GG Tradition

I post this Kinsey Sicks video each Hanukkah. In light of the Bondi Beach shooting, I wondered if I should refrain this year, as the clip pokes fun at Jewish stereotypes.

I decided that drag and oys must go on.

Breaking Barriers Across the Pond

Image by Shafin Al Asad Protic from Pixabay

I now present you with a pair of news items from abroad. Partly because the news items from here tend to suck.

On Nov. 21, a 20-year-old musical theater student became the first out lesbian winner of the Miss England beauty pageant. Grace Richardson considered keeping mum about her sexuality during the competition, but when the interview panel asked her about overcoming challenges, "the first thing that crossed my mind was my coming out story."

We might be at that point in social evolution where the other contestants thought, "Damn! Why didn't I say that?"

Also in late November, rising Swiss tennis player Mika Brunold came out as gay on Instagram. The 21-year-old wrote that being gay means "dealing with things most people never have to think about. The fear of not being accepted, the pressure to stay quiet, the feeling of being different. But I’ve grown. And I’m proud of who I am today."

Brunold is only the second active male pro tennis player to come out, following Brazil's Joao Lucas Reis Da Silva, who did the deed last year.

An openly lesbian beauty queen and an openly gay male tennis pro. What next? An openly transgender mafioso?

Hard to Learn

Image by Sammy-Sander from Pixabay

You'd think I'd know better, as a queer person, than to stereotype, but every so often I need to learn the lesson anew.

Today as I stood in line at the post office my eyes fell on a middle-aged man being served at the counter. A girl of about 11 stood with him, and both appeared to be Latinx. He wore a shiny short-sleeved shirt that I assumed touted some team.

It did:  Team Lucifer.

I realized the shirt sported upside-down crosses, pentagrams, goat heads, a veritable satanic smorgasbord.

My assumption that I was looking at a stereotypically Catholic, Hispanic father and daughter vanished in a puff of sulfur. It was a startling reminder of how inaccurate it can be to turn people into cliches.

I've learned my lesson. And I'll retain it for a good 36 hours.