Indholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2016 i The Advocate

Forty-nine members of the LGBT communities were gunned down at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016, and 53 more were wounded. This was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. It was also the largest mass killing of queer people in the United States. The only event to come close to the horror of Orlando is the arson at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans, which claimed 32 queer lives in the summer of 1973. Understandably, this unspeakable tragedy has brought gun violence to the forefront of issues that are important to the LGBT communities. But exactly how those communities are affected by guns—and how effectively proposed gun laws would protect those communities—can be remarkably difficult to suss out. The trouble begins with the Dickey Amendment, a…

47 Percentage of LGBT couples who reported a lack of Social Security or pension survivor benefits as a top financial concern (versus 20% of straight couples) $1.77B The net worth of Jennifer Pritzker, who in 2013 became the world’s first openly transgender billionaire 407 Corporations that earned the Human Rights Campaign’s top ranking on the 2016 Corporate Equality Index 893 Certified LGBT-owned businesses $0.80 Money a lesbian earns to every $1 a gay man earns $0.62 Money a straight woman earns to every $1 a straight man earns 11<133 Number of founding companies of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in 2002, compared with corporate partners with the NGLCC today 33 Percentage of LGBTs who reported that they are “making ends meet, but it’s a struggle”…

Meng Fanyu, 27, is named Mr. Gay China in that nation’s inaugural competition at Icon nightclub in Shanghai on August 5, 2016. A previous attempt to hold the competition in 2010 was thwarted by authorities, although this event, held over four weekends in July and August, and organized by Tontou, was held without incident. Fanyu told The Guardian, “I want to stand on the world stage and say to people, ‘I’m gay, and I’m from China,’ and show them that the LGBT movement in China is vibrant and active.”…

In March 2016, a plot twist on a little-watched TV show sparked what might be the biggest fan uprising of the social media era—a protest that could revolutionize the way LGBT characters are presented on television. The 100 is the kind of show that’s charitably described as a “cult hit.” Since it began its run on the CW in 2014, only a couple of episodes have attracted more than 2 million viewers, but the people who tune in are a passionate bunch. As one of those enthusiastic viewers, I understand the fan fervor: The story of the struggle to survive on Earth nearly a century after a nuclear disaster supposedly made the planet uninhabitable is inventive and fast-moving, and the kickass young characters are inspiringly capable. For many viewers, the…

On June 12, 2016, a deranged homophobe used a legally purchased semiautomatic weapon to slaughter 49 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando—and two movements were suddenly, tragically fused together. LGBT people in America have, of course, always known that we’re a vulnerable community: We are, after all, disproportionately victimized by hate crimes, partly as a result of our constant vilification at the hands of conservative politicians. But the Orlando shooting made an abstract fear horrifyingly concrete. Like those 49 people who perished in the Pulse nightclub, we all seemed to realize that day that our lives could be ended in an instant by a bigot’s bullets. Within a week, every major American LGBT rights organization had adopted a platform to stop gun violence. Several joined forces with established gun…

“I was told internalized transphobia was stopping me from being the ‘real me.’ But the truth is, I’ve never felt like a cis man or a trans woman.” First off, let me introduce myself. I’m George-Kyveli. Why the double-barrel name? Well, in Greece, all names are gendered, so it’s impossible to find a good neutral name. Combining the two genders with George, a male name, and Kyveli, a female one, is a little trick I use to bring visibility to my non-binary identity, as someone who doesn’t feel completely like a man or woman all the time. Growing up, I never felt comfortable with people’s assumptions of me. I was expected to behave, think, and feel a certain way because I was assigned male at birth. I started to feel…

“The transgender creates ‘the woman’ in their mind, so they are artists,” Maggie explains in broken English. We’re sitting at the back of Südblock, a queer café in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin, under a series of disco balls. “The art gives you power to go on your journey—to cross the borders,” she adds, flipping her hair back. I notice that she has changed her blonde box braids out for purple and red ones, but she looks just as enchanting, artful even. Maggie, or Diva Maguy, as she is known in Berlin, is a trans artist and activist who has been living in the city as a refugee for the past year. Looking at her soft skin and smile, it’s hard to imagine the hardships she’s endured. But her identity…

IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE a song about domestic violence leaving the listener feeling upbeat. But that’s exactly what the title track from MUNA’s The Loudspeaker EP does. In the emotional track, lead singer Katie Gavin illuminates the gaslighting that’s common in abusive relationships, in which the victim is made to believe the abuse they’re enduring is deserved. When Gavin bellows, “But every time I don’t shut up, it’s revolution,” it feels like a shot of defiant self-worth directed squarely at the heart of anyone who’s been beaten down. “Loudspeaker” is personal for Gavin. The 23-year-old says it took her years to be able to open up to friends about what she calls an instance of “non-consensual sex.” But when she did, she was met with derision and disbelief, largely because…

I remember the crying the most. There were a sobbing 7-year-old, a teary-eyed middle schooler, and even a glum collection of adults in the elevator with me. This is not how my vacations usually end. I saw sullen teenagers, too, a few exchanging phone numbers in the lobby, others doing one last dip in the pool with friends, all with an air of resignation. I assumed that after this long week of celebration and frivolity, we were all just exhausted, sunburned, fulfilled but ready to go back to regular life. I had just spent the week snorkeling and body surfing and boogieing to the oldies with dance partners young and old (and the one I’m married to). I had at least two dozen piña coladas and enough food to feed…

WHEN CHRIS KELLY started writing Other People, it began more as an exercise than an emotional outlet. After years penning sketches for shows like Saturday Night Live and Broad City, he needed to know if he could draft a feature-length film script. For material, he turned to an event in his life that seemed anything but comedic—his mother’s death from cancer. “They say to write what you know,” he says with a grin. Fast-forward to last January, and Kelly found himself before a crowd of industry professionals waiting for his directorial debut to kick off the Sundance Film Festival. “Every step along the way has been a surprise,” Kelly says. “I wasn’t even thinking about getting in [to Sundance]. That was too good to be true. To be the opening…

“One of the things that made it so beautiful is that the Spanish and the Israelis are of different religions and cultures, but they all came together to support us.” Assi Azar, the witty host of Israeli reality TV shows Big Brother and Rising Star, insists that his husband Albert Escolà, a Spanish architect, is misremembering things: “No, you weren’t lying down,” Azar says. “You were standing up!” “I was not,” Escolà counters. The pair are bantering about the evening they spotted each other at the rooftop pool of a gay hotel in Barcelona. It was the last night of Azar’s stay at the queer lodge, where he jokes that “everyone was so ugly,” when his eyes scoped out “a young Antonio Banderas. He was standing there, gorgeous, smoking, pretending…

For 21 years, Susan’s Place, an online transgender support network, has granted a lifeline to men, women, and genderqueer folk in every stage of transition. The site has about 250,000 visitors a month, many of whom use its forums (1.6 million posts and counting), chat rooms, and news feeds to spark friendships with trans people around the world. For the newly transitioning and questioning, Susan’s Place is a safe space to navigate the waters of the trans experience. Susan Larson, 45, the affable commander at the helm of this ship, has seen the trans movement grow and metabolize inside her online community. For two decades, she’s quietly watched trans people from every corner of the world use her site to make sense of life outside the gender binary. After years…

IN A LONG-AWAITED decision, Belize’s Supreme Court struck down a colonial-era antisodomy law on August 10, saying it violates constitutional rights to dignity, privacy, equality, and freedom from gender discrimination. The decision came six years after the case was filed. It strikes down Section 53 of Belize’s Criminal Code, which banned “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” therefore primarily targeting gay and bisexual men. The law was a holdover from British colonial rule in the Central American nation located on the Caribbean coast. “This is a history-making judgment for Belize, the country which I am proud to call home,” said a statement issued by Caleb Orozco, the plaintiff in the case and the executive director of the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM), an LGBT rights group. The ruling from…

When Ray Rudolph landed in San Francisco in 1976, he knew he’d found his moment. “There were a lot of gay people coming here from all parts of the country, and there were so many potentials at that time,” he says. “I fell in love with it.” Ray was at the forefront of a massive transformation in American society. Now, 40 years later, he finds himself on the cutting edge of a new set of challenges. Like many who shared the moment with him, he is part of an aging segment of the LGBT community that finds it increasingly difficult to remain in the city it helped to build. When he arrived, Ray scored an apartment off Polk Street, “the gay center of the city before the Castro,” and took…