Gautam Raghavan, here speaking to President Barack Obama in 2013, joins a wave of newly selected gay officials that will join the Biden-Harris administration

Gautam Raghavan, an out gay Indian American, will join the new Biden administration as deputy director for the Office of Presidential Personnel, the president-elect’s transition team has announced.

During the Obama administration, Raghavan served as the White House liaison for the LGBTQ, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander communities. In his post in the Biden administration, he will be in charge of recruiting and vetting top candidates for at least 4,000 political appointments to federal agencies from the Department of Labor to the Attorney General’s Office.

“These experienced individuals are joining my administration to carry out policies that will put our nation on a path to building back better than ever before,” Biden said in a press release. “They are respected leaders whose values and priorities align with my own and who will dutifully execute their roles to serve the American people.”

In a tweet, Raghavan praised the administration’s choice.

“It’s time again for an administration that looks like America — and will produce results that are good for ALL Americans,” Raghavan tweeted on December 22. “I’m honored to serve. Let’s go!”

As a senior member of Obama’s White House team, Raghavan led conversations on immigration reform, transgender rights, and marriage equality.

During his tenure in that administration, President Barrack Obama changed his stance on same-sex marriage. In 2012, the president announced his support for marriage equality, despite opposing it on the 2008 campaign trail. Two years later, he signed an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The LGBTQ Victory Institute, an advocacy group and affiliate of the LGBTQ Victory Fund working to elect out gay candidates to political office, applauded the administration’s pick.

“Gautam’s appointment demonstrates the president-elect’s long-term commitment to building an administration that is reflective of America,” Annise Parker, the organization’s president and a former three-term Houston mayor, said in a written statement. “He believes a diverse administration best serves the president and our nation and will ensure appointing qualified LGBTQ people, women, and people of color at every level of government remains a priority for the next four years.”

Since the Bill Clinton presidency, the Victory Institute’s Presidential Appointment Initiative has put forward gay candidates in hopes of diversifying the Executive Branch’s composition. The group said Raghavan is skilled in identifying the needs of the community.

“Gautam also understands our community is not monolithic and that LGBTQ people of all races, sexual orientations, and gender identities must be part of the new administration,” wrote Parker in the press release. “He is an excellent choice and our Presidential Appointments Initiative team looks forward to continue working with him.”

Raghavan was born in India and raised in Seattle and graduated from Stanford University. Currently, he lives in Washington, DC, with his husband and their daughter.

Raghavan joins several newly nominated LGBTQ officials like Pete Buttigieg to head the Transportation Department and Karine Jean-Pierre to serve as White House principal deputy press secretary that are part of Biden’s 2021 team.

Anyone seen it and is it any good?

We watched it again on Xmas day (after many years - had forgotten most of the story)... bit cheesy but still fun and feel good movie.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002XK3BLA (US)

or

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01I26MIZI (UK)

I got a phone call from my mom yesterday, she wasn't feeling too well and went to get tested, and she was positive for Covid.

Because I was at their house on Saturday and Sunday, I went to get tested with my dad and brother Chris.  Dad was negative.  Chris and I are positive for Covid.

Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey thinks it would be “brilliant” if gay men were playing their “own experiences” on screen

The actor, who is gay but plays a straight character in the big-budget Netflix period drama, told Digital Spy that he would like to see gay actors taking on their own stories in film and television.

“I think it shouldn’t matter at all what character people play, but of course there is a narrative that’s very clear, that openly gay men aren’t playing straight in leading roles,” Bailey said.

“And also, there’s a reason why gay characters are so interesting. Because much like women in Bridgerton, there are a lot of hurdles and there’s a lot of self-growth, and there’s a real strength to gay men.”

Bailey continued: “So the fact that a lot of straight men have gone on to play iconic gay roles and to be lauded for that is fantastic, that that story is being told.

“But wouldn’t it be brilliant to see gay men play their own experience?”

Should straight actors be handed gay roles?
The issue of straight actors playing gay roles on-screen has been a source of contention within the film industry, and within the wider LGBT+ community, for years.

Numerous straight actors have won awards and accolades for taking on gay roles – but many LGBT+ actors and filmmakers have pointed out that access to roles is not equal across the board.

Henry Golding, a straight actor, recently won acclaim for playing a gay man in Monsoon, and told EW in November that he might “never come to a conclusion” about whether it’s acceptable for straight actors to play gay characters.

“Representation needs to be truthful on screen, but then does that limit artistry?” he said.

“It’s a merry-go-round of conversation and I think neither really… how should I put it… neither are right, neither are wrong.”

Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart – who is bisexual – also waded into the debate recently following her turn in lesbian Christmas rom-com Happiest Season.

She told Variety that she thinks about the debate of straight actors playing gay characters “all the time”, adding: “I would never want to tell a story that really should be told by somebody who’s lived that experience.

“Having said that, it’s a slippery slope conversation because that means I could never play another straight character if I’m going to hold everyone to the letter of this particular law.”

“I think it’s such a grey area,” she added. “There are ways for men to tell women’s stories, or ways for women to tell men’s stories. But we need to have our finger on the pulse and actually have to care.

She added: “You kind of know where you’re allowed. I mean, if you’re telling a story about a community and they’re not welcoming to you, then f**k off.”

Bisexual men are more likely to experience eating disorders than either heterosexual or gay men, according to a new report from the University of California San Francisco.

Numerous studies have indicated that gay men are at increased risk for disordered eating — including fasting, excessive exercise and preoccupation with weight and body shape. But the findings, published this month in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders, suggest that bisexual men are even more susceptible to some unhealthy habits.

In a sampling of over 4,500 LGBTQ adults, a quarter of bisexual men reported having fasted for more than eight hours to influence their weight or appearance, compared to 20 percent of gay men. Eighty percent of bisexual men reported that they "felt fat," and 77 percent had a strong desire to lose weight, compared to 79 percent and 75 percent of gay men, respectively.

Not everyone who diets or feels fat has an eating disorder, said a co-author of the study, Dr. Jason Nagata, a professor of pediatric medicine at UCSF. "It's a spectrum — from some amount of concern to a tipping point where it becomes a pathological obsession about body weight and appearance," Nagata said.

Of all the respondents, 3.2 percent of bi males had been clinically diagnosed with eating disorders, compared to 2.9 percent of gay men. That stacks up to 0.6 percent of heterosexual men, according to research from the Yale University School of Medicine.

Nagata said the discrepancies highlight the need to conduct eating disorder research on various sexual identities independently. "Prior studies on eating disorders in sexual minority men have grouped gay and bisexual men together, so it was difficult to understand the unique characteristics in bisexual men."

Several factors may be at play, he said, including "minority stress," the concept that the heightened anxiety faced by marginalized groups can manifest as poor mental and physical health outcomes.

"LGBTQ people experience stigma and discrimination, and stressors can definitely lead to disordered eating," Nagata said. "For bi men, they're not just facing stigma from the straight community but from the gay community, as well."

The bisexual advocate and author Zachary Zane said this "double discrimination" often leads to loneliness, depression and a fear of coming out.

"We face ostracization from both sides, or if we're embraced by the LGBTQ world, it's because we're hiding our authentic selves," Zane said. "When you feel everything is out of control, [food] is something you can have control over. I can understand how that would be appealing."

Thirty percent of bi men in the survey reported being afraid of losing control of their eating, and nearly a third said they had difficulty focusing on work or other activities because they were thinking about food, eating or calories.

While binge eating was similar among gay and bi men in this report, a 2018 American Psychiatric Association study of university students found that bisexual men were three times as likely to binge eat as their gay classmates and five times as likely as heterosexual male students.

It relies on self-identification for sexual orientation and allows respondents to choose multiple identities or even write in their own. For the sake of the report, Nagata's team categorized cisgender men who identify as bisexual, pansexual, polysexual or otherwise attracted to more than one gender as "bisexual-plus."

Bisexuals, the largest demographic in the LGBTQ community, face numerous health disparities, including higher rates of obesity, substance abuse, binge drinking, sexually transmitted illnesses, cardiovascular disease and even some forms of cancers. Thirty-nine percent of bisexual men say they have never told a doctor about their sexual orientation, three times the percentage of gay men, according to a 2012 study by the Williams Institute.

A recent study in JAMA Pediatrics found that, in the first three years after having come out, bisexuals were twice as likely to start smoking as lesbians or gay men.

Bisexual youth are at an elevated risk for self-harm: Forty-four percent of bi high schoolers have seriously considered suicide, compared to a quarter of gay teens and less than 10 percent of heterosexual students, according to a 2011 study from the University of Illinois College of Education. And a 2013 report in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that suicidal thoughts did not decrease as they entered adulthood, as they did for gay and straight people.

But few diagnostic tools or treatment programs make adequate distinctions, Nagata said, even for gender: Most assessment tools for eating disorders, for example, were devised for cisgender women, and they can overlook behaviors more common among men, like eating more to gain mass. While only 3 percent of the bisexual male study subjects had been diagnosed with eating disorders by clinicians, nearly a quarter met the criteria based on their answers.

"Raising awareness of these differences is the first step," he said. "Having tailored interventions for LGBTQ people, for bisexual people, is just common sense. It's not a one-size-fits-all treatment program."

Zane said that if researchers want to help bi men with eating disorders, they need to address the unique roots of bi men's depression, anxiety and need for control.

"When researchers lump bi and gay men together, it not only contributes to bi erasure — implying that bi men have the same struggles and identity as gay men — it also leads to ineffective treatments," he said. "If the goal is to actually help bisexual men, then all research needs to parse them out from gay men, period." healthy eating habits.

David Atherton grew up in a homophobic family with a mother who loved health foods

When I think about Christmas parties and family get-togethers — which might be almost nonexistent this year — I think about cookies. Maybe most of us do. The best holiday parties are the ones with the best cookies. You can always tell who actually bakes their cookies versus buying packages of them. The cookie snob in me thinks it’s shameful to see Pepperidge Farm Milanos on a tray of what are supposed to be holiday treats.

David Atherton, the 2019 winner of the Netflix hit The Great British Baking Show (known in the U.K. as The Great British Bake Off), felt for some of his life like those misplaced Milanos, a gay sweets-eater with a health food-eating mom and a religious family with bigotry toward the LGBTQ+ community.

“My mum had five kids and tried to make all the household chores into games, like killing two birds with one stone kind of thing,” Atherton told me. “So from my earliest memories, we played with masses of bread dough like it was Play-Doh. My mum was a hippie and very into healthy food, so I was brought up with healthy eating tastes, which has been amazing for my adult life and really influenced my baking.”

Atherton originally studied art and design before deciding on a career in health care and training as a nurse. He then picked up a postgraduate degree in wilderness and expedition medicine and worked as a health adviser for the British aid organization Voluntary Services Overseas, assisting in various countries around the world, including Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, and Malawi, but always with a deep-dished interest and a natural flair for baking.

When the baking show first aired in the U.K., David’s friends and family all asked him to jump into the proverbial oven of competition, but he kept putting it off. “Applying for a TV show felt like something other people did, plus I had little experience in the world of frostings, meringues, and all the other high-sugar baking techniques that didn’t interest me to eat so therefore I rarely made,” Atherton intoned with some inside jargon that made my mouth water.  “My journey to baking stardom doesn’t necessarily come from a foundation of baking but really from a love of all food and a personality that thrives under pressure and stays calm.”

Atherton needed that sense of calm to ride out the turbulence of being surrounded by homophobia, which left a bitter taste in his mouth, like a gone-wrong tiramisu. “My coming out process was very similar to my journey onto Bake Off,” Atherton recalled. “I spent years, through fear and shame, putting off what would terrify me — coming out — but fundamentally would make me happy.”

As he came from a religious family and grew up surrounded by hate and bigotry toward the LGBTQ+ community, this meant that Atherton experienced a sense of self-loathing. “Not only did I grow up ashamed and filled with self-hate, I also grew up homophobic,” he said with a sense of sadness. “Breaking down internalized homophobia is so tough when it has been ingrained from such a young age.”

Eventually he realized that coming out meant speaking out for all LGBTQ+ people, outside of his small world. “Shame is a cancer that eats away at us, and to fight it you need to be vulnerable. I learned from a young age how to hide my true self and to not allow myself to be vulnerable. Coming out was terrifying but made me brave to step up and try new things and push myself. I stayed in the closet until I was 30, but since then I’ve found the most amazing person ever, and I’ve won a national baking competition. Vulnerability has really paid off.”

Since he won the Netflix hit show, life has changed for Atherton. “Everything is very surreal. You know what you’re applying for when you fill in the application form, but you never believe you’re going to get on the show [over 17,000 people applied], and once you’ve started, the next step comes quickly after the next, and before you know it the final is complete, and you have to be ready to become a household name. I still find it strange that so many people follow me on Instagram, but my day-to-day life has not changed too much.”

Part of that ordinary life is his relationship with his fiancé, Nik. “I am in a relationship with the most amazing man. We recently got engaged, and this is not something I could ever have dreamed of throughout most of my life. Nik was the person who taught me how to be vulnerable, and he has been my greatest teacher in loving myself.”

Atherton said Nik shares in his success. “My success is not my success, it’s our success. I may be the face of my win on Bake Off, but Nik was there every step of the way. Since the show finished, Nik has been the key person driving any success I’ve had subsequently. He is such a strategist. I just want to bake bread! He continually pushes me to do new things. We recently bought our first apartment together in London and we’re enjoying making a home.”

I’m sure that Atherton and Nik will throw some fabulous holiday parties once they’re married and once we’re out of the quarantine of COVID-19, and I’m sure Nik won’t let his bread-baking husband put Milanos out for guests. So, to that end, Atherton was kind enough to share an easy holiday cookie recipe below.

Christmas cookies

Ingredients

150g all-purpose (plain) flour
125g white bread flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp mixed spice
100g unsalted butter (room temp)
100g caster (superfine) sugar
1 medium egg

Icing/frosting

200g icing (confectioner’s) sugar
1 medium egg white

Method

1. Put the flours, cocoa powder, and spices into a bowl and toss until mixed.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the egg until smooth.
4. Mix this with the dry mix until it forms a dough (do not overknead), then wrap and put in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until 0.5 centimeters thick. Cut out any shapes you want and remember to cut out little holes if you want to hang them on the tree. Transfer to baking trays lined with baking paper then put in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius /330 degrees Fahrenheit (fan-assisted).
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are just browning, then allow to cool for five minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
8. Beat the icing (confectioner’s) sugar and egg white together until smooth. Transfer to a piping bag and pipe on any decorations you would like. Allow to fully harden before hanging (or eating).

Graham Norton 'pretended to be shocked' when Barry Manilow came out as gay

Graham Norton has revealed singer Barry Manilow told him he was gay over dinner months before coming out publicly - and he had to pretend to be surprised.

When the Copacabana singer confided in him, Norton admits it was 'very hard' to choose a facial expression to react as he had long presumed he was gay anyway.

The 57 year old presenter says he thought it 'insane' that Manilow, now 77, had waited so long to go public.

Speaking on the How To Wow podcast, Norton said: "I was so glad I was out before I had any public profile, because I think that must be such a weird thing of having to decide.

"I remember I had dinner with Barry Manilow, and he came out to me at the dinner.

"It's very hard to choose a facial expression for that news, because you don't want to rude and go 'duh'.

"I feel I can talk about this, because he has come out now - he is publicly gay.

"But for years, he wasn't. His private life was very private. He sort of took me into his confidence.

"To me, that's sort of insane: that Barry Manilow still is having those conflicts in his head about 'what will my fans think?'

"Presumably, there are fans who were shocked, I don't know.

"People thought Liberace was straight to the end, so who knows."

Manilow came out in April 2017, revealing he had wed his manager Garry Kief in 2014.

Norton - whose real name is Graham Walker - said he moved to London, where he studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama, to 'move where the gays were' after his strict protestant upbringing in Ireland.

He said: "I came out in a world that was immediately accepting.

"[American comedian] Sam Kinison used to do this routine about famine.

"He was a real angry shouty, comic... he used to scream.

"He would do this routine about famine, and he would go 'move where the food is. You live in a desert, move where the food is.'

"So I moved where the gays were, because in London there were lots of them.

It was a ready-made gay world."

Norton has won five BAFTA TV Awards for The Graham Norton Show, which succeeded Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on BBC One in 2010.

I watch a lot of Louis Rossman's content on YouTube. Just insane and disgusting....