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Gay News Features, Columns, Electronic Newsletters
St. Petersburg FL - LGBTQ Wedding & Family Expo
Join Us Sunday May 4, 2008
***Always FREE to Attend***
12:30pm - 3:30pm Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront Hotel
333 First Street South - St. Petersburg FL 33701
Visit www.SameLoveSameRights.com for all the details...
This event will include The Same Love Same Rights Mobile Marriage Summit -
Join us as we work towards equal rights in marriage.
Together We Can Make a Difference!
Help us spread the word to the community...
forward this announcement to your friends on myspace, facebook & yahoo groups.
Thank you in advance and we will see you on May 4th!
Rainbow Wedding Network
Brad Beauchamp, correspondent
(866) 251-1564
http://www.RainbowWeddingNetwork.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Same-Sex Marriage Equality Rally to be Held in Atlanta, GA
The national gay & lesbian wedding resource, RainbowWeddingNetwork.com, is returning to Atlanta to produce its 4th Annual GLBTQ Wedding & Family Expo.
The event will also include the Same Love, Same Rights Mobile Marriage Summit, which is a forum in which ideas are collected from all who attend on innovative ways to create mass change in America concerning marriage equality. The Expo will be held at Bold American Catering's venue space in the King Plow Center on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 from 12:00 - 5:00 pm and is free for the public to attend.
Asheville, NC- January 29, 2008-- RainbowWeddingNetwork.com is returning to Atlanta for its 4th annual GLBTQ Wedding & Family Expo. The event will be on February 24, 2008 from 12:00 - 5:00 pm at Bold American Catering's venue space in the King Plow Center. It will include dozens of local wedding vendors who actively support equal rights in marriage, as well as Music, Ceremony Tips, Samples, Fashion and live Dance performances. Admission is free, and all supporters of marriage equality are encouraged to attend.
Cindy Sproul, co-owner of RainbowWeddingNetwork.com, has worked in the GLBTQ community for over twelve years. "All citizens need to come together," Sproul states, "Advocates and allies both gay and straight, from all walks, classes and backgrounds... The potential of this Expo is to serve as an exciting means for a refreshed vision of true equality for the state of Georgia and beyond. Especially in 2008, as this election year is such a vital time for everyone to get involved."
New to this fourth annual event is RainbowWeddingNetwork's new initiative, the Same Love, Same Rights Mobile Marriage Summit. Meant as an open forum for the public, one of the Summit's main goals is to identify activities that individuals can take part in to create mass change in favor of equal rights in marriage. Those attending the rally will have the opportunity to share their ideas on the issues, sign petitions and learn new ways to get involved, both at the state and national levels. Sproul & her partner Marianne Puechl will be speaking during the event, along with Marriage Equality Georgia's Kathy Kelly. Other Mobile Marriage Summit rallies are scheduled for 2008 in Seattle, Tampa and New York City.
"In recent years, the gay community in America has become less cohesive," says Marianne Puechl.
"And we truly have seen a need to add a political edge to the party atmosphere of our Wedding Expos. The Mobile Marriage Summit is an exciting addition: it will create a buzz at a grassroots, activist-level, and every attendee at the event will have an opportunity to get involved right then, right there. The sister website is an excellent complement to the work we're trying to achieve: www.SameLoveSameRights.com provides all the tools that citizens, nonprofit agencies, and businesses need in order to work marriage equality into the fabric of America."
Married & engaged guests will have the chance to add a photograph to the Commitment Photo Album, an ongoing project to document GLBTQ couples and their families throughout the nation. The rally will have a photographer available at the event, and printed submissions will also be welcome.
Launched in 2000, RainbowWeddingNetwork.com (RWN) has grown to become the most extensive wedding resource for the gay and lesbian community in the United States. RWN produced its first GLBTQ Wedding Expo in 2003 and released the national Rainbow Wedding Network Magazine in 2006. To date, RWN has produced sixteen different events in ten states.
For more information about nationwide events please visit http://www.SameLoveSameRights.com and for more same-sex wedding and marriage resources, visit http://www.RainbowWeddingNetworkMagazine.com.
###
PRESS RELEASE
March 30 2007
Brian J. Stephens
True Azimuth, LLC
Phone: 802-380-8455
FAX: 802-333-9006
Email: bjstephens@TrueAzimuth.biz
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Build a Stronger, Winning Relationship
True Azimuth, LLC released today a Relationship Empowerment Workbook for gay
and lesbian couples who want to build a stronger, winning relationship. The
free workbook uses information from the DiSC 2.0 profile available from
Inscape Publishing.
DiSC, a behavioral-style assessment to help people learn about their own
behavior, improve communication and reduce conflict, has been used worldwide
in business for organizational development and performance improvement.
DiSC has 30 years of proven reliability and over 40 million users.
"We've taken the information from Inscape's DiSC to a whole new
'interpersonal' level," says life and relationship coach Scott Graham who
authored the workbook. "When you complete a DiSC profile you get a report
that summarizes your behavioral style and includes recommendations for your
work environment. If you want to use DiSC to increase your effectiveness in
your personal life or with your partner -- unless you were working with a
coach to help you -- there was little to bridge the gap - until now," says
Graham.
The self-directed workbook provides the process toward increased
effectiveness as a couple. "First you evaluate your DiSC report --
highlighting insights from behavioral summaries outlined in the report
including what motivates you and what you need -- based on the report. Then
you do the same for your partner," says Graham. "Then you compare
perspectives."
According to Graham, the part of the workbook where couples compared
perspectives was the most significant exercise reported by couples while the
workbook was being developed. "Perspective is a key area I work on with my
coaching clients, says Graham. "Sometimes how we see our selves doesn't
match up with how we really are. Making sure we are seeing things
accurately is pivotal in gaining traction toward building not only a winning
relationship but a winning life!"
Finally a seven-day success chart couples learn a game plan for building a
winning gay / lesbian relationship. "Both the DiSC Report and the workbook
introduce a new language for couples to use in their relationship" says
Graham. "Introducing DiSC language into the culture of a relationship
enhances communication and problem solving."
The workbook is free but requires the purchase of an online DiSC profile.
"Each workbook is individualized based on the results of two DiSC profiles:
yours and your partners," says Graham. "We take the data and create two
personalized workbooks which we send to each couple along with their
reports."
The workbook is not just for new couples - or even couples who may be
struggling in their relationship. "Whether you have been together 50 days
or 50 years there is room to create a stronger, winning relationship," says
Graham
True Azimuth, LLC, headquartered in West Fairlee, Vermont, began offering
business, personal and relationship coaching in 2006 as well as the
Navigating TogetherT Relationship Course for gay couples. For more
information and to preview the workbook, go to
http://NavigatingTogether.info/workbook.htm. For more information about
life, business or relationship coaching call Scott Graham at 802-380-1026 or
email sgraham@trueazimuth.biz.
Inscape Publishing, renowned as the world's leader in DiSC learning, is
headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are the leading independent
publisher of research-based self-assessments.
###
Gay video game player survey
Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered and even straight video game players asked to participate in first academically approved study
by Alexander Sliwinski
June 08, 2006
The first study ever of GLBT gamers or "gaymers" was approved by the institutional review board of the University of Illinois and was activated this week for participation at www.gaymersurvey.org. It will be open to participation for 8 weeks.
The study is the brainchild of Jason Rockwood, a recent graduate and a self-confessed non-gamer, who says the last game he really played was "Duck Hunt" on the Nintendo Entertainment System during the 1980s.
As a social scientist, Rockwood rekindled his interest in gaming after taking the class "Videogames: Issues, Content and Policy," taught by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Assistant Professor Dmitri Williams of the Speech Communication Department. Williams, who teaches on the topic of video games, is supervising Rockwood during this study. Rockwood originally completed a limited study on the same subject for the class, and he realized there was a real hunger by those who took the study to give as much information as possible.
"People had talked about being gay and being a gamer, but nobody had asked them to unify those two elements and people were excited about that," Rockwood said in an interview with In Newsweekly. "Some people were hesitant though, because they didn't want to be stereotyped having games that were developed to be ridiculous toward the community. They wanted both sides to be taken seriously and if there was stereotypical content it would trivialize both identities of being gay and a gamer."
The survey is long at 91 questions and takes approximately 30 - 45 minutes to complete. The questions are mostly multiple choice, covering a variety of topics from general gaming habits, sexual identity, online gaming to recent purchases. An initial concern of those within the industry who received advanced copies of the survey was regarding its length.
Rockwood explained that this was an initial issue he had as well. One-third of the survey was cut to make sure people completed the survey, and he believes that those taking it won't mind the length because the study explores new territory.
"A lot of surveys in academia today, they are refinements of many, many years of survey work that have occurred. Just being the first one out there looking for these answers, there are a lot of questions we want to know and we are asking questions that we don't have the answers to. If the survey is too long, nobody will take it and that wouldn't be good for anyone."
This study breaks new ground, not only because it is the first academically approved study regarding GLBT gamers, but it is the first study of any gamer group. There are no real studies of female gamers or gamers of color.
Within the industry IGN's GamerMetrics, says it provides "insight into the gamer audience" tracking the 30 million unique monthly users of the IGN.com family of sites. IGN Entertainment, a division of Fox Interactive Media, is the number one destination for gamers online. However GamerMetrics does not know the demographics of these users. GamerMetrics can only provide what their users are doing on the IGN sites, but is unaware of specific demographics and what various audiences are interested in.
Sheri Graner Ray, game designer and author of "Gender Inclusive Game Design," has spoken in many conferences about women's issues within the industry. She has seen a review copy of the questionnaire, and she says she has concerns about it.
"It's got a definite bias. I had to learn to run focus groups and surveys back when I was at Her Interactive. Writing unbiased questions is really tough, particularly when it's a subject you have a lot of passion about," she wrote to In Newsweekly.
For example, Ray points to Question 43, which asks, "In your opinion, how hostile is the gaming community to gay and lesbian gamers?"
She says, "This is a loaded question. You are assuming the reader believes the gaming community is hostile and are asking them to measure the degree."
Ray compared her issues with the survey with those she has had to face in surveying women, "We women who game are a rarified group and not typically representative of the 'norm.' So when we survey ourselves, it's not terribly useful information. But we don't seem to be able to find a suitable pool of women to survey! Given the chance, I'd love to work with a university or other organization to produce a survey that would provide the best possible information for everyone!"
Even with her reservations regarding the survey she says, "I seriously hope the discussion with GLBT gamers continues. It's the only way we can continue to identify and remove the barriers to access which are currently in our titles that keep the GLBT audience out. If we want to truly see this industry grow to its full potential, we must continue to remove these barriers in our designs, our marketing and our workplace!"
Rockwood says, "The main purpose of the survey was to be a census. Before we can ask more intelligent questions we need to know who we are dealing with. First we need to prove that homosexual gamers even exist. Yeah it sounds ridiculous, but that's where you have to start on something like this. This survey is an attempt to quantify the existence of an invisible minority."
Doug Lowenstein of The ESA (Electronic Software Association), the lobbying group for the industry, which produces the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) show every year could not provide comment on the survey after numerous requests.
Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, says, "On the whole, the game industry lacks the advanced tools we need to more fully understand the diversity, and desires, of our audience. This is a hit driven business, and any knowledge that can help us better determine what might succeed is worthy of attention."
Currently the video game industry is under attack from numerous state governments. Most recently Minnesota passed a law, which was signed by Governor Tim Pawlenty last week, that would fine minors $25 for purchasing M (mature) or AO (Adults Only) rated titles.
Prof. Williams says, "Computer and electronic games are obviously quite popular, but, despite what you hear from politicians and pundits, are surprisingly understudied. Surveys like this one will help us understand better who plays games, what they play, why they play, and what they get out of the experience. With data in hand, we can move from assumptions, guesswork and stereotypes and into facts and understanding."
Jeb Havens, who speaks on GLBT issues within the industry and is lead designer at 1st Playable working on the "Marvel Trading Card Game" for the Nintendo DS, says, "I think it will be extremely useful to start building a more detailed and realistic image of the gaming community. It seems that whenever someone looks at which people are really gaming and how they are gaming, rather than just assuming they already know the answer, it's always surprising."
Rockwood says he has his own concerns regarding the survey and the feedback he has received. He says that some gay gamers have told him that they are glad that this survey will bring attention to the demographic but they are seriously concerned that the first generation of LGBT games or games that will have out LGBT characters will be subjected to the same stereotyping and patronizing that women were subjected to when they were first recognized in the market with titles like "Barbie Horse Adventure" and the Mary Kate and Ashley games. It is his hope that this survey will give designers some clear information that will assist them in making more informed designs that are more inclusive of players of different genders and sexuality.
He also hopes the survey will create discussion on another concern he received from the original survey.
"Gay gamers experience a double edged sword of prejudice," he said. "The mainstream gay culture and media is not supportive of video games. Then you have the video game culture that is not supportive of gay culture. So you have these people stuck in the middle who have this double edged prejudice. I'm hoping this survey would shed some light on how or why people go through such a process."
As academics and industry professionals show their reservations, concerns and support regarding the study, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and even straight video game players are ready to take the survey and begin contributing information.
Paul S. Kollist of the "Fraggots Clan," one of the few GLBT first person shooter clans that exist said that he really enjoyed reading over the advanced copy and that his straight friend who looked it over thought it was excellent as well.
"A very revealing survey about the new generation of gamers and gaymers alike!" he said. "An excellently put together survey, with mind provoking questions on sexuality and its ties with the gaming world."
Another person that received an advanced copy was Sara Andrews, who became the lightning rod for LGBT issues within the video game industry a few months ago when she was warned about advertising for a "GLBT-friendly" guild in "World of Warcraft."
"I think it's really awesome that such a survey has been created and approved!" Andrews said. "Perhaps this will give game developers a better chance to see some of the issues that we face and that are important to us as gamers. I would love to have the opportunity to take part in the survey whenever it begins!"
Rockwood hopes that the survey can grow from this baseline point and become a valuable resource for the industry and academics alike, "It's my desire to continue my research at the graduate level. I'm looking for a program that allows the study of emerging technologies and cultural convergence from a humanistic perspective. The ideal program for my studies would be NYU's Department of Culture and Communication and MIT's Department of Comparative Media Studies."
In Newsweekly will report on the results of the survey this fall and follow developments. You can participate in the survey at www.gaymersurvey.org
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