The Wedge Issue
Allow me a moment to bellyache. I’m living in the middle of a heatwave, inundated with smoke, fighting an infection and I am just in general full of reasons to grouse. It is none of [...]
Parting Glances: Other voices; Other Gay Back Rooms
For over 50 years, Life magazine informed Americans about what was happening here and abroad. Photos and content were dramatic. Mostly conservative. Occasionally controversial. Once in a while, downright shocking. Life folded in 1973; circulation [...]
We Condemn Upton’s Homophobic Attacks on Hoadley
Jon Hoadley is the first openly LGBTQ person to run for Congress in Michigan, challenging incumbent Republican Fred Upton in Michigan's 6th district. Hoadley is running a great campaign - so much so that he [...]
Creep of the Week: James Dobson
In the eyes of James Dobson and other leaders in the far-right corners of Christianity, Donald Trump can do no wrong. In a Sept. 14 column titled, “A Moral Alarm Against the Legislative Death March [...]
Cracking Eggs
Every so often, I like to step back a bit and discuss some of the bare basics of being trans. It is very easy to go deep into the issues of the day, especially as [...]
Parting Glances: From a book in progress
As a gay teenager, I hung out at the Hub Grill in downtown Detroit, a greasy spoon of a place, located at Farmer & Bates in convenient walking distance of four quite popular gay bars, [...]
Creep of the Week: Donald Trump (Again)
Greetings and F.U. to Trump and his enabling Republicans who pretended COVID-19 was a Democratic hoax and STILL have no national plan to mitigate the virus, because my kid started his first day of middle [...]
Creep of the Week: National Straight Pride Coalition
Well, well, well, if it isn’t another week in Horror Town, USA. That's just about any town in the country right now, but it's definitely all of the towns in Florida. Every time I watch [...]
Parting Glances: Dreams Come and Go…
The mind-boggling possibility of recording dreams may soon be a reality, predicts a British monthly science magazine How It Works. Nanotechnology and brain scanning techniques are now such that translating neural impulses from brain neurons [...]
If You Value Essential Workers, Raise the Minimum Wage
Every day in these hard times, grocery workers and delivery drivers, health care aides and cleaning staff, childcare workers and fast-food cooks, go to work for $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage. It’s been [...]
‘Look What You Made Me Do’ Is one of the Most Memorable Songs in Pop Culture
If you know me, you know that I am a pop music connoisseur. If I’m not listening to it, I am either sleeping or blabbering about it to one of my friends. That being said, [...]
BTL Endorses Dave Coulter for Oakland County Executive
In the race for Oakland County Executive, there are two excellent choices in the Democratic primary on Aug. 4 – Dave Coulter and Andy Meisner. Between these two longtime advocates for LGBTQ issues, BTL strongly [...]
Dave Coulter is the Right Choice for Oakland County Executive
Less than a year ago, on Nov. 27, 2019, David Coulter signed a resolution to adopt an anti-discrimination addition to employment policy that protects LGBTQ workers in Oakland County. Previously, Oakland County’s policy had forbidden [...]
Andy Meisner is the Right Choice for Oakland County Executive
In just a month, Michigan voters will be heading to the polls for a primary election to select their candidates for November. The headline race for the Democratic nominee for Oakland County Executive features two [...]
With a Supreme Court Victory Behind Us, Congress Must Finish the Job on LGBTQ Nondiscrimination Protections
“It is my duty as a representative in Congress ... to represent everyone in my community,” Congressman Justin Amash says. Last month, I joined so many across the nation in breathing a sigh of relief [...]
Parting Glances: Book in Progress No. 1
I keep on my laptop desk a corner of chalky red brick. It's all that's left of the Cassboro Apartments formerly at 444 Peterboro, Detroit. I found this memento among broken boards and shattered glass [...]
Creep of the Week: Mike Pompeo
I’m in Philadelphia visiting my sister and apparently during my trip there were Nazis marching here and chanting “fuck the gays.” Ah, America. Meanwhile, people are debating whether or not “cancel culture” is the real [...]
Creep of the Week: Michael Heath
Corporate America, man. Who knew they had the power to do seemingly impossible things like getting the Washington football team that uses a racial slur as a goddamn mascot to change its name? I mean, [...]
Water in the Desert
Netflix has recently released "Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen," a documentary created by Sam Feder, Amy Scholder and Laverne Cox. In it, a cast of transgender and nonbinary people examine the history of trans images [...]
Win $2.5 Million (Save. $499)
It must have been something cogent and articulately pleading in my weekly prayers, but recently I’ve just been darn lucky. Not once, but twice. This past week I received an email from an unknown generous [...]
Creep of the Week: Mark Chambers
I am thinking of changing the title of this column to “Dispatches from Hell,” because I truly feel like every week is just another barrage of awful news stories, most of them with Trump at [...]
Why Britney Spears Is the Least Problematic Human Being
Britney Spears is my favorite celebrity. My obsessions with others came and went — Paris Hilton, Oprah, Lindsay Lohan — but Spears has stayed in first place ever since I was 6 years old. The [...]
Parting Glances: ShaZOOM! Oz Pride 2020
In spite of the halo’d Wizard of Oz, Pride 2020 came to the Yellow Brick Road — for the first time ever — this June. Thanks to the determination, hard work — and loyal fan [...]
Creep of the Week: Roger Severino
Even if you know in your heart of rainbow hearts that the president of the United States and the cretins who work for him hate you, you might not realize that this administration is always [...]
Together We Can Make Historic Change
I was honored to recently join Affirmations, OutFront Kalamazoo, Equality Michigan and several other hardworking organizations and activists across the state for a virtual celebration of the historic ruling made by the Supreme Court to [...]
Fulfilling the Promise of Juneteenth
This Friday is the American holiday known as Juneteenth, although this holiday is largely unknown to many Americans — as it commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger announced federal orders in Galveston, [...]
Creep of the Week: Donald Trump
June may be Pride Month, but it is’t official any more. Not since Donald Trump became the president. He has never issued an official proclamation declaring June Pride month. But this year is different. Not [...]
Civil Unrest Now and Then
As someone who participated in the Stonewall riots back in June 1969, many people have been asking me the similarities between that event and the events, civil unrest and demonstrations following the murder of George [...]
Parting Glances: Fundies! Go Fly Ben Franklin’s Kite!
If one person single-handedly pushed this country into a War of Independence from England, it is patriot and pamphleteer Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809). His book “Common Sense” is a clarion call to open rebellion. [...]
Stereotypes, Biases and Bad Theories
At the heart of many of society's "-isms" is a laundry list of stereotypes that seek to characterize a group in ways that both provide an easy, if inaccurate, method of describing that group, while [...]
Parting Glances: A magic moment recalled!
About a dozen days ago tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow — at my age how can I be sure? — I was gifted with a pair of John Lennon enchantment glasses. Gold-rimmed. Sunset orange. [...]
Creep of the Week: Racism
I’m writing this on June 1, the beginning of Pride month. Simultaneously, across the country people are protesting and tensions are escalating over the issue of racism. This is, of course, related to Pride. Many [...]
Living in the Shadow of COVID: Caring for Our Communities
I ended our Mother’s Day FaceTime conversation with my son telling me to be careful and stay safe. As I sat in my solitude, I thought about the irony of him telling me to be [...]
Parting Glances: A stroke in time
It was a year ago this Memorial Day 2020 that I had a stroke and spent two weeks in Detroit Receiving Hospital and a month in physical rehab in the Senior Care Center in Henry [...]
Creep of the Week: Alex Azar
At the time of this writing, 89,564 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. An uninterrupted moment of silence for each person would last 62 days. And yet there is no state of national [...]
Living in the Shadow of COVID-19: Sowing Seeds for My New Normal
It wasn’t until the governor’s declaration that we had to stay home that I stayed home. I had been following the progression of the pandemic, but I had decided with social distancing, hand-washing and other [...]
Creep of the Week: Robert Jeffress
In the past month you’ve no doubt seen headlines like, “Can your marriage survive the coronavirus?” or “15 Tips On How To Stay Married During Quarantine” or “Yep, we’re all fighting with our partners right [...]
Trans care, Trans Rights and COVID-19
I'll admit: as I write this, I am quite out of sorts. Last week, a friend of mine died due to complications from COVID-19. Another friend's mom passed of the virus. Yet a third friend [...]
Parting Glances: Hugs 6 Feet Away
When’s the last time I was hugged? I can’t remember. It’s been so long it seems. A month ago? Two months ago? Social distancing has all but rendered the time-honored practice obsolete. I do remember [...]
Parting Glances: OZ goes Drag Queen Bingo!
“It’s been 80 years this year since we debuted in the movies,” said Scarecrow on ZOOM to Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Aunty Em, Glenda the Good Witch, and starlet Dorothy. “The weathers horrid, wild and [...]
In the Age of COVID-19, Where are Our Leaders?
Over the last couple of months, we have seen the coronavirus rapidly transform from a small outbreak halfway across the world into a full-fledged global pandemic. What was once a news story in a different [...]
Creep of the Week: Donald J. Trump
Currently trending political advice: Do not chug Lysol. Do not inject bleach. Do not smoke Clorox wipes. Also add to that list: Do not vote for Republicans. My God, what a sick and dangerous joke [...]
Review: ‘Strange Bedfellows’ by Ina Park
As someone living with HIV in their 20s, I find myself constantly intrigued by books on STIs. I’ve read "And the Band Played On" and On Borrowed Time," but there really hasn’t been any larger [...]
COVID-19 is Not the New HIV
I have HIV. Amid the COVID-19 crisis sweeping the globe, people like me, people living with HIV/AIDS, are faced with a number of questions: Will our medications be delayed? Will we still be able to [...]