By Ann Rostow–
Bye, Bye Retirement
I don’t know where to start today. For one thing, I don’t feel well. For another thing, I’m anxious about losing our retirement funds that are already down dramatically. I’m old enough to worry about these things since my wife and I don’t have years and years to sit around waiting for the markets to recover unless we spend nothing from here on in.
We have seven grandkids, so that’s not happening. In fact, and I may get into trouble for telling you this, but a glance at our Amazon orders will often reveal yet another adorable gizmo or stuffed animal headed out from our account at a cost of maybe $15 or $20. Not expensive, true. But that’s five grand a year! Yes, I’m talking about the woman who just sent our four-year-old a talking hamster and a bunny that makes an annoying sound and hops. Assuming we continue in this vein, which goes without saying, we will soon have to give up something dear to my heart, like Campari or hardback novels.
I’m trying to be lighthearted, and it’s true that anyone with a portfolio is better off than those living paycheck to paycheck. So I won’t complain too much. And there might be a silver lining, some experts say. If the Trump tariffs persist and lead to a recession, as many are starting to fear, the repercussions could end the national delusions that elected Trump twice and created a movement in his name. Vance and company could be discredited and we could welcome in a new political era of rebuilding. Yes, we Democrats want to win the midterms. But more than that, we want our country back on the road to recovery from the life-threatening disease of Trumpism. It may take a generation, but I still have faith in America.
Over the Rainbow
Meanwhile, I hate to say it, but I’m having trouble maintaining my thirty-year career of reporting on the GLBT community. I see that a campground for gay men somewhere refused to allow transgender men to come to some weekend event. I don’t know. I didn’t really read the story and I am only telling you about it because it’s the sort of thing that I once would use as a springboard for thoughtful commentary about the complexity of transgender rights, but now I can’t focus on it. The world is falling apart!
Actually, it did remind me of a transwoman who had not had surgery but who wanted to go to a nude lesbian event somewhere (normally I’d google this and give you a coherent account). I recall that I said that, if I were to attend such an event, which would be unlikely, I would not want to see a swinging dick, even if it were attached to a trans-sister. Girl, there’s a reason some of us are lesbians.
I couldn’t resist looking up that last item, from June 2023 as it happens. The “Olympus Spa” in Lynnwood, Washington, was the scene of an all-female, naked “traditional, ceremonial, act of cleansing” where penises were not allowed. One transwoman, Haven Wilvich, complained. “It felt really terrible to be invited to an event and find out I can’t attend because the spa is willing to reduce me to my genitalia and not see me as the woman that I am,” she told The Lynwood Times. This still annoys me. You’re not reduced to your genitalia. Your genitalia is simply not invited to the nude female ceremonial act of cleansing or whatever. Get over it! The world is falling apart.
My lack of interest in the trials and tribulations of our GLBT community—problems that are growing and deepening—has left me distracted. For example, instead of reading about the appellate court decision that recently blocked Trump’s trans military ban, I was just drawn into a headline that suggested a dark connection between pillowcases and aging. “Your Pillowcase Could Be Aging You Ten Year Overnight, Warns Dermatologist.”
What the Hell! At once I abandoned my legal research and clicked ahead.
“My name is Sarah Ashworth,” the explanation begins. “The first thing you should know about me is that I’m not a dermatologist. I’m not an expert on skincare either. But five years ago, I discovered an age-defying secret in the most unexpected place—my own bed.”
Hmmm. My instincts tell me this is advertising hyperbole. Indeed, Sarah, 58, tells us that “friction” from her cotton pillowcases was destroying her skin. A new “Blissy” pillowcase seemed like a dream come true.
“The small splotch of middle-aged breakouts was gone. By the end of the month, my wrinkles weren’t as prominent. The skin around my eyes was softer, yet firmer. And after six months? I looked like I was in my early 30s again.”
It took me a dozen clicks to determine that the pillowcase costs about $50. But beyond the inexplicable expense, my irritation rests with the absurd statement that your cotton pillowcase ages you ten years in one night. Lies! Plus, we see that Sarah is not a dermatologist even though the headline promises an expert view. More lies! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t buy a Blissy at half the price and I don’t believe Sarah really looked 25 years younger because of a freaking pillowcase.
I’m not in a good mood.
Ignorance Was Bliss
I paused my column, just resumed this morning, and in less than 24-hours I have been bombarded with online ads for Bliss pillowcases. I know it’s my fault for not blocking cookies or doing something to cut down on trackers, but still. I have also lost my family NCAA bracket game. Two of us went down to the wire with Florida against Houston in the championship game, leapfrogging the rest of the clan, but my stepdaughter Sarah beat me at the buzzer.
Thanks, Sarah. Way to cheer me up from my low spirits. (My wonderful Sarah is not to be confused with the manipulative charlatan from the previous section.)
Meanwhile, as our global economic system frays and our closest allies draw away from us in horror, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville told a Fox person that the threat of transgender women athletes is more insidious than one might think.
“We have entire men’s teams across this country now that are turning trans,” Tuberville told Maria Barteromo. “Women’s teams, they’re turning trans … . That’s going to be a situation where it’s going to pick up speed because these woke globalists are pushing these kids to say if you can’t compete in men’s sports, let’s just transition and say you’re a woman and participate in women’s sports.”
I can’t even make fun of these people anymore. According to The Advocate, the former football coach seemed inspired by an incident in which a cisgender female fencer refused to cross swords with a transgender opponent. It’s not clear how Tuberville made the leap to entire teams turning transgender, nor can we fathom what he meant by saying “men’s teams” are all turning trans. And then there’s his fear of coaches urging mediocre young male athletes to pretend to be transgender in order to excel against female players.
You can’t argue with comments this moronic, nor with the idiots who spout them. And again, with everything else that’s transpiring in our world, I have to wonder whether Senator Tuberville’s constituents really voted for a war against transgender sportswomen while their savings vanish, their costs rise, and their country behaves like a beloved uncle at a dinner party who suddenly appears drunk and hostile, pulls a gun, and waves it around randomly without any knowledge of how it works. Aunt Janice wrests it out of his hand, accidentally blows a hole in the china cabinet, and throws the weapon across the room with a high-pitched scream. Little Jimmy picks it up, excitement mixing with fear as he tries to make sense of the escalating chaos. You get the picture.
Can I also ask why fencing should be influenced by gender? Do men have faster reflexes? I just checked and the research is unclear.
I Do Care
Let me demonstrate my dilemma. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently denied the Trump administration’s request for an administrative stay of a permanent injunction against the transgender military ban. A federal judge in Washington state issued the injunction.
Even as I type these words, there’s another voice in my head going: “blah blah blah blah blah injunction blah blah appellate panel blah blah blah.” And to make matters worse, there’s another federal judge in Washington, D.C., who also issued a preliminary injunction against the trans ban that (conversely) has been subjected to an administrative stay by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That doesn’t sound good, but the D.C. Circuit ruling made clear that the stay would be lifted at once if any anti-trans hanky panky were to occur in the short term.
Please let me throw up my hands in despair. Despair, first and foremost, for the cruel, unnecessary, mean, and destructive treatment of transgender Americans in all areas, but, in particular, for those serving in the United States military who would give their lives on our behalf if asked to do so.
More despair for the fact that I could not figure out why the Ninth Circuit was involved in this whole shebang since I have not been paying my usual attention to GLBT law, and I did not read closely enough to see that the Ninth Circuit case was appealed from a lower court in Washington state, not Washington D.C. I knew about the D.C. case, which today requires me to report on unusual conditions attached to administrative stays, but I missed the Washington state case and fell apart figuring it out (which is why I ended up reading about the dangers of cotton pillowcases).
The rest of the despair comes from the fact that the ban on transgender troops, which should be our lead story, is overshadowed by the impact of Trump on the entire country and the world. For months, my solution for this skewed perspective was to avoid political commentary and news about Trump and just write about gay things or follow alleyways into humorous parts of town. But I couldn’t keep it up and I had to start reading and watching again. I may regret this return to Main Street, but for now, I’m trying to survive it.
The Big Picture
I see in The New York Times that bonobos may be capable of stringing together two “words” to create a third meaning. You know bonobos, of course. They are the sex-crazed simians, hedonists of the jungle, so it’s not surprising they have special talents, linguistic or otherwise. But chimpanzees have also been observed doing the same thing, in their case, combining the word for “come over here!” with a specific danger warning to mean “there’s a snake over here!”
We’ve seen dogs press buttons to communicate with their masters, we’ve seen pets go get help, we’ve seen elephants remember an old keeper. Not too long ago, I saw a headline about how moths can hear weak or ailing trees and plants “crying,” in which case they lay their eggs in a healthier environment.
Looking back to the 1920s, no one could have imagined smart phones, moon landings, or driverless cars. So, sometimes we ask ourselves: “What will the world have discovered or invented a hundred years from now?” I think one answer will be the emotional sentience of other living beings. I don’t think we’ll have a meat industry, and I say this as a carnivore who compartmentalizes the news that pigs have the intellect of 2-year-olds, while ordering bacon and eggs.
But the inhabitants of 22nd Century America will be kinder. Their great grandparents will have turned the country around. Their parents and grandparents will have solved the climate crisis. They will study Trump in high school, where his name will become shorthand for lunacy. And they will talk to dolphins.
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on April 10, 2025
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