Tag Archives: Gay

Gay Ugandan activist David Kato beaten to death in his Kampala home.

In Oct. 2010, “Rolling Stone,” a newspaper in Kampala, published photographs of gay Ugandans. Included was one of David Kato, a gay activist, who was killed on Wednesday. AP Photo.

In the United States, we worry about marriage and inheritance rights. Activism might mean putting on the old tux for an HRC event. The cheese is divine; try the wine. Elsewhere, things are different. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, our brothers and sisters have to worry about being outed in the press, and activism can mean being beaten to death by thugs with rebars. In Central Asia, family fatwas are common. Try being a little gay twink in Kyrgyzstan. The male members of your family may well be honor-bound to kill you on sight. Give a fuck? When the charity wagon next pulls into your station, consider supporting ILGA, The International Gay and Lesbian Association, where your American dollars and Euros can support gay rights work in Sri Lanka, Tanzania, China, and other places where it is Really Interesting to be queer. R.I.P. David Kato….read the New York Times Article here.

London’s National Theatre opens “Angelheaded Hipsters” photos by Gay Beat Alan Ginsberg

Timothy Leary and Neal Cassady 1st meeting in Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters' 'Further' bus which Neal'd driven crosscountry SF to NY via Texas before Fall 1964 presidential election.

Beat. Beat Up. Beat Down. Beatitude. Beatnik. The mid-century, cold-war-era Beat movement exemplified movement – from degradation to grace and back again. And again. On the Road. Howl. Its literary and poetic icons were painful and exultant. The same productive tension appears in Angelheaded Hipsters, the new exhibit of photographs by Gay Beat Alan Ginsberg that just opened at London’s National Gallery. Caught by camera are Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and other artists, writers and cultural figures who defined a moment. A BBC slide show of the exhibit is available here.

From Azerbaijan to the Ukraine, San Francisco GLBT Gay History Museum is World-wide News

Opening Night at the Gay History Museum

The GLBT History Museum that just opened in the City is making news in (among other places) Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Serbia and The Ukraine. This just in from Belarus. From curator and friend of this site Gerard Koskovich, who is always looking for new and better multi-lingual search strategies. For an original content slide show from opening night, click here.

Tim’m T. West is a fly-brotha. New Music Video. Score for Hearts Break Open, Indy Queer Film.

Friend of this site Tim’m T. West is a fly-brotha. He is also a poet, a philosopher, a professor and a gay rapper. Et cetera and then some. This is the video version of his score for Hearts Break Open, an independent feature film that asks the question what would Jesus do if he were alive today…and an HIV+ gay man. “What would be his cross to bear? How would we crucify him? Would he crucify himself?”

The 15 is IN with The Leather Chaps at Chaps Inn in Palm Springs

Bare Bears at Chaps Inn. photo: R. Christian Anderson

“This is where the Men stay!” They like us and we like them. Ian and Stewart, the two English chaps behind the punnishly named Chaps Inn in Palm Springs run a great desert get-away for Leathermen, bears and other masculine gay men. Salt water pool, spa, St. Andrew’s cross, slings, cage, lots of hooks and lots of kinky hot naked friendly men doing what we do in the desert sun. The chaps blogged about The 15 Association’s annual August mini-run here.

Our Vast Queer Past: GLBT History Museum opens in San Francisco

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Milk and miscreants, A Taste of Leather, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, clubs, AIDS, the baths, Cruising and more… an enthusiastic crowd opened The GLBT History Museum on January 13th in San Francisco’s Castro District. Curated by historians Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg and Amy Sueyoshi. For more on this historic event, click here.

Past Out In Public! America’s 1st GLBT History Museum Opens in San Francisco

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Bar Life, Bathhouses, Leather, Erotica, Violence & Trauma, HIV/AIDS…just a few of the topics touched upon in the inaugural exhibit of the long-awaited GLBT History Museum. This space will bring our histories to the street – where it has so often begun. Politics. Protest. Prostitution. Plague. The Past. The Present. It’s all here. The Museum opens in San Francisco’s Castro District on the evening of Thursday, January 13th, with a gala public reception.

Two concurrent exhibits open the new exhibition space at 4127 18th St. Our Vast Queer Past: Celebrating GLBT History fills the main gallery and Great Collections of the GLBT Historical Society Archives occupies the smaller one. Curator Gerard Koskovich says of Our Vast Queer Past: “The show brings together some 450 objects, photographs and documents, along with historic film and video…all of the materials come from the collections of the Historical Society—and most have never before been displayed publicly.” Read Koskovich’s article here. The Museum is a project of The GLBT Historical Society.

The GLBT History Museum opens on Jan. 13, 2011 with a ribbon-cutting and a free reception open to the public from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Regular hours for the museum will be Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Sundays, noon to 5:00 p.m. Admission: $5.00; free for members.

San Francisco Castro District’s New Gay Supe: Scott Wiener sworn in as D8 Supervisor

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In the 30-some years since Harvey Milk held the Castro district seat, it has become almost a tradition for the San Francisco District 8 supervisor to be gay. Scott Wiener, who was sworn in on Saturday, follows Bevan Dufty, who replaced Mark Leno. Both gay. Dufty is now planning a run for mayor, and Leno is a state senator. Before that, lesbians Susan Leal and Roberta Achtenberg held the spot.  Wiener’s opponents were Rafael Mandelman and Rebecca Prozan. Gay and gay. Wiener beat the further-left Mandelman and the fellow moderate Prozan to take the 8th district. Wiener joins District 9 Supervisor David Campos to double the current gay composition of the board. Congratulations, Scott, and Good Luck!

Retail Sights Seen: San Francisco Shop Windows and Billboards

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Sexy plastic mannequins show what they’re made of. Homoerotic subtexts sprout from Cerveza ads. Hung like a…rhino? Another one rides the bus. What IS that man looking at? Windows and signage seen around the City.

Guys Seen: Hobby Surveillance on the Streets of San Francisco

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We live in a surveillance society. Facebook knows who you are. Video cameras are everywhere in the urban and suburban environments, and sprinkled throughout the rural and less developed areas. Truck stops. Eyes in the sky. Watching you. Watching me. Google Earth may have captured us for their street views. In front of your home, shopping, out with friends. How do you know that they haven’t? Corporate surveillance in retail environments is particularly pervasive, but ordinary citizens are routinely forbidden from shooting back. “No cameras” and “No Photography” signs sprout alongside image capture devices. Of course, photography is usually regulated in government buildings. Photography is an act of dominance. Who can shoot who, doing what, where and why?  We are engaged in a high-stakes game of scopophilic tag. And these days, everyone’s got a camera.  Gotcha!