By Ann Rostow—
Times
I just checked the American Civil Liberties Union’s graph of anti-GLBT bills around the states. Of the 530 such bills introduced, 337 have been defeated, 40 have been passed into law, and 84 are advancing. The rest have been introduced but have yet to go forward.
We’ve always seen large numbers of anti-gay and anti-trans bills filed as state legislatures get into action, many of them so bizarre and nonsensical that your eyes pop, and most of them destined to languish in limbo until the session ends or they just die. Back in the day, only a handful actually made it past the lawmakers and onto a governor’s desk, and they were easy to cover in, um, let’s say, a GLBT news roundup.
That is no longer the case. I can’t keep up with 40 new laws and maybe 100 more in progress. Some of the “defeated” bills have reappeared in the active files, or even the enacted lists. And, no, I can’t keep up with these machinations either. I can follow some of the most outrageous news makers, such as the Kansas law that invalidated the drivers’ licenses of transgender motorists from one day to the next, or maybe the Idaho bathroom law that carried a potential felony charge (halted by a court for the moment), but the rest are a firehose of assaults on transgender citizens and their parents. It’s like trying to use an umbrella in a hurricane.
And the chaos from state lawmakers is far from our only struggle. In Washington state, midterm voters will consider an anti-trans sports initiative that will require all girls taking part in both pubic school sports and nonprofit sports groups to get documentation from a health care provider that proves their biological sex based on “reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.” I gather students are already required to get a checkup before the school year, but the intrusive sex checks would be something new (and horrible).
The bizarre ballot initiative is backed by a hedge fund manager named Brian Heywood, who has spent $2.23 million (according to Ballotpedia) and founded “Let’s Go Washington” to promote this plan. He’s also pushing a measure to remove certain taxes on high income Washingtonians and another to allow parents to opt their kids out of sex ed classes. A couple of other states have anti-trans sports measures on the ballot, but this is the first I’ve heard of any proposal to force cisgender women and girls to prove their gender. It’s bad enough to scrutinize transgender athletes, but putting all girls through a medical sex verification when transgender girls in sports are a fraction of one percent of sportswomen is jaw dropping. But it’s on the fracking ballot!
More Tough Times
Glancing through headlines, I see that Michigan will no longer defend its ban on conversion therapy, now that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Christian counsellor in Colorado who claimed that the law against this dangerous practice violated her free speech rights. Thanks for nothing, Justices. If I recall correctly, even our liberal friends voted against Colorado based on the flawed notion that the Rocky Mountain state targeted one viewpoint (being gay is bad) and allowed another (being gay is okay). That’s like complaining that a statewide limit on smoking in public violates the First Amendment rights of nicotine addicts.
We also, of course, have the attacks from the administration itself. We’ve been covering the two major lawsuits aiming to protect transgender service members, but, meanwhile, these patriotic Americans are regularly being ousted by the Defense Department after sham trials. A recent New York Times article described the closed-door hearings where Trumpy military panels rubber stamp the administration’s policies, kicking out decorated service members regardless of their records and despite the words of witnesses who testify to their abilities and courage.
Oh, and then there was the crazed ISIS adherent who drove a van into a crowd at Berlin’s Pride celebration, killing one woman and injuring 30 other people before he was shot by police.
The crucible of being GLBT in 2025 and 2026 is intensifying. But we also can report that over 300,000 people lined the canals in Amsterdam on August 1 to revel in the main event of the multi-day celebration of World Pride. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who is gay, rode on one of the 80 or so boats that passed by a memorial to the victims of Berlin’s Christopher Street parade. The next evening, or actually Monday at 2:30 am, Madonna hit the stage at the final night’s music gala with Kylie Minogue in tow, sending the audiences into paroxysms of excitement.
Whatever else, we still know how to party.
Wither Kindness?
Do you remember the Michigan hair stylist who posted an anti-gay statement in 2023? It read: “If a human identifies as anything other than man/woman, please seek services at your local pet groomer. You are not welcome at this salon. Period.” I don’t remember her either, but she was charged with violating state civil rights law and she now has to pay court costs for several would-be clients who sued. Since transgender men and women obviously identify as men or women, I’m not sure who she meant to send to the pet shops. She also has to attend six months of anti-discrimination training.
That was the only vaguely positive story I’ve found in the last hour or so of looking. It’s depressing to report setback after setback. The full Eleventh Circuit upheld a ban on drag shows in Florida. A school in Virginia just terminated a Gay Straight Alliance after parents and people on social media complained. (I thought we won those debates twenty years ago. Remember the Equal Access Act?) In a break from bad news, I sidetracked over to the New York Times Ethicist column, where a questioner asks: “Am I Obligated to Tell My Friends How Bad Their Botox Looks?”
What? Why would the “ethicist,” who is too long-winded to hold my interest as a rule, even entertain such a mean-spirited idea? This unpleasant person claims to be concerned for their friends’ well-being. “I do not think they are happy, because they seem increasingly critical of themselves, and I do not think they realize how extreme it has become,” they explain. Just how many friends with bad Botox jobs does this person have?
The Ethicist advises that, if a friend “seems increasingly unhappy or self-critical, you can talk with her about whether the aesthetic that med spas promote is undermining her confidence.
“But maybe keep to yourself the part about how “bizarre” you think these women look.”
Maybe? Why on Earth would someone think it appropriate to write to the Times about such a cruel idea? The letter was clearly a good decision since it was published, which shows how much I know. But really. Do you honestly think that telling your friends “how bad their Botox looks” will help them become happier and less critical about themselves? When did people get so heartless? And when did “should I be cruel or not” become an ethical dilemma?
What A Piece of Work Is Man
Here’s a thing. George Santos is in trouble for placing a bet on Kalshi that he would not be attending Trump’s State of the Union last February. He then posted: “I’m going to be there for the State of Union in the gallery, guys,” and didn’t actually go, winning $17,000 and change. I don’t know where to start with this one (which I probably shouldn’t have started to begin with). Like all of you, I’m familiar with Kalshi, but, like many of you, I’ve never looked at it closely. I know that it lets you bet on all sorts of probabilities, but who (other than Santos) would bet on whether or not George Santos, who was not in office, would be going to the State of the Union? What else can you bet on? Will Patrick Mahomes get a haircut on Wednesday? Will someone get run over and killed by a red 1968 Mustang this weekend?
Santos, who claimed he missed his flight to D.C., was investigated and then settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He had to cough up the dough and also pay a $17,000 penalty. It kind of stuns me that people are still getting into trouble for grift and fraud while the Trumps and others run rampant over the law.
And speaking of no-good-niks, did I mention that Alan Chambers was caught soliciting a 14-year-old boy last May? My wife just saw this and sent it to me, but I think I missed it at the time. Normally, we don’t rehash old news, but Alan Chambers is different. He was the president of Exodus International, the organization that purported to cure men of homosexuality. In 2013, he closed Exodus and issued a public apology acknowledging (Wikipedia tells me) that he had been “imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring towards our fellow human beings nor Biblical.”
He appeared to backtrack from the whole idea that sexual orientation could be reversed, but, as far as I can tell, he remained mired in an incoherent Christian mindset that called for, I don’t know, everyone to love everyone and follow Jesus in some way. He certainly didn’t embrace having a mature, authentic life as a gay man, which seems clear now that he’s been nailed for having a months-long online relationship with an undercover cop who claimed to be 14 years old.
Eventually, Chambers arranged to meet the “boy,” and was promptly arrested and charged with three felonies. He’s out on bail for now, but presumably headed for trial and/or jail. What a sad sack.
Lesbians Behaving Normally
I was considering writing about a trio of lesbians who were all involved in an online lifestyle and therapy service, but who are now suing each other. This obnoxious-sounding trio was the subject of a tiresome article that I tried to read but couldn’t finish. Now I can’t even find it.
I did, however, spend quite a while searching for it on the lesbian news pages, reading about a lesbian mud wrestling match at Lollapalooza, which looked simply like women who may or may not have been lesbians messing around in some slime. I read several love letters between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok and learned that there’s a 72-unit apartment complex reserved for lesbians in Berlin.
I encountered an animated book about animal sex called Poking the Squid, which includes references to lesbian albatrosses that (somehow) steal sperm from males to conceive with their Sapphic mates. Oh, and I was warned not to go to Senegal, one of 45 countries that prosecute gay women.
At one point, I ran into this headline: “A TikTok influencer has delighted the internet with a video describing why he believes ‘lesbians are an elevated form of the human race.’”
The influencer, “That Steve Guy,” went over to his lesbian neighbors’ house for dinner.
“We walked in, and their house smelled like sandalwood,” he wrote. “They had all the food set up in the kitchen: two types of wings, crispy fries, grilled zucchini strips, real baked beans, street corn, mussels tossed in a white wine sauce, and we had silk pie for dessert. And somehow, they cleaned up while we were there, and we didn’t see it happen, and when we left, they gave us wildflower seeds and a succulent.”
They sound like sisters, albeit the kind I might avoid. Or maybe not. I love mussels in white wine.
Finally, I discovered (on PinkNews) the term: “black cat lesbian,” which refers to a lesbian who, um, acts like a black cat. “This lesbian is femme, mysteriously sexy, and can sometimes be a bit of a mean girl—if you get on the wrong side of her.” According to Rosie Turner, whoever she may be: “You’re probably going to find your black cat on the sofa watching a murder documentary, painting their claws, or [reading] horoscopes under a blanket.”
One alternative to that oddball is a “golden retriever lesbian,” a masculine woman who acts like a happy puppy. “They’re just excited to be there, they love people, they love hanging with you, they want to please who[m]ever they’re with.”
Please, no.
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on August 13, 2026
Recent Comments