QSaltLake Magazine - Issue 321 - Mar 2021

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news The top national and world news since last issue you should know

BY CRAIG OGAN

HUD announces pro-LGBT change The Department of Housing and Urban Development will expand enforcement of the Fair Housing Act to provide protections to LGBT persons.

This amplification comes after an executive order directing all federal agencies to assess their policies and make changes according to a Supreme Court ruling that civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination includes gender identity and sexual orientation. The decision also applies to organizations and agencies that receive grants through HUD’s Fair Housing Initiative Program.

Claim: Vaccine makes people gay Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian, a “regime cleric” in the Iranian holy city of Qom, issued a warning the COVID-19 vaccine is turning people gay. On the Twitter alternative, Telegram, where he has 210,000 followers, he wrote the Pfizer vaccine is a Jewish plot to make men gay. He warned, “Don’t go near those who have had the COVID vaccine. They have become homosexuals.”

A crush gets girl expelled The administration of Rejoice Christian School in Owasso, Okla., expelled an 8-year-old girl after allegedly telling another girl she had a crush on her. The girl was told by the

Qsaltlake.com | ISSUE 321 | MARCH, 2021

vice-principal, “The Bible says you can only marry a man and have children with a man.” The girl’s mother said her daughter stumped the vice-principal by asking whether God still loves her. Also, the mother told a TV interviewer, “The vice-principal asked me how I feel about girls liking girls and I said if we’re being honest, I think it’s okay for girls to like girls and she looked shocked and appalled.”

Once a month The FDA has approved the use of once-a-month injectable drug therapy for people living with HIV. The injection will be available to those who “are virologically suppressed on a stable antiretroviral regimen with no history of treatment failure and with no known or suspected resistance to other daily therapies,” the FDA explained in a news release.

SF firefighter sues city A firefighter in San Francisco is suing the city, saying he faced decades of anti-gay and racist discrimination at work and that the city did little to fix. An African-American and avowedly gay member of the SFFD since 1997, said he was harassed, called slurs, denied fair pay and promotions, and watched as his colleagues poorly treated the LGBT residents they served.

He was the first gay person to work in the station near San Francisco’s historic Castro gayborhood. After 11 years, he transferred to another station where he said he felt “valued and respected” because the new station had “a different culture.” He said that he filed six discrimination complaints with the San Francisco Department of Human Resources during his time at the department.

Bathhouse music returns In an age of mask-wearing and a health-code mandate of maintaining at least six feet of social distance, San Francisco health officials feel comfortable lifting the 1980s ban on bathhouses.

Once famous for multiple bathhouses, currently only one is operating in the Bay Area — Steamworks in Berkeley.

There is also a sex club, Eros, in the Castro gayborhood, which complies with COVID-19 rules. The new guidelines make it possible for operators to submit permits requesting the establishment of traditional bathhouses, which includes locked private rooms. With all the anti-STI regulations, alcohol restrictions, and pandemic strictures, S&M (standing and modeling) will be the only permissible act if a bathhouse soon reopens in SF.

Diversity at DOT Secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg has selected native-American Arlando Teller to serve as deputy assistant secretary for tribal affairs. Teller was a member of the Arizona legislature’s LGBTQ Caucus and represented the Northern and Eastern areas of the state, which is composed mostly of the Navajo Nation. He is the second native-American to join the new administration.

Wahleah Johns, also a member of the Navajo Nation, was made director of the Office of Indian Energy at the Department of Energy. Teller’s paternal grandfather was one of the famous code talkers, Indigenous Americans who facilitated secret communications for the U.S. armed forces in World War II.

Press secretary twits twit on Twitter Presidential media spokesperson, Jen Psaki, is being

criticized for a tweet about Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina. As a CNN commentator, before she was in the White House, she parried criticism from Graham against a former Justice Department official, “Only in 2020 does #LadyG gets to push a bunch of debunked conspiracy theories while questioning @ SallyQYates (aka an American hero).” Apparently “Lady G” is an insider-joke reference to the bachelor Senator, Graham.

It’s not the first time Graham has been referred that way.

Staying together for the kid Everyone was being nice on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, including guest Anderson Cooper. He revealed he and his former paramour, though broken up since 2018, still live together amicably. His boyfriend “wasn’t really sure he wanted to have a kid, which was one of the reasons we probably broke up,” explained Cooper. Apparently, the boyfriend, a so-called nightlife entrepreneur, decided to stick around, live in Cooper’s apartment, and help raise the child.

“We get along really well,” Cooper said. “It’s weird, but it works out. Now he is just such a great parent.”

Honest Abe, red-faced Longtime Republican operative and Lincoln Project co-founder John Weaver has resigned from the political group he helped launch after admitting to having sent sexual messages to numerous men.

The veteran strategist also came out as gay at the time.

“The truth is that I’m gay. And that I have a wife and two kids who I love. My inability to reconcile those two truths has led to this agonizing place.” Q

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Buttigieg sworn in as the first out Cabinet Secretary The first openly gay cabinet member was sworn in to office by the first female vice president Feb. 3 Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was sworn in

by Vice President Kamala Harris in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building — part of the White House complex. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Chasten Buttigieg were also present.

In the masked ceremony, Harris led Buttigieg through the oath as he swore to support and defend the Constitution. Harris cheerfully congratulated him afterward and then elbow-bumped Chasten, because of COVID-19 protocols. Pete Buttigieg then hugged his husband.

“This is our moment to build

back better,” Buttigieg tweeted right after the ceremony.

After running in the Democratic presidential primary last year and becoming the first out candidate to win a state’s primary, Buttigieg went on to become a fierce advocate for the Biden/Harris campaign.

The Senate confirmed him as Secretary of Transportation by a bipartisan vote of 86 to 13 on Feb. 2.

His rise to the nation’s awareness began April 14, 2019.

“My name is Pete Buttigieg, they call me Mayor Pete,” he said in his rainy-day announcement.”I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana, and I am running for President of the United States.”

Buttigieg went on to make history when he became

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Utah bill restricting trans females from playing girls’ sports in schools passes committee A bill aimed at prohibiting transgender female athletes from participating in girls’ sports passed through the Utah House Education Committee on Feb. 11. The bill moves on to be debated on the floor of the Utah House of Representatives.

The bill is one of many being introduced in state legislatures across the nation by conservatives. Montana’s bill is modeled closely to the Idaho bill that passed last year. Also titled the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” the bill would require public school athletic teams to be based on “biological sex.”

A similar bill in Idaho passed last year.

Legislatures in North Dakota, Mississippi, Utah, and Tennessee have passed through committees, and Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and New Hampshire have bills waiting to be heard.

A federal judge ruled in August 2020 that Idaho’s law was likely unconstitutional and passed strictly due to animus against transgender people, prompting him to grant a preliminary injunction that stalled HB500’s implementation.

House sponsor Rep. Kera Birkeland introduced the bill to the committee and couched her arguments for the bill as a fight for the underdog — girls in sports — saying that the history of females participating in sports is a short one which is on the brink of being lost to transgender females.

“Females will be left as spectators in their own sports,” she warned.

“Across America, there are stories of individuals who identified as male at birth competing against our female athletes.

These individuals who identified as male at birth are breaking records that no female will be able to reach. They are taking championships, titles, and scholarships from our female athletes,” Birkeland testified.

Birkeland even said that it isn’t fair that girls must compete against transgender girls while experiencing menstrual cramps.

Competing agains trans athlete ‘bizzare’ Haley Tanne, who runs track at Southern Utah University, was introduced by Birkeland and testified about competing against a transgender woman in track.

“While inclusion is important in sports, it will come at the cost of fairness,” Birkeland said.

“The first time I had to run against a biological male was bizarre. I felt like I was running against a giant. Not only was this athlete thicker boned and generally larger, but also reached a height well over 6 feet and towered over the female athletes.

I couldn’t believe that this was okay and deemed as fair,” Tanne said.

“Competing against a biological male running as a transgender female is hard.

While you watch her effortlessly pass girls, winning heats, and crossing the finish line as if she just ran a moderate workout, it makes you feel sick inside,” Tanne continued.

She said the experience brought her “anger, sadness, and confusion.”

According to records of the only NCAA championship in which Juniper “June” Eastwood competed, she did, indeed, win one race — the Women’s 1 Mile Run. She came in 4.5 seconds faster than second-place Mikayla Malaspina.

Malaspina went on to win first place in the Women 5000 Meter Run and the Women 3000 Meter Run, a race in which Eastwood placed 15th.

Tanne placed 16th in the 1-mile Run and 26th in the Women 3000.

The headline on SaveWomensSports. com — created to push legislation across the country — reads, “Man Takes Home NCAA Conference Championship in Women’s Mile.”

Asked about fairness in competing against biological females, Eastwood said that’s a mixed bag.

“When you’re talking about a sport like distance running, there’s a lot of different factors, and I’m going to have advantages and disadvantages,” she said. “My height and being a little heavier are disadvantages. I’m running against people with less weight, and I’m more injury-prone. In my case, I’m comparatively slower after the transition than I was before. It comes down to a lot of reasons — being heavier and taller — and honestly, because I have less testosterone than almost all of the women I compete against because the medication almost annihilated my testosterone.”

As an example of the physical difference after testosterone depletion, Eastwood said she covered 1,500 meters in about 3

minutes, 51 seconds before hormone treatments. She believes her 1,500 now would hover around 4:24 – about a 13 percent speed decline.

Asked if it would become common for students assigned as male at birth to transition to female to win races, Eastwood calls the notion “absurd.”

“That’s unfathomable to me,” she told 406 Mt Sports. “If you’re comfortable in your body already, there would be no reason to transition. I don’t think anybody would ever do that to win some race or have a competitive edge in sports.”

“Even if it was the case, it seems like a very serious outlier.”

Is there a need?

Rep. Carol Spackman Moss asked Birkeland f there have been any cases of transgender girls wanting to participate in sports in Utah high schools.

Birkeland answered that a few transgender girls in the state have considered playing but chose not to do so.

Moss also asked if cisgender females who are taller and more muscular will be the next targets, as they may have an unfair advantage over other girls.

“There will always be those differences,” Birkeland answered. “But at the end of the day, we’re both cisgender females. We have that similarity. The competitive advantages isn’t there. I’m not requesting that we just say they [transgender girls] cannot just play sports at all. I just don’t know that we know the data. Is it one year [of hormone therapy]? Is it four years?”

“I think until we can get that figured out, we need to pause,” she continued. “while we work out the science and the data.”

Moss lastly asked about what tests the bill would require in the case of more masculine or taller girls.

“I think [requiring a girl to submit to a physical test] is just wrong and illegal,” she said. “These are some of the unintended consequences of this bill.”

“We can’t require every high school girl to submit to testing,” Birkeland answered. “and it would be discriminatory to ask someone to submit to additional testing because of their identity. So if we don’t want to require extra testing, it’s impera-

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tive that we do what we can to keep the playing field as fair as possible.”

“This is not, and I mean this with all the sincerity in my heart … I have many friends who are transgender … it is not my intention to disclude them from any sport. But we have to weigh that against what is fair.”

“I have a girl on my team right now who is a freshman but she is the tallest girl on my team, but she was born that way and is not transitioning to anything but what she was born as. So there is an equalizer to that measure.,” Birkeland said.

Constitutionality Michael Curtis, an attorney with the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, testified that the bill raises significant constitutional questions under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and corresponding provisions under the Utah State Constitution under the uniform operation of laws.”

“There a fairly recent District Court decision in Idaho recognizing the legitimacy of an equal protection claim based on the state’s differing treatment of transgender individuals,” he said. “There’s a similar challenge on employment that you might have heard of in the United States Supreme Court in June of 2020. The case is called Bostock v. Clayton County.”

“The court held that discrimination based on sex, however, they may manifest themselves or whatever other labels that they might attach to them. “The analysis turned on whether ‘changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer.’”

“So if the court applied that same employment analysis to the sports restriction in this bill because the student’s sex is the sole factor in the restriction, the court could likely reach the same result.

The court specifically ruled that other questions like the legality of bathroom, locker room, dress codes, ‘are questions for future cases.’ So it’s possible, although improbable, that the employment will not later extend more broadly into areas such as the participation of transgender individuals in sports.”

“There is a significant risk that a court in Utah would hold the bill unconstitutional, but courts have not settled on the analysis that would apply to the specific context of this bill.”

“It’s certainly highly risky, possible but not unprobeable that a court would find it unconstitutional,

The Utah Way Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah. “We do support women’s sports.

I don’t believe that the representative’s intent is to harm transgender students, but the impact most certainly will.

Williams said that “The Utah Way” was to draft bills with all parties involved and find a compromise that will work for all.

“In contrast, HB 302 was drafted in isolation from Equality Utah and the very transgender community that it impacts.

Williams said it took five years to build the trust between the LDS Church and the LGBTQ community.

“But Rep. Birkeland has not yet built that trust within the LGBT community.

I’ve told her that I hope we can become friends and work together in the future, but now, this bill does discriminate. It tells some children, ‘You can’t play,’ ‘You don’t belong on the field. And that’s discrimination.

“Let’s follow the Utah Way. Let’s slow this down, let’s collaborate together, so we don’t have this big, ugly culture war.”

Existing policy David Spatafore of the Utah High School Activities Association, which oversees all school sports in the state, presented the current policy on transgender athletes.

“We currently have a policy that we drafted because of what happened in the state of Idaho,” Spatafore said. “Our concern on this bill, quite frankly, is we support our policy. We will enforce law — state law or federal law — we will do that.”

“We know there will be litigation if this bill passes,” he said.

Trans boxer Maryann Christensen, director of Citizens for Strong Families (which is not registered with the state, but Christensen is a former director of the Utah Eagle Forum) said her “organization” supports the bill in part out of a concern a transgender female boxer “is sending opponents to the hospital with skull fractures and brain injuries.”

A then-38-year-old Mixed Martial Arts boxer by the name of Fallon Fox did send an opponent to the hospital in 2014 with a concussion and a fracture of the orbital bone. The 5’7”, 145-pound boxer retired that year.

Economic Harm Salt Lake City Councilperson Chris Wharton testified of his concern that the bill, if

passed, would cause economic harm to the city and the state.

“Last year, a similar Arizona bill was met with opposition from 40 major companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Marriott International and some 200 local outfits including the Arizona State Tourism Association and the Arizona Diamondbacks,” he said. “Idaho is the only state to adopt a measure like HB302. That law was quickly enjoined by a federal court but not before the state suffered from NCAA opposition, taxpayer-funded travel bans, cancellation of movie productions, and Idaho businesses choosing to outsource major projects to other states.”

“The message HB302 sends is also inconsistent with Salt Lake City’s bid to host the Olympic winter games again. Utah’s existing regulations for trans athletes are consistent with IOC guidelines for international sports federations,” he said before calling the bill discriminatory, unnecessary, and harmful.

Deserving dignity and respect Heidi Matthews, president of the Utah Education Association, expressed concern for the mental and emotional wellbeing of transgender youth.

“Adam, Audrey, Morgan, Mica, Levi, Adam. All transitioning and all someone’s precious child, All unique and all deserving of every opportunity and dignity and respect,” she said. “These transgender students are at the highest levels of not wanting to live.”

All present voted for the substitute motion to remove college-level sports from the bill.

A motion by Rep. Waldrip to adjourn without considering the bill failed. A motion by Rep. Weight to hold the bill until a later date also failed.

The final vote of 8–6 passed the bill out of committee and onto the House floor.

Voting against the bill were Republican representatives Craig Hall (West Valley City), Dan N. Johnson (Logan), and Steve Waldrip (Eden), and Democratic representatives Karen Kwan (Murray), Carol Spackman Moss (Salt Lake City), and Elizabeth Weight (Salt Lake City).

Voting for the bill were Republican representatives Melissa Ballard (North Salt Lake), Kera Birkeland (Morgan), Bradley Last (Hurricane), Jefferson Moss (Saratoga Springs), Val Peterson (Orem), Susan Pulsipher (South Jordan), Adam Robertson (Provo), and Lowrey Snow (St. George). Q

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Utah LGBT conservative group endorses bill restricting doctors from trans therapies in minors In an interview with Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka and executive director Maryann Christiansen on KTalk Radio, Ryan Woods, newly elected president of the conservative LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans, announced their endorsement of House Bill 92, which makes it illegal for a doctor to treat a transgender child with hormone therapies or gender-corrective surgeries.

Woods is the ultra-conservative drag queen Lady Maga.

Log Cabin Republicans Utah was founded in 1993.

“This has nothing to do with an LGBT issue,” Woods started out, “This has to do with protecting innocent children from procedures that have irreversible and very serious consequences.”

Woods claimed that supporting the bill was not trapsphobic or hateful.

“We, and most conservatives, fully support and love and believe in the freedom of adult transgender people,” Woods said.

“This is simply about protecting children.”

Woods believes that children are pushed into declaring themselves to be transgender by “Social Justice Warrior parents” and “LGBTQIA school curriculums.”

“The reason I’m so passionate about getting this bill passed is that I was one of those children who could have been convinced that I was in the wrong body.

I’ve always been effeminate. I’ve always loved to dress up, I’ve always preferred Barbies over GI Joe,” he said. “Then they give [children] puberty blockers.”

“Children, though, are not capable of giving informed consent to these dramatic medical procedures,” he said. “We have age limits on driving, and tattoos, and smoking, and vaping, and voting for a reason. It is because children’s minds are still developing.”

Woods said that politicians, including Republicans, are afraid to support the bill because organizations on the left tend to bully and harrass people who speak out against transgender procedures for children.

“People talk about parents rights, but what about children’s rights?” he asked.

He went on to claim that a male child put on puberty blockers at nine years old

will end up with the genitalia of a 9-yearold through life.

This, however, runs counter to what medical professionals, including the Mayo Clinic, say.

“Once the puberty blockers are out of their system, they’ll go through the puberty of the sex assigned at birth,” says a writeup by the Mayo Clinic.

Woods claims that “Big Pharma” and the medical industry have a financial reason to “push these drugs.”

“This issue is not about preventing suicide and helping young children, it actually is about keeping those kids safe and allowing them to make decisions about their bodies,” he said.

He claims that the left has “weaponized” the term suicide.

“They say if you oppose puberty blockers and you oppose surgeries on teenagers, then you are going to be responsible for those young people killing themselves,” he said. “And that is just categorically unfair.”

In a statement, Log Cabin Republicans claims “Hormone therapy and medical procedures amount to little more than unethical experimentation. The FDA has documented thousands of deaths linked to puberty blocking drugs being used without FDA approval.”

In reality, the claim was actually from a story published by Catholic news outlet LifeSiteNews, which alleged that the drugs used to treat gender dysphoria in some transgender children are linked to “thousands” of deaths.

The story went viral on right-wing news websites such as the Christian Post and the Daily Wire. According to CrowdTangle, a social media metric platform, these posts — including shares by Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro and commentator Matt Walsh — were some of the top performing LGBTQ-related content on Facebook and Twitter at the time.

The problem is: the “thousands” of people who die while taking these drugs are the terminally ill cancer patients who receive hormone blockers to fight hormone-sensitive cancers, like prostate cancer, according to experts.

“I think all they did is went into the FDA database and looked at reports,”

Joshua Safer, a professor of medicine and the executive director of the Mt. Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, said. “There’s no study here, that’s just a big smorgasbord of reports and so the problem with that is you don’t even know that those deaths are connected to the agent they are reported to be connected to.”

The original LifeSiteNews story was modified after initial publication.

“Allowing puberty to progress is not a neutral decision for many transgender youth,” Jack Turban, a resident physician in psychiatry who researches transgender youth at the Massachusetts General Hospital said. “Many of these youth see their mental health drastically deteriorate as puberty starts to progress. While pubertal suppression is reversible, puberty itself is not.”

Transgender Education Advocates of Utah Executive Director Candice Metzler is saddened the bills are basically a political and religious test.

“I have spent many, many years working with transgender youth and I hate to see their lives and medical decisions politicized in this way. It’s unacceptable, really,” Metzler said. “H.B. 92 demonstrates how power and authority can be used to stigmatize and degrade vulnerable groups of people.”

Much of the claims Woods makes in his 49-minute free-flow statement on the interview are opinions expressed by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. None of the statements in the group’s statement are sourced and many of the claims have been debunked by medical professionals.

But the statement does quote one young adult transgender person from Denmark who believes decisions in transgender care should wait until the age of consent. Q Utah Log Cabin has a Facebook page at facebook.com/ utahlcr

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School district pauses diversity program as parents complain about trans book The Murray School District suspended a diversity and inclusion program after parents complained a third-grade teacher read a book about a transgender child.

A young student at Horizon Elementary School brought a book from home titled Call Me Max.

“When Max starts school, the teacher hesitates to call out the name on the attendance sheet. Something doesn’t seem to fit. Max lets he know the name he wants to be called by — a boy’s name. This begins Max’s journey as he makes new friends and reveals his feelings about his identity to his parents. Written with warmth and sensitivity by trans writer Kyle Lukoff, this book is a sweet and age-appropriate introduction to what it means to be transgender,” reads the books promotional description.

Students in the class began to ask questions as the teacher

was reading the book, according to District spokesman Doug Perry. One, Perry said, was about puberty, which the teacher deflected. He noted the teacher hadn’t read the book before starting to read it.

Some students talked to their families about the book and the questions being asked, prompting parents to call the school and district out of anger the book was read without prior permission.

Though the book wasn’t part of the Equity Book Bundles program, the District decided to put the program on hold and review all titles.

Perry said books similar to Call Me Max might “cause concern.”

The equity book program is more focused on race and racism and introducing students to more authors of color.

A page announcing the books and the program was removed from the school’s website. A graphic on an archive of the deleted page shows LGBTQ-related books, including Rainbow Revolutionaries, 50 LGBTQ+ people who made history, and Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag.

The district has not yet publicly announced if the program will be restarted and what books, if any, will be removed from it. Q

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Petition calls Utah School Board member racist, anti-LGBTQ Newly elected Utah State Board of Education member Natalie Cline is facing harsh criticism for her statements on race and sexuality. An online petition has over 8,000 signatures demanding her removal.

In February, Cline posted several inflammatory Facebook posts, including one criticizing Murray City School District educators for making a presentation during a recent Utah Pride Center Conference for educators.

“Learn more about what they are doing to indoctrinate your children here,” Cline wrote, posting a now-deleted video.

The Utah Pride Center clapped back.

“Our goal is not to indoctrinate anyone, but to shed some light on the situation queer youth are experiencing at school, then allow educators, administrators and even elected officials the opportunity to make decisions based on that information,” Center executive director Robert Moolman wrote in the statement.

The Utah Pride Center also provides “workshops on suicide prevention, selflove, identity and how to include LGBTQ representation in the classroom, which can be just one book sitting on the shelf with a gay character. A teacher having a small rainbow flag or sticker, for instance, could also alert students that they’re in a safe space without anyone saying anything out loud, he said. Overall, the point is to help students achieve and feel like

they can attend class.”

Moolman made a public invitation to Cline to sit one-on-one with him and tour the Center. Cline has not accepted his offer.

Cline also posted a “warning” on Jordan School District’s culture and diversity instruction in classrooms, urging parents to opt out their children from lessons, programs, activities or discussions on “cultural proficiency/competence/relevance, diversity, equity, inclusivity, privilege, White fragility, intersectionality, anti-racism, critical/crucial conversations (i.e. Critical Race Theory), etc.”

Black Lives Matter leaders are not, however, offering to meet with Cline after she doubled-down on her beliefs in a KTVX interview..

“Black Lives Matter Utah will not meet with Natalie Cline…That is below us….We do not have time to meet with the embodiment of hatred and evil. We need to love ourselves. We need to spread Black empowerment, and self love,” BLM Utah wrote in a Facebook post.

Cline ran on eliminating Common Core, protecting parental rights, restoring local control of schools, and protecting children’s innocence.

“The teaching of specific religious doctrines, social justice issues, sex education, sexuality and gender ideology, contraception, and abortion are best left to parents

to teach at home as they are far too complex and nuanced to deal with in the classroom setting and they unfairly put the child in the stressful position of having to choose between which authority figure in their life to believe.,” she stated for her candidate website.

“As a school board member I will fight to keep Comprehensive Sexuality Education, Critical Race Theory, and pornography out of Utah classrooms and school.

The core philosophies of CSE are nothing short of disturbing.” Q The petition is available at sign.moveon.org/petitions/ remove-natalie-j-cline

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NEWS | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 13

MARCH, 2021 | ISSUE 321 | Qsaltlake.com

Free program for caregivers of LGBTQ individuals with memory loss Aging with Pride: IDEA (Innovations in Dementia Empowerment and Action) at the University of Washington is offering a free program for LGBTQ individuals with memory loss and their care partners.

Program leaders say it is the first federally-funded research study examining ways to improve the health and quality of life for adults aged 50 and older in the LGBTQ community with memory loss and their caregivers.

The program tests a tailored approach to address the unique needs of LGBTQ older adults who frequently experience stigma, isolation, and negative interactions

with healthcare providers.

This study seeks to determine if a program developed by leading experts in dementia is effective in helping people in the LGBTQ community who are experiencing memory loss or caring for someone with memory loss.

Care partners can be a spouse, partner, adult child, relative, friend, or anyone who helps the person with memory loss. Either the person with memory loss or their care partner must be LGBTQ and both participate as a pair.

The person with memory loss must be 50 years or older.

IDEA is designed to improve the health and well-being of the pair and includes

nine individualized sessions with a trained coach. A coach teaches the pair problem-solving skills to improve behavioral challenges and issues. The coach also strategizes with the pair to address communication challenges related to memory loss. The pair learns a low-impact exercise program including stretching, flexibility, balance, and endurance to

strengthen the body, reduce injury and improve mood.

The program is virtual, using easy video chatting. Participants don’t have to leave home to participate, can live anywhere in the U.S., and are compensated for completing phone interviews. Q To learn more call 1-888-655-6646 or email ageIDEA@uw.edu. Their website is at ageidea.org

14 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | NEWS

Qsaltlake.com |

Utah Pride Center holds education conference: Pride not Prejudice The Utah Pride Center invited teachers and school administrators from across Utah to attend a training in January that focused on helping LGBTQ and other students in their daily lives. Organizers said the training could save lives.

According to the Center, only seven out of 429 public and private high schools in Utah have a GSA group registered in 2021. They hope to get teachers, administrators, students, and parents on board across the state for a crucial conversation about inclusion.

“This is such an important piece of building community within our schools and inclusion. It’s just basic suicide prevention,” said Amanda Darrow, director of the Center’s Youth, Family, and Education program.

The conference, titled Pride, Not Prejudice: An LGBTQIA+ Conference for Utah Educators, Students, and Caregivers, was designed to explore how to create an inclusive environment for students.

The two-day conference had 52 speakers in eight categories. Some of the topics included an LGBTQIA+ cultural compe-

tency, gender creative education, creating inclusive learning environments, disability and gender, and radical self-love.

The conference had different tracks for school administrators, teachers, caregivers/parents, and students.

“When we bring in the admin, we’re looking at policies. What policies can

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help our LGBTQIA students at the school level?” Darrow said. “And then we bring in the educators. Okay, what can we do to make your classrooms more inclusive?”

Darrow said students learned how to advocate for themselves to make their class, school, and life more inclusive to their life experience.

Caregivers and parents learned how to support their kids.

Over 300 people registered for the conference, which was nearly ten times the previous year’s attendance. Q

Utah Pride Festival: Save the Date Leaders of the Utah Pride Center announced the dates of the next Utah Pride and are hinting and teasing about what to expect.

The event will take place June 1 through 7 at Washington Square.

“Get your outfits! Volunteer! Plan to be there!” the sparse announcement states.

Center executive director Robert Moolman tells QSaltLake that leaders have been meeting with local and state officials to find the best solutions to providing an in-person, Covid-19-safe experience.

“Moolman says the event will be

“queerly different, Utah unique, and a one-time-only event.”

“I am just so thrilled to be working with such creative minds as we develop a Pride that is workable during this challenging time,” he said. “In meetings with other Prides around the country, their leaders have been very impressed with what we did in 2020. So much so, that there will be at least seven ‘road rally’ events this year.”

The only hint of what to expect comes in a hyphenated word on the save-thedate flier: A-MAZE-ING. To volunteer, go to utahpridecenter.org.

Know who WANTS your business and will treat you with the DIGNITY and RESPECT

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2020 IN REVIEW | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 15

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views

Qsaltlake.com | ISSUE 321 | MARCH, 2021

quotes “I don’t believe that the representative’s intent is to harm transgender students, but the impact most definitely will” —Troy Williams, Equality Utah about HB302

“Children shouldn’t be competing with people who are physiologically in an entirely different category, and I think boys should be competing with boys and girls should be competing with (girls) on the athletic field.”

— Sen. Mitt Romney

“The first time I raced with a biological man, it felt bizarre.”

— Haley Tanne, a track athlete at Southern Utah University

“This is a problem that does not exist.”

—Dr. Jennifer Plumb, pediatrician

“One way or the other, litigation is coming.”

—Rep. Kera Birkeland, sponsor of HB302

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guest editorial

School board member makes LGBTQ student lives harder

BY CHRIS JENSEN

I’ve

known I was gay since I was 10 years old. That made growing up in an Oklahoma town of less than 5,000 lonely, intimidating, and even dangerous.

The community was dominated by fundamentalist Christian groups, aggressively preaching about hellfire and eternal damnation. Hateful words and damaging stereotypes about what it meant to be gay, bisexual, transgender, or “queer” (which they used as an insult) was a frequent refrain.

A majority of our teachers and school board members shared these beliefs, and they weren’t shy about it.

From their mouths, I remember hearing LGBTQ+ folks described as sinners, perverts, sodomites, pedophiles, rapists, and other choice terms.

Hearing this from people I looked up to left me feeling alone, that my life had no hope, and that there was something wrong with me. Frankly, it left a depressed shell of a kid.

It’s no wonder how such harsh words repeated can lead a child to suicide.

Another term these people often threw around was “indoctrination,” as if an essential part of LGBTQ+ existence was to recruit young or vulnerable people. My small town didn’t have any LGBTQ+ recruiters as far as I knew. Yet, there I was — young, gay, and over a hundred miles from the closest pride center.

The recent comments by Natalie Cline, who represents District 11 on the Utah State

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Board of Education, brought back memories of isolation and misunderstanding.

In a series of posts on her official Facebook page and private messages, she attacked the Utah Pride Center’s “Pride, not Prejudice: An LGBTQIA+ Conference for Utah Educators, Students, and Caregivers” as a means of brainwashing children and teachers with “LGBTQ ideology including important strategies and tactics to deal with parents who oppose!”

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The conference is a free service offered by UPC to introduce issues faced by school-aged, LGBTQ+ youth, such as bullying and suicide prevention. Also, it encourages best practices for education professionals.

The truth is, there are LGBTQ+ children all over Utah who are just like me.

They don’t need to be recruited or indoctrinated. It’s an immutable part of their identity.

Policymakers like Cline represent them, too. And while everyone is entitled to their personal beliefs, they are not entitled to make life difficult for LGBTQ+ students (or students of color or immigrant students).

As a public official, Cline’s primary responsibility is to ensure our schools are safe and welcoming to all students. Her recent comments are not only an abdication of her duties, they put queer students at risk of bullying, harassment, and mental anguish.

Utah has the highest rate of

youth suicide in the nation, a fact Cline should know all too well given her position.

Cline should remove herself, and apologize for her comments that contribute to toxic narratives that put young LGBTQ+ lives at risk.

She should also accept UPC’s open invitation to understand what we do, and how she can positively impact the lives of all Utah students.

H

To any queer students and educators who read this, know that there’s a community (and advocates) that loves and respects you every single day.

You are why we do what we do at UPC. You are in our hearts, and we are here for you, even when others are not. Q Chris Jensen is the chair of the Utah Pride Center board of directors. A version of this column appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune.

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of weeks ago, I had a frustrating day at work — it happens. What really sunk my day was getting an email forwarded to me from Kelly. It was from the boys’ school, and the subject line bore our youngest’s name. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to learn of some classroom incident or lunchroom brawl.

Instead, I discovered our youngest son wasn’t the topic of the email but was sent to all the parents in the teacher’s eighth-grade Language Arts class to inform us they were tackling the book, Merchant of Venice.

He explained how he was using a version of the play that supplants Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English with modern, more accessible dialogue, and how he is supplementing the reading by showing a video of a recent Royal Shakespeare Company’s rendition of the play. That video was the reason for the email.

The teacher explained that in this particular version, two of the male characters, Antonio and Bassanio, kiss. He went on to assure us that he had warned the students when it was about to happen, and he permitted them to look away.

He explained that no such kiss exists in Shakespeare’s script and that the class discussed the reasons a modern director might have chosen to add it. For example, “to make their own political statement or to attract a specific audience.”

So, yeah, I was pretty livid — even though my kid wasn’t in class that day. I wasn’t angry as a gay dad. I was angry because I had once been a gay eighth-grader.

He was telling his students that a kiss between two men was something bad. The message to any gay kid was clear: your feelings are wrong, and any expression of your love needs to come with a warning.

To be fair, I think he should’ve given the kids a head’s up. Eighth graders — especially boys — aren’t known for their maturity. I questioned the need to discuss why a director (a woman, by the way) chose to include the kiss. Why did the director cast a black man to play Gratiano? Precisely what political statement could she be making? Does the teacher really think two guys kissing would make gay men want to see the play? If so, he clearly has no clue who’s sitting in those theater seats.

I was curious, so I scoured the internet until I found that particular rendition. Sure enough, right there in the first scene of the first act, Antonio and Bassanio share a rather passionate kiss. At first, I couldn’t understand why the kiss occurred.

Admittedly, I’m a Shakespeare geek, but I wasn’t all that familiar with Merchant of Venice. After I read the synopsis, the kiss made perfect sense. The older Antonio is always financially saving young Bassanio. This time it’s for Bassanio to marry the wealthy Portia. Why would Antonio do that? What is he getting in return? This director provided a possible answer — clearly, Antonio is in love with Bassanio, who exploits that love.

In the end, at my son’s request, I decided not to contact the teacher. I did, however, explain the irony of the message clearly missed by his teacher. In perhaps the most famous line from the play, Shylock the Jewish lender refutes the antisemitism hurled at him by saying, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

But maybe reinterpreting another famous Shakespeare quote makes more sense in this case. Concerning Romeo and Juliet, for Antonio and Bassanio, a kiss by any other name is still as sweet. Q

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creep of the month

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One Million Moms

BY D’ANNE WITKOWSKI

American

Girl dolls are pretty ubiquitous these days. These expensive dolls have an endless collection of accessories and outfits that your stimulus check won’t even come close to buying. There are also books. So many books. The dolls have their own history and backstory and kids apparently really dig it. Sounds pretty innocent.

But it is NOT. Or so say the One Million Moms group that is throwing a fit over Kira, the new American Girl doll.

Apparently American Girl chooses a Girl of the Year each year and makes said girl into a doll? And there’s a book that goes a long with the doll. Kira is the Girl of 2021 and in her book she travels to Australia to help work at a wildlife sanctuary where she gets to bottle feed Koala bears and stuff.

Kira’s transgression? She has lesbian aunts in Australia. Two ladies. Married.

To each other! All Kira dolls must be rounded up thrown into a fire in the town square! May they melted down and then used to make something wholesome, like a doll that is actually a Bible.

One Million Moms, which does not actually have one million members, is livid.

They are now boycotting American Girl until they do the right thing and kill off Kira’s lesbian aunts in the next book.

Oh, wait. I have that wrong. They want the aunts GONE. NOW. Like, burn the books gone.

In the One Million Moms petition they plead, “Please stick to making innocent dolls and books appropriate for any and all ages and refrain from making political and social statements. I urge American Girl to discontinue its storyline that includes Kira’s two lesbian aunts – immediately.”

You hear that? IMMEDIATELY! Off with their heads.

“I’m not buying into your social agenda to push homosexuality,” the Moms

continue. “Your ‘2021 Girl of the Year’ Kira Bailey storyline offends me and many other Christians and conservative families. Your company did not even include a warning so parents would have a heads-up.”

I’m trying to imagine what such a warning would look like: “Rated LA for Lesbian Aunts” or “Parental Advisory: Existence of Lesbians.”

Apparently the Million Moms are upset about some racy illustrations in the book. Come on, Million Moms, I’m sure they’re tasteful nudes.

“Within the first few pages of Chapter 1,” the Moms say, “Kira Down Under includes an illustrated picture of the two women walking down the aisle at their wedding.”

Oh, OK so no nudes then? Just two ladies at their wedding? SCANDALOUS. “This irresponsible storyline is dangerous to the well-being of our children,” they claim.

It’s exhausting, frankly, to have group like One Million Moms claim that the very existence of LGBTQ people is a threat to children. It’s also astonishing to me that they think if their children never learn about lesbian aunts then they can never become lesbian aunts. Or lesbian uncles for that matter.

Kira’s book also deals with the topic of climate change, something a lot of those One Million Moms probably also find objectionable. Everyone knows that globe warming is a hoax and that forest fires are started by Jewish space lasers (if that doesn’t make sense to you, Google it or ask U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene).

One Million Moms helpfully points out that “American Girl could have chosen another storyline or characters to write about and remained neutral in the culture war.”

And they’re right! American Girl could have chosen to write about something else. They could have chosen to make Kira travel to space to gather moon rocks

at the moon rock sanctuary run by her lesbian alien aunts. But something tells me One Million Moms would still find something to object about it. You just can’t please everybody.

“If your child has not seen this yet,” they warn, “then make sure she is not exposed to this content. Do all you can to avoid a premature conversation that she is far too young to understand.”

First of all, young people are often the most understanding of two people who love each other. I remember helping out at a Valentine’s Day party when my son was in Kindergarten. While he and another boy cut out heart shapes the other boy asked him, “How come you have moms but no dad?” To which my son replied, “Because my mom married another mom.” And they went on crafting.

“Why can’t the toy manufacturer let kids be kids instead of glamorizing a sinful lifestyle?” they ask on their website.

“American Girl is confusing our innocent children by attempting to normalize same-sex marriage.”

It’s really not confusing. Some people are not heterosexual. That’s just a fact.

And the existence of LGBTQ people is normal. We’re here, we’re queer—no, seriously, we’re right here.

I’m a mom. And I’m married to a woman. And we love our son very much and the idea that we’re harming him by being his moms is what’s truly offensive here.

Would a “Fuck off One Million Moms” be offensive here? Good. Q D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBTQ politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.

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positive thoughts

Concrete Steps the Biden-Harris administration must make the first 100 days count to end the HIV epidemic

BY AIDS UNITED

The first

100 days of the Biden-Harris administration mark a unique opportunity to revitalize efforts to end the HIV epidemic in the United States. This new administration begins as our country is in the midst of devastating political and public health crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all sectors of American life, widening inequalities and threatening to undo years of progress toward ending the HIV epidemic. At the same time, attacks on the U.S. Capitol by domestic terrorists urged on by members of our own government have left the nation in a state of shock.

In order to end the HIV epidemic by 2025, the Biden-Harris administration must commit to undoing the harmful policies of the Trump administration and to creating a public health system that protects the well-being of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, people of color, transgender, low-income, uninsured and underinsured peoples across the United States in the first 100 days in office.

Dismantling the multitude of harmful executive orders and rules put in place

by the Trump administration must be a priority to address the rampant discrimination they have allowed in the health care system. These orders have barred people living with HIV and transgender identifying people from participating in the military.

They have also prevented HIV service organizations from engaging in racial sensitivity training and providing culturally competent care. Ending these policies on day one is critical to ensure that populations most vulnerable to harm are protected and HIV service organizations can continue their work to end the HIV epidemic.

The new administration must also work harder to uplift communities most impacted by HIV. These communities include Black people, people of color, sex workers, people who use drugs, trans people, immigrants and people experiencing homelessness.

Concrete steps the administration should take include: • Declaring that racism is a public health issue.

• Preventing evictions and providing significant relief for those who are financially struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Reestablishing the Office of National AIDS Policy and making sure it is led by someone who is living with HIV and who has significant experience working with the HIV community.

• Protect LGBTQ+ pop-

ulations from discrimination by undoing harmful policies and regulations instituted by the Trump administration and working with Congress to pass the Equality Act. • Dedicate substantial new federal funding to support syringe services programs and other harm reduction providers.

The Biden-Harris administration should also make sure that people living with HIV and those that are most vulnerable to HIV are directly represented in the administration and throughout the federal government’s HIV-related programs.

Further, the Biden-Harris administration should adopt a national strategy to ensure broad and equitable access to effective HIV prevention, care and treatment. The administration should enhance the Ryan White HIV/AIDS funding program for communities most impacted by HIV and continue to fund access to essential services (transportation, food, nutrition, linguistic services, case management, housing services, etc.) for program recipients. Also, they must fund and scale up PrEP, PEP and treatment-as-prevention services and messaging for priority HIV populations.

Lastly, they must make sustained multiyear increases for HIV/AIDS research funding. This is not only important to develop innovative solutions to ending the HIV epidemic by 2025 but also because HIV research has been critical in the country’s efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ending the HIV epidemic in the United States is within our grasp. AIDS United looks forward to the opportunity to work with the Biden-Harris administration to bring an end to the epidemic by 2025. Q AIDS United’s mission is to end the HIV epidemic in the United States. AIDSUnited.org. This column is a project of TheBody.com, HIVPlusMag.com, PositivelyAware.com, Poz. com, QSyndicate and QSaltLake Magazine.

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guest editorial

Let the trans kids play

BY LAUREN WILSON, M.D.

If you

work with transgender youth, as I have — mostly in the context of mental health emergencies, unfortunately — you will know that this is one of our most discriminated against, misunderstood groups of people. The idea of being transgender is intimidating to others. Many people do not have direct experience with transgender people and mistakenly think of being transgender as an intentional choice. Transgender children often face bullying in school.

These kids often feel different or uncomfortable in their bodies, and if there’s anything middle school bullies thrive on, it’s insecurity.

The transgender kids I’ve worked with mostly have known they were a different gender than their sex assigned at birth, starting around age 3.

It isn’t a case of the “I wish I were a girl” sort of expression, or playing with the “wrong” toys for their gender, or being tomboys. It’s the firm, and sometimes, the disturbing conviction that their gender is different than the sex assigned at birth.

Think about this as sex assigned at birth (what’s in your pants) differing entirely from gender identity (what’s in your mind and soul). These are both distinct from sexual orientation (what’s in your heart; who you love).

It is estimated that up to 1.8 percent of youth identify as transgender, and a further 1.6 percent are questioning or gender diverse.

If families are supportive of

their transgender child (not always the case), they allow their child to express themselves how they choose. This is the only real therapy, so to speak, physicians and psychologists recommend that before the onset of puberty.

This can be a matter of wearing different clothes, sporting a different haircut, or using a different name or pronouns. If the child begins to live in a different gender, it’s called “socially transitioning.”

Many transgender kids are not open about being transgender, largely due to stigma, prejudice, and discrimination, and live wholly in the gender that feels authentic. In many cases, friends do not know that their sex assigned at birth differs from their gender identity.

Here, we should pause and examine just how hard the path is that transgender people must walk.

Transgender people have worse health outcomes than cisgender people — those whose sex is assigned at birth and gender identity match.

Transgender people are reluctant to seek medical care. They often experience discrimination by medical staff or others unfamiliar with issues they face and do not provide guideline supported care.

They are more often the victims of violence. They experience discrimination in employment and housing.

Transgender people who cannot transition or receive “gender-affirming” medical care have high rates of anxiety,

Qsaltlake.com |

depression, self-harm, and suicide. It is estimated that more than half have suicidal thoughts, and more than a third attempt suicide.

Rates of depression go down dramatically when transgender people are supported by their families and have access to appropriate medical care. In fact, young children who have been allowed to live in their authentic gender from the start have rates of depression similar to age-matched cisgender peers.

On the other hand, we know it’s clearly beneficial for children’s physical, social and emotional development to be physically active and play sports with their peers. Sports participation helps athletes develop self-esteem, correlates positively with overall mental health, and has been shown to have a protective effect against suicide.

Forcing transgender children to play on teams according to their sex assigned at birth, rather than the gender they live, undermines their ability to belong to their community as their authentic selves, essentially excluding them from sports participation. My transgender patients certainly don’t want to show up to play on the girls’ team if they otherwise live as a boy, for example.

Arguments for new laws in the US that focus on bone density, muscle mass, and hemoglobin sound more scientific, but the reality is much more complex.

Before puberty, biological boys and girls do not differ much in height, muscle, and bone mass. Children enter puberty between age 8 and 14 and generally don’t gain adult muscle mass until age 18. At age 14, for example, physical discrepancies among young male athletes within one team

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can be truly significant, and we have never felt it necessary to regulate.

After puberty is complete, we know there are differences in male and female athletic performance. However, transgender athletes undergoing recommended medical care will generally not go through puberty in the gender of their birth.

At the onset of puberty, children and teens who are consistent and persistent in expressing their identity, with ongoing care from a multidisciplinary medical team, can be treated with puberty suppressing medication, or “blockers.”

These are entirely reversible and safe medications designed to pause pubertal changes and allow them to live as their authentic self, without undergoing body changes that can cause severe dysphoria, the medical term for profound unhappiness.

Later on — with time to further develop and grow, mentally and physically — many will elect (usually around age 16 or later) to take gender-affirming hormones that initiate puberty matching their identity. These medications are partially reversible and are only started after thorough evaluation, discussion, and consent from both patient and guardians.

In this situation, there is no good evidence that a teen assigned male at birth who transitioned to female without going through male puberty has any advantage at all in athletics.

Moreover, even if one has gone through pubertal changes, different types of sports are different. There are some in which being a large-framed person is actually a disadvantage, such as gymnastics, versus others where it’s clearly an advantage, such as football.

If transgender women really

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had so many advantages, we’d be seeing a lot more high-profile transgender women winning competitions. But it turns out there is no over-representation of transgender women on the podiums, anywhere; transgender people are vastly underrepresented in sports. Only a tiny handful compete in the NCAA, and the single transgender athlete who competed at the Olympic trials, Chris Mosier, is a transgender male (assigned female at birth).

Much of this has to do with discrimination. But the truth is also that there are plenty of transgender people, like their cisgender peers, who are just pretty mediocre at sports.

So, the short story: there isn’t a good one-size-fits-all solution on approaching physical differences in kids after puberty. But it’s safe to say that it’s hardly a pressing problem for the state legislatures around the country to take up.

These bills also have some problematic angles. They demand schools make a determination of sex that in some cases is not straightforward.

For example, would they get involved in making determinations for intersex athletes, whose medicine does not classify as categorically male or female? Will masculine-appearing female athletes be required by their schools, if challenged by a competitor, to undergo invasive physician examinations that breach their privacy? The blanket ban approach leaves schools in a role as the arbiter of truth, in a way in which it may have to sweep privacy rights aside to do so.

It’s helpful to look at how this subject has been addressed elsewhere. International elite sports organizations, such as the International Olympic

Committee, allow transgender athletes to compete in their own gender identity. The NCAA addressed this issue in their policy, which lays out procedures to support transgender athletes competing in the gender in which they identify.

To specifically address transgender women competing on women’s teams, the NCAA requires at least one year of testosterone suppression therapy. They speak strongly against discrimination and sex verification.

“Fears that men will pretend to be female to compete on a women’s team are unwarranted given that in the entire 40-year history of ‘sex verification’ procedures in international sports competitions, no instances of such ‘fraud’ have been revealed. Instead, rather than identifying men who are trying to fraudulently compete as women, ‘sex verification’ tests have been misused to humiliate and unfairly exclude women with intersex conditions,” NCAA policy states.

As of August 2020, 16 states allowed younger K-12 athletes to compete on teams according to gender identity without restriction. Another 14 states allow transgender athletes to compete but have a review board of sorts that can check medical information in case of a challenge, which transgender advocates generally feel is burdensome and invasive. Eleven states had additional barriers to athlete participation, and the rest gave no guidance.

Last year, Idaho attempted to enact a blanket ban on transgender girls’ participation. It was signed into law but immediately blocked by federal judge David Nye, who wrote: “The State has not identified a legitimate interest served by the Act that the preexisting rules in Idaho did not

already address, other than an invalid interest of excluding transgender women and girls from women’s sports entirely, regardless of their physiological characteristics.”

Misleading science aside, the main difficulty I have with these bills is that they are not really coming from a misguided but well-intentioned place.

They clearly come from a place of fear, ideology, and discrimination. They attempt to push a one-size-fits-all solution that clearly harms a vulnerable

group of children and fights a “threat” that is much more perception than reality.

This potential for great harm is why multiple medical associations, hospitals, and multiple businesses are in opposition to these bills becoming law.

The people this law will harm are school kids who just want to play on a sports team.

As a pediatrician, I say: Let the kids play. Q Lauren Wilson is a pediatric hospitalist in Missoula

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be honest: It wasn’t a conversation. Also, I was barely in the movie. You see me at the beginning and then you see me at the end, so there really wasn’t enough there to talk about.

How have you gotten away with playing gay all these years when so many straight actors have not? You have to tell me how I’ve gotten away with it. You’re the one who has to tell me. Ha! I don’t know! I don’t know! Somebody said recently — it was written in a magazine or something: Colin and I are the only two straight men who, as far as they’re concerned, are allowed to play gay men, nobody else.

Stanley Tucci is the gayest straight actor you know The beloved actor talks playing gay since 1996, people thinking he’s gay, and texting Cher

BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI

Stanley

Tucci has survived the icy death stare of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly and told Cher to her face that she looks like a drag queen. Aside from starring as the queer second-in-command next to those gay icons in “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Burlesque,” the 60-year-old actor also donned a poofy wig in “Little Chaos” as the king’s gay brother.

The chameleonic actor is at it yet again with his latest gay role — Tusker in “Supernova,” a moving portrait of a couple in crisis written and directed by Harry Macqueen. Here, he portrays a man suffering from early-onset dementia alongside Colin Firth’s Sam, his partner of 20 years.

Aboard their old RV, the couple heads out on a road trip across the mountainous region of England’s Lake District to visit people and places that are special to them; their love tested as Tusker’s memory continues to deteriorate.

During a recent call, Tucci talked about being a straight man who’s been playing gay since 1996, his wife finding out that the internet thinks he’s gay, and how he can’t believe so many people actually tell him they love “Burlesque.”

During the pandemic, I watched “The Daytrippers,” which came out in 1996, and realized that you’ve been playing gay even PHOTO: BLEECKER STREET

longer than I thought. Ha! That was my first gay kiss. I loved that movie so much.

[Writer-director] Greg Mottola made that for no money, like $65,000 or something.

When it comes to the way the film treated homosexuality, how do you compare a role like that, as Louis, to your role as Tusker in “Supernova”? What I love about “Supernova” is that sexuality isn’t even an issue. They’re just two people who’ve been together in a long relationship for a long time, and they love each other. You could’ve made it with a heterosexual couple, but I think this is more interesting.

And the fact that it’s never dwelled on — it’s never even mentioned — is fantastic, and, hopefully, more movies like that will be made.

What I loved about “Daytrippers” was that there was no judgment on the part of anyone and the fact that this character was gay. What I liked was that it showed his complete confusion and how he felt he was supposed to live his life one way and then — we see it only in the end — when he says, “Help me. I don’t know what to do. I’m really confused.” I liked that because there are a lot of people like that.

I remember the days of a straight actor playing a gay man and how there was talk of how “brave” that was. What was the conversation around you playing gay in 1996 versus now? You know what, there wasn’t even a conversation about it. I’ll

I’ve been telling my friends that I think you’re able to get away with playing gay because people think that you are gay. Ha! There was a time when there were a lot of people out there who thought I was gay. I don’t think that’s the case anymore, but I don’t know. Who knows. After this movie, you never know.

Listen, my feeling is: Whatever role you play, you just have to be truthful to the character and to the tone of the film. And if I’m presented with something, whether it’s a gay character or a straight character or whatever character, if it doesn’t ring true to me, then I really can’t do it. Or I will do my best to have it rewritten, rewrite it myself, change the lines, and do it the way it should be done.

I’m curious about this time in your life when people thought you were gay. When was that? What do you remember from that period? I don’t remember anyone coming up to me and saying, “You’re gay, aren’t you?” It wasn’t quite that. Ha! But it was quite a while after “The Devil Wears Prada,” and I remember when I was dating Felicity [Blunt], my wife, she’d punch in my name on the internet and the first thing that would come up was “Stanley Tucci Gay.” She was like, “See, look!” I was like, “Wait a minute!”

I didn’t really care. And now, if you punch my name in, I don’t think that’s the first thing that comes up. It probably just comes up “Stanley Tucci Old.” There’s been increasing pushback on straight actors playing LGBTQ roles. For you, is there apprehension or a different kind of thought process when considering playing a gay role, and how has that changed for you over the years? No, I’m not apprehensive. I do want to make sure

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there isn’t — and I always feel this way — someone out there who’s better for it than I am. And if there are people who are gay who are more right for it, then they should be doing it.

Now, I think that the problem here is that one of the reasons that gay actors have not played gay roles is that a lot of gay actors weren’t able to come out and be openly gay for so long, not just in society but in Hollywood. So you couldn’t be an openly gay actor because you would only be cast as a gay person if you were lucky enough to be cast at all and because you might be ostracized because you’re openly gay.

Now that that’s beginning to change, there can be more of a level playing field and gay characters and actresses can be openly gay and play straight roles, play gay roles, play whatever roles. And that’s where we need to get to. There was this, “You were either typecast or you weren’t cast.” That holds true for the African-American community. It held true for the Hispanic community. It held true for Italian-Americans, and I can certainly attest to that. And it’s very disconcerting.

I think what’s happening now, finally: the playing field is at the very beginning of starting to be level.

What about your relationship with Colin that allowed you to so naturally play two men who’ve loved each other for a lifetime? Because we love each other. I love him. The only thing that would be different than what’s on screen would be the sex. But I just love him. I’d do anything for him. He’s like a brother I never had. When you come to know each other so well over 20 years at our age, and you’ve been through a lot — you’ve been through a lot of loss, you’ve been through a lot of difficult times, you’ve raised children, you’ve seen them go through hard times, you’ve helped each other out through all of those hard times — that’s what great friends do for each other, which is not dissimilar to what married couples do for each other.

And so you have all of that. It’s all there.

And you traded roles in this film with Colin. Have you ever considered swapping roles before with another actor? Or ... an actress? Ha! With an actress!

Maybe Cher in Burlesque? She was desperate for my role. The only problem was I couldn’t sing, so we had to keep it the way it was. Ha! But to answer your question,

no, that’s never happened before. And it’s very unusual that that happens. Again, if you’re good friends, you can do that.

You’ve acted alongside Cher and Meryl.

What other gay icons would you happily call your boss? Barbra, Gaga, Elton, Mariah, Madonna, and Liza all come to mind as options. All of them. I met Elton John a couple of times, and I met Liza Minnelli a couple of times, and I mean, as a straight man, I almost had a heart attack. They’re just… these people are just incredible people. That talent is just staggering to me.

And I think working with Cher — I know she’s a gay icon, and I had the biggest crush on her as a kid, and to be able to meet her and work with her and become friendly with her is just … you know, sometimes I show my kids my phone and

I go, “I’m just texting Cher.”

Did you dislike “Burlesque” as much as Cher? She famously admitted she found it “horrible.” Yeah, ha! You know what? It had potential, but it didn’t quite live up to it. Let’s put it that way.

It’s lived on in the gay community, though.

You must know that. I know! I can’t tell you how many people come up to me, and not only people from the gay community. Everybody comes up and they go, “I love that movie. I love ‘Burlesque.’”

And I’m like, “Oh my god — really?” Q As editor of Q Syndicate, Chris Azzopardi has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey, and Beyoncé. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.

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Russell Tovey: Silver Fox Fever

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The actor talks new Hulu series, a Looking reboot and leaning into his ‘daddy’ years

BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI

Russell

Tovey steamed up screens as Jonathan Groff’s hunky boss on the HBO series “Looking”, about an intimate group of gay and queer friends living in contemporary San Francisco. Impassioned thoughts on the Richie-Kevin-Patrick love triangle abounded. And then the show ended in 2016, after just two seasons. But when it came to embodying gay characters on TV (and stage), Tovey was just getting started.

In addition to his theater work in the 2017 staging of “Angels in America” at the National Theatre in London, the openly gay British actor has gone on to play a passel of gay men across a swath of networks: Daniel Lyons, on HBO’s six-part dystopian drama “Years and Years”; Harry Doyle, a James Bond-type role created with him in mind, on ABC’s “Quantico”; and Ray “The Ray” Terrill, on the CW’s “Arrowverse” crossover, “Crisis on Earth-X”.

Once in a while, Tovey plays straight.

That is true of his role in Hulu’s four-part twisty murder-thriller “The Sister” as Nathan Redman, whose past — which includes a dead woman, and a peculiar man named Bob — comes back to haunt him.

Outside of acting, Tovey produces a podcast called TalkArt, which is dedicated to all things art, with gallerist Robert Diament. Their book, “TalkArt”, comes out June 1.

Tovey’s passion for visual art is apparent even on Zoom, where I connect with the actor and podcaster during the virtual junket for “The Sister”. A striking abstract painting hovers above him. “I haven’t got any backgrounds that apply naturally where I can sit,” the 39-year-old says.

Jokingly, I ask Tovey whether every interview he does on this press day will feature a new work from his vast collection. You know, to keep it fresh. “Every interview is a different work of art,” he

PHOTO: ROBERT VIGLASKY / HULU

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wryly kids, laughing. “It’s not about “The Sister”. It’s about my art collection. You don’t realize because subliminally you’re seeing it all. You think we’re talking about the show.”

Well, it seems you’ve gotten past the “pizza and wine every night” phase of the pandemic. Where are you at right now mentally, etcetera, etcetera, with all of this? Mentally, etcetera, etcetera: 10,000 steps a day, trying to get that in. Walking the dogs. Making sure that I’m getting out of the house. You’re right, I did have the pizza and the bottle of red wine a night. That was fun for a while, then I think I got a bit too heavy and a bit out of breath walking from the bathroom to the kitchen. I thought, “This is something that has to change.”

I’ve been filming things. Before Christmas I was doing a movie with Priyanka Chopra and Sam Heughan and Celine Dion, and that was amazing. A rom-com in London. And then last week, I just completed an improv movie I’ve been doing in Wales here, so I’ve been really fortunate that the filming is something that we’ve been allowed to do. Yes, we’ve been getting COVID-tested every two days, but I think everyone’s so determined to keep working and telling stories that you jump through all the hoops, whatever they may be.

I’m glad that you noted that you’re getting tested, because with the movie you’re referring to, “Text For You”, my first thought was: You have to protect Celine Dion at all costs. Yes, of course! Can you imagine if you was responsible for anything that happened to Celine Dion?

What has been your experience filming during lockdown? It’s made everything more economical. That feels really great in some ways (laughs). There’s less time to socialize as a group of actors. You do the work and you get out. So that feels good.

With “The Sister”, I was impressed by your ability to cry. I’m a very emotional person. I’ve got lots of things that I draw on throughout my life: sad events, stories and stuff. This (is) a bit psychopathic, but actors are able to retain the essence of a

feeling in our psyche. And what other job can you cry your eyes out and everyone gives you a round of applause after? You don’t do that anywhere else. You’d be straight up to HR and they’d be firing you or giving you, like, some time off work (laughs). But with acting, you are kind of blessed with the fact that you can exercise emotions through the characters you play.

Your story arc in “The Sister” has a poignancy that allows you room to emote.

In one of the more poignant scenes, I love that your gray hair got written in. It’s acknowledged in its own line in the last episode. (He shows off his gray hair.) I can’t get away from it now! It’s happening.

It’s a reality. But you’re seeing Nathan in three different sections of his life, and that was what’s so important to me: finding an authenticity at each stage of

his life. At the beginning I wanted to make him a really hopeful, enthusiastic, kind guy that you knew was being kind of sexually awoken. (He’s) really excited about the world, and that gets ripped away. I wanted the loss of Nathan to be something that holds him throughout the rest of his life. And as an audience, even though he’s problematic and a flawed character, you feel such pain for the loss of what could’ve been.

With the gray hair, I wonder if there’s been an influx of silver fox comments. “Silver daddy” — yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m gonna be 40 this year, so I’m definitely officially daddy status, I guess. And I have embraced my graying hair. It’s pretty full gray now. So yeah, every now and then I’ll get “yes, silver fox!” “yes, daddy!” on my Instagram and I’m all for it.

Is there a different kind of challenge in

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playing a straight role like this that you don’t get playing a gay role? Every character that I play, I just want to find the truth of who they are emotionally. Gay, straight, bi, anything, I just want to make sure that I can feel their honesty and I know who they are emotionally. I guess it comes up when you’re in sex scenes.

I guess that’s a time when you really do consider what this character is. But fundamentally I don’t really look at it too much like that. It’s like you’re pretending and tricking your body into feeling things.

Emotionally connecting on a level to something that you’re not fully aware of. I’ve played aliens, I’ve played werewolves.

Whatever you do, whoever you’re playing, you just want to root them in a reality that people can connect to.

“Queer as Folk” creator Russell T Davies, who you worked with on “Doctor Who” and “Years and Years”, recently said that PHOTO: ROBERT VIGLASKY / HULU

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gay actors should play gay roles. The argument made by some is that, if that’s the case, only straight roles should go to straight actors. What’s your take? It felt really important for him that there was an authenticity in such a very kind of queer community-based piece (Davies’s new HBO series “It’s a Sin”). But my feeling is that we’re in a world where there are marginalized people — be it sexually, be it racially — that haven’t got an opportunity to tell their story, so until there is space made that everybody can authentically tell their story, whoever they are, then there’s more work to be done.

And I’m not saying, “Take these jobs away from other people,” because I’m an actor and I love acting and I love to pretend to be everything, as we’re saying about playing straight. But we need to make space (for) the people who haven’t authentically become superstars by telling their truthful story of their authentic life lived.

You wanted to be an actor in hopes that you could make people feel the way Robin Williams made you feel when you watched him in “Dead Poets Society”. Reflecting on that, which of your roles have made you feel like you’ve achieved that? You mentioned “Looking”. I think that was an incredibly important show for me, creatively, personally — the people I worked with, the way it was made, the stories it was telling, the time it was telling the stories. I thought, “That’s a show that’s going to be discovered forever.”

I feel like all queer stories

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sometimes get marginalized and overlooked, but they remain beacons of hope for so many people around the world who can discover them at all different stages. (With) “Looking”, I’m a fan of that show. Even though I’m in it, I can watch it and care about Patrick and Richie.

What are they up to? It’s been five years. I want a second movie. Are Patrick and Richie still together? Unsure, I don’t know. But I think (my character) Kevin is someone that has probably rebounded a few times, cheated on his boyfriend a bit more, still with his boyfriend, and probably had a couple of other experiences similar to his experience with Patrick. I would say that he is someone who hasn’t really done the work on himself.

I think he’s probably had a “fuck it” button that he’s pressed after the kind of rejection of Patrick, and I think Kevin is someone who doesn’t do well with rejection.

It sounds like you have a script ready to go.

Everybody at the time — (the show) was so attacked in some ways. The people who are discovering it now are like, “This is a work of genius, and it is beautiful.” Out of everything I’ve ever done, that is the one show where I would literally bite the hand of whoever it was who said, “Do you want to do a special? Do you want to do another season?” They brought “The Comeback” with Lisa Kudrow 10 years later; it would be amazing to do a revisit of “Looking”. I would love that.

Do you have Zooms with

Jonathan Groff? Are you still in touch? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We still talk. He’s doing incredibly well. I love him. He’s a superstar. Just this wonderful, big-hearted genius that is the most perfect person you could ever meet. He’s not on any social media, so I don’t think he’s contaminated by all of the crap… . I don’t think he knows what a troll is, do you know what I mean? (Laughs.)

With your TalkArt podcast, how did you connect with Elton John to get him on it? Do all British gays just know each other? (Laughs.) They kind of do. They’re kind of connected! But I’ve met Elton a few times, and so I connected to him way before the pandemic and he was like, “I’m busy, I’m touring the world.” And then obviously lockdown happened. I just emailed Elton and he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So that’s how we got Elton, and the same with Billy Porter and Rufus Wainwright.

It felt really important for everybody to connect with other people, and what better way to connect than through art and culture, because that’s the best way as humans of understanding the human experience. Through art we can understand other people.

And through art, if you see yourself represented or hear yourself represented, then you cannot be denied your existence. Q This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. As editor of Q Syndicate, the LGBTQ wire service, Chris Azzopardi has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.

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Vintage with a (Queer) Twist A new campaign redefines ’70s beauty standards with LGBTQ themes

BY EVE KUCHARSKI

Without

dispute, the ’70s were an iconic fashion decade. Tie-dye, floral, bell-bottoms, mini (and maxi) dresses. It’s not hard to pick out a seminal trend whose influence can be seen even in modern-day wear.

But despite its fun fashion, the decade idealized white standards of beauty, largely leaving out anyone who didn’t meet the mold of skinny, cisgender female models. Now, with “Prim-n-Poppin,” which officially launches today, New York-based photographer Julia Comita and makeup artist Brenna Drury have imagined a world that better reflects the diverse world we live in.

The online project is a series of reimagined vintage magazine ads that includes models of various races from the body modification, vitiligo and body positivity communities. But it’s not only representative of physical diversity.

“Prim-n-Poppin” showcases five reimagined vintage beauty ads that also highlight models with ranging sexual orientations and gender identities.

It includes detailed interviews with each model and allows viewers to access a detailed resource list of allied companies and organizations that value beauty just as much as the emotional health and well-being of the people who are interested in fashion today, unlike the antiquated original source material.

Recently, Comita and Drury shared why inclusivity is as important as ever in fashion today, what it was like breaking modern makeup rules to create the project, and why seeing diverse representation in these vintage ads brought out an emotional response in both the project creators and the participating models.

Where did the name for “Primn-Poppin” come from?

JULIA COMITA: We like that name because “prim” is sort of alluding to the vintage portion of it. You know, more old-school and more proper, if you will. And “poppin’” is more alluding to present-day.

It is a combination of the two.

And it’s just a fun title.

What was the process of coming up with the idea?

BRENNA DRURY: We met through Instagram. I messaged her to collaborate. That was in early summer 2019 and I made a few mood boards, three of which were more along the beauty lines of pops of color and fresh skin. And then I threw in the vintage advertisements, which were just colorful fun. We started with that and agreed that we would like to do something a little bit different. And then, while looking through the vintage advertisements, we were picking up on the undertones like how non-inclusive they were, and just the more conversations we had, we were able to narrow it down to exactly what we wanted it to do.

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Once the project was completed, what did you feel when you saw all the diverse faces represented in this traditionally exclusive way?

COMITA: Very emotional.

I don’t know, it just makes me smile. If I look at all the original ads all together, from a surface-level perspective I might be like, “Oh, those are funny.” But if I really look at them, I don’t feel good because it doesn’t feel correct.

It feels very one-sided. So, seeing all of the faces together now, it makes me feel kind of emotional because this is the world we live in. Especially in New York City, we go out the door and we see so many different kinds of people. These are our friends.

DRURY: We would love to expand on the project, of course, but it’s a start to seeing the advertisements as how I see my world today, which makes me very happy.

It’s great that the concept of diversity extended out to sexual orientation and gender identity as well. How did you find the LGBTQ models featured in “Prim-n-Poppin”?

COMITA: There are a number of great agencies out here that are catering to a more diverse group of people.

There’s places like We Speak that we pulled talent from.

They even have a whole category in their roster for fluid.

And Slay was another agency that we cast from; Slay is the first exclusively transgender agency. I actually didn’t know those agencies before we did this project. This was something Brenna and I had talked abo-ut. Brenna did a lot of research and sent some agencies to my attention and we were able to find everyone except for Cory [Walker], who did the soap ad, who I was referred to from another project a few months before

who I shot with. I just really loved their energy and they photograph really well.

Was there an artistic challenge that was unique to shooting this project?

DRURY: For me, I wouldn’t say it was a challenge, but the makeup aesthetic was obviously different during that time, and the way that I like to do makeup now is skin-forward. Back then it was more caked on, so it was an adjustment to put that much makeup on my clients. I knew that it would read how I wanted it to read, but that was the only thing for me.

COMITA: I don’t know if I would call this an artistic challenge per se, but I guess one of the things that was different about this project was making sure that everybody was being a little bit silly or over the top. We’re not asking them to model to make themselves the best they can look; it’s more about, “Let’s get the feeling across of this picture and what we’re trying to communicate.”

DRURY: Posing was something that we talked a lot about, whether it was like they were selling the cellphone and it was like this (pained smile). Now, it’s just more casual, but I feel like there was a period of adjustment when the talent were getting out of their normal modeling state and being just, like, extra. (Laughs.)

Did you find yourself breaking all the modern makeup rules of today?

DRURY: (Laughs.) Well, just eyeshadow all the way up to the brows that’s the same color — these things that I would not do to my clients right now. But that was also the fun of it, to do something like that.

COMITA: Totally. There are few times where you want to go balls to the wall with everything. Things are more understated now because it can look really tacky (laughs), but in this case, that was the most appropriate direction.

So I think we were all doing things stylistically that we wouldn’t be doing otherwise.

DRURY: In Kaguya, the one where she had all of the makeup (in her hand), a few of the people that we showed it to once it was done, there was a question of like, “Is that rubber band supposed to be there?” It’s funny because that’s not something you would find now, but in the original ad, that’s exactly what it was.

What do you hope will be the first impressions of people who

get to really sit down and take a look at this? Do you think they’ll be tricked at first into thinking it’s a real vintage ad?

COMITA: That would be cool! (Laughs.) I actually shared this with a friend last night, and he is in the queer community as well and he’s Black. And he was saying that, for him, looking at the pictures it was as if they had always been there. And that was a really special response.

I would love for that to be the case. It would be great if people looked at them and thought, “I could have seen this then.”

DRURY: I would (love) people seeing it to feel a sense of comfort.

COMITA: And community. Q Eve Kucharski is a Seattle-based journalist.

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That’s What She Said

Each Sudoku puzzle has a unique solution which can be reached logically without guessing. Enter digits 1 through 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit, as must each column and each 3x3 square. Qdoku

Q doku Medium

8 2 3 4 5 1 3 2 6 5

7 8

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6 1

9 4 8

6

9

1 5 4 8

7 8 3 9 6 7 1 3 2 3 4 6 1 6 5 2 5 8 9 2 7 3 6 5 5 4 3 9 2 7 5 4 6 7 6 4 2 1 2 7 5 8 3

3

5 6 7 3

1 2 3 9 5 8 4 3 6

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52 Flockhart of The Birdcage 55 The d. of k.d. lang 56 Thurman of Kill Bill ACROSS 57 Source of the quote 1 ___ erectus 62 Steven Greenberg, 5 Advice from Richard for one Simmons 64 Western, to the LA 9 Tickles pink Sparks 14 DWTS cohost 65 Shakespearean villain Andrews 66 Tapir feature 15 Word after “penis” 67 Photographer Cath16 Alaskan language erine 17 Surrealist Magritte 68 Nikita’s no 18 My ___ Lady 69 My place, or yours 19 Word for skin 70 Enjoy E. Lynn Harris 20 Start of a quote from 71 Cry of pride a female superhero DOWN 23 Give in the middle 1 Photographer Ritts 24 Jolie’s ___ Interrupted 2 Give it a licking 25 Bread for later 3 St. Paul’s state 27 More of the quote 4 Like a nervous Nelly 31 Sappho’s long E 5 Gets bent out of 32 IRS info shape 33 Sport of Bend It Like 6 Where an exhibitionBeckham ist may be seen?

37 “Englishman in New 7 Type of twin York” writer 8 Power of old films 40 Bear embrace 9 Russell/Kreiger 42 Show Boat director musical James 10 Hydrocarbon suffix 43 Oater brawl site 11 Job option for Jack 45 Abe Lincoln’s boy McFarland 47 Fed. retirement 12 Joltin’ Joe agency 13 Grid coach Amos Alonzo ___ 48 End of the quote PUZZLE SOLUTIONS ON PAGE 36

21 Title for Laurence Olivier 22 Doctors, doggy-style 26 Stage crew worker, briefly 27 Untouchable leader 28 Butch Cassidy role 29 Western ski mecca 30 Notre Dame coach Rockne 34 Winery vessel 35 Besides that 36 Admiral’s position?

38 Start of a bedside prayer 39 Dates 41 Billie Holiday wore one 44 Cold war defense assn.

46 Loomed large over Snow White’s friends?

49 Hard feelings 50 ”Gag me!”

51 Rub some oil on 52 Utter an oath 53 Refrigerator word 54 Party in Auden’s land 58 The 411 59 Poet Angelou 60 Like sharp cheese 61 DiFranco’s “___ Pretty Girl” 63 Except

34 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | SEX

sex and salt lake city

Qsaltlake.com | ISSUE 321 | MARCH, 2021

Nonmonogamy

BY DR. LAURIE BENNETT-COOK

I have a date

tonight. He’s reserved us a table at a nice little spot with outdoor seating. He’s informed me of his social circle during all these months so I can be a bit at ease. My husband and I have talked at length about any potential risk I may be taking by going out with this new crush of mine during Covid times, and how those potential risks may affect him or anyone else in our family. Welcome to conversations of nonmonogamy.

When we agreed to live a non-monogamous life some 20 years ago we laid out all kinds of rules for each other. No kissing. No bringing people home. Be home by a certain time. No going places that are “ours.”

All of the rules we had were based on fear of our own personal belief of what the other should or shouldn’t be allowed to do, rather than respect for us as individuals. Somehow, deciding to be non-monogamous caused us to see each other as even less autonomous than had we stayed monogamous.

Being rid of the perceived safety that comes along with monogamy opened up every insecurity either of us had — many of which didn’t show themselves until that point.

It wasn’t long before we realized that what nonmonogamy looked like for my husband was different than it looked for me. We had to acknowledge that fairness did not equal symmetry. For his part, he was interested in parties and flings and friends with benefits that didn’t require

any kind of commitment. For me, nonmonogamy meant creating and nurturing other love interests that may or may not involve sex.

It took a lot of mistakes, arguments, missteps, and communication to recognize that what we each wanted was not only okay but possible to create individually while at the same time growing in our closeness and relationship together.

For the first several years we’d both heard all the same crazy assumptions that many have about non-monogamous relationships in general: It’s just an excuse to cheat; you’re probably just non-committal; maybe neither of you have met “the one.” Humans are innately jealous so there’s no way it can work. And on and on and on.

Anytime we’d encounter a struggle in our relationship support was impossible to find because no matter who we talked to, our nonmonogamy was brought up as the cause. I suppose I have all those early nay-sayers to thank. If it weren’t for all their doubts, I probably never would have attended grad school and thus provide the kind of support and guidance for this unconventional world I wished I had.

So fast forward 20 years. The rules we once had are gone, and instead, we have shared agreements to communicate respectfully when either feels the need.

My private practice is made up of people navigating the world of nonmonogamy

Your Ad Here Support the LGBTQ community. Support independent queer media. Get your message out to an appreciative market Email sales@qsaltlake.com or call 801-997-9763 today

in all its many forms. Of course, they are all deflecting the same misnomers my husband and I had to do. Thankfully, the level of deflection decreases over time as people cannot shame you for something you own.

When I help clients navigate relationships the main focus is put on respect and communication. These two marry quite well and are the cornerstones that have kept my husband and me doing so well after all these years.

We humans rarely communicate well with those we don’t respect nor do we often respect those with whom we’re unable to communicate. When we communicate our wants, desires, boundaries, we are showing respect for ourselves as well as the other who we are trusting to hear these things.

So tonight as I prepare to step out, I check in with my hubs, after making sure I look foxy in the mirror, asking if there’s anything he feels the need to express or any insecurities. Because yes, even after 20 years of this we can both feel a pang of jealousy from time to time. Checking in with him is respectful as is inviting his communication with me. Following my desires and going out with my new crush is respectful to me. Acknowledging how we both feel in this moment is respectful to us. For his part, he kisses me as though he’s the one taking me out this evening and wishes me a good time — and I know he means it.

Excitedly, I step out the door, looking not only forward to the dinner ahead with my crush, but also to coming home. Q Dr. Laurie Bennett-Cook divides her time between LA and SLC and her private practice sessions are currently being held virtually. She can be reached at DrLaurieBennettCook@gmail.com

MARCH, 2021 | ISSUE 321 | Qsaltlake.com

BARBER

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36 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | QMMUNITY

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umen.org

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OUT U.S. OLYMPIC MEN’S SLOPESTYLE SILVER MEDALIST GUS KENWORTHY

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Puzzle Solutions

 utahpridecenter. org/programs/youthfamily-programs/

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SUPPORT

Alcoholics Anonymous 801-484-7871  utahaa.org LGBT meetings: Sun. 3p Acceptance Group, UPC,1380 S Main Tues. 8:15p Live & Let Live, Mt Tabor Lutheran, 175 S 700 E Wed. 7p Sober Today, 375 Harrison Blvd, Ogden Fri. 8p Stonewall Group, Mt Tabor Lutheran, 175 S 700 E

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SPORTS

QUAC — Queer Utah Aquatic Club  quacquac.org  questions@ quacquac.org Salt Lake Goodtime Bowling League  bit.ly/slgoodtime Stonewall Sports SLC  fb.me/SLCStonewall  stonewallsaltlakecity. leagueapps.com 385-243-1828 Utah Gay Football League  UtahGayFootballLeague.com  fb.me/UtahGayFootballLeague Venture Out Utah  facebook.com/groups/ Venture.OUT.Utah

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RELIGIOUS

First Baptist Church  firstbaptist-slc.org * office@firstbaptistslc.org 11a Sundays 777 S 1300 E 801-582-4921 Sacred Light of Christ  slcchurch.org 823 S 600 E 801-595-0052 11a Sundays

utahpridecenter.org

Alternative Garden Club  bit.ly/altgarden * altgardenclub@gmail.com blackBOARD Men’s Kink/Sex/BDSM education, 1st, 3rd Mons.  blackbootsslc.org blackBOOTS Kink/BDSM Men’s leather/kink/ fetish/BDSM 4th Sats.  blackbootsslc.org Gay Writes writing group, DiverseCity 6:30 pm 2nd, 4th Mondays, Community Writing Ctr, 210 E 400 S Men Who Move  menwhomove.org OWLS of Utah (Older, Wiser, Lesbian. Sisters)  bit.ly/owlsutah qVinum Wine Tasting  qvinum.com Sage Utah, Seniors  fb.me/sageutah  sageutah@ utahpridecenter.org 801-557-9203 Temple Squares Square Dance Club  templesquares.org 801-449-1293 Utah Bears  utahbears.com  fb.me/utahbears  info@utahbears.com

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POLITICAL

Equality Utah  equalityutah.org * info@equalityutah.org 175 W 200 S, Ste 1004 801-355-3479 Utah Libertarian Party 6885 S State St #200 888-957-8824 Utah Log Cabin Republicans  bit.ly/logcabinutah 801-657-9611 Utah Stonewall Democrats  utahstonewalldemocrats.org  fb.me/ utahstonewalldems

 1to5club@

YOUTH/COLLEGE

Encircle LGBTQ Family and Youth Resource Ctr  encircletogether.org fb.me/encircletogether 91 W 200 S, Provo, 331 S 600 E, SLC Families Like Ours (ages 2-10)  utahpridecenter.org/ programs/youth-familyprograms/ Gay-Straight Alliance Network  gsanetwork.org Salt Lake Community College LGBTQ+ 8 slcc.edu/lgbtq/ University of Utah LGBT Resource Center 8 lgbt.utah.edu 200 S Central Campus Dr Rm 409 801-587-7973 USGA at BYU  usgabyu.com  fb.me/UsgaAtByu Utah State Univ. Access & Diversity Ctr  inclusion.usu.edu/ lgbtqa Utah Valley Univ Spectrum  facebook.com/ groups/uvuspectrum Weber State University LGBT Resource Center  weber.edu/ lgbtresourcecenter 801-626-7271 Youth Activity Night ages 10-14, 14-20  utahpridecenter.org/ programs/youth-familyprograms/

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HEALTH & HIV

Peer Support for Mental Illness — PSMI Thurs 7pm, Utah Pride Ctr Planned Parenthood 654 S 900 E 800-230-PLAN Salt Lake County Health Dept HIV/STD Clinic 660 S 200 E, 4th Floor Walk-ins M–F 10a–4p Appts 385-468-4242 Utah AIDS Foundation  utahaids.org * mail@utahaids.org 1408 S 1100 E 801-487-2323

Rainbow Law Free Clinic 2nd Thurs 6:30–7:30pm UofU Law School, 383 S University St

1 to 5 Club (bisexual)  fb.me/1to5ClubUtah

Youth Survivors of Suicide Attempt  utahpridecenter.org/ programs/youth-familyprograms/  youthsosa@ utahpridecenter.org

Crystal Meth Anon  crystalmeth.org Sun. 1:30pm Clean, Sober & Proud LGBTQIA+Straight USARA, 180 E 2100 S LifeRing Secular Recovery 801-608-8146  liferingutah.org Sun. 10am Univ. Neuropsychiatric Institute, 501 Chipeta Way #1566 Thurs. 7pm, USARA, 180 E 2100 S, #100 Sat. 11am, First Baptist Church, 777 S 1300 E Men’s Support Group  utahpridecenter. org/programs/lgbtqadults/  joshuabravo@ utahpridecenter.org Survivors of Suicide Attempt  bit.ly/upc_sosa  sosa@ utahpridecenter.org Trans Adult Support  utahpridecenter.org/ programs/lgbtq-adults/  lanegardinier@ utahpridecenter.org TransAction  utahpridecenter.org/ programs/transaction/ Sundays 2–3:30pm Women’s Support Group  utahpridecenter.org/ programs/lgbtq-adults/  mariananibley@ utahpridecenter.org Youth Support Group ages 10-14, 14-20

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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 YWCA of Salt Lake  ywca.org/saltlakecity 322 E 300 S 801-537-8600

LEGAL

SOCIAL

Weds 6pm Raw Bean Coffee, 611 W Temple Utah Male Naturists  umen.org  info@umen.org Utah Pride Center  utahpridecenter.org  info@utahpridecenter.org 1380 S Main St 801-539-8800 Venture OUT Utah  bit.ly/GetOutsideUtah

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LGBTQ-Affirmative Psycho-therapists Guild of Utah  lgbtqtherapists.com * jim@lgbtqtherapists.com Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce  utahlgbtqchamber.com * info@utahgaychamber.com LGBT & Allied Lawyers of Utah  lgbtutahlawyers.com * lgbtutahlawyers@gmail.com Utah Independent Business Coalition  utahindependentbusiness.org 801-879-4928

HOMELESS SVCS

VOA Homeless Youth Resource Ctr, ages 15–21 880 S 400 W 801-364-0744 Transition Homes: Young Men’s 801-433-1713 Young Women’s 801-359-5545

Wasatch Metropolitan Community Church  wasatchmcc.org 801-889-8764 Sundays except the 2nd Sunday, 11:15a at Crone’s Hollow, 3834 S. Main

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BUSINESS

Weber-Morgan Health Mon., Weds 1-4:30p 477 23rd St, Ogden Appt 801-399-7250

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Qmmunity Groups

Qsaltlake.com | ISSUE 321 | MARCH, 2021

BOOK REVIEW | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | 37

MARCH, 2021 | ISSUE 321 | Qsaltlake.com

the bookworm sez REVIEW BY TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER

Eleanor

BY DAVID MICHAELIS, C.2020, SIMON & SCHUSTER, $35, 698 PAGES

Life, as they say, is an open book.

When you’re born, someone else starts writing it for you, but it doesn’t take long for you to be your own author. Through the years, you’ll scribble ideas, compose thoughtfully, add chapters, and crumple pages.

Your life’s book might be a series of quick notes, long essays, one-liners or, as in Eleanor by David Michaelis, you could build an epic story.

In today’s world, we might call Eleanor Roosevelt’s

q scopes MARCH

BY SAM KELLEY-MILLS

ARIES March 20–April 19 A key-person is looking to you for advice, and it occurs to you how much you enjoy giving it.

Reach out and make sure this person is okay. It’s just as much for you as it is for them. The best thoughts always come when doing good.

TAURUS Apr 20–May 20 The long way to get back to normal is bound to be the most rewarding. A sense of discovery is going to help you feel great in the long run. Focus on your emotional state, and don’t be afraid to veer off course from time to time.

GEMINI May 21–June 20 Even in the direst of times, a light shines within your soul.

And if you think that sounds cheesy, then you’re likely to be really happy

mother abusive: Anna Hall Roosevelt never had a kind word to say to her daughter, often mockingly calling little Eleanor “Granny.” It’s true that Eleanor wasn’t lithe and beautiful like her mother; she was awkward and stern, a Daddy’s girl for an often-absent, alcoholic father.

Orphaned by the time she was 12, Eleanor had been longtold that she was homely and plain but school chums knew her as a caring girl with a sharp mind. That intelligence later caught the eye of the dashing Franklin Roosevelt, a somewhat-distant cousin who courted her with the nose-holding approval of his mother.

It was a good match, but only for a short while: too quickly, it was apparent that Eleanor and Franklin were colossally mismatched. She needed him to need her but he couldn’t – not in the way she wanted, so she found love in the arms of another man and

a woman. Her compassion for others, a rather acquired sense, helped buoy his ambition; his ambition gave her a reason to dig in and reach out to their fellow Americans in need. Despite that it invited controversy from Washington insiders, Roosevelt changed the office of the First Lady by ignoring what past First Ladies had done, once they reached the White House and beyond...

Readers who are not deep historians are in for many layers of surprise inside Eleanor, the first being Roosevelt’s early life, and the racism she exhibited as a young woman.

Famously, she was a champion of African Americans during the years of her husband’s time as President and beyond, and she strove for equality, but author David Michaelis shows a sort of axis of attitude that the former First Lady experienced.

His portrayal is balanced with compassion: Michaelis

coming up. There is a good deal of guilty pleasures on the horizon. Get into the groove.

going to the gym, taking on a project, or other activities.

CANCER June 21–July 22 It’s been a long time since you really stopped caring long enough for the world to make sense. Take some good care of yourself in the form of a spa treatment or mental break. A vacation may not be possible, but if you can, do it.

LEO July 23–August 22 Thinking about the future should be rooted in recognizing the past. Even if things aren’t working out as you had hoped, take a look back at things that have. Only then will you find the blueprints for a great future and a good time.

VIRGO August 23–Sep. 2 Seeking help is crucial at this time. No one is out to get you, and in fact, this is a good time to make new friends. The best times are the hot and heavy ones, whether

LIBRA Sept 23–October 22 Someone close to you seems grumpy all the time. It’s possibly worthwhile to simply run away, but consider more what you do best: to try to help them out. You have a knack for finding balance and helping that person comes with a reward.

SCORPIO Oct. 23–Nov. 21 The worst thing you can do right now is to hide. Get out there and show the world your true self. The best gift is knowing how amazing you are but don’t let it go to your head. Being arrogant will be very counterproductive.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22–December 20.

Step on the gas and get working on a project. The creative flow is a strong one, and being swept away in it produces some great works. Share who you are inside.

Shine like a diamond.

lets us see a transformation in the pages of this book and it’s fascinating to watch. Rather than romanticize Roosevelt, Michaelis paints her as someone with flaws that she may not’ve overtly acknowledged but that she learned to work around. This becomes abundantly clear in tales of the warmth Roosevelt craved but was denied by her husband and the relationships she enjoyed in open secret, including a passionate love she shared with reporter Lorena Hickock and a much-debated, possible affair with State Trooper Earl Miller. Such tales are told matter-of-factly and without salaciousness, though you may feel a whoop of delight at a supposedly-staid Depression-era White House that really was a den of dalliance.

Don’t let its heft frighten you away: Eleanor may be wide but so’s its story. Indeed, you’ll be carried away when you open this book. Q

CAPRICORN Dec 21–Jan 19

There is a pest in your world, and it’s becoming a challenge you don’t want to accept. The solution is more simple than you think.

Distance yourself just enough to get some perspective, and a change in yourself will remedy all.

AQUARIUS Jan. 20–Feb. 18 The longer you wait to rebel against a problem, the more likely you are to explode. Deal with your tension in normal intervals and then enjoy the release. The world isn’t ready for you to be unhappy, so deal with it.

PISCES Feb 19–Mar 19 At the end of the day, you are in control. While nothing is certain, it’s a good bet that you can set a course and get there with no problem. The worst thing that can happen is that everything will work out. It’s a good time to be alive.

38 | QSALTLAKE MAGAZINE | FINAL WORD

Qsaltlake.com | ISSUE 321 | MARCH, 2021

the perils of petunia pap smear

A tale of super-spreader events

BY PETUNIA PAP SMEAR

The road

to excellent potato chips is fraught with danger and excitement.

Here I sit, all alone in Chateaux Pap Smear, trying to be Covid-safe. It seems like I’ve been here for years. I should be using all this time to accomplish the many tasks needed around the house, such as rewiring a few of my breasticles, backcombing a dozen beehive wigs, and adding maternity panels to all my caftans to accommodate the results of my quarantine-queen potato chip snacking.

But alas, the inexorable lure of Netflix has drawn me into its web. After 11 months of delving into the video library, I’m pretty sure that when you look past my mascara and glitter, my eyes are now rectangular from staring at the screen.

In fact, I’ve just finished watching Downton Abbey and The Crown for the third time. Moreover, I’ve been watching so much British TV that I’ve started to speak with a British accent. I feel if I invite Lizzy Windsor to high tea and she would feel right at home.

I keep seeing news reports about super-spreader events that may cause the Covid numbers to spike. All this talk of super-spreader events conjures horrible memories of similar events from my childhood on the Idaho farm.

Besides 120 acres of obligatory Idaho potatoes we tended to, we also raised five thousand sheep. Now, most of you might see idyllic images of charming innocent lambs, frolicking, and grazing in a scenic pasture. But nothing could be further from reality.

In reality, sheep are nasty, stinky, stupid creatures that I’m sure God sent to earth to torture me. They are indeed so foul-smelling that even on the hottest of days when the school bus would come within one mile, everyone would close their windows, despite the heat, and wait until they were at least another mile past our farm to open the window again, lest they puke due to the stench.

It was my job to feed the sheep. Now, in The Bible, Jesus said “Feed my sheep.”

I’m sure he meant that as a faith-promoting instruction, but sheep shit! A lot!

All over the place! And several inches deep! Sadly, forced to wear unattractive hip-waders instead of stylish heels, I decorated them with glitter and Elmer’s glue.

Sheep shit stinks. The stench clings to your clothing and hair. Just walking within 20 yards of the corral necessitated a bath. Sheep shit is green, and it stains.

Walking among the creatures was problematic, and I tried to breathe through my mouth. It, however, was a foolhardy plan because sheep shit is slippery. Sheep shit spatters and sprays.

When the critters would inevitably try to run away from you, their hooves would spin out on the slimy sheep shit, thus flipping large globules of fresh and juicy sheep shit into my open mouth and eyes.

Thus, I come to the aforementioned super-spreader event.

During the wintertime, one of my chores was to use a front-end loading tractor to scrape tons of the offensive sheep shit, load it into a manure spreader, take it into the fields, spread it around — to grow better potatoes, of course.

Who knew the secret to great potato chips is a generous spreading of sheep shit?

Naturally, in the act of spreading the sheep shit in the fields, numerous chunks of it flew high in the air. In the cold weather, clouds of odiferous steam rose from the spreader creating a virtual cloud of gut-wrenching noxious fog.

On several occasions when I was forced to drive the spreader downwind, the noxious cloud would envelop me, and not even the lights on my breasticles could penetrate the hazardous haze, leaving me blinded. Also, I’d struggled to breathe and remain conscious.

There is not enough cologne in the world to counteract that sheep shit stench.

Some of the choicest gooey globs of sheep

shit would rain down upon my pretty beehive wig in a veritable meteor shower.

One time, an exceptionally large clod of sheep shit hit me at just the right angle and knocked my favorite pink beehive wig clean off my head. The beloved hairpiece hit the ground and was promptly run over by the tractor before I could hit the brakes.

My eyes filled with tears — perhaps from my crushed emotions or the poisonous fumes of the cloud, I couldn’t tell.

I slowly climbed off the tractor and cautiously looked for my “precious.” I saw a faint glint of pink and reached to retrieve it. What I recovered was an unrecognizable flattened mass of gooey mud and sheep shit. The best hairdresser in the world couldn’t have salvaged it. I was forced to bury it in an unmarked grave at the end of the field.

This story leaves us with several important questions: 1. How would I pronounce “breasticle” in the queen’s English?

2. Should I devise a breasticle that incorporates a concealed teapot so I can just bend over and dispense some Earl Grey out of the tip?

3. Should I develop a line of sheep shit-repellant make-up?

4. How many cans of Aqua Net are necessary to achieve a sheep shit-proof hold?

5. Should I have engineered a sheep shit shield to mount to my breasticles?

These and other eternal questions will be answered in future chapters of The Perils of Petunia Pap Smear. Q

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