Arts & Entertainment
NBA All-Star Game returns to N.C. in 2019
the city hasn’t hosted the event since 1991
The NBA All-Star Game will finally make its way to Charlotte, N.C. in 2019 after the partial repeal of the state’s “bathroom bill.”
The National Basketball Association announced on Wednesday that the All-Star weekend will take place on Feb. 15-17 at the Spectrum Center, the home of the Charlotte Hornets.
Charlotte had been selected as the host city for 2017 but the gameĀ relocated to New Orleans in the wake of North Carolina’s “bathroom bill.” Also known as HB2, the law would have required transgender individuals to use restrooms corresponding with the sex listed on their birth certificate.
A new law, known as House Bill 142, modified HB2 to prevent restrictions on individuals using the bathroom that matches their gender identity. However, the bill did not restrict businesses from discriminating against the LGBT community.
āWhile we understand the concerns of those who say the repeal of HB2 did not go far enough, we believe the recent legislation eliminates the most egregious aspects of the prior law,”Ā NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. Ā “Additionally, it allows us to work with the leadership of the Hornets organization to apply a set of equality principles to ensure that every All-Star event will proceed with open access and anti-discrimination policies. All venues, hotels and businesses we work with during All-Star will adhere to these policies as well.”
Charlotte last hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 1991.
Whitman-Walker Health held the 38th annual Walk and 5K to End HIV at Anacostia Park on Saturday,Ā Dec. 7. Hundreds participated in the charity fundraiser,Ā despite temperatures below freezing. According to organizers, nearly $450,000 was raised for HIV/AIDS treatment and research.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington performed “The Holiday Show” at Lincoln Theatre on Saturday. Future performances of the show are scheduled for Dec. 14-15. For tickets and showtimes, visit gmcw.org.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Books
Mother wages fight for trans daughter in new book
āBeautiful Womanā seethes with resentment, rattles bars of injustice
āOne Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Womanā
By Abi Maxwell
c.2024, Knopf
$28/307 pages
“How many times have I told you that…?”
How many times have you heard that? Probably so often that, well, you stopped listening. From your mother, when you were very small. From your teachers in school. From your supervisor, significant other, or best friend. As in the new memoir “One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman” by Abi Maxwell, it came from a daughter.
When she was pregnant, Abi Maxwell took long walks in the New Hampshire woods near her home, rubbing her belly and talking to her unborn baby. She was sure she was going to have a girl but when the sonogram technician said otherwise, that was OK. Maxwell and her husband would have a son.
But almost from birth, their child was angry, fierce, and unhappy. Just getting dressed each morning was a trial. Going outside was often impossible. Autism was a possible diagnosis but more importantly, Maxwell wasn’t listening, and she admits it with some shame.
Her child had been saying, in so many ways, that she was a girl.
Once Maxwell realized it and acted accordingly, her daughter changed almost overnight, from an angry child to a calm one ā though she still, understandably, had outbursts from the bullying behavior of her peers and some adults at school. Nearly every day, Greta (her new name) said she was teased, called by her former name, and told that she was a boy.
Maxwell had fought for special education for Greta, once autism was confirmed. Now she fought for Greta’s rights at school, and sometimes within her own family. The ACLU got involved. State laws were broken. Maxwell reminded anyone who’d listen that the suicide rate for trans kids was frighteningly high. Few in her town seemed to care.
Throughout her life, Maxwell had been in many other states and lived in other cities. New Hampshire used to feel as comforting as a warm blanket but suddenly, she knew they had to get away from it. Her “town that would not protect us.”
When you hold “One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman,” you’ve got more than a memoir in your hands. You’ve also got a white-hot story that seethes with anger and rightful resentment, that wails for a hurt child, and rattles the bars of injustice. And yet, it coos over love of place, but in a confused manner, as if these things don’t belong together.
Author Abi Maxwell is honest with readers, taking full responsibility for not listening to what her preschooler was saying-not-saying, and she lets you see her emotions and her worst points. In the midst of her community-wide fight, she reveals how the discrimination Greta endured affected Maxwell’s marriage and her health ā all of which give a reader the sense that they’re not being sold a tall tale. Read this book, and outrage becomes familiar enough that it’s yours, too. Read “One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman,” and share it. This is a book you’ll tell others about.
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