Thank you for the excellent reporting in the July 4 Pride edition of the New Times. I was delighted to see the in-depth coverage of important topics such as LGBTQ-plus mental health and body positivity!
While Pride is celebratory, there are many battles still to come as we strive for equity and inclusion. As you mentioned in the issue, the California Healthy Kids Survey results show our LGB and T school-aged youth don’t feel anywhere near as safe as their non-LGBTQ-plus peers, and we need to do better for them.
GALA appreciates every friend and ally whose kindness is a preventative factor when it comes to negative mental health outcomes. Thank you for taking the time to tackle these topics—and thank you to all the reporters and photographers who made it possible.
Michelle Call
executive director
Gay and Lesbian Alliance of the Central Coast
This article appears in 55 Fiction 2019.
Homosexuality is a phenomenon which has probably always existed and which has often polarized society into two camps. This is normal. After all, the issue of homosexuality deals not only with sex as such, but also with societal norms, reproduction, children and family issues. We live in a weird time when only one of these two views gets objectively and calmly discussed, while the other point of view is immediately censored, denounced and condemned as some kind of phobia. Can you imagine that somebody might be critical of homosexuality as such (or of homosexual behavior/practices) without suffering from any kind of phobias or without hating anybody?