LGBTQ
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🏳️🌈 Don’t Leave the T out of LGBTQ
There were times when lesbians, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people did not stand united as one group. These will remembered as the darker moments in LGBTQ history. The most egregious example of this came in 2007. The LGBTQ community was having difficulty getting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (which would…
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🏳️🌈 Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!
LGBTQ people across the United States should credit their civil rights and social acceptance to one woman: Marsha P. Johnson. While the history of the Stonewall riots isn’t quite clear, it’s believed that Johnson — an African-American trans woman — is the first one to fight back by throwing “the…
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🏳️🌈 Raising the Bar
In 1966, three gay men in New York, inspired by the sit-ins in the South, protested anti-gay laws with a “sip-in” at a Manhattan bar. At the time, it was illegal for bartenders to serve LGBTQ people. Of course, this didn’t pose much of a problem, as you can’t conclusively…
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🏳️🌈 Karl-Maria Kertbeny Gives Gays a Name
The term “homosexual” was created in 1868 by journalist Karl-Maria Kertbeny. Before that, there wasn’t really a nonjudgmental word (at least in the Western world) that described gay people, which meant we couldn’t define ourselves or create communities. (Consider how hard it would be to identify or understand yourself if…
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🏳️🌈 Welcome to Gayskool
June is the most rainbow-tactic, glitteriffic, fabulous month of the year! It’s when we in the LGBTQ community celebrate Pride. Every year, I post daily LGBTQ History Lessons all month long on Facebook. This year, I’ll be doing it on the Daily Dave — it will take the place of…
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Fear ≠ Hate, so Let’s Replace the Word “Homophobia”
Let’s get rid of the word “homophobia.” The word “phobia” comes from the Greek word for “fear.” That’s why the fear of enclosed spaces is claustrophobia, the fear of spiders is arachnophobia, and the fear of the number 13 is triskaidekaphobia.1 Homophobia isn’t rooted in fear. It’s rooted in hate.…
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We’re Here. We’re Queer. We’re Statistically Significant.
A new Gallup report says that 5.6% of Americans now identify as LGBTQ. That number is significant for two reasons: First, it equates to 1.8 million people1; and, second, it’s a sizable increase from the 3.5% reported in Gallup’s first report nine years ago. Many people will be tempted to…
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A Clown in a Gown
Here’s a video of Bianca del Rio’s opening and closing segments at last night’s Drive N’ Drag show in Tampa. It is distasteful and disrespectful and you’ll be a better person if you don’t watch it.1 1 The person laughing uproariously in the background is me.
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The Utter Banality of Same-Sex Marriage
I’ve seen a lot of diverse couples on teevee recently, especially in ads. This is amazing, I thought, because social change happens more quickly when people see examples of diversity in entertainment. In the ’90s, many people met their first gay friends on Will & Grace. Similarly, today, many people…
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Some Companies Are Doing Great Things. Don’t Call it “Virtue Signaling.”
I don’t like the term “virtue signaling” in the business world because it’s often used by conservatives to dismiss the efforts of organizations trying make a positive impact. Let’s look at Apple. Today, it announced its plans for Black History Month: a limited-edition Black Unity Apple Watch and efforts to…