(Editors Note: On February 25, 2022, the Florida House of Representatives passed H.B. 1557, “Parental Rights in Education,” colloquially known as the “Don’t Say Gay,” bill. The addendum discussed here, which would have required schools to out LGBTQ kids, was struck from the bill before it was voted on. Meanwhile, The Florida Senate is expected…
Tag: Pride
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law: Outlawing Openness
Conversations we Can’t Avoid There are a lot of conversations we have to have about things that are uncomfortable or difficult to talk about. We try and avoid things like sex, politics or religion–we label them as “out of bounds” and find less controversial things to talk about with people, but there are always going…
I’m Queer. Please Pass the Peas?
By Erika Grumet A few weeks ago, a thirteen year old I know showed up at my house wearing a t-shirt that read:“Bisexual Trash Panda.” Even before I was a parent, I knew adolescent sexuality pretty well–years of teaching about HIV and STIs, contraception and LGBTQ101 gave me a lens into that topic long…
The View from the Wheelchair
In college, one of my friends used to say “dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.” We would go dancing at least once a week, almost every Saturday night was reserved for going to Tracks, a big gay dance club in Washington DC. Some weeks, when money was tighter, we’d go early, when…
Concluding Reflections on Stonewall
By Erika Grumet One Sunday in June, I was folding laundry with my mother. The television was on, tuned into evening news, which was reporting on “gay pride festivities” in New York City. I was a teenager, and as teenagers often do, I held opinions about many things that conflicted with my parents. I…
The Orange on the Seder Plate
“That’s why her hair is so big. Because it’s full of secrets.” -Damian, Mean GIrls “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) -Walt Whitman, Song of Myself A hundred and fifty-ish years apart, and we queers are still talking about secrets and contradictions and the things that we’re…
Blog-posts Lead to Discussion…
By Adam Katz One of my favorite new activities is writing a blog post and having someone I care about bring it up in conversation. I like doing the reverse, as well, not surprisingly. My recent Big Think, about trying to shed the homophobic bias I was invisibly raised with, led to an amazing conversation…
Performing at the Cringe Festival: Becoming an Ally
Early on in my relationship with my very first girlfriend, she told me about how she broke the exciting news to her friends that she was dating someone new: this guy who has all these interests: he likes to knit and listen to opera and draw and play piano, and… To which her friends responded:…
Your Love is better than Ice Cream
By Erika Grumet (A note about the term “bisexuality”: some people find the term ‘bisexuality’ restrictive or uncomfortable because of its focus on the idea of “binary” or an either/or dichotomy. My personal interpretation, the way I use it, describes the idea of “a gender identity similar to mine” and “a gender identity unlike mine”…
We Dance to the Pulse of 49 Hearts
The Pulse Massacre 5 Years Later Shielding vs. Teaching In December of 2012, the day after my youngest child turned 3, on what had begun as a typical Friday (with a little extra crankiness because there had been an extended evening of celebrations the night before) the Facebook News Network broke a story about a…