LGBT

Cate Blanchett isn't just a great actress ... she can lip-sync the hell out of a song while sharing the stage with drag queens too.

Cate made an appearance Monday night at Stonewall in NYC -- where she's filming for "Ocean's Eight" -- and performed during a drag show to benefit a charity for the Sandy Hook massacre.

The Oscar winner ended up doing Dusty Springfield's version of "You Don't Own Me." Nailed it too, obviously.

Openly gay boxer Yusaf Mack unleashed a barber shop beatdown -- attacking a man he claims has been harassing him online over his sexual orientation.

TMZ Sports confirmed paramedics were called to the L A Clippers shop in Philadelphia Saturday evening ... after Mack wailed on the man in front of customers and employees.

Witnesses tell us Mack attacked the dude while the victim's head was in a sink in the middle of a wash.

Mack tells us he got sick and tired of the online harassment and decided to confront the guy face-to-face. Mack is unapologetic and says the guy got what he deserved.

We also reached out to the victim who didn't want to talk ... but has since issued several homophobic statements on his Facebook page, including:

"I rather have a video of some beating me up then a video of someone seeing me take a d*** up my a** any day."

The man says he will retaliate against Mack ... "Me and him gonna fight again."

Jason Collins says it's "great" that the NBA moved the 2017 All-Star game from North Carolina to New Orleans over a controversial transgender bathroom law ... and states Adam Silver did the right thing.

The NBA had previously said the state's HB2 law -- which requires transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to the sex they were born as -- created a climate that didn't fit with league values.

The league moved the game to New Orleans with the hope of moving it back to North Carolina in 2019 "provided there is an appropriate resolution to this matter."

Still, Collins -- the NBA's first openly gay player -- says he's proud of the league for taking a stand.

Meryl Streep took another shot at Donald Trump in a new speech defending LGBT rights ... and added a new title to her "over-rated" stature.

Meryl delivered the anti-Trump remarks Saturday night in NYC at a gala for the Human Rights Campaign while receiving their National Ally for Equality Award.

You'll recall ... she also dissed Trump during her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes in January, after which Trump called her "the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood" and a "Hillary flunky."

Frank Ocean's being sued by his father who says his son smeared his good name by claiming he was a bigot.

Calvin Cooksey filed the defamation lawsuit over a Tumblr post Frank wrote last summer in the wake of the Orlando massacre. In the post, Frank accused his dad of using a homophobic slur years and years ago ... when Frank was a kid.

Frank recalled, "I was 6 years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a f****t as he dragged me out of a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn't be served because she was dirty."

Calvin calls the story BS and says it's damaged his financial opportunities in film and music.

He wants his son to fork over $14.5 million in damages.

Calvin also sued Russell Simmons in 2014 for claiming he was a deadbeat dad. That lawsuit was for $142 million.

A Grindr user claims the app is being run recklessly and as a result someone actually tried to rape and murder him, although the lawsuit is thin on specifics regarding the 2 allegations.

Matthew Herrick claims in a new lawsuit he met someone on Grindr in 2015 and began dating him. Herrick says the guy he was dating opened up new profiles and impersonated Herrick, using his addresses -- home and work -- along with photos.

Herrick says random guys would come to his home and restaurant where he worked, expecting sex. Although the suit cites no specific instance of attempted rape and murder, it does offer up several examples of aggressive men coming to his home and workplace.

Herrick claims just about a week ago a Grindr visitor got into his New York apartment building and refused to leave. Herrick's roommate confronted the guy in the hallway, said he was calling the cops, and the man lunged at the roommate, grabbed his phone and started wrestling with him.

He says he is in "a constant state of hyper-vigilance, afraid that Grindr has been used to incite or seduce the wrong person -- somebody who will make good on threats to attack or rape [me]."

Herrick says he lodged 50 complaints to Grindr and 14 police reports, to no avail.

We reached out to Grindr ... so far no word back.

Jennifer Holliday is making up with gay fans who might have been pissed she initially accepted an invitation to sing at the Trump inauguration ... by headlining an all-gay Caribbean cruise.

Sources with Atlantis -- a gay and lesbian charter company -- tell TMZ ... Jennifer was the main attraction Wednesday night aboard Allure of the Seas -- and she's putting on 2 more shows Thursday night.

Atlantis says it reached out to Holliday right after she backed out of the inauguration.

Jennifer got a standing O for her first performance. We're told she never brought up the inauguration. As we reported, Holliday canceled that gig ... partly due to backlash from the LGBT community.

Looks like it's all good now.

The original leader of the 'Queer Eye' fab 5 says the new show won't ever have that same old twinkle ... but does know a guy who can help it come close.

We talked to Carson Kressley -- the former star of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" -- who gave us the straight dope on how he got word about Netflix rebooting the series.

His reaction's not all that surprising, as we've reported, but he's got a good recommendation for who could fill his shoes. At least Ariana Grande would watch.

Netflix's reboot of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" won't feature anyone from the original cast -- in fact, Netflix didn't even bother asking them to come back.

Sources close to the production tell TMZ, none of the OG fab 5 cast members were approached, but don't call it a snub. We're told the guys aren't pissed because they get TV, and understand the need to make it fresh for a new generation.

It's going on 10 years since Carson, Jai, Kyan, Ted and Thom went off the air ... after all.

Meanwhile, we're told the new batch of potential hosts has been whittled down to 25.

Ellen Page got into a heated debate with a preacher over homosexuality ... and it all went down as chaos was building around them on the streets of Washington, D.C.

Ellen's in town for some inaugural events -- including the Women's March on Saturday -- but Friday outside the National Press Building she ended up going toe-to-toe, verbally, with a man of the cloth.

He labeled homosexuality "demonic," but Ellen kept her cool. She, at least, is there for peaceful debate.

Rapper iLoveMakonnen -- the guy behind the smash hit "Tuesday" -- just revealed that he's gay ... saying, "It's time I've come out."

The 27-year-old made the announcement on Twitter saying, "As a fashion icon, I can't tell u about everybody else's closet, I can only tell u about mine, and it's time I've come out."

He added, "And since y'all love breaking news, here's some old news to break, I'm gay. And now I've told u about my life, maybe u can go life yours."

Makonnen's career exploded in 2014 when Drake remixed his song ... and followed up with, "I Don't Sell Molly No More." He's also become big in the fashion world.

Jackie Evancho's transgender sister will undergo surgery to begin reassignment the same week Jackie belts out the national anthem at Donald Trump's inauguration ... TMZ has learned.

Sources close to the Evancho family tell us Jackie's sister, Juliet, "can finally be herself" after she goes through the procedure in Philly. We're told the surgery had been in the works for months, and her absence from the inauguration is NOT in protest to Trump or Mike Pence's stance on LGBTQ rights.

President Obama just commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence and she will be freed in May ... the White House announced Tuesday.

Chelsea Manning -- a former Army intelligence officer who leaked classified information to WikiLeaks -- was convicted back in 2013, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Obama's commutation means she'll be out May 17, after just 7 years served.

Manning, a transgender woman, attempted suicide twice while in prison.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said last week he would agree to extradition to the U.S. if Obama released Manning from prison. Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Jennifer Holliday pulled the plug on her inauguration performance because people threatened to kill her and her family ... TMZ has learned.

The "Dreamgirls" star agreed to sing at an inaugural event but did an about-face Saturday, saying she bailed because she was taking heat from the LGBT community.

But we've learned when her agent contacted the Inauguration Committee, he said the reason was death threats. We're told the LGBT concerns were not even mentioned.

A rep for Holliday told TMZ Monday ... both the death threats and the LGBT reaction were factors in her decision.

The rep tells us, "It was all of those things. She wasn’t scared to perform. She didn’t want to put her family at risk based on the death threats and she also didn’t want to offend the LGBT community which was especially upset that a past ally would perform on a program with President-Elect Donald Trump."

You may recall ... Trump's people said she was a lock late last week, but then her management team came out and said Trump's people jumped the gun ... that she was merely considering the offer. That doesn't square with the fact that Holliday herself said Friday she was fully on board.

We don't know if the people who made the threats identified themselves or any group with which they were affiliated.

A rep for the singer tells us her primary concern was the safety of her family.

Donald Trump and the Republicans aren't really that concerned about transgender people and which bathrooms people use, but it's just an example of a much bigger agenda ... so says California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom.

There are rumors swirling Trump might tamper with state laws that now allow transgender equality in bathrooms. Newsom was heading into E Baldi restaurant in Bev Hills Tuesday and expressed fear and hope about the new prez.

Vivica A. Fox pissed off the director and producer who made her male stripper reality show possible -- Jean-Claude LaMarre is cutting ties with her after she said gay men aren't welcome at the strip shows.

Jean-Claude put Vivica in his movie, "Chocolate City" ... which led to her spinning off 'Black Magic' into a TV show. You'll recall, she was promoting the show last week on "The Breakfast Club" when she strongly objected to the suggestion gays were coming out to see her strippers.

As she put it ... "Hell no!"

Now LaMarre tells TMZ ... "The comments were out of order, and it does not represent our attitudes toward the LGBT community. All are welcomed." He added, "Vivica speaks for herself not the business or the show."

LaMarre will remain an Executive Producer on the reality show, and made it clear he wants 'Black Magic' to succeed -- he just doesn't want to work with Vivica anymore.