ISSN: 2372-2207

May 2016 Suggested Retail Price $2.95

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Diversity Rules MagazineCelebrates 10 Years

of Service to the Community!

Happy 10th Anniversary!

See Page 17for Anniversary

Specials!

2 Diversity Rules MagazineMay 2016

Inside This Issue (partial listing) A PTSD Memoir .............................................. Page 3 Why Drag? ........................................................ Page 4 Tic Toc, Tic Toc ................................................ Page 6 New Sex App .................................................... Page 8 Diary of a Black Man ....................................... Page 10 Amazon Trail .................................................... Page 11 Dark of My Mind Released .............................. Page 16 Anniversary Specials ......................................... Page 17 Resources and Diversions .................................. Page 22

Welcome to the May issue of Di-versity Rules Magazine. This is-sue is particularly special and very meaningful for me since it cel-ebrates the 10th anniversary of Di-versity Rules Magazine.

Diversity Rules Magazine was con-ceived in 2006 because there was no gay voice in the Central New York area at the time. I wanted to create a publication that offered some sort of reassurance to clos-eted gay, bi and transgender indi-viduals that there were others like them and that they did not have to feel alone and abandoned in a somewhat conservative part of up-state New York.

Since its inception in 2006 it has undergone many changes and iterations. It began as a bi-monthly publication serving what was known as the Central Leath-erstocking Region of New York, now coined “Central New York.” It was initially distributed to loca-

tions within Broome, Chenango, Madison, Montgomery, Oneida, Otsego and Schoharie Counties, as well as Delaware County. Its origi-nal mission was to focus on issues of sexual identiy, gender, race rela-tions, diversity and equality.Diversity Rules Magazine eventu-ally grew and was distributed to lo-cations beyond the counties men-tioned above and eventually was being read throughout New York State and available at over 150 lo-cations. It was the largest gay pub-lication serving the state. A posi-tion I did not take lightly.

Due to personal and economic circumstances, the magazine went into hiatus for a bit in 2009. It re-emerged as a subscription only print and digital publication in 2013. There were some other bumpy patches which has resulted in its current form in the digital realm. My Two Cents - Con’t on page 13

Diversity Rules MagazinePO Box 72

Oneonta, NY 13820James R. Koury, Editor/Publisher

607.435.1587

Websitewww.diversityrulesmagazine.com

Blogwww.diversityrulesmagazine.blogspot.com

E-Mailgeneralinfo@diversityrulesmagazine.com

Copyright 2016 Diversity Rules MagazineAll Rights Reserved

Disclaimers

If you have a question or comment regard-ing this issue or future issues of Diversity Rules Magazine, the publisher would love to hear from you! Feel free to contact Di-versity Rules using the e-mail above or mailing address listed above. Content sub-mission are always welcome too!

All submissions become the property of Diversity Rules Magazine. However, origi-nating authors reserve all rights to their creative works.

Diversity Rules Magazine’s physical offices are located at 189 River Street, Oneonta, NY 13820.

Diversity Rules Magazine will not know-ingly publish or advertise text which is fraudulent or misleading. The publisher reserves the right to edit, limit, revise, or reject any text without cause.

Diversity Rules Magazine does not assume any fnancial responsibility for typographi-cal errors. If any errors are found, please notify Diversity Rules Magazine immedi-ately. Materials in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without writ-ten permission from the publisher.

Jim KouryEditor/Publisher

Diversity Rules Magazine

3Diversity Rules MagazineMay 2016

David-Elijah Nahmod is a film critic and re-porter in San Francis-co. His articles appear regularly in The Bay Area Reporter and SF

Weekly. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter.

David developed Post Traumatic Syndrome Disor-der (PTSD) after surviving gay conversion therapy as a child and has found that many in the LGBT community suffer from severe, often untreated emotional disorders due to the extreme anti-gay traumas they endured. This column chronicles his journey.

Anna Marie Duke Pearce was small in physical stature, but as an actress and as a mental health advocate she was a powerful force to be reckoned with. She became world famous as Patty Duke, winning an Oscar in 1962 for her mesmerizing portrayal of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. Keller was a blind-deaf girl who grew up to become one of the world’s greatest disability ad-vocates. A little over two decades later, Duke would do the same for people suffering from mental illness.

Throughout the 1960s, Duke’s career was riding high. After the Miracle Worker she starred in The Patty Duke Show, a sitcom which ran for 104 episodes and which continues to air today on ME TV. Though her 1967 film Valley of the Dolls, an over-the-top melodrama about pill popping showgirls in Hollywood, turned out to be more of a campfest than a serious movie, it was a box office success and remains a cult favorite.

Duke continued to work steadily, winning an Emmy Award in 1970 for the TV film My Sweet Charlie, a then-daring tale of a pregnant, single Southern girl who falls in love with a Black man. One role after an-other followed--her 1972 horror film You’ll Like My Mother (newly out on Blu Ray) earned good reviews and was a moneymaker. A second Emmy came Duke’s

way in 1976 for the acclaimed mini-series Captain and the Kings. Three years later Duke starred in a remake of The Miracle Worker--this time she played Annie Sullivan, the woman who taught Helen Keller how to speak and communicate.

Throughout all these career highs, Duke was suffering. Her life had become a series of outrageous psychotic episodes followed by deep, physically debilitating de-pressions. By the early 1980s, her career and her mar-riage to actor John Astin were unraveling.

In 1983 a desperately ill Duke was hospitalized. As she recounts in her 1987 autobiography Call Me Anna, her doctor walked into her room, informed her that she was suffering from manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder) and handed her a pill. Duke took those pills for the rest of her life.

Her manic episodes disappeared. Duke reclaimed her career, ultimately amassing more than 125 credits at Internet Movie Database by the time of her death on March 29, 2016. She served as President of Screen Ac-tor’s Guild and dedicated much of her off-screen time to mental health advocacy. She wrote and spoke open-ly and honestly about her own manic episodes and let people know that help was out there--she let people know that they need not be ashamed because they had done nothing wrong.

More than anyone, Patty Duke, Anna, destigmatized mental illness and showed millions of people that re-covery was possible. She let the world know by exam-ple that people with mental health issues could live full, rich and rewarding lives. Duke’s illness was not a character flaw, it was the result of a chemical imbal-ance in her brain.

My illness, PTSD, was caused by the after effects of the severe traumas I was subjected to, growing up as I did in an abusive home. Though PTSD and bipolar disorder are decidedly different conditions caused by differing situations, both can manifest themselves in similar ways.

PTSD Memoir - Con’t on page 19

If You Could Read My MindAnna Marie Duke Pearce (1946-2016)

By David-Elijah Nahmod