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Vivian McCall
Posted inCulture

Portland and Seattle Magazines Bought up by Michigan Media Company

New owners cut deep into already struggling Seattle Met and Portland Monthly editorial teams.
Avatar photoAvatar photo by Vivian McCall and Suzette Smith

City magazines Seattle Met and Portland Monthly have been sold off by their parent company, SagaCity, in a receivership deal to pay off the company’s debts.  In addition to the Seattle and Portland magazines the agreement includes Houstonia in Texas, Park City Magazine in Utah, and Aspen Sojourner and Vail Beaver Creek Magazine in Colorado. […]

Posted inNews

Seattle Area Trans Women Are Being Attacked by Groups of Men

Portland bias crime data shows similar trends, with LGBTQ+ people at higher risk of assault by men.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

This story was first published in The Stranger. Warning: This story contains descriptions of violence. “Go to Pony, go to Pony, go to Pony—there’s more people there,” said a frantic woman as she approached Madison Carstens and her friends next to the Maserati dealership on 12th and Union Street in Seattle. Six or seven young […]

Posted inOpinion

Why RFK Isn’t a Joke

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is defiantly ignorant—which is why he’s so dangerous.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

Get your yucks out. Worm guy is funny. Worm guy is ridiculous. Ha ha ha ha ha therewasafuckingworminhisbrainorsohesays. Last week, the Senate actually confirmed Robert “The Worm” F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. A vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist is the most powerful health official in the United States, and therefore […]

Posted inNews

Trump’s Federal Government is Blocking Gender Marker Changes

Here’s what you can change right now, and what you can’t.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

[This article was originally published in our sister publication, The Stranger.—eds] When Joe Biden was President, trans people in the US could update the gender marker on file with the Social Security Administration, the gender marker on their passport with the State Department, and, if they were not born here, various travel, employment, and residence […]

Posted inQueer

Fucking Political: Lessons From the Early AIDS Activists Who Took Matters Into Their Own Hands

It’s possible one booklet by two AIDS patients and their doctor—and another written by drag queens—saved thousands of lives.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

[Originally published in the Mercury‘s sister publication The Stranger, as part of its Love & Sex Issue.] On July 3, 1981, the New York Times announced the coming plague with a short news item tucked into Section A, Page 20: “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.”  Nobody knew the purple Kaposi’s Sarcoma lesions the article […]

Posted inQueer Guide 2024

The Future of HIV Treatment Is Injectable

Promising prugs could expand treatment–if we get out of our own way.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] As Sidney Adjetey laid on an exam table at Harborview Medical Center with his T-shirt hiked up, research clinician Phoebe Bryson-Cahn examined injection sites on either side of his belly button. In April, University of Washington researchers at the UW Positive Research […]

Posted inMusic

Chastity Belt’s New Album Live Laugh Love Is Tongue-In-Cheek and Totally Serious

Who knew comic bangers could also be honest confessions about frustrated aimlessness, loneliness, and finding purpose? This Seattle indie band did.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

The songs on Chastity Belt’s Live Laugh Love are honest confessions about frustrated aimlessness, loneliness, and finding purpose and beauty with the people you love, but delivered with their trademark sense of humor.

Posted inNews

The Number of Pacific Northwest Residents Who Support Secession Is Growing

But the Union Isn’t Screwed. Probably.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

Originally published in our sister publication, The Stranger. Alex Garland’s Civil War, a film that premiered at South by Southwest this month, imagines a near-future where the collective “Western Forces” of Texas and California are engaged in a second American Civil War with a United States government led by a three-term president, placing viewers with […]

Posted inVideo Games

The Ultimate Stardew Valley Creator Interview About Pacific Northwest Interests

Video game designer Eric Barone on salmonberries, mushroom foraging, and layered portrayals of homelessness.
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

[The following Q&A was originally published by our sister publication, The Stranger, but as it seems to give definitive proof that Stardew Valley is set in the Pacific Northwest we felt it was relevant to Portland interests.—eds.] Stardew Valley is the ultimate farming sim fantasy video game. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s like the original Harvest Moon […]

Posted inNews

Montana GOP Wants to Make Life Hell for Trans People

A Slew of Bills Aim to Ban Care and Legalize Bigotry
Avatar photo Vivian McCall

This year Republican lawmakers in Montana introduced eight bills threatening the civil rights of the state’s transgender and gender nonconforming citizens.  Five of those proposals could still become law, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors that’s awaiting the signature of Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte. Republicans are also preventing a transgender representative in the […]

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