The popular 90s sitcom, Friends, has been re-released in China without the LGBTQ content. Most notable was that the plotline about Ross’ ex-wife being a lesbian that was completely deleted. According to The Hollywood Reporter, fans have pointed out that a lot has been changed. At certain points in the show, the Chinese subtitles have been altered to make it say something different. For example, one line of dialogue which says, “Women can have multiple orgasms” was changed to “Women have endless gossip.” What’s even weirder is that many Chinese people speak English, and most of the episodes didn’t change…
Author: Keith Langston
President Joe Biden showed his continued support of the LGBTQ community last week by taking time to tell young LGBTQ Americans that his administration has their back. The comments came as Florida gears up to pass a “don’t say gay bill” which will prohibit discussing LGBTQ issues in schools for grades deemed too young…however, what criteria Florida will use to deem who is “too young” has yet to be seen, leading many to fear they will try to limit LGBTQ discussions as much as possible. In response to this, Biden sent out a tweet saying, “I want every member of…
Brigham Young University is a large college in Utah that’s run by the Mormon church (LDS). It’s long been known how homophobic Mormonism is, but many are probably unaware that BYU actually bans and prohibits LGBTQ relationships, effectively forcing queer students to live in fear and secrecy. Even worse is that this is blatantly enforced and isn’t a secret. Students can be punished if they’re caught holding hands or kissing another student of the same sex, and in an NBC News article, the school shamelessly stated, “BYU is within its rights to enforce the church’s policies against same-sex relationships.” A…
Fans around the world became obsessed with the wild, almost unbelievable feud between big cat activist Carole Baskin and breeder Joe Exotic in Netflix’s popular docuseries, Tiger King. Now, Peacock dives behind the scenes of the lives of both Joe and Carole and explores their escalating conflict, and even the making of Tiger King with the new limited series Joe Vs. Carole. In the show, John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus) will play Joe Exotic and Kate McKinnon (SNL) will play Carole Baskin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62VFGOJhg8w Based on the podcast “Joe Exotic,” hosted and reported by Robert Moor, the series…
Molly Solomon, the president of NBC Olympics Production, raised a few eyebrow recently when she hinted that NBC would have an obligation to address China’s current human rights violations, especially its treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. According to Deadline, Solomon said: “Our coverage will provide perspective on China’s place in the world and the geopolitical context in which these Games are being held. But the athletes do remain the centerpiece of our coverage.” Naturally, none of this sounds too inflammatory. But it’s important to remember the context in which China views the world. Any slight misstep can be seen as…
The mayor of Ridgeland, Mississippi, Gene McGee, is currently withholding over $110,000 from the local library system, insisting that they must remove their LGBTQ content if the libraries wish to remain funded. According to the Mississippi Free Press, during an interview with Library Director, Tonja Johnson, she said the mayor “explained his opposition to what he called ‘homosexual materials’ in the library, that it went against his Christian beliefs, and that he would not release the money as the long as the materials were there.” When speaking to CBS 12, the mayor said he wasn’t withholding money due to LGBTQ…
Jeopardy! fans have been enthralled by the captivating and intelligent Amy Schneider, who, for the last three months, has been dominating every single episode of the trivia show. This week, however, Schneider finally concluded her run on the show after not being able to come up with the question for the Final Jeopardy Answer: “The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H. It’s also one of the 10 most populous.” The correct response was ‘Bangladesh’ and only one contestant was able to answer correctly—Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago. Schneider became the second longest-running…
Cock is a play written by Mike Barlett and originally performed in 2009. It follows the main character, John. John has identified as gay his whole life and has been in a long-term relationship with a man. However, he soon falls in love with a woman and becomes sexually attracted to her, revealing to himself that he’s actually bisexual. The show examines John’s struggles with deciding which love interest he wants to be with. Now, the show is slated for a revival on West End. It hasn’t yet been stated who is playing which character, but Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey and…
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has enlisted 503 companies as part of its Business Coalition for the Equality Act. According to the nonprofit, the coalition “is a group of leading U.S. employers that support the Equality Act – federal legislation that would provide the same basic protections to LGBTQ people as are provided to other protected groups under federal law.” Among the hundreds of member companies in the coalition are Abercrombie & Fitch, American Express, CVS, General Motors, United Airlines, and Verizon, among many others. Wilma Wallace, the Chief Diversity & Social Impact Officer at REI (another coalition member), said…
The political circus created by Florida Republicans continues to get wilder and more pathetic by the day. Last year, the state banned teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, despite the fact that it wasn’t actually taught in them. Now, the state is going to the next level by passing a bill that bans the teaching of historical facts if it makes people “uncomfortable.” Even more despicable is that this ban isn’t just for schools, but also applies to the workplace as well, meaning that both children and adults can simply claim to feel “discomfort” when being educated about slavery,…
Jim Obergefell is best known for being the title name on the landmark Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges. The Supreme Court ended up ruling by a vote of 5 – 4 that banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and that all fifty states, Washington DC, and even the insular areas (like Guam and the US Virgin Islands) were required to perform same-sex marriage, thus legalizing it nationally. Now, Obergefell has headed back to his hometown of Sandusky, Ohio, and is running as a Democrat for the State Legislature to represent Ohio’s 89th District. Sandusky is a lakeside town that’s best…
Skeleton is a sport many have seen, but few probably know its name. It’s the sport where athletes glide down bobsledding tracks on nothing but small toboggans, having to use their bodies to steer the sled and race down the track as fast as possible. During a race, the sleds can exceed 80mph. Now, openly gay athlete, Andrew Blaser, has been added to Team USA’s skeleton team for the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, becoming the first openly LGBTQ athlete to ever be on the team. When speaking to OutSports, Blaser said, “Making this team is honestly just crazy…I…
Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, is bringing back a new “reimagined” version of the hit series, Queer as Folk. The series first launched in the UK in 1999 and was groundbreaking for unapologetically portraying life within London’s queer scene. A year later, America got its own version of the series, airing on Showtime from 2000-2005. Now, it’s been announced that a reboot is in the works. However, the series is set to take more influence from the original UK version than its American counterpart. The setting has also changed. No longer will the show take place in London or Pittsburgh, but…
9-1-1 quickly skyrocketed into one of FOX’s most-watched series. The show centered around larger-than-life disasters and pulpy, campy fun. Before long, the series received a spin-off, 9-1-1: Lone Star, which is set in Austin, Texas. Along with longtime Hollywood veterans like Rob Lowe and Liv Tyler are three LGBTQ stars. First, Brian Michael Smith, who stars as firefighter Paul Strickland, became the first Black trans man to star in a network television series. Smith told NBC News he was excited to work on the show because he’s also able to portray a trans character in the series, giving a voice…
The United Kingdom has just expanded Turing’s Law, a measure that seeks to pardon LGBTQ people who were convicted of archaic crimes, largely aimed at gay men who were convicted under sodomy laws. According to NBC News, gay sex was legalized in the UK in 1967, but the age of consent was kept higher (at 21 years of age) for gay men than for heterosexuals (which was 16 years of age) all the way until 2001. This means that someone who was 25 or 26 could have been convicted of pedophilia for having sex with someone who was 20 years…
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) has released a massive and in-depth study about the rampant spread of misinformation and lies about conversion therapy online. According to the findings, search engines and social media networks like Facebook and Instagram do a good job of weeding out misinformation when people search the phrase “conversion therapy”. The problem, the study says, is that conversion therapy providers have started changing the phrasing and narratives of their practices. Now, terms like “reintegrative therapy” and “unwanted same-sex attraction” are becoming the norm within conversion therapy networks. Search engines and social media sites have much higher…
The 2022 Golden Globes have proven to be groundbreaking for the trans community. MJ Rodriguez, who has shot to fame playing Blanca Rodriguez-Evangelista on FX’s hit series POSE, has just won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Drama, marking the first time in history a trans performer has taken home a Golden Globe in the award’s 78-year history. POSE recently concluded over the summer after a successful run of 26 episodes that spanned three seasons. First airing in 2018, POSE was a groundbreaking representation of the Ball scene which was made famous by the documentary, Paris is Burning.…
According to AlterNet, The Trevor Project, a resource and crisis service for LGBTQ youth, has seen a 150% increase in crisis calls coming in from Texas. All throughout the state, school districts have started discriminating against the LGBTQ community and people of color, and a modern-day witch hunt has begun to “purify” schools, libraries, and even the internet of any content that offers support to the LGBTQ community and people of color. Most notable has been the rampant rise in “banned books” within the last two years, in which school districts, cities, and counties are being driven to demand that…
The new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, which premieres on Friday, is causing quite a stir. The show will be introducing its first-ever straight, cis-gendered drag queen, Maddy Morphosis. Some members of the LGBTQ community are sharing their outrage that a cishet male is able to partake in drag, a performance art that is largely associated with LGBTQ men. PAPER magazine shared comments from Twitter users that said things like, “Oh yes, the most oppressed group of people needed representation in media.” and NBC News shared a user’s comment that said, “imagine being a drag queen having drag as your…
Released in 2019, the book Gender Queer has become a lightning rod for controversy in America. The illustrated novel by Maia Kobabe talks about their experiences wrestling with and discovering their true self, while questioning gender and not fitting into the binary of gender. Recently, however, the book has gained ample amounts of controversy. The debate began because a few of the book’s illustrations depict teenagers engaging in sexual acts (the book is written for teenagers) and others make references to sexual fantasies. Confusingly, a page discussing the author struggling with their first period also became part of the debate,…
The Washington Blade, America’s oldest LGBTQ news outlet, has just become the first LGBTQ publication in history to receive a seat in the prestigious White House Briefing Room. Blade reporter Chris Johnson will serve as the White House reporter for the publication. In an article, the Washington Blade says that it will be sharing a seat with the Boston Globe, one of America’s most notable and historic newspapers. Sadly, that seat is right next to The Daily Caller, an alt-right publication so riddled with controversy that it has no place in the White House, and EWTN, a homophobic, anti-LGBTQ right-wing…
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved an injectable form of “PrEP.” Currently, PrEP is taken orally and known by brand names Truvada and Descovy, among others. According to The Washington Post, which cited the CDC, oral PrEP is up to 99% effective when taken daily, but its efficacy drops when intake becomes sporadic or patients begin missing doses. The new injectable form of PrEP, which goes by the name of Apretude, seeks to solve this problem by becoming a bi-monthly injection. To start, patients will get two shots, one month apart. After that, patients will…
The popular gay hookup/dating app Grindr has been fined 65 million Norwegian Krones ($7 million USD) for what Bloomberg Law calls “unlawful sharing of personal data with third parties for marketing purposes.” According to Jusrist.org., The Norwegian Data Protection Authority (DPA) “found that Grindr violated Articles 6(1) and 9(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for disclosing personal data without legal basis and disclosing special category personal data without valid exemptions. Grindr argued it had the consent of its users as a legal basis for sharing personal data, but the DPA disagreed and found that users were not properly…
Jeff T. Green, the richest person in Utah, said in a letter: “I believe the Mormon church has hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights, racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights.” As CEO of the tech company, The Trade Desk, he’s worth an estimated $4.9 billion. The Salt Lake Tribune published a long letter he sent to the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), the main branch of Mormonism in America, which criticized the church’s bigotry and hollow displays of piety. LGBTQ rights were a big portion of Green’s letter, in which he pledged to donate $600,000 to Equality Utah, a…
The ‘Old Gays’, a group of older gay friends who live life to the fullest, have become a social media sensations, amassing 4.5 million followers on TikTok and 306,000 on Instagram. Recently, they visited with a young fan, Evan, who is autistic and identifies as nonbinary. In Evan’s own words he calls himself a “girlboy” and loves wearing dresses. In an NBC News article, his mom, Erica McLead, says that Evan is supported at school and at home, but that he never gets to see other people like him in the world. To fix that, the old gays dropped by…
The Catholic Diocese of Marquette, Michigan has instituted new rules that ban LGBTQ people from taking part in church sacraments like baptism and communion. According to the National Catholic Reporter, the new policy “asks pastors to deny baptism, Communion, and confirmation to gay, transgender, and nonbinary Catholics unless they have “repented.” The new rules, released with the title, An Instruction on Some Aspects of the Pastoral Care of Persons with Same‐Sex Attraction and Gender Dysphoria, states that the church must “lead them step‐by‐step closer to Jesus Christ in a manner that is consistent with the Church’s teaching.” According to NBC…
Out of the Blue, the a capella group of Oxford University, is celebrating the holiday season by doing their own rendition of Elton John’s popular Christmas hit ‘Step Into Christmas’. The group has performed numerous Christmas songs in the past, including Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’, ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday’ by Wizzard, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham, and many more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuDVzqtJmb8 Their new version of ‘Step Into Christmas’ is a charity single that’s raising money for the Helen and Douglas House, a nonprofit that cares for terminally ill children and their families. Out of…
It’s a historic moment for Bangladesh. In the town of Trilochanpur, Nazrul Islam Ritu was just elected mayor. Ritu is a trans woman and is now the nation’s first transgender mayor in history. Making the event even more powerful is that Ritu won in a landslide victory, gaining 9,569 votes, compared to her opponent’s 4,517 votes. Even more historic is that the town of 40,000 people is majority Muslim. During her campaign, Ritu ran on a social issues platform that vowed to rid the community of corruption and drug abuse. Bangladesh as a whole is also heavily Muslim, and trans people…
The angry moms over at One Million Moms (the alt-right hate group that’s anti-LGBTQ and promotes 1950s gender roles) are enraged once again, this time, at Sephora. The beauty product company has released a new holiday ad titled “Holiday Gifting 2021: It’s the Beauty You Give” which features various people giving and receiving gifts from the store. One vignette features a gay couple who (gasp!) kiss at the end of the commercial. Naturally, this offended the one million moms, who curiously only have 4,119 followers on Twitter (not exactly a million, but again, this is a group who believes that…
Every year, New York magazine unveils its annual ‘Reasons to Love New York’ issue. This year’s theme is the ‘Movies Issue’ which will celebrate the movies that spotlight New York City. However, the issue is also setting out to raise awareness about homeless LGBTQ youth. According to a statement from the magazine, “The issue also includes a special advertising project from Havas New York and The Ali Forney Center, who took over 40% of the magazine’s advertising pages to draw attention to the fact that LGBTQIA+ identifying youths make up 40% of New York City’s homeless youth.” Dubbed an ‘issue…