LOS ANGELES (KABC) — The Circa: Queer Histories Festival 2025 is set to kick off on Sunday Sept. 28, through Friday, Oct. 31.
This is the first and only queer histories festival in the United States.
The festival features 40 plus programs celebrating queer and trans history, art, and culture across Los Angeles County.
This year’s theme is ‘Reclaiming Freedom’ which showcases the voices and lives that are being threatened with the current political climate and celebrates resiliece of the LGBTQ+ community.
There will be panels from ACLU lawyer and trans rights activist Chase Strangio, best-selling author Tourmaline, former Trevor Project CEO, Abbe Land, Black trans leader and cultural worker Sydney Rogers, and many others.
Tickets are available now and they are offered on a sliding scale.
If you’re looking for LGBTQ+ graphic novels, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got a little something for everyone. Shapeshifters who refuse conform to gender or moral norms. Sapphics who ride spaceships across the stars to find the ones they love. Gay teens experiencing high school romance for the very first time. Trans angels that teach martial arts to chaotic bisexual baristas. Whatever your fancy, you’ll find it here. These are the 10 best queer graphic novels, perfect to cozy up with on a rainy gay. I mean, day.
Nimona
( Quill Tree Books)
The novel that elevated author ND Stevenson to queer internet royalty, Nimona is the story of a shapeshifter who refuses to play by physical, societal, or moral rules. In a kingdom where science and magic intertwine, the teenage Nimona is a social outcast, ostracized for their ability to change the shape of their body in myriad way. In order to stick it to the man, which in this case is a government organization called The Institute, Nimona dedicates their life to crime – and seeks to become the sidekick of famous criminal Ballister Blackheart. Ballister was once a poster child of the Institute, but left it and his ex-lover behind after a disastrous falling out. Now he’s out for revenge, and Nimona is willing to help him get it. But on the quest for retribution, the pair uncover a conspiracy that the Institute would rather keep under wraps, and are determined to drag it kicking and screaming into the light.
The Magic Fish
(Random House Graphic)
Trung Le Nguyen’s The Magic Fish is a semi-autobiographical memoir about Tiến Phong, a second generation Vietnamese American attempting to teach his mother English through fairy tales. As Tiến recounts tales of runaway princesses, magical talking fish, and lovestruck mermaids, he begins to slowly get in touch with his own sexuality. Tiến soon discovers that he is gay, but is fearful that his mother will refuse to accept him. It’s the story of a young man attempting to bridge the divide between his family’s culture and the culture of the new nation they find themselves in – along with his struggle to find acceptance by his community and his peers. Through fantasy, we better understand reality. No one understands this better than Tiến.
Kill Six Billion Demons
(Image Comics)
Tom Parkinson Morgan’s Kill Six Billion Demons is many things: a progression manga, a spiritual text, and a sapphic fantasy. The plot revolves around Allison Ruth, a barista who was kidnapped from her dorm room by a runaway god and spirited away to Heaven – which is a seedy city at the center of the multiverse. Armed with newfound divine power, Allison is charged with liberating the multiverse from the grip of the Demiurges – seven divinities that carve up reality for their own gain. With the help of a trans angelic martial arts teacher and spell-slinging demon turned sapphic lover, Allison may just become the most powerful being in the entire universe: God themself.
Mooncakes
(Oni Press)
Mooncakes by Joamette Gil and Suzanne Walker is the story of teen witch Nova Huang, who works at her grandmother’s bookshop selling spells in her New England town. While rambling through the woods beyond, she discovers her old crush Tam Lang. There’s no time for love confessions here, Tam is busy locked in combat with a horrible demon! The forces of darkness are after werewolves like Tam for their magic, and Tam turns to Nova for help. The two teens must combine their arcane abilities in order to stamp out evil – with a little help from Nova’s badass grandma. As cozy and spooky as a black cat kitten, Mooncakes is a genre classic perfect for an October night.
On A Sunbeam
(First Second)
On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden is the epitome of soft sci-fi, a tender read similar to the work of genre stalwart Becky Chambers. Much like Chambers’ The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, On A Sunbeam provides an introspective look at an interstellar crew. On the surface, the newest crew member of the Aktis may seem cool and withdrawn, but the young Mia’s chill demeanor hides an inner fire of devotion. Mia once loved and lost a girl named Grace in a whirlwind boarding school romance. Newly graduated, Mia has taken to the stars to find Grace again in the gulf of space. For a novel set in a frigid and barren void, it’s surprisingly warmhearted – a sunbeam that will shine straight into your shriveled up soul. You’re welcome.
Fun Home
(Mariner Books)
Before it was a groundbreaking Broadway musical, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was a devastating and devastatingly funny graphic novel. It’s the story of the author’s relationship with her late father, an English teacher and funeral home director. Two weeks after coming out as gay, Bruce Bechdel died of apparent suicide, leaving his daughter Alison to pick up the pieces. Alison, who is gay herself, attempts to come to terms with the troubled relationship she had with her father – one defined by emotional distance and occasional outbursts of anger. It’s the story of what happens when a person denies their truth, and the day to day devastation that comes with living a lie. Even if we don’t fully know someone, we can still love them, as Alison comes to understand. Warning, this novel may make you ugly cry, and it will be worth it.
Blue Is The Warmest Color
(Arsenal Pulp Press)
Before it was an emotional gut punch disguised as a feature film, Jul Maroh’s Blue Is The Warmest Color was an equally devastating graphic novel. Drawn in a watercolor style that looks like paint mixed with human tears (soon to be your tears) the novel details the tragic romance between Clementine and Emma, two teenage French girls. After falling madly in love, the pair struggle with the social repercussions of their queer relationship – which compound upon the emotional difficulties that come with romance. Sweet as a first kiss and brutal as a goodbye, this novel is a devastating downward spiral of the heart. No, it doesn’t end well. Yes, your tears will wet the pages. Yes, it’s absolutely worth the read – and about ten boxes of tissues.
Heartstopper
(Graphix)
Before it was a Netflix smash, Heartstopper was an explosively popular graphic novel about two high school boys in love. Charlie is a quiet and reserved intellectual, Nick is an outgoing rugby player with a heart of gold. While the pair first begin their relationship as friends, these opposites soon attract. Navigating love in a hostile high school world, the two boys find solace in one another and a supporting cast of LGBTQ+ teens. It’s the ultimate cozy read, a tender narrative that doesn’t shy away from the harsh and confusing reality faced by many queer youth. Unlike lovers in many gay romances of yesteryear, these two lovers aren’t broken by the world around them. The hardships they overcome only bring them closer together, and deepen the roots of their blooming ardor.
Gender Queer: A Memoir
(Lion Forge Comics/Oni Press)
Gender Queer is the autobiographical story of Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, detailing eir self-discovery journey as someone who is non-binary and asexual. It’s an unflinching account of Maia’s childhood growing up as gender non-conforming, and the euphoria and dysphoria that comes with it. While Maia originally wrote the novel as a way for eir family to better understand eir identity, Gender Queer has since become an emotional roadmap for many young queer people. It’s also one of the most challenged books in American libraries, and holds the Guiness World Record for “most banned book of the year” – so you know it’s good. At its core, Gender Queer is a novel that allows queer people and allies to better understand their own struggles and the struggles faced by loved ones – a great stride on the road towards acceptance and understanding.
Our Dreams At Dusk
(Seven Seas)
Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani is a no punches pulled look into the harsh reality faced by many queer teens. It’s the story of Tasuku Kaname, a teen who is outed by his classmates and is considering suicide. Just as he’s about to take his life, he witnesses a mysterious figure standing at the window of a building. This figure, who calls themself “Someone” runs a drop-in center for queer youth, a safe space for kids of all walks of life to find acceptance and community. As Tasuku listens to the stories of his peers, he begins gain a better understanding of his own life – realizing that it is worth living after all. Our Dreams At Dusk is not a cozy read, and that’s its power. It’s a story about the inner strength that queer people must cultivate in order to live in this world, a trait that will be necessary until the world better understands us. The novel is ultimately a story of hope – while widespread social acceptance may elude queer people, we can find it in pockets – found families spreading light and joy right under our noses. Just like the one Tasuku finds.
Sarah Fimm (they/them) is actually nine choirs of biblically accurate angels crammed into one pair of $10 overalls. They have been writing articles for nerds on the internet for less than a year now. They really like anime. Like… REALLY like it. Like you know those annoying little kids that will only eat hotdogs and chicken fingers? They’re like that… but with anime. It’s starting to get sad.
For those of us who love the glamor and the glitz of the entertainment industry, September passes by in a train of tulle and sartorial spectacle. Fashion weeks across New York, Paris, London, and Milan take the cake.
Packed front rows and celebrity-studded catwalks keep the internet entranced. From my couch – clad in my hole-ridden sweatpants – I judge couture and ready-to-wear fashion shows from the mega-brands and the sparkling stars who actually attend these exclusive events.
But to me, fashion week is just the punctuation to the summer film festival season. There’s the Tribeca Film Festival and Cannes, Toronto Film Festival, and Venice International Film Festival to name the heaviest hitters. Some films premiere across all these festivals; others are more selective. But each one has its headlines: the drawn-out standing ovations, the celebrity attendees, the future award winners.
Indeed, September marked the Venice Film Festival, one of the most anticipated film events of the year, and spawned some of the most talked about films of the year. The 2024 Venice Film Festival’s pomp and circumstance – arguably the film festival circuit’s glittering crown jewel – transforms the floating city into a playground for the cinematic elite.
Venice has long been the preferred launchpad for Oscar hopefuls and auteur passion projects alike. In recent years, Timothee Chalamet used it to flex his fashion prowess, the cast of The Idol used it to gaslight us into thinking it was going to be a good show (as we extensively reviewed: it wasn’t), and the Don’t Worry Darling cast played out their workplace drama for the world to see. This year was no exception. Lido was alight with couture gowns and paparazzi flashes, albeit a lot less drama and gossip to satiate us. So, rather than hashing out the latest cast feuds, let’s talk about the films.
What to watch at the Venice Film Festival 2024?
The 81st Venice International Film Festival is organized by La Biennale di Venezia and ran on the Lido di Venezia from 28 August to 7 September 2024. A parade of A-listers descended upon the city, ferried to Lido in glamorous water taxis to promote some of the films we’ll be seeing at award shows this year, and….some films that flopped.
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore – those chameleons of the silver screen – graced the red carpet for Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut, The Room Next Door, which ultimately snagged the coveted Golden Lion (Venice’s top prize). The ever-ethereal Nicole Kidman turned heads alongside her fresh-faced co-star Harris Dickinson after her turn in The Perfect Couple. Meanwhile, Daniel Craig proved he’s still got it, swapping his Bond tuxedo Loewe alongside new It Boy Drew Starkey in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer.”
This year’s theatrics were at their peak – enough to manufacture and stoke social media chatter. And it worked. Brad Pitt and George Clooney played up their pairing’s nostalgia factor by chasing each other around the red carpet, reliving their youth but also relying on the reputations of their glory days. Luca Guadanino took a selfie with his absolutely stacked cast. Jenna Ortega looking fabulous in one of her gothic Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice outfits proved that thematic press tour dressing is far from dead.
But this year’s films were just as conversation-worthy. Let’s dive into the films that have everyone talking:
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton returns to the 1988 classic that launched his career, reuniting with Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder while adding Gen Z darling – Jenna Ortega – to the mix. After her turn in Wednesday, Scream, and even the video for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste,” it’s clear that Ortega can handle horror – she’s a scream queen with the acting chops to back it up. The result is a nostalgic trip that manages to feel fresh, thanks in large part to Ortega’s deadpan charm (honed to perfection in Wednesday) as set in counterpoint to Keaton’s manic energy. It’s a welcome return to form for Burton. His triumphant release is a rare example of commercially and critically successful and was an energetic opening to the Festival.
Babygirl
The latest in the buzzy pantheon of female-driven age-gap dramas, Babygirl carves out a fresh niche for our darling Ms. Kidman. After her comic turn in A Family Affair, A24’s latest offering sees her playing an all-business CEO who becomes entangled with her much younger intern (Harris Dickinson). Fans of Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper, or The Iron Claw will recognize Dickinson and admire his remarkable range. It takes an impressive young actor to shine alongside Kidman but Dickinson is up for the task. Director Halina Reijn – fresh off her Gen Z slasher hit Bodies Bodies Bodies – brings a distinctly female gaze to the May-December romance trope. The result is a steamy, thought-provoking exploration of power dynamics that will have HR departments squirming in their seats.
The Room Next Door
Pedro Almodóvar ventures into English-language territory with this Golden Lion winner, proving that his particular brand of melodrama translates beautifully in any tongue. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s book What Are You Going Through, the film pairs Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, two of cinema’s most captivating chameleons. It follows a writer who reconnects with an old friend after years of distance in a tale of friendship, grief, and deep discussions about what it means to be a writer. It’s intimate and intellectual but feels accessible and human thanks to Almodóvar’s direction and the nuanced performances of these two powerhouse thespians.
Maria
This year’s Venice International Film Festival was a big one for shimmering stars of the silver screen. Angelina Jolie triumphed as opera legend Maria Callas, securing instant iconic status and positioning herself for Oscar recognition. The gravitas she lends to Pablo Larraín’s portrait of Callas reveals that Jolie’s side projects (like her fashion brand, Atelier Jolie) have not dampened her acting skills. Following in the footsteps of Natalie Portman’s Jackie and Kristen Stewart’s Spencer, Jolie disappears into the role of the troubled diva. Larraín’s dreamlike direction and Jolie’s raw performance make for a haunting exploration of fame, art, and the price of genius. When picking Jolie for the titular role, Larrain said he wanted an actress who would “naturally and organically be that diva,” and Jolie delivered with aching nuance. Oscar buzz is already building, and rightly so.
Queer
Speaking of actors challenging themselves, no one is in their comfort zone in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer. For this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel, Guadagnino reunites with his A Bigger Splash star Ralph Fiennes and ropes in Daniel Craig. Craig shed his 007 persona entirely in order to play Lee – a Burroughs stand-in – as he navigates the seedy underbelly of mid-century Mexico City. It’s a mix between last year’s Venice darling Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodóvar and Guadagnino’s famous Call Me By Your Name.Drew Starkey – of Outer Banks fame – is the object of his desire, with Guadagnino’s camera lingering on his lithe frame in a manner that would make even Timothée Chalamet blush. It also stars singer Omar Apollo in his first major acting role. Between unflinching sex scenes and luscious landscapes, it’s a heady blend of desire and ennui that solidifies Guadagnino’s place as cinema’s Yearner In Chief.
Disclaimer
Venice isn’t all movies. Some limited dramas also make their way to Lido. Two years ago, The Idol got the full Venice treatment, but we know how that went. Luckily, Alfonso Cuarón’s return to the festival circuit fared better. This twisty psychological thriller stars Cate Blanchett – last at Venice with Tar. This time, she plays a documentary filmmaker whose life unravels when a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table. As always, Blanchett is a force of nature, her icy exterior cracking as she realizes that she’s the subject of a book that will reveal her long-buried secrets. Cuarón proves he’s as adept at space epics as he is with intimate character studies, crafting a nail-biting exploration of truth, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves.
The Order
Starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, and Jurnee Smollett, The Order is a historical crime drama that plunges us into the action-packed world of counterfeiting operations, bank robberies, and armored car heists in the Pacific Northwest. Told through the eyes of the lead detective, these crimes are deemed acts of domestic terrorism, revealing the deep-seated hatred and violence in the United States. Inspired by the January 6 insurrection – when nooses were hung in front of the Capitol Building – this film references a fictional white nationalist insurrection that’s at the center of William Luther Pierce’s 1978 novel The Turner Diaries. Taking this hatred back to its roots, The Order explores how these same psychologies have been buried in the US consciousness for decades.
Joe Alwyn, Taylor Swift’s ex-London Boy, sauntered through Venice alongside castmates Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. This sprawling epic follows a Hungarian immigrant architect (Brody) navigating love, loss, and artistic integrity. Initially forced to toil in poverty, he soon wins a contract that changes the course of his life for the next 30 years. Clocking in at a hefty three-and-a-half hours, it’s not for the faint of heart. But those who stick with it will be richly rewarded with a deeply felt meditation on the American Dream and the cost of creation. Corbet’s ambition is a labor of love, as his official statement expresses how he spent “the better part of a decade revving the engine to bring this particular story to life.” His toiling is definitely worth it.
Joker: Folie à Deux
Closing Venice was the ambitious, melodramatic Jukebox musical Joker: Folie à Deux. It’s the polarizing sequel to the controversial original, and although everyone’s talking about it — no one can make up their minds about whether or not it’s good. Todd Phillips returns to Gotham, bringing Lady Gaga along for the ride as Harley Quinn to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. The addition of musical numbers is either a stroke of genius or a bridge too far, depending on who you talk with. Phoenix and Gaga commit fully to the madness, their chemistry undeniable even as the plot threatens to buckle under the weight of its own ambition.
This is a swing for the fences that doesn’t always connect, but you have to admire the creative audacity. Gaga is electric, though you can’t help but wonder if her talents are wasted in this convoluted film that, just like the original, isn’t always sure what it’s trying to say.
As the curtain falls on another Venice Film Festival, one thing is clear: cinema is alive and well, continuing to push boundaries and provoke thought even in the face of industry upheaval. Whether these films will stand the test of time remains to be seen, but for now, they’ve given us plenty to chew on as we sail away from the Lido and into the heart of awards season.
Before you come at me: I’ve seen the thirst trap TikToks about Drew Starkey as the erratic Rafe in Netflix’s Outer Banks. I know he’s been White Boy of the Month for a select group since 2020.
Sure, Outer Banks has a cast of overly attractive adults playing teenagers ripping off The Goonies. It’s terrific television due to how outrageously good-looking the cast is…and every viewer has their own personal favorite.
For many, that is Drew Starkey’s reckless, violent and unstable Rafe Cameron. If you search “Rafe Cameron edit” on TikTok, there are a multitude of videos with millions of likes. His Outer Banks clips alone have been repurposed and replayed billions of times.
While Drew Starkey made a name for himself as a heartthrob in the industry, he’s on his way to becoming a serious actor. This time, he’s in the same league as Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer.
The film — which received a nine-minute standing ovation at this year’s Venice Film Festival — is the most daring movie of either actor’s career. Famous for his portrayal of LGBTQ relationships, Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name is a highly regarded film for this generation.
You already know who Daniel Craig — AKA 007 — is…but with the serious buzz around Starkey, everyone’s wondering: who the hell is he and — more importantly — is he single?
What is Queer About?
Queer is a historical romance drama that follows American expat — William Lee — in 1940s Mexico City as he falls in love with a younger man — Eugene Allerton. The film is based on a short novel that was written in the 50s by William S. Burroughs and published in 1985.
The book is semi-autobiographical and tracks Lee as he travels through South America and Mexico in search of sexual gratification and drugs. Lee — played by Daniel Craig — grows infatuated with fellow drug-addict, Allerton, who is played by Starkey.
It’s a complex, controversial novel for many reasons: mainly being that the novel came out during the rampantly homophobic 80s. This won’t be an easy love story to consume by any means.
The film debuted at Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2024 to rave reviews. Many are saying it’s the best performance from either actor. And there’s already Oscar buzz for Craig.
As the film ended in Venice, Guadagnino was met with chants of “Luca! Luca!” His recent success with Challengers starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist was another amazing homoerotic blockbuster.
But there’s another pressing fact that’s becoming increasingly prevalent: Drew Starkey is about to become the people’s princess.
If you thought the thirst traps were bad when Drew Starkey starred as deranged sociopath Rafe Cameron…wait till you see Eugene Allerton in Queer.
The ladies have been swooning over his red carpet outfits, his press circuit quips, and steamy photos of him during this era. And while the film’s release date has not yet been set, I’m sure theaters will be packed.
His appearance at Venice Film Festival already stirred up internet memes, with his blue suit giving people PTSD flashbacks to last year’s Harry Styles — Don’t Worry, Darling — SpitGate drama.
He has all the makings for the next Hollywood heartthrob that we’ve been yearning for. Yes, Brad Pitt may be old and a terrible person…but there is a whole new wave of young, handsome actors to usher in.
So, while we gear up for the Drew Starkey inevitable renaissance, let’s answer the question we’re all here for:
Is Drew Starkey Single?
People ship the entire Outer Banks cast together…but don’t let it confuse you. Essentially, no one in the cast is dating in real life anymore.
Since his 2022 appearance in Hellraiser, Starkey has been linked to fellow co-star Odessa A’Zion. With multiple Instagram appearances on each other’s accounts, it looked like the pair were an item….until recently.
Neither A’Zion nor Starkey had confirmed their relationship in the first place…so fans are safe to assume that Drew Starkey is single until proven otherwise.
The Venice Film Festival showered Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer with lots of love Tuesday night at the film’s world premiere. In particular, the capacity crowd inside Sala Grande went wild for star Daniel Craig, who broke away from his James Bond persona for a provocative and challenging role opposite Drew Starkey, who also earned cheers from the capacity crowd that included Pedro Almodovar.
The Spanish auteur, who is also in the Venice competition with his buzzy drama The Room Next Door, was seated across the row from Guadagnino and his cast. He embraced them one by one during the lengthy standing ovation. Craig looked emotional at several points as his wife, Rachel Weisz, was beaming and hollering in unison with the crowd while standing on her feet.
The world premiere, which he ended with a 9.5-minute standing ovation, also marked a triumphant return to the Lido for the Italian auteur after his previous feature, the sexy tennis drama Challengers, was forced to pull out as Venice’s opening movie last year due to delays related to the Hollywood actors strike. Based on the novel by William S. Burroughs and adapted by screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, who wrote Guadagnino’s last film Challengers, Queer is set in 1950s Mexico City where the action follows Craig’s character William Lee.
An American expat in his mid-50s, William is leading a solitary existence in Mexico City. Addicted to opiates and alcohol, his life changes when a young man, Starkey’s Eugene Allerton, arrives on the scene, stirring Craig’s character into earth-shattering infatuation. The film — sprinkled with racy, fleetingly full-frontal scenes (including anal sex) — culminates in the search for a drug that William believes will let him communicate with Eugene telepathically.
Daniel Craig and Drew Starky in Queer.
Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis/Courtesy of A24
Guadagnino has said that he and his team saw around 300 young actors for the plum part, but they kept coming back to the Outer Banks star to play Allerton. He credits Call Me By Your Name producer Peter Spears (Nomadland, Bones and All) with alerting him to Starkey’s talents after showing him a self-tape he had from another project. Craig and Starkey topline a cast that also includes Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Andra Ursuta, Andres Duprat, Ariel Shulman, Drew Droege, Michael Borremans, David Lowery, Lisandro Alonso and Colin Bates.
Also notable is that the cast features rising pop phenom Omar Apollo in his acting debut. Apollo, who broke out with a viral single “Evergreen” on his critically acclaimed album Ivory, has also spoken openly about being gay and how his own LGBTQ experience has shaped his music.
The 135-minute Queer — hailing from Fremantle and Frenesy Film Company and to be released by A24 — boasts a roster of fellow boldfaced name collaborators. The Oscar-winning team of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scored the music while Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson served as costume designer. It’s the fashion designer’s second straight collaboration with Guadagnino after first making his film debut on Challengers starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.
Perhaps because of Anderson’s involvement, or simply that Tuesday delivered the world premiere of the buzzy new film, it was a fashionable night on the Lido with some of the stars from the film wearing Loewe, including Craig, who went viral earlier this summer when his new campaign for the fashion house dropped.
NEW YORK — All forms of artistry are common means of expression in the queer community.
Marcos Chin, an illustrator in Brooklyn, creates striking pieces of art that blend his sexual and cultural identities. He says, “I became interested in being an artist at a very young age. Illustration, for me, is the art and business of communication. It allows me to draw and express myself in a way that feels really natural.”
Chin says his projects are very personal. “My work is informed by my experience. I’m Chinese. I came out when I was in my mid-20s. I was in deep denial, self-loathing, internalized homophobia. I wanted to incorporate coming out and the experiences of being a young gay person in my illustration work.”
Chin has also made art for high-profile companies like Target, Starbucks, Banana Republic and The New York Times. He says, “When I see my work in public, I’m as excited as when I was when I got one of my first projects as a young illustrator.”
The crossover between his work and identity makes Marcos feel free to express himself and proud of his queerness.
NEW YORK — All forms of artistry are common means of expression in the queer community.
Marcos Chin, an illustrator in Brooklyn, creates striking pieces of art that blend his sexual and cultural identities. He says, “I became interested in being an artist at a very young age. Illustration, for me, is the art and business of communication. It allows me to draw and express myself in a way that feels really natural.”
Chin says his projects are very personal. “My work is informed by my experience. I’m Chinese. I came out when I was in my mid-20s. I was in deep denial, self-loathing, internalized homophobia. I wanted to incorporate coming out and the experiences of being a young gay person in my illustration work.”
Chin has also made art for high-profile companies like Target, Starbucks, Banana Republic and The New York Times. He says, “When I see my work in public, I’m as excited as when I was when I got one of my first projects as a young illustrator.”
The crossover between his work and identity makes Marcos feel free to express himself and proud of his queerness.
June is the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, often regarded as the tipping point in the modern gay rights movement and earning its recognition as Pride Month. Houston Press met with members of the LGBTQ community to learn more about their experiences belonging to this group. These are their stories.
At 78 years young, openly gay Houstonian Dennis Beedon has been there, seen that and lived to tell the tale. The septuagenarian has been one of the key behind-the-scenes players with some of the most influential movers and shakers in Houston in an effort to benefit the LGBTQ community as well as Houstonians writ large.
While he may not have been born in Texas, Beedon got here as soon as he could (after growing up in Chicago, serving a stint in the U.S. Army, and living in Puerto Rico and Florida), and he picked up the moniker as the “Mayor of Montrose” amongst his inner circle because of his status in the neighborhood – or “gayborhood,” as he might call it.
How he earned that title is really where the story begins, and living his truth, especially when it comes to his sexuality, has been a tenet that he has never shied away from.
“I was out to everybody, including my family and friends, since I was relatively young, give or take my military career,” he said. “I knew that I was gay during the military because I had a boyfriend when I was in the army, but I never never had any issues with anything LGBTQ during my time. My mind and openness really set in place when I moved to Houston, though, and that is because I lived in Montrose. I was exposed to everything and everybody during that period of time, both positive and negative in the sense of how Montrose was back in 1979 to 1981. I mean, it was pretty decadent.”
Montrose — known nowadays for its eclectic cafes, coffee shops, bars, nightlife, restaurants and the rest — holds a rich history of being a safe haven for Houston’s LGBTQ community when the times were more or less as less pleasant for the queer community. It was also a place where the queer community felt free to live their life proudly, no matter how demure or flashy it might have appeared to outside eyes.
The small in stature but mighty in voice Beedon followed suite. He did not let the fickle finger of popular opinion about the queer community sway him during his new beginnings in Houston. In fact, it’s where he found his passion for community involvement.
That was also shortly before the outbreak of what is now known as HIV/AIDS, which galvanized Beedon’s determination to make a difference. He left his job in the insurance industry and answered the calling to community service.
“I went to work for what was then still being put together, The Assistance Fund, [which consisted of] five gentlemen who were donating $500 a month each into a general fund,” Beedon said. “Because HIV was becoming so widely known as well as the issues created from it, those that were stricken with that illness were being fired from work. These five gentlemen were making $500 donations each month in into a general fund, and then they were paying for the COBRA insurance for those that were fired from their positions because of HIV just to keep their medical insurance covered.”
Part of his passion for battling the spread and stigma of HIV/AIDS stemmed from his own personal experience. Beedon had witnessed the public shock of Rock Hudson’s death as well as the uproar over the game of musical chairs played by various funeral homes regarding Liberace’s body — both of whom passed away due to complications from the virus.
However, over the course of his years, Beedon has seen healthcare progress to the point that an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death knell it formerly was. Instead, people are now living full and healthy lives thanks to breakthroughs in medication partnered with a healthy lifestyle.
“It’s progressively gotten much, much, much better, in fact, to the point I was [in a relationship] with somebody for my first 21 years of living in Houston who was stricken with HIV.”
Because of his involvement through various initiatives to promote awareness of and testing for HIV, which largely took place in the Montrose neighborhood, Beedon earned his now unforgettable nickname as the “Mayor of Montrose.”
“In the clubs, I would run into people who would visit me at The Assistance Fund. Automatically, the connection was quite obvious of why they were at The Assistance Fund … it’s because they were looking for testing and for dollars to get medication. So they would approach me at the clubs and pull me to the side, and they would say, ‘I have a friend. Would you please talk to him or her, because they won’t go to a clinic to get tested.’” he said. “So, I would approach whomever they were talking about, counsel them and bring them into The Assistance Fund.”
Because of his motherly nature, he earned the additional nickname “Mother of Montrose.” To examine the initials, it fittingly spells “mom.” But it’s also because he was well connected to local dignitaries.
“They called me the Mayor of Montrose, or mom, because I was getting things done for them. I actually could go downtown and see the mayor of Houston, whoever that was at the time, and get some things done rather quickly,” he said.
Since then, the name has stuck, as has his involvement in LGBTQ causes. One of his most recent endeavors is volunteering with the New Faces of Pride. The organization’s mission is to foster unity, inclusivity and empowerment within the diverse LGBTQ+ community of Houston through year-round events and fundraising initiatives.
It’s signature event will be the New Faces of Pride Festival and Parade, with the festival running from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday followed by a parade at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 901 Bagby. Planet Pink!, the official after party, takes place at POST Houston, 401 Franklin until 2 a.m.
The New Faces of Pride’s inaugural parade is the first of two pride-related parades this month, which has been a topic of conversation in the LGBTQ community, but Beedon says it is all good.
“The New Faces of Pride has been very well received,” he said. “It’s a community thing, and that’s the focus.”
As he slowly approaches 80, Beedon has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
“I’ve been able to do a few good things in people’s lives, and that makes me want to get up every day and keep going. I really am not going to retire, no matter what,” he said.
The New Faces of Pride Festival runs from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday followed by a parade at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 901 Bagby. Planet Pink!, the official after party, takes place 9 p.m. – 2 a.m. at POST Houston, 401 Franklin. For information, visit newfacesofpride.org. The festival is free to $250 to attend. The parade is free. Planet Pink! is $25 – $60.
On the season finale of ‘Grindr Presents: Who’s The A**hole? with Katya’ Saucy opens up about homophobia in hip-hop, working with Madonna, his Florida high school experience and all the ins and outs of his dating life – including getting serious with an adult film star! He also addresses a few rumors.
Speaking of homophobia, the episode kicks off with Katya asking Santana his thoughts about Khia’s anti-gay comments in recent years. Santana, who is a Floridian, talks about being a Khia fan at a young age and agrees that the behavior is bewildering to him, but notes that the rapper supposedly has her own gay friends/advisors.
Saucy Santana also opens up in the episode about collaborating with the OG Material Girl, Madonna. He reveals that she requires her spaces to be scented with peppermint steamers. It turns out that he also ate sushi for the first time with Madonna — adding that she likes spicy tuna. (4:30)
Near the end of the episode, Saucy points out how no one should be acting weird about queerness in this day and age: “Gay is so regular now. Reality shows is gay. Cartoons is gay. Everything is gay!”
We were wildly entertained by this episode but there were definitely a few moments that tiptoed into a little too wild territory. At one point there were so many beeps we could hardly make out any words in between the curses. We did enjoy hearing Saucy reminisce about escaping a catfish though.
Royal romances are the best kind. Directed and cowritten by Tony-winning scribe Matthew López,Red, White & Royal Blue adapts Casey McQuiston’s immensely popular New York Times best-selling novel in fabulous fashion. Red, White & Royal Blue follows two men with incredible family pedigrees—British prince Henry (Cinderella’s Nicholas Galitzine) and American first son Alex Claremont-Diaz (The Kissing Booth’s Taylor Zakhar Perez)—who must engage in a crisis-PR truce even though they get on each other’s nerves. But the more they talk, the more Henry and Alex discover that the line between love and hate is quite thin. “There are a lot of projects that have come and gone in my career that I have had the ability to let go of,” López told VF, “but if I wasn’t able to make this movie, it would’ve cost me something.” He got his wish as the helmer of this feel-good, fizzy romance, which also features none other than Uma Thurman as the president of the United States. You can paint yourself Red, White & Royal Blue when the film hits Amazon Prime August 11.
Some feel-good queer romances also double as camp classics. Look no further than But I’m a Cheerleader, the ’90s satirical rom-com which stars a young Natasha Lyonne as Megan Bloomfield, a lesbian cheerleader who gets sent to conversion therapy camp. Yes, that may not sound like the grounds for a feel-good queer love story—but in the hands of Lyonne, director Jamie Babbit, and screenwriter Brian Wayne Peterson,But I’m a Cheerleader becomes a romp about the queer experience, with Lyonne’s sexually confused cheerleader falling pom-poms-over-heels for Clea DuVall’s Graham, a cool, confident college student also at the camp. Along with DuVall and Lyonne, the cast includes once and future stars like Melanie Lynskey, Michelle Williams, and RuPaul, who does his darndest to butch it up as counselor Mike. RuPaul as an ex-gay? That’s even funnier than the hilarious Ross Mathews.
Myapproachto Black history is spiritual. I want to know how my ancestors loved themselves and each other — acts of resistance in a world that tried to erase them — so I can move through the world as my most authentic self. I want to know all of it, not just the history that has been given to me growing up in school, but the parts that have been intentionally left out.
Thinking back to history class, I feel like pieces were missing. Even back then, I longed for nuanced stories of Black historical figures. Many of the voids left by my teachers, however, were filled in by my parents and grandparents, the latter of whom lived through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights eras. And I did fortunately get to explore some fiction that provided a much-needed glimpse into the Black gender and sexuality spectrum.
In seventh grade English class, Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” offered me a window into the lives of Black women who experienced all the hardships of racism in the antebellum South and still cussed, sang, threatened their husbands, and sometimes kissed other women. As a preteen, Walker’s literary prose provided me a more complex representation of Blackness, but witnessing her more recent transphobic comments has only made me more aware of how our understanding of self is sometimes informed by inadequate and violent historical texts and beliefs.
“The Color Purple” made me realize that Black history is so much more than the under-developed characters I was often taught about in school, their stories flattened, and pieces of their identities blotted out to fit a palatable narrative.
There are many of us out there, still thirsting for more honest stories about Black life, love, joy and struggle. Two out of three Americans believe the Black history education lessons they received fell short. I have recently started doing my own research and following content creators such as Erika Hart, who devote their entire platforms to honoring Queer Blackness in the past and present.
Over the past year in particular, conservative politicians and education officials such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have continued to wage war against critical race theory. Unsurprisingly, much emphasis is placed on removing queer Black history, replacing it with topics like “Black conservatism.” These actions are reflections of the lengths conservatives will go to continue to strip African descendants of the potential to move forward culturally, socially and spiritually. At this point, we should all see it as a tactic to keep us divided.
The persisting belief that gender is a binary construct doesn’t just create distance in our communities, but it also contradicts important parts of our history. The gender binary was a concept that many of our African ancestors did not conform to pre-colonialism; many informed experts argue that the binary is far more closely aligned with eurocentric views of gender expression.
Amber J. Phillips, known as Amber Abundance on social media, is a queer storyteller who has written poignant pieces about the hidden queer identities of Black culture-makers and leaders. “My biggest fear when I came out was that it would separate me from my family. And our families connect us to our Blackness,” she said.
Phillips, raised in Columbus, Ohio, remembers growing up with a deep appreciation for Blackness and Black culture but also experiencing “hushed tones” around the gender identities of some of the most iconic Black figures. “I remember being ― at my big, grown age ― in college and hearing for the first time that Langston Hughes was gay. And I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” said Phillips.
She also noticed how this covertness played out in her own life. If there were rumors of you being queer, you were kept out of certain social settings and people felt no hesitation in distancing themselves from you.
According to Phillips, this mindset is part of the violence of erasure, which is common even within Black social circles and institutions. During 2022’s BET awards, she noted that Jack Harlow was nominated for an award and Lil Nas X wasn’t — he reportedly wasn’t even invited to the show.
“People will make that about race, and they definitely should. But when we look at the archives, they have intentionally erased one of the biggest pop stars of our time,” Phillips said, citing homophobia in the community. “When we start talking about Black Trans people, and we’re like, ‘Well, back in my day, we didn’t have none of that.’ Actually, you did.”
Let’s be real: We collectively fail by telling Black history that’s not nearly queer enough.
In order to understand both the intricacy of her identity and historical queer erasure in Black history better, Phillips dove even deeper into research. During her work, she found evidence of LGBTQ+ leaders fueling several prominent liberation movements in America. It’s not just James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen in literature, and Bayard Ruston and Marsha P. Johnson as organizers, but countless others who fought for all of our rights. Phillips believes that acknowledging the gender identity and sexual expression of these individuals is essential, not just out of respect for them, but to eliminate the shame the Black community has around queerness.
“If we can honor Black queer people, we could learn how to be better to each other. We could find more systems of community care and mutual aid,” she said. “We could free people from internalized anti-Blackness. There are answers, and some of them exist in the minds and the work ethic of Black queer people.”
Watufani Poe is an interdisciplinary social scientist and educator who is among the scholars looking to shift the conversation to include the historical contributions of individuals who do not conform to the gender binary. Poe’s upbringing in a pan-Africanist home exposed him to the limitations of existing Black history teachings ― teachings, he says, that introduce children to positive images of Blackness but often pass on heteronormative gender constructs.
“There’s a kind of push to recuperate a unified image of what Afrocentricity is,” he said. “I understand the strategic use for that … and I’m fine with that as a first step, but that’s not the last step.” In other words — and I agree — we have a lot more work to do.
While working as a postdoctoral fellow at Amherst College, he co-created a course called “Black, Here and Now,” that walked students through the historical struggles and contributions of Black queer communities throughout the diaspora. For his syllabus, he pulled from the works of queer thinkers, scholars and storytellers documented between the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s to introduce students to the historical presence of Black queer people in culture and movements.
Poe mentioned how challenging it was to access primary and secondary sources before the ’60s, not just because of censorship of Black stories but also because of the eurocentric, heteronormative manner in which Black life was documented — especially during the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. “We’re dealing with documents about the business of the slave trade … How many bodies arrived, how many people died on the journey?” he said. This is just one way enslaved Black people were forced into a gender binary with no regard for the various cultural identities they were being stripped of.
In other instances, however, queerness shows up boldly. In the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Americas, Poe says there’s a good amount of evidence in the form of inquisition documents and of people who don’t follow heteronormative rules. Because these documents are essentially notes by overseers reporting “sins and the ways in which they sinned,” Poe suggests being mindful when referencing them because they carry the violence of colonialism.
Poe marvels in our ability to reclaim stories of our humanity, as well as preserve and protect those of our ancestors. “The fact that we even have copies of ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ readily available today is because Alice Walker did the work of recuperating the works and the image of Zora New Hurston,” he said. “And in Brazil, I find that Afro-Brazilian religious traditions are rich archival spaces to pass down the histories of the Black communities there.”
As I continue my journey, I’m starting to gather that Black queer history does exist — we just need to actively seek out these stories in order to release the shame around queerness and gender fluidity. This will allow us to completely let go of narratives that dehumanize anyone who doesn’t fit heteronormative or eurocentric standards.
“It’s not about finding myself in the archive or finding this Black Queer or Trans person that we see today,” Poe said. “Seeing the complexity of Black people, the complexity of human nature, I think, [is] the most important thing to take away.”
It seems ludicrous that there was a time, not too long ago, when LGBTQ+ TV shows weren’t standard fare. Perhaps one would come out every couple of years, run for a few seasons, make history, and then fizzle out. Thankfully, the television landscape has changed tremendously in the past decade. There are shows that have queer characters, shows that are inherently queer, and shows that lampoon major corporations trying to pass off amorphous goo as queer representation. What more could you ask for?
If you’ve found yourself looking to watch something that falls into one of those categories (or somewhere in between), we’ve compiled the best LGBTQ+ TV shows that are streaming now. From RuPaul’s Drag Race to Harley Quinn, you can find them all below.
28.Queer as Folk(2022)
For better or worse, the short-lived reboot of Russell T Davies’s groundbreaking series seemed determined to atone for the original’s soapy depiction of queer life. Starring Devin Way, Fin Argus, and Ryan O’Connell,Queer as Folk follows a diverse New Orleans community in the aftermath of a tragedy that recalls the 2016 Pulse shooting. If you don’t mind such trauma underscoring this entertainingly messy web of characters, it’s a drama worth dipping into.
27.Sex Education(2019)
The relationship between Sex Education’s Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) and Adam (Connor Swindells) has its issues, but Gatwa is such a standout in the acclaimed series that most are worth overlooking. He’s just that magnetic. The show otherwise follows Otis (Asa Butterfield), a high school student who sets up an underground sex therapy clinic with another one of his classmates (Emma Mackey). Mixing frank discussions with impossible-to-hate characters, Sex Education has been a boon for Netflix since its debut—and it’s never too late to hop on the bandwagon.
There’s a phenomenon in the Overwatch community that has persisted through the original game’s 2016 release, its gradual decline, and the launch of the sequel. This phenomenon is an interesting one, a sort of “IYKYK” situation that requires membership in a specific community in order to recognize its members: in Overwatch, a lot of queer players choose to play as healers. Maybe you haven’t noticed this—maybe you’re straight (I’m sorry) and can’t spot an alphabet army soldier in your lobby, but if you’re in the LGBTQIA+ community and play Overwatch 2, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Mercy mains with rainbow player icons, Moira one-tricks wearing her Bowie skin, two-stacks who instalock support with some iteration of “-ussy” in their gamertag—if you pay attention, you’ll see that the gays are everywhere in Overwatch, and most of the time they’re playing healer.
But this is all anecdotal evidence, right? Surely gays don’t gravitate to playing healers that disproportionately, do they? After hundreds of hours logged in Overwatch 2 comp , most of which I played as a healer, I felt a burning desire to delve deeper into this phenomenon and figure out why I kept encountering fellow gays in the support role. I had my theories: queer people are used to supporting their found families in the real world, support roles are notoriously less toxic, many of the healer characters are femme or androgynous—but I needed more.
So, I put out a call for “gay people” on Twitter, I interviewed players and peers, and I spoke to a queer-identifying counselor, all in an attempt to properly investigate Overwatch’s gay healing agenda. The result is a fascinating look at a subculture within a subculture, one marked by real-world social queues, kink play, emotional connections, and, unfortunately, a frustrating lack of scientific research.
Gay icons
Image: Blizzard / Nico D.
The most obvious answer (and one of the more common ones I received on Twitter) as to why queer people play healers in Overwatch is that the characters themselves are gay icons. Even though the only two openly queer characters are both DPS heroes, the lineup of support characters looks a lot like the line outside of Happyfun Hideaway on a Saturday night: the uber-feminine and soft Mercy, the muscular and bold Brigitte, the sweet but strong Baptiste, the spunky and sarcastic Kiriko, the calm and collected Zenyatta, the androgynous and tall Moira, the soothing and maturely sexy Ana. Compared to your typical FPS lineup, and even most of the other Overwatch characters (save for outliers like Zarya and Mei), the support squad in this game feels demonstrably queer.
Overwatch player and freelance writer Nico D. echoes this sentiment via email, saying the characters “are designed in such a way to be desirable to queer communities—Moira is a REALLY good example of this, but I also know a lot of queer women or other queer people who are attracted to women that love Mercy, Ana, and Brig.” Nico suggests this has to do with the futuristic, sci-fi fashions depicted in the game “that also happen to be on characters with typically queer-coded appearances like slightly more atypical body types/silhouettes/haircuts.”
That definitely describes most Overwatch support heroes. And though Mercy is slim and white and traditionally attractive (Blizzard does, after all, historically have a problem with portraying women’s bodies), she still doesn’t feel as aggressively sexualized as someone like Widowmaker, whose impossibly long legs and massive tits scream The Male Gaze everytime she runs (in heels) across the screen.
Others who identify as queer and play Overwatch predominantly as healers tell me that the support characters are “gay icons” whose presence/vibes suggest queerness even though it’s not outright stated. “They feel queer” is a sentiment that, while scientifically impossible to prove, is consistently echoed in both messages to me and Overwatch community spaces. But “feeling queer” is a helluva lot different than being canonically queer—so why doesn’t it seem like members of the community play Tracer and Soldier: 76 as much as they play healers?
Gender roles
Image: Blizzard
Venture into the Reddit or TikTok trenches in search of an answer as to why gay people play healers and you’ll likely stumble across the “I can’t aim” meme. Like many internet fables, this one is somewhat rooted in reality. Evie Mae Barber, writer and narrative designer, tells me via Twitter DM that when she played Overwatch, she mained Lucio and Mercy because she finds healers in FPS titles “require less precision and more strategy,” whereas the DPS characters’ effectiveness are largely rooted in accuracy.
A desire to avoid roles that require accuracy could be a side effect of traditional multiplayer FPS titles being largely unsafe spaces for women and non cis-het men—it’s hard to feel comfortable or competent in these roles when the skills you need to excel at them should have been honed in the dark and scary servers of Halo 3 or CS:GO, during a time when the mere hint of “otherness” was met with viciousness, slurs, and threats.
The boys’ club of FPS titles may not exist in such severity today as it did in the early 2000s, but its effects linger. “There was a meta-analysis done that had several results, specifically about Overwatch,” says Dr. Sarah Hays, a queer-identifying counselor at nonprofit org Game to Grow and director of programming at Queer Women of Esports, during a video call. “Of course, it was on a gender binary, but male esports competitors are seen as more competitive than female competitors. Female players believe support to be the easiest position to play and prefer to play it because they don’t want to be blamed for not doing well.” She pauses. “That meta study has a whole bunch of data. I just hate that it’s done on a gender binary.”
It’s clear that the lack of adequate research around LGBTQIA+ gamers and the roles they choose to inhabit in multiplayer titles frustrates Dr. Hays. “My plea is: ‘people, let’s do research on this because it’s so cool,’” she says earnestly before returning to the meta study, combing through it to try and find some more connections to the theory at hand: “Non male-identified people tend towards picking a character that they can feel confident in. So they reduce harassment and they reduce some of that input. ‘It’s easier to play support because I’m not getting as much shit, I’m not getting blamed for that.’ That’s something we’re seeing both based in research and generally: people want to look and appear and feel like they know what they’re doing, so they’re not going to receive flack for being another ignorant non-dude. Which sucks. But it’s true.”
Dr. Hays doesn’t say this word during our chat, but it lingers overhead: toxicity. “I think queer folks trend toward support as it feels like the least toxic role or at least one that has less toxicity associated with them,” says Threshold Games’ community manager Colin Cummings in a DM. So, part of the reason queer-identiying gamers may be choosing healers is to avoid the rampant toxicity that comes with playing competitive FPS games. But how much do real-world experiences outside of gaming tie into choosing the support role?
Support systems
Image: Blizzard / Nico D.
I’m pleased when one of my theories is echoed by a few fellow healers: queer people, so often forced to protect themselves because the government won’t protect them, so connected to found families made up of supportive friends, would naturally gravitate towards characters who provide safety and security.
“I don’t think that it’s a far stretch to imagine that the fantasy of support or healers is appealing to groups of people who require communities around them for safety and affection,” Nico writes.
When I mention my theory in a DM with Eric Ravenscraft, product writer and reviewer at Wired, he’s on board, too. “Honestly, that wouldn’t surprise me too much,” he writes. “Support is very much herding cats, keeping your precious babies alive while they’re getting chased down by a mean dude with a hammer…most of the LGBTQIA+ folks I know live in a very found-family kinda space that becomes very protective of outside threats. Every single person I know in that space knows what it’s like to protect their friends—or even randos—from a bigoted parent or institution or whathaveyou. That kinda mindset maps pretty cleanly onto keeping four randos you just met safe online.”
This social connection between support roles IRL and in Overwatch is something Dr. Hays “loves” during our chat—it clearly sparks her interest, and I can see her cogs turning on our video chat as she begins pondering the larger ramifications of this idea. “I wonder if there isn’t a correlation between oppressed identity and feeling better as a person in the position of healer, because it means that you get to avoid the blame, but also you get to be reinforced as someone who’s helpful and supportive, and more effective in that role? Yeah, because of the way that our real-life experiences have catered to that, as well.”
While Dr. Hays is clearly inspired by these ideas, she reiterates that there’s just not enough research about this kind of stuff to provide us with much concrete evidence. She does, however, bring up a scientific study that leaves my jaw on the floor.
Piss play
I have used this image three times on Kotaku.com.Image: Blizzard / Kotaku
When I wrote about how Overwatch 2’s shorthand is a specific brand of twisted, the slang term for Moira’s healing (pee) was at the top of my mind. So when Dr. Hays starts talking about a scientific study about Overwatch’s “healsluts,” I am, as the kids say, gagged—the connections are there, drawn together by queer players who are, in fact, little freaks.
Assuming the role of a healslut, according to the study from Finnish academic journal Widerscreen, “[invites] players to deploy elements of BDSM kink and sexuality not merely within the vocabulary and design of the game, but also in a communal paratext surrounding the game involving forums, voice chat, and viral fan-designed images.” Kotaku already wrote about this kinky phenomenon almost eight years ago—a r/healslut moderator toldwriter Luke Winkie that healsluts take classic dominant and submissive roles that are synonymous with traditional BDSM and apply it to the roles laid out in Overwatch.
The tank (dom) protects and compliments the healers (subs), occasionally scolding them if they fail. Healsluts have one main duty, and it’s to protect their doms (DPS characters are considered darker, more violent versions of tanks, which makes sense if you’ve ever tried to pocket heal a Genji). Though much of the writing about this community was published several years ago, I can confirm that r/healsluts is still an active subreddit.
In many cases, the Venn diagram of kink and queer communities is a circle, with kink playing an important role in Pride events and in the history and legacy of LGBTQIA+ people. Kink play in Overwatch is a “a way for resisting ‘masculine-normative hegemonic fandom’ in video games,” according to the aforementioned study, and it persists even after Overwatch 1 was sunset in place of a free-to-play sequel.
So whether it’s because of cishet-y FPS pressure making support a more attractive role, social roles within found families that translate to games, the indefinable but still somewhat tangible queerness of the healer characters, or a preternatural need to heal big, dommy tanks, it’s very clear that there are a lot of LGBTQIA+ people playing support in Overwatch 2.
I could happily unpack this phenomenon in another 2,000 words, but maybe I should just leave it at what Kaitlin Jakola, managing editor at The Trace and former Gizmodo employee, had to say about it:
“I assume we all heal because gays love to be both extremely powerful and woefully unappreciated in our own time????” Work, bestie.
There should be a conversation about “The Real Friends of WeHo,” a new reality series from MTV billed as an “unfiltered and honest look at a select group of friends living, loving, and pursuing their passions in the West Hollywood community.”
The show, which premiered on Jan. 20, drew immediate backlash mere seconds after the trailer was released online. Admittedly, I’m guilty of helping lead the pile on because based on the preview alone, it looked like a show created by people with no real attachment to the LGBTQ community. The trailer further perpetuates the myopic representation we’re used to seeing of us in mass media: white, privileged and/or elitist — with sprinkles of color. Worse, it appeared that once again, “representation” would be invoked as a means to draw viewers despite how flawed such a marketing strategy is to audiences regardless of their sexuality.
That’s partially why I take issue with comments made by choreographer, artist and “Real Friends of WeHo” co-star Todrick Hall.
“I want the queer community to have a conversation about why it is that we will praise women when they are in a similar position,” Hall said about the poor feedback. “I hope our show will break that mold and create a conversation about why there is negativity from within our own community.”
Hall did not stop there. In a lengthy Instagram post, he addressed the “insane influx of hate.”
“When our LGBTQ+ show was announced, you’d think any pushback would’ve come from the church or conservatives upset with three hours of queer programming,” Hall wrote. “But a closer look would show you that the call was coming from inside the house.
Hall is right about some of those vitriolic responses.
One review, “The Real Friends of WeHo’ Is a Colossal Gay Nightmare,” from Daily Beast editor Coleman Spilde, bluntly describes the show as “choppy and unfocused, blithely assuming that its audience has an innate interest in its whiny circle of friends who were cobbled together at the last second.” Spilde also slammed the show for being “comprised entirely of narcissists, who threaten to run the show into the ground from the very first episode and are too focused on themselves to create even one second of compelling gay drama.”
I can understand how painful reviews in addition to an outpouring of online criticism must feel, but the show doesn’t exactly invite the kind of warm and fuzzy feedback Hall feels entitled to.
The show stars Hall, stylist Brad Goreski, actor Curtis Hamilton, CEO of Buttah Skincare Dorión Renaud, influencer Joey Zauzig and host Jaymes Vaughan — a group of men whose only commonality is that they all share the burden of the entertainment industry not being especially imaginative about the stories queer men can tell in their casting calls.
It’s hard not to laugh at Goreski’s proclamation in the opening moments, “We’re breaking new ground here.”
Goreski has been on TV for 15 years now, beginning with his days as Rachel Zoe’s assistant on “The Rachel Zoe Project” before going on to star in his own spinoff, “It’s a Brad Brad World,” and featured on other shows like “Fashion Police” and “Canada’s Drag Race” — making it all the more impressive he made that comment with a straight face.
That said, I enjoy Goreski and given his life now — he’s still styling celebrity clients and is married to TV writer and producer Gary Janetti — but I wish that were its own vehicle, like Netflix’s “Styling Hollywood,” a show I wish were still in production. It would make better use of Goreski’s TV talents.
I feel the same way about Hamilton and his struggle as a newly out gay Black man vying for leading roles in Hollywood. Not a new problem, but definitely one worth exploring — especially from a Black man.
I was surprised to see Issa Rae on the show, but because she worked with Hamilton on her show “Insecure,” it made sense and is a testament to her belief in him.
But even she asked him on air why he was doing the show.
It’s a question Renaud wonders to himself aloud, especially when he admittedly doesn’t hang out in West Hollywood or “the scene.”
It can be exhausting to be a gay Black man navigating predominantly white spaces, which is why so few of us enter them. It’s also why more often than not, queer-focused reality shows are largely separated by race. See Logo’s “The A List,” the YouTube series “Chasing Atlanta,” or Zeus’s “Bad Boys: Los Angeles.”
That is not to say some of us don’t intermingle, but the problem with“Real Friends of WeHo” is that you can tell the cast members aren’t actually a group of friends like we’re supposed to believe. Most of them don’t know each other.
So what we get in the first episode is six people going in six different directions eventually coming together at an event where they fight over nothing with people they just met.
That theme spills over into Episode 2 where insults fly over whether a jacket is by Saint Laurent or Zara.
The show reportedly was designed to help create a destination night by using the existing popularity of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to launch new series like “The Real Friends of WeHo.”
“I think representation is important especially right now with all of the anti LGBTQ+ bills and the protests,” Goreski said in an interview with GLAAD’s Anthony Allen Ramos. “I think it’s important to out and be telling stories.”
Representation is important, but is not a draw as evidenced by the ratings for the premiere. The bad word-of-mouth is unlikely to help them in their pursuit of an audience. After all, many people scroll by members of the alphabet gang going at each other over some bullshit on social media every day.
I’m not sure what will help this show thrive because it arguably shouldn’t exist — even if I think individually, most of the cast members are stars capable of making compelling television.
At one point in the pilot, you can literally tell Renaud has real-time confirmation that he is indeed better than this show. Admittedly struggling with social anxiety spurred by the pandemic, he found himself confronted by Zauzig for not telling him he was socially anxious and not interacting much with people at his party. Renaud responds by telling him that he isn’t obligated to share anything and can leave.
He knew he was better than the position he was being put in.
To his credit, he is — and so are the majority of his cast mates. Renaud’s since given an interview with LoveBScott.com and explains that the show that premiered is not the one initially sold to him, and presumably, his castmates.
That’s a problem for them and the audience — all of whom deserve better.
You’ve probably heard of Boys’ Love, or BL, a well-known genre in Japan that focuses on romantic relationships between male characters. But have you ever stopped to wonder where all the LGBTQ+ women are in Japanese media? I know I have. Luckily for all of us, believe it or not, there is a genre roughly equivalent to BL, called “yuri” (百合, literally “lily”).
Yuri features romantic/pseudo-romantic homosocial relationships between female characters. In this article, I’ll briefly cover the history of yuri, go over some yuri classics, and recommend some good anime/manga to start with. After reading, I hope you’ll spare a thought (and perhaps a dollar) for all the yuri you have yet to properly enjoy. Yuri’s not nearly as earth-shatteringly popular as BL, but with your moral and financial support, it could be!
…Not a fan of reading?
Or too tired from being a sexual minority in this world to get through this whole article? Listen to the podcast episode I recorded with Kanae instead. You can listen to it while feeding your cat, wearing a hat, or any number of other sapphic activities. How convenient! If you want to know more about yuri (and I know you do), either listen to the podcast episode or keep reading this article.
What is Yuri?
Yuri is often used to refer to manga, anime, and stories that showcase relationships between women.
You may be wondering what this “yuri” word I’m throwing around means in the first place. For starters, the word yuri (百合) literally means “lily” in Japanese. The word started being used to describe queer relationships between women in the 1970s. Barazoku (薔薇族, or “rose tribe”), the first commercial Japanese gay men’s magazine, is thought to have coined the term yurizoku (百合族, or “lily tribe”) for the lesbian community in Japan, in contrast to the male gay community, or “rose tribe.” This gave rise to the slang term yuri that we know and love today, often used to refer to manga, anime, and stories that showcase relationships between women.
But the exact definition of yuri depends on who you ask and whether they’re an anime marketer or not. Some people, including those marketers, define yuri as any story that mainly focuses on female characters, regardless of whether anything queer happens. This is how tales of “girls just having fun and not being gay” often get categorized as yuri, according to industry standards. This definition encompasses feelings of sentimental closeness, friendship, and/or “skinship” between women without necessarily defining it as LGBTQIA+ activity.
The exact definition of yuri depends on who you ask and whether they’re an anime marketer or not.
On the other hand, for some people, a work only qualifies as yuri if it’s actually got queer content that transcends subtext. Thus, the question “This may be yuri, but is it gay?” may plague you every time you roll the dice on a story marketed as yuri. Will it be a suspiciously intense friendship for the whole series, or will the characters aspire to something more than just gal pals? In true sapphic storytelling form, you might have to wait quite a long time to find out.
Ultimately, you can draw the line in the rainbow sand yourself when it comes to defining yuri. That said, Japanese stories are gradually becoming a bit bolder and more explicit these days. So the lines around the yuri genre might change one day!
History of Yuri
Now you know what yuri is, but how long has it been around? Not that long, at least in its modern form. Only within recent decades has yuri actually had enough material to become a full-fledged genre. Even then, a lot of yuri tends to splash around in the safe, shallow waters of “almost gay,” which makes it hard to pinpoint where all the actual queerness started.
Hard, but not impossible! From Takarazuka to Class S “romantic friendships” to the lesbians on Sailor Moon, yuri does have a rich history throughout the 1900s. So let’s get out our gay thumbtacks and try to pinpoint it, shall we?
Takarazuka: All-Women Theater Troupe (1910s)
In Takarazuka, women play all the roles — including the male ones.
First up in yuri history is the Takarazuka Revue, an all-women theater troupe in Japan that started in Hyōgo in 1913. In Takarazuka, women play all the roles — including the male ones, called otokoyaku (男役). Originally, it was founded by a man who wanted the members to “model” the ideal way to be a man and woman, so the otokoyaku would know what being a man is like and become better wives. Oof! Over time, though, Takarazuka became more empowering, showing how women can defy gender roles and cross societal barriers with their gender presentation.
Takarazuka tends to be more focused on empowerment than queerness.
Granted, Takarazuka isn’t “explicitly” gay, in that its official, public-facing image in Japan tends to be more focused on female empowerment than female queerness. But it’s definitely influential to the yuri genre and deserves a mention, if only for the sheer amount of gay and gay-adjacent behavior that goes on around it. Audience members (often women) create whole fanclubs based on their devotion to each popular Takarazuka actor, and some of the actors actually have romantic partnerships with other women.
Plus, the inherent gender nonconformity of Takarazuka is pretty queer in itself! So if you’re interested in yuri and other women-loving women content, it’s definitely worth looking into.
Class S: Literature Movement Featuring Sisterhood at All-Girls Schools (1910s -)
But what about wlw fiction, you ask? Well, potentially the earliest influence on yuri was a literature group called Class S in the early 1900s, peaking in the 1930s.
The origins of yuri are largely steeped in “romantic friendships” between schoolgirls.
Especially before World War II, girls in Japan were often sent to all-girls schools. Can you guess how this world of no men influenced the yuri genre? That’s right, the origins of yuri are largely steeped in “romantic friendships?” between schoolgirls, mirroring the real-life closeness of girls in these all-female environments. The novel that started this was called Hanamonogatari (花物語) by popular writer Yoshiya Nobuko. Hanamonogatari is set in a girls’ dormitory and actually depicts both romantic and sexual bonding between the female students.
A lot of stories blurred the line between romance and friendship or sisterhood.
But a lot of stories in this era stuck with more pseudo-romantic friendships, senpai/kouhai mentor-like relationships, and “sisterly” (but not so sisterly) connections. This blurred the line between romance and friendship or sisterhood, and the effects of that reverberated right into yuri today. Even in modern yuri, it’s frequently unclear whether the characters actually like each other romantically or are just really chummy buddies who like to stare deeply into each other’s eyes for some totally heterosexual reason.
All in all, Class S literature did show gay relationships between women. However, they could be a bit ambiguous and were sometimes even treated as a “phase” that ended at graduation, when students would graduate from their homosexuality and marry men. Bleh! These doomed pseudo-romantic friendships between schoolgirls led into the next colorful step in yuri history, gay shōjo manga.
Year 24 Mangaka: Group of Female Manga Artists Born in the 24th Year of Shōwa (1970s)
We’ve briefly gone over queer women origins in Japanese theater and literature. Now, it’s finally time to get into manga, a highly fertile ground for yuri content today. But how did it get so fertile? History, baby!
These mangaka brought more complex themes into the shōjo manga space.
The Year 24 Group, or 24年組, was a generation of female manga artists all born around the 24th year of the reign of the Shōwa emperor in Japan. These mangaka brought more complex themes into the shōjo manga space, writing stories about politics, gender, and sexuality influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s. Year 24 manga peered into the internal psychology of their protagonists more deeply; incorporated elements of genres like horror, historical fiction, and science fiction; and most importantly (to you and me, I’ll bet), explored same-sex romance. Notably, they also featured genderqueer and androgynous characters, building a foundation for the modern BL and yuri genres.
They explored same-sex romance and featured genderqueer and androgynous characters.
Wanna take a peek? Try Rose of Versailles and Oniisama e by Riyoko Ikeda, or Shiroi Heya no Futari by Ryōko Yamagishi. The Class S influences are strong in these works, and they were super influential to early yuri.
But while the historical significance of these stories can’t be denied, often they have pretty tragic endings where things don’t go great for the LGBTQ+ characters. Par for the course when it comes to queer storytelling, to be honest, but still something to bear in mind if you go digging these up.
Some pretty cool queer heroines came onto the yuri scene in the 1990s – 2000s.
Alright, now you know a little bit about how yuri blossomed into a beautiful lily-like genre. But I know the real question on your mind is: What gay stuff should you read/watch? You might want to start at the “modern” beginning, when some pretty cool queer heroines came onto the yuri scene in the 1990s – 2000s.
The most iconic of these heroines is almost certainly Revolutionary Girl Utena, a manga and anime that’s often lauded as one of the most seminal yuri stories of all time. Utena is a female student who’s always dreamed of being a prince instead of a princess, and her relationship with Anthy has loomed large in the minds of sapphics everywhere since the late ’90s.
And of course, we couldn’t speak of yuri classics without mentioning Sailor Moon, wherein there is an actual wlw couple to be found in Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. Props to the Sailors for making their gayness basically canonical!
These yuri stories can help you understand where the roots of the yuri genre came from.
On the other hand, for a good representation of Class S romantic friendships, Maria-sama ga Miteru is another classic from this era. In this one, a bunch of elegant schoolgirls pick younger students to be their sœur, or “sister” in French, and proceed to have very intense “mentor” relationships with them. It’s not the most explicitly queer story, and you won’t find any famous heroines here. But if you’re looking for an unstated but overwhelming “lesbian tone,” you’ll certainly find it here. All three of these yuri stories are worth your time, especially to help you understand where the roots of the yuri genre came from.
Modern Yuri Recommendations for Beginners
Okay, I’ve briefly schooled you on the fruity works of past times. But what about the fruity works of these times?
These days, the easiest place to find yuri manga is an imprint of Ichijinsha called YuriHime (コミック百合姫), where you’ll be at no loss for wlw material of all flavors. Several of the following recommendations are from their wonderfully sapphic mini-shelves in Book-Off.
The best example of modern yuri I can think of might be Yagate Kimi ni Naru.
However, the best example of modern yuri I can think of might be Yagate Kimi ni Naru (やがて君になる, “Bloom Into You”) by Nio Nakatani. The manga/anime is about two female high school students, Touko Nanami and Yuu Koito. After both girls turn down confessions from boys, Touko unexpectedly confesses her feelings for Yuu, and Yuu isn’t sure how to respond. This story is dramatic, exploratory, and psychological as Yuu figures out her sexuality for the first time as a young person. It also touches on themes of aromanticism and asexuality, which is worth a note.
Conversely, if you’re looking for something more fluffy, Asagao to Kase-san (あさがおと加瀬さん。, “Kase-san and the Morning Glories”) and Sakura Trick deliver pure happiness and gay fun for the female characters involved. Additionally, two manga called Ano Ko ni Kisu to Shirayuri wo (あの娘にキスと白百合を, “Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl”) and Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau (ささやくように恋を唄う, “Whisper Me a Love Song”) follow multiple wlw couples, providing some entertaining diversity in the reading experience.
Shimanami Tasogare is a revolutionary queer story about a group of characters living in rural Hiroshima.
But if there’s one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that you and all your friends need to read a manga series called Shimanami Tasogare (しまなみ誰そ彼, “Our Dreams at Dusk”) by Yuhki Kamatani. While it’s not specifically yuri, it is a revolutionary queer story about a group of characters living in rural Hiroshima. Each volume in this four-volume series focuses on a different character in the group, which makes for an impressively multifaceted depiction of many gender and sexual identities under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. Frankly, it’s hard to find a more authentic, nuanced, and sensitive portrayal of the queer community in Japan than this, so go read it!
Overall, manga and other written material still tends to be the best place to find yuri stories, as the genre still doesn’t have a ton of support in the anime/film sphere. That’s slowly changing with the anime serialization of Yagate Kimi ni Naru and others, though, so keep your homosexual eyes peeled!
Congratulations, You’re Gay
If you made it to the end of this article, congratulations on your newfound queerness! Welcome to the club; we’re always recruiting. 😉 Hopefully you’re now interested in reading or watching some yuri, or at least on your way to buy the full Shimanami Tasogare series for everyone you’ve ever met.
But whether you’re in the LGBTQIA+ community or not, there are some really genuine, fascinating, and important stories in the yuri genre that could use your appreciation and support. (FYI, buying e-books is an easy way to get your hands on yuri manga, even outside of Japan.) In fact, if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me — I’m running out of material to consume. Think of your local gays!
Users of the travel app, Visited, can access the full list of LGBTQ+ destinations and see what percentage of them they have been to.
Press Release –
Jun 21, 2022
TORONTO, June 21, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Traveling for the LGBTQ+ community can be a challenging experience, so the team at Arriving In High Heels has decided to put together a list of destinations where Pride Parades have taken place. Travelers can select from the list to see what percentage of destinations they have been to and get inspired to travel to those missed on the list. As a result, they have published the top 10 most visited LGBTQ+ destinations as per their international travelers.
London, United Kingdom – is the most visited destination by the LGBTQ+ community.
Paris, France – Often referred to as the city of love, it is truly welcoming and also one of the most popular cities in the world to visit.
Rome, Italy – Rome, one of the most visited cities in the world, offers much to be explored. For a popular hangout, check out Via San Giovanni.
Amsterdam, Netherlands – Amsterdam is the birthplace of LGBT rights, where homosexuality was decriminalized in 1811, with the first gay bar opening in 1927.
Barcelona, Spain – For travelers looking for some popular hangouts, they should visit the Eixample district.
Berlin, Germany – For those who love cinema and art, Berlin is the perfect place to visit as it has a museum with collections focusing on LGBTQ+ history and culture.
New York City, United States – The only city in the top 10 which is found outside of Europe, New York comes as the 7th spot for popular LGBTQ+ destinations. Historically significant, the Greenwich Village, which saw the Stonewall uprising in 1969, which a year later led to a march to commemorate the one-year anniversary, has been marching yearly since then.
Milan, Italy – Milan, one of the world’s fashion capitals, home to Italian luxury, and where visitors are sure to witness the latest fashion on display, makes it to the eighth place of the most visited LGBTQ+ destinations.
Vienna, Austria – Besides beautiful palaces, museums, shopping, and cafes, visitors can also find relaxing saunas.
Madrid, Spain – Since the mid-1970s, Madrid’s LGBTQ+ community has really grown. Today, Madrid prides itself on having one of the world’s best Pride festivities.
To see the full list of LGBTQ+ destinations and what percentage you have visited, download Visited for free on iOS or Android .
To learn more about the Visited app and its latest feature update, please visit https://visitedapp.com/.
Sniffies’ “Tech and the New Fluidity of Male Sexuality” panel at SXSW 2022 will feature queer thought leaders and sex educators discussing our evolving sexual attitudes
Press Release –
Mar 9, 2022
NEW YORK, March 9, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Sniffies today announced their participation in SXSW 2022 with a panel titled “Tech and the New Fluidity of Male Sexuality.”
The panel will take place on March 17, at 11:30 a.m. at the Austin Marriott Downtown in the Waller Ballroom DEF as part of SXSW’s Culture Track. The session will feature panelists Jacob Tobia, Zachary Zane, and Alexander Cheves, and will be moderated by Sniffies CMO and Creative Director Eli Martin.
The percentage of U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ has doubled in the past decade, and 1 in 5 members of Generation Z identify within the LGBTQ spectrum. We’re seeing a record level of queer representation in media, and platforms like TikTok and YouTube have helped shine a spotlight on gender and sexual expressions traditionally thought of as “alternative.” It’s never been more clear: the rigid boundaries we’ve constructed around masculinity are shifting.
Sniffies is proud to partner with SXSW for this groundbreaking, culture-shifting panel that will further the work Sniffies has done to build and promote a dialogue about male sexual expression and exploration. Sniffies has assembled leaders in the field of gender and sexual thought, and is looking forward to challenging and adding to existing discussions about male sexual expression.
“Traditional models of masculinity are fading into obsolescence,” Martin said, “and the time has come to discover how we will redefine masculinity in a world where younger generations are increasingly identifying outside of heteronormativity.”
Zachary Zane (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based columnist, sex expert, and activist whose work focuses on sexuality, culture, and the LGBTQ community. His work has been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, GQ, Playboy, Cosmo, and many others.
Alexander Cheves (he/him) has been writing about sexual health, queer relationships, and LGBTQ+ culture for a decade. Cheves is a recipient of a 2021 Excellence in Journalism award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and, in 2021, was named to the Out 100.
Eli Martin (he/him) is the CMO and Creative Director at Sniffies. Martin has spent the last two years building Sniffies through content forward marketing, influencer and social advertising and ground-up initiatives activating queer communities throughout the U.S. Martin’s vision for Sniffies imagines a world free of sexual judgment, censorship and full of boundless inclusion and fluidity.
Rewind: gray doesn’t really suit me. It doesn’t feel vibrant enough. I can be a gray demisexual as it pertains to generic understandings of asexuality, but I want to formally declare that I want a new color. Perhaps I will be a gold-flecked cyan demisexual with rich metallic hints and deep blues that flow into green, in honor of my watery, fluid, and balanced life-blooming nature. For the sake of ease, I’ll stick with gray demi ace (but now you know what my real color would be).
Much of mainstream ace talk is all about what we are not and what we don’t experience and that is not my ace experience. It seems strange to be defined by the absence of something, no? In so many online mainstream ace spaces (read: white), I am reminded of the lack that defines whiteness and the inherent delusions of supremacy therein- the consistent speaking in the negative, violently erasing power dynamics inside of sexuality and asexuality while engaging in unexamined fetishization of Black bodies.
I actively resist, dare I say, REBUKE that way of defining my existence. I AM on the asexual spectrum, a gray demi ace — a person who only rarely experiences sexual attraction (as a primary experience) and when it is present it is brought to the fore by deep emotional connection (demi). I am not without sexuality as much as I am without the consistent expression of sexuality in the form of sexual attraction.
I often discuss my nuanced experiences of the erotic, pleasure, and sex with a friend who is very allosexual. She is fascinated by all the ways I experience sex and sexuality inside of my asexuality that have nothing to do with my or anyone else’s genitals. She affectionately calls these experiences “Gracesex”. Gracesex describes the pathway to my marvelous propensity for sensuous multi-orgasmic life experiences, most of which do not require genitals or even nudity. I am a big proponent for asking for what I want and deep, sensual, intimate connections are at the top of that list. This is what it means for me to be a sex-positive gray demi ace. We outchea, y’all; as my Caribbean community might say, “Tell dem we reach.”
My gray demi asexuality is not about what I am without but more like where I am full. I feel full of attractions — they are deep, juicy, complex, and fluid. My asexuality is embodied. My gray demi aceness is Black AF, is nonbinary AF and queer AF. Sometimes my attractions are hard to parse out from each other, but they include sexual attraction. They just do not center sexual attraction as my primary attraction. My gray demisexuality is aesthetic, spiritual/emotional, and sensual attraction forward and exists inside of the immeasurable yearning to be present to unplumbed emotional connections. It shows up as interdependence and curiosity inside of intimate connections that are reciprocal, where I can practice the vulnerability of my wholeness.
My (a)sexuality has agency and is powerful. Inside of this cyan, gold-flecked, metallic-hinted, deep-blue-into-green exists a glorious being. I AM verdant, I AM fecund, I AM whole, I AM full, I AM vast, and I belong wholly to myself and my (a)sexuality.
I am sexual in the infinite ways I know myself and seek to know myself. My (a)sexuality exists inside of my I AM. While the seat of my erotic does not rest on the legs of white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal allosexuality, there is indeed an erotic seat and it is indeed hot.
My name is Grace. I am a gray demi ace and my Black (Gr)ACE is “IAMsexual”.
[Feature image: Photo of Grace B. Freedom, a Black non-binary person with short dark hair, facial hair, pierced ears, and a nose ring. They’re wearing a navy hooded jacket with a reddish patterned scarf and are standing in front of a blurred rural autumn landscape of yellow and brown trees and brush. A few industrial tower structures rise up to the grey sky in the background. Grace greets the viewer with a contagious grin on their face, a smile that is also present in their eyes. Source: A. De La Cruz.]
Grace B Freedom (all pronouns combined with they/them pronouns) is a Black Genderfluid Queer creator of the Black Love and Care (BLaC) Ethic . She is supported by a grant from the Effing Foundation to write the My Black (Gr)Ace series. They have been described as a penetrative and inescapable force, but mostly they want to be in deep conversations that are guided by mutual tenderness and curiosity that center a BLaC ethic . You can find them asking a lot of questions and sharing their freedom practices on Instagram @madquestionasker and you can follow her writing on patreon @madquestionasker.
TBINAA is an independent, queer, Black woman run digital media and education organization promoting radical self love as the foundation for a more just, equitable and compassionate world. If you believe in our mission, please contribute to this necessary work at PRESSPATRON.com/TBINAA
We can’t do this work without you!
As a thank you gift, supporters who contribute $10+ (monthly) will receive a copy of our ebook, Shed Every Lie: Black and Brown Femmes on Healing As Liberation. Supporters contributing $20+ (monthly) will receive a copy of founder Sonya Renee Taylor’s book, The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love delivered to your home.
AKRON, Ohio, May 31, 2018 (Newswire.com)
– The Gay Community Endowment Fund (GCEF) of Akron Community Foundation has unveiled a new photojournalism series aimed at fighting stereotypes, increasing inclusion for the transgender community, and celebrating Pride Month.
Created by award-winning photographer Shane Wynn and writer H.L. Comeriato, the TransAkron series shines a light on trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people in Akron, Ohio. The project captures the lived realities of these individuals and tells the stories of their journeys while adding a data-driven narrative about the transgender community nationwide.
The TransAkron project is part-narrative and part-resource, and at the Gay Community Endowment Fund, we are proud to be on the front lines of advocacy through storytelling.
Phil Montgomery, Chair, Gay Community Endowment Fund of Akron Community Foundation
The photos and stories can be viewed online at TransAkron.com.
The TransAkron series features the stories of eight individuals, including U.S. veteran Giovonni Santiago, who opened the country’s first transgender-specific clinic in the Veterans Affairs system, and Rylee Jackson, who, after experiencing a dozen foster homes and four different high schools, found joy through her love of dance.
“The idea of TransAkron originated in early 2017 when I had a conversation with Shane Wynn — a local artist and advocate — about her photography and how we could use images to humanize people and advocate for the GCEF’s important work in the community,” said Phil Montgomery, advisory board chair of the Gay Community Endowment Fund of Akron Community Foundation. “The TransAkron project is part-narrative and part-resource, and at the GCEF, we are proud to be on the front lines of advocacy through storytelling.”
TransAkron was made possible thanks to funding and support from the Gay Community Endowment Fund and several community partners, including ArtsNow (an innovative nonprofit that connects arts and culture through collaboration) and the EXL Center at The University of Akron. The series’ writer, H.L. Comeriato, is a former University of Akron student who was identified by faculty member Dr. Heather Braun.
“People are often unaware that their friends, neighbors, civil servants, police officers, doctors, etc. identify as trans,” said Nicole Mullet, executive director of ArtsNow. “Breaking down that sense of ‘other’ helps us come together as a community. We are Akron – all of us.”
Established in 2001, the Gay Community Endowment Fund accepts grant applications for programs and services that positively impact the LGBTQ+ community and Greater Akron as a whole. It also raises awareness about equality issues and rallies the LGBTQ+ community around a common philanthropic purpose. Since its founding, the GCEF has invested nearly $475,000 into local causes that change the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the Greater Akron community. Recent grants have advocated for countywide nondiscrimination protections, supported a mentoring program for LGBTQ+ college students, and raised awareness about domestic violence in the LGBTQ+ community, among other critical initiatives.
To support the Gay Community Endowment Fund, please visit GayCommunityFund.org. Gifts of all sizes will make a permanent difference in the LGBTQ+ community. For instance, a gift of $600 could provide safe housing and basic living essentials for one homeless LGBTQ+ young adult, who is more likely to become a victim of violence, abuse and human trafficking than their heterosexual peers. Likewise, a gift of $100 could provide HIV testing and prevention education for five LGBTQ+ people in Akron. All gifts are fully tax-deductible and are invested and grown over time, so gifts made today will continue to multiply for generations to come.
For more information about the TransAkron project, please visit TransAkron.com.
CONTACT:
Phil Montgomery Chair, Gay Community Endowment Fund of Akron Community Foundation 330-714-8178 monty.phil@gmail.com
Citywide Festival Celebrates Black Queer Contributions to Art, Film, Fashion and Culture
Press Release –
updated: Mar 2, 2018
New York, New York, March 2, 2018 (Newswire.com)
– This May, New York City is set to become immersed ina colorful celebration of Black queer art, film, music, fashion and culture as Mobilizing Our Brothers Initiative (MOBI) launches “MOBIfest” – the only free curated festival focused on seeing its attendees in their holistic selves.
Following the success of MOBItalks, the three-part series featuring compelling conversations with LGBTQ+ thought leaders such as DeRay McKesson, Emil Wilbekin, Ty Hunter, and Karamo Brown, MOBI continues to keep its finger on the pulse of Black queer culture with its latest experience.
Each MOBIfest event will celebrate Black queer trailblazer’s contributions in the arts and media. The festival launches with a community art exhibition and reception showcasing artwork submitted by Black queer artists and a panel discussing the impact of Black queer art. Contributions in popular music, house & ballroom scene, and fashion will be recognized through a party themed day with performances by artists from the community. MOBIfest will conclude with Black gay men from the media and entertainment industries that will share their insights with festival goers during a brunch party.
What all these events and experiences have in common is that they’re all peer-led and produced by queer people of color. Everyone from the event producers to the volunteers are Black gay and queer individuals working with the overall goal of creating a community that will empower each other at no cost to attendees. This isn’t by chance. It was the main objective that Founder and OUT 100 honoree DaShawn Usher had in mind when developing MOBI.
“The festival will be primarily centered around increasing health and wellness for the Black queer community,” says Usher. “The events will be free to attend by visiting our community partners and wellness events to gain entry into this celebratory weekend experience. The goal is to link our community with various health and wellness activities, while participants can select how they would like to best take ownership of their health. MOBIfest will continue on the success of MOBItalks in building community and inclusive spaces for the Black gay and queer community.”
Follow “MOBINYC” on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter: @MOBI_NYC, and visit www.mobi-nyc.com for festival updates.
ABOUT MOBILIZING OUR BROTHERS INITIATIVE (MOBI)
Mobilizing Our Brothers Initiative (MOBI) exists to create experiences that celebrate the diversity of Black gay and queer men while building community, wellness and personal development. The MOBI network features our signature events: MOBItalks, a personal and professional development series for Black gay men and MOBIfest, a citywide interactive wellness festival that celebrates Black queer voices in fashion, music, visual arts and media. With a focus on wellness, MOBI connects individuals to opportunities to better themselves before and during events.
