Do I Sound Gay?: (Yes)

Self-conscious about the way he speaks, David Thorpe has explored why some people in his community ‘sound gay’ and others don’t in a new documentary... 

“The film is a moment in my life where I don’t have confidence for a number of reasons,” Thorpe says. “Growing up, I was always told that what was wrong with me was that I was gay, so it’s not hard to understand that in a moment of vulnerability I might also feel insecure about my sexuality. And my voice is probably the biggest signifier of that.”

As for talking "normally”, Thorpe has given up the exercises now and has embraced his voice. As Dan Savage, the activist who founded the It Gets Better campaign, says in the film: “What’s wrong with sounding like you are who you are – a gay man?”

Gillian Orr, The Independent.

A good article about gay stuff in the Indy, and Dan Savage saying something Fagburn likes a lot - will wonders never cease?

Here are the UK screenings, at last, starting Friday.

Ukraine: This Is Fascism

BBC News.

Fagburn is very surprised - nay flabbergasted - at this turn of events in a country now governed by a neo-fascist junta who came to power in a CIA backed coup.

Whatever next!?

A boycott by Dan Savage and Michael Lucas?

A tear-soaked documentary by Dame Stephen Fry?

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Oscars: No Moore

[Graham Moore shared] with the millions of telecast viewers that at the age of 16, he tried to kill himself “because I felt weird, and I felt different, and I felt that I did not belong. And now I’m standing here, and I would like this moment to be for that kid out there who feels she’s weird or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. … Stay different, and then when it’s your turn, and you’re standing on this stage, please pass the message to the next person that comes along.”

I wish that Moore had drawn a clearer line between his comments about Turing—a man who was persecuted and prosecuted for his homosexuality—and his “it gets better” message to teens who are merely weird and different. For one thing, overemphasizing the connection between queer teens and suicide can be dangerous. But it’s also important to note that being gay simply isn’t the same as being a “geek.” Moore may see them as comparable (and, though he has identified himself as straight, his affect may have opened him up to homophobic bullying), but the truth of the matter is that the social force behind anti-gay prejudice is far stronger and more pernicious than the animus against social outcasts. Moore’s heart was surely in the right place, but I wish he hadn't conflated these identities.

June Thomas, Slate.

Well said.

Can't see why some people are gushing over this boo hoo squish squish patronising gay death cult guff.

Update: Though he appears to be absolutely screaming, Graham Moore has reiterated to BuzzFeed News that he is not gay. Deffo.

Update2: Oops! - thanks to Nick. x

Update3: More from Slate's J Bryan Lowder, Is It “Weird” to Be Gay? What Graham Moore’s Speech Really Means.

Dan Savage: Hard To Think Of Anyone Else Who's Done So Much To Fetishise Queer Teen Suicide

Oh do fuck off, you hypocritical right-wing gayist cunt.

Samaritans media guidelines on how NOT to report suicide.

Dan Savage: Conservative

World Net Daily video columnist Molotov Mitchell (yeah we’d never heard of him before this either) has employed some creative logic to come to these conclusions: Dan Savage is worse than the Westboro Baptist Church, and he should fly with the church to Iraq to protest ISIS...


Queerty.

Perhaps only in America could Dan Savage not be seen as conservative.

Where being left or right is defined not by where someone stands on US foreign policy or economics, but on guns, god and gays.

Savage is a 'patriotic' power-serving media whore pushing the American dream - get rich, get married, get kids - to gay men.

Here's his infamous 2002 article Say 'YES' To War On Iraq.

If he believed that right-wing drivel he should have gone to Iraq twelve years ago.

'The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.' Chomsky.

PS Remember Democrat Dan's bonkers boycott of Latvian vodka to protest Russia's anti-gay 'holocaust'? As with Iran and Israel/Palestine, 'gay rights' are invoked to defend Western imperial interests.

Macklemore: Same Old Same Old

God, I now hate this avalanche of sentimental puke.

Though on the plus side it annoyed the usual American right-wing homophobic cunts. Though to be fair they'd probably be outraged if you said you had some spaghetti hoops for dinner.

"The queers complaining about Macklemore & Ryan Lewis now remind me of the queers who used to bitch and bitch and bitch about how big beer companies didn't advertise in queer publications or sponsor pride parades. ("Queer people drink a lot of beer! They want us to support them and buy their beer but they don't want to support us and our community!") But when big beer companies began advertising in queer publications and sponsoring pride parades... the exact same queers who had been complaining about how big beer companies weren't advertising in queer publications or sponsoring pride parades immediately started bitching about how the beer companies were trying to profit off our sexuality. ("The pride parade is not for sale! We are a community, not a commodity!") Blah blah bitchy blah."

Dan Savage in a rant against "queer social justice warriors."
Social justice? Ugh!

Suicide: Does It Get Better?

A mother has called for a ban on suicide websites after an inquest heard that her son researched how to take his own life on the web after suffering homophobic bullying.

Ayden Keenan-Olson, 14, was found dead in his bed by his father, Tim Olson, at the family home in Colchester, Essex, on 14 March. He had taken an overdose of prescription drugs and left two suicide notes outlining the homophobic and racist bullying he had experienced at the Philip Morant School, an inquest in Chelmsford heard.

After his death, Ayden’s mother, the author and prominent child abuse campaigner Shy Keenan, said he had been “bullied to death”.

A police investigation found that, in the month leading up to his death, Ayden had bypassed settings on his computer to research suicide methods on the internet.

Mrs Keenan told the inquest yesterday: “My job is to protect kids online but I could not keep my own son safe.”

The Independent.

Heart-breaking, of course.

May be worth questioning whether online campaigns like Dan Savage's It Gets Better actually help fetishise suicide for gay kids...

PS To clarify in response to comment below, the literature on how media coverage of suicide influences and affects risk of suicide is vast - try Googling it.
The phenomenon is called suicide contagion.
Why is this never mentioned in the gay media's gushing coverage of It Gets Better? 

Fagburn: Here Is The Gayer News!

• Dong! The forward march of fascist anti-gay pasta halted. An ever-so slightly pyrrhic victory for gay hysterics and fans of phoney outrage, as Barilla pasta announces competition asking the gays to make gay-friendly adverts getting other gays to buy Barilla pasta! Mamma mia!

• Dong! Saint Peter of Tatchell is organising another pointless protest against Valery Gergiev, some Russian conductor who supports Putin! Remember: Russia is uniquely evil, and this old man is personally responsible for all its sins. You are asked to bring sparklers. Yes, sparklers! Drop me a line if you have any idea what all this is meant to achieve, beyond getting Mr Vain's picture in the papers again, and boring some posh people. [Update: And here Peter digs himself into an almighty hole and shows once more why so many on the Left think he's a berk].

• Dong! Dan's Bank Balance Just Gets Better! Want Dan Savage to speak at your college? That'll be $24,000, please! The official voice of American gay privilege don't come cheap. Hopefully Dan throws in his classic  "Say 'Yes' To War On Iraq!" routine for free. [Update: Savage tells a conference he wants; "Population control: there's too many goddamn people on the planet. You know, I'm pro-choice, I believe that women should have a right to control their bodies. Sometimes in my darker moments, I'm anti-choice. I think abortion should be mandatory for about 30 years." Erm...]

• Dong! Our Owen Jones has made a short film for the BBC explaining the continuing relevance of Karl Marx to, I think, Blue Peter viewers. Owen is taking part in the Bonfire Of Austerity action in Westminster this evening. Which clashes with the Million Mask March. [Update: Irony alert as media only report on the latter Anonymous protest to say a celebrity turned up! Luckily Russell Brand took off his mask so people knew who he was. Celebactivism? No thank you!].

Is 'queer' a word middle-class activists use that may alienate LGBT workers? Discuss.

• And finally, the US Senate has passed ENDA - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It's still perfectly legal to sack LGBT workers in most states in America, but this is a start towards stopping that. But why get angry about something that actually impacts on the lives of ordinary lesbians and gay men in your own country, when you can whine on about something less important in Russia?

Russia: The Empire Strikes Back!

L: Bad but unboring Russian activist holds easily comprehensible sign, Moscow, September 25; R: Good but boring Russian activists hold signs nobody cares about, Moscow, September 24. Police equally unimpressed.

John Aravosis published an article about Nikolai Alekseev’s latest Moscow protest on his blog today. It’s interesting how he excuses doing this. He objects to other media covering Alekseev (“I’ve noticed some top gay ‘news’ sites continuing to go to the anti-Semite Alexeyev for comment”) but not to himself covering Alekseev. He squares the circle by pretending that Alekseev wasn’t behind the demonstration (“it’s unfortunate that the protesters included in their group known anti-Semite, Nikolai Alexeyev“) when of course Alekseev didn’t simply happen along for the ride, he organized the whole thing. It’s all a bit like: I didn’t want to show you Britney Spears’ privates on my blog, people, it’s just that they walked right onto my computer screen.

The truth is, it’s much more sexy and clickworthy, from an American perspective, to run photos of Alekseev holding an catchy English-language sign (no Google Translate needed!) and getting chased by police, than photos of other Russians holding up Russian slogans about substantive things like the fate of Russia that only Russians care about. It would be nice if Aravosis would admit this — and admit there’s a symbiotic relation between the Alekseev lust for controversy and the Aravosis lust for blog hits. It would spare us all the denials...

Bull-fighter Scott Long - the writer and campaigner who's worked together with LGBT Russians for Human Rights Watch - writes perceptively, yet again, on his excellent blog, A Paper Bird, on the strange priorities of the US/UK media in the debate about LGBT Russians, and the hypocrisies of the likes of AmericaBlogGay's Michael Aravosis - brave champion of the far-right, racist and Zionist, Michael Lucas.
In a companion piece yesterday, In Russia They Resist Too, Long asks why a one-man shouty interruption at an opera house in New York "in solidarity with LGBT Russians" got so much media coverage here, while a protest in Moscow against homophobia in schools got next-to zero.

"There was a demonstration in Moscow too yesterday – even if nobody in New York paid much attention. You can demonstrate in Moscow: the LGBT and democracy movements in Russia may be in retreat but are not silent or submissive. This is important to understand, since the tendency now is to paint them as pure victims who can’t say anything for themselves."

Note also how on the day of the #Russia4Love protests earlier this month, an action outside the Russian Embassy in London, and ones in other cities around the world, got massive coverage - while the infinitely more meaningful and important protests in 14 Russian cities by your actual LGBT Russians was ignored.

Scott Long reprints this photo from the NYC Met protest and comments...

"We all know Pastor Niemoller’s moving message. Yet here it isn’t true. They didn’t come for the gays first. Putin came for the Chechens first (actually, Yeltsin did before him); for the journalists; for the odd oligarch and whistleblower; for the punk rock feminists and the environmentalists; for the protest marchers; and then, somewhere down the list, he came for the gays. Where were we when the truth-seekers were slaughtered, when Pussy Riot went to prison, or when Grozny burned? Would things be different now, if some of that emotion had been transmuted into actions back when the right-wing thugs were mainly killing black people; or when the “foreign agents” law was first bruited about; or when cops were beating up Muscovites in the street after a faked election?"

All too often we have seen acts of "It's all about ME!" solipsism masquerading as acts of solidarity.

To complete a stunning, damning quintent* of recent articles, Long writes here about the sudden volte face over fallen idol Nikolai Alekseev, by those who knew of his dodgy political leanings and anti-semitic outbursts, but were silent about them until he began criticising the tactics of US/UK campaigners...

"[who] had all the evidence years ago of the man’s instability and hatred. It’s important to tell the truth. It’s important, because the Alekseev story reveals a lot about the potential pathologies of gay activism: the cult of celebrity, the belief in saviors rather than social movements, the way Westerners project their desires and fantasies onto other countries. Why did Doug [Ireland] and others keep promoting Alekseev, and actively denigrating other Russian activists? They damaged the whole Russian LGBT movement in the process. They shouldn’t get off the hook. And we need to learn lessons from how they went so wrong..."

Quite.

And finally.. Fagburn read today about a fundraising and awareness event, To Russia LGBT With Love, held in London next month - where apparently all money raised is going to the Peter Tatchell Foundation - ie to Peter, who pays himself £29,000 a year from kind donations - and oddly not to LGBT Russian groups, who surely need it more.

If true it would make the whole event look ridiculous and hypocritical, and another example of "The West knows best" gay cultural imperialism we witness above.

I've asked the organisers to confirm this, and will let you know when they reply...

A very nice man from Dalston Superstore told me they haven't decided which charities yet, and they're now working on organising video speakers from Russia.

* "Queer Quislings": Getting Russia Wrong and Top Guns: Last Words On Johnny Weir.

Sex Box: Ban This Opaque Filth!

A new television show will feature couples having sex in a sound-proofed box in a television studio with audience and then being interviewed about it afterwards.
Three couples, two straight and one gay, will take turns to step into the opaque box before being quizzed about what they got up to by host Mariella Frostrup and a panel of sex experts.
Makers of the show, called Sex Box, claim that the programme, which will air on Channel 4, is intended to 'reclaim sex from pornography'.

The first couple to use the 'sex box' for the pre-recorded, hour-long show, which will air on October 7, is 20-somethings Rachel and Dean. They will be followed by Matt and John, who are in a long-term relationship, and childhood sweethearts Lynette and Des.
The couples, whose time in the box will not be filmed, will speak to a panel including television sex expert Tracey Cox, relationship expert Dan Savage, and psychotherapist and author Phillip Hodson.
Cox said: 'The Box itself is a unique way to get peoples' attention and to recognise that sex is a normal part of all our lives and something we need to be talking about openly and honestly.'

Daily Mail.

It says something - and is a more than a bit worrying - that the Mail reports this news so matter-of-factly, when it's bringing out Fagburn's inner Mary Whitehouse.
If Sex Box helps British people stop being quite so prudish and hung-up and fucked-up about sex, great.
But Fagburn suspects the thinking behind commissioning this was not to help the nation shake off its sexual chains, and begin the long walk to erotic freedom.
It's more that they know people - lots of people - will watch it just because they hope to see some shagging (albeit opaquely).*
It's more of a sign of our continuing collective sexual repression and alienation, than liberation, what Herbert Marcuse called repressive desublimation.
There is something seriously wrong with a country where sex induces infinitely more embarrassed giggles than it does orgasms.
Remember when the "public service broadcaster" Channel 4 used to show silly fluff in this timeslot like docudramas about Gramsci?
Or, as it would doubtless have to be pitched today, Prison Confessions Of A Red Sardinian Sex Dwarf.

Still above from The Year Of The Sex Olympics, a 1968 BBC TV film.

In a future Britain, the appetites and passions of the masses are controlled by television, with a constant stream of pornography regulating sexual desire. When audiences show signs of boredom, the 'high drive' broadcasters must find new methods to engage them...

BFI Screen Online - watch it here.

* It's hard to tell from Channel 4's preview exactly what the viewer will see; "While the talk is intimate, the couples' love-making is hidden from view, taking place in a private area where nobody but them can see what's going on: inside the Sex Box."
Presumably you will get glimpses of thrusting shadows in the opaque box, otherwise what's the point of it, when they might as well be shagging backstage or in a bedroom?

Exclusive: Putin 'Murders Gay Puppy'!

President Putin, the Russian president of Russia, has apparently killed a gay puppy with his own bare hands, Fagburn can exclusively reveal.
The photo above shows the clearly terrified little doggy-woggy, just moments away from certain death.
It is taken from a shocking new video that no-one has actually seen, but Radio Free Europe/Voice Of America - a highly-respected independent news outlet funded by the US state department - has said definitely exists.
They say Putin can apparently be heard calling the dog "my beautiful little bitch" and trying to sexually humiliate it by threatening to "give it a bone".

There are fears this could just be the beginning of the mass extermination of all gay puppies in Russia.
"I fear this could be the beginning of the mass extermination of all gay puppies in Russia," commented national treasure, Stephen Fry. "I spent an afternoon in St Petersburg last year, and I can tell you these adorable little doe-eyed balls of fluffiness are treated like dogs."
Mr Fry has called for a show of solidarity by all entrants at next year's Cruft's Dog Show wearing a big pink bow.

Playwright Havey Fierstein was not alone in pointing out this all has chilling echoes of Nazi Germany; "This is exactly how Hitler started. First he killed his alsatian, Blondi, in his Berlin bunker, then he gassed all the Jews. Except this time, Poo-tin is killing gay puppies right now. In secret."
Fierstein claims that in Moscow specially trained "dog-handlers" round up "stray" dogs and intern them in specially-constructed "dog homes".
It is understood many have been "put down". 

Leading American gay journalist and mediawhore, Dan Savage, has urged for a mass boycott of Choco Choco Doggy Treats, which are made in Baltimore.
"Enough is e-fuckin'-nuff! Time to hit the Russians where it hurts! All gay men and our straight allies must stop buying Choco Choco Doggy Treats immediately! Even if they don't have a dog."
"Money talks! Let's make it bark!"
And if that doesn't work? "I think we should invade Russia, just like I kept saying we should invade Iraq."
Asked if his boycott was ill-thought-out and pointless, Savage told Fagburn; "It's working! There's no reports of Putin killing any other gay puppies today."
"The fact that Putin isn't doing something now that he wasn't doing before proves the protest - which was organised by me, incidentally - is working."

The #boycottchoco campaign has rapidly caught on worldwide - Manhole, a gay bar in London's trendy Soho, has sent out a press release saying they will not sell Choco Choco Doggy Treats to their customers - and pointing out that they currently have a wide range of tantalising drinks offers most nights.
Veteran gay rights campaigner, the normally publicity-shy Peter Tatchell, has promised to bombard the media with press releases quoting himself, and photos of himself, until someone prints one.
But the campaign's most famous supporter has to be Ian Brady.
The Moors murderer has posted a selfie on his Facebook page where he holds up a sign reading; "#Boycottchoco! Won't somebody please think of the children!?"

Yesterday, America's most right-wing Neo-con gay loon, James Kirchick, took over a live TV debate on Russia Today about Syria to bring attention to the non-existent gay puppy pogrom.
Donning a comedy rainbow bowtie that spins round and round, he told their dozens of viewers; "You know what? Fuck Syria. America should just bomb it back to the stone age. Then we should get all our sexy US marines to march on Moscow."
After launching into a barely coherent tirade about how Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald should be publically hanged as traitors in a Walmart carpark, the censors at Russia Today immediately cut-off Kirchick after half-an-hour.

Patrick Smugtwit, a gay journalist famed for his stunningly original and intellectual articles, has written online; "I literally weep for the Russian gay puppies. No-one feels their pain as much as me. Boo-hoo-hoo. Why has there been such silence about this, apart from all the articles about it? Imagine if this was happening to black puppies!"
In a statement, Sebastian Posh-Twit from LGBTory - the Conservative party's gay group - slammed the Russian premier; "Although our party has a long history of supporting the torturing of puppies for fun and political gain, we have changed, and now only use them for hunting foxes."

But it's not just the gay right who are angry about this - many apolitical gay men are now pretending they care by leaving ever madder and ill-informed comments on gay media message boards.
One - @keverrett69 - posted recently; "LETZ BOMB THE RUSSIAN SCUM! 4 THE LOLZ!!!"

A spokesman for Puppy Love (мальчишеское увлечение), Russia's leading dog advocacy group, told Fagburn they thought this was all "hysterical and rather silly and based on wilful misinformation."
"I think there might be a hidden agenda here, where, once again, an officially declared enemy of the US is obediently demonised by the media in the service of Western power and neo-imperial American hegemony," he said.
"There are far, far worse things happening to gay men in many other countries now - and the US and UK are hardly queer utopias - so maybe people should stop and ask why the situation in Russia has suddenly got such obsessive, endless blanket coverage?"
"Any rational person would see this as an outbreak of mass hysteria."
"Basically you can say any old shit about Russia right now and get away with it."
But what would he know, he's a fucking filthy Russian?

• Protests have been organised in cities around the world next Friday, where people are invited to take part in a mass Pissing Against The Wind - or, if they can't be arsed, they can make themselves feel better by clicking on one of those AllOut.org e-petitions that politicians always ignore.

Russia: 'Queer Quislings'

Readers of the gay media - and in particular their ever-sane message boards - will know that what's happening to The Gays in Russia right now is every bit as bad - nay worse - than what happened in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa.
It must be, 'cause that's what everyone says, and anyone who thinks differently (independently?) is a quisling, as evil as a holocaust denier.
Got that, you little Eichmann?

"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune" - Noam Chomsky.

Here's a brilliant and important article on that whole Russia thing by Scott Long, 'Queer Quislings', which says everything I'd have liked to have said about the current climate of hysteria and hypocrisy, if only I was smart, literate and not such a "cynical", "bitter", "snarky", and "grotesque Soviet-lover".
Enjoy!

Update: The frighteningly rightwing gay porn mogul Michael Lucas attacks Johhny Weir - unsurpringly - in a shitty little op-ed for Out.
And - again - Scott Long replies, destroying Lucas and that other far right gay goon, Jamie Kirchick, in a brilliant and very funny piece.

Dan Savage: America's Funniest Gay Comedian

RFE/RL: This summer, you helped launch a boycott of Russian vodka to protest the LGBT crackdown. A growing number of bars in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and Australia are taking part. Some people have criticized the boycott as ineffective, but you’ve defended its success.
 
Savage: The idea behind a boycott of an iconic product like vodka, a nation’s signature consumer product, is to get people talking, to draw attention to the reason why you called for that boycott. Nobody was talking about what was going on in Russia — what was being done to LGBT people in that country, about these horrifying laws — until we called for this boycott. That is what a boycott is supposed to do. Nobody suggested that boycotting Russian vodka would dethrone President Vladimir Putin, that it would bring Russia to its knees, that it would destroy the Russian economy.

RFE/RL: You’ve compared what’s going on now in Russia to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Can you elaborate?

Savage: The Nazi terror wasn’t the Holocaust in a day. There was a gradual escalation of scapegoating, anti-Semitism, and political violence. No one is comparing what’s being done to LGBT Russians to what was done to the Jews in 1943 and 1942 and 1944. But it is eerily similar to what was being done to the Jews in Nazi Germany in 1933 and 1934. The initial persecution campaigns, the stigmatization, the codification into law of anti-Semitism and this kind of bigotry. All of those parallels are identical.

Hilarious!
Reverse ferreting ahoy.

"Nobody was talking about what was going on in Russia... until we called for this boycott."

Loving the delusional vanity.
Boy, would you have looked stupid if you launched your boycott without bothering to check if Stoli was made in Latvia!
And why did supporters of the daft vodka boycott claim it was a form of economic sabotage?

Can't tell the difference between a law modelled on the UK's Section 28 and the systematic extermination of  the Jewish population of Europe? 

Dan's your man!
In no way is this attempt at equivalence an insult to the six million people who died in the Nazi holocaust!
Saying "This is how Hitler started!" is as dumb and childish and as hysterical and as completely devoid of rational thought as saying people shouldn't be born - cause that's how Hitler started!
It's a gateway birth, yah?

To add to the stupidity and hypocrisy Savage was talking to the cold warriors at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Yes, it's a (US) state-funded propaganda network - just like the evil Russia Today.
It's also why this "interview" is so uncritical and fawning it reads like something from Pravda.
Ironically.

Dan "Say YES To War On Iraq!" Savage - serving American empire since 2003!

• Fuck No, Dan Savage! "created to showcase the cissexist, sexist, anti-asexual, anti-bisexual, classist, racist, sizeist, and ableist douchebaggery of Dan Savage, of "It Gets Better" (for privileged queers only) fame." 
The Tumblr doesn't make the obvious point - how It Gets Better may have fetishised suicide for gay teens.
Thanks for all the dead gay kids, Dan!

Thanks to How Upsetting for alerting me to this GAY COMEDY GOLD!

Nikolai Alekseyev: Fight The Gay Fight In Russia

A Sochi Olympics boycott will only serve those who do not understand that their goal will only further isolate the LGBT community in Russia and make the lives of its representatives living in the country (and not in New York or London) even harder. Or, is this boycott nothing more than cold war nostalgia lead by some who today regret that they ran away from the Soviet Union or Russia? After all, who will the ordinary Russians (who might not be as homophobic as they are portrayed), blame for the disruption of this event? I think you know the answer. Will it make lives better for the millions who will stay? Will it lead to the repeal of the federal law banning gay propaganda? In both cases, definitely not!

From an important essay, Fighting The Gay Fight In Russia by Nikolai Alekseyev.
Still what would Russia's leading gay rights campaigner know about any of this, eh?
Obviously, I don't think Nikolai speaks for all LGBT Russians - nor does he claim to - or that he has all the answers or some magic fix, but far better listen to him than some know-nothing knee-jerk idiot in the West.
Please also read this hilarious piss-take of that publicity-seeking right-wing gay cunt, James Kirchick.
And, if you haven't read it already, What If Chelsea Manning Were Russian? - an excellent piece by Michael Arria on the double standards and hypocrisy of those power-serving patriotic all-American gay boys, James Kirchick and Dan Savage.
Right, think that's probably enough about Russia for today...

солидарность!

Chelsea Manning: Free Chelsea Manning!

The Next Stage of My Life

I want to thank everybody who has supported me over the last three years. Throughout this long ordeal, your letters of support and encouragement have helped keep me strong. I am forever indebted to those who wrote to me, made a donation to my defense fund, or came to watch a portion of the trial. I would especially like to thank Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network for their tireless efforts in raising awareness for my case and providing for my legal representation.

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.

Thank you,

Chelsea E. Manning

Chelsea’s mailing address remains:
Commander, HHC USAG
Attn: PFC Bradley Manning
239 Sheridan Ave, Bldg 417
JBM-HH, VA 22211

Via a statement Chelsea gave to her lawyer, David Coombs. 

As ever and always, thinking of you, Chelsea, with thanks, solidarity, respect and much love.
x

• What If Chelsea Manning Were Russian? An excellent piece by Michael Arria on the double standards and hypocrisy of those all-American gay boys, James Kirchick and Dan Savage.

Update: Trans Media Watch respond to Chelsea Manning coming out. Daily Mail and Independent good, others not so...

Update2: And a list of which media are using Chelsea's preferred pronoun, and who isn't...

Update3: Send Chelsea Manning a book!

Section 28 Returns: Boycott Britain!

Three British schools have recently come under criticism for reintroducing terminology from Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28 by banning the “promotion of homosexuality” in classrooms.

Castle View Enterprise Academy in Sunderland, Colston Girl’s School in Bristol, and Swindon Academy have reintroduced anti-gay language from Section 28, which banned the “promotion of homosexuality”, into their Sex and Relationships Policy.

The schools’ policies state that while “objective discussion of homosexuality may take place in the classroom, the governing body will not permit the promotion of homosexuality”...

Pink News.

This is just how the Nazis started!

What the hell is up with this backwards country?

We cannot remain silent - here is my plan of action...

1. Circulate pictures of the UK's tyrannical leader, David Cameron, with a Hitler moustache drawn on!

2. Sign one of those pointless e-petitions immediately - it's the only language they understand!

3. Paint your toenails pink!

4. Get Pesident Putin to have a word with Dave, like.

5. Get Dan Savage to organise a boycott of Early Grey tea - even though it doesn't come from the UK!

6. Take a photo of yourself waving a crappy rainbow flag outside Battersea Dogs' Home and post it in on your Facebook page.

7. Generally just be hypocritical and hysterical - only an outburst of collective insanity can stop this!

• Today's PR Stunt/press release masquerading as "protest"; Gay Porn Studio To Donate 100% Of Profits To Russian LGBTs Seeking Asylum - Queerty. FFS!

Update: How these micro-Clause 28s contravene ECHR's equality guidance for schools. Thanks to MM.
See also Anti Academies Alliance. 

Daily Mail: Godwin's Law Explained

The Daily Mail publishes a bonkers article calling for a boycott; Really, Mr. Putin? Even HITLER suspended Germany's anti-gay laws during the 1936 Olympics, but Russia won't do the same for next year.
Conveniently overlooking how the Daily Mail supported HITLER in 1936.
The Mail appear to have revised their opinions on HITLER as he was "A SECRET GAY!"
In-no-way has this become a licence to write idiotic trash!
The illustration is one of many online that make Putin look like HITLER - in-no-way has this become the most hysterical and debased political discussion of recent times.
This really is the politics of the primary school playground.

• Stoli and sympathy, and the new LGBT Sphere: What to do about Russia by Scott Long. Not convinced about his conclusion but as ever his analysis of this western tomfoolery is spot-on.
Reminded me about Dan Savage's last foray into international politics when he said we should support the war against Iraq because... Saddam Hussein was worse than Hitler!
It just gets better for gay neo-imperialist stooges.

Boycott: Stop Eating American Cupcakes!

There comes a time when it's time to say "Enough is enough".
That time is now!
American homophobia must stop.
Now!
Boy, am I pissed about this.
Gay marriage still illegal in 37 states.
Gay men are still being arrested for "crimes against nature"
Gay adoption banned.
It's legal to sack a worker for being gay in 29 states.
Bradley Manning imprisoned for life.
Gay teen suicides seem to never end.
Queerbashing in New York is on the rise.
The Westboro Baptist Church won't shut up.
The Republican Party is in hock to anti-gay Evangelists.
Radio talk shows are dominated by homophobic loons.
Yet they hold up Hilary Clinton - an unconvicted war criminal - as some kind of "gay icon"
The last season of Glee wasn't very good.
And don't even get me started on Lady Gaga.
Enough!
We must make a stand.
Now!
What can we do to oppose this hate-filled homophobic sham democracy where political power is in the hands of a few mega-rich oligarchs?
STOP EATING AMERICAN CUPCAKES!!
I REPEAT STOP EATING AMERICAN CUPCAKES!
Remember - even if you weren't eating them before - this pointless gesture could change the world.

@Fagburn Twitter.
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) August 3, 2013

Vodka: Pointless Campaigns

“Do not drink Russian vodka. Do not buy Russian vodka. Ask your bartender at your favorite bar—gay or otherwise—to DUMP STOLI and DUMP RUSSIAN VODKA.”

Media slapper Dan Savage.

Stolichnaya is made in Latvia, not Russia, and owned by a company based in Cyprus. [Edit Luxembourg now, apparently]
Still, I doubt President Putin gives a flying fuck either way what vodka you drink.

PS Queerty are having fun covering this - they've published an open letter from the CEO of Stoli Premium - their current media partners. Oops!

It Gets Better: Another One

Another gay teen who made an It Gets Better video has commited suicide, Fagburn can reveal.
Asked whether his campaign fetishised suicide for gay teens and if he hadn''t really thought this through or talked to anyone involved in counselling, Dan Savage said; "Meh."