David Kilmnick knew an LGBTQ+ retirement community was needed when reaching out to elder facilities for educational programs.
The founder and president of the LGBT Network on Long Island, New York, he recalls a facility telling him “we have none of those here,” referring to LGBTQ+ people.
“I’m not talking this was 50 years ago or 20 years ago,” he says. “This was like five years ago.”
In September 2021, Kilmnick and his nonprofit opened the doors to The LGBT Network’s LGBT/LGBT Friendly Senior Housing, a 75-unit affordable housing community for LGBTQ+ elders. Here, residents can live out and proud with their partners and participate in programming at the 8,000-square-foot community center.
It’s a part of a growing response to the needs of the community, one where many grew up closeted and discriminated against, but also to see positive changes like marriage equality and a more welcoming society.
“It’s incumbent on us in the LGBT social service field to make sure that we create these safe and inclusive housing facilities so LGBTQ seniors and elders could age gracefully and be out and proud,” Kilmnick says.
The Palms of Manasota on the Gulf Coast of Florida touts itself as the first LGBTQ+ retirement community in the nation, while the Triangle Square Apartments in Los Angeles is considered the first affordable housing facility for elder LGBTQ+ people.
This community has the same needs as anyone else in their age group, but they also face discrimination and stigma, as well as being less likely to have children or grandchildren who can visit and help.
AARP has a page dedicated to the older LGBTQ+ community here. Additionally, they offer many online tools for all older adults like a retirement calculator that can help determine how much someone needs to be saving; a social security calculator; and a resource hub for all things Medicare.
With the rise of these specialized communities, they are able to age in place in a safe environment and also have access to services they need.
“It’s really the first generation of LGBTQ+ folks who are for the majority living their lives at some level of outness,” says Sherrill Wayland, the senior director of special initiatives and partnerships at SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBTQ+ elders. “As we think about retiring, potentially looking for retirement communities or assisted living, we want to make sure that we can continue being our authentic self and not have to re-closet.”
In partnership with the Human Rights Campaign, SAGE created the long-term care equality index (LEI). Hearing from 200 communities in 43 states, they surveyed non-discrimination and staff training, resident services and support, employee benefits and policies, resident and community engagement. The findings help elders as they research communities to spend their golden years, and each year the groups hope more communities will participate.
“We’re really encouraging these systems to not just raise a rainbow flag using Pride Month, but looking at the policies, participants and procedures that really institutionalize what it means to be LGTQ+ welcoming and supportive,” Wayland says.
Sandra Newson is the vice president of resident services for Carrfour, a nonprofit affordable housing developer. One of their properties is The Residences at Equality Park in Wilton Manors, an LGBTQ+ community that opened in 2021 and shares a campus with The Pride Center.
“LGBT senior communities are very rare,” she says. “One of the challenges for a person who identifies as LGBTQ+ who is aging is feeling a sense of belonging and comfort in a traditional aging-in-place for a 55+ community is oftentimes faced with discrimination or hostility.”
Even the language in the application form might be a sign to an applicant that they are not welcoming, particularly to transgender or nonbinary people or same-sex couples who want to live together. At The Residences, Newson says they’ve created an affirming environment with “zero tolerance for any behaviors that make someone feel less than part of the community,” from the application process to signage in the buildings, the groups they partner with and staff training.
You shouldn’t have to go back into the closet to feel safeSandra Newson
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One of the most popular programs is a monthly meditation workshop with Sunshine Cathedral, an LGBTQ+-affirming church that also hosts grief sessions when a resident passes away. Other activities include movie screenings, holiday parties and weekly gatherings. With many of their residents experiencing chronic illness — including HIV, mental health issues and disabilities — due to a lack of access to health care in the past, counselors help connect them to community resources.
“You shouldn’t have to go back into the closet to feel safe,” Newson says.
The same model is in place at the LGBT Network. Kilmnick says that in traditional retirement homes, “there’s a lack or the LGBTQ community is completely invisible.”
In one focus group before opening, a woman shared that when she lost her partner of more than 30 years, she attended a bereavement group where other widows and widowers told her “that’s not the same thing.”
That does not happen at the LGBT Network. There, residents are treated to guest speakers, drag Bingo, health programs, holiday celebrations, and other diverse programming where they can be themselves alongside their partners.
“We’ve had a number of seniors tell us that this is the first place that they ever lived in their entire life —they’re in their mid-60s, mid-70s — this is the first time ever in their entire life that they have felt they lived in a safe place where they could be themselves,” Kilmnick says. “That’s powerful. It’s so sad and so powerful, and yet it really just stresses the importance of these facilities and that we need more of them.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a Seattle hospital to hand over records regarding gender-affirming treatment potentially given to children from Texas, according to court filings that appear to show the Republican going beyond state borders to investigate transgender health care.
Seattle Children’s Hospital filed a lawsuit in Austin, Texas, this month asking a court to invalidate or narrow the requests from Paxton, a staunch conservative who has helped drive Republican efforts that target the rights of trans people. His office sent similar letters earlier this year to Texas hospitals.
Texas is among more than 20 states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. On Friday, court records showed there been no decision yet on the Seattle hospital’s lawsuit.
The hospital argued Paxton’s office was overstepping its jurisdiction and had no authority to request the records.
“Additionally, the Demands represent an unconstitutional attempt to investigate and chill potential interstate commerce and travel for Texas residents to another state,” the lawsuit states.
Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a phone message and email seeking comment Friday. Lawyers and spokespersons for Seattle Children’s Hospital also did not immediately respond to a phone messages and emails seeking comment.
The Seattle hospital received the request from Texas in November. The lawsuit includes a copy of the letter from Paxton’s office, which among other requests asks the hospital to produce records identifying medication given to children who live in Texas; the number of Texas children who received treatment; and documents that identify the “standard protocol or guidance” used for treatment.
The hospital argued in cannot respond to the letter under a law signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee earlier this year that aims to protects minors seeking gender-affirming care in Washington.
In May, Paxton’s office sought information from Dell Children’s Hospital in Texas about its policies on puberty blockers as well as documents identifying patients it has referred for treatment or counseling. The attorney general’s office request at the time asked to examine hospital records “to determine whether any state laws have been violated or misrepresentations have been made to parents and patients.”
Those efforts began before Texas’ restrictions were signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who was the first governor to order the investigation of families of transgender minors who receive gender-affirming care.
The Texas law prevents transgender minors from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries, even though medical experts say such surgical procedures are rarely performed on children. Children who already started the medications being banned are required to be weaned off in a “medically appropriate” manner.
Kansas City, Missouri – the home of bebop jazz and the self-proclaimed “Barbecue Capital of the World” – also has some of the most LGBTQ+-friendly laws in the country, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). For the third consecutive year, HRC gave Kansas City a perfect 100 on its Municipal Equality Index, which measures LGBTQ+ equality in municipal laws, policies, and services. Residents have been working for LGBTQ+ equality for years and made major progress after the city’s LGBTQ Commission was created in 2020.
The commission’s current chair, a queer Black man named Justice Horn, was deeply involved in the fight to establish the commission and has spent much of the last year working to protect LGBTQ+ and trans rights across the region.
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Horn is young and charismatic, with an infectious laugh and a sense of humor that puts you at ease. He’s quick to praise other activists and organizers for their work and continuously highlights the role of the Kansas City community in making change possible.
Earlier this year, Kansas City became a sanctuary city for gender-affirming care, after passing a resolution saying officials would not enforce state laws targeting trans people. Horn says he wrote the resolution himself, though he couldn’t stop himself from reflecting the victory back to the community at large.
The idea came after a BIPOC and trans-led organization called Transformationsled a town hall. Horn tells LGBTQ Nation the event fueled him to look at ordinances from Minneapolis and Seattle to find the best way to protect trans and LGBTQ+ people in Kansas City. “Gender affirming care is health care access. It is life saving care access,” he explains. “It’s both health care access and not complying with state agencies to target trans folks and care providers.”
The sanctuary resolution went through the normal process and came up for a vote before the city council.
“The community came out, and I thank them for that,” Horn says. On the same day it passed, the county prosecutor issued a statement in support, saying she would “seek to protect [trans people]” rather than criminalize them. A few weeks later, the Kansas City Police Chief said in a statement that a state law restricting access to gender-affirming care was “outside the jurisdiction” of the KCPD, and they would not try to enforce it.
“I think a lot of credit comes to Councilwoman Bough or myself,” Horn says, referencing Councilwoman Andrea Bough, who introduced the resolution, “But if not for the sheer force of this community coming out – I think that’s why the dominoes fell. Because people pushed for this to happen. Without a doubt, it’s a victory. We have folks across the nation reaching out, asking how we did this.”
Leading with humility
In the last few months, Horn has spoken with officials in Lawrence, Kansas, which passed its own sanctuary ordinance over the summer; St. Louis, MO, where he says they are exploring their own sanctuary ordinance and creating a St. Louis LGBTQ+ Commission; and Springfield, MO, where they are trying to become an equality city under the Municipal Equality Index. He has also continued working with his own Kansas City government to pass a hate crimes ordinance.
“[Justice Horn] has single-handedly, I think, worked harder than anyone in City Hall on LGBTQ issues,” Merrique Jenson, a trans woman of color and activist in Kansas City, tells LGBTQ Nation. Jenson, the founder of Transformations, says she first worked with Horn approximately four years ago, and at first, she was not impressed.
“I always tell people, when I first met him, I didn’t like him,” she says. “You know, he was young and he was a go-getter. There’s a lot of younger activists who get in the work, and they just start barreling forward with what they think is needed and don’t take the time to ask what’s going on in the community or who has been doing the organizing, or what’s the history behind different issues,” she explains.
Jenson’s opinion started to change after Horn began to reveal his humility. It was after Kansas City had passed a resolution declaring it would recognize the Trans Day of Visibility for the first time, and she was slated to be the only trans activist to be honored that day. She wasn’t comfortable with that because she knew there were trans women and activists who had been doing the work for longer than she had. So she spoke to Horn about her worries.
“Justice said, ‘Yeah, I want to make sure, if this is the first time that the city is recognizing Trans Day of Visibility and trans activists, that we’re doing it right,’” she says. His openness to the conversation led her to broach another piece of the resolution.
“Somebody had actually put Justice’s name on the resolution, and I said “Hey, you know, I think you’re great. I don’t think your name has to be on this resolution recognizing trans people,” she tells us. “And Justice was like ‘Oh, yeah, I totally agree. Like, just take that off.’”
“You know, there was some humility involved,” she continues. “He leaned into it. You know, I’m a seasoned organizer. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. I was very impressed to see him be willing to do that.”
That humility still shows up in Horn’s work today. At the start of the year, Jenson called Horn to talk about how the media was covering anti-trans legislation in Missouri. “I remember calling Justice and I was like, ‘I’m so sick of seeing, across the state, everyone who’s been interviewed, and who’s talking about trans rights, are cisgender people,’” she says. According to Jenson, Horn then started directing interview requests to trans women of color in the community. “He was de-centering himself out of those conversations,” she says.
Horn is keenly aware of the importance of letting oppressed groups speak for themselves. “I primarily identify as Black, although my dad is half Black and Indigenous. My mom is white and Polynesian,” he says. Horn looks up to his parents, who have been involved in his advocacy since the beginning. He also keeps a photo of Bayard Rustin, the Black gay civil rights activist and close ally of Martin Luther King Jr., in his office.
“I’m grateful I get to sit in so many communities because I don’t get bogged down on things,” he says. “My very existence as four ethnicities, being a young person and being LGBTQ – I fit in many groups. I like to build coalitions and consensus. I think the oppressor’s plan is to keep us divided, to keep us fighting over crumbs.”
An obligation to fight
Horn describes himself as a fighter, saying it’s a skill he learned as an NCAA wrestler. He says he is usually fighting “someone who is trying to take our rights, attack kiddos, or alienate trans people, or ban drag.” His first experience in advocacy was defending trans athletes while he was in college.
“I was actually competing in South Dakota when the state legislature – well before the current conversation – introduced a trans sports ban,” he recalls. “That was my first instance where I really made a decision. Do I just hunker down? Or do I watch out for other people who are queer, trans, who want to play sports at all levels, especially kids, and sympathize and advocate for them?” He decided to go to the state legislature and testify against the bill, and LGBTQ+ activists stopped it from passing.
The scene repeated itself this year when Horn went to the Missouri state legislature in January, where he testified, he explains, “as lead opposition expert for Missouri’s trans sports ban.” Somewhat ironically, he was honored by the Missouri House of Representatives for his work on human rights the following day. “They were fine with me being a gay man fighting for gay rights,” he laughed, “but God forbid I speak up for the trans folks and the trans kids and their right to make health care decisions.”
Horn says he fights for trans rights because he sees the parallels between the fight for trans equality and the historic fight for gay equality. “They’re using the same playbook against our trans brothers and sisters,” he explains. “They’re groomers, they shouldn’t be in our classrooms. They shouldn’t be around kids. What did they say about us [gay men] in the 90s?”
“I think as allies, especially as gay men and the LGBTQ community, we should be one of their strongest advocates. We’re part of their community.”
Horn doesn’t just direct interview requests to trans women of color. He makes sure the LGBTQ Commission is an effective tool for change. “One thing I can say is we don’t just do Pride flags around City Hall and crosswalks,” he says of the commission. “We advance policy. We expand visibility and we ensure that folks know that there are fighters for them. That they don’t ever have to suffer alone.”
n the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, researcher R.G. Cravens saw a headline about the importance of LGBTQ+ voters. How would results have changed, he wondered, LGBTQ+ religious people stayed home on Election Day? But when he went to review exit polling, he found his question was unanswerable: The survey was done in waves, and questions about religious affiliation and LGBTQ+ identity were never asked together.
That lack of data isn’t unusual, said Cravens, now a senior research analyst at Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and author of the forthcoming book “Yes Gawd! How Faith Shapes LGBT Identity and Politics in the United States.” High-quality quantitative studies about religious LGBTQ+ people are few and far between; most of the research that does exist has been released in the past decade.
It’s estimated that 5.6 percent of American adults identify as LGBTQ+ and roughly half consider themselves a person of faith. Researchers studying religious LGBTQ+ people run into issues common to working with small populations: It’s difficult to get a large enough sample for meaningful analysis, and that work is resource-intensive. But bias also plays a role, as many people incorrectly believe religion and queer people to be incompatible.
That idea has a political purpose: As religious right-wing ideologies gain popularity among people in power, it is easier to justify the systematic denial of LGBTQ+ rights when they are portrayed as a community clearly delineated from the faithful. Proof of religious LGBTQ+ people pushes back against hateful movements by showing faith and queerness are not exclusive.
Religion can play a large role in the lives of LGBTQ+ people, even if they currently do not consider themselves religious. A recent non-representational study of 1,255 LGBTQ+ adults, conducted by several fellows at the nonpartisan nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), found that the majority of those surveyed were raised religious. Among those who now identified as religiously unaffiliated, a third still “felt a connection to their religious heritage.”
More data like this can support deeper narratives about religion and LGBTQ+ people, said Tyler Lefevor, associate professor of psychology at Utah State University and one of the PRRI fellows. As a psychologist, he’s interested in how religion continues to impact the lives of LGBTQ+ people who leave restrictive traditions — a common experience illustrated by surveys like the one he co-ran.
“What I see is that people step out into an LGBT community that’s supposed to be really loving and accepting, but find themselves really rejected by the community because they don’t look and act and talk like other LGBT people,” Lefevor said. “Because their values are still conservative, their beliefs are still conservative, they may hold on to aspects of their religion and that makes them stand out.”
Higher visibility of religious LGBTQ+ people can help others reframe their distress as a societal issue, not a personal one, said Lefevor.
“I think there has been a dearth of research on the religious experiences of LGBTQ Americans because the default assumption often is that if you’re part of the LGBTQ community, by definition, you’re probably not religious,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI.
Deckman said this narrative is often clear in the media, where stories abound about religious denominations that oppose LGBTQ+ rights.
Data is missing on religious LGBTQ+ people for multiple reasons: there are gaps in demographic data collection in general surveys — like in the case of not asking whether people were religious and LGBTQ+ in exit polls — and in surveys specifically designed to study religious experiences. The former is a result of a cycle of marginalization in the social sciences, Cravens said, where LGBTQ+ people are seen as non-normative and not worthy of independent study.
Cravens pointed to the case of the General Social Survey (GSS), one of the longest-running surveys of American social and political life conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. The GSS began measuring attitudes toward homosexuality in 1978 but didn’t ask about same-sex sexual activity until 10 years later. And the survey only asked respondents to self-identify their sexual orientation in 2008 — 30 years later.
“We knew that homosexuality was a concept worthy of studying or asking straight people about, but we didn’t consider understanding the sexual identities of the people we were asking these questions from until much later,” Cravens said. “Heteronormative assumption feeds a data gap of LGBTQ+ experiences in social scientific research.”
Specifically when studying religion, “there’s a lot of work on the attitudes of religious people toward LGBTQ people, but very, very, very little about the attitudes of LGBTQ people toward religion,” said Lefevor.
More large-scale studies about religious experiences can create space for new stories. It also helps paint a picture of religion in America.
Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit research institute, last ran its Religious Landscape Survey in 2014, which had a sample size of 35,071 American adults. Because of the scale, researchers were able to break out the religious composition of LGBTQ+ people. But a lot can change in 10 years.
One of the most up-to-date studies on LGBTQ+ religious life is PRRI’s annual American Values Survey, which is the result of over 20,000 interviews across the nation. The survey has asked about the sexual orientation and gender identity of respondents since 2019.
While it’s true that some religious doctrine is explicitly against homosexuality, that information can’t be used to assume the beliefs of queer people, said Greg Smith, associate director of religion research at Pew. For example, similar shares of straight and queer people identify as Catholic despite the church viewing homosexuality as immoral.
“One of the things studies about religion have taught me is that it’s really not safe to assume too much based on what you think you know about the traditions or doctrines of a particular religion,” Smith said.
Changes in religious beliefs and behavior writ large tend to happen for two reasons: changes in subgroups or larger demographic shifts, Smith said. As more people identify themselves as LGBTQ+, that has “downstream effects” on religious composition as a whole.
That being said, some of the attitudes LGBTQ+ people have about religion are tied to other demographic factors, said Anna Brown, a research associate at Pew Research Center. “LGBT people tend to be younger, on average, they tend to be more liberal on average, and younger and more liberal people also tend to be less religious on average.”
The size of surveys needed to get adequate sample sizes is a financial burden. “It’s enormously expensive to get really good, gold-standard probability-based samples of lots of Americans,” Deckman said. “Funding is an issue because LGBTQ Americans make up a smaller portion of the U.S. population.”
Cravens knows this intimately. While working on his dissertation in 2016, he wanted to issue a short questionnaire to a random sample of 1,100 LGBTQ+ people. He was quoted a mind-boggling $56,000. He had to switch methodologies to a non-representative sample to accommodate his grad-student budget.
When the barriers to quality surveys at scale make it difficult to document the experiences of millions of religious LGBTQ+ Americans, that gap clearly benefits actors who would prefer to pretend those categories are mutually exclusive.
Christian nationalists, who believe the United States is a Christian nation and its laws should stem from Christian doctrine, are one of those groups. While the ideology has been around for 50 years, recent research has shown the beliefs have gained traction with more Republicans today. Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson has a long history with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nationalist legal group behind many pushes for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, spanning from attacks on trans athletes to supporting the case that lead to the Supreme Court’s contentious ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which gave a Colorado wedding website designer the right to refuse service to LGBTQ+ couples.
While not an intentional undermining, the lack of data on religious LGBTQ+ people makes it more difficult to prove their existence.
“The notion that LGBTQ people can’t be religious is very much a function of a political construct by the religious right to say, ‘This group of people isn’t like us. They’re not religious like we are,’” Cravens said. “And it’s easier to exclude, it’s easier to discriminate against, it’s easier to take away rights from people who aren’t like us.”
Over the last six years, blood center employee Dylan Smith was often asked how frequently he gave blood himself. His answer was always the same: As a gay man, he couldn’t.
That changed this month.
Thanks to new federal guidelines finalized in May, gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships can now donate at many blood centers around the country without abstaining from sex.
Bloodworks Northwest, where Smith works as a donor services supervisor, adopted the change on Dec. 6. He and his partner gave blood for the first time the next day.
“It’s been really emotionally difficult just to explain every single time the reason why,” said Smith, 28. “To be able to finally step up and support the mission that I really have just believed in since I started here just makes my heart feel so happy.”
The new U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines are the latest step in a yearslong effort to reverse restrictions that were designed to protect the blood supply from HIV, but which were increasingly criticized as discriminatory following scientific advances that allowed better detection of the virus.
In 2015, the FDA dropped the lifetime ban on donations from men who have sex with men and replaced it with a one-year abstinence requirement. The agency shortened the abstinence period to three months in 2020 after donations plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The American Red Cross, which accounts for about 40% of blood and blood component donations in the U.S., began implementing the new guidance in August.
About half of the 16 independent blood bank organizations that are members of the Alliance for Community Transfusion Services have rolled out the new guidelines, with more expected next year, the organization said.
“It is going to take time,” said Benjamin Prijatel, president of Shepeard Community Blood Center in Augusta, Georgia. “Blood centers and health professionals are going to have to put forth the effort to engage and educate this community in order to overcome years of distrust. That’s the only way this rule change will translate into additional donations.”
The change puts the emphasis on sexual activity rather than on sexual orientation. All potential donors are screened with a new questionnaire evaluating their HIV risk based on sexual behavior, partners and other factors that can contribute to the spread of blood-borne infections, such as intravenous drug use or recent tattoos or piercings.
Potential donors who report having anal sex with new partners in the last three months are barred from giving until a later date, and anyone who has ever tested positive for HIV will continue to be ineligible. Those taking pills to prevent HIV through sexual contact are still barred until three months after their last dose; the medications, known as PrEP, can delay the detection of the virus, the FDA said.
Donated blood is then tested for HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis and other infectious diseases.
Bloodworks Northwest, which supplies blood to more than 90 hospitals in the region, isn’t keeping track of how many newly eligible donors are coming in, said Dr. Kirsten Alcorn, the nonprofit’s co-chief medical officer. But workers have heard plenty of stories from people excited to give.
“It feels very meaningful to many of them to now be able to contribute to somebody’s survival,” Alcorn said.
Bloodworks executive Aaron Posey, whose own life was saved by a transfusion when he fell down a set of stairs and broken glass sliced an artery, welcomed the new guidance. He said hospitals and patients need access to a new pool of donors.
“Having always witnessed a shortage in the blood supply, it has at times been very frustrating,” said Posey, who first donated blood during the pandemic when the abstinence period was cut to three months.
Smith learned of the restrictions on gay men giving blood when he was screened while trying to donate his freshman year of college in 2013. The rules blindsided him, he said. It was a long time to wait before he could finally donate with his partner and other friends.
“Just being able to see them donating next to me, smiling next to me … meant so much,” Smith said.
Teachers who become aware that a child intends to transition will be expected to tell their parents, the UK government’s long-awaited guidance on the topic is expected to say.
After months of speculation, the government is expected to issue guidance this week on how schools should respond if a child says they plan to socially transition.
According to The Guardian, teachers in England will not have to “out” children to their families if they are simply asking questions about gender identity – the Tories’ right-wing faction apparently pushed to make this a feature of the guidance.
In the end, the government seemingly decided that children asking questions about gender at school was fine – but the guidance will draw the line at transition plans.
“Children can be very confused about these things and just want to have a conversation about it and what it all means with a trusted adult,” a government insider told The Guardian.
“That shouldn’t necessarily mean it is automatically flagged to parents.”
Tories initially wanted to ban social transition at school
The guidance is set to be issued after months of delays, leaks and backlash from both those in favour of improving trans rights and those opposed.
The government’s schools guidance first made headlines months ago when it was reported that ministers wanted to ban social transition in schools entirely.
Social transition generally refers to changing a name, pronouns or presentation – a young person who does so may dress differently, but social transition varies from person to person.
However, after months of internal wrangling – and warnings that doing so could be unlawful – ministers apparently realised that they would have to introduce new legislation to ban social transition in schools.
A Tory insider told The Guardian that women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch “was not planning any change” to equalities legislation but that she “would generally like to go further” on the guidance.
However, they said she is not currently planning on amending legislation.
“If you open up the equalities act then lots of other groups would want to make changes and you’re also likely to have people pushing for stronger protections on trans issues than we already have,” an insider said.
In addition, the government’s guidance is expected to advise schools that they should have separate toilets and changing facilities for boys and girls.
However, another part of the guidance has been dropped – the government reportedly wanted the guidance to say that children who want to socially transition should have to see a doctor before doing so. That will no longer be a part of the guidance after the NHS said it didn’t have capacity.
“I can feel it around me. Energy. So many different types of energy,” DC Comics’ Jules Jourdain notices as yellow, orange, and pink vibrations envelop him on a street corner, only visible thanks to their special powers.
“I still look the same on the outside,” Jules considers. Even though he’s gaining a reputation as the new superhero Circuit Breaker, the trans and nonbinary character (he/they) doesn’t yet know how to control the overwhelming power coursing through his body — it mostly just makes him feel isolated, scared, and dangerous.
Luckily, another well-known DC Comics superhero, The Flash, arrives and helps Circuit Breaker use his powers to control time and space. This isn’t the mainstream version of The Flash that most people know from old comics, TV, and film. They’re Jess Chambers, a non-binary variant of the well-known hero, just one of the many queer superhero variants that exist in the DC Comics multiverse.
Jourdain explains their trouble to The Flash: “Life or death… change or stasis… control or submission… man or woman. Thinking in binaries always feels limiting to me,” he says. The Flash encourages him not to overthink it, but to trust his intuition and let his power lead him from the inside.
Finally, having mastered his powers, The Flash takes him to a dance club. There, Circuit Breaker dances shirtless alongside his leather-clad friends — happy for the first time since coming out as a superhero. There, Jourdain realizes, “With the death of the old comes a chance at the new.”
In the real world, conservatives tell queer youth like Jourdain that they’re mentally ill and that books about their experiences “sexualize” and “indoctrinate”other kids just by existing.
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Censors have long accused comic books of corrupting young people. American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, which blamed comic books for causing juvenile delinquency, resulted in a moral panic that compelled publishers to establish the self-censoring Comics Code Authority (CCA). The CCA forbade comics from any negative depictions of government as well as depictions of “gore,” “nudity,” “profanity,” or “sex perversion.”
Individuals who seldom encounter LGBTQ+ people or queer stories may interpret inclusive comics as indoctrination, finding it hard to “embrace what they don’t see,” gay comic book and young adult writer Rex Ogle told LGBTQ Nation. “[These people] lash out. And books are an easy target.”
If young readers and free-speech advocates are holding out for a hero, DC Comics, one of the United States’ oldest and largest comic book publishers, might just be the streetwise Hercules they need. In the past year, the powerhouse publisher behind such iconic heroes as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman has quietly stood behind and even increased its LGBTQ+ content.
Over the past several years, DC Comics has used its deep multiverse to introduce queer and gender-swapped variants of longtime characters like Superman (Jon Kent), Green Lantern (Sojourner Mullein), Aquaman (Jackson Hyde), and the Flash (Jess Chambers), as well as introducing new LGBTQ+ characters like Galaxy, Xanthe Zhou, and Circuit Breaker. Additionally, DC Comics’ multiverse sometimes results in different individuals assuming the same superhero identities on different timelines or universes, such as when Damien Wayne and Tim Drake both fight crime as Batman’s sidekick, Robin.
In June 2023, the company released a slew of new and re-issued material as part of its Pride Month offerings, including DC Pride 2023, its third annual Pride-themed anthology of new material. Two other releases – DC Pride: The New Generation and DC Pride: Through The Years – contain landmark queer-themed work with most of the writing and artwork by LGBTQ+ creators. The diversity of voices and visual styles make a strong case for the form – with its marriage of words and images – as a riveting place to discover contemporary queer storytelling.
DC Comics’ continued production of queer content feels especially important in an era when several large corporations have reconsidered (or outright scaled back) their outward commitments to LGBTQ+ communities in response to conservative boycotts and media pressure seeking to make LGBTQ+-allyship “toxic” to companies’ brands.
DC Comics’ releases provide a powerful reminder that comic book characters reflect more than just corporate trademarks. Superheroes can serve as symbols to help readers understand abstract concepts like justice, empathy, dignity, and diversity. And who doesn’t want to see themselves – or someone like them – as the hero of the story? For most of these narratives, representation is just the start. Some contain LGBTQ+ characters fighting bigotry, while others show queer heroes finding community in a classic team-up. For many younger characters, coming to terms with their powers draws a relatable parallel to the exploration of sexual and gender identity.
Young queer people often find agency and comfort in these dynamic and colorful stories, especially since they don’t always feel supported in their homes, schools, offline, and online communities. According to Dr. Jonah DeChants, a research scientist at The Trevor Project, “Recent political attacks aimed at transgender and nonbinary youth have not only threatened their access to health care, support systems, and affirming spaces at school, they’ve also negatively impacted their mental health.”
In addition to inspiring young people, some of DC Comics’’ recent LGBTQ+ stories also have a broader cultural impact. Some right past wrongs by giving killed, neglected, and forgotten characters a second chance. Others feature tributes to recently deceased LGBTQ+ pioneers of superhero storytelling, like gay actor Kevin Conway and transgender author and activist Rachel Pollack.
These themes explore what it means to be queer in a quarrelsome world and how real-life super-queeroes can survive, thrive, and cultivate their unique abilities and identities to become heroes in their stories.
Redefining ‘Justice for All’
In addition to the 500+ anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced at state and local levels during the 2023 legislative session, reported hate crimes based on gender and sexual sexuality have steadily increased since 2014, rising by 70% between 2020-2021.
Phil Jimenez, one of the first out gay comic book writers and artists at DC Comics, in his introduction to DC Pride 2023, questions how to position anti-LGBTQ+ narratives in Superman or Wonder Woman’s universe. How would established queer heroes, anti-heroes, and villains respond to such attacks? Would pursuing “justice for all” seem like activism in that world or “just the right thing to do”?
Several writers in the DC Pride releases tackle this question by telling stories about the symbolic importance of having publicly out LGBTQ+ superheroes.
In “Super Pride (originally published in 2022), Jon Kent (Superman’s son) and Robin (Damien Wayne, Batman’s son) attend their first Pride march.
Robin prepares for the parade by bringing smoke bombs, electrified netting, and electromagnetic pulse generators because a community under political attack is “vulnerable to literal attack,” he argues.
On the other hand, Jon attends the parade in his Superman outfit but with a cape of different Pride flags. He says the iconic “S” shield symbolizes the hope and the possibility of making the world a better place. But for today, he tells his boyfriend, “I want [Pride] to mean that I see you. That I am you. That there’s no wrong way to be yourself.”
With that encouragement, Jon flies above the Pride-going crowd and creates a rainbow. Nick Robles’ artwork and Triona Tree Farrell’s vibrant color palette make the moment pop with joy.
Though endearing, the interaction almost feels like it comes from another era. In its annual crime report for 2022, the FBI noted a 19% increase in anti-LGBTQ+ incidents compared to 2021. Anti-transgender bias crimes increased by 35% overall. It’s no wonder that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans during Pride Month last June.
Maybe Damien Wayne’s fears weren’t too far off the mark.
Compared to “Anniversary,” Josh Trijullo’s story published in DC Pride 2023, one gets a sense of how superheroic advocay has shifted over recent years.
“Anniversary” features married gay superhero couple Midnighter and Apollo considering their visibility as LGBTQ+ role models during their wedding anniversary. Don Aguillo’s expressive, painted artwork follows the duo as they mentor a group of drag queen vigilantes, visit the iconic Stonewall Inn, and step into the middle of a tense LGBTQ+ rights protest and counter-protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
Midnighter wants to bust skulls, while Apollo worries that the violence will spread. They’re joined by Alan Scott, the WWII-era Green Lantern, who advocates a more measured response, lecturing them on the history of LGBTQ+ civil rights. He encourages the couple to think of themselves as “more than costumed mystery men.”
Agreeing that visibility and pride are ways to start fighting back, the couple goes one step further, adopting a hacktivist approach. They remarry on the spot, broadcasting the ceremony to every conservative news network and social media channel they can jam in the DC universe.
One important thing hasn’t changed in the year between these stories’ publications: the underlying faith that comic book superheroes function best as symbols. But maybe it’s not enough just to be a symbol anymore.
In his book Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud notes that comic books reinvent new symbols regularly in response to a changing society. Maybe some of these new superheroic symbols just give older ones new purpose and direction.
DC Comics’ take on chosen family
Not only has the increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation negatively affected 66% of LGBTQ+ teens and young adults’ mental health, but only 38% consider their homes as LGBTQ+-affirming spaces.
To fill the gaps of mutual support and love, many queer people cobble together a chosen family of non-biological kinship as a vital way to thrive. This search for a chosen community forms a key part of several of the DC Pride team-up stories, a convention in which two characters who typically appear independently take on a challenge together. In fact, some of the more interesting team-up stories gently subvert the conventions of this classic comic book staple in surprisingly queer ways.
The 2021 story arc of Robin (Tim Drake) acknowledging his bisexuality made national headlines. But writer Nadia Shammas’ “Hey, Stranger” picks up on Drake’s journey, flipping the traditional superhero team-up story to show that you never really stop coming out, even to those closest to you.
“Hey, Stranger” marks the first official meeting of Tim and Connor Hawke — a young asexual, BIPOC martial artist who calls himself Green Arrow — since each first discovered their individual queer identities.
This team-up is unusual in that it happens after Tim finishes battling some thugs. Bruka Jones’ artwork depicts a series of quiet but intense moments as the two characters test (and ultimately reaffirm) the value of their friendships, while Tamra Bonvillain’s dawn-tinged palette underscores the story’s emotional weight.
Another team-up story that plays with finding community appears in Jeremy Holt’s “Lost & Found,” featuring the new character Xanthe Zhou. As a nonbinary Chinese-American “spirit envoy” trapped in the realm of the living, they literally exist between several worlds and are unable to find their place. A magician and trickster, they conjure useful spirit world objects by burning small pieces of folded joss paper.
Like the team-up in “Hey, Stranger,” the fighting becomes secondary to the bigger story. Xanthe encounters Batwoman (Kate Kane) in a Gotham City graveyard, defending the Kane family mausoleum from would-be thieves. After trying to help, they listen to Kate mourn her mother’s death that occurred during her childhood.
Smitten, Xanthe gives Kate a folded joss paper tree to burn and shares their insight about the cycles of life and death, healing and rebirth. Leaving Kate in thought, Xanthe realizes they may have a place in the world after all.
In some stories, fighting villains becomes a metaphor for desire. Since depictions of healthy queer intimacy remain rare in visual media, it’s important to recognize that some queer heroes can be lovers as well as fighters.
Queer writer Stephanie Williams’ “Confessions” presents a sly and sultry take on this dynamic. In it, Nubia, Queen of the Amazons, recounts a “forgotten” team-up as pillow talk with Io, her beloved consort. The fight — in this case, a tag-team charity wrestling match for a women’s shelter — includes the aptly named Justice League giantess Big Barda as her teammate.
Rex Ogle’s “The Dance,” drawn by Stephen Sadowski, also provides erotic subtext and a steamy twist on the superheroic team-up with a queer homage to every Batman/Catwoman rooftop tangle since the pair first met way back in 1940. The story features anti-hero Catman (Thomas Blake) and Ghost-Maker (Khoa Khan, from Batman Inc.) fighting baddies together on a Gotham City rooftop.
Sadowski’s fight sequences, full of kinetic pencil work and thicker inks, seem well choreographed. The push-and-pull dynamic between Khoa and Blake makes the pair’s familiarity with one another’s bodies exceedingly clear — and it’s just as clear where they’ll head after the fight.
“I wanted the conflict to marry the sensuality of the body,” Ogle explained to LGBTQ Nation. “We’ve seen the tension between Batman and Catwoman forever, so I wanted to show another coupling.”
In one final glorious splash page, the erotic subtext of the superhero team-up gets revealed at last in all its naked queer glory as Catman and Ghost-Maker embrace in bed.
When a growing sense of queer identity & superpowers converge
For many LGBTQ+ people, the closet remains a lonely and fearful place. Within superhero stories, the isolation that comes from having superpowers is an experience that has often functioned as a metaphor for the isolation of closeted life.
Marvel’s X-Men may have started as five white prep school kids from suburban New York, but, as comics critic Sara Century notes, queer readers could easy to see mutants through the lens of LGBTQ+ civil rights. Their powers make them different, which, in turn, makes them the targets of hate and bigotry. Some could pass as common humans; others couldn’t. But until a decade or so ago, few of the X-Men had actually come out. The X-Man Northstar came out in 2002, and the better-known Iceman made national headlines when he came out in 2015.
Comparatively, some of the most interesting Pride-themed releases from DC Comics move beyond easy metaphors by focusing on how the closet and the coming out process shape the ways in which heroes use their wondrous abilities.
Greg Lockard’s “Public Display of Electromagnetism” suggests that the closet can provide a place where queer kids begin to develop self-reliance. For a younger hero like The Ray (Ray Terrell), the closet’s isolation felt both figurative and literal. The character still wrestles with the trauma of his parents literally confining him in a dark room, away from others, so that his light-based powers won’t manifest.
While he’s out to his Justice League teammates, Ray still melts down when his boyfriend kisses him in front of them. He overcompensates during a subsequent fight with the villain Shadow Thief, who easily overwhelms him with a wave of darkness, snuffing out Ray’s powerful photon charges. Although Ray finds himself reliving the trauma of his closeted youth, he digs into the root causes of his inner darkness to find the inner spark that allows him to harness his powers, shatter the Shadow Thief’s trap, and save the day — after all, Ray still needs to return his boyfriend’s kiss.
Aquaman (Jackson Hyde) also faces a history of negotiating the caped closet in Alyssa Wong’s “A World Kept Just For Me.” In this melancholy story, Jackson shows his boyfriend the small desert town in New Mexico where he grew up. Like Ray’s parents, Jackson’s single mother kept him far away from anything that would trigger his water-bending abilities.
Jackson’s story illustrates queer resilience. His powers developed in tandem with his growing sense of queer identity. He’d practice them in the shower to avoid unwanted attention while publicly struggling to become what he felt his mother wanted: “Normal, Unassuming. Human. Straight.”
Yet, as Jackson shares the pain of his closeted life with his boyfriend, he realizes that those experiences shaped the sense of morality and justice that makes him a hero.
Compared to other characters, Circuit Breaker (Jules Jordain) is the new kid on the multiversal block. Hailing from the playas of rural Nevada, the ability to sense and absorb kinetic energy from the world around them paints a decidedly queer picture.
Jules’ second comic book appearance in “Subspace Transmission” (DC Pride 23) functions as a kind of queer superhero origin story, with writer and artist A.L. Kaplan wisely focusing on the best part: the hero discovering who they are and what they value in relation to their new abilities.
Strange and overwhelming at first, Jule’s powers are a conduit for entropy, the ability to sense and steal kinetic energy and reduce the world to stillness. As they struggle for control over their powers, Jules recalls the fears faced when coming to terms with their gender identity and body while transitioning.
“Bodies are mutable,” Jules realizes after another failed attempt to harness their abilities. “Life or death. Stasis or change. Control or submission. Man or woman. Thinking in binaries always felt limiting to me.” And with that insight, they come to peace with the strangeness of their new abilities.
It is in these moments that Kaplan’s artwork shines. As they explore their powers, the waves of energy swirling Jules evoke psychedelic posters and 1970s rock album art.
For decades, LGBTQ+ comic book fans could only see themselves as metaphors rather than well-rounded queer characters. Being queer may not be a superpower in itself, but it provides LGBTQ+ characters in the multiverse with unique perspectives on their extraordinary abilities. It also provides affirms that our lived experiences matter — maybe that awareness itself is the real superpower.
Dismantling old tropes
Comic books haven’t always been kind to queer characters. Consider Extraño, DC’s first openly gay superhero. First appearing in 1987, when industry standards prohibited writers from using words like “gay” and “homosexual,” Extraño became a pastiche of stereotypes.
Early stories depicted Extraño as a sassy Peruvian sorcerer whose architectural hair, flowing purple robe, and pirate boots made him look like Liberace cosplaying Doctor Strange. The character all but vanished a year or so later, but only after contracting HIV from an “AIDS vampire” called the Hemo-goblin. No, really.
Extraño’s fate became a textbook case of “bury your gays,” a storytelling trope that remains alive and well in current pop culture (just watch It: Chapter Two and cringe at the gay-bashing scene). But now, queer writers are digging those bodies back up and giving them new life.
In a terse Substack post from May 2022, nonbinary writer Grant Morrison took aim at writers who use alternate versions of major characters as cannon fodder. For them, burying queer characters “for no defensible reason” deprives them of their storytelling potential.
One of the architects of the DC Comics multiverse, Morrison has created several LGBTQ+ and gender-swapped versions of major heroes in recent years. One of them, Red Racer (an alternate version of The Flash), was revealed to be happily married to his universe’s Green Lantern equivalent. Morrison had established the character as a founding member of a multiversal Justice League. However, Red Racer died in a Superman comic book, sacrificing his life to save the title hero.
In “Love’s Lightning Heart” (the lead story in DC Pride 2023), Morrison sets out to rectify this loss. The result provides a trippy, high-concept story of love overcoming death. It follows Flashlight, Red Racer’s grieving husband, on a mad, universe-breaking quest to return his beloved to the living. The story takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of an Art Deco-infused parallel universe and suggests that Red Racer’s return may herald the start of a new story arc brimming with possibilities.
Other LGBTQ+ writers strive towards the same goal as Morrison by reviving queer characters who have been buried, depowered, disfigured, or just plain forgotten. In Christopher Cantwell’s “My Best Bet” (DC Pride 2023), the wily magician and conman John Constantine plays a long game with Superman (Jon Kent) to rescue the soul of Oliver, a former boyfriend who had been dragged to Hell in the final issue of Constantine’s 2015 solo series and ignored … until now.
Queer villains get dug up and dusted off, too. Cannon and Saber — the antagonists in Rex Ogle’s story “The Dance” — have been depicted as an openly gay couple since their first appearance in 1984, but they last appeared over 30 years ago — welcome back, boys!
Even Extraño has returned from the comic book dead. Writer Steve Orlando reintroduced the character in his 2017 GLAAD Media Award-nominated series Midnighter and Apollo. Since then, Extraño has become a mentor for younger queer characters and the founder of a network of LGBTQ+ superheroes called Justice League Queer.
But don’t call him Extraño. Nobody has done that in years. “I’ve since buried that name,” he tells Midnighter, seeming to hint that he does the same to anyone who uses it. Now Gregorio de la Vega, he’s reclaimed his proud place as the first out queer superhero in the DC multiverse.
Grappling with justice & legacies reimagined
In an interview with Lambda Legal, queer poet and essayist Kay Ulanday Barrett argues that stories by and for LGBTQ+ people “honor our grief” as well as “help us remember our glory and community triumphs.” Recent book bans and content challenges seek to erase those histories. The DC Pride releases counter that threat by honoring the legacies of two recently deceased groundbreaking queer elders.
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Rachel Pollack, who passed away from non-Hodgkin lymphoma last April, is best known for her beautiful, strange, and spiritual run on Doom Patrol in the early 1990s, in which she introduced Kate Godwin, a trans lesbian superhero who went by the name of Coagula. Kate was the first — and for nearly two decades — the only transgender superhero published by DC Comics.
A former sex worker, Kate gained the ability to turn liquids into solids (and vice versa) after she spent a night with multi-gendered energy being Rebis. She initially tried to join the Justice League, but they rejected her. “I suspect they liked my powers,” she tells a friend, “but couldn’t handle me.”
Kate soon found her chosen family with the Doom Patrol, a collection of wounded heroes and superpowered outsiders whose adventures bordered on the surreal.
Pollack had been invited to contribute new material to DC Pride 2023, but the sudden progression of her illness prevented this. Instead, the anthology features tributes to her legacy from industry giants like Neil Gaiman and upcoming talents like transgender writer Jadzia Axelrod.
Gaiman reveals that Pollack created Kate Godwin as a response to Wanda Mann, a sympathetic but doomed transgender character in his Sandman story arc “A Game of You.” (Wanda will likely appear in the second season of Netflix’s adaptation, The Sandman.)
For Axelrod, reading that first comic with Kate Godwin in 1993 felt “like a lightning bolt from heaven.” Not only had DC Comics published a story featuring an out trans lesbian, but this smart, funny, kind person became the point of view character for the reader. The comic inspired Axelrod to create a trans-alien superhero named Galaxy, who currently appears in the Hawkgirl comics.
Kate Godwin seldom appeared after Pollack’s run on Doom Patrol ended. Another writer seemingly killed her off-panel a decade later.
However, Coagula may soon return. A trans woman named “Kate” (drawn in Godwin’s signature black tank top and jeans) appears briefly at the start of Axelrod’s 2022 story “Up At Bat” (reprinted in DC Pride: The New Generation). There, Kate runs a wellness group in Gotham City, and serves a friend and mentor to Alysia Yeoh, a trans urban vigilante and Batgirl ally.
What better way to honor Pollack’s legacy than reviving Kate Godwin, recognizing the achievements of these two pioneering women? Maybe the Justice League will finally accept her for her full, authentic self.
And anyone who grew up watching cartoons like Batman: The Animated Seriesor Justice League Unlimited, can instantly recognize Kevin Conroy’s rumbling, husky voice as Batman. Conroy passed away in November 2022 from intestinal cancer.
Before his death, Conroy collaborated with illustrator J. Bone on the autobiographical graphic story “Finding Batman.” First published in 2022, the story receivedwide fan acclaim and subsequently won the 2023 Eisner Award for Best Short Story. It also appears in DC Pride: The New Generation.
Conroy writes movingly about the need to maintain a public mask while struggling against homophobia within the entertainment industry while watching his family members succumb to mental illness and substance abuse. In his audition for Batman: The Animated Series, he used these experiences to channel the torment that Bruce Wayne faced as a child, the ones that led him to become a masked vigilante.
Conroy developed a voice from his own traumas that became one of the definitive takes on the character. J. Bone’s artwork – sharp, thick pencils and blue washes – provides a compelling screen for Conroy’s experiences.
“It is nearly impossible to write and draw heroes,” writer Jimenez says, “and not grapple with the very concept of justice and what it means to act heroically.” Although Conroy did not create heroes in the conventional sense, “Finding Batman” suggests that his celebrated portrayal of Batman came from a life of grappling with those same struggles.
When marginalized groups face discrimination in the health care system, the results can be far-reaching and drastic. Across LGBTQ+ communities, this experience is all too well known. For years, activists have pointed out that health care for LGBTQ+ Americans is “under attack,” and bias is thriving. People frequently face gaps in health services, treatment, and outcomes.
There’s another aspect of this problem that needs to be addressed. It’s one that has a direct, immediate impact on the health and wellness of millions of people: an information gap. In many cases, LGBTQ+ Americans have learned not to trust traditional sources of health information. Many also have had trouble receiving the information they need from these sources when they ask for it. As a studyfound, “There is breadth of evidence documenting LGBTQ+ individuals’ experiences of heterosexism, homophobia, overt discrimination and pathologization in the health care setting, which has proven to be a barrier for LGBTQ+ individuals seeking health information from doctors.”
This problem doesn’t just apply to doctor’s offices. It also applies to other entities such as government health agencies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. We explored this in our new survey.
We found that LGBTQ+ Americans are substantially more likely to get sick due to a lack of information. Twenty-seven percent of LGBTQ+ respondents told us that they have gotten sick in the last 12 to 18 months because they did not have the information they needed to make decisions about their health. (Eighteen percent of non-LGBTQ+ respondents said the same.)
To be clear, LGBTQ+ Americans are active in seeking out health information. But the sources they’re turning to don’t always have all the accurate, relevant, inclusive information that they need.
We looked at where LGBTQ+ Americans are going when they need health information. Much like Black Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans have curated sources they trust. We call these “chosen circles.” Two findings in particular were striking.
Forty-one percent of LGBTQ+ respondents in our survey said they get health information from TikTok — a figure about twice as high as the 21% of non-LGBTQ+ respondents who said the same.
News reports have discussed the role of TikTok in reaching members of LGBTQ+ communities, particularly younger people. The San Francisco Chronicle podcast Fifth & Mission called the social media platform “a lifeline for LGBTQ youth.” Mashable reported that, according to the Trevor Project, TikTok is where LGBTQ+ youth of color feel safest and most comfortable online.
The fact that LGBTQ+ communities are specifically seeking health information on TikTok presents an opportunity for health agencies and organizations. They should build up their efforts on this platform. It’s up to them to make sure that videos are available, providing accurate, helpful information about a wide range of health topics.
They should also work with popular influencers on the platform to reach LGBTQ+ Americans with important health information. More than a third (36%) of LGBTQ+ respondents in our survey said that online influencers they follow are an important source of health information. And they share information as well. More than a third said they have shared their own health information, or reposted health information from other sources, on social media. So these platforms can be especially helpful in improving health outcomes.
In our survey, more than a quarter (28%) of LGBTQ+ respondents said they turn to mental health therapists and counselors for emotional support in making health decisions. Again, this figure is lower among non-LGBTQ+ Americans.
This offers another opportunity for health-focused agencies and organizations. By working with people who provide therapy and counseling to LGBTQ+ communities and getting them the latest, most useful information on all sorts of health problems, these agencies and organizations can reach people in need.
Our survey also finds that no matter where they’re getting information, LGBTQ+ Americans understandably want to see people like them front and center. They want information specifically designed to reach them, addressing their experiences and unique challenges. And in all communications, they want health information providers to show that they understand the broad diversity of LGBTQ+ communities, spanning different races, religions, gender identities and more.
The need for change is urgent. By listening to, learning from, and partnering with members of LGBTQ+ communities, health agencies and organizations can create real transformation, empowering people with information to live healthier lives.
Tayla Mahmud is the executive vice president of health equity and multicultural strategy with M Booth Healthm a health consultancy and communications agency. Peter Matheson Gay is its chief impact officer.
Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office, released Monday, elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if they didn’t confuse the ritual with the sacrament of marriage.
The new document repeats that rationale and elaborates on it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And it stresses that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.
Read the full article. Last week the Protestant Church of England made the same move, with similar stipulations. The cult already loathes Pope Francis, so expect today’s news to fuel even more screaming.
Experts have long explored what has come to be known as the “lesbian wage premium” – the fact that on average, lesbians around the world earn about 9% more than heterosexual women. The number is even higher in the United States, with lesbians earning about 20% more than straight women.
In a recent video, TikToker Aria Velz analyzed several studies to explain why this might be. “We can start at the obvious,” she said, “lesbians tend to be more educated than straight women, are less likely to have children, live more predominantly in cities, and have more professional jobs.”
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But she explained that even when controlling for all of that, lesbians still earn more. So she brought up another hypothesis: Women in heterosexual relationships are still expected to take on more emotional and domestic labor than men, whereas lesbians tend to more equally share those duties. As such, heterosexual women are more likely to sacrifice career advancement for domestic responsibilities.
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Velz also pointed to studies that show lesbians who have lived with a previous male spouse make less money than lesbians who have never lived with a man.
“The lesson here is not that lesbians are better at making money,” she said. “It reconfirms that the domestic labor situation at home contributes to how women earn more outside the home – and lesbians have just learned that lesson first.”
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Despite the extra earnings for lesbians, Slate pointed out in 2015 (when the lesbian wage premium was first identified), that lesbians were still a lot are likely to be poor than straight women as well as the general population. And because women in general still make less than men, two women in a couple still tend to miss out on key earnings.
As Slate put it, “Any benefits to being lesbian are canceled out when couples’ earnings are considered in aggregate—there, lesbians fare the worst of anyone.”