August 2017 | Page 24 of 71

Transgender videos used to train AI software.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

About five or six years ago, one of Karl Ricanek’s students showed him a video on YouTube. It was a time lapse of a person undergoing hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, in order to transition genders. “At the time, we were working on facial recognition,” Ricanek, a professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, tells The Verge. He says he and his students were always trying to find ways to break the systems they worked on, and that this video seemed like a particularly tricky challenge. “We were like, ‘Wow there’s no way the current technology could recognize this person [after they transitioned].’”

“Cake Boy” heading to the Great British Bake Off.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

The Bake Off’s youngest baker – known as ‘Cake Boy’ – is aiming the win the TV title but he wasn’t even the best in his class after losing his school’s LGBT competition. Liam Charles, 19, was runner up in the inaugural Great Rainbow Bake Off at Stoke Newington School in north London in 2015. Students were asked to create a baked treat celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender history month but Liam’s wasn’t considered the best.

Crack down on anti-gay chants by soccer fans.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

How do you crack down hardcore on anti-gay chants by soccer fans? Work with police to arrest offenders. That’s what’s happened at a recent Leicester City match against Brighton & Hove Albion, as two Leicester fans were taken into custody for chanting homophobic messages during their team’s match. The homophobic idiots will not have to deal with the British court system, which does not look kindly on bigotry.

Ottawa Hospital Foundation focuses on health care for gay men.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

In Ottawa, one in five gay patients refuse to disclose their sexual orientation to their health care provider for fear of facing stigma, according to The Ottawa Hospital. This is one of the reasons why The Ottawa Hospital Foundation wants to create a comprehensive health care program that will help improve access to appropriate care for gay men.

La Cage aux Folles – a look back.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

Digging into the archives, we unearth the original articles printed in the Playbills of yesteryear. The original Broadway production of Jerry Herman’s Tony Award-winning musical La Cage aux Folles opened on Broadway August 21, 1983. The production would go on to win six 1984 Tony Awards, including Best Score (Herman), Best Book (Harvey Fierstein), Best Direction (Laurents), and Best Musical. In the following interview, George Hearn and Gene Barry, who starred in the central roles of Albin (Zsa Zsa) and Georges—a middle-aged gay couple whose love story was the heart of this unconventional new musical—discuss the decision to take on the roles in an era when playing gay characters on stage was still a risky move.

Teen pregnancy significantly higher for gay and lesbian youth.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

Statistics show that women who identify as “lesbian” become pregnant at a much higher rate than “straight” women and “homosexual” men are impregnating women at a significantly greater percentage than heterosexual men. The pregnancy rates are verified by studies in several nations, all showing that homosexual pregnancy rates are two to seven times higher than heterosexual pregnancy rates. And pro-homosexual organizations acknowledge that “unintended pregnancy is huge in the LGBT youth world.”

Rupert Everett and life as a gay man in the 80s.

August 22, 2017 compassq Comments Off

British actor Rupert Everett recounted the “basic terror” of the HIV/AIDS crisis as a gay man in London during the ’80s in an interview with The Guardian. Everett, known for his roles in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” says he became free in his sexuality around the same time HIV/AIDS became prominent.