This week, Bible study was held at a home on La Branch Street in Houston. In two weeks, when the next one is held, it will be elsewhere, hosted by another member of the group. The thread that weaves each event together is community effort—affirmation, your relationship with your Creator, and of course, champagne.…
When you think of embroidery, the image of a delicate grandmother stitching dainty flowers on a pillow might come to mind. Loss Cat Stitchery, however, is smashing that stereotype. Putting a modern, risqué twist on this old-fashioned hobby, the Tallahassee-based makers’ boutique stitches up designs with profanity, edgy jokes, social activism, and support for the queer community. …
Over the past 50 years, as conflicts over homosexuality have wracked religious denominations across the United States, LGBTQ people have both fought for affirming inclusion within their faith communities and formed distinct groups of their own. When most folks today think about early LGBTQ religious activism, Reverend Troy Perry and the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) spring easily to mind. Perry, a southerner by birth who grew up in northern Florida and was first licensed as a Baptist preacher there at…
Welcome to the second installment of Traveling While Queer! Join me as I journey across the country to discover our shared queer history and sightsee in some of my favorite cities. Along the way, we will explore hidden havens, places of LGBTQ significance, and help you plan your dream va-gay-tion. Next stop, NOLA!…
The Shabbat music begins, but the usual exhale of my weekly worries doesn’t come. There is a tension in its place—a tightness. Typically, I find only the comfort of community and familiarity at a Shabbat service. But today, as I glance back at the strikingly oversized crowd, I am acutely aware that we are all targets. It’s an unwelcome feeling—one that I have not experienced since my days of fearing schoolyard bullies in the ‘80s and ‘90s.…
I recently attended a Choreographers' Forum at Houston's 2018 Dance Salad Festival. The panel consisted of two gay male choreographers and one straight female choreographer. During the question and answer portion of the evening, I stood up and asked the artists if they had choreographed any work that explored queer experience and romantic relationships. Given how common love duets are in dance, I expected at least one or both of the gay choreographers to name queer-themed works they had created.…
As a young artist, Kevin Anderson regularly poured out his soul in the spoken word scene. He soon realized, however, that the vulnerability and lived truth he was sharing with the artistic community was not being returned. When at the mic, poets would often code-switch, changing the pronouns of their same-sex lovers to that of the opposite sex—until one day, a colleague didn’t. Rather than offering support, the poet who followed the act used his platform to belittle this fellow…
One thousand miles—that’s how far Nicholas Hooten journeyed to find his identity. Three years ago, the now 18-year-old genderqueer college student left his childhood home in Indianapolis to plant new roots on southern soil, deep within the Sunshine State. The move, Hooten says, felt like a homecoming. “Indiana is such a small state, everyone knows everyone there,” he explains. “I wasn’t out while I was there, and then I moved [to Orlando] and met so many different queer friends. It…
Welcome, my vagabond and adventuring friends, to the first installment of Traveling While Queer! As an entrepreneur and consultant, traveling is a huge part of my job—building a strong network of movers-and-shakers means venturing from my home in Florida, out of the South, and journeying to cities across the nation. Along the way, I aim to share these cities’ vibrant LGBTQ histories (ones that are too often forgotten), as well as to lend my own personal queer perspectives on the…
Atlanta’s incomparable and resilient trans community is lighting up the city this Saturday, November 17, with Southern Fried Queer Pride’s TRANS PWR Fest, a one-day-only celebration of trans and non-binary artists, musicians, and community members at The Bakery Atlanta.…
