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For Further Event Information:
215-732-FEST or
www.pridefestamerica.com
For Further Press Information:
Deborah Fleischman
215-735-7356
PRIDEFEST AMERICA PRESENTS TWO PANELS
ON FAMILY AND YOUTH ISSUES
Family and youth are the focus of two panels as part
of PrideFest America's Tenth Anniversary Season in Philadelphia.
The National Family Values Panel, exploring three ways
prominent gay and lesbian couples have become parents,
will be held on Tuesday, April 30 from 7:30-8:45 PM.
The James Wheeler National Youth Panel, featuring an
eclectic mix of Canadian and America, gay and straight
youth, will be on Saturday, May 4 from 1:00-2:45 PM.
Both panels will be at the Prince Music Theater (1412
Chestnut Street). Running April 29 through May 5, PrideFest
America is the nation's largest annual gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender (GLBT) symposium and festival.
Admissions to both the National Family Values Panel
and the James Wheeler National Youth Panel each require
a $5 Program Pass or are included in the $15 Week-Long
Program Pass, which is available through the website
at www.pridefestamerica.com. The week-long pass provides
admission to over fifty (50) programs throughout the
week.
"One of the most dramatic changes in the gay and
lesbian civil rights movement is the way in which we
have re-defined ourselves as capable parents, no less
nurturing and no less deserving of the right to be parents,"
said Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director of PrideFest
America. "The family values panel illustrates not
only this increasing awareness but also the expanding
options available to gay and lesbian parents."
National Family Values Panel, in collaboration with
the national Family Pride Coalition, explores the different
ways gay couples have become parents. Family Pride Coalition
Executive Director, Aimee Gelnaw moderates this panel
with Pam Derderian & Nancy Becker, parents of an
adopted Chinese daughter; Jon & Michael Galluccio,
foster parents; and Laura Fox & Diane Diffenderfer,
parents through artificial insemination.
"The most vulnerable members of a community is
our youth, who are dealing with adolescence, coming
into maturity and coming to terms with their own sexuality
and the homophobia that society superimposes on that
process," continued Lazin. "We are very proud
of our youth panel and the new vision of America that
these young adults represent."
James Wheeler National Youth Panel was created to remember
the homophobic-induced suicide of a gifted gay teen,
addresses issues affecting gay youth. This all-youth
panel is moderated by youth activist and college freshman
Jascie Williams, with panelists Elizabeth Wheeler and
Canadians Benjie Nycum & Mike Glatze.
Elizabeth Wheeler is James Wheeler's sixteen year-old
sister, now a student at Cedar Crest High School where
James himself was ridiculed. "I am trying to make
more people aware of and understanding about homosexuals,"
she said. "I am not a homosexual myself, but I
love my brother and I will stand up for him or any other
homosexual in any way possible. I wish that I could
bring him back, but I can't so I would like to help
gay teens struggling with prejudice and condemnation
in the world."
Canadians Benjie Nycum and Mike Glatze are co-founders
of YoungGayAmerica, a web-based traveling outreach and
research project that tours North America interviewing
GLBT youth. YoungGayAmerica aims to reduce isolation
and depression among gay youth by affirming, celebrating
and documenting their lives and creating a widely-read
youth-initiated media. Before YoungGayAmerica, Benjie
and Mike worked as Associate Publisher and Managing
Editor of XY Magazine. With XY, they collaborated on
the Lambda Literary Award-nominated book The XY Survival
Guide: Everything You Need To Know About Being Young
and Gay. They have been volunteers for the STOP AIDS
Project and the Gay and Lesbian National Hotline, designer
for the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Community Center,
and speakers at gay youth empowerment events including
Young! Loud! And Proud! And The Power of YOUth.
Since its founding in 1993, PrideFest America has become
the nation's largest annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender (GLBT) symposium and festival. It has expanded
from a three-day conference of regional organizations
to a full week of events featuring international, national
and regional leaders on a broad range of compelling
issues. With more than 60 programs and social events
presented by 80 regional, national and international
organizations, PrideFest America 2002 is the nation's
most in-depth program of the emergence of a vibrant
GLBT community and its civil rights aspirations.
Some of the highlights of this year's tenth anniversary
festival include Tseng Kwong Chi: A Retrospective, an
exhibition of approximately 85 works is the first-ever
retrospective of this important postmodern photographer;
the Tom Stoddard National Role Model Award to MTV at
the Kimmel Center in recognition of their distinguished
contributions to social change in the GLBT community;
Living in a Rainbow Nation: Gay & Lesbian Dynamics
in South Africa with an all-South African panel focusing
on contemporary issues for gay black and white South
Africans such as apartheid, constitutional protection,
and AIDS in South Africa; and a National Religious Colloquy
moderated by Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson to Mahatma Gandhi
and founder of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence,
among other national, international and regional programming.
For further information, visit the website at www.pridefestamerica.
com, or call 215-732-FEST.
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