LGBTQ Rights Are Human Rights

When @fakedansavage started a sex & love advice column, he thought it would last 6 months to a year. It’s been 30 years. Had the pleasure of speaking with him recently:https://t.co/3NmUjLx6Eg

— Lisa Bonos (@lisabonos) September 8, 2021

… It was going to be a joke, Savage said in a recent interview. “I was going to give sex advice to straight people with the same contempt that straight people had occasionally given sex advice to gay people,” Savage says. He thought he’d have the job for six months to a year.

Thirty years later, the column is still going strong, running in newspapers all over the world — plus he hosts a podcast and has written several books. Savage has become a cultural force in the world of LGBT rights, sex, love and relationships. He has coined new words and ideas for how to be intimate and adventurous, and how to redefine commitment as relationships evolve. The Post spoke to him about this accidental career he loves…

Q: A lot has changed in the world of sex, love and relationships in 30 years. What changes would you still like to see?

A: Oh my God. No one’s asked me that question. I used to hammer away at wanting to see marriage equality. I have been hammering away at the need for comprehensive sex education, and we still don’t have it. If there’s anything that would benefit everyone, it would be comprehensive sex education that talks about consent, that talks about the existence of queer people, and talks in a smart way about gender. Even what a lot of progressives or liberals look at and think “this is good sex education” is usually just reproductive biology. That’s easy. You can cover that in an hour. And most parents do: with their children, because children are curious about how they came to exist.

What trips people up about sex is: negotiation, pleasure, confusing desires that you didn’t ask for. Or you’re attracted to the kind of person you’re not “supposed” to be attracted to. And that’s not just about being gay or straight or bi. That can be about being attracted to larger people when the culture tells you that you should only be attracted to thin people, or whatever it might be…

Q: So you’re saying that comprehensive sex education is more controversial than marriage equality.

A: And more controversial than ever! One of the tools you would come out of the sex ed program that I would design is: Part of talking about sex with someone is telling them that they can say no to you. Not only can someone say no, you should ask someone if they would like to — in case they want to and don’t feel comfortable saying that. You don’t want to realize like a week later that something happened that the other person felt violated.

I write about the four magic words, which are: “What are you into?” That is the question that I, as a young gay man, was asked by my first sex partner. It was incredibly empowering, because I could rule anything in and anything out. Straight people should steal “What are you into?” from gay people the way we stole marriage from them…

Q: It’s been over a decade since you and your husband, Terry Miller, recorded that video telling LGBT teens that “it gets better” beyond high school. If you were to give a new message to young people that relates to their mental health or sexuality, would it be “it gets better,” or something else?

A: Post-Trump and world-on-fire, it feels crazy to say “it gets better,” right? But I still believe it. “It gets better” is never passive. It gets better because you do something about it…

I see people who are traumatized by getting grief online, and my advice is always: “Turn off the computer and wait two days,” and there will be a different storm. If two days later, there’s something that you feel you need to apologize for, then you can do it…

Respite (In Its Fashion) Open Thread: Dan Savage Gives Good InterviewPost + Comments (29)

From @thelilynews: Navajo Nation celebrates its first official Pride parade after a devastating year https://t.co/vE0v4hN9E5

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 21, 2021

Cheering read from the Washington Post — “‘We’re here, we survived and we’re going to be okay’“:

… Navajo Nation Pride began as a small event hosted outside the offices of a feminist collective in Window Rock’s Ch’ihootso Indian Market Place four years ago. Since then, the annual event has grown into the country’s largest Indigenous Pride — peaking at an estimated 7,000 attendees in 2019 — with year-long programs and scholarships dedicated to supporting LGBTQ2S+ youth and leaders.

This year, Pride came as the Navajo Nation, which suffered some of the worst effects of the pandemic, leads the country in vaccinations. Cars adorned with gay and trans pride flags, signs reading “Diyingo ‘Adaanitsíískéés” — Navajo for “We are sacred” — and rainbow streamers paraded from the Navajo Nation Museum through central Window Rock and to the Navajo Nation Council Chambers.

There, attendees settled in folding chairs spaced six feet apart to hear speakers address movements to reclaim Indigenous LGBTQ2S+ identity, the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis among American Indians and Alaskan Natives, and the work to pass inclusive legislation such as the Navajo Nation Equality Act. The theme of the year was “the sacred resilience of Indigenous womxn.”

“This year is our fourth year and in Diné culture we understand that the number four is a very sacred number,” invoking the four directions and the four sacred colors, said Navajo Nation Pride’s youth director Geronimo Louie (Navajo). “We are a matriarchal society at heart and through our teachings and understandings and our origin stories, women have always been leading and paving the way for all of us as Indigenous people.”…

Something Good Open Thread: ‘Navajo Nation celebrates its first official Pride parade’Post + Comments (12)