Hey Hey Hey, It’s Disney’s Gay Days! – LGBT Weekend Travel Getaways

Know Your LGBT (Disney) History

 “’While Disney does not sponsor the event, the company accommodates any large group,’ said Suzi Brown, a Disneyland Resort spokeswoman. Disney quietly cooperates with Gay Days, such as by selling meal packages with rainbow Mickey cookies. Gay Days started in 1998 with 2,500 people unofficially gathering in Disneyland. Groups had protested and boycotted Disneyland, saying the event was not family-friendly. But large-scale, organized protests have been absent for several years.”

– Sarah Tully, for The Orange County Register

In spite of marked recent controversies,the years-long “unofficially official” tradition of Disney’s Gay Days continues to thrive.

In Anaheim, California, home to Disneyland, Gay Days attracts tens of thousands of people each year (well over 30,000 in 2013), while in Orlando, Florida, Gay Days attracts hundreds of thousands.

Ever quietly and unofficially gay-friendly, the Disney franchise enjoyed a “coming out” of sorts this year as the Walt Disney World resort ushered in George Kalogridis as its first openly gay president. The California and Florida Disney’s have always been somewhat distinguished from one another (hence California’s Disney parks didn’t receive much flak from protesters), but with the welcoming in of Kalogridis (prior president of California’s Disneyland) changes are in motion.

Too, the new president is planning more gay-inclusive luxury vacation bundles, trips and soirees for the discerning Mousekateers in the building.

What that means for you, dear sun-seekers and vacation lovers, is more LGBT-inclusive play, perks, and parks! CA to FL vacation packages for Gay Days vaycays? That’s just gotta be in the works, dontcha think?

Gay Days continues to book the best entertainers, so mark your calendars now: planned performers and festivities for Anaheim alone include drag diva extraordinaire Miss Coco Peru, “Glee’s” Alex Newell (Unique), DJ Kimberly S., and An Intimate Conversation with Tabatha Coffee.

Gay Days aren’t all just fun and games—there’s chill time scheduled with each itinerary as well. Event planners will hook you up with luxuriant brunches, exclusive concierge service and affiliated spa deals, because unwinding is a must. January Disney Resort sea cruises are also in the works. Loving that.

The newly-launched Gay Days Las Vegas (held in September)  speaks to the continued success of and ongoing demand for more LGBT-inclusive and family-friendly events at Disney and beyond.

Of course, Orlando events are better than ever, virtually unaffected by recent attempts at inciting controversy.

Gay Days aren’t just for boys. Tours and parties are always planned exclusively for women, men, and of course “Bears only,” in addition to the main events.

Yes, We Are Still Family.

 “Evan, Alix and Jamie had a great time with their moms at Disney World on June 5. They loved Disney’s afternoon Celebrate a Dream Come True parade, which they watched right up front, by the castle. Thousands of gays and lesbians and their families surrounded them. ‘That was really awesome and empowering,’  [An attendee said.] ‘The kids really felt part of the bigger picture.’ For the Couchman-Spencer family, the only controversy about Gay Days was how long to stay. The kids got tired. By the time Disney’s big nighttime electrical parade was over, the family had been at the park for 12 hours.”

– John Cloud, for Time Magazine

No, “One Million Moms:” Gay Days events are not Greco-Roman orgies (on what planet would that happen during “Disney time?”). Kids get to meet Mickey and Minnie accompanied and supervised by LGBTQ parents and families without encountering homophobic scrutiny, and that’s a beautiful thing.

So pick a city and book your trip. True: you’ll encounter the obligatory rainbow-sprinkled souvenirs, have your corny and kitsch quotient filled up to the brim for the year, and most of all you’ll have a lot of whole-hearted, “Goofy” fun.

For more information, visit the links below.

Gay Days Las Vegas –  September 3-9, 2013

Gay Days at Disneyland Anaheim October 4–6, 2013

Gay Days Orlando June 3-9 2014

Queens in the Kingdom: The Ultimate Gay and Lesbian Guide to the Disney Theme Parks

Gay Days & Girls Gay Days are a time-honored queer tradition. Therefore, we are ordering you, “fam” and friends to go forth and party. Do not refuse us—this is an order!

 

A San Diegan Phoenix Rises: The Obelisk Gay Bookstore Reopens

The Obelisk Shoppe Celebrates August 16th Grand Opening

Hillcrest, San Diego has long loved and supported The Obelisk, San Diego’s only gay-owned and operated bookstore.

And “Oh Hillcrest! How we’ve missed you” are the words emblazoned on The Obelisk Shoppe’s official Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ObeliskShoppe) today.

As a longtime San Diego landmark in the heart of its gay metro area in Hillcrest, the business suffered a devastating loss just over two years ago, enduring forced closure due to a tragic three-alarm fire.

According to Rex Wockner, on July 6 2011 the Obelisk was instantaneously damaged and “closed when a workman’s torch caused a fire on the roof of an adjacent building, which spread to the Obelisk’s building.  The second and third floors of the structure were gutted, and the fire department has closed the building until it can be repaired.  The bookstore received water and smoke damage.”

Placed smack dab in the middle of the Pride Parade route, the renowned bookstore has always an integral shop-and-rest stop during San Diego Pride, and has hosted such LGBTQ luminaries as RuPaul and many local artists and authors for exclusive book signings, readings, showings and community events.

Nestled in the heart of Hillcrest, the bookseller has long been a location for group meetups, impromptu connections and kikis, and you could always find a mix of the most colorful customers in the store: folks who’d grab a chair and browse through fiction titles, LGBTQ teens checking out freebie magazines and newspapers, canoodling couples deciding on adult video rentals, film lovers perusing their curated collection of queer cinema, tourists eager to peek inside and buy random rainbow stickers and kitschy cards, kink-centric shoppers buying metal jewelry, local respected elders and queer business owners… (and the list goes on).

You’d never hear any stories of people being booted out of the shop if they didn’t buy magazines or books they were reading, or if they took too long to do so.

The feel of the store was homey and lived-in—what with the structure being over 100 years old, the atmosphere lent itself to such familiarity. The store’s proprietors were always on-site or close by, personable and patient.  Though the store ownership has since changed hands, the shop’s new owner aims to carry on the community spirit and launch new revenue models beyond “just books” to keep the store sustainable.

From the pictures on their Facebook page, the redesign is ultra-sleek, modern and inviting, promising to pick up where Obelisk 1.0 left off.

During the Grand Opening, The Obelisk Shoppe will be giving away assorted goodies (including high-priced luxury watches, you lucky San Diegans!) in events surrounding the reopening.

Cheers and congratulations to The Obelisk’s ownership, staff and surrounding community. Thankfully no one was hurt in the blaze, and things are finally back on track.

For more information, visit their official Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/ObeliskShoppe

San Diego’s known as the ninth gayest city in the United States. What’s the local book nook like in your neck of the woods?

 

What’s The Velvet Rage? Dr. Alan Downs, Ph.D., on Healing Shame

Are You Keeping Shame & Anger In The Closet? Find Ways to Break Free

 “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

                                                                                                       – RuPaul

On Sexual and Shame-Based Trauma

Gay men take much too much heat for being natural, normal sexual human beings.

Here’s what that imbalance looks like: in this world, if straight men are oversexed, then gay men have to be hyper-sexual. If straight women want sexual fulfillment and gay men want it too, we have to call it something else—anything else.

LGBTQ men are relegated to sex-focused ghettos of conquest, topping and bottoming, butch-dominant, straight-acting, femme-repressive, “sassy gay best friend (neuter),” performative (sexy, funny drag queens only) and over-blown sexual expression, or the back alley of regret (“He’s so hot! I wish he were straight!” Rather than, “He’s so hot.” Period.).

Of course sexuality isn’t just about sex, yet this is where much of our self-expression comes to the fore in queer culture.

Clinical psychologist and author Dr. Alan Downs is all too familiar with this. “I grew up in a very religious household,” Downs told Oprah on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

“I thought if I met the right woman and married her, [I] would change. … ‘The Velvet Rage’ is about the anger that develops when you have something inside yourself that you have to hide.”

Many gay men and male-identified LGBTQ guys go through depression after coming out. Even if you’ve been out since you could remember, mental health issues spring up: shame, anger, fear and depression are essentially kissing cousins.

These ideas are messy to think about, but so necessary to wrestle to the ground and ultimately, to conquer. We don’t hear about sloughing off the intricacies of anger or free-floating fear. So, feeling blocked or frustrated, folks turn to drugs, additive behavior, at-risk sexual activity, and a general lack of self-care.

Common Sense Solutions

“I was very close to my ex-wife,” Dr. Downs went on. “She was my best friend. I just confused that with, ‘This is going to make me straight.'”

As a licensed clinical psychologist with over 20 years of experience,  Dr. Downs’ California-based private practice addresses LGBT issues head-on. In his book“ The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World,”  Downs  tends to the psyches of gay men, exposing the soft underbelly of pain, shame, and vulnerabilities that we  barely take the time to examine.

Because he also shares anecdotal findings (that of his friends, himself and his clients), the book has raised eyebrows and a bit of controversy while continuing to rank high on GLBT bestseller lists.  It took a long time for Downs to come out, and he approaches the idea of coming out or being out in a realistic manner, ensuring the reader that he is at-choice in terms of his timetable, methodology, reasoning, and making the decision to do it.

Check out these select passages from the book:

“The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a facade of beauty, creativity, or material success.”

“Today’s gay man enjoys unprecedented, hard-won social acceptance. Despite this victory, however, serious problems still exist. Substance abuse, depression, suicide, and sex addiction among gay men are at an all-time high, causing many to ask, ‘Are we really better off?’”

“Shame starts in childhood,” Dr. Downs writes, parsing out the healing process into three stages:

1) Becoming overwhelmed with shame, staying in denial by “splitting” or leading double lives (avoidant behavior, leading to identity crisis).

2) Becoming overwhelmed with a sense that “who you are is wrong.” (Not what you are doing, but who you are as a person.) Addictive, self-destructive or chronically depressed psychological issues arise, and the breakdown becomes more obvious.

3) Becoming whole. In this resolution stage, we open up to the possibility of embracing joy, fully.

Something you’d like to learn more about? For more information, visit: http://www.alandowns.com.

No man is an island: these concepts speak to lesbians and queer culture in general, too. What’s the hardest thing you’ve experienced and overcome after you came out?

 

 

Straight Allies Spotlight: Why We Love Chris Kluwe

“Society’s trending towards more equality, and you see that in the locker room.”

– Chris Kluwe (to Larry King, on “Larry King Now” broadcast)

 

Oh, Chris: how do we love thee? Let us count the ways.

First off, few people can bring themselves to hate him.

As the Oakland Raiders’ American NFL football punter, Chris Kluwe comes off as a fresh-faced, cheery, potty-mouthed and an unabashedly proud “gamer geek.” Kluwe’s spoken up—loudly—about everything from NFL labor disputes to honesty in the media. Now, he’s championing gay rights and marriage equality—and it’s not his first time rocking the mic for LGBTQ inclusivity.

The UCLA alum combines dashing good looks and dorky gamer references (he owns a fantasy gaming store for goodness’ sake), and let’s just say his wife Isabel isn’t the only one who finds him easy on the eyes.

Hm…male model? Athletic cover boy? What? Okay, losing track of the numbers here.

Still, there are so many reasons to adore him.

As articulate as he is awkward, Chris recently appeared on “Larry King Now”  to promote his  book, “Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies: On Myths, Morons, Free Speech, Football and Assorted Absurdities.”

On the show, he briefly mentioned his personal protest of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment and his ever-expanding record of LGBT advocacy, which started hitting its stride last year.

Sharing a viewpoint with Larry King that’s rarely been shared by celebs publicly, Chris went on to express a bittersweet regret about the Prop 8 decision, saying  we could have pressed even harder to get more mileage from the opportunity to make permanent changes.

“I liked the DOMA decision,” said Kluwe, “Because obviously it extended federal benefits to married couples. Not a big fan of the Prop 8 decision, because while it allowed gays to be married in California as soon as they vacate the stay, the problem is, the Supreme Court had a chance to extend those rights across the entire country…whereas they could’ve made a statement.”

“They have a precedent,” he continued. “They have Loving v. Virginia—that says

marriage is a human right. They could’ve extended that out to say, ‘Same sex marriage, that is a human right, and you can’t discriminate against that.’”

Trying to keep realistic, he tied things up by saying, “So now we’ve just got to go to all the other states that—right now—gay marriage is illegal in, and get that passed.”

Earlier this month, in what could have been a media disaster, Kluwe shared a stinging truth (citing ex-New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez’s murder charges) in the following exchange with Conan O’Brien on the “Conan” show:

“Now what about the NFL? Where’s the NFL in all of this?” Conan O’Brien asked.

“They pretty much just left me alone,” Kluwe answered, “As long as you’re not out shooting people…”

Here’s the deal: straight allies often put their foot in their mouths, no matter how good their intentions may be. Chris Kluwe’s using his “big-mouthed” persona to our advantage. You just can’t hate on somebody for that.

Chris Kluwe loves World of Warcraft, loves the game of football, loves to raise consciousness and awareness, and is all about a message of transparency, fairness and equality.

In his “Larry King Now” appearance and his Out of Bounds blog, Kluwe rants on with this through line: if we are not honest with ourselves and protecting our own, our civilization is doomed. He simply won’t back down from the idea, and his new book likely puts that sentiment on full blast.

Well-played Chris Kluwe—and play on.

What’s your take on Chris’ mouthy antics? Do you think he’s trying to co-opt Gay Rights to get attention? Does that matter, either way? Wait…you’re too busy looking at his “Out” magazine cover spread, aren’t you?

Don’t leave us hanging, y’all—what’s the T? Let us know what’s on your mind, and you can holler at your boy Chris Kluwe @ChrisWarcraft on Twitter.