Rhea Butcher is back in an episode that explores racism in comedy, as Alice attends the CBTV diversity workshop.

The post “Good Trouble” Episode 303 Recap: Whoosh, Pow, Bang appeared first on Autostraddle.

A diverse group of nontraditional outdoors enthusiasts are employing social media to connect and explore nature.

Today is a very big day for QAnon conspiracy theorists. Word on the street is Donald Trump will be sworn back in as President of the United States, since March 4 was the original inauguration day for presidents before 1933.

This, of course, is not going to happen. But Capitol police have amped up security just in case anyone from the MAGA militia tries to stage a sequel to what happened on January 6.

While police have been busy focusing on that, Trump’s failing hotel in Washington, D.C. has been busy trying to find a way to squeeze more money out of his steadfast supporters.

Related: Viral video from inside the lobby of Trump’s namesake D.C. hotel shows a barren and empty landscape

Forbes was the first to report that, shortly after January 6, when the March 4 conspiracy theory first began circulating online, the hotel jacked up the price on a standard room with two queen-sized beds to $1,745 for today.

Earlier this week, the price dropped to $1,331, before dropping again to $745. While that’s $1000 less than what it was, it’s still 180% above the typical rate of a D.C. hotel this time of year.

Meanwhile, rooms at three other luxury hotels in the same area–Four Seasons, Hay Adams, and St. Regis–remain at their normal rate.

Sooooo why is this?

Well, it’s not uncommon for hotels to increase their prices for things like holiday weekends, large conferences, major sporting events, or other special occasions like, say, an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

Forbes reports:

The Trump International has a history of hiking prices around dates that are important to supporters of the former president. Consider that, just last month, on January 5 and 6, the lowest available room rates at Trump International topped $7,500 and $8,000 a night, respectively. That’s more than triple the $2,200 nightly rate the hotel was charging during the inauguration period a few weeks later.

But the hotel’s attempted money grab doesn’t appear to have been very successful since the place is still a ghost town, according to photos being shared on Twitter.

Salon notes:

While Trump continues to financially capitalize on the QAnon conspiracies, there’s no saying what will happen when the Q theorists wake up on March 5 with Joe Biden still holding office as the 46th president of the United States. But fortunately for The Trump International Hotel, QAnon might be back in D.C. again soon in hopes of fulfilling whatever the next conspiracy holds.

According to Trump’s final financial disclosure statement as President, sales at the hotel fell by a whopping 63% in 2020.

In January, the Washington Post reported that the Trump Organization had been shopping the lease on the hotel for a year, hoping to unload the property to the tune of $500 million, but the frustrated real-estate broker wasn’t been able to find any interested buyers and quit.

Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.

Birthdays are a great (terrible?) time for self-reflection — and what better occasion to mentally travel through time back to being a tween than Autostraddle’s 12th birthday which is on March 9?!

The post A+ Members! A Question: What Advice Would You Give Your Tween Self? appeared first on Autostraddle.

The former House speaker prattled about Joe Biden’s “anti-white” policies that “despise America.”

There is a moment in Naoise Dolan’s tour-de-force debut novel Exciting Times when Ava, the book’s main character, writes a long and winding message to Julian, her sort-of-boyfriend, about Edith, her sort-of-girlfriend. In the message, Ava says she has been thinking about Edith “more and more”. She…

Racist, nativist and xenophobic sentiments surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic are leading to attacks on Asian Americans.

It’s like spending 90 minutes inside a fever dream a Kristin Wiig ’80s sketch character might have if she got high inside some kind of Mars Cheese Castle/Dylan’s Candy Bar co-op. And I loved it. 

The post “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” Is a Bananapants Brain Vacation and You Deserve It appeared first on Autostraddle.

Sen. Bryce Bennett (pictured), who is gay, spoke against a religious refusals bill and legislation that would make it harder for trans Montanans to obtain an updated birth certificate.

A Ghanaian journalist has come out publicly as gay, taking to live TV to share his story and raise awareness of the hardships facing the local LGBTQ community.

Ignatius Annor appeared on Ghana’s JoyNews, explaining he kept his sexuality under wraps until now for fear of losing his position.

“This is going to be the very first time that I am using your medium to say that not only am I an activist for the rights of Africa’s sexual minorities, what you will call the LGBTQI community, but I am gay.

“Obviously, I denied it because I was afraid of losing my job, I was working at an incredible Television station in Accra and also for the fear of what would happen to me personally,” Annor said.

“What my community is asking for is the opportunity to love like all humanity loves, particularly in the case of Ghana heterosexuals,” he continued, adding that many in the LGBTQ community are “not allowed to openly say who [they] are.”

The Euronews English journalist went on to candidly explain to viewers how it feels to be gay in Ghana.

“It doesn’t feel like I am a human being who deserves the right to employment, the right to education, and normally the basic rights to be able to walk, drive around to wherever that I want to go to in Ghana as an openly gay man. It doesn’t feel okay, it feels dehumanized and awful.”

Annor shared that his mother referred to being gay as “demonic,” which he blames on “what has repeatedly been fed into the mind and ultimately the hearts of people.” He seeks to change that.

Same-sex intercourse is illegal in Ghana under section 104 of the nation’s Criminal Code. Annor hopes to see it “scrapp[ed] out of the books of the Republic of Ghana so that people like myself who have [lives], who work, and contribute to the socio-economic fiber of [the] Republic of Ghana can be accepted as human beings deserving of respect, kindness and dignity.”

Watch: