Commentary
Recurring characters in a polyamorous world
Your relationship is about as customizable as your latte
As I worked on this piece, I received a rare WhatsApp notification on my phone. What did it say? Stay tuned, but first:
Ever imagine your life as a sitcom? Like most writers with Main Character Syndrome, I do all the time. I reflect on my setting, my episodic plots, my seasonal arcs, and the supporting cast making life more interesting. However minor the role these recurring characters play, one thing is certain: they shape our universe, for better or worse.
Often, my daily episodes start in a setting familiar to many: a coffee shop greeting me with the aroma of freshly ground beans and the chatter of patrons ready to seize their day. Well, that’s the romanticized version, anyway. Since I work late at a bar, it’s usually early afternoon by the time I stroll in. By now the morning rush is long gone while I’m in disheveled clothes that may as well be pajamas, but regardless, my day’s first recurring character remains: my barista, Spencer.
With Technicolor dreads, anime memorabilia, and punny Steven Rhodes T-shirts, it’s evident Spencer marches to the beat of their own drum. It makes sense, then, that Spencer became a welcomed friend when I moved into the neighborhood during the pandemic. Our encounters often made the 10-minute walk worth the overpriced cold brew.
Yet as I got to know Spencer, I found myself confused by their relationship status. They would recount their weekend speaking of their boyfriend, their daughter, their girlfriend, their partner, or their other partner. At first, I figured my memory was shit (partially true), until I finally learned that Spencer is in a polyamorous relationship.
Over the years, the term “poly” has been casually tossed into relationship conversations. Typically, the natural follow-up is, “what exactly is poly?” Turns out polyamory is a catchall term, so poly relationships can take various configurations. Open relationships, throuples, and even polygamy can be considered polyamorous, but the common theme is this: polyamory rejects the notion of a singular love in life and accepts that people can love multiple partners at the same time. Now polyamory is so widespread your barista might even partake, proving these days your relationship is about as customizable as your latte.
So, how exactly do these relationships start? It’s hard enough for me to get serious with one person, let alone two or more. Through my conversations I learned it’s a gradual count as simple as one, two, three. This was the case for Spencer, since their boyfriend and girlfriend were a couple before they entered the picture. “We had some mutual friends who introduced us,” Spencer told me. “We talked on and off for about a year and a half before they invited me over for dinner and vibes, which led to us hanging out more and more, until my boyfriend asked me to join the relationship.”
Earlier this year, I read an article in the Atlantic about the rise of polyamory, which described the lifestyle as a luxury of the elite. “From their gilded pedestals,” wrote the author of the rich, “they declare polyamory superior to monogamy.” From what I see, however, this is simply untrue. Perhaps our awareness of polyamory coincided with online images shared by the elite, but that doesn’t make it elite-only. Case in point: Spencer has been in their polyamorous relationship for nearly three years.
Moreover, Spencer is not an exception. Beyond baristas, coworkers appear in our sitcoms more often than friends or family sometimes. In a previous piece I wrote about Kelsey, our bar’s stylish door girl, who I learned was in a polyamorous relationship nearly a decade ago, exploring the trend before the trend was a trend.
Like Spencer, Kelsey’s throupling didn’t happen overnight. “Back in college, I was exploring my bisexuality but hadn’t come out yet,” said Kelsey. “I started casually dating a guy who casually dropped the bombshell that he was in an open relationship. I saw a picture of his partner and knew I had to meet her. When we finally met, sparks flew, and the three of us started hanging out. Before long, we were inseparable.”
And Just Like That, Kelsey’s sitcom went from “Felicity” to “Three’s Company.” What I didn’t know until recently was the extra curveball thrown in. “Fast forward,” she started, “they got pregnant, and we were all raising the baby together.”
I was surprised to find not one but two polyamorous relationships raising a child. This might sound messy, but it works better than I thought. “We run into a lot of the challenges most monogamous parents run into,” Spencer explained. “The main benefit I’d say is that [our daughter] has three parents who love and support her, will defend her, and will always take care of her. She has three people she can talk to or cry to, and we have all different opinions and experiences, so we’re able to give her unique advice or teachings.”
This highlights another important aspect of polyamorous relationships: they are often more than fleeting affairs. To reach this label requires serious thought, deep conversation, and mutual agreement. The rest of us can snicker or balk at these triads all we want, but they easily become as serious as monogamous couplings, if not more so.
In fact, polyamory can even resolve the woes of monogamy. “I used to feel the pressure of having to be everything to one partner,” said Kelsey, “and vice versa, but with two partners, that weight lifted. If one partner wanted to do an activity I didn’t want to, they could enjoy those activities together while I got to opt-out guilt-free.”
Interestingly, while poly is considered solidly queer, homosexual relations are not a requirement. For both Kelsey and Spencer, there was at least one in their trio who remained heterosexual. This is because throuples often find a balance enabling all involved to be their optimal sexual selves. “I didn’t know at the time,” Kelsey recounted, “but I’m definitely a vers and got to express both my submissive and dominant sides.” This makes sense, for sexual dynamics are complex. It can be a tall order to expect one person to satisfy everything we want.
That said, polyamory doesn’t come without its own complications, one being the perceptions of others. “My mom didn’t really understand our dynamic at first,” said Spencer, “but once I explained our dynamic, she’s been super supportive. I have run into judgment from strangers who have ‘traditional’ family values.”
This echoed Kelsey’s experience. “When we moved in together, my friends were initially shocked but ultimately accepting. For work events or family gatherings, it was always stressful figuring out if it was OK for all of us to go or only two.”
And as in all relationships, emotions are entangled, which ultimately ended Kelsey’s experience. “After about two years, I noticed the romance between the two of them started to fizzle. Their date nights became as rare as a unicorn sighting, eventually disappearing altogether. I felt like a referee in a never-ending match of jealousy and tension.” Naturally, more people mean more feelings to manage, so the work that relationships require never truly goes away.
Relationship drama — now that I can relate to, bringing me back to WhatsApp. The notification turned out to be a message from a special friend in South Africa. He and I met nearly a decade ago, when I studied abroad in the UK. Our chemistry was instant, and although we live separate lives in separate places, we’ve managed time for friendly banter, romantic getaways and, on occasion, a quasi-lovers quarrel, which was the case just over a year ago.
We have barely spoken since our spat, yet here he was reaching out with an apology. I promptly apologized back. We both recognized that, at the end of the day, we still care about one another.
So, as I wrote this piece like some anthropologist analyzing a vastly different polyamorous culture, it struck me how the notion of “many loves” may not be as distant as I thought. I, like many queers, have experienced romantic connections that never truly went away. These few individuals check in on me, consistently root for me, and refuse to turn their back on me, even if we go a while without speaking. They know me well, often better than family, and they’re almost always worth an apology.
I’d venture to say most of us have this kind of recurring character in our sitcoms. Perhaps someone comes to mind as you read this. Perhaps they’ve stayed in your orbit because the best is yet to come or, like Janice to Chandler or that creepy scientist to Phoebe, to help clarify what you truly want.
Perhaps, then, we’re all a little polyamorous, and the details of how and when we balance the loves of our lives are trivial at best. A polyamorous society of queers and queers-adjacent? Now that’s a twist I can get behind.
Jake Stewart is a D.C.-based writer and barback.
Today, on World AIDS Day, we honor the resilience, courage, and dignity of people living with HIV everywhere especially refugees, asylum seekers, and queer displaced communities across East Africa and the world.
For many, living with HIV is not just a health journey it is a journey of navigating stigma, borders, laws, discrimination, and survival.
Yet even in the face of displacement, uncertainty, and exclusion, queer people living with HIV continue to rise, thrive, advocate, and build community against all odds.
To every displaced person living with HIV:
• Your strength inspires us.
• Your story matters.
• You are worthy of safety, compassion, and the full right to health.
• You deserve a world where borders do not determine access to treatment, where identity does not determine dignity, and where your existence is celebrated not criminalized.
Let today be a reminder that:
• HIV is not a crime.
• Queer identity is not a crime.
• Seeking safety is not a crime.
• Stigma has no place in our communities.
• Access to treatment, care, and protection is a human right.
As we reflect, we must recommit ourselves to building systems that protect not punish displaced queer people living with HIV. We must amplify their voices, invest in inclusive healthcare, and fight the inequalities that fuel vulnerability.
Hope is stronger when we build it together.
Let’s continue to uplift, empower, and walk alongside those whose journeys are too often unheard.
Today we remember.
Today we stand together.
Today we renew hope.
Abraham Junior lives in the Gorom Refugee Settlement in South Sudan.
Commentary
Perfection is a lie and vulnerability is the new strength
Rebuilding life and business after profound struggles
I grew up an overweight, gay Black boy in West Baltimore, so I know what it feels like not to fit into a world that was not really made for you. When I was 18, my mother passed from congestive heart failure, and fitness became a sanctuary for my mental health rather than just a place to build my body. That is the line I open most speeches with when people ask who I am and why I started SWEAT DC.
The truth is that little boy never really left me.
Even now, at 42 years old, standing 6 feet 3 inches and 225 pounds as a fitness business owner, I still carry the fears, judgments, and insecurities of that broken kid. Many of us do. We grow into new seasons of life, but the messages we absorbed when we were young linger and shape the stories we tell ourselves. My lack of confidence growing up pushed me to chase perfection as I aged. So, of course, I ended up in Washington, D.C., which I lovingly call the most perfection obsessed city in the world.
Chances are that if you are reading this, you feel some of that too.
D.C. is a place where your resume walks through the door before you do, where degrees, salaries, and the perfect body feel like unspoken expectations. In the age of social media, the pressure is even louder. We are all scrolling through each other’s highlight reels, comparing our behind the scenes to someone else’s curated moment. And I am not above it. I have posted the perfect photo with the inspirational “God did it again” caption when I am feeling great and then gone completely quiet when life feels heavy. I am guilty of loving being the strong friend while hating to admit that sometimes I am the friend who needs support.
We are all caught in a system that teaches us perfection or nothing at all. But what I know for sure now is this: Perfection is a lie and vulnerability is the new strength.
When I first stepped into leadership, trying to be the perfect CEO, I found Brené Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly” and immediately grabbed onto the idea that vulnerability is strength. I wanted to create a community at SWEAT where people felt safe enough to be real. Staff, members, partners, everyone. “Welcome Home” became our motto for a reason. Our mission is to create a world where everyone feels confident in their skin.
But in my effort to build that world for others, I forgot to build it for myself.
Since launching SWEAT as a pop up fundraiser in 2015, opening our first brick and mortar in 2017, surviving COVID, reemerging and scaling, and now preparing to open our fifth location in Shaw in February 2026, life has been full. Along the way, I went from having a tight trainer six pack to gaining nearly 50 pounds as a stressed out entrepreneur. I lost my father. I underwent hip replacement surgery. I left a relationship that looked fine on paper but was not right. I took on extra jobs to keep the business alive. I battled alcoholism. I faced depression and loneliness. There are more stories than I can fit in one piece.
But the hardest battle was the one in my head. I judged myself for not having the body I once had. I asked myself how I could lead a fitness company if I was not in perfect shape. I asked myself how I could be a gay man in this city and not look the way I used to.
Then came the healing.
A fraternity brother said to me on the phone, “G, you have to forgive yourself.” It stopped me in my tracks. I had never considered forgiving myself. I only knew how to push harder, chase more, and hide the cracks. When we hung up, I cried. That moment opened something in me. I realized I had not neglected my body. I had held my life and my business together the best way I knew how through unimaginable seasons.
I stopped shaming myself for not looking like my past. I started honoring the new ways I had proven I was strong.
So here is what I want to offer anyone who is in that dark space now. Give yourself the same grace you give everyone else. Love yourself through every phase, not just the shiny ones. Recognize growth even when growth simply means you are still here.
When I created SWEAT, I hoped to build a home where people felt worthy just as they are, mostly because I needed that home too. My mission now is to carry that message beyond our walls and into the city I love. To build a STRONGER DC.
Because strength is not perfection. Strength is learning to love an imperfect you.
With love and gratitude, Coach G.
Gerard Burley, also known as Coach G, is a D.C.-based fitness entrepreneur.
Commentary
Elusive safety: what new global data reveals about gender, violence, and erasure
Movements against gender equality, lack of human rights data contributing factors.
“My identity could be revealed, people can say whatever they want [online] without consequences. [Hormone replacement therapy] is illegal here so I’m just waiting to find a way to get out of here.”
-Anonymous respondent to the 2024 F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index from Iraq, self-identified as a transgender woman and lesbian
As the campaign for 16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence begins, it is a reminder that gender-based violence (GBV) — both on– and offline — not only impacts women and girls but everyone who has been harmed or abused because of their gender or perceived gender. New research from the Franklin & Marshall (F&M) Global Barometers and its report A Growing Backlash: Quantifying the Experiences of LGBTQI+ People, 2022-2024 starkly show trends of declining safety among LGBTQI+ persons around the world.
This erosion of safety is accelerated by movements against gender equality and the disappearance of credible human rights data and reporting. The fight against GBV means understanding all people’s lived realities, including those of LGBTQI+ people, alongside the rights we continue to fight for.
We partnered together while at USAID and Franklin & Marshall College to expand the research and evidence base to better understand GBV against LGBTQI+ persons through the F&M Global Barometers. The collection of barometers tracks the legal rights and lived experiences of LGBTQI+ persons from 204 countries and territories from 2011 to the present. With more than a decade of data, it allows us to see how rights have progressed and receded as well as the gaps between legal protections and lived experiences of discrimination and violence.
This year’s data reveals alarming trends that highlight how fear and violence are, at its root, gendered phenomena that affect anyone who transgresses traditional gender norms.
LGBTQI+ people feel less safe
Nearly two-thirds of countries experienced a decline in their score on the F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) from 2022-2024. This represents a five percent drop in global safety scores in just two years. With almost 70 percent of countries receiving an “F” grade on the GBPI, this suggests a global crisis in actual human rights protections for LGBTQI+ people.
Backsliding on LGBTQI+ human rights is happening everywhere, even in politically stable, established democracies with human rights protections for LGBTQI+ people. Countries in Western Europe and the Americas experienced the greatest negative GBPI score changes globally, 74 and 67 percent, respectively. Transgender people globally reported the highest likelihood of violence, while trans women and intersex people reported the highest levels of feeling very unsafe or unsafe simply because of who they are.
Taboo of gender equality
Before this current administration dismantled USAID, I helped create an LGBTQI+ inclusive whole-of-government strategy to prevent and respond to GBV that highlighted the unique forms of GBV against LGBTQI+ persons. This included so-called ‘corrective’ rape related to actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression” and so-called ‘conversion’ therapy practices that seek to change or suppress a person’s gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics. These efforts helped connect the dots in understanding that LGBTQI+ violence is rooted in the same systems of inequality and power imbalances as the broader spectrum of GBV against women and girls.
Losing data and accountability
Data that helps better understand GBV against LGBTQI+ persons is also disappearing. Again, the dismantling of USAID meant a treasure trove of research and reports on LGBTQI+ rights have been lost. Earlier this year, the US Department of State removed LGBTQI+ reporting from its annual Human Rights Reports. These played a critical role in providing credible sources for civil society, researchers, and policymakers to track abuses and advocate for change.
If violence isn’t documented, it’s easier for governments to deny it even exists and harder for us to hold governments accountable. Yet when systems of accountability work, governments and civil society can utilize data in international forums like the UN Universal Periodic Review, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Sustainable Development Goals to assess progress and compliance and call for governments to improve protections.
All may not be lost if other countries and donors fill the void by supporting independent data collection and reporting efforts like the F&M Global Barometers and other academic and civil society monitoring. Such efforts are essential to the fight against GBV: The data helps show that the path toward safety, equality, and justice is within our reach if we’re unafraid of truth and visibility of those most marginalized and impacted.
Jay Gilliam (he/him/his) was the Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator at USAID and is a member of the Global Outreach Advisory Council of the F&M Global Barometers.
Susan Dicklitch-Nelson (she/her/hers) is the founder of the F&M Global Barometers and Professor of Government at Franklin & Marshall College.
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