Chris Bull

---

Chris Bull
Born
🏫 Education	Vassar College
💼 Occupation	Journalist, author, media executive
👔 Employer	Q.Digital, Inc.
Notable work	Perfect Enemies (1996); The Accidental Activist (1996)
Title	Editorial Director

Chris Bull is an American journalist, author, editor, and media executive whose work has focused on LGBTQ+ politics, civil rights, culture, and media. He was national correspondent for The Advocate, where he covered Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and federal agencies. He has also contributed to USA Today, The Washington Post Magazine, and GQ.

Bull is editorial director of Q.Digital, Inc., an LGBTQ+-owned and -operated media company based in San Francisco, California. Q.Digital publishes LGBTQ Nation, Queerty, GayCities, Into, and Outsports; LGBTQ Nation states that Q.Digital is certified by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce as an LGBTQ Business Enterprise.

Bull has written, co-written, and edited books on LGBTQ+ politics, history, and culture. With John Gallagher, he co-authored Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s, which examined the political conflict between the religious right and the gay rights movement in the 1990s. In The Washington Post, John Hubner described Bull and Gallagher's work as "fair and even-handed" and "penetrating". Publishers Weekly called the book a "well-documented and contextualized account" of conflicts between the religious right and gay rights. In 2019, an NPR report used the book's "perfect enemies" framing to discuss continuing conflicts between the LGBTQ rights movement and the religious right, and quoted Bull on marriage equality, transgender rights, workplace protections, and religious-liberty litigation.

Bull also co-wrote The Accidental Activist with Candace Gingrich, co-wrote Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball with former Major League Baseball player Billy Bean, and edited the anthologies Witness to Revolution, Come Out Fighting, and At Ground Zero. The Washington Post obituary of Bean described Going the Other Way as Bean's book about his life, "written with Chris Bull"; The New York Times also covered Bean's life and legacy after his death in 2024.

In 2000, Bull interviewed President Bill Clinton for The Advocate on hate crimes legislation, Matthew Shepard, gay rights, military policy, AIDS policy, and the religious right. Bull received an Alicia Patterson Journalism Foundation Fellowship in 2000 for reporting on anti-gay violence in America. The Global Center for Journalism & Trauma identifies him as a recipient of NLGJA Honors and as a finalist for the Livingston Award for young journalists.

Early life and education

Bull attended Vassar College, a liberal arts institution in Poughkeepsie, New York. Following his education, he relocated to Washington, D.C., where he began his journalism career in the early 1990s.

Career

The Advocate and Washington reporting

Bull was national correspondent for The Advocate, where he covered Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and federal agencies. Hachette Book Group has also described him as Washington correspondent for The Advocate and a frequent contributor to The Washington Post.< The Advocate, established in 1967, has been described by Google Books' archive of the magazine as the oldest continuing LGBT publication in the United States.

His reporting and commentary during this period addressed federal LGBTQ+ politics, hate crimes legislation, the Clinton administration, the religious right, AIDS policy, same-sex marriage, and the military's policy on gay service members. In 1999, Bull wrote a profile for The Washington Post Magazine of Richard Socarides, then the Clinton White House liaison to the gay and lesbian community, discussing hate crimes legislation, the aftermath of Matthew Shepard's murder, AIDS policy, same-sex marriage, and the Clinton administration's relationship with gay rights advocates.

In 2000, Bull interviewed President Bill Clinton for The Advocate. The interview, preserved by the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, covered hate crimes legislation, Shepard's murder, gay rights, the military, AIDS policy, the Boy Scouts of America, and the religious right. During his Alicia Patterson fellowship year, Bull reported on anti-gay violence in America as the Washington correspondent for The Advocate.

Bull's Advocate reporting has been cited in later legal and academic scholarship. A 2001 article in Law & Sexuality cited Bull's Advocate reporting on Matthew Shepard and antigay violence, including "All Eyes Were Watching", and also cited his essay on the Andy Rooney controversy as reprinted in Witness to Revolution. A 2011 article in Religion and American Culture also cited Bull's Advocate article "All Eyes Were Watching" in its discussion of the public memory of Matthew Shepard. In scholarship on gay youth suicide, Tom Waidzunas cited Bull's 1994 Advocate article "Suicidal Tendencies: Is Anguish over Sexual Orientation Causing Gay and Lesbian Teens to Kill Themselves?".

Alongside his work for The Advocate, Bull contributed to USA Today, The Washington Post Magazine, and GQ. The Global Center for Journalism & Trauma identifies him as a recipient of NLGJA Honors for a series of articles and as a finalist for the Livingston Award for young journalists.

PlanetOut

Bull later became senior political correspondent for PlanetOutInc.com, the San Francisco-based LGBTQ+ online media company. The Alicia Patterson Foundation reported that he wrote a PlanetOut column called "Bull's Eye". During this period, Bull also wrote for ESPN The Magazine. His 2004 article "The Healer" profiled Lindsy McLean, the longtime San Francisco 49ers trainer, and discussed McLean's experiences as a gay man in professional football.

Q.Digital and LGBTQ Nation (2008–present)

Bull is co-founder and editorial director of Q.Digital, Inc., an LGBTQ+-owned and -operated digital media company based in San Francisco, California. LGBTQ Nation identifies Q.Digital as its parent company and states that Q.Digital is LGBTQ+ owned and operated and certified by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce as an LGBTQ Business Enterprise.

Q.Digital's media properties include LGBTQ Nation, Queerty, GayCities, Into, and Outsports. In 2024, Q.Digital acquired Outsports from Vox Media's SB Nation. Digiday reported that the transaction moved Outsports' staff to Q.Digital and marked Q.Digital's move into the sports vertical.

As editorial director of LGBTQ Nation, Bull has written and edited features on LGBTQ+ politics, history, media, and public policy. His recent work includes interviews and essays on queer political history, LGBTQ+ authors, public memory, and contemporary backlash against LGBTQ+ rights.

Books

Perfect Enemies (1996)

Co-authored with John Gallagher, a fellow national correspondent at The Advocate, Perfect Enemies was published by Crown Publishers in 1996. The book traces the parallel origins and growth of the religious right and the American gay rights movement from 1969, the year of the Stonewall riots, through the culture wars of the 1990s. Publishers Weekly called it "a well-documented and contextualized account of the skirmishes between the religious right and gay rights." An updated paperback edition was published by Madison Books in 2001 under the title Perfect Enemies: The Battle Between the Religious Right and the Gay Movement. The edition expanded the book's coverage to include debates over same-sex marriage and legal recognition of gay relationships, as well as the religious right's efforts to regroup behind President George W. Bush.

The Accidental Activist (1996)

Co-written with Candace Gingrich, the openly lesbian half-sister of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, The Accidental Activist was published by Scribner in 1996. The book chronicles Candace Gingrich's unexpected rise as a gay rights advocate following the Republican landslide of 1994. The memoir was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. In The New York Times, critic John B. Judis praised the book for Gingrich's candor and honesty.

Witness to Revolution (editor)

Bull edited Witness to Revolution: The Advocate Reports on Gay and Lesbian Politics, 1967–1999, an anthology of reporting from The Advocate published by Alyson Books in 1999. The collection documents gay and lesbian political history from the magazine's early coverage of the post-Stonewall movement through the end of the twentieth century.

Come Out Fighting (editor)

This anthology spans a full century of LGBTQ+ thought and advocacy. As editor, Bull assembled Come Out Fighting: A Century of Essential Writing on Gay and Lesbian Liberation, that included writings by figures such as Walt Whitman, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Harvey Milk, Audre Lorde, and Gore Vidal.

At Ground Zero (2002)

Co-edited with Sam Erman, this anthology collects first-person accounts from journalism students and early-career reporters who covered the September 11 attacks and their aftermath. Contributors worked for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, Reuters, and other publications. Library Journal called it "worthwhile for anyone wanting to read more about September 11." Booklist described it as "an excellent collection from a talented group of up-and-coming journalists."

Awards and recognition

• Alicia Patterson Journalism Foundation Fellowship (2000), for reporting on anti-gay violence in America
• NLGJA Honors, for a series of articles

Personal life

Bull is openly gay and has written candidly about his identity and experience as an LGBTQ+ journalist. He is based in San Francisco, California. In a 2024 LGBTQ Nation interview with philosopher Daniel Chandler, Bull referred to himself as "a fellow gay man" while discussing coming out, queer life, and liberal political theory.

Bibliography

• Perfect Enemies: The Battle Between the Religious Right and the Gay Rights Movement with John Gallagher. Crown Publishers, 1996. ISBN 978-0-517-70198-0 Search this book on ..
• The Accidental Activist: A Personal and Political Memoir with Candace Gingrich. Scribner, 1996. ISBN 978-0-684-82462-8 Search this book on ..
• Witness to Revolution: The Advocate Reports on Gay and Lesbian Politics, 1967–1999, editor. Alyson Books, 1999. ISBN 978-1-55583-465-4 Search this book on ..
• Come Out Fighting: A Century of Essential Writing on Gay and Lesbian Liberation, editor. Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2001. ISBN 978-1-56025-325-9 Search this book on ..
• At Ground Zero: 25 Stories from Young Reporters Who Were There, co-editor with Sam Erman. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002. ISBN 978-1-56025-427-0 Search this book on ..
• Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball with Billy Bean. Marlowe & Company, 2003.

External links

LGBTQ Nation 2000 Clinton interview – American Presidency Project

This article "Chris Bull" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Chris Bull. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• Dan Piepenbring
• Paul Garson
• Brad Heath
• Cordelia Camp
• Christopher Riley (author)
• Eric John Brock

---