Articles in Anchorage
Stories of Pride: Pride Foundation presents an evening of storytelling and celebration at Out North
Pride Foundation would like to express our gratitude to the many donors and volunteers who have made this year a success with an intimate evening of storytelling and celebration. Light food and beverages will be served, coming out stories will be powerful, and “thank you’s” will be abundant. This is a free event. All are welcome.
World AIDS Day 2011: Aiming for zero
World AIDS Day is Thursday, December 1. The Four A’s and the Interior AIDS Association have organized events including candlelight vigils in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.
World AIDS Day is celebrated on December 1 each year around the world. It has become one of the most recognized international health days and a key opportunity to raise awareness, commemorate those who have passed on, and celebrate victories such as increased access to treatment and prevention services. Events including candlelight vigils are scheduled in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.
More than one million people are living with HIV in the U.S., and more than one in five (21%) of them are unaware of their infection, according to estimates of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (Four A’s) reports that there have been 1,394 reported cases of HIV infection in Alaska since 1982. In 2010, 38 Alaskans were newly diagnosed with HIV.
Internationally, the theme of World AIDS Day for 2011 to 2015, as decided by the World AIDS Campaign’s Global Steering Committee, is Getting to Zero: zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths. The Four A’s has joined in with this theme, declaring its own theme this year as Aim for Zero:
We are aiming for zero stigma, zero discrimination, zero risk, zero new cases and most importantly, zero deaths.
The Four A’s and the Interior AIDS Association have organized events including candlelight vigils in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.
Anchorage
Join us at Four A’s for a night of awareness and a candlelight vigil. Following the vigil from 9 to midnight, there will a Condom Pub Crawl in downtown Anchorage bars, during which AMP and VOX will be distributing free red ribbons and condoms.
- Date/time: Thursday, December 1, 6:00–7:30 PM
- Location: Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (Four A’s), 1057 W Fireweed, Ste 102, Anchorage, AK (see map)
- Further info: see Facebook events page
Fairbanks
Join the Interior AIDS Association, West Valley High School GSA, and the Pride Foundation for an evening in commemoration of World AIDS Day. Refreshments at 5:30; program including presentations from the West Valley High School GSA and the Pride Foundation begin at 6pm. The evening will end with a candlelight vigil at 7.
- Date/time: Thursday, Dec 1. Refreshments at 5:30 PM; program begins 6:00 PM; candlelight vigil begins 7:00 PM.
- Location: Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center, 101 Dunkel St, Fairbanks, AK (see map)
- Further info: see Interior AIDS Association Calendar of Events or the Facebook events page
Juneau
- Date/time: Thursday, December 1, 6:00 PM
- Location: Baranof Hotel, 127 N Franklin St, Juneau, AK (see map)
Paige’s Birthday Wish: A Saturday evening of entertainment benefiting Operation Morale Boost
After spending Thanksgiving with loved ones, help celebrate Paige’s 31st birthday this Saturday, November 26, by helping Operation Morale Boost send off packages to servicemembers unable to be with their families this holiday season.
Open Projector Night 4, this Saturday night at Out North
The time has come for Open Projector Night, the Alaska independent filmmakers’ open mic, presented by the Alaska Film Forum and Out North Contemporary Art House, on Saturday, November 26 at Out North.
Bring a short film or clip of something longer on DVD, BluRay, or digital format ( h.264/m4v, 720p). Projector slots will be given out on a first-come first-serve basis.
For filmmakers, this is a great opportunity to meet other people working in town and have your films screened for an audience. For everyone else, this is your chance to see the awesome work that the local filmmaking scene is putting out, and to show your support for independent filmmakers and filmmaking.
Schedule for the evening:
5pm – Media drop off begins at Out North
8pm – Doors open for socializing/networking time
9pm – Screening begins
- Date/time: Saturday, November 26, 8:00 to 11:30 PM
- Location: Out North Contemporary Art House, 3800 Debarr, Anchorage, AK (see map)
- Age restriction: This event is 21+. IDs will be checked at the door.
- Further info: see Facebook events page
Want to know more about Open Projector Night? Read Ben Anderson’s July 2011 story in the Alaska Dispatch. Or, check out the video:
Open Projector Night 4 from Tri-Seven Pictures on Vimeo.
Alaska Film Forum and Borderline Productions helped to put this piece together to talk more about the creation of OPN and its role in the Alaska Film Community.
Thanksgiving potluck at the LGBTQ-welcoming Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
You are invited to join the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Thursday, November 24 (Thanksgiving Day) at 2 p.m. for a community potluck Thanksgiving dinner.
We will gather around 1:00 to 1:30 PM for wine and cheese, and plan to start eating at 2 PM. Everyone is welcome, and if your plans change, come and join us (even if it’s the last minute). We can usually expect between 30 and 45 people. People can come early and help set up chairs and tables, etc. Come and be with your church family if your own isn’t an option. Let us celebrate together this wonderful, very American holiday with good food and fellowship.
Like the Unitarian Universalist Association as a whole, the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is LGBT-welcoming, inclusive, and affirming. They are also non-doctrinaire, holding the inherent worth and dignity of every person as one of their seven core principles. EVERYONE is welcome.
- Date/time: Thursday, November 24 (Thanksgiving Day). Gather at 1:00 to 1:30 PM; Thanksgiving potluck at 2:00 PM.
- Location: Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 3201 Turnagain Street, Anchorage, AK (see map)
- Cost of admission: Free! But please bring a dish.
- Further info: Contact Shirley Dickens at 563-4499 if you need ideas about what to bring.
If you know of other LGBTQ-welcoming Thanksgiving celebrations anywhere in Alaska, please let Bent Alaska know by writing to bentalaska at gmail dot com or Facebooking us at https://www.facebook.com/bent.alaska.
Identity: Stepping up & stepping out
Everybody knows what Identity is and does — but do they? Shannon Sanderson wrote this profile of the organization for a class at UAA this past June — and we thought everyone should get a chance to know Identity better.
Preliminary report of the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey released
The preliminary report of a survey conducted earlier this year finds that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) residents of the Municipality of Anchorage experience significant levels of harassment, violence, and discrimination in employment, housing, education, public services, and child custody as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity or presentation. Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey: Preliminary Report by Melissa S. Green was released today by the Anchorage-based nonprofit Identity on behalf of the Alaska LGBT Community Survey Task Force.
The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey was conducted in the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, from January through March 2011, with 268 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) respondents included in the final dataset. The preliminary report presents key findings from the survey on the incidence of violence, intimidation, and discrimination in employment, housing, education, child custody proceedings, and public services experienced by respondents in the Municipality of Anchorage because of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. Summary data is presented for the total study population of 268 respondents, as well as for the 50 respondents who had been resident in the Municipality of Anchorage for less than five years.
Results show that discrimination, harassment, and bias are experienced by lesbian, gay, and bisexual residents of the Municipality of Anchorage at levels comparable to those experienced by respondents to One in Ten, a statewide survey of lesbian, gay, and bisexual Alaskans conducted in 1985 (published in 1986), and that that discrimination, harassment, and bias are also commonly experienced by transgender residents of the Municipality of Anchorage. The 50 respondents who had lived in Anchorage less than five years reported experiencing discrimination/bias in Anchorage at only slightly lower rates than the survey population as a whole, despite of a much shorter span of time in Anchorage within which to accumulate experiences of discrimination.
More comprehensive information from the study, including methodology, complete demographic data on survey respondents, detailed analysis of the findings, and comments from survey respondents will be included in the final report (forthcoming in December 2011).
[Download the preliminary report from the
Alaska LGBT Community Survey Task Force website]
The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey came about as a result of a perceived need for quantifiable data on the incidence of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals in the Municipality of Anchorage. It represents the first effort since the late 1980s to compile rigorous data about the incidence of sexual orientation bias and discrimination in Anchorage — and the first effort ever to document Anchorage or Alaska-specific data about discrimination and bias on the basis of gender identity and expression.
The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey is a collaborative project of the Alaska LGBT community and a coalition of Alaska organizations which serve the LGBT community, including Identity, Inc., the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (Four A’s), Alaskans Together for Equality (ATE), Equality Works, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alaska. The survey questionnaire and overall research project were designed by members of the Alaska LGBT Community Survey Task Force in consultation with Dr. Brad A. Myrstol and Khristy Parker of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage. Shelby Carpenter, LGBT Public Policy Coordinator with the ACLU of Alaska during the first half of work on the survey, was project manager for survey distribution and data collection, assisted by Drew Phoenix. Dr. Myrstol conducted statistical analysis on the final dataset. The principal investigator for the study is Melissa S. Green, who prepared this report and is also writing the final report. Questions about the survey can be directed to her at alaskacommunity@gmail.com.
Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey: Preliminary Report by Melissa S. Green is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.identityinc.org/.
Press release
Here is the text of the media advisory released this morning by Identity.
For Immediate Release
Identity
Phyllis Rhodes, Executive Director
907-929-4528
Report shows discrimination against lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender Alaskans.
Anchorage, AK, Nov. 10, 2011 — The nonprofit group Identity released today preliminary results of a study conducted this year about discrimination in Anchorage’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey’s initial results indicate members of the LGBT community in Anchorage continue to experience significant levels of discrimination in areas of employment, housing, education, public services and child custody as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity or presentation. They also experience high levels of verbal harassment and physical violence.
“Unfortunately, we know discrimination within the LGBT community continues to be a problem in Anchorage as it does in other communities across the country,” stated Phyllis Rhodes, Executive Director of Identity. “The survey will help us quantify the problems we face so we can work to eliminate discrimination in our community as a whole.”
In the area of employment, 44 percent of respondents reported being harassed by employers or other employees; nearly 21 percent believed they were turned down for a job when otherwise qualified; almost 18 percent were denied a promotion and close to 15 percent said they were fired by their employer based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
In housing, over 18 percent of respondents reported being harassed by a landlord or other tenants, and more than 10 percent said they were denied a housing lease, even though they were otherwise qualified, because they were LGBT.
The Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey also shows that roughly three out of four survey respondents experienced verbal abuse, and nearly 43 percent were subjected to threats of physical violence. Further, almost 13 percent experienced property damage because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Melissa S. Green was the principal investigator for the project and authored the preliminary report released today. Green was also part of two similar research efforts in the 1980s conducted by Identity to document sexual orientation bias and discrimination in Alaska. The new study added transgender Alaskans to the survey and was conducted between January and March of this year, and involved paper and online surveys collected from 268 respondents in Anchorage who identified themselves as being LGBT. The project was designed by members of the Alaska LGBT Community Survey Task Force in consultation with Dr. Brad A. Myrstol and Khristy Parker of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage. Dr. Myrstol also assisted with statistical analysis.
Identity is an Anchorage-based, nonprofit organization founded in 1977, and provides programs supporting equality for the LGBT community and its allies. The complete report from the Anchorage LGBT Discrimination Survey will be released in December 2011.
Identity
Phyllis Rhodes, Executive Director
907-929-4528
A copy of the complete preliminary report is available online at www.identityinc.org or alaskacommunity.org.
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Meet Penny Arcade & drink great wine — this Saturday at Out North
Good wine, good company, good organizations!
Enjoy some really great wine, provided by our friends at La Bodega! Meet Penny Arcade, Performance Artist, before Saturday night’s show of B!D!F!W! Penny Arcade’s Sex and Censorship Show at Out North! And benefit some really great organizations — Identity, Northern Exposure, and Out North!
(La Bodega was already Bent Alaska editor Mel Green’s favorite liquor store — cool to know that it’s also supporting some of my favorite organizations!)
- Date/time: Saturday, November 12, 6:-00-8:00 PM
- Location: Out North Contemporary Art House, 3800 DeBarr Road Anchorage (see map)
- Cost of admission: $15 per person
- Further info: see Facebook events page
Candlelight vigils for homeless youth in Fairbanks & Anchorage today & tomorrow — & why this matters to LGBTQ Alaskans
According to a 2007 study by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), between 20 and 40 percent of the estimated 1.6 million homeless youth in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) — highly disproportionate to their representation in the general population. And so: youth homelessness is an LGBT issue. Which we suggest is a good reason for members of the LGBT communities of Fairbanks and Anchorage to join in two candlelight vigils for homeless youth taking place today and tomorrow.
“Out in the Silence” showing a successful event for Anchorage-area GSAs
Out in the Silence was shown two nights ago (Sunday, Nov. 6th) at Out North. It was an excellent turnout of students, families, allies, and friends to address the issue of bullying of our teens that is brought up in the video.
