If you’re interested in old films, there is a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for restoring the historic 1919 film “Different from the Others”, the very first film to deal with homosexuality positively and criticize social stigma against gays. Only a single, old reel survived the Nazi rule, and Outfest and UCLA need the public’s help in funding the restoration of the 40-minute film. If you’re interested in preserving and teaching history, please pledge. Thanks!
Tag Archives: lgbt
As much as I may rail against theistic religion of the hell-believing type, I find it mildly interesting when disaffected or shunned groups make an earnest attempt to retool their own religious upbringings for themselves.
For instance, last night, I was reading what may be the first and few pro-gay sacred texts ever composed: “Hidden Treasures and Promises”, distributed as a compilation of “continuing revelation” to the prophets of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, a gay-friendly offshoot of the LDS Church.
This weekend took 64 from Hendersonville to Cleveland TN on way back to Macon. There were lots and lots of signs on peoples lawns for only man-woman marriage in Carolina. Problem with voting on issues like that, it is the majority telling the minority what their rights are, and how they can/cannot live within those “gifted” rights. The marriage issue includes a lot of emancipation from family needs, the ability of two people to give power over their bodies and assets to each other in both life and death. Hetereos dont talk about this side of the marriage issue but gays do have to discuss these legal issues even though they dont like to. The legal issues are the most important parts of the marriage issue.
Thought of the morning: political party affiliate organizations (like the Stonewall Democrats or the Young Democrats) need a better means of naming their subdivisions. If there are national organizations such as the Stonewall Democrats and the Young Democrats, then the Stonewall Young Democrats should probably be termed a “partnership” between the Stonewall Democrats and Young Democrats of America, not an affiliate of an affiliate (or a caucus of a caucus) of a political party. It makes better sense to visibly, vocally partner where your interest groups’ interests intersect.
On Daric Rawr, Tom MacMaster and myself
Again?
Another gay person who is victimized by persecution of some kind, only to be realized as a straw-person, a non-existent fictional character, a humanoid creature with too-"human" feelings and expressions of emotion?
Really, where does all that emotion go? Where do the memories go? If technology becomes that advanced in the far future, will even our sense of touch, skin upon skin, be just as suspect in its provision of false feelings of intimacy as the long series of emails, the pictures, the words?
Where does it all go?
Yesterday’s revelation of Gay Girl in Damascus as the Georgia resident Tom MacMaster dealt quite a bit of a blow to all who took an interest beyond just a "oh, well, hope she gets out" stage.
A girlfriend in Montreal finds out that her long trist with a gay girl in the heady, violent urbanity of Damascus was all just hot air.
A woman in London whose pictures were misappropriated may be looking for a lawyer in the case that MacMaster and his wife, Britta Froelicher, ever return to British soil from their current vacation in Istanbul.
Hundreds of pro-democracy activists are sideswiped and angry after this deception on such an international platform.
All this while Assad’s troops continue to cannibalize his country’s own citizens. All this while LGBT rights activists continue to worry over the status of fellow LGBTers in West Asia.
And the validity of anonymity and pseudonymity continue to be dealt further body blows by the like of MacMaster, Froelicher and, as mentioned previously, Daric Rawr.
It is a sort of modern-day version of Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener.
It’s already doing damage to certain websites, such as LezGetReal, where Tom (as "Amina") had been allowed to publish several items regarding LGBT rights in Syria and West Asia. The editors of the site, Paula Brooks and Linda S. Carbonell, waxed apoplectic by the time that they realized that they had been severely hoaxed, so much so that Carbonell penned both an emphatic rejection of MacMaster’s un-apologetic "apology" and her own apology to the website’s readers.
Furthermore, the website which first announced its own narrowing of the identity of the "Gay Girl", Electronic Intifada, made its own claim that LezGetReal’s Paula Brooks may be just as fake as "Amina Arraf", to which Linda and Paula responded angrily, claiming that they both have to work under pseudonyms in order to not harm their employment statuses as workers in the federal government.
Again, we’re back to square one.
Again, the issues of using pseudonyms in order to protect ourselves from scrutiny of whatever type we may find unwelcome.
Again, pseudonymity and anonymity are dealt further hits in viability because of its abuse.
Sometimes, I’d rather post under my real name in this blog, even though I don’t post much to it anymore. I have another, more business-y blog to which I post sometimes.
This handle which I use was conceived in the early 2000s, although I don’t know exactly how I decided that "rayne" would be a good first name. The origin or meaning still eludes me.
I understand, of course, that if I mix the two up, I may jeopardize my employment prospects, or I may be perceived as a crazy, obsessive person who has a long, lurid, weird history that is recorded in the long memory of the World Wide Web under various pseudonyms and email addresses.
But I know that, at some point, I should be a bit more courageous about facing my own history and earlier immaturities from 2004 onward, and not be afraid of what others may think.
I’m interested in shedding my pseudonymity at some near future point, and maybe share a bit more of myself with others, at least to show that I do have a history of evolution, of adaptation, of increased rationality, of multiple facets and aspects.
I can still keep the pseudonyms, and maybe acquire more, but I want to do a full disclosure of myself, perhaps so that I can create a new personal blog and start afresh.
I don’t want to stay in the mentality of unapologetic deception to the people with whom I communicate, not even to protect myself.
You know what? Fuck it:
My name is Harry C.D. Underwood, I am 23 years old, I am openly gay, I am a senior at Macon State College and I live in Warner Robins, Georgia.
The vote is now 7 out of 11. It’s being tracked by Brazilian and American commenters to Joe. My. God.
The last 13 years of David Kato’s life
While the world only began to find out about David Kato within the last three years of his life, much of what is traceable about him resides chronologically within the last 13 years of his life, from his return to Uganda in 1998 at the age of 34 to his murder in January at the age of 46.
Before 1998, he spent an indeterminate number of years as a teacher in South Africa. At the time of his return, Nelson Mandela was just about to complete his only term as the first black president of the country and turn the gavel over to his Deputy president Thabo Mbeki, and Uganda was just sending its troops into the Democratic Republic of Congo to back a rebel group in the deadliest conflict in Africa since World War II. Since 1994, the South African government was putting forth a series of measures decriminalizing many aspects of LGBT life in the country, including a 1998 measure for prohibition of labor discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Kato was cited by a few reports as having participated in anti-apartheid activities before it was dismantled, but the details are extremely murky because of a lack of available date placements for his participation in South African anti-apartheid activities.
So fining some more specific details on Kato’s life pre-1998 would help.
The beginning of the end of military sodomy laws: the demographic impact
DADT was repealed by Obama’s signature yesterday of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act. Questions remain on how long the process of implementation will take place, or just how much may have to be discarded (and who should do the discarding) alongside the policy during the process, and it is not known just how much of the implementation may derive from the 87-page report on the survey conducted by the top brass of the Armed Forces.
The impact in the long term within the military is harder to measure, with demands growing for a more accommodating inter-personnel culture as LGBT activists continue to follow up on the DADT repeal. But some elements of the impact of the repeal, or perhaps the larger, longer repeal of the overtly-homophobic inter-personnel culture which has existed since the days of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, may be very evident to historians and observers of military history, LGBT history and demographic statistics.
Continue reading The beginning of the end of military sodomy laws: the demographic impact
From a furry perspective: DADT
Today, I sent a PM on FA to WhiteDingo, who commissioned this famous piece – "I Leave at 5" (NSFW) – back in summer 2007, to thank him for having commissioned the piece from Fluke, given today’s events.
I felt that Fluke’s piece really captured both the fear of impending separation and, if intended, the "illegal" nature of gay relationships for U.S. servicemembers. I can imagine the soldier dog who is forced to treat his mate as an "othertime", "undercover" lover rather than a legitimate, open spouse, and that he must savor these last few minutes of restless, tearful parting at his lover’s indiscreet apartment before he leaves in the wee hours for the post to deploy to wherever the brass may order him and his battalion. Other members of his battalion will be able to receive their well-wishes from their opposite-sex spouses and kids on post before walking the long walk to the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy on the tarmac.
Of course, many in the battalion may not come back alive, or may come back with nothing more than the breath in their body left intact. Our soldier dog may lose a limb and get a Purple Heart, but then come back and find out that someone has outed him to the brass and he is on his way out of rank and into veteran-style poverty, with nary a support line for himself or his mate after he has been so unceremoniously dumped from service.
Amazing, in a sad and horrifying way, how this policy stayed in force for so long.
My sincere hope is that the love shared between a servicemember and a spouse, no matter the sexual orientation of the relationship, will no longer be an obstruction to the servicemember’s career.
A profile of Daric Rawr
Daric Rawr is a 16-year-old would-be writer who entered into a brief spell of notoriety when he and an alleged woman named "Cheryl Williams" posted on the death of a young man named Terrel Williams, a native of Beverly Hills, California who was allegedly being bullied by five high school classmates, who threw Williams into a brick wall at his high school in Lakewood, Washington and, as a result, hanged himself in his bedroom closet.
This event occurred during a season of suicides by young LGBT people all over the United States, accompanied by various campaigns such as Dan Savage’s "It Gets Better" and the Facebook + GLAAD-sponsored "Spirit Day."
However, in a twist of events, the alleged son of "Cheryl" and boyfriend of Daric came under scrutiny not long after the story hit sites such as PerezHilton.com, LGBTQ Nation, and Queerty, as reader and blogger efforts to locate the name "Terrel Williams" through Clover Park High School’s administration turned up empty-handed, and no coroner’s office in either Pierce County, Washington or Los Angeles County, California reported the name, either. Furthermore, only one profile on Facebook barely matched the name, but it didn’t have a photo or any profile information.
There was a Twitter page named "@MemoryofTerrel" and Rawr had a Twitter page which listed himself as "Ex Radio Host, Deactivated Disc Jockey, Mile High Radio Head, LGBT/YoungAdult/Romance Author. Available In Stores Now", but both pages have disappeared long before this post was written and well after both pages had been moved to a number of different usernames.
The icing on the cake was the fact that the photo of "Terrel" was actually that of "Donny Lumpkins" of YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia, neither of whom have any relation in any way to the events which took place; this photo (later pixilated by Queerty staff) was initially posted onto Change.org’s story and the MemoryOfTerrel Twitter page, the latter of which was purportedly owned by Cheryl Williams, Terrel’s mother. This same photo was retweeted repeatedly by Cheryl before she removed it and took partial responsibility for the misappropriation of the photo of Lumpkins.
Meanwhile, Daric’s Twitter page, before it was deleted, used the same graphic background as that of the Terrel memorial page, that of an African-American baby boy.
Finally, Daric emailed Queerty to purport that the death was not a hoax, that the Williams family was staying in a vacation home in Lakewood not two weeks before the suicide, and that he was preparing to talk to the media as soon as Cheryl gave him permission. Meanwhile, Cheryl posted to Twitlonger that no photo would be released, and that the suicide did not take place in Washington State at all, purposefully keeping the knowledge of the location of the suicide between herself and one other person.
Then both Twitter pages were abruptly deleted, and no mention of an interview with local press members regarding the death exist outside of the Internet.
But before this bizarre sequence occurred, Rawr seems to be an enigma.
Glancing through the mentionings of his person on various blogs and pages, he seems to be an aspiring singer and writer based in Washington State who has not, to date, published much of anything other than two MP3s on Amazon which are listed as part of a digital album by him titled "I Am" but are, in reality, songs recorded by two respective singer-songwriters who have pages on MySpace: Charly Boy of Laval, Quebec (who sings "Tonight" or "2nite") and Gustav Magnusson of Malmo/Stockholm/Skane, Sweden (who sings "Dance Along With Me").
He also has no books published, and stories about his alleged fame seem to be highly exaggerated by a few posters on practically no-name blogs (most of which, until the Terrel Williams incident, are non-LGBT related); posts discussing his comparison to Matthew Lush, his criticism of Miley Cyrus, his supposed inspirational influence to LGBT teens, or other things predominate in the mentionings of his name on such blogs, even though he has not published anything of notoriety to speak of.
Perhaps this one commenter, Gerard McGarry, got the hint when he wrote the following to UnrealityShout.com in September:
I’ll tell you why I think he’s a phantom, going on each of your links:
His amazing novel is "Temporarily out of stock on Amazon". Overwhelming public demand, I’d say, especially since the product description contains so many grammatical errors I lament for anyone who actually bought the book. Here, just in case someone deletes it: "Lady Sennox brings the science world into a whole new meaning. Follow her as she discovers her new-found love for science, but also is forced to go head to head with one of the hottest science buff’s in the world."
The ‘quality’ Associated Content article is written by a Mark Longsteen, someone who has only contributed two articles to that site – both of them about…Daric Rawr. So, clearly not an impartial or widely recognised journalist.
Hilariously, that third link is an article that one of his ‘fans’ posted on this site. Back around the time when you yourself signed up to this site and started posting articles about him.
I’m mentioning all of this publicly because as an admin on this site, I really feel that you’re trying to leverage this site for publicity for someone I’m not even sure exists. I even did a search on YouTube this evening and can find no videos featuring this multi-talented enigma. Surely such an amazing singer should at least have a few virals on YouTube?All we have to go on are some pictures of a kid who clearly spends too much time staring into the lens of a cameraphone. And a load of articles written on sites where it would be easy to spread fawning puff pieces.
And whether he exists or not, (and his internet presence or lack thereof suggests he doesn’t) I strongly doubt the claims that he’s a prodigious talent based on the evidence I’ve seen around the web
……
Ah, Daric Rawr: Singer, Actor, Male Model, Author, Celebrity Chef, The Most Talented Guy In The Universe. And yet at the same time a complete phantom. Really Stephanie, I’ve asked you to substantiate your claims about Daric Rawr in the past, and yet let’s be honest – it’s all a big sham and no-one really cares.
It feels like an experiment in trying to tell people that he’s a celebrity in the hope that it’ll somehow become a reality. And as yet, other than the spam you guys are leaving across the net, there’s no evidence that the guy actually exists. Prove it!
And then "Terrel Williams" happens.
So is this the last undue inflation of self-importance that the Internet will archive of Daric Desic Rawr (if that’s his real name) of Washington State? Is Mr. Rawr that far gone, that pathological that he would sell other people’s MP3s in his own album, compel bloggers in some way to write about him as if he’s already a well-known celebrity and lie about a fake (ex-)boyfriend in order to achieve celebrity for himself during a historic and unfortunate period of LGBT rights history?
What is wrong with this guy? What is wrong with Daric Rawr? Why is he hoaxing so many people in the LGBT community? And when will he be compelled by someone in the LGBT community to stop his behavior, at least while he’s still young and impressionable?
EDIT 11/19/10: More is coming in on this character. According to one source (Leesa Nixon aka FagHagMom of Starmount High School prom fame), Daric’s real(?) name is Derrick Goff, and he’s actually 20 years old.
Oh, and he’s rekindled his interest in Twitter recently (under the name JustDaric), even though his tweets are now protected.
And from the looks of things, he hasn’t changed his behavior, nor has his amazing astroturfing abilities dissipated.
Again, what is wrong with him?
