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Mark's Cafe Moi: Ghosts that sell memories
I don’t know where that line comes from, “Ghosts that sell memories.” A song, I think, or at least a song whose lyrics I vaguely remember.
I came across a letter Larry Kramer wrote to Randy Shilts (via The Petrelis Files, via Andrew Sullivan) in which Kramer tells Shilts that he’s going to Los Angeles to see a production of “The Normal Heart” starring Richard Dreyfuss. I saw that production. I was there to review the play for EDGE, a long-defunct gay newspaper I wrote stories and reviews for. My late partner Jim was with me. He died in 1991, spending the last three days of his life comatose in a hospice. Prior to the very end he’d been in a tight fetal position, but for some reason he relaxed that last day. A very kind nurse shaved him and combed his hair; he was looking good for the first time in many months, though he had always been handsome to me.
Jim will be dead 20 years this November. I very rarely encounter him in dreams – maybe once every five years – but the last week or so I’ve met him again after all this time. He seems content; his sense of humor is intact, he’s easygoing, and speaking with him now, there is none of the pain and fear that was such a thick, oppressive part of our days and nights.
So much has been written about the 30th anniversary of the AIDS plague (and I do prefer to call it a plague, as Kramer calls it; “epidemic” is both an understatement and a sanitization of its horror). It wasn’t that I wanted to throw in my two sentimental cents, just that I suddenly recalled, after reading Larry Kramer’s letter, sitting in a theater in 1985 with a man I would lose six years later. And those dreams so recent, and the peace I felt seeing him again.
I’ll be marrying Frank, my partner of nearly five years. Maybe Jim just wanted to give us his blessing. Ghosts that sell memories I’m happy to buy.]]> -
Interview: Michael Fairman from Michael Fairman On-Air On-Soaps
By Rick Rose
Michael Fairman has been in the soap opera business for well over half his life. Our Rick Rose met Michael when Rick was a journalist for several soap magazines. Michael has seen his life and that of this great American institution change over those couple decades. From growing up in “small town Wisconsin” (like Rick), then moving to LA, from living in the closet to living out, from Lucci winning the Emmy (finally) and ONE LIFE TO LIVE breaking the spell of canceled soaps by moving from network TV to the internet, Michael has informatively and humorously rolled with the changes on his daily website called Michael Fairman On-Air On-Soaps (www.michaelfairmansoaps.com). Here he candidly tells lgbtSr all! RR: How, why and when did you start your website? Did it grow with hits fast or take time? MF: I started SoapCity.com for Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment in 1997. It was the first online portal for soaps ever. With this, I could bring all my talents together to connect worldwide fans closer to their stars. I have this insane knowledge of daytime and was able to parlay it into this successful model. In 2001, when the higher-ups wanted to make money off the site with $1.99 downloads of episodes, it was like watching your baby changing into someone else. I stepped away and went into producing and writing TV. In 2008, I wanted to create my own web platform with my own brand. In 2009, I did a 100% overhaul of that site which is what you see today. Coming back into it, (after so many years away) I saw how online had blossomed, but of course with that came a lot of online soap site competitors which made me want to make my video, interviews and presentation be very modern to stand out from the bad wrap of a soap’s traditional “grandma” feel. It launched with a big benefit for AIDS Walk Los Angeles as I have always believed in the social responsibility of the soap genre. We have increased traffic and hits by 100% in the last year. RR: Why your ongoing fascination with soaps and hasn’t the passion for them dwindled in general over the years? MF: Ricky Paul Goldin, Emmy-nominated again this year for his lead role on ALL MY CHILDREN which was recently canceled just asked me that same question, Rick. He commented that I have never abandoned my soap friends. I believe that you have to follow your heart and your passion even though it may not always seem to be the right decision at times. Look, it is human nature to be fascinated by doom and gloom. So while soaps seem to be dying due to lack of interest, their cancelations have conversely made folks want to look online and see where the genre is headed. My relationship with the actors and fans who I love has been for 23 years. Is it time for me to move on? It is a tough call. RR: The Michael who first started watching soaps as a young boy in Wisconsin vs. the Michael today living in Los Angeles…what was life like then vs. now? MF: As a kid I had huge dreams and aspirations. I wanted to leave Wisconsin really bad and pursue a career in acting and singing in NYC or Hollywood. I knew I didn’t fit in with where I was from at a very young age. Now, having lived a full fifty years, the spirit is still there, but what is real isn’t exactly what I dreamed. You get kicked down, you get up again. You must persevere. At times I questioned whether or not I was strong enough to handle it all. Then I look at it and see how much I have survived, and realized, I am strong and a survivor to boot! I have handled a lot of issues and kept on going. As an older gay man living in WEHO (West Hollywood, CA), I am surprised as I never thought I would be living in the Mecca for our gay community, in the thick of it. When I was in my 20s and 30s it was about my looks, something that is true for gay men in LA. It is superficial. I have always been out in a large city, so there has always been that “high school” pressure. I feel that the Gay community is often harder on itself and I wish we were more supportive of one another. And now at 50, I am looked at differently, as a Daddy. It drives me up a wall. (Laughs)
RR: Are the situations one faces growing up in a city in Wisconsin the same as those we see on air in a soap city like Genoa City on THE YOUNG AND RESTLESS which is also set in Wisconsin? MF: No. Where is the poor family on Y&R? Where is the character from the inner city of Milwaukee? Soap people are all beautiful and no one works at a brewery. (Laughs) Soaps are too glamorous for what it is really like out in America. But every soap at its center, and why it relates to people from the South to West to Midwest, is that it is about core family relationships, bringing kids up, falling apart, losing loved ones…it is an amped up version of what we may experience in Anywhere, USA on a daily basis. That was the successful formula of soaps for years. We could relate, and we could watch as a family….it became an extended family for many viewers. My moral values and the people I meet from the Midwest are salt of the earth. I get along best with them. Generally there is something to be said about moral values and backbones. They know what is right and wrong. You don’t find that in other parts of the country, and not always on soaps either. (Laughs)
RR: ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN are perfect examples of a recent slew of soaps that have been canceled. Why? Have they stayed current and real? MF: This didn’t just happen overnight. It is a domino effect. Networks have made decisions years ago which are making a difference today. When televising the OJ trial, the public fascination with that came into play. Now, TV executives see they can create a similar sensation at 40% less of the cost with reality/makeover shows in the daypart, or at least they think they can. Before that back in the 80s and 90s, they would use the large soap revenues and pour them into primetime shows. Coupled with that is the internal disappointment that soap producers and designers never really modernized the look and feel. GUIDING LIGHT tried to do this too late in the game with almost all location shooting yet they had no budget. It was too late for America’s oldest soap/TV series. Right now, OLTL is on a creative high. It has been riveting for months. It is number 3 in the ratings! On AMC, the results of bringing in its creator Agnes Nixon to fix the big mistakes from recent years of bad writing is just showing on-screen now. The decision to wipe out both shows at the same time is shocking. To put on two reality/ talk shows at once as replacements is crazy versus trying one to see how it does. ABC tried to breathe new life into an older art form with creative marketing campaigns but some of the audience was already gone. SOAP OPERA DIGEST may go out of circulation next year, but its numbers were dwindling for years. No one saw this? RR: An Entertainment Media/ internet company, Prospect Park, has signed licensing agreements with ABC to carry OLTL and AMC on the internet. As an expert in these two areas (web and soaps), will they succeed and will a new era for soap operas begin? MF: Rick, I wish I could tell you the answer. I am seeing positive things happening very fast. There are a lot of discussions happening, but it is shrouded in secrecy because of negotiations. The networks, the shows and the actors are all interested and excited, but when it comes down to it, it is all about how will they make money and will they be protected by their specific unions. Prospect Park is coming in as a player with a lot of cash and capital, so that brings hopes. Some variables that could make it problematic though are: What is the production model? They are saying they want the shows to be the same length and quality and have the same cast and studios. But will viewers watch on line for that long? They should. How will the budgets change? Can they afford the high salaries of veterans like Susan Lucci and Erika Slezak to allow them to move from TV to internet? And above all, will fans be okay with video on demand and subscription? In other words, will the soaps be sponsor driven with advertising or will the fans pay for them. It is all very interesting and fast paced right now. RR: DAYS OF OUR LIVES has shaken things recently by replacing its executive producers and headwriters, resolving to tell contemporary stories using characters who viewers have loved from years ago, steeped in tradition. The gay love story between Sonny and Will being the first story to launch and the first same sex story since DAYS inception in the mid 1960’s. Is this working? Is that story real? MF: They had to make the shift. It was at the bottom of the ratings. It lost 350,000 viewers in a matter of months. The stories were clearly off kilter. DAYS fans are diehard; the most loyal out there. They want to see their beloved favorites but yet get excited about fresh stories and characters. Fans are often fickle. They complain when certain characters are on air, then complain when they are off. DAYS cut its budgets to survive and canned Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn. Now they are both coming back as Marlena and John. But how long will they stay? As far as the gay storyline on DAYS it is just getting started. It is great because Sonny is the son of long time fan favorites Justin and Adrienne and Sonny has been gay from the getgo, so thank God it is not another coming out story. We have seen that a hundred times. And longtime favorite Sami’s son Will is who we are hearing will be the love interest for Sonny. We need to see more normal, everyday stories for LGBT characters. Why doesn’t THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL have a gay character? After all it is set in the fashion industry. There are fan bases for the gay couples that exist on daytime, yet this is an oxymoron still today. When I interviewed Y&R’s headwriter, Maria Arena Bell for PRIDE MAGAZINE she shared that people wrote and said, “We have no problem with gay characters, we just don’t want to see them on our show.” Maria said, “So what do I do as a headwriter with that? But, I would love to tell a gay story that is character driven and makes sense for our canvas.” Sadly, a few years ago, there were five gay stories on soaps, now there will be only one when AMC leaves the airwaves, and that will be on DAYS. The internet will allow us to explore and show more. Crystal Chappell’s LGBT themed web series, VENICE, regularly had lesbian characters kissing and in bed. So far, there aren’t the broadcast standards to uphold, which is great! It’s about time everybody got on the bandwagon because the TV and web convergence is here. RR: Then why haven’t we seen modern world conveniences like Grindr and Scruff enter into storylines making them more real? MF: App’s like these are so popular and so branded, and are used for dating and sex hook-ups more than any other outlet now. There are news stories that they are killing the “gay bar” as we know it. So sure, they will come into play as the “new soap” uses more product placement. Convergence is here…between TV and internet and soon between real world and reel world. It is finally all coming together. Social networking is all new territory to explore. Will these stories work? Do they work in our life, Rick? I don’t even have Gridnr, by the way, because I have a Blackberry! Unfortunately, once again, I can’t come to the party. If I get an iPhone, will my dating options be better? Would I have more fun? Does anyone date a fifty year old senior anymore? Ha! RR: How is your dating life? MF: It’s funny. When I do go out, it always comes down to the question of what one does for a living. They usually answer that they are an executive banker at Wells Fargo. Or recently, a date told me that he produced this show on CBS called CSI or something like that, and asked if I ever heard of it. Then it is my turn, and it is hard to explain what I do to begin with. So I simplify and say that I am a journalist for daytime drama who has my own website. “Ohhhhhhh,” they respond. Then dead silence, and I think back to high school, and all that I have done to keep in shape and be desirable at 50 and it all just slinks away on me at that moment. But, for those that don’t run, and do look at my website, they see how modern and legit it is, so that makes me feel good. There is hope! RR: So why aren’t you creating and producing the first majorly successful
internet soap, Michael? MF: I do know the platform, you are right; and I know the formula. When new actors or publicists, or show producers for the Daytime Emmys, and sometimes marketing outfits in the mainstream, come into the soap world, they always call Fairman! They don’t know the characters, the histories. They admittedly don’t know what works, what fans long for, and they feel safe and comfortable with me. It is both a unique and wonderful position to be in. I provide a voice for the fans and the actors which they can trust. It is that Midwestern integrity. I have never been a TMZ journalist, and the one time I did leak a secret, I got scolded so bad that I will never do that again. RR: So just one secret for our readers, please? MF: Well I do have vision. I do know the bigger picture. And I’m keenly watching what is going on here. Last month was our biggest to date….we had over 6 million hits on the site. Maybe the next step for Michael Fairman On-Air On-Soaps will be to do my own soap. I wonder if Andy Cohen at BRAVO who launched the REAL HOUSEWIVES series is single and uses Grindr? Now there is a gay man who really needs to be producing a soap. Do you know him? Let’s hook me up with him. A true soap on BRAVO or bravo.com? It’s time!]]> -
American Psychological Association passes resolution supporting gay marriage
In a move many anticipate will help move the debate toward equality, the American Psychological Associate has unanimously approved a resolution in support of same-sex marriage.
From USA Today: WASHINGTON – The world’s largest organization of psychologists took its strongest stand to date supporting full marriage equity, a move that observers say will have a far-reaching impact on the national debate. The policymaking body of the American Psychological Association (APA) unanimously approved the resolution 157-0 on the eve of the group’s annual convention, which opens here today. The group, with more than 154,000 members, has long supported full equal rights for gays, based on social science research on sexual orientation. Now the nation’s psychologists — citing an increasing body of research about same-sex marriage, as well as increased discussion at the state and federal levels — took the support to a new level. “Now as the country has really begun to have experience with gay marriage, our position is much clearer and more straightforward — that marriage equity is the policy that the country should be moving toward,” says Clinton Anderson, director of APA’s Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.
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SF's East Bay senior facilities now training on LGBT issues
LGBT seniors are benefitting from training that’s now being give in San Francisco’s East Bay senior facilities.
From the Bay Area Reporter:
LGBT senior citizens are already benefiting from a cultural sensitivity initiative currently under way in the East Bay that specifically targets their needs.
Lavender Seniors of the East Bay has partnered with the Center for Elders’ Independence and Salem Lutheran Home to develop a needs assessment and training program to improve services and care for LGBT seniors in Alameda County.
“Studies have noted that LGBT seniors are among the most invisible and underserved populations in the country,” said Lavender Seniors Executive Director Dan Ashbrook. “They often don’t have the financial and familial support networks that others have. And then you add a deep-seated distrust of service providers that stems from a lifelong experience of discrimination.”
The project, Growing an LGBT Senior Service Community, began in February with a needs assessment developed by Lavender Seniors in partnership with San Francisco consulting firm Gil Gerald and Associates. ]]> -
Washington State sees surge in gay couples outside Seattle
This seems to be a trend across the county, as same-sex couples no longer feel a need to concentrate in historically or predominantly gay neighborhoods.
From the Seattle Times:
Seattle’s Capitol Hill is still the center of gay life for this region. But increasingly, same-sex couples, especially those raising children, are choosing to live elsewhere — in places like West Seattle and suburbs like Lynnwood, Shoreline and Lake Forest Park.
New census data show that the number of gay and lesbian couples on pricey Capitol Hill barely budged over the last decade, growing only slightly for male couples and not at all for females.
The number of gay couples surged elsewhere: across the state, where it far outpaced general population growth — and in neighborhoods like West Seattle, where it grew 55 percent. In fact, West Seattle has become so popular among gays that some have started calling it Capitol Hill West.]]> -
Same-sex households rise dramatically in Illinois
From The Chicago Tribune:
The number of gay and lesbian households in Illinois jumped dramatically over the last decade, in part a reflection of societal changes that have made it easier for couples to be open about being in a same-sex relationship.
In Illinois, the number of same-sex households increased more than 40 percent, according to 2010 U.S. census data released Thursday. The numbers were up in Chicago but also in the suburbs: in Aurora there were 463 same-sex households, an 80 percent increase over 2010; in Oak Park, the number of female same-sex households grew by almost 65 percent.
“There has been a very sharp growth in acceptance,” said Richard Rykhus, who lives in Evanston with Carlos Briones and their 6-year-old son. “I do think there’s a correlation with these numbers when you look at how society now accepts same-sex couples and same-sex parent families. There were a lot of risks before. People now are evidently far more willing to identify that way.”
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Review: Merce Cunnhingham exhibit at the New Museum (NYC)
By Steve Barnes
Most of the New Museum is currently occupied by “Ostalgia,” a mammoth show in which more than fifty artists address the traces that Eastern Europe’s history (including both Communism and Nazism) has left on the artists currently working there. The show, while it has many interesting pieces, is overstuffed with works—including a room in which three different programs of short Polish films play simultaneously while two collections of videos run on an adjacent wall, making it hard to focus on any of them. While undeniably informative and provocative, the whole thing (which is up through September 25) can at times be a bit forbidding. A more stripped down, tightly focused undertaking might have made the exhibition’s point a little clearer.
But on the museum’s ground floor, just past the bookstore and tucked behind the snack bar (in a room that you don’t even have to pay museum admission to enter), is a model of simplicity and restraint, Charles Atlas’s “Joints Array.” This installation, which runs through August 28, consists of 23 monitors of varying sizes, on which videos showing the choreographer Merce Cunningham in action run in continuous loops. But, in keeping with the installation’s title, we never see all of Cunningham in any of the videos. One of them starts with an elbow bending, another focuses on a knee, while yet another takes the ankle as its central point.
In each video, the joint goes through a broad range of motions and possibilities, showing the human body’s nearly infinite range of movement—at least when that body belongs to a dancer as flexible and creative as Cunningham. We aren’t being told a story here; instead, we are encouraged to really look at the kind of movements we see every day. By just showing a knee or an ankle, those movements get pulled out of the context in which we are accustomed to seeing them. They cease to be average gestures and become choreography.
The same is true of the soundtrack that is played as the backdrop to the videos. Put together from ambient recordings made by John Cage, Cunningham’s life partner, they take a wide range of sounds that are part of our daily existence (wind, birds singing, traffic) and turn them into a subtle, evocative form of music. We don’t get melody, we get a compilation of different tones and textures that encourages us to reacquaint ourselves with the sounds of the world around us in a way that makes a perfect match with the stance that the videos take toward the body’s movements. The combination of sound and image results in something that feels like an abstract movie musical, one that keeps on plotlessly unfolding in an eternal present.
My advice for people viewing this installation would be to take your time. The feeling of what Atlas is up to here does not reveal itself in a 45-second pass through the room. You need to slow down, and unload some of the expectations you might have. The whole thing is about changing the way we look and listen, a process that does not happen right away. But if you manage to take “Joints Array” on its own terms, it will almost certainly reward the time you put into it. In addition, the timing of this installation could not be better. It happens just as the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s “Legacy Tour,” launched in February 2010, enters its home stretch. The tour was conceived as way to give audiences one final chance to see Cunningham’s dances, performed by the company he personally trained before his death in July 2009. It included the two-day “Merce Fair” that took place at Lincoln Center last month, and will make two more stops in the New York area before winding up with six performances at the Park Avenue Armory from December 29-31. The tickets for those performances, after which the company will disband for good, are sure to be one the biggest bargains of any New York cultural season—Cunningham stipulated in his Legacy Plan that they go for only $10 each. They go on sale on August 15. (For more information, go to armorypark.org. The other two New York stops are from September 9-11 at Bard College’s Fisher Center in Annandale on Hudson and a December 7-10 run as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival (http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=3066). The BAM run includes the wonderful Roaratorio, Cunningham and Cage’s playful take on James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. After the Merce Cunningham Dance Company ceases operations, the many videos Atlas has made showing Cunningham and his company at work will allow his dances and his highly original take on human movement to live on. One way to get some insight into Cunningham’s methods is through the series of videos called “Monday with Merce” that can all be seen on the company’s Web site. And in the future there will be what Cunningham’s Legacy Plan refers to as “Dance Capsules,” digital packages that will include videos, sound recordings, production notes and a wealth of other material. Leave it to Merce Cunningham to continue pushing the envelope, even from beyond the grave. Steve Barnes is a freelance writer based in New York City. His work has appeared in such publications as ARTnews and the Wall Street Journal. ]]> -
VA issues directive on care for transgender veterans
This is good news. The Veterans Administration has issued a new directive on providing care for transgender veterans.
From On the Issues Magazine:
The Veterans Administration released a new directive on transgender veterans in June 2011, “Providing Health Care For Transgender And Intersex Veterans.” This directive recognizes the reality of many service members’ lives: the intersection of trans women’s and women veterans’ experience, and the specific needs that they encounter. It’s no surprise that women’s experiences intersect with multiple personal identities and that they are not confined to the traditional sex and gender binary of western society. Earlier in 2011, the National Center for Transgender Equality, a national social justice organization in Washington, D.C., released a 221-page report that created a demographic portrait of transgender people in the U.S., based on an extensive study sample of 7,000 and a rigorous survey review. Released in conjunction with the D.C.-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, one of the findings of the report, Injustice At Every Turn was that 20 percent of the adult, transgender people in the United States are military veterans, as compared to 10 percent of the adult population of the United States who are military veterans. The “Injustice” report had other significant findings, as well. For example, 30 percent of the transgender adult respondents reported having a physical disability or mental health condition that substantially affected a major life activity. By contrast, the overall U.S. population reports a disability at a rate of 20 percent.]]> -
Chelsea Hotel closes to guests – will residents be next?
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The Chelsea Hotel sits on 23rd Street near Seventh Avenue like a living cultural icon, wheezing but still standing while the rest of Manhattan kept changing. Being a diehard Janis Joplin fan (though I haven’t listened to her music in years because it still reminds me of despair and whiskey), I’ve looked at the Chelsea a thousand times and recalled an iconic photograph of her standing in front of this Hotel. It’s where Dylan Thomas had his last conscious moments, where Leonard Cohen had a tryst with Joplin that he wrote infamous lyrics about. Where Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe called home for a while. It’s part of the city’s cultural legacy, and it may be on its way to development hell.
As of last Saturday, it will no longer accept guests. The residents have been told they’ll stay, but we take these things with a choking grain of salt. It wasn’t that long ago that the YMCA just across the street still had residents and a long storied history. Now it’s a David Barton gym.
From the New York Times:
Saturday night was, by all indications, the last night that the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street would be open to guests, though the duration of the closing, the first in its history, was unknown.
The building is to be sold for over $80 million to the developer Joseph Chetrit, though the deal had not closed as of Sunday, according to someone close to the matter, who asked not to be named because the negotiations were confidential. Extensive renovations are expected to take at least a year. The hotel’s 100 permanent residents will be allowed to stay, but they have been told nothing beyond what the startled hotel workers learned late last week: that all reservations after Saturday were canceled.
Column: The changing landscape of the LGBT family
By David Webb The Rare Reporter
What a difference a few decades and the evolution of new generations can make in society, particularly when it comes to the development of a new community.
When I first moved to Dallas in the summer of 1969 — just a few months short of my 21st birthday — I found a community of people that heretofore I had only read about in literature. It was by accident that I landed in Oak Lawn because I just as easily could have rented my first apartment in any other area of the city.
As I started navigating the neighborhood, going to the grocery store and going about the other mundane aspects of my life, I began noticing some very interesting people. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had stumbled upon something new and exciting.
The LGBT community as we know it today was in its infancy. There were a few gay men’s bars, at least one lesbian hangout, some drag shows, cliques of gay people working at downtown department stores and hippy festivals in Lee Park where LGBT people celebrated openly with young, liberal straight people.
In those days, I didn’t see a lot of same-sex couples living together. I occasionally became aware of older same-sex couples who had lived together for long times in homes, but for the most part I only met other single people like myself living in apartments. There were a lot of people living together as roommates, but from what I could tell there were few commitments in these arrangements.
It was the days of indiscriminate sexual activity that was being practiced by gay and straight people alike.
I did quickly find a place for myself in the community, and I became a part of a family of gay and straight people who socialized together. There were a couple of married straight people in the group, a divorced woman with a child, several gay and straight men and other people who drifted in and out of the network over the years.
This was a time when people realizing they were gay often chose not to reveal it to their birth families. Many people who felt isolated developed relationships with groups of people who gave them the support they needed to recognize and accept who and what they were.
Many other groups of people that I encountered seemed to consist primarily of families of gay men or lesbians. It seemed to me that lesbians tended to be more likely to couple than gay men at that time. I was unaware of any same-sex couples raising children in the early 1970s.
That early model of friends-as-family was one that served me well, and for some reason I’ve never much wanted to become involved in a committed relationship with a partner. Despite a couple of half-hearted tries over the years, that still holds true for me today. But it has changed drastically for many other people since the launch of the gay rights movement with the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City in 1969.
Legal challenges to state laws restricting marriage to heterosexuals began in the early 1970s and the fight for marriage equality has progressed to the point that same-sex marriage is legal in six states and the District of Columbia in the country now.
Information gleaned in part from the 2000 U.S. Census and published by the Williams Institute in “Census Snapshot” in December 2007, reveals that an estimated 8.8 million LGBT lived in the U.S. in 2005. In 2005, there were 776,943 same-sex couples in the U.S., compared to 594,391 in 2000, according to the report.
The Census information makes it clear that LGBT people live in every county in the U.S., whereas in the early years openly gay people seemed to be mostly a big-city phenomenon.
Of these same-sex couples living in the U.S., 20 percent were raising children under the age of 18, and an estimated 270,313 of the U.S.’s children were living in same-sex-couple households, according to the report. An estimated 65,000 of the U.S.’s adopted children reportedly lived with a lesbian or gay parent.
Clearly in the 40-plus years since the start of the gay rights movement, all of the characteristics of LGBT life have changed dramatically. Young people are often quicker to acknowledge and accept their sexual orientation, and there is a whole array of options that were unavailable to previous generations of LGBT people.
When young LGBT people think about their lives and relationships today, it’s probably in terms of dating, finding the right person, living together, getting married and even raising children. If anyone had told me 40 years ago that I would see such developments in my lifetime, I would have thought they were crazy.
But that’s how it is today, and it makes me wonder what sort of decisions I might have made about my life if so much had been available to me when I was young.
David Webb is a veteran journalist who has covered LGBT issues for the mainstream and alternative media for three decades. E-mail him at davidwaynewebb@yahoo.com.]]>
Column: The changing landscape of the LGBT family
By David Webb The Rare Reporter
What a difference a few decades and the evolution of new generations can make in society, particularly when it comes to the development of a new community.
When I first moved to Dallas in the summer of 1969 — just a few months short of my 21st birthday — I found a community of people that heretofore I had only read about in literature. It was by accident that I landed in Oak Lawn because I just as easily could have rented my first apartment in any other area of the city.
As I started navigating the neighborhood, going to the grocery store and going about the other mundane aspects of my life, I began noticing some very interesting people. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had stumbled upon something new and exciting.
The LGBT community as we know it today was in its infancy. There were a few gay men’s bars, at least one lesbian hangout, some drag shows, cliques of gay people working at downtown department stores and hippy festivals in Lee Park where LGBT people celebrated openly with young, liberal straight people.
In those days, I didn’t see a lot of same-sex couples living together. I occasionally became aware of older same-sex couples who had lived together for long times in homes, but for the most part I only met other single people like myself living in apartments. There were a lot of people living together as roommates, but from what I could tell there were few commitments in these arrangements.
It was the days of indiscriminate sexual activity that was being practiced by gay and straight people alike.
I did quickly find a place for myself in the community, and I became a part of a family of gay and straight people who socialized together. There were a couple of married straight people in the group, a divorced woman with a child, several gay and straight men and other people who drifted in and out of the network over the years.
This was a time when people realizing they were gay often chose not to reveal it to their birth families. Many people who felt isolated developed relationships with groups of people who gave them the support they needed to recognize and accept who and what they were.
Many other groups of people that I encountered seemed to consist primarily of families of gay men or lesbians. It seemed to me that lesbians tended to be more likely to couple than gay men at that time. I was unaware of any same-sex couples raising children in the early 1970s.
That early model of friends-as-family was one that served me well, and for some reason I’ve never much wanted to become involved in a committed relationship with a partner. Despite a couple of half-hearted tries over the years, that still holds true for me today. But it has changed drastically for many other people since the launch of the gay rights movement with the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City in 1969.
Legal challenges to state laws restricting marriage to heterosexuals began in the early 1970s and the fight for marriage equality has progressed to the point that same-sex marriage is legal in six states and the District of Columbia in the country now.
Information gleaned in part from the 2000 U.S. Census and published by the Williams Institute in “Census Snapshot” in December 2007, reveals that an estimated 8.8 million LGBT lived in the U.S. in 2005. In 2005, there were 776,943 same-sex couples in the U.S., compared to 594,391 in 2000, according to the report.
The Census information makes it clear that LGBT people live in every county in the U.S., whereas in the early years openly gay people seemed to be mostly a big-city phenomenon.
Of these same-sex couples living in the U.S., 20 percent were raising children under the age of 18, and an estimated 270,313 of the U.S.’s children were living in same-sex-couple households, according to the report. An estimated 65,000 of the U.S.’s adopted children reportedly lived with a lesbian or gay parent.
Clearly in the 40-plus years since the start of the gay rights movement, all of the characteristics of LGBT life have changed dramatically. Young people are often quicker to acknowledge and accept their sexual orientation, and there is a whole array of options that were unavailable to previous generations of LGBT people.
When young LGBT people think about their lives and relationships today, it’s probably in terms of dating, finding the right person, living together, getting married and even raising children. If anyone had told me 40 years ago that I would see such developments in my lifetime, I would have thought they were crazy.
But that’s how it is today, and it makes me wonder what sort of decisions I might have made about my life if so much had been available to me when I was young.
David Webb is a veteran journalist who has covered LGBT issues for the mainstream and alternative media for three decades. E-mail him at davidwaynewebb@yahoo.com.]]>
Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic club honored by GLBT Museum
From SFAppeal.com: An exhibit celebrating the oldest LGBT democratic club in the nation and its 40th anniversary will be unveiled at the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco this evening. “40 Years Together, 40 Years Strong” honors the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, the first registered LGBT democratic organization. The Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club of San Francisco, established in 1971, was named after the partner of famous writer and poet Gertrude Stein. The name “Alice B. Toklas” was chosen to protect the confidentiality of its members, organization officials said. People who described themselves as “members of Alice” were similar to those who called themselves “friends of Dorothy,” meaning that only gay people would know the club referred to other gay people, according to the organization.]]>
New Musical based on 'Southern Comfort' staging at CAP21's Black Box Theater
Southern Comfort,’ about the last days of a transgender man and the annual gathering in Georgia.
From the New York Times:
A new musical based on “Southern Comfort,” Kate Davis’s award-winning documentary about transgender friends in rural Georgia will be presented by CAP21 Theater Company in Manhattan this fall.
The musical, also called “Southern Comfort,” features a folk-bluegrass score by Dan Collins (book and lyrics) and Julianne Wick Davis (music). The show, to be presented at CAP21’s Black Box Theater on West 18th Street, will star Annette O’Toole (“The Kennedys of Massachusetts,” “Smallville”) and Jeff McCarthy (“Urinetown,” “Beauty and the Beast”). Tom Caruso directs. Previews are to begin Oct. 5.]]>