Tag: Pride Month

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Trump Administration Rejecting Requests To Fly Pride Flags At US Embassies

NBC News reports that the Trump administration is rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow pride flag on embassy flagpoles during LGBTQ Pride Month.

NBC News reports that the Trump administration is rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow pride flag on embassy flagpoles during LGBTQ Pride Month.

The U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia are among those that have requested permission from Trump’s State Department to fly the pride flag on their flagpoles and have been denied, diplomats said.

Although the pride flag can and is being flown elsewhere on embassy grounds, including inside embassies and on exterior walls, the decision not to allow it on the official flagpole stands in contrast to President Donald Trump’s claim to be a leader in supporting LGBTQ rights overseas.

Trump’s administration has announced a campaign to decriminalize homosexuality overseas and this month issued a tweet and formal statement to “celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made.”

The denials to U.S. embassies have come from the office of the State Department’s undersecretary for management, Brian Bulatao, a longtime associate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who also worked for him at the CIA. Under State Department policy, embassies that want to fly the flag on their flagpoles are expected to obtain permission from Washington.

There’s irony in that one of the embassies being told ‘no’ is in Germany. Donald Trump’s Ambassador to Germany, openly gay Richard Grenell, is supposedly leading the international campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality around the world.

The Obama administration had no problem allowing pride flags to be flown during Pride Month.

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Perfect For Pride – ‘Shave With Pride’ Set From LGBTQ Ally Harry’s

Even though I’m a beard kinda guy, I still have to shave to trim things up to look neat and presentable (for those times when I’m not at my computer blogging).

So, I was stoked to see this ‘Shave with Pride‘ set by Harry’s – the men’s grooming company.

I discovered Harry’s shaving blades years ago and I’m a fan. They’re high quality and their prices can’t be beat.

But their Shave with Pride set is way cool.

Encased in a colorful, distinctive box designed by artist José Roda to represent the individualism of the LGBTQ community, the set comes with a rainbow no-two-are-alike iridescent handle, three blades, shave gel and a travel cover to protect fingers when fishing in a dock kit while traveling.

But wait – there’s more!

While the set costs just $25, Harry’s is donating 100% of the proceeds to The Trevor Project, the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.

You’re basically making a donation to The Trevor Project and getting this way cool shave set as a bonus!

Makes a great Father’s Day gift, too, folks 🙂

Harry’s has a long history as an ally for the LGBTQ community.

In April, the grooming company released a new ad that causally includes a transgender man in the spot with narration that tells them, “You can shave to feel like you.”

The one-minute spot by the men’s grooming brand, titled ‘Shave, or Don’t,’ makes it clear Harry’s has your back whether you shave or not.

Last year, the shaving giant debuted their Shave with Pride set (designed by Craig & Karl) celebrating Pride Month with 100% of the profits going to GLAAD, which works through entertainment, news, and digital media to share stories from the LGBTQ community that accelerate acceptance.

And, Harry’s is a proud sponsor of London Pride.

“Harry’s has a proud history of working with organizations that help challenge out-dated stereotypes and who aim to shift attitudes and behaviors that devalue marginalized groups,” said Harry’s co-founder Jeff Raider.

“Our support for Pride is a natural extension of that. As a company, we embrace individuality and celebrate diversity, so we’re extremely proud to be an LGBTQ+ ally.”

The men’s grooming brand also produced an acclaimed three-minute short film on the meaning of ‘masculinity’ featuring a young boy explaining how to be a man to an alien.

I’m told the Shave with Pride set has been so popular, Harry’s website was cleaned out. But, you can still order by clicking over to Target here.

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Podcast: Taylor Swift, Joe Biden, Homophobes Of The South & Pride Month Begins

In this week's podcast: • An Alabama mayor catches heat for calling for ‘killing out’ the gays • A Tennessee prosecutor says he doesn’t prosecute domestic violence among same-sex couples because ‘it’s not really marriage’ • Taylor Swift calls for passing The Equality Act, which Joe Biden says he would make a top priority • And YouTube Originals produced a new documentary exploring Pride Month across the country, 'State of Pride' All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

In this week’s podcast:

• An Alabama mayor catches heat for calling for ‘killing out’ the gays

• A Tennessee prosecutor says he doesn’t prosecute domestic violence among same-sex couples because ‘it’s not really marriage’

• Taylor Swift calls for passing The Equality Act, which Joe Biden says he would make a top priority as president

• And YouTube Originals produced a new documentary exploring LGBTQ Pride across the country, ‘State of Pride’

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

Click here to sign Taylor Swift’s petition in support of The Equality Act: www.change.org/p/support-the-equality-act

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Check Out The Gorgeous New Digital Monument ‘Stonewall Forever’

Today, with generous support from Google, New York’s LGBT Community Center is launching Stonewall Forever, a digital extension of the Stonewall Monument.

In 2016, President Barack Obama ordered 7.7 acres of Christopher Street in New York City to be designated as the Stonewall Monument, the first-ever national monument dedicated to the LGBTQ movement.

Today, with generous support from Google, New York’s LGBT Community Center is launching Stonewall Forever, a digital extension of the Stonewall Monument.

“Stonewall is such a big moment in our history,” Glennda Testone, executive director of New York’s LGBT Community Center, told USA Today. “It is what created the modern day civil rights movement; it’s a symbol for LGBTQ equality around the globe.”

And now LGBTQ people all over the world will be able to experience Stonewall Forever, either on a desktop, mobile or augmented reality app.

Google calls the digital project “a living monument to Pride, connecting diverse voices from the Stonewall era to the millions of voices in today’s LGBTQ+ community.”

William Floyd, head of external affairs for Google, shared with USA Today that “the idea was born out of a question: How do you tell the story of Stonewall in such a way that not only illuminates what happened in history, but it speaks to the activism and a movement going on right now?”

In addition to perusing archived materials like letters, photos, or oral histories, visitors can upload their own memories or experiences inspired by the Stonewall riots to the digital monument.

LGBTQ activist Larry Pfeil calls Stonewall Forever “a dazzling, three-dimension, 360 experience welcoming visitors into an audio-visual collection of individual stories erupting into a virtual rainbow of unity. It’s simply awe inspiring, both for the historical legacy it preserves but its brilliant design and presentation.”

In conjunction with the launch of the digital monument, a new documentary directed by Ro Haber, also titled Stonewall Forever, is being released today as well.

Make sure you visit the remarkable Stonewall Forever digital monument by clicking here.

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YouTube Documentary ‘State Of Pride’ Explores Pride Festivals Across The US

Raymond Braun in ‘State of Pride’

Fifty years after the Stonewall uprising, Oscar-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and YouTube personality Raymond Braun travel to diverse communities for an unflinching look at LGBTQ Pride, from the perspective of a younger generation for whom it still has personal urgency.

The results of their efforts is the new YouTube Originals documentary, State of Pride, which explores Pride festivals across the United States, and asks attendees what these events mean to them today?

(images via Michael Fullem/Rogers & Cowen)

Braun makes a point of chatting with some of the younger festival-goers who may be unaware of what “Stonewall” really was and what it meant to our history.

The creators made sure that they visited not only the big city celebrations like in San Francisco, but also smaller, younger events like those in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where organizers are still building their celebrations.

State of Pride is now streaming on YouTube here.

Official poster for ‘State of Pride’ from YouTube Originals

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Rotten Tomatoes Ranks Top LGBT Films Of All Time

Rotten Tomatoes, the movie ranking website, has compiled its list of the Best 200 LGBTQ-themed films of all time.

Rotten Tomatoes, the movie ranking website, has compiled its list of the Best 200 LGBTQ-themed films of all time.

All of these films stand on the shoulders of other LGBT films that have come before. Our list of the 200 Best LGBT Movies of All Time – expanded from our original list of 150 movies, released last year – stretches back almost 90 years to the pioneering German film, Mädchen in Uniform, which was subsequently banned by the Nazis, and crosses multiple continents, cultures, and genres.

There are broad American comedies (The Birdcage), artful Korean crime dramas (The Handmaiden), groundbreaking indies (Tangerine), and landmark documentaries (Paris Is Burning). In this thorough update and expansion of the list, we added films from the last year in cinema that qualified (from 2018’s We the Animals and The Miseducation of Cameron Post to this year’s The Heiresses and Giant Little Ones and more) and worked to include more stories from outside of the U.S.

To be considered for the list, a movie had to prominently feature gay, lesbian, trans, or queer characters; concern itself centrally with LGBT themes; present its LGBT characters in a fair and realistic light; and/or be seen as a touchpoint in the evolution of queer cinema.

And it had to be Fresh. The final list was culled from a longlist of hundreds, after which the films were ranked according to the Adjusted Tomatometer, which acts as a kind of inflation adjustment, taking into consideration the Tomatometer score, as well as the number of reviews a film received relative to the average number of reviews for films released that same year.

It’s a pretty comprehensive list to be sure. Some folks are surprised at the ranking of certain films versus others, but I think it’s a great list.

Just a few of my favorites here are (in no particular order): Torch Song Trilogy, The Sum of Us, Cabaret, Trick, The Birdcage, Philadelphia, The Hours, The Color Purple, Beach Rats, Boy Erased, The Way He Looks, Rocketman, Longtime Companion, Brokeback Mountain, Victor Victoria, The Kids Are Alright, God’s Country, Call Me By Your Name, Moonlight and Love, Simon.

Click here to check out the list over at Rotten Tomatoes.

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Taylor Swift Urges Federal Government To Pass Equality Act

International pop star Taylor Swift shared a message of support for the LGBTQ community to her 200 million social media followers just minutes into the first day of Pride Month 2019.
Taylor Swift (image via Instagram)

International pop star Taylor Swift shared a message of support for the LGBTQ community to her 200 million social media followers just minutes into the first day of Pride Month 2019.

Not only does Taylor wish us all a Happy Pride Month, but she’s launched a petition on Change.org demanding the federal government enact The Equality Act.

Here’s the text of her petition:

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH! While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally. In excellent recent news, the House has passed the Equality Act, which would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their places of work, homes, schools, and other public accommodations. The next step is that the bill will go before the Senate.

While there’s no information yet as to when the Equality Act will go before the Senate for a vote, we do know this: Politicians need votes to stay in office. Votes come from the people. Pressure from massive amounts of people is a major way to push politicians towards positive change. That’s why I’ve created this petition to urge the Senate to support the Equality Act.

Our country’s lack of protection for its own citizens ensures that LGBTQ people must live in fear that their lives could be turned upside down by an employer or landlord who is homophobic or transphobic. The fact that, legally, some people are completely at the mercy of the hatred and bigotry of others is disgusting and unacceptable.

Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally.

I love that Taylor is using her social media powers for good, and hope you will, too.

Please make sure you head to the petition (over 68,000 signatures at this time) and sign it as well.

You know I did 🙂

🌈HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!🌈 While we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally. In excellent recent news, the House has passed the Equality Act, which would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their places of work, homes, schools, and other public accommodations. The next step is that the bill will go before the Senate. I’ve decided to kick off Pride Month by writing a letter to one of my senators to explain how strongly I feel that the Equality Act should be passed. I urge you to write to your senators too. I’ll be looking for your letters by searching the hashtag #lettertomysenator. While there’s no information yet as to when the Equality Act will go before the Senate for a vote, we do know this: Politicians need votes to stay in office. Votes come from the people. Pressure from massive amounts of people is a major way to push politicians towards positive change. That’s why I’ve created a petition at change.org to urge the Senate to support the Equality Act. Our country’s lack of protection for its own citizens ensures that LGBTQ people must live in fear that their lives could be turned upside down by an employer or landlord who is homophobic or transphobic. The fact that, legally, some people are completely at the mercy of the hatred and bigotry of others is disgusting and unacceptable. Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally. 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈 Click the link in my bio to sign the petition for Senate support of the Equality Act.
A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on May 31, 2019 at 9:05pm PDT

The Grammy Award winner also shared her letter to her state’s senator, Sen. Lamar Alexander, asking for his support for The Equality Act.

Along the way, she also brings up Tennessee’s recent anti-LGBTQ ‘Slate of Hate’ bills in the state legislature, and rejects Donald Trump’s position on The Equality Act.

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Democrats Celebrate Pride: We Won’t Back Down, We Continue To Stand With LGBTQ Community

The Democratic National Committee issued a firm statement of support for the LGBTQ community on the first day of Pride Month 2019

While Donald Trump did finally grace Pride Month with a pair of tweets (basically telling us to be grateful we aren’t being executed like in Saudi Arabia), there was no official proclamation from the White House as was the case during the Obama era.

Today, on the first day of Pride Month 2019, the Democratic National Committee issued this statement:

“As we begin LGBTQ Pride Month and prepare to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, when brave members of New York’s LGBTQ community said enough to brutal discrimination, Democrats across the country are celebrating our nation’s progress and rededicating ourselves to the fight for equality. No one should face violence, bullying, or discrimination because of who they are or who they love. And every American should enjoy the same rights and protections under our Constitution.

“But we cannot take anything for granted. The legal protections that so many LGBTQ Americans and their allies have fought for are under threat. For two and a half years, President Trump has used the power of his office to drag our nation backwards, emboldening bigots and breaking his promise to support the LGBTQ community. From banning transgender troops from serving in our nation’s armed forces to undermining workplace discrimination protections, his administration has rolled back our progress time and time again.

“Democrats will never back down. In the last election cycle, LGBTQ Democrats ran for office and won in record numbers, tearing down old barriers and transforming our democracy. As we head toward Election Day in 2019 and 2020, we’re going to continue to stand with the LGBTQ community and carry on this fight with the courage and pride of the countless activists and organizers who came before us.”

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Twitter Celebrates The Beginning Of Pride Month

Today is the first day of Pride Month 2019, and folks from practically every stripe, corner and faction of the Twitterverse were sending up their salutations.

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Trump Finally Recognizes Pride Month In Two Tweets

After campaigning on a promise to protect LGBTQ Americans, then ignoring Pride Month for his first two years in office, Donald Trump has finally acknowledged the annual celebration.

After campaigning on a promise to protect LGBTQ Americans, then ignoring Pride Month for his first two years in office, Donald Trump has finally acknowledged the annual celebration.

In two tweets, Trump wrote about ‘the outstanding contributions of LGBT people’ and standing in ‘solidarity’ with those who live in countries that execute us.

“As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation,” Trump tweeted.

I guess he really is moving into campaign mode.

Can you imagine the tantrum Mike Pence threw when he heard the news?

In his tweets, he references his administration’s proposed ‘global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality’ around the world, which is to be led by openly gay U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell.

But shortly after the announcement of that plan in February, Trump was asked about the campaign and he seemed unaware of the effort saying, “I don’t know, uh, which report you’re talking about. We have many reports.”

Quick fact check: Trump’s administration has been the most anti-LGBTQ in recent times. He’s rolled back many Obama-era protections and has been particularly hideous to transgender Americans.

A quick search of the WhiteHouse.gov website did not find a proclamation acknowledging Pride Month as was normal practice during all 8 years of the Obama administration.

Although, in 2018, Trump did take time to recognize Great Outdoors Month, National Ocean Month, National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, African-American Music Appreciation Month, and National Homeownership Month.

But, in these wild times, some acknowledgement is better than none…?

To be fair, in terms of history, this does make the Trumpster the first Republican occupant of the Oval Office to even recognize Pride Month.

The Twitterverse was underwhelmed by the tweets. Here’s just some of the reactions beginning with House co-sponsor of The Equality Act, Rep. David Cicilline: