Vodka on Ice : Gay Bars’ Chilly Relationship with Russian Politics

Recently, LGBT activist and columnist Dan Savage stopped drinking Russian vodka to show his disgust towards the latest anti-gay laws in the country.

Soon after, he found gay bars and nightclubs all around the world, from Chicago to London, Hollywood to Sydney, San Francisco to New York, joining him by refusing to serve the famous Russian beverage.

In recent days, I've read a lot of articles saying that boycotting Russian vodka in gay bars is pointless, and heard that point of view from quite a few LGBT activists who I have a lot of respect for, including Nikolai Alekseev, organiser of Moscow’s first Gay Pride back in 2006.

However, as much as I respect Alekseev, and as much as I don’t always agree with everything Dan Savage says, I must agree that in this case, I agree with Savage on this boycott.

Why? History repeats itself.

Why People Don't Listen to Silence

IDAHOBIT involves a minute of noise rather than silence (S)

IDAHO (also known as IDAHAT and IDAHOBIT) is the International Day Against Homophobia. It is set on May 17th every year, and its main aim is to raise awareness of bigotry that is often experienced by QUILTBAG people all around the globe. May 17th was the date that the World Health Organisation declassified homosexuality as a disease.

The IDAHO Project: What is it?

17th May 2013 will mark the 9th year of existence of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, or as it's more commonly known, IDAHO. The date, 17th May, was chosen to mark and celebrate the day when homosexuality was officially recognized by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a sexual orientation and not a disease. On that day in 1990, being gay was removed from their International Classification of Diseases.

So yes, May might seem a long way away, but I'm not here to talk specifically about the day itself, but more particularly about the first worldwide event which will be taking place this year, and Freedom Requires Wings is a part of it.

At the Intersection of Race and Orientation

Disillusioned Face? I need you again!

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof and none of the above, the honeymoon period is over. I say this with a heavy heart, but the inevitable has happened. My bleeding leftist heart is quick to attach itself to various causes and is just as easily disillusioned with every transgression my new comrades commit. I thought I'd learned after Julian Assange was accused of rape that no movement is perfect. Evidently I have not learned well enough. Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof and none of the above, the LGBT movement has a race problem. It's here. It's queer. And we are not going to get used to it.

Bully For You

Because it's never like this in real life

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof, and none of the above, today the student body at my Texas high school shared a common experience, the trauma of which bonded us more closely. Class relationships were strengthened through the laughter, anger, shame, and confusion that this experience evoked in us. Together we suffered, and together we prevailed. Yes, my friends, today the administrators of my high school showed the school their anti-bullying presentation through the morning announcements. Of course, this being Texas and they being school administrators, I have my critiques about this undertaking. You already know the big one. There was absolutely no mention of LGBT bullying.

Gay, Straight, Black or White, Marriage Is a Civil Right!

That's me in the grey tee there, with my friends.
[S]

Dudes and dudettes, it's that time of the three-months again. Activists from all around Brisbane flocked together to march against government enforced discrimination- or should I say, we marched for marriage equality.

This rally was a little different to others- different starting location, large difference in temperature to last time (oh, Queensland.) and a little break sitting down in the middle of the road halfway through.

We met wonderful new people, listened to downright inspirational stories, and persevered through heat (and for some, hangovers..) to make our voices heard.

YOU GUYS THEY'RE ON TO US

Pictured: The author with the Gay Illuminati

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof and none of the above, I am writing to you in dire circumstances. Our candidate, the puppet president Barack Obama may have won (or stolen) this election from the righteous god-fearing challenger Mitt Romney, but I tell you that our people are in danger. The breeders are getting wise, my friends, and if we don't do something, our plan to subvert the Constitution and bring about the reign of the Antichrist may be brought to nothing yet. It's almost too horrible to say, yet it is my duty to inform you that...they know. They know everyone's born straight and that we turn them gay. What's more, they have discovered our sleeper cells in their schools, slowly turning their children gay. We could yet lose the Culture War.

"It Gets Better? When?" How do we end the gay suicide epidemic?

Jamey Rodemeyer was bullied to death and his
bullies chanted about how happy they were in
front of his sister. (S)

You don't have to look farther than any LGBT-related forum to come across someone who's feeling suicidal. You don't have to read further than the comments section of an "It Gets Better" video on YouTube. And sometimes there are no warning signs at all. Sometimes depressed gay teenagers will just take their lives in silence, leaving it as a grotesque surprise that no-one could have seen coming.

The It Gets Better project was created by Dan Savage back in 2008 to give suicidal teens hope for a better future; to let them know that the way they're feeling now will go away eventually.

And yet, the message of hope is not enough to prevent some from taking their own lives. Again, you don't have to look further than these places to find a teenager asking "when does it get better?" And you don't have to be a scientist with your nose in statistics to know that it's a problem.

Queer Tea Party

Not the same ones we made,
but the same design.

Dudes and dudettes!

It’s Saturday the 3rd of November (in the US at least!), and this week I finished a major anti-homophobia campaign in my school!

If you missed the memo, here’s a bit of a rundown on what we did.

We started with a discussion on issues we’d like to cover with our Amnesty International Committee. We knew we had little over a month of time to work with, so were determined to find something that would be straightforward enough to pull off. (Our other campaigns this year went with a little fizzle and no pop, so we were all keen to do a million times better this time around). We eventually concluded that we were all sick of hearing other students using homophobic slurs in everyday language, and that the best way to make a group of teenagers listen was to offer them free food.

The Adventures Of Queer High School Student: Tea Parties

[S]

 Greetings earthlings!
I can quite honestly say that this article today is coming from the same place all those failed high school essays did- I'm writing this at 6.30am on a Friday morning, dreading school (my first class is film. I fell asleep on my documentary script instead of writing it last night. It's due today.) and trying to work out how to fit everything in.

So what does a Queer High School Student do?
She writes. Something completely different, but she writes.

Picture this; Queer High School Student, backflipping off school structures and stopping injustice when she sees it.
Dressing in skin-tight lycra and her old Converse that she wears with everything.
(But no capes!)

Yes, I am pretending to be a superhero instead of doing productive stuff. I don't even think this qualifies as an article, but we'll see.

Pray Away the Gay, French Style

For over three decades, clinics claiming to be able to "cure" homosexuality have done more harm than good to the psyche of countless gay men and women.

The different courses include shock therapy and many other traumatizing procedures to try and "make someone straight". However, although most of these more violent methods have been phased out in these clinics, their treatments remain just as damaging.

Recently, a "Christian" organisation in the U.S claiming to be able to "liberate those bound by sexual and relational brokenness", Desert Stream, announced it would be extending "gay cure" treatments to its branches in 10 countries worldwide, including France, Australia, Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and all over the US.

Living in France, one of the countries threatened by these phony cure clinics, I did more research into the work Desert Stream's French branch, Torrents de Vie (Waterfalls of Life). This involved me going undercover as a gay Christian to converse with a man who has been through the clinics.

Setting the scene: Being queer in Australia and New Zealand

Rally for marriage equality - May 2012

Dudes, dudettes, dudes-in-between*; greetings! My name is Liv and I will be your host this evening. Orange juice, anyone? It's on the house.

You've probably all noticed I'm new here, and that's cool. Before I get started, I'll rattle off a few facts about myself.

1. I'm seventeen years old and in grade eleven of high school- I should be grade twelve, but that's another story. 
2. I'm a Kiwi living in Australia. (No, I did not have a pet sheep. No, I do not ride kangaroos to school.) 
3. I have a fascination with psychology and want to study it at uni as soon as I get out of school (and back to New Zealand), but journalism's my back up option. 
4. I love Glee, My Chemical Romance, Flight of the Conchords, Harry Potter, Gin Wigmore, Alice in Wonderland, Homestuck, and Daria. 
5. I'm a cis-gendered polysexual** in a long distance relationship with a genderfluid omnisexual. Basically we're both really gay and don't leave our respective houses often. 

Right, that gets that bit out of the way. Who wants rainbow-cake?

I live in Brisbane, Australia, and I come from a small city in New Zealand called Dunedin. I've been out as bi/lesbian/pansexual/lesbian again/demisexual/polysexual for two or so years (it took me a while to work that one out), and this year I've become more active in the LGBTQ* community as I've become more comfortable in my sexuality.

"His Very Act of Protest Confers Dignity on Him"

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof, and none of the above, I'd like to start us out with some Ancient Gay History before delving into into the Introduction to Paleolithic Gay History that will be the subject of this article. Because I am a member of Generation Z, by "Ancient" I mean "one year ago" and by "Paleolithic" I mean "like, fifty or sixty years ago, like, you know?". Anyway, about a year ago in the San Antonio area, Democratic Party county chairman Dan Ramos stirred up some trouble by comparing gays to termites, the Tea Party (okay, that one hurt), and the Nazi Party. Yes. The ones that slaughtered gays, lesbians, and other gender nonconformists. Those Nazis. Well, I'd like to spend this article making good ol' Dan look like more of an idiot than he already does, a herculean task no doubt, but we'll give it the old college try, shall we?

Not a Bunch of Pussies: The reaction to Pussy Riot jailing

Punk band Pussy Riot protest the government (S)

Three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years in jail following an anti-Putin, pro-LGBT protest at Moscow Cathedral in February of this year.

According to government-funded, 24-hour news channel Russia Today, the "vulgar song" has "caused a storm in Russian society" and more than 60 people were arrested outside the courthouse.

They also said that "making an exception for religion [in the freedom of speech act] is a dangerous path". So is this really reflective of that picture of a tyrannic Russia which some people are trying to paint?

Casual Gays

Clearly the repository of the sum of human knowledge.

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof, and none of the above, I have long been a firm believer of the idea that one can learn everything one needs to know about a culture simply by watching its television programs. This applies to how different cultures view LGBT people. Comparing two shows from two different cultures that depict queer characters can tell us a great deal about how advanced that particular society is.

Take Glee for example, one of the few mainstream American TV shows featuring gay characters. The first openly gay character on Glee, Kurt Hummel, has his life threatened to the point of his having to leave McKinley High School. Then, cheerleader Santana Lopez stays closeted for several episodes for fear of backlash from the high school community.

"I feel sorry for Tyson Gay"

"I feel sorry for Tyson Gay". A lot of us have heard this over the last few days, and you don't have to be on the internet to hear it... Oh, and they're not talking about the fact he came 4th in the 100m men's finals of the Olympics yesterday, oh no.

People say they feel sorry for Tyson Gay because of his name; my mother included. I mean, after all, what could be more embarrassing than having to run in front of 80,000 people in the Olympic stadium, plus the millions watching at home with the word "GAY" slapped across your chest in big capital letters? Running with the word "BLACK"?

Do people say they feel sorry for Jack Black every time his name appears on an album cover or in movie credits?

Think about it, people might have said that 50 or 60 years ago. But not today. Nobody thinks twice about Jack Black's name.

Ending "Gay Cures" - How you can help and why you should

"Gay conversion therapy", sometimes called "reparative therapy" or "gay cures" as they're more commonly known, started back in the 1920s right back at the beginning of psychoanalytic therapy; the era of the world's first psychotherapists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

In the 1920s, homosexuality was seen to be pathological and attempts to "treat" gays were seen as appropriate, however the vast majority of psychotherapists believed that it was virtually impossible to change a person's sexual orientation.

Views such as these began to dissipate after the Stonewall riots in 1969, but remain in society today, largely amongst the strongly religious communities even though "gay cures" have been proven to be useless. Now, there's a movement underway to stop them.

The Big Gay Battle of Disney World

You may have heard of Disney World, Orlando's unofficial 'Gay Day' events. 

Gay Days began in 1991 as a single designated day (always the first Saturday in June) when the LGBT community and friends were encouraged to "Wear Red and Be Seen" while visiting the world’s most popular theme park. Today the event isn't just one day but a series of events all around Orlando and draws in over 150,000 gay and lesbian visitors.

But this year, yet again, it looks like there are anti-gay groups looking to spoil the fun and laughter and start a fight.

Does Boris Johnson care about LGBT people?

"I am going to stick up for the rights of the LGBT community and when I'm Chairman of the MPA - which I will be from October - I am going to make it a personal mission of mine to crack down ruthlessly on homophobic hate crime." - Boris Johnson, Mayor of London London Gay Pride 2008 Strong words from Boris Johnson back in June 2008, but as Chairman of the MPA (Metropolitan Police Authority), did he deliver?

"We don't need no education"

Source

Pink Floyd may have said the wrong thing - we definitely need general education on the LGBT spectrum, regardless of how opposed so many of society seem to be.

Thus far a huge amount of prejudice has been thrown at the LGB part of the orientation spectrum. Right now, though, I think we need to be focusing on the T. Homophobia – the kind of homophobia that makes people go out and attack anyone who isn’t almost stereotypically straight – is declining. It happens, and certainly verbal homophobia is a huge issue that needs to be addressed, but transphobia is something that I can only see increasing.

Look at history, if you don’t believe me. Increased awareness of homosexuality led to an increase in homophobic crimes and attacks. As soon as a minority stands up and asks for equal rights, you can be damn sure that the majority will stand and oppose it.

So why make history’s mistake twice?