five floors

Entertainment publicist and lesbian lady Mona Elyafi traveled home for the holidays -- to Paris -- for the first time in over a decade, only to discover family is still family whether in the Alps, the Mediterranean or in her own back yard.

It's been a poorly kept secret for years that the guy getting rich off Urban Outfitters'is a super-conservative millionaire who does things like make five-figure donations to Rick Santorum.

Eight LGBT groups including GetEqual, the Transgender Law Center, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have written an open letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding a floor vote on ENDA immediately. The groups include SF Pride at Work, One Struggle, One Fight, GetEqual, Harvey Milk Democratic Club, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, El / La and National Pride at Work.

Britney Spears gave a special shout-out to gay youth who attended her concert in San Francisco Sunday afternoon. The front section of the floor was reserved for a group of teenage LGBT fans from the Larkin Street Youth Center and the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center. Spears called out to them from the stage. "They're in the front row," she said. "Thanks for coming."

From Girlbar on a Saturday night to out with baby, writer K. Pearson Brown wonders how she went from being in the heart of the lesbian scene to the early-to-bed / no-noise-allowed, crabby lesbian mom.

Comments of celebration, and some inevitable criticism, began to flow late Friday night and into the Pride weekend worldwide as New York, the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, became the sixth and most populous state, in addition to Washington, D.C., to give same-sex couples the right to civil marriages through a historic vote in the Republican-led state senate.

Joran van der Sloot, the Dutchman who remains the chief suspect in the 2005 slaying of American teen Natalee Holloway, has confessed to murdering Stephany Flores in Peru. The young woman reportedly was a lesbian.

The singer releases yet another fearless teaser for her upcoming album.

As part of our effort to profile more authors within the LGBT community, we present Tenea D. Johnson. The following is an excerpt from her book R/evolution.