Greg Owen

A dead dog draped over their mailbox. A tampon shot through with a bullet. Gunshots in the night, and shouts of “Damn queers!” from passing cars. Those were some of the greetings Wanda and Brenda Henson earned when they opened Camp Sister Spirit in Jones County, Mississippi, in 1993. The “married” pair had moved from Gulfport, about a hundred miles south, after years helping women victims of domestic abuse and racism find resources. Their camp, 120 acres on the site of a former pig farm, would be a retreat with the ambitious mission “to eradicate hatred and differences through education and interaction […]

Nightlife promoter Matthew Moody has big plans for Phoenix’s up-and-coming gayborhood in the Melrose district: a leather bar called the Barracks. Along with “Eagle” and “Anvil,” the “Barracks” name has a long history and is a shout-out to the leather community everywhere. Moody used to DJ at the bar of the same name in Palm Springs, California, before it closed in 2024. Now he’s brought what’s left of that bar 400 miles east to another desert outpost, where he hopes to resurrect it. Artwork, like pieces portraying a vintage motorcycle and larger-than-life-size Tom of Finland leather men, loiter along one […]

A U.S. Appeals Court with three Donald Trump appointees decided on Wednesday to overturn a decision by a lower court throwing out a suit by two Alaska Airlines employees who sued the company over charges of religious discrimination, Reuters reports. The plaintiffs claim that they were fired for expressing anti-LGBTQ+ views, which they say was an act of religious discrimination. The women are represented by the right-wing “religious freedom” legal organization First Liberty Institute. “You cannot be fired because ​your employer does not like your religious beliefs,” Stephanie Taub, the group’s senior counsel, said after the reversal. Alaska Airlines claims religious beliefs […]

In the small town of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, a city council member accused staff at the public library of grooming kids with a Pride Month display in the children’s section, which librarians titled “Love is Love.” The councilman may have broken the law in his crusade to have it removed. On June 19, council member Bill Krut reposted a photo from the Monroeville Library’s Facebook page, showing the books on display, including “I Am Perfectly Designed” by Karamo Brown, “The GayBCs” by M.L. Webb, and “Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle” by Nina LeCour. Krut captioned the repost with […]

An ex-staffer at the Kennedy Center who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement after he was fired in March is now adding his insider knowledge of the corruption of the renowned arts center to an investigation by U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). Josef Palermo, hired by ousted Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell in April as curator of visual arts and special programming for the arts center, says he saw “cronyism, incompetence, and a series of bizarre moves that would lead to the Kennedy Center going dark.”   Amid “cancellations, shrinking audiences, firings of old staffers and influxes of new ones,” there was […]

Glisten, the LGBTQ+ education advocacy group, has a new report out detailing what it’s like to be an LGBTQ+ student today, “at a time when their identities are being weaponized against them.” Those identities “are being debated and restricted,” said the group’s CEO, Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, and “this study speaks truth to a menacing power.” Speaking the truth in this year’s report were the students themselves; for the first time, Glisten conducted focus groups to hear the kids describe their answers in their own words. Key findings paint a layered portrait of LGBTQ+ youth who “are whole people with complex lives that defy the […]