“Miss Piggy” “Miss Housekeeping” “Miss Eating Machine”.

Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996, was photographed in May of this year in Los Angeles. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times.

Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996, was photographed in May of this year in Los Angeles. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times.

The undeniably beautiful Ms. Machado, who is beautiful at any size, (preferably a well-nourished one) speaks out about her treatment at Trump’s hands, and the trauma she’s lived with for 20 years. As I understand it, Ms. Clinton had quite a moment in the debate regarding Trump’s abusive tactics with Ms. Machado. The whole article is a good read. I’d dearly like to think that Trump was at the very least moderately shamed, but no. All he cared about was how he was caught out. Nasty creep, that one.

For 20 years, Alicia Machado has lived with the agony of what Donald J. Trump did to her after she won the Miss Universe title: shame her, over and over, for gaining weight.

Private scolding was apparently insufficient. Mr. Trump, at the time an executive producer of the pageant, insisted on accompanying Ms. Machado, then a teenager, to a gym, where dozens of reporters and cameramen watched as she exercised.

Mr. Trump, in his trademark suit and tie, posed for photographs beside her as she burned calories in front of the news media. “This is somebody who likes to eat,” Mr. Trump said from inside the gym.

[…]

“I was sick — anorexia and bulimia for five years,” she said in an interview with The New York Times in May. “I was 18. My personality wasn’t created yet. I was just a girl.”

Mr. Trump has acknowledged pressuring her to lose weight, saying it was her job as Miss Universe to remain in peak physical shape. On Tuesday morning, he made no apologies for that.

“She gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem,” Mr. Trump told Fox News.

The full story is here.

Investors Call on McCrory to Repeal.

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Sixty investors representing $2.1 trillion in managed assets have called on North Carolina to repeal HB2, the controversial law limiting protections for LGBT people.

Earlier this month it was estimated that HB2 has so far cost North Carolina in the region of $395 million from sporting organizations, the entertainment industry and business interests. In March, more than 80 CEOs and businesses – including Apple’s Tim Cook and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – signed a letter urging Governor Pat McCrory to overturn HB2.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday alongside some of the investors who have signed the statement calling for repeal, Matt Patsky, chief executive officer of Trillium Asset Management, said North Carolina “appears to be headed for what I would call a state-government-inflicted recession.” According to Associated Press, Trillium – one of the organizers of the statement along with environmental research group Croatan Institute and the New York City comptroller, Scott Stringer – has more than $2 billion in assets under management. Stringer was unable to attend the press conference because of a New York ban on travel to North Carolina.

In a separate statement, Stringer said:

“As long-term investors, we can’t sit idly by as HB2 undermines fundamental human rights at our expense. For the last 25 years, New York City’s pension funds have pushed more than 100 companies to enact non-discrimination policies that protect LGBTQ individuals and ensure they attract, retain, and promote the best and the brightest. These policies are essential if we want companies – and our economy – to succeed, and we can’t let a hate-filled law get in the way.”

Bonny Moellenbrock, executive director of North Carolina-based Investors Circle, added:

“This fallout is real. It has had a devastating impact on our reputation and that has a direct impact on entrepreneurs’ ability to grow their business here.”

McCrory replied in a statement:

“This latest attack on North Carolina values is being coordinated by the same people who manage the New York City pension fund that is on the verge of an ‘operational failure,’ according to a recent report. For New York hedge fund billionaires to lecture North Carolina about how to conduct its affairs is the height of hypocrisy.”

Pat McCrory, the Asshole Bigot’s Asshole Bigot.

Via Towleroad.

You F*gs Are Destroying Family Values!

Neil Frias (left) and Jeff White were pepper-sprayed. Photo: Jeff White / Courtesy Jeff White.

Neil Frias (left) and Jeff White were pepper-sprayed. Photo: Jeff White / Courtesy Jeff White.

What was supposed to be a weekend of revelry and excitement for two friends in town for San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair turned ugly Saturday night when five assailants attacked the men with pepper spray for no apparent reason other than they are gay.

The violence was particularly shocking for Neil Frias and Jeff White, both 28, because they were assaulted in a city lauded for its progressive values and broad acceptance of the LGBT community.

[…]

Frias and White said they were attacked at about 9 p.m. outside a McDonald’s at Golden Gate Avenue and Fillmore Street in the city’s Western Addition. As Frias left the fast-food restaurant, he said five men pulled up in a blue minivan. “They were saying, ‘You fags are destroying family values,’” Frias said. “I said I didn’t want any trouble, and one of them got out of the van. I thought he was going to take a swing at me, but he sprayed me across the face.”

Frias said he was hit with the unmistakable “searing sting” from the pepper spray as a second man came at him with another can of the aerosolized weapon. A third assailant, he said, attacked White, who crawled into a ball to protect his face from the painful blast.

“I was completely vulnerable,” he said. “I thought they were going to start beating me.”

A nearby woman shouted that she was calling the police, prompting the mob to jump back into the minivan and speed away. Police and paramedics responded to the attack, and the two victims returned to their Union Square hotel.

“The thing that was the most remarkable about the situation is how unprovoked it was,” White said, still reeling from the encounter Sunday morning. “I was literally tying my shoe when they came at me. It’s mind-boggling.”

“You fags are destroying family values”.  Why don’t these assbrained individuals ever wonder just what kind of family values teach you that it’s perfectly okay to go out and assault people? Those are indeed values, and they are seriously bad ones. It’s past time that every person start pointing this out, in a very loud way – if your values are immoral, evil, unethical and harmful, you need to sit down, shut up, and figure out just what in the fuck is wrong with yourself. If you’re fueled by hate, sit down, shut up, and figure out just what in the fuck is wrong with you. If you think it’s a fine, upstanding thing to go out and stalk strangers and dole out violence, you need to lock yourself up in your residence until you can get that poor brain of yours exercised enough to figure out just what in the fuck is wrong with you.

Via SFGate.

Spot sobre la situación educativa y laboral de las personas trans.

Argentina’s trans community, as is the case in many countries, faces an extraordinary amount of discrimination, from education and employment opportunities to violence. Animator Virginia Gilles, writer Stephanie Santoro and sound designer Thomas Corley decided to put some facts about the community’s Argentine experience into stark relief in an experimental short, which features hypnotic animation, motion graphics, music, and voiceover.

“The spot is not part of any campaign,” Gilles tells The Creators Project. “Our objective is to demonstrate the problems of employment and educational discrimination against trans people. As for aesthetics, we wanted to create a powerful but cool effect, mixing the character of the words with experimentation in image and sound.”

As the artists note in the voiceover, quoting Argentina’s Fundación Huésped (Guest Foundation), “Six out of ten transgender women and seven out of ten transgender men failed at completing their secondary school education.” Half of these individuals failed because of discrimination against their gender identity. The artists are also attempting to raise awareness about the various forms of violence suffered by transvestites and transsexuals.

“The policies implemented by the Argentine government and the expansion of their rights through laws that generate greater inclusion are insufficient,” they write. “We believe that in order to reverse this painful reality requires a real commitment by the whole society, to eliminate social hatred and generate inclusion and actual acceptance of all trans people in various fields, which will enable them to develop a equally dignified life without being discriminated against because of their identity.”

“As people, we have the right to be treated in accordance with our self perception and this should be respected,” the artists say. “Education empowers you and gives you tools to stop discrimination. The doors are open. You have to take impulse and go through them.”

Via The Creators Project.

Lies and Myths about Bisexual People.

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I’ve gotten so weary over the years about the pervasive nonsense people hold in their heads about bisexuals, I gave up trying to talk sense about it. That was wrong, and I’ve been reminded that said nonsense still holds sway, and if things are ever going to get better for bisexual people, everyone has to get a good handle on the reality, and keep on speaking up. I’ve had a woman say to me “stay the hell away from my husband!…and me too!” and a man say to me “stay the hell away from my wife!” even though I’m very long time married , and happily so. I have no interest in someone else’s spouse because I’m not interested in cheating, it doesn’t have anything to do with  me being bi. It has more to do with me disliking any relationship in which a person will be hurt. After a while, such things didn’t even elicit an eyeroll, just a small sigh. Then I stopped talking about it, or mentioning it at all. Bisexual people still remain invisible, and often when we are visible, it’s simply to be scoffed at by someone or other. I think I can do better, and I think most other people can do better, too.

Eliel Cruz has a good article up at The Advocate, addressing the top problematic societal beliefs and behaviour regarding bisexual people.

So here we are in the supposedly enlightened year of 2016, and yet, biphobia persists. In no particular order, here are a few of the most tiresome lies society really needs to stop telling about bisexual people.

1. Bisexuals don’t exist.
This is the first and most pervasive lie about bisexuality. Some people simply can’t fathom a sexuality in which individuals are attracted to more than one gender. You can test the waters, but you eventually must pick a side, the thinking goes. But bisexuals don’t need science — or the approval of those attracted to only one gender — to prove that they exist.

2. Bisexuals are just going through a phase.
Yes, it’s true that plenty of gays and lesbians used bisexuality as a way to soften the blow of coming out to conservative parents. Many may even have identified as bi for a time while they were still making sense of their own orientation. And while coming out is an intensely personal decision, the strategies of some should not invalidate the identities of the majority, for whom bisexuality wasn’t a “stepping stone” but the final, concrete destination.

[Read more…]

Trump & Santorum, One Bad Mixture.

AP photo.

AP photo.

Trump’s pandering to the religious right has gotten worse. He’s now brought on Santorum, in a bid to protect Catholics from the big, bad wolf of something or other.

Trump has hired the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, as an advisor for his Catholic Advisory Council.

Santorum, who ended his campaign for president in February, is one of 35 people slated for the council. In a press release announcing the council, Trump included a list of “issues of importance to Catholics.” The topics on the list include religious liberty, pro-life, judicial nominations, education, healthcare, jobs and taxation, and safety and security.

In June, Santorum signed an antigay “pledge in solidarity to defend marriage,” that claims marriage should only exist “between one man and one woman.” Santorum has also said he would reinstate the ban on ‘don’t ask don’t tell.’ The former U.S. Senator has also defended ‘religious liberty’ in the past, and it is something that Trump comments on, in his list of “issues of importance to Catholics.”

On the topic of religious liberty, Trump said, “Religious liberty is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is our first liberty and provides the most important protection in that it protects our right of conscience. Activist judges and executive orders issued by Presidents who have no regard for the Constitution have put these protections in jeopardy. If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths. The Little Sisters of the Poor, or any religious order for that matter, will always have their religious liberty protected on my watch and will not have to face bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs.”

Nothing like announcing you plan to go backwards, as far and as fast as you can go.

The Advocate has the story.

“No Soy Tu Chiste ( I Am Not Your Joke).”

arzola-2

© Daniel Arzola.

Out: What prompted you to create the “No Soy Tu Chiste” campaign?

Daniel Arzola: Since I was a teenager I had been creating art with a purpose, with a social voice, a cry in a universal language. I started with poems, then photography, and finally illustration. For me art has always been a social expression. I called it “Artivism.” But, my story is not very different than the stories of so many gay and trans Venezuelan people. I had a difficult adolescence where I was constantly chased and bothered. When I was about 15 years old, neighbors tied me to an electrical post, took off my shoes and tried to burn me alive. They destroyed all my drawings.

I escaped. But, so many people don’t have the chance to escape from something like that. There was one guy who couldn’t run away—he was gay—his name was Angelo Prado. I saw it on the news. What struck me was that, even in this century, when you turn on the TV in Venezuela, if they talk about LGBT people, there is mockery. They are laughing about the pain of others. Making us a joke.

Full Article Here.