In a new interview with 20 Minutos, Spanish water polo star Víctor Gutiérrez opens up about his coming out experience as well as the bullying he endured as a child and still to this day.
“When I was eight years old it was the first time they called me a f*ggot,” he recalls. “I didn’t even know what it meant. I had to ask.”
Gutiérrez came out publicly in 2016. He remains one of only a few professional water polo players in Europe to do so. Looking back, he says sharing his truth was “the most courageous and important decision of my life.”
But that doesn’t mean it has been easy.
Gutiérrez says he still faces a lot of homophobia from certain players, including one teammate who told him, “I’d rather have a son with Down Syndrome than a f*ggot.”
Last year, he took to social media to call out a rival player who made homophobic remarks during a match between CN Terrassa, for which Gutiérrez plays, and CN Sabadell.
Gutiérrez reported the comments to the referees. Per Spanish Swimming Federation rules, the incident should have been officially noted. Instead, the whole thing went unpunished.
“This happens every day in swimming pools, soccer fields, tennis courts,” Gutiérrez said at the time. “And it is not only experienced by professionals, but also by children.”
Speaking to 20 Minutos, Gutiérrez says that, despite the abuse he’s suffered, he still has hope for the future, saying it’s possible to “reach the sport’s elite as an LGBTQ person.”
But, he adds, “this fight is not just for LGTBQ people. It is a matter for everyone. I invite everyone to become an agent of change and fight for a society that is free from homophobia.”
If there’s one thing that’s certain in this chaotic world, it’s that scientists know there’s simply no real reason to blanket ban trans athletes from sports.
he vexing debate over trans people kicking a ball or running for a few seconds has increasingly engulfed the minds of lawmakers and pundits.
Yet while research is still scant on the area, advocacy groups and many sports governing bodies generally agree that trans people playing sports is a non-issue.
After all, sport is unfair. Some athletes have naturally advantages, such as height, while others have access to better coaching and resources.
Anti-trans bans invite ‘gender policing’, say activists
For the most part, trans women need to undergo hormone therapy for at least one year to complete. Even then, testosterone, long associated with strength, isn’t even the reason for some performance differences in the first place, studies have suggested.
Last year, for example, the International Olympic Committee released new guidelines that said there is no need for trans women to lower their testosterone to compete against cisgender women.
The framework also applies to women with differences in sex development, such as Caster Semenya, the 800-metre runner told by World Athletics she can only compete if she alters her natural hormones.
No wonder Semenya’s career took a hit, the American Civil Liberties Union says, as “excluding women who are trans hurts all women”.
“It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being ‘too masculine’ or ‘too good’ at their sport to be a ‘real’ woman,” the advocacy group said in a statement.
South African 800 metre Olympic champion Caster Semenya. (PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty)
The effects of this can already be seen. According to the US Trans Survey, 22 per cent of trans women who were perceived as trans in school were abused so badly they had to leave school because of it.
The ACLU said that most efforts, whether it be by some sporting regulators or lawmakers, to ban trans women from sports are overwhelmingly based on “harmful” myths.
While research suggests that some trans women have residual physiological advantages, the few trans athletes who compete in top sports tell a different story.
An analysis by The Independent found that Lia Thomas, whose very existence has become a culture war as a college swimmer, doesn’t have an unfair advantage over cis women.
She hasn’t broken as many records as pundits may want you to think, the analysis found, and her times are often on par with cis women – and way below those of cis men.
In American women’s college sports, there are around 200,000 athletes competing. Of them, one researcher estimated, there are about 50 trans people.
Caster Semenya: Sports bodies that exclude trans women are ‘on the wrong side of history’
Doctors, academics, and sports psychologists, meanwhile, told ALCU that such bans balloon an apparent problem that doesn’t exist and, in doing so, foster division within sports.
They stress that sex can greatly vary women person to person – there is no one way a women’s body can be.
Many who rally to ban trans athletes shout that gender is defined by biological sex. But scientists have long said that biological sex isn’t so straightforward and there is no single biological factor that defines a person’s sex.
“A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance,” said Dr Joshua Safer.
“There is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.”
Even when the so-called advantages trans athletes hold are trumpeted by critics, when it comes to elite sports, it’s almost inevitable that a top athlete holds an edge over their peers.
Michael Phelps is a textbook example of this, researchers say. The towering swimmer has a 6’7″ wingspan, flipper-grade size 14 feet and produces half the lactic acid of his competitors, giving him almost superhuman stamina.
Many governing bodies require trans athletes to undergo some form of hormone suppression for a certain number of years. But this is a demand that the United Nations see as “unnecessary, humiliating and harmful”.
The council warned sporting officials “to refrain from developing and enforcing policies and practices that force, coerce or otherwise pressure women and girl athletes into undergoing unnecessary, humiliating and harmful medical procedures in order to participate in women’s events in competitive sports”.
Stonewall recommended to PinkNews that sports embrace a “case-by-case” approach to regulating trans people taking part in sports.
The International Federation of Sports Medicine, which represents 125,000 physicians in 117 countries, agrees.
Given that there is little data on the apparent advantages trans women have, the commission suggested last year that each sport regulate itself rather than blanket banning trans women from the competitive sport altogether.
“Excluding female athletes or endangering our health solely because of our natural abilities puts World Athletics on the wrong side of history,” Semenya said in 2020 as she took her exclusion to the European Court of Human Rights.
“I will continue to fight for the human rights of female athletes, both on the track and off the track, until we can all run free the way we were born.
“I know what is right and will do all I can to protect basic human rights, for young girls everywhere.”
In the first three months of 2022, nearly 199 anti-trans pieces of legislation have been proposed, after a whopping 147 in 2021. These laws prohibit, punish, or severely limit medical transition, athletic involvement, bathroom access, and identity privacy among providers and educators. The reality is that these laws are based on damaging misinformation about transgender children, their caregivers, & their providers.
As a transgender man who has worked with gender-diverse children as young as three years old, I know how vital it is to have scientifically accurate and evidence-based information to keep our children safe and healthy.
So let’s explore some of the most common myths about transgender children:
There are only two genders
One word: science. There is a wide spectrum of genders acknowledged by science and biology, well beyond the binary of male or female. Many people confuse sex assigned at birth (sometimes called “biological sex”) with someone’s gender identity, their deeply-held sense of what their gender is. All people have a gender identity, it simply becomes highlighted when that identity doesn’t match our sex assigned at birth. Sex assigned at birth is not as simple as chromosomes or genitals. Politicians and anti-trans advocates who insist on completely rigid binary genders are hurting all of us and know that this kind of fear-mongering is their most effective weapon in the face of a culture still learning about the reality of trans identities.
Kids aren’t old enough to know their true gender
Some critics argue that children cannot separate imaginary play from a deeply-held identity, believing that children can be coached into expressing a transgender identity, or that youth may be influenced by social media to be transgender. The American Psychological Association states that most children have a firm idea of their gender identity by age 2, including transgender children. I have worked with kids whose first words were “I not boy” or “No dress,” suggesting that even some pre-verbal children are aware of the potential mismatch between their gender identity and how their caregivers see them. Research has established that trans kids’ gender identities are as strong as their cisgender counterparts’ gender identities, emphasizing that even very young children who say they are not the sex they were assigned at birth can and do know their authentic gender.
Medical transition is dangerous for transgender youth
Some people fear that doctors are unquestioningly recommending medical transition (puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and/or surgery) for young children without regard for the permanent changes their bodies will undergo. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and other major medical/mental health organizations all support gender-affirming care for pubescent youth when appropriate, especially in cases where youth are so dysphoric that they self-harm, sometimes resulting in suicide attempts. Child and adolescent gender clinics employ rigorous, constant evaluation of youth that can extend over 6+ months, to determine what medical path, if any, is appropriate. Medical transition is not utilized for youth who have not entered puberty, and there is plenty of youth with no desire to medically transition. However, access to these services can be lifesaving for transgender youth. Early studies show low rates of transition regret.
Many kids experience transition regret
There can be some confusion in understanding research about trans, gender nonconforming, and gender creative kids. Certain interpretations of early studies suggested that there were high rates of trans children later detransitioning. It has become clear that many of these young people were probably not transgender to begin with. Many of the kids in these studies were recruited from gender clinics their parents brought them to in order to change gender nonconforming behaviors or gender exploration. Many of them did not consistently, insistently, and persistently state they were a gender other than their sex assigned at birth, a hallmark of transgender identity.
Trans kids confuse or upset other kids
Some fear that if children interact with or learn about transgender people, they will be confused about their own gender. In my experience supporting trans kids and their siblings at camps through Gender Spectrum and Camp Aranu’tiq, young children often intuitively understand gender transition and are readily accepting of their trans peers.
If my child is trans, they will be bullied and have mental health issues
Transgender athletes have an unfair advantage over cisgender athletes
Many of the laws targeting transgender children prevent trans youth athletes from participating in sports based on their authentic gender identity. Most public discourse about such laws focuses on a purported advantage of transgirls/transwomen over cisgirls/ciswomen, though research is inconclusive at best. This myth begs larger questions about fairness in sports, and the purpose of youth participation in sports. What is the purpose of youth participating in sports? What do we lose by limiting the goal of these sports to winning, rather than using athletics as an activity that builds community and character?
Allowing transgender youth to use the bathrooms consistent with their gender identity is unsafe
There is no evidence suggesting negative outcomes when transgender kids use the restrooms that correspond to their authentic gender identity. When California state law AB1266, The School Success & Opportunity Act was passed in 2013, opponents feared that male students would masquerade as trans girls to harass young women in the restroom. However, Los Angeles Unified School District had passed a similar district policy in 2004, finding zero instances of such harassment. The reality is instead that trans and gender-nonconforming students continue to experience daily bullying and discrimination in restrooms.
Religion condemns trans and nonbinary identities
Every major world religion has historically acknowledged both humans and deities who move fluidly between male and female categories. Hundreds of cultures throughout human history have acknowledged people who identify with a social category beyond male or female, often referred to as a third gender. Third gender people are often viewed as especially sacred, having a special connection to the divine within their given spiritual tradition. Nearly every mainstream Protestant denomination accepts/ordains transgender people, and every faith community I’ve ever researched has some kind of network, formal or informal, that embraces trans people.
We must get past these myths and instead look to science and facts. The lives of trans and nonbinary people are literally at stake.
Kelsey Pacha is the Board President of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, the organization responsible for the groundbreaking book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, and the owner of Kelsey Pacha Consulting, working with clinicians, parents, corporations, & other providers to support the health of LGBTQ people. Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, first published in 2014, is a 728-page resource written by and for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. The second edition of the book releases on April 15th, 2022.
News centered on the trans community is often dominated by such trends, but across the country, grassroots nonprofit groups led by transgender people are creating spaces for their communities to find safety and joy.
Transgender Day of Visibility on Thursday is an annual awareness day dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of transgender people while still acknowledging the violence and discrimination they continue to face. Here are 11 grassroots groups that do just that by providing their communities with home-cooked meals, health care, space for creativity and other services.
bklyn boihood — Brooklyn, New York
Members of brooklyn boihood.MARS
bklyn boihood started as “a vision and space for masculine of center people of color to feel seen,” Van Bailey, a member of the group, said in an email. “Our mission is to create spaces where black, brown, queer and trans bois* can cultivate stories, dreams and creative work.”
The group has created spaces for safer gatherings and parties, storytelling, intergenerational connections, fashion, body movement work and reconnecting with nature. Bailey said the organization is excited to partner with groups like NYC Pridethis year to provide a social space for Pride season.
Youth Empowerment Performance Project — Chicago
A 2014 production of “Faces” featuring performers from the Youth Empowerment Performance Project.Sarah-Ji Rhee
Bonsai Bermúdez, the executive and artistic director of the Youth Empowerment Performance Project, said the group’s goal is to end LGBTQ youth homelessness in Chicago “and beyond!”
The project supports LGBTQ youths experiencing homelessness by connecting them with resources such as housing, employment, education, health care and other basic needs. It strives to create a “brave environment” that allows the youths “to explore their history, investigate new ways to address their struggles and to celebrate their strengths through personal, leadership and community development programming that incorporate different art-expression forms,” Bermúdez said in an email.
The Knights and Orchids Society — Selma, Alabama
Staff members of the Knights and Orchids Society.TC Caldwell
“Black trans gender non conforming people have been systematically denied access to the resources needed to survive and thrive so The Knights and Orchids Society strives to build the power of these individuals by providing a spectrum of health and wellness services to them across the South,” Christina Nicholson, the group’s communications director, said in an email.
She added that the organization is looking forward to expanding its food and nutrition program through its newly developed Black Sheep Farm and Innovation Center: “This program is dedicated to increasing our clients’ access to nutritious food by maintaining a community garden that teaches youth and other community members farming techniques that can be used in rural or urban settings and operating a food bank stocked with purchased food goods (including meat, milk, eggs, and perishable goods) and produce harvested from our community garden.”
Transgender Education Network of Texas — Austin, Texas
The Transgender Education Network of Texas at a protest last year.Gin Pham
The Transgender Education Network of Texas, or TENT, is the largest policy organization in the state led by trans people of color, said Gin Pham, the group’s communications and outreach manager. TENT provides gender-inclusive training for state leaders and engages in policy advocacy.
“This year, regardless of attacks on trans and gender expansive communities, we will continue to work to deepen our network and provide our communities with the relevant and accurate resources and information throughout the state of Texas,” Pham said in an emailed statement.
Transgender Day of Visibility, Pham added, “means different things to the different members of our community, as we all have our own personal relationships with being visible, but at the heart of it, it’s a celebration of one another.”
The Okra Project — Brooklyn, New York
The Okra Project is a mutual aid organization that provides home-cooked meals to Black trans people in New York City, Philadelphia and parts of New Jersey.
The Okra Project’s executive team.Alex Webster Photography
“There is a special place that The Okra Project sits in — the mission to invest in the manifestation of the most incredible life a Black Trans or Gender Expansive person can dream of,” Dominique Morgan, the group’s executive director, said in an email. “The approach can be diverse: eliminating food insecurity, naming and addressing health disparities, whole person health or maybe just a space to dance and feel free — it’s all about manifesting a life for Black Trans and Gender Expansive people filled with joy and radical liberation.”
Phoenix Transition Program — Atlanta
Lupa Brandt and her husband, Jamil-Jack Abreu, founded the Phoenix Transition Program in June 2020 to provide services and support to trans people across the country, although they focus primarily on supporting transmasculine people, who Brandt said are often overlooked.
The founders of Phoenix Transition Program.Jamil-Jack Abreu
The group provides free chest binders to transmasculine people nationwide and Thanksgiving meals to those who need them.
It also helps trans people start businesses by paying for their websites and state registrations, and it supports those who have recently been incarcerated.
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“We’re just trying to adapt and continue to keep our community safe and free and housed and fed,” Brandt said.
Baltimore Safe Haven
Members of Baltimore Safe Haven hold the photos and names of trans people who were killed in 2020.Baltimore Safe Haven
Baltimore Safe Haven provides at-risk trans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, intersex and asexual people in Baltimore “with opportunities to transform their lives,” said Iya Dammons, the organization’s founder and executive director.
The Black trans-led LGBTQ organization provides low-barrier shelter to those experiencing homelessness, transitional housing, middle-age housing and senior housing. It also provides social services, such as HIV testing, access to food and clothing pantries and a drop-in center with daytime and nighttime outreach.
“The accumulation of those allows us to see a broad amount of community members who are not just TLGBQ, but also everyone who crosses our threshold,” said Ja’Nae Tyler, the director of operations.
Alianza Translatinx — Orange County, California
Members of Alianza Translatinx.Alianza Translatinx
Alianza Translatinx, the first and only trans-led organization in Orange County, “has become a community cornerstone” for trans and gender-nonconforming people living in the largely conservative area, Khloe Rios-Wyatt, the group’s president and CEO, said in an email.
“Through education, community empowerment and social justice, Alianza Translatinx uplifts the TGNC community to eradicate stigma and hate against TGNC people, while at the same time fulfilling our mission to protect, defend and advocate for the needs and the rights of the TGNC community, especially people of color,” Rios-Wyatt said, using an initialism for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.
The TransLatin@ Coalition — Los Angeles
The TransLatina@ Coalition.Courtesy the TransLatina Coalition.
The TransLatin@ Coalition was founded in 2009 by a group of transgender, gender-nonconforming and intersex immigrant women in Los Angeles. The group provides legal services such as name and gender-marker changes, re-entry assistance for people in detention centers and jails, anti-violence response, HIV-prevention services, transitional and emergency housing, clothing and free daily lunches.
“The mission of The TransLatin@ Coalition (TLC) is to advocate for the specific needs of the Trans Latin@ community that resides in the U.S.A. and to plan strategies that improve our quality of life,” Steve Landaverde, one of the group’s directors, said in an email.
Intransitive — Little Rock, Arkansas
Supporters of Intransitive protest the death of Roxsana Hernandez, a transgender woman from Honduras who died in ICE custody in 2018.Rumba Yambú
Intransitive is a trans migrant-led organization in Arkansas that supports the trans community through advocacy, organizing, art, education and culture, said Rumba Yambú, the group’s director.
“At the end of last year we opened the first Trans Community Center in Arkansas, and this year we’ll spend it creating spaces for Trans joy, supporting Trans youth, and growing and building with Trans Arkansans,” Yambú said in an email.
The group was closely involved in advocating against anti-trans legislation in the state, which was the first to ban certain gender-affirming medical care procedures for minors last year. A judge blocked the law from taking effect in July.
Transinclusive Group — Wilton Manors, Florida
Tatiana Williams at a Black Trans Lives Matter rally honoring the memory of Tony McDade, who was shot and killed by a police officer in 2020.Nic Zantop
Transinclusive Group is a trans-led group with a special focus on racial justice, accessibility and ensuring that social, political and economic systems treat LGBTQ people equally.
“We envision a community where all Transgender, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer+ individuals can achieve their human potential equally and equitably through education, healthy lives, and financial stability, free of stigma and discrimination,” Tatiana Williams, the group’s co-founder and executive director, said in an email. “Our work in community is dedicated to ensuring that trans joy, wellness, and opportunity are not out of reach for any of our siblings.”
Transinclusive Group’s region of focus is South Florida, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
A Michigan lawmaker has slammed a Republican colleague’s ‘groomer’ accusations because of her diehard support for the LGBT+ community.
State senator Mallory McMorrow delivered a passionate speech on the Capitol floor, defending herself from baseless claims by Republican Lana Theis. McMorrow told her fellow legislators that Theis “accused me by name of grooming and sexualising children” in a fundraising email because the Democrat stood up against Theis’ attempts to marginalise the LGBT+ community.
McMorrow, who shared a clip of her fiery speech on Twitter, told those gathered at the state Capitol building that she “didn’t expect to wake up” to the message and “sat on it” for a while as she wondered why Theis would lob such accusations against her. But then she realised that she is the “biggest threat to your hollow, hateful scheme”.
“You can’t claim that you are targeting marginalised kids in the name of ‘parental rights’ if another parent is standing up to say ‘no’,” McMorrow said. “So then what – you dehumanise and marginalise me.”
“These are the people we are up against,” Theis’ fundraising email read. “Progressive social media trolls like senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they can’t teach can’t groom [sic] and sexualise kindergarteners or that eight-year olds are responsible for slavery.”
PinkNews has contacted Theis’ office for comment.
McMorrow argued that Theis’ email tried to other her by saying “she’s a groomer”, “she supports pedophilia”, “she wants children to believe they were responsible for slavery and to feel bad about themselves because they’re white”.
McMorrow explained in her speech that Theis’ accusations are rooted in a broader conservative campaign to use concepts like critical race theory to attack the LGBT+ community, civil rights activists and allies.
“I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slavery or redlining or systemic racism somehow means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense,” McMorrow said.
She continued: “No child alive today is responsible for slavery. No one in this room is responsible for slavery.
“But each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history… we are not responsible for the past.
“We also cannot change the past. We can’t pretend that it didn’t happen, or deny people their very right to exist.”
She added that people who are “different” are not the reason why “roads are in bad shape”, “healthcare costs are too high” or “teachers are leaving the profession”.
“We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they’re not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact peoples’ lives,” McMorrow said. “I know that hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it happen.”
She continued: “And I want to be very clear right now: Call me whatever you want. I know who I am.
“I know what faith and service mean, and what it calls for in this moment. We will not let hate win.”
Senator McMorrow was among a group of Democrats who walked out while Theis was speaking during a legislative session last week. During the speech, Theis claimed that “children are under attack” because of “forces that desire things for them other than what their parents would have them see and hear and know”, Detroit Free Pressreported.
Right-wing figures and conservative Republicans have increasingly labelled the LGBT+ community and advocates as “groomers” following the advancement of anti-LGBT+ bills including Florida’s reviled and hateful ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law.
Casey Pick, senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, told NBC Newsthat the organisation has seen an “uptick in the use of these slurs” and “gross terms like ‘grooming’”, especially in “dark corners of the internet”.
“It’s important to note that we’ve been fighting against these stereotypes for decades, if not longer,” Pick said.
Pick referenced Anita Bryant’s fierce anti-gay crusade in the 1970s and broader fearmongering during the campaign for marriage equality as precedent for the modern rise in ‘groomer’ allegations against the LGBT+ community and allies.
“We’re starting to see politicians and political staff using this term, not in the way that is beneficial to discuss things like the real concerns about sexual abuse, but as a way to demean and silence debate about LGBTQ people and their needs,” Pick added.
Friday, May 13 5:30–7:00 p.m. PT Online program $5 | Free for members
You’ve seen highlights from our archival collections on social media and in programs. Now join us on a behind-the-scenes look at the work of the GLBT Historical Society archivists. You’ll learn how archival staff preserve and share LGBTQ historical material, including processing collections, managing donations, digitizing records and more. You’ll get a peek into the vault, where the archivists will share some of their favorite pieces. Finally, we’ll be introducing a new workshop program we are launching this year that provides free archival skills training to the public. Speakers will include Kelsi Evans, our director of archives and special collections; Isaac Fellman, reference archivist; and Megan Needels, project archivist. They will also be joined by members of our Archives Working Group, a volunteer advisory group consisting of local archivists, historians and others in related fields. Tickets are available online here.
Transgender community activist Deja Alvarez and LGBTQ rights and economic development advocate Jonathan Lovitz, both of whom have been involved in LGBTQ rights issues for many years, are running against each other and against two LGBTQ supportive straight men for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in Philadelphia’s center city area.
Alvarez, Lovitz, public affairs consultant Ben Waxman, and café owner and community activist Will Gross are running in the May 17 Democratic primary in the 182nd District, which includes Philadelphia’s “Gayborhood” and is believed to have more LGBTQ residents than any other legislative district in the state.
The seat has been held since 2013 by out gay Rep. Brian Sims, who is giving up the seat this year to run for Pennsylvania lieutenant governor. Sims, a close friend and current housemate of Alvarez, has endorsed her to succeed him as representative of the 182nd District.
Lovitz supporters have expressed concern that Sims may have orchestrated a lobbying campaign that persuaded and possibly pressured the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the national group that raises money to help elect out LGBTQ candidates for public office, to endorse Alvarez. Lovitz backers have argued that the Victory Fund should have endorsed him, remained neutral, or made a dual endorsement of Alvarez and Lovitz as it has in other races where LGBTQ candidates have run against each other.
Lovitz backers also point out that Lovitz has raised far more campaign funds than Alvarez and the other two candidates, making him a more viable candidate than Alvarez and the one with the best chance of being elected as another LGBTQ person to the 182nd District seat.
Elliot Imse, the Victory Fund’s vice president for communications who was just named executive director of the sister organization Victory Institute, told the Washington Blade about 11 LGBTQ elected officials from across the country sent the Victory Fund a letter encouraging the group to endorse Alvarez. He said it was a “polite and respectful” letter.”
He said the Victory Fund welcomes input from the community and from supporters of all LGBTQ candidates on which candidates to endorse. According to Imse, it was the group’s 150-member Campaign Board, which consists of politically engaged activists from throughout the country, that voted to endorse Alvarez after analyzing a wide range of factors in the race. But some critics familiar with the Victory Fund, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the lobbying by Sims’s supporters of board members was irregular and drew the ire of Victory Fund leadership.
Although it decided to endorse Alvarez, the Victory Fund considers Lovitz to be a highly qualified candidate who would be an excellent state legislator representing the interests of LGBTQ people in Pennsylvania, Imse said. But he said the group determined that Alvarez’s background and status as a Latina trans candidate make her the right candidate for the job at this time.
“Deja is a candidate with extremely strong name recognition in her district,” Imse said. “She’s worked in the district for decades,” he said, “from founding organizations to help LGBTQ people who are homeless to help trans people through recovery programs, to providing COVID relief to immigrants and undocumented people,” he said.
“Deja is a Latinx trans woman and would be the first in the entire nation elected to a state legislature,” he said, as well as the first trans person elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature.
Alvarez currently serves as director of community engagement for World Healthcare Infrastructures, a Philadelphia-based group that provides HIV/AIDS related services and other community healthcare and social services. She also serves as the LGBTQ Care Coordinator for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and, among other posts, was appointed to a task force to create an LGBTQ Advisory Board for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
Lovitz supporters point to what they call his long, highly distinguished record as an advocate for LGBTQ rights and public policy and economic development related issues that have resulted in endorsements from both organized labor and groups representing small community-based businesses.
Lovitz has served as senior vice president of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce from 2016 until he announced his candidacy for the state house seat last year. He joined the LGBT Chamber in 2015 as vice president for external affairs and as director of the group’s New York subsidiary.
He has been credited with helping to write and pass more than 25 state and local laws, including in Pennsylvania, extending economic opportunity to LGBTQ-owned businesses around the country, including millions of dollars in small business grants to local and minority-owned businesses. In 2020, Lovitz co-founded PhillyVoting.org, an initiative to register and turn out the vote in the Black and LGBTQ communities, which, among other things, resulted in the registration of more than 300 new voters in the program’s first month.
The most recent campaign finance reports filed with the state’s campaign finance office show that as of January of this year the Lovitz campaign had raised $252,355. The reports show that Waxman had raised $45,276, Alvarez raised $35,941, and Gross raised $22,134 as of the January filing period. The next round of finance reports was scheduled to be released on May 6.
Some critics of Alvarez have pointed out that she had not been living in the 182nd District for a number of years and only recently moved back to run for the state house seat. Imse called such claims unfair and misleading, saying Alvarez at some point in the recent past was forced to find an apartment in another area outside the district because of the excessively high cost of living in the Center City area due to gentrification.
Imse said Alvarez continued to work in the district and retained her “decades long” ties to the district before she moved back to the district and became housemates with Sims to enable her and Sims to share the living costs in a high-priced neighborhood.
Alvarez told the Blade she and her supporters believe rumors circulating that she was unqualified for the state house seat because she had not been living in the district and just moved back were being orchestrated by Lovitz and his campaign to discredit her.
She said she has been living in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and has been living and working in the district most of the time for more than 20 years.
“The fact of the matter is my opponent has been in Philadelphia for like three years,” she said. “As a woman of color, as a trans person and, yes, like many Philadelphians, there was a time I had to move out of this district because I could not afford to live here any longer,” Alvarez said.
“But there’s not a single person out there and in this race that has both worked in this district, socialized in this district and then come back and done all the work that I’ve done in this district, which I have been part of for more than half of my life,” she said.
When asked to respond to Alvarez’s remarks, Lovitz said in an email that he has had a “lifelong connection to Philadelphia that no one can dispute” and that he moved to the 182nd District in 2017.
“What matters to me, and to voters, isn’t how long you live somewhere, but how much you’ve done to make their lives better in the time you’ve been there,” he said. “Since the day I returned home to Philly I’ve helped register over 1,000 voters through the PhillyVoting project; protected women’s rights by volunteering as a Planned Parenthood escort in my neighborhood; raised millions for charity through the boards I serve on and the events I’ve had the honor of emceeing; and so much more because I love my city.”
Additional information about each of the four candidates running in the Democratic primary can be accessed on their campaign websites, which show that each received endorsements from various advocacy or political organizations, with Alvarez, Lovitz, and Waxman receiving endorsements by local and state elected officials: lovitzforpa.com, dejaforpa.com, votewaxman.com, WillforPA.com.
Rue Dickey, who lives in Corvallis, Oregon, said that as a transgender person, they felt helpless watching Texas officials begin to investigate parents of trans children.
Dickey, who uses “they” and “he” pronouns, said they were “having a bit of a crisis” at their day job in marketing when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state child protective services agency to pursue child abuse investigations into the parents of transgender children who are suspected of receiving gender-affirming medical care. (Those investigations have since been blocked by a judge.)
Dickey, 25, wanted to do something to help trans youth and their families in the state.
Rue Dickey.Ashley Brianna
“The lack of things that I can do as a single person was super overwhelming,” they said. That’s when Dickey, who also designs tabletop role-playing games, remembered that Itch.io, a website that sells independent games, held fundraisers for racial justice, Palestinian relief and, more recently, people in Ukraine.
Tabletop role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, a popular game released in the 1970s, are interactive; players sit around a table and describe their characters’ actions, which affect the rest of the game. One player, usually designated the game master, describes the setting of the game and uses a set of rules to give players some structure and guidance.
The bundle they created includes 493 games from 300 designers, and it’s on sale until April 3. It’s valued at more than $2,700 but is available through the fundraiser for $5.
The bundle went live March 2, and Dickey said they initially set the fundraising goal at $1,000.
Just 45 minutes later, the fund met that goal. So they increased the goal to $5,000, and it was quickly surpassed again.
They went to bed, and the next morning the fund hit $11,000. Since then, they have increased the goal seven more times to $420,000. As of Friday evening, that had raised nearly $394,000.
“I’ve cried probably a dozen times at this point,” Dickey said. They said representatives from both of the organizations have been “super excited” about it.
“When I first reached out to them, I was like, ‘Hey, we’re hoping to give you at least like $5K each,’ and now every time I email them, I’m like, ‘Hey, just an update, you’re getting $170,000 each now,’” they said, laughing.
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Dickey said both groups have been talking about what they’ll do with the funds, and they have been especially happy to hear what a difference it will make for Organización Latina de Trans en Texas. The trans immigrant-led group runs shelters in cities across Texas and also provides legal support for name changes and navigating the immigration process.
A representative for the organization told Dickey that the donation will be one of the largest that it has ever received, they said. “It’s going to be enough money for them to do a lot of renovations and revamps to the shelters and things like that, which I’m super excited about.”
Tabletop role-playing games have become increasingly popular among the queer community as the games have become more inclusive. Dickey said that they have two answers for why role-playing games are so popular among trans people in particular.
“My joking answer is that almost all tabletop games have werewolves, vampires, changelings or magic users, and I’ve never met a trans person who doesn’t identify with one of those,” they said.
On a more serious note, they said that “tabletop role-playing games, at their heart, are about storytelling.” Often, trans people’s stories are told by cisgender people, who identify with their assigned sexes at birth, and are “portrayed by cis actors who don’t understand us and don’t know what we live,” Dickey said.
Tabletop role-playing games give trans people “the ability to be at our own table and centering ourselves in our stories and getting to play trans characters who the whole through line of their character isn’t that they’re trans, it’s just a part of who they are, and they still have dreams and goals and ambitions, and they’re a part of an adventuring party, they make a difference in the world,” they said.
“How empowering it is to tell your own story and be a part of a narrative that centers you and your experiences, I think is a lot of what draws at least me and a lot of other trans folks that I know to tabletop games,” they said.
Rue Dickey
There are a few games in the bundle that Dickey recommends, including their own — “not to toot my own horn,” they joked — called “I Want Your Bite.” The game is based off “The Bachelor,” the dating TV show, “but instead of the bachelor just being a normal person, the bachelor is a vampire,” Dickey said. “So you’re not only competing for their hand, you’re also competing for immortal love.”
They said one of the “big ticket items” in the bundle is a game called “Thirsty Sword Lesbians,” which they described as a “rivals-to-lovers,” high-drama game. They also recommend “Wanderhome,” a fantasy game in which the characters are small animals who defend their home from various threats.
Dickey said creating the bundle, and now selling 40,000 of them, has brought them a lot of joy amid what’s happening in Texas and the dozens of other states that are considering bills targeting transgender people.
They hope that trans youth in Texas know that they’re not alone.
“It’s super important to know that there will always be somewhere that you belong and that the world is duller without you in it,” they said to trans youth. “So don’t let them try to put out the light that is so important that you bring to all the spaces that you’re in.”
Contrary to the belief that many films have portrayed, attraction is not bound to romantic feelings. Instead, it can be an interest, a desire, or an affinity that’s emotional, romantic, physical, sexual, or aesthetic in nature.
With many feelings qualifying as an attraction, it comes as no surprise that it’s possible to experience more than one type of attraction simultaneously and that these desires come in spectrums rather than single points. And it’s in one of these “gray area” middle grounds where we’ll find alterous attraction.
Let’s explore its nuances to gain insight into our own feelings and understand and express ourselves better.
Alterous Attraction Definition: What Does It Mean?
To define alterous attraction, we first need to understand where the term comes from.
The term is derived from the same roots as “to alter” or “an alternative,” which all come from the Latin word “alternare,” which means “to change” or “to interchange.” Given this, we could define alterous attraction as “describing an alternative type of attraction” or, simply, “other attractions.”
The term is often used in the aromatic or asexual community. These individuals don’t experience a romantic or sexual attraction toward others and often have low to zero interest in related activities. Since romance and sex are commonly linked, alterous behavior is prevalent in both groups.
Aromantic and asexual individuals experience alterous attraction or intense feelings that cannot be categorized as a platonic or romantic attraction. Instead, their emotions land somewhere in the middle, where they want emotional closeness in a personal relationship without it being romantic or having the desire to explicitly act on or address it.
Alterous attraction can be a basis for your orientation and also exist alongside other orientations. For example, you can be heterosexual, bisexual, aromantic, or panalterous and still have an alterous orientation where you experience emotional depth not adequately described by romantic or platonic attraction.
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What Do You Call Someone You Have An Alterous Attraction For?
You can use helpful terms to describe someone you have alterous feelings for. Two of the common ones are “squish” and “mesh”:
Squish: A squish is a non-romantic crush. Unlike a crush where you want something romantic to happen with someone, a squish is someone you want to have a strong, non-romantic connection with.
Mesh: Mesh is something in between crush and squish. In other words, a mesh is someone you want to have an alterous relationship with – not exactly platonic, not wholly romantic, but somewhere in between.
Both terms are used in describing alterous attractions, although mesh might be more applicable in most cases. This makes it easy for you to refer to someone you have more than platonic attraction for without struggling with the romance-related crush term.
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What Does Alterous Attraction Tell Us About Love?
Alterous attraction is an important nuance in the aromanticism spectrum, as individuals with such orientation experience a different kind of romantic attraction than most of us are used to. Instead, they experience varying degrees of complex emotional desires to form an emotional relationship that goes beyond platonic connections.
Many people are used to separating platonic and romantic attraction in binary terms. But alterous attraction challenges the two confining classifications, proving that platonic and romantic love can exist together.
Our society is not bound to such amatonormative beliefs anymore, but rather, welcomes and values varying types of emotional closeness to the same degree.
The gray area captured by alterous attraction means that one can experience attraction without conforming to the norm or any cultural preconceptions and still have in-depth personal relationships. Just like how everyone often describes the color blue-green inconsistently, different people have different emotional boxes in life.
Alterous partnerships can also be somewhat of a substitute for “platonic soulmates” or “life partners,” where both individuals are attracted and attached to each other but without being wholly romantic.
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Romantic Attraction Vs Alterous Attraction: How Are They Different?
Most of us crave emotional closeness. But when does that elevate to romantic attraction?
The answer may differ from one person to another. In general, however, romantic feelings often have more intense emotions, where people describe it as having nervous energy, heart-tugging pain, and butterflies in their tummy. They may also be more inclined to the stereotypical “relationship escalator” such as committing to a lifelong partnership.
Alterous attraction, on the other hand, is more relaxed, where an individual may wish that they can date someone, but also be completely fine to just spend time with them in whichever way. They want to be emotionally close to the other person, get to know them, and spend every waking moment with them, but without any expectation or need that it’ll involve dating or romance.
In other words, it’s to have the feeling that you want to date someone but also know that it’s nothing romantic, sensual, or sexual. And you won’t be heartbroken to have your feelings go unreciprocated.
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How Will I Know If I’m Alterously Attracted To Someone?
The hard part about identifying this type of attraction is that it’s defined more by what it isn’t rather than what it is, and those things that “aren’t” are quite difficult to define themselves. So, the simplest way to find out if you have alterous attraction for someone is to first ask yourself the following questions:
How do you define a platonic relationship?
How do you define a romantic relationship?
As these questions might be difficult to answer, you can refer to your past or current friendships and romantic relationships to help you pinpoint your personal experience with different kinds of feelings.
Once the archetypes are clearer, answer these questions in relation to the person you have in mind:
What do you want to do with them?
What don’t you want to do with them?
Do you consider them only as your best friend?
Do you want your feelings to be reciprocated?
Do you want to have sex with them?
Do you want them to see you as a friend or a lover?
These guide questions are to give just a sense of what kind of emotional attraction you possibly feel towards others. You can also try putting “filters” on so you can see if you feel more comfortable having them as a friend or as someone romantically involved in your life.
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More Than Friends, Less Than Lovers: Alterously Attracted To Each Other
Alterous attraction is a new concept for many. But it’s necessary, especially for the asexual and aromantic community. Terms like these exist to help you identify and describe your experiences, so you’re more comfortable with yourself and have an easier time explaining to others.
Moreover, even if you do feel that the term aptly describes your orientation and feelings towards others, it may take some time for you to accept it as part of your identity. That is completely normal, and you have nothing to worry about.
If they don’t serve you well, you don’t have to use them. But if they do, then you can now proudly proclaim the feelings you had towards others that were once unnamed.
Liberal Queensland senator Matt Canavan reportedly told the newspaper: “I support senator Chandler’s bill.”
He added: “I think [the bill] represents millions of Australians, especially Australian women who don’t want to see their daughters work hard, try hard, get up early to become the elite at their [sport] and then someone with a clear biological advantage can just beat them.”
South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic referenced the bill in an email to supporters, alleging that the Labor Party “are already pushing for this ideological agenda to be taught in schools, they want men to be able to play in women’s sports, enter women’s private spaces and erode the sex-based rights and protections of Australian women and girls”.
Morrison also seemed to support the bill, stating that he “shares” the views of Chandler and Deves with regards to the proposed legislation, however he has since said that there are no plans to expand the bill in parliament.
He explained that the proposal >was only a private member’s bill and that “the government doesn’t have any plans for that to be a government bill.”
A spokesperson for trans youth charity Mermaids said: “Trans women do not have an unfair advantage in sports and their participation does not harm trans women.
“To even be considered eligible to compete at an elite level, female trans athletes must undergo hormone therapy and rigorous testing for at least a year prior to training and competing.
“As we’ve seen with athletes such as Lia Thomas and Laurel Hubbard, who’ve both been beaten by cis-female athletes in their respective sports, being trans does not guarantee a win.”
