Monday Meme: Mistakes

Tallulah Meme

Hello, dahling!

The fierce and fabulous Tallulah Bankhead serves as the inspiration for today’s Monday Meme. Unabashedly outspoken and no stranger to scandal, Bankhead is that rare actress whose status as a gay icon has truly survived. Utterly quotable and exaggerated, drag queens and old movie lovers alike have bitten Bankheads’s style for decades. After being a popular theatre actress in London’s West End, Bankhead made movies with the likes of Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. But it was the star’s legendary personal life and off-screen antics that cemented her as a queer legend. Bankhead was rumored to have had affairs with everyone from Billie Holiday and Greta Garbo to Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Cornell. Ever the quick wit, Bankhead shrugged off the titles off “lesbian” or “bisexual” and instead called herself “ambisextrous”.  After years of partying and chain-smoking, Bankhead’s lifestyle caught up with her and she died of pneumonia at the age of 66. Today, her wild legacy endures. Her story is so glamorous and so tragic that her life has been told several times on stage and screen. She was recently played by Valerie Harper and Kathleen Turner, respectively.

So here’s to fabulously making mistakes. Tallulah, we salute you!

 

Puerto Rico Unveils Monument to LGBT and Orlando Victims

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A touching and timely tribute came out of Puerto Rico last week. Here’s the story from Pink News:

Last week, Puerto Rico unveiled its first LGBT monument, which proclaims “Love is love, is love, is love…” and also serves as a memorial to the lives lost in the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub.
The monument is located in San Juan’s Third Millennium Park, at the entrance to the Escobar the Sixth Stadium, and is made up of seven rectangular columns in the colours of the rainbow.
This vibrant memorial is particularly resonating for the US territory because out of the 49 victims killed in Orlando, 23 were Puerto Rican.

A plaque at the base of the monument highlights the names of Puerto Rican victims, with the other 26 victims also listed below.
Alongside the names, there is a phrase in Spanish that references Puerto Rican playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda’s moving speech from the 2016 Tony Awards – given just hours after the shooting.

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The text reads: “This tribute to life strengthens our commitment to fight hate — the product of homophobia — with love and respect. Our slogan resounds in all our hearts: Love is love, is love, is love…”
The monument was unveiled during San Juan’s Pride celebration, where Mayor Carmen Yulín said: “Today, we celebrate life. We must work together to eradicate discrimination and homophobia.
“We must raise our voice for justice, and the equality of each of us who are human. We must aspire to have a country where everyone is equal, and no one is judged for who they love.”
The monument’s dedication took place almost exactly one year after Puerto Rico adopted marriage equality.
However, despite the island making some progress regarding LGBT rights, homophobia is an ongoing problem in the US territory.
Following the attack in Florida last month, Orlando Latino reported that the father of one of the Puerto Rican victims did not want to claim his child’s remains because he was ashamed of his son’s homosexuality.
The publication says this highlights an ongoing problem within the Latino community, where hatred towards the LGBT community is still prevalent – especially in Puerto Rico.

Show someone how much you care with one of our beautiful cards available here and here!

 

Teen Comes Out at Disneyland and Her Story Goes Viral

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Sometimes a family trip to the amusement park can be really special and in the case of 16-year-old Gina sometimes that trip can become a global sensation. Gina visited Disneyland in California earlier this summer. Before their trip, Gina created a rainbow-colored sign which read, “I’m Gay!” and smuggled it into the theme park. She held the sign until the perfect moment and that moment came when the duo was riding Splash Mountain. As the log ride plunged to its watery finale, Gina held up her sign to be captured by cameras. Mom got the message as they perused the souvenir shop monitors. Posting the photo on Twitter, she wrote: “this is how I came out yesterday lolol”. The post now has nearly 10,000 likes.

In an interview with Huffington Post, Gina said, “I couldn’t have ever asked for a better response from my family. I’m truly so lucky to have such amazing support from all of my friends and family. It made this process go much smoother than I could’ve ever imagined!” She told others in the closet: “It’s an overwhelming process, so just make sure you’re comfortable with who you are and make sure you’re prepared for questions or reactions people may have. I also know it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re ready or not, so just be sure to give yourself time to really think about if you’re prepared.” Gina told Buzzfeed the reaction to her photo has been “amazing but overwhelming.” “I never expected it to blow up like this,” she said. “This Twitter account was just my spam account where I posted random fangirl stuff but I decided it couldn’t hurt to post it and the result was absolutely amazing.”
She said she has been very touched at all the nice comments she has received. “People have responded saying I’ve inspired them to do the same thing, which I think is the coolest part of it all,” she said.

Paris Pride Celebrates Trans Rights

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Marche des Fiertés, Paris’ annual LGBT Pride parade took place last Saturday. With street performers, protesters and partiers, Paris’ pride looked a lot like celebrations across the globe. Except one thing was different this year. According to Washington Blade,

For the first time ever, Inter-LGBT, the group that organized the annual event, allotted the most prominent spot in the parade, which is usually reserved for politicians and celebrities, to emphasize trans rights.
The Gay and Trans Collective Association for Equality, an LGBT group known by the French acronym ACTHE, marched front and center. It brought attention to the issues facing the transgender community with this year’s motto: “The rights of trans people are in a state of emergency: Stop forced sterilizations! Stop violence! Stop insecurity!”
French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo were among the prominent politicians who took part.
“Our city will always be a bulwark against homophobia because openness and tolerance are part of its DNA,” Hidalgo told Têtu, a French gay magazine.

Despite recent terrorist attacks in Paris, the city of lights wanted to celebrate pride. A shorter parade route and beefed up police protection were a few of the precautionary measures Paris took to make sure the parade was safe.

“This year’s Pride parade was under heavy protection, and all of us were determined for it to take place, despite the risks we had been warned about,” Flora Bolter, co-chair of the LGBT Center of Paris-Île-de-France, told the Washington Blade. “The atmosphere in the days leading up to the parade was quite electric, and for the first time we had to have security checks for all people entering the area. You could feel the tense determination everywhere.”

Bolter told the Blade that this year’s parade reinforced the necessity of equal protection under the law for LGBT people.

“This was a very political parade, with clear and urgent calls for action, and it was nonetheless a great success, in spite of many difficulties, and perhaps even thanks to them,” she said, “The very real possibility that our parade could be canceled made people realize how important it was to take part, be proud of who we are and face those who would silence us.”

 

Justin Trudeau Becomes First Prime Minister to March in LGBT Pride

image-1Over the weekend, the Toronto Pride Parade made headlines with a very special guest: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau made history at the event by being the country’s first sitting Prime Minister to march in the parade. Per the Ottawa Citizen:

Other notable politicians marching include Ontario’s premier, Kathleen Wynne, and the mayor of Toronto, John Tory.

Before the parade, Trudeau attended an outdoor church service in the heart of the city’s gay village where he sang along to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”

The parade wraps up a month of Pride festivities in Toronto, which saw entertainment heavyweights like George Takei and Lindsay Lohan participate.

But the month has also been shadowed with grief. In early June, 49 people — who were predominantly LGBTQ people of colour — were killed in a mass-shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

The month’s celebrations were dedicated to the victims of the massacre, and there will be a moment of silence during today’s parade to remember them.

Shots of Trudeau at Pride have flooded social media since the parade. From LGBT police officers to parade entertainers, everyone wanted a picture with he prime minister. No one  was more thrilled to snag a photo with Trudeau than Bassel McLeash, a gay Syrian refugee. McLeash expertly photo-bombed the Prime Minister and now his story has gone viral too! “Not in my wildest dreams would I ever have thought about having a day like this, marching next to the prime minister or marching in a Pride,” he said in an interview with CBC.

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