7 Ways To Resist This Week

Lambda LitFest

This first annual event -- held throughout Los Angeles -- celebrates queer writing and writers. The festival began Monday, but lasts through this weekend, with discussions, readings, mixers, and even a literary drag party (look for Advocate editor Diane Anderson-Minshall on a queer journalism panel). Expand your mind if you're in the City of Angels this weekend; full schedule here.

When We Rise by Cleve Jones

You've (hopefully) seen the ABC miniseries by Dustin Lance Black. Now go straight to the source. Gay activist and AIDS Quilt creator Cleve Jones recounts decades of LGBT history in his memoir When We Rise, providing a first-person account of surviving police brutality, an epidemic, anti-LGBT legislation, and a hostile government. These lessons may come in handy! Pick up a copy at Amazon or your local bookstore.

Lambda Legal

Send some of your discretionary dollars or donate your time to Lambda Legal, which is fighting for rights the federal government no longer cares about protecting and is often actively working against. Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Equality North Carolina last year filed suit on behalf of LGBT North Carolinians challenging the state's notorious House Bill 2. They'll be in a federal appeals court May 10 seeking a statewide block of the law's provision barring transgender people from using restrooms consistent with their gender identity, when those are in government buildings. Lambda Legal is working for LGBT rights, plus the rights of HIV-positive people, in many other cases as well. The organization's website has all the details on its work, how to contribute money or time, and events coming up around the nation.

American Crime: Season 3

There couldn't be a timelier piece of television that the new season of American Crime, the ABC anthology series directed by John Ridley (12 Years a Slave). Past seasons have shown viewers on broadcast television hot-button social issues like racial bias in the criminal justice system and sex crimes in schools. This year the subject is immigration. Luis (Benito Martinez) crosses the Mexican border in order to find work -- what he finds in a farm is something closer to slave labor. The series also centers on a teenage sex worker (Ana Mulvoy-Ten), who finds herself fighting against restrictive abortion laws after an unwanted pregnancy. Stars from the previous seasons, Regina King and Felicity Huffman, also return for powerful performances, respectively, as a social worker and a timid wife who becomes an unexpected voice for justice. Don't miss the premiere Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern on ABC.

Breitbart Protest

If you're in southern California on Sunday afternoon, join the protest at Breitbart's headquarters on the westside of L.A. The crowd is expected to denounce the alt-right tactics of the website formerly associated with uber-villain/Trump adviser Steve Bannon; Breibart continues to cynically push racist, homophobic, and transphobic propaganda. Breitbart helped create President Trump, and it should be held accountable for that. More info here.

A Very Sordid Wedding

Seventeen years after Del Shores's Sordid Lives introduced a motley crew of Southern-fried divas to movie audiences, the sequel arrives, with a premiere in Palm Springs, Calif. (more cities rolling out after). Yes, Rue McClanahan and her matriarch Peggy Sue character are gone, but audiences still have performers like Bonnie Bedelia, Caroline Rhea, and out actor Leslie Jordan hamming it up. A Very Sordid Wedding may not be high art, but it's a queer film directed by an out director -- that certainly doesn't come along very often. Support queer film and check it out.

Die, Mommie, Die!

Remember when the adage was "If we don't shop/see a movie/go to a sports event/etc., the terrorists win?" How about now, "If we don't laugh, Donald Trump wins?" If you're in Los Angeles, you'll find guaranteed laughter in Die, Mommie, Die!, the hilariously campy melodrama written by Charles Busch, in a production starring Drew Droege of "Chloe" fame as aging Hollywood star and murderess Angela Arden. It's a great send-up of all those 1960s movies featuring that era's aging stars, such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, so it will get you perfectly in the mood for the next episode of Feud. At Celebration Theatre at the Lex, through March 26.