Sunday, 6 October 2013 – 5:19 PM
| Comments Off on A long-overdue Bent Alaska update — October 2013
Bent Alaska’s blog will continue in hiatus indefinitely; but the Bent Alaska Facebook Group on Facebook is thriving — join us! A long-overdue update from Bent Alaska’s editor.
Sunday, 13 June 2010 – 7:05 AM
| Comments Off on "City of Borders" at Mini Film Fest for Anchorage Pride
The Bear Tooth is hosting a GLBT Mini-Fest for Anchorage Pride Week with three movies: City of Borders (an Israeli documentary), The Big Gay Musical (a romantic date movie) – both showing on Monday June 21 – and the 1994 classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert showing Thursday June 24.
In the heart of Jerusalem stands an unusual symbol of unity that defies generations of segregation, violence and prejudice: a gay bar called Shushan. City of Borders goes inside this vibrant underground sanctuary on the East/West border of the Holy City, where people of opposing nationalities, religions and sexual orientations create a community among people typically viewed as each other’s “enemy.” The documentary follows the daily lives of the five Israeli and Palestinian patrons as they navigate the minefield of politics, religion and discrimination to live and love openly. In observing the lives of the bar regulars, City of Borders explores the bond forged when people from warring worlds embrace what everyone shares in common – the right to be accepted and belong – rather than be defined, or limited by the differences that tear them apart. (Israel, US 2009, not rated)
Saturday, 12 June 2010 – 2:16 PM
| Comments Off on "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" at Mini Film Fest for Anchorage Pride
The Bear Tooth is hosting a GLBT Mini-Fest for Anchorage Pride Week with three movies: City of Borders (an Israeli documentary), The Big Gay Musical (a romantic date movie) – both showing on Monday June 21 – and the 1994 classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert showing Thursday June 24.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Thursday, June 24 at 10 PM, tickets $3
This is the tale of two drag queens and a transsexual who embark on a road trip to a remote resort town in the Australian desert on a bus christened Priscilla. When Anthony “Tick”/Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) is invited to perform in Alice Springs, he recruits flamboyant young stud Adam/Felicia (Guy Pearce) and the legendary, refined Bernadette (Terence Stamp) to join him. Mitzi, however, fails to disclose one important fact to his friends: his wife is the one who invited them to Alice Springs.
With one big secret about to be revealed and another one up his sleeve, Mitzi is a little stressed. With long hours on the road ahead of them, the trio lip-synchs campy songs on the bus, creates fabulous costumes, and meets a multitude of colorful characters along the way. They party with friendly aborigines, are confronted by judgmental townspeople who are averse to drag queens, and meet Bob (Bill Hunter), a warmhearted mechanic and drag fan who joins them for the last leg of their trip when their bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere.
Fantastic costumes and fabulous makeup abound, and fine performances are delivered all around. But perhaps most important are the implicit messages that families come in all forms, that friends can make a family, and that love really knows no boundaries.
It’s the Australian film that blitzed overseas box offices. It caused a near riot at the Cannes Film Festival. It won an Academy Award®. It’s fun, daring, over-the-top and unforgettable. It’s a road movie with attitude and the occasional frock. (Australia 1994, Rated R)
Saturday, 12 June 2010 – 5:14 AM
| Comments Off on "The Big Gay Musical" at Mini Film Fest for Anchorage Pride
The Bear Tooth is hosting a GLBT Mini-Fest for Anchorage Pride Week with three movies: City of Borders (an Israeli documentary), The Big Gay Musical (a romantic date movie) – both showing on Monday June 21 – and the 1994 classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert showing Thursday June 24.
Paul and Eddie have just begun previews for the new Off-Broadway musical “Adam and Steve Just the Way God Made ‘Em.” Their lives strangely mirror the characters they are playing. Paul is looking for the perfect man and Eddie is dealing with how his sexuality and faith can mix. After yet another disastrous dating experience, Paul has an epiphany. He is done dating and just wants to be a slut like the sexy chorus boys that share his dressing room. Eddie has to tell his parents that he’s gay and is starring in a show that calls the bible the “Breeder’s Informational Book of Living Examples”. Eddie comes out to his family and Paul goes on Manhunt. Eddie’s parents are destroyed by the news and Paul can’t even have a good one-night stand. But after musical numbers with scantly clad tap dancing angels, a retelling of Genesis, tele-evangelists, a camp that attempts to turn gay kids straight, and a bunch of showtunes, everyone realizes that life gets better once they accept who they really are. And they are just the way God made ’em. (US 2009, not rated)
McDonald’s France has released a new ad campaign called “Come As You Are” which promotes the fast food chain as a place where diversity is welcomed. Their bittersweet gay-themed ad went viral this week. Some LGBT blogs asked why they chose a closeted gay youth instead of an openly gay character. Then Bill O’Reilly of FOX declared that it would never run in America and compared it to an ad welcoming Muslim terrorists.
Watch the gay-themed McDonald’s ad and see for yourself:
Tuesday, 25 May 2010 – 7:06 AM
| Comments Off on Transgender podcast debuts with Alaska show on "Transpeople and Christianity"
The first show of “Good Morning, TransAmerica!” is now available, with news and discussion on transgender issues around the world, hosted by Anja Gensel of Anchorage, Alaska.
The first show is called “Transpeople and Christianity: Does God have a plan for us?” Anja and her guests address why many fundamentalist Christian churches reject transpeople, how they hijacked the Anchorage Assembly hearings last summer, and why they have it wrong.
We ask the question “Can you be transgendered, AND be a Christian?” We hear from Anchorage Televangelist Jerry Prevo, Pastoral Minister Sarah Gavit of St Mary’s Episcipal Church, and two Christian Transwomen, Kelly Johnson and Piper Moritz.
Another local segment on the show is “TransLife in a small Alaskan town” with commercial fisherman and transwoman, Carrie Thorne. Carrie also discusses her experiences with Dr. Toby Meltzer, who performed SRS, Voice modification and FFS on her.
Other guests include Lisa O. discussing her SRS results performed in Thailand by Dr. Suporn.
Finally, Mental Health Clinician Roni Lanier, M.S. reviews the book: “Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working With Gender-Variant People and Their Families” by Arlene Ister Lev.
Plus, the podcast opens with a review of recent transgender world news.
The second show is called “TransLife in Australia” and will be available in June. For the third show, Anja travels to Chicago to the 2010 “Be-All” International Gender Conference.
“Transpeople and Christianity: Does God have a plan for us?” is available HERE.
A Fairbanks soldier is under investigation for posting on Facebook a video titled “future gay terrorist!” with two Iraqi children being taunted about being homosexuals and terrorists, and writing, “I was bored in Iraq. So I kept myself entertained.”
The young boys don’t understand the soldier’s insults about being gay and liking gay sex, so they nod and smile. When he asks if they will grow up to be terrorists, at first they return his thumbs up, then the older boy realizes the soldier is not being friendly.
Robert Rodriguez, stationed at Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks, made his Facebook page private a week after posting the clip, and his wall and videos are no longer visible to the public. However, a second Alaska-based soldier shared the video, and concerned friends in North Carolina contacted a local television station, which posted this video and the article quoted below:
The 30-second clip shows the two boys standing side by side on a dusty road, and the photographer asks them if they’re gay and engage in homosexual acts. The boys smile and nod, but it’s unclear whether they understand English.
“Are you going to grow up to be a terrorist? Yeah! All right! Cool! Yeah, terrorists! Woo!” the photographer says.
The boys smile and give a thumbs-up signal.
“Are you going to plant IEDs?” the photographer asks. “Yeah, awesome!”
The older boy apparently realizes at this point that they are being mocked, and he holds down the younger boy’s arm.
The video was posted May 14 on the Facebook page of Robert Rodriguez and titled “future gay terrorists.”
Rodriguez describes himself on Facebook as a soldier living in Fairbanks, Alaska. An Army spokesman said a Spc. Robert Rodriguez is stationed at Fort Wainwright, outside of Fairbanks.
It’s unclear whose voice is heard on the video, but in posting the video to Facebook, Rodriguez wrote, “I was bored in Iraq. So I kept myself entertained.”
A North Carolina soldier who also is based in Alaska subsequently shared the video with friends on his Facebook page, and a concerned area resident alerted WRAL News.
“The conduct portrayed in video is disgraceful and clearly inconsistent with the high standards we expect of every Soldier. The incident is currently under investigation. The Army will take appropriate action based on the findings of the investigation,” Maj. Bill Coppernoll, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army in Alaska, said in a statement Friday.
Monday, 10 May 2010 – 5:33 PM
| Comments Off on Country music’s Chely Wright: lesbian white female
So far this year, Latin pop star Ricky Martin came out, then Christian singer Jennifer Knapp came out, then country western singer Chely Wright (known for her hit song “Single White Female”) came out – 2010 may be the year for singers with conservative audiences to come out of the closet and tell their fans that they already know and admire someone gay or lesbian and it’s no big deal.
Wasn’t k.d. lang was the first openly lesbian country music artist? Well, Chely’s great and we should invite her to Anchorage for a book signing and concert. Alaskans love country music!
Check out Chely’s website with her new cd Lifted Off the Ground and her book Like Me.
George Rekers is the co-founder of the Family Research Council and is paid to convince school districts and state courts that gays can be cured. He is also secretly gay, as we learned in this week’s “Rentboy” scandal. Rachel Maddow explains:
Hmm. “When people have built their careers, their professions, on professions of their own sexual moral rectitude – David Vitter, John Ensign – when people have built their careers on trying to make life miserable and dangerous for gay people while they themselves are secretly gay – Larry Craig, George Rekers – then congratulations, you’ve made the news!”
Makes me wonder which Alaskans who have built their careers on making life miserable for gay people might be secretly gay…
Thursday, 29 April 2010 – 4:54 AM
| Comments Off on Don Young on DADT: Don’t trust the Generals
When Rep. Don Young was asked by Matt Felling of KTVA News if he supports the repeal of the military’s gay ban, he answered that President Obama and the Generals don’t have contact with the troops, so the troops should decide instead of the leaders.
Asked whether he would support the repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. Young replied:
Probably not. I think the system has worked. I think we have to recognize that. I am not at ease saying that this would be a plus for the armed services. And I think we ought to stop going to the heads of the so-called military, and the politicians and ask the troops and see how it comes out. That would tell you a lot more. We have a tendency to think that we know more than the common folk. And Obama and Nancy Pelosi is an exaple of that in the health bill.
[Felling] So you think that the Secretary of Defense, and the Generals don’t have the best sense…
I actually don’t think that they… They’re like the President. They don’t have any contact with their troops. The troops in the field, the guy that’s got mud on his boots, and pulling that M-16 trigger, he’s got armor on his chest at 110 degrees, you ought to ask him.
The so-called military??
As for asking the troops what they think, the troops have been asked, more than once. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, holds town hall sessions with troops. At a recent session,
which included not only Marines, but members of the Army and the Air Force, both male and female service members explained their indifference to the issue: They’d already served with gays and lesbians, they accepted that some kind of change was imminent, and, they said, the nation was too engulfed in two wars for a prolonged debate about it.
73 percent of military personnel are comfortable with lesbians and gays (Zogby International, 2006).
The younger generations, those who fight America’s 21st century wars, largely don’t care about whether someone is gay or not, and they do not link job performance with sexual orientation.
One in four U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan or Iraq knows a member of their unit who is gay (Zogby, 2006).
In addition, the public overwhelmingly supports lifting the ban:
Majorities of weekly churchgoers (60 percent), conservatives (58 percent), and Republicans (58 percent) now favor repeal (Gallup, 2009).
Seventy-five percent of Americans support gays serving openly, up from 44 percent in 1993 (ABC News/Washington Post, 2008).
Rep. Young needs to hear this, and he needs to hear that Alaskans support the repeal of DADT.
Congress is likely to vote on the repeal this summer. Young might even vote for it, if we remind him of all the Alaska earmarks he can sneak into the bill. He voted for the Hate Crimes Act for that reason. The Don’t Ask repeal will probably be added to the Defense budget, one of his favorite earmark targets.
Call Rep. Don Young and tell him to stop saying weird sh*t… ahem, that you support the repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell and you encourage him to vote for it.
Sunday, 18 April 2010 – 5:57 AM
| Comments Off on Gay AK: locals win grants & awards, unblock web sites, thank Kristara
News and notes from LGBT Alaska
Gay Youth sites unblocked in Mat-Su schools
The Day of Silence website was unblocked from the Mat-Su school computers a week before the April 16 national event, according to Melissa, a high school student in the district. It was blocked all school year under the catergory of “Pornography/nudity.” She gave her teacher a list of blocked LGBT websites that are age appropriate for students and now they can be accessed from school computers. She thinks that this affects all schools in the Mat-Su School District, but she’s not sure. Go, Melissa!
ACLU wins grant for LGBT voter campaign
The ACLU of Alaska won a 2010 Pride Foundation grant “to identify, educate, and register new pro-LGBT Anchorage voters.” Since 2007, Pride Foundation has invested over $100,000 in twelve organizations that serve Alaska’s LGBTQ community. In addition, numerous Pride Foundation scholars hail from Alaska. The next grant application for organizations based in Alaska will be available in June.
Identity thanks Kristara for birthday fundraiser
Last Saturday night’s fund raiser for the Gay & Lesbian Community Center and Kristara’s birthday was a great evening of community, laughs, and donations for the Center. Our thanks go out to Kristara (ICOAA Empress 17, 26, 30, 32), Myrna, all the divas, Kevin and Paige, Mikey, sound, lights, food, folks at the door, and everyone who was there for this special evening.
72% support hospital visitation
In an unscientific poll conducted by KTUU.com Channel 2 News in Anchorage, respondents were asked, “Should hospitals grant the same visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners that they do to married heterosexual couples?” Of the 430 people who voted, 72% said Yes, and only 28% said No. The April 16 poll was in response to President Obama’s memo ordering the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation, including for gay and lesbian couples.
Gay-Straight Alliance wins UAF Diversity Award
The GSA student group at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks won a Diversity Enrichment Award and $100 at the SOAR awards ceremony on Saturday. The GSA is leading the effort to add gays to the UA non-discrimination policy, participates in the annual Day of Silence against anti-LGBT bullying, and raised awareness about the controversial ex-gays when a workshop was held on campus. Read the full story.
The very real consequences of DADT repeal; seeking survivor benefits for same-sex partner of Alaska shooting victim; waiting on SCOTUS decision about whether it will hear Prop 8 case; and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
In this month’s “Ask Lambda Legal” column, Lambda Legal answers a question about the federal government’s longstanding ban against donations of blood from men who have sex with men (MSM).
Alaska Pride Conference 2012 kicks off on October 5 with a First Friday showing at Tref.Punkt Studio of Love is Love, a photographic exhibit of LGBT couples from across the state.
United for marriage: Light the way to justice. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this Tuesday and Wednesday, March 26–27, in two cases about freedom to marry. Please join us on Tuesday, March 26, at the federal courthouse in Anchorage (7th & C) in a circle united for equality.
Pariah, a critically acclaimed film about a 17-year-old African-American woman embracing her lesbian identity, will screen at UAA on Friday, November 2, and will be followed by a discussion on acceptance in honor of Mya Dale. The event is free and open to the public.
