SGN Dec 30, 2022

Lovingly intimate Daughter a hauntingly poignant delight

by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN Staff Writer

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER

Theaters

Filmmaker Julie Hart and her mother Rosalind arrive late at the eerily beautiful, isolated Moel Famau hotel. The place is strangely empty, and yet, according to the curt receptionist (Carly-Sophia Davies), the room they reserved will not be available

until the next day. The kitchen is closed. They will have to make do with whatever they have brought with them for tonight, and all remaining issues will be rectified in the morning.

Things are not as they appear. Everything is exactly as expected. Nothing goes to plan. Everything is perfect. And this is just the beginning.

The Eternal Daughter might be 2022’s best film. An extraordinarily moving drama of celebration, regret, creation, loss,

and family, this latest feature by writerdirector Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir, The Souvenir: Part II ) grabbed my heart in an icily intimate embrace and then refused to let go. For 96 minutes I was in awe, and the journey mother and daughter go on is one I will never forget.

Tilda Swinton portrays both Julie and Rosalind, and in a career overflowing with magnificent performances, this may be one of her best. She dives in confidently, creating two distinct characters with their own

personalities, histories, and ghosts who all stalk them down the lonely hallways of Moel Famau. As much as mother and daughter have in common, the emotional baggage they carry remains their own, and Swinton brings all this into the piercing, unflinching light with perceptive gracefulness.

The gist is that Julie and Rosalind have come to this secluded Welsh locale so the former can work on her new screenplay, incorporating remembrances of the latter’s childhood. Before Moel Famau was a hotel, for a few years it was also Rosalind’s home when she was a little girl. Memories hide around every corner and lurk in all the shadows. Windows shoot back cascading images as if they were funhouse mirrors, and even something as simple as a walk around the estate’s gardens produces profound internal reactions that run the emotional gamut from joy to sorrow and back again with paralyzing speed.

Hogg and cinematographer Ed Rutherford (The Ones Below) structure and shoot things as if they were making a suspenseful horror picture: the camera glides down hallways, cascades of fog ominously drift through the frame, and shadows dance in splashes of light with ethereal guile. Editor Helle le Fevre (The Souvenir) allows scenes to play out with minimal intrusion, each cut an ingeniously subtle showcase of storytelling specificity that only augments the uncertain melancholic aura the director has so skillfully generated.

But there is nothing scary going on here. While Moel Famau is haunted, the only spirits stalking Julie and Rosalind are the ones they carry with them. These two women are searching for answers, but the exact questions elude them. Time loses meaning, and this moment of togetherness is all that seems to matter. Day and night blur into one, hard truths are revealed, and poignantly triumphant revelations are made.

What Julie is seeking isn’t important; it’s what she finds that matters. While more can be said, the glory of The Eternal Daughter is that individuals will likely find something of themselves lurking in the spectral confines of Moel Famau. Julie’s story is shaped by what the viewers bring to the table; they are as involved in the outcome as she is. This allows Hogg to create a gothic delight of self-discovery where every experience will be unique, and that’s exactly as it should be.

Episode 44: Death and Friends

In our final episode of 2022, Ash & Lindsey discuss art, art theft, Brittney Griner's return to the US, and the weaponization of Queerbating. Special guests Angel Luna and Nash Flynn of podcast Death and Friends chat with Ash about their show, the comedy inherent in history's tragedies, and, yup! You guessed it. Death!

FIND US WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS!

Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance falls frustratingly flat

by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN Staff Writer

WHITNET HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY Theaters

Kasi Lemmons is far too talented a director for Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody to be a complete waste of time. The creative force behind films like Eve’s Bayou, The Caveman’s Valentine, and Harriet, Lemmons is great at finding unique and imaginative ways to buck convention, and this chronicle of Whitney Houston’s rise to superstardom, her turbulent marriage to Bobby Brown, and her accidental death in 2012 is no exception.

But the roughly 30 years covered in this drama were maybe too tumultuous for Lemmons or Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten (The Two Popes) to easily shrink down to just under 150 minutes of narrative material. After a terrific opening showcasing Houston’s (Naomi Ackie) romantic friendship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), the singer’s symbiotic relationship with legendary music producer Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci), and her showstopping appearance on The Merv Griffin Show, hings sadly slip into antiquated musical biopic conformity from that point on.

Why is this a problem? There’s no time to build characters, no room for Houston’s story to authentically evolve. While the filmmakers stick close to the historical events, much of what transpires throughout the second and third acts still feels contrived. The film can’t breathe, scenes devolving into episodic tedium so quickly I almost got whiplash trying to make sense of what was happening.

It is a testament to the undying magnificence of Houston’s songs (she’s known as “The Voice” for good reason) and Ackie’s tremendous performance that the film remains so easy to watch. The combination of the two is stratospheric as far as greatness is concerned. Houston’s skills as an artist — if you’ll excuse the obvious pun — sing for themselves. As for Ackie’s ability to live inside the iconic singer’s skin, she transforms herself so completely, it is almost as if Houston had been reborn.

I did like the early segments a whole heck of a lot. The ease with which Houston and Crawford slip into their relationship is lovely. Lemmons stands back and allows it to happen, the sparse naturalism of the meet-cute and subsequent friendship-slashromance showcasing an infectious spontaneity I was immediately drawn to.

The scene where Davis first watches Houston sing in front of an audience is also an absolute barnburner. The young woman is performing backup duty for her mother, Cissy (Tamara Tunie), and is starting to grow quite the following. When the veteran musical artist spies Davis entering the club, she immediately feigns a scratchy throat and forces her daughter to open the show, and the younger Houston responds by tearing down the house with her vocal dominance.

It’s after that Merv Griffin performance

that things begin their downward spiral. Not only for Houston, as the drug abuse starts and the relationship with Brown (Ashton Sanders) turns toxic, but also for this musical biography. It’s not that the performances are bad, but more that the film becomes a series of time-jumping vignettes that does all the characters a huge disservice.

While individual moments shine (Houston’s Super Bowl appearance is a major wow, and the reenactment of the fabled “Impossible Medley” at the 1994 Video Music Awards is spectacular), nothing fits together with any clarity. Lemmons and McCarten speed through so many years, it all becomes a jumble. Houston’s money problems with her business manager father John (Clarke Peters)? Didn’t care. Fights with Bobby? They barely register. Journey to rehab? Comes and goes so fast that it’s like those scenes don’t even exist.

And yet, there is a handful of splendid creative choices sprinkled throughout the film. Key events from Houston’s life are presented as-is and without burdensome commentary. Weight is given to the singer’s relationship with Crawford. Cissy’s influence on her daughter’s career is never minimized. Houston’s otherworldly ability to make seemingly any song she touched uniquely her own is justifiably celebrated. Lemmons handles all of this with consummate gravitas, and I appreciate that she at least tries to avoid as many of the genre’s more recognizable clichés as best she can. So it’s a shame I Wanna Dance with Somebody falls so frustratingly flat. Whitney Houston was a singular talent, and she deserves an equally unique motion picture chronicling her life. But this isn’t it, and that’s downright heartbreaking.

Books

Mad Honey a sweet but deadly family drama

by Terri Schlichenmeyer Special to the SGN

MAD HONEY

JODI PICOULT AND JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN © 2022, Ballantine Books

$29.99

464 pages

You’ve never been one to follow all the buzz.

Gossip is not very reliable anyhow, and you have better things to do than celebritywatch. This star does that, and that star’s embroiled in scandal, nobody has any privacy anymore. Nah, that ho-hum has never been your thing. As in the new novel Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, the hive is rarely right.

If you move slowly enough and don’t make any sudden moves, honeybees are generally peaceful creatures. Olivia McAfee in Mad Honey knows this, and that’s why she often visits her hives without a protective suit: she’s relatively sure she won’t get stung.

That’s not the case when it comes to

her son, Asher. A senior in high school, her eighteen-year-old can be prickly sometimes, and sometimes, stings are a part of parenting a teenager. This, Liv knows, is one of those times: Asher’s in love, and it’s not going well.

Nineteen-year-old Lily Campanello arrived in town with her mother at the end of the summer, and she and Asher have had a stormy relationship since they started going out. Liv hates to see Asher so upset, but she knows that love is complicated. She loved Asher’s father, despite the fact that she spent too much time hiding the bruises she got from him.

Asher knows he has messed up.

When he found Lily’s father, a man she hadn’t seen in years, he’d meant to surprise her, but the surprise was on Asher: Lily was angry and she wouldn’t exactly say why. She just walked away, almost ran, and she wouldn’t talk about it. She wouldn’t even answer Asher’s texts, and now he was getting angry. Should he worry about her, or just go to her house?

He chose the latter.

It was the middle of the night when the police came for him. They handcuffed Asher

Helena Greer “Queers up” Hallmark

by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer

With every spin of the globe, people everywhere get a chance at a new year: a time to reflect on what we’ve done and who we’ve become, and a chance to try once again to take steps toward making our dreams come true. For some, dreams can feel impossible, pushed into the periphery until life spurs the dreamer with new urgency. For author Helena Greer, it took fifteen years before she was ready to focus on pursuing her dream of writing a book.

Following her dreams

“I got a bachelor’s in creative writing, and then I didn’t write anything for fifteen years. I went to library school and I was building a career in capitalism and not writing,” she said. The nudge that finally pushed her toward following her dreams came from an unlikely place: the Hallmark channel.

“I didn’t intend to write romance novels, but I read a lot of romance novels, and I was watching Hallmark movies and got angry at the lack of Queer representation. And so I started drafting a book. I ragetweeted about it and a friend was like, ‘You could just write a book?’ So I started rage tweeting about it, intending to just throw it up on Wattpad or make it available on Kindle Unlimited, somewhere where my friends could read it if they wanted, but not with the intention of publishing.”

Although Greer never intended to release her work to the public, her friends recognized her talent and encouraged her to take a chance. “I have a friend who’s a writing buddy; she has several books out, and we get together and write. She read it and was like, ‘You know, I think this is something you should query to agents.’”

She started the publication process and persevered through some difficult times. “I queried and signed with my agent in 2019, and we went on submission in May of 2020, which was a weird time to go on submission for sure because the world was in a strange place. We sold the book to Hachette Forever. It was surprising to me because I hadn’t ever written a novel before and it’s unusual to publish with the Big Five [publishers] without having written anything else before. It was sort of a zeitgeist thing — not to say anything bad about Season of Love, but six Queer holiday romances are

before they gave him his shoes, and hauled him away without a coat on a freezing night. Olivia McAfee knows that mad honey is the result of bad foraging. It should be sweet, but it’s deadly. By the time you realize that, there’s no going back.

You know how your mind tries to figure out the ending of a book long before you’re even a third of the way there? Curiously, that doesn’t happen with Mad Honey. The story is too enjoyable not to savor, and besides, you know what’s going to happen anyway, right? Or not.

Nope, authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan sneak a two-fer surprise into this book: The first one explodes with the force of a beehive full of nitroglycerin. The second will leave you feeling smug enough to think you know how this culminates. Or not, but still: more distractions, more mini-explosions unspool at the right frequency to keep you happily eager to see how wrong you were.

This is one of those novels that’s done before you’re ready for it, leaving you slackjawed when you close the back cover. Mad Honey is pretty sweet. Read it, and you’ll bee very happy.

coming out this year from major publishers, so I think there was something in the zeitgeist where every publisher was looking for something like that. Hopefully, there was also some talent on my part, but there was also luck and timing that happened.”

Queering up Hallmark

Greer’s inspiration for Season of Love came from a desire to see more LGBTQ+ representation in Hallmark-esqe Christmas movies. To keep her novel aligned with the classic romance genre, she took notes on exactly what goes into making a Hallmark Christmas movie feel so warm and magical.

“I looked at the story beats of an average Hallmark movie. In a Hallmark movie, the main character will have an icy blonde fiancé who’s wrong for them, they will go back to their hometown they haven’t been to in ten years and kind of reconnect with

their family and there will be a grouchy lumberjack-type person who doesn’t think they can help save the business or whatever,” Greer explained. “Those are all classic beats of a Hallmark movie. When I drafted Season of Love, I went by those classic beats. So, Miriam Bloom is an artist, she has this fiancé who is sort of not right for her but not a bad person, and she goes back to the place where she spent her childhood, that she hasn’t been [to] in ten years, to sit shiva because her great aunt has died.”

While Season of Love does follow the classic formula of a made-for-TV holiday film, Greer also made sure to “Queer it up” by altering many of the expected tropes.

“She ends up inheriting part of a Christmas tree farm and they have to save it from going bankrupt, but the manager of the tree farm is this grumpy fat butch to who she is instantly attracted, and they have to learn to

work together and save the farm together, and they end up falling in love. I took all those classic beats and tried to Queer them, not just in that Miriam is Bi and that she’s engaged to a woman and falls in love with a woman, but I tried to Queer them more by making it a big found-family situation.” Greer also altered the traditional holiday rom-com by diving deeper into the emotional depths of her characters and exploring the reasons behind their actions. “Those [original] beats are already traumatic on their own. Like, why wouldn’t you talk to your family for ten years or go home for ten years? Why would you choose to be engaged to someone you aren’t really in love with? It felt to me that there was an underlying trauma that you don’t get into in Hallmark movies.”

Books

GREER

continued from page 13

Expanding representation

While Greer wanted to explore more of the trauma behind classic rom-com plotlines, she didn’t want to write a story about Queer struggles. “Season of Love is not a book where it’s traumatic to be Queer at all. Nobody has any trauma whatsoever about being Queer in Season of Love; they just have other family trauma. The holidays are often a traumatic time for Queer people for a variety of reasons, so I wanted the story to not just feel like a straight book that I had stuck Queer characters into but a truly Queer reimagining of a set of plot beats we see all the time.”

From the beginning, the Queer representation Greer wanted to write resembled her journey, a journey that other members of her generation could relate to. “The Queer experience is big. There is no universal Queer experience, and mine as an older millennial, white, Bisexual is different from, you know, a person of color, or a younger person, or whatever. But I wanted it to feel true to my Queer experience so that older millennials, people who came of age when I did, might see themselves in it. I wanted to make sure that it was true to my Queerness in the hopes that that specificity would be something that other people could see themselves in.”

In keeping the story true to her experiences, Greer excluded any adult coming out moments. “I didn’t want to write a coming of age book, because they’re 35. And not that people don’t come out and come of age at 35, it’s amazing when people do come out at 35, but I came out at 15 and so by the time I was 35, coming out was hard in my rearview mirror, and I wanted to write about adulthood settled into Queerness. That was important to me. I feel like there are a lot of beautiful narratives about coming out, but that wasn’t something that I wanted to tell. I didn’t want to necessarily tell another story about how sad it is to be Gay, only because for me it is very joyful, and I am very grateful to be Queer. It is one of the things that brings me the most joy in life.” Including Bi characters was also very intentional on Greer’s part. “I wanted to have some specific Bi representation. Miriam talks in the book about what her Bisexuality looks like. The second book, which is coming out next year, has a Pan character, and it is important to me that multiple-attracted people get stories that show the complexity of them,” she said.

Not only did Greer want to show Bi representation, something that is sometimes excluded from the Queer romance genre, but she also wanted to include Jewish representation in her holiday novel. “My dad is Jewish, and I grew up in this big extended joyful Jewish family, and we get more sad Holocaust books about Jews than we get joyful [Jewish] families, so that was important to me,” she explained.

“As someone who has never religiously celebrated Christmas, it just feels like a fish-out-of-water time of year because the entire world is filled up with Christmas stuff,” she said. She decided to write about the Carrigans, a Jewish family who works on a Christmas tree farm, to show the nuances of what family time in December can look like. As she looked more into the culture around Christmas tree farming, she made an interesting discovery, “It turns out, and I didn’t know this when I started writing, but a lot of Christmas tree farms are owned by Jewish families, and so, you know, I just wanted to have a warm, big, vibrant Jewish family because that was something I grew up experiencing.”

Greer also wanted to write about a young person involved in her faith, something she doesn’t often see in romance novels or Queer media. “I have been involved in progressive faith communities my entire life, and a lot of my adult friends are also really involved in progressive faith communities. And I don’t see a lot of that in contemporary romance, outside of inspiration romance, which is not progressive communities of faith. I don’t necessarily see millennials involved in their church as part of their progressive life very often, but it is a big part of me and everybody I know, so I wanted to show that in faiths other than Christianity,” she said.

Greer’s favorite tropes

Even though Greer admittedly “Queered up” a lot of the traditional beats of a Hallmark holiday story, she is a sucker for good romance tropes and made sure to include some of her favorite classics. “I love forced proximity, which this book is. They have to work together; they are staying at this inn that’s 160 acres of wooded land in the middle of the Adirondack National Forest with, like, four other people they know, trying to save a business in the middle of winter. They are forced to interact with each other all the time. I think that allows for a lot of shenanigans to happen because they’re forced to be together.”

Another trope Greer enjoys is second chances. “I love second chances and marriage in trouble books. I think it’s a hard trick to pull off, and I’m always interested in how the author can get the audience to believe that characters should be together if they broke up before, because I think in real life I’m always like, ‘Oh, no, you tried that, don’t go back.’ So they’ve got to sell it to make me believe in a second chance.” This trope is one she’s been toying with for her next book, a sequel to Season of Love

“We are continuing the Carrigans’ Christmas books. The second book is set up in the epilogue of the first book. Miriam and Noel inherit the inn with two other people: Miriam’s childhood friend who is the son of the chef and handyman who works at the inn, and Miriam’s cousin Hannah. Hannah and Levi, the childhood friend, have fallen in love while Miriam has been gone for ten years and [then they] had a horrific breakup. Levi left to go be a cook on a boat, and Hannah had been feeling sad at the inn about the breakup. Now they all own this business together, and Levi is going to come back, and they are going to have to figure out their issues and see if they can fall in love again,” she explained.

“It is a Queer m/f couple; Levi is Demi and Pan. I think it’s very similar in style [to Season of Love]. There’s some trauma they’re dealing with, mostly with each other, because they’ve known each other all their lives and they had a terrible breakup and now they’re trying to be together but there’s a lot of shenanigans. You want to root for them, but you also want to shake them for being blockheads. And that’s fun.”

While Greer enjoys the tropes of forced proximity and second chances, her favorite trope is one she lived. “My favorite trope in the world is fake dating because my husband and I fake-dated when we first met, and you know, it worked. You’ve got to give it its due,” she said with a laugh. “Those are probably my favorites, both to read and to write. This book is forced proximity; it gets called enemies to lovers although I think they’re more antagonists to lov-

ers. They don’t like each other much when they first meet. Workplace romance, which I’m always like, ‘Ew, why would you get involved with someone you work with?’ but I wrote one. They own a business together, accidentally. I love that. I know not everyone likes instant love, but they have sort of this instant lust for each other, and I think it’s interesting when you’re instantly attracted to someone to have to figure out how to like them or even if you like them, or how to get along with them when you’re attracted to someone immediately. My next book is a second chance, so I don’t know, maybe I’ll get to write a fake dating book someday.”

Greer is excited to continue writing romance novels for the LGBTQ+ community, especially ones that take place over the holidays. “I don’t see any of my adult novels being about heterosexual people because I’ve never been a heterosexual person and I just don’t know how I would write those books,” she said.

The holiday season is a season of love for Greer, who celebrated her wedding anniversary last week. “My wedding anniversary is two days before Christmas,” she said. Much of her fiction stems from real-life inspiration, and her love life is no exception. “I have been married for eleven years now, but for our first anniversary we went to a cabin in the snowy mountains and we had no internet, nothing but a jacuzzi and a fireplace and snow for three days, which was an incredible date. But I also think it would be really fun to do that [in a book], but for two people who don’t know each other who have maybe booked the place for the same time and are then stranded in the snow together. I’m like, actually, that would be a great book; there’s a jacuzzi and a fireplace, this is a great romance novel,” she said with a laugh. Season of Love is out now, and a great read for anyone looking to Queer up some of the stale traditions of the holiday romance genre, embrace new love, and take new chances in the new year.

Leavenworth: You don’t have to travel far for holiday magic

by Benny Loy SGN Contributing Writer

Before my recent visit to the Christmastown event in Leavenworth, Washington, I had never explored that strange, fauxBavarian town, a place so Olde World that it required its local McDonald’s to conform to the “Bavarian-Alpine” aesthetic. The extent of my previous Leavenworth experience had been gawking at Lederhosen-clad oompahband musicians as I passed through on my way to Spokane.

My fiancée proposed a day trip to Leavenworth to see the Christmas lights with some friends. Luckily, Stevens Pass was open, and we had a Jeep that could safely traverse the ice and snow.

Having made it through the treacherous pass, we arrived in town with a new challenge: finding a parking spot on one of the town’s busiest tourist days. After circling the blocks in vain, not only did we finally see some people who were leaving, but also, in a gesture of Christmas kindness, they gave us their daylong parking pass.

The slick streets were packed with people sliding from one store, restaurant, or musical performance to the next. Every building and tree was covered in hundreds of Christmas lights that looked like static

lightning bugs waiting patiently in a twisting line. Small children in puffy snowsuits were being tugged around on sleds.

I walked past a Santa Claus actor to go down some stairs into the Andreas Keller to see about getting on a waitlist. The hallway to the front desk was crowded and awkward as people tried to leave and enter; I pressed myself to the wall to make room for a stroller. People kept standing in the doorway, allowing the heat to escape and sending one server into a fit.

“Close the door!” she would yell from the dining area. “You either come in or get out!”

The wait was an hour long, but we’d taken too many peeks at the food served to change our minds. Whatever we were smelling and seeing was too good to pass up. We gave the host a phone number and squeezed our way back down the hall to return to the surface world.

My friends and I tried samples in a specialty cheese shop, including a sweet, mango cheesecake flavored cheese that would be perfect crumbled atop toasted bread. We visited a tea shop whose walls were lined with jar upon jar of loose leaf, filling the room with their spiced aromas; and a candy shop where we scored pop rocks to noisily rip into, laughing together as the treat crackled on our tongues.

We glanced at the time and hurried back to the restaurant and through the line of hungry customers. Seated at last, I looked around the room at people happily chowing down on their Schweinshaxe (a Munichstyle pork hock) and Spaetzle (a handmade pasta made with eggs).

Along one wall were booths made from giant wine barrels you sit inside. The other walls were adorned with Bavarian art, and the servers dressed in Old World style. It was like stepping into the past.

We ordered giant fresh pretzels, and once they were presented to us, we dug into the steaming hot bread. I was so busy finishing off the last remnants of the pretzels that I had nearly forgotten the Jaegerschnitzel (pounded pork cutlet with mushroom sauce) I had ordered.

The Jaegerschnitzel, a slab of breaded and flattened pork, reminded me of chicken fried steak, one of my great-grandmother’s favorite recipes when I was little. How might this taste like home for those with Bavarian heritage who feasted on family recipes passed down to one after the other?

Leavenworth presents an excellent opportunity to learn more about a culture and for Bavarian descendants to celebrate it.

We ate our fill and went back outside to sing along with the crowd as performers

played “Sweet Caroline.” Everyone looked like they had been dusted with powdered sugar as the snow fluttered down, and on the song’s chorus, we all sang “dun dun dun” in joyful unison. My fiancée and I huddled together under the lights. She gave my hand three squeezes, which for us means “I love you.”

Now that Christmas has passed, you may be kicking yourself for not taking the trip to experience Christmastown for yourself. Not to worry. Luckily for you, the lights will remain until the end of February, offering plenty of chances to see Leavenworth glow, sparkle, and sing. Not to mention, you may have a better chance of scoring a hotel room and a parking spot, and of being seated in the town’s restaurants with little wait time.

This winter, after two years of pandemic-caused cancellations, Leavenworth is restarting its events, including its “Love from Leavenworth” Valentine’s event in February. If there is someone special in your life, now is a good time to plan a getaway. Leavenworth is a beautiful town with plenty of opportunities for making fond memories.

Op-Ed

How to know when you’ve met

“the one”

Dear Izzy,

How do you know when you’ve found the one? I have been with my partner for over a year, and I am head over heels in love with them. I can’t imagine my life without them! We had a conversation recently about the future and despite how much love I have for this person, it still feels scary to think that they could be “the one” that I am with forever. Is this normal? Or am I just afraid of commitment?

Helplessly in love

Dear Helplessly,

Not to be that person but the short answer is that you will just know when you’ve met the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with. When you meet your person, the one you are destined to be, you will feel a kind of poetic certainty flowing through your veins.

The longer-ish answer is one way to tell is to ask yourself these questions: How do you feel when you are around this person? Do you feel genuinely happy and at ease? Does life feel more vibrant, beautiful, and calm in their presence? Do you feel like the best version of yourself when they are around? Do you feel safe and respected? Can you close your eyes and imagine a future with that person? And actually see it, almost like a memory?

The answer might be “kinda,” and that’s okay. Not only is it okay, but it’s also a huge decision to make! The pressure alone gives me anxiety. Despite what Hollywood wants you to believe, true love is not instantaneous. It takes communication, respect, and an alignment of values. And most importantly, time. If the idea of forever scares you right now, you aren’t alone. It simply means that you are not ready to move to the next phase of your relationship. As I said, when the time comes, you will know.

But I want to offer an alternative perspective: there are multiple people out there whom you could have a beautiful and fulfilling life with. In an article for Psychology Today, Shauna H. Springer, PhD, writes that “the concept of finding a soul mate is riddled with logical errors, however, the biggest of which is the idea that our personalities are fixed and unchanging over the course of life.” And it’s true! People change. Even people who are in committed relationships.

Springer continues: “The soul mate idea implies that we are the way we are and that there is one other person who is a perfect match for us due to their collection of complementary attributes and personal quali-

by Isabel Mata SGN Contributing Writer

Ask Izzy is a biweekly advice column about relationships, mental health, and sexuality. Written by Isabel Mata — a Seattle-based lifestyle writer, podcast host, and mental health advocate — Ask Izzy offers tangible expert advice so all readers can have stronger relationships, better sex, and healthier mindsets. Looking for some more guidance? Submit your question at info@ sgn.org with the subject line Ask Izzy Submission.

ties. The goal in finding one’s soul mate is to identify this person, and the assumption is that once this person has been correctly identified, it will be smooth sailing because the two halves have become reunited.” Sounds like a fairytale. But alas, real life is not a fairytale.

The truth is, as people we are not static beings, we are in a continual process of growth and change. So, for a relationship to truly be successful and long-lasting, both parties need adaptability and an openness to grow. Without that, there is a greater chance that you will outgrow the person you previously thought was “the one.”

And then what? Do you give up on love

and happiness? No, of course not! Nora Ephron didn’t birth You’ve Got Mail for you to pigeon-hole yourself with a scarcity mindset. Now that doesn’t mean you should be reckless with your love. Be intentional. It’s a magical relief to find the one who pulls you out of the dating pool. Continue being vulnerable; it is so brave.

Free date night activity:

1. On your own, write down a list of your top personal values. Have your partner do the same. Some examples are loyalty, equality, empathy, etc. As a prompt, think about the qualities that are important to you in a partner.

2. Come together and compare your lists. Talk about them! Why did you pick the things you picked? Why is that value important to you?

3. Create a combined family/relationship value list, taking values from both of your lists, or maybe even adding ones you forgot.

4. Grab some art supplies and make a visual representation of this list, something you will want to look at every day. It’s a meaningful way to be intentional in your relationship and a fun way to spend your evening.

National News

Youth-designed, youth-approved selfsea helps teens through tough times

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer

Winter is only halfway over, and though ample holiday cheer surely graced a fortunate few, for many more, this is a stressful and isolating time of year. Youth nonprofit Peer Health Exchange knows that, and to help marginalized youth through to spring and beyond, it’s prepared a series specifically about caring for one’s mental health during the holidays.

The series is available on the nonprofit’s online resource library, and on selfsea, its free “peer-to-peer” mental health app. The app was designed by and for people 13 to 19 years old, and has such features as community message boards, storytellers, and education hubs for sexual and mental health. It even offers coaching on how to come out to your parents.

While the mix of offerings might seem like a mish-mash, Chris Wilson, assistant vice president of digital content, assures potential users that each feature was actually very deliberately chosen.

“Some of the biggest advantages of peer-to-peer, with selfsea, is that it’s cocreated with young people, and by young people,” Wilson said.

Peer Health Exchange has teams of high schoolers like the Youth Design Group and Youth Brand Ambassadors who review everything that goes into the app, all the way down to the resources it provides.

“So essentially — you noticed the sleek interface and the name — young people actually chose that, so they’ve been a part of this process from concept to scale,” Wilson said. That’s to “[ensure] that we’re responsive to their needs.”

That’s all great, but one might wonder how selfsea differs from other mental health apps like Calm, Pacifica, or TeenCounseling.

“What really sets us apart is it really aims to meet young people at the intersection of their identity and their health,” Wilson said. “So as young Queer people come into selfsea, whether it be [for] the communities, chatting with a health educator, or if they’re just checking out resource, looking at videos — they don’t have to come into this space thinking, ‘I have to put my Queerness to the side and only focus on the

National news highlights

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer

Tennessee proposes ban on public drag shows

Tennessee lawmakers have proposed a bill that would classify drag as “adult cabaret” and ban it from public performance where children might see it — a measure that would effectively outlaw drag brunches, drag story hours, even drag performances at Pride events, with a penalty of up to six years.

The bill, SB 0003, was filed by Senate Majority leader Jack Johnson, who said he “filed this legislation to protect children” in response to outrage over footage of a child at an all-ages Chattanooga Pride drag event.

Religious demonstrators have delayed and hindered drag performances in other states, like early December’s Sandhills Pride in North Carolina, which implemented an 18-and-up policy after backlash on social media. The event was still dogged by a prayer circle armed with a megaphone.

current identity I operate in.’”

selfsea does this through its “just for me” process, which is meant to avoid that kind of fragmentation of identity, and build a set of resources that address each person’s health in its unique entirety.

“We try to give them what they need, when they need it, for all the pieces of who they are,” Wilson said.

The app’s message boards in particular might raise some concerns for parents, who’ve likely heard horror stories of what can happen in a chat room. But as the provider of a mental health app, Wilson said, Peer Health Exchange always makes safety a top priority.

The only personal information selfsea collects and stores is an email address, which is stored separately from other data.

Kye Sanders, a drag performer and founder of Sanctuary Action Network in Chattanooga, emphasized to ABC Channel 9 that drag performances aren’t inherently sexual.

“We’re trying to create safe spaces for art and communities, and for people to feel something other than the discrimination and the bullying that we face every day,” says Sayers.

Lesbian golf legend

Kathy Whitworth dies at 83

With her record of 88 victories in a single tour untouched, golf legend Kathy Whitworth passed away on Christmas Eve this year. She was 83.

Her partner, Bettye Odle, didn’t disclose the cause but said only that she died suddenly while celebrating with loved ones.

“Kathy left this world the way she lived her life — loving, laughing, and creating memories,” said Odle in a statement.

Whitworth broke records in other areas, too. In 1981, she was the first woman to surpass $1 million in LPGA career earnings, although she said she “would have swapped being the first to make a million for winning the Open, but it was a consolation which took some of the sting out of not winning.”

While she was rarely named as the most elegant golfer, she was often referred to as the best at winning.

“I don’t think about the legacy of 88 tournaments,” she once said. “I did it because

Trained moderators and mentors are present in selfsea’s communities 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to watch each post and keep discussions safe and constructive. Additional barriers are in place to keep other personal information from being posted, so every user is anonymous.

Of course, when discussing mental health and related topics, people can be vulnerable. Sometimes a user might say something that offends another without realizing it, but selfsea’s moderation approach is “restorative” rather than punitive, meant to educate instead of punish. Young people chose that policy, too.

“I thought that young people really wanted this free-for-all space,” Wilson said of the community message boards. Instead, “What we heard from the vast majority

of young people is, ‘I can get bullied anywhere else. I want to come here to get information that actually matters to me; I want to see myself reflected in that.’”

As a result of these efforts, some of the most isolated Queer teens could benefit from the same kind of emotional support and validation of a found family, even if their circumstances might not otherwise allow it.

Even if you “age out” of the app, you can still pitch in. For those 18 to 24 years old, selfsea runs a digital storyteller program, where young adults of varying identities — many of them alumni of the app themselves — can share their experiences and pass down generational wisdom, to let teens like them know that they aren’t the first, and they’re not alone.

Selfsea has been running for two years now. According to Wilson, 69% of its users identify as LGBT+, 58% as BIPOC, and 40% as Latinx, which is a point of pride for an organization focused on serving marginalized communities.

“We’ve seen huge feedback in selfsea increasing their sense of belonging, their sense of community, but also providing them with health knowledge,” he said, pointing out that health knowledge is increasingly hard to come by in certain parts of the country.

As for selfsea’s future, one of its newest projects will integrate the resources it collects online with the more convenient and personalized design of the app, lowering the need for swapping between the app and browser pages.

In the meantime, the app already has a lot to offer. For instance, a partnership with the mindfulness service Headspace enables selfsea users to get a free subscription to Headspace. Other partnerships make it easy to contact state mental health resources, crisis lines, and the like.

When asked if he had a message for readers, Wilson said, “Recommend it to young folks. Young people tend to feel like they have to go it alone, and they don’t.”

You can find out more about selfsea at https://selfsea.org/. The app is available for Android, iOS, and online for any device with a web browser.

I wanted to win, not set a record or a goal that no one else could surpass. I’m not some great oddity. I was just fortunate to be so successful. What I did in being a better player does not make me a better person.”

When asked what she would like to be remembered for, she once answered, “I feel that if people remember me at all, it will be good enough.”

National/International News

FLORIDA

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The production company advertises the show as an “all ages” event, as does the website advertising the Orlando show. But the site listing all the tour stops warns that potential patrons might be barred depending on local regulations.

Miami’s show, for example, is advertised with the caveat “Adult content. Recommended for audiences 18+. Minors must be accompanied by an adult.” The Clearwater ads say that only those older than 18 will be admitted.

According to the traveling production’s website, Dragfans.com, the show has been touring for eight years. Posters displayed on the website’s “Past Tours” page show that the production has made stops in Florida for five previous Christmases.

Right-wing critics of the show tweeted videos showing a full house at the December 26 opening at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The December 22 event in Knoxville, Tennessee, was sold out, according to Tennessee state Representative Gloria Johnson’s Twitter account.

According to a post on the website Florida Politics, the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation is investigating the production. DBPR head Bryan Griffin tweeted that the investigation is based on what he terms “multiple complaints about a sexually explicit performance marketed to children held in Fort Lauderdale on December 26.”

“The Department is actively investigating this matter, including video footage and photographs from the event,” Griffin added in the tweeted statement.

“Exposing children to sexually explicit activity is a crime in Florida, and such action violates the Department’s licensing standards for operating a business and holding a liquor license,” Griffin’s tweet warns.

International news highlights

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer

Spanish feminists divided over Trans bill

On a similar note, Spain’s left-wing Podemos party has made another big step toward codifying a bill that would allow anyone 16 years and older to change the gender listed on their ID card, without the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The measure was approved 188 to 150, and it has moved to the Senate for final approval.

The bill has some of the country’s feminist lobby concerned, however, about how it could affect women’s rights.

“When gender is asserted over biological sex, it does not seem to me to be a step forward in a progressive direction; it seems to be a step backwards,” said Carmen Calvo, former deputy prime minister to current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. “The state has to provide answers for Transgender people, but gender is neither voluntary nor optional.”

Other critics in the US and UK have trotted out similar rhetoric concerning women’s sports, women’s prisons, and minors self-determining their gender.

Equality Minister Irene Montero said that the law would “de-pathologize” Trans lives and safeguard Trans peoples’ rights.

“Trans women are women,” Montero said.

The tweet promises state officials will review evidence and turn it over to the Florida department of Law Enforcement if necessary. Griffin also used his Twitter account to post a letter the DBPR sent to the show’s Miami venue host, warning the business to “avoid action being taken against your license.”

A state investigation into a July com-

plaint involving a drag show in Wynwood, Florida, is still pending. In that incident, the complaint was based on a video of a small child dancing with one of the drag queens.

At that time, Florida governor and GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis threatened to revoke the venue’s liquor license, but the venue’s website shows the weekend drag brunch as still scheduled every Saturday and Sunday.

In July, DeSantis said his criticism of the drag brunch’s entertainment is part of his fight to make Florida a place “where kids can be kids.” That includes efforts to pass the Parental Rights in Education law, which closely regulates classroom discussions.

Scotland lowers self-ID barriers, London skeptical

On December 22, the Scottish parliament approved reforms that will make it easier for Trans people to change their legal gender. The reforms include removing the requirement for a gender dysphoria diagnosis and lowering the minimum age from 18 to 16.

Joining countries like Ireland, Denmark, and Argentina in implementing such self-ID measures this year, Scotland passed the bill 86 to 49, despite the opposition of Conservatives and some Transexclusionary women’s rights campaigners.

Britain’s Conservative government in London said it had concerns and might try to block the bill.

“We will look closely at that, and also the ramifications for the 2010 Equality Act and other UK-wide legislation, in the coming weeks — up to and including a Section 35 order stopping the bill going for Royal Assent if necessary,” said Alister Jack, the British government’s secretary of state for Scotland.

Section 35 of the Scotland Act allows the Scottish secretary to block a bill’s submission if they have reasonable grounds to believe it would have

an adverse effect on the operation of the law as it applies to reserved matters — “reserved matters” being roughly equivalent to federal legislation.

“I think we can all hope that Trans people in Scotland will also be able to benefit from those positive outcomes as the bill removes barriers to the enjoyment of their human rights,” said Scotland’s social justice minister Shona Robison before the vote. Robison also pointed to a “remarkable” decrease in violence against Trans people in countries where similar laws were passed.