featured: Celebs Rumors

Follow the Protocol, set during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Brazilian filmmaker, who writes, directs, and stars as protagonist Francisco, opens on a familiar pandemic scene: the mind-numbing nothingness of being stuck indoors.

Reel Affirmations features three days of live screenings, from Friday, Oct. 21 to Sunday, Oct. 22, at the centrally-located Eaton Hotel‘s intimate, state-of-the-art screening facility.The festival will continue on Monday, Oct.

Metro Weekly over the years.)During the pandemic, the Missouri native joined forces with producer Mauricio Pita and writer Eva von Schweinitz to devise the short film Safe Word. It screens Saturday, Oct. 21, at 11 p.m.

“When I announced that I was running for public office, I called a lot of other politicians in the Middle Tennessee area, and heard the same thing from everybody,” recalls Olivia Hill, the recently sworn-in Metropolitan Nashville Council Member At-Large, who became the Volunteer State’s first out transgender officeholder. “All those politicians told me, ‘Olivia, on a campaign, you’re going to meet some really, really nice people.

The Chronicle, a local newspaper. As part of the painting, he wrote the slogan: “Have your heard the news? 4-H is 4 everyone,” with a drawing of an orange, yellow, green, and blue-colored rainbow underneath.Elwood said the design was meant to show the club was inclusive of LGBTQ individuals, a value that the national 4-H organization has promoted on its website, reports Des Moines-based CBS affiliate KCCI.But when the family drove by the window the following day, the rainbow had been removed.“I wasn’t expecting that at all,” Elwood Burns said. “I was kind of in shock.

The Boys is one of Prime Video’s greatest series on its platform.So it makes sense that the Amazon corporate overlords would mine the original comic from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson for some way to extend the brand.Gen V (★★★★☆), a show about America’s most prestigious superhero college, makes it clear through blood, insanity, and pitch-black humor that this is definitely a spin-off of The Boys.Following a dangerous awakening of her power to control blood, Marie (Jaz Sinclair) gets the opportunity to leave her orphanage for kids with powers for Goldolkin University, a major step forward in her goal to become the first black woman on The Seven.When she arrives, Marie meets her roommate, Emma (Lizze Broadway), who is also a famous YouTuber, Little Cricket, where she showcases her ability to shrink.Together, the two meet the school’s top ten students, including the superpowered Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), his mind-controlling girlfriend Cate (Maddie Phillips), bi-gender Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh), and Andre (Chance Perdomo), the magnetic son of a famous alumni.While Marie’s initial hopes seem fruitful, Gen V constantly reminds you that this is the world of The Boys, almost too much so. Every happy moment is bookended by an insane and usually violent moment of trauma with some zinger or depraved joke.

Down Low, starring Zachary Quinto and Lukas Gage as an epically repressed, recently out gay man and the masseur he’s hired for his first homo happy ending who team up to hide the accidentally dead body of an internet hookup.Gage — perhaps best known as the White Lotus bellhop who had his salad tossed by Murray Bartlett — co-wrote the script with writing partner Phoebe Fisher, and then encouraged producer FilmNation to pass it along to Rightor Doyle to direct.“We had known each other for years,” says Doyle, also the creator, writer, and director of Netflix’s provocative comedy series Bonding, loosely based on Doyle’s experiences as a fresh-faced gay New Yorker working for his dominatrix best friend as her bodyguard. One can safely assume the actor-turned-director has seen his share of crazy worker-client situations, and even he was shocked reading the script for Down Low.“I read the first ten pages and said, ‘I can’t believe someone is going to make this,'” Doyle recalls.

The video features Sivan performing a lap dance for actor Ross Lynch, who is already well-known for his roles in series like the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, not to mention his considerable online following who thirsts after him on the regular.The visual is undeniably provocative, regardless of the gender or sexual identity of those involved, and thus it fits perfectly with this era of Sivan’s career.“One of Your Girls” goes deep into the sexual experiences that Sivan had with men who have yet to fully embrace their sexual identity, or who simply are straight but love a little man action on the side.Sivan shared his thoughts on these moments with People, noting that some of those men “would’ve bullied me in high school, and now here they are paying me attention.”He further opened up about past entanglements with these men, stating that “at the sacrifice of my own self-worth, I’m throwing myself at them.”He added that once he did so, “then you’re really just at their beck and call, and that can sometimes not feel so great.”With his new single, Sivan provides a thought-provoking perspective on the complex topic of hooking up with men who identify as straight, challenging the notion that such encounters are purely titillating.While there can indeed be an allure, there is a downside to these experiences, and Sivan isn’t afraid to candidly share his feelings and insights on these encounters, a viewpoint that is not often discussed openly.“One of Your Girls” is the latest focal point from Sivan’s highly-anticipated album, Something To Give Each Other.The full-length release coincided with the music video debut and represents one of the most eagerly awaited pop music releases of 2023.To provide a taste of the set, Sivan

Brothers Osborne by returning to The Anthem on Saturday, Oct. 14, for the first time since 2021.

Dancing With the Stars, was unceremoniously quashed.“I stood on Dancing with the Stars, in between Ariana Grande and Meghan Trainor, and all the while behind the scenes I’m being told I’m not a superstar and all these things,” he says. “Boys Like You” cleaned up on the music apps — Spotify alone shows it at 70 million streams — but “they wouldn’t take it to the radio because of fear, because I would’ve been a boy singing about a boy on American radio in 2015. And for some reason that was just too edgy for even the biggest names in music.“Really,” he continues, “what it would’ve been is groundbreaking and historic.

Bible Belt Baby, was released last October, it didn’t gain as much exposure until Sean Feucht, a Christian nationalist preacher with ties to former President Donald Trump, criticized her and fellow Christian musician, Derek Webb, for working together on the song “Good Day.”Feucht also criticized Grant for performing in drag, calling her collaboration with Webb a sign of “the last days,” and claiming that she’d never carve out a spot within the Christian music genre.Feucht’s comments, which came amid an ongoing right-wing campaign against drag and the visibility of transgender people — as evidenced by the introduction of more than 500 bills specifically targeting public expressions of gender-nonconformity in 49 states — only served to boost Grant’s profile.Not long after people learned of Feucht’s feud with Grant, Bible Belt Baby shot to the top of the iTunes Christian music charts, remaining there for nine straight days, while “Good Day” reached as high as No. 2 on the individual song charts.While the expectation for Christian music stars has generally been to embrace the right-wing ideology that so often accompanies evangelical religious beliefs, Grant’s success on the charts was indicative that there might be some space — even among the genre’s most fervent fans — for artists that don’t adhere to expectations or conform to a certain mold.

Our Flag Means Death (★★★★☆). The pirate comedy from David Jenkins was quietly released on MAX last year with little fanfare but quickly caught attention as the tale of the show’s queerness spread.

expanded “Don’t Say Gay” law.Charlotte County Schools Superintendent Mark Vianello and Michael McKinley, the attorney for the Charlotte County Schools, recently responded to questions from the district’s librarians at a July meeting asking whether the law required the removal of books with LGBTQ characters but contained no explicit sex scenes.“Books with LBGTQ+ characters are not to be included in classroom libraries or school library media centers,” Vianello and McKinley said in response, according to a district memo obtained under a public information request by the Florida Freedom to Read Project.The nonprofit group, which opposes the law’s provisions making it easier to challenge or remove books from schools, provided the memo to The Associated Press last week.After receiving negative press, the district backed off slightly from an across-the-board ban, clarifying that it primarily applied to elementary and middle schools.The district said that high school libraries could keep non-explicit books with LGBTQ characters and themes in their collections, but could not use any of those books in classroom instruction, according to the investigative journalism website Popular Information.The expansion of the “Parental Rights in Education” law — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics — passed earlier this year after conservatives said the original 2022 law didn’t go far enough in stopping LGBTQ-themed materials from being accessed by minors.Under the new restrictions, the ban on LGBTQ content was applied to all grades — except in rare instances for some high school biology or health classes.The law also allows any county resident — regardless of whether they have children enrolled in school — to demand the removal of books

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) opened its state-of-the-art facility in the Capitol Hill neighborhood on Wednesday, September 27, with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. The new AHF Capitol Hill Healthcare Center offers its clients a waiting room-free design, a built-in pharmacy, and holistic care.“The goal is to maximize efficiency using this patient-centered model to improve health outcomes and increase retention in care” said Mike McVikar, AHF’s Regional Director for the DMV.

King of the Yees (★★★☆☆), making its D.C. premiere with Jennifer Chang’s lively production at Signature.By, about, and chock full of Yees, real and fictional, and set partly inside a Chinatown social club dedicated to bringing Yees together, King of the Yees digs deep at one family’s roots to harvest a universal tale of daughter-father love and admiration.

Rocky Horror, the Lincoln Theatre is the ticket — as long as you hurry and get your ticket before it sells out.815 V St. NW 202-265-0930www.930.com901 Wharf St. SW. 202-888-0020www.theanthemdc.comJoseph Meyerhoff Hall 1212 Cathedral St. Baltimore, Md. 410-783-8000www.baltimorespeakers.orgPresented by Stevenson University at the Baltimore Symphony’s Meyerhoff Hall in downtown Baltimore, the annual series of seven lectures is available by subscription only.

Evita (★★★☆☆), Shereen Pimentel, in the title role, declaims not from a balcony of the Presidential Palace, but surrounded by risers of flowers stacked to the rafters.A luminous rose among a field of lesser blooms, Eva “Evita” Péron, addresses her nation to the triumphant strains of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” Indeed it’s a triumphant moment for the Shakespeare Theatre’s production, directed by Sammi Cannold, building on her staged concert presentation of Evita for New York City Center Encores! in 2019, and a subsequent American Repertory Theatre production in Cambridge, Massachusetts this past summer.Finessing the First Lady’s appeal to her people, Pimentel’s voice is at its loveliest on “Don’t Cry,” while Jason Sherwood’s scenic design provides a gorgeous visual representation of Evita’s lofty status amongst the Argentinian masses.The stirring number reinforces the tune’s status as the crown jewel of one of Webber’s best-known scores, with a polished, patient rendition that belies the effort to deliver all an audience might hope for or want from a hit. Other gems in the score don’t gleam with the same care and intention, although the performers, backed by music director Mona Seyed-Bolorforosh’s 16-piece orchestra, have their moments.The warm baritone of Caesar Samayoa, as Presidente Juan Péron, booms confidently through the droll game of musical chairs depicting the military colonel’s rise to power.

The Telegraph, Forstater accused the company of being irresponsible for its depiction of the transgender actor.“Promoting the removal of healthy breast tissue is not only shockingly immoral, but against advertising standards guidance to not glamorize or trivialize cosmetic surgery,” she said.“Braun executives must have been living under a rock if they think that this campaign represents ‘inclusivity,'” Forstater added. “The reality is that Braun has now written itself into history as promoting social contagion and what will become one of the most notorious medical scandals.”According to the Daily Mail, James Esses, the co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists, a group of psychologists concerned about the impact of “gender identity ideology” on children and young people, whose members oppose “affirmation-only” policies when it comes to recognizing transgender identity, also slammed the ad as irresponsible.“Once again, we find a private corporation willing to glorify irreversible surgery being performed on the healthy breasts of women, in pure pursuit of profit,” he said.

“This is a big day, and we’re here with gratitude and anticipation,” said Naseema Shafi, CEO of Whitman-Walker Health, addressing an audience of several hundred people at a ribbon-cutting for its brand new Southeast D.C. health center on Monday.Rows of chairs, with a rainbow-colored fan nestled on each seat, were spread across a lawn, dotted with wooden tables shaded by large umbrellas, facing the east side of the health care center.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, and within days The Exorcist: Believer had been exorcised from its sought-after Friday the 13th release date.The horror sequel will now open a week earlier, while the Meg Ryan-David Duchovny rom-com What Happens Later, also originally scheduled for Eras weekend, will now open in November. The distributors don’t want that T Swift smoke, avoiding going toe-to-toe with what is shaping up to be the behemoth box office release of the fall.The cinema landscape would have looked mighty different were it not for the WGA and SAG strikes, which have stretched on for months, halting production and silencing striking actors, who are prohibited by their union from promoting major movie titles.

The Bridges of Madison County, currently at Signature Theatre, Ethan Heard had seen the musical during its original Broadway run. He knew and appreciated Jason Robert Brown’s score.

Monumental Travesties, written by playwright-in-residence Psalmayene 24.“My thought was we would go to the rehearsal room, show you that,” he says, leading me through a maze of hallways, and up a stairway to the second floor. “And then meet Psalm and everybody, and then we could sneak peek into the theater.”Douglas is directing Monumental Travesties, a sharp, D.C.-set comedy centered around a Black performance artist’s radical response to the Emancipation Memorial, that statue of Lincoln lording over a formerly enslaved man on his knees erected nearly 150 years ago in Capitol Hill’s Lincoln Park.Featuring Renee Elizabeth Wilson, Jonathan Feuer, and Louis E.

Rotting in the Sun (★★★★☆). Cinema itself might soon go missing, Silva fears, portraying himself in this twisting tale of his own disappearance.

Ink (★★★☆☆), co-produced by Round House and Olney, combines a talented cast with titillating text for a thorough chronicle of Rupert Murdoch’s typically rude 1969 takeover of British tabloid The Sun.Cody Nickell, portraying the paper’s exacting editor Larry Lamb, supplies the steady, galvanizing force that drives the story of how Lamb, handpicked by Australian media baron Murdoch (Andrew Rein), assembled a ragtag squad of Fleet Street vets who would carry out Rupe’s directive to create a paper for the people. Its first act structured as a countdown to The Sun‘s unlikely launch, the production gathers steam as Lamb gathers his A-team.Yet, there’s one workhorse in this production who often upstages D.C.

CNN, the company announced in August that all employees would be required to work in person, at least twice a week, at the company’s offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. — all of which are among most expensive cities in the nation when it comes to cost-of-living.The company gave those employees the choice of relocating to their respective teams’ newly assigned “hub” cities, or leaving the company with severance, according to the Communication Workers of America union.Approximately 80 of Grindr’s 178 workers — 45% of all employees — were forced to leave the company as of August 31, the CWA said.

New York Post.Based on records of in-patient and out-patient procedures obtained from two national surgery databases, around 4,550 Americans sought transition-related surgical procedures in 2016, with that number more than tripling to 13,000 by 2019, according to the study, published in JAMA Network Open.The study’s authors attribute the rise in surgical procedures to federal and state laws approved during the Obama administration requiring coverage for medically necessary care, including treatments for gender dysphoria. The study only looked at surgical procedures in the years prior to 2020, and not hormonal interventions intended to assist in a gender transition.In total, about 48,00 individuals underwent surgical procedures from 2016 to 2020, while the overall number of “health system encounters for gender identity disorder” tripled during that same time.“The rapid rise [in gender dysphoria diagnoses] suggests that there will be a greater need for clinicians knowledgeable in the care of transgender individuals and with the requisite expertise to perform [gender confirmation surgery] procedures,” the report says.Following an 11th U.S.

Sacramento Bee, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Tom Garza issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Chino Valley Unified School District from enforcing the policy, which is one of six school districts in the state to have adopted policies requiring parental notification when a student doesn’t conform to gender norms or stereotypes.The Chino Valley policy was challenged by Attorney General Rob Bonta, who argued that the policy violates the privacy rights of LGBTQ students, and endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of transgender and gender-nonconforming students.The Orange Unified School District was the most recent to adopt a policy similar to Chino Valley’s — coming after Bonta’s lawsuit was filed — with school boards in Murietta, Temecula, the Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, in the northern part of the state, and the Rocklin School District, northeast of Sacramento.The policies are increasingly being adopted in conservative enclaves throughout the state as part of a larger societal backlash against transgender visibility — which has been encouraged by conservative influencers and Republican Party leaders.A group of activists recently filed a ballot initiative — one of three targeting transgender youth visibility — that would impose similar parental notification policies on districts throughout the state.The Alaska State Board of Education recently approved a proposed regulation barring transgender girls from competing on female-designated high school sports teams for any districts that are part of the Alaska School Activities Association.

Workin’ On a World, released earlier this year. “The world I took for granted, was crashing to the ground,” she sings in the defiantly upbeat title track.

according to court documents. “You lying, disgusting, disgraceful, motherfucking f****t…. piece of shit.

A Mississippi library has banned the Heartstopper graphic novel series from its young adult section after angry parents, objecting to the depiction of same-sex relationships, claimed the books were “pornographic.”Alice Osman’s graphic novels tell the story of two teenage boys who fall in love. They do not contain explicit sexual content, but do feature same-sex kissing and hand-holding.

New York Daily News.According to police, the 22-year-old victim was waiting on the subway platform at the Broadway-Myrtle Avenue stop in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood around 1:15 p.m. when the man groped her.When both the victim and assailant boarded the train, they began arguing, leading the groper to call her a “fa***t” and repeatedly punch her in the face and body.

DC’s latest addition to superhero cinema, Blue Beetle (★★☆☆☆), seems to thread together two disparate films that the makers struggle mightily to fuse into a satisfying, cohesive whole.At its most successful, the movie, directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), introduces Mexican college grad Jaime Reyes, played by Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña, along with Jaime’s loving, but financially imperiled family. Dad Alberto (Damián Alcázar), mom Rocio (Elpidio Carrillo), younger sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), crazy conspiracy theory-addled uncle Rudy (George Lopez), and feisty matriarch Nana (Adriana Barraza, who almost steals the show) all rally around Jaime when a mysterious sapphire-blue scarab latches onto his body and consciousness, making him an unwilling host to a “world-destroying weapon.” Time spent with Jaime and the Reyes family, steeped in authentic Latino culture, humor, and relationships, plays like the warmly comic pilot episode of a sitcom I’d gladly binge.Each episode could include a flashback to the adventures of Nana Reyes, which, based on the hints she drops, would be as thrilling and dangerous as anything Jaime encounters in his new scarab-assisted superhero form as Blue Beetle.That brings us to the other, less successful counterpart to the Meet the Reyes Family sitcom: the relatively lame-ass origin story of another DC Comics hero that’s so clearly intended as a setup for future appearances that it fails to do anything interesting with the character’s big-screen debut.

Conservatives have called for a boycott of Skittles after the candy promoted Pride Month on its packaging.Every June, since 2020, Skittles, manufactured by candy giant Mars, Inc., has released a limited-edition pack of the fruit-flavored candy in honor of Pride Month.The limited-edition candies are devoid of color and come in special wrappers designed by LGBTQ artists. One dollar of every sale (up to $100,000) is donated to GLAAD.

was hot to revel with the diverse crowd, from dancing twinks and pre-gaming Kiki daddies, Howard and Gallaudet queers to tourists, and, later in the night, the bedazzled Beyhive rolling in dripped in merch and full of tales to tell.Three voluminous rooms of strangers felt like one party — and that’s part of the concept of Shakers, which also will include nights for drag entertainers, cabaret, industry movie nights, and space for community meetings and family days.“I think people five, eight years ago were questioning, do we actually need gay bars anymore,” Honeycutt says. “And I feel like, where you sit today, the resounding answer is, ‘Yeah, yeah, we need LGBT, queer spaces that are community.’ It’s more than just a place where you drink.”Shakers is located at 2014 9th St.

law has led some administrators to censor any content that is sexual in nature unless it pertains to an academic standard.The Hillsborough County School District determined that many of Shakespeare’s works deal with or allude to sexuality (not to mention those works that contain cross-dressing characters), and should therefore be edited. As a result, some of the Bard’s classics, like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet, now have been barred from the classroom, with students only reading excerpts of the plays in order to meet basic curriculum standards.The district said that teachers who violate the content restrictions for English classes could be subject to disciplinary action or have a complaint filed against them by a parent who believes the books or plays are “inappropriate” for minors to read.If a student wishes to read the censored plays in their entirety, they’ll have to pursue other ways of obtaining the texts on their own time, such as by seeking them out at a public library or privately-owned bookstore not subject to state regulation.Previously, English classes in the district required students to read at least two novels or plays during the school year.

What’s on Emily Holland’s nightstand?“I always have a few books I’m working through,” says the chair of OutWrite, The DC Center’s literary festival, held annually in August.“I’ve been on a bit of a romance kick lately and am currently reading a queer romance called Love at First Set. It’s a nice kind of bedtime read.