Turkey Called It My Family Is Safe
Welcome back to the Watering Hole. Turkish police spent Saturday raiding the homes and offices of six LGBT associations, under an operation the state named My Family is Safe. Further down, the only two out men on the men's tennis tour played each other in a final, which has never happened before.
Turkey raided six LGBT associations across fifteen provinces and named the operation My Family is Safe. Twenty-six detained, 162 people facing proceedings, and Erdogan calls this a Decade of Family. keep reading →
Nine in ten queer organizations on earth have lost funding since January 2025. 229 groups in 94 countries answered. Three percent called themselves financially stable. keep reading →
Grindr is paying £26 million over the HIV statuses it handed to two analytics firms. Twelve thousand UK users, no admission of liability anywhere in it. keep reading →
Jon Husted's political director had SS soldiers as his Facebook photo. Hired in August, gone by Friday, the hour the Washington Post called for comment. keep reading →
Hungary's new government named the first Orbán law it will undo, and it is the gay adoption one. Five months in. Magyar says a politician should not be the one deciding who gets to parent. keep reading →
Australia's highest court refused Giggle's appeal, with costs. Roxanne Tickle is done. Five years to prove the law already covered her, and nowhere left to appeal to. keep reading →
A $5.4 billion Christian fund asked Nike's shareholders to come for trans healthcare. It got under one percent. The same campaign is running at 242 other employers. keep reading →
Gillian Anderson asked the question out loud in 2024 and answered it herself this week. “Pan, as in pansexual, as in attracted to all genders.” She took her time. She got there. keep reading →
The BBC dropped Drag Race UK while season eight was still going out weekly on iPlayer. World of Wonder had it rehomed inside a day, behind a subscription. keep reading →
Lilly Wachowski told Variety that Harry Potter money is trans genocide money. Rowling's agent replied in the same magazine. The group chat has not stopped since. keep reading →
Two out men played a professional tennis final in Austria this morning. Nobody has done that before. Brunold beat Reis da Silva 6-4, 6-3. They are the only two out men on the men's tour. keep reading →
580 gender-affirming kits went to trans Ohioans this year, from a nonprofit two people started with $500. Nearly $30,000 of supplies, restocked four times a year, handed out by lottery. keep reading →
Jason Collins signed his will a month after the diagnosis, and left part of it to the kids. Glisten and the Point Foundation are named in it, beside his husband and his twin brother. keep reading →
Six things for the stretch of fall where everybody starts standing a little closer together. Two fragrances, a body mist, and the three-step face that goes under all of it.
YSL Beauty MYSLF $170 TikTok has collectively decided cologne is the only subject left, and this is the grown-up on every one of those lists. Orange blossom over woods, warm without turning into dessert. Wear it to the thing you told everybody you were relaxed about.
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Nécessaire The Body Wash, Santal $42 Fall is here and your shins are about to betray you. Sandalwood, no locker-room note anywhere in it, in a bottle you can leave on the ledge when somebody stays over.
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Parfums de Marly Percival $290+ The splurge. Green, lavender, expensive-smelling, and the fragrance people call it a compliment monster without a trace of irony. For the version of you who actually goes out.
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SIDIA The Body Mist, Soaked $48 Body mist built like a real fragrance instead of an afterthought, with hyaluronic acid and niacinamide doing quiet work underneath. Spray it on damp skin straight out of the shower. Soaked is the one to get.
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Pixi Rose Remedy Mask $24 Cheap and cheerful. Ten minutes of jelly mask, rosehip and argan and a bit of cica, and your face stops looking like the week it just had. Ten ounces of it for twenty-four dollars, which is the whole argument.
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Saie Slip Tint $38 SPF 35 and a tinted moisturizer in one tube, and it smooths and blurs without ever reading as makeup. Red carpet daily. The closest thing to a filter you can put on with your hands.
shop it →These are ShopMy links, so we earn a small commission if you buy something. It costs you nothing extra, nobody paid us to pick these, and it has no bearing on what makes the list. Prices are what the retailer showed on the day we sent this.
📺 then / now: what the license fee was actually for
The BBC canceled Drag Race UK on Wednesday, mid-season, and World of Wonder rehomed it within a day.
THEN. Eight series on BBC Three since 2019, plus three of UK vs the World. Free at the point of use for anybody in Britain with a telly and a login, 1.5 million viewers an episode at its peak and about a million in recent years.
NOW. “Significant financial pressures,” per an unnamed spokesperson, while the BBC cuts 1,800 jobs to save £500 million. In March it axed I Kissed a Boy and I Kissed a Girl citing “funding challenges.” Same sentence, nouns shuffled.
NEXT. World of Wonder had it rehomed inside a day. Drag Race UK All Stars premieres on WOW Presents Plus in fall 2027, and all eight series plus all three of UK vs the World go with it, available in the UK for the first time. Behind a subscription.
The show is fine. It will probably be better. What ends is a fifteen-year-old in a town with no gay bar watching drag queens on the same platform as the six o'clock news, filed under normal, and that is the one thing a subscription streamer, however good the show turns out to be, structurally cannot do. the bbc dropped drag race uk mid-season
— Spencer
