Houston-native Dr. Kaden J. Stanley comes from a family that greatly values higher education. He spent his childhood cheering for his North Carolinian parents’ Atlantic Coast Conference basketball teams and dreamed of, one day, becoming a Duke Blue Devil himself. In the sixth grade, Stanley and his parents agreed that he would continue his schooling at a college preparatory academy. The school he would attend from sixth through twelfth grade was, as Stanley describes, southern Baptist and radically fundamentalist—Senator Ted…
Houston
The Bayou City Be All: Reflections on DiverseWorks’ Night of Performance Beyond the Binary
Posted on November 11, 2019On 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.…
Cowboy Boogie: Houston Cinema Arts Festival Returns with Queer Yeehaw and More
Posted on November 8, 2019The 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.”…
Pain and Glory: The Queer Magic of Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar
Posted on November 5, 2019It’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…
Señorita Cinema, World’s Only All-Latina Film Festival, Returns to Houston November 1-3
Posted on October 29, 2019As 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…
Get Wilde: Houston LGBTQ-Owned Oddities Shop Serves Halloween Spooks Year-Round
Posted on October 25, 2019If 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…
YA Author Addie Tsai on Bi-Racial Twinning, Bearing Witness to Trauma, and Queer Representation in H-Town
Posted on October 22, 2019On 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…
Protecting Our Own: How Q-Patrol Took A Stand Against LGBTQ Violence
Posted on October 17, 2019“...they think the gay community is an easy target. LET’S SHOW THEM WE’RE NOT!” These exclamatory words jump off the page of a 1995 advertisement in the Houston Voice, a Houston LGBTQ publication. The call to action? To join Q-Patrol.…
Faith in the ‘Invisible’: Houston Church Debuts Film on Gay Women in Southern Music
Posted on October 11, 2019A heart must believe in something. Whether it believes in a higher power, in one’s dream, or in the strength that is exuded from one’s own gifts and talents, a heart must beat for something greater than itself. A heart beats within the halls of St. Peter United Church of Christ in Houston, Texas. St. Peter United is dedicated to the acceptance and visibility of all people. And etched within every stone, there lies a legacy. It is a legacy not…
Need A Therapist? There’s A Quiz for That
Posted on October 7, 2019I think the last time I took an online quiz, it was to see what kind of hot dog I was. Spoiler alert, I’m a Chicago-style dog. While these benign online quizzes, first made famous by Buzzfeed, have become popular for passing the time (and escaping from the inundation of celebrity pop culture and political scandals), Houstonian Ryan Schwartz has created one that is actually here to help.…