Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Adios 2021

It's the last day of 2021.

Thank God.

This lousy year began with then-President Donald Trump dispatching his yahoos to the Capitol; I'll never get over the figurative and literal assault on democracy that followed. The pandemic plagued the country and the world the entire blessed year. Inflation hit. The climate changed. The U.S. withdrew chaotically from Afghanistan. Billionaires blasted themselves into space, and alas, came back.

In LGBTQ news, 2021 saw more transgender people murdered in this country than ever before.

I wouldn't blame Baby New Year if he chose to crawl back into the womb.

But the year wasn't a total washout. Looking through the queer lens, I was thrilled that male football, hockey, soccer and baseball players came out, and pleased that "Dancing WIth the Stars" included a female couple and its British equivalent had a male duo. Trans and non-binary folks competed at the Olympics. A male country star came out, and as far as I know, Dolly Parton didn't even have to push him to do it.

In terms of a person of the year for our community, there are many options, but I'm going with rapper and singer Lil Nas X. His music video showing him sliding to hell on a pole and giving Satan a lapdance set the tone early in 2021. All year he was not just ubiquitous, but an unapologetic gay Black man.

And those Uber Eats ads he made with Elton John felt like gay history encapsulated. It's been quite a journey from the Yellow Brick Road to Old Town Road.

So what will 2022 bring? I think it's fair to say expectations are low. After the planet grappled with the Delta and Omicron variants in 2021, my hope is 2022 won't force us to learn the entire Greek alphabet.

Nobody would benefit from that. Not even Greeks.