Is look back gay

On training, racing, and growing as a gay runner

Distance runners are weird.

Anyone who ends up on a starting line in a pair of clunky cross-country spikes with an oversized singlet hanging off their knobby shoulder probably didn’t get there because they were the coolest kid in school and everything came naturally to them. More often than not, high school track and cross-country teams are made up of misfits and nerds whose parents don’t want them home before 5 but who can’t sink a free cast to save their lives.

But once the gun goes off, the clock doesn’t discriminate. No matter how tall or short or charming or handsome you are, the race is the same distance for everyone and the winner is whoever crosses the finish line first. Talent and circumstance play some undefined role, but for the most part, the tools for improvement and, ultimately, achievement, are in our own hands. You can run more, instruct smarter, try harder, and (for most people most of the time) you will get better.

This is a concept I reflect we are all instinctively protective of – it’s why we react so viscerally to doping allegations or nation-switching, against altitude tents and magical marathon shoes. We

Published: June 7, 2024

For 30 years, the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity (not always its name) has served Duke University’s Diverse community. Its creation is just one of the ways that the university has supported gender diversity over the years.

In 1994, Duke became one of the first Southern employers to make benefits free to same-sex partners. In 1996, John Howard was hired as the first director of the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, which was then known as Center for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual person Life. And in 2000, 15 years before homosexual marriage was legalized on the federal level, the university began allowing same-sex commitment ceremonies in its iconic chapel.

By 2006, Duke was named one of the top 20 institutions for lesbian, queer , bisexual and transgender students in "The Advocate College guide for LGBT Students," a book that features the 100 most LGBT-friendly campuses across the nation.

And in 2007, Duke updated its nondiscrimination policy to include gender identity. This story, “Out at Work,” provides some history and context behind the climate of inclusion for Duke’s LGBTQ workforce.

That’s not to say Duke has always been a mecca for the L

The Wilde '82 History Conference, the first North American history conference dedicated to the recovery of LGBTQ2S+ histories, took place June 30 to July 3, 1982 at Toronto Metropolitan University, then known as Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. It marked TMU as an early site of gay and female homosexual resistance. The event brought together gay and queer woman theorists and historians from across North America to share research on the LGBTQ2S+ community.

“Wilde '82 was one of the earliest manifestations of collective homosexual and lesbian studies,” says English professor Craig Jennex who is developing a digital exhibit about the conference in collaboration with fellow English professor Jason Boyd and the Centre for Digital Humanities (CDH) at TMU, slated to launch in 2023.

Conference presenters were critical in the development of queer studies as an academic discipline. Topics covered shared a common theme of queer identity as culturally constructed.

Papers like “The Making of the Modern Homosexual,” “Where Gay People Come From” and “The Invention of the Homosexual” all center on how the way we classify and categorize sexuality is not innate or naturally occurr

With films like Red, Alabaster , and Royal Blue, Happiest Season, and Love, Simon coming out in recent years, it can be hard to think about the fact that less than a century ago queer movie characters were nearly impossible to appear by. And when they were included, they received far from a dazzling portrayal. Even the list of out actors has only been increasing (Neil Patrick Harris, Elliot Page, Kristen Stewart, and Cate Blanchett to name a few). So why hasn’t representation, particularly in the United States, always looked like this and what led up to the changing cinematic landscape we benefit from today?

1920s -1940s The Great Depression, The Hays Code, and Planet Wars

The portrayal of homosexual characters in movies, earlier on referred to as “homosexuals”, directly correlates to the public’s acceptance of queer individuals throughout American history. As society became more tolerant (and eventually more accepting) of gay people, cinema was allowed to reflect that maturation and also often encouraged it. Likewise, the consumers’ interest in certain production genres influenced Hollywood’s decisions to create more “deviant” or “m