🎉 Let’s Slay in the New Year! 💅

🔮 Welcome back to the first Big & Bright  🌈⭐👏 newsletterof 2026! I thought I’d start the year with predictions, but my crystal ball is out of fairydust, and it’s been impossible to get anything imported from Neverland since the tariffs started. Keep reading for some New Year's reflections in my magic mirror.

A special thanks to Kind Clinic and Texas Health Action for underwriting our first sponsored vertical and our newsletter. All essays, reporting, and analysis will remain, as always, editorially independent.

📆 There’s no denying, for so many of us, 2025 was an awful year. We watched our rights as trans and queer people eroded by an openly fascist administration, from the erasure of queer history online to the passage of new anti-trans laws and policies. And we know this year could bring more of the same. But we survived 2025, and we did it by building strong, proud communities full of loving queer and trans folks and their allies: people willing to fight for our rights. All politicians are flawed humans, but it was certainly nice to hear New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani tell President Trump, “To get to any of us, you have to get through all of us” after years of capitulating from Democrats willing to throw the most vulnerable under the bus.

🏳️‍🌈 Since I can’t predict the future, instead I thought I’d look back at some of the ways we found joy and resistance last year. I’m thinking about how trans Texans flooded into Austin’s Barton Springs to reclaim the waters after a violent attack. About how rainbow crosswalks became rainbow steps, and about how trans folks were protesting the new bathroom law just days after it went into effect. Even as we lose LGBTQ+ representation on TV, we’ve also got Heated Rivalrygoing megaviral, showing America how gay men can be both outrageously sexy and romantic, too. Fans are either salivating or sobbing. Maybe both at once?

👩‍🤝‍👩 In 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revisit the issue of marriage equality. (Whoo!) Marriage equality remains incredibly popular, and that popularity exists because we’re continuing to live our lives, out, proud and unashamed (in other words, we’re Big & Bright 🌈⭐👏). Like the ten couples who got married or renewed their vows here last month, queer Texans continue to make their love for each other both an act of protest and an act of celebration. Looking back at all that, I can confidently predict that we’ll still be here next year, living, struggling, loving and finding joy. We aren’t safe, but we have each other. And there are an awful lot of us, so let’s slay together in 2026.

Steers & Queers 🐂

What we’re writing and reading in Texas. 

⚖️ In the latest investigation from The Barbed Wire, contributor Paul Flahive reports that RAICES, the immigrant legal services nonprofit, voluntarily declined a $19.5 million annual contract from the federal government, falsely representing its reasoning for dropping children clients to employees and in court records, according to former staffers. Some of the clients who were suddenly dropped identified as LGBTQ+ and faced violence and discrimination in their home countries.

🎤 August Ponthier, the Texpat musician who wrote “Six ‘Glass Closet’ Letters to Santa” for The Barbed Wire, appeared on “Gaydar with Anania” to discuss the horsegirl-to-lesbian pipeline. I’m simultaneously envious of August and relieved no one has to hear whatever nervous babbling I’d do around Anania. 

⚧️ Jessica Priest at the Texas Tribune reports that the Texas A&M System refused to reinstate fired lecturer Melissa McCoul, even though a faculty appeals panel unanimously objected to her dismissal. McCoul was fired after she was secretly recorded acknowledging the existence of nonbinary people (thanks Melissa! I do exist! 💖) in a scandal that generated so much conservative backlash, it forced the resignation of Texas A&M president Mark Welsh III.

🌲 Keep touching grass, y’all. Houston’s OutSmart Magazine reports on a local LGBTQ hiking and outdoors club and a queer run club. Queer and trans Texans continue to find new ways to resist doomscrolling and meet cute outside of the clubs; In November, I reported on similar sober activities in Dallas and Austin ranging from queer line dancing to queer Magic: The Gathering nights.

🌈 Rainbows everywhere, part 2! The Dallas Morning News reports that Dallas Landmark Commission, which oversees preservation of historical buildings, will allow the Oak Lawn United Methodist Church to keep their rainbow steps for the next 3 years. Meanwhile, San Antonio is promising to install rainbow sidewalks to replace their rainbow crosswalks.

Stars & Stripes 🇺🇸

What’s happening in the rest of the gayborhood. 

🚹 In a video that rapidly went viral, Zachary Willmore, a cisgender gay man, was accosted and threatened in a men’s room on New Year’s by another man apparently threatened by Zachary’s stylishly c*nty party outfit and, frankly, fabulous makeup. The internet quickly doxxed his drunken attacker, who apologized, presumably once he sobered up. Even so, all bathroom cops are b*stards.

🚒 Abby Monteil at Them reports on Lillian Bonsignore, appointed by freshly-minted NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani to lead the fire department. Bonsignore, who has three decades experience as an EMS professional, also happens to be openly lesbian. The fact that this pissed off Elon Musk is the icing on the cake.

💽 As the Trump administration erases LGBTQ+ content from the web, Lindsay Eanet at In These Times reports that groups like Invisible Histories and the Queer Zine Archive Project are stepping up to preserve queer digital culture for future generations. 

🏳️‍⚧️ Our queer hero: Andrea Jenkins, the first out transgender African-American person elected to public office in the United States, is retiring from the Minneapolis City Council, according to Trudy Ring at The Advocate. First elected in 2017, she also served as vice president and president of the council. Jenkins tenure hasn’t been without controversy: her response to the murder of George Floyd in her ward in 2020 drew sharp criticism, but her time in office is nonetheless groundbreaking and historic. 

Bright & Buzzy📱

Memes and more.

🎅 Which gay guy at the holiday party were you? 

🔁 Flip it around … Move over Madam Morrible, your meme has transformed!

📚 Slay your resolution to read more with these “unhinged” book recs from a trans-owned bookstore. 

Shameless Merch Plug 🧢

☀️ Let’s not fool ourselves: You won’t need that woolen beanie hat anytime soon. You’re now a year-round bucket hat queer. Our Texas Pride Organic Bucket Hat is made from 100% cotton twill, with an embroidered rainbow Texas, front and center (right where you belong, cutie ✨).

Reach out if you have tips, story ideas, or just to complain about how all your best cold weather outfits are going to waste (kit@thebarbedwire.com).

🌈 Stay big, bright, and bold,

Kit (They/Them) 💖

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