Tag Archives: Lesbian

Gay History – WATCH Bette Midler’s Final Performance At The Continental Baths in NYC (1971) – Video

Entertainment, Featured, Gay History, , , , , , , , ,

In the late 1960’s Steve Ostrow opened the Continental Baths in the basement of the landmark  Ansonia Hotel, which at one time was home to such greats as Caruso, Stravinsky and Toscanini.

Famous for its lavish accommodations, the Continental Baths was advertised as being reminiscent of “the glory of ancient Rome.” The impressive features of this bathhouse included a disco dance floor, a cabaret lounge, sauna rooms, an “Olympia blue” swimming pool, and clean, spacious facilities that could serve nearly 1,000 men, 24 hours a day. (And many patrons did!)

One gay guide from NYC in the 1970’s described the Continental Baths as a place that “revolutionized the bath scene in New York.”

An extra added attraction at the Continental was the first class entertainment provided by performers such as Melba Moore, Peter Allen, Cab Calloway, The Manhattan Transfer, John Davidson, Wayland Flowers and Madame and Bette Midler, who began her career by performing there with Barry Manilow in 1972.

Despite Midler’s constant complaints about “that goddam waterfall,” her poolside performances were so successful that she soon gained national attention, beginning with repeat performances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Many of those who were fortunate enough to see Bette’s early bathhouse shows attest to the fact that her greatest achievement in show business took place the night she convinced the otherwise shy Barry Manilow to accompany her on the piano while wearing only a white towel, which was considered “proper bathhouse attire.”

As the popularity of the cabaret shows increased, a wide variety of entertainers were invited to “give it up” at the Continental Baths, including the soprano Eleanor Steber, who gave a “black towel” concert there in 1973.

The list of visitors to the Continental Baths read like a “who’s who” of the entertainment world, from actors, singers, artists, producers, to the mafia and and even the Metropolitan Oper. They all  paid a visit either to see Bette, or have some fun.

And for those unfortunate souls who never descended into that legendary basement bathhouse, the Continental Baths were able to come to them in the form of the highly popular Continental Baths towel, which was sold by Bloomingdale’s department store at the height of the club’s fame.

During this period even the mainstream news talk show The Pat Collins Show broadcast live from the club. In one segment, Pat sat by the pool and interviewed proprietor Steve Ostrow while nude men, apparently indifferent to the television cameras, went splashing  (WCBS-TV received only one complaint about the program.)

Below watch one of Bette Midler’s final performances in its entirety at The Continental Baths. (With Barry Manilow on the piano of course)

Apologies about the quality of the videos below but its a miracle that it exists at all

Setlist:

“Friends”
“Fat Stuff”
“Chattanooga Choo-Choo” (Andrews Sisters)
“Superstar”
“Empty Bed Blues” (Bessie Smith)
“Marahuana”
“For Free” (Joni Mitchell)
“Easier Said Than Done” (The Essex)
“Chapel Of Love” (The Dixie Cups)
“I Shall Be Released” (The Band)

Gay History – January 2, 1857: Martha Carey Thomas Feminist Lesbian Educator and Suffragist Born

Featured, Gay History, , , , ,

Martha Carey Thomas was born in Baltimore, Maryland January 2, 1857.

Thomas an American educator and suffragist went on to become the dean and later president of Bryn Mawr University.

Growing up, Thomas was strongly influenced by the staunch feminism of her mother and her mother’s sister Hannah Whitall Smith who became a prominent preacher in their Quaker religion. Her father, a physician, was not completely happy with feminist ideas, but his daughter was fiercely independent and he supported her in all of her independent endeavors. Though both her parents were orthodox members of the Society of Friends, Thomas’ education and European travel led her to question those beliefs and develop a love for music and theater, both of which were forbidden to Orthodox Quakers.

Thomas went to Sage College, a women’s school at Cornell University.

She graduated from Cornell University in 1877.  Cornell offered her both the position of professor of literature and dean of Sage College, but she did not consider either.

She did graduate work in Greek at Johns Hopkins University but withdrew because she was not permitted to attend classes. She did further graduate work at the University of Leipzig, but that university did not grant degrees to women. She then went to the University of Zurich and earned a Ph.D. in linguistics, summa cum laude, in 1882 for her dissertation which was a philological analysis of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This dissertation continued to be highly regarded by specialists eighty years later.She was the first woman and the first foreigner to receive such a doctorate from the university. She then spent some time in Paris, where she attended lectures by Gaston Paris at the Sorbonne, and then went back home to the United States.

In 1882, Thomas wrote a letter to the trustees of Bryn Mawr College, requesting that she be made president of the university. However, she was not granted the position as the trustee were concerned about her relative youth and lack of experience.  Instead, Thomas entered in 1884 as the dean of the college and chair of English.

In 1885 Thomas, together with Mary Elizabeth Garrett, Mamie Gwinn, Elizabeth King, and Julia Rogers, founded The Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore Maryland. The school would produce well-educated young women who met the very high entrance standards of Bryn Mawr College.

In 1908, she became the first president of the National College Women’s Equal Suffrage League. She was also a leading member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. After 1920 she advocated the policies of the National Woman’s Party. She was one of the early promoters of an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Thomas lived for many years in a relationship with Mamie Gwinn.  After Gwinn left Thomas in 1904 to marry (a love triangle fictionalized in Gertrude Stein’s Fernhurst), Thomas started another relationship with Mary Garrett they shared the campus home, living together until Garrett’s death. Miss Garrett, who had been prominent in suffrage work and a benefactor of Bryn Mawr, left Martha $15,000,000 to be disposed of as she saw fit.

Thomas retired in 1922, at age sixty-five. The Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers, which was founded at Carey’s behest in 1921, was a sort of “grand finale”  bookending Thomas’ legacy as an earlier shaper of the college.  Thomas, spent the last two decades of her life traveling the world in luxury, including trips to India, the Sahara, and France.

Martha Carey Thomas died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of a coronary occlusion. She had returned to the city to address Bryn Mawr College on the fiftieth anniversary of its founding. Her ashes were scattered on the Bryn Mawr College campus in the cloisters of the Thomas Library.

Indiana High School Sued Over Not Allowing The Words "Gay", "Lesbian" "GSA", or “Gay-Straight Alliance” for School Group

Indiana High School Sued Over Not Allowing The Words “Gay”, “Lesbian” “GSA”, or “Gay-Straight Alliance” for School Group

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, Of Interest, , , , , ,

There is a gay-straight alliance at Leo Jr. Sr. High School in Allen County, Indiana. but you wouldn’t know it because the school has banned all descriptive words words that can be used to name it.. Instead only permitted to refer to itself as a “Pride Alliance.”, BUT the “Pride” in its name is not allowed to refer to LGBT Pride. Instead the group is  required to be used as a reference to an a common school acronym: “Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diligence, and Excellence.”

ACLU Indiana is suing the school on the student groups behalf.

Via The Daily Beast:

“There is a lot of language policing,” Ken Falk, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, told The Daily Beast, but it may go well beyond that, too, according to the complaint, filed at the end of November in U.S. District Court.

The ACLU of Indiana’s complaint alleges the Leo Pride Alliance is treated differently from other extracurricular clubs at the school, claiming that it is “not allowed to meet outside of a single classroom,” that it is barred from participating in school fundraisers, and that it can only put up a bulletin board “if members performed community service outside of the school, a requirement not imposed on any other club.”

Other clubs, by contrast, are reportedly allowed to host activities outside of their regular meetings.

According to the complaint, the Leo Pride Alliance has been in existence for two years and now boasts over 30 members. The lawsuit alleges that Leo Jr. Sr. High School staff have told the GSA that it can’t even use terms like “gay” or “lesbian” or “queer” in its advertising—terms that would help LGBT students understand the club’s purpose of providing support and community.

Falk states that denying a GSA its full name not only violates the First Amendment but also sends a potentially damaging message to LGBT youth, many of whom are in early and potentially vulnerable stages of coming out.

The complaint also alleges that the Leo Pride Alliance’s faculty advisor “is required to send a list of all club members to all faculty”—and that no other clubs are required to follow this protocol.

There are currently over 4,000 GSAs in the United States and court cases have repeatedly upheld both their right to exist under the federal Equal Access Act and their right to call themselves “gay-straight alliances” rather than something more euphemistic. The Equal Access Act, passed in 1984, requires schools that allow extracurricular clubs to treat them fairly.

 “This is our fourth GSA case [in Indiana], and the law in this area seems to be pretty much settled but yet we keep coming back to it.”

An East Allen County, Indiana Schools spokesperson said, “We take the rights of our students seriously. We are looking into this matter.”

Yeah right.

Federal Court Rules That The Civil Rights Act DOES NOT Protect Against Anti-Gay Discrimination

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, Of Interest, , , , , , , ,

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a lesbian employee was not protected from anti-gay workplace discrimination under the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on sex-based discrimination prohibition, thus ignoring a Supreme Court precedent.

Jameka Evans said that she was harassed, and effectively fired from her job at Georgia Regional Hospital, for being a lesbian. But the three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals which included notoriously anti-gay Judge William Pryor who was on President Donald Trump’s short list for the Supreme Court, ruled 2-1 that Title VII does not cover anti-LGBT discrimination. And while the panel allowed the complainant to amend her case to alleged discrimination based on sex stereotyping, it ultimately found that “she did not provide enough factual matter to plausibly suggest that her decision to present herself in a masculine manner led to the alleged adverse employment actions.”

Pryor surprisingly previously joined in a 2011 opinion finding that Title VII applies to transgender people. But he also wrote in support of upholding a ban on gay sex in 2003.

“But just as a woman cannot recover under Title VII when she is fired because of her heterosexuality, neither can a gay woman sue for discrimination based on her sexual orientation,” Pryor wrote. “Deviation from a particular gender stereotype may correlate disproportionately with a particular sexual orientation, and plaintiffs who allege discrimination on the basis of gender nonconformity will often also have experienced discrimination because of sexual orientation. But under Title VII, we ask only whether the individual experienced discrimination for deviating from a gender stereotype.”

Lambda Legal who argued on Evans her behalf that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in a statement that it will seek redress before the Supreme Court.

“This is not the end of the road for us and certainly not for Jameka,” said Greg Nevins, Lambda’s employment fairness project director. “Keeping your job shouldn’t depend on whether or not you pass for straight. There is no way to draw a line between sexual orientation discrimination and discrimination based on gender nonconformity because not being straight is gender-nonconforming, period.”

Source: LGBTQNation

LGBTQIAPDexpialidocious! – GLAAD Makes The Decision All By Itself That We Will Now Be Known As LGBTQ

Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, Of Interest, Opinions and Rants, , , , , , , , ,

LGBTQIAPDexpialidocious! - GLAAD Makes The Decision All By Itself That We Will Now Be Known As LGBTQ

LGBTQIAPDexpialidocious!

GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation  (Remember them?  I know it’s hard they don’t do much these days.)  is releasing the tenth edition of its style guide, an utterly PC language bible for LGBT “journalists”  is now asking that all major media outlets to use LGBTQ from now on. The “q” by the way stands for queer, not questioning.

“On one level, it is just adding another letter,” says Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s president and CEO. “But really it is bringing a whole new definition to the way we describe ourselves. It’s the start of a bigger shift.”

Other changes to GLAAD’s style guide includes the more open-ended label “bi+.” There are inaugural glossary definitions for “intersex” and “asexual”  and will find the descriptor “non-binary” alongside the explanation of what it means to be “genderqueer.”

Gay activist  Vito Russo’s concern over how LGBT people were presented in the popular media led him to co-found the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which is supposed to be a watchdog group that monitors LGBT representation in the mainstream media not oversee  acronyms.  In 2016 while we still have major problems with gay, lesbian,bisexual and transgender  representation in mainstream movies, television, literature and we are constantly fighting the #KillYourGays meme one would think that GLAAD might have better things to do like follow its original mission statement and stop making poor Vito rol in his grave.

 But since GLAAD waisted do much and money on their “stylebook” perhaps GLAAD should lead by example and change their name to the LGB+TQQIA-AAD.

Until then GLAAD can stick their elongated useless acronyms up their Funk & Wagnalls.

Bisexual Dating Site Erases Thousands of Gay and Lesbian Profiles. Oh The Humanity!‏

Featured, Of Interest, , , ,

Bisexual Fish

The leading bisexual dating site BisexualFish.com has removed thousands of gay and lesbian profiles because it has decided that it will not allow gays and lesbians to be part of their dating community.

“We want to reiterate that our service is only for people who are attracted to both men and women,” said Marshall, founder of BisexualFish.com. “We just want to provide a place where everyone has the same orientation”

Unlike any other dating sites, BisexualFish.com doesn’t allow its members to select their “orientation”. The only option is for “bisexuals” to meet “bisexuals”, which means if you’re a member, you could only be bisexual.

“This isn’t about discrimination at all. As part of the LGBT community, we certainly know what it’s like to be prejudiced and no one wants feeling.” Marshall added, “However, we want to create a more dedicated platform for our members. I’m sure there are services that are for gay and lesbian only, where gay and lesbian will have a much bigger chance to meet that one.”

According to Marshall, any profile that claims to be homosexual will be deleted. “We will notify the member that BisexualFish.com isn’t a gay or lesbian dating site when we delete their profiles. We wish them all the best on other gay or lesbian dating sites.” said Marshall. 

Talk about erasure!

SOURCE - prweb.com

STRAIGHT-WASHED: Ken Burns Ignore FDR’s Anti-Gay Navy Scandal, Eleanor and ‘Lesbians’ Avoided in ‘The Roosevelts’

Entertainment, Featured, , , , , , ,

Ken Burns sucks

 

The ever awesome and straight (gayly) to the point Michelangelo Signorile of Sirius XM and Huffington Post has some serious and truthful  issues with Ken Burns’ negligence of any gay or lesbian mentions in Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s lives in his epic, 14-hour PBS documentary series The Roosevelts:

How could we not hear about the scandalous anti-gay witch hunt beginning in 1919 in Newport overseen by then assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt? As detailed in historian John Loughery’s 1998 book The Other Side of Silence, Navy sailors were recruited to entrap other men to have sex with them, with the undercover “operatives” engaging in sex to orgasmic completion — oral, and yes, some anal — with the men they entrapped, and logging all of this in their own reports.

And what about the bi-erasure of his right-hand man, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles?

“He was FDR’s school chum — and page boy at Eleanor and FDR’s wedding — and he was also bisexual and quite sexually active, something about which FDR apparently looked the other way. Eventually, though, Roosevelt reluctantly accepted his resignation in 1937 after one of Welles’s rivals in the state department seized upon information that Welles had sex with two black men, Pullman porters on the same train that carried the president from the House Speaker’s funeral in Alabama, and threatened to provide the details to a GOP Senate enemy unless Roosevelt dumped him.”

And during a recent discussion in Chicago Burns himself dismissed the mention of Eleanor’s “close” friends as  too “tabloid”

“Burns treats all of this is to discuss Eleanor and Hickok as close and intimate “friends” — he has Doris Kearns Goodwin telling us Hickok was “in love” with Eleanor, almost as if it was one-sided — but never using the “L” word, or even raising the possibility of sex, seeming to view that as sleazy…”

I myself could argue that Eleanor’s rumored lesbian relationships may  be debatable. But what is not debatable was the anti-gay navy witch-hunts and not including them in the 14 hour series was a huge mistake. That was real documented history that would be critical to later civil rights struggles and also speaks to FDR’s character and not including it speaks volume of Ken Burns character as well.

The Walking Dead Mid-Season 3 Finale: The One Where We Find Out Not Only Lesbians Have Short Hair

Featured, GayGeek - All Things Gay and Geeky, , , , , , , , ,

WARNING!!!

THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD – CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Zombie Kills:  9

Human/Enemy Deaths: 6

Last night AMC presented the mid-season finale of its smash zombie apocalypse hit The Walking Dead based on the graphic novel by Robert Kirkman of the same name

So far in Season 3 we have seen a much more character driven plot and some HUGE differences from the graphic novel and last night was no exception.

Last night Woodbury and Rick’s survivors finally collided together in an epic clash of smoke grenades, automatic weapons and blood as they attempted to rescue Glen and Maggie.

But before we get to that, the mid-season finale introduced us to yet another group of survivors, led by comics fan-favorite, Tyreese played by actor Chad Coleman.  (In the graphic novel Tyrese is a  former NFL player Tyreese who with his daughter Julie is introduced before Herschel’s farm),  After (mostly) surviving an attack by Walkers, the group heads into the prison and makes their way to a Walker-infested boiler room. Carl helps them out and leads them to a safe place within the prison.

Rick and the crew storm Woodbury to rescue Glenn and Maggie just as Meryl is leading them to “The Screaming Pit”  But thanks to some smoke bombs and a lot of ammo the group succeeds and makes it out all except for Daryl who stays behind to lay down gunfire cover and Oscar the convict (we hardly knew ya dude) who gets shot by a Rick hallucinated Shane look-alike.

Michonne meanwhile ditches the group for a time to handle her own business with the Governor, she exacts her revenge by putting hers katana through the mouth of Penny, the Governor’s daughter, and in a barroom brawl with the Gov gets up close and personal with head-tanks and then give him a shard right in the old eyeball only to end in a stand-off between her and Andrea (the dumbest television character of all time)

Then we have hot white trash Darryl who really wanted to go talk to his brother Merle once Glenn told him he was the Governor’s lieutenant. And now, he’ll get the chance because The Governor is blaming  Merle for the rescue and is now pitting him against Darryl who was captured in the “screaming pits” or maybe he’ll just kill the both of them outright

So far Season 3 has been good.  But there have been a few mis-steps.  Herschel’s 1/2 episode leg amputation. (Boring)  The extremely long build-up in Woodbury.  And of course Andrea’s long term stupidity and bad judgement.

But other than that it’s been pretty solid season so far and the show is going strong and pulling out all the stops.

EXCEPT……

As we all know I have an issue with TWD and its absence of any LGBT identifying characters and the cutting the gay prison storyline in the graphic novel.  Also this season with the early demise of Laurie (she dies much later in the graphic novel) we also miss the graphic novels part of storyline where Carol hits on Laurie to try to get between her and Rick.

And then last night Robert Kirkman who wrote the episode had to add in this.

Axel (Lew Temple) it was certainly done in a creepy like a chat-room pedophile sort of way hits on Beth asking her how old she his. Carol pulled him away and tells him to stay away from her.  Axel at this point points out that Maggie is taken and that Carol is a lesbian.

And why does Axel think that Carol is a lesbian?

Because she has short hair.

Really Kirkman?  You’ve been writing the damn comic for 10 years and you couldn’t think of anything other than that to write?

You are killing me man.  First you make all LGBT characters invisible in TWD television world and then you have to get a cheap laugh off a lesbian stereotype throwaway line.

UGH.

And so The Walking Dead at the end of third mid-season finale not only keeps its perfect rating of ZERO when it comes to LGBT characters.  It now goes into the NEGATIVE and stands at a – 1!

Get a clue and some diversity training Kirkman and start to remember that more than just fanboys are watching your show. And as gay as ComicCon was this year they just MIGHT be able to handel a gay or bisexual characters.

 

 

 

Lincoln Nebraska Lesbian Bound, Gagged, With Anti-Gay Slurs Cut Into Her Body Survives Brutal Hate Crime

Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, Religious Morons and Anti-Gay Idiots, , , , , ,

A Lincoln, Nebraska woman became the victim of HORRIBLE hate crime on Sunday morning when three masked men  barged into her house, bound her wrists and ankles with zip  ties, cut her all over her body and carved homophobic slurs into her skin before  dumping gasoline on her floor of her house and lighting it with a match.

The woman survived crawling  from her blazing house, naked and bleeding and screaming for help  reaching the doorstep of a neighbor’s home.

The Omaha World Herald adds:

[Capt. Jim] Davidsaver said the victim’s  description of the suspects was limited because of the masks. When police  arrived, the house was still on fire, the captain said. He said it caused about  $200 in damage. Davidsaver would not say what words the men carved into the  woman’s skin. “We need to maintain the integrity of the case,” he  said.

But Erin Thompson of Lincoln, who described herself as the victim’s  best friend, said she got a call from her friend about 6:30 Sunday morning. The  friend asked Thompson to pick her up from the hospital.

“They carved on  me,” Thompson said her friend tearfully told her.

Thompson said three  epithets, including the word “dyke,” were carved on the woman’s arms and  stomach.

Police are still searching for suspects and have not made any arrests.

A Facebook group has also been formed. and a vigil for the poor women took place Sunday night attended by hundreds:

 

Actress Raven-Symoné Responds To Recent Lesbian Rumors Via Twitter

Entertainment, Gay News From Around The Globe, Tweet Of The Day, , , , ,

All grown up 25 year old ex-Disney That’s So Raven star Raven-Symoné who’s currently  starring in Boradway’s Sister Act as Deloris Van Cartier (A role she is faaar too young for.  But thats another story.)  responded today via Twitter to the news via The National Enquirer that she is a lesbian who’s currently dating model AzMarie Livingston.

Tweeted Symone:

I’m living my PERSONAL life the way I’m happiest,” she tweeted “I’m not one, in my 25 year career to disclose who I’m dating. and I shall not start now. My sexual orientation is mine, and the person I’m datings to know.”

“I’m not one for a public display of my life. However that is my right as a HUMAN Being, whether straight or gay. To tell or not to tell. As long as I’m not harming anyone. I am a light being made from love. And my career is the only thing I would like to put on display, not my personal life. Kisses!”

I  wish Hollywood didn’t put such stigma on this.  I sincerely hope that she relaxes and accepts herself a bit more.

But good for her for at least not denying it.

Unlike some stars *cough* Queen Latifah *cough*