Alexander Kacala

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Meet the woman who cared for hundreds of gay men dying of AIDS when no one else would

Ruth Coker Burks never intended to be an advocate, activist or even an angel. She just wanted to do the right thing. “Oh, I’m no angel,” Coker Burks, 62, told TODAY. “I’m just a person.” But that’s how her legacy has been defined when one fateful day in 1986, at just 26 years old, she was visiting a friend, Bonnie, at a local hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, who had been suffering from oral cancer. Bonnie had her tongue removed, and Coker Burks was her interpreter. This was their fifth extended hospital stay, but this time there was something different. […]

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Lego announces 1st rainbow set ahead of LGBTQ Pride month

Lego is kicking off LGBTQ Pride month, which is celebrated every June, a little early this year. The toy company announced it’s releasing a special set, called “Everyone is Awesome,” that celebrates the diversity of its fans. This is the first time in Lego’s 72-year history that it is releasing an official LGBTQ Pride set. “I wanted to create a model that symbolizes inclusivity and celebrates everyone, no matter how they identify or who they love,” Matthew Ashton, Lego’s vice president of design, said in a press release.  “Everyone is unique, and with a little more love, acceptance and understanding in […]

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With Instagram Memorial, AIDS Victims’ Stories Reach New Generation

Nearly two decades after Bruce Bozzi Jr. lost his first love to AIDS, he revisited their love story in a social media post shared with tens of thousands of strangers. “On a super hot day in July, we decided to meet on the corner of 14th Street and 5th Avenue,” Bozzi, 54, a restaurateur, wrote in the caption, paired with photos of a striking man in his 20s. “Tommy stood there with his jet black hair, his eyes brilliant with shades of green and blue and that smile you can see in this photograph. Being gay back then was hard, […]

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National Coming Out Day: 20 People Who Came Out in 2020

National Coming Out Day has been observed annually on Oct. 11 for more than three decades. The first such celebration was held in 1988 on the one-year anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights, which reportedly drew 200,000 protesters to the nation’s capital. In honor of National Coming Out Day 2020, here are just some of the many notable LGBTQ coming-out stories so far this year. Niecy Nash Comedian and actor Niecy Nash broke the internet this past summer when she not only came out, but she also introduced her new wife to the world. The “Claws” and […]

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Gay Beach Destinations Plan for Summer, with Pandemic in Mind

Ben Rimalower, 44, has been vacationing on New York’s Fire Island since 2005. The island’s Pines section, a popular beach destination for gay men dating back to the 1920s, has been a reliably safe and sunshine-filled locale for Rimalower and his friends, primarily other gay men, to spend the summer. “I first fell in love with Fire Island from afar while in college in California during the early ‘90s,” he told NBC News. “It seemed like Shangri-La to me.” Rimalower said even on the “queerest blocks” of New York City, where he lives, he’s “uncomfortable kissing or holding hands” with […]

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Neighbors Come Together after Charleston Family’s Pride Flag is Burned

A family in Charleston, South Carolina, said their rainbow pride flag was torn down from the front of their house and burned in their driveway last weekend. “We were taken aback and thought, ‘Wow, somebody must be really bothered by this to go to this end here to do this.’ But we called the police to let them know about it,” the homeowner, who lives with his wife and three young children, told NBC News. “There’s people on our street that have South Carolina flags, United States flags, different college flags, garden flags … obviously the rainbow is what attracted […]

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Carson Jones Reveals His Experience on Dating Apps and the DM He Keeps Getting

Politics After the LGBT community celebrated Doug Jones’ senate win last week in Alabama, beating homophobic and accused sexual predator Roy Moore, the queer community celebrated something else. Internet detectives discovered Jones had a gay son, Carson Jones, and a new Instagram hunk was born. We had the opportunity to ask Carson Jones some questions about his father’s win, if he’s single or taken and what his DM box is looking like these days now that he has a whole lot more thirsty followers … including us. Hornet: Since we first blogged about you, your Instagram following has grown by […]