I was at the Human Rights Campaign's annual awards dinner and gala in San Francisco Saturday night, where George Takei received HRC's Equality Award, Elizabeth Edwards gave the keynote address, and the always-gorgeous Lucy Lawless gave us three wardrobe changes and a whole lotta love for her gay fans. And I’m here to tell you it's official: Mr. Sulu loves him some Xena.

“Isn’t she fabulous?” he said of Lawless, who swished over in a low cut black gown. “I’ve never met her before.”

At the reception before the awards dinner, I told Takei I’d been a huge fan of the original Star Trek series, but had always felt excluded from the show’s Utopian vision, where queers like me – and him – were invisible.

“Well, Star Trek had as its core value what we call IDIC, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations,” he said. “And (Trek producer and creator) Gene Roddenberry always told us the diversity of the Starship Enterprise was where its strength was. There’s a diversity that we can see: the color of one’s skin, or the shape of one’s eyes. There’s the accent of a person, diversity we can hear. But there’s another diversity that we can’t see oftentimes, but that too is a part of the strength of America.”

The four young men who attacked NYC-based gender illusionist and recording artist Kevin Aviance last summer pled guilty to charges of assault as a hate crime, which carry penalties of up to 25 years in New York State. Read the Associate Press Story to find out more details.

In the early morning of June 10, 2006, Aviance was leaving the Phoenix Bar in NYC's East Village when he was assaulted and called the "f" word over and over by several young men During the assault his jaw was broken and he suffered other injuries. Fans set up KevinAviance.com just to have a place to wish him well.

Aviance didn't let the attack break his spirit. He went on to march in the NYC Pride Parade just two weeks later, and appeared on several shows talking about the attack, including the Tyra Banks Show.

Each of the young men who range in ages 17-21 are being sentenced over the next month or so, and will each likely serve between 6 and 15years in prison, which doesn't really thrill me either.