05/12/24

Hi all,

A happy Mother's Day to you!

💐 In a personal essay, author Shannon Mannon talks about how loving her transgender son has transformed her. "Our love for our transgender children compels us to live in tension between reality and possibility, between a broken world and a new world calling. All the while, we're cultivating the qualities to endure these perilous times and shape them," she writes. ✍🏽

🎯 Target has reportedly cut LGBTQ+ Pride Month merchandise from some of its stores this year. The retailer, which has almost 2,000 locations across the United States, will only stock Pride products in about half of their stores, sources close to the situation told the outlet. The company is still determining which stores will carry the merchandise based on recent sales data. All products will still be available online. A Target spokesperson only said: “Target is committed to supporting the LGBTQIA+ community during Pride Month and year-round."

🌈 Eurovision has crowned its first nonbinary winner! On Saturday, after a politically charged competition, Switzerland's Nemo came out on top with their song "The Code," which is about accepting their identity.

Check out our latest news, trivia, and tea below!

Onward and upward,

Alex Cooper

🫖 Tea time 🫖

A recent study suggesting that lesbian and bisexual women have a shorter lifespan than straight women sparked a lot of conversation on our Instagram page this week — as well as a little dark humor.

One commenter remarked, "Moving all the time is very stressful," to which the one and only Brandi Carlile replied, " honestly." Others pointed out potential causes like stigma against queer women, higher rates of substance abuse, struggles with depression and anxiety, and social isolation.

☕ What's your take on this study? Join the conversation by emailing us at social@advocate.com.

✨ Share some queer joy! ✨

Got a joyful story? We'd love to hear it! Respond to the email and tell us something positively queer that's going on with you or your community.

Happy Mother's Day to more than 60 of our favorite LGBTQ+ moms

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CMT; Arturo Holmes/MG24/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue; Leon Bennett/Getty Images For NAACP; Taylor Hill/Getty Images

Target scales back on LGBTQ+ Pride Month merch after right-wing outrage damages sales

Shutterstock

David Duke's godchild comes out as transgender in new memoir about leaving white nationalism

Shutterstock

Eurovision crowns first nonbinary winner after politically charged song contest

Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

A mom's Mother's Day tribute to learn and grow alongside her transgender child

Julia Sudnitskaya/Shutterstock

Cyndi Lauper hailed as a pioneering activist for queer people in a new documentary

Rebecca Miller

At Mother’s Day, Jerrod Carmichael's fractured relationship between a gay son and his mom resonates

HBO/MAX

California competition bars transgender and intersex surfer, then reverses course

Instagram @sasha_jane_lowerson

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris celebrate the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces at White House event

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Look, the answer!

Each week, The Advocate newsletter has a little bit of LGBTQ+ trivia. Tuesday, you'll get the question. Thursday, you'll get a hint. And today, you'll get the answer.

This week’s question was: Who created what is widely known as the transgender pride flag?

This week's hint answer is: Monica Helms. The flag made its debut in Arizona in 2000, after Helms, a military Veteran and trans woman came up with the colors.

“We were talking and [Michael Page, creator of the bi pride flag] said, ’You know the trans community needs a flag too,” Helms told Transilient several years ago. Some time later she woke up one morning, “And all of a sudden the pattern and colors came to me.”