LifeLube

LGBT racial minority hit hard by social and financial inequality

2012-01-27T14:30:00.000-06:00

via stuffqueerpeopleneedtoknow

Black* members of the LGBT community experience stark social, economic and health disparities compared to the general population and their straight black and white LGBT counterparts, according to a Center for American Progress report.

Data in the report emphasized the intersections of the black racial identity with sexual orientation and gender identity, revealing:

■Families headed by black same-sex couples are more likely to raise their children in poverty.

■Black lesbians are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases.

■Black gay and transgender youth are more likely to end up homeless and living on the streets.

CAP recommends overcoming these issues with a policy agenda that “seeks to understand and tackle the structural barriers—discriminatory systems, conditions and institutions around socioeconomic status, race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity—that perpetuate negative economic, health, and other life outcomes among this population.”

The report also suggests gay policy priorities, like marriage equality, underserve many populations within the LGBT community.

“Despite significant gains in securing basic rights for LGBT Americans over the past decade, the quality of life for black gay and transgender Americans has remained virtually unchanged,”

Aisha Moodie-Mills, CAP advisor on LGBT policy and racial justice, wrote in a statement.

“Marriage equality is vital to overall progress, but marriage alone is not a silver bullet to reduce the disparities black gay and transgender populations face.”

In the report, CAP made the following recommendations to overcome issues faced by the people of color in the LGBT community:

CAP recommendations for addressing economic insecurity

■Adopt inclusive family policies and safety net programs.

■Pass housing anti-discrimination laws.

■Take a comprehensive federal approach to gay and transgender youth homelessness.

■Make consumer financial protection a priority.

■Pass employee non-discrimination laws.

■Support gay and transgender entrepreneurs.

■Legally recognize same-sex relationships.

Read the rest

They Called Me a Slut at 82

2012-01-27T12:00:00.005-06:00

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by David Leddick

"The 80-year-old slut." That's what a friend calls me. "82," I say, correcting him. "82."

We have to completely rethink what age numbers stand for.

Yes, I am 82, and yes, I have a lover who is well under 30, and yes, I have an excellent sex life with him. Our relationship began when he said to me, "I usually don't like guys, but you give me a boner." For someone over 80, this is good news.

I told yet another friend, a woman, in this case, "He either really is into me or he's the best actor in the world." She said, "What's the difference?" and she's right.

As the baby boomers bulge over the 65-year mark, the time has come when what we think we will be doing in the latter part of our lives will change, must change.

If you may easily live to 95, do you really plan to sit about for 30 years, from 65 to 95? That's a third of your life.

I prefer to think that 80 to 90 is just late middle age, and we have to be ready for it. We have to run our lives and not let our lives run us. Exercise.

Control all that eating. Do all these things that we always wanted to do and have not done yet. Our lives are meant to be lived, and in that final third we can do it.

Baby boomers (and even those younger) will find themselves having a shift in their thinking as to who they are and what their potential is.

The attitude of younger people in the 21st century is bound to filter upward, and those over 65 will not be living as the previous generation did when they reached that age.

Read the rest

[VIDEO] Out Airman Will Raise Funds for HIV

2012-01-27T10:00:00.003-06:00

via Advocate, by Michelle Garcia

A gay airman who came out to his family and the world the day "don't ask, don't tell" was officially repealed, announced that he will raise funds for HIV programs by joining the AIDS/LifeCycle this June.

Randy Phillips, a member of the U.S. Air Force stationed in Germany, will ride 545 miles with thousands of other participants from San Francisco to Los Angeles, with a personal goal of raising $10,000.

He's now asking for pledges from the big YouTube following that he's accumulated since coming out last year.

"There's so much stuff I could do with [this platform]. I could show you dumb kitten videos, I could try to sell you corny shirts that nobody wears, or I could try to do something good in the world," he said in a YouTube video.

Phillips said he was compelled to join the ride after speaking with filmmaker Ryan Yezak, who created the short clip "The Gay Rights Movement," which also went viral on YouTube earlier this month.

Phillips added, "I haven't been on a bicycle since high school — an actual pedal bicycle. I've never rode 545 miles, but I signed up to do the AIDS/LifeCycle."

Funds raised by AIDS/LifeCycle go directly to HIV services offered by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Read the rest

Ed Negron's Daily Motivation 1-27-2012

2012-01-27T07:34:00.000-06:00

Friday, January 27, 2011

Today's Gift

When men are rightfully occupied, then their amusement grows out of their work as the color petals out of a fruitful garden. —John Ruskin

What do we need most in order to be happy? Certainly we all need to be loved. Yet we need even more than that. The spirit also wishes to be needed. When we are needed, no matter what age we are, we serve a purpose for others. When we are needed, we will be loved, as well as respected, imitated, and rewarded with gratitude. Our needs are not great empty pits to be filled any way we can. They are the couplings by which we connect to those we love. Our needs also tell us what others want, and how to enrich their lives--which also enriches ours. How do we become needed? We have only to look at our own needs and give what we need to others--love, respect, kindness, and generosity. When we realize we are needed, we realize we also need others.

What do I need that I can give to another person today?

From Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©

Read more Daily Motivations at http://thework-in.blogspot.com

The Faces Missing from 'The Gay Rights Movement'

2012-01-26T15:00:00.003-06:00

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Zach Stafford

I am a gay, multiracial male who grew up in Tennessee. When I was little I felt like an outsider, like many gay folks, but my "outsider" position was not just because I was gay; it was much more complicated.

I was one of the only people of color in my school, and I was the most effeminate little boy there, as well, which pegged me immediately as a "faggot."

I also was pudgy, not very athletic, and liked video games too much, but those are all minor aspects of why I didn't fit in. Needless to say, no one around me was like me, the puggy, effeminate, brown boy living in the South -- and that was lonely.

As I grew up and got to high school, a few gay kids did start coming out, and I did make some gay friends, but these kids, due to being in a white suburb, were all white.

So my race and my gayness then began to work together, making me feel different, making me feel hopeless, making me unable to consider that it could get better.

When I watched some of my favorite gay-friendly TV shows, like Will & Grace, I would see gay folks having fun, being gay, and enjoying life in a city, most of the time.

This gave me my first insight into what being gay was, and my first suspicion that gay was not like me -- it was wealthy, it was white, and it didn't bother to have people who looked like me for me to look up to, or even begin to understand what my experience was like as a gay person of color.

After graduating from high school, moving to Chicago, and reaching drinking age, I went to the famous Boystown neighborhood and soaked in the abundance of gay bars, restaurants, centers, and anything you can imagine.

However, I felt out of place, like I didn't belong; I remember looking around and noticing that most of the men looked like Abercrombie models, or at least tried to look like them, and were mainly white.
I got very little attention there, and the little attention I got was due to my exoticism, because when one is brown, that could mean one is Brazilian, Egyptian, Puerto Rican... the list goes on. Gay had a look, and I wasn't that look.

So as I watched the YouTube Video "The Gay Rights Movement," which has recently gone viral, I got progressively sadder as the video played through footage of what the gay community seems to consider milestones.

Lots of familiar faces rolled by, and happy emotions did rise inside me, but I still felt hints of sadness, a sadness that was familiar, that wasn't new, and I knew exactly what it was: I, and a lot of other people within the gay community, were not there.

It's not like we weren't ever there; there have been tons of queer folks of color who have done amazing things in America.

For instance, the video shows Martin Luther King Jr., but not his advisor and one of the main powers behind him, Bayard Rustin, a gay black man.

The video shows Ellen Degeneres over and over talking about suicides, but not another famous lesbian who is black, Wanda Sykes.

It shows coverage of the suicides of gay male youths, but not the countless suicides of transgender people, which happen yearly and go quite unnoticed, just like the faces of trans people in the video.

It doesn't show a lot.

Read the rest

How to Be a Better Homosexual

2012-01-26T13:00:00.002-06:00

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Domenick Scudera

Apparently, I am not a very good homosexual.

I have had a real education this week. I started listening to Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. He is very smart and has provided me with an eye-opening education.

He is teaching me about what it means to be gay. I have learned things I never knew before. I am not sure what his credentials are, but he talks about homosexuality quite often, so it is obvious that he is an expert.

First, he has made it clear to me that the average homosexual has hundreds of sexual partners, some as many as 500 or 1,000 in a lifetime.

I did not know this. He said that we homosexuals admit this in our own literature, but I haven't read that literature. I feel so remiss! I am way behind.

I am not getting any younger, so it seems that if I want to be at least average, then I'd better start sleeping around more. I figure if I find at least one new lover each week for the next few years, I will be getting closer to filling my quota. What have I been thinking these past 16 years, being monogamous?

Precious time has been wasted.

I also found out, thanks to Mr. Fischer, that I need to get some poppers. Using poppers is the way that gay people stay sexually stimulated for more than one sexual encounter in the same night.

I did not know this. If I want to get closer to 1,000 or at least 500 sexual partners, it is a good idea to get some poppers so that I can maintain sexual activity with more guys per evening.

And did you know that the research says that 96 percent of us who engage in homosexual behavior are using poppers? And that poppers are the main reason for the spread of AIDS? They sound so dangerous! I am so out of the gay loop that I do not know how one even goes about getting poppers.

Can you order them online? Or will I have to find a drug dealer on a street corner somewhere?

I also might need to reevaluate Nazism. I always thought that Nazis were reprehensible, but I did not know that we homosexuals are closely aligned with them. Why is it not more widely known that the Nazi party was started in a gay bar and consisted largely of homosexuals?

Thank goodness for Mr. Fischer. This fact would have gone largely unnoticed if he had not brought it to the world's attention. He also says that today's homosexuals are basically Nazis.

I want to be a good homosexual, so I better give this whole Nazi thing a second chance.

Mr. Fischer says that gay parenting is "inhumane." I do not have children, but he reminded me that if I want to be a good gay, I need to start recruiting other people's children early on.

I have not done any gay recruiting before. How embarrassing! He does not provide any information about how to recruit, but I bet it is outlined carefully in the gay literature that I have failed to keep up on.

For now, I will start hanging around schoolyards so I can build trust with some kids, and then I will slip in some gay recruitment techniques later.

Read the rest

Is It a Choice to Be Gay? It Depends on the Meaning of 'It'

2012-01-26T10:58:00.000-06:00

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Nathaniel Frank

When Cynthia Nixon, who became famous for her role on Sex and the City, recently told The New York Times that being a lesbian was, for her, "a choice," her words lit up the LGBT listservs, angering many who believe that Nixon is giving comfort to the enemy.

Those who believe sexual orientation is a choice are far more likely to oppose our equality, while folks who think we are "born that way" are more likely to support us.

If we can't help it, goes the thinking, we shouldn't be punished for it; and the corollary to that: if you can't choose to be gay, there's no need to stigmatize it as a way to discourage people from making the wrong choice.

Those angered with Nixon's comments felt they were both unhelpful and incorrect. They say that research, along with so many of our own experiences, make clear that being gay or lesbian is not a choice.

And what Nixon was really describing, although she refused to apply the term, was the fact of being bisexual, since she had previously been partnered with a man (Nixon later said, "I don't pull out the 'bisexual' word because nobody likes the bisexuals").

But many have also defended her words, particularly lesbian and bisexual women. They say she was only speaking of her own experiences and that if she feels it was a choice for her, it's not for anyone else to say otherwise.

The problem is that this is not just about what Cynthia Nixon "feels." It requires more rigorous thinking about what identity and choice really entail.

Nixon's comments further muddy a matter that sometimes seems to stem from a vast but rather simple confusion in American thinking.

To paraphrase President Clinton, the question depends on what the meaning of "it" is. When I hear "it's a choice" (or "it's not a choice"), I can only make sense of the statement if I know if we're discussing same-sex attraction or same-sex action.

I can't say it better than the blogger John Aravosis: "It's only a choice among flavors I already like." That is, I don't choose to like chocolate ice cream, but I choose whether, when, and how much to eat it.

The idea that one can choose to be attracted to one type of person over another is nonsensical, just as no one is accused of choosing to prefer chocolate over strawberry.

The question is what someone will choose to do with those feelings (eat chocolate or strawberry, partner with this person or that), and whether any particular choice is morally good, bad, or neutral.

Many in the LGBT community, as with progressives more broadly, would rather not contemplate the moral consequences of personal choice, lest we commit the same acts of judgment that have hurt so many of us in the past. Instead, they "bracket" questions of morality and opt for privacy, saying what we do in the bedroom is no one else's business.

If we choose to engage in same-sex sexual behavior, no one but us is equipped to judge our choice. If Nixon feels this was her choice, so be it.

But at a minimum, it is imperative to clear up the confusion between sexual attraction and sexual action -- not because a same-sex sexual attraction has anything wrong with it (indeed, the problem with bracketing the moral question of choice is that it wastes an opportunity to argue that, in the words of the late Frank Kameny, "gay is good"), but because the suggestion that we chose our sexual attractions does not make sense (it's not just wrong; it's literally meaningless).

Then we can move onto questions of choice about our actions.

Read the rest

Ed Negron's Daily Motivation 1-26-2012

2012-01-26T06:13:00.000-06:00

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Today's Gift

Nothing is more difficult than competing with a myth.— Francoise Giroud

Sometimes we think we need to try and be something we're not. Maybe we feel pressure from friends to behave or dress like someone else. All we need to do is remember when we were younger and dressed in our parents' clothes and shoes. We pretended to be grownups, and it was fun for a while. Then the huge shoes on our feet grew clumsy and uncomfortable and the mountain of rolled-up sleeves kept falling down and getting in the way. Soon we grew tired of the game and stopped pretending. Today when we start feeling the pressure to be someone else, let's remember how hard it is to play a role that doesn't fit us.

What can I do today that is most like me?