Blade contributor Peter Rosenstein is crossing the Atlantic on the Celebrity ASCENT. He filed these dispatches from his journey.

Blog # 1- 2025 Celebrity ASCENT transatlantic cruise 

Spent two great days in Rome. I don’t sleep on planes so the first morning was kind of a blur. I had arranged for a taxi from the airport, which worked well, and arrived at my hotel, the Nuova Nord, near the train station, about 10:00am. Check in time is officially 4:00pm but I lucked out, and got into my room by 10:30. This just added to my feeling good about the hotel, along with the $115 a night cost, including breakfast. So put my suitcase in the room and headed out to walk around Rome. My first stop as usual in Rome was the Trevi Fountain, which I love. Once there, did what I always do to get a great picture. Headed across the street from the fountain to the second floor of Benetton. They still have one window that remains clear, and you get the best picture above the crowds. Then I kept walking past the Coliseum, and eventually over toward the Vatican. I had made plans in advance to have dinner with Samantha Basar the new staff addition to My Lux Cruise travel agents, and Jill Lotenberg. Jill is an amazing professional photographer, and documents the cruises we go on. We had a nice early relaxed dinner, and after walking it off, I was back at my hotel before 8:00pm for a good night’s sleep. 

The next morning met a D.C. friend, John, who just happened to be in Rome visiting his parents. John’s mom is Italian, and I was surprised to find he speaks the language fluently. We went for coffee at 11:00am at a café he likes near the Pantheon. He swore by their coffee and pastry, and he was right, it was really good. Then we spent a few hours walking the city, and ended up at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore to see the tomb of Pope Francis. There was a long line but it moved really fast, and the tomb is like the former Pope, very simple, but truly impressive. After that John found a scooter to ride back to meet his parents. I think it took a lot of guts to ride a scooter into Rome traffic. I spent a little more time walking around. It was going to be an early night with some pizza for dinner. 

The next morning, I headed over to the UNA hotel, just a couple of blocks away, to meet the bus arranged to take my group to Civitavecchia, the port about an hour out of Rome, where we boarded the Celebrity ASCENT, our home for the next thirteen days. That all went really smoothly, and I was onboard, in my stateroom, before 11:00 AM. Then it was meeting my butler, yes, I have one, as does everyone in the Retreat, and also met my very charming room attendant, who had made sure my bedding was all hypoallergenic. Then walked around the ship to see if there were any changes since my cruise last year. There didn’t seem to be any. Then at 4:30 headed to the sail-away party Dustin and Scott, my favorite travel agents, had prepared for our group in their suite, the Iconic Suite, to meet old and new friends. We left port a little late as there apparently was a medical emergency even before we left port, and an ambulance was called to take someone off the ship. Turned out it was a member of our group, but thankfully he is ok. When we finally set sail, we all headed to the first of the nightly, listed in the daily newsletter, as the LGBTQIA+ get togethers, in the Eden lounge. There were more people there than we expected, and it was nice to meet more new cruisers from both the States and Europe. Then it was off to my first dinner onboard, at the Rooftop grill, with Michael Magee and his friends, most of them new to me. It was a nice evening, and the baked cookie with vanilla ice cream, the main reason to eat at that restaurant, didn’t disappoint.  Then it was back to my cabin for some sleep as I had an early tour booked the next morning in Cagliari, Sardinia. 

Day 2 began in an interesting way. Hope it doesn’t portend anything, but early morning the Captain announced we would be getting to Cagliari about 30 minutes late as there was another medical emergency on the ship, and he had to divert closer to shore to let the Italian Coast Guard take the person off the ship. Hopefully he/she will be ok.

We finally docked in Cagliari, and I headed to meet the bus for my tour. It was a four-hour City Highlights tour. We drove around the Island and then had some time to walk the city center.  It included stops at the museum, and we saw some beautiful old churches. It is a beautiful city. The tour guide was a very nice woman but talked incessantly, never feeling the need to take a breath, lol, and her voice was a little hard to take in our ears from the little gizmos we each had.  I kidded about it with two nice guys I met on the tour from Vancouver, Canada, who agreed with me. Then it was back to the ship and some relaxing time on the Retreat sundeck, a cappuccino in the retreat lounge, and then the second LGBTQIA+ happy hour. Then dinner with Scott, Dustin, and Rick, in Luminae restaurant, the Retreat restaurant. Not an auspicious start for their menu, as the steak was close to inedible. But the charming staff, and chocolate desert, made up for that. Then it was off to the day after Halloween party the ship threw, and saw some incredible costumes. Then to bed after a great first full day, day two according to Celebrity, of the cruise. 

Blog # 2- 2025 Celebrity ASCENT transatlantic cruise

Day 3 was a sea day. We were heading from Cagliari to Gibraltar. It is days like this why I go on my transatlantic cruises. I love being on the water. Spent some time in the morning writing and then headed to the gym for the first time. I hope to go there for at least an hour each day. A half hour on the lifecycle and then another thirty minutes with some weights and machines. It is great to sit on the lifecycle looking out at the ocean, instead of the wall I look at when using it at my home gym. I then headed to the Retreat lounge for my cappuccino and then up to the sun deck. It was very windy but I found a place out of the wind to sit and read. Then back to the Retreat lounge where I am having this running argument with the retreat managers, trying to get them to help me with my WIFI. Seems this year the powers that be don’t want to give me access to my phone and the computer, at the same time, without an extra charge. Just typical of what we are seeing on the cruise by Celebrity, think it may also be on other lines, of the nickel-and-diming of passengers. Other than that, things have been good, LOL. Then headed down to deck 4 and Café al Bacio, where I enjoy going for a light lunch.

They have these great little sandwiches, and some more good cappuccino. By this time, I am getting the decaffeinated kind. I met Jill Lotenberg there, our group photographer. She is a professional photographer who is related to Scott, my travel agent, and joins us on the cruises to document them. She is so fun to chat with. Also there, sitting somewhere else, was Samantha. The day went by lazily and then it was time for the LGBTQIA happy hour. There I met Michael Magee, and some other friends, and we decided to do Luminae for dinner, and the late show in the theater. It was Bridges. I had seen it before on a previous cruise, and it was just as great. Incredible talent on the ship. Before the show the Captains, yes there are two, and they are brothers. Celebrity assigned them both to the ASCENT as a PR gimmick when the ship was launched. They just happened to be together on this cruise heading back to the states. They spoke to the audience, and could make good money as a comedy act if they get tired of being captains. They are both charming and funny. After the show I walked around the ship for a bit, heading to the Martini bar just to look around and then it was off to my stateroom for a good night’s sleep.

Day 4 dawned nice and as usual I was up early with coffee delivered to the room. We were going to be docking in Gibraltar by 9:00am. I had a decision to make as to whether I would head into town after we docked, or just stay on the ship. Since I have been to Gibraltar a few times before, enjoying the monkeys there, I decided to stay on the ship. It’s always nice when the ship empties out. After a couple of hours of writing I headed to the gym and it was totally empty. So, no wait for a lifecycle or any other equipment today. Then it was off to the Retreat lounge and my cappuccino. The weather was great so headed to deck 17, the upper deck of the Retreat sun deck, found a nice lounge chair, and kicked back with my kindle and relaxed for a couple of hours. Then back to the stateroom to write for a bit, and get ready for the happy hour. Scott and Dustin had arranged for us to get early access to The Club to see the early show there, Smoke and Ivories. Again, have seen it before, but it is great and will see it again later in the cruise. I sat next to a gentleman who was saving two seats for friends. After a bit I began chatting with him and found out his son was in the show. His son is the dance captain, and an amazing tap dancer. His name is Britton, and I hope to interview him later during the cruise. He is only twenty-one and has been dancing professionally for three years. He was just given another year contract with Celebrity so will be on its newest ship, the XCEL, when I am on it for my 2026 transatlantic cruise. After the show a few of us headed to Luminae for dinner. Then there was a Pride Party in the Eden lounge to end the day on a great note. Now I could look forward to the next six days at sea as we head to Bermuda.

Blog #3 2025 Celebrity ASCENT transatlantic cruise

Day 5 dawned sunny but windy and the ship was rocking a little. I am lucky that it doesn’t really bother me too much at this time. Hoping it doesn’t get much worse. But again, not a day to sit on the sundeck. So, my usual coffee and breakfast delivered to the room, and a few hours of writing. Today I was drafting the column I would submit to the Blade tomorrow morning, after I saw the results of the election. Tuesday was going to be an important election in a number of states including Governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, the vote on proposition 50 in California, votes on Supreme Court Justices in Pennsylvania, the Mayor’s race in New York, and some statewide races in Georgia. My draft took the position that Democrats would win them all, might as well be positive. Then I headed to the gym for my hour of penance for all that I am eating. After that I got in touch with Cheryl and Jeff, childhood friends, who I knew would be on this cruise. We met at 1:00pm at the buffet for lunch and sat and talked until 4:00, it was great. Hope to get together with them again for dinner during the cruise. After that it was time to head back to the stateroom, shower and get ready for happy hour. We hung out there longer because Rick told us there was an entertainer named Tom who would be playing at 7:00pm. Turned out he had the wrong Tom. So, a group of us headed to dinner at Raw on Five, the sushi bar. Always good to eat there before too late in the cruise for the fresher fish. The company was great, but unfortunately couldn’t say the same for the food which I thought was not as good as on past cruises. After dinner I headed back to the stateroom and prepared to be up late waiting for election results. We are now four hours ahead of D.C. time, we have been setting our clocks back an hour a night on the ship for the past two days. So, Virginia polls closed at 7:00pm and I could start seeing results sometime after 11:00. They were coming in fast after that and all being great. So, my draft was right on target. I finally turned off the light at about 2:00am. Day 6 dawned rockier than yesterday. I was up early and finalizing my column to send to Kevin Naff at the Blade for Friday’s issue. It felt good to be sending such a positive column to him as Democrats had won big in all the key elections. I thought of last year when I was on a cruise when the felon won the White House and how depressed I was. After sending the column I headed to the gym. I had booked a behind the scenes tour of the theater and that was fun. I met Britton and his dad there. Britton had brought his dad for the tour and told me he would be dancing on the main stage on the XCEL. From there headed to Café al Bacio for a light lunch and then tired from lack of sleep last night, just went back to the stateroom and relaxed all afternoon until it was time for happy hour. Britton reminded me he and the Eden production cast would be performing in the Eden lounge this evening in the show, Wonder at Eden: Allure. I was hoping the ship wouldn’t be rocking too much for the show to go on. I actually felt sick at dinner, but think it was from something I ate at. I went back to the stateroom for an your but then felt better and headed to the show in Eden. It was great. It revolved around an artist who did a painting during the show with the cast at times holding his canvas. His name is Paris and he is amazing. I hope to chat with him more in the coming days. Then it was back to the stateroom and a good night’s sleep.

Day 7 dawned windy but warm. It was going to be a really lazy sea day. My favorite kind of day. Coffee delivered to the room, then the gym, then cappuccino in the retreat lounge. I headed to the sundeck but it was a little to windy to stay long. So some more writing, finally getting a start on my next book. I was working on the introduction to what the draft title is, From Camelot to Fascism in 65 short years. I then drafted a column on Jill Lotenberg our group photographer, but who is so much more than that. At 4:00pm headed to the iconic suite for Scott and Dustin’s second party of the cruise. This one was even larger as they invited people beyond our group and it was really nice. After that my plans for the evening included meeting Denis and Jonathan to head to the early show at the theater. It was Karen Grainger who is a great singer and is able to assume the voices of so many other singers like Cher and Streisand. Then it was of to Eden for a wonderful dinner. Celebrity will do away with this restaurant on the new XCEL.

That is sad as many think it is actually the best restaurant on the ship. After that it was off to sleep. We weren’t going to be setting our clocks back an hour as we had the past few nights.

Blog #4 2025 Celebrity ASCENT transatlantic cruise

Day 8 dawned grey and very rocky. The room was making all kinds of noises. But life on the ship remains the same for me, at least for my morning routine of having coffee delivered to the room, and then sitting down to write. I felt like I may be getting the beginning of a slight cold so would wait awhile till I decided if I could skip the gym for the day. No rush, as there was nothing else on the agenda.

In general, the sea days for me, as they say, are rinse-and-repeat. Turned out I did go to the gym, and then headed to the 2:30 show in the theater which was take two on Karen Grainger. She really is quite good and this afternoon she did her impressions of a new group of singers. As she says, she is an impressionist, not an impersonator. I think the show could be improved if she had pictures of the women in whose voice she is singing on the big screen behind her. There were clearly some in the audience who weren’t quite sure, especially of the women whose voices are not as distinctive. Now there was no mistaking when she sang in the voice of Cher, Streisand, or Janice Joplin. Again, she is really good. One of the members of our group, Michael Magee, had planned a caftan bar crawl. Dress up in a caftan, and stop at a series of the bars on board, and drink at each. I did pass on that, not really a costume person, or a big drinker, but did meet up with them at the LGBTQ happy hour and they looked great, and happy after all the booze. Then it was dinner at Luminae, and for me, an early night. On my way back to my cabin I bumped into Paris, the artist from the show at Eden the night before, and we reconfirmed we would get together with in the next couple of days for coffee. The daily newsletter on my bed when I got back to my cabin confirmed we gained another hour tonight so by the morning we would only be two hours ahead of the East Coast.

Day 9 dawned a little cloudy but a little less rocky. I was able to spend some time on the Retreat sundeck in the afternoon and had lunch there. Based on the daily newsletter there were two events I wanted to go to during the day. I first went to the gym to sit on the lifecycle, actually peddling while sitting there. Then I went to the afternoon show in The Club, A Tribute to Adele, by Molly Kane. She is great. Molly is part of the cast in the main theater, but based on this show she should be a headliner all on her own. Darren, the Cruise Director, gave her this opportunity and it was the smart thing to do. He is clearly a good judge of talent. Then at 5:00 I headed back to The Club for a Senior Officer Party, for Elite status guests. I have that status based on how many cruises I have been on. It doesn’t get me much, but the most important benefit is free laundry. From there it was off to the LGBTQ happy hour in the Eden lounge and then dinner in Luminae. After dinner most of my dinner companions headed to their cabins, but I went back to the Eden lounge for the 10:15 show, Wonder at Eden: Shimmerbox, with the Eden show cast. It was really good, and all the dancers, including dance captain, Britton, are great. There was a funny scene there with a woman who has her dog with her, saving seats and pretending the people were just in the bathroom. Well after an hour I spoke to her and she wasn’t happy I said something about not being able to reserve seats for that long. Then another woman went and removed her bag and sat down and got an ovation from a big part of the crowd. After the show it was back to my cabin. Still fairly early as we turned our clocks back another hour this evening. So now when I wake up will only be one hour ahead of D.C. time. Tomorrow is another sea day, and then Monday, we reach Bermuda.

Collegiate swimmer and transgender woman Lia Smith from Middlebury College recently took her own life. Her death has shaken campuses across the country, but it should also shake the conscience of policymakers. We have become too accustomed to treating trans suicide as a tragic but inevitable statistic, instead of the preventable public health crisis it is. The death of one young athlete isn’t an isolated heartbreak — it’s a reflection of national failure.

Transgender people are several times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population. Data from the CDC show that about one in four transgender and questioning high school students has attempted suicide in the past year, compared to fewer than one in 20 cisgender males. That gap is staggering. It’s also reversible. Decades of research and experience show that suicide risk among trans people drops dramatically when they are supported — when their identities are respected, when their healthcare is affirmed, and when they are treated as equal participants in civic life.

So why are we still losing so many?

The answer lies in policy. The mental health of trans Americans is not shaped only in therapy rooms or hospital wards — it is shaped in state legislatures, on college campuses, and in the daily signals society sends about whether we are welcome to exist. Every time a law is passed banning gender-affirming care, restricting participation in sports, or erasing identity from school curricula, it tells trans youth that their lives are negotiable. When adults debate their existence on television, that rhetoric trickles down into classrooms, dorm rooms, and locker rooms, where young people already fighting for belonging are told, in ways subtle and overt, that they do not belong.

The environment on many campuses mirrors the national tension. A college like Middlebury is supposed to be a sanctuary for learning and growth, but trans students often find themselves fighting invisible battles — for pronouns to be respected, for dorms that feel safe, for medical care that affirms who they are. Coaches and administrators rarely receive proper training on how to support gender-diverse athletes, and campus mental health centers are often ill-equipped to handle the specific trauma of identity-based rejection. When that institutional support fails, even the strongest students — those with scholarships, discipline, and community roles — can feel isolated beyond repair.

Policy, at its best, can save lives. Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that access to gender-affirming care significantly reduces suicidal ideation and attempts. The inverse is also true: states with laws restricting such care see measurable spikes in suicide attempts among trans youth. The Trevor Project reports that anti-trans legislation can increase the risk of suicide by as much as 70 percent. These are not abstract percentages; they represent real young people — swimmers, musicians, writers, and scholars — who might have lived had the political climate been less hostile.

Colleges and universities have a duty to fill the gaps that national policy leaves behind. They can start by requiring trans-inclusive mental-health training for faculty, coaches, and residential staff. They can ensure that campus health centers understand the psychological toll of living under attack. And they can collect accurate data on mental health outcomes for trans students so that prevention efforts are based on evidence, not guesswork. These are not radical demands; they are the bare minimum for any institution that claims to care about student wellbeing.

But responsibility does not end at the campus gate. The federal government must recognize suicide among trans Americans as a national emergency — one that requires the same attention we give to veterans, farmers, or law enforcement officers at risk. Funding for research, mental-health infrastructure, and crisis prevention must include the trans community explicitly, not as an afterthought. The message must be clear: protecting trans lives is not a culture-war issue; it is a moral one.

For those of us who have lived through our own storms — the loneliness, the addiction, the feeling of being untethered from a world that doesn’t understand us — these stories hit close to home. I know what it means to feel unseen. I know how fragile the human mind can become when the world tells you that your identity is controversial. And I also know that with community, understanding, and proper care, people can come back from that edge. I have.

When the waters go still, when the headlines fade, we owe it to the swimmer from Middlebury — and to every trans person who has struggled to stay afloat — to act. Policy cannot undo her death, but it can prevent the next one. It can remind trans youth that they are valued, needed, and seen.

The question is whether our leaders have the courage to look past the politics and see the people. Because behind every statistic is a name, a face, and a life that could have been saved.

Isaac Amend is a writer based in the D.C. area. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary. He serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. You can follow him on Substack at @isaacamend where he writes about philosophy, love, literature, and 50 cent.  

It was not unexpected. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, 85, is retiring after serving 39 years in Congress. Her announcement video, released Thursday, is an ode to her beloved San Francisco, brimming with images of people, landmarks, and the proud liberal story that quickened her heart and stiffened her spine as she fought for progress in making America a more perfect union. 

“My message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” Pelosi said. “We have always led the way, and now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.” 

Pelosi’s legacy as the country’s powerful first and, so far, only female House speaker — serving twice in that role, 2007-2011 and 2019-2023 — is replete with examples of how she smartly and bravely stood up to bullies, including Republican President Donald Trump and his violence-prone cult followers who demonize her, and sought her out during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol as she led the certification of Joe Biden as president. Roughly three years later, her husband Paul was seriously attacked in their San Francisco home by an intruder intent on kidnapping her. 

As House speaker, Pelosi presided over Trump’s two impeachment votes in his first term. And while she might not reach those heights again while she serves until January 2027, she was a visible force in passing California’s Proposition 50, working behind the scenes, helping Gov. Gavin Newsom raise money and construct the state’s reapportionment initiative in response to Trump’s attempts to rig the 2026 midterms. 

Prop 50 — the only thing on the ballot in this special election — won handily with almost 64 percent of the vote to 36 percent percent. Los Angeles County voted “Yes” 73 percent to 27 percent.  

“Some people go off and they talk about the way the world should be, but they don’t do anything to damn manifest it,” Newsom said on election night, per the New York Times. “Nancy Pelosi doesn’t go out to try to make points. She makes a difference.”

Two of her most memorable achievements as Speaker were her deft political strategy, vote counting and arm-twisting to pass extremely difficult legislation such as the new Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act after President George W. Bush’s “too big to fail” Great Recession and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) — after which she proclaimed that “being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.”

During her decades in Congress and before, Pelosi has been a towering hero. “She’s just always been there,” longtime AIDS and gay activist Cleve Jones, who at first didn’t take her seriously, told the New York Times. “She’s more than an ally. She’s family.”

In May 2018, I interviewed Nancy Pelosi, then the House Minority Leader, in advance of the important midterm elections — the success of which resulted in her historic election as Speaker for a second time. 

With Trump and Project 2025 erasing our rights and our history with their version of Christianity and with the new AIDS Monument opening on Nov. 16 in West Hollywood, I think Nancy Pelosi illustrates how one can be religious, progressive, and decent, such as her expression of gratitude to President George W. Bush for his PEPFAR AIDS program.

Nancy Pelosi: The famous Leader you may not know (Excerpts) 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the embodiment of the feminist adage “the personal is political.” She celebrated part of her 78th birthday at an LGBTQ equality weekend in Palm Springs, which she declared a “fabulous” fundraiser for the Democratic effort to “take away” the House from the Republicans in the November midterm elections.

Pelosi is so confident of victory, she told the Los Angeles Blade that out Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) will be the next chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee come January 2019. 

“‘We will win. I will run for speaker. I feel confident about it. And my members do, too,” the Boston Globe reported May 1 on Pelosi’s meeting with the Globe’s editorial staff. “It’s important that it not be five white guys at the table, no offense,” referring to Trump’s meeting with the top two leaders from the House and Senate. “I have no intention of walking away from that table.”…

Many of the darts thrown at Pelosi over the years have been acid-tipped with LGBTQ-hatred. “One of the things the Republicans like to do around the country is to represent me as a LGBTQ-first-and-foremost supporter. I represent San Francisco, which they caricaturize as being a gay haven and capitol. And that’s something we’re very proud of,” Pelosi [said]. “But the fact is, the country is going to leave them behind because people have a different level of respect because of the work the LGBTQ community has done in many areas to end discrimination and in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”

Pelosi says HIV/AIDS and passage of the Equality Act are top priorities.

“The Equality Act is something that really should be appreciated in a very special way because it really is transformative,” Pelosi says. “It just changes everything. It says whether it’s credit or housing or job discrimination, or you name it — you can no longer discriminate. Well, you shouldn’t discriminate to begin with. But it makes it a part of the Civil Rights Act to protect [LGBTQ] people.”…

To be sure, enshrining discrimination into law seems to be a subtextual plan of the Trump-Pence administration, with more information leaking out about Pence’s behind-the-scenes machinations involving the ban on transgender service members serving openly in the military …

Pelosi’s focus is on winning the House. “We are going to be focusing on the economy in our debate,” she says … “What we have to do is focus on the economic insecurity of American families and people. It’s about their apprehensions and their aspirations. And that’s what we need to be talking about … ”

Pelosi also shares the concern of then-U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, her appointee to the House Intelligence Committee, about the “dismantling of our democratic institutions that President Trump is so set upon, whether it is dismantling and discrediting the press, which I think is the greatest guardian of our freedom — freedom of press, dismantling of our Justice Department and law enforcement, in terms of the FBI, ignoring the system of checks and balances that exists in our Constitution, which is the strength of our country.”…

“The president is anti-governance. He doesn’t really believe in the role of government in improving people’s situations,” Pelosi says. “So it’s a comprehensive approach to dismantling democratic institutions … One of the reasons people should be very concerned is because the president is doing nothing to protect our electoral system, our democracy.”…

While young people at the #ResistMarch in West Hollywood last year were stirred up by Leader Pelosi’s rhetoric, it was clear they knew she was important — but not really who she was and why she was so passionate about LGBTQ equality.

Some of it is centered in Pelosi’s Catholicism, which is not the set of beliefs the Catholic Church espoused during Prop 8 and other political-religious battles. 

“As a Catholic, I was raised to respect every person. We’re all God’s children. In my family, there was never any question about that,” she says. “In Baltimore, we did have a growing LGBT community — we didn’t call it that then, but it was part of our lives, and it was not any question that we would be any more respectful of one person than another. It wasn’t even an issue with me, and I didn’t ever even describe it or associate it with Catholicism because Catholicism taught me something different. It didn’t teach me discrimination. It taught me respect. And so it prepared me very well, my Catholicism, for being a representative in San Francisco.”

During the 1980s, with the unchecked rise of AIDS, the Vatican came under intense criticism for sticking to its absolute prohibition against using condoms, coupled with Pope John Paul II calling homosexuality “intrinsically evil.”

Pelosi seems momentarily speechless. “I think the church’s position that people could not use condoms — it’s so hypocritical, I can’t even go to that place,” she says. “The church may make a proclamation, but they make a proclamation that people should not be using any contraception or birth control at all — it’s all about having a child. So while people are faithful to their religion, they are certain practicing what they need for the size and timing of their family, according to meeting their responsibility to the free will that God has given all of us.”

Ironically, because San Francisco “took a very big bite of that wormy apple called AIDS,” the church “was more sympathetic to people when they had HIV/AIDS because they needed help then they were to people who weren’t infected. It was the strangest, strangest thing,” Pelosi says.

“It’s a funny thing. The Catholics — and I’m surrounded by Catholics — but the Catholics that I grew up with and I lived with in California were always respectful of the church, of the pope, of our faith, and never thought it was in any way a barrier to us doing what we believed. And sometimes that was diametrically opposed to what their public statements were.”

Not that she thinks the church is immune to criticism. “There’s no question the Catholic Church in California was a participant in Prop 8 in a negative way,” Pelosi says. “We were on the other side of that. But to me, it was their problem. It wasn’t anything that was any moral imperative to me for me to follow the church in enshrining discrimination in the law in California.”

Pelosi also does not concur with churches that pontificate about the “non-negotiable” — being gay, marriage equality, euthanasia, birth control, all generally lumped together. The commonality is the certainty that “all interactions between people are about producing a child. Then you cannot have birth control, family planning, or any of that, and you cannot have homosexual relations,” she says. 

“I view that as kind of their problem. It’s not the reality of life, and it’s not about respecting the dignity and worth of every person.”

But, Pelosi adds, “I’m not making any judgments about how each of us honors our free will and our sense of responsibility that goes with it.”

Pelosi is also guided by a moral imperative that young people may not understand today — the deep, personal impact of AIDS.

“Some people criticized me for talking about AIDS on my first day in Congress and I realized that it was not just about getting funding for AIDS research and prevention and care but it was about ending discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS,” adding that California has been a “tremendous resource” throughout the years for intellectual, political and economic response to the disease.

Pelosi responds viscerally when asked about losing friends. 

“Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. A little flower girl in my wedding. My dear, dear friends in the community in San Francisco. We were going to two funerals a day. I was visiting people in the hospital all the time, and quite frankly, when I say losing people,” Pelosi says, “I lost friends because I just walked away from them because they were not treating people with HIV and AIDS with respect. They would say to me, ‘I don’t know why you hire that caterer — don’t you know that everybody there has HIV?’ And I’d say, ‘Don’t bother to come to my house anymore if that’s your attitude.’ It just changed my whole view of them.”

Within the span of her life and political career, Pelosi has personally experienced the heartbreak of HIV/AIDS and the political battles to fund and find a cure.

“I’ll never stop missing some of my dearest dear friends from then,” she says. “Of course, we went from funerals to people saying help me make out my will because this is going to end soon, to those very same people looking for a job and then wanting to get married. So everything has improved but I would never have thought 30 years ago when I started all this in Congress that we still wouldn’t have a cure for AIDS. We’ve improved the quality of life, we’ve sustained life. Everything is better but it’s not over, not finished.”

Karen Ocamb is a longtime LGBTQ+ journalist and former news editor for the Los Angeles Blade. This essay is cross-posted from her Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters.