Questions for Queer Eye
THERE IS a certain specific risk involved in writing this essay. The current mood in journalism and popular culture welcomes the lighthearted, the upbeat, the optimistic—especially where gay politics…More
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The Day After
THE DAY AFTER I gave this talk to the Harvard gay and lesbian alumni/æ group, I was taken to lunch in Dunster House by some undergraduates. After filling our…More
Please Pass the Pepper
TEN YEARS AGO, during the Christmas break from teaching, I read Bruce Bawer’s A Place at the Table, which had just come out, and it so angered me that…More
What Became of ‘Freedom Summer’?
When I wrote this, I was an active founder of the Lesbian Avengers, an international organization that trained thousands of lesbians in direct action techniques. It was at the 1993…More
Taking the Fun out of Fundamentalism
REREADING “My Life as a Christian,” which would later become a play that I last performed in the previous millennium under the title, The King of Kings and I:…More
Dissent in Ashcroft’s America
RECENTLY an Advocate.com commentary returned to an explosive issue of the last decade—the resurgence of unsafe sex among gay men. Theater producer and AIDS activist Jordan Roth urged: “We must…More
Alphabet Soup in Provincetown
HOW LONG is ten years in the life of a black gay male? It’s the difference between 51 (when, because people were always telling me, “You don’t look fifty.…More
Will Success Spoil Gay Culture?
TEN YEARS AGO, the AIDS crisis dominated the discourse and the psyches of the gay male community in America. Friends and lovers had died or were dying. Ten years…More