EILE Magazine – August 2014 (Vol.2, Issue 3)

FREE

EILE Pam & Wini M agazine

Vol. 2 Issue 3 – August 2014

A Great Case for

Civil Marriage

Taking The Helm:

Maria Keogh at the Gay Switchboard Inside:

The

Transgender

Spy of

Versailles

Fashion Film Music Books | California Dispatch | Dr Shay

EILE Magazine | Who’s Who

Contributors Nick Bassett Originally from Bournemouth but now based in Auckland, New Zealand, Nick is the creator of Chart Shaker, his daily music blog.

Jon Beaupré Jon is a professor of TV, Film & Media at California State University, Los Angeles and a contributor to This Way Out Scott De Buitléir Scott is the creator of EILE Magazine and is a writer and broadcaster from Dublin.

He also hosts The Cosmo, RTÉ’s LGBT radio show, every Wednesday at 10pm.

Mark Graham Mark is from Port Laoise and is a graduate of English from University College Dublin. He has produced several fashion shows for charity.

Wini Hannigan English Wini is a blogger, poet and writer, based in Tipperary.

Dr. Shay Keating Shay has his clinic at the Harold’s Cross Surgery in south Dublin and is a specialist in Genitourinary Medicine at St. James’ Hospital, Dublin.

Lisa Reynolds Originally from County Meath, Lisa is a fashion industry student living in Bray, County Wicklow.

Allen Reavie Allen is a writer and photographer, based in Derry.

Gareth Russell Gareth is an author, historian and playwright based in Belfast. He is author of the ‘Popular’ fiction series, and has also published a book on the First World War. Frances Winston Frances Winston is EILE’s resident film buff, and has contributed to many publications such as The Irish Independent and Irish Tatler.

2 EILE Magazine

EILE Magazine | Welcome

Highlights August 2014 Wini & Pam – P.10 Wini Hannigan English writes about being half of Tipperary’s first civil-partnership couple, and why we need civil marriage

California Dispatch – P.34 Jon Beaupré writes about how the American courts have become ‘BFF’ to the LGBT community

The Transgender Spy of Versailles – P.40 Gareth Russell writes on the fascinating Chevalier d’Éon

Film Reviews – P.46 Frances Winston previews the widely anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy, and the must-see British film, Lilting

Volume 2, Issue 03 Editor-in-Chief: Scott De Buitléir Features Editor: MKB Contributors: Nick Bassett, Jon Beaupré, MKB, Mark Graham, Wini Hannigan English, Shay Keating, Lisa Reynolds, Allen Reavie, Gareth Russell, Frances Winston NB: All images in this publication are either under Creative Commons licence, or used with permission. Any queries can be made via eile.ie/contact Special Thanks to MKB for all her hard work, dedication and support.

Web: http://eile.ie Contact: eilemagazine@outlook.com Twitter: @EileMagazine Facebook: http://fb.com/eilemagazine Note: All opinions expressed in this issue are the writers’ own.

Maria Keogh – P.54 The new Director of Gay Switchboard Ireland tells us about taking the service into the 21st Century

…and much more!

EILE Magazine 3

EILE Magazine | Editor’s Letter

Contents 6-

Editor’s Letter

Mark Power

10 - Wini & Pam 12 -

LGBT News Round-Up

14 -

Art in Fashion

18 -

Dorian Gray

22 -

Foyle Pride

24 - African Pride 26 -

Proud of Belfast

34 -

California Dispatch

40 - The Transgender Spy of

Versailles

46 -

Film Reviews

48 -

Music Reviews

50 -

Book Review

54 -

Gay Switchboard

68 -

Dr Shay Keating

Welcome to the August 2014 issue of EILE Magazine!

In this month’s issue, we have some real gems from our contributors across Ireland, California and New Zealand.

One of our highlights this month is a fascinating account of the transgender spy of Versailles, Le Chevalier d’Éon, in a hilarious article written by Gareth Russell. The piece, while guaranteed to put a smile on your face, also shows us how much queer history, as it’s called, we are not normally aware of.

Back to the present day, and we have two surveys; one on homophobia in sport from Australia, and the other on HIV from Ireland, which we encourage our readers to take part in. We know the LGBT community in Belfast just had a great Pride festival, while those in Derry~Londonderry are gearing up for Foyle Pride later this month. We take a look at how the American courts have been the surprising best friend to the LGBT community in their campaign for equal marriage.

Meanwhile, back home, we hear from Tipperary’s first couple to enter into a civil partnership, who also explain why we need to see civil marriage in Ireland.

Combine that with our regular features on style, film, literature, music, health and much more, the August ’14 issue of EILE Magazine is bound to have something to keep you entertained for a while.

We hope you enjoy.

Scott De Buitléir Founder / Editor-in-Chief

EILE Magazine

EILE Magazine 4

USA | Equal Marriage

70 EILE Magazine

Music | Mark Power

Mark Power, Ireland’s First Openly Gay Pop Singer, Unplugs The Synth And Goes Acoustic Mark Power was one of Ireland’s first openly-gay recording artists when, in 1994, the year after homosexuality was decriminalised here, a boyband was formed entirely from openly gay-guys.

The boyband was named 4Guyz (there were of course 5 of them!) and they travelled Europe proudly waving the Irish rainbow flag. This caused ripples back home, where being gay was still something that Irish artists up until then, had kept well hidden, paving the way for others such, as Stephen Gately and Mark Feehily, to come out later.

The boyband’s lead singer was Mark Power, who, wanting to write his own material and go in a new direction, formed the Electronic duo In Utopia with synth player and co-songwriter Ian Henderson, in 1998.

They later became known as EDEN, an act that signed to Universal music and the Major Records label, to release two albums of melodic electronic pop, and 12 singles across Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The Duo decided to split in

2011, and after a break Mark Power went back into the studio to write and record new solo material. Looking for a new sound, rather than continue the Electronic sound as before , Power has literally unplugged his sound.

To launch Mark’s new adventure as a solo artist, he is playing two gigs at the Outhouse on the 21st and 22nd of August, which he is calling POWER UNPLUGGED.The gigs will showcase live intimate versions of his new solo material, and Eden material with a new warm acoustic sound. Mark has also added a heap of covers from artists that have influenced him through the years such as Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, A-ha, Joni Mitchell, Madonna, ABBA and, amazingly, Bucks Fizz!

Mark said, “ I wanted to sing some of my favourite songs, as well as showcasing my own new material. The songs I’m covering are not often the obvious choices from the artists I love, and I’m also really excited about playing my own songs for a live audience for the first time”.

of the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival.

“Writing a play taught me a lot about telling a story, whilst performing in the drama group has also made me think a lot about how you put over a song, which are often like a short story set to music”, Mark said.

POWER UNPLUGGED is brought to you in association with ACTING OUT, and takes place in the downstairs theatre at the Outhouse, on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd of August at €10/5 entrance.

Tickets can be bought online at www.actingout.ticketleap.com/ power or by going to Mark or Acting Out’s facebook page, where you’ll find the link, or at the door on the night.

Listen: Crash & Burn

Mark is also member of Acting Out, Dublin’s LGBT drama group, and recently had his first short play, “Dear Madonna”, performed as part

EILE Magazine 7

Feature | Civil Marriage

A Great Case for Civil Marriage Wini & Pam: Tipperary’s First Civil Partnership It was said that, in 2011, my civil partner Pam and I made history. We were the first lesbians in Tipperary to have a civil partnership, after the bill was brought into law. It was when we were booking a date for our big day that our registrar informed us that ours was to be the first, which, of course, was an honour for us.

Civil partnership - I must admit that I actually hate that terminology. To me she is more than my civil partner, she 10 EILE Magazine

is my wife, despite what any laws say.

With being the first came congratulations and support from strangers, after a local newspaper featured our story, but I still can’t help but feel like we are inferior to our straight peers. I know we are no less important, but every time we have to say the words ‘civil partnership’ or tick a box on a form to state that we are not in fact married but fall into a different category instead, it feels like we are being reminded of our inequalities.

Despite the lack of validation for our love, and in spite of all the opposition to our orientation, we are just as in love now as we were the day

we met. We met in a very unexciting way in a small pub, yet seeing her made my heart race. The second time I saw her I was a bag of nerves. Terrified of making a fool of myself I was quieter than normal. Nowadays she wonders if I know how to stay quiet at all! I hugged her tight as I was leaving, and, embarrassed, whispered: “Add me on Facebook”. Luckily, she did! We quickly exchanged numbers and soon we were in constant contact. Then, we said the words that almost didn’t need to be spoken: “Will you be my girlfriend?” Now, here we are.

We are so different in some ways, but we are just right for each other at the same time.

Feature | Civil Marriage I prefer to do the cooking, which suits Pam because she is practically allergic to our cooker, but she’s the organised one who remembers the items

“

On our wedding day, I felt butterflies dancing in my stomach as I watched her walking towards me to the tune of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars.

” I constantly forget when we’re shopping. She enjoys sweets,

but I’m more of a chocoholic.

She says it makes sense that I love chocolate, because of my deep brown chocolate eyes!

She’s a gentle woman who’s really sweet.

We’re just a normal couple who have made a life together, and while our vows may not grant us as many rights as that of heterosexual couples, it does not mean that our love is not as strong. On our wedding day, I felt butterflies dancing in my stomach as I watched her walking towards me to the tune of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars.

My jaw ached from smiling so much, and it was all because of her. I honestly never thought about marriage, or my wedding day, until I met her. Her love transformed my life, and made it so much better.

Our families and friends came together in support of us on the day of our civil partnership, and the words that were on all of their lips were “Why is this not the same as a marriage?”.

In their eyes we were getting married. We were not getting gay married, and it felt great to be seen as equal.

That day we both wore a shirt, waistcoat, pants and tie, with our favourite colours present in the form of Pam’s black and red tie, and my purple shirt.

We shared a buffet with our guests and toasted our big day.

Truly Madly Deeply played as we walked hand in hand for the first time as a married couple.

It was the most amazing feeling in the world. I hope that one day, hopefully soon, other gays and lesbians can walk down the aisle feeling the same, but with the added bonus of knowing that they are now married, with all the rights that they deserve.

We want nothing more than to grow old together, and to be “that couple” instead of “that lesbian couple”. It doesn’t feel like we’re asking for too much. Civil Marriage would give us more than just our human rights, it will give us that sense of belonging that we all deserve to have. It will erase the differences between our declarations of love. It would allow us to feel like our love and relationship are just important as a heterosexual couple’s.

I want to be able to say that I am married to the love of my life, and know that it is legally a marriage and not just in our eyes. I want to be equal.

– Wini Hannigan English

EILE Magazine 11

News | Round-Up

LGBT Monthly News Roun Joan Rivers Calls Obama America’s “Gay” President

cameraman that she meant “a transgender [woman]“.

The well-known comedienne later released a statement to CNN regarding her comments about America’s First Lady, saying that Rivers’ words were meant to be complimentary:

60 People Arrested at Kenyan Nightclub for ‘Suspected Homosexuality’

“I think it’s a compliment.

She’s so attractive, tall, with a beautiful body, great face, does great makeup. Take a look and go back to La Cage Au Follies [sic]. The most gorgeous women are transgender.”

Her recent outburst, however, could not be better timed.

As CNN / Fox 8 Cleveland reports: Not one to shy away from controversy, comedienne Joan Rivers has caused headlines across the U.S. by calling President Barack Obama gay, and also referring to his wife, Michelle Obama, as transgender.

When a cameraman approached Ms. Rivers, asking her if the United States would one day have an openly-gay president, Rivers claimed that “we already have [one] with Obama”.

Rivers went on to claim that Michelle Obama was a “trans”, later clarifying to the 12 EILE Magazine

Of course, this latest dust-up coincides with Rivers’ book, “Diary of a Mad Diva,” which was released on July 1. Rivers’ representative told CNN, “These are all funny jokes.

The book is hysterical. The prologue says if anyone takes anything in the book seriously (he or she) is an idiot. And (Rivers) says if anyone has a problem with that, they can feel free to call her lawyer Clarence Darrow.” (eile.ie / July 6) Photo: Joan at Udderbelly Comedy Festival, Edinburgh

About sixty people were arrested by Kenyan police recently at a nightclub in Nairobi, and were detained at the Central Police Station in the city for ‘suspected homosexuality’.

Patrons of the Envy nightclub in central Nairobi were arrested by Kenyan authorities over the weekend according to local media, who claim that the reason for the arrests was based on the fact that Envy is regarded as a gay bar.

Kenyan law still retains a colonial-era law against

News | Round-Up

nd-Up ‘buggery’, and former prime minister Raila Odinga once called for the arrest “of all gays” in Kenya.

Speaking to local newssite ghafla.co.ke, LGBT rights advocate, Joji Baro, told Nwasante Khasiani that such an occurance was ‘part and parcel’ of being LGBT in today’s Kenya: “The arrests at Envy had nothing to do with [alcohol sales] law but just trying to suppress the visibility of gays and lesbians. So finally someone just realized gays and lesbians have money and they know where to spend it… Just a remainder of the little rights we enjoy – we have a right to spend our money where and whenever we want to.”

It is not known whether or not any of the arrested were charged under the outdated law, although as Ghafla points out, the patrons were merely customers at the bar and were not partaking in any sexual activity. (eile.ie / July 9)

Australia: Senator Janet Rice And Wife Are Role Models Says AME

Marriage equality advocates have hailed newly elected Senator Janet Rice and her wife, Penny Whetton, as role models for all married couples.

Senator Rice, the Green’s Senator for Victoria, and an environmentalist, has said she is proud to be in one of Australia’s few same-sex marriages, following the gender transition of her wife Penny eleven years ago.

sAustralian Marriage Equality national director, Rodney Croome, said: “Janet and Penny are an inspiration for marriage equality supporters because they are living proof that marriage is about love and commitment, not gender.”

“They are also role models for all married couples because their marriage has endured the challenges it has faced and been strengthened by those challenges.”

Senator Rice and Ms Whetton, who met in college, have been together for 28 years. They live in Victoria and have two sons.

Thanks to AME

eile.ie EILE Magazine 13

Menswear | Art in Fashion

Is

Fashion Really

?

A R T

Mark Graham writes about how modern art influences today’s designers, resulting in what some would see as wearable art There have been many debates over this age-old question, with designers such as John Varvatos determined that fashion is indeed a form of art, while the likes of Marc Jacobs and Comme Des Garçons are seated resolutely on the opposite side of the fence.

Although this difference of opinion may never be resolved, there is no denying the massive influence art has had on fashion over the years. From 14 EILE Magazine

inspired ideas and almost blatant plagiarism, to direct collaborations and capsule collections, the relationship between art and fashion has grown exponentially ever since Dali and Schiaparelli’s famous Lobster Dress in 1937.

Now, more than ever, modern art can be seen in current fashion trends across the high street stores and designer menswear collections, exquisitely composed on a human-shaped canvas. The inclusion of limited edition

pieces in numerous campaigns adds a unique feel synonymous with a work of art, as does the individually numbered items that labels such as Common Projects now often offer. However, it is not only modern art’s painters that have influenced men’s fashion. The extensive use of iconic photography on t-shirts, and the sculptural shapes in sportswear and athletic clothing collections have also helped mould the identity of menswear in recent years.

Menswear Interview | Art in| Fashion Paul M

Best known for its use of popular culture imagery, pop art provides an ironic parallel to the banality of everyday life, re-contextualizing the mundane by combining with unrelated and unexpected material.

A current designer who best embodies pop art’s ethos of parody and irony is the somewhat mysterious Wil Fry.

Fry’s limited edition This copy and paste style pieces such as his is particularly relevant in ‘Birds of Paradise’ today’s world of fashion. Brooklyn Nets jersey and It fuses elements of ‘Expensive’ t-shirt play graphic design’s intense with designer fashion in colours and branding a similar way to Banksy’s with modern music’s use more subverted and of sampling and editing. satirical pieces that Just look at Lady GaGa’s incorporate art made new album for example. by Andy Warhol and Leonardo da Vinci. With designs that straddle the line between art and fashion, Fry’s work implies the possibility of these two entities developing a symbiotic relationship.

EILE Magazine 15

Menswear | Art in Fashion

Abstract expressionism is based on automatic or subconscious creation and was the first specifically American art movement to be accepted internationally. Its anarchic and rebellious image was epitomized by Jason Pollock, who redefined what it was to produce art by stepping away from the easel, instead attacking the prone canvas with paint from all sides. Pollock’s unmistakable style can be clearly seen in many collections. Maison Martin Margiela’s ‘Paint Splatter’ springs straight to mind. I wonder is the understated, neutral leather base of these shoes an interpretation of the canvas Pollock used or is this design a representation of what Pollock might have worn during the frenzied fling of action painting?

Often compared to Pollock for his allover style was American born painter Mark Tobey. His ‘white-writing’ canvases are considered imperative to the early manifestation of abstract expressionism, and combine an overlay of white calligraphic symbols on a dense armature composed of thousands of small and interwoven brush strokes.

The series of flecked knitwear from countless labels clearly pay tribute to Tobey’s work, as does the new take on camouflage that appears to be adorning every menswear release.

16 EILE Magazine

Menswear | Art in Fashion Another artist who played a pivotal role in the development of abstract expressionism was Mark Rothko. Famous for his fields of colour and light, Rothko considered the work of modernism to take

reference from primitive and childlike art. Using colour as an instrument to build harmonious choirs, echoes of these bleeding timbres are resonating by the way of the dip-dye styles on display in current menswear campaigns.

Fashion’s infatuation with modern art continues with cubism, an early twentieth century avant-garde movement pioneered by none other than Pablo Picasso. Aspects of cubism’s multi-perspective style can be seen in the deconstructed blazers that were increasingly popular throughout 2012.

Discreet in design, these blazers informed more by the concept of cubism rather than the imagery itself. With this altogether more subtle approach, pieces such as these are versatile and flexible, and can therefore work just as well with raw jeans as with a more formal shirt and tie.

These are by no means the only examples of art movements influencing current fashion trends. The minimalist aesthetic

is commonplace in menswear, as demonstrated by labels such as COS, Acne and J. Lindeberg, while one of Jil Sander’s latest campaigns takes direct reference from neoplastic Piet Mondrian.

However, it is the influence of American modern art in particular that has recently come to the fore, perhaps signifying the position of power it holds over the rest of the fashion world.

It is clear that fashion’s obsession with modern art is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

EILE Magazine 17

Literature | Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray

– Never A Gray Moment!

Lisa Reynolds writes about Oscar Wilde’s tragic novel

“Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks (of) me: Dorian is what I would like to be-in other ages, perhaps.” - Oscar Wilde on his three main characters in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

18 EILE Magazine

Irish author, poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, produced many amazing pieces in his life, but only one novel – The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This is a thought-provoking novel, which was originally published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890, while the newer amended version was first published

by Ward Lock & Company in 1891.

Dealing with themes such as leading a double life, being

influenced in a negative way and having no sense of responsibility, the Gothic novel is a gripping read from start to finish. However, there are also elements of wit in terms of the dialogue. Witty dialogue was something at which Oscar Wilde excelled, especially in his very humorous mocking of society, and although The Picture of Dorian Gray is quite a dark novel, this wit still features.

The protagonist is the title

Literature | Dorian Gray

character Dorian Gray, who is having his portrait painted by artist Basil Hallward.

Lord Henry Wotton, who is a friend of Hallward’s, is observing. When Wotton gets to meet Gray, he imposes his cynical view of life on him, that outward beauty and youth like Gray’s were the only thing worth having.

This settles in the impressionable mind of Gray, who is at an age when he is looking for guidance and influence of some kind.

He embarks on a life of pure pleasure, after making the wish that his portrait would grow old on its canvas, while he stayed as the portrait originally looked, forever.

In the course of his search for constant pleasure and a path of only thinking of himself, Gray cruelly dumps his fiancée, amateur theatre actress Sybil Vane, after she acts badly in a stage version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

It seems as if he is revelling in the power he has over her.

However, after he has left her, Gray has a change of heart, and decides that he wants to make things right with Vane. He endeavours to do so, but Wotton tells him the sad news that Sibyl Vane has killed herself. This is when the painting first starts to change shape, as a slight sneer appears on the mouth. This is also when Dorian confirms in his own mind the life that he wishes to continue leading for his entire life, and that life is one of selfishness and a need to only please himself.

It says quite a lot about the character of Gray that he

listened to Wotton’s theory of life, over the theory of life presented to him by the much warmer and kinder character of Basil Hallward. Hallward is the polar opposite of Wotton, and thinks of others. Hallward is also a romantic, and I think he was in love with Dorian and wanted to protect him.

Obviously, in the time that Wilde wrote the book, many of the lines which were about their romantic feelings for each other were changed from the 1890 version, when published in 1891, but the depth of their feeling is still quite clear, especially on Basil’s side, since Dorian seems to be losing all sympathetic feeling the more the novel goes on.

Oscar Wilde

Vane tries to explain to him that she has lost her talent for acting, due to her love for Dorian, because before she met him she had never understood what love for a man could be like. Before, she only knew what it was like to love her craft and theatre.

It is a really sad scene when she is on the floor at his feet begging him for a reconciliation, and he is being really cold and callous.

EILE Magazine 57 19

Literature | Dorian Gray

Basil tries to talk to Dorian about some unsavoury rumours he has heard about him. Basil’s faith in Dorian is very strong, and he says that he does not believe the stories that he has heard, but that he feels he must warn him, but Dorian decides not to deny the stories. He shows Basil the portrait, which is now filled with the ugliness of Dorian’s soul, and admits that he blames Basil for creating it, claiming that it has sent him on this path. He then stabs Basil, killing him, in yet another really sad scene in the novel.

The thing about Lord Henry Wotton is that he is like many

people we meet, not maybe in the sense of what they say, but more in terms of the show they put on. Wotton is not leading the life which he is describing to Gray. It seems more like it is a way to shock people in conversation. That isn’t to say that he has the innate kindness of Hallward or Vane, but he doesn’t act quite as badly as he says. Gray is taken in by him. He is young and sees him as a mentor, but his friend Hallward sees right through Wotton, saying to him, “You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.”

This perfectly describes the character of Wotton. He is a sensationalist, but really quite moral behind it all.

This novel is an incredibly well-written novel. In so many novels, there is an element of contrivance, to lead the reader to the next scene, but that doesn’t feature in this novel. The plot seems to run smoothly in a very authentic fashion, and the characters are very well-rounded. Every piece of dialogue seems to be there for a reason, giving us, as readers, an indication of what is to come as the novel progresses.

Still from the 1945 film, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’

20 EILE Magazine

Feature | Dublin Lesbian Line

EILE Magazine 51

Feature||Foyle Events CorkPride Pride

Foyle Festivities Derry~Londonderry prepares for Pride Having just celebrated the UK City of Culture last year, Derry now turns its attention to their Gay Pride festival.

of the city, and it finishes at the infamous Derry Walls at the Guildhall Square.

The 2014 programme was launched by the cities mayoress, Brenda Stevenson, in Derry’s Guildhall. The programme culminates with a pride parade through the city.

One of the most popular events in this year’s programme, will be a play written by Micheál Kerrigan. Brashly titled “Pits and Perverts” this politically charged play deals with 1970s Britain and its communities’ tolerance and stigmatizing of gays in that era.

The play, produced by Sole Purpose Productions, runs for three nights during the festival week at the city’s Playhouse Theatre.

This well-supported march starts off in the Waterside area

Pride Week also intends to hold several discussion groups

This year Foyle Pride are marking their 21st anniversary with a programme of events throughout the week 20-24 August.

at various locations around the city. This will give LGBT people the opportunity to interact with local politicians, campaigners and activists.

The parade on Saturday 23rd August will be the climax of the festival. In the evening, Derry’s very-own drag troupe, “Foyle Follies”, will hold a cabaret and disco. This will round off a fun-filled week of events in the north-west.

– Allan Reavie For more information on Foyle Pride, visit foylepridefestival.com Foyle Follies photos (centre, top right) by Allan Reavie

22 EILE Magazine

Feature Events || Foyle Cork Pride

EILE Magazine 23 57

LGBT|Parenting | Fostering Film African Pride

‘African Pride’ Wins Best Human Rights Documentary At Galway Film Fleadh

The winner of the Best Human Rights Documentary at the 26th Galway Film Fleadh, African Pride is RTÉ journalist Laura Fletcher’s directorial debut.

24 EILE Magazine

The independent documentary looks at the way in which South Africans are meeting crimes targeting lesbian women, gay men and transgender people with visibility.

The winner was selected by Amnesty International in Galway.

“There were incredible documentaries competing in this category, and it means so much that

LGBT Parenting | Fostering Film | African Pride

African Pride was chosen,” belie the reality for many.

Director Laura Fletcher said.

Homophobia continues to find violent expression “I think this really speaks in assaults, rapes and to the strength of the murders. More than 20 stories shared by the people have been killed activists represented in since April 2011, six in one African Pride. This is their month alone. film”.

In response mourners, South Africa’s constitution comrades, friends and was the first in the world survivors are taking to to prohibit discrimination the streets in growing on the basis of sexual numbers for memorials, orientation. But rights protests and township

pride marches.

African Pride introduces viewers to those who are choosing visibility over silence, and explores this determined and colourful movement, its achievements and the challenges that remain. (eile.ie / July 15)

EILE Magazine 24

Style | 60s| Fashion Comment Belfast Pride

Proud of

Belfast

Scott De Buitléir writes from Belfast about its LGBT

community sticking together, despite the bad weather Taking a break from the weekend’s to-do list, I found myself wandering around central Belfast on an overcast and heavy Sunday afternoon with a friend. The previous Friday saw the official launch of Belfast Pride, and rainbow flags are now dotted around the city.

As we wandered up to Donegall Square, my friend and I were pleasantly surprised to see the festival’s flags flying in front of Belfast City Hall. Inside City Hall’s grounds were three food stalls, while deck chairs were dotted around the grass in front of the large outdoor 26 EILE Magazine

screen that had been erected for the London 2012 Olympics.

Then, we saw the notice: Belfast Pride were showing Mamma Mia on the big screen, and we had arrived just in time.

the heavens opened up and it looked, for a moment, like we would be washed away during our sing-along of Waterloo.

Despite the horrible weather that can usually ruin an outdoor event, the crowd that As anyone who has lived in, gathered to watch Mamma or visited Ireland – north or Mia didn’t move. Few, if any, south – knows well, no-one can decided to leave. In fact, expect what the weather will be it seemed that the crowd like here. Ever. Despite the fact continued to grow, despite that the summer sun had been the heavy showers. The singout all week in Belfast, Sunday along ‘warm ups’ that the was a totally different story; host introduced ahead of the dragging the city back from film screening were getting its sun-kissed fantasy of being the crowd singing and, for a close to the Mediterranean, to crazy, happy few, dancing. The a dull, heavy, humid Northern coffee van continued serving Irish summer. Just as the coffee. The burger van kept hostess kicked off the event, selling burgers. The kids kept

Comment | Belfast Pride on dancing, either underneath an umbrella or in their rain ponchos. The event went on.

“

We look forward to that moment when the sun breaks through the clouds, and we can enjoy its warmth.

We look forward to when we can smile and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing the worst is over.

”

As crazy as it might sound, the fact that the crowd remained despite the weather struck me as a kind of momentary metaphor for the LGBT community, both in Belfast and further afield. Despite adversity, nuisances, and negativity, the community have stayed united in their fight for equality, for respe ct and for tolerance. Northern Ireland is now the only part of the UK which does not yet have marriage equality, and yet its people remain optimistic.

That’s not to say that no-one is annoyed by their politicians – just like we rarely welcome bad weather – but we know that the hardship is temporary. We look forward to that moment when the sun breaks through the clouds, and we can enjoy its warmth. We look forward to when we can smile and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing the worst is over. In the meantime, we stay together, just like the crowd did outside Belfast City Hall.

As the heavy showers passed, just as the crowd finished singing along to Loreen’s Euphoria as a vocal warm-up, a rainbow appeared from the east of Donegall Square. The moment was special to see; a symbol of our community overlooking the first weekend of Belfast’s LGBT festival. The

crowd stayed outside City Hall, and sang together during the rain, to be rewarded afterwards with a rainbow. That was a special moment, for me, and its symbolism made me proud of Belfast that day.

Belfast Pride takes place until Saturday, August 2. For more information, visit belfastpride. com.

EILE Magazine 27

Denmark | Equal Love 25

Denmark Celebrates 25 Years Of Marriage Equality By Asking For Your Wedding & Family Photos For ‘Equal Love’ Photography Exhibition Twenty-five years ago the first same-sex couple was lawfully married under the Danish registered partnership law, the first of it kind and an inspiration for same-sex marriages, partnerships, civil unions and family laws in countries all over the world.

partnership came into force.

Therefore Copenhagen municipality decided to open the doors anyway to host the world’s first registrations: 11 gay couples became the world’s first registered partnerships.”

To mark the occasion, an exhibition: “Equal Love Silver Anniversary, Copenhagen 1989-2014” will be held September/October 2014 at the Copenhagen City Hall, where the first couple said ‘yes’ to each other 25 years ago.

“The first couple to enter a registered partnership was Axel and Eigil Axgil. Back in 1948 Axel Axgil founded LGBT Denmark, then the League of 1948. It was a time of oppression and he suffered many difficulties personally.

In 1989, in another time, he entered the first registered partnership with his long-time partner, Eigil Axgil.”

“October 1st, 1989. That’s a day to remember,” says Søren Laursen, Chair of LGBT Danmark. “On that day Copenhagen Town Hall was crowded. It was a Sunday, and the town hall was supposed to be closed. But it was the day the law on registered

To celebrate, the team behind Equal Love want to collect wedding pictures and rainbow family photos from all over the world. Send your photos by uploading them to Twitter with the hashtag, #equallove25, or send them to equallove@lgbt. dk. A free web exhibition will

Axel & Eigil Axgil, who were the first couple to have a registered partnership on October 1, 1989 at Copenhagen City Hall

also be available on www.lgbt. dk/equallove25.

We want to show everybody that it was not the end of the world when the first samesex couple was married 25 years ago. Life goes on. For better. For worse. And for all, irrespective of sexual orientation and gender identity.

For more, visit lgbt.dk/equallove25 Anders & Michael, 2008

EILE Magazine 29

LGBT | Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland: Christian Baking Company Refuses To Bake ‘Support Gay Marriage’ Cake A baking company in Northern Ireland are facing legal action from the British Government, after the company refused to bake a cake for a novelty cake in support of equal marriage.

been called to rethink their actions. The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland wrote to Ashers, stating that the Newtownabbey company was in breach of the law, and that if the “illegal discrimination” is not rectified within seven days, the Commission will take the bakers to court.

Ashers Baking Company, based in Newtownabbey in County Antrim, refused to bake a novelty cake featuring the Sesame Street characters, Bert & Ernie, alongside the words “Support Gay Marriage”. The cake would have also featured the logo of QueerSpace, a local gay rights group.

Since the baking company refused to make the novelty cake, stating that it went against the religious beliefs of the company’s directors, the bakers have

It remains to be seen whether or not the owners of the baking company will react to the Equality Commission’s letter, although the company already has the support of the Christian Institute in the UK, which called the reaction to the bakers’ decision as “nonsense”.

30 EILE Magazine

Northern Ireland is still the only region of the UK that does not have plans to introduce marriage equality, despite it being the first region of the UK to officiate a civil partnership in December 2005. (eile.ie / July 8)

USA | Politics

Events | Belfast Pride

Belfast Pride A Great Success (Despite The Rain!)

Despite torrential rain, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Belfast yesterday in the culmination of Belfast Pride 2014.

The parade was opened by the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Nichola Mallon, who was greeted enthusiastically by the crowds and the Mayor was much in demand for numerous pictures along the route with spectators.

There were a range of floats taking part in the parade, many reaching new heights of creativity and bringing much appreciated colour to the streets on a wet Saturday afternoon. The performers on the floats kept waving and were joined in the parade by a record number of walking groups from businesses, trades unions, political parties, statutory agencies and community groups.

Belfast Pride aimed to put Pride at the centre of Belfast this year and once again the parade filled the long route from the Albert Clock, along Royal Avenue, around the City Hall and via Queen Street, Castle Street and High Street to Custom House Square for

the popular Party in the Square concert which features high profile acts including Stooshe, Micha B and Ryan Dolan.

Seán Ó Néill, Chair of Belfast Pride, welcomed the large crowds saying: “The rain hasn’t put off tens of thousands of LGBT people and their friends who wanted to come out on the streets of their city today to celebrate and to continue to ask for full Equality, the same rights as everyone else, no more, no less. We want Belfast to be the inclusive, progressive and confident city that we know it can be.”

EILE Magazine 31

Trans News | Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox First Transgender Actor Nominated at Emmy Awards

Laverne Cox has become the first transgender actor to be nominated for an Emmy Award, and she has said that she is “on cloud nine” to be nominated.

a nominee earlier this week in the Emmy Awards’ category of outstanding guest actress in a comedy series. She is one of twelve from the OITNB cast who have been nominated for an Emmy Award, but it is the first time a transgender actor has been nominated for such an award.

Laverne, who plays Sophia Burset on the hit Netflix programme, Orange Is The New Black, was announced as

“What a wonderful, wonderful day for Orange and for black trans-women”, continued the popular actor, who was also

32 EILE Magazine

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Laverne said: “I’m on cloud nine, I’m through the roof”.

recently featured on the cover of TIME Magazine.

Earlier this year, Cox was awarded by GLAAD with their Stephen F. Kolzak Award for her LGBT activism at the 25th annual GLAAD Media Awards.

GLAAD praised Cox’s Emmy nomination, while also praising the achievements of other openly-LGBT actors this year, including Matt Bomer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jim Parsons, Kate McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Nathan Lane and Joe Mantello. (eile.ie / July 12)

Trans News | Catholic Nun

Canadian Hopes To Become First Transgender Catholic Nun A Canadian trans woman is hoping to become the world’s first transgender Catholic nun.

Tia Pesando, from London, Ontario, has already received her local priest’s blessing, and is training to become a Carolinian sister.

If Tia does become a nun, she will be the first transgender nun in the world.

Speaking with Canada’s CTV, Pesando explains that two years ago, she heard God calling her. When she decided to become a nun, she received her priest’s blessing and is now going through the process to become a Carolinian sister and the first ever Roman Catholic transgender nun.

“I’m in the training process which is starting this August”, Tia explains, “so it’s a positive start that I’ve undergone.”

However, the Catholic Church, with a history of homophobia and transphobia, has been silent thus far about Pesando’s ambition. A Carolinian convent in Ontario told CTV that it wouldn’t be “able to accommodate someone like Pesando”.

This kind of cold reception has not deterred Pesando from her goal, however: “The Catholic Church is very good at maintaining a cohesion of hierarchy and if there was an order from someone higher up that prevented me, eventually it would come down to me having to appeal to the Pope,” Pesando says.

“Forgiveness needs to begin somewhere,” she says. “It needs to begin with us, all of us, those in the LGBT community and those of the Christian faith.”

As Pope Francis has made a relative amount of progress regarding LGBT rights and the Catholic Church, Tia says that ‘the time is right’ for a transgender nun.

Tia Pesando’s book, God Doesn’t Hate You, is now available on Amazon. (eile.ie / July 16)

EILE Magazine 33

California Dispatch

Californi

Order in th

Jon Beaupré on how the US Judicial System has been LGBT Activists’ BFF There is a great swathe of people in this country who have either an open hostility toward, or are ambivalent at best about our judiciary.

However, without the deliberative review of our courts, LGBT causes and milestones would be fewer, and certainly less dramatic.

In more positive terms, 34 EILE Magazine

the courts – more than our legislators or government executives - have been the most significant source of political, legal, social change benefiting sexual minorities.

This doesn’t mean the courts have always been on the side of LGBT causes, and it certainly doesn’t mean the judicial system offers much comfort to minorities in criminal situations. But by comparison to the discrimination felt in society as a whole the courts have often been the refuge of those fighting for civil rights and protections from majority rule.

For many Americans, the idea that a small cadre of unelected folks in black robes (we don’t wear powdered wigs here, thank you) can overturn a popular vote seems unfair.

After all, in a democracy the majority rules, right?

Not exactly, and not always.

Three historic decisions that had their start in California not only changed the legal landscape for LGBT people here, they also had farreaching effects across the country.

The first is not a court decision per se, but an electoral

California Dispatch

ia Dispatch:

he Courts! measure that signaled a change in how sexual minorities would fare in the political arena.

In 1978, a conservative southern California state senator named John Briggs proposed an initiative (more on initiatives later) that would essentially make it illegal for homosexuals to serve in public schools in the state of California. The ‘Briggs Initiative’, as it was known, was an outgrowth of orange juice queen Anita Bryant’s efforts in Florida to keep homosexuals out of most public life. As the election season progressed, polls gave the Briggs Initiative a slight lead, suggesting that there were more homophobes in California than supporters of gay rights.

Iconic San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk led the fight against the measure, and opposition to the initiative came from such varied figures as California’s conservative champion Governor Ronald Reagan, and even thenPresident Jimmy Carter. The public opinion swing away from support for the measure was swift and surprising. Most pundits of the day simply found the initiative meanspirited; opposing it became less a show of support for LGBT causes than simply a

refusal to buy into a nasty bit of political grandstanding. On election night the measure went down to a resounding defeat.

“ In this sense our courts have frequently shone brightly, trying to reconcile renegade political efforts with constitutional realities.

” The rejection of the Briggs Initiative was important for two reasons. First, it showed

that when the chips were down, the citizens of the state could come to the support of an LGBT cause. The support was tepid, but it was there.

Second, and perhaps more important, coming mere months after the success of the historic tax-slashing Jarvis Initiative, it heralded the rise of the initiative process, whereby anyone(with lots of money), having gathered a requisite number of signatures, can have a measure placed on the state ballot. On the face of it, this might seem an egalitarian way for ordinary citizens to participate in the democratic process. In reality, it is both a repudiation of the state legislature and often an act of mob rule by idiots. This is where the courts have come in, to try to make sense when possible of decisions made by the initiative process that often conflict with existing law.

In this sense our courts have frequently shone brightly, trying to reconcile renegade political efforts with constitutional realities.

The public often feels that the courts are ‘making’ (or dismantling) laws that have popular support. In reality what the courts do, often after heroic deliberation, is to try to make the various overlapping EILE Magazine 35

g

California Dispatch bodies of regulation, statute, law and policy consistent; and where necessary - to get all the pieces of the law to fit together as a coherent whole, they strike down ill-conceived measures which have found their way into law – often by the passage of a bad initiative.

Twenty-two years after the rejection of the Briggs Initiative, Proposition 22 was passed by California voters in March 2000 to limit marriage to heterosexual couples only.

Again, the measure was proposed by the initiative process, started by another conservative state senator, Pete Knight, who like Briggs lent his name to his brainchild.

The measure passed with 61% in favor to 39% against.

Considering that many LGBT leaders had been led to believe the measure would fail – based on the reaction to the earlier Briggs Initiative, the original passage of the Knight Initiative was a wake-up call, for better organization and fewer assumptions about pro-LGBT voter support.

The Knight Initiative was a run-of-the-mill law, not an amendment to the state constitution, and was therefore subject to simple state judicial oversight.

Eight years later, the California Supreme Court struck down the statute that came from Prop. 22 as contrary to the state constitution, and declared that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry.

The Prop 22 question was 36 EILE Magazine

far from settled, however. In November 2008 California voters overturned the Court’s so-called “In re Marriage (Prop 22) Cases” decision by approving an amendment to the state constitution by yet another initiative called Proposition 8. An amendment to the state constitution is harder to overturn and requires a federal court to determine if the measure

“

The Prop 8 story was filled with irony. First, it wasn’t until well into the case that the public learned that Judge Walker was himself gay.

”

violates or is consistent with the US constitution.

In June 2010, Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional for the first time by a U.S district judge named Vaughn Walker, based on two principles of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution: Due Process (LGBT people were deprived of rights straight people took for granted) and Equal Protection (LGBT folks were singled out for a very specific form of discrimination). By making arguments based on the federal constitution, not just California state law, Judge Walker made history, and triggered an appeal by supporters of Prop 8. That appeal could only go to one higher legal authority: the US Supreme Court.

The Prop 8 story was filled with irony. First, it wasn’t until well into the case that the public learned that Judge Walker was himself gay. Second, the two lawyers working on this California case to oppose Prop 8 were David Boies, who had represented Al Gore, and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who had represented George W. Bush in the infamous Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore, which awarded Bush the presidency in 2000. Also, in a nearly unprecedented move, then-state Attorney General (now Governor) Jerry Brown refused to defend the state’s official position – that is to say the recently passed Prop 8 - because he saw it as inconsistent with the state constitution even before the

g

Quality LGBT News and Features – Produced from Los Angeles Available via podcast on our website (thiswayout.org) or on iTunes, and on 200+ Radio Stations Worldwide!

thiswayout.org | Twitter: @TWORadio Overnight Productions (Inc.)/”This Way Out” Post Office Box 1065 Los Angeles, CA 90078 U.S.A.

California Dispatch US Supreme court gutted the proposition in 2013.

The Supreme Court let Judge Walker’s earlier decision stand, and lifted the temporary stay that had been in place while the measure was appealed. While the inner workings of the Supreme Court are generally not made public, most accounts of the deliberation suggest that the court very nearly upheld Prop 8. It was only a late change of heart by Chief Justice John Roberts that swung the court 5-4 in favor of overturning the measure.

that started in California, the number of American citizens who now could marry their same-sex partner more than doubled. Today, more than half the population of the country has the right to enter into a same-sex marriage, and there are a bunch more states on the horizon.

That may be the ultimate irony: normally-conservative Chief Justice Roberts is generally credited with turning the high court’s perspective in favor of the LGBT petitioners.

From those decisions, courts across the country have begun to use the rhetoric of both Judge Walker and of the US Supreme court to knock down barriers to same-sex marriage, and in some surprising places, like ultra-conservative Utah, and some counties in Florida.

Illinois, Oregon, Colorado, Michigan and Ohio are just a few of the states currently considering challenges to their existing ‘man+woman’ only marriage laws.

As soon as Prop 8 was nullified, the floodgates were opened. In one decision, on a long and complicated case

NBC News reports that “National Gay rights groups say they now hope to persuade either the Supreme Court

or Congress to legalize gay marriage across the country — in a matter of years, not decades.”

I could be surprised, but I wouldn’t count on the legislatures. In all likelihood, the place to watch for the momentous changes will not be the statehouses, but rather the courthouses across the country.

Jon Beaupré is a professor of TV, Film & Media at California State University, Los Angeles and a contributor to This Way Out

Listen to This Way Out on thiswayout.org

38 EILE Magazine

USA | Colorado

Colorado Attorney General Reacts To Boulder County Court Ruling Regarding Issuing Of Same-Sex Marriage Licences In Denver yesterday, Boulder County District Court Judge Andrew Hartman denied the state’s motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall for issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

“It is the view of the Attorney General’s Office that the uncertainty that has been created by these recent Colorado court rulings as to the propriety of county clerks issuing same-sex marriage licenses prior to final resolution of the issue, cries out for resolution by the state’s highest court. It is paramount that we have

The essence of Judge Hartman’s order is that even if the licenses are invalid, the state of Colorado suffers no irreparable harm from their issuance.

Yesterday, Adams County Judge C. Scott Crabtree issued an order invalidating Colorado’s ban on same-sex marriage. However, he stayed the ruling to avoid “the instability and uncertainty that would result” from the issuance of potentially invalid marriage certificates.

The following statement is from Colorado Attorney General John Suthers:

statewide uniformity on this issue and avoid the confusion caused by differing countyby-county interpretations of whether same-sex marriage is currently recognized.

Therefore, we will act swiftly in an attempt to prevent a legal patchwork quilt from forming”.

The GLBT Community Centre in Colorado welcomed the news. Mindy Barton, Center Legal Director stated: “The order from Judge Hartman has much of the language that we had hoped to see. It will allow Clerk Hall to continue to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, provided there are some technical steps followed regarding notating the licenses that are marriages of same sex couples and also providing notice to those receiving these licenses that there is a chance they may become invalid. The tide continues to move swiftly in the direction of equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples in Colorado and throughout the country, it is a very exciting time for all supporters of equality!”

Eile/MKB (eile.ie / July 11)

EILE Magazine 39

History Chevalier D’Eon Music ||GANGS

The Transgender Spy of Versailles

Gareth Russell on one of France’s most controversial characters 40 EILE Magazine

History | Music Chevalier D’Eon | GANGS

The Princesse de Lamballe fainted in the opening stages of a ball held in Versailles’ cavernous Hall of Mirrors, on an evening in 1777. There was nothing unusual per se in the sight of Madame’s billowing silks crashing to the ground in a hail of clattering pearls, flashing jewels and scattered ostrich plumes (it was the season of big hair, thanks to the Queen and her hairdresser extraordinaire, Léonard Autier).

Madame de Lamballe was a known hypersensitive, who lovingly nurtured each and every one of her neuroses.

She was lovely; all peachesand-cream in her complexion, Fragonard would not have blushed to paint her on one of his swings, and she had the same cloud of blonde hair, winning physique and facile ease of life.

She had been born into the Savoia-Carignano family, one of those clans so stupendously wealthy, that no nationality seemed able to define them.

They were the Astors and the Rothschilds of their day, super-league wealthy in any of the capitals and country houses of Europe. Madame’s aunt Polyxena was queen of Sardinia, and she herself had been married off while still a

teenager to the equally welloff Prince de Lamballe, third cousin to King Louis XVI of France, and fourth cousin to the Devil, if his subsequent behaviour was anything to go by.

young things.

Versailles may have been a place with ceilings and doorways well-equipped to handle skirts roughly the size of a small village, or wigs that towered like Sainte-Chapelle, Domestic abuse sat alongside but there was still a protocol public humiliation, when when it came to formal wear, he gave his wife’s ancestral and a male top and female diamonds to the dancerbottom was emphatically cum-prostitute he was against it. As Superintendent sleeping with. Fortunately, he of the Queen’s Household, succumbed early to a sudden the Princesse de Lamballe illness, leaving his beautiful (if panicked and went to her go-to less than cerebral) widow with safe-place – smelling salts and a miniscule grief and enormous a flock of solicitous friends inheritance. picking her up from the most exclusive floor space in Europe.

Since then, she had never willingly opened a book, gave Standing next to her, lavishly to charity and had a vision of loveliness become, by general agreement, at twenty-one, Mariethe best-dressed woman in Antoinette had a different France after the young Queen reaction altogether.

Marie-Antoinette, whom she so She was charmed much resembled and to whom – impossibly charmed she was very close. and rushed forward to greet the Chevalier. The Lamballe enjoyed crying, Queen had already rocked she loved a good swoon, and an androgynous riding she had once toppled over jacket in one of her recent in an apparent faint, when portraits, and she was confronted by an unexpected endlessly fascinated by painting of a lobster. Madame amusing people. was allergic to shellfish, hence the decorous backwardsD’Éon, with his/her unusual tumble. ensemble, legendary reputation as a spy, and In 1777, the cause of Her friendship with the deliciously Excellency’s hysteria-fuelled risqué playwright, Pierre dive onto the parquet floors of Beaumarchais, was exactly the palace, was the appearance the kind of person designed of a middle-aged party guest, to titillate Marie-Antoinette’s the Chevalier d’Éon, whose curiosity. top half was encased in the uniform of a soldier, but who As her friend was helped from had offset that with a billowing the floor, Marie-Antoinette skirt, such as currently advanced towards the guest favoured by the who’s-who of as the crowd of blue-bloods the French aristocracy’s bright fell silent. Her smile, a cross EILE Magazine 41

History | Chevalier D’Éon between the Virgin Mary’s and a movie star’s, thanks to years of excruciating orthodontic work as a child, enveloped the ambiguously gendered figure, who had spent years hoping to be accepted back into the world of the French nobility that he had been born into.

sense of gender confusion, of misapplied identity in a cruelly unsympathetic era, had led to him having a flair for disguise, subtlety and, to call a spade by its proper name, deceit.

was sent to Russia to carry out a top secret mission with Empress Elisabeth, the enterprising Romanov princess who had made herself tsarina in her nephew’s place.

The government noticed, and he was brought to Versailles.

His censorship job was a ruse and instead Louis XV wanted him to join the Secrets du Roi, an elite band of spies who would carry out the King’s missions across Europe, independent of any other government body.

Louis wanted the Empress to sign an alliance with France, breaking off her country’s ties with Britain and Austria, but no one could know about it, and the British were watching, hawk-eyed, for any Frenchmen approaching Saint Petersburg.

D’Éon was forty-nine, the only son, if that, of a family of the Breton aristocracy, who had a good name and no money - a dolorous combination. D’Éon later claimed that he had actually been born a female, but that because there were no boys to inherit the family D’Éon accepted, and in 1756, name, his father had decided to the twenty-seven year-old raise him as a man. (Daughters also needed dowries – a financial consideration that d’Éon claimed was in part behind the decision).

He was educated as a male and sent to Paris, where he graduated at the age of twentyone, and began to work in the government department which focused on censorship – an increasingly redundant job as the ancien régime’s censorship relaxed to the point of comatose throughout Louis XV’s long reign.

Charles-Genevieve (Charles was a family name; Genevieve was the patron saint of Paris.

It was not so unusual to give a child two differentlygendered names; one leading memoirist of the French court was christened Marc-Marie, in honour of the Virgin) was tall, lithe and strikingly pretty for a young man. A crushing

42 EILE Magazine

So, d’Éon dressed himself as a pretty young lady, somewhere near Warsaw, and crossed the border into the

History | Chevalier D’Éon Russian Empire, with papers apparently appointing him as one of the Tsarina’s ladies-inwaiting. He was so convincing that he kept the pretence up for months, and was later reassigned to a mission to London.

This one proved less happy, because although he was now able to dress in male attire, he was forced to suffer humiliations left, right and centre. There was even a sweepstake running on the London Stock Exchange about what d’Éon’s actual gender was, and a rival at the French embassy in London attempted to drug him at a dinner party in Soho, for goodness knows what nefarious reason.

When friends of the wouldbe drugger at Versailles stepped in to prevent his punishment, d’Éon had something of a nervous breakdown. He had been made a knight, a chevalier, by the king, inducted into the prestigious Order of SaintLouis (ostensibly for his nonexistent work in the almost non-existent department of censorship, but in reality for his work in Russia), he had a generous pension, and friends in high places. But his attacker was better connected, and d’Éon was so distressed that he shattered entirely.

He tried to blackmail his government by threatening to publish documents he had held onto. He refused to come back to Paris, and when his old employer died in 1774 to be succeeded by

his grandson Louis XVI, d’Éon only agreed to abandon threats of publication if he was recognised as a woman.

Ever since the incident in Soho, his voluntary banishment and erratic behaviour had seen him shunned by his fellow members of the nobility, and he missed the new king’s coronation at Rheims, thanks to the torturously long negotiations to ascertain his gender.

Could he hold onto his ancestral properties if he was biologically a woman, as he claimed? Surely, he could not be lying, because who would want to relegate themselves to the legally second-class position of a woman? How else could he/she have pulled off the task of convincing so many people at the Russian Court that they were a woman? (No one seemed to remember that the Empress Elisabeth loved a good crossdressing party, but that’s by the by).

Finally, in 1776, young Louis XVI relented and allowed d’Éon back, even kindly forwarding funds for a new wardrobe, provided that she henceforth dress only as a lady. And that was what led to d’Éon’s dramatic return to Versailles, and the Princesse de Lamballe’s agonised faceplanting in the Hall of Mirrors.

For many years, life for the chevaliere was good. She had her pensions, she was received

at court, and the kindness shown by the Queen counted for a lot, particularly in the early years when the gorgeous blonde princess from Vienna was so popular with her husband’s subjects.

But when the revolution came, few people were less likely to fare well under the new regime than d’Éon. For years, she had struggled with having to dress as rigidly as a woman, as she had once resented dressing as a gentleman. The revolution was even more insistent on gender regularity than Louis XVI. The French Revolution abhorred strong women, it detested homosexuality, and it had a particular loathing for transvestitism.

Republican printings regularly demonised any and all of their opponents by describing them as sodomites, tribades (lesbians) and cross-dressers, whose unnatural sexuality was shorthand for a monarchy that was also, ipso facto, unnatural.

One of those targeted was poor Madame de Lamballe, accused of being the queen’s lover (if she even knew what lesbianism was, it would have been surprising) and she was caught by a mob during the Terror, tortured, sexually assaulted, torn limb from limb and her head displayed outside the royal family’s prison window.

EILE Magazine 43

History | Chevalier D’Éon D’Éon, all her property of her fellow aristocrats were confiscated, fled abroad in heartless, self-absorbed boors; fear for her life, a revolution and she died preaching For years after in London in liberty and her death, abject poverty equality, but at the age of which glibly ‘Eonism’ was a eighty-one. By slightly pejorative ordered the that stage, a deaths of term to describe Mrs. Cole was thousands listed as her of its own transgender companion people, and behaviour, but (d’Éon had no poured vitriol it fell out of known male on anyone lovers at any favour along with who deviated point in her from its strict onanism, and life) and the heterosexual, sodomy. autopsy carried male-centred out on the body norms; confirmed that, in fact, Louis Lamballe, fainting at a painting XV’s most celebrated spy had but meeting lynching stoically; been born anatomically male. d’Éon, a soldier on top and a debutante below, a man who For years after her death, felt like a woman, but who did ‘Eonism’ was a slightly not love men, struggling to pejorative term to describe dress and act as they wanted transgender behaviour, but it in the face of cruel asides and fell out of favour along with cutting ingratitude. onanism, and sodomy.

In 2006, the story was reimagined in a hugely successful Japanese animé series, Chevalier d’Éon, which cast the chevalier as its hero, the symbol of an entire generation struggling to come to terms with competing moral absolutes: one must be male or female, royalist or republican, Jacobin or ci-devant.

Instead, the late eighteenth century had been a time of colliding certainties breeding tortured confusions – MarieAntoinette, the symbol of the old regime, dying in the last ditch defending it, but who thought rigid etiquette was absurd, and that many 44 EILE Magazine

The animé show’s creator, Tow Ubukata, thought it was an era in which “the problems stemmed from the fact that no one knew exactly which ideas would lead to greater happiness. In a word, they were forced to live under the burden of contradiction.”

And who symbolised that better than the courageous, tortured d’Éon? We are still trying to label, we are still living under the burden of contradictions. Ubukata thought d’Éon had a great “spirit of determination to live through tragedy by transforming contradiction into a new set of values instead of letting it ruin you.”

But the times she lived in, not entirely unlike ours, nearly broke that determination entirely.

Gareth is a historian, playwright and author of the Popular book series.

A Clip from the animé series of Le Chevalier d’Éon

Opinion | Transphobia

Grand Final October Bank Holiday Sunday In The Gibson Hotel If you wish to enter please contact your local LGBT bar or community group

In Association With:

EILE Magazine 41

Reviews | Frances Winston

Guardians of The Galaxy Directed by: James Gunn Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper This may not be an instantly recognisable brand to some people but it is based on a Marvel Comic series of the same name about a mismatched group of heroes who make it their mission to protect the galaxy.

Central to the group is Peter Quill, aka Star Lord, who was abducted from earth as a child in the eighties.

He is played here by Parks and Recreation star Chris Pratt, who is a million miles from his usual cute cuddly character. To say that he has seriously buffed up for the role is an understatement, and there is one shirtless scene that will have people swooning in the aisles.

We first meet Quill as an outlaw stealing an orb, which he plans to sell to the highest bidder.

Unbeknownst to him though it is no ordinary orb, and actually contains an infinity stone which has the power to destroy universes.

Finding himself pursued by Gamora (Saldana), Rocket (voiced

by Cooper) and his sidekick Groot (the voice of Diesel) who all have 46 EILE Magazine

their own agendas, the four destroy a town as they fight, and are thrown in jail. There they encounter Drax (Bautista) whose family have been killed by a power hungry despot called Ronan (Pace) who is also after the orb. The five unlikely allies escape the prison in order to sell the stone, but when they learn of its power, they vow to ensure that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.

Unfortunately for them, some of the most despicable beings in the universe are in pursuit of it.

No prior knowledge of the comic book series is necessary, as this is an origins story. All the characters are well developed and fleshed out, including Groot whose only dialogue consists of the words “I am Groot”. Pratt is in his element as Quill/Star Lord, and injects a huge dose of humour into an already hilarious script. Saldana kicks ass as Gamora and Bautista is suitably wry as Drax. However, Cooper’s Rocket nearly steals the show. The combination of cuteness and wisecracks is a winning one, and you very quickly forget that you are watching a CGI creation.

This kicks off at a high octane pace and never lets up. In a genre that has a tendency to overcomplicate

things, the plot is surprisingly easy to follow, and every single cast member really throws themselves into the story. There are some brilliant cameos and even the tiniest role feels well rounded.

The effects are magnificent, and completely enhanced by 3D, and the soundtrack is, quite simply cheesetastic (you’ll have to watch it to see what I mean).

The trailers for this definitely don’t do it justice. It may be a popcorn movie but it is extremely entertaining, and wears its tongue firmly in its cheek. Movie stalwarts Del Toro and Close are somewhat underused but you only notice that as an afterthought. It looks stunning, and is a marvellous marriage of sound and vision.

Pratt will surely be elevated to AList status after his performance here, and the whole package is a joy to behold. Far from the kids film it may appear to some, this is a superhero saga with real heart.

With plenty of laughs for young and old, this will leave you with a big grin on your face.

In Cinemas Now

Reviews | Frances Winston

Frances Winston on Movies Directed by: Hong Khaou Starring: Ben Whishaw, Cheng Pei-Pei, Andrew Leung, Morven Christie, Naomi Christie, Peter Bowles This debut from Cambodian-born British writer/director Hong Khaou hits our screens having already won huge acclaim and awards on the festival circuit – and rightly so. It is possibly one of the most touching and heartwrenching coming-out stories you will ever see.

This bi-lingual movie tells the tale of Junn (Pei-Pei), a Chinese Cambodian, who has been living in the UK for most of her adult life, but has never assimilated into the culture.

Deeply dependent on her son, Kai (Leung) who is her only child, she resents the fact that she has been put in sheltered accommodation, and doesn’t get along with his “friend” Richard (Whishaw). However, Kai and Richard are actually long-term lovers, and Kai didn’t want her living with them, as he wasn’t yet ‘out’ to her.

When Kai dies suddenly, Richard tries to connect with Junn while battling his own grief. Since she speaks no English and he no Mandarin, he hires a translator in order to help her communicate with Alan (Bowles) a man she has developed a friendship with.

By default, the pair begin to learn more about each other as they navigate their way through the grieving process.

Beautifully crafted, this builds at a slow and steady pace, much like the relationship between Junn and Richard. Whishaw gives an incredible performance as a man battling desperately to recover from his loss, but trying to maintain an inner strength.

He has some beautiful scenes with Pei-Pei, where they both articulate their love for Kai without ever understanding a word the other says.

When Whishaw finally outs Kai from beyond the grave, and explains their relationship, it is a truly beautiful moment, and although she never says it, you get the impression that deep down Junn knew all along.

Veteran actor Peter Bowles eschews the upper crust gentlemen roles that have made his name, and gives a subtle but engaging performance as Alan, the slightly randy fellow resident of the home, who is courting Junn.

We learn much about both Richard and Junn’s relationship with Kai through flashback scenes, but they are not overused and never overly sentimental.

Rather, they are recollections of shared moments that help the audience build a picture of their lives. Leung is excellent in these as a man torn between his love

Lilting

for his partner, and his sense of duty and love for his mother.

Cultural and linguistic differences play a big part in this film, and are sensitively handled rather than being overblown for dramatic effect. You sense Junn’s frustration at not being able to communicate freely, but also her stubbornness in refusing to learn to do so shines through. Kai’s fear of telling her about his sexuality, despite being in a long term loving relationship, is something that will resonate with many, especially those who feel that their parents won’t understand.

Meanwhile it is impossible not to feel empathy for Richard who is struggling to cope without his love, but can’t even share stories of their life together with Kai’s only family.

Deeply affecting this is the kind of film that leaves you with a lump in your throat. All the characters are victims of something – be it their culture, their sexuality or their past – and an overriding sense of sadness and regret hangs over the whole picture. A touching and sensitive look at how our relationships have a ripple effect on our lives and those of others, if this doesn’t move you there is definitely something wrong with you.

In cinemas August 8

EILE Magazine 47

Music | Nick’s Picks

Nick’s Picks: Music Reviews by Nick Bassett Shipped directly from New Zealand, EILE’s music reviewer Nick Bassett has got the latest high-quality music from artists you should be listening to – right now. Click on any of the art work to take you straight to the sound!

Tove Lo - Not On Drugs

Broods - Mother & Father

Tove Lo will release Not On Drugs as the next single from her Truth Serum EP. The track, available to preorder on UK iTunes now, ahead of its release on 31 August, follows the Top 10 success of Stay High, which climbed to #6 on the UK singles chart earlier this year.

Co-written by Tove Lo with Alx Reuterskiöld and Jerlström Söderberg, Not On Drugs is a standout track from the Stockholm native’s debut set, which was released back in April, and also features the tracks Habits and Out Of Mind. Imploring lyrics delivered with gritty panache are bolstered further by a soaring and whirring belter of an electropop chorus; the combination of which make this a natural successor to the 26-year-old’s sleeper hit, and an even more immediate smash-in-the-waiting.

Mother & Father is the lead cut from New Zealand duo Broods’ upcoming debut album Evergreen, which is scheduled for release to NZ iTunes on 22 August via Capitol Records.

Fans of the acclaimed band’s previous (Bridges, Never Gonna Change) will be pleased to know that the airy electronica, reverberating percussion and subdued folk vibe from Caleb and Georgia Nott’s self-titled debut EP is still very much present in Mother & Father; an emotional ode to unconditional parental love and direction, and so the perfect choice of single to launch this brother and sister into the big arenas. Of course, it was also produced by fellow Kiwi and EP collaborator Joel Little, the man responsible for the production on the Grammy Award-nominated breakthrough LP from that other Kiwi success story, Lorde.

48 EILE Magazine

Music | Nick’s Picks

Jagaara - Fautline Jagaara are Ruth, Cat and Jane; three sisters from London, who are clearly adept at delivering beautifully accentuated harmonies amidst a perfectly assembled sea of intoxicating electronic percussion and gently-orchestrated strings and keys. Whilst the intimately beautiful Faultline sounds like the darling lovechild of a late night Haim and London Grammar studio session, In The Night packs a percussion-heavy punch with vocals that are weighted with emotional outpouring.

S V Ē - Riot You may remember S V Ē from last Autumn, when she debuted what was a rather good song indeed called Talking To The Walls. Now the unsigned Brooklyn-based newcomer is back with a brand new track called Riot, and you should really now start to sit up and take notice if you haven’t already. The verses are peppered with twinkling synths and electronics and S V Ē’s alluring vocals and lyrics do a good job of instantly reeling you in, long before the mounting pre-chorus hook of “Your heart is a bomb. Set it off. Let me light it” kicks in, suggesting it’s all about to explode. The pay off is a more-than-substantial chorus built primarily around a catchy “Let’s start a r-oh-i-oh-oh-iot” hook, whilst two thirds into the song, there is also a bit of an instrumental breakdown which has some nice choral backing vocals and again, provides another equally-weighty alternative intro into that glorious pre-hook/chorus combo.

Steve Angello feat. Dougy Mandagi - Wasted Love One third of Swedish House Mafia and the voice behind The Temper Trap’s 2009 smash hit Sweet Disposition team up for the latest single from Steve Angello’s upcoming debut solo studio album.

With that combination, you’d be right to expect a scorching, rockfuelled dancefloor filler and Wasted Love doesn’t disappoint, with Dougy Mandagi giving a mightily searing and emotion-packed vocal performance, and the Swedish DJ and producer providing trademark killer EDM beats.

With Angello preparing for the release of his Wild Youth LP via Columbia Records later this year and The Temper Trap currently in the studio recording the follow up to their eponymous sophomore set, the track serves as a perfectly-timed reminder of the talent involved in this record, which stands head and shoulders above much of the club clutter that does the rounds these days.

EILE Magazine 49

Books | Review

Book Review Two Boys Kissing

by T.G. Fewer

Two Boys Kissing is a novel about two gay teenage boys in small-town America who try to break the world record for the longest (over 32-hour) kiss, and the parallel stories of five other teenagers over its duration.

of the ghostly spokesperson an intrusion into the boys’ narrative – but its purpose seems to have been to provide a deeper historical context, by comparing and contrasting the boys’ present-day experiences with those of gays in the past.

The kissing boys – Craig and Harry – used to be boyfriends, Neil and Peter are in a comfortable relationship, Avery and Ryan are just starting to go out together and Cooper is single and lonely.

This seems less intrusive and more thought-provoking as the novel progresses. We learn about pre-Web forms of social networks, the greater pressure for gays in the past to blend in with a heteronormative society, the devastating effect of AIDS on the LGBT community, and the gradual acceptance of seeing same-sex kissing in public. Occasional observations by, or references to, Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman give a sense of the gay literary culture of earlier generations and its continuing relevance to today’s gays.

The story is narrated by an anonymous spokesperson for previous generations of gay men, the ghosts of whom silently witness the lives of these boys over the short timeframe of the kiss.

Initially, this seemed a bit annoying – each interjection 50 EILE Magazine

It struck me on reading about a gay teacher at Craig and Harry’s school who had survived AIDS himself, but had lost many friends to the disease, that I have not had the misfortune to share this experience, or to personally know a survivor. The author’s uncle, Bobby Levithan, nearly succumbed to AIDS in the 1990s.

Throughout the book, the theme of acceptance and approval recurs. Teenagers in general, and in varying degrees, seek approval and recognition for the things they do or like, and of their growing abilities and maturity. But for gay and transgender teens, there is also the need for their sexual orientation and gender identity to be accepted by their parents, teachers, friends, siblings, classmates and by the

Books | Review

general public, as well as (and perhaps most importantly) by themselves.

While there are positive situations described in the book, the teens for the most part struggle in different ways in getting the level of acceptance that they want, especially from people who are important to them.

While there are positive situations described in the book, the teens for the most part struggle in different ways in getting the level of acceptance that they want, especially from people who are important to them.

I found the roles that the Internet and mobile phones played in the story interesting.

At times, the technology was positive, allowing for Craig and Harry’s kiss to be streamed live to an increasingly global audience, and for Neil and Peter to keep conversing, both after and before school, while they were in their separate homes. For Cooper, however, the technology – while liberating and exciting at the outset – only serves to emphasise his isolation and loneliness. His realisation of this in the wake of an unhappy event helps to create an increasingly worrying future for Cooper, which adds a dark edge to the story.

Regarding the narrative itself, the different stories of the teens are compelling.

Will Craig and Harry break the kissing record? Will they achieve more than this as a result? Will their relationship be rekindled or will they remain best friends? Will Avery and Ryan’s new-found love last or will certain events

drive them apart? Will Cooper find a way to overcome his deepening despair and anger?

Will Neil and Peter be able to maintain their love when issues arise? How will other people – from close family members to the wider public – respond to Craig and Harry’s long kiss? And will those teens seeking acceptance for being gay or transgender succeed in doing so?

Ostensibly aimed at young adults, the book is peppered with advice and insights that may help readers of any age who are only beginning a gay relationship, or who may be considering the prospect of one, such as what creates magical moments, kisses in all their varieties, sharing information about oneself gradually, and touching someone gently when words don’t work.

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, Two Boys Kissing is a moving and hopeful novel about today’s gay and transgender youth, characterised in the main by openness and possibility, in contrast to the concealed and restricted lives of earlier generations.

David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing London, Electric Monkey, 2014. £7.99/€10.65. 244pp.

ISBN 978-1-4052-6443-3

EILE Magazine 51

China | Law Beijing LGBT Centre

China: First Lawsuit Against Gay Conversion Therapy A Chinese gay man is taking legal action against a gay conversion therapy clinic and China’s top search engine for being traumatised following electro-shock therapy. The shock treatment was administered after he was told to think about men.

The gay man, giving his name as Xiao Zhen, is suing Xinyu Piaoxiang clinic, located in Chongqing, saying he was traumatised after the electro-shock treatment, and is also suing the top Chinese search engine, Baidu, for running advertisements about the clinic.

Outside the court, one supporter, dressed as a nurse, leaned over a mock patient with a huge hypodermic needle, while other supporters chanted: “Homosexuality doesn’t need to be cured.

Haidian Court, oppose Conversion Therapy!”

The legal action is being backed by the Beijing

52 EILE Magazine

LGBT Centre. Xiao Tie, executive director of the centre, stated: “In China, most people who undergo Conversion Therapy do so because they are pressured by their family”. Those who undergo the treatment say they are cured only to stop the electro-shock treatment, which has been outlawed in many countries.

Although homosexuality was decriminalised in China in 1997, LGBT groups still aren’t allowed to register as NGO organisations.

MKB/Eile

Information and support for women who need someone to talk to

DLL – Phone: (01) 872 9911 (Callback facility available)

LGBT | Gay Switchboard

A Change In Leadership For Gay Switchboard Ireland Maria Keogh is captain of a strong, sturdy and most of all, reliable, ship. Her recent appointment as Director of Gay Switchboard Ireland shows that the nationwide LGBT support service which has been on the road for 40 years, is in something of a renewed lease of life.

Formed in 1974, the phone support service was originally called ‘Tel-A-Friend’ because, as Maria explains, the word ‘gay’ was not allowed in the Irish phonebook at that time.

Over the last forty years, however, the service has grown and developed, now with over forty volunteers, and a further thirteen in training.

Despite the progress that Ireland has made over LGBT rights since the seventies, Maria explains that the Gay Switchboard is still as necessary and needed today as it was in 1974. The types of calls have changed only slightly – there’s a rise in calls from people wanting to come out as well as from trans people – and the Switchboard has adapted with new technologies to meet demand.

“What we want to do,” Maria 66 EILE Magazine 54

explains, “is progress our services, and the type of services we provide to the LGBT community”.

“We have our phone switchboard seven days a week, but we’ve also started our new drop-in service every Saturday from 2 ‘till 4, where members of the LGBT community can actually call into our offices in Outhouse, and have a chat with us there, face-to-face”.

Maria adds that a ‘live chat’ feature is being researched for their website, as they are aware that the younger generation is more likely to avail of online services.

That is also why there is already an email support service in operation, which

has been successful with the Switchboard’s users.

Maria hopes that the ‘live chat’ function will become available on their website later this year.

As the Switchboard continues to develop, Maria explains that new volunteers are always welcome, both from across the LGBT community and their allies and friends.

Volunteer training is scheduled for September, and Maria is keen to add that not all volunteers ‘man the phones’. Instead, some look after the ‘behind-thescenes’ aspects of running the support service as a charity.

For more information, visit gayswitchboard.ie

Maria Keogh

News | Mr Gay Europe

Ireland | Politics

Ireland: Same-Sex Marriage Referendum In Spring 2015 Taoiseach Enda Kenny has announced in the Dáil today that the referendum on same-sex marriage for the Republic of Ireland will take place in the Spring of 2015.

Mr Kenny was responding to a 56 EILE Magazine

parliamentary question during Order of Business this evening by Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams TD, regarding the issue of marriage equality in Ireland.

All of the Irish political parties in the Republic have already indicated their support for

marriage equality to be introduced by the Government, including Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael.

All major political parties were also well represented during this year’s Dublin Pride parade, which took place last Saturday afternoon in the capital.

Ireland | Politics

Gilmore Made “Critical Contribution” to LGBT Equality, Say GLEN The Gay & Lesbian Equality Network has paid tribute to former Tánaiste and Leader of the Labour Party, Eamon Gilmore TD, as he stepped down from both posts last month.

“As Tánaiste and Leader of the Labour Party, Eamonn Gilmore provided transformative leadership on civil marriage. He played a formative role in ensuring that we will have a referendum on equal access to civil marriage for lesbian and gay couples in 2015” said Kieran Rose, GLEN Chair.

“Mr. Gilmore was instrumental in building support across the political spectrum and among the public for the next step in a remarkable journey to full Constitutional equality for lesbian and gay people” continued Rose.

“We would like to express our deep appreciation to him for his very significant contribution to advancing

LGBT equality. Mr. Gilmore has left a far-reaching legacy for LGBT people during his time as Labour Party leader and as Tánaiste – a legacy

which impacts on the lives of every lesbian and gay person in Ireland. We hope he feels proud of his considerable contribution to a fairer Ireland for LGBT people” said Rose.

“Mr. Gilmore has left a far-reaching legacy for LGBT people during his time as Labour Party leader and as Tánaiste – a legacy which impacts on the lives of every lesbian and gay person in Ireland.”

GLEN also congratulated the new Tánaiste and leader of the Labour Party, Joan Burton TD, as well as the new Deputy Leader, Alan Kelly TD. “We look forward to continuing to work with them, with the Labour Party and with the Government to complete the Children and Family Relationships Bill before the end of the year, and to campaign for a ‘yes’ vote in next year’s referendum on access to civil marriage” concluded Rose.

EILE Magazine 57

USA | Wisconsin

Wisconsin: Democrats Have Asked Governor To Drop Appeal In Equal Marriage Ruling

Democrats in Wisconsin senate have asked the governor to drop an appeal, which, if successful, would see the continuance of the equal marriage ban in that state. “[Gov] Scott Walker alone can make marriage equality the law of the land right now by dropping the state’s appeal,” Mike Tate, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said on Friday last.

This was referring to the fact that Governor Scott Walker and Attorney General JB Van Hollen, both Republicans, filed a lengthy appeal last Thursday, after a federal judge ruled that the equal

58 EILE Magazine

marriage ban in Wisconsin was unconstitutional.

“But even though Walker has tried to downplay his extreme past, his true feelings on marriage equality are on display as he continues to stand in the way of the march towards progress”.

“Again, we call on Scott Walker and J.B. Van Hollen to abandon their attempts to prevent a single Wisconsinite from marrying the person they love.”

The Democrats feel that Governor Walker, Wisconsin’s 45th governor, felt pressure to abandon his usually outspoken, hardline stance due to the latest public poll which showed that more than half of registered voters in the state

favour marriage equality.

The Democrats also feel that it is a waste of taxpayers’ money to continue to defend a law that has been found to be unconstitutional, and that Gov Walker should instead be extending equal treatment and protection to all couples in Wisconsin, especially as the majority of the electorate now oppose the ban.

MKB/Eile - July 17

USA | Utah

Utah: ACLU Disappointed At Stay Pending Appeal Of Equal Marriage Ruling The U.S. Supreme Court has granted an emergency stay requested by Utah governor, Gary Herbert, in Evans v. Utah. The district court had issued an injunction requiring Utah to immediately recognize the marriages of same-sex couples who were married between December 23, 2013 and January 6, 2014 when a court struck down Utah’s marriage ban as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court’s order is not a ruling on the merits of the injunction. Instead, the stay stops that injunction from going into effect until it is reviewed on the merits by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was disappointed with the grant of stay.

Joshua Block, a staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, issued the following statement: “We are deeply disappointed by the decision to grant a stay pending appeal, but despite this setback, we are confident that when the appellate process is completed we will prevail and these lawfully married same-sex couples will once again be given the same legal protections as ever other legally married Utah couple.”

correct decision to issue a stay in the Evans v. Herbert case.

This is an important step in the process toward resolution of this issue.”

“Regardless of where you stand on same-sex marriage, all Utahns deserve clarity and finality when it comes to the law. I believe states have the right to determine their laws regarding marriage and, as I have said all along, that decision will ultimately come from the United States Supreme Court.”

MKB/Eile - July 20

However, the governor of Utah, Gary R. Herbert, was pleased with the court decision, stating: “I believe the Court made the EILE Magazine 59

Health | HIV/AIDS

International AIDS Conference: Hope for Kick & Kill Cure for AIDS The World Aids Conference, held in Melbourne this year, saw a glimmer of hope for AIDS sufferers today through the work of a Danish University.

anti-retroviral medication, where the HIV virus was below or at a barely detectable level in the blood. They were put on the anti-cancer drug, romidepsin, which resulted in virus production in HIVinfected cells increasing to between 2.1 and 3.9 times above normal. For five patients, the HIV level in the blood was now measurable.

The conference heard that a pilot study by HIV researchers in Denmark has shown that an anti-cancer drug can activate hidden HIV.

According to a report by Lars Elgard Pedersen of the Aarhus University Hospital:

The researchers, from Aarhus University, described the first stages of what has become known as a ‘kick and kill’ policy, where the aim is to force the virus out of its hiding place in cells, and then kill the virus and destroy the hiding place.

Six volunteers with HIV took part in the study, which concentrated on patients on 60 EILE Magazine

HIV can hide in a ”state of hibernation” in the so-called CD4 cells. These cells are a part of the body’s immune system, but the CD4 cells cannot fight the virus themselves; killer T-cells can. However, killer T-cells cannot tell if a CD4 cell contains ”hibernating” HIV virus. That is why HIV continues to be a chronic disease. HIV infection can be kept down by medicine but there is still no cure which can eradicate HIV from the body.

The results presented by the researchers at Aarhus University Hospital and Aarhus University are interesting; when the virus is activated and moves towards the bloodstream it leaves a trace on the outside of the infected CD4 cells. In principle this means that the killer T cells can now trace and destroy the HIV-infected CD4 cells.

The researchers have also tested the side-effects of the medicine, and found that the subjects experienced transient fatigue and nausea, known romidepsin side-effects. This led the researchers to believe that there are no special risks using romidepsin for HIVinfected patients.

The researchers were not able to demonstrate whether the total HIV reservoir is lowered when killer T-cells trace and destroy HIV-infected CD4 cells, however. Ole Schmeltz Søgaard, MD, senior

USA ||Virginia Slovakia Politics researcher Aarhus University and Department of Infectious Diseases Aarhus University Hospital, stated: The immune system’s reaction to the exposed HIVinfected cells may not itself be strong enough to clear the cells from the body. But the mechanism to activate and expose the HIV virus may potentially one day be part of a combination of drugs which together can eradicate HIV infection.

A larger trial is now needed to combine the romidepsin activation of hidden HIV with a vaccine (vacc-4x) which will strengthen the action of T-cells against the HIV virus.

We have now shown that we can activate a hibernating virus with romidepsin and that the activated virus moves into the bloodstream in large amounts. This is a step in the right direction; but there is still a long way to go and many obstacles to overcome before we can start talking about a cure against HIV, says Ole Schmeltz Søgaard.

MKB/Eile See Dr Shay Keating’s Analysis of the Kick & Kill Cure on Page xx

Virginia: Strike Down Of Equal Marriage Ban Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban was recently deemed unconstitutional by a federal appeals court, in a decision that could overturn similar prohibitions in the Carolinas and West Virginia.

According to Associated Press, the judges at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA, ruled 2-1 that the American state’s ban against same-sex marriage, and denying recognition of such unions in other U.S. states, violate the American Constitution. Judge Henry F. Floyd said that the state’s current legislation “impermissibly infringe[s] on its citizens’ fundamental right to marry.”

“I am proud that the Commonwealth of Virginia is leading on one of the most important civil rights issues of our day,” said Virginia’s Attorney General, Mark Herring. “We are fighting for the right of loving, committed couples to enter the bonds of marriage.”

“Marriage is one of the most fundamental rights – if not the most fundamental right – of all Americans,” plaintiffs’ attorney David Boies said in a statement. “This court has affirmed that our plaintiffs – and all gay and lesbian Virginians – no longer have to live as second-class citizens who are harmed and demeaned every day.”

To read the court’s findings, click here.

EILE Magazine 23 61

Australia | Rugby

Gay Rugby Team Wins First Professional Match Two international rugby legends are congratulating Australia’s first gay rugby union team for its decisive win during an historic game. They are also urging sports in the UK and around the world to do more to tackle homophobia in sport.

The Sydney Convicts were the first gay rugby team, and only the second gay team in the world, to play at a professional 62 EILE Magazine

sporting event (the first was a French soccer match in 2006).

On Sunday, the Convicts beat the Macquarie University Warriors 30-12 during a ‘curtain raiser,’ a game held ahead of the international ‘Super Rugby’ match between the NSW Waratahs (AUS) and Highlanders (NZ) at Allianz Stadium.

Sydney Convicts Head Coach Charlie Winn said, “The curtain raiser was a once in a lifetime experience for the team and I’m proud we made the most of this historic opportunity to show gay men can and do play quality rugby.

I hope we’ve opened the door

to similar games being held in the future around the world.”

International rugby superstar and former Wales captain, Gareth Thomas, is one of only two professional rugby players in the world to have come out of the closet. He came out in 2009. He said: “I congratulate the Sydney Convicts for winning this historic game, it certainly says a lot about the calibre of gay rugby teams around the world. Thankfully we are moving incredibly quickly toward attitudes changing about gay people and whether they can play tough sports

Australia | Rugby like rugby. This may be the first gay team invited to play a curtain raiser but I hope it’s not the last. Rugby is a game for all shapes, sizes and personalities and it needs to be a game for everyone regardless of sexuality. I think rugby can lead the way in changing sporting culture and I’m very hopeful we’ll see more games like this in the UK and around the world.”

Another international rugby legend, John Eales, the most successful captain in Australian rugby history, agrees with Gareth. The retired Wallaby, and also a ‘Bingham Cup Ambassador’, said that he was very proud of the Convicts for making history, while also challenging stereotypes around gay men:

“Sports can and must lead society and be welcoming for everyone. It’s always disappointing to hear stories of people who don’t play sports because they fear discrimination. I’m sure that by holding historic events like this weekend’s curtain raiser and taking other steps to publicly support gay people, we can help eradicate homophobia and discrimination in sport.”

In addition to the curtain raiser game, a panel discussion on homophobia in sport was held during the pre-game

show and a feature article on discrimination in sport ran in the program. A 30 second anti-homophobia video was also shown on the Jumbotron, featuring many well-known international athletes.

Australians are receiving strong international praise and recognition for their efforts to tackle homophobia.

Les Johnson, Vice-President of Membership with the Federation of Gay Games, said: “We applaud rugby and Australia’s other major sports for being trailblazers and for strongly supporting our community. The historic initiatives being led by Australians are significant developments in the worldwide effort to end discrimination and make sport welcoming and safe for all.”

EILE Magazine 7

Events | Gay Switchboard

LGBT | Peter Tatchell

GLEN, the Gay & Lesbian Equality Network are recruiting for an intern position to join their Diversity Champions programme team. Diversity Champions is Ireland’s network of LGBT inclusive employers, working with Ireland’s leading companies, their Human Resources, Diversity Executives and LGBT Employee Networks to enhance and support the visibility of LGBT people in the workplace.

sectors, both verbally and in written correspondence.

• Demonstrated ability to manage changing priorities and workloads in a small team environment and to use initiative to consistently achieve results.

• Ability to work independently and as part of a collegiate team.

• Demonstrated experience with internet usage and MS Office, particularly Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

• Understanding of and commitment to the aims and objectives of GLEN

Main responsibilities • As a member of the Diversity Champions programme team the Programme Intern will support : • membership communications including social media, member updates and programme newsletter • event planning and execution • development and distribution of promotional material for the Programme • production of research and good practice publications • general Programme administration, including preparation of membership kits, membership records and statistics, development & updating of mailing lists • maintenance and updating of the Diversity Champions website • support the development of a national benchmarking index for employers; • Actively contribute to the development and implementation of Diversity Champions policies and programmes; • Maintaining a professional standard of behaviour and the confidentiality of all information pertaining to member organisations, their diversity initiatives and their employees; • Actively participate in and contribute to ongoing team meetings, general staff meetings, quality improvement and professional development strategies; • Perform other duties to assist with the general work of GLEN as necessary.

Knowledge, skills and experience required

Desirable • Experience in Human Resources, particularly in equality, diversity and inclusion context and/or Sales knowledge and skills • Research and report writing skills • Social media expertise

Essential • Excellent interpersonal, customer service, presentation skills.

• Ability to effectively and professionally communicate and liaise with senior executives across a wide range of

Additional Information This is an intern position. It will provide the successful candidate with a unique opportunity to be part of the development of Ireland’s first and only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workplace diversity programme. Candidates will gain experience in: • Programme development and administration • Sales • Client relationship management • Working with a with a wide range of Ireland’s leading public and private employers in a diverse range of sectors including financial services, information technology, civil and public service, education, professional and consulting services and facilities management.

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion GLEN will seek to provide additional career development opportunities for the intern. This post is unpaid, however “out of pocket” expenses will be paid by GLEN. The duration of the post is 9 months and the working week is 5 day/35 hours week, based in the GLEN office.

Please apply in writing by curriculum vitae and cover letter by e-mail to workplace@diversitychampions.ie.

The deadline for receipt of applications is 22.08.2014.

Applications will be acknowledged by e-mail within 3 days of receipt.

EILE Magazine 79

Fashion | Menswear

Ireland | Trans Rights

Russian Authorities Tell St. Petersburg LGBT Rally to Hold Event in Landfill Local government authorities in the Russian city of St. Petersburg denied permission for an LGBT rights rally to be held in the city, suggesting instead to hold the event in a landfill on the outskirts of the city.

The Russian LGBT rights group, Ravnopraviye (Equality) requested permission to stage a rally yesterday, June 26, in the city. Local authorities denied the group permission to hold their event in any part of the city, but as the authorities were legally obliged to suggest alternative locations, they suggested remote locations, including a landfill site on Vasilievsky Island, situated near the Gulf of Finland.

“We are confident in our right to public assemblies stated in the constitution and we will insist on it by any means possible, including taking to the street in case of another groundless ban from the city authorities,” Ravnopraviye said in a statement to the media.

Another location suggested by the Russian local government authorities included a small, remote village on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, located between a forest and a graveyard. Instead, it is reported that Ravnopraviye planned to hold their event in a section of the Field of Mars, where under local law, groups can stage rallies and protests without official permission, provided the police are notified in advance.

According to The St. Petersburg Times:

The city authorities have now suggested Novosyolki for the St. Petersburg LGBT Pride event for the third year in a row. In a tongue-in-cheek protest, LGBT rights activist Kirill Kalugin reacted by filing an application in which he proposed to hold a march in Novosyolki for declaring the village “St. Petersburg’s gay district” and establish a museum of the history of the St. Petersburg LGBT movement there, Gavrikov said.

LGBT rights events are still a highly controversial issue in Russia, as they break antihomosexual ‘propaganda’ legislation signed into law by President Vladimir Putin. Russia still classified homosexuality as a mental illness until 1999. (eile.ie / July 27) EILE Magazine 65

Style | 60s Fashion

Are You A Gay Or Bisexual Man Living With HIV? If so, The HIV Disclosure Study is interested in hearing about your experience of disclosing your HIV status to sex partners.

Disclosure is always a personal choice, and guys approach disclosure in different ways. Whatever approach you take, and however you feel about disclosure, they would like to hear from you.

Alternately, if you are a service provider who works with gay and bisexual men, you are invited to spread the word about this study.

This study is being undertaken with the support and approval of the School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, and the GUIDE clinic at St. James’s Hospital. The lead researcher, Patrick Murphy, is a PhD candidate at the Research Centre for Psychological Health.

They are doing this study because many guys living with HIV seek advice from healthcare providers about how and when to disclose. They are studying factors that can influence disclosure decisions, and how those factors influence each other. Learning more about these factors will allow us to provide the best possible advice to guys who want that advice.

To take part in the study online, or just to get more information, visit www.thehivdisclosurestudy.com 66 EILE Magazine

Style | 60s Fashion

If you’re a gay or bisexual man living with HIV you can have your experience shape our understanding of what it is like to talk about HIV with sex partners. Go online to:

thehivdisclosurestudy.com to find out more about this study and what taking part would mean for you.

TAKE PART AND HAVE YOUR VOICE HEARD

EILE Magazine 23

Health | HIV/AIDS

AIDS: Kick and Kill Dr Shay Keating asks: Are we a step closer to finding a cure for HIV/AIDS? Since the advent of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) for those who are infected with HIV, treatment can be given which, in a matter of months, will reduce the amount of virus in the blood - the viral load to undetectable levels.

This is terrific for those infected; the virus cannot damage the immune system, and the chances of them infecting others are greatly reduced. The problem is however, that as soon as the ART is stopped, the virus begins to replicate again and the viral load increases, the immune function is damaged and infectiousness returns.

This means that for most HIVpositive individuals, lifelong therapy with its inherent side effects, is currently the best and clinically indicated option.

So why does the virus ‘rebound’ after stopping therapy? Why does the viral

68 EILE Magazine

load increase rapidly once ART is discontinued?

have been reactivated, and not by infection of new T cells.

In the study of viruses, there is a concept called latency.

Latency refers to a virus’s ability to lie dormant inside a cell, rather than make copies of itself and damage its ‘host’ cell. In terms of HIV, the viral genome, or genetic information of the virus, is incorporated into host cell (T cell) DNA where it can stay for years, despite prolonged exposure to ART, without making copies of the virus. The virus is invisible to the immune system.

This poses a huge problem for the Scientist and Physician in their attempt to find a cure for HIV infection. What needs to happen is for the virus to be woken from its state of hibernation in infected cells, where it can be effectively eradicated. This has been referred to as the ‘kick and kill’ approach to HIV treatment.

In spite of very effective ART, most individuals have a low level of virus in the blood that is not measurable by standard vital load testing.

This is not a problem because the ART stops these viruses from replicating. This ‘residual’ viraemia is not affected by intensification of optimal triple drug therapy with a fourth drug, suggesting that the viraemia is mainly derived from latently infected cells that

At the recent International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, a Danish group led by Ole Søgaard presented very promising data on this critical step towards a HIV cure. They found that using an anti-cancer drug, romidepsin, they could activate latency cells where they could be mopped up by the immune system.

They recruited 6 patients, all of whom had been on ART and virally suppressed i.e. no measurable virus in the blood. They gave the drug to all six and after one week, all

Health | HIV/AIDS

of the patients had detectable levels of the virus in the blood.

Søgaard does not know the extent of romidepsin’s effect on the viral reservoir, but believes that they are on the right track towards reservoir reduction and elimination.

by the immune system. When driven out of hibernation by romidepsin, the virus has been shown to leave a marker on the surface of the infected T cell. There is a possibility that an antibody to this marker can be designed to identify and destroy these infected T cells.

Once the latently-infected cells have been effectively kicked Who knows? A cure to HIV into activity, they can be ‘killed’ may not be so far away.

Dr. James (Shay) N. Keating, BA Mod, MB, PhD. MRCP, Dip GUM, Dip Occ Med., has his clinic at the Harold’s Cross Surgery, Harolds Cross, Dublin 6W, and is a Specialist in Genitourinary Medicine, at St. James’s Hospital, Dublin.

Contact stdclinic.ie Phone: 01497 0022 or +353 87 234 5551

Don’t forget to visit eile.ie for daily LGBT news and updates!

70 EILE Magazine

Health | HIV/AIDS

World Health Organisation Urges All Gay & Bisexual Men to Take Anti-HIV Medication The World Health Organisation has made the recommendation that all men who have sex with men should start taking PrEP, medication that could prevent HIV infection, regardless of their current HIV status.

In a revision of its HIV prevention guidelines, the WHO has urged that all MSM (men who have sex with men) begin taking PrEP, preexposure prophylaxis, which is up to 92% effective in the prevention of HIV infection.

Despite the treatment’s effectiveness, the World Health Organisation acknowledges that the criminalisation of homosexuality in certain countries makes their own recommendations difficult to realise:

“Implementation may prove challenging, however, where access to services and provision of alternative prevention tools are limited or lacking. Issues of criminalization, stigma and discrimination, and violence should be considered during implementation, especially where same-sex behavior is illegal.”

The treatment, however, is not without its controversy.

PrEP, known also as Truvada in the United States, has been branded as a “party drug” by some HIV/AIDS charities, because of the attitude to it.

As The Atlantic reports: The WHO’s announcement comes on the heels of a similar policy from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommended in May that health workers offer PrEP, marketed in the U.S. under the brand name Truvada, to people at high risk of infection, including gay and bisexual men, injection drug users, and

women who sleep with men of unknown HIV status. Long used by HIV-positive patients to stave off AIDS, Truvada sparked a bitter debate after it was approved as a prophylaxis in 2012. While some hailed its preventive properties, others—including many in the LGBT community—argued that it would quickly become a risky replacement for condom use.

“If something comes along that’s better than condoms, I’m all for it, but Truvada is not that,” Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation told the Associated Press in April.

“Let’s be honest: It’s a party drug.”

For more information about PrEP, including its advantages and disadvantages, read Dr. Shay Keating’s article on PrEP from our September 2013 issue. (eile.ie / July 13)

EILE Magazine 71

HIV | Nevada

Nevada: New Foster Care Regulations For HIV Parents The Nevada Division of Child and Family Services has now revised its regulations for prospective parents with HIV. In response to an appeal from Lambda Legal, the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) of the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services has revised its regulations concerning licensing prospective foster parents to remove a requirement that foster parents be free of a list of communicable diseases that included HIV. “This change in the Nevada Administrative Code expands the pool of loving homes willing and able to take in foster children,” said Scott Schoettes, Senior Attorney and HIV Project National Director for Lambda Legal. “Nevada 72 EILE Magazine

DCFS recognized that its exclusion of people living with HIV from being foster parents was unsupported by medical science and discriminatory, and we are gratified that the department moved so quickly to update its regulations.”

At the end of last year, Lambda Legal submitted a petition to DCFS on behalf of a gay married couple who were told the HIV status of one partner precluded their serving as foster parents.

The petition, joined by Aid for AIDS Nevada (AFAN) and Children’s Advocacy Alliance (CAA), called for DCFS to remove immediately HIV and AIDS from the list of communicable diseases that prevent an individual or couple from receiving a foster care license and to consider removal of other diseases that also are not transmitted via household contact. Through the cooperative process that ensued, DCFS decided to remove any reference to

communicable diseases from the regulations pertaining to foster care and instead to require that “[e]ach foster parent must be in sufficiently good physical and mental health, and be physically and emotionally capable, to provide the necessary care to children.”

“This is a welcome revision that brings Nevada into agreement with the vast majority of states whose licensing requirements make no mention of a prospective foster parent’s HIV status,” said CAA Executive Director Denise Tanata Ashby. “More importantly, it opens up wonderful and loving homes to the long list of Nevada children in need of safe and nurturing foster placements.”

h/t Lambda Legal

Australia | Marriage Equality

Australia: Latest Poll Shows Marriage Equality Support Up To 72%

An overwhelming majority of Australians now believe that marriage equality should be allowed in Australia, according to a new Australian Marriage Equality poll.

Mark Textor, of Crosby|Textor, who conducted the poll on AME’s behalf, said: “The fact that nearly threequarters of Australians support allowing gay couples to marry is exciting in itself – rarely do you get such a clear-cut endorsement. But the really exciting part for me is the long-term trend; support rising steadily from just 38% when Newspoll first posed the question a decade ago.”

The Crosby|Textor research shows strong support for marriage equality across all key demographics. A free vote has over three-quarters support,

including majority of those few opposed to reform The results are part of the most up to date nation-wide telephone survey of 1,000 randomly selected Australians, in which attitudes towards allowing same-sex couples to legally marry were assessed.

The poll, commissioned by Australian Marriage Equality (AME) and conducted by Crosby|Textor in late June 2014, reveals strong and growing support for legalising same-sex marriages since this question was last asked in Nielsen’s 2013 poll.

Comparing this to the other national telephone polls conducted over the last decade there is a clear and steady upward trend in support. This latest poll shows the highest level of support and lowest levels of opposition ever recorded on this question.

The national director of Australian Marriage Equality, Rodney Croome, said:

“With Australians across all key demographics supporting marriage equality in record numbers, it’s fair to Almost three-quarters of say the public has Australians (72%) now support made up its mind, the legalising same-sex marriage, community debate is including around half (48%) over, and it’s time for ‘strongly supporting’ it. Just politicians to act.” a fifth (21%) opposed this to any degree with those strongly opposed, a small and shrinking 14%.

For more information on this poll, go to Australian Marriage Equality EILE Magazine 73

Smoke Season

EILE Magazine