Articles in Features
Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter (LGBT History Month)
Dustin Lance Black is a screenwriter, director and producer. In 2009, he received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for “Milk,” about openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk. Bent Alaska presents his story as part of our celebration of LGBT History Month 2011, with thanks to the Equality Forum.
Dustin Lance Black
“I heard the story of Harvey Milk and it gave me hope that I could live my life openly as who I am.”
Dustin Lance Black (born June 10, 1974) is a screenwriter, director and producer. In 2009, he received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for “Milk”
Black grew up in a devout Mormon household in San Antonio, Texas. After his mother remarried, he moved to Salinas, California. As a young boy, Black knew he was gay. He believed he would be “hurt and brought down” because of it and that he was going to hell. He says his “acute awareness” of his sexual orientation made him gloomy and sometimes suicidal.
Black’s recent works include the screenplay for “Pedro”
In 2009, Black topped The Advocate’s list of the “Forty under 40” most influential openly gay people. He is an outspoken LGBT activist, serving on the boards of The Trevor Project and the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Black frequently speaks about gay rights to college students across the country.
He resides in Los Angeles.
In May 2008, YouTube videographer castrointhestreets ran into Dustin Lance Black at the unveiling of Harvey Milk’s new statue in San Francisco’s City Hall, and interviewed him. Watch:
For more about Dustin Lance Black, visit his website, LGBT History Month page, or Wikipedia article.
Photo credit: Dustin Lance Black at the 81st Academy Awards, 22 Feb 2009. Photo by Greg Hernandez (greginhollywood on Flickr), used in accordance with Creative Commons license.
John Berry, government official (LGBT History Month)
John Berry is the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). He is the highest-ranking openly gay federal employee in U.S. history — and has a mountain in Antarctica named after him! Bent Alaska presents his story as part of our celebration of LGBT History Month 2011, with thanks to the Equality Forum.
John Berry
“Each time we act against discrimination, we add a ring of life to the American tree of liberty.”
John Berry (born February 10, 1959 ) is the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). He is the highest-ranking openly gay federal employee in U.S. history.
Born in Rockville, Maryland, Berry is the son of two federal government employees. His father served in the U.S. Marine Corps and his mother worked for the U.S. Census Bureau.
Berry earned his Bachelor of Arts in government from the University of Maryland and a Master of Public Administration from Syracuse University. His first federal government job was as legislative director for U.S. Representative Steny Hoyer. Thereafter, he served as deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement at the U.S. Treasury Department.
After two years as director of government relations at the Smithsonian Institution, Berry was appointed assistant secretary for policy, management and budget at the U.S. Department of the Interior in the Clinton administration.
Prior to joining the Obama administration, Berry pursued his interest in environmental conservation as the director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and subsequently as director of the National Zoo.
In 2009, President Obama appointed Berry to his current position, where he is responsible for recruiting, hiring and benefits policies for 1.9 million federal employees.
With Berry’s appointment came accolades from the LGBT and mainstream communities. “The selection of John Berry is a meaningful step forward for the LGBT community,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Humans Rights Campaign. John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, described Berry as the “perfect choice for the OPM. He’s smart, courageous, and has all the right experience in policy and in politics.”
In 2009, Berry served as the keynote speaker for the International Gay & Lesbian Leadership Conference in San Francisco.
One of the few Americans to stand on both the North and South Poles, Berry’s government career has taken him around the globe and literally to the ends of the earth. There is a mountain in Antarctica named after him: the Berry Bastion.
In December 2010 John Berry recorded a video for the It Gets Better Project. Watch:
For more about John Berry, visit his LGBT History Month page or Wikipedia article.
Photo credit: John Berry, official portrait, 13 April 2009, United States Office of Personnel Management.
Alison Bechdel, cartoonist (LGBT History Month 2011)
Alison Bechdel is a celebrated cartoonist and author of the long-running comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. Her groundbreaking graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, was awarded the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book. Bent Alaska presents her story as part of our celebration of LGBT History Month 2011, with thanks to the Equality Forum.
Alison Bechdel
“The [comic] strip is about all kinds of things, not just gay and lesbian issues—births, deaths and everything in-between happen to everyone.”
Alison Bechdel (b. September 10, 1960) is a celebrated cartoonist and author of the long-running comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. Her groundbreaking graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, was awarded the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book.
A native of central Pennsylvania, Bechdel and her siblings grew up in a small town. Her parents both taught at the local high school and her father, the subject of her first memoir, was the town’s mortician. Bechdel attended Oberlin College, where she graduated with a B.A. in 1981.
Dykes to Watch Out For was published in 1983 and became a syndicated comic strip in 1985. With her signature subtle wit, Bechdel took on the complex and often stereotyped world of lesbian relationships through her comic alter ego, Mo. The strip has become a cult classic.
Bechdel resides outside of Burlington, Vermont.
Alison Bechdel was interviewed by MiND TV about her bestselling graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
For more about Alison Bechdel, visit the Dykes to Watch Out For website, the Alison Bechdel page on Amazon.com
Photo credit: Alison Bechdel came to Brussels to promote her new autobiographical book Fun Home. She signed her book in the comic store Brüselm 29 Oct 2006. Photo by Tineke on Flickr; used in accordance with Creative Commons license.
John Ashbery, poet (LGBT History Month 2011)
John Ashbery is one of the most successful 20th century poets. He has won almost every major American literary award, including the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Bent Alaska presents his story as part of our celebration of LGBT History Month 2011, with thanks to the Equality Forum.
John Ashbery
“My poetry is disjunct, but then so is life.”
John Ashbery (b. July 28, 1927) is one of the most successful 20th century poets. He has won almost every major American literary award, including the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Ashbery graduated from Harvard University, where he studied English and served on the editorial board of the Harvard Advocate. He received his master’s degree from Columbia University. After graduating, Ashbery spent three years in publishing before moving to Paris on a Fulbright scholarship.
Returning to the U.S. in 1957, Ashbery attended graduate classes at New York University. Thereafter, he returned to Paris, where he supported himself as an editor. He eventually moved back to the U.S. to become the executive editor of ARTNews magazine.
Ashbery’s success began with frequent publication of his poems in magazines such as Furioso and Poetry New York. While in France, his book Some Trees won the Yale Younger Poet’s Prize. He has won many awards, including the Bollingen Prize and the McArthur Foundation’s “Genius Award.”
His Pulitzer Prize-winning poem “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” which also won the National Book Award and the National Critics Circle Award, is unique for its triple prize status. The poem pulls together his favored themes: creating poetry and the influence of visual arts on his work.
Ashbery’s career has been marked by controversy. Response to his poetry ranges from praise for his brilliant expressionism and use of language to condemnation for his work’s nonsensical and elusive nature.
A prolific writer, he has published over 20 books of poetry
Here he is reading his poem “”Interesting People of Newfoundland” from Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems
For more about John Ashbery, visit his LGBT History Month page or Wikipedia article.
Photo credit: Poet John Ashbery at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival’s gala for the presentation of Best of Brooklyn, Inc’s BoBI Award, 12 September 2010. Photo by David Shankbone, via Wikimedia Commons.
Kye Allums, athlete (LGBT History Month 2011)
Kye Allums, is the first openly transgender athlete to play NCAA Division I college basketball. Bent Alaska presents his story as part of our celebration of LGBT History Month 2011, with thanks to the Equality Forum.
Choosing Alaska: Fairbanks is a good cup of coffee
We recently posted a letter from a grad student and a letter from a gay couple asking for similar advice: What is it like to live and work in Alaska as an openly-LGBT person? KHW describes his experience living in Fairbanks as a gay Asian male who recently graduated from college on the east coast.
It got better: A gay youth’s gratitude
Earlier today, Box Turtle Bulletin posted a video today from a gay teenager named Dylan thanking a gay couple for their “It Gets Better” YouTube video.
Zack Ford at Think Progress tells us more:
Dylan found an “It Gets Better” video from YouTube user “depfox,” gay couple Jay and Bryan Leffew with their kids Daniel and Selena. Through the Leffew family, Dylan saw that he didn’t have to pray away the gay or repress his identity. He could, in fact, grow up to have the loving family that he has dreamed of.
Watch (and be sure to read the comments on Dylan’s YouTube page):
Zack Ford continues,
Since posting his thank-you to the Leffews last month, he has since made a follow-up video telling his own coming out story in which he also talks about how important Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns’ video was for him as he was figuring out his identity. Dylan’s journey is far from over, because though he came out to the world at large on YouTube, he still hasn’t talked to his family about his identity. Still, by coming out, he is already on a better path.
Is it fair to suggest that IGB saved Dylan’s life? Yes. Nobody will ever know what his story might have been, but if some Internet videos helped him avoid a life of denial, depression, and psychologically harmful ex-gay therapy, that is surely a victory. It’s pretty hard to call something “useless” that has saved a life, and it would be foolish to assume Dylan is alone. “It Gets Better” is making it better one video at a time just by being there for young eyes to see. Keep them coming.
Dan Savage has described “It Gets Better” as a “message in a bottle” to LGBT and questioning youth. Sometimes that message makes all the difference.
Choosing Alaska: Soldotna “sisters” light the closed minds of others
“My partner and I have lived in Soldotna for 11 years now,” writes Klondyke.”We are openly gay women yet still some people like to think we are just ‘sisters.'” From our series Choosing Alaska on living and working in Alaska as LGBT.
Choosing Alaska: A garden, a sauna and a dog
“I suggest a garden fence to protect your crop from moose,” Tallimat recommends to a gay couple thinking about moving to Alaska. “It is best that the fence be so tall that it can be seen from space.” From our series Choosing Alaska on living and working in Alaska as LGBT.
On being a greenie gay girl in a man’s mining camp, or, Perspective: Part two
by Taylor
“These people” are educated, they vote, and they are human. They have families, friends, people they don’t get along with, problems. In spite of myself, I find myself allowing them access to my thoughts and feelings. Second of a series. See Part One.
“Ain’t no rest for the wicked!” A commonly-heard anecdote in this place. If only those that uttered it knew just how apt I once found it, considering the source.
No, these aren’t evil people. Just confused, and with no real curiosity to explore the depths of what our profit-driven social system would have them believe. Ignorance, it would seem, is truly bliss. I’ve had the chance to know this, first-hand.
We of the more left-leaning communities suffer from our own brands of ignorance. We assume that the characters that occupy the space in which I currently exist, are uneducated. We assume that they lack drive to vote, or do anything besides consume PBR. We assume that Geico’s TV ad, which touts, “It’s so easy, a caveman could do it”, applies in a way that is humorously ironic to these individuals. I can state with a fair level of certainty that the educated, aware, progressive factions of our society have assumed wrongly, on so many different levels.
I have met more drillers with bachelor’s degrees out here than I can count, many in Accounting or Business Management, or Sciences. Their reason for doing this work? It lets them work in the great outdoors, it allows them to see different parts of the country — and sometimes, the world — and it pays well. And I can say that these educated walking contradictions, to a man, believe, first and foremost, in their Second Amendment rights, are at least some breed of Social Conservative, and worship the ground Sarah Palin walks on. If there are those that don’t fit this bill, then they have remained silent, or blended in. Those of us that must be malleable in order to camouflage recognize it easily in others.
“These people” are educated, they vote, and they are human. They have families, friends, people they don’t get along with, problems. In spite of myself, I find myself allowing them access to my thoughts and feelings. I find my carefully constructed walls compromised as I find things to like, if not admire, in each of them. The human desire to find camaraderie anywhere will always win out over social cliques…or, in microcosms of human society such as my workplace, we’d all kill each other. Stranger things have happened, especially in three weeks’ worth of work-imposed isolation from society.
My duty rotations run three weeks on, one week off. Just enough time to become acclimated to camp, and for paved roads, vegan food, and safe spaces for queer people to drink and date to become foreign concepts.
For three weeks, I’m not Taylor, I am the Medic. I am not genderqueer or even really gay, but I AM “butch enough to hang out with”. I am not Leftist, I am Middle of the Road…at least, outwardly. I drink with “the boys”, even if it is cheap, bad beer, and even if I don’t actually drink with them, I just hang out and sip my water, or tea (this particular company allots each employee two beers per day…believe it or not, such camps do exist, but usually, only in the explorations phase).
For three weeks, people that would ordinarily have nothing to do with me — in fact, I rather suspect they would literally like to take a shot at me, ordinarily — profess that they “have my back”, and will help out in the event of a serious incident. A few are sincere. A greater number are likely responding to what our inner psyches rail against in an environment such as this: Loneliness.
Though the armor plating of my alternate self does not fall away, there is a strange merging of that armor and my sense of self, such that, I may begin to breathe and feel as a different person. If my super-power is compartmentalization and putting on a good act, my kryptonite is forgetting where the act ends and I begin. I find myself relenting (or even acceding) regarding topics that, in another space, place or time, would leave me running rabid circles around my brain in order to piece together a rational counter-argument…or a back-handed comment, whichever comes first.
I become acclimated to the pejorative terms so casually slung about. My head no longer turns at any racial slur I might hear (and there are many). Jokes about various bits of male anatomy being inspected for health problems become commonplace in my proximity, and I might laugh a bit, before telling the offending party where to stick it. Here, sexual harassment sensitivity training is often defined as “telling you where the line is, and how to stand on it, without quite toeing over that boundary”.
For all our collective differences, though, the members of this camp work with each other as well-tuned pistons and crankshafts in a much larger engine that occasionally backfires with no apparent reason. Indeed, the dynamic of this camp was once described to me by a co-worker thusly: The world’s largest, most passive-aggressive, dysfunctional family imaginable. Avoidance of interaction, entirely, is not an option here, so one opts, instead, to either soften the rough edges of individuality, or to become a chameleon.
