There is a dangerous silence surrounding intersex lives in Ghana — a silence shaped by fear, misinformation, cultural misunderstanding, and institutional neglect. Today, amid discussions around the possible passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, that silence risks becoming law, reinforcing exclusion and deepening the marginalization of already invisible lives. 

Much of the national debate surrounding the bill has focused on LGBTQ+ identities. Yet buried within it are implications for intersex persons that many Ghanaians do not fully understand because intersex realities remain largely invisible. 

Intersex persons are born with natural variations in chromosomes, hormones, reproductive anatomy, and/or genital characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female bodies. Intersex is not a sexual orientation or gender identity. It is a biological reality. Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has clearly acknowledged this distinction. 

Despite this distinction, the bill mistakenly collapses intersex realities into a legal framework linked to LGBTQ+ criminalization. 

Although the bill contains only limited references to intersex persons, under certain medical exceptions, these references do not amount to recognition or protection. Instead, they frame intersex bodies as abnormalities requiring regulation, correction, and institutional management. This approach is inconsistent not only with Ghana’s constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality, privacy, and liberty, but also with emerging African and international human rights standards. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Intersex Persons in Africa – ACHPR/Res.552 (LXXIV) 2023 affirms protections relating to bodily integrity, dignity, freedom from discrimination, and against harmful medical practices. Additionally, the United Nations has repeatedly condemned medically unnecessary and non-consensual interventions on intersex children. Rather than affirming the humanity and autonomy of intersex persons, the bill risks legitimizing systems of surveillance, coercion, violence, and institutional erasure. 

This is not protection.

It is managed erasure.

A child born intersex in Ghana already enters a society shaped by secrecy and stigma. Families are often pressured to hide intersex children or seek “correction” to make their bodies conform to social expectations. 

The bill risks intensifying this pressure.

Clause 17 creates space for “approved service providers” to support interventions relating to intersex persons, yet offers little protection around informed consent, bodily autonomy, confidentiality, or coercive treatment. Under the language of “correction” or “support,” harmful interventions may become normalized.

The intersex community has documented painful lived experiences of intersex Ghanaians that reveal the devastating consequences of stigma and invisibility. 

One heartbreaking case involved intersex twins born in Ghana’s Eastern Region in 1993, who were repeatedly forced to move from village to village because of rejection and ridicule. After losing their father, their main source of protection and support, they became even more vulnerable and reportedly experienced severe emotional distress, including suicidal thoughts linked to years of stigma and exclusion. This is what invisibility looks like in practice. 

Another painful example is the story of Ativor Holali, whose lived experience exposed the cruel realities intersex persons face in sports and public life. Ativor Holali endured invasive scrutiny, public humiliation, and social suspicion because her body did not conform to rigid expectations of femininity. Rather than being protected as a Ghanaian athlete deserving dignity and privacy, she became the subject of speculation, gossip, and institutional discomfort.

Her experience reflects a broader social crisis: when society insists that every body must fit a narrow binary definition, intersex people are forced to defend their humanity in spaces where dignity should already be guaranteed.

Intersex Persons Society Of Ghana (IPSOG)’s Ŋusẽdodo research further revealed that approximately 70 percent of intersex respondents reported depression, anxiety, trauma, or severe emotional distress linked to medical mistreatment, family rejection, bullying, and social exclusion.

The bill risks transforming these existing prejudices into institutional policy. Several provisions risk deepening surveillance, restricting advocacy, weakening confidentiality, and discouraging public education around intersex realities. Intersex-led organizations providing healthcare guidance, legal referrals, psychosocial support, and community services may face serious challenges.

This places IPSOG and other intersex-led organizations in Ghana at serious risk.

For many intersex Ghanaians, these spaces are not political luxuries.

They are survival mechanisms.

Governments derive legitimacy by protecting the natural rights of all persons, including dignity, liberty, bodily autonomy, and freedom from arbitrary interference. The bill raises concerns because it risks weakening these protections for intersex persons through surveillance, coercive interventions, and restrictions on advocacy.

Ghana’s Constitution declares that “the dignity of all persons shall be inviolable.” Articles 15, 17, 18, and 21 specifically protect dignity, equality, privacy, expression, and freedom of association. These protections should apply equally to intersex persons. 

Intersex persons are not threats to Ghanaian culture.

Intersex children are not moral dangers.

Intersex bodies are not political weapons.

They are human beings deserving dignity, healthcare, safety, and constitutional protection. 

The true measure of a democracy is how it protects those most vulnerable to exclusion. At this moment, Ghana faces a choice: deepen fear and silence, or uphold dignity, bodily autonomy, and constitutional freedom for intersex persons. 

History will remember the choice we make.

Fafali Delight Akortsu is the founder and president of the Intersex Persons Society of Ghana (IPSOG).

On May 5, I spoke by phone with Wilfred Labiosa, executive director of Waves Ahead, a Puerto Rico-based LGBTQ+ community organization that for years has provided mental health services, support programs, and safe spaces for vulnerable communities across the island. During our conversation, Labiosa confirmed every concern described in the organization’s public statement announcing the cancellation of “Live Your Pride,” an event scheduled for Sunday in the northwestern municipality of Isabela. But beyond the financial struggles and organizational challenges, what stayed with me most was the emotional weight behind his words. There was pain in his voice while describing what it means to watch spaces like these slowly disappear.

This was not simply the cancellation of a community event.

“Live Your Pride” had been envisioned as a celebration and affirming gathering for LGBTQ+ older adults and their allies in Puerto Rico. In a society where many LGBTQ+ elders spent decades hiding parts of themselves in order to survive, spaces like this carry enormous emotional and social significance. They become places where people can finally exist openly, without fear, apology, or shame.

That is why this cancellation matters far beyond Isabela.

What is happening in Puerto Rico cannot be separated from the broader political climate unfolding across the U.S. and its territories, where programs connected to diversity, inclusion, education, mental health, and LGBTQ+ visibility increasingly find themselves under political attack. These changes do not always arrive through dramatic announcements. More often, they happen quietly. Funding disappears. Community organizations weaken. Safe spaces become harder to sustain. Eventually, the absence itself begins to feel normal.

That normalization is dangerous.

For years, organizations like Waves Ahead have stepped into gaps left behind by institutions and governments, particularly in communities where LGBTQ+ people continue facing discrimination, social isolation, economic instability, and mental health struggles. Their work has never been limited to organizing events. It has involved accompanying people through loneliness, trauma, rejection, depression, aging, and survival itself.

“Live Your Pride” represented much more than entertainment. It represented visibility for LGBTQ+ older adults, many of whom survived decades of family rejection, religious exclusion, workplace discrimination, violence, and silence. These are individuals who came of age during years when living openly could cost someone employment, housing, relationships, or personal safety. Many learned to survive by making themselves invisible.

When spaces like this disappear, something deeply human is lost.

A gathering is canceled, yes, but so is an opportunity for healing, connection, recognition, and dignity. For many LGBTQ+ older adults, especially in smaller municipalities across Puerto Rico, these events are not secondary luxuries. They are reminders that their lives still matter in a society that too often treats aging and queer existence as disposable.

There are still political and religious sectors that portray the rainbow as some kind of ideological threat. But the rainbow does not erase anyone. It illuminates people and stories that society has often tried to ignore. It reflects the lives of young people forced out of their homes, transgender individuals targeted by violence, older adults aging in silence, and families that spent years defending their right to exist openly.

Perhaps that is precisely why the rainbow unsettles some people so deeply.

Its colors expose abandonment, hypocrisy, inequality, and fear. They force societies to confront realities that are easier to ignore than to address honestly. They reveal how fragile human dignity becomes when political agendas decide that certain communities are no longer worthy of protection, funding, or visibility.

The greatest concern here is not solely the cancellation of one event in one Puerto Rican town. The deeper concern is the message quietly taking shape behind decisions like these — the idea that some communities can wait, that some lives deserve fewer resources, and that safe spaces for vulnerable people are expendable during moments of political tension.

History has shown repeatedly how social regression begins. Rarely with one dramatic act. More often through exhaustion, silence, budget cuts, and the slow dismantling of organizations doing essential community work.

Even so, Waves Ahead made one thing clear in its statement. Although “Live Your Pride” has been canceled, the organization will continue providing mental health and community support services through its centers across Puerto Rico. That commitment matters because people do not survive on slogans alone. They survive because somewhere there are still open doors, trained professionals, supportive communities, and people willing to remain present when the world becomes colder and more hostile.

Puerto Rico should pay close attention to what this moment represents. No healthy society is built by weakening the organizations that care for vulnerable people. No government should feel comfortable watching community groups struggle to survive while attempting to provide services and compassion that public institutions themselves often fail to offer.

The rainbow has never been the problem.

The real problem is the discomfort created when its colors force society to confront the wounds, inequalities, and human realities that too many people would rather keep hidden.

Takeaways from the CNN CA Gubernatorial debate last night. Californians are just a month shy of voting for the person who will replace Gavin Newsom as governor of this incredible, incredibly expensive, myth-producing state. But watching tonight’s debate felt a little like experiencing Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” set in some old LA bar with seven characters high on their own supply going on about their “pipe dreams” with the others listening only for openings to get their digs in. What this version of the play lacked was a sober Hickey character played by Democrat Tony Thurmond to act as the moral center, someone to speak truth to the presumed power of a passionate sound bite.

Centerless, I struggled to get engaged because in this world, right now, we need our pipe dreams to live on as we madly steam into the June 2 jungle primaries. But I was taken by no one. And that’s a problem since I just got my ballot in the mail.

So here are my thoughts and observations as I do my 6 or 7 on who to vote for.

Republican Steve Hilton was given the center TV spot on stage because he has one percentage point more than Democrat Tom Steyer in the latest poll before tonight’s debate. Hilton, who is endorsed by Trump and refuses that the Donald lost the 2020 election, blamed Democrats for everything with a British accent, snide FOX TV host façade, and simplistic rhetoric designed to make people nod. The other Republican, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, went from cartoonish to creepy, arrogant bully when he defended the Oath Keepers.

Low-polling Democrats Antonio Villaraigosa and Matt Mahan each had their sparkling moments but took the gloves off in attacking Xavier Becerra for knowing about a financial scandal involving his former chief of staff when Becerra was HHS Secretary. Becerra and Villaraigosa have often sparred publicly – but this was another level. “Character matters,” Villaraigosa said after calming down from a very real flash of anger.

Becerra’s response was weak, saying that if Trump’s DOJ something was there, he’d be named in the indictment too – but he’s not. He didn’t answer the “Yeah, but you knew about it” part.

This is an issue because Becerra seems to have inherited Eric Swalwell voters and jettisoned up in the polls while more and more former Biden staff colleagues said Becerra was “ineffective” in his job and would have the guts to stand up to Trump.

Katie Porter let everyone know she was behaving well onstage, even as she was virtually ignored by the TV hosts. And she got some good zingers and excellent financial points in. But while she acknowledged her leaked-video “mistake” and apologized for how she reacted to an obstinate reporter by bitching at her staff, Katie Porter’s personality transplant still only barely covered the sense that she was really an old, too-stern Mother Superior with a ruler.

Tom Steyer came off at times like a bobble-head billionaire. And while he virtually oozes authenticity, he also has an air of incredulity that some people don’t get his legit passionate commitment and sincerity. Sometimes he seems genuinely surprised that not everyone knows about his past endeavors and the Great Good motives behind them. That said, I do believe Tom Styers would know how to stand up to Trump and could even possibly pull off some deals to help the environment that no one now sees coming.

Plus, I confess – I liked Styers’ answer to who should play him in a movie. Gregory Peck, he said. He didn’t care that Peck has been dead for a long time. I think he was thinking of Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird” – and he, too, was thinking “character matters.”

There’s another gubernatorial debate on Wednesday night on KNBC4. I’ll wait for that before I decide how I’m going to vote.

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

Beautiful San Diego, the second largest city in California, is shuddering through challenging times. Amid city deficits, federal budget cuts and emotional and fiscal consternation over the war in Iran, the LGBTQ+ community is facing, what to some, is an ego-driven tiff and, to others, is a deep dispute over transparency and trust between the San Diego LGBT Community Center and Stonewall Generation seniors who want to know what’s happening with an $18.9 million gift their late friends bequeathed the Center for senior services, programs, and housing.

While this may seem like some niche soap opera that will blow over with enough delay, the circumstances are darker and more dire than the drama reveals. On the surface, exchanges between the two camps appear politely professional. But there is a deep, widening, and hardening chasm developing between those who fought for gay liberation when homosexuality was still a criminal perversion, and the Center board and staff committed to protecting vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth who only know Trumpian cacophony in a nihilistic world.

The feud is growing so loud that it is drowning out the fiscal winds banging outside the Center door, harbingers of massive tornadoes threatening to obliterate the house. The “what ifs” are near: what if government funding is cut to the quick and donors start questioning their once-firm trust in Center management?

Particularly painful: a source overheard some Center youth dismiss the Stonewall Generation seniors: “They’re just bitter old racist cis queens causing all the trouble.” What happens if a significant number of gay white men act on what is now just a whispered feeling: “Why should I care about the Center? They hate us!”

Who’s going to fund the Center without an engaged and unified community?

The terrible irony is that without recognition of the stakes and the need for authentic negotiation, the feud may render the Center complicit in Project 2025’s erasure of LGBTQ+ people.

Context: The Gathering Storm

San Diego was once a bastion of conservative Republicanism, but its political landscape has skewed blue over the past two decades, led in part by trailblazing out lesbian political icons Christine Kehoe and Toni Atkins, who paved the way for Todd Gloria to become the first out LGBTQ+ person and the first person of color to serve as the city’s mayor.

But with the historic honor comes grave responsibility, including Gloria’s proposed $2.2 billion budget for the new fiscal year with significant cuts to close a projected $146 million deficit. “Find the money elsewhere,” protesters at City Hall screamed at a Monday night meeting on April 20th.

In early April, Trump revealed his full discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2027 – obviously not including expected requests for the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of the incident at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. The budget would reduce nondefense discretionary spending by $73 billion, including $33.5 billion in funding cuts for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to a bipartisan policy analysis.

Despite promises not to cut safety net programs — and an added $174 million in prospective renovations to his $400 million gilded ballroom — Trump later said it’s “not possible” for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs, adding that the states should “take care” of those programs while the federal government focuses on the military. The food assistance program SNAP has already dropped 2.5 million people.

Steve Rattner, a prominent economic analyst, told MS NOW that Trump’s proposed budget is a reincarnation of Project 2025. If passed, the budget would be the most dramatic re-structuring of federal government spending “since certainly the New Deal and who knows when beyond that.”

The proposed cuts are real, deep, wide, and cultural. Preparing for America’s 250th anniversary, Trump issued Executive Order 14253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History and ordered a sweep of the Smithsonian Institution: “Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.” Historic narratives to be “corrected” include exhibits about slavery, the violent Manifest Destiny ruination of Indigenous people and the relatively new recognition of LGBTQ+ history.

But not all anti-LGBTQ+ cultural attacks are happening behind closed doors. Last year, San Diego woke up to the Union-Tribune headline: “Chucky Lozano’s injury, homophobic chant temper San Diego FC’s soccer celebration.” SDFC coach Mike Varas decried the one-word chant as “palabras discriminatorias” or “discriminatory language.”

The infamous homophobic soccer chant recently resurfaced in Mexico, which is co-hosting the 2026 World Cup with the US and Canada. FIFA has scheduled eight matches this summer in LA’s SoFi Stadium, including the highly coveted U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) opening match. Think security and Border Patrol will care about a little sports-related gay-bashing during Pride season?

Violence is in the air, with winds picking up speed, veering toward the vulnerable.

The Feud, in Summary

The San Diego LGBT Center is aware of the pending fiscal crisis. On July 3, 2025, the Center issued an urgent preemptive warning to its 106 employees of possible layoffs around Sept. 6 in anticipation of federal cuts. Center spokesperson Gus Hernandez told the San Diego Union-Tribune that about $4.4 million of the Center’s $15.5 million budget comes from federal grants from HUD and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“It’s very precarious right now with the federal funding,” Hernandez said. “We’re not putting on rose-colored glasses … We think it will happen to us.”

It didn’t. There were no layoffs. The Union-Tribune noted the Center’s growth from 63 employees and a budget under $5 million in 2015 to 106 on staff and more than $15 million in July 2025.

“The nonprofit’s tax filings have been audited every year since 2011, and from 2021 to 2023, the audits found repeated deficiencies in The Center’s financial reporting. The Center’s most recent audit, for the fiscal year ending June 2024, came back without any concerns,” the Union-Tribune reported. “The Center did not immediately respond to questions about why it took so long to correct the deficiencies, but Hernandez blamed the problems on rapid and unexpected growth at the Center.”

“We’ve been growing a little bit faster than we anticipated,” Hernandez said. “Every year, we’ve just been growing and growing and adding programs and adding services. And I think in that growth process … we weren’t keeping up our accounting to match that growth.”

A handful of Stonewall Generation seniors pressed the Center board for a more complete and thorough explanation of why their published Financial Statements and Annual Reports from 2021 to 2023 show changing descriptions of what the seniors assume is the $18.9 million gift from the estate of Maurice Thimot and M. Rust Rawnsley.

On Tuesday, April 21, Ted Callam, Charles “Chuck” Kaminski, and Elaine Lewis of Pride Across Generations and 120 community supporters issued a press release calling for attendance at the Center board meeting on Tuesday, April 28, 6:30 PM at the Center Auditorium. They said Note 15 in the Center’s 2025 audit “raises serious questions.”

The audit “shows that nearly $1 million was reclassified as donor-restricted — retroactively to 2023,” they reported. “In plain terms: funds previously treated as unrestricted are now being acknowledged as restricted all along. The amount closely matches the annual income associated with the Thimot–Rawnsley Fund bequest.”

And that, they said, “creates urgent questions for the community,” including “Who is advising these decisions on behalf of our community?”

“This is not about speculation. It is about transparency, accountability, and honoring donor intent. The stakes reach beyond one fund. This affects trust in the Center and confidence across San Diego’s senior LGBTQ+ community,” they said. “We are not asking for more. We are asking for clear answers — and for what was already meant for our community.”

The board responded two days later, via an April 23 email from longtime Center board member Sue Reynolds, who thanked the leaders for their letter and promised to pass it along to the board treasurer and the rest of the board. She then noted the message attached at the end of a promotion for the Dining Out for Life event held that night, which “responds to the questions/issues you posed.”

Here’s the Center’s message:

And herein lies the crux of the feud.

The Center may be transparent with the government and general public about its numbers, but these Stonewall Generation retired professionals – who are not accountants – are transparently honest and quick to fix a misconception.

“In our previous email, we pointed out Note 15 in the 2025 audit report. The Center clarified that the Note refers to another Center program and not to the Thimot Rawnsley Fund. If only the Center would respond as rapidly and as clearly with regard to the Fund questions we have asked them, we would then expect these issues raised to be resolved,” Kaminski wrote to supporters Sunday night.

The Stonewall Seniors have been asking about the donation since Center CEO Cara Dessert first announced it in the Center’s June 13, 2022, newsletter.

“This amazing couple has created a legacy for our community’s future, directing The Center to establish a fund, The Maurice J. Thimot and M. Rust Rawnsley Fund (the Thimot and Rawnsley Fund). The purpose of the Thimot and Rawnsley Fund includes investing in our LGBTQ seniors. We look forward to stewarding this fund by investing in our senior services, exploring long-term investments in capital projects, and soliciting feedback from our community,” Dessert wrote.

“Once we have a full understanding of the fund and any proceeds from the fund itself, we look forward to sharing more with our Center community and seeking input about our future!” she continued. “We are deeply grateful to Rust and Maurice for their confidence in The Center, their generosity, and their care for our San Diego LGBTQ community, especially our seniors. Stay tuned for more information about the Thimot and Rawnsley Fund at The Center!”

The Stonewall Seniors expected their input to be solicited and questions answered such as: could the $18.9 million and the interest it generates be used for something other than senior housing and programs, as the late gay couple had often publicly discussed? In the March 31, 1990 issue of Update discussing SAGE, for instance, Maurice J. Thimot specifically talked about housing.

There’s also precedent. When Dr. Delores Jacobs announced her retirement as the Center’s chief executive in June 2018, for instance, “more than 200 interviews and focus groups, [and] feedback was solicited regarding characteristics sought in the new Center chief executive, led by Board Co-Chair Joyce Rowland,” the Center announced.

The Stonewall Seniors say the Center has given varied explanations about the gift, the first $10 million of which came in 2022, the remainder in 2024, and they want to see the language of the Thimot-Rawnsley estate trust to find out how their bequest was to be used.

“It’s four years of interpretations, four years of shifting explanations, four years of telling this community to trust them without ever producing the one document that would actually answer the question,” said Ted Callam, who served on the Center’s senior advisory committee before it was disbanded and replaced with new members.

Center officials initially said the gift would be used for community programs and spaces with an emphasis on seniors. There was also talk of expanding the building, according to Callam, Kaminski, and Lewis. But that did not come to fruition. Then, last December, Center leaders said the gift was restricted to seniors, housing, and housing-related services and could not be used to establish a senior center.

Earlier, the Center’s board of directors had approved an annual draw of $350,000 from the bequest to fund housing navigation, rental assistance, and eviction prevention. Center officials further said interest income may be used for certain interconnected services, on the basis that seniors are part of everything the group does. But now the $350,000 draw has been paused until the Center hears from its attorneys and consultants.

In a recent newsletter, Center officials said they are “awaiting final guidance and will continue providing transparent, quarterly updates, with our next update scheduled for this summer.”

“We’ve watched the story change,” Callam said. “So senior programs and services, then senior housing, then housing and related services, and now ‘we’re awaiting guidance.’”

At the Center’s March 24 board meeting, several seniors spoke up, including Tom Kirkman, who ran San Diego’s SAGE Center from 2000 to 2009, when Thimot was on the board of that organization.

“Maurice and Rusty were very interested in the quality of life for seniors,” Kirkman told LGBTQ Freedom Fighters. He believes they would have wanted their bequest to support senior services, although he hasn’t seen whatever document governs that. “I’m looking forward to seeing that document,” he said. (San Diego’s SAGE organization, now disbanded, was independent and not affiliated with the national group of the same name.)

LGBTQ+ seniors initially offered to help the Center decide how to spend the bequest, Lewis said. “They said, ‘Yes, we want the community involved. Yes, we’re going to talk to the community,” she recalled.

Both Lewis and Callam have experience in designing surveys, and they decided to create one, only to find that the Center had sent one out already. That survey was useless because it didn’t ask if respondents were part of the LGBTQ+ community, she said.

Kaminski has filed three ethics complaints with the California attorney general’s office over the handling of the bequest. A staff member responded that the AG’s office does not have the resources to investigate every complaint filed and that it does not investigate certain types of complaints. The staffer also told Kaminski that the AG does not comment on ongoing or potential investigations, which was the same answer LGBTQ Freedom Fighters received.

As for the legalities concerning the Center’s use of the funds: If there are written restrictions on a donation’s use, the terms are legally binding. Only the donors, not the recipient, can impose such restrictions. But the terms do not have to be shared publicly, according to the National Council of Nonprofits.

“Because this was a complex, multi‑property estate, we conducted an extensive, multi‑year due diligence process with legal and accounting specialists. We are implementing a clear strategy that strengthens current services benefiting LGBTQ+ seniors while ensuring long‑term organizational stability and compliance with donor intent,” Center spokesperson Hernandez said.

“Over the last nearly four years, The Center conducted a careful, thorough review of the $18.9 million bequest, which was received in full in September 2024. This review included monitoring the progress of the sale of 21 domestic and international properties and consultations with multiple specialists, who at times had differing opinions on the scope of the bequest’s intent,” he continued.

“To ensure that this extraordinary gift is used in the way it was intended, we assembled a team of experts that includes our attorneys and auditor. It took time to organize the team and for them to align on how the full gift could be utilized to maximize the benefit to the community. As we near the end of this long process, we are awaiting final guidance to ensure our shared interpretation follows all regulations related to charitable assets. We have paused the use of gift funds until that final guidance is confirmed,” Hernandez said.

The Center gave a similar answer to Manuel Reyes, an aide to San Diego City Council member Jennifer Campbell, who represents the district where the center is located. Callam, Kaminski, and Lewis did not find the answer satisfactory.

In a letter to Reyes and Campbell, they emphasized that the Center should release the original bequest language and questioned why, if the bequest required interpretation, it had taken so long. They also wondered if the funds had been used for purposes other than the donors intended.

Lewis, Callam, and Kaminski of Pride Across Generations said the Center has disrespected seniors in other ways. There used to be a drop-in room dedicated to seniors. “It was the perfect room, because it has an outside entrance, and there were always seniors in there, and there were snacks and conversation, and if somebody needed help, they could go in and ask,” Lewis said. But it was turned into an office, and senior resources were moved into a hallway off the library, which was inaccessible because of meetings in the library, and “even to get past the front desk, you had to ask permission and have some reason to be there,” she said.

The disbanding and replacement of the senior advisory committee is another sore point with the three. Center officials said they wanted a new model, but someone with the Center did comment that the earlier committee was “too white and too cisgender.” The new committee’s members and meeting dates are not made public, according to Kaminski, Lewis, and Callam. How do you get community information to a multi-layered secret committee, and how do you find out results?

“I have served on the boards of many nonprofits over nearly 50 years and I have never seen anything like this,” says out former KNBC4 reporter Garrett Glaser, who signed the Pride Generations’ March 15 letter to the Center board and senior leadership.

That letter says, in part: “When seniors ask questions about governance, finances, and mission alignment, they are not being disruptive—they are exercising their right to understand how an organization that claims to serve them is being run. Treating those questions as something to be managed or silenced undermines trust and excludes the very community the Center exists to support.

“Trust and transparency are earned through consistent integrity, not rhetoric. Until the Center demonstrates genuine accountability, transparency, and meaningful engagement with LGBTQ+ seniors, trust remains broken.”

So, who is asking what happens if and when that fiscal tornado hits?

Pride Across Generations requests your presence and possible participation in the Center’s board meeting on Tuesday, April 28 at 6:30 PM in the Center Auditorium. The theme: “Honor the Past. Secure the Future. Moments like this define institutions. Let’s show up—for transparency, accountability, and trust.”

The meeting will also be available on Zoom.

You can reach Pride Across Generations at:  [email protected]

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

A right does not need to be banned to be restricted. Sometimes it only needs to be made uncertain.

That is what emerges from a closer examination of adoption access for same-sex couples across different countries. There is no broad legal rollback. What appears instead is a more subtle pattern: rights that remain on paper but become fragile, conditional, and uneven in practice.

Italy provides a clear example.

Since 2023, under the government of Giorgia Meloni, administrative decisions have limited the automatic recognition of both mothers in female same-sex couples, particularly in cases involving assisted reproduction abroad. In practice, many families have been forced into additional legal proceedings to validate relationships already established.

At the same time, Italy has intensified its opposition to surrogacy, extending penalties even to those who pursue it outside the country. Human rights organizations have warned that these measures disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ families, particularly male couples.

The judiciary, however, has pushed back.

In 2025, the Constitutional Court ruled that a non-biological mother cannot be excluded from legal recognition when there is a shared parental project. It also removed a long-standing restriction that prevented single individuals from accessing international adoption.

Italy has not eliminated these rights. But it has made them unstable.

When a right depends on litigation, judicial timelines, or shifting interpretations, it is no longer fully guaranteed.

In the United States, the structure differs, but the outcome converges.

At the federal level, same-sex couples can adopt. Yet the system varies widely across states.

Data from the Movement Advancement Project show that while some states explicitly prohibit discrimination in adoption, others provide no clear protections. In several states, licensed agencies can refuse to work with same-sex couples based on religious objections.

Access, therefore, is shaped not only by law, but by geography, institutions, and applied standards.

Research from the Williams Institute further complicates the narrative. Same-sex couples adopt and foster children at higher rates than different-sex couples.

The contradiction is clear.

Child welfare is invoked, yet the pool of available families is reduced. Faith is cited, yet it is used as a filter within publicly funded systems.

The consequences are tangible
children remain longer in care
processes become more complex
families face unequal scrutiny

What is happening in Italy and the United States is not isolated. Across parts of Europe, conservative governments have advanced legal frameworks that reinforce traditional definitions of family while limiting recognition of diverse ones.

Adoption is not always addressed directly. But the impact accumulates.

Options are restricted while the language of protection is used to justify it.

There is no need to soften it.

This is not only a debate about family models. It is a decision about who is recognized as family and who must continue asking for permission.

That is not neutral.

It is political.

And when a right depends on where you live, who evaluates you, or how hard you are willing to fight for it, that right is already being weakened.

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

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.

If you ended last year feeling like you’ve dated everyone, tried everything, and there’s no one left, I want you to pause for a second because that feeling is incredibly common, especially for gay men.

So let me ask you something, honestly.

What are you going to do differently this year?

Are you just going to get back on the apps again?

Back on Grindr.

Back to the same bars.

Same patterns. Same guys. Same conversations.

And hope somehow this year turns out better?

If you change nothing, nothing changes.

A lot of men I talk to are stuck in this back and forth. Do I want a relationship, or do I just want something casual? Am I ready? Is the timing right? Should I focus on dating or my career? Do I have enough money saved? Am I far enough along in life?

That constant indecision keeps you stuck right where you are.

Then we pile on old rejection, trauma from growing up gay, low self-esteem, and suddenly we start believing we need someone hotter than us, richer than us, more put together than us to feel chosen.

But here’s the part I want you to really hear.

You don’t fall in love with a checklist.

You fall in love with how someone makes you feel.

Do they make you feel safe?

Do you feel calm around them?

Do you feel seen?

Do you laugh together?

Do you feel good being yourself?

That’s what actually builds connection.

Money doesn’t do that.

Abs don’t do that.

A job title doesn’t do that.

Those things can change. They come and go.

So here’s where I’m going to point the finger back to you, in a loving way.

If you’re clear on the kind of man you want, what are you doing to become closer to that person yourself?

If you want someone kind and generous, how are you practicing kindness and generosity in your daily life? Do you volunteer? Do you compliment the person standing next to you even when there’s no attraction? Do you lead with warmth or with judgment?

If you want someone who values family, how much time are you actually spending with yours? Do you prioritize relationships the way you want someone else to?

If you want someone with a full life, hobbies, passions, and friends, what does your life look like right now? Are you doing the things you say you want to do, or are you sitting on the couch thinking about them? You want to play piano. Travel. Hike. Be more active. What steps are you taking to actually live that life?

If you want someone active and adventurous, are you active and adventurous? If you want someone calm, grounded, and emotionally steady, how are you working on becoming grounded yourself? Do you meditate? Do yoga? Take some quiet time? Do anything that regulates your nervous system?

How about finding someone with an amazing body? How does your body look? Are you working out and eating well yourself? 

By the way, you can always help your partner get into healthier habits if you are practicing them yourself. 

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about alignment.

If you’re expecting someone to check every box while you’re not checking those boxes yourself, that’s not standards. That’s unrealistic expectations.

And remember, our dating pool is already small. Roughly four percent of the male population identifies as gay, bi, queer, or trans. Cut that down to people who are single. Then emotionally available. Then compatible. Then sexually compatible.

The number gets smaller fast.

So maybe this year we stop being so rigid.

Maybe we loosen the rules a little.

Maybe we focus less on the perfect body and more on the right energy.

Chemistry usually doesn’t show up on the first date. Most of the time it doesn’t. So if there’s even just a little attraction, kindness, and curiosity, maybe give it a second date. Maybe slow down long enough to actually see who’s in front of you.

Doing the same thing over and over is not dating. It’s just repeating patterns.

Dating with intention means being honest with yourself first.

If this year you’re ready to stop guessing, stop burning out on apps, and actually have a plan, matchmaking can help. You don’t need more options. You need clarity, accountability, and guidance from someone who understands queer dating and knows how to help you show up as your best self. If you’re serious about doing things differently this year, that’s where matchmaking comes in. Click here and let’s start 2025 right. 

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.

In the first week of September, I boarded an early Coast Starlight, crying quietly over a cold bagel as the train departed. It was a 12-hour trip from Emeryville to Los Angeles: plenty of time, I thought, to steep in my sadness as I left the home I had made for the last several years to start a new one in a bright, shiny city. I sat in silence, watching the sun press itself into the sea off the Santa Barbara coast, water and night parting me further and further away from my friends and community. 

When I arrived at Union Station, I stood at the platform and was surprised by how warm it was at 9 p.m. A giant skyscraper towered into the sky, glaring down at me with its golden glow and millions of windows. Welcome home. 

Since then, I’ve made a truce with the city. I’d always been in its orbit, having grown up in a small, suburban town northeast of it most of my life. But trips into L.A. proper were reserved for special occasions: birthday dinners in Little Tokyo at our favorite restaurant, the now-defunct Sushi Komasa. I had never ventured into the region’s vast queer gems and safe havens: places that I’m sure would have provided me assurance that it was okay to have crushes on people who weren’t boys (or to not have crushes at all!). 

As a computer kid, I subsisted on brief explorations on YouTube or clicking through various fanfiction forums. My queerness existed in the gay kiss scene of Cruel Intentions, reigniting with each press of the “play” button and shelved away when the tab closed. I operated like this for years, burying my desires and performing diligent, dependable elder child during the day. 

Today, I’m a community reporter at a proudly LGBTQ+ news outlet, where I get to spend most days with other queer folks, listening to their stories and trying to document their lives.

In the last few months, I’ve attended parties, press conferences, community gatherings and rallies that center the liberation of queer folks, specifically those who are multiply marginalized. I’ve spoken with strong leaders and advocates for the TGI movement, who fiercely advocate on a daily basis for greater protections for transgender, gender nonconforming, and intersex people. 

One of my most joyous reporting moments at the Blade includes attending the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s annual Queerceañera: where beloved drag diva Lushious Massacr floated across a stage, embraced by the love of her community as she celebrated and reclaimed the coming-of-age ceremony. With queer joy and communal love, she transformed into a beautiful, cascading butterfly on the precipice of flight. 

I also attended a transformative HIV/AIDS art exhibition curated by Anuradha Vikram, where a small gallery morphed into a living archive of revolutionary activism spearheaded during the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The intersections of history and art, and the unity amongst various queer people during this period, were truly inspiring to witness. Speaking with Vikram was instrumental in my early days at the Blade, and our conversation made me think critically about the ways queer activism has shifted dramatically in the decades since the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

How are young, queer people channeling their activism today? This is a question that continues to power my work as I report on our communities. 

Another valuable and crucial experience I had while working at the Blade was on World AIDS Day, where I covered a reading by the APLA Health writers group. Dozens of us stood by the pillars of West Hollywood’s AIDS monument and listened to the beautiful, moving prose of several writers who all had personal ties to the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 80s. I still think about John Boucher’s gorgeously crafted, heart-wrenching story. 

“I remember Rex coming through our front door after a trip, coming home from work, or at 2:30 in the morning after the bars had closed and he’d finished singing karaoke. As the black lacquer door opened into the goldfish-colored room, he’d sing: ‘Hello apartment,’ Boucher read. “He was greeting our life. His tenor voice was clear and true, his eyes the color of cornflower blue against the pinkish orange sunset of our living room. This is home.” 

These stories, rendered through the heartfelt voices of the people around me, remind me of the importance of this work. I struggled with my identity for most of my adolescence and early adulthood, and only began to really accept and understand myself around four years ago, when I began to develop blossoming friendships with queer people who were unabashed about their art, their euphoria, their juicy crushes. Their visibility and their joy, which became our shared visibility and joy, guide me in my most difficult moments.

This year, I suffered the tremendous loss of a dear friend who was a blazing, warm light for her community. She was a poet and artist who was outspoken in her activism and in her bold self-expression. She rejected shame with every fiber of her effervescent being and advocated for the protection of fellow trans women, disabled people, and queer people of color. Her loss is one I will carry with me forever, and anchors me in my work.

My work is for Mercedez, my queer AAPI siblings, queer youth, queer immigrants, queer disabled people, and everyone else who exists on our vast spectrum. 

Whether you have heard about the salacious sex scenes, the hype, or the attractive leads, Heated Rivalry has clearly found its place in the zeitgeist. Whether you’ve seen it, love it, hate it, or have strong opinions knowing nothing about it, this show has become a hot topic for the LGBTQ community. 

With public opinion of the LGBTQ community under fire, a show about closeted hockey players and their budding romance has galvanized audiences. Based on one of the Game Changers books by Rachel Ried, this series has launched countless memes, TikTok think pieces, and the stars appearing everywhere from Vanity Fair to Hi Tops bar in West Hollywood. 

Some of the hot takes include taking issue with the source material being penned by a woman, speculation over the sexual orientation of the stars, and, as actor Jordan Firstman would have us question, is the sex unrealistic? The I Love LA star started beef with his HBO Max coworkers by dragging the show. However, some social media content has quickly squashed the beef. That’s the power of Heated Rivalry. 

The question is, why the hate? The fundamental issue is that we end up popping our own balloon. This show and the dialogue surrounding it reveal many blind spots of the gay/queer male community. Drunk on the multiple iterations of Will & Grace and Queer as Folk, we can assume there is an inexhaustible pool of queer content that can break out into the mainstream. We also hold it to impossible standards: not gay enough, too gay, too much sex, not enough. 

Heated Rivalry is a love story of two hockey players whose eponymous Heated Rivalry turns to sexual tension, to sex, then maybe…romance? Word of mouth has led to appointment viewing like other signature shows on HBO. 

One beef is that people take issue with the fact that it’s focused on athletes. Why this story? Why venerate masculinity? And yet, don’t gay men still venerate masculine and even straight men? There are still gay for pay pornstars, pressure to have the body of an athlete, and an outdated sexual fixation on performative masculinity. 

Why not explore the last bastion of homophobia: professional athletics? If someone of Travis Kelsey’s level of fame could come out, wouldn’t that help people stop focusing on queer issues as a reason for the ills of society and maybe look at the real issues? 

It’s not surprising, given our political climate, that both Boots and Heated Rivalry would come out around this time. Both explore homophobia and queer men in heteronormative spaces. Major league athletes are still less likely to come out, while the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has made it easier for queer men to be in the military. They represent widespread appeal to straight communities. After all, where else can a straight man cry and scream than about his favorite sports stars?  

Another problematic thing is speculating about the actors’ sexualities. Whether they are queer or not, they are representing our community fairly well. My personal theory is

Connor Storrie is a gifted actor somewhere under the LGBTQ umbrella, and Hudson Williams is a soft heterosexual bottom. Both represent a queer experience.  

What matters more is their performances. Storrie learned Russian for the role and has a Meryl Streep-level transformation from an LA actor/model to a Russian athlete with an awe-inspiring caboose. Williams captures so much nuance and holds it down for masculine bottoms. 

Finally, who cares if the source material was written by a woman? As queer men, especially gay men, we may rarely interact with women, but we can afford to learn the benefits of integrating emotional and social intelligence, which women are more allowed to cultivate socially. 

Ironically, the female fanbase driving up viewership and rhetoric around the show is doing more allyship than a million bachelorette parties at gay bars. 

Fundamentally, Heated Rivarly is giving queer men something to gab about and invite discourse in the same way that Drag Race became the Super Bowl of hyperfemininity and helped queers connect and converse. Heated Rivalry offers a tender romance amid the toxic masculinity, intimacy issues, and competition of toxic masculinity. 

My personal theory for all the hostility and hot takes about Heated Rivalry is that it centers on yearning. One thing women get permission to do is have a healthy relationship with longing. With queer men, it’s often one-sided and creates this dark addiction to yearning for someone who doesn’t want us. This turns into codependent crushes on your best friend or a hyperfixation on turning a friend with benefits into a partner, all while ignoring the people who want us. 

Longing is a slow-building, uncomfortable emotion that explores the range from happiness to sadness. You can try to fuck it away or explain it to bits but for a community inoculated against feelings by the patriarchy, bullies when we were younger and drunk on the power of polyamory and Dan Savage’s countless anti-monogamy talking points, the idea that two men can meet, have a slow budding relationship, build a rapport, develop intimacy slowly over time, and fundamentally realize they want to be together is not the norm. This could be aspirational and may be why the universe inspired a woman to write it, a gay man to develop it into a series, and two actors of indeterminate sexual attractions to play the sex scenes and the emotional angst so we could take a hard look at how we see male love.