National
How data helps — and hurts — LGBTQ communities
‘Even when we prove we exist, we don’t get the resources we need’
When Scotland voted to add questions about sexuality and transgender status to its census, and clarified the definition of “sex,” it was so controversial it led to a court case.
It got so heated that the director of Fair Play for Women, a gender-critical organization, argued: “Extreme gender ideology is deeply embedded within the Scottish Government, and promoted at the highest levels including the First Minister.”
Data, like the census, “is often presented as being objective, being quantitative, being something that’s above politics,” says Kevin Guyan, author of “Queer Data.”
Listening to the deliberations in parliament breaks that illusion entirely. “There’s a lot of political power at play here,” says Guyan, “It’s very much shaped by who’s in the room making these decisions.”
Great Britain has been a ‘hotspot’ for the gender-critical movement. “You just really revealed the politics of what was happening at the time, particularly in association with an expanded anti-trans movement,” explains Guyan.
Ultimately, the LGBTQ community was counted in Scotland, which was heralded as a historic win.
This makes sense, says Amelia Dogan, a research affiliate in the Data plus Feminism Lab at MIT. “People want to prove that we exist.”
Plus, there are practical reasons. “To convince people with power, especially resource allocation power, you need to have data,” says Catherine D’Ignazio, MIT professor and co-author of the book “Data Feminism.”
When data isn’t collected, problems can be ignored. In short, D’Ignazio says, “What’s counted counts.” But, being counted is neither neutral nor a silver bullet. “Even when we do prove we exist, we don’t get the resources that we need,” says Dogan.
“There are a lot of reasons for not wanting to be counted. Counting is not always a good thing” they say. D’Ignazio points to how data has repeatedly been weaponized. “The U.S. literally used census data to intern Japanese people in the 1940s.”
Nell Gaither, president of the Trans Pride Initiative, faces that paradox each day as she gathers and shares data about incarcerated LGBTQ people in Texas.
“Data can be harmful in some ways or used in a harmful way,” she says, “they can use [the data] against us too.” She points to those using numbers of incarcerated transgender people to stoke fears around the danger of trans women, even though it’s trans women who face disproportionate risk in prison.
This is one of the many wrinkles the LGBTQ community and other minority communities face when working with or being represented by data.
There is a belief by some data scientists that limited knowledge of the subject is OK. D’Ignazio describes this as the “hubris of data science” where researchers believe they can make conclusions solely off a data set, regardless of background knowledge or previous bodies of knowledge.
“In order to be able to read the output of a data analysis process, you need background knowledge,” D’Ignazio emphasizes.
Community members, on the other hand, are often primed to interpret data about their communities. “That proximity gives us a shared vocabulary,” explains Nikki Stevens, a postdoctoral researcher in D’Ignazio’s Data plus Feminism lab.
It can also make more rich data. When Stevens was interviewing other members of the transgender community about Transgender Day of Remembrance, they realized we “think more complicated and more meaningful thoughts, because we’re in community around it.”
Community members are also primed to know what to even begin to look for.
A community may know about a widely known problem or need in their community, but they are invisible to institutions. “It’s like unknown to them because they haven’t cared to look,” says D’Ignazio.
That is how Gaither got involved in tracking data about incarcerated LGBTQ people in Texas in the first place.
Gaither received her first letter from an incarcerated person in 2013. As president of the Trans Pride Initiative, Gaither had predominately focused on housing and healthcare for trans people. The pivot to supporting the LGBTQ incarcerated community came out of need—trans prisoners were not given access to constitutionally mandated healthcare.
Gaither sought a legal organization to help, but no one stepped in—they didn’t have expertise. So, Gaither figured it out herself.
As TPI continued to support incarcerated, queer Texans, the letters kept rolling in. Gaither quickly realized her correspondences told a story: definable instances of assault, misconduct, or abuse.
With permission from those she corresponded with and help from volunteers, Gaither started tracking it. “We’re hearing from people reporting violence to us,” says Gaither, “we ought to log these.” TPI also tracks demographic information alongside instances of abuse and violence, all of which are publicly accessible.
“It started off as just a spreadsheet, and then it eventually grew over the years into a database,” says Gaither, who constructed the MySQL database for the project.
Gaither’s work especially focuses on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which ostensibly includes specific protections for transgender people.
To be compliant with PREA, prisons must be audited once every three years. Numerous investigations have shown that these audits are often not effective. TPI has filed numerous complaints with the PREA Resource Center, demonstrating inaccuracies or bias, in addition to tracking thousands of PREA-related incidents.
“We are trying to use our data to show the audits are ineffective,” says Gaither.
Gaither has been thinking about data since she was a teenager. She describes using a computer for the first time in the 1970s and being bored with everything except for dBASE, one of the first database management systems.
“Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated with how you can use data and databases to understand what your work with data,” Gaither says. She went on to get a master’s in Library and Information Sciences and built Resource Center Dallas’s client database for transgender health.
But gathering, let alone analyzing, and disseminating data about queer people imprisoned in Texas has proven a challenge.
Some participants fear retaliation for sharing their experiences, while others face health problems that make pinpointing exact dates or times of assaults difficult.
And, despite being cited by The National PREA Resource Center and Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, Gaither still faces those who think her data “doesn’t seem to have as much legitimacy.”
Stevens lauds Gaither’s data collection methods. “TPI collect their data totally consensually. They write to them first and then turn that data into data legible to the state and in the service of community care.”
This is a stark contrast to the current status quo of data collection, says Dogan, “people, and all of our data, regardless of who you are, is getting scraped.” Data scraping refers to when information is imported from websites – like personal social media pages – and used as data.
AI has accelerated this, says D’Ignazio, “it’s like a massive vacuum cleaning of data across the entire internet. It’s this whole new level and scale of non-consensual technology.”
Gaither’s method of building relationships and direct correspondence is a far cry from data scraping. Volunteers read, respond to, and input information from every letter.
Gaither has become close to some of the people with whom she’s corresponded. Referring to a letter she received in 2013, Gaither says: “I still write to her. We’ve known each other for a long time. I consider her to be my friend.”
Her data is queer not simply in its content, but in how she chooses to keep the queer community centered in the process. “I feel very close to her so that makes the data more meaningful. It has a human component behind it,” says Gaither.
Guyan says that data can be seen as a “currency” since it has power. But he emphasizes that “people’s lives are messy, they’re complicated, they’re nuanced, they’re caveated, and a data exercise that relies on only ones and zeros can’t necessarily capture the full complexity and diversity of these lives.”
While Gaither tallies and sorts the incidents of violence, so it is legible as this “currency,” she also grapples with the nuance of the situations behind the scenes. “It’s my family that I’m working with. I think it makes it more significant from a personal level,” says Gaither.
Guyan explains that queer data is not just about the content, but the methods. “You can adopt a queer lens in terms of thinking critically about the method you use when collecting, analyzing, and presenting all types of data.”
(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)
U.S. Supreme Court
Activists rally for Andry Hernández Romero in front of Supreme Court
Gay asylum seeker ‘forcibly deported’ to El Salvador, described as political prisoner
More than 200 people gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday and demanded the Trump-Vance administration return to the U.S. a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who it “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador.
Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based organization that represents Andry Hernández Romero, is among those who spoke alongside U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Human Rights Campaign Campaigns and Communications Vice President Jonathan Lovitz. Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark, Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett, and Tim Miller are among those who also participated in the rally.
“Andry is a son, a brother. He’s an actor, a makeup artist,” said Toczylowski. “He is a gay man who fled Venezuela because it was not safe for him to live there as his authentic self.”
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” The Trump-Vance administration subsequently “forcibly removed” Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans to El Salvador.
Toczylowski said she believes Hernández remains at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. Toczylowski also disputed claims that Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member.
“Andry fled persecution in Venezuela and came to the U.S. to seek protection. He has no criminal history. He is not a member of the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet because of his crown tattoos, we believe at this moment that he sits in a torture prison, a gulag, in El Salvador,” said Toczylowski. “I say we believe because we have not had any proof of life for him since the day he was put on a U.S. government-funded plane and forcibly disappeared to El Salvador.”
“Andry is not alone,” she added.
Takano noted the federal government sent his parents, grandparents, and other Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II under the Alien Enemies Act. The gay California Democrat also described Hernández as “a political prisoner, denied basic rights under a law that should have stayed in the past.”
“He is not a case number,” said Takano. “He is a person.”
Hernández had been pursuing his asylum case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
A hearing had been scheduled to take place on May 30, but an immigration judge the day before dismissed his case. Immigrant Defenders Law Center has said it will appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.
“We will not stop fighting for Andry, and I know neither will you,” said Toczylowski.
Friday’s rally took place hours after Attorney General Pam Bondi said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador, had returned to the U.S. Abrego will face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.
National
A husband’s story: Michael Carroll reflects on life with Edmund White
Iconic author died this week; ‘no sunnier human in the world’
Unlike most gay men of my generation, I’ve only been to Fire Island twice. Even so, the memory of my first visit has never left me. The scenery was lovely, and the boys were sublime — but what stood out wasn’t the beach or the parties. It was a quiet afternoon spent sipping gin and tonics in a mid-century modern cottage tucked away from the sand and sun.
Despite Fire Island’s reputation for hedonism, our meeting was more accident than escapade. Michael Carroll — a Facebook friend I’d chatted with but never met — mentioned that he and his husband, Ed, would be there that weekend, too. We agreed to meet for a drink. On a whim, I checked his profile and froze. Ed was author Edmund White.
I packed a signed copy of Carroll’s “Little Reef” and a dog-eared hardback of “A Boy’s Own Story,” its spine nearly broken from rereads. I was excited to meet both men and talk about writing, even briefly.
Yesterday, I woke to the news that Ed had passed away. Ironically, my first thought was of Michael.
This week, tributes to Edmund White are everywhere — rightly celebrating his towering legacy as a novelist, essayist, and cultural icon. I’ve read all of his books, and I could never do justice to the scope of a career that defined and chronicled queer life for more than half a century. I’ll leave that to better-prepared journalists.
But in those many memorials, I’ve noticed something missing. When Michael Carroll is mentioned, it’s usually just a passing reference: “White’s partner of thirty years, twenty-five years his junior.” And yet, in the brief time I spent with this couple on Fire Island, it was clear to me that Michael was more than a footnote — he was Ed’s anchor, editor, companion, and champion. He was the one who knew his husband best.
They met in 1995 after Michael wrote Ed a fan letter to tell him he was coming to Paris. “He’d lost the great love of his life a year before,” Michael told me. “In one way, I filled a space. Understand, I worshiped this man and still do.”
When I asked whether there was a version of Ed only he knew, Michael answered without hesitation: “No sunnier human in the world, obvious to us and to people who’ve only just or never met him. No dark side. Psychology had helped erase that, I think, or buffed it smooth.”
Despite the age difference and divergent career arcs, their relationship was intellectually and emotionally symbiotic. “He made me want to be elegant and brainy; I didn’t quite reach that, so it led me to a slightly pastel minimalism,” Michael said. “He made me question my received ideas. He set me free to have sex with whoever I wanted. He vouchsafed my moods when they didn’t wobble off axis. Ultimately, I encouraged him to write more minimalistically, keep up the emotional complexity, and sleep with anyone he wanted to — partly because I wanted to do that too.”
Fully open, it was a committed relationship that defied conventional categories. Ed once described it as “probably like an 18th-century marriage in France.” Michael elaborated: “It means marriage with strong emotion — or at least a tolerance for one another — but no sex; sex with others. I think.”
That freedom, though, was always anchored in deep devotion and care — and a mutual understanding that went far beyond art, philosophy, or sex. “He believed in freedom and desire,” Michael said, “and the two’s relationship.”
When I asked what all the essays and articles hadn’t yet captured, Michael paused. “Maybe that his writing was tightly knotted, but that his true personality was vulnerable, and that he had the defense mechanisms of cheer and optimism to conceal that vulnerability. But it was in his eyes.”
The moment that captured who Ed was to him came at the end. “When he was dying, his second-to-last sentence (garbled then repeated) was, ‘Don’t forget to pay Merci,’ the cleaning lady coming the next day. We had had a rough day, and I was popping off like a coach or dad about getting angry at his weakness and pushing through it. He took it almost like a pack mule.”
Edmund White’s work shaped generations — it gave us language for desire, shame, wit, and liberation. But what lingers just as powerfully is the extraordinary life Ed lived with a man who saw him not only as a literary giant but as a real person: sunny, complex, vulnerable, generous.
In the end, Ed’s final words to his husband weren’t about his books or his legacy. They were about care, decency, and love. “You’re good,” he told Michael—a benediction, a farewell, maybe even a thank-you.
And now, as the world celebrates the prolific writer and cultural icon Edmund White, it feels just as important to remember the man and the person who knew him best. Not just the story but the characters who stayed to see it through to the end.
District of Columbia
In town for WorldPride? Take a D.C. LGBTQ walking tour
Scenes of protest, celebration, and mourning
As Washington welcomes the world for WorldPride, it’s essential to honor the city’s deep-rooted LGBTQ history—an integral part of the broader story of the nation’s capital. The following locations have served as cornerstones of queer life and activism in D.C., shaping both local and national movements for LGBTQ rights. So take a walk around “the gayest city in America” and check out these sites.
DUPONT CIRCLE AREA
Dupont Circle
Central hub of LGBTQ life since the early 20th century, hosting Pride parades, Dyke Marches, and cruising culture. A long-standing site of protests and celebrations.
Washington Hilton – 1919 Connecticut Ave NW
Hosted D.C.’s first major hotel drag event in 1968 and the iconic Miss Adams Morgan Pageant. Protested in 1978 during Anita Bryant’s appearance.
Lesbian Avengers – 1426 21st St NW
Formed in 1992, the group empowered lesbians through bold direct actions. They met in Dupont Circle and launched the city’s first Dyke March.
Lambda Rising Bookstore (former) – 1724 20th Street NW
D.C.’s first LGBTQ bookstore and the birthplace of the city’s inaugural Pride celebration in 1975.
Women In The Life (former office) – 1623 Connecticut Ave NW
Founded in 1993 by Sheila Alexander-Reid as a safe space and support network for lesbians of color.
17th Street NW Corridor – Between P & R Streets NW
Core of the LGBTQ business district, home to the annual High Heel Race in October and the June Block Party celebrating the origins of D.C. Pride.
CAPITOL HILL / SOUTHEAST
Tracks (former) – 80 M St SE
Once D.C.’s largest gay club, famous for inclusive parties, RuPaul shows, and foam nights from 1984 to 2000.
Ziegfeld’s / The Other Side – 1345 Half Street SE
Legendary drag venue since 1978, hosting famed performers like Ella Fitzgerald.
Club 55 / Waaay Off Broadway – 55 K Street SE
Converted theater central to D.C.’s early drag and Academy pageant scenes.
Congressional Cemetery – 1801 E Street SE
Resting place of LGBTQ figures like Sgt. Leonard Matlovich and Peter Doyle. Offers queer history tours.
Mr. Henry’s – 601 Pennsylvania Ave SE
LGBTQ-friendly bar since 1966 and the launching stage for Roberta Flack’s career.
The Furies Collective House – 219 11th Street SE
Home to a 1970s lesbian feminist collective that published “The Furies.” Members included Rita Mae Brown.
ARCHIVES / PENN QUARTER
Archives Metro & Center Market Site – 7th St & Pennsylvania Ave NW
Where Walt Whitman met Peter Doyle in 1865, commemorated by a sculpture linking Whitman and poet Fernando Pessoa.
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS / PETWORTH
Palm Ballroom (former) – 4211 9th Street NW
Mid-20th century venue for Black drag balls and LGBTQ events during segregation.
NATIONAL MALL AREA
National Mall / Washington Monument Grounds
Historic site of LGBTQ activism and remembrance, including the 1987 display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a mass same-sex wedding. Hosted major civil rights marches in 1979, 1987, and 1993.
NORTHWEST DC
Dr. Franklin E. Kameny House – 5020 Cathedral Ave NW
Home of gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society of Washington; now a national landmark.
LAFAYETTE SQUARE / WHITE HOUSE
Lafayette Park – Pennsylvania Ave & 16th St NW
Historic gay cruising area and epicenter of government surveillance during the Lavender Scare.
Data from: SSecret City by James Kirchick, The Deviant’s War by Frank Kameny, Brett Beemyn, The Rainbow History Project, NPS Archives, Washington Blade Archives.
Gay pharmacist’s murder sparks outrage in Chile
D.C. police investigating threat of shooting at WorldPride festival
Capitalism, patriarchy, and neocolonialism are repackaging the scramble for Africa
WorldPride wraps up after epic weekend of events
51 lawmakers sign letter to Rubio about Andry Hernández Romero
Sen. Schiff proposes resolution urging DOD not to rename U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk
Japan should end abusive detention conditions for transgender people
I interviewed Biden in late 2024 and he was attentive, engaged
Delaware Gov. Meyer announces LGBTQ commission
U.S. Park Service closes Dupont Circle Park for WorldPride weekend
-
Congress5 days agoSen. Schiff proposes resolution urging DOD not to rename U.S. Naval Ship Harvey Milk
-
Japan4 days agoJapan should end abusive detention conditions for transgender people
-
Opinions4 days agoI interviewed Biden in late 2024 and he was attentive, engaged
-
Delaware4 days agoDelaware Gov. Meyer announces LGBTQ commission