http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/lgbtq/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Wed, 21 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2688/curriculum_wars/ California State Sen. Sheila Kuehl knows the pitfalls of being young and gay firsthand. At 17, she was a television star, playing the role of Zelda Gilroy, in the weekly television sitcom, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She was good enough that CBS filmed four episodes of a spin-off titled Zelda, only to be shelved when network executives began to suspect that their lead actress might be lesbian. She was also expelled from her sorority at UCLA after some of her sisters discovered a letter from her girlfriend. Sheila took her indignation to Harvard Law School, then into a successful law career and finally to the state house. She was the first openly gay member of the California legislature… Education LGBTQ Susan Levine Fri, 23 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2703/sticks_stones_and_dykes/ If there is anybody who really understands the word "dyke," it is Joan Nestle, an author, editor and activist in the LGBT community for nearly half a century. "In the late '50s," she says, "when I was first exploring a public lesbian identity, the most dehumanizing taunt suspicious heterosexuals hurled at me was 'bull dyke.' It was filled with their conception of what a lesbian was like--an ugly, aggressive animal." In those days, says Nestle, the New York City police had a special holding cell for women picked up in their raids on lesbian bars: the bull dyke pen. Nestle has recalled those pre-Stonewall days in her writing, and now has recounted them for an unusual legal battle with the… LGBTQ Judiciary Susan Levine Tue, 10 Oct 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2858/in_loco_parentis_a_gay_pages_experience/ I was a U.S. House page seven years before Mark Foley was elected, so I never met him. I can, however, shed some light on a page's perception of power and what it means to be the object of a congressman's attention. At the age of sixteen, I was just coming to terms with my own sexuality. I was gay and my "radar" was on. The adults around us--in school, at work and in the residence hall--went to great lengths to protect and guide us, acting in place of our parents. As revelations concerning Foley continue to emerge, I am surprised how easily the built-in system of oversight, the Page Board, composed of members of Congress, fell prey to politics.… LGBTQ politics congress Susan Levine Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2903/women_and_their_boxes/ My mother and I have a long-standing disagreement about an impromptu gift I gave my teenage sister. After reading Rachel Fudge's "Everything You Wanted to Know About Feminism (But Were Afraid to Ask)," I promptly went online and bought my sister a two-year subscription to Bitch magazine. The moment my mother (who raised us on Our Bodies, Ourselves) saw a copy, she blanched, "You're encouraging your sister to read this trash?" No amount of reassurance about fresh, feminist writing will change her mind; my mother can't get past the title. She's not alone. In her new book, The Female Thing, Laura Kipnis, professor of media studies at Northwestern University, offers up "a catalog of fetters, a chronicle of impasses--including those… Gender Books LGBTQ Susan Levine Wed, 06 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2931/outing_is_in_again/ Over the past year, gay sex scandals have rocked right-wing political and religious circles in the United States. Jim West (mayor of Spokane, Wash.), Mark Foley (congressman from Florida), and the Rev. Ted Haggard (president of the National Association of Evangelicals) all learned the sting of a public flogging. The first two men were "outed" when their homosexual orientation was involuntarily exposed publicly by investigative journalists, while Haggard was outed by a gay male escort who claimed to have had sex with him. Historically, the press has been hesitant to give a voice to allegations of hypocrisy if they relate to hidden homosexuality, but the tide is beginning to turn, if only slightly. On Nov. 8, comedian Bill Maher appeared… LGBTQ politics media Susan Levine