Yesterday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier released a statement on the incident. "I take concerns about the appropriate use of police powers very seriously," Lanier said. "Members who are found to have abused their authority are subject to both criminal and disciplinary penalties up to and including termination." So, was Culp canned over the slur-happy arrest?

Lanier refused to comment on the disciplinary penalties applied to Culp. But according to Lanier, Culp was not, at least, subject to criminal penalties over the arrest. The D.C. police's Internal Affairs Bureau "immediately launched a criminal investigation into the matter and subsequently referred the arrest to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for further criminal investigation and prosecution, if appropriate," Lanier says—but the Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Culp.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Tuma, is looking for more than just discipline—it wants to revise D.C.'s "disorderly conduct" statute to reduce the possibility for police abuse. The ACLU told Fox 5 that "disorderly conduct" is "a false charge used every time an officer thinks someone has spoken disrespectfully or harshly to them, so we want that changed." Lanier disagrees with the ACLU's characterization of the law—she says that "disorderly conduct" is a necessary charge to prevent people from "urinating in public" or "blocking the sidewalk or road and refusing to let others pass." But she adds that D.C. police are committed to working alongside the ACLU to review the statute.

Lanier will say that Culp's tactic isn't exactly the D.C. police's preferred method for dealing with citizens who mouth off to cops. That would be something called "Verbal Judo."

"[B]elieve me, police do not make an arrest every time an officer thinks someone 'has spoken disrespectfully or harshly to them,'" Lanier's statement continued. "That happens everyday, and we train officers in a widely used tactical communication strategy (Verbal Judo) to defuse these situations." Lanier added that "Verbal Judo" is "by no means a magic wand," but that "it would be a mistake to let this case in which an officer is alleged to have acted outside both the law and Department policy drive the current discussion about revisions to the law."

* NOM's nationwide "One Man, One Woman" bus tour takes a turn: Dude with sign voices support for lynching gays.

* Via Broadsheet, the gays aren't the only ones destroying marriage: Sleeping in separate beds may also be threatening the institution.

* Sady Doyle writes in support of snark (kinda):

"Snark" is one of those fundamentally goofy internet neologisms that we could try to fight, but are better-off just learning to work with. The word denotes mean humour: sarcasm, venom, the art of the put-down. Mostly, it's an attitude. Snark is the kids at the back of the class, heckling the substitute teacher; it's the voice of people who feel stifled, talked down to, or left out; the tool of people who have discovered that honing in on the weaknesses of those in power, exposing them publicly (if only to their own circle of friends), and reducing them to figures of fun (if only in their own minds), makes them feel a little less helpless.

* The Washington Blade has more on the death of Secrets dancer Mark Gower:

Although it couldn’t be immediately determined how long Gower was dead inside his apartment, White said police indicated he could have died shortly after he was discovered missing, which was nearly two weeks before the body was found.

* Lilith redux: NPR talks to 700 female musicians about the industry.

"This is an action for damages and other relief by Pepin A. Tuma, who was detained, arrested and humiliated by Defendant Officer James Culp without any lawful basis and with the sole and illegitimate purpose of harassing Mr. Tuma because of Mr. Tuma’s criticism of the police and Officer Culp’s perception that Mr. Tuma is gay," the complaint reads.

Tuma—accompanied by friends Luke Platzer and David Stetson on U Street that night—admits to engaging in some light taunting prior to his arrest. From his complaint:

Across the street, on the north side of U Street, several police cruisers were parked with their lights on and several police officers were engaging in what appeared to be a traffic stop of a single civilian. Mr. Tuma noticed the police cruisers and commented to his friends that this seemed to be another example of excessive policing. As Mr. Tuma passed the police cruisers, he said, in a sing-song voice, “I hate the police; I hate the police.” Neither Mr. Tuma nor his friends stopped or slowed down as they walked. They did not approach, address or gesture to any of the police officers.

Then, Tuma claims:

Within seconds . . . Officer Culp charged across U Street shouting, in substance, "Who do you think you are? Who do you think you’re talking to? You can’t talk to me that way!" . . . When Officer Culp reached Mr. Tuma, he forcefully pushed Mr. Tuma up against a utility box . . . handcuffed him, and dragged him across to the north side of U Street to the police cruisers where he was searched and placed under arrest. Mr. Tuma did not resist in any way. When Mr. Tuma asked why he was being arrested, Officer Culp replied, “Just shut up, faggot.” . . . Mr. Tuma later learned that he had been arrested for disorderly conduct.

According to the complaint, Tuma filed complaints against Culp with the Second District police station, the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, and D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier. Tuma's complaint says that Culp was disciplined over the arrest. Tuma, who is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, is now suing Culp and D.C. for violating his constitutional rights, false arrest, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress—as evidenced by the slur.

Tuma seeks compensatory damages—and "an injunction directing the District of Columbia to expunge all records of his arrest . . . and authorizing him to deny that he was arrested on July 26, 2009." I have an e-mail out to MPD for comment.

* HUD claims that transgender people are protected against housing discrimination via the Fair Housing Act's prohibition against "gender discrimination"—even though the law doesn't specifically list gender identity discrimination as prohibited.

* Mark Gower, a 26-year-old dancer at SW strip club Secrets, was found dead in his apartment last week.

* The Washington Post conducted a four-month investigation into the career of former Manassas schoolteacher Kevin Ricks, a man the paper says "moved from one teaching job to the next over nearly 30 years, navigating the nation's public and private school systems undetected, evading traps designed to catch him"—and racking up molestation allegations along the way.

* Carolyn Hax on the etiquette of outing your gay ex-husband.

* DC Center plans discussion on body image issues among gay, bisexual, and trans men.

* Susannah Breslin on sexual assault games:

To promote the release of Bret Easton Ellis' new novel, Imperial Bedrooms, a digital creative agency in London created an online game that encourages players to virtually manipulate a young woman. If you play the game right — encourage her, get her drunk, get her high — you'll score a blow job, and then you can brag to your friends about a job well done by posting your "high" score to the social networking site of your choice. So, is this social commentary, or marketing misogyny?

This snappy two-minute video recap of NOM's bus tour stop in Maryland reveals a clever new twist on the hetero marriage defense: "We're asked to believe that a mother, a biological mother, will have no problem sharing the care of her child with another woman!" one speaker announces at the rally. "Moms, do you believe that?" (They do not!) Sure, NOM can understand two women loving each other and wanting to spend their lives together. But once it's time for the couple to share in the child-rearing, the biological mother's jealousy will ultimately destroy them both—along with every American family? That's just science.

When NOM's mandatory heterosexuality tour stopped by Newark on Tuesday, Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) leader Greg Quinlan was on-hand to present the ex-gay position on heterosexual marriage: Desperate! "If you know of anybody, send them my way," said Quinlan, who is totally straight now (and divorced). "I live right here in Roxbury Township, up in North Jersey. I’ll give you my name and number afterwords, if you know of anybody who’s available." He then offered his criteria for a potential mate: "Female. And breathing." Go get him, ladies!

* The New Gay is looking for stories of people affected by a lack of ENDA. "Fired from your job for being gay, lesbian, bi or trans? Do you feel that no one cares about your lack of livelihood born from our governments systematic betrayal of its own people? Now you can do something about it," TNG writes. File your stories here.

* Fugitivus on sex work:

Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with sex work. I don’t think there’s anything inherently, fundamentally wrongdirtybad with sex as a job, or sex for pay. But that’s based on a concept of sex work in a vacuum, and we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a patriarchy. And sex work situated within a patriarchal world is inevitably swimming in a pool of wrongdirtybad, and anything tagged with the wrongdirtybad brush becomes fair game for serious violations of humanity.

On the one hand, since my ideal vision of the world doesn’t differentiate sex work from any other kind of work, it seems like that should be the thing I’m working toward. I “should” be the kind of feminist that is all on board for decriminalization or legalization, or normalizing the sex trades so they’re not a dirty stigmatized mess — and often I feel bad that I’m not more so. On the other hand, I work in a profession where I frequently see young girls who have been trafficked and exploited, and/or mothers who have had to prostitute themselves in order to feed their children, and their desperation has usually caused them to be exploited as well. Some of the abuses I see surrounding exploited sex work are so heinous that it’s very difficult not to come away with a “SHUT IT ALL DOWN” view of sex work. And yet, I know it’s not something that can be shut down, not now, not ever. I often just don’t feel like my brain is large enough to find a way to integrate some of the worst horrors I’ve ever seen with a utopic vision of positive, healthy sexuality. I don’t know how to overcome my revulsion of abuse long enough to separate the tools (which are not inherently abusive) from the abusive people who are handling them. At some point, they just seem practically, realistically fused together, even if conceptually I know they aren’t.

* Speaking of: Last month, D.C. police busted six people for solicitation [PDF] at 2121 P St. NW.

* Westboro Baptist Church turns its attentions to Lady Gaga.

*Metro Weekly takes a local angle on Chinese counterfeit condoms lubricated with vegetable oil, featuring FUK!T Campaign leader Dan O'Neill:

''When you have counterfeited items, like your Louis Vuitton bags and what have you, at the end of the day, that's not great. But here, when one's life is put at risk,'' [O'Neill] says. ''This has real implications in that it undermines the public's trust in these products.

''What we don't want, or what would be terrible, is if people are just trying to get a deal and at the end of the day they just totally abandon their trust in using condoms altogether, thinking, 'Why bother?'''

As promised, the NOM mandatory heterosexuality tour hit Annapolis today at noon. There, NOM leader Brian Brown demanded that Maryland voters have a chance to vote on same-sex marriage. Brown lives in Virginia. Derek McCoy of the Association of Maryland Families was on-hand to lend local support of the idea:

We will fight for marriage in this State until the end!… Our definition [of marriage] is not passe, is not outdated, is not stale; it’s the definition we’ve already had in a state statute, that we’ve all known for years . . . Let’s take this issue to the ballot box. Let the people decide! Let the people vote!

Maryland will truly never be free until its citizens have the right to restrict the rights of other citizens.

Also of concern: Anti-gay doctor lifts nickname from Julius Erving!

On the subject of "Lesbians Until Graduation," and all the stigma attached to the label, a commenter points to the Two Nice Girls song on the subject. A sampling:

I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer
My life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer
But the love of a strong hairy man has turned my head I fear
And made me spend my last ten bucks on birth control and beer

It concludes: "there's certain thrills that lesbian love simply cannot supply / Like paying for abortions from sperm gone awry." Indeed.

* Thomas MacAulay Millar on the problem with seeing sexual assailants and domestic abusers as "monsters":

I’m fine with saying that one who does monstrous things is a monster, and the data tells me that this is true. But there is a danger there, that by calling rapists monsters we may convince people that we should be able to see them. We can’t. They look like everyone else. They certainly will give some behavioral clues, but those are subtle. The rapists fit in. If they didn’t, we would all know who they are, and all their targets would avoid them.

. . . Monsters, and not monsters. Regular people that are nice to children and small animals, tip well and bring attention to important causes may also be misogynists, rapists, abusers, racists . . . all the wrong that people are capable of is not concentrated among people who look like they mean to do harm. The people who do the most harm do it, in part, because they can walk among us and not look like monsters. Monsters don’t look like monsters. They look like the rest of us.

* Monsters, and not monsters: Lloyd Mack Royal—also known as "Blyss," "B," and "Furious"—has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for human trafficking of minors in Maryland. Testimony in Royal's trial asserted that he profited off of coercing minor girls into prostitution; threatened those girls verbally and with a gun; hit them; transported them between Maryland and D.C. for the purposes of prostitution; gave them illegal drugs; raped them; forced them to lie about their ages; forced them to sell drugs; and "forced them to kiss his pinky ring."

* Emily Nagoski on sexual fluidity and LUGS.

* Via the GW Hatchet, the GW Medical Center has received a $3 million grant for HIV/AIDS research courtesy of The National Institutes of Health.

* Evil Angel general manager Christian Mann weighs in on the Stagliano trial in the comments:

What could be more absurd? That would be the U.S. government, represented by the real Fetish Fanatics (AKA the DOJ) spending taxpayers’ dollars to clog the judiciary and bring such a case to trial in 2010. My elation at having my boss (and friend) exonerated is tainted by one small regret: I quietly hoped we would have a chance to bring milk enemas and squirting orgasms to the U.S. Supreme Court and douche the archaic obscenity laws from the Criminal Code once and for all.

Photo via George Eastman House

Tomorrow at noon, the NOM mandatory heterosexuality bus tour will hit Annapolis. The big anti-gay bus will pull up in front of the Maryland State House, where it will be joined star local anti-gay talent: The Bishop Harry Jackson, described by NOM as a "leader in the effort to take back marriage in Washington DC." Also on-hand at the rally will be Association of Maryland Families president Derek McCoy, an outspoken opponent of marriage, abortion, and gambling. Bring your lunch!

Last Wednesday, the D.C. Council held a public oversight hearing to discuss D.C.'s recent LGB Health Report—and its exclusion of transgender health data from the findings. In this video summary of the meeting from the DC Center, trans activist Ruby Corado sums up the problem: "There's a lot of agencies—and I will say local agencies—that are in charge of promoting the health of D.C. residents that really do not understand or do not want to understand that we're real people," she said. "They still don't want to hear it."

First, the headline: "Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's former in-law speaks out for gay rights." Deane certainly does speak out for gay rights, but it seems odd to emphasize that fact above her trans activism. Next, the photo gallery: It begins with a series of photos of Deane applying makeup, hair-spray, and pantyhose, as if to emphasize the fact that Deane's  beauty regimen (quite typical, for a woman) is somehow relevant to that activism.

And then there's this:

For years, Deane, a man who is in the process of becoming of woman, had considered revealing her lengthy but largely unknown connection to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R). She had told no one that this would finally be the moment she went public.

From whose perspective is Deane "a man who is in the process of becoming of [sic] woman"? The state of Virginia? The Washington Post? Deane's herself?

The Post identifies Deane with feminine pronouns. It also implies that Deane very much considers herself a woman—it mentions that "she changed her name from Bob to Robyn, and transformed herself from a cleanshaven, dark-haired man to a blond woman saving her pennies for sex reassignment surgery." The story states outright that Deane previously "came out as a woman" to her family. What criteria is the Post using to classify Deane as "a man" in the process of "becoming" a woman? The paper doesn't say.

* In her final dispatch on the Buttman trial, porn director and performer Aurora Snow claims that LAPD Det. Michael Ozaki, a witness for the prosecution, is a fan:

[Ozaki] looked all too familiar to me. I heard the detective explain how he had to attend the AVN Expo for the last five years in a row “undercover” in order to research the new material being put out by adult companies. I was surprised to hear how the LAPD spends tax money so consistently on porn related materials in the name of “research” when the city is reeling from recent budget cuts. But mostly, as the LAPD detective answered questions under oath, I began to realize why I was recognizing him; I am almost sure that I have signed autographs for him at adult conventions. That is one dedicated undercover officer! I wonder if somewhere in a police evidence folder is a signed photo of me or if the detective kept that for his personal collection. I hope the latter. I don’t want to be in a file and even detectives should have fun with their porn collections.

* When Maryland man Aaron Burroughs was convicted of "sexually exploiting a minor" for an offense involving child prostitution and child pornography, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison—plus extra restrictions "that required him to keep a daily log of his computer use and to permit the authorities to monitor that use." Last week, a federal appeals court struck those restrictions, as Burroughs' offense wasn't conducted via computer.

* GLAA Forum updates us on the NOM bus tour for hetero marriage, declares it an "epic fail. As it turns out, holding rallies at noon on weekdays isn't the smartest way to drum up support for opposite marriage after all. The tour hits D.C. Aug. 15.

* Figleaf 0n how sex work obscures assault in the Lawrence Taylor case:

the word “prostitution” magically washes away all traces of “statutory rape,” “sexual assault of a child,” “sex offender registry,” “corruption of a minor,” and every other offense prosecutors, judges, and juries are usually (and, I think, correctly) willing to throw at people who have sex with minors

* Via Metro Weekly: Victim of hate crime plans to leave D.C.

Photo via State Library of Queensland.

On Aug. 1, The Washington Post Magazine’s weekly blind date feature, Date Lab, will print what has become a once-yearly ritual: The gay date.

Every Sunday, the magazine writes up the adventures of two single Washingtonians set up by the Post; after the date, both spill the night’s details to a reporter, judging their companions on everything from body weight to tolerance for “that’s what she said” jokes. Since launching in 2006, Date Lab has run nearly 200 heterosexual encounters. But it’s only managed to set up four same-sex couples in as many years—and one dater was a repeat.

The Aug. 1 item will be a milestone for Date Lab editor Amanda McGrath—her first same-sex write-up since assuming the feature in May 2009. “I heard stories from the previous editor about how difficult it was, and I thought, ‘This won’t be a problem for me. It will be so easy,” says McGrath. Nope: Date Lab’s last gay date hit newsstands on Jan. 20, 2008. It ended with “a little bit of an air hug.”

According to a recent survey, nearly 7 percent of D.C. residents identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Which you’d think would mean The Post wouldn’t go two years between gay dates. Apparently, in order to qualify as a same-sex match on Date Lab, being gay isn’t enough. Asked in an online chat in 2006 why Date Lab mostly experimented with straight romance, then-editor Sandy M. Fernandez said it was a matter of math: “We just need to get in enough applicants that it isn’t one of those soap opera dates, where if you see two gay or Latino or African American characters, they’re inevitably going to hook up.” Four years later, the feature’s applicants remain prohibitively hetero—and, according to The Post, that’s why the people who make it into print do, too.

“We honestly try with every couple we send out to make a good match, to find a pair that will hit it off,” says McGrath, 27. But “it’s really hard to find people who seem compatible when you have such a limited pool to work with.”
Obviously, in the grand scheme of injustices, the paucity of gay Date Labbers ranks pretty low. But the lack of diversity—in a feature that so clearly strives for it in other ways—does stand out. After all, plenty of heterosexual couples have been matched based on glancing similarities: “She roasts; he bakes”; “He paints, she pots”; “He’s tall; she’s tall”; “She’s tall; he’s very tall.” The paper has matched three pairs based on a shared interest in distance running (“Have these two marathoners run into romance?”; “Two runners finally cross paths. Can they go the distance?”; “Can two marathoners go the distance?”). Some daters don’t even have that much in common. Past unifying principles include “They Were Adopted And Keep Losing Debit Cards. Will They Hang Onto Each Other?” and “They Both Agree: She’s ‘Not Hideous.’” In 2008, a monkey from Rockville tried its hand at making a match. Both daters rated the date a “5.”

So with a track record like that, why not “He’s gay; he’s gay”?

The Post’s answer: Date Lab’s shallow same-sex pool. Of the 3,300 potential daters who have submitted applications since 2007, only 84 identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Fifty-one are men; 33 are women. Since Date Lab keeps potential lovebirds on file for years, some once-promising applicants wind up in committed relationships or rethink their interest in romantic exhibitionism—particularly if they’re not out to all their friends and family who may happen to pick up the Post. From there, start factoring in age (daters range from their 20s to their 60s), interests, personality, and appearance, and you’ve got a pretty skimpy selection of gay and lesbian Washingtonians.

* Porn performer Aurora Snow is also filing updates from the Stagliano obscenity trial. Her take: The prosecution hates fun:

Opening arguments began yesterday, and as a performer I was stunned by the prosecution’s description of what made the material obscene. From my point of view, the prosecution’s lack of contact and knowledge of what we do in adult entertainment seemed laughable. Oh no, there are close-up shots of pussy? Oh, the horror! If this were not such a serious matter, it would be a pure farce of cardboard bad guys picking on others for having more fun than them in life.

* Feminist running tally: Score one for Playboy, Chloe Angyal says.

* Remember that "conscience rule" the Bush administration squeezed through in its lame-duck period, allowing workers in federally-funded facilities to refuse to provide services they found morally objectionable? Yeah, Megan Carpentier noticed that Obama never repealed that.

* Silvana at Tiger Beatdown on the fun and frivolity of fashion! Unless you're fat:

For fat women, clothes are supposed to be about making people forget that you’re fat. “Hiding” “flaws.” “Smoothing out” your “shape” (i.e. your fat). “Emphasizing” your “assets” (at least you have big boobs, fatty). “Defining” your waist (because, hey, at least you can make one part of you look smaller than the other parts). It’s all code for: Don’t look fat. The advice isn’t too different for thin or average women. You also want—surprise, surprise!—to not look fat. And for a long, long time, I bought into that. I bought the idea that my body wasn’t acceptable and I had to use clothing as best I could to try to make it acceptable.

* The D.C. Attorney General's Office has dropped all charges against Lt. Dan Choi in relation to his "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests outside the White House last Spring.

Photo via walid.hassenein, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

GLAA Forum points to the Whitman-Walker Clinic's new TV spots. The twin ads target the health clinic's two main demographics separately—LGBT patients (in the above ad) and HIV-positive patients (in the ad after the jump). I wonder if reaching out to D.C.'s HIV-positive residents requires distancing Whitman-Walker's AIDS care piece from its LGBT health piece. And the soundtrack's a little ominous, no?

[youtube:v=ClbnLQI0wlM]

In light of the CDC's latest report on the HIV epidemic in D.C., a reader suggests that local gay men participate in Hope Takes Action, an effort to recruit men for clinical trials of a possible HIV vaccine. The study is looking for HIV-negative, circumcised men who have sex with men and who live close to one of the study locations. The closest site to D.C. is at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. One vague note on that whole circumcision thing: "Participants must be circumcised because of safety information learned in a previous vaccine study."

allegiance to the United States, foreign influence, foreign preference, sexual behavior, personal conduct, alcohol consumption, drug involvement, psychological conditions, criminal conduct, handling protected information, outside activities and use of information technology systems.

Well, "outside activities" seems to cover just about everything, but the "sexual behavior" point could stand some elaboration. Are we talking workplace sexual harassment? Rape? Sex outside marriage? Anal? No matter—this federal agency apparently reserves the right to fire you for fucking wrong. Whatever that means. [Via GLAA Forum]

This summer, the National Organization for Marriage is launching its "Summer For Marriage" bus tour, a 22-stop jaunt around the Eastern united states in the interest of drumming up support for straight marriage. The tour's motto: "ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN." Does anyone else get the jeebies looking at that graphic? I'm always amazed at how NOM manages to turn heterosexual relationships into some skin-crawlingly creepy imperative born out of soulless moral necessity. The tour hits D.C. on Aug. 15. [Via GLAA Forum].

Research shows that intimate partner violence occurs at the same rate in the LGBTQ communities as in the heterosexual community. Last year, Rainbow Response released a groundbreaking report on IPV in the District, which confirmed that DC’s LGBTQ communities experience IPV at the same rate as the heterosexual community. However, for a variety of reasons, survivors of IPV in the LGBTQ communities do not have equal access to services to help them escape; therefore it’s critical that our community be afforded as many protections and resources as possible.

Although there is no federal law outlawing discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in the workplace, the District has outlawed this type of discrimination for many years. Unfortunately, it remains perfectly legal to terminate an LGBTQ employee who happens to be a victim of IPV, simply for reasons related to the abuse. For example, three years ago one of my good friends, who is a lesbian and was out to her employer, found herself in an abusive relationship and was forced to miss work periodically because she was either in court seeking a protection order, or was at home waiting for the bruises on her face to disappear. Noticing that she had been taking time off from work, her employer threatened to fire her even after my friend disclosed the reasons for her absence. Fortunately, this talk happened just as her abusive partner finally decided to leave the relationship, and the District, for good. However, if my friend’s employer had fired her, she would have had no recourse available. Not only would she have been abused by her partner, she would have become abused by the system too.

. . . Much has been discussed about the comprehensive provisions in the bill, including requiring employers to post notice of these protections, develop workplace violence policies, and provide training for staff on domestic violence. Many questions and concerns have been raised about these provisions that are important and valid. I have tremendous respect for both the business and domestic violence community, and have no doubt that we can all work together with Committee staff to revise the bill where necessary to ensure it moves forward. But please let me remind us what the core issue of this bill is about at the end of the day: discrimination. If we as a society are committed to creating a safe and healthy District of Columbia, then we must help those who are in need, and protect them while they heal, not unravel the fragile threads that are supporting them.

* Seventy-five-year-old Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, the "first and only woman to pitch in the Negro American League," is set to be commemorated with her own field in Northeast D.C.

* The National Area Woman's Foundation doles out some advice to the new cast of "Real Housewives of D.C." "Since I moved to Washington, D.C., I have been incredibly impressed by the number of intelligent, genuine, caring, friendly and strong women I’ve met," writes Mariah Craven. "Those women will not be on the 'Real Housewives of DC.'”

* The Washington Blade factors heavily into the Village Voice's story on the "death rattle" of gay print media:

Making things even harder for gay media—new and old—is the not-unpleasant problem of continuous and thorough examination of LGBT issues in big media like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Voice. Their coverage threatens to make already-threatened gay community weeklies, with their much more limited resources, redundant. Consider this: The photo that caught notorious professional homophobe George Alan Rekers with a male escort at an airport two months ago wasn’t taken for a gay paper, but for the Voice’s sister paper, Miami New Times.

It's true that LGBT news has gone mainstream, but it's a bit odd for the Voice to lump itself and Miami New Times together with such "big media" dailies as The New York Times and the Washington Post. The Miami New Times, like the gay papers that the Voice declares as dying, is a weekly with limited resources and an equally uncertain future.

* Metro Weekly profiles a "model blood donor" who is ineligible to donate because he has sex with men. Says Lee Storrow: "I think it's powerful that I am someone who … would have been a lifetime donor—and could potentially be a lifetime donor—but isn't eligible because of this policy.''

* LGBT activist Peter Rosenstein on why he's not voting for Adrian Fenty:

Candidate Fenty promised support for marriage equality but Mayor Fenty never spoke up for it. He didn’t testify for it or allow his director of the Office of GLBT Affairs to do so. Compare that to the advocacy of mayors like Gavin Newsom and now even Michael Bloomberg and it really comes up short. He did sign a veto-proof bill and held a signing ceremony to be in on the celebration. He did sign a veto-proof bill and held a signing ceremony to be in on the celebration.

Candidate Fenty promised to fight against hate crimes. Mayor Fenty never even managed to get the words hate crimes out of his mouth. He refused to meet with the community at-large even though these crimes have been increasing. Candidate Fenty promised to hold a GLBT Economic Summit. Mayor Fenty refused to make this an event of the mayor’s office and has never found time to attend one. Candidate Fenty promised to take the message of fighting HIV/AIDS to the community, including the faith community. Mayor Fenty has never spoken to a faith-based group about HIV/AIDS.

Rick Rosendall's take: "This is too long, too one-sided, and too much about Peter Rosenstein."

Earlier this month, we examined how D.C.-area hospitals fared in the Human Rights Campaign's 2010 Healthcare Equality Index, which rates hospitals on their policy toward LGBT patients (they all failed). Then, we spoke to HRC's Tom Sullivan, who explained the Equality Index's high standards. Now, Sum of Change has produced an in-depth video—including interviews with both Sullivan and Ellen Kahn of the HRC's Family Project—which explains all aspects of the index, why it's important, and why more facilities will be coming into compliance in the future. Let's hope D.C.-area hospitals are listening.

* Via BLOgT: Even ex-gays are allowed to wear fabulous scarves.

* Feministing points to a Brightest Young Things piece on how some LGBT folks define queer virginity.

* At Tiger Beatdown, Silvana reacts to a piece in the Washington Post about a victim of trauma who built an anti-terrorism career out of her fascination with "evil and violence":

Ironically enough, reading an article about someone else’s fascination with terror caused me to feel a little terror of my own. What if this explained it all? What if my fascination with detention and corrections, and compulsion to fight for people who are locked up, was all a complicated outgrowth of my history of trauma? I was harassed almost every day as a teenager, groped, assaulted, and in my late teens and early twenties raped repeatedly by a boyfriend. I was surrounded by people who had done bad things to me. But instead of being repulsed by criminals, rapists, terrorists, I identify with them. Because, just like women are the sex class, to be the recipient, the dumping-ground for male aggression, men of color and especially mentally ill men of color are the dumping ground for white male authoritarian state-sanctioned violence.

* At Jezebel, Irin Carmon interviews former staffers about The Daily Show's boys club. Head to the comments to read a deluge of defenses of this "progressive" product with a gender problem.

* Tracy Clark-Flory on a man who allegedly hacked into over 100 computers in search of private sex tapes and photos (44 of the victims were underage):

When we come across stories about violations of people's sexual privacy, whether on the news or in our personal lives, there's a tendency to go, Oh, well, that was stupid of them — they shouldn't have filmed that, they shouldn't have taken that photo, etc. And then you feel a bit safer, thanks to your superior wisdom, which tells you that you should not let your boyfriend keep a copy of your homemade sex tape and that you should decline that guy's request for a sexy photo (and maybe you even follow this advice, most of the time). The reality, though, is that precautions—no matter how sensible, no matter how self-righteously we trumpet them—are no match for someone set on exploitation.

According to Quinlan's analysis, it doesn't make sense that Kagan is gay:

President Obama's nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, has steadfastly refused to divulge her sexual orientation, despite a CBS News blog item claiming that Kagan is known in Harvard circles as a lesbian.  In response, the White House blasted CBS News for its "lies" and CBS pulled the item off its website.

But if Kagan is a lesbian, why would the White House insist that she is not when Obama made gay rights part of his platform for change?  In issuing this month's gay pride presidential proclamation, Obama stated he is "proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration."

So Kagan and her alleged lesbianism should not be an issue for the White House or the Democrats, who control the Senate vote for Kagan's judicial nomination.

And it doesn't make sense that she's not gay:

Some of Kagan's friends have told Politico that she is frustrated by the persistence of the gay rumors, but "worried that denying them could imply some anti-gay prejudice." But this makes no sense either-isn't the whole point of the gay rights movement to allow people to be free to declare who they really are, without stigma? If the only way for a middle-aged woman to declare that she is straight is to marry a man, wouldn't that be a step backward, and not forward, in liberal gender politics?

THEREFORE:

There is, however, another possibility. Could it be that Kagan is ex-gay?  That would explain the White House insistence on Kagan's heterosexuality and Kagan's silence about her past sexual preference.

That's right, Obama has just nominated the woman who will be our nation's first closeted ex-gay Supreme Court justice. No other explanation makes sense. Now, we must work to make Kagan our first openly ex-gay Supreme Court justice. On that day, our country will finally grant heterosexuals the same respect it gives gay people:

As an ex-gay myself, I sympathize with Kagan and the Obama administration.  I have had to face taunts, threats, and phone calls to my employer demanding that I be fired.  There is no hate like that directed against the ex-gay community. And the President knows it.

. . . So Ms. Kagan, do not be afraid to come out of the closet.  Regardless of our political differences, ex-gays like me, and maybe you, should be able to live openly just like when we were homosexuals.

It wasn't until I read this woman's experience, via Holla Back DC!, that I understood how D.C.'s annual Capital Pride Parade could present the groper's perfect storm. She writes:

I marched in the Capital Pride Parade last weekend as part of a marching band. For part of the parade route, the crowds had pushed up into the street, leaving very little room to march through and no space to separate us from the crowd. One man at the front of the crowd took the opportunity to grab my ass as I marched by.

Because I was concentrating hard on playing and marching, I couldn’t respond. Nonetheless this upset me. Obviously, being part of a parade does not make my body public property. I was also disturbed by the fact that, given the context, this guy probably assumed I was a lesbian, yet still felt entitled (perhaps even felt more entitled) to sexually assault me.

All the elements are here: The close proximity, the element of alcohol, the assumption of a safe space, and the selection of a target who—because she is directly in the public eye, because she is concentrating on playing an instrument, because she is surrounded by potential suspects, because she's swiftly marching away from them, and because she may even be a member of a marginalized group—can't do anything about it. That's not to say that Capital Pride is infested with gropers—but this isn't the first story I've heard from someone being assaulted at this year's event.

We know that gropers seek out situations like this in order to get away with assault. In order to deal with that reality, we invent excuses to blame groping victims for also being present in these circumstances. The victim-blaming is tailored for each space in which a groper operates. Because sexual assailants target places where people are drinking, "potential victims" shouldn't drink so much. Women—and men, both gay and straight, who aren't into non-consensual groping from strangers—don't belong in gay bars, or at least shouldn't complain when they're assaulted in them. Of course, it's hard to argue that people should avoid public transportation just because gropers get off on the sheer number of people who do take the train. So we suggest that people targeted on the Metro are to blame for failing to speak up or fight back.

Even an action as innocuous as playing in a marching band at a Pride Parade has to be defended against the implication that the victim was asking for it: "Obviously, being part of a parade does not make my body public property," she writes.

* Just in time for Father's Day, WorldNetDaily has republished David Kupelian's column on how refusing to acknowledge male superiority is hurting men:

"Father knows best."

How do those three words make you feel? Turn them over in your mind a couple of times and be aware of the subtlest of feelings. Be honest.

Do they make you feel slightly squeamish? A little discomfort in your solar plexus? Is something deep down inside you repelled by those words?

If so, you're not alone. Contempt for male authority—as if to say, "Give me a break, father sure didn't know best in my life"—is everywhere around us. We're swimming in it. You see, men, boys and masculinity itself have been under withering national assault for decades.

* Reporter John Townsend has outed an anti-gay Lutheran minister he met at meetings of "Courage," an anonymous Catholic program that helps gays and lesbians to suppress their sexuality. So, how ethical is that? From the NGJLA: "While many people disagree with [Courage's] approach—which focuses on working steps, remaining chaste, prayer, and little contact with openly gay people—the question is whether the practice, itself, is so dangerous that people’s expectation of anonymity should be violated in order to expose it."

* The GLAA congratulates Germany's gay penguins on becoming proud fathers.

* In other displays of gay pride, Metro Weekly presents 20 shirtless men dancing to a Lady Gaga medley in front of the Capitol building:

[youtube:v=xCELpZ-FARg]

* And now for some less inspiring maneuvering: Gay council candidate Clark Ray accepts an endorsement from the Rev. Willie F. Wilson, who has opined on the issue of sexual orientation that "Lesbianism is about to take over our community" and "Can't make no connection with a screw and another screw."

*Broadsheet's Tracy Clark-Flory reports on an X-ray manufacturer's foray into the pin-up market. Clark-Flory's take: "damn, these skele-girls got femurs for daaays. As the Weekly Vice suggests, I guess the message here is that beauty isn't skin deep, after all. Or something." I think the real message here is that even Skeletors can look "sexy" if we splay them out in a suitably compliant pose and strap the right shoes on their feet.

* At Feministe, s.e. smith declares open season on bikini season.

* Bitch Magazine's Kjerston Johnson aggressively campaigns for the Twilight series to show Bella's vampire-baby birth on-screen, in which "Edward has to deliver the baby Cesarean-style . . . with his teeth." In response to Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg's claim that "you can do childbirth without seeing childbirth . . . it doesn't mean it's any less evocative of an experience," Johnson replies: "Um, he rips their baby out of her stomach with his mouth! I would like to see what kind of mise-en-scène director Bill Condon conjures up to ensure it's no 'less evocative' without this unnatural natural birth."

* Why is the National Organization for Marriage (NOM NOM NOM) bankrolling a local ANC commissioner to the tune of $60,900? [Via Metro Weekly].

* Vote in Freedom to Marry's blogger scholarship contest; our local pick is The New Gay editor Zack Rosen. (Read his submission here).

The final item on the GLAA's agenda is "Prostitution: Legalize It, Regulate It, Zone It, Tax It." And their plan to do so is pretty awesome:

"Public officials seldom ask a most practical question," the agenda reads. "[W]ho benefits from the criminalization of prostitution?" The agenda goes on to cite notable scholars on the question, from Samuel Johnson to Jesse Ventura:

Samuel Johnson described the ills associated with prostitution—crowding, intemperance, famine, filth, and disease—and assured his friend John Boswell that “severe laws, steadily enforced, would be sufficient against those evils, and would promote marriage.” Jesse Ventura came closer to the truth when he told Playboy in 1999, “Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it’s run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it’s legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better.” Not just girls, Jesse.

The GLAA then lists the reasons that D.C.'s LGBT community should get behind legalization: A lot of sex workers don't choose prostitution freely. People treat them poorly. Our criminal justice system in particular treats them poorly. And criminalization only makes matters worse:

As advocates of the legalization of prostitution, we think it needs neither sanitizing nor glorifying. It is not a profession filled exclusively with people who freely chose it from a host of other options. No doubt there are some in that category, like the college student turning tricks for extra cash. But too many turn to it by necessity. These include gay teenagers who have been thrown out of the house by their parents, and transgender people whom discrimination has left with few options.

People in these situations are practicing survival sex. They face greater risk of substance abuse, mental and physical abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases. The District has seen numerous murders of sex workers in recent years—murders that were made harder to prevent and harder to solve by the fact that the victims worked the streets and were without legal sanction or protection.

Harassing, arresting and prosecuting people for survival sex solve none of their problems, but only pile more on. Whose idea of responsible public policy is this? To be justified, any public law ought to serve some identifiable common good. Saying to people as Sister Mary Ignatius did, “You do the thing that makes Jesus puke,” is no basis for criminalizing whatever it is. Having been the targets of moralistic lawmaking, we as gay people are especially on guard against it.

The best-case scenario for sex workers? The District should fund "the creation of drop-in centers, transitional housing, job training, counseling, addiction recovery programs and other services for at-risk populations." But first, it's going to have to get over its hang-ups in talking openly about sex:

Our society’s penchant for legislating morality is the chief obstacle to eliminating the harm caused by prostitution and solicitation laws. Otherwise compassionate and practical people often lose their bearings when the subject turns to the “naughty bits.” Overcoming this will take time, especially in D.C. with its constitutional vulnerability to congressional grandstanding; but we will never get there if we do not start. We can begin with a humble recognition of the normal variation in sexual expression, the proper limits of government coercion, and the fact that other people’s personal choices are none of our business unless they harm us. In the case of sex behind closed doors, whether in homes or hotel rooms, the fact that someone is paying for it is no more a legitimate basis for police involvement than if the transaction is a more informal one involving dinner and a show.

Tonight, I have the honor of appearing on WPFW's monthly LGBT radio program, "Inside Out." I'll be talking about some recent LGBT coverage on the Sexist, from terminology disputes to wedding industry turf wars to same-sex marriage turncoats. I'll also be chatting for an entire hour about this stuff, so help me out! Got any topics you'd like me to talk about? File them in the comments. Want to ask a question on the air? Call us at (202) 588-0893. And listen in tonight at 7 p.m. on 89.3 FM in the District, or online at WPFW.org. In the meantime, I'll be studying words I'm not supposed to say. I've heard "cunt" is off limits, so, glad to get that one out of my system!

Photo via Nationaal Archief

Some consensual touching at the 2010 Capital Pride Parade

This weekend, Miss D.C. 2009 Jen Corey graciously agreed to march alongside City Paper at the 2010 Capital Pride Parade. Along with her support of the LGBT community, Corey has been outspoken about D.C.'s groping problem as her reign draws to a close. The Miss D.C. organization is behind Corey's new platform, and her recent efforts to physically defend herself against assault: "Jen recently got quite a bit of notoriety for her reaction to an overly familiar 'admirer.' In the fine tradition of [Miss America 1944] Venus Ramey . . . who defended herself against an intruder, Jen’s body slam or 'Smack Down' has become legendary."

Corey, 22, will hand over her crown this Sunday at the Lincoln Theater. But before she finishes her reign, she's agreed to answer some questions about public sexual harassment and assault:

In your NBC interview, you mentioned that you've experienced both physical and verbal sexual harassment. In my experience, a lot of people who agree that touching a stranger is wrong can't understand what the big deal is about making sexual comments toward them. How have both types of harassment affected you personally?

Jen Corey: I have a lot of guy friends who agree and don't understand what a little harmless catcalling has to do with sexual harassment. Sometimes I wish a hidden camera could follow me down a street because it's not just the fact that someone calls out to you and maybe pays you a compliment. I used to live 1 block from campus in college and after walking to school for the first week down Massachusetts Ave, I drove for the rest of the year. I counted once and I was either catcalled or beeped at 11 times in one block. Living in a city alone is scary for a woman. It only increases your fear more when you are walking alone and a white van pulls up next to you and a car full of men are yelling derogatory things at you. A girl can only take so much before she is too afraid to go out alone.

I know that many, many women in D.C. experience this type of public sexual harassment and assault on a regular basis, but a lot of people are skeptical that this is actually that big of a problem. When you speak out about groping, are other people ever surprised that it's this common an experience for you?

JC: I think men don't always understand how often it happens. My own boyfriend really didn't grasp it until recently one night when he walked me back to my car late at night after a photoshoot. I was walking with him and men were still coming up to us to try to talk to me or touch me. I've also heard other men say, "Oh that only happens because you're probably dressed in a short dress" or it's because I'm Miss DC. But this has happened to me since I was 13 and happens when I'm in sweatpants and a sweatshirt or when I'm in jeans and t-shirt.

Speaking of how frequent groping is: Can you talk a little bit about how this problem affects people all across the District?

JC: Not only does it affect people all over the District, but it affects people all over the country. The fact that we're an active city where a most people are out and walking around, it just seems to happen more. My biggest point that I'm trying to get across is that we need to speak out against it. Do NOT just accept it as "a part of life." It is not OK and the only way it will stop is if it is confronted. That's why I'm so glad to have the support of the Washington City Paper, stopstreetharassment.com and Holla Back DC.

Is this not enough jorts-wearing dancing cowboy for you? Check out Darrow Montgomery's full collection of photos from the 2010 Capital Pride Parade over on City Desk for more where that came from. Bonus: Dude drinking beer out of a water bottle straddling a foam noodle.

* Via Sociological Images, a recent Marie Claire fashion shoot declares that "nude is the new black." Except that by "nude," they mean "the color white people are." White people are the new black. It's science.

* s.e. smith on rethinking the ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood:

The ban is not a deferral period, as is the case for most things that exclude people from donation. It is a lifetime ban. If you are a man who  has had sex with a man since 1977, you are not allowed to donate blood in the United States. Period. End of discussion.

Meanwhile, if you are a heterosexual man who has had sex with a woman whom you know to be HIV positive, there’s a year waiting period on blood donation.

Let me reiterate this: The FDA has determined that a year waiting period to eliminate any possible concerns is enough if you have been exposed to a known risk factor for HIV infection and you are heterosexual. Meanwhile, if you are a gay or bisexual man, you are banned from donation for life unless you haven’t had sex with a man since 1977. Regardless of risk factors. Only had one monogamous partner since 1977, and you’ve both been tested? Banned. Only had protected sex since 1977? Banned. Get regular HIV tests that are always negative, and been tested since the last possible window period? Banned.

* Thomas at Yes Means Yes on labeling sexuality: "Does that make me queer?"

* On Shakesville, is "the end of men" really the end of male privilege?

Hanna Rosin's piece in The Atlantic is titled "The End of Men," but a more accurate title might be "The End of Male Privilege."

Well, it would be a more accurate title if she'd ever managed to tease out the idea that struck me as a glaring omission from the piece: Privileged men's achievement gap, and the associated atrophy born of the observable resistance, or inflexibility, to make quick course corrections, is the inevitable result of a culture that continues to sell privileged men a patriarchal narrative of birthright entitlement, despite the fact that it is nothing but an empty promise of an illusory bounty in which most men will never share.

Simply: American culture continues to promise straight, white, cis, able-bodied men success and supremacy, in exchange for nothing but their being straight, white, cis, and able-bodied. But that shit just ain't enough anymore.

Photo via the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest

Exciting news! The Washington City Paper will be repping The Sexist in a float (OK: a pick-up truck) in tomorrow's Capital Pride Parade. Joining us in the back of said pick-up truck will be Miss D.C. Jen Corey, who has dedicated part of her reign to becoming an outspoken advocate for victims of street harassment and public sexual assault. Yes!

Sashes will be worn! Truck beds will be sat upon! Candy necklaces will be thrown!The parade begins at 6:30 p.m., and the route goes like this: "starts at 23rd and P streets NW, moves east on P Street toward Dupont Circle, heads northeast on New Hampshire Avenue, turns east on R Street, moves south on 17th Street, turns east on P Street and ends at 14th and N streets." See you there!

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Attention Sexist readers: The good folks over at The New Gay want ya'll on their dance floor, so they're giving away two pairs of tickets to the District's "coed, trans-inclusive, straight-friendly alternative queer dance party," Homo/Sonic. The party, held this Friday on the Black Cat Mainstage, is sponsored by alt.dc.pride, which is producing a whole slate of alternative queer events throughout Pride. TNG promises it "will rock your ass, dick and boobs off." My dick's already been rocked out of existence, so the tickets are up for grabs! File a comment (include a valid e-mail address) or shoot me an e-mail telling me why you want a couple of tickets, and I'll get the two best responses on the guest list.

Capital City Public Charter School students Keonie Smith, 17, and Clara Lincoln, 14, created the above video to show the support of gay rights among their peers at the Columbia Heights school. Prepare to clutch your pearls, wingnuts: The video was made as part of a school geometry project meant to apply logical proofs to real-life issues. Lincoln on the effort: "We want people on the fence or who oppose this issue to see that youth really do care about gay rights. And for those who support the issue, we want them to know that a multicultural group of students back them up."

* The New York Times profiles Eve Tushnet, a "celibate, gay, conservative, Catholic writer" opposed to same-sex marriage:

Marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals, whose “relationships can be either uniquely dangerous or uniquely fruitful,” she explained in an e-mail message. “Thus it makes sense to have an institution dedicated to structuring and channeling them.”

But same-sex marriage, she wrote in The New York Post in 2007, “can bring one of three outcomes: A two-tiered marriage culture, where heterosexual couples are asked to do the hard things (sex only within marriage, marriage for life in most circumstances) and homosexual couples work out their own marriage norms; reshape marriage into an optional, individualized institution, ignoring the creative and destructive potentials of ‘straight’ sex; or encourage all couples to restrict sex to marriage and marry for life, and hope that gay couples accept norms designed to meet heterosexual needs.”

* The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association calls Tushnet "a prime example of the kind of sources mainstream journalists should be talking to when they want to 'balance' a story about same-sex marriage. Rather than dialing up a homophobic talking head from some religious-right-wing group to peddle junk scientific claims or just wildly ignorant statements lacking in any bases of fact, there are sources out there to quote who won’t just spew more anti-gay hate speech."

Really? Because she sounds like standard-issue wingnut to me, floating a wacky essentialist conception about gays and straights and then concluding that only straight marriage "makes sense." What differentiates Tushnet's views from "junk scientific claims or just wildly ignorant statements lacking in any bases of fact"? Is it that she's also gay?

* Heather Corrina addresses the myth that all rape survivors compulsively pursue sex.

* Carnal Nation on the sexual politics of vanity plates: An ecologist's attempt to pay tribute to the "pine genus" on his license plate has been knocked down by Michigan officials who say the word "PINUS" "might carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency as judged by the Department of State." In other words, it looks too much like the word "PENIS."

* Tiger Beatdown on sexism, Lynn Hirschberg and MIA:

M.I.A. is a fake, the article more or less says; no matter what she says or writes or records about global capitalism being a bad thing, no matter how fiercely she would seem to defend marginalized people, she’s just a shallow, narcissistic, bossy, stupid woman who only wants your attention, only wants to be famous, only wants to be a star. And did you hear that she was having contractions when she sang “Paper Planes” at the Grammys? Shocking! Provocative! Fame-whorey! Regular-whorey! Unfeminine! Selfish! Bad mother!

The Human Rights Campaign has released its 2010 Healthcare Equality Index, which rates healthcare providers on their policies toward the LGBT community. The HRC's press release was not impressed. It kicks off: "new healthcare equality analysis from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation found that no healthcare facilities in the Washington, D.C., metro area reviewed for the Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) 2010 have fully inclusive non-discrimination policies for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people."

Let's see how our local hospitals stacked up:

Six hospitals included in the survey—Washington Hospital Center, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Howard University Hospital, Providence Hospital, the MedStar-Georgetown Medical Center, and the George Washington University Hospital—are located in the District of Columbia. Of those, only three have a patient non-discrimination policy that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation; zero have a policy that mentions gender identity. The D.C. Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, but since the act is not always easily enforceable, it's important for hospitals to be committed to eliminating these illegal forms of discrimination internally.

Five hospitals surveyed—Washington Adventist Hospital, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, Doctors Community Hospital, Suburban Hospital, and Holy Cross Hospital—are located in Maryland. Only two prohibit discrimination against patients based on sexual orientation; again, none include gender identity in their policies. Maryland prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, but a bill to add "gender identity and expression" to the list died last year.

Five more hospitals—Reston Hospital Center, Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, Virginia Hospital Center, and Inova Alexandria Hospital—are located in Virginia. Oh, Virginia. Virginia's Human Rights law does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The George Washington University was the only local hospital to voluntarily participate in the study, so the HRC has a little bit more data on the hospital's visitation policy, its LGBT training, and its employment non-discrimination policy. Results were mixed:

Today, the G.W. Hospital issued a press release patting itself on the back for throwing the HRC some info. (Gotta start somewhere). While Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Russo admitted "there is more we can do," she also clarified that the hospital's "liberal visitation policy extends the same rights to gay and lesbian partners as are granted to married spouses or heterosexual couples."

Photo of the George Washington University Hospital by NCinDC, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* This weekend, kick off the D.C. Capital Pride festivities with a leather lesson:

''People might think this is corny or not as serious, but providing an educational day on safe play is primary to the weekend as well,'' says Michael Sessa, founder of the event and president of The Center. ''A lot of people think it's funny, cool or kinky to be in the leather community, but they don't know what the hell they're doing, and that can be dangerous."

* Via Violet Blue: Finally, all your erotic pretentious bicycling fantasies have come true: It's fixed-gear porn.

* I love Lynsey G.'s McSweeney's column, "The Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Reviewer." Recently:

But ah, there's the rub, that one little word: good. Alas, despite the prettiness of the sex being had by porn "lesbians," very little of it looks remotely good to me. As a woman who knows what she wants from sex, it's easy for me to tell that in most of these scenes, the so-called "lesbians" are not feeling very good at all. Because they're doing it all wrong! For instance: a little pat down there with one finger wouldn't get much of a reaction from the women I know, yet these ladies seem to need little else to get them going. Sucking on a fake phallus, as these women so eagerly do in most scenes, would likewise not do much to get most lesbians going: the only exciting thing about giving head (to a man or a woman) is the other person's response to it—the knowledge that you're turning that person on. The physical act of fellating is pretty neutral. But these girls sucking on a glass dildo and moaning in ecstasy? No. It makes me roll my eyes and fast forward because it's neither convincing nor arousing.

* Nerve trolls for sex advice from fans of professional wrestling:

What wrestling moves could you bring into the bedroom?

The Lou Thesz press — which, according to Mick Foley, could just as well be called the "dick to the face" — is a candidate, but you probably have to make sure it's okay before you bust that one out. Although wrestling often hilariously resembles intercourse, most of the moves are either mundane or "don't try this at home."

* Brightest Young Things'  high-school interns write about their proms. Prom update, for those juuuust a few years out of high school: They still have chocolate fountains there, but now the limos are stretch hummer. Kids these days.

Photo via boothekolt, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

FUK!T, a D.C.-based initiative that supports condom use among gay men, has produced a spoof of old-school sex-ed films in an effort to promote modern safe-sex practices—just in time for D.C.'s Capital Pride. Delivering the message are porn stars Brent Corrigan and Matthew Rush, who administer advice on condoms and lubes, deliver campy bon mots, and do their best coach-and-student routine as the camera lingers on Corrigan's penis (in this version, censored with a yellow smiley face). FUK!T—short for "fuck kit"—began distributing packages of condoms with lube at clubs and other businesses around D.C. after staggering reports of D.C.'s HIV epidemic were released last year. An uncensored version of "Brent's Oral Exam"—along with plenty more explicit penis-in-condom shots—are available on the organization's website.

D.C.-based rapper Wale, after dropping out of, then rejoining, D.C. Black Pride, provides his thoughts on homophobia: "It's one of those situations where like, it might have been hard to understand like ten years ago. But it's 2010 . . . There's gay people that are like heads of companies,you know just like functioning human beings, you know what I'm saying?"

The D.C.-based WEAVE, or Women Empowered Against Violence, has launched a new campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence for an LGBT audience. "Show Me Love, DC!," the campaign's online component, includes statistics about the problem, discussions about healthy relationships, and legal resources for the LGBT community.

Some stats that illustrate the need for Show Me Love: While the overall rates of domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships are comparable to those of straight couples, LGBT youth are at a higher risk of dating violence than straight people of the same age. Over 75 percent of the cases handled by the D.C. police's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit are domestic-violence related.  Only 20 percent of LGBT victims of domestic violence and sexual assault seek help. Press release after the jump.

Campaign Launches to Address Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Communities

Local Nonprofit to Raise Awareness of Healthy Relationships in DC

WASHINGTON (JUNE 1)  –  Women Empowered Against Violence, Inc. (WEAVE) today launched Show Me Love, DC! – an innovative campaign designed to promote healthy relationships in Washington’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) communities.  An interactive web hub for the campaign, www.ShowMeLoveDC.org, features information on healthy relationships, support resources for LGBTQ survivors, quizzes and facts and the campaign’s “Postcard Project.”

“This is an exciting campaign because there is very little information out there for LGBTQ people on building healthy relationships or about where to go if relationships aren’t healthy,” said Morgan Lynn, Supervising Attorney and Manager of LGBTQ Program for WEAVE.

“The hopes of the Show Me Love campaign are twofold — To get people in DC’s LGBTQ communities actively talking about and working toward healthy relationships, and to provide a resource for people in unhealthy relationships where they can find information and lists of LGBTQ-friendly service providers,” Lynn said.

In conjunction with LGBT Pride Month, throughout June, the Show Me Love campaign will host a series of events throughout DC, including a Launch Party at Pulp DC store on 14^th Street, NW on June 11^th from 5-7 PM, an interactive art-based Postcard Project, community-based conversations, a Metrobus ad campaign and information tables at upcoming Capital Pride and Trans Pride events.

The Show Me Love, DC! campaign is backed by an advisory committee of local artists, activists, social workers and attorneys and is funded through a grant from the Office for Victims of Crime, which is a component of the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Everyone deserves relationships that are healthy and free from all forms of abuse – no exceptions” said Joye E. Frost, Acting Director of the Office for Victims of Crime.  “We are proud to support this initiative and think it can be used as a model in other parts of the country.”

Created in 2007, WEAVE’s LGBTQ Program provides free assistance to address the specific legal needs of Washington’s LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, dating violence and stalking. WEAVE also hosts three weekly walk-in legal clinics that provide free legal advice.

For more information on the campaign, please visit: www.ShowMeLoveDC.org.

###

WEAVE is a Washington-based nonprofit that works closely with adult and teen survivors of relationship violence and abuse, providing an innovative range of legal, counseling, economic and educational services that leads survivors to utilize their inner and community resources, achieve safety for themselves and their children, and live empowered lives. For more information on WEAVE, please visit: www.weaveincorp.org.

The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), a leading resource on journalistic style, chimes in on the LGBT vs. GLBT debate: "The NLGJA stylebook supplement does not give explicit guidance, but only lists 'LGBT' as an option, perhaps revealing a preference." A commenter chimes in: "Our college campus’ group . . . technically referred to themselves as LGBTQQIA—the last part was queer (as in studies?), questioning, intersexed and (straight) allies. Most people were confused, even some gays. They ended up changing their name to 'prism.'"

Photo via brainchildvn, Creative Commons License 2.0

* Zack Rosen at The New Gay on the assumption that gay men love Sex and the City: "assumptions about my relationship to SATC make me about as angry as being called fabulous," he writes. "We’ve all gone on bad dates or slept with someone who never called us again. We do not all, however, live in a New York City haze of money and extreme fashion. We do not all act as if women and gay men are half-formed creatures that will die flopping on the floor if they cannot find a mate. And most importantly, we do not all subscribe to the notion that the life lived by the SATC gals is a mirror image of that undergone by the contemporary urban gay male."

Rosen isn't just peeved at the constant comparisons between all gay men and a set of sexually promiscuous, frivolously spending, Cosmo-swilling white ladies; he's also unimpressed with the film's depiction of actual gay men: "this movie . . . features a gay wedding between two men who hate each other, love an all-white color palette and hired Liza Minnelli to sing 'Single Ladies.' I’ve hosted orgies that were less stereotypically gay than that."

* Who would you rather work for: Andrea or James?

Madeline Heilman at New York University once conducted an experiment in which she told volunteers about a manager. Some were told, "Subordinates have often described Andrea as someone who is tough yet outgoing and personable. She is known to reward individual contributions and has worked hard to maximise employees' creativity."

Other volunteers were told, "Subordinates have often described James as someone who is tough yet outgoing and personable. He is known to reward individual contributions and has worked hard to maximise employees' creativity."

The only difference between what the groups were told was that some people thought they were hearing about a leader named Andrea while others thought they were hearing about a leader named James. Heilman asked her volunteers to estimate how likeable Andrea and James were as people. Three-quarters thought James was more likeable than Andrea.

The story goes on to examine the experiences of two transgender scientists at Stanford who transitioned mid-career—one transitioned to male, the other to female. I wonder who had a better time post-transition?

* SAFER Campus on WaPo's recent examination of campus rape: When you headline a story "Schools trying to prevent and respond to sexual violence," shouldn't you then report on some schools that are actually trying to prevent and respond to sexual violence?

I found the title of the article “Schools trying to prevent and respond to sexual violence” in the Washington Post to be extremely misleading. I expected to read a some stories of how schools are adequately and sincerely making efforts to prevent and respond to crimes such as rape, but instead I found myself reading a boring, shallow article that barely grazes the real picture of violence on college campuses and how institutions are dealing with it.

* Student journalists at the University of Utah who secretly inserted words for genitalia in the school newspaper will not be penalized. Apparently, publishing "penis" and an unidentified "slang term for the vagina" are not, in fact, outlawed in the school's Code of Conduct. "Administrators said academic holds on the journalism students were lifted after they determined the student code was not violated by the prank, which spelled out the words in large capital letters within The Daily Utah Chronicle's farewell columns."

* Alyssa Rosenberg points to another lady-centric movie I will definitely see:

[youtube:v=j92Rka-FtUw]

According to a Gallup telephone poll conducted in 2006, "only" 27 percent of Americans would not like to live near "homosexual" neighbors. (No word on American attitudes toward neighbors who are simply "gay."). That figure is down from 30 percent homosexual-neighbor-intolerance in 1995 and 38 percent intolerance in 1990. Americans still dislike gay neighbors more than they dislike Muslim and immigrant neighbors, though that's changing! From 1995 to 2006, American dislike of Muslim neighbors jumped 10 percentage points; dislike of foreign neighbors jumped 9. [Via Racialicious].

Traditional beauty pageants come with all sorts of strange entrance requirements. In order to compete in the Miss America pageant, for example, a constestant must be an unmarried woman who has always been female, has never been pregnant, and has never engaged in any "immoral" or "indecent" activities.

D.C.'s annual LGBT pageant, Mr. and Miss Capital Pride, welcomes married, transgender, and pregnant contestants. The sexual history of entrants is unimportant; the entrance requirements don't even specify that contestants be part of the LGBT community. But the Pride pageant has got a few strange rules of its own. From the 2010 application [PDF]:

1. Do not get high and steal from other pageant contestants.

Any contestant, or person affiliated with a contestant, who misappropriates the property of another contestant, violates any law regarding the abuse of alcohol or drugs, or is caught in the act of stealing will be disqualified and removed from the location of the contest. Unsportsmanlike conduct by a contestant or contestant’s entourage (dresser, dancer) before, during or after the pageant will not be tolerated and is subject to immediate dismissal from the venue and pageant.

2. Entourage is responsible for any damage inflicted by entourage.

It is further understood by signature of this application and submission of this application, contestants and the contestant’s entourage (dresser, dancers) will take responsibility for any and all damage (should it occur) to Town before, during or after the pageant.

3. Only one dresser at a time:

Each contestant will be allowed ONLY one (1) dresser at any given time. Contestants must remain in the assigned area at all times. Administrative points will be deducted from contestants who do not remain in the designated area. Dressers and Dancers as well as any other helpers with a contestant must pay at the front door before being allowed access to the dressing room.

4. No tips.

At no time during the contests shall a contestant or their helper(s) receive a gratuity of any kind during their time on stage.

5. All colors of rainbow must be represented. Rules for the "Pride Attire" category:

Pride attire may be presented by the contestant in the form of his/her most imaginative and creative style. Pride attire is not limited to any one color, but should encompass the full scale of the rainbow. Make your own statement and get as creative as you like.

6. No strings attached. Rules for the ladies' "Evening Gown" category:

Evening gown will be the most elegant outfit you wear during the pageant (i.e. full length not a cocktail dress). It should complement your figure and make a statement of your personal style and taste. The dress accessories should be in perfect condition. No strings should be anywhere on the dress unless the style warrants it. There should be no tears in any part of the fabric and the gown should be stain and wrinkle free. It is your responsibility to take care of the gown and keep it in perfect condition during the pageant.

7. Black jeans are not formal wear. Rules for the men's "Formal Wear" category [Gender nerd noted: Observe how the women's gowns must "complement your figure" while the men's formal wear must simply "complement you"]:

Formal wear should be the most distinguished outfit you wear during the contest (i.e. black tie, tails, regular or modern tuxedo, no black jeans). It should complement you and make a statement of your personal style and taste. No strings should be anywhere on the formal attire. There should be no tears in any part of the fabric and the garment should be stain and wrinkle free. It is your responsibility to take care of your formal wear and keep it in perfect condition during the pageant.

8. Lip-syncing will be judged on proper phrasing. I love that there are three possible talent categories here: "lip-sync," "live vocal," and "other." Hey, beats the swimsuit competition:

Talent is the highest point category in the Mr. & Miss Capital Pride 2010 contests. Contestants will be judged on the quality of lip-sync, live vocal or other entertainment. Judges will be looking for lip sync or live singing ability. This will include but not limited to words to his/her song and proper phrasing within the song. If it is a live performance, is the talent of good quality? If there is choreography, the dancers should know the steps and steps should flow. If a member of your troupe does not know his/her part, points will be deducted from you score. Quality of set design and construction are not judged (note: allowed height 8 feet). All contestants are responsible for their sets. Judges are instructed to deduct points if a set does not complement or enhance the talent and if the set falls or is broken during the talent phase of competition. All costuming and set design should fit the style and mood of the talent being presented. Is your talent appropriate for competition? Does your talent move, excite or educate the judges panel and the audience. It is important to know that you are being judged by a panel of judges and not by the audience. Keep in mind that subcategories make up the total score in each category of competition.

In other words: This is going to be awesome. The Mr. and Miss Capital Pride 2010 pageant will begin promptly at 7 p.m. Friday, June 4th at Town Danceboutique.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in D.C. this March, Mike Newman offered himself up to officiate local gay marriages free-of-charge. Since them, Newman has wedded 44 of the District's same-sex couples—and one opposite-sex pair. Here's a taste of the ceremonies he's seen:

* "Most of them I’d describe as sort of guerrilla-style," Newman says of the typical same-sex wedding he's been called to officiate.  "We'll find a public space and do a ceremony that lasts only a minute or two . . . most of the the time it's just the couple says," he says. Newman, 43, says his officiant style is likely to attract more casual couples: "I'm obviously not a wedding professional, and I made it known I'm up for doing this wherever, whenever," he says.

* Also turning to Newman: Couples who don't want to get hassled by mainstream officiants of unknown tolerance level. "A lot of people I’ve spoken to are used to seeing a lot of discrimination. If they just make a blind phone call to an officiant and it comes out that it's a gay wedding, it can turn out to be a big deal," says Newman. "I'm vocal about wanting to perform these weddings, so they know right away it's not a problem."

* Since March, Newman has performed same-sex weddings in front of the Capitol, outside the U.S. Botanic Garden, in various local restaurants, on the roof of the Newseum, and in his own Capitol Hill living room. "A lot of people just drop by my house," says Newman."We've done half-a-dozen or so in my home, either in the living room or in the backyard," he says.

* Since March, Newman has also lent his services to a couple of heterosexuals. "I’ve performed one opposite-sex marriage in the past few months," says Newman. "It was a couple who said they were waiting to get married until their friends could get married, so it was a part of the same trend."

* On the first day same-sex marriage was legal in D.C., Newman performed eight weddings. Now the demand has tricked down to about one wedding a week. As demand has gone down, Newman's rate has increased. "I have recently started charging for the weddings," says Newman. As of a few weeks ago, the current going rate for his services is about $50 a pop. He's also recently taken on an apprentice—Newman recently endorsed his wife to become an officiant, as well.

Photo via Mike Newman

* SAFER Campus asks why reproductive coercion—or birth control sabotage—ain't criminalized yet. One woman shares her story, naturally, on Facebook:

A recent event has caused me to question [what] it means to be sexually assaulted . . . While sleeping with a guy [he] decided to take off the condom without me realizing it and when he was fingering me he pulled out my nuvaring without telling me. I saw [my]  nuvaring on the ground and he admittedly told me that he had pulled it out. The next day I wrote Eric an email asking him to never contact me again.

I think that birth control sabotage should absolutely be considered sexual assault; consenting to one sex act doesn't imply consenting to all of them, and consenting to sex with and without a condom are two very different things. (Just in the interest of clarification: You can remove the NuvaRing for up to three hours and still be prevented from pregnancy).

* Alyssa Rosenberg is eager for Hollywood to write some gay love stories that aren't expressly political.

* Violet Blue points us to "Super Sexy CPR," a video that uses super porny imagery to teach the elements CPR. Perfect for the next time you need to resuscitate a lingerie model, but sexily.

* My Sex Professor gives you a primer on incorporating the foot into your sex life.

* Nerve ranks the sexiest women and men of LOST. You fools are so wrong about Eloise.

* Susannah Breslin with a great essay on Max Hardcore, the porn giant currently imprisoned on obscenity charges:

I had seen Max’s movies. I found them terrifically depressing. To be clear, I have seen many, many (far too many, really, come to think of it) movies that fall into the explicit, depraved, and explicitly depraved category. I’ve seen cophrophagy porn, senior citizen porn, a porn in which Ron Jeremy appeared as a baby in an adult diaper and a bonnet, midget porn, world-record setting gangbang porn (I was present for one of those, and it’s hard to say which was worse), so-called “ready to drop” pregnancy porn, and a movie in which a series of young women had sex with men and then promptly threw up onto a black tarp spread over a sagging bed after taking what I assumed to be Ipecac. Suffice to say, it takes a lot to shock this reporter when it comes to porn movies. Max’s movies aren’t shocking — not most significantly. They are sad. Everyone suffers. No one is happy. If joy is located at one end of the spectrum, this is where its opposite resides. This is the monstrous mating of unfulfilled longing and untenable hate. Their progeny: an abomination.

(Unconvinced? Try this.)

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Via Metro Weekly: This June, the "Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability" intends to commence reconsidering an FDA policy that's been in place since 1985: The one "prohibiting men who have had sex with another man 'even one time since 1977' from donating blood."

Three blood-y groups—The American Association of Blood Banks, America's Blood Centers, and the American Red Cross—oppose the FDA's lifetime ban; in 2006, the orgs announced that they consider it ''medically and scientifically unwarranted.'' In place of the lifetime ban, the organizations recommended that gay men who "have not had sex with another man for more than a year" should be eligible to donate. Does this mean that ex-gays may finally be able to contribute to our blood supply?

Photo by Abhishek Jacob,Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This year, the DC Center—the sole community center serving the District’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents—will no longer be known as a “GLBT” community center. It will be known as a center for the “LGBT” community. It’s a simple transposition of two letters, but it offers a glimpse into the complicated gender politics of the people the DC Center serves.

GLBT—an acronym which stands for “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender”—was coined in the 1990s to reflect the widening umbrella of identities represented by what was originally referred to simply as the “gay community.” But when the title expanded to include additional marginalized identities, few agreed on who should come first. “There have always been fights in the community over acronyms, which letters to include, and what order they ought to be in,” says Sean Bugg, co-publisher of District LGBT—or GLBT, depending on who you ask—magazine Metro Weekly. “You sometimes wish there was a board saying, ‘This is what it’s going to be now.’”

Recently, several local institutions have arrived at some consensus: LGBT is in. And GLBT is, ahem, out.

Why the concern over the placement of a couple of letters? David Mariner, Executive Director of the DC Center, says that his organization’s acronym switch-up is “not a big deal either way,” but that the Center made the change “to be consistent with the other national organizations we are affiliated with.” CenterLink, which serves as a hub for “LGBT Community Centers Around the World,” favors the L, but its 201 affiliated centers vary on usage.

“I think it’s often a local preference,” says Terry Stone, CenterLink’s Florida-based Executive Director. “In some parts of the country, LGBT is more predominant. In other places, it’s GLBT. I don’t think that much deep thought goes into choosing LGBT or GLBT. People just use what has become familiar to them in their coming-out process.”

The DC Center’s switch isn’t the only indication that the District is now batting for LGBT. Metro Weekly also recently began favoring the acronym; Bugg says the change from GLBT to LGBT was codified in its style guide about six months ago. “I hesitate to change our style guide without having a really strong reason for it,” says Bugg. The rationale: Metro Weekly’s style was becoming increasingly inconsistent with community standards, and ‘GLBT’-schooled Metro Weekly reporters kept returning with quotes from ‘LGBT’-happy subjects. “A lot of people would be using ‘LGBT’ in a quote, and we would be using ‘GLBT’ as a matter of style,” says Bugg. “It became a bit awkward and confusing.”

The DC Center logo, before and after the switch.

Also confusing: navigating the ever-expanding roster of initials that can be added to the standard four-letter-acronym. Local newspaper the Washington Blade has an evolving approach to the acronym. According to Editor in Chief Kevin Naff, the paper “uses LGBT in stories and headlines.” In its branding, however, the paper now tacks on an extra Q.

“We’ve recently added the Q to our tagline in response to reader inquiries and concerns that those ‘questioning’ their sexual orientation were excluded from coverage,” Naff says. “We have not added the Q to standard references in stories, mostly because the alphabet soup starts to get unwieldy.”

Other emerging subgroups may add more letters to the acronym: an I, for “intersex”; an extra T, for the Native American identity of the “two-spirit”; an A, for either “ally” or “asexual”; and the Q, for either “queer” or “questioning.” Bugg says that Metro Weekly eschews the Q for clarity reasons. “We don’t use Q because it’s not standardized,” he says. “If you start packing on Q, depending on the context it can mean ‘queer,’ or it can mean ‘questioning,’”adds Bugg. “You want your readers to know what you’re talking about.”

Beyond D.C., there remains no industry acronym standard. According to GLAAD’s “Media Reference Guide,” which instructs journalists how best to cover the community, both “LGBT” and “GLBT” are acceptable. GLAAD notes that acronyms “are often used because they are more inclusive of the diversity of the community,” but warns that “Care should be taken to ensure that audiences are not confused by their use.”

Perhaps that’s why the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and the New York Times refrain from mentioning any of the related acronyms in their style guides—for the uninitiated, even the four basic initials can require a more verbose explanation.

But the politics of community acronyms go far beyond scannability. “Acronyms are tough,” says Deb Greenspan, who writes for local entertainment site Brightest Young Gays. “On the one hand, you’re able to give a bunch of discrete, self-identifying groups representation while making life a bit easier on your reader. On the other hand, whenever you start to list letters, you get the sense that you better list them all,” she says.

Lists also imply rank. “You inevitably have to put someone first and someone
last in the string of letters,” says Greenspan. The potential for point-counting is one reason Greenspan prefers to call the whole thing off: “I tend to use queer, since it removes the issue of rank,” she says. Zack Rosen, editor of local website The New Gay, also uses queer: “I want to make sure that we don’t use terms that leave anyone out, and I think queer is the most inclusive umbrella term,” Rosen says. “It doesn’t make any assumptions about how people identify.”

But for some, moving the ‘L’ to the front of the line constitutes an important political statement. “I always understood it as a nod to feminism,” says Greenspan. “For a long time, the gay community was not inclusive of women, and lesbians had to forge out on their own in a lot of ways. The balance still isn’t perfect, but I think the L in front is a recognition of that.”

If putting ladies first is a sign of respect, what does it mean that bisexual and transgender people consistently take up the rear? For a long time, working to simply tack on the ‘T’ was met with controversy. “T is still a fairly recent addition, and it’s not one that is fully accepted by all parts of the community,” says Bugg.

Since the wider community’s best-known activists don’t always focus on the concerns of Is, As, Qs and Ts, acronym inclusion can come off as tokenism. Metro Weekly’s internal style guide now contains a four-paragraph discussion of acronyms, which warns reporters against overstating the magazine’s coverage via acronym. “We only use LGBT when we’re speaking about an issue that is inclusive of all four of those. If it’s solely about gay men, you use ‘gay men.’ If it’s something that deals solely with lesbians, you use ‘lesbians,’” says Bugg.

“It’s all well and good if we use inclusive acronyms, but if you’re not actually reflecting all those letters in your magazine, then it really doesn’t matter,” he says. “As important as it is to be inclusive, it’s far more important to actually tell the stories of those lives.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery