Tag Archives: lgbt

Today’s Lady News: Lesbians Told Their Kiss “Violates The 10 Commandments”

Jessica WakemanJune 20, 2011 //

Remember that commandment that says “Thou shalt not kiss thy girlfriend at a Minnesota Twins game?” Nope, me, neither. But some busybody security guard at Target Field took it upon himself to tell a lesbian couple that they couldn’t kiss at the stadium because “we don’t play grab-ass here” and it was breaking the 10 commandments. A spokesman for the Minnesota Twins said the guard received both a verbal and a written reprimand, but still kept his job. [CityPages.com]
Oh, look, scientists have “proved” men are funnier than women. Rolls eyes. [The Mary Sue]
A study of black female inmates in North Carolina suggests black women with lighter skin are given shorter prison sentences. [Clutch Magazine]

“Gay Girl In Damascus” Blogger Amina Abdallah Abducted

Jessica WakemanJune 8, 2011 //

UPDATE: A London woman, Jelena Lecic, has claimed that the “Gay Girl In Damascus” blogger has stolen her photographs to use as the public face of her blog. Lecic’s publicist said the woman knew before that a Syrian blogger had been using her pics, possibly taken from Facebook, as her identity. However, when blogger Amina Abdallah went missing recently, Lecic began seeing pictures of herself everywhere claiming they were of the missing woman. Now there is some doubt being cast on Abdallah’s actual identity. Summary: the whole thing is very weird. [MSNBC]

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A lesbian blogger in Syria, who penned a popular blog called “Gay Girl In Damascus,” was abducted, her family said. Amina Abdallah, 35, an English teacher, was a prominent voice in opposition to Syria’s leadership and had dodged other abduction attempts by suspected security agents, CNN reports. Keep reading »

Is This Sprint Ad Transphobic?

Jessica WakemanMay 11, 2011 //

I can’t turn a corner without seeing the T-mobile ad with the pretty lady in a variety of gorgeous pink dresses. But this Sprint ad warning against an AT&T and T-mobile merger is kinda dodgy. I don’t necessarily disagree with the anti-monopoly politics of it (although I’ll leave that to the econ majors to explain to me). No, it’s the old man with a cigar in a pink polka dot dress and the co-option of AT&T’s tag line, “It makes sense if you don’t think about it,” that bugs me. Uh, men wearing women’s clothing makes sense if you don’t think about it? I’m all for spoofs, but this is kinda transphobic, don’t you think, Sprint? [Queerty] Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Tennessee Wants To Ban Teachers From Saying “Gay” Until 9th Grade

Jessica WakemanMay 9, 2011 //

Tennessee’s state legislature is noodling a “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would prohibit teachers from using the word “gay” in the classroom until the 9th grade. (Yeah, seriously.) The Tennessee Senate is expected to vote on the bill this Thursday. [Queerty]
Stephanie Coontz’s Mother’s Day piece for the New York Times op-ed page is a must-read for anyone who has ever thought critically about stay-at-home moms, working moms, and how best to be happy after having children. [New York Times]
Also in honor of Mother’s Day, Save The Children released its annual report, “State Of The World’s Mothers.” The best places in the world to be a mom? Norway, Australia, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark. The worst place? Afghanistan. The United States only comes in at #31 among the 43 developed countries ranked. Um … “USA, USA”? [Save The Children]

Keep reading »

Lil B Titles Album “I’m Gay,” Receives Major Backlash

Kate Torgovnick/Kate-Book.comApril 25, 2011 //

The hip hop world isn’t exactly known for being gay-friendly, what with the frequent homophobic rhymes and someone like 50 Cent going as far as to joke, “I had my homie shoot up a gay wedding” on Twitter. So it was a pretty bold move when rapper Lil B announced last week that his new album will be called I’m Gay. He explained to MTV News that the title is meant to be supportive of the LGBT community. “I’m very gay, but I love women. I’m not attracted to men in any way. I’ve never been attracted to a man in my life. But yes I am gay, I’m so happy. I’m a gay, heterosexual male,” he said. “I got major love for the gay and lesbian community, and I just want to push less separation and that’s why I’m doing it.”

His fans, however, aren’t so thrilled. Keep reading »

In “Imma Homo” Song, Gay Rappers Seize A Place Hip Hop

Jessica WakemanApril 8, 2011 //

Do you love hip hop? And you think gays, lesbians and transgender folks are, you know, actual people? Then you have to check out the music video for “Imma Homo,” a rap song by a group of MCs under the record label Rainbow Noise. (The audio is NSFW; use headphones.) The rappers run the gamut from ultra-femmey lesbians to ultra-butch dykes and everything in between; their lyrics proudly declare “Imma homo” with lines about “my lezzie peeps,” and watching Logo (the gay channel).

When would you hear that coming out of Diddy Dirty Money’s mouth? Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Lesbian Students Claim Oklahoma School Won’t Let Them Graduate

Jessica WakemanNovember 16, 2010 //

Two lesbian students said their Oklahoma high school won’t let them graduate as long as the girls are living together. Melissa McKenzie moved in with her girlfriend Kelsey Hicks and Hicks’ family. But McKenzie claims she was kicked out of school when administrators learned that and told her she could return when she went back to her parents’ home. Hicks had also dropped out of school last month, but said the principal discouraged her from returning. Although Hicks admitted she’s been in trouble at school in the past, she said the principal pushed her towards getting her GED instead because she’s gay. [Advocate.com, News9.com]
One of the U.K.’s leading midwives has accused the National Health Service of “scaring” women out of having a home birth. [Telegraph]
Watch a trailer starring Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard as Winnie and Nelson Mandela in a biopic of her life, “Winnie.” [Clutch Magazine]

Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Lesbian Student In KY Attacked By Classmates

Jessica WakemanApril 26, 2010 //

High school student Cheyenne Williams of McKee, Kentucky, an out lesbian, claims three female classmates kidnapped her and brought her to the woods where they beat her up and tried to push her off a 50-foot cliff. The alleged attack occurred on April 16, which high schools across the country recognize as the “Day of Silence” in a nod to gay and lesbian students. Police say Ashley Sams, 18, Corrinne Schwab, 18, and a 17-year-old female took Williams against her will to Flat Lick Falls, where they tried to push her off a cliff and she fought them off with a stick before running away. The suspects have been charged with kidnapping and attempted murder; police say they don’t have enough evidence to qualify the attack as a hate crime. [CBS News]
Eighty schoolgirls in northern Afghanistan are sick after a strange odor enveloped their classroom. Police are investigating whether extremists may have poisoned the school because they oppose girls receiving an education. [ABC News]
A court in San Francisco has ruled that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. must face a class-action lawsuit alleging the store discriminates against female employees. All women who have worked at Wal-Mart since 2001 may join in the class-action lawsuit, which Bloomberg News called “the biggest gender-bias case in U.S. history.” [NPR]

Keep reading »

Gay Couples To Get Visitation Rights At Most Hospitals

Jessica WakemanApril 16, 2010 //

I’m not going to lie, this story makes my eyes tear up. In 2007, Lisa Pond, of Florida, collapsed from a brain aneurysm and a few hours later at the hospital, she died alone, without her kids or the person she’d spent the last 18 years of her life with. Lisa Pond died this way because she was a lesbian.

Yesterday, President Obama called Pond’s former partner, Janice Langbehn, to inform her that he mandated all hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding — which are most in the country — must extend visitation rights to same-sex couples. This mandate, which should go into effect in a few months, will allow a gay or lesbian partner to not only make medical decisions for their ill or injured loved one, but also to be there during the last moments of their life. In the past, LGBT partners who are not legally married have been refused by hospitals’ “relatives-only” policies. Keep reading »

“Family” Group Uses Scary Pic To Frighten Floridians From Lesbian Adoption

Jessica WakemanFebruary 8, 2010 //

Gay-bashing can be tough work: just look at the trouble that the Florida Family Policy Council of Orlando, Florida, ran into while protesting a Miami judge’s decision to grant a lesbian couple the right to adopt a 1-year-old boy. Lesbians Vanessa Alenier and Melanie Leon (photo at right) have cared for the boy, the child of one of Alenier’s relatives, since he’d been removed from his birth parents by child welfare. And last month, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia ruled that a Florida state law banning the gay couple from adoption the boy was “unconstitutional,” effectively awarding them custody.

Judge Sampedro-Iglesia’s decision did not sit well with the scaremongers — they got right to work lambasting her “arrogant judicial activism” in an email alert. Unfortunately, the lesbian adoptee moms were far too femme, smiley and “straight”-looking to scare the bejeezus out of homophobes. So the FFPC (which is affiliated with Focus on the Family) did some creative illustration and cooked up a faux-lesbian duo of butch women who “look” a lot more like stereotypical lesbians (see photo left) to presumably scare everyone away from gay adoption. Because, you know, butch lesbians can’t be good parents!

Klassy, right? [Orlando Sentinel, NBC Miami] Keep reading »