Vote now for LGBTQ Nation’s 2022 Good News Hero
Rafael Díaz, whose story of compatibility with his husband – both relationship and renal compatibility – showed that gay love has no bounds; small town Mayor Ty Penserga, whose honest style beat an anti-gay extremist in his local election; Ohio drag queen Robert Dennick Joki who used song to fight anti-gay protestors at a kid-friendly event; the Belfast, Maine Gender-Sexuality Alliance, a group of teens who stepped up and saved their local Pride festivities; and Jose Solivan, whose proposal to his fiancé on Good Morning America woke up our hearts.The nominees for LGBTQ Nation’s 2022 Good News Hero prove peace, love and understanding win the day.
Vote now for LGBTQ Nation’s 2022 Good News Hero.Rafael DíazWhen Reid Alexander swiped right on Tinder in 2020, he had no idea he’d found a perfect match — for a new kidney.Alexander, who was diagnosed with kidney-impairing Alport syndrome at 17, found out at 24 he was down to just 20% of function for the blood-filtering organs, each about the size of a fist.
He was eligible for a transplant.That’s when Rafael Díaz swiped into his life.First, the couple fell in love. Then, as Alexander’s condition deteriorated, Díaz took the initiative to get tested for compatibility and found that they were a perfect match.
Again.That’s when the pair decided to get hitched, first at the altar, then in simultaneous surgeries that gave Alexander a new lease on life.“I’ve already cried so much,” Alexander said. “From the first day that I woke up in the hospital after surgery and every day after, every time we saw each other, I just cried.”“It was meant to be,” says Díaz.Ty Penserga “I tell his gay butt this: if you’re gay, you’re gay.
