 I'm Linda Quinlan. I'm Ann Charles. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ. It's Tuesday, January 19th. We're taping in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. So now let's go to Keith for some headlines. Alrighty, so I want to start by acknowledging that January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And that this was established by the UN in 2005 and it's the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Brookernau concentration camp. So we're going to start with the trivia question that someone might have guessed correctly. This is Inauguration Week. There will be the Power of Unity LGBTQ Inaugurable, it's a virtual event. Billy Porter is the headliner. It is being spied. You can register online and I think it was free registration. And it's sponsored by the National LGBTQ Chambers of Commerce. So we finally made it as an inaugural event. When was the first time we were included? Whose presidency? So I want to acknowledge that the LGBTQ Town Hall forums will have started by the time this airs, but they will be running through March 2nd. Please look for forums of interest. Please come and participate. But Linda has been busy putting it on the All Things, the Alliance, and the Pride Center's site, and Rainbow Umbrella's site. I also want to acknowledge that on Saturday, February 6th, 7.30, that the Chandler Performing Arts Center will be doing their Pride Theater presentation of Raggedy and, and it's a $12 suggested donation and it benefits GLAAD's Transgender Rights Project. And you know who's going to facilitate the talk back? Christine Holocaust. Oh, really? Yes. Very good. Also acknowledging Momentum, the coffee and chat is happening on Sunday, the 24th at 11 a.m. Also, be looking at the Pride Center of Vermont out in the open and queer connects websites because everyone is trying to sponsor ongoing virtual events. And speaking of websites and organizing and Rutland that we don't talk about a great deal, apparently the group in Rutland has reached out to, and he is looking at establishing a collaborative relationship with Queer Connect. So there will be a Queer Connect Bennington and a Queer Connect Rutland. And there may be an upcoming interview where we will get to talk about how this is happening and why. Teach Out Vermont, which is an organization for LGBTQ plus educators, and you can find their website. They're looking for LGBTQ plus educators in Vermont to come join them and looking at how they can bring about change in our schools. What about retirees too? I know a few teachers who are retired, would they be? I would suggest you go onto their website and look. I just saw the request, please come join us. And now a bit of, I wish I didn't have to report on this. And it's a follow-up to the traffic stop study. And this has been an ongoing joint venture between UVM Cornell University. And they actually went back and looked at the last five years worth of data. And what did it tell you about traffic stops and racial bias in Vermont? And it didn't come out looking good. And as much as fair and impartial policing have put an effort into doing education and implicit bias training, they haven't seen the indicators that would show that this racial bias and law enforcement in Vermont changing. And what was really striking was, you know, they made the direct statement that, yes indeed, driving while black. Now, if you are a person of color, you are at increased risk of being stopped, being ticketed, your vehicle being searched or being arrested. And what was striking to me is that in general, black drivers are 3.5 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers. People who are perceived to be Hispanic, 3.9 times greater. But in as far as having your vehicle searched, if you're a person of color in Brattleboro, you're 9 times more likely to be stopped, searched. I mean, I found it staggering. And really quickly, legislatively, they're spending a lot of time right now in what I refer to as they're getting to know you session. They're telling the new legislators, this is what we do in this committee. Here are some of the pieces of legislation we passed before we may want to look at again, bringing in those people from state government secretaries, commissioners, to talk about what they do, how they interact with the legislature. But in the process, they were able to pass one bill already, which is H48. And it's already been signed into law by the governor, and this allows municipalities to change the protocols for town meeting day. So mail-in ballots, some towns delaying when they hold town meeting day, looking at doing Australian ballots instead of in-person voting. And it allows the secretary of state to generate mail-in ballots in the appropriated $2 million to make this happen. Good. So what you got? Yeah. Well, North Carolina cities begin passing historic non-discrimination laws. New sheriff is first lesbian to hold a position in any Ohio county. Gay representative Sean Patrick Maloney was ready to fight the mob in the Capitol. We'll have more about that. Stonewall Vet, Ms. Mayer and her partner are new parents. Stonewall Vet and trans icon Ms. Major Griffin Gracie and her partner Beck recently welcomed a new child into the world. Ken Jones, a pioneering black gay activist, dies at 70. He worked for years trying to desegregate the LGBTQ movement. Missing trans woman Natasha Keanna has been found dead in Detroit. She had been missing since December 26th. Andrew Day is riveting as bi-blue singer Billie Holiday. We'll have a clip about that show later, that movie. Conservatives want a new target in their culture, so they pick trans kids. COVID claims Judith Colb at 89. She was the stand-in mother for Atlanta's LGBT community. Her daughter Cindy remembers she was scared and crying when she came out to her mom. But Judith just dived into reading books and educating herself. Eventually she became the president of PFLAG and was there helping people for 20 years. Attorney and lesbian Robert Kaplan is about to make Trump's life extremely difficult. Arizona representatives Target Cindy McCain. We'll have more about that. And Kim Jackson takes office as Georgia's first LGBTQ senator. So those are my headlines. Anne? State Senator? Yes. Okay. Well, I have some news. A European court of human rights finds Croatian response to violent homophobic attack fosters impunity for hate crime. What happened was a lesbian was approached, it might have been a heterosexual bar. She was approached by a man in a bar and turned him down and said she was a lesbian and he beat her up and threatened to rape her. And it was a horrible experience. And so the police came and they charged the person, but they only find him 40 euros and charged him with a misdemeanor. So the European Court of Human Rights said, you know, this is totally inadequate. So Croatia does have hate crime legislation, but it needs to have teeth. European Parliament LGBTI group is critical of the Latvian move to define family in the Constitution. So there's a national party, I think it's called the National Alliance, that has submitted a bill to the Latvian Parliament, which is called the Seima, to define family only in heterosexual terms. So a group of 150 European Parliament members has condemned this action. So we'll see how that develops. Cayman Islands, back there, the Privy Council finally, has set a date for a same-sex marriage appeal. Now we've seen pictures of those poor women who tried to get married. The judge said, good, go ahead. But then the government said, no, no, no, you're legislating from the bench. So they overturned his decision. Now the Privy Council has set February 23 as a date for the hearing because they're challenging the government's appeal ruling that passed. So I'm back, so it's time to return to Poland. They've missed you. I have before you now a picture of three protesters protesting the trial of three, you may recall, that in 2019 I reported on activists putting rainbow flags all around Warsaw. And one of the signs was the Our Lady of Czestakowa, whom I knew from my buffalo origins, is a Polish icon. They call her the Black Madonna. So this artist, Izabeta Podieska, decorated the Our Lady of Czestakowa with a rainbow flag or included rainbow iconography. And so now I have a picture before you of that iconography of the rainbow flag on Our Lady of Czestakowa. So this artist has been charged and she and two other people, they've been charged with putting up posters on walls and elsewhere around the church. They were also charged with putting stickers with the image on garbage bins and toilets, which they deny. The Polish media identified two other defendants as Anna Prus, Joanna, Gurska, Iskandar. They could face up to two years in prison if convicted. And so you see, I showed you at the outset, but let's look at it again, that picture of the protesters and they're holding a sign that says the rainbow is not an offense in Polish. So we'll see what the outcome of that action is. I have entertainment news from Asia. There are boys love hits now. And I'd like to talk in detail, if I may, during a segment, if I may, about a series from Thailand and a series from Taiwan. And these two Asian countries are significant. Thailand may be the first South Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. They're moving in that direction. But as you know in 2019, Taiwan already did it. But there are two boy love, one is a film and one is a series that are forwarding the cultural dialogue about that. And in case I don't get to it, let me just show you a picture still shot from one of the movies that is breaking records in Taiwan. And the movie is called Because We Belong Together. It's a record-breaking LGBTQ blockbuster. So in case I don't get to greater detail about those, now you've seen the picture. Two more pictures of stories I'm not going to get to. The first ever transgender candidate to run for mayor in Yucatan is Naomi Arjona Rosas. And there she is. She's transgender. She's been a transgender activist for years. She's very popular, so I hope she wins. And a Swiss professional basketball player, Marco Lehman, comes out as gay. He wrote an article, and there's a picture, you can see a picture of him now. He wrote an article in which he finally came out, and he said, you know, my life was so schizophrenic. I'm happy with my boyfriend. He dropped me off. But then when I go to work, I'd have to assume a straight persona. And so he had a breakdown. He outlines the whole thing, and now he's very happy. And he said, a lot of people, a lot of gay people in sports just drop out rather than pursuing it and trying to be open. So he was delayed because he didn't have any role models. Good for him. So those are my headlines. All right. Oh, and I have to say, a book review is coming up later in the hour. You're back. That's right. There's lots of pictures. That's right. So I want to talk a little bit about the arts in New England. And I want to give a shout out and a thank you to Boston Spirit that we mentioned on our last show and not just because they included us. But they have made a commitment to looking at artists, writers, you know, exhibits throughout New England that we should be supporting. And looking at some of those, there are two books of note. The first one is The Rain May Pass. And this is a memoir by Boston native Alan Shane. And they compared it in the review to call me by your name. And it's his recounting his teenage years and falling in love with a man twice his age during the 1940s. And they said it was refreshing as a warm summer rain. So that's enticing. Yes. And then there's this one that made me think of maybe that Linda. Plain bad heroines. And it's billed as a contemporary gothic horror novel. Yeah, I know it's got your attention already. Written by Emily Danforth. And Emily Danforth wrote the book upon which the film The Miseducation of Cameron Post was was based. Plain bad heroes heroines is described as a time hopping plot focusing on a doomed romance of two young women that haunts a Rhode Island boarding school. Now I'm thinking we might need to get in touch with Bear Pond to get a copy of this as a birthday gift for an upcoming event and then get a review of it. Music. There is pop duo called Frontlines has just released Bitter Sweet Revival. And part of this duo is gay Boston native John Flanagan. This is described as powerful harmonies that touch on important social and political issues such as bigotry in a long way. An anti-45 anthem called Rain and then a song called Save Us which addresses healthcare. Okay, we could identify with that one. And then love is all we own about the growing social movements. Sounds very interesting. I know. And I appreciated because I really don't go out and look for these kinds of and knowing that there's a New England connection sort of heightens it. They also were showcasing wild fancy designs in North Hampton and that's their website. They have local artist LGBTQ plus using repurposed materials to create earrings, pings, pins, necklaces, patches to announce the wearer's personal pronouns or LGBTQ identity such as butch and queer. I think that puts it right out there. And then the New Haven Connecticut Pride Center always has a display of LGBTQ artists such as their recent exhibit called Transcending Art. And what they're doing is they have two other venues that they are expanding so they can show more work. And again, you could go on to their website, the New Haven Pride Center and get a virtual tour. And I went and I didn't get to go when we were in North Hampton but we wanted to go to lesbian Emily Dickinson's house. Yes. And just set up up front. And I want to leave you with a short clip and this is from a film that when I watched the trailer I'll tell you I started choking up. And it's called Super Nova. And it's with Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci. And it's a portrayal of an aging long time couple facing a health care crisis. And the film uses a road trip to both reveal the crisis, reflect on their years together which got me. And how they were saying goodbye. And in the clip it will tell you the health care crisis and the importance of this film. So you have to find the three brightest lights there that make the triangle. And that's where the Milky Way is. It's good to get back on the road again, don't you think? But how about just exploring the outer regions of fifth gear? I'm on the edge. All right. If you had one wish in the world, what would it be? I wish this holiday wouldn't it? So can you tell that it's gotten worse? I'd like to make a speech. I, uh... Well, maybe Sam will do it for me. I'd love you to do it for me. Now, as most of you will know, I'm slowly losing my ability to remember. And I definitely wouldn't be here if it weren't for this man next to me. I want to be remembered for who I was, but not for who I'm about to become. It's not fair to you. It's not about fair. It's about love. No, Sam. I want to see this through with you to the end. Nostra! A very wise man once said, we will not starve for lack of wonders, but from lack of wonder. Are these out now? They are scheduled to be released at the end of this month, and I did not see with the clip where we could access them, so I'm hoping that I can continue to go online, and then you can post it on our site. Right, because I'd like to see that. So I'm handing it off to you now. All right. Thank you. Well, for the first story I have is North Carolina cities begin passing historic non-discrimination laws after a year-long monitor, Hillsborough, Carborough, and Chapel Hill passed ordinance protecting LGBT people from discrimination in public accommodations and employment. These are the first measures passed since the 2019 repeal of North Carolina's bathroom bill HB2. New sheriff is first woman, well, first lesbian, to hold this position in Ohio County. Sheriff Charmaine McGuffie had a conversation. She will never forget with her uncle when she was 14. She was told, she told him that she wanted to be a cop like him, and he told her that was just impossible, that there was no way it was going to happen because she was a woman. But she never let that get her down, and she kept working towards this goal, and now she's a sheriff. And we have a photo of her, which we will be showing now. And another photo is of gay representative, Sean Patrick Maloney, was ready to fight off the mob at the Capitol. From Hudson Valley, New York, he was ready to physically fight back against the rioters that stormed the Capitol. He was up in the balcony? Gallery. Yeah, the gallery. Is that what they call it? I was going to... All right. But I declined. When it appears the rioters had gotten into the House of Representatives, Maloney turned to colleague Colin Alfred, a former pro football player, and said, are you ready to fight these mega, mega assholes? Let's go, said Alfred, who is also a Democrat and from Texas. So here's his photo. Was that a photo of Maloney? Yeah, Maloney. And you know, I thought, doesn't this sound like a movie? Yeah, it is. I could just picture the whole thing. Are you ready? All right. And I have a trailer for this, but I'll tell you it's... Andro Day is riveting in by blue singer, Billy Holiday. The U.S. versus Billy Holiday examines the government attempt to silence her for singing strange fruit in public. Oh, that's such a wonderful, moving song. They claim the song was brought on violence. And one FBI agent was Garrett Holland, made it his life's mission to take her down. Here is the trailer. You can watch on Hulu on February 26th. Don't you know who this is? She was thinking of something more special. I'm downright flashy. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Billy Holiday. The reporters keep asking me, why do you do the things you do? This is what I tell them. I love me. We love you. And the BLSCP says Billy Holiday is the voice of our people. I think we should integrate the audience for this show. Let's change it up a little bit. You know, blacks and whites sitting together. You knew what you were getting yourself into, and you decided to come on the road. Get out my goddamn clothes. I'm gonna take everything except your bra and your band. Which one of my songs is your favorite song? Strange Fruit. It's a song about important things, you know. Things that are going on in the country. That's holiday women's causing a lot of people to think the wrong things. It's a starting gun for this so-called civil rights movement. Those lyrics provoke people. Y'all got a plan? She's a drug addict. Exactly. I cut Strange Fruit. I want to sing the damn song. It's for your own good, okay? I said get the fuck I want. Just get her off that stage. That's strange. Don't let me sing nowhere. No clubs. No money. No nothing. You gotta understand, baby. Right now, I'm in a situation. You saying we could beat this, Billy? I need some now. You don't like a hammer. Come right back and it hit harder than before. She's singing it for all of us. Ain't no other Negro stop bold enough to do it. I'm not being followed. I'm not going to count it, no fizz. In the south. She made something of herself and you can't take it because she's strong, beautiful, and black. Strange fruit hanging. You think I would stop singing that song? Your grandkids will be singing Strange Fruit. Arizona Representative Tar- Representative Target Cindy McCain for supporting Biden and LGBTQ rights. Representatives are considering censuring her, the widow of John McCain. A proposed censuring of Cindy makes personal attacks and refers to her past drug addiction. I didn't know she had a drug addiction, did you? No, I didn't either. Cindy McCain has been a proponent of LGBTQ rights and was given the Trevor Hero Wood in 2018. And lesbian teen outs her mother, her mother's involvement in the D.C. violence at the Capitol. Elena Duke was told by her mother to get out of the house that she wasn't welcome there because she was a lesbian and participated in a Black Lives Matter protest. Helena identified her mother and her aunt and uncle in videos. So... Here we are. I know. And the last story I have is about attorney and lesbian Roberta Kaplan. He's about to make Trump's life extremely difficult. She's a crusader for underdogs and has won almost every legal accolade imaginable. Kaplan says that she will seek to dispose Trump in three cases. She's a lesbian? Depose. Yeah, depose, sorry. We'd like to dispose of him. Could we? Maybe. She's a lesbian, observant Jew, and a die-hard Democrat. She's been called the attorney general for the resistance. Kaplan remains most celebrated for the Edie Winsor case in 2013. Roberta married Rachel Levine in 2005. Rachel is a liberal activist who serves on the New York Democratic Committee. So there you go. Well, I have a book review and I think in the interest of time I will deliver it now. And if there's time, I'll get back to some of my other stories, especially about the films and entertainment. Do you want to hold the book up? Why, yes. All right, well, you can put it right here if that works. This review is truncated, so I hope it's not choppy. It appeared in the Lambda Literary Review on November 15th. It's of this volume, which is of some length. And of one of my favorite periods in lesbian history. Diana Suhami's deliberately provocative title, No Modernism Without Lesbians, points to the nature of her project to place lesbian life and work prominently in the cultural landscape of modernism. Literary modernism is favored in the analysis, though the lesbian Suhami discusses also participated to varying degrees in modernist painting, music, theater, and architecture. The writer expands her definition of modernism to embrace nonconformist lifestyle, particularly in the case of Natalie Clifford Barney. Besides railway heiress Barney, the writer also considers Shipping Scion Breyer, which is the chosen name of Annie Winifred Ellerman. Sylvia Beach is also considered the owner of the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and the only member of the group who's not independently wealthy. And finally, experimental writer and art collector Gertrude Stein is treated at length. This setting is Paris, where each figure lived and worked most of her life. Three women were US expatriates. Breyer was originally from the UK. After a short introduction, the book is divided into four sections, each devoted to the life and loves of these chosen figures. Perhaps of greatest interest to contemporary readers are the sections concerning Sylvia Beach and Breyer, two women occupying back seats in the popular annals of modernism and lesbian lore. Beach's bookstore became the center of the literary avant-garde from 1919 until it was forced to close by the Nazis in 1941. She spent years with other lesbians like Margaret Anderson and Harriet Weaver fighting the censors to publish James Joyce's modernist classic Ulysses. What is less known to contemporary readers perhaps is that she enjoyed a lifelong lesbian relationship with a fellow bookstore owner, Adrien Monnier, whose French bookstore was across the street. Despite Monnier's decision to open their relationship while Beach was visiting in the US, the two remained lifelong allies and in fact Monnier was instrumental in securing Beach's release on health grounds from a Nazi jail in 1943. Breyer is another modernist who may have escaped popular recognition, except perhaps as the companion and benefactor of Hill to Do Little, a modernist poet and US expatriate who went by the initials HD. Though unable to openly declare it, Breyer may be described in contemporary parlance as transgender. She devoted much of her inherited largesse to small presses and the aesthetic undertakings of her friends and other struggling artists and she participated in some of these projects herself. An unaccountable omission occurs, unfortunately, in Suhami's treatment of the last years of the life of Natalie Clifford Barney. One reversal came with her eviction from the site of her salon on Rue Jacob where she lived for 60 years. Though wealthy and well connected, she was still a renter and at 93 was forced to leave her storied and treasured locale in late 1969 or early 1970. More devastating was Barney's late life estrangement from the artist Romaine Brooks who had been her lover and partner for decades. In the introduction Suhami misleadingly states, Natalie's relationship with Romaine lasted 54 years until Romaine's death in 1970. In the last year of her life, however, Brooks turned away from Barney entirely and despite Barney's plaintive letters and Housekeeper Bertha's attempted intervention sank deep into isolation that deliberately excluded Barney. She famously said, I am not at home to miss Barney. Truly. I wonder what happened. Rather than including this poignant heart-breaking material, Suhami creates a fiction of lasting love. At the end of the Barney section, after quoting a 1964 love letter from Barney to Brooks, Suhami declares that a photo of Brooks was buried with Barney. Key particulars are overlooked here. This mishap raises troubling questions about narratives of this nature. If we're going to reclaim the lives and work of our lesbian predecessors, we need to provide accurate information. Though the temptation to mythologize and romanticize is great, we do so at our peril. In a work of this length and scope, minor errors and failings inevitably appear as well. British heiress and activist Nancy Kunard was a heterosexual friend, not one of Barney's lovers. A clear anti-bloomsbury bias emerges, a number of sweeping assertions call for more circumspection, and the Gertrude Stein reference list omits several notable titles. Still no modernism without lesbians partially accomplishes its goal of providing an informative, diverting account aimed at returning certain Paris lesbians to their rightful places in lesbian modernist study. Many contemporary readers may dismiss these women as rich white girls, in the words of an activist contemporary of mind. And of course, that is to a large extent true. But in the context of their lives and of the times, their work has merit and deserves recognition on its own terms. Diana Suhami in this volume has made a significant contribution toward that effort. I studied all this. I don't know if you can tell. Her dissertation was on this. On Judah Barrow, but that's another. So it's a... I'm glad I read it, but it's a little bit flawed. Well, there you go. Well, Keith, do you have anything else? Or should we let Ann Ramble on? Well, I saw one thing that I had overlooked, and if I can find it very quickly. It was an acknowledgement. There was an acknowledgement that the Boston Children's Hospital, they are going to delay gender affirmation services, for people born as intersex until the person reaches age of meaningful consent. Which is what age? 14. No, no, no. It is going to be dependent upon the person. When can you make this decision? They're only the second hospital in the country to institute this policy. But I'm not sure I understand. If someone is born and identified as being intersex, ambiguous gender, traditionally the hospital will persuade the parents to engage in a gender affirmation process immediately. And by work from the intersex activists, they said, wait a minute, you're making decisions about who I am before I have the ability or the awareness to understand the implications of that decision. And that has screwed up a lot of people's lives. Yes, absolutely. Did you read, what was it, book Middlesex? No, I didn't read it. You talked about that a lot. That was the really first big book, I think, about that issue. I really like the book a lot. So what is the age of consent, though? They do not establish it, because it's going to be based upon the individual. So you could be 10, or 5, or 20. It's when you have the capacity to say, I understand and this is who I am. I think it's a really good idea to get rid of that practice. I just wonder who decides and what's meaningful. I would say that would be the same as end of life decisions where you have an ethics committee who is looking at the totality of the decision being made and what is your understanding of. But it will definitely be in the details. But this is a very encouraging step. Do parents don't know this before their children are born, do they? No. So it's not something that you would know. And a lot of parents, I think, are well-meaning, but they really... It's a terrible practice. Have no understanding. It could be like a parent saying, well, I have three daughters, so let's make this person a son. I know it, but it's arbitrary. It has no recognition. Yeah. Of nothing about me without me. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ann, you have four stories. I have an opportunity to cover another story. Look at a smile on her face. I know. I'm delighted. Because I think this is very interesting what's happening in Asia. It's a boys' love series of genres that are appearing. And they push the dial for progress across Asia. Two boys' love hits have recently rocked the LGBT-plus hubs in Asia, particularly in Thailand and Taiwan. Two together, the series, which includes, because we belong together and your name engraved herein... Is this like a TV series? One's a TV series and one's a film. And I'm going to cover them sequentially. They have added to the reputation of both countries because of these vibrant LGBTQ scenes. Because we belong together was one of Thailand's biggest hit shows in 2020. The series aired on primetime television and online channels, receiving record views and racking up several local awards. It's based on jit to rain, right or I don't know, on their novel. The story centers on freshman college love between Sarah Watt an introvert athlete and guitarist in Thailand. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, T-I-N-E. The self-proclaimed womanizer becomes attracted to men for the first time when he falls for Sarah Watt. The series popularity is seen in its reaching 9 million YouTube views in the first weeks and 15 million at press time. It's also received 50 million views online TV. One of Asia's largest streaming platforms. Its success has many sources. It's easily relatable because of the theme of love and genuine portrayal of what lesbian youth experience as they come of age while retaining cute boy romance attributes and fun college life attracting larger non-LGBT audiences apparently. It speaks to audiences in Thailand and across East and Southeast Asia from Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines to Vietnam. It even found fans in Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia where same-sex sodomy laws still exist. Its sequel, Still Together, released several months later received even greater attention with its last episode taking the top trending hashtag in Thailand with over 2 million tweets. As with Because We Belong Together its online response was phenomenal with over 40 million views on YouTube and 27 million views on online TV spanning East and Southeast Asia. Its well-received audience is not coincidental with social progress seen in the country. As I said in the intro Thailand is well positioned to become the first Southeast Asian nation to recognize same-sex unions. The Thai parliament is currently discussing a bill to legalize same-sex partnerships along with provisioning other benefits similar to marriage. And along with Taiwan which legalized marriage in 2019 as I said both Asian countries have fundamental progress with acceptance of openly LGBTQ relationships both legal reforms and social attitudes and now if I may continue. Let me ask you a question. Do you know if these are subtitled? Is it something that you can watch on YouTube or in the United States? I don't think so. Yeah, I'll double check but I'm fearful that it's not. Now let me show you again a still shot from your name engraved herein which shares a universally relatable romantic theme and is from Taiwan. It's a record-breaking 2020 LGBT blockbuster. It was the first LGBT themed movie to break the $1 million mark a prestige badge of success in the Taiwanese and greater Chinese speaking film industry. The lead actors have been strong advocates for greater LGBT social acceptance. Given the success of both hits and two of Asia's most LGBT friendly countries it can be expected that there will be more LGBTQ themed pieces with mainstream success to look forward to. Although boys and boy love this genre arguably objectifies attractive young preppy looking gay couples it nevertheless helps raise awareness around the existence and creating lacking dialogue around normalizing LGBTQ relationships With more visibility given to same sex relationships as they become more open and discussed this is a welcome departure from a patriarchal and anti-gay don't-ask-don't-tell approach still present in Asia and abroad. This is very exciting. Everybody's watching in Asia. I wish we could watch it. I know it has subtitles so we'll have to check. I'll report on that next time. And? Well, how much more do you have Keith? I've got another clip I could do. No, all I have is the answer to the trivia question. Well in that case... Let's show the clip. Let me show you the clip. This is from the Handmaiden from South Korea. That's right. It's adapted from Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith. I like that novel. Let me set it up and then we can watch the clip. We know that Sarah Waters is a British lesbian an award-winning novelist who first caught the attention of literary lesbians with tipping the velvet a work of historical fiction that found and traced the deeply embedded lesbian veins of Victorian England. Fingersmith, her third novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and while we could call it a lesbian novel being both written by and about lesbians it's also a work greatly admired by men. It was ranked by David Bowie as one of his top 100 books. And South Korean film director Park Chan-Wook was inspired by its visceral scenes. I'll tell you one in particular that one of the characters files off the teeth of another one with a thimble. So that's a visceral scene that inspired him. He felt compelled to make it into his next movie The Handmaiden. According to an interview with The Guardian Park didn't know that BBC adaptation existed and when he found out he resolved to transplant it from its British soil to 1930s Japan a period which had its own Victorian type constraints via a final flourishing of imperialist power. At that time Korea, like much of the region was challenged by or under Japanese imperialist rule and while Japan looked down upon Korea it looked enviously to the west. In The Handmaiden, Park cleverly maps those master-servant tensions onto an Asian colonial context to stunning effect. While Sarah Waters was thrilled with the 2005 adaptation of the BBC story The Heroine Sue, she hasn't seen this version. In the story The Heroine Sue is a female pickpocket raised by a Dickensian gang of thieves. She collaborates with a male con man, gentlemen in this film, to seduce a wealthy heiress in her remote country estate alope with her and abscond with her fortune after committing her to a madhouse. Okay, so the Dickensian guy wants to... Linda and I saw a play of this at the American Repertory Theater it was still called Fingersmith and we didn't think it was that effective as a play. It's a lot of twists and turns in the plot. It was better at the book. Okay, when Sue falls in love with her mistress she nevertheless goes through with the plot and that's just part one. Many twists and turns follow in the remaining two parts. In the novel, as in others by Waters dramatic suspense is provided by psychological atmosphere of the Gothic novel. The cliffhanger device favored by early serials the duplicity of language especially the argo of the criminal underclass and the ever-present threat of the gallows to raise the stakes. All right, are we going to see the clip? Oh, you don't want to hear any more about it? Well, we have to allow time for the clip. The what? It's a clip. The clip, yeah. All right, let's look at the clip. My friends have cut me off. I am irrepressible. I've heard that rumor. And that's what we love about you. All right, well, let me just finish. Korean gender roles under Confucianism created an oppression for women possibly even worse than in Victorian England. How do I follow that? I don't know. So, when was our first LGBTQ inaugural ball? And it may have been the Triangle Ball in 1993 which was the first of Bill Clinton's presidencies. All right. Well, by the time we see you next time hopefully we'll have a new president. I'm counting on it. And vice president. Things will have gone slowly. And Linda will have gotten to see Billy Porter. And I will have gotten to see Billy Porter. And on that note, we remember even when we have President Biden we still need to resist.