Indice dei contenuti per May/June 2022 in OUT

The first time I marched in a Pride parade, I was 25. The New York governor had just signed the state’s marriage equality act into law, and NYC was quite literally exploding with rainbow flags and confetti. My boyfriend and I walked hand in hand down the length of Manhattan until our arms hurt from waving and holding up celebratory signs, which read, “Thank You, Governor Cuomo!” (Happier times for us all, indeed.) Afterward, we danced the night away on the streets of the West Village. We were exhausted, delirious, and in awe of the history happening around us and the sheer joy of Pride itself. That day in 2011 — and indeed, my life, up until that point — felt like a march of progress, moving inexorably forward toward…

New Orleans, much like the LGBTQ+ community, is no stranger to adversity. The Louisiana city has braved many storms throughout its vibrant 300-year history. But time and time again, NOLA is resilient while remaining a haven for Southern art, music, and expression. This Pride, Out celebrates the queer creatives who help keep this color and magic alive. Meet Franky Canga, Phlegm, Bouffant Bouffant, Stuart Sox, Blaine McGowan, Fatsy Cline, and the Queen of Bounce herself, Big Freedia. In these pages, they share their favorite memories of Pride and the Big Easy. BOUFFANT BOUFFANT DJ, PRODUCER, PARTY STARTER Favorite Pride memory? Getting to DJ at Oz, the mainstream gay bar on Bourbon Street. Coming of age and going there, I always dreamt of what it would be like if they weren’t…

It’s not an easy time to release a film featuring a gay Cold War love story between two members of the Soviet Air Force. On one side of the fence are blockades from countries like Russia that would deem it “gay propaganda,” and thus ban it from screening. And now, following the invasion of Ukraine, there are entities that reject any content centered on Russian characters. Firebird, set for an international release April 29, is walking this political and cultural tightrope. In a recent Zoom from Estonia, star Tom Prior (Kingsman: The Secret Service) stresses that the film is in fact a British-Estonian coproduction. But regardless, he finds a blanket ban “extraordinary” because “Russian culture is just so phenomenal. And we can’t just write that off.” Additionally, in an era…

Mike Ruiz is into leather. The celebrity photographer — also known for his reality TV appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race and The A-List: New York — has turned his lens on leathermen for a photo series celebrating the queer subculture. For Ruiz, photography has always been a means of connecting with people and places — and his leathermen series is no different. He launched the project “to demystify a community that I’ve always been incredibly drawn to yet afraid of,” he says. This draw comes, in large part, from the leather community’s embrace of sex positivity. “I’ve struggled for so long with varying degrees of shame about everything from being gay to my sexual proclivities to body perception,” Ruiz says. “It’s so empowering to see men who don’t feel defined…

When it comes to real estate in 2022, it’s not a first-time buyer’s market, to say the least. Prices of houses are soaring, particularly in metropolitan areas that are queer-friendly. And mortgage interest rates are once again starting to rise. Would-be buyers who are LGBTQ+ also face unique hurdles like safety concerns and income disparity, which can make the experience particularly challenging. Amber Ryland has navigated these issues firsthand. A lesbian realtor and certified mentor with eXp Realty (amberryland.exprealty.com), Ryland went through the process of buying a home with her wife Morgan and their young sons Hudson, Asher, and Westin. Below, she offers advice from her personal and business experiences. The housing market can seem overwhelming right now for first-time buyers. What is the first step you’d recommend folks take…

The world may not always be on our side. But as Hacks, Fire Island, and some leathermen have shown, there are communities of support to help guide us through it. There’s one for you here in these pages, dear reader. As Armistead Maupin wrote, “Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us.”…

Andrew Ahn has the fall of Quibi to thank for being Fire Island’s director. The gay filmmaker — known for moving dramas that center on Asian-American families like Spa Night and Driveways — had previously interviewed for the project when it was set to be released on the short-lived, short-form streaming platform. He didn’t get the job at the time. But Quibi’s collapse and the production’s move to Searchlight Pictures for a feature-length release sparked a search for a new director. Fortuitously, this became Ahn. “It just felt very gratifying,” says Ahn, who was drawn to the groundbreaking screenplay by writer and star Joel Kim Booster for its celebration of queer Asian-American friendship. This topic is “so much of who I am and what I’m about,” he says. “And so,…

This July, it will have been exactly three years since I took on the role of executive director of the 40-year-young organization we know as Outfest. As the first CEO of color, a local Angeleno, and as someone with limited experience working within the microcosm world of film festivals, I was giddy with what I might discover upon examining its history. Most of my personal memories with Outfest took place attending its namesake festival in the mid-to-late ’90s and early 2000s as a fresh-faced film school graduate. In preparation of our 40th-anniversary celebration, I found myself diving down an archival rabbit hole encapsulating decades of LGBTQ+ culture. Names like Larry Horne, Gus Van Sant, Jamie Babbit, and Jim Fall, and the premieres of iconic queer cinema titles like Mala Noche,…

Out magazine and I both turned 30 this year (editor’s note: the anniversary edition is next issue). My birthday was on March 7. In that short life, I grew into a writer and sex pig, while Out published the work of such queer luminaries as Edmund White, Bret Easton Ellis, and Dustin Lance Black. I knew years ago — before I wrote for it — that the magazine and I were the same age. We both marked the major events of our time: I in my small, private ways and Out with glossy spreads and celebrity interviews. I had just finished high school when “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed and graduated college when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The magazine shaped these events in the queer…