The Daily Sheet - January to March 2025

[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, January 7th, 2025

Heath's Family on Collecting His Oscar

Heath Ledger’s family spoke out about the 'bittersweet' moment they picked up his posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting actor in The Dark Knight. Ledger died in 2008 at the age of just 28 following an accidental overdose of prescription medications. He had already filmed The Dark Knight, which included a tribute to Ledger in the movie’s end credits. The cast of the film all wore black to the film’s London premiere in honour of the Joker actor, with Christian Bale saying of Ledger in 2008: “When you miss somebody, you want to speak about him. He was a good man, and I was glad to have spent time with him." “He was somebody who I’d been seeing on a daily basis for months." “It takes a long time to accept that someone’s gone, when all body and mind are telling you that this is somebody you will know for a great deal of time. He was something of a kindred spirit to myself.” Ledger’s family accepted the Oscar he won for his role as the Joker, with his sister, mother and father taking the stage. Heath's Family on Collecting His Oscar

After Partner's Death, a Skier Comes Out

An elite ski jumper who won a world championships bronze medal in 2021 has come out publicly as gay via an Instagram message posted on New Year’s Day. Andrzej Stekala, from Poland, wrote: “I want you to meet my true self. I am gay. I have kept this fact a secret for years — from you, from the media and sometimes even from myself.” He says he was hiding his sexuality while in a long-term relationship with “the person who changed my life — he was my pillar, my support, and my biggest fan”. The accompanying reel is a moving tribute to Damian, who Stekala says was sadly “lost… last November.” There are photos from their holidays together, plus tender moments showing the couple kissing, set to the song “Good News” by Shaboozey. The 29-year-old athlete writes: “I cannot find the words to describe the pain I have been feeling ever since that fatal day. The world we had been building together fell to pieces. Every day without him is a fight, but also a reminder of how unconditionally I loved and was loved.” Stekala says he met Damian in 2016, which was the year after he made his debut in the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup, the highest level of competition in his sport. After Partner's Death, a Skier Comes Out

Losing Custody

I am more than just aware of the faint outlines of queer history – it is something I see in Technicolour. I immerse myself in lesbian books, films and art, and have written all sorts of articles about contemporary lesbianism. It is for this reason that I was shocked to learn only recently of the state having removed children from the custody of lesbian mums. In July, a radio producer contacted me to tell me about 74-year-old Judi Morris, whose son George had slid into heroin addiction and fallen in and out of the criminal justice system. The call started a journey that would end in a radio documentary, Missing Pieces: The Lesbian Mothers Scandal. The causes of addiction are complicated. However, a faultline emerged in George’s infancy, when a court granted his father full custody. Judi was a lesbian and George’s dad knew, and had acted “out of spite”, she says. He promptly put George into private foster care and left the country. Judi regained custody of George when he was five, but damage had been done. As Judi told our BBC Radio 4 documentary, “he wasn’t being fed properly, he wasn’t clothed very well. You know, he was witnessing things a child shouldn’t witness.” The path from the court’s decision to George’s death aged 51 in 2022 due to an infected needle site wasn’t fated. But my heart aches for Judi, as she must wonder how differently her son’s life could have turned out had she been allowed to raise him. George wasn’t the only child affected. During my research, I came across at least 30 cases from the 1970s to the 1990s where British judges took children from lesbian mums. Losing Custody 2024 - The Year in Bisexuality Carrie Bradshaw — that beautiful heterosexual ditz — once mused that bisexuality is “just a layover on the way to Gaytown.” It’s been over two decades since that infamous Sex and the City episode, and as it turns out, people like the views here. Some have booked a permanent stay. Others, after a long tenure in Gaytown, are now wading into our luxurious waters. Welcome: Drop your bags and come explore. In 2024, bisexuality became a cultural destination. Moviegoers turned up to theaters to watch Kinsey moderates wreak havoc on their relationships, a trend that started with last year’s steamy marriage drama Passages and French procedural Anatomy of a Fall and extended into this year’s sapphic neo-noir Love Lies Bleeding. The spring’s buzziest film, the tennis romp Challengers, is that meme fantasy about having two boyfriends who are also boyfriends with each other realized onscreen. Meanwhile, TV comedies created ludicrous plot points out of sexual fluidity: A cruise-ship medical staff had a drunken threesome on Dr. Odyssey; a clueless straight girl microaggressed her bi boyfriend with attempted pegging on The Sex Lives of College Girls; and a zoomer comedian narrowly avoided victimization by a gay Republican with a piss kink on Hacks. Novels about wanton queers who more or less “just ended up with people,” to quote the protagonist of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!, swept group chats across the country. “All the bi bitches know the fuck is going down,” proclaims Tyler, the Creator, on one of the biggest tag-team rap smashes of the year. Have we finally arrived at a world of borderless sexuality? “All the kids are going bi,” Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones chirped to Carrie in the aforementioned “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl” episode, before the latter fumbled a sexually progressive younger man. (For the au courant Samantha, women and even gay guys were on the table.) Newsweek famously announced the arrival of the peculiar in-between species bisexuals (“Not gay. Not straight. A new sexual identity emerges”) in 1995. When Sex and the City’s own investigation aired in 2000, the “kids” in question were younger Gen-Xers.   2024 - The Year in Bisexuality Sarah McBride Heads to Congress It was her last day in session as a Delaware state senator, and Sarah McBride sat in her tiny office at the state Capitol, preparing farewell remarks. She had made history here, as the first openly transgender state senator in the country. Now she was making history again, recently elected as the first openly transgender member of Congress. Her political promotion has come during a reckoning for transgender rights, when legislation in Republican-governed states around the country aims to curb their advance. During an election where a deluge of campaign ads and politicians demeaned trans people, McBride still easily won her blue state’s only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. But even before she is sworn in on Friday, her reception from congressional Republicans has been tumultuous. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina targeted her by proposing to ban transgender people from U.S. Capitol restrooms that correspond to their gender identity — a ban that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., enacted. For her part, McBride tried to defuse the situation, saying she would follow the rules. “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” the 34-year-old wrote in a statement. While some activists want her to fight harder, to those who know her, the move was classic Sarah — a pragmatist with a reputation of bipartisanship, a person who values diplomacy over pugilism. Sarah McBride Heads to Congress Maidens of the North Shelby Lyn Lowe was never really competitive. Then she started playing pinball about six years ago. The Saskatoon woman says people are surprised when she tells them about her love for the game, playing in tournaments and even competing in different leagues. "People don't know that is a thing," said Lowe. "I like surprising people with that." The Saskatoon woman and her teammates meet regularly to train and compete at the different flashy machines. They are all members of the Maidens of the North — pinball league for women and non-binary people in the city. A similar league with the same name runs in Calgary, while the Flippin' Queens Pinball League has its home in Regina. "It is predominantly a male-played activity," said Lowe. "There's definitely less women players who play it, especially competitively in tournaments in the province at least." Maidens of the North Remembering Jimmy Carter As An Ally Former President Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. president, will be remembered as a staunch LGBTQ+ ally, although it took him time to evolve on some issues. The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner died on Sunday after over a year in hospice care. He is the longest-lived U.S. president. He passed away at his home in Plains, Ga. — the same house he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died last year, spent the majority of their lives, according to the Carter Center. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, one of the former president’s sons. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.” LGBTQ+ rights group the Human Rights Campaign remembered Carter’s queer rights legacy in a statement on Sunday. “All of us at the Human Rights Campaign feel an immense loss with the passing of former President Jimmy Carter,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “In recent years, he became a prominent voice in support of LGBTQ+ rights, speaking out for marriage equality at a time when most national leaders in the U.S. still opposed it. For decades after he left the White House, he continued to make public service his enduring priority through his work with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Presidential Center, cementing his reputation as a champion for human rights and as one of the all time great former presidents. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and all who mourn him.” Remembering Jimmy Carter As An 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 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 Respond to The Daily Sheet

[CellarDweller115]

Tuesday, January 14th, 2025

Larry's Legacy

Larry McMurtry's writing legacy will live on in his hometown of Archer City, Texas. His former bookstore, Booked Up, is set to become a literary center after Chip and Joanna Gaines recently sold it to the Archer City Writers Workshop. McMurtry, who died in 2021, is one of Texas' most famous novelists, perhaps best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, which was adapted into a film, and for adapting the screenplay of Brokeback Mountain with co-writer Diana Ossana, for which they won an Oscar. McMurtry was also a prolific collector of rare and antiquarian books, opening two locations of Booked Up—one in Washington D.C. and the other in North Texas' Archer City, where he was born, lived and died. Booked Up in Archer City eventually filled four storefronts. Chip Gaines of Fixer Upper fame purchased the store in 2023 and moved thousands of McMurtry's books to the Gainses' Waco hotel. But the couple have since sold the building—and its remaining books—to the Archer City Writers Workshop, who plan to turn one of the Booked Up storefronts into the Larry McMurtry Literary Center. George Getschow, who is leading the project with the Archer City Writers Workshop, said the Gainses offered ACWW the opportunity to start the literary center a few months ago, and the group eagerly grabbed it. "McMurtry often referred to Booked Up as his 'Temple of Books,'" Getschow wrote in an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News earlier this month. "Brimming with a half million books of every stripe during its heyday, the store was for him a sacred place. He got married there and directed in his will that his ashes be interred inside the store." Larry's Legacy

Openly Gay Men Can Be Priests

New guidelines released by the Italian Bishops’ Conference on Friday brings the ordination of openly gay men to the Catholic priesthood closer. The conference's new guidelines for the training of priests didn't recommend that openly gay men shouldn't be barred from the priesthood, but it did heavily hint at it. "When referring to homosexual tendencies, it’s also appropriate not to reduce discernment only to this aspect, but, as for every candidate, to grasp its meaning in the global framework of the young person’s personality,” the report titled "Guidelines and norms for seminaries" stated. However, it also went on to say that any gay priests must never have sex, as has always been the case for heterosexual priests. Officially, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual activity is “intrinsically disordered.” It also says that men who “practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture” cannot be ordained. All women remain barred from the Catholic priesthood, whatever their sexuality. In January 2023 Pope Francis told the Associated Press in an interview that “being homosexual isn’t a crime.” Openly Gay Men Can Be Priests

LGBTQ+ Fire Chief Kristin Crowley

The stereotype of lesbians always being prepared for an emergency — everyone knows a queer woman who doesn’t leave the house without a Leatherman multitool and carabiners — holds true for Los Angeles’ first openly LGBTQ+ Fire Chief Kristin Crowley who is overseeing the firefighters trying to stop the Palisades fire. As of Wednesday morning, more than 5,000 acres in the affluent celebrity-inhabited neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in southern California has been consumed by fire, with approximately 1,000 structures and coastal homes reduced to rubble. The fire is being called “one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in memory” by the LA Times and has already carved a path of destruction along the Pacific Coast Highway. As the Palisades fire ravages the wealthy area, three other fires are also devastating Los Angeles County and have led to the death of two people, and fire hydrants in the area have run dry, the LA Times reports. This has led to Crowley facing growing backlash on social media, where conservatives are taking cheap digs at her appearance and are claiming she’s a “DEI hire” and isn’t qualified for the position. LGBTQ+ Fire Chief Kristin Crowley 2024 - The Year in Bisexuality Carrie Bradshaw — that beautiful heterosexual ditz — once mused that bisexuality is “just a layover on the way to Gaytown.” It’s been over two decades since that infamous Sex and the City episode, and as it turns out, people like the views here. Some have booked a permanent stay. Others, after a long tenure in Gaytown, are now wading into our luxurious waters. Welcome: Drop your bags and come explore. In 2024, bisexuality became a cultural destination. Moviegoers turned up to theaters to watch Kinsey moderates wreak havoc on their relationships, a trend that started with last year’s steamy marriage drama Passages and French procedural Anatomy of a Fall and extended into this year’s sapphic neo-noir Love Lies Bleeding. The spring’s buzziest film, the tennis romp Challengers, is that meme fantasy about having two boyfriends who are also boyfriends with each other realized onscreen. Meanwhile, TV comedies created ludicrous plot points out of sexual fluidity: A cruise-ship medical staff had a drunken threesome on Dr. Odyssey; a clueless straight girl microaggressed her bi boyfriend with attempted pegging on The Sex Lives of College Girls; and a zoomer comedian narrowly avoided victimization by a gay Republican with a piss kink on Hacks. Novels about wanton queers who more or less “just ended up with people,” to quote the protagonist of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!, swept group chats across the country. “All the bi bitches know the fuck is going down,” proclaims Tyler, the Creator, on one of the biggest tag-team rap smashes of the year. Have we finally arrived at a world of borderless sexuality? “All the kids are going bi,” Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones chirped to Carrie in the aforementioned “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl” episode, before the latter fumbled a sexually progressive younger man. (For the au courant Samantha, women and even gay guys were on the table.) Newsweek famously announced the arrival of the peculiar in-between species bisexuals (“Not gay. Not straight. A new sexual identity emerges”) in 1995. When Sex and the City’s own investigation aired in 2000, the “kids” in question were younger Gen-Xers.   2024 - The Year in Bisexuality Transgender Privacy Act California Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Bill 59, also known as the “Transgender Privacy Act,” on Thursday. SB 59 would protect the privacy of transgender and nonbinary people by automatically making all court records related to their gender transition sealed and confidential to reduce risks that they will be “outed,” the senator’s office said. The senator said his bill is partially in response to Donald Trump’s return to the White House. According to Wiener, the incoming president’s administration will be “openly hostile to the transgender community,” and “states like California must step up to defend them.” Some transgender and nonbinary people are surprised to discover that their records, including “deadnames” and other personal information, are discoverable online, Wiener said. “When I learned I was unable to change my name in California without being forcibly outed online and exposed to harassment I was appalled,” said Hazel Williams, San Francisco resident and community organizer. “There are 220,000 transgender and non-binary adults in California. All of us deserve privacy and safety.” Senator Wiener said, “Unfortunately, right-wing groups and individuals have used publicly available personal information to harass trans people in California and across the nation. The incoming Trump administration will only embolden abusive right-wing extremists.” Transgender Privacy Act Bob the Drag Queen RuPaul’s Drag Race legend Bob The Drag Queen is bringing drama, glamour and winning energy to The Traitors US season three. While UK-based The Traitors fans are crowning new queer icons and allies in players Leanne, Fozia and Linda as season three continues, The Traitors US is welcoming some well-established royalty into the castle for its third season. Bob The Drag Queen, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season eight, comedy extraordinaire, and friend of Madonna, will enter Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands as one of 21 players in the now-iconic game of deception and dirty tricks. The first episode of The Traitors US season three airs on the Peacock streaming platform at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on 9 January. Unlike its UK counterpart, the US edition is made up entirely of celebrity figures, and Bob The Drag Queen will be joined by likes of queer Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause, Britney Spears’ ex-husband Sam Asghari, and gay British aristocrat, Lord Ivar Mountbatten. Bob follows in the footsteps of her Drag Race sisters Peppermint, Miss Fiercalicious and Melinda Verga, all of whom have competed on different iterations of the gameshow. In case you’ve been living under a rock or without internet access for the past few years, here’s what The Traitors is all about: a set of players enter a castle, and a select few are secretly declared Traitors, while the rest are Faithfulls. Bob the Drag Queen Anita Bryant Dead Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma, Grammy-nominated singer and prominent booster of orange juice and other products who became known over the second half of her life for her outspoken opposition to gay rights, has died. She was 84. Bryant died Dec. 16 at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, according to a statement posted by her family to news site The Oklahoman on Thursday. The family did not list a cause of death. Bryant was a Barnsdall native who began singing at an early age, and was just 12 when she hosted her own local television show. She was named Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and soon began a successful recording career. Her hit singles included “Till There Was You,” “Paper Roses” and “My Little Corner of the World.” A lifelong Christian, she received two Grammy nominations for best sacred performance and one for best spiritual performance, for the album “Anita Bryant … Naturally.” By the late 1960s, she was among the entertainers joining Bob Hope on his USO tours for troops overseas, had sung at the White House and performed at the national conventions for both the Democrats and Republicans in 1968. She also became a highly visible commercial spokesperson, her ads for Florida orange juice featuring the tag line, “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.” But in the late 1970s, her life and career began a dramatically new path. Unhappy with the cultural changes of the time, Bryant led a successful campaign to repeal an ordinance in Florida’s Miami-Dade County that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Supported by the Rev. Jerry Falwell among others, Bryant and her “Save Our Children” coalition continued to oppose gay rights around the country, denouncing the “deviant lifestyle” of the gay community and calling gays “human garbage.” Anita Bryant Dead 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 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 Respond to The Daily Sheet