October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, making it an important time of year to raise awareness for the need of screening and early detection, advocacy, support and ongoing research. Unfortunately, the reality is that breast cancer doesn’t care what month it is and doesn’t just go away until October. It's vital that any person with breast or chest tissue, meaning everyone, understands that they may be at risk of developing breast cancer.
So, for this year’s National Coming Out Day, bring out your dead. If you have deceased LGBTQ friends or relatives who may not have been out during their lifetimes, bring them out, even in some small way. Help them take their next step. Tell someone about them. Write up an account of their lives for some future reader (or perhaps a historian). Maybe, in the fashion of cemeteries planting American flags on veterans’ graves, place a rainbow flag at their final resting place.
The stories are all different, but they are the same. The family friend or member who comes into the bedroom at night. The uncle, grandparent or friend who touches inappropriately with a hug. The boys who cop a feel in the hallway. The “nice” guy who after a few beers forgot that “No means No.”
Recent reports say that 0.7 percent of teens identify as transgender. At the same time, a recent study from the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that 50.8 percent of trans masculine people attempt suicide, with [...]
To me, it becomes an issue of accuracy versus truth. It may indeed be accurate, for example, to include the name I was born under, answered to and used on legal documents until I was in my early 20s — but this isn't exactly my truth. That surely isn't me, and isn't my identity now. It's not the person who pens these words, or has been under this name and gender for the more than half of this life.
So, in the spirit of inclusion, LGBTQ organizers should make it a responsibility to pick venues that are as accommodating as possible — even for disabled LGBTQ people. More importantly, organizers should put an effort into making disabled participants feel welcome, not like it is inconvenient to include them.
“Drug addict,” “philanderer,” “lifestyle” ... these are the pejoratives that substance abuse professionals used in a workshop I recently attended at a national conference on substance abuse. I was shocked to hear such judgmental and stigma-laden words casually thrown around the room by trained professionals. I have issues with judgmental words and labels; not only on a professional level, but also when talking to others from the LGBTQ2+ community. We are already fighting for our equality on many other fronts, specifically fewer barriers to health care and we don’t need labels to be used against us.
I want to call to your attention the issue of young adults using e-cigarettes and targeted marketing toward those youth. E-cigarettes are on the rise in popularity, with a misconception that it is not truly [...]
Our older son in particular was harassed from the beginning. Not only was he biracial and darker than most of the kids who attended his school, but he also had two gay dads.
There are more than 13,000 children in Michigan’s foster care system who are need of permanent loving and supportive homes.
I look at that photo from 1921, at those proud, resolute transgender people from nearly 100 years ago. How many of them were able to escape what was happening around them, or were they forced into hiding? We're any of them amongst those beaten when the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was destroyed? Dare I even ponder if these folks enjoying a nice day in the sun would, just a few years later, be forced to wear the pink triangle and live out their remaining days in a concentration camp?
I had explored a variety of options but nothing seemed very viable until, one day, I was having a conversation with one of my staff and she mentioned that she had worked for a child welfare program. She said that they often had difficulty in placing children who were older than the average child up for adoption. I called the agency to set up a meeting, and no sooner had I walked through the door than I realized that the woman who was interviewing me was a lesbian and very sympathetic.
It is not the time for us to be silent, to be fearful, to go back in the closet or to give up on building bridges and alliances. Our vote counts. Every vote counts We have to bring every vote — LGBTQ and all our allies - to the polls beginning now and send these chickens home to roost.
It's pride month, and this means a whole lot of people will take or have taken to the streets across the world, festooned in their best rainbow gear. We'll march, party and do all those things we'll do at pride. It will be crazy and chaotic, and we will be the big messy community we are, in all our glory.
Some are misinterpreting last week’s Supreme Court’s decision in the Masterpiece Cake case, as providing a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people. This is patently false. The Court’s ruling in favor of the cake shop was based on very narrow and specific circumstances regarding respecting religious freedom while enforcing antidiscrimination laws.
It’s BTL's silver anniversary, and for 25 years we have been dedicated to providing news for Michigan’s LGBTQ community. So now, as we celebrate this incredible milestone in not only our history, but that of our readership, we invite you to look back with us. Over the next 12 months BTL will revisit Southeast Michigan's historical milestones, traveling back in time to reexamine those events that have changed the face of our community. We’ll be releasing regular historical graphics that take a look at some of the LGBTQ community's greatest triumphs as well as some of the biggest bumps we’ve encountered on the road to equality. The first of these graphics can be found on page 8.
Finding housing is complex and terrifying. With rent skyrocketing while quality plunges, even middle-class families are struggling to find something that works for them and is also affordable, especially if they have children, pets, and/or special needs. Initial payments are financially overwhelming, comprising of rent for the first month, plus a security deposit, plus any additional fees. If a person cannot find accessible housing, the generosity of friends and family is the only thing protecting them from homelessness. Those who are marginalized - people of color, disabled people, and those within the LGBTQ+ community - face even greater challenges.
Pride season is here, and so are two new picture books that tell the story of the rainbow flag and the individuals who both inspired and created it.
As June gets closer and LGBTQ people start marking their summer calendars for over a dozen pride celebrations across Michigan — a huge achievement on its own — it's a great time to take stock of the unprecedented positive political action that has been achieved over the past year — seemingly despite all odds.
There is a certain popular culture view of transgender people that cannot be easily shaken: transgender people are born as men or women, and choose to become women or men.
In March, Rachael and I took her 9-year-old daughter Sophie to see Pink perform in her Beautiful Trauma world tour in Grand Rapids. We bought the tickets way back before Christmas and had been counting [...]
Trans people - and I am using the term in its broadest sense, inclusive of gender fluidity and nonbinary identities - tend to have a pretty short list of wants. Really, I can boil it down to one simple statement: we just want to live our lives.
I am a Michigan State University alum. Currently, I am a faculty member at Central Michigan University, where I and my colleagues are entrusted with thousands of young adults beginning to negotiate the world on their own. I am a former female college athlete, I am a social worker whose clients who include young victims of sexual abuse and women who have experienced violence at the hands of men, I am personally connected to many young adults who have experienced sexual assault and, finally, I am the adoptive mom to four kids — including a daughter — who all went to college. From these many perspectives, I keep trying to untangle the MSU/Nassar scandal.
Being transgender in the late 2010s means you talk about restrooms. Indeed, it's a topic you end up having to revisit over and over again, with what has been years now of attacks on public [...]
Members of the LGBTQ community face many unique health care challenges. They suffer from higher rates of smoking, depression, anxiety, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Compounding these challenges is the fact that LGBTQ individuals are more likely than others to experience difficulty accessing health care, due to a long history of anti-LGBTQ bias.
Is Vice President Mike Pence a closeted, deep-in-self-hate raging homo? Is that self-hate so intolerable for him that he’s become the commander in chief at the White House in pushing the most homophobic agenda since [...]
To be transgender in 2018 is to deal with challenging, difficult times. We face attacks from all sides, and the specter of death itself lays heavy upon our community. As a result, I find I often have to spend a lot of time ringing the alarm bells, and warning of dire times.
The Trump Administration has once again attempted to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. This time out, the ban was secretly drafted by Vice President Mike Pence, with assistance from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) and Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation.
Once I encountered a goat on an airplane. I had one short flight left to reach my destination from Nigeria to Ghana, and the old workhorse plane was overstuffed with luggage, squawking chickens and smelly, [...]
A landmark legal decision for transgender rights was issued last week. A unanimous three-judge panel of the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals — covering Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee — ruled that Michigan RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes violated federal civil rights laws when they fired Aimee Stephens for a being a transgender woman.
By Anurima Bhargava and Adele Kimmel The Trump Administration’s attacks on the transgender community come with real consequences. Earlier this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Department of Justice no longer considers it problematic [...]
The role of the Michigan Attorney General is a powerful, important position in the state. The office represents the people of Michigan in criminal and civil actions. They are supposed to be the hero that [...]
Five days a week I pass a building whose facade is marred by a bullet hole. The reality of gun violence in our community sends chills down my spine. The fact that this bullet hole came from a gun aimed at someone I know haunts me.
We Know HIV Doesn’t Discriminate — So Why Are Women Still Being Left Out of the Conversation Around HIV? Having recently become single again after being in a monogamous relationship for over a decade, and [...]
BY JOSH ROBBINS LOVE. It’s a word I’ve been tossing around my entire life. I’ve said it to my parents, mostly to my mom. I’ve used it to describe my feeling towards a music artist. [...]
How Josephine Baker Gave Pinups, Burlesquers, and Rockabilly Women of Color a Sense of Independence What things her gaze conceals yet gives acknowledgement to. What horrors yet what joys. Josephine Baker I whisper to myself [...]
With all the racism spewing forth from the White House on a regular basis, it’s almost easy not to notice that President Trump is not living up to candidate Trump’s campaign pledges not to roll [...]
It's been more than two and half years since the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges held that our Constitution guarantees us both the fundamental right to marry and the ancillary benefits associated with [...]
Criminals make up excuses for their crimes. We've heard so many bad excuses for crime, that many such stories have become the things of legend, like the infamous "Twinkie defense" of Dan White for the [...]
Radio host Michelle Brown of "Collections by Michelle Brown" told Women's March attendees in Ann Arbor last Saturday, to "grab them by the midterms and take our power to the polls." Below is her full [...]
By the time this column reaches you, the confetti will be swept out of Times Square and the Rose Bowl parade floats will exist as only a memory. Nevertheless, we shall still be feeling the [...]
BY JACQULYN HIPPE The lack of moral decency in this administration and their supporters has reenergized social activists and advocates here to maintain those rights. Social justice leaders working for people who have been stripped [...]
Michelle Brown In these worst of times, I keep looking for the best of times, the best in people, the best in possible outcomes, but it's hard. Most days, it feels that common [...]
The 21st of December is the Winter Solstice: that's the longest night of the year when light is at its scarcest. It is at this time of maximum axial tilt that those of us living [...]
Eve Kucharski Even with the decision to repeal net neutrality on Dec. 14, you probably haven't seen anything happen to your internet speeds. And you won't for now. The new rules must be [...]
Immigration Equality Advocates on Behalf of Both LGBT Immigrants and All Immigrants Living with HIV Aaron C. Morris By Oriol R. Gutierrez Jr. Aaron C. Morris is executive director of Immigration Equality, a [...]
By Jay Kaplan The U.S. Supreme Court finished hearing arguments this week in the case of a Colorado business owner who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. How the Court rules [...]
A week or two ago, a headline passed my eyes: "The transgender zealots are destroying truth itself," it seemed to scream, on an article by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail. Hitchens' point seems to [...]
By Jeff Berry "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." --Maya Angelou I remember as a [...]
by Gwendolyn Ann Smith The 7th of November was the 40th anniversary of Harvey Milk's historic victory in San Francisco, becoming the first out, gay elected official in the United States. It felt as if [...]
