What beauty! What brains and intelligence! But Condi, you’re playing on the wrong team. You so eloquently stated that this was not 1968 when Russian tanks could invade a capital and get away with it. But how many people world-wide are believing that American forces can’t bomb and invade a country falsely accused of harboring WMDs, and get away with it? We have lost all moral integrity in the world, because of your bosses. Come on, Condi! We need you to get your brain out of hock, and focus on the things that matter, like saving the planet. The boys will escalate with their war toys, and try to intimidate us into believing that we need a war-hero for a president. Let’s not fall for their manipulations.

And thanks for informing George that the Georgia under attack today is not the same Georgia that’s in the Ray Charles song. I’m sure he was confused.

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Now that the International Criminal Court has finally issued an arrest warrant for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, president of the Sudan, how much time must elapse before the women of Darfur actually feel the effects? After years of hemming and hawing and hand-wringing at the United Nations, (which has officially acknowledged over 400,000 deaths as a result of the war, then admitted that it might have underestimated the death toll figures by 50 percent), women and girls are still being raped daily by Janjaweed militia, armed with weapons imported from China. By the time the ICC finally brings al-Bashir to court, how many more women and girls will have lost their innocence, their health, and in too many cases, their lives?

It is enough. We are better than this.
Nyna is a screenwriter and film director. She lives in Paris and New York City.

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We are so happy here in Paris to witness the return of Ingrid Betancourt, the Franco-Colombian politician, wife, and mother who had been held hostage by the FARC rebels for nearly seven years. I had just been standing in front of her photo hanging in front of the Hotel de Ville in Paris the night before she was released, hoping and praying for her safety. The next day we learned that she was free.

You haven’t heard anything from me lately because I’ve been busy with my new book, which should be out in time for Pride next year. There were over 700,000 people in the Bastille for Pride in Paris this year, and we were certainly over a million in the streets of the Marais afterwards.

Paris is literally bursting with pride right now, and I am grateful to be here to witness it.

Oh, and Happy Independence over there!

Nyna is a screenwriter and film director. She lives in Paris and New York City.

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I’ve been an out (i.e., practicing) dyke for thirty years now, and I have to say that I am more proud today than ever before to be a lesbian AND an American. This year I’ve been able to choose between voting for a woman and an African-American for theoffice of President of the United States, both of whom have promised to guarantee the rights of lesbians and gays when elected.

While we all enjoy and take for granted our constitutional right to “…the pursuit of happiness,” I have gotten to know and love women from other countries where one can receive the death-penalty for being queer. Amazing, isn’t it, how in this same year the president of The Gambia gave homosexuals 24 hours notice to leave the country or be beheaded. Just last year the president of Iran ignorantly claimed that there were no homosexuals in his country, a statement which was greeted with unabashed laughter here at Columbia University.

2008 is also the same year during which Archbishop Desmond Tutu apologized to lesbians and gays on behalf of The Church, and stated that he could imagine Jesus weeping at the treatment received by some of us, perpetrated by The Church.

Years ago I had a lover who was molested in childhood by her father, yet was pressured by her mother and sister to marry a man in order to “preserve the dignity of the family.” I have stood in hospital hallways while my first lover was dying of breast cancer, yet her doctors only discussed her condition with her parents in spite of the fact that documents appointing me as attorney-in-fact were on file with the hospital and the courts. (The nurses, however, were most supportive, and fully acknowledged our relationship.)

I’ve had a lover who couldn’t hold my hand in public out of fear that someone from the office might see her and report back to her work-colleagues. Our straight friends have no idea of the daily pressures we face to conceal our love. What a privilege it is so be able to hold your beloved’s hand without having to think about whether or not it is safe to do so.

Make no mistake: It takes courage to be queer, and it takes even more courage to love. Some of us have more of it than others. To any ignorant, Bible-thumping homophobe, I loudly retort that Jesus commands us to “Love thy neighbor.” Anyone who can’t get his or her brain around that must not have much of a brain in the first place.

Keep loving, ladies! “You are beautiful, no matter what they say…”

Nyna is a screenwriter and film director. She lives in Paris and New York City.

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Yes, we were bombarded with eroticized images of the male torso (complete with frontal exposure). But frankly, speaking as a woman, I am tired of being left totally ignored as a lesbian spectator of this on-going saga, (in spite of a sweet scene where Carrie and Miranda were mistaken as a lesbian couple having a romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day, when they, in fact, were two jilted straight girls).

Yes, we certainly enjoyed the experience of seeing Samantha’s beautiful body clad only in strategically-placed pieces of homemade sushi, and Charlotte’s sensual shower-scene during which she was so beside herself with happiness that she, in a moment of forgetfulness, allowed Mexican tap-water to trickle into her mouth. But couldn’t there have been one moment of physical admiration – especially by the pool in the Mexican sun – between these so-called friends? The closest we came to a simple acknowledgment of one for the other’s body was when Samantha noticed the growth of Miranda’s pubic hair enough to imply that Miranda had provoked her husband’s lack of sexual interest, and that she should schedule a bikini-wax ASAP. (Meanwhile, we all know that the actress, Cynthia Nixon, who portrays Miranda, is in actuality an out lesbian, and deserves an Oscar for her acting during the sex-scenes with her on-screen husband.)

The lesbians of the Big Apple have had enough of being ignored and swept under the rug of this fantasized portrayal of “best girlfriends” in New York City. Besides, what would this series be without the fabulous haute couture of designer Patricia Field, whom the lesbians of New York proudly claim as one of our own?

posted by Nyna
Nyna is a screenwriter and film director. She lives in Paris and New York City.

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Lesbianism is the ultimate expression of self-love for a woman. She is free of the assumed masochism inherent in the heterosexual act. She receives pleasure by virtue of giving pleasure. And when a black woman loves another black woman, this act defies every lie the dominant culture has tried to instill: that black women are waiting for any white person – male or female – to take them out of poverty, that black women are so self-hating that they’ll tolerate the abuse of black men because they don’t know any better, etc. etc.

African men, if indeed they are real men, must ask themselves what it is about the love between African women that they find so threatening. By contrast, African-American men seem to be more tolerant of same-sex relationships simply by virtue of being American. They are beginning to grapple with the hypocrisy of homophobia and antiquated sexism. But African and Caribbean men in many cases still remain free of prosecution for sex-crimes (unless they are committed against someone white).

The attitude that black women are not supposed to feel desire obviously is born out of a history of Slavery and white immunity from prosecution for rape. If she is seen as a loose woman with no morals, then she deserves what she gets. (And rarely does anyone stop to think about how a so-called “loose woman” became loose in the first place.) But any pious, self-respecting wife or mother is not supposed to desire sex; therefore, men are able to feel guilty and responsible for soiling her and lowering her to their level of banality. Some have even robbed her of her God-given clitoris in a desperate effort to kill her desire.

But if a woman desires another woman, then what’s that about? Answer: Lesbian love is life-affirming, mutually nurturing, and hot as hell! Yes, the earth quakes, mountains crumble, and flood waters cover the land when two sistahs love each other. Humanity as we know it had better watch out! If this kind of love spreads, then wars may soon become unjustifiable and obsolete.

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