In 2020, the online news organization The Intercept revealed that HRW’s then-Executive Director, Ken Roth, accepted a $470,000 donation from a Saudi billionaire based on the condition that HRW would not use the money to protect the rights of the persecuted LGBTQ-plus community in the Middle East.
Roth was compelled to return the donation after The Intercept report.
I am so sorry, Stamets. I am an ally with a queer daughter. Every day I worry about the world she’s growing up in. She’s been very bullied in school, but most kids don’t know other kids’ sexual orientation at 13, so they didn’t bully her for that (although, of course, middle schoolers still love to call each other anti-LGBT slurs), but I’m much more worried about what adults will do to her. At her age, she’s not truly aware of how bad it can be, but I do my best to educate her. Her best friend is a trans boy. His rights have already been taken away here in Indiana. He can’t get gender-affirming care and the school legally has to deadname him even though his parents are supportive. He’s already doing things like cutting himself and vaping, so he’s obviously already pretty messed up. I really worry that he won’t make it to adulthood. What hope do either of them have when human rights organizations won’t even talk about how they’re being oppressed and even victims of genocide?
I wish I had something I could say to help or to sway your fears but I’m a 30-odd year old gay man and I’m terrified for myself and everyone else in the community. For a brief period there was some light that things started to get better but it was just painted faces. This world is… well let’s just say there’s a reason I’m such a big Star Trek fan and there’s a reason why Stamets being gay meant such a fucking enormous amount to me. Finally I got to not only see the world I wanted to live in but also got to know that there is a place for me in the future. That we are real. That we matter.
I get it. I think you’ve probably seen me say before that Star Trek missed a huge opportunity in the 90s to represent the community when Berman refused to let Bashir and Garak be a couple. It’s so sad that it took until Ellen came out in 1997 to even hope for more positive LGBT representation on American television and there’s still precious little of it. I can’t remember which cereal brand it was, but a few years ago, within the past decade, an ad showed a kid eating cereal and they had two dads and people lost their shit. Even in 2023, much of America (and from what you’re saying Canada too) isn’t ready for characters like Stamets and it’s just wrong. Even the fact that Discovery is on Paramount+, which is still pretty niche, shows it. Heaven forbid a regular network have a couple like Stamets and Culber that have a deep and abiding love for each other. The only other example I can think of right now is the Harley Quinn cartoon and you have to have Max to see it. (But it’s really good, I highly recommend it.)
Look what happened with Dylan Mulaney and Bud Light. It wasn’t even a huge ad campaign. They were given a few cans of Bud Light and did a photo shoot with them and posted it online. That’s it. That’s all they did. And suddenly Kid Rock was shooting cans of Bud Light with his rifle. Fucking insanity.
Correct on all points. It’s so depressing man. Also I think it was Cheerios but I could be wrong. God forbid the cereal whose name partially means happy show a happy couple. Campbells Soup had the same backlash as well.
It’s why I am so aggressively protective of my trans homies. The amount of violence that’s being suggested and hinted towards is fucking insane. It’s dangerous as hell and I’m afraid for them. Us gays have the benefit of being slightly socially accepted at least but there are very few famous trans people who are widely loved. No Neil Patrick Harris or Ellen (although fuck that woman). They’re an easy target at the moment and one that has seemingly fucking no one defending it. Just want to scream.
I just hope representation continues in media. My daughter came way after Ellen and I think she’s still too young to really get into Harley Quinn (I don’t mind the language or the violence, I just think a lot of the plot, especially the references, would go above her head), but I hope eventually she’ll find people on TV that represent her.
I’ve been showing her Daria. I keep thinking how much better a show it would have been if Daria and Jane’s friendship developed into love. The way it’s written, I kind of think the creators wanted it to go that way.
I’ve always seen Daria as a lesbian and no one can convince me otherwise.
I loved Will & Grace growing up. I rewatched it recently and it’s fucking dated with how many pop culture references there are but also they used a particular F word a LOT. Like… nearly every episode a lot. Personally I find it funny because that’s how I use it and how my gay friends use it amongst ourselves like those characters do but woah. Seeing that said on TV so casually by straight and gay characters was a whiplash moment.
I don’t know if my daughter sees her that way, but she does often speak in a deadpan way and is sarcastic and misanthropic (she inherited it from me!), and was at the bottom of the pecking order in a school full of idiots and assholes, so she definitely identifies with Daria anyway.
Good taste nonetheless lol
Just had an interesting bit of conversation with my daughter. I said that she’s not getting enough representation in the media and she said, “well you can always headcannon them.” I suppose that’s a somewhat healthy attitude, but I did say to her that it would be better if she didn’t have to do that and she agreed. I was just surprised by that initial response.
Oh there’s a show called Queer As Folk that has a UK and US version. Honestly I prefer the US one which is rare but it’s really good. Probably not age appropriate for your kiddo but you might enjoy it. It’s a drama about gay people, in the gay community, and the shit we have to deal with. Straight characters are essentially background characters. Apparently they are doing a reunion or something which I almost lost my shit over when I found out about. Gay teenaged me loved that show. Made me feel normal for the first time.
I haven’t seen either version, but I’ve heard very good things. Britain has been more accepting than America (although there’s obviously still a lot of bigotry) because there have been some very famous gay actors and comedians in the country throughout the second half of the 20th century. There were two openly gay characters on a very popular 1960s radio sitcom (radio is still a very popular dramatic and comedic medium in the UK) called Hancock’s Half Hour. They spoke in Polari, which was well-known as a coded language in the British gay community. Kenneth Williams, who played one of them, was beloved by the British public and he made absolutely no secret of his sexual orientation.
And, of course, there’s been a long history of men and women in drag in the UK. Christmas pantos always involve men dressed in women’s clothing and women dressed in men’s clothing and it wouldn’t be Christmas in Britain without them.
Probably makes sense why I loved so much British TV as a kid and still do today. Most of the comedy I watch/listen to is UK based. Mostly because I see way more LGBTQ+ people there and that they aren’t treated like the butt of a joke. Or that people don’t freak out. Like I was watching Would I Lie To You the other day and one of the lies was someone saying “I only took one guitar lesson because my teacher was too hot.” The first question from the opposing team was “Did you find her attractive?” And then, barely a beat later “Or, him attractive?” Instead of immediately feeling like he needed to prove his sexuality, the other dude just says “I’m recently married. They were a threat.”
It’s those tiny things. The big grand gestures are nice but don’t mean anything by themselves. Anyone can do something big. But letting the small things like that go through and just being a kind person like that all the time? That shit is seemingly inherent to a lot of UK comedy but non-existent in the US and Canada.
Have you watched Taskmaster? Not only is it incredibly funny, but last season they had a nonbinary comedian on the show and this season there are two gay people, a man and a woman. One of them is Julian Clary who is very frank (and very funny) about his homosexuality and has brought so much value to the season. For other reasons too, but that has always been a big part of his comedy and it’s a lot of fun.
More interesting to me was the situation in the show Never Mind the Buzzcocks whose host, Simon Amstell, came out between seasons. No one seemed bothered by it.
Sorry you’re dealing with this. I know families in similar situations. A friend’s daughter tried to Roblox herself, and my daughter’s friend is trans. It’s important as a family to always support them. There are groups on the internet that do meetups for social organization.
I’m less worried for her, especially now that she’s out of that school and doing online school, than I am for her friend. I don’t know him well at all, he’s only been over at the house once and I was busy at the time and she ran into him by chance at a renaissance festival we went to and I let them go off and look around together, so I can’t really say for sure how he’s doing, but based on what my daughter says, he’s pretty messed up. He’s also smoking weed at 13. I admit, I smoked weed when I was 16 or 17, but I was in high school. This boy is in the seventh grade. If I didn’t think my daughter wasn’t totally disinterested in weed and vaping, I’d consider him a bad influence, but I’m glad she is disinterested because he needs friends.
My worry for my daughter is more long-term. She’s mostly safe as a child, for now anyway, but not her friend. His safety is a far bigger concern at his age.
I do not say the following lightly: in order to make a home where I feel truly comfortable I moved to a different country which is societally more accepting than where I was born.
I hope that your daughter and her friend will have the freedom to find their community and build happy lives. Sometimes that means leaving forever.