Last year felt like a beatdown. If you are part of any marginalized community – aka non-white, non-cisgender, non-Christian, and non-straight – you probably feel the same. As a member of the queer community, I spent a lot of last year wondering which shoe would drop every time someone in the Trump administration opened their mouths. Unfortunately, they did not disappoint.
Corporate and university DEI initiatives stripped away under the threat of federal funding losses. Removal of transgender service members from the military, regardless of how long they had been serving or what specialized skill the military might lose. Cancellation of The Trevor Project’s grants, which impacted their participation in the national suicide hotline and some support queer individuals in crisis might need.
After that and more, “We’re here. We’re Queer. Get used to it!” felt more like “We’re here. We’re Queer. We’re exhausted.” By December, taking a break and licking our wounds felt like the better option. I know I was pretty much worn out by the time Christmas break rolled around. After writing about queer advocacy (and a few other issues) last year, stepping back into the shadows for a moment didn’t seem like a bad idea.
Then Heated Rivalry – and the hype surrounding it – showed up after Thanksgiving, and suddenly I had more to think about. Granted, it was mostly about how to keep people from spoiling the show for me and how much I needed to avoid social media to keep that from happening. Short of moving to a remote island in the Pacific, I wasn’t sure either was going to be possible.
But after the anti-queer sentiments blasted across our screens, we suddenly had something we could celebrate. Something for us to look to that was uplifting, sweet, and not to mention hot. (Kudos to the show’s intimacy coordinator. That had to be tough!) Even more, here was an opportunity to highlight queer representation in sports, particularly in one deemed as rugged as hockey.
I do find it a bit ironic that after everything the administration did in 2025 to tamp down support for the queer community, one television show would push queer visibility to the forefront of conversation. That the show would promote positive images of gay men. For a change, we aren’t being portrayed as victims, or the bitchy gay best friend, or the comedic relief. We are being seen.
Plus we will continue to be seen. Nice to know that Heated Rivalry has already been picked up for a second round. Hopefully, given the number of books in the series, we will continue to see more of Ilya and Shane’s story. We will get to see more positive portrayals of queer men. And we’ll get to see some more skin.
Because after 2025, we need a moment that lifts us up. We need once again to be seen.
