On Monday, Secretary of Health (sick) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
RFK Jr. said in a statement, “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science. ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.”
RFK Jr. is a rubber stamp for conspiracy theories.
The American Medical Association said Kennedy’s decision undermines “trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.”
In 2019, RFK Jr. engaged in spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation that helped spread a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed at least 83 people, mostly babies, in that nation.
RFK Jr is an agent of bullshit and only an insane person would listen to him, less enough, put him in charge of the nation’s health. (snip-MORE, and it’s really good!)
Right before Senator Alex Padilla of California was frog-marched out of the room and handcuffed, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said she was going to “liberate” Los Angeles “from the socialists and the burdensome leadership this governor and mayor have placed on this country and this city.”
What happened to the National Guard and the Marines being deployed to Los Angeles to stop non-existent riots? Now it’s “liberate” the city from socialist and “burdensome” leadership? Does that mean Noem plans to overthrow Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom with the military?
On one hand, the regime is trying to portray what’s going on in LA as a rebellion or insurrection, and on the other hand, they’re talking about staging their own rebellion and insurrection.
Noem, the lying pig she is (I want to use another word that many wouldn’t like), claims Senator Padilla “lunged” toward the stage, and after hearing her plans to “liberate” Los Angeles, who could blame him? Except he didn’t “lunge” toward her.
If you’re in the right in a situation, then why are you lying? Kristi Noem is lying about what happened yesterday with Senator Alex Padilla.
Was Padilla “lunging” here? You don’t see it. You don’t see it from this angle, either. But you do hear him identify himself. So when Noem and other Republicans say he didn’t, you know they’re lying. If they’re lying to cover their actions, then you know they’re wrong. They know they’re wrong.
Noem also claims the senator “barged” into the building. That’s a lie. He was escorted into the building and into the room where Noem was having her press conference. He was escorted into the room by an FBI agent and a member of the California National Guard. It was a federal building, which means nobody is getting in there without going through security first. There’s no way she could think Padilla was an angry “illegal” there to steal her purse.
Padilla, who has a reputation in Washington of being extremely nice and kinda nerdy, was no threat to Noem in this federal building. She didn’t seem concerned at all about a guy “lunging” toward her, as she barely paused her yammering while he was being dragged away by her goons.
Noem and her security detail claim they didn’t recognize Padilla, but I call bullshit on this one. It seems before going to California, Noem would familiarize herself with some of the players, like the mayor of Los Angeles, the governor of California, House reps of the area, and the state’s two senators. I’m sure she would have recognized Adam Schiff and Gavin Newsom, so why didn’t she recognize Senior Senator Alex Padilla? Why didn’t her security? If nothing else, he was identifying himself and wearing a shirt with the Senate logo.
She’s also the director of Homeland Security, which deals with immigration. So, shouldn’t be somewhat familiar with the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety.
The only somewhat acceptable reason that Kristi Noem didn’t recognize Senator Alex Padilla is that she’s fucking stupid. I can believe that she’s a moron, but I don’t buy that she nor her security could recognize United States Senator Alex Padilla. Plus, you can’t trust the word of anyone who would shoot a puppy.
And because Republicans are vile evil scum, Speaker Mike Johnson, even without looking this, wants to censure Padilla for his actions. What actions? Being brown? Being a child of Mexican immigrants? This is like the cop who pulls people over for being Black.
Padilla’s crime here is that he cares about the people ICE is going after, that he does his job, he’s a Democrat, and he’s non-White. I would love to see that in the empty censure Johnson is dreaming up.
Padilla’s biggest crime might be that he dared to question Kristi Noem.
The goons are using the military to shut down protests. They don’t want to be questioned. For the love of god, they literally handcuffed a United States Senator for challenging them.
Noem admitted it. The military is in Los Angeles to replace its elected leadership.
Republicans want to punish Padilla, but for what? Interrupting? After saying she was there to use the military to replace elected leadership, she should be interrupted. She needs to be questioned after proposing replacing California’s leadership with a military junta.
Every American needs to question Noem about this. Every Republican should question her. And for the love of god, every journalist needs to question, so long as the LAPD doesn’t shoot them in the process.
Alex Padilla stood up and questioned her, just like he should have. Alex Padilla didn’t just do his job, but did his duty as a patriotic American, which is more than can be said for every Republican who has folded to Donald Trump.
Every single one of us needs to be more like Alex Padilla. Today, Alex Padilla is my hero.
What would Alex Padilla do? He would do the right thing, and he did. (snip-MORE)
And, since June is Pride month, there are a lot of Pride activities going on that date, too. Perhaps yours also overlap, and this sign will work for you, too!
Thanks to Chris for permission to share – this design is so great, I had to share it.
Stay safe out there, and wherever you are, please know that you are loved exactly as you are. Whether you can live your life openly or keep parts of yourself hidden, you’re seen and welcomed and loved.”
Picture this: It’s 1970, and America’s movie theaters reek of stale popcorn, cigarette smoke, and something else—the acrid stench of fear. Fear of bodies that didn’t conform, desires that couldn’t be spoken, identities that existed only in shadows and whispered confessions. Then, like a fucking earthquake splitting the earth’s crust, came The Boys in the Band—not tiptoeing through Hollywood’s garden of heteronormative roses, but kicking down the door with combat boots and declaring war on silence.
William Friedkin’s adaptation of Mart Crowley’s play didn’t just put gay men on screen; it threw them there bleeding, bitching, and beautifully broken. The audience could taste the bitter cocktail of self-loathing mixed with razor-sharp wit, could feel the electric tension crackling between characters who wielded words like switchblades. This wasn’t representation—this was revolution disguised as entertainment, a Molotov cocktail hurled at the pristine facade of American cinema.
The psychological impact on LGBTQ+ viewers was seismic. For the first time, queers sitting in darkened theaters saw themselves reflected not as tragic figures destined for suicide or sanitized saints, but as complex, contradictory, gloriously fucked-up human beings. The film’s unflinching portrayal of internalized homophobia—characters tearing each other apart with vicious precision—served as both mirror and exorcism. Viewers could finally name the demons that had been eating them alive, could see their own struggles projected thirty feet high in Technicolor fury.
Trans Bodies on Fire: The Gender-Fucking Revolution
Before there was language, before there were support groups or pride parades, there was The Rocky Horror Picture Show—a glittering, sequined middle finger raised high against every gender binary that dared exist. Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter didn’t just cross-dress; he obliterated the very concept of fixed identity, serving looks that could melt steel and charm that could seduce a nun. The film became a weekly religious experience for outcasts and misfits, transforming movie theaters into sanctuaries where “abnormal” became sacrament.
The sensory assault was deliberate and intoxicating: the smell of cheap makeup mixing with nervous sweat, the sound of fishnet stockings ripping as audience members transformed themselves into their truest selves, the taste of liberation on tongues that had been silenced for too long. Rocky Horror created a space where gender became performance art, where conformity went to die, and where every Saturday night became a resurrection.
The psychological liberation was profound. Trans viewers found validation in Frank-N-Furter’s unapologetic embrace of fluidity, while questioning viewers discovered permission to explore identities they’d never dared name. The film’s interactive nature—audiences shouting back at the screen, participating in the narrative—created a communal catharsis that individual therapy could never match.
Orlando arrived two decades later like a ethereal fever dream, with Tilda Swinton embodying centuries of gender transformation through Sally Potter’s lens. Here was gender not as costume but as evolution, not as crisis but as natural progression. The film’s languid pacing forced viewers to marinate in ambiguity, to sit with discomfort until it transformed into acceptance, then into celebration.
The Crying Game hit different—like a sucker punch followed by a tender kiss. Neil Jordan’s thriller weaponized audience assumptions, then forced viewers to confront their own transphobia in real-time. The revelation about Dil became a cultural watershed moment, dividing film history into before and after. Suddenly, dinner table conversations across America were grappling with questions that had never been asked out loud.
The psychological impact on trans viewers was complex and often contradictory. Some found validation in seeing trans characters as more than punchlines or victims, while others felt exploited by the shock-value treatment of trans identity. The film sparked conversations that were long overdue, even when those conversations were messy, uncomfortable, and occasionally hostile.
Leather, Longing, and the Masculine Mystique
Cruising descended into theaters like a demon emerging from hell’s own basement, dragging audiences through New York’s leather underground with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull. William Friedkin didn’t just film gay culture; he dissected it with surgical precision, exposing the raw nerves where desire meets violence, where identity becomes performance, where the line between hunter and hunted dissolves in strobe lights and poppers.
The film’s sensory assault was overwhelming: the throb of disco basslines that you felt in your chest cavity, the smell of leather and sweat and something darker, the visual overload of bodies in motion, muscles straining against restraints both literal and metaphorical. Al Pacino’s descent into this world became every viewer’s journey into their own shadow self, the parts of desire that polite society pretended didn’t exist.
The psychological effects were explosive and divisive. Gay men in theaters found themselves simultaneously aroused and terrified, seeing their community’s most extreme margins projected for mainstream consumption. Some felt exposed, violated, their private world stripped naked for heterosexual titillation. Others felt liberated by the film’s refusal to sanitize gay desire, its acknowledgment that sexuality could be dangerous, transgressive, and transformative.
Sunday Bloody Sunday offered a different kind of revelation—mature, sophisticated, unapologetically honest about love’s messy realities. John Schlesinger’s triangular love story featuring Peter Finch as an openly gay man navigating desire without shame created a new template for queer cinema. This wasn’t tragedy or comedy; this was life, served neat without the chaser of societal judgment.
The film’s matter-of-fact treatment of gay relationships was revolutionary in its ordinariness. No coming-out trauma, no tragic endings, no apologetic explanations—just human beings loving, losing, and continuing to breathe. For LGBTQ+ viewers, this representation was oxygen for souls that had been suffocating on a diet of tragic queers and comedic stereotypes.
Lesbian Desire: From Shadows to Sunlight
Lesbian cinema in this era moved from whispered suggestions to bold declarations, from tragic endings to triumphant beginnings. The Killing of Sister George emerged from the underground like a feral cat, all claws and snarls and magnificent rage. Robert Aldrich’s brutal examination of lesbian relationships didn’t flinch from ugliness—the manipulation, the internalized homophobia, the way oppression could turn love into a weapon.
Beryl Reid’s performance was a masterclass in controlled demolition, watching a woman destroy everything she touched while desperately grasping for connection. The film’s unflinching portrayal of lesbian relationships—complex, messy, and occasionally toxic—provided representation that was real rather than idealized. For lesbian viewers, seeing their community portrayed with full humanity, including its shadows, was both painful and profoundly validating.
Desert Hearts offered redemption and possibility, Donna Deitch’s adaptation of Jane Rule’s novel serving up hope like cold water in a desert. Set in 1950s Reno, the film followed an academic’s journey from divorce to self-discovery, from social conformity to authentic desire. The Nevada landscape became a metaphor for internal transformation—vast, beautiful, and dangerous.
The sensory details were crucial: the crack of pool balls echoing like gunshots, the smell of cigarettes and whiskey mixing with perfume and possibility, the heat radiating from skin finally allowed to want what it wanted. For lesbian viewers, Desert Hearts offered a template for their own coming-out narratives—messy, beautiful, and ultimately triumphant.
Lianna brought lesbian experience into the suburban mainstream with John Sayles’ sensitive direction. The film’s psychological realism was groundbreaking—showing the internal process of sexual awakening without sensationalizing or pathologizing it. Viewers could taste the protagonist’s confusion, feel her excitement and terror as she navigated new desires while dismantling old assumptions about herself.
The AIDS Crisis: Love in the Time of Dying
Longtime Companion arrived like a punch to the solar plexus, chronicling AIDS’ devastating impact on a circle of gay friends with unflinching honesty. Norman René’s ensemble piece transformed personal tragedy into universal human drama, forcing audiences to confront the epidemic’s toll not through statistics but through faces, voices, and stories.
The film’s emotional brutality was necessary and healing. Viewers experienced the full spectrum of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and something resembling acceptance. The beach scene, where surviving characters imagine their dead friends joining them one last time, became a collective catharsis for a community drowning in loss.
For LGBTQ+ viewers, Longtime Companion provided validation for their grief, rage, and resilience. The film acknowledged that gay relationships were worth mourning, that gay lives had value, that gay love deserved recognition. In a world that often seemed indifferent to queer suffering, the film became a memorial, a battle cry, and a love letter all at once.
Parting Glances offered a different perspective on the crisis—intimate, funny, and heartbreakingly human. Bill Sherwood’s New York snapshot captured gay life with humor and tenderness, refusing to let AIDS define the entire gay experience. The film’s portrayal of friendship, love, and community in the face of mortality provided a blueprint for survival.
International Voices: Expanding the Revolution
The revolution wasn’t contained by borders. My Beautiful Laundrette mixed racial politics with queer desire against Thatcherite Britain’s backdrop, creating social dynamite that exploded conventions about class, race, and sexuality. Stephen Frears’ direction transformed a love story between Omar and Johnny into a meditation on identity, economics, and the price of conformity.
The film’s sensory details were crucial—the smell of industrial detergent mixing with forbidden desire, the sound of washing machines providing rhythm for secret encounters, the visual contrast between public respectability and private rebellion. For viewers navigating multiple marginalized identities, the film offered recognition that oppression could be intersectional and resistance could be revolutionary.
Entre Nous explored female friendship and desire in post-war France with Diane Kurys’ autobiographical honesty. The film’s examination of emotional intimacy challenging conventional marriage provided a template for understanding relationships that existed outside traditional categories. The psychological complexity of female friendship—its intensity, its potential for transformation, its threat to established order—was portrayed with rare sensitivity.
The Aesthetic Revolution: Beauty as Resistance
These films didn’t just tell different stories; they created new visual languages for desire, identity, and rebellion. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert transformed the Australian outback into a canvas for drag performance and self-discovery, proving that authenticity could flourish in the most unlikely places.
The film’s sensory explosion was deliberate—the clash of sequins against red dirt, the sound of high heels on desert sand, the taste of dust and dreams mixing in the desert air. For drag performers and gender-nonconforming viewers, Priscilla offered validation that their art was transformative, their visibility was revolutionary, their existence was celebration.
Death in Venice provided a different aesthetic—operatic, obsessive, and devastatingly beautiful. Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella used Gustav Mahler’s music to underscore Dirk Bogarde’s descent into forbidden desire on plague-ridden Italian shores. The film’s lush visuals and overwhelming music created a sensory experience that bypassed rational thought, speaking directly to the subconscious where desire lives.
Psychological Warfare: The Internal Revolution
The psychological impact of these films on LGBTQ+ viewers cannot be overstated. For generations raised on invisibility or tragic representation, seeing complex, fully-realized queer characters was transformative therapy. These films provided:
Validation: Characters who experienced similar struggles, desires, and triumphs Language: Words and concepts for experiences that had been nameless Community: The knowledge that others shared these experiences Hope: Evidence that queer lives could include joy, love, and fulfillment Rage: Permission to be angry about oppression and discrimination Pride: Models for living authentically despite social pressure
The films also created psychological discomfort that was productive. They forced viewers to confront internalized homophobia, challenge assumptions about gender and sexuality, and grapple with the contradictions between public personas and private desires.
Cultural Warfare: Changing Hearts and Minds
These 24 films didn’t just reflect cultural change; they catalyzed it. Each screening became an act of resistance, each ticket purchase a vote for visibility, each conversation sparked by these films a crack in the foundation of heteronormative assumptions.
The films created cultural currency for LGBTQ+ experiences. References to Rocky Horror became shorthand for gender fluidity. The Boys in the Band provided vocabulary for gay male relationships. Desert Hearts offered a template for lesbian coming-out narratives. These films became cultural touchstones, reference points for understanding and discussing queer experience.
The broader cultural impact was seismic. Mainstream audiences encountered LGBTQ+ characters as fully-realized human beings rather than stereotypes or cautionary tales. The films forced conversations that hadn’t happened before, challenged assumptions that had gone unquestioned, and planted seeds of empathy in hostile soil.
The Legacy: Revolution Continues
These 24 films from 1970-1995 created the foundation for everything that followed. They proved that LGBTQ+ stories could be commercially viable, critically acclaimed, and culturally significant. They trained audiences to expect complexity rather than stereotypes, authenticity rather than exploitation.
The psychological impact on LGBTQ+ viewers created ripple effects that continue today. Viewers who found validation in these films went on to create art, build families, fight for rights, and live openly. The films provided models for resistance, templates for authenticity, and permission to exist unapologetically.
The cultural impact was equally profound. These films shifted the conversation from whether LGBTQ+ people deserved representation to how that representation should evolve. They created space for the explosion of queer cinema that followed, from Brokeback Mountain to Moonlight to The Danish Girl.
Conclusion: The Ongoing Revolution
These 24 films didn’t just entertain; they waged war against invisibility, fought battles against shame, and won victories for authenticity. They transformed movie theaters into battlegrounds, screens into mirrors, and stories into weapons of mass liberation.
The revolution they started continues in every Pride parade, every coming-out conversation, every film that dares to show LGBTQ+ characters as complex, worthy, and fully human. These films proved that visibility is power, that stories can change hearts, and that cinema can be a force for liberation.
For LGBTQ+ viewers who discovered these films in darkened theaters, on late-night television, or through word-of-mouth recommendations, the impact was profound and lasting. These films didn’t just reflect their experiences; they validated their existence, honored their struggles, and celebrated their humanity.
The blood, sweat, and tears that went into making these films—both literally and metaphorically—created a legacy that continues to inspire, challenge, and transform. They remind us that art can be revolutionary, that visibility is political, and that sometimes the most radical act is simply refusing to disappear.
These 24 films blazed a trail through the wilderness of cultural invisibility, creating a path that others could follow. They proved that LGBTQ+ stories weren’t just worth telling; they were essential to telling the complete story of human experience. The revolution they started continues, and their impact will be felt for generations to come.
Citations
Rich, Ruby B. 2013 “New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut“
Turner, K. 2023 “The Queer Film Guide: 100 great movies that tell LGBTQIA+ stories”
Since I blogged about this issue yesterday, and I just finished my second cartoon of the day (for the FXBG Advance, which you’ll see tomorrow), we’re going to talk about some of the fallout of the Elon/Trump War.
Trump is thinking of selling the cherry red Tesla S he bought from Elon to throw some public support and propaganda his way after Tesla’s stock took a huge hit. Since Elon started gutting the government, a lot of Tesla owners have buyer’s remorse and have been selling their cars. Now, Trump has buyer’s remorse.
Presidents can’t drive on public roads, and Trump can’t drive at all. Trump buying a car would be like me buying a helicopter. I can’t fly a helicopter. If anything, Trump should buy Jeffrey Epstein’s plane. That would be more accurate symbolism, especially if what Elon said about the Epstein Files is true.
I’m sure there’s a MAGAt out there with too much money who would overpay for Trump’s Tesla, other wise, the value has dropped about 28 percent, even if it’s slightly used and fart-free (though Trump did sit in it for a minute which is probably long enough for him to blast a few dozen and christen the car. (snip-MORE)
I thought I’d be up super late last night, and planned to watch news coverage of the L.A. protests until the wee hours of the morning. But I felt out of sorts all day yesterday, which infected my cartooning, and sleepiness hit me heavy at 11 p.m. after a dinner of runny egg salad sandwiches (I had to do something with a dozen recently-expired eggs before leaving town Saturday, and I used too much mayo), so I went to bed.
I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, and I was ready to go. But I dreaded turning on my TV. I was afraid I’d find nothing but coverage of deaths and a city burning. But no, I didn’t find any of that. The most disturbing thing I learned was that Lauren Tomasi, a reporter from Australia’s Channel 9 News, was struck by a rubber bullet while she was doing her job. (snip-MORE)
The Advance included a note with my cartoons this morning as it often does, and today’s said:
Mail delivery in our area — indeed, in the Commonwealth — is a problem. Don’t take our word for it. Take former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger’s word for it. Her work uncovered delays galore, and the state consistently rates as one of the worst in the country for mail delivery. So when the downtown post office recently shutdown for, well, whatever reason it was closed for, there was mumbling, but not much of an uproar. Clay certainly noticed, however.
This cartoon was inspired by my own grievances, and it’s the second time the local post office has pissed me off enough to draw a cartoon. Louis DeJoy has inspired others.
The first time was back in December, when they raised the rates to my mailbox and then shut down the branch containing that mailbox. (snip-MORE)
Donald Trump is deploying the National Guard, not to stop riots or for safety, but to start a fight. And he’s doing it illegally.
ICE is conducting raids in the Los Angeles area. They’re not going after criminals, but average citizens who may just so happen to be undocumented. I don’t use the word “illegal” to describe humans unless it’s in the context of someone else using it. Humans are not illegal.
When the National Guard is deployed, it’s usually at the request of a governor or other officials. Yet, neither the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, nor Governor Gavin Newsom has requested military aid, like what happened during the Rodney King riots in 1992.
There has been some violence, such as cars being set on fire and other property damage, but to a small extent. The L.A.P.D. can handle these protests, which are legal.
Governor Newsom said Trump’s decision to call in the National Guard is “purposefully inflammatory.” He’s right.
Trump wants everyone to sit back and allow him to do whatever he wants. Not getting that, he wants a fight. He wants protesters to get violent. He wants L.A. to burn. He wants blood. He wants to point at the city and blame a Democratic mayor and a Democratic governor. He wants to blame liberals and Democrats. He wants to portray himself as the law-and-order president (sic), while he’s the president (sic) who pardoned the white nationalist J6 terrorists who attacked law enforcement. (snip-MORE)
I had to post this one! IIRC, Anne Bonny is in one of our son’s “Badass” books. We bought those for him in his late elementary and middle school years. He’s always loved history, and most tweens/early teens enjoy blue language, so you get both with these books and the website. I’ve read them, and they’re just rollicking fun, and accurate. Anyway, I’ve had a soft spot for Anne Bonny due to her story and her fortitude. And now, for some more history with blue language!
Queer History 133: Anne Bonny by Wendy🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🌈
The Bisexual Buccaneer Who Shattered Every Fucking Chain Read on Substack
The Caribbean sun beats down mercilessly on the deck of the Revenge, its rays catching the glint of steel and the flash of defiant eyes. Blood mingles with salt spray as cutlasses clash, and in the midst of this violent ballet dances a figure that would make the devil himself take notice—Anne Bonny, her red hair whipping like flames in the ocean wind, her blade singing its deadly song as she carves through enemies with the fury of a woman who has never, not once, apologized for who she fucking is.
This is no sanitized fairy tale of pirates and buried treasure. This is the raw, unvarnished truth of a woman who lived as she pleased, loved whom she chose, and fought like hell against every goddamn soul who tried to cage her spirit. Anne Bonny wasn’t just a pirate—she was a revolution wrapped in leather and lace, a middle finger raised to every suffocating convention of her time, and a blazing torch of queer defiance centuries before the world had words for what she represented.
Born around 1697 in County Cork, Ireland, Anne Cormac entered a world that had already decided her fate before she drew her first breath. She was meant to be silent, subservient, and safely tucked away in the shadows of more “important” men. The patriarchal machine had clear expectations: marry young, breed often, and die quietly. But from her earliest days, Anne Bonny grabbed those expectations by the throat and strangled them with her bare hands.
Her father, William Cormac, was a lawyer who had knocked up the family maid—Anne’s mother. In the rigid social hierarchy of 18th-century Ireland, this scandal should have destroyed them all. Instead, Cormac said “fuck it” to respectability, took his lover and bastard daughter, and sailed for the American colonies where they could start fresh. This act of defiance—choosing love over social standing—planted the first seeds of rebellion in young Anne’s soul.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the Cormac family built a new life from scratch. William established a successful law practice and plantation, but it was clear from the start that his daughter was not cut from ordinary cloth. While other girls her age were learning needlepoint and practicing their curtsies, Anne was learning to ride like a demon, shoot like a marksman, and curse like a sailor. She moved through the world with a swagger that made proper ladies clutch their pearls and men wonder if they were seeing things.
The first whispers about Anne’s unconventional nature started early. Servants gossiped about the young mistress who preferred the company of both the stable boys and the parlor maids with equal enthusiasm. They spoke in hushed tones about midnight escapades and passionate encounters that defied easy categorization. Anne Bonny was discovering that her heart and her loins recognized no boundaries when it came to attraction—a revelation that would have sent most people of her era scrambling for the nearest priest, but only made Anne more determined to live authentically.
When Anne was barely out of her teens, she shocked Charleston society by marrying James Bonny, a small-time pirate and fortune hunter who thought he could tame the wild Irish girl and claim her father’s wealth. The poor bastard had no idea what he’d gotten himself into. Anne married him not out of love, but as a means of escape from her father’s increasingly desperate attempts to marry her off to someone “respectable.” It was a calculated move by a young woman who understood that sometimes you have to play the game to change the rules.
James Bonny turned out to be everything Anne despised—weak, grasping, and utterly conventional. While he dreamed of easy money and social climbing, Anne burned with restless energy and unfulfilled desires. Their marriage was a farce from the start, a prison that Anne was already planning to escape before the ink was dry on the wedding certificate.
The couple moved to Nassau in the Bahamas, a lawless pirate haven where conventional morality went to die and freedom could be bought with steel and courage. For James, Nassau represented opportunity for his petty schemes. For Anne, it was liberation incarnate—a place where she could finally breathe freely and explore every aspect of her complex sexuality without the suffocating weight of mainland propriety.
Nassau in the early 1700s was a powder keg of sexual and social revolution. Pirates, prostitutes, escaped slaves, and social outcasts from across the Atlantic world had created a society that operated by its own rules. Gender roles were fluid, sexual boundaries were negotiable, and survival depended on wit, strength, and ruthless determination—qualities Anne possessed in abundance.
It was in this intoxicating atmosphere that Anne first encountered other women who loved women, men who challenged traditional masculinity, and people who refused to be defined by society’s narrow categories. She found herself drawn into passionate affairs with both men and women, sometimes simultaneously, always honestly. While the respectable world would have labeled her a whore or worse, in Nassau she was simply Anne—a woman living life on her own terms.
Her marriage to James became increasingly irrelevant as Anne explored her true nature. She took lovers as she pleased, fought alongside men as an equal, and began to develop the reputation that would make her legendary. Her bisexuality wasn’t a phase or a rebellion—it was simply part of who she was, as natural and integral as her red hair or her fierce temper.
Everything changed when Anne met Captain John “Calico Jack” Rackham. Unlike her pathetic husband, Jack was a real pirate—charming, dangerous, and utterly unintimidated by Anne’s fierce independence. More importantly, he saw her for what she truly was: not a woman to be tamed, but a force of nature to be unleashed. Their affair was passionate, public, and absolutely scandalous by any civilized standard.
But Anne Bonny was never one to do things halfway. When she decided to leave her husband for Calico Jack, she didn’t sneak away in the night like a guilty adulteress. She walked out in broad daylight, her head held high, her hand on her cutlass, daring anyone to try and stop her. When James Bonny appealed to the colonial governor for the return of his “property,” Anne’s response was swift and brutal—she showed up at the governor’s mansion armed to the teeth and made it clear that any attempt to drag her back to her miserable marriage would result in bloodshed.
Joining Calico Jack’s crew aboard the Revenge was the moment Anne Bonny truly came alive. Here, finally, was a life that matched her spirit—dangerous, free, and absolutely uncompromising. She didn’t join as Jack’s woman or as some token female presence. She earned her place with blade and blood, proving herself in combat and command until even the most skeptical pirates acknowledged her as an equal.
The open ocean became Anne’s cathedral, piracy her religion, and freedom her god. She reveled in the violent ballet of ship-to-ship combat, the intoxicating rush of victory, and the democratic brutality of pirate life where respect was earned through courage and cunning rather than birthright or gender. Her bisexuality continued to be an open secret among the crew—she took lovers as she pleased, both male and female, and anyone who had a problem with it could settle the matter with steel.
It was during this period that Anne encountered Mary Read, another woman living as a pirate in male disguise. Their meeting was electric—two fierce women who had refused to accept the limitations society tried to impose on them, finding kinship in the most unlikely of circumstances. While historical records are frustratingly vague about the exact nature of their relationship, the intensity of their bond was undeniable.
Some accounts suggest they were lovers, others insist they were simply close comrades, but the truth is likely more complex and more beautiful than either simple explanation. In Mary Read, Anne found someone who understood the cost of living authentically in a world determined to crush anyone who colored outside the lines. Whether their relationship was romantic, platonic, or something that defied easy categorization, it represented a profound connection between two extraordinary women who refused to be diminished.
The partnership between Anne, Mary, and Calico Jack created one of the most formidable pirate crews in Caribbean history. They terrorized merchant shipping with ruthless efficiency, their reputation spreading fear across the trade routes. But more than their success as pirates, they represented something revolutionary—a chosen family built on mutual respect, shared danger, and absolute loyalty that transcended traditional bonds of blood or marriage.
Anne’s life as a pirate was a masterclass in living without apology. She fought with savage grace, loved with passionate intensity, and commanded respect through sheer force of personality. Her bisexuality wasn’t hidden or apologized for—it was simply part of the complex tapestry of who she was. In an era when women were expected to be passive vessels for male ambition, Anne Bonny was a hurricane given human form.
The psychological impact of Anne Bonny’s defiance cannot be overstated. In a world that sought to define women by their relationships to men—as daughters, wives, mothers, or whores—Anne created her own identity through action and choice. She loved both men and women not as a rejection of heteronormativity (a concept that wouldn’t exist for centuries), but as a natural expression of her authentic self.
Her story resonated through the centuries, whispered in taverns and immortalized in ballads, because it represented something profoundly subversive: the possibility of a life lived entirely on one’s own terms. For generations of LGBTQ+ people struggling against societal expectations and legal persecution, Anne Bonny became an inadvertent patron saint—proof that it was possible to be queer, dangerous, and absolutely unapologetic about both.
The philosophy Anne embodied was simple but revolutionary: authentic living requires the courage to reject false choices. When society insisted she choose between respectability and freedom, she chose freedom. When it demanded she pick between loving men or women, she refused to choose at all. When it tried to cage her spirit in the narrow confines of 18th-century femininity, she exploded those boundaries with cutlass and pistol.
But Anne’s story is also a testament to the brutal costs of living authentically in a hostile world. Her career as a pirate was cut short in 1720 when their ship was captured by pirate hunters. While Calico Jack and most of the male crew were quickly tried and executed, Anne and Mary’s pregnancies bought them temporary reprieve from the gallows.
The trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read became a sensation, not just because of their piracy, but because their very existence challenged fundamental assumptions about gender, sexuality, and power. Court records show that Anne remained defiant to the end, reportedly telling the cowering Calico Jack before his execution: “Sorry to see you there, but if you had fought like a man, you would not have been hanged like a dog.”
Mary Read died in prison, probably from fever, taking with her the secrets of her relationship with Anne and the full story of their extraordinary partnership. Anne’s fate became one of history’s tantalizing mysteries—some accounts suggest she was executed, others claim her father’s influence secured her release, and still others whisper that she simply vanished back into the chaos of the Caribbean to live out her days in obscurity.
The uncertainty surrounding Anne’s ultimate fate is perhaps fitting for a woman who consistently refused to be pinned down or defined by others’ expectations. Like the best outlaws and revolutionaries, she became more powerful as a legend than she ever was as a living person.
For modern LGBTQ+ people, Anne Bonny represents something profoundly important: historical proof that queer people have always existed, have always fought for their right to love and live authentically, and have always found ways to create chosen families and communities even in the most hostile circumstances. Her story demolishes the lie that LGBTQ+ identities are modern inventions or temporary phases—Anne Bonny was living an openly bisexual life in the early 1700s with a confidence and authenticity that would be admirable in any era.
The social impact of Anne Bonny’s legend extended far beyond her own lifetime. Her story became part of the folklore that sustained marginalized communities through centuries of oppression. When LGBTQ+ people were told they were sick, sinful, or unnatural, they could point to figures like Anne Bonny as proof that queer people had always been part of human history—not as victims or cautionary tales, but as heroes and legends.
The psychological effect of having historical figures who lived openly queer lives cannot be understated. For young people struggling with their identity, for adults facing discrimination, for anyone told that their love is wrong or their authentic self is unacceptable, Anne Bonny stands as a reminder that it’s possible to live with courage, dignity, and absolute refusal to apologize for who you are.
Her story also highlights the intersection of multiple forms of oppression and resistance. As a woman in a patriarchal society, as someone who loved both men and women in a heteronormative world, as an Irish person in a British colonial system, Anne faced multiple layers of marginalization. Her response was to reject all attempts at categorization and to create her own path through sheer force of will.
The philosophical legacy of Anne Bonny extends beyond LGBTQ+ rights to encompass broader questions of authenticity, freedom, and the right to self-determination. Her life was a practical demonstration that it’s possible to refuse false choices, to love without limits, and to fight against any force that tries to diminish your humanity.
In our current moment, when LGBTQ+ rights are under attack and bisexual people still face discrimination from both straight and gay communities, Anne Bonny’s story remains urgently relevant. She represents the long history of bisexual people who refused to choose sides, who loved authentically across gender lines, and who demanded recognition as complete human beings rather than confused or indecisive half-measures.
Anne Bonny died as she lived—on her own terms, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire and challenge. She proved that it’s possible to be queer and fierce, that authenticity is worth fighting for, and that love—in all its forms—is the most rebellious act of all. Her cutlass may have fallen silent centuries ago, but her spirit continues to slash through the bonds that try to limit human potential and queer joy.
Every time someone refuses to hide their authentic self, every time someone loves without apology, every time someone chooses freedom over respectability, they’re following in the wake of Anne Bonny’s ship. She remains what she always was—a force of nature, a revolution in human form, and proof that the queer spirit cannot be conquered, only temporarily suppressed before it explodes back into glorious, defiant life.
Citations
Nelson, J. 2004 “The Only Life That Mattered: The Short and Merry Lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack” McBooks Press
Simon R. 2022 “Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read”
Democratic donors are about to spend $20 million on a “strategic plan” called “Speaking with American Men” to figure out their problem with men, and mostly White men. The plan includes “study(ing) the syntax, language, and content that gains attention and virality” in male “spaces.”
I’m non-partisan, but I will offer to help the Democrats figure out their White dude problem for half the price. While I wait for my $10 million check to arrive, I’ll tell you what the Democrats’ problem with men is. Are you ready?
The Democrats’ problem with men is….drumroll please……women.
More specifically, the men of this nation don’t want a woman president. They would rather vote for a mentally unstable racist moron who committed treason against this nation and is a rapist felon.
Democrats lost men when they nominated Hillary Clinton in 2016. It didn’t matter that she was a hundred times more qualified for the presidency than a mouth-breathing, Putin-controlled, knuckle-dragging gameshow host with a bleached skunk for a combover. The Democratic Party had a better candidate, a better campaign, a better message, and more money, but America’s men said, “Nope! She cackles.”
Then the Democrats nominated Joe Biden in 2020, whose only exciting feature is that he wasn’t Donald Trump. Honestly, that’s what got me excited.
And last year, Trump won again when the Democrats didn’t just nominate a woman, but a Black woman. Even the percentage of Black male voters dropped.
Women’s support for Kamala Harris was at the same level that they supported Joe Biden in 2020, but the share of men backing Democrats dropped from 48 percent in 2020 to 42 percent in 2024. (snip-MORE; hang with it)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that the USNS Harvey Milk, a ship in the US Navy, be renamed. The ship is named after the Navy veteran of the Korean War and San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978.
Hegseth’s office issued a very brief statement, saying, “Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. “Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”
Other ships the bigoted regime is looking to rename include USNS Thurgood Marshall, the USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the USNS Harriet Tubman, the USNS Dolores Huerta, the USNS Cesar Chavez, the USNS Lucy Stone, and the USNS Medgar Evers.
Honestly, I’m shocked this fascist gaslighting racist regime isn’t renaming every ship after Trump.
Nancy Pelosi said, “This spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos. Instead, it is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.” (snip-MORE)
Before we get too giddy about this, remember that once upon a time, Kim Jong Un called Donald Trump a “dotard.” At any time, Trump and Elon can kiss and make up, gaslight the entire GOP into believing this feud never happened, and Trump will get mad at reporters for bringing it up, like the TACO, which is another thing Trump keeps changing his mind on.
And as my pal Rob said, Trump knows that deep down, Elon has $400 billion. Well, maybe not now after dancing around with Trump and destroying his credibility. And his feud with Trump has reportedly dropped shares of Tesla to the point that Elon has lost around $27 billion.
But Trump Always Chickens Out. T.A.C.O.
Who could have predicted that this love affair between two narcissistic, stubborn, racist, bullheaded billionaires was going to collapse in such sensational fashion? Everyone who is not a MAGAt. So, how did this start? Elon called the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” calling it a “disgusting abomination.” I guess he felt free to say that after he “left” DOGE to re-focus on his businesses. What does Stephen Miller’s wife think of all this? Who wants to hear that pillow talk? (snip-MORE)
Scottie's Playtime 