Editor's Note: Writer's Block is a space for Virginia writers to share personal essays, fiction, memoir, and works that fall somewhere in between. We’re standing on some corner in downtown Richmond: me, my two friends, a pair of women, and their male friend we had met...
Finding space for LGBTQ comedy isn't as easy as it should be, but for Atlanta comedian Matthew English, who'll be at Richmond's Sandman Comedy Club on Wednesday, December 8, the challenge is one he's willing to take on. Comedian Matthew English is probably one of the best comics you’re not watching. Based in Atlanta, English has been performing...
Amid calls by Republicans across the country to ban and even “burn” LGBTQ books, the Denton, Texas public library is being forced to cancel Saturday’s Rainbow Family StoryTime after “hostile complaints” created concerns for the safety of staff and patrons. Among those complaints was an attack by a rabidly anti-LGBTQ former Republican state...
Spotsylvania County's school board responded to a parent complaining about "LGBTQIA fiction" being available in school libraries by unanimously voting to ban any books containing "sexually explicit" content -- and two school board members called for the books in question to be burned. Two Spotsylvania County, Virginia School Board members...
Virginia's Fifth District US Congressman is at it again. This month, he told a gathering of public high school students that they should defy their school's mask mandate, and said on the floor of Congress that marriage equality was responsible for everything wrong with America today. Charming, right? Virginia GOP U.S. Rep. Bob Good is attacking...
President Biden saluted the LGBTQ community for National Coming Out Day today, and promised he'd have our back as state legislatures around the country continue to push for anti-LGBTQ laws. After four years of silence from the White House, it was a refreshing change. President Joe Biden on Monday issued a statement honoring National Coming Out...
Paxton claims (falsely) that the policies "put women and children at risk," relying on the tired anti-LGBTQ accusations that queer and trans people are sexual predators. The result of the lawsuit could have nationwide implications for LGBTQ employment rights. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, running for re-election, on Monday sued...
With the Virginia Supreme Court's decision to uphold the reinstatement of Tanner Cross, a Loudoun County teacher who insisted on his right to misgender transgender students regardless of school policy, concerns over the enforceability of Virginia's new laws protecting transgender children are uncomfortably thrust into the spotlight. It's a rough...
This morning brings a sad but necessary announcement; VA Pridefest, originally scheduled for Saturday, September 25 at Brown's Island, will be postponed until 2022. The decision was not made lightly, but with COVID numbers once again on the rise due to the Delta variant, the organizers felt that it was the right thing to do. COVID strikes again....
Attempts to expand LGBTQ rights in Michigan have run up against some well-funded opposition from higher-ups in the Catholic Church. But LGBTQ advocates in the state are not giving up. Catholic Bishops in Michigan have spent over $238,000 – nearly a quarter of a million dollars – to fight a civil rights group’s goal of expanding protections for...
