“Will someone please find out what the hell is going in Florida? We’ve had enough!” Stacy Braukman and I share a laugh. The question she’s just posed feels all too pertinent. My longtime partner lives part of the year in Florida, and through him, I’ve been getting a front-row seat to the state’s noxious anti-LGBTQ, anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-protest politics.…
Workplaces that cherish diversity are more resilient, attract better talent, and routinely outperform their more homogenous competitors. This sentiment is echoed by a recent McKinsey survey, which found that diverse businesses were 25% more likely to record above-average profits than the market average. Concerningly, however, that same McKinsey study found that only 52% of employees viewed diversity in a positive light, while 61% had a thoroughly negative view of initiatives to improve inclusion in the workplace. As an ally, there’s plenty you…
On this month's episode of Asking for a Friend, host Dr. Laura McGuire sits down with Dr. Erin Atkinson, a prenatal genetic counselor in Houston, Texas, to discuss queer family building, access to competent sexual healthcare, and the nuance of sex chromosomes.…
“My office is the gayest place on campus,” declares Professor Jerry T. Watkins III with a grin. He’s not kidding. In the background behind him, I can see through my Zoom screen, the wall sports an LGBTQ pride flag, a poster of a renowned local Virginia queer cultural figure, buttons from the AIDS activist group ACT UP, and various other colorful items testifying to the unapologetic queerness of the office’s sole resident. It’s the kind of environment intended to make a…
On the Pride month episode of Asking for a Friend, host Dr. Laura McGuire sits down with Sunflower Summit, a queer Latinx artist, producer, and mental health professional, to discuss finding wholeness in their queer identity, how their music and mental health journeys have intertwined, and the importance of storytelling.…
As a queer of faith and the product of generations of Jewish people who fought to continue to exist and queer brethren who paved the way for me to live openly, I cannot help but continue to pray for one more moment of courage—one more moment of strength in the battle I need to fight.…
Fifty years ago this week, a horrifying tragedy struck the New Orleans queer community. On June 24, 1973, an arsonist attacked the Up Stairs Lounge, a French Quarter gay bar, killing 32 people. Until the Pulse massacre in Orlando in 2016, it was the most lethal attack on the LGBTQ community ever perpetrated in the United States. Yet even today, few people have heard of it. Robert Fieseler has done more to change that than nearly anyone.…
June is a hard month for me. It’s a time when the world reminds me that I’m getting older, and the signs of adulthood become more apparent. Suddenly, being in my thirties means taking naps before nights out (also, why go out when you can be in bed by 9:30 p.m.?), turning down the radio in the car to focus, and realizing that “back day” is no longer just an intense workout at the gym but a day dedicated to…
You can tell that Jaime Harker loves her job. I first learned about this scholar of the queer South through her brilliant 2018 study, The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon. When she’s recounting a tale from the adventurous, unapologetic southern lesbian literary cultures of the 1970s to 1990s that her book documents, her whole face lights up. Her buoyant enthusiasm shines through as she gestures avidly, grinning ear to ear, pumping…
We know you don’t have time to read every book and listen to every podcast out there. But chances are, you’re curious to know more about our history (and herstory, and theystory). That’s why we’re launching Historians of the Queer South, Spectrum South’s new series of articles profiling the writers and researchers who are helping to tell our stories. Each month, we’ll share a new article highlighting a scholar who we think has made a particularly important contribution to our…
