Mirror May 2016

May 2016 • Vol. 5 Issue 3

first step to forever wedding Issue

themirrormag.com

MAY 2016 | Vol 5 | Issue 3 2520 N. Dixie Highway | Wilton Manors, FL 33305 Phone: 954.530.4970 Fax: 954.530.7943

Table of  contents Opinion Married Lives Matter  14 The Price of Truth  37

News Features Freedom For All Americans  16, 17

Publisher NORM KENT norm.kent@sfgn.com Chief Executive Officer PIER ANGELO GUIDUGLI Associate Publisher/ JASON PARSLEY Executive Editor jason.parsley@sfgn.com

EDITORIAL Art Director BRENDON LIES artwork@sfgn.com News Editor JOHN MCDONALD

john.mcdonald@sfgn.com

Staff Photographer J.R. DAVIS Senior Features Reporter CHRISTIANA LILLY A&E Editor / Design J.W. ARNOLD

Before Stonewall: Cooper Donuts  20

Webmaster BRITTANY FERRENDI

AVER Continues to Fight  24, 25

CORRESPONDENT

Truth Wins Out Celebrates  26 What it Means to Be Intersex  30, 31 The Forever Family Walk  32 What We Know: LGBT Data  38 The Personal Stories Project  40

Special Wedding Section LGBT Destination Weddings  44 Popping the Question  46 Ask Mister Manners  50, 52 Feeling Confident at Any Age  54 A Willy Wonka Reception  56, 57 Stylish Wedding Gifts  60

REBECCA JURO

SALES & MARKETING Director of Sales MIKE TROTTIER & Marketing mike.trottier@sfgn.com Sales Manager JUSTIN WYSE justin.wyse@sfgn.com Advertising Sales Assoc. EDWIN NEIMANN edwin.neimann@sfgn.com Advertising Sales Assoc. CINDY CURTIS cindy.curtis@sfgn.com Distribution Services BRIAN SWINFORD J.R. DAVIS TIM HIGGINS Printing THE PRINTER’S PRINTER National Advertising RIVENDELL MEDIA 212-242-6863 sales@rivendellmedia.com Accounting Services CG BOOKKEEPING

The Wedding Toast  62 Choosing the Right Caterer  64, 65

Cover and inside photos courtesy of John Cutrone and Seth Thompson, photographed by Char Pratt.

For more images of LGBTQ life as well as other photographic series, visit charcoalphoto.com 10 THE

 WINTER 2016

The Mirror is published quarterly. The opinions expressed in columns, stories, and letters to the editor are those of the writers. They do not represent the opinions of The Mirror or the Publisher. You should not presume the sexual orientation of individuals based on their names or pictorial representations in The Mirror. Furthermore the word “gay” in The Mirror should be interpreted to be inclusive of the entire LGBT community. All of the material that appears in The Mirror, both online at www.themirrormag.com, and in our print edition, including articles used in conjunction with the Associated Press and our columnists, is protected under federal copyright and intellectual property laws, and is jealously guarded by the newspaper. Nothing published may be reprinted in whole or part without getting written consent from the Publisher of The Mirror, Norm Kent, at Norm@NormKent.com. The Mirror is published by the South Florida Gay News. It’s a private corporation, and reserves the right to enforce its own standards regarding the suitability of advertising copy, illustrations and photographs. Copyright © 2014,

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ď‚Ş May 2016

publisher's editorial

Norm Kent

Married Lives Matter

This issue of The Mirror celebrates gay marriage.

Few pages of American history ever turned so rapidly.

Barely 20 years ago, LGBT advocates were petitioning city and county commissions to recognize 'domestic partnerships.' We then fought to see if local and state governments would validate 'civil unions.'

Before we knew it, lawyers in Massachusetts and elsewhere were in court asking jurists to rule that same-sex marriage was the constitutional right of every American citizen.

And why not?

Despite what religious zealots argued, marriage is not a tablet handed down from above. It is simply a social contract between two adults, who gain financial benefits from it.

Our laws are drafted in such a way so that your marriage to another person gives you unique tax benefits with the IRS. Economists have calculated that even ordinary same-sex couples could lose as much as $500,000 over a lifetime because they could not marry and therefore can’t get employers’ spousal health insurance, among other disadvantages.

• • • • • •

Social Security's spousal benefit allows marriage partners more flexibility in planning for retirement in a number of ways. For example, at full retirement age, lower-earning spouses can collect a benefit based on their own record or half of their higher-earning spouse's benefit, whichever is larger. But these are material things.

The greatest truth we see emerging out of same sex marriage is that the LGBT community is now raising children. We have become parents. It is perhaps the healthiest result of the sea change in our laws. Married lives matter.

For so many years, gay men and women lived their lives alone, apart and in isolation from the rest of the world. We fought intimacy and partnerships, because they brought us not recognition and acclaim, but approbation and unhappiness.

How many times over how many years have gay seniors told you, 'Yes, I knew I was gay, but I always wanted to get married so I could have children'? Not me, I never wanted to do diapers.

Society sanctioning same-sex marriages today means that the world tomorrow will not just legitimatize gay partnerships legally, it will normalize them socially. It opens the door for us

to not just be equal partners, but proud parents.

The PTA (Parents Teachers Association) and Gay Days at Disney will never be the same.

Gay marriage means that if you make your living running gay bars you may want to start revising your demographics. There are going to be a lot less gay customers in their thirties hanging out late at night in your club with vodka in their hand. They are going to be home in the living room teaching their kids how to play the piano.

To those of you getting married, planning to raise families, good luck. Your lives as gay men and women will be emotionally enriching and spiritually galvanizing in a way generations before you could never know.

As you go forward with a child by your side, don't ever forget take for granted the momentous factors and fate that brought you there. Once, our society deemed us deviant. Today, we are dads. Once, psychologists said we were 'mentally ill.' Now, our kids will make us that way all on our own. Once, we were hedonists romping into the night. Tomorrow, we will be cursing the alimony payments we have to make.

Oh yeah, what a ride this is going to be.

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Feature • news

Freedom for All

Americans From the ashes of Freedom to Marry, a new group emerges to replace it Christiana Lilly

I

n January 2015, the marriage equality movement was celebrating what they had been fighting for, for years: the legalization of same-sex marriage across the country. Finally, LGBT couples could say “I do” and enjoy the rights that their neighbors, friends, and family had for so long.

However, even before the Supreme Court made its ruling, one group was already looking ahead to the next fight.

“We started to kind of get together and put together some brainstorming: what were the things we learned from the marriage movement?” remembers Matt McTighe, the executive director for Freedom for All Americans. “How can we capture this momentum and make sure those lessons learned and some of the resources we had developed … and [apply] it to this next big fight, which was winning nondiscrimination?”

Freedom for All Americans started as a marriage equality group — Freedom to Marry — then switched its name and its focus to nondiscrimination after last year’s historic Supreme Court ruling. Right now, 28 states do not offer protections to LGBT people. In fact, states have been doing the exact opposite.

“People are starting to realize the work is far from over,” McTighe said.

Southern states such as North Carolina and Mississippi have passed laws that allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people under the guise of religious freedom. People have been up in arms, refusing to do business with the states and celebrities such as Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams canceling concerts as a show of solidarity.

Freedom for All Americans is working on a longer term plan to slowly but surely pass non-discrimination laws state

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by state, hoping that in the way of marriage equality, there will be a tipping point. McTighe said they hope that in five years, at least half of states will have protections in place for LGBT people.

But for now, the group is busy: in the last year, more than 150 anti-LGBT bills have come forward.

“Most of them have been defeated, some cases quietly and some cases more publically,” McTighe said. “For every Georgia where the governor did the right thing and vetoed it, you have a Mississippi where they signed something into law.”

Using lessons that were garnered during the marriage equality movement, Freedom for All Americans wants to use targeted campaigns and positive strategies. Different communities have a different relationship with LGBT people, so a single message will not work. Also, working with businesses and municipalities has helped to bring the issue to the state level.

According to Equality Florida, 53 percent of Floridians live in a municipality that does not provide LGBT protections.

Cities like Lake Worth, Miami, Miami Beach, Wilton Manors, West Palm Beach, and Tampa are leading the way by providing protections to people based on their sexual orientation as well as gender identity.

Gender identity is not always included by municipalities when they create nondiscrimination laws. The newest program for the group is the Transgender Freedom Project, which is an opportunity for transgender people to share their stories and humanize a community that so many may not be familiar with.

“We need to be able to prepare for any of the attacks that come our way, but we also need to be able to put personal stories and a personal face on these issues,” McTighe said. “Most Americans have not met somebody who is transgender.”

To learn more about Freedom for All Americans, or to participate in the Transgender Freedom project, visit FreedomForAllAmericans.org.

feature • news

"People are starting to realize the work is far from over."

- Matt McTighe

May 2016 ď‚Ş THE

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Cooper

Donuts Christiana Lilly

I

t was a torrent of doughnuts and coffee that kicked off the LGBT equal rights movement.

Sure, the Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York City get all the glory, but it was a smaller, nearly forgotten uprising at Cooper Donuts in Los Angeles in May 1959 that its roots can be traced.

John Rechy, an accomplished gay author who chronicles the Chicano culture in his books, was there the night of the riots. On his website, he wrote that two police officers asked for ID cards from some customers at the restaurant — a typical way for them to harass LGBT people. Those who were picked out of the crowd, including Rechy, were “two hustlers, two queens, and young man just cruising.”

Something snapped in one of them — enough was enough. He objected to the car being packed with five people and objected, leading to the customers at the donut shop to flood into the streets, throwing coffee cups, trash, spoons, anything they could get their hands on.

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A glimpse of Cooper Donuts through Kent MacKenzie's film The Exiles (1961)

Bef or

Feature • history

s Wa re

e

newall T o he St

“[The officers] fled into their car, called backups, and soon the street was bustling with disobedience.

Gay people danced about the cars,” Rechy wrote.

And history was made — but like most people who are a part of history, it wasn’t apparent how important their actions were until much later.

“I would not describe it as a riot but more like an isolated patch of local social uprest that had lasting repercussions. I think less in its day, more as a lesson for us today,” said Mark Thompson, a social historian who lived in the same neighborhood as Rechy, told Mirror in an email. “LA is such a huge, sprawling city (even back then) so what happened in one district probably did not register elsewhere — especially when issues of class and race are factored in.”

Not too much is known about the “uprising” at Cooper’s Donuts, and as time passes, fewer of the storytellers of the time are around to share their experience. Rechy went on to write a number of books, and his 1963 novel “City of Night” he recounts living in the “gay ghetto” of Los Angeles.

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Feature • news

DADT is Gone But

AVER Continues to

Fight More than 100,000 veterans were kicked out of the military for being LGBT

O

Christiana Lilly

ur veterans are some of the most treasured warriors our country has, but a group has long been kept in the closet.

It’s believed that more than 100,000 veterans have been kicked out of the military for being LGBT, and groups like American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) are working to advocate for those who laid their lives on the line.

“We need to [give them] support, especially after they've been serving in Afghanistan or Iraq or some place like this, where they’ve been shot at and everything else, then they come back and some of them have PTSD and they come back and their families throw them out because they’re queer,” said Lee Lawson, the president of AVER’s Gold Coast chapter.

Lawson served in the Army from 1959 to 1962 during the Cold War. Working in intelligence engineering and mapping, he went to 23 different countries in the three years he served, including Germany the day the Berlin Wall went up.

“I was fresh out of high school and it was an easy way to get an education and see the world,” he said.

Growing up in Iowa, he said there was no such thing as being “out,” much less in the military. He barely even knew what being gay meant, and any of his attractions to men were kept a secret.

“It would be the quickest way to get thrown out,” he explained. “Military life is a lot different than civilian life.”

In fact, over the years and also thanks to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, many LGBT veterans have a less than honorable discharge on their records due to being LGBT. According to OutServe, an LGBT veterans advocacy group, some have it on their record that they were discharged due to “homosexual acts.” In the military world, a less than honorable discharge taints one’s military record, a blazing scarlet letter.

It’s believed that more than 100,000 veterans were kicked out of the military for being LGBT. With the repeal of DADT, the Obama administration directed the Department of Defense to upgrade LGBT veterans to an honorable discharge if being gay was the reason cited for being kicked out of the military. According to the New York Times, about 80 percent of the nearly 500 requests were granted an upgrade.

In January, an 82-year-old Ohio veteran’s record was finally upgraded to honorably discharged after he was kicked out of the Army in 1955 for being gay, according to the Associated Press. He was serving in Frankfurt, Germany at the time.

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Thom Kostura and Ijpe DeKoe, an Army soldier, were married in 2011 when it was legal in New York, just three days before DeKoe was shipped out to Afghanistan for a nine-month deployment. When he returned, he was stationed in Tennessee — where their marriage was not recognized. They joined the list of plaintiffs going to the Supreme Court to fight the Defense of Marriage Act — and won.

However, many of the issues facing LGBT veterans affect all veterans, particularly post traumatic stress disorder. Plus, Lawson has heard anecdotes of many veterans coming home from war, only to be kicked out of their homes when they come out.

The Gold Coast chapter of AVER hosts a drop-in group on the first, third, and fourth Tuesdays of the month from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at SunServe, 2312 Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors. Here, LGBT veterans can meet people who have been in their shoes and share their stories. Or, Lawson said, they don’t have to talk about it at all — sometimes just being in the presence of people you know have shared experiences can be powerful.

Another healing therapy AVER offers is its pet program.

Sometimes having a pet, which depends on you and shows love and affection, can be a great part of healing.

“Probably the biggest problem people have is loneliness. Even though they’re in a big crowd, they’re alone and it can be very hard on your mind ... You’ve got to break out of it,” Lawson said.

feature • news

Transgender military personnel are a different story — they are still not allowed to serve in the military, although Sec. of Defense Ash Carter made waves last summer when he called for the department — whose rules he called “outdated” — to conduct a study to observe the “policy and readiness implications of welcoming transgender persons to serve openly.”

“Transgender men and women in uniform have been there with us, even as they often had to serve in silence alongside their fellow comrades in arms,” he said in a statement.

There are also cases where an amendment is complicated.

Rather than citing that a person is gay on his or her record, Lawson explained that some commanders would write another reason — thinking they were doing the person a favor by not outing them on paper — such as disobeying a direct order. There, it becomes difficult to upgrade when there’s no proof that one’s homosexuality was the reason they were discharged.

Oregon is paving the way for LGBT soldiers — Sen. Sara Gelser created a special LGBT liaison in the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs to help LGBT veterans, especially with getting their less than honorable discharges upgraded.

“It seemed a tremendous injustice, and I was particularly concerned about aging vets. I wanted them to have access to needed services, an apology for being mistreated, and a thank you for their generous service to our country,” Gelser told SFGN. Commanding officers also have the power to keep legally married same-sex couples apart during tours of duty — even though DADT is repealed. Lawson said commanders have let their prejudices get the best of them and claim that there are no vacancies on military bases, forcing same-sex couples to live apart.

AVER Gold Coast meets the second Tuesday of the month at the American Legion Post, 1620 W. Highway 84 in Fort Lauderdale. For more information, visit AVER-FGC.org or contact chapter president, Lee Lawson, at sonoflaw@netzero.com

“We need to [give them] support, especially after they've been serving in Afghanistan or Iraq or some place like this, where they’ve been shot at and everything else, then they come back and some of them have PTSD and they come back and their families throw them out because they’re queer.” __________________________________________ Lee Lawson President of AVER’s Gold Coast chapter

May 2016  THE

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feature • profile

Truth Wins Out C e l e b r a te s 1 0 Y e a r s Christiana Lilly

W

ayne Besen was 18 years old when he first experienced an attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. It was 1988 and his parents bought him a self-help tape called “Gay and Unhappy,” which claims to use “self-hypnosis” and “subliminal persuasion” to turn someone straight.

Decades later, he would use this experience to help fight all forms of conversion therapy.

“Instead of my parents dealing with the issue, that was the first thing they turned to when they saw that in the store, this tape,” he said. “So I understood intuitively how this works, how that dynamic works within families, because it happened to me.”

Besen is the founder and executive director of Truth Wins Out (TWO), celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It was when former President George W. Bush invited the leaders of Exodus International, a religious conversion therapy group, to the White House that Besen saw that work needed to be done. He had published the book “Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” in 2003 and was already in advocacy work.

“That was a very dangerous message to send young people,” Besen said of Bush’s guests. “This whole ex-gay message has found its way into the highest office of the land, and that has to be countered because it’s a very insidious lie, being the one of the worst around.”

“It denies people their very existence and it’s very effective, too. It allows people to believe that their own child can pray away the gay, therefore they don’t have to accept them. It’s something of a temporary phase, so why go for acceptance if you can start that process?”

So he founded TWO in 2006, pouring his savings into the cause and receiving generous donations from other LGBT activists. The group identified its “foes” as Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out program, Exodus International, Love in Action, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, now for Healing (JONAH) and other conversion therapy groups.

Conversion therapy and the ex-gay movement are practices, typically rooted in religious belief, that one’s homosexuality can be removed through prayer, fasting, reading scripture, and even going as far as torture and exorcism. The therapies are performed at houses of worship, therapist's offices and camps.

TWO’s mission was to conduct research into groups, which helped scholars, lawyers and other LGBT groups with their own work. Much of this is done through TWOCARE, the organization’s Center Against Religious Extremism. In 2007, TWO made waves when it exposed reparative therapy going on in the clinic of Marcus Bachmann, the husband of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. TWO sent in an undercover “patient” armed with a hidden camera and recorded multiple sessions where he was told that no one is born gay and that he could be cured.

Love in Action ended its camp, Refuge, in 2007 and started the Family Freedom Intensive, another camp for adults and their children, a month later. Love Won Out was sold from Focus on the Family to Exodus International, which disbanded in June 2013.

In the summer of 2015, JONAH was at the center of the nation’s first trial on conversion therapy. The Southern Poverty Law Center claimed that not only was their work unethical, but it was also consumer fraud.

“I call it malpractice because every respected medical and mental health organization says it doesn't work and gay people aren't mentally ill,” Besen explained. “[These groups] start talking about what they do and how they do it and even conservatives aren't buying it. I mean that’s

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how you beat them: the question of how. That’s when people see it for the fraud it is, for the danger it truly is, and for the deceptive practice that should be banned. It’s really a con artist’s game.”

The jury found that JONAH was guilty of misrepresentation and the courts required that it pay $72,400 in damages and $3.5 million in legal fees, according to Slate. In December 2015, it was ordered that the group disband and could no longer practice conversion therapy in the state of New Jersey.

“I think we’ve been enormously successful even beyond what I had hoped and expected given the results of how that movement is now in tatters,” Besen said. “They're all gone now and we’re still standing, and that’s exactly what I promised… we pound(ed) them relentlessly for a decade into oblivion.”

While legislation to illegalize the practice for minors is underway in multiple states, religious freedom has made it hard to ban it for adults.

Besen believes it should be illegalized completely because of consumer fraud, but admits that TWO’s energy is best spent on helping youngsters forced into conversion therapy.

“Make no mistake, it’s extraordinarily damaging when people are put under this practice at any age,” he said. “I think we should just focus right now on youth. You can’t stop everybody from being harmed, but we certainly though can protect our kids.”

Also, with the Internet, TWO putting out its research and Besen’s books — he wrote “Bashing Back” in 2007 — is helping those considering therapy to not enter, or for those who are already in it, to leave.

“If someone stays in it for two years instead of 10, that’s a victory and we've helped them enormously,” he said.

Today, Besen is also taking his message to the airwaves as the host of “The Wayne Besen Show” on Chicago’s Progressive Talk. TWO continues working with other groups working to ban conversion therapy, sharing its expertise and research on the topic. In fact, because of the success of TWO, every year they have evaluated whether it is needed any long.

“At this point, we’ve put most of these groups out,” he said. “We always assess, is there more we can do? Are we needed? And then go from there.”

May 2016  THE

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feature • intersex

What it Means to Be

intersex Christiana Lilly

O

n the spectrum of sex and gender, one group is finding its voice.

One in 2,000 people are intersex -- people whose bodies don’t fit the traditional definition of male and female -- and they’re fighting for doctors to leave their healthy bodies alone and to be rid of a history of stigma.

“There are over 30 different intersex variations; there’s a lot of ways somebody can be intersex,” said Emily Quinn, the youth coordinator at interACT, an intersex advocacy group.

This can include extra sex chromosomes, underdeveloped genitalia, signs of two sets of genitalia, and more. At interACT, youth are taught that their bodies are not something to be ashamed of.

When Quinn was born, doctors had no reason to suspect that she was intersex

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because outwardly, she appeared to have a normal female body. However, when she was 10 years old, she had chromosome tests and an MRI done and her doctor discovered that she had undescended testes.

Many find out they are intersex when their puberty is abnormal, such as girls never getting their period or boys’ voices not dropping.

Others will discover they are intersex when they have difficulties getting pregnant and run tests, or if their testes herniate.

Some people will go their whole life not knowing.

“There’s definitely been a shame and stigma around intersex bodies,” Quinn said.

“People are taught there’s male and female and nothing else.”

The gender and sexual spectrum is a large one, and many people confuse intersex people with being transgender or hermaphroditic.

While there may be overlap in medical treatment, the three are very different.

Transgender people are born with normally functioning bodies that do not match with their self identity -- children often notice that they don’t “match” from an early age, and as adults can choose to undergo surgeries to their level of comfort. Hermaphrodites are born with both fully functioning male and female sex organs. Finally, there are dozens of ways that one can be intersex, such as having both sex organs, ambiguous genitalia, or chromosomes that aren’t aligned with the average person’s.

Margaret Porter, a sophomore at the University of Central Florida, is an intersex youth advocate with interACT. Her Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, falling under the intersex umbrella, was discovered when she was 4 years old when doctors were

feature • intersex

treating a hernia. While undergoing surgery, doctors found she had undescended testes and encouraged her parents to have them removed, citing a risk of testicular cancer.

Being both intersex and a biomedical sciences student, Porter has a unique perspective on the removal of her testes.

“I see both sides of it as a pre-med student and an intersex girl, but the historic policy of doctors towards intersex individuals has been far more cosmetically focused in an attempt to placate parents rather than provide for the future happiness of the, usually very young, patient,” she wrote in an email to Mirror.

Because her testes were removed, her body is unable to produce sex hormones as her female sex organs are nonfunctioning. Porters points out that “I require treatment because I was treated in the first place.”

The removal of sex organs has been highly controversial in the media and intersex communities for decades. Stories abound of doctors removing organs without parental consent or scaring them with horror stories of cancer and medical problems, or telling parents they must “choose” their child’s sex and raise them that way to avoid problems.

Dr. Sherman Leis, the founder of The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, has been an advocate for not doing surgery on

young intersex patients until they are old enough to decide for themselves what they want.

“It’s super important that they leave the child alone, let the child grow a little bit,” he said. “They identify themselves very early in life -- it’s amazing how early they really identify themselves.”

Although his transgender and intersex patients are very different, their treatment can overlap. Some patients might undergo medically necessarily surgeries, while others might want to remove underdeveloped sex organs for aesthetic purposes. Some patients are happy the way they are, and if the organs are not hurting them, want to leave them be and monitor them with their doctor.

In cases like Porters’, hormone therapy is necessary to make sure that hormone levels are where they should be. For young children who might not be as reliable with their treatment, doctors can insert an implant in their arm that releases hormones.

However, in his decades as a surgeon, he has seen the consequences of intersex adults coming to him for help to fix the mistakes that doctors made on them as children -- something he says he sees “regularly.”

For Quinn, doctors have been pushing her to remove her testes for a decade. However, she has chosen to not undergo surgery but instead

monitor to make sure they are not impacting her health negatively.

Leis agrees with this approach.

“I hope we can educate other physicians about the right way to handle these kids and not do the mistake that was made for many years, that the pediatrician or the obstetrician or the parents decide shortly after birth which gender they think the kid is and get surgery right way, that’s a really big mistake,” he said. “Some parents are just so upset about the whole thing they refuse to cooperate.”

Thankfully, Leis says in his time as a doctor he has seen more and more children's hospitals opening gender identity clinics to properly treat young patients. This includes Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C., Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

“Things are changing now, they’re slowly changing, especially in the last five years or so,” he said. “Little by little, things are happening.”

“Other people will surprise you,” Porter said as advice to other intersex people. “Yes, some people are ignorant, but you are wonderfully special, the result of endless recombinations and shifts of genes. And there are many people in this world who will accept you as you are, if you can accept yourself.”

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Feature • profile

G ay

M a n

‘Forever Family Jarett Wilkins uses the walk to bring awareness to the foster care system Christiana Lilly

A

rmed with a backpack, one man is walking across the U.S. to raise awareness about the foster care system.

Jarett Wilkins, who was adopted from Colombia as an infant, started the Forever Family Walk in August 2015 and so far has walked through 11 states.

“The thing that always resonated with me was [reading] articles about kids in my situation that had less fortunate situations than myself,” he explained.

When he learned about Together We Rise, an organization that was collecting suitcase and backpack donations for foster children, as many of them are given trash bags to store their belongings, he was inspired to do something to shine a light on the American foster care system.

Through the Fall of 2017, Wilkins is walking across 30 states, split over two legs. Everywhere he goes, he meets with child advocates for interviews to show the different struggles each agency is experiencing with placing children in safe forever homes. He shares his journey with photos on social media, including the hashtags #ForeverFamilyWalk #LGBTyouth #ConnectingACommunity and #TalkTheWalk.

He finished the first leg and is transcribing the interviews to share on his site.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 415,000 children are living in foster care. Nearly 108,000 are eligible for adoption, but will wait four years to be placed with a forever family. In 2014, children spent an average of 19.5 months in foster care.

Through his walk, many of Wilkins’ stops have been LGBT organizations that advocate for homeless children — about 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT, either from running away or

S t a r t s

Walk’

being kicked out of their homes when they come out to their families.

Many agencies have been reaching out to LGBT groups for help in creating a system that best works for LGBT foster children. At Equality Kansas, it was brought to Wilkins' attention that many government agencies don’t track the sexual orientation or gender identity of a child, which could be helpful when placing them in a home.

“Say we’re in Kentucky and a child is kicked out of their home because they’re gay and they have a very religious family, Kentucky does not have any sort of data,” Wilkins said. “Now you’ve got a kid that’s been disowned by their family and then placed in another one that is the same way, which leads to the child running away, it increases the rate of suicide.”

According to a study by the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the Williams Institute, more than 18 percent of those surveyed experienced discrimination in the foster system, and they also were bounced around to more homes than their straight peers.

“A lot of these places were so uninformed on how to treat this community legally,” he said. “It’s a dangerous world when you put a gay or transgender or lesbian child into a group home, there is abuse.”

On a positive note, some agencies are learning how to better LGBT children — he heard the story of a transgender girl being placed in an accepting home that already had girls living there, which helped her blossom.

Throughout his walk, not only has he brought to light issues in the foster care system, but in visiting with 37 agencies, he has been able to introduce many of them together to share advice.

Wilkins is set to begin on the second and final leg of the Forever Family Walk, which is now recognized as a nonprofit. To support the cause, donate to GoFundMe.com/x3a2kc3k. All left over money at the end of the walk will go to One Simple Wish.

Submitted photos.

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 SPRING 2016

column • transcending gender

The Price Of

Truth W

Rebecca Juro

hen Jason Parsley asked me to write a piece for this issue of Mirror Magazine and told me that the topic was marriage, I had to think about it for a little a while. Having never been married myself, at first I wasn’t really sure what I could offer readers on this topic.

As a writer, I like to take the path less traveled, and over the last several years marriage is a topic that’s been done to death in LGBT media. Then it came to me, one aspect of love and marriage that no one talks about, or at least talks about so infrequently that I can’t remember ever reading about it.

When I was 15 years old, I fell in love. I fell hard, in that way teenagers focus their entire beings on one special person for the first time in their lives. I met Aileen at a summer camp for special ed kids. It was a camp that accepted kids at many different levels of functionality, from those who required constant adult supervision to those, like us, who exhibited learning and emotional disorders but could be afforded some autonomy over how they spent their time.

Even then, I knew. I’d understood myself to have a female gender identity from a very early age, but I also had the sexual interests and raging hormones of a teenage boy to contend with, and my mind hadn’t yet become sophisticated or educated enough to begin perceiving myself correctly as lesbian. All I knew was that I loved Aileen, and she was everything to me.

Inevitably, that summer ended and with it our romance, as these things always do. We kept in touch by phone and letters for a while, but eventually lost touch as we grew into our own lives as young adults. When I was 18 and living in Manhattan, I heard through mutual friends that Aileen would be staying in the city with friends for a week and I knew I had to see her.

I took her home with me, to the apartment I shared with my father on the Upper East Side. Dad was away on business, and Aileen and I spent the night together in my bed, alone together for the very first time without any adults nearby. It was glorious. We’d grown up since summer camp, at least a little, and our love for each other had grown with us. I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with her…except for one thing.

As we grew into our early 20s, Aileen and I stayed together as a couple, even though I lived in central New Jersey and she lived in Pittsburgh, a distance of about 350 miles. We’d visit each other regularly, and our passion for each other continued to grow.

At the same time, however, I was in the process of coming to terms with my gender identity. In the early 1980s, of course, I couldn’t put the kind of label on it we do today. All I knew was that I wanted and needed to be a girl, every bit as much as I loved Aileen and wanted her in my life. I had no idea what to do, but when Aileen began to bring up the subject of getting married, I knew I’d have to do something.

Telling her the truth was out of the question. By then I knew with certainty that Aileen was in love with someone who didn’t

actually exist, a macho male persona I’d invented for dealing with the rest of the world. To tell her who I really was would have been tantamount telling her that our love had been a lie, that the person who she was in love with was really nothing more than a puppet on strings, controlled by a puppeteer who was in reality completely different from the person she knew and loved. I knew the truth would destroy her, and most of all, above and beyond anything else, I couldn’t bear to break her heart.

Not knowing what else to do, I took the coward’s way out. I stopped writing and calling. I threw myself into the punk life I was living at the time, with plenty of drugs, meaningless casual sex, and general hypermasculine assholery.

Every day, I thought about picking up the phone and calling Aileen to tell her the truth, and every day I made a conscious choice not to. My feelings for her hadn’t changed, but my understanding of who and what I really was had deepened considerably. As much as I still loved her, I felt like I could never be fully open and honest with her without hurting her in ways I just couldn’t bear to.

A few years later, still several years before my public coming out as a woman, I saw her again, at a get-together hosted by a couple of mutual friends from our summer camp. She’d married a plumber and was expecting her first child. She’d gotten the suburban little house with the white picket fence life she’d always wanted, a life I’d never have been able to give her. She was happy, and I was happy for her. In the end, that’s what real love is about. Even though I’d learned to live without her, I’d never truly stopped loving her.

These days, some twenty-five years or so later, I still think about Aileen sometimes. I wonder what our lives might have been like if I’d been able to find it within myself to be the man she needed me to be. Then I think about who I am today and all of the joys and blessings I’ve experienced in becoming the woman I am, and I know I can’t live in the past.

As far as I know, she’s happy with her life, and I’m happy with mine, even though I’m still single and still looking for that right woman to spend my life with. Today I’m who I really am, who I need to be. In the end that’s all anyone can really hope for.

Rebecca Juro is a nationally-published freelance journalist and radio talk show host who is the Media Correspondent for The Advocate website. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, the Washington Blade, Gay City News, the Albany Times Union, and The Advocate magazine, among others.

Rebecca lives in central New Jersey and shares her life with a somewhat antisocial cat. Email: rjuroshow@gmail.com Twitter: @beckyjuro

May 2016  THE

37

feature • family

What We Know

Armed with facts new project collects data on LGBT people Christiana Lilly

A

new online public policy research portal out of the Columbia Law School is proving the importance of family acceptance for LGBT youth.

The What We Know Project collects data from dozens of research studies, especially the Family Acceptance Project, into one place to showcase conclusions.

“The LGBT debate is too often colored by emotion rather than facts,” said Nathaniel Frank, director of the What We Know Project.

“Along with the idea that these debates should be informed by evidence instead of emotion is the fact that there is a lot of knowledge out there, but sometimes it’s hard for the public … to access the information in a digestible and helpful way.”

Frank’s background in LGBT research includes 15 years studying Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Here, he learned the importance of being able to provide facts and statistics in the argument for equality. Now with the project, Frank and the team are proving why family support of LGBT people is so vital.

“When the Pentagon and officials or opinion leaders who were not quite convinced about ending that discrimination were open to hearing the facts … they came to us and they really valued those facts and the evidence and the way research had carefully been put together. The lesson was, it was important to use research and show yourself as a trusted source and trusted platform.”

Recently, the What We Know Project released data on the wellbeing of children with LGBT parents, the impact of conversion therapy and how family acceptance influences LGBT youth. While it seems obvious that parents supporting their LGBT children is huge, the studies looked into why this was the case.

Plus, “there's long been a belief in the LGBT population and service providers that families are sometimes the problem,” Frank said, causing a negative connotation on the family.

For parents who are not supportive of LGBT people, the studies found that with education they can help their children thrive.

“As a member of the LGBT community, I have experienced the consequences of myths and misinformation, how it has affected and needlessly harmed the LGBT population,” Frank said. “I’m heartened to say that I have seen how facts and solid information can help protect people against needless harms.”

Looking forward, the What We Know Project helps to use their research conclusions to help with passing nondiscrimination laws, as well as increasing research on transgender people — a field Frank says is getting more attention, but “it’s still not enough.”

Facts for Families  Coming out to family is an important part of healthy development and can help lessen fears of rejection in the future.  Rejection by parents of LGBT youth can increase risks, such as depression, suicide, substance abuse, low self-esteem and more.  Acceptance by family in a sexuality-specific way is even more impactful, rather than generalized support. This includes family affirming their sexual orientation and gender expression, talking to the LGBT family member about it, defending them, connecting them to an LGBT mentor, and welcoming other LGBT youth into the home.  Families that have a negative view of LGBT people, but take the time to learn about their child’s gender expression and sexual orientation, can create a positive living environment and modify their behavior.

Source: What We Know Project

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 May 2016

feature • personal stories

Personal Stories Project Share yours today

Christiana Lilly

O

ne group is using the power of storytelling in the battle for LGBT equality.

For just over two years, the Personal Stories Project has been a place for LGBT people to share their stories, good and bad, to show that LGBT people are just that — people.

“I’m a strong believer in the power of the personal story,” said Charles Chan Massey, co-founder and executive director. “Stories can change hearts and minds. Stories can start wars. Or stop them. Stories can change lives. I know this to be true because they’ve changed mine.”

On the group’s site, people can read the first-person accounts of coming out, the ups and downs of teenage years, finding love, and LGBT allies showing support for loved ones.

The beginnings of the Personal Stories Project can be traced to two moments. One, when Chan Massey watched a video telling the story of a man’s death and how his partner had no rights, since they were not recognized as a couple in the eyes of the law — he realized how “sick and tired” he was of being treated like a “second-class citizen,” and he also questioned what could happen to him and his own partner should either of them pass.

The second incident was when a friend’s daughter messaged him on Facebook, telling him how good it made her feel when she came out to her mother, who told her about Chan Massey.

“It still took [my mom] a while to become okay with me being gay but I feel like if she hadn’t known you, she would still be holding back to this day,” her message read.

These two experiences moved him and showed him how powerful LGBT people telling their stories could impact somebody. In December 2013, Chan Massey founded the Personal Stories Project with friend, Sara Stevenson Christie.

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 May 2016

The group reached out to friends to share their stories of coming out, what LGBT groups they were involved in, how their family reacted, and call to action of how others could help. Allies and parents of LGBT children also shared their own stories of loving an LGBT person. An 18-year-old high school student, Morgan, shared how she was shunned by her community when she decorated her locker in support of gay marriage.

Chan Massey has shared his own story as well, growing up as a gay man in the South without any LGBT role models and only hearing negative things about people who were out. In fact, he remembers watching television with his grandmother at age 12 when a gay character came on the screen.

“My grandmother got up, walked over to the TV — we didn’t have remote controls in those days — and changed the channel,” he remembered. “I can’t be sure, but I’d say that experience pushed me further into the closet for a while. Even if I didn’t exactly know what it meant to be gay at the time, I knew there was something different about me and that reaction to a television character made me feel that whatever it was, I was bad.”

After two years of sharing stories, the Personal Stories Project officially received its nonprofit status.

“It’s a documented fact that personal stories helped Justice Kennedy make his decision in the Obergefell v. Hodges marriage equality case,” Chan Massey said. “In his opinion, he said that we deserved equal dignity in the eyes of the law and that the constitution grants us that right. It was because of personal stories that he was able to form that opinion.”

Want to share your story? Visit PersonalStoriesProject.org.

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 May 2016

first step to

forever WEDDING Issue

W

elcome to SFGN’s wedding issue. Planning on getting married? Or just dreaming about it?

Either way take your time to flip through this month’s features on LGBT wedding destinations, an interview with Mister Manners, tips on feeling confident at every age, stylish wedding gifts and more!

We hope you enjoy.

SPRING 2016  THE

43

weddings • get away

GET AWAY LGBT Destination Weddings

HIT THE BEACH

The beaches of Hawaii and Florida are among the most popular destinations for same-sex weddings and honeymoons, according to the latest LGBT travel survey conducted by Community Marketing & Insights.

Beach destinations made the top of the list for same-sex couples considering travelling for their wedding ceremonies and honeymoons, announced Community Marketing & Insight’s Senior Research Director David Paisley at the company’s annual LGBT Travel Conference, held last December in Fort Lauderdale: THE TOP 3

THE REST CANADA

Hawaii

8%

OUR PICKS 3%

FRANCE 3% LAS VEGAS

3%

AUSTRALIA

2%

CARIBBEAN

2%

SAN FRANCISCO 2% Florida

7%

SPAIN 2%

BANGKOK, THAILAND Exotic Asia with lots of fabulous shopping, too!

BORA BORA, TAHITI When the hut’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!

QUEENSTOWN, NEW ZEALAND We’re thinking Middle Earth, without the Orks!

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND No beaches, but you can’t beat the geothermal pools!

GREECE 2% NEW ORLEANS

2%

NEW YORK CITY 2%

Mexico

5% 44 THE

 May 2016

SOURCE: CMI 20th LGBT Tourism & Hospitality Survey. Results tabulated from responses by U.S. and Canadian residents who were married or engaged in the year prior to the survey.

weddings • Diy

DIY Popping the Question

Will you marry me?

I

never dreamed I would ever utter those words. Not in a million years. Not even after marriage equality became the law of the land just a year ago. But, there I was, in front of more than 200 people at the opening night performance of “Diego & Drew Say I Do,” asking my partner of 11 years to legally tie the knot.

Let’s back up just a second. I will admit the thought did cross my mind from time to time. For just a second. Afterall, we own a house and several rental properties together and are the parents of two beautiful puppies. If something happened to one of us, I just couldn’t be confident everything would be okay, a lesson I learned from a messy probate fight after an aunt died three years ago.

We happened to have tickets to the show that night at the Broward Center and I decided if I was going to pop the question, I wanted the experience to be memorable for us both. It seemed appropriate since we were going to a “wedding” that night. There were just a few details to work out.

I emailed the show’s co-creator and friend, Jennifer SierraGrobbelaar, and asked if there was an appropriate time during the interactive wedding reception to “pop the question.” She promptly responded, saying she would check with the director. In my mind, I was only seeking a quiet moment when I could turn to him and make the proposition.

Never one to be overly sentimental, I decided to inject some levity into the situation. With just a few hours to plan, there wasn’t time to get a “real” ring. Besides, should gay men propose wtih a ring the same way our straight friends do? A quick stop by the novelty store Over the Moon on Wilton Drive and I was armed with three rings—jewel-toned ring pops at least 4000 carats big— and probably 400 calories, too. I just had to decide what flavor to offer him when the opportunity arrived. The blueberry would win out in the end and I shoved the package in my pocket.

After we arrived at the Broward Center, Jennifer pulled me aside and everything got real. There was a point in the show where the action would stop and I would be handed the microphone.

The microphone. My mind immediately started racing as I silently rehearsed my speech, all the while hoping not to give away the surprise.

When the crucial moment arrived, I played along with the premise of the show, congratulating the happy couple. I was so convincing, my soon-to-be fiance didn’t blink an eye, continuing to devour his chicken. I think a quote from the immortal Beyonce about “putting a ring on it,” was the signal that got his attention— and more than a few chuckles from the audience—as I finally uttered those words, “Will you marry me?” His answer was, not surprisingly, “Yes,” and we enjoyed our first dance before watching the conclusion to the show.

It was special. In fact, a few nights later, another couple would actually get married during the show. That’s just what happens at weddings, even staged ones. Thanks to Jennifer and the entire cast of “Diego & Drew Say I Do.” Now, it’s time to plan our wedding. How am I going to top this?

—J.W. Arnold

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 May 2016

NEED A LITTLE HELP? Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Manalapan is taking an unconventional and thoroughly bespoke approach to getting to “yes” with the launch of a new service, the Eau Palm Beach “Ring Master.”

Their romance architect, proposal concierge Courtney Poston, can be tapped to engineer gasp-inducing proposals as extravagant or understated as necessary to win over any would-be betrothed.

From a dazzling, choreographed flashmob to a personal paparazzi moment with hidden photographers and drone technology, nothing’s out of reach for this nuptial dream weaver, who boasts a performing arts background.

Matchless settings for the big question run the gamut of heart-racing encounters from snorkeling and skydiving to luxurious fantasy yacht excursions and romantic spa treatments.

A fun and imaginative interview session uncovers the keys to the unique heartbeat of each couple’s special bond before Poston gets to work creating a distinctly personalized proposal experience.

“We like to make dreams come true,” said Poston.

Poston offered the following tips for effective proposals: 1. Only do it once. (That’s obvious.)

2. Use your intuition. Your partner will give you cues, both verbal and non-verbal.

3. Make sure your proposal is authentic, especially if one of you doesn’t enjoy being in the spotlight.

4. Champagne. (You can’t go wrong.)

To learn more about the Eau Palm Beach Ring Master service, go to EauPalmBeach.com.

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weddings • feature

I

Ask Mister Manners

n the five months since the Supreme Court legalized samesex marriage across the country, more than 100,000 couples tied the knot, according to a study by the Williams Institute.

For many of those couples, the process of planning their nuptials is daunting. Some adopted the familiar traditions celebrated by heterosexual couples while other adventurous couples dared to incorporate new rituals into their special days.

For years, columnist and commentator Steven Petrow has assisted couples with every detail of planning their weddings from proposals to wedding ceremonies and honeymoons.

The author of five books, including “The New Gay Wedding: A Practical Primer for Brides and Grooms, Their Families and Guests” and “Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay and Lesbian Manners: The Definitive Guide to LGBT Life,” Petrow has taken on a new role as the Modern Manners expert for Hilton hotels.

In this role, he frequently travels to Pride events to advise couples who may be contemplating their own weddings, as well as the benefits of having their ceremonies

Interview by J.W. Arnold

at LGBT-friendly hotels and resorts, especially in smaller cities where there still may not be a welcoming environment.

The Mirror asked Petrow about the trends he’s noticed since the Supreme Court finally weighed in on same-sex marriage in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision: The Mirror: What’s the biggest change you’ve noticed recently for same-sex weddings?

Petrow: The biggest shift that I’ve seen since the Supreme Court ruling last June is that same-sex couples are taking much more time to plan their weddings. They’re reverting to more traditional forms of etiquette, proper engagements, longer engagement periods like a year, weddings that are planned out. Prior to that decision, couples often had to get married quickly, usually with fear that their rights might be taken back, as happened in certain states.

What are the main challenges facing same-sex couples?

Who is going to make the proposal and who buys the rings. For older couples who have been together a while, it’s usually a mutual decision to get married. For millennials, it’s a lot more romantic. There’s more planning and I’m seeing more surprise engagements. Those engagements are definitely romantic and, more and more, one member of the couple is taking the initiative. There are no rules. It’s whoever gets there first.

And what about the rings?

Many same-sex couples don’t want to wear two bands, so an engagement ring may also serve as a wedding band. Some wear it on the right hand while engaged and move it to the left hand after the wedding. Others wear it for a while and then take it off for a while before the wedding. It’s very symbolic.

Continued on next page

Wedding Expert Steven Petrow

WeddingCollectibles.com

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May 2016  THE

51

weddings • feature

Continued from previous page Is the process easier for younger couples?

For many younger couples, there’s actually the question whether parents will participate financially and be involved in the planning.

Couples that have been together for a long time are more likely to bear the cost. With those younger couples, everyone wants to have the wedding and be involved.

Are same-sex couples opting for tradition at their weddings?

One of the great benefits for same-sex couples is that we’re not necessarily bound by the same rites when it comes to our weddings. It’s very easy to mix up the genders of the wedding attendants, the best man might the best woman, etcetera.

Moms and dads are giving away their sons and daughters in weddings. Many couples are doing it their own ways in terms of reinventing traditions.

What I find most interesting is that, in a way, it’s impacting opposite-sex weddings, part of a trend of personalization or customization. Nobody wants a “cookie cutter” wedding.

What issues do you find same-sex couples wring their hands about most?

It’s the same as heterosexual couples—financial issues. It’s always about how to live within a budget and still have that dream wedding. When you get beyond that, then it’s issues like the kiss and what they’ll wear. Some lesbian couples worry about how people will perceive their gender identities if they wear a suit or a dress. All too many straights don’t get it. I’m always saying to couples to be themselves, be authentic.

What about names? For a long time, it seemed like a lot of gay and lesbian couples hyphenated their names after getting married.

Two-thirds don’t change their names at all, but a good percentage, both men and women, are hyphenating. There’s also a very small percentage of one taking the name of his husband or her wife. That’s what I call retro-traditional. In talking with those couples, the individual who gives up their name often had a strained relationship with their family. It gives them an opportunity to form a new identity. There’s a lot of power that comes with that decision. Sometimes it’s a precursor to having kids. Sometimes having one family name is easier in that case.

Something as simple as a kiss is fraught with anxiety.

there are often (unspoken) concerns about what that first kiss is going be like. Many of the gay folks I’ve talked to have discussed it themselves and with their wedding planners. Something as simple as a kiss is kind of fraught with anxiety. I have not seen that fear realized.

But eventually, the novelty of same-sex weddings will wear off, won’t it?

I do think so as more same-sex couples marry and more straight folks are invited to their weddings. It’s a little bit of a joke, but everyone wants a gay friend and everyone wants to be invited a gay wedding. There’s this fantasy that these weddings are better, but it’s not statistically proven out, even though comedians have joked about it for a long time.

Is there a particularly fabulous gay wedding you would have liked to have attended?

When [writer and political commentator] Andrew Sullivan married his now-husband and after they were pronounced, they left the church in a tank that they had painted bright pink. Big bubbles were spewing out the gun turret. That was a wedding to have been envious. It was in the U.K. Are you married yourself ?

Yes, we’ve been together 12 years now and got married three years ago. We live in North Carolina now and, just before we got married, we’d been living in the [San Francisco] Bay area.

We got married just north of San Francisco and did it the way that suited us. We had a small ceremony…later that fall, when we were in North Carolina, we had a big reception, basically a party with a food truck, which again suited us. It was probably the first same-sex wedding reception most of our friends had ever been to.

We had the wedding cake thing and the toast and it was lovely. And, who doesn’t like a food truck?

To learn more Steven Petrow and his Hilton Modern Manners program, go to GoOut.Hilton.com.

When planning their weddings, are there any special considerations same-sex couples should make for their straight guests?

One of the fears that heterosexual guests have about a same-sex wedding [is] that they’ll be at this wild and crazy Pride party. In a way, it diminishes the significance, but also plays into the media images. No matter what the couple is doing, it’s still a sacred ceremony with significance. You don’t need to worry about dancing boys on a float.

That said, it is true, even with straight allies, that

WeddingCollectibles.com

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 May 2016

weddings • Intel

INTEL Grooming

Looking and Feeling Confident….at Every Age It’s your special day and whether it’s your first time down the aisle or fourth, you want to look your very best. Chris Salgardo, president of beauty and skincare product retailer Kiehl’s Since 1851, was in South Florida earlier this year to open a new store in Boca Raton. He shared these tips from his new book, Manmade: The Essential Skincare and Grooming Reference for Every Man:

1.

4.

8.

2.

5.

9.

3.

6.

7.

10.

Work with what you have.

Keep that hairstyle clean Be judicious with fragrance.

If you are entirely gray, and modern, but not You don’t want it to make don’t dye your hair dark; trendy. Nothing ages a an unintentionally bold the maintenance will kill you. Fully man quicker than trying to look 20 statement or create any reason gray hair and beards generally look years younger, even if he still runs for distance between yourself and better when kept shorter. with the young bucks. others.

If you are balding, shaving Use lip balm and eye cream your head may make you every day. Visibly dry, look younger and better chapped lips and crepestyled than trying to hold on to looking skin around the eyes make those last few thinning strands. Ask you look damaged, not intrepid. your trusted stylist for a professional Use body moisturizer. opinion before deciding. If you do It will keep your skin shave it down, be sure to wear an youthful and resilient, SPF on that dome every day. with much fewer lines.

Use products that will Take care of your make your skin look fresh. fingernails and toenails.

Key ingredients to look for They can get brittle or include: vitamin C, vitamin E and discolored as we age. Regular, caffeine. professional manicures, pedicures and daily moisturizing will prevent ragged edges and breakage.

Get a great dermatologist.

Address blemishes, spots or ingrown hairs professionally to avoid damage. And don’t delay getting that new mole or worrisome spot checked out.

Keep physically fit.

You can look athletic at any age. You don’t need to bulk up, but keep a tight butt and gut. Diet, squats, sit-ups. And make sure to drink lots of water and get a good night’s sleep every day.

“Manmade: The Essential Skincare and Grooming Reference for Every Man” by Chris Salgardo ($30) is available at Kiehl’s Since 1851 retail locations, Amazon.com and other online retailers.

For more information and skin care tips, go to Kiehls.com.

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 May 2016

May 2016  THE

55

weddings • album

WEDDING ALBUM

Boca Couple’s Wonka-Themed Reception is the Golden Ticket

Mark Traverso and Conor Walton

Photos by Munoz Photography

HE WHOLE THING SNOWBALLED out of control,” recalls Conor Walton of their wedding afterparty, a 300-person affair with a delicious Willy Wonka theme that would make Veruca Salt envious.

Walton, a local actor, and his husband, marketing exec Mark Traverso, already were known for extravagant Halloween and Christmas parties, so friends knew the affair would be over the top.

“When we were talking about themes, I was leaning toward ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ my favorite movie of all time,” he said, “but, because it was going to be an afterparty with so many desserts, Willy Wonka worked out much better. A chocolate factory with non-stop edible delights was exactly what we wanted.”

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 May 2016

weddings • album

“It very quickly went from a little bit of money to a lot of money,” said Traverso. “I have to admit I had a harder time seeing it come together, I’m not an artist like Conor.”

The couple collaborated with the staff of their venue, The Addison in Boca Raton, and Daniel Events, who custom-designed and constructed the decorations and giant golden tickets. Set-up took nearly a week before the June 19 wedding. On the big night real, live Oompa Loompas were on hand to greet the guests.

Communication was key to the success of the theme party, said Walton, who discussed the plans and progress with his fiancee daily. Also, working with a team of event professionals you trust, he added.

“It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” said Traverso, but the impact of the event wouldn’t quite strike him until a few months later: “I was sitting next to a couple of younger girls planning their weddings and was able to share some of our experiences with them,” Traverso said. “I never ever thought I would be the person offering advice on how to plan a wedding.”

May 2016  THE

57

Rev. Katy Peterson Wedding Officiant honoring all loving couples

•

Services are customized to each couples’ needs:

interfaith, non-religious or religion-specific.

Katy is also a professional musician and singer and can provide music as well as assist with the musical planning for your ceremony.

954-822-0109

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www.KatyPeterson.com

 May 2016

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weddings • marketplace

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MARKETPLACE Stylish Wedding Gifts for the LGBT Couple

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1. I’ll have another! Hers & Hers Champagne Flutes ($65, set of two) from Carved Solutions are perfect for that first toast. CarvedSolutions.com 2. Wake up and smell the coffee. You’ll want to get out of bed for a cup of java brewed in the Keurig 2.0 K575 Plus Brewing System ($259.99). Macys.com 3. Rub a dub dub.... Clean up after consummating your marriage with these Spa Aqua Mineral Trio soaps ($40).

CarvedSolutions.com 4. Celebrate marriage equality. Three-time cancer survivor Lee Rhodes created these colorful votive candle sets ($264, set of six) and a portion of sales goes back to cancer patients. Available in a wide range of colors and combinations. GlassyBaby.com

We’ve come too far, for your special night not to be

Magnificent!

1-866-592-5926 WEDDINGS | PARTIES | SPECIAL EVENTS www.ladyofharp.com

- International Performing Harpist, Lady of Harp

For Your Wedding and For A Lifetime...

Galt Ocean Drive Ft Lauderdale

Large in Stock Selection, Special Order or Custom Design Made In House 3353 Galt Ocean Drive Ft Lauderdale, FL 33308 M-F 10am-5pm

954.564.4221 jonpauljewelers.com May 2016  THE

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weddings • entertaining

ENTERTAINING The Wedding Toast

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue....

F

or generations, brides have incorporated four important items into their wedding attire: something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Same-sex couples have the opportunity to adopt these beloved traditions ensuring good luck, but in the case of “something blue,” they also can lend their own unique interpretations, beginning with the wedding toast.

Last year, Premium Vintage Cellars introduced Blanc de Bleu (SRP $17), a sparkling wine with a brilliant gemstone hue and a kiss of natural blueberry flavor that has won over both brides and grooms across the country.

The brand got a formal launch last fall at the National Bridal Market in Chicago, attending by budding brides and, more importantly, scores of wedding planners seeking both the latest trends and new ways to interpret time-honored traditions.

“The planners were definitely taken by the look,” said Bronco Wine Company’s Bob Nichols in an interview with Southern Beverage Journal. “The color is beautiful and it’s perfect for weddings.”

Creative wedding planners have arranged the bottles in stunning displays, chilling dozens of bottles in tubs and lining trays of blue-filled flutes. Smaller 187ml splits, also released last year, are being presented as gifts or favors for guests or members of the wedding party.

The serious wine drinker may be skeptical of the bubbly’s sweet taste, but few can argue it’s not an appropriate choice for that first wedding toast.

Blanc de Bleu is marketed in the U.S. by Bronco Wine Company and distributed in South Florida by Republic National Distributors.

Check with your local wine and spirits retailer for availability.

“

The color is beautiful and it’s perfect for weddings.”

–Bronco Wine Company’s Bob Nichols

For the Blushing Bride (or Groom)

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Not planning to find your thrill on Blueberry Hill at your reception? Try a bubbly rosé, instead.

In recent years, the blush-colored sparkling wines have gained popularity, ranging from dry to sweet and covering all price points. Here are our favorites: Dom Pérignon Grand Vintage Rosé, SRP $200 Moet & Chandon Rosé Imperial, SRP $75 Rosa Regale Sparkling Red, SRP $13

MIX IT UP Blanc de Bleu also parties well with other ingredients. Consider these wine cocktails for the reception: Bleu Lagoon 1.5 oz. pineapple/coconut flavored vodka or run 1 tbsp. sugar syrup 2 parts soda water 2 oz. Blanc de Bleu Shake and strain over ice or straight up. Garnish with a pineapple wedge.

Bleu Maestro 1.5 oz. tequila Juice of 1 line 1 tbsp. agave syrup ½ oz. orange-flavored liqueur 2 oz. Blanc de Bleu Place in shaker with ice. Shake and strain over ice or straight up.

Bleu Buddha 1.5 oz. citrus-infused vodka ¾ oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice 1 oz. sugar syrup 2 oz. Blanc de Bleu Garnish with fresh lemon twist.

Bleu Frizzante Mojito ¾ oz. fresh squeezed lime juice 1 oz. sugar syrup 1.5 oz. rum 2 dashes bitters 2 oz. Blanc de Bleu 6 lime leaves Muddle ingredients and serve over ice. Garnish with remaining lime leaves.

A Sure Thing 3 oz. pineapple juice 1 oz. elderflower-flavored liqueur 1.5 oz. tequila 1.5 oz. Blanc de Bleu Shake pineapple juice, liqueur and tequila over ice. Pour in martini glass.

Float with Blanc de Bleu and garnish with orange twist.

wedding • catering

Tips For Choosing A Caterer For Your

Same-Sex Wedding

M

Ann Jones

arriage equality is finally here! My sister just walked down the aisle with her partner of 27 years.

Although long overdue, the sense of joy and meaning will be forever cherished by all of us who shared in their very special day.

Every couple deserves a very personal and inspired wedding celebration that reflects their love and tells their unique story. The processes, the planning, the research and the expenses can be daunting at first, but if you take a deep breath and break down the process into digestible segments, you will be just fine. Couples have been successfully planning their weddings for hundreds of years, now it’s your turn.

Hiring the right caterer for your special day is one of the most important aspects of your planning process. After all, the venue, food, drink, service staff and table settings will consume the largest portion of your wedding budget.

Your first step is to determine what you want out of a catered meal and what you want your guests to experience — level of formality; plated, buffet or stations; type of menu and food; and level of creativity and innovation. Once you have determined what you want out of the catering program, the next step is to determine your budget.

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Budgeting can be one of the most challenging aspects of planning a wedding. Decide how much you’re willing to spend upfront and clearly communicate this when vetting potential caterers. It is important to understand that there are many other aspects beyond the food that contribute to a successful catering experience, and it is important to have a handle on what services and items are integral but not necessarily included in a caterer’s price.

Don’t waste your time looking at pricey caterers who are clearly outside of your budget range. Be certain to have a clear understanding of what the quoted price covers to ensure you are comparing apples to apples. If you have to add the cost of cake-cutting and coffee service or set up and breakdown to the least expensive caterer’s quote, it may end up being comparable in price to the most expensive! This can feel overwhelming. Look for a caterer who will assist you early in the education process. Potential costs should be laid out upfront.

In order to avoid costly surprises, find out exactly what is included; for example, • Tables, chairs, tableware and linens • Service and culinary staff and bartenders • Cutting and serving the cake • Pouring champagne for the toast • Providing coffee service • Set up and breakdown of reception • Transportation, trucking and equipment • Liability insurance

Do your research! Look at their menus and their photo galleries. Check out their Facebook page, where professional photographers may have tagged them in photos. Read their reviews – WeddingWire, The Knot and even Yelp are great resources to find out what other couples have shared about their experience with the caterer.

The most important questions are those you ask before you select your caterer. Make sure they are not only gayfriendly but sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community.

Some qualities to look for and questions to ask: • Flexibility with menu and presentation requests • Ability to accommodate special diets and needs such as vegetarian, vegan and children’s menu options • Dessert and wedding cake options • How and where the food is prepared — ideally on location so it is fresh and maintains the highest standard of quality • Staff-to-guest ratio • Ability to assist with other aspects of the wedding like providing wedding cakes, floral arrangements and decor or a photographer. Is their wait staff able to help with some of the dayof details like setting out place cards and party favors?

• Good communication, organization and response time • Longevity and reputation

Check to see if the caterer offers a tasting experience. A tasting will allow you to fully experience the quality, style and presentation of their food. Caterers usually require a small fee to cover a tasting that occurs in the discovery phase, but they should give you a credit towards the total cost of your event catering should you book their services for your wedding.

Expect a lot from your caterer. Remember, this is your wedding day so do not hesitate to ask lots of questions! A good caterer should understand your overall vision for the day and listen to your ideas. They should be able to use their wealth of experience and talent and build upon your ideas to go above and beyond your expectations for your special day.

So do your research, communicate your budget and your vision and your particular needs, and most importantly, have fun in the process! Happy planning!

Ann Jones is the owner of Eggwhites Special Event Catering on page 49. Visit www.EggWhitesCatering.com or call 305-892-2066 for more information.

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