he changed the world of porn forever.
In 1971, back when porn was something you watched in a movie theater, Poole decided what he was seeing on screen didn’t line up with his own experiences as a gay man in New York City. So he took matters into his own hands, taking a camera to Fire Island Pines and creating a sexy gay fantasia.
The film he created, “Boys In The Sand,” broke into the mainstream. Its fanciful vignettes, which included porn star Casey Donovan rising from the ocean to seduce a boy on the beach and tossing a magic pill into a swimming pool to conjure a man, captured audience attention and made the film a crossover hit. Both gay and straight audiences were lining up to see it, including celebrities like Liza Minnelli, Rudolf Nureyev, and Halston.
“I wanted a film,” Poole said at the time, “that gay people could look at and say, ‘I don’t mind being gay — it’s beautiful to see those people do what they’re doing.’”
“Boys in the Sand” was unabashedly gay, and Poole was unabashedly gay alongside it. His real name was displayed on the marquee, a rare move for the time.
“There weren’t a lot of people who were out,” Mr. Poole told South Florida Gay News in 2014. “Just seeing my name above the title on a theater made its impact. Hundreds of people saw ‘Boys in the Sand’ and came out after seeing the film.”
Poole’s career peaked with “Boys in the Sand,” but he lived a full life outside of its fame, including making more films and working as a ballet dancer and as a chef. Poole died on October 27 at the age of 85 in a nursing home in Jacksonville, Florida, his niece Terry Waters told the New York Times. But his legacy endures, particularly through screenings of “Boys in the Sand.”
“When I first came to Fire Island, I felt free for the first time in my life,” Poole said at one such screening in 2010. “I didn’t feel like a minority and I wanted everybody to suddenly feel that. So I said, ‘I can make a movie that no one will be ashamed to watch.’”
San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus are thrilled to announce the return to live, in-person performances with their annual holiday extravaganza, Holigays Are Here…Again to benefit Face to Face in their mission of ending HIV in Sonoma County.
Considered one of San Francisco Bay Area’s must-see signature holiday treats, this concert will delight you with the sight and sounds of the chorus in festive attire performing seasonal songs and sketches new and old. The program will include “Little Drummer Boy,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” “Los Peces en el Rio,” “Chanukah in Santa Monica,” as well as some unexpected surprises. “ Two years later, the holigays are back on stage for the holidays,” says SFGMC Artistic Director Dr.Timothy Seelig. “This will be one of the most fun and beautiful celebrations in years. The chorus has been rehearsing—masked and distanced—getting everything ready for live audiences! We will tickle every holiday fancy you can think of as we raise the roof with glorious music and shenanigans as only SFGMC can deliver.”
THIS SHOW IS ALWAYS A SELL-OUT SO GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY BEFORE THEY ARE GONE!SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18 AT 5PM – THE GREEN MUSIC CENTER
Eight-time Jeopardy! winner Amy Schneider has explained her moving gesture of trans solidarity.
Schneider made her Jeopardy! debut on November 17, in the middle of Transgender Awareness Week. Since then, she has won the game eight times, earning $295,200 (£222,000) from her stunning victories.
She’ll soon compete in the annual Tournament of Champions, which sees the 15 top contestants of the year go head-to-head. A contestant must clock five consecutive wins to qualify.
In an interview with Newsweek, Schneider revealed she had been trying to get on the gameshow for more than a decade. She was finally accepted by the show last year, but her appearance was delayed by the pandemic.
After her fifth win, Schneider penned an op-ed in the outlet to mark her becoming the first trans person to qualify for the Tournament of Champions.
As well as elaborating on her strategy and admitting her surprise at her winning streak, Schneider wrote about the importance of transgender representation on TV.
“It was inspirational for me to see transgender contestants on the show before I became a contestant and I hope that I am now doing that same thing for all the other trans Jeopardy! fans out there,” she wrote.
“I hope I have given them the opportunity to see a trans person succeed. Until very recently trans people didn’t see themselves doing much out in the world, so to actually see something like this happen really opens your mind up to possibilities.”
For the Thanksgiving episode of Jeopardy!, which aired on 25 November, Schneider wore a Trans Pride flag pin.
Explaining her decision to wear it, she wrote on Twitter: “Thanksgiving is a holiday that is all about family. And that can be hard for anybody who has been ostracised or otherwise cut off from their family, a group which, sadly, still includes a disproportionately high number of trans people, especially trans youth and trans people of colour.
“So, it felt like a good time to show my membership in, and support of, a community that might be having a hard time right now.”
Sunday, December 5 @ 3 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts is pleased to present the San Francisco Yiddish Combo! Made up of classically trained musicians who enjoy stretching musical boundaries, the group’s leader Rebecca Roudman has fronted groups all over the world, bringing her fiery, virtuosic cello playing to stages from China to Iceland. Check out the SFYC for a fresh spin on Klezmer with plenty of recognizable nods to an eclectic mix of genres. Great for dancing! Tickets $25 General/$20 OCA Members. Indoor masking required. Fine refreshments for sale, Art Gallery open for viewing/gifts. Accessible to persons with disabilities. Get your tickets now @ www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. Become an OCA Member and get free event admission plus perks! 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465.
December 3, 4, 10, 11, 12. Occidental Community Choir Winter Concerts 2021. The Occidental Community Choir, directed by Gage Purdy, is pleased to present a series of live holiday concerts celebrating Harmony.Please join us for festive performances of both original and well loved songs of the winter season, interspersed with spoken word. All concerts will be held at Occidental Center for the Arts on Friday Dec. 3rd @8pm – Community First Night $10, Saturday Dec. 4th @8pm, Friday and Saturday Dec.10th &11th @8pm, Sunday matinee Dec. 12th @ 3pm. Tickets are $15. Vaccinated children 12 & under are free. We ask all audience members to arrive masked with proof of vaccination. Please purchase your tickets ahead of time through our website: Occidentalchoir.org/tickets. Advance tickets recommended. Refreshments will be sold to benefit the choir. Occidental Center for the Arts – 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465. Accessible for persons with disabilities.
Lil Nas X, Brandi Carlile, and Lady Gaga were the most nominated LGBTQ artists for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, which were announced on Tuesday morning from the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, with each artist receiving five nominations.
For the first time, the Recording Academy eliminated voting committees and nominees were decided upon only by the Academy’s members. Moreover, the Academy expanded the number of nominees in the four main categories – Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist – from 8 to 10 nominees this year, in an announcement that came ten minutes before the nominations were announced.
Lil Nas X was nominated in all three big categories that he was nominated for, including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6swmTBVI83kIn Record of the Year, Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” was nominated alongside Brandi Carlile and Lady Gaga, for “Right On Time” and “I Get A Kick Out Of You” (feat. Tony Bennett), respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iTdHQ065A_oIn Album of the Year, Lil Nas X’s “Montero” will be up against Gaga and Bennett’s “Love For Sale.”
In Song of the Year (an award that goes to the songwriters), Brandi Carlile will be up against herself! Both she and Brandy Clark were nominated for “A Beautiful Noise,” Carlile’s song performed with Alicia Keys. And Carlile is up for her solo track, “Right On Time.” Lil Nas X was also nominated in this category for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/tOpWqWK0q4UAnd in Best New Artist, the last of “the big four” categories, Japanese Breakfast – led by queer singer Michelle Zauner – was nominated, alongside bisexual British artist, Arlo Parks.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/mcoC5ZgaFjY https://www.youtube.com/embed/-gFCd5CE4bgLil Nas X was also nominated for Best Music Video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and for Best Melodic Rap Performance (for “Industry Baby” feat. Jack Harlow). In the latter category, he’ll be up against Tyler the Creator, who’s also nominated for “Wusyname.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/NJea386275cTyler the Creator also was nominated for Best Rap Album for “Call Me If You Get Lost.” Bi rapper Cardi B was nominated for Best Rap Performance for “Up.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rCiBgLOcuKUIn addition to her two aforementioned nominations, bisexual singer Lady Gaga also received a nomination for Best Music Video for her and Bennett’s “I Get a Kick Out of You.” The song was also nominated in Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. And lastly, Gaga and Bennett’s “Love For Sale” was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
Brandi Carlile also received further nominations – for Best Pop Solo Performance for “Right On Time.” Over in the country categories, she received a nomination for Best American Roots Performance for “Same Devil” alongside Brandy Clark.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/hmdBm3GYJksAlso in country, The Brothers Osborne – the duo which includes out musician TJ Osborne – were nominated twice: for Best Country Duo Performance for their song “Younger Me” and Best Country Album for “Skeletons.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/wc5j50XbvqsIn the electronic categories, DJ Tracy Young received her second Grammy nomination for Best Remixed Recording for her Fashionably Late Remix of k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving.” Young won the Grammy the first time she was nominated in 2019 for her remix of Madonna’s “I Rise.”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/9s1VUkWGL3QHalsey, St. Vincent, and Japanese Breakfast were all nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, for “If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power,” “Daddy’s Home,” and “Jubilee,” respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Azv0G85lh8 https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZUTu65AXrJwOver in the Latin music categories, Pablo Alborán was nominated for Best Latin Pop Album for “Vértigo.” And bi Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis was nominated for Best Música Urbana Album for, “Sin Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demionos).”
Stephen Schwartz was nominated for Best Musical Theater Album for “Steven Schwartz’s Snapshots.” He’ll be up against Cameron Mackintosh, who was nominated for “Les Misérables: The Staged Concert (The Sensational 2020 Live Recording).”
Musical theater songwriter Benj Pasek was nominated Best Song Written For Visual Media for co-writing P!nk’s “All I Know So Far” from Amazon Studios’ P!nk’s All I Know So Far.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/wGj9oADcyRsQueer artist Tayla Parx was amongst the artists who helped Recording Academy president Harvey Mason Jr. in announcing nominees on Tuesday morning.
As GLAAD can’t know the sexual orientations or gender identities of all of the nominees in the Grammys 100+ categories, we inevitably will have missed some LGBTQ folks. GLAAD will update this article with any nominees we’ve missed as we learn about them going forward.
The 64th Annual Grammy Awards will take place live from Los Angeles, on Sunday, January 31st at 5pm PT/8pm ET and will broadcast on CBS.
In 1986, the Vatican released a letter condemning homosexuality with what The New York Timescalled a “pointed allusion to AIDS.”
A year later, nearly 48,000 Americans had died from the disease.
Even as the death toll rose, the Roman Catholic Church reinforced its stance and also opposed the gay and lesbian rights movement more generally, creating an ongoing tension. Despite this, some nuns and priests went against those teachings and worked behind the scenes to care for and sit at the bedsides of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses.
O’Loughlin, a journalist who lives in Chicago, writes in the first chapter that for as long as he can remember, he’s been on a search. “I am gay and I am Catholic,” he wrote. “And I struggle continuously to reconcile those two parts of my identity.”
Micheal O’Loughlin.Courtesy M. Klein
He wanted to speak with people who had lived through similar struggles, and in 2015 a friend who was a priest suggested that he speak to gay Catholics who lived through the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States. He ran with the idea and began tracking down scientists and doctors involved in AIDS work — nuns and priests who served as caretakers to the ill, and activists, including those from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP.
He said he chose to focus on stories of compassion because he is interested in “people who had a lot to lose by taking on the power structure of the church but still did the right thing.”
“So, the priests who minister to gay men dying from AIDS, some of whom come out as gay themselves, and challenge the churches to be more welcoming and accepting,” he said. “The nuns who are really scrappy people who find the resources to learn all they can about HIV and AIDS and then do their own ministry. The gay Catholics who find themselves caught between their inclination to be part of the gay activism world but also remain part of the church.”
He said he kept asking himself, “How do they make this work?”
“I’m drawn to those stories because there’s something universal about summoning the courage to do the right thing when it would be much easier to do nothing,” he said, adding that this courage “applies to all sorts of situations even today.”
The book doesn’t attempt to “rewrite history” and also recounts how church leaders advocated against LGBTQ rights. But at the same time, O’Loughlin said he wanted to make sure the people who did extraordinary things and cite their Catholic faith as their motivation were also part of that history.
He noted that many of the people he spoke with said their journeys were complicated. Over 10 years, Sister Carol Baltosiewich, a nun and nurse from a small city in southern Illinois, traveled to Kansas City, Chicago and eventually New York City to care for people living with AIDS. She told O’Loughlin that she didn’t know any gay people before she began her AIDS work, and she had to reconcile the church’s teachings with her drive to care for people.
O’Loughlin said that it was at times painful for the people he interviewed, including Baltosiewich, to take a hard look at their prejudices and biases before their experiences changed them.
“When she began to learn about HIV and how it was affecting the gay community, it was sort of this whole new culture,” O’Loughlin said. “It was this clash between what she had known and something that was foreign to her, so she eventually learned and grew, but I think that some people are maybe hesitant to look honestly at that time, because there was so much stigma and shame that even the most well-intentioned people really couldn’t free themselves without making a conscious decision, which she did ultimately, but many people were just kind of in this culture that looked with such hostility at the LGBT community.”
Some of the people O’Loughlin spoke to experienced that hostility themselves. The Rev. William Hart McNichols, a Jesuit priest and an artist who attended the Pratt Institute in New York City, ministered to people dying from AIDS-related illnesses. In 1989, McNichols came out as gay publicly in a chapter for a book published by New Ways Ministry, a group that ministers to gay and lesbian Catholics.
He asked the permission of his Jesuit superiors at the time, and they told him that it was his choice to make, but that if he came out he wouldn’t be able to work at a Jesuit high school, college or parish. As an illustrator who worked in a hospital, he wasn’t offended by the response and decided to write the chapter.
O’Loughlin said the LGBTQ people he interviewed all made a decision at some point to stay in the church “no matter how strong the headwinds they faced,” because it was their church, too.
“Once people made that decision, there seemed to be something — whether it was grace or just stubbornness — that kept them involved,” he said. “And that kind of spoke to me as I continue to figure out what place I have in the church and as I interview dozens and dozens of LGBT people every year going through something similar, that you have to make that decision to stay and then be prepared to fight to keep your place in an institution that isn’t always welcoming.”
O’Loughlin wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for The New York Timesthat conducting interviews for his book had a “profound effect” on his faith, so much so that he wrote a letter to Pope Francis to tell him about the book and the conversations he had.
In August, the pope wrote back. The letter was written in Spanish but was translated to English.
“Thank you for shining a light on the lives and bearing witness to the many priests, religious sisters and lay people, who opted to accompany, support and help their brothers and sisters who were sick from H.I.V. and AIDS at great risk to their profession and reputation,” Pope Francis wrote.
The pontiff added, “Instead of indifference, alienation and even condemnation, these people let themselves be moved by the mercy of the Father and allowed that to become their own life’s work; a discreet mercy, silent and hidden, but still capable of sustaining and restoring the life and history of each one of us.”
O’Loughlin wrote that the letter won’t heal old or new wounds — the church still won’t bless same-sex marriages and teaches that homosexuality is immoral — but that it gave him hope that church leaders “will be transformed” in how they see LGBTQ people and “others whose faith is lived on the margins.”
Regardless of whether that happens, O’Loughlin said one of his goals for the book is to show LGBTQ people struggling with their faith that they aren’t alone, and that there are many people who came before them.
“By meeting people and learning about the struggles and learning the history, I’ve realized that this is not new at all,” O’Loughlin said. “The reality is, people have been grappling with these questions for forever … and there’s a lot of wisdom in these stories that have helped me realize I’m not alone at all.”
Saturday November 20, 2021 @ 7 pm. Occidental Center for the Arts presents our annual fundraiser: ’Sonoma County’s Got Talent! Please join us we showcase talented community performers of all genres live in our auditorium to benefit OCA. Tickets $25 General/$20 for OCA Members. $15 application fee for participants – please apply by Nov. 7th. Tickets/Info @www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. Fine refreshments available. OCA Art Gallery open for viewing and gift purchase. Masks required for all entry. Accessible to persons with disabilities. Become an OCA Member and get free admission! Keeping the Arts in Our Hearts
Experience an all-new holiday show in 2021 from Transcendence Theatre Company. This year, the Broadway Holiday Spectacular will be live on stage at Belos Cavalos, an enchanting equestrian estate in Kenwood. At this magnificent temperature-controlled location ‘under the big top,’ Broadway performers will fill the season with music, dancing, and holiday cheer in a show suitable for all ages. Join us for a more intimate and immersive experience in this magical new setting!
Location: Belos Cavalos Estate, Kenwood Dates/Times:Friday, December 3, 2021 @ 7:30pSaturday, December 4, 2021 @ 2:00p and 7:30pSunday, December 5, 2021 @ 2:00p and 7:30pFriday December 10, 2021 @ 7:30pSaturday, December 11, 2021 @ 2:00p and 7:30pSunday, December 12, 2021 @ 2:00p and 7:30p
Group Levels and Benefits*: Groups of 10-24: 15% off ticketsGroups of 25-49: 20% off and Furnished Private Event LoungeGroups of 50+: 20% off, furnished private event lounge, 2 drink tickets per person included, and more!*Subject to Availability
The ceremony is an opportunity to make a stand for gay and trans civil rights worldwide in the central European nation that has moved to curtail them, said Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of MTV Entertainment Group Worldwide.
“We’re looking forward to using the event to amplify our voices and stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ siblings,” McCarthy said in an interview with The Associated Press.
No government censorship of the telecast will be tolerated, McCarthy said.
“We’ve made it very clear and we have from the beginning…. we do not allow editorial input as it relates to the artists” and the content we create, he said. “That’s always a condition regardless of whatever country we go into.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s conservative ruling party introduced the measure that on its face was aimed at fighting pedophilia. Amendments ban the representation of any orientation besides heterosexual, along with gender change information in school sex education programs, or in films and advertisements aimed at anyone under 18.
MTV, which made a deal two years ago to hold the show in the nation’s capital, Budapest, planned to issue a lengthy memo to staffers in apparent anticipation of possible criticism of its decision.
“This may surprise anyone who knows that in June of this year, Hungary passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation banning television content featuring gay people during the day and in primetime,” allowing it only to run overnight, McCarthy said in the memo.
McCarthy said his immediate and personal reaction to the law, as a gay man, was to move the event to another country. But after consulting within MTV and with LGBTQ advocates globally, including in Hungary, the decision “was very clear to us.”
“Instead, we should move forward, using the show as an opportunity to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in Hungary and around the world as we continue to fight for equality for all,” he said in the memo.
MTV’s pre-emptive outreach comes amid backlash by some Netflix staffers to the streaming service’s handling of a Dave Chappelle stand-up special, “The Closer,” which includes derogatory comments about trans people. Netflix has declined to remove the program.
As a gay youngster in a Pennsylvania steel mill town in the 1990s, McCarthy said he felt isolated and alone until he saw LGBTQ characters on TV, including Pedro Zamora on MTV’s “The Real World.”
“I started to think, ‘this might be OK,’” he told the AP, and said it’s alarming to imagine a young person deprived of the same opportunity because of Hungary’s TV restrictions.
The Europe Music Awards, known as the EMAs for short, will honor young LGBTQ activists with MTV’s Generation Change Award, to be given in partnership with the activist group All Out to amplify its worldwide campaigns for equality, McCarthy said.
Proceeding with the EMAs in Hungary is “absolutely the right decision,” given the nation’s “concerted onslaught” on LGBTQ rights and scapegoating of minorities, said Matt Beard, executive director of All Out.
Such visibility “gives fuel to LGBT-plus communities living in Hungary an incredibly precious sense of international solidarity that comes from a big global media event like the EMAs,” Beard said.
In a September interview with the AP, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the new law is intended to protect children from pedophiles and ”homosexual propaganda.” An EU decision to delay billions in economic recovery funds earmarked for his country amounted to “blackmail,” he said.
The MTV EMAs were launched in 1994 with a ceremony in Berlin hosted by Tom Jones. The awards have since hopscotched among nations, including France, England, Sweden, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
The host, nominees, and performers for this year’s ceremony have yet to be announced. The 2020 event was held virtually because of the pandemic.
