Perspectives

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Out tennis legend Billie Jean King receives France’s Legion of Honor award

Tennis legend and LGBTQ rights activist Billie Jean King received France’s highest civilian honor, the Legion of Honor, on Friday. King, who is attending the French Open, received the award in recognition of her contributions to women’s sports, gender equality, and the rights of LGBTQ people in athletics. She was a part of a short ceremony at the presidential Elysee Palace where French President Emmanuel Macron was in attendance. King returned to the main clay court at the Paris tennis complex that hosts the French Open for a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of winning the 1972 tournament title. In […]

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Ohio Republicans pass bill requiring genital inspections for school sports

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Late Wednesday night, Ohio Republicans passed a bill requiring certain high school and college athletes competing in women’s sports to have their genitals inspected to ensure that they are not transgender. H.B. 61, known as the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” was intended to prevent transgender women and girls from participating in school athletics. Under the Ohio High School Athletics Association’s (OHSAA) current guidelines, transgender women and girls must have completed a minimum of one year of hormone treatment and/or demonstrate that they do not possess physical or physiological advantages over “genetic females of the same age group.” The new law would prohibit trans […]

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LGBTQ history is repeating itself. That’s not necessarily a bad thing

Let’s face it, this year’s Pride comes at a time when many in our community are feeling a sense of doom. The passage of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill this spring was a shock, not to mention the gut punch of the Supreme Court’s likely Roe vs. Wade decision and its deeply concerning implications for our rights and freedoms. So if you’re feeling threatened, there’s good reason — and it’s not just because of what happened in Florida. This year, over 230 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures aimed at sports, libraries, and curricula, all with the aim of protecting children from […]

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Bill Maher Has Gone Too Far With Anti-LGBTQ+ Comments

As someone who has spent over three decades fighting for the rights of our LGBTQ+ communities, particularly safe spaces for our youth, I have seen and been part of many forward changes. I lead the LGBT Network, which held the first LGBTQ+ youth prom in America’s suburbs, started the first recognized Parent-Teacher Association in the nation to focus on LGBTQ+ youth, and opened America’s first LGBTQ+ senior affordable housing in suburbia. We have helped to start hundreds of gay-straight alliance clubs in our schools and have been a part of the many struggles, rallies, and fight for full equality and […]

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Political Rights for Cubans Should Not Start with a Marriage Equality Referendum

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Cubans might have a chance this year to do something they’ve done very rarely: cast a meaningful vote. The government, which rarely consults its people, says it will allow Cubans to “have their say” in a referendum, with respect to whether same-sex couples, a minority, can marry. Cuba’s government has a well-documented history of violating citizens’ right to vote in free and fair elections and to take part in public affairs. The Communist Party, the only one allowed in the country, has governed since the 1959 revolution without giving citizens the option to vote its leaders out of office—or even to protest their actions. […]

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Oklahoma’s Bathroom Ban Will Endanger Transgender Children

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Oklahoma’s legislature has passed a bill that would ban transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Senate Bill 615 would require students in the state’s public schools to use restrooms according to the sex on their birth certificate, barring transgender girls from using female bathrooms, and transgender boys from using male bathrooms. Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to sign the bill into law this week. Bathroom bans have a pernicious history. In 2016, at least 18 US states considered bills that would restrict transgender students’ access to restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities. Now, after two years of […]

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English soccer player Jake Daniels says he is gay

English soccer player Jake Daniels said he is gay on Monday in a trailblazing moment for the European men’s game. The 17-year-old forward made the announcement at the end of his first season as a professional player with second division club Blackpool. “This season has been a fantastic one for me on the pitch,” he said in a statement. “But off the pitch I’ve been hiding the real me and who I really am. I’ve known my whole life that I’m gay, and I now feel that I’m ready to come out and be myself. “It’s a step into the […]

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The NFL should withdraw the Super Bowl LVII from Arizona

This year, the Republican majority in the Arizona state legislature passed two bills, S.B. 1138 and S.B. 1165, which target trans children. The day before the 2022 Trans Day of Visibility, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) signed them into law, claiming they were about “fairness.” In reality, S.B. 1138 and S.B. 1165 willfully restrict the opportunities and medical care available to trans children, with no regard to their quality of life or peace of mind. The passage of these laws will humiliate and harm trans youth in Arizona, and increase the risk of bullying and social ostracization. And when we know […]

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For the LGBTQ community and other minorities, war is fought every day

My decision to transition took place while in the midst of reading the classic George Orwell opus on war: Homage to Catalonia.  Having been on and off feminizing hormones for the previous nine months, it was in Barcelona when I called my best friend and told her that my 35-year wait to embrace myself was finally ending.  Related: The worst part of traveling while gay Barcelona was also the city where Orwell’s personal narrative of fighting for a foreign nation in combat took place.  When coupled with other works on conflict by literary luminaries from the past including Faulkner and Hemingway, I’d […]

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‘Politics’ and ‘politician’ have become dirty words

When you study the field of politics, it is represented as “the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.” An accepted definition of a politician is “a person who is professionally involved in politics, especially as a holder of or a candidate for an elected office.” Politics, if done well and honestly, should not be thought of as dirty and neither should the politician who practices politics. One can be an activist and practice politics without being a politician. But I […]

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