'AT THE beginning of this new millennium when our understanding of homosexuality is slowly leading to acceptance and, better yet,
disinterest, it's difficult for those who weren't around in the forties and fifties to appreciate how deeply terrifying it was to imagine being
labeled a faggot, a pansy, a pervert. It seemed to me then that even traitors and murderers were generally held in higher esteem than
I would be if anyone ever found out the truth about me.' — Actor Richard Chamberlain in his new book Shattered Love, excerpted in
people magazine June 9 issue.
'THE TABLOID headlines in themselves weren't frightening at all; in fact, they were sort of funny. My problem was my terrified
reaction to them. Recently, it dawned on me that this whole painful drama and fear and loathing is a blatant travesty of reality. Sexual
orientation is a benign personal matter, it is a total nonissue. This utterly novel experience of trust in the truth, in myself exactly as I
was, and in the world as it was, was like finding myself smack in the middle of heaven.' — Actor Richard Chamberlain.
'A bunch of years ago it occurred to me that I was using one Web site every single day of my life and I had no idea who or what
was responsible for its existence. So I wrote an e-mail to aegis.com and I asked bluntly: who are you? I stand before you tonight with
the impossible task of trying to encapsulate the incredible life and achievements of a remarkable individual who has served 17 years
in the Navy as a man, in the Army as a woman, and who is now a nun in the American Catholic Church. A person whose life
experiences include military training in electronics and scuba diving, two marriages as a man and a son, a sex-change operation, a
successful ACLU lawsuit defending her rights as a transsexual to be honorably discharged from the military, founding the
Transsexual Rights Committee for the ACLU of Southern California, the establishment of her own religious order, and a stint in
Missouri raising cattle to help feed the homeless. She is the first person to serve in our armed forces as both a man and a woman.
When this was discovered, she was of course excommunicated by her church but determined to carry on anyway on her own. 'I made
my vows to God, not to a church,' she says. It was in Missouri that she saw her first HIV+ men and determined to help them get
information in their isolated community. All of this would be quite a life in and of itself. But we are here tonight to honor Sister Mary
Elizabeth for conceiving, founding, and continuing to serve as the driving force for AEGIS, the AIDS Education Global Information
System. Aegis was launched in the mid-1980s on a homemade computer in her legally blind now 92-year-old father's 24x60 mobile
home in a trailer park in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., which it still calls home, albeit now on 14 computers. ... AEGIS is the definitive
web-based reference for information on HIV/AIDS and the global plague. — Remarks by Larry Kramer, presenting the American
Foundation for AIDS Research Award for Courage to Sister Mary Elizabeth June 2.
'I THOUGHT of this looking at a photo of one of the Matrix movie directors—Larry Wachowski, a man at the top in movie success
and history, and also a man who has now left his wife of nine years for an S&M relationship with a dominatrix who refers to him as
'Lana' and has made him her 'slave.' The world press now refers to these two as 'Mr. Matrix and his Dominatrix.' Wachowski is
sometimes photographed in large hoop earrings and recently appeared at Cannes in full slap (makeup). It is said he is now taking
hormones in preparation for a sex change. His dominatrix, Karin Winslow, is still wed to a man, who is himself a transsexual. I admit I
am a bit surprised to see a man in such a unique, powerful position yearn for a sex change. But perhaps that's what success is all
about—now he can do it! ... To give Wachowski credit, he and his brother, Andy, made one of my all-time favorite noir films, the
gangster-lesbian- themed Bound with Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly. For that alone, the Wachowskis deserve to go down in film
history. Forget about the Matrix box-office blockbusters, it looks like at least one of the Wachowskis will make history for other
reasons.' — Liz Smith's gossip column June 2.
'I've been working on this enormous book that I thought everybody was bored hearing about. It started out to be like a
Remembrance of Things Past of my past, and as AIDS started to happen it became a history of the American people. That's what I call
it—The American People. It's about 2,500 pages now. I sort of feel it's my obligation. I'm the only writer left alive who's been on the
front lines since the very beginning and who knew everybody and everything. If they don't want to read it, they don't have to, but there
it'll be.' — Larry Kramer to The Advocate, May 27.
'The variety of lesbian lives and looks [in America] is astounding, ranging from East Village punk skate dykes to bouffant BMW-
driving Californian golfing ladies.' — The British national lesbian magazine Diva, June issue.
'[They] jiggle their bottoms, put their little fingers in the air and with their little castrato voices moan about what those ghastly
heteros put them through.' — Actress Brigitte Bardot, 68, in her new book, A Cry in The Silence, which went on sale May 12. Bardot
says France is being destroyed by gays, modern art, fast food, trash TV, politicians and, most of all, Muslim immigrants.
'War sucks big time. Don't let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the
bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don't think about your 'imminent liberation'
anymore.' — Openly gay Iraqi blogger Salam Pax in his post-war commentaries at dearraed.blogspot.com .
'Things are looking kind of OK these days. Life has a way of moving on. Your senses are numbed, things stop shocking you. If
there is one thing you should believe in, it is that life will find a way to push on, humans are adaptable, that is the only way to explain
how such a foolish species has kept itself on this planet without wiping itself out.' — Salam Pax.
'At a time when overt homosexuality has a diminished role on the big screen, it's turning up in coded, disguised form, almost as it
did in the days chronicled in Vito Russo's book (and subsequent documentary) The Celluloid Closet. Among the stars playing
characters with homoerotic shadings this spring are Jack Nicholson in Anger Management, Dustin Hoffman in Confidence, Al Pacino
in People I Know and Nick Nolte in The Good Thief. Many people may miss the hidden sexual content, but it's there to titillate the
cognoscenti.' — Stephen Farber writing in the Los Angeles Times, May 25.
'I also want to teach Americans that there is an international leather community. It's such a huge continent. So many Americans
don't even have passports. So I'll be coming over here to try and educate you as much as taking something back to them [the
Europeans].' — International Mr. Leather 2003 John Pendal, from London, U.K., speaking in Chicago May 26 after winning his title.
'Several of the straight men have very intense experiences. We anticipate a lot of both gay and straight viewers will have their
assumptions challenged about what it means to be gay and what it means to be straight.' — Douglas Ross, executive producer and
co-creator of the upcoming Bravo network TV series Boy Meets Boy, a gay-dating reality show that features an eligible man looking
for love among a pool of 15 potential mates, some of whom are heterosexual men paid by the program to pretend to be gay, to
Reuters.
