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 Coming out in the Keith Herring era Today marks the 23rd annual National Coming Out Day. Held on October 11th every year to commemorate the first March on Washington by LBGT people. The March took place in October of 1987 and highlighted the lesbigay struggle for acceptance. The first National Coming Out Day was held on October 11, 1988.
Supported by the Human Rights Campaign and the National Coming Out Project, this year the day will focus on raising awareness of sexuality-related bullying in light of Tyler Clementi’s suicide.
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Thousands of people turned out for this year's AIDS Walk to support the efforts of Cascade AIDS Project.
Yesterday morning crowds gathered in Pioneer Square to walk in solidarity for Cascade AIDS Project’s annual AIDS Walk. Teams and individuals raised enough funds to meet CAP’s financial goal for the event (total funds are still being tallied and will be available here by Oct. 13th).
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  Ivan Coyote, Anna Camilleri and Lyndell Montgomery perform Swell Bringing together a grand spectrum of masculinities Butch Voices Regional Conference comes to P-Town this weekend as part of its four state tour. The gathering butchies celebrate a vast array of identities.
We are woman-identified Butches. We are trans-masculine Studs. We are faggot-identified Aggressives. We are noun Butches, adjective Studs and pronoun-shunning Aggressives. We are she, he, hy, ze, zie and hir. We are you, and we are me. The point is, we don’t decide who is Butch, Stud or Aggressive. You get to decide for yourself.
This convention is part party, learning experience, performance and part art. It opens tonight with a A Taste of Butch Flavor art exhibition at the Q Center (4115 N Mississippi) with live music featuring a reunion of Portland’s all-womyn percussion troupe, The Rhythm Givers, with special guests. The exhibit will be up throughout the month.
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 Thursday
90s Bollywood Bike In with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge – Combining cultures outside the Q Center with the third installment of South Asian filmic goodness. Translated to English The Big Hearted Will Take the Bride follows Raj, a freewheeling party boy schooled in London, as he chases a traditionally raised girl across Europe and India.
Friday
 The Rose City Sirens say farewell to the E Room Friday This is the night you’re going to have to make some tough choices…and yet keep going for Saturday.
Echos an E Room Farewell with the Rose City Sirens – This week has been a whirlwind of emotions surrounding the trials and tribulations of that little dyke bar in Southeast. But not matter what side of the debate you fall on it’s going to be a damn fine celebration of the history of our community. With the trio of irreverent, sexy and soulful Rose City Sirens at the helm how could it be anything other than deliciously bittersweet. I’d want my goodbye party to be thrown by these girls.
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 Although one night a week at CC Slaughters is hardly akin to subsisting on nothing but bugs in the jungle, I’m sure there will be trials aplenty for the 12 contestants participating in Portland’s Gay Survivor season 2. Hosted by Kevin Cook aka Poison Waters, Survivor promises bizarre foods and complex puzzles in a race against time every Tuesday. And to the winner? A thousand dollars and the knowledge […]
  There have always been the good times and "weirds" at the E Room Last week news of the longstanding lesbian bar, The Egyptian, revamping as the more inclusive Weird Bar flared tempers and ignited a storm of discussion. For the most part this was a healthy dialogue and the E-Weird boss Kim took the comments to heart.
Below is a response she wanted me to share with the community. It may not satisfy all the community’s curiosities or concerns but it is a real effort to explain and connect with E Room regulars and other local queers.
With an economy as slow as Portland’s currently is, there’s little room to hire truly crafted wordsmiths and artists to take care of business PR. It’s a DIY promotion atmosphere but even in a DIY-lovin’ town this tactic doesn’t always work. It is important to remember that although the E Room is an institution, those that maintain it are not. They are human.
Still…it may be time to enlist the help of humans that can write a press release, have some marketing savvy and an understanding of how language can offend.
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  Internationally recognized Photo- based Artist SD (Shaira) Holman is continuing to explore themes of queer identity in her latest work.
The Butch Project, seeks to explore, document and picture what Butch and female masculinity are in contemporary queer communities. The subjects I work with will include many sizes, shapes, ethnicities and styles of Butch. They will be bold, shy, extravagant, tough, pregnant, silly, sexy …etc. etc.
Verbal and literary definitions of Butch run the risk of stereotyping, as the linearity of language necessitates a one-at-a-time additive or exceptional reading: Butch is this and this and this but not that or that.
In the Butch Project I am positioning Butch as intrinsically queer. I am exploring the complex and contradictory natures of Butch, not trying to explain or dilute or apologize, but to glory in our mercurial and perhaps sometimes confusing natures.
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 Kate Bornstein Transsexual lesbian Kate Bornstein’s 1994 release of the first Gender Outlaw was a revelation. She was shockingly candied about fluid gender dating a woman who began to transition into manhood. This was groundbreaking stuff in the mid 90s.
Now in 2010 we may see pregnant men on Oprah, but trans and genderqueer identities are still a boundary-pushing subject. Nowhere is this more apparent than the continually forward thinking revamped Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, released this month by Seal Press. But this is not merely an update. Edited by the original outlaw along with coeditor S. Bear Bergman GO:TNG is an anthology of 50 varied artists and writers, each with a strong and socially edgy voice.
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  The E Room in better times. Pride 2010 No matter what our varied and occasionally uncomfortable feelings about Portland’s only dyke bar the E Room may have been, we were all saddened when they announced their impending closure this October. But the owner(s) appeared to want to move on and did not want to accept help in the form of a “Save the E Room” fundraiser. Everything for the past couple months has been a dedicated “last” as we all continued to slow funeral procession towards its final days.
Turns out, the bar itself is not dying, only its commitment to lesbians and gays. ERoomBoss announced this today on Facebook:
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  Dexter Flowers and Cooper Lee Bombardier perform Sunday at Not Enough! Festival Thursday
Bollywood Bike In with Qurbani – Giving Portland a little much needed cultural flavor local DJ Anjiali and Kid Sister are showing classic Bollywood films outside the Q Center (4115 N Mississippi) all month long. This week features Qurbani and I’m excited to see a South Asian take on the 80s…
Ratatat afterparty with Rude Dudes – Ratatat are not a gay band but they’re hipsters and isn’t that about the same thing in Portland these days? Don’t worry, they’ve teamed up with “Rude” homos for a spanktastic dance party and DJ set. This might be the most mellow Thursday I’ve seen in awhile.
Friday
Mendy’s Big Gay Boat Party – Do you need an excuse to bust out those Top-Siders and sailor hat? No, you don’t. But in case you want to fool around with others in sea garb this is your chance.
Forsorcerers with Hooray for Everything and Don’t – Didn’t think Portland could get any weirder? How about a queer fantasy metal band? Despite the schtick, hoever, Forsorcerers are incredibly talented drum and guitar heros that will aurally rock you into remembering why you love the rough stuff.
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