Las Vegas Spectrum

The Las Vegas Queer Arts Film Festival (LVQA) returned for a second year Nov. 8-10, screening films at the Gay and Lesbian Center of Southern Nevada (The Center) and Regal Colonnade Theaters. The self-proclaimed diversity-driven film festival did not disappoint in year two and the 2019 theme – make waves – delivered the goods on various levels. The three-day...

When I discovered Rain Nightclub in 2010, it would soon become the club that invented Las Vegas mega clubs in my eyes. In 2012, Rain shut its doors to make way for a $50 million renovation of the Palms. The 9Group managed Rain, which had it all ̶ a flame-throwing chandelier, three levels to explore, amazing entertainment and...

Open enrollment for a 2020 ACA (Affordable Care Act) health insurance plan ends Dec. 15. The Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA or “Obamacare,” is a comprehensive federal health care reform law enacted in March 2010. The law has three primary goals: ► To make affordable health insurance available to more people (the law provides subsidies and tax credits...

As always, each December is all about letting go of the things that no longer serve you. Purging away what you are not using, loving or fits is essential. How many feather boas do you really need? Will you actually wear those leopard Capri pants again? Seriously, let go of anything that doesn’t help you reveal the best of you....

  We made it fam! Mariah is about to have your radio on lock (just as she has every holiday season since 1994). And, if we are to believe the vibes from her Vegas residency, all someone wants for Christmas is you. Netflix is bringing some teenage queer-girl realness with the release of "Let it Snow." A secret Christmas bar exists...

Cortez Masto stands up to Ben Carson’s transphobic comments It seems appalling enough that Ben Carson, the secretary for Housing and Urban Development, described trans women as “big hairy men,” but it’s his other statement that lingered with equal weight, highlighting Carson’s truth: "Transgender people should get the same rights as everyone else, but they don’t get to change things...

Marrying my partner Larry was something I’d never dreamed of before 2012, largely because I thought politicians weren’t willing to risk their office to take a stand for my rights. That changed with Joe Biden. When Joe Biden announced his support for same-gender marriage in a game-changing NBC interview that year, a tide of political, legal, and cultural change followed. It’s...

Do all things Donald Trump have to be so confusing? All we’ve heard the past month-and-a-half, has been “quid pro quo,” and it’s not exactly a term we use in everyday life. Most of us had never used the term, “quid pro quo,” until the Donald came along. Can’t we just say “bribery?” We can understand using the term “quid...

Special to the Spectrum I’ll never forget Valentine’s Day of 2004. I was San Francisco District Attorney at the time, and two days earlier, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom had begun issuing marriage licenses to same-gender couples for the first time. I was on my way to the airport, and I decided I had to stop at City Hall. I remember looking around...

Special to the Spectrum Last month, on National Coming Out Day, my husband Chasten marched in the Las Vegas Pride Parade with over one hundred boisterous Nevadans. Many of them shared with him their own stories of coming out, of experiencing the civil war in a person’s heart when they realize they are something they were brought up to reject....