By Ann Rostow–
Another year has come to an end, and what a year it was. My friends, I can’t imagine what lies ahead of us now. I can only hope that whatever comes our way is far better than our dire imaginings. Second, I hope for the unexpected. I hope for positive developments that we can’t foresee: breakthroughs, heroes, and champions. All I know is that it serves no purpose to sit around as the year ends anticipating the worst, and in my experience, we rarely anticipate what actually happens. Let’s just deal with the future as it plays out.
Meanwhile, tradition requires us to tackle the annual End of Year Quiz, a rear mirror glimpse of our colorful community comings and goings as reflected in this column. Am I the only one who is suddenly struck by the fact that we are already a quarter of the way through the 21st Century? How did that happen? Good luck!
Question One: Which of these female subjects is NOT associated with the conservative “Moms for Liberty?”
a) She proudly posed for pictures at a rally with the Proud Boys.
b) She was arrested for stealing roughly $725 in merchandise from Target’s self check-out over the course of seven trips.
c) She called her transgender daughter: “the bitch that killed my son.”
d) She (accidentally) used a quote from Hitler in the group newsletter.
e) She and her husband had a three-way, and the husband—who was head of the state GOP— went back by himself and (allegedly) raped the other woman.
Question Two: Evangeline Simpson Whipple was:
a) a prospective juror in a lesbian discrimination case who, in a controversial move, was dismissed for “cause” due to her religious beliefs.
b) an elderly citizen of Knutsford, England, who nursed what she believed was an injured hedgehog until the humane society informed her it was the bobblehead of a ski cap.
c) the lesbian lover of Rose Cleveland, who was First Lady during her brother Grover’s first year in office.
d) the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that pit drag performers against the state of Texas.
Question Three: Which of these creatures from our columns are gay?
a) the aggressive whales off the coast of Maui
b) the elephant that ran over a woman in East Rutherford, New Jersey
c) the seagulls on the island off the coast of Southern California
d) the funnel-web spiders cruising for sex in the Outback
d) the mouse that lives in a workshop in Wales
e) the rose-breasted grosbeak in the Pennsylvania Powdermill Nature Reserve
Question Four: What was the Supreme Court up to this year? True or False:
a) The justices decided to review whether or not Tennessee’s law against transgender youth healthcare violates the Equal Protection Clause, hearing arguments in the case in early December.
b) The justices decided to block the Department of Education’s 400-plus-page set of regulations for Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination in public schools and colleges, effectively overruling the Biden Administration on a major issue of public policy while a conservative lawsuit winds its way through the lower courts.
c) The justices agreed to hear the workplace sexual orientation discrimination case of a straight woman who claims she lost a promotion because she was not gay.
d) The justices decided to punt the case brought by Indiana parents who object to school district policies that protect the privacy of questioning students.
Question Five: Time flies. When was it … 2022, 2023, or 2024?
a) A German plastic surgeon accidentally killed his lover with an overdose by putting coke on his penis before oral sex.
b) A 24-year-old Taiwanese lesbian paid men to abduct her girlfriend and drive her to get married as a surprise prank.
c) An Iowa woman repeatedly stabbed her transgender lover, put her dead body in a car and drove at speeds exceeding 100 mph down an interstate in Minnesota.
d) An Indian man introduced a two-foot live eel into his abdominal cavity via the back door, along with a lime.
e) A Japanese man spent $16,000 on a realistic collie suit, and posted videos of himself being walked on a leash and eating kibble out of a dog bowl.
f) A thirty-something man died with a ping pong ball in his ass after being electrocuted while pleasuring himself.
Question Six: Who did what? Match the following men to the antics below: Kevin Roberts, Paul Pressler, Franz Marcus Stadelmann, Michael Voris, Harrison Butker, Kitara Rivache.
a) He is an NFL kicker who told the women in a university graduating class that being a wife and mother should be their ultimate goals.
b) He is an arch Catholic antigay YouTube star who was caught sending shirtless selfies from the gym to other guys.
c) He is the alter ego of disgraced Congressmember George Santos.
d) He is one of the architects of Project 2025 who allegedly killed his neighbor’s dog, Loca, with a shovel back in the day because she barked too much.
e) He is a (once) respected leader of the Southern Baptist Church who was accused of sexual abuse.
f) He is the founder of the first ever gay yodeling club.
Question Seven: One Million Moms objected to ads by KFC, Keebler, Bounce Dryer Sheets and Mountain Dew. Why?
a) They all used wordplay that suggested naughty expressions.
b) They all introduced special promotions for Pride Month.
c) Their non-human avatars were based on Satanic pagan characters.
d) They embedded rainbow colors and/or triangle symbols as a secret sign to the gay community.
Question Eight: Which of these politically correct scenarios is the most absurd?
a) California enacted a law that requires non-binary toy aisles in large retail stores.
b) A university conference presented notions of “queer food,” which exemplify our community spirit.
c) An activist called Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton a “Nazi cooperator” for writing that he does not want his daughters to play sports against boys.
d) A transgender woman is continuing to sue Colorado baker Jack Phillips years after the Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop opinion and after the state of Colorado has already settled the dispute over the fact that Phillips refused to make her a special transition cake.
Question Nine: Which of the following 2024 GLBT victories did NOT come from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit?
a) The court ruled that a teenaged transgender girl could not be barred from playing sports with the other girls in middle school.
b) The court ruled that parents in Maryland could not halt their school’s reading program while they challenged it in court.
c) The court ruled that North Carolina could not block transgender employees from full use of the state health insurance program.
d) The court ruled that West Virginia could not limit transgender surgery for adults under Medicaid.
Question Ten: In 2025, would you rather …
a) see Kimberly Guilfoyle write a “tell all” autobiography, or see Usha Vance leave her husband?
b) be in perfect health but feel exhausted all the time, or have manageable cancer but feel great?
c) see Pete Hegseth confirmed as the Secretary of Defense, or Robert Kennedy confirmed as Secretary of HHS?
d) be in love but broke, or be financially secure but not that into your partner?
e) see the U.S. economy continue to thrive, or have it go into a recession?
f) get a job you absolutely love with a low salary, or get a tough position with spectacular compensation in a beautiful location?
g) walk into a party with unlimited champagne, beluga caviar, and cocaine, or sit down to dinner at a three-star Michelin restaurant with four Nobel Prize winners?
Answer One: c) This is actually Mary Cox from Indiana who unsuccessfully sued to regain custody of her transgender teen daughter who was removed from the home by Child Protective Services. The others, indeed, are leading lights at Moms for Liberty. Another one held a boozy bash for minor children to celebrate her child’s birthday, but that didn’t sound so bad to me. Hey, the kids were in their late teens. They were all right.
Answer Two: c) The two women met in 1889, after President Cleveland had married, and had a passionate affair until Evangeline married a bishop in 1896. A decade or so later, after the bishop had died, Rose (then in her late 60s) wrote Evangeline: “I need you and life is not long enough to always wait.” The two women wound up living together in Tuscany, where Rose died of the Spanish Flu in 1918 at age 72. Evangeline, who was younger than Rose, died in London in 1930.
Answer Three: The gay animals are a) and c). The frisky whales may have injured some of their less interested playmates, while the lesbian seagulls near Santa Barbara were being studied under a federal grant that came under disapproving scrutiny in the 1970s. The elephant was a mechanical “Dream Rider” at the mall, driven by an out of control eight-year-old, the funnel-web spiders were cruising for heterosexual sex, and the mouse came out at night to tidy up the owner’s desk. As for the grosbeak, it was a rare intersexed “gynandromorphic” specimen, with yellow female feathers on one side and red male feathers on the other. Ironically, the intersexed grosbeak was greeted with awe and excitement by the staff at Powdermill. Intersexed grosbeaks? We love them! Intersexed humans? Not so much.
Answer Four: All four of these statements are true. a) The conservatives seemed likely to uphold Tennessee’s anti-trans law, as well as many other red state versions of the same, leaving young transgender kids and teens with no recourse for treatment. b) The Biden Department of Education policies are about to become moot. c) The straight case is a vehicle to ask when and how can a majority member sue for discrimination. Think white people who think their Black bosses are biased, or men who think the women are ganging up on them. d) And the only reason the Court steered clear of that Indiana case (in mid-December) was because none of the parents had been affected by the policies and so they lacked standing. Nevertheless, Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh wanted to hear the case anyway. Say what?
The bottom line is that the Court majority is not on our side.
Answer Five: a) 2022. I wonder, logistically, how you can fit overdose levels of coke on your penis. b) 2022 again. The girlfriend escaped, the men ran away, and the prankster was arrested until the whole thing was sorted out. c) This was 2024, although I’m not sure I did justice to the story in my column. After crashing the car, Margot Lewis was found by police sitting on a lawn chair in the I-90 median. d) Again, 2024. Surgeons in Vietnam removed the eel and the lime. Apparently, this was not their first experience with this kind of extraction. e) That’s 2023, as is f). Guys, guys, guys! Be careful out there.
Answer Six: Roberts is the dog killer. Pressler is the abuser, Stadelmann founded the Jodlerklub gay yodeling club. Voris is the gym rat. Butker is the kicker, and Kitara Rivache, of course, is the former Congressman’s drag name.
Answer Seven: a) KFC referred to “bucket,” Keebler elves said “Fudge!,” the Bounce Dryer guys said, “Sheet,” and Mountain Dew said to get off your ass, showing a donkey instead of saying the word “ass.” The Moms also berated the manscaping commercials, and many others including the Jesus people at “He Gets Us,” who weren’t evangelical enough or something. I meant to look into that. It sounds as if the American Family Association (the Moms) don’t like the He Gets Us people (Hobby Lobby and others).
Answer Eight: There is no doubt the answer is b). “Queer food defies categorization, and that’s its beauty,” said one of the conference organizers incoherently. One participant singled out okra as a “queer food” because “it’s crunchy and ooshy-gushy,” and “a lot of people think it’s weird.” Readers, I put my foot down. When we take ourselves too seriously and find the “queer” angle to anything and everything we experience, we look like fools. And we are. Also, okra is disgusting. And by the way, Jack Phillips was originally sued because he refused to sell a standard cake off the rack to two gay men in violation of state anti-discrimination law. He is not legally obligated to produce a custom order of any sort, just as a baker is not obliged to produce a swastika cake. Nonetheless, this woman has been suing him for years.
Answer Nine: All of these rulings came from the Fourth Circuit. The last two were part of a combined case that was heard by the full court, fourteen judges who ruled 8–6 in favor of the transgender employees and patients. The Fourth Circuit was also where transboy Gavin Grimm repeatedly won the right to use bathrooms in his high school. The Fourth Circuit, where we have a slight Democratic edge, covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Our edge is unlikely to survive four years of Trump.
Answer Ten: Of course, this is just me. a) I want the dirt from Kimberly. I don’t wish marital ill on JD and Usha. b) I’ll take the manageable cancer. If you’re tired all the time, there’s something wrong with you and they just haven’t found it yet. c) I’ll take Kennedy. I think he can do less damage. d) In love, of course. e) I suppose I want us to thrive even as a recession would reflect badly on the bozos in charge. f) I’d take the job I love. You only live once, and can you appreciate it if you’re slogging away and under pressure all the time? g) Both options sound exhausting.
See you next year!
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on December 19, 2024
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