5 THINGS TO KNOW

Broadway comes to LGBT senior group in NYC.

Sing For Your Seniors brought cast members of Broadway hit “War Paint” to perform for senior members of the LGBT community in SAGE’s midtown headquarters on August 10th. They sang numbers from their show and some of their favorite Broadway standards for their enthusiastic audience. “So many of these people grew up with Broadway being one of the few places that celebrated differences and diversity, and LGBT stories and people, so it has a special place in people’s hearts,” says Christian Appel, SAGE’s Women’s Program Coordinator.

HEALTH

HRC conference in Orlando to focus on LGBT youth.

Working to support LGBTQ youth, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, in partnership with the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Counseling Association (ACA), will hold its nationally-acclaimed Time to THRIVE Conference February 16-18 at the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek in Orlando. Toyota will again be a presenting sponsor. In its fifth year, this premier event of the HRC Foundation, the educational arm of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, will address the safety, inclusion and well-being of LGBTQ and questioning youth.

BUSINESS

Did Amazon allow the harassment of transgender employee and her husband?

Amazon may have grown into the mega-giant retailer it is today thanks to its innovative customer service policies, but one new lawsuit claims that they’re actually regressive in the work force. According to TechCrunch, the company is now facing a lawsuit from two former married employees who said that Amazon allowed them to be harassed and mistreated because one of them was transgendered.

HEALTH

Only 3% of Vancouver men are gay or bi – Yet another survey.

Forget what you may have heard about “one-in-10” people being gay — a long-discredited figure that arose in sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s 1940s research. This week, a team of public health researchers at the University of British Columbia believe they’ve finally come up with the most accurate-to-date measure of actually how many men have sex with men, at least in Vancouver. Their answer: 27,000 men, or 2.9 per cent of the male population over 16.

BUSINESS

NYC hosting the 24th Original LGBT Expo in September.

Since debuting in 1993, the Original LGBT Expo has become the largest and longest-running LGBT convention in the world. The expo celebrates diversity in business, education, politics, the arts, health, technology, media, travel, and non-profit sectors. This year, PASSPORT Magazine is proud to be an official sponsor of the show. We are excited to be collaborating with an event that loves and supports the LGBT Community just as much as we do!

ENTERTAINMENT

The $400,000 question about LGBT drinking.

The National Institutes of Health is spending over $400,000 studying whether gender norms of masculinity and femininity lead LGBTQ individuals to drink too much. Trying to find the “meanings of intoxication” of sexual and gender minorities is the central question of a study that was awarded in late July.

5 THINGS TO KNOW

No Moscow Pride for the next 100 years.

A Moscow court on Aug. 17 upheld a ban against gay Pride parades for the next century. The ruling from the city court affirms a Moscow law banning public LGBT gatherings from March 2012 until May 2112, according to the BBC’s website. An appeal is expected, first to a higher court in Russia and then possibly to the European Court of Human Rights.