qPDX.com – Queer news, views and events for Portland

I’m not usually the vindictive sort, but I do have to smile when a traitor from within gets a little heat for his ultimately poor choices. That’s right, I’m talking about troubled Spokane, Washington mayor Jim West. With a recall election just a week away, the anti-gay voting Republican faces a firing squad of allegations from abusing his position of power by offering young hotties city hall jobs in exchange for sex to outright molestation of two boys decades ago. I think Al Franken says it best when he cries out: “It turns out that some of their meanest anti-gay leaders aren’t just mean and anti-gay, but they’re gay!”
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Now that Scotland has embraced the idea that B&B honeymoon package bookings would get a tremendous boost if those darns queers were just allowed to tie the knot, the famous gays are already beginning to enter the wedding gossip rags that have plagued straight celebs for decades. First on the list, notorious flaming pop icon Elton John will wed 12 year partner David Furnish in a supposedly small ceremony. Now why the infamously outlandish Elton would have anything less than a wild paparazzi party fiasco is beyond me (youre really not inviting Elizabeth Taylor?). Perhaps it’s the slightly dorky looking Canadian hubby-to-be? (Ok, perhaps that’s cruel, I think its just this picture, really. Wouldn’t you hate to be caught with less than flattering expressions and broadcast in national media?)

On a sidenote that is closer to home for me, and entirely less relevant, I just discovered a friend of mine is appearing in a Sundance Channel miniseries about transgender college students. Wow, Lucas, I had a photographer follow me around for a few weeks once, when The Columbian did a story on queer youth in the late 90s. Though I love attention, it was annoying enough. I can’t imagine experiencing that my entire senior year of college. And yet, I cant wait to watch it. I also need to keep in better touch with my east coast buddies so that next time I’m not discovering what’s happening in their lives through television…
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As long as we’re on the subject of movies here in QPDXland I want to take this opportunity to point you in the direction of one of my favorite gay websites. I may be a bit biased, being a part of the media that is, but I think both the information and design are certainly worth your time.

I would be referring to GLAAD, or the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. A queer media watchdog with plenty of style, news and insight the best place to start is their featured story section called Eye on the Media. But for quick glances I like the check the Cinequeer guide to movies just out and coming up as well as TV Gayed’s weekly guide to was LGBT on TV.
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So when glancing through the Holiday Movie preview, I was reminded, as I have been for months, that, at long last, I will get to see my movie star boyfriend in a 10-gallon hat canoodling with a fellow movie-star-handsome cowpoke…Yes, thats right my friends, Brokeback Mountain, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, a tender love story of a ranch hand and a rodeo rider who fall in love in the 60s, is out Dec. 2nd.

Only Parker Posey as an evil vampire villain could make me want to see this film any more…

(Other holiday flicks that the gay moviegoer might enjoy include Rent Nov 23 and Aeon Flux Dec 2)
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For a couple days now I’ve been keeping my eye on the story of Andrew Stimpson, a young British man who may have rid his own body of the HIV virus in the course of a year. And the media continues to report that this man may, indeed, be the key to a cure for AIDS. But I have also just come across one tiny snippet of an article that may be more inclined to believe that his initial positive diagnosis was false. Not only a roller coaster for this poor guy, but for a whole world waiting for some good news…
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In a follow up to mainstream culture borrowing queer culture, could it really be the opposite problem of queer culture just blending right into the melting pot of a global metro world? Andrew Sullivan expounds eloquently on the conflicting desire for acceptance and independence, triumph and sorrow of the new millennium. Here are some particularly compelling moments:

But here’s the strange thing: These changes [gay marriage in Massachusetts] did not feel like a revolution. They felt merely like small, if critical, steps in an inexorable evolution toward the end of a distinctive gay culture. For what has happened to Provincetown this past decade, as with gay America as a whole, has been less like a political revolution from above than a social transformation from below. There is no single gay identity anymore, let alone a single look or style or culture. Memorial Day sees the younger generation of lesbians, looking like lost members of a boy band, with their baseball caps, preppy shirts, short hair, and earrings.

and

For many in the gay world, this is both a triumph and a threat. It is a triumph because it is what we always dreamed of: a world in which being gay is a non-issue among our families, friends, and neighbors. But it is a threat in the way that all loss is a threat. For many of us who grew up fighting a world of now-inconceivable silence and shame, distinctive gayness became an integral part of who we are. It helped define us not only to the world but also to ourselves. Letting that go is as hard as it is liberating, as saddening as it is invigorating.

His points are fleshed out in a later post wherein a young college student discusses how “normal” he is. The lad is gay and wants nothing to do with social struggle or any kind of subcultural living. He also admits freely that he knows none of his gay history. This I find rather saddening, especially in light of his comments around the difficulty of living gay in the 70s while not realizing at all the vibrant culture that did exist then, and has existed in various places in various points in history. Are there more legal protections and general social acceptance now than there was in the 70s? Sure. (Well, probably, I mean, sort of. Ill get to that). But the 70s were not necessarily a horrible time to be queer. On the contrary, those of my parents’ generation lament the loss of sexual the freedoms of the 70s frequently. And while I realize this nostalgia may be overly simplistic and revisionistic, I do wish I could have been there…

And on this very day that Sullivan gives us the ramblings of a 20 year old, so too, does Film Threat review Gay Sex in the 70s, a documentary about the sheer debauchery that was gay culture in this long-ago decade. The article goes on to say:

Filmmaker Joseph Lovett describes this era as “the most Libertine period the Western world has seen since Rome.”

and

Gay Sex in the 70s is definitely an eye-opening experience (and even mouth-watering for some) for we babies who were too young to really remember the 70s, a care free time we’ve never really experienced. The film will also serve as a trip down raunchy memory lane for others who were able to fully enjoy themselves in the 70s.

So people, whats it gonna be? Conservative or wild? Melting pot, mosaic or separationism? Can we find our queer zen balance?
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It was a welcome surprise this morning to see an article on a trans performer on the cover of The O’s living section. And while the interview didn’t make an epic appearance, it was a succinctly informative and interesting overview of Scott Turner Schofield’s performance art and how his trans identity plays into that.

It also skirts around the mainstreaming of trans culture which seems an interesting discussion to begin here. For the most part, such an increasing level of acceptance is extremely positive. It allows trans individuals greater freedom to in general and less burden of constant explanation. On the other hand, can there be some elements of appropriation, in the way that we have seen metrosexuals take cues from queer fashion? Is appropriation from a partially self-chosen subculture necessarily a bad thing anyway? These seem particularly pertinent questions when considering that this article is about trans art and performance specifically. Personally, I’m all about sharing our art and lifestyle. I quite like it myself and think mainstream culture can learn much from queer culture. Though well take the credit where credit is due…

Either way, Schofield and the Southern Gents should certainly provide engaging entertainment (and perhaps learning). And its FREE.

When and where: 8 p.m. today at Reed College Chapel and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 338. The performers also will host a workshop 5:15 to 6:45 p.m. Tuesday at Vollum Lounge, Reed College.
Web: www.undergroundtransit.com
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Interdisciplinary studies have always been a complicated endeavor. But as a Women’s Studies major myself, I think they’re well worth the effort. Disciplines are not so separable, and, increasingly, universities, entrenched in the ideologies of postmodernity, must and are, realizing this. Plus, as I’ve said before, I do love a good theme. All the better when a good theme can bring together various other themes, disciplines, and theories.

That’s why, I’m all for the idea of a Queer and Sexuality Studies minor that has been proposed at the University of Oregon. At my college, we had a Queer Studies concentration within our Women’s Studies department, which I completed. The first time they offered the Intro class, the lecture hall was completely flooded a couple hundred students squished into the corners and huddled on the sides of the aisles. Could our own UO have a similar learning-desire fire hazard? I think so. And to bust out of the Women’s Studies department would be even better. We had continual conversations about renaming our department Gender Studies, which many schools have, but the chairs felt that this took away emphasis from a group that we were surely investigating. So to have been able to say I have a minor in Queer Studies, as a separate entity from a Women’s Studies department, would have been quite nice instead of continually explaining my concentrations. This is not to say that resources can’t be combined. Of course they must. And the overlap of resources, theories, and informed faculty and students is another factor I find terribly exciting.
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Just an interesting little snippet on the power of bloggers, even (especially?) gay ones. Were a force to be reckoned with. Mwa-ha-ha-ha…

And for the more prurient interests in you, feel free to indulge in some professional cheerleader related, ready-for-cable-television gossip. Get a room ladies…
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It’s a sad day for Oregon. Looks like we lost our fight in court. But let’s not lose heart my dears, there are many more fights to fight. Instead, let’s get all dolled up in our white wedding dresses and go out on the town. The more defiant dancing the better.
You can see a pdf of the decision courtesy Basic Rights Oregon and check out more coverage on our special sections page.

UPDATES: At a press conference this morning Basic Rights Oregon has said that they will appeal the ruling. I believe they have two more possible courts to go through.

Also, a tidbit from Tim Nashif, political director for the Defense of Marriage Coalation states: “If this language, as simple as it is, had been struck down by the courts, it would have taken away the people’s rights to amend their constitution at all.”

What I find interesting about this statement is that Measure 36’s wording may have been short but it was not necessarily simple. In fact, the most succinct of arguments can, particularly, be the most brilliantly complex. When our enemies aren’t as dumb as they may appear, here is where the real trouble begins. And that is where we must be smarter…
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