Bay Windows
Bump! The Ultimate Gay Travel Guide - Mexico
When it comes to travel, we LGBT types have some special needs, like: Where can we go without getting hassled? Enter the Canadian TV show Bump!, the world’s first program that focuses on the gay traveler. Each episode covers one city or region, starting with an overview, giving some tips for hotspots and events of particular interest to queer tourists, like gay bookstores, Pride Festivals and Mardi Gras parties, and getting the info and history that tour guides don’t cover by interviewing local queer experts, historians and business owners.
The next chapter
South End bookseller enters the publishing realm
The whistle blower
No one in Boston writes a more thoughtful rave, or a more stinging pan, than theater critic Thomas Garvey. Considering his reputation for expressing his opinions forcefully, ("I’m tough but fair," he demurs) some members of the Boston theater community may be sharpening their own poison pens now that Garvey is returning to directing. Zeitgeist Theater has found the perfect match for Garvey: The acidic satire Blowing Whistles, Matthew Todd’s up-to-the-nanosecond comedy of gay manners. Garvey chats about the state of Boston theater, going up against two other gay plays, and importance of blowing whistles.
Fighting on all fronts
It’s pretty clear that Republicans looking to use Florida’s anti-gay marriage ballot initiative to gay bash for partisan gain could be in trouble during this presidential election cycle, thanks to their own muddied positions on the issue. Another factor that might further neutralize the issue is the formation of Florida Red and Blue, one of the two groups that have formed to fight the amendment. Evidenced by its name, Florida Red and Blue aims to create a bipartisan coalition of activists who will work to defeat the amendment.
Wanted: prospective LGBT foster/adoptive parents
LGBT singles and couples considering becoming foster or adoptive parents will have the opportunity to learn more about the process, hear from experienced LGBT foster/adoptive parents and have their questions answered at informational events co-hosted by The Home for Little Wanderers and the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) in January and March.
Trial by fire
Gunner Scott took the reigns of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) as the organization’s first paid director this week just as a controversy over MTPC’s association with the Human Rights Campaign was attracting national attention.
Blueprint for change
Most of the states that passed gay rights bills in the 1980s and early 1990s, like Massachusetts, have not updated their laws to include protections for transgender people. In fact, only four states -- Rhode Island, California, New Jersey and Vermont -- have accomplished that goal. And many of the factors that made victory possible are not present in Massachusetts.
GLAD turns 30
This year marks GLAD’s 30th anniversary, and the organization plans to honor its history through a series of events and public education programs. On Jan. 23 Buseck joins pundit Keith Boykin, sexpert Susie Bright and cultural commentator Michael Bronski for a forum at Old South Meeting House looking back at the BPL sting that triggered GLAD’s formation and examining America’s changing attitudes toward sex.
Pilot columnist takes aim at LGBT youth programs
The Jan. 4 edition of the Archdiocese’s official newspaper, The Pilot, features a column by Dale O’Leary attacking LGBT youth programs and warning parents of the dangers of their youth getting involved with homosexuality and transsexuality.
Trans bill briefing draws a crowd
About 40 people, a mix of lawmakers, aides and LGBT advocates, turned out at the State House Jan. 16 for a legislative briefing on House Bill 1722, which would update the state’s non-discrimination and hate crimes laws to make them transgender-inclusive.
Somerville Police decline to press hate crimes charges
The Somerville Police Department announced Jan. 15 that it will not pursue hate crimes charges against Richard Malloy, a Methuen man who a group of lesbians claim followed them to a friend’s apartment in Somerville last November, shouted homophobic slurs at them and assaulted them. In a statement the department said that after an investigation, detectives determined that there was no evidence to find probable cause to charge Malloy with a civil rights violation.
Chic Ironic Bitterness
In the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center, pundits heralded the end of the "Age of Irony," claiming that the tragedy would awaken America into a new seriousness.
Madagascar Skin
Two men, drifters and outcasts, find solace in each other’s company in this odd, evocative drama. John Hannah (Alias, The Mummy) is Harry, a lonely man who’s never found acceptance in the gay community because of the big port wine stain on his face (it’s vaguely shaped like Madagascar, hence the title.)
Divinidylle
I thought of writing this review entirely in French, but that would be clever, and Paradis doesn’t seem interested in mere cleverness. She evokes French pop of the 60s and early 70s without the irony of, say, the high-concept cover band Nouvelle Vague.
Relationship recognition in New England
An overview of how the six New England States have legalized - or not - a spectrum of coupling models.
Some People Have REAL Problems
This album begins with the barely-instrumented "Lullaby," the better to show off Sia’s voice, and what a voice: Smoky, raspy, quirky, it’ll have you wondering who she reminds you of. Maybe a little Fiona Apple, some Chrissie Hynde, but Sia is mostly unique.
28th First Event to take place Jan. 16-20
Long Island activist Juli Owens, keynote speaker for the 28th annual First Event conference, said she plans to talk about the choices that transgender people are forced to make to balance their transgender identity and the need to survive in an often hostile world.
She’s still here
Jennifer Finney Boylan’s new memoir, I’m Looking Through You, is a bit of a departure from her 2003 memoir She’s Not There. While the latter book catapulted her to the top of the best sellers list and onto the Oprah show with her comic, intimate account of her transition from male to female, the new book takes a turn for the supernatural, recounting her experience growing up in a suburban house in Philadelphia that, according to local legend, was haunted.
New trans legal clinic kicks off Jan. 16
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, will speak at the kick-off event of a new Boston-based legal clinic for low-income transgenders.
Scenes of a Sexual Nature
Despite the racy title, this gentle ensemble drama is necessarily rather tame, as it takes place entirely on Hampstead Heath, a popular London park.