Indholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2026 i OUT

Dear Out readers, Happy New Year! In this issue, you will see some great photos from our recent Out100 event in Los Angeles. It was a magical night honoring 100 people who help make our queer community stronger each day. The energy in the room that night was so powerful. On the plane back home, I vowed to keep that energy alive all year long. I’m going to remember all the conversations I had about changing our communities every day with our message of equality and inclusion. And I promise to always think about the hope those 100 honorees instill in us, encouraging each of us not to give up fighting for our basic human rights now and every day as an LGBTQ + community. It’s so easy, with the…

AS A LONGTIME resident of Los Angeles, I’m no stranger to Palm Springs, the queer desert escape just a few hours’ drive from the City of Angels. Over the years, I’ve sampled a variety of lodgings, from gay clothing-optional favorites like Inndulge, Vista Grande, and Santiago to luxe mainstream properties like the Avalon, Kimpton Rowan, and Holiday House. For the most recent Palm Springs Pride in early November, my partner and I were invited to stay at the Triada Palm Springs, a hotel just steps from Palm Canyon Drive that proved to be a peaceful oasis in the middle of Pride’s madness. The madness was a blast, to be sure. We made a splash at the annual Desertopia x Bears in Space pool party, enjoyed an incredible Cher medley from…

It’s a crisp Tuesday morning, and I’m walking around Dublin. The sun cuts through the Irish chill in the air, so I’m wearing my favorite light jacket as the light peeks through the leaves, warming my face. I take a deep breath and meander through Merrion Square Park. There’s a statue of Oscar Wilde in the corner of the park, smirking mischievously. It’s strange, imagining him walking through the grounds with a pen and paper, writing what would become The Picture of Dorian Gray. I fantasize about meeting a young Oscar here. I imagine him as a gossip, eager to spill the tea about Ireland’s upper echelon. He confides in me about a story he’s working on, a haunting tale about a painting and lost souls. I look up at…

FROM ARRESTS DURING sit-ins at Capitol Hill bathrooms to injecting hormones on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Gender Liberation Movement’s freshman year has been defined by defiance. January marks the first anniversary of the launch of GLM, a grassroots and volunteer-run national collective seeking to unite LGBTQ+ people and women with their neighbors in the fight for bodily autonomy. You might have heard of the group already — GLM spearheaded several demonstrations in 2025 that resulted in the arrests of dozens of activists, adding to the great American tradition of causing good trouble. “In our first year, Gender Liberation Movement championed transgender people, bodily autonomy, and the affirming families and communities who refuse to abandon us,” says cofounder Raquel Willis. “From actions outside the Heritage Foundation to…

Kat Abughazaleh has spent much of her early adulthood warning that the far right’s fringe was becoming the center of American political power. Now, at 26, the Palestinian American LGBTQ+ creator, who built her own national platform through trenchant video explainers and through her work with a media watchdog, has stepped directly into the arena, running for Congress in Illinois’s Ninth District. Her campaign, her strategy, and even her federal indictment are all unfolding against the backdrop she’s spent years documenting. She laughs when asked when the decision truly clicked. “I wish I had a cooler moment for myth-making purposes,” she says, “but my planner just says, ‘I guess I’m running for Congress now.’” Her frustration was cumulative. After years of tracking the rise of online extremists, many of whom…

JUST BEFORE CASTING my vote in the 2024 election in my hometown in South Carolina, I turned on Brandi Carlile’s “The Joke” from her album By the Way I Forgive You, which was written in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 win. I needed to listen to it before I went into the voting booth. Carlile’s soaring vocals and poignant lyrics about hope in the face of persecution comforted me as I pulled into the parking lot of a former Walmart turned megachurch that served as my polling station. I parked my Subaru and cried, singing along between quiet sobs. In 2025, Carlile released Returning to Myself. Another album written after a Trump win, it’s about reckoning with time and how that permeates through our understanding of love, life, death,…

When he stepped away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis’s resignation as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases did not land quietly. It detonated. “I find that the views [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough,” he wrote in a resignation letter he shared publicly on social media. He said he was leaving because the CDC, the once-premier public health agency tasked with protecting the health of people in the U.S., had been transformed into a political instrument, with its scientific mission subverted, vulnerable populations erased,…

Two decades after founding Vision Cathedral of Atlanta, Bishop O.C. Allen III says the church’s work is more urgent than ever. The LGBTQ-affirming Black Pentecostal congregation, which first gathered in his living room and now fills a sprawling sanctuary every Sunday, has become both a spiritual home and a civic hub at a time when queer and trans people are facing escalating political attacks across the South and the nation at large. On a Sunday in October, the crowd was strikingly mixed: longtime parishioners and first-time visitors, older Black women in colorful hats, a young Asian woman with her white husband and their infant daughter, and a group of college students from Spelman and Morehouse. It was casual, exuberant, and full of motion — the kind of worship that blurs…

ON OCTOBER 13, transgender civil rights icon Miss Major Griffin-Gracy passed away at 78 after time in hospice care. For over five decades, Griffin-Gracy fought for trans equality — and in a country that still wrestles with queer rights with as much temperament today as it did when she arrived in New York City in the 1960s. Nevertheless, she persevered as a torchbearer to brighten the lives of those who saw the world as grim and dismaying. Griffin-Gracy, born in Chicago, spoke about her move to NYC in her youth on the LGBTQ&A podcast in 2021. “The trans community was everywhere,” she reflected, “I went immediately to 42nd Street. Everybody went to 42nd Street: trans girls, everybody. Finding them was not a problem.… I found an apartment that I moved…

The 2025 theme of the Out100, which honored Icon of the Year Niecy Nash-Betts and Advocate of the Year Kathy Griffin, was “Bolder, Brighter!” And the November event at Nya West in Los Angeles certainly delivered. Onstage, Sia surprised Griffin (and the crowd) with a rendition of “Unstoppable”; All-American star Bre-Z reminded of the importance of representation; Boots lead (and Advocate cover star) Miles Heizer spoke to the power of the LGBTQ+ community working together; “Golden” co-songwriter Mark Sonnenblock performed his KPop Demon Hunters hit, which was sung by husbands Sam Tsui and Casey Breves; and P&G’s Brent Miller gave cheers to the new class of the year’s most impactful LGBTQ+ people. Other notable guests included Anna Camp, Frankie Grande, Vivian Wilson, EJ Johnson, Juan Pablo Di Pace, Sophia Bush…

IT’S BEEN A banner year for Tristan Schukraft. The CEO of Tryst Hospitality (and MISTR and “everything gay”) has expanded his Tryst Hotels portfolio. Soon there will be properties in Fire Island, Provincetown, Wilton Manors, and Rio de Janeiro — that’s in addition to his hotels in San Juan and Puerto Vallarta as well as The Abbey in West Hollywood. He’s also launching the inaugural Tryst Fitness in Puerto Vallarta. With business (and vacations) happening around the globe, the jet-setting Schukraft is also a seasoned out traveler. Below, he shares some tips for those embarking on queer adventures in 2026. What is your checklist for a dream destination? My dream destination has to be gay, have great nightlife, and be somewhere tropical. I want to party at night, eat well,…

Dear Advocate readers, I try not to be too demanding in my welcome note in each issue, but this time I need your help. I have had many conversations with our nonprofit queer leaders from small and large organizations over the last few weeks, and they need our support. Amid this current political climate of “anti-woke” propaganda, the grants, federal and state funding, and corporate sponsorships that LGBTQ+ nonprofits rely on are going away. Many of you are stepping up with donations; thank you. However, leaders tell me it may not be enough. I encourage everyone to talk with nonprofits in your community, listen to their struggles, and see how you might be able to support them. I have seen over and over how the LGBTQ+ community comes together when…

For Shannon “SJ” Joslin, who is nonbinary and gay, nature provides comfort when humans simply can’t — or won’t. The former park ranger isn’t seeking acceptance when they set off on another daring adventure through the California wilderness, but rather the absence of approval and rejection entirely. “Environmentalism has always been something that is super important to me because I didn’t necessarily always see myself in the people that I was surrounded by,” Joslin says. “I grew up in a really conservative town, where if you wanted to insult someone, you would call them gay. The natural world has never been discriminatory to me like that.” “If I get caught out in a storm, that’s my bad. But I can absorb all of nature and all of the beauties without…

Alex Cooper, editor in chief: Hope is really going to return next year. We see fault lines among far-right Republicans and the MAGA crowd. We also see voters not buying into the anti-transgender attacks that once dominated political races. I think these things will continue to allow opportunities for Democrats in ways that we haven’t seen in the last couple of years. A year into the new Trump administration, the negative consequences of Donald Trump’s policies (tariffs, anyone?) will also push independent voters to support Democrats. We’ll see firings and resignations across the federal government as Trump retaliates and scapegoats others over his policy failures. LGBTQ+ people won’t be saved from the scapegoating, unfortunately, but I don’t think that tactic will help the right this time around. Democrats are going…