TMZ is reporting music superstar Tina Turner’s eldest son, Craig Raymond Turner, has committed suicide.
Cause of death is reported to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Studio City, California.
Law enforcement uthorities arrived at his place shortly after noon on Tuesday where was pronounced dead at the scene.
Los Angeles County coroner’s office assistant chief Ed Winter confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Turner’s death was reported as a suicide and that he had a gunshot wound. An autopsy is pending.
Craig was born when Tina was only 18-years-old, prior to her relationship and subsequent marriage to Ike Turner, Ike adopted him after they wed. Craig’s biological father was a saxophonist named Raymond Hill.
Craig worked in the real estate business in the San Fernando Valley area prior to his death. He was 59 years old.
Tina, now 78-years-old living in Switzerland, was scheduled to travel to France this week to attend Paris Fashion Week events.
Since 2012, employee healthcare plans for coffee company Starbucks has covered gender reassignment surgery for its transgender employees.
But now, the coffee giant has announced expanded coverage for trans employees including breast augmentation, breast reduction, facial feminization and hair transplants.
In exploring new options for trans employees, the coffee purveyor consulted with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Starbucks was the first company in the world to ask WPATH to help translate their recommended standards of care into a medical benefits policy, said Jamison Green, the immediate past president of WPATH, who worked with the company on the benefits package.
“Starbucks was not afraid to ask all the right questions and demand that people get the best possible care,” said Green. “We produced a list of the most crucial benefits and those that are deemed problematic to insurance companies, such as facial feminization and electrolysis.”
Many of the new procedures now available to Starbucks employees were considered ‘cosmetic’ by most insurance companies and therefore not covered. But for trans people, these are essential to trans people in their journey to be who they are.
Tate Buhrmester, 15 year employee of Starbucks, manages a store in Austin, Texas.
A 2014 report from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute found that 41 percent of the 6,500 transgender adults who responded to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey had attempted suicide at some point, compared to the 4.6 percent of the overall population.
One reason for the high percentage of suicide attempts may be “due to distress related to barriers to obtaining transition-related health care, such as a lack of insurance coverage, inability to afford those procedures, or lack of access to providers,” the report authors wrote.
Plus, trans people can often have trouble finding trans-friendly healthcare providers. To address those barriers, Starbucks has advocates trained to work with trans employees to help them navigate the healthcare systems, find the proper providers and help in making sure claims are covered.
A new web series, West 40s, plans to explore the lives of five gay men who live in New York City’s Hells Kitchen as they begin to approach middle age.
Creators Mark Sam Rosenthal and Brian Sloan describe the new series thusly: “In their 30s, they’d meet strangers on the Hell’s Kitchen sidewalk and have sex in less time than it took to climb the four flights up to their apartments. But now past 40 they’re all wondering what they want for the long haul – and questioning whether they can still make it up those stairs!”
The show stars Dalton Blaine, Dan Domingues, Jeff Hiller, Matthew Montelongo, John-Andrew Morrison, and Rosenthal.
The first full episode will be available in mid-July but you can check out the short teaser below.
St. Vincent in a sea of bears for “Fast Slow Disco”
I know, I know… No one wants to see a dance floor full of sexy, gay, leather-clad, harness-wearing bears grinding and pawing at each other to an edgy, sweaty, hypnotic beat.
But if you did…
St. Vincent (whose real name is Annie Clark) recently reimagined her song “Slow Disco” into a sensual, euphoric remix and set the music video in a late night dance club.
Climbing over, under and around the crowd of shirtless men who are touching, swaying and making out, St. Vincent is basically swimming a virtual bear soup.
After shooting the video, the artist took time to strike a pose with her boys which she shared on her social media:
(photo: Tom Cat Hill)
Produced by St. Vincent and Jack Antonoff, the singer says the remix was inspired by Taylor Swift, who Antonoff is close to.
“I don’t want to start a weird rumour or anything,” Clark said, “but I swear to God, you know because Jack Antonoff’s bros with Taylor Swift because they work together a lot, and I feel like Taylor was like, ‘You should make this a pop song’.”
She also shared that she imagined the sound of the track as a tribute to the Queen of Pop. “For me it was like, it’s such a homage to ‘Like A Prayer’-era Madonna.”
Announcing the release, St. Vincent tweeted to her 1 million followers, “Happy Pride. It was sweet of these boys to let me crash their party.”
On YouTube, St. Vincent told her fans, “I always felt this song could wear different outfits and live many different lives. Here she is in disco pants, sweating on a New York dance floor.”
St. Vincent has previously shared that she doesn’t identify as gay or straight.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, she said: ‘I don’t think about those words. I believe in gender fluidity and sexual fluidity [so] I don’t really identify as anything.”
‘You can fall in love with anybody,” she added. “I don’t have anything to hide but I’d rather the emphasis be on music.”
— Women and Equalities (@WomenEqualities) July 3, 2018
Medical experts around the world including the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and almost every other professional therapeutic group in America, have denounced the practice of so-called “conversion” or “ex-gay” therapy as inappropriate, unethical, harmful and, in some cases, can lead to suicide.
The approach of “conversion therapy’ is based on the premise that LGBTQ people are suffering from a mental condition that needs to be ‘fixed.” The World Health Organization declassified homosexuality a mental condition in 1992.
In the United States, 13 states plus Washington, D.C. and over 30 local municipalities ban the harmful practice for minors.
Reacting to the survey’s results, British Prime Minister Theresa May issued a statement saying he felt “struck by just how many respondents said they cannot be open about their sexual orientation or avoid holding hands with their partner in public for fear of a negative reaction.”
“No one should ever have to hide who they are or who they love,” the UK leader said. “This LGBT action plan will set out concrete steps to deliver real and lasting change across society, from health and education to tackling discrimination and addressing the burning injustices that LGBT people face.”
Ruth Hunt, chief executive of the British LGBT rights group Stonewall, hailed the new initiative by the government as “an important first step” but added that it needs to lead to “tangible change.”
“Some people will be shocked by the findings. But for anyone who is LGBT, or has a family member or friend who is, these results will be sadly recognizable,” she said in a statement. “Laws have improved and attitudes have changed but our society still treats LGBT people like second-class citizens.”
Clearly, Donald Trump never received any positive reinforcement during his childhood.
No one must have ever told him any thing was good enough because as an adult in a position of immense power now, he demands praise whenever the mood strikes him.
In the aftermath of a by The Washington Post on Sunday which quoted U.S. officials who now believe Kim Jong Un has no intention of denuclearization, Trump took to Twitter to claim the credit for the U.S. not being at war with North Korea.
“Many good conversations with North Korea-it is going well! In the meantime, no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months. All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining. If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!”
Many good conversations with North Korea-it is going well! In the meantime, no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months. All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining. If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!
• I’m going to try this next time Michael is wrong and starts a disagreement – InstaHunks Rick and the Griffopotamus shared this pic today with the caption, “It was one of those Monday’s where every little annoyance felt like it would blow up into an argument. We decided to just keep our mouths busy doing other things… problem solved! #relationshipHack #husbands #lovewins #kiss #mondaymotivation”
• A gay couple in Ireland was attacked and brutally beaten by a gang of four young men. One of the victims suffered broken jaw bones, lost four front teeth and has nerve damage.
• Bette Midler, of all people, was accused of homophobia when she joked on Twitter about Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Trump and Putin are meeting in Finland next month. That’s a long way to travel for a blowjob, but hey — Putin’s got the money.”
• Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former attorney and “fixer,” told ABC News that his loyalties lie with his family and country, not his former client.
• Congressional Democrats are asking the Pentagon why there was no official memo recognizing June as Pride Month nor was there any senior leadership at the annual Pride event. The concern is the lack of recognition marks a decline in LGBTQ support.
• Speaking at a rally for immigration reform this weekend, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) slapped back at Trump supporters calling for death threats against her:
“All I have to say is this: If you shoot me, you better shoot straight. There’s nothin’ like a wounded animal. I am not about to let this country go by the way of Donald Trump. How dare you? How dare you?”
Constable Erik Meechan proposes moments after graduating from police college
There are important moments you remember all your life like graduating from college or proposing marriage.
New police college grad Constable Erik Meechan experienced both on the same day.
At the graduation ceremony of Wing 315 in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, the class of 78 new police officers marked the end of their initial training with a rousing haka.
But there was one more task for Meechan. He asked if his boyfriend of five years, Matty Judd, would please step forward.
As Judd emerged from the audience, the constable dropped to one knee and asked Judd to marry him.
The happy news is Judd said ‘yes’ and the crowd roared their approval.
Meechan later told the New Zealand Herald he had mulled over the proposal for a month but didn’t decide to pop the question for sure until just days before.
“I wasn’t 100 per cent sure until a couple days out. We actually got his ring customised and that arrived the day before so it was cutting it pretty fine,” he said.
Meechan, who was also honored with the Commissioner’s Award for Leadership, says he chose to propose at the graduation ceremony because, “I just wanted it to be a bit special, a bit different.”
Being on the receiving end of the marriage proposal, Judd said, “I think he wanted to do something extravagant that I would appreciate. And I did.”
“It was a really good time and place, and also it’s quite rare to get all our family together in the same place, so it was good to get them all together,” he added.
Commissioner Mike Bush, who attended the ceremony, was one of the first to congratulate the happy couple. He also expressed pride at how his police department has embraced the diversity of modern New Zealand.
“It was just awesome,” he says. “The fact that Erik felt so safe and supported in that environment was a fantastic demonstration of what our core value of valuing diversity is all about.”
“I wish Eric and Matty all the very best for the future,” he added.
Dancing with the Stars and America’s Next Top Model champ Nyle DiMarco covers Gay Times Magazine this month to sexy effect.
Posing naked for the camera, the handsome model and activist was covered with the phrase ‘I love you’ in American Sign Language with body paint by artist Cacho Falcon sending a message of support to the LGBTQ deaf community.
In his interview, DiMarco points out some of the immense challenges that deaf people face in a hearing world.
“There is a massive number of people, groups of people, who are not being heard or who are overlooked. Despite the power of social media, which could be a useful tool to educate people, we’ve become so divided and so afraid to open up, listen, and communicate. We need to start listening to each other.
“How can 466 million people with hearing loss join in on that conversation and find their ‘identity’ if they are denied access to what they’re saying? Often there are not interpreters at Pride events for Deaf LGBTQ people and allies. The best solution is to have Deaf and people with disabilities involved in organising Pride events.”
On growing up deaf, the 29-year-old says, ““I’m the fourth generation in my family that is Deaf. My two brothers, parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are all Deaf.”
Calling American Sign Language his native language, DiMarco shares that “ASL gave me the language foundation I needed for success from an early age.”
“Growing up with ASL I was able to dictate my life, able to define myself, and able to identify myself as Deaf Queer with pride and confidence – without language and communication barriers,” he added.
And speaking of barriers, DiMarco would like to see more come down for deaf people in Hollywood. “We need to empower Deaf people in Hollywood because we have thousands of fascinating stories to share,” he told Gay Times. “And those stories need to be told by Deaf people through our unique Deaf eyes and perspective.”
Talking on the intersectionality of being both deaf and queer, DiMarco believes there should be greater participation of people with disabilities in the planning of LGBTQ Pride events.
“Often, we are deprived of information due to lack of captioning. We miss important information. When an inspiring LGBTQ role model speaks at a huge LGBTQ event on national television, we miss that information. I think that does take a toll on our LGBTQ pride and can be easily fixed.”
“I remember back in the day YouTube was one of the biggest platforms where people could openly discuss their sexuality, but there were no captions. How can 466 million people with hearing loss join in on that conversation and find their ‘identity’ if they are denied access to what they’re saying?”
“Often there are not interpreters at Pride events for Deaf LGBTQ people and allies. The best solution is to have Deaf and people with disabilities involved in organising Pride events.”
And when it comes to sexual identity, DiMarco calls for more education on the concept of sexuality as a spectrum. “When a person asks me what being fluid means, I always tell them that there is no one right way to define fluidity,” said the outspoken activist. “There needs to be more positive representation of male fluidity. Everyone should feel represented and valued and that has a lot to do with who we see on screen.”
Explaining he has always felt “different,” he shares that he never talked about sexuality because he had no role models. “When I started talking about it, it got much easier,” said DiMarco. “It helped me discover my identity. Talking about it also helped me realize that despite not having role models growing up, I could be one for the future generation.”
You can head over to Gay Times for more from the sexy hottie. Check out a behind-the-scenes video below for more of yummy Nyle DiMarco.
