The Big Guns It took a series of improbable connections, but somehow a gay American porn star has become a symbol of 
resistance for Ukrainians in their war with Russia. It happened in the city of Kursk in a contested region of western Ukraine that’s currently controlled by Russia, which decided to install a heroic mural to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the USSR’s 1945 victory over the Nazis. But a clever sixteen-year-old Ukrainian managed to prank the Russians by submitting photos of porn actor Billy Herrington. Apparently the Russians were looking for a truly hunky young man to make their point, and Herrington fit the bill, appearing seven times in the mural, photoshopped into a Russian uniform. Reported Queerty.com: “For both Ukrainians and LGBTQ+ people in the region, the stunt symbolizes willpower in the face of regressive occupation.” For the record, starting in 1998 Herrington starred in such movies as 9 1/2 Inches and Lords of the Locker Room, among others, before dying at age 49 in 2018.
Urban Blues Two of the “reddest” U.S. states now have the LGBT Pride flag as an official state flag—albeit only in the capital and largest city of each state. Salt Lake City approved a version of the Pride flag as an official city flag to circumvent a Utah law preventing public buildings from flying any non-official banners. And the City Council of Boise, Idaho, did much the same when it voted five-to-one to make the Pride standard an official city flag, again in response to a statewide ban. Like so much of American politics, it was all an exercise in symbolism, but the mayors of both cities stressed the importance of making all residents feel welcome. Stated Boise mayor Lauren McLean (D): “Boise isn’t acting out of defiance. We’re acting out of duty.” Among other things, this battle underscores to what extent the Great Divide is a gap between the cities and the provinces. As luck would have it, this division also roughly describes the residence patterns of LGBT people, who continue to flock to the cities, where symbols of freedom can still fly.
Weaponizing Gender Many states have codified discrimination against transgender athletes into law, including, as of last April, Georgia. For a reality check, glaad looked into it and found that there were no trans students competing in Georgia. The legislation cited the case of one Tia Thomas, a trans swimmer who once tied for fifth place in a collegiate match against swimmer Riley Gaines, who became an anti-trans activist following her painful defeat. The Riley Gaines Act requires public schools and universities to establish segregated sports teams and bars trans athletes from competing. While the new law applies to no known Georgian, the danger of such laws, as glaad president Sarah Kate Ellis pointed out, is that they create a weapon against “cisgender girls who don’t fit neatly into societal expectations of gender.” So, if the rationale for these laws is to protect cisgender girls from unfair competition, the practical effect is to expose all female athletes to accusations leveled for frivolous or vengeful reasons. Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Graham noted that “anyone who loses can throw a tantrum, bring a lawsuit, or bully the champion simply for being deemed ‘too good’ at their sport.” Given the dearth of actual people or problems covered by this law, it’s all about hypothetical possibilities that sound scary and play on pre-existing bigotries.
Bishop to Black Square Practitioners of “conversion therapy” have popped up here numerous times, usually for one of two reasons. Either they were “ex-gay” evangelists who got caught in a decidedly gay situation, or they were therapists who used their position to initiate inappropriate sexual contact with their charges. In the latter category is Scott Dale Owen, who was once a Mormon bishop but then became a mental health counselor in Provo, Utah. Owen ran a “person-centered” practice where he treated men for their “same-sex attraction.” His MO was to tell clients that their relationships with men were “broken” and that the only way to repair them was through physical contact with a man. Owens would start with touching and work his way to full sexual relations. Of course, he was working with gay men, so the seduction wasn’t such a long shot, analogous to an AA counselor using alcohol to seduce clients. Owen also played the God card, telling his victims that he’d been specially chosen for this work: “God gives certain people special permission to do things that are normally wrong.” And it worked, at least for a time. Police tracked down over a dozen former clients who said they’d been sexually abused by Owen, who was found guilty of forcible sodomy, among other crimes, and sentenced to a fifteen-year prison term.
Hearts of Gold When you think of gay-friendly public spaces, the restaurant chain Hooters probably doesn’t spring to mind. And yet. A piece in The New York Times reported that Hooters has been a godsend for many a teenage boy growing up in a hostile environment. It works like this: for boys who display certain, um, tendencies early on, fathers and grandfathers everywhere seem to land on a single idea: take them to Hooters! But by now the waitresses have learned to spot such scenarios, and they know just what to do. Rather than subject these kids to the awkwardness of pretending they’re enjoying this, they’ll pull a boy aside and reassure him that it’s okay to be gay. The Times writer, Peter Rothpletz, endured an annual ritual as a teenager with his clueless grandfather; one waitress whispered: “You’re perfect the way you are, kid.” When he posted a story about this experience on Bloomberg.com, he received “hundreds of direct messages from other gay men who felt the trajectory of their lives had changed after a single meal at Hooters.” The question remains: why are the waitresses so nice to these boys, who clearly aren’t there for the boobs? Rothpletz surmises that many of the women see themselves as outsiders, often mistaken for sex workers, and may identify with members of another sexual minority. In any case, it’s another example of a pocket of resistance where you’d least expect to find one.
