SINCE 1967
THE L WORD IS BACK
CAN THE OGS OF LESBIAN TV MAKE IT A HIT AGAIN? KATE MOENNIG, LEISHA HAILEY & JENNIFER BEALS TALK IT OUT
DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 ISSUE 1106
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The L Word is back for a new generation, but are returning stars Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey, and Kate Moennig ready to take on a 2020 audience? How The L Word hopes to be more relevent than ever.
46 Wind Beneath Her Wings
Whitney Houston and Robyn Crawford had one of the most secret lesbian relationships in show business. Now, Crawford gets candid about what life was like with the late American icon.
48 Our 125+ Favorite
Holiday Gifts
Skip the gift cards and get them something more personal like a gender diverse doll, an electric beach cruiser, a George Takai talkng button, or the latest CBD products.
o n t h e c o v e r a n d a b o v e : The L Word’s Leisha Hailey, Jennifer Beals, and Kate Moennig. Photographed by Luke Fontana. a b o v e r i g h t : Robyn Crawford and Whitney Houston.
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COURTESY LAETLY (48); COURTESY ROBYN CRAWFORD (46)
20 COVER: Can Our Favorite Lesbians Rule TV Again?
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30 Where They Stand The 2020 presidential candidates share their LGBTQ platforms.
S TAY WOK E 14 Justice Prevails Ed Buck is finally charged for the deaths of two Black men in West Hollywood. 16 Images of Love Photographer B. Proud’s new series beautifully documents trans and nonbinary couples. 17 Road Rage A man was charged for the gruesome attempted murder of a trans woman. 17 Uber Fail Are Uber drivers denying rides to LGBTQ and people of color?
SE X & HE A LT H 18 Cancer Shmancer A new test can predict the rise of HPV-related cancer.
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DA ILY DO SE 32 Homeward Bound If we’re going to change the country, LGBTQ folks need to return to middle America.
SPECTATOR 33 Yep, He’s a Star Kalen Allen shot to fame with a little help from Ellen. 35 Camp Horror Pretty author Justin Sayre channels Dark Shadows with his play Ravenswood Manor. 36 The Cable Gal Lesbian MSNBC analyst Karine Jean-Pierre has no holds barred. 37 Doll Face Pansexual Janelle Monáe on her new kids movie, UglyDolls.
SPECTATOR 38 No Shrinking Violets Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women gets the queer treatment we dreamt of.
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39 Eye of the Dragon Keiynan Lonsdale’s new single “Rainbow Dragon” is about more than expression. 40 Monster Mash Jeanette Winterson resurrects a sexier, queerer Frankenstein. 41 Fireside Books These reads will keep you cozy through the holidays.
WOR LD A ID S DAY 2019 A1 Stand United The climate crisis is an LGBTQ & HIV issue. We should join forces. A6 The Best HIV Books Fascinating books focusing on the HIV epidemic.
PARTING SHOTS 42 She Slays Queer Black feminist Roxane Gay on her new podcast and the media’s problem with fat.
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MATTHEW DEAN STEWART (35); COURTESY RICHIE JACKSON (44); MAGDALENA WOSINSKA (39); B. PROUD (16); ROBBIE SWEENY (10)
T EN T HING S 10
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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which was inspired by gay and bi beats like Allen Ginsberg)? Will they care that a team of artists, including Lynn Segerblom (who invented the original dyeing process) and James McNamara (who did the sewing), helped Baker create those first flags, and that each color has a meaning? Now there are so many different flags, including the trans flag, bi+ pride flag, and Daniel Quasar’s very smart, inclusive Pride flag. I barely remember this stuff and I’ve written about it extensively in the last 30 years. I’m glad some areas (ahem, California and Illinois) have begun to make teaching kids about LGBTQs in history mandatory, despite the backlash. But history is always written by the victors, which means the breadth of our stories will never fully be told in textbooks (or even in magazines). At The Advocate, though, we’re telling stories that might have been overlooked in the past—or are still overlooked now by the mainstream press. And I’m following the advice of San Francisco activist Ken Jones (a Black gay HIV-positive activist in the Castro long before AfricanAmericans were embraced by the gay community). Instead of asking the white gay men who have long had a seat at this table to give up theirs, I’m asking that we just add more seats to include those who haven’t traditionally been invited to the meal. That seems fair, right?
AS THE OLDEST LGBTQ MAGAZINE IN THE U.S., The Advocate has published at least three generations of amazing writers (including Andrew Sullivan, Tony Kushner, Kate Clinton, Ryan Murphy, Janis Ian, Alison Bechdel, Michelangelo Signorile, and Janet Mock). Former colleagues and interviewees often go on to do great things. Here are some amazing new projects: Lonnie Lusardo, The Advocate’s Northwest correspondent during the mid-1980s, has released The Anatomy of Organized Hate: Stories of Former White Supremacists and America’s Struggle to Understand the Hate Movement, a monumental achievement that could change how we combat hate in America. Lusardo has created a careful inventory of the common types of hate crimes as well as the often myopic and misinformed motivations behind them. The personal stories are compelling, but Lusardo indicts the broader culture, a change in journalistic standards, and political leaders who do more to stoke American extremism than to stop it. Gay author and filmmaker Arthur Dong had two amazing ’90s LGBTQ documentaries, Coming Out Under Fire (about gay WWII vets) and Licensed to Kill (interviewing killers who murdered someone gay). His latest project delves into the treatment and portrayal of Chinese people in American film. The book, Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films, takes an honest and intimate look at the Chinese influence in Hollywood, from the controversial casting of white actors in Asian roles (“yellow face”) to 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, the first film with an all-Asian cast in over a quarter century. My good friend Kathy Belge’s (and her writing partner Marke Bieschke’s) Queer is a delightful LGBTQ primer full of trustworthy information that tweens and teens need. This second edition combines basics (coming out, dating, and finding friends) with stuff authors are often forced to leave out of YA books (sex, STIs, and how to tell if your relationship is abusive). The end result is a fun, easy to read, and occasionally hilarious guide that should be available to every high schooler.
Happy holidays!
diane anderson-minshall, editorial director magazine@advocate.com
I worked with Yetta Howard when she was a copy editor, decades ago. Now she’s an associate professor and co-director of the LGBTQ Research Consortium at San Diego State University and author of Ugly Differences: Queer Female Sexuality in the Underground. She contends that the term “ugly” lies at the core of queer female sexuality in culture—in poetry, comics, film, and all forms of performance art. In a world that often categorizes ugliness as anything nonwhite and nonheteronormative, Howard interrogates what “ugly” actually is and offers help breaking free of society’s brainwashing messages about ourselves. On the Set: We had three dudes (including cover photographer Luke Fontana on bended knee), one dog (and his mom), and a lot of other women on this L Word shoot!
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Ryan Sallans’s new memoir, Transforming Manhood: A Trans Man’s Quest to Build Bridges and Knock Down Walls, explores what it means to be a Gen X transgender man and an activist who has been out for over a decade, including in his home state of Nebraska, but now worries that his voice is no longer relevant to trans and nonbinary youth. Anyone over 40 will get the feels.
LUKE FONTANA (GROUP) ALL OTHERS COURTESY AUTHORS
I R ECENTLY GOT A NOTE FROM a 73-year-old gay man who said that The Advocate magazine had gone someplace really exciting recently, someplace that felt “really unfamiliar and foreign” to him as an older gay white man—but also interesting and “vibrant and hopeful, a world of diversity and freedom” he could have never imagined as a closeted young man. Because most of the criticism I get these days comes from gay men over 50, I’ll admit I was honestly buoyed by the letter. I never want age or gender or race to keep people from seeing themselves in this magazine. We’re trying to include people whom we’ve historically excluded. Honestly, the world today is largely unfamiliar to many of us who came out before 2000. We’ve watched the history happen, but we’re not the primary benefactors of it. Today’s kids who are able to come out or transition—without leaving home or school, and with the support of friends and family—are. Sure, those young people who think being gay is no big deal (as Jackson Foo Wong says in the article on his dad on page 44) do make me wonder about the future of LGBTQ culture. Not just the physical locations we’ve long gathered like Northampton (a.k.a. “Lesbianville”), Provincetown, West Hollywood, San Francisco’s Castro district, Greenwich Village, Guerneville, and so on. I’m thinking about the authors and journalists who document our history, our stand-up comedians who speak intentionally to queer audiences, our artists and artisans who intentionally create LGBTQ+ focused works. Now that Pride f lags are made in bulk in China, will kids learn they were invented by Gilbert Baker who was inspired by the flag of the races (a.k.a. the flag of the hippie movement,
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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WAS PRESIDENT BUCHANAN GAY? That’s a question gay professor and author Thomas J. Balcerski explores in his new book, Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King. The book—as well as Chris Rush’s new memoir, The Light Years, and Cherry Moraga’s Native of the Heart—top our list of 2019’s Best LGBTQ Biography/Memoirs.
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1 ON 1 WITH THE MECHANIC FEMME Wisconsin-based Chaya Milchtein educates women, femmes, and LGBTQ folks about cars. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family with 15 siblings, Milchtein ended up in foster care at 16 years old and learned about cars at her first job at Sears. Now the 24-year-old proud queer femme is a bodypositive fat influencer who shares her bold sense of style on her popular Instagram (@MechanicShopFemme).
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YAS, QUEEN Gay high school student Brandon Allen (below), 17, was named homecoming royalty in Memphis, Tenn.; nonbinary student Trevor Meyer, 16, was named homecoming queen in Clovis, Calif.; and gay hockey player Anthony Arnoni, 17, was named homecoming king in Franklin Park, Ill.
LION KING Disney star Joshua Rush (below, The Lion Guard, Andi Mack) came out as bisexual on Twitter and encouraged his followers to donate to GLAAD and the Trevor Project, tweeting, “Bi erasure and issues like it are important, but trans women of color still have a life expectancy of THIRTY FIVE YEARS and that is absolutely unacceptable.” BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS In honor of GLAAD’s Spirit Day 2019, Kellogg’s released a $20 special edition “All Together,” containing six mini cereal boxes “to celebrate the belief that we all belong together.” Spirit Day is the largest, most visible antibullying campaign in the world where millions wear purple to “support a more accepting world for LGBTQ youth.” Kellogg’s is donating $50,000 to GLAAD.
Brave and Beautiful Endearingly flamboyant Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness’s new memoir, Over the Top, discloses details of childhood sexual abuse and drug addiction. Van Ness also revealed he is HIVpositive, telling The New York Times he shared because, “I want people to realize that you’re never too broken to be fixed.”
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A New Hope Hope in a Box, a New Yorkbased nonprofit, is working with teachers across the country to make hundreds of rural schools more LGBTQ-inclusive through coaching, curriculums, and book donations. According to a Human Rights Campaign survey, only 13 percent of LGBTQ students report hearing positive messaging around LGBTQ identity in schools and a startling 73 percent report receiving threats because of their identity. (HopeInABox.org)
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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CURATED BY DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL
ANGELS IN AMERICA Kristen Stewart isn’t the only queer person shaking up the Charlie’s Angels franchise. Gay actor, author, and pop culture expert Mike Pingel (right, author of Betty White Rules the World and Angelic Heaven: The Fan’s Guide to Charlie’s Angels) recently displayed his extensive Charlie’s Angels doll collection for charity, benefiting Childhelp’s work with abused, neglected, and at-risk children. Former Angel Cheryl Ladd has been an ambassador for Childhelp for over 30 years.
PREP WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION In 2020, California will become the first state in the nation to allow pharmacists to dispense HIV prevention drugs (PrEP and PEP) without a prescription.
SHUTTERSTOCK (PILL); COURTESY MIKE PINGEL (PINGEL); SARAH SHATZ/HBO (MRS. FLETCHER); ROBBIE SWEENY (MIDTOWN); COURTESY UNICORNS IN TECH (PHONE)
MILF ALERT HBO’s Mrs. Fletcher, about empty-nester single mom Eve (left, Kathryn Hahn) and her college-bound son Brendan (Jackson White) is a politically astute, funny, steamy, and super queer exploration of the nebulous borders of sexuality, love, and identity as cultural norms shift rapidly. The cast, including trans actress Jen Richards, Owen Teague, Katie Kershaw, Casey Wilson (Happy Endings), and the late Cameron Boyce, is stellar.
TECHNICAL UNICORNS Unicorns in Tech is the first app for LGBTQ innovators interested in the latest advances in AI, machine learning, and big data. (UnicornsInTech.com)
FUNKY MUSIC The California retro-soul band Midtown Social, who has opened for Janelle Monáe, releases its first album, Fantastic Colors, on Valentine’s Day, but four singles from the love letter to San Francisco are available now, including standout, “Candlelit.” (MidtownSocialBand.com)
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IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY® This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.
(bik-TAR-vee)
MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY
POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY
BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:
BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including: } Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section. } Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY. } Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY. } Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat. } Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain. } The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%).
} Worsening of Hepatitis B (HBV) infection. If you
have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.
ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains: } dofetilide } rifampin } any other medicines to treat HIV-1
BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you: } Have or have had any kidney or liver problems,
These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY.
including hepatitis infection. } Have any other health problems. } Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY. } Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.
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Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.
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counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. } BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other.
Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.
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} This is only a brief summary of important information
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KEEP SHINING. Because HIV doesn’t change who you are. BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.
Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you. To learn more, visit BIKTARVY.com.
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Activists are hopeful that justice may finally be served now that Ed Buck sits in jail, officially charged in the deaths of two gay Black men. BY NE A L BROV ER M A N W I T H A DDI T ION A L R EP OR T IN G BY K AT E S OS IN A ND T RUDY R IN G
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Ed Buck (center) interrupts a campaign event for Meg Whitman when the businesswoman ran (unsuccessfully) for governor of California in 2010.
Buck at the time, citing a lack of evidence (despite Moore’s body being found surrounded by drug paraphernalia). In January 2019, Dean’s body was found in Buck’s apartment. The 55-year-old had died of a meth overdose. Activist Jasmyne Cannick had long advocated for Buck to be arrested. “The life expectancy of Black gay men in Los A n g e l e s C o u n t y j u st i n c re a s e d substantially with the arrest of Ed Buck,” she wrote in an article for The Advocate immediately following his arrest. “In the past two years and 53 days, two Black gay men have died in Ed Buck’s apartment of meth overdoses and numerous other Black gay men have stepped forward to share their stories that painted the picture of a racist, sick, and sadistic man who preys on Black men. And not just any Black men—vulnerable Black men, and he uses his money to lure them to his apartment.” Community outrage and protests ramped up after Dean’s death. Cannick,
KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES
THE BUCK STOPS HERE
fter seemingly escaping consequences for the overdose deaths of two gay Black men in his West Hollywood apartment, Ed Buck is finally facing charges that could put him behind bars for decades. Buck, a longtime Democratic political activist and donor in Arizona and California, was indicted by a federal grand jury in October and charged with providing drugs that led to the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean. He was also charged with furnishing drugs in three other instances. The indictment says the 65-year-old white gay man targeted “vulnerable individuals who were destitute, homeless, and/or struggled with drug addiction, in order to exploit the relative wealth and power imbalance between them.” Buck, who was arrested in September, faces additional state-level charges that were filed by Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey that month. Moore, 26, was found dead in Buck’s West Hollywood apartment in July 2017. Although Moore’s diary indicated the older man had injected him with meth and gotten him hooked on the drug, Lacey declined to file charges against
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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JUSTICE
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Gemmel Moore, with his mother, LaTisha Nixon, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ed Buck for causing her son’s death.
along with other activists, the Color of Change Criminal Justice Organizing Team, and friends and family of the deceased, continued to pressure the L.A. County Sheriff ’s Department and District Attorney’s office to officially charge Buck in the deaths of the two men. Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, and his estate have filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Buck of causing Moore’s death and listing several additional charges, including assault, sexual battery, and hate-based violence. The suit was originally filed in Los Angeles Superior Court but moved to federal court in May and, as of press time, is ongoing. Jerome Kitchen, a friend of Moore’s, has also been vocal and blamed the Sheriff’s Department and the West Hollywood City Council for Dean’s death. “It was a lack of sympathy and empathy and justice to the community of color,” Kitchen said at a council meeting in February. “It was a lack of investigation because the two dead bodies do not look like you guys.” Buck is accused of continuing to inject vulnerable men with meth even after Moore and Dean’s deaths. The indictment charges that men were drugged in May 2018, December 2018, and September 2019. The most recent instance resulted in the overdose of one man, who survived and went to police; his name was not made public. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department arrested Buck, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office soon took over the case, bringing federal charges. If convicted, he faces at least 20 years in prison. The indictment says Buck would personally inject the victims (some of whom he reportedly paid for sex) “with and without their consent.” Prosecutors say, “Buck pressured, coerced, and/or incentivized his victims to consume drugs, sometimes offering a premium payment to victims who would consume more drugs, try new drugs, or let Buck inject them with drugs. In some instances, Buck injected his victims with larger quantities of drugs than they agreed to receive, and in other instances, Buck injected his victims while they were unconscious.” “I have been very hard on the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s office, and I don’t apologize for that,” Cannick says. “The lives of Black gay men matter. The lives of Black gay men who engage in survival sex matter. The lives of Black LGBTQ people matter. The lives of Black people matter. In order to get that point across, sometimes you have to go hard. I do not believe that if the community hadn’t kept calling for justice for Gemmel and Timothy that we’d be here today with Ed Buck.” DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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STAY WOKE
LOVE IS LOVE
TRANSCENDING LOVE Florida’s Stonewall National Museum and Archives features a gallery on love across genders.
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A few of the couples in photographer B. Proud’s groundbreaking transgender series (clockwise from top left): Barbara Carrellas and Kate Bornstein; Trystan Angel Reese, Biff Chaplow, and their kids; and T Douglas and Bella Joseph. The show is on display in Wilton Manors, Fla., until February
B. PROUD
Photographer B. Proud’s exhibition “First Comes Love,” initiated before the Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling, helped change minds by featuring both celebrities and everyday LGBTQ couples who had been together for decades, documenting their love through photographs, stories, and videos. Selections were later collected in a book of the same name (see FirstComesLove.org or BProudPhoto.com). Proud premiered her latest take on the series, “First Comes Love 2: Transcending Love,” in November at the Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Wilton Manors, Fla., where it will run through February. This project, which launched two years ago, focuses on transgender and gender-nonconforming couples, and pictures them celebrating the beauty of their love and commitment for each other amid today’s divisive political climate. For the past 20 years, Proud (née Barbara Proud) has worked around the globe, pursuing her passions and capturing the world through her lens. In addition to building a roster of clients including the Human Rights Campaign, the Girl Scouts, the American Red Cross, and Meals on Wheels, Proud has won acclaim in several national and international exhibitions. “Transcending Love” is a culmination of months spent on the road, traveling across the United States, to interview, spend time with, and capture the lives of nearly 60 couples. Proud received unprecedented access to trans people’s private lives, like photographing a pregnant man and his partner (before and after the birth of their child). This first show features nearly 20 portraits, including one of The Advocate’s editorial director, Diane AndersonMinshall, and her transgender husband, deputy editor Jacob AndersonMinshall. Images of the remaining portraits are projected on a screen played on a loop throughout the exhibition. Noting that preparing and shipping the artwork to an exhibition space can run $10,000 per showing (and she’s received less funding for the trans series than she did for her marriage equality series), Proud launched a GoFundMe campaign. She hopes to fund future exhibits and continue photographing more trans and gender-nonconforming couples and families (so far she’s only photographed half of those who’ve volunteered).—DAVID ARTAVIA THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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CRIME & BIAS
Blood on the Blacktop
SHUTTERSTOCK (TAPE); CHARLES/UNSPLASH (UBER); SHUTTERSTOCK (CLICK ART)
Man charged in attempted murder of a transgender woman in a crime reminiscent of the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr.
A transgender woman in Jacksonville, Fla., was beaten and then dragged behind a minivan in late September, and a suspect has been charged with attempted murder. The woman, whose name has not been made public, was tied to a Dodge Caravan and dragged for about two blocks, according to The Florida TimesUnion. Police and some family members identified the victim as a man, but local activists said she is a trans woman. The woman was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office told the media. She was found on a street after the attack, but the sheriff’s office’s Real Time Crime Center captured part of the crime in progress on video. “The video was so graphic we can’t release it. It’s horrendous,” Assistant Chief Brian Kee told the Times-Union. The weekend after the assault, sheriff’s office personnel found the van, which had been reported stolen before the crime occurred. Evidence from the vehicle and other information led them to Eric Shaun Bridges, 34, who was arrested on the attempted murder charge. The sheriff’s office did not state a motive in the crime, but some observers said the brutality indicates it could be a hate crime. “It sounds like a hate crime, some type of revenge incident,” Ken Jefferson, a crime and safety analyst for Jacksonville’s WJXT, told the station. “Their purpose was to kill that person, evidently. If they’re... tying them to a vehicle and dragging [them] through the street, they don’t want that person to live.” Florida’s hate-crimes law does not cover crimes based on gender identity, but federal law does, in the event charges are brought in federal court. The sheriff’s office has also made an arrest in the February 2018 murder of
another trans woman, Celine Walker, 36, who was found shot to death in a Jacksonville hotel room. Officers arrested Sean Bernard Phoenix, 21, and he is charged with murder and tampering with evidence, WJXT reports. Sheriff’s office personnel said Phoenix admitted to shooting Walker and selling the gun he used. They added that he had been in a relationship with Walker, but did not provide details. “A lot of those crimes that happen with transgender women have been made at the hands of men that they’ve been involved with,” Paige Mahogany Parks, director of operations at the Transgender Awareness Project, told the TV station. Walker was one of three transgender women murdered in Jacksonville in the first half of 2018. Antash’a English, 38, and Cathalina Christina James, 24, were both shot to death in the city in June of that year. No arrests have been made in those crimes. But after the arrests in both Walker’s murder and this latest attack, Parks praised the sheriff’s office, posting “Yes JSO keep them coming” on Facebook. “The transgender community feels a lot safer knowing that JSO has two suspects in custody,” she told the Times-Union. “There is more work to do, but we are satisfied with the work JSO [has] done.” At least 20 transgender Americans have been murdered this year, almost all of them Black women, after 27 known homicides in 2018. The American Medical Association has called the rash of violence against trans people “an epidemic.” If you or someone you know is experiencing violence, you can reach out to the Anti-Violence Project’s free bilingual (English/Spanish) national hotline at (212) 714-1141 or report online for support.—TRUDY RING
STAY WOKE
Ride Denied Researchers say Uber and Lyft drivers are routinely cancelling Black and queer riders.
A new study indicates that racial and anti-LGBTQ bias is common among rideshare drivers. AfricanAmerican and LGBTQ customers—as well as LGBTQ allies—are much more likely to be canceled on than white and straight people. The study, “When Transparency Fails: Bias and Financial Incentives in Ridesharing Platforms,” observed the habits of drivers and how riders are treated when they’re perceived as African-American, queer, or an LGBTQ ally. Study authors Chris Parker and Jorge Meija created fake passenger profiles with pictures of Black riders and names often perceived as Black, like Keisha and Jamal. They also created profiles that included a rainbow flag, connoting a rider was LGBTQ or an ally. Parker and Meija discovered the Black riders were canceled on nearly three times as often as white riders, while the LGBTQ or ally riders were canceled on almost twice as often as those without the rainbow symbol. The study did not look at how Black LGBTQ riders fare. Parker suggests apps could penalize drivers who exhibit bias in cancellations and incentivize drivers who do not.—NB
LOST IN 2019
Learn about LGBTQ activists who died in 2019, now on Advocate.com/Exclusives
DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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This new test can predict the rise of HPV-related cancer. BY DAV I D A R TAV I A
O
mniPathology has unveiled a new test that detects human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer in patients more accurately than other means by using advanced fluorescence microscopy and computer-aided visual analysis. A fluorescence in situ hybridization test (a.k.a. the FISH test) is used to map genetic material in a person’s cells. In early results, over 10 percent of people tested positive for the acquired genetic abnormalities— people who would have otherwise been left untreated without early
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Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 14 million people acquire the virus each year. In fact, HPV is so common that the CDC predicts that, without a vaccine, almost every person who is sexually active will become HPV-positive. Nine out of 10 cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV. Unfortunately, most HPV-related conditions are slow to develop and early detection is difficult (except through cervical cancer screenings). “HPV is the most common sexually transmitted virus and without early treatment it can lead to life-threatening cancers,” says Dr. Mohammad Kamal, founder and CEO of OmniPathology. “Our new FISH screening test bridges a gap in HPV diagnosis by its ability to accurately detect the progression of HPV virus into cancer in any patient. We hope that more ob-gyns and other physicians will take advantage of this breakthrough test and screen more patients so we can prevent HPV-related cancers.”
SHUTTERSTOCK
TESTING THE WATERS
detection. The FISH test works by detecting fluorescently labeled DNA probes bound to the TERC gene, a gene that speeds along virus replication and gives instructions for making one part of an enzyme called telomerase. From there, the FISH test is able to detect new genetic changes, such as expansion of that TERC gene, which can lead to cervical, anal, and oral squamous cell carcinoma in those living with HPV. Researchers say the FISH test can be used for early detection of HPV-related malignant and premalignant conditions in all patients, including those at high risk for HPV, such as bisexual women, gay and bi men, transgender people, sex workers, and those living with HIV. The FISH test is performed much like a vaginal Pap smear, a swab obtained with a brush by a gynecologist, physician, or other medical professional. It is now available at a nominal cost and covered by most health insurance plans. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection that affects 79 million
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HIV PREVENTION
SEX & HEALTH
A 12-MONTH PREP IMPLANT?
DANIEL64/PIXABAY
New research shows that a small implant in the upper arm might be the next step in long-term HIV prevention. RESEARCH PRESENTED AT the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City earlier this year shows promising results for a new HIV prevention implant by the drug company Merck. According to data, the implant might be able to protect people against the virus for an entire year. The implant contains the investigational drug islatravir, the first in a new class of drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase translocation inhibitors, “which block movement of the enzyme responsible for cloning HIV’s RNA so that it can infect new cells,” as described by The New York Times. Similar to strategies used for birth control, this implant is a matchstick-sized plastic rod that would be inserted under the skin of the upper arm and would slowly release tiny doses of islatravir. Conducted by Merck, the trial is the first of its kind for a PrEP implant. Researchers gave 12 healthy adults an implant for 12 weeks, which contained either a 54mg or 62mg dose of islatravir. Meanwhile, four people making up a control group were given placebo implants. (14 of the 16 total participants were cisgender men.) The results showed that the implant was tolerated well in the body, and a closer inspection of the drug concentration in the participants’ bodies led researchers to believe that the implant could possibly have worked for at least another eight months for the lowerdose implant, and at least a year for the higher-dose implant. While a long-form trial would be needed to conclude whether or not a year-long implant would work, it hasn’t stopped experts from being excited about the potential. “If—and I’m emphasizing if—if it pans out in a larger trial that it delivers a level of drug that’s protective for a year, that would be a game-changer,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a top authority on HIV and AIDS, told the Times. A PrEP implant would greatly impact the number of new HIV diagnoses, and could become a critical tool in the effort to stop the epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously
announced that PrEP use among at-risk men increased 500 percent between 2014 and 2017. Those numbers are expected to rise following Gilead Sciences’ new commitment to donate up to 2.4 million bottles of Truvada to the CDC by 2030 (which amounts to 200,000 per year). In addition, the pharma company’s drug Descovy has become the second FDAapproved drug that can be prescribed as PrEP. Both Descovy and Truvada are daily pills, which can make adherence difficult for some people with busy
lives. More importantly, many of those with the highest risk of contracting HIV simply haven’t had access to the prevention strategy. Women in Africa are particularly desperate for prevention methods that are easier to use than a daily oral tablet. An annual implantation would have the added advantage of not being controllable by partners, as oral meds can be. Worldwide, over 6,000 women under age 24 contract HIV each week, and in sub-Saharan Africa, girls account for 80 percent of new diagnoses among teenagers, UNAIDS reports. A PrEP implant has been in development for some time. Two years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation teamed up with Intarcia Therapeutics to invest upwards of $140 million with the intent of developing the first once- or twice-yearly anti-HIV prophylactic to help prevent the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa and other countries. While HIV diagnoses have decreased steadily in the last decade, numbers remained somewhat stable between 2012 and 2016. In 2017, 38,739 people received a positive diagnosis in the U.S. —DA
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by tracy e. gilchrist
photography by luke fontana
styled by benjamin holtrop jennifer’s hair by rod ortega for t3micro at solo artists jennifer’s makeup by sara vaughn kate and leisha’s hair by brittany madrigal kate and leisha’s makeup by angel radefeld-wright
left to right: leisha hailey, jennifer beals, and kate moennig on leisha: jumpsuit by gucci; shoes by saint laurent; earrings by maison louella; rings by vrai on jennifer: dress by aidan mattox; earrings by saint laurent; bracelet by maison louella; boots by chloe on kate: velvet jacket by cos; kate’s own outfit 20
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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the
word
Can these three OGs help make The L Word relevant to a younger, queerer audience?
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ven before The L Word premiered in January 2004, the Showtime series had amassed a devoted community of women-loving women hungry to see their lives portrayed. The buzz around the show focusing on a group of glamorous Los Angeles-based lesbian friends was palpable, and spurred groups of women (and their friends) to gather in homes and bars around the country for viewing parties where they collectively entered the world built by its creator, Ilene Chaiken. Eager audiences tuned in to the pilot with opening images that included the Hollywood sign, Sunset Boulevard, and a kinetic freeway interchange informing its setting. Then, the camera moved from the public to the private: Bette and Tina asleep in the morning light, a half-tossed-off sheet revealing their bare skin that signaled an intimacy between women that had yet to be depicted on television. In this quiet but radical moment, The L Word altered television forever. Lesbians had stepped into the light, no longer relegated to ancillary characters or the brunt of the joke. The cast of characters who gathered at the show’s fictional watering hole The Planet were smart, funny women with sexual agency who pushed the needle forward and effectively changed longheld perceptions about lesbians. Fast-forward 15 years and Jennifer Beals (Bette), Leisha Hailey (Alice), and Kate Moennig (Shane) have just completed a photo shoot on a warm October day in an unassuming old recording studio in Hollywood. It’s two months out from the release date of The L Word: Generation Q, the highly anticipated reboot of the series they executive-produced along with Chaiken. The enthusiasm about working together again and exploring their characters in 2019 is infectious. “I’m excited for people to see the three of us back together. I can’t help but think that it translates in the scenes,” Beals says. There are scant plot details about Generation Q, and Beals, Hailey, and Moennig don’t give much away that’s not already apparent in the trailer. Beyond the basics—that Bette is running for mayor of Los Angeles, Alice is the host of a popular TV talk show, and Shane has returned on a private plane from somewhere else, the plot is under lock and key. But the cast promises there will be plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the original series.
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Chaiken, or “mama bear” as Hailey calls her, is now an executive producer on Empire and The Handmaid’s Tale as well as on Generation Q. But she’s handed The L Word’s baton over to showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan, a playwright and filmmaker known for the queer-themed The Four-Faced Liar. Ryan says she feels the weight of The L Word’s legacy and credits the pioneers of the series with handing queer women a “North Star” of representation. “They were pivotal for me personally and also for the community. They gave us something to aspire to,” Ryan says. There’s been a tectonic shift in the LGBTQ community and in pop culture representation since the show ended in 2009. The L Word, while indisputably groundbreaking, had missteps—especially in terms of its depictions of transgender and bi-plus people. “When I first met with Ilene, we talked a lot about the things that held up and that didn’t hold up when they’re scrutinized in retrospect. We were all eager to tell those stories within the 2019 perspective. That means hiring trans actors,” Ryan explains, adding that it also means hiring people of varying identities on screen, in the writers room, and as assistants, electricians, and so on. Among the new denizens of The L Word’s universe are Dani (Arienne Mandi), a public relations executive whose girlfriend is Alice’s TV producer, Sophie (Rosanny Zayas); Alice’s assistant Sarah (Jacqueline Toboni); and their friend Micah, an adjunct professor played by the in-demand trans actor Leo Sheng. Although, typifying younger generations of queer people who widely eschew labels, it’s not obvious from the trailer how any of the new characters identify. “It’s important,” Moennig reiterates. “We have to represent as many people as we can.” “When you look at the new cast and you look at the writers room, that’s the way it should be,” Beals adds. “Everybody should have an opportunity to be at the table. Everybody should have an opportunity to tell their story, whether it’s in part or parcel.” Like Ryan, the three originals are committed to upholding The L Word legacy that they helped build. They are also mindful of their responsibility to fans whose lives were impacted by the show’s mere existence 15 years ago, but recognize the need to tell compelling stories in the ever-expanding queer TV landscape. “It’s a lot of the responsibility we have that’s different from what the new showrunner and the new writing staff has,” Hailey says. “We want to
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If we can save one girl who’s in the middle of nowhere, who’s growing up without any kind of representation, and help her get access to community, then that’s what I want to do. I want to help that one girl. make sure that we’re there to help and support their ideas, but this is very much a vision of someone else, and I think our responsibility falls on the voices of our characters, the voices we know so well, so intimately, and we know them better than anybody.” She adds, “The new writers can write from a point of view of watching it, whereas we come in from the inside.” “We have the first-person knowledge,” Moennig says. “There’s a legacy that has to be held, and that’s a big responsibility.” “You realize that the legacy [of The L Word] is transforming, and it will have a different
structure because of a new showrunner, because of a different writers room,” Beals acknowledges. “It’ll morph into something different, and you can’t hold on completely to what it was. The laws of physics do not allow that.” After all, change is a universal constant. “There’s a part of us trying to figure out, ‘OK, we want to be true to the voice of our character, but we do know it’s 10 years later, we are in this different structure,’” Beals adds. “How do we make sure, like Kate was saying, that we’re able to blend those two things—” “Seamlessly,” Moennig chimes in, finishing her thought. “Seamlessly,” Beals concurs. In addition to the introduction of new characters, a major change in the series is that Ryan opted to move the characters’ home base from West Hollywood to L.A.’s hipster stronghold Silver Lake (east of Hollywood). “I was just trying to tell stories that feel real to me, and this is sort of where my personal community is,” Ryan says. Moennig and Hailey are sanguine about their characters’ move east, while Beals leans into the backstory she’s devised as to why Bette would make that leap. “That was more one of my hardest things. Like, ‘Wait a minute, why is Bette Porter in Silver Lake?’ I didn’t really see that,” Beals explains. “I wrap my mind around it in that Bette was working at the Department of Cultural Affairs, so it makes it easier for me to get downtown,” she adds, revealing a bit about her commitment to her character’s authenticity in the process. “I say to myself that [Bette’s daughter] Angie’s school, the school that we loved, is on the east side. And so this is between those two things, then. OK. Coming back from New York, then I’ll buy a place on the east side and see how that is.” Discussion about the location spurs the women to reminisce about their early days on the original set in Vancouver. Generation Q is shot in Los Angeles, and while the women loved the Canadian city where they first met, they agree there’s no match for the natural light in Los Angeles. “Lightning in a bottle” is how Moennig describes the energy during those nascent days. Considering their affinity for each other and the world they created, it’s no surprise they considered how best to reprise their stories as early as three years after the series ended. Also, as Hailey and Beals point out, nothing had come along to replace it. “We saw that nothing had taken its place. It was one of those classic situations where you DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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think, because of the success of the show, something will quickly replace it. And then that didn’t happen,” Beals says. While Grey’s Anatomy and teen staples like Glee and Pretty Little Liars featured lesbian and bisexual characters in the interim, there were no communities of queer women on TV at the time the women began considering reviving The L Word. “We were chewing on the idea, and at the time, I think it was in 2012 when we started having that conversation, reboots weren’t happening,” Moennig says. “So what was the idea, a movie? But what does that look like?” “Great shows have [since] come along like Orange Is the New Black [2013]. We’re huge fans of that show Transparent [2014],” Hailey says. “But nothing exactly like our show came out. It was very lesbian-centric.” In recent years, stories about various communities of queer people have exploded exponentially on TV shows like Pose, Vida, and the Netflix reboot of Tales of the City. “The landscape has changed so much on television. There’s so much more out there,” Hailey says. “Before, it felt like we were the only ones in the game.” “We were the only one in the game,” Moennig clarifies. “Now there’s so much great television that we actually have to step up our game and say, ‘We have stories to tell too,’” Hailey says. While Generation Q introduces younger characters into The L Word universe, Hailey, Moennig, and Beals are uniquely poised to usher in stories about queer women in their 40s and 50s, who are virtually invisible on TV. “This is season one of, hopefully, what’s going to be a long run for us,” Hailey says. “These new seeds that have been planted, where our characters are starting from 10 years later, it’s just the beginning of that journey. This is just the nugget—the nucleus of what’s going to come.” She adds, “The other side of the coin is that we’re telling more mature women’s storylines.” “We’re not kids anymore,” says Moennig. “We’re not spring chickens,” Hailey quips. “When I watch television, those are the characters I love to sink into—the ones that have been through a lot.” In true meta L Word fashion, a line in the trailer for Generation Q nods to the gap between the original series and the reboot. “That hiatus felt really long. It felt like a decade, right?” Alice says in the trailer. And it has felt like an especially long 10 years since the original six-season run ended in 2009.
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To watch the three of them interact with such affinity as if no time has passed at all, it’s easy to imagine them as their characters tossing back espresso at The Planet circa 2004. “They’re like a married couple, by the way,” Beals says, smiling and pointing to Hailey and Moennig, who finish each other’s sentences. Of course, it’s not just TV that’s changed. So much has transpired socially and politically since those opening shots of The L Word pilot that led to the now-recognizable iconography of the show like Alice’s razor-sharp repartee, Dana’s endearing naivete, Bette’s power suits, Shane’s low-waisted jeans, and more than a few questionable haircuts. The L Word premiered as George W. Bush was running for a second term as president and fighting hard for a constitutional amendment declaring that marriage is between one man and one woman. The series ended just a few months after Barack Obama took office and there was hope for LGBTQ people in the air. While The L Word tackled topical issues like censorship through Bette’s work at the museum and on a college campus, the show’s politics were primarily inherent in the fact that it gave voice to a marginalized group. Similarly, Generation Q is not overtly political, but it dares to shine a light on LGBTQ people in the era of Donald Trump. “Story always comes first,” Beals says of The L Word’s ethos around issues. She recalls telling Chaiken early on during the original run, “If we can save one girl who’s in the middle of nowhere, who’s growing up without any kind of representation, and help her get access to community, then that’s what I want to do. I want to help that one girl.” Beals laughs knowingly as she shares Chaiken’s response, “Let’s tell a good story first.” “The show [Generation Q] is not message-y at all. As much as there is a drive to make sure that we have diverse voices in the writers room, in the crew, in the cast—there’s not a preachiness about it,” Beals says. “[The show’s politics are] implicit by virtue of having trans characters, by having the diverse cast. It’s not, Look at how diverse we are. That story is told through character.” “The world feels like it’s on fire at the moment,” Moennig says, mere days before parts of L.A. were literally engulfed in flames in the area’s latest wildfires. “So anything we can do, anything media can do, anything that entertainment can do… [to] bring visibility and push people’s thoughts forward instead of backward. That’s our job, I think.”
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Joe Biden
Pete Buttigieg
WILL THE NEXT PRESIDENT STAND UP… FOR YOUR RIGHTS? They want your votes, but do the Democratic front-runners know what LGBTQ people want from them?
W
hile some previous Democratic candidates have courted the LGBTQ community, this election cycle is unprecedented in the sheer amount of attention so many front-runners in a major party have paid to our concerns. With 15 million potential queer votes on the line, top candidates are showing up to LGBTQ events including at The Advocate and Human Rights Campaign-sponsored LGBTQ Presidential Forums. In addition, six of the top 2020 Democratic hopefuls responded to an HIV-focused survey spearheaded by AIDS United, along with other members of the ACT Now: End AIDS Coalition (which includes GMHC, Positive Women’s Network-USA, Prevention
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Access Campaign, and the Transgender Law Center). Not surprisingly, many of the major candidates’ responses are similar. They all support the Equality Act, HIV funding, and returning the nation to a leadership role on the world stage. Each condemns discrimination and banning queer, trans, or HIV-positive people from fully participating in society. Here are where the top five (as of October 18, 2019) stand: J O E B I D E N, Barack Obama’s vice president and a previous longtime U.S. senator from Delaware, has become a reliable LGBTQ ally, evolving on some LGBTQ issues over his decades-long political career. He came out in support
of marriage equality in 2012 (Obama followed a few days later) and has officiated same-sex marriages. He also voted for the Employment NonDiscrimination Act the one time it came up during his Senate tenure and says he would make passing the Equality Act a top priority. He has been a longtime supporter of funding for AIDS care and HIV prevention and has pledged to end the epidemic within five years if elected, but his campaign did not respond to the HIV survey. P E T E B U T T I G I E G, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., is only the second publicly out gay major-party presidential candidate in U.S. history (the first was Republican Fred Karger, in 2012). As
TOM BRENNER/GETTY IMAGES (BIDEN); PARAS GRIFFIN/WIREIMAGE (BUTTIGIEG)
BY JAC OB A NDER S ON -MIN S H A L L A ND T RUDY R IN G
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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POLITICS
DANIEL BOCZARSKI/GETTY IMAGES FOR SPOTIFY (HARRIS); JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES (SANDERS); JOSH EDELSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (WARREN)
Kamala Harris
president he says he’ll make it a priority to pass the Equality Act, reverse the transgender military ban, and enforce the nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act and other federal laws. He has also pledged to combat bullying, protect LGBTQ asylumseekers, pass safe schools legislation, and champion LGBTQ rights around the world. And he recently released a comprehensive plan to address LGBTQ issues as well as HIV and AIDS. In his survey responses, Buttigieg shared the core principles of his HIV strategy: improving access to PrEP, providing equitable and “culturally competent” health care to all at risk for HIV, including “men who have sex with men, trans people, injection drug users, women, [and] people of color,” to get “everyone with HIV” in treatment “so they can lead longer and higher-quality lives and so they won’t transmit HIV, since we know that U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable).” He added, “We must address the stigma and other social determinants (poverty, lower income, housing insecurity, etc.) that often make accessing preventive and care services more challenging.” K A M A L A H A R R I S, a U.S. senator from California, has a strong record of support for queer causes. She opposed Proposition 8, and as San Francisco district attorney in 2004, when Mayor Gavin Newsom declared same-sex marriages legal in the city, Harris officiated some of the weddings that were subsequently performed. As the attorney general she spearheaded efforts to abolish gay and trans “panic” defenses in the state’s criminal trials. As a senator, Harris has pushed for PrEP coverage and cosponsored the Equality Act. She supports universal health care and increased HIV funding. In the HIV
Bernie Sanders
survey, Harris pledged to “hold pharmaceutical companies accountable” for price gouging. Harris has said she supports decriminalizing sex work for consenting adults, but some activists point to her history as attorney general, when she sided with law enforcement against such decriminalization. Similarly, many trans advocates point to Harris’s in-court defense of the state in denying gender-affirming medical care to trans inmates, but she has said she worked behind the scenes to change that policy. Harris does support adding a third gender option to federal identification cards and documents, and she has promised her administration will aggressively prosecute hate crimes. BERNIE SANDERS, a U.S. senator from Vermont, was the only major candidate to miss both forums (due to scheduling conflicts and health issues). But in his answers to the HIV survey, the cosponsor of the Equality Act pledged to also pass “the Every Child Deserves a Family Act and other bills to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.” Sanders added that his support for LGBTQ people would include opposing “any legislation that falsely purports to ‘protect’ religious liberty at the expense of others’ rights,” and supporting “police departments that adopt policies to ensure fairer interactions with t ra n s g e n d e r p e o p l e, e s p e c i a l l y transgender women of color who are often targeted by police unfairly, and by instituting training programs to promote compliance with fair policies.” Sanders believes we can end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by the year 2025. He supports Medicare for All, which he says “will guarantee health care as a human right to everyone in America, free at the point of service.” He believes
Elizabeth Warren
this plan will “address the racial disparities we still see in the [HIV] epidemic—people of color are disproportionately uninsured.” E L I Z A B E T H WA R R E N, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, has a long record of LGBTQ advocacy. An early supporter of marriage equality and ENDA, she cosponsored the Equality Act. This year, she addressed the one blemish on her stellar LGBTQ record. I n 2 0 1 2 s h e s a i d t h a t g e n d e raffirmation surgery for a transgender prisoner was not a good use of taxpayer dollars. She says she now believes health care is a human right and supports all medically necessary procedures, including transitionrelated ones, for prisoners and everyone else (including immigrants). In her response to the HIV survey, she also said that she will “direct the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to collect accurate data on the health of transgender people.” “There is no single answer to ending [the HIV] epidemic—we must use every tool at our disposal,” she says. “That includes Medicare for All, expanding HIV research and treatment, ensuring everyone has access to PrEP and HIV testing, holding drug companies accountable and lowering drug prices, ending the opioid crisis, ensuring that community health centers receive robust funding, and reinstating our position as a global leader in public health. It also means expanding economic opportunities, tackling the housing crisis, banning private prisons and exploitative contractors, overturning HIV- status criminalization and discrimination laws and regulations, and ensuring comprehensive, inclusive reproductive and sexual health education and services.” DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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DAILY DOSE
Home Is Where Your Vote Matters Most If we want any chance at defeating Trump, we need our LGBTQ family to stay put.
EV E R S I NC E I was
little, I have been a blue-ribbon homosexual in a bright red state. As soon as I could stand, I wanted to dance. As soon as I could walk, I wanted to strut. And as soon as I saw Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, I knew that someday I wanted to kiss a boy on the mouth. But it wasn’t until the reality of being in Texas came into focus that I realized my swishy, sparkly tendencies were going to be an issue. The thing about being born queer is you can’t exactly choose where you get to grow up. I was fortunate enough to be born in America, but that is where my luck stopped. My family was from the sticks of east Texas, where there were more churches than libraries and Friday night football was a spiritual experience. But just like my sexuality, I wouldn’t change my Texas roots if I could. They’re as much a part of me as anything else, and to deny them is to reject all of the things I loved about my childhood, my family, and my culture. But in our current political atmosphere, many LGBTQ Americans view Texas and other red states as places that are devoid of any redeeming qualities, too far gone to be worth the trouble. To these LGBTQ folks who reside in blue utopias, I say shame on you for becoming complacent simply because your neighborhood is welcoming. The characteristics of any culture are not a zero-sum game. Instead, they are as richly layered as the people who are a part of it. I was born a Texan gay man, and many of the qualities and characteristics of my home state are as much a part of me as any conservative cowboy on the ranch. After moving around the globe, I came to the realization that I do not have to abandon my roots just because a small part of what it means to be a Texan can be coupled with anti-LGBTQ leanings. I am a Texan and I am LGBTQ. I am proof that the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and there are many others like me who deserve to be able to call their birth state home. I also have the means and ability to move if I want to. It’s a part of my privilege, which is also a part of the problem in our country. Those with privilege don’t have to concern
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themselves with the problems of those without. This is exactly why everyone who has the privilege of moving away from their red hometowns should be encouraged to stay and make a difference, both for themselves and for the LGBTQ Americans who don’t have the option of fleeing to a blue paradise. To suggest that LGBTQ Americans in red states should escape homophobia and transphobia by moving to blue states is to deny the immense progress we have made in LGBTQ rights. People’s minds can be changed, and often are by familiarity with what they’d originally feared. Victories can be won in every local and state government, no matter how difficult it may initially seem. Twenty years ago, the state and federal rights we now have were merely pipe dreams, but our community refused to let hate beat out hope. Today, we are on the precipice of the most important presidential election in our lifetime. Given the realities of our Electoral College-based democracy, now, more than ever, we need our red state LGBTQ Americans to stay put and take their queerness to the ballot box. We have the power to influence our communities and an ability to effect actual change in the numbers game. Without us, the future of LGBTQ rights, even for the coastal elite, is in peril. So, blue state babies, quit complaining about how you want to secede from the red states and throw your full support behind your LGBTQ brothers and sisters who are still trying to make a difference where they are. Yee-haw.
Contributing editor TYLER CURRY is also editor at large at Plus magazine, the author of A Peacock Among Pigeons, and a gay man living with HIV. (@IamTylerCurry).
SHUTTERSTOCK; CODY SCOTT KINSFATHER (CURRY)
BY TYLER CURRY
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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Climate Change & HIV Are Parallel Causes This World AIDS Day is a good time to reflect on how the growing climate crisis could fuel a new explosion of the epidemic. By John Casey
I
t was an honor of a lifetime to help lead a global public relations project with the United Nations Foundation on behalf of the Nobel Peace Prizewinning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The work occurred during the almost two-year run-up to the Paris Climate Treaty Accord that was triumphantly signed by nearly 200 countries in December of 2015. Part of our task was to help the nearly 800 unpaid UNIPCC climate scientists from around the world explain their groundbreaking Fifth Assessment Report, a thorough examination about the state of the Earth’s climate to the media and public prior to Paris. The UNIPCC, established in 1997, has so far prepared five massive reports since its inception to inform world leaders prior to global U.N. climate conventions. Before the Paris accords, we were able to help
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scientists speak in simpler and more convincing terms about their work, and the implications for world governments of the United Nations to act sooner rather than later. Climate Week in New York City is a yearly event that coincides with the annual United Nations General Assembly. The enormous crowds of students, which included queer youth, who participated in the last Global Climate Strike made the event bigger than ever before. Climate change is front and center in the Democratic primary, having its own townhalls with the candidates on CNN and MSNBC. After thinking about the fights for climate action, for LGBTQ rights, and for an end to the HIV epidemic, I realized there were many similarities about our struggles and triumphs. Coincidentally, through the years, our community has heralded major advancements and setbacks alongside
those of climate change. Here are a few: 1985 The comprehension of the devastation of HIV and AIDS started to trickle out to society in the early- to mid-1980s. At that time, AIDS and HIV weren’t so much in the public consciousness since it was erroneously perceived as more an “us versus them” and gay versus straight problem. Defined, inaccurately, more by geography, the disease assumingly seemed to be concentrated in urban gay communities in the coastal United States. When iconic actor Rock Hudson died of the disease in 1985, there was a face to the scourge, and a more human way of perceiving the disease. His death catapulted HIV into the general public’s awareness and conversation. It’s easy to forget how much of an impact his death had on broadening alertness to the disease.
SHUTTERSTOCK
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That same year, the issue of an endangered environment, and the precursor to climate change, also burst into the public discourse. That’s when a hole in the ozone layer was first revealed by British scientists. The news was a shock since the damage was far larger than anyone had anticipated. Suddenly, we were warned that everything from smoke, aerosols, and refrigerants were lethal weapons that were ripping holes in the Earth’s atmosphere. To many, the ozone warning was arguably the start of the conversation about global warming. I can recall the mild panic that the discovery of the depletion of the ozone layer caused. It made everyone feel very vulnerable about the fragility of the Earth, perhaps for the first time. 1990 The first year of the 1990s was a year that saw the first major breakthrough in the treatment of HIV, and the first thorough diagnosis of the state of the Earth, and gave birth to the terms “drug cocktails” and “global warming.” Early in the year, the FDA began approving the first highly active antiretroviral drug cocktails, which laid the groundwork for forthcoming effective drug regimens that slowed the progression of the disease. As the drugs improved and became more readily available over the ensuing years, long-term prognoses became increasingly optimistic. And at that same year, the Earth got its first comprehensive diagnosis, but unfortunately for the planet the prognosis was dire. The UNIPCC released its First Assessment Report. The bold and comprehensive study cited an alarming warming of the planet by 0.5 degrees. The report unequivocally concluded that only strong measures, enacted by the world’s governments, would halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming became the name of the Earth’s ailment and would eventually morph into climate change. The report served as the basis for the establishment of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the first UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992—also known as the Rio Earth Summit. 2004 Fourteen years later, in 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to
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recognize same-sex marriage and set the course for other states to eventually follow. Suddenly, it seemed, every same-sex couple considered moving to Massachusetts, or going there for nuptials. It was a significant start in the fight for marriage equality. We realized that we could have more than civil unions or marriage ceremonies without the stamp of approval from a government. It would take 11 years to reach the finish line, but the fight was energized. Lack of marriage equality had cost the LGBTQ community dearly during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when partners weren’t covered on each others’ health plans, and many estates reverted to a person’s (often estranged) biological family after death. The battle for global climate change action lurched a step forward in the 2000s when activation of a longdebated climate treaty secured its last powerhouse, Russia. The country was the final hold-out on the all-important Kyoto Protocol climate treaty, which was eventually adopted in that Japanese city in 1997 but took years to gain its most crucial signatories. In late 2004, the Russian parliament finally ratified the protocol which paved the way for the treaty to be fully enforced. In December of that same year, all of the world’s major powers (and carbon emitters) agreed to set in place greenhouse gas emissions targets for the first time. 2015 2015 was a watershed year for both LGBTQ and climate activists. In June, the Supreme Court determined that the Fourteenth Amendment required all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. A dream had finally been realized in the ongoing battle for LGBTQ rights. Later that year, the crucial Paris accord was signed, affirming that all country signees should take steps to combat climate change. Also in 2015, the U.N. released the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development setting out the goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Within a year the U.N. further established the 90–90–90 treatment targets to ensure that 30 million people living with HIV would have access to treatment by 2020. It seemed there was now a brighter future for LGBTQ people, those living with HIV (or at risk of contracting it),
and even Mother Earth herself. There was optimism in the air. 2019 That is until our common nemeses, the conservative right and the Trump administration, turned against humanity by returning us to the era of obfuscation and denial. The U.S. was the undisputed leader in corralling the world to sign the Paris accord, and then this administration ignorantly pulled us out. At the General Assembly, the U.N. made climate change the top issue, forging forward without the United States. This year we saw the administration’s accelerated roll-back of environmental regulations, a dream come true for conservatives like the Koch brothers and their networks. And, horribly, this year we’ve witnessed the administration’s latest, blatant bias against the LGBTQ community with its desired, diabolical destruction of LGBTQ workers’ rights. Our community feels threatened and is taking some extreme measures to counteract conservative aggression. Just this month, the New York City Council passed a resolution overturning its ban on conversion therapy in order to avoid a lawsuit and a likely ruling by a conservative judge supporting the disgusting practice. Suddenly, like climate change, the battle is on again. This administration has also hampered efforts to confront the HIV epidemic by damaging the Affordable Care Act, being hostile to science and research, and by demonizing many communities most at risk, including immigrants, trans and queer people, and African-Americans. Climate change will also disproportionately impact many of these same underserved communities. Indeed, our communities are inextricably linked to the biggest issue facing all of humankind today. It’s necessary for combating climate change to be a part of any platform that claims to serve LGBTQ people or those affected by HIV. And it’s necessary for our community to make sure the candidates we support are unwavering backers of addressing this critical climate crisis. Let’s hope in 2020 we all share big victories that move our causes forward and together again. JOHN CASEY is an adjunct professor at Wagner College in New York City, a PR professional, and a frequent columnist for The Advocate. (@JohnCaseyJr)
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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7 Books to Read on World AIDS Day HIV narratives in modern literature are having a resurgence, many focusing on the emotional history of the epidemic. B Y D E S I R É E G U E R R E R O
So Lucky, by awardwinning author Nicola Griffith, is a fascinatingly intense, semiautobiographical novel about a woman facing down her demons. The profoundly personal narrative reads much like a memoir, and readers can’t help but empathize with protagonist Mara Tagarelli. In the space of a single week, her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In the professional world, Mara is the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation (a career inspired by someone very close to her living with HIV) and in her personal life, she is a committed martial artist. But when her life is turned upside down overnight, Mara finds herself feeling completely lost and alone. She can’t rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are distancing themselves, treating her like a victim. Just when all seems lost, she finds an inner strength to fight back against a system that often savagely mistreats the disabled and chronically ill— though her actions unleash new enemies. (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
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In the Shadow of the Bridge, a memoir by novelist Joseph Caldwell, is at its core a love story. But this is a love story that is bittersweet as it comes to fruition in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. Much of the memoir focuses on the young bohemian’s life in 1950s-’60s New York, a place he migrated to in order to live freely as an out gay man. Living on a street and neighborhood under the Brooklyn Bridge that would soon cease to exist, Caldwell rubs elbows with greats like James Baldwin, finds moderate success as a playwright, and ends up writing for TV soap operas like Dark Shadows and The Secret Storm. Amid it all, he also falls madly in love. However, the fiery affair quickly fizzles and Gale, the man he loves, leaves Caldwell heartbroken and longing. Years later, through a serendipitous twist of fate, the author is reunited with Gale in the darkness of the AIDS epidemic, where Caldwell has become a caretaker for the dying. (Delphinium Books)
Bloodflowers by W. Ian Bourland examines the photography of Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955–1989), an artist whose work created a cultural touchstone for conversation around gender and queerness, race and diaspora, and the enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism. Born in Nigeria, FaniKayode migrated through the art and culture scenes of Washington, D.C., New York, and London, where he produced much of his overall body of work—the majority of which consisted of his provocative, often surrealist, homoerotic photographs of Black men. Bourland brilliantly describes FaniKayode’s work in a period of global transition, and how it created and responded to profound social, cultural, and political change. In addition to his expert analysis of Fani-Kayode’s portraits, Bourland ties together the unique intersecting elements that made the art of this era incredibly original: surrealism, neo-Romanticism, Yoruban religion, the AIDS crisis, experimental film, loft culture, and house and punk music. (Duke University Press)
Illuminations on Market Street by Benjamin Heim Shepard covers the AIDS epidemic, nothing new for the author. As the writer and editor of six books, including White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the San Francisco AIDS Epidemic and From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization, Shepard is wellversed on the topic. But what is new to the Ph.D.-holder and former social worker is writing fiction—which he does brilliantly with his first novel, Illuminations on Market Street, “a story about sex and estrangement, AIDS and loss, and other preoccupations in San Francisco.” Shepard expertly uses his real-life experience to fuel this exciting tale of a recent college grad and budding activist in early ’90s San Francisco. Between punk shows and protests, protagonist Cab learns how to navigate life, love—and loss. (Ibidem Press)
The Journalist of Castro Street: The Life of Randy Shilts by Andrew E. Stoner is the new biography of one of the most iconic— and controversial— figures of the AIDS epidemic. After Shilts penned the best-selling exposé And the Band Played On, which revealed uncomfortable truths on why HIV was allowed to spread unchecked during the early ’80s, he was considered the voice of the movement. But his success was not without controversy. It was later discovered that “Patient Zero” was a made up tactic to promote his book. The hook of a sexually proliferous Dutch flight attendant who supposedly brought HIV to the U.S.—a theory now thoroughly discredited via scientific analysis and admissions— was insisted on by his publisher. Behind the scenes, Shilts struggled with alcohol and substance abuse, partly in order to cope with the secret HIV diagnosis that had begun to take his own life. (University of Illinois Press)
I’ve Seen the Future and I’m Not Going: The Art Scene and Downtown New York in the 1980s by Peter McGough is a must-read for the modern art lover—or anyone who wants to learn more about the fascinating, and often tragic, life experiences of queer Baby Boomers. From growing up gay in the rigid and sexually repressed American 1950s, to the frolicking freedom of the 1970s, and finally, to the heartbreak and loss of the ’80s AIDS epidemic, McGough vividly takes you on a journey through time. The author is half of McDermott & McGough, a talented art duo known for their paintings, photography, sculpture, and film work—as well as for choosing to live, right down to their clothes, as though they were in the Victorian era (even living without electricity and other modern conveniences). I’ve Seen the Future and I’m Not Going is also a poignant peek into the wondrous lives of many queer artists, including Keith Haring, Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Jeff Koons, whose lives were cut short. (Pantheon Books)
Viral by Ann Bausum, the awardwinning author of Stonewall: Breaking Out for Gay Rights, is the first history of the AIDS pandemic created just for teen readers. Bausum beautifully captivates this demographic with her exciting narrative style— while never insulting the politically savvy generation’s intelligence. Viral is told with compassion yet unflinching honesty through the stories of the activists, allies, loved ones, longterm survivors, and even those who lost their lives during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. By offering more than a history of that particular era, the book brings readers through the ’90s, 2000s, today, and beyond in efforts to share the message that the fight against HIV continues. Already adopted as a vital history text in classrooms across the country, Viral is a must-read for anyone, especially teens, wanting to educate themselves on a crisis that affects us all. (Viking)
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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IT’S ALL THE KALEN SHOW From viral videos to calling Ellen “Mama E” and starring opposite Seth Rogen, Kalen Allen’s career is going nuclear. BY DAV ID A R TAV I A
AMBE J. WILLIAMS
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on’t let the funny videos fool you. Kalen Allen is deep. The 23-year-old media personality knows where he’s going, and he’s got a plan to get there. Since releasing the viral “Kalen Reacts” videos, where he gives colorful commentary on culinary preparations, Allen has skyrocketed to near-superstardom in only a few years. When Ellen DeGeneres had him on her show in 2018, the lesbian talk show host fell for the affable and witty Allen, and ended up inviting him to collaborate and produce content for her digital platforms. Today, Allen holds a regular guest spot on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and has a weekly digital news series, O M Ka l e n , w h e r e h e provides commentary on trending pop culture stories. He’s covered the red carpets at New York Fashion Week, the Met Gala, and even a royal wedding. To date, Allen’s videos have gained nearly 260 million views across all of the Ellen platforms. His own social media accounts reach over 3.8 million followers. Not bad for a kid from Kansas City, Kan., who admits that his sense of humor was a shield he crafted after years of being bullied as a kid.
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“ Pe o p l e w o u l d respect you if you were funny, if you could make them laugh,” he says of his upbringing. “Kansas City is a very conservative city, it’s not very progressive, and I think I never really felt like I fit in… I had to find the power in standing out and seeing how I could benefit from that instead of trying to be like everybody else, which is why I think, even now, I’m not a person that you can peer-pressure into anything.” Becoming a YouTuber and moving to Los Angeles weren’t originally part of Allen’s five-year plan. He was in Philadelphia, doublemajoring in theater and film at Temple University, when his videos went viral “by accident.” But, he saw the potential to build a brand. “I immediately switched into business brain. It grew so fast and I was getting all these calls,” he remembers. “That was when Ellen called and I was like, Oh, yeah, this is the place to go. Honestly, when Ellen called, the first original job offer was that I would just make videos from Philadelphia. I made the decision to move to Los Angeles because I knew that if I was here, I would be more accessible to them and that would only bring up more opportunities, as it has, so I’m very proud of that.” His instincts have served him well when it comes to taking risks—both creatively and personally. “When you’re a queer person of color, everyone only tells you your limitations, and I got tired of that. I wanted to be my own boss,” he says. “I got tired of people telling me what I could and could not do, especially because I understood that at the end of the day, when I’m done in this world, it’s only me that’s going in the ground—not you.” Still, Allen acknowledges he’s not immune to criticism or internet trolling. “That stuff will start to sink into you and it will take over your spirit,” he shares. “I really had to learn how to, one, believe in myself, trust in my journey, and trust in my process. But also, I had to take the time to examine where I need to grow, and I also had to figure out what I wanted [next]… because I was like, ‘I’ve already done it all. I don’t know what else I can do.’... So I spent this summer doing a lot of self-exploration.” Allen’s next step turned out to be a return to his earlier path. He was cast in his acting debut with a lead role in Seth Rogen’s upcoming An American Pickle, about an
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immigrant worker at a pickle factory who is accidentally preserved for 100 years and awakens in modern- day B r o o k l y n . Fo r Allen, the role was a long time coming. “I’ve acted my entire life,” he says. “When I started doing the videos, a piece of me started to get scared that I was never going to be able to act again, so when I got the [role]…it was like, Oh! I get it. This is just a part of the journey.” Allen didn’t let the pressure of working on set with heavy hitters like Rogen, Kevin O ’ Ro u r ke, a n d Sarah Snook get to him. “People only treat you the way that you allow them to treat you,” he says. “I made sure that when I showed up… I had my lines memorized, I didn’t have my script in my hand, I didn’t need to call for lines, and I was ready…. When you show that you’re a professional, that is what you earn your respect in.” That lesson in professionalism could very well be credited to DeGeneres, who he describes as a mentor. “I call her ‘Mama E’ a lot,” he says. “I do a lot of observing, especially behind the scenes and seeing how she operates and how she gets prepared and how she gets ready for the show…. I really learn a lot from her just interviewing people. I think that’s when you see Ellen in her most natural habitat.... She makes sure that they feel like they are on the same level as her and that she’s not this mega superstar, and I think that is very powerful.” The young star vows to pay that mentorship forward because “it’s important, especially for queer people of color,” he explains. “When I was growing up, there was no one I could look up to, that I could aspire to be. I definitely want to be that beacon of hope and light to other individuals, especially those that come from urban communities who don’t have a lot of resources and don’t have the support and don’t have the direct mentorship that many other people do.” As for his future, Allen dreams of starring on Broadway, and shares, “I eventually want my own talk show.” But he won’t exactly be following in Ellen’s footsteps. “I want [it] to be a morning show…. It doesn’t have to be real deep; it can be just fun and entertaining.”
AMBE J. WILLIAMS
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OUT OF THE SHADOWS
MATTHEW DEAN STEWART
Gay writer and performer Justin Sayre steps into the spotlight. The murky and gothic world of Dark Shadows, a soap opera that originally aired on ABC from 1966 to 1971, featured a family plagued by ghoulish creatures of the night: ghosts, werewolves, zombies, witches, warlocks, and more. Barnabas Collins (played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s 2012 film adaptation of Dark Shadows) at first appears to be just another monster, a 175-year-old vampire driven by bloodlust and the memories of a lost love. But the bloodsucker undergoes a transformation, eventually reflecting very human qualities as he repeatedly risks his own existence to save others. Long before marriage equality ruled the land, movie monsters were ways for scriptwriters to bring euphemistic queer characters to life. Exiled to the underground and the fringes of culture, monsters (and queers) frightened mere mortals by simply being themselves. So it’s fitting that Justin Sayre—whose work often celebrates queer culture—has set his latest theatrical production, Ravenswood Manor, in the “world of the weird and wonderful Dark Shadows.” But Ravenswood, he promises, is its own monster, both “high camp, with a lot of laughs and silliness, but also a gripping horror story.” The 12-episode production premiered at Los Angeles’ Celebration Theatre in October, with two new episodes back to back each week for six weeks. It’s hard to sum up the multitalented entertainer’s accomplishments as a writer and performer. His award-winning cabaret/variety act, The Meeting of the International Order of Sodomites, ran for eight seasons in New York, and Night of a Thousand Judys, his benefit show for the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBTQ youth, is nearly as old. His five-part gAy-B-C’s: A Brief History of Queer Culture is being released in book form. He also appeared in Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback, and his podcast Sparkle and Circulate is available on Apple Podcasts. His comedy album The Gay Agenda was named one of the Best of 2016 by the Comedy Bureau. And as a playwright, his works include Love’s Refrain, The Boy Sonata, Rite of Water: A Life of Hart Crane, Justin Sayre Is Alive and Well…Writing, and The Click of the Lock. Sayre’s bicoastal life means he’s been claimed by both the West and the East, having been named among the “Funniest People in Brooklyn” by Brooklyn magazine and one of “L.A.’s 16 Most Talented LGBT Comics” by
Frontiers magazine. He has also written for the TV shows 2 Broke Girls and The Cool Kids, and he has a new Sony project in the works. “I wanted to live in this weird and wonderful world for as long as I could,” he tells The Advocate about Ravenswood. The writer could just as easily be speaking of the middle school world he created in his popular young adult novels (Husky, Pretty, Mean). In his YA books he hopes to encourage young readers to follow their own path and accept that “your view of the world is just that: yours, and therefore subjective.” A related common theme revolves around identity and how we are all more than a single descriptive. “All the books use the adjective that they would be labeled, but take the time to show the myriad of other things the husky boy or the pretty girl or the mean girl can be,” he says. While Sayre likes to revel in the worlds he creates, he also acknowledges being drawn
to “the challenge of writing something like [the 12-episode Ravenswood]. You want to make each play an adventure all its own, but you also want to move the story forward. We have incredible comedic adventures with this truly spectacular cast, but we also follow an overarching story that builds toward an exciting conclusion. I want to make something you can follow week to week or drop in for [one night] and still have an amazing time. We make sure to catch you up, with our ‘Previously on Ravenswood Manor’…but each and every week is a storyline that gives everyone a beginning, middle, and an end.” Two of Sayre’s most popular works, The Meeting and gAy-B-C’s, celebrate queer culture. He describes that culture as “all about invention. We invent our lives, we invent a new way to look at the world, and from that vantage point we get to see things a little different. I also think that queer people have been outliers for so long, we have a natural DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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skewed view of the norms presented to us. Camp is a major thread through all of that. A way to rejoice in the frivolous and to celebrate the forbidden or the unspoken.” “Queer expression and invention is needed now more than ever,” Sayre says. He sees it as an antidote to “the endless approval wheel that social media has put everyone on. [Queer culture] is not about being liked and being safe, it’s about being weird and creative and resourceful and a creation of your very own.” This denizen of screen, books, and stage says he would love to become an EGOT [someone who has won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards], but he places his focus elsewhere. “I think what’s more important to me is to make a body of work that expresses my view and my voice in the time I have,” he says. “I think we tell the stories we’re meant to tell, and I want to create a body of work that expresses the stories in me that have a place in the world.” A singer who hopes to release his first album in 2020, Sayre admits, “If I had a dream, I think I would have liked to just be a jazz singer somewhere in a small club. Maybe someday.” Still, he insists, “My heart always belongs to the theater. It’s magic. Getting a whole group of people to believe something at the same time. That’s a spell, and in that mystical space, we can really change lives. Being live and present with a whole group of folks believing in something together is the thrill of my life.” Understanding that each individual view of the world is subjective is the first step, Sayre says, in acknowledging “the true complicated humanity of others.” He says that even within the queer community, some white men feel like they are “being forced out as if there were only a certain amount of seats at the table.” “But that premise in itself is wrong,” Sayre argues. He offers a different perspective: “There aren’t just a certain amount of seats. If the table isn’t big enough…we don’t kick people out, we get a bigger table. For so long, LGBTQ people and narratives have been forced into a feeling of scarcity. We only get one show or one space or one form of representation, but that’s playing into a game that isn’t ours. We need more. We deserve more. Because we are more.” “For myself, intersectionality is life,” he adds. “My community is made up of people of color, of female-bodied people, of people with disabilities, with people of different gender expressions and identities. I don’t see issues like Black Lives Matter or women’s reproductive health or immigration as separate from me. They are issues that affect my community. The separation comes from outside, and that’s the greatest evil. We’re all in this fight together, and we have to remember that until we’re all free, none of us truly are.”—JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL
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POWER TO THE PEOPLE Move On’s Karine Jean-Pierre is the antidote to ugly and dangerous times.
Karine Jean-Pierre is a woman who knows how to get things done. The MSNBC political analyst has been a key figure in three presidential campaigns, including Barack Obama’s historic victory, and has successfully pressured big corporations like Walmart to change unfair labor practices. Now she wants you to get involved in our nation’s politics, and she won’t accept any excuses. “No one handed it to me. I had to go out and take it,” Jean-Pierre says of realizing her political power in this country. The lesbian Haitian-American adds, “I got involved. I worked on campaigns and for politicians. Eventually, [I] worked my way all the way to the White House. My advice: Work hard, don’t take no for an answer, and never burn any bridges.” In addition to speaking truth to power on MSNBC, Jean-Pierre shares her message through public speaking, teaching campaign management at her alma mater, Columbia University, and by acting as the chief public affairs officer for Move On. She’s also just written one of the most important political books of the year, Moving Forward, described by its publisher as a “call to arms for those who know that now is the time to act.” Move On is a grassroots political organization mobilizing folks to fight for social justice and achieve political progress. Much like Jean-Pierre herself, the org has no qualms about calling out Trump and his administration as “a dire threat to the well-being of many Americans and others around the world,” as it states on its website, MoveOn.org, which goes on to say, “Women, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ Americans, working families, and other communities are under attack.” Jean-Pierre agrees, explaining that this is why it’s now more important to get involved than ever. “Representation matters,” she says. “That is why I find so many of these young newly-elected members of Congress—many of whom are women and women of color—so inspiring. The other thing I will say is, Donald Trump loyalists are going to be voting in 2020. The only way we can take power away from Trump is to show up in bigger numbers. Now is not a time to sit on the sidelines. We need everyone in if we’re going to beat Trump.”
But mobilizing marginalized people to political action is easier said than done. After all, many barriers exist that prevent people from realizing their power. “Voter suppression. Structural racism,” Jean-Pierre ticks off obstacles marginalized communities face, “and a system that was built for us to fail. But that only means we have to fight harder [and] gain more power.” In Moving Forward, a fascinating political memoir, Jean-Pierre reflects on her life experiences, and how she was able to realize her own power in terms of social and political change. She recalls watching thenCongresswoman Barbara Jordan speak at the Democratic National Convention in 1992 and how the moment changed her life: “She was the first Black woman in politics I had ever witnessed. In a world of pretty, pearl-wearing charmers, Jordan was substantive and authentic.” Jean-Pierre says great change can be achieved in everyday grassroots activism and local community involvement—not just national politics. She stresses that anyone and everyone can make a difference. “Get involved in your community. Volunteer. Get involved in your church, temple, [or] mosque,” she states. “This is an ugly and dangerous time in our nation’s history. But to me, that is even more of a reason to get in the arena. With so much at stake, now more than ever, I think we all need to engage in the political process. It is the only way we’re going to be able to turn our country around.”—DESIRÉE GUERRERO
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Janelle Monáe, We Stan You From UglyDolls to Lollapalooza to ruling the red carpet at the Met Gala, this queer star has had an incredible year.
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fuchsia stuffed doll with a gap tooth, a blue one-eyed dog, a cat that speaks gibberish, and an otherwise seemingly perfect girl who hides her glasses in a pocket until her perfect doll friends aren’t looking—these are some of the inhabitants of Uglyville and Perfection in the 2019 kids’ movie UglyDolls. One place is a gleaming factory-esque city of lookalike dolls tailored to reflect an accepted aesthetic and behavior, and the other a village of rejects who embrace their differences without knowing they’ve been exiled for perceived imperfections. Musician, style icon, actress, and pansexual rule-breaker Janelle Monáe voiced Mandy, the otherwise perfect girl with glasses who stands up for the denizens of Uglyville in the film, which played in theaters in the summer and is now available on video. And last fall, Monáe owned the carpet of the Met Gala in her Christian Siriano gown. But there was a time, growing up a queer girl in a Baptist church in Kansas, when Monáe could have used a friend to stand up for her against bullies. That’s part of the reason she signed on to the movie about marginalized dolls. “As humans, that’s one of the things that I want to help bring out more. How can we empathize with each other? How can we be better allies to one another?” Monáe says. “When I read this script, I thought to myself, I wish I had a movie like UglyDolls growing up when I was dealing with being bullied.” “I wish that I had a film when I was deciding if I was going to stand up when other folks were getting bullied,” she adds. “I wish I had that film because I think that’s the question— do we fundamentally think that it is our responsibility as humans to stand up for each other? This film represents what it looks like when we do. When the weirdos and the outcasts stand with each other and stand up for each other, it sparks a revolution.” On its surface, UglyDolls—with its candycolored hues and estimable pop music soundtrack that includes new songs from Monáe, its star Kelly Clarkson (who plays the lead, Moxy, who dreams of escaping Uglyville to find a home in the arms of a child who loves her), and Nick Jonas as Lou, the sociopathic leader of Perfection—is just a feel-good kids movie.
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But for any child who’s ever felt the pang of being different in a world that values sameness, its message is essential. For LGBTQ people watching, the UglyDolls who create their own loving community of joy and acceptance in their village clearly provides a metaphor for queer, found families. But it’s really for anyone on the margins. “It’s about being the other, and I think that folks who feel othered, even if they’re not in the same category—if you’re an immigrant or you’re a part of the LGBTQIA+ communities or you’re a disabled human being…. We might not have the same struggles, but we can have a similar pain of what it means to be an outcast and ostracized.” So we can empathize, she says. Just over a year ago, Monáe came out as pan in a Rolling Stone cover story. The Hidden Figures and Welcome to Marwen star went on to release Dirty Computer, an exemplary piece of music that doubles as avant-garde art. In the video for “PYNK,” she donned a pink bodysuit and chaps modeled after labia in a celebration of the female form that was revelatory, especially for queer women. When it comes to identity, Monáe admits it can change over time, saying, “I’ve evolved, and I’ve discovered so many new things about who I was as a young Black queer woman growing up in Kansas. I was discovering these passing thoughts or passing feelings and trying to understand my identity. Because I believe sexual identity is a journey,” Monáe says. “It’s not just a destination for me.” “There’s a spectrum, and I didn’t know those things, but I didn’t even feel like I could talk about them openly. It was just something that I would later find a community of folks and feel like I’ve read enough. I’ve seen enough. I’ve lived enough to understand more about me now and I can articulate that better.” If she’d learned to do that earlier, Monáe adds, “I would’ve been able to walk taller and give somebody else a reference who may not understand.” Monáe has never extricated her identity from her art. “The only way that I know how to create art is to be honest to where I am in that moment,” says the artist, who has remained a singular, authentic force throughout her career. “I have to be all of me when I’m creating art. If you want to know something, let me educate you on what it means for me to be young, Black, wild, and a free-ass motherfucker living in America.” Through Clarkson’s character of Moxy, UglyDolls explores what it means to never give up on finding love—in this case, the unconditional love of a child in need of a doll. But the dolls otherized in the movie also offer representation for kids who may not see themselves in Jonas’s scrubbed white pug-nosed Lou. Monáe wanted to play a character that would offer that kind of instant recognition for young girls of color like she had when she was young. “I was obsessed with my Cabbage Patch doll,” Monáe says of her favorite doll. “She was Black and she had that black yarn hair and she was so cute. I carried her everywhere with me. I don’t remember her name. I hate that I don’t remember her name. But I remember her face.” “I was happy my mom gave me dolls that looked like me,” she says. “That’s why I wanted Mandy to light up on screen and be representation for little Black girls all around the world.” —TR ACY E. GILCHRIST
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LITTLE WOMEN GO QUEER
Louisa May Alcott is finally getting an ending to Little Women that befits her original vision. BY T R ACY E . GIL CHR I S T
Writer and director Greta Gerwig’s lush adaptation of the 1868 novel Little Women drops on Christmas Day, fitting for a story that turns on seasons and cycles. For Gerwig’s version of the beloved novel, she deploys a framing device that incorporates Alcott’s preferred ending, in which the formidable Jo March flexes her agency and evades marriage altogether. Oscar-nominated Lady Bird star Saoirse Ronan takes on the role of Jo, one of literature’s most revered tomboys. And Gerwig’s Little Women, which includes scenes of Jo pushing back against her publisher for forcing her to marry off the independent heroine in her novel, offers the queerest and most feminist reading yet. “I never liked that she got married,” the director, who has identified with the character since she was a child, tells The Advocate. “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Jo March was. I’ve always had Jo inside of me. It’s like the Beatles. I don’t know when I heard the Beatles. I’ve never not known ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ You just know it.” “[Alcott] did not want to marry [Jo] to anyone,” she adds. “[Alcott] was constrained by the morals of
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her time,” Gerwig says of the publisher’s insistence that Alcott marry Jo off. Rather than give ardent fans of the time the ending they craved in which Jo and her best friend, Laurie (played by Timothée Chalamet in the new film), wed, Alcott had Jo marry professor Friedrich Bhaer, with whom she had little chemistry. “I made her a funny match out of spite,” Gerwig says of how Alcott described the marriage to the professor that occurs in the sequel to Little Women, called Good Wives, which is now commonly incorporated into the story of the Civil War-era March sisters and their mother Marmee as a single-working parent. “I felt like if I can’t give Louisa May Alcott an ending she would have liked 150 years later, then there’s no reason to make this movie again,” the director says of the sure-fire hit that also stars Emma Watson (Meg), Sharp Objects’ Eliza Scanlen (Beth), Midsommar’s Florence Pugh (Amy), Laura Dern (Marmee), and Meryl Streep (Aunt March). A double Oscar-nominee for writing and directing the 2017 hit Lady Bird, Gerwig delved into Alcott’s life and letters to discover the writer’s fierce independence at a time when heteronormative matrimony was compulsory. Despite the mores of the time, Alcott’s proxy Jo was a gender-busting pioneer, eschewing the niceties in which young ladies were expected to engage and instead penning plays she and her sisters Meg, Amy, and Beth would perform in which she always played the male role. “I remember getting chills after reading [Gerwig’s screenplay]. I just thought it was such a clever way of, like, giving the audience what they want,” says Ronan. The result of the very modern and meta interweaving of Alcott’s life with Jo’s is that viewers can choose to
Director Greta Gerwig brings a queer take to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, starring Emma Watson (Meg), Florence Pugh (Amy), Saoirse Ronan (Jo), and Eliza Scanlen (Beth)
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believe that Jo never in fact marries the professor—that they only wed in the novel Jo writes but that in life she remains, as Gerwig says, “a literary spinster.” “I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body,” Alcott once said, according to biographical material that Gerwig references. “I have fallen in love in my life with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.” The writer-director leans into the gender fluidity inherent in Alcott’s text through the characters of Jo and her friend and neighbor Laurie. Not only are their names interchangeable, but Ronan and Chalamet (who also starred together in Lady Bird) swap vests and coats throughout the film, rendering their wardrobes gender-neutral. Their love and friendship are based in what Gerwig calls their “pre-gendered childhood,” that is,
until Laurie forces Jo to pick a gender role by proposing marriage as an ultimatum. “You’ll see them trade vests and trade coats all the time, which I loved because I wanted them to feel like they’re twins in a way that they’re a man-woman, womanman,” Gerwig says. “They’re both so gorgeous. Timothée doesn’t need to be a man and Saoirse doesn’t need to be a woman to be gorgeous. They could both be whatever and they’re just beautiful people.” Ronan lauds Gerwig for pulling back the text and opening it to an interpretation many LGBTQ readers have likely always gleaned from the novel. “What’s so amazing is the opportunity we had to represent the queer community with this. There is a good chance that Louisa herself probably was at least bi,” Ronan says, referring to historical information. “‘I want to be able to move freely and I don’t want rules on who I’m supposed to
RAINBOW DRAGON
MAGDALENA WOSINSKA
Keiynan Lonsdale, the multitalented artist from down under, is now riding high. For many performers, it’s easy to succumb to how the world defines us, but this year welcomed a rainbow of breakout virtuosos who surf the lines of gender, sexuality, and all things that make us human. But Keiynan Lonsdale leads that new wave of multitalented LGBTQ artists. The Australian-born award-winning actor has made his presence felt across the mediums of film, dance, television, and music since bursting on to the scene in the Australian Broadcasting Co.’s Dance Academy in 2012. Lonsdale wasted no time in also establishing his musical potential with the singles “One and Only” (2014) and “Higher” (2016)—the latter included on Connor Franta’s album Common Culture, Vol. V. In 2016, Lonsdale landed a role on CW’s The Flash as Wally West, a.k.a. Kid Flash, and in 2017 he began playing the character on the network’s Legends of Tomorrow as well. But his power truly emerged in 2018’s Love, Simon—the first teen romance to be released by a major studio that focused on a gay love story. Lonsdale would go on to win
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love,’” Ronan says, quoting Jo in a scene with Marmee. “She’s really torn by this. You could read that in a way [with a queer interpretation] and I think it’s totally right.” “Even though she’s not a very feminine girl herself, I do think she’s really in love with women. The people in her life that she looks up to and who have been the only ones to take care of her apart from Laurie are Marmee and her sisters,” she adds. While Gerwig shines a light on Alcott’s writing in a way that hasn’t been emphasized in prior adaptations, she says the subtext was all there to be discovered. “I didn’t want to give her some sort of label,” Gerwig says of Jo. “I just wanted to live with the kind of openness of it and to look at these scenes with that idea behind it, to just sort of live with some ambiguity there, because her legacy certainly allows for it.” “I didn’t invent it,” she adds. “I felt like it was just there.”
an MTV Movie and TV Award for “Best Kiss” alongside Love, Simon costar Nick Robinson. Lonsdale later released the queer love song “Kiss the Boy.” This year he began modeling, making his debut walking the runway for Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week. He further impressed the fashion world at the 2019 Met Gala, where he wore a couture gown covered in 1,500 handmade embroidered butterflies. These days, the fashion chameleon defines his style as “playful.” It’s been a hell of a ride for the entertainer, who came out on Instagram in 2017 with a simple caption that read in part, “I like to change my hair, I like to take risks with how I dress, I like girls, & I like guys (yes).” Lonsdale’s coming out was embraced by Flash fans across the globe. After all, it’s not every day you see a TV superhero come out. “There’s a few of us, which is so cool,” he explains. When Colton Haynes came out in 2016, Lonsdale recalls approaching the Arrow actor and saying, “I just wanted to say thank you and it’s very inspiring and I don’t know how you did it, but it’s so cool and I wish I had the courage to do that one day.” That day came soon enough, but, ironically, Lonsdale hadn’t planned on coming out until he started production on Love, Simon. “I really just felt like I was struggling to feel genuine,” he opens up. “Here I am in this project where we’re all supporting this cause, and…this moment for people to live their truth. This character even goes through that transformation, and I am still here holding myself back. [Love, Simon] was a mirror to me and to my life and my circumstances. It was such a positive environment that I felt brave enough to do it.” In August 2019, the eclectic actor, model, singer-songwriter, dropped a new song and video, “Rainbow Dragon,” a dynamic pop anthem showcasing his killer vocals and storytelling through several characters that ultimately morph into a rainbow dragon, conveying an inspiring message for viewers to embrace their vibrant, colorful selves. The song and his forthcoming album reflect the metamorphosis of a deeply introspective creator. Coming out “took down all the walls and I was able to write and flow from the space that I never have before,” he explains of his creative process. “There’s a very big difference between ‘Rainbow Dragon’ and all the songs on my album, and from what I was writing before.… I had so many walls up and so many reasons as to why I couldn’t ever think of saying that, so they had no way of getting in. And when you can free yourself of that, whatever your block is, sexuality or not, your creativity becomes more true, more you, and more open.” “Most of the time when I write, it comes from such a place of joy or it’s about love or heartbreak,” he explains. “But I really hadn’t written DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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about…my thoughts on the state of the world and how we respond or don’t respond to [issues].… The [‘Rainbow Dragon’] video is the same thing. I just need to have a visual representation of different elements and all different sides of myself and characters that were in my head. Even some parts [of the video] are inspired by mental health. It’s a mix of a lot of things.” Lonsdale’s album takes a truly deep dive into his life. Growing up in the small town of St. Mary’s, a suburb of Sydney, he says he was bullied for being a dancer and always felt like an outsider. “I want to share something that really is just my story,” he says now. “It’s taken me a while to acknowledge fully what that is, and the best way for me to communicate it is through song and dance and through the characters that I’ve made. I want to put it out there and share it from…a Black queer perspective, and someone who has gone through the waves— and still does—of insecurity and trying to find their way. Trying to figure out who they are and express themselves and deal with their fears and their heart, and not trying to be the version we’ve been told we’re supposed to be.” His first passion, dance, launched his career on Dance Academy and garnered him a starring role in the upcoming Work It, a coming-of-age dance comedy coproduced by Alicia Keys and directed by Laura Terruso. “It’s one of the most exciting characters I’ve ever played,” he says. “I’m excited for people to get to experience it because it’s quite a twist on how we’ve normally been presented with these kinds of characters.” Lonsdale’s journey has come full circle. “For me, I was dancing in my living room for hours and hours,” he says. “So if that’s where you nurture your gifts, that’s where you nurture your gifts. Whatever brings you joy is your truth, so follow that.”—DAVID ARTAVIA
SEX BOTS AND MONSTERS In her new novel, Jeanette Winterson resurrects Frankenstein as a meditation on gender, sexuality, and what it means to be human in the 21st century.
Beloved lesbian author (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit) Jeanette Winterson’s latest novel Frankissstein is a retelling of both Mary Shelley’s classic monster tale Frankenstein and of its creation. Frankissstein bounces through time, paralleling a retelling of the moment Shelley brings her story to life in 1816 with a tale from a post-Brexit Britain in which a scientist attempts to reanimate human body parts. Winterson is also examining the creative process of writing and its similarities to the undertaking of Victor Frankenstein as he throws a switch and life surges into what was previously inanimate, stitched-together parts from various corpses. The author herself is graverobbing here by reviving a 200-year-old horror story rather than crafting a wholly original tale. In Frankissstein, Shelley’s story gets away from her. It takes on a life of its own and the “monster” breaks free from the boundaries of her novel to haunt the real world. In Winterson’s telling, Shelley’s novel has another unintended consequence—driving the real Dr. Victor Frankenstein insane. Confined to Britain’s infamous Bedlam asylum, the doctor that Mary Shelley based her Dr. Frankenstein on is suffering from the delusion that he is nothing but a character in a novel, a creation of Shelley’s imagination. How real are any of us? How solid is our sense of self? What makes you you? Would you still be you if your essence was somehow distilled into sequences of ones and zeroes? These are the questions that Winterson poses in Frankissstein. Of course, in Shelley’s novel the real monster is not the lumbering yet gentle giant but the bigotry of small-minded townsfolk who become bent on wiping the “abomination”— that they fear out of ignorance—from the earth. Given the way the LGBTQ community has itself been labeled an abomination and murdered by those policing the boundaries of sexuality and gender, it’s not surprising that Winterson would be drawn to Frankenstein. In it, she finds fertile ground for a contemplation on the nature of gender and humanity in a modern world that seems to be vacillating between the horrors of climate crisis and a future in which we have conquered death, created life (in the form of independent artificial intelligence), and developed transhuman cyborgs or uploaded human consciousness to the web. The modern elements of the book include characters who mirror those present at the creation of Frankenstein: Mary Shelley and her husband (poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) are combined into the queer transgender nonbinary surgeon Ry Shelley, around whom the story coalesces; the misogynist poet Lord Byron is recast as a boorish sex-bot king, Ron Lord; physician John William Polidori becomes Vanity Fair reporter Polly D.; and Mary’s stepsister, Claire, morphs into an American Claire, who is more engaging and animated than the original but shares her namesake’s questionable taste in men (they each fall for their Lord). In the 21st century, Victor Stein isn’t a literary
creation of Ry Shelley’s but makes his appearance in the flesh as their lover, a transhumanist scientist eager to free humanity from the limits of flesh. Stein imagines a utopia where artificial intelligence frees us of our sexist and homophobic or transphobic biases (despite real world research suggesting that AI learns our bigotries). Meanwhile, Lord imagines harnessing technology to make an army of sex bots to relieve horny men of ethical or moral hesitations. Just want to keep a woman around to fill her holes? Lord has a bot for that— it won’t talk back and folds up nicely. Want to bang young boys? Lord can imagine a bot for that, one that could solve pesky problems facing the Catholic Church. The latter suggestion arises from an unusual pairing that finds Lord in bed (romantically and financially) with the evangelical Christian Claire. These bedmates seem as unlikely as, say, evangelicals embracing Donald Trump—but given the right incentive, apparently morality is relative. One can easily imagine Frankissstein adapted as a film alternating between erotically charged (queer) sex scenes, action escape sequences, slapstick comedy (the unfolding of a dirtymouthed sex bot during a hoity-toity shindig), and unsettling images (a horde of disembodied hands swarm around like those Minority Report spiders). There is a cinematic climax, too, but questions remain: Was Victor Stein who he said he was? Did he really revive a dead man? When we are mere characters in a story created by someone else, Winterson seems to imply, we cannot read the ending. Nor can we predict the future. —JAM
OUR 5 FAVORITE GRAPHIC NOVELS: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell | Bloom by Kevin Panetta, illustrated by Savanna Ganucheau |
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BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Angry Queer Somali Boy: A Complicated Memoir details Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali’s journey from wartorn Africa to the West. Lost in a strange country (the Netherlands, then Canada) and culture, Ali found it difficult to assimilate. His sexuality was suddenly accepted but remained at odds with the cultural heritage of his family. Angry and alienated, Ali descended into drugs and alcohol. Somali Boy is interwoven with a contextual background of world history and sociopolitical commentary on both the East and West, from the vantage point of a gay Muslim immigrant. (New York University Press) —DONALD PADGETT
Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You by Karen Rayne and Kathryn Gonzales is a guidebook for trans and nonbinary teens published by the American Psychological Association. It covers coming out, transitioning, dealing with transphobia, relationships and sex (including how to avoid unhealthy relationships), sexual health (even reproduction and contraception, two topics frequently ignored for these teens who have high rates of unwanted pregnancy and may face losing reproductive options as they transition), and navigating family life, workplaces, school, and even religion as gender-nonconforming. Interspersed with commentary from trans and nonbinary teens, this is an easy-to-read, useful guide that highlights the personal nature
of gender identity and expression. (Magination Press) —JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL
Birthday, Meredith Russo’s novel, explores the depth of a relationship between two lifelong friends. Beginning with the year Morgan and Eric become teenagers, the story unfolds over six successive birthdays and alternates between their viewpoints. The friends were born on the same day, in the same hospital, in the same rural Tennessee town. Morgan is struggling to live up to the masculine expectations of his father but doesn’t really feel like a boy at all. Meanwhile, Eric has always thought of himself as straight, but he’s falling for Morgan. Can they remain best friends? Birthday deals with love, gender, grief and loss within the framework of a touching coming-of-age story. (Flatiron) —DP The Stonewall Reader, edited by the New York Public Library, is a comprehensive anthology that provides a greater, fuller understanding of Stonewall and its significance. “Before Stonewall” is the first of three sections; examining the time leading up to the riots, it features essays from renowned LGBTQ pioneers like John Rechy and Barbara Gittings. “During Stonewall” incorporates a wide range of first-person accounts, news articles, and other narratives. And “After Stonewall” looks at the immediate aftermath of the riots
and the queer rights movement that arose in its wake. Expertly edited with the assistance of Jason Baumann, curator of the library’s Stonewall exhibition, whose introduction itself is an excellent primer on the LGBTQ movement before and after Stonewall. (Penguin Books) —DP
The Bold World: A Memoir of Family and Transformation by HRC board member Jodie Patterson ruminates on her place in a long line of strong, well-educated Black women. She’s seen her three children as a continuation of that maternal line, until her 3-year-old suddenly announces, “I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.” While the familial love and acceptance never falters, the coming-out awakens Patterson to the plight of trans people— and the parallels to “the mechanics of oppression.” This powerful and inspiring book reminds us that even things that appear immutable can change. (Ballantine) —JAM Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King by Thomas J. Balcerski sheds light on the private and political life of the 15th president as well as the political structure of a forming nation in the early 19th century. Buchanan is widely regarded as one of the worst presidents of the United States and with good reason. But was he also our first queer president? A moderate from Pennsylvania, Buchanan
developed a lifelong friendship with fellow bachelor and politician William Rufus King from Alabama when both were members of Congress. While King was almost certainly gay, questions remain about Buchanan. Balcerski’s meticulous research covers their service in the House and Senate and diplomatic assignments in czarist Russia, Great Britain, and France. Bosom Friends is a deep and intellectual read that will leave readers rethinking President Buchanan’s legacy. (Oxford University Press)—DP
Selling Dead People’s Things by Duane Scott Cerny is an unexpected look at the importance of possessions in life and death. Cerny’s Chicago antique shop is a mecca for spectators and serious buyers alike. The gay man’s true stories reveal how we as a society view and value property. Particularly haunting episodes involve a ghostly writing desk and an abandoned hospital infamous for its experiments. Offering insight into the multibillion-dollar resale trade business these tales also reveal how our relationship with our possessions often goes much deeper than simple ownership. (Thunderground Press) —DP
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene A. Carruthers blends a practical guide to revolution, a history of the Black liberation
movement, a community organizer’s memoir, and a Black queer feminist manifesto into a satisfying gumbo about the history, current efforts, and the future of Black organizing in the U.S.—and those seeking a way forward from this hate-filled, polarized, and overly partisan moment in America. (Beacon Press) —DIANE ANDERSONMINSHAL
Find Me is the follow-up to André Aciman’s 2007 best-seller Call Me by Your Name (adapted into the 2017 Oscar-winning film). Fifteen years after their eventful summer, Elio is now a classical pianist moving to Paris, Samuel is changed by a chance meeting on a train. And Oliver is still in America, with a wife and kids, but dreaming of Paris. Could a visit lead to another life-changing encounter? Find Me is a worthy follow-up to Call Me, showing the consequences of choices and asking if it is ever too late to find love. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) —DP In Search of Stonewall: The Riots at 50, the Gay & Lesbian Review at 25: Best Essays 1994-2018, edited by Richard Schneider Jr., is a celebration of Stonewall and the famed Harvard journal. Schneider has collected work from some seminal gay authors including Edmund White and Felice Picano. Broken into four sections, the book focuses on the riots themselves, the background and historical context, the aftermath, and its legacy. (Gay & Lesbian Review) —DP
Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women by E. Patrick Johnson is a fascinating anthology that beautifully employs traditional Black and African storytelling methods in which mythology and reality intertwine. Johnson creates a rich and dynamic narrative of what it means to be a queer Black woman in the American South. We journey to the womenonly world of “Hymen,” where a trickster character Miss B. schools a male academic with real-life stories of queer Southern Black women. (Duke University Press) —DESIRÉE GUERRERO
In The Whispers by Greg Howard 11-yearold Riley’s mother simply vanished leaving his father in a funk. The police keep questioning Riley as though he’s responsible for her disappearance. Now he’s having strange feelings for another boy. With nowhere else to turn, Riley reaches back to his secret fairy world of the whispers. Can they grant his wish to make his world right again, or will his friends in the real world help him figure things out? Set in a small Southern town, it’s a moving and poignant tale of friendship, family, loss, and the lengths to which a child’s imagination and friends will go to help him find the truth. (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers) —DP
Find the full list of our favorite books of 2019 at Advocate.com/Exclusives
d by Savanna Ganucheau | Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable, illustrated by Ellen T. Crenshaw | Stage Dreams by Melanie Gillman | Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir, illustrated by Steenz—JAM
DECEMBER 2019/ JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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PARTING SHOTS
Hear to Slay
Bisexual author Roxane Gay on her Black feminist podcast, finding self-love, and who she’s backing in 2020.
“ YO U K N OW, S O M E of the biggest
mistakes people make is that they don’t read anything,” Roxane Gay (right with Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom) tells The Advocate during a break from the 2019 Werk It festival. The two-day women’s podcast festival in Los Angeles featured conversations, workshops, live tapings, n e t wo r k i n g e v e n t s , o n e - o n - o n e mentoring sessions, and the Podcast Accelerator—an opportunity for anyone to pitch a show, incubate a pilot, and score a development deal with WNYC Studios, the festival’s sponsor. Gay is at Werk It representing the podcast Hear to Slay that she hosts with Cottom, another prominent Black feminist author. But Gay is speaking about the fat discrimination and body shaming she endured while promoting Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. The searing autobiography bravely delves into taboo subjects, including Gay’s survival of childhood sexual abuse, her fat body, and the connection between the two. Reflecting the intense fatphobia that has seeped into our culture, on her book tour, Gay found that even media outlets promoting her work couldn’t get it right. After a particularly clumsy debacle with the Australian publication Mamamia, Gay tweeted that the experience had been a “shit show.” She tells The Advocate most people “are just not well-versed in the fat-positivity community… They just don’t even know what they’re talking about. They don’t know the right terminology to use... And so if you don’t know what you’re talking about and you haven’t done the work, then you’re going to ask stupid and insulting questions.” Those hoping to educate themselves should look no further than Gay’s own fascinating and unflinchingly honest literary takes on life at the intersection of being queer, Black, fat, female, and fierce. Her diverse body of work includes a novel (An Untamed State), two short story collections (Ayiti, Difficult Women), and the New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist. Gay coauthored the first issue of Black Panther: World of Wakanda with poet Yona Harvey—making them the first Black women to author a comic series for Marvel. She’s also a New York Times opinion writer and an associate professor of English at Indiana’s Purdue University.
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Gay says she was first inspired to venture into the podcast world a couple years ago after doing a pilot for WNYC that “didn’t quite work out.” “This time around,” she says, she was determined to do it right, but not alone. “[I] just realized I needed a partner in the project. Tressie McMillan Cottom is incredibly intelligent and hilarious and real, and we get along very well. We’ve been friends for quite some time. I was… able to reach out to her and say, ‘Hey, let’s try this.’ And a podcast was born.” Gay says she and Cottom, author of Thick: And Other Essays and Lower Ed, knew from the start that they wanted to inject fun and laughter into a feminist conversation and honor women’s humanity, not just their activism. In essence, she says Hear to Slay (LuminaryPodcasts.com) isn’t always about Black feminism, but it explores the world from a Black feminist perspective.
That’s incredibly important, Gay says, because “we tend to forget that people contain multitudes and that you can be serious about creating change and you can be serious about doing good in the world and also have fun. It doesn’t have to be relentless about the fight all the time. That’s a privilege, certainly a privilege—but… it’s totally OK to have fun.” Gay sees some of that fun as selfcare necessary to combat the barrage of negative messaging that many LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups face. “A lot of people, myself included, struggle with self-love and, you know, the narrative is that you should love yourself—as if it’s that easy. I think when you’re marginalized, when you’re a Black person or a person of color, when you’re a woman, when you’re queer, when you are trans— when you’re anything that is different from the so-called norm, you are constantly receiving negative messages about how you don’t belong and how you’re an aberration. And it’s incredibly hard to resist that. All the selfconfidence in the world is not going to hold you up all the time. So I want people to be able to love themselves, but also to not hate themselves when they can’t love themselves. And so I just try to create a little extra room for that to happen.” When asked if she is backing any of the presidential hopefuls in the 2020 election, the Omaha native is quick to answer, “I endorse Elizabeth Warren.” “I think she is the most qualified; I think she has interesting ideas,” Gay explains. “I think, you know, she makes missteps, but I think especially with liberals, we have this very grating habit of expecting moral purity.” “I’m excited in terms of a woman president,” Gay says. “But I’m not one of those people that believes if you put a woman in power, somehow everything is going to be magically fixed. But I do think women are going to lead differently…. I think Elizabeth Warren is absolutely up to the job and I think she’s going to do a phenomenal job.”
COURTESY LUMINARY
BY DESIRÉE GUERRERO
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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DESIRE DEMANDS DISCOURSE “Essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of sex, sexuality and sexual representation in the 21st century.” —John Mercer, author of Gay Pornography
uofrpress.ca
Participation made possible through Creative Saskatchewan’s Market and Export Development Grant Program.
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FATHER FIGURE
A gay dad bridges the generation gap by writing to his gay son about the lessons he’s learned and the future that’s at stake. BY DAV ID A R TAV I A
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icture it: New York City, 1983. It was the dawn of the HIV epidemic in America, when love and loss were practically synonymous for those in the queer community. As the plague raged, killing tens of thousands of gay men in a matter of years, our government did virtually nothing to stop it. It was a time of lawlessness, a time of integration, and a time to revolt. Richie Jackson, then 17, had just started attending New York University, where he discovered there was a queer community. As the celebrated TV and theater producer (Nurse Jackie, Torch Song) notes in his new book Gay Like
Me: A Father Writes to His Gay Son, “It was as if I’d joined a secret society, bound together by oppression, and we reveled in our clandestinity even as we fought to assimilate.” Thirty-six years later, his 18-year-old gay son, Jackson Foo Wong, is following in his dad’s footsteps at NYU. But Wong’s experience as a gay man in America is vastly different in 2019. For starters, HIV is now a chronic manageable condition and the advent of PrEP (and U=U) has changed the landscape of safer sex practices. Marriage equality is no longer a fantasy, but the reality. LGBTQ visibility is part of most American’s daily lives thanks to wider representation in television, film, and politics. And social media has united those previously isolated, reminding us that we are never alone. When Wong (whose biological father is Jackson’s ex, actor B.D. Wong) came out at 15, Jackson and his husband since 2012, theater impresario Jordan Roth, were naturally accepting. But a generational divide exposed itself when Wong retorted that being gay is “not a big deal” nowadays. It was a sentiment that inspired Jackson to write Gay Like Me to Wong— and other young queers—explaining, educating, and sometimes warning him not to get complacent. He writes, “It is critical that I tell you everything I know—of everything that I have learned, of every rise and of every depression, of so much that I have kept to myself so that you would feel safe. All of that I have to tell you now.” The language is paternal and nurturing, and dives deep into Jackson’s own experiences and the lessons he gleaned about relationships, sex, love, friendships, and resistance against the backdrops of the AIDS crisis, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” marriage equality, gay parenting, and the era of Donald Trump. While his son was the inspiration, Jackson’s intention is farther reaching. In many ways, Gay Like Me is a manual for all LGBTQ youth coming of age with minimal access to queer history or those whose circumstances prevent them from gaining knowledge directly from LGBTQ elders.
COURTESY RICHIE JACKSON (BOTH PAGES)
Family life (left): Richie Jackson with his husband Jordan Roth (far left) and their sons Levi (center) and Jackson Foo Wong. Opposite page: Also the son of TV star, B.D. Wong, young Jackson (left with his dad Ritchie) is gay in a vastly different world
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FAMILY
“Think about this: for centuries we have been stigmatized by religion,” Jackson explains to The Advocate. “We have fought back battle after battle with our government. We’ve survived the plague. We disappoint our parents. We survive bullying from our childhood friends. And all of that lines up against us, not because we are a defect, [and] not because we are worthless. The government and those religions, they all know our power is our gayness. That’s what they’re trying to stop.”
Jackson recalls a grade school gym teacher who learned he’d joined the chorus and “told all the other kids to ‘jump on the faggot.’ And they did. I literally couldn’t understand. I knew what that word meant and I knew he identified it in me. He saw it, and I couldn’t understand why it was a negative.” Although the taunting and bullying followed Jackson well into junior high, he says his queerness wasn’t a prison but a refuge. “I am the most alive when I am reveling in my gayness,” he says. “Every gay person has to keep a double vision of themselves: how America sees them, but they [also] have to keep secure so that America’s negativity doesn’t seep into their beautiful, clear vision of their gayness. That is what makes them special. And you have to hold both.” Earlier this year, Jackson combated writer Andrew Sullivan’s contention in New York magazine that LGBTQ people should get “on with our lives, without sexual orientation getting in the way.” While being interviewed at the Atlantic Festival, Jackson retorted, “It cannot be that we have fought back centuries…all just to get our liberation so that we can say being gay isn’t a big deal.… I don’t want to celebrate being gay just one day at the end of June every
year. I want to be able, every day, to say this is why I am as successful as I am, why I have a beautiful family.” Jackson wants to share that message with younger LGBTQ people and to learn from them in return. “Part of the reason I wrote Gay Like Me is because of the generational divide,” he continues. “Guys my age don’t recognize the community we were born into. I do think speaking to each other, sharing what the older generation went through and know and learned is useful. And then, we have a lot to learn from young people. My son is the one who helped me understand the positiveness of the word ‘queer,’ which I really struggle with.” Strong, determined, and intentional, Jackson doesn’t hide the fact that he’s ready to go toe-to-toe with conservative groups like One Million Moms, whose mission it is to convince the country that LGBTQ families negatively impact children. “I have been through a plague, so One Million Moms don’t scare me,” he says. “Here’s what I know about gay parents, about LGBTQ parents: You have to be deliberate about it. It doesn’t just happen that you have a family. It takes enormous work and a lot of hurdles.… So I promise you, the gay parents who do exist, they are full of purpose and love and potential.” DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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LOVE OF ALL
WHITNEY HOUSTON, ONE OF THE GREATEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME, HID A SECRET RELATIONSHIP WITH A WOMAN. NOW, THAT WOMAN, ROBYN CRAWFORD, FINALLY SPEAKS. BY Z ACH STAFFORD
YOU AND WHITNEY HOUSTON BECAME INSEPARABLE AFTER YOU MET WHEN YOU BOTH WERE TEENAGERS. WHAT MADE YOU SUCH A GOOD FIT? I was open to companionship and friendship. She was the same. She was looking for it. We connected on that, I believe.… One of the things we had in common that held us
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COURTESY ROBYN CRAWFORD
The Greatest
WHEN WH ITNE Y HOUSTON first broke out onto the world stage in the mid-1980s, rumors that she was a lesbian (or maybe bisexual) stalked the star at every turn. As she became more famous, questions around who Robyn Crawford was—beyond being her best friend and assistant—only intensified. The star would continually deny allegations that her relationship with Crawford was anything more than a close friendship, but nevertheless the questions persisted. Through it all, Houston and Crawford never shared details about what many felt was obvious: They were in love. Houston’s star continued to rise. For most of her climb to the top, Crawford stayed by her side to help build her empire, and she never said a word—until now. With the release of her memoir A Song for You: My Life With Whitney Houston, Crawford finally shares her story in her own way. Weeks before the launch of the book, she spent an afternoon with The Advocate’s editor in chief to set the record straight on everything from her romantic relationship with Houston to why she’s finally speaking out. Crawford and Stafford’s entire conversation can be heard via The Advocate’s postcast LGBTQ&A on the Luminary app, but below is a sneak peek at their intimate conversation about a woman loved by all, especially Crawford.
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One day, we decided— before her career really took off, before she recorded her first album—that if people found out about us, they would use it against us. I was there. We were there together. And we took turns inscribing on the back of the Bible, on that last page, sharing what our love meant to each other and how devoted and loyal we were going to be through this process, how it was our secret.… It was ours, but God saw it too. We both believed in someone bigger.
COURTESY ROBYN CRAWFORD. MARC HOM
together was our love of music. That was around the time she said, “Stick with me and I’ll take you all around the world.” This is 16. She hadn’t done anything yet. She spoke it into existence. YOUR RELATIONSHIP WAS ROMANTIC, ESPECIALLY DURING YOUR TEENAGE YEARS, BUT YOU DIDN’T USE THE WORDS “GAY” OR “LESBIAN.” HOW DID YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP BACK THEN? You have to first understand the time: the ‘80s. I feel like we were at the forefront of everything, everything that’s here today in a big way. You were either this or that. You were either R&B or pop. Whitney did not like labels: “I don’t sing Black. I don’t sing white. I sing.” There was a category for everything. Our love that we experienced, we were intimate on every level. We were friends. That’s how we came together, as friends. We got to know each other in an open, bare, naked way. The feeling that we felt between us, there was a moment we shared. It was physical. We weren’t ashamed of it, but we were preparing ourselves for the big business, which was huge at that time. The love that we shared, it was deep, really deep.… One day, we decided—before her career really took off, before she recorded her first album—that if people found out about us, they would use it against us. So we made the determination to not be physical any longer. We sat down and made the conscious decision that we would not do this. I loved her. It was important for our love to be unconditional and nothing ever changed. We were truly connected.… We just sacrificed the physical. WHITNEY CAME HOME ONE DAY WITH A BIBLE. SHE HANDED YOU THE BIBLE AND HAD THIS CONVERSATION WITH YOU. It was 1982. She said, “I don’t think we should be physical any longer.” I was jolted, of course. But we were still so close, and we had a path ahead of us, and
ACROSS AND TOP: Author Robyn Crawford with Whitney Houston in the 1990s; BELOW RIGHT: Crawford today.
HOW’S IT FEEL TO FINALLY OPEN UP ABOUT EVERYTHING? Before I really knew what I was going to do, to share my story, I asked, “What would Whitney want me to do?” And would she understand the now? And once I got that answer, I knew that to relive the ’80s…she knew that I would do right by her. She knew that I would put her first. I would do my best because once I share my story, it’s no longer mine. My intent is to lift her legacy and honor my best friend because she is a real person, you know? And let people know this young lady was everything they imagined her to be.
Listen to the full conversation between Robyn Crawford and Zach Stafford, on the Luminary app, where you can catch all-new episodes of LGBTQ&A each week. DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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Our Greatest Holiday Gi s That Are Cool
AF
A er such a tough year, don’t we all deserve some swag? CUR ATED BY THE ADVOCATE EDITORS
EPICURIOUS
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1) Barefoot Wines has been a strong supporter of the LGBTQ community since 1988, so return the favor and gift a bottle to a woman who wines. ($10, TheBarrelRoom.com)
2) From another longtime supporter comes the new Stoli Holiday Gift Pack which comes with a portable charger ($20, Stoli.com). ($35, ReserveBar.com) 3) The best rugelach is in New York City. Get Lee Lee’s Rugelach by a Brother, the POCowned Harlem shop that has been a Hanukkah fave for decades. ($18+, LeeLeesRugelach.com) 4) Chicago’s gay-owned Epic Gourmet Popcorn offers Pride-themed gift sets, including the Coming Out Box. ($35, EpicPopcorn.com)
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5) Freeze-filtered eLit Vodka’s gift set
features a bottle of vodka with a 12 oz. steel one of four different Matryoshka doll cocktail vessels. ($50, eLitVodka.com)
6) The Anti-Cookbook will inspire you to think
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more creatively about grub. ($15, AntiCookbook.com)
7) Pay homage to the golden age of cool with
8) The only problem with Satori’s cannabisinfused Wild Strawberries in Milk Chocolate on pg. 49 is they’re so delicious you’ll want more than just three! ($21, SatoriChocolates.com) 9) Overwatch: The Official Cookbook oon
pg. 49 is packed with over 90 recipes inspired by the popular LGBTQ friendly multiplayer game that boasts over 40 million online users. ($35, Amazon.com)
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Hennessy’s Oh So Classic Cocktails, on pg. 49, with a stirring glass, bar spoon, and yep, a bottle of Hennessy V.S.O.P. ($50, Clos19.com)
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Sweet Pie Bundle from Southern Baked Pie (caramel pecan, chocolate chess, French coconut custard, signature buttermilk, cherry, and apple pies included). ($60, SouthernBakedPie.com)
11) Kafé in a Box is a super-lightweight coffee carrier that’ll replace all those disposable coffee cups. ($16, Amazon.com) 12) FinchBerry Soaps are so luscious you could eat them
(but don’t). Best bet: a sampler set of eight half slices of soap. (Prices vary, Finchberry.com) )
13) Daytrip CBD-infused sparkling waters each have 10mg of CBD come in cherry, tangerine, lemon-lime, and coconut-pineapple, and since there’s no THC or alcohol, they’re great for sober gatherings. ($59 for 12-pack, WeAreDayTrip.com) 14) Ruth Bader Ginsburg tells it like it is, and you can too with these cheeky RBG holiday greeting cards. ($6, HeSaidSheSaid.bigcartel.com)
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HOSTESS GIFTS
10) Skip the “bring a dish” for the holidays and ship ‘em the Six-Pack
THE OFFICIAL COOKBOOK
7 CHELSEA MONROE-CASSEL From the best-selling author of World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook and A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook
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15) Stuffed Puffs S’mores Kit includes graham crackers and marshmallows stuffed with chocolate, so the chocolate melts while the marshmallow toasts in their microwave, since campfires are harder to do in 10-degree weather. ($14, StuffedPuffs.com) 16) With Liki Trike’s high-tech design, they’ll be able to turn their kid’s carriage into multiple stages—stroller to tricycle to bicycle. ($250, ShopDoona.com)
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17) The Vote for Me T-shirt by Love
Bubby is the perfect gift for the little candidate in your life. In sizes from 12M to 6T. ($28, ShopLoveBubby.com)
18) Puffy the Unicorn is cute and
cuddly. And she farts when she laughs. Perfect for kids and your stoner friends. ($20, Target.com)
19) The Nighthawk Ride-On from
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20) They’ll have a monster of a time on the slopes with the Ice Monster Snow Tube from Big Mouth Inc. This giant inflatable tube is extra durable and easy to inflate. The comfort grip handles ensure a safe, fun ride down their favorite hill, and has a lot more personality than the average tube. ($25, BigMouthInc.com) ALL COURTESY OF PRODUCT’S MANUFACTURER
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Rollplay is awesome for the little thrillseeker in your life. Part go-kart, part skateboard, and 100% fun, this innovative Ride-On can carry up to 110 pounds at over 6 mph. The highly maneuverable Nighthawk has side handlebars and a fivewheel design that allows riders to lean into quick turns while accelerator and brake pedals control speed. The 12-volt battery can be plugged into any household socket for easy charging and hours of riding. ($149, Rollplay.net)
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KIDS, PARENTS, PETS
21) Mattel’s Barbie brand is now so cool that it includes dolls of David
Bowie, Sally Ride, Frida Kahlo (and other queer icons) as well as a tween wearing Keith Haring prints, and a new line of gender-inclusive dolls (with clothing and hair styles they can mix and match)! The march to inclusivity in fashion also includes the Curvy Barbie Fashionistas Doll and the Made-to-Move Doll, who uses a working wheelchair (which comes with a ramp, and accommodates all body types offered including tall, curvy, and original. Take that, Bratz! (prices vary, Mattel.com)
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22) Disney Stories for 2-Year-Olds has 14 short stories with bright illustrations that spark the imagination. ($13, StudioFun.com) 23) Dogs dig Petness’s hemp oil dog treats, which help with
inflammation, anxiety, pain relief, and more (our mascot loves Thrive baked treats). Or go fancy with Orijen’s gently freeze-dried treats with all-natural ingredients—including free-range poultry and wild-caught monkfish. ($70, Petness.com; $15+, Orijen.ca )
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24) Giggly Goggles are super cute neoprene mask goggles for kids of all ages, which lets them become characters like mermaid, butterflies, or underwater superheroes. ($25, DaphDaph.com) 25) Olli Ella’s See-Ya Suitcase is kid-size luggage that can be wheeled or carried, and a built-in elastic bands ensure that a favorite plush toy can come along for the ride too. ($85, US.OlliElla.com)
26) Osmo recently unveiled a myriad of fun tablet-based games for ages 3 to 10 that encourage problem-solving, creativity, spelling, and math. Try the Creative Starter Kit or watch their drawings come to life with the new Super Studio Frozen 2. It’s like gaming that makes them smarter. ($10 to $100, PlayOsmo.com)
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ADVENTURE 27) RuPaul’s Drag Race Live! is sashaying to the stage at the Flamingo Las Vegas in January, joining other A-list Vegas residencies like Mariah Carey (Caesars Palace) and Christina Aguilera (Planet Hollywood). Tickets to this immersive, interactive, gagfilled production features a rotating cast of fan favorites including Aquaria, Yvie Oddly, Asia O’Hara, Derrick Barry, and Kim Chi. ($40 and up, RuPaulsDragRaceLive.com)
28 signals and braking lights, and informing emergency contacts if you have an accident. ($250, Roadwarez.com)
35) The Eager Beaver River Tube is the big
and comfy way to stay wet and wild next summer. Extra-thick, heavy-duty vinyl, with mesh seat and built in cup holder. The perfect gift for the beaver-loving sunbather on your list. ($32, BigMouthInc.com)
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36) Give the gift of yoga to a novice with Badass Beginners, an online tutorial led by renowned yoga expert Sheryl Utal. Designed for those who need to go at their own pace or prefer to learn in the privacy of their home. Advocate Gift Guide readers receive a $100 discount! ($197, BossYogis.com)
28) SPI Running Belts are the perfect way to carry phones and wallets while traveling. ($23, SPIBelt.com) 29) With Swagtron’s new EB11 electric cruiser, a staycation may be their favorite trip. The classic cruiser-style frame with 250-watt electric motor will let them go 15 mph for over 26 miles. (If they have limited mobility, the EB10 has a stepthrough frame design.) Both feature a rear-mounted lockable 36-volt Lithium-ion battery with USB charging port to keep devices powered. ($1,000, Swagtron.com)
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30) The Kingdom 6 Tent from REI is the ultimate shelter when they’re camping with a crowd. Sleeps six, is easy to set up, has bug-proof mesh, and a waterproof cover. REI gives dividends back to members on every purchase. ($470, REI.com)
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31) Instagram famous luggage by Away comes in 12 colors, includes a built-in phone charger, wheels that can 360, and a lifetime guarantee. The Aluminum Edition really makes a statement. (From $225, AwayTravel.com)
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32) Luci offers lightweight, weather-
proof, durable, and super bright solarpowered lights. The Luci Pro Series also serves as a USB charging station. ($15 and up, MPowerd.com)
33) Yeti’s Rambler is a tumbler with double-wall vacuum insulation that will protect their hot, cold, or iced drink. ($35, Yeti.com) 34) Roadwarez smart backpacks are
biker-friendly bags, equipped with LED lighting on the back to increase visibility to drivers. GPS tracking and voice command enabled; tricks include displaying turn
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DO GOOD & SHOW PRIDE 37) Simple Vodka donates 20 meals for every
bottle produced to help end hunger in the U.S. See, alcohol is a solution! ($27, SimpleVodka.co)
38) Buy from Bloom Farms CBD, a woman-
owned CBD company which donates a meal to a California or Nevada food bank for every product sold. (Prices vary, BloomFarmsCBD.com)
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39) Show your Pride with Ban.do’s stylish doubleinsulated stainless steel thermal tumbler with a lid that functions as a cup. The company’s Feel Better campaign promotes good mental health. ($28, Bando.com)
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40) Help protect pollinating honeybees with Bee
Raw’s Holiday Varietal Honey Flight (four types of honey) or Winter Survival Kits (tea, honey, a beeswax candle, and handcrafted balm): 1 percent of all profits goes to the Bee Raw Save the Bees Fund. ($54-$72, BeeRaw.com)
41) With the Chosen One Game, a hilarious card game created by Jewish comedians, 10 percent of purchase goes to charity. ($36, TheChosenOneGame.com)
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42) Reebok Classic Club C 85 Pride Sneakers help support LGBTQ health and wellness at Fenway Health. ($70, Reebok. com) 43) We love Legendary, Hip Dot’s limitededition (reef safe!) rainbow glitter palette, made in collaboration with queer artist Hey Rooney, which supports the Anti-Violence Project. ($30, HipDot.com) 44) Alexis Bittar’s gorgeous hand-carved Lucite
Pride Bangle Stack is the perfect gift for the queer femme on your list. ($255, AlexisBittar.com)
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45) This chic little hand-thrown teapot from Neenineen. Made of off-white stoneware clay, glazed inside, raw outside, with hand-painted rainbow detailing on the handle. ($125, Bando.com)
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46) Under Armour’s UA HOVR SLK EVO x Pride sneakers are just about the coolest and comfiest way to show Pride. ($120, UnderArmour.com)
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47) We are obsessed with Adidas’ Ozweego Pride Shoes that sport a reimagined ’90s aesthetic. ($110, Adidas.com)
48) This lo-fi rainbow-striped ’70s-inspired phone
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case from Casely also comes as a charger case, giving you double power. ($25 and up, GetCasely.com)
49)These handcrafted clocks made out of old vinyl
records, CDs, and DVDs by My Vinyl Hour make the perfect unusual gift for anyone on your list—and My Vinyl Hour does custom clocks! (prices vary, Etsy.com/Shop/MyVinylHour) DECEMBER 2019/ JANUARY 2020 THE ADVOCATE
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NAUGHTY STUFF 50) MIMIC + Plus is a sexy new curved, palm-held rechargeable toy (in magenta and stealth gray) that has an intense motor and private travel lock, and is fully submersible silicone for bath time play. ($135, ClandestineDevices.com) 51) High on Love’s sensual “adult cosmetics” make
things fun. Try the Sensual Strawberries and Champagne Massage Oil or The Dark Chocolate Body Paint (which features luscious Belgian dark chocolate and hempseed oil. ($35 and up, HighOnLove.ca)
52) Tango is an inclusive new sex toy company out to
change a business that so often creates and markets gender-specific toys. Tango’s first product is a butt plug. Why? It’s inclusive—all body shapes include an anus, after all. ($30, TangoWith.us)
53) Just two or three spritzes of Coco Kitty’s CBD
Massage + Love Oil makes lovin’ fun (and it’s made from plant-based authentic ingredients, with scents derived from real fruit waters and vapor-distilled essential oils). ($42, CocoKittyBeauty.com)
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54) Make shower time the best with Pipedream’s PDX Elite Hydrobator Automatic Stroker, which has a double open-ended design where water flows through the tunnel while simultaneous automated stroking technology gives anyone with a penis a good time. (The Vibrating Silicone Stimulator is also worth the $$.) ($160, PinkCherry.com) 55) They’ll love the air down there with plusOne’s
waterproof and budget-friendly Air Pulsing Arouser, designed to give “next level” orgasms through indirect contact. The whole plusOne line is the first adult toy line available at Target and Walmart! ($25, Walmart.com)
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TECH & GADGETS
56) The Fujifilm X-A7 mirrorless, Bluetooth-enabled
digital camera is like having a professional photographer in the palm of your hand. The camera automatically tracks faces and eyes when your subject is in motion. The large 16:9 aspect ratio and the 3.5-inch moveable and customizable LCD touch screen make it easy to frame and record videos with one-touch settings. It also performs well in the dark, and the film simulation mode gives you the qualities of physical film in the convenience and ease of a digital camera. And records 4K at 30p, which means you view videos on 4K without cropping. You may just give up your smartphone’s camera forever. ($700, Fujifilm-X.com)
57) Seville Classics’s AIRLIFT Tempered Glass Electric Standing Desk changes height with the push of a button, and it has a touch screen controller, memory settings for quick height adjustments, and dual USB ports built into the desk. Made with sleek glass top and steel frame construction (in white, gray, or black). Plus, the chic desk even has a base wide enough for an underdesk treadmill too. ($400 SevilleClassics.com)
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58) Audio-Technica’s ATH-G1 premium gaming headset delivers studio-quality sound and is equipped with a state-of-the-art, flexible (and detachable) boom microphone that lets you communicate with your fellow gamers or a streaming audience. ($169, Audio-Technica.com) 59) The rockstar Misfit VaporX Tech Watch, compatible with iPhone and Android, offers GPS, phonefree music, Google Pay, heart rate tracking, and more. Plus, it’s swimproof. ($280, Misfit.com)
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60) They’ll rise and shine with Wakey, the Soundcore
high-speed wireless-charging Bluetooth bedside speaker. The award-winning Wakey, powered by Anker technology, has a fast wireless Qi charger, can set up to 15 alarms, is FM radio or Bluetooth compatible, dimmable LED display, stereo sound, and 10 sleepinducing ambient sounds (or create your own soundscape using the app)—all in one cute little nightstand package. ($99, Soundcore.com)
61) The GUS Portable Charging Center for Tech Gear is ideal for someone who works from office to office, indoors or out. It charges up to three smartphones, two tablets, a laptop, and watch all at once, plus it has a built-in four-port USB power strip and six-port AC power strip, and a peekaboo window so they can see the front of their phone. ($130, GreatUsefulStuff.com)
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62) The iCaddy is a super portable mobile stand for tablets and smartphones that includes a USB power bank, charging cable, and earbuds. Invented by a 7-year-old, it comes in 13 different patterns. ($25, ShopiCaddy.com)
60 63) Protect their laptop or
phone while giving it a fresh new look with GelaSkins, which are easy to apply and remove and come in distinctive designs from great artists like Colin Thompson, Nataly Kukula Abramovitch, and Tara McPherson. The Star Warsinspired ones, like Boba Fett, are brill. (Prices vary, GelaSkins.com)
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HOME, OFFICE, & WORK 64) The Galanz Retro Microwave offers a classic retro chrome design and modern-day technology. Available in 1950s Hot Rod Red and Vinyl Black with express cooking, defrosting, and 10 power levels, LED display, child safety lock, and a kitchen timer. ($79, Galanz.com) 65) For the first time in 30 years, vinyl records
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outsold CDs last year! Time to buy in. This slim and sexy little fully wireless Audio-Technica’s AT-LP60XBT turntable will seduce them with the superior sound. This model has the added modern convenience of Bluetooth connectivity but can also be used as a conventional wired turntable. ($149, Audio-Technica.com)
66) Ex Libris Anonymous’s awesome handmade, one-of-a-kind journals made from recycled vintage books are perfect for sketching, journaling, and any meeting that could use some camp. ($14, BookJournals.com) 67) They’ll laugh with the “Falling in Love With Sam” shower curtain, showcasing the hilarity of bisexual love triangles. ($120, FineArtAmerica.com) 68) Store your bread the old-fashioned way
with Now Designs’s retro sleek red bread bin. ($42, Walmart.com)
69) One Day at a Time Daily List Pad is the
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organizer desk pad on pg. 57 that takes the stress out of work. The whole Flow series’ line of mindfulness-inspiring stationery is great for paper fans. ($13, Workman.com)
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70 70) They’ll smell as witty as they feel with this fabulous Oscar Wilde candle set by Paddywax. ($25 for set of four, Paddywax.com)
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71) Growing your own has never been easier with Back to the Roots’s first-of-its kind organic hemp growing kit. ($50, UncommonGoods.com) 72) Add some color and style to their dreary walls with the peel-and-stick Big Polka Dots from Urban Walls Decals, which come in 28 colors so they can mix and match for just the right style and flair. ($50, UWDecals.com)
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73) Inky Bud Floor Decals or these Black Checked Decals are the perfect way to give flooring a new look, too. Each pattern is custom-printed on adhesive vinyl and laminated for durability. ($96, MirthStudio.com)
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74) The Ultra Fit Work & Garden Gloves from
Womanswork have soft goatskin leather palms that bend and mold, with lightweight and breathable spandex backing, and touch-screen fingertips so they can text while they work. ($29, Womanswork.com)
75) The numerous scents from Anecdote Candles cause smiles, especially Adulting and Comfort Zone (apparently coffee and cedarwood offer a modern take on introversion). ($14 and up, AnecdoteCandles.com)
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76) This Frida Katlo indoor-outdoor pillow keeps it quirky without going full-blown cat lady. ($50, NakedDecor.com)
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77) Every femme likes a tea party, and this Frozen 2
ceramic tea set by Zak! Designs is perfect for keeping them and their prince/princess/snowman/woodsman warm this winter. ($20, Target.com)
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78) In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Board Game
Friends and Frenemies, Buffy solicits the help of six new characters in protecting Sunnydale from a bevy of baddies (including some new ones) in this expansion pack for the original board game. ($30, JascoGames.com)
79) This Naughty Pigs Salt & Pepper Shaker Set will make them squeal with laughter! These two ceramic porcine profligates easily slide together when they’re not spicing up their meals. ($11, BigMouthInc.com) 80) They can ponder the plight of the mythological Greek king now doomed to hold their bathroom goods with this Sisyphus metal diagonal toilet paper shelf. ($35, ArtoriDesign.com)
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81) Add some personality to their kitchen with Artori
Design’s adorable Cat vs. Crow paper towel holder. ($34, ArtoriDesign.com)
82) Entertaining With Disney: Exceptional Events
From Mickey Mouse to Moana! by party planning guru Amy Croushorn is the ultimate party planning guide for Disneyphiles. ($24, BarnesAndNoble.com)
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83) Write to Me’s Recipes Passed Down journal is the
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perfect gift for the cook in your family. ($45, WriteToMeShop.com)
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84) Made in Taiwan and a hit with
influencers, the SH-RD Protein Cream is made with silk protein, amino acids, macadamia and avocado oils, rosemary, and D-panthenol, to make even dry or coarse hair super sleek and shiny. ($12+, SHRD.us)
85) Treat them to a little self-care with Leaders’s Daily Wonders Face Masks, including faves Breakup With Your Ex-Skin Cells and What Happened Last Night? ($5 each, LeadersCosmeticsUSA.com)
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WELLNESS & GLAM
86) Ella+Mila’s vegan and animal
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cruelty-free Me collection will make their nails look fabulous ($55 per package of 10, EllaMila.com)
87) OhMiBod’s Lovelife Krush is a
Bluetooth-enabled activity tracker for Kegel exercises. ($149, OhMiBod.com)
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88) Bidets are standard all over the world, and the Tushy Spa bidet is an affordable, fun, and environmentally friendly way to keep it clean. ($100, HelloTushy.com) 89) Eco-friendly No. 2 Toilet Paper is made of 100 percent silky bamboo, and wrapped in funky paper they don’t have to hide. ($34+, GoNo2.com) 90) Life Around 2 Angels’s natural bath bombs are a customer favorite. ($26 for a 12- pack, LifeAround2Angels.com)
91) Peel and stick Pain Cakes are
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convenient ice packs for all shapes and sizes. ($30, GetPainCakes.com)
92) Unwrapped Life’s zero waste Hydrator Shampoo and Conditioner come in bars, not plastic. ($35, UnwrappedLife.com) 93) SkinSuit Duo (lip and face sun protection) defends against UV, blue light, pollution, and free radicals. ($69, SkinAuthority.com)
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94) Ballsy’s Keep Your Jewels Jolly Kit is exactly as it sounds! ($45, Ballwash.com) 95) The Revive LED Desk Lamp is the latest in the Wellness series from OttLite. Using ClearSun LED technology, it provides smooth, uniform light that reduces eyestrain and last up to 40,000 hours. ($80, OttLite.com)
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96) Soothe’s Calm. Cleanse. Cure.
97) ThinkTank brings the oxygen bar to you. All-natural inhalable cognitive support is 95 percent oxygen with a hint of organic rosemary. ($10, BoostOxygen.com)
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Holiday Gift Set features a prepaid massage from the Soothe app and Sootherapy Healing Bath Salts. ($180-$230, Shop.Soothe.com)
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STOCKING STUFFERS
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98) Chief Steam Diverter: Grandpa can
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watch Trump blow it out of his ears with this satirical steam diverter that fits on the InstaPot Lux. ($10, Amazon.com)
99) K-Blings let them protect, collect, and
personalize their cables and cords. The Rick and Morty and Harry Potter sets are awesome. ($10, Amazon.com)
100) Monster Crackers’s nonconforming Halloween-meets-Christmas holiday ornaments. ($20, MonsterCrackers.com)
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101) This tiny Magic 8 Ball offers quick feedback from the universe. ($6, MattelGames. com) 102) Micro Tetris: The favorite arcade game in a pocket-size. ($20, Amazon.com) 103) The George Takei Fortune Telling
Button brings holiday humor with over 20 exclusive quick, hilarious, and sometimes sarcastic bits of advice from the gay icon. ($7, BigMouthInc.com)
104) The Handmaid’s Tale Journal
features iconic graphics and memorable quotes from the TV series (“Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum”). ($19, BarnesAndNoble.com)
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105) One of Kickstarter’s 50 most-backed projects of all time, Unstable Unicorns is a cute, LGBTQ-friendly strategic card game about destruction and unicorns. ($20, TeeTurtle.com)
106) They’ll watch the ladies of Litchfield deal with the aftermath of last season’s family feud turned gang war, with Orange Is the New Black Season 6 Blu-Ray. ($20, Amazon. com)
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holidays? Cannabis Birthjays (which you fill with any legal substance that burns) will light up a party. ($15 5-pack, Birthjays.com)
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108) The
Shameless Bag from WeDú by Coréon Dú is a limited-edition work of art by from an award-winning multidisciplinary gay African artist. (We love his gender-fluid fashion and trans models too!) ($320, WeDu.la)
STYLE
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109) Hand-painted Dutch floral boxer briefs from Skull & Bones let ’em look sexy and sophisticated. ($28 SkullAndBones.com) 110) This Eone Watch lets the wearer tell time by touch or sight, perfect for sight-impaired. Two ball bearings (one for the minute and one for the hour) travel around the watch face in separate, recessed tracks. ($285, Eone-Time.com) 111) She Knew She Could Power Pocket Socks
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have pockets and words of encouragement. ($10, SheKnewSheCould.com)
112) Even if you eschew leather, you deserve to
stut with lesbian fave Arcopedico’s vegan L19 boots. ($125, ArcopedicoUSA.com)
113) Queer jewelry maker Rory Rockmore has a
huge LGBTQ following (including Kim Petras, Jamie Clayton, Laith Ashley, David LaChapelle, and Brooke Candy) and will gain more with these Pearl Drip Cash Earrings and new They/Them 14K gold nameplates (pictured on pg. 63).($60 and up, RoryRockmore.com)
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114) We heart Phluid Project’s cool Tuxedo Shirt with subtle graphics that repeat “clothing has no gender.” ($118, ThePhluidProject.com) 115) The Island Leaf reversible designer
116) See the socks on the guy on pg. 63? Nope,
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because they’re Invisasox. ($14, Invisasox.com)
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117) Open To All member Kate Spade’s candid
metallic croc embossed camera bag in gunmetal or faux fur coat (both pictured on pg. 63). ($300+, (KateSpade.com)
118) It’s cold outside, so wrap up with a Know It
All Scarf by Laetly. ($75, Laetly.com)
119) Spain’s Qüero shoes are renowned for their comfort, style, and quality. Butch it up with the sexy, rugged, and ergonomic Kimball Leather Boot or get your prep on in blue suede Madisons. ($245, QueroHMS.com)
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Magnetie by Corso is truly revolutionary. It’s magnetized, keeping the tie perfectly in place and eliminating the need for loops or pins. ($60, TheMagnetie.com)
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GEEK OUT
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120) Prince fan on your list? When Doves Craft: 10 Projects Inspired by The Artist celebrates the late legend’s 10 biggest hits with step-by-step projects. ($18, BarnesAndNoble.com) 121) Never Boring, a Freddie Mercury boxed set is the gift of the year. It includes the bisexual rock god’s finest music, visuals, and written and spoken words. Three CDs with a total of 32 tracks, a Bluray and DVD with 13 promo videos and interviews, a 120-page hardback book full of photos (some previously unpublished) as well as quotes and musings from Freddie himself, and an introduction from Rami Malek, who earned an Oscar for his portrayal of the late icon in Bohemian Rhapsody. ($96, QueenOnlineStore.com) 122) The Vibrating Sloth Plush
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Chair from Smoko is a compact cushion-like seatback made with soft fleece that fits on any couch or sofa. The battery-powered vibration melts away stress. ($40, SmokoNow.com)
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GEEK OUT
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123) Faith “Zephyr” Herbert
is a fat, empowered woman kicking ass. A journalist by day, the hefty superhero regularly saves the nation in the graphic comic series Faith from Valiant Comics. Any issue rocks. ($4, ValiantEntertainment.com) career-spanning See You on the Other Side boxed set includes 16 albums on 24 vinyl records from the Grammy-winning singer and America’s heavy metal icon slash PFLAG dad. The first definitive vinyl collection of all his original solo material (173 songs) also offers 10 posters, 12 augmented reality experiences, and more. ($500, LegacyRecordings.com)
125) The best-selling holiday storybook A Die Hard Christmas is now an adorable gift set. Based on the hit ’80s Christmas action film, it includes a plush toy of hero John McClane and the illustrated adult storybook. ($25 BarnesAndNoble.com)
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ALL COURTESY OF PRODUCT’S MANUFACTURER (BOTH PAGES) SHUTTERSTOCK (MAN ON NEXT PAGE)
124) Ozzy Osbourne’s
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WHY TO SHOP “OPEN TO ALL”
116 113
Feel good when you shop at stores that have signed on to the “Open to All” initiative, a pledge among business owners to adhere to an antidiscrimination policy for employees and the customers they serve. Hundreds of companies are now involved in the LGBTQ initiative started by the Movement Advancement Project, including Michaels (the largest craft store in the nation—take that, Hobby Lobby!), Nike, Ben & Jerry’s, Coach, Kate Spade (coat & bag left) Ralph Lauren, Gap, Old Navy, Levi Strauss & Co., Airbnb, Marriott, andt hundreds more small businesses nationwide. (OpenToAll.com)
117 WHY TO CONSIDER “MADE IN TAIWAN” Many products are manufactured in China, a country that isn’t quite evolved on LGBTQ rights. It might be time to start shopping its LGBTQ-affirming island neighbor instead. Taiwan, often regarded as the most liberal East Asian country, became the first Asian nation to legalize same-sex marriage earlier this year. Plus: Its Pride parade is the largest in East Asia.
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FEEL GOOD
133 131
130) If you’re worried about vaping,
LA’s innovative Puffco offers a smart dab rig, the Peak, that everyone loves. It unlocks the real power of concentrates and offers better potency, flavor, and effects without any vape oil or cutting agents. Plus, the sleek Peak is travelfriendly. ($380, Puffco.com)
131) Lazarus Natural’s French
vanilla mocha-flavored high-potency tincture combines vanilla, coffee, and hemp extracts in a full-spectrum CBD oil. Plus, they offer 60% off to veterans, individuals on long-term disability, and 132 low-income households ($32+, LazarusNaturals.com)
132) Social CBD uses a world-class
lab to ensure purity, and with gel capsules, oil drops, and topicals, there’s something for everyone (including baconflavored treats for your fur babies). ($35+, TheSocialCBD.com)
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133) Make & Mary Turmeric Ginger roll-on is an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant topical CBD oil that can help relieve arthritis, muscle tension, cramps, and headaches. ($42, MakeAndMary.com)
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134) Movement Oils were the first to
combine CBD with essential oils. Wake with Control (relaxes muscles, boosts mood, and helps with cognitive function) or sleep with Tranquil—or get the sixpack sampler. ($50+, MovementOils. com)
135) The Evri Starter Pack by Dip
Devices allows them to vape without fear of contaminants. The innovative concentrate eliminates the vitamin E and other cutting agents. The magnetic battery connects to other attachments sold separately. Dip Devices also has a Rainbow Dipper initiative for the Trevor Project with testimonials in a small documentary featuring members of the LQBTQIA+ community, making this a do-good purchase, too. ($70, DipDevices.com)
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136) Care by Design produces some
137) These organic CBD Bath Bombs are 100 percent plant-based and vegan. Utilizing the “superpowers” of bark extracts tepezcohuite and quillaja, these bombs will soothe sore muscles and pamper your skin. ($14 to $20, LifeElements.com)
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ALL COURTESY OF PRODUCT’S MANUFACTURER
of the purest medicinal CBD oil drops, capsules, and topicals from Northern California-grown cannabis. Its online tool lets you enter symptoms you want to treat for recommendations before you buy. (Prices vary, CBD.org)
THE ADVOCATE DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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18953 Point Foudnation .indd 1
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T:7.875” S:7.375”
RAISE THE WORLD’S STANDARDS.
THE LEXUS ES F SPORT. The love you express; the family that surrounds you; the sophistication you embody. These all combine to make you, you. With bold styling and meticulous craftsmanship, the Lexus ES 350 F SPORT, part of the ES line, is made to elevate what matters to you the most. Along with a new 302-hp1 3.5L V6 engine, Amazon Alexa2, and available 17-speaker Mark Levinson® PurePlay3 surround sound, the ES F SPORT supports your drive to set new standards for elegance.
18948 Lexus F Sport.indd 1
lexus.com/ES | #LexusES
10/23/19 8:11 AM
T:10.875”
S:10.375”
1. Performance figures are for comparison only and were obtained with prototype vehicles by professional drivers using special safety equipment and procedures. Do not attempt. 2. Amazon, Alexa, and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Not all Amazon Alexa functionality is available for in-vehicle use. 3. Mark Levinson® is a registered trademark of Harman International Industries, Inc. Options shown. © 2019 Lexus.