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Voices

Read the latest opinion pieces from political leaders, activists, and everyday queer people who want to express themselves in the leading publication for LGBTQ+ news and politics. Discover what people from our community have to say about issues and topics that touch the lives of the LGBTQ+ people and their allies. Find the voices of the people shaping our queer world right here.

queer survivor sexual assault essay woman sad sitting against a wall
Voices

The story queer survivors aren't allowed to tell

After surviving assault by both a man and a woman, Titeänyä Rodríguez exposes the quiet pressure queer people face to hide harm that happens within our own community.

Images of Dick Van Dyke and Van Dyke with Mary Tyler Moore on the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show
Voices

As he turns 100, Dick Van Dyke is an unsung gay idol from an era of Judy, Liza, and Cher

Opinion: The centenarian’s grace, fluidity, exuberance, and joy shaped gay boyhoods in ways we might now be only able to understand and appreciate.
Riley Gaines (L); University of Oklahoma logo (R)​
Voices

From Riley Gaines to OU, conservatives are making their failures everyone else's problem

Opinion: Never before have people become so famous for coming in fifth place or failing a homework assignment.

Fritz Kitzing nonbinary Opinion ​Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
Voices

Opinion: When museums go silent, erasure speaks louder

LGBTQ+ narratives are being stripped from public memory just as attacks on queer and trans people surge. Why some museums refuse to let history repeat itself.

Young man pointing at markings on his abdomen against grey background. Plastic surgery concept
Voices

Cis men love top surgery—it should be available for all

Opinion: If cisgender men want to keep access to gynecomastia surgery — the most popular plastic surgery for men — it must be protected for all people.

protesters in front of the white house in 1992 with signs calling out the government for not funding HIV/AIDS research
Voices

The Trump administration is choosing silence on World AIDS Day, but we're showing up louder than ever

Opinion: World AIDS Day is about coming together to remember loved ones and share in shared pain. But it is also about recommitting to the fight to ensure that we move forward, rejecting a deadly return to government inaction, argues Jeremiah Johnson and Maxx Boykin.

What the AIDS crisis stole from Black gay men
Voices

What the AIDS crisis stole from Black gay men

On World AIDS Day, a long-term survivor recounts the terror, the beauty, and the community that saved him — and why honest and informed conversations must begin now in Black communities.

protest sign that reads tax the rich
Voices

How a united message of 'Tax the Rich' could make life more affordable, and win elections

Opinion: Think of what we could accomplish for the country by taxing the 1%, writes Michael Dru Kelley.

two women on a couch smile while online shopping
Voices

18 queer-owned brands to shop this holiday season

From queer bookstores to trans-owned fashion houses, here are the community-powered brands that deserve your holiday coins.
personal essay queer gardening the lesbian tool
Voices

The lesbian tool

Two women left behind a garden cultivator as part of an estate sale, and a quiet testament to queer endurance. Decades later, Scott Terry reflects, their legacy still digs deep.

a city connected by AI
Voices

The urgent question about AI: How will replaced workers make a living?

Opinion: The AI era is likely to hurt lower-wage workers. We need a plan to support them, writes Michael Dru Kelley.

Mutual aid saved my life. Now, I’m paying it forward
Voices

Mutual aid saved my life. Now, I’m paying it forward

The community stepped in when the system failed Gabrielle Inès Souza. She reflects on how leading The Okra Project returns that care to others.
Zackary Drucker
Voices

Why trans storytelling in film is more important than ever

Opinion: "When a community is under attack, the response cannot be silence. We must amplify. We must speak louder. We must create more," writes filmmaker Zackary Drucker.

Dancing without the drink, how queer sobriety became a revolution of joy
Voices

Dancing without the drink, how queer sobriety became a revolution of joy

Opinion: LGBTQ+ nightlife doesn’t have to mean excess. Gay & Sober’s global movement proves that recovery can look — and feel — like liberation.

David Axelrod James Carville and David Plouffe
Voices

Top Democratic officials target their most vulnerable constituents in new strategy document

Opinion: The party leaders' new guide, "Deciding to Win," encourages Democrats to be a little more like Republicans on "identity and cultural issues," Erin Reed writes.

House Speaker Mike Johnson at an election rally NORTHGLENN Colorado NYC Democratic Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani takes a tour of the East Flatbush Brooklyn neighborhood
Voices

Mike Johnson, a defender of a dictator, wildly blames Zohran Mamdani for the government shutdown

Opinion: Next Johnson will blame Mamdani for the Epstein files delay and for the bruise on Donald Trump's hand, writes John Casey.

Protesters at a transgender rights march and rally in Bristol in September 2025
Voices

Gender is not an ideology — but conservative groups know learning about it empowers people

The study of gender is being targeted by right-wing groups, because it raises questions about traditional social roles and inequalities that can result from them, argues Victoria Pitts-Taylor and Elizabeth Anne Wood.

Scott Bessent Donald Trump Marco Rubio on Air Force One talking to the press
Voices

Donald Trump will not be running for a third term in 2028, and it has nothing to do with law or politics

Opinion: The bluster about a third term is more of a Trump-created distraction that seeks to promote strength in the face of the creeping inevitability of aging, writes John Casey.
Early morning view of shrimp boats in Biloxi harbor
Voices

Queer survival in Mississippi and the bars that saved us

On Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, gay bars weren’t just nightlife but sanctuaries where queer Southeners risked everything to exist, to dance, and to be seen, writes Mark Burr.

Purple ribbon for october domestic violence awareness month alongside OPED author Dr Clarence McFerren
Voices

He was the church’s golden boy—and my domestic abuser

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. One man reflects on the partner who broke him, and the strength it took to break free.