The Daily Sheet July - September 2020

[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, July 7th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Will "Brokeback Mountain" Lose Its Crown?

"Brokeback Mountain" was released 15 years ago. That's a pretty long time in cinema — from "War of the Worlds" to "Avengers: Endgame." The sweeping romance follows Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) as they engage in a complex, passionate, and forbidden love affair over two decades. Since the release of Ang Lee's movie, queer representation onscreen and behind the camera has increased substantially (although there is still a very long way to go). We've had the first-ever mainstream LGBT rom-com in "Love, Simon," cultural juggernauts like "Call Me By Your Name" and "Carol," about three Disney movies featuring Disney's "first-ever" LGBTQ character ("Beauty and the Beast," "Onward," and "Zootopia"), and "Moonlight," which did what "Brokeback Mountain" couldn't and became the first-ever queer movie to win best picture at the Academy Awards. Yet "Brokeback Mountain" is still viewed as the go-to gay movie. In Insider's recent chats with various queer and ally filmmakers about their favourite LGBTQ movies, Lee's seminal film was mentioned by every single person. The effect that "Brokeback" has had on the film industry, its filmmakers, and the queer community, is still rippling today — even 15 years later. We spoke to several queer filmmakers about what makes "Brokeback Mountain" the quintessential queer movie. It's probably wise to start off with the film's actual quality — which, by almost all accounts, is pretty high. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 87%, and most critics were enamoured with the movie the moment it first hit screens. Will "Brokeback Mountain" Lose Its Crown?

Coming Out at 90

I was born in western Kansas in a small town called Dodge City on May 20, 1930. It was the time of The Dust Bowl—dust storms that caused great drought, and just before the Great Depression. I recognized that I was gay around the age of 12. We moved around a lot because my father worked for the railroads and I was living in New Mexico. One of my friends invited me over for a sleepover. There was no central heating, so as we went to bed we ended up hugging close together. I just knew right then that I wanted to be with other guys. But it was the 1940s, so I had to keep that hidden. I never had girlfriends over or talked to girls. I took a girl to the senior prom, but only because she asked me. After high school and junior college, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1950 during the Korean War, and was sent to California before spending four years on a minesweeper warship on the Korean Peninsular. Eventually after I returned and studied, I went to work at a retail credit company in Long Beach, California in 1957 and a man named Phillip Allen Jones helped me learn how to do reports. We were immediately attracted to one other and we started dating soon after, though not openly and I was not out as a gay man. But it wasn't long before I was spending nights at his house and then I moved in with him. It just seemed very natural—we blended so well together, so quickly. There was never a question in my mind.  Neither of us drank or smoked, we liked the same things and we never had arguments. We spent every weekend together exploring the surrounding mountains, old mines or visiting the seashore. It was wonderful. The love gradually grew, we just knew it was there without having to verbalize it. Coming Out at 90

Where Are L.A's Lesbian Bars?

When Adriana Gordon first came out as a lesbian, she was 21 years old and living in West Hollywood. It was the ’90s, and lesbian life in Los Angeles was at its peak: women proudly marched through the streets for Lesbian Visibility Week, celebrities were coming out, and lesbian bars thrived as places for women to meet up, hook up, and find community. “It was the first time I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we can be out, and we might be OK,’” Gordon says. “Here we are in numbers, starting to recognize each other quite visibly in a way that I don’t think had been done before.” Today, L.A. is a much different place—especially when it comes to nightlife. While there are 20 bars for gay men in West Hollywood alone, the last lesbian bar in WeHo, the Palms, ended its historic 56-year run in 2013. The Oxwood Inn, a Van Nuys lesbian joint, followed not long after. When it shuttered in 2017, Los Angeles County was left without a single lesbian bar.  The decline of hangouts for gay women is not an L.A.-specific phenomenon. From San Francisco to New Orleans, lesbian bars across the country have closed their doors in recent years. But in L.A., the absence of these spaces is disheartening, especially for young women making a home in the city. When 23-year-old Isabelle Bertges moved here from New York last summer, she was disappointed by the dearth of spaces where she could meet and socialize with other women. “People always told me, ‘Yeah, the L.A. scene is a little bit different,’” Bertges says. “Two months in, I felt a severe lack in my life, especially of lesbians.” Where Are L.A's Lesbian Bars?

Bisexual Challenges

Being bisexual is not always the best of both worlds like some might assume. You’re not gay enough for the LGBTQ+ community, but you’re not straight enough for the heterosexuals. If you’re a bisexual woman, you run the risk of your sexuality being fetishized, and you’re seen as “experimental” or “promiscuous.” If you’re a bisexual man, your sexuality can simply be seen as a stop along the way to “destination gay.” You get told you’re lucky because you have “double the options,” but landing a date as a bisexual person can be hard work. The stigma against those who are attracted to both genders lends itself to assumptions from the gay community that bisexual people are more likely to cheat, specifically in same-sex relationships. Alternatively, many straight people are simply turned off by the idea of dating someone who may have been with someone of the same gender. Bisexual individuals are no strangers to the array of issues that all work harmoniously together to create a phenomenon known as bisexual erasure. Kenji Yoshino, the Director of the Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University School of Law, describes bisexual erasure and bisexual invisibility in the Stanford Law Review as “the omission of bisexuality in discussions of sexual orientation.” This umbrella definition encompasses the many different ways this phenomenon manifests itself. In the college environment, bisexual erasure seems to be especially prevalent. For many, college is a time of exploring one’s identity. Many college-aged students are figuring out their sexuality and may be especially sensitive to the effects of bisexual erasure. Bisexual Challenges

Transgender Protections & Homeless Shelters

The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to move forward with a measure that would permit federally funded homeless shelters to house transgender clients according to their sex assigned at birth. The HUD proposal would reverse a 2016 measure implemented under the Obama administration that built on provisions enacted four years earlier. The 2012 Equal Access Rule mandated that shelters are "open to all eligible individuals and families regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status," and the administration issued further guidance clarifying that the rule barred shelters from denying access to trans people in accordance with their gender identity. HUD announced Wednesday that it intends to effectively strike the 2016 trans-inclusive guidelines. When it comes to housing transgender people in single-sex or sex-segregated shelters, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement that the Obama administration's guidelines "mandate a single approach that overrides local law and concerns." "This important update will empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking," Carson said. "Mission-focused shelter operators play a vital and compassionate role in communities across America. The Federal Government should empower them." A 28-page document released to members of Congress in May spells out some of the changes, as the Washington Blade previously reported. Should the guidelines be implemented, women's shelters would be permitted to "decline to accommodate a person who identifies as female but who is a biological male." Transgender Protections & Homeless Shelters

Author Comes Out as Demisexual

The spectrum of sexuality is vast — truly. Some people try to put things in a binary of heterosexuality and homosexuality but to anyone who pays attention, there are clearly way more than that. Janelle Monae recently brought the conversation about pansexuality to the fore, distinguishing it from bisexuality. Now, author Alex Kazemi has come out as demisexual in an interview and caught backlash as a result. "I'm a demisexual demigod," Kazemi reportedly said in an interview with King Kong Garcon according to the Pop Crave Twitter account. Kazemi wrote Pop Magick — A Simple Guide to Bending Your Reality which had a foreword by Rose McGowan and has contributed as a journalist and cultural commenter to various publications. "Demisexuality is the future. The idea of demisexuality is only having sex with people that you feel emotions, love or energy for. It's so much about the souls connecting." The tweet brought out a ton of trolls, joking that the sexuality revolved around Demi Lovato. Others said that the sexuality does not exist or conflated it saying that everyone should only have sex with people they feel emotions for. But the nuance surrounding demisexuality is not centered around whether or not you have casual sex but who you are sexually attracted to — it's a small difference but it's there. This is less about liking someone and holding out until you get to know them, and more centered on not having feelings at all unless you know a person. Some consider it to be a part of the asexual spectrum of sexualities. As he doesn't have social media, Kazemi told Out his experience of sexuality and coming to identify as a demisexual. Author Comes Out as Demisexual

Catriona Gray On Being an LGBTQ Ally

Growing up, I didn’t know what it meant to be an ally to the LBGTQ community, nor did I know much about the community itself. My eyes were finally opened when I moved to the Philippines as a teenager and began working as a model. Most of my first friends, from stylists to photographers, were LGBTQ. I’m grateful that I formed these relationships before I was given the opportunity to have the platform that I have now. Because of these relationships, becoming an ally became a personal passion. One of my most defining moments as an ally happened in 2018, the year I was crowned Miss Universe. That year, the pageant took a big leap towards diversity. For the first time in over 60 years, a trans woman competed for the title, when Angela Ponce represented her country Spain. This decision garnered a lot of varying opinions and, honestly, at first, I did not know how to feel about it. The pageant world was suddenly required to take part in the discussion and ask what is the definition of a woman? I too asked myself the question, but I knew there was more I needed to understand. So I reached out to my trans friends and asked them about their personal experiences. It really broke my heart to hear their personal stories of discrimination, misunderstanding, and conflict. I also asked them, what did it mean to you to have a trans woman representing your country in Miss Universe? It spoke volumes, they said, that it allowed them to feel seen, represented, and valid. I knew then that it was not only right to have Angela raise her country’s flag on the Miss Universe stage, it was also powerful.  For me, it was to champion education and equal opportunities for all. For Angela, it was to represent the trans community and to call for inclusion. Catriona Gray On Being an LGBTQ Ally

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: KillersMom, CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, July 14th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Michelle Williams to Star in ‘Scenes From a Marriage’

Oscar Isaac and Michelle Williams are attached to star in an HBO limited series adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes From a Marriage,” Variety has learned. Bergman’s version aired on Swedish television in 1973, consisting of six episodes. Bergman directed the series with Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson starring. The new version is said to re-examine the show’s depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, marriage and divorce through the lens of a contemporary American couple. Williams and Isaac will also executive produce in addition to starring. Hagai Levi will write, direct, and executive produce. Michael Ellenberg will executive produce via Media Res. Amy Herzog, Lars Blomgren, Daniel Bergman, and Blair Breard will also executive produce. Media Res and Endeavor content will produce. Ellenberg, the former head of drama for HBO, has been working on adapting “Scenes From a Marriage” for years. It was one of the first projects announced when he launched Media Res three years ago. The show is also a reunion of sorts for Ellenberg and Levi, with Levi having projects at HBO during Ellenberg’s tenure as an executive. Williams recently picked up an Emmy and Golden Globe for her leading role in the FX limited series “Fosse/Verdon.” She also previously starred in the hit drama series “Dawson’s Creek” early in her career. Williams is a celebrated film actress, having been nominated for four Academy Awards for her roles in “Brokeback Mountain,” “Blue Valentine,” “My Week with Marilyn,” and “Manchester by the Sea.” She also received Golden Globe nominations for those same roles, winning for “My Week with Marilyn.” Her other film credits include “The Greatest Showman,” “Venom,” “Shutter Island,” and “The Station Agent.” Michelle Williams to Star in ‘Scenes From a Marriage’

Homophobic Rant During Operation

An Italian surgeon has been suspended after he was accused of going on a vile homophobic rant about an anaesthetised patient he was operating on.  The surgeon works at a Cittiglio hospital in the Italian province of Varese, and he allegedly made the comments on March 25, when Italy had been plunged into crisis by the coronavirus pandemic. According to Varese News, while the patient was undergoing an operation, the surgeon allegedly said: “It is not fair that during this period of emergency I should have to waste time operating on these faggots.” A hospital employee who was also in the operating theatre asked the homophobic surgeon if he had something against gay people, at which point the surgeon ordered him to leave the room. Giovanni Boschini, the president of Arcigay Varese, a charity which ensures the wellbeing and visibility of LGBT+ people in the Italian provinces of Varese and Como, said: “We want to thank those who submitted the complaint and did not remain indifferent to this intolerable act of homophobia.   All our solidarity goes to the patient involved.  In addition to the penalties, it would also be useful to start a training course and for this reason we are available to collaborate with the hospital for diversity education courses , so that no other patient can experience a similar mishap again.” Homophobic Rant During Operation

Martha McCabe Comes Out as a Lesbian

Retired Canadian Olympian swimmer Martha McCabe revealed she is a lesbian in an interview with CBC Sports. She says she hopes that by coming out she can provide the type of strong and proud LGBTQ+ role model she never had growing up. "Young people need to be able to see themselves in the people they look up to," McCabe told CBC. "We need minority voices from different races, sexualities, gender identities, etc. — people bold enough to speak out, to share and to be themselves publicly so that younger generations can see they are not alone, and that you can be successful despite your differences.” McCabe, 30, spoke frankly about the struggles of coming to terms with her sexuality within the environment of competitive swimming. "Sure, I probably knew a couple of lesbians outside of swimming,” she told CBC. “But I was barely paying attention to my life outside of swimming.” McCabe specialized in the 200-meter breaststroke. She won a bronze medal in that event at the 2011 World Championships and placed fifth at the 2012 Summer Olympics.  In her interview, McCabe describes an early life that existed almost entirely within the world of competitive swimming. The one thing missing at that time was a role model. "The people I looked up to were in swimming,” McCabe explained. “The people I was constantly surrounded by and giving my full attention to were in swimming. I think if there was an out lesbian within that circle, someone I could have potentially looked up to, it would have been normalized a little bit more." Martha McCabe Comes Out as a Lesbian

Bisexual Actress of Color to be New Batwoman

There's a new hero in town.  On Wednesday, Warner Bros. TV announced on Twitter that they've found the new lead for "Batwoman" in Javicia Leslie. "Say hello to the new Batwoman!" the tweet said, which also featured a picture of the star.  The superhero drama previously starred Ruby Rose in its first season, but in May, the 34-year-old actress confirmed via a statement obtained by Fox News that she had exited the show. “I have made the very difficult decision to not return to ‘Batwoman’ next season.  This was not a decision I made lightly as I have the utmost respect for the cast, crew and everyone involved with the show in both Vancouver and in Los Angeles,” the statement from Rose read.   “I am beyond appreciative to Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Caroline Dries for not only giving me this incredible opportunity, but for welcoming me into the DC universe they have so beautifully created. Thank you Peter Roth and Mark Pedowitz and the teams at Warner Bros. and The CW who put so much into the show and always believed in me. Thank you to everyone who made season one a success - I am truly grateful.” A Reddit casting notice last month had encouraged actors within the LGBTQ community to audition. In a statement obtained by Entertainment Tonight, Leslie said, "I am extremely proud to be the first Black actress to play the iconic role of Batwoman on television, and as a bisexual woman, I am honored to join this groundbreaking show which has been such a trailblazer for the LGBTQ+ community." Bisexual Actress of Color to be New Batwoman

Halle Berry Leaves Transgender Role

Over the past few weeks, the entertainment industry has seen actors step down from voice acting roles because they don’t align with their character’s race — the point being that there are nuances and complexities that are being overlooked. Is the same true for cis, straight actors who portray queer roles? Halle Berry may have to answer that question soon, apparently, because she appears set to portray a trans character in her next film. “I’m thinking of [playing] a character where the woman is a trans character, so she’s a woman that transitioned into a man,” Berry revealed during an Instagram Live Story with hairstylist Christian Brown. “She’s a character in a project I love that I might be doing,” added Berry. “I want to experience that world, understand that world… Who this woman was is so interesting to me, and that will probably be my next project, and that will require me cutting all of my hair off.” Berry hasn’t revealed the name of the film, when it’s coming out, or even what the plot is about. Based on her Instagram Live video, though, it sounds like she really wants to move forward with it if only to “study” what it’s like to be trans — a sentiment that may have good intentions but is horribly insensitive. Adding insult to injury, the Oscar-winning actress repeatedly misgenders the trans man character throughout her IG video. 6 days later, Berry now says she is passing on the role. In a statement posted to Twitter, she wrote, “As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role, and that the transgender community should undeniably have the opportunity to tell their own stories.  I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation over the past few days and will continue to listen, educate and learn from this mistake,” she added. “I vow to be an ally in using my voice to promote better representation on-screen, both in front of and behind the camera." Halle Berry Leaves Transgender Role

Intersex Activist Discusses Medical Mistreatment

Intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis has shared their heartbreaking story of how they learned about their medical history.  In a Twitter thread shared earlier this week, Pagonis – who has reclaimed the word “hermaphrodite” – said that they had recently discovered new information about their body that they hadn’t previously known. When they were 18-years-old, Pagonis discovered that their medical records identified them as “male pseudo-hermaphrodite 46 XY”.  “I discovered then that I had been diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS),” Pagonis said.  They went on to have three “unnecessary cosmetic surgeries” performed on them in an effort to make them look more typically female. The endocrinologist read all of Pagonis’s medical records and consulted with other experts in his field and ultimately came to the conclusion that their diagnosis of PAIS was incorrect. Pagonis was given a genetic test, and last month, their endocrinologist’s suspicions were confirmed. “Turns out, I don’t have PAIS,” Pagonis wrote. “I actually have something else known as NR-5A1.”  Pagonis noted that intersex people with PAIS are thought to be unable to utilise androgens, which is why they are given oestrogen. Intersex Activist Discusses Medical Mistreatment

Iowa Soldier and LGBT Ally

Over a decade ago, 1st Lt. Kevin Waldron and a group of his friends were preparing to protest at the Cerro Gordo County Courthouse in anticipation of the Iowa Supreme Court decision on whether or not to legally recognize same sex marriages. Waldron, then a college student at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City, was expecting the motion to be struck down -- but on April 3, 2009, Iowa became the third state in the U.S. to legalize same sex marriage. “We were expecting the Supreme Court to deny the right for same sex couples to marry,” Waldron said, “but instead, it was a moment I will never forget. I got to go to the courthouse with signs that said, ‘Thank You Supreme Court’ and ‘Love is Love.’ It was a very proud moment for not only that community, but for me as a supportive ally.” Waldron is a maintenance control officer with the 3655th Classification and Inspection Company, 1034th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, Iowa Army National Guard. He also works full time for the Iowa National Guard public affairs office. Since that day of celebration, Waldron has continued to be an ally to the LGBT community both in the Guard and as a member of his community. When he transitioned as a student to Grandview University in Des Moines, he helped establish a gay-straight alliance with the guidance of senior board leaders who wished to diversify the university. He also marched in Iowa’s Pride Parade in 2011. Now, Waldron is taking on a new role: Special Emphasis Program Manager (SEPM) for the Iowa National Guard.  “An individual approached me and asked if I’d be willing to step up and help individuals in the Iowa National Guard who may need some leadership or guidance,” Waldron said. “I said, ‘yes, I would be happy to.’” Iowa Soldier and LGBT Ally

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: frokes, CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

To subscribe to The Daily Sheet, click the “Notify” button at the top or bottom of the page.
When a new issue of TDS is posted, you will be notified by e-mail.

The Daily Sheet Archives
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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Gustavo Santaolalla and The Last of Us 2

The dystopian Seattle of The Last of Us 2 is a vision of the Pacific-Northwest unlike anything witnessed in the pages of Lonely Planet. The cordyceps fungus has lain waste to a city flooded by busted waterways and overgrown with foliage, which only serves to camouflage its diseased population. Rusted campervans share blocked highways with abandoned tanks and the detritus of a guerrilla conflict that is dysfunctional, desperate and coming to get you. But amid the chaos of this beautiful apocalypse there are scraps from the past and connections with a vanished life that help to build the humane core running through Naughty Dog’s universally lauded new blockbuster. Here, for example, you will find the Valiant Music Shop. Scavenge beyond the corroded synths and warped vinyl to discover an acoustic guitar, where Ellie can practice her newfound craft and, even, strum the chords of A-ha’s Take On Me. Indeed, for all the accompanying headlines around character bloodlust, crunch culture and LGBTQ+ themes, music plays a decisive role. It’s there in the unblinking devotion of Joel’s Future Days Pearl Jam cover, Ellie’s reworking of New Order’s True Faith – with its bullseye refrain of "My morning sun is the drug that brings me near. To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear" – and also, of course, in the soundtrack of Gustavo Santaolalla. Like The Last of Us, the overarching tone of this immersive experience is set by the Argentinian composer, who feels as integral as any component in realizing the bleak heart and wilderness soul of these debased environments. Santaolalla, who won Oscars for his Brokeback Mountain and Babel soundtracks, sees clear parallels in his methods across cinema and gaming.  Gustavo Santaolalla and The Last of Us 2

Ice Hockey Incident

A gay hockey player has opened up about the horrific moment he was kicked out of practice for punching a teammate who called him a “faggot”. The incident occurred when Stephen Finkel was playing hockey at St Thomas Aquinas College in Upstate New York – but the shocking moment ultimately helped him come out to his teammates.  Finkel explained that “everyone was tired and tempers were short” at the end of a “long, hard practice” in an article for Outsports. “I took the puck, skated down the ice and fired a shot past our goalie. I celebrated a bit too hard and could tell he was p***ed,” Finkel wrote.  “On my second shot he didn’t even attempt to stop the puck and I celebrated yet again.  The third and final time he again didn’t make an attempt at a save. As I skated around the net, I decided to head off the ice to the locker room. As the door was opening, the goalie yelled something that stopped me in my skates." “You are a f**king faggot and what faggots do is give up.” Finkel turned around, approached the teammate and punched him, causing him to be kicked out of practice. The incident was made all the more traumatic by the fact that Finkel was only out to a handful of people at the time, and had kept his sexuality from his teammates. Ice Hockey Incident

Yes, God, Yes

In the delightful comedy Yes, God, Yes, a Catholic high school girl struggles with guilt, plus the fear of hell, over her sexual desires, including the desire for solo sex — forbidden by her religion. She tries to pray the urge away (and get in with her school’s cool kids) by attending a four-day religious retreat. She discovers a lot of hypocrisy there but finds relief from her guilt and fears with the help of a lesbian in a nearby bar. Yes, God, Yes, starring Natalia Dyer (Stranger Things) as protagonist Alice, premiered last year at South by Southwest, where it won a Special Jury Award for its ensemble cast. It also won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2019 Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. With the pandemic putting the kibosh on theatrical screenings, the film is going to be shown in virtual cinemas and drive-ins beginning July 24 and via video on demand starting July 28. Yes, God, Yes is written and directed by the talented Karen Maine (pictured left), the co-writer of 2014’s Obvious Child, about a young woman dealing with both an unwanted pregnancy and a new romance. Like Obvious Child, Yes, God, Yes grew out of a short film and tells a story of female empowerment. Maine went to Catholic school in Iowa for 13 years, and this experience informs Yes, God, Yes. The sex education curriculum instructed students that sex was only to be had between a man and a woman, married in the church, and only for reproduction. Masturbation was considered a sin, as was sex with a person of the same gender. The topic of women’s pleasure was ignored entirely. Yes, God, Yes,

Avery Wilson Comes Out as Bisexual

Avery Wilson is opening up about his sexuality. The singer came out as bisexual on Twitter on Saturday, his 25th birthday. Wilson, who appeared on season three of The Voice in 2012, first tweeted, "I’m bisexual . Ok bye 👋🏾." Soon after, he shared more on Instagram, encouraging others to also "walk in your truth." "In my eyes, life isn’t about being perfect. It’s about growth, evolving, setting & smashing goals and most importantly happiness and LOVE," he wrote. "Im all about perfecting my love of self while not being afraid to love whoever I want, however I want. That real ENTANGLEMENT type sh*t 😆!" Wilson continued, sharing that he's "always personally faced" questions about his sexuality, but never addressed them publicly, "all because I wanted my privacy and I felt like my business, is just that -- MY business." "Well, things just don’t work that way when your known on a big social scale 🤷🏾‍♂️😂! TODAY, all questions and speculations of the past, now have a present definitive answer! To finally answer the question....YES, I’m a bisexual man who’s in love with LOVE," he proudly stated. "I AM WHO I AM and I LOVE WHO I LOVE. Always have and always will! ❤️." Avery Wilson Comes Out as Bisexual

Transgender Discrimination in Hong Kong

When Liam Mak Wai-hon began a part-time bartending job at a steakhouse in Hong Kong’s Tsuen Wan earlier this year, he did not sense anything amiss at work. Mak, born a female, started his hormone treatment in around August last year to embark on his transition to becoming a man. Boasting a stylish comb-over, and a totem tattoo in his inner arm, the 19-year-old had fully adopted his male identity by the time he took up the job, but because he has not undergone the full sex-reassignment surgery required to have his gender status legally changed, he had to declare his gender as female when filling in his employment form with the restaurant. A few days after he started work, Mak’s colleagues suddenly volunteered to take on back-breaking chores for him. He later found out why. “They told me that the manager had been going around, asking people to guess whether I am a man or a woman … He thought it was really funny,” said Mak, who eventually quit his job. His experience illustrates challenges the transgender community in Hong Kong continue to face and treatment they often encounter at the workplace. Most behaviour from colleagues stem from a lack of understanding, despite some headway gained in recent years for the city’s LGBT community as a result of a series of high-profile legal victories over the government. Transgender Discrimination in Hong Kong

What Asexual People Want You to Know

"I am not broken." These four words, from British Columbia-based photographer Hayley Bouchard, concisely capture the sentiments expressed by many of the asexual (ace) and aromantic (aro) identifying folks featured in this article.  Ace and aro are umbrella terms that refer to a spectrum of sexual and romantic identities, including asexual, aromantic, demisexual and others. If you're new to these terms, asexual is typically defined as someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction. Demisexual refers to someone who experiences sexual attraction after a level of connection, and aromantic is defined as someone who may experience sexual attraction but not romantic attraction. It's good to remember that these terms are fluid and may mean different things to the people who use them as identifiers.  Listening to their stories and voices, it's clear that members of this community encompass a wide range of opinions, identities and struggles. "I don't need you to understand asexual spectrum people — I need you to listen to us. I need you to believe us. I need you to trust that we are the experts of ourselves and our experiences," said poet Penelope Epple. Though a relatively new area of scientific research, early studies have shown striking patterns of bias towards asexual individuals. What Asexual People Want You to Know

Michigan Teen Shows Support With His Hockey Stick

“I just thought that it was something that didn’t get as much attention as it should’ve,” Lucas Jodoin told USA Hockey about the Pride Tape he saw NHL players apply to their hockey sticks. So, at the end of last hockey season, right before the last hockey tournament of the year, Jodoin fastened the rainbow-colored tape to his own hockey stick, in honor of Pride month. The 14-year-old from Michigan said he was inspired by players for his favorite team, the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Jodoin has played hockey for as long as he can remember, according to the report. The frozen lake at the house where Jodoin grew up included a rink he set up with help from his dad. He’s played as both a defenseman and a winger. He told USA Hockey he is straight, but decided to apply Pride Tape as his way of showing support for the LGBTQ+ community, including those within his hockey community. Outside of hockey, he said he is friends with people who are openly gay, and throughout his life, he has attended family LGBTQ+ weddings.  His parents told USA Hockey they worried that he might get teased, and he did. But to Jodoin, that didn’t matter; He had his opinion, and decided to go ahead with his plan to display it on his hockey stick, even if others didn’t agree. “It was a way for Lucas to show his support for all people, that everybody should have the opportunity to play if they wanted to,” Julia Jodoin said. “That somebody shouldn’t not play hockey out of fear, especially when, as Lucas experienced this during that tournament, that the teasing can come from anyone.” Michigan Teen Shows Support With His Hockey Stick

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, July 28th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

2018 Interview With Jake Church

Since I took over the task of creating TDS each week, I always tried to make the lead story have a Brokeback Mountain connection, whether it was about the movie or short story, or a news story about someone connected to the short story or movie. While searching Google for a new story to feature here, I came across an interview from 2018 that I had never heard before, and the person being interviewed is Jake Church. Jake Church is a Canadian actor and stuntman.   He grew up in a ranching family, and his grandfather is a 'go to man' who filmmakers will contact when they need horses for the movies they are shooting. Jake started acting at age 5, and his first movie role was of 11 year-old Bobby Twist.  He is in the Thanksgiving scene, complaining about having to eat this food for the next two weeks. Not long after Brokeback Mountain, Jake moved on to TV and from 2007 to 2017 he was known as the character Jake Anderson on the show Heartland.  He continued his film work, with a role in 2014's Klondike and doing stunts for the 2017 film Tin Star. Click the link below to be taken to a podcast that was posted to the site Modern Cowboy, that features an interview with Jake Church.   2018 Interview With Jake Church

Indian Prince Calls For Ban

The global LGBT community are becoming more vocal about the horrors of conversion therapy, as eradicating the discredited practice emerges as one of the highest priorities for global LGBT citizens.   And the gay Indian Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, is the latest voice to join calls to see laws that ban conversion therapy. “I was myself a victim of conversion therapy,” he tells me from his royal establishment of Hanumanteshwar. “From my parents. When I came out, the first thing they tried to do was convert me. They wouldn’t accept me as a gay child.  They tried to ask the doctors to operate on me. They took me to religious leaders to ask them to cure me.” The widely discredited practice sees vulnerable people subjected to shock treatments and other cruel tortures.  They promise and consistently fail, to “cure” people of being gay, bisexual, trans and all identities on the sexuality, romantic and gender spectrums. Conversion therapy centres in India are legal; indeed, they have only been outlawed completely in five countries around the world.  But now the Prince is now calling for it to be banned in India, and across the world. Mavendra, is the first openly gay prince in the world, spoke of numerous cases in India. The son of the Maharaja of Rajpipla in Gujarat says it is often worse for LGBT women:  “Lesbians are treated so badly, I’ve known cases where the family member with rape the child to prove she can have sex with a man. ‘That proves you are heterosexual.” Indian Prince Calls For Ban

Lesbian Bed Death Syndrome

When I think back to my first same-sex relationship, there are a few stereotypes about lesbians which I realised early on are pretty much baseless.   Firstly, even if you own a vulva, everyone is pretty much inept when first faced with someone else’s. This is only cemented by the brutal lack of LGBTQ+ sex education – or even basic acknowledgement of the clitoris, let alone pleasure for cis women and trans women – in schools. Secondly, those who pander to the stereotype of women being incredible communicators have clearly never endured a night of the silent treatment or a blazing row over who was supposed to take the bins out. And then there’s the notion that one woman somehow takes on the role of a 'man' in a lesbian relationship to take those bins out in the first place. There is, however, one hackneyed cliche that I feared might be true: lesbian bed death. Just like jokes about the "urge to merge" aka moving in together after one date, lesbian bed death is a concept that many women and people who identify as women who date women and people who identify as women deal with day in, day out. "Oh," they say, giggling, "soon you won’t be getting any at all." This tired, worn joke – that we don’t like sex, that we feign headaches to get out of it and have to be pressured into doing it at all – is so familiar to cis women, isn't it? I don’t know about you but that’s not my experience or the experience of any of the women I know. So where did the idea of lesbian bed death even come from? Lesbian Bed Death Syndrome

Male Bisexuality

A new study makes clear what we already knew to be an absolute truth: Male bisexuality exists. J. Michael Bailey and his team at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., came to the conclusion after reviewing all available previously published physiological arousal data from eight studies conducted between 2000 and 2019 at four universities: Northwestern, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The eight prior studies, which researchers combined in a meta-analysis, reviewed over 600 male participants with an average age of 29. Researchers gauged sexual arousal with instruments that measured penile erection in response to male and female erotic stimuli. They confirmed that male sexual attraction and orientation encompasses a range, from straight to bisexual to gay. The study supports Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 theory that sexuality exists on a continuum. The Kinsey Scale observes sexual orientation on a seven-point scale — 0 being totally straight and 6 being completely gay. Bailey’s team noted that although 100 participants weren’t aroused by any of the erotic content — male or female — nearly 500 of them were. Those who identified as bisexual registered as 2, 3, and 4 on the Kinsey Scale. Male Bisexuality

Trump's Rule Against Transgender Homeless People

The U.S. government proposed a rule on Friday that would let homeless shelters deny access to transgender people based on their gender identity, a proposal that rights supporters said marks an “unconscionable” setback for trans acceptance. The rule would apply to federally funded, single-sex shelters and is intended to better protect homeless women while respecting “the religious beliefs of shelters,” according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Announcing the rule earlier this month, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said it would “empower shelter providers to set policies that align with their missions, like safeguarding victims of domestic violence or human trafficking.” It now will undergo a 60-day period of public comment.  The proposal by the administration of President Donald Trump rescinds protections for trans people enacted under former President Barack Obama and is the latest effort by the current administration to roll back LGBT+ rights, advocates said. “Transgender people already suffer shockingly high rates of discrimination, poverty, and violence,” said Sasha Buchert, an attorney at advocacy group Lambda Legal in a statement.  “This administration seems not to care and in fact is all but inviting further violence by proposing to block access to critical emergency shelters for this most vulnerable population.” Trump's Rule Against Transgender Homeless People

Austria Issues First Intersex Birth Certificate

Austria issued its first intersex birth certificate on Thursday, after a four-year battle, as a growing number of countries offer identity documents with options other than male and female. Alex Juergen, who is intersex, a term for people who are born with atypical chromosomes or sex characteristics, is waiting to receive the new birth certificate - with the sex listed as "inter" - or intersex in German - in the post. "I am very happy that the law and the government have finally recognised this," Juergen, 43, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Steyr, some 160km west of the capital Vienna.  "Many people don't accept that there can be something else," said Juergen, who does not identify as either male or female. A growing number of U.S. states, as well as countries including Germany, Pakistan and Nepal, now allow people to choose a third sex option on official documents, with most opting for the letter "X". India has "T" for transgender. Juergen's quest for a new birth certificate began in 2016, leading to a constitutional court ruling in 2018 that Austria's laws allowed for the inclusion of more than two sex options on identity documents. In 2019, Juergen was given a passport with "X" on instead of "M" or "F", and a birth certificate with "divers", roughly meaning "other", but continued to demand "inter" as a category for the latter. Regulations issued by Austria's interior ministry after the 2018 court ruling state that a child whose sex cannot be determined should have "open" on their birth certificate until a decision can be made by them or their legal representative. Austria Issues First Intersex Birth Certificate

Michigan Teen Shows Support With His Hockey Stick

“I just thought that it was something that didn’t get as much attention as it should’ve,” Lucas Jodoin told USA Hockey about the Pride Tape he saw NHL players apply to their hockey sticks. So, at the end of last hockey season, right before the last hockey tournament of the year, Jodoin fastened the rainbow-colored tape to his own hockey stick, in honor of Pride month. The 14-year-old from Michigan said he was inspired by players for his favorite team, the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Jodoin has played hockey for as long as he can remember, according to the report. The frozen lake at the house where Jodoin grew up included a rink he set up with help from his dad. He’s played as both a defenseman and a winger. He told USA Hockey he is straight, but decided to apply Pride Tape as his way of showing support for the LGBTQ+ community, including those within his hockey community. Outside of hockey, he said he is friends with people who are openly gay, and throughout his life, he has attended family LGBTQ+ weddings.  His parents told USA Hockey they worried that he might get teased, and he did. But to Jodoin, that didn’t matter; He had his opinion, and decided to go ahead with his plan to display it on his hockey stick, even if others didn’t agree. “It was a way for Lucas to show his support for all people, that everybody should have the opportunity to play if they wanted to,” Julia Jodoin said. “That somebody shouldn’t not play hockey out of fear, especially when, as Lucas experienced this during that tournament, that the teasing can come from anyone.” Michigan Teen Shows Support With His Hockey Stick

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

To subscribe to The Daily Sheet, click the “Notify” button at the top or bottom of the page.
When a new issue of TDS is posted, you will be notified by e-mail.

The Daily Sheet Archives
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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, August 4th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Heath Ledger's Joker Worried Warner Bros.

A large part of what made Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in 2008's The Dark Knight so alluring was his enigmatic origins. But, according to screenwriter David S. Goyer, this was an element of the character that received a lot of push-back from studio heads, with Warner Bros. preferring that the character be given a more definitive story, and specifically, a clear-cut origin. According to Goyer, there was a lot of worry surrounding the idea of making the Joker's beginnings a mystery, with the studio unsure how well this would play with audiences. At the time, the most popular depiction of the Batman villain, namely Jack Nicholson's performance in 1989, was given an origin story that tied into that of Bruce Wayne and trying something different with the character gave Warner Bros. cold feet. The origin of Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight is never made clear, with the villain offering several different versions of how he got his infamous scars, with the various stories becoming one of the highlights of the movie. His haunting tales include an abusive father and a wife who is disfigured by loan sharks which leads the Joker to scar himself in solidarity. Both stories would be fitting origins for the character, but the fact that it could be one of them, partly both, or even neither of them, adds to the Joker's chaotic charm and mysterious allure. Thankfully, the studio allowed Goyer and director Christopher Nolan to do what they wanted to with the Batman character, leading to the movie's resounding success and Ledger's posthumous Academy award victory. Heath Ledger's Joker Worried Warner Bros.

Gay Officer Resigns From Diversity Unit

A gay St. Louis County police lieutenant who settled a discrimination lawsuit against the police department for $10.25 million said Friday he is resigning from his job as commander of the department’s new diversity and inclusion unit. Keith Wildhaber, who is white, said he was the victim of racism in a Facebook post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. He alleged in his suit that he was passed over for promotion 23 times and was told to “tone down” his “gayness.” Jurors awarded him nearly $20 million in October, but he and the county settled for the lower amount in February. “The dog whispers of a gay, white guy being unable to lead Diversity and Inclusion were loud and clear,” he wrote. “Systemic racism is alive and well. I tried to ignore the background noise, but I’m not battling ESOP and the activists for another 3 years. This afternoon, I notified the department of my decision to transfer back to Patrol.” Wildhaber couldn’t immediately be reached for comment by the Post-Dispatch on Friday. Wildhaber had been appointed as commander of the newly created unit in late 2019 by then-Chief Jon Belmar, weeks after a St. Louis County jury found the department had discriminated and retaliated against him because of his sexuality.  But Wildhaber’s appointment had been criticized by the Ethical Society of Police, a group that represents minority officers to address racial discrimination, whose leaders called for a more diverse group of employees to be included in the unit. The group said in mid-July that it wanted proof that Wildhaber was capable of making “transformative change in racial diversity, inclusion and equity. Gay Officer Resigns From Diversity Unit

Julianne Moore On Playing A Lesbian

Julianne Moore has some thoughts on the queer character she played in the 2010 film “The Kids Are Alright.”   The movie was inspired by screenwriter and director Lisa Cholodenko’s own attempts to start a family with her partner, Wendy Melvoin. Moore played a woman (Jules) in a relationship with Annette Bening (Nic) in the film, which documents the pair’s journey to have children by using a sperm donor. Jules goes on to have an affair with the donor, a straight man named Paul, who was played by Mark Ruffalo. Moore told Variety in an interview for the film’s 10th anniversary that she recognizes the problem with some aspects of her role and the movie’s storyline. “I can see why people took issue with a lesbian character having an affair with her sperm donor,” she said. “On the other hand, I think that Jules’ character was someone described as being very fluid, sexually and personally. She was floating, in the sense of her entire identity — as a woman, as a person, in her career.” Moore said that she also understands the outcry at the time over herself and Bening ― two straight women ― portraying lesbian characters.  “I’ve thought about that a lot. Here we were, in this movie about a queer family, and all of the principal actors were straight. I look back and go, ‘Ouch. Wow.’ I don’t know that we would do that today, I don’t know that we would be comfortable,” Moore said. Julianne Moore On Playing A Lesbian

Male Bisexuality

A new study makes clear what we already knew to be an absolute truth: Male bisexuality exists. J. Michael Bailey and his team at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., came to the conclusion after reviewing all available previously published physiological arousal data from eight studies conducted between 2000 and 2019 at four universities: Northwestern, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The eight prior studies, which researchers combined in a meta-analysis, reviewed over 600 male participants with an average age of 29. Researchers gauged sexual arousal with instruments that measured penile erection in response to male and female erotic stimuli. They confirmed that male sexual attraction and orientation encompasses a range, from straight to bisexual to gay. The study supports Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 theory that sexuality exists on a continuum. The Kinsey Scale observes sexual orientation on a seven-point scale — 0 being totally straight and 6 being completely gay. Bailey’s team noted that although 100 participants weren’t aroused by any of the erotic content — male or female — nearly 500 of them were. Those who identified as bisexual registered as 2, 3, and 4 on the Kinsey Scale. Male Bisexuality

House Votes To End Trump’s Transgender Military Ban

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to approve an amendment to the 2021 Defense appropriations bill to effectively end the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people who want to serve openly in the U.S. military. The amendment to the $695 billion Defense spending bill, which was introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier, the Democrat from California who is chairwoman of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, was adopted by a voice vote. Politico reported that although House Republicans opposed the measure, they opted to not demand a roll call vote. If it were to become law, Speier’s bill would block the Pentagon from using Congressionally-approved funds to implement the severe restrictions on trans military service implemented in April 2019. Those restrictions bar trans Americans from joining any branch of the armed forces and also keeps some who are already serving openly from remaining enlisted. Waivers are rare. “The military has granted only one waiver to a transgender servicemember, exposing the President’s discriminatory policy for what it is — a virtual ban on military service by brave transgender Americans,” Rep. Speier told Roll Call prior to the vote. According to Politico, Speier’s measure is one of three dozen Democratic amendments to the six-bill, $1.3 trillion spending measure the House is expected to pass on Friday. House Votes To End Trump’s Transgender Military Ban

Genderqueer and Non Binary Explained

Before birth, society often places humans into one of two gender identities based on their assumed biological anatomy: boy or girl. Are you going to have a blue smoke bomb or pink? Like anything with only two options, a binary outlook on gender can be limiting. Imagine a world with only two clothing sizes. Or only two ice cream flavors. Or only two political parties! (Wait…) It would be a sad and boring world, indeed. Non-binary is a gender identity that makes room for people who don’t experience their gender as exclusively male or female. While the term “non-binary” is relatively new to our culture, people who have rejected gender conformity have existed as part of humanity since, well, the beginning. So what does it actually mean to be non-binary? And how can folks who are not non-binary better support the genderqueer community? Let’s start with the basics.  If you’re looking for a simple definition of what it means to identify as non-binary, don’t expect an answer as clear-cut as the cake at a gender reveal party. Identifying as non-binary is individualistic and expansive in all the ways that the gender binary is not. For some, non-binary, also referred to as ENBY, means a mix of what is traditionally known as male and female while others reject the concept of the male and female gender identities completely. Genderqueer and Non Binary Explained

Motorcade Stops At Rainbow Crosswalks

As the hearse carrying John Lewis' body drove through Atlanta's Midtown neighborhood on Wednesday, it made a lengthy and symbolic stop at a rainbow crosswalk as dozens of people gathered on the sidewalk to watch the procession pass. “It feels very appropriate that that stop was prolonged for John Lewis’ legacy," Victoria Kirby York of the National LGBTQ Task Force told NBC News. "I believe his vocal leadership and support in championing LGBTQ equality — even prior to it becoming a cool thing for people to hop on the bandwagon for — was critical in being able to shift public opinion across the country.” York added: “He was about civil rights, equality and liberation for everybody. Period. Full stop.” The stop by Lewis’ motorcade — lasting nearly a minute — was an acknowledgement of his vocal advocacy over the years for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans. Lewis, who represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District from 1987 until his death on July 17, did not wait until it was politically safe to stand up for LGBTQ rights.  In 1996, when 65 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, Lewis delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor decrying the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA — federal legislation that sought to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman — as a “mean” and “cruel” bill. Motorcade Stops At Rainbow Crosswalks

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: morrobay, CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

To subscribe to The Daily Sheet, click the “Notify” button at the top or bottom of the page.
When a new issue of TDS is posted, you will be notified by e-mail.

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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, August 11th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

James Schamus: What Makes A Good Movie Producer

On the second day of the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), the "Master Class" welcomed its guest James Schamus, a world famous American screenwriter, producer and former CEO of Focus Pictures. He participated from New York via a live video interview, sharing his  life and work experience with industry insiders and movie fans. In New York in 1991, Schamus along with Ted Hope formed a small film company. They named the company Good Machine, hoping for a good luck.  That year, Ang Lee, a graduate of New York University's film major visited them with two screenplays which had just won a prize in a film competition. James recalled that Lee found Good Machine because he heard the company as it could make movies at lower cost. This visit was the beginning of a partnership between the famed director and Schamus for nearly 30 years.  In 1992, Good Machine launched the first feature film "Pushing Hands," and Lee later became a very famous director in the international film industry. As a producer and screenwriter, James participated in the screenwriting and production of such films by Ang Lee as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Hulk" and "Lust, Cution". Among them, "The Ice Storm" by James, an independent screenwriter, won the Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival. He's also produced other well-known movies such as "Brokeback Mountain, "Lost in Translation" and "Milk." In 2014, James served as the chairman of juries of the 64th Berlin Film Festival. At that time, Chinese director Diao Yi'nan's film "Black Coal, Thin Ice" won the Golden Bear Award. His most recent encounter with Chinese films was as the script consultant for Chinese director Wu Ershan's upcoming mythical epic film "Fengshen Trilogy." James Schamus: What Makes A Good Movie Producer

Preserving Atlanta’s Gay History

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, when it was legally a crime for gay people to have consensual sex in their own homes, let alone get married to each other, Atlanta was still considered the one city in the deep South where it was somewhat safe to be gay. There were still dangers. Being out could mean the loss of a job, harassment, or deathly violence. Yet, regardless of race, for a lot of gay people Atlanta was a place large enough to offer anonymity and community. However precarious, life outside the closet — whether lived tentatively or boldly — was possible in the city supposedly too busy to hate. In the way Atlanta measures time, which often seems in the issuance of building permits, the period is virtually ancient history. So, what happened in the bedroom of a Virginia-Highland house 38 years ago this month between two men was intimate, viewed as criminal, but also historic. The same is true for a gathering of Black gay men who met to talk in 1992 at an apartment near Old Fourth Ward Park. While not illegal, the meeting was nonetheless historic because it was an early effort, during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic, for Black men to talk monthly about issues beyond the disease and not have their lives defined by an epidemic. Now, in a city with a poor reputation for safeguarding significant structures, a new preservation organization is trying to get historic markers installed to commemorate those pivotal events in Virginia-Highland and Old Fourth Ward. The group, Historic Atlanta and its LGBTQ advisory committee, is working with the Georgia Historical Society and the City of Atlanta to get two markers placed this year. Preserving Atlanta’s Gay History

Lesbian Police Officers Offered Protection

A lesbian couple in India have been granted protection by the courts after one of their parents found out about their relationship. Avni and Preeti, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, are both police officers and have been living together for a number of years in Mahisagar, Gujarat. The women, both aged 24, had been open about their relationship with co-workers and friends – but kept their love for one another a secret from their parents. But the secret finally spilled over when they entered into a maitri karar, a type of “friendship contract” in the region, which has been used by same-sex couples to legitimise their relationships in the absence of same-sex marriage. They are educated women and in government service but they didn’t shy from fighting for their right to live and love the way they want.  When they found out about the friendship contract, Preeti’s parents started harassing the couple, according to The Times of India. “They came to our house and demanded that I leave my job and go back with them,” Preeti said. Lesbian Police Officers Offered Protection

Disney's The Owl House Has a Bisexual Character

For Disney, it’s a surprising, unprecedented move. The world of animation is slowly becoming a more progressive place in terms of representation, largely due to the hard work of creators working against the structures of an industry that is, by and large, resistant to change, especially of the sort that can cost it money. The latest cartoon to push that envelope is The Owl House, a children’s cartoon on the Disney Channel which now features the show’s first out LGBTQ+ character in the form of Amity, who, as demonstrated in the show and confirmed by her creator online, is bisexual. Which makes her, I do believe, one of the first queer leading characters Disney’s ever had, and maybe the first in general in traditional animation. To offer a narrative recap: Amity began at odds with Luz, her former rival and the show’s protagonist. Luz is a girl trapped in an alternate dimension and going to school there, where she befriends rebellious witches, tiny warriors, and other magical beings. In the newest episode, we learn that this school has a prom. Only it’s not prom, it’s Grom, and Grom is actually an ancient monster that the Grom Queen must defeat to defend her title and the safety of the countryside (which only sounds a little bit stressful than most proms). During the course of the episode, Amity becomes the Grom Queen, then Luz takes her place, and then later we learn that Amity intended to ask Luz to be her date to the Grom. Her date date, framed in such a way that it’s fairly clear her feelings are more than platonic. On Twitter, creator Dana Terrace confirmed it, writing, “I’m bi! I want to write a bi character, dammit! Lucklily my stubbornness paid off and now I am VERY supported by current Disney leadership.” Disney's The Owl House Has a Bisexual Character

Federal Court Supports Transgender Students

A federal court in Florida has ruled that it is unconstitutional for schools to ban transgender students from using the restroom that matches their gender identity. Judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit announced on Friday that they are affirming a lower court's ruling on the matter because "a public school may not punish its students for gender nonconformity." The case was centered around Drew Adams, a 19-year-old former student of Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Florida. Adams, who is transgender, used the boys' restroom at Nease High School, and did so without any issues until an anonymous report was made, according to Lambda Legal. After the report, he was told by school officials that he would only be allowed to use gender-neutral restrooms. Adams worked with Lambda Legal to sue the school board in June 2017. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, a federal court in Jacksonville, ruled in Adams favor in 2018, but Adams' school board appealed the decision last year. "The School Board's bathroom policy, as applied to Mr. Adams, singled him out for different treatment because of his transgender status," the judges ruled on Friday. "A public school may not punish its students for gender nonconformity. Neither may a public school harm transgender students by establishing arbitrary, separate rules for their restroom use. The evidence at trial confirms that Mr. Adams suffered both these indignities." Federal Court Supports Transgender Students

Omnisexual

For starters, let's have a quick lil vocab refresher: The term “omni” is literally a root term for “all.” So, people who identify as omnisexual can find themselves attracted to all people, no matter their gender. But that isn’t to say that people who identify as omnisexual are blind to noticing gender in general. “Omni essentially says 'I’m not gender blind, I see it,'” says Courtney D’Allaird, assistant director of Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at the University of Albany. “It's 'I’m attracted sexually to people, and when I am with someone, their gender matters. I see it, but it is not WHY I am attracted—and it’s not a factor WHEN I am attracted to them.”' The concept of omnisexuality most closely “parallels” that of pansexuality, according to D’Allaird. The only major difference is that, as we said above, omnisexual people do see gender, while D’Allaird says pansexual is “often defined as being ‘gender blind.” Omniromantic and omnisexual operate on different spectrums. While omniromantic is a term used to define who a person is sexually attracted to, omniromantic defines a person’s romantic preferences. The two are also not mutually exclusive — a person can define themselves as both omniromantic and omnisexual. Omnisexual

Motorcade Stops At Rainbow Crosswalks

As the hearse carrying John Lewis' body drove through Atlanta's Midtown neighborhood on Wednesday, it made a lengthy and symbolic stop at a rainbow crosswalk as dozens of people gathered on the sidewalk to watch the procession pass. “It feels very appropriate that that stop was prolonged for John Lewis’ legacy," Victoria Kirby York of the National LGBTQ Task Force told NBC News. "I believe his vocal leadership and support in championing LGBTQ equality — even prior to it becoming a cool thing for people to hop on the bandwagon for — was critical in being able to shift public opinion across the country.” York added: “He was about civil rights, equality and liberation for everybody. Period. Full stop.” The stop by Lewis’ motorcade — lasting nearly a minute — was an acknowledgement of his vocal advocacy over the years for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans. Lewis, who represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District from 1987 until his death on July 17, did not wait until it was politically safe to stand up for LGBTQ rights.  In 1996, when 65 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, Lewis delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor decrying the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA — federal legislation that sought to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman — as a “mean” and “cruel” bill. Motorcade Stops At Rainbow Crosswalks

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, August 18th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Brokeback Mountain As A Western

Brokeback Mountain, 2006, by Ang Lee starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall, based on the short story by Annie Proulx with the same name, has often been described as “a gay cowboy love story” due to its setting in the American Westland of Wyoming and Texas. Though its premise as a simple “gay cowboy movie” has been debated extensively, it is interesting to study its placement in the genre of the West. The reviews of Brokeback Mountain, though accrediting the film to be a great watch, largely lack an adequate vocabulary for queer identities. Roger Ebert in his analysis of Brokeback Mountain points out the way in which many reviews described the film as a “gay cowboy movie,” not focusing on elements like homophobia, Brokeback Mountain as a challenge to heteronormative ideologies, and the complexity of such relationships. A few articles and essays on Brokeback Mountain even compared it to Romeo & Juliet, writing that the only difference was it was “Romeo & Romeo”, some others compared it with the clichés of the Western genre. Roger Ebert directs the readers towards the universality of the film writing, “Brokeback Mountain has been described as “a gay cowboy movie,” which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal. It could be about two women or lovers from different religious or ethnic groups—any “forbidden” love.” But Ebert falls in the same trap, describing Brokeback Mountain as a story of “any forbidden love”. He does not address the ways in which, and in fact further adds on to, how a homophobic, uber-masculine, discriminatory society functions. He notices that the end of “any forbidden love” is tragic but disregards the different forms of repression employed by a heteronormative society in the love story in Brokeback Mountain. Uber-masculine cowboy ranches in this case. Brokeback Mountain As A Western

Gregory Hinton's New Play - A Live Stream Event

Hiya Brokies!  Are you interested in seeing a performance streamed on Facebook?  The man who gave us the stage performances of Brokeback Revisted, Gregory Hinton, has a new production.  He has written a new play based on Lynn Riggs, (1899-1954), the forgotten gay, Cherokee playwright and poet. Lynn Riggs play, Green Grow the Lilacs, is the basis for the musical Oklahoma!.  It will stream live before an invited, socially-distanced audience that is set for Thursday, August 20th, 7PM CDT.  Information can be found here:  Gregory Hinton's New Play - A Live Stream Event

A Dutiful Boy

Much of the narrative on queer Asian and Muslim identity over the past few years has been hijacked by the Birmingham schools race row, reports of people being forced into heterosexual marriages or contending the burden of homophobia and Islamophobia in their respective communities. But queer Muslim identity doesn’t have to be centred on trauma. It’s this that’s the premise of criminal barrister and debut author Mohsin Zaidi’s emotionally searing memoir A Dutiful Boy: A Memoir of a Gay Muslim’s Journey to Acceptance. Charting coming of age in a queer conservative Muslim household in East London, we see Zaidi grapple with faith, family bonds, community expectations and class, ultimately reconciling both his faith and queer identity. Though Zaidi’s debut can make for challenging reading – from his father enlisting a ‘witch doctor’ in an attempt to ‘cure’ him to grappling with racism on dating apps – even so, A Dutiful Boy makes for a deeply moving and ultimately triumphant memoir. With the book released later this week in the UK, I called Zaidi at his London home to find out what compelled him to write his memoir, revisiting his upbringing and what challenges queer Muslims still face today. “I want young people struggling with their identity to feel less alone,” says Mohsin Zaidi of his new book, which charts his journey towards the reconciliation of his faith and queer identity A Dutiful Boy

A Lesbian Baker Gets An Anti-Gay Cake Order

When April Anderson first saw the cake order that was placed on her bakery's website last month, she noticed the word PRIDE in all capital letters. Anderson, who is openly gay and has baked up treats like her lemon velvet cake on TODAY, co-owns Good Cakes and Bakes in Detroit, Michigan with her wife, Michelle. She had just spent the month of June baking intricate rainbow cakes with vibrant colors for customers wanting to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month. At first glance, Anderson thought this was simply a late order. Then she read the rest of the message: "I am ordering this cake to celebrate and have PRIDE in true Christian marriage," the customer said on the order form. "I’d like you to write on the cake, in icing, 'Homosexual acts are gravely evil. (Catholic Catechism 2357)." "I said wait a minute and I handed my phone to Michelle and said, 'Can you believe we got this order?'" Anderson told TODAY Food. Anderson said she called her friend Eli Majid to tell him about the order. Majid, who owns Eli's Tea Bar in Birmingham, a Detroit suburb, started his social media sleuthing to find out more about the customer who ordered the cake. He was identified as David Gordon, who is listed as "a copyeditor @Church Militant, Lawyer, theology MA, author, sportsman, family man," according to his Twitter profile.  Anderson said she thought about whether she should bake the cake and decided she did not want to refuse Gordon service. A Lesbian Baker Gets An Anti-Gay Cake Order

Disney's The Owl House Has a Bisexual Character

For Disney, it’s a surprising, unprecedented move. The world of animation is slowly becoming a more progressive place in terms of representation, largely due to the hard work of creators working against the structures of an industry that is, by and large, resistant to change, especially of the sort that can cost it money. The latest cartoon to push that envelope is The Owl House, a children’s cartoon on the Disney Channel which now features the show’s first out LGBTQ+ character in the form of Amity, who, as demonstrated in the show and confirmed by her creator online, is bisexual. Which makes her, I do believe, one of the first queer leading characters Disney’s ever had, and maybe the first in general in traditional animation. To offer a narrative recap: Amity began at odds with Luz, her former rival and the show’s protagonist. Luz is a girl trapped in an alternate dimension and going to school there, where she befriends rebellious witches, tiny warriors, and other magical beings. In the newest episode, we learn that this school has a prom. Only it’s not prom, it’s Grom, and Grom is actually an ancient monster that the Grom Queen must defeat to defend her title and the safety of the countryside (which only sounds a little bit stressful than most proms). During the course of the episode, Amity becomes the Grom Queen, then Luz takes her place, and then later we learn that Amity intended to ask Luz to be her date to the Grom. Her date date, framed in such a way that it’s fairly clear her feelings are more than platonic. On Twitter, creator Dana Terrace confirmed it, writing, “I’m bi! I want to write a bi character, dammit! Lucklily my stubbornness paid off and now I am VERY supported by current Disney leadership.” Disney's The Owl House Has a Bisexual Character

Filmmaker Explores Rural Transgender People

A year in the making, filmmaker Raymond Rea is one step closer to bringing his experimental nonfiction film following rural transgender subjects by airing the interviews on Prairie Public radio. Awarded the 2019-2020 Lake Region Arts Council McKnight Foundation grant for literary and performance works, Rea’s plan to create a film around the interviews was derailed in March after the COVID-19 outbreak — but that didn’t stop him from getting the message out. “Our lives are so much more than just being transgender,” says Rea about his finely detailed and human-centric project. Entitled “Put the Brights On,” Rea presents the perspectives of four transgender people living in rural areas. In their own words, the subjects invite listeners into their worlds, from taking a drive down a gravel road to day-to-day happenings, the stories cut through stereotypes with a heightened sense of relatability. “If you’re somebody who just has no transgender people in your life, then every piece of information that you’re getting about transgender people, you’re getting it through this media filtration, and so often all of that stuff is way off or very broad at the least,” Rea says. Filmmaker Explores Rural Transgender People

Gender-Fluid Applicant Challenges Orthodox School

How inclusive can a Modern Orthodox school be while remaining true to its halachic standards? That’s the question that has been raised after an Oakland couple claimed last week that their gender-fluid son was denied admission to Oakland Hebrew Day School, and posted about it on Instagram.  Oakland resident Meg Keene said that her 7-year-old son was denied a spot in the second grade because the K-8 school could not accommodate the boy, who sometimes expresses his personality by wearing sequined ball gowns and other feminine clothing. “He is a boy that shows up in ball gowns every so often. He has the soul of a drag queen,” she said. “He just wants to be accepted, like every other little kid.”  In Keene’s post, which has been widely shared, she discusses how disappointed she is in the school’s decision — a decision the school sees differently. “OHDS had not completed the admissions process when the family went to Instagram,” board president Jo-Ellen Zeitlin told J. “We were unable to fully explore this issue but are confident that we would have exhausted the possibilities for the child to enroll if the family and school agreed it would be a success.” The family was looking to move their son from a public school where they say he was bullied. They are not Orthodox, and initially had not considered OHDS as an option, assuming that a Modern Orthodox school would frown upon the boy’s choices. But once Keene looked at the website and talked to the admissions director, she felt more confident. She’d also heard that the school welcomed interfaith and queer families. Gender-Fluid Applicant Challenges Orthodox School

Kamala Harris - LGBTQ Ally

Joe Biden made history Tuesday by selecting Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as the first woman of color as a vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket, and a rising political star who has demonstrated a commitment to the LGBTQ community. Harris is a relative newcomer to Washington, but her record on LGBTQ rights extends back to her tenure as a district attorney for San Francisco and California attorney general as well as her work during her first term as U.S. senator. That’s made her a favorite among LGBTQ people, many of whom still wear “For the People” shirts from her presidential campaign. “I grew up in a community and a culture where everyone was accepted for who they were, so there wasn’t a moment where it was like, ‘OK, now let’s let this person in,’” Harris told the Los Angeles Blade in 2019. “Everyone was a part of everything. It was about community. It was about coalition building. It was about equality, inclusion.” Rick Chavez Zbur, executive director of the LGBTQ group Equality California, congratulated Harris in a statement for being the pick, calling his home state senator “an exceptional choice.” “Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to civil rights and social justice for all LGBTQ+ people,” Zbur said. “As vice president, we are confident she will continue Vice President Biden’s tradition of using the office to champion and advance full, lived LGBTQ+ equality — and equality for the diverse communities to which LGBTQ+ people belong.” Kamala Harris - LGBTQ Ally

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

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When a new issue of TDS is posted, you will be notified by e-mail.

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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, August 25th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Applegate and Cardellini: Comedy’s New Perfect Pair

Lucy and Ethel. Mary and Rhoda. Laverne and Shirley. Patsy and Edina. Abbi and Ilana. Television comedy has boasted plenty of amazing duos over the years, and now you should add another one to the mix: Jen and Judy, the lead characters of Netflix’s “Dead to Me.” Television Academy members are on board, having included both Christina Applegate ("Married, With Children") and Linda Cardellini ("Brokeback Mountain") in the lead comedy actress category this year. That’s an improvement over 2019, when voters only recognized Applegate in the show’s freshman run. Created by Liz Feldman, “Dead to Me” is a dark comedy that centers on Jen (Applegate), a recent widow who’s befriended by Judy (Cardellini) at a support group. The two become besties, but it all falls apart when Jen learns that Judy was partially involved in her husband’s death. From there, the body count rises — and so do the secrets. Jen and Judy have been hurt by each other’s actions, but they also need each other for support and survival. And sure, that doesn’t sound like a comedy — but “Dead to Me” will make you laugh, both out of a nervous place and from some seriously biting asides. Ultimately, Jen and Judy are the twisted, modern-day peak TV version of Lucy and Ethel from “I Love Lucy.” And yes, at one point they’re burying a body instead of stuffing their face with chocolate, but the farce is still there. Applegate and Cardellini are perhaps the most compelling duo right now in TV comedy. “Christina and Linda are such gifts because they are both hilarious and incredibly heartbreaking,” Feldman says. “They’re so incredibly good at honing in on the emotions of those characters.” Applegate and Cardellini: Comedy’s New Perfect Pair

Classic Gay Fairytale Found

It’s long been presumed by many folklorists that heroic LGBTQ characters didn’t exist–because when they were told from generation to generation, being queer was a taboo.  But one newly released gay fairytale, that can be traced back to at least the 19th century has been discovered by Pete Jordi Wood, the Cornish writer and illustrator. His research suggests that not only did gay fairytale “The Dog And The Sailor” exist but that a “whole chunk of LGBTQ folklore” was “deleted” by one homophobic man, as recently as the 1950s. “We know that queer characters and stories were prevalent in mythology,” Pete tells me.  “There is some fascinating stuff about the origin of Mulan and how it’s actually a trans narrative. So why, particularly in European fairy tales, did queer characters suddenly, seemingly, disappear?” The reason we don’t have much to point to is not that LGBTQ folklore didn’t exist, but because during a relatively short period of history–one of the most important folklore academics put his own morals into play when editing the most internationally renowned folklore collections. “Before books, people told stories to one another, often around the fire. These stories would travel this way down generations and around the world,” Pete says.  One classic example is you can track early variants of Cinderella to China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE.) Classic Gay Fairytale Found

Lesbian Penguins Become Proud Moms

This same-sex penguin couple is excited to announce that they’re now first-time parents. Electra and Viola recently welcomed a new family member to their habitat at Spain’s Oceanogràfic València aquarium — a chick they incubated and hatched from an adopted egg. Aquarium caregivers noticed that Electra and Viola had developed baby fever after observing them building a nest out of stones. In recognition of the penguins’ parental preparedness, the caretakers rewarded them by taking another penguin couple’s fertile egg and giving it to the lesbian partners instead. The aquarium announced the happy news in an August 17 post, noting that this is a big moment for Oceanogràfic València: “Although same-sex couples are common in more than 450 species,” this is the first time the aquarium has been home to a gay animal family. Same-sex penguin couples and the species as a whole have become global gay icons for their diverse sexualities. In November, a pair of homosexual African penguins at the Netherlands’ DierenPark Amersfoort zoo kidnapped an unsuspecting heterosexual penguin couple’s egg to raise as their own. Lesbian Penguins Become Proud Moms

Bisexuality and My Jamaican Heritage

When I first started publicly talking about being a bisexual man, there were certain things I expected: accusations of me of being secretly gay, never being able to hide my sexuality again, and people thinking I was attention-seeking.  The one thing I never foresaw was that being out as bisexual would rob me of being able to fully embrace my Jamaican heritage.  I’ve always loved being mixed race, and growing up I didn’t actually realise there were people in the world who weren’t. I was lucky: my family had the full spectrum of colour, meaning I was pretty much oblivious to the concept that someone might dislike you for the colour of your skin until I was about 10. It’s a credit to my parents and grandparents who shielded me, as they really did have to deal with a lot of racism. Each generation had their battles and made it easier for their kids. I would not exist if it wasn’t for two generations of black and white people loving each other and raising a family.    The white people in my family loved and supported the Jamaican side at a time when you really could have got your teeth kicked in for it.  I never thought much about being part-Jamaican. It was just something I was, not something I had to work at.  So last year, my grandad and I hatched a plan to travel there. He’s approaching 80 and arrived in the UK at 16, but he was excited that I was interested in seeing where he’d come from, and was eager to take me. Bisexuality and My Jamaican Heritage

Two Arrested For Attacking Transgendered Women

Los Angeles police are on the hunt for one final man suspected in a robbery and hate crime incident against three transgender women. Two men are in custody. Willie Walker, 42, was arrested in Hollywood Wednesday and on an extortion charge, police said, and Carlton Callway, 29, was arrested Thursday on a robbery charge with a hate crime enhancement. Police said they're still looking for 22-year-old Davion Williams, who is suspected of assaulting the victims with a deadly weapon.  It is unclear if Walker and Callway have legal representation. The women were robbed and assaulted in Hollywood Monday, police said. During the incident, one man approached one victim with a metal bar and demanded her shoes and bracelet, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. The man later assaulted another victim with a bottle, knocking her to the ground, according to police. Throughout the attack, police said, the man made derogatory remarks about the women being transgender. "We believe these crimes were motivated by hate because the victims were transgender women and derogatory remarks were made by the suspect about the victims," Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Justin Eisenberg said.  One of the three victims was identified by CNN affiliate KCAL as Eden Estrada, who goes by Eden the Doll on YouTube and has an Instagram following of more than 400,000. Two Arrested For Attacking Transgendered Women

Being Demisexual

At a certain age we are all inevitably taught about the birds and the bees. I remember a whole lot of talk about having sex, but not much about not wanting to have it. As a demisexual, I now realize that had I been provided with the right information growing up I would have realized who I was a long time ago. For the uninitiated, asexuality is when you do not feel sexual attraction or do not desire sexual relationships.  Demisexuality is within that spectrum and people, like myself, who identify this way do not feel sexual desire until forming a strong bond with another person. Even when the bond is formed, sex is never a priority. There are many subsets of asexuality, including people who are aromantic. This means that, along with their asexuality, they do not desire romantic relationships of any kind. Asexual people include individuals who are heterosexual or homosexual and is not related to abstinence or celibacy, which are conscious decisions typically based on belief systems or personal choice. I first learned about asexuality in my mid-twenties. After coming out as a lesbian I had begun attending a wider array of events geared toward members of the LGBTQIA community. Sometimes I would see that gatherings for asexual people were taking place. I learned about asexuality in passing, and while I appreciated that there was terminology for people who weren't particularly interested in sexual relationships in the way that many people are, I didn't think that it could be a part of my own identity at the time. I had written off my aversion to sexual relationships as a character flaw. I thought it must be a product of a mild religious upbringing, social anxiety, and sexual abuse I experienced at a young age. Being Demisexual

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“What am I supposed to be? According to you – What am I supposed to be?”  In a book of essays on AOC-Alexandria Ocasio – Cortez which dropped last week, Editor Lynda Lopez reflects on a moment growing up in which she was stereotyped and put in a box which she connects with a similar moment revolving around AOC when the then 28-year old was running for Congress. It’s something we as Gay Latinos also have had to overcome growing up even amongst our own traditional families. What am I supposed to be? Macho? We understand firsthand, stereotypical archetypes so when we see a Young Latina from The Bronx beat her 10-term incumbent opponent, Joe Crowley in 2018, to become the youngest woman in Congress, we take notice and we rally around her. An ally to no end and someone who built their platform on the idea that marginalized communities deserve better. Gay men appreciate female beauty. Arguably it can be noted that the highest compliment a woman can get is from a Gay man. Combine Beauty with brains and amazing public speaking skills and you have gold. This is AOC. The red lipstick. AOC’s trademark and a symbol all its own for Gay Latinos. Was it our Mom rocking it while we were growing up or another Latina, Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, who ignited our love for it and taught us that Latinas who chose to go bold with red lips were fearless? When I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley in the 90’s, many Latinas on campus had a signature look. For some it varied – great style, full long hair, hoop earrings, boots in the winter. One staple never deviated – freshly applied red lipstick. It was a look. It was a sense of power and many times it could be viewed as a piece of armor. Another Latina back then also used it as her signature look as she was climbing the Latin music charts – Tejana, Selena Quintanilla. Gay Latinos revere Selena. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Cowbys & Indians Magazine - Larry McMurtry Interview

Larry McMurtry isn’t an easy man to argue with. Not only is he one of the most well-read people you’ll ever meet, he’s more than happy to unload a terse opinion or three. And he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. This doesn’t stop me from trying to convince the legendary Texas author of a simple fact most of the world accepts as obvious — that his 1985 epic Lonesome Dove is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, western novels ever published. I’ve got facts in my corner. These include numerous page citations highlighting brilliant literary passages, bank-busting sales figures, and the Pulitzer Prize the book was awarded in 1986. McMurtry weighs the evidence. But he isn’t convinced. “I just sat down and wrote it. I think the Berrybenders series is better, and a masterpiece,” he says, referring to his own collection of four novels about a calamitous 1830s hunting expedition published between 2002 and 2004. “Lonesome Dove was a good try.” No matter how much I try, it just isn’t possible to get McMurtry to acknowledge that the book that introduced the world to retired Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call — inspired by the lives of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving and the West’s most famous cattle drive to Montana — amounts to much more than a pleasant way to pass some time. “I hope readers enjoy the book,” he says, bordering on indifference. Cowbys & Indians Magazine - Larry McMurtry Interview

Randall Kenan Dies

Randall Kenan, an author whose stories explored the experience of being Black and gay in the American South, has died. He was 57. The University of North Carolina, where Kenan taught as an English professor, confirmed his death on Saturday. A cause was not immediately available. Daniel Wallace, his friend and colleague at the university, said Kenan was found dead Friday at his home in Hillsborough, near Chapel Hill. "He was just an immense talent. His best years were ahead of him," Wallace said, noting that his most recent book, If I Had Two Wings, was published just this month. “And he was a gentleman of the old school” who never failed to bring flowers or chocolate to Wallace's wife when he would visit the couple. Kenan grew up in North Carolina and attended UNC, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1985. His 1992 collection of short stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, was set in the fictional town of Tim's Creek, North Carolina. It received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Randall Kenan Dies

Germany Plans Equal Rights For Lesbian Co-Mothers

A baby born into a lesbian family will have two mothers, and neither will be required to apply to adopt the child, according to a proposed reform. But that won't be the case for kids in families with two fathers. A German parentage law package close to being submitted to cabinet would give a child born into a lesbian setting two mums, the biological mother and her female partner, German media reported on Friday. In a brief quote posted on her ministry's website, Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said the focus must be on the child's wellbeing, including those among adults in same-sex relationships. Describing German society as needing law that reflected diversity, including "patchwork families," Lambrecht said children were best nurtured in uncomplicated settings.  "The law must respond to these diverse forms of family life," she said. On August 6, Lambrecht told the German Catholic KNA news agency that lesbian couples should "in future be able to have another woman as a mother in addition to the mother of birth, without having to go through an elaborate adoption procedure." Germany Plans Equal Rights For Lesbian Co-Mothers

Shakespeare Was “Undeniably Bisexual”

In sixth grade, when I, like many middle schoolers, was assigned to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the first time, my teacher began our Shakespeare unit by inviting us to get all the rumors about the immortal bard out of our systems. All the usual suspects came up: he didn’t really exist; he did exist but someone else wrote his works; he did exist but also he was maybe multiple people; and he was gay. As it turns out, middle schoolers aren’t the only ones fixated on Shakespeare’s sexuality, and it would seem we never quite got it out of our systems after all. Scholars have long questioned and debated the famed playwright’s sexuality, but the authors of a forthcoming book claim to have finally cracked the age-old case. Shakespeare, according to the findings of Professor Sir Stanley Wells and Dr. Paul Edmondson, was bisexual beyond reasonable doubt. According to the Telegraph, the scholars arrived at this conclusion after chronologically ordering Shakespeare’s 182 sonnets — including 28 from his plays — and determining that 27 are addressed to males, 10 to females and the other 145 are “open in their directions of desire,” leaving the gender identity of the beloved in question. “The language of sexuality in some of the sonnets, which are definitely addressed to a male subject, leaves us in no doubt that Shakespeare was bisexual,” said Edmondson. “It’s become fashionable since the mid-1980s to think of Shakespeare as gay. But he was married and had children. Some of these sonnets are addressed to a female and others to a male. To reclaim the term bisexual seems to be quite an original thing to be doing.” Shakespeare Was “Undeniably Bisexual”

California Bill to End Prison Policy

As a transgender woman, Jasmine Jones said California’s prison system constantly put her life at risk during the 17 years she spent behind bars by housing her among men.  Jones said she was assaulted repeatedly and raped three times in men’s prisons. Guards mocked her identity, Jones said, and forced her to undergo humiliating strip searches that exposed her in public. “They weren’t going to protect me,” Jones said of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officers. “I knew that for a fact. The only person that was going to protect me was myself.” Advocates say Jones’ experience is common for transgender, intersex and gender nonbinary people in California prisons, where research shows they are raped and assaulted at rates far higher than that of the wider prison population. They are urging state legislators to pass SB132 by Sen. Scott Wiener, which would allow transgender, intersex and gender nonbinary inmates to decide whether to be housed in a men’s or women’s prison. Transgender is an umbrella term to refer to people who identify as a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Intersex refers to people whose sex anatomy doesn’t fit typical definitions of female or male. Gender nonbinary describes people who have a gender identity that isn’t exclusively male or female.  In most cases, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation now houses transgender and other gender-variant people in prisons according to their sex assigned at birth. California Bill to End Prison Policy

Sara Ramirez Comes Out as Nonbinary

Sara Ramirez, known widely for their role on Grey's Anatomy, but who certainly had been making their name prior to that, has quietly updated the world with a note regarding their gender. "New profile pic," they wrote. The new photo feature Ramirez in a t-shirt, their head shaved on the sides — the style is a signature for the actor. "In me is the capacity to be Girlish boy, Boyish girl, Boyish boy, Girlish girl, All, Neither." They ended the post with the hashtag nonbinary as well as a series of hearts in the colors of the Nonbinary Flag. As Autostraddle, who first reported the news, notes Ramirez had previously updated their pronouns on Twitter and Instagram. The pronouns they utilize are she/they. No one quite knows when this update happened but its been that way for a while. But now, Ramirez has also included "non-binary human" in their bio. Ramirez previously came out as bisexual in 2016. The news came seven years after Callie Torres, the role she played on Grey's Anatomy, came out to her father as bisexual. But, in the wake of the Pulse massacre, Ramirez felt the need to open about their own personal life. The star told People Magazine that they had previously feared coming out in that it might impact their career. Sara Ramirez Comes Out as Nonbinary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“What am I supposed to be? According to you – What am I supposed to be?”  In a book of essays on AOC-Alexandria Ocasio – Cortez which dropped last week, Editor Lynda Lopez reflects on a moment growing up in which she was stereotyped and put in a box which she connects with a similar moment revolving around AOC when the then 28-year old was running for Congress. It’s something we as Gay Latinos also have had to overcome growing up even amongst our own traditional families. What am I supposed to be? Macho? We understand firsthand, stereotypical archetypes so when we see a Young Latina from The Bronx beat her 10-term incumbent opponent, Joe Crowley in 2018, to become the youngest woman in Congress, we take notice and we rally around her. An ally to no end and someone who built their platform on the idea that marginalized communities deserve better. Gay men appreciate female beauty. Arguably it can be noted that the highest compliment a woman can get is from a Gay man. Combine Beauty with brains and amazing public speaking skills and you have gold. This is AOC. The red lipstick. AOC’s trademark and a symbol all its own for Gay Latinos. Was it our Mom rocking it while we were growing up or another Latina, Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, who ignited our love for it and taught us that Latinas who chose to go bold with red lips were fearless? When I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley in the 90’s, many Latinas on campus had a signature look. For some it varied – great style, full long hair, hoop earrings, boots in the winter. One staple never deviated – freshly applied red lipstick. It was a look. It was a sense of power and many times it could be viewed as a piece of armor. Another Latina back then also used it as her signature look as she was climbing the Latin music charts – Tejana, Selena Quintanilla. Gay Latinos revere Selena. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

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Tuesday, September 8th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Annie Proulx's Birthday

Annie Proulx’s 85th birthday came around on the 22nd August. Perhaps best known for ‘Brokeback Mountain’, her short story about Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist’s intense relationship against a backdrop of violent homophobia published in The New Yorker in 1997, Proulx’s seventies were spent writing her deforestation novel Barkskins, published in 2016 and recently adapted into a National Geographic show. Proulx’s ecological concern runs through much of her other work, particularly her trilogy of short story collections Close Range: Wyoming Stories. But Barkskins is her most lengthy treatment of the subject, tracing over three hundred years in the lives of two families and the trees amongst which they live and work, from colonial North America to the present day. Though both men begin as barkskins logging in the forests of New France, René Sel’s family becomes interlinked with the indigenous Mi’kmaq, while Charles Duquet establishes the Duke and Sons logging empire. Barkskins displays not only Proulx’s characteristically sharp commentary, impeccable research and curiously dark humour, but also her appreciation of the capacity of novels to offer complex depictions of future climate issues without erasing historic or current injustices. The historical and mythological references in the novel are eclectic. Proulx grounds the contemporary issue of deforestation in elements of medieval mythology such as Yggdrasil the World Tree, the Old Norse ‘forest of the world’. Proulx’s presentation of forests as gothic, anthropomorphised spaces where ‘tree limbs arched over the silent earth like the dark roof of a tomb vault’ draws on traditional fears of the woods, as do descriptions of ‘the half-imbalanced men who came in from the isolation of the woods. The forest had made them strange – “woods-queer”’. Yet, Proulx’s overwhelming attitude towards forest is one of awe, as one character rapturously declares: ‘I am sure that wild natural woodlands are the only true forests. The entire atmosphere […] a grand wild orchestra. A forest living for itself rather than the benefit of humankind.’ Annie Proulx's Birthday

Stern Words From Richard Grenell

Out former Trump administration official Richard Grenell had some stern words for journalists who tried to ask him about his failed global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality. Grenell served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and then as acting director of national intelligence for a couple of months under Donald Trump. He is currently working for an anti-LGBTQ Christian conservative organization and helping the Republican party with LGBTQ outreach. Grenell appeared at a press conference on Friday that announced a new Serbia-Kosovo agreement and a journalist with the New York Post asked him about the global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality that he announced in early 2019. Grenell, though, didn’t want to hear about the decriminalization initiative. “I’m going to just talk about Kosovo and Serbia,” he snapped at the journalist, the Washington Blade reports. “I don’t know if you can find it on a map, but this is atrocious. I have to tell you guys. You might be too young to understand what this issue is about. Maybe the older journalists should step and say, ‘This is a big deal. This is a big issue.’” “I’m astounded at what happens in Washington, D.C., especially in this room. I got to tell you: get substantive. Maybe it’s too complicated of an issue for you all,” Grenell said, oddly implying that his own decriminalization initiative isn’t a substantive issue. Stern Words From Richard Grenell

Lesbian Couple Gets Guards

When Payal met Kanchan, back in 2017, she had no idea she would fall in love with her fellow trainee. In 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that gay sex was no longer a criminal offence, overturning a previous judgement that upheld a colonial-era law. But age-old customs and regressive attitudes survived, making it difficult for same-sex relationships to be accepted by larger society.  The women, both now 24, have been living together as a couple since 2018 in the western Indian state of Gujarat, and they know first hand what the discrimination feels like.  Their love story was thrust into the limelight last month when they approached the high court. “Our families are against our relationship. They are threatening us,” Payal said, adding that the two filed an application before the court, asking for police protection. The court ruled that the couple should be protected by armed guards. So-called honour killings - when someone is murdered by a family member due to the belief that they have brought shame upon the community - are not uncommon in India and other South Asian countries. One study found that hundreds of people are killed each year in India for falling in love or marrying against their families' wishes.  Payal and Kanchan grew up in two remote villages in Gujarat, where a conservative and patriarchal culture reigned supreme. Both said they wanted to break barriers and felt inspired to enter a field dominated by men. They settled on policing. Lesbian Couple Gets Guards

HIV and Bisexual Men

When champion gymnast Luke Strong and Avery Wilson, a performer from The Voice, both came out as bisexual in July, it was heralded as a watershed moment for bi male visibility. HIV activist Khafre Abif (pictured) saw it differently, telling Plus that bisexual men like him are looking for transformative changes in how they are viewed and treated. “While I welcome the visibility their coming out brings to the collective community of bisexuals, I feel being a celebrity in many ways can serve as a buffer to the everyday noise many bisexuals experience from the communities around us,” he says. “I think we have a long way to go before male bisexuality will become more accepted.” Abif, a librarian and archivist who first found activism as a Florida college student protesting South African apartheid, is tired of his community being a joke, afterthought, or scapegoat. When people throw misconceptions at him about bisexual men lying about their attraction to women or maliciously spreading STIs, he has a quick response. “I simply say, ‘I have been living with HIV for 31 years and I have been out as a bisexual man for more than 30 years. I have been open and honest with the women and men in my life throughout these years as I stand in my truth. My sexuality has nothing to do with my ability to be in and maintain a monogamous relationship.... The science and my lived experience are proof that bisexual men are not the drivers of the rates of HIV among women.” The idea that all HIV-positive bisexual men carelessly spread the virus to women is a myth, M. Reuel Friedman, Ph.D., previously told Plus. Friedman helped author a study about HIV-positive men who have sex with both men and women. HIV and Bisexual Men

Transgender Crisis Hotline

Oriana went through the usual motions of preparing for a two-hour shift on the hotline. They filled a big glass of water, swaddled their armchair in a blanket and laid out a crochet hook and yarn on the desk, in case there was a lull in calls. Downtime was unlikely, though, on this summer night. The Trump administration had just finalized a rule that would reduce protections for transgender patients from discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies. And Trans Lifeline, which describes itself as the only crisis hotline for trans people operated entirely by trans people, is flooded with calls every time the nation’s highest office does something that threatens the LGBTQ community. The calls come from those seeking help, as well as prank callers urged by alt-right websites to scare and traumatize trans people in their most vulnerable moments and to tie up the lines so that those reeling from the news can’t get through. Oriana, a nonbinary 28-year-old who uses the pronouns they, them and their and asked to be identified only by their first name for fear of being targeted, volunteered for this extra shift in mid-June to make sure that no calls went unanswered. Transgender Crisis Hotline

Genitalia Surgery and Resulting Stigma

Eugene Robinson recovered from his double mastectomy on a hospital porch in Durham, North Carolina. It was August 1956, and as a Black child in the Jim Crow South, Robinson wasn’t allowed to heal next to White patients. Sarah Robinson, Eugene’s mother, brought a daughter to the hospital. She returned home with a son. It was his third of four surgeries. Two of his nine siblings had undergone similar operations, but his relatives never talked about the fact that androgen insensitivity syndrome, a genetic intersex condition, ran in the family. Nearly 65 years later, Sean Saifa Wall, 41, sifts through Robinson’s medical records, looking for answers about his uncle’s story that might shed light on his own. Wall, like Robinson, is intersex. Intersex is an umbrella term for people with variations in sex characteristics that don’t fit neatly in the binary of male or female. Some intersex people are born with varying reproductive anatomy or sex traits — some develop them later in life. About 1.7 percent of people are born intersex, according to a 2000 report by Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling. Since the 1960s, medical convention has been that intersex variations should be “corrected,” often through a combination of painful surgeries and hormone therapy starting from infancy or before a child can consent. But on July 28, the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago became the first hospital in the United States to suspend the operations. The news comes after a three-year campaign against the hospital led by Wall and Pidgeon Pagonis, co-founders of the Intersex Justice Project. Genitalia Surgery and Resulting Stigma

Allyship & Equality in Hong Kong

An “ally” is someone who genuinely supports, accepts and advocates for members of the LGBTQ community. Allies are important, and anyone can be one—regardless of their sexual orientation. When Tatler’s Eric Wilson sat down with Gigi Chao and her father Cecil for September’s cover story, the importance of increasing the visibility of LGBTQ members in our society was an important topic of discussion. “Equality is for everybody, it is not just lip service,” Chao says. Chao, a leading activist within Hong Kong’s LGBTQ community, last year co-founded the NGO Hong Kong Marriage Equality to campaign against discrimination based on people’s sexuality. Her work is a labour of love, shining a light on the triumph of the human spirit and actively pushing boundaries to ensure everyone in Hong Kong has access to equal opportunities. While Hong Kong is one of the most tolerant and accepting societies in Asia, this hasn’t always been the case: homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1991. There have been incremental advances made over the last 29 years. Who could forget Cantopop singer Leslie Cheung publicly coming out as bisexual in 1992? Then, there was filmmaker Wong Kar-wai releasing Happy Together, a landmark film featuring a gay couple played by Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung that scored Wong the best director gong at the 1997 Cannes film festival. Since then, we’ve seen the launch of the Rainbow of Hong Kong in 1998, a charity geared towards making life easier for sexual minorities in Hong Kong. Other milestones include the city’s first official—1,000-person strong—Pride parade in 2008; a high court giving transsexual women the right to marry in 2013; 2018’s winning bid  to become the first city in Asia to host the 2022 Gay Games; and most recently, a ruling allowing legally married same-sex couples the right to apply for public housing. Allyship & Equality in Hong Kong

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

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Tuesday, September 15th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

McMurtry & Ossana - 'Good Joe Bell'

It has been 15 years since Oscar-winning writing duo Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, of Brokeback Mountain fame, have seen one of their screenplays made into a movie. That stat changes Sept. 14 when Good Joe Bell — starring Mark Wahlberg and based on the harrowing true story of a father coming to terms with the suicide of his young gay son — makes its world premiere at TIFF in advance of awards season. As with Brokeback, it was Ossana who convinced McMurtry to take on the project when director Cary Joji Fukunaga cold-called them in 2014 asking if they would be interested in writing the screenplay. The film follows Joe Bell as he embarks on a cross-country walk in order to raise awareness about the death of his son in 2013. Along the way — before he is struck and tragically killed by a semi-trailer truck in Colorado — the elder Bell must come to terms with his own prejudices and sometimes-conflicted relationship with his son (played by newcomer Reid Miller). "Larry had a difficult time initially, before we began writing. He was kind of not happy with Joe. I talked to him about what Joe’s psychological state would be. But Joe deeply loved his children, and I told Larry we had to come at it that way,” says Ossana, who spent countless hours speaking with Bell’s widow, Lola, and the younger Bell’s friends. "We came to conclude that Joe was a very complex man." In late 2018, after Fukunaga (who’s helming the James Bond feature No Time to Die) left the project, up-and-coming filmmaker Reinaldo Marcus Green received a call from their mutual WME Endeavor agent, Craig Kestel, asking if he would be interested in directing Bell. (Green had made headlines in January of that year for his award-winning Sundance Film Festival entry, Monsters and Men.) McMurtry & Ossana - 'Good Joe Bell'

More Sky - The Lynn Riggs Story

Dear Friends of Out West, Oscar Hammerstein once wrote that "Lynn Riggs and Green Grow the Lilacs are the very soul of Oklahoma!"  In their first collaboration, Rigg's folk-play, Green Grow the Lilacs. (1931) was adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein into the sensational musical evergreen, Oklahoma!. (1943) Lynn Riggs, (1899-1954), the forgotten gay, Cherokee playwright and poet, is the subject of my new solo play, More Sky - The Story of Lynn Riggs.  Commissioned for The Lynn Riggs Theatre in Tulsa, a More Sky Facebook Live Streaming before an invited, socially distanced audience is set for Thursday, September 17th at 7 pm CDT. Oklahoma's Russ Tallchief, a much admired Osage actor and playwright will play Riggs. Pat Hobbs, Artistic Director for the Lynn Riggs Theatre will direct. And I will be there. One year ago, the Lynn Riggs Memorial Mural at the theatre was desecrated by vandals. Vandalism and intimidation against community theatres offering diverse fare is on the rise.  In the spate of dissonant news rolling out of Tulsa this year; and darkened theaters everywhere. I see the staging of More Sky at the Lynn Riggs Theatre as a great win! I hope this finds you safe and well. I look forward to when we meet face to face again... Best, Gregory More Sky - The Lynn Riggs Story

Wellington College Takes Stand

The posts were uploaded by one student, and shared across Instagram over the weekend.  It followed Scots College's inaugural Pride Week, organised by the school's Queer-Straight Alliance (QSA), which included events such as a mufti day, and form group activities. On Friday, a number of images and videos from one student's Snapchat account began circling on other social media.  The videos and posts showed some students using homophobic slurs, and using rainbow-flag stickers in inappropriate ways.  In one post, there was the caption "Boycotting Gay Pride Week 2020", written in rainbow-coloured writing. "Overall, I've just been really disappointed that this could happen in my school, and these people are my peers, that have these views," said Eleanor, a Year 12 member of the QSA, who helped organise Pride Week.  "I struggle to think how these people can have blatant disrespect towards a community." She said it overshadowed what was otherwise a positive and successful week. "It was really cool to see how the school actually engaged with [it]. Everyone who wore colour did it meaningfully.  Overall, we've received an outpouring of support for the week, through the staff and the majority of the students as well." Wellington College Takes Stand

1 Million Moms Upset Again

The American Family Association (AFA) created One Million Moms and One Million Dads, two websites with the stated goal of mobilizing parents to "stop the exploitation of children" by the media. It uses these websites to organize boycotts and urge activists to send emails to mainstream companies employing advertising, selling products, or advertising on television shows they find offensive. In 2012, the group started and then backed off from a failed campaign against the hiring of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson for department store chain J. C. Penney.  They opposed her employment on the grounds that DeGeneres is "an open homosexual".   One Million Moms campaign has targeted both Marvel & DC Comics for featuring gay characters in their comic books and TV shows/movies.   They later targeted GEICO insurance and Campbell's soup.  Their latest targets are Dole, and The Hallmark Network. The Dole ads, which are literally for bowls of fruit, all revolve around parents spending way too much time with their kids at home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Each ad shows a set of parents who use “fruit bowl” as a substitute for what they really want to say.  One ad shows a lesbian couple and their two kids. The moms say that they use “fruit bowl” to refer to their children.  “Was it your idea to have fruit bowls or was it mine?” one of the moms says as the kids are screaming at each other in the kitchen.  One Million Moms has called for a boycott of all things Hallmark, including the Hallmark Channel, Hallmark wrapping paper, greeting cards, and Christmas ornaments in an attempt to send a message to the company about their feelings over Hallmark's decision to make a movie about a lesbian wedding. One Million Moms & Dole One Million Moms & The Hallmark Network

Rugby Player Levi Davis Comes Out

Early one morning in April, the players at Bath rugby club received a message on their phones which, to use a term from the sport itself, blindsided them. It came from Levi Davis, the Premiership club’s charismatic 22-year-old winger. After pressing send, he closed his eyes and sank back in his chair feeling panicked.   Had he done the right thing? What on earth would his team-mates, including England stars Sam Underhill and Anthony Watson, make of his hastily written bombshell? ‘Hi guys. I just want to tell you something that’s been eating away at me for four years now,’ he had written. ‘I want to be open and honest with you boys, as friends and team-mates. I’m bisexual. It’s something I have known since I was 18.’ Ending the message in playful fashion, he assured them that, owing to their appearance, ‘none of you lot are on my radar... so it’s OK’. Levi was worried about this last flourish – the idea that his team-mates might think he had been eyeing them up in the dressing room or would do so in the future.  It should come as no surprise – though it is heartening nonetheless – that the Bath players were wholly supportive and understanding, despite their initial shock. Mitigating Levi’s fears, their responses were instant and upbeat. ‘Mate, we support you.’ ‘You’re really brave.’ ‘This changes nothing.’ ‘Fair play to you.’ Rugby Player Levi Davis Comes Out

Post Surgical Fracture Risk

Transgender women who take estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) after gender-confirming surgery have a high prevalence of low bone mass that is significantly linked to low estradiol levels and low compliance with ERT, according to an Italian study in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Metabolism (JBMM). The authors said bone health is an important issue for transgender women; however, results of bone status after gender-confirming surgery are conflicting. The retrospective analysis included 57 transgender women (mean age 45.3 years) who were referred to the Gender Dysphoria Clinic at the Department of Medical Sciences, University of Turin, Italy, from January 2012 to May 2018.1 All patients had previously been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, according to criteria from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5). All patients had also undergone gender-confirming surgery (orchiectomy and phallectomy plus vaginoplasty) at least 2 years prior to referral to the clinic. Anthropometric parameters, biochemical assessment, vitamin D status, fracture risk factors, and bone mineral density assessed with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and fracture risk evaluation were ascertained for each subject. Body mass index (BMI) was within normal range for all patients, with a mean of 23.2 kg/m2. However, 56% of participants were sedentary and 37% were current smokers. In addition, the women reported slightly suboptimal dietary calcium intake overall. Post Surgical Fracture Risk

Why Everyone Should Read 'Ace'

In case my job title of "sex and relationships reporter" isn't a clue, I'm a sexual person. Since coming of age, I've thought about sex, watched sex (either pornographic or simulated in mainstream media), talked about sex, written about sex — and, as you can assume, had sex. I can't say whether my interest in sex is more or less than the "average" person — whatever average even is — but I do know for certain that I'm allosexual. An allosexual is someone who experiences sexual attraction and is the counterpart to an asexual, someone who does not experience sexual attraction. While I've known about asexuality for awhile, I only learned of the term "allosexual" from the new book Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by journalist Angela Chen, out Sept. 15. In Ace, Chen doesn't just describe allo and asexuality. She explores the nuances of desire and passion and how we as a society have created a hierarchy of love, where romance is considered superior to friendship. Chen examines how our culture isn't just one of compulsory heterosexuality — the assumption and enforcement of straightness — but one of compulsory sexuality at its core, the assumption that everyone wants sex whether straight or not. What's more is that she frames asexuality through an intersectional lens, pointing out the ways the ace movement has been whitewashed and dismissive of disabled people. Ace is an illuminating look into the asexuality spectrum that I'd recommend to anyone, allo or ace. It's a read that won't just teach you about asexuality, but it will also position you to ask your own questions of desire and love and passion. Why Everyone Should Read 'Ace'

1979 Clip of Jane Fonda Goes Viral

Hollywood icon Jane Fonda has never shied from being an outspoken progressive activist, no matter how high or how brightly her star has shone.  That’s something incredibly evident in a viral clip of the 82-year-old Grace and Frankie actress that is currently circulating on social media.  Captured in 1979, the clip shows a reporter at an event interviewing Fonda about San Francisco’s LGBTQ community. “The gays in San Francisco, they’re very powerful and very strong,” the reporter says. “Do they need your support? Are they still being discriminated against?” “Oh absolutely,” she responds. “Culturally, psychologically, economically, politically. Gays and lesbians are discriminated against. They are a very powerful movement, especially in San Francisco and they don’t need me but they like me.  They like our organization, the Campaign for Economic Democracy, because they know working together we can be stronger than either entity by itself. So it’s really healthy that we try to bring these things together.” The reporter then asks Fonda if LGBTQ people are “using her” for their own gain. “I hope they use me. What am I here for if not to be used by good people for good things?” she retorted. “I’m part of an organization and you could also be cynical, as you are, and ask, is it the organization using me but you could also think, aren’t I using the organization, just the way the gays and lesbians here are using the organization they’re a part of?”  She continued: “It helps give us perspective, it helps us keep our values intact, it increases our power, because as individuals we don’t have very much but all together we have a lot of power. So everyone uses. The point is what are you using for? If it’s just for greed or selfish reasons, it’s one thing but if you’re using for good and positive things, why not?” 1979 Clip of Jane Fonda Goes Viral

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: brian, CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Ang Lee's Reflections

Renowned director And Lee shared his experiences in film creation at a master class held on Aug. 25 during the 10th Beijing International Film Festival, encouraging all filmmakers to overcome external difficulties and continue to seek new ways of expression and technologies.  Lee, though, could not be there in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instead appearing via video link.  The director looked back on his career and shared his insights and experiences. In a relaxed manner, he discussed conflicts between traditional and modern ethics, and Oriental and Western cultural clashes. He explained how he had managed to find a harmonious but different path with his nuanced sense of propriety against real life from diversified cultures, various voices, and disagreements. In addition, his understanding of and reflections on traditional Chinese culture as well as the experience and feeling of Western values had all become condensed and embodied into the aesthetics of his works. In contrast with those directors who become successful at a young age, Ang Lee was a stay-at-home dad for six years after graduation with master's degree from New York University. He finally landed his first success with "Pushing Hands," which raised him out of his financial struggles, enabling him to start his career as an independent screenwriter and director. He then directed "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman." These three early films are usually called his "Father Knows Best" trilogy. When it comes to the father roles in his works, Lee explained: "Fathers must play their role. It's not just about manliness. The role's far-reaching influence over grown-up son and the culture behind him are also very important. We often use father roles to express a society's cultural features and mentality." Ang Lee's Reflections

Increase of Gay Marriage

Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages around the U.S., more than a half million households are made up of married same-sex couples, according to figures the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday. Since 2014, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriages, the number of married same-sex households has increased by almost 70%, rising to 568,110 couples in 2019, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Of the 980,000 same-sex couple households reported in 2019, 58% were married couples and 42% were unmarried partners, the survey showed. There were slightly more female couple households than male couple households. “Opponents of marriage equality frequently argued that same-sex couples really weren’t all that interested in marriage. But the large increase in marriages among same-sex couples since marriage equality became legal nationwide offers evidence of the clear desire for marriage among same-sex couples," said Gary Gates, a demographer specializing in LGBT issues. The survey revealed noticeable economic differences between male couples and female couples, as well as same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. Increase of Gay Marriage

Marie Pinkney Wins Primary

A lesbian social worker in Delaware defeated the President Pro Tem of the Delaware State Senate in the state’s Sept. 15 Democratic primary, becoming the third LGBTQ candidate to win the primary in a state legislative race in Delaware. Marie Pinkney received 52.4 percent of the vote in early returns in the 13th State Senate District in the Wilmington area in her win over State Sen. David McBride, drawing the attention of Delaware political insiders throughout the state. Pinkney was among the many progressive, left-leaning Democrats across the country who has challenged more moderate Democrats for seats in state legislatures and in Congress. Longtime gay Democratic activist Mitch Crane, who serves vice president for politics of the Delaware Stonewall PAC, which endorses LGBTQ supportive candidates for public office, said the group this year endorsed incumbent McBride over Pinkney in the primary because McBride has a “100 percent pro-LGBTQ” voting record. “While we welcome LGBTQ candidates, we don’t support them only on that factor,” Crane told the Washington Blade. “We do not dump straight incumbents who are our allies.” But Crane added that Pinkney “is a compelling candidate and has a great position on all of the issues. We also congratulate her on her victory.” Marie Pinkney Wins Primary

Positivity For Levi Davis

Bisexual rugby pro Levi Davis has been “overwhelmed with positivity” since he came out in a moving interview last week.  Levi Davis came out as bisexual after taking time to reflect throughout coronavirus lockdown. The ex-Bath and England rugby player came out in an interview with the Mail on Sunday on 13 September after overcoming a “sense of shame” that led him to drink and mental health issues.   Reflecting on his momentous coming out, the former Celebrity X Factor contestant said the public reaction has been positive. Speaking to BT Rugby Tonight, Davis said: “It’s been overwhelmingly positive. I had lots of messages on my phone and Instagram. Haven’t got quite around to reading all or replying to them all,” he said.  “It genuinely is overwhelming but it has been very, very positive.”   The rugby star continued: “Throughout COVID I have had a lot of time to reflect and over the last four years, it’s something that was eating away at me slowly. “It’s not been the only cause but it has been a part of the cause of my depression, my anxiety in certain parts, my drinking for a certain period as well after the X Factor." “I just thought it was important to share, one for myself, but two for others if anyone is struggling." “I just wanted to be a shining light in that respect… I had talked to my friends about being unapologetically themselves. I felt like I had to then reflect the positivity that I try and give to others. I should give it to myself.” Positivity For Levi Davis

French Court Ruling

France’s highest court ruled Wednesday that a transgender woman cannot be officially recognised as the biological mother of the child she conceived with her wife, in a ruling described as “scandalous” by her lawyer. To become one of the six-year-old girl’s two legal mothers, the 51-year-old transgender woman would have to adopt her, the Cour de Cassation ruled. Born male, the applicant was recognised as a woman by French authorities in 2011. She then had a child with her wife in 2014, having not undergone the operation to have her male reproductive organs removed.  She has fought ever since to be recognised as the child’s second mother, not father. In 2018, an appeals court in the city of Montpellier ascribed her the status of “biological parent”, a new category. But the Cour de Cassation threw out most of that ruling on Wednesday, and refered the case back to a lower court for a new hearing. The woman’s lawyer, Clelia Richard, described the ruling as “scandalous” and said it was a “lost opportunity.” “The fight is unfortunately not over,” she said. French Court Ruling

Intersex Murders in Colombia

At least 63 members of Colombia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community were killed in the first eight months of this year, the Andean country’s human rights ombudsman said on Tuesday, while other acts of violence also increased. Among those killed were 17 transgender women, 12 gay men, six lesbian women and one transgender man, as well as others whose sexual orientation and gender identity could not be specified, although they belonged to the LGBT and intersex community, the organization said. Intersex refers to people who have reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not conform to typical definitions of male or female. The ombudsman, an independent organization that promotes human rights in Colombia, did not immediately include comparative figures from the same period in 2019 as collection of the information started this year. From January to August, the organization reported 388 cases of violence against LGBT and intersex people, mostly in the form of physical and psychological aggressions, up from 309 cases in the whole of last year. Intersex Murders in Colombia

LGBTQ Champion on Supreme Court Dies

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the justice with the most pro-LGBTQ voting record in the history of the court, died Friday following a long struggle with cancer. As hundreds of people gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., Friday night, two large rainbow flags were at the center of the crowd, a symbol of how important Ginsburg’s 27 years of work on the high court had supported the rights of LGBTQ people. Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, who successfully argued the landmark Title VII case before Ginsburg and the court last October, said, “It was in no small part due to attorney and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s efforts to combat sex-based stereotypes — and as she wrote in the VMI case, to show that the law, ‘Must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females’ — that LGBTQ people could win that case today.” “While Justice [Anthony] Kennedy authored the most important LGBT rights decisions, Justice Ginsburg was the most important voice for LGBT people on the Court,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. According to numerous news reports, Justice Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter, Clara Spera, just a few days before her death. The statement said, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” LGBTQ Champion on Supreme Court Dies

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

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When a new issue of TDS is posted, you will be notified by e-mail.

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[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, September 29th, 2020

The Forum & SSL - Secure Socket Layer

Hello UBF members.  When the forum had a recent update, our server began using SSL - Secure Socket Layer.  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used by millions of websites in the protection of their online transactions with their customers. It is easy to tell if a site you are using is on SSL.  A site without SSL will have an address that starts with http://.  A site that uses SSL will start with https://. Why are we telling you this?  Because if you are posting pictures here, and the address you use doesn't have the "s" in it, the image will not show.  Anytime you post an image, you should make sure that it starts with https://

Dave Cullen's Article for Vanity Fair

The Ultimate Brokeback Forum (formerly known as the Dave Cullen Forum) is here because of Dave Cullen.  In 2005 he wanted to give fans of Brokeback Mountain a place where they could discuss the movie, and support each other.  With the help of a tech team and admin/mod team, the forum was created and put online, and became a meeting place for "Brokies". Dave Cullen then went on to become a successful author.  His first book, "Columbine" was published in 2009 and is about the Columbine school shooting massacre.  "Columbine" became a New York Times best selling book.  It went on to win numerous awards, and this led to Dave being asked to be a guest on multiple news and talk shows, when the subject was a mass shooting event.  He followed this up with his book "Parkland - Birth of a Movement", which was published in 2019.  His second book is about the Parkland school shooting, and how the surviving students organized themselves to become a strong political movement, seeking stronger gun laws.  Dave is currently working on his third book, and writes articles that have appeared in other publications.  His most recent article is about Gabby Giffords.  Giffords is an American politician and gun control advocate who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Arizona's 8th congressional district.  She served from January 2007 until January 2012, when she resigned due to a severe brain injury suffered during an assassination attempt. A member of the Democratic Party, Giffords was the third woman in Arizona's history to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Dave's article has been published in Vanity Fair, and you can read it at the link below. Dave Cullen's Article for Vanity Fair

Anna Faris Leaves"Mom"

Anna Faris took fans by surprise with the rather sudden announcement that she would be leaving Mom ahead of Season 8. Mom and several other CBS shows are gearing up to return to production after months of waiting for it to be safe enough, and Faris’ decision shocked more than just the loyal fanbase. It's being reported that Faris’ Mom exit is a “nightmare” for her now-former co-stars and crew members. Everyone at Mom is still dealing with the shockwaves over one half of its starring duo departing the popular Chuck Lorre sitcom. Allison Janney and Anna Faris have starred as Mom’s mother and daughter duo Bonnie and Christy, respectively, since the beginning. But that's not happening for much longer, and a source told People that no one at Mom is “happy” about it, adding: "It was sudden and unwelcome, and it left the entire network scrambling. This is not a good thing at all. . . . Mom has been one of CBS' more profitable scripted shows, in a very challenging economic time. And now one of the leads is gone. It’s actually a nightmare. No one wanted this." Mom will undoubtedly need to make some unexpected adjustments due to Anna Faris’ exit. That said, the show will go on, as opposed to how The Big Bang Theory team responded to star Jim Parsons' decision to leave the high-rated sitcom, which opted to conclude everything. Aside from her TV roles, Faris has been in successful films, including the "Scary Movie" series of films,  playing LaShawn in "Brokeback Mountain", and starring as Shelley in "The House Bunny". Anna Faris Leaves "Mom"

Robert Harrison, Long Time Volunteer with a UBF Connection, Wins Award

In August of 2008, there was a gathering in LA, and Brokeback Mountain was shown at the Arclight Theater.  A special event was an invitation to a private party at the home of Robert Harrison and Ken MacFarlane, who are good friends of UBF member Lyle (Mooska). Robert Harrison graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychology in 1980 when he decided to become a Center volunteer.   He had no idea that 40 years later—through law school, the AIDS crisis, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, marriage equality, six presidential elections, and now a worldwide pandemic—he’d still be volunteering. Harrison was 23 when he became a facilitator of a men’s discussion group and soon after the men’s coming out group.    “It was mostly men getting together and worried about coming out and being discriminated against,” he recalled. “The main discussion was about trying to feel good about yourself, dating, discrimination at work, and family rejection.” A Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge by profession, Harrison recalls how quickly he realized in those early days that he had the natural skills to lead a peer group. He did some volunteer legal work and even facilitated a women’s discussion group. More recently, he’s led MASQ, a group exploring male identities. “Things have changed so much over the 40 years, and he’s been able to adapt which is extraordinary,” observes fellow group moderator Ryan Provencher. “He’s really good at getting people to open up and share their experiences. He’s an amazing active listener.” Robert Harrison, Long Time Volunteer with a UBF Connection, Wins Award

Jane Sibbett Faced Backlash for Playing a Lesbian

Friends always had a very strong cast of recurring characters – Gunther, Janice, Jack and Judy Geller and Carol Willick to name just a few. As fans will know, at the very beginning of the series we see Ross Geller's relationship with Carol end as she comes out as lesbian while pregnant with their child. However, Carol actress Jane Sibbett, has revealed that not everyone was supportive of her playing a lesbian character. She told Now To Love: "It became apparent soon after [the show premiered] there was suddenly a responsibility about being able to stand up against all of the people that were saying this was wrong, including my own father who had a really hard time with that." Jane said while the love from the LGBTQ+ community for Carol was "amazing", she felt like she had a huge responsibility to explain to these people pushing back, that love is love. "I was going toe to toe with people on talk shows in America, who were saying, you know, this and this and this is the reason why you shouldn't be doing this," she recalled. Jane Sibbett Faced Backlash for Playing a Lesbian

Bisexual Women Paired With Men

“If you’ve only ever dated men, how do you know you’re bisexual?”  If you’re a bi or pansexual woman in a relationship with a cis man, this is a question you’ve almost certainly heard. And the truth is, for many of us (myself included!) it’s a question we’ve asked ourselves. We all know sexuality is about attraction and desire, not about what you’ve done and with whom, but that doesn’t mean it always plays out like that IRL. When asked to place themselves on a scale, almost a quarter of Brits identified as something other than 100 percent straight. Among 18-24 year olds it was almost half. Over the last year Tinder saw an increase in the number of users identifying as “straight and questioning,” particularly among Gen Z users. But if you’re in a relationship with a man and questioning your sexuality, where do you go from there? How do you tell the difference between fantasising about women (Oh hello, 18-year-old me!) and actually wanting to have sex with one? How do you know whether the butterflies you felt on seeing a topless model on a billboard in France aged 13 (Yup, also me!) are a sign of anything other For Lou, 31, the moment came when her boyfriend of five years mentioned that an ex of his was bi. “I don’t know why but it just stayed in my mind,” she says. “It prompted me to rethink some of the moments in my past.” Lou has only ever dated men but looking back on her teenage years she was suddenly able to make sense of her experiences. “As a teenager, I remember being very ashamed because when I would masturbate, I would think about female pop stars,” she says. “I didn’t know if that was a thing everyone did and I was very confused. I also remember looking at topless women on the family computer. My dad found it but I blamed my brother. I’d just blocked that completely from my memory and it’s only now that I realised maybe that was part of it.” Bisexual Women Paired With Men

Transgender Colombian Woman Killed

A soldier shot and killed a transgender woman at a military checkpoint in southwestern Colombia, prompting outrage from activists and condemnation from politicians. In a widely-circulated video Francisco Larranaga, the husband of victim Juliana Giraldo, cries while requesting assistance following her death in the Andean country's Cauca province on Thursday.  "The army just killed my wife," Larranaga sobs in the video, adding Giraldo was shot. The killing was condemned by President Ivan Duque and Minister of Defense Carlos Holmes Trujillo.  "I condemn this reprehensible act," Duque said in a message on Twitter, adding he ordered the army and defense ministry to conduct a prompt investigation, while calling for the person responsible to be held accountable. General Marco Mayorga, commander of the army's third division, gave an interview to local media Caracol Radio on Friday, describing the army's version of events. He said a soldier reported shooting at the vehicle's tires as it reversed near the checkpoint, thinking it was preparing to drive into it. "The soldier said he shot at the tires to stop the vehicle," Mayorga said. "It seems to me a bullet fell to the pavement and changed course...unfortunately hitting Juliana." Colombia's transgender community often face discrimination and many accuse the police of perpetuating violence against trans people. "Juliana Giraldo Diaz didn't die, she was killed. They murdered her in cold blood," Red Comunitaria Trans, a Colombian trans rights group, said on Twitter. Transgender Colombian Woman Killed

Temídayo Amay Wins Helen Hayes Award

This time last year, non-binary actor Temídayo Amay was delighting audiences as Gifty, in Round House Theatre’s production of Jocelyn Bioh’s “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play.” The rangy actor gave a terrific comedic turn as a minion to the top girl at a boarding school in Ghana in 1986 where cliques, beauty pageants and skin tone were the chatter of the day. For their efforts, Amay won a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Play—the honor was presented via Zoom earlier this month (postposed from May because of Covid-19). Although this year’s awards were adjudicated through a binary lens, they were presented through a gender inclusive format. Next year will be different. Washington-based Amay, 26, grew up in suburban Maryland, earned a BA in theater from the University of Maryland, and soon after began her career. In addition to working at Round House, their crowded bio boasts gigs at the Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company to name a few. In a recent interview, Amay expresses gratitude and a hopeful yet savvy look forward in uncertain times. Please click the link below to read the interview. Temídayo Amay Wins Helen Hayes Award

Sima Ladjevardian - LGBTQ Ally

Dan Crenshaw might have won his Texas 2nd Congressional District seat in 2018 because of an impromptu Saturday Night Live appearance. An SNL cast member had insulted Crenshaw’s military service, and he was invited to appear on the show to accept an apology. But this year, the pandemic and his stance on healthcare might just cost him that seat, and Sima Ladjevardian may just be the woman to take it from him. “I’m running against Crenshaw because we need someone with a record of bringing people together for our community,” says the Iran-born attorney-turned-activist. “As an immigrant who fled the political violence of a revolution, this nation and this Houston community has given me so much. I am living proof of how opportunity in America can lead to safety, prosperity, and happiness. Now it’s my obligation to pay it forward for my neighbors. As a lawyer, a mediator, and a community activist, I’ve been building bridges of compromise between people of all different backgrounds my whole career. I know what it takes to get to a solution, and I don’t take no for an answer. In the halls of Congress, I’ll do the same for Houston.” Ladjevardian moved to France during the 1978 Iranian Revolution, and then to America in 1980. She speaks four languages and is a wife, mother, and breast-cancer survivor. Ladjevardian’s husband, Masoud, and their two adult children have been very supportive of her run for Congress, and she says they are very proud of her and her beliefs—one of which is equality.   “I’ve been an ally of the LGBTQ+ community for all my life, and I’m honored to have the support of both the Human Rights Campaign and the Houston GLBT Caucus.” Sima Ladjevardian - LGBTQ Ally

Your Laugh For The Day!

Contributors: Lyle (Mooska), KillersMom, CellarDweller115

The Daily Sheet is a production of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum at http://www.ultimatebrokebackforum.com.

Today's edition by KillersMom, CellarDweller115

Editors emeritae: CactusGal, Marge_Innavera, tellyouwhat, Stilllearning, MissYouSoMuch, gnash

We count on you to send us your news items, questions, and nominations for posts of the day.
If you have items you’d like to see published, send them to CellarDweller115.

To subscribe to The Daily Sheet, click the “Notify” button at the top or bottom of the page.
When a new issue of TDS is posted, you will be notified by e-mail.

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