Historic Jewel’s Catch One Disco is For Sale

Since 1973, when she opened Jewel’s Catch One Disco as the nation’s largest black gay nightclub, Jewel Thais-Williams has been intent on providing LGBT people of color a venue in which customers could have fun and enjoy or discover their authentic selves…The money Jewel made from The Catch often went to subsidize other non-profits, such as Rue’s House, the nation’s first housing for women and children with HIV/AIDS, run by Jewel’s wife Rue.

But in recent years, young people have been seeking other locations for their parties and Jewel’s attention has become more and more focused on serving people through her alternative medical clinic, The Village Health Foundation.

In the past few weeks, Jewel confirmed in a phone interview Tuesday, she decided to sell The Catch’s huge building complex at 4067 W. Pico Blvd, plus the clinic building next door, and the parking lot that serves them both.

“I haven’t listed it yet but I am talking to interested buyers,” Jewel said. “You know—you have to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em and it’s time to fold and move on.”

See more at Frontiers LA.

UPDATE: In a recent press release, Jewel wrote, “Effective, as of Saturday, September 27th 2014, Jewel’s Catch One Night Club will change its management and format. It will become a live entertainment complex with various diverse and sundry promoters and shows offered to all communities. Thank you for 41 plus years.”

Louisiana Gay Marriage Case on Fast Track at Appeals Court

A federal challenge to Louisiana’s gay marriage ban is on the fast track for review at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a move that could help push the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit on Thursday agreed to expedite the schedule for the Louisiana case, which will catch it up with a similar Texas case also before the appeals court.

The appeal comes after U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman of New Orleans upheld Louisiana’s same-sex marriage ban, the first loss in federal court after a string of more than 20 victories for gay marriage advocates since the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage being between a man and a woman.

Continue reading at NOLA.com.

It’s Bi Visibility Day, & I Want You To See Me

I am bisexual. I’ve finally found peace with this word, & am able to claim it while withstanding all of its negative connotations without shrinking. There’s something very radical to me about the word bisexual—to say it with pride, to use it as mine—probably because it has been so stigmatized.

People hate the word so much (I used to hate it, too), & they shy away from claiming it as there’s because of the bad vibes it can give off. So they use other words—queer, pansexual, fluid, heteroflexible—to take the sting out of what it implies.

But I’ve recently discovered that I don’t actually want to take the sting out; the sting needs to exist. The sting incites, prompts awareness.

And so I use the word bisexual these days very much like I use the word feminist—as a form of political activism & radical self-acceptance; to take up space & fan the flames of my own inner fire.

I am bisexual, & I am married—two major pieces of my beingness that I used to see as contradictory, but have transformed into symbols of my inherent complexity.

No, my fluid sexuality doesn’t negate my married self, & my marriage to a man (who, for the record, doesn’t identify as straight) doesn’t negate my sexuality. They work hand-in-hand simply because I’ve chosen to make them work in this way.

Continue reading on Sex, Love, Liberation.

Because I’m Black, Too

As a high school junior, I was chosen to take part in Smith College’s Women of Distinction program, an initiative designed to attract academically high-achieving students of color to the prestigious liberal arts college. During my long weekend at Smith, I attended a lecture on the formation of black racial identity, and first came across the concept of nigrescence: the psychological process of becoming black, or assimilating blackness into one’s identity and self-conception. By the end of the lecture, I had a page full of hastily scrawled notes. This, I knew, was the thing I’d been longing for, and felt incomplete and sketched without.

But, then, I couldn’t shake the notion that this concept — this lecture, this program — weren’t resources I should even have access to. Because I’m only half black.

Read more over at Autostraddle.com.

Why I’m Not Really Here For Emma Watson’s Feminism Speech At the U.N.

Actor Emma Watson, of Harry Potter movie fame, is a new Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women and she spoke at the UN on Saturday to launch the HeForShe campaign, which aims to mobilize men to end gender inequality somehow (the campaign doesn’t seem to call men to any particular action of any sort). The campaign wants men to make gender equality their issue, too, and Ms. Watson extended “a formal invitation” to men to do so.

Some of the mainstream (white) feminist interwebs are all abuzz because, according to said mainstream (white) feminist interwebs, it was all kinds of awesome and really, really next-level or something. Yes, some of it was very good. Ms. Watson talked about how she came into feminism herself, after experiences such as being sexualized by the media at age 14. For the first few minutes, the speech is awesome.

Then, around the 6 minute mark, it gets…less good.

Continue reading on Black Girl Dangerous.