The mass shooting in Colorado Springs last November that killed five people inside an LGBTQ+ nightclub served as a tragic reminder that the hate directed at our community can have deadly consequences. In the wake of the killings, anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing figures celebrated on social media and advocated for copycat attacks, prompting bar owners around the […]
Category: Opinion
Posted inCommentary
Requiem for a drag queen
The New York Times obituary for Barry Humphries extolled the life and career of a beloved actor of stage, screen and television. You could be forgiven if you didn’t recognize his name, but surely not if you did not recognize his alter ego. Humphries made a seven-decades-long career in the United Kingdom, the U.S., and […]
Posted inCommentary
Moving beyond the biases in online LGBTQ+ dating
Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic three years ago, social interactions have existed almost entirely on virtual platforms. We work virtually, we hang out with our friends virtually and, most importantly, we date virtually. Over the past three years, we have met people almost exclusively at face value, and while long-distance or chronically online […]
Posted inCommentary
What’s “inappropriate” about LGBTQ+ book ban rulings
The dramatic rise in banning LGBTQ+ books for young people has been a concern in the U.S. for a couple of years now and shows no signs of slowing down. While local school districts can pull books from their classrooms and individual towns can take books out of their public libraries—as hundreds did in 2021 […]
Posted inCommentary
The news never stops
Those of us who report the news affecting the LGBTQ+ community can often feel whiplashed. In my 48 years in LGBTQ+ news, I can’t remember many moments when there weren’t many important and exhausting stories happening at once. It seems we never have a moment to process one issue when another comes along. For me, […]
Posted inCommentary
The revolution, as always, will be led by drag queens
At the root of revolution is revolt–a revolt against oppressive power. Once again in our history, we must rise up against a deranged right-wing front that is harnessing political and social power to legislate and discriminate LGBTQ+ people out of existence. Once again, the revolution will be led by drag queens. The earliest uprising of […]
Posted inCommentary
Democrats, including the LGBTQ+ community, must stick together to win
As we watch with revulsion what Republicans are doing, both in Congress and in state legislatures, it is clear the diverse members of the Democratic Party must stick together if we are to have any chance of winning in 2024. To do that will require us to understand, and accept, that in 2024 it will […]
Posted inTop Stories
A call for activists
When I moved to Dallas in 1992, I volunteered for several nonprofit organizations: I stacked food on the AIDS Resource Center food pantry shelves. I was an HIV counselor at the Nelson Teredo Community Clinic. I created four monthly newsletters. I sat on the boards of the Dallas Gay & Lesbian Alliance, Couples Metro Dallas […]
Posted inTop Stories
In praise of Drag Story Hour
Drag Story Hours have really come to the fore in our political consciousness in the last few years, as the radical right has strategically targeted events raising the visibility of individuals who are gender-nonconforming, transgender or nonbinary. I’m glad to say I’ve been to a Drag Story Hour (DSH). It was a joyous, but innocuous-seeming […]
Posted inTop Stories
Acknowledging queer women during Women’s History Month
They say history is told by the victors, and history in the United States is told from the perspective of white, cisgender, straight men. Our schools teach this narrative but then take the opportunity during certain months to tell the history of “the other,” showing that we are not the ones whose history is the […]
Posted inTop Stories
Breaking down the LGBTQ ‘monolith’
We’ve heard this phrase a lot lately: The LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith. It gets used whenever the assumed homogeny of the community is called into question, serving as a reminder that not all LGBTQ+ share the same views or priorities. In politics, for example, one might stereotypically expect LGBTQ+ people to automatically support […]
Posted inTop Stories
The power of queer obituaries
I enjoy reading the obituaries. You’re likely thinking, this person is a wackadoodle. I get why this strikes many as morbid. Yet, strange as it probably seems, few things are more life-affirming than obits. Particularly, for the LGBTQ+ community. Obituaries are far from dole, death-obsessed dirges. They are (pun intended) lively stories of lives: Composer […]
Posted inTop Stories
The importance of living authentically
“Don’t worry about what other people think of you. They need to worry about what you think of them.” I offered this advice to a new colleague of mine recently as we sat enjoying our lunch of gumbo and shrimp po’ boys on a cloudy Dallas afternoon. He responded, “For the first time in a […]
Posted inTop Stories
The youngest victims of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination
On Dec. 13, the Ohio State Board of Education voted 10-7 in favor of a non-binding resolution opposing proposed changes to the federal government’s Title IX protecting LGBTQ+ students. It was just one more blow for LGBTQ+ young people, who for much of 2022 have unwittingly found themselves at the center of one controversy after […]
Posted inCommentary
Respect in death for our trans siblings
Another mass shooting, another act of violence against our community. We’re numbed to it, deadened to the daily nature of murders of our siblings and only the largest, shocking numbers grab the headlines now. This is why we honor Trans Day of Remembrance, to make sure no life goes unremembered even if their story didn’t […]
Posted inTop Stories
Who gets to define family values?
When President Barack Obama gave his second inaugural speech Jan. 21, 2013, the part that had me in tears was when he said, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our […]
Posted inTop Stories
How infighting serves the power structures eager to divide us
My home is protected by Ben Bradlee Brown. Not the esteemed Washington Post executive editor. This Ben Bradlee is a 16-pound Bichon Frise. The naming is intended as a compliment to Mr. Bradlee. In my house, dogs are good.
Posted inNews
Trans-Pacific Māhū Ancestors: Reclaiming Hawaiian Trans Identities/Spirits
In a world full of anger, hurt and worry, a Hawaiian legend of dual male/female identities has been resurrected to reclaim an ancient tradition and bring healing to our modern lives. Such a story is necessary today as transgender people are openly attacked as easy targets of hatred and discrimination, scapegoats for all that is […]
Posted inTop Stories
The fight continues
In the 53-plus years since the Stonewall Riots, the LGBTQ+ community has made tremendous strides. Progress came slowly at first; in the 1980s through the early 1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic largely diverted our attention and efforts away from fighting for equality and focused us instead on just trying to stay alive and keep our friends […]
Posted inTop Stories
Responsible voting and reporting: A recipe for democracy
Winston Churchill famously said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government—except all the others that have been tried.” Democracy has been especially exhausting in recent memory. Mainstream media has locked Americans into a perpetual election cycle: Once a president, for example, is sworn in, speculation begins on the outcomes of […]