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five people were killed and dozens injured in a mass shooting last November, has announced plans to reopen in the fall of 2023. Prior to its reopening, the club will build a permanent memorial on its site, honoring the five victims of the shooting — Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, and Derrick Rump — and install enhanced security measures, such as new screening technology and a “hardened space.”In architecture parlance, a “hardened space” could potentially include armed checkpoints, safe rooms, or structures and features, such as additional doors or automatic locks, that would make it harder for a person to gain entry to the club.More information on what those enhanced security measures will entail will be released in the coming weeks, in the hope that other LGBTQ venues may follow Club Q’s lead by also installing such measures.To carry out and install the additional security features, as well as design the memorial, Club Q has partnered with HB&A, a Colorado Springs-based, women-owned architecture and planning firm.The club’s owners hope to gut the club’s interior in April 2023, later rebuilding it in time to open for the fall. The club’s management team has also hired two survivors of the shooting as staff and plan to add at least one new staff role in the next month.Those new hires will serve as administrators, helping management with rebuilding efforts, community relations, and other projects needed to ensure the club can reopen on schedule.In November, Club Q management supported the Colorado Healing Fund and the Compassion Fund as two ways to raise funds to support victims — defined as those injured in the shooting, patrons who were inside the club at the time of the shooting, or

Janelle Monáe – “Make Me Feel”“Make Me Feel” served as the flagship single from Janelle Monáe’s third album Dirty Computer, and what an opener it is. Both the music video and lyrics, with alternating male and female love interests and phrases such as “It’s like I’m powerful with a little bit of tender / An emotional, sexual bender,” make “Make Me Feel” a celebration of loving anyone of any gender.Oh, and that Prince guitar lick automatically makes it sexy as hell. k.d. lang – “Constant Craving”“Constant Craving,” a bewitching Grammy-winning soft rock ballad released by the talented Canadian singer-songwriter k.d.

“The thing about monuments,” says Paul Farber, “is that there is no coherent set of monuments.”Farber knows. As one of the country’s foremost experts on the subject of America’s monuments, great and small, and the co-founder and director of the Philadelphia-based Monument Lab, he has a deeper, more complex worldview of the statues and structures that the rest of us sometimes take for granted.“It is a common misconception that there is some government agency out there in charge of all the monuments and they greenlight them and take the bad ones away,” says the youthful 40-year-old.

My 21st Century Blues (★★★★☆).Her first full-length album is an impressive debut that not only shows off the strengths we already knew she possessed, but shows what she’s capable of when she has free rein.The first indication that Raye was really onto something came with “Escapism,” Raye’s first single to chart internationally. The song’s trip-hoppy beat clips along at a brisk, tense pace, underscoring the feeling of running away toward better things.The rest of the album is just as meticulously crafted and has a sense of timelessness about it, helped along by the way she bookends the album with a cabaret-like intro and outro.Raye’s songwriting is as edgy and fresh as any R&B-inflected pop, but its instrumentation and production is deeply indebted to the best of British jazz and soul.

Sam Smith – “Him”Smith avoided using specific pronouns on their debut album In The Lonely Hour, which may have helped tunes like “Stay With Me” become as massive as they did. The Grammy winner changed course on their sophomore set The Thrill Of It All, especially on the tune “Him.”The poignant ballad recounts the story of a young man revealing his love for another man to his father as he comes out of the closet.

The world of Magic Mike movies moves fast and changes constantly. An unfettered life for Channing Tatum’s tender-hearted hunk of a stripper-promoter-construction worker-furniture designer-entrepreneur has meant a shifting stream of old and new friends, new loves, and new towns as he rides his “Pony” from film to film, starting with the 2012 hit Magic Mike and ending, presumably, with Magic Mike’s Last Dance (★★ ☆ ☆ ☆).The original — a good-vibes backstage melodrama directed by Steven Soderbergh, who also directed Last Dance — introduced enterprising exotic dancer Mike Lane (Tatum), his crew of dance-challenged stripper buddies, and his journey as a hardbodied, hard-working Florida lug who’s just looking for his shot.Produced for well under ten million dollars, the film went on to gross nearly $170 million worldwide, and of course begat a sequel, the 2015 road movie Magic Mike XXL, which was considerably less successful both at the box office and as a compelling story.That breezily entertaining follow-up, directed by Gregory Jacobs, showed the Magic Mike train already wobbling on its rails, burying the erotic appeal of hot guys stripping under a heap of treacly, trendy, self-help speak about making women feel like queens.Seemingly, the studio’s market research had divined Mike’s true purpose, not as a sexy single stud but as a fantasy boyfriend, who would patiently listen to his lady pour out her feelings, before flipping her onto a table and pounding her to ecstasy.

Metro Weekly in an interview she’s hopeful and optimistic that the “cured” ballots will break in her favor, determining the winner of the race.“It’s strange, but I always felt calm about this race in a lot of ways,” she says. “I felt there was a chance I could actually win because I was born in Trenton, I grew up here, and I know my city enough to know I wouldn’t have problems getting elected as an openly LGBTQ person.

The list of nominees for the 2023 Grammy Awards is not entirely shocking, and many of the tunes, albums, and artists that were expected to lead the ceremony ended up with most of the nominations.While many predictions ended up being largely correct, there were a few surprises, and thankfully only a handful of snubs.Beyoncé earned the most nominations this time around, with nine. She’s up for all three of the top categories she’s eligible for, and she’s already a frontrunner for all of the dance/electronic and R&B fields as well.

Betty marked her coming into her own as an independent artist, Big (★★★★☆) finds her more confident in herself than ever and cements her status as a queer pop phenomenon. Two and a half years in the making, it is a welcome reminder that she has lost none of her flair for crafting a catchy, infectious pop song.The album’s title is stylized in all-caps as “BIG!” Described in interviews as an album about self-acceptance, it shows us a Betty Who as outspoken and confident as we have ever seen her.

Introduced at the height of her powers, the world-renowned composer-conductor who lends Tár (★★★★☆) its brusque title is meticulous in every detail of how she conducts her life. Lydia Tár strives for perfection in her work, her image, and her bespoke suits, and demands the best from her musicians, students, and staff.But Lydia, portrayed with leonine intensity by Cate Blanchett, has grown increasingly sloppy in one area of her well-tended life.

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (★★★☆☆), which just shimmied into the National Theatre, three stops into a 30-city national tour.But the show’s creators, including book writer Katori Hall, a Pulitzer winner for her drama The Hot Wing King, don’t seem to have been too sure what to do with Turner’s cache of classics, succeeding only half the time at persuasively reimagining the songs within the context of the singer’s tumultuous life story.You know the story, told via Turner’s multiple memoirs, plus the beloved 1993 biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It and the stellar 2021 documentary Tina, not to mention semi-autobiographical songs like “Nutbush City Limits.”Tina the musical turns “Nutbush City Limits” into a rousing spiritual, dominated by the gospel wail of Ann Nesby portraying Tina’s Gran Georgeanna. One of the savvier uses of Turner’s catalog, the number introduces young Anna-Mae Bullock (a delightful Ayvah Johnson), a little girl with a big voice, from a broken home in rural Tennessee.In another crafty use of an early hit, teenage Anna-Mae, played on press night by the equally big-voiced Naomi Rodgers (the role is played on select nights by Zurin Villanueva), is introduced by sister Alline (Parris Lewis) to the faster scene in St.

the most recent bit of controversy she’s found herself embroiled in. And she’s not holding back.Earlier this week, musical duo Right Said Fred spoke to British tabloid The Sun about their inclusion in Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance.The brothers Fred and Richard Fairbrass (and their former bandmate Rob Manzoli) are all credited as songwriters on Bey’s song “Alien Superstar,” as the tune interpolates a part of their smash single “I’m Too Sexy.” That cut took over the world in 1991, and it remains the band’s biggest hit by far.In the interview, the brothers expressed how unhappy they were with their credits and the fact that something of theirs had been used on Renaissance saying, “She is such an arrogant person… She just had probably thought ‘come and get me’ so we heard about it after the fact…”Just days after the article went live, Beyoncé has not only spoken on the issue, but called Right Said Fred out.In a statement shared with Billboard, the Grammy winner claims that their version of what happened is not true, and she comes with specific details that counter their comments as well.“Permission was not only granted for its use, but they publicly spoke of their gratitude for being on the album,” she insisted via the statement.

Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, Velma not only falls for a woman, but she and her colleagues openly talk about her love.Originally shared by what appears to be one super fan on Twitter, a snippet shows the moment when Velma first lays eyes on Coco Diablo, and she is immediately infatuated.

walking date, where you can figure out if your date has any taste at all.”Gann and Taglauer are longtime friends and collaborators who, since 2019, have been co-directors of the 24-year-old juried annual arts show. The duo’s intuitive rapport and sense of camaraderie shines even during a half-hour chat over Zoom.Case in point: Gann immediately picks up on Taglauer’s subtle cue to improvise a worst-case date scene at the festival.“You like that?!?” Gann says, in an exaggeratedly dramatic fashion.

live-streamed campaign speech on Sunday, Oct. 2.Ganahl first made the claim on a Sept.

Bros, tweeting that “straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up” for the movie during its opening weekend.The Universal film — marketed as the first gay romantic comedy released by a major Hollywood studio — took in a disappointing $4.8 million on its opening weekend, with ticket sales being especially low in the Midwest and the South, reports The Hollywood Reporter.“That’s just the world we live in, unfortunately. Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore etc, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros.

Daily Beast story dropped alleging that the elder Walker had once reimbursed his girlfriend for having an abortion.“Family values, people? He has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising one of them,” Christian Walker, the 23-year old son of Herschel Walker and Cindy DeAngelis Grossman, who are no longer married, said in a tweeted video. “He was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values?”Labeling his father’s behavior on the campaign trail as “atrocious,” Christian also accused his father of lying when the elder Walker tweeted that the Daily Beast report was “a flat-out lie.”In one of a series of Twitter videos posted Tuesday morning, Christian said he kept silent while his father allegedly lied about aspects of his past.“I stayed silent as the atrocities against my mom were downplayed,” he said.

Tempest for the ages.We’re excited for almost every season offering, but the one thing that fills us with an embarrassment of joy? The return of the Broadway Center Stage series to the Kennedy Center. Prior to the pandemic, the series routinely blew the roof off the national arts center with its extraordinary staged concerts that, in some cases, felt Broadway-ready.Other highlights of the 2022-2023 season include the returns of Les Miserables, Chicago, Wicked and — why not? — Cats; an Olney Kinky Boots; a Bountiful moment with Nancy Robinette at Ford’s; the return of Michael Urie and husband Ryan Spahn to the (boldly, beautifully rebranded) Shakespeare Theatre; Arena Stage tackling Tony Kushner’s gay masterpiece Angels in America; and the long-anticipated “Till Trilogy” at Mosaic. Buy stock in Kleenex now.1524 Spring Hill Rd.

A heartfelt, hilarious classic Hollywood-style romantic comedy, Bros (★★★★☆) doesn’t screw around with the formula of forebears like When Harry Met Sally or You’ve Got Mail. Rather, the movie — produced by Judd Apatow, directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and co-written by Stoller and star Billy Eichner — delivers fresh takes on tropes that worked for those films, while trafficking in jokes and situations they never touched.With tart dialogue and earnest intent, Bros leans into the romance of the giddy first kiss, and the determined dash across town to declare one’s love right now in front of an audience of awww-ing friends who will dance out the scene in a joyful montage.The filmmakers’ attention to genre detail includes layering Bros with that rare, underrated quality of a good romantic comedy: a believable resistance to romance. To stir the pot, somebody or something has to be standing in the way of happily ever after.Here, the culprits are our lead pair of lovebirds, commitment-shy New Yorkers Bobby (Eichner) and Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), who at least commit to a text-assisted dance of hooking up and sort of dating, after meeting at a club.Their rocky progress towards a climax, or several climaxes, follows a familiar rom-com path, but with both the rom and the com rendered through the specific lens of Bobby and Aaron’s modern gay experience.

more than 79,000 community meetings between February and April to discuss some of the proposed changes, and amended some of its provisions based on community feedback, reports The Associated Press.Cuba’s National Assembly passed the revised code in July before sending it to the voters for final approval.While there are no independent observers of Cuban elections, Reuters reports that scattered local reports of district counts on social media appeared to align with official tallies. The approval of the code marks a significant shift with respect to both the government’s support for LGBTQ rights, and general attitudes towards homosexuality among Cubans.In the early 1960s, after former dictator Fidel Castro took power, many gay people were fired from their jobs and sent to labor camps known as Military Units to Aid Production, reports the Miami Herald.Although homosexuality was later legalized in 1979, many gay men and women reported experiencing discrimination in their daily lives.

 Hideous Bastard (★★★☆☆) features the letters of the album title sticking out of Sim’s grinning face.A devout horror fan who also collaborated on a three-part horror short, Sim leans into his preoccupation with ugliness and monstrosity, and the gruesome image neatly echoes Hideous Bastard‘s deliberate, artful lack of subtlety.From its opening lines, it’s clear Hideous Bastard is a deeply personal work for Sim, which may go some way towards explaining why his foray into solo work has come so long after his xx bandmates Romy Mady Croft and Jamie xx began pursuing their own projects.“Been living with HIV since 17,” he bluntly intones at the end of his album opener and lead single “Hideous,” immediately following the revelation by asking “Am I hideous?” Disclosing his HIV status while also openly reckoning with the attendant shame that has accompanied it throughout his adult life is a devastating one-two punch.While Sim never quite manages to recapture the brilliance and emotional heft of his opener, he remains focused on the intertwined feelings of fear and shame, and the way they weave themselves into our relationships and affect our expectations of the world and ourselves.He comes close to matching the stark, introspective honesty of the title track in his musings on the relationship between shame and queer love on “Fruit,” and in his admission in “Sensitive Child” of the fragility that holds him back from relationships.

RuPaul’s Drag Race brought drag into millions of homes, events like Miss’d America, which will hold its 31st pageant this weekend, put the spotlight on the drag community.Taking place in Atlantic City at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, the weekend will kick off at 9 p.m. on Friday, Sept 23, with drag bingo hosted by last year’s pageant winner, Amanda Pörq.Guests will have the chance to win cash and prizes and watch special performances by Sandy Beach, Morgan Wells, and Miss Elaine.On Saturday, eight contestants will take to the stage of Hard Rock’s Sound Waves Theater, starting at 7 p.m., for the chance to be crowned Miss’d America 2023.They’ll compete in the categories of swimsuit, talent, and evening gown, and will be interviewed by the judges.The evening promises to feature over-the-top productions, overseen by the pageant’s celebrity emcee Carson Kressley.Tickets for Miss’d America start at $25 and can be purchased online.VIP tickets are also available at $100 each, and include one complimentary drink and admission to an exclusive post-pageant meet and greet reception.

Brigham Young University removed pamphlets with LGBTQ resources from welcome bags for new students last month, according to Today.Created by the student-run group RaYnbow Collective, the pamphlets directed students to resources for safe housing, therapy, scholarships, gender-affirming clothes, and political action opportunities, as well as events students could attend.The Honor Code Office at BYU, a Utah university sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, prohibits “same-sex romantic behavior.” The RaYnbow Collective, which supports safe spaces for LGBTQ students and staff, isn’t technically affiliated with BYU, even though students run the non-profit.Maddison Tenney, the group’s executive director, told TODAY she started RaYnbow Collective to help others avoid the loneliness she felt her freshman year as a gay student at BYU.“I remember sitting in my white dorm room with these cement walls and breaking down,” Tenney said. “I didn’t know anyone who was like me, who wanted to be faithful and embrace the fullness of themselves.”To develop the pamphlets, Tenney said RaYnbow Collective collaborated with BYU student paper The Daily Universe and paid a $200 fee.

fined $135,000 by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries following a 2013 incident in which the Kleins refused to bake a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer, a lesbian couple of 10 years.When Aaron Klein found out that the custom-made cake was intended for a lesbian wedding, he allegedly said, “We don’t do same-sex weddings” and called the couple an “abomination,” citing the Bible as justification.The Kleins have repeatedly claimed their religious beliefs opposing homosexuality prevent them from providing goods or services for a same-sex wedding.The Bowman-Cryers filed discrimination complaints with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and the Department of Justice.In response, the Kleins attempted to defend their refusal to bake the cake, “doxxing” the Bowman-Cryers in the process by sharing private information about them, including their address.The Bowman-Cryers were inundated with so many hateful messages and death threats that their two foster children had to be removed from the home for their own protection.The Bureau of Labor and Industries found that the Kleins had violated the Oregon Public Accommodations Law and ordered them to pay financial restitution to the Bowman-Cryers.The Kleins appealed the decision, which the Oregon Court of Appeals upheld. The Kleins then appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case, before appealing to the U.S.

In a speech full of homophobic slurs, Brother Duncan Urbanek said women should stop wearing pants and called for their husbands to enforce that rule.Urbanek is a member of the homophobic hate group Stedfast Baptist Church, where pastors have called for the execution of gay people.His diatribe went viral on Twitter, receiving over 24,000 views on a video posted August 23.In the video, Urbanek said crossdressing was a sin even though it’s not as bad as being LGBTQ.“People want to get so riled up, yeah, f*gs are [an] abomination, God hates them,” Urbanek said. “Well, didn’t it just say if you’re a crossdresser, you’re an abomination too?”Urbanek’s speech took an odd turn as he explained what he would do if he were “caught” in a dress.“If I was caught wearing a dress and that was online, I would do everything in my power to get rid of that picture,” he said.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, President Biden’s pick for White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator, is a “gay Satanist.”Seeking evidence for this far-fetched claim, Twitter users have breathlessly scoured through various pictures from Daskalakis’ social media accounts — which have since been made private — and magazine or newspaper articles touting his past work as a New York City health official and as director of the CDC Division of HIV Prevention.Their chief piece of evidence for his alleged allegiance to Satanism is a pentagram symbol that Daskalakis has tattooed on his chest, as first reported by the Australian newspaper the Star Observer.“Meet Demetre Daskalakis.

appeal to his socially conservative base and grab headlines.In a now-viral clip that made the rounds on Twitter, Cruz mocked the idea of giving relief to those who chose to pursue higher education. He argued that working Americans, including many who never attended college, will have to bear the cost of bailing out those who haven’t managed to pay off their own student loans.Under the plan, the Biden administration is expected to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients, and up to $10,000 for other individuals, who make less than $125,000 per year or $250,000 per year for married couples.The administration claims this will help low- and middle-income Americans who are saddled with student debt, which has been exacerbated by the rising cost of education, reports Newsweek.Cruz initially criticized Biden’s plan on his Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast, stating, “If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans and can’t get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand.”He also implied that the policy was an effort by Biden to boost Democrats’ chances in the upcoming midterm elections by ginning up youth turnout.

The Washington Post.The suspect had been described as between 5’6″ and 5’9″ with a slim frame and a beard, between 18 to 20 years old, wearing flared jeans, a T-shirt, and a bucket hat. He allegedly fled the scene with another male wearing a white T-shirt.The pro-authoritarian, right-wing commentary and opinion site Remix claims the suspect, identified as Nuradi A., is a migrant and former junior boxing champion from Chechnya, a majority-Muslim region of Russia, who had applied for refugee status but had his request rejected by the German government.Typically, that means he should have been deported back to Russia, but Germany halted all deportations back to Eastern European countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the instability in the region. While Remix and other right-wing sites, as well as fascist political parties, have been eager to link the Münster attack with other anti-LGBTQ attacks committed by Muslim migrants across Europe, some on social media have speculated that Nuradi may be gay himself, possibly having fled Chechnya due to the ongoing purge of gay and bisexual men there.A vigil celebrating Malte’s life and condemning anti-trans violence was held in front of Münster’s historic town hall on Friday night, drawing an estimated crowd of 6,500 people.On Saturday, a judge granted prosecutors’ request to keep Nuradi in detention while he awaits trial.

The royally enjoyable cast of Signature Theatre’s The Color Purple (★★★★★) forges a chain of love with no weak links in Timothy Douglas’ knockout staging of the musical based on Alice Walker’s novel and the acclaimed 1985 motion picture.The show marks a milestone for Signature, which, according to artistic director Matthew Gardiner, had developed plans a decade ago for a take on the musical, fresh off a two-year Broadway run of the original Tony-winning production.But those plans were scuttled due to John Doyle’s 2015 Broadway revival starring powerhouses Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Hudson, and Danielle Brooks.Eventually that production made its way to D.C. in the modified form of a Broadway touring company which, frankly, left a lot of the meat of this turbulent, decades-spanning drama still on the bone.

Love the One You’re With, which he wrote and produced, and this summer’s B-Boy Blues, the long-awaited film adaptation of James Earl Hardy’s seminal 1994 Black gay romance novel.McCormick, part of the original cast of the B-Boy Blues stage play, executive produced the film, along with Hardy, who co-wrote the script with the film’s director, Jussie Smollett. The storm of controversy surrounding Smollett, of course, has cast a long shadow over the film, which premiered on BET+ in June.