John Casey

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These LGBTQ+ Virginia kids found support and community in school. Then, bigoted adults took that away

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I grew up unable to say the word “pee.” If it slipped out, I had my mouth washed out with soap. I couldn’t swear until I was 18. I’d get slapped in the face if I did. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, because now I curse like a sailor, and I’ve come to believe that’s not a coincidence. When you suppress a kid, when you tell them, over and over, in ways big and small, that who they are or what they say or how they exist is wrong, it doesn’t disappear. Stay up to date with the […]

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Lawmakers seek to end New York’s 40-year bathhouse prohibition

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More than four decades after New York shut down adult saunas during the height of the AIDS epidemic, state lawmakers are seeking to replace what they describe as an emergency-era policy with a modern regulatory framework built around today’s public health science. This week, state Sen. Erik Bottcher, a Manhattan Democrat, and Assemblymember Tony Simone introduced the Public Health Modernization Act, legislation that would repeal state regulations dating to 1985 that effectively prohibited adult saunas, often referred to as bathhouses, and require the state Department of Health to create a licensing and oversight system for their operation. Stay up to date with the latest in […]

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Lonely Lindsey Graham died tethered to the man who humiliated him

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Lindsey Graham died Saturday at 71, and I have to be honest with you: in the eight years of writing for this outlet, I don’t think I’ve written about anyone more than I’ve written about him — except, of course, Donald Trump. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. And I’ll be upfront about something else.  Those columns were never kind, and they were never dull, because Graham was reliably good for a click. Lots of them. Every time his name went in a headline, readers showed […]

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Donald Trump built a White House spectacle around beautiful men and muscle. During Pride Month

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I’ve been covering Donald Trump for The Advocate since 2019, through his first term, through his off years sulking and griping at Mar-a-Lago, and now through his nightmare return to the White House over the last two years. In that time, one thing has become unmistakably, almost comically clear: Donald Trump loves a beautiful man. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Not that he would ever say so out loud. “Women, I like. Men, no, I don’t have any interest,” Trump actually felt like he had to announce that, […]

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Since Tim Cook is leaving Apple, it’s now time for him to really show up for us

When Tim Cook was named to replace the legendary Steve Jobs as Apple’s CEO in August 2011, it was a wild and electric moment, not just for the tech world but for our community. His sexuality was already being widely whispered about in corporate circles, with reports circulating as early as 2011 that Cook was gay, though he was working to keep his personal life private. In fact, in April of 2011, our sister outlet, Out Magazine, named him as one of the most influential LGBTQ+ people in America. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email […]

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Texas wants Bibles in public classrooms as another way to bully, harm, and exclude LGBTQ+ kids

I went to a Catholic school for eight years, so I had no choice when it came to learning about the Bible. I remember being confused by scripture on many occasions. As a child, I could not comprehend how Noah got all those animals onto a small boat. It was around the same time I began to wonder how Santa could carry presents for all the children in the world on his small sleigh. Nevertheless, I came to respect the Bible and what it stood for. Some might say it was eight years of brainwashing, but I prefer to think of […]

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Budget cuts and ignorance of history are racing us towards another HIV & AIDS epidemic

I’m old enough to remember what it looked like when the government decided AIDS wasn’t its problem. I remember the silence from the Reagan White House as funerals piled up. I remember watching and hearing about brilliant sons, partners, uncles, friends, entire communities disappear while officials shrugged and said this was a “gay” disease, something that happened to people who had brought it on themselves. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Working on the Hill at the time, I listened to the horrid bigotry […]

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If 2025 tested our resolve, 2026 will prove our resilience

They say with age comes wisdom. When I was much younger, I laughed at that idea. I was convinced I already possessed all the wisdom I’d ever need. Now, with time behind me, lots of it, I laugh for a very different reason, and at how little I truly understood back then. One of the gifts of getting older is perspective. You begin to recognize that while the trials you’re facing may feel overwhelming in the moment, chances are you’ve survived something harder before. Not always, but often enough to matter. I was reminded of that recently while talking with a young […]

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Out NYC Councilman Erik Bottcher files to run for Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat, raises nearly $700k in one day

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New York City Councilman Erik Bottcher filed Wednesday to run for the seat of retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler, and he raised nearly $700,000 in campaign funds in his first 24 hours. This historic, grassroots-driven achievement marks the biggest first-day total in New York State history and one of the biggest nationwide, according to his campaign. Bottcher, a 46-year-old gay man, is one of the city’s most visible LGBTQ+ officials and a rising star in Democratic politics. In a letter to supporters on Wednesday and during an interview with The Advocate, Bottcher said Nadler’s decision not to seek reelection “creates an incredible opportunity for a new […]

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The sham of oral arguments on conversion therapy is meant to show SCOTUS is ‘unbiased’

When the U.S. Supreme Court commences proceedings Tuesday to hear oral arguments over whether a Colorado therapist can offer “conversion therapy” to queer youth, the stakes are far greater than one state’s law.  Chiles v. Salazar, a challenge to Colorado’s ban on ‘conversion therapy for minors, is about whether the highest court in the land will once again choose bigotry over humanity and call it constitutional. And it will likely do it based on a lie. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending conversion therapy in the case, is accused of misquoting and misrepresenting a 2016 study by scholars Lisa Diamond and Clifford Rosky. In […]

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