Yesterday, on the last day of Pride month, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Matthew Vines where he argued that the push to identify as “queer” is a contributing factor to modern backlash to LGBTQ+ rights. In the piece, he argues that “being gay is not a rebellion against ordinary life.” As a queer public historian, I disagree — being LGBTQ+ is a revolutionary act because American society was and continues to be built on heternormative, cisgendered standards. We need only look at yesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding bans on trans athletes to realize that LGBTQ+ rights are still greatly under attack. 

Vines and other white cis gay men and women who refuse to use the term “queer” or understand their bodies, identities, and relationships as political fail to recognize what secured their rights protecting them against discrimination and to marry the people they love. 

Remember your ancestors

The Stonewall riots, largely considered the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ movement, was a reaction against a police raid that began in June 1969. It was groundbreaking pushback against systemic police brutality and state-sanctioned incarceration of and violence against LGBTQ+ people, and by and large, these riots — which mobilized the larger LGBTQ+ community — is the reason that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have the right to marry the people they love. 

It is because of Black queer and trans people — people who recognized that queerness is a political act as much as it is an identity — that Vines’s rights were secured in the first place. Denying the identity of “queer” not only perpetuates the very stigma surrounding this word but that which surrounds queer and trans people as a whole, and it denies the rich legacy of our queer and trans ancestors who fought for the rights we have today. When queer and trans people reclaimed the word “queer,” previously a slur against us, it was a call to resist the very gender and sexual assimilation that made the weaponized the slur itself. 

Because at its very core, the United States remains a nation that enforces and exalts a heterosexual, cisgender majority. To be queer, to resist and reject standards that normalizes and essentialize gender and sexuality, is a countercultural act, whether or not people like Vines are ready to acknowledge it. Historically, there has been a contingent of the LGBTQ+ community, largely those with the most privilege, who have historically and presently attempted to sanitize the community’s image and its events — to exclude trans people, kink and BDSM, and drag — on the grounds that they infringe on a family-style event and “give the community a bad name.” 

Freaks Are family

Back in 2000 the Millennium March on Washington pushed for gay and lesbian assimilation, arguing that they — we — are like everyone else. Vines appears to copy and paste this language into the piece he published yesterday. But in response, the “Freaks Are Family Contingent,” a group organized by the DC Radical Fairies and Bi Insurgence, marched as an alternative to the main group. This group, which purposefully included witches, trans people, people practicing kink, and people who are poly, called out assimilation as perpetuating the same marginalization that gay and lesbian people faced 50 years ago. To this day, “Freaks Are Family” remains a rallying cry for radical inclusion and resisting assimilation in Washington, D.C., and beyond. One of my dear friends — Rev. Eric Eldritch, a long-time Radical Faerie and community leader in Washington, D.C. — was part of this groundbreaking movement. 

Maybe Vines has a point. There are members of the LGBTQ+ community that remain settled and complacent in their privilege and refuse to recognize the fragility of their and others’ civil liberties. As historians and political scholars have argued, attacks on trans people’s rights will likely proceed threats against same-sex marriage, which itself was secured just over 10 years ago. 

Risking his and our rights

On the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, Oklahoma senator Dusty Deevers said that gay marriage is not law because “there is just no right ot gay marriage in the constitution.” Deevers made this comment during a conversation with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who believes that the Bible justifies Christians killing gay people. The news was first flagged yesterday by Right Wing Watch, a watchdog group for far-right action, and further by LGBTQ Nation voicing concern for his inflammatory statements about drag queens and LGBTQ+ books in elementary and middle schools. 

Deevers clarified that “Obergefell isn’t settled law. It’s besetting immorality imposed by judicial decree, and court opinions can be referred to as ‘settled law’ only if they are rooted firmly in the Constitution and the heritage and the tradition of the American people.” This is pointedly incorrect, but it is an argument that is increasingly being used by far-right leaders to argue that precedent-setting decisions are not set in stone. 

What largely kicked off this moment was the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The pivotal ruling handed down in 1973 ensured federal access to reproductive justice, and yet nearly 50 years later, it was overturned and followed by a number of states instituting their own laws banning abortion, even in situations of life and death. People have died not only because of these bans but because of medical professionals’ hesitancy to provide vital, lifesaving care for fear of losing their medical licenses or being sued. 

Thus, it made sense to many LGBTQ+ activists in 2022, that same-sex marriage legal protections, especially those from the landmark 2015 Supreme Court Case Obergefell v. Hodges would be the next to fall. 

Right after the U.S. overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas released an opinion stating that the court should also reconsider the decisions in other landmark cases, such as Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges. These rulings protect access to contraception, LGBTQ+ relationships and marriage. And like Deevers’s call today, Lawrence also argued three years ago that the Due Process Clause in the Constitution does not secure any of these rights. Calls to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges is rising day by day, and distancing himself from queer people and the wider movement will not protect him. 

In truth, Vines’s opinion piece reveals that he is pointedly not “queer,” but as many queer people have called out in the last 24 hours, that is not a good thing. When he and others fail to be not only support but participate in the revolutionary movement to liberate all LGBTQ+ people, to stand and fight in solidarity with trans, nonbinary and intersex people who are repeatedly targeted by the government, stripped of their identification documents and access to public spaces, and killed for who they are, they are part of the problem. 

They become the very marginalizers that 50 years ago targeted people like them — the white cis gay men and women — who lost their jobs and their lives for who they loved. Truly Vines is not “queer,” but in doing so, he not only compromises the strength of the very community that secured his present rights to live and love authentically but the rights to do so in the future. 

As a child, my relationship with cars was defined by instability and fear. That changed when I got to ride in an autonomous vehicle (AV) for the first time in 2024.

Growing up my father was obsessed with cars and he purchased and leased more than 30 vehicles. Unfortunately, this obsession ultimately drowned our family in unsustainable debt. Worst of all, my childhood was marked by the terrifying reality of riding in vehicles driven by family members under the influence. No one should have to face the fear of consistently having to put their life in the hands of a driver who simply should not be behind the wheel.

Unfortunately, that trauma shaped much of my life. It is one of the reasons I chose to move to a city to build roots and start a family. I intentionally chose multimodal cities where reliance on a personal vehicle wasn’t necessary to live a meaningful and enjoyable life.

However, in 2024, while living in Phoenix, Ariz., my relationship with transportation changed, for the better. I was introduced to Waymo, a fully autonomous ride-hailing service. What began as a curiosity quickly became a revelation. I fell in love with the service and what it offered:  safety, comfort, and remarkable reliability. In fact, I valued the experience so much that I ranked in the top 3% of all Waymo riders nationwide that year.

For someone who grew up terrified by the unpredictability of human drivers, riding in a vehicle programmed never to drive drunk, be distracted, or enraged at fellow drivers was transformative. It wasn’t just transit. It was peace of mind.

Now, as a Ward 6 D.C. resident, I am urging the Council to bring this technology to our nation’s capital through the Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026. With rising crash related fatalities and a transit system working to meet growing demand, the case for bringing AVs to the District has never been more urgent. 

In the D.C. area, pedestrians are twice as likely to be killed than they were a decade before, despite many efforts to make streets safer. Beyond safety, there is a glaring equity gap in the District’s transit options, particularly for communities East of the River, who routinely face agonizingly long travel times and service delays. Ride-hailing wait times are also getting worse in the District and these residents remain among some of the most severely impacted.

I don’t view these gaps through an abstract or distant lens. I have biked more than 1,500 miles across the District, logged more than 600 rideshares, and ridden the infamous X2 bus route for several years. I’ve seen the absolute best and worst of our transit ecosystem. In my work supporting at-risk and homeless LGBTQ+ youth, I have also seen firsthand how transportation gaps can become barriers to basic survival. Getting across the city can take at least two hours by Metro. This isn’t a minor inconvenience — it’s the difference between making a job interview, a therapy session, or a medical appointment.

In a city striving for Vision Zero to eliminate all traffic fatalities and seeking to deliver equitable transportation, ignoring a technology that systematically eliminates the deadliest variables of driving is a policy failure we cannot afford.

Several organizations representing affected communities, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, already recognize the immense potential of AVs to eliminate human error and curb the crisis of impaired driving on our roads. Now is the time for the Council to act.

Together, Council members Charles Allen, Brooke Pinto and Matt Frumin have a unique opportunity to implement one of the most innovative AV regulations in the country.

The Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026 isn’t about replacing public transit; it is about building on it. By passing this bill, D.C. can join forward-thinking cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami in delivering safe mobility to its residents. Every day we delay, lives remain at risk.

Beyond safety, this bill represents a real chance to make autonomous transit an accessible and affordable option for residents and help close the gap for communities long underserved. To better meet this goal, the Council should consider expanding the bill to offer transportation support programs, drawing on models in other cities like Los Angeles’ Mobility Wallet.

The next stop? Safer, fairer, transportation for D.C. that is built for the city’s evolving needs. The Council’s decision to hold a hearing is a step in the right direction. Residents East of the River, and across the District, deserve a real public forum. And it’s on the Council to turn that momentum into meaningful, lasting progress. It must act now. 

Cesar Toledo is a first-generation queer Latino and an Out magazine Out100 honoree. He led the largest LGBTQ+ mobilization program in presidential campaign history for Harris-Walz.

When the Washington Blade first reported the story of Jonathan David Muir Burgos, the news centered on a 16-year-old Cuban teenager who had been sent to prison after taking part in a public protest in Morón, Ciego de Ávila. At the time, the facts were straightforward. A minor had lost his freedom, and his case was beginning to attract attention beyond Cuba’s borders.

Today there is another fact that deserves to be recorded with the same rigor.

Jonathan is no longer in prison.

His release, confirmed by multiple news organizations, closes one chapter of a story that, for months, was followed by journalists, human rights organizations, religious communities, and countless individuals who refused to let his name disappear from public view. Each of them became part of a much larger effort to ensure that the imprisonment of a Cuban teenager would not fade into silence as the news cycle moved on.

That collective attention does not explain every decision that ultimately led to Jonathan’s release, and it would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise. Judicial processes are rarely shaped by a single factor. What can be said with certainty is that Jonathan’s story never disappeared. It continued to be documented, discussed and followed long after the initial headlines were published.

Behind every widely reported case there is a family living a reality that rarely appears in the news. In Jonathan’s case, there was a father who also serves as a Protestant pastor and who spent months speaking publicly about his son while asking others not to forget him. There was a mother enduring the uncertainty familiar to any parent separated from a child. There were classmates, friends, and neighbors waiting for the day when Jonathan would no longer be known as the teenager behind bars, but simply as the young man returning home.

The image of a prison gate opening often marks the end of a news story. In reality, it marks the beginning of something far more difficult. A teenager must resume an interrupted education, reconnect with friends, rebuild ordinary routines, and recover a sense of normalcy after months in confinement. Those experiences seldom become headlines, yet they are part of the true cost of imprisonment.

Jonathan’s release is therefore more than an update to a story previously reported. It is a reminder that public attention has value. Journalism matters because it documents. Human rights organizations matter because they investigate. Communities matter because they refuse indifference. Families matter because they continue to wait, even when the waiting becomes unbearable. None of these efforts should be viewed in isolation. Together they ensure that a person’s story does not disappear simply because time has passed.

Many people leave prison after being forgotten.

Jonathan David Muir Burgos walked out of prison knowing that, throughout those months, thousands of people had continued to speak his name, follow his case and hope for the day when this story could be told differently.

Today, that day has arrived.