Transgender woman’s murder may have been a hate crime; Lady Gaga ends her partnership with Target over LGBT support; Sarah McLachlan announces the end of Lilith Fair; Glee adds another gay storyline as Santana comes out as a lesbian.
- A transgender woman is dead after police say she was shot and appeared to have been dragged behind a vehicle in Arkansas. The body of 25-year-old Marcel Cameo Tye was discovered alongside a highway in Forrest City. A friend of Tye’s, Jennifer Bohannon, says that the incident is most likely a hate crime. She said that Tye didn’t hide the fact that she was transgender and thinks that she was probably picked up by someone that was “high” and looking for sex, ”[a]nd when they brought him down here they probably figured out, you know, noticed that he was a “dude” and probably took it from there and shot him and killed him.” Police are investigating and autopsy results are pending.
- Lady Gaga has ended her partnership with Target for the release of her new album Born This Way. Target recently came under fire for corporate donations to anti-gay political candidates and organizations. Gaga, a outspoken gay rights advocate, called discussions about the issue “one of the most intense conversations I’ve ever had in a business meeting,” and that the deal “hinged upon their reform in the company to support the gay community and to redeem the mistakes they’ve made supporting those [antigay] groups.” Target released a statement saying, “”We were very surprised and disappointed by the statements made by Lady Gaga’s organization related to her partnership with Target. Target remains committed to the LGBT community as demonstrated by our contributions to various LGBT organizations, our recently established Policy Committee to review our political giving and our respectful, inclusive workplace environment.”
- Sarah McLachlan told the Calgary Globe and Mail that the Lilith Fair concert tour will not be returning, after meager ticket sales in 2010. From 1997-1999, the Lilith Fair tour, which featured female bands and musicians, was a critical and commercial success that raised millions of dollars for women’s charities. McLachlan revived the tour in 2010, but ticket sales were slow and many events were relocated to smaller venues or cancelled completely. McLachlan recently said, “[It’s] about learning more from our failures than our successes, and it was a beautiful organic event that happened at a point in time when it was really needed. And bringing the same thing back last year really didn’t make any sense, in retrospect, without due diligence being done on how women have changed. Because in 12 years, women have changed a lot. Their expectations have changed, the way they view the world has changed, and that was not taken into consideration, which I blame myself for.”
- Glee, which has showcased gay teen Kurt, his supportive dad and issues with bullying, is taking on another gay storyline. On this week’s episode, the usually-snarky Santana showed a much more tender side and came out as a lesbian. In an episode addressing sex education, Brittany (Heather Morris) and Santana (Naya Rivera) discuss their relationship with the substitute health teacher Holly Holiday (Gwenyth Paltrow). In past episodes the girls have been shown kissing, but both date boys. After singing a duet of Stevie Nicks’ Landslide, Santana tearfully confesses that she is in love with her best friend and pleads her to dump her boyfriend, Artie, to be with her saying “I want to be with you but I’m afraid of the talks and the looks. You know what happened to Kurt at this school.”
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