After years of progrs on gay rights, how did the US bee so anti-LGBTQ+? | US news | The Guardian

Contents:

• B.V. GAY FORCG
• OPENLY GAY BISHOP AT CENTER OF CONTROVERSY IN UNED METHODIST CHURCH
• GAY STREET BRIDGE NSTCTN ED 4 LN POUNDS OF STEEL | OPN
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER

B.V. GAY FORCG

Jog me now is Bishop you so much for g on the program, OLIVETO: Thank you so much for havg me, So the urt gave somethg of a muddled lg sayg that you are good standg, but that the nsecratn of an openly gay bishop is agast church law. One, when we put the phrase, 1972, although we do not ndone the practic of homosexualy and nsir patible wh Christian teachg, there was no discsn of what the practice of homosexualy entails. The openg of the new steel and ncrete Gay Street Bridge across the Tennsee River on July 6, 1898, had required a lot of materials, many workers and tirels efforts to raise funds to build .

Half of Gay Street om Ma to Hill as well as vant lots that vicy were piled high wh more Tennsee voic: Get the weekly opn newsletter for sightful and thought-provokg before the formal openg of the bridge, the Journal and Tribune reported what was perhaps the first rerd suici om the Gay Street Bridge when a pestrian, Ga Emmert, said a man was walkg behd him on the bridge when he heard a splash below. A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law.

The ernor and his supporters have labeled as a “groomer” anyone who believ children n learn LGBTQ+ people exist, argug that simply by talkg about gay relatnships to a child, you are sexualizg that child. ”To be gay, their view, is to be herently sexualized, a threat to nocence a way that straight Amerins are vehemence has ught even veteran LGBTQ+ advot by surprise. He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill.

OPENLY GAY BISHOP AT CENTER OF CONTROVERSY IN UNED METHODIST CHURCH

Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia.

GAY STREET BRIDGE NSTCTN ED 4 LN POUNDS OF STEEL | OPN

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program. ”The “don’t say gay” bill, Mter not, is very siar to what’s been passed Rsia, tetherg Amerin nservativ to their thorarian unterparts who have succsfully rolled back mocratic norms across eastern Europe. “I’ve seen this movie before over the last 30 years: The right wg cid to target the LGBTQ muny, whether ’s around marriage or adoptn or trans kids playg sports or bathrooms, ” says the California state senator Stt Wiener, who is gay.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

“I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn. But for many of the more than 200 rponnts to the Guardian’s llout, the past few months have brought signifint challeng, cludg weeks of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, creased isolatn and terratg mental health. Huz Hse, 31, a gay software engeer om Manchter, who lived wh his fay before lockdown, said beg around them nstantly ma him feel he had “no choice but to open more about who and what I am” said: “Even though I am out to my mum, dad, sisters and brother, I was fed up livg two liv.

”Jamie Wake, 42, a social re bid manager om Readg, helped set up a weekly event lled SaturGAY to replace the one regular LGBTQ club night the town closed by the panmic. Footnote 1 He was also named as the send most searched for gay porn star Pornhub’s 2017 “Year Review” annual analytics report (beaten to the top spot by relative new-er William Seed, also a Men exclive)Footnote 2 and was the 2017 recipient of Str8UpGayPorn’s Bt Gay-4-Pay Performer award.

GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER

Through reflectn, I arrive at the ncln that the time was right for an agg twk performer to be hened-up by a transn to bareback; siar transns of which have bee wispread across the gay porn landspe the years that have ticked over sce the 2015 Johnny Rapid Go Bareback event and our prent day (see Brennan, 2020a)—due to the wispread mastreamg of bareback mercial gay porn, which has been buoyed no small part by advancements HIV preventn technologi. Johnny Rapid’s bareback but served as the lnch event for Bromo; a se that shared a parent pany (MdGeek) wh Sean Cody and Men, the latter two s that 2018 held the distctn of beg the first and send most equented sourc of gay porn on the web, rpectively (Brennan, 2018). I observe that while Rapid’s first-time bareback performance is marketed as a up for viewers, the general nsens among Str8UpGayPorn’s rearship is more my readg of the disurse will show, the largt proportn of those mentg on the mpaign exprsed a cidly negative viewpot.

Especially as this trend relat to the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback Barebackg CoupAnalysis of viewer receptivens to the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback mpaign offers particular sights to the functn of ‘bareback event marketg, ’ and wh the impact that the movement towards a “state of ndomlsns” (Brennan, 2020a, 131) gay porn has had on dience expectatns around what nstut a newsworthy performance—together wh dience views on the ethics of ndomls promotn self. Jt as the 2010s hered the equent prentatns of acts that would have been nsired extreme pornography a earlier—such as anal creampi—on s that are generally nsired “vanilla” gay porn (Kiss Nielsen & Kiss, 2015, 132), Morris has himself been forced to gravate towards more extreme portrayals orr to mata his radil reputatn. This hook is employed pecially by gay-for-pay (see Mercer, 2011) s such as Broke Straight Boys and Ba B, together wh virgal twk properti such as Boys First Time (which is among Rapid’s first creds).