Showing posts with label LGBTQ+. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LGBTQ+. Show all posts

August 31, 2025

The trans communtiy needs their own Billy Jean King, by Hal M. Brown

 


I just watched this guy, Sebastion Gorka shown below, this lying trans obsessed sack of excrement, on CNN blaming trans youth for an inordinate number of school shootings:

When the host tried to interrupt him disputing his claims with real statistics he kept talking over him. This was yet another time I wished hosts could a flash yellow light before cutting off their microphone. 

Whenever the host tried to interject actual factual statistics he accused CNN of making up their own facts and having done this for 10 years.

In the next segement, which was supposed to be about RFK Jr., another Trump spokesmans went off once again on how trans people need to be dealt with. This had absolutely nothing to do with what everyone else was discussing on a panel what included him, a less adamant RFK Jr. supporter, and, if I recall correctly, one or two critics.

I am not going to go into depth about this particular show and specifically Sebastion Gorka. It should suffice to show his X page (below):

What I am both intrigued and disgusted by is how anti-trans has even become a “thing.” As both a retired psychotherapist and I hope a rational person it seems that this should be a non-issue. The only time the word “problem” should be in the same sentence as “trans people” is when addressing the problem of the lack of mental health services for providing support for this group. Not only this population, but for any other underserved vulnerable group for whom expert, which would mean non-judgmental, counseling would be beneficial. 

When I was on a diversity committee about 25 years ago, along with school administrators and counselors, pastors, and other therapists, it was to help address what was then a growing recognition of the problems gay, lesbian, and bisexual students were having coping with their emotions and to find ways to help them deal with prejudice and basically, to put it simplisitically, to feel good about themselves and their future. We didn’t even talk about trans. 

I’m not even sure that I and others knew that, as current estimates show, 3.3% of high school students identify as transgender. The term gay at the time encompassed lesbian, hence they was a “gay and straight” alliance group in our high school. AI tells me that “The term LGBTQ began to be used in the early 2000s, evolving from the earlier acronym LGBT, which was adopted in the 1990s. The initialism itself originated from LGB, which was first used in the mid-1980s.” 

There was no LGBTQ+ alphabet with a long list of acronyms like those listed and described on this 2021 website and others.

Political expediency has manadated that people who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual must only be mocked in private and that they may never be publicly demonized. There are just too many of them in the population that hold high postions in politics, business, the arts and entertainment.

There are gay and lesbian people working in the White House, notable among them Scott Bessent, Secretary of Treasury and Ric Grennell, the presidential envoy for special missions, but there are several more (see article).

Trump can play YMCA at his rallies and nobody blinks a bigoted eyelash, but citing financial constraints and scheduling conflicts, he canceled The Gay Men’s Chorus at The Kennedy Center Pride perfomance (see article) I am quite certain it was really because of one capital letter in this sentence:

Aside from believers in the Pray the Gay Away movement my sense is that many, perhaps the majority, of people accept that people are born with certain gender preferences or proclivities. The idea that one could become gay or lesbian due to some kind of overprotective mothering or, as Freud thought, a developmental arrest in early childhood, has been abandoned by experts in psychology and sexology.

While it SHOULD be abundantly clear to a thinking person that the same holds true for a trans person who knows from an early age that the gender of the body they were born with is not the gender that they really are.

The exact causes of being transgender are not fully understood. Current research suggests a combination of genetic, brain structure, and hormonal factors play a role. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think childhood experiences play a role as the anti-trans people want you to believe.

But what a wowza way to demonize a group for political gain than to decide trans people are just plain bad and shouldn’t exist. 

The anti-trans GOP don’t rage about people like tennis great Billie Jean King who is a prominent LGBTQ rights advocate. She publicly came out as a lesbian in 1981 after being outed.

I well remember when she played a well known male tennis player, Bobby Riggs, in the much hyped Battle of the Sexes (see Wikipedia).

But had she been someone born a man who became a woman, you damn well know the anti-trans movement among Republicans would have gained traction back in the eighties.

OUT Magazine recently listed 33 football players who came out as gay (here).

Nobody is raising hell saying they shouldn’t be allowed to play.

Just wait until we have one accomplished male to female trans athelete competing in and being a standout in a very popular woman’s sport and we’ll have to see what the anti-trans group has to say. So far all I have found is a list of 29 trans athletes who have won state, national or international titles in women’s sports. I have not heard of a single one of them. If you look down the list you will see the sporting events are not what you would call “major sports.” It is only a matter of time before someone emerges in a professional sport that large numbers of people pay attention to.

Then we may have a trans Billy Jean King. I hope it happens in my lifetime. I want to see a spokeswoman like King go up against the anti-trans bigots.

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September 20, 2023

In MAGAland there's no such thing as bad publicity but this Democrat probably will benefit

 


By Hal Brown
Read article in TMZ here.


Note that even with the bad reviews it gets 4 ½ stars.

Here's another TMZ article:

I modified this photo for my illustration.

This is a Google search of The Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar. I shows how the search is trending..

Click to enlarge image

This is what you see on Google Image search:

Click to enlarge

One article that got my attention was this one from the gay publication The Advocate.


Here's an excerpt:

The man with Boebert has now been identified as Gallagher, co-owner of Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar in Aspen. The U.K.’s Daily Mail was the first to report the news.

The fact that they are dating is “very surprising,” someone described as “a well-placed source” told the Mail. “I always thought Quinn was a cool guy and a Democrat. His parents would be horrified because they are definitely blue,” the source said.

Social media posts show Hooch has hosted LGBTQ+ events, such as a women’s party for Aspen Gay Ski Week and a drag performance called “A Winter Wonderland Burlesque & Drag Show.”

 

Unfortunately I can't compare the same search from before it became nationally know that to the grab and grope Beetlejuice sideshow put on by the bars owner, Quinn Gallagher, and the Charismatic Christian queen of Congress, Lauren "Bible Babe" Boebert.

What most rational people would consider bad publicity never seems to hurt Republicans, especially diehard MAGA Republicans. The Boebert brouhaha may end up in an election loss for her but then again the sympathy vote may help her eke out another narrow victory. 

Finally we have an incident where a Democrat, and a very progressive Democrat at that who is clearly woke, may benefit from what could be looked at as bad public behavior. In his defense, he thought he was making out with his date in the dark probably thinking nobody could see them unaware that he was being recorded by a sensitive low-light camera theater camera. Since he didn't think anyone could see this so one could make the case that this wasn't really public even though it happened in a public venue.

Here's more about Gallagher and his bar:


Excerpt:

Just before 11:30 a.m. Monday, more than 20 people sat in chairs and on couches bunched together in the Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar. Note, Gallager is currently a co-owner of the bar.

Most greeted each other with hugs and hellos; others settled in right away.

They were there for another Hospitality Matters meeting, an awareness effort started by Lindze Letherman, general manager at Hooch, and Quinn Gallagher, bartender at Hooch, in response to losing several of their friends and service industry colleagues to suicide. 

Through the bi-monthly meetings in the Hooch bar space, which feature guest speakers and open-ended conversation, Letherman and Gallagher hope to create a more conducive environment to discussing mental well-being with their peers. Monday’s meeting was the fifth one in the past few months.

“We wanted to at least try to get the community together to start talking and realizing that it’s OK to not be OK,” Letherman said.

Now he and his bar are famous, not just nationally but internationally considering the incident was first reported in the UK Daily Mail (here)

Here's a tidbit from that article:

The hospitality business is something Gallagher and Boebert have in common. 

Boebert had a brief foray into the industry as the owner of Shooter's Grill in Rifle where customers could have their cheeseburger and onion rings served by a waitress with a 9mm on her hip.

The restaurant, which encouraged patrons to come armed, was shuttered in July 2022 after the landlord declined to renew Boebert's lease.

Despite bad Yelp reviews about Gallagher's business I would venture to suggest that it will help attract new customers if only out of curiosity. Residents 

I can see him having a profitable side hustle selling autographed photos of the groping picture.

Addendum:

This is what I posted on the bar's Facebook page which you can view here:

This will be an example of the truth of the saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity and I am glad to see this will prove that it works for progressive Democrats and much as it does for MAGA Republicans. Bad Yelp reviews won't hurt, in fact they will serve to give the bar even more publicity. More people will check out the bar just out of curiosity. After all, the bar still gets 4 ½ Yelp stars and similar rating elsewhere. I appreciate that Quinn and Lauren were attracted to each other and tried to put politcal views aside and see if their relationship could work despite being what I'd call strange bedfellows. 

A bit of snark:

Replica of
The Continental Congress Mirror
Update: Related from Salon:

Click above to read



July 30, 2023

Randy Rainbow for President

 

Click for his website.

By Hal Brown

Have you heard of Randy Rainbow? If you have I'm 99.9% sure you will be voting for Presdident Biden and every Democrat up and down the ballot.

Randy Rainbow is currently on a national tour and is the author of this:

If you haven't heard of him I suggest you stop reading now and check out "Donald in the John with Boxes" below: 



If you like this here's "Lock Him Up Yesterday" with Randy as a Moptop singing his version of the Beatles classic Yesterday where he exposes the criminal culpability of former fake president Donald Jessica Trump.
Click to view


The article also has links to three Rainbow poltical videos.


Of course Randy Rainbow isn't really running for president just as comedian Pat Paulsen wasn't really running between 1968 and 1996. There have been those who made their names in show business who won elections including, of course, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. While Trump earned his money in real estate he was first was known in New York as a flamouyant rich playboy but then became nationally known for his TV show The Apprentice. Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California and after being mayor of Palm Springs Sonny Bono became a member of the US House. Al Franken became a senator. Law and Order actor Fred Thompson became a senator. Clint Eastwood was a mayour of Carmel, California. Jessie Ventura (a governor of Minnesota) was a professional wrestler though not a hoousehold name. Jerry Springer was elected to be a member of the Cincinnati City Council.

Unsuccessful candidates include Sex and the City's Cynthis Nixon ran for NY governr. "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken ran for US Congress as a Democrat in his home state of North Carolina in 2014. Going way back, Shirley Temple (Black) ran for Congres in 1967.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a comedian and is president of Ukraine.

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Trump keeps trying to convince people that radical flag burning leftists are the danger to the country. He's beating a horse that doesn't exist. By Hal M. Brown

  Yesterday Trump told the White House pool reporters the following:  “If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It's no...