Feeling more gay than usual this week with it being Dublin Pride? The apartment currently looks like a leprechaun should jump of a closet at any stage complete with a pot of gold and shout “Aha, me hearties”. Okay, it was a pirate/leprechaun perhaps but you get my drift. Rainbow flags everywhere and the gaelick banner is looking fab

If you are in Dublin at Saturday and had completely forgotten about the parade, firstly send back your gay card and your copy of this month’s homosexual agenda. Secondly, keep an eye out for us gaelickers as we shall be out and marching with a lovely shiny banner and pink t-shirts. You can’t miss us. Well technically you can if you don’t go see it but do! Go, march or stand on the sidelines and wave. Pride is gay Christmas so get out there and celebrate!

Without further ado, let us glance through the headlines and internet searches of all things lesbionic this week, and see who or what is making the most noise.

Lets start locally with the news that Limerick is to get a new gay nightclub. The Limerick Post reports :

The club is hosted every fortnight downstairs at Scotts in Alandale just off of the Dock Road. The official launch party is on Saturday July 4 at 11.30pm with former Alternative Miss Ireland Sheila Fits-Patrick cutting the ribbon.

Not even the gays can avoid the R word with this article from the Guardian about the Pink Paper no longer being printed.

“The decision to suspend fortnightly print and distribution of Pink Paper has been one of the toughest we have had to make in a long time,” said Kim Watson, media director of MPG.

The Pink Paper was published by Millivres, who are also behind the Gay Times and Diva. Let’s hope the same fate doesn’t befall them.

From the UK over to the US and the movie set of the latest biopic in the offing, Joan Jett. The lesbian websites were all agog, at least we were , at the news that Kristen Stewart (EMO kid from Twilight) and Dakota Fanning (former child actress), and I quote:

Share a kiss and participate in a steamy lesbian sex scene in the Joan Jett biopic The Runaways.

:O

Okay, I know I am going to sound like an ould one when I say this and yes perhaps I am, but isn’t Dakota, who’s all of 15 tender years a bit young to be engaging in on-screen Sapphic encounters, even if it is with the dramatic Miss Stewart? Off screen is up to her, but on-screen? At 15? After consulting with the all-knowing partner and she assured me its probably nothing more than a kiss and some poetry. That’s what they mean by steamy. Or maybe they are making tea; that can get steamy. I rest easy. Until the film opens at least.

Over to Lithuania where they are planning on introducing The “Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information” which would in affect:

ban all materials that “agitate for homosexual, bisexual and polygamous relations” from schools or other public places where they can be seen by youth, on the grounds that they have a “detrimental effect” on “the development of minors.”

The law was passed by Parliament last week , June 16th, and the President has 10 days to choose weather to veto or sign it. Just to recap that:

Lithuania is a member of the European Union, which is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.

The law also contradicts Lithuania’s commitments undertaken in signing a joint statement on human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity, presented by 66 states at the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2008. In the joint statement, Lithuania called upon other states to promote and protect the human rights of all persons, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The statement went on to call on all states to remove obstacles which prevent human rights defenders from carrying out their work on issues of human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity.

What is the point of signing this statement if its not enforced in their own country? Did they even read what they were signing?

Remember last week I posted about Halil Ibrahim Dincdag, Turkey’s gay referee who made the headlines for being dismissed after coming out?
It seems Turkey wasn’t prepared for the backlash

“Do they have no fear of God,” Mr Dincdag asked, pointing to a sheaf of match reports dating back a decade that show him to have ranked among the best local referees. “I’ve already gone to the courts over this, and I’ll go all the way to Europe if necessary.”

Dincdag commenting on on the Vice-President of the football federation, who said that Mr Dincdag’s sacking had nothing to do with his sexuality and everything to do with his lack of “talent”.

Old-fashioned views of homosexuality remain widespread. Speaking on television shortly after Mr Dincdag came out, Turkey’s most popular football commentator Erman Toroglu, himself a former referee, said he didn’t think the 33-year old should be given his job back. “I reckon [homosexual referees] would have a tendency to give more penalties to good-looking, tough footballers,” he said.

Good-looking tough footballers?! And he calls himself a commentator?

An excellent article over at the fabulously titled Lesbilicious discusses the media and its treatment of trans people. Whilst the trashy mags and the Mail’s commentary are hardly surprising, The Guardian being guilty of transphobia was. Apparently Julie Bidel

Five years ago Bindel – who has been vocal on the issue of lesbian and gay rights – wrote a column in which she dismissed a male-to-female transsexual as a “man in a dress”.

The upshot of all this is that trans people are left largely to fend for themselves. Accepted and supported neither as queer nor as heterosexuals of their chosen gender, they are included in the mainstream media as curiosities as best, and at worst freaks. No wonder many feel forced to hide their trans identity.

Staying with the trans angle for the moment I was delighted to read Local activists among 40 ’transgender heroes’ honored at Stonewall bar

Historians have long credited poor and working class drag queens, bull dykes and other transgender and gender-non-conforming people as key participants in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, but within the wider LGBT community that defining moment is all-too-often remembered as a gay, rather than LGBT, milestone.

On June 25, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the riots that marked the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement, the two organizations will hold a dedication ceremony at the fabled New York City bar to unveil a plaque featuring the names of 40 transgender heroes past and present.

It’s when I read articles like this one in the New Statesman about Pride in India, that I realise how lucky I am to have been born into a society where I am allowed to be free to be who I am, not to hide it and, most importantly, to a certain extent live openly with the woman I love. I do know that this just didn’t happen overnight. I am aware that our gay brothers and sisters fought long and hard for us to have to right to live and love as we choose and for that I am thankful.
Over in India they are celebrating only their 2nd Pride.

However, the masked faces that dot India’s Pride marches signify a grave underlying problem. In the world’s largest democracy, homosexuality is still criminalised, punishable by lifetime imprisonment.

Kalpana, a 32-year-old lesbian, recalls the painful experience of growing up in a society that treats homosexuality as an aberration: “I was subjected to medical treatment aimed at ‘curing’ my homosexuality. I felt hollow inside. My friends ridiculed me and neighbours taunted me, calling me a hijra [eunuch].”

And finally we finished with a story from the Bleedin’ Obvious category Ricky Martin comes out as bisexual.

Whilst you pick your jaw up from the ground, I’m off for a fresh cuppa. Remember to come up and say hi on Saturday if you see us and Happy Pride!