Blood is thicker than water, as the saying goes, but sometimes the safest people for LGBTQ+ folks are not their family members. For many youth, rejection means being thrown out of their houses. For others, of all ages, the hostility is more subtle. In both cases, other members and allies of the queer community can provide more love, affirmation, and stability than biological family.

We hate to give Republican leadership credit, but they have knocked it out of the park with "loyalty via outrage." By exaggerating or even manufacturing threats, and packaging those threats with a conservative lifestyle brand, they ensure that their voters will show up - with heartbreaking consequences for the groups targeted by their outrage machine.

As the Trump administration and Supreme Court continue to set back LGBTQ+ rights and visibility, even some among the gay community are pointing their fingers at transgender people. If trans people would just stop demanding rights and acceptance and medical privacy, they say, there would be no backlash against gay people. We think this is misguided and, in the case of journalists and other high profile voices, downright irresponsible. Today Siena and Brian attack this topic in the context of a recent New York Times piece by Andrew Sullivan.