A group of six members of the youth advisory board of the Ruth Ellis Center traveled to New York from Feb. 21 through 24 to take part in the 2019 U.N. Global Engagement Summit at the United Nation’s headquarters. The opportunity came about as part of a collaboration between attorney London Bell and the Bell Global Justice Institute and the Ruth Ellis Center. Bell, a member of the United Nations Association of Greater Detroit, had been preparing the youth for the trip since last June.

Owners Martin Contreras and Keith Orr recently announced the sale of Aut Bar, the popular LGBT owned restaurant and bar in Ann Arbor’s Braun Court. Aut Bar will now be owned by BarStar Group, which currently owns and operates several successful establishments in Ann Arbor including Lo-Fi, Nightcap and Babs’ Underground.

Poet, educator and self-described thought leader, J. Mase III will be speaking at the opening ceremony for LGBTQ Week at Oakland University on March 12. Mase will be speaking about faith and the criminalization of the black trans body through poetry and a discussion. As a trans man, Mase said he was a unique insight into the issue.

Former bar owner and gay rodeo enthusiast James Osmond Brown II, known to many as Diamond Jim, died Feb. 11 from congestive heart failure. He died at his home in Detroit with his rescue dog Diamond by his side. He was 58.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib visited the Ruth Ellis Center Feb. 21 for the second time, to hear from faith leaders and LGBTQ youth about the importance of LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections. The visit, which drew an invited crowd of about 20, was sponsored by Inclusive Justice, a statewide Michigan faith organization dedicated to addressing LGBTQ inclusion issues within the faith community. Tlaib received a warm welcome.

The year was 1978 and Jaye Spiro was teaching self-defense classes at senior citizen centers around Detroit. At one such complex, whose name she no longer recalls, Spiro met a feisty senior citizen named Ruth Ellis.

Last June, Jackson Mayor Derek Dobies appointed local activist Julia Josling to the volunteer position of LGBTQ liaison to the mayor’s office. Now, after seven months on the job, Josling chatted with BTL to reflect on her new position and her plans for the future.

He had, friends say, warm eyes and a nice smile and always a kind word for everyone. Community activist Nathan D. Strickland Jr., widely recognized as an up and coming leader in the LGBTQ community, succumbed to his lengthy battle with cancer Jan. 24. He passed just two weeks before what would have been his 28th birthday.

There were two obvious takeaways from last week’s installment of Affirmations’ ongoing monthly community chats. First, Affirmations Board President Mike Flores, who conducted the chat, wants the community to know that the center is continuing [...]

Creating Change will be held at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center from Jan. 23 through 27 in 2019. More information its included events, speakers and programs can be found online at creatingchange.org. Creating [...]

For the Huntington Wood Library’s Drag Queen Story Time, a glittering drag queen comes to the library to read to young children once a month. The program, said to be the third of its kind [...]

Kelly Stough, known to some as Keanna Mattel, was laid to rest in fine style Saturday with a funeral at the James H. Cole Home for Funerals in Detroit with a memorial service later in the evening at the Affirmations LGBTQ community center in Ferndale. Stough was murdered Dec. 7 in the Palmer Park neighborhood and was remembered fondly by friends and family. That, her mother said, is the way it should be.

Creating Change will be held at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center from Jan. 23 through 27 in 2019. More information its included events, speakers and programs can be found online at creatingchange.org. Creating [...]

A crowd of almost 60 gathered at Affirmations' community chat to discuss the future of the center. BTL Photo: Eve Kucharski Searching for answers and concerned about its future, a crowd of 56 [...]

A small crowd of about 20 came out Monday, Nov. 19 to the Wayne State University Student Center Ballroom for what organizers believe was the university’s first official Transgender Day of Remembrance service. The service, [...]

About 20 people came out on Tuesday, Nov. 20, for a Transgender Day of Remembrance service at the Ruth Ellis Center in Highland Park. The service was designed to be an intimate conversation among trans women and men of color.

It was supposed to be a quick run to pick up a few groceries, but when Jacqueline Street, a trans woman, stopped into the Walmart in Benton Harbor on Nov. 15, she got more than just bread and milk at an unbeatable price. Street said she was discriminated against and repeatedly misgendered while attempting to check out.

Creating Change will be held at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center from Jan. 23 through 27 in 2019. More information its included events, speakers and programs can be found online at creatingchange.org. Creating [...]

In a press release posted on their website Nov. 8, the San Francisco Opera announced it was removing University of Michigan professor and countertenor David Daniels from the role of Medoro in Handel’s "Orlando." Initially planning to present the opera next summer, the announcement comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed last month against Daniels in which it is alleged that he sexually assaulted one of his students.

They held out as long as they could. Keith Orr and Martin Contreras, owners of Common Language Bookstore in Ann Arbor, recently announced that they plan to close their feminist, LGBTQ store at the end of the year. The announcement comes after years of dwindling sales that they attribute at least in part to internet sales and the rise of online giant Amazon.com

Rev. Dr. Justin Tanis is known by many in the LGBTQ community for his book that explores the relationship of the transgender community to religion: "Transgender: Theology, Ministry and Communities of Faith." The 2003 work has helped give Tanis, who is not only transgender himself but also the managing director for the Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies at the Pacific School of Religion, a unique outlook on the topic.

The rally was called We Will Not Be Erased and the message was clear: no matter what he tries to do, Donald Trump cannot redefine the transgender community out of existence. The rally, which drew a crowd of about 120 to the Ruth Ellis Center parking lot Friday, was organized after The New York Times reported on a leaked memo from the Trump administration that revealed its desire to define gender as a “biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.”

The Michigan LGBT Peer Support Network is a new group aimed at helping people in the LGBT community start support groups and build alliances. “I didn’t create the Network to compete with other organizations, but [...]

Its aim is to promote intergenerational conversation over a nice meal. For the second year in a row, SAGE Table, sponsored by SAGE — an organization that provides advocacy and services for LGBTQ older adults — will bring together the old, the young and those inbetween as part of a nationwide initiative. Last year, there were 232 SAGE Tables across 40 states involving more than 3,000 participants.

At a press conference Friday, Oct. 19 that capped off the daylong Faith, LGBTQ Inclusion and Human Rights conference at Metropolitan Community Church – Detroit in Clawson, faith leaders from across Michigan came together to [...]

According to Dr. Truman Hudson everyone starts life with a "blank canvas." “Which oftentimes is shaped by the decisions that others have made for us," he said. He is a lecturer of multiculturalism at the [...]

Longtime Between The Lines columnist and contributor Charles Alexander was recently recognized by the Hannan Center as one of their 70 over Seventy: The Next Chapter Awards honorees. Alexander was presented with the award at [...]

The fourth annual Stand with Trans Youth Empowerment Workshop is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 6. The workshop is open to gender expansive young children, trans youth ages 12 to 24 and parents and caregivers of trans youth. It will once again take place at the Orchard United Methodist Church in Farmington Hills. This year’s theme is "I Am."