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 […]
Tag: commentary
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
A right-wing threat to HIV prevention
Reducing, and ultimately eliminating, new HIV transmissions—even as health care providers, advocates and community members already have many components of the needed toolkit already available—remains a formidable challenge for communities across the nation. Even in states and municipalities, largely respectful of their LGBTQ+ populations, funding difficulties can result in diminished funds allocated for HIV prevention […]
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
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
What we lose when an LGBTQ+ bar closes
Shortly after the new year, I was stunned after learning another neighborhood business was closing. I was surprised by the abrupt message handwritten on a sign outside – and perhaps ironically revealed on Instagram–Harvey’s, an LGBTQ+ bar in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro district announced its last day before closing for good. Once ground […]
Posted inTop Stories
The next evolution of queer media is branded content
It’s no surprise that, as the decades have passed, media has evolved. Print journalism still serves its purpose, and there’s still something very soothing about sitting down with coffee and reading a magazine or newspaper. But we’ve officially entered the age of digital and branded content. The Meta Branded Content Project defines branded content as “any […]
Posted inCommentary
LGBTQ+ candidates are there as Chicago politics prepare to shift
The exhausting Chicago election cycle continues. Once the midterm and gubernatorial races were resolved, the Windy City was already midstream in campaigning for the 2023 municipal elections Feb. 28 (with runoffs April 4). Chicago could very well see a significant pivot in its municipal politics in 2023. A contentious term, not to mention some campaign […]
Posted inCommentary
6 up and coming LGBTQ+ politicians to watch in 2023
A record number of openly LGBTQ+ politicians won their elections in November 2022 and they’re taking office this January. One can only hope that this record number “rainbow wave” of LGBTQ+ candidates is a promising sign of growing progress. Despite a tough legislative fight that lies ahead for some cities and states, many queer and […]
Posted inCommentary
A new year and a new era of LGBTQ+ journalism
A new year brings with it the attempt to keep your New Year’s resolutions and start new projects. For me, there are no new resolutions, since years ago it became apparent that any resolutions I made usually didn’t make it through January, much less the entire calendar year. But there is that second item, new […]
Posted inCommentary
New year, still here, still queer
2023 has dawned. With a quick look back, let me definitively say newspapers did not die. I field that specific question all the time. My response is steadfast. We are here, we are queer. I add to that, newspapers and niche market media are still alive and well. Jeff Bezos has not knocked on the […]
Posted inCommentary
Make drag queens illegal? It’s happened before
The growing campaign to criminalize drag performers may seem quixotic given the mainstreaming of drag in popular culture. Indeed, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and its spinoffs threatened to make drag passé, except for the most extravagant, outrageous, and outlandish. But perhaps it was inevitable that a backlash was due, because anti-drag hysteria is nothing new; in […]
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 […]