Ann Rostow: Les Temps Perdus

By Ann Rostow–

Les Temps Perdus

I just found a forgotten file from late June full of bits and pieces of news about our vibrant community. It’s too late to use any of it. I mean, the Million Moms were fixated on a Dove commercial that featured a transwoman showing off her glossy hair, but the Moms are in a constant state of anxiety so if we start rehashing what they were all up about in June and July, we’ll drown. Good for Dove for “pushing an agenda of sexual confusion,” as the Moms explained it.

There was a Pew poll showing a small (but sad) loss of support for GLBTs. I may have covered that, but I don’t think so. And a number of sports teams celebrated Pride in some way, while a number of others didn’t.  

Oh, and lots of law. Sorry if I shortchanged you on the Oklahoma Charter School case that split 4–4 on the Supreme Court after Justice Barrett recused herself. The tie in this case went to our side, since the Oklahoma Supreme Court had ruled that giving taxpayer money to a religious school was unconstitutional. But before you ask, the ruling arrived as a one-page order with no indication who provided that fourth vote. If I had covered this at the time, I would have found out what the heck was going on there. (It had to be Roberts, right?)

And the ACLU reported the status of another gigantic number of anti-GLBT state laws, noting that many of them define “women and girls” as people who can produce eggs. I haven’t been able to do that since my hysterectomy many years ago, and I imagine the same is true for all girls under the age of whatever and all women over the age of something something. So, the guys in the state legislatures had better come up with a new definition, such as: “People who were once able to produce eggs or who will someday be able to produce eggs.” That should cover it.

And before we return to August, I accidentally found myself on a Fox News page that was criticizing New York City mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, for going to Uganda. To be honest, I was taken aback when I heard about this trip since you can’t get more anti-gay than Uganda in this world. But Mamdani was born in Uganda so I gave him a break. I haven’t delved into the New York race. I’m not a fan of Cuomo but I generally look for candidates with more experience than the 30-something Mamdani, who has served just four years in the state assembly. Running New York City is a massive job, requiring far more than idealism. That said, I do think we’ve had enough of the Baby Boomers. Give me a tough 45-year-old with some executive experience. 

The Canicula Is Here!

It’s mid-August, so I’m inclined to lethargy. A discussion may be in order, perhaps, concerning where Meghan Marple’s blush wine ranked on a blind tasting of celebrity rosés (fourth out of ten), or why we will not be seeing a lesbian romance between Wednesday Addams and her werewolf gal pal, Enid Sinclair (it’s just not in the script). 

Or we could go off topic. Did you read about the big game hunter from Texas who got gored to death by a Capetown Buffalo? Reports said the buffalo was “unprovoked,” as if the creature was particularly liable for its action. And speaking of safaris, how about the dentist who was convicted of murdering his wife during an African trek? I think there’s a show about him coming up and I believe his paramour was convicted as well. To be honest, I didn’t follow up on the details here. I don’t want to spoil my enjoyment of the screen version. 

Before we get out of Africa, check out this New York Post headline: “British mom sexually violated by parasailing operator while midair in Tunisia.” Say what?!

Michelle Wilson, 52, was strapped into her harness with this jackwad who manhandled her and tried to pull off her bikini bottoms. “He was groping me and moving back and forth into me and talking to me in Arabic,” she told the Post. “I felt him pressing against me. I kept arching my back. I felt violated and dirty and was scared.” Wilson reported him as soon as she hit the ground and the 20-something idiot was arrested. What exactly did he think was going to happen once they landed? I won’t pursue what the Post told me to “Read Next” because it was about a little dog being killed by a mountain lion. Really, Post editors? You had to go there? 

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Before that section devolved, I was going to discuss a Washington Post piece about how some Democratic politicians are starting to abandon certain nuggets of political correctness in an effort to construct their own “Sister Souljah” moments. (Bill Clinton’s “Sister Souljah” moment was a rhetorical attack on a Black activist in the run-up to the 1992 election meant to burnish his centrist credentials.) 

Now, we find Gavin Newsom admiring guns and dissing transgender athletes. We see Josh Shapiro talking about hunting on Sunday (is that not allowed in Pennsylvania?). And we hear Rahm Emanuel tell Megyn Kelly that a man cannot become a woman. I get where they’re coming from. They’ve watched the Democratic party take all-or-nothing positions on issues that are much more complicated than they seem to an electorate that spends no time at all thinking about gender identity or multiculturalism. 

I’ve written about this in the context of transgender rights. We (transgender advocates) have found ourselves metaphorically being asked, “When did you stop beating your wife?” And we stumble and fumble to reply. Because if we point out that the

research on puberty blockers is relatively new, or that there’s a difference between college athletes and kids on the playground, or that there’s any gray area whatsoever in the science of gender identity, then we get creamed by absolutism on the other side. We can’t say, “I don’t know,” to anything, because the answer will be, “Well, we know,” followed by a simplistic and dangerous prejudice. 

But the solution is not to stand our ground and become absolutists as we have in the past. Nor is to feign political courage by throwing transpeople under the bus. The solution is to campaign on the issues that used to matter to the electorate and will again. The economy, modernization, infrastructure, ideas to improve people’s lives, fairer taxes, child care, and so forth. Transgender issues are important to our community, but they don’t have to be front and center in a Senate race, let alone a presidential one. Neither do GLBT issues for that matter. Not front and center. 

No, the Court Will Not Be Revisiting Marriage Equality

I recently encountered an ABC News headline that read: “Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling.” The link leads to a story, plus a two-minute video of an ABC anchorwoman interviewing a reporter who purports to have the lowdown on the looming showdown.

It’s a jaw dropping piece of misinformation, starting with the unlikely idea that a petition from nutball former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis would be accepted for review by a Court that accepts only roughly 1% of all cases that come its way. Davis is trying to challenge a jury decision that awarded six figure damages to two men who were denied marriage licenses by Davis back in the day in violation of the High Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling. She herself may be seeking an additional 15 minutes of fame, but her lawyers at the Liberty Counsel, an antigay Christian advocacy group, are trying to overturn marriage equality using the same rationale that destroyed Roe v Wade. That’s their long-term agenda, and it’s the reasoning that was embraced by Justice Thomas in a concurring opinion in 2022 when Roe v Wade was overturned. 

Thomas’ notion is that the Court made a legal error when it decided that the Due Process Clause guaranteed that certain substantial freedoms would not be abridged even though they were not specified in the Constitution. These are freedoms like the right to buy contraceptives, the right to an abortion, the right to have sex in your home with your gay lover, the right to marry a same-sex partner. Even as Sam Alito recognized that the issue of abortion was different than these other substantial due process cases, Thomas went further, urging that decades of precedent be dismantled, beginning with the 1965 ruling in Griswald v Connecticut, establishing a right to martial privacy.

Farfetched doesn’t begin to describe this effort, and although Sam Alito is indeed capable of all sorts of horrific behaviors, I can’t imagine that anyone else on this conservative bench would follow Sam and Clarence into this dangerous terrain. It takes four justices to agree to hear a case; it takes five to win a majority. No reputable legal analyst on either side of the political divide thinks this tenuous challenge will advance. 

Meanwhile, the ABC piece tells us that the Court “is expected to consider the Davis case this fall during a private conference,” and, if accepted, “it would likely be scheduled for oral argument next spring and decided in June 2026.” Please! The Court will consider hundreds of petitions at their regular conferences once they return to work in October. And as discussed just now, they are not going to take this case. This is the kind of “journalism” that manages to present a completely skewed version of events without actually stating a lie. It’s infuriating, and although I could go on, I will spare you.

On the Road

Did I ever mention that I used to work for ABC News? I was kicked out of college for a year because I got three “permanent incompletes,” so I got a job as a minion on the assignment desk. One of the assignment editors was a falling down drunk who would go into an office around 6:30 in the evening and fall asleep, leaving me alone to answer all the phones until midnight. The minion on the midnight to eight shift was flaky, so I often got the double shift and the overtime pay, which I loved. We competed with NBC and CBS, so, for years, I’ve felt a certain solidarity with ABC News, but I think my loyalty is waning.

What else is new, you ask? Well, do you remember a big heehaw over the airport initials for the Gaya International Airport in India? The authorities over there tried and failed to get their designation changed from “GAY” to something else, and now they’re trying again after some mucky muck called the abbreviation “socially and culturally offensive.” It looks as if the latest effort is not going well, as the Indian government said changes in these codes are only allowed under “exceptional circumstances.” 

I learned in this same article that Fukuaka, Japan, is FUK; Dickinson, North Dakota is DIK; Pocos de Caldas, Brazil, is POO; Perm, Russia, is PEE; and Butler Memorial, Missouri, is BUM. My younger grandchildren would have a field day with these airport codes. They’d probably decide to become air traffic controllers. My favorite airport is the one in Sioux City, Iowa, where there was an unsuccessful attempt to get rid of SUX. When this failed, the authorities decided to lean in, and turned SUX into a brand, complete with lots of fun airport merchandise 

Finally, I’m writing from the road and I have to move out of this nice hotel where Mel and I watched back-to-back episodes of Law and Order SVU last night complete with lots of commercials. Two in particular annoyed me: first, the one where a teenaged boy saunters down the street window shopping. His parents are monitoring his spending through some app as they wait for him on a sidewalk bench. “He’s still on budget,” Mom tells Dad proudly. But we just watched him spend at least $500, if not more, on an expensive looking jacket, cool sneakers, a beret, and I forget what else! So, yes, this app might keep your kid on budget, assuming he has a $1,000 daily limit. 

The other offender was a bunch of belligerent people with a medical problem in their hands who barged around proclaiming that they wanted their hands fixed without surgery pronto, or else! Okay, okay. Cool your jets, guys! No one’s forcing you under the knife.

arostow@aol.com

GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on August 14, 2025