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These really are the easiest posts to compile because there are dumb people everywhere and it seems they are all trying to out-dumb one another with fear and loathing, but there are some bright spots, and given this is Pride Month, it’s especially nice there most are LGBTQ+ … so here goes: MASSACHUSETTS
MISSOURI
LOUISIANA
OHIO
TENNESSEE
GOOD AMERICA
NEW JERSEY
UTAH
CALIFORNIA
Remember, We The People have to make the Good News happen by speaking up and standing up and shouting out and voting to remove those people from office who are out to harm women, People of Color, and the LGBTQ+ community in their quest to take this country backwards. Not to mention the NRA lapdogs and asshats. CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!  |
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 07, 2022
The Bad and The Good ... Tuesday June 7, 2022
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Stories of Pride: Nicholas Bulman is Prom King
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Nicholas Bulman has been named Prom King at Barnstable High School in Massachusetts.
It was just last summer, in an Instagram post, that Nicholas told his classmates that he was in the process of transitioning. He was met with support and encouragement, and, thanks to the teaching staff at Barnstable, he was nominated to be Prom King.
At his high school, teachers pick five boys as candidates for prom king and five girls as candidates for prom queen. One teacher , Lyn Vazquez, said Nicholas was an obvious choice:
“He’s just an all-around great person. Teachers at Barnstable High School felt Nick was a great candidate.”
Nicholas said he didn’t even know he was nominated until a classmate told him; and then last week, he attended the school’s Great Gatsby-themed prom with his classmates where he was chosen as Prom King.
Nicholas has struggled with his gender identity for many years and it wasn’t until he was in the eighth grade and heard the word “transgender” that he found a place where he fit:
“It helped me a lot knowing there were other people who understood what I was going through.”
Last summer he started hormone replacement therapy, and earlier this year he got top surgery.
“When I was getting fitted [for a tux], everything fit better.”
Everything fit.
Congratulations to Nicholas for becoming Prom King, but even more congratulations on choosing to live his life authentically as himself.
We could all learn that lesson.
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Wednesday, January 09, 2019
Architecture Wednesday: Island Residence
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I need a beach house, and this one, sitting on a narrow strip of land on the island of Chappaquiddick near Edgartown, Massachusetts, ir perfect.
It’s relaxing.
Of course, sad to say, it’s also a wee bit large—though maybe I could get the Reader’s Digest version—and comprised of four different structures: a 6,300 square-foot main house, a 630 square foot garage, a storage shed, and a boat house. I could probably do without the shed … because it’s so relaxing, with the ocean on one side and a bay on the other.
The home was built on the site of an older house, that was razed to make room for this home and some changes to the site. The site strategy involved moving the road from the middle of an existing meadow to a new location, winding through an oak and pine forest and ending in a hidden courtyard near the garage. Then you walk along the boardwalk, through the trees, to the house, sited far enough away, that the driveway and garage simply disappear.
The main house has been strategically located to optimize the experience of living in the home, and outside, while minimizing the impact on the environmental. For instance, the boathouse—and I never thought I’d need one, but now I want one—sits on four concrete columns among pine trees, but was constructed without ever touching a branch.
The house offers remarkable views of Nantucket , the sunrise over Cape Pogue Bay , the ocean and Edgartown, and the sunset over the water. The house was built low to the ground and clad in sealed, unpainted wood to naturally weather over time to recede into the landscape.
Naturally, it’s not just pretty, it’s also environmentally friendly; behind that natural wood cladding is a system of rigid insulation to withstand the hardiest of nor’easters. And where the façade lacks wood, it contains fully operable windows, created by a local craftsman who uses a technique that allows corner windows to open completely, and large panels of glass to slide open along the exterior façade of the building, leaving nothing but the view and the breezes. These window openings work with the home’s radiant heating and cooling, vastly reducing the cost of HVAC equipment. The home’s southern exposure fills the interior with natural light, maximizing solar heat gain and minimizing electrical consumption, while green roofs—covered in sea grasses—provide roof insulation, improve air quality and biodiversity, manage rainwater, and reduce noise.
As I said, it’s quiet and peaceful and seems almost a part of the land. If only there was a smaller version ….
               
Click to emBIGGERate ...
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Peter Rose + Partners
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Grown Men Could Learn Something From Nico
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Emily Nash is sixteen and an avid golfer; she recently finished a Massachusetts high school golf tournament competition, where she was the only girl playing, with the best score.
Good for her, but ... rules set by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association prevented her from getting the first-place trophy because ... wait for it ... she’s a girl. The girl with the best score; the best one playing; but not good enough for a trophy because she doesn’t have a penis. Oh, and let’s not forget that Emily’s score, again, the best score, was used to contribute to her school’s overall team score, but she was not recognized as an individual player, again, because of her gender.
Luckily, Nico Ciolino, who got the second-best score, and received the championship trophy instead, because he’s male, is more aware and grown-up than the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association:
“I felt a little bit awkward. It felt like I cheated in a sense because I didn’t win and I got the trophy. It didn’t feel right with me. I felt bad. It’s so hard winning tournaments. … It’s just so tough when you finally win and you get the results that you worked so hard for and then it’s like, ‘Oh wait, you can’t win. You’re a girl.’” 
And so he offered the trophy to Emily, who was touched by his gesture ...
“He came over and said he didn’t win the tournament, that I did. It was really nice of him and respectful”
... but politely declined.
Nico says:
“I like to call myself a good golfer, but it’s very hard to win in the tournaments I play in, so it’s very hard for me to kind of say, you know, give up the trophy ... But I knew that she deserved it. She beat me fair and square. It was the right thing to do. She won. It didn’t mind me that she was a girl. We played from the same tees. We played in the same conditions.”
Again, too bad the adults running the tournament were as, well, aware, as Nico.
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Friday, August 26, 2016
A Gay Couple's Home Was Vandalized, And What The Neighbors Did Next Was Shocking
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Shortly after the Orlando massacre, Cari and Lauri Ryding hung a Rainbow flag outside their home as a sign of solidarity. They had always felt welcome on Strawberry Hill Road in Natwick and so they knew that hanging the LGBTQ Pride flag was the right thing to do.
But, after returning from vacation they found that their flag had been stolen and their house and porch had been pelted with eggs. Cari said they were in shock, after having lived so peacefully in the neighborhood, but it was what happened next that really stunned the couple.
After alerting the local police, they posted questions to Facebook, asking the neighbors if anyone had seen anything; no one did and still there are no suspects. But the Ryding’s neighbors were outraged, and one neighbor, Maura Gaughan, sprang into action. She contacted the Rainbow Peace Flag Project, a local organization that gives away flags to Natick-area residents.
And on the next Sunday morning a group of neighborhood children on bicycles delivered rainbow flags to each and every house on the block; and one by one, every house was decorated with a Rainbow flag emblazoned with the word “Peace.”
“It just happened so quickly — the whole neighborhood said, ‘Get me a flag. Get me a flag. Get me a flag.’ If we can stop whatever hate is out there, I think that’s really important.” — Penni Rochwerger, a neighbor
Lauri Ryding was busy cleaning off the eggs from her porch when she spotted a Pride flag, and as she walked through the neighborhood she saw more and more; on doors and fences; flying high from a flagpole; hanging on a gate.
Lois McGillivray has lived on Strawberry Hill Road for 50 years and she was one of the first to fly the Pride flag:
“I have never met anyone who would do what that person did to that house. This is a place where nobody bothers anybody, no matter how you want to live, as long as you’re not digging up the garden and throwing the dirt in my yard.”
Neil Podolski is Jewish, and he instantly took a flag to fly in front of his home:
“It’s just not right. Who’s to say tomorrow we don’t find a swastika on our house?”
The Ryding’s, after finding their home vandalized, did what most of us might do: they thought of leaving, feeling that maybe the neighborhood wasn’t so safe. But what the neighbors did, in solidarity, “completely overshadowed that fear and we are just overwhelmed with the kindness and generosity.”
All in all, there are now forty houses on Strawberry Hill Road m and the surrounding neighborhood, flying the Pride flag in Peace.
Times do change, y’all.
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Monday, July 11, 2016
Good News ... Bad News ... Good News On Trans Rights
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Last week, in Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker signed new legislation that will allow anyone in the state to use bathrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identity, and empowers authorities to make sure that no one does so fraudulently.
Now, how this is going to be done is unclear; oh, not the trans person using the bathroom, that’s been going on forever. But how will authorities make sure that a non-trans person isn’t using the bathroom for their own disgusting purposes is unclear.
Opponents of the legislation say that male sexual predators might pretend to be trans women in order to enter a woman’s bathroom or locker room even though there doesn’t seem to be a single case on the books to suggest this has been an issue ever.
 “This … legislation extends additional protections to the commonwealth’s transgender community, and includes language to address the public safety concerns expressed by some by requiring the attorney general to issue regulations to protect against people abusing the law.” — Governor Baker
While this is a celebratory moment for the LGBTQ community and our trans brothers and sisters, let’s not forget North Carolina and their law that — in addition to denying LGBT North Carolinians equal protection under the law — mandates people use only the restrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates.
And so now nearly half the states in this country are fighting to make sure transgender students can be discriminated against in schools. Yes, they’re fighting for the right to discriminate.
That new federal lawsuit in Nebraska challenges the federal government’s recent guidelines about the protections transgender students deserve under the law. And this new lawsuit joins a separate lawsuit that Texas — along with about a dozen states — filed in May.
The Nebraska suit argues that the Department of Justice [DOJ] and Department of Education [DOE] are overstepping their roles by “rewriting” the term “sex” to include “gender identity.” And, like the Texas suit, the Nebraska suit focuses mostly on how the new guidelines were issued; it’s semantics, y’all.
While the Administrative Procedures Act says that that when agencies like the DOF and the DOE clarify an existing rule, they can just issue new guidelines. But these Hate States say these agencies have created a new rule by now clarifying that “sex” protections should include transgender individuals, and so they want the DOJ and the DOE to go through a lengthy notice-and-comment period before the new guidelines are finalized.
You know, drag it out so the kids can’t pee. And the most disgusting part of these lawsuits is the wording in the suits seems to deny the very existence of transgender people and their identities:
“Neither the text nor the legislative history of Title IX supports an interpretation of the term “sex” as meaning anything other than one’s sex as determined by anatomy and genetics, which was the meaning assigned “sex” by the leading dictionaries at the time Congress enacted the statute.”
Basically, these Hate States think Title IX’s enforcement should be permanently attached to a 1972 understanding of the word “sex” — the term ‘transgender’ was first coined in 1965 — and the fact that trans people have failed to obtain protection under the law in the past is somehow proof that they should receive no protections now.
And while most of the research of what it means to be transgender is very recent, Nebraska and the Hate States argue that none of that new information should inform enforcement of Title IX. They want to use an understanding of transgender from back in the day when very few people knew what it meant; back when even the word itself was new. They clearly want to live in the past, with the rules and laws of the past informing the rules and laws of today, even though we have, or at least some of us have, increased knowledge and awareness of what it means to be trans.
But these Hate States aren’t concerned with how the transgender person feels, but rather how other people feel around, or about, transgendered persons. The suit maintains that individuals must use bathrooms or locker rooms based on their “biological sex” and even trots out the Hate Speech about how anyone can get access to any facility by just changing their gender identity on a whim.
You know, because that’s what it means to be trans … changing gender because of a mood or a feeling. Of course, the hate is clearly evident in the fact that, in the Nebraska suit specifically, nowhere is the word “transgender” even used unless they are quoting another document.
They’re so afraid to say the word so how can we possibly believe they’ll, ever accept the word, or the transgender person?
On the upside of the Hate … Friday was the deadline for collecting signatures for a Washington state anti-trans ballot initiative, and those anti-LGBT conservatives have fallen far short of the signatures they needed to legislate discrimination.
The Just Want Privacy campaign—an off-shoot of the Hate Group, Family Policy Institute of Washington—had proposed Initiative 1515 — very similar to North Carolina’s HB2 — to ban transgender people from restrooms that match their gender identity, but it also would have allowed students to sue schools if they saw transgender students in the “other” bathroom.
Luckily, though, Just Want Privacy cancelled their appointment to deliver their petitions to the Secretary of State because they have failed to collect even two-thirds of the 300,000 signatures they hoped to collect.
And so, last Friday, the campaign’s leaders released a statement conceding failure:
“Just Want Privacy will not give up the fight to protect the state’s girls and women and is considering all of its options for repealing the ‘Open Locker Room’ rule. The current law is grotesquely dangerous and in need of dramatic revision.”
This sign of failure is in sharp contrast to their website crowing just a week ago that they were “almost there” but, since they tried fear instead of facts, maybe the good people, of Washington saw the Hate for just that: fear and hate.
Now if only we could get those other twenty or so states to understand that ….
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Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Massachusetts Senate Passes Trans Rights Legislation
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While the legislatures in North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma have been living in fear over the idea of trans females using the ladies — as they have done without incident four years — something almost miraculous happened in the Massachusetts Senate the other day.
They passed a transgender rights bill by a vote of 33-4 — the four opposing votes were all from Republicans … go figure.
This new bill protects transgender people in places of public accommodation, including restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
"As a member of the LGBT community it's really big for me. This is a fundamental right." — Stan Rosenberg, Democratic Senate President
But the anti-LGBT forces were incensed ….
"If this legislation is passed, woman and children will have no protections against being ogled by, or exposed to, naked men." — Massachusetts Family Institute President Andrew Beckwith
During the debate, the Massachusetts Family Institute paraded children though the statehouse holding signs that read, "No Bathroom Bill."
The bill now heads to the House, which passed a different version, and then it’s on to the desk of Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican. He has indicated a preference for the House version which includes more restrictions.
A Baker spokesperson says the governor “will carefully review a bill should the legislature act” but that the governor “believes no one should be discriminated against based on gender identity.”
Here’s hoping sanity prevails over fear and this bill becomes law in Massachusetts.
After all, it was Massachusetts that started this whole marriage equality thing back in 2004, so maybe they’ll start a trend towards acceptance and understanding the ability to simply use a bathroom.
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Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Architecture Wednesday: 31 South Water Street
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Last week we went to an ultra-modern house that sat along the sea on the Left Coast, so this week I thought we'd go Right Coast, and traditional.
It's a bit safe, for me, but I love the interiors and the history and the back of the house, so if I ever got tired of the Pacific, I'd just swing east and try Atlantic.
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Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Wedding Bells
I am currently in the ninth
day of a ‘Three Days Coming, Three Days With You, Three Days Leaving’ head
could—which is giving me the impression via hacking cough, runny nose and sore
throat that it won’t be obeying the rules and might stick around a bit longer.
So, I was looking for some good news because I thought maybe the karma of
sharing the good news would force my cold to leave my cynical snarky body and I
found this, or, these:
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| Pem Brown & Carl Sciortino |
Carl Sciortino, a gay man trying to win an election to
represent Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District, married his
partner of five years, Pem Brown, last Saturday.
And he sees his wedding — met with very little controversy — as evidence
of the amount of progress the LGBTQ+ community has made over the last 10 years, especially
after the Supreme Court kicked DOMA and Prop H8 to the curb:
“I think the fact that I can get married as a congressional candidate in a middle of the election, and it’s not a big deal, not a controversy, is a sign of how far we’ve come … When I first ran for office in 2004 at the height of the marriage debate here, it was inconceivable then that I could 10 years later be getting married, and have it be recognized not only by the State of Massachusetts, but the federal government.”— Carl Sciortino
Sciortino, who has touted his progressive values in running
for Congress, is credited as a state lawmaker with helping beat back a state
constitutional amendment that would have rescinded marriage rights for gay
couples in Massachusetts.
The location of the Sciortino-Brown wedding, the Old South Meeting House, is
significant for the LGBT rights movement because it’s where the LGBT community
gathered in 2003 to celebrate the night of the Massachusetts Supreme Court
decision that brought marriage equality to the first jurisdiction in the
country.
Congratulations to the happy couple, for every step one of
us makes is another step for all of us.
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| TR Knight & Patrick Leahy |
And, speaking of steps, actor T.R. Knight, formerly of Grey’s Anatomy, is also a married man
now, having wed his boyfriend, Patrick Leahy in upstate New York last Friday.
Knight, currently playing the role of Mercutio in the
Classic Stage Company's off-Broadway production of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet in New York City, and Leahy
kept the affair simple and private, but congratulations none-the-less.
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| Dot-Marie Jones & Bridgett Casteen |
And finally, wallowing in good news also, is Glee star Dot-Marie Jones, who just
became engaged to her girlfriend Bridgett Casteen at Gay Days Anaheim at
Disneyland last week.
“It’s the happiest day of my life. I never thought I’d find somebody that is so loving and kind.”—Dot-Marie Jones
Yup, all that good news night just do the trick to get this
head cold moving on out …
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