A sampling from Facebook’s Pride pack

BY CANDY PARKER
Lesbian.com

What did you miss this week in the world of LGBT news? Check out our Lesbian.com round-up and you’ll be ready to gather ’round the rainbow-colored water cooler to talk about five of the biggest, best and most interesting stories for June 1-7.

Hill hurls homophobic slur; redeems with heartfelt apology

Jonah Hill found himself in some hot water last weekend when he chose to lash out at a paparazzo with a homophobic slur. But on Tuesday, the actor redeemed himself to many during an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” with what appeared to be a sincere apology. Hill has been a long-time advocate for LGBT rights and seemed genuinely contrite as he addressed Fallon’s audience. “The word I chose was grotesque and no one deserves to say or hear words like that,” said Hill.

You can watch Hill’s apology below.

Chicago Sun-Times decides Laverne Cox is a woman after all

The Chicago Sun-Times drew harsh criticism for an op-ed piece which it ran last weekend titled “Laverne Cox is Not a Woman.” The piece, authored by the National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson and prompted by Cox’s recent Time magazine cover, argued that Cox was still a man whether she chose to label herself as one or not.

By Tuesday, the Chicago Sun-Times had realized the error of its ways (or had at least grown fearful of the resulting firestorm), pulled the story and issued an apology.

North Dakota last state to enter marriage equality fray

North Dakota no longer stands alone as the only state without a challenge to its constitutional ban on same sex marriage. On Friday, seven couples filed a lawsuit in the U.S. district court in Fargo, calling for an end to North Dakota’s constitutional ban and its refusal to accept gay marriages from out of state. With the filing, all 31 states which continue to have laws on the books defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman now face legal challenges at the federal level.

Military color guard makes history at D.C. Pride

History was made Saturday night in Washington, D.C., as an eight-member color guard team from U.S. Army Military District of Washington led off the 39th annual Capital Gay Pride parade. The group was the first Armed Forces color guard in American history to march in a gay pride parade.

Facebook releases LGBT emojis

Facebook kicked off LGBT Pride season by announcing the release of a 28-emoticon “Pride pack” available for Facebook Messenger users.

A Facebook diversity spokesperson told NewNowNext, ““We’re celebrating Pride by adding these free Facebook Messenger stickers to the Sticker Store. We see this as one more way we can make Facebook a place where people can express their authentic identity. Happy Pride!”

The post LGBT week in review: Apologies, emojis and a Pride parade first, oh my! first appeared on Lesbian.com.

From the Olympics to the recent NFL draft, this year has seen a growing, global conversation about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in the world of sports. Many LGBT athletes are sharing their stories on YouTube, and the support they are getting from teammates and fans has helped others find the courage to do the same.

In celebration of the upcoming World Cup in Brazil and global Pride month, YouTube is honoring the LGBT athletes, their supporters and YouTube creators who champion equality and inclusivity in sports and are #ProudToPlay.

#ProudToPlay will kick off on June 3rd with a video highlighting some of the conversations happening on YouTube about equality and sports. Major LGBT athletes (Jason Collins, Brittney Griner, Robbie Rogers, John Amaechi, Tom Daley, Darren Young), ally supporters such as Neymar and Kobe Bryant and YouTube stars Hannah Hart and Tyler Oakley are supporting #ProudToPlay and will be featured in the video. We will also be encouraging people to create their own videos or take to social media to describe why they’re #ProudToPlay.

Tune in at www.youtube.com/youtube starting on June 3rd to see the #ProudToPlay video and dedicated programming showcasing some of the LGBT and sports themed content on YouTube.

Athletes that support #ProudToPlay include:
Jason Collins, NBA player for the Brooklyn Nets, said, “Proud to play means to me someone who is proud of all the things that makes them who they are, whether it be your race or religion or sexual orientation, heck…your height! It’s important to be proud of who you are.

I was encouraged to tell the first person that I ever told that I was gay when I was 33 years old because he did a video online campaign called It Gets Better. I saw his video and it encouraged me to finally be brave enough to speak the words out loud that “I am gay”.

As a professional athlete, we accept that we are role models. It’s great that regardless of your sexual orientation, that the conversation was started and people started talking about being gay in professional sports. If you’re straight, just continue to be supportive. And if you see someone being bullied, or hear language that’s inappropriate, speak up and speak out. It’s very important to have those allies out there who are being brave for some of us who aren’t yet ready to be brave on our own.”

John Amaechi, former NBA player, said, “I am proud to play because it is important for people to know that it is only the inclusion of the full spectrum of society that will make sport the truly unifying force it can be in the world. YouTube has always been a place where those without a voice in the mainstream could find a place to start a conversation. I know that the Proud to Play campaign can highlight the cause of those in the LGBT and straight ally communities who just want to be able to contribute to and seek enjoyment from sport.”

Kobe Bryant, #ProudToPlay supporter and ally said, “Equality in sports has to be there for your team to be successful. It’s these little building blocks that you learn through playing sports. The bravery of being yourself is really the anchor of it all. You have to be brave in your own convictions, you have to be brave about who you are and you have to be brave to step forward and step into the spotlight and declare to the rest of the world this is who I am.”

Organizations including GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, You Can Play, Laureus, Athlete Ally, and the LGBT Sports Coalition have supported this campaign and work to promote equality.

“As athletes from across nations and leagues come out, sports fans throughout the world are embracing LGBT players and ejecting bias from the game,” said GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “GLAAD is thrilled to support Google and YouTube in this landmark initiative to help tackle stereotypes and build understanding.”

Raymond Braun from YouTube said, “Sports bring together people from all backgrounds and experiences through a shared passion, and YouTube shares that spirit of connecting diverse communities to make a difference. In celebration of the upcoming games in Brazil and LGBT Pride month, we’re honoring the LGBT athletes, their supporters, as well as the YouTube Creators who stand up for diversity in sports and elsewhere—all of whom help create an equal and inclusive playing field for everyone.”

The post YouTube celebrates pride month with #ProudToPlay first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Grammy award-winning rocker Melissa Etheridge will perform at the opening ceremonies for WorldPride 2014 set for June 20 in Toronto. The free concert, to be held in Nathan Philips Square, kicks off the 10-day international celebration of LGBT pride.

Etheridge will perform “Uprising of Love,” her anthem in support of the Russian LGBTQ community. The song became the inspiration for a celebrity coalition by the same name, Uprising of Love, an organization in support of the safety and dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Russians. As a result, 100% of all proceeds from the song go toward the Russia Freedom Fund, which is one of the only ways to make immediate and direct financial contributions to LGBT activists in Russia.

“The lyrics of ‘Uprising of Love’ came from such a personal and passionate spot in my soul and I’m more than excited to share this anthem with the world,” says Etheridge in a statement. “Love is intangible and unpredictable, but it’s the one feeling that is universally experienced and desired by all.”

Watch as Etheridge debuts “Uprising of Love” at the Uprising Of Love coalition launch event in New York City late last year.

)

The post Etheridge to headline Toronto WorldPride 2014 first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The week is over, but not forgotten, as hundreds of Curaçao visitors and residents celebrated the island’s very first Pride Week, September 25-29th, 2013. The Caribbean island of Curaçao has always been welcoming to the LGBT community with great accommodations, events and attitude, but Gay Pride Week took the island’s commitment to the LGBT community to another level.

Hundreds of people showed up at The White Affair event at the Floris Suite Hotel, host property of Curaçao’s first Pride Week, transforming the hotel into “Pride City” for the week. In addition, hotels and restaurants contributed with gourmet food and drinks in support of Pride Week. They included the Hilton Curaçao, Curaçao Marriott Beach Resort, Santa Barbara Beach & Golf Resort, Kyoto Restaurant, Tempo Doeloe Restaurant, Pirate Bay, Sandton Kura Hulanda Hotel and others.

Read more at TheSeattleLesbian.com

The Seattle Lesbian online magazine reaches more than 188,000 readers per week globally.

The post Curaçao celebrates first gay pride first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Five facts you should know about LGBT history.

The post 5 facts you need to know for Pride month first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Some of the members of the Dykeadence committee, left to right, Laura Burns; Christine Johnson, GrrlSpot producer; Reina Rodriguez, and Sara Pic, Queerlesque! producer. Photo Credit: Flora

BY HEATHER CASSELL
GirlsThatRoam.com

Girls are making their mark on Southern Decadence. Once a sinful week long party for gay boys started more than 40 years ago, four years ago the girls busted into the party with Dykeadence.

Dykeadence is a five daylong celebration, August 30 – September 2, with dance and pool parties, burlesque shows and erotic readings, and more culminating joining in the annual Southern Decadence Parade through the French Quarter in New Orleans during Labor Day weekend.

Seed of passion

The grassroots event is turning into a grass fire since it started four years ago with a small group of women simply seeking to join in on the Southern Decadence party and parade.

Southern Decadence started as a farewell fiesta for a friend who was moving away from the Big Easy in the late 1960s that became an annual event. The party attracts more than 100,000 party goers annually in recent years, says Robert “Bobby” Revere, one of the organizers and promoters of the party, citing information from the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Tired of being on the fringe of the event, queer women developed their own complementary party that has rapidly grown from 300 women attending the first parties in 2009 to an estimated 1,500 last year, says Sara Pic, one of the founding Dykeadence committee members.

Last year was significant, it was the first year Dykeadence broke above the even mark by a few hundred dollars with Queerlesque! raking in $1,500 that covered production costs of the event with a little left over. Nearly all of Dykeadence events are open to the public for free. Organizers marked the party’s growth by incorporating and beginning plans for a foundation to support local organizations, Sara, a native queer woman of New Orleans, says.

Participants in New Orleans’s Dykeadence’s, a new addition to the legendary southern party Southern Decadence. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dykeadence

Sinful delights

Organizers anticipate this year’s event to attract queer women travelers and their friends from New York to San Francisco, as well as from all over the South to hang out by the pool at the Get it Wet!, get hot and bothered at the Faster Pussycat Kinky Costume party, and work up a sweat at GrrlSpot’sFleurt.

Flurt is produced by Christine Johnson, director of GrrlSpot, New Orleans biggest women’s monthly parties.

The weekend’s events also include Queerlesque!, a burlesque show, erotic readings from some of New Orlean’s steamiest authors, social mixers and more leading up to the parade.

“I’m very excited about Dykeadence this year,” says Christine, who is also one of Dykeadence’s core committee members, in a June 13 new release announcing the event. “This year, we’re taking out all the stops.”

“It’s going to be a weekend filled with ‘just let yourself go,’” adds Sara. “It will definitely be memory making.”

Don’t miss out on one debaucherous moment. Sign up to get your Dykeadence updates while they are still hot.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Queerlesque! made $15,000. The correct amount was $1,500 covering the production costs and leaving only a few hundred dollars left over to help produce next year’s event.

To purchase reprints, contact editor [@] girlsthatroam [.] com.

Article originally published by GirlsThatRoam.com

The post Dykeadence steams up New Orleans this weekend first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Photo: 510oaklandpride.com

BY HEATHER CASSELL
GirlsThatRoam.com

Showing pride in Oakland, two producers kick off Oakland Pride weekend with the launch of fiveTEN, a host of events throughout the weekend, starting Friday, August 31 and ending with a dance party on Sunday, September 2, that aim to go beyond LGBT Pride celebrating the East Bay city.

Christine, a 30-something freshly minted Oakland resident arrived in the Bay Area from her home state of Texas four and a half years ago, and began promoting parties throughout the Bay Area forming Eden Pride Events, formerly Movement Productions/Eden in the Bay. Her co-producer of the weekend even is Chaney Turner, a 32-year old Oakland native who owns SocialLife, a promotion and event production company in Oakland.

Read more at GirlsThatRoam.com

A version of this article originally appeared in the Bay Area Reporter.

The post fiveTen shows pride in Oakland first appeared on Lesbian.com.

LGBT Ugandans, defying the climate of fear and oppression the Ugandan administration has fostered, marched in a Pride parade over the weekend that, mercifully, went off peacefully.

Reports the New Yorker:

“Can you imagine that the worst place in the world to be gay is having Gay Pride?” Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera asked a crowd of cheering gay men, lesbians, transgendered men and women, and queers somewhere in between. It was Saturday afternoon, and we were on the shores of the giant, cloudy Lake Victoria in the Ugandan city of Entebbe, where L.G.B.T. activists had decided to stage the country’s first Pride Parade. Nabagesera, a lesbian activist covered, for the occasion, in glitter and neon spray paint, with homemade angel wings, was being half-sarcastic. A barrage of media coverage has painted the country as a hell for gays—a place where they are suffering and being attacked constantly—and, despite the need to combat such threats, L.G.B.T. Ugandans were tired of hearing a story that ignored their nuanced experiences of both joy and hardship. But Nabagesera was also sincerely pleased: a crowd of nearly a hundred people had come out, fears of arrest notwithstanding, to celebrate their existence. The air was thick with confetti, paint fumes, and anticipation.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Ugandan LGBT community shows pride despite risk first appeared on Lesbian.com.

On Thursday, July 19, the White House will honor ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things across the country to ensure safety, dignity, and equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, as demonstrated by their inspiring video entries in the LGBT Pride Month Video Challenge.

“Today’s Champions of Change have worked tirelessly to improve the lives of LGBT people across the country, and they represent countless other individuals and organizations who are equally dedicated to equal rights for LGBT people,” said Jon Carson, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. “The collective efforts of these Champions, and others like them, are crucial to achieving our goal of full equality for all Americans, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. We are honored to join them in the march towards a more perfect union.”

Read more at TheSeattleLesbian.com

The Seattle Lesbian online magazine reaches more than 188,000 readers per week globally.

The post White House highlights LGBT Pride Month Champions of Change first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Kenya held its first ever gay pride event this week at the US Embassy. The event joined other gay pride celebrations being hosted at US Embassies around the world this month.

The event occurred in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and consisted of a small invite-only forum attended by Kenyan LGBT allies and US diplomats.

Read more at dot429.com

The post Kenya holds first ever Pride event first appeared on Lesbian.com.