Latest news with #PFLAG
National Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
Amy Hamm: FBI completely justified in targeting 'gender-affirming' doctors
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is asking the public for tips on hospitals or practitioners who are performing 'gender-affirming' surgeries on minors. It's illegal, and it's mutilation, says the FBI. Article content Is the FBI fibbing about the law? To an extent. Article content The bureau's announcement follows President Donald Trump's Jan. 28 executive order, 'Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,' which attempted to ban childhood medical transition by defunding any federally supported institution that carries out these procedures. The order was challenged in court, in an ongoing case called PFLAG v. Trump, and an injunction prevents its implementation. Article content This hasn't stopped the FBI's assistant director for public affairs, Ben Williamson, from calling such surgeries illegal — even if they technically are not. On Monday, after Axios published an article about the bureau's interest in 'gender-affirming surgeries,' Williamson responded on X, 'Actually what we said was we would like tips on any hospitals or clinics who break the law and mutilate children under the guise of 'gender affirming care.'' Article content Article content The FBI made a similar post on X that same day: 'Help the FBI protect children. As the Attorney General has made clear, we will protect our children and hold accountable those who mutilate them under the guise of gender-affirming care. Report tips of any hospitals, clinics, or practitioners performing these surgical procedures on children at 1-800-CALL-FBI or Article content Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say the move is all for show, and is not based on current or enforceable laws, despite the fact that many states currently have laws banning pediatric gender transition. These critics certainly have a strong argument — but it is entirely beside the point. Article content Article content The FBI, with its callout for public tips, has taken an extrajudicial moral stance on the worst medical scandal of our time. It was an act of leadership and clarity. And it will be remembered as such in history books. Article content Article content The federal law enforcement agency's statement 'may only be intended to scare medical practitioners away from offering those services,' as per critics who spoke with CNN. That's a fair assessment. The FBI probably is doing just that — and it deserves commendation for it. Article content Swathes of persons within the American medical establishment are ignoring the overwhelming evidence on the harms of 'gender-affirming' care. It is therefore an act of moral valour for the FBI to intimidate physicians and health-care providers from participating in what is now increasingly recognized as an ongoing — though petering — medical scandal. Article content This is the stark reality: children, often gay or autistic — and with limited capacity to consent — are being permanently sterilized and physically altered by major surgeries and cross-sex hormones. Forget the cutesy euphemisms about 'top surgery' (double mastectomies) or 'puberty blocking' (possibly irreversible chemical castration). Forget the lie that this 'care' is a suicide-preventing intervention for youth who were 'born in the wrong body' — two false claims.
CTV News
4 days ago
- General
- CTV News
‘We are not just activists, we're warriors': Pride festivities kick off in Waterloo, Ont.
Waterloo marked the start of Pride Month with a community event celebrating inclusivity. CTV's Karis Mapp has more. People were encouraged to show their true colours under a beautiful, blue sky as a special event kicked off Pride Month festivities in Waterloo. Celebrants gathered in Waterloo Public Square, which was transformed into a dancefloor and vendor market on Wednesday morning. The event was hosted by the City of Waterloo and Uptown Business Improvement Area (BIA). 'We're very excited, as the City of Waterloo, to be celebrating Pride,' Divya Handa, the city's director of reconciliation, equity, accessibility, diversity and inclusion, told CTV News. 'The last few years have been a little bit difficult for our Rainbow community, but we want to show that we are not taking a step back,' Handa said. 'We are not stopping this journey. We are not pausing. We're not considering pausing. We're here for full support.' For some members of the community, those tough times are vivid memories. Jim Parrott, co-facilitator of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the former executive director of Spectrum, recounts what it was like when he first met his husband back in 2000. The couple persevered through a time when homosexuality was not widely accepted and they became the first same sex couple to legally be married in Waterloo. 'We're not just activists, we're warriors,' Parrott said. 'We have been walking hand-in-hand in public for 25 years. We do get yelled at, but we think it's important to be transparent and to be visible. And we do that because so many people are not able to do that.' Although Wednesday's celebration was all about inclusivity and support, Parrot worried the future may be more uncertain. 'It's wonderful to see all these things happen. But at the same time, I still worry that things might go backwards,' he said. 'It's wonderful to see that we've got the support of the cities and other institutions. So, I'm very happy but also a little bit nervous.' Part of his apprehension stems from divisive attitudes across the border. 'A few years ago, things seemed to be improving. We started to see more and more legislation passed at this phase, but unfortunately, about 6 or 7 years ago, we started seeing things get worse,' Parrott reflected. 'That to some extent was correlated with the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, unfortunately, [we] saw a lot of problems. And the people who are most seriously impacted are trans folks.' Numerous events will be held throughout June to recognize Pride Month in Waterloo Region.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jake Day v. Andy Harris? What we know now about possible 1st District showdown
Could a big showdown be on the horizon in Maryland's 1st District? Here's what we know now about the possibility of Jake Day, current Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development, running against longtime GOP incumbent Rep. Andy Harris in the 2026 election. Maryland Matters has reported that Day, who previously served as Salisbury mayor and as president of its City Council, "is beginning to raise money for a possible challenge to U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st.)" Reached for a statement May 8, Day confirmed the Maryland Matters reporting that he has set up an exploratory campaign committee under the Federal Election Commission's 'testing the waters' guidelines for candidate, and is soliciting donations to pay for a poll to gauge his strength in a hypothetical general election against Harris. "I'm flattered by the number of people who have been reaching out asking me about this and to consider it,," Day told Delmarva Now on May 8. "However, I'm focused on my day job helping address Maryland's housing crisis and growing our economy." Stay tuned for all developments on this big race as they develop, and here's more on Jake Day and Andy Harris. PRIDE CROSSWALK HOT TOPIC: 'It's about unity': Salisbury PFLAG responds to mayor's call to repaint rainbow crosswalks Before joining the cabinet of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Day served as president of the Salisbury City Council from 2013-2015 and as the city's mayor from 2015-2023. He was confirmed as Maryland's Secretary of Housing and Community Development on March 2, 2023. Andy Harris has represented Maryland's Eastern Shore for eight terms now, first elected to the U.S. House in 2011. Before that, Harris, the only Republican in Maryland's current congressional delegation, served in the state Senate from 1999-2011. NEW BUSINESSES ALL AROUND: Museum of Ocean City is now open, plus new garden center in Hebron | What's Going There This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: Will Jake Day enter 1st District race v. Andy Harris? What we know.
Los Angeles Times
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
A second serving of ‘The Wedding Banquet' leaves audiences feeling overstuffed
Gay marriage was illegal when Ang Lee released 1993's 'The Wedding Banquet,' a New York-set romantic dramedy about a queer Taiwanese man, his white male partner and the female Chinese immigrant he marries to placate his conservative parents. But Lee, wise to how the heart stutters, didn't pander to audiences with bromides like love is love. That small, assured masterpiece (only Lee's second film) insisted that love is also selfish, hurtful, short-sighted and confusing, and that many of its wounds come from worrying about what outsiders think. Today, the cultural battle lines have been redrawn, so the director Andrew Ahn ('Spa Night,' 'Fire Island') has rebooted 'The Wedding Banquet' with more characters and higher stakes. Teaming up with Lee's longtime co-writer James Schamus, he's concocted an out-there plot that's all complications and little soul. Instead of one couple, we now have two: boyfriends Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan), and girlfriends Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone). The foursome lives at Lee's home in Seattle, with the women in the main house and the lads in a barn-like bunker in the yard. Over the course of the film they'll fight, kiss and crack jokes, and ultimately walk down the aisle with the wrong person. Chris and Angela have been codependent chums since college. They hooked up briefly as teenagers, presumably as part of freshman (dis)orientation, although their sexual fluidity is blurry. What's clear is they're twin souls, two flip and emotionally risk-adverse forever-children afraid of adulting, as the dialogue's millennial parlance might put it. Today, each one can legally marry their significant others. They just don't want to. The blame has shifted from society to personal inertia. Their respective partners, however, want to settle down. Min, a fabric arts student, already has an engagement ring in his pocket. The scion of a billionaire Korean fashion conglomerate, Min cashes checks from his grandmother, Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-Jung), while dodging her request to take over as its creative director. 'You are not working for the company — you are the company,' she insists. Meanwhile, Lee is an earthy bohemian goddess who spends much of her screen time gardening. (Gladstone's flowery knitted outfits are a fun contrast to Tran's Metallica roadie duds — great work across the board by costumer Matthew Simonelli.) An aid-worker for LGBTQ+ youth on a ticking-clock quest to bear children of her own, Lee has endured two wrenching rounds of in vitro fertilization and, just as painfully, her partner's ambivalence about having kids at all. Angela's strained relationship with her own mother, May (Joan Chen, diva-fabulous), a showy ally who is closer to her PFLAG buddies, has made her unrehearsed in maternal warmth. The most credibly-written character, Angela is terrified to play mom herself; it's improv without a net. (One great comic beat comes when May consoles her daughter by cooing that Angela might not be as awful of a mom — she could be worse.) Min needs a green card. Lee needs cash for a third shot at IVF. Chris and Angela need more runway for their inertia. So Min and Lee brainstorm an unusual proposal: a partner swap that will solve one set of problems while creating a pile-up of others. For reasons too eye-rolling to explain, Min and Angela must marry and commit to the ruse when Ja-Young arrives to investigate whether her grandson's fiancée is a gold-digger. The four leads are yanked not by their heart strings but by the machinations of a plot that steers them from one contrived scene to another, just so it can point to the skid marks and call them a sketch of the new American family. In 2025, unlike 1993, Ahn and Schamus don't take it for granted that foreigners like Min want to live in America at all. 'Your trains are so slow!' he groans. Rich, charming and pop star-pretty (his skincare regimen is a playful runner), Min only wants to stay in the states for Chris, which is too much pressure to put on Yang's callow and underwritten role. Despite those limits, this is one of Yang's best parts. Now that he's established himself as larger than life on 'Saturday Night Live,' he has the confidence to play a human being. Han knows he must exaggerate Min's daffy naivete to get us to buy into his zeal to live in a small shack with noncommittal Chris. He and Chen give the film's least naturalistic and most delightful performances. ('My own daughter, marrying a man!' Chen's preening progressive wails despondently.) They're the only actors who've internalized that this is screwball stuff, despite the realistic cinematography that throws wet burlap on the nonsense. The cast is strong enough to sell us on the movie's idea of love, even when it bends conventionality into a balloon animal. But its conception of mega-wealth is truly phony. Min's lack of ego would be unusual if he was merely upper-middle class, but as the sole heir of a lineage that makes headline news, it's preposterous. I'm not saying that Min has to be a privileged twit. But if he can impulse-buy IVF as casually as a round of beers, then the film has to respect the viewer enough to answer the obvious follow-up questions: How unbalanced is this marriage-for-medical-treatment proposition? If Min is this desperate to escape his grandmother's fashion business, why does he sew her an impressive jacket for her hanbok? And, at minimum, why can't the guys rent their own house next door? The overall tone feels like Ahn asking us to trust him to make this modern romance work. But he hardly includes any of the genuinely true stuff like tough conversations about mistakes and forgiveness. There are no bonding scenes between Min and Angela. These longterm friends suddenly act like the other has cooties. Odder still, Ahn has a too-clever tic of cutting away from big confrontations. It's as though we've been invited into this home only to be ordered to butt out. When the drama is at its most compelling, the camera instead chooses to focus on Youn's grandmother staring at the youngsters from a window. The goings-on affect her Ja-Young least of all, but we're stuck watching her and whatever thoughts she's too reserved to express. I get that Youn, who won a supporting actress Oscar five years ago for 'Minari,' is a lucky talisman. However, the way the film forces her into moments she doesn't belong in makes her feel like an albatross — especially when it forgets that Gladstone's Lee exists for an insultingly long stretch and never gives that more central character a chance to speak her peace. There's something about the homespun aesthetics, in the gravity of Gladstone and Youn's expressions — trapped within scenes where the dead air is filled by the sound of birds — that make this good-hearted movie seem embarrassed that it's a comedy. When the gags arrive, they're clumsy and desperate: a discordant vomit explosion, some shenanigans at a court house. The humor comes off like a wallflower at a party who is racing with so many awkward thoughts that when it's finally time to speak, they blurt out something rude. How strange that everyone involved here loves the 1993 film so much that they've remade it — or in Schamus's case, rewritten it — without much of its cultural and character-driven wit. Ahn gets a couple giggles in his depiction of a hasty, half-baked Korean marriage ceremony with Chris promenading around with a wooden duck and the unlucky couple getting pelted with chestnuts and dates, symbology that no one in attendance totally understands. It's a neat way to make the point that traditions must be reexamined. But I still prefer a punchline Ang Lee delivered personally in his original 'The Wedding Banquet.' Playing a reception guest surrounded by drunken hijinks, he quips, 'You're witnessing 5,000 years of sexual repression.' Come to think of it, this redo doesn't even have a banquet. There's just leftovers.
Boston Globe
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Say ‘I do' to this remake of ‘The Wedding Banquet'
The co-writer of the original film, James Schamus, is back for this English-language update starring Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran in "The Wedding Banquet." Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures Advertisement That couple, Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Gladstone) own the house attached to the garage rented by Min (Han Gi-Chan) and his lover, Chris (Yang). Chris and Angela have been friends since high school. They also have a sexual history, with each being the other's sole straight experience in bed. After several years of estrangement, Angela's mother, May Chen (Joan Chen) has accepted her daughter's sexuality. In fact, she's become the kind of overperforming ally that drives a lot of queer people crazy. She attends PFLAG meetings and is constantly telling everyone embarrassing stories about her daughter's awkward teenage attempts to lie about not being a lesbian. Advertisement May is ecstatic when Angela announces that Lee is pregnant. This grandchild will silence May's friends, who are constantly bragging about grandchildren. The older of the two women, Lee worries that she is running out of time. Both women are concerned they can't afford another IVF attempt after Lee miscarries. Han Gi-Chan, Youn Yuh-jung, and Kelly Marie Tran in "The Wedding Banquet." Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures Min's relationship with his family is far more complicated. Raised by his rich grandparents, he stands to be cut off from any money should they find out he's gay. They're waiting for him to marry. They're also expecting him to join the American arm of the family business, a job his artistic heart does not want. His stern grandmother, Ja-Young (Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung from ' When commitment-phobe Chris rejects Min's marriage proposal, he pivots to Angela. Their fake marriage will get Ja-Young off his back, and in exchange, Min will finance another IVF treatment for Lee. Ja-Young will fly in to attend her grandson's City Hall nuptials, then return home. As in the original, the plans do not come off without a hitch. For starters, Ja-Young isn't as clueless as Min expects. She immediately calls out his sham proposal, acknowledging she knew he was gay. Joan Chen in "The Wedding Banquet." Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures That plot development is just one of the additions that make this remake work as well as the original. In the 32 years since Lee's groundbreaking work, so much has changed for LBGTQ+ people. Ahn's remake focuses on the good things rather than the current hell we're enduring. Marriage and child-rearing are major concerns for the characters, and the film doesn't sand off its characters' rough edges. Advertisement The actors play to their strengths, and the film is better for it. Yang leans into the humble yet hilarious persona we first saw in ' 'The Wedding Banquet' wouldn't be as successful without the complex characterizations of the older characters. Chen and Youn give the film's best performances, defying stereotype while savoring the meaty roles they've been given. When the two of them share a scene, the screen lights up with joy. Though it doesn't break any new ground, 'The Wedding Banquet' does occasionally zig when you expect it to zag. These moments, along with the performances and the unobtrusive direction by Ahn, make this a successful and fun remake. ★★★ THE WEDDING BANQUET Directed by Andrew Ahn. Written by Ahn and James Schamus. Starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Youn Yuh-jung, Joan Chen, Han Gi-Chan. At Coolidge Corner, AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 102 minutes. R (profanity, brief nudity) Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
