Orlando Mayor Wants to Buy Pulse, Turn it Into a Public Memorial

Mayor Buddy Dyer has offered to buy the Pulse nightclub for $2.25 million. Pulse was the site of this spring’s horrible mass shooting. This makes sense as the owners expressed interest in making it a memorial as well. That and more in our look at culture news from around the world.

• Representatives from 13 European football associations joined the launch of “Heroes of Football”—a campaign to target homophobia in the sport.

 

• US Mayor Buddy Dyer of Orlando, Florida announced plans to spend $2.25 million to purchase the Pulse nightclub. The site where 49 people were murdered and 53 injured will be turned into a public memorial. 

 

• The UK’s Queer Media Festival will showcase the winner of first the queer mobile documentary contest, inspired by the success of the 2015 iPhone created Tangerine, a drama about trans women of color in Los Angeles. 

 

• Over the past five years, Tatiana von Fürstenberg has collected the artwork of LGBTQ prisoners. Her current exhibit On the Inside captures how “biology informs one’s identity” and that visitors will be able to send text messages to the prisoners whose art is being featured. 

 

• And finally, check out this podcast “In Praise of Incrementalism” from Freakonomics Radio that explores how rights for the US LGBT community were made by taking tiny steps.

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This coverage promotes sexual and gender equality while highlighting issues of health, violence, culture, and legal and human rights. Equal Eyes provides advocates and allies a common frame of reference for the realities of global LGBTI communities. Through followup reporting and disseminating this coverage, our effort is to ensure we have a representation of the global stories that matter most or may have under-reporting.