The UCLA–Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science Center for AIDS Research has received a five-year, $11 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. A priority of the award is to fund research addressing health inequities that have fueled the spread of HIV in marginalized communities.
The Center for AIDS Research will strengthen and amplify the impact of ongoing research at both UCLA and Charles R. Drew University, as well as forming new partnerships with community groups across Los Angeles and in nations that are severely affected by HIV. Its aim is to prevent new HIV infections, reduce deaths among people who are living with HIV and develop strategies for eradicating HIV.
The partnership will be directed by Dr. Judith Currier, chief of the UCLA Division of Infectious Diseases; Dr. LaShonda Spencer, professor of clinical pediatrics and internal medicine at Charles R. Drew; and Jerome Zack, chair of the UCLA Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics. The Center will support investigators at UCLA’s Westwood campus and affiliated sites including the Lundquist Institute at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center and the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, as well as Drew CARES, the MLK Oasis Clinic and the PUSH Coalition, a group of organizations involved in HIV services that are located on or near the Charles R. Drew campus.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to leverage the resources provided by the Center for AIDS Research to expand the support for HIV/AIDS research across Los Angeles and build new partnerships among investigators at all of the partner sites and communities most impacted by HIV,” Spencer said.
The partnership will support equity in health care in part because Charles R. Drew engages a primarily minority population — 80% of its students and 71% of faculty members are from communities of color — and its scholars are committed to health equity in underserved populations through education, research and clinical service. The partnership also will promote opportunities for early-stage investigators to learn from more experienced HIV researchers, and for senior faculty to learn from younger scholars about community-engaged research, as well as increasing diversity among HIV researchers.
The center’s four primary aims will be:
Provide scientific leadership and institutional infrastructure.
Mobilize and coordinate multidisciplinary, state-of-the-art research.
Develop the next generation of basic, behavioral and clinical scientists in the field of HIV/AIDS, with a focus on promoting diversity in HIV research.
Expand community-based research with populations that are disproportionately affected by HIV in Los Angeles and beyond.
Have you ever felt like you could identify with certain aspects of one gender but don’t connect to it fully? Do you feel as if you only partially identify with your gender? If you answered yes to these questions, you just might be demigender.
Read on to learn more about this gender identity, including how it differs from other identities under the non-binary umbrella.
Demigender: Meaning And Place In The LGBTQ Spectrum
You won’t find a “demigender” definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary or Dictionary.com unfortunately. This is because “demigender” is a relatively new term that has only gained popularity over the last few years. Of course, that’s not to say that this gender identity is new or made up – we just didn’t have the words to describe this particular gender identity before.
According to Tumblr blog demigenders.com, the term “demigender” describes someone who identifies partially with one gender. It doesn’t matter how much a person identifies with a particular gender, as long as they identify with it to some capacity.
Some believe that demigender is a subset of bigender, which is defined as someone who identifies with two genders at once. However, others may argue that, while bigender people tend to feel like they are a combination of two distinct genders, some demigender people may only partially identify with one gender.
Several terms that fall under the demigender blanket, include:
Demigirl: This is someone who identifies partially as a girl or woman.
Demiboy: This is someone who identifies partially as a boy or man.
Demienby: This is someone who identifies partially as non-binary or “enby”.
Demifluid: Similar to gender-fluid people, demifluid people may feel like part of their gender identity fluctuates from one gender to another.
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Understanding Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity
To better help you understand what all these terms mean, here’s a short guide to some key concepts everyone should know about. Let’s talk about the differences between sexual orientation and gender identity.
Sexual orientation describes the types of people you’re sexually attracted to (e.g. gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, etc.).
Gender identity describes your internal conception of your gender or how you perceive your maleness, femaleness, in-between-ness, or lack of gender altogether.
It’s important to note that gender and sexual orientation are independent of one another – how you perceive yourself doesn’t affect who you’re attracted to. For example, if you’re a trans man, it doesn’t automatically mean you’re attracted to women.
People who are cisgender are those whose gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth. Those who are trans experience a disconnect between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth – as such, many trans people undergo different forms of transitioning to become more comfortable in their own skin.
Finally, people who are non-binary are those who don’t subscribe to the idea that there are only two options when it comes to gender. Instead of seeing gender as male or female, non-binary people experience gender as a spectrum where they can exist somewhere in the middle or even outside of it altogether.
Demigender is a gender identity that falls under the non-binary umbrella, which also includes pangender, gender-fluid, and agender people.
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What Pronouns Do Demigender People Use?
There is no single set pronoun for people who identify as demigender. This is because a person’s preferred pronouns will depend entirely on what feels right for them. Thus, it’s never safe to assume someone’s pronouns based solely on their appearance or behavior.
When meeting new people, it’s always best to offer your pronouns as you introduce yourself. This lets the other person know that you’re open and receptive to hearing about their gender and that you’re conscientious enough to respect their pronouns.
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How Do You Know If You’re Demigender?
So, how do you know if “demigender” is the right fit for you? You’ll have to be patient as you explore your gender identity, as it is not something that happens overnight.
Here are some signs that can help you figure out if you are demigender:
You question your gender often and feel as if you don’t fully identify with your sex assigned at birth.
You can partially identify with another gender.
You can’t relate to how your friends experience their relationships with their gender. You feel like something is “missing” and you can’t talk about how you feel without being the odd man out.
You experience gender dysphoria, a sense of distress or discomfort over the mismatch between your sex assigned at birth and your gender identity.
You find yourself searching for people like you who may not experience gender to the same degree or intensity as others.
You are always second-guessing how you feel.
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What Is The Demigender Flag?
Feeling like a proud demigender person already? Get to know the ultimate symbol of demigender pride: demigender flags.
Yes, flags, plural. There is more than one demigender flag for each subset identity:
The demigirl flag, designed by Tumblr user Transrants, consists of two dark gray stripes, two light gray stripes, two pink stripes, and one white stripe in the middle.
The demiboy flag is similar to the demigirl variation, except that it has blue stripes in place of pink stripes.
The demi-nonbinary flag has yellow stripes instead of pink or blue stripes.
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The Bottom Line
Demigender people feel only a partial connection to a gender. For example, demigirls may embrace some aspects of femininity while rejecting others. If this sounds like how you feel about your own gender identity, don’t worry, you’re not alone – there are plenty of people who identify as demigender out there.
If you ever need someone to talk to about your experiences as a demigender person, you can look up online groups, Instagram pages, and hashtags about demigender pride on social media.
For people who are not LGBTQ, it can be difficult to understand what being a straight ally means. Some might think that allies just need to be supporters and nothing more, but there’s actually a lot more that goes into being an ally.
In this post, we’ll break down what it means to be a straight ally and explain why they’re so important in the fight for equality.
What Is A ‘Straight Ally’? Meaning Of The Term
“Ally” describes a person who is “not a member of a marginalized or mistreated group but who expresses or gives support to that group.”
Thus, to be an LGBTQ ally – meaning someone who does not identify as LGBTQ but recognizes the unique challenges faced by members of the community – is to be a straight and/or cisgender person who speaks up for and stands with LGBTQ people against discrimination, oppression, and violence.
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What Does Being A Straight Ally Entail?
According to the education organization GLSEN, there is more to being an ally than simply identifying as one. Being a fierce and proud ally, which involves taking on the responsibility to continue growing and learning about the LGBTQ community, entails a lot of hard work – especially today, as LGBTQ people continue to face pushback from conservative groups and legislators.
So, what does “straight ally” mean in the context of 2022?
It’s true that significant progress has been made toward achieving equality for LGBTQ people around the world. Today, same-sex marriage is legal in 31 countries. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In many countries, it is still legal to discriminate against someone on the basis of sex and gender.
In the US, transgender and gender non-conforming people, in particular, continue to face significant discrimination in employment, medicine, and housing. Thus, they are far more likely to experience unemployment, houselessness, mental illness, substance abuse, as well as have insufficient access to gender-affirming healthcare. Today, transgender athletes are also facing bans from girls’ and women’s sports programs in 10 states.
Part of the problem that LGBTQ people face in fighting discriminatory policies and legislation is the lack of representation in the legal system. This is why it’s so important for the LGBTQ community to have straight allies in positions of power who can use their voice and privilege to help enact change.
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How Can You Be A Better Straight Ally?
There is a lot of debate on what good allyship looks like. Individuals and corporations have co-opted the LGBTQ movement to lift themselves up and paint themselves as progressive to gain sympathy and bank on “pink money” or the purchasing power of the LGBTQ community.
Take, for example, the dozens of corporations that decorate their company logos with rainbows and project empty messages of equality and support come Pride month – all without doing much else for the community. Another example is celebrities who use LGBTQ imagery in their work, queerbaiting fans by hinting they could be gay without explicitly saying so, and making vague sentiments about acceptance.
Taylor Swift was famously criticized back in 2019 for her music video “You Need to Calm Down”, which features an explosion of rainbows and dozens of LGBTQ celebrity cameos. Critics have panned the video as an act of “performed allyship”. New York Times pop music critic Wesley Morris wrote of “the riot of auxiliary personalities – gay personalities – [being] in the service of her brand and persona.”
As Vox puts it, “There are two kinds of “allies”: those who lift up the queer community, and those who seem most concerned with lifting up themselves.” So, how do you become part of the former group? Here are four tips for becoming a better ally:
1. Be Curious And Open-Minded
If you already know the basic concepts of what it means to be gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, asexual, etc., that’s great! But you should also recognize that there is no one way to be any of those things. LGBTQ people have different experiences and perspectives, and things like class, race, sex, gender, disability, and nationality can put can compound one’s experience of discrimination and oppression.
The LGBTQ movement is also relatively new, and many people are only beginning to find the terms and concepts to describe themselves. So, always be willing to learn about new identities and experiences.
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2. Learn To ‘Pass The Mic’
Or as GLSEN puts it, “speak up, not over”. As an ally, it’s important to speak up for the marginalized and oppressed, especially if people in positions of power are trying to silence them.
However, it’s also important to let LGBTQ people advocate for themselves and tell their own stories. Thus, the idea of “passing the mic” to LGBTQ people who may feel afraid to speak or who aren’t given the opportunity to do so. Uplift the voices of activists and advocates and give way to them in discussions that concern them.
3. Recognize Your Privilege
As a straight and/or cisgender person, you are inherently more privileged than someone who isn’t. That means you may not know what it means to be denied certain rights, you may have certain safety nets that others do not, and blind spots that you can’t even recognize immediately.
Understanding this allows you to better empathize with others and helps you figure out how to uplift marginalized people without centering yourself in the conversation.
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4. Take Action
You can’t just identify as an ally and call it a day. Being nice to LGBTQ people is great and all, but it’s the bare minimum of allyship.
Put your privilege into action by:
Speaking up against discriminatory remarks or oppressive policies at school, work, or in social situations;
Calling out your friends for making offensive jokes, even when there are no LGBTQ people around
Showing up to protests and Pride events. Remember, there is strength in numbers.
The Bottomline
So, what does it mean to be a straight ally? It means standing up for your LGBTQ friends and family members, even when it’s not easy. It means using your privilege to help others, and speaking out against discrimination and hate. And it means being there for your queer friends, always.
If you want to be a better straight ally, start by educating yourself on the issues that affect LGBTQ people.
There used to be a time when passing a law like same-sex marriage rights meant safety and security for those involved. However, if the controversy surrounding the draft to overturn Roe vs. Wade shows us anything, it’s that nothing is set in stone—even if it once seemed that way.
It’s never been more critical for minority groups, such as the LGBTQ community, to keep up to date with what’s happening in the political sphere. So far in 2022, GOP lawmakers have historically pushed forward hundreds of state bills seeking to erode rights for queer teens, children, and their families. This includes diminishing protections for transgender and gay youth and restricting discussions about LGBTQ topics in public schools.
It’s time to make sense of the massive disaster that is our political process and level the playing field. Using governmental resources, such as the US Senate or US Representatives website, and trusted independent sources for drafts and votes like WeWillDecide, to help gain an unbiased and complete picture of the situation.
There’s a way to level the political playing field and it’s called keeping score. Our politicians need to feel about the American public like the American public feels about the IRS during an audit. Knowledge is power, and, in this case, means knowing exactly how your congressman and representatives are voting and how this aligns with your own political ideals.
Think Small For Big Change
Data from LGBTQ rights advocacy group, Freedom for All Americans, suggests that the number of bills filed with measures to restrict LGBTQ rights has nearly quadrupled over the last three years. With over hundreds of measures pending in state legislatures across the country, the impact of informed and engaged voters could make the difference between these bills passing or not.
Using online tools to track drafts, votes, and proposals can reveal how larger change is built incrementally. Just think about who will become the next Supreme Court justice. Who votes makes a significant difference. For example, the LGBTQ community is severely underrepresented in Congress, with just 2.1% representation compared to 5.6% of the American population. How many restrictive bills would pass if the LGBTQ community was better represented?
A Right to Feel Safe
While we might not be able to create representation in Congress instantly, we can ask politicians to be allies and hold them accountable for their actions. Votes and drafts are a marker of who that politician is, so unbiased, factual records are favorable to sensationalist media. That way, we can make our own opinions on whether Roe vs. Wade is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to revoking rights.
We can all see that the war on abortion has nothing to do with babies – it is all about the control of populations. Women’s rights and LGBTQ rights have historically been aligned as both have faced violence and restrictions. Like women, those in the LGBTQ community also have a right to feel safe within our systems, with individual freedoms protected. The possibility of Roe vs. Wade being overturned has made us question the safety of everyone.
Stronger Together
All minorities combined creates a majority, and this is when change can start to happen – but we have to do the work. The bottom line is if all minorities are protected, everyone is protected. If some of us are safe and others aren’t, none of us are safe: it’s going to show up on everyone’s doorstep eventually.
We live in an age of fear-driven politics, and keeping the mechanisms of politics shrouded in secrecy and jargon is a tactic for disempowering the voting public. Knowing your representatives through online research is the best start to being your own political advocate. How else can you avoid aligning yourself with the GOP congressman trying to ban teachers from talking about LGBTQ issues with students without parental consent? Bill proposals rarely show up in the news, but they make it clear to see what a congressman is actually about.
Understanding and awareness come through critical thinking and help us build resilience to the noise. Keeping the process secret is dangerous and ingrains the belief that there’s nothing we can do to affect our situation. Humanizing our politicians and making information free and easily accessible is one way we can take the fear out of politics and communicate better with each other to make change happen.
Combating Apathy
Politicians bank on making people afraid and apathetic. If they can keep the American public in flight, flight, or freeze mode, they win when people are too distracted, exhausted, or broken down to make informed decisions. However, when enough informed people care and make an effort, tangible change will occur.
The legalization of same-sex marriage in Ireland is a fantastic example of people-power. In 2015, Irish citizens living abroad returned home in droves to make their vote as they were unable to vote from overseas or by proxy. The #hometovote took off on social media as people came together to support the LGBTQ community by sharing their experiences and encouraging each other to vote.
Politicians have been singing the same song and dance for so long, and it’s going to be up to young people, women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community to work together to shake things up. Rather than doom-scroll, why not use five minutes to search out unbiased political information or check your voter registration status instead? It’s time to learn we’re our own best advocates.
Kelly Riordan, the founder of Wewilldecide.com and a healthcare worker, is a typical frustrated voter that knew she could create a better way for the average person to obtain their political information without bias. She has no experience in politics, which she feels is an advantage in several ways, and gives her a unique point of view over those who specialize in it.
In a landmark settlement, a Maine assisted living facility has agreed to establish policies and procedures to ensure it is a welcoming place for LGBTQ seniors, after a 79-year-old transgender woman levied an accusation of discrimination.
When Marie King filed her complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission in October, alleging that the Sunrise Assisted Living facility in the town of Jonesport refused her admission as a resident because she is transgender, it was believed to be the first complaint of this kind in U.S. history.
The settlement does not set a binding legal precedent. But legal experts nevertheless expect it to raise awareness that nursing homes and other assisted living facilities must abide by various state and federal laws barring them from discriminating against transgender people. The settlement also provides a roadmap for how such facilities can better serve the needs of LGBTQ seniors.
This development comes as more openly transgender adults are expected to enter their senior years — demographic growth in line with the overall increase in people older than 65, according to the Williams Institute. Research indicates that trans seniors are more likely than the general older population to need housing in assisted living facilities, in part because they are more prone to be alienated from family members, be in poorer health and live on lower incomes.
Marie King, 79, filed a complaint in March alleging that a long-term care facility in Maine discriminated against her for being transgender.Susan R. Symonds
At a video conference meeting based in Augusta on Monday, the Maine Human Rights Commission approved the terms of the settlement negotiated by the commission, the Boston-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the Adult Family Care Homes of Maine, which runs nine assisted living facilities in the state, including Sunrise.
“I’m thrilled to see this positive outcome,” King said in a statement issued through her attorneys at GLAD. “I believe the new policies will keep others from experiencing mistreatment and will help people understand that transgender people are only seeking to be treated with dignity and respect like anyone else.”
Adult Family Care Homes of Maine did not admit guilt as a part of the settlement and continues to deny having discriminated against King. It has pledged to adopt a comprehensive policy barring discrimination against transgender people. The company will also require all of its staff attend a training, conducted by SAGECare, an LGBTQ+ cultural competency program run by SAGE, on serving this population. The nonprofit organization focuses on improving the lives of LGBTQ+ seniors.
Chris Erchull, a staff attorney at GLAD, said that many staffers of such facilities lack the education and awareness pertaining to transgender adults and their needs, and are unsure how to comply with the law.
“This is a groundbreaking case because it spells out for people what the minimum requirements of the law are and how to make sure that they comply with it,” Erchull said.
“By no means do I think this is an isolated incident,” Karen L. Loewy, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, said of King’s case.
The Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law, estimates there are at least 771,000 LGBTQ adults over 65 in the United States, including 171,100 transgender seniors.
“Our research has shown that LGBT older adults face barriers to receiving formal health care and social support that heterosexual, cisgender adults do not,” said Ilan Meyer, a Williams Institute researcher. “Hopefully, other residential facilities will also implement policies consistent with this settlement.”
Nearly half of U.S. states, including Maine, bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in both housing and public accommodation — legal categories that apply to assisted living facilities.
In the spring of 2021, a social worker at Pen Bay Medical Center, where King was receiving medical care, sought a placement for her at Sunrise. Initially, a social worker at the long-term care facility said there were vacancies. But according to King’s complaint, when the Sunrise social worker learned she was transgender, she said they could not admit her because they did not want to place her with a cisgender woman roommate.
On March 14, 2022, the Maine Human Rights Commission voted 3 to 2 that King had reasonable grounds to claim that Sunrise discriminated against her on the basis of her gender identity, transgender status and sex, all of which are protected under the Maine Human Rights Act. This opened the door for the commission to potentially file a lawsuit.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is in the process of conducting its own investigation to determine if Sunrise’s alleged refusal to admit King as a resident violated the sex discrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Courts have interpreted the 2010 law as barring discrimination based on gender identity in health care settings that receive federal funds, including assisted living facilities.
Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton decision established protection for LGBTQ people against workplace discrimination.
In an emailed statement to NBC News, John K. Hamer, an attorney at Rudman Winchell in Boston, which represents Adult Family Care Homes of Maine, said that the Sunrise social worker told King’s social worker that Sunrise “was not an appropriate place for Ms. King” because of the possibility that a cisgender woman roommate “was not comfortable having a transgender roommate.”
“However,” Hamer stated, “Sunrise Assisted Living would not have denied Ms. King residency based on her transgender status had she applied for residency. Ms. King just never applied.”
He added that Sunrise “is happy to work with GLAD to enhance its existing policies and to provide training to ensure that such a miscommunication does not happen again.”
As a part of the settlement, the facility has agreed to provide a $1,000 payment to King and an $8,500 payment to GLAD for attorneys fees.
Aaron Tax, managing director of government affairs and policy advocacy at SAGE, said that the details of King’s case “speak to the need for comprehensive, explicit national civil rights protections” for LGBTQ older people.
Sarah Warbelow, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign, pointed to survey data indicating that 70% of Americans support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans. She said that the Maine settlement “really represents what people think should be happening: that LGBTQ folks have access to remedies when they experience discrimination.”
Czech president Miloš Zeman has said he plans to veto proposed legislation that would give same-sex couples the right to get married in the country.
The measure, which was drafted by lawmakers across the Czech political spectrum, was submitted to the parliament’s lower house on Tuesday (7 June), the Associated Pressreported.
Lawmakers have yet to set a date to debate the proposed same-sex marriage legislation. Yet the country’s president has said he is strongly opposed to the measure and will strike it down should it even land on his desk.
“I’d like to announce that if I really receive such a law to sign I will veto it,” Zeman said.
Miloš Zeman has served as the president of the Czech Republic since 2013. The president is considered a largely ceremonial role as the elected leader has limited executive powers, but he does have a considerable role in political affairs.
Zeman said that the Czech Republic passed a law in 2006 allowing same-sex couples to enter into registered partnerships, but he believed “family is a union between a man and a woman”, “full stop”.
Czech president Miloš Zeman said he believes “family is a union between a man and a woman”, “full stop”. (Getty/Mikhail Svetlov)
The registered partnership gives queer couples in the Czech Republic some rights similar to those of heterosexual married couples, but it stops short of placing same-sex couples on fully equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
Same-sex marriage remains illegal in the country because marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman under the Czech Republic’s civil code.
Parliament started debating similar same-sex marriage legislation back in 2018, but the legislation stalled as lawmakers didn’t take a vote before last year’s general election. The measure had to then be re-submitted for debate.
Lawmakers in the Czech parliament’s lower house can override Zeman’s veto if they can reach a majority vote.
Miloš Zeman has often espoused anti-LGBTQ+ views in the past. Last June, Zeman said he finds trans people “disgusting” while discussing Hungary’s so-called LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda’ law, which bans any depiction or discussion of queer people in schools, the media and advertising.
Zema said he thought people who undergo gender-affirming treatments are “basically committing a crime of self-harm”.
“Every surgery is a risk, and these transgender people to me are disgusting,” he added.
The number of queer bars is declining nationwide according to a new study examining the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on U.S. LGBTQ spaces. The study’s author, Greggor Mattson, a professor of Sociology at Oberlin College who also curates the Who Needs Gay Bars project on Twitter, found that between 2019 and Spring 2021, the number of gay bars in the U.S. dropped by about 15%.
Compared with the similar decline between 2017 and 2019, Mattson writes, this indicates a steady rate of decline in recent years.
Mattson and his researchers compared historical from the Damron Travel Guide and compared it to an online census of gay bars taken from February to May of 2021.
“36.6% of gay bar listings disappeared between 2007 and 2019,” Mattson tells Chicago’s ABC7 News. “So more than a third of gay bars closed in a 12-year period.”
According to the study, bars serving LGBTQ people of color fared particularly poorly, dropping by nearly 24% between 2019 and Spring 2021. Meanwhile, Mattson and his associates found that no lesbian closed during the pandemic, possibly due to “intensive media and philanthropic attention,” including from the Lesbian Bar Project.
The potential causes for the decline in gay bars around the U.S. cited by Mattson are, on their face, positive. Social equality and greater acceptance of LGBTQ people have led to more welcoming attitudes in bars that don’t cater specifically to the community, as well as a greater willingness of queer people to socialize in non-gay venues. There’s also the rise of social media and the prevalence of location-based apps like Grinder and Scruff that allow LGBTQ people to meet virtually.
The study cautions, however that “Rates of change in listings may not reflect actual changes in the number of establishments.” It also suggests that the decline in gay bar listings was not dramatically increased by the pandemic.
Still, Mattson finds the numbers troubling. “In most parts of the country, gay bars are the only public LGBTQ+ place,” he says. “In other words, they’re the only place where queer people can reliably encounter other queer people in public.”
That could certainly have larger implications for LGBTQ culture. “If the only bar with a purpose-built drag stage closes, then it leaves drag queens and drag kings without a place to practice their art,” Mattson added. “If they’re doing diverse things, then I get really sad when such a bar goes away because they’re special.”
More than 50 years after the famous Stonewall riots, the only Pride Month tradition more predictable than big city parades in June are the perennial complaints about the “commodification” of the gay rights movement.
These days, the month often features corporations and consumer brands participating in the celebrations, with bright rainbow packaging and gay-themed items for sale. Instead of this salutary sign of inclusion and tolerance being welcomed, however, it routinely gets attacked.
Claiming that a gay person needs to vote for a certain party or situate themselves on a certain point of the ideological spectrum is — to use some of today’s pop psychology terms — gatekeeping and gaslighting.
Critics often insist that corporations’ commitment to gay pride is shallow and self-serving, or that rainbow-themed merchandise and advertising during June end up tokenizing rather than celebrating the community. In the run-up to Pride Month, a typical tweet sarcastically enthused “2 days until companies pretend to care about us!,” while journalist Sherina Poyyail wrote an article titled “Why Rainbow Capitalism Is Making Me Start To Dread Pride Month As A Queer Person.”
While these critics claim that corporations are missing the true meaning of the season, they’re the ones missing the point of Pride Month. Buying a T-shirt with the phrase “Love Is Not a Crime” from Target won’t, on its own, change the world or end anti-gay discrimination. A person who wears it may hope to have some marginal positive effect on the people around, but it’s primarily an individual choice about self-expression.
Though there are historical connections between the gay rights movement and opposing capitalism, it’s a mistake for the LGBTQ community today to embrace an anti-corporate attitude. The desire to associate gay identity with a particular part of the political spectrum doesn’t reflect the community’s diversity and can actively alienate people who are not part of that political group — at the expense of the interests of the community as a whole.
What was originally known as the “gay liberation” movement was born out of a wide-ranging cultural ferment on the left in the 1960s and early 1970s that also gave rise to the women’s liberation, anti-war and Black power movements, a cross-pollination among activists groups described in Cornell University’s archive on the history of gay activism.
Given this background, and aided by the fact that their conservative antagonists were generally in favor of free-market economic policies, gay rights activists during the 1970s were associated with a hostility toward capitalism, markets and corporations.
This was not entirely by default — some gay activists were committed socialists who thought the two struggles were closely linked. The socialist theorizers in favor of liberation via class struggle and the abolition of private property, however, were a small minority of the movement. Gay historian Martin Duberman, an activist himself, readily admits that “The gay left — like every other kind of left in this country — has rarely represented more than a small minority.”
But that link between gay rights and hostility toward free markets continues to exist for some people today. Union organizer Meghan Brophy, for instance, epitomized this viewpoint when she wrote for the socialist magazine Jacobin in 2019 that “the greatest gains for the LGBTQ movement came through fighting corporations.”
The actual history of gay pride and corporate America, however, is much more positive and collaborative. Rutgers law professor Carlos A. Ball deftly tells this history in his book, “The Queering of Corporate America” (also out in 2019). Ball, a progressive who has plenty of criticism for corporations, documents how U.S. companies— often persuaded by internal affinity groups formed by their own gay employees — implemented nondiscriminatory hiring rules and extended benefits to same-sex domestic partners when virtually no national politicians were willing to support such policies publicly. For most of the late 20th century, the private sector well outpaced the political establishment on gay rights.
So while many early gay radicals were understandably suspicious of corporate America, we can now safely say that those worries were overstated — and, at times, based on pre-existing ideological commitments that had little to do with sexual freedom or civil rights. Someone who happens to be an advocate for both gay rights and socialist politics is free to try to link those two goals, but I as a gay man living in the 21st century don’t have to accept that they are connected. And it’s weirdly old-fashioned to be repeating hippie-era denunciations of big business when one of the world’s most valuable corporations is led by an openly gay CEO.
Even if it was the case that most gay people were clustered at one end of the political spectrum in previous generations (impossible to say because of the lack of polling), that’s not true today. While non-straight Americans are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, a 2020 study by UCLA’s William Institute found that “LGBT people, like other minority groups, hold diverse beliefs and political affiliations.”
Claiming that a gay person needs to vote for a certain party or situate themselves on a certain point of the ideological spectrum is — to use some of today’s pop psychology terms — gatekeeping and gaslighting. Fox News contributor Guy Benson, for example, has described how after he came out, critics of his politics insisted he must be a “self-hating gay person.” To suggest that you can’t be out and proud without being a progressive who thinks corporations are evil is an offensive attempt to program someone else’s identity.
Moreover, it’s exactly the kind of high-handed effort that activists have rightly denounced in other contexts. Progressives would never accept conservatives insisting that they can’t be both gay and Christian. Why would I accept that I can’t (or shouldn’t) be gay and libertarian? And does it really make sense to turn down offers of support for gay causes and events from big business just to strike a stylishly militant pose?
That is not to say that the two major parties in America are equally aligned on policy issues affecting gay people. It has been a long time since the 1980s, during which, as historian Clayton Howard told FiveThirtyEight in 2021, “a lot of Democrats were indistinguishable from Republicans on gay issues.”
GOP majorities in many states have recently backed laws that critics characterize as anti-gay and that most Democrats strongly oppose. But if gay rights supporters want broader, rather than narrower national support, tying their agenda to unrelated economic stances will only further diminish the pool of potential allies.
It’s weirdly old-fashioned to be repeating hippie-era denunciations of big business when one of the world’s most valuable corporations is led by an openly gay CEO.
While it is perhaps inevitable that institutions that are inherently political (because they are controlled by the government) will be flashpoints in the culture wars, the private part of society based on markets, competition and voluntary association has a much greater opportunity to defuse conflict — if we allow it to stay private and voluntary.
This is not because the institutions of civil society necessarily bring us all together, but because they allow us to live and work in our own chosen worlds and build our own chosen families. No corporation can dictate your living conditions the way the government can — but they can supply you with many of the desirable accouterments of out and proud living.
The United States is a country with a long history of market-driven innovation, growth and success, and gay people have been a big part of that. While some skeptics will always be cynical about the motives of pride-themed products and marketing campaigns, the rainbow packaging on store shelves is a stunning advance from a time when many companies were worried that having a single openly gay employee would lose them customers and cost them money. Even a socialist revolutionary should be able to celebrate that.
Thailand is set to go down in history as the first Southeast Asian country to legalise same-sex unions after approving a historic bill.
The country’s Cabinet has approved draft legislation which will allow same-sex couples to register their partnership in Thailand, Bloombergreported. The bill avoids the term ‘marriage’, but it will allow same-sex couples rights to jointly own property, adopt children and have inheritance rights between partners.
The bill now goes to the country’s Parliament for approval before it can become law. If passed into law, Thailand would be the first Southeast Asian country to approve such legislation.
Deputy government spokeswoman Rachada Dhnadirek said Tuesday (7 June) that the Cabinet endorsed an earlier version of the bill, which was sponsored by the justice ministry in July 2020. But she said the government needed to study the bill and get public feedback before it was approved.
“The Civil Partnership Bill is a milestone for Thai society in promoting equality among people of all genders,” Dhnadirek said back in July. “This strengthens the families of people with sexual diversity and is appropriate for the present social circumstances.”
Under the proposed legislation, civil partnerships are defined as couples of the same sex, and people in the relationship must be at least 17-years-old to register, Bangkok Postreported. At least one person in the relationship must be a Thai national.
Members of the LGBTQ+ have criticised Thailand’s Civil Partnership Bill for not going far enough to promote queer rights in the country. (Anusak Laowilas/NurPhoto via Getty)
Advocates have argued that the bill is a big step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in Thailand, but they have argued that it doesn’t go far enough.
Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, LGBTQ+ activist and secretary-general of progressive youth organisation Free Youth, said the bill “isn’t a milestone for gender equality in Thailand”, CNNreported. Instead, Tattep argued it’s an “obstacle to reach marriage for all”.
Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, filmmaker and first trans member of parliament under the Move Forward Party, questioned why the legislation won’t “just call everyone, both traditional and non-traditional couples, as married partners”.
“This is another form of discrimination in disguise,” Tanwarin said. “We don’t want anything special we just want to be treated like others.”
A Wednesday morning fire in Baltimore that put three people in the hospital is being investigated as a possible hate crime, authorities told WJZ.
Based on a preliminary investigation, authorities believe someone set fire to at least one Pride flag outside a row home in the 300 block of E. 31st Street and the flames spread to the home and neighboring homes, a Baltimore Police spokesperson said.
Three victims were taken to Shock Trauma for treatment, he said. A 30-year-old woman and 57-year-old man were hospitalized in critical condition, and a 74-year-old man is in serious condition, the Baltimore City Fire Department told WJZ.
