Opinions

/ /

Leave nonbinary people alone

Lately, there has been a wave of online commentators who mock nonbinary people. Bloggers, TikTokers, and other posters make fun of an entire population of well-meaning people who lie somewhere “in the middle” of the gender spectrum.  On TikTok, @feelinmiz2.0 does a mocking dance in a fake doctor’s suit, stating “Notice how the Pr0n0uns in your bio do not alter your genitals.” In July 2020, Elon Musk tweeted “pronouns suck.” In September 2020, Canadian commentator Debra Soh wrote an article titled “How the Nonbinary Trend Hurts Those with Real Gender Dysphoria.”  Defamation of nonbinary people is everywhere in the media.  […]

/ /

To pod or not to pod?

Is it me or do others find COVID social pods (aka bubbles) elusive? I watched from the Wharf’s dock as the pod boat sailed south. Where was the pod sign-up sheet? Was there an email campaign? When did registrations end? According to an Axios-Ipsos poll, almost half (47 percent) of Americans have formed a COVID-19 pod for pandemic interaction with trusted friends. In general, participation favors women and people with college degrees. City dwellers aren’t as hip to it as suburbanites. I’d estimate with the DMV’s educated population and our LGBTQ networks, participation may be higher. What happened to the […]

/ /

Conservatives opposing the Equality Act don’t speak for most people of faith, and they know it

, , ,

For years the religious right has trumpeted a lie: that its opposition to LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections has to do with, or is even required by, religion. It has even, on occasion, distorted the meaning of religious freedom to make this argument. But as its opposition to the Equality Act, which passed the House on Thursday, shows, the idea that LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections undermine protections for religious Americans is an egregious mistruth. The Equality Act would expand protections for religious Americans by updating the public spaces where the Civil Rights Act applies. Under current federal law, it is perfectly legal to discriminate against someone […]

/ /

Trump’s final blow to patients with HIV

The day before Donald Trump left the White House, his administration dealt one final, brutal blow to some of America’s most vulnerable patients. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a policy that, if implemented, will put numerous lifesaving drugs off-limits to Medicare recipients.  Medicare provides health insurance to 63 million seniors and people with disabilities. Trump’s gut punch affects Part D, the section of Medicare that covers most prescription drugs. The last-minute policy change would allow the private insurance companies that sponsor Part D plans to stop covering many medications in Part D’s “six protected classes” as early […]

/ /

‘You’re Nothing More Than a Plague Rat’

The disgust, anger, and recriminations over gay New Year’s Eve parties in this seaside resort area of the Mexican state of Jalisco and neighboring Riviera Nayarit, continues to spread in gay online social media — particularly in numerous Twitter threads and on Instagram. One Instagram account, @gaysovercovid has repeatedly called out party goers and party organizers. Local media outlets in Jalisco and many Mexican social media users are also outraged. The @gaysovercovid Instagram account has faced wave after wave of backlash from gay influencers many of whom are now embroiled in the controversy after having their Instagram posts publicly disclosed […]

/ /

Socially Distanced Celebrations Are a Gift to Queer Families Like Mine

My wife began hormone replacement therapy just before quarantine started in March. Although my mother-in-law has known about my wife’s gender identity since early childhood, she previously discouraged her from transitioning. She recently called the family’s pediatrician to see what could have caused her daughter to be trans — treating her identity as if it were a malady. Over the past nine months, my wife and I have had limited contact with her and other conservative relatives in our less-than-supportive families. Queer people are reclaiming space for ourselves this season, establishing new ways to observe holidays or practicing the same traditions with […]

/ /

It’s Time to Stop Traveling

,

This is as hard for me to write as it is for travelers to hear: It’s time to consider canceling or postponing your nonessential holiday trips. Normally at this time of year, I would be writing about strategies to deal with the impending holiday crowds or how the two weeks after Thanksgiving or New Years are the cheapest times of year to travel, the so-called “dead weeks” when demand, and therefore prices, hit annual lows. I’d be preparing for my annual holiday visit to Atlanta to see my family, or a “bleisure” trip to New York City to see the […]

/ /

Queer Communities Need COVID Relief Now

For those of us in the communities hardest hit, in the industries hardest hit, in the states hardest hit by COVID-19, relief cannot come fast enough.   I live in the Rio Grande Valley, an area in South Texas that has been hit the hardest in the country by the COVID-19 virus. In the state, there is a record of more than 100,000 new cases per day, up 55% in July alone. Now, people in our region are dealing with recovering from a tropical storm.  This pandemic caused me to lose my job. I am a queer- and trans-inclusive sex educator and have spent years […]

/ /

Gay Republicans a Disgrace to an Otherwise United Community

How to explain the unlikely, perverse phenomenon of a gay Republican in 2020?  Delusion? Denial? Blinded by privilege? Daddy issues rendering them subservient to Master Trump?  Whatever the underlying issue, it’s truly sad to watch the once respected Log Cabin Republicans sink into further irrelevance. From Rich Tafel and Patrick Guerriero to R. Clarke Cooper and Patrick Sammon, Log Cabin has been led over the years by smart, committed advocates working to change the Republican Party from within. Whatever your views on the GOP, it’s important to fight from the inside, whether it’s inside political parties, organized religions, or sports […]

/ /

‘Silence = Death, VOTE’

Deep in a Smithsonian vault rests an iconic election poster from the 1980s stored in an archival drawer. It reads: “Silence = Death, VOTE.” It can still shock with its imagery and blunt words. “Your vote is a weapon….we are at war,” the poster states in an historic political call to action for LGBTQ Americans to engage in the most important election of their lives in the midst of a raging epidemic. It was an election as primally important then as the one all Americans face, today.  Despite President Trump’s suggestion that it be postponed, we are have that election, […]

«‹ 18 19 20 21›»