HAPPY PRIDE

Another June, another Pride, another month of queer books, movies, history and people getting more of a spotlight. As I’m spending June in the U.S. instead of Canada this year, I know things will be slightly more muted due to less corporate sponsorship and more political on account of an administration intent on rolling back gains, tainting history and scaring its base in portraying trans rights as “threats.”

 

I am fortunate to be spending most of the month in Colorado which has a gay Democratic governor, Jared Polis, and two Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Polis has been married to Marlon Reis since 2021 and the couple has two children. 

 

Still, things feel very different from back home in Vancouver. Evan and I freely hold hands in Denver and he often moves in for a quick kiss—things I’d be far less comfortable doing in a red state—but I feel less at ease as we venture to more remote areas such as his family cabin and on hiking trails in the Colorado mountains. I have no stats to back me up but the more pickup trucks I see in a community, the more conservative it seems. Evan listens to NPR most of the day and, while it is purportedly a left-leaning news source, the station is fixated on Donald Trump. “Trump this” and “Trump that…” My mood drops as my level of agitation rises. Without fail, I find myself begging Evan to switch to a soft jazz station. He quickly honors my request, but I can tell he’s totally used to All-Things-Trump when I’m away. Such is the state of the union.

 

I expect a harsher political climate if I make a planned visit to see my parents in East Texas sometime this month. When I was there eight months ago, I stopped at sixteen gas stations, grocery stores and book shops on a Sunday in search of a New York Times. There didn’t seem to be a copy anywhere in Tyler, a city with a population of 115,000. My parents will sit for their daily dose of Fox News. Trump bumper stickers will be rampant. I Googled “Pride Tyler Texas” and the main event will not include something so public as a parade; instead, on Saturday, June 20, there will be food trucks, vendors and art displays inside a conference center, an event organized by Tyler Area Gays (TAG+). 

 

I can’t imagine what it would be like spending June or any month in many of the places I drove through in Southern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho and Utah on my way to Denver. I would never want to return to the confused, lonelier, closeted existence I experienced while attending high school and university in Texas. All that was a long, long time ago but, aside from online connections, I don’t think I’d feel much better there in 2026. Life felt dramatically freer once I moved to Los Angeles in 1989.

 

I’d like to spend much of this month reflecting on the good fortune that has led me into a healthy, loving relationship with Evan, reaching out to the few gay friends who remain in my life and honouring those who died of AIDS and other causes. I’d like to ponder more about marrying Evan, a subject I didn’t even think possible when I landed in L.A. And I’d like to enjoy the two books I’m currently reading, Queer by Beatnik member William S. Burroughs and The Journalist of Castro Street, a biography of the late gay writer Randy Shilts (And the Band Played On; The Mayor of Castro Street).

 

Generally, during a day or month of celebration, it’s all about gratitude and festivities but in the eleven years that have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed marriage equality, there has been an alarming backslide in rights, in open expressions of queer support and in the movement toward understanding and accepting trans people and those who identify as one of the Plus groups under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. I continue to receive emails from and follow the website for Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) as a way to stay informed and to consider personal political actions. I check the Advocate’s website weekly for affirming stories while also reading about setbacks at the state and city levels that have slipped through mainstream media coverage. Basically, I continue to be on guard and to not take my rights and freedoms for granted. To do otherwise would be a manifestation of foolish Pride. Alas, this is not a time for complacency. 

 

To other queers and queer allies, enjoy the positive, fun activities scheduled for this month, but I hope you also find time for self-education and honing a reality check of where things stand in terms of LGBTQ+ issues in the U.S., in Canada and around the world. We are stronger when we stay informed and involved.

 

  

AN “ADVOCATE” ISSUE

There was a time when I had a subscription to The Advocate, a publication that I considered to be the gay version of Time magazine. I wanted to know about what Barney Frank was up to on Capitol Hill, kept up with Larry Kramer’s provocative antics and I read about bigger theatrical productions (think Tony Kushner) and lesser ones while also getting the scoop on mediocre-but-hey-it’s-gay movies like “Jeffrey”.

I am dating myself.

As many print magazines have folded, others have reduced their publication schedule. Alas, for example, GQ is now seasonal instead of monthly, but I liked it better when pretty male models graced the cover instead of celebrities. Again, dating myself. The Advocate, in turn, has gone from bi-weekly to bi-monthly. As with so many once-prospering publications, The Advocate has tried to remain au courant with extra online content.

I check in with www.advocate.com about once a week. Sadly, I have a clear sense of which posts are the lesser read pieces—the ones I happen to click to get some LGBT news and commentary. I am increasingly annoyed by other posts, the ones that no doubt get more traffic and drive up advertising revenue. I roll my eyes and remind myself content is pragmatically chosen. So much of the magazine business has to do with advertising dollars, even more so now that physical subscriptions have sharply declined. News about atrocities in Chechnya gets space on the website because thousands of site visitors clicked on shirtless photos of “Bears in Boston”. So real news coexists with lighter fare. So light it gets that lite spelling, as when we refer to cottage cheese. I continue to live in The World of Wishful Thinking where a national publication on LGBT news, opinion and entertainment can be just that, where readers are drawn to the reporting, the challenging perspectives and the writing. Many would say that was never The Advocate, but its 1990s version was far closer to that aspiration than the current incarnation. I mourn a little every time I visit the site.

One day last week—okay, full confession, it was Friday and, yes, I had nothing to do—I did some headline sorting on the website: articles I’d click, articles that make me lose faith, and harmless articles that might appeal to both news geeks and those seeking to be titillated. (Note that I copied the headlines as they appeared on the site, inhaling and exhaling slowly so as not to react to glaring inconsistencies in The Advocate’s standards regarding capitalization rules in titles. Writing geek that I am, I had to say that! Yes, Toni Braxton, now I can “Breathe Again”.)   

For folks like me (who refer to themselves as “folks”):

“HRC Rallies to Drive Antigay Democrat From Office”

“Use Of PrEP Grows, But Not Among Non-Whites”

“Ireland’s Gay Prime Minister Meets With Trump”

“Lena Waithe Calls On People of Color in Hollywood to Come Out”

For the oglers and bored office workers (with very private cubicle spaces):

“Getting Slutty in Seattle in 100 Photos” It’s an easy drive from Vancouver, but this is not inspiring a visit.

“26 Things Gay Sex Workers Want You to Know” Wasn’t that a cover story for a supermarket tabloid?

“101 Photos of Leathermen on a SoCal Rampage” Ooh! The drama! Do the editors know the definition of rampage? Not clicking…

“Terry Miller in Next to Nothing for Tom of Finland Store (Photos)” Who is Terry Miller? Apparently an artist, but a quick Google search identifies him first as “Dan Savage’s husband”. Nice butt but whatever…

Fortunately, there’s some middle ground…posts that may interest a mix of Advocate browsers:

“Here’s What Allies Can Learn From ‘Love, Simon’” Yes, this movie has to be for non-gays. Am I the only one who concluded that, from the trailers, it looks like it would have been interesting thirty years ago?

“Janeane Garofalo Is Still the Voice of My Generation” Yes, she is from my generation...one week older than I am. I've loved her ever since "Reality Bites". Anyone else think she’d be perfectly cast as Ellen Page’s mother or aunt?

“Yep, I’m HIV-Positive and Happy” Sounds like something for “People” or “O” magazine, the kind of article to read in a reception area.

“This Discontinued Gay Ken Doll Will Haunt Mattel Forever” First there was Chucky, then the Bride of Chucky and now…Gay Ken. Screams and gasps! Mwah, mwah, mwah!

So which, if any, posts did you click? Which ones did you at least think of clicking? What looked boring? What generated your own case of the cringes?

THE ULTIMATE GAYCATION

Tonight I am in the Third Gayest City in the United States!

And I am definitely alone.

I spent the afternoon driving around and then walking in the downtown core. Not a rainbow flag to be found. Not a club. Not even a little multi-colored sticker on a shop window.

Third. Gayest. City.

Yeah, forget San Francisco, New York, Miami, L.A. and Chicago. This place outranked dem wannabes. Only Tacoma (#1—natch!) and Springfield, Massachusetts (#2—duh!) are gayer.

There really shouldn’t be any suspense. I’m in Spokane, of course.

I’ll repeat:

Third. Gayest. City.

Spokane!

No doubt, The Advocate got an awful lot of publicity when it published its list. It also lost a chunk of its credibility as a magazine with its pulse on the gay community.

If that community exists in Spokane, its pulse just stopped. I’ll take the blame. I killed it. As soon as a hit city limits—POOF!—the gay factor cleared out.

I did not spot a single gay man. Or a married one. I am used to them passing me with that West Hollywood walk of indifference or crossing to the other side of the street when they see me coming, but there wasn’t even any of that. Just nothing.

The free weekly news rag contained nothing gay. Not in the articles, not in the ads, not in the events listings. But it did have a story on the “dead” art of taxidermy.

The local grocery had no gay magazines. Heck, it didn’t even carry GQ. Instead, it had a large collection of gun rags—Shotgun News, Handguns, Shooting Times & Country. Maybe I didn’t run the gays out of town after all.

This gaycation is a bust.

Shoulda hit Tacoma.