Center Blog

From http://www.gaycenter.org/out/ Tony-award winner Elaine Stritch and legendary columnist Liz Smith sat down together at the Center for an intimate conversation. Liz asked Elaine about her early years in New York, her show on Broadway and her previous visits to the Center (when she didn’t have an audience). This video excerpt is from Out at the Center, a TV show of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of New York City. To see more episodes go to gaycenter.org/out. The show is made possible thanks to members of the Center and viewers like you. To find out more, join or donate go to http://www.gaycenter.org/support

Download the full conversation at gaycenter.org/out/audiopodcasts

A Farewell Celebration for Richard Burns

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Board of Directors and Staff of The Lesbian, Gay Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
Invite You To Attend

A Farewell Celebration for Richard Burns
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
6:00PM – 8:00PM
7:00PM program
Cocktails & hors d’oeuvres
There is no charge for this event

As the Center closes a quarter-century of work serving the LGBT community and embarks on its next phase, we will say goodbye to our Executive Director, Richard Burns.

Richard has been the longest serving leader of an LGBT organization in the United States, serving as Executive Director since December 1, 1986.

Richard developed the Center from a staff of three into the nation’s leading and most comprehensive LGBT community center, with a staff of 80 and a budget of more than eight million dollars. As the force behind the Center’s groundbreaking and innovative programs, Richard saw emerging needs in our community and responded by creating an array of services and initiatives that have moved the LGBT movement forward in significant ways.

“Richard Burns has been the driving force of the Center for the past 22 years,” said Center Board President, Bruce Anderson. “His vision, passion and dedication to our home and our community will always reside within the walls of the Center. He has embodied the values of this space we call the “Grand Central Station” for New York’s LGBT and allied communities, leaving an unparalleled legacy we will always cherish.”

Please RSVP at gaycenter.org/events/richardburnsfarewell

For More Information: Find this event on Facebook, and invite your friends!

This event has been generously underwritten by

Michael Lavers reported from the Center’s inauguration event, Inauguration of President Obama: Witness History at the Center.  From Edge New York:

by Michael K. Lavers
EDGE Mid-Atlantic Regional Editor
Thursday Jan 22, 2009

All eyes at the Center were glued to President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20.    (Source:Michael K. Lavers)

With the eyes of the world transfixed on Washington for President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, LGBT New Yorkers were among those across the five boroughs who gathered to mark this historical milestone.

More than an estimated 100 people gathered at the LGBT Community Center in lower Manhattan to watch the festivities on CNN. Applause and tears were among the reactions at the moment Obama became the country’s 44th commander-in-chief.

“To watch it happen is amazing,” Derrick Flowers, a resident of Harlem and a Belizean immigrant, said. “It’s something for all people. It’s an opportunity to see a dream come true.”

Trystan Reese of Roosevelt Island agreed.

“This is a moment you get to remember for the rest of your life,” he said.

Former President George W. Bush and wheelchair-bound former Vice President Dick Cheney received a steady stream of boos and hisses from those gathered at the Center–and a sustained applause when the former commander-in-chief’s helicopter flew over Washington for the last time. The Rev. Rick Warren elicited a similar response and even laughter as he delivered the inaugural invocation.

Barbara Mones watched the inauguration at the Center with her girlfriend Karen. She said Obama’s decision to invite Warren to deliver the invocation initially disappointed her. Mones added, however, she feels the choice was an intentional effort to reach out to fundamentalists.

“Obama is trying to put people to meld the factions out there,” she said.

Panelists at a forum moderated by WNYC hosts Brian Lehrer and Adaora Udoji at the Brooklyn Museum on Jan. 18 also alluded to Warren and his support of Proposition 8. The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt of the Fourth Universalist Society of the City of New York conceded Obama’s choice “didn’t exactly make my day,” but she further noted she feels the president’s decision was not a surprise.

“It’s a community organizing principle 101 to begin to build alliances with people with whom you can do important work even when they don’t agree with you about things,” McNatt said. “We can expect more of that. We’re not all going to be happy…, but he [Obama]’s going to act like the community organizer he is.”

Michael K. Lavers is the Mid-Atlantic editor for EDGE Publications. His blog Boy in Bushwick can be found at www.boyinbushwick.blogspot.com

See original at www.edgenewyork.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=86237

Cross posted on glaadBLOG by Justin:

If you missed our first few interviews with some of the cast members from this season of MTV’s The Real World, you can click here to see JD & Scott’s interview and click here to see Katelynn’s.   This season is the most LGBT inclusive Real World to date!

And if you missed the first couple of episodes, you can visit MTV’s website and watch them along with video dailies from the cast members.

Below is our exclusive interview with Ryan & Chet, two straight cast members who initially don’t seem as open to the LGBT housemates, especially Katelynn, as the other cast members.  Ryan was once in the military and is from a small town in Pennsylvania while Chet is from Salt Lake City, Utah and is Mormon.  I ask Ryan about serving with gays in the military and I ask Chet about the role of the Mormon Church in Prop 8 and about attitudes towards LGBT people.  Their answers are surprising!

See original post at http://glaadblog.org/2009/01/21/exclusive-interview-with-ryan-chet-from-the-real-world-brooklyn/

Photos from Inauguration of President Obama: Witness History at the Center: On Tuesday, January 20, the Center invited the community to watch televised coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.  See all photos on the Center’s Flickr page.  Photography by Glenn Capers.

Photography by Glenn Capers

See more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecenternyc/sets/72157612781053255/

Michael Lavers blogged from the Center’s inauguration event, Inauguration of President Obama: Witness History at the Center.  From the WNYC News Blog:

The Obama Conundrum
By WNYC Newsroom
January 20, 2009

Watching the inauguration at the LGBT Center

WNYC Guest Blogger: Michael Lavers

Outgoing President George W. Bush’s first inauguration in Jan. 20, 2001, seems a distant memory. I was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of New Hampshire. My parents still had their health and I drove a 1989 Mercury Topaz. Things have certainly changed in the last eight years—I order café con leche from the bodegas near my apartment in Bushwick. Employment insecurity and health care costs continue to burden my mother and father. And I am about to witness President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration.

A myriad of questions, reflections and thoughts continue to enter my mind as I think about this watershed moment I am about to experience alongside the rest of the world, but the idea Obama’s presidency will mark the beginning of a post-racial reality intrigues me. As a gay white man who lives in a predominantly Latino (albeit increasingly gentrified) neighborhood, racist, classist and homophobic manifestations remain all too real. Anti-gay slurs scrawled onto advertisements in the subway station near my apartment, the transgender prostitutes who turn tricks on Knickerbocker Avenue to survive another day and the hate crime that tragically took Ecuadorian immigrant José Sucuzhañay’s life last month are among the stark reminders these social ills remain a serious problem. And it will take much more than the inauguration of the country’s first president of color to eradicate them.

Another idea is Obama will immediately solve the country’s innumerable problems. The economy remains in crisis. Health care costs continue to spiral. Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and the Bush administration’s pursuit of unilateral (even cowboy) diplomacy at the arguable expense of human rights have severely tarnished the United States’ image abroad. Americans remain largely cynical towards their elected officials, but many view Obama as some sort of superman who will instantly provide a silver bullet. The incoming commander-in-chief has pragmatically tried to temper some of the admittedly high expectations under which he will take office, but Obama will ultimately disappoint some as an Israeli source correctly noted in a recent interview.

Today ultimately represents change for a country that so desperately needs it. Obama’s inauguration comes at an extremely difficult time for our country, but his optimism and promised leadership are something so many people currently crave. And it is my hope the new administration’s vision for the country includes my parents, my LGBT brothers and sisters, my neighbors in Bushwick and others the outgoing White House repeatedly neglected over the last eight years.

See original post at http://blogs.wnyc.org/news/2009/01/20/the-obama-conundrum/

From http://www.gaycenter.org/out/ Out at the Center sat down with director Casper Andreas to talk about his latest film, Between Love and Goodbye. He brought along cast members, Simon Miller and Jane Elliott, to tell us about this new gay romantic drama that is coming soon to a theater near you. For more info on showtimes go to http://lovegoodbye.com/ This video excerpt is from Out at the Center, a TV show of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of New York City. To see more episodes go to gaycenter.org/out. The show is made possible thanks to members of the Center and viewers like you. To find out more, join or donate go to http://www.gaycenter.org/support

Witness History at the Center

On Tuesday, January 20, you are invited to the Center to watch televised coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden.

For more information, please go to www.gaycenter.org/events/inauguration

Curious about what goes into a presidential inauguration?  Visit the Presidential Inaugural Committee website at www.pic2009.org/pages/schedule

From http://gaycenter.org/out Gordon and Elliot participate in the Over 75 discussion group run by SAGE, Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders. These two delightful gentlemen were kind enough to speak with Out at the Center and share with us the things that make them tick. This video excerpt is from Out at the Center, a TV show of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of New York City. To see more episodes go to gaycenter.org/out. The show is made possible thanks to members of the Center and viewers like you. To find out more, join or donate go to http://www.gaycenter.org/support

Cross posted on glaadBLOG by Justin:

As I posted about on Friday, GLAAD was able to sit down with some of the cast members from this season of MTV’s The Real World.  It’s the most LGBT inclusive season to date.

If you missed the first few interviews, you can click here to watch them.  And if you missed the first episode, you can visit MTV’s website and watch the entire thing along with video dailies from the cast members.  The next episode airs this week on Wednesday, January 14th.

Below is our exclusive interview with Katelynn, The Real World’s first ever transgender housemate.

It’s encouraging to see MTV provide greater visibility and a larger platform for transgender issues.  Katelynn worked at the New York City LGBT Center while filming, which we’ll hopefully learn more about as the season unfolds.

You can read more information on the cast members from the MTV press release:

Katelynn, 24 – West Palm Beach, FL

Katelynn is a native of West Palm Beach and was raised in a religious Italian household, where she dreamed of being as good of a mother to her children as her own mom has been to her.  Yet, this goal seemed unattainable since Katelynn was born male.  In high school, she realized that something was missing in her life, and she began the slow transgender process by starting to dress in more feminine clothing.  By age 17, she began living as a woman.  This past July, Katelynn traveled to Thailand to undergo surgery to complete her transformation.  She is a self-proclaimed computer geek and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  After a string of bad relationships, she hopes to one day marry her current boyfriend, Mike.

See original post at http://glaadblog.org/2009/01/12/exclusive-interview-with-katelynn-from-the-real-world-brooklyn/