Does anyone remember the Video below from Holiday Inn's
1997 Super Bowl ad? Brings a smile every time I watch. And yes, I had a similar experience at my High School reunion.
I have attended two in the last ten years. A so worthwhile "Escape"!
(High School Reunion - The Courage)
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| Dylan Mulvaney |
A watchdog group has uncovered tax filings linking rightwing lawyer and Federalist Society funder Leonard Leo to the Bud Light boycott campaign, last year’s rightwing backlash against the beer brand sponsoring a 50-second video by trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Tax records for 2022 obtained by watchdog group Accountable.US show the Concord Group, a nonprofit that Politico describes as “shadowy” and linked to the conservative judicial activist, gave $350,000 to Consumers Defense, an arm of Consumers Research, not long before that group played a central role in the Bud Light boycott, The Guardian reports.
Leo is behind the Federalist Society’s push to stock the judiciary with rightwing judges, including Donald Trump’s three conservative appointments to the Supreme Court. He personally assisted Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and led campaigns supporting the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Cavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Mulvaney sparked outrage among the right when she partnered with Bud Light in April 2023, part of a strategy laid out by the company’s vice president of marketing to update the “fratty” and “out of touch” legacy beer brand’s image.
The company put Mulvaney’s face on a beer can that appeared in Mulvaney’s video, and the far right lost its mind. Consumers Defense was central to pushing the issue with a six-figure “woke alerts” digital ad campaign.
The group’s executive director, Will Hild, announced, “In light of the recent direction taken by companies like Bud Light, Jack Daniels, and Bank of America, we are launching ‘woke alerts’ to help consumers make better-informed decisions about where to spend their money.”
The massively promoted boycott campaign resulted in Bud Light losing its top spot among beer brands, a tumbling share price, and death threats against Mulvaney.
Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US, said, “Leonard Leo hasn’t just leveraged his dark money network to reshape our courts for the worse – he’s also fueling hateful anti-LGBTQ+ causes.”
Leo’s billion-dollar operation and web of shadowy organizations actively work to marginalize vulnerable communities, posing a direct threat to LGBTQ+ Americans.”
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By Harmeet Kaur, CNN
When Billy Joel released his fifth studio album, “The Stranger,” in 1977, the song “Vienna” flew mostly under the radar.
It wasn’t one of the four singles released in North America, merely a B-side to the hit “Just the Way You Are.” As the album catapulted Joel to critical and commercial success, “Vienna” seemed destined to remain a deep cut from his discography.
But over the years, the bluesy number endeared itself to listeners to become a cult favorite — it’s now among Joel’s top three streamed songs on Spotify alongside “Uptown Girl” and “Piano Man,” and an official music video was just released this past April.
The force behind the song’s slow-burn resurgence appears to be, at least in part, teenage girls and women in their 20s and 30s.
Across social media, young women wax poetic about the decades-old track and their emotional attachment to it. “No one understands a woman in her 20s the way billy joel did in 1977 when he wrote Vienna,” one woman declared on TikTok. Another shared that the song inspired her to embark on a solo adventure to the Austrian capital. More than a few have gotten the song’s lyrics and other “Vienna”-inspired imagery tattooed on their bodies.
Per one meme, “girlhood is sobbing to Vienna.”
Despite the fact that it was written nearly 50 years ago, “Vienna” is resonant and relevant as ever for a generation of young women. Joel (who counts the track among his favorites) has theorized that the song’s appeal to young women stems from its appearance in a pivotal scene in the 2004 rom-com “13 Going on 30.” The film, starring Jennifer Garner, tells the story of a disillusioned teenager who wants nothing more than to fast forward to adulthood — only to realize that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
“That’s a movie that was popular with girls, and girls are who most of the enthusiasm for the song comes from. Beyond that, I’m not sure,” he said in a 2018 interview with Vulture. “It’s a coming-of-age song: ‘Slow down you crazy child.’ So I guess it resonates with younger people. It’s a fun one to play.”
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| Lucy Hicks |
Lucy Hicks Anderson, American socialite and chef, lived the first 59 years of her life as a woman until 1945, when it was discovered that she was biologically male. Today she would be described as a transgender person, but that term did not exist during her lifetime. Throughout her life she insisted publicly that a person could appear to be of one sex but actually belong to the other.
Lucy Hicks Anderson was born Tobias Lawson in Waddy, Kentucky sometime in 1886. When Lawson entered public school she insisted on wearing dresses and began calling herself Lucy. Her mother took her to a physician, and the doctor advised her mother to rear Lucy as a girl. She did and Lucy wore girl’s clothing through her childhood before leaving school at the age of fifteen to work as a domestic. When she was in her twenties, Lucy moved west, settling in Pecos, Texas, where she worked in a hotel for a decade. In 1920 Lucy married Clarence Hicks in Silver City, New Mexico, and then moved to Oxnard, California. In Oxnard she continued to work as a domestic, but she also saved her money, purchased property near the center of town where she operated a brothel and sold illegal liquor during Prohibition. During that time she also emerged as a socialite and hostess in the city, known among the elite as an excellent baker and chef. When she was arrested for owning a brothel, she was bailed out of jail by the town’s leading banker.
Lucy divorced Clarence Hicks in 1929 and lived as a single woman until 1944 when she married Reuben Anderson, a soldier stationed at Mitchel Field on Long Island, New York. The couple returned to Oxnard and Lucy Anderson continued to operate her brothel. In 1945 Anderson was arrested along with all the women in the brothel when a sailor claimed he contracted a venereal disease from one of the women. When it was discovered that Anderson was biologically male, the Ventura County district attorney in 1945 decided to try her for perjury. According to the district attorney, she had committed perjury when she signed the application for a marriage license, insisting that she was a woman.
Anderson challenged the authority of physicians who insisted that she was male. “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” Anderson told reporters in the midst of her perjury trial. “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” Nonetheless, a jury convicted her and her marriage was declared invalid since only a man and woman could legally marry. The judge however declined to send her to prison.
In 1946 Federal authorities charged Lucy and Reuben Anderson with fraud for receiving financial allotments intended for wives of soldiers. They were convicted and both were sentenced to serve ten years in a men’s prison. There Lucy Anderson was forbidden to wear women’s clothes. After her release from prison in 1950, Anderson tried to return to Oxnard, but the local police chief told her to leave town or risk prosecution. She and Reuben, now also out of prison, moved to Los Angeles. Lucy Hicks Anderson died in 1954 in Los Angeles at the age of 68.
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| Richard Simmons appears in a dress and beehive wig in a photo posted to his Facebook page on July 11, 2014 with the caption, "I'm in a dancing mood!" |
“I don’t want people to be sad about my brother. I want them to remember him for the genuine joy and love he brought to people’s lives. He truly cared about people. He called, wrote, and emailed thousands of people throughout his career to offer help. So don’t be sad. Celebrate his life.”
Recent celebration
For his birthday, Simmons wrote on X on Friday, “Thank you…I never got so many messages about my birthday in my life! I am sitting here writing emails. Have a most beautiful rest of your Friday. Love, Richard.”
He also spoke to People on the occasion of his 76th birthday. He joked that he was going to celebrate by blowing out a birthday candle “on a zucchini” in a nod to his history as a proponent of good health and self care.
“I feel good! I am grateful that I’m here, that I am alive for another day,” Simmons said at the time. “I’ll spend my birthday doing what I do every day, which is to help people.”
It is good to read positive stories about people who have transitioned and now live 24/7 in their true gender. For those of us who are in the midst of transitioning, however, and are still spinning plates, this concept feels some way off. I fall into that ‘category’ so I wanted to share some of my experiences, in the hope that they might resonate with others in my position.
I will kick off by saying that life is a constant struggle. The struggle is not so much with my trans identity – I am finally comfortable with who I am – or being ‘found out’, but the financial pressure of being trans. It’s not cheap! Make-up, clothes, hair and beauty treatments alone carry a hefty price tag, not to mention the costs associated with laser hair removal and, if I were ever to go there, surgery.
It is important to note that these aren’t things that I consider ‘nice to have’ – especially the day-to-day beauty regimen – they are essentials, what you might call the uniform of the trans woman.
I work part time with variable hours. This allows me time to develop as a woman but not enough financial freedom to develop as fully as I want.
I have lived 15+ of the last 20 overseas. I left behind a partner and kids. So coming back in itself, and trying to fit in back in, has been really hard. All of this would have been bad enough but everything is made worse by the fact that I have been dragging my gender variance around in secret my whole life.
I have longed to do this since as long as I can remember , and I can’t say for sure which straw broke the camel’s back but in 2018 I decided to act. In Autumn, I started taking hormones and moved into my own place. This gave me the freedom to work a few hours in the day as my birth gender and then be myself at home.
I didn’t think I would be confident enough to leave the house as Stella for some time. But I guess my confidence grew quickly once I had my own place. Now I regularly visit my GP and beautician as my true self. Both women have been so wonderfully kind to me. I have also travelled to Blackpool and Manchester and attended events where I met a lot of people in person, who beforehand, I had only felt comfortable chatting to online.
I can see I am making progress, it is just very hard to make the final leap, especially from a financial perspective when it will impact my work.
Interestingly, one thing that has helped to grow my confidence has been flickr. I post alot of my pics there and I look back (and cringe!) at them a few months down the road to see how things have changed. I regularly get 50-60k hits per day and people leave some really leave nice comments. Who’d have thought it!
Nothing about this process is quick. As I said, it took me the best part of my adult life to accept myself as who I truly am. But I know I will get there. In time, my confidence will grow and Stella will emerge full time.
Most of us believe that clothes have "genders." Our society got the idea that some things are "fitting" for a man or woman to wear, some are not. However, there are open-minded people in this world who wear whatever they want and express themselves freely, not needing to live up to any type of stereotype. Like this inspiring man. He proves that it's finally time to get rid of gender stereotypes, especially in clothing.
Mark Bryan
Mark Bryan is an American, but he currently lives in Germany and is a robotic engineer. He lives his life like every other person, except that he challenges gender stereotypes every day. He almost always wears a skirt and heels while he goes to work, to the town, and even at home. And let's just say he looks absolutely fabulous while he does.
Mark told Bored Panda:
I dress like this because I can. Just to be different. I have always admired the women that wore tight skirts and heels. Not sexually, but the power they presented. I don’t dress to be sexual, but to dress like any professional woman would. To me, clothes have no gender. I prefer skirts to dresses. Dresses don’t allow me to mix the genders. I prefer a 'masculine' look above the waist and a non-gendered look below the waist. It’s all about clothes having no gender."
We asked Mark what inspires him to wear heels and skirts: "All the fashion options. With men’s pants, you have just a few color options: black, gray, navy, and brown, and no pants with prints. With skirts, you can add reds, green, brighter blues, floral prints, animal prints, etc. Same with shoes, but then you also have many more styles and heel types. Plus you can wear open-toed shoes when the weather is nice."
"I feel no different as to me, it’s just clothes. Naturally, on a cold or windy day, it physically feels different. When wearing heels, I feel taller, but also empowered for some reason. In all, maybe having the inner strength to have the confidence to wear non-conforming clothing has also given me the confidence and strength to handle my pressures at work," said Mark when asked how wearing heels and skirts makes him feel.
Mark has been happily married for 11 years and gets full support from his wife and family: "My wife often makes suggestions on what I should wear. My daughter wishes she could borrow my shoes at times."
Read more and on the Site Bored Panda where there are 30 photos
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| The concept of gender and sex show up in different parts of the brain, a study finds. |
The field of neuroscience has only just begun to acknowledge and address the presence of biases and barriers to inclusivity within research.
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| From Connie Jensen Facebook Page |
Sen. Josh Hawley not only falsely claimed that the U.S. is a "Christian nation," he went on to endorse a right-wing concept called “Christian nationalism.”
On the Fourth of July last year, Sen. Josh Hawley stumbled into a mess of his own making. The Missouri Republican — who majored in history at Stanford before getting a law degree from Yale — honored Independence Day by publishing a tweet that quoted Patrick Henry claiming that the United States was “founded ... on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Henry, however, never said any such thing: Hawley was actually quoting a report from a white nationalist publication that ran in 1956 — more than a century and a half after the Founding Father’s death.
With this recent history in mind, it was striking to see the far-right GOP senator make a similar mistake almost exactly a year later. HuffPost reported:
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is under fire after a speech Monday night in which he advocated “Christian nationalism” for the good of the nation. The Missouri Republican was speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., when he attempted to put a positive spin on “Christian nationalism,” a far-right ideology that promotes the belief that America was founded as a Christian nation and that policy should be decided using a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.
The Republican lawmaker wasn’t exactly subtle in his messaging.
Girlfriend and boyfriend jeans are no longer just a trend but are a casual fashion staple that offer options for all figures. Knowing what the differences are between girlfriend jeans and boyfriend jeans can help you pick the best style for your figure and height. Because the fit of any type of jean varies from brand to brand, the girlfriend and boyfriend fit jeans compared here are both from the same brand, Gap Factory.
The better informed you are, the less hassle – less returns of online purchases because the fit isn’t what you expected. Or being better informed, in the case of in-person purchases, means less trips to the dressing room. Whether you are shopping online or in a store it helps to be familiar with jean styles and the terms brands use to describe their jeans.
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| Girlfriend vs Boyfriend |
Boyfriend:
Boyfriend jeans are often “over-sized” in fit resulting in a loose-fitting, baggy silhouette that sits lower on the hips. This was the type of jean fit Marilyn Monroe wore when she further popularized denim among women in the early 1960’s by wearing jeans in the movie The Misfits.
This comfy, casual jean fit isn’t cut to follow a curvier figure but is cut to fit a more angular figure. Some boyfriend jeans are labeled as slim cut, meaning they are less slouchy but still have a looser fit. (The jeans shown are Gap Factory Mid Rise Destructed Sexy Boyfriend Fit Jeans)
Girlfriend:
Around 2014-2015, jean brands soon added another option to the boyfriend style – girlfriend jeans. Girlfriend jeans are cut for a closer fit and taper more in the leg. The close cut means that girlfriend jeans don’t sit as low on the waist as the looser-fitting boyfriend jean. The closer fitting silhouette makes the girlfriend jean a style that can be worn for a casual daytime look or dressed up for a night out.
Girlfriend and boyfriend fits mean more options for style and body shapes. (Pick the one offers the best feminine differential for you)
Read the whole article with more suggestions
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| Charles Busch |
CHARLES BUSCH has forged a unique place in the world of entertainment as playwright, actor, director, novelist, cabaret performer and drag icon. He is the author and star of over twenty-five plays including The Divine Sister, The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset, The Tribute Artist, The Confession of Lily Dare and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom; one of the longest running plays in the history of Off-Broadway. His play The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife ran for 777 performances on Broadway, won the Outer Circle Critics’ John L. Gassner Award for playwrighting, received a Tony nomination for Best Play and is the longest running Broadway comedy of the past twenty-five years.
He wrote and starred in the film versions of his plays, Psycho Beach Party and Die Mommie Die, the latter of which won him the Best Performance Award at the Sundance Film Festival. For two seasons, he appeared as Nat Ginzburg on the HBO series OZ and is the author of the auto-biographical novel Whores of Lost Atlantis. He has directed two films; the Showtime short subject, Personal Assistant, and a feature, A Very Serious Person, which won an honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival. Due to his love and knowledge of film and theatre history, he has appeared as a guest programmer and in numerous documentaries for Turner Classic Movies, and has lectured and conducted master classes at many colleges and universities including NYU, Harvard, UCLA and Amherst College. In 2003, Mr. Busch received a special Drama Desk Award for career achievement as both performer and playwright and was given a star on the Playwrights Walk outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre. He is also the subject of the acclaimed documentary film The Lady in Question is Charles Busch.
The Truth about the Right-Wing’s Planned Takeover of the Federal Government [Trump's Handbook]
My Note: A Vote for Trump will be a vote and endorsement of "Project 2025".
CNN News today: ‘Just ludicrous’: Ex-Pence advisor on Trump’s attempt to distance himself from ‘Project 2025’
What is Project 2025?
A coalition of far-right organizations has a plan for the U.S. federal government if one of their allies returns to the Oval Office on January 20, 2025. Project 2025 is a presidential transition plan and a government in waiting, spearheaded and organized by the far-right the Heritage Foundation, and with 100 coalition partner organizations, many of which are well-known for pushing anti-LGBTQ policy, legal efforts, and harmful rhetoric, accompanied by Christian nationalism. The project is a 180-day playbook of regulations and executive orders that could be signed and implemented by the next president upon taking office, a database of potential appointees, and an online “education academy” to train appointees in its conservative tenets.
The $22 million effort also includes a 1,000 page handbook which it describes as “the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.” It claims that its goal is to pave the way for an effective conservative administration. In fact, if implemented Project 2025 would strip away rights and protections, embolden authoritarianism, and weaken institutions that uphold American democracy and the rule of law.
The plan includes firing federal employees that oppose or insufficiently support right-wing policies, ending access to abortion and contraception, and eliminating protections for LGBTQ people. The document even calls for erasing LGBTQ-inclusive language throughout federal agencies such as “the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights.”
What does Project 2025 mean for LGBTQ people?
Project 2025 aims to gut protections for the LGBTQ community, which its organizers believe exists in opposition to the “traditional American family” and its Christian nationalist underpinnings. The Project would prioritize families “comprised of a married mother, father, and their children,” and would eliminate any federal policies that promote LGBTQ equality or that assist single mothers. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) reports that the project claims falsely that, “Only heterosexual, two-parent families are safe for children, and that, ‘All other family forms involve higher levels of instability (the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages); financial stress or poverty; and poor behavioral, psychological, or educational outcomes.’ (Their data on the length of marriages is false).”
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| Pinterest - Another Shorts Look |
Also, Amazon's Omoone Women's 3/4 Sleeve Denim Crop Top Tie Knot Shirt. I love the tie at the waist which is a definite feminine differential. A very seasonable $25.00.
What are you going to wear to the picnic?
Think about the risk the signers of Declaration of Independence faced, had the war not been won. It is not just about hot dogs, hamburgers and fireworks.
Signers of Declaration of Independence risked their lives, fortunes
By signing the document, the 56 men risked high treason against the King of England. In essence, they signed their death warrants because that was the penalty. However, death was not simple or quick. It was a process. First, the guilty party was to be hanged until unconscious. Then cut down and revived. Then disembowled and beheaded. Then cut in quarters. Each quarter was to be boiled in oil. The remnants were scattered abroad so the last resting place of the offender would remain forever unnamed, unhonored and unknown.
In addition to death, all of the offender’s earthly goods were confiscated by the state. The family could own no property and this dictate extended to future heirs. In the words of Shakespeare, “For the sins of your fathers, you, though guiltless, must suffer.”
So on this Fourth of July as you celebrate the holiday with hot dogs, hamburgers and fireworks, remember those who “pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.”
My Note: Derived from that is a republic we need to honor, cherish and keep. Display your independence this weekend and "ESCAPE"!
Gender-neutral clothing and dressing fluidly has seen more representation and support in mainstream fashion over the past few years (and rightly so), with fashion houses such as Maison Margiela producing unisex collections and department stores like Selfridges offering genderless shopping sections. Jewellery though is a whole different ball game. While male celebrities have been seen embracing traditionally ‘female-oriented’ pieces, such as Harry Styles wearing ‘feminine’ necklaces and earrings, this notion is relatively new and has still not been embraced by traditional-thinking online trolls and Daily Mail readers.
The rise of gender-bending men’s jewelry in mainstream fashion can’t be discussed without recognizing the impact hip-hop and rap artists have had on the trend way before Harry Styles was born. Since the late 70s and early 80s, artists, such as DJ Kool Herc, LL Cool J and Run-D.M.C., have shown off their over-the-top ice but more so as a sign of excessive wealth rather than to challenge societal gender norms. Think of T-Pain’s ‘Big Ass Chain’ necklace. I mean, that really was a big ass chain. In more recent years, rappers such as Lil Uzi Vert, Tyler, The Creator and A$AP Rocky have continued to carry the torch and have put their middle fingers up to imaginary gender boxes and expressed themselves through, again what a traditionalist might call, ‘feminine’ options.
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| My Brighton Earrings |
Just like many fashion trends (think the knitted cardigan), the pearl necklace then made it to TikTok. E-boys were seen sporting it alongside other accessories such as cross earrings and bracelets. Though the abundance of ‘feminine’ necklaces, rings and earrings has seen (and will surely continue to see) huge success at the frontlines of fashion, a scroll through any of these guys’ Instagram or TikTok comment sections sadly shows how un-ready the world is for a unisex wardrobe. However, are angry conservatives and online trolls going to stop men from expressing themselves freely? I wouldn’t count on it.
P.S. If you want to cop genderless jewelry, check out Varon, Serge DeNimes and Vitaly.
