Arts & Entertainment

Debunking ‘Myths’

Despite generalizations, new book is thoughtful antidote

Published

13 years ago

December 23, 2013

Terri Schlichenmeyer

‘You Can Tell Just by Looking’ by Michael Bronski, Ann Pellegrini and Michael Amico. (Image courtesy Beacon Press)

‘You Can Tell Just By Looking and 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People’

By Michael Bronski, Ann Pellegrini and Michael Amico

Beacon Press

$16

You’ve been hearing rumors. You don’t know what to believe.

Your favorite club is closing, it’s got new owners, it’s being remodeled, none of the above. You can get married anytime, the law is being repealed, it’s being approved. You’re being downsized, you’re getting a raise.

Sometimes, you don’t know what to think. Other times, you think you know but you’re wrong. In the new book “’You Can Tell Just By Looking’ And 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People” by Michael Bronski, Ann Pellegrini and Michael Amico, you’ll see where truth and misconception cross paths.

For most of your life, you’ve probably heard how no one person is better than anybody else. We’re all created equal. Or are we?

Thinking, for instance, that LGBT people are “the same as” straight people “obscures the fact that specific everyday realities and social structures have shaped the lives of LGBT people very differently,” say the authors. Even the term “LGBT” ignores that L, G, B and T are “all distinct experiences.”

The myths continue:

Take, for instance, the notion that “gaydar” is more than just intuition, “a skill that everybody … has.” While research shows that lesbians and gay men can identify other lesbians and gay men better than can straight people, it may only be a matter of desire or empathy.

Or consider the myth that homophobia masks a straight person’s true desire. That belief came from something published more than 50 years ago; the author took the thought in a different direction, but “it became the main idea people took away from the book.”

Same-sex marriage does not “harm” marriage as a whole; in fact, it may “make for happier heterosexual couples.” Not all religions “condemn” homosexuality; no one race is particularly biased against it; parenting has nothing to do with the sexuality of the mothers or fathers (“good parenting… is not a biological given”); bodies and sexuality are “complicated;” and it’s not necessarily easier coming out today than it was a half-century ago.

Though your Mama warned against such things, based on the cover, you might think that this is a fun kind of book. And you’d be disappointed.

No, “’You Can Tell Just by Looking’” is filled with deep thinking research-based information and no-nonsense answers to “myths” that may or may not be widely rumored. It’s wordy to the extreme, and though the authors claim that LBGT readers believe myths about themselves, I often wondered if this book was preaching to the choir. There’s a whole lotta overgeneralization goin’ on here, too.

Still, the authors don’t shy away from controversy; they tackle some tough (and food-for-thought) ideas with thoughtful inspection. I appreciated that lack of fear and the willingness they had to confront ill-conceived credos.

Overall, I think that if you’re searching for retorts to blanket statements about LGBT people, this book may give you what you need. It won’t be the most fun thing you’ve ever read, but “’You Can Tell Just by Looking’” is one I believe may help.

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Celebrity News

Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam

Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon

Published

2 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Kylie Minogue with Madonna at the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam on Aug. 2, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Cejlon Studio)

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue)

Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Theater

Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth

First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’

Published

11 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Reggie D. White (Photo by Ambe J. Williams)

Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.

A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.

White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”

Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.

“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?

REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.

BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?

WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.

I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.

These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.

Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.

BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?

WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.

I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].

BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?

WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.

BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?

WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.

Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.