Victory seeks transgender and LGBT people of color for groundbreaking program

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute last week announced a first-of-its-kind fellowship opportunity designed to help openly transgender people and openly LGBT people of color gain public service and community leadership experience. The Victory Empowerment Fellowship program, created in partnership with the Arcus Foundation, will give 10 fellows full scholarships to one of the organization's Candidate and Campaign Trainings and the annual International LGBT Leadership Conference. 

"LGBT people of color and transgender people often face unique barriers to serving as public officials, which is why they are still vastly underrepresented in government," said Torey Carter, Victory's interim executive director. "This fellowship is the beginning of a focused effort to change that."

Holder: Justice Department will support marriage equality at Supreme Court

Attorney General Eric Holder announced late last week that the Department of Justice will file a brief supporting marriage equality before the Supreme Court. Holder's announcement came on the same day that the high court announced it would take up marriage equality cases out of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

In a State of the Union first, Obama acknowledges LGBT community

President Barack Obama made history Tuesday in his State of the Union address, becoming the first president to refer directly to the lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities during his speech. "As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we're threatened," Obama said. "That's why we defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender."

Colorado Foster Care & Adoption Film Festival Tomorrow

The Colorado Department of Human Services is hosting the Colorado Foster Care & Adoption Film Festival this Saturday, January 24 at the Sie Film Center.
 
The festival offers a full day of films focused on Foster Care and Adoption topics, guest speakers, panel discussions, information tables and experts who will be available to answer questions all day.


The 11:15 film is America's Most Unwanted, a film that follows four former foster youth into adulthood as they struggle not only to overcome the challenges of being raised in the foster care system, but also of being gay, lesbian or transgender. 
 
Purchase Tickets or full festival passes from the Sie Film Center here.

Pond - Man It Feels Like Space Again

Man It Feels Like Space Again, due out January 27^th, lives up to the inherent wonder in its title: a sweeping collection of warm, warped psychedelic gems co-written by the band's three songwriters - Nick Allbrook, Joseph Ryan and Jay Watson. Since announcing their new album, the band haven't sat still - completing tours of North and South America, including successful stops at New York's Bowery Ballroom, a tripped-out Halloween headline show at Los Angeles' The Echo, and a main stage performance at Chile's Primavera Fauna Festival. Today the band premiered the psychedelic video for their new album's title track "Man It Feels Like Space Again."

You Won’t Believe What Statewide Protections LGBT People Lack

The success of the marriage equality movement masks a stark and persistent reality: a patchwork of non-discrimination laws state-to-state has left millions of LGBT Americans - including those who can legally marry - without reliable workplace protections, according to a report released today by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization.

HRC’s first State Equality Index (SEI), issued in partnership with the Equality Federation, also reveals that in many states opponents of equality are ramping up efforts to sanction discrimination against LGBT people by passing state-level laws that would undermine minimal existing protections, erode marital rights of legally-joined same-sex couples, and limit the ability of cities and towns to pass their own inclusive laws.

“Despite historic progress on issues like marriage equality, a majority of states still struggle to reach even a basic level of equality for LGBT people,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Most states lack statewide non-discrimination laws to protect LGBT people - putting countless individuals and families at risk, and creating inequalities in adoption and surrogacy, employments benefits, and youth safety and well-being.”

“Even worse,” Griffin said, “equality opponents continue to push deeply harmful laws forward, including those seeking to undermine critical protections in the guise of "religious liberty.” 

Though same-sex marriage is legal in 36 states and Washington, D.C., more than 111 million people - 35 percent of Americans - live in marriage states that lack explicit, fully-inclusive statewide workplace protections for LGBT people.
And more than 206 million people - 65 percent of Americans - live in states where LGBT people have no explicit statewide workplace protections that include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The report points to a few encouraging signs, particularly in the area of LGBT youth, and health and safety. Legislators in Hawaii are among those pursuing more robust school anti-bullying laws; those in states including Illinois, Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts are considering bans on dangerous and medically-debunked “conversion therapy.” Several states are also working on policies that would lead to more fully-inclusive healthcare for transgender people.

"Leaders in every state are making enormous progress to ensure equality for all, yet there remains a patchwork of non-discrimination laws and policies that leave many of us and our families surprisingly vulnerable to unfair treatment,” said Rebecca Isaacs, executive director of Equality Federation Institute. “I know we can do better so that all Americans have the freedom to be our authentic ourselves."

The SEI assesses statewide LGBT-related legislation and policies, good and bad, in six areas: relationship recognition, parenting laws and policies, non-discrimination laws, hate crimes laws, youth-related laws and policies, and health and safety laws and policies. Based on that review, the SEI assigns states to one of four distinct categories.

Tranifesto: What Is A Transsexual Man?

By Matt Kailey

A reader writes: “When someone says they are a transsexual man, does that mean that they are a woman contemplating their sex identity or a man contemplating their sex identity? Pardon me if this was offensive, it was purely out of curiosity so I don’t mess up in the future.”

No offense taken. It’s a legitimate question. (Here’s a link to some vocabulary terms that might also help: Trans-lations.)

In most cases, when a person says that he is a transsexual man, what he means is that he has transitioned in some way from female to male. In other words, he was assigned female at birth, and now lives as a man. When someone says that she is a transsexual woman, she means that she was assigned male at birth and has transitioned in some way to female.

This is particularly confusing when the press refers to a “transgender man” when they actually mean a “trans woman,” and vice versa. I could go into a long diatribe about the whole “transgender” and language thing, but I won’t (because nobody wants to hear it again).

Suffice it to say that when people refer to themselves as a man or a woman and any form of “trans” is in front of that, they will generally mean that they are living in a sex and gender that were not assigned to them by the outside world at birth.

(Editor's Note: Despite the fact that Matt Kailey, one of my closest friends, passed away in 2014 I will continue to republish his writing on MileHighGayGuy.com - as I did when he was alive - as a resource for the gay community to know more about trans people. This post originally appeared on Matt Kailey's award-winning website Tranifesto.com) 

The Gay Vegans: Why Are The Gay Vegans Following Me?

By Dan Hanley

I wanted to title this post "Why on earth are The Gay Vegans following me?" but that was a bit long of a title, especially for twitter.

I love building community. And I do a lot of that online. Our blog has accounts on Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter. I use each one for different purposes, and I never blindly connect them all so the same post goes to all of them. I do use them to spread my blog posts, but I also use them to meet folks I'd like to know and to build community with folks who might not normally be in community with gay vegans.

Being 48 and wanting to be as healthy as possible, I like connecting with others who work out and are into fitness. When I see someone who says that they are vegan are into fitness too, I like to connect with them.

That doesn't always go over well. So I want to clear the air if you will.

If I connect with you through social media it is because that something you are doing either inspires me, I want more of it in my life, or it's something I want to learn more about.

It doesn't mean I am hitting on you for goodness sake! Or that I want to offend you in any way!

There are a bunch of folks out there who inspire me. They may be totally out about being a follower of Christ, or vegan, or raw, and I make the attempt to connect.

They are not always thrilled. Recently on twitter, a vegan guy wrote how he couldn't believe The Gay Vegans would connect with him. After all, he's Christian, and far right. We exchanged some tweets and after I saw other tweets where he wrote to others saying that he was just going to have fun with us I disconnected.

Seriously?

He is a vegan athlete, including being a runner, and of course I would want to be connected with him.
But I get it. There are just always going to be folks who for whatever reason do not want to be connected with gays and/or vegans.

Another guy, on Instagram, deleted my comment on a photo of his saying that he was inspiring me.

So...

If The Gay Vegans connect with you on any of the social media listed above and you do not want to be connected with us, please just tell me. I will disconnect and all will be well in the world. I honestly only wanted to build relationship and let you know that something you are doing inspires me or teaches me.

I hope this clears the air.

Thanks for reading.

This post originally appeared on Dan Hanley's website The Gay Vegans. Republished with permission.

Advertise With Denver's Best Gay Blog - MileHighGayGuy

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Just click the Advertising page or email sales@milehighgayguy.com to get started today.

Stonewall Fitness: By, For, and About Denver’s Gay Community!

David Smith, the owner of Stonewall Fitness, holds a degree in exercise science from Metropolitan State University of Denver, several fitness certifications including ACSM Personal Trainer and Group Fitness.

Smith specializes in exercise, nutrition and wellness programs for the GLBT community and leads a variety of different programs, including group fitness classes, personal training, athletic conditioning programs, educational seminars and workshops.

His passion lies in promoting the physical, mental and social benefits of exercise and healthy diet to the community by breaking down the barriers often associated with a healthy lifestyle to make it accessible for everybody.

Are You Gay With Something To Say? Bloggers Wanted For Denver's Best Gay Blog!

Are you a new or experienced writer or blogger? Do you want to be? Or maybe you're just some gay guy with something to say? Well, what better forum for you than MileHighGayGuy?

MileHighGayGuy is looking for regular and guest bloggers to write about local news and events, do music and movie reviews, or write opinion or feature pieces from a gay perspective.

These are unpaid positions but offer the opportunity to be published in Colorado's Best Gay Blog (2010, 2011, 2012 OUTstanding Awards, Denver 2012 #WebAwards), expand your audience and gain valuable experience. There's also swag available in the form of free movie and concert tickets, music, books and other cool stuff.

If interested, shoot an email over to Drew Wilson at drew@milehighgayguy.com. And if you've got column or story ideas to pitch, this is the place to do it.

Denver Restaurant Week Expands to 10 Days

This year the city’s largest culinary event - Denver Restaurant Week - will be held for ten days from Feb. 20 to March 1 with more than 250 of the best eateries in town offering multicourse dinners for the fixed price of $30, not including tax or tip. Many of the restaurants also include wine, beer and drink specials.

“The fun of restaurant week is looking at how all the chefs, faced with the same challenge of providing a knockout multi-course meal for just $30, get creative to find different solutions,” Scharf said. And that means looking at menus. “We’ve noticed over the years, that we get our highest volume of searches and bookings during the lunch hour on business days, so we figured that would be a great time to get the ball rolling,”said Richard Scharf, president and CEO of VISIT DENVER.

GLBT Student Services at Auraria Presents 'Love Is A Drag'

The GLBT Student Services office of Auraria will present their annual Love Is A Drag event on February 12 at Tivoli Turnhalle. 

Hosted by the fabulous Pansy Pedals, the event will feature an afternoon of education around drag, as well as lots of fun drag performances.

Gay Help Wanted: Sales Reps for MileHighGayGuy

Award-winning MileHighGayGuy.com is seeking advertising sales reps. The position requires someone who is self-motivated, detail-oriented and who, preferably, is familiar with the GLBT community. This is a contract position and pay will be commission-based.

To apply, email resume to Drew Wilson at Drew@milehighgayguy.com.

Stonewall Fitness: Too Sore, Can't Move.

By David Smith

Nothing like a good, strong, challenging workout to really get the blood pumping and the body moving, but why the hell am I so sore the day after?

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS is the body’s response to increased stress and pressure put on your muscle, it’s that feeling of being stiff, feeling like an old man and if your lucky, being able to sit on the toilet without falling off. It occurs after a particularly challenging workout and especially after engaging in a new exercise routine. DOMS can occur after any kind of workout, as long as the muscles are pushed and engaged at a level higher and different then what they are familiar with. Did you push that extra mile in your run? Started swimming again? Added an extra 10lbs to your weight stack? Get ready to feel sore!

A long held belief regarding DOMS is the production of lactic acid within the muscle is what causes it and the more lactic acid you have the more sore you are, right? Wrong. Lactic acid if often associated with muscle soreness because it’s responsible for muscular fatigue or “the burn” you feel during exercise. The burn is the result of the production of lactic acid overcoming the body’s ability to flush it out and making the use of oxygen within the muscle impossible. This explains why that extra pushup may or may not happen. However lactic acid is flushed entirely out of the body within 30-45 minutes following your workout.

Muscle soreness is the result of a traumatic process of your muscle essentially being ripped apart to shreds within your body as a result of your exercise. The muscle fibers themselves remain intact but the connective tissue that holds all the fibers together gets all ripped apart and the soreness is essentially the pain of this. If you get a cut on the skin, part of the skin gets torn up and you’ll feel the pain of the cut as the body works to repair itself, in the days following the cut the pain subsides right? The same thing happening with your muscles when they get sore.

It hurts yes, but muscle soreness isn’t always a bad thing, it definitely is more painful at first and doing things like washing your hair, sitting down on a toilet and such are more difficult. During the repair process, your muscle will regenerate the connective tissue to be stronger and better prepared to handle the increased load you are placing on it. Constantly engaging and loading the muscle in this fashion is what increases strength, endurance, power, mass and overall fitness. You’ll find the more you complete the exercise at the same intensity the less sore you’ll feel, that’s when it’s time to take it to the next level!

Soreness is great but it can definitely slow you down, what can you do to reduce it?