It was a like bolt of lightning to mark the beginning of Pride week: a professional football defensive end came out as gay while still an active player, a first.

Most of us were downright giddy on Tuesday as we ventured outdoors without face coverings for the first time in more than a year of surviving the COVID-19 pandemic

Residents in Alameda, San Leandro, and part of Oakland have started early voting in the June 29 special primary election for the 18th Assembly District seat.

It was scary. On June 5, 1981, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report noted five cases of pneumocystis pneumonia among previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles.

Now that Petra DeJesus has left the San Francisco Police Commission, the Board of Supervisors, which selects the candidate for that seat, needs to ensure that an LGBTQ individual is chosen.

The recent news that California has a $76 billion budget surplus was a pleasant surprise, especially after the COVID pandemic enforced belt-tightening last year.

Former San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Joe Hollendoner dropped a bomb on the eve of his departure. He had barely confirmed to us that the agency had issued 17 layoff notices among its 200-plus staff then poof — he was gone!

Having passed his 100th day in office, President Joe Biden has attempted to remedy four years of direct attacks by his predecessor with some important accomplishments for the LGBTQ community in pursuit of equity.

The public deserves real answers from several city agencies and BART about the proposed phase 1 Better Market Street project, which would tear up Market Street, between Fifth and Eighth streets, for as long as two to four years.

The National LGBT Media Association took a principled stand this month when it announced that it would not meet in Georgia due to the state having recently passed a hideous voter suppression law.

Christina Dikas did the right thing when she withdrew her nomination for a seat on the SF Historic Preservation Commission just hours before a likely rejection from the Board of Supervisors.

The recent news about a new exhibit detailing the life and political career of the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk in the terminal named for him at San Francisco International Airport was surprising.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors should reject Mayor London Breed's nominee, Christina Dikas, to the Historic Preservation Commission.

Yeah, we'll toot our own horn. We've come a long way from when the first issue of the Bay Area Reporter rolled off the presses (or a mimeograph machine in the back of a gay bar) 50 years ago — April 1, 1971.