Kayleb Rae Candrilli’s second book of poetry All The Gay Saints, winner of the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, is a stunningly sentient collection of ekphrastic love poems inspired by Herman Baspaintings that unpack the intersections and intricacies of rural America, masculinity, queerness, and the body.
In “My Body is Constantly Conjuring a Tempest (Or, Weighing the Pros and Cons of Attending My High School Reunion),” “On Trespassing,” and “I Wish All Children Could Touch the Sky At Least Once,” Candrilli creates portals to an “unsafe house” of a “past life,” teeming with toxic masculinity–“raised fists, those/ holes in drywall”–and the generational violence and destruction it breeds, the “boys that threatened to rape me in high school.”
Body and land, boyhood and Appalachia–where “beware of dog signs are security systems” and “the warning is to draw blood first”–are inextricably and excruciatingly linked. Yet as much as Candrilli’s narrator is entrenched in their homeland, they are just as hyper-aware of its patriarchal mannerisms, its influences and after-effects:
Everything has its doppelganger and nowadays I plagiarize men’s bodies indiscriminately. I have a right to take what’s not mine; this is what both men and the earth have taught me.
Although they were taught by their “father and the land” to be “small and quiet,” they overcome these repressive lessons by “opening [their] mouth” and “[using] it” to reclaim and rename their narrative and body, to detach the body from the aforementioned version of earth. They will, as asserted in “On Wanting Top Surgery in the Fascist Regime,” “rip myself apart,” but “drink/the body to solar power and…make a beautiful mother.” In this way, Candrilli’s poetry is the raw pink of (re)birth and beginning, each poem a root or tendon trusting it’s own vitality and resilience, finding cohesion within transness.
Nowhere is this resiliency more palpable and deeply resonant than in “Our Root System is a Tangle of Pipecleaners (Or, Being Your Man Has Made Me One)” where Candrilli’s narrator and their “future-husband wife,” a transcendent and healing refuge of a human, “lick my wounds/ and yours”and “[together]…have no time/ to be anything less than large.”
In “There is a Point at Which I Tire From My Own Fear,” the dangerous realities and descriminatory histories of being LGBTQ are acknowledged:
Queers are killed
and have always been killed in any number
of ways.
And conquered:
But my partner tells me again and again
how they love me, and I know one day I’ll try to die
in their arms. I know this is how we will win.
All The Gay Saints is a book of vital reminders that a distinguishing quality of our love is it’s protectiveness – loving for survival and both self and communal preservation. That the dichotmous, conflicting truths of “glitter, glitter, glitter, and guns” musn’t deter or demoralize us from loving ourselves and our queer/trans siblings, but instead fortify and fiercen our queer love. And that:
Volkswagen has claimed that UEFA blocked the company from using rainbow-coloured banners on advertising boards at the Euro 2020 quarter-finals in Russia and Azerbaijan.
The auto-maker, a years-long sponsor of the football competition, alleged that the governing body voiced “concerns with regard to the legal framework at the venues in Russia and Azerbaijan”.
UEFA had approved pitch-side rainbow advertising from a raft of companies for all eight of the round of 16 matches in the Euro 2020 tournament.
But Volkswagen officials told The Athleticthat UEFA blocked them from extending its rainbow-hued LED advertising boards to St Petersburg and Baku, a decision the German company says it “regrets”.
“Volkswagen took a clear stand for diversity with the colouring of the advertising banners in the round of 16 games throughout Europe,” a spokesperson said.
“To continue to openly and consistently demonstrate this open-minded outlook when it comes to respect and equal rights, the plan was for our rainbow banners to be displayed again in the upcoming quarter-final games in St Petersburg, Munich, Baku and Rome.
“Due to concerns of UEFA with regard to the legal framework at the venues in Russia and Azerbaijan, the association informed us that it was not possible to use rainbow-coloured banners on the advertising boards in St Petersburg and Baku.
“We regret this development. Regardless of this, the LED advertising boards will be used as a colourful statement of diversity and respect in the two remaining quarter-finals in Munich and Rome and, if possible, in the remaining games of the tournament.”
UEFA ‘fully supports tolerance’
It’s the latest flashpoint in UEFA‘s increasingly shaky relationship with the LGBT+ community after it denied Munich officials’ request to light up the Fussball-Arena Munich in the colours of the Pride flag in response to Hungary’s anti-LGBT+ law.
Russia discriminated against a trans woman and violated her right to family life by denying her any contact with her children, Europe’s leading human rights court has ruled.
In a landmark judgement released on Tuesday (6 July), the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled in favour of a divorced trans woman who was blocked by Russian domestic courts from seeing her two young children back in 2017.
It marks the first time the court has found a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights’ prohibition of discrimination (Article 14) on the basis of a person’s gender identity. Russia ratified the convention in 1998 and is therefore under the court’s jurisdiction.
“It was clear from the domestic decisions … that the influence of the applicant’s gender identity on the assessment of her claim had been a decisive factor leading to the decision to restrict her contact with her children,” the court said.
“The applicant had therefore been treated differently from other parents who also sought contact with their estranged children, but whose gender identity matched their sex assigned at birth.”
Reacting to the judgement, executive director of TGEU (Transgender Europe), Masen Davis, said: “The kids are alright – there is nothing wrong with being a trans parent! Today, we celebrate this important message together with all trans families.
Every fourth trans person in Europe is a parent. Today’s judgement gives legal security to many of them.
“We congratulate the applicant for having gone all the way to Strasbourg to defend her right to be the best possible parent to her children.”
The woman, identified only as AM, separated from her wife after seven years of marriage and gained legal gender recognition in 2015, according to court documents.
The following year AM’s wife denied her access to their children, born in 2009 and 2012, with a district court claiming her visits would have a “negative impact on the mental health and psychological development” of the children.
The European Court, however, noted that the domestic courts had failed to demonstrate that the restriction was justified and well-substantiated.
“Too often we are hearing the best interest of the child being abused as an argument to limit the rights of LGBTI people,” said Evelyne Paradis, Executive Director of ILGA-Europe.
“We are glad to see the Court clearly rejecting such an abusive argument, and instead naming very concrete responsibilities for state authorities in ensuring the best interest of the child. Spreading hatred, misinformation and splitting loving parents from their children is not in the best interest of children.”
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has claimed that his cruel law banning the “promotion” of LGBT+ lives to minors is “not about homosexuality”.
In June, Orbán and his ruling party passed legislation restricting the portrayal of LGBT+ people on media, school materials and advertisements aimed at minors. It was quickly compared to Russia’s “gay propaganda bill” and Britain’s Section 28.
But faced with backlash from EU leaders, Orbán simply sidestepped their concerns with an astonishing claim at a European Council summit last week.
“It’s not about homosexuality,” he said, according to the Independent.
“It’s about the kids and the parents.
“I am defending the rights of homosexual guys but this law is not about them.”
Hungary’s oldest LGBT+ campaign group Háttér Society called his words blatant “lies”.
Despite Orbán telling EU officials that there is “no law about homosexuality”, the bill in question references homosexuality six times, the group said.
“The truth is that the law passed two weeks ago makes explicit references to homosexuality… in the context of declaring that it is ‘prohibited to make available to children under the age of 18 any (…) content [which] promotes or portrays deviation from the self-identity in line with the birth sex, gender reassignment, and homosexuality’.”
Háttér Society debunked Orbán’s claims that he “protects” the rights of “gay guys”, in particular, noting that his voting record says it all.
Orbán has voted against anti-discrimination laws and same-sex adoption rights, and in favour of abolishing the Equal Treatment Authority, the nation’s equality watchdog.
The group also pointed to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights which found that 95 per cent of LGBT+ Hungarians feel the government has not tackled anti-LGBT+ hate.
As EU officials consider choking Hungary’s funding as one way to squash the law, 17 of the bloc’s leaders have signed an open letter pledging to “continue fighting against discrimination towards the LGBTI community”.
“Respect and tolerance,” the letter stated, “are at the core of the European project.”
In recent years, LGBTQ rights have made significant advancements in the United States, but there remain areas of growing legislative hurdles and challenges.
In a country that is divided on a long list of cultural and societal issues, the acceptance of gay marriage stands out as a remarkable exception. Once a divisive issue, it now has the support of 7 in 10 Americans, according to a recent poll from Gallup.
But perhaps even more impressive, gay marriage now has majority support across a long list of voter groups.
It’s probably not a big surprise that 83 percent of Democrats say they believe gay marriage should be recognized by law, but that’s also true of 73 percent of independents and, more unexpectedly, 55 percent of Republicans.
And the Gallup data shows strong support from young and old as well. More than 80 percent of those from ages 18 to 34, but also 72 percent among middle-aged Americans and 60 percent support among those 55 and older.
That last number is especially eye-catching. Older Americans tend to be more culturally conservative than the public at large and 60-percent support is a solid number.
To give a sense of just how solid support for gay marriage is today, compare it to Gallup’s numbers on some other somewhat divisive topics.
After decades of debate, the morality of abortion remains as divisive as ever — 47 percent of Americans believe it is morally acceptable.
Obamacare may be the law of the land, particularly after the Supreme Court’s June ruling on the law, but still only 56 percent of Americans believe the federal government should make sure people have health care coverage.
And, it may be close, but more Americans believe gay marriage should be legal than believe that global warming is occurring. It’s close (a statistical tie really) but gay marriage holds a slight edge in the percentages.
Those numbers give a sense of the depth of support for legal same-sex marriage and they are even more remarkable when you realize how fast opinions on the unions have changed. In 15 years, the issue has gone from culturally divisive to culturally decided.
How dramatic is that swing? Compare it to the relatively slow public acceptance of marriage between black and white Americans.
It took “interracial marriage” almost 40 years to gain acceptance in the United States — that’s comparing support the first time Gallup asked the question (1958) to when it broke 50 percent support in the 1990s. When Gallup first asked about gay marriage in 1996, only 27 percent of Americans supported legalizing the bond. In just 15 years, 2011, 53 percent of Americans supported legalizing the practice.
Court decisions on the two practices only drive the point home.
Even if one uses the Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving decision (the ruling that made laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional), as a marker for public opinion, it was still roughly 30 years before interracial marriage was accepted by the public. By the time the Supreme Court ruled that all states had to honor gay marriage as legal in 2015, 60 percent of Americans already favored that view.
In other words, the court was leading the nation on interracial marriage, but essentially following public opinion on gay marriage.
But not all issues are settled or headed in a positive direction for the LGBTQ community. Particularly on issues that concern transgender people, state legislatures are writing legislation to limit what that population can and can’t do.
Research from the group Freedom for All Americans finds that 38 different states have proposed legislation in 2021 that would limit what trans Americans can do covering areas ranging from sports to homeless shelters to medicine. Texas and Tennessee led the way with 12 pieces of legislation each, according to the group.
And Gallup polling data from this year shows there has been a slight decline in acceptance for idea of transgender people serving in the military. Support for the idea is still high, 66 percent, but down five points from where it was in 2019. That number bears watching. It could just be a blip or something more.
The real lesson in Pride Month, however, may be as much about politics and the malleability of public opinion in America today as it is LGBTQ rights.
After all, Pride Month itself is still a relatively young event. It was just over 20 years ago, only in 1999, that then-President Bill Clinton declared June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” for the first time. Back then, only 35 percent of Americans thought gay marriage should be recognized by law, half the number in the 2021 poll.
It’s evidence that even in a time of deep partisanship on what seems to be a contentious issue, opinions can still change — and rapidly
We never thought that a landscaper booking website would publish a study about the horniest cities in the United States, but 2021 apparently had more surprises in store for us.
LawnStarter says it ranked the libido levels of 200 U.S. cities by “nine key indicators of sexual arousal,” including proportion of single residents, Google search interest in adult content, and sales of sex toys.
To measure the thirst of each metropolis, the researchers culled data from All Swingers Clubs, Eventbrite, Google Trends, Innerbody Research, Lovehoney, U.S. Census Bureau, and Yelp.
The results? The horniest cities in America, according to the survey, are:
Paradise, Nevada
Orange, California
Hollywood, Florida
Providence, Rhode Island
Atlanta, Georgia
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Newark, New Jersey
Dayton, Ohio
Tempe, Arizona
Baltimore, Maryland
Paradise, Nevada, has more sex shops and adult entertainment venues than any other city, according to LawnStarter, while Providence, Rhode Island, sells the most sex toys out of the cities surveyed. LawnStarter also notes that California and Florida cities dominate the top 10 in all nine metrics, crediting those states’ standout sex drives to “sand, sweat, skin, and sangria.”
Like most LGBTQ families, my partner and I didn’t become parents in the most conventional way.
In fact, for most of my life, I never considered having kids! But when my partner and I got a call asking if we’d be willing to take immediate guardianship of our niece and nephew, we agreed to do everything in our power to create a loving home for these two children.
After years of visits from social workers, inquiries from investigators trips to the courthouse, and mountains of paperwork and fees, we had the privilege of becoming a forever family through legal adoption.
If you are considering adoption, here are 7 things you should know from my personal experience:
Adoption is a story of joy…
None of us will ever forget the day that our adoption was finalized. To know that we could truthfully tell these amazing children that we would always–ALWAYS–be their parents. It was a day of pure relief.
But in addition to those big milestones – Adoption Day, kindergarten graduation, first performance as a Russian dancer in The Nutcracker – it’s really the little things that bring the most joy. The simple moments are what get to me the most. When they reach for your hand because they’re scared (and you get to tell them it’s okay to be scared). When they learn a new fact and share it with you (did you know that elephants use mud to cool themselves down). When they ask a hard question that you don’t *totally* know the answer to (how DOES an apple seed know how to grow into a tree?!).
Those opportunities to see your children grow into whole, complete humans with their own thoughts, ideas, and passions. That’s joy.
And finally, one of my absolute favorite things about being a parent is having the opportunity to share LGBTQ culture with them. Helping them build an enduring appreciation of drag. Feeling the freedom of getting to pick your own family, your own community, even your own name. All of the powerful, beautiful parts of our community– we get to pass those on to our children.
…and also one of loss
There is no way to get around the fact that your adopted children get to be in your lives because they do not get to be in the lives of their biological parents. While many adopted children will grow up to have no desire to know their biological parents, some feel a profound sense of loss or abandonment that they could not be raised by their biological parents, no matter how wonderful and caring their adoptive parents are.
It’s vitally important for adoptive parents to accept this pain in their children, to sit with it, to be empathetic, and to not take it as a personal rebuke to your parenting. Make sure that your kids have professional support throughout their childhood, and give lots of opportunities for them to share their feelings with you in a safe way.
Make sure that you have support as well, so you can process through the many feelings you may have– feelings of grief that you aren’t their biological parent or that you couldn’t have biological children. Feelings of anger towards their first family and what harmful experiences your children may have experienced while under their care. Feelings of love toward their first family for allowing you to raise their biological children.
Many complicated swirls of emotion may come up as you go on this journey, and you’ll need a place to put them all.
Parenting is not for the faint of heart
Your kid might not like you. You might not like your kid (all the time). Your kid might have severe emotional trauma. Your kid might do this annoying thing where he lies on the couch for two hours flipping a pillow over his head while the rest of you are doing dishes and vacuuming the floor and cleaning the tub.
When you become a parent, no matter how it happens, you’re not just signing up for the giggles and the tickles and the cooing sighs of a sleeping newborn. You’re also signing up for screaming babies and poopsplosions. And, after that, defiant teenagers who scream “I hate you!” and slam their door so hard the handle breaks and they have a panic attack because they can’t open their door anymore and they feel trapped. You’re signing up for their first heartbreak. For helping them deal with bullies… or BEING the bully. You’re signing up for a world of stupid, unsolicited advice and your own parents saying, “We never did that when you were a kid and you turned out fine!!!”
Despite what Instagram may tell you, parenting is not all fun and games. You’re going to mess up. You’re going to lose your temper. You’re going to yell at the lady in the supermarket who asks, “Are they REAL siblings?”
There are millions of ways to be a perfectly adequate parent. Don’t compare yourself to other parents. Be honest with your kids. Know that it’s hard for *everyone*, even the perfect families on social media.
There is no rush to start your family
When we became parents overnight in our mid-twenties, we had no idea what challenges were ahead of us. We were almost completely unprepared and had to make it all up as we went.
So any time a young LGBTQ person stands up at one of my talks and tells me that I’ve inspired them to start a family, and asks if I have advice for them, I always say the same thing: “WAIT!” Usually, the audience laughs, so I have to tell them that I am not joking.
People will tell you that you’re never really ready for parenthood. And while that’s true, there are times in life when you will be more ready! Parenting is already hard enough. Work to get your systems in place before making the leap: do your best to get your finances in order, make sure your housing is stable, and if you have a partner or partners, make sure they’re the people who truly want by your side for the next 18 years.
And above all, take the time to work on yourself and your own insecurities. If you didn’t have an ideal childhood, seek support and healing to process through it effectively so you don’t end up overcorrecting or taking your hurt out on your children. Whatever you wish your parents had worked on before they had you– you have a chance to work on those things for yourself.
Creativity, flexibility, and humility are essential
When our children first came to live with us, the eldest was nonverbal. There’s a whole section in my book in which I talk about the elaborate method I had to create so I could communicate with him – he wasn’t able to speak or share his opinions using words at all. We all had to be really creative to find solutions for their unique challenges. Many parents, especially adoptive parents, have to do the same. Build parenting solutions that work for the kids you HAVE, not the kids you wish you had.
It really does take a village
From kid supplies to legal help, our community was always there for us in ways we would never have expected. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, to invite people into your lives, to build an extended family around your actual family. Remember that most straight people have biological family around them! Grandparents help with babysitting so they can do date night, aunts and uncles help with school pick-ups so they can work late, and cousins are around for playdates and family dinners. LGBTQ people might not have that built-in support network, so we have to build it for ourselves.
Your “village” can come from outside your community as well. In fact, you can find allies anywhere – bosses may be willing to give you time off for court dates (even if that’s not covered in your PTO plan), lawyers may give you a discount on their legal fees, daycares may cut you some slack on registration costs. People want to help you form your family. Let them.
Also – sometimes you and your partner won’t see eye-to-eye. Joining a Facebook community of other parents raising their partner’s nieces and nephews (yes – there are groups this niche!) helped me keep my sanity while adjusting to the new situation. You can access vital resources and emotional support throughout your adoption journey by finding support groups for trans parents, for LGBTQ parents, for parents raising kids in open adoptions, or for whatever your specific situation is.
Love makes a family
I’ll never forget the day that we brought the kids to court for their official adoption day. Our close friends filled the courtroom and the judge, a bit taken aback by the crowd, asked, “Well who do we have here?” Our daughter Hailey, who was five at the time and didn’t understand court decorum, exclaimed, “It’s our Love Family!”
Even at that early age, she already knew that biology doesn’t dictate familial relationships. She will always be surrounded by a constellation of people who love her, support her, and will go to the ends of the earth to make sure she has what she needs to thrive in this world.
Whether your family is you and your collection of houseplants, or three parents and a gaggle of foster children – what makes a family is love.
Trystan Reese, author of How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood, launched into the public eye as “the pregnant man” in 2017 when the story of his family’s unique journey gained international media attention. He was invited to give closing performances for The Moth Mainstage in Portland, Albuquerque, and Brooklyn; a video of the Brooklyn event has garnered over 2.5 million views. As interest in his family’s story grew, Trystan partnered with many major media outlets, including CNN, NBC, People, and Buzzfeed.
Trystan is an established thought leader, educator, and speaker, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. He is a professionally trained anti-racism facilitator and has been organizing with the trans community for nearly two decades. The founder of his own consulting firm, Collaborate Consulting, Trystan provides customized training solutions for individuals, organizations, and communities that are interested in social justice. He is married to his partner Biff and they live in Portland, Oregon with their three kids: Lucas, Hailey, and Leo. They are very happy.
During last month’s European championship soccer match between Germany and Hungary, the rainbow was everywhere on the German side. The German goalie wore a rainbow armband; the team’s fans donned rainbow wigs and waved rainbow flags.
All of this was directed at the opposing side: The Germans were protesting a new Hungarian law banning LGBTQ sex education and media directed at minors — a measure that has sparked outrage in Europe and elsewhere against Hungary.
While this may look like a PR mess for Hungary’s ruling right-wing Fidesz party, it’s in keeping with the right-wing populist playbook that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has turned to over and over again to shore up his authoritarian rule. In the past few years, demonizing queer and trans identities has become a central part of Orbán’s campaign for maintaining his grip on power.
The criticism from Europe, if anything, bolsters the strategy. It allows the Hungarian government to tout its core ideological argument: that it is the Hungarian Christian family’s champion against a godless, globalist European Union.
“Hungary asserts its role as ‘defender of traditional values’ while mostly West European states get to claim moral superiority with no one paying any price for it,” says Cas Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia who studies far-right politics.
The new anti-LGBTQ rules — which were tacked on at the last minute to a bill increasing penalties for sex crimes against children — are part of a broader slate of legal attacks on the queer community that strengthen Orbán’s regime, the only non-democratic government in the European Union.
Demagoguery is at the heart of the Fidesz political strategy. A series of boogeymen — Muslim migrants, Jewish billionaire George Soros, and now LGBTQ activists — have been used to rally Orbán’s base to the ballot box and justify the expansion of authoritarian state powers.
In this, Orbán is not alone. The demonization of out-groups is a key ingredient in the right-wing authoritarian recipe, one used by factions the world over to win power and undermine democracy once they’ve acquired it. It’s a pattern Americans should pay attention to, especially during the current moment of right-wing panic about the purported corruption of our youth.
Hungary’s persecution of LGBTQ communities, explained
The new Hungarian regulations on LGBTQ expression are broad. Among other things, they prohibit sex educators from instructing students about LGBTQ sexuality and ban television stations from airing content “popularizing” LGBTQ identity outside the hours of 10 pm to 5 am. The regulations also prohibit films or advertisements from representing same-sex physical acts or gender-affirmation surgery in materials targeted at individuals under 18.
But what counts as “popularizing” LGBTQ identity, and what sorts of art count as being targeted at kids? According to local media and human rights groups, the bill isn’t especially clear on these points — raising fears about censorship. RTL Klub, the country’s largest television channel, warned that “series like Modern Family would be banned, as would some episodes of Friends.”
No less troubling: By declaring LGBTQ programming harmful for children, the law dehumanizes queer couples and individuals, legally codifying the notion that their very existence threatens Hungarian society.
Defenders of the law are open about its hierarchical aims. An article in the Hungarian Conservative, a magazine supportive of the Orbán regime, denies that Friends specifically would be blocked by the new rules — but touts the bill’s efforts to “protect children’s natural and healthy sexual development” from the allegedly nefarious influence of gay propaganda.
“Protecting children does not end with stopping sex offenders, but should also include the protection from potentially harmful influences well until children are old enough to make the best decisions for themselves,” the article claims.
A protester against the new anti-LGBTQ bill in Budapest holds a photoshopped sign showing Orbán holding a rainbow flag.
In recent years, the anti-LGBTQ campaign has intensified. In 2018, the government banned the teaching of gender studies in Hungarian universities. A government spokesperson told CNN at the time that they did it because “we do not consider it acceptable for us to talk about socially constructed genders, rather than biological sexes.” In May 2020, the government prohibited trans Hungarians from changing their gender on official government forms.
In December 2020, the government approved a constitutional reform package that strengthened the anti-LGBTQ constitutional provisions: It stated that the family is defined as being “based on marriage and the parent-child relation. The mother is a woman, the father a man.” The December legislative package also banned adoption by same-sex couples and abolished the Equal Treatment Authority, Hungary’s most important nondiscrimination agency covering LGBTQ rights.
The anti-LGBTQ policies of the past few years are not incidental to Fidesz’s ideology. A paper by Andrea Pető and Weronika Grzebalska, two scholars of gender and politics in Central Europe, identify the Hungarian government’s commitment to traditional gender norms as the “symbolic glue” that holds its overall ideology together, positioning social liberalism “as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the current state of politics.”
In the government’s narrative, the traditional Christian Hungarian family is under attack by nefarious globalist liberals who want to replace Hungarian mothers and fathers with immigrants. Defending the Hungarian nation means defending the family, defined exclusively as male-female pairings that produce more Hungarian children. The Orbán government is notoriously obsessed with the birthrate, passing tax and welfare policies specifically framed as incentives for native Hungarian women to have more kids.
The government attacks on LGBTQ identities flow directly from this conservative preoccupation with family and fertility, casting queer families as illegitimate, non-procreative entities.
“In a moral sense, there is no difference between pedophiles and those who demand [gay adoption],” László Kövér, the speaker of Hungary’s parliament, said in 2019. “Both objectify the child as a consumer good, and consider it a means of self-fulfillment.”
How social conservatism fuels Hungarian authoritarianism
Hungarians have long been more conservative than most other EU states. A 2019 Eurobarometer poll found that 61 percent opposed same-sex marriage and 72 percent opposed allowing trans individuals to alter government documents to match their gender identity. This fits a general European pattern, in which former communist states are on average more culturally right-wing than their Western European peers.
At the same time, there’s some evidence of recent movement in a more progressive direction. A 2021 Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of Hungarians today support same-sex couples’ adoption rights, compared to 42 percent in 2013. A plurality had even come to favor same-sex marriage (46 percent in favor versus 38 percent opposed).
These numbers suggest the recent anti-LGBTQ moves are less of a response to a public groundswell than a political play by the ruling party to elevate the issue — to wage a culture war against progressive ideas and activists as a means of activating the Fidesz base and solidifying Orban’s hold on power.
By definition, “populism” as a political style relies on a contrast between a virtuous people and a corrupt elite. In modern right-wing populism, both in Hungary and elsewhere, that corrupt elite is typically identified with minorities and socially liberal activists — groups positioned as subverting national traditions, attacking traditional morality, and destroying national character.
“Minority rights are rejected as threatening the majority’s rights to do what they please, and dignity and solidarity is only granted to those belonging to the restricted community of real patriots,” Pető and Grzebalska write in their article on the gender politics of right-wing populism. “The illiberal right is not so much trying to eliminate the progressive civil society but rather turn it into a bogeyman that governing elites can activate whenever they need to mobilize their supporters.”
“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,” Orbán said in a 2018 speech.
Now, it’s important not to equate social conservatism with authoritarianism. Opposing equal rights for LGBTQ individuals, while certainly illiberal, could well be supported by an electoral majority in Hungary.
But far-right governments like Orbán’s typically use populism in service of their authoritarianism: Attacks on minority groups are not merely electoral appeals but also justifications for power grabs that weaken democracy’s foundations.
Many of the anti-LGBTQ laws passed expand the state’s power to enforce ideological hegemony. In the name of fighting a phantom scourge, it has given itself new abilities to regulate education, media, and advertising — sometimes through vaguely worded provisions that could be enforced capriciously. In this sense, the anti-LGBTQ provisions aren’t merely cultural warfare but direct expansions of Orbán’s authoritarian reach.
This is not a uniquely Hungarian phenomenon: Authoritarian populists of both the right- and left-wing variety, in countries as diverse as Poland and Venezuela and Turkey, have used demonization of minorities and/or an allegedly corrupt elite to enact laws aimed at weakening their political opponents and revving up their base.
Closer to home, we’re seeing something similar afoot. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently signed a bill that would require professors at state-funded universities to fill out surveys describing the campus ideological climate, threatening budget funds if schools are deemed insufficiently open to right-wing ideas. Dozens of state legislatures have passed or proposed bills that regulate what can be taught in the classroom on similar grounds — a response to the allegedly corrosive threat of “critical race theory” on the US educational system.
These American bills are not directly inspired by Hungarian policies. But the affinities between right-wing populists in these countries are real, with many leading thinkers on the American right openly admiring Orbán’s willingness to wage culture wars, to the point where they’re willing to downplay his authoritarian abuses.
“What I see in Orbán is one of the few major politicians in the West who seems to understand the importance of Christianity, and the importance of culture, and who is willing to defend these things against a very rich and powerful international establishment,” Rod Dreher, a senior writer at the American Conservative who recently accepted a writing fellowship at the government-funded Danube Institute in Budapest, told me last year. “I find myself saying of Orbán what I hear conservatives say when they explain why they instinctively love Trump: because he fights. The thing about Orbán is that unlike Trump, he fights, and he wins, and his victories are substantive.”
This cultural affinity is effectively an intellectual shield for Orbán, with criticism of his anti-democratic tendencies portrayed by conservatives as a liberal smear.
“One suspects [allegations of authoritarianism are] just simple hatred of Christian conservatism, a fanatical projection of culture war antipathies to the near abroad,” Michael Brendan Dougherty writes in National Review, without a hint of irony.
The Hungarian government has assiduously courted the global intellectual right, setting up meetings between Orbán and prominent socially conservative thinkers from countries ranging from Canada to Israel. The goal is to construct an international traditionalist alliance, centering on Budapest, that aligns right-wing populist movements in Europe and beyond. The culture war is a useful tool for normalizing Hungarian authoritarianism globally, and for enlisting allies who are willing to overlook anti-democratic abuses when the right side of the culture war is perpetrating them.
It’s a strategy that, in many ways, has worked for Orbán — and shows just how vulnerable democracy is to far-right cultural demagoguery.
More than half of LGBTQ adults in America say they have experienced violent threats, according to a study from The William Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
The study examined the similarities and differences across key subgroups of the LGBTQ community.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said that someone had threatened them with violence since they were age 18.
Among this group, 61 percent of transgender women said someone threatened them, compared to 49 percent of cisgender women and 52 percent of cisgender men.
In addition, 75 percent of respondents said someone verbally insulted or abused them. Thirty-nine percent said someone had thrown an object at them.
Forty-two percent of LGBTQ respondents said they were hit, beaten, physically attacked or sexually assaulted as adults, while 41 percent said they were robbed, had properly stolen or vandalized.
The survey also found high rates of bullying during childhood among the LGBTQ community. Sixty-seven percent of LBQ cisgender women, 75 percent of GBQ cis men and 70 percent of transgender people said they had been bullied often or sometimes before age 18.
The survey also examined some health outcomes of the LGBTQ community. For example, 26 percent of transgender people said their health was fair or poor, compared to 24 percent of cisgender women and 14 percent of cisgender men.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of transgender people reported lifetime suicide attempts, compared to 32 percent of cisgender women and 22 percent of cisgender men.
The data for the study was pulled from a combination of two studies, one of which was a national probability sample of sexual minority (LGBQ) individuals who were not transgender and another of transgender adults. The study does not list a margin of sampling error.
With their suggestive titles and gorgeous, pink-suffused covers, P. J. Vernon’s Bath Haus and Jonathan Parks-Ramage’s Yes, Daddy seem like frothy beach reads—and, to a certain degree, they are. But woven into twisting plots, shocking scenarios, and lush settings lies a deeper, more disturbing concern: how trauma experienced by young gay men can propel them into unhealthy, even dangerous, adult romantic relationships.
In Bath Haus, recovering addict Oliver Park from rural Indiana has everything that should make him happy: his partner, Nathan, a handsome, attentive, and wealthy trauma surgeon; a sprawling townhouse in Washington, DC; and, most importantly, his sobriety. Why, then, in the opening pages, is he going to a local gay bathhouse for anonymous sex? When he follows a stranger into a private room, everything goes horribly wrong, and he barely escapes with his life. He has crossed a forbidden line and cheated on Nathan. His choices have nightmarish consequences, and his desire to keep his transgression from his partner leads him deeper into dangers both from outside and, due to his slowly crumbling sobriety, from within. The questions linger: Why risk destroying a good thing? Is it a good thing after all?
What makes Bath Haus so engaging is that Vernon gives Oliver many layers. He’s not superficial or hedonistic or merely foolish. You can’t write him off. Trauma clouds his past, including a “bad boy” ex-boyfriend and an abusive father, and confusion fills his present—does Nathan love him or want to control him? Does he need that stability, or is it suffocating? As the screws continue to turn in the story, Oliver journeys through hell, navigating a vicious psychopath, Nathan’s manipulative mother, rampant snobbery from family and friends, and his own self-destructive impulses. Vernon knows how to grab you from the first line and not let go; he also knows that plot means nothing without a character we can root for, even when he’s making terrifyingly dangerous choices.
Like Bath Haus, Yes, Daddy is the story of another twenty-something gay man seeking financial security and, in this case, career advancement. Jonah Keller moved to New York City to ignite his playwriting career but has ended up waiting tables at a dead-end job. In the mode of Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, Jonah ingratiates himself with an older Pulitzer-prize winning playwright, Richard Shriver, and manipulates himself into the older man’s bedroom, but the power dynamic quickly turns. When Richard takes Jonah out to his vast and austere compound in the Hamptons, Jonah is confronted with Richard’s staff of zombie-like young men—all buff and beautiful, like something from a gay Stepford Wives. In addition, Richard’s high-toned social group smirk and leer at Jonah, reminding him of his place, testing him, and gradually hinting at their much darker intentions.
Parks-Ramage suffuses his narrative with a rich atmosphere, somewhere between the Gothic and The Great Gatsby, all while horrors await Jonah just under the surface of his lover’s lavish estate. Early on, you sense that this book may be a morality tale, a Faustian bargain about trading freedom (artistic and otherwise) for wealth. But what it becomes is more disturbing and difficult to parse. It takes its main character through a nightmare of controlling personalities, drugs, and sexual violence. Unlike Tom Ripley, whose cleverness causes us to align with him despite his amorality, we sympathize with Jonah because horrible things happen to him far beyond anything he may deserve for his earlier manipulations. Also, unlike with Ripley, we are given a layered backstory about Jonah’s homophobic religious parents and brutal experience with conversion therapy, eventually helping us to understand why he was drawn into danger and what he must do to heal from his experience.
The glossy “summer-read” marketing for these books tells only part of the story. As you read, the pages fly by—the writing is very good—but these writers have more on their minds than sheer entertainment. In each, we have an indictment of the wealth and status-obsessed circles of some urbanite gay men. This culture’s drug-infused superficiality belies a darker truth that gay men can—and do—prey on each other as a means of establishing and maintaining control; this particularly applies to the young men in these novels whose traumas have made them vulnerable. Gay culture isn’t immune from the damaging patriarchal systems that all too often govern straight culture.
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