Orange County Program Trains Businesses to Welcome Transgender Workers
More than 400 businesses have used Cultural Competency Training
By MAYA DESAI
Pickle jars and pineapple on the right. Breakfast cereal and bagels over there. Riley Williams muttered these words as he ran his hands along the shelves.
Familiarizing himself with his new job at a grocery store in Orange County, he stopped by the break room and noticed the work schedule. His hours were listed next to the name his parents had given him, not the name he had chosen since he had come out as transgender.
“I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and panic,” said Williams. When he asked his bosses to change the name, they refused.
In the next few months, his employers reminded him of an identity he did not associate with every time they placed his work schedule on the wall. When colleagues called Williams by his old name, he felt they were making fun of him. Williams’ experiences led him to the job of LGBTQ Health & Trans* Services Coordinator at the Orange County LGBTQ Center in Santa Ana. Now, he creates training material for the Cultural Competency Training program, the center’s workforce initiative to educate businesses about the LGBTQ community.
“It’s really about stopping [discrimination] before it happens
to the next person,” said Williams.
A survey from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that 0.45% of adults 25 or older in the U.S. are transgender, while the percentage is nearly three times as high among those 18 to 24 years old.
As these openly transgender youth enter the workforce in higher numbers, more companies are using training programs to help employees adjust. More than 400 businesses have used the Cultural Competency Training to educate workers on matters such as bathroom use and gender-affirming care. Their lessons include the difference between gender identity and sex, the usage of pronouns, and the importance of hormone therapy. Clients include the city of Irvine, Southland Integrated Services and Jamboree Housing.
Today’s transgender youth are finding a more accepting work environment compared to past generations.
“I’ve had a lot of people in my life who want me to be strong and who’ve encouraged me to be strong, and that strength has led me to have confidence,” said Aspen Strawn, a transgender high school student in Orange County.
Strawn pointed to transgender rights pioneers who have led the way through the creation of workforce training programs. Started by the Human Rights Campaign, the Corporate Equality Index is a nationwide scale that indicates how equitable a business is toward the LGBTQ community. The index (scored from -25 to 100) bases its grades on workforce protections, inclusive benefits and culture and social responsibility.
These days, major companies often post their CEI scores on their websites.
Although many large businesses, such as Walt Disney Co. and Apple Inc., have perfect CEI scores and are known to support workforce inclusion, not all corporations go that far.
“I’m just not a big believer that big business has any strong interest in improving conditions,” said Arielle Rebekah, a transgender activist based in Chicago.
Hobby Lobby, for example, has been known for its anti-LGBTQ stances. In 2021, the company fought a legal battle to deny a transgender employee access to the women’s restroom. Businesses such as Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Twitter attained low scores, 30 and -25, respectively, on the 2023 CEI Index.
However, Assemblymember Chris Ward, D-San Diego, is not deterred by these corporations.
He believes AB 1955 (SAFETY Act), his recently introduced bill, which will prevent forced outings of LGBTQ students, provide resources to their parents and protect educators who support them, is a step in the right direction.
“It’s important that … we don’t cower to the opposition forces that are trying to deny us identity and deny us who we are,” Ward said. “That we stand up, that we affirm and we really recite our pride in who we are.”
Maya Desai is a reporter with JCal, a collaboration between The Asian American Journalists Association and CalMatters to immerse high school students in California’s news industry.
DTLA Proud Festival 2024 closes out the summer in new “Gayborhood” location
Event features pop-up waterpark dance party
By GLADYS B. VARGAS
Hundreds of queer community members water-partied, danced, dined, and patronized a variety of local organizations at the 9th annual DTLA Proud Festival in Downtown Los Angeles this past weekend.
The event featured a pop-up waterpark dance party and stage performances from DJ’s and drag queens, Aug 24 and 25, including a mini ball Sunday night when dancers competed for cash prizes. While past festivals were hosted at Pershing Square, this year’s festivities were relocated to the historic DTLA “gayborhood” at the 200 block of Spring Street, according to DTLA Proud Founder and Executive Director Oliver Alpuche.
“The ‘Gayborhood’ offers four queer safe spaces that have their doors open 365 days a year to our community and highlight and create an anchor in this area that is for us and by us,” Alpuche said. “We want to reset roots and carve out an area of DTLA that fosters inclusion, creativity and love. There is so much history that people don’t know about when it comes to Main Street.”
Muralist and graphic designer Coco Nella was live-painting a set of four paintings at the festival, and said each one is dedicated to one of the four queer bars in DTLA: Precinct, Bar Franca, New Jalisco Bar, and Kiso, which opened earlier this year.
“This event is basically in my backyard, and I really just wanted to do something very local with people I know,” Nella said. “Oliver and I talked about donating each painting to each of the bars just to kind of tie them all together.” Nella was painting near one of two stages at the event, Sum-
merTramp, where attendees swam in an above-ground pool and danced to musical performances throughout the weekend. The second stage, Proud, featured Preciosa night and a mini-ball.
Hosted by the House of Gorgeous Gucci, as featured on season one of HBO’s ball TV show ‘Legendary,’ the ball on Sunday was one of the most popular and activated parts of DTLA Proud Fest. Participants danced for a performance spot in the ball, and joined teams to battle each other for the one thousand dollar cash prize.
Jam, one of the house members walking the ball, was excited for the house to be featured at the festival.
“It’s exciting to see that they’re posted and flagged,” Jam said. “People are out and proud, and I am loving everybody’s outfits.”
Other attendees, Jeremy Dow and Gerardo Cruz, said they were disappointed by the amount of white people in the space, and said that the event attendance had been more inclusive in past years than this year.
“We live in East LA, so we’re pretty aware of the events that happen nearby, including downtown LA. I think based on the attendance, there are a lot of white, cis, gay men that seem to attend,” Cruz said. “So I think [DTLA Proud] can reach out to more, other communities.”
Many of the artists, businesses and organizations who hosted booths at the festival are entities who work to close those gaps within the community, including Bienestar, a local organization offering health services such as HIV management to Latinx and/or LGBT+ clients.
Another vendor was Clitorati, the latest project of Jackie Steele, Alana Roshay and Trish Sweet, who have collectively helped produce a host of visibility and community events such as BiPride, Queer Women’s Visibility Week, Women’s Freedom Festival, Dyke Marches, and Lez Do Brunch.
Sweet said they hope to build more relationships and community through similar networking events and fundraisers, such as a chest cancer awareness event, and partnerships with organizations like the TransLatin@ Coalition, to whom they donated a portion of their proceeds from Clitorati’s Pride sales this year.
“It was important for us to be a business versus a nonprofit, even though we do so much work in the community,” Steele said. “We also wanted to show other women, you don’t always have to belly crawl through fire for free and give everything away. You can develop something for yourself. You can build something a little bit bigger.”
RILEY WILLIAMS poses for a photo at his office in the Orange County LGBTQ Center.
(Photo by Maya Desai)
The SummerTramp stage at DTLA Proud showcased DJs and stage performances.
(Photo by Gladys B. Vargas)
EXCLUSIVE: Annise Parker, Lori Lightfoot outline path to victory for Harris
Former Houston and Chicago mayors emphasize importance of big cities
By CHRISTOPHER KANE
Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke exclusively with the Washington Blade last week in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.
Among other topics, they discussed their impressions of the convention, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s path to victory in November, the Democratic campaign’s efforts to mobilize voters in key battleground states, the candidates’ proven track records of fighting for LGBTQ rights, and the ways in which their administration would build on this work of expanding freedoms and protections for the community.
This year’s DNC was the last Parker will attend as president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBTQ candidates to public office, and the LGBTQ Victory Institute, which coordinates placement of LGBTQ federal employees and administers training and networking events.
“It’s not my first convention, but I have to say it is the most exciting and energetic convention,” she said. “There’s an energy around Kamala — the surprise, the sense of change and possibility that I’m not used to, and it feels really great.”
Prior to President Joe Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would step aside to clear the path for Harris’s nomination, Parker said that “respectfully, some of us were slogging through” because “we knew he was the better candidate than Donald Trump, and we were going to support him because of that reason.”
“Now we’re excited because we have somebody new and different,” she said, “a shift in personality and also a shift in energy, and that works its way through the campaign.”
Lightfoot agreed that “there is a tremendous amount of energy and excitement,” but hedged that “if that doesn’t translate to butts at the polls, it doesn’t matter.”
“So, everywhere I’m going and talking to folks, it’s like, this is great; step one, get the base reunified, because it was very fractured, I think, even a month ago,” she said. “The level of excitement, consolidating the votes for the nomination, positive press, the amount of money that’s being raised — that’s all good stuff, but it’s got to have a significant ground game, because people need to show up.”
Lightfoot noted that folks from Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois, a deep blue city in a largely blue state, are traveling to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota because “no one wins in November unless they win the Midwest, so we’re reaching out to our friends, our neigh-
bors, and saying, ‘you got to plug in; you got to pay attention, educate yourself and get to the polls.’”
Parker echoed those remarks. “Our job is to bring in those who are not the regular Democratic rank and file,” she said, “the independents, and even disaffected Republicans, and there are a lot of those out there.”
The former mayors agreed that Trump’s narrow electoral college win in 2016 was made possible in part by the decision of many voters to stay home because they believed Hillary Clinton’s victory was not just likely — but certain.
The 2024 presidential election will be very close. Harris’s emergence as the nominee has put some states in play for the Democrats that were out of reach when Biden was leading the ticket, but even as she pulls ahead, recent polls in key battlegrounds show the candidates are in a near-dead heat.
In this race, Parker is counting on the “pushup” effect. Down-ballot candidates can expect a boost from Harris, she said, but likewise “we’re going to turn people out to vote for their school board candidates,” or in city council and statehouse races “and they’re going to vote at the top of the ticket as well.”
Lightfoot said that part of the task before the Harris-Walz campaign will be to engage a “broad cross section of Americans who, frankly, are still disengaged, disenchanted, angry, frustrated, scared” and otherwise struggling as they recover from the “traumatic shocks” of COVID.
The pandemic worsened preexisting skepticism toward the government, she said, so the candidates must “talk about why they are the solution to a lot of the concerns that the average voter has” particularly by “speaking to those incredibly important swing voters in the seven or eight states that are in play.”
First they must win
As Democrats, Lightfoot said, “we have a great propensity, sometimes,” of “trying to make the perfect be the enemy of the good” but “we need to win first, right?”
“This is one of those Bill Clinton-Al Gore moments back in the ‘90s,” she said. “It’s like, I get it, I get it, but let me get there first, let me win, and then we can accomplish great things together.”
Parker and Lightfoot, both out lesbians, agreed that LGBTQ issues are not necessarily what Harris and Walz need to be talking about on the campaign trail with little more than two months until the election.
Rather, the focus must be on “the issues [that are] top of mind for the American voter,” Parker said, because the candidates “need to be talking to that great middle America out there that needs to show up to vote.”
Of course, she and Lightfoot said, it is important for LGBTQ folks, especially those who have a seat at the table, to make sure the community’s policy agenda is understood by the candidates, and likewise for the campaign to remind voters of Harris and Walz’s pro-LGBTQ backgrounds — even if, as Parker said, “that’s not how she’s going to win this election, talking about that.”
With respect to their commitments to advancing LGBTQ rights, the former mayors repeatedly stressed that the vice president and the governor have nothing to prove. “They don’t have to promise anything,” Parker said. “They’ve already done it.”
“We are working with folks who have a proven track record of understanding the importance of our community,” Lightfoot said. “They’ve hired, they’ve appointed, they get it.”
Expanding freedoms and protections for LGBTQ people has been a through line of Harris’s career in public service. For example, well before it would have been politically advantageous, she fought for same-sex marriage when serving as district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California, defying legal restrictions to perform some of the country’s first gay and lesbian weddings.
Additionally, the past four years have cemented the Biden-Harris administration’s legacy as the most pro-LGBTQ presidency in American history, in no small part thanks to the work of the vice president.
And for his part, practically from the moment he was chosen as Harris’s running mate, Walz has been attacked by Trump and his conservative allies over his pro-trans record as governor. Before he entered public life, Walz was a high school teacher and football
coach who served as faculty adviser to the student-led gay-straight alliance club in the 1990s, an anecdote that was shared by Harris when she appeared with him for the first time on stage at a rally on Aug. 6.
The campaign has also made outreach to and engagement with LGBTQ constituents a major priority. During an Aug. 21 meeting of the LGBTQ Caucus at the DNC, Harris for President National LGBTQ+ Engagement Director Sam Alleman outlined plans for additional activity and investment in Out for Harris, the LGBTQ national organizing push.
Putting aside the looming election, when asked whether there are specific LGBTQ policies she would like to see in a Harris-Walz administration, Parker said those conversations will be possible in earnest only if Democrats are able to win not just the White House but also flip control of the House and hold onto their majority in the Senate.
Then, she said, “we’re going to want to make sure” that LGBTQ appointees are picked to serve in key positions throughout the federal government, noting that historic numbers — 15 percent — were nominated and confirmed under the Biden-Harris administration.
“I expect that to continue,” Parker said.
Congress will play a critically important role in effectuating the Harris-Walz agenda, including on LGBTQ issues, she said, but policy is implemented “in the departments and in the bowels of government” which is why representation in these spaces matters, too.
The Democratic candidates’ support for LGBTQ rights is of a piece with the positive and inclusive spirit of their bid for the White House, which stands in stark contrast with the approach seen from their opponents.
“There is a joy, truly, about Kamala Harris’s campaign,” Parker said, and while it is unclear whether and to what extent the good vibes will be sustained until Election Day, “you get the sense that she’s really, emotionally, she’s all in it.”
Lightfoot agreed. “What happened within the next 24 hours,” after Biden endorsed his vice president to run in his stead, “no one could have predicted it. No one could have scripted it. It was this organic movement and coalescing around her with really genuine enthusiasm.”
The former Chicago mayor also praised Harris’s digital team. “Their social media game is off the charts,” she said. “They are hitting home runs every single day,” maintaining the vice president’s positive message while trolling Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
LORI LIGHTFOOT and ANNISE PARKER at the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute’s Victory at the DNC event at theWit Hotel in Chicago on Tuesday (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Ford to scale back DEI policies amid right-wing pressure
Months after withdrawing from external corporate culture surveys such as those administered by the Human Rights Campaign, Ford Motor Company will scale back internal policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to a memo from the company’s CEO Jim Farley.
The move, which follows similar decisions by other publicly traded corporations like home improvement retailer Lowe’s and motorcycle maker Harley Davidson, marks a decisive shift in the automaker’s approach to workplace culture.
Ford has long earned top marks in external ranking systems that measure firms’ commitments to inclusion by evaluating their corporate policies, practices, and benefits with respect to gender equity, LGBTQ equality, disability, and other metrics.
The contents of Farley’s memo were first reported on Wednesday when the document was leaked to Reuters by conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who has campaigned against DEI programs as well as corporate participation in LGBTQ events and the issuance of public statements concerning — or the deployment of business strategies to address — matters from climate change to systemic racism.
The Hollywood music video director-turned-anti-woke crusader claimed credit, at least to some extent, for Ford’s decision, writing that the company “fears” him. “We’re now forc-
ing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies,” he said in a post on X.
HRC on Wednesday slammed the automaker’s announcement in a press release arguing that the company’s profits and employee retention numbers will be ultimately harmed by the rescission of its DEI policies.
“Today, Ford Motor Company abandoned its commitment to hundreds of thousands of employees by cowering to internet troll Robby Starbuck, and signaling that inclusion and other core values are no longer a priority in the workplace,” the group’s president Kelley Robinson said.
Noting the company’s reputation for prioritizing inclusion, she said HRC “could not be more disappointed to see Ford Motor Company shirking its responsibility to its employees, consumers, and shareholders.”
“By failing to support women leaders, employees of color, and LGBTQ+ employees, Ford Motor Company is abandoning its financial duty to recruit and keep top talent from across the full talent pool,” Robinson said, adding, “in making their purchasing decisions, consumers should take note that Ford Motor Company has abandoned its commitment to our communities.”
Her statement again took aim at Starbuck, calling him a “MAGA bully and Republican-reject” whose “only business experience is hawking vitamins marketed by people profiting off of COVID disinformation.”
The activist, Robinson said, “is so extreme that the Tennessee Republican Party sought to distance itself from him,” an apparent reference to his failed 2022 bid to represent the state as a write-in candidate.
“Hastily abandoning efforts that ensure fair, safe, and inclusive work environments is bad for business and leaves Ford’s employees and millions of LGBTQ+-allied consumers behind,” she said. “With nearly 30% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ+ and the community wielding $1.4 trillion in spending power, retreating from these principles undermines both consumer trust and employee success.”
HRC’s press release also notes that Starbuck has urged companies to “remove themselves” from the HRC Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, even though every Fortune 500 company is ranked in the survey regardless of whether they participate (by sharing the information and data on which the ranking is based).
CHRISTOPHER KANE
Trump attacks trans rights at Moms for Liberty Summit
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump recycled right-wing anti-trans talking points, in many cases with statements that were false or misleading, during a discussion with Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Tiffany Justice at the group’s summit in Washington, D.C. on Friday.
They did not address specific anti-trans policies Trump promised to enact if he is elected in November, which would include sweeping restrictions of the rights of, especially, transgender youth, including through heavy-handed government intervention in healthcare and education.
Nor did Trump say much about his opponents’ positions or records on trans issues, apart from a remark about how Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic 2024 nominee, might “flip-flop” on the issue, a charge that his campaign has often leveled against her.
Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have strong records of expanding freedoms and protections for the trans and LGBTQ communities, in many cases long before taking those actions or positions would have conferred any political advantage.
Trump did not directly address a question from Justice about Walz’s move as governor to install feminine hygiene products in all of the state’s public school restrooms and fa-
cilities. Shortly after Harris chose him s her vice presidential nominee on Aug. 8, conservative opponents have sought to attack him on this basis, using the nickname “tampon Tim.”
Formed in 2021 to push back against Covid-era mask mandates and other school policies, Moms for Liberty has since shifted its focus almost entirely to curbing the rights of LGBTQ students, teachers, and staff as well as banning educational materials, books, and classroom discussion addressing matters of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The group, considered an anti-LGBTQ extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is closely allied with the Republican Party and staunchly supportive of Trump.
The bulk of Trump’s remarks during his conversation with Justice, however, addressed unrelated topics ranging from foreign policy to reality television programs.
However, the anti-trans rhetoric used by Trump was extreme. For instance, he repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is transgender, a lie that was spread following her victory over Italy’s Angela Carini during the 2024 Olympic Games.
Later, he suggested without any evidence that children are going off to school and coming home a few days later having had “an operation” to change their gender without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
CHRISTOPHER KANE
Conservative activist ROBBY STARBUCK has campaigned against DEI programs.
DONALD TRUMP speaks with Moms for Liberty co-founder TIFFANY JUSTICE at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors Summit ‘24 in D.C. (Screen shot via PBS Newshour/YouTube)
LOCAL
Los Angeles Blade announces strategic partnership with leading SoCal LatinX media CALÓ News
Addressing Southern California’s evolving mediascape
By LA BLADE STAFF
The Los Angeles Blade, SoCal’s renowned LGBTQ news media, White House Press Corps member - sister publication to the Washington Blade in D.C. - is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with CALÓ News, SoCal’s most influential and comprehensive Latinx community focused news outlet.
This partnership aims to address the changing news needs resulting from historic demographic shifts in Los Angeles County and Southern California and the LGBTQ community.
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other demographic sources, Latinx people now make up approximately 48-50% of the population in Los Angeles County, making them the largest ethnic or racial group in the region. This demographic shift has been consistent over the past few decades, reflecting the significant and growing presence of the Latino community in the county.
“It’s incredibly important,” says Los Angeles Blade publisher Troy Masters ”that the LGBTQ press reflects and honors the diversity of our entire community by reporting more deeply on its rainbow of ethnicities and cultures, particularly Black and Brown people. We appreciate the opportunity to partner with CALÓ News in making that happen.” Masters adds, “This is a first-of-its-kind media collaboration and focus for the LGBTQ press.”
“With this, we are able to continue efforts we undertook over the past 3 years through our work with the California State Library’s Ethnic Media Outreach Grant, a program that supported ethnic media outlets and collaboratives serving communities that are historically vulnerable to hate incidents and hate crimes.” Masters said.
This collaboration will include a dedicated, full-time local news editor for the Los Angeles Blade who will also be responsible for directing an LGBTQ content stream for CALÓ News. Recruitment is now underway.
The collaboration will not only offer original daily content, with a sharp focus on News, Politics, and the Arts for the entire LGBTQ community, but will also result in a more specific focus on LGBTQ community members of color throughout the region.
Already the Los Angeles Blade brings a uniquely insightful blend of journalism. As a sister publication to the Washington Blade, the newspaper enjoys a robust, insider’s view of the corridors of power, both in the White
House and in the halls of Congress. The Los Angeles Blade, founded in 2017, also enjoys tremendously beneficial relationships in Sacramento and the California legislature, state and local leaders, government agencies and non-profit institutions that help the LGBTQ community navigate complex social and political needs.
“We are confident that this partnership will help strengthen our already high-quality journalism,” said Masters. “While we are entirely separate companies, I feel confident that collaborative newsroom staffing efforts like this one are the wave of the future,” he adds.
Kevin Naff, Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Blade, says “The success of media today relies on ever deeper community engagement and we feel certain that a focused Local News Editor and this collaboration with CALÓ News will achieve that.”
“I am excited to embark on a partnership with the Los Angeles Blade, the preeminent LGBTQ news outlet in Los Angeles. In a Latino region like Los Angeles, elevating LGBTQ+ stories is so critically important to ensuring that we advance a robust and inclusive equity agenda for all of our communities,” said, Arturo Carmona, president of the Latino Media Collaborative, publisher of CALÓ News.
“CALÓ News has a longstanding reputation for being an authentic voice in the Latinx community,” says Martin Albornoz, General Manager of CALÓ News. “We produce stories that are often ignored in other media. We are looking forward to continuing this kind of important journalism in partnership with Los Angeles Blade.”
As part of this partnership, Los Angeles Blade and CALÓ NEWS will also work to co-present community engagement events and explore relevant topics that impact the entire rainbow community.
(Blade photo by Ernesto Valle)
BRIAN DOOLEY is senior adviser for Human Rights First.
Ukraine’s new conscription laws threaten humanitarian efforts
NGOs supporting LGBTQ community losing staff to war effort
Ukrainian men are being pulled away from vital humanitarian work and drafted into the military under new conscription laws, according to local activists.
One huge challenge facing Ukraine’s war effort is a shortage of conscripts. Kyiv hopes new laws passed in April 2024 aimed at recruiting many more soldiers will help it get on the front foot militarily, particularly after a fresh wave of attacks from Russia in May 2024 in the northeast.
Vasyl Malikov is the Kharkiv coordinator of Alliance.Global northeastern Ukraine. The NGO provides a wide range of services to the LGBTQ community in the Kharkiv region, including HIV prevention and testing, psychosocial help, medical, and humanitarian aid.
He told me that most of the men who work with the organization to provide these services as well as their volunteers are liable to be called up for military service under the new conscription drive.
Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 have resulted in a protracted war being fought along a front line stretching over several hundred miles. In August 2024 Ukraine opened a new line of attack when it pushed into Russia’s Kursk region, with reports estimating Ukraine could commit as many as 10,000 troops to the attack. Despite the widespread use of new technology on the battlefield, much of the war is being fought by more traditional means, with large numbers of soldiers armed with rifles defending the country from trenches.
The new laws aim to reinforce Ukraine’s tiring military and lower the age of conscription from 27 to 25, although volunteers over 18 are still accepted.
Ukraine has for a decade been successfully pressing the United States government and leaders in Europe for weapons to defend itself against Russian aggression, but having enough soldiers to use them is a significant challenge.
An initial target of conscripting 450,000 to 500,000 new recruits has been lowered, but it is not clear what the new number is. I’ve been regularly reporting from the front line in and around Kharkiv, the country’s second biggest city, over the last two years, and it’s obvious that Ukraine’s military is running short of personnel.
Malikov says some of the men who work with Alliance. Global have already been called into the army, and are hard to replace. “Good international practice is that many of the services we provide to LGBTQ people are best done by social workers and volunteers who come from the communi-
ties they serve (peer-to-peer),” he said.
“We do an enormous amount of work providing vital social and other support to gay men and bisexual men in and around Kharkiv. Trust is important in the outreach to these communities, and if men from our team are taken for the army you can’t just get anyone to replace them. These are experienced professionals, committed to this work.”
A few of the Alliance.Global team are exempt from the military draft on medical grounds, or for some other reason. Malikov is himself currently exempt because he is also a university professor, but this academic certificate has to be renewed every three months - a long bureaucratic process, he says, which can involve him queueing for five hours at a time.
This new challenge comes as the country’s LGBTQ community confronts a halt to progress on legislation to introduce same-sex civil partnerships, despite more than 70 percent of Ukrainians polled saying that LGBTQ people should have the same rights as other citizens. This is a huge improvement from 2010 attitudes, when only 28 percent of Ukrainians thought that “gay men and lesbians should be free to live their lives as they wish.”
Yet, as Bogdan Globa, president and co-founder of QUA –LGBTQ Ukrainians in America, notes, “thousands of LGBTQI+ are serving in the army with a civilian partner back at home. For straight couples, if something happens with a military partner (wounded or killed), a civilian partner will obtain a variety of government benefits, from cash support to housing. In the case of same-sex couples, they are invisible to the government and have no help or recognition. A civilian person has no right to even bury their partner’s body.”
Malikov says, “any Ukrainian man could find himself in the military in a matter of weeks from now, because it’s a civic duty of Ukrainian men during wartime, including any number of the 80 or more men who are part of the Alliance. Global network.”
The new recruitment drive presents new tests for his work in Kharkiv. “It makes things very difficult to plan. We don’t know who will be called up, or when, and it’s another layer of unpredictability to an already uncertain future,” he says.
For more, see Human Rights First’s new report, “New Recruits: Ukraine’s Military Conscription Laws Threaten Humanitarian Efforts,” written by Maya Fernandez-Powell and myself.
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PETER ROSENSTEIN
is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
There is no historical comparison to this election Our futures are at stake so urge your family, friends to vote Harris
It is time those who keep trying to compare this election to previous elections to recognize there is no comparison. There has never been a sitting vice president running against a disgraced former president, who lost the last time he ran. There has never been an African American/Asian American woman, running for president as a major party nominee. There has never been a candidate who replaced the original candidate of a major party on the ticket, with only three months until the election.
There also has never in recent years been such a unified Democratic Party, running against not a political party, but a cult. There has never been a major party candidate running for president held liable for sexual assault and convicted of 34 felonies. There has never been a time when a woman’s right to control her own healthcare has been taken away after being considered a constitutional right for nearly 50 years. There has never been a time when a woman’s right to an abortion has been on so many state ballots. And there has never been a candidate who rants regularly on his social media platform, mostly inane nonsense, at the same time his running mate tells a sitting vice president to ‘go to hell,’ in response to something she never even said. We have never had a candidate for vice president who has in essence told women without children they are useless. The total lack of class of the MAGA Republican ticket is also something we have never seen before. So to all those like the MAGA Republican Marc Theissen, who writes in the Washington Post, saying he can compare this election to previous ones, they might want to take the time to read some history. What’s clear is we don’t know who will win this election. We don’t know how many Americans there are who would choose to vote for a once defeated former president, convicted felon, who tried to stage a coup to remain in office. Yes, he could win even if that were to seem like an alternate reality. Unfortunately, with today’s divided electorate, we can surmise what the result in 43 states will be. It is only in seven states that there is some doubt about the result. I wish I had a crystal ball, but I don’t, and neither does anyone else. From what we have seen in recent years, polling is not an accurate predictor.
need to ask each person for a commitment to vote. Then you must help them understand why their vote is so important. Explain to them they voting
remake our government based on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It will be decided by those who understand what additional rights will be taken away if Trump is able to appoint more judges with lifetime terms to the Supreme Court, and other federal courts. With all this at stake we still don’t know how people will vote. But I have confidence in the American people, and believe Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will win. But I also know for that to happen, they will need everyone who supports them to be out and working hard, whether raising money, knocking on doors, or talking to family and friends to get them to vote. That last one can really have the greatest impact over the next two months. Everyone who supports the Harris/Walz ticket needs to sit down and make a list of every one of their friends and family members. Then start calling. First you need to ask each person for a commitment to vote. Then you must help them understand why their vote is so important. Explain to them they are not only voting for themselves in this election, they are voting for you.
You need to share with them what this election could mean to your life. If you are a young person concerned with climate
There are the types of issues in this campaign we have seen in previous elections, when wars and the economy have played a big role. Today we have divisions over the Israel/Hamas war, with debates on how the United States should deal with Israel, and the future of the Palestinian people. There is the war in Ukraine and questions some have about our continued support for Ukraine, and how we are working with our allies. Then there are what are usually called kitchen table issues: inflation, and the cost of food, gas, rent, and education. Then add the issue of crime. We know climate change is taking a much larger role in elections, especially for young people who will live longer with the results if we do nothing about it. These are the issues, even if not exactly the same, that have been around in previous elections. Yet this election is still so different. It is what is new and scary I believe this election will be decided on. It will be decided by a very small number of voters, in a small number of states. It will be won by Harris if enough voters fully understand our democracy is actually at risk if Trump wins. They must understand the impact of the Supreme Court ruling granting a president nearly absolute immunity. Understand what happens if Trump’s acolytes, who will be in his government,
ity, the right to vote, and that the nation doesn’t go back to as Trump has stated he supports, then explain to them why this could literally be a vote for your life. If you are Latino and a
You need to share with them what this election could mean to your life. If you are a young person concerned with climate change, explain to them they are voting to make the world safer and healthier for you, who will be living in it the longest. If you are a woman who wants to ensure you have control of your own healthcare, and the right to an abortion, explain to them why this election is so crucial to you. If you are a member of the LGBTQ community and want to ensure your rights aren’t taken away, and instead of going backwards, you have a chance to get full equality, explain to them why their vote in this election will have a direct impact on your life. If you are African American and want to ensure you have your civil rights, economic equality, the right to vote, and that the nation doesn’t go back to giving police ultimate power, and the right to ‘stop and frisk’ as Trump has stated he supports, then explain to them why this could literally be a vote for your life. If you are Latino and a Dreamer, and want the right to live safely in this country without looking over your shoulder every day, worrying about the possibility of a member of your family being deported, explain to them why this is a vote for your safety and your future. If you are Asian American and want to ensure you can live without discrimination, explain why this is a vote for you.
This election must be made to feel personal for each voter. People need to understand what electing Trump will mean to each one of us, and how it will directly impact every person’s life. You can do that by calling all your friends and family, and then asking them to call their friends, like a giant telephone tree. It will make the difference to winning or losing.
Again, in the end, this election is about all of us. It is about our individual rights as guaranteed in our Constitution. It is about what our country will look like going into the future. It is about how we interact with the rest of the world knowing we have a global economy, and the result and impact of doing nothing about climate change doesn’t stop at our border. It is about the opportunity to continue to move forward toward that ‘more perfect union,’ promised in our Constitution. So, when you speak with your friends and family do so honestly, and do it with passion. Because for all of us to live a good, safe, and healthy life, in a peaceful, safer, and healthier world, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz must win.
KEVIN NAFF
is editor of the Washington Blade. Reach him at knaff@washblade.com
Who’s afraid of Robby Starbuck?
Right-wing blogger striking fear into hearts of corporate America
The backlash against DEI and other inclusive programs at America’s largest companies continues, with news last week that Ford Motor Company will scale back its internal DEI initiatives.
The announcement follows a move by retailer Target to reduce its Pride merchandise in June and, of course, the uproar last year over Bud Light’s trans-inclusive marketing eff orts.
Tennessee of affi rming medical care for trans teens and drag queen story hour events. Predictably, Starbuck is a Trump supporter whose scientifi cally challenged opinions have been amplifi ed by Elon Musk. He is a climate change denier and anti-vaxxer who told CNN that LGBTQ Pride events promote sex to children, the oldest and most disgusting slur used against our community.
The Ford news was fi rst reported last week when a memo from CEO Jim Farley was leaked to Reuters by right-wing activist Robby Starbuck, “who has campaigned against DEI programs as well as corporate participation in LGBTQ events and the issuance of public statements concerning — or the deployment of business strategies to address — matters from climate change to systemic racism,” as the Blade reported.
Starbuck, a music video director-turned-anti-woke crusader claimed credit for Ford’s decision, writing that the company “fears” him. “We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies,” he said in a post on X.
No one had ever heard of this guy or his homophobic and racist campaign until recently, which begs the question: Why are some of America’s largest companies refl exively caving to these destructive demands?
In addition to Ford, Starbuck has claimed credit for sparking similar changes at Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Polaris, and most recently Lowe’s, after threatening to expose “woke policies” at the companies.
Lowe’s last week revealed in a memo that it would stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and would no longer sponsor parades and festivals like Pride celebrations.
Of course, some of these changes are normal business decisions driven by the bottom line. Does expending internal resources to comply with HRC’s criteria for a good score do anything to boost business? Are these companies hedging now in anticipation of retaliation by a Trump administration if he wins in November?
But the timing of these recently announced changes raises eyebrows given all the pronouncements by Starbuck and they are disconcerting because our corporate allies have sometimes made the diff erence between anti-LGBTQ laws taking eff ect or not. It’s maddening that one pony-tailed blogger could scare huge corporations into abandoning affi rming programs for its employees and customers. Starbuck has called DEI programs “evil” and CNN reported that his wife Landon is a leading opponent in
The corporate CEOs and boards caving to this homophobe should grow a spine.
Thankfully, the news from corporate America isn’t all bad. In April, JP-
LGBTQ+, or have disabilities to a fund aimed at helping entrepreneurs of color, investments in rural communities, and recruiting eff orts at
ment the bank made in 2020 was ‘nearly completed’ and would become a permanent part of the business.”
Thankfully, the news from corporate America isn’t all bad. In April, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in a shareholder letter touted a range of programs — “from resource groups for employees who are Black, LGBTQ+, or have disabilities to a fund aimed at helping entrepreneurs of color, investments in rural communities, and recruiting eff orts at historically Black colleges and universities,” according to a report in Axios. “He also said that the $30 billion racial equity commitment the bank made in 2020 was ‘nearly completed’ and would become a permanent part of the business.”
“We’re thoughtfully continuing our diversity, equity and inclusion eff orts,” he wrote.
And earlier this week, Aetna announced that it would become the fi rst major health insur-
And earlier this week, Aetna announced that it would become the fi rst major health insurer to off er intrauterine insemination (IUI) as a medical benefi t to all members nationwide, regardless of a patient’s sexual orientation or partner status. Aetna is the nation’s third largest health insurer, so the policy change “has wide-reaching implications for LGBTQ Americans,” the company touted in a release.
For those corporate leaders searching for a response to Starbuck and his ilk, I suggest they listen to former Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette whom I interviewed for the Blade in January upon his retirement. Gennette, who’s gay, pioneered Macy’s own extensive DEI programs and disagreed with how Target and others caved to right-wing demands.
“It’s when you fl ip and succumb to pressure that you get yourself sideways,” he said, noting that, “It always comes back to your core values. We had Pride merchandise at the front of our stores and we were participants in Pride parades around the country. George Floyd put us on notice about being vocal about our internal programs and how you use your CEO voice to be true to what you’ re doing internally.”
There remain plenty of CEOs out there who are doing the right thing. Ford, Lowe’s, and the others placating MAGA blowhards are alienating potential customers and undermining their LGBTQ employees and should reverse these misguided and cowardly decisions.
NOTICE
INVITING SUBMITTALS FOR LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE SERVICE
The County of Los Angeles Department of Beaches and Harbors is seeking a qualified and experienced contractor to provide landscape maintenance services on public grounds in Marina del Rey. The Contract work will be primarily performed within the public areas of the Marina del Rey Small Craft Harbor, which is managed by the Department. Selection of a contractor will be based on the qualifications and price of the submitted proposals for performing the requested work.
A Mandatory Proposer’s Conference is scheduled for September 9, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. at the Boathouse at Burton Chace Park, 13650 Mindanao Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, 1st floor conference room. All potential Proposers must attend this conference.
The deadline for submitting proposals is 5:00 p.m., September 23, 2024.
Proposers submitting proposals must have a minimum of five (5) years’ experience providing landscape maintenance services. The County may require additional minimum qualifications. The contract will be subject to the County’s Living Wage Ordinance, County Code Chapter 2.201.
Further information regarding the Request for Proposals (RFP) is available at: https:// doingbusiness.lacounty.gov/.
To view and print a copy of the RFP, please visit: http://beaches.lacounty.gov/request-forproposals/.
The County reserves the right to cancel the RFP and to modify any and all terms and conditions of the RFP, including minimum qualifications. For further information, email Jean Dao at Contracts@bh.lacounty.gov. CN109012 09-23-2024 Sep 06, 2024
Jussie Smollett asserts innocence while promoting new film
‘I know what happened and soon you all will too’
By ERKKI FORSTER
Jussie Smollett, the actor and musician who was convicted of lying to the police about being the victim of a homophobic and racist hate crime that he staged in 2019, attended a screening of his latest film “The Lost Holliday” in a packed auditorium of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on Aug. 28.
In an interview with the Washington Blade that took place before the screening, he continued to assert his innocence and responded to concerns within the LGBTQ community that his case has discouraged real victims from reporting hate crimes.
The former “Empire” star wrote, produced, and directed “The Lost Holliday,” his second feature film to direct following 2021’s “B-Boy Blues.” Produced through Smollett’s company, SuperMassive Movies, he stars in the film alongside Vivica A. Fox, who also served as a producer and attended the library screening with other cast members.
In the film, Smollett plays Jason Holliday, a man grappling with the sudden death of his husband Damien (Jabari Redd). Things are complicated when Damien’s estranged mother, Cassandra Marshall (Fox), arrives in Los Angeles from Detroit for the funeral, unaware of Damien’s marriage to Jason or of their adopted daughter. Initially, Jason and Cassandra clash — Cassandra’s subtle homophobia and Jason’s lingering resentment over her treatment of Damien fuel their tension –– but they begin to bond as they navigate their grief together.
Smollett, Fox, Redd, and Brittany S. Hall, who plays Jason’s sister Cheyenne, discussed the film in an interview with the Washington Blade. Highlighting the wide representation of queer identities in the film and among the cast, they stressed that the story is fundamentally about family and love.
“What we really want people to get from this movie is love,” Smollett said. “It’s beneficial for people to see other people that are not like themselves, living the life that they can identify with. Because somehow, what it does is that it opens up the world a
little bit.”
Smollett drew from personal experiences with familial estrangement and grief during the making of the film, which delves into themes of parenthood, reconciliation, and the complexities of family relationships.
“I grew up with a father who was not necessarily the most accepting of gay people, and I grew up with a mother who was rather the opposite. I had a safe space in my home to go to, but I also had a not-so-safe space in my home, which was my father,” he said.
“The moment that he actually heard the words that his son was gay, as disconnected and estranged as we were, he instantly changed. He called me, after not speaking to him for years, and apologized for how difficult it must have been all of those years of me growing up. And then a couple years later, he passed away.”
Smollett began working on “The Lost Holliday” eight years ago, with Fox in mind for the role of Cassandra from the outset. He said that he had started collaborating on the project with one of the biggest producers in Hollywood when “‘2019’ happened.”
In January 2019, Smollett told Chicago police that he had been physically attacked in a homophobic and racist hate crime. He initially received an outpouring of support, in particular from the LGBTQ and Black communities. However, police soon charged him with filing a false police report, alleging that he had staged the attack.
After prosecutors controversially dismissed the initial charges in exchange for community service and the forfeiture of his $10,000 bond, Smollett was recharged with the same offenses in 2020. Meanwhile, his character in “Empire” was written out of the show.
In 2021, a Cook County jury found him guilty on five of the six charges of disorderly conduct for lying to police, and he was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation, along with a $120,000 restitution payment to the city of Chicago for the overtime costs incurred by police investigating his initial hate crime claim.
LGBTQ people are nine times more likely than non-LGBTQ people to be victims of violent hate crimes, according to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Upon Smollett’s conviction, some in the LGBTQ community felt that the case would discredit victims of hate crimes and make it more difficult to report future such crimes. Smollett seemed to acknowledge these concerns, but denied that he staged the attack.
“I know what happened and soon you all will too,” he told the Blade. “If someone reported a crime and it wasn’t the truth, that would actually make it more difficult [to report future crimes], but I didn’t. Any belief that they have about the person that I’ve been played out to be, sure, but that person is not me, never has been,” he said. “So I stand with my community. I love my community and I protect and defend my community until I’m bloody in my fist.”
“And for all the people who, in fact, have been assaulted or attacked and then have been lied upon and made it to seem like they made it up, I’m sorry that you have to constantly prove your trauma, and I wish that it wasn’t that way, and I completely identify with you,” he added.
An Illinois Appellate Court upheld his guilty verdict last year, but Smollett has since appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which in March agreed to hear the case. He has served six days in jail so far, as his sentence has been put on hold pending the results of his appeals.
The screening at the MLK Jr. Library concluded with a conversation between Smollett, Fox, and David J. Johns, CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. Smollett discussed his current mindset and his plans for the future, revealing he is working on a third movie and will be releasing new music soon.
“I’m in a space where life is being kind,” he said.
“The Lost Holliday” recently secured a distribution deal for a limited release with AMC Theatres and will be out in theaters on Sept. 27.
JUSSIE SMOLLETT’s case remains on appeal. His new film is out later this month. (Blade file Screenshot via YouTube)
Timely doc celebrates America’s most beloved
president as ‘Lover of Men’ Was Lincoln the most prominent LGBTQ hero in U.S. history?
By JOHN PAUL KING
It’s reasonable to assume, if you’re someone with an interest in “hidden” queer history, that you are already aware of the speculation that Abraham Lincoln might have been gay, or at least bisexual.
Those labels didn’t exist in his time, but the 16th POTUS left a trail of eyebrow-raising same-sex relationships, nonetheless, which many scholars consider as evidence that he was likely a member of what we now call the LGBTQ community.
The discussion around Lincoln’s sexuality has always been broadly drawn and ambiguously cloaked by 19th-century social norms (which [spoiler alert] were not quite as Puritanical as we might believe). Conclusions must be drawn by inference, so it’s no surprise that many historians tend to be wary of projecting modern-day interpretations on a past era. Such experts warn against drawing conclusions from a between-the-lines reading of “official” history; by that standard, whatever the implications might suggest, there’s simply no way to prove anything, one way or another, and that’s the end of the story.
Others, however, are not so eager to close the discussion – and that’s where the creators of “Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln,” a new documentary conveniently timed for release mere months ahead of what might be our most crucial election so far when it comes to the subject of LGBTQ acceptance and equality, decided to step in and set the record (if you’ll pardon the expression) straight.
Directed by Shaun Peterson – who co-wrote alongside Joshua Koffman, Grace Leeson, and Robert Rosenheck – and unapologetically committed to piercing the opacity of a biography that contains too many “red flags” to ignore, it’s a documentary that eschews neutrality to make a case for claiming “Honest Abe” as the most prominent LGBTQ hero in the Great American Story. Unfolded by expert historians – both queer and otherwise – as an intimate portrait of a profoundly public figure, it charts Lincoln’s life through a lens trained on private experience, and goes beyond that to frame the much-beloved president’s growth and transformation into one of the world’s most significant leaders as a probable consequence of the “friendships” he experienced with the men who were his closest companions during different periods of his life.
Mary Todd Lincoln – who, at least through the lens cast upon her here, was probably more in love with the idea of being married to a president than she was to the president she married.
No, there’s no “smoking gun” (again, pardon the expression) to be found by the erudite scholars who expound upon the persuasively numerous clues contained in Lincoln’s biography during the course of the film. There are, however, plenty of tell-tale powder burns. By exploring the nuance behind the many documented-but-veiled suggestions about the martyred president’s relationships, both male and female, this varied assortment of historians highlights the points that strike a familiar chord for queer people even if they’re likely to go unconsidered by anyone else. By the end, “Lover of Men” has expertly pleaded its case and rested it, relying on the weight and volume of its circumstantial evidence to satisfy any reasonable doubt.
Most of the attention is directed, unsurprisingly, at Joshua Speed, the handsome shopkeeper with whom, for four years of his young manhood, Lincoln shared a bed as a matter of “convenience” – despite offers of free and private lodgings elsewhere and a successful law practice that would have allowed him to buy a bed of his own and a house in which to put it. Casting Speed as “the love of Lincoln’s life,” it positions him (through plentiful historical documentation) as the man who helped the future president find his mojo; even so, it goes on to present evidence supporting less well-known male companions as catalysts to Lincoln’s maturation both as a commander-in-chief and a human being.
We won’t go into much detail here; the movie does a better job of illuminating the record than we ever could – and it does so not by relying solely on the speculation of possibly biased commentators, but by presenting “the receipts” as they appear in the indisputable (yet under-discussed) historical record. Gleaned from private correspondences and interviews with Lincoln’s primary contemporary biographer, these details reveal (among other things) the future president’s ambivalence toward women, the questionable context in which Lincoln bedded down with his various male companions, and the emotional bond he had with each of them that seemed to overshadow the one he shared with his eventual first lady,
The final verdict, of course, remains up to the individual viewer, and it unfortunately goes without saying that a good many will be watching with intent to discredit any hint of queerness within Lincoln’s biography, if they even watch it at all. Yet while it’s easy to reject an idea when you’ve already made up your mind that it’s false, it’s just as easy to accept one that you want to be true; and though the historians of Peterson’s smart and sassy movie carry an undeniable weight of credibility in their arguments, what remains indisputably accurate is that there is no way to know with certainty if our most-revered president was shaded with the “lavender” referenced by his poetic biographer Carl Sandburg to describe his nature in a later-prudently deleted passage of prose. That’s perfectly all right, though. “Lover of Men” never tries to claim, unequivocally, that Lincoln belonged in the LGBTQ rainbow, only that the likely probability that he was is worthy of consideration. Further, it goes on to highlight the open-minded empathy that allowed him to pivot his viewpoint in ways that are typically unthinkable in politics; the evolution it charts for Lincoln from gifted country bumpkin to fully aware (dare we say “woke”?) humanitarian leader makes him an ideological model that feels crucial today. That having to suppress his true nature may have shaped the values and ideals that would ultimately help him to change the world makes the film’s arguments even more persuasive; and if its re-enactments of encounters between Lincoln and his alleged male lovers read as a little too modern to be true, they certainly convey a more plausible interpretation than can be found in any surface reading of the scrupulously polite language describing such events in the historic record.
Reinforced by filmed footage of the now-historically preserved sites (the smallness of an old shared cot speaks volumes) where Lincoln’s intimate life took place, these fancifully anachronistic translations of 19th-century queer courtship into something instantly recognizable to modern queer viewers succeed in making it difficulty to cling to a denial that this particular American icon might plausibly have been queer – unless you are very deeply invested, for whatever reason, in doing so.
Sadly, that last point means a great many people will probably reject this passionately earnest piece of info-tainment sight unseen; but for those who don’t, it offers an intelligent and reasonable perspective on one of our most important national icons that can only increase his relevance in an age almost as divisive as the one over which he was destined to preside.
In other words, don’t miss it.
‘Lover of Men’ explores America’s greatest president.
My boyfriend has gained 50 pounds and won’t change
Should I stay with someone who refuses to get off of the couch?
By MICHAEL RADKOWSKY
Dear Michael,
My boyfriend of five years has been steadily putting on weight and now I would say he is about 50 pounds heavier than when we met, which was the s ummer of 2019.
First he blamed the weight gain on COVID. Like most people we were stuck at home, anxious, and overindulging in comfort food; and the gym wasn’t an option. So I didn’t say anything and figured things would return to “normal” once we got through the pandemic.
I will say, though, that I managed to not gain much weight during that time because I found ways to exercise. He didn’t want to join me and I didn’ t push.
Although we’re long past COVID, Tim hasn’t changed his ways. He never went back to the gym and continues to eat whatever he wants. I’d say his main hobby is sitting on the couch watching TV and eating junk food.
To make matters worse, his sister recently told me that historically Tim has been a heavy guy. He’d never bothered to share this with me, so I had no idea.
Evidently I met him on the tail-end of an intense push to get in shape. So he looked really good at the time, but that was temporary.
When I confronted him about this, he was mad at his sister for telling me and said I had no right to talk about him behind his back. Well, I didn’t ask her—she just brought it up, and was surprised that I was surprised.
Tim is annoyed that I keep voicing my unhappiness about his being out of shape. He says he is the same sweet and loving person I fell in love with and I’m shallow to be so upset by surface appearances.
I told him he was trying to gaslight me: If he feels that love should have nothing to do with how you look, then why did he go to all the trouble to lose weight and get in shape before we met? I feel like he did it to get a boyfriend and then thought he could just go back to being fat once he was in a relationship.
So now he’s mad at me for saying he’s basically a devious schemer. I didn’t use those words but it’s true I don’t trust him and feel taken advantage of.
Besides the weight, it’s not attractive to see him just basically lie around all the time and not take care of his body.
I asked if he’d consider some drug like Ozempic and he got really angry and said I’m awful to suggest something that might have all sorts of side effects just so that I will be happier with his looks.
The upshot is, I feel stuck with a guy who turns me off and doesn’t want to do anything about it and tells me I’m shallow for not being in love with him no matter what he looks like.
My friends tell me to dump him, but does he have a point?
Michael replies:
You get to decide whom you want to date. You are very far from alone in wanting an energetic and physically attractive partner.
It’s true that no one stays gorgeous, and has an amazing body, forever. We all have to accept the changes that time brings to our partners and to ourselves. But that is different from accepting a partner who isn’t making any effort to take care of himself. Aside from the lack of self-care, Tim’s refusal to share significant details about his life, or his thoughts and motives around big issues, is both a trust-destroyer and a huge roadblock to your having a close or intimate relationship. And the way that Tim blows off your questions, and attacks you for being curious or confused, is a recipe for distance and resentment. It is also unkind.
Now let’s look at your part in this. I’m curious about what has been keeping you in this relationship. You haven’t said anything about what you like (or love) about Tim. All I know is that he describes himself as sweet and loving.
Maybe he has some wonderful qualities you haven’t mentioned. Or maybe it’s hard for you to stand up for yourself? To let someone down? To have a boundary when it’s important?
My biggest questions: Do you have a history of picking partners who underperform in some major ways? Or is the first time you’ve found yourself constantly disappointed by your partner, and constantly pushing him to do better?
Somehow you’ve created a life where you are hitting your head against a brick wall, getting nowhere, continuing to do it, and complaining about the pain. Tim’s made clear that he doesn’t want to do anything different, and yet you continue to push him to change. Your behavior might be leading him to dig in. In any case, it’s leaving you miserable.
In any relationship, you can certainly ask for what you would like from your partner. But you have to let go of the result. And if the answer is “no,” you can either accept it, or drive the two of you crazy.
If you do care about this relationship, and Tim, and yourself, you could propose to Tim that the two of you meet with a couples therapist. Perhaps this would help Tim to open up and to get a grip on his behaviors. It might also help you to understand why you might be keeping yourself stuck in a miserable position, so that you can raise your level of functioning in this relationship.
One more important thought: Tim’s lack of self-care and energy make me think that he is depressed. I wonder if Tim—before you met him, at least—was one of the many gay men who feel intense pressure to have a certain kind of body. It isn’t always easy, or even possible, to sustain this kind of appearance. And I wonder if he may be ashamed of where he is, which might be one big reason for his defensive ness.
Again, couples therapy—or individual therapy—might help him address whatever is keeping him down. But Tim would have to be willing to go. You can make the suggestion, but you cannot force him to change.
(Michael Radkowsky, Psy.D. is a licensed psychologist who works with couples and individuals in D.C. He can be found online at michaelradkowsky.com. All identifying information has been changed for reasons of confidentiality. Have a question? Send it to michael@michaelradkowsky.com.)
A partner’s weight gain could be due to undiagnosed depression.
Los Angeles Blade among winners at 2024 California Ethnic Media Award
Many LGBTQ topic entries among winners from dozens of Ethnic community newspapers statewide
By SELEN OZTURK
“This is our greatest asset: uniting as a sector so that we’re the ones telling our stories,” veteran journalist Emil Guillermo told a packed room at the 2024 California Ethnic Media Awards. About 250 ethnic media, community leaders, communications specialists and government decision makers attended the banquet celebration of outstanding journalism at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento the evening of Wednesday, August 28.
Twenty-two judges reviewed a record 310 entries in 12 languages covering print and online, broadcast, English and in-language outlets statewide across nine categories including Outstanding Sports Coverage, The Struggle for Rights in California, Health and Health Care, Coming of Age in a Polarized Society and — receiving the most entries — California’s Culture of Diversity.
One judge, acclaimed essayist and author Richard Rodriguez, pronounced the finalists as “the best entries I’ve ever read.”
“A lot of what’s hidden in cultural communities reveals itself, layer by layer, through community media coverage,” added another judge, L.A. Times culture and talent Deputy Editor and Nguoi Viet Daily News board member Anh Do. “This is why it’s crucial to elevate this coverage through funding, skills-training, public analysis and praise. Solid and steady engagement make a big difference for smaller newsrooms. Hooray for this annual event, which motivates people to keep at the work.”
The awards ceremony, cohosted by Ethnic Media Services and California Black Media, capped off a two-day expo event in the state capital beginning Tuesday, August 27, featuring speakers and roundtable panelists including California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-14), Attorney General Rob Bonta, and State Treasurer Fiona Ma.
‘Conveners
of community’
“Who says ethnic media is dead?” said Immigrant Magazine founder-editor Pamela Anchang, who co-emceed the event with veteran journalist Emil Guillermo. “You are the visible among the invisible.”
Winning outlets included El Tecolote, with a story about ICE-detained Latino migrants finding liberation through community soccer tournaments; India Currents, with a story about an undocumented Punjabi farmworker struggling to access crucial health care in the Central Valley; The San Fernando Valley Sun, with breaking news about right-wing protestors preventing drag queen storytime at a local library; Community Media Alliance, with profiles of Japanese Peruvians shipped to the U.S. for incarceration in World War II-era internment camps; and Sing Tao Daily, for a piece about how the meeting of Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping at APEC held personal significance for high school student Justin Ma, a Chinese adoptee in America.
“It’s important to investigate how specific issues impact communities, but it’s also equally important that those communities get involved in reporting and understanding the issues that impact them,” said Ma. “Thank you to EMS for letting me get my story out and sharing how it impacts people like me — your future generations.”
“Journalists have a lot of purposes. One of the most important, I believe, is to serve the underserved. The underdog spirit; that’s what this year is about,” said Korea Daily Editor Inseong Choi, accepting an award for an online article about tensions between unhoused people and local business owners in Koreatown, six months after Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency around homelessness.
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RONVEL SHARPER celebrates his winning award for an online article written for the Contra Costa Pulse about social media, politically polarized disinformation and the youth mental health crisis. (Photo credit: Selen Ozturk)
