The Human Rights Campaign: Towards a More Open and Closer View of Queer Media Dispatch and the Future of the Mass Mass Mass Media
Last month, the new president of the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robinson, posted a six-and-a-half-minute video to introduce herself and frame the mission of her organization, which was founded 40 years ago by the gay activist Steve Endean to help fund political campaigns for pro-gay-rights candidates. In the video, Robinson talked about voting rights. She talked about transgender kids in school. She talked about workers’ rights. She said that we need to go to a world where everyone is free and no one is left behind.
She’s not the only one. The word gay is being replaced by a new term, “queer”, which is also about gender and more so than sexual orientation. The word “queer” is climbing in frequency and can be used interchangeably with “gay,” which itself not so long ago replaced the dour and faintly judgy “homosexual.”
It is often a generational issue where younger people are more comfortable with it. People like me who are Gen Xers are okay with it. Some you might find in each category,” Jason DeRose, who oversees L.G.B.T.Q. reporting at NPR, said of the news organization’s move toward queer. “And then older people or boomers, maybe, who find it problematic.”
A Night at Spike’s in Alabama: A Wonderful Time for a New Look at Humanity and Sexuality in the 21st Century
I came here not because of Alabama’s strong record of homophobic legislation or the fact that less than half of the population in the state supports federal protections for gay marriage, but because I wanted to be close to the people who love me and care about me. I came here because the last time I was in Alabama, in 2017, I had one of the best nights of my life, at a gay bar with a bunch of queer people I had just met.
At the time, I was the editor of HuffPost, and I was in town with a group of colleagues as part of a cross-country bus tour we did, interviewing people about the state of America along the way. We had met and interviewed the man who went by the name Mr. Leather. He invited us back to the local leather bar, Spike’s. It is hard to explain how comforting it feels to walk into a queer space, even if it is different from what we are used to. Rounds of shots were fired after a night of karaoke, dancing and faux cages. My memories are hazy, but the pictures and videos on our phones don’t lie: We had a blast.
It was a time when there were major TV shows dedicated to the stars who are male and female. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” had become a cultural phenomenon, and drag performances drew wider audiences. Gay patrons don’t like the fact that gay bars have become popular destinations for straight parties.