At the moment, some religious and political leaders in Africa are pushing for a charter on family values, lobbying lawmakers, African state institutions, and the African Union to formally adopt it. In the past number of years, they have been holding conferences across Africa with the support and funding of Western religious donors who, in their own countries, are definitely perceived as racist, hateful, and against women. Most recently, they convened the African Regional Interparliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty in Accra, Ghana. All this raises critical questions about foreign influence and agendas. At this critical time, when Africa faces so many problems, why do people insist on pushing an agenda that is neither ours nor relevant to our prosperity?

The African leaders who claim to protect African family values and sovereignty, unsurprisingly, exhibit traits similar to those of the historical enslavers and similar collaborators. Contrary to what they claim as “pushing back against foreign influence on the African family” and the infamous sovereignty claims, it has been proven that these leaders are directly linked and backed by the conservative “foreign” groups, including the U.S.-based hate organization, Family Watch International, which is closely linked to the anti-rights authors of Trump’s Project 2025, Heritage Foundation; and the Netherlands-based Christian nationalist organization, Christian Council International, another group closely linked to organizations supporting the Trump administration and its continued hate-based policies and atrocities. One might even argue that they serve these groups, their mandates, and their Western agenda, instead of what they want African people to believe: that they are doing this for the good and prosperity of Africa and its sovereignty. The truth, however, is that their so-called African values, culture, traditions, etcetera, could not be further removed from true African cultural values but instead mimic those outlined in America’s Project 2025. Meanwhile, the very same people who are pushing for these family values under Project 2025 are the very same people pushing for the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources, without any care for the impact their actions have on African people and their livelihoods. Adopting their policies verbatim in Africa and claiming them as our own could easily be seen as counterintuitive and self-betrayal.

Africa’s rich history of family, diversity, womanhood, and matriarchy is too beautiful to erase. Africans, especially women and girls, deserve to know about the likes of Queen Modjadji of the Balobedu people, a fierce leader who is traditionally believed to have rainmaking abilities and notably a distinctively matriarchal dynasty where the reign is passed down from woman to woman, from mother to daughter; or Queen Nzinga of modern-day Angola, who led an army that resisted and fought against the Portuguese colonizers. Queer folks and African spiritualists alike deserve to know how women and gender diverse persons held some of the highest spiritual positions in society, like Mbuya Nehanda of Zimbabwe, who was a deeply respected spirit medium and a leader of the resistance against early colonial rule in Zimbabwe, and the transgender priests, the respected agule and okule, female-to-male and male-to-female shamans of the Lugbara, now the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, who led spiritual ceremonies. Even though the mudoko dako of the Langi people in Uganda were known to have been assigned male at birth, they were recognized as a distinct gender that was allowed to marry men. Africans must also know about woman-to-woman marriages that existed in pre-colonial Africa, which, according to research and oral histories, were recognised and served various purposes, from economic and social functions to lineage preservation. Similar practices include those from the Bapedi and Balobedu cultures, ngwetsi ya lapa, which still exists today, where a woman is married into a family or household to raise an heir for the family or to continue the family name, not necessarily the lineage. 

As well-intentioned as it may appear, evidence suggests that the African leaders’ draft charter, because of its existing ties to Western ultraconservative partnerships, is neither original nor in good faith. The pace at which they have been moving and their true subsequent agenda should indisputably be questioned and criticised. Regardless of the inclusion of desirable language and terms such as minerals sovereignty and the Ubuntu philosophy, beneath the surface, the charter does not truly reflect these concepts. The charter, instead, does a disservice to African people by misrepresenting Africa’s diversity and disregarding its history as it relates to the diversity of families. The West has no business drafting or helping draft African legislation, especially if the whole of Africa is at risk of their negative impact. One would think the common goal would be to address bread-and-butter issues, such as poverty, unemployment, diseases, and health, to name but a few, instead of pushing the distractive agenda of those responsible for robbing Africa in the first place. No single group is the sole custodian of African knowledge. Africa belongs to all of us, with our diverse families and values, which cannot be defined through a single, narrow lens and are instead very individual issues that will differ from family to family. 

Daniel Digashu is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Center (SALC). SALC promotes and advances human rights and the rule of law in Southern Africa, primarily through strategic litigation and capacity-strengthening support to lawyers and grassroots organizations.

I have spent the past eight years leading programs at Rainbow Railroad that support LGBTQI+ people fleeing persecution and violence. What began as a small, volunteer-led effort has grown over the past two decades into an international organization that has supported more than 50,000 people around the world. That growth reflects what is possible when communities choose solidarity in the face of rising hate. 

Yet the forces that make Rainbow Railroad’s work necessary have not diminished. In many places, they are accelerating, including in countries like the United States that have historically been viewed as places of refuge for LGBTQI+ people. 

In 2025, Rainbow Railroad received a record 20,215 requests for help from people around the world. Over 30 percent of these requests came from people living in the U.S., making it the top country of origin for LGBTQI+ people seeking assistance for the second year in a row. It’s a trend that began following the 2024 presidential election, when 1,177 people reached out for support the day after the results were finalized. That single day generated more than twice the number of requests for help we had received from across the United States during the previous 10 months combined. 

The fears reflected in the requests for help we received during those first hours were well-founded. With the stroke of a pen, on his first day in office, the president suspended the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), upending the lives of refugees who were already processed and approved for resettlement in the U.S. Many of these individuals remain in limbo. 

Months later, the president authorized a cap of just 7,500 refugees to resettle in the U.S. for fiscal year 2026 and ordered a review of refugees admitted under former President Joe Biden. At the same time, he cut asylum-related services and legal support, making it even harder for vulnerable migrants to navigate an increasingly complex system. 

Despite these barriers and increasing hostility, LGBTQI+ individuals continue to seek safety in the United States, often relying on their own resources and determination to flee to the pockets of safety in cities and states that protect their rights. 

It is in that spirit that I’ve witnessed the community stepping up to support LGBTQI+ migrants. 

Following the collapse of federal programs such as Welcome Corps, which allowed Americans to sponsor refugees looking to resettle in the U.S. Rainbow Railroad launched Communities of Care, a volunteer-driven ecosystem of post-relocation services for LGBTQI+ migrants. Across 

the country, volunteers are helping newcomers navigate unfamiliar systems, build social connections, and begin rebuilding their lives.

While volunteers’ commitment has been extraordinary, community-led efforts cannot replace the infrastructure governments have dismantled. Volunteers can offer community, guidance and practical support, but they cannot replace refugee resettlement programs, legal services, or a functioning asylum system. As need grows and public support shrinks, the gap between what communities can provide and what governments should provide continues to widen. 

I think often about the LGBTQI+ people Rainbow Railroad helped reach safety in the U.S. over the years. For many, the United States represented possibility, a place where they could finally live openly and without fear. To now see the U.S. become the country generating more requests for help than any other is profoundly alarming. 

The question on my mind this Pride month is whether we will collectively meet this moment with the urgency it demands. Governments must restore and strengthen refugee and asylum protections. Volunteers must step up to provide connections to care and community. Donors must support organizations in filling critical gaps. And all of us must recognize that welcoming LGBTQI+ people seeking safety is a responsibility we all share. 

Devon Matthews is the chief programs officer for Rainbow Railroad.

I am chaotic enough to choose a controversial headline, but only to underline the importance of this pretty existential question. It’s Pride Month, and as we combat shame with pride, it does beg the question: Do we need more?

Does the average queer person have hope? It’s less a question of whether there is hope for us as a community but more in their day-to-day life as they navigate the modern political hellscape, stressful economy, petty problems, dating, and a post-AI world … Does the average queer person have hope?

I look at the people in my life. We persevere. We hustle. Some of my friends keep their heads down and live heteronormative lives with jobs, weekend brunches, and manageable lives. I have other friends who think life is happening to or at them. One crisis or drama after the other. 

I also have friends who want to make change, whether it’s healing people, inspiring joy, or creating community. 

A lot of people are living with shitty attitudes and a chip on their shoulder, and others are galvanized to make the world a better place. The question arises…does the core wound, whether it’s bullying, abandonment from our family, or even just that prevailing feeling of being “different,” rob us of hope?

I can’t not address the elephant in office, and that the current cultural and political climate does feel like a bad Care Bears movie where our hope is being sucked away to power a machine that eats rainbows or sucks the love from the planet. I question if, just like Pride, is this one of the things we have to reclaim?

I’ll be honest, I never saw myself making it to 30, let alone turning 30 for another 11 years. When you add to all of life’s problems the questionable way queers treat each other, it’s not surprising there’s a bit of hope deficiency. 

But if you stop and think about it, do you have hope? Whether you are celebrating Pride because you love color and joy, or in spite of homophobes, or because you love day drinking while we have reclaimed Pride, I think we need to start reclaiming other things like love, joy, and hope. 

As Christian nationalism perverts the beliefs that their own book preaches, as queer people, we are confronted with a unique opportunity. This is not to say we should convert or even turn the other cheek, but what if we take more accountability for the world we live in? We can start by having a little bit more hope in the future that it can be better. Hope in ourselves that we can help make it better, and hope in our fellow queer brethren that they are doing the best they can. 

When I see the pressure put on members of our community. We are supposed to have no problematic ties, endorse all the right politics, and never say the wrong thing. But where is not being an asshole?

I think if we have more hope in our community, it automatically brings more grace, patience, and respect. If we have hope in our own future, we can come up with solid ideas and strategies to tackle the world we’re in. If we have more hope in ourselves, we can shake off the harmful narratives and toxic strategies we had to develop to survive, to be the best we can be. A bit of a meditation on hope for the future, and thinking about how much we can inspire each other. 

Now, I will admit I do think the queer community will always have hope. We are survivors. We experience the world from a different perspective, which gives us a different angle, more empathy, and a natural jumping-off point for improvement. I just hope that we can all do our part to reclaim hope as much as we do Pride, because then maybe we can all feel as free as the hottie in the thong dancing on a float or that baby gay at their first Pride. The potential of our future is all contingent on the hope that we feed it with.

Each year when Juneteenth comes around, I find myself thinking about what exactly people are objecting to when they criticize and devalue why we celebrate this day. When you strip away the political talking points and culture war rhetoric, Juneteenth commemorates the widespread emancipation of people who were literally owned by other people. People who were bought, sold, beaten, raped, separated from their families, denied their humanity, and treated as property. If you cannot get behind celebrating the end of that system, then what exactly are you defending? 

To me, there is something far too revealing about the resistance to Juneteenth. When someone cannot celebrate the liberation of a people who were treated like animals, that in and of itself is animalistic behavior. It is savage, and it speaks to a moral failure that should concern all of us.

As a first-generation Nigerian American and a Black queer man, Juneteenth carries a particular weight for me. I did not descend directly from enslaved African Americans, but I live every day with the reality that American society does not stop to distinguish between our different histories before making assumptions about us. Society sees Blackness first, and the consequences of that perception are far too real.

I feel it in the way Black people are scrutinized more heavily than others. I feel it in professional spaces where certain behaviors are criticized when they come from us, but celebrated when they come from our white counterparts. I feel it when our competence is questioned, our motives are doubted, or our presence is treated as conditional. And I certainly feel it when conversations about race arise.

One of the most exhausting aspects of living as a Black person in the United States is not overt racism. It is the endless gaslighting. It is the constant devil’s advocacy. It is being told that what you experienced did not happen the way you know it happened. We point out disparities and are told we are imagining them. We identify discrimination and are told to consider another perspective. We speak about systemic racism and are met with lectures about personal responsibility. The burden somehow always falls on us to prove that what we are experiencing is real.

Yet systemic racism remains embedded in policies, laws, institutional practices, and social norms. It may not always look like the racism of past decades or generations, but that does not make it any less consequential. History does not disappear simply because it becomes less convenient to acknowledge. 

This is part of why I worry about the future of Juneteenth. I am honestly surprised the current administration has not yet targeted it more aggressively, but I do not assume it is safe. We are living at a time when African American history is increasingly treated as something controversial rather than foundational to understanding the United States. Across the country, efforts to erase, sanitize, or dismantle honest conversations about race and history carry on under the guise of neutrality.

When people attack the teaching of Black history, they often claim they are trying to move beyond division. In reality, they are often trying to move beyond accountability. You cannot learn from a history you refuse to confront. You cannot heal wounds you insist never existed. And you cannot build solidarity while erasing the experiences of the people who need it most.

For me, Juneteenth is also about those moments of personal disappointment that so many Black people know intimately. The friend who says something hurtful and genuinely has no idea why it is offensive. The colleague who dismisses your concerns while insisting they support equality. The person who prides themselves on being progressive but remains blissfully unaware of the racial biases and microaggressions they commit time and time again. Those moments hurt because they reveal a dichotomy between how people see themselves and how they actually move through the world.

Many of us spend an enormous amount of energy navigating those situations carefully. We soften our language. We lower our voices. We package our concerns in the most delicate terms possible. We anticipate defensiveness before it arrives. We work overtime to protect white fragility and white ego from discomfort. And still, we are often accused of having the wrong tone.

What people rarely acknowledge is how often we stay silent instead. How many times we convince ourselves it is not worth the argument. How many slights we absorb because challenging them feels more exhausting than enduring them. Juneteenth reminds me that silence has never been the engine of progress. Progress has always come from people demanding to be seen as fully human.

Juneteenth is not a declaration that the work is finished. It is a celebration of a momentous step forward in a centuries-long battle for freedom, dignity, and equality. It acknowledges a historic victory while recognizing that the journey is far from finished.

This is why Juneteenth is important. It is much more than the lives and experiences of Black Americans. Juneteenth is about the kind of society we want to and should be. A society built for white people and against Black people is not a just society. It cannot be called equal. And it for damn sure cannot be called free.

Juneteenth asks us to confront this reality honestly. It asks us to remember that freedom delayed is freedom denied. It asks us to recognize that solidarity must be active. Juneteenth dares us to acknowledge and celebrate the people who kept fighting for liberation even when the nation repeatedly told them they were less than human. 

That is what Juneteenth means to me. A commitment to truth over comfort. A commitment to solidarity over indifference. A commitment to refusing complacency in the face of injustice and to standing with those whose freedom and humanity remain under attack. So Happy Juneteenth to all. And to those who attempt to negate this day, fuck off.

Uncertainty caused by executive orders, closures of programs in hospitals, and the heightened transphobia occurring in everyday life make the future of gender-affirming care (GAC) feel in doubt. GAC isn’t just hormone replacement therapy (HRT); it includes access to affirming health spaces where identities are respected and cared for, mental health support, substance/addiction treatment, puberty blockers, voice therapy, resources for social transitioning, and much more. We, as trans people, understand how life-saving it is to have access to all these services. The Williams Institute found that a majority of GAC providers are cisgender, which can create a wall of separation between these doctors and their patients. There need to be more ways to support more transgender people to enter this line of work to alleviate the disconnect. Closing this gap will improve outcomes for transgender patients, as transgender and non-binary GAC providers can see themselves in the care they provide.  

Research shows that Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) patients are more comfortable with BIPOC doctors compared to white doctors. This ease is created through engaging in higher-quality communication and focusing on patient engagement and their needs. Having the comfort of a shared identity extends to transgender and non-binary patients when their provider is another transgender person. This can be due to transgender providers not asking uncomfortable (and many times blatantly transphobic) questions, better engaging with the patient to meet their healthcare goals, and thoroughly explaining treatment plans. From my own experience, it makes a big difference to have a trans provider when starting GAC. They are more likely to take the time to explain each available path, provide tips and tricks for medication, readily write appropriate referrals, and ease the worries about the process.

As part of a volunteer clinic team, I unfortunately saw a doctor insistently ask unnecessary questions and order tests that cause extreme discomfort and dysphoria. As our team debriefed about it later, I realized that it would take me, as a transgender person advocating for another transgender person, to find resources that would prevent this situation from happening again. This experience, so early in my career, reinforced how meaningful it can be for a transgender patient to have a transgender person on their care team. 

There are barriers outside of the clinic and politics that are not often highlighted. These barriers include housing status, navigating insurance approvals/denials, access to a phone, and substance use. Substance use, tobacco use specifically, is a disqualifier for getting access to top and bottom surgery due to smoking inhibiting blood flow, making it harder for the body to heal, and risking complications to the surgery. This barrier can be devastating after putting in the work to find a provider, just to be told you can’t access it while smoking. Therefore, having a provider acutely aware of the barriers trans people face when receiving care is important, as they will guide patients through different LGBTQ+ competent resources and how to navigate the different barriers.

At a time when GAC is being limited in every direction–clinics scaling back or shutting down services, providers leaving the practice out of fear, and critical research being defunded–we have to think intentionally about the future of this care and who will be there to provide it. We have to think about closing the gap between transgender people who want to serve the community and the medical system providing GAC. That includes making real investments in the people entering medicine now and creating pathways for transgender people looking to serve our communities through gender-affirming care. This can look like providing more scholarships for the transgender community to pursue higher education, creating mentorship programs between transgender providers and those looking to get into GAC, safe spaces where providers can debrief and share resources, and paid opportunities (like companions, scribes, medical assistants) to start their work in the field.

As we look toward the future of gender-affirming care, we need providers who are equipped to care for every patient with dignity and respect, regardless of identity. We also need to make space for transgender people who feel called to this work. For those of us who want to enter the field of GAC, that path should be protected, supported, and expanded. Because the future of this care depends not only on preserving access but also on ensuring the people providing it understand what is at stake and are informed about what affirming care truly means. 

Bio

River Wu (they/he) is an Asian transmasc person studying Human Biology at UCLA. They plan to attend medical school to specialize in gender-affirming care. River is currently interning with We Breathe, a program of the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, hoping to uplift queer voices, especially those from the TGI (Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Intersex) community, to emphasize that we are not alone in our struggles and we will stand together in solidarity, no matter the circumstances.

It can be tempting to feel somber this Pride. In 2025 and 2026, the United States dismantled much of the LGBTQ+ rights infrastructure it had spent decades building — eliminating the Global Equality Fund, defunding local LGBTQ+ organizations, and banning the rainbow flag from federal buildings and embassies. India unexpectedly rolled back transgender rights in March, stripping away the hard-won right to self-identify. Senegal passed an abhorrent anti-LGBTQ+ law in April, and a similar one just cleared parliament in Ghana.

But this is only part of the story. 2026 is also the year Rob Jetten — a proud gay man — became prime minister of the Netherlands, the youngest in the country’s history. It is the year Thailand celebrated the first anniversary of legalizing same-sex marriage, a historic first for Southeast Asia that is already influencing debates across the region. It is also the year “Heated Rivalry” became one of the most-watched shows on HBO, a global phenomenon.

In fact, LGBTQ+ people have never been more numerous, more visible, or more politically consequential than we are today. The question is not whether we have power. The question is whether we are using it to adapt to the emerging new world order.

Three geopolitical forces are redrawing the terrain. Borders and sovereignty are under renewed strain — this year showed us that the rules-based international order can no longer be taken for granted. Power politics is back at the center of global affairs, and when nations turn inward and militarize, those at the margins often pay the price first. And the institutions our movement has relied on most — governments, multilateral bodies, and multinational corporations — are proving unreliable allies.

The conclusion is that LGBTQ+ people cannot tie their future solely to the fortunes of liberal democracies. We need to come into our own power, and this turbulent moment may offer an opportunity to do so.

This requires a change in strategy. The LGBTQ+ movement has largely understood itself as a national movement in the business of changing hearts and minds one country at a time: win the courts, shift public opinion, and trust that progress would spread from north to south. That model delivered real victories on decriminalization, anti-discrimination protections, military service, and marriage equality. But it is showing diminishing returns. Today, political movements, financial flows, cultural narratives, and AI models increasingly operate globally outside of normative frameworks. Our movement has not kept pace.

LGBTQ+ people globally constitute a population larger than that of the United States. Our collective economic power approaches $4 trillion. We shape culture disproportionately in film, fashion, technology, and the arts. We are no longer a niche constituency petitioning for tolerance. We are a global community with growing economic, cultural, and political influence.

Realizing that potential requires three things. The first is unity — not uniformity, but the strategic coherence that allows a dispersed global community to act with shared purpose. The second is infrastructure: organizations and networks capable of operating across borders, pooling resources, and articulating a vision people want to be a part of. The third is abandoning a Western-centric mindset: building deeper roots in emerging economies will be essential.

There is a broader point. LGBTQ+ people should not be reduced to merely enduring or surviving this moment. We are entering a turbulent period in which humanity faces serious challenges — armed conflict, climate disruption, and technologies advancing faster than governance. LGBTQ+ people have often had to imagine a different future before it existed — and build the communities to sustain it across borders, generations, and class lines. That experience gives us a comparative advantage in this global context.

Pride, at its best, has always been a declaration of existence and a demand for dignity. In 2026, it should become something more: a reckoning with how much power our community has accumulated — and how seriously we intend to wield it to shape what comes next.

Fabrice Houdart is a former World Bank and United Nations staff member. He has taught at Georgetown University and Columbia University, and chairs the Institute of Current World Affairs in D.C.

Tears trickled down my cheeks listening to the mournful “Taps” trumpeted at the wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. I still hear the echo of Taps from decades ago when my father was buried at Arlington, another American hero no one knows about but who deserved his spot in those hallowed grounds.

Col. Lawrence B. Ocamb Jr. was a young reporter on the Kansas City Star newspaper – moonlighting as a big band leader – when he told his parents and large Junction City farming family that he was leaving to go fight fascism in Europe. He assured them that the US would be forced to join the war between Britain and Germany soon, but the evil was strong and spreading, and morally, he couldn’t wait.

The personal risk was great. His journalism salary helped feed and clothe his 11 younger siblings. America had turned inward after World War 1 and the Wall Street crash of 1929, which precipitated the Great Depression and unrelenting poverty. In the mid-1930s, Congress passed three Neutrality Acts, making it a crime to serve in another country’s military with penalties of a $20,000 fine, 10 years in prison, and loss of US citizenship. Even with pleas from the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was stymied by the country’s isolationism.

But FDR couldn’t abide watching Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s war machine brutally gobble up country after country since Sept. 1939 – Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and then even France after the Battle of Dunkirk in May 1940. Hitler salivated over conquering Great Britain.

Churchill was defiant in a June 4, 1940, speech to rally his country: “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end… we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.”

And the cost was dear. The mighty German Luftwaffe air force hail-bombed London, and German U-boats relished sinking British ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Britain stood alone.

Many Americans learned about the war from 32-year-old CBS News Radio reporter Edward R. Murrow, who painted “word pictures” broadcasting “live” on the Sept. 21, 1940 bombing Blitz from his perch on a London rooftop.

Murrow was on a mission, too. “Three successive CBS offices were destroyed by German bombs. Broadcasting House was bombed several times during the war, including at least one time while Murrow was broadcasting. One bomb didn’t explode right away. Experts were working on it when it ultimately exploded, killing seven people and destroying the BBC’s program library,” Bob Edwards wrote in an essay for Murrow’s archive in the National Registry. “ He ended his reports with ‘Goodnight and good luck.’ That was a phrase Londoners used to end their conversations when they were not certain they’d be able to see each other the next day.”

FDR framed his radio “fireside chats” to pitch America’s assistance as necessary to prevent the Nazi war machine from reaching US shores.

“This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk about national security,” FDR said. “If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere. We are the Arsenal of Democracy. Our national policy is to keep war away from this country.”

FDR and Churchill created a Lend-Lease program in March 1941 to give massive amounts of ships, planes, and military supplies to Great Britain. Some of those supplies went to battles in North Africa, where Hitler was propping up Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whose untrained soldiers failed to take Cairo, Egypt, and the critical British-controlled Suez Canal.

My father was there. He was among hundreds of freedom-loving American citizens who defied the Neutrality Acts from June 1940 to December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and America officially joined World War II. In Canada, he trained to become a pilot with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) before being shipped to England for more training and deployment with the British Eighth Army.

Official RAF records show only seven Americans served with Fighter Command in the summer of 1940, using fake Canadian names to circumvent the Neutrality Acts. “Other Americans undoubtedly served in Fighter Command as well. The only traces they left are their nicknames: Uncle Sam, America, or Tex,” David Alan Johnson wrote in “Yanks in the RAF,” a 2004 essay for Warfare History Network.

RAF pilots had nicknamed my father “Tex” because they knew nothing about Kansas but loved Texas.

Tex met my mother, Lisette, in Cairo. Her father had been the Dutch Ambassador to Egypt, and after he died, my mother went to work for British Intelligence. Their long love story included furiously burning Intelligence files as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who commanded the German Afrika Korps and repeatedly outflanked the British Eighth Army, pushed his tank warfare across the vast Sahara Desert towards Cairo.

On July 1, 1942, Rommel “the Desert Fox” was stalled by constant Allied harassment and disruption of fuel and reinforcements, beginning the First Battle of El Alamein. Five months later, FDR declared war on Japan, and American service members like Tex started transferring to the US Army Air Corps. However, most stayed with British General Bernard Montgomery to defeat a depleted Rommel in the Second Battle of El Alamein that started on October 23, 1942.

The world felt the shift after that decisive victory. “It marked in fact the turning of ‘the Hinge of Fate,’” Churchill wrote. “It may almost be said, ‘Before Alamein, we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat.’”

The following month, Operation Torch began with Americans and British fighting side by side in the Tunisia Campaign under the leadership of Montgomery and US Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton.

After the Allies won World War II, America emerged from its myopic isolation and started learning how to be the world’s newest Super Power.

Tex came home with lots of medals, including the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal. But bringing Lisette to America was a different issue. Having been born in Alexandria, Egypt, to a long-dead Dutch father and a French mother, and despite her British associations, Lisette was still subject to the race-based quota restrictions of the 1945 “War Brides Act.” But love couldn’t wait for the post-war bureaucracy, so Lisette was smuggled to America in a Greek trawler, which arrived at the wrong port in South Carolina. Tex sped to her rescue, and the couple quickly married at “The Little Church Around the Corner” in New York City.

Instead of returning to journalism, Tex went to the Air War College in Alabama – I was born on Maxwell Air Force Base in 1950. He was subsequently stationed at the Pentagon, Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio (where my brother Larry was born in 1954), Tachikawa AFB in Japan, Hickam AFB in Hawaii, Mitchell AFB in New York, and Norton AFB in San Bernardino, CA, the latter as a full Colonel focused on Strategic Air Command during the Cold War.

Offered a promotion to General, my father decided instead to retire and work for Stratford, Connecticut-based Avco-Lycoming, part of the military industrial complex during the Vietnam War. We moved to Westport, where I became immersed in the counterculture movement. Our kitchen table clashes over the war were extremely difficult since my friends were being drafted by a government I vehemently believed was lying to us.

Tex and I reconciled in 1968 after Sen. Bobby Kennedy’s assassination the night before my high school graduation. Though Tex was still grounded in the military principles he long fought for – he, too, had come to see that America needed to get out of Vietnam. He thought Kennedy had the best plan, and I gravitated over from the left to meet him in the middle.

It was the first time I saw my father cry. And as I hugged and cried with him, watching the tragedy unfold on TV, we both knew we were crying not just for the Kennedy family but for the fate of our country.

As he had with the Neutrality Acts and the War Bride Act, Tex was defying the political position men of his age, status, and political party held as axiomatic: he was choosing the fundamental idealistic principles of our country over the war-mongering insistence on being a “good soldier” and following orders he knew to be fatally absurd.

My father was a true patriot. He believed in and fought for an America that is a great but flawed country, constitutionally intent on becoming “a more perfect union.” He died in 1973, happy knowing I had just been hired as a desk assistant at CBS News in New York City.

Anchor Walter Cronkite later told me that he remembered Tex’s byline at the Kansas City Star when he worked in Kansas City for United Press in 1937 before covering Operation Torch off the coast of North Africa aboard the USS Texas.

I don’t think Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite or any of the other hundreds of civilians who reported on or served in the war to save the world from fascism ever heard “Taps” when they died. But they died with the respect of many grateful nations.

Watching sleepy, performative draft-dodger Donald Trump touch the treasured wreath honoring the dead at Arlington, I mourned for the loss of our history, the loss of our principles, the loss of what “patriotism” really means to those willing to die for that high ideal.

For Trump, patriotism is simply utter fealty to him – and I reject that. I am no patriot in Trump’s America.

But I am loyal to the US Constitution, to the democratic principle that no person is above the law, to the promissory note of equality and the opportunity to fulfill my authentic humanity. I stand with the patriots buried in Arlington and with all those making “good trouble” to achieve a more perfect union.

In that, I am a patriot who will hear “Taps” in my heart when I die.

The scene would have seemed impossible only a few years ago.

The name of Raúl Castro Ruz appearing formally inside a United States federal criminal indictment. Cuba’s former general of the Army, for decades one of the most powerful figures inside the Havana regime, accused in connection with the shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft and the deaths of American citizens in 1996. And all of it unfolding in Miami, inside the Freedom Tower, on May 20.

That detail matters.

Because this indictment arrives at one of the most fragile and politically tense moments in recent relations between Washington and Havana. It comes as Cuba faces deep economic collapse, growing political exhaustion, mass migration, blackouts, and increasing public frustration both inside and outside the island. It also arrives on a date carrying enormous symbolic weight for Cuban exiles — the anniversary of the founding of the Cuban Republic in 1902.

But the true significance of this moment goes far beyond symbolism.

What happened in Miami represents something much larger: the collapse of the idea that certain men would never face accountability.

For decades, Raúl Castro embodied the permanence of revolutionary power in Cuba. Defense minister. Military strategist. The man who oversaw the armed forces for generations. One of the central architects of the Cuban political and security apparatus built alongside Fidel Castro. A figure many believed would leave this world untouched by any court, shielded forever by power, time, and history itself.

Today the image is very different.

Today his name appears inside the language of American criminal prosecution.

And that changes the historical dimension of this case completely.

Because this is no longer simply a political accusation voiced by the Cuban exile community. It is now a formal federal criminal indictment publicly announced by the United States government against one of the highest-ranking figures in the history of the Cuban regime.

The setting itself carried enormous meaning.

The Freedom Tower is not just another building in Miami. For generations of Cuban exiles it represents memory, displacement, survival, and the beginning of a new life after fleeing Cuba. Thousands of Cubans passed through those doors after escaping the revolution. Families arrived carrying fear, uncertainty, grief, and hope all at once. Announcing these charges from that location transformed the moment into something far deeper than a legal proceeding.

And the people witnessing it were not only members of the exile community.

Among those present were relatives of the young men killed nearly 30 years ago. Families who spent decades waiting to hear words they feared might never come. Families who carried the weight of loss while believing the men responsible would never be formally accused by any court.

That emotional weight still surrounds this case.

On Feb. 24, 1996, two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue were shot down over the Florida Straits by Cuban military jets. Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales were killed. The flights were connected to humanitarian rescue efforts searching for Cubans attempting to flee the island during the migration crisis of the 1990s.

Those aircraft were not military bombers.

They were not attacking Cuba.

They were civilian planes associated with rescue operations involving Cubans risking their lives at sea.

That reality has always shaped how this tragedy lives inside the memory of the Cuban exile community.

For many, this was never viewed simply as a geopolitical conflict between hostile governments. It was seen as the use of military force against civilians connected to humanitarian missions during one of the darkest chapters in modern Cuban migration history.

But for many Cubans, the indictment reaches far beyond the Brothers to the Rescue case itself.

It touches decades of unresolved pain tied to one of the central figures behind Cuba’s military and political system.

It reaches mothers who buried sons lost in compulsory military service or in distant wars they never chose to fight. Families who spent years believing promises that were never fulfilled. Political prisoners who disappeared into silence. Relatives who watched loved ones die trying to flee the island.

And for many LGBTQ Cubans, the moment carries another layer of historical weight.

Long before official campaigns promoting tolerance and inclusion emerged from within the Cuban government, there were years of persecution, fear, forced silence, and humiliation carried out under the revolutionary system itself.

The UMAP labor camps remain one of the deepest scars in modern Cuban history. Gay men, pastors, religious believers, artists, and others considered incompatible with the revolutionary ideal were sent away under the language of “re-education” and forced labor.

In recent decades, public gestures toward LGBTQ inclusion promoted by figures close to the Cuban leadership attempted to project an image of progress and openness to the international community. But for many survivors, and for many Cuban LGBTQ people, those gestures never erased the trauma or the historical responsibility tied to the same structures of power that once persecuted them.

For many, acknowledgment without accountability still feels painfully incomplete.

That is why this indictment resonates so deeply today.

Because it arrives while Cuba once again faces profound national crisis. The island is losing entire generations through migration. Public frustration continues to grow. Economic collapse shapes daily life. And the revolutionary narrative that once projected permanence and control appears increasingly eroded by reality itself.

Against that backdrop, the image emerging from Miami becomes even more striking.

A man once viewed as untouchable by history now formally accused by the United States government and legally transformed into a fugitive wanted by American justice.

History moves slowly until suddenly it does not.

And for many Cubans, both on the island and throughout the diaspora, what happened today inside the Freedom Tower felt like witnessing something they once believed they would never live long enough to see.

As a Cuban, as an immigrant, and as someone who has lived close to that pain, one thought keeps returning tonight:

Justice takes time.

But when it finally arrives, it arrives with history behind it.

Straight women love gay bars. Whether it’s the ambient testosterone, hot men, or the physical safety, there is a lure for cis-het ladies to gay bars. While there are true allies and well-behaved guests that help turn the party and keep the vibe high, there are also women who come to gawk, act like frat bros, and don’t even get me started on the bridal parties. 

Like any conversation in our community, there is nuance and room for an intersectional perspective. It can’t be ignored that queer spaces are safe spaces. But with the economy impacting queer nightlife, are these guests making our spaces less safe? The West Hollywood bar scene has a huge female presence, which should be a financial boon, but is this straight influx causing queer people to avoid going out?

With queer women, it’s widely known that the lesbian community struggles to make brick-and-mortar venues work with the younger generation, opting for revolving parties to preserve safety and financial viability. The large number of female patrons in West Hollywood is also drawing in straight men, creating an environment where straights are starting to outnumber LGBTQ folks.

Currently, there are young straight GenZers doing poppers to straight women touching dancers without consent, to older straight couples dancing like they’re at a wedding. The LGBTQ community is like the Olive Garden; when you’re here, you’re family. But, when you’re not, are you acting like family?  While we all tolerate the bachelorette parties, are the straight girls who come as guests giving back to the community? 

We all have the occasional friend and coworker we want to bring to the bars. If everyone does this soon, it attracts more straight folks and can make queer people feel unsafe, unwelcome, or simply no longer in the mood to party. It’s not surprising that, like the lesbian community, many gay men are opting for revolving warehouse parties and raves to preserve some of what made gay bars gay bars: men, dancing, and cruising. 

Let’s put the fundamental issue of gay male misogyny aside for a second. Yes, that is an issue, but not relevant to this issue because the fundamental question is: Are the straight women who patronize queer spaces giving back? Whether it’s bumming cigarettes or screaming and woo-hooing at dancers, or pushing their way through the dance floor, there is the overall question: are the tourists a little too comfortable? Are they trashing our spaces? 

The number of fights, ambulance sightings, and vomit puddles is rising. What does it mean when people come to spaces with privilege and then throw their weight around? While no community is a monolith, I’ve seen women slap a go-go dancer’s behind without even tipping them. I’ve had women feel me up, and when I point out that they should know about consent, they continue.

The freedom to get so drunk you’re incoherent is not what Martha P. Johnson threw a brick for. Queer people are under threat of violence, bullying, and a butt-clenching sense of anxiety in straight spaces. Gay bars are meant to be a respite from a world that fears and hates us.  While times may have changed a bit, this was the genesis of the gay bar. 

I often joke in my stand-up that the vibe changes with females in all-male spaces. There’s suddenly an “ambient Jessica energy,”  and guys begin acting like mean girls with catty clapbacks, stank faces, or an overall bitchy attitude. 

There are some queer men who feel more comfortable, so they travel with their girls in tow. Is it the responsibility of queer people to educate their friends on how to behave in our spaces? Are we all meant to just entertain straights using gay bars as a mini Vegas moment without the drive, or do we try to maintain some semblance of queer safety and stability?

Prime example, Precinct DTLA is embroiled in a lawsuit after hiring a cis-het white woman. After finding she wasn’t a fit, she’s suing for discrimination and wrongful termination. Turnover in nightlife is common; while there is nuance in this case, the bar itself is at risk and crowdfunding to keep its doors open. 

There was a time when The Abbey was one of West Hollywood’s preeminent gay bars. 

Then there was this mass influx of straight women. Like with gentrification, there was a second wave of creepy guys who wanted to hit on drunk women. Fast forward to multiple accusations of drugging drinks. Luckily, the bar is under new ownership, and hopefully, there will be a change, but now the bar does seem to officially be a mixed venue. 

The current political climate has shown us that you can be a cis-het woman with a queer fanbase and vote against us, take our money and not respect us, and even get booked on Pride events. I say this all as a collective call to arms to “Check your girl.” If we remind our friends and fellows that they are guests in queer spaces and protect the vibe, maybe we all can have a fun time. 

As the economy struggles and these spaces need to survive, it begs the question: What’s next? I’ve talked to multiple friends who won’t go out in West Hollywood on a Saturday because it’s far too straight. There are also queer men who have sworn off Boys Town entirely. We need allies, but can guests in our spaces act like guests rather than using the freedom that comes with being in queer spaces to drink in excess, get sloppy, and puke all over the street? I am all for inclusivity, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the whole reason we created these spaces in the first place. 

There comes a moment in modern fame when admiration is no longer a simple applause or the overly enthusiastic fan page. No longer satisfied with merely watching and reading about celebs, fans today narrate them, reinterpret them, and renovate them like HGTV contractors with unaddressed attachment issues. Enter “real person fiction” (RPF), where our hottest reigning celebs are transformed into protagonists in elaborate romantic epics written by nameless fans with Tumblr accounts and suspiciously elevated emotional vocabularies.

Queue Heated Rivalry stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, two guys who have discovered that success no longer means simple invites to the (decaying) Met Gala. It means becoming narratively available. These two repeatedly find themselves pulled into the far too familiar fandom dynamic that is born from perceived contrast in personality and charisma. Fans tend not just to observe these relationships but to “complete” them by filling in narrative gaps with their own projections.

Freud, who would have had the time of his life on fan fiction platforms like Archive of Our Own, would likely argue that RPF is fundamentally wish fulfillment disguised as storytelling. In The Interpretation of Dreams, he suggests that fantasies give way to the safe expression of otherwise repressed desires. Fanfiction functions in a similar fashion in that it creates a socially sanctioned dream space where readers and writers can explore longing, intimacy, conflict, identity, vulnerability, and power, all while pretending this is somehow about hockey players or actors and not, say, one’s inability to emotionally communicate after yet another situationship gone south.

The allure of celebrity culture is that it provides emotionally resonant raw material without requiring reciprocal intimacy. Fans “know” just enough to feel attached, but not enough to shake the fantasy. Williams smiles in interviews. Storrie touches his shoulder at a premiere. The human brain, tragically devoted to pattern recognition, immediately starts drafting narrative fantasy.

Parasocial attachment, the one-sided emotional bond audiences form with public figures, has existed for eons. But social media has amped it up into something approaching communal mythmaking. Fans are no longer consuming celebs passively. They collaborate in interpreting them. TikTok vids, Reddit reads, Twitter threads with forensic-level scrutiny of a mere side-glance, modern fandom looks less like a fan club and more like a writers’ room on Adderall. 

Traditional romance narratives involve imagined characters. RPF holds the yummy illusion of possibility. Even when readers know intellectually that stories are fictionalized, the existence of real bodies beneath the fantasy creates additional emotional charge. It feels equal parts forbidden and authentic. Freud would likely call this the eroticization of proximity and taboo. The online community calls it ‘shipping.

But dismissing RPF entirely as “crazy fandom behavior” misses the point. Most of those who indulge in it understand boundaries perfectly well. Most know the stories are fantasy constructions. Most are neither delusional nor malicious. They are engaging in a fundamentally human activity of storytelling as emotional management. That said, and this is where things become ethically blurred, healthy projection can drift into possessiveness before we realize it.

The internet promotes excess. Casual recognition turns into “stanning.” Stanning becomes stalking. Every celebrity interaction becomes evidence. Fans begin to experience emotional entitlement toward people they do not actually know. The line between “I dig this dynamic” and “I demand this dynamic validate my emotional investment” grows thin. For celebrities like Williams and Storrie, the psychological burden of this must be deeply strange because, unlike fictional characters, they do not have the option of stepping away from the narrative.

There is likely a destabilizing dissociation that perhaps inevitably develops with such an experience. One may become hyper-aware of their performative self. Every interaction is perceived as being at risk of symbolic overinterpretation. Public identity could potentially fracture (leave Britney alone!) The actual self, the media self, the fandom self, and the fanfiction self. Celebs increasingly live beside fictional doubles birthed from collective desire.

So, how can public figures cope with this healthily? For starters, implement boundaries without contempt. Celebs don’t owe fans unrestricted emotional access, but publicly putting down fandom doesn’t quite work either. Mockery often increases attachment because fans experience criticism as an invalidation of community. Perhaps more effective methods involve calm boundary-setting like refusing to respond to invasive questions, limiting social media exposure, and nourishing strong offline identities rooted in relationships untouched by public consumption. Public figures need protected spaces of non-performance. 

Williams and Storrie, hypothetically speaking, would likely benefit from recognizing that most fan projection is not actually about them personally but rather what they represent. Once you understand yourself as an archetype in public consciousness rather than merely an individual, fandom behavior becomes less uniquely cringe and more anthropologically inevitable.

As for our fan girlies, perhaps the healthier future of fandom lies not in less enthusiasm but in more differentiation. One can appreciate lens-fogging chemistry without the demand for portraying the illusion off-camera. It is possible to write fiction inspired by public figures while remembering that those same figures have private lives that you are in no way, shape, or form entitled to. 

Freud believed civilization itself relies on sublimation: transforming raw desire into socially productive expression. In this sense, fandom, at its best, is sublimation in action, repurposing loneliness and desire into creativity and community. At its worst, however, sublimation collapses back into good ol’ overconsumption. 

The challenge, then, for modern fandom is not throwing out fantasy entirely. Human beings will always fantasize. We are storytelling primates with attachment disorders and Wi-Fi. The challenge is retaining enough humility to remember that behind every projection screen stands an actual person who did not consent to becoming the main character in your collective unconscious, no matter how swoon-worthy they are in a jockstrap.