Target announced on Friday that it won’t be carrying Pride Month merchandise in all of their stores this year due to the backlash they received last year, and a decline in sales.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
The LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance is celebrating 2023 Pride Month with a wide variety of events, meant to educate the community on home owning opportunities, as well as showcase the community within the real estate industry.
On June 8th and the 29th, the Alliance is offering two sessions on their Alliance Certified Ally course. Led by director of education Alex Cruz, the sessions are meant to help participants learn about the LGBTQ+ community and how to better interact with, and find properties for, individuals in the community.
The course is meant to give professionals a deeper understanding of the struggles and discriminations members of the community face, and how they can be the best ally in terms of real estate.
“Pride Month is incredibly important to the LGBTQ+ community, and so much of what occurs this month comes from the allies who care about us,” said Erin Morrison, national president and chair of the board of the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance.
“This month around the globe, millions will attend parades and events, and in most cases experience a genuine outpouring of love and support. Pride Month also allows the LGBTQ+ community to reflect on how far we have come in societal acceptance,” she explained.
“But the reality of today’s environment, where there are more than 700 anti-LGBTQ+ bills being discussed, voted on or passed in statehouses around the nation, we are reminded of the fight we are still engaged in for basic civil rights.”
“It’s also critically important for all of us in real estate to remember that sexual orientation and gender identity are still not protected classes under the 1968 Fair Housing Act leaving the LGBTQ+ community susceptible to housing discrimination,” Morrison concluded.
Another event on June 22nd will showcase “LGBTQ+ Leaders in Real Estate. According to RIS Media, “Farrah Wilder, an Alliance member and former vice president of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for California REALTORS®, will host the program, which allows LGBTQ+ people in real estate to share their perspectives and experiences as ‘out’ leaders in the industry. Guests include:
Tommie Wehrle, chair of Anywhere LGBTQ+ ERG group and Alliance National Treasurer, Jennifer Green, director of DEI for Mortgage Investor’s Group. Ryan Adams, VP of government affairs for Birmingham REALTORS, and Cody Gilkeson, head of DEI for eXp Realty.”
To learn more about the multitude of events the Alliance is holding, and to register for any of them, check out their official Pride Month event calendar!
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
After Target announced that it would be removing products from their Pride collections and moving the displays in other stores throughout the South, LGBTQ+ activist groups have been calling out large companies and corporations to establish campaigns without caving to anti-LGBTQ+ groups.
California state senator Scott Wiener, a member of the LGBTQ legislative caucus, stated “we need a strategy on how to deal with corporations that are experiencing enormous pressure to throw LGBTQ people under the bus.”
“We need to send a clear message to corporate America that if you’re our ally – if you are truly our ally – you need to be our ally, not just when it’s easy but also when it’s hard.”
Target stated their decision to remove displays were made to ensure their employees safety after multiple protestors knocked over Pride displays and confronted workers in stores. However, activists are stating this isn’t the time to back down from hatred, as the nation is in the midst of multiple battles with the community and its rights.
This year alone in America, there have been nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures, and at least 18 states have enacted laws that restrict and/or ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
“We are forced to think differently about how we handle security at our events and whether or not we can post our staff’s names and emails on our website,” said Janson Wu, executive director of LGBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.
Bud Light has made headlines as well recently after their partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who posted a picture of a Bud Light can with her face on it, which led to a lot of hateful transphobic backlash.
Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, stated it “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” signaling no clear support of Mulvaney or the LGBTQ+ community. Several gay bars in Chicago specifically responded by refusing to sell Anheuser-Busch products since they went back on their pride campaign.
“Since Anheuser-Busch does not support us, we will not support it,” said the company.
The largest gay bar in the Midwest, Sidetrack, also made a statement regarding Anheuser-Busch “wrongfully validating the position that it is acceptable to acquiesce to the demands of those who do not support the trans community and wish to erase LGBTQ+ visibility.”
“Now’s not the time to back down. I think both business and us as citizens need to look within ourselves into new strategies. The old models aren’t necessarily working,” said Brian K. Bond, executive director of PFLAG, an organization advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
A Japanese court ruled this week that a ban on same-sex marriage is not considered unconstitutional, marking a major setback to LGBTQ rights in the only Group Of Seven nations that does not allow same-sex marriages.
Three same-sex couples filed the original suit in a district court in Osaka. The courts rejected the claim that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, as well as rejected the couples demands for 1 million yen ($7,600) in damages. Machi Sakata, who was able to marry her partner legally in the US, spoke to the media about the ruling.
“I actually wonder if the legal system in this country is really working. I think there’s the possibility this ruling may really corner us in the community.”
Japan’s constitution defines marriage as “being based on the mutual consent of both sexes.” There’s been a major rise in LGBTQ advocacy throughout Japan as of late, leaving many citizens hopeful that this court case would rule in favor of the community.
However, the Osaka court ruled that “marriage is defined as being only between opposite genders,” and not enough debating has occurred within Japan to make a proper ruling over same-sex marriage.
“We emphasized in this case that we wanted same-sex couples to have access to the same things as regular couples,” said lawyer Akiyoshi Miwa, who also claimed they would be appealing the court’s decision.
While Japanese law in general is considered to be fairly liberal when compared to other Asian law standards, Taiwan is the only country to have legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in the continent.
The current law in Japan states that same-sex couples cannot get legally married, are not allowed to inherit each other’s assets, and cannot gain parental rights over each other’s children.
Partnership certificates in the country allow same-sex couples to rent property together and have hospital visitation rights, but it doesn’t compare to the full legal rights granted to heterosexual couples in the nation.
The Tokyo prefectural government made some strides in protecting LGBTQ rights last week when they passed a bill that would recognize same-sex partnership agreements. This means more than half of the population in Japan will have the ability to gain recognition for their partnerships from local governments.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida claimed that the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage needs to be carefully considered, however, his party has made no set plans to review the matter or propose new legislation.
Masa Yanagisawa is the head of prime services at Goldman Sachs and a board member for the LGBTQ activist group “Marriage For All Japan,” who stated that legalizing same-sex marriage would have “far-reaching implications both socially and economically, as well as help attract foreign firms to the world’s third biggest economy.”
“International firms are reviewing their Asian strategy and LGBTQ inclusivity is becoming a topic. International businesses don’t want to invest in a location that isn’t LGBTQ-friendly,” Yanagisawa stated before the verdict this week.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
Hulu is celebrating Pride Month this week with the release of their much anticipated “Love, Simon” television spin-off program titled “Love, Victor”. The show itself directly follows up on the 2018 movie, which was the first gay teen romantic comedy produced by a major Hollywood studio.
The movie originally focused on the coming out story of Simon Spier, who’s a white middle-class teenage boy. With the Hulu series, production wanted to shift the focus to continue to follow the coming out story of a young teenage boy developing his sexuality, however, this time they’re following Victor Salazar, a Latino working-class teenager with a religious family.
“I don’t feel that anyone is 100 percent straight or 100 percent wherever you lie on the scale. I feel like sexuality is not necessarily fluid. It’s more like a spectrum. And so finding out where you lie on that is important,” says actor Michael Cimino, who plays Victor.
Both the movie and television show take place in the same high school in Atlanta, Georgia. The storyline of the show is meant to take place a few years after the movie, and viewers will watch as Victor corresponds with Simon via text and email; just like how Simon communicated with “Blue” in the movie. His conversations with Simon are meant to cover your basic coming-of-age questions as Victor navigates figuring out his sexuality, love, and being a teenager in general.
Cimino himself is Puerto Rican and Italian, and claims that growing up in between those two cultures gave him a much deeper understanding of his character and the trials he faces coping with his sexuality and identity as a Latino as well. http://gty.im/1177776085 is the actress who plays Victor’s mom, Isabel, in the series and she’s both Puerto Rican and Irish. She also has claimed that growing up with these two cultures prepared her to play the role of the religious mother to a gay son.
“It can be difficult, because sometimes you’re not enough for one culture. And you’re not enough for the other culture. I’m not white enough for my white friends. I’m not Puerto Rican enough for my Puerto Rican friends. So who am I? What’s my place? And where do I belong,” says Ortiz.
Ana Ortiz speaking at the 23rd Annual Human Rights Campaign National Dinner
One of the main conflicts the show aims to emphasize is Victor’s struggle to accept his competing identities as an individual in the LGBT+, Latino, and Catholic community. This is the reality for many Americans, in fact, a research study recently concluded that over 22 million Americans have multiracial roots/identities. So producers wanted those individuals to feel especially seen within this show.
When discussing channeling a Catholic mother with conservative ideals, Ortiz explained that she really had to “dig into and to deal with the religiosity in the character. I was raised Catholic. I consider myself Catholic, but I am also a progressive. I constantly am battling between my Catholicism and my beliefs. It’s a difficult fight within my own self.”
The release of “Love, Victor” couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time either. Not only is it Pride Month, but this week the Supreme Court decided that LGBT+ individuals were protected from being fired based on their identity. Cimino believes that sexuality and identity are lifelong journeys, and hopes the show exemplifies a positive message of progression and authenticity within America and how they view LGBT+ individuals.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.