Video recording of “State of Out Youth: A Town Hall, a panel discussion with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and ally youth from across the country about the most pressing issues facing them today. PLUS.. A personal comment: Who gives a damn about the rest of us who are not considered the youth anymore but have been abandoned and left behind? Read More
INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM SEMINAR | LGBT issues and human rights coverage explored at Boston’s LGBT Media Summit
My aim is to emphasize opportunities and strategies for the LGBT Media here in the U.S. to cover international issues and human-rights concerns that affect LGBT communities around the world. LGBT journalists have had few opportunities to work as foreign correspondents. That’s especially the case in today’s media environment, with sharp cutbacks by many news outlets in their international coverage. Read More
BRAVE OR SUICIDAL? | What happened when a Russian gay rights activist staged a lone protest on an annual military holiday
Often it is worth questioning the democracy of social media by just re-viewing a second time and digging a little bit deeper. The video below which documents Kalugin’s confrontation with Russian airborne troops has gone viral. What’s also spread like wildfire is the outraged and sometimes ill-informed commentary on it. It is easy to lash out at Russian government officials. If you look closer at this story though, the surface is not what it seems. Here, the Russian special forces turned out to be the good guys. Read More
PRO VS. CON #DUMPSTOLI | How does the boycott of a Latvian vodka change Putin’s anti-gay laws and save lives of Russian LGBT youth?
The #dumpstoli campaign has been a global public-relations success. But have the protests for public awareness of repressive anti-gay laws in Russia been misdirected and unfairly targeted a long-time ally of the LGBT community? Will the Dump Vodka protests actually change the minds of the Russian parliament? Here is my on-the-ground investigation of yesterday’s protest in front of the Russian Consulate in New York. Read More
GPS | NEW YORK: Rainbow colors flood Empire State Building on Gay Pride
It’s been an amazing week for gay rights. The U.S. Supreme Court dumped the federal Defense of Marriage Act and declined to reinstate a ban on same-sex marriage in California. On Sunday June 30, 2013, the Empire State Building has turned the colors of the rainbow in a show of support for Gay Pride Weekend.… Read More
LANDMARK GAY RIGHTS DECISION | U.S. Supreme Court rules DOMA unconstitutional, declines to rule on Prop. 8
The U.S. Supreme Court announced two historic decisions today which will pave the way for the freedom to marry. Read More
ON PHOTOGRAPHY (NSFW) | Andy Warhol’s gay male archives on auction at Christie’s online
The Andy Warhol @ Christie’s sale has grouped some of Warhol’s sexy artworks with doodles with male porn and then slapped the entire incriminating evidence with the tony title “Eyes of the Guise.” Read More
Filipino photographer transforms pain, sorrow and erotic sensuality of Christian icons to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS
The 20 photographs that comprise Niccolo Cosme’s exhibit, on view at the Philippine Center in New York from August 28 to September 7, 2012, contain messages about HIV and AIDS. Yet in a sense they place a halo of aesthetics and sensuality at the center of Cosme’s Christian-based iconography. Read More
BUT IS IT PERFORMANCE DESIGN? | Lesbian herstory emerges at Brooklyn Museum
Ulrike Müller’s conceptual project, “Herstory Inventory” is a theatrical installation. It pushes together two sets of created inventory: new art inspired by the Lesbian Herstory Archive, and museum objects from the Brooklyn Museum where it is presently on view through September 9, 2012. Read More
From Havana, Teatro El Público re-casts “Caligula” as gay tyrant
This Cuban take on “Caligula” “consciously uses Albert Camus’s play to subvert cultural norms and our concept of masculinity. Why can’t a homosexual be portrayed as possessing as much violence and cruelty as a stereotypical heterosexual male chauvinist character? What does it mean to be gay and masculine? And why are these two terms still thought of as mutually exclusive? Read More
Not a performance review | French choreographer David Wampach spoofs John Waters film, dances with shaving foam
“Auto + Batterie” matches up two enticing signature works, in which French choreographer David Wampach conspicuously foregrounds the theatrical relationship between dance and music. Read More
Queer New York International Arts Festival proposes “new concept of queer”
In discussing the festival, the curators of Queer New York International Arts Festival have stated that they want to “break through dominant ideas that limit and marginalize queer art, by creating a new concept of queer as a wider platform Read More