Feb. 23 marks three years since Russia began its full-scale attack on my home country, Ukraine. I haven’t been in Ukraine for more than 10 years, and I spent almost all those years in LGBTQ activism.

I was barely an adult when my family left my hometown, Donetsk, after the declaration of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic by Russian  puppet separatists in 2014.

So many things have changed since then—my school friend was barely able to escape the Mariupol bombings together with two little children. Small cities in the Donetsk region that were barely known to outsiders and were places of my father’s business trips turned into battlefields frequently mentioned in international news. And all my queer acquaintances except for one left Ukraine.

This revealed how the world has shifted into globalization and how LGBTQ rights are used as bargaining chips in political debates, and now the fate of LGBTQ Ukrainians is partly dependent on the U.S.

Because Russian officials were using LGBTQ people as a symbol of everything “immoral” and “Western,” they used LGBTQ people in their war propaganda both against the U.S. and against Ukraine. For example, the leader of the state-supported Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, stated in 2022 that the war in Ukraine happened because “people in Donetsk do not want Gay Prides” as a justification for the war, and that the gay Prides are the ultimate test that the Americans and the West are using to find out whether Ukrainians are ready to abandon “Russian traditional values.”

But when I asked a transgender person, L., who was living in Donetsk between 2014 and 2022, they explained that they do not face transphobic challenges that many queer people face in Russia, and the younger generation in Donetsk was pretty much LGBTQ friendly. Even Russian puppet forces didn’t care much about LGBTQ people back in those days.

A majority 58% of Ukrainians hold neutral or positive attributes toward their LGBTQ citizens, according to recent polling.

The LGBTQ phobia wasn’t something that the Donetsk people were willing to protect with their lives; it was something that Russians used in their propaganda war to justify the invasion and killing of Ukrainian civilians, including children.

For a long time, Russia labelled LGBTQ organizations as “Western agents” and used anti-American rhetoric in their homophobic propaganda.

But there was actual help that the Ukrainian LGBTQ community received from the U.S., not because of some kind of conspiracy, but because of humanitarian reasons, because Russian state propaganda and the Soviet anti-LGBTQ legacy made it hard for LGBTQ Ukrainians to find financial support for community activism.

On the anniversary of the war, I spoke with Igor, a Ukrainian lawyer born in Donetsk, political analyst, and expert on the American-Ukrainian relationship, currently based in Vienna, about how MAGA and the current American political situation influence LGBTQ people in war-torn Ukraine.

“U.S. support, particularly through USAID and other grant programs, has been essential to sustaining services for LGBTQ individuals in Ukraine” Ihor explained. “Without it, many of these services—like specialized shelters, emergency housing, HIV counseling, and psychological support—would disappear. For instance, shelters in cities like Dnipro and Chernivtsi that offer safe places for LGBTQ people escaping war zones exist largely thanks to international donor funding.

USAID has backed public outreach and education initiatives aimed at fostering open dialogue on LGBTQ issues, which in turn helps combat anti-LGBTQ propaganda. If USAID’s programs were dismantled, we would see an immediate and severe impact: safe spaces could close, mental health support could end, and marginalized groups would be left even more vulnerable. Essentially, the destruction of this aid framework would roll back critical progress and expose the LGBTQ community to greater risks with fewer avenues for help.

To compensate for these losses, pro-LGBTQ NGOs would need to seek alternative funding sources from private donors—such as the Open Society Foundations—or EU-based donors. However, it remains uncertain whether those sources can fully replace the scale and consistency of current USAID-backed programs. Essentially, the destruction of this aid framework would roll back critical progress and expose the LGBTQ community to greater risks with fewer avenues for help.”

At the same time, LGBTQ people in Ukraine are now facing much more grave danger because of current American politics.

President Donald Trump told reporters that it is unlikely that Ukraine would return to its pre-2014 borders, hinting that Ukraine needs to sacrifice the Crimea and Donbas regions—including my hometown, Donetsk. This plan was also promoted by the American delegation at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14-16.

Meanwhile, situations with LGBTQ rights in Donetsk worsened. For example, my attempt to find open LGBTQ people in Russian-controlled Donetsk for one of my articles ended with a comment from my bisexual non-binary friend Roman, who told me that LGBTQ people in Donetsk are now avoiding getting in contact with outsiders because they are scared of “fake dates,” when thugs or occupational security forces pretend to be LGBTQ-friendly journalists, physiologists, or potential partners to lure a queer person into a trap. LGBTQ people in Donetsk couldn’t speak openly about their sexual orientation and gender identity.

“In occupied areas like Kherson and Crimea, Russian authorities have specifically targeted LGBTQ+ individuals,” explained Ihor, and a Trump deal could make everything even worse, making it permanent. “The MAGA approach to Russia-Ukraine relations under Trump poses significant risks to Ukraine’s LGBTQ community. If MAGA policies lead to territorial concessions or normalization of Russian control over parts of Ukraine, LGBTQ individuals in those areas would face severe repression under Russian law. Russia’s “gay propaganda” laws criminalize public expressions of LGBTQ identity and advocacy. In previously occupied regions like Crimea and Donbas, there have been documented cases of violence, arrests, and forced disappearances targeting LGBTQ individuals under Russian rule”

Indeed, it’s true. For example, the Russian-occupied Chechnya, an official Russian administration government ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, is hunting LGBTQ people as part of a mass-terror campaign.

Chechnya has always been a quite conservative region compared to Western Europe; sexuality and gender identity wasn’t something that was widely discussed in independent Chechnya after the Soviet Union collapsed, before Russia attacked the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in 1994. It was a private and family matter, but after 400 years of Chechen anti-colonial fighting, Russians decided to break resistance by destroying the whole idea of a private life. Only after Russia got Chechnya under its control, a mass-terror campaign against LGBTQ people began, and sometimes even non-LGBTQ people were framed as “gay,” tortured, and killed.

The Russian administration in Chechnya was actively hunting dissidents and even their relatives, or just accidental young men who could be framed as terrorist supporters, separatists or spies for better “crime detection” statistics or to be sent to the war in Ukraine as a “Russian” cannon fodder.

The same could happen not just with LGBTQ Ukrainians, but with any open-minded and independently thinking Ukrainians in Donbas and Crimea if Ukraine is forced by the United States to sacrifice territories.

It is possible that it’s up to Americans now to stop their government and to help Ukrainian LGBTQ people save themselves from persecution and extermination.

by Eric Restivo (@ericcrestivo)

The Super Bowl LIX halftime show took place on February 9, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. It featured Pulitzer prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar as the headline performer, with guest appearances from R&B artist SZA, actor Samuel L. Jackson, tennis player Serena Williams, and DJ and record producer Mustard. The reviews were mixed but not for the right or should I say “white” reasons.

Lamar’s performance was dripping in subtle messages and not-so-subtle camera angles and featured an entire company of Black excellence, from his background dancers to highlights like Serena Williams doing a crip walk during “Not Like Us.”

Samuel L. Jackson appeared multiple times as Uncle Sam and it was for good reason, providing proof with his statements in between song sets of the obvious political and cultural divide we are facing. Lamar’s dancers, all Black men and women, featured a fit of red, white, and blue, which created a moving picture of the American flag. The choreography was seamless, subtle, and tight, with Lamar in the middle of his dancers showing even more of the blatant rebuttal of our nation. Surely, this went over many people’s heads, but it was an obvious ‘f*** you’ moment shared on the largest stage of the night earning 133 million viewers worldwide.

Not to mention, President Trump was in attendance. Kendrick topped off his performance with his well-known Drake diss track (hence Serena Williams – Drake’s ex) and even took time to stare into the camera while stating the rapper’s name “Drake” with a bright, bushy-tailed smile.

A moment everyone is still talking about occurred when the majority of the crowd in the Superdome repeated back the lyric “A MINOR” when referencing rapper Drake – a moment that went viral on every social media platform available.

Many Americans–mostly white–had complaints about Lamar’s 13-minute performance, saying it lacked production value, big energy, and not enough diversity within the rap genre.

Choosing to create a negative narrative as opposed to focusing on the fact that this was a first, and hopefully not last, for the Superbowl Halftime show featuring the rap genre.

Some say it was obvious and some say it was the worst thing to ever hit our television screens. Regardless of the mixed reviews, it has been over a week and we are still talking about the performance at the same volume as we were a week ago.

Did I pass the vibe check?

How does one even attempt to give an honest review of a new TV show executive-produced by the late Norman Lear – a pioneer in entertainment – also starring Laverne Cox, a trailblazer for trans representation? Given the current political climate towards the queer community, approaching Clean Slate should be done with kid gloves. Still, the show struggles to find its footing and generally misfires.

The show, now streaming on Prime, was originally pitched to Lear by comedian and co-star of Clean Slate, George Wallace as a Sanford & Sons reboot. Lear told him to go back to the drawing board and come back with something new. Ultimately, Wallace, together with Laverne Cox and Dan Ewen, created a show that is a throwback to the family sitcom era and to Lear’s earlier shows like All in the Family and The Jeffersons.

What’s missing here is a live audience and a stage.

The writing doesn’t seem to get that. One-liners fall flat, and preachy character orations clunk away with their heavy-handedness. Some of the actors are able to make something of a dated and unimaginative script, and some do not. Some of the jokes and situations are very stale, we’ve heard and seen them before. Though new to the scene, this show does not seem fresh, which is odd for a Lear project. We wish Clean Slate was as fast-paced and fun as the show’s trailer.

Always one to push the envelope, Lear’s projects have addressed class, racism, abortion, women’s rights and queer issues, many times way before mainstream audiences were prepared to discuss them. In Clean Slate, trans and gay issues are in the spotlight.

Laverne Cox’s Desiree returns to her small hometown in Alabama and surprises her father, Wallace’s Henry Slate, after being gone for 17 years. Not only does she surprise her father by coming back, but she also surprises him by showing uo as his daughter and not the son he knew.

Having lost her money running an art gallery in New York, she moves back in with her father to figure out her next steps. The show centers on the bond she creates with her father and the friendships she builds in small-town living, including the family that works for Henry’s car wash, her best friend Louis who is dealing with being in the closet, Louis’ mother, and the local church community.

Ultimately, she also connects with the local queer contingent. The usual themes and situations you would expect unfold. Henry must also now get used to using different pronouns with his daughter and having to put money into a pronoun jar each time he makes a mistake. He helps Desiree deal with her relationship to church and spirituality, when the local pastor shuns her new identity and she falls in love with the town’s hot guy.

Even with these storylines, the proceedings seem unimaginative and dated. At times, it seems like the show is an after-school special and not a progressive comedy. Henry and almost all of the small town embrace Desiree’s new identity with vigor and understanding which – although optimistic and hopeful – seems improbable in small town living in the South. The whole affair just comes across as saccharin in its sweetness.

Wallace as Henry Slate is charming and a great choice to help lead this story. He handles many of the cheezy lines with sincerity that makes it almost work. He is a gentle giant as a character, and quickly becomes lovable, even with his many missteps of grappling with the queer community. He loves his child unconditionally and would do anything for her, which is very believable from the get-go. D.K. Uzoukwu as the closeted Louis plays his role with sincerity and is a very welcome fresh face to big-time TV.

He plays the balance of presentational comedy and character honesty very well. Jay Wilkison as Mack – the town’s bad boy turned loving single father – really handles the material deftly and adds some much-needed craft to make the script and situations seem plausible. He’s also not hard on the eyes. Stealing practically every scene she is in is TV veteran Telma Hopkins, most known for her role in Family Matters, as Louis’ mom. She understands the nuance of sitcoms, single-camera closeups, and just the right amount of presentational acting to make it work. She is a delight to watch. We just want to hang out with her and gossip on the porch.  

We know Laverne Cox is a talented actor. She made history as the first trans actor to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy for her role in Orange Is the New Black. Oddly and we feel guilty by even writing it, but she misses the mark the most in Clean Slate.

She doesn’t seem to understand the material and comedic moments are overdone. Her emotional moments just don’t ring true. She seems to be overacting which, along with a weak script, doesn’t anchor the show properly. But, she is a consummate actor. What was it? The direction? The writing? Her performance just doesn’t cut it.

Here’s the thing.

All that being said, the show does have a lot of heart. But it seems lost, trying to find its footing, as to what it wants to be. A sitcom? A dra-medy? It does not succeed in any of those genres, but as a queer person watching the show, it is touching just because of its existence.

A comedy show led by trans and queer storylines is so much needed right now and just knowing this show is part of the Lear legacy, makes it that much more important.

Should we blindly support queer content just because it is out there? No.

Should we support the efforts and mission of a show? Yes.

And we also love the fact that this is a show the whole family can watch and discuss, which holds a lot of weight. There is a lot to explore if the show gets a season 2 and we do hope it is renewed so it has a chance to find its footing with stronger direction and writing.

Clean Slate season 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

MEXICO CITY — Then-President Donald Trump on July 16, 2018, defended Russian President Vladimir Putin during a press conference that took place in Helsinki after they met. I watched it happen on live television while I was on assignment in Mexico City. This disgusting spectacle prompted me to write an op-ed about how the U.S. no longer stood for human rights around the world.

I am once again on assignment in Mexico City, 15 days after Trump returned to the White House. He is doing everything possible to ensure the U.S. will no longer stand for human rights — around the world and in our own country — and basic decency.

Trump’s executive orders have, among other things, threatened the lives of an untold number of LGBTQ+ people around the world who depend upon U.S. foreign aid to survive. These directives have systematically erased transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans. Trump has also antagonized Mexico, Canada, and other U.S. allies with his ridiculous tariff threats.

One may have naively thought that Trump would have shown an ounce of decency with his response to last week’s tragic midair collision near Reagan National Airport. Trump instead suggested, without evidence, that previous administrations’ diversity, equity, and inclusion policies could have caused it.

I thankfully did not watch Trump the comments and defense of them. I did, however, have a very undiplomatic response when I read them while I was at a coffee shop near my hotel in Tijuana.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said out loud.

I wrote after Trump defended Putin in Helsinki that American exceptionalism, however flawed, “teaches us the U.S. is the land of opportunity where people can build a better life for themselves and for their families.”

“Trump has turned his back on these ideals,” I concluded. “He has also proven himself to be a danger, not only to his country but to the world as a whole.”

History is sadly repeating itself.

The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Scott Bessent, President Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, in a rare bipartisan vote of 68-29.

Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager, becomes the first openly gay, Senate-confirmed Republican Cabinet member. He’s also the highest-ranking out gay government official ever, as Treasury Secretary is fifth in the line of presidential succession. 

It’s hard to make sense of the disconnect here: On one hand Trump makes history with a senior gay appointment; on the other, he launches cruel attacks on the transgender community on day one. 

The Republican-led House last week passed a bill that would prohibit schools that receive federal education funding from allowing trans students to play girls’ and womens’ sports. Trump, meanwhile, has already banned Pride flags at U.S. embassies and eliminated the X gender marker on passports and other government documents. Trump’s executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” would prohibit the federal government from recognizing people and populations whose birth sex does not match their gender identity. Additionally, the order directs the attorney general to allow “people to refuse to use a transgender or nonbinary person’s correct pronouns, and to claim a right to use single-sex bathrooms and other spaces based on sex assigned at birth at any workplace covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and federally funded spaces.”

Then on Monday, he issued an executive order banning transgender service members, a move that would impact more than 15,000 brave trans people serving in the military.

So far, Bessent is silent on those attacks. Trump likes his queer people gay, white, cis, rich, and obedient. Bessent has defended Trump’s self-serving tax cut plan for the wealthiest Americans as well as his misguided and destructive tariff obsession. 

Kelley J. Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, released a statement about Bessent’s nomination.

“We need pro-equality LGBTQ+ nominees and LGBTQ+ people at all levels of government. The LGBTQ+ community is counting on openly LGBTQ+ nominees like Scott Bessent to step up for the community,” Robinson wrote. “HRC has a long history of working across the aisle to advance equality and this appointment may be an opportunity to continue.”

We have entered a dangerous time that will require many of us to make decisions about how to respond to these attacks, not just on trans people, but immigrants who are already being arrested and deported in cities across the country. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is making plans for how the city will operate in the event he is arrested and jailed for refusing to cooperate with these immigrant raids. That’s what courage looks like. 

Will Bessent find his backbone and work to convince his boss that the anti-trans hysteria must end? Does he have a trans person in his life who might inform his views? Trans people are human beings, fellow Americans, and family and friends and they deserve respect from their government. They deserve an advocate in the White House who sees their humanity and can articulate it while standing up to the powerful bigots in Trump’s orbit. I hope HRC’s Robinson is right and Bessent will find the courage to stand up for the full spectrum of the LGBTQ community but we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet. 

It’s not just senior gay officials who need to stand up; many of us will likely face a decision to resist or comply with the unconstitutional actions of this administration. Too many former progressive allies have already folded like cheap tents — including MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. We must look to the example of Mayor Scott and others who are refusing to capitulate to this madness. I hope Scott Bessent finds his voice and advocates for a more compassionate approach to trans humanity. 

Kevin Naff is editor of the Washington Blade. Reach him at [email protected].

What do Snoop Dogg and Caitlyn Jenner have in common? No, this isn’t the setup for a bad joke — it’s a tragic reality. They’ve become poster children for the misguided belief that cozying up to power structures that openly despise them will somehow buy them a permanent seat at the table — or at least a pat on the head from the same people pulling the strings. Spoiler alert: it won’t.

Take Caitlyn Jenner, for example. She’s been an active Trump supporter and continues to actively work to push legislation that threatens her very existence. While she’s off applauding his presidential win, the ink is barely dry on his executive orders mandating she be referred to by her dead name.

Rather than taking a stand against these policies, she’s leaned into her wealth and privilege, banking on it to shield her from the harm those same policies inflict on the trans community. Why? Because she’s rich and insulated from the struggles and discrimination most trans people face. She can retreat to her Malibu mansion and comfortably tune out everyone else’s reality.  Because as long as Trump is coming up with ways to keep her rich — that’s all that really matters.  

Newsflash: privilege isn’t bulletproof and proximity to power doesn’t erase the hate aimed in her direction.

Then there’s Snoop Dogg and his ilk, rappers who once stood as cultural titans now bending over backward to cozy up to the Trump tax bracket.  After years of using the community to build their stacks, they are perfectly content to throw the same people who put them in their comfy tax bracket under the bus for a front-row seat at a table that was never built for them. They’ve swapped authenticity and influence for the illusion of inclusion, all while pretending the check is worth it.  It’s not–they know it, we know it.  It’s the reason at the domino table we say, “All ain’t good money.”

What they don’t seem to realize — or flat-out refuse to — is that their proximity to whiteness (in the case of Snoop and company) or wealth and privilege (in Caitlyn’s case) doesn’t shield them from the systems they claim to have transcended. Those systems will gladly facilitate (and celebrate) their selling out while continuing to dehumanize and disenfranchise the very communities they come from and should be fighting for. It’s not respect they’re earning — it’s betrayal.  

It’s not just disappointing — it’s dangerous when public figures like Snoop Dogg or Caitlyn Jenner trade their influence for proximity to power, they’re not just letting down their communities — they are actively legitimizing the systems that harm them. They are showing the next generation that progress is negotiable, everyone can be bought, and that fighting for equity can take a back seat to personal gain. 

There’s a gut-punch of disappointment we feel after building up people like Snoop, only to watch them back systems that harm their own. And the pity for someone like Caitlyn, who thinks her money outweighs her self-respect. We need to hold folks accountable — mark this date on your calendar. So when these celebs inevitably flip-flop and come crawling back for the community’s support — be it a new album, reality television series, film — whatever — we remember, decline the call, and leave them on read.

Selling out isn’t just a choice for them — it’s become their brand.

Singing the hook to Chris Brown’s Loyal, “Aww, these h*es ain’t loyal.”

A member of hip-hop generation, Jasmyne Cannick is based in Los Angeles and is an award-winning journalist and political commentator who speaks and writes to challenge, critique, and hold the culture accountable.

Thank you, President Biden, for the Israel/Hamas ceasefire agreement and for all you have done for the country.

I know President Felon will want to take all the credit for the Israel/Hamas ceasefire. The fact is, the blueprint for this ceasefire was announced by President Biden on May 31, and hailed by the UN. Clearly Trump’s threat to Hamas moved the needle, and I am sure his envoy, who President Biden invited to join the talks, was helpful. But as the Biden spokesperson told Craig Melvin on the “Today” show, there is more than enough credit to go around, and the hostages surely don’t care as long as they come home. I really think the media need to stop dealing with the minutia, and focus on what’s important. 

The nation needs to thank President Biden, and his team, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and his deputy, Jon Finer along with all the other negotiators including Brett McGurk, part of the Biden team, and Steve Witkoff for Trump. Clearly strong roles were played by Egypt and Qatar, all working diligently to bring this day about. 

With the support of the United States, Israel remains strong. President Biden helped put together the coalition, which helped Israel defend itself against Iranian attacks. Now will come an even harder part, and it will fall to the Trump administration. We will see Trump’s true colors. Will he simply help his company build new hotels in Israel, which they are trying to do, or will he move to help in the rebuilding of Gaza, and give full support to the Palestinian people. We as a nation must be a big part of rebuilding Gaza. We must move to bring about a free and stable Palestinian state, one that can support itself. That may be a dream, but it is one the United States, and the rest of the world, should be working toward. It is the only way there will ever be a true, lasting, and fair peace, in the region.

I listened to President Biden’s last speech to the nation, and was really proud of him, and proud to be an American. History will view Joe Biden as one of our best presidents. He took office when the COVID pandemic was still in full swing, and people were debating how to start getting back to their lives as they knew them. Trump left the nation in a mess. The economy stalling, millions of jobs lost, and people suffering. More than one million people died of COVID. Our troops were still in Afghanistan and inflation was beginning to rise. President Biden signed the American Rescue Act, which among other things sent checks to millions of Americans. His mistake was that contrary to when Trump sent out checks, he didn’t sign his name to them. He followed that with the Inflation Reduction Act, making huge investments in the American economy, in the areas of energy and climate, among others. He followed that with the first gun control measure in decades, and then the infrastructure bill. He next signed the CHIPS Act, and more. While inflation rose to 9%, his administration worked hard, and with their effective economic policies, have brought it down. Trump will inherit the best economy in the world, with inflation at 2.9%. The stock market is booming, and Biden added nearly 16 million jobs during his term, more than any other one-term president in history. Manufacturing in the nation is booming.

President Biden stood strong against China and Russia. His efforts strengthened NATO and so far, seen that Ukraine remains a free and independent country. Our troops are not fighting anywhere on foreign soil. 

President Biden is right, and we must definitely fear the oligarchy that surrounds Trump. We must fear the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and the other multi-billionaires who have attached themselves to Trump for their own greed and betterment. They don’t care about truth, and they don’t care about the rest of us. 

The next four years will be a time to join the resistance to prevent us from going backwards. We must resist legally, and without force, but for those of us who want our democracy to survive we need to keep speaking out. We must work to win elections in Virginia and New Jersey in 2025. Then focus on taking back the House of Representatives in 2026. We can do both, and we must, if we are to ensure the experiment that is the United States, survives and thrives, as we celebrate 250 years in existence. 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

In 1977, Anita Bryant, who recently died, made the career mistake of a lifetime when she began an anti-gay campaign in Miami. Her campaign failed for two important reasons.

First, Bryant mistook the political strength of the gay movement across the U.S. Secondly, her use of religion to promote a campaign of bigotry raised serious questions about her honesty.

After being crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1958, Bryant spent the next two decades performing at state fairs, veterans’ events, religious and charity events, and churches. She performed with Bob Hope’s U.S.O. tours and visited veterans’ hospitals. She promoted Christian living and Florida orange juice. She once said she had abundant energy because “the Lord Jesus is my Vitamin C.” 

In 1977, Bryant and husband Bob Green, a former Miami radio disc jockey, began an anti-gay campaign called “Save Our Children.” The campaign’s goal was to reverse Miami-Dade County’s policy barring discrimination against gays. She raised concerns about gay teachers in public schools.  

Bryant’s anti-gay campaign raised questions about her professed Christian faith. She criticized “cowardly clergy” for their silence on fighting gay rights.

By the late 1970s, Bryant and her husband had published several books about their Christian faith. Bryant’s book tours were a mix of entertainment, self-promotion, with a dose of religion. When reporters asked her who wrote the books, Bryant arrogantly said, “The Lord wrote my books.” When it was later revealed she hired a ghost writer, Bryant’s honesty became an issue.

Celestine Sibley, a veteran columnist for The Atlanta Journal, wrote “The Truth is I Don’t Care for Anita Bryant,” on Sept. 7, 1978. Sibley disliked Bryant’s sanctimonious claim that Jesus wrote her books when the books were ghosted.

In support of gays, Sibley quoted sections of Lord Alfred Douglas’s letters to his mother about his love affair with author Oscar Wilde. His mother urged her son to leave Wilde. Douglas asked her what she could give him in exchange for his lover. Douglas wrote: “Who is going to ‘feed my soul with honey of sweet bitter though?’ Who is going to make me happy when I’m sad, depressed, and ill at ease?” The column was fine journalism for its time. It was an eloquent way of supporting gays.

The newspaper published dozens of reader letters in response to Sibley’s column. One writer said Bryant was “a loudmouth ignoramus.” Writers overwhelmingly supported Sibley. Many writers called Sibley courageous for opposing Bryant’s anti-gay campaign.

In a 1978 Knight-Ridder article, Jean O’Leary, a former nun and an executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said Anita Bryant was “the best thing that ever happened to us.” Her appreciation for Bryant was shared by other gay activists. The anti-gay rights movement had a face. The face of Anita Bryant.

In San Francisco, gay activist Harvey Milk, as quoted in “The Mayor of Castro Street” by Randy Shilts, said, “Anita Bryant herself pushed the gay movement ahead and the subject can never be pushed back into darkness.” If Bryant had felt the gay rights movement was weak, unorganized, and unable to fight against her campaigns, she soon learned a lesson.

In the May 1978 issue of Playboy magazine, Bryant said that she had survived “numerous close calls with mayhem” and that she “expects to be killed by homosexuals.” She said that “twenty years in jail would rehabilitate homosexuals.” Husband Bob Green said, “let’s face it – when some militant homosexual kills Anita, the guy will be an instant hero.”

Christian Century magazine, in 1978, published poll results on religious influencers. President Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist layman, and Anita Bryant were among the top influencers.

By the time of her 1980 interview in Ladies’ Home Journal, Bryant was a changed woman. She was divorced. She admitted to suicidal thoughts. She admitted to taking tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and wine due to “the pressures of her work and family life.” She declared bankruptcy.  

Bryant made another important admission in Ladies’ Home Journal. She admitted to an attitude of “live and let live” toward gays. One New York journalist called this admission Bryant’s “Coming Out” as a human being.”

James Patterson is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.

Land back. 

The rest of it should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. 

For too long we have relied on unreliable and unsustainable forms of living that are disconnected from nature and connected to colonization. It is time to not only recognize the importance of indigenous practices and decriminalize them, but to also give the land back to indigenous communities that know how to care for the land and learn from their way of life.

After spending two days in the Altadena neighborhoods ravaged by the Eaton Canyon fire last week, I went home feeling defeated, distraught and overwhelmed by the amount of destruction and loss I witnessed. After I decompressed and changed into fresh clothes, I engaged in conversation with my dad, who was watching the evening news in the living room. The segment was on the updates of the fires ravaging through Los Angeles. The news camera focused on the single aircraft carrying water over the fire and dropping it from above. In comparison to the scale of the fire, the water seemed to do little to tame the flame. 

My dad watched in amazement, not because he was impressed by the aircraft or the size of the out-of-control fire, but because he was genuinely convinced that if it were up to him, the fires would have been extinguished long before it reached the neighborhoods it burned through. 

This scene seemed to send him on a trip to the past – to a time where he was one with the land, manipulating the elements to produce a rich harvest in his family’s riverside ranch. 

My father is one of thirteen children who contributed to the daily chores on the small family ranch. My father and grandfather worked tirelessly side-by-side to produce harvests that were not only enough to feed their family, but also enough to share with their neighbors. 

My father’s side of the family is from Guadalajara – a city in Jalisco, the state known as the birthplace of Mariachi and tequila. Jalisco is also known for its deep revolutionary history that is recorded as far back as the year 1540, with The Mixtón Rebellion which formed after the Indian population of western Mexico rebelled against Spanish rule. 

During this time, the area that encompassed the state of Jalisco, was known as Nueva Galicia and it also stretched over Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Nayarit and the northwest corner of San Luis Potosí. 

In 1621, Domingo Làzaro de Arregui wrote in his Descripción de la Nueva Galicia, that 72 native languages were spoken in the Spanish colonial province which stretched across 86,733 square miles. Jalisco has an extensive history of indigenous uprisings and rebellions. 

What I learned from my father during our conversation last Thursday was that he and his father practiced a type of pseudoscience that worked for them and the land they farmed on. They practiced the indigenous method of starting controlled fires in an effort to produce soil rich with nutrients and free of impurities that would stump the growth of the crops they grew – rice, corn, cucumbers and more. 

“When we didn’t want the fire to spread past a certain point in the field, we would create a ring of fire by hitting the line of fire with green shrubbery,” said my father in Spanish.

When they were satisfied with the plot of land that was to be burned, they extinguished the fire entirely and without the use of other resources such as water. 

California has a record of several historic fires that have wiped out thousands of square miles worth of land and hurt many communities. Global warming has brought on many challenging years for California such as many record-breaking years of little to no rain, high wind conditions and a landscape that makes it particularly difficult to extinguish larger scale fires. 

In 2018, I was living in Lake Elsinore when the Holy Fire broke out in the Cleveland National Forest, a piece of land stretching from Corona to Irvine in southern California. It was the closest I had ever been to what seemed like the opening of a portal to the underworld – prompting evacuations of the small city of Lake Elsinore and the small population living in the forest area. 

That same year, the Camp Fire grew into one of the state’s deadliest and most destructive fires on record, devastating the towns of Paradise and Concow in northern California. In 2021, the Dixie Fire raged on for months, ravaging through northern California. 

In 2022, The University of California published an article and produced a video about the cultural practice of burning forests. 

According to the article, it isn’t just a cultural practice, it is a way to populate the dense forests we see today in places like Yosemite. It is a vital practice to ensure that more vegetation thrive and impurities in the soil are burned to make way for native plants to flourish. According to the article “…ecological records and oral Indigenous history alike describe how fire, sparked by lightning or planned by tribes, played a vital role in shaping California’s landscape for thousands of years.” 

In the early 1900’s it was suggested that anyone who started a fire would be shot – a remnant of European rule that regarded cultural burning as primitive or the opposite of civilized. 

In September, CalMatters published an article written by Russell Attebery, chairman of the Karuk tribe – a federally recognized tribe overseeing more than 1 million acres of land in Humboldt and Siskiyou counties along the Klamath River. 

In the article, he points out that California’s history of out-of-control fires are due in large part, to ignoring the wisdom of indigenous people that have worked for them and the land for thousands of years. 

Attebery makes the argument that not only is fire essential to Karuk culture, but that it is also “…not just a tool — it’s a lifeline, a means of renewal, and a vital part of our culture. For generations, our ceremonies have honored the essential role of fire in maintaining the health of our forests, the regeneration of plants and the sustenance of our communities.” 

Since the article was published, SB 310 was passed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, acknowledging tribal sovereignty over cultural burning for the first time in California’s history. 

This became the first step toward the process of righting historical wrongs and although it is progress, this law only decriminalizes the cultural practice. It does not grant Indigenous people the right to control the land that is rightfully theirs. 

When Andrew Joseph White, a 26-year-old transgender author, released his third novel, “Compound Fractures,” a young adult thriller, last fall, it became an instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller. 

This book is a story about an autistic trans* boy who was dragged into a generational feud. It also mentioned President-elect Donald Trump and his influence on the working class in the American South. The popularity of this novel among young readers shows that modern day teenagers are more political than some folks from older generations expect them to be. 

The novel became a bestseller in the midst of the 2024 presidential campaign and White, in his letter to readers, confessed that he wanted to give it a different intro, but had to speak about how tough it is to be a young trans* person in modern-day America. 

Donald Trump on Dec. 22 confirmed the fears of A.J. White and millions of other LGBTQ folks from Z and Alpha Generations. At the AmericaFest conference, Trump promised to “stop the transgender lunacy” on the first day of his presidency. He was particularly speaking up against trans* young people’s rights, and against trans* adults’ rights to work with young people. 

Donald Trump’s election also increased worries about censorship around children’s and young adult literature, especially in public and school libraries. 

A new report by PEN America showed that during the 2023-2024 school year, book bans increased by nearly 200 percent, targeting not just books about gender and sexuality, but also about racial discrimination, mental health, substance abuse, and other social problems that young people are facing in the everyday world. Such bans are not just making printed books unacceptable for youth who cannot afford buying their own copies. They may prevent authors from writing new books for younger generations, which will also affect American mass culture.

Republicans throughout the U.S. for a long time have behaved more and more authoritarian toward youth. Republicans are trying to attack LGBTQ youth everywhere, erasing them from academia and implementing social media restrictions.

It is tough to be a young person in modern-day America under any administration, even without new laws. All American citizens under 18 can easily be prevented from expressing their religious and political beliefs, forced to stay in abusive environments, can be medicated and institutionalized without their consent, can be separated from their supportive community if their parents say so. Young people under 18 can also be tried in adult court, but they cannot vote or run for office. 

All the decisions about their rights are made by people from the older generation. 

It is legal to pay young people less for their work, and deny the right to manage their property. Young people from non-supportive families are denied any chances to have normal lives until they turn 18, or even 21. This is basically the situation in most Western cultures, but American teenagers could start to change the system with more informational freedom and support.

But now Donald Trump and his supporters are trying to make everyone believe that young people cannot have their own gender identity, do not have any rights to their body autonomy, and should not be asked about their own feelings until they turn 18. Republicans have also tried to deny young people basic knowledge about the complicated world around them, as if this knowledge could be magically downloaded into a person’s mind when they turn 18. 

These dangerous trends will create a generation who is used to obeying, but not very used to thinking for themselves and trusting their own feelings. It is basically a very anti-American, anti-individualistic, and authoritarian tendency. 

This tendency could have a long-lasting impact on world politics. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that no other culture has had such a global impact on the way people around the world think than the American culture, and it is especially true on LGBTQ issues.

When I was an LGBTQ activist in Russia and Ukraine, my fellow post-Soviet activists spoke more about Stonewall and the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco than about the persecution of LGBTQ people in the Soviet Union. By my own experience as a person who was into LGBTQ blogging and journalism in the post-USSR; the videos, posts, features, and essays on LGBTQ issues that you could find on Ukrainian and Russian social media were either a direct translation from English or based on language that American LGBTQ activists created. 

Young LGBTQ people around the world are learning to speak for themselves by watching their peer influencers on English-language platforms.

As a young transgender person from Ukraine who had never heard the word trans* until I was a teenager, I understood that I was trans* since I could remember myself. I began accepting myself only after I read more about the American LGBTQ movement.

I saw a lot of young people from Eastern Europe and the Middle East for whom Lana Watchevski became a first name when they came out to their parents, or the first person who helped them to believe that yes, they could be trans* and have a fulfilling life. Folks accepted their transgender peers because there was a transgender person in a Kardashian show. And we badly need more LGBTQ films, cartoons and books for young people, and more freedom for LGBTQ youth to find their own communities. All of this will more likely come from the U.S.

I think Americans would wonder if they find out how often I saw a situation like that — a young queer Gen Z Tatar person from a small, almost isolated Russian village — or situations when a Gen Z refugee person from Iran felt comfortable to chat about American LGBTQ culture, and use it to explain their own cultural context. American culture, and America’s online spaces are quite universal. 

The same rules work for conservatives. 

It is not enough that such dictators as Vladimir Putin, who mirror old American anti-LGBTQ conspiracies in his statements, say that LGBTQ ideas are dangerous for children, or conservative people all around the world began to use “groomer” rhetoric to describe people who support LGBTQ rights for young people when the pro-Trump Q-Anon movement went global. It is not just endangering LGBTQ youth worldwide, but increasing a gap in mentality between different generations. 

But LGBTQ young people already know that there is something unusual about them, and they need information to figure out who they are. Americans could provide it via mass culture. It is worthy to note that Gen Z is much better at understanding the power of the internet, and American Gen Zers could literally make America greater by helping marginalized people in other countries.

Moreover, LGBTQ young people in America are speaking about their experience. 

They are able to say what they need. All we need to do is listen, or we will have an international atmosphere where the new generation was raised in denial of basic rights to be themselves, and prevented from learning and thinking independently. 

Editor’s note: The author uses trans* in order to be inclusive of nonbinary and gender queer people.