Hang in there. One thing that I found that really helped me, bizarrely, were Facebook groups. Not super open ones with the whole LGBT community, but places that focused on my specific issues- gender nonconformity especially, but also lesbianism and the WLW community- were really helpful in reassuring myself that I…

The thing is, I don’t have a problem, necessarily, with having these conversations about radicalism vs. assimilation within the community. Those are normal and probably healthy debates to have. But that’s an intra-community discussion, not a situation where you put someone on blast in a mainstream publication largely…

I’m so sorry that you had a similar experience, but I’m also... glad isn’t the right word, but relieved, I guess, to hear that it wasn’t just me. And that’s exactly what happened to me- I was just starting to edge out of the closet, mostly online, ran into a wall of nastiness and was like, nope, back in I go. And I…

I didn’t come out until 33. And when I say that I didn’t come out, I mean to anyone, including myself. I had so much internalized homophobia and lesbophobia and self loathing surrounding my gender nonconformity and sexuality, I just... pushed it all down and away, I guess. Obviously, that was not healthy and not good…

I came out at 33. I dated briefly, then ended up in a serious relationship with the woman who is now my wife- we’ve been married for almost two years, at this point. I have no regrets, and while there were definitely aspects of a “gay adolescence” that I went through, none of them included fucking my way through the…

And having had personal experience with it, international adoption specifically is fraught with a lot of major moral, ethical and legal issues that have caused me, at least, to never, ever want to be a part of that cycle. I think many of the problems arise in spite of the well-meaning, would-be adoptive parents, not…

... she’ll snatch your soul if you don’t mind yourself.

I know, right? I read that idiotic quote from Ben Shapiro (because getting your Ivy League admission yanked is just like being tortured to death in the name of religious purity, amirite?) and immediately thought, “Uh, I could meet that standard now, at 36, and could have met it at 16, too.” Because that word wasn’t a…

Harvard’s auto-da-fe sets up an insane, cruel standard no one can possibly meet.

The last time I got a cab in London (a regular, black cab), my wife and I were treated to a lengthy monologue from the driver, who clearly knew next to nothing about American politics, about how great Donald Trump was and how lucky we all were that Hillary Clinton hadn’t won the election. This was the weekend of the…

If I get pregnant, are y’all paying for my trip to Canada to get an abortion? If I have a complicated pregnancy and my life might be in question, are you going to personally advocate for me and argue with the hospital that I definitely need an abortion to protect my life?

I mean, capital-A Asshole comes to mind.

Kelly is gay, so... no. I very much doubt that Wohl cares about what happens to him.

Yeah, I think it’s very much a Reform thing- very much an American Reform thing, specifically, given that my wife is Reform (but European) and never, ever refers to synagogue as “Temple.” I’m Conservative and I can’t even think of a time I ever overheard a Conservative Jew refer to their synagogue as a “Temple,”…

Are you a Chabadnik? Is your family a Chabad family? Or not even Chabad specifically- are you and your family frum, or were you at the time you were calling shul “temple”?

It’s not a “temple.” It’s a synagogue or possibly a Chabad house. Chabadniks would never refer to any of their establishments as a “temple”- that’s reserved for the literal, historical Temple in Jerusalem.

True story: a (white, female) friend of mine posted a status update saying something like, “Men suck.” It was deleted, and she was tossed into Facebook jail. She logs onto an alternate account, then posts “Women suck” and asks everyone to report it as an experiment. Nothing happens. Everyone’s reports come back…

This has been going on for such a long time now- I’ve lost count of the number of lesbians and lesbian groups I’ve seen go to Facebook jail for reclaiming the word “dyke,” for instance. Or black people getting suspended or banned for comments about [race redacted] people. Or women for comments about men. Meanwhile, I…

They basically do a version of this in Germany (and I think France, as well). Fines aren’t calculated as a flat fee, they’re calculated by what they call “daily rates.” So if you get penalized for, I don’t know, tax fraud, you’ll be sentenced to pay 30 “daily rates,” which are taken as a percentage of your income,…

I mean, there are people on this very site unable to differentiate between Jews and Israelis, including several who castigated me a while back for not voting/not voting the right way in Israeli elections, despite knowing full well that I’m an American Jew who does not hold Israeli citizenship and couldn’t vote there…