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Transphobic interaction between J.K. Rowling and Matt Walsh enrages Twitter users

J.K. Rowling continues getting herself involved in gender-related debates.

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J.K. Rowling continues getting involved in gender-related debates. Her recent interactions with right-wing commentator Matt Walsh were condemned by Twitter users.

Last week, American singer Macy Gray appeared on British TV show “Piers Morgan Uncensored'” and made controversial comments about transgender women. She first defined women as “a human being with boobs” and “a vagina,” and further stated, “and I will say this, and everybody’s gonna hate me, but as a woman, just because you go change your parts doesn’t make you a woman. Sorry.”

Gray afterwards apologized for her comments on NBC’s Today Show. “I said some things that didn’t go over well, but my intention was never to hurt anybody. I feel bad that I did hurt some people,” she said.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh described Gray’s latest statement as “gutless cowardice.” 

Walsh posted a tweet on July 9 and wrote, “Sorry but women who publicly renounce the definition of “woman” for fear of mean comments from trans activists deserve all the scorn they get. That kind of gutless cowardice is exactly what got us into this position in the first place.”

The next day, Rowling chimed in on the discussion and criticized Walsh’s post against Gray, “Endless death and rape threats, threats of loss of livelihood, employers targeted, physical harassment, family address posted online with picture of bomb-making manual aren’t ‘mean comments’. If you don’t yet understand what happens to women who stand up on this issue, back off.”

Walsh praised Rowling’s “courage” in speaking out, and said “many people have simply caved to the demands of trans activists and completely surrendered truth and reality to them. The cowards are also villains in this story. They need to be held accountable.”

Rowling tweeted back and praised Walsh’s latest film What is a Woman?, which was largely condemned due to its transphobic content.  

“And your film did a good job exposing the incoherence of gender identity theory and some of the harms it’s done. Many institutions I used to admire have uncritically embraced this dogma, but I reserve my ire for them rather than shouting ‘coward’ at individual women,” Rowling wrote.

These interactions between Rowling and Walsh got blasted online. Numerous Twitter users criticized Rowling for her positive feedback toward Walsh’s anti-trans work.

J.K. Rowling has long been known for her “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” or TERF, perspectives. 

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PHOTOS: Hagerstown Pride

LGBTQ community celebration held at Doubs Woods Park

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Chasity Vain performs at Hagerstown Pride 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The 13th annual Hagerstown Pride Festival was held at Doubs Woods Park in Hagerstown, Md. on Saturday, June 21.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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Theater

‘Hunter S. Thompson’ an unlikely but rewarding choice for musical theater

‘Speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country’

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George Salazar in ‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical.’

‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical’
Through July 13
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va.
$47 to $98
Sigtheatre.org

The raucous world of the counterculture journalist may not seem the obvious choice for musical theater, but the positive buzz surrounding Signature Theatre’s production of Joe Iconis’s “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” suggests otherwise. 

As the titular, drug addled and gun-toting writer, Eric William Morris memorably moves toward his character’s suicide in 2005 at 67. He’s accompanied by an ensemble cast playing multiple roles including out actor George Salazar as Thompson’s sidekick Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, a bigger than life Mexican American attorney, author, and activist in the Chicano Movement who follows closely behind. 

Salazar performs a show-stopping number — “The Song of the Brown Buffalo,” a rowdy and unforgettable musical dive into a man’s psyche. 

“Playing the part of Oscar, I’m living my Dom daddy activist dreams. For years, I was cast as the best friend with a heart of gold. Quite differently, here, I’m tasked with embodying all the toxic masculinity of the late ‘60s, and a rampant homophobia, almost folded into the culture.”

He continues, “My sexuality aside, I like to think that Oscar would be thrilled by my interpretation of him in that song. 

“Our upbringings are similar. I’m mixed race – Filipino and Ecuadorian and we grew up similarly,” says Salazar, 39. “He didn’t fit in as white or Mexican American, and fell somewhere in the middle. Playing Oscar [who also at 39 in 1974 forever disappeared in Mexico], I pulled out a lot of experience about having to code switch before finally finding myself and being confident just doing my own thing.

“As we meet Oscar in the show we find exactly where’s he’s at. Take me or leave me, I couldn’t care less.”

In 2011, just three years after earning his BFA in musical theater from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Salazar fortuitously met Iconis at a bar in New York. The pair became fast friends and collaborators: “This is our third production,” says George. “So, when Joe comes to me with an idea, there hasn’t been a moment that I don’t trust him.”

In “Be More Chill,” one of Iconis’s earlier works, Salazar originated the role of Michael Mell, a part that he counts as one of the greatest joys of artistic life.

With the character, a loyal and caring friend who isn’t explicitly queer but appeals to queer audiences, Salazar developed a fervent following. And for an actor who didn’t come out to his father until he was 30, being in a place to support the community, especially younger queer people, has proved incredibly special. 

“When you hear Hunter and Oscar, you might think ‘dude musical,’ but I encourage all people to come see it.” Salazar continues, “Queer audiences should give the show a shot. As a musical, it’s entertaining, funny, serious, affecting, and beautiful. As a gay man stepping into this show, it’s so hetero and I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I took it upon myself that any of the multiple characters I play outside of Oscar, were going to be queer.

Queer friends have seen it and love it, says Salazar. His friend, Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton (“Oh, Mary!”) saw Hunter S. Thompson at the La Jolla Playhouse during its run in California, and said it was the best musical he’d seen in a very long time. 

“Since the work’s inception almost 10 years ago, I was the first Oscar to read the script. In the interim, the characters’ relationships have grown but otherwise there have been no major changes. Still, it feels more impactful in different ways: It’s exciting to come here to do the show especially since Hunter S. Thompson was very political.”

Salazar, who lives in Los Angeles with his partner, a criminal justice reporter for The Guardian, is enjoying his time here in D.C. “In a time when there are so many bans – books, drag queens, and travel — all I see is division. This is an escape from that.”  

He describes the Hunter Thompson musical as Iconis’s masterpiece, adding that it’s the performance that he’s most proud of to date and that feels there a lot of maturity in the work. 

“In the play, Thompson talks to Nixon about being a crook and a liar,” says Salazar. “The work speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country: We seem to take them one step forward and two steps back; the performance is almost art as protest.”

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PHOTOS: Goodwin Living Pride Parade

Senior living and healthcare organization holds fifth annual march at Falls Church campus

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Goodwin Living Pride March 2025. (Photo courtesy of Goodwin Living)

The senior living and healthcare organization Goodwin Living held its fifth annual Pride Parade around its Bailey’s Crossroads campus in Falls Church, Va. with residents, friends and supporters on Thursday, June 12.

(Photos courtesy of Goodwin Living)

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