Opinions

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Words create worlds, so what kind of world do we want to live in?

It seems that each new day brings a fresh debate around speech and the weight of impact that speech holds. Back in October hundreds of Netflix employees staged a walkout protesting their company’s controversial Dave Chappelle stand-up special. At issue were a number of jokes aimed at the transgender community. The protest happened in response to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos’ defense of the special, saying that “content doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.” This statement could not be further from the truth. Not only do words carry impact and directly translate to real-world harm, words form our conception of the […]

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The bitter satisfaction of judging the COVID queens

Here’s a fun fact. If gay men had simply stopped having sex in the 1980s, AIDS would have been stopped in its tracks. But we didn’t and it wasn’t. The culprit was basic human need. Even in the face of our own mortality, we reached out to one another and we touched and we wept and we fucked. All the HIV prevention campaigns in the world, while marginally effective, were outmatched by human instinct. Yes, we took a bite out of the rate of new HIV infections. But they raged on regardless. I cannot bring myself to blame gay men […]

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Breaking barriers as an out trans ‘Jeopardy’ champion

“When was the last time anybody said ‘wow!’” a friend asked me. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone I know (including me) had any “Wow!” moments. Until I heard about trans woman and software engineering manager Amy Schneider’s 29-game winning streak on “Jeopardy.” You wouldn’t think anything could dispel our COVID exhaustion and political divisiveness. Yet, news about a champion on “Jeopardy,” a quiz show that has been on TV since 1964, has broken through our gloom. In our culture, there are few things that everyone loves. But, “Jeopardy” is beloved by many, from theater geeks to 80-year-old sports […]

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Should we vacation in anti-LGBT+ countries?

The tiny rainbow light projecting onto the corner baseboard of the bar and tipsy people constantly belting out Mariah Carey karaoke songs clued me in. There was something unique happening here. It wasn’t until a gentleman with glittered cheeks approached me to say how fabulous my dress was that I suddenly clocked it. I’d unknowingly ended up in a gay bar in the middle of Saint Petersburg, Russia. A flood of overwhelming joy first took over. Before coming to Russia on vacation, I knew all too well the discrimination and fear LGBTQ Russians lived in. A gay bar in Russia, […]

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‘Attack on books’: Over 600 authors, publishers, groups condemn book bans

More than 600 best-selling authors, publishers, bookstore owners and advocacy groups Wednesday condemned the recent wave of LGBTQ- and race-related book bans in public school libraries across the country. Over the last several weeks, lawmakers, school officials and parents in at least 10 states — including New York, Texas and Virginia — have sought to rid books about the lived experiences of Black and LGBTQ people from elementary, middle and high schools.  Some who are challenging the books argue that they contain graphic illustrations of LGBTQ sexual experiences or portray an unflattering image of the country’s history with race.  But in a […]

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LGBTQI+ equality is central to health of our democracy

Last week, world leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector gathered virtually for the Summit for Democracy to set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle today’s greatest threats to democracy. In advance of the summit, the Council for Global Equality—a coalition of LGBTQI advocacy organizations of which the Center for American Progress is a proud member—in collaboration with F&M Global Barometers published report cards assessing the extent to which participating states have fulfilled their obligations to ensure LGBTQI+ people are full citizens and able to contribute to and benefit from democratic institutions. Unfortunately, the United States’ […]

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South Africa: Broken Promises to Aid Gender-Based Violence Survivors

The South African government has taken important steps but did not provide adequate funding for shelters and other services for gender-based violence survivors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many survivors have been made more vulnerable in the context of Covid-19. The South African government has acknowledged high rates of gender-based violence both during and before the pandemic. But South African experts told Human Rights Watch that despite promises – including in a National Strategic Plan – to address gender-based violence and femicide, the government has still failed to provide necessary funding for shelters and other services. Efforts should be made to improve access for marginalized people, including sex workers; lesbian, gay, […]

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State Laws Stoke Bias; Black Trans Women at Greatest Risk

Transgender people are at significant risk of violence and harassment in the United States, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 65-page report, “‘I Just Try to Make It Home Safe’: Violence and the Human Rights of Transgender People in the United States,” documents how persistent marginalization puts transgender people, particularly Black transgender women, at heightened risk of violence at the hands of strangers, partners, family members, and law enforcement.                              “Every year, advocates document dozens of cases of fatal violence against transgender people,” said Ryan Thoreson, an LGBT […]

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Calls for bans on LGBTQ literature in schools put young lives at risk

Recent calls to ban books on race and LGBTQ issues in school libraries by elected officials are a dangerous new low amid the continued weaponization of issues like transgender athletes in school sports and the restriction of lessons on safer sex practices. But these moves by school board members like Rabih Abuismail and Kirk Twigg in Virginia’s Spotsylvania County — and Republican governors like Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Greg Abbott of Texas — go beyond previous political fearmongering tactics around identity. Given that studies by the Trevor Project show that LGBTQ teenagers are four times as likely to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers, they are […]

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Cis people get gender-affirming healthcare over the counter. Why can’t trans folk have the same?

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Gender-affirming healthcare for trans and non-binary people is being attacked, legally and politically, in the UK. We’ve seen this with Keira Bell’s well-funded court case, which almost succeeded in making it so that trans kids needed court approval to get puberty blockers; we see it with the fact that the trans healthcare crisis means that a trans person in London going to their GP today for a referral to a gender clinic might wait as long as 26 years for a first appointment, going by the current rate of intake; and we see it every time a politician bleats about “only women having […]

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