Happy Saturday,
💍 OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman is now a married man. The tech mogul was recently in the news after being sacked and then reinstated as OpenAI's leader. The company is behind ChatGPT, the generative AI product. Altman married his partner Oliver Mulherin at a seaside ceremony. Congrats to the couple! 👨🏻🤝👨🏼
🚨 Republicans in West Virginia and Indiana are going after transgender people. Isn't this very 2023? Lawmakers in West Virginia introduced legislation that would force mental health professionals to “cure” transgender people and another piece of legislation categorizes transgender people as “obscene." A Republican legislator in Indiana wants to define gender in state law as the “biological sex” assigned at birth, effectively erasing transgender and nonbinary people, and to deny recognition to same-sex marriages. Yes, that's going after trans people and queer marriages. 🚨
🦀 A Maryland man was sentenced to two years in prison for threatening the Human Rights Campaign and LGBTQ+ lawmakers. In a comment to The Advocate, HRC said, "We are grateful to law enforcement for acting so quickly to keep our community safe after HRC received these specific threats, and we are pleased that a sentencing has been issued. We will continue our work to call out those who spread violence, fear, and disinformation.”
🇬🇷 🏛️ Greece looks to be set to pass a law legalizing marriage equality. Stefanos Kasselakis, the gay leader of the opposition party Syriza, said his party would back the legislation. He commented, however, that the law would still limit parental rights for LGBTQ+ people due to denying queer couples the ability to use surrogacy. Adoption by queer couples will be part of the reforms. Civil unions for same-sex couples have been legal in Greece since 2015.
In other news:
Alex
Each week, The Advocate newsletter has a little bit of LGBTQ+ trivia. Tuesday, you'll get the question. Thursday, you'll get a hint. And today, you'll get the answer.
This week's question was: What television show featured the first lesbian kiss on primetime network television?
This week's answer is: L.A. Law. The show aired between 1986-1994 on NBC and won several Emmy awards. The episode that featured the kiss premiered in 1991. In the episode, CJ Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) helps vulnerable lawyer Abby Perkins (Michele Greene) and they end up kissing. The kiss has been described as the beginning of the craze where tv shows would have a so-called "lesbian kiss episode." And while the actors on the show said it was essentially a publicity stunt (which turned out to be a successful one), it made LGBTQ+ history and brought with it more queer visibility.
✨ Congratulations to Carol for getting it right! ✨
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