Queer Majority

On April 10, 2024, Larriett, a then-executive at Whirlpool, was pulled over by the Michigan State Police. Over the course of the next several hours, he was given a battery of field sobriety tests, subjected to snide remarks about his sexual orientation (he’s a gay black man), accused of being a drug mule, and taken to a local hospital for blood tests. He was even forced to defecate in front of police, who yelled “don’t flush” repeatedly.

I was lucky enough to find a new full-time job pretty quickly, but it meant giving up on working from home and returning to the office. Everyone has rallied to make sure our daughter is cared for, dinner is ready, and the chickens are fed. It’s a stressful change, but knowing that someone else is scheduling doctor’s visits and finding an in-network dentist makes it so much easier.

This trend has defined American politics for three consecutive presidential elections, and according to the Economic Innovation Group, in 2024, President Trump continued to gain ground in counties with high rates of poverty and unemployment and lower levels of education. This has led to an entirely new political right — and not just in socioeconomic terms.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Russia’s behavior in Ukraine. In the Ukrainian territories Putin has seized, Moscow has exported its so-called “Russian values” agenda, attacking LGBT people, silencing queer communities, and criminalising their very existence. These are the individual lives and freedoms now treated like bargaining chips.

Produced for the Canadian streaming service Crave and quickly picked up by HBO Max and other platforms around the world, Heated Rivalry, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series of romance novels, tells the story of Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie).

Pahlavi may be the son of the last ruling Shah prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but his political relevance today has nothing to do with nostalgia for monarchy. Most of his supporters were not alive during the Pahlavi era. His influence comes from something far more dangerous to the Islamic Republic. He represents a credible, unifying, secular alternative with values that directly contradict everything the regime stands for.

To understand why this reaction is noteworthy, it helps to revisit how queerbaiting became a cultural flashpoint in the first place. The term “queerbaiting” was popularized in the early 2010s through online fan communities to criticize shows that hinted at same-sex attraction without following through. Around the same time, the #OwnVoices movement gained traction in publishing, advocating for stories about historically marginalized groups to be told by creators from within those communities.

This does not mean that LGBT people — or anyone from troubled families or abusive religious communities — don’t struggle during the holidays. It means that portraying Christmas as a uniquely lethal season is inaccurate — and often unhelpful. LGBT people do face a higher risk of suicide, but not because of Christmas. Gay, lesbian, trans, and especially bi people have a higher baseline risk of suicidal ideation and self-harm overall. That part of the narrative is real and serious.

Alarmed, Democrats have started to search for explanations and ways to reverse these trends.

These transsexuals have lived among us for decades, often incognito, without much fuss. I have known several such people throughout my life — as friends, acquaintances, and coworkers — and found them perfectly decent people, as ordinary as you and me. Some were so well-assimilated that I had no idea that they were trans for quite some time.