Hello, and welcome to this edition of the LGBTQ+ Art segment! With the recent announcement of a cis, straight queen being cast on season fourteen of RuPaul's Drag Race, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little about how this impacts the community and pose the question of whether or not LGBTQ+ art spaces should be open to cis, straight allies.

It's undeniable that Drag Race has shaped the landscape of the queer community over the last few years, whether we like it or not. It's brought LGBTQ+ stories and art to a mainstream, worldwide audience and has quickly grown into an absolute phenomenon. However, there was always the caveat that it was by the LGBTQ+ community, for the LGBTQ+ community, first and foremost. With the casting of a cis, straight contestant for the first time, the show has forever been opened up to allies and this has caused a heated debate within the fandom and the community as a whole.

I will say that, personally, I believe drag is for everyone. In my opinion, a show which aims to find the best and most well-rounded drag performers in the country should be open to any and all participants, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or any other qualitative factor. However, it's understandable why people are concerned by this casting decision. Historically, LGBTQ+ individuals have had to fight for spots in the media, and have had very little good and fair representation. The inclusion of a cis, straight individual does, in a way, take a spot away in the competition for an LGBTQ+ individual, and the possibility of the show opening up to include more allies in the future is concerning to many.

That being said, I think it's important to take a step back and look at a slightly bigger picture. Drag Race has been going since 2009, and in that time (across all international franchises, not including All Stars) there have been 309 individual contestants. That's a hell of a lot of much-needed representation and exposure for LGBTQ+ individuals, and at the present time, one cis, straight contestant among all of those isn't going to invalidate any of the positive differences the show has already made. As much as some people want to bury their heads in the sand at the thought of it, allies have always and will always be part of LGBTQ+ spaces, and I actually think it's about time the show reflects as fully of an accurate picture of the outside world as possible.

While the show has made positive steps forward with regards to trans+ inclusion this year, there is still a long way to go with ensuring a diverse variety of performers are included in each series. Particularly in the United States, trans+ performers are the backbone of drag culture, and many queens from the show have stated this and openly supported the push to get more representation in casting, in that regard. Cis, straight queens exist in LGBTQ+ spaces too, so why don't they deserve fair representation as well?

Whatever your opinion or feelings are on the matter, the fact is that the casting has already been done, and so at this point, the right thing to do is to support the individual and not contribute to the hate and negativity that's absolutely being sent her way right about now. We shouldn't tear someone down simply for representing themselves, mainstream media does that enough for us anyway. Thank you for your time.

Welcome back to another edition of LGBTQ+ News, where we tell you about recent developments and issues relating to the LGBTQ+ community. This month, there have been several new laws that were passed in support of the community, so I figured it best to give you a summary of what has happened around the world.

Our first piece of news comes from New Zealand, where the "self-ID bill for trans people" was passed after first being introduced back in 2018. This new law now removes the requirement for a determination of gender identity to be backed by documentation from a medical professional in order to change someone's birth certificate or other official documents. To sum it up, this means that someone trying to change their assigned gender on their birth certificate can now do so without anyone else being able to interfere and make the choice for them, such as the courts, their parents, or medical professionals who may not even know them. Now that the bill has passed, it will take eighteen months until it goes into effect, during which time the New Zealand government will be consulting with the trans community and others in order to ensure that the legislation works properly for the people who it concerns.

The second news story that I would like to present to you this month comes from the European Union. The European Court of Justice (CJEU) has ruled that same-sex parents and their children must be recognized as a family in all member states of the European Union in order to ensure the child's right to free movement. This court case came as a result of the refusal of the Bulgarian authorities to provide a birth certificate to the new-born daughter of a same-sex couple on the basis that "a child cannot have two mothers". One of the issues in this family's case was that the daughter, Sara, was born in Spain in 2019 to her mothers, Bulgarian Kalina Ivanova and British Gibraltar-born Jane Jones. As Spain does not provide automatic citizenship to children born in the country when neither of their parents are of Spanish descent, and Jones cannot transfer her British citizenship to her daughter as she was born in Gibraltar herself, Ivanova requested the Bulgarian citizenship for Sara. However, her request was denied as Bulgaria does not legally recognize same-sex marriages and partnerships. With this denial of providing citizenship, daughter Sara was now at risk of statelessness, which would mean that without a citizenship, she would be unable to leave her family's country of residence, Spain. Additionally, she would also have no official personal documents, which, in turn, would limit her access to education, healthcare, and social security. Thanks to this new ruling by the CJEU, Bulgarian authorities are now required to provide Sara with a birth certificate, as well as a Bulgarian passport and further official documents.

Finally, I have a third positive news story that I would like to share with all of you. This one comes from Chile, where a new same-sex marriage bill passed in the beginning of December will allow same-sex couples to get married in Chile starting on March 10th, 2022. With Chile legalizing same-sex marriage, this means that same-sex marriage has now been legalized in thirty countries - with hopefully many more to come in the near future. Chile had previously allowed for civil unions between couples of any gender composition, however, civil unions did not have the same rights as a marriage. Only in June 2021 did the Chilean president announced that his government would sponsor the bill to legalize same-sex marriage, so it is refreshing to see that the process can go rather quickly (only six months since the announcement until the passing of the bill), which will hopefully pave the way in other countries to pass similar laws in a short amount of time.

That's it for this month's news segment. Hopefully there will be even more good news like these in 2022. See you all then!