Antidote

Watch this. It's been all over the blogosphere, but this is the first time I've seen a video of this encounter. Nine-year-old Zachary Ro asked a question of Pete Buttigieg at a town hall in Colorado:

If you can't imagine the outrage from the usual suspects, read this. Keep in mind, though, that factual accuracy is not a requirement for right-wing commentators.

Antidote, Pride Edition

This story has, as they say, gone viral.

This Oklahoma man is showing that ‘not all country boys are bigots’ with the Pride flag on his pickup truck pic.twitter.com/E56tscNkfU

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 24, 2019

I don't think I need to add anything.

Random Observations: Pride Month in Chicago

It may seem odd to some that Chicago is very gay friendly, given the history, but that's past. As for the present:

Riding the bus down on Clark or Broadway, when you get to the historic Boys' Town (East Lakeview), there are rainbow banners and flags on the light post, which actually extend north of that on Broadway into Uptown, with rainbow banners that read "Uptown Proud". On Halsted, at least at the north end, trans banners alternative with the rainbows.

Even the CTA has joined in -- there are rainbow el trains and, I believe, buses (although I haven't seen one of the latter).

There are also rainbows in various guises in shop windows -- including J. C. Licht, a paint and supply store.

And there are occasional rainbows in shop windows down into Lincoln Park.

Strangely enough, there is no official notice of Pride in Andersonville, the other gay neighborhood, although some of the businesses are flying the rainbow.

And the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planetarium are flying rainbow flags; the member sticker at the Field, rather than the usual blue, have a rainbow ground.

And of course, there will be the Parade, which in recent years has started in Uptown; rather than beginning at Halsted and Belmont, it now kicks off at Montrose and Broadway, which is quite a bit farther north. (We're everywhere.)

And that's the visible signs of Pride Month in Chicago.

Antidote

Trump gave a nationally broadcast speech last night. Same old lies. The Democrats gave a nationally broadcast response, with facts. I didn't listen to either one.

On the other hand, there's this:

Colorado entered a new era of Democratic political dominance Tuesday as Jared Polis was sworn in as the state’s 43rd governor, promising to make the state’s booming economy fairer and health care more affordable.

“Our mission now is to make Colorado a place for all families to have a chance to thrive today, tomorrow and for generations to come,” Polis said after taking the oath of office. “I believe there is nothing that Colorado needs to do that Coloradans can’t get done. There is nothing wrong with Colorado that what is right with Colorado can’t fix.”

Polis’ longtime partner, Marlon Reis, and their two children stood with him for the ceremony on the west steps of the state Capitol. He took the oath at precisely noon, his left hand on a siddur, a Jewish prayer book.

In his first speech as governor, Polis celebrated the diversity of the state and recognized the historic moment: Polis is the first openly gay governor elected to lead a state. He also is Colorado’s first Jewish governor.

The lesson here is that when a Democrat runs on clearly articulated policies that benefit everyone, Democrats win elections. (At least, when Republicans don't have a chance to rig the election.)

Via TaMara at Balloon Juice, who notes: "Invocations were done by the Spiritual Leader of Ute Mountain Tribe, the Head Priest of a Sikh Temple, and a Baptist minister."

PC Amok: The "N-Word"

Just to show how off the rails some people can get, see this story:

The leader of the nonprofit arm of the Human Rights Campaign (the HRC Foundation) has resigned after an investigation found she’d used the n-word twice.

Mary Beth Maxwell, who is white, previously worked for Barack Obama’s administration.

Maxwell was exposed in an email sent to staff by HRC President Chad Griffin which was obtained by Politico.

The email said an investigation was launched after an employee had complained about Maxwell’s use of the term.

No, Maxwell didn't use the word as an insult to anyone; she was relating a couple of incidents in which the word was used.

The President of HRC also wrote that Maxwell did not use the term with intent to insult someone else at HRC, and said that in the first incident she “recounted an upsetting personal story in which the term was used.”

“In the second instance she repeated the word in describing an external situation that they found horrifying, in which racial and homophobic slurs were used,’ Griffin wrote.

What kicks the whole thing up into the realm of face palm is this:

“I share this context because the lesson learned here is that not having bad intent in using the word does not make it acceptable,” Griffin added. “I want to be clear: intent does not matter. It is the impact of the word that matters.”

In other words, Big Brother is watching you.

Let me point out that, Griffin's comment notwithstanding, intent is everything. When it gets to the point where you can't even quote someone else's use of a particular word for fear of offending someone, then we're headed down a steep, nasty slope. This is really nothing more than a few snowflakes setting themselves up as thought police.

The irony here is that this is the position of an organization that regularly uses the word "queer". From HRC's website: "The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer equality." Some of us remember when being called "queer" was an insult.

I had hopes when Griffin became head of HRC that he would whip the organization into line -- historically, it's one of the least effective civil rights groups ever. Instead, it looks like HRC has whipped Griffin into submission.

Antidote: Sometimes It Works Out -- With a Little Help

You may have heard the story of Seth Owen, the valedictorian who was all set to start Georgetown U until his parents kicked him out:

On paper, everything was going well for Seth Owen. A valedictorian of a high school in Jacksonville, Fla., with a 4.16 grade-point average, the 18-year-old had been accepted to Georgetown University as part of its Class of 2022.

But he had left his parents’ house in February after they had given him an ultimatum to attend their church, after years of disagreements related to his sexuality — Owen is gay — or move out, he told NBC News. And Georgetown’s financial aid package for him had been calculated based on what his family was expected to contribute, leaving him with a $20,000 gap to pay the tuition for his first year.

GoFundMe to the rescue: as of yesterday, people had contributed $130,000 to Owen's college fund. And now, Georgetown has stepped in (via Joe.My.God.):

“While the campaign has been ongoing, the professionals at the Office of Student Financial Services have continued to work with me to make my dream a reality,” Owen said on Friday in a statement sent to NBC News. “Due to their efforts and attention, they were able to adjust my aid package even further, my expected contribution is now $0. With these new adjustments, I will be able to attend Georgetown University this fall.”

Owen plans to set up a scholarship fund for people in similar circumstances.

I Didn't See That Coming

I don't think of the Field Museum of Natural History as a supporter of gay rights. I don't think of it as being anti-gay, just non-political. However, I think I mentioned that the member stickers you get when you check in are printed in a rainbow instead of the usual dark blue for this month. I also noticed, on my last trip, that they're flying a rainbow flag on the north side of the building. And it so happens that they're taking their show to Boys' Town, with a special event at Sidetracks, one of the more popular bars on the strip, hosted by the Museum's LGBTQ affinity group, Outfielders.

Who knew?

The Wedding Cake Decision

It's weird. My first impression is that it's right up there with Hobby Lobby and Citizens United in terms of farfetched assumptions. I'll post in some detail tomorrow, since I have an appointment this morning and there's a lot of commentary to digest.

Patience.

Today in Christian Love

Actually, the fact that the police protected the marchers is sort of surprising:

Religious hard-liners in Moldova's capital tried to crash a rally in support of the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community but were fended off by police who deployed tear gas.

The Orthodox Christian protesters unsuccessfully attempted to break through a police line set up to guard dozens off demonstrators who marched through Chisinau in the May 19 rally against homophobia.

Video footage from the scene showed Orthodox activists rinsing their eyes with water after apparently being repelled by police.

It's even more surprising considering that Moldova's president is such an anti-gay piece of work:

The Moldovan branch of Amnesty International last year accused President Igor Dodon of violating the country's constitution by saying that he was not the president of Moldovan gays.

"I have never promised to be the president of the gays, they should have elected their own president," Dodon told reporters the same day as last year's rally that police cut short.

Dodon had criticized last year's march before it was held, saying it promoted "actions [that] contradict our traditional values."

Dodon said ahead of this year's march that "only normal families" have a place in Moldova.

A note to Dodon: Life is change; adapt or die. You might keep that in mind.

Vias Joe.My.God.

We're Not Going to Disappear

No matter how hard the Trump regime tries to make it happen:

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official disclosed that the agency will roll back support for the collection of data on the health and well-being of LGBT people through the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

“The BRFSS is one of the few federally-supported data collection activities that make the needs of LGBT people known to governmental agencies responsible for the safety, health and welfare of the public,” said Kerith J. Conron, the Research Director at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. “By removing LGBT measures from the BRFSS, the federal government is shirking its responsibility to LGBT Americans.”

Today, at the conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research in Denver, Colo., a CDC official disclosed that the BRFSS module on sexual orientation and gender identity that the CDC provides to states will no longer be included among BRFSS optional modules starting in 2019. The sexual orientation and gender identity module has been an optional module since 2014 and has been used by over 30 states and territories.

According to the CDC, “[The BRFSS] is the nation’s premier system of health-related telephone surveys that collect state data about U.S. residents regarding their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions and use of preventive services.” The BRFSS is a federal-state partnership, and it “collects data in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories. BRFSS completes more than 400,000 adult interviews each year, making it the largest continuously conducted health survey system in the world.”

This is evangelical "Christian" thinking: if you pretend they don't exist, then they don't exist. And if you wonder about that connection, Joe.My.God. has more on Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, at the link. He's a real piece of work.

A Step At a Time

Thinking back over the past forty years or so, it's really remarkable how far we've come in society's acceptance of gays. And it shows up in unexpected ways:

Theodore Vidal and his boyfriend Colin Beyers were walking the Seaside Heights boardwalk on Friday after having spent the past few hours at Lacey High School. It was on that boardwalk that their story would become a national headline.

The bow-tie wearing teens had just attended Vidal's junior prom.

There's video at the link, which for some reason won't display in this format. However, via Towleroad, there's this description of the event:

LGBT News Wrap-Up (Update)

With thanks to Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, who did most of the work for me.

Now, about that carefully thought out and fully studied trans ban: It seems that there are a lot of unanswered questions:

The top congressional Democrats on defense issues are seeking answers from Defense Secretary James Mattis on his recommendations to President Trump against allowing transgender people in the military, which seemed to be based on junk science and were used by the administration to reaffirm its ban on their service.

In a joint letter to Mattis dated April 11, the quartet of Democrats say they were “surprised and disappointed” by Mattis’ conclusions against transgender service, which the White House made public late last month in an announcement renewing Trump’s ban.

“In our view, these recommendations contradict previous findings from the Department of Defense and the professional medical community,” the letter says. “As the president has empowered you to implement appropriate policies governing service by transgender individuals, we feel it imperative that we explore the factual bases behind your recommendations.”

The letter is signed by Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee; Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee; Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Both Speier and Gillibrand introduced bills in their respective chambers of Congress against Trump’s transgender military ban, but those measures also sought to codify Mattis’ review before it was completed.

There's more, including the questions that no one seems to be able to answer.

It's especially weird considering that the top officials in the Army aren't aware of any problems:

During congressional testimony Thursday, the Army’s top officials explained that they have no knowledge of the unit cohesion concerns expressed in a report justifying President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.

Army Secretary Mark Esper and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley both said as much under questioning from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Esper, who said back in February that soldiers aren’t concerned about transgender service, reiterated, “Nothing has percolated up to my level.” When Gillibrand asked Milley if transgender troops have caused any issues with unit cohesion, he confirmed, “No. Not at all.”

Update: I almost forgot this choice bit of news:

A federal judge ruled that the trans military ban cannot be implemented and that transgender people are a “protected class.”

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of the Western District of Washington in Karnoski v. Trump refused to lift the injunction against implementing the trans military ban, which means that while the court examines it, the Trump Administration cannot implement it. . . .

While the Trump Administration attempted to argue that its March 2018 memo “revoked” the 2017 trans military ban, Perchman wrote that it was just a set of more detailed guidelines about how to implement the same ban that Trump tweeted about last year.

This is important because the Trump Administration had to prove that there was a real government interest in banning transgender people from the military, something that there obviously wasn’t because Trump didn’t even hold any hearings or read any research about trans people in the military before he tweeted the ban.

The gossip is that the "panel of experts" consulted were Mike Pence and Tony Perkins. OK, it's really that Perkins wrote the ban.

Do we really want this as our top diplomat?

On Thursday, Mike Pompeo, Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, answered questions in front of a Senate committee. Pompeo has a lot to answer for regarding his past Islamophobic statements and alliances as well as his anti-LGBTQ record. Naturally, this means that those on the right, particularly the religious right, support him. They claim that he will stand up for "religious liberty."

Pompeo's record is in direct contradiction of American policy regarding LGBT issues -- which the Trump regime has started dismantling. Needless to say, Tony Perkins adores him. And it's not just Perkins who's coming down on the side of "religious freedom" [sic].

Corporate America seems to get it when our government (at least under the present regime) can't.

I guess it's time for One Million Moms (minus 960,000 -- um, that's their mailing list, not their active membership) to start rending garments and clutching pearls.

And this is going viral. Thought-provoking.

Maybe I live in a different world, but where I live -- the North Side of Chicago -- no one thinks twice about two guys or two gals holding hands. And it's not just in "our" neighborhoods -- it's places like Uptown and Lincoln Park Zoo, as well.

Sure, Jan. . . .

I thought Connecticut was one of those places that had gotten beyond crap like this:

Senate Republicans voted as a bloc Tuesday to deny Andrew J. McDonald confirmation as chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, stopping the ascent of a political and legal trailblazer for the gay community, a factor that opponents insisted was irrelevant and supporters said could not be ignored.

It appears that Republicans in Connecticut are moving back to pounding on the social issues drum, after having soft-pedaled those issues in recent years, which has, at least in part, enabled them to gain seats in the legislature. But it looks like that may be changing:

[Sen. Len] Fasano, who left his office Friday with binders containing copies of McDonald’s cases, reviewed three in fine detail. He questioned whether McDonald had reached beyond the record to render decisions. The level of detail in Fasano’s critique drew an unusual rebuke from the governor while the debate still was under way.

“Senator Fasano’s performance today should send a chill up the spine of every sitting judge in Connecticut,” Malloy said. “His antics run afoul of the tradition and decorum our General Assembly has followed since 1636. During that long history, no legislative leader, let alone a member of the Connecticut bar, has nitpicked, parsed, and deconstructed the decisions of a sitting judge more than Senator Fasano did today.”

“It is now an undeniable fact that Andrew McDonald has been treated differently than others who came before him,” Malloy said. “It begs the question: What is different about Justice McDonald that so concerns Connecticut Republicans?”

Republicans said it was not sexual orientation.

Whether or not it's sexual orientation, it's certainly political; it doesn't appear that the Republicans have made their case against McDonald, although, from the article, they dug up every bit of dirt they could, and embellished it where necessary.

OK, so it's not about sexual orientation. It doesn't seem to be about anything else, though.

Via Joe.My.God.

Bigot du Jour

There's really no other way to call it -- it's bigotry, pure and simple and not even sugar coated, coming from the No. 2 purveyor of fake news (the White House is No. 1).

Fox News’ executive editor has said that the US Winter Olympics team is too gay to win medals.

John Moody, who is also Fox News’ executive vice president, said that “unless it’s changed overnight, the motto of the Olympics, since 1894, has been ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger.’ 

“It appears the U.S. Olympic Committee would like to change that to ‘Darker, Gayer, Different.’

“If your goal is to win medals,” he added, “that won’t work.”

Nice little package -- homophobia and racism all in one statement. I'm surprised he couldn't figure out a way to take a dig at female athletes as well.

Hey, Stupid, these guys have already won more medals than you're ever going to. Come to think of it, there have been more than a few gay Olympians, and a significant proportion of them are medallists -- Greg Louganis, Tom Daley, Matthew Mitcham, off the top of my head. Wikipedia (which can be relied on in some cases) has quite a list of gay Olympians. Of course, most of the gay athletes competing in the Olympics have been lesbians -- see, Stupid, you missed your opening for misogyny.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the U.S. Olympic team is also racially diverse, which Moody, devout white supremacist that he is (or at least, is trying to be -- gotta feed the base, after all), thinks is appalling:

Moody berates Jason Thompson, the US Olympic Committee’s director of diversity and inclusion, who this week praised the diverse nature of US athletes travelling to PyeongChang. . . .

“No sport that we are aware of awards points – or medals – for skin color or sexual orientation,” Moody continues.

He then bravely fights through his discomfort to wonder whether the 244 elite athletes on Team USA were chosen for the Games because of their skill, or their sexual orientation and race.

“So, while uncomfortable, the question probably needs to be asked: were our Olympians selected because they’re the best at what they do, or because they’re the best publicity for our current obsession with having one each from Column A, B and C?” Moody writes.

He adds: “Insisting that sports bow to political correctness by assigning teams quotas for race, religion or sexuality is like saying that professional basketball goals will be worth four points if achieved by a minority in that sport – white guys, for instance – instead of the two or three points awarded to black players, who make up 81 percent of the NBA.

First, there are no quotas for selecting the athletes to participate in the Olympics, because, second, they all go through the same process of elimination. I realize it probably sticks in Moody's craw that there are black, Asian, or Latino athletes who are better than white boys, but that's just reality. Of course, reality and Fox don't exist in the same universe.

Let me point out, if it hasn't occurred to you yet, that Trump is just a symptom. Fox News is a big part of the cause.

Footnote: From PyeongChang:

We're here. We're queer. Get used to it. @Adaripp #Olympics #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/OCeiqiY6BN

— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) February 9, 2018

Tonight I walked in the #OpeningCeremony and got to watch my old friend @Yunaaaa light the Olympic flame. Representing the USA is one of the greatest honors of my life and being able to do it as my authentic self makes it all so much sweeter 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈🏆🌎❤️🔥 pic.twitter.com/ZypvWkUBjD

— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) February 9, 2018

Via Joe.My.God.

How Times Have Changed, Again

I may have to make this a department. First it was the same-sex wedding at West Point picked up by the mainstream press, and now this story on an interview with Gus Kenworthy:

Gus Kenworthy spoke to the Washington Post in a video profile recently and talked about where he is today as compared to Sochi four years ago.

“For me being in the closet I guess I just didn’t picture another life for myself. I thought that’s kind of like how it had to be and after skiing was done I’d be able to like have a boyfriend, have a husband, be out, be proud, but it was gonna be after everything else. It just got to the point where the pain of lying and holding on to it…I’d always feel like I was avoiding answers and never getting to be myself was just so painful.”

This isn't really so unusual -- a lot of us have been there. But what struck me is this:

He had a handful of small deals in Sochi, but he’ll head to Pyeong­Chang with corporate backing like few others with several big-name companies on board, including Visa, Toyota, United, Procter & Gamble, Ralph Lauren, Chobani, Samsung and Deloitte. Kenworthy being gay didn’t scare them away; it only seemed to make him a more attractive spokesman.

There have been other gay Olympians, most of whom came out after the fact. And they didn't get the corporate sponsorships that Kenworthy has picked up.

The interview, in the Washington Post, no less, is here.

And of course, there's video:

How Times Have Changed

Here's a nice story that is perhaps more significant than you might at first think:

Two Army captains who met in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era of the military, became the first active-duty, same-sex couple to get married at West Point when they exchanged vows last weekend.

Capt. Daniel Hall, 30, and Capt. Vinny Franchino, 26, both Apache helicopter pilots, were married at the New York military academy’s picturesque chapel, the New York Times reported on Friday.

They're not the first same-sex couple to be married at West Point, but the first active-duty same-sex couple.

But what struck me is that, if you follow the link above, it will take you to Raw Story, reprinting an article from Newsweek, which references at article from the New York Times. It's not all that long ago that a story like this would have been ignored by the "mainstream" press -- unless there were a riot.

Attitudes Change

Sometimes very slowly, but they do change. This would have been unthinkable not all that long ago:

Japan’s national public broadcaster has commissioned a TV show about a married gay couple.

NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, picked up the three-episode series based on manga series My Brother’s Husband, created by gay author Gengoroh Tagame.



Japan seems to have a somewhat schizophrenic attitude toward same-sex relationships, particularly between men. For centuries relationships between older and younger men -- similar to the erastes-eromenos tradition of ancient Greece -- were treated quite matter-of-factly. It seems that the institution fell into disfavor in the mid-nineteenth century, about the time of contact with the West, for some strange reason.

What makes it even odder is that same-sex relationships are the basis of a whole genre of manga: boys' love, a/k/a BL, a genre directed at teenage girls and young women. Supposedly this is a way of presenting sexual and romantic relationships in a "safe" way -- i.e., since it's two boys or young men, it doesn't really affect its target audience. Given the steaminess of some of the scenes in these things, I have to wonder.

At any rate, Japan is coming along, slowly but surely. We'll see how this pans out.

Just a Note

From Joe.My.God., a nice little summary of the story so far:

In late June, Serbia’s Ana Brnabic became the world’s fifth-ever openly gay prime minister. Ireland’s Leo Varadkar took office in May. Luxembourgian Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who is married, took office in late 2013. Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (also married) was in office from 2009 to 2013. Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was in office from 2011 to 2014.

That's a footnote to a post about Irish PM Leo Varadkar visiting Northern Ireland, where he appeared at a Pride event, "upsetting some social conservatives in the only region of the United Kingdom where same-sex marriage is still illegal."

Awww. Poor little snowflakes.

It's About Time

HRC joins the fray:

The nation's most influential LGBT rights advocacy group announced Tuesday that it will spend $26 million and hire at least 20 additional political staffers to deploy across all 50 states ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. The goal: replicate what happened in North Carolina in Senate, House and governor's races across the nation next year and make the LGBT vote one of the most forceful voting blocs in the progressive movement.

The impetus: Like so many fired-up left-leaning groups these days, it's President Trump.

“I think folks believed that after the Supreme Court ruled on marriage, that we were headed quickly toward a place of full equality in this country,” said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “And the president's attacks on our community — and so many minority communities — has served to be, in many ways, a great awakening of our democracy.”

Like many in the LGBT community, I've been more than a little ambivalent about HRC: they've been largely ineffective, and a few moves -- wanting to horn in on the Prop 8 case after spending years arguing against pursuing marriage equality, the focus on ENDA to the exclusion of everything else -- have given me a distinctly negative impression.

However:

The Human Rights Campaign isn't a newcomer to politics. The group has been around since 1980 and has field and volunteer staff across the nation. But Griffin said until now, the group had the resources to drop into a political battle only for a couple of months, then leave when it was over.

Since Trump got elected, donations to the group are flooding in (most donations are under $10), LGBT people are stepping out alongside other progressive groups to protest and, for the first time, there will be a dedicated effort to keep this community politically activated.

The Human Rights Campaign will be investing in all 50 states but will put its North Carolina model to the test specifically in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. They're all swing states, most of which Trump won, and all have big 2018 Senate races as well as some potentially competitive governor's races.

At this point, although I'm not from Missouri, show me.

Via Towleroad.

At the Risk of Dating Myself

I'm old enough to remember when something like this just wouldn't happen. From The Guardian:

In the spring of 2016, Elijah Fischer called his insurance company to ask if his plan would cover a double mastectomy. A 27-year old Floridian and trans man, Elijah had mostly completed his gender transition, except he still had feminine breasts.
‘Move fast and break things’: Trump’s Obamacare failure and the backlash ahead
Read more

“I look down, and it’s not me,” Elijah recalled feeling. He felt foreign to himself. With summer approaching, he dreaded another season of avoiding the beach and kayaking with his wife, Brianna.

So it was a relief when his insurer, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, approved the surgery right away.

“Oh wow,” the couple said to each other, Brianna recalled. “That was easy. That was fantastic.”

In reality, it was just the start of a battle with Anthem that would stretch for more than nine months. The company backtracked, and revealed that Elijah’s policy specifically excluded “services and supplies related to sex transformation”. There were fraught phone calls and fine print before finally, Elijah contacted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about filing a discrimination claim.

It's not that the story is marked by a lack of sensationalism, or anything like that. It's that it was published at all. When I was a young man (I still am, actually, according to everything but the calendar), you would have had to pick up your local version of The Advocate or Windy City Times to read a story like that. We -- and by "we" I mean the whole LGBT complex -- weren't "mainstream." I've noticed more and more coverage of "gay news" in mainstream outlets -- Crooks and Liars, TPM, even Hullabaloo, and Hullabaloo's focus is politics, period.

We've come a long way, baby.