VIP OPENING WINE & BIZ EXPOFriday, July 14, 3:00pm-6:00pmVintner’s Resort – Event Center
SPONSORED BY
Welcome to Sonoma Wine Country! This year we have partnered with the Russian River Wine Grower’s Association and their winery partners to have you experience the wines of the region. Upon arrival into Sonoma join us at this VIP Opening Reception where you will get to taste over a dozen wineries paired with food from our host hotels executive Chef Tom Schmidt. Music by DJ Matt and more. This reception is open to all VIP Pass Holders, Hotel Guests & Sponsors WE CAN’T WAIT TO WELCOME YOU TO SONOMA. CHEERS!!
the AFTER PARTIES of Gay Wine Weekend
FRIDAY NIGHT JULY 14 GAY BAR POP-UP featuring DJ Matt9:30PM-ON LITTLE SAINT, UPSTAIRS BAR/LOUNGE 25 NORTH STREET, HEALDSBURG
Whether you are doing a winemaker dinner or dinner on your own, join us afterwards to cheer in the weekend at this Gay Bar Pop-Up at Healdsburg’s hip spot, Little Saint-Upstairs. No Cover/No host bar. Open to all Gay Wine Weekend Attendees and friends! Dj Matthew in the house to spin the night away for you.
SATURDAY NIGHT, JULY 15 APRES-T PARTY 10:00PM – ON LO & BEHOLD BAR LOUNGE 214 HEALDSBURG AVENUE, HEALDSBURG
Let the Party Continue immediately following the Twilight T-Dance! Lo & Behold is Healdsburg’s newest and hippest bar in town. No Cover/No host bar. Open to all Gay Wine Weekend Attendees and friends! DJ to be announced in coming weeks
SUNDAY, JULY 16DRAG QUEEN BRUNCH & WINE AUCTION10:00AM-12:30PM VINTNER’S RESORT, EVENT CENTER Open to all MAGNUM & VIP PASS HOLDERS & TICKET HOLDERS featuring our hostess Miss Ruby Red Munro! Coming to us direct from the City by the Bay! Ruby brings the talent with her to bring the house down while enjoying a beautiful breakfast with Sparkling Wine from BRICOLEUR VINEYARDS and Still Wines from SEGHESIO WINERY!
We are excited to have the one & only Fertile Liza joining our Drag Queen Brunch this year direct from Bend, Oregon. Fertile Liza will be spreading her talents…and seed from Central Oregon to Sonoma for Gay Wine Weekend and we can’t wait for you to meet her! RESERVE BRUNCH
SUNDAY, JULY 16POOL SOIREE 1:00PM-4:00PMR3 HOTEL16390 4th.Street, GuernevilleOpen to all VIP Magnum and Party Pass Holders and Ticket Holderspresented by our friends at GED MAGAZINE
JUST ADDED TO OUR CLOSING POOL SOIREE….THE LEGENDARY JUANITA MORE!WILL BE SPINNING FOR YOU THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOONIf you’ve been to one or more of Juanita MORES! infamous San Francisco parties then you know to get ready for a fabulous afternoon poolside at the iconic R3 Hotel. Doors will open up at 11am for those not attending the Drag Queen Brunch & Wine Auction. The music and wine from MERCURY WINES will start at 1pm. BRING A TOWEL RESERVE POOL SOIREE
CELEBRATE PRIDE WITH OUT IN THE VINEYARD &THE ACADEMYJOIN US FOR OUR 3RD. ANNUAL WINE PRIDE FESTIVAL AT THE ACADEMY IN SAN FRANCISCO Saturday, June 17, 6:00pm-9:00pmThe Academy 2166 Market Street, San Francisco
Get ready to party with Pride at this unforgettable festival that celebrates love, diversity, and the amazing wine produced by leaders in the LGBTQ+ wine community. Enjoy wines by Macrostie Winery, Eco Terreno, Equality Vines, Rodney Strong, Gentleman Farmer, Fog Crest Vineyards, Terah Wines, Migliavacca Wine Co all paired with light bites to enjoy throughout the evening. Limited Tickets Available At This Time!
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rode in the annual San Francisco Pride Parade, which is among the largest in the United States. The parade marches through the middle of Pelosi’s 11th Congressional District, and each year, she’s seen atop a convertible celebrating equality.
This year, however, she seems to have welcomed a new person to join her. The guest is turning political analysts to question whether the joint parading means the top California Democrat has made her choice for the U.S. Senate primary race.
Pelosi was all smiles with a rainbow wristband, waving the progress pride flag. Schiff sat atop the red convertible clad in khakis, flashed a rainbow wristband, and waved the progress pride flag.
Schiff is facing off against Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), who has made a name for herself in politics by hammering CEOs and corporate leaders.
The San Francisco Chronicle revealed that Porter was on hand for events that day in San Francisco, including at the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ+ Democratic Club annual pride breakfast. It was the 26th annual breakfast where Porter and Schiff joined state Sen. Scott Wiener, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the transgender lawmaker that has been banned from speaking on the chamber floor by Republicans.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been caught on tape mocking transgender women.
In a leaked video from a June 5 event obtained by U.K.-based LGBTQ+ outlet PinkNews, Sunak can be heard taking a shot at Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey.
Unlike in the U.S., the British Conservative party has overseen important LGBTQ advancements. But some activists worry the new PM won’t continue this trend.
“Like me, you can probably see that he was trying to convince everybody that women clearly had penises,” the Tory party leader told the crowd of conservative MPs at the event. “You’ll all know that I’m a big fan of everybody studying maths to 18, but it turns out that we need to focus on biology.”
Sunak’s transphobic remark was met with laughter from the crowd, estimated to have included around 100 conservative MPs.
According to Gay Times, the jab at Davey is likely in response to an appearance he made in May on the British radio show LBC. During the interview, Davey called for “a bit more maturity and a bit more compassion” in the “debate” around transgender rights.
Host Nick Ferrari went on to ask Davey whether a woman can have a penis. “I’ve made it really clear that if people—the vast majority of people will have the same gender as their biological sex,” Davey responded. “But a small number won’t.”
“So, a woman can have a penis?” Ferrari pressed.
“Well, quite clearly,” Davey said.
Since PinkNews posted the video, critics have slammed Sunak.
“You wouldn’t make jokes about other marginalized people the way he did about trans people,” the source who provided the video told the outlet. “There was laughter, there were quite a few younger attendees who looked visibly uncomfortable.”
“It is profoundly depressing – this whole ‘othering’ of minorities – pretty much any minority,” said an unnamed senior Tory MP. “Without stopping to think we have equalities legislation for a reason, to stop discrimination against anyone with a protected characteristic – we should be trying to understand and support, not belittle and demonize.”
LGBTQ+ rights activist Peter Tatchell called Sunak’s words “borderline indecent.” The Prime Minister, he said, “refuses to accept that there are women based on biology and women based on gender identity – both equally valid.”
“No minority community should be the butt of a joke,” Nancy Kelley, CEO of U.K. LGBTQ+ rights organization Stonewall told Gay Times. “It is incredibly disappointing that the Prime Minister chose to mock trans people in front of his parliamentary colleagues. This is a far cry from his pledge to govern with compassion and would be unacceptable in any modern workplace. The PM should apologize for his actions.”
“I am appalled by the way our Prime Minister has sought to use one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, who he knows suffers the highest level of hate crime, as a political football,” said Jayne Ozanne, chair of the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition. “If anyone needs to go back to school it is him, not only to learn about the complexities of biology but also to be reminded of the importance of common decency and respect for all.”
The leaked clip is just the latest example of Sunak’s dismal record on transgender rights.
Even before taking office last year, the U.K.’s first Prime Minister of color essentially aligned himself with so-called “Gender Critical” feminists. During an August 2022 Q&A, he said that transgender women are not women. The following October, he characterized gender-neutral language and trans-inclusive policies as part of “recent trends to erase women.” He promised to release a “manifesto for women’s rights” that would call for banning trans women from women’s restrooms and sports, positions that would likely increase the public harassment and isolation of trans individuals. His party has supported dropping trans people from a proposed national ban on conversion therapy.
In January, the U.K.’s Tory government blocked Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform bill, which would have made it possible for trans people to update their gender on legal documents. Sunak supported the move to block the bill. Earlier this month, he indicated that he intends to change the U.K.’s Equality Act to ban trans women from single-sex spaces.
Dozens of LGBTQ+ Pride flags were damaged and ripped down at the Stonewall National Monument over the weekend, the third such bout of vandalism at the LGBTQ+ landmark during this Pride Month, police said.
The latest occurrence happened Sunday, after others on June 9 and June 15. No arrests have been made in any of the incidents, and it’s unclear whether they were connected. The New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
On Sunday, officers were called around 8 a.m. and found about 33 Pride flags broken and tossed to the ground, police said.
Park volunteer Steven Menendez told New York’s Fox 5 News that, in all, 68 flags — nearly a quarter of those displayed — were damaged in some way.
“We have so much hatred and anger in the air right now,” Menendez told the station. “We really need to reverse that and replace it with love compassion and acceptance.”
The Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. national monument to LGBTQ+ history, was dedicated in 2016. It encompasses a park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, a bar where patrons fought back against a police raid on June 28, 1969, and helped spark the contemporary LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The Stonewall rebellion is commemorated every year with Pride marches in cities across the U.S. and the world.
A community center that has become a lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Ukrainians – and hub of humanitarian activity since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – was broken into and vandalized on Tuesday. Photos show that the door of the Insight office in the northwestern city of Lutsk was shattered, with broken glass and paper covering the entryway. Activists say no electronics or documents appear to be missing.
Insight is a feminist organization that provides medical care, legal aid, and psychosocial services to queer community members. Since February 2022, the group has housed hundreds of people in three emergency shelters run by LGBT human rights defenders, and, together with the Women’s March volunteer team, distributed more than 25,000 emergency aid parcels.
Ukrainian authorities should conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the attack in consultation with Insight’s human rights defenders, who have long been targeted for their work. In April 2022, two unidentified assailants teargassed Insight chair Olena Shevchenko on the streets of Lviv while she was delivering humanitarian aid. This followed a 2016 far-right attack on the Equality Festival in Lviv, LGBT defenders being teargassed at Kyiv Pride in 2018, and two attackers physically beating Shevchenko in 2019 while shouting slurs at her.
Despite the clear pattern of harassment, police did not properly investigate last year’s attack. Lviv Regional Police Department #1 formally launched a criminal investigation and Shevchenko underwent a forensic medical examination, but the police neither informed her of the results of the exam nor did they collect her victim statement. In March 2023, Shevchenko’s lawyer sent a motion to police requesting that they collect her overdue statement from the 2022 attack, and in April her lawyer filed a claim to a Lviv court regarding police inaction.
The authorities need to properly investigate the break-in and damage to Insight’s office, as well as other abuses against Ukrainian LGBT human rights defenders. Such incidents might be reduced if the government were to enact comprehensive legislation that protects people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
Estonia’s parliament approved on Tuesday a law to legalise same-sex marriage, making it the first central European country to do so.
Same-sex marriage is legal in much of western Europe but not in central European countries which were once under communist rule and members of the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact alliance but now members of NATO and, largely, the EU.
“My message (to central Europe) is that it’s a difficult fight, but marriage and love is something that you have to promote,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas [photo] told Reuters after the vote.
55 members of the Riigikogu voted in favor of the measure, while 34 voted against. Going forward, alongside marriage, people will continue to enjoy the right to enter into a registered partnership.
Such a partnership guarantees the right of registered spouses to have a say in decisions pertaining to their partner and to obtain support and benefits as needed. Couples who enter into a registered partnership will also be able to convert their status to marriage in a simplified procedure should they wish to do so.
The proposal also clarifies the Family Law Act’s regulation of parenthood in regards to same-sex couples’ adoption rights. The act is planned to enter into force on January 1, 2024.
Estonia, population 1.4 million, joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.
A Christian-owned wellness center is exempt from the federal law prohibiting employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The unanimous three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Braidwood Management, which runs an alternative health center in Texas, cannot be sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its policy that employees who engage in homosexual or gender non-conforming conduct will be fired.
Circuit Judge Jerry Smith wrote for the majority that without the shield, the company would be forced to “comply wholeheartedly” with policy it sees as “sinful,” upholding a ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth.
However, the court reversed O’Connor’s ruling that Braidwood could bring the case as a class action on behalf of other religious businesses. That means the exemption now only applies directly to Braidwood.
Smith was joined by Circuit Judges Edith Clement and Cory Wilson. All three judges were appointed by Republican presidents.
The EEOC and a lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Braidwood sued the EEOC after the agency updated its enforcement guidance in 2021 to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which said bias against gay and transgender workers is a form of unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The company said it was run according to Christian beliefs, including opposition to homosexuality and upholding specific gender roles. It had sought a court order shielding it from EEOC enforcement under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law limiting government agencies’ ability to burden anyone’s religious freedom.
The company is separately suing the Biden administration over the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that health insurance plans, including those funded by employers, cover preventive care services including HIV-preventing drugs, which Braidwood also says violates its beliefs. O’Connor, who is also presiding over that case, ruled in the company’s favor in that case, though the order is partly on hold for now.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned that the LGBTQ+ community is at risk of terrorism attacks during the 2024 US presidential race.
The DHS’ announcement, published on 24 May and set to expire on 24 November, states that the “United States remains in a heightened threat environment”.
The federal agency noted that “both domestic violent extremists and those associated with foreign terrorist organisations” continue to call on supporters to attack the US, with likely targets being highlighted as minority groups including the LGBTQ+ community.
2023 has already seen the most anti-LGBTQ+ bills signed into law in the US
The DHS has shared resources to help the LGBTQ+ community stay safe, including suggestions to stay prepared, making note of the nearby security personnel at events and keeping safe online by recognising false or misleading narratives.
The DHS’ announcement comes as extremist group, the Proud Boys shared its plan to target LGBTQ+ people by disrupting Pride month celebrations in the US.
Saturday June 24 @ 3 pm . Phil Lawrence Band and The Familiar Strangers at Occidental Center for the Arts Amphitheater.
Enjoy a double dose of entertaining Americana music in our outdoor amphitheater! Don’t miss the return of these popular Sonoma County artists as they bring world-class music to our West County entertainment hub. Tickets $30 Advance/$35 at the door/ $25 OCA members at www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org.
Please bring your own seat cushion or low backed chair. Doors open at 2:30 PM. Fine refreshments including beer and wine for sale, art gallery open for viewing. Limited reserved seating for disabled patrons , please email tina@occidentalcenterforthearts.org. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental,CA. 95465. 707-874-9392
A group of neo-Nazis disrupted a drag story hour in New Hampshire over the weekend, another in an escalating series of threats and attacks against the LGBTQ community in recent months.
The drag story hour, at which drag queens read children’s books to kids, took place at an LGBTQ-owned coffee shop in Concord, the state’s capital, on Sunday.
In video that has attracted over 6.5 million views on Twitter, more than a dozen men wearing masks, sunglasses, baseball caps and matching shirts and pants can been seen chanting, raising their right arms in unison and banging on the coffee shop’s windows.
State officials said NSC-131, a neo-Nazi group based in New England, had claimed responsibility for the protest. NSC stands for the Nationalist Social Club.
The protesters chanted “131” and homophobic slurs, including “faggots,” according to Juicy Garland, a drag performer who was at the event and posted the video on social media.
“This isn’t something strange and unique onto itself,” Garland, 37, said. “Fascism and dangerous extremity on the right are something that has been here for a long time.”
Garland added that once the protest began, the store manager called the police and moved the event to the second floor of the shop, called Teatotaller, away from the demonstrators.
The coffee shop’s owner, Emmett Soldati, said that the shop has hosted drag story hour events for the last decade. While there have been demonstrations before, they have increased in size and severity over the last 12 months, Soldati said.
“This kind of response is very new,” Soldati said. “There appears to tactically be a shift, even if six years ago people did have a problem with what we did.”
A previous drag story hour at Teatotaller in Concord, N.H.Courtesy Emmett Soldati
The neo-Nazi protest coincides with a surge in similar anti-LGBTQ demonstrations across the nation within the last year.
Since June 2022, there has been an average of 39 anti-LGBTQ protests nationwide each month, according to a recent report by the Crowd Counting Consortium, a research group that tracks the size of political protests. In comparison, the group recorded just three protests per month from January 2017 through May 2022.
Anti-LGBTQ demonstrations have occurred even in liberal enclaves, such as New York City. Dozens of Pride flags were damaged and ripped down at the Stonewall National Monument — the site of a June 1969 uprising that is widely considered to be the birthplace of the modern queer rights movement — at least three times this month.
“The reason why we’re seeing this here in this way in Concord and in other places around the U.S. is because these people feel like they have permission to be violent and aggressive and loud,” Garland said, citing a recent legislative campaign to limit some drag performances.
Republican lawmakers in at least 19 states have proposed measures this year to restrict some drag performances, mostly with the aim of banning children from seeing the events. Only three states — Florida, Montana and Tennessee — have enacted the measures, but a federal judge ruled that Tennessee’s law was unconstitutional this month.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is investigating the incident Sunday in coordination with local authorities, according to the office’s director of communications, Michael Garrity.
Garrity also said in a statement that the NSC-131 had taken credit for the demonstration on its social media channels, and he urged anyone with information on the identities of the protestors to contact state officials.