The New Millennial Gay Experience

By Dennis Stone

I remember it well.  May 9, 2013.  The Minnesota legislature passed a bill legalizing gay marriage in my state.  I recall the sense of euphoria, the feeling that something had been achieved that for so long I didn't think was possible. Just six months previously we had faced a state ballot measure that would have amended our constitution to prohibit marriage equality. For much of the campaign we thought we would lose. No state had ever defeated...

By Dennis Stone

I've been talking about what I call the "new millennial" understanding of our gay life since early 2013, when I created this site. Since then I've felt rather alone in that attitude, and I've been waiting for the idea to catch on, or at least to be discussed. A new piece by Dylan Jones on the Attitude Magazine website not only discusses the concept, but sees the situation almost exactly as I do. In his first paragraph Jones says: "We’ve reached an exci...

By Dennis Stone

Everyone knows that gay journalists are all safely ensconced on the left side of the political spectrum. Well, except for a couple of anomalies like Milo Yiannopolous, that is. We take it for granted that anyone who has lived a gay life, and has been immersed in the issues of the gay experience in order to write about them, must have adopted a leftist worldview. Conservatives have been our enemies, after all, historically opposing gay equality and even gay ac...

By Dennis Stone

John McCain has an aggressive form of brain cancer, and will likely die in the next year. It's the same type of cancer that killed Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden's son Beau. About a week ago Biden was a guest on "The View," which now has McCain's daughter Meghan as one of its panelists. While talking about her father's battle with cancer she began to cry. Biden rose from his seat, took a seat next to Meghan, clasped her hand, and consoled her, urging her to hold o...

By Dennis Stone

I've complained before on this site about how one-dimensional gay media is. To read gay sites and gay magazines you would think that there is only one way for "good" gays to think, and that the community overwhelmingly subscribes to that worldview. I've whimsically referred to gay people owning and constantly referencing the "Little Black Book Of Proper Gay Thought." Yes, people know there are gay conservatives out there, and that a few even support Donald Tr...

By Dennis Stone

Every once in awhile something happens that changes society forever. The 9-11 attacks represent one such example. The Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage is another. The avalanche of sexual harassment claims following the Harvey Weinstein accusations is the most recent example. American society is significantly different today than it was just two months ago.

This change primarily affects the relationship between men and women, ...

By Dennis Stone

This was not a conversation I was expecting to have….

The fourteen year old girl sat facing me, on the other side of a small, portable fire pit that added some heat to an uncharacteristically cool fall evening. Her father, a good friend I hadn’t seen for awhile, sat next to me. We were catching up on our lives since we had last seen each other, and I asked Emily how her summer had gone. She said she had broken up with her boyfrie...

By Dennis Stone

On July 28 I posted an article talking about the likelihood that Cyrus Goodman, a character on Disney's popular "Andi Mack" series, would become the network's first gay kid. It happened in the first episode of the second season (Friday, October 27). I was a bit surprised that it happened so fast; I had thought it likely that Cyrus' realization ...

By Dennis Stone

The LGBTQ community reacted with unified outrage last week when President Trump announced that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in the U.S. military. In keeping with how all recent presidents have announced major policy changes, he informed the world of the new ban through a series of tweets. After all, as he recently told a crowd, he “can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” with the ex...

By Dennis Stone

Gay people in movies or on TV are no longer either unusual or controversial. Gay kids, on the other hand….

One of the last places you’d expect to see an unequivocally gay middle school kid would be the Disney Channel. Historically squeaky clean, aware that it’s viewership demographic includes very young kids, it has produced a multitude of kid-centric sitcoms that try to be ethnically diverse but rarely go anywhere remotel...

By Dennis Stone

Professional sports is one of the few remaining arenas where someone’s coming out is still noteworthy. It amazes me how many gay people haven’t realized it yet, but people coming out is no longer a big deal in much of the straight world. Entertainment people are coming out all the time, and very little notice is taken. Do you remember the headlines when George Takei and Lance Bass came out? If they came out today there would be brief mentions in t...

By Dennis Stone

When I was a kid we were the gay community. The world was much simpler then. It was overwhelmingly made up of straight people - the ones who had families and lived the “normal” life. Then there was a tiny band of gay people - outcasts, rebels, libertines, sinners, freedom fighters - who existed in the shadows but were increasingly making their presence known. “Bisexuals” were gay people not yet able to acknowledge their true id...

By Dennis Stone

How’s that for a provocative title? If this were a mainstream site with actual readership that title would imply clickbait, a shameless attempt to entice readers to check out the story. Alas, I’m so far off the media map that the term “clickbait” has no meaning. This is a serious piece, and those four groups share an important trait that tells us a lot about human nature. The most basic question one can ask is this: what is th...

By Dennis Stone

Not all gay people liked Queer As Folk, the seminal Showtime series that ran from 2000 to 2005, but I loved every minute of it. There were a couple of vital dynamics that spanned the five season existence of the show. The most obvious was that sex is good, sex is fun, and more sex is better than less.

A second dynamic was the idea of gay people remaining unique, a distinct and separate community in virtual opposition to mains...

By Dennis Stone

The church is full, the guests waiting expectantly for the wedding party. The music starts, played by the New Directions band, and the crowd turns around, looking down the aisle. There is Finn Hudson, handsome in a suit. He straightens his tie, dances down the aisle, and sings: "It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do." He twirls, goes to a knee, and points down the aisle with both hands. "Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you." ...

By Dennis Stone

I’m damn tired of beginning articles with the disclaimer that I’m a lifelong progressive, that I strongly supported both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and that I think Donald Trump is woefully unprepared and unsuited for the presidency. But I’m equally damn tired of being dumbfounded by the anti-intellectual irrationality and counterproductive writings and actions of my left-wing compatriots.

The latest example of wha...

By Dennis Stone

"Silence Of the Lambs" director Jonathan Demme died recently, which generated multiple stories about his most famous movie. It was known for winning five Academy Awards, including all five of the major categories. It was known for its riveting performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. And it was known for generating a huge backlash from the LGBT community.  GLAAD issued a strong denunciation. Gay people, led by Queer Nation and ACT-UP, protested ...

By Dennis Stone

Do you read gay media? If you're reading this obscure little site of mine then I'm guessing you do. Have you noticed the prime characteristic of all of these sites (apart from mine!)? The stories are overwhelmingly negative, focusing on all the dark and oppressive aspects of the queer experience. Stories about the crazy things obscure rightwingers say; repetitive pieces about how evil Trump is and how awful and hateful his America has become; stories exemplif...

By Dennis Stone

Wait, what??? Sexual preference??? What am I thinking? I can’t use that term. It indicates that sexuality is a choice, as opposed to an innate, unchangeable orientation.

Over the years we’ve come to agree that “sexual preference” is a term used by the ignorant or the willfully homophobic. However, as the march of cultural evolution continues, making gay people ever more mainstream and accepted, and as my own outlook...

By Dennis Stone

One of the scariest aspects of being gay for many people is the need and/or desire to come out to one’s family. That is true at any age, but especially so for young people not yet well established on their own. Even in today’s relatively enlightened world the fear of rejection from the people who dominated one’s life for so long, the people who should be the ultimate and safest refuge, can be intense. And the younger a person is, the more d...