Charles Barkley – Photo; Chensiyuan, via Wikimedia.
NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has criticized attempts by right-wingers to “cancel” corporations or individuals who seek to market to or show support for the LGBTQ community.
In the first video, Barkley encourages the crowd to drink Bud Light and expresses support for members of the LGBTQ community.
“I want to say this,” Barkley says. “I want y’all to drink this f*ck*g beer. I want y’all to drink this f*ck*g beer. I got three cases of Bud Light. Hey, and I want to say this. If you’re gay, bless you. If you’re transgender, bless you. And if you have a problem with that, f*ck you!”
“I’m gonna buy some drinks for y’all, and I’m gonna buy Bud Light,” Barkley says in a second video, which was shot the following evening. “Hey, and I’m gonna tell y’all something. All you rednecks or a**holes who don’t want to drink Bud Light, f**k y’all.”
“Y’all can cancel me. I ain’t worried about getting canceled because if yall fire me and give me all that money I’m going to be playing golf every f**king day.”
“So listen, as I said last night, if you’re gay, God bless you. If you’re trans, God bless you. And if you have a problem with them, f**k you.”
This is not the first time Barkley has stood with the LGBTQ community. In 2011 he spoke against bigotry during a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before a Celtics-Magic game.
“You know, people try to make it about black and white. He [Dr. King] talked about equality for every man, every woman. We have a thing going on now — people discriminating against homosexuality in this country.
“I love the homosexual people. God bless the gay people. They are great people.”
In 2013, he critiqued the prevalence of homophobia within the sports world in response to some players’ alleged discomfort around the idea of having LGBTQ teammates following NBA player Jason Collins coming out as gay. During an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show, when asked if he’d ever played alongside gay teammates he responded: “Yeah, of course I did!”
“Everybody did. Everybody played with a gay teammate, Dan, and it’s no big deal,” he said.
“First of all, I think it’s an insult to gay people to think they’re trying to pick up on their teammates,” Barkley added. “But everybody’s played with a gay teammate.”
Barkley currently appears on Inside the NBA on TNT where he provides insights and analysis on games and basketball-related topics.
A New York City subway rider was slashed in the face earlier this month by an unidentified assailant who took offense to him kissing his transgender partner. The attack occurred around 7:50 p.m. on January 10 aboard a southbound No. 6 train as it traveled through Manhattan.
According to police, the 28-year-old victim was kissing his partner when the suspect began shouting anti-gay slurs. The verbal abuse quickly escalated into a physical confrontation. During the argument, the suspect struck the victim with a sharp object, causing a deep laceration on the right side of his face, according to New York CW affiliate WPIX.
A new report finds that acceptance of LGBTQ people is declining across the United States, with nearly three in ten LGBTQ adults saying attitudes toward their community have worsened.
On Thursday, January 15, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released findings from its Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey, which drew responses from nearly 15,000 U.S. adults -- roughly two-thirds of whom identified as LGBTQ.
In addition to the survey, HRC last year launched its "American Dreams Tour," traveling to 10 cities and engaging more than 5,000 people through town halls, trainings, and community meetings with local LGBTQ leaders and activists. Those on-the-ground conversations informed the report, which aims to assess the state of LGBTQ life in the United States one year into the second Trump administration.
In late November, the University of Oklahoma placed Mel Curth on administrative leave after the transgender graduate teaching assistant gave a student a zero on an essay about gender roles.
The essay cited the Bible to defend traditional gender roles and described transgender people as "demonic." Curth and the course's instructor, Megan Waldron, said the paper failed to meet basic academic standards due to a lack of empirical evidence. Both noted that the paper cited no scholarly sources and failed to offer an evidence-based critique of the assigned article, which argued that children who do not conform to rigid gender stereotypes are more likely to face bullying and negative mental health outcomes.
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