Gay Soup - Gay Blog

The Spread the Word to End the Word campaign, an on-going initiative from Special Olympics and Best Buddies, was created to eradicate the derogatory use of the word "retard(ed)" from everyday use and promote the inclusion and acceptance of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It's powerful.

Monica Helms decided to put together a similar PSA referring to the use of derogatory terms about trans people. It doesn't have celebrities, and it's not glitzy, but it makes an important point.

As in the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign, the actors tell you what words not to use, one of which is "tranny." I know people who don't think the word is derogatory, and I've even heard some trans people say that, but I don't like it, myself. What do you think?

Monica's video is after the break.

Continue reading "'Tranny' Is Not Acceptable"...

Celebrities on both sides of the aisle having been weighing in on marriage equality.

From The Atlantic Wire

"On Monday, former New York Giants wide receiver David Tyree briefly became the focus of the gay marriage story when he showed up in Albany to voice his objections to legalizing gay marriage. Now the celebrities on the other side of the debate are out in force, including celebrity chef Mario Batali who is in Albany and willing to talk to "anybody who will listen to me," according to the New York Observer, about why the stalled bill should be brought to the floor. He hopes to have better luck than the other boldfaced names who have tried to turn the tide in the debate."

The Atlantic Wire has the scoop on Lance Bass, Cynthia Nixon, Michael Strahan, and Sean Avery, with videos.

The GLAAD/AT&T scandal continues to grow as it engulfs other civil rights organizations and media outside of the LGBT community have started to take notice of the role of one specific gay lobbyist.

Here's a quick roundup of some of the best stories out in the past 24 hours. Several include new information not previously reported - especially about the role Troup Coronado, a not-so-former AT&T lobbyist and bigwig with many LGBT groups, has played in the unraveling scandal.

Michelangelo Signorile has doggedly continued digging into the GLAAD president's finances and discovered more payments made to Jarrett Barrios' longtime aide from his campaign funds. While I was able to account for $7500 paid out in 2009, Mike has found even more payments in "GLAAD, AT&T, Barrios: The Fallout Continues."

Yesterday I referred to sources telling me that Barrios had paid his administrative assistant Jeanne Cristiano in part from his political campaign committee as a political candidate in Massachusetts (where he was a state legislator), in addition to her salary at GLAAD.

These records confirm that in fact Cristiano was paid $15,000 from Barrios's campaign finance committee in 2010 and in 2009 she was paid $7,500 toward the end of the year, after she took the job with GLAAD. Cristiano, a long-time aide and confident of Barrios's, is indeed named at the top of the documents as the Treasurer of the Barrios Committee, an officer of the campaign. Many politicians keep their campaign committee's open should they decide to run again in the future, and Barrios has over $500,000 in campaign funds. When not running for office the expenditures should be minimal. For the most part they are in this case -- except for the payments to Cristiano.

Several others after the break - including all the shocking news about Troup Coronado.

Continue reading "The Scandal Grows: Gay AT&T Lobbyist's Role Exposed"...

Bill Graber, the middle aged straight guy posing as lesbian blogger "Paula Brooks" of LezGetReal, has offered his full apology for deceiving the community. You can tell it's sincere because he posted it on his website.

I wouldn't want to say it's a desperate attempt to keep his fifteen minutes of fame going for an extra few heartbeats, but... Well, yeah. I do.

It's after the break if you feel like reading the latest writings of a fraud.

Continue reading "'Paula Brooks' Offers Formal Apology"...

It's been an exciting ride in New York. We're on the brink of winning gay marriage, or marriage equality, if you prefer, which would put New York as the sixth state to allow same-sex marriage and also the most populated state to honor such marriages. Estimates from 2009 show that over 42,000 same-sex couples in New York will be affected by the bill's passage.

On Friday evening, Governor Cuomo told reporters:

"I am a proponent of marriage equality, and I'm working very hard to make that a reality in New York. I am also a proponent of religious freedom, and separation of church and state, so these are both very important principles. I don't see one in competition with the other."

Click here to connect to a video clip of Andrew Cuomo addressing the vote on gay marriage.

Continue reading "Social Media: Helping Us Win the Fight for Marriage in NY "...

One of the lessons my mother taught me was to always be weary of women - they are catty and competitive and will try to steal your man away. Well, no worries about that!

Pam Spaulding and Jane Hamsher (Photo courtesy Pam Spaulding)

But that 1950s stereotype was so inculcated in society's consciousness that it was the number one internal foe of the feminist movement. Somehow a woman's life was "All About Eve."

Of course, as an aging gay hippie Aquarian, I always hoped for a communion with women that was more utopian - a world in which women respected and helped each other and didn't play out those old stereotypes for the convenience of men. I found something akin to that fighting the AIDS crisis at its height - and when I joined the blogging world, thanks in large part to Pam Spaulding, famed African American lesbian blogger at Pam's House Blend.

Mind you - the guys have been great, especially Mike Rogers of RawStory and PageOneQ, Bil Browning at The Bilerico Project, who brought me aboard, and now my friends Anthony Duran, Syd Peterson, and Mark Hefflinger. But Pam and I had many email exchanges after I finally met her at the HRC/Logo Presidential Forum in 2007. She has always been there for me and gives a sister the 411 about the brave new world of blogging.

Word now comes from Pam and Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher who are at Netroots Nation that Pam is joining the Firedoglake family of bloggers. This is great news since it will allow Pam to get some sleep, do more blogging and not worry so much about the backstage mechanics. The new collaboration also stands as a wonderful example of how women can work well together to create even greater content to serve and challenge the Greater Good.

All the best to Pam, whose blog will be changing over in July. And thanks to both women for being so smart and brave. And with an election year approaching – I can't wait to see what happens next!

Continue reading "Congrats to Pam Spaulding Who's Joining Firedoglake"...

This week at The Bilerico Project, I have been documenting the back story, the rise, and the whirlwind fall of Paula Brooks, the lesbian woman who founded Lez Get Real, an online news blog with a focus on international lesbian issues. On Monday The Washington Post revealed that Brooks, who had been diligently crafting her Internet identity as a devoted gay blogger, was actually a married, heterosexual man. The newspaper reported that the man is Bill Graber, a 58-year-old who lives in Ohio with his wife.

But readers who have been following the story online - the few who haven't already abandoned the impossibly long narrative (which you can read here and here and here) - are continuing to doubt Graber's story. Graber, they explain, has not communicated to anyone using video, and the only picture available is the one he chose to submit to The Washington Post.

I spoke with Graber on the phone on Tuesday afternoon when Graber refused my request for a video interview. In an email, he typed: "I don't have skype. ... So you will have to call Bill Graber if you want to Talk to Bill Graber."

As we talked, much of his story seemed to make logical - although certainly not rational -sense. He used his wife's name to create an online lesbian persona with adopted twin children and a love for surfing and the Outer Banks. He started a blog in 2006 called "Queen of the Surf Pirates" where he wrote about the rather humdrum daily life of a lesbian with a dog and a partner. That turned into a writing gig at Lesbiatopia, a lesbian group blog started by Renee Gannon, and after a very bad falling-out with Gannon, Graber broke off to begin his own new site. He felt he wouldn't be taken seriously as someone who wrote about lesbian issues because he was a straight man, so the pseudonym helped him earn credibility.

But Bill Graber's pseudonym was more than just a name. It was an entire identity. Graber invented a complex history for Paula Brooks, one that involved a beloved, deceased pet named Sammy the Surf Dog; a series of fast-paced relocations to Washington, D.C. and New York City; and a hearing impairment that restricted Paula from speaking on the phone.

Graber elaborated on his commitment to provide quality reporting through Lez Get Real. He distanced himself from Tom MacMaster's Gay Girl in Damascus hoax, which Graber cross-posted on his website beginning in February 2011 but to which he now refers to as "fantastical bullshit." He asserted that he did not flirt with MacMaster's fictional online persona. He insisted that he maintained his blogs for the good of the LGBT community, saying, "I have seen you guys get shit on. And it's not right. And somebody's got to fight for you guys. Paula fought for you guys."

Continue reading "The Unreliable World of Bill Graber from 'Lez Get Real'"...

Anderson Cooper's three part investigative report into George Reker's disastorous ex-gay therapy for effeminate boys was highly acclaimed in the blogosphere and earlier this week he followed up on the story with guest Jim Burroway. Burroway runs BoxTurtleBulletin, a blog that is one of the best at covering the ex-gay movement and the dangers they pose.

Two beautiful vintage issues of bodybuilding magazines featuring hunks in trunks who undoubtedly made a lot of hearts throb back in the 1950s.