Tabla de contenidos para July - August 2020 en The Advocate

None of Wallace’s friends think he’s grieving correctly. Wallace, the main character in gay author Brandon Taylor’s debut novel, Real Life, lost his father just a few weeks ago—so why isn’t he crying? The nature of grief is unpredictable, and yet, Taylor says, people still expect you to behave in a very specific way. “It’s not that I wrote this book to grind an ax, but one of the axes I was happy to grind when writing this book was to sort of bust open a lot of the polite myths around things like grieving,” he says. There’s a set of prescribed behaviors that society expects, Taylor says. “As a rule, it should be neat, it should be sprawling, it should be messy. Your life should be ruined, but in…

DayliGht by Roya Marsh does in poetry what Leslie Feinberg’s memoir cum novel Stone Butch Blues did in prose, but this modern work offers an evocative and vulnerable accounting of life as a butch Black woman in America today. Growing up, Marsh, with her affinity for baggy tomboy pants and cornrows, is different, but silence is beaten into her body, her rage simmering below the surface at all times, her fists sometimes swinging before her words can, where she never tells her mother deep truths. That silence, she writes in the captivating poem “in broad dayliGht black victims look gagged,” is used to “extinguish / generations / of Black mental health issues / because Black people don’t have / time for exhaustion //depression / we will do our work //…

Kisos Singer-songwriter Kisos just released the EP Sweet Nothings, which works through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance) after the end of a turbulent relationship. “We’re Falling” is a mournful ode to the descent, while anger bubbles over in “#Perks,” a wrathful dis track dragging the ex for all his shortcomings. “Originally I was having a ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ moment, screaming and/or crying voice memo songs into my phone,” he says. “Over time I realized I’d created this perfect capsule of my pain, insecurities, anger, and revelations as I worked through this heartbreak.” Kisos is also the host of Queerantine, a weekly livestream event showcasing the work of LGBTQ+ musicians from all over the world. In June, Kisos and Queerantine raised over $5,500 for…

Black voters and LGBTQ+ voters have been rising in prominence as strong Democratic blocs throughout the last generation. How well those communities are being served is another question, especially among those voters who are both Black and LGBTQ+. “I’m young enough and old enough to remember the fight around same-sex marriage and really all of the cultural and policy shifts that had to lead to the highest court in the land saying that love is love,” says organizer Alicia Garza, one of the cofounders of Black Lives Matter hashtag and movement. “With that being said, there have been critiques over a long period of time that within LGBTQ communities that largely communities of color and Black communities have been pushed out of that fold.” Garza, however, has been working to…

When “Black people win, all people win,” Rashad Robinson says. The president and executive director of Color of Change, the country’s largest online social justice organization, Robinson expounds on how the organization works “to hold institutions accountable to create a more human and a more just world for Black people. Color of Change has done that recently by taking on Facebook, a behemoth of an institution with so much influence that its misuse helped carve a path for Donald Trump. “It’s about holding powerful institutions accountable and forcing them to do things that they don’t want to do,” Robinson says. The organization has been key along with the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and Free Press in spearheading the #StopHateForProfit campaign imploring businesses to pause advertising on Facebook to push the…

The 2020 presidential election looks to be one of the most important in America’s history, but it is also one of the most highly contested. While many Democrats and Republicans alike are united under the mantra of “Never Trump,” there is also a growing “Never Biden” movement from Democrats who are so displeased with the Democratic nominee’s campaign that they would rather abstain from voting than cast a vote for him. In his three years as president, Donald Trump has rolled back legal protections for an array of marginalized groups. His administration’s actions have caused particular harm to queer and transgender people. A rule issued June 12 by the Trump administration reversed considerable protections against discrimination in health care for LGBTQ+ people across the country, and it was just one…

TO ME, THE Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ+ rights movement are intricately intertwined. About seven years ago, when I was The Advocate’s commentary editor, I had been consumed by the case of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old who was gunned down by a vigilante who thought this Black child wearing a hoodie looked too “suspicious” to be in his neighborhood and therefore needed to die. Martin’s young life, with all the potential ahead of him, did not matter. I didn’t have a son yet, but I looked at Trayvon and saw a son, a brother, a childhood friend. It enraged me, and yet looking back, I don’t know if I was really all that surprised. I saw a deep connection between Martin’s death and the murder of college student…

YOU DIRTY BIRD Love Dirty is a new hand sanitizer that also moisturizes and protects your hands so they’re not dry or irritated. Created by Palm Springs, Calif.-based queer entrepreneur Jason Daniels, Love Dirty has a portable, sexy package that slips into your pocket seamlessly. Get rid of the basic plastic squirt containers and go for a more chic look perfect for any room. Who says you can’t be sanitized, sleek, and stylish? (LoveDirty.com, $13) WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GO-GO Iconic all-female ‘80s punk-pop band the Go-Go’s have released their first new single in nearly 20 years, “Club Zero.” The catchy, call-to-action chorus joins the ranks of the band’s esteemed catalog of classics like “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “We Got the Beat.” A live version of “Club Zero”…

On an early July afternoon in Connecticut, activist and advocate Kamora Herrington (right) is on her back porch prepping for a Zoom talk for Kamora’s Cultural Corner called “Black Trans Human Beings,” facilitated by Rev. Louis Mitchell. Just a few feet away from her, visual artist Kim Hinds Jr. (better known as Tree Sage) paints a piece dedicated to Elijah McClain, the young Black man killed by police in Colorado last summer. The case has gathered steam in the weeks since the police killings of George Floyd and others. Kamora’s Cultural Corner—a “physical and metaphorical” space created to “approach cultural humility through a Black queer and Afrocentric perspective” (as described in its mission) had just moved into a new home March 1, next to the multidisciplinary gallery and art cinema…

People in the music industry used to doubt Tayla Parx’s talents because of her age. Not only has she proven them wrong, but at 26, Parx has accomplished more than most people could hope for in a lifetime. She’s written songs for some of the most famous bands and singers in the world like Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Janelle Monáe, Fifth Harmony, BTS, Alicia Keys, Kesha, Khalid, and Panic! at the Disco as well as some of Ariana Grande’s most popular hits, including “7 Rings,” “NASA,” “My Everything,” and “Thank U, Next.” Now Parx sees her youth as an advantage and something to embrace. When she started her career, everything she was experiencing in her life was happening for the first time: first love, first heartbreak. And she…

In What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, author Mark Doty detailed a sexual experience with a man from Provincetown. In the midst of the encounter, he looked up at the face of his lover to observe “another man with short gray hair and beard, the same half-smile, but with the visionary dazzle of starlight in his eyes.” “I was, quite calmly, looking into the face of the Walt Whitman of 1856,” Doty wrote. In a recent interview with The Advocate and a former student of his, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, Doty revisited the significance of the encounter. “I’m not claiming that was Walt Whitman’s ghost, but it was an experience of a profound connection with a spirit of a person who is in a way alive…

When organizer and artist Patrisse Cullors said she wanted to participate in The Advocate’s feature on the Black Lives Matter movement, we knew it was a perfect opportunity to bring together some of the most important voices in the Black LGBTQ+ space. Cullors, who cofounded Black Lives Matter with fellow organizers Opal Tometi and Alicia Garza in 2013, has been a force in grassroots organizing, especially in her hometown of Los Angeles. From leading efforts to reform local jails to building artistic spaces to help her community heal from overpolicing, Cullors has become a driver of change. Even with all of her strategic advocacy work, Cullors has managed to write a memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, and graduate with an MFA at the…

Since the advent of phone cameras, viral videos have become a part of daily life, resonating for a moment and then quickly forgotten in the maelstrom of images on social media. Ashlee Marie Preston had her own viral moment three years ago, when she memorably confronted Caitlyn Jenner for supporting Donald Trump. Instead of simply being known as a thorn in a reality star’s side, Preston has only expanded on her bold advocacy since then. Preston was later named editor in chief of the intersectional feminist magazine Wear Your Voice, becoming one of the first out transgender people to run a publication. Preston would also take on roles at the Human Rights Campaign and the organization that produces Los Angeles Pride. Last year, Preston used her 34th birthday to draw…

LGBTQ+ candidates have many chances to make history in November. Here’s a look at game-changing candidates, who are all endorsed by the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which this year has endorsed 277 out candidates and is on track to back more than 300, the most in its 29-year history. Except where noted, all are Democrats and have already won their primaries. U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres, running in separate New York districts, stand to become the first openly gay African-Americans in either house of Congress. Torres would also be the first gay Afro-Latinx member. In California, lesbian Georgette Gómez is running to become the first LGBTQ+ Latina in Congress. In Texas, Gina Ortiz Jones, also a lesbian, would be the first LGBTQ+ Filipina representative. Ortiz Jones would…

Tell us about the inspiration behind the cover. The inspiration comes from my deep admiration I have for the queer and trans people in my life, who know what it’s like to be marginalized and show up in such beautiful and profound ways for social justice, challenging the boxes that society tries to confine us all in. I am also particularly inspired by what we are seeing emerge on the streets in cities across the U.S. where Black trans women are taking the lead letting folks know that when we say Black Lives Matter, we must include all Black lives. It’s heartbreaking that trans Black women, in particular, are being murdered at a crisis-level rate. We as a society need to come together to build a safer world in which…

Astream of stressful news is causing millions of Americans to check the latest developments via their social media feed, giving rise to the term “doomscrolling,” i.e. the act of continuing to scroll through bad news even though it’s disheartening or depressing. As protests against white supremacy and police brutality continue to loom over our news feeds, the impact of doomscrolling is becoming increasingly personal. For queer men of color specifically, the effects of mental health issues can be invisible and are often magnified by the impacts of status, competition, and racism within the LGBTQ+ community itself. According to a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and led by John Pachankis, an associate professor of public health and psychiatry at Yale University, men from…

This June, indie-pop songstress Tatiana Hazel was nearing her 90th day of sheltering in place and preparing to release her debut EP, Duality, when she received the news that she was a recipient of the 2020 Latin Alternative Music Conference’s Discovery Award. “It’s really great,” says the Mexican-American musician, who admits the honor was somewhat bittersweet in light of social upheaval and a pandemic. “I want to spread my music and everything, but…I don’t really focus on being recognized necessarily, so it was really cool. And it also came during the first couple of days of the [Black Lives Matter] protesting. I got that news, and it was just weird to process because I had been so low energy—and just to be recognized for something, I was like, Oh yeah,…

Patrisse Cullors wears many hats. For over 20 years, the trailblazing queer activist, artist, and organizer has been building the creative intersections that define her work. As cofounder of Black Lives Matter, founder of Dignity and Power Now, and founder and chair of Reform L.A. Jails, the Los Angeles native has used her passions to ignite a global dialogue about civil rights and the criminal justice system. In 2013, Cullors wrote the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in a comment on a Facebook status of cofounder Alicia Garza, who had written about the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the man who killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black 17-year-old who was innocently walking to meet his family, having come from a nearby convenience store. The hashtag took off and morphed into a national coalition to…

As a key figure in Black social justice movements throughout her career, Aaryn Lang has made it her mission to better the lives of Black transgender women. She was a cofounder of the Ohio branch of the Trans Women of Color Collective and has played a central role in the Black Lives Matter network since its inception. Along with BLM, Lang was a lead organizer of Black Trans Liberation Tuesday, the first national day of action centered solely on Black trans women. Lang has hosted the Emmy-nominated public TV series First Person, which highlights LGBTQ+ stories through intimate portraits of everyday life. Her writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan and other publications, and she has spoken at venues including the White House, Columbia University, and New York University. Lang is now…

Reggie Greer had the opportunity to observe Joe Biden even before signing on as LGBTQ+ vote director for his presidential campaign, and what he’s seen has convinced him that Biden is the leader the U.S. needs now. “I think that our country is at an inflection point,” Greer says. “I believe in Vice President Biden’s leadership style, his empathy, and ability to bring people together. He will bring a diverse set of voices together to address the nation’s problems.” Greer was deputy director of public engagement at the U.S. Department of Transportation when Biden was vice president and Barack Obama was president. That gave him a chance to know Biden and to develop faith in his ability to deal with challenges that include a pandemic, systemic racism, and the damage…