The story was about Rowling. Amnesty International UK had put out a report, listing 117 organizations, on the anti-rights movement in Britain, and on the list was the women-only sexual violence service Rowling funds in Edinburgh. Gender critical, they called it. Amnesty has since pulled the whole report and said they regret publishing it. So Rowling gets on X, calls it a blacklist, and offers to bankroll legal action for any organisation on that list.

Guess who doesn’t get a billionaire funding their lawsuit.

Trans people. The people getting hunted in bathrooms.

And this is the week it stops being theoretical. On the 5th of August the EHRC guidance comes into force across England, Scotland and Wales. Thirteen thousand toilets. Five thousand changing rooms. Eighteen thousand signs to be swapped out.

Which brings me back to something I read in June of 2025 on LGBTQ Nation. She was demanding, or not demanding exactly, calling on her supporters to photograph and post about women in bathrooms if they suspected them of being trans. She said it would be a piece of cake.

The thing is, she’s getting people to do her dirty work for her. Her hands are clean.

If one of them gets caught, is she covering their legal costs too? Because I looked, and the law here is murkier than you’d hope. Voyeurism needs a sexual motive, so that probably doesn’t catch it. Harassment might. Publishing someone’s picture might. Nobody actually knows until somebody does it and gets tested.

And the person who gets tested is not going to be J.K. Rowling.

And we know how this plays out, because it already has.

Phoenix, where the cops came into a Walmart bathroom to haul out a lesbian somebody in there had decided was a man. The Walmart employee who happens to be six foot four, followed into the bathroom by a customer who screamed at her. And Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, both of whom will do anything to stay on the news, following a woman into a Capitol restroom and accusing her of being a man and being completely, publicly wrong about it. Boebert apologized. She said she learned a lesson.

Did she, though. And, what is it with Walmarts?

And that's all America. Over in Britain, where this guidance is about to land, Gendered Intelligence, a trans rights charity, says they've been getting reports of cisgender women turned out of spaces based on appearance. Mistaken for a trans person. That's what your access to a toilet comes down to now.

I mean really, come on, Rowling wrote Dolores Umbridge. The most despised character in those books. A woman who manipulates everyone around her, who wants you to prove who you are, who takes things from you politely and believes the whole time she’s the reasonable one.

It’s like she was writing a story about herself.

That’s her. She wrote herself. The irony is insane. It’s like she never read her own book, for fuck’s sake.

I used to want to say she was just insecure. I don’t know if I buy that anymore. She’s worked out that the way to prove she’s right is to have her followers do it for her, because nobody is ever going to corner J.K. Rowling in a bathroom and take her picture.

She’s always going to be safe. She’s always going to be isolated.

Meanwhile real people are getting hunted. She stays in her castle throwing money at her supporters and never once has to face what she’s actually doing.

It’s despicable.

-David

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
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I met him about a year and a half ago and we hit it off right away. We’ve had many a conversation about life and love since then, and at some point I realized he was a friend I wanted you to meet.

Here’s the thing about Carl. He’ll tell you he can be a lot. He’s the opposite.

He spent a lifetime editing himself. We all do it, and most of us start young.

For Carl it was third grade, in Española, New Mexico. He was cheering with the girls, S-P-I-R-I-T, let’s hear it, and somebody called him a joto. He was eight years old and he learned in one afternoon that being himself was dangerous. So he stopped. He began to hide the parts of him that got him hurt. A Catholic upbringing told him he was an abomination, and he started praying the prayer a lot of us prayed. Why me.

At seventeen he drove to a Navy recruiter and signed up. He needed his mother’s permission because he wasn’t old enough to enlist alone. And then came thirty-plus years of a different kind of editing. Don’t ask, don’t tell. A straight friend who found out and asked him if he was a little faggy boy. Carl decided it was safer to let his straight friendships go than to live waiting for someone to turn him in. He found his people instead, a gay brotherhood inside the Navy, and some of those men are still in his life today.

The editing followed him into love. He gave his values away in his first relationship because he wanted so badly to be wanted. He spent fourteen years in a marriage where two broken people loved each other honestly and still couldn’t grow in the same direction. And then in 2018, walking home from the clubs in Puerto Vallarta with his husband, someone shot him.

He survived. The relationship didn’t. The marriage ended, the real estate business ended, and Carl walked away from all of it.

He stopped editing. Not because anything got easier, but because he did the slow, unglamorous work of learning to love the one person he’d never really let himself love.

Himself.

He’s 55 now. A couple of years ago he prayed for someone who could actually see him, and not long after, a man named Jimmy sat down behind him at the Episcopal church. Two weeks before we recorded this, they moved in together.

We talk about his childhood, the Navy, coming out, his faith, the shooting, monogamy, and what he wants to build next. And we end with his mother Carol, who took the O out of her name to make his.

I hope you enjoy this episode with my friend Carl. A reminder to love yourself first.

Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

- David

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
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My show is called A Queer POV. You could say I have a dog in this fight. So buckle in, Thelma. We’re pedal to the metal now...

Let me be fair to Mr. Vines before I go after the argument. Vines came out at 19, in 2010, in an evangelical family in Wichita, Kansas. He wrote God and the Gay Christian and founded the Reformation Project, and he has spent his adult life arguing for people like me inside rooms that did not want us there. He married his husband in a breakaway Baptist church in Texas, which means he fought for his own wedding twice. Once against the law and once against the pew. That took courage, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

Which is exactly why his op-ed needs an answer. When someone with that history gets it this wrong in the paper of record, silence reads as agreement.

Here’s his argument, and I’ll give it to you straight, pun intended. Support for marriage equality is eroding. Republican support has dropped 18 points since 2022. Conservative lawmakers are openly working to overturn Obergefell. All true. Vines then argues that the word queer is partly to blame. In 2009, about one in five gay men viewed the word positively. By 2025, 48% of LGBTQ+ people thought of themselves as queer, including nearly 60% of those under 30. Queer, he says, quoting the theorist David Halperin, is “by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.” Too elastic. Too ideological. It muddles the message that carried marriage equality, that being gay is “neither chosen nor changeable,” and polling shows fewer Americans now believe people are born gay. His fix: go back to gay. Go back to ordinary.

Count the names.

Vines wrote a whole essay about a backlash and never named a single person or organization conducting the backlash. He comes close with "some conservative Christian activists," a phrase with a hyperlink where the names should be. Follow that link and you land on Them Before Us, announcing a campaign called Greater Than to end same-sex marriage and claiming a “direct line between gay marriage and child victimization.” Their post names its own coalition proudly. The Family Research Council. Focus on the Family. The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles. Vines had the names one click away. He wouldn’t type them. And before anyone blames the Times' word count: "Them Before Us" is three words. The vague phrase he replaced it with is four.

He doesn’t name the Heritage Foundation, whose Oversight Project sent the FBI a memo in September 2025 requesting a brand new domestic terrorism category called TIVE. Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism. A formal request that the federal government treat trans people, and anyone who defends trans people, as a national security threat.

He doesn’t name Project 2025, which put the playbook for all of this in writing and published it proudly.

Mark Zuckerberg goes unmentioned too. He gutted Meta’s hate speech protections in January 2025 so that calling us mentally ill is now allowed, in writing, on the platforms half the country scrolls every day. I laid that whole story out in Shadow Banned for Existing.

Nothing about GLAAD’s ALERT Desk, which tracked 1,042 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents across this country in 2025. More than half of them, 532, targeted trans and gender-nonconforming people specifically. Nothing about the FBI’s own statistics, which logged more than 2,400 anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime incidents in 2024, making us the third most targeted group in the country. And those are only the ones reported to police.

Juniper Blessing doesn’t appear. She was 19, a trans girl at the University of Washington who loved meteorology, stabbed more than 40 times in a laundry room this past May. Neither does Renée Nicole Good, a lesbian, a mother, a poet, shot through her car window on January 7 in Minneapolis by an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross. He still has his job.

How does the community itself show up in his essay? Barely. Trans people in passing, lesbians as a polling statistic, bi people as a footnote inside his definition of queer theory. Keep following his logic and the coalition shrinks with every paragraph, until the movement is married gay men in churches. Roughly, him.

Did you notice who the missing names would offend? Heritage. Them Before Us. The Family Research Council. Conservative Christian institutions, every one. You could say his target audience. Vines has spent his career trying to win them over. His essay even shows you where his concern sits. Conservative Christians who made their peace with our marriages are now "increasingly alarmed," he writes, and their alarm gets more ink than our dead.

He’s protecting the wrong flock. Many queer people carry faith and community every day. What he’s trading away is his people, and what he’s buying is a warmer seat in rooms that still haven’t decided whether he belongs in them.

Every one of those omissions sends the same message. Quiet down. Blend in. Be less queer.

I decline.

Quiet has never stopped a project, and a project is exactly what this backlash is. It has a budget, a legal team, a publishing arm and a memo to the FBI with an acronym on it. Blaming the word queer for it is like blaming the smoke alarm for the fire.

There’s one more line in the piece I can’t let pass. Vines allows that Queer Nation’s anger had “understandable resonance at the height of the AIDS epidemic,” then declares that its us-versus-them posture “has outlived that crisis.” I graduated high school in 1982. I buried that crisis friend by friend while a president refused to say the word. The posture hasn’t outlived anything. The other side never dropped theirs. They just changed focus.

We’ve all seen the deal he’s offering before, too. It’s the respectability deal, and the terms never change. Lower your voice. Distance yourself from the ones who can’t blend, and maybe they’ll let you keep what you have. The Lavender Scare purged thousands of federal workers who wore suits, said all the right words and asked for nothing. They were fired anyway. I wrote about this in Are We Facing a New Lavender Scare?, and the conclusion holds: the people running the purge don’t check your vocabulary at the door. Different names. Different tools. New focus. Same goals.

The men coming for Obergefell right now, the ones I named in They’re Coming for the Ring, Jonathan Mitchell and Judge Hensley and the Project 2025 authors, they were drafting their briefs long before “queer” hit 48% in a Pew survey. Mitchell isn’t parsing our word choices before he files. Nobody who wants my marriage annulled will hand it back because I introduced myself as gay instead.

Vines says the word queer became an umbrella so wide anyone can walk under it. He means that as the indictment. I mean this as the answer: good. That’s what an umbrella is for. You don’t shrink the umbrella in a storm. You ask who needs cover and invite them in.

I named my show A Queer POV on purpose. That word was a rock thrown at people like me for decades, and a generation caught it and built something with it. Gay fits me fine. It’s accurate. So is queer, which I use often. There’s my friend Kenny Patrick, who found non-binary to be the perfect fit. But gay doesn’t stretch to cover every queer kid figuring out who they are. Queer holds all of us. That’s the point of it.

Here’s where Vines and I actually agree. Gay life is dignified. It’s ordinary in all the ways that matter and extraordinary in all the ways that count. Derek and I have the kid and the twenty years, and we had the mortgage until we sold the house. And thanks to Obergefell, we just marked ten years married. Vines found freedom at 19 in realizing there was nothing inherently radical about being gay, and I believe him, because I remember my own version of that revelation.

But he’s drawing the wrong lesson from it. Our ordinariness was never the price of our safety. Dignity that depends on distancing yourself from trans people is dignity bought at someone else’s expense. And the other side doesn’t honor the deal. They never have, and they’ve shown us they never will. We’ve been here before.

By his own account, Vines knows better than almost anyone what it means to search for the word that lets you finally live in your own skin. He found his at 19, in Wichita, against everything his church had taught him. Gay. That word made his whole life possible. So why is he so dismissive of people doing the exact same thing with a different word? A kid somewhere right now is trying on queer, bi, non-binary and so on, feeling whole for the first time, the same way a scared evangelical teenager once tried on gay. He’s welcome to his word. He doesn’t get to take, or dictate, theirs.

I think you should read Vines’s piece. Take it seriously, because millions did. Then think of the names it left out. Close your eyes. See their faces. Juniper Blessing. Renée Nicole Good. Sam Nordquist. Pauly Likens. O’Shae Sibley. Nex Benedict. The five at Club Q: Daniel Aston, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, Derrick Rump and Raymond Green Vance. Say them out loud for their gravity to take hold.

Then read the queer voices already answering him. , a gay Christian pastor, wrote Queer Isn’t the Threat. Respectability Politics Is. and named what Vines is proposing: “a sacrifice he is not the one being asked to make.” And , the first drag queen to top the Christian music charts, said it plainer: “we’re sure as hell not leaving any of our rainbow fam behind to score a few points with the bigots in power.” The journalist put it in one image: "Every time a segment of the LGBTQ community has tried to purchase safety by throwing someone else under the bus, the bus just got bigger."

When someone tells you our language caused this backlash, ask them who wrote the Heritage Foundation’s TIVE memo. Ask who published Project 2025. Ask who’s funding the briefs against Obergefell. Make them name names, because the whole argument depends on never having to.

Don’t spend one minute of this fight policing what another queer person calls themselves. Gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer. The people coming for us have never once cared about the distinction. Our unity is the thing they’re trying to talk us out of, and Vines, whatever his intentions, just wrote them a permission slip.

We don’t get safe by getting smaller. Nobody ever has.

Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

-David. Still here. Still queer.

Sources: Matthew Vines, “I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters,” New York Times, June 30, 2026. Gallup polling on Republican support for same-sex marriage. Pew Research Center 2025 data on queer identification. Heritage Foundation Oversight Project TIVE memo, September 2025. Project 2025. GLAAD ALERT Desk 2025 Report. FBI hate crime statistics. Them Before Us, “Today, We Take Back Marriage,” January 28, 2026. GLAAD on the murder of Sam Nordquist, February 2025. HRC, “Remembering Pauly Likens”, July 2024. Brooklyn District Attorney on the hate crime conviction in the killing of O’Shae Sibley, June 8, 2026. HRC, “Honoring Nex Benedict”, February 2024. Club Q shooting, Colorado Springs, November 19, 2022. NBC News on Meta’s hate speech policy change, January 2025.

Organizations to Support

• Trans Justice Funding Project — funds grassroots, trans-led groups doing the work in their own communities

• Trans Lifeline — peer support and crisis line run by and for trans people

• The Trevor Project — crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth

• Advocates for Trans Equality — policy and legal advocacy for trans people nationwide

• GLAAD’s ALERT Desk — report anti-LGBTQ+ incidents and support the tracking this piece relies on

If you or someone you love is struggling: The Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988.

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
You can listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, and YouTube.
And if you enjoy it, please leave a review—it helps more than you know.

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Maybe he was when I was small. I can’t remember. What I remember is being a teenager and not once being hugged by him. Not once hearing him say he loved me. We weren’t close, and for a long time I thought that was just who he was. Later I understood that part of it was me. I kept my distance, because I was gay and I was hiding, and staying hidden meant staying at arm’s length.

He was fair. He worked hard. He made sure my mother and I never went without. He was a good father. But there was a wall between us, and I’d, unknowingly, helped build it.

When I came out to my parents in the 80s, I braced for the worst. Instead my father crossed the room, pulled me in, held me hard, and told me he loved me and that my being gay didn’t change a thing.

We had three years after that. three years of talking, of making plans, of becoming the father and son we'd both wanted the whole time. Then he had a heart attack and died. I was twenty-three. I was devastated. I had finally gotten the father I'd wanted my whole life, and I'd spent most of that life keeping him at a distance over a secret that should never need hiding.

That’s what I think about every time I see two men hold each other at arm’s length.

The other day I read a post on Reddit about a woman who had seen her boyfriend being affectionate with another man. An arm around him, standing close. And her first thought was uh oh. Did I miss something. Is he gay.

I want to be fair to her, because that flinch didn’t come from nowhere. She didn’t invent it. We handed it to her. We handed it to everybody. The idea that a man being warm with another man must mean something is up, something hidden, something on the down low.

But the more I sat with it, the more I saw what was underneath. Men hiding from each other. Not just who they love, but that they love each other at all. I know that hiding, I spent years doing it with my own father.

Somewhere along the way, we taught men that affection is bad. Not complicated. Not risky. Bad. We taught them that a hug better not last too long. That “I love you” between friends needs a “no homo” stapled to the end of it so nobody gets confused. We handed boys a weird little rulebook where the only touch allowed between men is a handshake, a fist bump, or a shove.

And look where it got us.

Men are lonely. Not a little lonely. There are grown men out there who cannot name a single close friend. Men who haven’t been hugged, really hugged, in months. Men who love each other deeply and have never once said it out loud, because nobody ever gave them permission to.

Straight male friends light up when I hug them hello, like some part of them forgot that was even allowed, and they hug back. With me, there’s nothing to protect. So they let go. Guys who get quiet, then a little teary, when another man just asks, honestly, are you okay. Not as a joke. As a real honest question.

None of that is weakness. That's a whole part of a person that got locked away. It's not like the closet I had to come out of. It's a darker room than the one I left. Solitary confinement. A cell. I know what it costs to be told a piece of you isn't allowed. So does every man who learned to keep his friends from getting close. Different door. Same cell.

To be clear, most of those men aren't hiding what I hid. They're not secretly anything. They got the same rulebook and followed it, that's all. You don't need a secret to end up in that cell. You just have to be a man who was taught the rules.

When you see two men close, warm, tender with each other, your first thought does not have to be suspicion. It does not have to be “what are they up to.” It can be something much simpler. Wow. That’s awesome. Good for them.

To the men and the boys reading this, let me say it plainly, because maybe no one ever has. You are allowed to love your friends. Out loud. You’re allowed to hug them and mean it. You’re allowed to say the words. You will not lose a single shred of your masculinity by doing it. If anything, you’ll find out how much of you was waiting to be let out.

If no one ever told you that, let me be the one.

It’s not too much. It never was.

Here’s where I get hopeful. My son is straight, and he hugs me every single day. Yes, I’m his dad, so of course I notice. But I’ve watched him with his friends too. He reads them. The ones who want a hug get a hug. The ones who want a fist bump get a fist bump. He meets each guy where he is. He never learned that rule in the first place, and that wasn't luck. My husband and I made sure of it. He grew up watching two men love each other out loud. It's all he knows.

The world got a little darker teaching men not to reach for each other. We don’t have to keep it that way, and we shouldn’t. We can put a little warmth back. One friend, one hug, one honest “I love you, man” at a time.

When I say we, I mean all of us. Me included. This isn’t something we get to pin on some vague “they” who ruined men. We built this rulebook together, and we keep handing it down. So we’re the ones who have to teach something better. And the men handed this rulebook carry the hardest part, unlearning it one hug at a time. But not alone.

Here’s what I’ll leave you with. Think of one guy in your life you’d be gutted to lose. Text him. Call him. Tell him he matters to you, in whatever words you can manage. Watch what it does. To him, and to you.

My father and I had three years. Three of them, after years at arm's length. Give the men in your life more than I got. Tell them. Hold them. While they're still here to hug back.

Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

-David

This started as a short video for A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life. If it hit home, forward it to a man who needs to hear it. That's how this changes.

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
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She was my best friend and my protector. She was a year older than me and I was a boy who only liked to play jumprope, house, and any other playground game that caused other boys to call me names or push me down. She punched back.

We used to dream about growing up to be ranchers. We’d ride horses and herd cows and live inside the stories of the old west we both loved. Somewhere in Colorado or Nevada. We had it all planned. Two kids who were going to build something together out in the open air, far from everyone. Freedom.

Then we grew up. We became different people. We let the dream fade. That was over fifty years ago.

I think about that ranch more than I should. It’s the memory that keeps her close to me, even now. Especially now.

Because here’s what I can’t hold in my head at the same time: that little girl who protected me, and the grown woman who voted for Donald Trump.

I was crushed in 2016. I couldn’t believe anyone in my family had pulled that lever. I told them this man would tear the country apart. He’d come after my marriage. He’d feed the hatred and the fear until it ran the whole show. They told me I was overreacting. They loved him because he “told it like it is.” A businessman who’d save us all and carry us into some golden age of jobs and money and safe streets. They couldn’t see it was a lie. A grift. A con.

They still can’t and we are no longer family.

So here we are. A civil war without muskets. The battlefield is screens and keyboards and Thanksgiving tables that don’t get set anymore. One side spits the gospel through gritted teeth and calls cruelty love. The other side has spent ten years asking why.

I started writing this the day I heard Megyn Kelly tell Haitians to go back to fucking Haiti. The Supreme Court had just cleared the way to deport 350,000 of them, people who’d lived and worked here legally for over a decade, and she celebrated. “Go home. Get out. We know our country is better than yours,” she said. “You being here only dilutes it for us, those who built it and live it. And half of you people, more than half of you, won’t assimilate. We don’t want you.” She threw in the old lie about Haitians eating pets, the one debunked years ago, because why let the truth slow down a good cruelty. A Princeton professor called it “profoundly racist. Morally reprehensible.” He’s right. It was also just sad.

Because here’s what I kept thinking. Megyn Kelly was a child once. She was kind to somebody, once. So was my cousin. So were all of them. Nobody is born telling families to get out. The hate is learned, fed, watered, rewarded. It grows.

I’m done asking why.

I was watching a video the other day. An anchor woman was talking about how secession talk is rising at the grassroots level all over the country. States feel held together now by a worn thin flag, ripped and tattered. Our common ground has dried up. Now here we are sorting ourselves into communities of sameness because it feels safer than the alternative. It hurts to watch the country go down this road. And I've stopped hoping we find our way back to a country that never existed.

For a long time I told myself she’d come back. That the girl on the ranch was still in there, waiting.

There’s a thing that happens when you hit a certain age. You start to notice your life isn’t the one you imagined it would be. Not out of sadness, exactly. Out of curiosity about past dreams. You turn it over in your hands and wonder where the other versions went.

That ranch was the other version. So was she.

Let me say the thing plainly. The President of the United States hates you. He hates me. He hates every one of us. He hates the left because we see him for what he is, a cheating, lying con man who has stolen billions and ruined lives so he could grift the right out of everything they own. And he hates the right too. He hates the poor people who worship him, because they disgust him. They're gullible. They're so full of hate he can bend them into submission with a sentence. And Donald J. Trump hates submissive people most of all. They're weak. He hates weak people.

So now what.

I’m figuring that out day by day. I don’t want to live with these people anymore, and they don’t want to live with me. This is probably where I’m supposed to tell you we can find a way back. That if we want to stay one country we have to find common ground.

I don’t want to find common ground anymore. My common ground is human rights and dignity full stop. If you can’t meet me there then we are done.

I won’t give up trans people’s right to exist without fear. I won’t give up a woman’s right to her own body. I won’t give up freedom of speech, freedom to live, and freedom to love whoever you love. I won’t.

I’ve never questioned anyone’s faith. Your spiritual journey is yours, not mine to judge. But I won’t be preached to. I won’t be shamed. I won’t live under your religious laws. I’m not interested in your conversion tactics. They are cruel, invasive, and most of all predatory. And I’m done softening my answers to make room for your need to convert me to feel comfortable. You’ve shown almost no regard for how I or my community exist in this world. I think it’s time we return the favor. You hurt people and call it love. It’s tragic how much you miss and how little you see.

You have the right to hate. I won’t even take that from you. That’s what freedom is.

I just won’t be polite about it anymore.

And somewhere out there is a woman who was once a girl dreaming about an imaginary ranch, who loved me before she ever learned to vote against me. I keep her in that story. It’s the only place left where we’re still on the same side.

I’m still that sensitive little boy. But no one pushes me down anymore. She taught me that, before she forgot it herself.

-David

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
You can listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, and YouTube.
And if you enjoy it, please leave a review—it helps more than you know.

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So let’s talk about that.

On March 24, 2026, a Los Angeles jury found Meta liable for designing a platform that caused a young woman depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts. They ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million. There are about 2,000 more lawsuits waiting in line behind hers.

The Trevor Project has been tracking what social media is doing to queer kids. Between September 2023 and March 2026, anxiety symptoms among LGBTQ+ youth rose from 57% to 68%. Depression went from 48% to 54%. Suicidal ideation went from 41% to 47%. Behind every one of those numbers is a kid who came online looking for community and got fed something else.

Imagine a friend who notices everything. What makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what you look at when no one’s watching. That friend remembers your ex, your favorite drag queen, the videos that made you cry at 2 a.m. And one day, that friend leans in and whispers: post about your pronouns or call yourself queer one more time, and I’ll make you invisible.

That’s not a friend. That’s an algorithm. And it’s been quietly disappearing us for years.

Instagram blocked teens from searching #gay, #lesbian, #trans, #bisexual, and #pride for months in 2024 and called it a mistake. More than 50 LGBTQ+ organizations had their accounts disabled or shadow banned in 2025, from Amsterdam to Colombia to Drag Race Down Under. Then on January 7, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg gutted hate speech protections across Meta. In writing, the new policy allows users to call us mentally ill. To call us abnormal. To refer to a trans person as “it.” To say we shouldn’t exist. The slur “tranny” is no longer classified as a slur.

Three days later Meta fired its entire DEI team. A few weeks earlier they had donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.

This episode lays it all out. The censorship, the political pivot, the free speech lie, the human cost.

Stay or go. That’s your choice. Only now you have more information to make it.

-David

Resources

Segment 1: The Erasure — “They Made Us Invisible”

Instagram blocking LGBTQ+ hashtags for teens

• Instagram Blocked Teens From Searching LGBTQ-Related Content — User Magazine
  usermag.co/p/instagram-blocked-teens-from-searching

• Instagram Blocked Teens From Searching LGBTQ Content for Months — The Advocate
  advocate.com/news/instagram-blocked-teens-lgbtq

• Instagram Is in Hot Water for Blocking LGBTQ+ Content — Fast Company
  fastcompany.com/91256358/instagram-is-in-hot-water-for-blocking-lgbtq-content

Instagram flagging trans ads as “escort services”

• Why Did Instagram Confuse These Ads Featuring LGBTQ People for Escort Ads? — Rolling Stone
  rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/instagram-transgender-sex-workers-857667/

50+ LGBTQ+ organizations banned or shadow-banned globally (2025)

• Meta’s Global Censorship of Abortion and Queer Content— Repro Uncensored / The Guardian
  reprouncensored.org/research-overview/research/ru-guardian-meta-censorship)

• Meta Allegedly Restricted or Removed More Than 50 Organizations’ Accounts — Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
  business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/global-meta-allegedly-restricted-or-removed-more-than-50-organisations-accounts-linked-to-abortion-advice-and-queer-content

Spankie Jackzon account locked

• Spankie Jackzon Is the Latest Queer Creative Targeted in Sweeping Meta Ban — Q News
  qnews.com.au/spankie-jackzon-is-the-latest-queer-creative-targeted-in-sweeping-meta-ban

Segment 2: The Sellout — “Zuckerberg Bent the Knee

Zuckerberg’s political pivot

• How Mark Zuckerberg Pivoted Meta to the Right — NBC News
  nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/mark-zuckerberg-pivoted-meta-right-rcna186687

• Mark Zuckerberg’s Shift Right Was Months in the Making — NBC News
  nbcnews.com/politics/mark-zuckerbergs-shift-right-months-making-politics-desk-rcna186861

Meta’s $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration

• Meta Donates $1 Million to Trump’s Inaugural Fund — CNN
  cnn.com/2024/12/11/tech/meta-trump-donation-hnk-intl/index.html

• Trump Inauguration Donors Include Meta, Amazon, Target, Delta, Ford — CNBC
  cnbc.com/2025/04/23/trump-inauguration-donors-include-meta-amazon-target-delta-ford.html

Joel Kaplan promoted to head of global affairs

• Meta Will Appoint Republican Joel Kaplan to Lead Global Policy Team — Semafor
  semafor.com/article/01/02/2025/meta-will-appoint-joel-kaplan-to-lead-global-policy-team-replacing-nick-clegg

• Meta Promotes GOP-Affiliated Exec Joel Kaplan — Variety
  variety.com/2025/digital/news/meta-joel-kaplan-global-affairs-trump-1236264252

January 7, 2025: Hate speech policy gutted

• Meta’s New Hate Speech Rules Allow Users to Call LGBTQ+ People “Mentally Ill” — NBC News
  nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-speech-rules-allow-users-call-lgbtq-people-mentally-ill-rcna186700

• What LGBTQ+ People Should Know About Meta’s New Rules — The Advocate
  advocate.com/news/meta-policies-lgbtq-attacks

• Meta’s New Policies: How They Endanger LGBTQ+ Communities — Human Rights Campaign
  hrc.org/news/metas-new-policies-how-they-endanger-lgbtq-communities-and-our-tips-for-staying-safe-online

• GLAAD Response: Meta Removes Anti-LGBTQ Hate Speech Policies — GLAAD
  glaad.org/releases/meta-removes-anti-lgbtq-hate-speech-policies-ends-fact-checking

Meta’s Community Standards (direct source)

• Meta Community Standards — Hate Speech — Meta Transparency Center
  transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/hate-speech

Meta eliminates DEI programs

• Meta Ends Its DEI Programs — CNN
  cnn.com/2025/01/10/tech/meta-ends-dei-programs

• Read the Memo: Meta Announces End of Its DEI Programs — CNBC
  cnbc.com/2025/01/10/read-the-memo-meta-announces-end-of-its-dei-programs.html

Meta’s Oversight Board warns about Community Notes

• Meta’s Oversight Board Warns Community Notes Aren’t a Proper Substitute for Fact-Checking — Nieman Journalism Lab
  niemanlab.org/2026/03/metas-oversight-board-warns-that-community-notes-arent-a-proper-substitute-for-fact-checking-globally

Segment 3: The Lie — “Free Speech Is Not What They Think It Is”

Zuckerberg’s January 2025 announcement

• Meta: More Speech and Fewer Mistakes — Meta Official Blog
  about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes

• Meta Ends Fact-Checking Program — NBC News
  nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-ends-fact-checking-program-community-notes-x-rcna186468

• Transcript: Mark Zuckerberg Announces Major Changes — Tech Policy Press
  techpolicy.press/transcript-mark-zuckerberg-announces-major-changes-to-metas-content-moderation-policies-and-operations

The First Amendment applies to government, not private companies

• Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck (2019) — Supreme Court Opinion — U.S. Supreme Court
  supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1702_h315.pdf

• Platforms Have a First Amendment Right to Curate Speech, NetChoice Ruling — EFF
  eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/platforms-have-first-amendment-right-curate-speech-weve-long-argued-supreme-1

Meta removes 99% of ISIS/al-Qaeda content proactively

• Dangerous Organizations and Individuals Policy — Meta Transparency Center
  transparency.meta.com/features/dangerous-orgs-and-individuals

Analysis of Meta’s “free speech” framing

• Meta’s Free Speech Myth Places Democracy at Risk — LSE Business Review
  blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2025/01/28/metas-free-speech-myth-places-democracy-at-risk

• How Meta Turned Its Back on Human Rights — Tech Policy Press
  techpolicy.press/how-meta-turned-its-back-on-human-rights

• Zuckerberg’s Updated Recipe: Prioritize Speech, Neglect Human Rights — OpenGlobalRights
  openglobalrights.org/zuckerbergs-updated-recipe-for-meta-prioritize-speech-and-neglect-human-rights

”Free speech” historically weaponized against marginalized communities

• The Civil Rights Movement Is a Reminder That Free Speech Is There to Protect the Weak — ACLU
  aclu.org/news/free-speech/civil-rights-movement-reminder-free-speech-there-protect-weak

Sarah Kate Ellis / GLAAD statements

• GLAAD Statement on Anti-LGBTQ Hate Speech and DEI Changes — GLAAD
  glaad.org/releases/glaad-anti-lgbtq-hate-speech-dei

Segment 4: The Damage — “What It Actually Costs Us”

Trevor Project research on LGBTQ+ youth and online safety

• New Study Shows LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Crisis Is Worsening in the U.S. — The Trevor Project (source for anxiety/depression/suicidal ideation statistics in script)
  thetrevorproject.org/blog/new-study-shows-lgbtq-youth-mental-health-crisis-is-worsening-in-the-u-s

• Online Experiences and Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People — The Trevor Project
  thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/online-experiences-and-mental-health-of-lgbtq-young-people

• Bullying and Suicide Risk Among LGBTQ Youth — The Trevor Project
  thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/bullying-and-suicide-risk-among-lgbtq-youth

• The Trevor Project Research Hub — The Trevor Project
  thetrevorproject.org/research

Cyberbullying statistics

• Cyberbullying Statistics by Age, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Race — Cyberbullying Research Center
  cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-statistics-age-gender-sexual-orientation-race

Frances Haugen / Meta’s internal research on teen harm

• What a Facebook Whistleblower Told the Senate About Teen Mental Health — NPR
  npr.org/2021/10/05/1043194385/whistleblowers-testimony-facebook-instagram

• Meta’s Official Response on Teen Well-Being Research — Meta
  about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-and-instagram

Instagram body image and gay men

• Male Body Image Portrayals on Instagram — Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking
  liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2019.0368

GLAAD: 75% increase in harmful content, 77% feel less safe

• Make Meta Safe: New Report Finds Increase in Harmful Content — GLAAD
  glaad.org/make-meta-safe-new-report-finds-increase-in-harmful-content-targeting-marginalized-groups-following-policy-rollbacks

Social media as double-edged sword for LGBTQ+ youth

• Social Media: A Double-Edged Sword for LGBTQ+ Youth — Computers in Human Behavior (ScienceDirect)
  sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563224000621

• Social Media Use and Health of LGBTQ Youth: Systematic Review — Journal of Medical Internet Research (PMC)
  pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9536523

GLAAD Social Media Safety Index

• 2025 Social Media Safety Index: Meta Platforms — GLAAD
  glaad.org/smsi/2025/meta-platforms

Segment 5: We Built That — Community and Connection

70% of LGBTQ+ teens found supportive networks online

• The Online Experiences of LGBTQ+ Youth — Digital Wellness Lab
  digitalwellnesslab.org/research-briefs/the-online-experiences-of-lgbtq-youth

• Social Media Gives Support to LGBTQ Youth When In-Person Communities Are Lacking — The Conversation
  theconversation.com/social-media-gives-support-to-lgbtq-youth-when-in-person-communities-are-lacking-166253

Social media as protective factor for LGBTQ+ well-being

• Can Social Media Participation Enhance LGBTQ+ Youth Well-Being? — Social Media + Society (SAGE Journals)
  journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305121988931

Kornerz Social Network

• Check out - Kornerz is a space for thinkers, an exclusive safe haven for authentic interactions, a paid-member only social network for those who value depth and quality.

Organizations to Support

• GLAAD — Media advocacy and accountability
  https://glaad.org

• The Trevor Project — Crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth
  https://www.thetrevorproject.org

• ACLU — Legal advocacy and civil liberties
  https://www.aclu.org

• Human Rights Campaign — LGBTQ+ civil rights advocacy
  https://www.hrc.org

Crisis Resources

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone.

• The Trevor Project: Call 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988

• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
You can listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, and YouTube.
And if you enjoy it, please leave a review—it helps more than you know.

Connect with me on BlueSky

PS: When I’m not podcasting, I also make wedding, birthday, and anniversary cake toppers. (Yes, really.)
Take a peek at the shop: Taylor Street Favors

We were young when we met, life pulled us in different directions, and then a few years ago we reconnected. Getting to know them now, I’ve discovered someone that I truly love spending time with.

In this episode of A Queer POV, Kenny talks about living with HIV since they were 21. About nearly 28 years of sobriety, a relapse in June of 2025, and getting sober again. About identifying as non-binary after 50 years of calling themselves male, and what it took to finally examine why that never fit. About trauma, about community, about forgiveness that has nothing to do with the other person.

In August of 1986 Kenny was told they had four months to live. They had just turned 21. The doctor looked at the numbers, looked at how Kenny described living, and said four months. That was it.

Their only response? All my friends get six months. Why do I only get four months?

The dark humor. The defiance. The refusal to collapse even in the worst moment.

At 21 Kenny thought they deserved to die. Not as a passing dark thought, but at their core. Because of things said to them as a child, because of how the gay community was treated, because of how the HIV community was treated.

“I’m not just a punchline,” they said. “I’m part of like Hitler’s final solution. Let’s wipe this group out.”

And they believed it.

This episode covers a lot of ground: HIV, sobriety, non-binary identity, and radical survival.

You can find A Queer POV wherever you listen to podcasts. If this episode moved you, please share it. Leave a review. Send it to someone who needs it.

And as always, be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

-David

A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
You can listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, and YouTube.
And if you enjoy it, please leave a review—it helps more than you know.

Connect with me on BlueSky

PS: When I’m not podcasting, I also make wedding, birthday, and anniversary cake toppers. (Yes, really.)
Take a peek at the shop: Taylor Street Favors

Over the past year, I’ve watched him take charge of his life. He made decisions that most people would talk themselves out of, and at 62 he powered through every one of them. We’ve had a lot of conversations about life and change, about what it takes to start over. And I kept thinking, this guy needs to be on the show. His story is exactly what A Queer POV is about.

This episode is about reinvention. The real kind. The kind where you walk away from a 16-year marriage, give up the house, the safety net, the comfort, and start over alone at 62 because the life you built wasn’t yours anymore.

Mark talks about all of it. The marriage that worked on paper but left him unfulfilled. The role he played as the supportive husband while his own passions went quiet. The moment he and his ex-husband looked at each other and decided it was over. Not with anger. With love. They still talk every day. They’re still friends. That’s who Mark is.

But his story goes back further than a divorce. Mark contracted HIV almost 35 years ago. His partner at the time died in his arms two days after Mark’s 30th birthday. In 1992, that was a death sentence. You didn’t plan a future. You lived whatever you had left. Mark didn’t think he’d make it past 35.

Because of AIDS, a lot of us weren’t supposed to be here. Our generation lost so many men that we didn’t have a blueprint for what growing older as a queer man even looks like. Like the rest of us, Mark is figuring that out day by day.

He’s 62 now. Healthier than he was 20 years ago. And he just went back to school. I watched him do it. Every day in the gym lounge after lifting, books open, nine weeks straight. He became a certified personal trainer. Got an A on the final. He rediscovered that he loves learning, that he’s good at it, that he’d set that part of himself aside for years without realizing it.

There’s a moment in this conversation where Mark says “I’m proud of myself” and you can hear that he means it.

This one’s for anyone who thinks starting over has an expiration date. It doesn’t.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. That’s how we take care of each other.

Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

-- David

It took me a while to understand that showing up was the protest.

This episode started as a conversation about the No Kings protest on March 28th. And it is about that. But it became something bigger as I wrote it. It became about the full arc of queer protest, from a handful of people standing outside Independence Hall in 1965, to Stonewall, to ACT UP, to the fight for marriage equality, to five million people in the streets last June. I wanted to talk about why those sixty years of fighting for our equality is tied to No Kings.

I wanted to trace that line because I think we forget how long we’ve been doing this. And I think some people, especially younger people who came of age after Obergefell, might not know the history at all. Annual Reminder Day. The Mattachine Society sip-in at Julius’ Bar. The State Liquor Authority ordering bars to refuse service to anyone they suspected of being gay. ACT UP shutting down Wall Street while the government pretended a plague wasn’t happening.

These are not abstract historical events. These are the direct connections of every right we have today. And the people who did those things, most of their names are gone. We don’t know them. But what they did, that survived.

The episode also connects our history to something happening right now. The No Kings movement isn’t a queer march. It’s a coalition. The Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, the AFL-CIO, over 200 organizations standing together. When I was at the Palm Springs No Kings protest last year, I looked around and it wasn’t just our community. It was everyone. Families, workers, veterans, immigrants. That’s new. That’s what greater solidarity looks like.

And I talk about anger. Because I think a lot of people are angry right now and don’t know what to do with it. I’ve been angry for forty years. The trick isn’t to stop being angry. It’s to aim it. Walk it into the street. Stand next to someone. Let them see how many of us there are.

I close with Harvey Milk, because “You gotta give them hope.” He said that in 1978, thinking about a kid in Altoona, Pennsylvania, who had never seen a queer person stand up and say: I’m here. That was forty-eight years ago. And it’s still as powerful a message today as it was then.

March 28th. Show up. Be seen. Be counted.

All the sources and links are in the show notes below. Read them. Share the episode. And if you’re out protesting on Saturday, be safe.

— David

Resources:

No Kings — Find your event or host one: nokings.org

No Kings: Know Your Rights: nokings.org/kyr

Human Rights Campaign: hrc.org

Scott Galloway: Resist and Unsubscribe: resistandunsubscribe.com

Fast Company: “Being Gay Feels Like a Liability Again”

PBS: Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement

Library of Congress: The Stonewall Uprising

ACLU: How ACT UP Changed the Face of AIDS and Activism

Harvey Milk’s Hope Speech (1978) — Voices of Democracy, University of Maryland

A Queer POV: “They’re Coming for the Ring” (Marriage Equality Episode)

I was going through the Hensley filing. Judge Dianne Hensley, the Waco justice of the peace who refused to marry same-sex couples and then sued when she got in trouble for it. And I got to the part where her lawyer argues that Obergefell v. Hodges was wrongly decided and should be overturned entirely.

And I thought: I know this lawyer.

Jonathan Mitchell is the architect of Texas’ 2021 abortion ban. That ban worked. Roe v. Wade fell a year later. And now he’s coming for marriage.

He’s not being clever this time the way he was with Roe v. Wade. With the abortion ban, he engineered around the courts, enlisting private citizens to do the enforcing. This time he’s going straight at them. Calling our marriages made up. Which tells me he thinks he knows exactly what court he’s walking into.

Derek and I got married in 2016. We’d been together for 10 years by then, and when Obergefell passed in 2015, we finally had the right to make it official. I remember what that felt like. Not just the wedding, but the shift. The way it changed how we moved through the world together. No longer just partners in our own eyes. Recognized. Counted. Real in the eyes of the law. No matter where we entered or exited moments, in a hospital room, signing a legal document, or in an emergency, we weren’t just partners anymore. We were family in the eyes of the law.

That’s what’s at stake. Not a symbol. A legal reality that protects real lives.

I am angry. I say that in the episode and I mean it. The idea that there’s a strategy, a lawyer, a coalition, a playbook, to undo my marriage... that’s not abstract. That’s my life. And frankly, I find the whole thing rather rude.

The truth is more complicated than just the threat. There are real protections in place. There are real legal roadblocks. And our community has always found a way to keep living and building and fighting, usually all at the same time.

That’s the balance I was trying to hold.

Please give it a listen. Not because I made it. Because this is moving quietly. The more people who understand the strategy behind it, the harder it is for it to move that way.

All the sources are linked in the show notes. Read them. Share the episode. And check in on your queer friends, especially the ones in red states, in small towns, in places where the legislature is not on their side.

We’re not done fighting. We never really stopped.

— David

Sources used in researching the episode: I encourage you to read further and come to your own conclusions.

The Hensley Lawsuit

• Texas Tribune — Waco judge asks federal courts to overturn same-sex marriage — https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/19/texas-judge-same-sex-marriage-supreme-court-obergefell/

Primary source. The most detailed and credible reporting on the lawsuit, Mitchell’s strategy, and the legal arguments.

• LGBTQ Nation — Texas judge asks federal court to end marriage equality nationwide — https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/12/texas-judge-asks-federal-court-to-end-marriage-equality-nationwide/

Community-focused coverage with additional context on the history of the case going back to 2015.

• Instinct Magazine — Waco Judge Challenges Supreme Court Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage — https://instinctmagazine.com/waco-judge-challenge-same-sex-marriage

Notes that Hensley is not the only Texas judge filing this type of lawsuit — there is a pattern.

• First Liberty Institute — Judge Dianne Hensley Case Page — https://firstliberty.org/cases/judge-dianne-hensley/

The conservative legal organization representing Hensley. Included so you can understand how the other side frames this argument.

The Respect for Marriage Act

• NPR — What does the Respect for Marriage Act do? — https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1140808263/what-does-the-respect-for-marriage-act-do-the-answer-will-vary-by-state

The clearest explainer on what the law does and doesn’t protect — and why the answer varies by state.

• Human Rights Watch — US Congress Protects Right to Marry — https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/08/us-congress-protects-right-marry

Covers the federal benefits protected by the Act: immigration, taxes, hospital visitation, Social Security, and more.

• Whitman-Walker Health — Respect for Marriage Act Secures Marriage Equality — https://www.whitman-walker.org/respect-for-marriage-act/

Written specifically for LGBTQ+ people. Addresses what happens to existing marriages if Obergefell were overturned.

The Dobbs Parallel & Justice Thomas

• Wikipedia — Respect for Marriage Act (see section on Dobbs concurrence) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect_for_Marriage_Act

Includes Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs, where he explicitly called on the Court to reconsider Obergefell.

Historical Context: Loving v. Virginia

• Oyez — Loving v. Virginia (1967) — https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395

The Supreme Court case that made interracial marriage legal nationwide. The arguments used against it mirror those used against same-sex marriage today.

Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise"

• Page 451: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise/#document/p483

• Page 479: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise/#document/p511

Connect With the Show

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. That’s how we take care of each other.

I don’t know you personally, but I know of you. I know you as the United States Attorney General, serving as the head of the Department of Justice and the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. Previously as the Florida Attorney General. I’ve read the statements issued in your name, watched you testify before Congress.

From where I sit I can see the tentacles of shame have wrapped themselves around your heart. Draining you of love, erasing empathy, killing compassion.

As you sat in your seat before Congress, I watched you thumb through your book. That private catalog where you’ve organized individualized insults for each adversary, flash cards of cruelty customized to match your opponents. Even during congressional hearings, you return to those pages, fingers tracing your arsenal of personal attacks. Studying them. Rehearsing them. Ready to deploy the precise insult that will cut deepest.

The pettiness of it is staggering. Here you sit, in a position of immense responsibility, and you’re leafing through schoolyard taunts like a child planning revenge on the playground. The insults themselves are childish, unimaginative. They make you sound incompetent, small, utterly unequal to the office you hold.

When asked to turn and face the victims of your coverups, you cower and flip through your flash cards for a lethal zinger. Rather than accountability, you offer performance. Rather than answers, you deliver rehearsed cruelty. The victims sit there, waiting for acknowledgment, for justice, for some sign that their suffering matters. And you’re rifling through pages looking for the right insult to deflect attention from your failure to protect them.

You’ve aligned yourself with powerful men whose transgressions you help to manage, whose scandals you help to bury, whose victims disappear into the machinery of legal maneuvering and strategic silence. Each time you provide cover for cruelty, each time you shield wrongdoing from consequence, something happens to you. There’s a hardening that occurs, a coarsening that shows in your expressions, in the way you speak, in the quality of presence you bring to your public role.

I don’t mean physical appearance. I mean the ugliness that seeps in when we absorb the cruelty of others, when we make ourselves vessels for their misdeeds. You carry their skeletons now. And you’ve added your own contribution: your catalog of calculated cruelty, your system for inflicting maximum damage. You’ve become the predator’s guardian.

Your office holds tremendous influence. You are the people's lawyer, sworn to serve their interests, to pursue justice on their behalf, to hold the powerful accountable, to stand as a barrier between predators and their prey. Instead, you've become something else entirely: a guardian not of the vulnerable, but of those who harm them. A protector not of truth, but of its concealment. Someone who brings flash cards of insults to Congress.

We the people see the tentacles tighten with each compromise, each moment you choose expedience over principle. They feed on the widening gap between the person you once hoped to be and the role you’ve agreed to play. And they convince you that your book of insults is smart preparation, that your critics are naive, that the distance you feel from your former convictions, if there were any, is maturity rather than moral erosion.

The skeletons you bury aren’t abstractions. They represent real harm, real victims, real consequences that you’ve chosen to enable through your protection of those responsible. You’ve made choices that have had deadly consequences for some and impunity for others. That’s not speculation. It’s the visible record of your tenure.

Start today. Refuse the next cover-up, name the next wrongdoing, choose truth over expediency. Release ALL of the Epstein files. Un-redacted. It’s not too late to close that book of personalized attacks. Not too late to face the victims with honesty instead of hiding behind flash cards. The cost would be real. Some of your current allies would abandon you, some doors would close. But you’d finally be able to look in the mirror without seeing the accumulated weight of all those buried skeletons reflected back at you.

The tentacles only have the power you continue to grant them. But you’ve granted them so much already: your integrity, your moral clarity, the person you might have been.

Somewhere beneath the hardening, beneath the ugliness of absorbed cruelty, beneath the catalog of grievances and flash cards of insults you consult even in the halls of power, there might still be the person who once believed that power should serve something higher than itself.

The question is whether you can find her again.

Always-in-fifth-place Riley Gaines wants you to stop feeling compassion. Let that sink in for a moment. Let that truly sink in.

Renée Good was a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother who had just dropped her child at school. As her car moved forward on January 7th, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot her three times, with the fatal shot entering her temple. The federal government called her a domestic terrorist. Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse. Federal agents pepper-sprayed him, wrestled him to the ground, and shot him ten times on January 24th. He was trying to help people. He was filming what was happening.

And after all of this, Riley Gaines and her crew are telling their followers that compassion will “cloud your critical thinking.” They’re teaching you to kill your own empathy.

Vying for most-hated woman of the year in a crowded field in the womanosphere, Megyn Kelly said it out loud: “I know I’m supposed to feel sorry for Alex Pretti, but I don’t. I don’t.” Her reasoning? She wasn't shot because she stayed inside and minded her business. That’s her logic. A nurse trying to help people deserved to die because he didn’t stay home and look away. This is what they’re selling you. This is the cruelty dressed up as strength.

This is also a woman who defended Jeffrey Epstein's taste for "15-year-old girls" as "barely legal." When you're this desperate to stay relevant, apparently defending pedophiles and mocking dead nurses is just part of the job.

The Christian Nationalism Con

Here’s what kills me. A lot of these same people wrap themselves up in Christianity. They talk about faith and family and moral values. But FFS where’s Jesus in any of this?

These are the people who literally paraded a golden statue of Trump at CPAC. They’re the golden calf worshipers from Exodus, lecturing you about faith.

Jesus didn’t say “Love your neighbor unless they’re undocumented.” He didn’t say “Show mercy after you check their papers.” The Good Samaritan didn’t ask for documentation. When Christ said “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” there wasn’t fine print about visa requirements.

Christian nationalism is selling you a lie. It tells you that faith and compassion are opposites. That you have to choose between being strong and being kind. Between protecting yourself and being human.

But the gospel doesn’t tell you to harden your heart. It tells you to break it open.

And here's the darkest part: for many of them, the cruelty is the point. End Times theology teaches them that suffering and chaos are necessary preconditions for the Rapture. They're not trying to build a better world, they're trying to burn this one down so they can be chosen to rise with Jesus. Pastor John Pavlovitz, who spent decades inside evangelical megachurches, calls it what it is: not a civil war, but a Christian Nationalist holy war. He’s right.

They'll kill innocent people to get there. Somehow they think the God who said "Blessed are the peacemakers" wants them to create maximum suffering so he'll come back faster. That seems kinda fucked up if you ask me.

These people aren't offering you faith. They're offering you permission to be cruel.

Compassion Isn’t Stupid

To me, compassion doesn't mean you're naive. Empathy doesn't mean you can't think straight. Actually, it's the opposite.

When someone tells you to ignore the human cost of what’s happening, to look away from suffering, to treat your own conscience like it’s a weakness, that’s when you should pay the most attention. That’s when your compassion is telling you something important.

Cruelty only works if we stop seeing people as people. It needs us to accept simple stories about “threats” and “illegals” instead of dealing with the complicated reality that these are human beings. People trying to survive. People trying to help. People like Alex Pretti, shot ten times for caring.

The people telling you to shut off your empathy? They’re training you to accept the unacceptable.

You can think clearly and still feel deeply. When someone tells you that compassion is clouding your judgment, ask yourself: what are they trying to get me to accept that my conscience would normally reject?

Your empathy isn’t a weakness. It’s what keeps you human when the people in charge are trying to normalize cruelty.

Don’t let them take that from you.

What You Can Do

Resistance isn’t passive. On March 28, people across the country are standing up with a clear message: No Thrones, No Crowns, No Kings.

But you don’t have to wait until March. This week, there are coordinated actions happening nationwide:

• January 30th: National Shutdown - NO WORK. NO SCHOOL. NO SHOPPING. STOP FUNDING ICE.

• January 31st: ICE Out of Everywhere

• February 17th: Impeach, Convict, Remove, Defund

Find protests near you at fiftyfifty.one and nokings.org.

Silence isn't neutrality. It's a choice.

This is a moment to show up for Renée Good, for Alex Pretti, for every family being torn apart, for every person being dehumanized by this machinery of cruelty. Your presence matters. Your voice matters. Your refusal to accept this as normal matters.

Show up. Bring others. Let your compassion move you to action, not paralysis.

Your empathy is a weapon. Use it.

See you out there!

-David

I borrow this metaphor knowing that Achebe may not have intended it for LGBTQ liberation. But that's exactly how liberation works: powerful ideas about who gets to tell stories belong to all who've been silenced. We don’t need permission to see ourselves in frameworks about reclaiming narrative.

For too long, LGBTQ history has been written by those who sought to erase us, criminalize us, pathologize us, or simply pretend we didn’t exist. We’ve been the lions in someone else’s story, depicted as threats, disorders, sins, or footnotes unworthy of mention.

But I’m done being told our history by hunters.

The Hunters’ Version

When the hunters tell the story, here’s what gets recorded:

• Medical journals that labeled us as mentally ill

• Court records of our arrests for loving who we loved

• Newspaper accounts that called us perverts and deviants

• Religious texts used to justify our persecution

• “Experts” who claimed to cure us

• Laws that erased us from public view

Propaganda masquerading as fact. Fox News before there was a Fox News. And for generations, this was the only version that made it into textbooks, archives, and collective memory. This was our story told by the hunters. It still is.

When the Lions Speak

Everything changes when we tell our own stories.

We discover that we've always been here, in every culture, every era, every community. We find our ancestors: the two-spirit people honored in Indigenous cultures, Sappho of Lesbos and the poets of ancient Greece, the gender-nonconforming saints and scholars, the lovers who risked everything, the activists who fought back. We find Gilbert Baker, who in 1978 turned eight colors into a symbol of hope and defiance that waves at every Pride around the world.

And we’re documenting more than just our suffering. Our families, our weddings, our art, our community, our resilience. This is the joy they tried to keep invisible. We can no longer be silent and hidden in a world we deserve to live in equally.

The language once used to shame us? We've made it our own. What was meant to hurt us now makes us stronger. Queer. Dyke. These words are badges of pride now, not slurs. We wear them along with our rainbow pins. We stand together in the streets, at Pride, in our communities, waving rainbow flags, visible and unashamed. We shine brightly and we continue to thrive.

Why This Matters Now

The fight over who tells LGBTQ history isn’t academic. It’s happening right now in school boards, legislatures, and libraries across the country. And it’s escalating rapidly.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 laid out an explicit blueprint for erasing LGBTQ people from public life. Now they’ve released their priorities for 2025-2026 under “Restoring America’s Promise,” and the specifics are chilling.

Their “Put Family First” section explicitly states that every child deserves to be born to a married mother and father, a direct attack on same-sex parents and LGBTQ families. They denounce what they call radical ideologies that deny social and biological truths about sexual embodiment and marriage, making their opposition to marriage equality unmistakable.

In education, they decry the scourge of what they term woke ideas like radical gender ideology, pushing to dismantle the Department of Education entirely. They want to systematically remove the terms sexual orientation, gender identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion from all federal rules, regulations, contracts, and grants.

This isn’t just policy. It’s erasure. The plan signals a deliberate effort to continue undermining same-sex marriage, eliminate gender-affirming care, and erase transgender people from public life and federal policy.

They’re characterizing our very existence (our families, our identities, our lives) as threats to children and American values. Our marriages aren’t “real families.” Our healthcare is “child abuse.” Our presence in schools is “pornographic ideology.”

Am I surprised by this continued assault on our existence? No. This is the hunters’ playbook, literally page by page: control the narrative, criminalize the identity, erase the history.

History is repeating itself. The Lavender Scare of the 1950s showed us what government-sanctioned erasure looks like. Stonewall showed us how we fight back.

The hunters understand something crucial: visibility equals power. If they can make us invisible again, if they can ensure that young LGBTQ people grow up never seeing themselves reflected in history or culture, if they can force us back into the closet through legislation and intimidation, then they win. We become the shameful secret again, the thing people whisper about, the identity people hide. I don’t know about you but I ain’t going back.

We’ve been here before. Stonewall wasn’t just a riot that “happened.” It was a rebellion led by trans women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who said “enough.” These are heroes not because they led a rebellion. They are heroes because they had had enough. Enough of being treated as if their lives didn’t matter. Enough of police raids and arrests for existing. Enough of a world that demanded they stay invisible while it profited from their labor, their art, their creativity - as long as they never claimed it as their own.

But here’s what they don’t understand: once the lions start telling their own stories, you can’t silence them again. We’ve tasted freedom. We’ve built families and communities. We’ve documented our history. We know we’ve always existed, and we’re not going back.

From hockey rinks to podcasts, from books to social media, our stories are being told. This is our moment.

Add your voice. Share your story. Post your truth. Get loud.

My Podcast’s Mission

That’s why “A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life” exists. This isn’t just a podcast. It’s living history, the kind that happens when real people share their real stories. It’s also deeply personal.

I’ve lived through love and loss, joy and grief, doubt and growth, and I know I’m not alone in that. This space is my way of holding up a mirror to the lives we live and the community we build when we dare to show up as ourselves.

I’m learning too. Just this past year, while researching ideas for a Pride episode, I stumbled across the Chicago LGBTQ Hall of Fame and learned about Henry Gerber and the Society for Human Rights, history I’d never been taught. Through my interview with Sean McCormick I discovered contemporary heroes like Woody Baldwin, the founder of Prime Timers, an organization built for older gay men who were being pushed to the margins of our community. Every conversation teaches me something new about who we've been and who we're becoming.

I believe every person has a story worth hearing. I also believe that when we really listen to each other, we open ourselves up to empathy, healing, and maybe even transformation.

Every conversation we have, every story we share, every moment of joy and struggle we document becomes part of our collective archive. We are writing our own history, not to glorify ourselves, but to ensure that future generations know: we were here, we loved fiercely, we fought back, and we survived.

We are the lions with keyboards, microphones, and platforms. And we’re telling the truth about the hunt.

Join the Story

What part of LGBTQ history do you wish you’d learned earlier? What story from your own life deserves to be preserved? Whose perspective has been missing from the narrative?

I know that for some, telling their story is scary. Sharing trauma, coming out again and again, reliving painful memories, it takes courage. If you’re ready to share, this space is built on listening with empathy and open minds. Every story shared here is a gift of trust.

Let’s tell those stories together.

Because until every lion has spoken, the story isn’t complete.

Subscribe to stay connected as we explore who we are, our shared LGBTQ history, culture, and community from those who lived it, not those who tried to silence it.

Subscribe now

In this episode, Randy and I reconnect again to talk about creativity, loss, and what it means to sustain an artistic life across time. His career spans art direction roles at The Advocate, Genre, Hero, Home Magazine, and YM, plus 18 years teaching graphic design at FIDM. But more than credentials, Randy brings wisdom about the creative process—particularly his mantra that mistakes aren’t just acceptable, they’re essential.

Our conversation moves through the excitement of 1980s New York, where Randy worked alongside brilliant designers and editors, many of whom were lost to AIDS. We discuss his philosophy, and obsession, on typography (he once took type specimen books to lunch), his experiments with AI in music creation, the invisible burden of aging as a creative person, and why he wishes he’d gotten a business degree instead of relying solely on talent.

Randy is candid about regret, honest about ego, and generous with the lessons he’s learned. He talks about being fired for arrogance, the magazines that died around him, and why he still believes in doing things differently, even when it’s uncomfortable.

We talk about craft, survival, and what it takes to keep creating.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Randy.

-David

RandyDunbar.com
PlanetHomo.com

This week I’m talking with 81-year-old Sean McCormick. He’s funny, he’s honest, and he’s got this huge heart that comes through in everything he says. I met Sean about three years ago, and we’ve become friends. When I started thinking about doing an episode on aging in the gay community, he felt like the perfect person to talk to.

Sean came out in the 1950s and 60s, way before being gay was something you could just say out loud. He remembers the coded looks, the piano bars like Kitty Sheehan’s in Chicago where he’d sing after a couple gin and tonics, the police raids, and the constant need to stay careful: to protect yourself and the people around you. He navigated being gay in the military during Vietnam, built a career as a deputy clerk in the appellate court, and found community in spaces that existed mostly in the margins.

He and his late husband Kent were together for 35 years: a relationship full of loyalty, adventure, travel, and deep companionship. After Kent died in 2019, Sean didn’t think he’d find that again. But then he met Arturo, and here he is at 81, still pursuing love. Still showing up. Still trying.

We talk about what it actually feels like to get older in a community that worships youth. Sean doesn’t sugarcoat it. He talks about feeling invisible at mixers, about the “cheerleader tables” that form even among older gay men, about how hard it is to put yourself out there when you’ve been rejected. But he also talks about the stuff that surprised him about aging: the confidence that comes with it, the clarity, the freedom of finally just being comfortable as yourself. “I’ve never felt so comfortable with myself,” he tells me. “Be me. Very simple. Be me.”

At the end, I ask Sean what he’d tell his younger self: that kid in the Army, or the guy just figuring out who he was. His answer comes fast: “It only gets better.”

This conversation reminded me that we’re strongest when we actually see each other across generations. When we listen. When we make room. Sean’s story is about perseverance and joy and the fact that becoming yourself doesn’t stop at any particular age. It just keeps going.

I’m really glad I got to share this one with you.

-David

Our paths cross just often enough to make you believe in fate, in the eternity of friendship—days forgiving of time, hours full of laughter and sun. For a while, you walk side by side thinking, Okay, maybe this is how it will be now.

Then you pause. It’s 25 years later. You stop and look around, and suddenly someone is gone.

That someone is my friend Rich Hajjar.

When I heard Rich died on Monday, my first reaction was raw and instinctive: No. I don’t believe it. That can’t be right... No.

It had been months since Rich and I last had a real conversation, the kind where time dissolves into laughter. As men of a certain age, we gathered around the usual topics: friend group gossip, comparing meds and reading glasses, eye rolls at aches and pains, and our customary post-modern despair about politics. Laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Life, as it does, kept us busy, him here and me there, each of us promising, “Soon, soon. Let’s get together soon.”

Still, we crossed paths: quick smiles at coffee shops, hugs in bars and street fairs, comments on each other’s posts. Occasional “Bitch please! 🙄,” “💯 Fuck um! 🤣,” or “Love you!😍” Emojis scattered about, overused, a bit awkward, a lot heartfelt.

With Rich, I never had to explain myself. We could pick up right where we left off, no matter how much time had passed or where we were on our journey. That kind of friendship is a home you return to, again and again, without needing directions. A well-worn road.

And yet here I am, thinking of the man who stood beside me 20 years ago on the most pivotal day of my life, the day I brought my two-month-old son home.

Long before that day in Pomona, before fatherhood was something I dared to consider, I met Rich and his husband Mike, not long after moving to Los Angeles in 2000. I rented office space in Silver Lake, above Akbar, with Mike. Before long, the three of us wove ourselves into a tight constellation. For a few years, we were inseparable, one of those friendships that feels like a secret club with its own language.

Rich could make me laugh out loud. Not a polite exhale, but a real laugh at life’s ridiculous curveballs, whether at the grocery store or a tough Monday.

In the early 2000s, we spent long afternoons at The Abbey, drinking martinis with a confidence I no longer possess and plotting marketing strategies for our little hookup website. Warm light, clinking glasses, conversations ranging from the ridiculous to the heartfelt. Those were the days that happen when you’re fully seen and fully loved.

Rich and Mike built a kind of love that spills outward, the kind you feel just by being near them. Some of my favorite memories are the three of us packed into a booth, laughing too loudly and loving each other like chosen family does.

When I decided to become a single dad, Rich stood by me without hesitation. He never wavered in his belief in me.

Then came the day we drove to Pomona to pick up my son.

Terrified, I clung to him. Literally and figuratively. He never let me drown in fear. He was a cheerleader, a brother, a lifeline. He stood with me as I stepped into fatherhood, as if he always knew I could do it.

My heart is with Mike and their family. Mike shared a life with Rich that the rest of us were lucky to witness, even if only briefly.

Losing Rich has made all of us reflect on what we build together in this community. How friendships become family, how queer life stitches together the most unlikely and beautiful support systems. Our makeshift families are built on a quiet agreement: we show up for each other as long as we can. And when someone can’t stay, we keep walking. Not because it’s easy, but because the road doesn’t stop for any of us.

What we must do is remember. Love. Laugh at the memory of martinis and ridiculous marketing meetings for a website we proudly created together. And be fiercely grateful our paths ever crossed.

Rich was my friend.
He helped me find my way to my son.
And I will miss him.

Salute to you, old friend. 🍸

-David

We meet Gilbert Baker, the artist and activist who stitched color into our collective soul, and explore how his friendship with Harvey Milk turned a simple idea into a lasting emblem of queer identity.

Along the way, I share stories of AIDS-era activism, the meaning of visibility, and what the flag has come to represent in my own life, especially as a gay parent raising a child in today’s world.

This isn’t just queer history.

It is a reminder that Pride began as protest, and that our strength has always come from showing up together.

🎧 Listen now and rediscover the beauty, defiance, and hope sewn into every color of the rainbow.

Hope to see you out in the streets this weekend at Palm Springs Pride!

-David

Resources:

Clip 1 - soundcloud.com/brainpicker
Clip 2 - cbc.ca/radio
Clip 3 - Outcast Media
Clip 4 - cbc.ca/radio

Art
Palm Springs Pride Monument, Created by jimisermann.com
Arenas District Landmark Flagpole

Mentioned at the top of show:
Out of the Blue by Robert Tregoning
Fletcher’s Ice Cream and Cafe
Hailey Bieber Unbothered

Dann’s been designing for almost four decades, and his work has this incredible mix of style, warmth, and personality. He’s an award-winning interior designer, a TV personality you might’ve seen on NBC’s American Dream Builders or Showtime’s The Real L Word, and the author of It’s All in the Mix: Designs for Living Well — which, honestly, sums up his whole approach to life.

From his early days surrounded by travel and creativity to now leading major design brands and creating hundreds of products, Dann has stayed grounded in one simple belief: that great design should feel personal, welcoming, and accessible, not intimidating.

He’s been named to Designers Today’s Power List and recently stepped into a new role as president of Harp & Finial, all while continuing to grow his own lifestyle brand. But what I love most about Dann is his energy, he just loves what he does, and that passion shows in everything he touches.

So today, we’re diving into his journey, how it all started, what keeps him inspired, and why “living well” is something we can all design for ourselves.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dann Foley.

-David

dannfoleylifestyle.com
Book: It’s All in the Mix: Designs for Living Well

Each October reminds me that our history isn’t just about looking back. It’s about asking how we keep that spirit alive now, how we protect each other and keep the pride alive when the rainbow starts to fade from the brands and institutions that once claimed to stand beside us.

Fifteen days into LGBTQ+ History Month, October’s rolling on with a bit of a chill this year, and not just the weather kind. It feels colder than ever now that so many companies who once flooded their socials with rainbows are keeping their allyship packed away. Apparently, a few DEI-triggered snowflakes were just too much for them to handle. Bless their fragile hearts.

Surprised? Yeah, me neither. Considering the state of things right now, it’s no wonder. We’ve gotten pretty good at spotting fair-weather allies. Still, it’s a bad look, and it makes you wonder: were they ever really on our side?

I don’t think so.

That’s why I keep coming back to where I spend my hard-earned dollars. Money talks, and where we spend it matters. Every time we buy something, we’re voting with our wallets, with our queer dollars, so why not make those votes count?

Supporting businesses that actually support us isn’t just a nice idea. It’s quiet and personal activism. Every purchase becomes a choice, a statement that says, “We see each other, we value what matters, and we’ll stand together.” I stopped buying from companies that bankroll hate or fund politicians who work to strip our rights away. It’s not about canceling them for their views. It’s about walking away because of my values. It’s not always convenient, but it’s powerful. Boycotts aren’t just about saying no; they’re about saying yes to something better.

Those small choices add up. They remind me that community isn’t built only in protests or parades. It’s built every time we choose each other. Every time we refuse to forget who we are, even when others do.

And we’ve seen how powerful that can be. Remember when folks canceled Disney+ over “freedom of speech”? Financial boycotting works. I’ve been more intentional about it lately, choosing to spend with queer-owned shops, local makers, and brands that actually show up all year, not just during Pride Month.

When a company takes a stand for LGBTQ+ rights, especially when it’s unpopular, I notice that—and I try to support them. Like Costco taking a stand on DEI. I’m now a proud Costco member! If you’re not sure where to start, there are some great tools out there like Goods Unite Us to see where brands put their money, or Intentionalist and Everywhere is Queer to find queer-owned and allied businesses.

Even small choices count. Sharing a queer business on social media, leaving a review, or just telling a friend helps more than you might think. We don’t have to wait around for corporate allyship when we can build our own network of support, one rooted in community, not marketing.

And maybe that’s the real spirit of LGBTQ+ History Month. The reminder that our strength has always come from showing up for one another through action, creativity, and care.

Every year around this time we’re asked to remember, to write, update, and debate our history. Not for nostalgia, but for survival. Every story, every hard-won victory, every awkward brunch and glitter-soaked protest is part of the living record that keeps our community alive.

Because the stakes are still sky high. There are folks out there trying to make our history smaller, quieter, and easier to ignore.

Lately, it feels like our rainbow is being shrunk on purpose. The push from the Trump Administration to strip “TQ+” from “LGBTQ+” isn’t some innocent typo. It’s deliberate. It’s an attempt to erase trans, nonbinary, and queer people, tossing them aside like used glow sticks after Pride.

And that’s not just disappointing.

It’s dangerous.

It’s segregation by another name.

“Separate but equal” has never led to liberation.

What’s worse is seeing parts of our own community cheering the split. The idea that peeling off into neat little “LGB-only” boxes somehow makes us more “respectable” is heartbreaking. It’s the same old exclusion wrapped in a fresh coat of self-preservation, and it betrays everything LGBTQ+ History Month stands for. We don’t owe tolerance to intolerance. Our existence doesn’t depend on making anyone comfortable. Real progress requires standing shoulder to shoulder, not shrinking to fit someone else’s limits.

Scratch beneath the Log Cabin talking points, or the gaslighting coming from Republicans who want to rewrite queer history to make it fit their politics, and you’ll find the stories we’re meant to remember. Marsha P. Johnson flinging bricks at Stonewall, Audre Lorde, the self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” wielding poetry as resistance, and William Dorsey Swann, the first known American activist to identify as a “queen of drag,” along with so many more. Authors, activists, poets, politicians, sports figures, and movie stars—there are too many to count who identify somewhere on the spectrum of rainbow. They can try to erase us, but those stories survive because we refuse to forget them. We hold them close, cherishing the lessons they teach about who we are and where we came from.

That’s why history matters. It tells the truth when polite society looks away. It reminds us that inclusion wasn’t a late add-on. It was the whole point. When we keep our history honest, messy, and real, we build armor for the next generation. We show them that every identity, trans, bi, ace, pan, genderqueer, and more, is vital. None of us move forward unless all of us do. It’s like a Kelly Clarkson anthem playing on repeat inside your brain: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” (You’re welcome!) Stand a little taller, prouder, and stronger together.

Chosen family is the heartbeat of queer life. You find it in activism, in drag shows, in neighborhood bars, in coffeehouses, gyms, nightclubs, broken hearts, and those quiet, intimate moments of bear hugs and air kisses. It’s all about creating a place to belong, building a tribe. No one sends official invites, but somehow we find each other. That’s the real legacy worth protecting, from coming out to connection, from joy to stubborn hope.

And we owe a thank you to Rodney Wilson, Missouri’s first openly gay public school teacher, who dreamed up LGBTQ+ History Month and made sure our stories wouldn’t be erased. Every October, we honor both the icons and the unsung heroes by telling the whole messy, beautiful story.

If we lose our history, we lose our backbone. If we fracture, we lose each other. LGBTQ+ History Month reminds us not to settle for the smallest possible club, because the rainbow deserves every color, every story, and every ounce of our solidarity.

So as we look back, it’s also a reminder to keep that legacy going—to spend queerly, support loudly, and invest in each other’s futures. The history we honor this month is still being written, one purchase, one post, one act of care at a time.

Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

-David

P.S. No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings. I hope to see you all out on October 18th at a No Kings Protest! Find your event here: www.nokings.org

As October 11th, National Coming Out Day, approaches, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what coming out really means, not only for those of us who’ve done it, but for those who are still waiting for the right time, or the right safety, or the right words.

In this episode, I look back on conversations I’ve had through Friends, Loves, & Life and revisit stories from people who opened their hearts and trusted me with their truth, people like Gregg, Alex, Mike, Rich, Stephen, and James. Each one reminds me that while coming out can be scary, it’s also powerful. It builds bridges. It saves lives. It connects us to our chosen family, the people who see us, love us, and remind us that we belong.

For some, family is where the story begins. For others, it’s what we build along the way. Either way, the act of coming out, whether whispered, shouted, or simply lived, is a kind of rebirth.

I share a bit of my own story, too, and the relief that came when my father hugged me and told me he loved me after I said the words, “Yes, I’m gay.” That moment changed everything.

Because when we live as ourselves, we not only free our own hearts, we light the way for others to do the same.

-David