Between the Starbucks mobile-order pickup line, reps at the gym, and collecting followers on social media, it feels like, as gay men, we’re in constant competition with each other.

But there’s one race you don’t want to be in first place for, and it starts and ends in the sheets.

Ahem.

How about we take this to the next level?

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Yep, we’re talking about lasting long in bed, a discussion that’s mostly been relegated to Gay Twitter X gossip sessions, Sex and the City episodes, and anecdotal evidence until now.

Recently, gambling website BetUS did what millions of twinks on the internet could never do and developed a scientific method for determining which cities finish the fastest, based on their search history.

According to their report, cities were ranked on search volume for terms like “how to last longer,” “premature ejaculation,” and “average time sex lasts” — LOL — to rank the top 20 locations where, erm, fun time is fun-sized.

And spoiler alert: It’s not looking good for some of you girls!

Based on the data, the city with the least amount of sexual endurance was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which netted over 575 search queries per 100,000 residents desperately looking for tips on how to elongate the magic.

On the bright side, at least Philly gays are looking to improve themselves, and even if they do come too quick, they can always grab a cheesesteak.

Of course, the City of Brotherly Love wasn’t the only LGBTQ+ hot-spot that found themselves scathed by the study.

Coming in second place was none other than Boston, Massachusetts, where residents apparently need to learn a thing or two from their most sexually active Provincetown neighbors.

That said, the city’s most popular search was “how to last longer,” so perhaps there’s some truth to the whole lobster-rolls-are-an-aphrodisiac thing.

Rounding out the top five were Tucson, Arizona; Forth Worth, Texas; and Detroit, Michigan. Which just goes to show that nothing good comes from being, uh, too wet or too hot. 

Other major cities to appear within the top-20 were Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Atlanta, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so the Chicago, New York, and West Hollywood gays were marked safe this time around.

Obviously, the methodology is not perfect.

The study neglected to report on users’ gender and sexual orientation, and there’s no scientific proof that the men or women who searched for these terms are delivering lackluster completion times in the first place.

Plus, there’s the whole “if you love someone, it shouldn’t matter” thing. Boo!

Interestingly enough, another recent study from Lovehoney found that the amount of time it takes for your rocket to land is likely more connected to your age than your location.

Based on their data, they were able to assign an average duration of session based on age group, with males ages 25 to 34 taking the longest amount of time at 18.29 minutes.

In second place were men ages 35-44 at 17.40 minutes, followed by 18 to 24-year-olds at 16.14, 45 to 54-year-olds at 14.14, 55 to 64-year-olds at 11.30, and men ages 65-and-up finishing with 8.15 minutes.

Is this a good time to evoke the Tortoise and the Hare fairytale, or not?

At the end of the day, physical intimacy is less about location or duration than it is about connecting with your partner, listening to their needs, communicating your own, and spending time together.

That said, if your top is from Philly, we won’t judge you for breaking out a stop watch.

You know, for scientific purposes!

Sign up for the Queerty newsletter to stay on top of the hottest stories in LGBTQ+ entertainment, politics, and culture.

The post Pump & dump! These U.S. cities top the list for fastest hookups appeared first on Gay News Center.

Claybourne Elder knows a thing or two about timeless classics.

For his debut album, If The Stars Were Mine, the actor, singer & Broadway veteran selected a number of iconic songs he’s adored throughout his lifetime—from Stephen Sondheim to Whitney Houston—then re-arranged & reimagined them with fresh perspective for fans new & old.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about storytelling,” Elder tells Queerty, “how each song connects, what emotional journey it creates and what I wanted to say with each song. Then I worked with my arrangers Rodney Bush and Bryan Perri to create versions of the songs that hopefully make people hear them in new ways.”

For instance, he remembers hearing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” as a young gay man, when he thought he might not ever find—in Whitney’s words—”a love that burns hot enough to last.” In turn, Elder’s version on the album emphasizes the loneliness and longing at the core of it, making the enduring pop hit even more resonant for the queer kid in all of us.

On the flip-side is the My Fair Lady standard “On The Street Where You Live”: “I have always thought [it] was a tiny bit stalker-y,” he jokes, so he & his collaborators went with an arrangement that heightened its creepiness.

As Elder puts it, “I’ve always lived somewhere between a song and a punchline,” so it’s no surprise If The Stars Were Mine is equal parts heart & humor, capturing the true essence of being alive and all of its contradictions.

He brings that same energy to his live show, which is describes as “kind of half-way a stand-up comedy special and half my TED talk”—and, yes, he sings, too! Elder’s been writing the show & performing it across the country for the better part of the past three years, but now he’s bringing it home to NYC in celebration of the album release with a series of live performances at the iconic 54 Below, April 3, 4 & 15.

“I’ve gotten to hide inside some great characters in my career–someone else’s feelings, someone else’s story,” he says in a press statement. “Now I’m taking those words and making them my own.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Claybourne Elder (@claybourneelder)

And speaking of those great characters, we couldn’t help but bring up his unforgettable turn as John Adams on The Gilded Age, whom the HBO period piece tragically said goodbye to last season. Elder remains in awe of that experience, and shares what’s been the hardest part to say goodbye to:

“What I’ll really miss is how much it felt like a backstage hang disguised as a television set,” he admits. “There are so many theater people in that cast—people I’ve known for years, people I’ve admired forever—that it created this immediate sense of shorthand. You’d be standing in full period costume, waiting to shoot, but it felt like standing in the wings of a theater.” 

Related

Claybourne Elder on bromancing Blake Ritson & the big shocker this season on ‘The Gilded Age’
Claybourne Elder’s Gilded Age role began with an on-screen love scene and ended in tragedy, but the friendship, fan love & next chapter are just starting.

But back to the classics: With If The Stars Were Mine available now, we invited Elder to take part in our ongoing Queer Time Capsule project, which asks some of our favorite LGBTQ+ icons to hand select five items from the culture that they feel are worthy of being preserved for the queers of the future

So, head below to find out what 5 timeless pieces of pop culture Claybourne Elder believes will “burn hot enough to last” for generations of gays to come in our Queer Time Capsule:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 54 Below (@54below)

1. Moonlight

“A seismic shift in queer storytelling—quiet, poetic, and unapologetically specific, it expanded what queer cinema could look and feel like, especially for Black queer narratives.” 

2. A Catherine O’Hara highlight reel (especially her work in Schitt’s Creek)

“Moira Rose alone deserves preservation—an unintentional queer icon. But also Home Alone, Beetlejuice, Guffman… She could be your mother or your evil step mother with equal believability.” 

Related

Remembering comedy icon & ally Catherine O’Hara, who raised us from Home Alone to Schitt’s Creek
Among those mourning O’Hara’s loss is her ‘The Last Of Us’ co-star Pedro Pascal who writes, “There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.”

3. Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran

“A snapshot of pre-AIDS gay life that’s intoxicating and haunting. And I would highlight the quote: “Now of all the bonds between homosexual friends, none was greater than that between friends who danced together'”

4. A Playbill from Oh, Mary!

“Because future generations deserve proof that at some point we collectively decided the best way to process history was to make it extremely gay, slightly unhinged, and very, very funny—and somehow that counted as culture.” 

Related

Cole Escola’s journey from YouTube to Broadway has been an unhinged & hilarious success
Cole Escola’s success feels like the natural culmination of more than a decade of incredible work that’s finally finding mainstream raves thanks to ‘Oh, Mary!’

5. A marriage equality newspaper from the day of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision

“Because it’s a reminder that something that felt impossible for so long finally became official—proof that cultural shifts can suddenly harden into history you can hold in your hands.”

Claybourne Elder’s debut album If The Stars Were Mine is now available. If you’re in the NYC area, don’t miss his show at 54 Below on April 3, 4 & 15—tickets available here—and hot tip: you’ll be able to livestream his show on the 15th no matter where you are (tickets & more info here).

Related

Underneath theater zaddy Claybourne Elder’s buff exterior is sweet guy who loves donuts
Broadway and TV star Claybourne Elder (“The Gilded Age”) is spreading his love of theater—one free ticket at a time.

The post Claybourne Elder gets personal, playful & a little creepy with a package of reimagined standards appeared first on Gay News Center.

Claybourne Elder knows a thing or two about timeless classics.

For his debut album, If The Stars Were Mine, the actor, singer & Broadway veteran selected a number of iconic songs he’s adored throughout his lifetime—from Stephen Sondheim to Whitney Houston—then re-arranged & reimagined them with fresh perspective for fans new & old.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about storytelling,” Elder tells Queerty, “how each song connects, what emotional journey it creates and what I wanted to say with each song. Then I worked with my arrangers Rodney Bush and Bryan Perri to create versions of the songs that hopefully make people hear them in new ways.”

For instance, he remembers hearing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” as a young gay man, when he thought he might not ever find—in Whitney’s words—”a love that burns hot enough to last.” In turn, Elder’s version on the album emphasizes the loneliness and longing at the core of it, making the enduring pop hit even more resonant for the queer kid in all of us.

On the flip-side is the My Fair Lady standard “On The Street Where You Live”: “I have always thought [it] was a tiny bit stalker-y,” he jokes, so he & his collaborators went with an arrangement that heightened its creepiness.

As Elder puts it, “I’ve always lived somewhere between a song and a punchline,” so it’s no surprise If The Stars Were Mine is equal parts heart & humor, capturing the true essence of being alive and all of its contradictions.

He brings that same energy to his live show, which is describes as “kind of half-way a stand-up comedy special and half my TED talk”—and, yes, he sings, too! Elder’s been writing the show & performing it across the country for the better part of the past three years, but now he’s bringing it home to NYC in celebration of the album release with a series of live performances at the iconic 54 Below, April 3, 4 & 15.

“I’ve gotten to hide inside some great characters in my career–someone else’s feelings, someone else’s story,” he says in a press statement. “Now I’m taking those words and making them my own.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Claybourne Elder (@claybourneelder)

And speaking of those great characters, we couldn’t help but bring up his unforgettable turn as John Adams on The Gilded Age, whom the HBO period piece tragically said goodbye to last season. Elder remains in awe of that experience, and shares what’s been the hardest part to say goodbye to:

“What I’ll really miss is how much it felt like a backstage hang disguised as a television set,” he admits. “There are so many theater people in that cast—people I’ve known for years, people I’ve admired forever—that it created this immediate sense of shorthand. You’d be standing in full period costume, waiting to shoot, but it felt like standing in the wings of a theater.” 

Related

Claybourne Elder on bromancing Blake Ritson & the big shocker this season on ‘The Gilded Age’
Claybourne Elder’s Gilded Age role began with an on-screen love scene and ended in tragedy, but the friendship, fan love & next chapter are just starting.

But back to the classics: With If The Stars Were Mine available now, we invited Elder to take part in our ongoing Queer Time Capsule project, which asks some of our favorite LGBTQ+ icons to hand select five items from the culture that they feel are worthy of being preserved for the queers of the future

So, head below to find out what 5 timeless pieces of pop culture Claybourne Elder believes will “burn hot enough to last” for generations of gays to come in our Queer Time Capsule:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 54 Below (@54below)

1. Moonlight

“A seismic shift in queer storytelling—quiet, poetic, and unapologetically specific, it expanded what queer cinema could look and feel like, especially for Black queer narratives.” 

2. A Catherine O’Hara highlight reel (especially her work in Schitt’s Creek)

“Moira Rose alone deserves preservation—an unintentional queer icon. But also Home Alone, Beetlejuice, Guffman… She could be your mother or your evil step mother with equal believability.” 

Related

Remembering comedy icon & ally Catherine O’Hara, who raised us from Home Alone to Schitt’s Creek
Among those mourning O’Hara’s loss is her ‘The Last Of Us’ co-star Pedro Pascal who writes, “There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always.”

3. Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran

“A snapshot of pre-AIDS gay life that’s intoxicating and haunting. And I would highlight the quote: “Now of all the bonds between homosexual friends, none was greater than that between friends who danced together'”

4. A Playbill from Oh, Mary!

“Because future generations deserve proof that at some point we collectively decided the best way to process history was to make it extremely gay, slightly unhinged, and very, very funny—and somehow that counted as culture.” 

Related

Cole Escola’s journey from YouTube to Broadway has been an unhinged & hilarious success
Cole Escola’s success feels like the natural culmination of more than a decade of incredible work that’s finally finding mainstream raves thanks to ‘Oh, Mary!’

5. A marriage equality newspaper from the day of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision

“Because it’s a reminder that something that felt impossible for so long finally became official—proof that cultural shifts can suddenly harden into history you can hold in your hands.”

Claybourne Elder’s debut album If The Stars Were Mine is now available. If you’re in the NYC area, don’t miss his show at 54 Below on April 3, 4 & 15—tickets available here—and hot tip: you’ll be able to livestream his show on the 15th no matter where you are (tickets & more info here).

Related

Underneath theater zaddy Claybourne Elder’s buff exterior is sweet guy who loves donuts
Broadway and TV star Claybourne Elder (“The Gilded Age”) is spreading his love of theater—one free ticket at a time.

The post Claybourne Elder gets personal, playful & a little creepy with a package of reimagined standards appeared first on Gay News Center.

Female same-sex couples now outnumber male same-sex couples in the U.S., according to new data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

It wasn’t always so, at least according to census data going back to 2005.

Related

9% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+

That year, men made up the majority of gay domiciled couples, 54% vs. 45% of same-sex couples living together, both married and unmarried. In 2005, same sex couples could marry legally in only one state, Massachusetts.

By 2024, however, the ratio had flipped. By that year, 53% of married and unmarried same-sex couples were women, compared to 46% men. Halfway through that 20-year period in 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized nationally.

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By 2024, the share of same-sex couple households increased to about 1.0% of all U.S. households, or 1.4 million, double the number of same-sex households in 2005.

Even so, that number is far below the percentage of the total population that identifies as LGBTQ+, about 9% based on polling. Around 5% of Americans identify as bisexual.

The Census Bureau does not track the number of LGBTQ+ Americans.

Data used in the same-sex household report was collected as part of the American Community Survey, using one-year estimates for all years between 2005 and 2024, with the exception of 2020, when data collection was difficult.

One striking finding: While the number of total same-sex couples composed of women surpassed men over the last several years, income inequality was dramatic. The median annual household income of female same-sex couples was far less than their male peers: $108,500 vs. $140,500.

The share of female same-sex and male same-sex couple households with both partners employed was nearly identical at 64.2% and 64.7%, respectively.

The survey revealed that same-sex couples are more educated than their straight peers — both partners had at least a bachelor’s degree in a larger share of same-sex (32.5%) than opposite-sex (19.1%) unmarried couple households — and more racially diverse: a larger share of same-sex (31.3%) than opposite-sex (19.5%) married couple households were interracial.

While unmarried same-sex couples were roughly the same age as their straight peers, 40.6 vs. 40.1, married same-sex couples were notably younger at 49.0 vs. 53.2.

Washington, D.C., had the highest percentage of same-sex couple households of any state or state equivalent, according to the Census Bureau, confirming the Capital’s reputation as the gayest city in America per capita.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

The post More same-sex couples than ever are living together, and most are women appeared first on Gay News Center.

A Reddit post appears to have resonated with many gay men. Posting on the AskGayBros subreddit, someone asked, “Are there things, actions or decisions you promised yourself you would never do again?”

The query prompted almost 400 replies. They range from general advice applicable to anyone to queer-specific issues.

Surprisingly, the most-liked response cautioned people to avoid the temptation to head to Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

The next most-liked response was from someone who said they would never again “Tolerate a cheating partner.” This prompted others to share their experiences of infidelity.

How about we take this to the next level?

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Another man said, “Loan money to family members comes to mind. Chase after a man who shows me no interest whatsoever. You can’t make someone fall for you, but you can lose all self-respect trying.”

Another said the one thing he would never do is, “Go back in the closet. I would rather die than have to again deny myself the affection and happiness that I did for so long due to my Catholic upbringing.”

In a similar vein, someone else said they would never again “​​Hate myself for being gay. It’s been many years since I’m very happy with it and I’m grateful for how it forced an introvert like me to go out from my comfort zone and put myself out there and meeting new people and broaden my perspective and open my mind and fundamentally become a better person.”

When to walk away and other life lessons

Others said they won’t tolerate a potential date misrepresenting themselves online.

“I used to sit through the dates where the guy lied about his age, or sent old pictures, or some other deception. After the last time it happened, I gave myself permission to just get up and walk away from these dates from now on.”

Others said they would avoid entering a “Long-distance relationship without a clear light at the end of the tunnel.”

Alternative experiences not to be repeated included dating downlow men or dating people who easily become jealous. Falling for straight guys is also best avoided.

One man said he would never again try chemsex, which prompted many responses from others who felt the same. Others said they would never again date someone “who’s an obvious alcoholic…no matter how fun they seem.”

One man said he’d built a big following by posting thirst traps. However, he no longer chased the same validation.

“There was a point in my early 20s when I posted a lot of thirst traps and sexy pics/adult content on Facebook and Twitter, and I was extremely famous and popular. I figured out I just did it because I was insecure, and compliments from men on my body filled that empty hole for me, seemingly. It’s not until I realized they didn’t actually like me, they don’t know who I even am, they just like the body and stuff. And if they only like my body, they could just easily go on to someone new if I’m not there anymore.”

Have you ever had an experience and thought afterward, “I’m not doing THAT again”? Let us know in the comments below.

Related

Gay men share the moment they realized their other half was a “keeper”
Hundreds of gay men have shared their love stories in response to a question on social media.

Older gay gentlemen offer 15 life lessons to their younger gay counterparts
We asked gay guys over 50 about the things they wished they’d known when they were 20.

Sign up for the Queerty newsletter to stay on top of the hottest stories in LGBTQ+ entertainment, politics, and culture.

The post Gay men reveal the things they’ve vowed never to do again appeared first on Gay News Center.

About an hour before I published my LGBTQ Nation Monthly Issue cover story essay on the cultural meaning of conversion therapy, the Supreme Court ruled on Chiles v. Salazar, a case involving a Christian therapist named Kaley Chiles who sued the state of Colorado to overturn its ban on conversion therapy.

Just before my essay was published, I had the time to read the majority opinion in Chiles. While I had little hope that this Supreme Court would rule in favor of LGBTQ+ rights, I wanted to see what their reasoning was on the specific issue of how they determined that the First Amendment applies to therapy.

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As someone who spent a few years seeing a therapist, I know that it’s not just a normal conversation with a friend or the equivalent of listening to someone on a soapbox sharing their personal opinions. A therapist is doing things to their clients through words. And when I think of the First Amendment, I think of advocacy, and the idea that therapists should be free to advocate their political beliefs in session just seemed really off to me.

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion isn’t great.

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There are a few pages about how therapists are literally talking, and Gorsuch says that there are no First Amendment exemptions for professional speech. This isn’t really an argument in favor of protecting Chiles’ free speech rights, but rather just an argument that Colorado is wrong to restrict those rights.

But this passage stood out to me from the majority’s opinion. It starts with this: “But if a gay or transgender client seeks her counsel in the hope of changing his sexual orientation or gender identity, Ms. Chiles cannot provide it.”

Now, I agree with Gorsuch there. She can’t provide that because it doesn’t exist. No words that a therapist uses will turn a gay person straight or a trans person cis because that is not how this works.

But Gorsuch’s actual reasoning was: “The law forbids her from saying anything that ‘attempts… to change’ a client’s ‘sexual orientation or gender identity,’ including anything that might represent an ‘effor[t] to change [her client’s] behaviors or gender expressions or… romantic attraction[s].’”

In other words, maybe she could turn people straight if it weren’t for Colorado’s law standing in her way.

As legal writer Mark Joseph Stern pointed out, there are plenty of laws that ban medical professionals from saying certain things, certain viewpoints that are forbidden. He brings up how someone could sue a doctor for malpractice if the doctor recommends patients smoke, but they couldn’t get sued for telling patients to stop smoking. That is viewpoint discrimination, and it’s only going after a medical professional’s words. In such a case, it’d be really hard to persuasively argue that a doctor is actually treating people with cigarettes and that maybe lung cancer was a better outcome than the alternative.

The decision creates protections for anti-LGBTQ+ speech that don’t exist for other forms of speech, which is what Stern argued.

In my essay, I argue that conversion therapy – as practiced in the U.S. – isn’t affected by state conversion therapy bans the vast majority of the time. Most conversion therapy providers are free to do what they want, even in states that ban the practice, because of the religious loopholes in these laws. But conservatives really want to get rid of these laws because they want the idea that LGBTQ+ people can be turned straight and cis to be a respectable position to hold again, instead of the joke it became in the last couple of decades.

And that’s what Gorsuch was doing in the majority opinion: treating it like just another viewpoint that may or may not be true, as if there isn’t already a ton of research showing that conversion therapy cannot do what it promises to do and that it leaves patients worse off than before they start treatment.

If Gorsuch had admitted that conversion therapy doesn’t work and that it’s harmful – but that it should be constitutionally protected anyway – that’d be one thing. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he treated it as if there were still a debate about it, which was what the right really wanted. They wanted a mainstream, secular institution, like the Supreme Court, to at least say that conversion therapy is something that might work, and people should be able to give it a try.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

The post The Supreme Court gave the right-wing the one thing it wanted in the conversion therapy case appeared first on Gay News Center.

A state senator in Kentucky has been involved in a series of desperate attempts to get trans people banned from teaching in the state’s schools. With the bulk of this legislative session now over, his efforts have entirely failed.

Originally raising alarm about the plan, the executive director of the Kentucky Psychological Association, Eric Russ, told the Lexington Herald-Leader, “This bill would deter teachers from seeking mental health care, require sworn perjury statements about abandoned diagnoses, and remove qualified educators based on identity rather than conduct.”

Related

Supreme Court rules against conversion therapy ban in 8-1 decision

Republican state Sen. Gex Williams first introduced his plan as a bill in its own right, and then tried to sneak it in as an amendment to a bill that had already passed the Kentucky House of Representatives. There are roadblocks in place that will likely prevent Williams’ plan from coming up for a vote at all. Gov. Andy Beshear (D) would likely veto the bill and GOP lawmakers would not have had enough votes to override his veto.

Williams’ original bill, Senate Bill 351, would have prevented trans people from getting teaching licenses in the state and would have revoked the licenses of those who already attained them. That plan relied on characterizing trans identities as disorders using outdated language from the DSM-III-R (which was replaced in 1994 by the DSM-IV), Queer Kentucky reports. The bill would then have withheld teaching licenses from anyone who had been “treated for or diagnosed with any disorder that is excluded from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.”

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As Queer Kentucky pointed out, Williams’ plans never seemed likely to succeed. The first step for a bill to pass in the Kentucky Senate is for it to receive a committee assignment. Even in Kentucky, a state that has previously passed plenty of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including re-legalizing conversion therapy last year, Williams’ bill and its misapplication of science failed to pass even that first hurdle.

Undeterred, Williams filed the same language from S.B. 351 as an amendment to H.B. 759, an unrelated bill that had already passed the state house and was on the state senate’s consent calendar: a group of uncontroversial bills that were all expected to pass and voted on together for efficiency.

However, such an amendment would violate the state senate’s “piggybacking” rules, meaning Williams would either have to withdraw the amendment before a vote could take place, or the bill would be voted down solely because the amendment violated the senate’s own rules. Even if the bill passed with the amendment attached, it would then have to go back to the state house for reapproval.

Instead, the Republican-controlled Senate simply removed the bill from the consent calendar and didn’t bother to add it back as a separate bill. They closed for business on Wednesday without having voted on the bill.

There are two more days of the Kentucky legislative session later this month. While H.B. 759 could come up for a vote, even if the amendment made it through all of the roadblocks in place to prevent this sort of behavior, Gov. Beshear would almost certainly veto it.

In a strange turn of events, this makes 2026 the first year in a while that Kentucky has not enacted any anti-LGBTQ+ laws. This is despite state Republican lawmakers introducing bills to allow medical providers to deny care to trans people, a drag ban, and a bathroom ban.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

The post This GOP lawmaker tried to ban trans people from becoming teachers. He failed miserably. appeared first on Gay News Center.

A state senator in Kentucky has been involved in a series of desperate attempts to get trans people banned from teaching in the state’s schools. With the bulk of this legislative session now over, his efforts have entirely failed.

Originally raising alarm about the plan, the executive director of the Kentucky Psychological Association, Eric Russ, told the Lexington Herald-Leader, “This bill would deter teachers from seeking mental health care, require sworn perjury statements about abandoned diagnoses, and remove qualified educators based on identity rather than conduct.”

Related

Supreme Court rules against conversion therapy ban in 8-1 decision

Republican state Sen. Gex Williams first introduced his plan as a bill in its own right, and then tried to sneak it in as an amendment to a bill that had already passed the Kentucky House of Representatives. There are roadblocks in place that will likely prevent Williams’ plan from coming up for a vote at all. Gov. Andy Beshear (D) would likely veto the bill and GOP lawmakers would not have had enough votes to override his veto.

Williams’ original bill, Senate Bill 351, would have prevented trans people from getting teaching licenses in the state and would have revoked the licenses of those who already attained them. That plan relied on characterizing trans identities as disorders using outdated language from the DSM-III-R (which was replaced in 1994 by the DSM-IV), Queer Kentucky reports. The bill would then have withheld teaching licenses from anyone who had been “treated for or diagnosed with any disorder that is excluded from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

As Queer Kentucky pointed out, Williams’ plans never seemed likely to succeed. The first step for a bill to pass in the Kentucky Senate is for it to receive a committee assignment. Even in Kentucky, a state that has previously passed plenty of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including re-legalizing conversion therapy last year, Williams’ bill and its misapplication of science failed to pass even that first hurdle.

Undeterred, Williams filed the same language from S.B. 351 as an amendment to H.B. 759, an unrelated bill that had already passed the state house and was on the state senate’s consent calendar: a group of uncontroversial bills that were all expected to pass and voted on together for efficiency.

However, such an amendment would violate the state senate’s “piggybacking” rules, meaning Williams would either have to withdraw the amendment before a vote could take place, or the bill would be voted down solely because the amendment violated the senate’s own rules. Even if the bill passed with the amendment attached, it would then have to go back to the state house for reapproval.

Instead, the Republican-controlled Senate simply removed the bill from the consent calendar and didn’t bother to add it back as a separate bill. They closed for business on Wednesday without having voted on the bill.

There are two more days of the Kentucky legislative session later this month. While H.B. 759 could come up for a vote, even if the amendment made it through all of the roadblocks in place to prevent this sort of behavior, Gov. Beshear would almost certainly veto it.

In a strange turn of events, this makes 2026 the first year in a while that Kentucky has not enacted any anti-LGBTQ+ laws. This is despite state Republican lawmakers introducing bills to allow medical providers to deny care to trans people, a drag ban, and a bathroom ban.

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The post This GOP lawmaker tried to ban trans people from becoming teachers. He failed miserably. appeared first on Gay News Center.

ICE Barbie has been iced out, Pam Bondi just got shown the door, and the MAGA purge is in full swing. But in a weird reversal of rats abandoning the sinking ship, even more weirdos are lining up to take the newly-open positions in the Tr*mp administration, starting with Jeanine Pirro.

A few weeks ago, 74-year-old Pirro gave an award-winning performance as a judge royally PO’ed over a quashed investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s totally fabricated charges of wrongdoing.

Powell, a Tr*mp enemy, has been holding his own against the despot’s desire to lower interest rates for certain billionaires, and it’s pissing off Tr*mp. More importantly, it’s pissing off Pirro, who might just be waiting in the wings to take over as AG in light of Pam Bondi’s ousting.

According to CNN anchor Paula Reid, Pirro’s show of disgust at Powell’s exoneration was an “audition for the top job in the Justice Department.”

Politics, but make it gay!

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Back in February, Bondi was lipsyncing for her life during congressional hearings concerning the DOJ’s disastrous handling of the Epstein files rollout. She managed to say a whole lot of nothing when pressed by democrats about just why the DOJ took their sweet time in releasing the files and redacting information to protect powerful people, rather than victims.

But Pirro’s fiery speech over Powell might have been a way to distinguish herself from the milquetoast Bondi, according to more than a few commentators.

“People who know Pirro say she wants the job of attorney general,” writes Ben Terris in a New York Magazine Pirro profile published this morning. According to one source, “she’d been trying to put the knife in Bondi, saying she’s not a prosecutor and doesn’t have control of the building.”

Though Tr*mp staffer and lawyer Todd Blanche is the acting AG for the time being, it’s clear that Pirro’s Fox News credentials could prove an intriguing counterpoint to Bondi’s know-nothing tactics.

She’s also cut from the same cloth as Tr*mp, who called her “sexy as hell” as a source for a NY Mag article from 1999. The next year, Pirro’s husband Al Pirro Jr. was caught in a tax scandal that undercut the power couple’s empire.

Maybe that’s why Pirro has such an axe to grind with Jerome Powell over his refusal to capitulate to lowered interest rates?

Or maybe she’s just sucking up to Daddy Tr*mp?

Writer Lisa DePaulo, who profiled Pirro for NY Mag all those years ago, sees Pirro’s recent shift as entirely Tr*mp oriented. In 2015, when DePaulo collaborated with Pirro over coverage of the reignited Robert Durst case, DePaulo can see signs of Pirro “evolving into the Trumper she is now.” That evolution led to a contentious break between the two. Now, DePaulo wonders: Did Pirro “sell out for Trump, or did the inner Jeanine emerge?”

We know that proximity to Tr*mp has the curious effect of transforming formerly sane people into power-hungry lunatics, so the case seems pretty cut and dried. But if Pirro thinks Tr*mp is going to repay her loyalty, she’s in for a rude awakening. On the shortlist for permanent Bondi replacements are former Republican rep Lee Zeldin and Utah senator Mike Lee—not Jeanine Pirro.

That could, of course, end up being an even luckier break for Pirro. With MAGA on its way out and most ex-Tr*mp employees failing to find future employment (for obvious reasons!) Pirro could have a clear path back to her old job at Fox News…unless she manages to embarrass herself even more in the coming months.

Related

“D*nald Tr*mp is lying to you!”: Don Lemon blows the whistle on Iran war deception
Lemon warns that the war will continue to destabilize our economy, and our lives

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The post Bench bandit: Did Jeanine Pirro orchestrate Pam Bondi’s ouster in a ruthless bid for total control? appeared first on Gay News Center.

Hi Jake,

So, my husband sent me the Queerty article this week about Kristi Noem’s husband allegedly being into “bimbofication,” and he was going off about it. He started ranting about how gross and “pathetic” it was, and said something along the lines of, “Imagine being turned on by that?!”

I laughed along in the moment… but the problem is: I didn’t totally feel like I was laughing.

While I’ve never used that exact term—and I don’t agree with politicians (or their spouses) who act against things they secretly do—I’ve had my own version of this in my head for years. Not a full transformation fantasy or anything extreme, just a fascination with exaggerated, hyper-pretty, slightly clueless “himbo” energy. Think overly-groomed, smooth, a bit airheaded, and more focused on perfect pecs and biceps than having much going on upstairs.

How about we take this to the next level?

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I’ve watched videos, read stuff, even caught myself imagining what it would feel like to be that version of myself for a minute… less in control, more… objectified. Which is not how I move through the world at all.

I’ve never told him this or acted on it. It’s just this quiet fantasy of mine. But after hearing how strongly he reacted, I feel like I’ve gotten a glimpse of exactly how he’d see me if I ever shared this part of myself.

I feel stuck. Do I keep this in my own private “spank bank,” or do I find a way to share it with my husband and risk being seen as “gross” or “ridiculous” by the person I’m supposed to feel safest with?

Himbo in Hiding

Dear Himbo in Hiding,

The article you’re talking about—the one about Kristi Noem’s husband and this whole “bimbofication” thing—has definitely been getting a lot of attention this week, and your husband’s not alone in having a strong negative take. It’s easy to mock something that feels deviant or outside the norm, especially when it’s coming from the husband of someone who’s taken pretty hardline positions around gender and sexuality. That kind of hypocrisy tends to bring out a lot of judgment.

But what matters here isn’t really the article—it’s what it stirred up for you. As you were hearing all of this, you recognized something in yourself. Set the headlines aside, and what you’re left with is simple: you have a fantasy. And there’s nothing inherently wrong or pathological about that.

Here’s what may actually be happening. What you’re describing is a kind of objectification fantasy, but not in the way people usually think about that word. At its core, this isn’t really about becoming “dumb” or exaggerated. It’s about stepping out of a role you usually occupy.

Most of us move through the world managing how we’re perceived. We try to come across as competent, capable, in control. That takes energy. So it makes sense that there can be a pull toward the opposite. Being seen as purely desirable, simplified, even a little ridiculous. Not because you are those things, but because you get to stop performing everything else for a minute.

In a gay context, that can show up in familiar ways. The “himbo” archetype—polished, pretty, a little vacant, hyper-desirable—is already part of the culture. It’s a way of playing with power and attention without the usual stakes. There can be something freeing in letting yourself be objectified for a moment, even just in your imagination. You’re not being evaluated. You’re just… wanted.

And yes, that can be hot.

The important thing here is that this isn’t a moral failing. It’s part of your inner world. What makes it complicated isn’t the fantasy. It’s the context it lives in. Right now, it exists as a secret alongside a partner who’s shown you how he reacts when something doesn’t make sense to him.

So the question becomes less “is this okay?” (it is) and more “what feels safe to share?”

You don’t owe anyone full access to your imagination. But if something starts to feel hidden or shameful, that can create distance. So instead of jumping straight into a full confession, start by opening the door a little.

You might say something like, “That article actually got me thinking. I agree the hypocrisy is gross, but I also don’t think it’s as crazy as people are making it sound.”

That gives you a way to test the waters without putting yourself fully on the line. You’re not trying to explain everything. You’re just seeing whether there’s room for curiosity without judgment. And if there isn’t, that tells you something too.

At the end of the day, fantasies like this exist for a reason. They offer a kind of escape—from pressure, from performance, from having to be fully “on” all the time. And in the words of the ultimate himbo in Barbie… you are Kenough.

Ask Jake is Queerty’s advice column by editor and Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist Jake Myers. Got a question? Email jakemyers@queerty.com—or connect more deeply through his LGBTQ+ therapy platform. 

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The post My husband mocks “bimbofication”… but I’m secretly into the male version. Do I tell him? appeared first on Gay News Center.