The theater lights are about to dim at Prayer for the French Republic, a new Broadway play that tracks the journey of a Jewish family in Paris from World War II through the 2017 French presidential election and the country’s rise in antisemitism. My companion leans over and asks earnestly, “Why do the Jews get a country and no other religion?”
Playwright Joshua Harmon’s cast of characters debates the question for nearly three hours, as do we over post-show cocktails. I suggest, perhaps with a bit of earnest strain in my voice, that it might have something to do with millennia of persecution, from the biblical story of Exodus and the pogroms of the Russian Empire to a CNN poll indicating that a third of Europeans believe Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals. But does that give the Jewish people a right to land also claimed sacred by Palestinians?
I was born and raised Jewish — jumping through the Bar Mitzvah and confirmation hoops and celebrating the High Holy Days with requisite challah and subsequent fasting. I visited Israel in 2015 for Tel Aviv Pride, thinking I’d feel an immediate kinship with my fellow Jews.
I didn’t.
While I fell in love with the city, pulsating with the youthful sun-kissed glow of tech millennials, I didn’t feel any more “Jewish.” Upon my return home, I resided myself to the fact that my Russian and Polish ancestral roots — pale skin, receding hairline, perpetually nervous stomach — was my lot in life, and my desire for a larger sense of community needed to be cultivated from within.
Tel Aviv Pride. Photo by Matthew Wexler
Though rarely asked before the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and subsequent retaliation by Israeli forces that has left upward of 22,000 Palestinians dead, I would describe myself as Jewish but not Zionist. But it’s not that simple.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Anti-Defamation League chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said, “Zionism is fundamental to Judaism,” comparing it to the civil rights movement by suggesting that to be anti-Zionist but not antisemitic is the equivalent of saying, “I’m against the civil rights movement, but I’m also against racism.”
The article’s author, Charles M. Blow, further dismantles the argument, questioning, “There are several forms of Zionism, and people in these debates rarely seem to be explicit about which form they are for or against. Political Zionism? Cultural Zionism? Religious Zionism? Some combination of them? Does it matter?”
I ask myself the same questions regarding my gay identity. Am I politically queer? Culturally queer?
In a recent interview with LGBTQ Nation, out actor Danny Kornfeld told me, “One of the things I love about the Jewish religion is the encouragement to ask questions, to say, ‘Why is this?’”
Barry Manilow’s “Harmony” unearths the story of a musical group impacted by Hitler’s Germany. Marginalized communities see the terrifying connection.
So I’m asking why.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I’m asking how this near extermination came to be. And January 29, the anniversary of the Bear River Massacre that left hundreds of Native Americans. And June 12, when Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured more than 50 at Pulse Nightclub. And on September 11, when I watched the plumes of smoke and disintegrated souls hover above lower Manhattan from my apartment window.
Depending on the algorithms of one’s digital search history, the day’s social media feed may be flooded with Holocaust-related content, or scrolling might look like any other, filled with reels and TikToks and stitches and tweets and posts. Made-up words and content that often pretends to be rooted in reality.
As nearly eight decades drive a wedge between World War II’s end and modern-day atrocities, it becomes increasingly harder for me to put on a happy face. Jews weren’t the only ones sent to the gas chambers. Under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, upwards of 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where many were subjected to medical experiments or castration and ultimately died.
Photos of arrested gay men under Paragraph 175 of Germany’s Penal Code circa World War II. Schwules Museum, Berlin. Photo by Matthew Wexler.
My identity on this particular day leaves me feeling vulnerable as I question what may become of us outliers in the years to come. But then I recall pot-stirring intellectual Susan Sontag, who wrote in 1964’s Notes on ‘Camp’: “Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.”
I could do worse than a modern sensibility and homosexual aesthetic. Yet a growing number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws threaten my very existence in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Happy? With a side of caution, yes, aware that we’re one small step away from history repeating itself.
The one real estate requirement for Giovanni’s Room was “a place with a big front window,” says co-founder Tom Wilson Weinberg. The vision — an LGBTQ+ bookstore — set a plan in motion that would change queer visibility in Philadelphia and open the door for access to diverse stories worldwide.
Weinberg and friends Dan Sherbo and Bern Boyle had begun engaging in LGBTQ+ activism and saw an unfulfilled niche for community engagement. It was 1973, and gentleman’s clubs, bars, and adult book shops — often hidden behind unmarked doors — dotted the city, but despite the Stonewall Riots just a few years before, queer life across the U.S. wasn’t all rainbows. (Gilbert Baker’s Pride flag didn’t even appear until 1978.)
At the time the trio conceived the idea, the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a mental disorder. Pennsylvania still has yet to officially pass the Fairness Act, which includes protections against discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.
“It was hard to find a location,” Weinberg, now 78, told LGBTQ Nation. “Realtors didn’t have to give a reason; they’d just say no, though we insisted on saying it’d be a gay and feminist bookstore.” The twenty-somethings finally found a location on South Street — the first floor of a three-flat building with the requisite window, a physical manifestation of the visibility they hoped to achieve. And for a rent of $85 per month, Giovanni’s Room was in business. Over the decades, the storefront (named after James Baldwin’s novel) has changed owners and locations, proving a stalwart survivor of evolving economic and cultural times.
A receipt for the lease of Giovanni’s Room’s original Spruce Street location. Photo courtesy of the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives.
Fifty years later, the skyrocketing impact of online retailers and social media consumption makes every purchase — from Lex Croucher’s New York Times best-selling YA novel Gwen and Art Are Not in Loveto the reissue of Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance — a win for local, queer-owned small businesses. Still, the forecast remains precarious. Despite a slow and steady increase over the past decade, with nearly 2,600 independent bookstore locations reported in 2023, LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs face a Medusa-like backlash. Conservatives toe the line with a record number of book ban attempts against LGBTQ+ titles. Meanwhile, decreased print book sales continue despite a handful of industry insiders advocating for queer authors.
Related:
One page at a time
Archival images courtesy of the John J. Wilcox Archives, William Way LGBT Community Center.
“In early 1973, to open a [LGBTQ+] bookstore was a utopian vision,” says Weinberg. “We didn’t think we needed an insurance policy, but we did insure the front glass window; nobody ever threw anything.”
Ninety miles north in New York City, Craig Rodwell had opened Oscar Wilde Bookshop and would prove a valuable ally once Giovanni’s Room was up and running. Weinberg says Rodwell, a member of the Mattachine Society, a pre-Stonewall activism organization, was instrumental in suggesting what might sell. Together, they visited a wholesale bookseller in Brooklyn and “bought anything we considered queer-worthy” — cash only. To balance Rodwell’s populist side, friend, activist, and author Barbara Gittings suggested other titles from the queer canon.
Hobbled together from used furniture and makeshift shelves, the store included a modest collection — Oscar Wilde, Gore Vidal, Radclyffe Hall, and, of course, James Baldwin — along with local papers and pamphlets like Boston’s Gay Community News and their own newsletter, the Philadelphia Weekly Gayzette. The founders each volunteered twice weekly, though they often spent days off at the store.
After 18 months, plenty of good times, and little profit, the men stepped aside, selling Giovanni’s Room to good friend Pat Hill, who gave up a job at the Department of Recreation to keep the store alive.
“It was not a viable business. It was a wonderful idea,” Hill said at a 50th anniversary founder’s event held in August 2023 at Philadelphia’s William Way LGBT Community Center. “It was a very courageous thing to get going but hard to keep going because things hadn’t been written yet,” referencing the limited number of published queer titles.
The bookstore’s next chapter began in 1979 with the arrival of Ed Hermance and Arleen Olshan, who bought the store and its meager stock for $500 and moved its location to 12th and Spruce Street. Shortly after, the building was sold, and the new landlords were none too happy with queer tenants. Another move was imminent.
Hermance’s eclectic life had led him from a “hippie commune” in Colorado to a teaching gig in Germany, a food co-op, and finally to being a clerk at the University of Pennsylvania’s main library. Olshan was an artist and leatherworker from a working-class family. They were not typical business owners. But Giovanni’s Room was not your typical bookstore.
From the onset, Giovanni’s Room had been fueled by volunteers and a steady stream of customers, many of whom would circle the block before summoning the courage to enter. They would prove instrumental in the bookstore’s legacy.
“Giovanni’s Room was a gift from the community to itself. People wanted it. They were willing to contribute to it, volunteer, and support it.” Ed Hermance
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“Time was running out, and we’re gonna have to do something,” recalled Hermance, 83, at the founder’s event. “I had seen a property on 12th and Pine Street, but we never thought about buying because we didn’t have any money. But the deadline was coming. So we borrowed the down payment from our customers. Giovanni’s Room was a gift from the community to itself. People wanted it. They were willing to contribute to it, volunteer, and support it.”
In addition to being literary-minded, Hermance also proved to be entrepreneurial. Driving to New York City to load up a trunk full of books whenever they needed inventory wasn’t sustainable. Bob Koen, an old friend from Hermance’s food co-op gig, had launched a book wholesaler business across the Delaware River in New Jersey and was the first person to give Giovanni’s Room credit. And by the late ‘70s, a wave of queer authors and publishers had emerged.
Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance (1978), called “a meditation on ecstasy” by the New York Times, portrayed New York City gay life through a brutal kaleidoscopic lens and became an instant queer classic. Rita Mae Brown’s Ruby Fruit Jungle, published by the lesbian-owned independent press Daughters, Inc., paved the way for today’s sapphic coming-of-age novels.
The impact of Giovanni’s Room extended far beyond Philadelphia’s local LGBTQ+ community. By the early ‘90s, Hermance and Olshan had leveraged their relationships with publishers and started a wholesale business of their own, distributing queer titles worldwide. With a master’s degree in comparative literature and work experience overseas, Hermance was a natural. “During our biggest wholesale year, we sold to more than 80 bookstores in 17 countries,” Hermance tells LGBTQ Nation.
From books to activism
Giovanni’s Room was more than a bookstore. It became a haven during the height of the AIDS crisis at a time when mainstream America was burying the news, as well as thousands of gay men. In a 1982 press briefing, journalist Lester Kinsolving asked President Reagan’s press secretary Larry Speakes about the “gay plague” as the press pool laughed. After some banter, Speakes said, “I don’t know anything about it.”
“The store carried every fragment of information we could about this plague,” says Hermance, including safer-sex cartoon booklets — discreet accordion-style pages that could easily slip into one’s pocket. Employees from a nearby city health clinic known for STI testing would come by, stock up, and surreptitiously distribute the materials to patients.
Hermance says newly diagnosed people would come to the store to gather their thoughts about the harrowing reality of what was to come. “In those days, you’d be dead in six months. There was no question about it,” he says. “The store was a [place] to get your thoughts together: ‘How am I gonna tell everybody I know, and what am I going to do about it?’”
AIDS also hit the Giovanni’s Room family.
Joseph Beam, editor of In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology (Alyson Press, 1986), worked as the store’s bookkeeper and left to travel and promote the book. After his return, Beam had hoped to get his old job back, but the position had been filled. A year later, Hermance reached out to reconnect and invite Beam to lunch, but the call was never returned. Beam, 33 and HIV-positive, had died in his apartment, discovered by friends on December 27, 1988.
“I had grown weary of reading literature by white Gay men,” Beam, who had interviewed luminaries like Audre Lorde and Samuel Delaney, once wrote, “More and more each day, as I looked around the well-stocked shelves of Giovanni’s Room… I wondered where was the work of Black Gay men.”
Beam said In the Life was for “the brothers whose silence has cost them their sanity” and “the “2,500 brothers who have died of AIDS.” To date, more than 700,000 people in the U.S. alone have died of HIV-related illnesses, including Giovanni’s Room co-founder Bern Boyle. LGBTQ+ bookstores remain valuable information hubs for HIV, MPOX, and other diseases disproportionally affecting the queer community.
A cliffhanger leads to the next chapter
New releases at Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room. Photo by Matthew Wexler for LGBTQ Nation.
Giovanni’s Room continued to prosper, but after a decade, Olshan was ready to move on. Hermance amicably bought out his partner and acquired the adjacent building to expand. As the bookstore’s popularity grew throughout the ‘90s, so did the canon of LGBTQ+ authors.
But the industry was quickly shifting. Borders and Barnes & Noble expanded their operations, opening sprawling bookstores in malls and standalone locations nationwide. And on July 5, 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon from his Bellevue, Washington, garage. Over the past three decades, the company, now valued at over $460 billion, has dominated the market, selling upwards of 300 million print books per year.
Hermance persevered, convinced that a personal connection with customers, authors, and publishers could keep the store afloat. But by 2014, the pressure had become too great. Original co-founder Weinberg and others tried their best to secure a buyer to no avail — until a creative solution emerged.
Local nonprofit Philly AIDS Thrift, led by co-founder and manager Christina Kallas-Saritsoglou, signed a two-year agreement to become the store’s proprietor and, in 2018, purchased the business and the building. Now officially called Philly AIDS Thrift@Giovanni’s Room, the bookstore’s legacy continues, with its proceeds distributed to communities in need.
Book lovers gather
The Philly Queer Book Club gathers at Philly AIDS Thrift & Giovanni’s Room, August 3, 2023. Photo by Matthew Wexler for LGBTQ Nation.
Locals and visitors think of Giovanni’s Room, an established anchor of Philadelphia’s Gayborhood, as that reliable friend who’s always around in times of need. But volunteer Danny Maloney understands firsthand the importance of preserving queer books and queer spaces for the next generation.
Maloney, 29, grew up in nearby Bucks County, where he attended Catholic school. He developed an affinity for old movies and “campy things,” and, in turn, sought out novels in a similar style. He volunteered at the local library, but it wasn’t until pursuing a double major in English and Education at Philadephia’s Lasalle University that Maloney discovered explicitly queer characters and authors.
“This is a benefit of physical bookstores and physical libraries, that you don’t necessarily need to be looking for things, but you can browse and find what you didn’t know you needed at the time,” Maloney tells LGBTQ Nation.
Maloney began his teaching career in Baltimore, then moved back to Philadelphia in June 2020. He had occasionally frequented the bookstore during college and made a conscious effort to engage more with the queer community upon his return. He began volunteering, but the bibliophile wanted more.
“I had been volunteering at the store for over a year. I was finding it really fulfilling, but I wanted to meet more people and have certain types of conversations. Part of my mind gets animated and invigorated talking about texts,” says Maloney. “I approached one of the managers at the time, asking if there had ever been a [book club]. And in a classic instance, the following week, she was like, “Well, if you want to do this, it can happen.”
Philly Queer Book Club participants discuss Andrew Holleran’s “Dancer from the Dance.” Photos by Matthew Wexler for LGBTQ Nation.
In August 2022, The Philly Queer Book Club was born. Maloney’s educational background came in handy for setting a reading schedule and drafting discussion prompts. He reached out to “every queer person I knew” and set up an Instagram profile. That first meeting attracted 20 or so attendees, half of whom were Maloney’s friends, but the word caught on. By the time the group read the store’s namesake title by James Baldwin, the numbers were exponential. “People really showed up,” recalls Maloney. “It was actually kind of stunning.”
Throughout the book club’s evolution, Maloney has witnessed the excitement surrounding a range of subjects and authors, proving the value of diverse representation among LGBTQ+ narratives.
“A lot of the participants often very strongly identify with things that we are reading,” says Maloney, highlighting past picks that have included Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Homeand Sarah Thankam Mathews’ All This Could Be Different, which portrays a Southeast Asian immigrant experience through a queer lens.
Maloney takes participant polls to inform book selections but also draws from his professional expertise, saying, “I want to make sure that we are reading from different eras, genres, and experiences to allow people to see themselves in the text if that is what they’re searching for.”
The future of LGBTQ+ bookstores
Violet Valley Bookstore proprietor Dr. Jamie Harker. Photos provided by Violet Valley Bookstore.
The resilience of Giovanni’s Room tells only part of the story. Rodwell’s Oscar Wilde Bookshop lasted until 2009. A Different Light Bookstore, at its height with locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, shuddered its last outpost in 2011. Washington D.C.’s Lambda Rising and Atlanta’s Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse also closed after decades-long runs. But a new crop of LGBTQ+ bookstores is emerging, sometimes where you’d least expect them.
Dr. Jamie Harker opened Violet Valley Bookstore in Water Valley, Mississippi, in December 2017. An English professor at the nearby University of Mississippi, Walker has lived in the state for 20 years. She spent seven of them writing The Lesbian South, which uncovers the legacies of Southern feminists and the Women in Print movement, which built a network of women authors, publishers, and bookstores.
Harker’s research inspired deeper contemplation about continuing the legacy of the women who came before her. The former railroad town had proven hospitable over the years, drawing residents who worked at the university 18 miles to the north. Located on Main Street, the long, narrow shop dates back to the late 19th century. A cigar shop, barbershop, and art gallery have occupied the space, but Walker saw the potential for something different.
Much like Giovanni’s Room, Harker, 55, and her wife, with the help of a former student, sought their community’s support. A crowdfunding campaign raised more than $8,000, affording them the ability to stock shelves and jumpstart the opening.
Harker acknowledges that Water Valley, population 3,301, may not have the same kind of resources as a big city, but LGBTQ+ visibility still exists. “It’s easy to think there’s no queer culture here,” she says, “but there is. You just have to find different entry points.”
“People are looking for places to build physical community.”Philly Queer Book Club founder Danny Maloney
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Violet Valley Bookstore and dozens of other LGBTQ+-owned shops, like Under the Umbrella in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Montana Book Co. on Last Chance Gulch in Helena, Montana, prove that queer business owners, authors, and readers have a place amid 21st-century capitalism.
Giovanni’s Room co-founder Weinberg says, “We’ve needed and wanted books, movies, and TV shows that reflect our world. Coming out of the ‘60s and ‘70s, they were — for many of us — tragic.” But the stories evolved, as has the face of the LGBTQ+ community. No longer seen as a monolith, more queer voices — trans, gender expansive, and nonbinary — continue to emerge.
Book club leader Maloney recognizes the value in not only telling such stories but also sharing them. “There’s a unique alchemy of the room, where everyone is there and able to meet and see each other,” he says. “There’s a real need and hunger for that — people are looking for places to build physical community. An actual meeting place like Giovanni’s Room is irreplaceable.”
Featured image: (from left) Pat Hill, Tom Wilson Weinberg, Ed Hermance, and Arleen Olshan — part of the legacy of Giovanni’s Room. Photos courtesy of Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room and the William Way LGBT Center. Photo illustration by Matthew Wexler.
During the recent Speaker voting chaos, the world had an unprecedented view of the House Chamber through uncensored camera footage. Self-described citizen journalist V Speharsays being in the room where it happens reveals the true colors of elected officials and how their personal and political agendas may impact our country’s future.
Spehar, 40, spent the early part of their career in the hospitality industry in New York City, Tampa, and eventually as an event planner with one of Washington D.C.’s most prominent caterers.
“People speak so honestly in front of you when they don’t think you’re ‘that’ kind of smart — when they think you’re just a waiter, a bartender, or whatever,” Spehar told LGBTQ Nation. “And so I got to see these people, not just for the policies that they wrote, but for the people that they are, and understanding that who they ate dinner with changed how the world was going to be.”
Motivated by a rapidly shifting global landscape, it would take an insurrection and worldwide pandemic for Spehar to consider sharing their observations in a public forum. Rather than looking for a seat at the table, they went under it.
Spehar launched Under the Desk News on TikTok in April 2020 and rapidly amassed 2.8 million followers. The one-minute segments (literally delivered from under a desk) have attracted a bipartisan audience. In 2022, Spehar launched V Interesting, a GLAAD-nominated long-form podcast with original reporting that tackles various topics from Gen Z voter engagement to gender-affirming surgery.
“I got to see these people, not just for the policies that they wrote, but for the people that they are, and understanding that who they ate dinner with changed how the world was going to be.”V Spehar
Originally from Shelton, Connecticut, Spehar now lives in Rochester, New York, with their wife Natalie, a cellist and creative educator. With an increasing amount of time in the public eye, they consider themselves a homebody and appreciate Rochester’s vibrant artistic community from the world-renowned Eastman School of Music, where the couple attends the annual voice competition and local film screenings. Spehar’s on-air persona is an intentional extension of how they move through the world. “I show up in the world the same way: for my friends, my show, my wife,” they said. “Maybe that’s why it works.”
“I didn’t want to be another talking authority figure,” Spehar said. “Being under your desk creates a universe where you can feel safe in this very calm, gentle place, where a queer-identifying 25-year-old TikToker will find something I said as interesting as a 50-year-old white straight man who voted for Trump in 2016. The news is geared towards curious people sick of the partisanship.”
V Spehar of Under the Desk News and the podcast V Interesting. Photo provided by V Spehar.
But America’s future hardly feels calm.
Despite greater representation with newly elected LGBTQ+ House members, governors, and other officials at the state and local level and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, questions loom about the future implications of Roe v Wade’s reversal, escalating “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, and the anti-queer propaganda allowed to flourish on social media platforms like Twitter.
Such polarization coincides with increased violence. According to ACLED, a data collection and crisis mapping project, more than 200 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents (such as anti-queer demonstrations and offline propaganda) were reported last year — an increase of 12 times compared to 2020. Politically motivated violence is also on the rise, fueled partly by Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill signed into law in March 2022 and dozens of proposed anti-trans bills.
Still, the mid-term elections saw a historic number of LGBTQ+ candidates on the ballot and more than 340 wins. While that figure still doesn’t reach equitable representation, the dial seems to be moving in the right direction despite an increasingly vocal far Right contingency. And much of that noise continues to come from social media, particularly Twitter.
Since Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform last October, anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech has escalated. According to the New York Times, slurs against gay men alone have risen from 2,506 to 3,964 times per day, in addition to a spike in accounts associated with QAnon.
But what about the queer community, particularly those in small towns and rural areas, who often turn to social media for support and access to information and resources? Twitter’s credibility isn’t the only platform on the chopping block. President Biden recentlypassed expanded legislation to ban TikTok from all government devices while a national security review is underway.
Despite the online rhetoric, some progress is being made, including the codification of same-sex marriage. On December 12, 2022, in front of nearly 5,500 attendees on the White House lawn, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, requiring the federal and state governments to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages performed by other states. While the occasion was a high point in Biden’s administration, it wasn’t the constitutional home run that the queer community eventually hopes to hit out of the park.
“Our work isn’t done and won’t rest until the Equality Act is passed into law,” said then-House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), referencing a House-passed bill that would enshrine sexual orientation and gender identity into federal civil rights legislation.
The Washington Post via Getty Im House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, holds a bill enrollment ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on December 8, 2022. Photo by Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post via Getty Images.
As the nation’s relationship with healthcare access continues to spiral, the need for the Equality Act couldn’t come at a more critical time. According to a recent report by theKaiser Family Foundation, 40 percent of adults in the U.S. have medical- or dental-related debt. For the LGBTQ+ community — particularly transgender folks — the numbers are even more alarming.
LGBTQ Nation spoke with Spehar about queer politics, the remainder of Biden’s first presidential term, and our collective capacity to truly become the United States of America.
LGBTQ NATION: How do we make sense of the polarization of queer America?
V SPEHAR:People like gay people. Even the far right likes gay people. We like people for their personality, if we learn something from them, or if they make us laugh. So it’s no surprise to me that more queer people are running for office and winning. And that’s all on purpose, right? It’s almost like we’ve curated a personality that’s acceptable to mainstream America for our own safety and speaks to the diversity of queer experiences.
When I first heard Black women talk about code-switching, I thought, “Oh, that’s a version of what I do to protect myself” — changing yourself to survive. When you’re socialized in a certain way, and you value being accepted or protecting yourself from criticism, sometimes these are the things that we do.
But politics used to be about passing budgets and laws, and now it is about owning one side or the other. It is more defense than offense. And the offense isn’t putting forward good legislation that helps people; it’s just making someone else lose.
LGBTQ NATION: As the President prepares to address the nation, what are some of the most vexing problems facing the queer equality movement?
VS:Fear has been very effective in getting people to vote. Some people agree with the anti-drag queen story-hour bills or have been told that it’s unfair for trans athletes to compete. And no matter the science, we can never change their minds. And that is because their protective instinct has been triggered. It’s not because they’re dealing in truth. They’re dealing in fear. If you tell somebody who’s deeply religious (as some of the far right has), “This is going to hurt people. These people are dangerous. If we can pass this legislation, we can stop children from being hurt,” nothing is going to stop somebody from believing that because their protective instinct has been triggered.
But having a protective instinct does not mean thinking rationally. Politicians are using people’s protective instincts to push very hateful things because it makes it look like they’re winning, but they’re helping someone else lose. We need to watch out for not trying to prove that drag queens aren’t a danger to children because they’re obviously not. We need to prove that your protective instinct is being triggered by somebody trying to manipulate you.
You’re not going to get somebody to stop believing their sole mission is to be a protector, but you can get them to understand who actually needs protection.
Little Miss Hot Mess reads to children at a Drag Queen Story Hour event. Photo: Joseph Tekippe.
LGBTQ NATION: A few notable queer celebrities, including Elton John and Jameela Jamil, have bailed on Twitter, citing Musk’s takeover. How is the future of social media tied to the future of our country? And is it time to say ta-ta to Twitter?
VS:I think we have to get out of it. Musk is unhinged. But that’s his platform. It’s his toy. Don’t play with it. Who gave him the funding to buy Twitter? The circumstances and lack of antitrust and mergers — all that kind of stuff that was removed so that the shareholders of Twitter could profit. And now look where we are.
Musk is one of the richest men in the world but is very cash poor and had to borrow a lot of money to get this thing. There was a lot of money from many places, which buys a lot of silence. But it’s not just a billionaire buying Twitter. There’s a billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times,Patrick Soon-Shiong. Many of the local news channels are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. [Whose executive chairman, David D. Smith, is a longtime Trump cohort.]
We also have the legacy media and mainstream journalists who have built their platform on Twitter. And they don’t want to give it up. So we’ve got a double-edged sword here where an unhinged megalomaniac has purchased this thing and it’s no longer useful. We should absolutely be critical of what led to him even being able to buy it. But I think we have to accept that it is over and work towards building what the next thing is.
LGBTQ NATION: The Equality Act is still in the distance. Do you see a path forward for constitutional LGBTQ+ protections?
VS:I am grateful that the Respect for Marriage Act passed. It falls short of where I would feel fully comfortable and safe. I am ready for LGBTQ+ existence to no longer be a ballot measure. I’m ready for us not to be a talking point when it comes to political rhetoric and campaigning.
It would be as if we were still trying to discuss women being allowed to vote. No, they won the right to vote. We all agree that women have the right to vote; that’s settled law. Why isn’t it the same for LGBTQ+ equality?
I want to see the Equality Act signed and actually create a constitutional amendment, which people think we have now, but we don’t have that hard a language for it. Where there’s softness, people try to punch a hole right through it. And that would solve a lot of things for both women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.
With queer representation growing in Congress, that certainly makes a big difference. We’re not just talking about some random hypothetical person that may or may not live in your district. You’re saying it to the face of queer legislators. When the states ofMassachusetts, Colorado, and Oregon want to talk about gay rights, they have to say it to their governors’ faces. The more we can put a face to it, the less you can write us off.
(clockwise from top) Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, and Colorado Governor Jared Polis. Gov. Healey photo by Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images.
LGBTQ NATION: A recent report from the Williams Institute found that of the approximately 276,000 transgender folks enrolled in Medicaid, more than 40 percent live in states with vague coverage parameters or, even worse, actively ban coverage of gender-affirming care for beneficiaries. Trans youth and their parents also face an uphill battle.
The Williams Institute, in a separate brief, indicated that more than 58,000 trans youth are at risk of losing access to care because of state bans and policies. Lack of healthcare, political attacks packed with abusive language, and social pressures collectively impact the trans community’s well-being. How can we better educate the opposition about gender-affirming care and dispel the fear factor distorting thescientific evidence that proves the value of such treatment?
VS: I have a friend who got boobs at 18 when we graduated high school, and she just had them removed because she didn’t want them anymore. Cis women also get gender-affirming care — whether breast augmentation, a nose job, or a facelift — people get all kinds of things done to feel their best and like their most authentic selves. And sometimes you get something you don’t want it. But that’s rare. The fact that more women cis women who get breast implants will have them removed and regret them later doesn’t mean that nobody should get breast implants if they want them, right?
It’s the same thing with trans care. There are going to be people who are unhappy with themselves, and they aren’t going to achieve happiness through top surgery, testosterone, or whatever things other people do to achieve gender, acceptance, and joy. Listening to this year’s discourse, I’ve learned that people don’t understand puberty blockers are sometimes the difference for a young person living to decide if they want to go further. Because the alternative is they die by suicide. That is the actual alternative. And if we want to protect children, we have to protect all children.
“You’re not going to get somebody to stop believing their sole mission is to be a protector, but you can get them to understand who actually needs protection.”V Spehar
I am a person who struggled with my gender identity until I had top surgery. The amount of time I spent looking at myself, wishing things would be different, and not attending events because I didn’t like how my body looked — that is exhausting. And then I got top surgery just last year. And I woke up, and I felt finished, I felt done. I felt like myself. It changed everything for me. And I wish that people knew others who had gone through the experience so that they could tell them that. I feel happy. And it really didn’t affect anybody else’s life.
Having been a kid who struggled with just trying to feel comfortable in my body, if I could have delayed puberty and not had double-D boobs in eighth grade, that would have been great. That would have saved me a lot of problems for a lot of reasons. So I think it’s letting people know that it’s not a big deal. It’s something that a lot of people do. And most gender-affirming surgery is done on cis bodies. And that’s for men and women who were born male or female. And it’s okay. It’s not hurting anyone. So the perspective I hope people take is to stop making it such a big deal.
LGBTQ NATION: What’s your message to those who might feel overwhelmed by our country’s divide or want to tune out the news cycle?
VS: Like many gay people, I didn’t think I would be as old as I am. When I was young, I didn’t know any gay people who were adults. And now I’m 40 and didn’t plan for much after 23. So once I lived, I just thought — you never know. And I’ve had so many cool things happen: I got married and have this career. And I wake up every day and say, “Oh my God, how cool is it that I just breathe without thinking?” So having that perspective helps me when something is really sad and feels extremely hopeless.If you remember that things have been bad before, they do get better. You can get through it. And when I need to take breaks, I do. We’ve been in worse economic situations.
And we can continue to move towards less hate and more happiness, but there will always be hard stuff.
