Relationships

Before starting a relationship,  there are a few  rules. 

If you are only looking to hookup, tell your date so.  If you are looking for a long term relationship tell them. This will establish the ground rules.

There are elements you must establish if it is going to be long term.

  1. Honesty.  Let the other person know who you are and what you are looking for in a relationship.   Trust must be earned.  This is done through honesty.   Try not to talk about past encounters.  This is the present.   ⁰
  2. Communication.  Talking to each other.   Everything  is important.   You can’t  be afraid of hurting each other. Establish that rule from the very beginning.
  3. Physical touch. We presive with all of our senses. Nothing like laying on the sofa together. Saying I love you is not a bad thing if your relationship has reached that point.
  4. Compromise is extremely important.  

In so many relationships, one partner leaves because their needs were never taken seriously. They didn’t stop loving the other person. They just got tired of explaining the same thing over and over and still feeling unseen.

I see this pattern all the time. Someone asks for comfort, reassurance, consistency, or effort. The other person says they understand, maybe makes a few changes, but nothing sticks. The effort feels disconnected from any real understanding. The same conversations keep happening, and nothing actually moves forward.

When that happens enough times, people start to disconnect. They don’t feel safe bringing things up anymore. They lose trust in the idea that their needs will ever matter. Eventually, they stop trying to fix it. By the time they walk away, it’s usually because they’ve been holding the relationship together for too long on their own.

This dynamic isn’t always about selfishness or bad intentions. It’s often about a gap in communication. One person struggles to express their needs clearly. The other person thinks hearing the words is enough. But for any relationship to grow, both people have to do more than listen. They have to understand and take action.

Communicating your needs is uncomfortable, but necessary. Your partner can’t respond to something you never said out loud. At the same time, hearing your partner’s needs isn’t enough unless you’re willing to show them that what they said mattered to you. That’s how trust is built. That’s how safety is created.

Relationships don’t fall apart because someone asked for too much. They fall apart because no one took the time to ask what was really needed in the first place.

History

Here is a compelling, convincing story on the importance of storytelling in LGBTQ+ culture and history:

Stories are the lifeblood of any culture, shaping our shared identity and history. For the LGBTQ+ community, our stories have been especially vital – they have given voice to our experiences, validated our struggles, and inspired generations to fight for equality.

The origins of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement can be traced back to pivotal moments like the Stonewall riots, which were fueled by the stories and defiant spirit of drag queens and others on the margins of society. Though some historians dispute Stonewall as the sole starting point, there’s no denying the power of that creation story – it galvanized a community and gave rise to a mass civil rights movement.

Beyond that seminal moment, our culture has been shaped by the courageous trailblazers who came before, from Del Martin and Frank Kameny to the authors who gave literary voice to the LGBTQ+ experience. Books like “Rubyfruit Jungle” and “Stone Butch Blues” were revolutionary in their time, defiantly celebrating queer identity when society sought to suppress it.

Even as our legal and social standing has improved, the need to nurture our culture and storytelling remains paramount. LGBTQ+ bookstores, once plentiful, have dwindled – but they still serve a vital role as community hubs, organizing spaces, and conduits between authors and readers. In an era of upheaval for the publishing industry, these bookstores must evolve to ensure our stories continue to be told, read, and passed down.

For it is through our stories that we find meaning, inspiration, and a sense of shared identity. As marginalized communities, we have had to fight for the right to tell our own narratives – and in doing so, we have shaped the broader culture in profound ways. Our stories are not just ours, but part of the human tapestry. They deserve to be nurtured, celebrated, and spread far and wide.Stories are how cultures grow and flourish. We learn from stories told by our parents. Religions are shaped by the stories they tell.
As gay men and women, our stories form our culture. Many historians dispute the notion that Stonewall was the beginning of the gay civil rights movement, pointing to the courageous work of men and women like Del Martin and Frank Kameny. Though those pioneers set the stage for the gay movement, it was the story of Stonewall which gave rise to a popular civil rights movement. Against the backdrop of the funeral of Judy Garland, drag queens, the lowest caste of gay society in New York at the time, fought back against the oppression of the NYPD. Thousands joined them in their struggle, and held the police at bay for three days. That is a worthy creation story for a civil rights movement.
Through our history of civil rights, response to the AIDS crisis, bullying by the religious right, and victories in the courts and ballot box, it is our culture which gives us the compass to move forward. In Christopher Bram’s book “Eminent Outlaws” he even argues that the group of post-World War II gay and lesbian authors shaped American culture, not just LGBT culture.
Lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual authors give shape and meaning to our experience. When “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown or “Stone Butch Blues” by Leslie Feinberg were first published they were trangressive. Though much has changed in the LGBT world in the intervening years, they remain fresh and inspirational. I love putting “Rubyfruit Jungle” into the hands of a young queer who has never heard of the book, and seeing that same young queer a few days later excited by the brilliant storytelling.
I believe we need to nurture our culture. As a culture withers and dies, so does its society. For many years the LGBT bookstore served the community: as a de facto community center, a safe space for our community, a political organizing point, a fundraising center for our organizations, and more. For all of that, I believe one of the most important functions was as a place for authors to find their audience.
Author events at Common Language bring together author, bookstore, reader, and even publisher. The publishing world is in turmoil. LGBT bookstores, which used to number in the hundreds are now down to about a dozen nationwide. And yet authors are still writing and readers are still looking for the next good book. LGBT bookstores, no matter how they evolve, must continue to be a vital part of that equation. Amazon.com doesn’t really care what you read, as long as you buy it from them. LGBT bookstores exist in order to help authors and audiences find each other. In an era when even some libraries are forced to bow to political pressure and censor what material is available, independent LGBT bookstores remain a vital part of our culture.
We are painfully aware that we do not live in a post-gay world. This is especially true in Michigan. We do have many outstanding LGBT writers in the state. Whether you celebrate the stories of Laurie Salzler, Kage Alan, Jackie Nacht, Lev Raphael, or the many others featured in this issue, all of them have in common the experience.

Where it all began

Here is a compelling, convincing story on the importance of storytelling in LGBTQ+ culture and history:

Stories are the lifeblood of any culture, shaping our shared identity and history. For the LGBTQ+ community, our stories have been especially vital – they have given voice to our experiences, validated our struggles, and inspired generations to fight for equality.

The origins of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement can be traced back to pivotal moments like the Stonewall riots, which were fueled by the stories and defiant spirit of drag queens and others on the margins of society. Though some historians dispute Stonewall as the sole starting point, there’s no denying the power of that creation story – it galvanized a community and gave rise to a mass civil rights movement.

Beyond that seminal moment, our culture has been shaped by the courageous trailblazers who came before, from Del Martin and Frank Kameny to the authors who gave literary voice to the LGBTQ+ experience. Books like “Rubyfruit Jungle” and “Stone Butch Blues” were revolutionary in their time, defiantly celebrating queer identity when society sought to suppress it.

Even as our legal and social standing has improved, the need to nurture our culture and storytelling remains paramount. LGBTQ+ bookstores, once plentiful, have dwindled – but they still serve a vital role as community hubs, organizing spaces, and conduits between authors and readers. In an era of upheaval for the publishing industry, these bookstores must evolve to ensure our stories continue to be told, read, and passed down.

For it is through our stories that we find meaning, inspiration, and a sense of shared identity. As marginalized communities, we have had to fight for the right to tell our own narratives – and in doing so, we have shaped the broader culture in profound ways. Our stories are not just ours, but part of the human tapestry. They deserve to be nurtured, celebrated, and spread far and wide.

War on LGBTQ

The War on LGBTQ People Being Waged in Rural America
Jason Kyle Howard
On June 3, James Hensley, a 21-year-old from Corbin, Kentucky, joined a small group of local queer activists downtown for what was supposed to be a celebration of Pride. Corbin, a small mountain town of just under 8,000, boasts a rejuvenated main street and is most famous for being the home of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken—so, naturally, the group gathered in a park and draped a Pride flag over a statue of Colonel Harland Sanders, KFC’s legendary founder. They decorated poster boards with affirming slogans they held up for passing cars to see.

After a peaceful morning, the afternoon took a harrowing turn. Two men drove past on motorcycles and flipped off the activists. Hensley, a take-no-shit Appalachian man, cursed at them—and the men pulled over. They approached the group; one of Hensley’s fellow protesters began recording on their phone, later posting two separate videos to Facebook. “I’m a fucking racist and I hate fucking faggots,” one of the interlopers can be heard saying to Hensley in one video. “I want to rip your fucking face off and shove it up your fucking ass,” he says in another.

“I’ll be honest,” Hensley told me days later. “I [was] very angry. Very angry. Because he didn’t come there to debate.… He came there to call us child molesters, pedophiles, the whole nine yards.”

Pride Month, for many, is a time to celebrate the beauty of queerness. But this year’s festivities have been tempered by a crisis of hate and discrimination that is unfolding nationally: an alarming rise in demeaning rhetoric and threats of violence, according to a sobering new briefing by the Department of Homeland Security, and the enactment of around 60 anti-LGBTQ laws in nearly half of the states across the country. In early June, the Human Rights Campaign declared the first-ever state of emergency in its 40-year history for the LGBTQ community.

The situation is especially dire for members of the community living in rural America. According to a landmark report released in 2019 by the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, an LGBTQ think tank, between 2.9 million and 3.8 million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live in rural America, an amount that comprises 3 to 5 percent of the country’s rural population. (The study used a nuanced definition of “rural,” including geographically isolated communities and small population centers, having agricultural or other industrial roots, possessing a “small town feel,” self-identifying by community members as rural and/or communities that are growing but still lag in infrastructure.) After a slow trickle of progress and acceptance of LGBTQ life in places where it had once seemed daunting—if not impossible—to be out and proud, national politics are once again threatening the safety and well-being of LGBTQ populations.

“The threat is extreme” to rural queer people, Logan Casey, senior policy researcher and advisor at MAP, told me.

Recent months have seen a spate of threats and attacks in small communities and towns, or in small cities that serve a significant rural population, including attempted arson using Molotov cocktails during a drag show at an affirming church in Chesterland, Ohio (population 7,415) and a pepper-spray assault at a Pride event in Bozeman, Montana (population 54,539). Organizers of an all-ages drag show scheduled in March to support transgender youth in Pikeville, Kentucky, a small town of just over 7,000 in the heart of Appalachian coal country, were forced to cancel the event due to numerous threats of gun violence.

In Corbin, a chaotic scene unfolded quickly. The man shoved what Hensley said was a KKK card in Hensley’s face; Hensley said the card and the man’s hand grazed him. “After I knocked his hand out of my way … he tried to swing at me and I dodged, and I was ready to come back at him,” he told me. “He put his hand immediately on his gun.”

About a minute later, one of the Facebook videos shows the man pulling out a pistol and briefly brandishing it before laying it on the ground as police approached the scene. The cops gave the counterprotesters a warning and sent them on their way; because Hensley’s group had failed to obtain a permit from the city, they were also made to leave. No arrests were made. According to the Corbin Police Department, the incident has been referred to the FBI for investigation.

Many Corbin residents have worked hard in recent years to overcome the town’s legacy of bigotry. Corbin was known as a “sundown town”—a town where Black people were not welcome after dark—until the late twentieth century, when townspeople began to fight for change. Now, the town’s Sunup Initiative promotes racial justice, while the Wrigley Taproom & Eatery, a popular bar and restaurant, displays a Pride flag behind the bar.

But the incident earlier this month tracks with national trends. Recent reports indicate that hate speech, threats, and violence against the LGBTQ community have risen dramatically in recent years. Clear statistics on violence and hate crimes related to sexual orientation and gender identity, particularly in rural areas, are notoriously difficult to track. While the MAP report noted many of the reasons rural LGBTQ community members favor country life—including a connection to the land, strong community ties, and proximity to family and loved ones—they are also “more vulnerable to discrimination,” it concluded. “Public opinion in rural areas is generally less supportive of LGBT people and policies, and rural states are significantly less likely to have vital nondiscrimination laws and more likely to have harmful, discriminatory laws.”

The study also identified, using census data and methodology, 32 states as being majority-rural. When I compared the states identified in the report to a tally by the ACLU of anti-LGBTQ bills filed in state legislatures this year, the results were telling. Of the 491 bills, 412 came from majority-rural states—an astonishing figure that illustrates how the war being waged against the LGBTQ community is centered in rural America. The motivating factor that prompted Hensley and his friends to rally in Corbin was an extreme anti-trans bill passed by GOP majorities in the Kentucky legislature earlier this year. Among other provisions, the legislation banned gender-affirming care for trans youth and school discussions of orientation and gender identity with students of any age.

Restrictive legislation and attacks like the ones in Corbin, Chesterland, and Bozeman are causing LGBTQ people, rural and urban alike, to be increasingly on guard. There’s a sense in the community of something at once unspeakable but in need of verbalization: that the next shooting, the next massacre, could be near. Thefts and vandalism of Pride flags have occurred in Nebraska, California, Utah, Arizona, Pennsylvania, California, and New York in response to encouragement by extremist groups online. According to a report, the Proud Boys and the white nationalist group Patriot Front are planning to target Pride events like the one in Bozeman throughout June.

This trend shows no signs of ceasing. The 2024 presidential race looks certain to at least partially center on these and other issues of “woke” identity; the price of admission to the Republican primary seems to be equating LGBTQ identity with perversion and grooming children. “We will never surrender to the woke mob,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared in a recent ad intended to frame his presidential bid. “We will oppose the sexualization of children. We will do battle with anybody that seeks to rob them of their innocence.” Although he once supported welcoming trans women in his beauty pageant, in January former President Donald J. Trump referred to gender-affirming care as “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation” in a video posted to his Truth Social platform. And always, there is the specter of last year’s mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs that left five dead and 25 injured, and the 2016 massacre at Pulse in Orlando that killed 49 and wounded 53 others.

In response, some places in red states are limiting their Pride celebrations this year: The Florida cities of Port St. Lucie and St. Cloud scrapped their festivals altogether. But other towns and cities in majority-rural states are refusing to give in, returning instead to the ideals in which Pride was originally rooted: dissent, disruption, and visibility. Organizers of Knoxville, Tennessee’s festival, which takes place in October, have canceled the usual celebratory parade in favor of a march to protest Tennessee’s restrictive laws. Bastrop Pride Festival, a three-day event in the Texas town of 11,000 east of Austin, was held the first weekend in June.

The willingness to be visible is a sign of how far rural places like Appalachia have come, despite recent setbacks. Queer people have always been a part of small-town and country life, but in the past many tended to live quietly or completely hidden, abiding by a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to survive. A protest like the one in Corbin would have been virtually unthinkable 20 years ago when I was Hensley’s age; back then, no one would have dared risk it. Today, despite the region’s overwhelming support for Donald Trump and anti-LGBTQ politicians, there are pockets of acceptance that have grown more visible over the last two decades and are newly defiant in the face of national homophobic and transphobic backlash. Pride gatherings have sprung up in small towns across the region, including Corbin. The Lige Clarke Liberation Fund was established in 2022 by the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky to provide grants “to increase public support for queer rights and equality” in the region. “Country Queers,” a West Virginia–based multimedia oral history project, was created in 2013 and has documented the contemporary and historical experiences of 90 rural LGBTQ people in 21 states spanning a variety of identities.

Despite efforts like these, rural LGBTQ people still often lack immediate, adequate access to the resources enjoyed by their urban counterparts, including a large community (and the notion of safety in numbers); bars, clubs, and gathering places; access to community organizations, social services, and resource centers; and affirming doctors that specialize in LGBTQ health care. Bans and restrictions on gender-affirming health care have forced many trans people to seek out-of-state medical care, adding additional stress and expenses, and caused some to relocate, or consider moving, to more welcoming environments. Country queers often face poorer health outcomes, including higher rates of anxiety and depression, along with a more visible and aggressive gun culture rooted in the kind of machismo that fuels counterprotesters like the two Hensley and his friends encountered in Corbin.

“LGBTQ people in rural areas were already effectively at a disadvantage when it came to legal equality and policy protections,” Casey said. “It’s not that rural life experiences are uniquely homophobic or transphobic—we know that homophobia and transphobia can occur in big cities and in very progressive states. But the structural conditions that make rural life unique really amplify experiences of discrimination … and now with this dramatic escalation of legislative attacks, [those] disparities are just getting worse and worse.”

Countering such prejudice and hostility won’t be easy. In the absence of federal legislation, like the Equality Act, that would secure protections on the basis of orientation and gender identity, and in light of many states’ attacks on LGBTQ people, advocates like Casey are encouraging local lawmakers to pass nondiscrimination ordinances. The creation of queer-affirming spaces—especially those centered on the arts—is also key, particularly to ensure LGBTQ rural youth are given the option of staying rather than leaving. Grants from nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations could help to fund more necessary studies on rural LGBTQ life and projects like a mobile clinic devoted to queer health needs. Rural areas are also in dire need of more local grassroots organizations to build community, and closer connections to those in urban centers. Affiliations like these could provide increased training in peaceful protesting, including how to avoid or de-escalate potentially dangerous interactions.

We are now in a grave moment. The world, despite what Tony Kushner wrote in Angels in America, does not always spin forward. Sometimes it spins backward. And sometimes, it simply spins. The legislators proposing these bills are doing so with the implicit consent of those who elected them. While districts are often gerrymandered to ensure particular outcomes, that practice does not excuse the willful votes of people who are content to see the rights and lives of their family members, neighbors, and community members constrained, or who, with the best of intentions, turn a blind eye to the hateful rhetoric of politicians. Until that changes, the future of LGBTQ rights, in rural and urban America alike, will be tinged with darkness.

Reflecting on his experience in Corbin, Hensley has regrets about how heated he became. Despite what happened, the group intends to protest again. The visibility is important, Hensley said; they have another action planned for June 24. This time they have secured a permit and Corbin’s mayor has ordered a police presence at the event. Two of the group’s members are now planning to form a queer-focused nonprofit to build community and help others seeking acceptance and affirmation.

When Hensley speaks of eastern Kentucky, he is careful to not vilify the entire place. “It’s a very mixed bag,” he said, searching for the right words. “Because on one hand, you have people that just don’t really care. But then you have a lot of others that are kind of brainwashed into just hating people they don’t really know because they’re different. People here don’t like different.”

Will that ever change? “I have hope but it’s a very dark hope. I think that the only way anything’s really gonna change is that we fight for it. Because they don’t like us. They don’t like us.”


The pride flag

Here’s where the LGBTQIA+ flag comes from, in case you didn’t know
Sharleen McAleavy
It’s one of the most recognizable symbols of the gay, lesbian, bi, trans and, more generally, queer community. Of course, we are talking about the rainbow flag, which is bringing out a lot of colours during this pride month!

Some of you might wonder what queer really means, and we can give you a simple definition. A queer person is someone who does not recognize themselves in society’s ‘classic’ models of gender or sexual orientation. We have all seen the rainbow flag waving around lately, but do you know its origin story?

Gilbert Baker was an artist and gay activist
The rainbow flag, or ‘pride flag’, dates back to 1978. It was created by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and drag queen, who, at the request of Harvey Milk, the famous American politician and gay rights activist, created the flag to embody the pride of the gay community, at a time when it was still considered as shameful. Homosexuality stopped being considered as a mental illness in the US in 1973, but it was still considered a ‘deviance’ until 1987, according to Psychology Today.

We recommend you watch the excellent biopic starring Sean Penn as the first openly gay elected official in California’s history.

Read more: Miriam Margolyes’ unconventional 54-year relationship: Who is Heather Sutherland?

‘This is who I am’
Let’s get back to the flag. Regarding the choice of colours, Baker explained in an interview that the flag was a symbol of visibility and pride for queer people.

Our task as homosexuals was to show ourselves, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I said, to come out of the lie. A flag really fits this mission, because it’s a way of proclaiming one’s visibility or saying ‘This is who I am’.
For the colours, Gilbert Baker explained that he drew inspiration from several sources. In tune with the other struggles and issues of his time, Baker was also a supporter of the civil rights movement. Naturally, he was inspired by the ‘race flag’ used on American university campuses in the 1960s. This featured five bands of color: red, black, brown, yellow and white.

According to Readers Digest, Baker also drew his inspiration from the famous song Over the Rainbow, sung by Judy Garland, one of the very first gay icons. Baker said he had the help of 30 friends to sew the 8 bands of colour.


Read more: Chris Evans labels homophobes ‘idiots’ after backlash for Disney LGBTQ+ scene

The colours of the rainbow
Each colour of the rainbow flag has got its own meaning. Pink stands for sex, red is for life, orange represents healing, yellow for sunlight, green symbolizes nature, turquoise is for magic and art, blue is a sign of serenity and harmony and purple is for the spirit.

But as you may have noticed, we’re now down to 6 color bands, 2 less than the original 8! In fact, it’s been modified for a number of reasons.

Firstly, for economic reasons, pink being more complex to produce at affordable costs, but also for reasons of parity. The turquoise color has been eliminated in favor of a flag with an even number of stripes.


History of LGBTQ


Julius’, a beloved New York City bar, has occupied the corner of Waverly Place and West 10th Street in the West Village for nearly 160 years. With little identifying it beyond its name in simple green cursive, the watering hole’s unassuming exterior belies its importance in gay rights history.

Like the Stonewall Inn just a few hundred feet away, Julius’ has been a lifeline to New York’s queer community for decades.

Like the Stonewall Inn just a few hundred feet away, Julius’ has been a lifeline to New York’s queer community for decades.

Julius’ opened its doors as a bar in 1864. Before that, it was a grocery store.Julius Constantine Motal / NBC News

Much of Julius’ remains unchanged from that era, including the long wooden bar with a century’s worth of “scratchitti” carved into it. Jacob Ruppert Brewery beer barrels serve as tables and stools.

Chandeliers dangling overhead are made from wagon wheels of horse-drawn carriages that once delivered ice.

Julius’ had started attracting a gay following at least by the 1950s and, according to local lore, was a popular hangout for midcentury queer luminaries like Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Rudolf Nureyev.

But New York State Liquor Authority regulations at that time prohibited serving drinks to “known or suspected homosexuals,” whose very presence was considered disorderly behavior.

“This law was used to prevent the existence of gay bars, so the ones that did exist were under the control of the criminal underworld,” Randy Wicker, a member of the New York chapter of the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights groups, said. Either the mob ran the establishment or bar owners would pay for protection to avoid being raided.

“It forced gay people into that underworld,” Wicker, 83, said. “It led to exploitation, blackmail, people being brutalized.”

But New York State Liquor Authority regulations at that time prohibited serving drinks to “known or suspected homosexuals,” whose very presence was considered disorderly behavior.

The waitress laughed and said, ‘No problem,’ and took the order,” Wicker said. It was getting late and they were in danger of losing the reporters who had tagged along. Julius’, it turned out, was the perfect spot for their test case: It had a sizable homosexual following, Wicker said, but the management was determined not to let it become a “gay bar.”

“There had been an entrapment case recently — someone went home with an undercover policeman,” he said. “So they patrolled the bar very strictly. If there were too many men together inside, they’d stop letting men in unless you came with a woman.” The group walked in and ordered, then Leitsch announced, “We are homosexuals. We are orderly, we intend to remain orderly, and we are asking for service.”

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started