Pete Buttigieg, former United States Secretary of Transportation and a very vocal member of the Democratic Party, is speaking out about what he considers to be “the ugliest thing that has happened to [him] since [his] career in service began.” He was recently temporarily separated from his four-year-old twins after an anonymous false report to […]
Facial Scan Technology in Gay Bars: Pros and Cons
Several bars in San Francisco’s Castro district have begun using technology that scans ID’s and photographs patrons’ faces. Allegedly, the technology is employed to blacklist bad patrons who engage in fighting, theft, or other disruptive activities, but some customers are uncomfortable with the threat to their privacy that such record-keeping poses. Supporters argue that the […]
David Hockney Radically Illuminated Queer Desire
Multi-media British queer artist David Hockney recently died at 88 years of age. His art collaged together an ordinary and beautiful gay existence at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the United Kingdom, making his work quite transgressive. He avoided the usual cultural narratives that depicted gay men as tragic, deviant, and secretive, […]
Niger Criminalizes Same-Sex Practices
Niger joins the growing list of West African countries (including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Burkina Faso) that have recently criminalized same-sex relations. Its anti-Western military government regards tolerance for homosexuality as a mark of Western cultural imperialism. Committing or attempting to commit “an indecent or unnatural act, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual […]
Latest Gallup Poll: Support for LGBTQ Declining
In a poll conducted May 1-17 of this year, the Gallup survey found that only 62% of American respondents regard gay and lesbian relations as “morally acceptable,” down 9% from 2022; support for changing gender is at only 38%, down 8% since 2021. Support for same-sex marriage also declined 6% from its peak in 2022-23. […]
Pride Festivals in Asia
South Korea’s conservative Protestants represent only a fifth of the population in a country where most people follow no religion, yet they have wielded huge influence over the government which has blocked a comprehensive anti-discrimination law that would protect LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disabilities, and racial minorities. Similar to what is happening in the […]
The Fruit Machine
Frank Robert Wake was a former professor at Carleton University who was involved in secret Cold War-era research targeting queer people. He was chair of the Psychology Department at the time and was infamously known for his “fruit machine”, a “battery of psychological tests, including techniques to measure a person’s output of sweat and detect […]
Pornhub Sapphic Launches
On May 26, 2026, Pornhub launched Pornhub Sapphic, a new platform created especially for women. Pornhub Sapphic will be “built for the female gaze,” according to a press release shared with Mashable, and designed for WLW (women loving women) audiences. The ads that appear on the site will be targeted toward women instead of the […]
Sexual Tolerance in the Pacific Northwest
While much of the U.S. is turning back the clock in civil rights and sexual freedom, is the Pacific Northwest becoming a haven for sexual tolerance? Portland, Oregon is the latest U.S. city to codify polyamorous rights in housing, jobs, and public spaces. Portland’s ordinance is the latest in a recent wave of cities including […]
A “Trans-Barbie World” in India
At the annual Koovagam festival in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, more than 100,000 have gathered recently for a celebration of acceptance and community. The festival is rooted in a story from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, in which participants symbolically marry the deity Aravan and then publicly mourning his death the next […]