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Arts+Culture

Hacking the Binary: Gender Through the Lens of Technology

Posted on August 13, 2020
A photo of art and technology artist S Rodriguez.

Dallas-based artist S Rodriguez sees “gender as a technology, both in a precolonial, colonial and postcolonial state. Gender plays a role in the way you operate in society. It is very much a tool, just like any technology, that you can choose or is chosen for you. And you can choose to continue working with that tool or change that tool.” While for some, the “goal” of gender as a tool might be “passing,” for Rodriguez and many others who…

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How We Work Through Our Pain: ‘The Missing’ and Trans Suicide

Posted on August 6, 2020
A photo of The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories.

I tend to play video games that are escapist—ones that let me play at being stronger, faster, or smarter. They let me be the hero but rarely do they hold up a mirror to my own life. The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories is a platform puzzle game about a 19-year-old trans girl’s pain—something that I myself remember all too well. The game takes a magic realist approach to how JJ (our protagonist) deals with this pain:…

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Queers Who Cover: Reclaiming Modesty Through a Feminist Lens

Posted on July 1, 2020
A photo of Netta Ruth.

Last month, I began a journey to tell the stories of fellow LGBTQ people who follow the religious practice of hair covering—an exploration that was born from the need to find and connect with others who are both queer and called to outwardly express their deep-faith practice. I was overwhelmed with the response to my first article on Bailey Gammon, a young, disabled, queer Quaker who covers—numerous other queer folks across the faith spectrum reached out, wishing to share their…

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Make This Go Viral: Black Queerness on Tik Tok

Posted on June 25, 2020
A photo of app Tik Tok.

From vlogging, to making viral memes, to using social media to promote their art, the creativity of Millennials and Gen Z is undeniable. And now, as we’re all “bored in the house, and in the house bored,” these two generations have turned to a new social platform to creatively express themselves—Tik Tok.…

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Texas Pride Online: The Solution to a Pride Month at Home

Posted on June 24, 2020
An illustration of Texas Pride Online.

With COVID-19 cases surging in Texas following Governor Abbott’s bungling of the economic reopening and his overreach into local mask-order enforcement, many Prides are trying to figure out the safest way to celebrate. Some are rescheduling to later in the year, while others are going virtual. When Houston’s own Space Kiddettes (Trent Lira and Devin Will) learned of a virtual Pride being planned in Austin, the musical duo—already planning a similar event in Houston—offered to join forces and help to…

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Now That’s What I Call Hip-Hop: Increasing Queer Representation in Rap

Posted on May 28, 2020
A photo of hip-hop artist Young Ma.

While hip-hop artists have changed over time, the message behind the music has, for better or worse, stayed relatively consistent. It’s the same narrative told over and over to a new beat: a man raps about his abilities to get a woman (often in degrading ways), or a woman raps about getting herself a “good man.” Plain and simple, hip-hop remains predominantly heteronormative.…

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Queers Who Cover: Finding Pride and Healing as a Queer, Disabled Quaker

Posted on May 7, 2020
A photo of Bailey Gammon, a disabled, lesbian, Quaker who chooses to wear a head covering.

I have always loved God. Yes, at times, I couldn’t stand to be around organized religion. And yes, at times, I even wanted to embrace Agnosticism or Atheism, simply because of the pain I felt from having religion weaponized against me. But even still, I could not escape the joy and validity of my relationship with the divine. As I have made peace with my queerness, I have also begun to re-embrace those aspects of religion and the church that…

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Teresita La Campesina: Queering Ranchera Music, Performance, and Memory

Posted on April 29, 2020
A photo of trans Latinx performer Teresita La Campesina.

In 1996, in a Washington DC queer bar called Escandalo (which translates to “scandal” in English), the transgender ranchera artist Teresita La Campesina gave a performance of the Lola Beltrán song “Puñalada Trapera.” A heart-wrenching ballad that rebukes an ex-lover for stabbing the narrator in the back (so to speak), it is one of the few remaining recordings of Teresita’s live performances. She was never given the opportunity to record an album of her own. The rendition is pretty classical…

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Pretty in Pink: Meet Your New Favorite Queer Pop Icon, p1nkstar

Posted on April 23, 2020
A photo of translatinx star p1nkstar.

For decades, clubs, bars, and performance halls have been havens for queer people everywhere. They’re where heavy hearts and cheerful spirits gather together, dance in the moonlight, and come alive. It is within these spaces that p1nkstar, an Austin-based translatinx performance and pop music artist, created an instantly recognizable name for herself.…

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