When Michael Egan launched his sex abuse lawsuit against Bryan Singer, his lawyer Jerry Herman said it would be just the beginning, and further lawsuits would be filed as he claimed he was going to uncover the large scale abuse of underage men in Hollywood.

While further lawsuits were filed in Hawaii (due to an extension there of the statute of limitations) against TV exec Garth Ancier, former Disney TV president David Neuman and Broadway producer Gary Goddard, problems almost immediately arose. Evidence was uncovered where Egan had said under oath in a previous lawsuit that Neuman had never behaved inappropriately towards him. A few weeks later the case against Neuman was withdrawn.

Now Egan has dropped his case against Garth Ancier, according to THR. However neither Neuman or Ancier is completely out of the water, as shortly after dropping his case against Neuman in Hawaii, Egan filed another one in California, claiming he’d previously cleared the exec “under fear, threats, and duress.” That case was technically filed against ‘John Doe’, but it’s almost certain it’s targeting Neuman. However due to the statute of limitations in California and Egan’s previous statements, the new suit does have massive hurdles even being able to get to trial (indeed many wonder whether the ‘John Doe’ tactic is so Herman can try to get past the early obstacles, as it would be makes it more difficult for Neuman to stop him).

Herman also filed suits on behalf of Egan against three other John Doe defendants in California last week. The presumption is that Ancier is one of them (it’s too early to say is Singer and Goddard are the other two), and the lawsuit is part of Herman’s realisation it’s going to be very difficult to prove a case against any of the men in Hawaii, but may be more possible in California if he can get past the initial, admittedly massive, legal and procedural issues.

Ancier’s attorney commented, “We are pleased the case filed in Hawaii against Mr. Ancier has been dropped given it had no merit whatsoever. Mr. Ancier was undeserving of the stain to his reputation caused by the plaintiff’s reckless complaint, which was grounded in lies. We are equally confident that just as this case imploded when the facts became known, any further legal maneuvers or gimmicks will fail because unsupported statements, falsehoods and character smears have no place in any court.”

There is an ever-increasing stream of LGBT-themed projects looking for funding via crowdsourcing, but it’s always nice when something a little different comes along. So how about a stop-motion animated short film series about queer history?

That’s what we’ve got with LGBTQueerstory, which has launch a campaign to raise $4,700 via Kickstarter.

The idea is that ‘This will be an ongoing, educational web series done in stop motion and various other animation styles that focuses on teaching LGBTQ history. Each episode is currently about 5 minutes long. The target audience is early to mid-20s. It will cover topics ranging from Stonewall to the decriminalization of homosexuality in the US to people of interest/ importance (Alan Turing, RuPaul, Billie Jean King, etc) to anything in between. It is meant to be an intro to LGBTQ history of sorts and is meant to inspire independent study. Discussion of each episode’s topic will be encouraged and suggestions for future topics or topics to cover in more detail will be welcome and considered.

‘My main goal with this project is to show the positive ways the LGBTQ community has impacted the world and to show young LGBTQ persons the triumphs and struggles that led us to where we are now, hopefully inspiring the next generation to keep up the fight for equality. That is it in a nutshell.’

Take a look at the pitch video below and then head over to Kickstarter to help out. [Read more…]