Rock Hudson was the first public “face” of AIDS. Diagnosed in 1984, he disclosed his diagnosis in 1985 and made the general public reconsider the notions they had about who could get AIDS.

If Rock Hudson can have it, nice people can have it. It’s just a disease, not a moral affliction.

- William Hoffman (1985)

A new play by Aidan Harney, Hollywood Valhalla, explores the time between Hudson’s diagnosis and his disclosure: how the first public figure with AIDS decided to tell the world. The two characters are Rock Hudson and his fitness instructor and friend, Toby.

Living in the middle of nowhere, I’ve been unable to make it to the show. For anyone remotely fascinated by queer stories or that muddled intersection between the public and the private, where fame and a person’s inner life meet (and struggle), it’d be hard to find a better way to spend your lunch break if you happen to be in Dublin.

Reviews:

Mesmerising … Harney’s sharp and self-assured script is … the most entertaining, dramatically satisfying two-hander I’ve witnessed for some time.

- Irish Independent

It’s quite an achievement… whimsical, courageous, dignified.

- Sunday Independent

FOUR STARS * * * *

- Irish Mail on Sunday

Harney seems shy to put words in Hudson’s mouth, which leads to a sad kind of silence of a myth unmasked: gone is the zing we remember from Rock’s romantic comedies, the excess emotion of his melodramas, or even the enjoyably breathless pap of the soap opera. Instead, we have a Rock of mumbling realism with a story that deserves better telling; a complicated film star rendered as Movie of the Week .

- The Irish Times

The play’s best scene is the nicely played moment when Toby reads Linda Evans’ lines from Dynasty in a faux-feminine voice and Rock becomes ‘Rock’ the hypermasculine lothario. The interplay between real and fake, masculine and feminine, and public and private is nicely realised as a play within a play that gives formal heft to the theme of performance and roleplay, and both Byrnes and Roche play it beautifully.

- Irish Theatre Magazine

Hollywood Valhalla has four shows remaining (today through Saturday) at 1.10pm at Bewleys Café Theatre. Tickets are €10-12 euro. An extra €4 gets you a soup and bread lunch.

Related posts:

1. Spreadin’ the news
2. World AIDS Day 2011
3. World AIDS Day 2011: Open Heart House events

There’s been a lot of talk about how Brittana and Santana get no Gleespect as a couple. The fact is, we’ve never seen them smooch, no matter how much they’ve talked about it since season 1. We’ve seen them hold hands a lot. We’ve seen cheek kisses. We’ve seen them lying on a bed discussing kissing and scissoring, but we haven’t seen them kiss. Not properly. And really, it’s all our little lesbian hearts want.

On the 14th, Glee Goddess Naya Rivera tweeted this:

And we all tried really, really hard to not get excited because we’ve gotten so excited before.

And then this happened on Monday:

So, we should still try really, really hard to not get excited. We know from cast tweets that they’re still filming the episode (called “Heart”) so nobody knows what made the final cut yet. And those of us who survived the Klaine Xmas Box/Ring fiasco know all about spoiler disappointment. There’s nothing worse than staring at your telly at the end of the episode wondering what happened to the scene you knew was going to happen.

And don’t worry. Unlike in America, the Valentine’s Day episode won’t be on Valentine’s Day here, so you’re free to go to the Melissa Etheridge gig in Dublin, or something else (who are you kidding?), and you can enjoy the episode when it airs later.

So, what do you think? Is it finally going to happen? Is it going to be sweet and cute or breathless?

Related posts:

1. Glee fans not so sweet on new girl Sugar
2. Glee Season 3 Preview!
3. Glee: Santana vs It Gets Better

“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out.”
New York Times

Although it’s catchy, from a thoughtful perspective, I’ve never much liked the Lady GaGa anthem “Born This Way”. Mostly because, despite being hyped as this super-progressive tune, she allows it to be chopped up to appease censors for the radio and television, and then talks about LGBT being ok because some “god” made us this way. No thanks. We don’t need some god’s permission to be who we are.

Tabula Rasa and Sinead wrote recently about people who identify as “queer”, and in a lot of cases you’ll find that we do identify that way because the LGBT labels are restrictive (not just to yourself, but also for your partner). I quite liked Michael Urie’s comment on why he calls himself queer.

When asked what letter in LGBTQ he identifies himself, Urie says Q, for queer.

“I’ve been in a relationship for a while now, and if you just met the two of us together we’d be ‘gay,’ ” he explains. “But that somehow means anything that happened before [we met] didn’t count—and I don’t feel that way. I know that some people feel that way. They were with women, but it always felt wrong. But it didn’t for me. It felt right at the time. It didn’t work out, but it also didn’t work out with other men—many times. That’s why ‘gay’ never seemed right.”
The Advocate

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that sexuality can and does change — not by force or anything, but a lot of people come out late in life, having been reasonably happily opposite-married for years. For years, we’ve ascribed all those to conforming to societal expectations, but it’s possible they all weren’t. They’re not always willing to say that those relationships were lies.

I remember this interview with Glee’s Chris Colfer on a fansite. He was asked when he knew he was gay. He answered:

I think high school, but I find out new things about myself every day.
Gleefan.com

It seems like it should be a natural fact that we change and evolve in many ways throughout our lives. The fact is, however, that most of our early advocates relied heavily on the argument that gay people are born irrevocably gay. The argument is “How can you criminalise someone for how they were born?”. It’s what they call “biological determinism” and it relies on the argument that somehow, we just can’t help ourselves.

In direct opposition to both the mainstream gay movement and Lady Gaga, I would like to state for the record that I was not born this way. I have dated both men and women in the past, and when I’ve been with men, I never had to lie back and think of Megan Fox. I still notice attractive men on the street and on television. If I were terrified of the stigma associated with homosexuality, it would have been easy enough to date men exclusively and stay in the closet my whole life.
The Atlantic

The problem with accepting the “born this way”, or biological determinism argument, is that we are then required to accept all others of the kind. So if someone says they were just born horribly violent and racist, well, we have to accept them too, right?

This is where discernment enters the picture.

You know, if someone turned to me tomorrow and said, “Hey, great news, Jacq, I can make you straight,” I’d punch their fucking lights out. I’m happy being queer. I’m not very happy with the world around me, but I’m happy with me, and my marriage and my life. Why would I change that? I wouldn’t care if they had empirical evidence of an out and out “cure” for the gay. I don’t want it. I’m making that choice right now. Nothing to do with how I was born. Everything to do with not thinking that being queer is a bad choice to make.

So in many ways, I think my queerness is a choice. If I had really wanted to, I could have married a guy and had a samey-wamey life that wouldn’t have made me particularly happy. My job proves that it’s possible to exist in less than ideal situations without entirely losing the plot. So I chose to be happy, to pursue the people I wanted to be with, the culture and subcultures of my choice. And no, I probably wouldn’t have chosen this if I wasn’t in some way predisposed to be attracted to women, but if someone else does, I don’t really mind.

At the end of the day, our message needs to change. No more “oh, poor us, we were born this way and just can’t help ourselves.” How about “It’s a legitimate lifestyle. It doesn’t hurt anyone and makes a whole lot of people really freaking happy.” Can’t we just leave it there? Does it matter if we were “born this way”?

Related posts:

1. Lady Gaga – Born this Way
2. My marriage is equal
3. 14 year old girl asks Maryland to vote “No” on marriage equality for her birthday

Now, I have plenty of things that prove a marriage took place and exists. We have wedding bands. We have a bad video and lots of awful photographs. Then there’s the marriage certificate and the licence we applied for from abroad.

Now the whole thing was cleared up pretty quickly – probably less than 24 hours, in fact, from the time the news starting doing the rounds on all the LGB blogs. The Justice Minister made a blanket assurance that the government would introduce legislation to ensure that our marriages are valid. Aw, gee, guys, thanks. (they also blamed the Liberals — who introduced marriage equality — for leaving this loophole for them to abuse).

Pardon me if I’m not suitably impressed. Shall I ask my parents when’s the last time someone questioned the validity of their marriage? And yet we were married in the same city, 30 years apart.

The coverage of the whole thing was dizzying. It’s one thing to want a divorce. It’s another thing to have some jerk federal lawyer tell you your marriage never existed at all. But that’s what happened to the couple currently seeking to divorce.

I spoke to a few law type friends when this all happened. It all happened so quickly, I was left with a kind of whiplash and confusion.

There was a lot of coverage of government people talking about a “rogue federal lawyer” who apparently, came up with this all on his own.I’ve been reliably informed by someone who has done his job in the past that “going rogue” as a federal lawyer is about as easy as running a record mile in 3 feet of water.

And this is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This wasn’t the action of one dopey federal lawyer. It was the argument of the government’s lawyers, who represent the government, and this argument went through an approvals process. How many people in that office think it’s ok to fuck around with our marriages for the sake of a legal argument?

Since the Conservatives came into power, they’ve been pretty careful about silencing their homophobic voices. It seems impressive, until this happens and you realise that all they’ve been doing is PR. They’ve been quieting the opinions but not getting rid of them. So while they don’t say stupidly homophobic things in the press anymore, it doesn’t mean they don’t wish that Canada was not a beacon of equality in the world.

And whatever happens, things like this will never stop feeling like a warning.

Related posts:

1. New Anti-Marriage Equality Argument in Canadian Court
2. Trans* people could be barred from flying in Canada
3. Irish support same-sex marriage

The particular case involves two women in their thirties, who married in 2005 and now are seeking a divorce. In Canada, a divorce is only possible following 1 year’s residency in Canada, even though it is possible to marry without any residency requirements.

The couple are challenging the residency requirement in a Charter case.

The argument to be put to the court in February — by government lawyers — is that if two people marry in Canada but are ineligible to marry in their jurisdiction of residence, the marriage is invalid. If this argument succeeds, the couple will not require a divorce because they will be deemed to never have been married, along with about 5000 other non-resident couples since 2004.

“In this case, neither party had the legal capacity to marry a person of the same sex under the laws of their respective domiciles – Florida and the United Kingdom,” Mr. Gaudet stated. “As a result, their marriage is not legally valid under Canadian law.”
Federal Lawyer, Sean Gaudet, Globe and Mail

So far, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has said that his goverment is not interested in reopening the debate on marriage equality and asserts he was not aware of the details of this case.

From an Irish perspective, this could have a devastating impact on the Zappone/Gilligan case if they are deemed to have never been married at all. My own marriage would also be affected.

Regardless of outcome, it’s a harsh reminder that the fight is never over. Our rights, even where they are recognised, appear to be endlessly vulnerable.

I will have another post with analysis shortly.

Related posts:

1. So that Canada thing, eh?
2. Setback in fight for marriage equality in Ireland
3. Marriage equality comes to Washington state

It’s great. We watched the first couple episodes of Breaking Bad and the quality was great, even on our pokey broadband connection.

So after that, I decided to show my wife all the films they have on offer. Sure, it’s limited, but I’d had a browse on my PC earlier in the day and I was excited to show her the Gay & Lesbian category.

Except it wasn’t there.

The Nintendo Wii interface isn’t exactly straightforward, so I tried several times to find it. I tweeted, and had some helpful advice. I checked to see if “Parental Controls” were active on my Wii (even though we don’t have children). I checked my settings on my Netflix account.

There was nothing amiss. The category Gay & Lesbian was still visible on my PC, but not on my Nintendo Wii.

And that just makes me sad. Because it seems like a good service. It even recommended my somewhat obscure favourite film to me after doing my “taste profile”, so yeah, well done. But I’m not giving my money to a company that feels it’s more comfortable to get rid of my words.

PinkNews reported yesterday that the iPad and PS3 versions of Netflix also exclude the category. Wii and iPad exclude the HD category as well because the devices don’t support true HD playback. They also apparently don’t support queer film categories. Weird hardware flaw, probably.

So either Netflix have removed this category themselves or Sony, Nintendo and Apple all decided to do it independently of each other. You guys have any guesses?

No related posts.

The most recent ad was blasted on several counts of asshattery. Complaints ranged from the outrageously transphobic content to the implication of menstruation being somehow the indicator of femininity. Women the world over who run their pill months together to avoid it, those who don’t have, or never had a uterus, those who do not menstruate for other reasons, all felt like they were somehow being called less than “girl”. Because, as we are told in the ad, “Libra gets girls.” (but only girls who need tampons).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lReX1dAUAE

And there was this one, in July, where a company selling unnecessary products that potentially cause problems and don’t fix anything that needs fixing (yup, douches!) attempted to sell female empowerment and also a bunch of racist vagina-hand ads. They’re unreal.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=433UqE_9qbg

I know that our own Bear once lamented the lack of the word “vagina” in these ads, but I’m not entirely sure this is what she had in mind.

This isn’t an ad, but it’s a demonstration video for the Moon Cup. They don’t really do television ads (which may be why they only have about a 1% market share). They do, however, use the word “vagina” in a way that isn’t racially or otherwise offensive.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4FV0B_msBQ

So this leaves us with the final question: is there a way to advertise these products that isn’t offensive? And if so, why do they keep missing the mark?

Related posts:

1. Douchy ads get it all wrong
2. Candy Bar Girls come to the telly
3. Bom Chicka

After Ellen is running a poll on the site’s readers’ favourite TV couples. There were a few I recognised, and plenty I didn’t (there are shows out there I just have to start watching!) but I was a little bit jarred to read Rizzoli & Isles were included.

Don’t get me wrong. My initial forays into TV fandom included subtext couples: Xena and Gabrielle before they were canon and Alex and Olivia/Liz and Casey in Law & Order SVU (file this under “will never happen outside fanfiction“). But the other thing this list tells me is that there are actually quite a few bona fide lady-loving-ladies on television now, who actually do more than go shopping together, or work together or eat together. You know, like make out and … other stuff … together.

My love affair with subtext couples had a lot to do with the lack of actual lesbian couples on television. It was fun and validating to choose two characters who don’t hate each other (and hey, those worked too) and find a way to fit a relationship into a show that would often totally contradict that idea (often by liberally adding “manvils”: male dates who served no narrative purpose but to assert the female character’s heterosexuality). And it was fun to hang with other people on the internet who did the same.

Rizzoli & Isles (nope, not a couple either)

More and more, though, I find subtext depressing. You know, the way I find the UK’s new “You only have to not have sex for a year” relaxed gay-blood-ban depressing. A large part of making those relationships work in my head was explaining why the characters may feel they have to hide their sexuality/relationship. And more and more, there are fewer comfortable reasons for strong female characters to do that. Also, there are actual shows out there with actors playing actual lesbians on television and we’re still watching these shows that taunt us with two straight girls who are highly unlikely to ever actually fall into bed with each other (for any reason other than exhaustion)?

So, subtext fans, I have a question: what keeps you coming back to shipping gay couplings of straight characters? And do you watch shows with maintext lesbian couples too?

Related posts:

1. Copping on
2. Alainn or Appalling: Angie Harmon
3. Rizzisles Teaser

Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the last couple of episodes.

Not-so-quick recap:

When we first met Santana, she was 2nd queen bee at Mckinley. Only behind Quinn Fabray in high school royalty, she had power. Nobody questioned her. She was a dream girl and it seemed like pandering to some porno stereotype when we discovered she was having sex with her gorgeous bff, Brittany. Of course, Glee, as Glee does, turned the trope on its head when it was revealed that they weren’t just messing around, but they had feelings.

The story is really simple: The week before (Mash-Off), Finn told Santana she was being a coward for not being open about her feelings for Brittany. In the school hallway. At McKinley. Of course, some pizza mogul congressional candidate’s niece overheard the conversation and made sure her uncle knew. He, in turn, used it in a political ad to attack Sue Sylvester’s commitment to family values and also to imply that, like her head cheerleader, Sue may be into the lady loving herself. He, kindly, gave the crew a heads up before the ad went live.

Santana, who hadn’t told her parents, or anyone other than Brittany really, unless you count singing “Landslide” as coming out (some do), was understandably distraught and slapped Finn in front of both glee clubs.

Suddenly (in the next episode, I Kissed a Girl), McKinley has an anti-violence policy and Santana is about to be suspended.Finn recants and tells everyone it was a stage slap. Then he tells Santana that unless she comes crooning out of the flannel closet, he’ll get her suspended. Oh yeah, you can see where tempers are getting a bit fired up. (Does this remind anyone else of Will setting Finn up for possession of weed to make him join Glee club?)

Santana tells her parents, who are actually cool with the whole idea, and then the ad airs. She’s threatened with corrective rape by some douchebag sophomore rugby head. The glee girls from both New Directions and the Troubletones come to the rescue, with Quinn and Rachel doing the bulk of the talking, because Santana is suddenly tongue-tied. Remember what Brittany said about Santana lashing back with her vicious words? Yeah, not so much now. It’s harder, you know, because nobody ever made her feel that freaking vulnerable before.

So the the glee club assignment is now formulated to make Santana feel as awkward as possible, so they sing songs that are written by women, for women. Puck sings a thin rendition of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One” to his teacher, the glee girls sing “I Kissed a Girl” as they rescue Santana from the aforementioned douchebag, Kurt and Blaine (the cutest couple alive, sorry Brittana) sing “F*cking Perfect” without the “F*cking” and Santana is not impressed.

This is where it was jarring for me. “F*cking Perfect” was a fantastic queer solidarity anthem for Glee. The happy couple, both having been victims of anti-gay violence, sing about the happiness and comfort they’ve found. And Santana rejects it, outright. When blackmailing-Finn sings a slow, kind of boring, version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, Santana is touched. She appreciates it.

Thoughts, feelings:

A lot of people were really confused.

But it actually all makes sense. And it gives a powerful voice to the people who’ve been questioning the impact of hopeful-future stories like the “It Gets Better” project, too.

The problem is, it doesn’t start better. And the people telling her these stories are not the people that, frankly, matter.

Santana has seen Kurt’s story from his coming out to his happily-ever-after half of the couple-known-throughout-the-land-as-Klaine. One of her greatest fears is to be Kurt. And, of course, she won’t be. She hasn’t spent most of her life struggling with how she performs her gender and the questions that raises. She has never had any reason to identify with queer culture at all. Except, of course, that she’s gay.

The problem is that, for Santana, she already has her Blaine. She has Brittany, and that hasn’t solved all her problems. In fact, her feelings for Brittany are actually the problem. Her abuela (grandmother) has rejected her. She can’t see her path in Kurt’s except for the hurt and the torment and the tears.

Like most of us, she didn’t come out and immediately seek the approval of queer society. She came out and wanted her peers to approve, even in fail-ally ways. Kurt is in no way Santana’s peer, socially speaking. So when Quinn sticks up for her and Finn sings her a song, that works for her.

So it has to make us think about the impact of the “It Gets Better Project”, because it is specifically mentioned in the episode (when Finn said he’s worried Santana would die by suicide like Jamey Rodermeyer) and very much referenced in the Kurt and Blaine performance. What is the benefit of it exactly? Are these videos really providing the kind of hope and acceptance that gay youth need?

Glee (at least Santana) says no. Santana needed the approval of her family and friends. In that coming out moment, when it all seems so scary, it doesn’t matter that your friends are really sucky gay allies. It matters that they’re trying and they’re still your friend and it can all stay something like it was.

Related posts:

1. Glee fans not so sweet on new girl Sugar
2. Alainn or Appalling: Santana Lopez
3. Glee Season 3 Preview!

What is NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is weird, because it’s a very international event.

The very first NaNoWriMo took place in July, 1999, in the San Francisco Bay Area. That first year there were 21 of us, and our July noveling binge had little to do with any ambitions we might have harbored on the literary front. Nor did it reflect any hopes we had about tapping more fully into our creative selves. No, we wanted to write novels for the same dumb reasons twentysomethings start bands. Because we wanted to make noise. Because we didn’t have anything better to do. And because we thought that, as novelists, we would have an easier time getting dates than we did as non-novelists.

Last year, there were over 200,000 participants and 37,500 winners. To win, all you have to do is complete 50,000 words of a novel in November. That’s an average of 1667 words a day, every day. It easier and harder than you think, at exactly the same time. Some of my writing buddies were writing double that with seemingly very little trouble, whereas I struggled and fell behind, working very hard to catch up throughout the month. I made it in the end though, and it was quite a feeling.

There are also rules:

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

So! Have you got a story to tell? The fun part is that nobody ever has to read it. Personally, I need a lot of space from my writing before I can rewrite, so I’m only now going over what I wrote last year, and while some of it is awful (remember, you write every day regardless of having anything to write!) some of it is actually totally salvageable.

There are a lot of tools out there that make life easier for an aspiring 30-day novelist. One of the best things I used last year is a program called Write or Die. Write or Die encourages you to write using psychological tricks, like warning you when you’ve stopped typing for a certain length of time, and providing consequences if you leave it too long (in Kamikaze mode, it starts deleting words you’ve already typed). All you have to do is tell it how many words you intend to write and how strict you want the program to be with you. You can use it on the website for free, or download the desktop version for a tenner. The desktop version works on Mac, Windows and Linux.

This year, I’m also going to be using PangurPad. It’s a website-based service for structuring and writing your novel (including character sketches, timelines, notes). You get a free trial if you enter your NaNoWriMo username.

An awful lot of people use Scrivener, which I really think is the ideal. However, it’s only in beta for Linux at the moment and the beta has to be awkwardly reinstalled in the middle of November when I don’t have time for such distractions. But if you are running Mac or Windows, give it a look.

There are also NaNoWriMo forums and people spend time there and chat and stuff. I sound vague because I barely have enough time to participate, let alone chichat in forums or get together for writing marathons (tho it does sound like fun). The Dublin forum has plans for a pre-NaNoWriMo meetup as well as weekly Saturday events throughout November.

One strange thing I found oddly helpful was this pack of “merit badge” stickers you can buy. When I was stuck, they gave me ideas. One was for using a dream or hallucination to get achieve your word count that day. Another is for having a 5000 word day.

And if November is too short notice for your storytelling ambition, there is always ScriptFrenzy in April.

Happy novelling, and I’ll be back in December!

Related posts:

1. 20th November: Transgender Day of Remembrance

I know what you are doing now, young Stephen. It’s early 1973. You are in the library, cross-referencing bibliographies so that you can find more and more examples of queer people in history, art and literature against whom you can hope to validate yourself. Leonardo, Tchaikovsky, Wilde, Barons Corvo and von Gloeden, Robin Maugham, Worsley, “an Englishman”, Jean Genet, Cavafy, Montherlant, Roger Peyrefitte, Mary Renault, Michael Campbell, Michael Davies, Angus Stewart, Gore Vidal, John Rechy, William Burroughs.

So many great spirits really do confirm that hope! It emboldens you to know that such a number of brilliant (if often doomed) souls shared the same impulse and desires as you. I know the index-card waltz of (auto)biographies, poems and novels you are dancing: those same names are still so close to the surface of my mind nearly four decades later.

And now, a second edition of the book “Dear Me: More letters to my 16 year old self” has been released, with letters from Alan Cumming, Gillian Anderson, James Belushi, Stephen King and more.

And here’s some more:

Gillian Anderson:

Follow your dreams not your boyfriends.

And Alan Cumming:

You will love and be loved and be rich beyond your wildest dreams, and the best thing about this richness is that it has nothing to do with money. It’s all going to be okay.

A teacher at drama school is going to tell you that you’ll never make it as a professional actor. He is wrong. Wrong to say it, and just wrong because you do okay. Try not to let it dent you too much.

You’re never going to have children, Alan. You’re going to try, in relationships with both women and men, but it doesn’t happen, and that’s okay too. Right now you have the happiest family anyone could wish for.

It really is all going to be okay. I’ll see you in 29 years. Enjoy it.

Sandra Bernhard:

You long for independence and applause, love and celebration.
Patience, my dear Sandy, that is the key to happiness.
Sitting quietly and knowing all good things are on their way.
It appears at times that they aren’t, but it’s just a test of your own inner emergency broadcast system.

My quick note to my 16 year old self would go something like this:

Chill out. It is all going to happen. And more. In 20 years, you are madly in love, well traveled and have no idea what you want to do when you grow up. The love thing may not work out the way you’d imagine right now, but that will be ok too. Might want to start reading up on liberal theologians, actually.

There’s a reason you can’t study and it’s not because you’re lazy so stop beating yourself up over it. You’re going to do something that seems incredibly unwise when you’re 17, but it turns out to be the right decision. Don’t make fun of the awkward kid. Life gets really hard before it gets unimaginably wonderful. You’ll fall in love when you’re not looking. Just follow your heart; it hasn’t failed you yet.

PS: If this note makes you figure things out early, it might be worth approaching Miss F*****, Mlle L******, or Mr D****** for a chat. Or your best friend’s boyfriend.

What would you say to your 16 year old self?

Related posts:

1. New year, new you
2. Cantwell wins Inaugural Player of the Year Award
3. 14 year old girl asks Maryland to vote “No” on marriage equality for her birthday

She believes her election is a sign that Poland is moving on.

“Today, Poland is changing. I am the proof along with Robert Biedron, a homosexual and the head of an anti-homophobia campaign who ran for office in Gdynia.”

As far as I’m aware, only New Zealand has previously had an openly transsexual MP. Georgina Beyer served as an MP from 1999 until her retirement in 2007, having previously been a mayor.

The co-chair of Transgender Europe, Richard Köhler, said

Poland has ignored the rights of its transgender citizens for long. It is high time to finally discuss introduction of a gender recognition law. We are optimistic that Grodzka’s success will motivate more countries in the Central-Eastern European region to take notice of the existence of transgender and intersex persons and their rights.

Related posts:

1. Trans* people could be barred from flying in Canada
2. Let’s make trans people heard!
3. Survey: Trans* people and online support

In June, I reviewed Break My Fall. The film, set in Hackney, follows Liza and Sally as their relationship falls apart, taking dignity, boundaries and friendships with it. Writer and Director Kanchi Wichmann was kind enough to answer a few of my questions in time for Break My Fall to be released on DVD.

Break my Fall feels really intimate, the way it explores a dark kind of relationship that doesn’t look dark to anyone else. What made you want to tell that kind of a story? Despite being a fascinating film, it was hard to watch parts. Was it hard to write and film?

The way I see this film it is zeroing in on a small moment in the protagonists’ lives and magnifying it, kind-of stretching it out. I often say in Q&A’s when asked about the structure that these events would be 15 minutes of a more conventional film, but in mine they form the whole film. So yes it is intimate as we are really going in to their world almost minute by minute in some parts and that can also make it hard to watch because we as cinema goers are not used to that level of naturalism.

It wasn’t hard to write or film – well not more than any film is to make – but what was hard was convincing people to go with this story. I have actually toned down the abusive dynamic in their relationship a lot from earlier drafts and again in the edit because people were scared that it would be too much. So it’s actually very subtle and maybe that also makes it harder because you are not being hit over the head with the abuse and the violence, but you are shown it as something almost ordinary, which I personally feel is true to life – that they fight and then they go record shopping, but again maybe that makes it hard to watch because there is not the judgement we are used to being given in a film – like she is the bad guy and she is the victim, it’s actually pretty ambiguous.

The music in the film almost feels like a character itself (along with the Hackney location). Was it difficult to find the music that set the tone you wanted?

No, I always had a very clear idea about the music, and if you take the songs away from the film and play them in sequence like a kind-of mix tape they follow the emotional journey of the film. Plus they are all bands with girls and queers in which was important to me to reflect Liza and Sally’s world on another level.

I found it interesting that almost every character showed some kind of sexual fluidity in the film, and then were faced with the older lesbian they met in the bar who ranted about bisexuals. Do you think your characters transcend the traditional labels?

When I was writing the film strangely the whole sexual orientation labels thing just didn’t occur to me, but this is something that lots of (particularly lesbian) viewers have picked up on. That Sally shags Vin at the end and Kat tries to kiss Jamie are more evidence of their isolation, their desperation and their lack of boundaries, than of any change in sexual orientation.

In Break My Fall the two girls are not shown as belonging to a lesbian community as such, so therefore when they freak out and turn to those closest they happen to be boys. In terms of Mo (the older lesbian) we cut that scene down alot in the edit and I think she comes across as more stereotypical now than was my intention. Her purpose in the story is as a mirror to Liza’s character, which Liza in her emotional state fails to recognise, so Mo’s like a kind-of warning sign to Liza.

The person playing her is someone I know and those scenes are based upon my personal experience – when I was first going out on the gay scene as a young ‘outsider’ dyke I was often cornered by older butch women who would tell me all this personal stuff whilst taking drugs together. That scene is kind of like the arrogance of youth, that Liza thinks she’s better than this person, but by the end she’s fallen pretty hard herself. And also I love older butches, and I intend to shoehorn one into every film I make somehow. I think we should see more of them on screen than we do.

I’m dying to know, what do you think Liza had planned at the end?

Well, I see the end of the film as being the ‘beginning of the end’ of Sally and Liza’s relationship. After they’ve been to Liverpool Sally will go back to the flat and Liza will still be there and they will probably fight and fuck a few more times, but ultimately Liza, by getting out of the car, has said “OK I need to get out of this situation” and she has started to walk away. The film is about a break-up, but as I said earlier we only see that moment when it changes, not the whole break-up (which in typical lesbian fashion will probably go on for months!). I certainly don’t see Liza and Sally going to counselling and sorting it all out and living happily ever after, that’s not their story.

Break My Fall is out on DVD through Peccadillo Pictures; you can buy it from Amazon here

Related posts:

1. Review: Break My Fall
2. Interview: “Looking For” Director Michelle Pollino
3. Albert Nobbs Given Fall Release Date

Oh, yeah, there was even a spoiler in the title. Spoilers all the way through for Glee’s Season 3 premiere.

Sugar Motta, played by Vanessa Lengies, is the new girl at William McKinley High School. She’s rich — rich enough that her dad donated a bunch of pianos (that had been taken off poor people) to the Glee club. Of course, Will painted them purple and they got set on fire and destroyed by Sue because Tina was playing Chopsticks on them (in fairness, Chopsticks is so annoying).

The thing is, Sugar loves to sing and dance. Like Rachel, she knows she’s great at both. She was inspired to audition for glee club when the group did a recruitement performance in the cafeteria, and she realised that she was actually way more talented than everyone in it.

Brittany is a fan and Artie is so impressed he offers her (or her ears) his parking spot. Check it out.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeHNcBGgdss

It isn’t Sugar’s voice that’s leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of some Gleeks; it’s her “self-diagnosed Asperger’s”.

For the past week, Glee fansites and Austism and Asperger’s related groups have been arguing, analysing and petitioning. No one agrees on this. On Autism related blogs, some people found it offensive and others did not. On Glee fansites, it’s the same.

Those who found it offensive typically took Sugar at her word and saw in her audition some of what they called typical Autism Spectrum behaviours. They are understandably concerned that the show, which has often been very good about addressing disability issues, was showing a very negative depiction of a student with Asperger’s and not showing the struggles that accompany the behaviours.

Typically those who were not offended took Sugar’s statement about being “self-diagnosed Asperger’s” to be a ruse. They see her as a spoiled brat who appropriates a disability to get away with things she wouldn’t normally be able to. They point to later in the episode when she is yelling at Mr Schuester and specifically states “not asperger’s” indicating she believes she could just turn it off and on. Having a character in Glee appropriate a disability isn’t new. Both Finn and Tina have done it already.

And that’s that. I don’t think anyone was convinced one way or the other amidst all the discussions. It will probably be a better (and hopefully less vicious) conversation as we get to know Sugar Motta a bit better.

But never mind all that drama. Awesome stuff happened too, with little controversy. 

Sugar is not William McKinley’s only new student. Blaine Warbler Anderson decided to follow his man to McKinley and ditch the Dalton blues. He introduced himself to the student body (well, to those who hadn’t seen his goodbye song to Kurt last year) with a rousing version of the Tom Jones classic “It’s Not Unusual”, accompanied by several gyrating Cheerios (who are all lovely people, you can just tell) including the inimitable somewhat closeted Santana Lopez, who had a trick or two up her sleeve. Actually, it was just lighter fluid. The song ended as badgirl!Quinn Fabray managed to set the piano ablaze when she tossed her cigarette end at it.

Kurt and Rachel (these two are amazing together) had a heart-breaking dose of reality when they went to check out the people who would be competing with them for a coveted spot at a New York performing arts school. The “Anything Goes” number, which was headed by Glee Project runner up Lindsay Pearce, was the best of the entire episode and had our poor hopefuls in tears.

Will and Emma are together and adorable, but still struggling with the same old issue.

Sue is back to super awesome evil villain. She even gives Santana a taste of the medicine she dished out to Karofsky last year. Blackmail anyone?

The next episode airs tonight in America and Thursday night in the UK.

Related posts:

1. Glee: Santana vs It Gets Better
2. A Glee-ful Valentine’s Day for Brittana… finally?
3. Glee Season 3 Preview!

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was one of  those”baby steps” we hear so much about. It was supposed to help gay, lesbian and bisexual people serve in the American military. It was supposed to protect them from intrusive questioning or witch-hunts, on the simple premise that they do not volunteer the information. It was spun as overturning the ban on gay servicemembers.

In short, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And, as many people point out, it’s not quite perfect just yet. There are still ways that LBG servicemembers can be fired as a result of bigotry, and until DOMA is repealed, same-sex spouses of LGB servicemembers are still unrecognised and still cannot live as families on base.

But the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is still massive. To give you an idea, here’s what happened as soon as it was repealed, just for one guy, in Germany, ringing his dad in Alabama.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVAgz6iyK6A

More of this, world. We need more of this.

No related posts.

John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness

Would it be weird if the Doctor regenerated with boobs next time? Doctor Who and Torchwood actor John Barrowman doesn’t think so.

I think that maybe they should go out on a limb next time and try it. That always stirs things up a little bit and makes things exciting and it’s nice to see different things and challenges happen like that.

Listen, if Captain Jack can be an omni-sexual time agent and an assistant to the doctor, why can’t we have a female doctor?
John Barrowman, Press Association

It’s a good question, I guess.

Who should be the next Doctor? (image via fanpop)

Casting characters with long-standing fandoms and traditions usually means sticking with whatever has been done before.

The internet battles that result from suggesting that Spiderman could be played by a not-white guy are not at all pretty. But really, what does the colour of Spiderman’s skin have to do with anything?

Batwoman was recently re-launched as a lesbian (and no longer used to distract from Batman and his younger male companion). And so, if we can look past that, why couldn’t a Time Lord regenerate as a woman? Sure, we haven’t seen it happen before, but why not? It’d be quite the way to celebrate 50 years, I think.

What do you think? Can a woman be a Doctor Who? And who would you cast?

Barrowman had two suggestions: Catherine Tate, who played the role of companion Donna Noble, and himself “in a dress”.

I think we can come up with some suggestions!

In vaguely related news, this TARDIS cat playpen is the coolest thing on the internet.

Related posts:

1. Adrianne Palicki is the new Wonder Woman
2. Torchwood: Too sexy or too gay sexy?
3. A woman scorned

It can feel this way sometimes. Image via Wikipedia

I’ve written about this before, about Glee fans who can’t understand why we don’t see Kurt and Blaine making out at the Lima Bean. But it’s about so much more than that, and it’s a problem that is increasingly a source of tension between LGB people and our friends/families/allies.

In Modern Family fandom, too, viewers have complained about a scene where a straight couple kiss at the airport and, beside them, the two men merely hug. Ironically, in both fandoms, the lack of gay affection has been blamed on homophobia amongst the writers or producers or the studio. And it is because of homophobia, but not by the writers or the producers or the studios. It has an awful lot to do with homophobia in reality.

In Torchwood: Miracle Day, Captain Jack Harkness says he doesn’t care who knows, but he’s immortal, so I guess that’s a different feeling.

Equality? No. Reality? Yes.

Recently, a gay cyclist said he thought that gay athletes should remain in the closet. And then, a straight rapper said he thought that the gay rappers should come out. He also said it’s because closeted gays spread AIDS, but we’re going to focus on why a straight guy thinks he has any idea what’s involved in coming out as gay.

There are a lot more allies out there than there were 30 years ago. Chances are, if you meet someone new at work, or around town, that they really aren’t bothered that you’re not straight. They might even find it interesting. They may try and set you up with their gay best friend/sister/auntie/Sinead O’Connor. They might tell you which gay bars they frequent. Some of my straight friends know the bars better than I do. Surveys have shown staggering levels of support in Ireland for full marriage equality. The problem is, however, that as acceptance increases, our allies think that homophobia doesn’t exist. Many are also unaware that marriage equality doesn’t actually exist.

I remember once having my affection for my wife questioned because it was perceived that we didn’t touch each other enough. You can ask her, but I have a hard time keeping my hands off my wife. In public, however, we have really good reasons to keep our hands to ourselves (even if we don’t always succeed!).

These signs appeared in London. Not actually attributable to any Muslim group, thought to be made by anti-gay, anti-Muslim EDL.

I’ve been questioned before on why I love going to gay bars so much more than straight bars. When I answer that it’s really nice to hold my wife’s hand stress-free and maybe even have a quick snog, I get those looks. And then I’m told, “who cares what people think?”. My answer?

“I do.” Of course I do. I hear anti-gay slurs often enough to know that it hasn’t even kind of gone away. Not unexpectedly, since cutting my hair, the slurs have become more common, and while they aren’t threats, they feel like it.

Allies: of course it’s wonderful that you love us and accept us and are happy to see us make out in front of you. I think I can safely say, on behalf of gay people everywhere, that we’re delighted. However, you need to remember that you are not the only people we have to exist with. And some of those other people could want to hurt us. Don’t dismiss us, listen to us. Homophobia is, sadly, still as central to our experience as acceptance.

Related posts:

1. Locker room bigotry
2. 14 year old girl asks Maryland to vote “No” on marriage equality for her birthday
3. Straight But Not Narrow

It is almost that time again! TV3 once again have Glee for the 2011/12 year and we’re just waiting for them to confirm their schedule so we know when to tune in!

Fingers crossed it’ll be the same as last year, and only one day behind the US. It’s nice only having to avoid the spoilers for one day!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFLU9zi4TeM

Show creator Ryan Murphy has sworn that this year will be a return to the format of Season 1. More long-term story arcs, only one tribute episode (but they’re not telling us who) and a moratorium on Extra Special Guest Stars. No more Holly Holiday I guess.

Since Glee lands in the US on September 20th, the promo spots have started up already.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JtWNRkmwdE

There are lots of promises of Glee goodness in them: Some Sue Sylvester vs Will Schuester, Blaine and Kurt both wearing bowties (come on how cute is that?), Santana and Brittany back in Cheerios uniforms and Quinn sporting a fabulous new look and no Cheerios uniform for her. Some Will and Emma looks likely too.

The rest here is the worst kind of Glee speculation. It’s based on stuff said by Glee cast/creators/writers but they are notorious for leaking and discussing plots that never, ever exist. So, grain of salt.

Santana’s big struggle, of course, will probably be deciding whether to come out and becoming comfortable with herself. You can bet it’s not going to be a warm, fuzzy kind of struggle. It will almost certainly be awesome.

Word has it that we’re seeing Blaine in his civvies because he’s going to be ditching the Dalton Academy uniform to attend school with his boyfriend. Ryan Murphy has said before that he’d like to see Kurt and Blaine be the power couple at McKinley, so maybe that’s the direction Season 3 will take.

We do know that Mercedes has a new love interest in Season 3. Or should we just say “a love interest” or “a plot line that doesn’t involve food”. So, that should be fun.

And of course, there’s a new promo available this morning!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWob5-jNr-8

How does all that sound to you? What do you want to see in Season 3?

Oh and the last part is a spoiler for those of you watching The Glee Project on UK or Irish television, so it’s in white. You just have to highlight the text to read.

Damian is playing Irish exchange student Rory. The best part? He’ll be staying with Brittany and her folks. We get to meet Brittany’s parents. Also, potential for more Lord Tubbington.

Related posts:

1. Murphy’s revenge
2. Glee fans not so sweet on new girl Sugar
3. Glee: Santana vs It Gets Better

Image via Wikipedia

Those of you who follow me on Twitter already know that the last two weeks have seen myself and my wife mainline the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. And I kind of love it. I’m going to talk about it, and there will be some vague spoilers with regards sexual content in the show. I will do my best to avoid plot points.

One of most redeeming things in my youth was my obsession with Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Twilight Zone. I really think that my attitudes towards the gay (and therefore, ultimately my attitude to myself) were shaped by the lessons I learned from science fiction.

It’s possible that because lessons that happened “in the future” or on faraway planets were able to get around any learned religious objections I may have had. I have no idea. All I know is that I was deeply uncomfortable with my own Christian stance on homosexuality, even as I professed it. Even as I stood by friends who were coming out , I hated how my faith made me reject that part of them.

None of that discomfort can be attributed to my upbringing. In fact, none of it can be attributed to anything other than exposure to speculative and science fiction in my formative years. If I hadn’t read, or had only watched game shows, I would have been far more comfortable with the idea of excluding people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Even the award-winning Degrassi Junior High left a lot to be desired in its treatment of gay storylines. Shows that took on the issue of exclusion in more general and more other worldly ways seemed to have been more successful.

So, considering all that, I get upset when I see people complaining about gay stuff in science fiction.

To me, that’s what it’s all about. Not specifically gay stuff, but tackling and reimagining social issues in a more free way, without the constraints of your mom or your grandfather or your politics. It’s putting stuff that makes us sweat as a society into a different society.

Now with Torchwood, it’s a little bit different, I guess. Because the world it is set in is almost the same as the world we live in. It’s not on a spaceship, or on a planet with a pink sky. Other than The Rift (where aliens and other things from all over time and space land inconveniently in Cardiff), the streets and cars and people are what we are used to. However, it’s still not our world where a 51st century man leads a team of people who protect the world from what comes out of The Rift.

The main characters in the show all seem to be flexible with regards their sexuality. Owen happily picks up a heterosexual couple on a night out, Toshiko has a relationship with a woman who turns out to be an alien, but she also dates men. Even very-straight-and-partnered Gwen gives into the attraction of a murderous sex-alien in the form of a human female at some point. Come to think of it, lesbian and bisexual women are not well represented on Torchwood.

And then, we have Jack. Captain Jack Harkness is described as omnisexual. Not bisexual, you see, because aliens. But he is most often paired with human men. And Ianto has only ever had relationships with women, but falls in love with Jack anyway. Their relationship is one of the most sweet and fun things I’ve seen on television. All the stuff I’ve told you comes from the first two seasons of Torchwood. It’s not new. There is a mention of playing “naked hide & seek” at one point. Also, this is a post-watershed program.

So now that we’re seeing something other than shirtless men grabbing at each other, the complaints are “flooding in”. Apparently, this isn’t the Torchwood people signed up for. I’m not sure exactly what they’ve been watching. While the scenes are definitely more, they are not really different. Nor are they in any way gratuitous.

In seaon 4, also called Miracle Day, episodes 3 and 7 have generated the most controversy. The one in episode 3, however, was the most hotly debated. It has even been called gratuitous by fans. Parts of the scene were cut by the BBC while they were shown on the Starz network in the US. And yet, it couldn’t be less gratuitous. Here’s a link to the scene.

I haven’t given much thought to the straight sex that runs along with the gay sex scene, because I couldn’t care less about those two characters (and it does seem totally gratuitous), to be honest, but the scene with the two men is absolutely vital to character and thematic development. Also, it couldn’t have had a more conservative undertone to it. (it’s spoilery, so highlight to read the next paragraph).

A casual encounter with a strong safe-sex message (go Torchwood!) ends with a drunk phone call to a friend, words dripping with loneliness and denial while the married friend coos over her baby and husband, casually forgetting her distraught friend is still on the phone. The whole scene from the bartender admiring Jack’s coat, right up until Jack says “dead friends” is about Ianto, wanting him, and missing him. But all some people can focus on is that there are two boy bums on view at the same time.

I don’t want to get into the “watershed is there for a reason” argument. I think society, in general, agrees that parents should monitor what their kids watch, and that the watershed makes that a little bit easier for them. But to the adults who are suddenly uncomfortable when all the gay flirting and kissing and making out suddenly becomes sex: what? Did you not get that scene? Didn’t it break your heart? That scene didn’t exist to give you a boner or to kill it. It existed to continue the story, and it did that, very well.

Related posts:

1. Can a woman be a Doctor?
2. When allies forget that bigotry exists
3. Cutest TV Couples (or not) of 2011

Glee

Emily Abbate at The Stir comments:

Do you recognize that girl?

I don’t even know where to start. For one thing, where did her giant kahunas come from? This cover happens to be one of a three-part series and her breasts aren’t nearly as … enhanced in the other photos. Then there’s her right wrist, which seems as though her hand was just stuffed on the end there, shortening her arm in the process. Her waist has been whittled away, I can’t even pinpoint what exactly they’ve done to her face, and her adorable shab has been awkwardly tinted.

I showed the Cosmo cover to my wife who actually did not recognise the Glee star, despite being forced to watch that show over and over because I write about it, and love it, and am a little bit obsessed… anyway. She had no idea who it was.

So I decided it was my sacred duty as a blogger to comb through photos of Dianna Agron on Google Image Search (I know, I know, such a hard life) and the woman on the cover of Cosmo bears only a passing resemblance to the woman called Dianna Agron.

I mean, if I was going to be Cosmo’s cover girl, I’d expect they’d employ their crackest team of Photoshoppers, and so they should. But when you’re photographing someone as naturally gorgeous as Dianna Agron? I don’t even know.

There are three cover photos and they want you to vote on the best one. The other two do not seem to be as manipulated as the first.

Last year, Lea Michele (Rachel), Cory Montieth (Finn) and Dianna Agron appeared in GQ and attracted a huge outcry over how sexual the images were, for actors who play high school students. I didn’t really see the problem, myself. First, who lets their kids read GQ? Second, while the actors play high school students (and are dressed as cheerleaders, etc in the photoshoot), they are actually adults. In Cosmo, Dianna Agron is not herself.

I hope more people will make noise over this. Because even with all the hullaballoo about the GQ cover, at the very least, the actors looked like themselves and were not Photoshopped by someone who wants to be a plastic surgeon.

Dianna Agron does not need enhancement to look beautiful. Hell, if she does, the rest of us are in for an awful lot of Photoshop surgery.

Related posts:

1. Dianna Agron likes us all
2. Our friend: Lez Get Real’s Paula Brooks
3. Homophobic bullying in schools