Minimum 3 nights> 16% off Best Available Rate
Minimum 4 nights> 20% off Best Available Rate
Minimum 5 nights> 22% off Best Available Rate

CONDITIONS:

Offer subject to availability.
Booking period until 30/12/2011.
100% cancellation fee. Cancellations or changes will entail penalty of 100% of the total.
Reservations are not refundable.
Offer valid for rooms Axel City Doble Estándar y Axel Premium, prices only
accommodation and included VAT.

Gay fetish fest Folsom Europe returned to Berlin for five days from Wednesday September 1 to Monday 6, and Axel Hotel Berlin joined the celebration!!

Tripout Gay Travel Award - Vote for Axel Please!!

Axel Hotels has been nominated for “2010 Gay Travel Awards” in the category of “The Best Hotel Collection.”  We need your precious vote to win.

If we win the vote, we´ll throw a FIESTA in each of our hotels in Barcelona, Berlin and Buenos Aires to celebrate with you!

http://www.tripoutgaytravel.com/vote/?question=hotel

VOTE FOR:  
 Best Hotel Chain

Mentioned earlier this year, it seems Portugal might soon become the sixth European country to allow same-sex marriage. Back in January, their Parliament passed a gay marriage bill with the support from their left-of-center parties.

And in even better news, this past Thursday, Portugal’s highest court ruled that the proposed law should be enacted! This now leaves only their conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silva, who has the power to ratify or veto, to decide within the next 20 days.

The president’s signature is the final step before their country can be free to have the equal rights they all deserve.

Original posting: http://perezhilton.com/2010-04-09-portugal-might-soon-allow-gay-marriage

Destination is a lot like any number of gay bars in the United States, but outside of the club, it’s a different world for gays in China.

Openness about homosexuality is seen by some as too much of a refutation of the Communist Party line in a country where men are pressured by the government and tradition to marry and father a child, gays say.

Gay festivals are shut down and websites closed, and laws preventing discrimination do not exist.

“If something’s different and you publicly promote it, (the authorities) worry it could get out of control and threaten their harmonious society,” says Bin Xu, director of Common Language, a lesbian, gay and transgender support group based in Beijing.

In January, authorities canceled the Mr. Gay China pageant an hour before it was to start. Police in Songzhuang, an artist’s colony in the suburbs of Beijing, sought last year to shut down a gay arts exhibition, which Xu’s group helped organize, because it was deemed “not proper,” Xu says.

She negotiated with authorities and was allowed to hold the event after taking down four paintings.

Even in Hong Kong — where the Mr. Gay Hong Kong pageant took place with no government interference — men such as Tik Wai Yeung, 25, say they can’t freely express themselves because of cultural pressures to hide their homosexuality.

“It’ll be 30 more years before it’s normal to walk on the streets holding hands,” Yeung says.

Often resort to leading double lives

For the gay community, China today is “like the USA in the 1960s and 1970s,” says Wei Xiaogang of Beijing, who runs the Queercomrades.com site.

China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 — six years before the United States repealed sodomy laws in all states. But, unlike in the USA, no laws bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. The lack of legal protection, plus the great weight of family and social pressures, keeps most Chinese gays solidly in the closet, Wei says.

Hot-button issues in the United States such as gays serving in the military are barely discussed in China as gay rights are rarely mentioned in the national media. The occasional reports on homosexuality are usually coupled with HIV/AIDS issues, Wei says.

“This does not help understanding of homosexuality, and only increases the feeling of fear among Chinese gays. They become less willing to stand up, or protect themselves more actively,” he says. Chinese culture plays heavily into the treatment of gays and how they lead their lives.

In China, as in many parts of Asia, marriage represents not only a way to continue the family line but also to find a partner who’ll take care of men and their aging parents. When Wei told his mother he was gay, she asked, “Who will look after you, wash your clothes or cook for you?”

Because many Asians live with their parents until they get married, it’s often harder for them to lead openly gay lives. “Maybe you can come out in your workplace, but not at home, so you get married,” says Zhang Beichuan, a professor at Qingdao University and an expert on homosexuality.

China’s one-child policy also puts pressure on gays and lesbians to have kids, because their families “really care that they produce a child,” says Sun Zhongxin, who pioneered a 2005 course about homosexuality at Fudan University in Shanghai.

The prevalence of double lives — by one measure, as many as 90% of Chinese gays marry the opposite sex, compared with a fraction of that in Western nations — has prevented true acceptance of homosexuality, some experts say.

Gay men might be more open about their sexuality, says Mr. Gay Hong Kong, Rick Twombley, if they felt protected against discrimination.

“It’s the most important thing, in mainland China and in Hong Kong” that gay men need, Twombley, 33, said during a party where he unveiled his elaborate one-shoulder, gold-and-red costume for the Worldwide Mr. Gay pageant to dozens of clapping supporters.

Although Hong Kong law protects gays and lesbians from government discrimination, they have little recourse if a private employer fires them.

Fighting the propaganda machine

In China, the Ministry of Health is open about gay issues but the propaganda and security departments are a different matter, Zhang says. Discrimination affects perhaps 100 million gays and their immediate families, Zhang estimates.

“In legal and human rights circles, no one is paying attention to this area,” says Zhang, who doubts there will be rapid progress on anti-discrimination legislation.
“China faces a bottleneck as government policies and legislation have not kept up” with social developments, he says. “Other disadvantaged groups like ethnic minorities, the disabled, and women and children, all have protective legal measures, but there is no clear assistance for gays.”

As legislation remains years away, Wei and fellow activists instead work toward more public discussion and greater tolerance in the national media. In December, Wei despaired when a newscaster at CCTV, the national broadcaster, spoke of “homosexual sufferers” in a piece introducing a gay bar that opened with government backing.

“If we can’t change attitudes at the top, it’s very hard to change them at the grass roots,” Wei says.

Original Text from:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-02-21-gays-China-closeted_N.htm

It’s a departure for both men, who are used to playing very “alpha male” roles in films like The Bourne Identity, and Basic Instinct.

“Matt accepted the challenge,” Steve Soderbergh, the film’s director told People.com. While Liberace’s extravagant, flamboyant costumes seem worlds away from Michael Douglas, Soderbergh told People that he had no qualms about his casting decision.

“We’ve already done some costume and wardrobe tests on Michael, and they’re very, very, very good,” Soderbergh said. “Michael amazed me. He crushed it.”

Liberace died in 1987 of an AIDS related illness and was a massive star, and a hit in Vegas, where there is still a museum dedicated to his memory. His gay relationship went public when Thorsen sued him for more than US$100 million in “palimony”, an expression used to describe the division of finances when a personal, live-in relationship between unmarried parties ends.

The movie is to be released in 2012.

Original Text from:

http://www.samesame.com.au/news/international/5092/Matt-Damon-And-Michael-Douglas-To-Play-Gay.htm

Beatie, is a female to male trans man, and has kept his female reproductive organs, despite being legally defined as a man for over ten years. He lives with his partner Nancy, who is unable to conceive.

The Oregon couple gave birth to their daughter Susan in June 29, 2008 and their son in June 9, 2009.

According to Pinknews, Beatie had been on hormone treatments prior to falling pregnant, but stopped taking them in order to resume menstruating and conceive through artificial insemination. Both children were conceived with the help of sperm donors.

“I actually opted not to do anything to my reproductive organs because I wanted to have a child one day,” said Beatie on Oprah in 2008. “I see pregnancy as a process and it doesn’t define who I am.”

Original Text from:

http://www.samesame.com.au/news/international/5093/Pregnant-Man-Pregnant-Again.htm

From Look to the Stars:

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has announced that Golden Globe Award-winning actress and producer Drew Barrymore will receive the Vanguard Award, and Emmy Award-winning actress and comedian Wanda Sykes will receive the Stephen F. Kolzak Award at the 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards on April 17 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza.

The GLAAD Media Awards elevate and promote fair, accurate and inclusive stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, people and allies that have increased awareness, understanding and respect for the lives of LGBT people. The GLAAD Media Awards also fund GLAAD’s work to bring stories of LGBT people and issues to Americans.

Actress Drew Barrymore will receive the Vanguard Award which is presented to media professionals who have increased the visibility and understanding of the LGBT community. In 2009, Barrymore took on the role of the lesbian daughter of a widower played by Robert De Niro in Everybody’s Fine, nominated for Outstanding Film – Wide Release at the 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards, and in 1995 starred in Boys on the Side which won the Outstanding Film award at the 7th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. She also joined thousands of marriage equality advocates in the streets of West Hollywood when the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, which eliminated marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Past recipients of The Vanguard Award include Charlize Theron, Antonio Banderas, Sharon Stone, Eric McCormack, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Kathy Griffin and Whoopi Goldberg.

“I was born, bred and raised among diversity, it has defined me and made me the person I am today,” Barrymore said. “I’m honored and humbled to be receiving this award.”

Back then having consensual sex with another man, which is what John did, was a crime, and now the 70 year old chap wants his criminal record cleaned up for good He wants to do some volunteer work, however that requires him not to have a criminal record, which at present he has.

He feels he should not be punished for his sexual orientation. “I came into this world without a criminal record and I’d like to leave this world without one,” John Crawford, whose a retired butler, said ”The police beat me and beat me and forced me to confess to being gay, but I know in my heart I did nothing wrong.”

John Crawford’s fight to clean up his record is being backed by gay organizations, who are also looking to help others who may have been convicted under Britain’s old harsh anti-gay laws, that started to be eased in 1967 as social values changed and sex acts between consenting adults began to be decriminalized. “These laws were homophobic in the first place, that’s why they were rescinded, but the laws are still penalizing people,” Deborah Gold, director of Galop, a gay rights group that has helped John said. “We’ve always had a regular trickle of people asking about it, how to get their records cleaned up.”

In response to a letter from his lawyers, police have removed the record of his conviction from the criminal database, meaning it will not turn up during a computerized criminal records search. “We are very sympathetic to Mr. Crawford’s concerns,” said a Hampshire police spokesman, “We recognize that this is an exceptional case and have acted quickly to resolve it.”

The spokesman said the conviction is no longer relevant and has been taken out of the Police National Computer database. “Until the police drop it completely, I won’t be happy. I’ve got to be able to put my hand on my heart and say to the world, I haven’t got a criminal record, and I can’t say that now.” Said John.

His lawyers have written to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw a week ago asking that the law be changed so that Crawford and others in his position would not have to disclose their convictions during the job interview process.

Original text from:

http://www.gayagenda.com/2010/02/convicted-as-gay-it-happened-in-1959/