Browsing Category

Features

The Bayou City Be All: Reflections on DiverseWorks’ Night of Performance Beyond the Binary

Posted on November 11, 2019
A photo of the Bayou City Be All.

On October 20, DiverseWorks gave us, the city’s queer community, a generous gift—the “Bayou City Be All: A Night of Performance, Fashion, and Music Beyond the Gender Binary.” The two-part event, promoted as a community-driven project, commemorated the vibrant and unapologetic art, culture, and tunes stewarded and crafted by our own gender non-conforming, genderqueer, and non-binary makers.…

Continue Reading

Cowboy Boogie: Houston Cinema Arts Festival Returns with Queer Yeehaw and More

Posted on November 8, 2019
A photo of Houston Cinema Arts Festival.

The annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival returns to screens this November 14–18, boasting a programming lineup teeming with films made by and about LGBTQ people. “We wanted every single side of the spectrum to be represented,” says Michael Robinson, Houston Cinema Arts Society marketing and communications manager. “Not just, ‘Oh okay, cool, we have the one queer film.’ It really was making sure [queer identity] was something that was represented in a lot of different avenues.”…

Continue Reading

Pain and Glory: The Queer Magic of Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar

Posted on November 5, 2019
A photo of Pain and Glory.

It’s almost midnight. I’ve just walked out of the movie theater, but I haven’t quite returned to reality. There were only three of us at the screening, the last one of the film’s run at the River Oaks Theatre in Houston. This cinema, with its opulent 1940s interior, always has a profound effect on me. It’s in the way that it displaces me, more so releases me, while keeping my being intact. I can still respond to the blend of…

Continue Reading

TRANScending Barriers: Atlanta-based Nonprofit Helps Trans People Acclimate to Life After Incarceration

Posted on November 1, 2019
A photo of the TRANScending Barriers team.

TRANScending Barriers isn’t your average nonprofit. An Atlanta-based re-entry program geared toward helping transgender individuals acclimate back into society after incarceration, it is a vital lifeline for the trans community it serves. Although the US transgender population now exceeds 1.6 million, the trans community continues to face heightened levels of institutional and societal discrimination. Add other intersectional identities, such as race, into the mix and that discrimination increases.…

Continue Reading

Señorita Cinema, World’s Only All-Latina Film Festival, Returns to Houston November 1-3

Posted on October 29, 2019
A photo of Stephanie Saint Sanchez, founder of Señorita Cinema.

As Señorita Cinema, the world’s only all-Latina film festival, gears up for its return to Houston this November 1–3, founder Stephanie Saint Sanchez promises attendees “can absolutely expect to see things that they haven’t before.” Launched in 2007, the biannual festival was born from Saint Sanchez’s lifelong love affair with filmmaking. She begged for a video camera for her 13th birthday and, after finally getting her hands on one, has been obsessed with creating film ever since. But as her career…

Continue Reading

Get Wilde: Houston LGBTQ-Owned Oddities Shop Serves Halloween Spooks Year-Round

Posted on October 25, 2019
A photo of the Wilde Collection.

If you’re a Halloween fanatic like me, the sight of spooky pop-up costume shops around town signals your favorite time of the year. But what if I told you that you could get your oddity and eerie fix all year round, simply by making a journey to Houston’s Greater Heights? On the corner of Yale and 15th Street lies the Wilde Collection, an LGBTQ-owned oddities store run by Lawyer B. Douglas II and Tyler Zottarelle. Encircled by the shop’s curiously odd…

Continue Reading

The Potentiality of Romantic Comedy: The Queer Asian Fantasy of ‘Saving Face’

Posted on October 24, 2019
A photo of the film Saving Face.

I wish I could remember how I met her, the one and only queer Asian woman I’ve ever seriously dated. The one who, although our relationship wouldn’t last longer than a year, floats through my mind perhaps more often than proportionate to what we shared.  I do remember the first time we interacted. It was outside at a mixed performance venue and bar at a time when I was just coming to terms with my queerness. I had just finished watching…

Continue Reading

YA Author Addie Tsai on Bi-Racial Twinning, Bearing Witness to Trauma, and Queer Representation in H-Town

Posted on October 22, 2019
A photo of Dear Twin by Addie Tsai.

On a stiff hotel sofa in Waco, Texas, I took out my phone and braced myself to begin reading Dear Twin, author Addie Tsai’s first semi-autobiographical queer, young adult novel. It was October, and I was in Waco for a work event, when I realized I had down time to fill before I had to leave. Her book had been sitting in my inbox since September, and I had failed to start reading it sooner because, 1) I procrastinate, and…

Continue Reading

Out of the Darkness: The Power of Queer Education

Posted on October 18, 2019
An illustration of queer education.

The mission of Pride Houston is to educate, commemorate, and celebrate. I’d like to focus our attention on that first, foundational bit. One kind of education teaches skills toward a job that earns money. I believe education can also be revolutionary; after all, the Latin root educere means “to lead out.” That kind of education is how we lead each other out of darkness by sharing light—light that we discover we can hold and pass on to others. That kind…

Continue Reading