As I've said before here on the blog, just because you work in education doesn't necessarily mean you're actually, you know, educated. Such is the case with California Baptist University, a religious post-secondary school that expelled a student when it was discovered she is a transgender woman.

Domaine Javier had already been accepted to California Baptist University’s nursing program with a dual scholarship in music and academics when she came out as transgender on an episode of MTV’s “True Life” in 2011. Months after the show aired, Javier received a letter from the university accusing her of fraud: She had listed her gender as female on her admissions application, an identity claim California Baptist refused to accept. Shortly after that, Javier was expelled. 

[...] Goldberg also believes that the school’s policy sets up women like Javier to fail no matter what they do. If Javier, who has identified and presented as a woman for years, had checked off “male” on her admissions form, the school may have questioned her application anyway. After all, her gender presentation and application still wouldn’t have “matched.” 

“There is no indication from these facts that the student intended to misrepresent herself or her identity to the school. In fact, as the complaint points out, to represent herself as male would have also created the appearance of fraud. It’s a we-win-you-lose framework,” according to Goldberg. [SOURCE]

Unfortunately, that pretty much nails the crux of discrimination on the head: they can back it up with whatever arbitrary rules they want -- "The Bible says so!" or "It's special rights!" tend to be the usual ones -- but the thing about arbitrary rules is that they can literally mean anything they need to. Regardless how a trans person identifies themself, some asshole is going to do mental gymnastics until they can find a way to justify their own dipshit hatred. If this university has a problem with transgender students, then this university has a problem. And that's their own damn fault, not Javier's.

In the past year, pro-gay NFL players like Brendon Ayanbadejo and Chris Kluwe have become prominent internet darlings, while others . . . didn't. Hell, the San Francisco 49ers ended up in a PR nightmare after pulling their It Gets Better video right before the Super Bowl, which (ironically) they lost to Ayanbadejo's team. Every once in a while, karma gets one right.

Even though public opinion outside of and within the NFL is moving toward pro-equality, there will always be a few bigoted holdouts, still hanging on to dumb ideas out of habit. Kinda like a certain unnamed NFL team asking prospective players whether or not they liked girls.

“They ask you like, ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’  Are you married?’  Do you like girls?’” Kasa told ESPN Radio Denver on Tuesday. “Those kinds of things, and you know it was just kind of weird. But they would ask you with a straight face, and it’s a pretty weird experience altogether.” [SOURCE]

Not only is asking prospective hires about their sexuality morally wrong, it also happens to be legally wrong. The problem is that, from a purely legal prospective, an interviewer can allude to sexual orientation, which would explain why the question was phrased as the vaguer, more platonic "Do you like girls?" rather than them coming right out and asking, "Are you gay?" It's an uncomfortable legal grey area, to say the least.

Well, the good news is that the tide is still pushing toward pro-equality, as exemplified by rappers Macklemore and Ryan Lewis doing a video for the You Can Play project, calling out anti-gay language in sports. While we're still not where we need to be when it comes to equality in sports, at least we're getting somewhere. 

Another Tuesday, another Drag Race RuCap . . . After last week's near impossible ballet challenge, this week sees a softball being lobbed in the form of the annual Snatch Game! Naturally, it wouldn't be RuPaul's Drag Race if a good chunk of them didn't fuck up horribly, so let's look at the shit that worked and the shit that snatched.

Season 5 has been lauded by some as "The Season of the Fish," probably because of the number of purely look queens as opposed to those who can actually create a cogent character or write a decent joke. To wit, there are maybe four queens in the entire group who can actually entertain, while the others are capable of little more than occupying space and being pretty. On the other hand, considering how often the entertaining queens have come out on top, while the "look" queens have consistently fallen flat, the aquatic revolution may dry up faster than some of these queens might think.

Jinkx Monsoon, in particular, is an easy lightning rod for the fishier queens, who seem particularly fond of ganging up on her for not serving girly-girl realness. When the queens enter the work room after the double elimination of Vivienne Pinay and Honey Mahogany (oh look, two fish! How about that?) they're given the mini-challenge of restyling "cuddlers," aka Snuggies, into prêt-à-porter fashion. The queens for the most part do decently well, with the major kudos going to Detox's neon repurposing of zebra print, Roxxxy's pairing of a cheetah print with a corset, and Alyssa's . . . wearing of a caftan. All in all, it's a conceptually neat challenge, but considering no one wins an edge in the main challenge, it's really only good for a fleeting shot of the Pit Crew wearing nothing but Snuggies and their best "Please kill me" faces.

But who cares about that when we can focus on what really matters: THE SNATCH GAME! Yes, everyone's favourite mid-season challenge is back for another round. Now, considering that The Snatch Game has been a staple of Drag Race for four seasons, and considering that the format has not changed one bit since its inception, you would figure the queens would have their game planned down to the very last joke. And yet almost half of the queens are clawing for straws, and the overall amount of skill here is lacking severely. As RuPaul once said, don't be a victim of what you don't know. Unfortunately, most of the queens are utterly dicktimized by their own stupidity, and it becomes quickly apparent who will and will not be going much further. 

The biggest fuss is made over Jinkx Monsoon, who decides to be Little Edie from Grey Gardens. Despite the fact that it's a must-see for any gay out there, most of the queens are wholly unaware of who Little Edie is, which should be considered a drag sin. I mean really, that's like admitting you've never watched Victor/Victoria. How very dare they! Roxxxy Andrews, in particular, questions Jinkx's decision to go with an obscure character, before announcing that she'll be portraying Toni Braxton's sister. I'm not sure in which universe Braxton Family Values is more well known than Grey Gardens, but I never want to go there.

The biggest red flags of the night, however, go to Alyssa Edwards and Lineysha Sparx. Considering Alyssa is immune this week, there's never any worry about her place in the competition so much as it's an opportunity to flounder tremendously. Alyssa bounces around from one personality-devoid D-list starlet to another before settling on Katy Perry. Specifically, the version of Katy Perry from about three years ago. Lineysha decides to be slightly more topical, with a Michelle Obama, until Ru points out that Lineysha doesn't have any idea how to do a good FLOTUS. Lineysha, now dejected, decides to go with Celia Cruz, if Celia Cruz was a shapeless blob of blue fabric and an ill-fitting white wig.

After many frantic, last-minute decisions, the queens finally gather together for The Snatch Game, with celebrity(ish) guests Downtown Julie Brown and . . . um, another Julie Brown. That won't get annoying fast. Anyway, it very quickly becomes obvious who the winners are and who the losers are. Despite the general confusion of the other queens, Jinkx's Little Edie is fully realized, as she manages to plum the minute idiosyncrasies and turn them into a well-formed larger picture. Jinkx demands attention based on her talent, and where other queens drop the ball, she easily intercepts it to score points. 

While Jinkx is the clear winner, Alaska pulls into an easy second, thanks to a surprisingly spot-on impression of Lady Bunny. The voice is slightly off, but Alaska knows how to create characters with strong, clear points of view. In third place is, surprisingly enough, Roxxxy, who despite picking the least recognizable personality out of everyone involved, manages to use the blank slate to pull off a believable diva character. In the clearly marked safe category are Jade Jolie's Taylor Swift, who's passably funny, and Coco Montrese's Janet Jackson. According to Coco, she performs as Janet "six times a week!" Which just goes to show that just because you do something a lot doesn't necessarily mean you do it well. Coco's look is on-point, but the humour is non-existent.

Still, nothing compares to how badly the remaining queens do. Detox, despite being clever and hysterically funny, can't pull off a Kesha impression, even though the two are actually friends. Detox tries to liven things up by peeing on the floor, but it does nothing to salvage a boring character. Ivy Winters, the most generic queen there, dials in an utterly generic Marilyn Monroe. But Alyssa and Lineysha are the very worst of the bunch. Alyssa's Katy Perry can't land a punch line, even when Ru practically spoon-feeds one to her. Lineysha, on the other hand, fails in every conceivable direction with her Celia Cruz. Her wardrobe and makeup look like a bad Halloween costume at a frat party, and her lack of English comprehension means that her character is dead on arrival. 

As some of you might remember, last year's Snatch Game ended with the more mature queens taking the crazier ones to task for being immature and reckless during their performance. This year, we trip through the mirror of insanity where all the boring, fishy queens gang up on poor little Jinkx because she apparently can't do glamour. Eye roll. Sorry, but the fishy queens this season are just toxic to the art form. Drag queens are entertainers. Ergo, they're supposed to be entertaining. But the fishy queens this season are stuck on pure aesthetic, and their complete disregard for entertainment value just enrages me to no end.

Continuing onward with this episode's heavy fish-based narrative, the runway category this week is "The Deadliest Snatch." Literally. Some queens take this quite literally, with Ivy coming out in a goldfish gown, Detox wearing a puffy jellyfish-inspired dress, and Alaska walking the runway carrying a trout. A literal trout. Others go a little more aquatic-inspired, with Jinkx donning an aquamarine poncho and Alyssa going with a mermaid gown. Others barely bother with the whole "fish" thing: Roxxxy serves a modern-day Liza, Jade and Alyssa both go with black lace looks, and Coco, for some reason, decides to do a pink giraffe-print catsuit. To be honest, Coco's look is one part Chad Michaels' zebra suit, one part Nicki Minaj, and 50 parts cheap, bargain-bin trash.

Coco and Jade are both designated safe for their passable-at-best impressions, and Alyssa is also given a safe pass, but with the addendum from Ru that she actually has to apologize to Katy Perry on Twitter. You know you fucked up when Ru forces you to say sorry for how bad you sucked. To the surprise of no one, Jinkx, Alaska and Roxxxy all score in the top three, although Michelle Visage, for some reason, decides to try to read Jinkx for a "pedestrian" look. I like Michelle, I really do, but a) that's horseshit and b) if you're going to come for someone's "pedestrian" look, maybe you shouldn't be wearing a cardigan like you just finished your shift at Forever 21. Regardless, RuPaul appreciates Jinkx's impression, and she takes the win.

In the bottom, Ivy's Marilyn is read for being blander than a mayonnaise sandwich on white bread, but thankfully, the judges adore her goldfish dress enough to let her off the hook. Detox's Kesha, while weak, wouldn't have been bottom two if it weren't for the fact that the judges loved Ivy's dress and hated hers. And since Alyssa is immune, she ends up on the bottom with Lineysha. Despite a strong start in the first couple of episodes, Lineysha's been floundering in the latest batch of challenges, probably because they involved wit and coherent speech.

In light of last week's double elimination, Detox and Lineysha both take on Cher's "Take Me Home" with their absolute best. Lineysha's a marvellous dancer, but Detox's style of lip-synching is . . . unique. Maybe it's from all the plastic surgery in her face, but Detox's lips and lower jaw wiggle and jiggle like they're made of jello, and the effect is mesmerizing. Detox lures in the judges with her mandible-gymnastics and then seals her win with a twirl that practically sends Lineysha flying back home. The good news is that one of the all-look, no-comedy queens has been sent home. Hopefully, the judges will keep looking at talent over look, or maybe Alyssa, Coco and Ivy will be kept around until the very end. Blurg.

Hey, so remember how Rob Ford broke campaign spending rules by exceeding the limit by about $40,000? Yeah, well, turns out they're not going to bother prosecuting him after all.

The city’s three-member compliance committee voted 2-1 on Monday to drop the case rather than begin a prosecution. Ford would have faced possible penalties including a fine and removal from office.

The committee meeting ended in dramatic fashion. Committee member John Hollins tabled a motion to prosecute. But Virginia MacLean quietly said she dissented. After a pause, Colbourne said he too would not support Hollins's proposal. 

In an hour-long presentation, Ford's lawyer, Tom Barlow, had argued that a prosecution would not serve "the public interest." Ford's breaches were small and inadvertent, he said, and Ford has learned important lessons. [SOURCE]

And herein lies the crux of trying to attack Rob Ford: while he's constantly -- CONSTANTLY -- fucking up, it's never bad enough for people to go into full-blown outrage. A roll of the eyes, a week's worth of punch lines maybe, but one of the few things Ford does right is that he screws up enough to get called out but not enough for the city by and large to hold him accountable.

The result of this is that Ford's fan base rallies behind him stronger. His poll numbers actually went up from 45 percent to 48 percent since the campaign spending trial. I get it: Ford seems like a humble man of the people, in that he's about as competent as any average Torontonian could be. It's relatable. And when the government cracks down on him, it just makes it look like big government is going after the common folk, despite the fact that Ford is rich as balls, and oh yes, he's the mayor of Toronto. But people will still see it as elitists and intellectuals condescending to the average person.

Once again, I like the average Torontonian. But I don't want the average person running a city. I want the smartest, most competent people available. I want someone who actually knows what they're doing, and not just someone who fucks up but never so badly that it can't be glazed over. A lack of knowledge or experience can be forgivable within reason, but not when you're running one of the biggest cities in North America. 

Out of all the comic-book heroes, no one will ever be as impossibly sexy as Wolverine. He's Canadian, he's rugged, he's hairy, he has claws that jut out of his hands that look like they might be fun in bed . . . He's kinda the total package.

Well, good news: Wolverine is going gay! Sorta. In the new issue of X-Treme X-Men #10, an alternate-universe Wolverine is not only openly gay, but he even has a Tom of Finland boyfriend. *SPLOOSH*

In the latest issue of Marvel’s X-Treme X-Men #10, Wolverine gets a new, muscular lover in demigod Hercules, one who urges him to wear more leather. Because that is what boyfriends do! Sadly, this Wolverine is from an alternate universe (as is that other Green Lantern, it’s kinda hard for us mere mortals here to understand), so don’t expect to see Hugh Jackman getting it on with a dude any time soon. [SOURCE]

Oh god, is it weird that I'm already thinking about what the sex is like? I feel like we need to know this. This is vital information we're dealing with here. I bet they're into the weird stuff. Please let them be into the weird stuff. 

[IMG SOURCE: newnownext.com]