Indholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2015 i The Advocate

STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used as a complete single-tablet regimen to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. What is STRIBILD? STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. STRIBILD combines 4 medicines into 1 pill to be taken once a day with food. STRIBILD is a complete single-tablet regimen and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines. STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses you must keep taking STRIBILD. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower…

QUEEREST CITIES IN AMERICA 2015 Neither our intent (to foster frank discussion in parts of the country not known for being LGBT-friendly), nor how many times we wrote that we’re specifically not looking for obviously queer hotspots, can circumvent expressions of outrage (and copious cursing). Justin Tanner writes, “This is a huge, shameful load of shit! Boulder is the straightest, whitest place I’ve ever been. I’ve lived here for five years and I’m moving back to Portland partly because there is no gay community or culture here… I’ve had issues with coworkers, classmates, and strangers, and gotten in fights because someone called me a faggot.” Steven Gonzalez pulled no punches about a former Number 1 city: “Salt Lake is not like the rest of Utah. It’s far more diverse and…

In December, the Food and Drug Administration announced its intention to ease the lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men from donating blood. In the ban’s stead, the agency plans to adopt a new policy that would allow men who have sex with men to donate after a 12-month period of celibacy. The AIDS service organization GMHC lambasted the proposed policy as “offensive and harmful,” claiming that the furtherance of “stigma, fear and discrimination” only helps fuel the disease’s spread. “In reality,” the organization said, “requiring celibacy for a year is a de facto lifetime ban.” In the summer of 2014, the American Medical Association adopted an official stance of opposition to any restrictions on MSM donors. Citing the efficiency of modern science—which can detect HIV as quickly as nine…

Last August, U. S. District Judge Robert Hinkle declared Florida’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. Citing the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protections clause, he wrote that, unequivocally, “Marriage is a fundamental right.” After a lengthy stay, his ruling went into effect January 6, making Florida the 36th state to legalize same-sex marriage. As a fourth generation Floridian, I am ecstatic for my home state where, as a child, I was as likely to see a gay couple as a snowman. Already, more than a 1,000 couples have been married in the nation’s third most populous state, with hundreds more renewing their vows from previous out-of-state weddings. From the Kiss for Equality campaign, these are photos of couples celebrating their love and the freedom to marry in the Sunshine State.…

Larry Kramer’s long awaited new novel, The American People: Volume I, subtitled Search for My Heart, is finally seeing the light of day this April. It’s just the first volume, though “just” may not be the right word, since it’s 800 pages. There are times when the reader will feel like the audience at “Springtime for Hitler.” One will also find oneself laughing out loud, thinking hard, and being thrilled that someone has taken on American history from the viewpoint of gay people. The book is the history of syphilis, hepatitis, hatred, ostracism, the settling of America, concentration camps—American and German—Jews, the CIA, and something called The Underlying Condition (which we suspect will become, in the second volume, AIDS). It begins in pre-Columbian Florida, with monkeys in the Everglades, and…

COUPLES 113,300 Estimated number of foreign born individuals (citizens and non-citizens) in the U.S. who are part of a same-sex couple 14% Percentage of all same-sex couples in the U.S. that include a foreign born spouse or partner 24,700 Number of same-sex couples that are binational (one U.S. citizen and one non-citizen) 7,000 Number of same-sex couples that include two non-citizens who are raising children under 18 LEGAL JUSTICE 3% Chance of being granted asylum for queer immigrants in detention with no professional counsel 84% Percentage of immigrants in detention facilities who lack legal representation 32,704 Number of hours of legal services worked by Immigration Equality’s legal team and partners in 2013 98,740 Number of asylum claims logged in the U.S. in 2013 78 Number of countries with criminal laws…

Neuroscience is discovering that the more often stories are told, the further they stray from reliability. The more the sparkly flourishes and surprising turns (the things that make stories riveting) take precedence in our tales, the deeper those details take root in our brains and sear into our neural pathways. They do it in ways that actual mundane facts cannot. (An aside: This morning I listened to a podcast in which several journalists discussed NBC news anchor Brian Williams and his fabulous—as in incredible, as in not to be believed—story about being in a helicopter hit by rocket-propelled grenade. One panelist said that every journalist’s thought upon hearing that story was, There but for the grace of God go I, and despite having never reported from a war zone, I…

How can an undocumented immigrant survive living in the United States for more than 20 years without a work permit? If you ask Rayita, he will say that it has not been easy. He has been in the United States for the past 21 years, and at various times he has worked in factories, cleaned apartments, and sold cosmetics to hair salons. He has sold empanadas on the street and ice cream at the beach. He has been a telephone company telemarketer, and a busboy and waiter at a number of restaurants. He has been on the catering staff of big-money events but says that as he has gotten older the phone has stopped ringing because event organizers want younger guys. His dream is to find a stable, better-paying job,…

When Panti, the alter ego of Irish drag performer Rory O’Neill, called out several journalists and members of the conservative Catholic group Iona Institute as homophobic early last year on The Saturday Night Show, her targets sued the Irish public media service RTÉ. Fearing a legal battle, RTÉ paid out over $100,000 in damages. The uproar over the payments was dubbed “the Pantigate scandal,” and it became the most high-profile event in the debate over LGBT rights in Ireland. In early May, after years of starts and stops, Ireland is set to hold a referendum on marriage equality. Ireland could become the last major Western European nation to extend the right to same-sex couples, and it will be the first country in the world to put the issue to a…

In January, roughly a year after announcing it would start accepting undergraduate applications from students who identify as female, Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass., made national headlines after a student group said it was canceling a performance of The Vagina Monologues because it excludes the experiences of transgender women. The incident, one not without controversy, marked yet another development in the relationship between transgender students and women’s colleges in the United States. Early this year, the Department of Education reiterated that transgender and gender nonconforming students are protected under Title IX, the federal law that bars sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. The agency also noted on its Web site that this applies to 3,200 colleges and universities, among other institutions, nationwide. Mills College, in the…

World War III “We are on the edge of World War III, and this time the United States of America does not have divine protection because we’ve become a nation of homosexuals and atheists and lesbians and God-haters.” — RICK WILES, PODCAST HOST Sorcery and Witchcraft “You allowed militant homosexuals, atheists and secular Jews to take control of your country and turn it into a cesspool of immorality, perversion, violence, rebellion, sorcery, and witchcraft. My Bible says such a country will suffer sudden destruction.” — RICK WILES, PODCAST HOST Global Doom “Let me make it very clear that if [countries supportive of LGBT rights] think that they can be homosexuals and want to impose homosexuality on the globe, they are doomed.” —YAHYA JAMMEH, PRESIDENT OF GAMBIA Messing Up Creation “The…

COMPLERA is a prescription medicine for adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before and who have no more than 100,000 copies/mL of virus in their blood. COMPLERA can also replace current HIV-1 medicines for some adults who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL) and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements. COMPLERA combines 3 medicines into 1 pill to be taken once a day with food. COMPLERA should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines. COMPLERA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses you must keep taking COMPLERA. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to…

Hrabove is a small village in eastern Ukraine, about 30 miles from the Russian border. It’s a former Soviet collective farm that today has one store, an Orthodox church built in the 19th century, and approximately 1,000 townspeople. Coal mining is a major industry—or was until Russia annexed Crimea and violence forced mines and factories to shutter. Villagers eke out a living however they can, often scrabbling among the fields of wheat and sunflowers that stretch vividly to the horizon. On July 17, 2014, the world abruptly descended on Hrabove. At 4:20 p.m. local time, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in the fields surrounding the village, scattering bodies and debris over eight square miles. “There was a howling noise and everything started to rattle,” a witness told The Independent. “Then…

In 2013, after years of documenting her community, award-winning photographer and activist Zanele Muholi turned her lens to weddings and funerals in the black LBGT community in her home country of South Africa. These joyful and painful events often seem to go hand in hand in a country distinguished by a constitution that recognizes same-sex marriages, yet marked by the incredible violence that plagues black queer communities. Lesbians are particularly vulnerable and are regularly victims of brutal murders and “curative rapes” at the hands of neighbors and friends. These images evoke death but also suggest the cycle of life as morning follows night. Life and death, love and hate are some of the antitheses that appear throughout her work. Muholi’s first major American exhibition, “Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence,” will be on…

We talk a saucy talk and blithely mouth off on a variety of topics, but if someone in the spotlight offers criticism of us as a group, we’re as quick on the defensive as Shia Labeouf after being called an arrogant jerk. It makes sense. Many of us were bullied as kids—and continue to be harassed—simply because of our sexual orientation. What’s more, despite all the progress we’ve made in society, we’re one of the last groups that some people manage to get away with bashing in the media, and in life. No wonder we’re thin skinned—we’ve grown sensitive to being picked on and routinely bristle at a dis, especially one that’s internationally picked up by the media. Naturally, when Bible-thumpers, bigots, and performers like Eminem rag on us, we…

I saw The Wedding Ringer. That was made for straight dudes, right? Yes, it appeals to heteros. But at its core, we always saw it as a bromance between my and Kevin Hart’s characters, especially with our big dance sequence. A.V. Club called it “a 100-minute gay joke masquerading as a buddy comedy.” That’s a surprising and completely inaccurate description. I hope it hasn’t offended anybody. Having seen the movie many times with many gay friends, I’ve never heard that criticism. I tend not to read reviews. You’ve supported LGBT rights on Real Time With Bill Maher and as a guest columnist for USA Today. Why have you been so vocal on the subject? First and foremost, my oldest brother, who’s my role model, happens to be gay and married.…

Jeremy Lybarger interviewed family and colleagues of those killed in Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 for this issue (p. 42). He is a journalist who has written for Mother Jones, Salon, OUT, Guernica, Bookforum, and many others. He lives in San Francisco. Caitlin Donohue profiled would-be immigrants to the U.S. for this issue (p. 52). She is a Mexico City-based freelance writer and photographer, founder of 4UMag.com, and staff writer at Rookie. She writes about gender warriors, hip-hop princesses, and rebel lucha libre wrestlers. To be a part of her world, stalk her at @caitlindonohue on Twitter, @byrdwatch on Instagram. Andrew Holleran interviewed Larry Kramer for this issue (p. 36). He is the author of Dancer From the Dance, Grief, and Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited. He lives in Florida and…

In the summer of 2013, with Proposition 8 nearly half a decade old yet still a vivid memory, political scientists Donald Green and Michael LaCour designed a study to help the Los Angeles LGBT Center make the most out of its messaging. What they learned has broad implications for advocates of civil rights. The notion that personal interaction between members of differing cultures can wear down the rough edges of prejudice is nothing new. Known as the contact hypothesis, this interaction is often the cornerstone of efforts to reduce hostility in communities wracked by racial or sectarian violence. The beneficial effects of personal interaction in reducing prejudices is undeniable, but outside a lab it can often be difficult to sustain contact between hostile communities long enough to dispel negative stereotypes…

380 MILLION 1 The number of albums and singles sold worldwide by 1974 Eurovision winning ABBA, one of the best-selling bands of all time. 1998 2 The year transgender Israeli singer Dana International won Eurovision. 3 t.A.T.u. represented Russia at Eurovision 2003. The female duo had previously represented themselves as lesbians, but a documentary released that year showed that was not the case. 4 Final rank of Ukrainian drag sensation Verka Serduchka in Eurovision in 2007: 2nd. She recently lost a lucrative contract to appear on the Russian show Saturday Night because producers felt she would be “advertising for nontraditional sexual relationships.” 15,000 5 Number of signatures on a 2013 petition demanding that the Russian state broadcaster remove Eurovision from its TV schedule. 19.5MILLION 6 Number of views on Conchita…

You are out on the town and a handsome man catches your eye. He is breathtaking, and in your heart you pray that his conversational skills match his physique. Your heart skips a beat when he is able to complete a full sentence, and your mind instantly conjures images of your wedding on an island in Greece: cobalt blue waters, warm breezes, and white doves released in celebration of your union. You’ll be enjoying a long life together filled with happiness, love, and sexual satisfaction. That fantasy, however, can never be reality without first talking about sex, condoms, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, and more. Isn’t that a mood killer? Why do we always have to talk about this stuff? And when are we supposed to? During the first conversation? There…

Despite the familiar call-and-response from columnists and cable talk show hosts, we rarely have an honest conversation in the public square about immigration in the United States. Even when we do, the dialogue focuses on border patrols or building bigger fences. Little is said about the plight of LGBT people who often live outside a family structure because they are ostracized for their sexual orientations or gender nonconformity. Little is said about the harsh conditions facing asylum-seekers fleeing their countries of origin. Too often our journeys are solo ones—not as huddled masses. Yet we still yearn to breathe free.…

Before 2013, my green card experience, insofar as it affected me directly, had been limited to a vague memory of a 1990 movie. I’ve found that a vague memory of Andie MacDowell’s acting usually serves me best. Binational couple immigration has been a topic covered in The Advocate for quite some time. Since the advent of marriage equality in Massachusetts, as queer people we’d collectively been aware of the lack of federal rights our marriages granted us. But when key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act were struck down by the Supreme Court, I knew I could marry my fiance, who moved from Vienna to the United States so we could be together. We’d have a legal basis for him to become a permanent resident. The federal government would…

On the otherwise ordinary summer morning of December 15, 2014, an unprecedented terror gripped Sydney. In the heart of the city’s business district, an unhinged Islamic radical named Man Haron Monis strode into a Lindt chocolate cafe with a sawed-off shotgun, took 18 people hostage, and began an anguishing 16-hour standoff. Australian police forces stormed the cafe in the early hours of the next day, but by then the cafe’s manager, Tori Johnson, had been killed. Because of an ongoing investigation, there are no formal accounts of exactly what transpired in the tense lead-up to the tragedy’s climax, but unconfirmed media reports indicate that Johnson was killed after attempting to wrestle the gunman for control of the weapon. In the final blitz, another hostage, a barrister named Katrina Dawson, was…

Last December I was standing in the balcony of the Hollywood Palladium at the TrevorLIVE fund-raiser watching Ty Herndon—the country music star who has had 17 singles on Billboard’s Hot Country chart—belt out the most jubilant rendition of his 2010 song “Journey On” that I’d ever heard. The song is an anthem for people dealing with adversity. “Sometimes in the moment of your weakness / When you’re on the edge of giving in / You hold your heart before it falls to pieces / Journey On,” he sings, triumphant and inspiring. We were there to help raise money for the Trevor Project’s suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBT youth, but that song, that moment, was about something more for Herndon. I wasn’t the only person with goose bumps in…