Irene Monroe

African-American ministers have come out for, and against, Obama's stance on marriage equality.

LGBTQ activists of African descent have pondered what would be the catalyst to rally those African-American Christian ministers to support same-sex marriage and engage the black community in a nationwide discussion.

Last week the answer arrived in...

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, likes to play it safe. Romney avoids controversy, by any means necessary, even if he has to lie, flip-flop, or somersault.

When the news hit on the evening of April 19 that Richard Grenell, an openly gay Republican, had been appointed to be...

If you love John Grisham's fictional legal thrillers, you'll be riveted to Dale Carpenter's nonfiction page-turner Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas. Carpenter is a law professor at the University of Minnesota and is involved with LGBTQ legal issues.

Told from the perspectives of the plaintiffs,...

While President Obama's attitude concerning same-sex marriage is "evolving," and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's attitude is an unequivocal denouncement, the American people seem to be moving solidly toward an acceptance of marriage equality. Both Obama and Romney need to get with the program.

Simply put: in the last presidential election...

This month around the country, LGBTQ communities are celebrating Bayard Rustin's 100th birthday anniversary. Next month, AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts will have their annual Bayard Rustin Breakfast, and last month, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association awarded State of the Re:Union, a nationally aired radio show distributed by...

Cleo Manago is despised by some in the LGBTQ community. Descriptors like "homo demagogue," contrarian, separatist, and anti-white are just a few that can be expressed in polite company. But to a nationwide community of same-gender-loving (SGL), bisexual, transgender, and progressive heterosexual African-American men, Manago is the man, seen as...

Robert Champion, Jr.'s murder may never be solved. Those who struck the fatal blows may never disclose whether they used the guise of hazing and accidental homicide to cover up an intended hate crime.

Champion was an unusual student to attend Florida A&M University (FAMU), one of the...

Today is MLK Day, and I am proud to count myself among the many people working for social justice today who stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Too many people think King's statements regarding justice are only about race and the African-American community, thus excluding the LGBTQ...

Seldom do I see my image anywhere, and certainly not portrayed in non-stereotypical and non-heterosexist ways on the silver screen. As a matter of fact, if you Google "black lesbians" or "black lesbians in film," you'll get a plethora of porn sites to visit.

But writer-director Dee Rees' semi-autobiographical coming-of-age...

Just last month, Gay Black Men News (GBMNews.com) folded. It was a unique, online e-zine because it brought a perspective of the news as it related specifically to gay men of African descent.

And its circulation was global.

"We are blessed with a large following of avant-garde,...

Homophobia runs deep!

So deep that it also impinges on the animal world.

Toronto's zoo is splitting up a pair of same-gender penguins. These "Happy Feet" males, Pedro and Buddy -- jokingly referred to as "Brokeback Iceberg" -- have been nesting with each other for a year.

The reason...

Gays on television today is nothing new.

And we can thank Ellen DeGeneres' watershed moment in April 1997 when she came out on her sitcom Ellen.

Today's openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) television personalities are Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Lynch, Rachel Maddow, and Rosie O'Donnell, to...

It's not easy for any person of African descent to be LGBTQ in our black communities, but our transgender brothers and sisters might feel the most discrimination.

The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), in collaboration with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality...

Halloween is America's gay holiday.

In the words of the lesbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn, Halloween is "the great gay holiday."

And this weekend of lavish costumed theatricality will attract everyone, but especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) revelers.

Back in the day Halloween, the night before...

Southwest Airlines has issues.

And those customer issues, on any given day or flight, appear arbitrary.

For example, little did Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer and guitarist for the punk rock band Green Day, know that flying while wearing saggy pants could get you evicted from a Southwest...

In a supposedly post-racial society, one would think that the n-word was buried and long gone with it troubled eras of race relations in this country.

But as American novelist William Faulkner wrote in his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun, "The past is never dead. It's not even...

One minute past the stroke of midnight on Sept. 20, the long-awaited repeal of President Bill Clinton's 1993 "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy went into effect.

At precisely 12:01 a.m. EST, the popping of champagne bottles began along with cheers and tears celebrating the end of a repressive era...

In the African American community, we desperately need public role models denouncing anti-homophobic bullying, vitriol, and discrimination.

Since too few role models come from the Black church, many of us lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) brothers and sisters of African descent look to black role models, especially males,...

As the only child of world-renowned pop duo Sonny and Cher Bono, many of us remember Chaz as their cherub-faced daughter Chastity, blowing kisses to the audience of her parents' top-rated variety television show "Sonny & Cher."

In 1995, Chaz came out as a lesbian after years of tabloid...

If you are "chomping at the bit" for down-to-earth Jersey girl Dana Owens a.k.a reigning Hip-hop's Queen Latifah to come out of her open closet, don't hold your breath.

If, however, you've derived pleasure from Queen Latifah's unintended "Gotcha!" moments of being outed -- and there are many -- so,...