Through hard work, determination, support and imagination, Hotter Than July has been a premier event for 27 years. The project is now older than some people I know. Many have shared their talents with the [...]
Growing up in a Black middle-class household in the early ’90s, the only force more powerful than God was gender. In our childhood home, there were boys and there were girls. Boys did boy stuff, [...]
I am sure you don’t need me to tell you this: in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which established constitutional protections for abortion, as part of a 6-3 ruling to [...]
Ah, spring! Time of flowers, birdsong and, for many of us parents and our children, college visits. My own son went through the college admissions process a couple of years ago. While I am in [...]
I turned 50 earlier this year. That means I’ve been going to The Woodward Bar & Grill for about half of my life. I had no idea of its history as the oldest gay bar [...]
“I’m having a proper full-on gay crisis.” So shares Nick, one of the protagonists in Netflix’s beautiful “Heartstopper,” a tale about Charlie, a gay high schooler, who falls in love with his classmate Nick. I’m [...]
What are we to make of State Sen. Lana Theis (R-Brighton)? To say she has promoted transphobic legislation is a fact. To say she has been an ardent opponent of LGBTQ+ rights is a fact. [...]
A lot of really terrible shit in the news these days, so how about I start with a joke? A guy walks into a bar, the bartender says, “What can I get ya?” Guy says, [...]
Ed Buck is a monster. A maniacal, meth-addicted sexual predator. And a racist for good measure. So it's not surprising that “Beyond Ed Buck,” the new documentary from Jayce Baron and “Pose” star Hailie Sahar, [...]
Books by and for LGBTQ+ people, and in particular LGBTQ+ youth, are under attack across the country. In states such as Texas, a single parent need only complain before a book can be banned from [...]
You wouldn’t be reading this right now if it weren’t for Entertainment Weekly. EW is why I became a journalist. This fact only makes it stranger, and sadder, to say that I can’t believe I [...]
I rarely watch television. My demanding job is equivalent to a reality television show, so most evening broadcasts hardly entertain me. But there was a time on Bible Study Wednesdays that I did run home [...]
Preschooler Heather is no stranger to opposition. Lesléa Newman’s 1989 “Heather Has Two Mommies,” the first picture book to depict happily coupled same-sex parents and their child, faced opprobrium from conservatives since its publication. Now, [...]
I never met Stephen Sondheim or had an endearing correspondence with him. Apparently, there are a lot of people who have framed letters from him, or a tantalizing story about a chance encounter. Neither of [...]
“To hold that piece of paper brought tears to my eyes.” That is how my friend and former ACLU of Michigan colleague Amy Hunter says it felt to finally obtain a birth certificate showing her [...]
I’ve been wrestling with one painting ever since selecting works for a new exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) back in September 2019. The show, called “Oh, honey…,” isn’t about “queer [...]
Growing up, I followed in my mother’s footsteps. Like many single Black women raising a child, she represented diligence and poise. I performed femininity out of example, an obligation of what I knew womanhood to [...]
On June 11, I realized a dream come true 33 years in the making when I got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Detroit Tigers game, part of the celebration of LGBTQ [...]
You know how they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity? And also how they say don’t feed the trolls? Well, in a convergence of the two I have discovered The Brothers Osborne, a [...]
I’ve posted quite a bit about trans kids, but I haven’t talked about their parents. Republicans are characterizing parents like me as dangerous, reckless, abusive and, in some cases, worthy of incarceration. Since they’ve spent [...]
Congratulations, everyone! We did it! Anti-LGBTQ+ bias is over and done now that Caitlyn Jenner is running to be California’s next governor! If we’ve learned anything from these past four years, it’s that putting a [...]
If it feels like Lil Nas X releases a new video for “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” every day, it is because the Twitterverse and Lil Nas himself haven’t had a moment’s pause since [...]
Michigan Republican Sen. Lana Theis recently introduced Senate Bill 218 that will discriminate against and prevent transgender youth from playing school sports consistent with their gender identity. Last week, several Ozone House staff and community [...]
Stonewall! Stonewall! STONEWALL! Say it loud. Say it proud. It’s without doubt to our LGBTQ+ conviction and consensus — and that of the so-called heterosexual community — the single most important event leading to our [...]
They are at it again. After years of focusing on restrooms and locker rooms as an entry point for excluding trans people from public life, opponents of LGBTQ+ equality lately have shifted strategy to focus [...]
When we were children, we learned all kinds of things. We learned things as vastly different as our languages and cultures, but one thing that was pretty much universal was coloring. Coloring was a way [...]
So apparently a child with a mustache posted a video on TikTok declaring that he’s “made a new sexuality” called super straight? That, according to him, means he doesn’t date transgender women because they aren’t [...]
When Mr. Potato Head first appeared on the market in 1952, the toy was very different from the smiling plastic orb we see in the "Toy Story" movie. The original Mr. Potato Head was basically [...]
With the recent uprising of discrimination from some members of the gay community involving the ban on transgender men at a Michigan, all-male campground, I’ve been compelled to be a voice of change and education. [...]
Aimee Stephens has been on my mind a lot recently. I thought about her when President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, issued a sweeping executive order targeting discrimination based on gender identity [...]
I am because we are. I come from a lineage of mothers - Black mothers, strong mothers. Mothers that have made a proverbial way out of no way. Mothers that have stared down the barrel [...]
I first met Jan Stevenson and Susan Horowitz while serving them a plate of pasta with a rainbow Pride bracelet around my wrist. I was working at Noodles & Company as a shift manager. This was [...]
Dear President-elect Biden: I’m writing you this open letter as you prepare to take office as president. My son was just a few months too young to vote in the last election, but watched it [...]
2020 was supposed to be the year we woke up from the horrible nightmare that began with the 2016 presidential election. It was supposed to be the year that our passionate cries for a return [...]
In a year like no other, LGBTQ families, like all others, struggled with the physical, mental and economic challenges of the pandemic. And with children of LGBTQ parents much more likely to live in poverty [...]
Updated, 3:12 p.m., 12/10/20 It started with a Facebook Live Video that was sucked into the underbelly of the internet. There it churned and clipped and passed from person to person. Someone slapped a label [...]
In the early 1980s, a friend of mine let me borrow a vinyl record of theirs: the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for Monty Python's "Life of Brian." While it featured but two songs, it largely [...]
As national election results continue to come in President-Elect Joe Biden's favor, Republicans across the U.S. have continued to dispute electoral votes in Biden's favor. Recently in Michigan, Republican leaders of Michigan's House and Senate [...]
By Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05) In 2013, I had the privilege of standing on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court as the High Court announced its decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage [...]
We are about two weeks away from the 2020 elections. A case that the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing the day after the elections, however, has me as concerned as the elections themselves, for [...]
People who have been in my home will note that most of the wall space in my 840-square-foot abode is adorned by theatrical posters of plays and musicals, most of which would be regarded as [...]
By Tom Nelson and Linda Karle-Nelson A response to Archdiocese of Detroit throws out 2 LGBTQ Catholic groups When we discovered our calling in life was to minister to others through our Catholic faith, it [...]
Fred Upton supporters have launched a homophobic $500,000 TV campaign against gay U.S. Congressional candidate Jon Hoadley that uses antiquated and false tropes about the LGBTQ community. Hoadley is a Victory Fund-endorsed, three-term Michigan State [...]
Over the last few months, "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling has developed from beloved children’s author to the trans equivalent of reviled anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant. Rowling has evolved over the last two years, from [...]
By The National LGBT Newspaper Guild, BTL Member Among the many compelling reasons to make sure that Donald Trump and Mike Pence are not reelected on Nov. 3, perhaps the 26 most compelling are the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
