Latest news with #queerCommunity
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
AB Hernandez: 16-year-old transgender athlete wins two golds and a silver as participation sparks controversy
A 16-year-old transgender athlete who is the focus of a US sports row has won two golds and a silver at the California high school track and field championship. AB Hernandez was born a boy but has transitioned and now competes against girls. And the teenager's inclusion in the girls category in the high jump, long jump and triple jump became a national conversation. Critics, including parents, conservative activists and President Trump, had called for Hernandez to be barred from competing. Who is AB Hernandez? In the city of Clovis on Saturday, she took part under a new rule change brought in by the state's interscholastic federation, under which an extra student was allowed to compete and win a medal in the events where Hernandez qualified. And it meant there were two winners when she finished first. Hernandez shared first place in the high jump with Jillene Wetteland and Lelani Laruelle. All three cleared a height of 5ft 7in (1.7m), but Hernandez had no failed attempts, while the other two had each logged one failure. Hernandez also had a first-place finish in the triple jump, sharing the top spot with Kira Gant Hatcher, who trailed her by more than half a metre. Also, Hernandez came second in the long jump with Brooke White. "Sharing the podium was nothing but an honour," White said. "As a part of the queer community I want AB Hernandez to know we all have her back." Plane protest During Hernandez's qualifying events on Friday, a plane flew over the stadium trailing a banner, which read: "No boys in girls' sports." It was organised and paid for by two women's advocacy groups. A small protest also took place on the road outside. "Save girls' sports," one poster read. "XX does not equal XY," read another. Transgender inclusion is a thorny issue but a vote winner for Donald Trump, who campaigned last year with a promise to "kick out men from women's sport". He signed an executive order seeking to ban transgender women from female sports. And Mr Trump has threatened to withdraw federal funding from California over Hernandez's participation in this weekend's athletics event. 'Pilot entry process' The California Interscholastic Federation had earlier said it was launching a "pilot entry process" to allow more girls to participate in the championship. It only applied to the three events in which Hernandez competed. Read more from Sky News:How Musk's mission to cut government spending fell flatUK to build weapons factories in £6bn push to rearm The rule change may be the first attempt nationally by a high school sports governing body to expand competition when trans athletes are participating. If a transgender athlete wins a medal, their ranking would not displace a "biological female" student from also medalling, the federation confirmed, and it will be reflected in the records. The federation said the rule opens the field to more "biological female" athletes. The organisation did not specify how it defines "biological female" or how it would verify whether a competitor meets that definition.
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
The summer Sook-Yin Lee spent in a noodle costume changed her life forever
At 17, filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee took a lowly job that nobody else would, as – get ready for this – a 10-foot-tall piece of pasta with a mustache named Mr. Noodle. Was the rocker by night, pasta piece by day humiliated? Demeaned? Did the future artist and MuchMusic VJ file the gig away forever in the embarrassing-job vault? She did not. In this instalment of 'How I Spent My Summer,' Ms. Lee shares how being Mr. Noodle turned into something delicious and eternally filling. I ran away from home as a teenager to become an artist. I was fortunate to meet a supportive queer community with a vibrant and collaborative art scene that encouraged expression. I was in a band, screaming didactic political songs mostly, and we had this gig in Vancouver in an underground nightclub. Literally underground. Above was this unpopular pasta bar. One day I was lugging my gear out of the basement when it caught my eye: this sad-looking, forlorn, empty noodle costume in the window. Kinda like Gumby, but a noodle. He was a 10-foot-tall foam rectangle with big googly eyes, a French beret and a mustache. Even though I didn't have an audience, I was into performance art and social experiments, so he was perfect. I went into the restaurant and asked the guy who ran the place, Lyle, 'Hey – is anyone here the noodle?' Lyle said, 'No, no one will be the noodle.' I didn't care about the money, which was minimum wage, and I didn't really need the job, but I wanted to see what being the noodle was like in society. Robert Munsch's first job in the French countryside turned out to be a stinky situation Artist Christi Belcourt on her first job that paid $17. Not per hour ... just $17. Lyle gave me the lowdown on Mr. Noodle. He said, 'Mr. Noodle is Motown and he walks like this.' It was like a jive turkey walk, super stupid. He wanted me to walk like that and give out menus. I did that in front of the restaurant, where Lyle could see me, but as soon as I was out of view I took on a different noodle personality entirely. I made rules for myself as Mr. Noodle: Never speak words, as then the spell will be broken. I let myself make strange sounds and onomatopoeias, like brrrrrrrreeeeakkkk! or kwauk-kwauk-kwauk! I lost the Motown strut; I didn't give out the menus. I just walked, kinda listless, being a noodle. It was hot in there, and Mr. Noodle was suspended on two strings on my shoulders. I'd stack dishtowels as padding underneath the strings but it still got pretty painful. A lot of people were intolerant or rude. Many told me to move or get out of their way. Children liked Mr. Noodle, though. They'd run up and say hello and want to introduce me to their parents. There'd be the dad, sunbathing on the beach, and I'd deliberately block his sun. Elderly European men were really nice to Mr. Noodle. They'd sit down and talk to him, like really talk to him, regaling them about their day. One day, I got beaten up on Granville Street by a gang of skinheads. They thought Mr. Noodle was funny, so a crowd gathered around and they started pushing him back and forth. Luckily the body was made of foam, so it wasn't physically painful, but I watched sadly from the inside through the mesh face. I stayed in character the whole time as Mr. Noodle got beat up. Every day, I kept a diary of what happened to Mr. Noodle. It resonated with me that he was the ultimate outsider, and I wanted to see who embraced him and who didn't. I didn't have any big plans, but later that summer a friend told me about a film contest she was entering. I decided to enter too, and had one weekend to get a submission ready. It was immediately obvious to me that I'd make Escapades of the One Particular Mr. Noodle. A few months later, I found out Mr. Noodle was one of 10 scripts that was chosen to get made. It became my first legit film. I basically mobilized my neighourhood to be actors. I filmed in my house, remade the Mr. Noodle costume and re-enacted my summer as Mr. Noodle. It got enough attention that I was hired to make another film, and that's how my filmmaking life was born. All of this happened because of Mr. Noodle. Had I not followed my curiosity, had I not taken a low-paying horrible job, had I not found inspiration in him and related his experience as an outsider to mine as a Chinese-Canadian, my life would have been different. Without Mr. Noodle, I might never have become a filmmaker. As told to Rosemary Counter
CBC
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Halifax doctor's donation helps north-end arts centre secure permanent home
A collectively-run Halifax arts centre that's grown into a regular home for everything from zine libraries and printmaking to live music is celebrating a substantial donation that's poised to support the space's continued existence well into the future. The RadStorm collective, which has been fundraising to buy the building it calls home on Gottingen Street for several years, announced Saturday that they've reached their goal thanks to a generous contribution from Bob Fredrickson, a longtime pillar of Halifax's queer community. The purchase was also supported through community donations and a one-time contribution of $100,000 from the Halifax Regional Municipality that was approved earlier this year. "It's kind of unreal," said Lucas Goudie, who has been involved with RadStorm since 2016, and is a member and volunteer in the collective. "I can't think of another art space of almost any kind in the country that is in this kind of position … it's protection from a lot of the economic and cultural forces that have been pushing against us for quite a while." Disappearing venues A space like RadStorm, which has existed in one form or another since 2003 and moved to Gottingen Street in 2018, is increasingly rare in a rapidly changing Halifax that has seen the closure of numerous venues and all-ages spaces in recent years. Fredrickson, 77, is perhaps best known for his time working as a primary care physician for hundreds of HIV/AIDS patients in Halifax during the deadliest years of that pandemic. After a long career, the now-retired Fredrickson wanted to do something to pay it forward. "This is kind of my way of saying thank you to Halifax," he said. What RadStorm does RadStorm is home to three collectives: SadRad, which hosts all-ages shows, rents jam space, leads workshops and facilitates equipment sharing. Anchor Archive Zine Library, which has over 5,000 self-published magazines in its archive. InkStorm, which offers affordable public access to screenprinting equipment and workshops. When Fredrickson first visited the space, it brought him back to his earliest days in Halifax, when he was a doctor at the Halifax Youth Clinic on Barrington Street in the 1970s. "It was a bare-bones operation," he recalled. "We had a burlap-covered couch and it was in the second floor of the Khyber building and it was kind of an ad hoc medical clinic for kids, for people who were disenfranchised … people kicked out of their homes, artists, whatever." Above the clinic was The Turret, a legendary Halifax gay bar, and the first iteration of Wormwoods Dog and Monkey Cinema. At RadStorm, Fredrickson sees young people determined to create something in spite of the social and economic conditions around them. Upcoming celebration "It's neat to see the younger people having the same kind of energy we had back in the day," he said. For the hundreds of people who've made RadStorm a home-away-from-home since its inception, the building purchase is poised to go a long way toward making sure they'll be able to keep coming back. "It feels like the tiniest little site of resistance," said Goudie. To celebrate the big purchase, and to thank Hendrickson and other donors, RadStorm will host a party on Sunday afternoon, with live music, food, and tours of the building.
