Opinions

/ /

The documentary “The American Revolution” erases & defames gay men

In the 1970s, I launched a campaign to end LGBTQ invisibility on television. Years later, that mission to show the public who we were expanded to another arena we’d long been written out of: American history. Just as television producers ignored us, so too had historians.  Sadly, such erasure is happening again today, this time because of both the glaring absence and defamatory framing of LGBTQ people in Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary The American Revolution.  How can LGBTQ people be both omitted and defamed in the documentary? Simple: the use of age-old stereotypes. After a friend informed me a few […]

/ /

Dancing without the drink, how queer sobriety became a revolution of joy

Queer spaces have long been tied to nightlife culture, born from necessity in bars and clubs where safety and community were first found. But what started as a sanctuary has, for some, become a source of harm. As rates of addiction, relapse, and overdose climb across the LGBTQ+ population, we must reckon with an uncomfortable truth: celebration shouldn’t come at the cost of our lives. This is not a call to ban alcohol from queer spaces. This is a call for balance, choices, and inclusive celebration that embraces sobriety as more than just abstinence but as joy, vitality, and connection on […]

/ /

Gender is not an ideology — but conservative groups know learning about it empowers people

Political attacks on teaching about gender in colleges and universities are about more than just gender: They are part of a grander project of eroding civil and human rights, limiting personal freedoms and undermining democracy in the name of “traditional” values. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring there are two sexes determined solely by the kind of reproductive cells the body makes, and that the federal government would recognize nothing else. The order claims to protect the “freedom to express the binary nature of sex” and bans the use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology.” Legal […]

/ /

Queer survival in Mississippi and the bars that saved us

On Highway 90, between the shrimp boats and the neon of the casinos, there’s a quiet kind of resistance. The type that pulses under dance floors, tucked behind unmarked doors. Gay bars on the Mississippi Gulf Coast don’t wear their pride like big-city clubs. They don’t have rainbow flags stretching across intersections or drag brunches advertised on billboards. They live low to the ground, out of sight but very much alive. They’ve had to. In places like Biloxi, Gulfport, and D’Iberville, being queer has never been entirely safe. But the bars? They were the closest thing to it. I remember my first gay […]

/ /

Teaching tolerance isn’t indoctrination. It’s protection

The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision earlier this summer that has a significant impact on classrooms nationwide. In their 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority completely missed the point as to why LGBTQ-inclusive education matters. By giving parents the option to pull their kids out of lessons that include LGBTQ+ characters or content, the Court prioritized personal religious objections over creating schools where students can learn without feeling invisible. Justice Alito‘s majority opinion is especially troubling. He treats LGBTQ-inclusive education as if it were some optional “add-on” that schools can easily work around. As a former teacher, I can confidently say that is […]

/ /

From purity rings to ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ the right’s war on sex ed never ended

Recently, the Administration for Children and Families sent letters to health departments in states and territories across the United States, requiring them to remove “all references to gender ideology” from the Personal Responsibility Education Program that provides federal funding for sex education. It’s a disturbing move that mirrors how, from the 1980s through the early 2000s, the Bush administrations threatened to and did cut federal funding to states and schools that refused to teach abstinence-only sex education as part of the Purity Culture Movement. Similar to contemporary “Don’t Say Gay” movements that empower parents seeking to remove references to LGBTQ+ individuals from classrooms and libraries, abstinence-only sex […]

/ /

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 […]

/ /

In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing and Kimmel’s silencing, where do we go from here?

It’s hard to know where to begin. The last week since the Charlie Kirkassassination has been a jumble of feelings I can barely sort through.  Shock turns to sadness, which turns to anger, which turns to frustration, which turns to abject sorrow. I know I’m not alone in this cycle. His shooting death was horrific. And there are times I could kick myself for watching that gruesome video.  I’m someone who hates violence, who has always recoiled from confrontation, who can’t bear to see people hurt, both physically or emotionally. Even at the age of 61, I can’t fathom why people […]

/ /

No, Charlie Kirk was not practicing politics the right way

,

Tragedy is a powerful shaper of narratives. In the aftermath of the horrific assassination of MAGA champion Charlie Kirk, a husband and father of two, it was natural that his allies, including President Trump, lionized him as a patriot, free-speech advocate, and activist. And political opponents somberly denounced the terrible killing, as they should, with some hailing Kirk’s devotion to public debate. There’s a tendency in such a moment to look for the best in people or, at least, to not dwell on the negatives. That can be a good thing. Yet as Kirk is quickly canonized by Trump and his […]

/

Bring Them Home: Deploying Our State National Guard for Political Purposes Endangers Public Safety

LGBTQ leaders in Washington, DC, and in states deploying their National Guard to a militarized DC, speak out about the dangers to LGBTQ people in DC and to public safety at home. Dwayne Steward, Equality Ohio Executive Director “You don’t have to be from Ohio to know the dangerous history of injecting the National Guard into political moments. 55 years ago this past May, National Guard members fired on unarmed demonstrators on the Kent State campus, killing four students and injuring nine people. The violence sparked a nationwide reckoning that we are still atoning for to this day. We are […]

«‹ 3 4 5 6›»