BY FRANCESCA LEWIS

Lesbian.com

Your character has an interesting perspective on the Dead – was that hard to relate to?

Celia’s relationship with the dead is one of caretaker. Marlene had a hard time with the dead! One of the hardest scenes I had to shoot was the one where Nick bring backs Luis.  The make up on this show is amazing and very real looking. Arturo, who plays Luis, was foaming at the mouth and spitting blood out.  His eyes had these contacts which made his eyes look dead! And there I am having a love affair with him! I had a hard time NOT gagging! But in all seriousness, Celia’s relationship with the dead goes back to the Mexican culture.  Day of the Dead!  Death is just the next step.  And the living very much continue to communicate with the dead.  Very much like Ofelia speaks to her mother at the altar.  Now, we don’t keep them in the basement! But there is a big element of that.  Now, like Celia says, we can’t see the dead, but they have always walked among us!

Celia is certainly an antagonist, but is she a villain

Well, Marlene doesn’t think she is a villain! I try not to judge my characters.  Even the most horrible serial killer doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong. Celia is just assisting with the inevitable: death! We are all heading in that direction!

What did it mean to you to play the mother of the first gay character on the series?

I was thrilled! I love that fact that nothing was really made out of it! It was just introduced and was not discussed! I think it is becoming more visible on TV. I work on The Fosters too, and I love that show for the same reasons! It is just a family show that centers around love.  It doesn’t matter who you love! And “family” doesn’t necessary look like the Brady Bunch anymore! I really hope that this isn’t an issue in the future. Everybody go out and VOTE!

Diversity has always been a real problem in Hollywood and, though it has improved, it hasn’t improved anywhere near enough. Do you think being a latinx actor is any easier now than it was when you started out, in terms of roles and representation?

Yes I do think it’s easier.  But we are not yet properly represented on TV like the African American community. I always say it, we don’t have our own Tyler Perry or Oprah! When I started, I was still married to my daughter’s dad. He is Rodriguez. That was not a choice back then. My reps at the time wanted to change it to Rodrick. I was born Ana Marlene Forte Machado, I said. “Pick one!” Even Machado was too ethnic 21 years ago. Now no one blinks at Rodriguez or Lopez. But we still have a long way to go.

Your real life backstory is a fascinating one – can you tell me a bit about your life before you started acting?

am the oldest of three girls, the only one born in Cuba. I was very sheltered and married my high school sweetheart.  Within a year I was pregnant and he wanted two more! LOL – I was done. I always knew I wanted to act and I just knew, even back then, that I could not have more kids and be an actor.  So we played house for four years; until we graduate college.  He went off to be a doctor and I went off to be an actress.  I really didn’t get started till the late 1980’s.  I ran my own video store back at the start of the whole thing for about 5 years.  And then Blockbuster hit the scene and I exited stage left! I had just gotten into The LAB (Latino’s Actor’s Base) at Intar and I saw the writing on the wall.  I was not getting any younger so I moved to Manhattan. And that’s when it all began.

You’ve appeared in a lot of TV shows over the years, you’ve pretty much been in everything – any highlights? Any current shows you’d love to appear in?

I would love to do The Walking Dead but that’s not going to happen unless the east coast meets the west coast! I really loved working on Dallas.  I enjoyed the city of Dallas and the cast was just the best.  And I must say that Fear The Walking Dead has been the ultimate roller coaster so far! The fans are the amazing and I really enjoyed bringing Celia Flores to life!

Francesca Lewis is a queer feminist writer from Yorkshire, UK. She has written for Curve Magazine, DIVA Magazine, xoJane and The Human Experience. You can find her opinion pieces on Medium. 

The post Fear The Walking Dead’s Marlene Forte on Diversity, Culture and Dealing with The Dead first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Hi Femme,

What do you do when 95% of your family is embarrassingly racist and your girlfriend is non-white? I’d like to begin a conversation about their overt racism (which they see as “jokes”, but it’s beyond offensive) without starting a war. They know not to say anything about my girlfriend’s nationality, but they insult every other group! It makes us so angry.

Sensitive in Seattle

Hey SIS, I think almost all of us can sympathize with this dilemma. It sounds to me like even though your family is calling these statements jokes, there’s a hint of truth that comes through and is making you and your girlfriend crazy. And it totally should! Even though we live in an age where everyone is telling us that political correctness is killing comedy, all too often off-color jokes are just a convenient way to disguise racism.

Here’s a quick lesson in how not to handle this. Once upon a time, a very young Hot Femme went home with her white girlfriend for Thanksgiving. At the dinner table, two family members were talking about their Latina cleaning ladies and laughing at them; their accents, their attractiveness level, everything. I totally lost it and cursed everyone out…like graphically. I also lost any sympathy anyone would have had for me by not acting like a lady, or whatever. The lesson here is to never lose your cool, because once you do no one will listen to what you are trying to say. If I was you, here’s how I would proceed:

1. Approach a few of the most emotionally intelligent members of your family one-on-one. Maybe that’s your mom, aunt, cousin, uncle- and explain to them that this is something that’s really bothering you. Don’t point fingers, but do mention some specific instances that back up your feelings. Chances are this news will travel through the family grapevine and the offending parties will soften their behavior when you’re around.

2. The next time someone says something offensive and says “just kidding” just say something along the lines of “I know that’s a joke and I don’t want to ruin everyone’s good time, but racial jokes make me uncomfortable.” If they press you just laugh and say “If you said that joke in front of a [insert targeted ethnicity] person, you would make them uncomfortable. So you need to rethink if it’s a ‘joke’ you want to tell at all.” If the person doesn’t stop, leave the gathering. It doesn’t need to be an angry dramatic exit, simply state that you aren’t comfortable participating in this conversation and you’re going home to watch The L Word. If you keep everything smiles and honey, it will be hard for people to come at you with serious vinegar. Chances are only a few of your family members really even enjoy the ‘jokes’ and the rest are just going with the flow because they don’t want to speak up and make things awkward.

While  I don’t think that will stop your family from making jokes entirely, if you stick with it eventually they will stop doing it in front of you, if for no other reason then they don’t want you to leave. Will they call you sensitive and too politically correct? Yes, but who cares! You’re being awesome. Last bit of advice, don’t even bother bringing your girlfriend into this. Make it about your feelings so no one can displace any hurt or anger onto her. I hope this helped! Let us all know how it goes.

xoxo

Hot Femme

Have a question? Email me at askafemme@yahoo.com

The post Ask the Femme: My Family Makes Racist Jokes and I Hate it! first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Cartoonist Tory Hoke

Cartoonist Tory Hoke creates “Meddling Auntie” comics to break the ice between tweens and those who love them on sensitive subjects. “Meddling Auntie” is the concerned aunt that all kids need when they’re growing up. Hoke gives kids someone who isn’t a parent to provide some perspective, in an unconventional format. After previous issues on Drugs, Bullies, and Perverts, in April, Hoke released “Meddling Auntie Presents: Puberty.” In the cartoon, Hoke addresses both the gender issues and same sex attractions that might manifest themselves at puberty and how to handle it. A straight ally, Hoke collaborated with popular editor, writer and podcaster Kristine Chester for perspective in the LGBT community. I sat down with Hoke to discuss “Meddling Auntie” and her creative process, as well as her advice for aspiring female comics.

What was the inspiration behind “Meddling Auntie?”

Tory Hoke: When my niece turned eleven, I was out of ideas for what to get her–what would be interesting and personal and not something she had a dozen of already. So I asked myself, what could I really, really have used at that age? The answer was information–what I wish someone had told me. So I gathered words of wisdom from friends, put funny pictures on it to soften some harsh truths, and gave it to her as a comic.

Things sort of spiraled from there.

Excerpt from “Medding Auntie Presents: Puberty”

Why did you decide to include gender and LGBT acceptance into “Meddling Auntie Presents: Puberty?” 

TH: Ah! Great question. The first couple of comics were very much “this is just my personal experience.” But when I made one about “Perverts”–identifying and dealing with sexual abuse–the feedback from readers showed me that “personal experience” isn’t enough, not when I’m putting something in front of the public.

Puberty is a godawful time of pain and conflict plus crazy-making pressure to pretend everything’s okay. If any kid picks up this comic–a comic that claims to get it, claims to be for them–and doesn’t see themself in it, then that’s a big failure. That’s a terrible failure at a terrible time.

So for “Puberty” I put out a call for help, for more brains and more ideas, and Kristine Chester answered.

Tell me about your collaboration with Kristine Chester. Why did you decide to reach out to her? How did she help?

TH: Kristine’s guidance, her insight, and her perspective–as a younger woman, a trans* woman, and a woman who got even less school sex ed than I did–was absolutely vital. There was so much she wished someone had told her–about puberty’s physical changes, the social changes, what’s possible, what’s normal, all of it. Without her, I don’t think the comic would have happened.

We worked by email, mostly: I sent a script, she sent notes, I sent comic pages, she sent more notes. Our exchanges were a lot of her saying, “Here’s something to maybe consider,” and my answering, “Holy crap, of course!”

Excerpt from “Meddling Auntie Presents: Puberty”

Is  “Meddling Auntie Presents: Puberty” inspired by your own difficult time with puberty? 

TH: Oh yes! And, then as now, a lot of my problems were self-inflicted. I was immature for my age, often thoughtless, sometimes cruel. I think maybe underneath the comic, there’s an idea of, “Look. You’re going to have enough of a hard time. But a lot of the hard time isn’t your fault. Let me let you off the hook.”

What advice would you give to aspiring female comics?

TH: Keep going! Keep making, keep writing, keep drawing. Surround yourself with people who believe in what you’re doing. Seek criticism, take what you like, and leave the rest. Tell the stories that need to be told. Feel free to promote your work, but feel free to let it stand on its own, too. Everything you do is practice for every other thing you’ll do, and there’s no way to guess where the future will take you.

If you would like to read more “Meddling Auntie” visit meddlingauntie.com or purchase the comic for the tween in your life, at Amazon or IndyPlanet

The post Cartoonist Tory Hoke Tackles Transgender and LGBT Issues in “Meddling Auntie” first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Steph (left) and Brooke

BY NATASIA LANGFELDER
Lesbian.com

There are so many superstar moms to celebrate this Mother’s Day and each is special in her own way. Today, Lesbian.com wants to celebrate lesbian moms everywhere by introducing you to Steph and Brooke who are mothers to two amazing children, are foster mothers to two more and provided donor eggs and surrogacy for their best friends and sperm donors, Chris and Dakota.

They have been friends with gay couple Chris and Dakota for years. Brooke and Steph even lived with Chris when they were all in need of a roommate. The two couples had a firm friendship and when Chris found out that Brooke and Steph were thinking of starting a family he approached them and offered to help, and asked if they would consider doing the same for him.

With the spirit of generosity and kindness, the two couples embarked on their journey to create their “modern families.” I spoke with Brooke and asked her to share the details of their arrangement from legal rights, to logistics, to juggling boundaries between the two sets of parents.

How did you come up with this arrangement and hammer out the details?

Once Steph and I began talking about starting a family we sat down and decided what was most important to us. We both have a strong passion for kids and shared the same opinions on what kind of life we wanted for the future. We talked about our own childhood, and from that took both things we wanted to carry on to our children and things we wanted to do differently. During that process, we decided that we still wanted a male figure in our kids’ lives. We wanted this person to be okay with the child knowing who they were and be there for the big parts of their lives. Basically an uncle figure but with no obligations at all. Let me add a disclaimer here by saying we do not by any means believe that families who use unknown donors are in some way depriving their children, we just did what felt right to us and our family.

Once we talked we realized we all wanted our kids to know who their mother(s) and father(s) are and be present as an aunt/uncle-type figure in their lives, but with no financial or legal responsibility on the part of the donor or surrogate biological parent. So, once a child is born there is an adoption and signing over of rights.

How did you “do it”?

We performed artificial insemination at home. Steph is a nurse so we were able to do everything safely. The boys would leave their “sample” or drop it by.

Do you get asked, “Is it hard to ‘give up’ your biological child?”

We have never looked at it as giving up a child. It feels like you are giving it back. There is nothing that can describe the feeling of a seeing a parent hold their baby for the first time and knowing you were able to give that to them. We all see each other as often as we can and are always there for the big events, birthdays, etc.

What was the hardest part of piecing together your “modern family”? What was the best part?

I think there were different hard parts for each one of us. With our first child it was definitely just trusting everyone involved. We are human and sometimes we don’t know how we will feel until we are put into a situation. It has actually gone remarkably smoothly over the years and it seems the only time anything has ever turned negative has been when someone not in our arrangement tried to involve themselves.

People tend to get wrapped up in the “fairness” of the arrangement and really have a hard time understanding why we chose to do things this way. We have learned the key is to be very honest, open and to make sure we stay true to what we wanted from the start.

The best part has been the ability to give each other such an amazing gift. It also amazes us how successful our situation actually was/is. There could have been so many things go wrong and things could have been a disaster but it really did work out the way we all wanted.

From left to right: Daniel (child), Dakota, Steph, Avery (child),Cooper (child), Chris, Brooke.
[Order of births and bio parents involved: Avery by Brooke and Chris; Cooper by Steph and Chris; Daniel by Dakota and Steph; soon to arrive in July is Joey (girl) by Brooke and Chris]

We make it a point to do Christmas and the kid’s birthdays together. It is really not much different than most families who have multiple stops on a holiday. We always make sure we get together though even if it is after the fact.

What do all of your families think of the arrangement?

I think we have all been blessed with great family members who have been very supportive. The hardest part has been for everyone to know exactly where they stand. Especially with the grandparents involved. With every child the parents of the “donor/surrogate” were never sure if they should come to the hospital or tell people they had another grandchild, etc., but regardless they always found their place and what made them comfortable. Needless to say all of our kids get extra spoiled from multiple grandparents.

What are you doing for Mother’s Day?

We are pretty laid back and, as with most of our holidays, we surround ourselves with family, food and just relax and enjoy. Even though we have children that have two moms and two dads and we consider ourselves a big family, we live our daily lives as two separate families. For Mother’s Day we will celebrate with our kids and our own moms, while the boys will do the same with their own family. We usually get a picture or a call from one another for well wishes on days like this since the kids are still young. When they get older and want to spend the day with that mom or dad then we will be a bit more involved.

Brooke and Steph continue to challenge traditional notions of family in more ways than one. In addition to their “bio” kids, the women are also foster parents to two little boys, who, for legal reasons, cannot be included in this article but the couple is pleased to see that the boys are thriving in their care. Many children in the foster care system have parents who are trying to pass fitness tests and get their children back, while others might find new forever homes. Either way, strong familial ties are essential for these children. In the Brooke and Steph’s view, there are “too many kids out there and not enough foster homes.” They are correct. The most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Health states that there are currently almost 400,000 children in the foster care system with over 100,000 waiting to be adopted.

While I celebrate my mother today, I also am going to take a moment to celebrate all our “modern families” and the people, like Brooke and Steph, who have given of themselves to make someone else’s dream of being a parent a reality. I hope you will, too.

The post Celebrating Mother’s Day with a beautiful ‘modern family’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

By the time you see this on Friday, I’ll be somewhere between Virginia and Florida, cruise-controlling it down Route 95 to visit family I’ve not seen in eons. How long is eons, you ask? According to Dictionary.com, it’s “an indefinitely long period of time,” but in my case it ranges anywhere from two years to a whopping 34 years, depending on the family member. Yeah, I wasn’t really exaggerating too much when I said eons.

So why did I tell the office “be back when I get back,” load up the car and point it south now after decades of estrangement? The answer lies, in large part, in this photo, delivered by a half-sister I’ve not seen in over thirty years.

Caption: L-R Cindy (2), Candy (15) and Sharon (4) with a cairn terrier whose name I can’t recall – circa 1977

Not exactly “The Waltons”

To say that I’m not close to my family would be an understatement of mass proportions. Time, distance, family dysfunction, disparate political/social views and lifestyles have conspired to render us family in name only. We share DNA, but not details on each other’s lives. We share faded memories, but make no time together to create new ones. We have become, in effect, strangers.

You see, my dad and sister each moved to Florida in 1979 and 1981, respectively. My dad relocated from Northern Virginia shortly after my high school graduation, accepting a job and starting a new life in Tallahassee with his third wife, my two half-sisters [then ages 6 (Sharon) and 4 (Cindy)] from his second marriage and his wife’s two young kids.

A couple of years later, my sister followed her high school sweetheart to the sweat and mosquito capital of the United States, as well. (Anyone picking up on the fact that I’m not a huge fan of Florida?) They settled in Palm Bay, married, had two daughters they worked hard to keep from “becoming too friendly with the black kids” at school and settled into a lifestyle of which Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity would be proud, but which I personally find distasteful.

What? Oh, you’re wondering about the “becoming too friendly with the black kids” line. I suppose I should explain that I come from a long line of bigots — the “N-word” and other (even more) objectionable terms for African Americans were bandied about with ease by my paternal grandparents (and, no, they weren’t hip-hop recording artists).

I’m afraid that two generations removed, my sister continues to be less than progressive in her thinking. While neither she nor her husband belong to the KKK (at least as far as I know), they weren’t keen on the idea of their eldest daughter (now 24) developing friendships with black children when she was in grade school. So in fifth grade they had her moved to another classroom, admonishing her not to make the same “mistake” she’d made in the previous class. I really can’t make this stuff up.

In any event, my aversion to Fox News-brand ignorance, heat, humidity and giant flying roaches (no one’s fooling anyone by calling them Palmetto bugs) combined with my father’s inability to talk to me about anything except work, my car and the weather since 1995 (the year I left my husband and came out as a lesbian) combined to create quite of bit of distance amongst us in the ensuing years.

Heading into 2014, I’d not spoken with my dad in two-and-a-half years nor visited him in 19; my sister was someone with whom I exchanged emails about my insane mother (she’s another column — or book — unto herself) but not much else; and Sharon and Cindy were complete strangers with whom I’d not spoken in over 30 years.

Extending the olive branch

After a good bit of hounding from a close friend over dinner in mid-January this year, I called my dad for the first time since April 2011. The conversation was awkward, though he was elated to hear from me. Caught up in a moment of inexplicable nostalgia, I casually tossed out, “Maybe I’ll come visit for your birthday this year, Dad.”

At the time, it seemed very distant. Early April was three months away — he’d forget by then, right? Memory is the first thing to go, after all, and he’d be turning 76.

Flash forward two months: my dad’s mental faculties appear to be fully intact and news of my offhand proposal had circulated through my siblings like parvo virus on a Carnival Cruise ship.

My sister and her daughters arranged to visit for my dad’s birthday and Sharon, now 41 years old and living outside Seattle, booked a flight with her husband and toddler son for the same time. (My other Oregon-based half-sister wouldn’t be joining us to make it a full-fledged family reunion as she has apparently married someone from the early 1900s who believes air travel is the work of the devil or something along those lines.)

At any rate, my fate was cast a month or so ago when I learned that my sisters had rallied. I was going to have to do this. I was going to have to get in my car, drive 14 hours to a swampy wasteland of a state to visit people I barely know. I was going to have to burn vacation time and money and get my estranged ass to Tallahassee whether I really wanted to or not.

Second thoughts

As I write this, my departure date is just three days away. I’ll confess that I spent the past weekend bouncing potential trip-canceling excuses off friends — what’s more believable: I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle, something came up at the office, I have strep throat or my back is acting up?

As of this morning I’d not mentally or emotionally committed to make the trip, though I continued to make the necessary arrangements — getting my ducks in order at work, lining up a pet and house sitter, allocating funds from the monthly budget.

Of course, my friends, unfamiliar with the particular brand of dysfunction prevalent in my family, implored me to go. But I had a response for every appeal.

“Candy, you should go. How are you going to feel if you don’t go now and something happens to your dad?”

“I’ll actually feel worse if I do go — I’m not attached now and I’ll be more attached if I go!”

“Candy, you’ll have a good time. Maybe you’ll get closer to your sisters after this.”

“Why do I want to get closer to my sisters? They’re strangers at this point! I have friends. I work two jobs. I don’t have time to invest in getting to know more people.”

“Just go, Candy. It’ll be a nice break.”

“It’s not a nice break to go somewhere with humidity of 90 percent. Besides, I’ll just be stressed out about work the entire time.”

My mind was cranking, thinking of the best excuse to get me out of the trip, the timing with which it should be delivered and how best to assuage the guilt after delivering the news.

You’ve got mail

But then I got to the office this morning and received an email from Sharon.

The email was brief with a simple subject line of “Soon” and the following short sentences: “Wow, it’s coming quick. We are flying Thursday! Hey, are you bringing your pup?”

There was no mention of the attachment she had included with the message. I clicked to open the file, not knowing what to expect, and found that damned photo.

Instantly, I was drowning in a deluge of emotions as I sat staring at the screen, transfixed and transported to 1977. I was 15. My half-sisters just two and four years old and living with my dad a half-hour away from where I resided with my sister and mom.

I immediately remembered — no, not just remembered, but felt — how crazy I’d been about those kids when they were little. I’d had such plans as the big sister — to teach them to play softball and take them to Kings Dominion amusement park and help them with homework as they grew older. But those times never materialized as they left for Florida — and then went on to California to live with their mother — well before it would have been wise to put an aluminum bat in their hands.

From the instant I clicked on that damned picture, I knew I had to go on this trip. There’s a part of me that still doesn’t want to, really, but I know that sometimes the periods of greatest personal growth are borne from things we didn’t really want to do in the first place.

There’s clearly some sort of connection that remains amongst us. That unannounced photo and my emotional reaction upon seeing it are proof of that.

I’m also realizing that there’s more to my familial estrangement than state borders, prejudices and differing world views. I’ve found myself questioning my role in maintaining the more-than-physical distance amongst us and finding that my own insecurities may have played a part, as well.

So, yep, I’m on 95 South right now, likely with my iPod cranked, an eye out for the next Starbucks and a mind struggling to fill in the gaps left by time. I hope to fill in those memory fissures and discover a little more about myself, too, over the course of the next few days.

I’ll be back here at the keyboard to share what I’ve learned in part two when I return. Meanwhile, someone go ahead and get me on the schedule with a therapist, will ya?

The post Dysfunction, distance, disparate views: A family lost in time first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CAVAN SIECZKOWSKI

Same-sex parents might still have an uphill battle to forge, but a new study seems to provide a helpful push in the right direction. In a study billed as the first to compare adolescent-parent relationships and adolescent well-being in intact lesbian and heterosexual families, children of lesbians reported having higher self-esteem and lower conduct problems than those of heterosexual couples.

The study compared 51 Dutch children (25 girls and 26 boys) born to lesbian parents through donor insemination with 51 demographically similar teens from heterosexual parents. The children matched in age, gender, education and birth country. Last year, the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families conducted the world’s largest study comparing same-sex parents to heterosexual parents and found that children of gay couples are thriving in terms of health and familial wellness, Think Progress reported.

Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

The post Yet another study finds lesbian moms are awesome first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Susan and Cheryl, a pair of moms, are introduced as the Disney Channel show’s first lesbian mothers.

The post Disney’s ‘Good Luck Charlie’ introduces lesbian moms first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY MICHELLE OTTEY, PhD

Lesbian-identified women often start the family-building process by thinking about sperm donors, be they known or unknown, from a sperm bank. Before choosing a donor, it is best to set up a visit with your OB/GYN and assess your fertility. Your physician will be able to give you some information about the kind of donor sperm preparation you will need. You can purchase either Intracervical Insemination (ICI) or Intrauterine Insemination/Washed (IUI) prep sperm. The ICI samples are placed onto the cervix for an insemination either in a doctor’s office or at home. The IUI samples are inserted through the cervix directly into the uterus for an insemination in the physician’s office.

If you use a known donor, he will still have to be tested and screened, similarly to a donor from a sperm bank. The FDA requires these precautions to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted infectious diseases, like HIV/AIDS. Your physician will be able to direct you to a clinic or sperm bank in your area that provides this service. Sperm banks have hundreds of donors available online, all of whom have given up parental rights as part of their agreement. You also need to decide which type of donor you want: Anonymous or ID Option.

Read more at TaggMagazine.com

The post Starting a family: Options for lesbian couples first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Photo via ‘Under the Table’ Kickstarter.

BY KIM HOFFMAN
AfterEllen

I wish I was a lesbian. You guys get to have sex, like, all the time and never get pregnant. Such a good deal,” says the blonde sister in the trailer for Grace McLeod’s Under the Table. The upcoming film pays distinct homage to the recognizable style of a Wes Anderson film—colorful scenes that bleed into the dark narrative of comically dysfunctional characters. McLeod’s film declares itself a “short comedy about lesbians, mashed potatoes and a (reluctant) modern family.”

“The characters in the film are so used to brushing life’s uncomfortable realities under the table and out of sight that their attempts at confronting real emotion are just as comical as they are heartbreaking,” says McLeod, noting the beauty in open dialogue, even if you’re saying “all the wrong things.”

Read more at AfterEllen.com

AfterEllen is the pop culture site that plays for your team

The post Another look at coming out from ‘Under the Table’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

(Photo: Getty Images)

BY EBONÉ E. BELL
Tagg Magazine

Holiday festivities and traditions entail considerable pre-planning and, in turn, generate a lot of questions— especially when friends, family and significant others are involved.

The usual questions and issues surrounding holiday preparations can become a little more complicated, however, when you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). That’s why we went directly to the LGBT etiquette expert himself, Steven Petrow, to provide advice on the dos and don’ts surrounding various activities during this festive season. All of the helpful tips appearing here are excerpted from Steven Petrow’s “Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners for Every Occasion: The Definitive Guide to LGBT Life” (Workman, 2011).

Find out the etiquette on bunking together at moms, holiday cards, hosting parties and more at TaggMagazine.com

Tagg Magazine is a print and online resource for LBT women in the DC Metropolitan and Rehoboth, DE areas.

The post Holiday etiquette for lesbians first appeared on Lesbian.com.