Syrinx is an AI-driven wearable device that returns human speech and, with it, human dignity. Spring 2022 Stanford Social Innovation Review Syrinx is a 3D-printed electrolarynx device that is worn around the neck and creates vibrations to replicate speech. (Photo courtesy of Syrinx) Speech is a right, not a privilege” is innovators’ mission guiding Syrinx, a new electrolarynx (EL) device that uses machine learning to recreate speech and vocal patterns to return voices to peo

February 23, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News The Supreme Court. (Photo: Scott Drake) The U.S. Supreme Court decided February 22 to hear an appeal from a Colorado web designer. Lorie Smith, who objects to providing services for same-sex couples. At issue is the question of personal religious freedom versus laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Tenth Circuit Court previously ruled against Smith in August 2021. The specific question the justices agreed

February 23, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News Audre Lorde is one of the principal lesbian writers of the 20th century and one of the most dominant Black female voices. Self-described as “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Lorde’s work is singular in its breadth and vision. A feminist scholar and theorist as well as a poet and essayist, her work spans more than four decades from her first publication at 17 until her death from metastatic breast cancer at 58. Lorde’s oeuvre spa

February 22, 2022 Bay Area Reporter Canada's women's ice hockey team celebrates with their gold medals. (Source: Global News) Beijing 2022 was the best Winter Olympics and the worst all at once. It was the queerest Winter games ever, with a lot of out lesbians, some out gay men, the first nonbinary competitor and queer medalists galore. But it was still in Beijing, and China has been brutal on LGBTQ people and elided news of competitors from any state coverage. In addition,

February 16, 2022 The Philadelphia Gay News The media mantra is relentless: It’s time to get back to “normal.” The surge in COVID cases wrought by the super-transmissible Omicron variant, which saw as many as a million new cases each day in January and more hospitalizations and deaths than at any point in the pandemic, is waning. In the past two weeks there are fewer new cases (about 220,000 daily) and hospitalizations are fewer in some states, though deaths continue to hove

February 16, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News Russian Justice Ministry seeks to “liquidate” LGBT organization As Russia encroaches on Ukraine and causes a furor at the Olympics over doping, at home, the government continues to attack LGBTQ people. According to Human Rights Watch, Russia’s Justice Ministry has filed a lawsuit seeking to “liquidate” Sphere Foundation, the legal name under which the Russian LGBT Network operates. The Russian LGBT Network is a non-governmental LGBT ri

February 16, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News Illustration by Ash Cheshire James Baldwin, one of the most famous gay writers in America, said “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” Quotes from Baldwin are endemic — particularly now as liberal white America struggles to wake up yet again to Black oppression and systemic racism. But for many, Baldwin’s explosive language about racism and his unflinching discourse on the politics of race are as uns

February 9, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News The front and back cover of the June 1966 edition of “The Ladder.” (Photo via LGBTQ Nation.) She is the only Black woman in Kay Lahausen’s famous 1965 photograph of the first gay and lesbian picket line in front of the White House. She carried a sign that read, “Denial of Equality of Opportunity is Immoral.” Her name is Ernestine Eckstein. A year after the White House picket, Eckstein was the first Black woman to be on the cover of the

February 9, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News President Biden tweeted his opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” laws recently passed in Florida. The White House doesn’t tweet much on Tuesday nights when most Americans are eating dinner, watching TV and helping the kids with homework. But on February 8 at 6:00 p.m., the White House’s official Twitter account wrote, “Today, conservative politicians in Florida advanced legislation designed to attack LGBTQI+ kids. Instead of making growing

February 8, 2022 Bay Area Reporter Speed skater Erin Jackson (Source: NBC Sports) The Beijing Olympics 2022 are giving us such "how out of shape are we?" vibes while also being incredibly exciting. There we were at 4am watching the skiathlon, which has to be the most grueling thing we've ever witnessed. American Jesse Diggins came in sixth, which sounds like she was way behind, but there was a crush of five women together and all of them grew up in the Alps or Scandinavia ex

February 2, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News On February 1, actress and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg was suspended for two weeks from her job at the long-running talk show, “The View,” over remarks she made about the Holocaust on the January 31 show and later that night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Goldberg said repeatedly “The Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race.” As her co-hosts on “The View” argued back, seemingly stunned, Goldberg continued, insis

February 2, 2022 QueerFofty.com Greg Herren is one of America’s most prolific gay male writers. Not surprisingly, he spent his pandemic writing. His two new books have very different but highly provocative themes. Herren sat down with Queer Forty to talk about those books, turning 60 in a pandemic, the politics of reading in a time of GOP book banning and breaking ground to make a path for other writers. If you Google Greg Herren, the first thing you’ll see is a bright splas

February 2, 2022 Philadelphia Gay News There are stories nearly every day now from somewhere in the U.S. Schools and libraries are banning books. School boards are debating what books can be allowed in classrooms. This past week it was Mississippi, Arizona, and Tennessee. The template is Texas, where parents and others can report books that should be pulled from the shelves for content — notably LGBT+ and racial content. Some of these book banning stories are local, others a