Harry Styles will reportedly play a gay policeman in a new queer drama.
On Thursday, Collider reported that the Fine Line star was in final negotiations to appear in the Michael Grandage-directed movie, based on Bethan Roberts’s acclaimed novel, My Policeman. Adapted for the big screenn by writer Ron Nyswaner, the untitled film will also star Lily James and be produced by Love, Simondirector Greg Berlanti for Amazon Studios.
According to the publication, Styles is slated to play Tom, a policeman in Brighton who is torn between two worlds. Set during the 1950s — when being gay was illegal in England — Tom is forced to choose between his love for museum curator Patrick and James’s character, Marion.
However, the intertangled lives of all three main characters are changed after one of them breaks. Told through flashbacks, Tom and Marion must reckon with the past after taking in the elderly Patrick during the late 1990s.
Anthony Catanzaro rose to the top as a fitness model. He appeared in Playgirl and on the covers of countless fitness magazines
What do you do when you reach the peak then the mountain turns to quicksand? What do you do when you work and work, and sweat, and toil, and the rules of the game change? What do you do when you’ve spent your life building your body into the epitome of the developed male physique, you’re crouched inside a cake on live television, waiting to pop out to celebrate Betty White’s 91st birthday, and the whole left side of your body goes stiff?
Fitness model Anthony Catanzaro on the beach
Anthony Catanzaro rose to the top of his career as a fitness model. He brought his body to a gleaming, muscular, Greek-statue, close-to-perfection nonpareil. He appeared in Playgirl and on the covers of countless fitness magazines. Then he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
This game-changer ironically works tirelessly to grind the body machine to a halt. It starves the brain of dopamine, the chemical that allows the body to move and movement is the very thing that builds the gleaming muscles that propel a bodybuilder to fame. Symptoms can include tremors, bradykinesia or slowness of movement, limb rigidity, and dyskinesia or abnormal movement.
So what did Catanzaro do? To this day, seven years after his diagnosis, he relies on an energetic, positive attitude to keep active, stay as healthy as possible, and continue to be a role model of health. As he said in a phone interview, “Fill the well. Drink from the well. Then everyone will drink from you.” He is convinced that his positive attitude, and doing what he loves, putting self first will allow him to be as healthy as possible. Fighting the disease with his mind will allow his body to heal itself.
Fitness model Anthony Catanzaro.
He went through a period of depression and anxiety. That would seem natural after such a diagnosis but what is frustrating about Parkinson’s is that depression and anxiety are also symptoms of the disease. That’s a hard combination to beat. He tried mega-doses of the drugs commonly prescribed for the disease but they brought severe dyskinesia. He then developed a positive, daily routine of home workouts, cardio, sensible amounts of drugs, and surrounding himself with positive people. “You become your environment,” he said. “The comeback is always greater than the setback!”
He recently completed a book with photographer John Falocco filled with steamy pictures and soul baring poetry that chronicle his journey up the mountain and through the quicksand. The book does not disappoint one’s appetite for the developed male physique. His poetry is lucid and genuine. As he said himself, “The most important lesson humanity needs to learn is to appreciate, value, and respect one another.”
Fitness model Anthony Catanzaro on the cover of his book “Heat.”
He chose the title Heat for his book, not only because the pictures are, well, steamy, but, in his words, “It’s important we maintain control of our inner fires because they can burn and destroy, if we’re not careful.”
He adds, “No matter what we face in life, it’s important we stay balanced and in command. You were created by Perfection. Why change?”
There was a time when the Constitution’s protection of the “free exercise” of religion was a sort of shield, a protection for religious minorities from the prejudices of the powerful. No longer. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is in the process of transforming this First Amendment clause into a sword that politically powerful Christian conservatives can use to strike down hard-fought advances in civil rights, especially for LGBTQ individuals and women.
At issue is whether religious believers who object to laws governing matters such as health care, labor protections, and antidiscrimination in public accommodations should have a right to an “exemption” from having to obey those laws. In recent years, religious pharmacists have claimed that they should not be required to fill prescriptions for a legal and authorized medical procedure if that procedure is inconsistent with their beliefs. A court clerk whose religion defined marriage as a union of a man and woman has claimed a free-exercise right to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples who have a constitutional right to marry. Religious business owners, such as bakers and florists, who object to same-sex marriage have claimed a right to refuse service to same-sex couples. And employers have successfully asserted a right to deny their workers health-care benefits that they would otherwise be entitled to, such as contraception or abortion counseling.
Providing such religious exemptions has required a dramatic change in the law by the Supreme Court. In 1990, in Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court held that the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment cannot be used as a basis for an exception to a general law, no matter how great the burden on religion, unless the government’s action can be shown to be based on animus to religion. The case involved a claim by Native Americans for a religious exception to an Oregon law prohibiting consumption of peyote.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion for the Court ruling against the Native Americans and explained that it would be impossible to provide religious exemptions from civic obligations whenever a person disagreed with the law—there are just too many civic obligations and too many different religious views about those obligations. Also, if the government were to begin down this path, it inevitably would face the impossible task of defining a “religious” belief. Such an approach would force the Court to make intrinsically controversial and discriminatory decisions about which religious views were most deserving of special accommodation and which social values should be considered less important than the favored religious views.
This decision was in line with the approach taken by the Supreme Court, in almost all cases, through American history. Courts long held that the Constitution did not require an exception to general laws on account of religious beliefs—that parents could not deny medical aid to their children, that they could not have them work in violation of child-labor laws, even if the work involved dispensing religious literature, that religious schools could not violate laws against racial discrimination, and that a Jewish Air Force psychologist could not ignore the uniform requirement by wearing a yarmulke.
Unfortunately, the conservative justices on the current Court reject Scalia’s reasoning and may be about to overrule Employment Division v. Smith. If they do so, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will in essence be saying that the views of Christian conservatives are more important than legal protections for workers and people who seek to engage in ordinary commercial activity without suffering discrimination.
The first sign of this shift came with the 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, when for the first time in American history, the Court held that the religious beliefs of a business’s owner allowed it to refuse to provide employees with a benefit required by law. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers are required to provide health-insurance coverage, including coverage for contraceptives for women. The Affordable Care Act had already carved out an exemption for religious not-for-profit organizations, so that, for example, a Catholic diocese would not have to provide contraceptive care to its employees. (Legislatures can choose to give religious exemptions, even though the Constitution does not require them.) But at issue in Hobby Lobby were the rights of the owners of a purely secular business. The five conservative justices held that a family-owned corporation could deny contraceptive coverage to women employees based on the business owners’ religious beliefs.
The dissenters, led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pointed out that “the distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention,” and wondered about religious employers who were offended by health coverage of vaccines, or equal pay for women, or medications derived from pigs, or the use of antidepressants. At the very least, there is a compelling interest in protecting access to contraceptives, which the Supreme Court has deemed a fundamental right.
In June 2020, the Court ruled in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey Berru that teachers at a Catholic school could not sue for employment discrimination. The two cases before the Court involved a teacher who had sued for disability discrimination after losing her job following a breast-cancer diagnosis and a teacher who had sued for age discrimination after being replaced by a younger instructor.
Previously, in Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC (2012), the Court said that a narrow exception protects religious organizations from being held liable for choices they make about their “ministers,” which traditionally have been considered “exclusively ecclesiastical questions” that the government should not second-guess. But now the Court has expanded that exception to all religious-school teachers, meaning that the schools can discriminate based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, and disability with impunity.
This reflects a Court that is likely to expand the ability of businesses to discriminate based on their owners’ religious beliefs. A few years ago, the Court considered in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission whether a baker could refuse, on account of his religious beliefs, to design and bake a cake for a same-sex couple. This should be an easy decision: People should not be allowed to violate antidiscrimination laws because of religious beliefs, or any beliefs. For more than half a century, courts have consistently recognized that enforcing antidiscrimination laws is more important than protecting freedom to discriminate on account of religious beliefs. A person cannot invoke religious beliefs to refuse service or employment to Black people or women. Discrimination by sexual orientation is just as wrong. Although the justices in this case sidestepped the question of whether the free-exercise clause requires such an exemption, a number of other courts have ruled that compliance with general antidiscrimination laws might impose an impermissible burden on the free exercise of the owner’s religious beliefs, at least when the beliefs are Christian and the protected class includes gay and lesbian people. Moreover, the religious right has demanded that it is entitled to such exemptions.
In recent months, the Court expanded civil-rights protection for gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals, but there is reason to fear that the conservative justices are about to undercut this. In June 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal law Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination based on sex, forbids employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion left open the possibility of giving an exception to employers who discriminate because of their religious beliefs. The Court should emphatically reject such claims. Selling goods and hiring people on the open market is not the exercise of religion, and stopping discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a compelling government interest that judges should not dismiss because members of a favored religion disagree with the policy.
Unfortunately, the Court appears to be headed in exactly the opposite direction. Next term, which begins in October, the Court will consider, in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, whether free exercise was violated by a city’s barring a Catholic Social Services agency from participating in placing children in foster care, because the agency refused to certify same-sex couples as foster parents—in violation of the city’s general nondiscrimination policy. One of the questions before the Court is whether to “revisit” Employment Division v. Smith.
Five justices may be about to do just that—paving the way for the Court to allow religious organizations and persons to ignore nondiscrimination laws that protect the LGBTQ community, as well as ignore federal requirements to provide full health benefits to women.
Creating a free-exercise right to flout laws that protect other people would entangle judges in endless claims about which religions deserve this special treatment, to the great detriment of true religious liberty. Conservative Christians claim that if they are not given a privileged position in the political system to harm people in these ways, the government is demonstrating hostility to religion. But requiring religious people in the ordinary course of their lives to follow the rules that apply to everyone else is not hostility; it is equality.
Lin-Manuel Miranda said it best at the 2016 Tony Awards: “Love is love is love is love.” For those who identify as bisexual, we don’t just love one gender. We love multiple genders, and in many cases, all of them. Even though Pew research revealed that bisexuals make up the largest share of LGBTQ Americans, bisexual people are often underrepresented or misrepresented in the media. This bi-erasure perpetuates negative stereotypes about bi people like we don’t exist, are sexually greedy, incapable of being monogamous, or are in denial about being “full-blown” gay.
That’s why bisexual visibility is crucial. For one, it lets gay and straight people know that yes, bi folks exist, and we don’t have all these false, negative attributes you ascribe to us. Second, it lets bi people know that we’re not alone. That there are other folks like us in the world and they are thriving! Celebrities, in particular, hold such weight in society, that when they come out, they encourage others to do so and help to validate that bisexuality is indeed real. That’s why we’re shining a light on celebrities who have opened up about their roads to understanding their bisexuality.
Of course, bisexual isn’t the only label to describe someone attracted to multiple or all genders. Some prefer the label pansexual to describe their attraction to all genders. This list only reflects those who have claimed a bisexual identity.
So without further ado, here are 32 celebrities who are bisexual and proud of it!
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Frank Ocean
In 2012, the singer opened up to GQ about an open letter he posted to Twitter describing his first love with a man. He told the publication, “Whatever I said in that letter, before I posted it, seemed so huge. But when you come out the other side, now your brain—instead of receiving fear—sees ‘Oh, shit happened and nothing happened.’ Brain says, ‘Self, I’m fine.’ I look around, and I’m touching my fucking limbs, and I’m good.”
Lili Reinhart
In an August 2020 interview with Flaunt Magazine, the Riverdale star says she always knew about her bisexuality, but was afraid of becoming a media spectacle for only being in relationships with the opposite sex.
“I felt that since I’ve exclusively been in heteronormative relationships, it would be too easy for any outsider, especially the media, to vilify me and accuse me of faking it to get attention,” she told the publication. “That’s not something I wanted to deal with. But to my close friends, and those in my life, my bisexuality has been no secret.”
Demi Lovato
In a 2020 interview with Andy Cohen for his radio show Radio Andy, the singer opened up about how she came out as bisexual to her parents, who were supportive of her sexuality.
“I didn’t officially tell my parents that I saw myself ending up possibly with a woman until 2017,” she told Cohen. “It was actually emotional, but really beautiful. After everything was done, I was like shaking and crying. I just felt overwhelmed. I have such incredible parents. They were so supportive.”
Megan Fox
In a 2011 interview with Esquire, the Transformers star talked about the pressures of being bisexual in a rigid society.
“I think people are born bisexual and then make subconscious choices based on the pressures of society. I have no question in my mind about being bisexual.”
Andrew Gillum
In an exclusive September 2020 interview with Tamron Hall, the former mayor of Tallahassee revealed for the first time publicly that he identifies as a bisexual man.
““You didn’t ask the question, you put it out there of whether I identify as gay. The answer is I don’t identify as gay but I do identify as bisexual,” he said. “And that is something that I’ve never shared publicly before.”
Michelle Rodriguez
When the actress opened up to Entertainment Weekly about her sexuality in 2013, she said “I am too f**king curious to sit here and not try when I can. Men are intriguing. So are chicks.”
Billie Joe Armstrong
In a 1995 interview with The Advocate, the Green Day frontman opened up about his bisexuality, saying “I think people are born bisexual, and it’s just that our parents and society kind of veer us off into this feeling of ‘Oh, I can’t.’ They say it’s taboo. It’s ingrained in our heads that it’s bad, when it’s not bad at all. It’s a very beautiful thing.”
Tyler Blackburn
In April 2019, Blackburn revealed to The Advocate how he’s known about being bisexual since adolescence.
“I’m queer. I’ve identified as bisexual since a teenager,” he said. “I just want to feel powerful in my own skin, and my own mind, and in my own heart.”
Lauren Jauregui
The Fifth Harmony star has made no secret about her bisexuality ever since she wrote an open letter to Billboard about it back in 2016. “I am a bisexual Cuban-American woman and I am so proud of it,” she wrote. “I am proud to be part of a community that only projects love and education and the support of one another.”
Andy Mientus
In a 2016 post to Instagram, the former Flash star opened up about how to fight the stigma of being bisexual, telling his followers, “If you think you could be bi, ask yourself what is holding you back from accepting it. Is it your own developing feelings or your fear of society around you? Together, we can end that stigma.”
Keiynan Lonsdale
Before he became famous for playing Blue in the hit LGBTQ+ movie Love, Simon, Lonsdale announced he was bisexual over an Instagram post.
Halsey
The “Ghost” singer has always been open about her bisexuality and even released some songs about the subject, her most famous being “Strangers” with fellow bicon Lauren Jauregui.
Stephanie Beatriz
In an open letter to GQ back in June 2018, the Brooklyn 99 actress opened up why marrying a man doesn’t make her any less bisexual.
“I’m bi, and I’m getting married this fall. I’m excited, nervous, terrified, and so fucking happy,” she wrote. “I’m choosing to get married because this particular person brings out the best in me. This person happens to be a man. I’m still bi.”
Willow Smith
On a June 2019 episode of Red Table Talk, Smith came out as bisexual to mother Jada Pinkett Smith, saying how she’d actually prefer to be in a throuple.
“Personally, male and female, that’s all I need,” she said to her mother, who responded, “Well, there it is… I think my stomach just jumped. Listen, you know me Willow, whatever makes you happy.”
Andy Dick
In an interview with the Washington Post back in 2016, the comedian said, “Just because I’ve been with guys and I’m bi doesn’t mean I’m gay.”
Amber Heard
While the actress always knew she was bisexual, she didn’t reveal it to the world until she stepped out with former girlfriend Tasya van Ree back in 2010.
“When I hear someone comment about me coming out, I think it’s funny because I was never in,” she said at the Economist’s Pride & Prejudice Summer in 2010, according to People. “In part because I was very stubborn, I guess, and also in part because I just didn’t feel it was wrong.”
Rita Ora
After being criticized for her portrayal of bisexual women in her single “Girls,” Ora responded by coming out as bisexual herself.
“‘Girls’ was written to represent my truth and is an accurate account of a very real and honest experience in my life,” she wrote on Twitter. “I have had romantic relationships with women and men throughout my life and this is my personal journey.”
Lilly Singh
In February 2019, the YouTube star and late night talk show host revealed to her Twitter followers that she identifies as bisexual and is proud of it.
“Throughout my life these have proven to be obstacles from time to time,” she wrote. “But now I’m fully embracing them as my superpowers. No matter how many ‘boxes’ you check, I encourage you to do the same.”
Aaron Carter
In 2017, the “I Want Candy” singer revealed to his fans over Twitter he was attracted to both men and women.
“This doesn’t bring me shame,” he wrote. “[It’s] just a weight and burden I have held onto for a long time that I would like lifted off me.”
Margaret Cho
In an interview on The Real back in 2013, the comedian opened up about her bisexuality, despite being married to artist Al Ridenour at the time.
“I’m married to a man, but I’m bisexual so I like both,” she said.
Daniel Newman
When the Walking Dead star opened up to Peopleabout his bisexuality in 2017, he hoped his reveal would inspire LGBTQ youth to do the same.
“I don’t want to be hidden and have to dodge the question,” he told the publication. “I’m proud of who I am.”
Aubrey Plaza
In a 2016 interview with The Advocate, the Parks and Recreation star was very open to discussing her own views on bisexuality.
“I know I have an androgynous thing going on, and there’s something masculine about my energy,” she said to the publication. “Girls are into me—that’s no secret. Hey, I’m into them too. I fall in love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.”
Jason Mraz
When the “I’m Yours” singer wrote “I’m bi your side” in a poem for Billboard.comback in 2018, fans immediately began wondering of his sexuality. He responded with, “Honestly, I didn’t realize it was going to be so telling. But I’ve had experiences with men, even while I was dating the woman who became my wife.”
Shane Dawson
In a 2015 video he posted to YouTube, the content creator announced he was bisexual. “I’ve come to the conclusion, through therapy and through being honest with myself, I am bisexual.”
Sara Ramirez
The Grey’s Anatomy star came out as bisexual in 2016 at the True Colors Fund’s 40 to None Summit.
“Because of the intersections that exist in my own life: woman, multi-racial woman, woman of color, queer, bisexual, Mexican-Irish American, immigrant, and raised by families heavily rooted in Catholicism on both my Mexican and Irish sides, I am deeply invested in projects that allow our youth’s voices to be heard,” Ramirez said.
Jerrod Carmichael
In his 2019 HBO Special Home Videos, the comedian insinuated that he is attracted to both men and women.
“I’ve hooked up with dudes before,” Carmichael revealed to his mother, Cynthia, in the special, who responded, “Well, OK. That’s your option. I like men.”
Zoe Saldana
In a 2013 interview with Allure, the actress talked about how despite dating only men, she could see herself ending up with a woman.
“[I might] end up with a woman raising my children,” Saldana told the publication, saying, “that’s how androgynous I am.”
Vanessa Carlton
At Nashville Pride back in 2010, the “A Thousand Miles” singer came out as bisexual to her fans while performing onstage.
“I’ve never said this before but, while we’re here and living out loud as we should every single day, I, myself, am a proud bisexual woman,” she told her audience.
Alan Cumming
When he spoke about his bisexuality to The Advocateback in 2015, he told the publication, “My sexuality has never been black and white; it’s always been gray. I’m with a man, but I haven’t closed myself off to the fact that I’m still sexually attracted to women.”
Ezra Miller
In an interview with The Daily Beastin 2012, the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them star opened up about his bisexuality, saying “The way I would choose to identify myself wouldn’t be gay. I’ve been attracted mostly to ‘shes’ but I’ve been with many people and I’m open to love wherever it can be found.”
Angelina Jolie
While promoting Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in 2019, she revealed to co-star Michelle Pfeiffer that she had a celebrity crush on her when she was a teenager.
She also toldOK Magazine in 2003,“I have loved women in the past and slept with them. I think if you love and want to pleasure a woman, particularly if you are a woman yourself, then certainly you know how to do things a certain way.”
François Arnaud
The Borgias star used his IG stories to come out to his followers in alliance for Bisexual Awareness Week in September 2020.
“Silence has the perverse effect of perpetuating those stereotypes, making bi guys invisible, and leading people to doubt we even exist,” he wrote. “No wonder it’s still a chore to acknowledge bisexuality without getting into lengthy explanations.”
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A flawed Hornet app study found 45 percent of gay men back Trump. (Screen capture via YouTube)
A survey finding 45 percent of gay-identified men are planning to vote for President Trump in the 2020 election, published this week by the gay dating app Hornet, sparked interest on social media and Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, but falls short of providing an accurate picture of the LGBTQ electorate, experts in online polling told the Washington Blade.
Jason Turcotte, an associate professor of communication at Cal Poly Pomona, said via email the survey produced “an interesting finding,” but at the same time is “unlikely to be representative of the broader LGBTQ community.”
“To hold up this poll as evidence that the LGBTQ community is somewhat split on its support for the presidential candidates is like someone saying the users of Farmers Only represent the ideological spectrum of all farmers or that Christian Mingle users represent the ideological spectrum of all Christians,” Turcotte said. “To tout a Hornet poll as evidence of LGBTQ support for Trump is clickbaity, sloppy journalism.”
According to results of the survey, made public Tuesday and highlighted in a Newsweek story, American users of the gay media app Hornet — which allows users to “sting” potential matches to signal interest in engagement — were split in the candidates they’re backing in the 2020 election.
Of the 1,200 American men surveyed in a sample of 10,000 Hornet users worldwide, 51 percent pledged support for Joe Biden in the upcoming election, while 45 percent acknowledged they are gay men for Trump, according to a Hornet blog post. Hornet doesn’t offer demographic information on the men.
Based on the larger sample of 10,000 Hornet users worldwide, support for Trump among gay people is lower: Only 34 percent of gay men support Donald Trump, while 66 percent support Democratic nominee Biden.
Despite questions surrounding the survey, the results were cited on social media as evidence the LGBTQ community is veering away from its long support of the Democratic Party by backing Trump. The Log Cabin Republicans media project Outspoken tweeted out the survey Tuesday, as did Brandon Straka, who’s gay and a founder of the Walk Away movement.
The survey was also the subject of a Fox News segment Wednesday night, when host Tucker Carlson featured the Hornet results — as well as polls showing Trump is doing well with Latinos. As an expert to discuss the results, Carlson brought on Washington Examiner columnist Eddie Scarry, author of “Privileged Victims” and a gay conservative.
“If we’re just talking about gays, we’re looking at cities run by Democrats, liberal states, Democratic mayors, Democratic governors, and we’re seeing them go up in flames,” Scarry said. “Gay people are kind of inherently afraid of violence for reasons that should be obvious, so I think seeing that has scared a lot of people looking for someone to — they’re looking for protection from somebody. We’ve seen Joe Biden for the last two or three months kind of excuse if not outright encourage what’s been going on.”
Scarry went on to say the surprising number of American male Hornet users who back Trump is consistent with a new wave of gay staffers who work for Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill coming out.
“The staff is very gay on both sides, but the Republican staff is actually gayer than the Democratic side,” Scarry said. “And the thing is, the Republican side, they’re very, very discreet about the fact they’re Republicans. So you have these Republicans who finally are coming out and saying, ‘You know what? I’m tired of this. I’m tired of seeing what’s going on around the country. And you know what? Trump is the one who at least says, “We’ve had enough of this, too.”’”
But those conclusions weren’t the same reached by the experts, who took issue with the vagaries of the Hornet survey, including lack of information on certain demographics, such as age and region.
Turcotte said that demographic information would be crucial in ascertaining the accuracy of the Hornet survey results, as well as fine-tuning the results among different categories of men.
“Depending on where Hornet users reside, the results could be quite skewed,” Turcotte said. “The app could also be less popular among younger voters, which tend to lean liberal. It’s impossible to evaluate the credibility of a poll that lacks transparency about its sample size and methodology.”
Turcotte also took issue with the Hornet survey allowing respondents to answer anonymously, which he said could lead to false results.
“The anonymity factor of apps also threatens the credibility of such a poll,” Turcotte said. “Users of apps can misrepresent their age or identities. Apps that allow for a cloak of anonymity could appeal more to conservative-leaning users who prefer to occupy anonymous spaces because of work, home or community environments that are less accepting of the LGBTQ community.”
For its part, Hornet is pushing back against the media reporting of its survey as an accurate snapshot of gay people.
Stephan Horbelt, executive editor of Hornet, emphasized in response that the findings on gay men are based on a self-selecting, voluntary survey, as opposed to a scientific poll.
“Though I’m wholly unable to control how other outlets refer to it,” Horbelt said, “I’ve seen some pretty broad mischaracterizations of the data by other outlets on social media. Hornet is not Quinnipiac, nor has it ever ascribed that level of weight to our survey results.”
Horbelt said information on location, age, or race of respondents wasn’t gathered because the survey was voluntary, adding the higher than expected support for Trump “was quite the unfortunate surprise, and unsurprisingly that’s what has been turned into a story here.”
“As with any informal survey like this, the only thing that can truly be extrapolated from Hornet’s data is that 45 percent of those American gay men who took the survey expressed support for Donald Trump,” Horbelt said. “I’ve seen outlets attempt to extrapolate voter prediction on behalf of the greater LGBTQ community, which can’t and should not be done. (Ours was a poll of gay, bi and trans men, not the larger queer community.)”
Horbelt concluded the key takeaway from what Hornet found is “there are indeed gay men who unfortunately and ignorantly support Donald Trump, head of the most anti-LGBTQ administration in modern history, and it’s likely they do so at much higher rates than we previously believed. “
“Without acknowledging that fact, how can we course-correct? It’s clear that we — the larger LGBTQ community — have a lot of work to do,” Horbelt said.
Indeed, the Hornet survey results are inconsistent with other polls showing a greater percentage of LGBTQ people support Biden, including LGBTQ Republicans. According to a Morning Consult poll in June, almost a quarter of LGBTQ Republicans have a favorable opinion of Joe Biden and 12 percent said they’d vote for him. That’s five points more likely than straight Republican to say they’ll vote for Biden, and were eight points more likely to say they’ll vote for Trump.
Based on 2016 exit polls, LGBTQ people in a lop-sided manner backed Hillary Clinton over Trump. A total of 78 percent backed the Democratic candidate, compared to the 14 percent of the vote won by Trump. Trump got a lower percentage than either Mitt Romney, who 22 percent of the LGBTQ vote in 2012, or John McCain, who got 27 percent of the LGBTQ vote in 2008.
Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts University, cited numerous issues with the Hornet survey — including the fact it sampled only users of the Hornet app and didn’t appear to take into account some would be more likely to respond than others — but also said the results are inconsistent with his own findings.
“For context, in November 2019, the survey I co-direct (the Cooperative Congressional Election Study) asked about 2020 vote choice,” Schaffner said. “The survey is very large, so we actually had 1,074 LGBTQ men in our sample. Among that group, just 26 percent were planning on voting for Trump while 66 percent said they were going to vote for the Democratic nominee. That’s basically the exact same breakdown as we saw in 2016 (67 percent Clinton and 26 percent Trump). So I’d be shocked to find any significant change in support among that group now.”
All in all, the views of the LGBTQ community as a sexual minority making up an estimated 5 percent of the population would be difficult to ascertain — even for the most scientific of polls.
Turcotte, however, said the Hornet survey doesn’t come close to taking an accurate poll of the LGBTQ community by any means.
“Do I believe that voting habits of underrepresented groups are more nuanced than most voters and campaigns assume?” Turcotte said. “Absolutely. But do I think the Hornet poll accurately captures that nuance for the LGBTQ community? Absolutely not.”
I remembering Googling “bisexual man” my freshman year of college. The top articles I found were research papers about bi and “down low” men spreading HIV. My first association with male bisexuality was that all bi men were HIV-positive, and we carelessly spread the life-altering virus. According to Google—or the world—that’s all bi men were. That is, if we even existed, which was, and somehow still is, up for debate.
It perplexes me how many people don’t believe male bisexuality exists, given that I’m right here. Often, these naysayers view bi men as being “secretly gay,” in large part because a number of gay men briefly call themselves bi as a pitstop of their way to Gay Town. But for many men, like myself, bisexuality is our final destination.
And it frustrates me that many of the folks who do realize bisexuality exists believe harmful stereotypes about bi folks, like we’re confused, greedy, slutty, incapable of being monogamous, more likely to cheat, and more likely to spread STIs.
No wonder it took years of self-loathing, denial, and having blackout sex with men to finally embrace my bisexuality.
Zachary Zane.
Courtesy of Zachary Zane
Things have changed since I began college in the late 2000s. I just Googled “bisexual man” and the first article that comes up is from The Advocate, titled: “15 Bisexual Men Who Prove That Bisexuality Isn’t a Phase.” Then there are a lot of news hits about the recent study that “proved” male bisexuality exists by studying men’s arousal patterns while viewing erotic stimuli. I have to admit, it’s a little disheartening that in 2020, we still feel compelled to prove our existence. Nevertheless, I’m grateful this study did so. (FYI: The first “bi men spreading HIV” study now comes up at the end of the second Google page.)
It’s huge that we’ve seen an explosion of bisexual content in the past decade. This is a necessary step forward for bi visibility. I know visibility is a buzzword in this day and age, and it’s a shame that it is, because it’s indispensable. For bisexuals, it helps us realize that we’re not alone or confused. We’re real. Visibility is also the first step in creating (or finding) bi communities. The more visibility there is, the more people feel comfortable coming out, which encourages others to come out too. The more people are out, the more people can connect to create bi communities and spaces.
But as you can tell by the top articles on Google, the majority of bisexual content is written by bi people for straight people. It’s a lot of “5 Things Never to Say to Bisexuals” and “10 Stereotypes about Bisexuals That Aren’t True.” Or, it’s content where bi people attempt to “prove” our existence, which frankly, is infuriating. (I know I keep harping on this, but I genuinely don’t understand how people can be like, “You can like men. You can like women. But liking men and women? Impossible!”)
There are far fewer articles written by bi people for other bi people. There are fewer stories addressing internalized biphobia or what it’s like being a bi person who actually does embody a lot of the (negative) stereotypes about being bi.
Bi people face unique struggles. Outside of the stereotypes that come with being bi, there’s also a lot of emotional pain that comes from not feeling welcomed in gay or straight spaces. Often, this is referred to as double discrimination, and it’s by far, the worst part of being bi. You feel isolated and like you can’t talk to anyone about your struggles because they won’t understand. Or they’ll say something insensitive. (Just date women if you’re bisexual!) Or they’ll somehow diminish your identity. This is why bisexual people have higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, drug abuse, and physical pain than gay people (which is already much higher than straight people).
I don’t want to make it seem like all doom and gloom, though. I’ve found incredible straight and gay friends who embrace my bisexuality. I no longer have gay friends who say “ew” when I say I had sex with (or have a crush on) on a woman. (Side note: Gay men who call vaginas disgusting or say it’s “gross” to have sex with women are misogynistic pieces of trash. It’s not a cute look.)
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I’ve also found an incredible bi community within the sex-positive, polyamorous, kink scene, specifically through the sex club New Society For Wellness (NSFW). The sex, ironically, isn’t what it’s about for me. It’s a space where I feel affirmed for being bi as I’m surrounded by other bi men, women, and nonbinary folks. While I love my gay and straight friends, it’s simply not the same as being part of a bi community.
I’ve spent the majority of my adult life as the “bi guy.” As a public figure, I’ve done everything in my power to promote bi visibility, share bi stories, and address the specific needs of bi people. I had no intention of becoming this person. I was simply trying to figure out my own bi identity, but after my first article I wrote about bisexual dating went viral—and I received dozens of emails praising me for sharing the underrepresented bisexual male voice—I kept writing about bisexuality. I kept writing because I knew how lonely it can be feeling like there’s no one else like you.
This week (September 16-23) is Bisexuality Awareness Week (#Biweek). In honor of #Biweek, Men’s Health will share stories about bisexuality—our hope being that when a bisexual or questioning man Googles “Male Bisexuality” or “Bisexual Man,” they can learn that they are valid, and there’s a growing bi community out there just waiting for them.
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WORCESTER, MA — Worcester police investigated 12 crimes motivated by hate or bias in 2019, and more than one-third of those crimes were against gay men, according to the department.
Worcester police Capt. Michael McKiernan reported the statistics on Monday night to the Human Rights Commission. Four possible hate crimes were committed against Black residents; the department also investigated one possible hate crime each against Latinos, Jews and Muslims, McKiernan said.
McKiernan declined to speak about trends in hate crimes, saying that each year differs greatly. The department tracks crimes where charges were filed, but also ones where hate is simply suspected as a motive.
Worcester reported investigating seven hate crimes in 2018 and eight in 2017, according to FBI statistics.
Of the 12 cases in 2019, police made seven arrests in possible hate crime cases. A magistrate dismissed charges in four of the cases, and two cases were still open as of this week. Two cases resulted in guilty pleas. A majority of the cases involved assault, but at least four also involved property damage.
The crimes against gay men occurred throughout 2019, and were not concentrated around gay pride month in June, McKiernan said.
McKiernan did not report the number of incidents so far in 2020. At least one incident this year involved a Jewish temple. In early August, Worcester police arrested a 28-year-old city man after he went to Temple Emanuel Sinai and Jewish Community Center along Salisbury Street, yelled at people there and kicked a sign with a Jewish Star of David, according to charges.
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS / AP) — California fitness centers have filed a lawsuit alleging Gov. Gavin Newsom’s measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus unfairly target the industry and are demanding they be allowed to reopen.
The California Fitness Alliance, which represents nearly 300 businesses, filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Scott Street, a lawyer for the group, said Tuesday.
The suit accuses state and Los Angeles County officials of requiring gyms to close without providing evidence that they contribute to virus outbreaks and at a time when staying healthy is critical to California’s residents. The prolonged closure is depriving millions of people the ability to exercise as temperatures soar and smoky air from wildfires blankets much of the state, said Francesca Schuler, a founding partner of the alliance.
“We are not looking for a fight,” said Schuler, who is chief executive of In-Shape Health Clubs. “We are committed to being as safe as possible. We are in the health business. That’s what we care about more than anything.”
Messages were sent seeking comment from the California Department of Public Health and Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
The suit is one of many filed by California sectors walloped by closures due to the pandemic. Newsom’s administration let many businesses reopen in spring but shut them again in July as virus cases surged, and is allowing reopenings to take place in phases as counties see virus cases diminish.
“Once you’re in a safe clean environment like this one, you’ll feel inspired and want to keep coming rather than just working out at home,” Dahl told KPIX 5 on Monday.
Under state rules, fitness centers can reopen indoors at 10% of capacity when a county’s infections drop from widespread to substantial. In counties with minimal infections, gyms can reopen indoors at 50% capacity.
Not all gyms in San Francisco are jumping at the opportunity to open their doors. Some, like Equinox, are waiting until they can open at 25% capacity.
The closures have devastated the fitness industry, which could see between 30% and 40% of businesses close for good, Schuler said. They have also worsened the health of many residents who rely on gyms for exercise at a time when the public is being urged to stay healthy to protect themselves against COVID-19, she said.
The alliance also questioned why fitness centers are facing more restrictive measures than restaurants when gym equipment can be spaced out and patrons required to wear masks.
Statewide, California’s coronavirus infection rate has dropped steadily for weeks. As of last Tuesday, however, 33 of the state’s 58 counties still had widespread infection levels, which require schools to only offer distance learning and most businesses to limit indoor operations.
Less than a month after announcing their shock split, Kayla Itsines and former fiancé Tobi Pearce were spotted out separately in Adelaide on Sunday.
The 29-year-old fitness queen was seen shopping with a friend at Unley Shopping Centre and seemed to be in good spirits despite her recent breakup.
Smiling, Kayla showed off her incredible abs in a pair of black Nike sports shorts, which she teamed with a cropped white sweatshirt.
Separate ways: Less than a month after announcing their shock split, Kayla Itsines (left) and former fiancé Tobi Pearce (right, with daughter Arna Leia and Kayla’s mum, Anna) were spotted out separately in Adelaide on Sunday
Her long brunette hair was worn in a high ponytail and she rounded out her sporty ensemble with a pair of white Adidas tube socks and white sneakers.
The health conscious star was seen buying some juices at the supermarket, and later checked her phone as she walked alongside her friend and two young children.
Meanwhile, Tobi stopped by the home he once shared with Kayla, where he picked up their 17-month-old daughter, Arna Leia.
He appeared downcast during the visit to the home.
Top of the crops: Smiling, Kayla showed off her incredible abs in a pair of black Nike sports shorts, which she teamed with a cropped white sweatshirt
A posting on realestate.com.au on September 2 revealed Kayla and her former partner were selling their sprawling property in South Australia.
The stunning home in Malvern boasts spacious open-plan living and while no price guide was offered, they were asking prospective buyers for ‘best offers’.
Built on 3,193 square metres, the property features a tennis court, solar-heated swimming pool, ‘fully-equipped alfresco pavilion’, self-contained studio and cellar.
Checking in: The health conscious star was seen buying some juices at the supermarket, and later checked her phone as she walked alongside her friend and two young children
While Kayla wasn’t home at the time, her mother, Anna, was on hand to greet Tobi and hand Arna over to her dad.
Keeping his head down as he left the property, Tobi was dressed casually in a pair of black Nike track pants, which he paired with a black Adidas hooded sweatshirt.
He also wore a tan coloured baseball cap and white sneakers, with Anna trailing behind him holding the little girl.
Daddy’s girl: Tobi was spotted stopping by the home he once shared with Kayla, where he picked up their 17-month-old daughter, Arna Leia (pictured with Kayla’s mum, Anna)
Later, Tobi and Arna visited Burnside Village shopping centre, with the little ome walking alongside her dad as he held her hand.
Kayla and Tobi announced their split on Instagram on August 21, leaving fans of the fitness entrepreneur shocked.
The former couple created a global fitness empire estimated to be worth $696million.
Day out: Later, Tobi and Arna visited Burnside Village shopping centre, with the little girl walking alongside her dad as he held her hand
‘After eight years together, Tobi and I have come to the difficult decision to separate as a couple. We will always be family, and remain good friends and devoted parents to Arna,’ she wrote on Instagram at the time.
‘We have grown up together in Adelaide, sharing a lifetime of experiences and special memories from moving into our first apartment and starting SWEAT from our lounge room to becoming parents to our beautiful daughter.
‘Our friendship remains strong as we parent Arna together and run SWEAT as business partners. Thank you for your support and kindness during this time.’
Ex factor: Kayla and Tobi announced their split on Instagram on August 21, leaving fans of the fitness entrepreneur shocked
After meeting in late 2012, the pair launched the Bikini Body Training Company and went on to amass a following of more than 20 million fitness enthusiasts worldwide thanks to their workouts, app and health books.
They launched the SWEAT app in May 2017, creating the largest online community for women’s fitness, and netting them more than $400million in just one year.
The pair were named joint fifth on the Australian Financial Review’s Young Rich List in 2018, making them the wealthiest self-made 20-somethings in Australia.
‘After eight years together, Tobi and I have come to the difficult decision to separate as a couple. We will always be family, and remain good friends and devoted parents to Arna,’ she wrote on Instagram at the time
Thanks to a global pandemic and a 21st-century cold war, Chinese culture has looked inward and is taking conservative turns on multiple fronts. By further suppressing LGBTQ+ and feminist activities while promoting traditional Confucian values, post-COVID China is committed to turning the clock back to a more conservative, and in theory, stable, time. But these ever-more stringent cultural policies will leave a deep and long-lasting mark on China’s Gen Z, which will also happen to be the main growth engine for global luxury and fashion soon. With the rise of conservatism in China, the liberal fashion world is likely to undergo profound changes over the years to come.
Like many other civic discourses, the debate over resurgent conservatism started on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like platform. In late August, a post published by public intellectual Zhou Xuanyi was widely circulated online. Zhou wrote, “the biggest glory of my generation is that — for the first time in Chinese history — a generation has to ask the next to be less conservative.” The post soon inspired a cascade of comments about the bizarre phenomenon of Chinese Gen Zers’ conservative tendencies. Older millennial netizens have coined the terms “digital feet-binding,” “cyber chastity-belt,” and “tech-enabled chastity archway” (数码牌坊，赛博猪笼，电子裹脚布) to describe Gen Z’s ideological backwardness in China’s modernized state.
The debate was a response to a recent series of social scandals in China. Following the government’s “zero food waste” campaign, a restaurant in Tianjin began to sell gendered menus that assign larger food portions to men. Then, a university in Guangxi, a southwestern Chinese province, suggested that female students “not expose much skin for public temptation” in its student safety guide. And now, to counter the country’s rising divorce cases and dropping birth rate, state officials have introduced a month of cool-down period for divorce requests and have proposed “more training on responsibility” for newlyweds.
By the end of August, the Shanghai Pride Festival, a hallmark of China’s progressive grassroots groups, announced a permanent shut down. To the surprise of many, online support for these topics mostly came from Gen Zers, who see the return to conservatism as a path toward China’s cultural autonomy from the West.
Unlike millennials, China’s Generation Z has grown up in a full-fledged luxury boom that grew alongside a tightening of cultural control. By getting less exposure to international media as well as being force-fed more nationalist propaganda, born-after-2000 youngsters are more likely to see progressive values, such as LGBTQ and women’s rights, as a betrayal of Chinese culture.
For global fashion, room for any LGBTQ+ discourse is gradually diminishing in Gen Z’s China. On August 10, French jewelry brand Cartier launched a Qixi-themed campaign video on Weibo featuring its signature “Trinity ring” with a gay-looking couple. Although there was no direct reference to the couple’s relationship, most audiences interpreted the image as an LGBT representation. However, on Cartier’s Tmall store page, the same “gay couple” image was dubbed with the caption “father and son.” This detail ended up inspiring many online comments, most of them sympathizing with the brand’s creative efforts to sneak around China’s censorship on homosexual content.
As the online comments piled up, Cartier’s campaign event got picked up by several state media, including Guancha, whose reporting framed the wordplay as the brand’s sarcastic, condescending attitude towards Chinese people. A few days after the campaign release, Cartier took down the image with the “father and son” caption from its Tmall store. The brand has not issued any statement that acknowledged the controversy thus far.
Cartier’s Qixi campaign captioned an image as “father and son” to avoid censorship. Photo: Cartier’s Tmall screenshot.
There has been silence across the board among China’s LGBTQ+ community. In April, Jing Daily reported on China’s then-burgeoning LGBTQ+ fashion scene. Just six months later, most of the reported initiatives are close to obsolete. On August 13, the Shanghai Pride Festival issued an official statement regarding its permanent shutdown yet didn’t specify any cause. With the title “The End Of The Rainbow,” the declaration stands in sharp contrast with the colorful Pride fashion ad still on the site.
The Shanghai Pride Festival announced its permanent shutdown on August 13, 2020. Photo: Shanghai Pride Festival.
Similar to LGBTQ+ discourse, feminist messages about gender equality are facing a harsher crackdown today. Believing in the notion that a traditional family is the foundation of a stable society, the Chinese mainstream media has seen both calls for women’s and LGBTQ+ rights as a threat to the status quo. During a July episode of the popular TV show Sisters Who Make Waves, a girl band’s song performance had the lyrics removed. Words containing direct body references, like “curvy body (前凸后翘)” and “loose woman (放荡),” were deemed too explicit and removed from the show. Although the episode generated a pushback on social media and angry netizens started to circulate the performance clip with full lyrics re-inserted, the episode showed an alarming new level of state control over feminist issues.
A senior media sales manager at a Shanghai-based agency, who asked to go by “Claire W” for this article, said that media censorship started growing around 2018 and hit a new high in the post-COVID-19 era. “The official pressure to air advertising with ‘positive energy’ has intensified this year, due to COVID,” she said. “Back in 2016, it was still possible to do a project that addressed leftover women as SKII did. Doing something similar today [would be] impossible. I don’t think that ad would pass the censor now.” The SKII’s leftover women ad was one of the first media representations aired in China to acknowledge women who chose not to get married but were happy with their decisions. But at a time when mainstream voices are increasingly trying to coerce women to marry and have families, women’s choices feel like they’re narrowing.
Meanwhile, more patriotism has appeared in China’s luxury and fashion scene. Last month, the Belgian luxury house Delvaux launched a limited-edition handbag collection named “China Dream,” an official political term that describes an ideal Chinese citizen’s nationalist ethos. The term “China Dream” used to pop on in national celebration songs, textbooks, state TV shows and has now made its way to luxury handbags.
Today, social media is programmed to infiltrate users with messages encouraging them to unflinchingly devote themselves to their family and state,” Claire explained. “It is called ‘positive energy,’ and now every big-budget campaign needs to involve positive energy to pass the bar.”
To the global fashion industry, these recent events might seem minor, but China’s fashion community immediately saw them for what they were: the early signs of erasing liberal values and the assertion of traditional gender norms. In each case, the state is redefining fashion’s relationship with China’s young audience by placing the nationalist-conservative ideal at the center of a trend (while filtering off progressive messages that aren’t related to nation-building).
Over the past two decades, China’s consumer boom was believed to be a vehicle for steady social and cultural liberalization. The thinking was that, as the economy advances, more fashion ads touting inclusivity, gender equality, and body positivity would be inevitable. But in the post-COVID era where stability is now the priority, these ideas are unraveling. Therefore, fashion, a medium that has long embraced liberal causes, needs to adopt a more subtle, if not silent, mode of communication to assert its beliefs.
Try these online workouts to support trans trainers across the country.
Image Credit: Artem Tryhub/iStock/GettyImages
There should be a space for everyone in the workout world, no matter whether their preferred exercise is swimming, running, cycling, boxing, lifting weights or something else entirely. But the fitness industry still has a long way to go before it becomes as diverse as it needs to be.
Now, with online exercise classes, you can work out with an incredible variety of fitness professionals across the country and all over the world — trans trainers included. Whether you’re in need of a new workout regimen or simply want to make your fitness feed more diverse, check out these five trainers.
Although most of these trainers have Instagram accounts (and you should definitely follow them), streaming platforms or purchasing their workout programs and ebooks are an even better way to show your support, as trainers receive either direct payment or revenue from ads on their videos. (Just make sure you have your ad blocker disabled.)
Alongside supporting trans trainers through their programs and social media accounts, it’s important that you practice small steps toward making the gym a more welcoming space. Getting comfortable asking fellow gym-goers their preferred pronouns can go a long way in helping make the fitness community a more inclusive environment.
1. Sahara Fitness Gear by Sahara Gentry
Gentry offers personalized workout programs tailored to your goals.
Image Credit: LIVESTRONG.com Creative/@sahara_fit
Certified personal trainer Sahara Gentry offers a variety of downloadable workout plans at affordable prices, ranging from $10 to $50. His programs are beginner-friendly and include dumbbell-only workouts, at-home exercise plans and a 12-week body-building plan.
In sharing his personal fitness journey, Gentry hopes to make the industry a more open place for anyone that doesn’t feel confident in the gym, particularly LGBTQ youth with gym anxiety in his community (and beyond).
“Many LGBTQ youth face identity issues, and working on your physique to match your inner version of yourself is one of the most powerful tools to self acceptance in my opinion,” he says. “I love being a part of that for so many in the community.”
Placing a value on helping clients match their inner selves to their bodies, Gentry also offers personalized workout programs that can be performed with or without equipment, tailored to your fitness level and goals.
EVERYBODY is a gym and fitness community in Los Angeles dedicated to celebrating diversity.
Image Credit: LIVESTRONG.com Creative/EVERYBODY
Los Angeles gym EVERYBODY is devoted to creating a more inclusive fitness culture for all people. EVERYBODY welcomes all members who walk through their doors (or joins virtually), regardless of their gender, sexuality, size, age, ethnicity or ability.
For those outside the LA area, EVERYBODY also hosts Zoom workouts you can try at home. The online sessions include Pilates, tai chi, strength training and more. Classes are open for all at an affordable price (most are $5), and the sign-up process includes a space for participants to enter their name and preferred pronouns.
Ilya Parker, physical therapy assistant and ACE-certified medical exercise specialist, is the founder of Decolonizing Fitness, which offers online training programs that are weight-neutral, trans- and disability-friendly and age-inclusive.
Actively seeking out and supporting a variety of fitness platforms is one way Parker encourages others to help transform the fitness industry.
“Mainstream fitness culture as promoted on IG is not diverse or inclusive, and it’s reserved solely for conventionally attractive, thin, young, able-bodied, heterosexual people,” he says. “It promotes images of white normative beauty and insidiously dismisses anyone who dares to carry an identity beyond this standard and participate in fitness.”
Supporting platforms like Decolonizing Fitness (and sharing content with friends) is one way to promote Parker’s diversification efforts. You can donate on the website or purchase his e-books and apparel on the site.
The Transmasculine Training Series, offered on the Decolonizing Fitness platform, offers two different programs, both of which can be done either at home or at the gym by exercisers of all fitness levels. Once you download the guides onto your preferred mobile device, you can customize the workouts to your needs and goals.
Ace Morgan, owner of Ace Morgan Fitness, offers $20 Zoom workout classes that are appropriate for all ages and skill levels. And if you’re unable to afford the class fee, Morgan encourages participation on a pay-what-you-can basis.
Morgan also provides personalized fitness plans, based on a “come as you are” philosophy. Plans are tailored to each individual client, whether your goals center around fat loss, muscle gain or maintenance.
Shae Scott offers fitness and nutrition programs to help you live a healthier life.
Founder of Free the Mind, a training and nutrition company, Shae Scott offers a variety of personal training plans, including 4-, 8- and 12-week-long weight-loss and strength-building programs.
These sessions are personalized to your goals, fitness level and schedule — whether you have gym access or not. Scott’s services include weekly check-ins and progress updates to keep you moving toward your fitness goals.
Scott encourages other gym-goers and trainers to take small steps to make LGBT clients feel seen and included — in and out of the gym.
“To be more inclusive in the fitness industry, others can practice simple things like asking their client or prospective client what their preferred pronouns are,” he says. “Another thing would be to help the client achieve the body they want and identify with, not the one the trainers might see them in or as.”
My friends, I can’t believe I am saying this, in a sports column, after all we’ve been through these past six months, after crawling out of the no-sports desert of the spring and early summer, but here goes:
There are too many sports right now.
Yeah. I said it. I’m grateful for the work, but I’m overwhelmed. I’m guessing everyone who loves sports is overwhelmed. It’s the middle of September, and we are amid the wildest smorgasbord of sporting events in the history of sports. I know that sounds like the sort of nonsense hyperbole sportswriters say, but it’s actually true. There are now days when there are games and events from the NFL, college football, the NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, WNBA, Premier League, F1, Major League Soccer, National Women’s Soccer League, Nascar, cricket, boxing, bass fishing, and on and on and on.
Don’t yell at me if I missed your favorite sport. I am sure I missed your favorite sport. I’m probably forgetting like 600 sports, because it seems like every league on earth is playing—except for, you know, the Big Ten.
I love it, but it’s too much. The calendar is cuckoo. A reader emailed to tell me that on Sunday, bizarrely, the Jets and the Mets played games in Buffalo (baseball’s Blue Jays are spending the season in upstate New York; the Jets were thumped by the Bills). Here in New York City, we just finished the U.S. Open in tennis—now comes the U.S. Open in golf, up the road at Winged Foot in Westchester. They just ran the Kentucky Derby. There’s a Tour de France, and in a couple of weeks, the French Open. The Masters is in November.
I need to lie down. It’s impossible to keep track of. My television just pulled a hamstring.
Last week I got a couple of angry notes from folks mad the Journal neglected covering Dustin Johnson’s victory in golf’s big-check FedEx Cup. Neglected? I had no idea the FedEx Cup was happening! Mea culpa. Sorry Dustin! I’ll catch you in 2021!
You know how, back in the old days, when we could go to crowded restaurants, you’d occasionally sit down at a table, wait a half-hour for a menu, see the orders stacked up like a blizzard on the chef’s station, watch the chef quit in a huff, the dishwasher step in at the grill, and realize that the place was completely swamped?
SPORTS IS THAT RESTAURANT!
Even the people who say they are boycotting sports are complaining—it’s a lot of boycotting to keep track of. You never know when you might turn on the TV and accidentally watch a game.
Remember the tumbleweeds of April? Don’t get me wrong—April was a terrible crisis, let’s not repeat that again. But sports was MIA. People were watching grainy old George Gervin and Roger Staubach games. They were racing their pets in their hallway, just for action. Gamblers were gambling on the weather. When Korean baseball showed up, we threw a parade.
We were starving and desperate. We begged sports to resume. We got excited when Dana White teased “Fight Island.” Now the schedule is packed, completely out of control. I watched “SportsCenter” the other night. The host, Scott Van Pelt, looked like one of those guys in the Coney Island hot-dog eating contest. I wanted to fetch him a glass of water and a bucket.
The return of the NFL really sent it over the edge. You know how presumptuous the NFL is. Sports were already busy enough, but then the NFL puffed out its chest, marched into the living room, put up a tent and lit a flare. I’m baaaaaccck!! the NFL said. Now you can’t go anywhere without hearing someone yapping underneath their face mask about their crummy fantasy team.
More by Jason Gay
I thought it would be weird that there are no fans, that it might take a little enthusiasm away from the experience. And you know what? It is weird. The TV ratings are funky. But sports are still playing. Nonstop. All the time.
Now the Big Ten is reportedly mulling a return. The Big Ten and Pac-12 have taken a lot of guilt-tripping over the past month since canceling their fall seasons for coronavirus concerns. Now they’re experiencing one of the saddest cases of FOMO in sports history. Watching the ACC and Big 12 this weekend must have sent them over the edge.
Fine. Take a number. Knock yourself out. Come back.
I don’t want to sound like a whiner. This sports surge has put me back in business. I don’t know what I would have done if I had to write about social distancing and virtual school for another six months. Please know: I’m still social distancing. I have two kids at home, virtual schooling, possibly until the year 3000. It’s completely the pits.
But now there’s sports on TV, morning to midnight. Is it too much of a good thing? I don’t have any time to answer that question. There’s another game on.
Share Your Thoughts
Is there an overload of live sports right now? Join the discussion.
With its bright Pride flag flying at its entrance, a New Jersey gym was considered by many a queer safe space. That is, until it was targeted in a bombing. (Stock photograph via Elements Envato)
A New Jersey man was charged for detonating an explosive device at a lesbian-owned gym long considered by locals as a “safe haven” for LGBT+ people.
Dwayne A Vandergrift Jr, 35, was charged by federal authorities on September 4 for not only causing devastating damage to the Gloucester City gym, but for unlawful possession of two destructive devices and unlawful possession of a short-barrelled rifle, according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office for New Jersey.
At around 4am on August 26, Vandergrift tacked the explosive device on the front door of GCity Crossfit Gym, according to surveillance footage.
Sprinting off, the resulting explosion shattered the glass and desolated the door.
An LGBT+ Pride flag decorating it on lithely hanging on the hinges, prompting the gym’s owners as well as the local community to suspect the incident was a hate crime.
LGBT+ gym allegedly bombed by man who searched how to produce makeshift explosives only days before the attack.
Owned by Jenai Gonzales and her wife Ann Panarello, the gym is a “known safe-haven in the area for LGBT+ youth” and many of its personal trainers and staffers are queer, athletic apparel Lifting Culture owner Steven Vitale wrote on his website.
As much as the gym’s owners suspect the attack was motivated by queerphobia, the Attorney’s Office does not specify a motive.
Federal and local law enforcement officers combed Vandergrift’s home on 28 August, finding inside bomb-making materials as well as several weapons, tactical vests, ammunition and around 85 marijuana plants.
Investigators tapped his home computer to find that he had in recent days searched for ways to jerry-rig explosives, including pipe and pressure cooker bombs. He was arrested later that day and is presently in custody.
Vandergrift faces a total prison term of at 20 years as well as a maximum fine of $250,000.
Though the attack left the local LGBT+ community shaken, Vitale wrote: “G-City Crossfit had, and will continue to have, a large gay Pride flag displayed prominently in their front door.”
