National
2011 to bring new marriage fights across U.S.
R.I., Md. best bets for progress, while N.C., Ind. face bans
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, shown here at a meeting with LGBT supporters, backs same-sex marriage rights. (Photo courtesy of Chafee’s office)
With “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed, the issue of marriage returns to center stage in 2011 as many states are poised to enact same-sex marriage or civil unions legislation — or pursue measures that would repeal or block such rights for gay couples.
With new governors or changes to their state legislatures, Rhode Island, Maryland and New York could advance same-sex marriage legislation as soon as this year.
But changes in the political dynamic after the 2010 elections also mean that marriage rights could be repealed in New Hampshire and amendments banning same-sex marriage could go forward in North Carolina, Indiana and Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, legislation to enact civil unions could advance in Hawaii and Delaware.
Rhode Island is among the states that could see early action in passing a same-sex marriage bill.
Newly seated Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I), who supports same-sex marriage, has replaced Gov. Donald Carcieri (R), who opposed gay nuptials.
In his inauguration address, Chafee encouraged the Rhode Island General Assembly “quickly consider and adopt” a same-sex marriage bill to send to his desk.
“When marriage equality is the law in Rhode Island, we honor our forefathers who risked their lives and fortune in the pursuit of human equality,” he said.
Same-sex marriage bills were introduced in both chambers of the Rhode Island General Assembly last week. House Speaker Gordon Fox, who’s gay, supports the passage of a marriage bill through his chamber.
Kathy Kushnir, executive director of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, said she thinks the marriage bill will come before the House Judiciary Committee before the end of January.
“So we’ll be holding hearings, and then, we’ll be looking at, of course, the committee vote and the floor vote as soon as possible,” she said.
Karen Loewy, senior staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said the prospects for passing a marriage bill in Rhode Island are “really fantastic” and called Chafee an “active supporter” of the legislation.
“It was part of his inaugural address,” she said. “He’s really committed to getting a marriage bill passed.”
The Senate isn’t expected to take action on the marriage bill until the House finishes action on the measure. The legislative session ends in June, so the marriage bill would have to reach the governor’s desk by that time.
Kushnir said the biggest challenge in passing a marriage bill in Rhode Island is ensuring that lawmakers address the legislation as they take on other issues facing the state.
“There are really important issues also — the economy, jobs and the budget — that are before the legislature,” Kushnir said. “But you know what? Everyone knows that passing marriage equality and treating everybody equal here in Rhode Island does very well for all of those issues.”
Loewy said passage in the Senate remains “a stronger challenge,” but support should exist in the chamber to pass a marriage bill.
“Even there, I think, you’ve got folks who are ready to understand how important this is for same-sex couples in Rhode Island,” she said.
LGBT rights supporters are also optimistic about the chances of a same-sex marriage bill passing in Maryland, where the configuration of the Senate for the first time provides a path for passage.
Last month, a majority of members who support same-sex marriage were named to Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, ensuring for the first time that a same-sex marriage measure would clear the panel and reach the Senate floor for a vote. Up until now, the committee has blocked the marriage bill, even though the chamber was in Democratic control.
Sen. Richard Madaleno of Montgomery Country, who’s gay, last week expressed confidence about passage of the marriage bill.
“I have never been so optimistic about getting this done,” he said. “Today at lunch I sat quietly by myself with a list of the members of the new Senate going over again and again in my head where the votes are, and I’m feeling really good right now both for the floor vote and the cloture vote.”
The bill is being introduced by Majority Leader Kumar Barve (D-Dist. 17) and Del. Keiffer Mitchell (D-Dist. 44). The Senate version will be advanced by Majority Leader Rob Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) and Madaleno.
Supporters in the Senate believe they have the 24 votes needed to pass the marriage bill on an up or down vote but are less certain about whether they have the 29 votes needed to invoke cloture and stop an expected filibuster by same-sex marriage opponents.
Another obstacle could be a referendum on the marriage law. Nearly all observers of the General Assembly expect opponents to initiate petitions to call for a referendum, which would stop the bills from taking effect until after voters decide on the issue.
In New York, supporters of same-sex marriage are looking to the state legislature to approve a bill extending marriage rights to gay couples that would be sent to newly seated Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) desk for his signature.
As in previous years, a marriage bill is expected to be able pass again in the State Assembly, where Democrats have retained control of the chamber, but the situation is different in the Senate, where Republicans have regained control after the election.
Still, Republican Leader Dean Skelos suggested prior to the election that if Republicans regain power in the Senate, he would allow a vote on same-sex marriage to come, even though — like all GOP senators — he previously voted against the marriage bill.
“Let me just say, when we win back the majority, there is legislation that I believe all of you interested in, that I believe should be voted on again,” Skelos said in October. “We’re not going to stifle discussion. We are not going to stifle votes. And it is truly my belief that people should be allowed to vote their consciences.”
Even if the legislation comes up for a vote in the Senate, the prospects for passage are uncertain. When the bill previously came up for a vote late in 2009, the measure failed 24-38.
Two lawmakers who support same-sex marriage were elected to the Senate since the last vote on the legislation, but that change is far from the 32 votes needed to pass a bill in the Senate.
Ross Levi, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said the “political dynamic remains very promising” for passing a same-sex marriage bill as well as a transgender civil rights bill in New York.
“The phrase that I’ve been using is that there’s a clear and credible path to victory in the not distant future,” Levi said.
Asked whether passage would be likely in the next two years given the makeup of the legislature, Levi replied, “For me, it’s not talking about timeline, it’s about the work we have to do to make sure that we can have a successful vote as soon as we can.”
Dan Pinello, a gay government professor at the City University of New York, said he’s not optimistic about passage of a marriage bill in the legislature over the course of the next two years.
“[Skelos] has said a few things suggesting that [he would bring the bill to a vote], but that’s not a guarantee,” Pinello said. “So, yeah, he could bring it up for a vote, but that’s no guarantee it’s going to pass. I just don’t see it happening, sadly.”
Pinello said the next opportunity to advance same-sex marriage could be in 2013 as a result of the redistricting this year. He said political power should shift from upstate to downstate, which would give Democrats a majority in the Senate.
“Upstate tends to be Republican and downstate tends to be Democratic, so it’s likely even though Republicans will be redrawing the Senate district lines, there’s no way they can still maintain a majority, given the demographic shifts the Census will reveal,” Pinello said.
Repealing marriage in N.H.?
While several states are poised to advance marriage rights, other places could see a rollback of relationship recognition for same-sex couples.
The most prominent of those states is New Hampshire, where opponents of same-sex marriage may have the political power to repeal the marriage law enacted in 2009.
Gov. John Lynch (D), who signed the marriage bill into law, is expected to veto the bill should it come to his desk. But after the election, Republicans now have a super majority in both chambers of the legislature and could override his veto.
Four bills have already been introduced in the legislature to repeal the marriage law.
State Rep. Leo Pepino (R), who introduced one of the bills, said he thinks there is support to repeal the marriage law, according to the Nashau Telegraph.
“I think we have the votes [to repeal],” Pepino said. “We have a lot of really good conservatives and a good conservative doesn’t believe in gay marriage. … It’s a matter of ethics.”
GLAD’s Loewy said the chances of repealing the marriage law in New Hampshire are “hard to quantify,” adding she doesn’t know whether the votes are present to take such action.
“The LGBT community in New Hampshire is very much gearing up for a fight to protect marriage the best way we know how: by talking to legislators about how taking away marriage is going to hurt their families and their kids,” Loewy said.
Loewy added she’s hoping that New Hampshire won’t go down the path of repealing the law and would instead pursue “issues like jobs and the economy that everybody knows is the priority.”
“I think, like I said, the community has a lot of work to do, but, I think, it’s absolutely fair to expect and hope that that’s not the path that New Hampshire’s going to go down,” she said.
Mo Baxley, executive director of the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition, said the Granite State has never taken away the rights of its citizen, but that is what some anti-gay lawmakers are proposing to do.
“The married gay and lesbian couples here have in no way impacted anybody else’s marriage,” she said. “Let’s move on. Marriage has been debated to death here and the priority right now is the economy and the budget.”
Other states are prepared to advance constitutional amendments that would ban same-sex marriage.
One such state is North Carolina, where Republicans swept into power in both the House and Senate following the November elections.
Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality North Carolina, said his organization is “fully expecting” that a constitutional amendment banning both same-sex marriage and marriage-like unions will advance this year.
“I think there’s a chance of blocking it, but it’s a very tight vote at the moment,” he said.
Palmquist said he’s getting mixed signals on when the vote would come up and said it could be anytime between February and July.
In North Carolina, passing a constitutional amendment requires a third-fifths vote of approval from both chambers of the state legislature followed by a majority of voters at the ballot box.
Palmquist said the measure could be on the ballot in 2011, but he expects it would come to voters in 2012. Such a move would enable conservatives to turn out their base during a presidential election year.
“It would definitely be a challenge to defeat it at the ballot,” Palmquist said. “There is majority support in North Carolina for some form of relationship recognition. We certainly would use that to try to stop this kind of amendment from moving forward.”
Another state where LGBT rights supporters are anticipating a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and marriage-like unions is Indiana.
In previous years, advocates had been able to block the amendment in the House because Democrats held a narrow majority in the chamber, but the situation has changed now that Republicans took control of the House and expanded their control of the Senate following the November elections.
Don Sherfick, legislative chair for Indiana Equality, said the prospects for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage passing this year are good in Indiana.
“I guess I would be less than honest if I were to say that things were looking rosy for continuing to unequivocally being able to fight such a thing coming through,” he said.
Anticipating hearings in either the House or Senate or both chambers within six weeks, Sherfick said Indiana Equality is mounting a public relations and lobbying campaign to try to block the amendment.
“People will at least know what they’re doing and we’ll set our sights on fighting it in the next legislature,” he said.
Bil Browning, an Indiana native and editor of the Bilerico Project, said he’s 99.9 percent certain that the Indiana Legislature would pass a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
“The two things they wanted to do most and first and foremost was a bill that would require a woman to have a sonogram three days before any planned abortion — in the hopes that she’ll see it and not want to have the abortion — and a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage,” Browning said.
For a constitutional amendment to pass in Indiana, it must pass the state legislature twice — a first time and then again after an election — before the measure comes before voters. If the legislature passed an amendment this year, the soonest it could get to voters is 2014.
Browning said gay rights supporters can hope for a change in the makeup of the legislature after the next election as a way to block the amendment from final passage.
“Two years from now, if we can retake the Indiana House it’s probably dead, but for at least passing this session, I’d say [the chances] are 99.9 percent,” he said.
Browning said one factor working in advocates’ favor in Indiana is that all the Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state previously testified before the legislature against the amendment.
Additionally, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), who has called for a “truce” on social issues, is widely considered to be thinking about a run for president and may want to steer clear of marriage prior to 2012. Still, the amendment wouldn’t require his signature for passage.
A similar situation can be found in Pennsylvania, where Republicans took control of the House and retained control of the Senate.
Malcolm Lazin, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Equality Forum, said passage of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is “of concern” because of new Republican control of the House.
“We were able to successfully block it in the past because the House was controlled by the Democrats,” Lazin said. “That dynamic has now changed. In addition, there is now a Republican governor of Pennsylvania.”
As in Indiana, for a constitutional amendment to pass in Pennsylvania, the measure has to be approved by a majority vote in both chambers of the legislature — once and then again after an election — before going to voters as a ballot measure.
Ted Martin, executive director of Equality Pennsylvania, predicted that the amendment would be introduced in both the House and Senate, but was skeptical of lawmakers’ ability to push it through the legislature.
Martin said the likelihood of the measure passing in the House committee is high, but its passage on the House floor is less certain. For the Senate, which has been controlled by Republicans for more than two decades, Martin said he doubts the measure would make it through committee.
“The Senate, in the past, has always taken a less active tone about it,” Martin said. “They’ve become much more libertarian in their view. Just to remember, we were able to block this in committee three times before.”
Hawaii, Del. to take up civil unions
As many states take on the marriage issue — either to advance gay nuptials or ban them — two other states are prepared to enact civil unions early in 2011.
In Hawaii, LGBT advocates are ready to advance a civil unions bill that newly seated Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) has pledged to sign.
Last summer, a civil unions bill in the Aloha State was vetoed by former Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, but with her gone, gay rights supporters see a clear path toward passing the legislation.
Alan Spector, co-chair of Equality Hawaii, said he expects that the civil unions bill will easily pass the legislature to reach Abercrombie’s desk soon after the session starts on Jan. 19.
“With the November 2010 election behind us, and a new governor and new leadership, we’re pretty confident that we will pass the bill early in 2011,” Spector said.
Spector estimated that the legislation would be introduced in the third week of January and ideally would make it to the governor’s desk by March.
“The process can go as quickly as a month or it can take the whole session — or it can on into 2012,” Spector said. “It all depends on what happens, but we’re pretty optimistic that it’s going to go quickly this year.”
Advocates are pursuing civil unions in Hawaii instead of marriage because in 1998, voters approved a constitutional amendment granting the legislature the power to ban same-sex marriage, which lawmakers then pursued.
Similarly, LGBT advocates in Delaware are ready to advance legislation this year that would enact civil unions in the First State.
Peter Schott, political vice president of Delaware Stonewall Democrats, said the “atmosphere is probably better than it’s been in a few years” for passing civil unions in the state.
“We have formed a coalition, which a number of elected officials are on — civic leaders,” Schott said.
LGBT rights supporters know they have the votes in the House, Schott said, but questions about passage in the Senate remain because leadership could refer the legislation to an unfavorable committee.
Schott said supporters of civil unions in Delaware want to pass the legislation this year so it doesn’t come up during the 2012 election season.
Advocacy groups are demanding the Trump-Vance administration not to deport two gay men to Iran.
MS Now on Jan. 23 reported the two men are among the 40 Iranian nationals who the White House plans to deport.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
The Washington Blade earlier this month reported LGBTQ Iranians have joined anti-government protests that broke out across the country on Dec. 28. Human rights groups say the Iranian government has killed thousands of people since the demonstrations began.
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, which represents the two men, told MS Now her clients were scheduled to be on a deportation flight on Jan. 25. A Human Rights Campaign spokesperson on Tuesday told the Blade that one of the men “was able to obtain a temporary stay of removal from the” 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other “is facing delayed deportation as the result of a measles outbreak at the facility where they’re being held.”
“My (organization, the American Immigration Council) represents those two gay men,” said American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a Jan. 23 post on his Bluesky account. “They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump (administration) denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.”
“They are terrified,” added Reichlin-Melnick.
My org @immcouncil.org represents those two gay men. They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump admin denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.
They are terrified.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Reichlin-Melnick in a second Bluesky post said “deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act.”
“That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights,” he added.
Deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act. That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights. www.ms.now/news/trump-d…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
HRC Vice President of Government Affairs David Stacy in a statement to the Blade noted Iran “is one of 12 nations that still execute queer people, and we continue to fear for their safety.” Stacy also referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador last year.
“This out-of-control administration continues to target immigrants and terrorize our communities,” said Stacy. “That same cruelty murdered Renee Nicole Good and imprisoned Andry Hernández Romero. We stand with the American Immigration Council and demand that these men receive the due process they deserve. Congress must refuse to fund this outrage and stand against the administration’s shameless dismissal of our constitutional rights.”
Federal Government
Top Democrats reintroduce bill to investigate discrimination against LGBTQ military members
Takano, Jacobs, and Blumenthal sponsored measure
Multiple high-ranking members of Congress reintroduced the Commission on Equity and Reconciliation in the Uniformed Services Act into the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, aiming to establish a commission to investigate discriminatory policies targeting LGBTQ military members.
Three leading Democratic members of Congress — U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who is the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s ranking member and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus; U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who is the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s ranking member; and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) — introduced the bill on Tuesday.
The bill, they say, would establish a commission to investigate the historic and ongoing impacts of discriminatory military policies on LGBTQ servicemembers and veterans.
This comes on the one-year anniversary of the Trump-Vance administration’s 2025 Executive Order 14183, titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which essentially banned transgender servicemembers from openly serving in the Armed Forces, leading to the forced separation of thousands of capable and dedicated servicemembers.
In a joint statement, Takano, Blumenthal, and Jacobs shared statistics on how many service members have had their ability to serve revoked due to their sexual orientation:
“Approximately 114,000 servicemembers were discharged on the basis of their sexual orientation between WWII and 2011, while an estimated 870,000 LGBTQ servicemembers have been impacted by hostility, harassment, assault, and law enforcement targeting due to the military policies in place,” the press release reads. “These separations are devastating and have long-reaching impacts. Veterans who were discharged on discriminatory grounds are unable to access their benefits, and under the Trump administration, LGBTQ+ veterans and servicemembers have been openly persecuted.”
The proposed commission is modeled after the Congressional commission that investigated and secured redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Takano’s family was among the more than 82,000 Japanese Americans who received an official apology and redress payment under that commission.
The press release notes this is a major inspiration for the act.
“Qualified servicemembers were hunted down and forced to leave the military at the direction of our government,” said Takano. “These practices have continued, now with our government targeting transgender servicemembers. The forced separation and dishonorable discharges LGBTQ+ people received must be rectified, benefits fully granted, and dignity restored to those who have protected our freedoms.”
“LGBTQ+ servicemembers have long been the target of dangerous and discriminatory policies—resulting in harassment, involuntary discharge, and barriers to their earned benefits,” said Blumenthal. “Establishing this commission is an important step to understand the full scope of harm and address the damage caused by policies like ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ As LGBTQ+ servicemembers and veterans face repugnant and blatant bigotry under the Trump administration, we will keep fighting to secure a more equitable future for all who serve our country in uniform.”
“Instead of righting wrongs and making amends to our LGBTQ+ service members and veterans who’ve suffered injustices for decades, I’m ashamed that the Trump administration has doubled down: kicking trans folks out of the military and banning their enlistment,” said Jacobs. “We know that LGBTQ+ service members and veterans have faced so much ugliness — discrimination, harassment, professional setbacks, and even violence — that has led to unjust discharges and disparities in benefits, but we still don’t have a full picture of all the harm caused. That needs to change. That’s why I’m proud to co-lead this bill to investigate these harms, address the impacts of discriminatory official policies like ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the transgender military ban, and ensure equity and justice for our LGBTQ+ service members and veterans.”
Takano and Jacobs are leading the bill in the House, while Blumenthal is introducing companion legislation in the Senate.
Takano’s office has profiled and interviewed LGBTQ servicemembers who were harmed by discriminatory policies in the uniformed services.
The Commission on Equity and Reconciliation in the Uniformed Services Act is supported by Minority Veterans of America, Human Rights Campaign, Equality California, SPARTA, and the Transgender American Veterans Association.
In recent weeks, thousands of trans military members were forcibly put into retirement as a result of Trump’s executive order, including five honored by the Human Rights Campaign with a combined 100 years of service, all due to their gender identity: Col. Bree B. Fram (U.S. Space Force), Commander Blake Dremann (U.S. Navy), Lt. Col. (Ret.) Erin Krizek (U.S. Air Force), Chief Petty Officer (Ret.) Jaida McGuire (U.S. Coast Guard), and Sgt. First Class (Ret.) Catherine Schmid (U.S. Army).
Multiple career service members spoke at the ceremony, including Takano. Among the speakers was Frank Kendall III, the 26th U.S. Air Force secretary, who said:
“We are in a moment of crisis that will be worse before it is better. Members of my father’s and mother’s generation would ask each other a question: what did you do during the war? Someday we will all be asked what we did during this time. Please think about the answer that you will give.”
Uncloseted Media published this article on Jan. 24.
This story was produced with the support of MISTR, a telehealth platform offering free online access to PrEP, DoxyPEP, STI testing, Hepatitis C testing and treatment and long-term HIV care across the U.S. MISTR did not have any editorial input into the content of this story.
This story talks about addiction and substance use. If you or someone you know needs help, resources can be found here.
By SAM DONNDELINGER | In 2015, on the patio of Nowhere Bar, a queer nightclub in Louisville, Ky., music pulsed and bodies pressed as 23-year-old Lucas Pearson moved through the flashing lights and a blur of grinding limbs.
“I just randomly started talking to this guy,” he recalls. “He had this little spoon on a necklace, scooped out a hit of white powder, and handed it to me.”
Pearson sniffed it. Euphoria washed over him, time began to slow and the dancing bodies faded into a soft haze. For more than 10 minutes, Pearson felt “entirely present.” His social anxiety, depression, and any sadness he was feeling melted away.
While Pearson wouldn’t use ketamine again for the next five years, he says the feeling of ease the drug gave him was always “in the back of [his] mind.” So when he tried it for a second time in 2020 at a farm in upstate Kentucky, he liked the way it felt to disassociate from his childhood trauma.
“We got really messed up that night on it, and I was like, ‘I love this. I’ve missed this,’” Pearson told Uncloseted Media. “‘And I’m ready for some more.’”
Over the next three years, Pearson began using every day. Working remotely in the health care industry, no one checked in on him as long as he got his work done. He used ketamine at nightclubs, social events, game nights with friends and, eventually, at home alone.
“I was actively hooked on it,” he says. “I didn’t wanna do much of anything other than find that dissociating feeling. I just kept chasing it.”
While evidence suggests that most psychedelics have a lower risk of addiction than other drugs, ketamine is an exception, in part because it affects dopamine levels. In a 2007 bulletin from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, one researcher noted that after ketamine was invented in 1962, it developed a “reputation for insidiously trapping those who really knew better.” As a dissociative drug, ketamine induces a sense of detachment from one’s body, producing a trance-like state marked by pain relief, amnesia, euphoria, and a distortion of reality.
Despite declines in the use of other recreational drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and nitrous oxide, ketamine use continues to rise, with one study finding that use increased by 81.8 percent from 2015 to 2019 and rose another 40 percent from 2021 to 2022. That increase is driven in part by ketamine’s growing legitimacy as a treatment for depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma, and even addiction.
As a result, ketamine clinics have proliferated across the U.S. with relatively few guardrails. At least a thousand clinics now offer off-label ketamine treatments outside of FDA-approved protections. Many commercial providers advertise same-day appointments and “almost immediate results.”
Alex Belser, a psychologist who studies psychedelic use in the queer community, says ketamine use has become pervasive among gay men. A 2025 study found that gay and lesbian adults in the U.S. are almost four times more likely to use ketamine than their heterosexual counterparts, and a 2011 study from the U.K. found that queer men were over three times more likely than queer women to use the drug.
Belser thinks ketamine use is so popular among gay men in part because of the high rates of loneliness, rejection, and trauma they experience. “Ketamine is not inherently good or bad. When used thoughtfully with integrity, with good protocols, it can be a really helpful medicine. But if left unregulated, with the amount of access and normalization we have, it can lead to addiction, harm, isolation, and bad outcomes,” he says.
Belser believes health misinformation is fueling a misunderstanding among gay men about the actual harm the drug can cause. “The medical and clinical communities have failed people by not adequately telling them that ketamine can lead to addiction and problematic outcomes,” he says. “It can serve people, but it can also damage people.”
‘Happy people don’t do ketamine’
Part of the appeal of ketamine is that dissociative feelings can relieve depressive symptoms, making it alluring to those who have trauma or mental health disorders. While properly regulated treatment works for some people, psychiatrist Owen Bowden-Jones says that he senses “the vast majority [of those addicted] are using it to self-medicate for emotional distress.”
“I always wanted to numb out my past,” says Pearson. “For the longest time, I saw ketamine as a possible way out.”
Pearson, now 33, was raised in a conservative and religious family. When he came out as gay to his mom at 16, he cried so much that he couldn’t speak and had to write it on a piece of paper and hand it to her.
“She stormed out of the house and ended up calling every member of the family and outing me. So that was really painful,” he says. “My whole childhood, I did not feel like I could be who I knew I was.”
“So when I picked up drugs, it was definitely a thought in my mind: This life that I lived as a child, I don’t want to feel it anymore,” he says. “I just want to numb it.”
One study shows that gay men are over three times as likely to develop PTSD compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Trauma can be one event or a “long string of daily hurts, such as … homophobia, bullying, and time spent in the closet,” according to Chris Tompkins, a licensed family therapist who works with gay men. Research shows that people who experience trauma are more likely to have addiction issues.
J, a 33-year-old marketing researcher based in Los Angeles, says his ketamine use began casually in his early 20s in New York’s queer nightlife scene, where the drug circulated freely. What started as an occasional escape intensified during the pandemic, when isolation, depression, and easy access turned ketamine into a daily habit.
“There’s a pretty fair connection between feelings of not being normal and my ketamine addiction,” J told Uncloseted Media. “I was bullied for being more feminine. My sexuality was a subject of speculation and that forced me to close down. So something like a dissociative drug is appealing because it either allows me to continue those blocks or to bring down the barriers.”
“There was a night when I had done K for the first time in a while, and the next couple of days, I felt so good,” he says. “I felt like my depression had lifted, and that feeling of doubt and fear I’d had throughout my life was totally gone.”
After that night, J, who asked to use a first initial to protect his identity, started using ketamine daily to chase the feeling of euphoria and relief. He got a prescription for ketamine treatment therapy, but he says it wasn’t enough.
“There were days when I would go do an infusion of ketamine and I would do more at home on my own. If I have the ability to escape feelings, to numb feelings, I will go after that.”
Many ketamine clinics in the U.S. advertise ketamine therapy as a cure-all. For example, the online clinic Better U promises that ketamine therapy will help you say goodbye to “Trauma,” “Chronic Stress,” “Depression and Anxiety,” “OCD,” “PTSD” and “Grief.”
What the clinic doesn’t note on its landing page is the possibility of addiction, which is what happened to J. While a common dose of ketamine is between 30-75 mg, J began using multiple grams a day. He spent thousands of dollars a month on ketamine and began structuring his life around the drug. “It stopped being about going out or having fun,” he says. “It just became what I did day in and day out.”
“Happy people don’t do ketamine,” Tasha, who is in recovery from a six-year-long addiction, told Uncloseted Media. She first tried the drug for fun at 17, but it became a problem after her father died when she was 26. At her peak, she was taking six to nine grams every day and up to 24 grams over the weekends.
“The wheels just fell off,” she says. “It’s an escapism drug — of course people with more trauma will do it more. You want to forget about everything so you take it and then it stops becoming fun and you don’t want to see your friends anymore. You just stay in your home behind closed doors sniffing K to get out of your head.”
The physical consequences of ketamine
Tasha didn’t know that chronic ketamine use can cause inflammation, ulceration, and damage or scarring to the bladder, liver, kidneys, and gallbladder. After using it for six years, she checked herself into the intensive care unit.
“I was just writhing in pain from K cramps, like a sharp stabbing pain under your ribs,” she says. “The trouble is, nothing works to fix them. The only thing that helps is doing more K. I had no idea it was so painful,” says Tasha, adding that she’s seen four people die from ketamine addiction in the last three years.
“There were times in my use where I would be screaming in bed in the worst agony I’ve ever felt in my life,” J says. “The only thing that made the pain better was using more drugs. It got to the point that I needed to have some amount of K in my system to function.”
“There is a massive explosion of ketamine use and addiction,” Mo Belal, a consultant urological surgeon and an expert on the severe bladder and kidney damage caused by chronic ketamine abuse, told Uncloseted Media. “The trouble is, it’s impossible to treat bladder and kidney damage when people are still using.”
Belal says that for those seeking treatment, there are no specific ketamine rehabilitation programs in the U.S. “Addiction and pain management services need to be involved in healing from ketamine abuse, because the drug’s effects often require specialized support.”
Belal says that during a one-hour rehab session, someone experiencing severe ketamine-related bladder pain might need to leave every 20 minutes, making it difficult for the patient to stay engaged.
“We need more awareness,” he says. “We need more centers for ketamine rehabilitation.”
Education and awareness
While there is some research about the effects of ketamine, Belser could not point to any studies that focus on how the drug intersects with gay men experiencing trauma. “The community of ketamine researchers and prescribers has been naive historically in understanding the habit-forming properties of ketamine,” he says. “What are the effects of ketamine use, good or bad, for gay men experiencing trauma, lifelong discrimination, and family rejection? We don’t know, because critical research hasn’t been funded.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration classifies ketamine’s abuse potential as moderate to low, a designation that may contribute to limited public education about its risks, including dependence and long-term side effects. Many people who encounter ketamine on the dance floor think it’s a healthy alternative to alcohol because they believe it’s non-addictive and it doesn’t give you a hangover.
“I did think that it was pretty safe when I was using and I didn’t think it was going to be addictive,” Pearson says.
Pearson, who has been clean for two years, says it wasn’t until he reached out to a friend who had recovered from ketamine use that he began getting clean. “I saw how happy my friend was in recovery, how normal his life felt. … And I knew that was the life I wanted.”
Similarly, for J, he felt alone in his ketamine addiction. It wasn’t until he found a queer-centered substance rehab program in LA that he felt some hope.
“It helped patch some of the missing pieces to my experiences in treatment before,” he says. “I think that relapse is a part of every addict’s story and every recovery story. But I think my relapses indicated that I still had some unresolved trauma and deep wounds that I hadn’t been aware of yet. And I think being around queer people in recovery has been helpful for me to feel a lot more comfortable with myself.”
Today, J is in therapy, continuing to break down the walls of his childhood trauma. Pearson is in a 12-step program after doing intensive therapy in his first few months of sobriety to help “clear up a lot of traumatic things that happened” in his past.
“I finally realized how far I’d drifted from everyone in my life — my friends, my family, even myself,” Pearson says. “I was chasing this feeling of disappearance, and it almost cost me everything. If I hadn’t stopped when I did, I don’t think I’d still be here. Getting sober gave me my life back, and I don’t ever want to lose that again.”
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