LGBT is an initialism that stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender". It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual, non-heteroromantic, or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. A variant, LGBTQ, adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer (which can be synonymous with LGBT) or are questioning their sexual or gender identity. Another variation, LGBTQ+, adds a plus sign "represents those who are part of the community, but for whom LGBTQ does not accurately capture or reflect their identity". Many further variations of the acronym exist, such as LGBT+ (simplified to encompass the Q concept within the plus sign), LGBTQIA+ (adding intersex, asexual, aromantic and agender), and 2SLGBTQ+ (adding two-spirit for a term specific to Indigenous North Americans). The LGBT label is not universally agreed to by everyone that it is generally intended to include. The variations GLBT and GLBTQ rearrange the letters in the acronym. In use since the late 1980s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for marginalized sexualities and gender identities.
LGBT is an adaptation of LGB, which in the mid-to-late 1980s began to replace the term gay (or gay and lesbian) in reference to the broader LGBT community. When not inclusive of transgender people, the shorter LGB is still used. (Full article...)
The Aguda building in Tel Aviv, 18 days before the attack took place.
The Tel Aviv gay centre shooting resulted in the deaths of two people and injuries to at least fifteen others at the Tel Aviv branch of the Israeli LGBT Association, at the "Bar-Noar" (Hebrew: בר נוער, "Youth Bar"), on Nahmani Street, on August 1, 2009. A 26-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were killed. Three deaths were mentioned in earlier reports of the incident but one has since been discounted.
Most of the injured were minors; six were in serious condition. The city was subject to a "clampdown" after the attack, and several hundred police launched a manhunt to locate the killer(s). In June 2013, Hagai Felician was charged over the murder, but the police retracted its allegations in March 2014, after revealing its key witness fabricated evidence. (Full article...)
Ann Weldy (born September 15, 1932), better known by her pen name Ann Bannon, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.
Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and, as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society. They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an award-winning Off-Broadway production. They are taught in women's and LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian". (Full article...)
... that ABC moved the Roseanne episode "December Bride", which featured a same-sex wedding, from its usual broadcast time slot to one 90 minutes later, citing the episode's "adult humor"?
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