(Image via Twitter)

ABOVE: This is fascism.

BELOW: Keep reading for a LOT about SNL, Musk's latest rat dropped five months ago, Lady Bunny's in heat for Luigi Mangione and more ...

SNL's queer trailblazer Terry Sweeney — who also had a nice bit on Seinfeld, upper left (Images via NBC)

VULTURE: Terry Sweeney himself opens up about his tenure on SNL:

I give Lorne credit for hiring me. He supported me. He never did anything homophobic toward me — never. I’m sure he had his own pressures from the network. After that season, everybody was looking like, Okay, you failed. We brought you back, and now you failed. Well, that’s the end of you. But I give all the credit for hiring me. People needed to see a gay person on TV at that moment. That’s what was needed — a gay person who wasn’t dying, who was lively and running around doing drag, being funny, being outrageous. And I kept hearing that over and over. I got letters and letters from people telling me, “Thank God you’re doing it.” They just hadn’t seen anybody openly gay like that. And I was doing gay stuff.

WAPO: “The Secret Gay History of SNL.”

OUT: The best and worst queer SNL sketches ever. (I really can't sign off on Bernardo Sim's taste level here.) I would suggest an inexcusable pair of absences from consideration are:

Pinklisting — This sketch about AIDS hysteria made air in 1985. In it, Terry Sweeney is a putting on a macho front to keep his job as an actor, and Madonna is a Joan Collins type. (Her neck gives a great supporting performance.) Despite being super early in the pandemic was bold, funny (if awkward) and wise about issues of being professionally closeted and about HIV paranoia:

Schmitts Gay — Also, like, how is the Farley-Sandler beer ad not included? It's still funny. I remember feeling it was hilarious and yet not anti-gay:

INDIEWIRE: The not-so-secret r o c k y queer history of SNL.

BBC: Muhsin Hendricks, the first out gay imam, was shot dead in South Africa Saturday after being ambushed.

The world seems to be getting more cruel by the minute. (Image via social media)

CNN: Sam Nordquist, a 24-year-old trans-identifying man from Minnesota, was brutally murdered — in fact, held captive and tortured for weeks — in New York state. Now, five people have been arrested and charged with the heinous crime.

VARIETY: A rare ray of light in a bleak landscape for LGBTQ+ right — the long-running Teddy Awards.

Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor's Dreamers (Image via Berlin Film Festival)

PEOPLE: Elon Musk never told his estranged trans daughter about his THIRTEENTH kid, who he had with a far-right influencer. Oh, and that little assignation is messy.

She seems nice. (Image via Twitter)

HUFF POST: Scores of probationary IRS workers were randomly fired — at the height of tax season.

SOCIALITE LIFE: All the hotties of the week, including Dylan Efron.

AMAZON: A new book merges queerness, queer sex and food.

YOUTUBE: Not a huge fan of Lady Bunny, but this is pretty funny: