RuthOUTspoken

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OUTspoken: Veterans frustrated, felt unwelcome at Redwood Pride

After the dissolution of the group that organized Humboldt Pride up until last year, the road to rebuilding a longstanding community festival has been rough.Some might call “rough” an understatement.While the goal, accordin

“It’s triggered our PTSD.”

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OUTspoken: New honor guard forms for LGBTQ vets

The Redwood Veterans Honor Guard wants you ... to join their recently formed group of LGBTQ veterans.Several of the members are alums of the Mad River Community Veterans Honor Guard who felt there should be a more inclusive group in town.

I asked two LGBTQ vets their thought’s on Trumps transgender ban. This is how one responded.

“We’re talking about highly dedicated, highly trained individuals,” Army veteran Clinton Ellis-Gilmore said. “Now 15,000 are gone for [BS] reasons. How can you get behind that? I can’t.”

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OUTspoken: HSU embraces LGBTQ students

Humboldt State University has embraced the rainbow.Incoming LGBTQ students at the university have a bevy of resources available to them across campus, from housing to social life.And the efforts have been recognized on a national level.

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OUTspoken: State of LGBTQ history in Humboldt County K-12

• The Stonewall riots in 1968 are often cited as the start of the gay rights movement. • Hollywood icon Rock Hudson begged for help from his close friend First Lady Nancy Reagan as he struggled with the late stages of AIDS. That h

In 2011 the California Legislature passed a law mandating that “instruction in social sciences to include a study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.”

This kind of change does not happen overnight.

While some of the schools in Humboldt County teach LGBTQ history, not all do. But by the 2018-19 school year, all of the county’s schools should have the curriculum implemented.  

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OUTspoken: Is anti-trans bill viable? Not likely

By Ruth SchneiderThe Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2017 is quite an innocuous name for the newest anti-trans bill to emerge from conservatives in Congress.But the intention of the bill is hardly benign. Its intent is to strip rights fro

“Really we have not mobilized around the bill because we don’t think it is a viable bill,” Mara Keisling, said executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. 

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OUTspoken: A little drag goes a long way toward starting a conversation

By Ruth SchneiderGeorgia McBride is a legend.The title of the new production at the Redwood Curtain says so.She’s also a great talking point about the fluidness of sexuality and the increasingly mainstream role of drag quee

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OUTspoken: Switch Hitters LGBTQ softball team swings into action

By Ruth [email protected] @RuthOUTspoken on TwitterThere’s a new LGBTQ softball team in town and it kicked off the summer season on Wednesday.The Switch Hitters took on Battitude at Hartman Field on W S

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OUTspoken: Grab your rainbow garb — it’s Pride Month and pride is everywhere

I love June. It’s a colorful month for the LGBTQ community.As we mark the 48 years since the Stonewall riots during the annual Pride Month, it is pleasing to see the local community coming together to celebrate.And despite the dis

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OUTspoken: ‘Checked In’ allows queer youth to share their life stories

The start of each Queer Coffee House session at the Raven Project begins with a check-in.And despite the name, there was no coffee served at this week’s meeti

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OUTspoken: Humboldt County resident one of first to be legally nonbinary, the third gender option

Andi Rostad might be the first person in Humboldt County to be legally considered nonbinary. Rostad was granted the status on May 22 in Humboldt County Superior Court. What that means is Rostad is neither considered male nor female and instead is cons

“It was a total non-affair,” Andi Rostad said of last week’s legal proceedings. “The judge was very discreet. ... I had my whole Erin Brockovich called up in my mind and I didn’t have to call on that at all.”

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OUTspoken: Zane 8th-graders provide LGBTQ history lesson they didn’t learn in a classroom

Two eighth-graders at Zane Middle School in Eureka have provided a gay rights history lesson to their peers — and educators across the state — that they themselves haven’t found in their own history books that are part of the curr

Neither Klayre nor Sylvie have learned about the groundbreaking moment in LGBTQ history in a classroom. The June 1969 protest was a turning point in the gay liberation movement when a group of patrons and drag performers at the New York bar The Stonewall Inn decided they didn’t want to take persecution from police any longer.

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OUTspoken: Feel fishy, play fish: It’s all good at ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ viewing parties

Friday evenings at The Jam in Arcata provide both an opportunity to look like a fish or at least play Go Fish, with the viewing parties surrounding this season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”Kara Randolph, who’s known profe

Viewing parties in Humboldt County of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” are a hoot. You can even win a trophy for playing a fishy game of Bingo.

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OUTspoken: Small protest in Eureka over ‘religious freedom’ order

A handful of protesters stood outside the Humboldt County courthouse Thursday afternoon to demonstrate against an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that allows churches and religions organizations to be more politically active. T

“It’s complete hypocrisy” said Brian Kleinmeyer who organized the Eureka protest.

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OUTspoken: What you can do about the gay concentration camps in Chechnya

Reports have emerged of hundreds of gays rounded up, beaten, confined, and sometimes killed in concentration camps in the conservative Russian republic of Chechnya.While there is limited reporting of this in the United States, aside from in gay

Despite distance, we don’t need to sit by as this occurs. We can act. 

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OUTspoken: Local journalist to screen film on Cuban drag scene

Long-time journalist Dave Silverbrand is screening his new film “Trains and Transvestites” at a Local Filmmakers Night next Wednesday at Eureka High School. I chatted with Silverbrand this week about the film, which came out of hi

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OUTspoken: Pronoun trouble and how to get out of it

One of my favorite Looney Toons cartoons of old — this one is from 1952 — involves Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and the trouble with pronouns. Bugs and Daffy argue over whether it is duck season or rabbit season and who should be shot b

“Who do zim and xe refer to and how do I use them in a sentence?” I have asked myself on more than one occasion.

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OUTspoken: Redwood Giants prepare for AIDS Lifecycle ride

The lines between personal and professional blur for a few members of the Redwood Giants, the local team of cyclists who are preparing to take part in the annual AIDS Lifecycle ride, a 545-mile trek from San Francisco to Los Angeles.Team captai