GayTalkRadio: Gay News Magazine Headlines (T24T-2)

News:

Advocates for at-risk LGBT youth will host a reception Oct. 8 to celebrate the formation of the Wanda Alston Foundation and the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Wanda Alston House, the District's sole housing program specifically geared to providing support services to homeless or at-risk LGBT or questioning youth. The namesake Wanda Alston, first director of the Mayor's Office of GLBT Affairs, was killed in 2005.

Since opening, the Wanda Alston House has helped more than 40 youths find permanent housing. The facility houses eight beds, which, advocates note, are the only eight in the entire city dedicated to LGBT youth. This lack of dedicated accommodation for homeless LGBT youth led The DC Center, Washington's LGBT community center, to circulate a petition calling on the D.C. Council to allot more beds for LGBT homeless youth.

The Wanda Alston Foundation was founded this year to help shore up the financial stability of the Wanda Alston House. While the foundation's tax-status application is under review, its fiscal agent is the LGBT community and services center Casa Ruby, and it receives some D.C. government funding.

The foundation has recently formed a nine-person board of directors and elected officers, with Christopher Dyer, director of the Mayor's Office of GLBT Affairs during the Adrian Fenty administration, serving as president. Kevin Brunell, a local LGBT business owner, will serve as vice president; Xion Lopez, a former Wanda Alston House resident, will serve as secretary; and Kurt Vonderan, a local LGBT activist, will serve as treasurer. Brian Watson, formerly of Transgender Health Empowerment, which opened the Wanda Alston House, will serve as Wanda Alston House executive director.

David Mariner, director of The DC Center, which is hosting the celebratory happy hour for the house and the foundation, congratulated all involved.

''They are having an exciting new beginning, and we are happy to do whatever we can to support them,'' he said.

The Wanda Alston House Celebration and Foundation Kick-Off Reception will be held at Mova Lounge, 2204 14th St. NW, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Tickets cost $10 each and may be purchased online at thedcenter.org. Donations may also be made directly to wandaalstonhouse.org.

...more

News:

A study released earlier this month by a nationally recognized think specializing in research related to the LGBT community found that amending Maryland's civil-rights law to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity statewide would extend existing protections to more than half of all Marylanders. Efforts at such a change in recent years have either been defeated in committee or been denied a vote by the full Maryland Senate.

According to the Williams Institute, which is affiliated with the University of California at Los Angeles Law School, passing a law that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression would cover the 53 percent of Marylanders living in the 20 counties where transgender people may be denied employment, housing, credit or the ability to use public accommodations. That would include approximately 9,200 transgender people who are thought to live in those counties, which include D.C. suburbs in Prince George's, Charles, Anne Arundel and Frederick counties.

''This study highlights that the majority of Marylanders would benefit from a consistent, statewide law that protects against gender identity discrimination,'' Christy Mallory, the author of the study, said in a statement. ''Additionally, a clear and uniform policy could also benefit businesses by eliminating the inconsistency of existing protections in the state.''

Currently, only four jurisdictions – Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County and Montgomery County – have laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression in employment, housing, credit and public accommodation. Howard County's law goes a step further, preventing law-enforcement officers from harassing or discriminating against citizens based on protected characteristics, while Baltimore City's law prohibits discrimination in public education and by its health and welfare agencies.

Maryland's state employees are protected by an executive order signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity by stating that ''personnel actions'' should be based on ''merit and fitness'' and cannot take gender identity into account.

Advocates for expanded protections for transgender residents have been making many of the same arguments as Mallory for the past eight years, but have been unable to make headway, due in large part to behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the state Senate. In some years, as earlier in 2013, the measure has failed in committee. In other years, it has passed committee but has never received a full up-or-down vote by the upper chamber. In 2011, a similar bill that did not include protections in public accommodations passed the House of Delegates, 86-52, before being killed in the Senate.

Dr. Dana Beyer, the executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, says polling done during Maryland's marriage-equality fight in 2012 showed that two-thirds of the state, including at least 60 percent of Prince George's County residents, support nondiscrimination protections for transgender people. Beyer said the problem is not lack of support for the issue, but the structure of Senate committees.

''We don't have a bill because we had the wrong committee assignments last year,'' says Beyer, referring to a swap orchestrated by Senate leadership that placed Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's Co.) on the Judicial Proceedings Committee and Sen. Victor Ramirez (D-Prince George's Co.) on the Finance Committee in the hope of passing a wind-energy bill, indirectly sinking gender-identity bill.

''All we need is to get it past the [Judicial Proceedings] Committee,'' Beyer says, adding she is sure the bill will pass if given a vote on the Senate floor. Last year, 23 of 47 senators publicly cosponsored the measure, and Sen. Brian Frosh (D-Montgomery Co.) did not cosponsor but voted for the measure in committee, meaning there are at least 24 votes to pass the bill once it is taken up for a vote.

The LGBT-rights organization Equality Maryland has been holding a ''Summer of Supporters'' campaign aimed at recruiting residents from various areas of the state to sign postcards that ask legislators to pass a gender-identity bill, explains Owen Smith, a field organizer for Equality Maryland.

Smith says that since the campaign launched July 1, organizers have collected more than 1,000 postcards and have hundreds more to count. That number, Smith says, does not include postcards collected prior to July. He says that Equality Maryland, one of the member organizations of the Maryland Coalition for Trans Equality, will deliver to individual legislators piles of postcards from constituents asking them to support the bill.

''We want to show every legislator that, regardless of where you live in the state, the people who live here, vote here and pay taxes here want these protections for everyone, and stand behind them,'' says Smith.

...more

A new book aims to get the real story behind Matthew Shepard's murder, but is emboldening the right wing and sullying Shepard's image worth a still-unclear "truth"?

Yes, yes, the "zipless f***" lady.

As summer winds down the passion for gay rights and visibility grows stronger across the globe.

A gay San Francisco Sheriff’s Department lieutenant who’d pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge is back in custody after skipping a court hearing this week. In a plea bargain reached in May, Lieutenant Vincent Calvarese, 49, entered his plea to a misdemeanor false imprisonment charge just before his trial was about to start. [...]

A volunteer safety group in San Francisco has begun highlighting LGBT-related unsolved homicide cases on its website, hoping to help find the people responsible for the deaths. Castro Community on Patrol has been working with inspectors at the San Francisco Police Department for several months to find information in the cases, the oldest of which [...]

Mike Marshall, a gay man and well known nonprofit leader in San Francisco, is relocating to Oregon and stepping down from the environmental group he has overseen since 2009. The organization Restore Hetch Hetchy, which has long fought to dismantle San Francisco’s water reservoir inside the boundaries of Yosemite National Park high in the Sierras, [...]

An election observer told the Bay Area Reporter Sunday, September 15 that most of the people running on an accountability slate were the leading vote-getters in the race for seats on the San Francisco Pride Committee board, but a quirk in the bylaws may mean that it’s mathematically impossible for anyone to win. Tensions flared [...]

The longtime executive director of a San Francisco nonprofit that offers medical and social services to sex workers announced this week that she’s stepping down from the position. Naomi Akers said in an email distributed Thursday, September 12 to “community members, allies, supporters, and stakeholders” that she’s leaving the top post after seven years. However, [...]

[Update]: The man charged with kicking a robbery victim in the face shortly after this year’s Pink Saturday celebration is now a fugitive, who has been listed as a fugitive, is expected to return to custody in San Francisco soon. San Francisco Superior Court Judge John Allen issued a bench warrant last week for Christopher [...]

[Updated 9/13/13, 6:45 p.m.] Late Friday afternoon, a letter from the San Francisco Pride Committee to members retracted an earlier letter whereby the board members seeking re-election endorsed themselves. The letter, from Pride board President Davace Chin and Pride’s interim attorney Julius Turman, said in part that the previous 9/12/13 email sent 24 hours prior, [...]

Ahead of a visit by a Russian delegation of public safety officials, Santa Clara County supervisors have condemned the Eurasian country’s leaders for adopting several anti-gay laws. The policies curb the rights of LGBT people, noted gay Supervisor Ken Yeager, including a law that imposes large fines on Russian citizens who provide basic LGBT information [...]

A new survey of LGBT consumers shows that vodka brandÂ Stolichnaya has reason to worry about the boycott of its products due to anti-gay Russian laws. Done by gay-owned Community Marketing, Inc., a gay and lesbian marketing research firm that is based in San Francisco, the annual survey asked respondents to write from memory the name [...]

Are you a twenty-something or thirty-something gay or lesbian hipster, techie/gamer type or look like you hang out a lot in gay bars? Then HBO is calling. Male and female extras who can look the part of those three categories, as well as numerous other San Francisco denizens, are needed for the premium cable channel’s [...]

The one and only Cher herself revealed that she will kick off her â€œDressed To Killâ€ 49 city North American Tour beginning in Phoenix on March 22^nd with stops in NY, LA, Boston, Las Vegas, and other major markets. Cher shared the happy news with her fans following her performance on the Today Show this morning.

A full list of â€œDressed to Killâ€ tour dates and cities follows this release. The national tour promoter is Marshall Arts USA. For ticket information and to sign up for tour updates please go to Cher.com .

Cherâ€™s previous tour â€œThe Farewell Tourâ€ later dubbed â€œThe Never Can Say Goodbye Tourâ€ was one of the most successful tours ever by a solo artist and played for a record-breaking 325 dates and seen by over 5.5 million people.

American ExpressÂ® Cardmembers can purchase their tickets to select cities before the general public beginning Monday September 30^th, 10am through Thursday, October 3^rd, 10pm.

For all online tickets purchased (presale and general public), ticketholders will receive a free copy of Cherâ€™s new album â€œCloser To The Truthâ€, out September 24^th on Warner Bros Records.

Cher is in New York this week celebrating the albumâ€™s release with upcoming appearances on David Letterman (Sept. 24^th) and Live! with Kelly & Michael (October 1^st). Cher will also be appearing as a mentor with Blake Shelton on NBCâ€™s The Voice airing in October.

CHER â€˜DRESSED TO KILLâ€™ TOUR

Sat, March 22 Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center

*Mon, March 24 Houston, TX Toyota Center

*Wed, March 26 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center

Fri, March 28 Little Rock, AR Verizon Arena

Sat, March 29 Tulsa, OK BOK Center

Mon, March 31 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena

Wed, April 2 Pittsburgh, PA Consol Energy Center

*Fri, April 4 Washington DC Verizon Center

Sat, April 5 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun

Mon, April 7 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre

Wed, April 9 Boston, MA TD Garden

Fri, April 11 Indianapolis, IN Bankers Life Fieldhouse

Sat, April 12 Detroit, MI Joe Louis Arena

Wed, April 23 Buffalo, NY First Niagara Center

Fri, April 25 Montreal, QC Bell Center

Sat, April 26 Ottawa, ON Canada Tire Centre

*Mon, April 28 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center

Wed, April 30 Columbus, OH Nationwide Arena

Fri, May 2 Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena

Mon, May 5 Charlotte, NC Times Warner Cable Arena

Wed, May 7 Raleigh, NC PNC Arena

*Fri, May 9 Brooklyn, NY Barclays Center

*Sat, May 10 East Rutherford, NJ Izod Center

*Mon, May 12 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena

Wed, May 14 Jacksonville, FL Veterans Memorial Arena

Fri, May 16 Orlando, FL Amway Center

Sat, May 17 Ft. Lauderdale, FL BB&T Center

Sun, May 25 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand

Wed, May 28 Denver, CO Pepsi Center

Fri, May 30 Lincoln, NE Pinnacle Bank Arena

Sat, May 31 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center

Mon, June 2 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center

Wed, June 4 St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center

Fri, June 6 Milwaukee, WI BMO Harris Bradley Center

Sat, June 7 Chicago, IL Allstate Arena

Mon, June 9 Des Moines, IA Wells Fargo Arena

Wed, June 11 Minneapolis, MN Target Center

Fri, June 20 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre

Sat, June 21 Saskatoon, SK Credit Union Centre

Mon, June 23 Edmonton, AB Rexall Place

Wed, June 25 Calgary, AB Scotiabank Saddledome

Fri, June 27 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena

*Sat, June 28 Seattle, WA Key Arena

Mon, June 30 Portland, OR Moda Center

*Wed, July 2 San Jose, CA SAP Center at San Jose

Sat, July 5 Ontario, CA Citizens Business Bank Arena

*Mon, July 7 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center

*Wed, July 9 Anaheim, CA Honda Center

Fri, July 11 San Diego, CA Valley View Casino Center

(*American ExpressÂ® Cardmembers can purchase tickets before the general public.*)

On Sunday night, Julia Louis-Dreyfeus won the Academy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for â€œVeep,â€and Julia mocked her character on the show with co-star Tony Hale (who had won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series earlier in the night while accepting her award. You can watch the video here: As […]

The post Julia Louis-Dreyfus delivers best Emmy acceptance speech ever! [VIDEO] appeared first on GaySocialites.com.

The first two polls released in New York City’s race for Mayor show Democrat Bill de Blasio with a commanding lead over his Republican contender Joe Lhota. The Marist Institute for Public Opinion poll conducted for WNBC and the Wall Street Journal, released earlier in the week, put de Blasio at 65 percent and showed […]

The post New York City Mayoral polls point toward de Blasio appeared first on GaySocialites.com.

I don’t talk a lot about my family but I think it’s time for you all to meet them. Mind you, I have more than one. Now-a-days you kinda have to just to remain sane and balanced. I’m just saying that if you have people that are so special and important to your life that […]

The post I’m Just Saying by Kenyatta Khan! Meet the family… appeared first on GaySocialites.com.

Bill de Blasio officially became the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City this week as Bill Thompson conceded the race eliminating any chance of a run-off election. Thompson finished second to de Blasio in the November 3rd primary, but it was debatable as to whether or not de Blassio earned the 40 percent […]

The post Democratic unity in NYC Mayor’s Race appeared first on GaySocialites.com.

On Wednesday night, the first openly gay house guest won CBS’s Big Brother as Andy Herren took home the $500,000 prize. After a three-part “Head of Household” competition, Andy beat out his fellow alliance members Gina Marie and Spencer.Â That gave Herren the choice of which house guest he would take would join him in […]

The post Big Brother crowns first gay winner [VIDEO] appeared first on GaySocialites.com.

- Sponsors -