Saturday, October 23, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
GLOBAL to celebrate national event
The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center will be celebrating National Coming Out Day today by hosting a Cougar Ally Mixer.
At the mixer, which takes place from 4-5 p.m. in the University Center, participants can meet allies, people who aim to learn about LGBT issues, speak with members and share their personal experiences.
“This is the 22nd annual National Coming Out Day,” LGBT Resource Center Director Lorraine Schroeder said. “GLOBAL, the LGBT student organization on campus, has celebrated it in various ways over that last few years. UH Wellness has also held events for the occasion in the past. This event is celebrated all over the country.”
On her experience as the LGBT Resource Center Director, Schroeder said that her position has been worthwhile.
“My experience as the director has been very rewarding,” she said. “From the beginning students, staff, faculty and people from the community have reached out to the Center.”
Schroeder said that she feels the most rewarding part of being the director is the mentoring program.
“I just paired up mentors with mentees last week and I can already see the positive impact it is having,” she said. “The mentees are becoming more confident and comfortable with who they are and my mentors are learning valuable skills. It’s amazing how far a little support can go.”
The LGBT Resource Center has many more events planned throughout the fall semester. The LGBT will also host a movie night at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Calhoun Lofts.
“(The) Amuse Bouche Entertainment, which shows a LGBT movie screening once per month, usually focuses on African American lesbians, but not always,” Schroeder said. “They are wonderful films. The organizer, Jackson, researches and chooses the best films out there.”
They are also collaborating with Houston Transgender Unity Committee to raise attention to hate crimes against the LGBT community. The Transgender Day of Rememberance, which is a memorial for those who have lost their lives, will take place from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 20 in the A.D. Bruce Religion Center.
“Some people need resources and support, and (others) want to volunteer and get involved,” Schroeder said. “The volume of people who have contacted the Center for various reasons speaks of the tremendous need for a resource center like this.”
True Lesbians
At the mixer, which takes place from 4-5 p.m. in the University Center, participants can meet allies, people who aim to learn about LGBT issues, speak with members and share their personal experiences.
“This is the 22nd annual National Coming Out Day,” LGBT Resource Center Director Lorraine Schroeder said. “GLOBAL, the LGBT student organization on campus, has celebrated it in various ways over that last few years. UH Wellness has also held events for the occasion in the past. This event is celebrated all over the country.”
On her experience as the LGBT Resource Center Director, Schroeder said that her position has been worthwhile.
“My experience as the director has been very rewarding,” she said. “From the beginning students, staff, faculty and people from the community have reached out to the Center.”
Schroeder said that she feels the most rewarding part of being the director is the mentoring program.
“I just paired up mentors with mentees last week and I can already see the positive impact it is having,” she said. “The mentees are becoming more confident and comfortable with who they are and my mentors are learning valuable skills. It’s amazing how far a little support can go.”
The LGBT Resource Center has many more events planned throughout the fall semester. The LGBT will also host a movie night at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Calhoun Lofts.
“(The) Amuse Bouche Entertainment, which shows a LGBT movie screening once per month, usually focuses on African American lesbians, but not always,” Schroeder said. “They are wonderful films. The organizer, Jackson, researches and chooses the best films out there.”
They are also collaborating with Houston Transgender Unity Committee to raise attention to hate crimes against the LGBT community. The Transgender Day of Rememberance, which is a memorial for those who have lost their lives, will take place from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 20 in the A.D. Bruce Religion Center.
“Some people need resources and support, and (others) want to volunteer and get involved,” Schroeder said. “The volume of people who have contacted the Center for various reasons speaks of the tremendous need for a resource center like this.”
True Lesbians
Friday, October 8, 2010
Gay roles on television need to be real
When it comes to the portrayal of gay and lesbian people on TV, it's still the same old issues and cliches
Let me begin by saying that whatever conclusions I draw, they will be incorrect. I will have said the wrong thing, sold out, screwed over the sisterhood or dissed my brothers. I'm simply not capable of representing the diverse and dizzyingly rich panorama of gay existence, and neither, it transpires, is television.
Although the BBC and Channel 4 fare well in this report, there is much left to do. The responsibility must fall on the biggest hitters – soap operas. Watched by millions of middle Englanders week after week, they could change the perception of gay people where it matters most. In 1987, EastEnders' Barry and Colin shared a chaste mouth-graze. In 1994, Brookside's Beth and Margaret locked lips. Coronation Street discovered lesbians this year. If gay history had evolved as slowly and timidly as television portrayed it, then the first drag queen would be tiptoeing out of the primordial ooze around about now.
What saddens me is that the same issues keep arising. For gay men, it's the predominance of the camp cliche. For lesbians, despair at the outdated butch-femme stereotypes. Gay women generally are under-represented, unless you count the number of times the word "lesbian" or "dyke" features as a lazy comic's punchline.
As compensation we have gay-centric dramas; the excellent Sugar Rush and the groundbreaking Queer as Folk. Maybe the up-and-coming Lip Service on BBC3 will join those ranks. But surely, in order for true ground to break, there has to be a middle way – something between the tepid sexlessness of the soaps' queer couplings and the separatist universe of the US show The L Word, in which the characters are like something out of the Barbie Lesbian Range: the tennis pro with detachable miniskirt, the hairdresser with blow-drier.
For me the solution is less "L" word than "I" word. Issues. Gay characters are a gift because they can deliver the shock value that soap operas are hardwired to. But surely, by normalising rather than pathologising gay culture you please not only gay respondents, but the 19% of heterosexual viewers that the report reveals are still squeamish about our presence on their screens.
When gay characters stop cat-hoarding, scatter-cushion throwing and compulsively shagging — when we're just sitting around paying bills like Average Jos – then middle England, and the Queer Nation, will be happy
True Lesbiღns
Anna Nolan: Why the world should welcome lesbian couple's quintuplets
HOW the world has changed. We learned this week that a lesbian couple, one of whom is Irish, are due quintuplets. Rosemary Nolan and Melissa Keevers, who now live in Australia, are due five babies at the end of the year.
The world has changed because this phenomenon has been reported so positively, with such celebration. And so it should be. These five little beings will no doubt have all the love they can get from two committed parents, who already have a young child together.
The donor, it seems, is some dark-haired law student in Australia who is to remain anonymous. But there will no doubt be 30 men who donated to that particular fertility service, all thanking their lucky stars that they don't have to pay maintenance to this brood!
That said, because news of the multiple pregnancy - unusual not just because the parents are lesbians but because the five babies were conceived without IVF - travelled like an Aussie bushfire, those same 30 men will no doubt wonder, 'Are they mine?'
Most sperm donors never become aware of who has their children, or indeed any further details whatsoever. But in this case, one wonders, when the 30 men see the pictures - as no doubt they will - of the babies when they're born, will one donor see himself in their eyes and say: "Definitely mine alright."
The notion that two lesbians are having babies without the influence of a father will be a difficult thing for some people to get their heads around.
You'll probably hear the usual high-pitched objections being dusted off and wheeled out about the impact of gay parents on children or the negative effect of children without fathers.
But I have yet to meet a child of a gay couple who is troubled or damaged as a result of this particular type of upbringing.
Several years ago I made a documentary, as part of the Would You Believe series, that told the story of two women who had two sons. They also conceived their boys through donors. This happened in London in the late 80s, early 90s.
They moved to Ireland and set up home just outside Dublin.
I was fascinated with the two young men these lesbian mums produced and I had the same questions as anyone else: What's it like having two mothers? Was it difficult growing up? Did either of them become gay themselves? (Answers: Great. No and NO!).
They had an unshakeable sense of self, these lads - and because of their "colourful" upbringing, were aware of a much broader world than many of their peers.
They were smart, warm, funny and very much like any Irish boys you may know.
But the biggest question for me was, "What about your fathers? Do you want to find them, to get to know them?"
I was sure that one day a little voice would tell them to seek him out. I felt strongly that as one gets older, one needs to know one's history, one's identity.
Both boys answered the same. They had no desire to meet their biological fathers. They were happy with their life. Nothing was missing.
Rosemary and Melissa may also have to deal with some of these questions when their five little ones are old enough. But it should be no different or no more a problem just because their mothers are lesbians, than if they were adopted, if there was a stepfather involved or a hundred and one other family issues ordinary people deal with every day.
Until then, there will be 40 nappy changes a day, 30 bottle feeds; and many arms needed to rock them to sleep.
May the five little babies be healthy and happy, because that's all that really matters.
- Anna Nolan
The world has changed because this phenomenon has been reported so positively, with such celebration. And so it should be. These five little beings will no doubt have all the love they can get from two committed parents, who already have a young child together.
The donor, it seems, is some dark-haired law student in Australia who is to remain anonymous. But there will no doubt be 30 men who donated to that particular fertility service, all thanking their lucky stars that they don't have to pay maintenance to this brood!
That said, because news of the multiple pregnancy - unusual not just because the parents are lesbians but because the five babies were conceived without IVF - travelled like an Aussie bushfire, those same 30 men will no doubt wonder, 'Are they mine?'
Most sperm donors never become aware of who has their children, or indeed any further details whatsoever. But in this case, one wonders, when the 30 men see the pictures - as no doubt they will - of the babies when they're born, will one donor see himself in their eyes and say: "Definitely mine alright."
The notion that two lesbians are having babies without the influence of a father will be a difficult thing for some people to get their heads around.
You'll probably hear the usual high-pitched objections being dusted off and wheeled out about the impact of gay parents on children or the negative effect of children without fathers.
But I have yet to meet a child of a gay couple who is troubled or damaged as a result of this particular type of upbringing.
Several years ago I made a documentary, as part of the Would You Believe series, that told the story of two women who had two sons. They also conceived their boys through donors. This happened in London in the late 80s, early 90s.
They moved to Ireland and set up home just outside Dublin.
I was fascinated with the two young men these lesbian mums produced and I had the same questions as anyone else: What's it like having two mothers? Was it difficult growing up? Did either of them become gay themselves? (Answers: Great. No and NO!).
They had an unshakeable sense of self, these lads - and because of their "colourful" upbringing, were aware of a much broader world than many of their peers.
They were smart, warm, funny and very much like any Irish boys you may know.
But the biggest question for me was, "What about your fathers? Do you want to find them, to get to know them?"
I was sure that one day a little voice would tell them to seek him out. I felt strongly that as one gets older, one needs to know one's history, one's identity.
Both boys answered the same. They had no desire to meet their biological fathers. They were happy with their life. Nothing was missing.
Rosemary and Melissa may also have to deal with some of these questions when their five little ones are old enough. But it should be no different or no more a problem just because their mothers are lesbians, than if they were adopted, if there was a stepfather involved or a hundred and one other family issues ordinary people deal with every day.
Until then, there will be 40 nappy changes a day, 30 bottle feeds; and many arms needed to rock them to sleep.
May the five little babies be healthy and happy, because that's all that really matters.
True Lesbiღns
Thursday, October 7, 2010
FBI investigating lesbians' house fire as hate crime
The FBI confirms it is now investigating the Labor Day weekend house fire of a lesbian couple in Tennessee as a possible hate crime.
Laura Stutte says "it has shaken me to the core."
Carol Ann Stutte says "this is our first time from the safe house and she did great."
Laura and Carol Ann Stutte say years of threats from a particular neighbor had escalated. They installed a gate, security lights, and barbed fencing around their home near Vonore in Monroe County.
Carol Ann says "the final threats near the end were we were going to be killed and our house burned down. And we were told what's better than one dead queer is two dead queers to our face. That's when we finally started filing police reports."
They came home from a Labor Day weekend trip to find a slur painted on their garage next to where their house used to stand.
Laura says "everything we worked for for the last 5 years just burned down to the ground."
Carol Ann says "I was just sitting out on the land, no home, and these wonderful people like angels came and got us and said you're coming with us. You will be safe and that's where we've been staying."
They don't plan to rebuild here. But do want to stay in east Tennessee.
Carol Ann says "so many many people have come out and are sending their love and prayers."
As for the person who did this, Carol Ann says "I want to see them get help. I do not want them to be able to do this to anyone else."
True Lesbiღns
Laura Stutte says "it has shaken me to the core."
Carol Ann Stutte says "this is our first time from the safe house and she did great."
Laura and Carol Ann Stutte say years of threats from a particular neighbor had escalated. They installed a gate, security lights, and barbed fencing around their home near Vonore in Monroe County.
Carol Ann says "the final threats near the end were we were going to be killed and our house burned down. And we were told what's better than one dead queer is two dead queers to our face. That's when we finally started filing police reports."
They came home from a Labor Day weekend trip to find a slur painted on their garage next to where their house used to stand.
Laura says "everything we worked for for the last 5 years just burned down to the ground."
Carol Ann says "I was just sitting out on the land, no home, and these wonderful people like angels came and got us and said you're coming with us. You will be safe and that's where we've been staying."
They don't plan to rebuild here. But do want to stay in east Tennessee.
Carol Ann says "so many many people have come out and are sending their love and prayers."
As for the person who did this, Carol Ann says "I want to see them get help. I do not want them to be able to do this to anyone else."
True Lesbiღns
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