Opinions
Opinion | Pulse shows that out of tragedy, there can be triumph
Gun reform now a top priority of LGBTQ movement
It’s been 5 years since 49 people were killed and 53 others were injured when a man armed with an assault rifle, large capacity magazines, and a heart full of hate attacked the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On June 12th, 2016, Pulse became the second deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
It’s been 5 years since the families and friends of those taken that night have heard their laughs, seen their smiles, or held their hands. It’s been 5 years that the survivors have had to relive their trauma of that fateful night. Saturday marks 5 years since this deadly attack and it is a time we can reflect on the lives lost, those injured, the progress made since the attack, and what we all can do to fight for commonsense gun reform to make our country a safer place.
This tragedy struck at the heart of the LGBTQ community, both in Orlando and around our country, happening right in the middle of Pride month. While this is a somber anniversary that we must honor and remember the tragedy, it is also a time to reflect on what our community has accomplished as a result of this horrific event. While we grieve for those we lost, today there is hope. Out of the tragedy, a movement was born in the LGBTQ community to fight for gun reform, led by groups such as the Pride Fund to End Gun Violence, which was established within days of the shooting. It includes Pulse survivors, family members of those killed in the attack, and key stakeholders. Working at the state and federal level, this new generation of activists are mobilizing and advocating for change to honor those lost with action. Through political action, advocacy, and recruiting new activists to the gun reform fight, the Pride Fund, other groups, and the LGBTQ community as a whole are honoring the legacy of the Pulse victims through meaningful action. The mission of Pride Fund is year round, working daily to enact gun reform, elect gun safety champions at the state and federal level, and advocating for change all over the country.
As we look back over the last five years there have been some significant accomplishments that reflect the hard work that has been done since the tragedy.
First, prior to Pulse, gun reform was not one of the top priorities among the LGBTQ community. Immediately following the shooting, our community began to have conversations about this critical topic and learn about the current efforts underway to change our gun laws. I created Pride Fund to End Gun Violence as an organization to spearhead our community’s efforts and harness the political power of the LGBTQ community to create change. Whereas gun reform was not a top priority before, public polling has shown in the years since that gun reform is now a top priority for LGBTQ voters. We are holding our political candidates to a certain standard and pushing them to make gun reform a priority. As a community, we are targeting some of the worst elected officials at the state and federal that are NRA backed cronies who stand in the way of legislative change. Pride Fund has been involved in over 125 political races around the country since our creation, and we have helped kick some of the worst Republicans out of office, replacing them with gun safety champions.
Second, we have witnessed many of those personally impacted by the tragedy, the survivors, the family members and friends of those killed, and key stakeholders like the owner of Pulse, become national activists in this cause. They have stepped beyond their own personal pain to take on leadership roles, speak about their experiences and the need for change in the media, in public forums, political rallies, and in meetings with elected officials. These individuals have refused to sit on the sidelines, they have wanted to honor those lost with action, and they have been doing a stellar job.
Third, Democrats have seized on the issue and made it one of their top priorities – in their campaigns and in elected office. The 2018 election was the first time gun reform was a key issue, not only on the campaign trail, but by voters. With Democrats winning the House of Representatives, bills started to finally pass to address gun reform, however the Senate stopped its movement. Now with Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and White House, we are in the greatest position to enact change. We just have to work hard in the Senate. For the first time in recent history, the CDC has received funding to study gun violence. A major win! With the election of President Biden, he is acting within his power to make our country safer. He has announced a series of initial actions and subsequent items have taken place. Most recently, the ATF has issued a proposed rule to stop the proliferation of “ghost guns,” and in his budget request for next year, he has included a $232 million dollar increase in funding for the DOJ and HHS to tackle gun violence.
Fourth, in a significant move by Congress in recent days, the House and Senate have voted to designate a Pulse National Memorial site.
Out of tragedy, there can be triumph, and the Pulse tragedy has certainly shown this to be true.
As we reflect on this 5th anniversary, take a moment to think about this loss of life, remember the victims, and think about all of the people around you that you want to protect from gun violence, then take action by getting involved with Pride Fund to End Gun Violence by visiting www.pridefund.org.
To get involved, volunteer, or donate to help enact real gun reform, visit our website at PrideFund.org.
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @Pride_Fund.
Jason Lindsay is founder and executive director of Pride Fund to End Gun Violence, a PAC that supports state and federal candidates who will act on sensible gun policy reforms and champion LGBTQ equality. Lindsay is a seasoned political operative with 16 years of experience working in politics, government, and campaigns. He also served for 14 years in the U.S. Army Reserve and was deployed to Iraq in 2003.
Opinions
Skipping Memorial Day crowds in Rehoboth Beach
After 30 years, I’ve become allergic to large gatherings
There are a lot of things about getting older that are great. I love retirement, love the cruises I take, time at my favorite coffee shops, both in D.C. and at the Coffee Mill in Rehoboth. Then there are some not so great things. I have had a few health issues, which luckily, I have fully overcome. Some issues you can do something about, others you can’t. One of the things I have come to realize is, I no longer enjoy big crowds, and this is something I can do something about. Just avoid them.
I have spent every holiday weekend since buying my place in Rehoboth, and that is going on 30 years, at the beach. I go for Christmas and New Year’s, Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, President’s Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. Add a few extra holidays I may be missing like Veterans’ Day, if it falls on a weekend. This is the first year I won’t be there on Memorial Day, and it is by choice. Instead, will be staying in D.C. Some will ask why, and my simple answer is to avoid the crowds. I keep thinking of the crowds last Memorial Day and decided to see how it goes skipping it this year.
Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled for all the businesses at the beach when they are swamped with people. And glad those people who want to be there are having a great time, and don’t mind when the lines to get into Aqua and Diego’s are around the block. Or when my favorite place for coffee, The Coffee Mill, has a line when I get there at 7 a.m. When you can’t get a reservation at the Pines or even Ava’s. But last year it finally occurred to me why I wasn’t having as much fun as I used to, and realized it was because I have become allergic to crowds. So, for the first time this year, I determined I was going to stay away and see how it feels. I may regret it after a few hours at home in D.C., or when seeing friends’ posts on Instagram and Facebook. But am going to take that chance. One thing I do regret missing is the incredible annual brunch thrown by my friend Robert, and his husband, but am determined to see what it feels like not being at the beach for the kick-off holiday weekend of the summer.
To wean myself away, I did go last weekend. Had a great time seeing friends. Had fun at Aqua each evening for happy hour; went to a great party at CAMP in honor of their new Executive Director Dr. Robin Brennan. I’ve had a chance to chat with her, and believe they made a great choice when hiring her. Then on Friday evening I went to the Washington Blade annual season kick-off party at Diego’s and met the new Steve Elkins Fellow, Thomas Weaverling, and am sure he will do a great job. It was wonderful to see Ashley Biden there accepting the award given posthumously to Beau Biden for all he did for the LGBTQ community. Then on Saturday I stopped in at Freddie’s Beach Bar for the Cloud Nine reunion. That brought back so many good memories. It was coordinated by the inimitable Fay Jacobs. It was back then when I did like crowds, the more the merrier, and remember dancing all evening on the small crowded dance floor. Some people at the reunion reminded me of all the years I hosted an annual Memorial Day party, actually the first 10 years I had my place at the beach. It was catered by the Blue Moon, when my friend Rob was there, and they brought the Champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and even a bartender. I just had to have fun, and I did. The thought of doing that today is a little overwhelming, and I think it is about age.
So, this year I will see how much I miss being at the beach for the holiday weekend. Then after my June trip to France, will decide whether I want to do the same for the Fourth of July. I kind of look forward to seeing what my thoughts on it are, and how it goes.
For those of you at the beach, I hope the place is a zoo, of the best kind, and you all have a fabulous time.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
GLAA’s 2026 primary election ratings show candidates agree on basics
We applaud all who are standing up for human rights in D.C.
Our local elections in D.C. this year will be the most consequential in a long time, as we will get a new mayor, several new Council members, and a new delegate to Congress. It also comes amid the most intensive and far-ranging federal attacks on our self-determination in the history of Home Rule, along with concerted efforts to deprive members of our communities of their rights and well being. As always, GLAA publishes our policy brief and ratings on candidates to help inform voters as they make these momentous decisions. This year, our policy brief and candidate questionnaire are a recommitment to promoting the basics: basic human rights, basic human needs, and basic human decency.
Though GLAA does not issue endorsements, we do rate candidates. Of the candidates who responded, mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, and Ward 1 Council candidates Rashida Brown, Miguel Trindade Deramo, and Aparna Raj received a +10, the highest possible rating a candidate can receive from GLAA. This indicated strong agreement with GLAA, thoughtful answers, and an impressive record of action on the issues presented in our brief and policy questionnaire. Other high scores include Oye Owolewa, the highest scoring candidate for the Council At-Large primary election, with a score of 9, and Doni Crawford, who scored the highest in the Council At-Large special election, with 6.5.
For the 2026 primary and special elections, candidates are in broad agreement with GLAA’s policy priorities. In seven out of 10 of our priorities, each candidate indicated agreement. Total consensus on core issues signals that whomever is elected to Council and mayor, we should expect to hold our elected officials accountable to our goals of protecting home rule, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender healthcare rights, and eliminating chronic homelessness in the District. Other areas of agreement include ending food insecurity, building equitable energy infrastructure, and ensuring robust access points to public benefits. While candidates agree on the basics, they distinguish themselves in the depth and creativity in their responses, and their record on the issues. To read and review their responses in depth, visit glaa.org or outvotedc.org.
As D.C.’s oldest LGBTQ advocacy organization, we know the power that queer people have in local elections. Our queer siblings are among the privileged and the dispossessed. For our communities, this can be an opportunity and an obligation. GLAA’s policy brief is an invitation and call to action. When we do better to support those at the margins, we see an increase in our collective wellbeing. Using a “queer lens” we can see radical and concrete ways that the District can use our power to uplift us all.
We hope the candidate ratings, their responses, and our policy brief are useful to the community as we make decisions during this consequential year. We applaud all who are standing up for D.C., for human rights, for civil rights. We invite you to join us in the work to create the queer future we all deserve.
Benjamin Brooks is president of GLAA; Darby Hickey is secretary.
Ghana
Intersex lives, constitutional freedom, and the dangerous future of Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill
Lawmakers continue to consider draconian measure
There is a dangerous silence surrounding intersex lives in Ghana — a silence shaped by fear, misinformation, cultural misunderstanding, and institutional neglect. Today, amid discussions around the possible passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, that silence risks becoming law, reinforcing exclusion and deepening the marginalization of already invisible lives.
Much of the national debate surrounding the bill has focused on LGBTQ+ identities. Yet buried within it are implications for intersex persons that many Ghanaians do not fully understand because intersex realities remain largely invisible.
Intersex persons are born with natural variations in chromosomes, hormones, reproductive anatomy, and/or genital characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female bodies. Intersex is not a sexual orientation or gender identity. It is a biological reality. Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has clearly acknowledged this distinction.
Despite this distinction, the bill mistakenly collapses intersex realities into a legal framework linked to LGBTQ+ criminalization.
Although the bill contains only limited references to intersex persons, under certain medical exceptions, these references do not amount to recognition or protection. Instead, they frame intersex bodies as abnormalities requiring regulation, correction, and institutional management. This approach is inconsistent not only with Ghana’s constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality, privacy, and liberty, but also with emerging African and international human rights standards. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Intersex Persons in Africa – ACHPR/Res.552 (LXXIV) 2023 affirms protections relating to bodily integrity, dignity, freedom from discrimination, and against harmful medical practices. Additionally, the United Nations has repeatedly condemned medically unnecessary and non-consensual interventions on intersex children. Rather than affirming the humanity and autonomy of intersex persons, the bill risks legitimizing systems of surveillance, coercion, violence, and institutional erasure.
This is not protection.
It is managed erasure.
A child born intersex in Ghana already enters a society shaped by secrecy and stigma. Families are often pressured to hide intersex children or seek “correction” to make their bodies conform to social expectations.
The bill risks intensifying this pressure.
Clause 17 creates space for “approved service providers” to support interventions relating to intersex persons, yet offers little protection around informed consent, bodily autonomy, confidentiality, or coercive treatment. Under the language of “correction” or “support,” harmful interventions may become normalized.
The intersex community has documented painful lived experiences of intersex Ghanaians that reveal the devastating consequences of stigma and invisibility.
One heartbreaking case involved intersex twins born in Ghana’s Eastern Region in 1993, who were repeatedly forced to move from village to village because of rejection and ridicule. After losing their father, their main source of protection and support, they became even more vulnerable and reportedly experienced severe emotional distress, including suicidal thoughts linked to years of stigma and exclusion. This is what invisibility looks like in practice.
Another painful example is the story of Ativor Holali, whose lived experience exposed the cruel realities intersex persons face in sports and public life. Ativor Holali endured invasive scrutiny, public humiliation, and social suspicion because her body did not conform to rigid expectations of femininity. Rather than being protected as a Ghanaian athlete deserving dignity and privacy, she became the subject of speculation, gossip, and institutional discomfort.
Her experience reflects a broader social crisis: when society insists that every body must fit a narrow binary definition, intersex people are forced to defend their humanity in spaces where dignity should already be guaranteed.
Intersex Persons Society Of Ghana (IPSOG)’s Ŋusẽdodo research further revealed that approximately 70 percent of intersex respondents reported depression, anxiety, trauma, or severe emotional distress linked to medical mistreatment, family rejection, bullying, and social exclusion.
The bill risks transforming these existing prejudices into institutional policy. Several provisions risk deepening surveillance, restricting advocacy, weakening confidentiality, and discouraging public education around intersex realities. Intersex-led organizations providing healthcare guidance, legal referrals, psychosocial support, and community services may face serious challenges.
This places IPSOG and other intersex-led organizations in Ghana at serious risk.
For many intersex Ghanaians, these spaces are not political luxuries.
They are survival mechanisms.
Governments derive legitimacy by protecting the natural rights of all persons, including dignity, liberty, bodily autonomy, and freedom from arbitrary interference. The bill raises concerns because it risks weakening these protections for intersex persons through surveillance, coercive interventions, and restrictions on advocacy.
Ghana’s Constitution declares that “the dignity of all persons shall be inviolable.” Articles 15, 17, 18, and 21 specifically protect dignity, equality, privacy, expression, and freedom of association. These protections should apply equally to intersex persons.
Intersex persons are not threats to Ghanaian culture.
Intersex children are not moral dangers.
Intersex bodies are not political weapons.
They are human beings deserving dignity, healthcare, safety, and constitutional protection.
The true measure of a democracy is how it protects those most vulnerable to exclusion. At this moment, Ghana faces a choice: deepen fear and silence, or uphold dignity, bodily autonomy, and constitutional freedom for intersex persons.
History will remember the choice we make.
Fafali Delight Akortsu is the founder and president of the Intersex Persons Society of Ghana (IPSOG).
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