Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2021 från The Advocate

ALIX DOBKIN Lesbian music legend and political activist Alix Dobkin (above) died May 19 from complications of a stroke and a brain aneurysm. Dobkin, 80, was a prominent singer, songwriter, and producer in the world of women’s music. In 1973, with a band called Lavender Jane, she released Lavender Jane Loves Women, “the very first album by, for, and about lesbians in the history of the world,” as Dobkin wrote on her website. Her other albums include Living With Lesbians, XX Alix, and Yahoo Australia!. A major voice in the lesbian-feminist movement, she was a member of many activist groups, including the steering committee of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. RUSTY WARREN Rusty Warren (above right) entertained mid-20th-century America with frankly sexual comedy routines and songs such as “Bounce Your…

Out British boxer Nicola Adams, a.k.a. Lioness, made history in 2012 when she became the first Olympic gold medalist in women’s boxing, in the flyweight division. She continued to set the bar for women’s boxing and LGBTQ+ representation in her sport until she retired in 2019, still undefeated. But the road to the top wasn’t easy. The documentary Lioness: The Nicola Adams Story shines a light on her resilience as she literally fought her way from the streets of Leeds to the top of her game.…

Japanese activists have spent six years demanding that Parliament — called the National Diet in Japan — pass legislation that would protect the rights of the country’s LGBTQ+ population. However, the parliamentary session ended with hard-line conservatives still blocking the bill. “We thought this Olympics would be the best opportunity to push the Japanese government to introduce such a law,” says Kanae Doi, Japan director for Human Rights Watch. “The Olympic Charter explicitly says that discrimination at any time is not acceptable.” Most Japanese citizens agree that LGBTQ+ people should have better legal protections. Doi cites a study that found close to 90 percent of Japan’s population supports such legislation. LGBTQ+ people in Japan continue to face social and workforce discrimination. A study from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor,…

Megan Rapinoe The lesbian women’s soccer forward is headed to Tokyo with World Cup Championships and a gold medal from the 2012 London Olympics. Emma Twigg This gay New Zealand rower is headed into her fourth Olympics, but it’s the first time she’ll be going as an out athlete. Sue Bird This WNBA great and four-time Olympic champion heads to Tokyo for her fifth and likely final Olympics. She met her fiancée, Megan Rapinoe, in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympics. Laurel Hubbard This New Zealand weight lifter is making Olympic and LGBTQ+ history in Tokyo as the first out transgender athlete to compete in the games. Anton Down-Jenkins The out and proud gay athlete is the first diver from New Zealand to qualify for the Olympics since 1984. Tom…

Ashnikko “I’m crazy but you like that,” a lyric from Ashnikko’s hit song “Daisy,” has become a mantra of sorts for the pop songstress’s fans. Brash and unapologetic, Ashnikko has a fearless, take-no-prisoners attitude that makes her music bristle with the sinister. The out queer 25-year-old North Carolina native dons a giant blue wig and a larger-than-life persona akin to a drag queen to deliver tongue-in-cheek messages of feminism and sexual liberation on her debut album, Demidevil. You have to possess a certain amount of bravado to sing lyrics like “Make your man call me daddy” with conviction. In “Slumber Party,” Ashnikko fantasizes about stealing your girlfriend for some “cunnilingus on my couch,” and we have no doubt she could do it. Put this album on if you want to…

There’s a theme in CODA — the film that swept the Sundance Film Festival and will now premiere in theaters and on Apple TV+ on August 13 — to which many an LGBTQ+ teen can relate. When 17-year-old Ruby (played perfectly by Emilia Jones, above) is torn between love of her family (who are all deaf, except her) and who she really is and wants to be (a singer, something they can’t understand), she struggles to bridge the gap between what her family wants and what she needs. She hides it as long as she can, but even they see that something is happening. (And, yes, there’s a boy, but really that story is secondary at best, and Ruby codes queer throughout, so it’s easy to read the character as…

THIS YEAR HAS been challenging for all parents in heretofore unimaginable ways, but for parents of LGBTQ+ kids, it has been especially treacherous. It is always difficult raising queer kids; schools erase them, bullies brutalize them, and many of our religious institutions stigmatize them. We parents are left on our own to teach our kids their history and educate them on how to take care of themselves and their partners. We must build up their self-esteem while training them on how to confront all the things that tell them that who they are is wrong. Hardest to explain to children is why their own government continually terrorizes them. Currently, over 30 state legislatures have introduced more than 100 anti-trans bills, most targeting kids by denying them medical care and banning…

ONE OF MY greatest fears after testing HIV-positive was that I would never have sex again. Fear had been a constant presence in my sex life even when I was HIV-negative, and now that I was positive that fear transformed into something else. Then it unexpectedly dissipated. Living with HIV allowed me to explore and deepen my sexuality in a way I had never anticipated. For many of us, the 40-year pandemic has affected all facets of our sex lives, but we can continue to prioritize the pursuit of pleasure and intimacy. After 25 years of living with HIV, I felt it was time to reflect on the impact it’s had on my sex life. HIV was always incidental to my life. I was scared of getting HIV even before…

“I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay.” With those words, Carl Nassib, a defensive end for the Las Vegas Raiders, forever changed the face of the National Football League. While others came out when they were retired or unsigned, Nassib is the first gay player to do so while active in the league. The occasion presents opportunities for revolutionary LGBTQ+ progress in America’s most popular pro sports league. To achieve this, however, the NFL, Raiders, and Nassib would do well to implement the team’s past winning strategy. Late owner Al Davis had one guiding rule for his Raiders: “Just win, baby.” In other words, he didn’t care what his players did off the field as long as they won where it counted. This rule…

Once labeled the next Mickey Mantle, Burke died penniless of AIDS complications. Baseball fans who grew up in the 1970s remember the Los Angeles Dodgers of that era being among the greatest teams in Major League Baseball history. That team was so indelible that it’s easy for fans to recite the starting lineup: Steve Garvey at first base, Davey Lopes at second, Bill Russell at short, Ron Cey at third, Steve Yeager behind the plate, Dusty Baker, Rick Monday, and Reggie Smith in the outfield, and a pitching staff extraordinaire. The team was led by celebrity manager Tommy Lasorda, a future Hall of Famer. Lasorda had a gay son who made no secret of his sexuality and would eventually die of AIDS complications. When Tommy Lasorda Jr. first befriended the…

The Olympics are founded on the principle of building a better world through sport, and when New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard competes in the women’s 87-kilogram weight-lifting competition in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, the organization will be living up to that promise. Hubbard is making global headlines as the first out trans athlete to participate in the Olympics. The New Zealand Olympic Committee announced in June that she would be on the national team. The Olympics have always been about more than just sports. They’re about inspiring young people, respecting and valuing diversity, and celebrating the human spirit. When a group of people is excluded from that vision, it’s incomplete. Chris Mosier, the founder of TransAthlete.com and the athlete who challenged the International Olympic Committee’s policy on trans athletes back in…

Hulu’s new documentary about trans athletes is a winner. When the subject of trans people competing in sports is discussed, the loudest voices in the room are all too often the least well-informed on the subject — sometimes intentionally so. The new Hulu documentary Changing the Game flips that narrative on its head by allowing three young trans athletes — Mack, a wrestler from Texas; Sarah, a skier from New Hampshire; and Andraya, a runner from Connecticut — to tell their own stories. The result is powerful, frequently heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful. For those who don’t understand the real, personal side of this debate, their eye-opening stories might literally change the game.…

SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE ROSENSTEIN RESIDENCE IT WAS the morning after the season premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 6. But Gus Kenworthy, a fan of the Paramount+ reality competition and a guest star on All Stars season 4, had not seen it yet. Such a lapse was “uncharacteristic,” the gay Olympic freestyle skier attests. But it had been a chaotic week. Kenworthy and his boyfriend were “bouncing around” friends’ homes after he sold his Los Angeles apartment; the house he purchased was still under renovation. And another residence he temporarily stayed in had flooded, mandating an evacuation. Speaking from his car while running errands around L.A. in June, Kenworthy does endorse one drag contestant. “I love Jan, and I felt like she did great on her season…

When it comes to on-screen LGBTQ+ representation, Disney has an…interesting history. Over the past few years there have been a handful of queer characters featured in films owned and distributed by the Mouse House (Cruella, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Beauty and the Beast come to mind immediately). But those characters’ identities were so barely acknowledged (or only featured in quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments) that the visibility they provided felt…inconsequential. It almost leaves fans wondering what the point of including these “queer” characters is in the first place. Where big-budget, silver-screen Disney offerings have left LGBTQ+ fans wanting more, the company’s television slate is slowly but surely becoming more and more inclusive. Disney+’s original musical streaming series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (we know, that’s a mouthful)…

IF ANYONE COULD have pulled off a fringed, electric blue suit for their Grand Ole Opry debut, it’s Leslie Jordan. Just over a year after he became an Instagram superstar — growing 80,000 followers to 5.6 million fellow “hunker-downers,” as he lovingly called those who joined his Insta-journey during lockdown — Jordan played the mothership of country music, the Grand Ole Opry, in late May. And you can bet he dramatically raised the fringed sleeves of his bespoke suit to great effect for that Nashville crowd. “I don’t think I’m going to walk out and make a big deal out of it. I’ll bet you I’m the first queer who’s ever been up here,” Jordan joked ahead of the performance. “I’m going to wear an electric blue suit. I’ll introduce…

CHRISTIE LEONARD’S JOB at Gospel Crusade seemed secure. But when her unfulfilling marriage to a man she didn’t desire fell apart amid rumors she had grown too close to another woman in her church, the Florida woman found herself unemployed. “When I separated from my husband and was going to move in with a woman, who was my best friend, that’s when they fired me,” Leonard says. She wasn’t engaged in a queer relationship; her friend, who also left a crumbling marriage around the same time, was straight. But as chatter about their sexuality swirled, it severed her relationship with Gospel Crusade, both as an employee and as a member of its affiliated congregation, Family Church. Now a legal challenge to her termination tests the limits of employment protections for…

At 20, Team USA figure skater Amber Glenn was facing familiar questions for athletes: How much longer will I be in this sport, and what will my career be remembered for? It was a driving factor behind the five-time U.S. Senior Nationals competitor and 2014 Junior Nationals champion’s decision to come out as bisexual/pansexual in December 2019. “I got to the point where I was like, ‘I need to make a change, and one of those changes is I need to be my true, honest self,’” Glenn says. “If I’m going to leave any impact on this sport, I want to at least give hope to the next generation of skaters and give people a female skater that they can relate to or look up to before my career is…

Nothing keeps Ryen Reed from pursuing her dreams — not a disability, not a serious traffic accident, and certainly not homophobia. Reed, 31, is a multisport athlete with a particular love for hand cycling, which is just what it sounds like — the use of a bicycle or tricycle powered by the hands and upper body. She has always been athletic, even though she was born with hip dysplasia, and as a child, she was diagnosed with spastic diplegia, which is a form of cerebral palsy. She’s gone through 15 significant surgeries and extended hospital stays. But, Reed says, she never wanted to be treated differently from anyone else. She started playing softball at age 9 and kept on playing until tearing both of her Achilles tendons when she was…

1934 German runner Otto Peltzer competes in 1928 and 1932 Games. Nazis arrest him for homosexuality in 1934. 1968 Gay Games founder Tom Waddell comes in 6th in the decathalon in Mexico City. 1988 U.S. equestrian Robert Dover is the first out gay athlete to compete in the modern Olympics. 1996 Gay divers David Pichler & Patrick Jeffrey compete. 1999 Tennis’s Amélie Mauresmo comes out as a lesbian. 2000 USA’s Christine Witty, a lesbian, places 5th in 500-meter cycling. She won silver in speed skating in 1998. 2004 At 47, tennis’s Martina Navratilova competes in her first Olympics, becoming the oldest tennis player to qualify in modern history. 2008 Australian diver Matthew Mitcham becomes the first out gay male Olympic champion, winning gold in the 10-meter platform in Beijing. 2012…

Heidi Ewing, known for co-directing documentaries like Jesus Camp and The Boys of Baraka, turned her lens to feature filmmaking in I Carry You With Me. The award-winning Spanish-language film centers on Iván (Armando Espitia) and Gerardo (Christian Vázquez), a gay couple battling stigma in Mexico. They move to the United States for opportunity, only to encounter new hurdles as undocumented immigrants. Below, Ewing discusses the production, which she directed and co-wrote with Alan Page Arriaga. Tell us about your personal connection to the real-life couple who inspired the film. I broke many rules in the making of this film, not the least of which is “never make a movie about close friends.” But on a late night in 2012, my dear friends Iván and Gerardo recounted their life story…

ON A COOL Monday evening in mid-May, P!nk took to the stage at the famed Hollywood Bowl ahead of the premiere of her documentary All I Know So Far. It was the first time the performer, renowned for belting her tunes while executing complicated feats of acrobatics, had performed live in more than a year. Sporting a billowing yellow dress and a grin from ear to ear, she sang a short acoustic set to a socially distanced audience that included frontline workers. The crowd at the Bowl was purposefully thin for the event with social distancing, but the energy for P!nk and the film was kinetic, especially when she sang her clarion call for outsiders “What About Us.” From Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, All I Know So Far focuses…

WHEN IT COMES to the glass ceiling, Stephanie Battaglino has worked on both sides of that barrier and knows firsthand the benefits of male privilege and the difficulties of advancing without it. In her new book, Reflections From Both Sides of the Glass Ceiling: Finding My True Self in Corporate America (L’Oste Vineyard Press), the author, PFLAG National board member, motivational speaker, and refugee from corporate America writes of her experience in the workplace, first as someone climbing the corporate ladder with white male privilege and then as a transgender woman treading water with little hope of real advancement. Battaglino has used her experience to examine the evolution of the workforce for trans folks. But don’t let the title fool you, as her book is more than just a study…