Valentine’s Day has a funny way of magnifying things.

Maybe you promised yourself this would be the year you’d really try: more dates, more effort, more vulnerability. Maybe you did. Maybe you went on five, ten, or fifteen dates. Maybe you tried so hard you’re exhausted.

And yet… here you are. Still single.

Or maybe you’re sitting with a different regret, that you didn’t put yourself out there enough. That you swiped half-heartedly. That you canceled that second date because something felt “off.” That you let another potential connection slip through your fingers.

As a matchmaker working with LGBTQ folks across the country, I see one pattern over and over again: we are dating with clipboards.

We treat dates like job interviews.

We’re evaluating resumes.

We’re checking boxes.

Does he make enough money?

Is he educated?

Does he travel?

Is he top, bottom, or vers?

Is he emotionally available?

Does he want marriage? Kids? A house?

Is he tall enough? Attractive enough? Ambitious enough?

And if he checks every box? Great we’ll proceed.

But what if the real connection isn’t on the checklist?

The Checkbox Trap

Somewhere along the way, many of us decided that compatibility means alignment in every category. We want someone who mirrors our hobbies, our career trajectory, our lifestyle, and even our sexual preferences permanently.

But here’s what I hear constantly from clients:

“I was a top for years. Then I was vers. Then I preferred bottoming.”

“We opened things up later.”

“My priorities changed.”

We evolve. Our sexuality evolves. Our careers evolve. Our emotional needs evolve.

Yet we treat these things as fixed deal breakers before we’ve even allowed chemistry to breathe.

Sexual compatibility matters. Emotional availability matters. Shared values matter.

But are we confusing preferences with prerequisites?

How Many Deal Breakers Do You Need?

By the time many men reach their late 30s, 40s, or 50s, the list has grown long. Very long.

No actors.

No entertainment industry.

No one who earns less.

No one who earns more.

Must want monogamy forever.

Must want children.

Must not want children.

Must be “settled.”

Must be “ambitious.”

Must be hot.

And then we wonder why we’re still single.

I’m not saying abandon standards. I’m asking: are your standards protecting you from incompatibility or protecting you from vulnerability?

Sometimes the truth is harder. Sometimes we seek a partner who feels “worthy” enough so we can feel worthy by association. If I’m with someone impressive, then I must be impressive. If I’m with someone accomplished, then I must be accomplished.

But real intimacy requires something else entirely: self-worth.

When you feel worthy within yourself, you don’t need your partner to prove it for you.

The Twin Flame Mirror

There’s a concept people love to talk about: twin flames.

Whether or not you believe in the term, the idea is powerful. A person who mirrors you. Reflects your strengths and your flaws. Someone who activates you deeply.

What most people don’t realize is that mirrors aren’t always comfortable.

That person who feels “too emotional,” “too guarded,” “too intense,”  sometimes they are reflecting parts of you that you’ve worked hard to avoid.

The chemistry may be electric. The connection may take time to unfold. But if you dismiss someone after one date because they showed a crack in their armor, you might be rejecting a growth opportunity.

One date is rarely enough.

People are nervous. Guarded. Performing. It often takes two or three dates before someone relaxes into who they really are.

Attraction vs. Alignment

Yes, you should feel attraction.

But attraction grows.

I’ve watched clients pass on kind, emotionally available, stable men because the spark wasn’t immediate, only to later chase someone wildly charismatic and completely unavailable.

The butterflies you crave? Sometimes they’re anxiety.

The quiet steadiness you overlook? Sometimes that’s security.

If you want the life of the party, ask yourself: are you willing to walk into the party and introduce yourself? Or do you actually need someone slightly more grounded? Maybe an ambivert instead of an extrovert. Maybe someone who lights up in intimate settings rather than on stage.

Compatibility isn’t about sameness. It’s about complementary energy.

Letting Go

After Valentine’s Day, a lot of men insist they’re fine being single. And yes, you can have a full, beautiful life alone.

But let’s be honest. Holidays can sting.

That quiet moment when everyone else seems partnered up. That subtle ache. It’s real.

So instead of doubling down on stricter standards this year, what if you softened?

Letting go. Letting go. Letting go.

What if you stopped asking, “Why won’t this work?” and started asking, “Why could this work?”

What if you looked for green flags instead of scanning for red ones?

Rethinking Monogamy (Without Throwing It Away)

Let’s talk about the word that sends everyone into debate: monogamy.

I believe in monogamy. I’ve seen it thrive. I’ve seen beautiful long-term partnerships built on it.

But monogamy is not declared- it’s developed.

It’s built. It’s earned. It grows from connection.

You don’t have to decide on the first or second date that you’re committing to sexual exclusivity for the rest of your life. And you don’t have to dismiss someone because they’re open to a conversation about what commitment might look like over time.

I’m not saying abandon your values.

I’m saying don’t brush someone off because their view of relationships isn’t identical to yours on day one.

Connection leads. Structure follows.

So Here’s the Question

How many more people do you need to cycle through before you allow one to stay?

How many more perfectly “qualified” bachelors do you need to interview before you realize you’re searching for a feeling, not a résumé?

This year, try something radical:

Give the second date.

Give the third.

Let attraction build.

Let flaws exist.

Let yourself be imperfect too.

Because the goal isn’t to find someone who checks every box.

The goal is to find someone who makes you smile in the middle of a sentence for no reason at all.

And if you can feel that?

That’s not on a checklist.

That’s connection.

If you are ready for a connection join my gaytabase and let’s see who I can connect you with-

JOIN THE GAYTABASE 

Join the Los Angeles Blade, Daniel Cooley, and AJ Socal for our second, free, gay singles mixer at the Abbey this Thursday at 7 pm. It is a low-key and fun way to meet other singles.

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Daniel Cooley is a gay matchmaker & co-owner of Best Man Matchmaking – California’s premier service for queer and trans men seeking emotional connections. Learn more here.

Shocking news has arrived. New social research says it’s true. Gay, lesbian, gender fluid people, and their allies: we have a problem.

New bias attitude research published by respected social scientists Tessa E.S. Charlesworth and Eli J. Finkel of Northwestern University, based on a longitudinal research program, has shown that gay acceptance in the U.S., which reached its peak about 2020, has taken a deep nosedive in the opposite direction during the last five years. The researchers exclaimed, “This reversal stunned us” — as it did me.

What makes this reversal even more remarkable, as the two social scientists explained, “Americans’ bias against gay people declined faster than any other bias ever tracked in social surveys.” It appears that a new cycle of hetero supremacy has arrived. More likely, the hetero supremacists never went away — just stewing revengefully out of sight around the corner with their buddies from white supremacy and male supremacy. 

Analysis of 2.5 million American responses from the beginning of 2021 through 2024 revealed that progress had been turned around. In just four years, anti-gay bias had risen by 10 percent. Researchers followed both explicit bias (to what extent do you prefer straight people over gay people?) and implicit bias (more automatic responses inferred by how rapidly people associate words, such as straight with “good” and gay with “bad.”)

Most disturbing of all, these trends were particularly strong among the youngest American demographic, those under 25, a society’s hopes for the future. Also noteworthy was that anti-gay bias has grown faster among conservatives, but it had also risen among liberals.

The researchers admit they have no idea what is causing this dramatic reversal.  They suggest two possible hypotheses: (1) anti-trans bias and (2) fear of gays grooming children to become gay, an essential part of hetero supremacists’ baggage of hate for the past 125 years in the West. Children cannot be groomed into being gay but are born that way for an evolutionary reason (more on that subject in a later article.)

Let me add a third hypothesis based on my close, active involvement and observation as a gay community organizer over the past 60 years. A big part of the problem is gay people themselves. If you have followed my many writings over the past 25 years, you have heard this sermon several times before in varying language and contexts.

The Gay Liberation Revolution (1969-c.1985) taught gay and lesbian people that gay peoples’ self-acceptance and united action are more powerful than hetero supremacy. A Gay Liberation tidal wave provided the momentum for a “movement” forward for our people. Now, that tsunami has become a ripple. How did that happen?

1. The absence of a gay political movement. A political movement is “an organized effort to promote or obtain an end.” There are people who I respect who delusionally speak as if a gay movement still existed. A Gay Liberation template does exist for what a gay movement might look like. It must be played forward, however, with the language, reality and tools of today. It begins with the question: How am I and my community oppressed today by hetero supremacy? Action grows out of oppression.

2. The dominant ideology of gay assimilation. As James Baldwin preached, assimilation is always done on the terms of the dominant culture. For gay people, assimilation implies the eradication of hard-fought-for community and identity.  Gay and lesbian people, where did you disappear to? Just yesterday, you were here with your fists in the air.

3. Elite capture of the gay community. This capture is characterized by a top-down power structure (elite vertical axis), community members (grassroots horizontal axis) becoming passive spectators, and the primary priorities being wealth, donors, and celebrities, not community well-being. The call for gay power devolved into donate and consume. 

4. Community fragmentation by visual media. The dark side of the current new tech visual media avalanche is the fragmentation of a formerly good-enough-united gay community. Visual media has turned community awareness from “we” to “me.” Local news and investigative journalism have disappeared completely from gay news sites that are now “curated.” A good example was the implosion of Outfest: the LGBTQ Film Festival in L.A., a major community cultural institution for half a century. Gay people found out about that truly shocking community news after Outfest’s disappearance by an investigative journalist at the Hollywood Reporter;the financial malfeasance of GLAAD was uncovered by the New York Times, not gay news sites. Without investigative journalism, community members do not have the information spotlight that is essential for being actively involved and engaged in a healthy community.

5. Pick off the low hanging fruit first. I often hear from others that trans people have taken over the movement. My standard reply: “Because gay and lesbian people have voluntarily disappeared from their political movement, a vacuum has occurred. Vacuums are always filled by something. Trans people are not the problem. There is a problem: your disappearance. The main problem, however, and never forget this, is hetero supremacy.” The hetero supremacists’ playbook is the same used to rescind Roe. Get the low hanging fruit first — under 18 trans youth. Then, proceed calculated step-by-step to the main target — YOU AND ME. Supreme Court Justices Alito and Thomas maladroitly revealed their goals: (1) rescind gay marriage and (2) recriminalize same-sex sexual acts.

A dark night of the gay community’s body and soul might be coalescing. As with all such dark nights, a new sun will rise with renewed vigor and vision, with gay righteous mind and mindfulness replacing today’s mindless scrolling, streaming and surrendering. As the old United Negro College Fund wisely said, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Don Kilhefner, Ph.D., is a pioneer gay liberationist and a gay community organizer in Los Angeles, nationally and internationally for the past 60 years.

Valentine’s Day. Permission to briefly set aside mental acrobatics and just feel. Over the years, I’ve gone from Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love” to the lesbian version of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” And after we won marriage equality, I shed happy tears to “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Mary Lambert, even though I was alone.  

The truth is, my longest relationship lasted five years. I don’t need therapy to tell me it’s my fault. I always secretly hoped that each woman would rekindle the flames of my first love. Yes, she was straight, and it was incredibly complicated – but it was also the Age of Aquarius, and for this budding Aquarian hippy-wannabe, it was mythologically perfect, as doomed as I subconsciously knew it was. 

So, Valentine’s Day always had a slight shade of pain. 

But I had my dogs. I didn’t need romance – I needed love. And over the years, what happy times we had, watching some action movie and sharing the crust of a great Hawaiian pizza. 

I thought this Valentine’s Day would be the same. Actually, Pepper, my 18-year-old Cairn Terrier, has been my longest relationship of all. I rescued her when she was five. She was living in a Latino family, beloved by a young teenage boy who called her Sparky. But one of their two other dogs didn’t like her, so they had to give her up for her own safety. 

The boy tried so hard not to cry when they dropped her off – but Sparky wailed and wailed. My neighbors looked out to see what was wrong. I did what I could to ease her sense of abandonment. I even learned a little Spanish and changed her name so she wouldn’t be retraumatized every time I called for her. My other poodle-ish dog, Charlie, and I had to wait for her to trust us. 

In time, Pepper and Charlie bonded. When he got sick, I took her to hang out with him in the hospital, bringing her home at night. Charlie died of a seizure overnight without us. 

Not long after, my friend Gloria Nieto called to see if I would be interested in adopting this little boy dog who needed a new home asap. Gloria lived in the Santa Cruz area, so we decided to meet halfway in San Luis Obispo to see if the two dogs got along. They did, Papa D came home with us, and I became friends with Papa D’s heartbroken mom on Facebook.

Pepper and renamed DeeJ bonded quickly, with Pepper becoming something of a mother. One time, I was surreptitiously watching them play at a wonderful doggie day care on Ventura Boulevard. The attendant wasn’t in the room when a bigger dog started menacing DeeJ, who backed into a corner, shaking. Pepper went and sat next to DeeJ, but when the bigger dog didn’t back off, Pepper, who was also scared, got on her belly like a supplicant and crawled between the bigger dog and DeeJ. I ran back inside to get them and take them home to West Hollywood. 

I’ve never forgotten Pepper’s incredible bravery, inspired by love. When DeeJ died, we were both bereft. At times, we would independently hear a sound like a bowl being moved in the kitchen and look up, expecting DeeJ to come out and bound across the floor at any moment. Then we’d hug.  

After a while, I adopted Keely, who was deaf. Keely wasn’t interested in bonding with Pepper. But she wasn’t with us very long – she had a massive cancerous tumor, and the prognosis for survival after surgery wasn’t good with her other ailments. 

After Keely died, I decided Pepper would be the only dog. The two of us, alone. And despite having Cushings, having to undergo surgery for a small tumor, developing kidney disease, and starting the beginning stages of doggie dementia, Pepper was doing incredibly well.

And she was incredibly sensitive to my moods. On Wednesday, Feb. 11, after we’d come home from her grooming, I tuned into ice dancing at the Olympics. The Canadian couple skated so beautifully to “Starry, Starry Night,” tears started streaming down my face. Pepper bolted up, looking at me quizzically but with doggie empathy before coming over to lick my tears and give me kisses. She eased slowly across my chest to hug me. 

The song stuck with me, looking at the waning crescent moon as we went on our brief nightly walk. In the carport before we came home, we ran into our neighbor and her young Shih Tzu from the building next door when another neighbor and his big dog came down the alley. Suddenly – in a flash – the big dog jumped up, tearing off his leash, and lunged towards the Shih Tzu. Seconds later, she jumped onto Pepper. 

We all freaked. I was knocked down in the struggle to free Pepper. By the time I got to her, she was listless and bleeding – but still had a pulse. Another neighbor madly dashed us to the Emergency vet as I told Pepper how much I loved her and to please stay with me. But she couldn’t. She died in my arms. 

I was devastated but not freaked out – I’ve held dying friends and dying dog/kids before. But the sudden violence I was powerless to prevent made this different.  My apartment was suddenly big and empty and quiet – even with TV politics in the background.  Images of Pepper’s bloody body lying on the concrete blinded me. I blurted out her name and reached for where just hours earlier she snored softly, her skinny, aging body snuggling next to mine. I changed channels, looking for something comfortably mind-numbing. Unbelievably, I came upon a replay of the Olympics and “Starry, Starry Night.”

After a sleepless night, I had a 12 Step phone call with a friend who lost her precious cat last May. She suggested that this first stage of denial was akin to the deep, difficult First Step of surrendering. That made sense to my journalist/observer side, who advised my jumbled emotional side to be patient and, as 12 Steppers say, “feel the feelings” when they come.  

This June, I’ll be 46 years clean and sober. But I now feel like a newcomer again. That’s good because it gives me permission to be weak, to acknowledge that I need help, and accept the love that’s being so generously offered. 

And here’s where this tragedy becomes extraordinary. 

Early next morning, my 12 Step neighbor – who’s 88, BTW! – knocked on my door. She brought a bag of food from someone from the building next door, who was among the slew of neighbors who rushed out, hearing our anguished cries. She said it felt like community – even though we only knew each other through our dogs. I was Pepper’s mom. 

And this made me hesitant to report what happened. As I struggled to get up and get to Pepper, I saw the father of this big dog hold him tightly and break down. “I can’t lose another one,” he cried over and over to his wife. Apparently, he just lost his father. We all didn’t need a second tragedy. But Pepper’s death was a preventable fatal accident, and he still had to be accountable. 

I struggled with this. Knowing him as a dog-loving neighbor, I suspected he and his family were devastated. So, I forgave him and the big dog, who was so sweet on the street. I then called several neighbors, thanking them and asking for advice. One neighbor felt it was important to report because this dog had bitten two other dogs over the years, and what if this dog attacked a person? Another neighbor understood my dilemma and offered to back me up, no matter what, but said she no longer felt safe in the community. 

And there it was. Yes, my feelings mattered – probably tied to my guilt at not being able to protect Pepper, as this man was trying to protect his dog/child from certain execution. But community mattered more. 

Then the big dog’s mother called, totally devastated and deeply apologetic. They have two young daughters whom they’re trying to teach about doing “the right thing,” so they had already called Animal Control to report what happened and find out what to do next. I told her that I forgave them – but they had to be mindful of community safety. I also asked her to please teach their children that not every bad event demands rage and retaliation in response. Love and understanding are really important right now.

She cried and called back later to say they had decided to put their beloved big dog down themselves so they could say goodbye as a family. Our community has responded with empathy and support for them now, too.

So, while I continue to struggle with feeling my feelings and realize that this Valentine’s Day, I really am alone, I also feel surrounded by love, including from my MAGA friends, and thinking of DeeJ and Pepper reunited.  

There is something going on. Not just here, in our little corner of West Hollywood embracing tragedy and forgiveness; or in anti-ICE protests remembering Renee Good and Alex Pretti; or the almost universal outpouring of love and joy in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime concert. 

We the People are embracing and uplifting our own and each other’s humanity.  

Sing it with me: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” 

Happy new post-Valentine’s Day!

This essay is updated/cross-posted from longtime LGBTQ+ journalist Karen Ocamb’s Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters. 

This February, Grindr discreetly started testing out a brand new premium subscription tier, Edge (props on the wordplay), powered by its proprietary generative AI stack appropriately named “gAI™.” The catch is that some users are being asked to pay more or less the price of one hour of an escort’s time for one month’s subscription. This would place Grindr’s top tier soaring above most mainstream dating apps (Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, etc.) with prices higher than Nicki Minaj on a MAGA stage, some can’t help but wonder who the target consumer is.

At face(less) value, this feels like a corporate strategy to squeeze more money out of a perhaps struggling “dating” app. Grindr’s stock has gone limp, and it’s pushing AI as the ED med that will fluff it up into a smarter, faster, more personalized user experience. But when you really look at it,  this pricing experiment speaks volumes about the current state of our gay community, intimacy, desire, and the toxic top that is capitalism in the age of artificial intelligence.

Grindr entered the scene (and the app store) in 2009 as a simple and sweet grid of nearby dudes scoping out who’s around and down to get down. It was immediate. It was raw. And, perhaps most uniquely, it was physically grounded. But like most apps and platforms do over time, features were paywalled, and basic functions became privileges. The free portion of the grid shriveled like a pair in winter air. Ads multiplied and became more aggressive, like a digital strain of super gonorrhea. Want more? Pay. Want to be seen? Pay. The death grip of capitalism knows no lube.

This transformation is a testament to a larger pattern in tech called enshittification (aka crapification), where platforms become increasingly more hostile to their users as their money-goggles fog up with greed. Grindr’s Edge is the latest example; a subscription promising personalized AI-generated matches and chat insights, all with the promise of more “meaningful connections.” With price hikes reaching close to half a grand, one can’t help but wonder what is actually being commodified here.

Gay lust is no stranger to consumer culture. From marketing fitness (“Look Better Naked”)  to gay-centric grooming (shoutout to Good Head, we see you king), sex drive and commerce have been bedfellows longer than the grandparents from Willy Wonka. Hook-up and dating apps, simply put, commodify attention. Profiles are products. Swipes are currency. Desirability is now quantifiable, folks. Take this concept, feed it one too many bumps, and you’ve got Edge.

What’s happening, my fellow homosexuals, is the premiumization of intimacy. Not just matchmaking, but the promise that technology can deliver connection… for the right price. And the price of this new tier of service says more about our collective culture at this moment than it does about the greedy little piggies behind Grindr. We live in an age where AI is infringing on emotional territory once thought to be uniquely human. Algorithms already curate our newsfeeds, recommendations, and shopping lists.  And now, well, we can tag “digitally omnipotent yenta” to the tally.

The creation of Edge also highlights how modern capitalism treats desire as an inefficiency that can be solved. Grindr is utilizing a not-so-new strategy here: hone in on its users’ loneliness and fear of rejection and redesign features that address these feelings… at a premium. One undeniable takeaway is that genuine interactions are no longer occurring naturally.

On a psychological level, Grindr’s Edge subscription tugs at the arguably universal hunger for control. In a world brimming with flirtations that flatline, DMs that die down, and dates that don’t pan out, the allure of AI as a fail-safe is, well, seductive. But what happens when that illusion of control clashes with the actual intimacy that we seek?  Instead of enhancing connection, AI could fossilize it, making real human interactions that much more transactional than said apps have already made them out to be.

Grindr’s Edge experiment reveals how capitalism monetizes the desire for human connection, how tech sells the guarantee of ease void of authenticity, and how intimacy in the digital age increasingly becomes a slave to the algorithm. Yet resistance is already clapping back. Online discourse from users dragging Grindr for the high prices and migrating to alternative platforms shows us that many are not buying into the premiumized dream. 

Ultimately, Edge feels less like an innovation and more like an admission: that instead of fostering environments where vulnerability and spontaneity thrive, platforms would rather engineer a shortcut and charge stratified admission. When the illusion of confidence is packaged as a purchasable upgrade, the entire thing starts to feel that much more bleak. Stripped of its shiny branding, it reeks of incel-scented desperation, a tech-mediated fantasy that mistakes control for chemistry and convenience for closeness.

I may stand alone in this humble opinion, but a dude who’s audacious (or foolish) enough to sign up for such a service is a hard pass. In the end, shop local – hire an escort. At least then nobody is denying the pure transaction of it all.

RuPaul’s Drag Race has left an indelible mark on history. What started as the bastard love child of America’s Next Top Model, Real Housewives, and Project Runway has birthed an entire industry of drag race content, from tours to review podcasts. It’s elevated its stars to international stardom and reshaped the queer economy with its impact on bar culture, marketing to queer people, and Mama Ru pushing her girls to sell. 

While conservatives have declared war on drag, the show has held strong. Now in its latest and 18th season, a show that has united the whole LGBTQ community in inside jokes and pop culture references has offered the community its own sports equivalent and instant “in” to a conversation.

The question arises: Are we done with Drag Race?

Considering how Heated Rivalry became a ratings behemoth despite being an independent Canadian drama, and viewers seem more galvanized about the queer representation on The Traitors, have we developed Drag Race fatigue? The show hit a high point with franchises in countless countries, with RuPaul even crossing the pond for the UK and the earlier versions of the Australian series. The political and economic fuckery of our current state of affairs has even hit Drag Race. 

While the show may feel a bit formulaic and we long for the days of earlier seasons, where we met luminaries like Alaska, Jinkx Monsoon, and Bob the Drag Queen, the larger question is whether the show is more focused on straight audiences. In a post-Trixie & Katya world, it seems there’s a choice in the world of drag: are you courting queer or cis-het audiences? Do you become gay famous and never pay for a drink again, or do you pander to straight women and make bank? 

The issue may not be that Drag Race as a show has become the problem, but it’s just become too normative. How could a show with new queens each year feel…less than fresh? 

The show seems to have drawn a line in the sand by defining what is “good drag,” so you end up with a cast that could be anyone with a Sephora gift card, OCD, and a budget for lavish costumes. The latest season broke from its recent trend of casting young, social media-savvy queens opting for more seasoned performers in their 30s and 40s. They’re then labeled as old. “Be still, my heart!” 

Part of what drove the show and the major cultural movements was queens being themselves and finding artistic solutions to their shortcomings. But we’ve reached ouroboros with queens communicating entirely in Drag Race references. The contestants are self-producing and trying to force storylines, catchphrases to sell merch, and court a yet-to-be-determined audience to try to make back the money they invested or try to stay relevant in a pool of girls that’s reached three digits. 

The show is becoming a bit too self-aware. The challenges are a bit repetitive, and seasons of Drag Race are starting to feel a bit like a Law & Order episode. By episode 4 or 5,  you can peg who is the winner, who is the delusional starlet whose ego RuPaul must crush to claim 7 more years of youth (hi, Jan!), and who is the villain. 

The predictability betrays what’s behind the curtain. There’s a bit of manipulation to venerate queens who have the savvy to carry the brand. But is it at the cost of some of the show’s integrity? For example, this season, it was clear Mandy Mango was not on par with the other girls with regard to styling and make-up, but having the judges tell us that she wasn’t funny in her sketch or that she didn’t win a lip sync feels a bit too far. In an era of “fake news” and media manipulation, can you trust a show that tries to tell you the sky is not blue but fierce? 

In an earlier season, a personality like Mandy’s might have won, a la Jinkx Monsoon. There is also all that we don’t see, given a notoriously toxic fandom, the show runs the risk of activating a fanbase primed with racist torches and pitchforks. 

It’s an open secret that RuPaul’s Drag Race is more of a reality show than a competition, but that might be impacting its longevity. With Tyra Banks facing a documentary covering some of her insane stunts on America’s Next Top Model while Project Runway is still alive and kicking, it’s clear that if Drag Race wants longevity, it needs to value its integrity. 

After all, in an alternate timeline where Drag Race was honoring its LogoTV roots, it might have featured Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams as guest judges or tapped Alexander Skarsgard from Pillion rather than female celebrities who offer the A or B-list equivalent of bachelorettes at drag brunch like the now-canceled Nikki Minaj and Whitney Cummings. 

As we careen closer to an autocracy, do we deserve a reality show that keeps it real? We have reached a point where what we have allowed to continue has come to bite us. Choosing capitalism over integrity is a tacit support for corruption. In a time where the queer experience is fundamentally unfair, should we have a reality comparison that’s inherently unfair?

All this being said, Drag Race is still doing its part to support the bar industry. Some viewers have found it hard to watch Drag Race without purchasing episodes, potentially because its ties to CBS/Paramount/MTV World of Wonder are still creating content for the community. 

Canada’s Drag Race still takes chances and casts a diverse group of queens, and it seems like a fairer contest. Surviving a revolving door of hosts, the show has managed to stay fresh and engaging. Drag Race UK also has retained a lot of the interqueen chemistry that drives the show with drag queens who know how to read, kiki, and maintain good working relationships rather than pandering to television drama. 

Drag Race is essentially sports for people who don’t like sports. Drag Race gives us our own arena where our queers can highlight aesthetics, drama, stunts, and humor. We all make our draft picks during the Meet the Queens premiere, and we wear merch for our favorite players. But if the show divests from queer culture to make a buck, you end up with straight women criticizing the work of multiple artists and tens of thousands of dollars of effort because they don’t like someone’s aesthetics or they have “bad make-up.” 

The show started as a platform for a forgotten but timeless art of queer people dressing up as women to lampoon toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia while serving as den mothers, brassy broads, and queens of our community to help make being gay a little more fun, flirty, and cunty. 

I hold out hope for Drag Race, but I do think it would serve them to be a bit more beholden to the queens they cast, the community they serve, and focus on the contest itself rather than choosing fairweather political allies and lookie-loos and homogenizing drag at the expense of its political punch. 

Today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Advocates established this day of awareness on Feb. 7, 1999, and nearly 30 years later, Black communities in the U.S. continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV. 

On Wednesday, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters introduced H.Res.1039, a resolution that supports the goals of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and calls for a collective commitment to address disparities Black people with HIV face. Waters represents the state’s 43rd congressional district, a majority Black and Brown population comprising South L.A. cities like Hawthorne, Gardena, and Inglewood. 

In the resolution, Waters urges state and local government officials, as well as their public health agencies, to acknowledge the importance of this awareness day and encourage their constituents to get tested for HIV. The resolution also requests that the Secretary of Health and Human Services prioritize distributing grant funding to minority-led, HIV organizations and community-based approaches to fighting HIV stigma, LGBTQ+ discrimination, and racism.

In 2023, young Black men accounted for 47% of new HIV diagnoses among youth, while young white men made up 3% of these diagnoses, according to a new Williams Institute report. Black women also have the highest HIV diagnosis rate among women, and Black community members overall represent 38% of new HIV diagnoses and 39% of people living with HIV in the U.S., despite being only 12% of the national population. 

Beyond the disproportionate rates of infection and diagnosis amongst Black Americans, these communities also face greater difficulties in accessing the medical care needed to prevent and treat HIV. In the same year, white Americans were 7 times more likely to access Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) compared to Black Americans, a data point that affirms racial and healthcare inequities Black people continue to face in the U.S. 

“[This] is a day to commemorate the impact of HIV/AIDS on Black Americans and encourage continued efforts to reduce the incidence of HIV, eliminate health disparities, improve access to care and treatment, and show support for all those who are living with HIV/AIDS,” said Congresswoman Waters, in a press release. 

Waters has been an advocate for people impacted by HIV/AIDS since the peak of the crisis in the 1980’s. In 1998, she worked to establish the Minority AIDS Initiative, which expanded national prevention and treatment efforts in support of minority communities, who remain disproportionately impacted by HIV. In 2025, Waters introduced the “HIV Prevention Now Act” as well as the “PrEP and PEP are Prevention Act,” to increase prevention efforts and reduce health insurance barriers to access preventative resources, respectively. 

H.Res.1039 is the latest addition to the congresswoman’s efforts to raise awareness for Black and other minority communities impacted by HIV/AIDS, and to fund and support on-the-ground efforts that prioritize their care and wellbeing. 

The resolution is endorsed by various LGBTQ+ organizations mobilizing for communities impacted by HIV, including AMAAD Institute (Arming Minorities Against Addiction and Disease), LA Pride, AIDS Foundation Chicago, and PFLAG National. The resolution is also co-sponsored by 29 other U.S. representatives, including fellow California congressmembers Robert Garcia, Laura Friedman, Nanette Barragán, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Lateefah Simon and Mark Takano. 

H.Res. 1039 has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and currently awaits further action. 

Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.

The success of Heated Rivalry has brought up an interesting question: is the fact that these two sexy hockey players are fundamentally unavailable the secret to their forming a deeper, meaningful relationship? Is the possibility of intimacy and romance based on the fact that they can’t have it?  

Sure, that’s fiction, but after my breakup with an aspiring “poly” Scorpio with an avoidant attachment style, I spent a year being a fuckboy. I thought growing out my beard was a game-changer, but being emotionally unavailable was like having three dicks. Having no interest in a romantic connection somehow made it so much easier to get laid, meet guys, and connect without running the risk of sabotaging things.

I was shocked by how much attention I got. It’s like guys could smell the unavailability, and it fueled me having connections more deeply than when I was available.  I’ve always struggled with the idea of playing hard to get. Why would I pretend I don’t like someone? Isn’t that lying? 

And yet, it seems like that is the secret of success. I was recently reconnecting with a guy. We had a ton of great chemistry, common interests, and were really excited to get together. He was sick, so we couldn’t hang out. My eagerness to meet may have gotten the best of me because rather than finally meeting, he broke things off, saying he wasn’t ready for anything deeper.  

As I switched from being emotionally unavailable to primed to date, I lost all of my emotionally unavailable powers. I even had to ask myself if I had fallen into the same trap. Was I so attracted to him because he was definitely not a love match? Why do we constantly seek out people who are unavailable? 

Sometimes, you have the freedom to really let yourself go and put down all your walls because you know subconsciously there are no stakes because the relationship has an expiration date. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend. 

He had hooked up with someone on a boy’s trip and was lamenting that this guy, who already had a partner, did not have the same feelings. We had a long conversation from NorCal back to Los Angeles reflecting on attachment styles, romance, and our longing for connection. 

Then our friend broke all of our brains. He asked if he was addicted to the feeling of longing. That exciting feeling you get from someone new. He pointed out, what if on some level my friend was not just attracted, but dare I say attached, to the feeling of fundamentally getting rejected? 

You can’t look at gay relationships and not think of trauma. On some level, the decision to pursue your same sex attraction comes with the potential to be voted off the island. In extreme cases, you get thrown out of your house. Your relationships can change, leaving a rejection wound that we like to pick at every time we date some fuckboy, guy with a partner, or someone who is fundamentally bad for us. 

Our community is a bit like the Wild West. You can end up on the wrong side of someone’s unresolved issues with their family, sexual assault trauma, or the bad karma of their past relationships. Gay men are trauma survivors who can traumatize each other. 

Our dating pool is also our pool for friends, rivals, business contacts, and romantic partners. And yet, why is it that the people who are unavailable, like cream or scum, rise to the top? Is the allure of the unavailable the retraumatization of our messy familial relationships? Is it revisiting the longing of our queer awakening for that first guy who didn’t choose us? Are we chasing some initial early wanting we developed in the closet? 

Are we chasing the fantasy of love and projecting that onto some guy who feels ambivalent to us? It’s worth asking these questions because if we look at our friend groups and dating histories, charting the complex boundaries and intermingling connections is like watching a Ryan Murphy show with better writing.  

But it goes deeper. Are we sabotaging relationships by rejecting people who like us? After all, as men, it’s not unheard of to have a bit of a fear around intimacy and vulnerability. There’s also the fundamental scientific and economic concept that scarcity equates to value. So do we chase someone who has a greater premium on their time and attention?

As queer men, we hack our bodies to get in better shape, and many of us do that with our relationships. We end up forming a complex system of fuck buddies, situationships, intimate platonic friends, and crushes, forming a distorted jigsaw puzzle that forms the equivalent of one relationship. Meanwhile, what would it be like exploring what it would be like to just spend time with one person and then putting them back in the pond for someone else? 

There are men in open relationships who spend more time in the pursuit of sex and male attention than single folks. There are friends who use their friends’ unresolved sexual or romantic feelings to have their intimacy needs met while playing the field.  

This could just be the nature of city-dwelling gays in a city like Los Angeles. After all, to have countless options, guys end up with an ever-growing list for Santa of the man who’s “worth” settling down for. 

Can we just appreciate when someone likes us? How can we focus on the positive and support a queer brother who, despite all the political fuckery of our society, still has the confidence to put themselves out there and choose love? Can we reject without crushing someone’s spirit or introducing unnecessary drama? 

What if we love ourselves enough to realize we deserve love and the people we’re with to love us back?

Can we not put undue pressure on the men we fancy to not just be the object of our affection but the sum of all of the things we’re not dealing with, the solution to our unreseolved childhood romantic feelings, and fulfilling an ever-evolving fantasy? 

At the end of the day, we have to all realize we are all people who have more in common than we have differences, stop projecting our problematic pasts or hopes for the future onto each other, and learn a little bit about how to love better. That way, we can be present with the people we are with rather than cast them in roles in the soap opera in our heads.

In 2024, the National Rainbow College Fund (NRCF) launched in San Diego and provided $100,000 to 40 local LGBTQ+ students. Last year, the program expanded to include LGBTQ+ students across the state and awarded funds to 140 students. This year, NRCF will provide up to $500,000 in financial support for 200 students. Applications are open now until Mar. 4. 

Funded by the community philanthropy organization San Diego Foundation, NRCF helps LGBTQ+ students seek fulfilling educational paths as they navigate mounting social, political, and personal challenges. 

The fund’s exponential growth in the last two years is exciting for NRCF staff members, but the organization’s director of fundraising, Jeff Spitko, told the Blade they are just “scratching the surface” of an increasingly widening pool of LGBTQ+ students who need help as they pursue higher education. 

Young queer people are reporting higher levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation because of factors like discrimination, violence, and the fear that they could lose familial, financial, and social support if they are openly out as LGBTQ+. 

In a national survey conducted in 2024 on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth, suicide prevention non-profit The Trevor Project found that 46% of the young transgender and nonbinary people surveyed seriously considered suicide that year. 50% of participants who reported needing mental health care were not able to access it. 

In NRCF’s own survey of its scholarship recipients, the organization found that nearly 80% of the 98 student respondents reported experiencing anxiety, and 63% reported experiencing depression. Students shared written responses detailing their greatest challenges. One wrote that they felt unsafe in their conservative community, and another detailed that, as a transgender woman, they experienced difficulties accessing inclusive programs and support on campus.

NRCF hopes to make the path forward easier for queer students. The fund will grant $2,500 each to 200 students, and applicants do not need to be out as queer to be considered. Privacy is “top of mind” for NRCF’s staff, who understand firsthand that it is not always safe for young people to be out of the closet, for fear of familial and social abandonment, the loss of financial security and the threat of violence.

The organization has also formed a student advisory council to help shape the program’s future and to build a bridge between older staff members and donors with young queer students today. Though their struggles may differ, there is a core of understanding that often comes quite easily. 

Spitko spoke of older donors who fought injustice and the political abandonment of queer people during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and how that lineage of resistance and history is one that can inform the future of young queer folks trying to carve their own paths today. Last year, NRCF hosted a celebration where some of these donors could connect with the program’s scholarship recipients. 

It was a moving occasion: an opportunity for queer elders to instill hope and encouragement for the young students present. “Every generation faces different challenges,” Spitko said. “And I think there’s a common thread that goes through all of it, that connects someone who graduated from college 40 years ago to someone going through it now. Watching those generations in the same room talking about that is so powerful.” 

Powered by deep hope for current and upcoming generations of queer youth, NRCF’s mission is one that is bittersweet. “There’s sadness sometimes when we realize, in a lot of cases, it just doesn’t seem to be getting better,” Spitko said, of the continued oppression young, queer people face. “There are still so many challenges for them to be authentically who they are and to love who they want to love…[We want to] do anything in our power to make sure they feel seen and heard, get the resources they need and achieve the dreams that they want.” 

More information about how to donate or apply to the National Rainbow College Fund can be found here. Applications for this scholarship season end on Mar. 4. 

Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.

While your straight friends assume you’re having sex all the time, let’s be honest, you aren’t having as much as you’d like. It begs the question: Are you even satisfied with the sex you’re having? Is it because of how much we sacrifice to get laid?

While technology has made sex like ordering a pizza, there are a certain set of personal sacrifices that we’re being charged to scratch that itch. 

The strange mingling of intimacy and the transactional nature of consumerism crosses a line we may not be able to come back from. You end up with insatiable cock goblins and people negotiating intimate encounters like a business deal. 

Apps make it easier than going out to get some, and yet, we end up disembodied body parts talking to each other like animals. We sacrifice our humanity and our expectations of respect. Why should straight people get the HR-friendly polite treatment, and then you treat someone you will have inside you or be inside like shit for wanting exactly what you want? 

We have this strange cultural norm of getting penalized for exhibiting interest. The internalized homophobia programmed so deeply with the fear of intimacy, the rejection of homosexuality that we punish people for expressing interest. We’re encouraged to feel less than, or wonder if we’ll ever be loved. 

Hurt people hurt people, so we end up in a culture where we’re swapping traumas and battle scars like we’re playing Pokémon. How often do you leave an interaction or relationship feeling worse? Why must we lose peace in service to a moment of pleasure?

Must we sacrifice some of our authentic selves to be the performative masculine stud men want?

Must we become inhuman testosterone-fueled beasts, more forgiving of disrespect to navigate the Wild West that is app culture? Now, with the push of a button, you can make a total stranger feel like shit because you had a bad day? You hate your father? You were assaulted, or you’re feeling insecure? 

Many men have a separation of church and state between the version of themselves you meet in their personal and even romantic lives and the bedroom. They play some role in the bedroom and turn off their brain. Slide Tab A into Slot B like putting together Ikea furniture with the same amount of boredom and routine. 

It can take years of inner work to integrate the person you are when you have sex with the man in the streets. Sex becomes a means to an end rather than the connection of two bodies, two people. After all, when you’re hooking up with a stranger, you’re often making up the rest. But when is it too far? How much of ourselves must we give up to get some? 

I pride myself on being the same guy you meet in a social setting, at work, and when I’m having sex. Could the popularity of cum dumps, hookup apps like Sniffies, be that we aren’t getting what we want from sex without strings? There may not be a lasting connection, and yet there is something that lingers. 

Before you check out, I am not presuming the right answer is a husband, kids, and a picket fence. But I wonder if the reason we are seeking so much sex is that we’re trying to recoup the effort we put in.

Throughout queer history, I’ve heard it’s Manhunt. What do you expect? It’s Grindr. What do you expect? It’s Sniffies, what do you expect? I would expect someone who knows how much it hurts to not be a dick?

And yet the tech wizards are engineering new ways to make the process faster. We settle for a collection of quasi-relationships rather than finding a connection. Do we need to become sex crazed demons or avatars for porn-style fantasies? 

We end up touch-starved and checking the apps like stock portfolios, sacrificing our safety, emotional well-being, humanity, or romantic goals. What if the solution is just compromise, kindness, and seeking some sort of brotherhood? 

While some people can have a casual sexual encounter and use the commingling intimacy to be friendly, connect, and establish a friendship or aquiantenship others can have a delightful encounter and then block you. 

I’d like to think that the sacrifice we should be making is checking the parts of ourselves we still keep in the closet: the shame, trauma, sublimated anger, and thirst for destruction, and not make that someone else’s problem. What if we save that dark energy to fight back and fight for our community?

What if we focused on the fact that we all know what it’s like to like someone who doesn’t like us back, to get cancelled at the last minute, and to just want a moment of post-nut clarity? Hopefully, rather than make it “easier’ and faster to get laid, we can all just make it a little bit easier to be a queer person in this crazy world by helping each other find joy inside and outside the bedroom. 

By Derek Du Chesne, Founder of Better U

January has a way of asking harder questions than we expect.

For many people in our community, especially here in West Hollywood, the New Year feels like a lot more than just a reset. It feels like a pause after intensity. After nights filled with music, movement, connection, and release. And sometimes, after months or years of quietly holding things together.

When the noise settles, a more vulnerable question often emerges:

Am I actually healing and progressing in my life or just suriving?

I’ve spent years working in mental healthcare, and I founded Better U after watching too many people (particularly LGBTQ+ individuals here in WeHo) do everything they were told to do and still feel stuck. Therapy. Medications. Meditation. Sobriety breaks. Socializing. Self-work. All of it. Even after doing ALL THE THINGS, something deeper wasn’t shifting.

This isn’t a failure of trying; it’s actually often a mismatch between what you need and the kind of care that’s been available to you.

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From Party Culture to Nervous System Care

Nightlife has never been just about partying.

Historically, it has been a refuge, resistance, and chosen family – spaces where safety, visibility, and connection were possible when they weren’t elsewhere. Substances, for many, became part of that ecosystem not out of recklessness, but out of a very real need to manage anxiety, soften hypervigilance, or feel at ease in one’s own body.

There’s no moral judgment in that reality.

But coping mechanisms (no matter how understandable) can eventually stop working. What once offered relief can quietly become a ceiling.

More and more LGBTQ+ adults are asking a different question now:
What’s actually underneath this and how do I heal it without losing myself?

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Alcohol, Sobriety, and Shame-Free Support

Alcohol occupies a complicated space in queer culture. For some, it’s celebratory. For others, it becomes a tool for regulation – helping manage stress, social anxiety, sleep, or emotional pain.

What’s less widely known is that there are FDA-approved medical treatments that can help people reduce or quit drinking! Without rehab, ultimatums, or shame. When paired with psychiatric care and emotional support, these options can offer relief rather than punishment.

At Better U, we work with people who are sober, sober-curious, or simply exhausted by their relationship with alcohol. The goal isn’t labeling, it’s giving the nervous system another option besides numbing or white-knuckling through it. 

For many people, especially here in WeHo, that alone can feel revolutionary.

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Ketamine Therapy as a Different Kind of Doorway

One thing I hear often (especially from LGBTQ+ clients) is:
“I understand my trauma, but my body doesn’t.”

Talk therapy can be life-changing, but it doesn’t always reach the physiological patterns shaped by chronic stress, shame, or identity-based trauma. This is where ketamine-assisted therapy, when done responsibly, can be meaningful.

Ketamine is a legal, physician-prescribed medication with decades of medical use. In mental health settings, it has shown promise for people struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and entrenched thought loops – particularly those who feel like they’ve “tried everything.”

In a clinical context, ketamine therapy isn’t about escape; it’s about interruption by loosening rigid mental patterns and creating space for new emotional experiences. Those moments only matter if they’re supported, integrated, and grounded in care.

That’s why responsible screening and structure are essential. Ketamine therapy isn’t appropriate for everyone, especially those actively misusing substances. Harm reduction means honoring recovery, not undermining it.

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Why Healing at Home Matters

I hear it all the time that so many people in the queer community have learned (often unconsciously) to brace themselves in healthcare settings. Traditional systems haven’t always been safe, affirming, or informed.

Healing at home changes that dynamic.

Receiving care in one’s own space can allow people to soften instead of perform. To cry without being watched. To rest without explanation. To be fully human.

Many of our nurses, clinicians, and therapists at Better U identify as LGBTQ+, and all are trained in trauma-informed, affirming care. That representation and that intention really matter.

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The Body, Hormones, and Mental Health

Mental health doesn’t exist separately from the body.

We regularly see people whose depression, anxiety, or burnout is deeply connected to hormonal changes, chronic stress physiology, or exhaustion. For some, addressing those biological layers through holistic psychiatry or hormone replacement therapy becomes a turning point.

This is especially important in healthcare, where bodies and identities don’t always fit outdated medical assumptions.

When people feel seen as whole beings (not just symptoms) healing tends to follow.

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Chosen Family and the Science of Belonging

Chosen family isn’t just cultural, it’s biological! 

Attachment research shows that safe, attuned relationships regulate the nervous system and reduce anxiety and depression. For many people whose families of origin may not have been affirming, chosen family can offer something profoundly reparative: consistent presence, emotional safety, and belonging without conditions.

Sometimes, healing looks less like a breakthrough and more like a quiet moment of being understood.

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Beyond Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions often frame healing as self-correction. Healing tends to look different in our community. It’s less about fixing and more about reconnecting.

We often describe healing as a nonlinear arc (our core at Better U focuses on)
Heal. Grow. Love. Transcend.

Not as a mandate, but as an invitation. As this year unfolds *through sober nights out, chosen-family dinners, therapy, rest, or honest conversations, I’ll leave you with this question:

What if the most meaningful journey you take this year isn’t a party you remember, but a version of yourself you finally understand?

Depth over distraction.
Healing over hiding.
Belonging over isolation.

That’s a New Year’s ritual worth keeping.

This editorial is sponsored by Better U. For more information, head to BetterUcare.com