7 Ways to Resist This Week

GLSEN: Celebrate Pride in L.A. 2017

GLSEN is hosting its annual star-studded Pride celebration on Sunday, June 4, which raises funds for its much-needed mission of supporting LGBT students across the country. Lance Bass, Charlie Carver, Jason Collins, Rosario Dawson, and Robbie Rogers are cohosts of this year's fete at the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles. The event also includes board members from entertainment companies like NBC, HBO, and Hulu, making it a powerful show of solidarity from Hollywood. Learn more at GLSEN.org/prideinla.

Mary Lambert's "Know Your Name"

Out singer-songwriter Mary Lambert ("She Keeps Me Warm," "Secrets") dropped the excellent new EP Bold earlier this month, and just this week she premiered the wildly fun video for her infectious tune "Know Your Name." In the video, Lambert and her posse take over a retro video arcade/bar where they're determined to land the top scores. But a mysterious stranger in a silver hooded cape tops them all. Cue Lambert and Sara Ramirez (Grey's Anatomy) facing off in a sexy battle of the arcade games. Firda Herryandhy, Jacob Tobia, Hazel Jade, and Gabi Gregg round out Lambert's arcade gang. Watch the video below and be sure to check out Bold.

DC Black Pride

DC Black Pride celebrates LGBT African-Americans with a weekend that combines parties and activism in the nation's capital. Events started Thursday and will continue through Monday; there will be a poetry slam, theatrical performances, screenings of Oscar-winner Moonlight and other films, and workshops and panel discussions on careers, transgender issues, wisdom from LGBT elders, and much more. Plus there will be fabulous parties at D.C. nightclubs, parks, and other venues, with top performers including Lil' Kim. The theme for this year is "The Ties That Bind: Twenty-Seven Years of DC Black Pride." Find more at the DC Black Pride website or Facebook page.

House of Cards

It wasn't long ago that the thought of a full-blown sociopath running rampant in the White House seemed the stuff of great fiction. But events of the past year have proven that the deluded corruption of Frank Underwood's ascendance to the presidency is terrifyingly possible. The fifth season of Netflix's political potboiler from executive producer David Fincher, House of Cards, drops Friday and the parallels between the Trump and Underwood administrations are uncanny. Robin Wright, who plays the dangerously manipulative first lady to Kevin Spacey's President Frank Underwood said recently that Donald Trump has "stolen all of our ideas for season six."

The promo for the fifth season features Spacey in voice-over saying just what one might imagine goes on daily in the Trump administration Oval Office. "The American people don't know what's best for them. I do. I know exactly what they need. They're like little children," Underwood says, dripping with disdain. "We have to hold their sticky fingers and wipe their filthy mouths, teach them right from wrong, tell them how to think and how to feel and what to want. They even need help writing their wildest dreams, crafting their worst fears. Lucky for them, they have me."

Michael Kelly, Jayne Atkinson, Neve Campbell, Derek Cecil, Paul Sparks, and Joel Kinnaman are on deck to spar with and suck up to the Underwoods this season.

International Mr. Leather

International Mr. Leather, an international conference and contest for leather folk, has been held annually in May since 1979 in Chicago. This year's events started Thursday and will run through Monday at the Congress Plaza Hotel, culminating in the crowning of International Mr. Leather. The event is inclusive and welcomes all genders, the rubber community, pups, and other fetish and kink groups. Learn more at IMRL.com. And don't miss our guide of dos and don'ts to prepare for the festivities.

Finding Kim

This simple but powerful documentary follows Kim, a Seattle trans man who lets the audience observe his harrowing transition story. The pain and joy,are palpable in Kim's story, and by the end, you'll want to congratulate this brave person for humanizing what is still foreign to so many of us, even LGB people. Directors Aaron Bear and Gabriel Bienczycki frame their story with testimonials from luminaries like Dan Savage, Carmen Carrera, Calpernia Addams, and Buck Angel. Finding Kim is the first film to be released in a new theatrical arrangement with Tugg Inc., a web platform that allows movie fans to help choose the films that play in their local markets. The movie officially comes out Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles. Click here for more info and for information on free tickets in L.A.

Stonewall Inn Gives Back

Chelsea Clinton and country music singer Ty Herndon will be some of the big names attending this June 1 launch party for a new nonprofit, called The Stonewall Inn Gives Back, to be appropriately held at the iconic Manhattan watering hole.

The Initiative is "dedicated to helping some of the most under-served and marginalized members of the LGBTQ community by building awareness, raising funds, engaging in candid dialogue, and spearheading powerful campaigns for social change," according to the organizers. "The Initiative will directly focus on helping people that live in areas that are less accepting of the LGBTQ culture and therefore face intensive social stigma, daily discrimination, and harassment, which subsequently results in dramatically higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, depression, and anxiety."

More info here.