24th Annual GLAAD Media Awards-Interviews

MATT BOMER

CLORIS LEACHMAN

NAYA RIVERA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROSS MATTHEWS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JUSTIN BARTHA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PEREZ HILTON

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KELLY ROWLAND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WILSON CRUZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SARA GILBERT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ZACH WAHLS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEVE WARREN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEPHEN CHBOSKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHRIS BUTLER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FREDDIE SMITH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BARRETT FOA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHANE CRONE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARVEY GUILLEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

JANE ESPENSON & BRAD BELL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JAZZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JENNIFER LAWRENCE

 

 

 

 

 

 

SARA RAMIREZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DARREN CRISS

 

 

 

 

 

 

CAST OF ‘THE NEW NORMAL’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALEX NEWELL

 

 

 

 

 

 

TERI POLO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ERIC DANE & REBECCA GAYHEART

 

 

 

 

 

 

TED DANSON & MARY STEENBURGEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAL SPARKS

Straight TN Christian Writes Book About Living Year as Gay

A straight Tennessee man is ‘coming out’ with a new memoir about his year-long social experiment on living life as a gay American.

‘In the Life’ Ends 20-Year Run on Public Television

After a twenty-year run on public television, the LGBT magazine show ‘In the Life’ is leaving the air.

GLAAD Names Herndon Graddick its New President

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has found its new permanent president.

INTERVIEWS: 23rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards in NYC

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation–or GLAAD–held its 23rd Annual Media Awards in New York City on Saturday, March 24th.

HRC Building Part of D.C.’s FotoWeek Festival

The Human Rights Campaign is using an annual Washington, DC, photography festival to showcase those at the center of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ debate.

Olympic Pride House: Photos of out athletes on display

There’s more to look at at Pride House Whistler than just the TV screens and the handsome hosts.  The place is filled with original art work, from Gilbert Baker’s rainbow paintings to Edmund Haakonson’s nude hockey player, Slapshotolus.

There’s also Jeff Sheng’s photo exhibit Fearless, a collection of photographs of out LGBT high school and college athletes.  Jeff launched the exhibit this weekend at both locations of Pride House.  You can see a number of the photos on the wall at Pride House Whistler.

Here are some excerpts of a conversation I had with Jeff:

Jeff Sheng stands in front of some of his photos at Pride House Whistler

OutQ:  How did you get the idea to photograph out gay athletes?

Jeff:  I was a closeted athlete in high school.  I played tennis fairly competitively, and I quit the sport in college because of my perceived homophobia that I felt from my potential teammates from my college tennis team. I met more athletes who had a lot of similar homophobic stories to share who were closeted or coming out, and I decided that, in 2003, I’d begin this photo project on out high school and college athletes.

OutQ:  When you say that you perceived homophobia in tennis, what was it that made you feel like it wasn’t safe for you to come out?

Jeff:  There would always be things said about other people who were perceived to be gay.  In high school, for instance, a rival tennis coach had mannerisms that many people would associate with being gay–even though I know they’re blatant stereotypes.  And the tennis team in high school made so much fun of him that the coach of our team told us to stop.  There was also a senior when I was a freshman on the high school tennis team who came out, and we made fun of him so much that he quit the team.

One of the images from Fearless

OutQ: You made fun of him?

Jeff:  Yeah. I mean, that’s part of the story too.  When you’re 14 or 15 years old, and you’re a freshman in high school, you often times do things just because you think they’re cool or other people on the other team-seniors, juniors-lead, and you follow their example, whether it’s good or bad.

OutQ: So is this project a bit of repentance for you then?

Jeff:  Yes, very much so.  It’s repentance in many ways.  One is that I very much regret quitting the sport.  That was a decision I made in my life that I look back on and wish I hadn’t done.  And the other is yes, the fact that, when I was younger, I wasn’t able to come out in high school. I came out in college, so I was never an out competitive high school or collegiate athlete.  In many ways this photo project is trying to capture these heroes of mine that I very much look up to.

OutQ: How did you find out gay athletes?

Jeff: It was really hard.  The first year of the project, in 2003, I sent out mass emails to any organization–colleges, universities, high schools.  I got very few responses.  I finally was able to photograph maybe 10 athletes in 2004, five athletes in 2005, and it felt like the project wasn’t going anywhere.  In 2006, I started exhibiting the project at high schools and colleges around the country.  More and more campuses started inviting me to their schools.  And slowly, as the project got more buzz and reputation, I got more athletes to volunteer.

To read the rest of the interview and see more photos, click the link below.