Last night, I went to the GLAAD awards with The Daily Show, (which was nominated for this wonderful piece) and was a real treat and a privilege to be there. I had never been to an awards show before and I’m glad (lol) that this was my first one because being around gay people makes even the most overwhelming events feel a little bit easier to manage. I’m surrounded by community! Crazy haircuts abound! Nobody really knows what the fuck we’re doing here or frankly anywhere!!! Confusion is what being gay is all about.
And it was a fun night! Don’t get me wrong. I love to get dolled up and take pictures, I am a leo after all. What made me saad was the recognition that this was not going to be a celebratory night. Of course not. Look at the state of affairs: Roe is about to be overturned, our access to healthcare is continuing to get stripped away, kids are being taught that queerness is equated with pedophilia, on and on. It’s depressing. But sure let’s party?
To be fair, the tone of the night was not “sure let’s party,” or at least not intentionally. Speakers spoke defiantly, angrily, heartbreakingly (is that a word?). It seemed like most people in the room understood what was at stake. (Except one lady who was an auctioneer…? She kept shushing people to auction off things like a trip to Belize and an evening with a housewife for thousands of dollars? She also kept using the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” which, like, if there’s ever a time NOT to use it, that was the time. Read the damn ROOM lady.) (There’s a whole other newsletter to be written about how tying the fight for gay rights to a fundraiser giving rich people the chance to have a private chef cook for them in Belize felt incredibly weird and icky but I’ll save that for another time).
Most people in the room felt the outrage and despair at the state of the world right now. I did, certainly. I say this not to say that there’s never an opportunity to celebrate queer people when things are bad. I think queer joy in the face of danger is inherently radical and always exists/has always existed when queer communities come together. I think I was just reminded of how bleak things are right now and how much work we have to do to ensure that a vocal minority doesn’t continue to take lives away from people who are doing nothing but trying to live freely.
This is not really a funny newsletter at all, but it’s what’s on my mind and that’s what you came here for right? I don’t know. Why did you come here?
In the spirit of getting to work, here’s one place to start. This link has a list of abortion funds that help people who need it on the ground. Local orgs are always places I look to first when I’m feeling hopeless, and just like there are many local abortion funds there are also plenty of local orgs across the country that support queer youth!!!
That’s it for me this week I suppose. Thanks for reading and I love you.