At its core, democracy depends on a simple premise: if you are eligible to vote, you should be able to do so. The right to vote in the United States has never been just about who is legally eligible. It has always been about who can realistically access the ballot.

The proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act puts that premise at risk — and for LGBTQ Americans, particularly transgender and nonbinary individuals, the threat is direct and concrete.

The SAVE Act would require Americans to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — when registering to vote in federal elections. Supporters argue this is a necessary step to protect election integrity.

But the real issue is not simply what the law says. It is how it will function in practice — and who will bear the burden.

Under current federal law, eligible voters can register by attesting to their citizenship under penalty of perjury. The SAVE Act would replace that system with a documentation requirement.

That may sound like a technical adjustment. It is not.

It represents a fundamental shift — from a system where the government verifies eligibility, to one where individuals must produce specific documents to prove it. And not all voters are equally positioned to meet that requirement.

For transgender Americans, identity documents are often not consistent across systems. A person may have legally changed their name but not updated all records. Their birth certificate may not reflect their current identity. Their passport, driver’s license, and Social Security record may not fully align.

Updating these documents is not always straightforward. In some states, it requires navigating complex legal processes. In others, it may be restricted altogether.

None of this changes a person’s eligibility to vote. But under the SAVE Act, it could determine whether they are able to register — and whether their registration is accepted. This is not a hypothetical concern. It reflects the everyday reality of navigating identity systems that were not designed with LGBTQ people in mind.

Supporters of the SAVE Act emphasize that the law applies equally to everyone. Formally, that is true. But equal rules do not guarantee equal access.

For voters with straightforward documentation, the requirement may be manageable. For those whose records are inconsistent or difficult to obtain, it creates additional hurdles — delays, rejections, and uncertainty. That is how neutral policy produces unequal outcomes. And in the context of voting, those outcomes matter.

The SAVE Act may not result in voters being turned away in large numbers on Election Day. That is not how these systems typically work. The risk is more subtle — and more systemic. Registration applications get delayed or rejected. Confusion about what documentation is required discourages people from trying. Voters give up rather than navigate a bureaucratic maze. For LGBTQ Americans, a system where friction can become total exclusion.

For LGBTQ Americans already navigating barriers in healthcare, housing, employment, and basic legal recognition, this is one more arena where that friction compounds. Over time, that erosion of participation weakens the democratic process itself.

Election security is a legitimate concern. Policy should be grounded in evidence, not self-serving conspiracy theories. Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting, and there is no credible evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in federal elections. Existing safeguards — verification systems, database checks, and legal penalties — already address that risk.

The SAVE Act proposes a sweeping change to address a problem without evidence. In doing so, it risks disenfranchising large numbers of LGBTQ Americans, as well as women, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, low-income Americans, and young voters — the communities that have historically faced the greatest barriers at the ballot box.

For LGBTQ Americans, the SAVE Act is not just about election policy. It is about whether systems account for lived reality — or ignore it. The right to vote should not depend on whether your paperwork is perfectly aligned across multiple bureaucracies. It should depend on whether you are eligible.

That is the standard a functioning democracy should meet. And then it should make the act of voting as easy as possible for all eligible Americans.

The SAVE Act does none of that. Because the question it answers is not how we make elections more secure. It is, in practice, how we keep Americans from voting.

Edward Campbell is a Los Angeles-based attorney, LGBTQ advocate, and civil rights activist with extensive experience in affordable housing finance and preservation. He has worked on housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels and is a longtime advocate for racial equity and democratic institutions

Last Wednesday, a major New York Times investigation exposed damning sexual abuse allegations against the late Cesar Chavez: an emblem of Chicano farm workers’ liberation in the 1960s. For decades, Chavez’s activism sang loudly from textbook pages, from large-scale murals and street signs across the country. Every March, his legacy was doubly hailed. He was woven into the American fabric of resistance, one championed by Black and brown workers and advocates. 

Then, the testimonies arrived. Two major witnesses, Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, explained to the Times that they were 13 and 12, respectively, when Chavez began to sexually abuse them from around 1972 to 1977. “I wanted to die,” Murguia told the Times, who confessed that she had tried to end her life multiple times as a result of her trauma from the continued abuse. 

The Times investigation also included the shocking account of beloved labor leader, Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association alongside Chavez and fellow activist Gilder Padilla. The piece touched upon two instances of coercive manipulation and rape, both of which led to pregnancies Huerta bore in secret — children that she later arranged to be raised by other families. 

“I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret,” part of Huerta’s own statement reads, which provides more context about her testimony to the Times. Huerta turns 96 on April 10th and held onto these secrets for 60 years. “I believed that exposing the truth would have hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” she wrote. 

Online, people denounced Chavez and demanded that his name and face be removed from statues and signs that decorated their local parks and libraries. These were painful, pervasive reminders of his now-soiled imprint. Local leaders promised their swift action in following through on this outcry, with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signing a countywide proclamation that renamed Chavez’s national holiday “Farmworkers Day.”  

Queer advocates have issued statements in solidarity with Huerta and the other survivors. In a social media post published by the San Diego LGBT Community Center, staff wrote about the ripples of fear and shame that take hold of marginalized community members when they try to reclaim their power  — especially when the people they are holding accountable for abuse and harm come from notable changemakers in their own communities. 

These calls for accountability do not diminish the efforts of the broader movements. “They remind us that movements are never built by one person alone,” the community center’s statement reads. “The farmworkers labor movement was built by countless individuals, many of them women and undocumented immigrants, whose organizing and resilience form its true foundation…Holding leaders accountable is how we protect every worker and every vulnerable person who the movement was always meant to serve.” 

Harm can be perpetuated systemically, by forces like imperialism, as well as by the powerful within our own fights for freedom and empowerment. What holds true is that our movements do not rest solely on the efforts of one glorified leader — they are made possible by the persistent efforts of many. The farmworkers movement was brought to fruition and amplified by women like Huerta, as well as the efforts of Filipino organizers like Larry Itliong, who championed the defining Delano grape strike that uplifted and encouraged fellow farmworkers like Chavez to join in on. 

Behind one venerated voice are the understated stories of several others. And what rests at this core is what the Center calls an “impossible” choice survivors of abuse face when “justice and community survival collide.” Movements for liberation are always at threat of destabilization by greater government forces: any crack in the foundation can be utilized as a dismissal of the movement as a whole. But against these narratives of fear and disempowerment, it becomes clearer and clearer that we can hold multiple truths at once. 

We must believe victims who speak of their abuse: the reckoning we collectively take part in afterward cannot come at their expense or ability to heal and survive. What comes from this investigation and greater social reckoning is not the destruction of the labor movement, but of the carefully conceived and heroic portrait we’ve come to paint of Chavez’s visage within. His contributions to workers’ and farmers’ rights are irrefutable — and so is his harm. 

If we discourage survivors from telling their truths in order to make precious our most visible voices, we defeat one of the pillars of why we fight at all: to strengthen our individual and combined ability to shape autonomous and shared futures that guarantee equity, freedom, and justice for every person.

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.

I can see it with my mind’s eye. March 11. David Mixner clicks on the New York Times site and sees the headline: “U.S. at Fault in Strike on School in Iran, Preliminary Inquiry Says.” America initiated an unexplained, unprovoked, undeclared war on Iran that killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers with a deadly Tomahawk missile on Feb. 28, the first day of what has become an expanded holy war in the Middle East. Terrorist attacks on the homeland are an increasing possibility. 

Mixner – a patriot and a Gandhi-influenced pacifist – is furious to the point of tears. He calls some friends, fraught with the need to “do something.” His friends agree – then one asks: “But what should we do? It’s terrible – but it’s not gay.” 

“But it’s human!” Mixner roars back. “When did we lose our humanity?”

This didn’t happen, of course. March 11 is the second anniversary of David Mixner’s death, and I’m so infuriated by the deafening lack of leadership, I imagine Mixner pulling a loud alarm to roust LGBTQ+ people into action. 

Where are our leaders? We’ve long known that LGBTQ+ people are at the top of the Project 2025 hit list for erasure. “The path back to national unity is to decisively win the culture wars,” Republican candidate Donald Trump told the Heritage Foundation. 

We know that White Supremacists and Christian nationalists hate us. “SPLC reports that in 2024, the number of anti-LGBTQ+ groups increased by about 13% from the previous year. These hate groups “opportunistically exploit division to advance a political agenda and, in this case, it’s still informed by that false notion of LGBTQ people being dangerous to society,” says R. G. Craven, senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

Wayne Besen, Founder and Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, produced Behind the Mask: The Project 2025 Organizations Reshaping America, Volume I, to expose the 114 organizations listed on Project 2025’s Advisory Board. These people are dedicated to creating an authoritarian theocracy that will outlast Trump and the Iran War.  

Why isn’t the Human Rights Campaign campaigning against this every day? LGBTQ+ people are hungry to “do something.” Why aren’t HRC, the Task Force, Equality Federation, and state organizations holding emergency meetings with community input to figure something out? During the AIDS crisis, Torie Osborn organized Leadership Summits that brought leaders together to strategize – many of whom also attended grassroots Creating Change events – until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict scared people away.  

Where’s GLAAD? If they’re exposing misinformation, I’m not aware of it. They could revive local chapters, deputize LGBTQ+ people to be media watchdogs and do Zoom forums. They could create a free central online LGBTQ+ newsroom like Towleroad with links to reliable national, state and local news, podcasts, and Substacks so we can find out what the hell is going on. 

There are 13 out members of the 119^th Congress, which I learned through Google. Californians know Rep. Robert Garcia because he rose through local politics. Now he’s on TV pressing for accountability in the Trump-Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In his opposition to DHS and ICE, he sometimes mentions that he’s a gay immigrant. Rep. Angie Craig was out and pissed off after an ICE agent killed lesbian mother Renee Good, 37, who was protesting ICE’s deportation of her Minneapolis neighbors. And trans Rep. Sarah McBride has been gracefully representing her constituents and the hopes of trans people everywhere while fending off attacks from within the Chamber. 

Why doesn’t the Congressional Equality Caucus hold regular Zoom town halls to give us updates, answer questions, and test out messaging with We the LGBTQ+ People? 

And while we’re proudly protesting Trump, ICE, and the Iran War through Indivisible and No Kings (here’s the link to the No Kings march in LA on March 28) – remember our state and local primary races are heating up – so watch for folks who ARE showing up as leaders. 

Such as Cleve Jones, founder of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, who advocated online for gay ICE deportation victim, Venezuelan asylum seeker Andry Romero. Now Cleve is working on an important new endeavor, reasserting that “healthcare is a right” as a midterm election issue. (See his Facebook page for more.)

That’s the thing about leadership. You don’t have to be rich or famous or a graduate from some elite school. Get inspired by something that grabs your heart and compels you to “do something.” Then share with others, organize, test things out to see what works and what doesn’t – and don’t give up. Remember your purpose.  

And remember that leaders emerged in the post-World War II era when homosexuality was considered sick, perverted, and illegal. 

Harry Hay imagined the Mattachine Society in 1948 and founded it in 1950 during the Lavender Scare period when Sen. Joseph McCarthy orchestrated witch hunts leading the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

“It was obvious McCarthy was setting up the pattern for a new scapegoat, and it was going to be us – gays. We had to organize, we had to move, we had to get started,” Harry Hay told Jonathan Ned Katz for his book Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (1976). 

It was a crime to be gay in America, but Harry and others acted anyway. Where are our leaders now? 

We don’t need perfect people. David Mixner was far from perfect. But he learned to draw from personal experience to tell and connect our real-life stories to social, political, and economic issues.  

Mixner grew up shamefully closeted in rural Salem County, southern New Jersey – known as “little Dixie,” Mixner wrote in his memoir Stranger Among Friends. Segregation “was a given,” and when a “queer” died by suicide, his parents felt sorry for the teen’s parents, who had to bear that shame. 

When Mixner heard Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s call to fight injustice and watched on TV as firehoses and dogs were turned on young people in Birmingham, Alabama, the high school junior declared he was going to join their fight for freedom. Mixner and his father fought; his father hit him repeatedly and told him to “get that bullshit out of your head.” 

But Mixner was a believer. When King “railed against injustice, I knew he understood the pain of being different. By working for the liberation of blacks, I intuitively knew I was fighting for my own liberation.” 

Mixner had another epiphany in 1966. After reading a news story about Tempe’s garbage workers striking for the right to form a union, the buzzcut Arizona college student joined the picket line. Hector, a 50-year-old worker with a worn face and Zapata-like mustache, asked him, “Why are you here?” Mixner said he wanted to show support. 

“What do you know about us? About my life – what it is like to live as we do, about fears for my family,” Hector said.  

Hector’s story about his life stunned Mixner, who promised to help. It became “the first organizing project I would be responsible for from start to finish.” 

The on-campus rally was small until several dozen menacing police showed up. Suddenly, students poured out of class to join the protest. Bullhorn in hand, Mixner dropped his notes and spoke from the heart about the poverty, fear, and injustice Hector and his hungry children faced every day. 

“Bolstered by the crowd, I felt of value and needed,” Mixner wrote in his memoir. “The students discovered there was a whole world they had never even noticed before, and the workers found out that others cared about their plight.” Eventually, the workers got their union. 

Mixner went on to become a leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement (where he met Bill Clinton), a respected political strategist, and a leader in the LGBTQ+ and AIDS movements. 

He learned that political and electoral representation matters. After running LA Mayor Tom Bradley’s successful 1977 reelection campaign, Mixner came out and joined the new Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA), a political action committee of political professionals and checkbook activists focused on gay rights (1977-1991).  

Political relationships opened up in 1975 when the Consenting Adults Act decriminalized homosexuality in California.  The bill was championed by San Francisco allies George Moscone and Willie Brown and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, who was close with mega MECLA fundraiser Sheldon Adelson.   

MECLA secured passage LA’s city ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. But the Religious Right turned political in 1977 and in 1978, Mixner led the fight – with San Francisco stars like Harvey Milk – to defeat Proposition 6, California’s version of anti-gay Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign. 

In 1986, extremist Lyndon LaRouche put Proposition 64 on the ballot – an Initiative that would have quarantined people with AIDS in concentration camps. Everyone did what they could to fight back. On the Eastside, AIDS activists Michael Weinstein and Chris Brownly worked with nurses and doctors to form the Stop AIDS Quarantine Committee –  producing rallies and PSAs.   

On the Westside, Mixner served as campaign consultant for a statewide coalition fiercely paddling upstream. The lesson from Prop 6 was the need for both volunteer-driven, grassroots mobilization and paid professional campaigners. So “Stop LaRouche” worked alongside “No on 64.”

“We were tightly coordinated,” says “No on 64” SoCal Campaign Coordinator Torie Osborn. “ AIDS phobia was so widespread that at the start of the campaign, no mainstream liberal groups – except the docs and nurses — were with us, except the Southern California ACLU chapter, and a few random Hollywood straight types, like Paul Newman. But we mobilized like crazy.”

In four months, their bi-partisan campaign raised over $2 million – 90% from the LGBTQ+ community. They defeated Prop 64 with 71% of the vote.

In the early 1990s, MECLA morphed into ANGLE (Access Now for Gay & Lesbian Equality) to focus on LGBTQ+ representation, as well as political action. In 1991, Mixner, Scott Hitt and others founded the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund to support vetted out LGBTQ+ candidates. After Clinton won in 1992, Mixner launched the Political Appointments Program to nominate LGBTQ candidates for the Clinton administration. Clinton also lifted the ban on security clearances for gay officials.

“David Mixner loved the promise of our country, and he pushed those in power to do what is morally right. Thanks in large part to my friend David’s political prowess and strategic focus I became our nation’s first open LGBTQ+ presidential appointee to win confirmation by the U.S. Senate,” says Roberta Achtenberg, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1993-1995). 

Mixner encountered resistance when he advocated for lifting the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. But remember the humanity: the military is the nation’s largest employer, offering poor, rural gays an opportunity to get out of abuse and poverty. 

Mixner felt deeply betrayed when Clinton issued the discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. After all, Mixner and ANGLE raised $3.1 million gay dollars and supported Clinton when scandals left the presidential candidate on political life support. When Mixner protested DADT at the White House gate, Democrats made his clients disappear. 

But Mixner kept networking – giving attorney and Vietnam-era Marine Capt. Tom Carpenter’s name to attorney and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network co-director Michelle Benecke. Carpenter got so involved that he became SLDN’s board chair.  

David Mixner lost to Covid issues two years ago. But his legacy of leadership lives on. 

“David was our national leader,” says Torie Osborn. “Mixner was a great thinker and orator — our MLK Jr. He cared about women’s and other progressive issues. I always relied on him to connect the dots and to be the ‘big picture’ guy…and inevitably he was!”

Mixner’s friend and mentee Jeremy Bernard, who became the first gay Social Secretary in President Obama’s White House, says Mixner was shocked by “how so many in his own community reacted with anger or as if he was being disloyal” over DADT. “

“This was something he really had not foreseen,” says Jeremy. David’s substantial consulting business was virtually ruined due to the White House reaction, specifically Rahm Emmanuel.  One client told Mixner that they simply could not ignore Rahm’s wrath.

 Mixner would struggle for years to make a living.  Stranger Among Friends helped pay the bills. “But he never regretted speaking out, and time would prove him to be on the right side of history.  However, few of those that loudly and harshly criticized him would ever admit that or give him any credit.”

“In 1989, David was the moving force to create ANGLE,” says attorney, politico, and longtime gay/AIDS activist John Duran. “We had suffered the deaths of tens of thousands of our people to AIDS under Reagan/Bush neglect….We elected a new President. An AIDS commission was created, chaired by ANGLE member the late Dr. Scott Hitt, and protease inhibitors were on the market three years later. Yes,  ACT UP protests in the streets were essential. But there was monumental work being done with money, politics, and power.”

Like Mixner, attorney and lesbian pioneer Diane Abbitt sees the big picture about Iran. “Mixner would have been outraged at the senseless ‘collateral damage,’ the death of Americans, the death of innocent Iranian children, parents, families, the destruction of a way of life for so many, and the loss of innocence of everyone, both directly and indirectly, effected by this senseless war,” Abbitt says. “How much must people suffer?  What has happened to our humanity?  Where is the moral compass that should guide all people, but especially the president of the United States?”

Devastation is upon us. Where are our leaders? 

Steven Guy is working with the David Mixner Memorial Fund and the Ali Forney Center to produce a film about Mixner’s activism. To support the film, reach out to Deb Brown at the Ali Forney Center at [email protected]. 

Karen Ocamb’s commentary is cross-posted from her Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters.  

There’s a reading challenge on every episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and it’s not surprising that their quality is dropping faster than Tyra Banks’s hot ice cream sales. In part, the way we look at reading has changed. It’s become conflated with many of the roast challenges by people who don’t know the difference. It seems like many queer people think a wig or a feminine affectation gives you a visa to say shitty things. Have we lost the art of reading? 

The playful, sometimes shady teasing between queer people has always existed. The term reading was popularized by the documentary Paris Is Burning. But like with many things that have gone through the RuPaul’s Drag Race industrial complex, some things can get lost in translation. It seems like there’s a generation that doesn’t know the difference between reading, bullying, shitty comments, shade, and roasting. 

We were introduced to the concept of reading when famous queer icon and mummy enthusiast, Dorian Corey, said in the aforementioned documentary, “You get in a smart crack, and everyone laughs and kikis because you found a flaw and exaggerated it, then you’ve got a good read going.”  This is in part because, at that time, generationally, queer people had to learn to use their words defensively. 

Speaking for myself, I honed my verbal skills on the playground. Amid the litany of faggot and AIDS jokes, I had to find a way to defend myself. I had to shift the focus from myself back on my would-be attackers. This is the common story for queer people of a certain age. We had no other recourse than to use humor to deflect tension, avoid violence, and assert authority. 

Corey goes on to point out, “If I’m a black queen, and you’re a black queen, we can’t call each other black queens… That’s not a read, that is just a fact. So we talk about your ridiculous shape, your saggy face, your tacky clothes.” Now this is where things get a bit dicey. For a while, reading became a love language. It became common practice to tease other gay men as a form of love language.

Throughout queer media, from The Boys in the Band to Noah’s Arc to Queer as Folk, humor is a tool to avoid uncomfortable conversations. The general mentality was that if you have sore or tender spots, they make you vulnerable, and by teasing you, it helps make you stronger. This is thanks to a generation that brought us, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

A lot has changed since then. I remember my friends who were 10 years older than me loved making shady jokes, and me never liking it. Knowing what it was like to be bullied, I just didn’t enjoy that in my free time. In a post-cancel culture world, we are a lot more mindful of our words. 

And yet, there is a case where reading is necessary. As men in a patriarchy where emotions are not able to be freely expressed, let alone talked about, we can’t always handle open discussion. 

Reading allows us to say the quiet part out loud. Does your friend have a drug problem, a shitty attitude, or a stank face? Are they a mooch, or do they date the wrong guys? Subtle jokes let us graze these deeper issues with a bit of humor and use the subtle art of teasing to let this person know that something is a problem. 

Part of where it falls flat is that the reads must be funny. With a successful read, the subject of the read gets the subtext because everyone is laughing. What got lost in translation, likely to an audience who may not have faced the same bullying or verbal self-defense, is the idea that reading means saying mean-spirited, shitty things. 

If something is just mean and hurtful with no ounce of humor, truth, or good intention, it’s not a read, it’s a shitty comment. People also confuse reading with roasting. Roasting has its own formula and history. In a roast, someone submits themselves to be mocked, often for charity or a special occasion. You say something so offensive and outlandish to show love for the person you’re roasting. You don’t just make offensive roasting jokes on strangers without consent. That’s just bullying. 

The craftsmanship of reading is finding the line. The art form is in softening the delivery. It’s about packaging the message in a way that deflects the intensity but lets the message land. It’s about being a bit subversive, sarcastic, irreverent, but playful, to talk about the things no one is talking about. 

Reading for filth is when you essentially read someone like a book and tell them something that’s so obvious they’re a bit silly for not getting it. Living in a country where the average citizen has a 5th-grade reading level, we are so emotionally overwhelmed on any given day and can barely hold attention, let alone entertain a joke. We need reading now more than ever. 

As queer folks, we have a unique vantage point as outsiders to realize, intuit, and notice things other people do not. Using some humor and wordplay to let us all laugh at it. Finding levity ensures that the person you’re reading gets to learn and grow rather than feel like shit about something they can’t control. Reading may be fundamental, but skill and reverence are fundamental to reading. 

Christian Cintron is a jack-of-all-trades and master of fun. He’s a writer, comedian, actor, and spiritualist. He created Stand Up 4 Your Power, a program that teaches self-empowerment through stand-up comedy.

Welcome to the jungle! California’s electoral system puts the top two winning candidates in the nonpartisan June 2 primary into an expensive slugfest to replace termed-out Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in November. As of the March 6 filing deadline, at least 10 candidates will be on the ballot, with the New York Times on March 8 posting ten political polls from Dec. 2025 to Feb. 20 showing two well-funded MAGA Republicans topping the large swath of vote-splitting Democrats.

“Yes, Republicans have a chance in California governor’s race,” reads a Los Angeles Times headline.

But with a constant barrage of news, distractions from the Trump-Epstein files scandal, and politicking with Prop 50 redistricting forcing local Republicans like anti-LGBTQ+ Rep. Darrell Issa to not seek reelection, many overwhelmed prospective voters rely on the myth that California is a deeply blue Democratic state forever.

But that depends on turnout. During the horrific second wave of AIDS from 1990-1998, California was politically dominated by the elitist rich and Bible-thumping, knuckle-dragging, radically anti-gay religious right Christians – the heirs of whom now hustle to bless Donald Trump whenever they are summoned.

Today, LGBTQ+ Californians face a heartbreakingly huge problem. While grateful for past support from the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, this is a new amoral era of Trumpism with a Project 2025 administration of white supremacists and Christian nationalists determined to kill the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act and all things LGBTQ+. And Republicans have millions to gaslight voters into believing slick campaigns of lies that could result in a run-off between Republicans Steve Hilton, a Fox News contributor, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

Democrats are not handling this well. Congressional Democrats stand up for their history-making trans colleague Rep. Sarah McBride and laud out Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach as Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee and leader on the Epstein investigations.

But more Democrats are listening to messaging from David Axelrod, James Carville, and David Plouffe, “urging Democrats to act a little more like Republicans on so-called ‘identity and cultural issues,’” as a trans journalist wrote in The Advocate last October. While their report “rarely defines which ‘cultural issues’ it means, the few times it does make it clear: queer and transgender people stand to lose the most if this vision of the Democratic Party takes hold.”

So it was uncomfortably noticeable how oddly old-fashioned several candidates seemed at the Equality California and LA LGBT Center Gubernatorial Candidate Forum on March 2. They touted experience that may no longer be applicable to agencies and systems broken by DOGE and Trump’s manic White Christian National administration.

To be sure, these principled candidates have taken heat for us. But so did Gov. Gavin Newsom when he defied the Democratic Party to advocate for marriage equality. Recently, he threw us under the bus.

“From the prism of purely politics, there’s no doubt that the Democratic party needs to be – dare I say – more culturally normal,” Newsom said in response to CNN about what Democrats need to do to win elections.

Let that sink in. “Identity politics” is at the core of every civil rights movement – an understanding that took decades of work for the California Democratic Party to grasp. Identity politics provides a specific context for the inequality and unfairness vulnerable people and communities experience in everyday life.

Affordability? “Food deserts” are found largely in urban neighborhoods, not Beverly Hills. And if you’re a single Black or Brown woman with kids whose queer appearance or DEI-laden application is a barrier to employment and housing – how are you supposed to take care of your family?

“Culturally normal” is code for whatever powerful white, straight men determine it is. Do queer women of color even qualify as “welfare queens?” Check the Williams Institute to see how it’s worse for trans folk.

But remember: White Christian nationalists have their “culturally normal” identity politics, too. That’s why angry white men with tiki torches screamed “Jews will not replace us!” at a 2017 rally where a Confederate statue was toppled.

“DEI” was not mentioned once during the forum, though each candidate rebuked Newsom’s comment. (Please watch the complete KNBC4 video of the forum for views and nuances.) Former California State Controller Betty Yee suggested they were looking for an excuse to explain why Kamala Harris lost the Nov. 2024 election. The LGBTQ community was thrown under the bus because “we weren’t speaking to the issues that everyday people are experiencing.”

And here’s the problem. Many political Democrats still see intersectional LGBTQ+ people as an issue – but we’re everyday people, too. Ask the wife, friends, and family of Minnesota lesbian mom of three, Renee Good, 37, a US citizen murdered by ICE while protesting Trump’s mass immigration deportation policy. Shortly after her killing, DHS Sec. Kristi Noem called her a “domestic terrorist” – a lie for which she still has not apologized to Good’s family.

To paraphrase abolitionist leader Sojourner Truth: Ain’t we everyday people, too?

California’s LGBTQ+ Gubernatorial Forum with Equality California and Los Angeles LGBT Center / Screenshot from Telemundo

Yee knows. “Our LGBTQ+ community and our transgender siblings are a part of the fabric of California. And I speak from this as a woman of color, as a woman of Chinese American descent, where we have been a target in the past,” Lee said at the forum, adding that “being inclusive and supportive of all of our communities…is the hallmark of California.”

Because LGBTQ+ people are not “culturally normal” enough to be politically useful, we are being erased by the Democrats just as racist candidate Donald Trump promised to do for his Project 2025 backers: “The path back to national unity is to decisively win the culture wars.”

But here’s the rub: Yee ranks between 2%-5% in the polls, with Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter, and progressive billionaire Tom Steyer jockeying for the lead.

Former California Attorney General and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and former L.A. mayor and Speaker of the California State Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa make up about 30% of the surveyed voters. At some point, if these lower polling candidates don’t realistically see a path to victory, they need to ask themselves: Ask not what California can do for you – but what you can do for California.

After all, we remember Ralph Nader as a self-obsessed 2000 election spoiler, not as the founder of the nation’s consumer rights movement.

Another problem with candidates seeing LGBTQ+ people as an inconvenient issue and not a constituency is that, other than Eric Swawell, there seemed to be no real understanding of the impact of the Iran War on us as real Californians.

All the candidates were asked a version of this question: Given the number of military bases here in California, active duty, reserves, and National Guard. And LA having the largest population of Iranians outside the country, “this war affects so many people here in California. As governor, would you prioritize speaking out on foreign policy?”

“Well, first, for this room, we have to acknowledge that in Iran, most of us would not be accepted and some of us would not be alive,” Swalwell said. “And the Iranian diaspora is some of the biggest dreamers in California because they dream of a place where women can drive freely and dress the way they want to dress, and everyone can vote openly. So, I understand why they would celebrate a brutal dictator no longer being around. However, I also understand that we have a long history of going into the Middle East without a plan, trying to change a regime and always, always failing and losing a lot of American soldiers along the way.”

“On the Middle East and Iran, [Trump] doesn’t even have a concept of a plan,” Swalwell said.

We’ve had our freedom rattled before. The 53^rd Primetime Emmy Awards were cancelled twice after the Sept. 11, 2001, Taliban terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Then, on Nov. 4, 2001, after a reassuring opening by former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, out comedienne Ellen DeGeneres reset the nation’s mood.

“I felt it was important for me to be here tonight because our leaders have told us to get back to our jobs,” she said. “I’m in a unique position as host, because think about it. What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?”

That may have been one of the last times the nation exploded in unified laughter. After that came numbness, fear, distrust, and “the seeds for today’s thicket of misinformation,” according to a Poynter Institute Politifact report. “The attacks and their aftermath also helped reshape, and in some ways turbocharge, the misinformation and conspiracy theory industry — encouraging people to turn to the internet for answers.”

Some of the resulting distrust was well-deserved: the National Security Agency knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened. “We know now that our inability to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks was an intelligence failure of unprecedented magnitude,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said after the 2002 release of a joint House-Senate inquiry report.

Eighteen years later, in 2020, I reported on Trump’s first threat of war after he ordered the drone strike assassination of Iranian bad guy Gen. Qassim Soleimani – something even the Israelis had declined to do, fearing unpredictable and uncontrollable retaliation. Trump stepped back from the brink, but people were unnerved.

“It feels to me that the [Iranian Islamic] mullahs have been strengthened in this situation more than anything, which is not good for the people of Iran who want to be free of this oppressive regime,” said West Hollywood-based Iranian-American lesbian attorney Sepi Shyne.

With nearly 800 US military bases around the world, between 60,000 and 70,000 US troops stationed throughout the Middle East, and their families – including ours – waited for reaction to Soleimani’s assassination.

“Many of our military families are expressing a real sense of tiredness, dread, and sadness over the latest developments in the Middle East,” said Stephen L. Peters II, a Marine veteran and Director of Communications and Marketing for Modern Military Association of America.

Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International, issued a warning: “In times of war, majorities scapegoat minorities, and the result is increased verbal and physical hatred toward those of us who are LGBTIQ, women, people of color, immigrants, or members of religious or ethnic minorities.”

Shyne, who later became the first out Iranian-American Mayor of West Hollywood, also noted that “people now in Iran are becoming united against a common enemy, which is now the Trump administration.”

This Iran War, Operation Epic Fury, started on Feb. 28, 2026, with Israel’s surprise Blue Sparrow ballistic missile attack that killed Ayatollah Khamenei and his top deputies, a blast so significant that debris was found in western Iraq.

The next day, after an Islamic radical shot up an Austin bar, Homeland Security issued a warning: “Although a large-scale physical attack is unlikely, Iran and its proxies probably pose a persistent threat of ​targeted attacks in the Homeland, and will almost certainly escalate retaliatory actions — or calls to action,” as well as attacking US targets in the Middle East.

The DHS warning put LA city officials on alert, but with “no intelligence” of any terror threat ahead of Sunday’s March 8 event, 27,000 runners shared a historic race as American Nathan Martin edged Kenya’s Michael Kimani Kamau by 00.01 seconds – the closest finish in L.A. Marathon history.

The Marathon was scheduled early to avoid conflict with the Academy Awards on March 15 in Hollywood.

But who’s minding the intelligence? Trump thankfully fired DHS Sec. Kristi Noem, but he wants to replace her with a sycophantic loyalist.

And just days before the launch of the Iran War, FBI Director Kash Patel fired “a dozen agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit [CI-12] tasked with monitoring threats from Iran,” including “tracking foreign spies operating on US soil,” CNN reported March 3.

On Saturday, March 7, Trump said Iran “will be hit very hard” today, with new areas of the country under consideration for “complete destruction and certain death.” NBC News reported that Trump may put boots on the ground after lawmakers declined to restrict his war powers. And there still appears to be no evacuation plans as the war expands.

Tehran, meanwhile, is looking for new US assets to strike in response, a senior Iranian official told CNN.

Is the Port of Long Beach safe? Is someone checking to see whether the daily $1 billion Iran War price tag is accurate? Is the war really supposed to level out surging gas prices and higher food prices, even with a February jobs report showing 92,000 lost jobs, projecting a recession?

Trump promised to lower costs and avoid war. But power-hungry Trump has demanded an “unconditional surrender” by Iran and told Reuters he must play a role in selecting the country’s new leader, which hasn’t happened.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host who’s now the powerful Christian National in charge of the Pentagon, acts like a horny teenage gamer boasting about his cool “Call of Duty” kills.

“We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly,” The New Republic reported. “Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.” He “proudly crowed” about “no politically correct wars.”

Apparently, “end-times” Christian commanders at military posts are equally excited.

“A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that President Donald Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,’ according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer,” independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported on his Substack.

In the first 72 hours of the war, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) received more than 110 similar complaints from more than 40 different units across at least 30 military installations, Larson reported.

“The United States is waging a religious war. This is, at least, how dozens of fanatical U.S. military commanders understand President Donald Trump’s illegal assault on Iran: a messianic battle to bring about Jesus Christ’s return,” The Intercept reported March 5.

California has the nation’s largest military population, with over 157,000 active-duty personnel and more than 800,000 veterans; 44 military installations; contributes over $90 billion annually to the California economy, and provides over 700,000 jobs.

Have any of the gubernatorial candidates talked with military leaders in the state or DHS, or the FBI? Since both Christian nationals and the Islamic Republic hate gays, guess who gets to be the first fodder in a ground war? And with Trump and Hegseth’s childish antipathy toward California, guess who’ll get called up first? So, who do you want fighting back against that?

As journalist Mehdi Hasan writes in his piece “A Holy War Against Iran?” – “Remember: once messianic leaders start insisting that God is on their side in battle, making peace becomes almost impossible.”

What happens to everyday people, then?

This essay is cross-posted from Karen Ocamb’s Substack, LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters. 

If you’ve thumbed through socials over the holidays, you’ve likely been witness to obstinate aunties or mordant memes about family dinner politics. Somewhere during this doomscroll from hell, between the pumpkin spiced piety and eat, pray, trauma-dump narratives, rises a not-so-new yet trending topic: family estrangement. Cue the collective clutching of pearls.

For many non-queer (FKA “straight”) folks, this concept has a glisteningly new sense of significance. From therapeutic spheres to social platforms, family estrangement is no stranger to the current collective zeitgeist. Hell, even billi-illi-illionaire Oprah Winfrey spent an entire episode on the topic. Across many conversations there exists some debate on whether the “no contact” approach is just an excuse to ghost on family time or procrastinate on confronting difficult conversations with not-so-like-minded family members. But what rings true for so many of our beloved queer community is that estrangement from bloodkin is nothing new. It has been a thing for decades and then some, not some trending debate over seasonally appropriate hor d’oeuvres.  

Before we all start believing that family estrangement was recently invented by the same folks who brought us matcha scented pooperie and self-diagnosed neurodivergence, let’s look into what this term actually means, why it’s not always an act of narcissism, and how, for so many, it can be a long-overdue act of self-preservation.

Family estrangement can sound to some like a diagnosis or pathology, but it simply refers to a breakdown in emotional closeness between family members, sometimes to the extent of no contact. And it’s nothing new. What is new is its visibility as a topic of public discussion. This visibility comes with both empathy and judgment.

Estrangement is by no means rare. Research shows that about one in four American adults reports being estranged from at least one family member. According to sociologist Karl Pillemer’s national survey, roughly 27% of U.S. adults have cut off contact with a family member, translating to millions of people dealing with emotional or physical separation from family members of origin. Another YouGov poll found that 38% of adults are currently estranged from someone in their family, including siblings (24%), parents (16%), children (10%), and even grandparents (9%). So, yes, it’s a discussion not to shy away from.

Though estrangement is in no way beholden to queer folks, extensive research tells us that roughly half of LGBTQ+ adults report being estranged from their family of origin, which is significantly higher than the general population. This happens because when one’s identity is the source of familial rejection, one can either try to “fix” an unfixable situation or create new structures of acceptance and belonging. We queer folk have been nothing short of pioneers at the latter, finding our own chosen families that show us compassion in place of judgement. 

For most of the queer community, estrangement isn’t a trending form of self-care. It’s self-preservation and, unfortunately for many, a matter of safety. Parents and family members who refuse to accept one’s sexuality or gender identity can fuel environments where safety, emotional, physical, or otherwise, is no longer present.

When mental health professionals talk about estrangement, they tend not to downplay it as some trending aura-cleansing enema. They describe it as a shift in dynamics with the goal of safety and protection. It isn’t about punishing parents or anyone else. It’s doing what one needs to do to protect their well-being.

And this can leave many with those lingering voices in their heads (metaphor) telling us that we should be thankful, should be more forgiving, be present despite our cores telling us not to. But when you take a step back and look at it from an outside perspective, we can also see that holding gratitude does not necessitate harm. Forgiving does not translate to or go hand in hand with forgetting. Being present for your own needs takes precedence over forcing yourself to be present for others. Not all others deserve it.

Now, let’s not slip into looking at this as an all-or-nothing scenario. It’s more often than not a disservice to yourself to see things in black or white. In reality, the path looks different for everyone. Like most things, it is a spectrum that everyone needs to navigate for themselves while taking into consideration the boundaries that protect their own mental health. Opting for complete silence is not always the best fit and is by no means the only option one has.

For an arguably lucky few, reinitiating conversations after time apart and mutual effort eventually presents itself as an option. Estrangement doesn’t have to be permanent. Reengagement won’t necessarily occur overnight and will take some effort and recalibrating, not to mention, caution.

Like *ssholes, everybody has opinions that more often than not stink. There is a growing number of folks who argue that estrangement is a trend birthed from selfishness. The irony here is that the more people protest, the more evident it is that it is ingrained in our society to respect and honor our blood ties unconditionally. We are told to honor our parents and elders without asking whether they deserve it. We have been force-fed the “family first” narrative even when that same narrative has invited harm into our lives. F*ck that. 

If we are to discuss estrangement as a trend, let us at least be specific. The trend isn’t people walking away from families. The trend is people beginning to publicly acknowledge that it happened, as opposed to keeping things hush-hush. It’s about damn time we as a society shake off the taboo and open the conversation.

Family estrangement is not about shunning love. Rather, it is recognizing when it has been overshadowed and rendered dormant by judgement and rejection. Stepping away from the hate and the damage it leaves in its path is no easy feat and sometimes requires tapping into our reserves of bravery but will leave you that much more resilient. It will also leave you with more time and energy than can be spent on the folks in our lives who truly deserve it. When the old definition of “family” is no longer working for you, make your own path and your own peace. 

By West Hollywood Councilmember John M. Erickson

The recent decision by the LA28 board to publicly back Chair Casey Wasserman, despite his unequivocal connection to the Epstein files, raises serious questions about who we are as a region and what we value. 

As the The Los Angeles Times reported this week, the LA28 organizing committee reaffirmed its support for Wasserman after his name appeared in documents associated with Jeffrey Epstein. According to the reporting, Wasserman has denied any wrongdoing, and LA28 leadership has characterized the matter as resolved from their perspective.

While it is important to point out that no criminal charges have been filed against Wasserman, there is no formal finding of wrongdoing. But that is hardly the point. 

The leadership of a global institution like the Olympics requires more than the absence of charges. It requires moral clarity, public trust, and an acute awareness of how decisions resonate with survivors of abuse and exploitation.

Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender whose crimes represent one of the most horrific trafficking and abuse scandals in modern history. For survivors, the pain is not abstract or historical. It is ongoing. Institutions that appear dismissive of legitimate public concern risk compounding that harm.

The Los Angeles Times made clear that the LA 28 board has chosen to stand firmly behind Wasserman. That is its prerogative. But when an organization tasked with hosting the Olympic Games closes ranks so quickly, it raises a larger question. What standard of accountability are we applying? If Wasserman weren’t rich and politically connected, would he get the same type of protection?  The answer is clearly NO. But because of his social and political position, he is given a pass while the survivors of Epstein and his friends’ unconscionable actions against women and girls are swept under the rug.  

If LA28 is serious about supporting survivors, and it has repeatedly stated that it is, then it must act like it. Acting like it means understanding that even associations or appearances connected to a known sex offender require extraordinary transparency and humility. It means recognizing that the bar for leading the Olympic Games is not simply the absence of an indictment, but unimpeachable credibility. 

This is not about presuming guilt. It is about recognizing responsibility. It is about questioning Wasserman’s moral compass. 

The Olympic and Paralympic Games are not merely a sporting spectacle. And they are bigger than any one individual. They are about integrity, excellence, and respect. Those values are not symbolic. They must be embodied by those at the very top.

For that reason, I am introducing a resolution alongside my colleague Councilmember Chelsea Byers at our Monday, March 2 City Council meeting, formally denouncing Casey Wasserman’s continued involvement as Chair of LA28 and as an ambassador for Los Angeles while this controversy remains unresolved in the public mind. West Hollywood will be the first city in the nation to call for his removal and to urge LA28 to issue an unequivocal apology to survivors who may feel retraumatized or dismissed by the organization’s response.

I applaud Mayor Karen Bass for calling on Wasserman to resign. While she does not have the power to remove him—only LA 28 does—it will take a collective effort of other cities and civic leaders to take action. Every one of us must ask ourselves: are we serious about standing with survivors, and if so, every one of us must act.  Public trust is fragile. The Olympic Games demand the highest ethical standards from their leadership. Anything less undermines not only the credibility of LA28 but the values the Games are supposed to represent.

Los Angeles has time to get this right. The world is watching. Times up for Wasserman. 

John Erickson is a Councilmember and Former Mayor of the City of West Hollywood and a candidate for California State Senate District 24. 

The night was meant to be a celebration. At the British Academy Film Awards, an institution that claims to pride itself on honoring the best in international cinema, the cast and creatives of Sinners arrived as nominees, as artists, as guests. Instead, they were confronted with a word that should have no oxygen left in public life.

On stage, actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were visibly jarred. You could see it flicker across their faces, the moment when shock and dismay meet recognition. And yet they both proceeded unflinchingly with grace and poise, because that is what Black people so often have to do to keep progress progressing. Tough skin. Resilience. Smile through it. Keep it moving.

But what is undeniable is the weight. The weight that that particular slur carries, especially when it comes from the mouth of a white person. It carries centuries of hate, atrocities, and trauma. It echoes lynchings and segregation, caricatures and exclusion. It is one of the most violent linguistic relics in the English language, and it is an undeniable trigger, a generational trauma that continues to afflict an entire demographic of the population. There is no casual context in which it lands softly, and no stage vast or shiny enough to dilute its history.

BAFTA eventually apologized. Too little, too late. This is your stage, and these are your guests. It is your responsibility to protect and advocate for them in the moment, not hours later when headlines begin to circulate. Award shows have removed attendees for far less. If a guest shouts a bomb threat, if someone storms the stage, or if there is a physical altercation, swift action follows. Why, then, does a quintessentially racist slur prompt hesitation? Why is decorum preserved more urgently than dignity?

Complicity is far too telling, and passivity is far too common. When celebs like Neil Patrick Harris retreat behind tiresome labels of “apolitical,” what they are really aiming to guard is not neutrality but comfort. As a gay white man, Harris exists in a space where his privileged identity eclipses his marginalized identity. His queerness can be selectively foregrounded, while the protections afforded by his whiteness shield him from realities faced by communities who wear their otherness on their skin. This insulation Harris possesses makes silence that much more palatable to his tongue.

Hollywood no doubt understands the power of narrative control better than any industry. Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund “Uncle Sigi” Freud, built the blueprint for modern propaganda by teaching institutions how to shape perception, manufacture consent, and quell public outrage. That legacy of image management continues today with folks like with Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph, Edward Bernays’s own nephew (runs in the family). The industry knows how to redirect attention, isolate incidents, and reframe harm as a simple and easily forgivable and forgettable misunderstanding.

Back to the BAFTAs, I understand that John Donovan lives with Tourette’s syndrome, and that tics are involuntary. This reality deserves full acknowledgment. Neurological conditions are not punchlines, nor are they moral failings. But accountability and accommodation can coexist. One question remains conspicuously unanswered in much of the coverage: did Mr. Donovan, as “mortified” as he claims to have been, immediately excuse himself from the room? Did he remove himself from the space as soon as the word left his mouth? Or were his apologies as delayed as BAFTA’s?

Too many are quick to reduce the entire incident to a diagnosis, as though that ends the conversation. If this grown man is of sound mind enough to create and promote a film about his experience living with Tourette syndrome, then surely he is also capable of understanding the magnitude of that word and the necessity of immediate harm mitigation. A condition may explain behavior. It does not erase impact. It does not absolve institutions from responding decisively.

Coverage has framed the moment as an isolated incident during the awards ceremony. But Sinners production designer Hannah Beachler tells a different story. “I keep trying to write about what happened at the BAFTAs, and I can’t find the words. The situation is almost impossible, but it happened three times that night, and one of the three times was directed at myself on the way to dinner after the show.”

Three times.

Why, then, is most coverage focusing solely on the on-stage incident? Because that one was caught live, in front of cameras, in front of an auditorium of witnesses. It is easier to contain a scandal to a single viral clip than to interrogate a broader culture. But if it happened three times in one evening, the problem is an environment, not a single tic-induced outburst. Again, BAFTA, who are you letting into the party? What safeguards are in place? What standards are enforced when the cameras are off, and the ancillary festivities and dinners begin?

One glaring example of misplaced priorities came when the BBC chose to edit out filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr’s call to “free Palestine” from its televised BAFTA coverage, while simultaneously failing to remove the audible racial slurs. Folks couldn’t help but take notice that both decisions happened within the same two-hour tape-delayed broadcast window, yet the network found time to censor a politically charged solidarity statement while allowing the slur to slide through unscathed. This discrepancy raises questions about what content editors deem unacceptable versus what they allow to reach millions of viewers. The caucacity is truly mind-boggling and blood-curdling.

The fact that this occurred on such a prestigious platform in 2026 and was met with delayed apologies that skirt clear culpability is precisely why Black history cannot remain a neatly packaged 28-day-long pat on the back. It must be in the curriculum in schools. It must be contextual in conversations. It must be uncomfortable because it is necessary. Because when people understand the lineage of that word, its architecture of harm, its function as a weapon, maybe, just maybe, they will treat it as such.

This isn’t about political correctness. It is a matter of institutional responsibility and whether global stages will continue to rely on the grace of Black artists to absorb humiliation in real time.  Progress does not sustain itself on resilience alone. It requires intervention and accountability. And sometimes, it requires cleaning house before you roll out the red carpet again. Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, you two kings have stoicism and poise that far surpass my own. That said – Take a seat, BAFTA, you arcane fraternity of troglodytes. 

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.