LGBTQ Breaking News Service

The simple question at the heart of Hot White Heist, a new scripted podcast, is this: How far would you go to change the world? Furthermore, what if doing so involved Ronald Reagan’s sperm? I’ve often thought about the former and never really pondered the latter, but thanks to creator and writer Adam Goldman, I unfortunately now cannot untangle the two.

Goldman’s breezy six-episode podcast raises the stakes of the phrase “be gay, do crimes” and the heist genre to campy new heights by putting its protagonist Jude (Bowen Yang) in a peculiar situation. Jude, who goes by Judy, is a slightly struggling (though he won’t admit it) tarot card reader who’s barely making ends meet in New York City when he’s presented with a seemingly impossible task that comes with an enormous payout: stealing highly guarded frozen sperm samples from some of the most prolific men in American history.

Hot White Heist asks if you would risk it all for one shot, literally and figuratively, at astronomic, world-changing wealth.

The sacred MacGuffin at the center of the series is, no doubt, designed to spark laughter and some winking, groan-inducing puns. But, thankfully, Hot White Heist doesn’t rely on the joke too much.

Hot White Heist/Audible

That’s in large part due to the depth and richness of the podcast’s larger story. Goldman and his brilliant cast, which includes Yang, Tony Kushner, Cynthia Nixon, Abbi Jacobson, Margaret Cho, MJ Rodriguez, and Bianca Del Rio, among others — Goldman has brought together the Avengers of LGBTQ performers — tell a tale that’s as much about family and the bonds LGBTQ people create as it is about the thrill of heists.

In order to pull off his sperm-stealing quest, Judy is going to need to find some people. They have to be skilled, and they have to be trustworthy. After all, you can’t just have a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to stealing highly coveted American sperm. In Judy’s case, the people he trusts most with this heist and with his life are part of the queer family he’s built.

As Hot White Heist goes on, the giggle-inducing punchline of what Judy and his cohort are stealing melts away, and the podcast ultimately becomes about people, queer people in particular, and their power to do the impossible.

The podcast embraces the queer anarchist phrase “be gay, do crimes” not just as a dare but as a power fantasy. The story centers on Judy, who lives day-to-day. He makes just enough money doing tarot readings and cleaving unwitting tourists away from their cash. But it surely seems like he’s not fulfilling his potential. That is, until his estranged aunt, Kate (Nixon), re-enters his life with a proposal.

Kate, to anyone who isn’t Kate, may be part of a slightly loony cult that’s looking to expand its power by procuring a private island called New Lesbos. Kate, to Kate, is part of a lesbian isolationist movement that has been given an opportunity of a lifetime to create a utopia.

Mileage may vary about how much sense Kate is making.

It turns out her cult — ahem, isolationist group — has caught the attention of some Russians who are offering wild amounts of money, money that could buy a private island and more, in exchange for semen samples. The samples, as Kate dutifully explains to Judy, are in a government-run, ultra-secure sperm bank called the United States Seed Registry (the USSR) whose facilities are housed in the basement of the Seattle Space Needle.

For some reason, Kate fully believes that her estranged tarot card–reading nephew is the perfect person for the job (though this belief might be rooted in Kate’s lack of human connections, as the lesbian isolationism has worked perhaps too well).

Cynthia Nixon’s voice-acting, combined with a score that evokes The Incredibles, is an excellent introduction to the gambit. There’s something dashing and thrilling about the way Goldman’s script rolls off her tongue. I’ve never really thought about Nixon’s voice that much, but I now know she has a knack for describing highly classified government plans with stoic clarity.

Yang is also excellent as Judy, whose sense of family is what compels him to take on the job.

Kate was the first LGBTQ person Judy knew, and even though she stepped out of his life to join another family — her cult — her belief in him and the relationship they built makes him want to do this impossible thing for her. It’s an unspoken bond that you don’t need to be queer to understand, but that’s amplified and hits close to home if you are.

And Kate isn’t the only person Judy has this kind of bond with.

To nail the heist, Judy begins assembling a ragtag posse of old friends, former flings, and one complete stranger with whom he has only a single trait in common: They’re both queer. The result is a range of moments like Judy’s recruitment of Toby (Del Rio) — a drag queen and master of disguise — that reveal to us not just who Toby is but what kind of relationship the two have and how deep it runs.

My favorite thing about Hot White Heist isn’t its hilarious wit or campy premise, but the way it explains queer friendships through its larger-than-life allegory.

The world, though getting better, can still be very hostile to LGBTQ people; sometimes it’s only fellow LGBTQ people who can fully grasp what that loneliness feels like. It’s almost like a language that only we know. Finding your tribe, your people, your friends are key to surviving.

In its own way, Hot White Heist proposes that all heist movies and stories are, at their core, queer stories. Think about it: You have one person who’s been tasked with an impossible mission. That person has to build a team of individuals that may be absolutely different from them but will come together under the same cause; every member of the team has their own skills that they’ve spent their whole lives sharpening; and this glorious crime gang is bigger than the sum of its parts. None of these folks could have ever fulfilled the mission alone.

Ergo, heist stories are, at their core, very gay. And as Hot White Heist posits, if you and your friends have survived whatever this world has thrown at you, procuring Ronald Reagan’s frozen semen is nothing.

All six episodes of Hot White Heist are streaming on Audible.

For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the One Good Thing archives.

FC Barcelona has sent an LGBT pride message on its official social media channels after controversy surrounding rainbow displays at the European Championship.

“PRIDE & RESPECT” read the message with the club’s badge in front of a rainbow background.

This comes after UEFA reversed their decision to open up a disciplinary case against Manuel Neuer for wearing a rainbow colored captain’s armband.

However, UEFA shot down plans to light up the Allianz Arena in rainbow colors. The home of Bayern Munich is set to host the match between Germany and Hungary.

The Catalans posted the message on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

The pride message was seen on Barcelona’s official English, Catalan, Spanish, French, Turkish, and Japanese channels. But it wasn’t seen in Barcelona’s Portuguese, Indonesian, and Arabic accounts.

UPDATE: Barcelona’s Portuguese account has posted their own version of the message, while the Indonesian and Arabic account have retweeted the English version of the message.

SAGINAW, MI — Sitting on the tailgate of his father’s Ford pickup, Bill Ostash shared a bottle of beer with his dad on a warm spring day 18 years ago. The discussion they were about to engage concerned a conversation Ostash avoided for decades, and sharing a cold brew seemed a good enough way to take the edge off what he was about to speak aloud.

“That was the day I told my dad I was gay,” Ostash said. “Before that, I felt like he was going to be the hardest one to come out to. He was a devout Catholic.”

Once the revelation left Ostash’s lips, his father turned to ask if his son was happy.

“I told my dad, ‘Yes, I’m happy,’” Ostash said. “His response was, ‘Good. Because, if you’re happy, I’m happy.’”

Now 56 years old, the younger Ostash talks about that exchange as one of the most liberating conversations of his life; as a deeply formative experience that empowered his identity – and pride – as an openly-gay man.

Advocating that feeling of pride for others in the LGBTQ+ community was at the heart of a proclamation announced by the Saginaw City Council during its Monday, June 21 virtual meeting. A councilman since 2018, Ostash authored the proclamation that will designate Monday, June 28 in Saginaw as Pride Day, in recognition of individuals that identify as LGBTQ+.

“June is Pride Month, and I saw writing a proclamation for a Pride Day as a way to celebrate how much the city has progressed when it comes to these communities,” said Ostash, recognized by some as the first openly gay member of the council.

“We want to send the message that everybody is welcomed in Saginaw. It’s not perfect, but we have come a long way as a culture and a society.”

While there will be no events planned specifically for Pride Day, Ostash said he hopes city residents who are members or allies of the LGBTQ+ communities find a way to celebrate the occasion next week.

Ostash said he was inspired to draft the proclamation in part by an April 2021 City Council resolution that recognized the LGBTQ+ community as a protected class while encouraging companies here to adopt nondiscrimination policies. The April resolution was drafted by Annie Boensch, Ostash’s fellow council member.

“When she had that idea, I thought it really showed where we stand when it comes to inclusion and diversity in the city,” Ostash said.

He chose June 28 as Pride Day because of the date’s place in history.

“June 28, 1969 was the day the LGBTQ+ community had enough,” Ostash said, referencing the “Stonewall riots” that lasted days.

The sometimes-violent clashes in 1969 involved demonstrations in response to a police raid of a gay establishment in New York City. One year later, the first gay pride parades were organized there, forming the earliest incarnations of a movement that eventually led to the recognition of June as Pride Month, Ostash said.

“I chose June 28 for Pride Day because I wanted the proclamation to recognize the Stonewall riots, the parades that began the following year and how far we have come since then,” he said.

As for his own metaphorical journey: Ostash said he has watched people around him come a long way since his youth. The Bay City-born man recognized he was gay as early as his days as a schoolboy in the 1970s. Back then, he kept his sexual orientation in the closet. Regardless, some classmates may have sensed his secret when they yelled gay slurs at him during gym class in middle school, he said.

“Meanwhile, I was growing up in a Roman-Catholic family while also hearing society telling me it’s wrong to be gay,” Ostash said. “So, I didn’t tell anyone. By the time I was in college, I was too busy to think about coming out. Eventually, though, I just got to a point where I had to say something.”

In spring 2003, at the age of 38, he came out to his family. Both his father and mother were supportive following the revelation. Other family members and friends followed suit in their acceptance of him.

“Once I made that leap to tell people, so much weight was lifted off my shoulders,” Ostash said. “Once I was out, I felt like I could finally live my life and be happy.”

The following year, he moved to Saginaw and met the love of his life, Kevin Rooker. They wed in 2019.

While Pride Day is meant to represent the progress and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ communities over the decades, there remains much room for growth, he said. Ostash said there was at least one incident within the last 10 years when he felt menaced by patrons at a local store. And he knows other members of the LGBTQ+ continue to experience resistance – and worse – from others.

“We have made a lot of progress, though, and we have a lot to be proud of,” he said. “That’s what I want us to remember on Pride Day.”

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June 22 (Reuters) – Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Ireland were among European Union countries condemning their peer Hungary on Tuesday for a new anti-LGBTQ law as the bloc zeroed in again on democratic failings in Budapest and its nationalist ally Warsaw.

The new law banning the “display and promotion of homosexuality” among under-18s clearly violates European Union values, Germany’s European affairs minister said ahead of talks with his 27 EU counterparts about deep concerns that Hungary and Poland violate the rule of law by trampling the freedoms of courts, academics and media, as well as restricting the rights of women, migrants and minorities.

“The European Union is not primarily a single market or a currency union. We are a community of values, these values bind us all,” Roth told reporters ahead of the meeting in Luxembourg.

“There should be absolutely no doubt that minorities, sexual minorities too, must be treated respectfully.”

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg authored a joint declaration condemning the latest legal changes under Prime Minister Viktor Orban as violating the right to freedom of expression and a “flagrant form of discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

The Swedish minister said the Hungarian law was “grotesque”, his Dutch colleague called on Budapest to undo it while their Irish counterpart said the bloc’s executive should sue it at the top EU court. Austria said it was wrong to park the anti-LGBTQ provisions in a bill penalising paedophilia.

“I am very concerned… It is wrong what has happened there and has to stop,” said Ireland’s Thomas Byrne. ” It’s a very very dangerous moment for Hungary, and for the EU as well.”

Facing an election next year, Orban has grown increasingly radical on social policy in a self-proclaimed fight to safeguard what he says are traditional Christian values from the Western liberalism.

Arriving to the same meeting on Tuesday, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the law was only aimed at paedophiles.

“The law protects the children in a way that it makes it an exclusive right of the parents to educate their kids regarding sexual orientation until the age of 18,” he said. “This law doesn’t say anything about sexual orientation of adults.”

The other ministers also spoke of worries about media freedom in Hungary, as well as concerns over Poland’s ongoing overhaul of the judiciary.

Saying that Polish courts need reforming, the ruling Law and Justice party has pushed out many critical judges across the judiciary, introduced more pliant replacements.

It most recently ignored an order from the top EU court to halt mining at its Turow plant on the Czech border for as long as a case Prague brought about it against Warsaw is not settled.

“We have to get assurances from Poland and Hungary that they are really going to follow what the EU court says in the future,” said Sweden’s Hans Dahlgren.

Reporting by Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Editing by Alex Richardson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.