New lesbian drama on the way for UK

A BBC lesbian drama is causing a stir in the UK before it has even aired.

  Lip Service follows the lives of a group of lesbians in their 20s. Although it is set in Glasgow rather than West Hollywood, there are clear parallels with The L Word – it's based around friendships, relationships, general life struggles and sex.
The show's apparently 'saucy' content has already grabbed British tabloid headlines, with News of the World reporting a show insider as saying: "Lip Service has the same buzz as Queer As Folk but might prove too edgy. There are a lot of naked sex scenes between women. Bosses think it's too explicit for BBC1 - so they're starting it on (BBC) Three."
Another 'insider' questions whether it's an attempt by BBC bosses to gain ratings.
However a reviewer from Beehive City says "Lip Service is far more than glossy lesbo-porn (although it does have quite a lot of that in it), the show has a solid script and multi-dimensional characters that have been well crafted ... It is such a pleasure, and somewhat of a shock by recent standards to see BBC Three commission a genuinely interesting, engaging and provocative drama that young people will enjoy."
Lip Service premieres on October 12 on BBC Three.

Watch a brief clip from the show below:

Corrie Lesbians Steal The Show!!

CORRIE lesbians Sacha Parkinson and Brooke Vincent upped the glamour stakes at a bash last night - but their co-star Jennie McAlpine couldn't quite keep up.

 The actresses attended the Manchester Pride Gala Dinner along with Vicky Binns, who plays Weatherfield's Molly Dobbs.

Sacha and Brooke, who play on-screen lovers Sian Powers and Sophie Webster, stole the show as they flaunted their trim figures in short frocks.


But Jennie decided not to don a trendy dress like her fellow stars - and opted for a shiny pink jumpsuit instead, teamed up with a white belt.

Her character Fiz Stape isn't exactly known for having a great dress sense.

But it looks like Jennie should take more inspiration from her co-stars in real life.

Local bakery refuses to make rainbow cupcakes for gay customer

An Indianapolis bakery is under fire from the gay and lesbian community over a choice not to serve a diversity group.

 

First national survey finds 1.5 per cent of adults say they are gay, lesbian or bisexual

A survey of 450,000 UK adults has found that 1.5 per cent were willing to identify themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual. The Integrated Household Survey, carried out by the Office for National Statistics, is the second largest after the census.
This is the first time the survey has asked about sexual identity and the ONS stressed that the question was "experimental".
Nearly four per cent of those asked refused to answer, said they did not know or described themselves as "other".
Of the five per cent who did not say they were heterosexual, one per cent said they were gay or lesbian, 0.5 per cent said they were bisexual and 3.5 per cent refused to answer the question, described themselves as "other" or said they did not know.
Gay rights charity Stonewall and the government both use a figure of six per cent of the population being lesbian, gay or bisexual, which works out at 3.6 million people.
This figure comes from 2005 research by the Department for Trade and Industry.
Other studies on sexual orientation have found that the figure varies between six and ten per cent.
In this study, the ONS used the phrase 'sexual identity' rather than 'sexual orientation'. No responses were collected by proxy (allowing, for example, another member of a household to answer).
Stonewall welcomed today's figures but said they must be treated with "caution".
Ruth Hunt, deputy director of public affairs at Stonewall, said the charity was pleased the research had been carried out but said it was a "shame it took so long".
She told PinkNews.co.uk: "Six per cent is the Treasury actuary figure. Based on this, the figure is still about right.
"We have to view these results with caution. It's the first time people have been asked and we expect the figures to rise in a few years."
Ms Hunt added that such data should be collected as a matter of course, including in the census, and said Stonewall had urged GPs' surgeries to ask patients about their sexual orientation.
On the danger of the 1.5 per cent figure being used to argue against gay equality, she said: "We know other equality strands such as faith have this problem [of surveys not being representative]. Even the figures for faith do not reflect the lived experience of those on the ground."
The largest numbers of gay, lesbian and bisexual people were found in London, while the lowest numbers were in Northern Ireland.
Men were twice as likely as women to describe themselves as gay/lesbian.
The research also asked about religion, with 71 per cent of people describing themselves as Christian and 21 per cent saying they had no religion.
The research carried out between April 2009 and March 2010 and comprises the results of six ONS surveys.
Participants were telephoned or presented with cards asking which of the following options best described how they see themselves: heterosexual/straight, gay/lesbian, bisexual or other.
Ninety-five per cent said they were heterosexual, one per cent said they were gay or lesbian and 0.5 per cent said they were bisexual.
Just under three per cent stated "don’t know" or refused the question, one per cent did not provide a response and 0.5 per cent defined themselves as "other".

Florida ends ban on gays and lesbians adopting

The US state of Florida has overturned its ban on gays and lesbians adopting children.

Governor Charlie Crist announced the 3rd District Court of Appeal ruling yesterday and said the ban would end immediately, although the decision can be appealed.

The 1977 law made Florida the only US state to ban gay adoption, despite permitting gays and lesbians to foster children.

 Yesterday, the court upheld a 2008 ruling by a Miami-Dade judge who approved the adoption of two young brothers by Martin Gill and his male partner.

The boys were neglected by their biological parents and were placed with Mr Gill and his partner in 2004.

Writing on behalf of the three judges on the appeal court panel, Judge Gerald Cope pointed out the disparity of allowing gays and lesbians to foster but not adopt children.

"It is difficult to see any rational basis in utilising homosexual persons as foster parents or guardians on a temporary or permanent basis, while imposing a blanket prohibition on those same persons," he wrote.

"All other persons are eligible to be considered case-by-case to be adoptive parents."

Gay rights campaigners in Florida have warned that gay adoption opponents may seek to place a measure in the state constitution barring gay people from adopting.

Speaking after the ruling, Mr Gill said: “This is just the news that we have been waiting so anxiously for here.

“This is a giant step toward being able to give our sons the stability and permanency that they are being denied.”

Leslie Cooper, a senior staff attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union, which supported Mr Gill, said: “Florida’s law unconstitutionally singles out gay people and the children in their care for unequal treatment, denying many children the long-term security that comes with adoption.

"We are grateful that the court saw the cruel consequences this law has on children, especially those in foster care who may never know the security of a permanent home.”

Lip Service – Lesbian drama coming to BBC Three

Sex, lies and true love in modern Scotland feature in BBC Three’s seductive new relationship drama Lip Service, which follows the lives of a group of twenty-something lesbians.
Starring Laura Fraser, Ruta Gedmintas and Fiona Button, Lip Service is a compelling and sexy six-part series filmed on location in Glasgow, written by Harriet Braun (Mistresses, Attachments) and produced by Kudos Film And Television through BBC Scotland.

Cat (Laura Fraser) is a self-assured architect, unnerved by the return of her former lover, Frankie (Ruta Gedmintas), a talented but emotionally reckless photographer who arrives back in Glasgow unannounced, bringing havoc in her wake.
Fiona Button plays struggling actress Tess, Cat’s best friend and flatmate, who has an uncanny knack of falling for the wrong sorts of women.

Here, writer and creator Harriet explains her inspirations and motivations behind Lip Service.
“The idea initially came about because I was approached by Derek Wax at Kudos (executive producer of Lip Service) who wanted to work on an original project with me. I’d seen Queer As Folk and Go Fish years ago and thought I’d love to do something like that.
“Then The L Word came along, but I figured there was definitely room for another lesbian drama. In my view, lesbians are under-represented on British television – so I thought it was high time we had a series in the UK. And anyway, The L Word was set in California and the weather was much better – it’ll rain a lot more in Lip Service!
“The BBC were extremely receptive to the idea of Lip Service. We didn’t meet any resistance at all – in fact, quite the opposite.

“I wanted to create believable, multi-faceted characters that people can really identify with and also to mix comedy and drama. I wanted it to feel very real and often our most embarrassing moments can end up being very funny in retrospect. There’s also a mystery element to Lip Service that keeps you guessing.
“It was very important to me to that the lesbian characters in this story feel authentic to a lesbian audience. But I don’t think anyone could attempt to portray every member of a community in a drama – if they tried, they’d fail.
“Lip Service follows characters at a pivotal point in their lives – they’re either in their late-twenties or early-thirties. It’s a time when people are often frustrated about where they are in life and wonder if they’ll ever be the person they want to be. Or they’re aware they’ve made mistakes and don’t want to make the same mistakes again. You start to take stock and realise life isn’t a dress rehearsal.

“As a writer, I’m always most interested in what’s going on under the surface. So, it’s also about secrets. I think most of the characters, in one way or another, are hiding their emotions or fears and desires and it’s about the consequences of playing emotional games or not being honest with yourself or others.
“At the heart of this drama are a group of friends and their lives and loves. The relationship between Frankie and Cat is complicated and a catalyst for drama in the series.
“I think, in some ways, Cat and Frankie are two sides of the same coin. They seem very different because Frankie is irreverent, impulsive and boundary-less, whereas Cat’s fairly uptight, a control freak and responsible. But I think, underneath all of that, they are both quite troubled and insecure and are drawn to that in each other. They would also like a bit of what the other one has – Cat would like to be more impulsive and Frankie would like to be more responsible.
“And, of course, the back story is that they were teenage friends who fell for each other. Frankie was Cat’s first love and then they got into a relationship in their twenties, but never got a chance to see it through because Frankie got cold feet and ran off to America. So, for Cat, it’s unfinished business – it’s someone that you loved and can’t let go of and have never really been able to forget.
“At the point Frankie returns, Cat’s trying to move on and then her ex-lover arrives home and it just brings everything back up to the surface again.”
“I can certainly relate to the great love Frankie and Cat have. I was interested in exploring the terrain of people who have been friends and looking at what happens when it turns into love – those situations can be very complicated and drawn out. And I think you see it again and again, people who repeatedly go back to the same person, people who can’t leave an ex alone – even if they are not particularly good for each other.
“Glasgow’s a fantastic city and I loved filming there – although we were outside working on location a lot and I didn’t think it was possible for feet to be that cold!
“I remember once we were filming on the roof terrace of an office block. It was meant to be a mild evening where two characters had gone up there to have a romantic moment. But, when we actually filmed the scene, there was a blizzard so, for continuity’s sake, the crew had to stand over the actors with umbrellas to keep the snow off them, while they were shivering away in light autumn clothing!
“If you’re a fan of character-led drama with a lot of comedy and suspense, then you should have fun watching Lip Service.
“You don’t need to be part of a particular ‘group’ to understand the emotions portrayed, be it heartbreak or fear of failure or love. After all, I really enjoyed Six Feet Under and I’m not an undertaker!”

Derek Wax, award-winning executive producer (Sex Traffic, Occupation), Kudos Film & Television, adds: “So many of the best dramas derive in some way from a writer’s personal passion and experience – as a producer, I’m interested in finding and exploring worlds that haven’t been portrayed before. Harriet wanted to write about characters grounded in a reality which we rarely see on television, to portray an under-represented group and culture.
“In Lip Service, Harriet has created a funny and emotionally-layered relationship drama. She has the ability to combine tragedy and comedy from moment to moment so that one minute you’re laughing and the next you’re deeply affected, as the characters are being torn apart by the emotional pressures of their lives. They are very real, warm and human, but Lip Service doesn’t shy away from exploring the darker side of human relationships.
“Also, what we have created is a drama that is not issue-driven. The characters don’t live in a bubble, it’s about the everyday reality of being gay and being young and it avoids clichés.
“The cultural climate is more accepting towards a drama like Lip Service. It’s hard to think of this series being made 10 or 20 years ago, but lesbian culture is much more visible and confident now. It feels like the time is right for it.”
Matthew Read, executive producer, BBC Scotland, adds: “Lip Service is a truthful, funny and engaging drama which shows an alternative side of Glasgow that’s seen rarely on our screens. Harriet Braun has created a brilliant set of characters that have been brought to life by an incredibly charismatic cast. BBC Scotland are extremely excited to have been involved in the production alongside Kudos Film and Television.”

Study: Children of Lesbians May Do Better Than Their Peers

The teen years are never the easiest for any family to navigate. But could they be even more challenging for children and parents in households headed by gay parents?
That is the question researchers explored in the first study ever to track children raised by lesbian parents, from birth to adolescence. Although previous studies have indicated that children with same-sex parents show no significant differences compared with children in heterosexual homes when it comes to social development and adjustment, many of those investigations involved children who were born to women in heterosexual marriages, who later divorced and came out as lesbians

 

For their new study, published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers Nanette Gartrell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco (and a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles), and Henry Bos, a behavioral scientist at the University of Amsterdam, focused on what they call planned lesbian families — households in which the mothers identified themselves as lesbian at the time of artificial insemination.
Data on such families are sparse, but they are important for establishing whether a child's environment in a home with same-sex parents would be any more or less nurturing than one with a heterosexual couple.


The authors found that children raised by lesbian mothers — whether the mother was partnered or single — scored very similarly to children raised by heterosexual parents on measures of development and social behavior. These findings were expected, the authors said; however, they were surprised to discover that children in lesbian homes scored higher than kids in straight families on some psychological measures of self-esteem and confidence, did better academically and were less likely to have behavioral problems, such as rule-breaking and aggression.
"We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls," says Gartrell. "I was surprised to find that on some measures we found higher levels of [psychological] competency and lower levels of behavioral problems. It wasn't something I anticipated."
In addition, children in same-sex-parent families whose mothers ended up separating did as well as children in lesbian families in which the moms stayed together.
The data that Gartrell and Bos analyzed came from the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), begun in 1986. The authors included 154 women in 84 families who underwent artificial insemination to start a family; the parents agreed to answer questions about their children's social skills, academic performance and behavior at five follow-up times over the 17-year study period. Children in the families were interviewed by researchers at age 10 and were then asked at age 17 to complete an online questionnaire, which included queries about the teens' activities, social lives, feelings of anxiety or depression, and behavior.
Not surprisingly, the researchers found that 41% of children reported having endured some teasing, ostracism or discrimination related to their being raised by same-sex parents. But Gartrell and Bos could find no differences on psychological adjustment tests between the children and those in a group of matched controls. At age 10, children reporting discrimination did exhibit more signs of psychological stress than their peers, but by age 17, the feelings had dissipated. "Obviously there are some factors that may include family support and changes in education about appreciation for diversity that may be helping young people to come to a better place despite these experiences," says Gartrell.
It's not clear exactly why children of lesbian mothers tend to do better than those in heterosexual families on certain measures. But after studying gay and lesbian families for 24 years, Gartrell has some theories. "They are very involved in their children's lives," she says of the lesbian parents. "And that is a great recipe for healthy outcomes for children. Being present, having good communication, being there in their schools, finding out what is going on in their schools and various aspects of the children's lives is very, very important."
Although active involvement isn't unique to lesbian households, Gartrell notes that same-sex mothers tend to make that kind of parenting more of a priority. Because their children are more likely to experience discrimination and stigmatization as a result of their family circumstances, these mothers can be more likely to broach complicated topics, such as sexuality and diversity and tolerance, with their children early on. Having such a foundation may help to give these children more confidence and maturity in dealing with social differences and prejudices as they get older.
Because the research is ongoing, Gartrell hopes to test some of these theories with additional studies. She is also hoping to collect more data on gay-father households; gay fatherhood is less common than lesbian motherhood because of the high costs of surrogacy or adoption that gay couples face in order to start a family.

Katy Perry wants to sleep with X Factor's Cheryl Cole

American singer Katy Perry has sensationally revealed that she wants to sleep with X Factor judge Cheryl Cole.

The I kissed A Girl star, who was recently a guest judge on the show in Dannii Minogue's temporary absence, said: "I adore Cheryl, she's amazing."

She also added that if she weren't with British comedian Russell Brand, she'd want to be in a relationship with the Girls Aloud star.

"I'm very happy with my own English stud but if I wasn't with him I'd be trying to date Cheryl," she added.

"Nobody should be as beautiful as she is. I know people get turned on by Simon's power but if I was single I'd rather sleep with Cheryl than Simon."

Perry's debut single, I Kissed A Girl, topped the charts in more than 30 countries, including America, Australia, Canada, Ireland and the UK.

Lesbians excluded from Google's new feature

Google’s brand-new feature which starts searching for your items before you’ve even pressed ‘Search’, is fine unless you’re looking for ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’ things.

Google Instant “excludes certain terms related to pornography, violence and hate speech,” says the net giant. Unfortunately, ‘lesbian’ and ‘bisexual’ – reasonable terms used to refer to someone’s sexual orientation – are included on that list.

Meanwhile, the words ‘homosexual’, ‘gay’, ‘queer’, ‘dyke’, ‘transvestite’, and ‘transgender’ are OK to be used, while the word ‘faggot’ is not – wisely, as the word often regarded as ‘hate speech’.

”’Lesbian’ and ‘bisexual’ are not pornography, violence, or hate speech,” notes US-based lobby website Change.org. “It seems discriminatory for Google to place lesbian and bisexual in the porn category. They are valid identities, and they should be accepted by Google as appropriate and allowable search terms.”

Change.org is encouraging people to petition Google to OK ‘lesbian’ and ‘bisexual’ for its Instant search function.

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