Fire Island's Underground Drag History Documentary; Married Pilot Busted For Hooking Up With Teen Boy on Grindr; Amazon's Transphobic Caitlyn Jenner Costume

Fire Island's Underground Drag History Documentary

We had a very good friend back in the late 90s named Rolf who was much, much older than we were. At the time, I think he and his partner of 30 years were in their 70s and both had retired to New Hope. We were in our 20s and he used to tell us stories about his drag days in the 1960s and 70s on Fire Island, and I never thought I'd be posting about them 20 years later. The stories were fascinating. Unfortunately, Rolf and his partner both passed away around 2002, but I'll be looking for this documentary as soon as it's released. 

Fisher’s new film Cherry Grove Stories covers the history of the Fire Island neighborhood from its earliest days to the present, and plays at NewFest October 30. In it, he and his interview subjects recount their own memories, as well as the gay folklore imparted to them when they first began visiting the popular gay destination.

Here's the link. 


Married Pilot Busted For Hooking Up With Teen Boy on Grinder

Here's another Grindr story. This time it's about a 46 year old married male pilot and a 14 year old boy.

Morris connected with the 14-year-old boy called “Tom” on the hookup app back in December 2016. The two chatted for a while before Morris invited Tom over to his elderly parent’s house for a hookup in the wee hours of December 28.

You can read it all, here. The 46 year old was found guilty and now he's registered as a sex offender.

Amazon's Transphobic Caitlyn Jenner Costume

Here's something that has a lot of people up in arms, and rightly so. 

Amazon has come under fire for a transphobic Halloween Caitlyn Jenner costume.

The Halloween costume comes as a set, with a jersey top, pair of shorts, brunette wig, Olympic medal and removable marathon number.’

Here's the link.   So far, Jenner has not commented on the costume. I think it would be interesting if LGBT people decided to dress up for Halloween as straight people. It could be done easily, too. 

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Presumption of Innocence: The Corey Booker Accusations; Canada Flies the Straight Pride Flag; Judge Tosses Out Public Gay Sex Lawsuit

Presumption of Innocence: The Corey Booker Accusations

I have always firmly believed in The Presumption of Innocence. I think it's a fundamental part of our process, and without it no one is safe.

The presumption of innocence is the principle that one is considered innocent unless proven guilty. It was traditionally expressed by the Latin maxim ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (“the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies”).

With that said, here's an article that discusses the sexual assault accusations recently made against Sen. Cory Booker. I saw the accusations myself on Twitter when they happened, and I couldn't believe that someone would have the audacity to print such strong comments without giving his name or proof. From what I saw, they are just accusations based on nothing solid or factual. 

In a description that reads like a dime store novel, the man alleges that Booker groped him in a public bathroom and tried to get the man to perform oral sex on him. Booker was supposedly visiting the man’s workplace at the time.

The man says he ran into Booker in the bathroom and the two chatted in the doorway before Booker pushed him up against a wall and groped him against his will.

You can read the rest, here. But keep in mind this isn't about politics or bots. This is about The Presumption of Innocence, and someone could do this to you, too.

Canada Flies the Straight Pride Flag

This whole thing has a myriad of issues, some of which are frustrating. Frustrating in the sense that they simply do not "get" it in this little town in Canada. They fail to realize the most important fact here: every day is straight pride day everywhere in the world. The entire world is heteronormative. But they flew a straight pride flag anyway. In their attempt at fairness, they missed the entire point of the Rainbow Flag...to bring awareness to a marginalized group of people who have fought long and hard for their equality. It's not about sexuality.

In a seemingly misguided attempt at fairness, however, the city council also recently erected a black-and-white “straight pride” flag from the same flagpole. The flag features six black and white stripes with interlocking male and female symbols at it centers.

You can read the rest here. They have taken the flag down, and issued a letter of explanation. But does that make it any better? There are still people out there who simply do not get it. 


Judge Tosses Out Public Gay Sex Lawsuit

Arrests of this kind have been going on for years and no one has ever done anything about it until now. Most people don't even know it's been happening. The police have been setting gay men up and luring them for years in these "sting"operations. Until now. 

Judge Ginger Lerner Wren ruled against the state of Florida in a case involving 19 men who were arrested during two separate sting operations for “exposure of sexual organs and/or unnatural lascivious acts” after being caught having sex inside an adult film theater.

Judge Wren also said this in her ruling. 

“caution must be exercised in how we apply a statute which can criminalize private sexual acts between consenting adults” and noted that Pleasure Emporium has “several levels of barriers” in place to protect unsuspecting people from seeing any of the sexual activity happening inside the theaters.

Here's the rest. Unfortunately, many of the men have already chosen a guilty plea, but she said there is hope to to get the guilty pleas tossed out. The problem is that most gay men, especially closeted gay men, won't do that. It's easier to just plead guilty and keep it private. And the police know that.

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Chris Pine's Full Frontal Male Nude Scene; Zeitgeist 1977: The First Gay Film Festival; Prince Charles Inspires Trans Teen

Chris Pine's Full Frontal Male Nude Scene

If there were more full frontal male nudes scenes in films, this wouldn't be a headline. But since there aren't more, this is obviously still highly newsworthy. It's about Chris Pine's role in Outlaw King.

 It’s no secret that Chris Pine is showing wood. The actor’s full-frontal scene in the upcoming Netflix film Outlaw King already has tongues wagging, and you can add three famous names to the list of interested parties: Rami Malec, Sally Field and Graham Norton.

You can read more, here. I just hope the film doesn't suck.



Zeitgeist 1977: The First Gay Film Festival

Here's something about gay films in the 1970s. For those who don't know anything about it, you'll find it educational.

These stories, along with those of the filmmakers, all have their retelling in Zeitgeist 1977, a new short film from Frameline, the San Francisco-based queer media arts foundation that today is home to literally dozens of first-rate movies at its annual festival leading up to Pride weekend in the city. 

Here's the link. It looks interesting.



Prince Charles Inspires Trans Teen

Here's a story about a young trans man in the UK named Luke Levine. This kid inspires me.

He talks about how meeting Prince Charles gave him strength and inspiration.

‘Speaking to Prince Charles, seeing how involved he was with volunteering and how passionate he was saved my life,’ Luke told The Sunday People newspaper.

‘I’d never felt the same as everybody else but didn’t know why.

 
You can read more about him, here.

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Defining Fem Top Culture; Lawyer Offers FREE Name Changes For Trans People; Texas Library Sued Over Drag Queens Reading To Kids

Defining Fem Top Culture

It seems as if there's a new thing every day lately, and I have no idea what this is. But it's interesting. It's all about Fem Tops tweeting how they feel. They make a few good points, too.

Last week, we shared 25 tweets that perfectly defined bottom culture.

Of course, here at Queerty, we’re all about inclusivity, and we didn’t want the tops, specifically fem tops, feeling left out.

Here's the link. 

Lawyer Offers FREE Name Changes For Trans People

This is a nice story about support and solidarity. 

An attorney in Ohio is offering free name change services to transgender people.

Attorney Andrew Schriver was considering doing this good deed for a while. But he finally bit the bullet when a friend of his needed one.

You can read more, here. They go on to explain how the name change is done. 

Texas Library Sued Over Drag Queens Reading To Kids

It looks as if the anti-gay Christians are at it again. 

Known as Christ Followers, the group argue taxpayer dollars should not fund the Drag Queen Story Time event at the Freed-Montrose Neighborhood library in Houston.

Here's a link to this one. They say the library refuses to do a man-woman marriage storytelling hour. What always surprises me about these stories is that don't these anti-gay Christians realize the entire world IS a man-woman marriage storytelling hour. We live in a heteronormative society because that's what dominates, and the only LGBT things we see as kids or adults is few and far between. 

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Crowd Shocked When Really Cute Man Swims Naked with Sharks; Newest Craze: Drag Wrestling; Straight Men Who Have Sex With Men

Crowd Shocked When Really Cute Man Swims Naked with Sharks

This has been causing quite an uproar. 

A really cute guy jumped into a tank of sharks up in Toronto at one of those touristy family Aquarium places, and the cute guy was stark naked. 

Weaver jumped in the shark tank around 10:30pm, swimming around before aquarium security asked him to leave the tank. Weaver initially complied, but then jumped back in on the main floor of the aquarium before a stunned and giggling crowd. He then exited the water, got dressed, and left the aquarium.

Here's the rest. There's a SFW video, and unfortunately you can't really see anything offensive. 


Newest Craze: Drag Wrestling

I've heard a few people talking about this lately, and some think it might catch on. 

New York's original and longest running Drag Cabaret Lucky Cheng's celebrated 25 years with a multi-faceted Drag Extravaganza - Aerialist Drag, Opera, Dance and the launch of pro drag wrestling. 

Here's more.  This place, Lucky Cheng's, is also a huge part of gay history and gay culture. I went there once a while ago. 

Straight Men Who Have Sex With Men

It's interesting how often gay men have sex with straight men, but it's never actually talked about...for obvious reasons. Many of these straight men are married to women, and most don't identify as gay. This article gets into the entire topic, and it does a decent job exploring the possibilities regarding why straight men do it. 

“The majority of straight men who are going to a glory hole are going because they don’t want to see who is on the other side. It is about just getting off.

“Is it that easy to find another girl who is just willing to give a blow job and say nothing more? Guys know what other guys are like. Guys just want to (get off). It sounds harsh, but it’s true.”

You can read more here. I can't find anything I disagree with. I've heard a good deal of these stories myself, first hand. There's also another factor to consider. Many gay men are highly attracted to straight men, and they like being pursued by straight men. 

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Mile High Club: Gay Sex On A Delta Plane with Austin Wolf; Straight Guys Have More Sex with Gay Genes; San Jose Settles Lawsuit Over Gay Sex Stings

Mile High Club Gay Sex On A Plane


I have an older book out titled, The Mile High Club, that's been on amazon for a while...years. I wrote it back when I was getting published by Alyson Books in the mid-2000s. It's a short story about a straight couple, Bert and Betty, who are looking for a little adventure in their lives...on a plane. Bert's a really hot guy, and so is another male character in the story. So even though it's not totally gay, it does appeal to gay men. And Betty is one hella good sport.

In any event, this Delta story has been going around all week and I wanted to post something about it.

You’ve likely heard by now that a Delta Airlines employee was suspended from his job this week after hooking up with adult film performer Austin Wolf in an aircraft lavatory. Not just that, but the whole thing was caught on tape and uploaded online.

Of course once Twitter found out it went totally viral, and now Delta is doing damage control.

Here's the link. I saw the video, but I'm not sure I can link to it here because it's definitely NSFW. It's actually not bad, though. I found it through a search on Twitter. You can always depend on gay men to supply the right links.


Straight Guys Have More Sex with Gay Genes

This is something new.

Gay people might have superpowers–to have more sex. Even stranger, straight people with some of the same genes may also have the same predisposition to have more sex.

Here's more. The entire study hasn't gone public yet. They also get into whether or not being gay is a matter of genetics. 


San Jose Settles Lawsuit Over Gay Sex Stings

I've posted about this one before, and here's a follow up.

Officials have settled a lawsuit by five men who alleged discrimination when they were arrested in undercover gay sex stings conducted by police at a city park in 2014 and 2015.

I've also posted about how this kind of thing, in general, has been going on everywhere for a very long time. I've known gay people who've experienced it, in some of the worst and most homophobic ways. This could be  book in itself. 

Here's the rest of the article. It's very interesting because it gets into a lot more about the way police use decoys in these stings to lure gay men. It's done in many cities. 

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Harry Potter's Dumbledore IS VERY Gay Says Ezra Miller; Anti-Gay Wedding Videographers and LGBT Rights; Cuban Churches Unite Against Same Sex Marriage

Harry Potter's Dumbledore IS VERY Gay Says Ezra Miller

In full disclosure, I can only link to this without commenting because I have never read anything in the Harry Potter series, and I've never been able to sit through one single movie.

With that said, there's been a lot of discussion on social media about Dumbledore being gay, and Ezra Miller doesn't think it's warranted.

It’s a funny idea to me that every form of representation has to look the same. For me, personally, I find Dumbledore’s queerness extremely explicit in this film.

He goes on to rant about people not thinking for themselves, and being influenced by social media. But someone in the comments said this...

Not to be a contrarian, but Dumbledores gayness is extremely subtle and never demonstrated. 

Sorry Ezra, but that comment is mostly what I've been seeing on social media, too. 

You can check it all out here. Frankly, and I'm speaking in general not about Harry Potter, I think we're (gay people) just starting to realize certain things. 



Anti-Gay Wedding Videographers and LGBT Rights

This sounds like something we should all be watching. This is the first time I've heard about it. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to definitively rule on whether religious business owners can break anti-discrimination laws by refusing to serve LGBTQ people on the basis of their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” But a case currently in front of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could easily give the U.S. Supreme Court another chance to get it right (or horribly wrong).

You can read it all, here, where there's a lot more back story and explanation.




Cuban Churches Unite Against Same Sex Marriage

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. It's still going on here in the US with these religious right zealots. 

Evangelical Cuban churches are uniting against a proposed amendment to the constitution that will allow same-sex marriage.

Here's the link. Sounds like these good Christians are really pushing hard against this, and it's all in the name of the bible. 

And you wonder why we get mad about things like Harry Potter's Dumbledore. Seriously! 

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