What did Donald Trump's return to the White House make loud and clear? White votes are more important than all other votes. No other voting block has the power to return a candidate to the highest office in the land after they attempted to overthrow the government, were convicted of a crime, and paid a pornstar to keep an affair on the down low. And that’s not the half of it. On November 6, we could not look away. We had to see white supremacy (politician, billionaire, voters, the political system) in all of its hory glory. 

An adequate analysis of the presidential election must begin with the fact that the US's dominant ideological state apparatuses preserved the eligibility of a candidate who was, by all accounts, ineligible. Progressives and socialists, however, will do everything possible to ignore this primary fact. Why? Because doing so makes it impossible to see November 5 as anything other than a catastrophe of the first order. The hope here is that something is redeemable; and the greatest fear is: nothing's redeemable. The former feeling is, ultimately, comforting; the latter is not. The former finds some signs of life in the data that shows Trump gained more votes from Blacks, Latinos, and what have you in 2024; the latter, sees nothing but a black hole that's sucked in all that's left of American democracy. 

One might point to the Watergate scandal, which resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, as support for the conclusion that Trump’s reelection expresses the general erosion of American democracy rather than a fixation with and privileging of the white vote. But I would counter that with this conclusion: the white vote was almost unchallenged in the early 1970s and so was in a state of confidence. Of 150 million registered voters in 1972, only 20 million (13%)  were Black and Hispanic. Indeed, it shrank from “85% in 1996 to 69% [in 2020].” The GOP was sharply aware of this decline, which is why it turned to George W. Bush in 2000. 

W was actually called a “compassionate conservative [see the pic of him hugging a Black woman]” and with good reason. His program was to reduce the GOP’s dependence on white voters. This was the vision at the heart of his “ownership society” policy and the apparent diversity of his cabinet. When this program was registered as a disaster in 2008 (America sent a Black man to the White House), Bush’s de-racialization program effectively collapsed, and the GOP retreated to the white vote, which was still weakening. What to do? 1) Repress votes and, 2) make a complete break with democracy. October 6 did not become a Watergate because the white vote is facing an existential crisis today it did not exist in 1972.  

Today on Wall Street 12/10/2024:

Walgreens $WBA is in advanced talks with private-equity firm Sycamore Partners to sell itself, marking a potential shift for the iconic pharmacy chain after years of declining market value. Once valued at over $100 billion in 2015, Walgreens now… pic.twitter.com/HtaC0UjJ7N

— Street Chatter (@Street_Chatter) December 10, 2024

So what to do?

Not long ago, I was in a Walgreens (I'll not name the location) and waiting to buy some over-the-counter thing to help me sleep. In front of me were two male boomers being served by two young women. One of the young women realized that her old man was being ripped off. He did not have to pay so much for his drugs. He could save lots of money if he just did such and such. The other young woman was a bit sullen. She said nothing to her old man. And as a consequence, received, while ringing up his items, this sharp criticism: "You are not very friendly." This was, apparently, more than the young woman could handle. She took a step back, covered her mouth, and began crying. The old man's face went blank. The young woman collapsed on the floor and continued balling. I decided to not buy anything and walked out of the Walgreens. 

I see our present moment in American politics in this Walgreen drama. Some of us are trying to be helpful, trying to be hopeful, trying to convince ourselves that collaboration is possible with this new administration; others are seeing Trump's return to the White House for exactly what it is: an institutional catastrophe from which nothing can be recovered. But if you do not accept this fact, and if you refuse to see the US for what it is today (only white votes matter), and do not feel the real pain of this fact, we will, as a society, go nowhere. We will make no progress. We will  remain exactly where we are now. 

Nevertheless, we have been here before, been at the point of an extraordinary national crisis, and were presented with a solution that would have worked back then as it would today. The solution came from the White House, from Jimmy Carter. It is in the middle of his “Malaise Speech,” which he delivered in the midst of energy/inflation crisis (July 15, 1979): 

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us.”

What Carter was calling for here was nothing but a profound transformation of American culture. And though his speech concerned American materialism, it addressed the same culture that couldn’t, 40 years later, punish Trump for inciting violence in an attempt to maintain power illegally.  Carter, who was popular with Black Americans, came closer than any other modern American president to saying it like it is: We really need a reevaluation of our values.  And what did the US do? Laugh him out of the White House. RIP, you peanut farmer. 

This story was originally published in Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ focused investigative news outlet.

James Cantor grew up as a drama kid on Long Island, N.Y., where he served as the president of a student-run theater company in college. “I do enjoy the stage, I enjoy the music,” he says. “If I could sing, I'd be on Broadway.” 

Cantor never made it to Broadway, but on the morning of May 5, 2022, he found himself outside an Alabama courtroom preparing to play the very real role of an expert medical witness in Boe v. Marshall, a district court case challenging Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act, a law which bans gender affirming healthcare for transgender youth.

How the courts ultimately resolve the case will have intense consequences for the children involved. But in an interview with Uncloseted Media, Cantor spoke about feeling like a character playing a role. He says he has “just the right amount of age, gray hair, a bit of an accent,” to make him look like Central Casting’s idea of a medical expert.

Cantor is not a medical doctor, but rather a psychologist and sexologist whose work has primarily focused on pedophilia, as well as kink and BDSM. He has drawn controversy for his beliefs, including advocating for the addition of “P” for pedophilia to the LGBTQ acronym and for the legalization of child-like sex dolls. He identifies as gay, and lives in Toronto. 

Although he has testified under oath that he has never treated a single transgender child, he wrote a report in 2019 criticizing the American Academy of Pediatrics for endorsing gender-affirming care for minors. In court, he often cites his proximity to former colleagues like Ray Blanchard, whose theories about transgender women have been widely criticized; and Kenneth Zucker, whose clinic closed after accusations that it was performing conversion therapy on trans kids.

Cantor says his perspective on trans issues made him “marketable” to America’s conservative movement. That’s one reason he believes he was first hired in 2021 by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the self-described Christian legal group that is famous for opposing marriage equality, favoring conversion therapy and defending laws that prohibit sodomy.  

Cantor isn’t an unusual case. Rather, he’s part of a slew of doctors and psychologists who are hired by ADF and other far-right organizations and politicians to defend trans healthcare bans in court. For example, there’s Paul McHugh, who favored shutting down the first gender-affirming surgery clinic in the U.S. in 1979; and Michael Laidlaw, who does not specialize in gender-affirming medical care, but has stated in leaked emails that his ultimate goal is “to make sure that the Endocrine Society is embarrassed, publicly humiliated, and sued mercilessly” for supporting trans healthcare. These expert witnesses often have little to no experience in the field of trans healthcare, and often base their testimony on unsound science.

In an email to Uncloseted Media, Laidlaw said he had “no comment.” McHugh did not respond. 

“The ADF is smart,” says Heidi Beirich, the co-founder and chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “They understand they’ve got to create their own experts because what they believe is not in line with commonly accepted science,” she says. The organization hires people who don’t have specific expertise regarding trans healthcare, but rather agree with an ideology as it relates to transgender people. 

ADF is one of the most vigorous supporters of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills sweeping through state legislatures right now, 78 of which would restrict or ban access to healthcare for transgender youth. 

ADF was founded in 1993 by Alan Sears, who co-authored “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.”  In 2016 it was designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Over the last decade, ADF, with revenue of nearly $102 million according to its 2023 990 tax return, has promoted experts like Cantor to help argue their cases. 

Harnessing pseudoscience has long been a tactic of conservative movements, from arguing that Black people feel less pain to claiming that kids with same-sex parents are more likely to struggle later in life. “The far right, and particularly the anti-LGBTQ movement, have been perfecting this model for decades,” says R.G. Cravens, a political science professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. 

Cantor’s role in many of these cases—including Alabama’s Boe v. Marshall—is to provide scientific expertise in support of state laws which ban trans kids' access to gender affirming healthcare, which includes access to puberty blockers and hormones. The laws also ban gender-affirming bottom surgery, which is almost never performed on minors, and top surgery, which is performed in very rare cases on minors aged 15 and older. 

After ADF hired Cantor as an expert witness on a trans-focused lawsuit in Kentucky, he says he was invited to ADF conferences where he spoke to hundreds of people—including  politicians and lawmakers from Attorney Generals’ offices—about his perspectives on gender affirming healthcare and other trans issues. While he wasn’t paid for his speeches, Cantor says it was worth it “for the networking with the people in the audience.” 

These appearances paid off. Since 2021, he has been hired by more than ten state Attorney Generals to serve as an expert witness in dozens of cases that focus on trans issues. He’s been flown from Canada to testify in West Virginia, Tennessee, Idaho, and beyond. 

“ADF is quite clever with this, because by getting the AGs to take these issues up, they’re even further in the background,” says Beirich. “It makes the cases look more legitimate, because they’re coming from an attorney general at the state level.”

ADF did not respond to a request for comment. 

Cantor, a self-described “loudmouth New Yorker theater Queen,” compares his testimony  to Marisa Tomei’s feisty character in “My Cousin Vinny,” and references “Ally McBeal” and musical comedy “Schmigadoon!” 

“The first time I was going in court, we were just laughing,” says Cantor. “It was just teasing about how I love being a performer on stage, enjoying an audience, and here I’m doing it in a courtroom.”

Cantor says he makes $400 an hour, which has garnered him a salary around $150,000 a year—enough for him to mostly shut down his private practice in Toronto. 

“It’s just dumb luck on my part,” he says, referencing the opportunities to testify in these cases. 

In the Alabama case, the state spent nearly a million dollars on lawyers and more than $500,000 on expert witnesses like Cantor. These are taxpayer dollars. Multiple experts received $75,000 contracts for their testimony. 

Gender-affirming healthcare for adolescents has been endorsed by the leading U.S.-based healthcare organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association 

“I am certainly not saying that this isn’t a complicated issue and that there aren’t legitimate medical discussions to be had, but what ADF is doing is stacking the deck with junk science,” says Beirich. “Their goals are not to have a sophisticated conversation about gender transitioning care. Their goal is to pass terrible punishing laws that hurt trans kids and their families.”

In addition to hiring experts like Cantor, ADF has commissioned notoriously anti-LGBTQ groups to produce studies which they use to oppose gender-affirming healthcare. 

In a leaked email from 2014, they asked the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds)—also a Southern Poverty Law Center designated anti-LGBTQ hate group that was formed in 2002 in an effort to stop gay couples from being able to adopt children—to produce research “written in a manner that the general public can easily digest” that can “substantiate the psychological harm that can befall both sexes (but girls/women especially) by having their right to bodily privacy invaded by males,” and “that it is normal during adolescence for children to go through a phase when they identify (to some degree) with the opposite sex.” 

They also requested a paper that shows that “those who have undergone hormone therapy and genital change surgery… are no happier even though they took these drastic measures.” 

“This isn’t science, this is an agenda,” says Beirich. “In science you hypothesize about things and you test them with an open mind, whatever the outcome is.”

The ACPeds did not respond to Uncloseted Media's request for comment. 

According to a 2023 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center assessing anti-LGBTQ pseudoscience, much of the research cited by these expert witnesses was written by the same small network of scientists, including Cantor and numerous members of the American College of Pediatricians and other SPLC designated anti-trans groups.

"These groups have intentionally sounding scientific names as an effort to try to make sure that they're able to disguise the ideology that motivates them," says Cravens, the California Polytechnic professor and editor of the SPLC’s report. 

Many studies cited to prove that most trans youth eventually stop being trans were based on data collected as early as the 1970s, which often include participants who were not confirmed by the researchers to actually be trans in the first place. The report also found that half of the most commonly cited papers by expert witnesses testifying in favor of these laws were not primary studies but rather commentaries, editorials, narrative reviews, or perspective pieces. “While such output is an important part of the scientific record,” the report explained, “it should nevertheless not be conflated with studies or systematic reviews, as these forms of contribution typically represent the subjective (however informed) positions of their authorship.”

“It was amazing to us how frequently letters to the editor of scientific journals showed up in case briefings,” says Cravens. “Members of this anti-LGBTQ network will write a letter to the editor of another scientific journal and it’s basically a statement of their opinion. It has nothing to do with scientifically proven evidence.” 

One of the more commonly-cited sources, for example, is a six-page criticism of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy on trans healthcare, written by Cantor himself, which cites only two studies and was initially published on Cantor’s personal blog. Another is a 2018 study that suggests kids develop a trans identity through so-called “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria,” where they become trans by being exposed to trans people online. The study has been widely criticized for being largely based on interviews with parents contacted through anti-trans websites. “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” has been widely discredited by mainstream scientists, and the paper’s publisher has since issued corrections to some of its conclusions. 

“They were recruiting people from websites that were basically parents not wanting their kids to be trans,” Cravens said. “When you go looking for an answer, you're probably going to find it.”

In spite of this, Cantor still firmly believes in this research. 

“We have five percent of the entire population [who are transgender] which came out of nowhere when smartphones were invented,” he says. “They are not trans, they just hate their own bodies.” 

Cantor says he was personally advised by his ADF “trainer” on how to testify effectively. One of their key tips was to focus on casting doubt on the opposing expert witnesses’ testimony, rather than trying to convince the judge.

“It’s really probably not going to happen that the judge listens to me and decides, ‘Oh, that’s the scientifically superior argument,’” says Cantor. “Usually, it just boils down to experts on the one side, experts on the other side, and everyone else knows they don’t know. So really, the job is to tie myself up with dynamite and throw myself on the other expert and neutralize us both.”

This scientific manipulation is one of the key components—alongside testimonials from detransitioners—of a legal strategy which has brought ADF much success. After over a year of legal battles, a federal judge allowed the state of Alabama to enforce its Vulnerable Child Protection Act. While LGBTQ advocates have continued to appeal this decision, the law has been in effect since August 2023.

Cantor is still very active. Two months ago, he testified in favor of an Ohio law that bans gender-affirming healthcare for kids and prohibits transgender athletes from competing in girls sports. The state—and Cantor—won that case at the trial court as well, though the ACLU says they plan to appeal the decision. 

And while countless Ohio youth lost access to what many scientists describe as critical healthcare, Cantor still got to enjoy the spotlight.

“In Ohio, there was a television camera for the news at the courtroom. The next day on social media, all I kept hearing was what a good hair day I was having.”

This story has been edited since its original publication in Uncloseted Media.

It's the beginning of a new week and the world is your oyster with events from Life Be Lifin' Starring Monét X Change to Joel Kim Booster: Rude Little Pig and from Diving the Great Barrier Reef: National Geographic Live to Nate Jackson: Special Taping. Check out our January events guide for a glance at the rest of the month.

TUESDAY

CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

"How to Winter" Workshop with Dr. Kari Leibowitz
January is when the reality of winter really starts to set in: Most major holidays (and opportunities for presents and gorging ourselves) are out of the way, and now we're staring into a gray, drizzly abyss. When combined with the pressure to be extra hard on ourselves in the form of stringent resolutions, January seems straight-up hellish. Never fear, though: Health psychologist Kari Leibowitz, PhD has some strategies to share. Curl up for this virtual workshop on "how to winter," which will use exercises and evidence-based practices to "help participants learn how to cultivate a more positive wintertime mindset." For extra feel-good energy, I suggest heading to the National Nordic Museum in person to spend some time in Fischersund Art Collective's scented exhibition. LINDSAY COSTELLO
(National Nordic Museum, Ballard)

Science Rules: Seattle's second biggest celebrity, Bill Nye the Science Guy, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom over the weekend. Nye started his career as a Boeing engineer, but made a huge pivot to star in Seattle's sketch comedy Almost Live! and developed the "Science Guy" brand. He became a household name and a classroom favorite as the star of the children's science show. Now, Nye advocates for climate and environmental policy. He was one of 19 people who Biden bestowed the award upon on Saturday.

Ugh, it's January 6 again. It’s been four years since President Donald Trump tried to incite an insurrection at the Capitol. This time around, on January 6, Donald Trump's election win will be certified by Congress. Yep, he won the election despite allegedly inciting a riot the last time Congress US presidential election and the winner wasn't him. Officials don’t expect any disruptions to the process. Vice President Kamala Harris will oversee the certification.

Happy New Year, readers!

Now that 2025 is finally here, so is The Stranger's annual sex survey! Yes, it's time to spill your guts and tell us who, what, where, when, and how you've been getting busy.

We want to hear about the sexiest thing you did in 2024! Are you gay? Do you use toys? What about poppers? What song tops your go-to sex soundtrack? What's the sexiest way you've ever asked for (or been asked for) consent? Have you fucked on a boat? Have you fucked on the Seattle Monorail? Exactly how horny are you for Luigi Mangione? Are you happy with the amount of sex you're having? Do you like to get freaky during Antiques Roadshow? 

We have so many questions! Take the anonymous survey and tell us everything here!

NEW OPENINGS & RETURNS

Migaku
The owners of Belltown's delightful Karaage Setsuna debuted this new Japanese kaiseki spot in the former Watson's Counter space in Ballard on December 23, helmed by chefs Migaku Inaba and Toshikazu Sakuma. The menu features a seven-course "seasonal kaiseki" menu, a nine-course "Migaku kaiseki" menu, and a nine-course "chef’s special kaiseki" menu, as well as à la carte sushi and sashimi.
Ballard

Okay, guys, the results are in: The best bites of the year. I keep this list scrawled on the back of a raggedy old Grocery Outlet receipt in my wallet, which I transcribe into a Google doc in fits and starts, if and when I remember. After a year of unpaced gluttony, these are the winners.

I do a 15 Best Restaurants guide in the summer, of course, but the Best Things I Ate is a little different. This is about the individual dishes: Sometimes it’s just a snack, or even a single perfect bite. I don’t care about the timeliness or fanfare with which it was served or who made it, and it doesn’t factor in any kind of unique concepts or hard-won popup-to-brick-’n’-mortar stories. It’s just about what was on the plate and how good it tasted.

Obviously, this list is highly subjective–-think of it like a personal diary. If you’re so inspired, please tell me about all the most delicious things you ate all year in the comments, so that I and the rest of Seattle may also eat them! The city needs your help.

On November 28, 2024, Netflix dropped a TV show whose creators appear to own something like a crystal ball. Watch and see for yourself. Though the series, called The Madness, began pre-production in early 2023, it managed to see with eerie accuracy where the United States would be after the reelection of Donald Trump on Nov 5, 2024.

The plot: A black CNN contributor, Muncie Daniels (Colman Domingo), is wrongly accused of killing a very popular neo-Nazi influencer Mark Simon (Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett). But a good portion of the public actually think the murder is not at all a bad thing. What’s wrong with killing a social media hatemonger, a man who promotes the "final solution" for all races who are not white?

As if you didn’t have enough governments to worry about between the conservative majority at Seattle City Hall and the looming fascist takeover on the national level, the Washington State Legislature gavels to session on Monday, January 13. For the past few weeks, lawmakers have scrambled behind the scenes to prefile a bunch of bills, most of which will go nowhere. The news team at The Stranger, ever your north star for local, regional, and state politics, called around and found out what bills we should all follow during this session. We’re writing this a little early this year, so some of the bills have been prefiled, some haven’t, but we’ll keep updating this as we see those House Bills (HB) and Senate Bills (SB) numbers drop. 

In return for this incredible public resource, we ask that you call or email your State House Representatives, your state Senator, and the Governor to advocate for the bills that resonate with you—you know, “during these troubling times,” as they say.

It's a new year, and with it comes a fresh slate of events you can pencil into your brand-new calendar or planner. We’ve rounded up our top picks of things to do this month so you can get started on making core 2025 memories and diving into new experiences in no time. There's an array of concerts, major author appearances, festivals, food & drink events, and tons more to peruse below, from Jamie xx to the 2025 Lunar New Year Fair and from Percival Everett to Tim Heidecker.

COMEDY

Wet City Comedy Fest
Maria Bamford, the wacky master of voice impressions, deadpan jokes, and high-energy, rapidly changing characters, will headline all three nights of the Wet City Comedy Festival, which returns this year to bring comedy greats to all of the Crocodile's venues. On top of 2025-tier jokes from Bamford, Zainab Johnson, Beth Stelling, Leah Rudick, Robby Hoffman, and other laugh-bringers, the complex will host two "Y2K25" dance parties and Only Murders in The Crocodile, a multi-course mystery dinner. LINDSAY COSTELLO
The Crocodile, Belltown (Jan 3–5)

Governor-Elect Bob Ferguson likes to tout his record of success suing the first Trump administration while he was Attorney General. According to his office, the state filed or joined 99 lawsuits against the federal government between January 30, 2017 and January 19, 2021, and won the vast majority of them. (Full disclosure: I represented clients in one of these cases—the one challenging Trump’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program—that wound up going to the U.S. Supreme Court.)  According to the Attorney General’s Office, “almost all of the costs of this litigation, and the expansion of our civil rights division and other civil law enforcement divisions, were funded by our agency using recoveries from successful litigation. These were not general fund dollars that would have otherwise gone to other purposes. Our office is revenue-generating (returning $70 for every $1 provided by the Legislature).”

These stats are great PR. They helped land Ferguson on TIME Magazine’s 100 influential people list in 2017, and they may have helped carry him to the governor’s mansion.

But the real win-loss record is a bit more complicated. Sure, Ferguson won more than he lost—but many of his wins were only short-term, or split decisions. It’s likely he wasn’t the thorn in Trump’s side that it seemed. 

Create your own user feedback survey

Step right up: Want to join the Seattle City Council and fill outgoing council member Tammy Morale's District 2 seat? Applications opened on Thursday for anyone—well, U.S. citizens who are registered to vote in Washington and live in District 2—who wants to join the council. The remaining council has 20 days after Morale's last day on Jan. 6 to fill the seat. Apply! Be the change you want to see and all of that. As a reminder, Morales peaced out of her role because the current council was allegedly terrible toward her. All prospective candidates should have that knowledge. Send a resume, cover letter, and a completed financial interest statement form via email to councilvacancy@seattle.gov. 

New president for Seattle schools: The Seattle School Board picked West Seattle lawyer Gina Topp as the new president of the body ahead of a year where Seattle Public Schools faces an estimated $94 million budget deficit. 

nye @ the wild rose

you: brown short hair dancing on your own, you left in a beekeeping hoodie me: one of many femmes in mesh sparkly tops, but we made eye contact :)

Wavey brown hair @ brat tribute night 12/21 chop suey

You rescued my phone from the depths of the dance floor when I was going too hard. Wish I asked u to put ur # in before returning it to me.