I'm Giving a Gay Presentation Today

Today, in about 45 minutes (O god, only 45 minutes left to worry), I'm giving a presentation to my class....in SPANISH! It's my Spanish 305 class, and we're supposed to present a news article from a Spanish country in Spanish. And because I'm masochistic and an idiot, I decided that it would be a good idea to basically come out to my class and do a presentation about a gay pride parade in Mexico.

Did I mention that I'm the first person in the class to present? Way to set the bar high, right? Who knows what the hell kind of presentation will be given on Monday.

Fortunately, the darn thing only has to be 5 minutes long, so it's not going to be that bad. My only worry is getting booed/threatened/shot out of the classroom. We'll just have to see what happens. I'll give you more details about it after the class!

Irish Marriage Equality Advert

I really liked this video; it puts a very literal perspective to the idea of having to ask millions of people to vote on whether or not gay people should be allowed to marry.

Everyone Can Use a Gay in Times of Tragedy

Hilarious video, but it turns out that they make a good point. I feel like I'm always there to help my friends out and brighten their days when something bad happens. Then again, I try to be a good friend anyways; I don't have to be gay to do that.

Local Knoxville News of HIV/AIDS counselor

I found this article in the News Sentinel, and I am truly inspired by it. This woman, Dr. Jeanne Gillian, has worked for 13 years counseling people who have been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. She works at a volunteer center at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, along with many other volunteers. The amount of stress and time-consumption she must experience is truly inspirational.

She was personally affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic back was she was just getting started with all of this. Her son was diagnosed with HIV and eventually died because of it's horrible complications. She can personally relate, and it's very tragic.

I plan to contact her in some way, whether by mail or phone, to let her know how much I appreciate her efforts; they are simply wonderful. I encourage you to do the same.

Judy Shepard Writes a Book About Her Son

I read an excerpt from her new book, The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie and a World Transformed, I was practically brought to tears by the short story. It was the story of the phone call that Judy received at 5am while she was across the world in the Middle East saying that her son had been attacked and sustained very serious head injuries. The amount of shock and tension I felt while reading Judy's feelings about how her son was not likely to live was terrifying.

The story of Matthew Shepard is a very sad one that hopefully won't be repeated anytime soon, even though I know it has since and will be again.

Lambda Student Union

I recently mentioned my participation in the Lambda Student Union, and I would like to take a moment to briefly explain what it is.

The Lambda Student Union is a UT campus organization that was established to act as a network for students to serve needs of communication, friendship, insight into the LGBTA world, and to be a place for students to go to feel safe and have someone to talk to. I don't know how long it's been going for, but I know it's been a while.


I've been a member for almost 2 years now, and I currently serve as Historian and Treasurer. It has been one of the greatest experiences of my life; it's something I wouldn't change for anything.

Lambda is very involved both on campus and in the community. We host several events throughout the year and are planning to add even more to our agenda. Some events include recognizing World Aids Day, National Coming Out Day, the National Day of Silence, and our annual Lambda Luau. We also try to collaborate with other on-campus organizations, including the LGBT Commission. If you want to work with us, don't hesitate to let us know.

We like to have fun too, of course. We hold Movie/Game Nights, a bi-annual Drag Show, and many of our members host their own parties that all members are welcome to attend.

It's a really fun organization that I hope you'll get to know much better through my blog. I'm going to start posting blogs about the events that happen involving Lambda, so look forward to those!

A Day in Hand

An interesting campaign that I am definitely going to participate in.

It calls for everyone, gay or straight, to get involved by simply holding hands. That's all.


The idea is that by "speaking out" silently, the LGBTA community is protesting society's stance against gay people without causing undue drama or inappropriate language. This is an inspired idea, very similar to the National Day of Silence. It's supposed to become a monthly event.

I'm definitely going to bring this up at UT's local Lambda group. I think it could be such a good thing to really get started, especially if it gets the appropriate attention it deserves.

A Day In Hand website

Pink News article

Jamie Lee Curtis with some Good Insight

While I was checking my daily news sites, I came across an interesting blog post from Actress Jamie Lee Curtis. She was talking about how when she saw the inspirational movie, Bucket List, she was moved to tears at the very end of the movie during the credits by the song, Say, by John Mayer.

I'm sure you've heard this song; I hear it on the radio all of the time. I did not really listen to it though until I read this blog. The song really is very inspirational, especially from an LGBT standpoint.

At some point in our lives, all gay people are in the closet. We are forced to hide for fear of what might happen to us. Some come out; some don't. I think it's important to realize the value that comes from letting people know who you are.

I'm not going to go into some "come out" rant. That's not my style, nor the point of this blog. From what Jamie said, I think it's important to realize that we don't have forever to say what is hiding inside of us. Life could be taken away in an instant, and then the chance is gone. Even if it doesn't have anything to do with being gay, it's important to express yourself, your feelings, your thoughts, while you still can.

So get out there, and "say what you need to say."

Huffington.com blog post

Other People SHOULD Care About Us

People always say that We want gay marriage, and you shouldn't care because it doesn't affect you at all. I've even caught myself saying this...because it's what I think. But I never really thought about what I was saying.

Corvino, from 365gay.com, brings up an interesting point. Of course we want people to care, to change how they feel about us. That's the whole point of trying to get gay marriage legalized; so that other people can see how in love and happy gay people are.

I'd never really thought about it that way. It's kind of like a saying gay marriage is a 2-sided coin: on one side, you don't want people to care what you're doing behind closed doors; but on the other you want them to care more than anything about you so that they'll be okay with how you live your life.

I Promise I'm Back

I know I said I'd start back blogging again and haven't, but I've been SUPER busy! Classes started back up recently, and I decided to be ULTRA-Masochistic and take on the position of Stage Manager for the play Fat Pig. My life vanished in the blink of an eye after I made that mistake.


But now the show is over, so I should have a little bit more time to post on here.

I would like to mention that I'm going to be changing some things up a bit here though. I'm going to start tossing in some variety into my posts from now on. Instead of just posting about the gay news of the world, I'm going to start getting more localized. Why not use my blog as a story-board for the Lambda Student Union, a UT organization that I am an active member of? So expect more from that.

I'll have some other suprises up here for everyone too, so get EXCITED!!!

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy

I want to apologize for my horrible lack of blogging lately. I've just been super super super busy! And lazy with the blogging thing. My schedule has been all over the place in July, but when classes start back I'll get back into the swing of things.

I'll be back; I promise.

Senate Gonna Vote on Hate Crimes Bill

I really hope the Senate makes the right decision here. It's about time that the government start making some appropriate legislation in support of gay marriage.

John McCain can suck it!

Advocate article

Student Forced Into "Ex-Gay" Camp

Sad story. I certainly this poor guy gets out of here before he's too emotionally hurt...forever.

PinkNews Article

Kiss In Protest By Mormon Church

After a gay couple who kissed last weekend was in a slight altercation with police just outside of a Mormon church, a Kiss-In was established by a local LGBT community as a peaceful protest. I say job well done!

Pink News Article

HUGE Step for India

Homosexuality has been officially decriminalized in New Dehli, India! This is an unbelievable step in the right direction for gay people in Inida.

Great Britain put the anti-gay laws in place back in the 1800's, and now they've been abolished in the capital city. It is very likely that the laws will soon be abolished throughout the country following this legislation. How exciting for the gays of India!

NYT articles

Scary Article Makes Me Not Want to Go to Jamaica

Huffington Post Article by Johann Hari

The Stonewall Riots Haven't Stopped-They've Gone Global

It is now forty years since the start of a riot for freedom in a small tavern in New York City - and the riot has never stopped. It is spreading slowly across the world, to every continent, to Mumbai and Shanghai and Dubai. Everywhere it goes, it wins, in time. Yet on June 28th 1969, it seemed only like another sixties ruck in the muck against corrupt cops.

The Stonewall Tavern was a bar in Greenwich Village where gay people huddled together to find friends and lovers in a hostile country on a hostile planet. It was a hang-out for everyone from macho bikers to drag queens making the pilgrimage from Ohio and Iowa and Kansas. One of the regulars said that until he discovered the bar, "I felt like I was the only one... I only knew enough to hide." The regulars were harming nobody; they were only enjoying themselves. But the local police force was fond of busting the bar, and beating and imprisoning the clientele. They only allowed the bar to stay open at all because they were being bribed by local gay gangsters.

But one day, gay people decided they had had enough of cowering and hiding and being told they were sick. On the day of Judy Garland's funeral, the police smashed their way into the Stonewall. The historian Martin Duberman distils what happened next into a single image: "A leg, poured into nylons and sporting a high heel, shot out of a paddy wagon into the chest of a cop, throwing him backwards." The drag queen yelled: "Nobody's gonna fuck with me no more!" And the global riot began.

It was the turning point in the fight for equality for gay people. Within four decades, goals that would have seemed impossible to those fighters that night were achieved: openly gay Prime Ministers, gay marriage in Europe and parts of the US, legal bans on discrimination. The gay rights movement was a cry for the right to love in the darkness. It is a model of democratic pressure: a minority peacefully appealing to the decency of the majority, and prevailing. It's the strongest antidote to cynicism that I know.

The conversation about gay people has been so soaked in theology for so long that it's important to state some hard empirical facts. Homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon that happens in every human society. Everywhere, around 2-5 percent of human beings prefer to have sex with their own gender. It occurs at the heart of nature: only last week, a major study by Professors Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk of the University of California found: "The variety and ubiquity of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals is impressive - many thousands of instances of same-sex courtship, pair bonding and copulation have been observed in a wide range of species, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, molluscs and nematodes."

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. It doesn't mean anything. It is a harmless genetic quirk. It has always happened, and it always will. The only question is: do you want to be spiteful to gay people, or let them express their most natural urges peacefully?

In the US and Europe, steadily and remarkably quickly, the civilising voices are winning. There is still a lot to do - gay teenagers are six times more likely to commit suicide than their straight siblings - but the trajectory is ever-upwards. In much of the developing world, gay equality is inching forward too. After extraordinarily brave men and women fought back, India is poised to decriminalize homosexuality this year, and China has just seen its first ever Gay Pride parade.

But there are three great swathes of humanity still untouched by the spirit of Stonewall - and terrified, terrorized gay people there are screaming for help. In the Caribbean, majority-Muslim countries, and most of Africa, being gay is a death sentence - yet many people who should be showing solidarity choose not to see it.

Jamaica is Taliban Afghanistan for gay people. If caught, gays and lesbians face ten years' hard labour - but they are more likely to be lynched. The cases documented by Dr Robert Carr of the University of the West Indies fill whole books. Here's two from a single week. A father found a picture of a naked man in his 16 year old son's rucksack, so he produced it in the playground and called on his classmates to encouraged them to beat him to death - which they promptly did. Nobody was ever charged. In Montego Bay, a man was caught checking out another man - so the crowd lynched him. When the police arrived, they joined in. Hospitals routinely refuse to treat the victims of gay bashings, leaving them to die.

There is a Matthew Sheppard there every day, but people who wouldn't have dreamed of holidaying in Apartheid South Africa flock to Jamaica's beaches. A heroic Jamaican called Brian Williamson set up an organization called J-FLAG to campaign for the rights of gay Jamaicans. His body was found stabbed and slashed over seventy times. The police did nothing. The most popular song in Jamaica in recent years - by Beenie Man - choruses: "I'm dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays... Take dem by surprise/ Get dem in the head."

Throughout Muslim countries, gay people are routinely jailed, tortured and hanged. Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh denies there are any gay people in Iran, but is happy to have them executed in public squares. In post-invasion Iraq, there has been a homo-cidal pogrom of gay people being led by private Islamist "morality squads". In the past two months, over 25 corpses of gay men have been found in one slum, Sadr City, alone, mutilated, with notes saying "pervert" pinned to their chests. Ayatollah Ali-Al Sistani, the country's leading religious cleric, says gays should be killed "in the worst way possible" - and they are obeying. Men are now being killed by having their anuses glued shut.

In Africa, one country has been a beacon for gay rights: post-Apartheid South Africa even gay equality written into its constitution. Yet even it is now headed by a man, Jacob Zuma, who brags about beating up gay men in his youth.

The gay people cowering in these countries are asking for our support - by funding their underground organizations, by putting gay rights on the diplomatic agenda, and by consistently granting asylum to the victims of homophobic persecution. Today, some gay people seeking safety are given the right to remain, while others are told to go back and hide their sexuality.

But too many people avert their gaze from the murderous homophobic persecution happening now - and, even more shockingly, some condemn the people who are trying to stop it. Peter Tatchell, one of the great figures of the fight for gay equality, has for years been organizing practical support for gay Jamaicans, Muslims, and Africans. They have been incredibly grateful - but he has been pilloried by people who pretend to be left-wingers here as "racist" and "imperialist".

How is it "racist" to side with black and Muslim people who are being hunted down and murdered by other black and Muslim people? How is it "imperialist" to peacefully support their struggle, as they are begging us to? Should we say to the successors of Brian Williamson - sorry, but we can't help you today, because the descendants of your torturers and murderers were subject to British imperial rape a century ago?

That would be real racism: to cheer a Stonewall for white people on the streets of New York City, but to ignore it on the streets of Kingston or Cairo or Kinshasa, just because the homophobic cops there happen to be black or Arab.

Homosexuality happens everywhere, so gay people fight for the freedom to be themselves everywhere. The Stonewall riot - and its high-heeled kick - isn't over. In many places, it's only just begun.

Children of the Gays

Awesome article! Totally worth checking out.

The children of gay people are the untapped resource that the gay community needs to get the children's safety argument thrown out. Yes, we can say it doesn't affect them all we want, but we need facts--statistics. I mean, it doesn't hurt children to have same-sex parents, but the counter argument is so much better with fact. Maybe this article is pushing onto that road. I hope so.

Knoxville Pridefest!

Personal blog--Knoxville Pridefest happened yesterday, and here's how it went from my perspective.

This was my first ever Pride festival. I didn't know there was one in Knoxville until this year, but I was so happy that I got to go. I've always wanted to see massive grouping of gay people all in one place, just to feel the atmosphere of it. I could not be like anything I'd ever experienced before. I know it wouldn't compare to a Pride in NYC or LA, where thousands upon thousands come out, but it's still big for lil' ol' me.


I worked all day with my UT organization, the Lambda Student Union. I painted faces for the event as a way to bring people over to our table and get them to see that the Lambda name was out there. We didn't charge for it because I knew that we would get way less customers if we did (especially since another booth was also painting faces--but not nearly as well, if I may say so myself), but I put a tip jar out that cleverly asked for tips for "a poor, gay, college student" instead of an organization, and we ended getting a bunch of tips out of it because people kept saying they wanted to tip the cute boy for his services. Hehe, it was so much fun.

Several positives came out of painting faces, all of which I expected and was very pleased about. Foremostly, I got to experiment with my artistic ability. I've painted faces before, but never a bunch of rainbows, and let me tell you it was difficult. I cant do an outline on someone's face, so I have to envision the work of art while painting it multicolored. Some symbols, like the double gender signs for men and women, were quite to figure out at first, but I managed to even make them a little artsy in the way I did the colors. Success!


Secondly, painting faces, since I get so obscenely close to people whilst painting them, gives me a chance to do a bit of socialilizing with people. I get to talk to the many gays of Knoxville, both young and old, and it's really exciting to get to see some of the different perspectives and how they live their lives in the same city I do. There are some intersting characters here, needless to say. One particular group of high schoolers (all gay and cool with it, btws) made sure that I painted all of their faces multiple times, even their arms. They were all so chatty and fun though, I didn't mind at all. They all developed this hilarious idea of getting the pot leaf painted in rainbow on their bodies, and that trend quickly picked up, even outside their little group. I daresay I painted more rainbow pot leaves than hearts yesterday.


Kind of relating to the last point, getting all up on people to paint them let me get extra close to some cute guys. Not that I'm looking at all (I'm madly in love with Danny and would never consider leaving him), getting to see pretty boys isn't a sin, and they have brains too for good conversation, just like everyone else.



I didn't get to do much else that day because I was literally painting faces the entire time. I had to even get a friend to go with my debit card and buy dinner for me; I couldn't take a dinner break because people kept wanting their faces painted. Not that I was mad at all about this; it makes me so happy to see people glance at someone's rainbow design on their face and want for themselves. Like my work is actually good or something. That put a smile on my face. And it make the time go faster, which is a much needed positive since I was out there the greater part of the day.

Overall, I really enjoyed Pride and think it was a great success. There was a lot going on, with all the different and exotic booths, people out there to support it from the organizations (even gay-friendly churches came out!), and there were so so so many people (I heard it was the biggest turn out ever). I can't wait til next year, when we do it so much bigger and better!

Gay US Congressman Reintroduces Anti-Discrimination Bill

I hope this goes through. It would be a major step in gay rights!!!!!! Yay for progressives!

Pink News Article

Keeping Jerusalem in My Thoughts

As I'm typing this, I'm sure the events of Pride in Jerusalem are going on right now (because of the time difference). I certainly hope everything is going well for them, as the event has been stricken with violence in the past. My boyfriend is also in Israel today, so if he's there, I REALLY REALLY hope everything goes well today.

Ugh, I'm going to worry myself to death.

Pink News Article