2015-06-01 Outlook Ohio Magazine

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The Voice of Ohio’s LGBT and Ally Community

vol 20 • issue 1

june 2015

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Individualized financial advice,

that celebrates extrao ordinary y individuals.

After frustrations ns with the lack of financial plannin ng resources for her and her partnerr,, Sara spent the last several years cultivating her knowledge on issues specific to domestic partne ers. She attained the title of Accredited Domestic Partnership Advisorr so she could fulfill her passion of helping h others in the same situation. She is committted ted to bringing clarity around the complex issues for the G GLBT community.

Sara Colton, ADP PA ATM Financial Advisor

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sara.colton@am mpf.com thechaddockgro oup.com facebook.com/tthechaddockgroup

$ SULYDWH ZHDOWK DGYLVRU\ SUDFWLFH RI $PHULSULVH )LQDQFLDO 6HUYLFHV ,QF

81 Mill Street, Suite 100, Gahanna, OH 43230

Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA A and SIPC. 2015 Ameriprise Financial, Inc. All june rights2015 reserved.

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vol 20 • #1

the ohio pride holidays issue

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you are here qmunity

polisigh: 2016 Senate race: Ted Strickland special report: Eli’s Story

special section: marriage equailty

marriage: law professors’ predictions marriage: why marriage really matters

marriage: financial to-do list when you say i do marriage: wedding style

marriage: equality-minded weddings marriage: our favorite cake toppers pride 2015

pride: LGBTQ 101

pride: rainbow head-to-toe pride bingo

pride: Dayton Pride / June 6

pride: Youngstown Pride / June 12-13 pride: Columbus Pride / June 19-20 pride: Cincinnati Pride / June 27

pride: Cleveland Pride / June 27

pride: Mansfield, Chillicothe, Findlay Yellow Springs, Springfield

NEXT MONTH: LGBT resource guide, Pride rewind and, hopefully, our keepsake marriage equality edition To our readers: The US Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in late June that could mean marriage equality for Ohio and our entire nation. July’s Outlook will be available a few days later than normal so we can bring you the latest, hopefully historic news.

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pride: Toledo Pride

pride: Midwestern pride highlights & prides coast to coast dyke like me

health commentary: PrEP

PUBLISHER Christopher Hayes

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Bob Vitale / Chad Frye

HEADQUARTERS Outlook Media Inc. 815 N High St, Suite G, Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.268.8525 phone / 614.261.8200 fax SALES Chad Frye / cfrye@outlookmedia.com Paula Ross / paula@outlookmedia.com Tyler Cruz / tyler@outlookmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING Rivendell Media - 212.242.6863 ADVERTISING DEADLINES Reservations by the 15th of each month.

Art in by the 20th.

column: insightout

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Bob Vitale / bvitale@outlookmedia.com

column: in the shade

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chris Azzopardi, James Blackmon, Alisa Caton, Brooke Cartus, Bryan Cole, Luke Darby, Debe, Bill Hardy, Evan Jeshka, Pete Lovering, Erin McCalla, Dan Savage, Regina Sewell, Debra Shade, Gregg Shapiro, Olga Starr, D.A. Steward, Brynn Tannehill, Bob Vitale, Mickey Weems

column: the other side column: trans point analysis

column: complete the circuit fashion: summer essentials

creative class: exact exchange creative class: arts festivals

creative class: gay men’s chorus concerts bookmark: summer reading list

interview: Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin out & about

Ohio LGBT bar roundup savage love

the divine life

toons / puzzling

Your Pride Listening Library

OUTLOOK’S JUNE MIX

by Traut Search OM_06.2015 on spotify.com or listen on outlookohio.com

MANAGING EDITOR Erin McCalla / emccalla@outlookmedia.com

ART DIRECTOR Christopher Hayes /art@outlookmedia.com CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS / DESIGNERS Chris Hayes, Ryan Harris, Bryan Kelling, Emma Parker COVER DESIGN/PHOTO: Chris Hayes CYBERSPACE outlookohio.com, outlookmedia.com networkcolumbus.com Twitter: @outlookcolumbus Facebook: Outlook Ohio Magazine Outlook is published and distributed by Outlook Media Inc. on the first day of each month throughout Ohio.

Outlook is a free publication provided solely for the use of our readers. Any person who willfully or knowingly obtains or exerts unauthorized control over more than 5 copies of any issue of outlook columbus with the intent to prevent other individuals from reading it shall be considered guilty of the crime of theft. Violators will be prosecuted.

The views expressed in Outlook are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or personal, business, or professional practices of Outlook Media, Inc. or its staff, ownership, or management.

Outlook Media, Inc. does not investigate or accept responsibility for claims made in any advertisement.

Outlook Media, Inc. assumes no responsibility for claims arising in connection with products and services advertised herein, nor for the content of, or reply to, any advertisement. All material is copyrighted ©2015 by Outlook Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

puzzling solution - puzzle on pg 110

OUTLOOK’S 2015 PRIDE MIX

by DJ MOXY

Download at outlookohio.com

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

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you are here

On June 13, 1996, Outlook debuted with a front-page headline: “Hello, Columbus!”

In June 2014, Outlook debuted as a statewide magazine by declaring, “Hello, Ohio!”

As we start our 20th year with the issue you’re holding now, let us just say, “Thanks!”

Like the community we serve, Outlook

<<<Rewind

In the next year, we’re going to look back at some of our stories from 1996, Outlook’s first year in business. And we’ll fast-forward to let you know how they ended.

accordance with the board’s wishes, repeating a scenario played out the two previous academic years. Student uproar has led to the formation of a coalition, Students for Domestic Partnership, advocating trustee consideration and approval of the insurance inclusion.

From Outlook, June 13-27, 1996: OHIO STATE SHELVES DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP INSURANCE PROPOSAL - AGAIN

by Shane C. Sahadi For the students at The Ohio State University, “the third time is the charm” did not ring true Thursday, June 6.

For the third time in as many years, a proposal to grant student health insurance to domestic partners of OSU students has been abandoned before it could be voted on by the university’s board of trustees.

Domestic partners are unmarried couples, both heterosexual and gay, who sign an affidavit verifying they have lived together for over six months and share responsibility of one another in many aspects of life. The insurance proposal would benefit same-gender and opposite-gender couples who cannot or do not marry due to legal, religious and other reasons.

OSU currently provides domestic partners with the same rights as married partners in several university policies, including the use of Larkins Hall, purchase of football tickets and use of the OSU library system.

President Gordon Gee removed the proposal in outlookohio.com

has been through some huge changes over the years. We started as a biweekly newspaper, and now we’re a monthly magazine. We started as a publication for the GLB community, and now we cover the T and the Q and everyone who identifies as part of our rainbow.

In a meeting with the coalition, Gee claimed to support the issue but stated a board concern with the raise in student premiums attached to the proposal. However, according to Joshua Black, president of the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance (B-GALA) at OSU, Gee said some members of the board are conservative Republicans who find the domestic partnership insurance proposal “morally abhorrent.”

“If homophobia and anti-gay bias are the motivation of the board, then we want that out in the open,” said Black.

The board has expressed concerns about subsidization of the proposal by other students or state or university dollars. Yet, according to Students for Domestic Partnership, neither the state nor the university would have to contribute any funds to the proposed change.

Although students would be required to pay an additional 49 cents per quarter, a recent poll showed a majority of both undergraduate and graduate students supporting the plan. Undergraduate Student Government and many other student organizations at the university have also voiced support for the proposal.

The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota and the

It’s become a cliché to talk about how far we’ve come in recent years. So we won’t repeat that here.

Let’s just say, though, we can’t wait to see where we are 20 years from now.

Have a safe and happy Pride month, Ohio! We’re proud of you!

-Chris, Bob, Chad, Erin, Tyler, Paula, James and Mike

University of Chicago are among the institutes of higher learning that already offer insurance coverage for domestic partners, as does Wright State University in Dayton. The latter example has been used by advocates of the proposal as a counter to early university opposition of being the first Ohio university to adopt such a policy.

Fast Forward>>> For seven more years, Ohio State University administrators and trustees shot down proposals to extend health coverage to students’ and faculty members’ domestic partners.

The reasons kept changing. First it was the cost to other students or fear of offending conservative board members. By 2002, Board Chairwoman Tammy Longaberger said trustees feared that Ohio legislators would cut off state money to the university if they moved forward with the plan.

Finally, in July 2004, trustees followed Wright State, Miami, Ohio and Cleveland State universities by including same- and opposite-sex domestic partners in family health coverage.

Four months later, Ohio voters banned samesex marriage by approving a state constitutional amendment that also forbade any legal recognition for same-sex couples.

Domestic partner benefits weren’t affected, however.

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qmunity

Presidency 2016: The Race Gets Bigger

Toledo LGBT Youth Shelter Goal of Fundraising Effort

A Toledo couple has started raising money to open a center and shelter for LGBT teens.

The goal for Kristen Angelo and Angela Boday is to open Harvey House in early 2016. They say it will take $40,000 to buy, renovate and open a facility.

Although Harvey House would be open to all young people in need, it primarily would serve LGBT youth, Angelo said. The National Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 20 percent of homeless youth are LGBT. Almost 60 percent of LGBT homeless youth have been sexually victimized, and they’re at much greater risk of sexual violence and suicide.

Last month we looked at Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.

During a visit to Detroit’s Ruth Ellis Center, which serves homeless and runaway youth, Angelo said she learned that up to 20 young people from Toledo have been helped by its programs in the last year. Detroit is about 60 miles north of Toledo.

Angelo is a law student at the University of Toledo, and Boday is studying social work.

From 9a-8p on Thursday, June 11, Bob Evans restaurants in Northwest Ohio will donate a portion of their proceeds to Harvey House for each customer who shows a flier for the project. If you’re interested in donating to Harvey House or want to learn more, visit youcaring.com/harveyhousenwo or “You hear these awful things and you harveyhousenwo.com want to do something,” Angelo said.

Wrong Side of History

Right Side of History

“If I saw Kurt from Glee, I would bully and tell him ‘It gets worse...’”

- Joseph Gergley, who is running with the Franklin County Republican Party’s endorsement this fall for mayor of the Columbus suburb of Gahanna. He apologized for this Twitter post from 2011 and others that included racist, misogynist and anti-gay sentiments, but he said they were “read out of context” and merely meant to be “sarcastic.”

“I have to admit being disappointed. Gahanna has a long history of embracing diversity. I understand that people change, but this wasn’t all that long ago. I think it’s important for the mayor to be a leader, to be representative of the community, and when you represent the community, you represent everyone in the community.”

- Outgoing Gahanna Mayor Becky Stinchcomb, who also is a Republican, to WBNS-TV.

This month we take a look at the newest group of candidates: former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and US Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both Democrats, and Dr. Ben Carson, former Hewlitt-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York Gov. George Pataki and former US Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, all Republicans.

Ben Carson • Opposes marriage equality: “It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society, and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality - it doesn’t matter what they are - they don’t get to change the definition.”

• Told CNN in March that he thinks being gay is a choice because people “go into prison straight - and when they come out, they’re gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”

• He apologized for the prisons comment and said he will not talk about gay-rights issues any more.

Carly Fiorina • Supported a US constitutional amendment to restrict marriage during her unsuccessful 2010 run for the US Senate in California. She now opposes an amendment and supports civil unions.

• Opposes ENDA. • Supported the original version of Indiana’s religious “freedom” law, which state leaders scaled back because of its anti-LGBT provisions.

Mike Huckabee • Opposes just about every measure dealing with LGBT people from ENDA to marriage to local anti-discrimination laws to AIDS research - and tosses in some incendiary rhetoric to boot.

• Once told The New Yorker: “Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.”

• Said on a Family Research Council radio show that the LGBT community “won’t stop until there are no more churches.”

Martin O’Malley • As governor of Maryland in 2014, signed into law a measure adding gender identity to his state’s anti-discrimination laws.

He did the same as mayor of Baltimore in 2002.

• Signed into law a 2012 bill legalizing same-sex

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Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

marriage in Maryland and backed the effort to keep marriage equality in a statewide referendum later that year.

• “We are all Americans. And all of us at end of the day want the same thing for our children. We want them to live in a loving, caring and committed home that is protected equally under the law.”

George Pataki • Described as “pro-gay rights” by the New York Daily News.

• Opposes marriage equality but also opposes a federal constitutional amendment. As governor of New York during the Sept 11 attacks, he declared same-sex partners eligible for compensation from a state crime-victims fund.

• Signed a hate-crimes bill into law in 2000 that covered crimes motivated by a victim’s sexual orientation.

Bernie Sanders • Favors marriage equality and voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act as a US representative from Vermont.

• As a US senator from Vermont, he has cosponsored legislation to repeal parts of DOMA that weren’t overturned by the US Supreme Court in 2013.

• “People all over this country understand that civil rights means that we end discrimination against all people, whether they’re black, Hispanic, Native American or gay. That’s the America we have to fight for.”

Rick Santorum • The Internet is full of lists of the former US senator’s most offensive anti-gay comments. He opposes marriage equality, same-sex parenting, ENDA, LGBT military service and other issues.

• Suggested in 2012 that men in prison are better parents than lesbian couples, whom he said rob children “of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to.”

• Said in 2003 and defended in 2012 the following comment: “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever, to my knowledge, included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”

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Bruce Jenner Is What???!

The Month in Marriage Alabama: Attorney General Luther Strange told a Republican men’s club in May that the US Supreme Court shouldn’t be deciding issues for the country because it’s not representative of his state.

In his April 24 interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Olympian and reality TV star Bruce Jenner came out as transgender - and Republican. One group found courage in both announcements: “As the nation’s only organization representing LGBT conservatives and straight allies, Log Cabin Republicans congratu-

lates Bruce Jenner in the tremendous courage he demonstrated tonight, being true to himself both in terms of his personal identity as well as his political identity. There is a home for you in Log Cabin Republicans - as there is for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender conservatives and straight allies.”

New LA Transgender Chorus Hires Cincinnati Conductor

Organizers of the new Transgender Chorus of Los Angeles came all the way to Ohio to find the talent they needed to lead the group.

Guam: A federal judge said he won’t wait for the US Supreme Court ruling before deciding on the issue of marriage equality in the US territory. Loretta Pangelinan and Kathleen Aguero sued in April after they were denied a marriage license.

Kentucky: US District Judge John Heyburn II, who struck down the state’s marriage ban in 2014, died of cancer on April 29, the day after the US Supreme Court heard arguments for and against marriage equality in Ken-

Oklahoma: Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law a bill that affirms religious leaders’ right to refuse to perform marriages that conflict with their beliefs. Freedom Oklahoma called the measure unnecessary because religious leaders already have that right.

Texas: Minority Democrats rode out the clock and managed to kill a Republicanbacked bill that would have prohibited state and local officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Cuba: Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro and head of her country’s Center for Sex Education, took part in a Havana Pride parade on May 9 and sponsored a blessing ceremony for same-sex couples.

HIV/AIDS service organizations groups say the US Food and Drug Administration’s plan to scrap its lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men is a step in the right direction.

public about how HIV is transmitted.”

But replacing the policy with one that bans men from donating for one year after samesex sexual activity is still discriminatory and perpetuates stereotypes of HIV as a “gay disease,” they say.

“This proposed policy contradicts decades of investment by the [Centers for Disease Control] to educate the public about behavior that places all people at high risk for infection, gay or straight,” he said. “By contrast, the new policy does not require heterosexuals to be celibate for one year in order to donate blood, even if their sexual behavior places them at high risk for HIV. Instead of evaluating all potential donors to determine their actual risk to the blood supply, the FDA is telling the next generation of young gay and bisexual men that they are inherently diseased.”

The FDA announced on May 12 that it is recommending a policy that would require one year of celibacy before sexually active gay and bi men could donate blood. A final rule will come after a 60-day public-comment period.

“While removing the lifetime ban is a step forward, it is not enough,” AIDS Resource Center Ohio said in a written statement. “The new FDA policy perpetuates discrimination against gay and bisexual men, and it promotes a misunderstanding in the general

Mansfield Pride FB: Mansfield Gay Pride July 25, Mansfield Camp Sunrise sunrisekids.org Aug 9-15, Clarksville Game Change Conference

(Social Workers, Educators, Health Professionals) Aug 13, Akron Party in Plaid & Paisley Caracole Inc Fundraiser Aug 15, Cincinnati 2015 Gay Softball World Series

gsws2015.org Aug 17-22, Columbus

Cleveland HRC Gala Ireland: Polls showed support for marriage FB: Human Rights Campaign Cleveland equality as high as 60 percent in the days Aug 22, Cleveland leading up to a nationwide referendum on the issue May 22.

Toledo Pride toledopride.com Aug 28-30, Toledo

One-Year Blood Ban Still Discriminates, Groups Say

Lindsey Deaton, who founded Cincinnati’s Diverse City Youth Chorus in June 2014, was introduced as the founding artistic director and conductor of the Transgender Chorus during She’ll start in Los Angeles the annual Gay Men’s Cho- on Aug 1. rus of Los Angeles Voice Awards on May 3.

Deaton came to Cincinnati in 1987 as a conducting The LA Gay Men’s Chorus is apprentice at the Cincinfunding the new group. nati Symphony Orchestra.

The Diverse City Youth “The Gay Men’s Chorus of Chorus, open to LGBTIQ LA has just made an inand allied youth ages 13credible gesture,” Deaton, 22, debuted last summer. who is transgender, told The Hollywood Times. “It She told The Hollywood couldn’t be more visible Times that she hopes to and tangible for [the start a similar youth chotransgender community], rus in Los Angeles. and in a very big way.” outlookohio.com

District of Columbia: Guests at the May 17 wedding of Michael Kahn and Charles Mitchem applauded loudly when the judge officiating the ceremony emphasized that she was exercising the powers vested in her by the US Constitution. That’s because the judge was US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

tucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan.

Save the Date

Kelsey Louie, CEO of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, said the policy proposal is well-intentioned but still amounts to a lifetime ban.

Pride Night @ Kings Island cincyglbt.com/pride-night Sept 11, Cincinnati Red Columbus ARC Ohio Fundraiser redcolumbus.com/2015 Sept 12, Columbus Ohio Lesbian Fest ohiolba.org Sept 18-20, Pataskala Kaleidoscope Youth Center Garden Party kycohio.org Sept 27, Columbus Dayton LGBT Film Festival daytonlgbt.com Oct 9-11, Dayton

Masquerage It’s not just gay advocates who oppose the bans. The American Medical Association has ARC Ohio Fundraiser called for assessments on all donors to deter- Oct 17, Dayton mine their individual risk.

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polisigh

Who’s the Best Ally?

Strickland Says He’s Better Than Portman for LGBT Ohioans

by Bob Vitale

Don’t suggest to former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland that he’s returning to politics for a 2016 US Senate run.

Because if you saw him speaking out on the Statehouse steps against his successor’s 2011 attempt to gut public-employee unions, if you saw his full-throated endorsement of President Obama at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, if you saw him address the crowd at a 2014 marriageequality rally in Cincinnati, you know he never really left.

Strickland, at 73, is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge first-term US Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who was elected to the US Senate on the same day in 2010 that saw Strickland defeated by John Kasich.

This time, Strickland talks about an Ohio that has yet to be: a state with marriage equality, with laws that protect people from being fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, with more acceptance and support for transgender neighbors.

But like his ally, former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Strickland won’t have a clear path to his party’s nomination. Cincinnati City Councilman PG Sittenfeld, at just 30 years of age, is seeking the Democratic nomination as well, and says he’d represent a new generation of leaders.

(We’ll feature Sittenfeld in our July issue, and we hope Portman will respond to our longstanding request for an interview.)

“I’ve been out of office, but I have remained very active in working for causes and issues I believe in,” said Strickland, who left a job with the liberal Center for American Progress to start his campaign.

No matter who wins in 2016, Ohio will be represented in Washington by two US senators who support marriage equality and the long-proposed but never-enacted Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would expand federal anti-bias laws to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.

It promises to be a different kind of campaign than his 2006 run for governor. Back then, Strickland harkened back to a bygone Ohio, invoking his childhood in a place called Duck Run and time his family spent living in a chicken coop after a fire forced them out of their home.

Portman was the first Republican in the US to declare his support for marriage equality, and he voted for ENDA in 2013. Democratic US Sen. Sherrod Brown, whose term runs through 2018, also favors marriage equality and an expanded non-discrimination law. So does Sittenfeld.

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Strickland said Portman’s positions don’t mean the candidates think identically on LGBT issues, though. The Republican, while favoring marriage equality, doesn’t think it’s an issue that should be decided by the courts. He has said since announcing his change of heart on the issue in 2013 that he thinks supporters of marriage equality should convince their fellow citizens and seek victory at the ballot box.

known as “Obamacare,” as a vote against the LGBT community as well. The 2010 law includes provisions that prohibit insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, which had often been invoked to deny transgender people access to transition-related care.

The Democrat, however, said he hopes for “an unambiguous decision” by the US Supreme Court later this month.

The former governor said his feelings about LGBT civil rights come from his background as a psychologist.

“Saying someone should have a right but the state could take away that right is illogical to me,” Strickland said. “Marriage equality has been accepted by a large number of states.

This is something that should be decided nationally.”

“I think being a psychologist, I really developed an appreciation for the uniqueness of the individual,” he said. “I don’t think you can be a psychologist and carry around a judgmental attitude about other people. You value and you understand the person.”

Strickland also draws a distinction with Portman on the type of justices he would support to decide future issues that come before the Supreme Court. Portman, although opposed by social conservatives because of his support for marriage equality, still lines up with them on most other issues. Strickland, though, said he would support only those Supreme Court nominees who “protect civil rights, human rights and LGBT rights.”

Openly gay Columbus School Board member Mary Jo Hudson, who served as head of the Ohio Department of Insurance under Strickland, remembers the Senate candidate as a governor who appreciated the diversity of the state and of his own cabinet.

And Strickland painted Portman’s support for repealing the Affordable Care Act, also

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

“There are other battles that need to be fought beyond marriage equality,” he said.

“We could not have a better friend than Ted,” she said.

Bob Vitale is the editor-in-chief of Outlook. He covered government and politics for 20 years as a newspaper reporter in DC, Ohio and Wisconsin. outlookohio.com

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feature

The Book of Elijah Trans Teen Thrives With Supportive Family, School, Medical Care

by D.A. Steward photos by Bryan Kelling

Imagine waking up to yourself Naked.

In the opposite sex.

As your mind rejects your body And your body is filled with a sense of disgust, Imagine your heart begin to beat rough from the thoughts And realization That you’re stuck.

For me it is real.

5:00 7:00 8:00 Whenever I wake this is how I feel.

Change is the only way.

I’m not changing who I am.

Just my appearance, For the people who see gender as Black or white, Male or female, Instead of the grey shades.

That makes up the majority, The grey shades that make up the whole LGBT community...

Seventeen-year-old Elijah Crafter firmly recites his poem before about 200 people at TransOhio’s 6th Annual Trans and Ally Symposium in May 2014. He’s typically a shy writer and sketch artist off the stage, but a quiet confidence builds within as him as he shares his perspective as an African-American transgender teenager.

When he finishes, the crowd erupts into applause. His mother sits at the front table beaming. Famed collegiate athlete Kye Allums, the first to come out as trans while playing, takes the stage and spends the first five minutes of his keynote speech singing the young man’s praises.

Tall, caramel-toned with a slightly unkempt

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afro puff, Eli smiles from the podium, the last year and a half of his life flashing behind his glistening pupils. It started with coming out to his family as a lesbian at age 16 and ended with a decision to save up his childsupport money for top surgery, setting a Spring Break goal to schedule the procedure.

It’s a whirlwind year that could serve as a new blueprint for positive transgender and gender non-conforming youth development, where affirmation and unconditional support replace the reigning paradigm of physical and emotional transition in the face of adversity. *** A Family That Transitions Together Eli sits in a situation that many, unfortunately, would classify as unique.

He is a transgender teen with a supportive

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“I want to make the world a better place for people like me. ...

I don’t want us to have to fight so hard just to be ourselves.”

- Elijah Crafter immediate family. His transition is in the hands of a comprehensive team of culturally competent medical professionals, and he attends a school where transgender inclusion is part of the learning process.

Eli’s mother, Betty Crafter, a nearly 60-yearold single mom of three sons and a 25-year foster parent to many more, was an early leader in the movement to keep young people engaged in their education to avoid what’s called a school-to-prison pipeline. Now she’s the ever-doting mother, rubbing Eli’s shoulders and running her hands though his plush afro puff as she talks about how excited and june 2015

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anxious she is for her son’s transition.

It’s a warm August afternoon. Eli and his mom sit on a leather sectional in the dark brown-toned living room of their brownstone home in the Olde Towne East neighborhood of Columbus. Crafter talks of the fears she has for her son as he navigates the world as a transgender man.

it was my unacceptance that was causing the depression, so I made the decision that I wanted my child to live. And if my child is happy, then I am happy.”

Crafter still mixes up the pronouns every now and again. “She gets it right most of the time,” Eli says with a sly smile. “But she’s become my biggest supporter.” For this family, the defining factor is love. And loving Eli unconditionally has become the main reason why he has flourished.

“I think some of our relatives feel really nervous about it,” she says. “They don’t know what to say or ask. But had we not gone through our own personal experience with Eli, we may be in the same boat. But now we are A little while later and a few blocks over on able to help eduthe Near East Side, on a cate and mentor snowy day in January, “I know what the world others.”

Eli’s father, Paul J Cook Sr, recounts the first time can be like when you’re Before he began his son told him he was different. ... One day I his transition transgender. will be proud of him for nearly two years fighting for his rights, ago, Eli told his “He was sitting in his livbut right now I just mother he was a ing room, his mother was lesbian. But dethere and I was there. want my teenage son to spite coming out, That was when I saw be safe.”

Crafter noticed him cry,” he says. “I - Paul J Cook Sr., Eli’s dad her child growing never had seen him cry more depressed. so profusely. I put my arms around him and “She didn’t accept it at first,” Eli says softly, kissed him. But now we had a basis to begin dropping his head slightly and then looking understanding, and I underline begin, beup at his mother. It’s a chilly evening a couple cause we also were going through a months later in November, just before process.”

Thanksgiving.

Eli sits quietly, an endearing half-smile firmly “I was trying to hold on to my daughter,” planted above the dark stubble now growing Crafter says. She pauses slightly and shifts on his chin. He has started hormone-replaceon the brown sectional. “But there was one ment therapy, and it’s already showing. He particular day I remember seeing him in so often reaches up to rub the small hairs, each much pain. He was suicidal, and I knew that time the smile growing just a little wider.

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Cook, a 64-year-old history professor, chuckles as he retells the story of his son’s first testosterone injection. The doctor had surprised them; neither son nor father knew it was coming in that visit. But instinctively, Cook pulled out his camera phone and started filming as if he was watching his son get his first checkup as a baby.

force to help my son,” he says. “Because of his courageousness, he’s blazing a trail, not only for himself, but for others, so they can confront their fears. I don’t worry about him from that standpoint. I only continue to worry about the backwardness of the society that he must now confront.” ***

Eli’s father sits, legs crossed in a leather recliner in his copiously furnished living room.

Two #BlackLivesMatter Tshirts are draped across a wooden piano in a back cor-

The Reality for Trans Youth Eli’s family is an anomaly. He has older parents and historic ties to the Civil Rights Movement. His mother and father can remember a time when the word transsexual was only whispered, to pathologize a practically invisible population.

His support isn’t typical in the trans youth experience. Instead, trans youth have become the face of much more tragic realities.

ner. Images from the Civil Rights Movement and Afrocentric artwork line the walls of the former activist. Cook speaks in a deep, captivating baritone as if he’s addressing a lecture hall instead of just the two sitting before him. Every word has emphasis and meaning.

“My only objective as a father is to serve as a

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

The December suicide of 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn in suburban Cincinnati reawakened a conversation on the devastating effects of so-called reparative therapy on LGBT youth. Laverne Cox’s documentary, The T Word, which aired on MTV and Logo, featured a full cast of transgender youth all under the age of 30. And in February in Denver, the annual National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference was beautifully derailed by an army of mostly young trans activists and allies demanding true inclusion.

There’s a trans youth revolution that’s gaining more momentum than ever in the United outlookohio.com

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States. Their voices are finally shattering trans invisibility and penetrating the deafening marriage-equality discourse.

Much like the young people behind the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s and the activists who built the early ACT UP movement in the 1980s, today’s transgender and gender non-conforming youth are staking claim to their movement and demanding acceptance.

But as we’ve seen often, louder voices and more visible faces can trigger a violent backlash.

Young trans women of color continue to be victimized by the highest hate-crime rates in the country. At a shocking 41 percent, the attempted suicide rate is the most likely destroyer of trans lives. In the first two months of 2015, a new death of a transgender person was reported each week.

The Elis of the world demonstrate even more clearly how the deaths of Ohioans such as Leelah Alcorn, Cemia “CeCe” Dove and Brittany-Nicole Kidd-Stergis (the latter women, both in their early 20s, were murdered in Cleveland in 2013) could be prevented.

An accepting environment at school is also a major factor in positive trans youth development. Studies by the National Center for Transgender Equity; the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; and the Trevor Project show that transgender high school students have higher rates of truancy, bullying and suicide attributed to the bigotry they experience in school.

When Eli approached his principal at Columbus Alternative High School to tell him he no longer wanted to be called Aisha, he immediately was given the school’s blessing. Eli then spoke with each of his teachers and addressed each of his classes.

He describes it like a light switch. “One day I was Aisha and the next day I was Eli.” “We agreed that he owed it to himself and to the teachers who were working the closest with him to share his truth, and he was very forthright with that,” says Columbus Alternative Principal Darryl Sanders. “I don’t believe that we had any teacher in this building who was less than accepting.”

Sanders describes Eli as a high-achieving student who is “studious, strong-willed and outlookohio.com

extremely articulate.” Columbus Alternative High School has many like him: One of Columbus City Schools’ top performers, it’s for honors-level, college-bound young people.

“He embodies what CAHS is all about. Our students are students who dare to question.

They interrogate and question their environment, and Eli is no different,” Sanders says.

“We celebrate who he is.”

Eli has felt so supported that he started his own student group called Colors of Diversity, which he hopes to one day grow into a nonprofit organization. The group is making several thousand origami swans, each with an encouraging message to brighten someone’s day and show people they’re not alone. Each swan also comes with a number connected to an online video of someone’s story about overcoming adversity.

“I think that if we, as school institutions, are going to become the best safe havens for our students, we have to be willing to have difficult conversations,” Sanders says. “You’ve got to put yourself on the backburner and put the needs of your students in the forefront.” *** A Medical Sanctuary Because of Eli’s tenacity and his parents’ unwavering support, he became one of the first trans youth to receive hormone-replacement therapy as a patient in a new program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.

“I made the decision that I wanted my child to live.

And if my child is happy, then I am happy.”

- Betty Crafter, Eli’s mom

THRIVE, which stands for Team-Driven Healthcare That Respects the Individual and Values Emotions, is geared toward children and adolescents who are transgender or experience a difference of sex development.

(DSD is known historically as intersex).

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Just over a year ago, doctors and staff at Children’s created THRIVE after seeing a need for more comprehensive services medical care, psychological care and family care - for their transgender and DSD patients. Among those behind the effort was Bethanie Combs, a licensed social worker who now serves as its coordinator.

“People who experience gender variance or have a DSD often experience a need for follow-up care, education and support,” she says. “We are lucky to have physicians across many disciplines who can seamlessly provide care for all their medical needs, including urology, endocrinology, psychology/psychiatry, genetics, adolescent medicine, adolescent gynecology, pediatric surgery and social work.”

When Eli’s mom heard about THRIVE, she knew it was a program that would benefit her son. Eli quickly agreed.

It’s the day before school starts in August, and Eli is nearly bouncing at the excitement of his first three doctor appointments.

can’t afford it; about one-third avoids doctors because they fear discrimination. Nearly 20 percent of respondents were refused healthcare outright because they’re transgender.

Combs and her colleagues at Nationwide Children’s Hospital work to ensure that patients feel safe while experiencing some of the most invasive medical care of their lives.

Trans youth are offered state-of-the art care, including the use of blockers for gender-variant youth. That’s a new alternative that halts puberty and other physical development that takes place during early adolescence.

“It is typically when a gender-variant child starts experiencing these biological changes that don’t match how they identify that we start seeing severe depression and suicidal [thoughts],” Combs says. “Having tools like blockers, which is a reversible treatment, helps buy time so individual youth and families can make informed decisions regarding permanent changes that may occur later in their transition.” ***

“I don’t really feel any different after three The Trans “Promised Land” shots,” he says afterward. “I thought [the Although support surrounds Eli, it’s been a hormone-replacement therapy] would remind long journey to me every time I went that I this point of acwas born a female, but it ceptance for him “I think that if we, as doesn’t. I don’t mind getand his family. school institutions, are ting the shots. It makes And they’re all me excited that change is going to become the best well-aware that coming.” the world around safe havens for our stuhim doesn’t mirdents, we have to be “I actually want to do it ror the loving atwilling to have difficult more often. I really want mosphere they’ve conversations. You’ve the deeper voice to start created inside coming through and I got to put yourself on their homes. want more hair on my face the backburner and put so I can start shaving.”

“I know what the the needs of your stuworld can be like dents in the forefront.”

His mother laughs slightly, when you’re dif- Darryl Sanders, Principal letting him know that ferent,” his faColumbus Alternative High shaving isn’t all it’s ther says.

School cracked up to be. It’s a “Because of Eli’s common moment of adocourage and just lescence that Eli will be who he is, I know able to recall fondly as an adult, instead of that he’s going to want to go out there and the painful memories so many transgender protest, but I fear for his safety. One day I will adults have of maturing in the wrong body. be proud of him for fighting for his rights, but right now I just want my teenage son to be According to the first-ever National Transsafe.” gender Discrimination Survey, a 2011 effort by the National LGBTQ Task Force and NaEli’s mother has the same concerns. When tional Center for Transgender Equity that will asked what she fears most, she sighs deeply be updated in 2016, nearly half of the comand blinks slowly, the evils of the world flashmunity doesn’t seek health care because they 24

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ing behind her eyelids.

“Eli is strong. He has been doing really great with the rejection so far, but I’m afraid of how the constant rejection will change him,” she says. “I don’t want him going back to that dark place of depression where he’s having suicidal thoughts. That’s what really scares me.”

No world is perfect, not even Eli’s world of love and acceptance. He has to use a teachers’ restroom at school because Columbus City Schools lacks both gender-neutral restrooms and inclusive policies regarding facilities for trans students. (School Board member Mary Jo Hudson said changes are in the works, though.) Ohio still doesn’t include sexual orientation and gender identity in its anti-bullying and anti-discrimination laws.

Eli’s dad sometimes fears that the newness of THRIVE might find his son being taken advantage of. And Eli’s parents’ insurance doesn’t cover his top surgery, so they must pay out-of-pocket for the procedure.

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

But like the Biblical profit Elijah, who ascended to heaven on a fiery chariot, Eli Crafter represents that possible ascension into a better place for transgender people.

And he wants to help make it a reality for others as well. He plans to study psychology in college and wants to one day become a psychologist so he can provide affirming and culturally competent counseling to transgender youth throughout their transitions.

“I want to make the world a better place for people like me,” Eli says. “I want to start a non-profit that helps transgender and all LGB people, not just with coming out or their transitions, but with getting jobs and housing and clothing. I don’t want us to have to fight so hard just to be ourselves.”

D.A. Steward is a freelance journalist, former Outlook columnist and former LGBTQ liaison for Columbus Public Health. He recently moved to Boston to work at Fenway Health, an LGBT healthcare, research and advocacy organization. He’s on Twitter at @dwayneasteward. outlookohio.com

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Love & Marriage [An Outlook Special Marriage Section]

Law Professors Predict Supreme Court Ruling • Why Marriage Really Matters • Marriage Financial To-Do List • Weddings With Style • In the Business of Gay Weddings • Gay Cake Toppers outlookohio.com

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feature

WAITING AND WATCHING

It’s all over but the predicting.

The nine justices of the US Supreme Court heard our case for nationwide marriage equality - or at least recognition of legal marriages in Ohio - at the end of April.

They’re expected to issue their decision by the end of June. If they follow the timeline of their 2013 marriage decision in Windsor v United States, that means we’ll know sometime in the week between Columbus Pride and the parades and festivals in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Circle June 23 on your calendar.

The Supreme Court term ends on June 29, though.

In the meantime, Outlook asked a few professors from Ohio law schools to weigh in on the two questions that we’ve been asked the most.

1. What might the court rule? and 2. What will the court rule?

Jessie Hill, professor of law and associate 28

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dean for faculty development and research, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland

Before joining the faculty in 2003, Hill practiced First Amendment and civil rights law in Cleveland and worked at the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Hill’s teaching focuses on constitutional law, federal civil procedure, civil rights, reproductive rights, and law and religion.

What might the court rule? In theory, almost anything is possible. The Supreme Court could decide that states have to recognize same-sex marriages from other states but not legalize them within their own states. It could require all states to recognize same sex marriage, or it could decide that no state is constitutionally obligated to recognize samesex marriage.

Indeed, it could even decide to hold the cases over for reargument, which means it would wait until next term to decide. In my opinion,

though, the only likely outcome is that the Supreme Court will, indeed, rule on the key constitutional question - that is, it will decide whether the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of liberty and/or equality requires states to allow same-sex couples to marry.

One interesting issue is that if the Court decides against a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, it will mean that opponents of same sex marriage could seek to get the rulings overturned in those cases where same-sex marriage was instituted by federal court rulings. That could create a real mess.

What will the court rule? I’m not foolhardy enough to make predictions with this Court! I will say that when the Supreme Court announced its was taking these cases, I was virtually certain that it was going to rule in favor of same-sex marriage. After all, it had let pro-marriage decisions stand and only agreed to hear these anti-marriage cases on appeal. The zeitgeist also seemed to be in favor of same-sex marriage, too, with all the momentum on the side of same-sex marriage proponents.

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Law Professors Predict a Ruling for Nationwide Marriage Equality

Now, after the argument, all I can say is that victory for pro-marriage groups seems to me to be less inevitable than it appeared before.

Most of us believe that everything depends on how Justice Kennedy rules, since among the other votes on the Court, there are four that will pretty clearly rule in favor of samesex marriage, and four that will rule against.

In the past, Justice Kennedy has shown himself to have some sympathy for gay rights.

But in this oral argument, he seemed very concerned about the momentousness of what the Court might do, and how it would be upsetting tradition in a really profound way. The words “millennia plus time” - the way Justice Kennedy described how long the definition of marriage has included one man and one woman - still ring in my ears.

OK, but if pressed, I would still bet in favor of same-sex marriage.

Jessica Knouse, professor of law, University of Toledo College of Law Knouse joined UT law faculty in 2007 and outlookohio.com

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teaches constitutional law, family law, and sexuality and law. She previously worked as an appellate court attorney for the New York State Supreme Court and as a law clerk for Justice Howard Dana of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

fied two questions for review: Does the 14th Amendment require all states to allow samesex marriage? If not, does the 14th Amendment require all states to recognize same-sex marriages conducted in a state that does allow same-sex marriage?

What might the court rule? The Supreme Court has limited argument to two questions, paraphrased as follows: Does the 14th Amendment require states to issue samesex marriage licenses?, and, Does the 14th Amendment require states to recognize same-sex marriages validly entered in other states?

Accordingly, the possible outcomes are: • Yes on Question 1 (and then Question 2 becomes moot).

• No on Question 1, but yes on Question 2.

• No on Question 1, and no on Question 2.

Based on these questions, we could see a variety of results, including nationwide marriage equality (states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples - in my view, the most likely result), states need not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples but must nevertheless recognize same-sex marriages validly entered in other states (unlikely but plausible), and states need not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or recognize same-sex marriages validly entered in other states (highly unlikely).

What will the court rule? While I’m usually hesitant to make predictions about Supreme Court decisions, I think the only realistic possibility in this case is nationwide marriage equality. And I expect Kennedy will write for a five-justice majority. These predictions are based on my reading of US v. Windsor, a 2013 decision striking Section 3 of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman under federal law, and the fact that any other ruling would unsettle numerous marriage licenses that have been issued as the result of federal court rulings.

Doron M Kalir, clinical professor of law and director of the international law program, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University Before joining the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law faculty in 2012, Kalir practiced antitrust and other federal litigation law in New York and taught at Columbia Law School. For the Ohio cases before the US Supreme Court, he co-authored a friend-ofthe-court brief filed by Cuyahoga County in support of same-sex marriage.

What might the court rule? In agreeing to hear the case, the US Supreme Court certioutlookohio.com

What will the court rule? I expect the Court to answer “Yes” to Question 1 - that is, to conclude that there is a constitutional right (derived from the 14th Amendment) for same-sex marriage, and by that to render the second question moot.

While usually the reasoning for such a ruling is mostly a matter of inside baseball for the Supreme Court bar, this time the reasoning may be crucial. One segment of the Court, represented by Justice Kennedy, is likely to rule that the human dignity of the same-sex parents, as well as of their children, demands that they would have a right to marry without their sexual orientation serving as an obstacle. Another segment, represented by the Chief Justice, would (perhaps) like to rule that “prohibiting Adam to marry Steve merely presents an unconstitutional discrimination based on sex vis-à-vis Adam’s right to marry Eve.” The seemingly technical point - discrimination based on mere gender as opposed to discrimination based on sexual orientation may be more important than initially seems, as many cases are now moving their way to the Court in what seems to be the next legal “super-nova”: Following the Hobby Lobby case (which recognized the religious right of employers not to pay for their employees’ legal right of health coverage), what happens in the clash between religious rights (known as state-RFRA laws) and same-sex rights?

If the Court rules that the constitutional right is based on sexual orientation, the RFRAbased rights, which are merely statutory, will have to take a bow. If, however, the samesex marriage case is won merely on a gender discrimination issue, then it will have very little weight in deciding the question of what happens when a cake shop refuses to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding by claiming it violates their religious tenets.

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feature

Why Marriage Really Matters

by Pete Lovering

Since there are now approximately 74 states that allow same-sex marriage, one has to assume - or at least hope - that Ohio is not too far behind.

The slope on which we seem to find ourselves is very slippery indeed, as the past few years have seen exponential progress in the fight for the right to marry.

With that right comes a score of benefits, which we’re happy to highlight below: Themed Wedding Announcements There’s a ton of opportunity out there for nerdy wedding portraits inspired by famous same-sex partnerships we’ve grown to love, from Thelma and Louise to Calvin and Hobbes, to Bert and Ernie to Romy and Michelle. Sure, you may get slapped by a cease-and-desist letter from Viacom, but it’ll be worth it, both for love and the Facebook likes.

Health Benefits, IRS Forms, Retirement Documents, Etc. If you’ve ever read a single article about why gay marriage really matters, it usually has to do with saucy topics like accessibility to your spouse’s employer’s health coverage, joint tax write-offs and strategies for planning retirement with your spouse. But if mind-numbing bureaucracy and paper

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work don’t get your blood pumping, just think about the fact that you’re going to make a CPA very, very happy one day.

Wedding Reality Shows Will Become More Diverse The vast majority of nuptial-based television would make a women’s studies class have an aneurism, but imagine the possibilities for gay wedding-related programming, coming soon to Bravo: The Groom of Doom; Happy Wives, Happy Lives; Bridezillas. One of those might already exist.

That Person You Went to High School With Will Have Less to Post About We get it. She loves the gays, she just wants love to prevail and she “can’t believe in this day and age such injustice can exist when all people want to do is love one another.” We’re touched, really we are, but we’re ready to see something else on our Facebook walls.

ImmiGAYtion Now gay people will finally have the luxury of marrying under naive pretense so the person they’ve been dating for two months can stay in the country. Because if you don’t take a few gambles in life you’ll always regret it, right?

Wee Ones There are studies, as in peer-reviewed studies, that have revealed same-sex cou

10 Reasons Why We Need Marriage and Marriage Needs Us

ples raising kiddos are happier overall than those who are simply cohabitating.

Without over-interpolating this raw data, our guess would be that there is less stress involved when two parents know that their families are protected by the state if something terrible were to happen to either of them. Seems a little like a slap in the face for those couples who are fine without putting a ring on it, but then again married people have always been a bit smug, haven’t they?

The Guessing Game of What to Call One Another Will Be Resolved Let’s say a fond farewell to partner, spouse, boyfriend, manperson, ladyfriend, boo, bae, significant otter, husbear, FWHIB (friend with health insurance benefits), lover (*shivers*), formerly-sexual-domesticand-life-partner-but-now-we-mostly-justsleep-in-the-same-bed, etc, and welcome the age-old husband and wife. But under no circumstances will we perpetuate the terms Hubby or Wifey.

Having a Less Political Answer for When Grandma Asks, ÂSo, When Are You Going to Get Married?Ê Start thinking of new excuses, you scraggly bunch of inept commitment-phobes. Pretty soon “once it’s legalized,” accompanied by

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a pouty stare - and perhaps a finger wagwon’t be an option.

Death Becomes Way Easier Sure, death is not typically the first thing people think about when they think about same-sex marriage, unless, of course, you’re talking about the DEATH OF AMERICA’S MORAL CERTITUDE. No, people typically think about having a beautiful life together, creating a family, providing a future for the next generation, and all that other cute stuff that makes some people uncomfortable.

But the reality is that when life ends - and it most certainly will, especially for you the protections that are awarded to married couples can save them from piles of paperwork and greedy relations.

The Deafening Quiet of Those Who Oppose Outside of a few select squawkers - Pat Robertson and his goons - the opposition to marriage equality likely will die down within a few years. This seems to be the case already in a lot of corners of our society that previously spewed animosity toward LGBT people. The silence is glorious.

Pete Lovering has forgotten how to Twitter, but you can view a whole bunch of pictures of his dog on Instagram @Lover_ing. june 2015

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Celebrating pride on campus and in Columbus for 25 years.

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VISIT W WEXAR TS ORG TS.ORG FOR TICKETS, INFO, AND MORE

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Marriage

isIs Serious

Business We’ve Waited For the Right, So Don’t Do It Wrong

by Olga Starr Remember when we first met? We were walking down the street holding hands when someone hollered “F***ing queers!” at us?

Remember when we moved in together? Our insurance guy wouldn’t talk to me without you on the phone, even though we had a joint policy?

Remember when you were in pain and needed me to take you to the hospital? My boss wouldn’t let me out of training to take your call because it was not a “family” emergency?

You gave me strength. You taught me that we deserved better, that our love was not criminal. We had every right to be together and have our relationship respected just like any other couple.

Remember us whispering to each other at night, imagining how one day the world would change?

The waiting. Years of disappointment, political hate crimes, and writing checks to people we hoped would do something on our behalf.

And then it happened. You texted me and called me the same second I was dialing you.

“Can you believe it?” I couldn’t. And we both cried on the phone.

“Now what?” you asked. outlookohio.com

Now we can do all the stuff we always wanted • Talk to the insurance representative. Getting to do. Let’s sit down with our dogs and make a married might give us additional discounts on to-do list. We’re getting married! home and auto policies. Double-check to make sure we’re the beneficiaries on each But we’re taking it seriously, and we’re going other’s life insurance. And if we decide to to be smart about it. move into a new house with a bigger mortgage, let’s make sure we have enough life coverage.

Our pre-marital checklist: • Talk to our tax adviser. We might have to pay • Have conversations with both sets of parmore, and it would be good to know in adents. No, let’s talk to our friends first to find vance so we can look for ways to offset a out how on earth they tactfully asked their higher tax bill. folks how much they planned to contribute toward their grown kids’ wedding.

• Call the student loan people. Having a higher household income might increase the • Plan the ceremony. Find the venue, the required monthly payment, and we can budget band, the caterer, the baker, the florist, a min- for that. ister whose religious beliefs won’t clash with our special day. We’re not interested in making • Make a trip to the bank. We’ve had separate a political statement; we’re just trying to accounts long enough. Now it’s time to set up pledge our love to one another. a joint one for bills and household expenses as well as a separate vacation savings fund. If • Create our own traditions. If someone’s aunt we’re going to change names, we’ll have to or grandma makes a fuss that we’re having make another trip after the wedding (when, our dogs in the wedding instead of stinking hopefully, there will be some checks to dedoves, there’s a trump card: “We’ve been wait- posit!). ing for SO LONG for this! Please don’t spoil it...”

• Develop a budget. Merging finances isn’t easy, and a simple spreadsheet showing what • Do a credit check. We can get all three credit comes in and what goes out every month reports for free once a year at should be helpful. annualcreditreport.com. If there’s anything from the past that needs to be cleared up, • Discuss our spending and saving styles. now’s the time to do it.

What are we hoping to accomplish in the future? What kind of house do we want to live in

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

eventually? How frequently will we travel?

When do we retire, and what will retirement look like? Think we should hire a financial planner?

• Talk to an attorney. Have our wills drawn up along with powers of attorney and healthcare directives. Since wills still have to go through the probate process, let’s have each other as joint owners or beneficiaries on all our accounts. If something happens to one of us, it means the other won’t be left waiting on a judge to probate the will. Being married also will allow us to add another name to the deed without having to worry about a gift tax on half of our home’s value.

• Talk to the mortgage lender. Putting both of us on the mortgage will require a refinance.

The current rate is great and we may not find a better one, but it’s worth looking into.

• Have our final discussion on the subject of kids.

• Live happily ever after.

“Honey, I can’t wait...”

Olga Starr is a registered representative of and offers securities, investment advisory and financial planning services through MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC. (sipc.org) MML Investors Services, LLC does not provide tax/legal services. 2012 W 25th St, Suite 900, Cleveland, OH 44113; 216.621.5680. If you have questions, opinions or ideas for future columns, contact Olga at ostarr@ financialguide.com. CRN201705-192831 june 2015

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Our Turn for Love Picturing Our Weddings

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xxx

photos by EmmamayParker 2015 3

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Misty & April Engaged

Photos taken at The Kitchen, 231 E Livingston Ave, Columbus, 43215; 614.225.8940; thekitchencolumbus.com: It’s a gay-owned restaurant in Columbus’ German Village that’s available for weddings, receptions, rehearsal dinners and showers with on-site catering and participatory dining.

Flowers and table designs by Brian Coovert Floral Design, 15 W 6th Ave, Columbus, 43201, 614.607.0523; briancoovert.com:

It’s a gay-owned business in Columbus’ Short North. Brian does weddings, corporate and private events, and floral art and installations. Table materials from Event Source.

Baked goods by Kittie’s Cakes, 495 S 3rd St, Columbus, 43215; 614.754.8828; kittiescakes.com: It’s a gay-owned business in German Village. Pictured are a Micky-O sandwich cookies; a lavender two-tier cake; and white lavender, ooey gooey chocolate and coconut cream cupcakes.

Debé & Cathy Married

Our Happy Couples Misty White suit from Express.

April White dress designed by Modern Trousseau, from Ivy Bridal Studio, 4441 W Dublin Granville Rd, Dublin, 43017; 614.742.7253; IvyBridalStudio.com.

Debé Red dress from David’s Bridal.

White dress from Ann Taylor.

Cathy Black tuxedo by Calvin Klein from Romanoff’s Classic Tuxedo, 232 S 4th St, Columbus, 43215; 614.461.1775; romanoffsclassictuxedos .com.

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Floral limited-edition longsleeve button-up shirt by

Craig & Joel Engaged

Descendant of Thieves, with denim bow-tie by Pocket Square Clothing, from Flying Gent Mercantile, 46 N High St, Columbus, 43215; 614.664.3143; flyinggent.com.

Craig Blue shawl-collar tux by Jean Yves from Romanoff’s.

Double-breasted seersucker jacket by Descendant of Thieves from Flying Gent Mercantile.

Joel Gray tux by Calvin Klein from Romanoff’s.

Salmon limited-edition long-sleeve button-up by Descendant of Thieves, with vintage-fabric skinny tie by General Knot & Co., from Flying Gent Mercantile. photos by Emma Parker ©Outlook Media Inc.

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WeÊre Going to the

ChapeL

Directories, Expos Pre-Screen Businesses if You’re Gonna Get Married

by Erin McCalla

With the upcoming US Supreme decision, optimistic Ohio LGBT couples are starting to prepare and plan for their upcoming nuptials. Flowers need to be arranged, suits need to be tailored, rings need to be sized, and cakes need to be decorated.

But sometimes with business, you find bigotry. Stories of couples being turned away by bakeries and photographers are too often heard. So how can brides and grooms from the LGBT community plan the happiest day of their lives if they are denied by caterers and bakers and wedding favor-makers?

Enter groups like Gay Wedding Connection in Cincinnati, Pride Perfect Weddings in Columbus and Outlook Media’s Love Big Wedding Expos, which take place statewide.

“We’re a group of wedding professionals reaching out to the LGBT community,” said Jim Sanders, a Columbus-based photographer who started Pride Perfect Weddings with makeup artist Tim Wilkins.

Sanders, who is straight, and Wilkins, who is gay, have hand-picked vendors from Columbus that will enthusiastically work with same-sex couples and genuinely value their business. In the month since its inception, the duo has received positive feedback. Out of all the vendors Sanders has contacted, he said he has only heard one “no” due to “religious reasons.”

“You’re a public business, so serve the public,” he said.

But better to tell Sanders “no” than to reject happy couples trying to plan their most happy occasion.

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In Cincinnati, Drew Hester of Chef’s Choice Catering had the same idea in 2014: to give LGBT couples a safe avenue for planning a wedding. The Gay Wedding Connection website includes a range of vendors from a wedding officiant to a dance instructor. june 2015

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Both Pride Perfect Weddings and Gay Wedding Connections are curated resource guides that include one vendor per wedding service category. The lists could serve as a onestop-shop for any couple in Columbus or Cincinnati respectively.

If a couple is looking to shop around to compare prices or services, the Love Big Wedding Expos host many different caterers, florists, planners, DJs, bakers and other businesses to fit various budgets and needs.

In April, the first Love Big Wedding Expo of 2015 took place in Dayton at the Hilton Garden Inn Beavercreek, where 300 attendees visited more than 50 vendors, between performances by a string quartet and the legendary Rubi Girls.

Like Pride Perfect Weddings and Gay Wedding Connections, Love Big focuses on creating an open and accepting space this time it’s a physical space - for LGBT couples.

“Planning a wedding is stressful enough without having to worry if your relationship is accepted and valued by potential vendors,” said Chris Hayes, president of the company that publishes Outlook. “We take that out of the equation by providing a safe and welcoming place for the community where they know their relationships are honored.”

The next Love Big Wedding Expos will be at the Hollywood Casino in Columbus on June 7 and on Aug 30 at the Park Inn in Toledo. Expos in Cincinnati and Cleveland are slated for the fall. All the expos are from 11a to 3p and are free and open to the public.

You can find Pride Perfect Weddings at prideperfectweddings.com, Gay Wedding Connections at gayweddingconnections.com and Love Big Wedding Expos at lovebigweddingexpo.com.

Erin McCalla is the managing editor of Outlook. You can reach her at erin@outlookmedia.com, or at 614.268.8525, x2. outlookohio.com

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Our Favorite Toppers Are Icing on the Cake

Tina Fey once predicted an economic boost from marriage equality.

“We’re talking designer wedding cakes, $20,000 sleeveless tuxedos, giant naked-man ice sculptures that pee mojitos. They’d hire Patti LaBelle as the band, give out African parrots as party gifts.

It would be ridiculous.”

If the experts are correct and the US Supreme Court ushers the institution of marriage into a fabulous new epoch later this month, we better start planning. We’ve got a reputation to uphold.

So let’s start with the most important thing: finding the perfect partner for life cake topper.

Here are our favorites from Etsy.

(And now for a shameless plug: If you’re looking for a cake to put it on - or a venue to put that cake in, or a photographer to capture you shoving it into your love’s maw - come to Outlook’s second Love Big LGBT Wedding Expo of the year on Sunday, June 7, in Columbus (11a-3p @ the Hollywood Casino at Georgesville Road and W Broad Street).

We’ll have 100 wedding vendors who support marriage equality and are eager for your business. We hosted our first expo in Dayton on April 26, and we’re planning more for Toledo in August and Cincinnati and Cleveland in November.

If you’re part of a wedding-related business and want to purchase booth space at any of the future shows, contact Outlook sales executive Paula Ross at 614.268.8525, x5, or paula@outlookmedia.com. If you want to attend an expo, just come on out. Admission is free!)

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Where to find these toppers for your celebration Column One: HERE COME THE BRIDES Miss Cake UK; $26.50 OTTERS FacciDesigns New York; $120 Column Two: WHITE WEDDING PenthouseParties Virginia; $4 outlookohio.com

TOP HAT BEARS Cherrytime Slovenia; $52 ZOMBIE BRIDES katmartinartist Utah; $50 DANCE PARTY Plasticsmith Canada; $17

Column Three: GROOMS FRONT AND BACK Cute Delight Romania; $140 CATS LilisInspiration Ukraine; $37 CLASSIC GROOMS Wedding Collectibles California, $24.95

LADY BIRDS ferdworthi Utah; $95

FLAMINGOS MissRoseDanae Canada; $34

Column Four: BOWTIE BIRDS ferdworthi Utah; $82

FELT BRIDES MmeHibou Croatia; $70

KISSING WOMEN Wedding Collectibles California, $33.50

UNICORNS bunnywithatoolbelt Oregon; $85

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Letter From the Editor Despite what the rambling drunk guy said on our voicemail last month, we do edit this magazine.

I’m proud of how well we do it, too. If you find a typo in this issue, I invite you to have a few too many cocktails and leave me a long voicemail, too.

Like all publications, Outlook follows what’s called a stylebook that dictates some of the terms and grammar we use. We never write about gay marriage, for instance. We use the terms marriage equality and same-sex marriage, because people who identify as bi also might wish to marry someone of the same sex.

Instead of the conventional 9 p.m., we write 9p, and when we abbreviate states and streets, we leave off the periods. Why? Well, that one’s because the guy who owns the biggest share of the magazine says so.

I get asked a lot how we refer to our own community.

Is it LGBT or GLBT? Do we add the Q? Do we add both Qs? What about all the other letters?

We’re not going to dictate a name for our community.

So while we’re pretty strict on the use of marriage equality and that 9p thing, you’ll see a host of different references to the community we cover.

Our nameplate refers to Outlook as “the Voice of Ohio’s LGBT and Ally Community,” but last year we called ourselves the GLBT voice. In our May issue, articles and ads used the terms LGBT, LGBTQ and LGBTQA. We have writers who use trans and trans*, a columnist who capitalizes Gay, and many who prefer the term queer to any of the above. Lately, I’ve seen people use TBLG or BTLG to symbolically move forward the two letters that often are more than symbolically at the back of our community.

We welcome it all.

Bob Vitale outlookohio.com

LGBTQQIAAHUH?!

Here’s What All Those Letters Mean

by Evan Jeshka

We’re a lot more diverse than four little letters can really express.

Below are some of the words we use to describe ourselves and what they mean.

But remember, nobody is just a label, and there’s no LGBT hive-mind dictating what all these words are supposed to be.

So while the definitions here are a good starting guide, try not to make too many assumptions about people based on these terms alone. Think of the words below as sign posts, pointing you in the right direction, but not marking a particular spot.

Gay: Anyone who is attracted predominantly to the same gender, although it’s mostly used to describe men who are attracted to men. The scientific word here is homosexual, but most people today prefer the word gay.

prefer the broader word transgender.

Intersex: Someone who was born with (or naturally develops) ambiguous sex characteristics. About one in 1,500-2,000 babies are born noticeably intersex, and more people develop intersex traits over the course of their lives.

Asexual: Someone who doesn’t experience the desire to have sex. Many asexual people do feel romantic attraction and might also identify as straight, gay or bi, etc.

Queer: Not conforming to traditional notions of sex, sexual orientation and/or gender. It’s possible to identify as queer but not LGBT or visa versa. Some people also use queer as an umbrella term for sexual minorities, broad enough to fit everyone in the LGBT community. Some also see it as a political term.

Genderqueer: Having a gender identity that’s not strictly within traditional binaries of male and female. Other terms include non-binary and agender.

Lesbian: Gay women, or women who are attracted to women.

Bi: Short for bisexual, it can describe someone attracted to both men and women or attracted to others regardless of sex and gender, depending on whom you ask.

Transgender: People whose biological gender doesn’t match their gender identity, or the gender they are mentally and emotionally. It’s sometimes shortened to trans or trans*, with the asterisk used to include of transsexual, transman, transwoman or any other term with the trans prefix. Although transgender people are part of the LGBT community, there is a difference between sexual orientation and gender identity.

There’s an increasingly common saying to explain that difference: Sexual orientation is who you go to bed with, and gender identity is who you go to bed as.

Transsexual: Transgender people who had or plan to have surgery or hormone therapy to bring their bodies more in line with their gender identity. Since the general public sometimes uses transsexual incorrectly or as a derogatory term, a lot of people

Genderfluid: Having a gender identity that shifts or fluctuates from time to time.

Two-spirit: An umbrella term for trans or non-binary people in some Native American communities.

Pansexual: Someone who’s attracted to people regardless of sex or gender. To some, being pansexual and bisexual are the same thing. Others think pansexual is more inclusive, because the word acknowledges attraction to trans and non-binary people.

Questioning: Those who think they might be one of the above but aren’t sure. (And that’s OK! No pressure.)

Ally: Someone who doesn’t identify as queer or LGBT but supports our community. If this is you, thanks!

Evan Jeshka is a freelance writer in Columbus. You can find them online at hitobitomarketing.com or on Twitter at @EvanJeshka.

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Pixel-8 Rainbow Tophat

Rainbow Visor $9.95

Pixel-8 Sunglasses $12

$36.95

Pride Kerchief

Pixel-8 Rainbow Sportcoat

$6.95

$73.95

Rainbow Chain $9.95

Ganz Infinity Scarf $18

Rainbow Bracelet

Rainbow Bling

$6

$19

Outlook Beach Ball priceless

Pistol Pete Rainbow Swim Trunks

Rainbow Head to Toe

$48.95

Perhaps it’s not meant to be worn all at once.

But then again, it is Pride. And we’ve seen worse.

Thanks to Torso (772 N High St, Columbus, 43215; 614.421.7663; torsoonline.com) for helping us outfit our friend and ally, Conner, with as much rainbow merchandise as we could find.

It’s all available at Torso’s store in the Short North, a few blocks north of the parade route and festival park.

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o g n i B o t o h P

This Pride Month play Photo Pride Bingo with us! First like us on Instagram @OutlookOhio.

Then find the items on the spaces below, take a pic and tag us as you post.

Overzealous The Drunkest Pride Booty Shorts Person You’ve Volunteer on Ever Seen a Golf Cart

Proud Parents of Gay Child

Straight Guy

White-Knuckling

His Girlfriend’s Hand

Couple Someone Any Rainbow Dude in a “Happy Pride” Breaking Up Lewdly Eating Item From Wedding Publicly a Corndog Page 46 Dress Dyke on a Bike

Your Local Weatherman

Straight Girl Poodle With With Gaggle Dyed Hair of Gays

HRC Stickers High School Covering Classmate You Someone’s Didn’t Know Was Family Nipples

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Entourage Seeking Misplaced Drag Queen Proud Gay Parents

Attractive Lesbian T-Shirted Army You Mistake for a of Corporate Gay Boy/ Employee Attractive Gay Boy You Mistake for a Resource Group Members Lesbian

Your Local Hookup From Drag 10 Years Ago Legend

Someone Pride Newbie Lamenting Who Can’t How Pride Stop Smiling Used to Be

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Dayton Pride • Saturday, June 6 What’s There to Be Proud Of?

• Mayor Nan Whaley declared April 7 as Love Wins Day in the city. The effort began at Sinclair Community College, where people upset by a 2014 campus appearance by anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera organized a series of events this school year to counter the message.

• More than 679,000 Facebook users follow Have a Gay Day, so chances are you already know what it is. For those who don’t, it’s a page that shares cute pics and uplifting stories about LGBT people, but it also has evolved into something of a lifeline for many around the world who cope with intolerant families and communities.

Founder Michael Knote opened an office in March in Dayton’s Key Bank Building, where the group will run 24-hour talk lines and provide space for people who need it.

• The Advocate crowned Dayton as The Queerest City in America for 2015, citing its LGBTQ nightlife, performing arts and “little-city-big-feel.”

The Big Events Beer and Food Truck Rally: Friday, June 5 @ 5p-9p, Courthouse Square, 3rd and Main streets. An Affair on the Square is a new event this year. It’s an outdoor party featuring food outlookohio.com

trucks such as Zombie Dogz, Jimmie’s Streatery, Hunger Paynes and Go Cupcake, as well as performances by the Rubi Girls and others.

Parade: Saturday, June 6 @ Noon, St. Clair Street, between 2nd and 3rd streets. The route is the same this year: right onto 3rd, right onto Jefferson, left onto Main to Courthouse Square, where the festival will already be under way.

Festival: Saturday, June 6 @ Noon-4p, Courthouse Square, 3rd and Main streets. The PNC Stage will feature local entertainers and musicians. More than 50 vendors will have food, beer and info. And Mayor Nan Whaley will officiate a ceremony for same-sex couples. (Let’s hope it’s the last one: It’s part of the Greater Dayton LGBT Center’s vow to conduct the ceremonies each year until there’s marriage equality in Ohio.)

How Big Is the Party?

More than 3,000 attended in 2014.

Why It’s Worth a Road Trip • The Parties: If it’s good enough to draw The Advocate’s attention in New York, you know it’s got to be good. Dayton has a thriving bar scene, great drag queens and two great gay-owned restaurants (Wheat Penny and The Meadowlark,

Dayton Gay Men’s Chorus With Jennifer Holliday @ the Victoria Theater, 138 N Main Street, Dayton, 45402; 937.228.3630 or 888.228.3630; • The Original Dream Girl: If you applauded daytongaymenschorus.com: It’s a Broadway Jennifer Hudson when she sang, “And I Am revue - songs from South Pacific, Les Mis, Telling You I’m Not Going,” and you were just watching her on a movie screen at the multiplex, Wicked, Kinky Boots and more - but the showthink how awesome it would be to see the origi- stopper will be the original Dream Girl. 8p; $27nal Effie sing it live. Jennifer Holliday, who won a $37.

Tony and Grammy for the role and song in 1982, will perform Saturday night with the Dayton Gay Sunday, June 7 Pride Brunch @ Wheat Penny Restaurant, 515 Men’s Chorus (info below).

Wayne Ave, Dayton, 45410; 937.496.5268; wheatpennydayton.com: An LGBT celebration Also on the Dayton Pride must end with brunch. Wheat Penny is cooking Calendar... up a special menu for the occasion. 10a-2p.

Saturday, June 6 Pride Breakfast @ MJ’s on Jefferson, 20 N Jef- Thursday, June 18 Pride Night at The Neon: Tab Hunter ferson St, Dayton, 45402; 937.223.3259; mjsonjefferson.com: Mom always said breakfast Confidential @ The Neon, 130 E 5th St, Dayton, 45402; 937.222.8452; neonmovies.com: The is the most important meal of the day. Have a good one and help out the Greater Dayton LGBT 1950s heartthrob who hid his homosexuality tells his story in this documentary. (See Page 91 Center at the same time. 9a; $5. for Outlook columnist Mickey Weems’ interview Pride Cookout @ Argos, 301 Mabel St, Dayton, with Hunter.) 7:30p; $8.

45403; 937.252.2976; FB: Argos Leather & Levi More info: Bar: The Miami Valley Bears & Leathermen, along with the Miami Valley Pups and Handlers, daytonlgbtcenter.org are hosting a post-festival cookout. Burgers, hot dogs and gourmet Jello shots will be available; FB: Dayton Pride Festival you’re welcome to bring a dish. Cinci singer/ songwriter Jeff Workman will perform. 5p-8p. whose owners were featured in April’s Outlook).

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Youngstown Pride • Friday, June 12 - Saturday, June 13 What’s There to Be Proud Of? Dank, Nia Diamonte and R&B LGBT singer

Why It’s Worth a Road Trip

Friday, June 12 Official Pride Kickoff Party @ the Funky • The founder of Youngstown Pride, Anita • Local Talent: The Mahoning Valley has some Skunk, 143 E Market St, Warren, 44481; FB: Davis, won a May 5 primary election for a City • Festival, Day Two: Saturday, June 13 @ great local bands and singers, and the Pride Funky Skunk NiteClub: There’s no cover with noon-9p, Federal Plaza E. The lineup includes entertainment lineup is a good one. The festi- your Pride wristband. Performances by Don’t Council seat representing the 6th Ward. The H8 Inc, Valerie Valentino, Angel Safyre, Chi Chi retired Youngstown Police sergeant ran in the Mona Lotz, plus the Pride Youngstown Royal val has one stage and takes up a couple Colecki, Skyler Styles and Sinthia Forenza. 9p biggest field of seven council primaries, and Court: Lola VanHorn, Jordan Reign, Paris Soliz, blocks Downtown, so you can walk around doors open, show starts at midnight.

Verronika Vyce and Jeremiah. Also performing without missing the acts. she scored the largest margin of victory as are Mia David, Keyanna Diamond, Ahrin Starr, well.

Robyn Hearts, Lucien Rose, Alex Castellano, • Local Diva: Mona Lotz is Youngstown’s drag Saturday, June 13 Victoria London, Valerie Valentino, Discord • There are LGBTQ+ theater companies in queen extraordinaire, performing regularly at Official Pride Afterparty @ the Backroom at Adams, Gidget Von Adams, Sassy Sasha, San- area clubs and running the entertainment for 776, 5335 76th Dr Unit 2, Youngstown, 44555.

New York, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco. But one of the 24 tana Visage, Delsin Pistons, Cody Feucht, Pride. And here’s the most unique thing about Entrance, again, is free with your Pride wristband. Mona Lotz will host the festivities. PerManuel Hultberg, Lovin Hearts, Sasha Alexan- her: She does her own singing. Who needs in North America is in Youngstown. The YOUnify Theatre Company began in 2013 and der, Misty Michaels Kall, Rhinna Angelina, Levi Barbra when you’ve got your own set of pipes? formances by Ahrin Starr, Verronika Vyce, Kage Craven, LJ Alexander, Keyanna Diamond, Lola Austin, London Desmond, Ravenna Rexia, will offer a preview of its latest original proVanHorn, Ava Rose and Jordan Reign. 10:30p.

Jazmyn Versace, Crystal Starr, Infini-Tribe, Art duction, Oblivion, at Youngstown Pride.

Also on the Youngstown of Hoop Dancing and punk band Them BasPride Calendar... tards. Admission is $3.

Friday, June 26 The Big Events A Night of Comedy to Benefit Pride Thursday, June 11 Youngstown @ the Georgetown, 5945 South * Youngstown Pride was forced to cancel this • Festival, Day One: Friday, June 12 @ 5pMovie Screening: The Adventures of Ave, Boardman, 44512; year’s parade because of other events taking 11p, Federal Plaza E. The lineup includes Priscilla, Queen of the Desert @ Cinemark brownpapertickets.com/event/1307436: Comediplace in the city during Pride weekend.

Don’t H8 Inc, an anti-bullying group from Tinseltown, Southern Park Mall, Boardman, ans Sampson McCormick and Dana Austin North Carolina, with Chip Matthews, Natasha, 44512; 330.965.2335; tugg.com/events/20711: perform. 6:30p-10:30p; $38.

How Big Is the Party?

Madison Renata, Tyler Daniels Cylne, David A special screening of the 1994 gay classic.

Matthews Starr, Elaine Davis, Love Lee Jack- Attendance topped 3,000 in 2014.

Tickets must be purchased online at the adMore info: son, Amber Rochelle, Akilah Christine Barbie, dress listed here. 7:30p; $12. prideyoungstown.com Tanner Matthews, Lacey De Clyne, Cierra FB: Youngstown Pride Festival Nicole, Diamond Champayne, Vegas Van Jewels Charlton. Admission is $3.

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Columbus Pride • What’s There to Be Proud Of?

• Gay and lesbian people are among the city’s leaders.

There’s City Councilman Shannon Hardin, School Board member Mary Jo Hudson, Police Chief Kimberly Jacobs, Franklin County Recorder Terry Brown and Franklin County Republican Party Co-Chair Doug Preisse.

• Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Huckleberry House, the Arts & College Preparatory Academy, Columbus Alternative High School and other organizations form a solid foundation of educational, social and physical support for LGBT young people in Central Ohio.

The Big Events • Parade: Saturday, June 20 @ 11a, Downtown. The route heads north on Front Street from about Mound Street. It turns right onto Broad Street and left onto High Street, all the way up into the Short North. The parade ends at Buttles Street near Goodale Park, the site of the Pride festival. This year’s grand marshal is Jim Obergefell, who along with his late husband, John Arthur, sued to have their marriage recognized by the state of Ohio.

• Festival, Day One: Friday, June 19 @ 4p-11p, Goodale Park. Here’s a new one this year: Human Foosball, in which players stand in front of moveable poles and ma54

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Friday, June 19 - Sunday, June 21

neuver the ball through the field to the goal. There’s a team tournament Friday and open play on Saturday. Friday night is also headliners night, with country singer Billy Gilman taking the Shelterhouse Stage at 7p and The Voice Season 4 runner-up Michelle Chamuel performing at 9p. (See interviews on Pages 59 and 60 and a complete Pride schedule on Page 57.) A $10 donation at the gate is encouraged.

• Festival, Day Two: Saturday, June 20 @ 11a-8p, Goodale Park. Stage performers - in addition to the Shelterhouse Stage, there’s the Gazebo Stage near the pond - include the Fabulous Johnson Brothers, Teen Fiction, the Capital Pride Band, the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus, the Columbus Women’s Chorus, the Stompers LGBT country dancing group, Flaggots Ohio and more. A $10 donation at the gate is encouraged.

• Bat N Rouge: Sunday, June 21 @ noon (game at 3p), Dodge Park, 667 Sullivant Ave, Columbus, 43215: The annual fundraiser for the Columbus Lesbian & Gay Softball Association is perfect dayafter event. Three hours of pre-game - under a tent, if you’re lucky! - lead up to a drag softball battle for the ages. Or just more drinking.

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

The Big Celebs • Billy Gilman: In 2000 at the age of 11, Billy Gilman became the youngest singer ever to reach No. 1 on the country charts. Now 26, he has released six albums. Last November, he came out in a YouTube video and expressed fear of being gay in the country music world. But, he concluded: “I’ve been an advocate for so many things in my life that I thought, ‘Why not now be an advocate for me and for the cause that I believe in with my whole heart?’” He’ll perform Friday at 7p at the Shelterhouse Stage.

• Michelle Chamuel: She had a career long before she sang “I Kissed a Girl” and was chosen to be part of Team Usher on The Voice. But in 2013, her TV performances of Pink’s “Just Give Me a Reason” and Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” made fans in those artists as well, and Chamuel’s second-place finish has led to an album and two EPs. She’ll perform Friday at 9p at the Shelterhouse Stage. outlookohio.com

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Parade Starts @ 11a • Festival Noon-9p • Jim Obergefell: He doesn’t sing or dance, but he has a lot of fans around Ohio and the world right now. Jim Obergefell and his husband, John Arthur, married in July 2013, right after the US Supreme Court ordered the federal government to stop ignoring the legal marriages of same-sex couples. When they returned to Cincinnati and learned that Ohio still considered them single, they sued. Jim lost his husband to ALS later that year, but he has continued their fight all the way to the US Supreme Court. Many legal observers say theirs could be the case that brings about nationwide marriage equality. Obergefell will be the grand marshal of Saturday’s Pride parade.

How Big Is the Party?

Attendance was about 400,000 - another record - in 2014.

Why It’s Worth a Road Trip • Wall-to-Wall Queers: You cannot imagine a more LGBT-ier place than Columbus on Pride weekend. From the Friday night parties to the Sunday brunches and hangovers, it’s more than just LGBT-friendly; it’s LGBT-owned. And it’s outlookohio.com

just as big a party for our allies, who watch the parade and stroll the festival along with us.

• The Parade Will Make You Feel Loved: From the roar of the Dykes on Bikes’ motorcycles to the army of people carrying Outlook’s 100-foot rainbow flag, we guarantee at some point you’ll be glad you’re wearing sunglasses so people don’t see that tear in your eye.

Also on the Columbus Pride Calendar...

Saturday, June 6 Ride for Pride @ Paradise Garage, 921 N High St, Columbus, 43201; columbuspride.org/events/pride-bicycle-ride: The bike ride to benefit Stonewall Columbus is for all skill levels. The two-hour route heads from the Short North up to Pattycake Bakery in Clintonville, then back down to the Pint House in the Short North for food and a drink. Register at the website listed here. 9:30a; $15.

Sunday, June 7 Love Big LGBT Wedding Expo @ Hollywood Casino, 200 Georgesville Rd, Columbus, 43228; 614.268.8525, x1; lovebigweddingexpo.com: All of the businesses at Outlook’s LGBT wedding expo support your right to marry. Dozens of vendors - venues, DJs, photographers, bakers, caterers and more - will be on hand at Ohio’s only LGBT wedding events.

11a-3p; free.

Wednesday, June 10 Out With Our Elected Officials @ Ohio History Center, 800 E 17th Ave, Columbus, 43211; 614.268.8525, x1; networkcolumbus.com: Come meet LGBT-friendly officials and candidates at Outlook’s monthly networking event. 6p-8p; free.

Saturday, June 13 Pride Poker Run @ Club Diversity, 863 S High St, Columbus, 43206; 614.224.4050; columbuspride.org/events/pride-poker-run: There’s a cookout back at Club D afterward, and there’s a $250 prize for the winner. Registration at the website listed here. 10a; $25.

Sunday, June 14 Pride History Lecture @ Stonewall Columbus, 1160 N High St, Columbus, 43201; 614.299.7764; columbuspride.org: Ohio State University history professor Daniel Rivers is a historian of LGBT communities and the author of a book on gay parenthood. 5:30p.

Wednesday, June 17 Michael Walters as Dame Edna @ Wall Street, 144 N Wall St, Columbus, 43215; 614.404.0057: Barry Humphries - the Dame Edna - has called celebrity impersonator Michael Walters’ show “spectacular.” It’s his Purple Reign tour. 7p; $15-$25. continued

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Thursday, June 18 Mary Ann Brandt’s Songs Gays Like @ Level Dining Lounge, 700 N High St, Columbus, 43215; 614.754.7111; levelcolumbus.com: Mary Ann’s annual show also features Betty Cracker, DeMonica Hunter, Ashley O’Shea and Tula Tubesucker. The show is emceed by

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the one, the only Columbus drag legend, June Bugg. 8; tickets TBA.

7p); $30.

Friday, June 19 Run for Pride 5K @ Goodale Park, 120 W Goodale St, Columbus, 43215; runforpride.org: It’s the 12th annual run, which ends at the festival. 6p registration (race starts at

Swimwear Fashion Show, Plus Adore Delano and Nick the Gardener @ Axis, 775 N High St, Columbus, 43215; 614.621.8779; axisonhigh.com: Featuring fashions from Torso. 6p-2:30a; $15.

Saturday, June 20 Dragapalooza @ Axis, 775 N High St, Columbus, 43215; 614.621.8779; axisonhigh.com: With Michelle Visage and Chad Michaels. 6p; $20.

Sunday, June 21 Pride Brunch @ Columbus

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

Athenaeum, 32 N 4th St, Columbus, 43215; 614.299.7764; columbuspride.org/events/brunch: Wear white for this White Party-themed event, which will honor parade grand marshal Jim Obergefell and local LGBT community members.

11a-1p; $55 ($50 for Stonewall members), $550 for tables of 10.

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Columbus Urban Pride

Pride Safety

• If you are harassed, it is not usually a good idea to respond.

Tips from BRAVO, the Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization: In the Clubs: Thursday, June 11 • Watch your drink. Literally.

At the Intersection: Emerging People can slip date-rape from the Shadows of Trauma @ At the Parade: and other drugs into your Columbus Public Health, 240 Par- • Don’t engage with prosons Ave, Columbus, OH 43215: A testers. If they were reason- beverage. able, they wouldn’t be conversation about the experi• If you meet someone new, ence of LGBTQ people of color. 6p protesting. introduce her or him to a friend or two (especially if In the Streets: Sunday, June 21 Gospel Service @ Driven by Pur- • Stay with a group, espe- you decide to leave tocially when walking between gether). pose Ministries, 459 E Hudson parks, parties and bars.

Ave, Columbus, 43202. 11:30a• Don’t overindulge. It is im12:30p.

• Project confidence and be possible to make good deciaware of your surroundings. sions if your faculties are After Pride Fellowship Brunch impaired. @ Lucille’s Banquet Hall, 1340 • Carry a whistle or another Parsons Ave, Columbus, 43296. way to make a lot of noise. • Partying affects your 1p. awareness and judgment.

• Trust your gut. If a situa- Heat makes it worse. Drink Networking Red Carpet @ De-Novo Bistro & Bar, 201 S High tion doesn’t feel right, follow water! Have a designated driver, or volunteer to be a your instincts and leave.

St, Columbus, 43215. 6p-9p. designated driver.

FB: Columbus Urban Pride

Columbus Pride Entertainment Friday, June 19

Gazebo Stage Noon-5p • Capital Pride • Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus • Love United Choir • Columbus Women’s Chorus • Flaggots Ohio • Stompers • Hit M Ent

Shelterhouse Stage • 5p-7p: Sam Tolson, Rain & Valentino, Jess Gallo • 7p: Billy Gilman • 8p: NSoul Deep • 9p: Michelle Chamuel • 9:40p: Mojoflo Gazebo Stage • 5p-8:45p: Sarah Cooperider Presents: Music For Your Soul with Thunder Thighs, Chrissy Foster, Max Lenci and Kelly Vaughn • 9p: Dasan Valentine • 10p: McCallister Saturday, June 20 Shelterhouse Stage • 12:30p: Carole Walker • 1:30p: Wednesday Wine • 2:30p: Teen Fiction • 3:30p: Liberty Deep Down • 4:30p: Kalyde • 5:30p: Debby Holiday • 6:30p: The Fabulous Johnson Brothers outlookohio.com

Columbus Pride wants your help getting un-trashed.

Although Stonewall Columbus spends thousands of dollars to make sure trash is collected quickly and thoroughly, the Pride festival and parade generate an enormous amount each year.

So organizers are asking everyone’s help.

On Saturday, volunteers will hand out brightly colored trash bags (a rainbow of them!) along the parade route and at the festival grounds. They’re asking everyone to pick up trash around them and put the bags next to any trash receptacle.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

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Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

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Boy No More Billy Gilman Adds His Voice to Gay Country Artists, Will Perform at Columbus Pride

by Gregg Shapiro

music child star, and was she someone you looked to as a role model?

National Coming Out Day is in October, but Billy Gillman: Absolutely! LeAnn Rimes was so two country music artists waited until late No- great to me, and we are still great friends to vember to share their good news. Ty Herndon this day. I met her first when I was 11. I’m was the first one out of the gate on Nov 20, sure she took a liking to me because she saw followed shortly thereafter on the same day by me going through what she went through a Billy Gilman. few years before being a child herself. There’s a common factor with her and whatnot. She’s Gilman, like fellow country diva LeAnn Rimes, always been a great support system. got his big break when he was just a kid. Possessing a powerful voice and impressive vocal GS: On Nov 20, history was made in range, Gilman released his major-label debut Nashville and the realm of country music album One Voice in 2000, at the age of 11. In when you and Ty Herndon both came out as addition to the titular hit, the album featured gay. You cited Ty in your coming out mesa shockingly spot-on reading of Tammy sage. How did he help you through this?

Wynette’s “’Til I Can Make It on My Own.” That BG: It was amazing! I’ve known Ty for a while.

He was on the same record label as I was a cover, sung with amazing authority, might few years back; he’s a great singer. This was qualify as an early clue that Gilman would someday come out as gay. Seriously, listen to something that I have been going back and forth with for about a month. I was nervous the song. and reluctant. You never know what’s going to happen. I was set to do it that day and was Gilman, who continued to release albums through the early part of the 21st century, is in reading Twitter and read that he had come the process of mounting a comeback and will out. perform at Columbus Pride on June 19.

I was like, “Oh, wow! This is very coincidental Greg Shapiro: As someone who got his start and very odd.” But things happen for a reaas a child star in country, did you ever cross son. Ty really helped me push the pedal to furpaths with LeAnn Rimes, another country ther it. He put me into high gear. He gave me outlookohio.com

enough confidence to do what I needed to do.

He’s a very brave person and a courageous artist. He did help immensely in my situation.

My hat’s off to him and my thanks to him always for that.

GS: How has the response been from your fans?

BG: My fans have been amazing. Even people that kind of followed my career a little bit have been amazing. No matter what you do in life, it doesn’t matter if it was this situation or I wanted to change genres, whatever - someone is always going to have an opinion. You have to brace yourself for a good opinion or a bad one. Everyone is entitled to whatever they feel.

You have to keep a positive head and do your thing. So far, the comments and support has been amazing and I’m so grateful for that.

GS: How did your family react to your coming out?

BG: My family was nothing but supportive.

That was really amazing to me; they have not changed. Their support has stayed the same. I am so grateful for that. It’s been nothing but positive in that respect.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

GS: Was there ever a point that you considered recording and performing in a different genre, such as pop or dance, where there are more openly LGBT artists?

BG: I never thought of it because country is what I love. … I would be saddened to know that country isn’t ready. Luckily my music does lean toward country-pop, so there is the potential for crossover if that should happen.

But my love is for country and always will be.

Hopefully, one day, this won’t be a problem.

Pop music and dance music are great, too.

They all cross paths now. Pop music is so vital in country music now; it all meshes together.

But I think I will continue to make the music I’m making.

GS: You mentioned your partner in your coming out video. With same-gender marriage continuing to make strides across the country, if at some point you and your partner were to marry, to what song would you like to walk down the aisle?

BG: One of mine [laughs]! I hadn’t thought about that. “At Last,” maybe. No, I’m kidding [laughs].

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Photo Credit: Andy Taylor

Face to Face: An Interview With Michelle Chamuel Chamuel to Perform at Columbus Pride

by Gregg Shapiro

If you’re hoping to catch out singer/songwriter Michelle Chamuel playing songs from her new album Face the Fire (The End Records) in concert, you’re in luck: The Voice Season 4 runner-up will perform at Columbus Pride on June 19 at 9p.

Chamuel spent a lot of time in the studio getting the sounds on the album the way she wanted them. This, of course, makes the experience of listening to Face the Fire, an album that burns with electronic goodness, dance-friendly beats and her trademark powerhouse vocals, that much more special.

GS: “The Fall” is an effective break-up song on your new solo album Face the Fire. Did this sentiment come from personal experience or is it based on the end of someone else’s relationship?

MC: It is somebody else’s story. But the way I work with music is that I take on the story. I wrote the album with Tyler [Duncan] and Theo [Katzman], and that nugget started with Theo, I think.

GS: On the flipside, “Made for Me” is an exhilarating love song. Was this song written based on your own experience?

MC: Yes. I wrote a song in two days for Valentine’s Day. A little thing to put on [the music streaming site] Bandcamp, drawn from my own experiences of the past year.

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GS: With same-sex marriage on everyone’s minds, as a queer singer/songwriter, what would it mean to you to have “Made for Me” become a staple at same-sex weddings?

MC: I would love for it to be a staple of love, period. It wasn’t crafted with that in mind. I was just writing my own feelings.

I just wrote a love song. Writing “Made for Me” in my living room, I’m just talking about someone, who just happens to be a woman. I’m not trying to short-sell my ability to change things. It’s a love song that I wrote and I hope it does a lot of good.

a fun cover of “I Kissed a Girl” for the tour and I couldn’t. I had already said everything I could with that song.

GS: The last time a female singer/songwriter’s eyeglasses got so much attention, it was the 1990s and that singer/songwriter was Lisa Loeb. Is there a particular designer whose eyewear frames you like?

MC: I haven’t spent a lot of time looking at eyewear. I got these online. I ordered a bunch of different glasses. When you order them through this company, you can’t try them on first. These were the ones that fit best. If you watch the show GS: Did you ever consider including any (The Voice), everyone who wears glasses of the cover songs you performed on (onstage) eventually takes them off. It The Voice, such as “I Kissed a Girl” or becomes part of the evolution.

“Call Your Girlfriend” on Face the Fire?

It was actually kind of a battle for me to MC: No. I think part of the reason it’s taken me so long to put out a record after keep my glasses. Once they got on board being on The Voice is I’m trying to figure with me wearing glasses, they kept trying to give me new glasses every week. I out what I want to say. Let’s forget that tried it a couple of times and it just The Voice happened for a second. If I made me nauseated. Especially with my wanted to make a record to represent myself, I wouldn’t put any (covers on it). prescription, I have really bad eyesight, The way those covers were done - I had and really strong glasses. I’m just going to put the blame on the glasses [laughs]. three days to put together a cover.

You can’t just mess with somebody’s preThe way I related to those songs was rel- scription, and I really like wearing glasses. It’s my eyesight and I don’t want evant to what I was doing at that time.

Then The Voice records them for you, for to mess with that. themselves, for all of us and releases Gregg Shapiro is a freelance their own album. Anyone that wants entertainment journalist based something from the show can buy it on in Florida. His work appears iTunes. It felt like I had firmly put a peregularly in Outlook, and his riod at the end of that sentence of those fiction writing has appeared in Blithe House Quarterly, an anthology of queer short stories. tunes and that performance. I tried to do

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

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Cincinnati Pride • Saturday, June 27 What’s There to Be Proud Of?

• Cincinnati was one of 36 US cities to earn the highest possible score on the 2015 Municipal Equality Index compiled by the Human Rights Campaign. The index measures city policies toward LGBT residents and LGBT municipal employees.

• The federal court challenges to Ohio’s marriage restrictions that could take marriage equality nationwide all originated in Cincinnati. Two gay widowers, a gay funeral home director, and 12 gay and lesbian parents challenged the state’s refusal to recognize legal samesex marriages from other jurisdictions.

The Big Events • Pub Crawl: Friday, June 26 @ 20 local bars, 9p-3a.

A $10 wristband gets you free rides on shuttles that will take three different routes around nightspots in Cincinnati, Newport and Covington. It also gets you in free to any bar that charges a cover.

• Parade: Saturday, June 27 @ 11a, Downtown. The route will change a bit this year because of streetcar construction.

• Festival: Saturday, June 27 @ Noon, Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove. In addition to vendors offering the 62

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usual festival food and drink, merchandise, and lots and lots of info, there are three - count ’em, three - entertainment stages. The main stage at Sawyer Point will host the headliners, a DJ and drag performers. The secondary stage at Yeatman’s Cove will feature local entertainers and drag queens from the Imperial Sovereign Queen City Court of the Buckeye Empire. The third stage is for local acoustic performers.

The Big Celebs • Amazon Eve (Erika Ervin): The 6-foot-8 model, fitness trainer and actor was in the cast of American Horror Story: Freak Show for the 201415 season. She’s also a transgender activist whose causes include making health insurance work for trans people. “As an open member of the transgender community, Erika is not just a role model but an inspiration to transgender teens,” Cincinnati Pride Co-President Michael Cotrell said. “She is an inspiration that you can not only overcome discrimination, you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams.” Amazon Eve is the grand marshal of the Pride parade.

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

• Steve Grand: His debut single and video, “All American Boy,” was a viral hit in the summer of 2013 with more than 4 million views on YouTube.

The song about a guy in love with his straight best friend was recorded in his parents’ basement, and the video was shot with cash from maxed-out credit cards. In March, Grand released an album with the same name. He’ll perform on the main stage at 8p.

• Betty Who: Her 2013 single, “Somebody Loves You,” hit the top spot on Billboard’s Dance/Club list, and “All of You,” the first single from her 2014 album, Take Me When You Go, hit No. 1 on the US dance charts. The Australian-born pop singer cemented her place among gay fans when she won the 2014 NewNowNext award in the Best New Musician category. Betty Who will perform on the main stage at 7p.

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Parade Starts @ 11a • Festival Noon-9p How Big Is the Party?

Attendance topped 60,000 in 2014.

Why It’s Worth a Road Trip

along the Ohio River at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove. The festival grounds, where the three-day Bunbury Music Festival also takes place every year, is a scenic space with plenty of room for sitting, browsing and/or carousing.

• Top-Notch Swag: We challenge you to name one Pride in the entire country where you’ll go home with a free roll of paper towels. Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble, one of the city’s big Pride sponsors, gets pretty generous with the goodie bags. Last year’s included a roll of Bounty, a bottle of Oil of Olay, a Febreze clip, some Covergirl and a box of Tampax.

Also on the Cincinnati Pride Calendar...

• Location, Location, Location: Cincinnati’s Pride parade winds its way through Downtown, and its Pride festival takes place

Vine St, Cincinnati, 45202; FB: Urban Basin Bicycle Club: The group bike ride starts at Fountain

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Monday, June 22

Square and is hosted by the Urban Basin Bicycle Club. 6:30p.

Wednesday, June 24

Movie Night @ Washington Park, 1230 Elm St, Cincinnati, 45202, FB: Cincinnati Pride: You remember that on Wednesdays we wear pink, right?

Bring a lawn chair and a picnic basket for a free showing of the 2004 classic, Mean Girls. 9p.

WigginÊ Out Turnabout Show @

Below Zero, 1120 Walnut St, Cincinnati, 45202; 513.421.9376; belowzerolounge.com: Bartenders and staff get dolled up to raise money for Cincinnati Pride. 7:30p; $10.

Tuesday, June 23

Pride Ride @ Fountain Square, 520

Thursday, June 25

Pride InterFaith Service @ Christ

Church Cathedral, 318 E 4th St, 45202; christchurchcincinnati.org: Welcoming houses of worship and religious leaders celebrate. 7p.

Friday, June 26

ISQCCBE Pride Show @ Shooters,

927 Race St, Cincinnati, 45202; 513.381.9900; FB: Shooters Bar: The Imperial Sovereign Queen City Court of the Buckeye Empire, a philanthropic drag troupe, will kick off Pride weekend.

10:30p.

More info:

cincinnatipride.org Hard Candy Pride Kickoff With Detox @ The Cabaret, 1120 Walnut St,

Cincinnati, 45202; 513.202.4052; cabaretcincinnati.com: Penny Tration hosts fellow RPDR Season 5 contestant Detox. 9p; $15-$20 (tables for $80$120).

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He’s Just Grand

Steve Grand to Play Cincinnati Pride

by Gregg Shapiro

and I hadn’t been able to. I was trying to write a song that captured that feeling of longing Coming in at No. 8 on Out Magazine’s Most El- and unrequited love that I was all too familiar igible Bachelors of 2015, gay singer/songwith as a young gay person growing up in a writer Steve Grand may be single, but that rather conservative and sheltered town. doesn’t mean there aren’t millions of men (and probably some women) who are in love GS: “Better Off” is a dance-pop track that with him. has the potential to become a club sensation. Did the song begin this way or did it In return, Grand, who made his name singing evolve into a dance track? about unrequited love in his hit single/YouTube SG: First of all, I don’t really think about the video “All American Boy,” has unleashed a production when I’m writing a song; especially bounty of love on his fans (who helped him for that one. I remember very clearly writing raise funds via a Kickstarter campaign) with that song. It was about the lyrics and capturthe March release of his long-awaited fulling the feeling I was experiencing at the time. I length album All American Boy wrote it very quickly; in 15 minutes, I think. I (stevegrand.com). was staying with a friend and I pulled out my notebook after I got off the phone with someNot only did Grand wisely include his ground- one that I really cared about. The conversation breaking hit song, but he also used the tune’s had turned ugly and I wrote it quickly. title for his album’s moniker. More than just a pretty (stunning, really) face, Grand is the GS: You close the disc with the power ballad complete package (so to speak). He’s a tal“Back to California.” It sounds like the most ented pianist. He’s got a strong and stirring personal song on the record. voice. He also writes catchy pop songs that are SG: It’s definitely one of the most personal equally timeless and timely. For instance, songs for me. It’s a song about friendship and Grand’s “trans brothers and sisters” get a the intensity of adolescent friendship, espeshout-out on the stadium-sized anthem “We cially at the time when you’re still trying to figAre The Night.” ure out who you are and what you’re about. For me, I was dealing with the crisis of trying to And if that’s not enough, Grand will also head- come to terms with whether or not I was gay line Cincinnati Pride on June 27. and if that was OK. It was an intense and critical time for me and it’s about the friendship I Gregg Shapiro: Steve, I first interviewed you was having at the time. Even now, I really do in the summer of 2013, shortly after the think of it as one of the works that’s closest to video for your song “All American Boy” me and the most personal. made you a YouTube sensation. You are now about to release your full-length debut GS: I interviewed Ty Herndon and Billy album. Was it always your plan to include Gilman about their decisions to come out as “All American Boy,” and what does that song gay. Do you have any thoughts about Hernmean to you? don and Gilman and what they did?

Steve Grand: That was always the plan. I SG: Yeah, I think it’s great! I’m so happy for mean, as far as I had a plan when I first rethem. I personally know how it feels to finally leased the song. I wrote it a year before I remake yourself free of worrying what the leased it, in the summer of 2012. It was an world is going think about who you really important song to me because I felt like it was are. I can’t imagine going through life as the song I had been trying to write the longest long as they did and keeping that a secret; 64

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mostly for Ty Herndon. It makes me so happy and I really applaud them both. ...

Even in the music industry, we’ve always looked at country as being conservative and a hard place to come out. It shows that we really are making progress. I can imagine that they are having an effect on many lives, especially many young lives. I only think it’s a good thing I’m very happy for them.

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Cleveland Pride • Saturday, June 27 What’s There to Be Proud Of?

• Cleveland - and Akron - pulled off the most financially successful Gay Games in history last summer, and the weeklong event will leave a lasting legacy. With $120,000 from its profits, a Gay Games LGBT Legacy Fund was created at the Cleveland Foundation to help support LGBT organizations and programs well into the future. The Games also gave $27,000 to the Gay Community Endowment Fund in Akron.

• The LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland celebrated its 40th birthday in May and is looking for a new and bigger home. An anonymous $1.8 million donation will help the cause. In addition, the Milton and Tamar Maltz Family Foundation has promised $500,000 to match donations for an endowment fund that will pay for upkeep at a new facility.

• Festival: Saturday, June 27 @ Voinovich Bicentennial Park, 800 E 9th St, Cleveland, 44114. There are two entertainment stages: The Triangle Stage will feature family-friendly content and the Performance Stage will feature a wide variety of content for adults. (Cleveland Pride organizers hadn’t announced the entertainment lineup by late May.) This year, the food court is expanded, and so is the lakefront beer garden. Don’t forget to bring cash, because there is a suggested donation of $10-$20 at the festival gate.

How Big Is the Party?

Attendance topped 20,000 in 2014.

Why It’s Worth the Road Trip

The Big Events

• A Pride With a View: Voinovich Park is located right behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum and on the shore of Lake Erie. Which means that in every direction you look, you are seeing something cool.

• Parade: Saturday, June 27 @ noon, Downtown. The route starts at Superior and W 3rd streets and ends at Voinovich Bicentennial Park on the lakefront. From W 3rd Street, it turns right on W Lakeside Avenue past Cleveland City Hall, then left on E 9th Street to the park, where the festival will already have begun.

• It’s a Party: If you enjoy drinking a beer or two, make sure you visit the beer garden. Not only is it the best view of the lake, it feels like a pop-up gay bar within the festival.

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Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

Also on the Cleveland Pride Calendar...

Friday, June 26 Women’s Happy Hour Pre-Pride Party @ Music Box Supper Club patio, 1148 Main Ave, Cleveland, 44113; 440.342.3098; thewh2.com: The WH2 Promotions Group hosts women’s happy hours monthly around Northeast Ohio. 5p-9p.

Anne E DeChant @ Music Box Supper Club patio, 1148 Main Ave, Cleveland, 44113; 216.242.1250; musicboxcle.com: The woman who has been voted Cleveland’s favorite singer/songwriter five times hosts a preview party for her upcoming CD, The Sun Coming In. 9p; $15.

Sunday, June 28 Arktos Bears Luau @ Leather Stallion Saloon, 2205 St Clair Ave NE, Cleveland, 44114; 216.589.8588; arktosbears.org: The Arktos Bears wind down Pride weekend at the Stallion. 5p-midnight.

More Info: clevelandpride.org

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Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

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“Why have a hometown Pride when you can visit a bigger city with a bigger Pride?

Just come to Columbus.”

Comments like that are easy to make from the comfort of a city where equality has a strong foothold.

But everyone should feel welcomed and accepted in the place they call home.

That’s why we’re fighting for marriage equality in Ohio and not just driving to Indiana or Pennsylvania. And that’s why it’s just as important to have Pride in towns that don’t hang rainbow banners on their main streets during June.

There is also more risk.

These days, anyone can walk in the Columbus or Cleveland or Toledo Pride parade with a sense of security. There’s comfort in numbers. But a 50-person march down Main Street in some locales could lead to discrimination and violence.

So we tip our hats to the brave brothers and sisters in Springfield, Chillicothe and Mansfield. Outlook will see you there.

Chillicothe Pride Saturday, June 13

The Big Event • Awareness Walk: Saturday, June 13 @ 11a-2p, Chillicothe City Pool, 19 Enderlin Circle, Chillicothe, 45601: The walk will begin with speeches from community leaders about how to get involved. Then participants will hit the streets with friendly signs to raise LGBT visibility.

More Info: FB: Chillicothe Pride

Springfield Pride Saturday, June 13

The Big Event • Festival: Saturday, June 13 @ noon-4:30p, City Hall Plaza, 76 E High St, Springfield, 45502: At the end of May, Springfield Pride organizers were in the midst of fundraising effort to put on the first-ever festival and to rent five billboards around the city. Organizers say donations made to the GoFundMe page (gofundme.com/springfieldpride) will enable them to “paint the town RAINBOW,” as well as host familyoriented festivities.

More Info: FB: Equality Springfield outlookohio.com

Mansfield Pride Saturday, July 25

The Big Events • Parade: Saturday, July 25 @ 11a, Marion Avenue and Maple Street, Mansfield, 44906: The parade will head west on Maple Street; participants will turn right onto Brinkerhoff Avenue before emptying into the festival grounds at South Park.

There is no charge to enter the parade, and organizers say people of any “age, sex, creed or color” can participate in the kid-friendly march. Any group interested in entering the parade should Christopher Weaver at wickedweave@icloud.com.

• Festival: Saturday, July 25 @ noon-7p, South Park, 100 Brinkerhoff Ave, Mansfield, 44906: After the parade, the festival begins with food, vendors, a kid zone and music by DJ Freeze. The entertainment starts at 1p with performances by Amaya Sexton, Kelly Vaughn, Stella Boheme, Sylar Styles, Boston Ray Michaels, Levi Austin, Alexander Cameron, Jacqueline Rose, Lola VanHorn, Ryder Gently, Natassha Star, Xander Stevyns, Mia Moore, Samantha Echo, Teddy Martin, and hosts Jasymyn Labasha, Trinity Monroe, Kiley Dash-West and Cherry Poppins.

• After Pride Party: Saturday, July 25 @ 7p, Sami’s, 178 Wayne St, Mansfield, 44902: The party doesn’t stop at the festival.

Mansfield’s gay bar will have drag, male entertainer Riley Andrews and a performance by singer Pastele. Presale tickets are $10 for ages 21 and up and $15 for those 18-20. If you wait until the day of the party, the cover charge is increased by $5.

Also on the Mansfield Pride Calendar...

Saturday, June 13 High Heel Walk @ North Lake Park, 200 Park Dr, Mansfield, 44902: Don your favorite pair of stilettos and strut with style while raising money for Mansfield Pride. 11a; $20-$25.

Saturday, July 4 Haute As Hell @ Sami’s, 178 Wayne St, Mansfield, 44902: Get out those swim trunks, bikinis and flip flops for the Pride kickoff foam party. Drink specials start at 7p, the outside area opens at 9p, and the foam pit opens at 11p. Cover charge is $5 for patrons 21 years and older, $10 for those 18-20.

Saturday, July 18 Queer Prom: The White Ball @ Sami’s, 178 Wayne St, Mansfield, 44902: Celebrate prom the way you always wanted to. All-white attire is encouraged, and there will be music, food, pictures, dancing, games and prizes. 7p; $5 cover for patrons 21 years and older, $10 for those 18-20.

More Info: mansfieldprideohio.wix.com/ mansfieldpridehome

Findlay Pride Saturday, August 15

The Big Event: Pride Picnic @ Riverside Park.

More Info: FB: Findlay Spectrum

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Yellow Springs Pride • Saturday, June 27 What’s There to Be Proud Of?

The Big Celebs

• A historically liberal town, Yellow Springs passed an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1979. It’s also where Outlook columnist Pete Lovering and his brother grew up.

• The Rubi Girls: OK, so maybe they aren’t national celebrities, but they were on the cover of Outlook in May so that makes them pretty famous to us. Not only will the philanthropic drag troupe from Dayton perform at Peaches Bar and Grill, there will also be a showing of their 2003 documentary, The Rubi Girls, at Little Art Theater.

The Big Events • Family Picnic: Saturday, June 27 @ 11:30a, John Bryan Community Center, 100 Dayton St, Yellow Springs, 45387. Now is your chance to use that cute little picnic basket you bought from Crate & Barrel eight years ago that has been collecting dust in the back of your coat closet. There is nothing more communal than sharing a meal with someone, and it’s the perfect way to end Pride month.

Why It’s Worth a Road Trip

• Festival: Saturday, June 27 @ noon-4p, John Bryan Community Center, 100 Dayton St, Yellow Springs, 45387. Local musicians will play among various Pride events.

• You Can Channel Your Inner Yogi Bear: After the hustle and bustle of Columbus Pride the weekend before, you are looking to keep your celebration going but want something more intimate. A low-key family picnic is just what you need.

• Walk for Diversity: Saturday, June 27 @ 5p, John Bryan Community Center, 100 Dayton St, Yellow Springs, 45387. This laid back “Sidewalk Parade” will amble through the neighborhood to bring visibility and celebrate the LGBT community.

Also on the Calendar...

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• Nontraditional Order: Usually, Prides are kicked off with the parade, but not in Yellow Springs. First, you feast then you march. So go ahead and have an extra chicken leg or another slice of pie, your Fitbit will be counting those steps afterward.

Tuesday, June 23 Yellow Springs Pride Fundraiser @ Wheat Penny Oven and Bar, 515 Wayne Ave, Dayton, 45410: Wheat Penny Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

will graciously donate 10 percent of all sales to Yellow Springs Pride from 4p-10p.

Friday, June 26 Pride Dinner and Drink Specials @ The Winds Café, 215 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, 45387: From 4p to 10p The Winds Café will offer dinner and drink specials to those who mention Pride.

Saturday, June 27 Rubi Girls Documentary @ Little Art Theater, 267 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, 45387: After the Sidewalk Parade, shuffle over to the Little Art Theater to watch the 2003 Rubi Girls documentary. A talk-back with the queens will follow the viewing.

Soul Fire @ Peaches Bar and Grill, 104 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, 45387. Walk a little farther down the street to Peaches, where Soul Fire, a fire twirling dance troupe, will perform. 8:30p.

Rubi Girls @ Peaches Bar and Grill, 104 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, 45387. We can’t get enough of those Rubi Girls. You’ve already seen them perform on the silver screen, now treat yourself to the live experience. Don’t forget to bring singles; the money goes to charity. 10p.

More Info FB: Yellow Springs Pride outlookohio.com

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Toledo Pride • August 28-30 What’s There to Be Proud Of?

• Toledo Pride is the only Pride celebration in the state that is officially three days. Rainbows and unicorns are setting up camp for the entire weekend in Promenade Park and won’t clear out until 10p on Sunday night. The Glass City is ready to party!

• In December, the Toledo City Council unanimously voted to expand the hate crime ordinance to include gender identity.

The Big Events

• Kiss ‘N’ Drag: Friday, Aug 28 @ 6p-midnight, Promenade Park. The official Pride kickoff party with Toledo radio station Kiss FM will have music and performances to make you dance all night. All party-goers must be 18 years or older, and admission is $8. It’s $5 if you bring a nonperishable food item to donate to the Toledo-Northwest Ohio Food Bank.

• Parade: Saturday, Aug 29 @ noon, Downtown. The parade starts at Washington and Ontario streets, continues down Washington past Fifth Third Field, wraps up around Boeschenstein Park to Summit Street and ends at Promenade Park. Last year, more than 50 groups marched in the parade from LGBT advocates to the Toledo Reign women’s football team.

• Festival: Saturday, Aug 29 @ noon-midnight and Sunday, Aug 30 @ noon-10p, Promenade Park. Like other Pride festivals, there will vendors, food and beer, with live music and

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drag performances. Unlike other Prides, the drag queens will occasionally perform with live bands. Trust us, it’s awesome.

How Big Is the Party?

Attendance reached nearly 18,000 in 2014.

Why It’s Worth the Road Trip

• Timing. Sure, your June was bursting at the seams with rainbows. But by the end of August, you’ll start to feel that Pride withdrawal, and Toledo Pride is a great way to recapture the spirit.

• The Band of Chilly Mollusks. Maybe we’re partial to Arctic Clam because they are a rockin’ good band and we like to dance. Maybe it’s because we have a crush on the lead singer, Nicole. Or maybe it’s because the drummer is the brother of Outlook Publisher Chris Hayes. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s all three.

Also on the Toledo Pride Calendar...

Friday, August 28 Nite Glo 5k & One-Mile Fun Run @ University of Toledo, 2801 W Bancroft St, Toledo, 43606: Adorn yourself with glow sticks and run, powerwalk or stroll the illuminated course. Prizes will be awarded to the top three male and female finishers. Register online at toledopride.com. 7p-10:30p.

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

Saturday, August 29 Sandpiper Pride Ride @ Promenade Park, Water Street and Jefferson Avenue, Toledo, 43604: If you need a break from the festival, take a 40-minute cruise down the Maumee River and see beautiful views of Downtown and the Veteran’s Skyway Bridge. Tickets are just $6 or two for $10. Children ages 3 and under are free.

Sunday, August 30 Sunday Funday @ Promenade Park, Water Street and Jefferson Avenue, Toledo, 43604: After 12 hours of festival fun on Saturday, bring the kiddies to the park for Sunday Funday.

Don’t worry, there’s plenty of adult fun to be had, too: Beer will be served until 10p.

Sunday, August 30 Love Big Wedding Expo @ Park Inn by Radisson, 101 N Summit St, Toledo, 43604: By August, Ohio LGBT couples will hopefully be typing the knot, and they’ll need to know what vendors will be open and accepting. The Love Big Wedding Expo will serve as a one-stop-shop for same-sex couples planning weddings. 11a-3p; free.

More info: toledopride.com

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INDIANA Indianapolis Pride June 5-13 indypride.org FB: Indy Pride We’ll see how serious Gov. Mike Pence was when he insisted the “religious freedom” law he signed in March and later pushed to scale back had nothing to do with anti-gay bias.

to Coast A Nationwide Celebration of LGBT Pride and People There is not one state in the union where a rainbow flag won’t fly this year.

From Aspen’s Gay Ski Week in January to Jackson Black Gay Pride in Mississippi, come November, LGBT people will celebrate community in every corner of the country.

The cities where Pride began - New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles - will stage their huge tourist-drawing events in June. Pride grew out of marches in June 1970 to commemorate the Stonewall riots a year earlier in New York.

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And every year, there are a few new places where Pride takes place. They celebrated in May for the first time in St. Charles, Mo, where the local PFLAG chapter organized a festival. And Pride expands to new territory in Ohio this year as well, with festivals planned in Mansfield and Springfield.

Here’s every Pride parade, festival and party we could find in the United States this year, along with an LGBT native or resident of each state whose accomplishments have raised the visibility of our community.

“We want to offer you the opportunity to reassure our visitors that ... the vaunted notion of ‘Hoosier Hospitality’ is in full effect,” Board President Chris Morehead wrote to Pence.

Here are the highlights of Indy Pride 2015:

around the U.S. of Gay

Pfromr iCoast de

Organizers of the Pride festival and parade in Indianapolis, which draws about 100,000 people, have invited the second-term Republican to write a welcome letter to the LGBT and allied community.

Friday, June 5 First Friday Is a Drag: The Lady Bunny @ Talbott Street, 2145 N Talbott St, Indianapolis, 46202.

9:30p; $10-$25.

Saturday, June 6 Rainbow 5K Run/Walk @ Talbott Street, 2145 N Talbott St, Indianapolis, 46202. Registration fees benefit the Indy Pride Resource Center Fund and the Indiana AIDS Fund. 7a; $30.

Pride Bowl @ All Star Bowl, 726 N Shortridge Rd, Indianapolis, 46219. Family event. 3p-7p; $10$15.

Sunday, June 7 Community Picnic & Bat N Rouge Softball Game @ Garfield Park Corporate Shelter, 2524 Conservatory Rd, Indianapolis, 46203.

Local drag queens known as the Bag Ladies take on Indy’s gay softball league in a community fundraiser. Noon; free.

Thursday, June 11 Girl Pride @ the Vogue Theatre, 6259 N College Ave, Indianapolis, 46220. Women’s party features Chely Wright, Ivy Levan, The Val-

ALABAMA: Mobile (April 18-19), Birmingham (June 7), Huntsville (June 21). Laverne Cox, the Orange Is the New Black star who became the first transgender actor nominated for an Emmy, is from Mobile.

President Chad Griffin is from Hope.

CALIFORNIA: Mammoth Lakes (March 18-21), Davis (May 3), Long Beach (May 1617), Guerneville/Sonoma County (June 5-7), Fresno (June ALASKA: Anchorage (May 306), Sacramento (June 6), Santa June 6), Juneau (June 12). Drew Phoenix, the first United Methodist Cruz (June 7), Los Angeles minister to come out as transgen- (June 12-14), San Mateo (June 13), San Francisco (June 27der, lives in Anchorage.

28), San Luis Obispo (July 10ARIZONA: Phoenix (April 11-12), 12), Santa Barbara (July 11), San Diego (July 17-19), Santa Scottsdale (June 19-21), Bisbee (June 19-21), Flagstaff (June 26- Ana/Orange County (Aug 1), 28), Sedona/Verde Valley (Sept 26), Chico (Aug 21-22), Ventura Tucson (Oct 17). Kyrsten Sinema, (Aug 21-23), Stockton (Aug 22), the first openly bi member of Con- San Jose (Aug 30), Chula Vista (Sept 12), Modesto (Sept 12), gress, is from Tucson.

Oakland (Sept 13), Eureka/Humboldt County (Sept ARKANSAS: Conway (June 7), 12), Anaheim/Disneyland (Oct Fayetteville (June 27), Eureka Springs (Aug 7-9), Little Rock (Oct 2-4), Oceanside (Oct 10), Pasadena (Oct 17), Palm 9-11). Human Rights Campaign

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

lures and Crackhead Patty, plus the Burlesque Angels and Cirqueindy. 8:30p; $25-$75.

Friday, June 12 Bianca Del Rio @ Egyptian Room at Old National Centre, 502 N New Jersey St, Indianapolis, 46204. The RPDR champ is on a national tour.

9p; $35-$50.

Saturday, June 13 Cadillac Barbie Pride Parade @ Massachusetts and College avenues, Indianapolis, 46206. It’s named after one of the city’s drag legends. 10a; free.

Pride Festival @ American Legion Mall, 700 N Pennsylvania Ave, Indianapolis, 46206. The highlight of this year’s festival - the first since federal court rulings extended marriage equality to Indiana - will be a mass wedding ceremony at 11a on the main stage. 10a; $5 donation.

Other Indiana Prides: • Spencer, June 6 • Indianapolis Black Pride, July 18-19 • Fort Wayne, July 24-25 • Lafayette, Aug 1 Springs (Nov 6-8). Lesbian actor and director Jodie Foster is from Los Angeles.

COLORADO: Aspen (Jan 1118), Telluride (Feb 22-March 1), Denver (June 20-21), Colorado Springs (July 11-12), Boulder (Sept 13). WNBA All-Star Glory Johnson is from Colorado Springs.

CONNECTICUT: Norwalk (June 13), Hartford (June 26), New London (Aug 29-30). Emily Saliers, one half of the lesbian singing duo Indigo Girls, is from New Haven.

DELAWARE: Dover (Aug 1). Gay hip-hop artist and former Division 1 college basketball player Will Sheridan grew up in Bear.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Washington Trans Pride (May 16), DC Black Pride (May 22-25), DC outlookohio.com

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There’s a wedding ceremony scheduled at noon on Saturday, plus bands and singers, poets, drag queens, DJs and more. Other highlights include a karaoke party on Saturday, a Miss Motor City pageant, and a Sunday Tea Dance. Saturday, noon-8:30p, and Sunday, noon-7:30p; $5.

MICHIGAN

Saturday, June 6 Kings and Queens Ball @ Chene Park Amphitheater, 2600 Atwater St, Detroit, 48207.

Latrice Royale hosts an event that includes entertainers Thelma Houston, Maxine Nightingale, Anita Ward, Cheryl Lynn and Taste of Honey. 8:30p; $26-$65.

Motor City Pride, Detroit June 6-7 motorcitypride.org FB: Motor City Pride

Organizers of Motor City Pride are promising an “epic” event, and with five different stages of entertainment, their promise will surely be met. Notable performers over the two days include Carmen Electra, Betty Who, Darienne Lake and Shangela.

Michigan’s largest LGBTQ pride celebration draws thousands to Detroit’s Hart Plaza, with a festival and a parade over the span of one weekend right by the city’s riverfront.

Here are the highlights of Motor City Pride 2015: Saturday, June 6 - Sunday, June 7 Pride Fesitval @ Hart Plaza, Detroit, 48226.

Latino Pride (June 11), Washington (June 12-14). Gay Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn is from Washington.

FLORIDA: Bradenton/Manatee County (March 21), Tampa (March 28), Lake Worth (March 28-29), Miami Beach (April 11-12), Tallahassee (April 18), Pensacola (May 21-25), Key West (June 10-14), Wilton Manors (June 20), St. Petersburg (June 26-28), Melbourne (Sept 26), Miami Hispanic Pride (Oct 3), Ocala (Oct 3), Jacksonville (Oct 34), Orlando (Oct 10), Fort Lauderdale (Oct 10-11), Sarasota (Oct 17), Gainesville Black Pride (Oct 2325), Gainesville (Oct 24). Gay poet Richard Blanco, who read his work at President Obama’s second inaugural, is from Miami.

GEORGIA: Augusta (June 2627), Atlanta Black Pride (Sept 2-7), outlookohio.com

Motor City Ball @ St. Andrews Hall, 431 E Congress St, Detroit, 48226. There will be four DJs spinning on two levels for seven hours. The event benefits the Michigan AIDS Coalition. 9p-4a; $25-$60.

Sunday, June 7 Pride Parade @ Hart Plaza, Detroit, 48226.

Floats, queens, cars and more. Noon.

Other Michigan Prides: • Ferndale, May 30-31 • Kalamazoo, June 12-13 • Grand Rapids, June 20 • Flint, June 27 • Holland, June 27 • Detroit Black Pride, July 24-28 • Lansing, Aug 29

Savannah (Sept 12), Valdosta (Sept 19), Atlanta (Oct 10-11). Tituss Burgess, who steals the show in the new Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, is from Athens.

HAWAII: Honolulu (June 6), Hilo (Sept 12). Janet Mock, the transgender activist and writer, is from Honolulu.

IDAHO: Boise (June 20), Pocatello (June 26-27), Idaho Falls (Sept 1112). Nicole LeFavour, who served from 2005 to 2013 as the state’s first openly gay legislator, is from Boise.

ILLINOIS: Springfield (May 16), Chicago Latino Pride (June 4-11), Chicago (June 20-21 and 28), Chicago Black Pride (July 2-5). Lesbian actor Jane Lynch is from Dolton.

ment park, which is scheduled for Sunday, Aug 2. Information about that event is at the Kentuckiana Pride Foundation website (above).

Here are the highlights of Kentuckiana Pride 2015:

KENTUCKY

Kentuckiana Pride, Louisville June 19-20 kypride.com

FB: Kentuckiana Pride Foundation

Pride in Louisville evolved from a 1987 march to 1990s picnics to a full-blown festival in 2001.

The Kentuckiana Pride weekend begins with an evening parade from Main Street to the Belvedere, a Downtown plaza overlooking the Ohio River. Big names in Louisville during Pride weekend include Betty Who, Bianca Del Rio, Fortune Feimster, Cazwell and Shane Bitney Crone, whose story of loss and legal isolation following the death of his partner was the subject of the 2013 documentary, Bridegroom.

Louisville hosts another big gay event in August: Pride Day at Kentucky Kingdom amuse-

INDIANA: Indianapolis (June 6-13), Indianapolis Girl Pride (June 11), Spencer (June 6), Indianapolis Black Pride (July 18-19), Fort Wayne (July 24-25), Lafayette (Aug 1). Gay singer Adam Lambert is from Indianapolis.

IOWA: Cedar Rapids (May 30), Des Moines (June 12-14), Iowa City (June 19-20), Waterloo (Aug 22).

Drag superstar Sharon Needles, aka Aaron Coady, is from Newton.

KANSAS: Salina (June 20), Wichita (Sept 19-20). Lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge is from Leavenworth.

KENTUCKY: Covington (May 30), Louisville (June 19-20), Lexington (June 27). Former Good Morning America meteorologist and current Weather Channel host Sam Champion is from Paducah.

Friday, June 19 Pride Parade @ Main and Floyd streets, Louisville, 40202. The parade ends at the Pride festival grounds. This year’s grand marshal is Shane Bitney Crone.

Friday, June 19 - Saturday, June 20 Pride Festival @ the Belvedere, W Main and S 5th streets, Louisville, 40202. In addition to the full entertainment lineup and a Pride Idol contest with finalists from every gay bar in town, festival organizers say they’ve added bars so you won’t have to wait in line as long for cocktails. Friday, 7p-midnight, and Sunday, noon-midnight; $5 per day or $8 for twoday pass.

Sunday, June 21 Bianca Del Rio @ Play Louisville, 1101 E Washington St, Louisville, 40206. Her Rolodex of Hate tour continues. 7p; $25-$40.

Other Kentucky Prides: • Northern Kentucky (Covington), May 30 • Lexington, June 27 • Louisville Pride Festival, September 19

LOUISIANA: Lafayette (March 26-29), Baton Rouge (June 13), New Orleans (June 19-21). Lesbian comic and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is from Metarie.

MICHIGAN: Ferndale (May 3031), Detroit (June 6-7), Kalamazoo (June 12-13), Grand Rapids (June 20), Flint (June 27), Holland (June 27), Detroit Black Pride (July 24-28), Lansing (Aug 29). Gay sports columnist and CNN commentator LZ Granderson is from Detroit.

MAINE: Portland (June 20). Lesbian attorney Mary Bonauto, who helped argue Ohioans’ case for marriage equality before the US MINNESOTA: Pine City (June 7), Supreme Court in April, is from Port- Minneapolis-St. Paul (June 27-28), land.

Rochester (July 16-19), Moorhead/Fargo, ND (Aug 13-16), Duluth/Superior, Wis (Sept 5-6), MARYLAND: Hagerstown (May 16), Frederick (June 27), Baltimore Mankato (Sept 12), Kye Allums, who (July 25-26), Annapolis (Aug 1). Gay in 2010 became the first openly movie director and screenwriter transgender athlete in major-colJohn Waters is from Baltimore. lege sports, is from Circle Pines.

MASSACHUSETTS: Northampton (May 2), Boston (June 13), Salem (June 20), Worcester (Sept 912). Lesbian songwriter Linda Perry is from Springfield.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

MISSISSIPPI: Jackson Black Pride (Nov 11-15). Gay NSYNC alum and Sirius talk host Lance Bass is from Laurel.

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Saturday, June 13 Pride in the Street @ Liberty Avenue, (between 9th and 10th streets), Pittsburgh. This free outdoor dance party features local, regional and national entertainment. 5p-1:30a.

Here are the highlights of West Virginia Pride 2015:

WEST VIRGINIA West Virginia Pride, Charleston June 4-6 wvpride.org

FB: Rainbow Pride of West Virginia, Inc.

Major get: Kathy Griffin will kick off Charleston’s three-day West Virginia Pride festival with a performance on Thursday, June 4.

But even better, they’ll be celebrating two victories in the state: marriage quality began when the US Supreme Court decided last October to let lower-court rulings stand, and anti-gay legislation that would have rescinded local anti-discrimination ordinances was shot down in February.

around the U.S. of Gay

This year’s Pride celebration “needs to be the biggest and best we have ever seen in this state,” Rainbow Pride of West Virginia President Carl Nipps wrote.

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MISSOURI: St. Charles (May 30), Kansas City (June 5-7), Joplin (June 6), Springfield (June 20), St. Joseph (June 19-20), Belleville (June 20), St. Louis (June 26-28), Kansas City Black Pride (July 31-Aug 2), St. Louis Black Pride (Aug 16), Columbia (Aug 22). Kansas City Latino Pride (Sept 11-12). Gay actor Matt Bomer, who will take at least some of it off in Magic Mike XXL next month, is from Webster Groves.

Thursday, June 4 Kathy Griffin @ the Clay Center, 1 Clay Square, Charleston, 25301. Use the code HUMOR for $10 off tickets ordered online at theclaycenter.org. 7:30p; $45-$69.

Friday, June 5 Charity Drag Race @ Capitol Street next to Davis Park, Charleston, 25301. The event also includes PFLAG cheerleaders. 5:30p-7p.

Charleston Gay Men’s Chorale/Paths We Travel @ Kanawha United Presbyterian Church, 1009 Virginia St SE, Charleston, 25301. Admission is free, but donations are welcome. 8p.

Saturday, June 6 Big Gay Dog Show @ Haddad Riverfront Park, 700 Kanawha Blvd E, Charleston, 25301. Come strut your mutt. Noon; $5.

Pride Festival @ Haddad Riverfront Park, 700 Kanawha Blvd E, Charleston, 25301.

This year’s theme: “Now in Full Color!”

12:30p-5p.

Pride Parade @ Kanawha Boulevard and Clendinin Street, 25302. Charleston Councilwoman Keeley Steele, a restaurant owner who has urged businesses to be welcoming and inclusive, is the grand marshal. 1:30p.

NEVADA: Reno (July 25), Las Vegas (Sept 18-19). Although they were born in Germany, you don’t get much more Vegas than retired gay entertainers Siegfried and Roy.

PENNSYLVANIA

Sunday, June 14, 2015 Pride March @ Grant Street and the Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, 15219. More than 130 groups are marching, so bring your lawn chair.

Noon.

FB: 2015 Pittsburgh Pride March/PrideFest

Pride Fest @ Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh between 6th Street and 10th Street. More than 95,000 people are expected for the free festival. 1p-6:30p.

Pittsburgh Pride June 6-14 pittsburghpride.org

One of the events associated with Pittsburgh Pride is under fire. Neighbors of a local park don’t much like the name of the Big Gay Picnic and want something... subtler? Don’t they know us at all?

Pittsburgh doesn’t do subtle for Pride.

They book big names and don’t announce them before building the suspense a bit.

Friday, June 12 Pub Crawl @ The LGBT-friendliest bars in town offer discounted or free first drinks, and buses come by every 20 minutes. 8p; ticket price TBA.

Neil Patrick Harris is from Albuquerque.

NEW YORK: Buffalo (June 17), Albany Black and Latino Gay Pride (June 4-6), Kingston/Hudson Valley (June 6-7), Queens NEW HAMPSHIRE: Manches- (June 7), Rockland County/Nyack (June 12-14), Albany (June 13), ter (TBD). Gay US Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney represents New Brooklyn (June 13), York in Congress but grew up in Huntington/Long Island (June 13), Catskill (June 20), Syracuse Hanover.

(June 20), Hudson (June 20-21), Harlem (June 21-28), New York NEW JERSEY: Asbury Park (June 26-28), Staten Island (July (June 7), Maplewood (June 14), Jersey City (Aug 29). Gay B-52’s 11), Rochester (July 17-19), NYC MONTANA: Missoula (June 19). Gay actor Jesse Tyler Fergu- frontman Fred Schneider is from Black Pride (Aug 12-16), Oswego (Oct 13). Trans Olympian Bruce son, Mitchell on Modern Family, Newark.

Jenner is from Mount Kisco. is from Missoula.

NEW MEXICO: Los Ranchos NEBRASKA: Omaha (June 20), (June 7), Albuquerque (June 13), NORTH CAROLINA: Raleigh Gay actor Andrew Rannells, a Las Cruces (June 15-21), Santa (May 2), Salisbury (June 20), Charlotte Black Gay Pride (July Tony nominee in 2011 for The Fe (June 27), Deming (July 24Book of Mormon, is from Omaha. 26), Taos (Aug 13-15). Gay actor 16-19), Raleigh-Durham-Chapel

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Other Pennsylvania Prides: • Philadelphia Black Pride, April 22-26 • New Hope, May 10-17 • Philadelphia, June 14 • Lancaster, June 20 • Reading, July 19 • Pittsburgh Black Pride, July 20-31 • Harrisburg, July 25 • Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, August date TBD • York, Aug 2 • Allentown, Aug 23 • Erie, Aug 29

Hill Black Pride (July 24-26), Charlotte (Aug 15-16), Charlotte Black Pride (July 16-19), Outer Banks (Sept 18-20), RaleighDurham-Chapel Hill (Sept 26), Asheville (Oct 3), Winston-Salem (Oct 16-17). Bi actor Evan Rachel Wood, known for roles in True Blood and Mildred Pierce, is from Raleigh.

27) Mansfield (July 25), Toledo (Aug 28-30). Gay singer-pianist Michael Feinstein is from Columbus.

OKLAHOMA: Tulsa (June 67), Oklahoma City (June 19-21), Enid (Sept 12). Trans US Army veteran Chelsea Manning, hero to some and villain to others for leaking classified documents about the Iraq War and corruption in foreign capitals, is from Crescent.

NORTH DAKOTA: Bismarck (June 19-21), Fargo/Moorhead, Minn. (Aug 13-16). Joshua Boschee, the first openly gay person elected to the North Dakota OREGON: Portland (June 13legislature, is from Minot.

14), Portland Black Pride (June 17-21), Bend (June 20), Portland Latino Pride (July 23-26), EuOHIO: Dayton (June 6), Youngstown (June 12-13), Chilli- gene/Springfield (Aug 8), Lincoln cothe (June 13), Springfield (June City (Sept 11-13), Ashland (Oct 10-11), Salem (Aug 15). James 13), Columbus (June 19-21), Cincinnati (June 27), Cleveland Ivory, who along with Ismail Merchant makes up the gay couple (June 27), Yellow Springs (June

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11:30p, the museum will host an LGBT party. It’s at 101 S Independence Mall E (215.923.3811; nmajh.org).

Let Freedom Ring Philadelphia to Celebrate 50th Anniversary of First LGBT Rights Protest

by Bob Vitale Before they fought back outside the Stonewall Inn in New York, they marched outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The first major protest in the United States for LGBT civil rights took place in front of the birthplace of American Independence on the birthday of American independence. It was 1965, four years before Stonewall.

Philadelphia resident Barbara Gittings and Washingtonian Frank Kameny, now

and filmmaking duo of Merchant Ivory, is from Klamath Falls.

PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia Black Pride (April 22-26), New Hope (May 10-17), Pittsburgh (June 13-14), Philadelphia (June 14), Lancaster (June 20), Reading (July 19), Pittsburgh Black Pride (July 20-31), Harrisburg (July 25), Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (August date TBD), York (Aug 2), Allentown (Aug 23), Erie (Aug 29). Edie Windsor, the lesbian widow whose US Supreme Court case was the first big step toward nationwide marriage equality, is from Philadelphia.

PUERTO RICO: San Juan (June 7), Boquerón (June 14), Cabo Rojo (June 14). Gay singer Ricky Martin is from San Juan.

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known as the mother and father of gay rights, led what they called “Annual Reminder” protests every Independence Day outside Independence Hall for four years.

A celebration of the 50th anniversary of the historic event will take place in Philadelphia next month alongside the city’s July 4 parties.

Thursday, July 2 • Legal experts will discuss the state of LGBT civil rights across the country at the National Museum of American Jewish History from 6:30p-7:45p. From 10p-

RHODE ISLAND: Providence (June 20). Gay country singer Billy Gilman is from Westerly.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Columbia Black Pride (June 24-28), Charleston (July 25-Aug 1), Spartanburg (Sept 12), Columbia (Oct 24). Bi comic Andy Dick is from Charleston.

SOUTH DAKOTA: Sioux Falls (June 20). Bisexual state Sen. Angie Buhl O’Donnell of Sioux Falls is the first openly LGBT person elected to any office in the state.

TENNESSEE: Nashville (June 2627), Memphis Black Pride (June 12-14), Knoxville (June 20), Memphis (Sept 26), Nashville Black Pride (Oct 16-18). Bi actor Megan

• Political analysts take the stage from 8:15p-9:30p for a National Politics Panel at Congress Hall, where Congress held its first sessions from 1790-1800. Congress Hall is at 6th & Chestnut streets (215.965.2305; nps.gov/inde).

Friday, July 3 • The first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Bishop Gene Robinson, will deliver a sermon at 4p during a National Interfaith Service at Christ Church, where George Washington and Betsy Ross once worshipped. It’s at 20 N American St (215.922.1695; christchurchphila.org).

• The local NPR and PBS affiliate, WHYY, will screen Gay Pioneers, a documentary about the Annual Reminders that explains how the Philadelphia protests laid the groundwork for Stonewall in 1969.

Discussion will follow. It’s at 7p at 150 N 6th St, (215.351.1200; whyy.org).

• The Live Nation 50th Anniversary Concert starts at 8p at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing. Performers to be announced. It’s at Columbus Boulevard and Spring Garden Street (festivalpierphilly.com).

Fox, a star of the Transformers movie franchise, is from Oak Ridge.

TEXAS: Houston Black Pride (May 7-10), El Paso (June 6), McKinney (June 14), Houston (June 21-28), San Antonio (July 4), Austin (Aug 29), Dallas (Sept 20), Dallas-Fort Worth Black Pride (Oct 1-5), Fort Worth (Oct 1-11). Eric Alva, a gay veteran who was the first Marine injured in Iraq and a driving force behind the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, is from San Antonio.

UTAH: Park City (Feb 19-22), Salt Lake City (June 4-7), Moab (Sept 26). Lesbian lawyer Kate Kendell, who has been a key part of the marriage-equality fight as executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is from Ogden.

Saturday, July 4 • The annual Celebration of Freedom Ceremony at Independence Hall at 10a will pay homage to the Reminder Day demonstrations. At 3p, Equality Forum will host the official 50th Anniversary Ceremony, which will include a re-enactment. It’s at Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th streets (welcomeamerica.com).

• A wreath-laying ceremony at 2p will commemorate the protests at the Gay Rights Demonstrations Historical Marker, which was erected 10 years ago. It’s at 6th and Chestnut.

Sunday, July 5 • The Annual Reminder Block Party takes over Philadelphia’s Gayborhood from noon-6p. Vendors, food, music and plenty of LGBT organizations will celebrate. The party’s at 12th and Walnut streets (phillygaypride.org).

Visit visitphilly.com for more information about LGBT and July 4 festivities in Phildelphia.

Photos by J Fusco and M Fischetti for Visit Philadelphia

VERMONT: Burlington (Sept 13).

Gay political strategist Robby Mook, who is running Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for president, is from Sharon.

WEST VIRGINIA: Charleston (June 4-6). Stephen Skinner, the first openly gay person elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates, is from Shepherdstown.

VIRGINIA: Norfolk (June 26-27), Richmond (Sept 12), Roanoke (Sept 12-13), Northern Virginia/Centreville (Oct 3). Lesbian comedian Wanda Sykes is from Portsmouth.

WISCONSIN: Milwaukee (June 5-7), Green Bay (July 11), Madison (Aug 9), Superior/Duluth, Minn.

(Sept 5-6). The first openly gay US senator, Tammy Baldwin, is from Madison.

WASHINGTON: Spokane (June 13), Olympia (June 19-21), Richland-Kennewick (June 20), Seattle (June 27-28), Tacoma (July 10-11), Vancouver (July 11), Bellingham (July 12-13), Bremerton (July 18), Bi rocker and actor Carrie Brownstein, who stars in Portlandia, is from Seattle.

WYOMING: Medicine Bow (Aug 5-9). Gay actor Jim J Bullock, sitcom star in the ’80s and voice of Queer Duck in the ’90s, is from Casper.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

(Sources: Interpride, gaypridecalendar.com, seasonsofpride.com, gaytravel.about.com, LGBTQ Nation)

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dyke like me

The Life Cycle of a Gay Relationship

by Brooke Cartus

It’s that time of year when the world falls in love... er, wait? Isn’t that Christmas?

YES! It IS Christmas! It’s gay Christmas!

Happy Pride, everyone. I can’t wait to party with you as we celebrate all the man thigh I am about to see at my hometown Pride, at Goodale Park in Columbus. I always meet my man thigh quota in June, and this month is no exception.

But along with Pride comes gay mating season! A reminder - if you don’t already know - that this is Phase Two of the gay dating cycle. Much like a butterfly (and often just as colorful), queers take to the streets at Pride to find a lifelong... er, yearlong courtship that will LAST FOREVER, OF COURSE. But before you dive face first into anyone’s VIP tent this year, study up on all of the phases so you can know what to expect: Phase One: Pre-Pride Prep Fest You know what I’m talking about, so don’t even begin to play coy. March hits, and you IMMEDIATELY head to the gym and cut back on the carbs so you can go sleeveless, even shirtless, at Pride.

Joke’s on you. We live in Ohio and I like ’em sturdy, so don’t cut out too many of

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those sandwiches. Mmmm... sandwiches.

Pre-Pride prep is serious business. You ditch the love handles AND the relationship baggage for two to three months of intense self-care... or intense selfies. Either way, you’re single and foxy as f*** by the time Pride rolls around, which works out perfectly for you because it’s been so long since there was another person on the left side of your bed that your cat made a hammock out of a pillowcase.

Phase Two: YOU. ARE. IN. LOVE. AMAGOD I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MET SOMEONE AT PRIDE! You met a gay person? At Pride? Who was also single!? How serendipitous. It must be true love.

You both are feeling and looking your best, so this is the perfect time to get back at your ex by posting a bunch of adorable pics.

Where should you post them? EVERYWHERE, SILLY. You aren’t looking for anything too serious... maybe just sleep over like, six nights a week? Cool. You two date all summer and couldn’t be happier. The Long Islands flow off the gay-bar patio like your own personal gay-ass waterfall.

Why is everyone so down on relationships?

They’re great!

Phase Three: Hibernation The first chill in the air. The first batch of Octoberfest. The Back to School-themed drag shows. You’ve made it to autumn and you’re still hanging out with your Pride boo.

You get serious. I mean... really serious.

Sweatpants-with-the-holes-in-’em and Netflix-marathon serious. He starts using your crockpot to make his famous chili recipe. She starts bringing over those pizza coupons. You get happy. You get hearty. And just in time for the holidays.

Bring your significant other home because YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHO I AM, FAMILY. Plus, New Year’s is coming up! You can’t break up now. Who will you kiss at midnight?

Phase Four: The Break-up It’s anywhere between January and March.

Your New Year’s kiss was a TOTAL let down, and you can feel yourself checking out potential Side B boos.

It’s time to cut it out and deal with the fact that maybe everyone you meet at Pride isn’t the love of your life. You break up. It’s messy. You get the cat. And another cat.

Ugh. How are you going to meet someone with all these cats around?

You look in the mirror. DAYUM. Those jeans

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

are a little tight. And when was the last time you got a haircut? Do you even own shoes anymore? You’ve been wearing slippers to the grocery store for two months.

Time to step it up and...

YOU GUESSED IT. Go to the gym. (Back to Phase One, ya’ll!)

Look, the cycle can be broken.

If you make it out of Pride Saturday without a new love of your life, good for you! I’m impressed. Just whatever you do... DON’T GO TO BRUNCH ON SUNDAY. Studies show that 98 percent of gays meet their next disastrous relationship at brunch.

Don’t believe me? Fine. It’s your wedding.

If you need me, I’ll be at the bar of your favorite brunch place to pick up the pieces in March. Don’t worry. I won’t say I told you so.

I’ll take you shopping for some pants with a fly, and we will get you back out there!

After all, Pride is already here. And YOU are looking fierce.

Brooke Cartus is a Chapstick lesbian who just graduated from law school at Ohio State University. To hear about the latest in LGBT news, diet tips and fashion trends involving cargo shorts, check out her blog, Size L for Lady, at brookecartus.com/category/blog.

Brooke’s next Outlook column will run in August. outlookohio.com

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Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

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health

What Is PrEP? PrEP stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. The word “prophylaxis” means to prevent or control the spread of an infection or disease. The goal of PrEP is to prevent HIV infection from taking hold if you are exposed to the virus. This is done by taking one pill every day.

‘This Is a Game Changer’

PrEP Is the HIV-Prevention Tool We’ve Waited For

by Bill Hardy

For more information about ARC Ohio’s PrEP Clinics in Columbus and Dayton, visit arcohio.org/PrEP.

we do have the next best thing.

What if we had a pill to prevent HIV? Every June we gather together as a community to recognize our collective Pride and the progress we have made across our country for LGBT rights. We have many reasons to celebrate, including what we hope will be a landmark ruling from the highest court in the land regarding marriage equality.

The truth is that, despite breathtaking progress, we still have a lot further to go. Civil rights and marriage equality are crucial, but must not distract us from the most devastating epidemic ever to have hit our community.

HIV/AIDS remains the single largest health disparity for gay and bisexual men. Two-thirds of all new infections still occur among gay men, especially young gay men and young gay men of color. Three decades into it, and we are still calling for more commitment to our community’s health, sexual health, and increased knowledge of HIV prevention and treatment.

We have come a long way in HIV research and care.

With treatment, HIV-positive individuals can achieve an undetectable viral load, giving hope for a near-normal life expectancy and practically eliminating further transmission of the virus.

While this is remarkable, we know that only 40 percent of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States are engaged in care and only 30 percent are virally suppressed. We also know that 62 percent of new HIV transmissions come from those HIV-positive individuals not in care. All of these numbers point to one thing: We still have a long way to go.

While we do not yet have a true vaccine to prevent HIV, outlookohio.com

With 50,000 new HIV infections each year in the United States, and no cure or vaccine available, prevention is key. When taken every day, PrEP can provide a high level of protection against HIV, and is even more effective when it is combined with condoms and other prevention tools.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis - PrEP - is a medical treatment to prevent HIV-negative individuals from contracting HIV. PrEP reduces the risk of HIV transmission by up to 99 percent when the medicine Truvada is taken daily.

A pill a day to prevent HIV is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. What if we had this 10 years ago? Twenty? Thirty? It is something we need to be shouting from the rooftops. Every scientific study has confirmed the effectiveness of PrEP. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and the nation’s leading community-based organizations, including AIDS Resource Center Ohio, have come out in support of this revolutionary intervention.

Columbus Public Health officials recently echoed my sentiments: This is a game changer.

Pride is a communal celebration and affirmation of our selves, our community, our wellbeing. The tools now available to treat and prevent HIV can change the course of history, including the history of the LGBT community and the course of someone’s life.

Columbus Urges Doctors to Talk About, Prescribe PrEP Since it first was approved as a tool to prevent HIV infection among those considered most at risk, health officials have urged people to talk to their doctors about PrEP. Now they’re urging doctors to talk to people.

Dr. Jose Bazan, medical director for Columbus Public Health’s Sexual Health Clinic, issued a “call to action” in the form of a May 11 letter to 3,745 licensed physicians in Central Ohio, urging them to talk about and prescribe PrEP for patients considered at high risk of contracting HIV. That includes gay and bi men and straight men and women who have unprotected sex, along with injection-drug users and HIV-negative people in relationships with HIV-positive partners.

We should be proud that we have come so far. Let’s continue to take these next steps together.

“As a local provider, we know that you have an investment and a stake in the well being of your patients and the community as whole. Therefore, [Columbus Public Health] is requesting your help in supporting the use of PrEP for your high-risk patients in order to help turn the tide of new HIV infections that is affecting Columbus,” Bazan wrote.

Bill Hardy is the president and CEO of AIDS Resource Center Ohio, which is the largest HIV/AIDS service organization in the state. ARC Ohio has offices in Akron, Athens, Columbus, Dayton, Jackson, Lima, Mansfield, Newark and Toledo.

Columbus Public Health also has created a website with PrEP information for potential users of the prevention regimen. It’s columbus.gov/PrEP.

I challenge you to share this information and commit with me, during Pride and throughout the year, to use PrEP and every resource at our disposal to make each of us, and all of us, healthier.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

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i’m Too

insightout

Sexy

for That Grudge ...and Other Reasons to Practice Forgiveness

by Regina Sewell

ers report more life satisfaction and less psycho- experience more conflict and are not able to logical distress, anxiety and sadness. compromise like partners who are more focused “It is much more agreeable to offend and later on forgiving. They become more competitive, ask forgiveness than to be offended and grant On the other hand, unforgiveness - holding onto more focused on getting even and on being right forgiveness,” Friedrich Nietzsche said. grudges or ruminating about frustration toward than on compromising and working with each someone - has a negative impact on our emoother.

Most of us can relate. tional and physical wellness. It’s stressful and unpleasant. Think about someone who hurt, mis- And at the end of the day, we’re only hurting ourSometimes we mistake forgiveness with forget- treated, offended or betrayed you. Give yourself a selves by putting all that energy into holding ting, and we hold onto grudges to protect ourmoment to ruminate on what they did and fanta- onto a grudge. While we’re sitting around feeling selves from being hurt again. Sometimes size your revenge. angry at the awful thing someone did to us, holding onto a grudge makes us feel like we they’re eating a sandwich or playing golf or have more power or control. Sometimes we think How do you feel while you’re doing this? You doing whatever it is that they do. They probably revenge would make us feel better. And someprobably feel some combination of anger, sadaren’t thinking about us at all. times it’s easier to stay angry than it is to explore ness and anxiety. Most people do. the hurt and fear So why not set yourself free and forgive them? that often underHolding onto grudges lies the anger. also has a physical ef- Five Steps to Forgiveness While we’re sitting fect. Not only does unBut the science forgiveness make us • Remind yourself that you are doing this for around feeling angry at is in*. Forgivesweat more and inyourself, not for anyone else. the awful thing someone ness makes us crease our blood preshappier. sure and heart rate, it • Journal or talk about what happened so you did to us, they’re eating a can make us fat. Un- can articulate how it wasn’t OK and let yourself sandwich or playing golf Note that forforgiveness increases get in touch with how the offense made you feel. giveness does our baseline levels of If you feel angry or frustrated, go deeper. Feel the or doing whatever it is not mean forgetcortisol. Cortisol mefear, hurt or sadness that drives the anger or that they do. They ting or condontabolizes fat for quick frustration. If you still feel a lot of anger, write out ing or absolving response to stress; all the angry words you can think of (but should probably aren’t thinking someone of rewhen the stress ends, never say) on a piece of paper. Pretend as if about us at all. sponsibility for it redeposits the fat you’re doing graffiti. (It’s probably best to rip this his, her or their around the waist so it’s up when you’re done.) Stomping on bubble wrap hurtful actions. easily accessible. while you think about the issue might also help.

Forgiveness simply involves letting go of resentment, turning off the desire for revenge and find- Unforgiveness also wrecks relationships. Part• Reframe the incident. Even though the offense ing compassion for the person who harmed you. ners in relationships that are centered on the de- feels like it was about you, it wasn’t. It was The upside is that people who have forgiven oth- sire for revenge rather than on forgiveness about them - their thoughts, their feelings and

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their dysfunction.

• Try compassion. Think about whatever factors in the offender’s past might have affected his, her or their hurtful behavior toward you. Perhaps they were abused or never felt loved by their parents. Perhaps they have been hurt in the past or were having a rotten, no-good, very bad day. Perhaps they are miserable or afraid or just stressed out of their minds.

• Silently direct this mantra toward the person who hurt you: “I forgive you for anything you’ve done that caused me harm and ask you to forgive me for anything I’ve done that caused you harm.” You should say it least three times a day for however long it takes.

• Tune in to your body and see if this feels better than holding a grudge. *For a short review of the research on forgiveness and happiness, see “The New Science of Forgiveness” by Everett L Worthington Jr., in Greater Good, an online magazine from the University of California at Berkeley.

Regina Sewell is a licensed mental health counselor. To ask her a question, propose a column topic, read about her approach to counseling, or check out her books and other writing, go reginasewell.com. Her essay “Unequal Wedding” appears in Untangling the Knot: Queer Voices on Marriage, Relationships & Identity, published by Ooligan Press. Her next column will run in Outlook in July. outlookohio.com

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the other side

We Still Need Pride Let’s Celebrate the Accomplishments of LGBT People

by James Blackmon

When I was a little gay kid growing up in the South in the ’70s and ’80s, I used to dream about having a husband.

And in-laws.

And I used to dream that I would go to my in-laws’ for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it would be like it is in the commercials. We’d walk inside with a homemade pie in our hands, and everyone would be excited to see us. I used to dream that he and I would live in a society where we were out and open and nobody cared because it was all so normal.

I only used to dream about these things because it never seemed possible that by the time I was 25 I would be in a long-term committed relationship with a man whose family loves me and treats me like one of their own. Even five years ago I didn’t think I would ever actually be legally married to my husband.

How was I to know that a little gay boy’s fantasy would one day be reality?

never take place.

So with all our strides toward equality, especially in recent years, you would think that Pride parades and festivals would be in danger of slipping into the past. After all, for many LGBT people, Pride was the one and only time in the year when we could safely walk down the street as ourselves, looking as we wished to look, holding our lover’s hand, or sharing a kiss standing in the middle of the street without being in danger of getting harassed or worse.

Today, however, in a good number of US cities, we can do those things daily. So I can’t help but wonder: Is Pride still relevant in 2015?

Of course it is. But not for the reasons my generation needed it. Although the need to be out at Pride might no longer exist for most of us, the need to celebrate our fabulousness does. And we are pretty fabulous. And I can prove it.

Is Pride still relevant in 2015?

Of course it is. But not for the reasons my generation needed it.

That thought process seems so dated now. Like ancient history. Little gay kids today still dream about getting married, but nowadays they dream about the kind of wedding they’re going to have, not about the kind of wedding that can outlookohio.com

Just stop for a moment, close your eyes, and imagine a world without LGBT people. No, really do it. I’ll wait.

What would it actually be like if we didn’t exist? There are, of course, the

obvious and perhaps stereotypical examples. It would be impossible to get a good flower arrangement, and there would most definitely be a shortage of hairstylists. Broadway and that is every Broadway theater would have to close. There would be very little cast, a handful of singers and practically zero dancers.

The fashion industry also would be thinned, because there would be pretty much only be straight women designers left, and there would be practically no stylists or makeup or hair artists.

Those are just a few examples - and only of the most obvious contributions to society by gay men. But there are LGBT people in all professions, occupations, vocations and jobs. We really are everywhere.

We are even active in most Christian churches. Just look toward the front of the church and there we are in the choir stand or playing the instruments. We’re even in the pulpit and behind the scenes working administration.

Historically, we’re responsible for making the world a whole lot more interesting, if not simply more beautiful. What would our world be like without the pink footprint left by Alexander the Great, King James, Aristotle and Socrates? Imagine the world without the work of John Carpenter, John Waters, Stephen Sondheim or Clive Barker.

What would the art world be like without the works and influences of Donatello, Michelangelo, Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritz and Robert Mapplethorpe? And you can’t even begin

to talk about American literature without naming most of the biggies: Willa Cather, Tennessee Williams, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Henry David Thoreau and Countee Cullen.

So what did your gay-less world look like? To me, it looks like Kansas from The Wizard Of Oz. Drab and sepiatoned. This is why I celebrate Pride.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

Because we are important. And without our contributions to society, there would be no society.

That makes me very proud.

James Blackmon is musician, actor, director and former owner of James Club 88 in Columbus. You can follow him on Twitter at @MrJamesBlackmon. James’ next column will run in Outlook in August.

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in the shade

Join the Parade

Too Many Houses of Worship Take a Pass on Pride

by Debra Shade

tend their churches and are in need of af- stood the agenda and were recognized as firmation as they do for the rest of their guests.

My fiancée and I have visited 15 different congregations. churches looking for a church home.

Hell surrounds us daily. In the old lady at It would make sense for them to make the checkout snapping at the cashier, in Some were downright homophobic. Some themselves available as people come out, the mother yanking her 2-year-old across were tolerant but preached hate from the are shamed or are in transition and turthe street, and in the crime festering pulpit. It wasn’t a surprise to us since moil. But they aren’t. around us. Hell is the doctor’s office that churches have been preaching hate totells you to be 15 minutes early for your ward the community for years. Sucks.

It’s as if they don’t even know that once a appointment and then keeps you waiting year the LGBT community gathers to cele- for 2½ hours in the cold-ass room for a At some churches, we would enjoy a ser- brate its pride and that in doing so, they five-minute chat and checkup. mon one week and come back for a secneed the leadership of the clergy to help ond visit that would be a downright guide and mold those struggling Hell is having overpriced items as necesdisaster. Once, the secondwith the balance of ho- sities. Water and food should not be exvisit sermon shunned homosexuality and the pensive when they’re something we could mosexuality as a “sin.” church. all grow, gather or prepare for ourselves.

We left mid-sermon Hell is that last relationship, that last job, after the fifth, I recently that last schoolday or date. Hell is here, “Gay people will visited a in the poverty that’s killing souls at an sap your rightchurch in uncountable rate. eousness” which statement.

LGBT It’s a painful realization, but when you people grasp this concept, you live a better life There is so are welbecause you know hell on earth is what much happening comed and you must learn to navigate. When you die, within the LGBT not you’re simply at rest in the body, but your community right shunned. My soul meets the requirement to rise again now, it boggles my disbelief was in Heaven. mind. From marriage evident as I enequality to transgender trijoyed a wonderful This is just the point of life, where your umphs, we are struggling to be praise and worship session, soul returns so its next journey can begin. heard, to be free, to be treated equally followed by a word of self-determination and to be accepted. and manifestation of creating change to I read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and was align your life with the Word. pleasantly surprised that someone else But where are the religious leaders during thinks the way I do in regards to hell on our annual Pride celebrations? Some are At Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Columbus, earth. Ishmael, a gorilla that communiwith us, but why aren’t they all holding we were able to receive the Word with fel- cates telepathically, teaches a man who special sermons, gatherings, messages? low churchgoers. It was a different experi- has answered an ad to learn about how It would seem they would have the same ence having members of the church greet humans have come to be and what needs concern about the LGBT people who atand welcome us, ensure that we underto happen to extend our existence.

Where are the religious leaders during our annual Pride celebrations? Why aren’t they all holding special sermons, gatherings, messages?

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Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

Ishmael tells him that humans “were made flawed.” This is the reason why we continue to mess up, why we spend so much time doing what we’re not supposed to do in places where we’re not supposed to be. Ishmael explains that with all of the trials and tribulations humans have succumbed to thus far, it’s no wonder so many are on drugs, drinking and depressed.

Do onto others as they do onto you. Don’t waste an opportunity to figure out how to spend your days here on earth, so when you pass on to the next level of life, you can do so peacefully.

Take a moment to participate in the religious-based activities of your local Pride.

Outlook columnist Debra Shade is an author and owner of Shade Media. You can find her on Facebook at Shadyontop or follow her on Twitter @shadeyontop, and you can find her books on Amazon.com or at a Lion’s Den near you.

Find Your Faith

Equality Ohio maintains an online directory of open and affirming houses of worship. Visit equalityohio.org/find-yourfaith or email info@equalityohio.org to add your congregation to its list. outlookohio.com

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transition point analysis

It Isn’t Over Yet

by Brynn Tannehill

It’s Pride season again, and after the US Supreme Court arguments in April over the right to marry, a lot of us are feeling pretty good, pretty confident. We’ve come so far, so fast. In 11 years we went from zero states where same-sex marriage was legal, to (probably) all of them. Polling data shows people are more likely than ever to support marriage, believe that being gay isn’t a sin, or have a gay or lesbian friend or relative.

We’ve won, right?

Not by a long shot, because it isn’t over yet.

Not while it’s legal in 28 states to get married on Saturday and fired on Monday because you got married. Not while denying housing, jobs, medical care and services to LGB people is legal in 28 states, and doing the same thing to transgender people is legal in 32.

It isn’t over yet.

Not when conservatives are fighting to make bullying of LGBT kids legal as long as it is bullying with sincerely held religious beliefs.

Not when 40 percent of all homeless children are LGBT, because discarding them like trash is OK because they’re queer. Not when children with queer mothers are far more likely to live in abject poverty because of discrimination.

It isn’t over yet.

Not when conservatives in statehouses are nullifying all local protections for LGBT people or passing license-to-discriminate bills aimed squarely at queer folk. Not when almost a dozen bills in legislatures this year are designed to drive transgender people out of entire states by giving them a choice: ar88

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rest or extreme violence every time they use a public bathroom.

It isn’t over yet.

are calling for transgender people to be discriminated against in every aspect of life. Not when the most popular conservative pundits in conservative news outlets get 100,000 shares on Facebook for calling all transgen-

Go out and enjoy Pride. Being proud of who you are is one step toward being able to say we won. But it is only one step.

Not when transgender people are legally barred from getting correct government identification unless they undergo expensive and often unwanted surgical procedures, and even then that often isn’t enough to obtain ID. Not when transgender people cannot obtain medically necessary health care because conservatives don’t like it. Not when religious hospitals can refuse to employ or treat LGBT people. Not when religious conservatives are fighting tooth-and-nail to ensure that the hideous practice of “reparative therapy” endures, and is still legal in 48 states.

der people “delusional,” “sick” “freaks” who should be locked up in mental institutions.

It isn’t over yet.

It’s not over yet.

Not when transgender people are still vilified and murdered in record numbers year after year. Not when conservative commentators

But we will win.

families and our lives at work without fear of retribution or punishment. We will win the right to marry whom we love. We will win the right to live without fear of eviction.

We will win the right to no longer suffer the humiliation of being told, “We don’t serve your kind here.” We will win the right to go to school, and to have legal recourse against both our tormentors and those who allow it.

We will end the torture and barbarism of reparative therapy by making people realize you can’t fix what isn’t broken.

It falls upon us to end this.

It will be over when no child is thrown into the streets for being transgender or bisexual or lesbian or gay. It will be over when no one is afraid to come out.

It will be over when no Christian is belittled for loving and accepting his, her or their LGBT brothers and sisters. It will be over when no one is embarrassed to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Go out and enjoy Pride. Being proud of who you are is one step toward being able to say we won. But it is only one step.

It isn’t over yet.

Not when transgender people are twice as likely to be unemployed and four times more likely to live in desperate poverty despite being twice as likely as the general population to hold advanced post-graduate degrees. Not when queer women of all types suffer high levels of economic discrimination, along with their children.

We will win the right to be honest about our

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

To take the steps necessary toward the day when we can say we have won, we must take this celebration to rest, recharge and commit ourselves to further progress.

Because it’s not over yet.

Not by a long mile.

Brynn Tannehill is a former naval aviator who lives in Virgina. She writes for The Bilerico Project, The Huffington Post and The Good Men Project. Find her on Twitter at @BrynnTannehill. Her next column will appear in Outlook in August. outlookohio.com

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The Burden of Beauty complete the circuit

1950s Heartthrob Tab Hunter Couldn’t Follow His Heart

by Mickey Weems

The scandal made him even more wary of the press. “Journalism is a necessary evil,” he told me.

He passed.

His mare, Harlow (named after Jean Harlow because of her white mane), had just given birth to Skylark. “Isn’t that a great name?” he asked me. I agreed.

“Well, as one of the demons in journalism, I will try to use my powers for good,” I responded. “No, no! I didn’t mean you!” he said, concerned that I might take offense. No offense taken.

Taking the Bit As he rose to stardom, passing became a way of life that allowed little room for the man behind the façade to be anything other than what was scripted for him. The studio created fictitious romances with Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood.

During his career with Warner Brothers, Hunter lived in three worlds. One was a life

Losing the Church Hunter’s childhood wasn’t easy. His parents

I asked if there had been such a thing as Grindr back when he was in his 20s, would

Tab Hunter, the iconic 1950s and ’60s heartthrob of the silver screen, is all about horses.

York Times best-seller list, and Allan Glaser began working with him on the film version.

Divine Intervention, Part 1 Divine intervention struck first in his early 40s. Hunter was in a dump of a hotel in the middle of nowhere when he looked out of his window and saw two nuns dangling their feet in a pond while holding their prayer books. The serenity of that scene resonated within him. He began to rethink his position on religion.

Hunter opened up to another priest, who was very different from the one who rejected him.

No condemnation, only compassion and acceptance that reversed the damage done so many years earlier.

And there is always the spirituality of nature and animal companionship. Hunter has his horses. As he said at the close of our conversation, the world may be rough at times, but things do come around: “Somewhere under the pile of crap, there’s a pony.”

fabricated by the studio, complete with romances with famous actresses and other fodder for star-struck fans. The second was his life as a man who loved other men. The third, the one in which he feels the most comfortable, was with nature.

split, and his mother moved him and his brother to different places in California as she looked for work. He was constantly the object of young female desire, something that repulsed him. His escape was cinema and riding horses.

he have used it? (“What’s that?” he asked. I explained.) No, he would not. I told him about how I was able to come out after I had attended my first circuit party. (Once again, I had to explain: lots of dancing, shirtless guys.) Also not for him. His loneliness as a young man must have been excruciating.

He did not publicly come out until 2006 with the release of his autobiography, Tab Hunter Confidential. Being a man who loves his privacy, Hunter has been reluctant to speak about that second world. That was his business.

He discovered that people entrusted to care for him also were capable of harm. A choirmaster tried to molest him when he was 12.

Years later, he went to confession after meeting a man for sex. Hunter was frightened and sought guidance.

And no wonder. A scandal rag called Confidential got wind he had been arrested for lewd behavior and published an article, “The Lowdown on That ‘Disorderly Conduct’ Charge Against Tab Hunter!” Hunter was 24 and terrified. But Hollywood ignored the article, and his first song, “Young Love,” soared to No. 1.

The priest made it worse. Instead of receiving counsel and absolution, he was condemned.

Divine Intervention, Part 2 Hunter’s Hollywood star began to fade before he was 30 years old. But in his 50s, John Waters offered him a role beside the drag queen, Divine. The tables had turned; no longer was he the straight-boy-next-door. As co-star with Divine in the 1981 cult classic, Polyester (and in a second film, Lust in the Dust), Hunter became a gay icon.

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Hunter eventually was advised to try out for the movies. His good looks got him a screen test with Linda Darnell, the beautiful actress who played the Virgin Mary in Song of Bernadette. He had to kiss her. Passionately.

Hunter decided to write his autobiography because he had heard about another book that would sensationalize his orientation.

Published in 2006, the book made the New

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

Mickey Weems is a writer, educator and creator of the Qualia Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife. You can follow him at mickeyweems.com or qualiafolk.com, or email him at mickeyweems@yahoo.com.

Complete the Circuit runs every other month in Outlook.

Tab Hunter Confidential The Neon in Dayton will host a screening of the documentary version of Tab Hunter’s autobiography on Thursday, June 18.

Pride Night at the Neon starts at 7:30p.

Tickets are $8. The theater is located at 130 E 5th St, Dayton, 45402.

Visit neonmovies.com. june 2015

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creative class

Finally in the Spotlight ‘Exact Change’ Brings Trans Experience to Center Stage in Cleveland

by Luke Darby

Howey writes theater reviews for Cleveland seen before we can be understood. Just like Scene. She’s been a critic since 1997 and has gay people or anyone else. We can’t hide.”

The story applies to anyone: “Everyone is trying a reputation for sharp, biting prose. Although to be who they are, even if they aren’t transshe had acting experience before becoming a Which is hard. Many transgender people gender. This is the story about becoming who critic, she said getting back on stage was in- choose to move somewhere new once they’ve you are, becoming comfortable with who you timidating. transitioned, and “passing” is something covare, and navigating the transition into that eted. place.”

“I was setting myself up for intense scrutiny, let’s say.”

“It’s a huge draw,” Howey said. “I can’t tell you This is Christine Howey’s take on her onehow attractive that woman play, Exact Change, about her transi- But the work was is.” tion in the early 1990s. Exact Change more important “Exact Change is a onepremiered in early 2014 at Cleveland Public than any fears.

But Howey chose Theater and reopens this month at Playhouse to stay in Clevewoman tour-de-force Square, the heart of Cleveland’s theater dis“It’s disturbed me land Heights, trict. all along. I transiwhere she has spiced with political tioned 25 years lived her entire life.

The play covers Howey’s entire life, starting ago, and I’ve been And she has sacrirants, historical reflecfrom childhood and moving beyond her transi- OK. It’s mainly beficed anonymity to tion, examining what coming out as a cause of class isput a human face tions, personal stories transwoman has meant to her, her ex-wife, her sues: I’ve had a on transgender isdaughter and her mother. good job for a long sues. and an incisive wit that time and I’ve had “It’s the kind of event that afterward you don’t money, so I could “Often I have a truly packs a punch.” charge to your car,” said Gina Vernaci, execu- keep myself safe. talk-back after the - Playhouse Square show. The auditive producer at Playhouse Square. “The audi- I’ve passed well ence wants to stay and talk to Christine, and it enough so I don’t ence takes a creates a sense of community. It’s what the draw attention to break, comes back arts are supposed to do, foster conversation.” myself. That’s not the case for most people. in, asks questions. It’s almost like a catharsis They don’t have the assets to make sure for me because I see such a range of emoVernaci saw the original production of Exact they’re getting the right help for transitioning, tions. An Akron man once said, ‘You’ve just Change at the Big Box Festival, and the play and they live in dangerous places, they don’t extinguished one of my last prejudices.’” struck her as both smart and brave. have a car so they’re just more vulnerable.”

Exact Change might be a deeply personal “I went up to her afterward and said, ‘You’ve While the existence of trans characters on TV story for Howey, but it’s about discovering and got something and you should keep at it.’” is positive, Howey said she doesn’t think it’s embracing who you are when no one else is After that, Vernaci helped Howey tweak the enough. around. play, providing feedback and eventually inviting her to perform it at Playhouse Square.

“It’s great that there are fictional characters “I always had a snarky sarcastic bent to my now, but real transgender people need to be writing. That comes up in my criticism, and

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that’s why I was afraid [of getting negative reviews]. I wondered if I would become all daffodils and lollipops, but I’m the same person.”

The play hasn’t changed her, but it has changed others.

“I just want people to walk in with whatever preconceptions they have, because I’ve found that the play can change them. Two or three women told me they brought their husbands who knew nothing about transgender issues at all, just came along because their wives picked the evening. And suddenly it’s a real thing for them. ‘Now that I know somebody and can see their story, it’s fine. It’s OK.’”

Luke Darby is a freelance writer and editor living in Cleveland. You can find him online at lukedarby.com or on Twitter at @DukeLarby.

Exact Change

June 11-27, Thursdays through Saturdays @ the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre, Playhouse Square, 1407 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, 44115.

Thursday and Friday shows are at 8p; Saturday shows are at 5p and 8:30p.

Tickets are $29.50 at playhousesquare.org or 216.771.4444.

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lakewoodartsfest.org

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creative class

Keep Ohio Beautiful

Arts Festivals Add More Shine to Summer

by Alisa Caton

Ohio’s festival season is here, and Pride isn’t the only thing we’re celebrating across the state.

All summer long, from Cincinnati to Cleveland, art festivals will showcase the work of Ohio artists. Here are just a few options for your summer time exploration. Visit discoverohio.com for the full calendar of summer activities in Ohio.

Summer Arts Festival Springfield, June 11-July 19 This month-long event in Western Ohio features musical and theatrical performances every Wednesday through Sunday night at the Turner Pavilion in Veterans Park. Seating on the lawn is first-come, first-served, but they open it up at 6a each day for die-hards. Shows begin between 5p-8p; free admission. Visit springfieldartscouncil.org.

Columbus Arts Festival Downtown Columbus, June 12-14 The Columbus Arts festival returns to the Scioto Mile with country music star Neal McCoy on Friday night. More than 300 artists will show their work, and six stages will feature music, dancing and the art of the spoken word. Friday and Saturday, 11a10:30p; Sunday 11a-5p; free admission. Visit columbusartsfestival.org.

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Granville Art Affair & Wine Festival Granville, June 12-13 Located in the heart of town at the historic Great Lawn and Bryn Du Mansion, this annual Central Ohio event mixes two passions: wine and art. More than 80 artists are featured, and you also can take painting classes and participate in wineand beer-tastings. Friday, 5p-9p; Saturday, 10:30a-8p; free admission, but the beer- and wine-tastings are $10. Visit granvilleartaffair.com.

Crocker Park Fine Art Fair Westlake, June 20-21 In its 10th year, this art show features both fine art and a craft marketplace in the center of the suburban Cleveland outdoor shopping center. Saturday, 10a-8p; Sunday, 11a-6p; free admission. Visit crockerpark.com.

Worthington Art Festival Worthington, June 20-21 The Columbus suburb hosts its 23rd Annual Art on the Green. The weekly farmer’s market will be on site Saturday. Saturday, 9a-6p; Sunday, 11a-5p; free admission. Visit oldeworthingtonbusinessassociation.com.

50th Annual Crosby Festival of the Arts Toledo, June 27-28

More than 230 artists show their work at the Toledo Botanical Garden.

There’s also live entertainment and a Children’s Artistic Playhouse. Saturday, 10a-7p; Sunday, 10a-4p; $8, but kids 12 and younger are free.

Visit toledogarden.org.

Cain Park Arts Festival Cleveland Heights, July 10-12 Art in all media from more than 150 artists is on display in the Cleveland suburb. There’s also a wine-tasting on Friday. Friday, 3p-8p; Saturday, 10a-8p; Sunday, noon-5p; free on Friday but $5 on Saturday and Sunday. Visit cainpark.com.

The Willoughby Arts Fest Willoughby, July 18 Artists, antiques-sellers and food vendors fill the streets of the Cleveland suburb. 10a-5p; free admission.Visit wwlcchamber.com/events/artsfest.

Akron Arts Expo Akron, July 23-26 More than 30,000 people come out each year for all of the events. Taste of Akron, July 23, 6p-10p; free admission, $2 food tickets. Wine-tasting, July 24, 6p-8:30p, $40. Arts Expo, July 25-26; Saturday from 10a-6p, Sunday from 10a-5p; free admission. Visit akronartsexpo.org.

Lakewood Arts Festival Lakewood, Aug 1 About 150 artists are expected, and the festival’s proceeds go toward a fine-arts scholarship for local high school students in the Cleveland suburb. Saturday, 10a-6p; free admission. Visit lakewoodartsfest.org.

Salt Fork Arts and Crafts Festival Cambridge, Aug 7-9 This three-day juried festival in Southeastern Ohio hosts high-end artists in everything from sculpture to photography, with local food and crafts on hand. Friday, 3p-8p; Saturday, 11a-7p; Sunday, 10a-4p; free admission. Visit saltforkfestival.org.

Art on the Lawn Yellow Springs, Aug 8 Village Artisans, the local artist cooperative hosts this annual outdoor festival. The event highlights their own work but also is open to all artists in the Miami Valley of Western Ohio. Saturday, 10a-5p; free admission. Visit villageartisans.blogspot.com.

Art-a-Palooza North Canton, Aug 22 The Northeastern Ohio festival takes place in North Canton’s Boettler Park and highlights artists in jewelry, pottery, fabric and more. Saturday, 10a5p; free admission. Visit greenartscouncil.org.

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival Upper Arlington, Sept 7 Since 1983, the Columbus suburb has celebrated the holiday weekend with local artists in Northam Park.

More than 25,000 visitors and more than 200 artists are expected. Monday, 10a-5p; free admission. Visit uaoh.net.

Old Hilliard Art and Street Fair Hilliard, Sept 12 Art, music, food, cars and games all come together to shut down Main Street in this Columbus suburb.

Saturday, 10a-8p; free admission.

Visit oldhilliardfest.org.

Art in the Park Put-in-Bay, Sept 12 This art festival adds an island flavor with a backdrop of the Lake Erie shores. Artists from around the state travel to Ohio’s top waterfront destination for one of the last art festivals of the season. Saturday, 10a-5p; free admission. Visit visitputinbay.com.

Alisa Caton graduated from Ohio University with a degree in journalism. She’s a freelance writer who lives in Columbus. outlookohio.com

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Columbus Artist Emerges Onto Arts Festival Stage

by Alisa Caton

Each year the Columbus Arts Festival accepts a handful of applicants for their Emerging Artist program. It’s a chance for artists who have little or no experience selling their work at festivals to learn from the best.

The program provides workshops to walk artists through the process of preparing for the festival and how to best display their work. Among the short list of finalists for the program is Mary Ann Crago.

A Columbus native and member of the LGBT community, Crago said she has been attending the Columbus Arts Festival for years and is excited to be part of it. Her work is extremely unique, as she dubs herself an assembler who combines many different artistic skills. “(My) recent work is a combination of found objects, paint, text and handsculpted pieces. They’re intimate, wellcrafted assemblages. I enjoy the hunt and can’t think of anything better than giving an old forgotten object or photo new life through one of my pieces,” she said.

“I started experimenting with adding paper and then adding the 3D element,” she said.

Antique shops and flea markets are her top destinations when searching for unique items to add to her work.

“Anytime I visit another city on vacation, I always try to look for things. I can find new photographs and things I’ve never seen before. Even before I was creating this type of work I was always drawn to collecting things.”

Many of Crago’s pieces are focused on birds and the idea of flight. Small bird sculptures and painted feathers are common parts of her work. And, yes, there’s a reason for it.

“I like the whole idea of flying and lifting ourselves or raising ourselves up to our potential. I think this whole idea of the feathers and flight is of freeing ourselves,” she said. “It has kind of grabbed me and I’m following it right now.”

“I’m a collector of things and am especially drawn to old boxes, wood and metal, old photos and anything small and round.”

Crago works as a librarian at the Columbus Metropolitan Library and said outlookohio.com

access to an unlimited supply of art books has been a huge inspiration. After reading about assemblage pieces, she was drawn to the work and decided to start trying it on her own.

Crago and her assemblage pieces will be at the Rich Street Bridge location at the Columbus Arts Festival from June 12-14.

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creative class

The Sound of Pride

by Bryan Cole

You’d be forgiven for saying your senses go into overdrive during the month of June.

tion that singing will be an integral part of the experience. All four of Ohio’s gay men’s choruses - in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton - have June concerts scheduled this year.

During Pride, Ohio’s big cities fill with rainbow flags and tank-topped couples, and the scent “We’ve kind of been tagged as the cap to the of barbecue and food trucks wafts through the weekend,” Dayton Gay Men’s Chorus President air.

David Moyer said of his group, which performs the night of Dayton’s Pride festival.

But what does Pride sound like?

“We reached out to several different performers,” Moyer said of Dayton’s search for a headGay choruses have been a mainstay of Ohio prides for years, their popularity often eclips- liner. “It just happened that Jennifer was ing Pride itself. Many have robust concert sea- available that weekend.” sons that span the entire year.

Jennifer Holliday, that is.

But when Pride rolls around, there’s no ques-

June 6 Dayton Gay Men’s Chorus daytongaymenschorus.org

June 13-14 Cincinnati Men’s Chorus cincinnatimenschorus.org

“Center Stage: A Broadway Revue” is the theme, and the concert will include showstoppers from South Pacific, Les Mis, Wicked, Kinky Boots and other musicals. No doubt the real showstopper will come, though, when Grammy- and Tony-winning singer Jennifer Holliday, Broadway’s first Effie in Dreamgirls, takes the stage to perform with the chorus.

“Broadway Our Way” is the theme, and before you say anything funny bout half the state’s gay choruses performing showtunes let us just say... Only half??! Actually, Cincinnati chorus leaders say this is just the second time in 24 years that they’ve done a Broadway-themed concert. They promise a selection of classic and contemporary favorites.

The concert starts at 8p at the Victoria Theater, 138 N Main Street, Dayton, 45402. Tickets are $27-$37.

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The Saturday concert starts at 8p, and the Sunday show starts at 3p at the Corbett Theatre in the School for Creative and Performing Arts, 108 West Central Pkwy, Cincinnati, 45202. Tickets are $25.

Ohio’s Gay Men’s Choruses Sing Out Every Weekend in June

With the original Dreamgirl joining the chorus onstage, Moyer is anticipating the group’s largest audience yet. But it’s the themes of each performance, he said, that make gay men’s choruses so popular.

Music has a unique ability to connect with listeners on an emotional level, and maybe even touch the hearts of people who weren’t necessarily knowledgeable about the joys and struggles of being LGBT.

This year, the Dayton Gay Men’s Chorus will perform Broadway hits. The program includes “Not My Father’s Son” from Kinky Boots, which is about the pain of not growing up to be the person your dad thought you would be. It’s Moyer’s favorite.

And nabbing Jennifer Holliday certainly can’t hurt, either.

“It’s rewarding to perform songs that incorporate themes that resonate with the community,” he said. “I think this organization can speak to parts of the community that other organizations can’t.”

June 20-21 North Coast Men’s Chorus, Cleveland ncmchorus.org

Below is a preview of what each of Ohio’s gay men’s choruses has planned in June:

Bryan Cole grew up in Dublin, Ohio, and graduated from Ohio State University in 2012.

June 26-28 Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus columbusgaymenschorus.com

Cleveland’s gay men’s chorus will perform a show with the theme, “Welcome to the ’60s.”

(They did their Broadway show in April.) The decade gives them a lot to work with: The Beatles and the British Invasion, Motown, Elvis, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Woodstock, Sonny & Cher and more.

Christine Pedi, a voice impressionist, singer and radio host, joins the chorus for “Divas: Dead or Alive.” The show will feature songs by female icons of pop, rock, jazz, disco, country and Broadway, from days long-gone to the present day. This is the final concert of the 25th anniversary season of the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus.

The Saturday show is at 8p, and the Sunday show is at 3p at Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, 2001 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, 44115. Tickets are $10-35.

The Friday and Saturday shows are at 8p, and the Sunday show is at 3p at the Lincoln Theatre, 769 E Long St, Columbus, 43203.

Tickets are $35.

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bookmark

Season’s Readings LGBT Titles Will Keep You Turning Pages This Summer

by Gregg Shapiro The summer-reading shelves are full. Here’s a rundown of recommendations for the season:

ILLUSTRATED MEN AND WOMEN The Completely Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green: A collection of strips by Eric Orner, whose (mostly) unlucky-in-love character appeared in a variety of publications from 1989 to 2005. (Northwest Press)

Lyudmila and Natasha: Photojournalist Misha Friedman’s intimate photos depict a lesbian couple in St. Petersburg, Russia, as their relationship develops over the period of a year. (The New Press) Rad American Women A-Z: Described as a book for kids - “and their parents, teachers and cool grown-up friends” - author Kate Schatz and illustrator by Miriam Klein Stahl features queer heroines such as Angela Davis and Billie Jean King in just the first couple of pages, as well as trans activist Kate Bornstein and friends of the LGBT community such as Patti Smith and Carol Burnett, among others. (City Lights) Playing to the Gallery: Text and illustrations by cross-dressing artist, potter and Turner Prize-recipient Grayson Perry helps gallerygoers understand what’s hanging on the walls - and why. (Penguin) 100

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Bordered Lives: Photographer Kike Arnal trains his lens on Mexico City’s transgender community to “challenge society’s preconceived notions of sexuality, gender and beauty” in Mexico and beyond. (The New Press)

POETS’ CORNER

The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014: Queer poets Mark Doty, CP Cavafy, James Merrill, Richard Blanco, Thom Gunn, WH Auden, Frank O’Hara, Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg, as well as Stephen Sondheim, are among the folks getting a nod from poet David Lehman, who has collected all 29 of the forewords he has written for The Best American Poetry annual anthologies. (University of Pittsburgh) Angel Park: The fabulous debut collection by Oakland-based gay poet Roberto F Santiago features poetry touching on geography, culture, sexuality, heritage and more. He’s a welcome and refreshing voice on the scene. (Tincture) On Elizabeth Bishop: Gay writer Colm Tóibín blends biography and literary appreciation for the celebrated lesbian poet as he writes about the connections he feels to Bishop. (Princeton) Dark Sparkler: A poetry collection by actress and writer Amber Tamblyn focuses on the “lives of women who glimmered on-screen and crashed in life,” including Sharon Tate, Marilyn Monroe, Brittany Murphy, Jayne Mansfield, Dana Plato, Jean Harlow and others. (Harper Perennial) Tapping My Arm for a Vein: Prolific and award-winning gay poet Jim Elledge returns with a brand new collection featuring more than a dozen poems about his character, Mister. (Lethe Press)

More Money Than God: Poet and children’s book author Richard Michelson brings his trademark sense of humor, as well as his sensitive and witty observations over the course of more than 30 poems. (University of Pittsburgh) outlookohio.com

NON-FICTION SECTION

You’re Not Edith: Lesbian essayist Allison Gruber has produced a splendid collection of autobiographical essays, mainly set in Chicago and Milwaukee, focused on her battle with cancer.

(George Braziller) Frank: Out and outspoken former US Rep. Barney Frank tells his story. It’s as feisty as the man himself, and you can almost hear his distinctive voice while you read. (Farrar Straus Giroux) Whatever... Love Is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves: Actress, activist and writer Maria Bello asks and answers a series questions such as “Am I A Partner?,” “Am I A Good Mom?,” “Am I A Humanitarian?,” “Am I A Feminist?,” “Am I Enough?” and “Am I LGBT or W?,” in this unusual take on the memoir. (Dey Street) My Avant-Garde Education (Norton) and Smash Cut: A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s (Harper): It could be a trend, as art and AIDS intersect in two very different, but equally important and moving memoirs.

Bernard Cooper’s West Coast My AvantGarde Education and Brad Gooch’s East Coast Smash Cut complement each other when read in any order.

Women in Dark Times: Jacqueline Rose examines the lives of nine women - revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxembourg; painter Charlotte Salomon; movie star Marilyn Monroe; “honorkilling” victims Shafilea Ahmed, Fadime Sahindal and Heshu Yones; and visual artists Esther Shalev-Gerz, Yael Bartana and Thérèse Oulton - in a tome about establishing a new template for feminism.

(Bloomsbury) The Human Agenda: Subtitled Conversations About Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity, the collection by writer and activist Joe Wenke features interviews with The Noonday Demon author Andrew Solomon, trans comedian Ian Harvie, RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Carmen Carrera, hip-hop artist Y-Love and others. (Trans Über)

FICTION SHELF

JD: This fantastic novel is acclaimed gay writer Mark Merlis’ (American Studies), first in a dozen years. It’s told in two voices. The first is that of the late gay writer Jonathan Ascher, and we hear from him through his journals. The second belongs to his widow, Martha, who learns more about her late husband than she ever imagined while reading his journals.

(University of Wisconsin) Orient: The second novel by Interview magazine editor Christopher Bollen is a taut murder-mystery set in a community of transplanted artists in the titular “isolated town” on the North Fork of Long Island. (Harper)

Haw: Set in a “pitiless, bleak, futuristic America,” the debut novel by North Carolinian Sean Jackson is described as a “Brave New World for modern times” by writer Mitch Cullin. (Harvard Square Editions) Across a Green Ocean: Wendy Lee’s second novel introduces us to closeted and untethered Michael and his immigration-lawyer sister Emily, who are coming to terms with the death of their father. (Kensington) Changers: Book Two - Oryon: This collaboration between trans writer T Cooper (whose 2006 Lipschitz 6 or Two Angry Blondes is a must read!) and his wife, Allison Glock-Cooper, is the second in a series of young-adult novels about an ancient race of humans who must live out each year of high school as a completely different person. (Black Sheep/Akashic)

Gregg Shapiro is a freelance entertainment journalist based in Florida. His work appears regularly in Outlook, and his fiction writing has appeared in Blithe House Quarterly, an anthology of queer short stories.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

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interview

The Emboldened Girls

Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda: They’re Bigger and Bolder and Back on TV

by Chris Azzopardi

Lily Tomlin is watching Jane Fonda weep.

As the showbiz icon releases a steady stream of waterworks - she’s “wiping tears away,” Tomlin notes - Fonda pauses slightly to collect herself before answering.

The question? Why have gay men forever revered older women even when the rest of the world - and Hollywood - has not?

“I find the question so moving that it makes me cry,” Fonda says.

It’s one revelatory moment among many during this candid conversation with the 77year-old Fonda and 75-year-old Tomlin, who star together in the new Netflix original series, Grace and Frankie. The beloved pair play two golden girls forced to start anew after their husbands drop a big truth bomb: They’re in love with each other.

This isn’t the actresses’ first time working together, of course.

In 1980, Tomlin and Fonda memorably joined forces with Dolly Parton to put misogynistic 102

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men in their place in 9 to 5. Decades later, the film is a feminist-celebrated comedy classic.

Will Dolly make a cameo on Grace and Frankie? During our freewheeling interview, the two longtime friends talked about the possibility of a 9 to 5 reunion on their new series, but they revealed plenty more too. Fonda opened up about her own experiences dating high-profile gay men, one of whom proposed to her. Tomlin recalled the time she lashed out at Chita Rivera.

But first, the crying.

Chris Azzopardi: You’ve both addressed aging in Hollywood, and this show deals a lot with aging as well. Historically, gay men - we love our Golden Girls, we already love Grace and Frankie, we love our Chers and Bette Midlers. Why do you think, despite Hollywood’s reputation for ageism, there has always been a place for older women in the gay community?

Lily Tomlin: I may be terribly wrong and cutting my tongue out for this: It’s like, well, we’re women of a certain age, and maybe we’re considered more audacious.

Jane Fonda: I find the question so moving that it makes me cry. I had never thought of it before, and it makes me so moved. I think Lily put her finger on it just now. Older women tend to be more audacious. They’re bigger and bolder and, god knows, gay men love big and bold, right?

CA: You both have had a profound influence on the LGBT and ally movements. Can you share a moment in your lives as LGBT activists and trailblazers that stand out as particularly memorable to you?

Jane: Campaigning with Harvey Milk in the Castro District in San Francisco for Prop 6. He was the most joyous. He was like Allen Ginsberg. He was always smiling and laughing, and he was beloved and he was funny. The most lovable person. I was so happy when I was with him. And it was just so much fun going into those gay bars with him. Oh my god!

Lily: I never got to meet Harvey Milk. I knew (LGBT activist and historian) Vito Russo; he was my good friend. I used to exchange so many stories with him. I was up on the Strip one night when I was not on Laugh-In yet. I

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

was unknown and a woman that I was friends with who was a publicist had brought Chita Rivera to meet me, and Chita talked with a Bronx accent, and she’s talking really fast and you don’t know what she’s saying. I kind of zoned out for a minute because I could hardly understand her at that point, and then I suddenly heard her say, “purse nelly.” First she had said my “boy dancers” and the skin on the back of my neck bristled up, and that’s when she said, “purse nelly” and then I just went ballistic. I said, “What did you say?!”

CA: You lashed out at Chita Rivera?

Lily: I lashed out. She said, “I dunno! WHADISAY?” I said, “You said, ‘purse nelly.’ I wanna know what that means. What you meant by that!” “I don’t know. Whadisay?

Pursenelly? Personally.” She was saying “personally”!

Jane: Personally! (Laughs) Lily: And I didn’t even cop to it. I was so embarrassed. I just doubled over laughing and fell on the floor.

CA: What is different about working with outlookohio.com

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each other on Grace and Frankie compared to when you worked together on 9 to 5 35 years ago?

Jane: We’re together more! I mean, it’s four months, almost every day for almost 15 hours, which is a real treat for me. You know, Lily is very unusual. She has a real funny bone. So, watching her take on not just the scripts but life is a pleasure.

Lily: Thank you, Ms. Fonda!

CA: After doing the first season of Grace and Frankie, what advice do you have for women who are romantically involved with a gay man?

Jane: Try to stay friends. You know, it happened to a friend of mine when I lived in Atlanta, and she told me about it and it was very hard for her because she really loved him a lot. Because she loved him, she was able to understand that he needed to become who he really was, and they remained very, very close friends and they still live in the same building. I think that’s the way to do it. Compassion, empathy, love, understanding - we need more of it.

CA: Have either of you dated a gay man before?

Jane: Oh yes! Oh my god. When I was young, I was the female that gay guys wanted to try to become heterosexual with. A very famous actor who’s gay - and I will not name names asked me to marry him. I was very flattered, but I said, “Why?” This was 1964. And I mean, he wasn’t the only one. It’s very interesting. And I lived for two years with a guy who was trying to become heterosexual. I’m intimately acquainted with that.

CA: Did that come to mind as you were shooting this show, where you are married to a gay man?

Jane: (Laughs) No! Not until you made me think of it right now.

CA: Netflix has really been a pioneer in reaching beyond LGBT stereotypes and being LGBT-inclusive, and it’s done it again with Grace and Frankie. How do you feel about the state of gay characters on TV as a whole? And what is it about this platform that allows Netflix to tell LGBT stories without getting gimmicky or exploitative?

Lily: I think it’s been a long time coming. Although, it’s happened because of so many things that have gone before, and this culture has changed. Large parts of the culture have changed. Not the culture as a whole. You

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know, there’s still a lot of...

Jane: Homophobia. I lived in the South for 20 years, and, unfortunately, homophobia is all too alive and rampant, but because there are so many more gay men and women in mass media and they’re very lovable - and more and more people are coming out - Americans know somebody who’s gay and lesbian. Once that happens, it’s a lot harder to remain homophobic.

CA: Did you ever think that marriage equality would be a reality in your lifetime?

Lily: No, I did not.

Jane: No, I didn’t either.

Lily: I mean, I began to suspect. The last generation or two that have come along, they so demanded to be visible and they’ve taken for granted everything that the gay community had fought for so hard for a long time - it was wiped away from their minds that they were not accepted or not loved. I mean, they may have known it but they didn’t own it.

Jane: I agree, and I’m very optimistic. I found what Justice Kennedy said - that it should be looked at as sex discrimination - cause for optimism.

CA: I remember when this show was announced, everyone was really hyped about you two getting back together, but they were also hoping for a Dolly Parton cameo.

Has that been discussed as a real possibility among showrunners?

Lily: Well, it’s been discussed because so many people inquired about it and thought about it. Of course Dolly’s a good friend and the three of us really like each other and we’ve been friends all these years, but because Grace and Frankie is set apart, we want to establish our identity before we think about dragging the 9 to 5 life into it.

Jane: It’s a different style. It’s a different animal. We wanna keep it that way. For now, anyway.

CA: What do you think your 9 to 5 characters, Judy and Violet, are up to these days?

Jane: Violet’s probably heading up a Silicon Valley company! Maybe we’re married!

Chris Azzopardi is the editor of Q Syndicate, the international LGBT wire service. Reach him via his website at www.chris-azzopardi.com.

Photo: Melissa Moseley/Netflix

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

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Out & About

COLUMBUS / CENTRAL

SATURDAY, JUNE 6 Walk With a Doc: Lesbians & Queer Families Walk @ Franklin Park, 1755 E Broad St, Columbus, 43203; 614.645.7417; columbus.gov/publichealth: Columbus Public Health’s LGBTQ Health Initiative will host Dr. Shelley Blackburn, a 20-year family physician with many LGBT patients. She will give a short presentation and then lead a one- to two-mile walk where participants can ask her questions. 8:45a; free.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6 Human Rights Campaign Columbus Gala @ The Ohio State University Ohio Union, 1739 N High St, Columbus, 43210; hrccolumbusdinner.com: HRC’s annual black-tie dinner raises money for its work in Washington. 5p; $100-$250.

Columbus Metropolitan Tennis Organization Social @ OSU Lincoln Tower Courts, 1790 Cannon Dr, Columbus, 43210; cmto1.org: The LGBT tennis group hosts free outdoor socials every month - weather permitting - for members and nonmembers alike. 10a-noon.

SUNDAY, JUNE 7 Love Big LGBT Wedding Expo @ Hollywood Casino, 200 Georgesville Rd, Columbus, 43228; 614.268.8525, x1; lovebigweddingexpo.com: Forget those 104

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homophobic bakers and caterers who refuse to take your money. All of the businesses at Outlook’s LGBT wedding expo support your right to marry. Dozens of vendors - venues, DJs, photographers, bakers, caterers and more - will be on hand at Ohio’s only LGBT wedding events. 11a-3p; free.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 Network Columbus/Out With Our Elected Officials @ Ohio History Center, 800 E 17th Ave, Columbus, 43211; 614.268.8525, x1; networkcolumbus.com: Come meet LGBTfriendly officials and candidates at Outlook’s monthly networking event. 6p-8p; free.

THURSDAY, JUNE 11 SUNDAY, JUNE 14 Thrill Me: The Leopold and Leob Story @ Short North Stage, 1187 N High St, Columbus, 43201; 614.725.4042; shortnorthstage.org: This musical, described as a psychological sex thriller, is about the relationship between Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two gay University of Chicago students who kidnapped and killed 14-year-old boy in 1924 because they wanted to attempt “the perfect crime.” Performances also are scheduled from Thursday, June 18 to Sunday, June 21. 8p (June 11-12, 18-21), 9p (June 13) and 3p (June 14); $20.

SATURDAY, JUNE 13 Gay Softball World Series Night @ Columbus Crew, 1 Black and Gold Blvd, Columbus, 43211; clgsa.com: A portion of ticket sales for the Crew game vs. the Los Angeles Galaxy will go toward the 2015 Gay Softball World Series, to take place in Columbus in August. And not that you should root against the hometown team, but openly gay Robbie Rogers plays for LA. You must order your tickets

by June 11. Visit the Columbus Lesbian & Gay Softball Association’s Facebook page for a link to tickets. 7:30p; $20$30.

A Midsummer Night’s Drag @ Wall Street, 133 N Wall St, Columbus, 43215; 614.464.2800; wallstreetnightclubandshowbar.com: It’s a gender-bending blend of acting and drag inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Featuring Alice Rottenn, Alman Joy, Bebe Webmeister, Bug Carmean, Butterfly, Lady Basham, Claira Bell, Crystal Swarovski,

Dara Robinson, Diamond Hunter, Frenchy, Jen Smith, DD Viscious, Orion Hyde, Samantha Sparxx, Stella Boheme, Ms Thichjustright, Tracy Butler-Martinez, Timber Wolf, Toe B and Viva Valezz!. 8p; ticket info to be announced.

FRIDAY, JUNE 26 SUNDAY, JUNE 28 Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus/Divas: Dead or Alive @ Lincoln Theatre, 769 E Long St, Columbus, 43203; 614.228.2462; columbusgaymenschorus.com: Singer, actor, voice impressionist and radio host Christine Pedi joins the chorus in its celebration of female singers. Friday and Saturday performances at 8p, Sunday show at 3p; $35.

MONDAY, JUNE 29 Dark Monday: A Celebration of Columbus Theater @ Short North Stage, 1187 N High St, Columbus, 43201; 614.725.4042; shortnorthstage.org: The benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS features performances by CATCO, Columbus Children’s Theatre, Curtain Players, Imagine Productions, King Avenue Players, Short North Stage, SNAP! Performance Productions, SRO Theatre Company and other Central Ohio groups.

Nina West hosts. 8p; $20.

CINCINNATI / SOUTHWEST

TUESDAY, JUNE 2 Cincinnati Allies for Equality Reception @ The Woodward Theater, 1404 Main St, Cincinnati, 45202; 614.224.0400; equalityohio.org: Equality Ohio’s first event to honor LGBT allies in Cincinnati will recognize Jennifer Branch and Al Gerhardstein, the lawyers who challenged Ohio’s marriage restrictions all the way to the US Supreme Court. The honorary host is Jim Obergefell, the widower whose case will be decided this month. 5:30p-7:30p; $50-$2,500.

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

SATURDAY, JUNE 13 SUNDAY, JUNE 14 Cincinnati Men’s Chorus: Broadway Our Way @ Corbett Theatre, School for Creative and Performing Arts, 108 West Central Pkwy, Cincinnati, 45202; 513.542.2626; cincinnatimenschorus.org: Believe it or not, this is only the second time in its history that Cincinnati’s gay men’s chorus has done a concert of show tunes.

They’ll sing classic and contemporary hits. 8p Saturday and 3p Sunday; $25.

SUNDAY, JUNE 14 A Cosplay to Remember Leelah Alcorn: Diverse City Cosplay 2015 @ Woodward Theatre, 1404 Main St, Cincinnati, 45202; FB: Diverse City Youth Chorus: As part of a five-hour Cosplay festival (people dress as characters from movies, books or video games), the Diverse City Youth Chorus will perform a comic book dedicated to Leelah Alcorn, the suburban Cincinnati transgender teen who killed herself in December. Noon-5p (chorus performs at 2:30p); $10 ($8 in advance).

FRIDAY, JUNE 19 Michael Walters as Dame Edna @ Below Zero, 1120 Walnut St, Cincinnati, 45202; 513.421.9376; belowzerolounge.com: Barry Humphries the Dame Edna - has called celebrity impersonator Michael Walters’ show “spectacular.” So check it out, possums. 8p; ticket info to be announced.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20 Kink U Cincinnati @ Below Zero Lounge, 1120 Walnut St, Cincinnati, 45202; 513.421.9376; titansofthemidwest.org: Titans of the Midwest, a self-described “educational kink organization,” hosts sessions such as Rope 101, Flogging 101, Leather Care, Fire Play, Kinky Massage and more.

SUNDAY, JUNE 21 Mr. Mister Contest @ The Cabaret, 1122 Walnut St, Cincinnati, 45202; 513.202.4052; cabaretcincinnati.com: Local drag kings compete for the crown.

All money raised goes toward YWCA male health programs. 7p-11p.

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44115; 216.771.4444; playhousesquare.org: Christine Howey, a longtime theater critic for Cleveland Scene, performs a one-woman show about her journey as a trans woman. (See our story on Page 95.) 8p Thursdays and Fridays, 5p and 8:30p Saturdays; $29.50.

CLEVELAND-AKRON / NORTHEAST

SATURDAY, JUNE 6 Pride Prom @ Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron, 3300 Morewood Rd, Fairlawn, 44333; 330.252.1559; FB: Teen Pride Network: Akron’s Teen Pride Network hosts a prom - the theme is Candyland - for LGBT and allied teens. Wear your formal prom attire. No tickets will be sold at the door, so visit the network’s Facebook page for a link to tickets. 7p11p; $15.

SUNDAY, JUNE 7 Tatsuya Nagashima in Concert @ Pub Bricco, 1841 Merriman Rd, Akron, 44313; 330.869.0035; canapi.org: Worldrenowned classical pianist Tatsuya Nagashima will perform his third annual benefit concert for CANAPI, Akron’s LGBT center and HIV/AIDS services organization.

Tickets include a post-concert reception with cocktails and appetizers. 6p; $35.

MONDAY, JUNE 8 Akron Film + Pride: Bridegroom @ Nightlight Cinema, 30 S High St, Akron, 44308; 330.252.1559; canapi.org: This 2013 documentary, the story of Shane Bitney Crone and Tom Bridegroom, is a powerful demonstration of what can happen to same-sex couples who have no legal recognition of their relationships. 7p; $10.

Preparing for the Freedom to Marry in Ohio @ Shinn Lanter LLP, 12511 Madison Ave, Lakewood, 44107; 216.228.4791; shinnlanter.com: Law partners Maria Shinn and Joe Lanter discuss what the US Supreme Court might do in regards to marriage equality and what same-sex couples need to know once marriage equality comes to Ohio. 6p-7:30p.

THURSDAY, JUNE 11 SATURDAY, JUNE 27 Exact Change @ the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre, Playhouse Square, 1407 Euclid Ave, Cleveland,

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FRIDAY, JUNE 12 PrEP Training for HIV Testers @ Old Brooklyn Neighborhood Family Service Center, 4261 Fulton Pkwy, Cleveland, 44114; 216.781.2944, x440: This training hosted by the AIDS Funding Collaborative is free for people who administer HIV testing. It’s designed to integrate information about the new HIV-prevention regimen, PrEP, into their counseling and discussions. 8:30a-noon.

LGBT Community Center/Top of the Crop Fundraiser @ Crop Bistro & Bar, 2537 Lorain Ave, Cleveland, 44113; 216.651.5428; lgbtcleveland.org: Part of the LGBT Community Center’s TaDa! series of fundraising events, this event is a rooftop party with views of Ohio City, Downtown and Lake Erie, along with summertime fare from Chef Steve Schimoler. 6p; $55.

DAYTON / WEST

SATURDAY, JUNE 6 Dayton Gay Men’s Chorus With Jennifer Holliday @ the Victoria Theater, 138 N Main Street, Dayton, 45402; 937.228.3630 or 888.228.3630; daytongaymenschorus.com: It’s a Broadway revue - songs from South Pacific, Les Mis, Wicked, Kinky Boots and more - but the showstopper will be the original Dream Girl. 8p; $27-$37.

TUESDAY, JUNE 9 PFLAG Dayton Scholarship Banquet @ Harmony Creek Church, 5280 Bigger Rd, Dayton, 45440; 937.640.3333; pflagdayton.org: LGBT and allied students will be honored. Register through a link at the group’s website. 6:30p.

FRIDAY, JUNE 19 North Coast Softball/Team CLE Night @ Akron Rubber Ducks, Canal Park, 300 S Main St, Akron, 44308; northcoastsoftball.org: Your ticket includes a seat in the Tiki Terrace, an all-you-can-eat buffet and post-game fireworks. 6:05p; $25.

THURSDAY, JUNE 18 Pride Night at The Neon: Tab Hunter Confidential @ The Neon, 130 E 5th St, Dayton, 45402; 937.222.8452; neonmovies.com: The 1950s heartthrob who hid his homosexuality tells his story in this documentary. 7:30p; $8.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20 SUNDAY, JUNE 21 North Coast Men’s Chorus: Welcome to the ’60s @ Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium, 2001 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, 44115; 216.556.0590; ncmchorus.org: It’s the summer of love in concert as the chorus reviews a decade of music that spanned from Motown to Woodstock.

8p Saturday and 3p Sunday; $10-$35.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20 Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra: An Evening With the Indigo Girls @ Schuster Performing Arts Center, 1 W 2nd St, Dayton, 45402; 937.228.3630 or 888.228.3630; daytonperformingarts.org: Emily Saliers and Amy Ray have been performing together for 28 years, having gotten their start in college bars while attending Emory university in Atlanta. 8p; $34-$86.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24 You’re Out: LGBTQ and Sport in America @ Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2929 Richmond Rd, Beachwood, 44122; 216.593.0575; maltzmuseum.org: Are sports a bellwether or lagging indicator of social change in America? Team CLE President Scott Swaggerty moderates a discussion on sports and the LGBTQ community. 7p; $12 ($6 for museum members).

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1 Melissa Etheridge and Blondie @ Rose Music Center, 6800 Executive Blvd, Huber Heights, 45424; 1.800.745.3000; rosemusiccenter.com: Melissa Etheridge and Blondie. Is it too much to hope they’ll sing one number together? 7p; $43-$62.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

TOLEDO / NORTHWEST

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3 LGBT Pride Night @ Detroit Tigers, Comerica Park, 2100 Woodward Ave, Detroit, 48201: Tickets through Toledo Pride already are sold out, but if you go to the Detroit Tigers’ first-ever Pride Night, keep an eye on the scoreboard for a special nod to Toledo Pride. 7p.

THURSDAY, JUNE 11 Not in Our Town Subcommittee Meeting @ BGSU Bowen-Thompson Student Union Room 314, Bowling Green, 43403; 419.372.2642; bgsu.edu/not-in-ourtown.html: This is a joint effort among BGSU students and Bowling Green residents to promote inclusion. 2p-4p.

SATURDAY, JUNE 13 People Called Women Garage Sale @ 6711 Victoria Ct, Sylvania, 43560; 419.469.8983; peoplecalledwomen.com: You can help Ohio’s only feminist bookstore by donating items to sell in the fund-raising garage sale or by shopping.

9a-4p.

Coco Montrese and Yara Sofia @ Legends Showclub, 117 N Erie St, Toledo, 43604; 567.315.8333; legendsshowbartoledo.com: The RuPaul’s Drag Race stars are in Toledo for one night only.

Time TBA. SATURDAY, JUNE 20 Gay Day @ Cedar Point, 1 Cedar Point Dr, Sandusky, 44870; FB: GayDay@Cedar Point: Check the Facebook page for details. 10a; $49.99 SUNDAY, JUNE 28 Equality Toledo Summer Brunch @ Pam’s Corner, 116 10th St, Toledo, 43604; 419.407.6225; equalitytoledo.org: Visit equalitytoledo.org for ticket information.

10a and 12:30p; ticket information TBA. june 2015

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BARS & CLUBS Akron

Adams Street 77 N Adams St Akron, Ohio 44305 330.434.9794 adamsstreetbar.com FB: Adams Street Bar Cocktails 1009 S Main St Akron, Ohio 44311 330.376.2625 FB: Cocktails Akron

Interbelt 70 N Howard St Akron, Ohio 44310 330.253.5700 interbelt.com FB: Interbelt Nite Club Square Night Club 820 W Market St Akron, Ohio 44310 330.374.9661 squarenightclub.com FB: Square Nightclub Tear-Ez 360 S Main St Akron, Ohio 44311 330.376.0011 tear-ez.com Canton

Crew 304 Cherry Ave NE Canton, Ohio 44702 330.575.5748 FB: Crew Canton Studio 704 704 4th St SW Canton, Ohio 44702 330.453.1220 Cincinnati

Bar 32 701 Bakewell St Covington, Ky 41011 859.431.7011 bar32covky.com FB: Bar 32 Cov KY

Below Zero Lounge 1120 Walnut St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.421.9376 belowzerolounge.com FB: Below Zero Lounge The Cabaret 1122 Walnut St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.202.4052 cabaretcincinnati.com FB: The Cabaret

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Ohio Lgbt Nightlife Roundup Club Glitter 1133 Sycamore St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.621.8200 FB: Club Glitter The Dock 603 Pete Rose Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.241.5623 FB: The Dock Complex Home Base Tavern 2401 Vine St Cincinnati, Ohio 45219 513.721.1212 FB: HBT Pride Main Event 835 Main St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.421.1294 FB: Main Event Old Street Saloon 13 Old St Monroe, Ohio 45050 513.539.9183 oldstreetbar.com FB: Old Street Saloon

On Broadway 817 Broadway St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.421.2555 FB: On Broadway Bar Rosie’s Tavern 643 Bakewell St Covington, Ky 41011 859.291.9707 rosiestavernnky.com FB: Rosie’s Tavern

Shooters 927 Race St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.381.9900 FB: Shooters Bar Simon Says 428 Walnut St Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 513.381.7577 Cleveland

Bonkers 36091 Vine St, Eastlake, 44095 440.942.1959 FB: Bonkers

Cocktails 9208 Detroit Ave Cleveland, Ohio 44102 216.961.3115 FB: Cocktails Cleveland

The Hawk 11217 Detroit Ave

Cleveland, Ohio 44102 216.521.5443 thehawkbar.com FB: The Hawk

Leather Stallion 2205 St Clair Ave NE Cleveland, Ohio 44114 216.589.8588 leatherstallion.com FB: The Stallion - Leather Stallion Saloon Mean Bull / Aura 1313 E 26th St Cleveland, Ohio 44114 216.812.3330 meanbull.com FB: Mean Bull Cleveland Paradise Inn 4488 State Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44109 216.741.9819 FB: Paradise Inn Twist 11633 Clifton Blvd Cleveland, Ohio 44102 216.221.2333 FB: Twist Sc Vibe 11633 Lorain Ave Cleveland, Ohio 44111 216.476.1970 vibecleveland.com FB: Vibe Bar + Patio Columbus

AWOL 49 Parsons Ave Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.621.8779 awolbar.com FB: Awol Bar Axis 775 N High St Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.291.4008 axisonhigh.com FB: Axis Cavan Irish Pub 1409 S High St Columbus, Ohio 43207 614.725.5502 cavanirishpub.com FB: Cavan Irish Pub Club 20 20 E Duncan St Columbus, Ohio 43202 614.261.9111 FB: Club 20 Club Diversity 863 S High St Columbus, Ohio 43206

614.224.4050 clubdiversity.biz FB: Club Diversity

Exile 893 N 4th St Columbus, Ohio 43201 614.299.0069 exilebar.com FB: Exile

Level Dining Lounge 700 N High St Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.754.7111 levelcolumbus.com FB: Level Dining Lounge Slammers 202 E Long St Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.221.8880 FB: Slammers Southbend Tavern 126 E Moler St Columbus, Ohio 43207 614.444.3386 FB: Southbend Tavern The Toolbox Saloon 744 Frebis Ave Columbus, Ohio 43206 614.670.8113 FB: The Toolbox Saloon Tremont Lounge 708 S High St Columbus, Ohio 43206 614.444.2041 FB: Tremont Lounge Union Café 782 N High St Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.421.2233 unioncafe.com FB: Union Cafe Wall Street Night Club 144 N Wall St Columbus, Ohio 43215 614.464.2800

MJ’s on Jefferson 20 N Jefferson St Dayton, Ohio 45402 937.223.3259 mjsonjefferson.com FB: MJ’s on Jefferson Right Corner 105 E 3rd St Dayton, Ohio 45402 937.228.2033 FB: Right Corner

Sparky’s Lounge 822 Watertower Lane West Carrollton, Ohio 45449 937.859.1062 FB: Sparky’s Lounge Stage Door 44 N Jefferson St Dayton, Ohio 45402 937.223.7418 FB: The Stage Door Lima

Somewhere 804 W North St Lima, Ohio 45801 419.227.7288 somewherelima.com FB: Somewhere Mansfield

Sami’s 178 Wayne St Mansfield, Ohio 44902 419.522.1500 FB: Sami’s Bar Sandusky

Crowbar 206 W Market St Sandusky, Ohio 44870 419.624.0109 sanduskycrowbar.com FB: Sandusky Crowbar Springfield

Diesel Bar & Nightclub 1914 Edwards Ave Springfield, Ohio 45503 wallstreetnightclubandshowbar.com 937.324.0383 FB: Diesel Bar & Nightclub Dayton Toledo Argos 301 Mabel St Boobie Trap Dayton, Ohio 45403 5082 Douglas Rd 937.252.2976 Toledo, Ohio 43613 419.690.4115 Masque FB: Boobie-Trap 20 N Jefferson St Dayton, Ohio 45402 Bretz 937.228.2582 2012 Adams St clubmasque.com Toledo, Ohio 43604 FB: Masque 419.243.1900 FB: Bretz Nightclub

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

Legends Showclub 117 N Erie St Toledo, Ohio 43604 567.315.8333 legendsbartoledo.com FB: Legends Showclub Toledo Mojo 115 N Erie St Toledo, Ohio 43604 567.315.8333 mojobartoledo.com FB: Mojo’s R-House 5534 Secor Rd Toledo, Ohio 43623 419.474.2929 FB: Rhouse Bar Warren

Club 411 411 E Market St Warren, OH 44481 330.394.9483 FB: Club 441

Funky Skunk NiteClub 143 E Market St Warren, Ohio 44481 FB: Funky Skunk NiteClub Youngstown

Utopia Video Night Club 876 E Midlothian Blvd Youngstown, Ohio 44502 330.781.9000 FB: Utopia Youngstown BATHS

Akron Steam and Sauna 41 S Case Ave Akron, Ohio 44305 330.252.2791 akronsteamandsauna.com Club Columbus 795 W 5th Ave Columbus, Ohio 43212 614.291.0049 the-clubs.com Flex 2600 Hamilton Ave, Cleveland, Ohio 44114 216.812.3304 flexspas.com GET LISTED! Update/add listing: erin@outlookmedia.com. outlookohio.com

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savage love

by Dan Savage

Fixated I’m a lesbian who has been pretty successful at online dating. Lately, however, I’ve had a few women contact me who turn out not to be cisgender. I’ve tried to remain open, but I have never been attracted to a trans woman.

I don’t rule out the possibility that it could happen. But one great thing about online dating is that you can express preferences before going on a date, and I’d rather not unknowingly walk into these potentially awkward and painful situations.

Is there something I could put on my profile expressing my preference for cisgender women that is not offensive to trans people?

It’s important to me that I remain an ally.

- Can I Say? You can put “not into trans women” in your online dating profile, CIS, but you’ll have to hand in your Trans Ally Card. Gay men are likewise free to put “no fats, no femmes” or “white guys only - just expressing my preference” on their profiles, and too many do (and not all of them are white guys), but gay men who do that have to hand in their Not An Asshole Cards.

Occasionally having coffee with someone you’re not into - and having to tiptoe through the awkwardness - isn’t something you can avoid in online dating. You would have to do that even if only cis lesbians responded to your ads, as you’re presumably not attracted to all cis lesbians.

Having a coffee now and then with a trans woman you most likely won’t find attractive - but you never know - is a small price to pay to make the online dating world a less shitty place for trans people. It’s what an ally would do.

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I’m a 29-year-old gay guy in a committed relationship. My boyfriend says he feels sexually inadequate, because I’m not the type of guy who needs to come in order to feel that june 2015

Outlook Magazine: Celebrating 20 years!

I had great sex.

Honestly, foreplay and receiving anal sex are much more pleasurable for me. If I want to come, I will, just not all the time. As long as there’s plenty of kissing, touching and licking - and all the other wonderful “ings” - I don’t feel like ejaculation is a big deal.

He thinks it means I’m not attracted enough to him. He’s self-conscious since his dick is a bit on the small side, and my not coming seems to make it worse. I’ve told him that I find him utterly attractive - bless those legs, that chest, that ass - and I always try to make him have an orgasm.

I’ve also tried to come more often for him, but sometimes I’m just not in the mood. I’ve also told him that he’s not doing anything wrong and this is just the way I’m wired. He says he still feels inadequate. I don’t know what else to do or say.

- Orgasms Reliably Great Although Sometimes Missed You’ve done the reassuring thing (about his size), you’ve done the explaining thing (this is just the way you’re wired) and you’ve done the meeting him halfway thing (coming more often to appease/mollify). Now it’s time for the exasperated ultimatum thing.

I’ve taken the liberty of scripting your ultimatum: “You have to stop obsessing about whether or not I come every time we fuck. I would never make you feel bad about your dick, but you’re making me feel bad about my dick.

So here’s the deal: You’re going to drop this. You’re going to take ‘Yes, I’m attracted to you’ and ‘This is how my dick works’ for an answer. And you’re not going to bring this up anymore.

Sometimes I’ll come, sometimes I won’t. Putting up with that - and getting over your insecurities or at least shutting up about them - is the price of admission to be with me. If you can’t pay that price, if me not coming every time we have sex is something you’ll never get over, then we should break up.”

You can email Dan Savage at mail@savagelove.net, follow him on Twitter at @fakedansavage or listen to his weekly podcast, Savage Lovecast, every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage. Savage Love appears every month in Outlook and every week at outlookohio.com. outlookohio.com

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the divine life

by Debé

Cancer

(June 21 - July 22) Pride revelry surrounds you, but you’re feeling introspective as you go into the next circle of life. You’re searching for the elusive answers to the big questions. You may find what you want becomes clearer, but whom you want gets complicated. Everything you desire is within reach.

Fabulous Cancers: George

Leo

(July 23 August 22) What an exciting time to be out and proud! You feel emotions stirring, and the full moon in Sagittarius makes you frisky. Grab your partner, or grab a willing new friend or two, and sate those appetites! Grrrrr.

(January 20 - February 18) You are feeling good, and that has everyone flocking to you. You might attract a yummy new friend or lover. Go with the flow and enjoy the Pride ride.

Pisces

Aries

Virgo

(August 23 - September 22) The focus is on work and personal ambitions. Luckily, work is play for you! You have the energy and talent to organize a kickass Pride brunch or a fabulous June wedding. Maybe it’s even time to plan your own...

Libra

(September 23 - October 22) This month is a balancing act, but you are the scales, after all. Being OUT and about is sooo tempting. Give equal time to the cool new friends and the true blue people in your life, and nobody gets hurt.

Scorpio

(October 23 - November 21) Time to bust out of your routine. Dance on a Pride float or hit a new gym, anything to get that body movin’. That burst of energy can help you meet your career goals, and it won’t hurt between the sheets either.

Sagittarius

(November 22 - December 21) The full moon in your sign is exciting! This is the time to take a chance in love. Go after that hottie, or maybe even pop the question to the love of your life. Who could possibly say no to you?

(December 22 - January 19) Your social calendar remains busier than usual. Getting your Pride on could even lead to exciting new opportunities. Someoutlookohio.com

Aquarius

(February 19 - March 20) You are swimming in Pride activities, and being in the right place at the right time can get you noticed in all the right ways. You might be feeling a little aggressive, but play it cool to get what you really want.

Michael, Jane Lynch, Meredith Baxter, Rufus Wainwright

Capricorn

one wants to give you a gift. Will it come in a lovely ring box?

(March 21 - April 19) You can’t decide whether to lead the Pride parade or settle down with your honey. Are you ready to put a ring on it? You want your freedom, but freedom can also mean finding the person you can be yourself with.

Taurus

(April 20 - May 20) You may be tempted to buy that shiny engagement ring, but make sure you can afford it. Your fantasies are vivid, and bliss is attainable. Trust your gut. Is that special someone ready to take on the bull? Olé!

Gemini

(May 21 - June 20) You are feeling fierce and fabulous, and all around you are Pride adventures waiting to happen. Experimentation piques your curiosity, but play safely. Remember: Curiosity can get you in trouble, kitty cat.

Is the moon on our side?

The full moon in Sagittarius on June 2 makes it a great month to solve difficult legal issues.

Hopefully the Supreme Court will get it right this month.

Debé is a palmist, intuitive adviser and metaphysical teacher in Columbus. She is available for personal readings, parties, events and workshops. For more information, go to thepassionatepalmist.com.

Look for her horoscopes every month in Outlook.

Thanks to all our advertisers and readers for two decades of support! You rock!

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AmericaÊs First Gay President?

ACROSS

1 You bend them in gay bars 7 Shuttlecock 11 Classic two-seaters 14 Lollipop Guild members, e.g.

15 Artist Catherine 16 Alley ___ (basketball play) 17 Lily of 37-Across 18 Rag and Bone author 19 Wilder’s ___ Town 20 Hot and bothered 21 Dumped wife in 37-Across 23 Oscar ___ Renta 25 Sunken passage 26 Come out on the beach 29 Early lesbian newspaper publisher Ben 31 “Diana” singer 32 “That’s incredible!”

33 Classic shirt brand 34 Cousin of Jethro and Jethrine 37 Netflix comedy about wives of guys who dump them for each other 42 Fairy tale bad guy 43 Willingly 44 Wing for Julia Morgan 45 Ethnic acronym 48 Coup target, to Cocteau 49 Letters on stones 50 Nothing-but-net sounds 53 Fingered 55 Sam of 37-Across 57 Peewee or Della 61 Suffix with boy or girl 62 “Bennifer” of long ago, e.g.

63 Sheen of 37-Across and The West Wing 64 ‘70s sitcom producer 65 Vanity Fair alternative 66 Marc of pop music 67 Get a load of 68 News columnist Lisa 69 Sounds in “The Trolley Song”

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DOWN

1 Caesar’s final reproach 2 Fruit ___ (gay district) 3 British bottoms 4 Made eyes at 5 “You were great last night ...” perhaps 6 IRS info 7 ___ fide 8 Toothpaste sung about during a “Grease” sleepover 9 Kahlo’s husband 10 Overwhelm with sound 11 Pedestrian that drops trou?

12 Creamy balls 13 Waterfall effect 21 Alexander of Love!

Valour!

Compassion!

22 Kind of wooden bucket 24 Sally portrayer of Cabaret 26 Pop-up breakfast brand 27 It made people go down on the Titanic 28 Hairy guy, to his date?

30 Mix up 35 Taylor of I Shot Andy Warhol 36 Puppy’s cry 38 Cut out

39 Get along with the group 40 Enjoy E. Lynn Harris 41 In the end 46 Piercing cry 47 Grinding tool 50 Emulates Bruce Hayes 51 Fritter away 52 Arrow shaft 54 Word for skin 56 Rainbow, to some 58 Alfred Douglas’ school 59 Emulate Elton 60 Runs out 63 Britten’s raincoat

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