Family Equality Council Honors Glee, Mayor Annise Parker and More at Awards Dinner

Photos via Getty Images 

The Family Equality Council held its 11th annual awards dinner this past Saturday at the Beverly Hilton in LA. The Family Equality Council are the people who you don’t see on TV, but are listed on every amicus brief dealing with the rights of LGBTQ families. They connect families who are struggling with adoption, marriage or health rights so that they have a support network. Additionally, they do LGBTQ family advocacy work on local, state and federal levels all over the country. Each year they honor people, companies and groups who have done successful work that moves the LGBTQ rights movement forward.

Aja, aka Fit for a Femme, and I

This year the LA Awards kicked off with a musical set by the always fabulous Sandra Bernhard that led right into an equally amazing stand up set. Sandra was the sequined-covered, and almost politically incorrect, host for a night of disco and graham crackers.

The night’s honorees included Honey Maid, who not only made a national commercial featuring a family with two dads, but responded to the criticism with another commercial about love. The couple featured in the commercial even stopped by to tell the story and present the award to Honey Maid representatives Lauren Jacobsen and Jonathan Mekeel.

Also honored were Modern Family and Glee. Both shows were honored for moving the social acceptance of LGBTQ people forward by writing interesting characters that have relatable experiences. Modern Family‘s co-creator Steve Levitan and producer Jeffrey Richman were on hand to crack jokes about being single gay men standing up for the rights of LGBTQ people to have families, and about how the award bowls look like vaginas. It was a funny, silly and really supportive set of acceptance speeches that left the crowd in stiches. Ryan Murphy was on hand to accept on behalf of Glee and spoke about executives in the early days of his career that sent him notes asking him to tone down the gay characters he had created. He followed that up by saying, “And I’m happy to say that the executives who gave me those notes are no longer employed.” He proceeded to thank “a new breed” of executives like Dana Walden and Joe Earley for encouraging the creation and inclusion of LGBTQ characters.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker

Rounding out the honoree pool was Houston Mayor Annise Parker. She has worked on everything from getting curbside recycling at every Houston home, to getting a LGBT non-discrimination ordinance passed, all while raising three kids with her wife Kathy Hubbard. In her third term as mayor, she is continuing her work in the communities under her purview as well as doing work on the national stage to ensure the rights of all families. She is the only person in the history of Houston to be a controller, council member and mayor. Videos from her partner and children gave the entire audience reasons to smile.

The night also included several show stopping performances by disco star Maxine Nightingale, Cheyenne Jackson (seriously, his cover of “A Change Is Gonna Come” is a revelation) and of course, the cast of Glee. Alex Newell blew the roof off of the Beverly Hilton and was joined by Becca Tobin, Chord Overstreet, Jenna Ushkowitz, Darren Criss, Harry Shum and Lea Michele. They covered Destiny’s Child as well as a bitter sweet rendition of Glee‘s signature “Don’t Stop Believing.” I think the whole crowd got a bit misty eyed when Chord sang what was originally Corey Monteith‘s verse.

Glee cast at the event

Spotted in the crowd getting down were Patti Lupone, Lance Bass, Lisa Vanderpump, Wilson Cruz, Alec Mapa and JJ Toah aka Myron on Glee (FYI, he is a perfect angel baby who loves Gaga and totally sang Miley Cyrus with me).

All in all the Family Equality Council threw a fabulous shindig that honored the different ways in which people are fighting for LGBTQ equality. Plus, they had an excellent dessert selection.

The Myth of Plausible Deniability for Anti-Black Violence & How Ferguson Birthed a Movement

feature image via Antonio Scorza / Shutterstock.com

The city of Ferguson has been protesting steadily since the night Mike Brown was murdered. 107 straight days of protest in one form or another. The non indictment of Darren Wilson brought protesters from LA to Palestine into the streets of their cities to voice their anger over this questionable verdict. Many people across all walks of American life are coming together and saying that this isn’t OK and things need to change. But amidst the tears, arrests and solidarity, the question of why this particular murder has set off what seems to be the entire globe keeps popping up in interviews. What makes this case motivate people to get out and come together to not just talk about racism, but put their bodies on the line to make it stop? To answer that you need to look at what prevented White Americans from seeing Mike Brown in Renisha McBride and Ezell Ford: plausible deniability.

In the case of every murder or assault of a young Black person in the past 10 years there has been, for some people and to some degree, plausible deniability. There were no witnesses when Trayvon Martin was murdered; “anything could have happened out there.” The cops didn’t have the whole story when Kendrec McDade was murdered, “they were just doing their job.” It was late, people were drunk and the cell phone video “wasn’t the whole story” of Oscar Grant’s murder. There has always been a reason that made it easy for White Americans and non-Black POC to claim to be unsure if it was really about race. They could deny that (specifically anti-Black) racism is in fact a thing here in the US because they didn’t have all of the facts. People outside the US were left with mainstream media tidbits and the occasional celebrity commenting on the inequality of America as their lens through which to view these murders. This left many Black Americans with 1) the hope that one day they would have a case with all the facts to give and 2) slow-simmering rage.

Mike Brown’s murder and the subsequent events were, and are, about race. A White cop shooting an unarmed Black boy is a situation that, in America, is almost always going to be about race. Our history is steeped in racialized violence.But for a generation of White Americans who have been raised to be “colorblind” and who have only come into contact with racism in the form of textbook photos of lynching and Bill O’Reilly sound bites, this idea can be hard to swallow. Ferguson, or more accurately the social media timeline of Ferguson, blew apart the idea of living in a “post racial” America. Before the police could even send out a coroner, the residents of Mike’s neighborhood were posting to Twitter and Vine what they were seeing and hearing. When the cops showed up and started firing tear gas into peaceful crowds, the protesters were streaming video to YouTube. For maybe the first time in the history of racial violence, the victims could speak their truth without words and in real-time. They gave America, but specifically White America, the chance to bear witness to the reality of being Black and not dying silently. Within 24 hours the story had gone viral and mainstream news crews made plans to head out if the violence continued, which of course it did.

And White Americans were forced to watch CNN and Fox News report the falsified information Ferguson PD was putting out, even as they scrolled through their Twitter feed and saw the truth. Amnesty International sent in observers, who are usually sent into war zones, to investigate the militarization of the Black part of the city. Observers were investigating how the police were dealing with US citizens on American soil. There was no way to deny that Ferguson had a race problem, had a truth problem, would have its day in court.

But when that day came, despite all the evidence presented, Darren Wilson walked. A very ugly truth came to light. The bad guys weren’t Southerners that could be looked down upon and laughed at for being backwards. The bad guys were cops and soldiers who had been sworn to protect and high school friends who called Mike a thug and complained about the “race card” being played. Society at large was complicit in this situation and for many White people it was the first time they realized the bad guys looked like them. And if the facts had been ignored now, how many other times had they had the privilege of entertaining the idea that maybe it wasn’t about race? How many times had they been complicit in oppressing Black people fighting for justice? Hard questions that many have begun to find peace with in the streets.

Black people have been rising up against mistreatment at the hands of White people since the 1700s when the first documented slave rebellion took place in the colonies. We did it in the ’60s and again in the 90’s after the Rodney King verdict. We are well versed in the language of resistance. But for the most part our fight for people to stand up and recognize our humanity and suffering has been met with small gains in the wake of huge repetitive tragedies. When a Black person is gunned down we are consistently met with the plausible deniability wall when it comes to people believing us. We are also chastised or feared when we express anger and a need for justice. We are told by White people and in the years since the Civil Rights movement, Black leaders, to turn the other cheek. Violence will never make things change. Nevermind the Boston Tea Party or French Revolution. So as we watched the Mike Brown case unfold, many of us were given hope that maybe things had changed. The police couldn’t lie because the internet was on the case to debunk whatever new story they concocted, and the cameras were catching everything on the ground. We finally had a scenario that would bring justice to family and vindicate us for years of not being believed when we called out racist police tactics.

That is why it wasn’t just painful to see Mike’s mother fall apart, it was devastating. (Some) Black folks really believed that this would be that case that would hold. Someone would finally pay for murdering a Black child. Instead we were given a speech that blamed social media for making the investigation hard and in essence said that a Black boys murder wasn’t even worth looking into further. Even with evidence and public opinion on our side, we lost. What is left to do when you’ve prayed, and cried, and waited for the justice system to do its job? What do you do when Black boys know that it doesn’t matter if they’re in a gang or simply crossing the street; they can be murdered at the discretion of a police officer and there’s nothing they can do? What do you do when you’ve done everything “right” and you are still mistreated? You take it to the streets. You take your rage and pain and power you make people listen. You burn and you scream and you keep screaming until someone else shows up and offers you a hand. In this case the hands came from some of the most unlikely places.

London is standing in solidarity with Ferguson. Vancouver is standing in solidarity with Ferguson. Mexico, Hong Kong, Egypt and Palestine are all standing in solidarity. Marginalized people across the globe are banding together to support Black Americans in their fight. This is not something that happens very often, because marginalized people rarely have the chance to bring their problem to the table and find common ground. But tear gas is a uniter of people and on the first night of police violence in Ferguson, rebel fighters in Palestine shared with citizens on the ground how to treat tear gas and spray victims. People who had participated in the revolution in Egypt passed on the best ways to ensure your video equipment survived a run in with soldiers. Students fighting the government cover-up in Mexico shared their love and solidarity with the kids in Ferguson fighting for the right to live. All because social media accounts made it possible for them to see what was really going on without the lens of mainstream media clouding the goings on.

That clarity has let groups of people who are literally worlds apart step outside their preconceived notions of what it means to be an American or foreign and simply see people fighting for their lives. The world got a little smaller and agendas merged when faced with the reality of blatant and violent racism. The bonds that were forged will be hard to break and therefore will support the movement for a long time to come.

Ferguson is about Black rage in the face of systematic racism first and foremost, but it is no longer just Black rage. It’s White people’s rage at recognizing the problem in society and their place in that society. It’s the rage of the marginalized rebels across the globe who have finally found common ground with Black Americans. It’s the pain of Mike Brown’s parents on the night of the verdict and it’s the shattered hope that each march slowly begins to piece back together. This time it’s not a moment. It’s a movement.

Nothing Is Off Limits: How Queer Brunch Raised This Queer Feminist Fagette

At 16 I was a rage-filled, loud-mouthed, angry queer feminist. I was over the butch-femme dynamic in the lesbian community and the casual misogyny I found among gay men was no longer a thing I was willing to overlook. I felt as if I had no real place in the LGBTQ community at a time when I needed a community more than ever. I was always being told I was a little too loud/ outspoken/ anti-racist/ independent to belong anywhere. It seemed the price of belonging was putting up with part of your identity being marginalized. This was especially painful because I didn’t have a place with my family either. To make a long story short, I wasn’t out to them, but I wasn’t in the closet enough for polite conversation and questions about boyfriends. So I was without biological family or the found family seasons 1-3 of The L Word had promised me.

What I did have were a handful of wannabe A-Gay guy friends who dated guys way too old for them. My friend Max had one boyfriend in particular named Steve. Steve thought my permanent attitude problem was hilarious and that my love of Doc Martens was a sign of good character. He was also 30 and loved making Max happy. One of the things that made Max happy was dragging me out to socialize. So that’s how this teenage misanthrope found herself sitting in a West Hollywood restaurant on a Sunday morning pretending to know what a Bellini was. That first Sunday was awkward and full of quirked eyebrows and mimosas. I had no idea what to say to the 30-something friends of my friend’s boyfriend. At this point, I was so used to not fitting in I didn’t even bother to listen to the questions they asked. I figured that Max had gotten this out of his system and I was off the human interaction hook. Instead, Steve invited me out again the next week and the week after and the week after that.

The group of people varied by week, as did the location, but one thing that was always the same was the “nothing is off limits” vibe that saturated the meals. After I stopped waiting for judgment to pass, I started to pay attention to the conversations. Some of them were frivolous chatter about shoes and exes, others were about battles with depression and drugs. There were talks about how shitty race-themed nights at gay bars were and how lesbians did more harm than good by forcing people to pick a side. We talked about living in half a closet at home and being fully out at school. It was the first time I’d ever been around adults who had survived the things I was going through and were willing to say more than “Go to AA” and “Don’t start, you’ll never stop.” Every single person who I met was positive that many of their problems were reflective of flawed systems, be they churches or the HRC. And they all wanted to see better things happen for younger queer people. While they always asked me questions about why I thought what I thought, they never questioned my identity or invalidated my experience. They also taught about things I’d never have known otherwise. These meals were where I learned about Act Up, received a copy of Stonewall the book; hell, the first time I ever heard of Stonewall was at brunch. Brunch became a space to learn and to belong for a few hours.

Eventually Steve and Max broke up, Max moved away and brunch stopped being a regular thing for a while. Then I met Eli and Amy, two gay siblings who were in the market for a new friend. I was 18, and while I had definitely grown out of most of my darkness since that first brunch, I was still many identities in a single body and looking for the label that fit. I’d also adopted “Have no filter, give no fucks” as my motto and resigned myself to not having community until I was older. Eli and Amy had other plans. When I first met them after a GSA meeting at school I thought Amy just wanted to hook up, but it turned out Eli was the one with an interest in me. He’d heard me bitch out a girl who called me a pathetic hag and liked my inventive cursing. They invited me to brunch a few weeks later and I said yes. If I’m being honest,I only said yes because I wanted to sleep with Amy. But I’m glad I did. Brunch with them meant brunch at their parents’ house, with their friends (Kate, Pete, Joey, Sid and Lee), and lots of booze. It was less about busy friends keeping up with each other like the Steve led brunches and more a messy, loud Queer Theory class. This was the QAF and L Word fun I’d been looking for. We cooked brunch and talked shit about closeted celebs the boys had slept with and talked about how much it sucked that every gay movie was so painfully white and depressing. We partied during the week and met up between classes, but brunch was where we let our queer identities free in a way that was more natural and less defensive compared to who we were in public.

This brunch crew wasn’t about learning a new side to my community from adults; it was about a bunch of kids being a new side to a community. Amy, Kate and I caught endless shit from the girls at GSA meetings for running with a bunch of bitchy queens. The boys were made fun of for having the “Lesbian Harem” out with them at gay bars. We didn’t quite fit anywhere but with each other. It was at brunch during a discussion about not fitting in that Sid looked at me and said: “You are such a fag.” The boys called each other that all the time, and even applied it to Kate when she went on one of her female masculinity (though I’m sure we didn’t have that term when I was 18) rants. When I asked for an explanation, Joey said I had all the sensibilities of an A-Gay, the balls of a gossip columnist, the presence and mouth of drag queen, with the academic background to back it all up. I was like the perfect gay man activist. I was flattered, but I took exception to being called something that was male; I was a girl damn it! Being tough didn’t make me a man! Sid looked at me, and after a few minutes said “OK, fagette then”.

It wasn’t like the movies; I didn’t have some sudden epiphany in that moment and embraced my new found identity. Hell, I didn’t think of it as anything but a funny nickname for years. But when some asshole outside Trunks, a gay bar in LA, told me I wasn’t actually a fag and should go home, I remember very clearly turning around and saying “No, I’m not a fag. I’m a fagette.” I was 22 at that point and hadn’t seen any of my brunch friends in years. We’d gone to different colleges and countries, had boyfriends and shitty jobs. But later when I thought about it, maybe brunch had never really stopped. Brunch had always been a place for a million pieces of me to slide together however, and finally, almost ten years after my first Bellini and Benny the pieces had stuck. There was finally a whole picture, made up of rage and feminism, as well as those early conversations about Stonewall and Sunday’s spent trying to find a gay movie that didn’t piss us all off. I was the fagette, a girl of many sides who railed against anything that tried to confine my identity to their expectations.

In the years that followed there would be a song by Athen’s Boys Choir of the same name as well as Urban Dictionary’s definition of fagette. But for me, it will always mean 15 and lost, 18 and reckless, 22 and finally daring to take up my own space. And brunch will forever hold a spot in my heart.