Avichai Scher

When Pete Buttigieg walked away from this month’s Iowa caucuses with the most delegates, it marked the first time an openly gay candidate had ever won a state’s presidential nominating contest. But if anyone was expecting a collective celebration from all corners of the LGBTQ community, they were disappointed. “It’s truly embarrassing to have the first gay presidential candidate of this magnitude be this conservative — next,” poet Alex Dimitrov wrote on Twitter the day after the caucuses on Feb. 3. While Buttigieg certainly has his fair share of queer supporters — including several LGBTQ officials and a number of the country’s […]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict — ostensibly not about LGBTQ issues and thousands of miles from the U.S. — has become a potent flashpoint within the queer community. For years, the debate over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has roiled LGBTQ gatherings and parades where Jewish groups wanted to display symbols of the religion. In 2017, organizers of the Chicago Dyke March kicked women out for carrying the Pride flag with a Star of David, citing its resemblance to the Israeli flag. This month, a soon-to-open gay bar in Minneapolis became embroiled in the dispute when a journalist unearthed tweets by the bar’s owner calling for […]