Table of contents for December 2015 - January 2016 in OUT

PRESIDENT OBAMA and I had a marvelous day, walking in a park, laughing, and generally enjoying each other’s company. At one point he shot a few hoops with this hipster kid from Williamsburg; at another I found myself in a church while he muttered a prayer over my head. That was strange, as I’m not remotely religious, but I felt blessed nonetheless. Who wouldn’t? We stopped at an art gallery (very expressive stuff), and the president spent half an hour in animated conversation with the artist. It was a warm day, there were still leaves on the trees, and I remember thinking, How extraordinary to be spending such a rich day with the most powerful man in the world. I badly wanted to get a selfie of us together, but…

Out100 honoree and How to Get Away With Murder creator Peter Nowalk (@petenowalk) tweets: ...Which got us thinking about the unsexy—but still amazing!—1970s murder mystery adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, which starred Dame Maggie Smith and David Niven… ...Who also starred in the brilliant murder mystery spoof Murder by Death... ...Which got us thinking about other brilliant spoofs like French and Saunders’ “Destiny” a video parody of… ...Shakespears Sister’s amazingly over-the-top 1992 power ballad “Stay”…

1. THE UNDENIABLE MAJESTY OF CAROL DIRECTOR TODD HAYNES HITS A NEW PEAK WITH HIS LUSH LESBIAN ROMANCE. Virtually every scene in Carol prompts a sigh or a swoon, and there’s never one reason why. It’s often a combination of the messy, layered love affair between the title character (Cate Blanchett) and the younger, wide-eyed Therese (Rooney Mara); the sweeping, operatic score by Carter Burwell; and director Todd Haynes’s chosen aesthetic—a sort of cloud-covered, yet rich, romanticism. “We tried to bring into the visual language the soiled colors and visual distress we saw in our research of New York [in the 1950s],” says Haynes, whose drama is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt. Haynes has showered us with glitter and angel dust in Velvet Goldmine…

Since winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his moving 2008 Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, Dustin Lance Black has continued to advocate for the LGBT community. As a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the writer-director helped sponsor the federal court case that would overturn Proposition 8, allowing same-sex couples to marry again in California. It’s a victory that undoubtedly paved the way for the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide this year. Black is now working on the ABC miniseries When We Rise, which chronicles the history of the queer rights movement from its origins in San Francisco to the present day. Here, the Texas-raised filmmaker shares his must-dos for the Lone Star State’s capital. 1. SPIDER HOUSE “This is an actual…

As the weather cools, we turn away from outdoor activities to more cerebral pursuits: a good book over a martini, perhaps? German painter Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, which hangs in the Pompidou in Paris, sets the scene perfectly. Von Harden’s fashionable buffalo plaid and monocle encapsulate the intellectual, androgynous possibilities of the season. Whether it’s a curious long shirt from Public School or gorgeous home goods from Ralph Lauren, you’ll have endless ways to stimulate your senses and your psyche.…

LET GRANDMA GUZZLE the eggnog this Christmas. You can do better. For cocktails with soul, depth, and some razzle-dazzle, the holidays are prime time for showboating. The drinks don’t have to be complicated—the margarita here simply switches in some seasonal clementine juice—but they should rise to the occasion, and sparkle just a little. These six recipes incorporate six different spirits, so there’s no reason you can’t find exactly what you and your guests are looking for. Just turn up “Santa Baby” on the Jambox, and get mixing. Rum MIDNIGHT PUNCH A holiday party is the best excuse for a punch bowl, and this easy recipe from Boothby’s World Drinks (1934 reprint)—recently revived in the excellent cocktail guide The 12 Bottle Bar—is Christmas personified. 1 bottle amber rum (Appleton and Planters…

These days, Carrie Brownstein is best known as the star and co-creator of Portlandia, her offbeat IFC sketch comedy series with Fred Armisen. But her 2015 memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, is about the other Carrie Brownstein, the one who’s been a singer and guitarist in the acclaimed indie punk-rock trio Sleater-Kinney for two decades. The tale of a young suburban outsider who broke into the rarefied riot grrrl scene in the mid-’90s only to completely redefine it, Hunger details the highs and lows of life on the road, and on the fringes. Brownstein brings the same self-awareness, self-deprecating humor, and relatability to her storytelling that has made her performances on Portlandia so endearing. She is the decidedly uncool cool rock star, the kind who suffers from shingles…

Lily Tomlin never had a newsworthy coming-out moment. Since the 1970s, when she met her wife, Jane Wagner, her sexual orientation has simply been something that’s known. She hasn’t strived to be a role model, and as she told Out in May, she thinks “the gay community is far too sophisticated to be indebted to role models.” That’s typically modest for a woman who says she feels “most myself when I’m performing onstage with an audience that is truly responsive.” A 2014 Kennedy Center Honoree, Tomlin has had two high-profile projects this year: the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, in which she and Jane Fonda play women whose husbands leave them for each other, and Grandma, an Oscar-buzzy road trip film that sees Tomlin playing gay. The movie gives the…

Before his husband, John Arthur, died from ALS in 2013, Jim Obergefell decided that he would no longer allow himself and Arthur to be treated as second-class citizens, and filed suit against the state of Ohio to demand recognition of their lawful Maryland marriage on Arthur’s impending death certificate. That chain of events led to Obergefell becoming the lead plaintiff in the landmark marriage equality case Obergefell v. Hodges, argued before the Supreme Court earlier this year. “When I look back, I feel humbled that my love for and commitment to my husband have allowed me to experience so many things I never expected,” he says. “I’ve since done things I never dreamed of, but it’s the personal interactions with people across the country that really stand out.” He recalls…

“My constant inspiration is the pressure of the ticking clock,” says Diana Nyad. “I can’t tolerate any unconscious moment. It’s not that I always have to be driving toward success, but I do refuse to let any waking moment be dull or not lived with gusto.” Indeed, it’s hard to imagine anyone who has grabbed life more vigorously than Nyad, who in September 2013, at the age of 64, succeeded in swimming from Cuba to Florida—her fifth attempt—becoming the first person to do so without the aid of a shark cage. Since achieving that feat, she has met President Obama and appeared as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, continuing to inspire the masses. The title of her newly published memoir, Find a Way, is the same motto that’s…

“I believe, inside, we’re all more alike than different,” says Jonny Beauchamp, a budding star whose steadfast humanism has made him unafraid to chase parts that would scare off many of his peers. To date, the Bronx native’s three major roles have been those of a trans courtesan (Showtime’s Penny Dreadful), a fiery drag queen (the forthcoming Thirsty), and an androgynous gay hustler (the Roland Emmerich drama Stonewall). Slamming the last performance out of the park with fierce poignancy, Beauchamp is among a select few representing a new kind of ingenue—one with undeniable promise who starts his career with his queerness on the table.…

“I guess I’m totally screwed in 2016 because 2015 was so damn great,” says Ryan O’Connell, one of the year’s most honest and refreshing LGBT voices. This past June, O’Connell released his memoir, I’m Special, in which he comically but poignantly documents his experiences as a gay man living with cerebral palsy, and he’s already started developing a TV series based on the book with his mentor, Jim Parsons. “I hope to challenge the ideas of beauty in gay culture,” he says. “Putting a gay disabled character on TV is my number one dream.”…

ARTIST With his subversive take on European masterpieces—young black men in T-shirts and Timberlands against ornate floral backgrounds—Kehinde Wiley has become an international art brand. This year, “A New Republic,” a mid-career retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, showcased his greatest hits. His work was also prominent in Lee Daniels’s runaway smash, Empire, seen hanging alongside Basquiats and a Monet in the Lyons mansion. “I get tons and tons of comments from people who knew nothing about my work,” he told Time magazine, “and by virtue of this show, it’s starting to change the conversation.” And challenge perceptions of blackness along the way.…

As part of the House of Ladosha collective, Juliana Huxtable has become synonymous with the resurgence of an unabashedly queer subculture in New York City, one whose influence on art, fashion, and media is stronger than ever. This year, Huxtable was the star of the New Museum’s Triennial, which showed two of her self-portrait prints and a sculpture that depicted both her female and male anatomy (she was born intersex and raised as male). Huxtable received accolades from The New York Times, Vice, and Vogue, but she remains fiercely outspoken about the abuse she’s experienced as a trans woman of color. “I think that queer activism has lost touch with its radical traditions,” Huxtable says. “I want gay men to be as angry about trans death and the defunding of…

“Eugene Levy Has a Really Hot Son,” read a 2015 BuzzFeed headline. Sexy selfies aside, Daniel Levy, the impeccably groomed offspring of the American Pie actor is becoming a comedic darling in his own right. This year, he and his father unveiled Schitt’s Creek, a Pop network sitcom they created about a once-rich, now broke couple who must relocate to a small town they bought as a joke. A former MTV Canada host, Levy brought a delicious tartness to his role as the pair’s deadbeat son—and will again when the series returns in 2016. “You’ve beat the odds if you get a show on TV for one full season,” Levy says. “The fact that we’ve just finished shooting our second is totally surreal.”…

With his blond hair and baby blues, Tab Hunter was the quintessential Hollywood golden boy decades before Redford and Pitt. Born Arthur Kelm in 1931, he canoodled glamorous co-stars like Rita Hayworth and Sophia Loren on screen, hiding the fact he was gay beneath his film idol facade. Decades after arranged dates with his beard Natalie Wood and a clandestine affair with Anthony Perkins, Hunter had a second act in cult films like John Waters’s Polyester, and in 2005, he came out in his memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential, now a tell-all documentary produced by Allan Glasser, his partner of more than 30 years. “One of the reasons I let my life story be told,” Hunter says, “was the hope that if one person gets something out of it, it was…

In 2013, Jeremy Scott took the reins of the Italian couture house Moschino, his biggest challenge yet. Since then, his name has been on every fashionista’s lips: Scott dressed Katy Perry for her Super Bowl halftime performance; outfitted Miley Cyrus for the VMAs; was the subject of a documentary, Jeremy Scott: The People’s Designer, about his Missouri upbringing; and even managed to get Empire’s Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) to flaunt his looks when the show returned this fall. His battle horse for 2016? Politics, possibly. “I’m shocked by the perpetuation of bigotry and hate by the majority of the Republican Party” Scott says. “They support criminals like Kim Davis and tout them as holier-than-thou. Now we need a gay president!”…

In this year’s final season of Glee, Alex Newell, who played transgender teen Wade, had the opportunity to belt out the Hairspray ballad “I Know Where I’ve Been,” with a 200-person chorus of trans men and women as backup. It was the actor-singer’s final solo on the show, and he says it was the highlight of his year, which also included lending his pipes to club tracks by the likes of Blonde and the Knocks. Hailing from the Boston area, Newell knows where he’s been, too, and he says that performing on stage has always felt like home: “That’s the one place I can be whoever and whatever I want to be—it’s one of the most forgiving places in the world.”…

“I was fortunate to be raised in a family that was very open-minded,” says Michael Kors. “I was always told that I could do whatever I wanted and be whoever I chose.” Overseeing a fashion brand that was among the hottest IPOs of 2011, the Long Island native has been unstoppable ever since debuting his first collection in 1981. Honored with a CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, he dominated 10 seasons of Project Runway as the sharp-tongued judge with a reputation for a killer putdown (“Amish cocktail waitress” comes to mind). But for all his chutzpah, there was one thing Kors never believed he could be: a married man. “It wasn’t even something I considered a possibility” he says, recalling that fateful day of the Supreme Court ruling. “It…

Trans actress Candis Cayne made history with her recurring role on ABC’s 2007 series Dirty Sexy Money. But being a trailblazer isn’t easy, and on E!’s I Am Cait, Cayne expressed some vulnerability, the flip side to her glamorous, proud persona. “I have always put on airs, because it’s part of my stage act, and it’s part of being the first trans woman on a network television show” she says. “I had to represent our community. There couldn’t be a loose brick in this wall! So it was cathartic for me to talk about the problems I’ve had being in this industry, and the misogyny in our gay community against trans women.” Cayne says the enormous outpouring of goodwill and amplified trans visibility due to I Am Cait—on which Cayne…

Though he’s known to American fans as Kevin on HBO’s Looking, for most of his career British actor Russell Tovey didn’t play gay. His big break was as Rudge in the original 2004 stage production of The History Boys, which toured around the world. Afterward, he transitioned to TV, for his turn as the werewolf George Sands on the BBC hit Being Human. But it wasn’t until the recent film Pride and stage show The Pass that he took up conflicted gay parts. This year, he returned to the BBC, playing a straight, outdoorsy bloke in the drama Banished, and then to Broadway in the much-anticipated revival of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge, directed by Ivo van Hove. As he explained to The Guardian this year: “I never…

After moving to Los Angeles this past spring, Jose Antonio Vargas did something he’d never done before. “I hung framed photographs of my big Filipino family—my mama, my siblings, my aunts and cousins—for the first time in my adult life,” he says. “People ask questions when they see photos, and [for a long time] I didn’t want to answer them.” Vargas, who released his MTV documentary White People this year, has been an advocate for immigration reform since penning an essay about it for The New York Times Magazine. But he believes no one benefits by treating civil rights issues in isolation from others. Says Vargas, “We cannot talk about LGBT rights without addressing the immigrant rights movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, women’s equality, and income inequality.”…

As Joel Grey preps for this photo shoot in his Manhattan loft, Bernadette Peters calls. “Oh, that’s just perfect,” says the legendary actor, best known for his role as the emcee in the stage and film versions of Cabaret. It all seems routine for a man who’s been rubbing shoulders with the greats since he was a teenager. Now 83, Grey came out publicly earlier this year in a People magazine story, causing many to shrug and wonder why he made the admission so late in life. “I was never not out,” he explains. “I was just never asked before.” Grey is preparing to reveal much more in his candid 2016 memoir, Master of Ceremonies. He’s also forthright about one of his most pivotal stage moments—when he played Ned in…

As an interior designer with star clients like Ellen DeGeneres and Ryan Murphy, Cliff Fong usually remains in the background. This year, however, he was thrust into the spotlight as a judge on the first season of HGTV’s Ellen’s Design Challenge. “It was really a gift being able to watch the designers’ creative work evolve,” he says. “They are truly talented people—impressive and powerful—and hopefully I influenced them in a positive way.” Fong, who runs the Los Angeles design studio Matt Blacke, adds that this has been one of the most productive periods of his life, yet one event stands out: “The most outstanding moment of 2015 was the birth of my son.”…

“Three of the biggest things I’ve ever done all happened in one year—in one month!” says Jen Richards. In August, she released the trailer for Her Story, the Web series she co-wrote and co-produced, and in which she also stars, about the dating lives of trans women. That same month, I Am Cait, which featured Richards in several episodes, came out, and was viewed by a couple million people worldwide. “It’s the biggest platform trans stories have ever had,” Richards says. “Meanwhile, a long essay I wrote for The Advocate [‘What Trans Movement?’] became a cover story and generated a lot of conversation in my community.” Richards, the co-founder and former director of the Trans 100, is also the creator of We Happy Trans, a Web site dedicated to celebrating…

RuPaul’s Drag Race may have given Miss Fame global exposure, but the season 7 contestant was never meant to be bound to the confines of a reality show. Born Kurtis Dam-Mikkelsen, Fame’s moniker doubles as a self-fulfilling prophecy: a brand name built on the assurance that her artistry and notoriety would crack the mainstream. The self-proclaimed “Rolls Royce of Drag,” Fame is seeing her dreams come true, becoming the first drag model to appear in Elle magazine, serving as a makeup consultant on major news networks, and boasting a peerless ability to paint and transform herself (even other queens want the “Fame face”). Yet despite her striking success story she still has humility in her blood, inspiring others as both a queer celebrity and an openly recovered addict. Among her…

Derek Washington says he was in the depths of despair before starting his life over in Nevada, and that becoming active in the Democratic Party in 2008 was the key to his rebirth. In 2014, the Black Democratic Empowerment Project emerged, with a mission to educate and empower the black community politically and economically, with Washington as its president. He still believes he’s the “only gay person heading up a black Democratic partisan organization,” but is hopeful he won’t be the last, citing the next generation of activists as his biggest inspiration.…

For nearly 15 years, Marc Solomon, the author of 2014’s Winning Marriage, has been on the front lines of America’s marriage equality battle. After helping secure the 2004 victory in Massachusetts, he joined Freedom to Marry in 2010 as its national campaign director, developing a nationwide strategy. Now the long fight has been won. “The notion that LGBT kids growing up in every part of this country will see that their love and relationships are treated equally by our government is so profoundly moving to me,” Solomon says. “It is such a powerful difference-maker for our community.”…

DEVON MALONEY In This Issue: Writer, “The Wild Card,” page 24 Twitter: @dynamofire Bio: Devon Maloney is a pop-culture journalist, sci-fi geek, Ravenclawleaning Gryffindor, and—along with her Muppet dog, Oscar—a resident of Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Wired, and the Los Angeles Times, and on Vulture and Jezebel. Her favorite Troye Sivan lyric is “your hands and lips still throw their weight around.” THOMAS ALLEN In This Issue: Illustrator, “Parting of the Way” page 63 Instagram: @thomasallen63 Bio: Thomas Allen is an artist and award-winning illustrator living in Coloma, Mich. His work has been exhibited internationally, and is housed in a number of permanent collections. It has been published in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Harper’s, and was nominated for an…

SUPREME CONFIDENCE coming from a 20-year-old can be worrisome, but in Troye Sivan’s case, it’s actually heartening. “Unless you feel you need a full-length album to tell your story, I don’t feel like it’s that relevant or important anymore,” says the petite YouTube star, his angelic features shadowed by the twilit living room of a plush rented Venice Beach home. “I’m doing one to prove to myself that I can do it, but I didn’t feel the pressure to stick to that format.” His self-assurance is far from unfounded. An artist coming up in this stream-and-download era could probably do just as well with a handful of catchy radio singles and a knack for Twitter one-liners as they could slinging something as old-fashioned and time-consuming as an album. This is…

Humans have long been fascinated by the great mysteries of space. Staring at the night sky prompts us to dream of things outside our earthbound limitations, so it’s no surprise that designers have followed suit. This winter, brands like Prada, Ports 1961, and Diesel help us break out of our microcosm, with yet more extraterrestrial-esque items to obsess over. Perfect for stargazing, these stylish duds will take you to infinity and beyond...or at least get you through the winter.…

HAVANA, CUBA Everything you’ve heard about Havana is true. And also not true. Yes, many of the cars are more than 50 years old, buildings are in a state of collapse, and the food is largely mediocre. On the other hand, many of the cars are shiny new European imports, the city center is being carefully renovated, and a recent wave of private restaurants has improved dining options in a country where most production is still owned by the government. Not surprisingly, the best eats are seafood—go for the fresh red snapper carpaccio at La Guarida [1] (418 Concordia), the dilapidated, gothic setting of Cuba’s groundbreaking 1994 gay movie, Strawberry and Chocolate. You won’t be the first to dine here—there are photos of Uma Thurman, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé on the…

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Yes, there’s work to be done—we are still waiting for Congress to pass comprehensive federal LGBT protections, for a start—but whichever way you look at it, this president and his administration have ushered extraordinary change into the lives of LGBT Americans. For someone who at first seemed coy, even awkward, on the subject, President Obama’s evolution on marriage equality has been something to behold. He came to office reiterating that marriage was an institution reserved for a man and a woman, and continued to hold that line throughout most of his first term, even while advancing other important legislation, including the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Other signal achievements included an order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, passage of the…

If you, like many, have had energizing Years & Years tracks like “King” and “Real” stuck on repeat this year, then you’ve been reached by Olly Alexander, the British electro-pop trio’s 25-year-old frontman, who’s proved that an openly gay singer can lead a chart-topping act. Invigorated by the fact that queer visibility is growing fast worldwide, Alexander has poured his gay highs and heartaches into his music. “I write most of my songs after a guy’s trampled all over my heart,” he says, “but I also like dancing to really loud music, and having sex.” Alexander saw Years & Years’ first album, Communion, debut at number 1 in the U.K. this summer, and its success is a heartening sign that popular art increasingly trumps an artist’s private life. “I love…

“This has been one of the most insane years I could have ever expected,” says singer-songwriter Jess Glynne, who in the span of just 18 months became only the second British female solo artist to score five number 1 singles in the U.K. (the other, Cheryl Cole, took five years). After winning a Grammy this past February for “Rather Be,” her breakthrough collaboration with the electronic dance act Clean Bandit, Glynne released her debut solo record, I Cry When I Laugh, a collection of soaring disco-pop tracks, many inspired by a breakup with a girlfriend. The 26-year-old siren quickly proved that she could spin heartache into gold when the album also raced to the top of the U.K. charts. “My music is full of hope in the face of any…

Having worked as a live-in nanny for a Beverly Hills family, Ramiro Gomez is acutely aware of how domestic workers are treated. He finds inspiration and meaning in the most quotidian juxtapositions, such as a gardener with a leaf blower in front of the iconic Paul Smith store on Melrose Avenue, or the figure of a housecleaner inserted in one of legendary artist David Hockney’s 1960s Southern California scenes. As a young, gay Latino man living with hemophilia, Gomez understands what it means to be an outsider and feels his artwork is building bridges between multiple communities. He married his partner of nine years in 2015, but he hopes the momentum from marriage equality presses on. “We need to continue the efforts to include those on the margins, the undocumented…

Abby Wambach has been playing soccer for 30 years, and she has scored more goals than any other person in the history of international soccer. But while she’s won Olympic gold, she could never call herself a World Cup champion—until this year. “I feel so lucky, because when I was first on the team, there were really no gay people,” the 35-year-old athlete says. “The girls were like, ‘No, we’re straight.’ They had long hair and ponytails.” And now you see this eclectic group of people from all different places, who are different colors, with different preferences. That’s the thing I’m most proud of.” Wambach hasn’t decided if she’ll play in the 2016 Olympics in Rio, but she’ll remain an advocate for equality in sports no matter what happens. “I…

The plight of the LGBT community in the Middle East has been brought into sharp relief by the horrific zealotry of ISIS. But it was the Moroccan novelist Abdellah Taïa who earned the distinction of being the first Arab writer to come out in public, during a 2006 magazine interview. The reaction was immediate. “They said that I am a prostitute and not a Muslim anymore,” he recalled in an Out profile. “That I should apologize for the shame brought to my mother, to my religion, to my country.” Undeterred, Taïa published a daring autobiographical novel, Salvation Army, turned into a brilliant indie film this year—which Taïa also directed.…

Roxane Gay’s 2014 was marked by the release of a novel, An Untamed State, and a collection of essays, Bad Feminist. A year later, public and critical interest in her work hasn’t abated—if anything, demand for her is on the rise. From Sydney to New York, she has empowered women through her insistence that there is no shame in being a “bad feminist,” a middle-of-the-line feminist, or any kind of feminist. For Gay, feminism belongs to all women, and it should embrace all types. “It’s OK to believe in your voice,” she says. “And to use it.”…

When a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal last April, Prabal Gurung was one of the first boldface names to launch a campaign to help populations affected by the disaster. Through Shikshya, an organization he co-founded, the New York-based designer, who is from Kathmandu, managed to raise more than $600,000 for his home country, and has used his craft as a platform to bring attention to issues close to his heart, including children’s education. “I was grateful and humbled by the unwavering support and love that I got from everyone, especially the fashion industry” says Gurung. “It was humanity at its best.”…

FILMMAKER & TV PRODUCER Less than a year ago, Lee Daniels was a well-respected, Oscar-nominated filmmaker. Today, he’s the man behind Empire, one of the most buzzed-about television hits of the decade. A groundbreaking success on multiple levels, the hip-hop melodrama, now in its second season, not only broke ratings records for Fox, it thrust gay themes—specifically relating to the black community—into the living rooms of millions. “I’d been so used to living in my own world,” says the writer, director, and producer. “But so many gay people and people of color have stopped me on the street and thanked me. This experience has humbled me.”…

We’ve come to expect provocative ads from Calvin Klein, but the Fall 2015 campaign for Calvin Klein Jeans represented new levels of groundbreaking. Shot by Mario Sorrenti, it featured gay models Ethan James Green and Reid Rohling as a same-sex couple—a first for the brand. For Kevin Carrigan, global creative director of CK Calvin Klein, pushing boundaries is part of the glue that has kept him at one of the world’s best-known labels since 1998. The English-born designer was in Mykonos when the Supreme Court voted in favor of marriage equality. “We partied and felt totally elated,” he says. “But we can never forget that in some countries you can be sentenced to death for being gay. We must support, push, and fight for global equality.”…

The personal has always been political for Sarah Kate Ellis, who appeared kissing her wife, the musician Kristen Henderson, on a now-famous cover of Time magazine in April 2013. That image, and its accompanying cover line, “Gay Marriage Already Won,” was not just prophetic, but indicative of the confidence Ellis brings to the cause as president and CEO of GLAAD, a position she assumed in 2014. Ellis celebrated the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality at New York’s Stonewall Inn, but her euphoria is tempered with caution. “Legislation and court decisions are only part of the puzzle,” she says. “Continuing to change the culture and accelerate acceptance is the work we are doing at GLAAD.”…

As creative director of Diesel, Nicola Formichetti may be carrying a billion-dollar fashion empire on his shoulders, but he hasn’t forgotten his first-hour supporters. He recently introduced his passion project, Nicopanda, a genderless clothing line that keeps queer culture at the core of his creative process. “One of my favorite moments this year was working with trans teens at New York’s LGBT Center ” he says. “It was a real pleasure to meet such an inspiring group. They’re helping define what it means to be young and transgender in the U.S. today.” Riding the Diesel float at New York’s Pride parade this summer, Formichetti once again proved he’s using his power for good. “Everyone is able to have a degree of influence in this world if they want to,” he…

Todd Haynes doesn’t make movies; he painstakingly crafts events, from his melodramatic hat-tip to Douglas Sirk, Far From Heaven, to his five-hour-plus retelling of Mildred Pierce for HBO. This year, Haynes’s main event was Carol, a lush adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, and a movie that merges the filmmaker’s mastery of period detail with timeless queer themes. Yet for all the pomp and circumstance that brews within Carol (and is sure to follow it along the awards circuit), Haynes, a creative wellspring, is at his best amid the subdued, natural surroundings of his Portland, Ore., home. “I feel most myself when swimming in the rivers there in August,” Haynes says, “when the blackberries are in bloom.”…

Though the Caribbean isn’t known for its positive treatment of the LGBT community, the tides are turning. As the first LGBT couple to represent the United States in the Western Hemisphere, Ambassador James “Wally” Brewster (right) and his husband, Bob Satawake, faced criticism from Catholic and evangelical leaders when Brewster’s appointment was announced in 2013. But Brewster sees an upside. As he explains: “Moving to a country that has not traditionally embraced LGBT culture—and seeing how our public exposure to their society has created a conversation—is something that we truly embrace as a blessing.”…

As a Google employee, Raymond Braun spent three years leading LGBT marketing and partnerships for YouTube, a gig that landed him on the Forbes “30 Under 30” List, and saw him originate YouTube’s first-ever LGBT marketing campaign, #ProudToLove. This summer, he took leave from his post to serve as an on-site correspondent while partnering with nonprofits such as HRC, and was on the front lines for the year’s biggest LGBT milestones, including marriage-equality victories in Ireland and the U.S. For this native of a small, conservative town in Ohio, the Internet has always been an identity-shaping “lifeline,” and this fall, Braun left his YouTube gig to form his own media company and digital channel, and share that lifeline with others. “There’s never going to be a perfect moment to make…

“I hope that by being an out, queer Japanese-American woman in a traditionally male-dominated field, I can influence people to recognize I’m simply a chef and that none of those other labels matters,” says Niki Nakayama. Kaiseki, the style of Japanese food she serves at her small Los Angeles restaurant, N/Naka, is as rarefied as her achievements. Inspired by the ancient, formal multi-course tradition, she’s made the meal into an art form, and her work and life are intimately bound in many ways: Her sous-chef, Carole Iida, for example, is also her wife. The couple married this year in Hawaii. “I never imagined the day would come that my mother would be walking me down the aisle, fully supporting my marriage to a woman,” she says. “I have had many…

“You are the social media emperor!” said Hillary Clinton to DeRay Mckesson when he told her their goodbyes were being shared with the world on Periscope. The exchange followed a “tough, productive, and candid” October meeting, which he secured by tweeting to her, in advance of the presidential candidate’s releasing a policy platform on social justice issues. After the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Mckesson left his school administrator job in Minneapolis to protest in St. Louis and many cities thereafter. His incisiveness, outspokenness, social media shrewdness, and ability to mobilize have helped make Black Lives Matter the most effective and formidable American protest movement this century.…

“I just keep dreaming about new ways to get people to take their clothes off,” Jerry Mitchell says. As the creator of the annual Broadway Bares spectacle, the award-winning director and choreographer has had Broadway dancers stripping for charity for 25 years, raising nearly $14 million for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. This past summer, when the SCOTUS ruling was announced, Mitchell was in Chicago for his latest production, On Your Feet, the Gloria and Emilio Estefan musical, which opened on Broadway in November. “I was working on a musical about how people flourish when they are given freedoms,” he says. “This country was built on immigrants. Anyone who thinks building a wall is the way to build this country is out of touch. It’s a global thing and we have…

The endearing Ben Baur is an unlikely candidate to play Alex, the shifty, philandering lead in the cult-favorite Web series Hunting Season. That Baur makes the character flawed, yet likable, speaks to his charms and versatility, which also won him roles in TV shows like this year’s Difficult People and films like the upcoming Something Like Summer. Hunting Season’s second season premiered in May, but what truly rocked Baur’s year was a move from East Coast to West, which freed him professionally. “New York is a city that beats the lazy out of you,” Baur says, “and in L.A. you learn a lot about how to make something of yourself. I’m really enjoying being unmoored.”…

After a wildly popular first season, the creator of How to Get Away With Murder doesn’t know the meaning of a sophomore slump. Along with presenting some of the steamiest scenes on TV, in season 2 Peter Nowalk has highlighted the sexual dynamic between an HIV-positive and an HIV-negative gay man—Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) and Connor (Jack Falahee), respectively—and introduced PrEP to prime time. “It’s a big decision: whether this is something that Connor can deal with in a boyfriend, or if it’s something that scares him,” Nowalk explains. “I definitely want to explore that: Can you have sex like that, how do you do it, and what kind of sex do you have?”…

Paul Reubens is not the only entertainer who credits Kelly Bush Novak with saving his career, but his story illuminates why her clients go out of their way to single her out for praise. Bush, who started her public relations agency, ID, in 1993, has not only cultivated one of Hollywood’s biggest rosters of A-list talent—she’s helped to build and develop their careers. It was her encouragement that persuaded Reubens to resurrect Pee-wee Herman in 2007, first for Spike TV, and then for a Broadway show (a new Pee-wee film is due in 2016). And this year she was a producer alongside her client Ellen Page on the LGBT-themed Freeheld, a movie that reflects what she deems “a paradigm shift” in Hollywood towards openly LGBT artists and subject matter. “I…

In her 17 years as director of the Hammer Museum, Ann Philbin has converted a once drab institution into a lodestone for the L.A. vanguard, overseeing the completion of its Billy Wilder Theater, launching the Hammer Projects series to showcase emerging artists, and eliminating its admission fee. Among the many special occasions Philbin has feted in the Hammer’s chic, modernist courtyard, two recent ones stand out: a 71st birthday party for her hero Joni Mitchell, and the evening of June 26, when a dinner for queer artist Mark Bradford turned into a celebration of the marriage equality ruling. “They attempted to kick me and my friends out of college for being gay in 1972,” Philbin recalls, “and now, some four decades later, I have married my partner. This was an…

With Brooke Johnson at its helm, Food Network has become one of the country’s most widely distributed ad-supported cable networks (as of February, it was available to more than 80% of U.S. households). Its slate of hit shows like Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Iron Chef America has netted it 30 Emmys (and more than 100 nominations), and its successful spinoffs include Cooking Channel, Food Network Magazine, and a product line with Kohl’s. All of this has made home kitchens more experimental than ever, but for Johnson (who’ll retire at the end of December but remain a consultant throughout 2016), being an openly gay business leader has been paramount. “Standing loud and proud remains critical,” she says, “and is something that will have a positive outcome for generations to come.”…

A YouTube series titled My Drunk Kitchen, in which comedian Hannah Hart spoofs cooking shows by preparing a variety of comfort foods while intoxicated, may have seemed an unlikely hit. But with nearly 2.3 million subscribers and 200 million views to her channel, Hart has toured the world and released a cookbook with recipes to cure the “drunchies” (or drunk munchies). She’s now working with fellow Internet celeb Grace Helbig on an upcoming digital reboot of Sid and Marty Krofft’s ’70s cult show Electra Woman and Dyna Girl— which they describe as “Gilmore Girls meets Marvel.”…

Meteorologist Adam Joseph made Philadelphia history in August 2014, when he became the city’s first major on-air news personality to come out publicly. But the subsequent 15 months are what have proved truly groundbreaking for Joseph, as he and his partner, Karl, have watched their son, Jacob, grow and thrive. It’s something Joseph, a fitness buff who works for Philly’s ABC affiliate, relates to the many marathons he’s run. “At the finish line, I felt like I’d accomplished something worth the fight,” he says. “Post-baby, I feel indestructible.” Joseph says his colleagues and fans have embraced his family as they would any other; however, he isn’t above a touch of stereotypical-gay humor. Where was he when the Supreme Court’s ruling for marriage equality was announced? Quips Joseph, “At the gym,…

When Jennicet Gutiérrez interrupted Barack Obama during a White House reception, urging him to stop the detention and deportation of LGBT immigrants, the trans Latina activist may have been silenced—but people took notice. An organizer of Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, Gutiérrez has realized the need to speak up for those without a voice. “The injustice that we’re facing—the violence—I had to make this issue public,” she says. “At first the response was negative, but it raised visibility. It started a debate.”…

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STRIBILD is a complete HIV-1 treatment in 1 pill, once a day that combines the medicines in TRUVADA + TYBOST + VITEKTA.* Ask if it’s right for you. What is STRIBILD? STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. STRIBILD can also replace current HIV-1 medicines for some adults who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL of virus in their blood) and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements. STRIBILD combines 4 medicines into 1 pill to be taken once a day with food. STRIBILD is a complete single tablet regimen and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines. STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease…

SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC You don’t have to cross the pond for a European vacation—Santo Domingo delivers in spades. Founded by the brother of Christopher Columbus, the Dominican Republic’s imperial-style capital is the oldest European settlement in the New World, and its deep Spanish heritage is still very much on display. The city’s Zona Colonial [4] brims with opulent relics from the era of conquistadors: churches, plazas, and mansions—some of which, like Casas del XVI [5] (CasasDelXVI.com), have been lovingly transformed into luxurious hotels. Dip in and out of world-class landmarks, like the Bellapart Museum and Columbus Lighthouse; savor the range of Dominican cuisine—with its blend of Spanish, indigenous, and African flavors—at the popular Pat’e Palo [6] (PatePalo.com); sit in the shadow of the Columbus family palace; and when the…

Ask your healthcare provider if COMPLERA may be the one for you. *COMPLERA is a combination of the medicines in TRUVADA (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) and EDURANT (rilpivirine). COMPLERA is a prescription medicine for adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before and who have no more than 100,000 copies/mL of virus in their blood. COMPLERA can also replace current HIV-1 medicines for some adults who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL) and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements. COMPLERA combines 3 medicines into 1 pill to be taken once a day with food. COMPLERA should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines. COMPLERA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses you must keep…

Beloved by countless gay fans for her role as tough, ambitious Miranda Hobbes on Sex and the City, Cynthia Nixon earned her reputation for being on top of things—in the know, on the ball. Perhaps owing to her years as an LGBT activist, strangers peppered Nixon with questions days before the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, as if, naturally, she’d be a step ahead. “With no preamble they’d just ask, ‘Did you hear anything yet?’ ” Nixon says. “I loved the idea that they thought I somehow had an inside track, and I loved the sense that the whole world was on the same page, holding its breath.” This year Nixon directed the Off-Broadway play Steve, about a gay couple, and delivered her rawest performance to date, playing a dying…

One of this year’s most promising debuts, Le1f’s Riot Boi delivers on its title’s promise. The Harlem rapper and producer’s first studio album is the sound of simmering desire, unleashed fury, and rafter-shaking elation, a labyrinthine, sociopolitical assault on the senses. “It’s a very pro-trans, pro-clean water, Black Lives Matter record,” he told Vice in August. The song “Grace, Alek or Naomi” exalts the dark-skinned beauty of fashion idols like Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell, “Umami/Water” pays tribute to transgender artist and DJ Juliana Huxtable, and the closing track, “Change,” calls for a fierce embrace of one’s racial identity. Riot Boi’s production is often dark, grimy, and aggressive—spastic synths, pitch-slapped vocals, and beats as piercing and clangy as a bag of nails—but its underlying message is one of self-love and…

Two years ago, former child star Raven-Symoné, who first appeared on The Cosby Show when she was only 3, decided to leave show business altogether. She’d enrolled in San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, but then to “pay the bills” she started taking on projects like Fox’s hit series Empire (which also stars her partner, AzMarie Livingston). It was an offer this June to co-host The View, however, that officially pulled her out of retirement. “I was perfectly OK with just school and not having a job,” says the 29-year-old. “But the love and family nature I felt at The View brought me back to TV in a permanent way.” Though her contrarian opinions have made her a lightning rod, Raven-Symoné refuses to hold back. “This country has continuously ostracized…

Alicia Garza, special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, co-founded Black Lives Matter in 2013 to combat anti-black racism after the murder of Trayvon Martin. But watching the movement grow and do “amazing things” has made 2015 especially remarkable for her. “To see how black people all over the world have embraced Black Lives Matter is awe-inspiring,” says Garza. “The best moments are when black people stop me in the street and share with me the impact that BLM has had on their lives and on their faith that another world is actually possible.” This year, Garza was named to the Root 100 list of African-American achievers and influencers between the ages of 25 and 45, and was featured in the Politico50 guide to the thinkers, doers, and…

This year, 21-year-old Shamir Bailey emerged as a poster child for a new generation of pop star: the post-queer, post-gender, fearlessly original kind. With its infectious beats, its whip-smart rhymes, and the singer’s Michael Jackson-like falsetto, Bailey’s debut album, Ratchet, presents itself as a celebration of difference without the sloganeering that often accompanies pro-LGBT music. One only has to watch the videos for his songs “On the Regular” and “Call It Off” (in which he shares the screen with a puppet version of himself) to know he delivers his message of acceptance with his tongue firmly in cheek. “I’m not being in-your-face about my openness,” Bailey says. “I’m encouraging everyone to be themselves. My favorite thing about my show is that my audience is a big rainbow tribe of people:…

It’s been a banner year for Robbie Rogers, the first openly gay man to compete in a top American professional sports league. The athlete, who came out in 2013 while announcing his retirement, and then promptly un-retired to join the LA Galaxy, scored a stunning goal for his team in June—his first since coming out. Making the achievement all the sweeter, his triumph coincided with the team’s Pride Night. “It was just perfect how it turned out,” says Rogers, who was thrilled by the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, yet dismayed by some of the reactions. “There are a lot of Americans and people around the world who seem to hate the LGBT community,” he says. “Until we are equal citizens like my brother and sisters, I feel responsible…

As the first gay Asian man to host a national daytime talk show, ABC’s FABLife, Joe Zee has reason to look back on 2015 as a personal watershed. “Breaking that barrier has meant so much to me, especially after having been told ‘no’ so many times by so many people along the way” says Zee, who hosts the show with a panel that includes Tyra Banks. The former creative director of Elle has also been celebrating his first year as editor in chief of Yahoo Style, as well as the publication of his first book, That’s What Fashion Is, a reflection on lessons learned in his life and career.…

Activist and organizer Bamby Salcedo had some things that many in her trans Latina community do not: a job, health insurance, benefits, a car. And yet she decided to leave her work at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles behind this year. It was a good job, she says, but it conflicted with her need to “be the activist that I am, and do direct action.” Salcedo, who is founder and president of the Trans-Latin@ Coalition, is next launching the Center for Violence Prevention and Transgender Wellness, which will challenge institutions—including the government and law enforcement—to set better policy, and promote the professional and economic development of trans people. “Understanding our power as individuals and as a community, we will be able to make the changes we need for trans people to…

As a queer kid growing up in a strict Pentecostal household in Detroit, Holly Miranda longed to break free. Leaving home at 16, she began performing in cafés in New York City, and now, a decade and a half later, the singer-guitarist has released her most accomplished work to date. A highlight of her self-titled third solo album is the poignant “Pelican Rapids,” a song she wrote about the 2008 Prop 8 ballot initiative, and a heartening letter to adolescents facing the struggles she once did. In short, it’s the sound of an artist who’s found her salvation. “I’m always a little surprised when another year passes and I get to make music for a living,” Miranda says. “It may not always be glamorous, but I am living my childhood…

This year has been one of extraordinary change for Subhi Nahas. Three years after fleeing escalating antigay persecution in Syria, he was granted sanctuary in the U.S., where he continues to advocate on behalf of fellow LGBT refugees. In August, Nahas took the fight to the United Nations Security Council, offering personal testimony of the atrocities being perpetrated against gay people in his home country, both before and under ISIS. It was a historic first and, in Nahas’s eyes, imperative. “We may lack coordination as an international queer community” he says, “but we are responsible for supporting other LGBT people, wherever they are.”…

There is no doubt 2015 has been Andy Mientus’s busiest year. In addition to playing gay villain Pied Piper on the CW hit The Flash, the actor showed his versatility on stage in four very different productions: a Broadway revival of Les Misérables, a concert performance of Parade, the queer classic Bent, and now again on Broadway in Deaf West Theatre’s Spring Awakening, in which he plays the gay character Hanschen. “I feel like all my pipe dreams are really worth something,” Mientus says, “and that they aren’t so crazy after all.”…

Though he admits he was new to the tech world in 2013, when he launched Trans*H4CK, Dr. Kortney Ziegler, also an academic and filmmaker, has been making big strides since. Based in Oakland, Calif., Trans*H4CK is a hub for developers, designers, and aspiring coders, and works within the Silicon Valley milieu to bring trans, gender-non-conforming, agender, and non-binary people into the tech industry’s wealth building. “[We’re] not only able to participate in the company culture, but reap the benefits by being creators and being well compensated for it,” says Ziegler. “Raising six figures in funding is a significant, big deal for me in the tech world as a black, transgender person. We’re able to now grow in ways I never imagined. It’s been kind of magical.”…

Before 2015, when she became president and CEO of the Victory Fund, the nation’s largest resource for LGBT public officials, Aisha Moodie-Mills was a political adviser, private-sector liaison, and fundraiser for members of Congress. A key strategist and spokesperson for the campaign that brought marriage equality to Washington, D.C., she and her wife, Danielle, were among the first same-sex couples to receive a marriage license. “The main reason I joined Victory was because I believe that the key to equality is representation,” Moodie-Mills says. “If you are not at the table, then you are on the menu.”…

Chai Feldblum has been commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission since 2010, but 2015 was a red-letter year, the culmination of decades of advocacy for the law professor and former clerk to Supreme Court associate justice Harry Blackmun (to whom she came out in the early 1990s). This summer, in a landmark ruling in Baldwin v. Foxx, the EEOC skillfully applied the 1964 Civil Rights Act to a case of discrimination against a gay federal employee. When the EEOC speaks, employers, human resource directors, and judges listen—and that could have a big impact on the 28 states without employment protections for LGBTs. “We’ve always known we are full members of society, but everyone else has had to catch up,” says Feldblum. “This year they’re starting to.”…

D.A. Powell has earned accolades for his experimental poems, which combine the historically covert sexuality of gay culture with powerful subjects like longing and AIDS. Although his work transcends the queer experience, his first three books of poetry—Tea, Lunch, and Cocktails, now available in a single volume, Repast—are considered by many to be a trilogy on the AIDS crisis. “I never thought we’d have marriage equality before we had job equality” Powell says, “but I celebrated just the same.” Still, he hopes we continue to run counter to convention, since “one of the glorious things about queer culture is that, in resistance to accepted ideas of normalcy, we have made a space for otherness in all sorts of ways—a safe haven.”…

Three months before Michael Sam came out to the world in an ESPN interview, Mason Darrow, an offensive linesman for the Princeton Tigers, came out to his teammate Caleb Slate. Darrow had agonized about the decision, but any anxieties were put to rest by his friend. “He was, like, ‘Nobody’s going to care—we love you, you’re our teammate, you work hard.’ ” Slate was right—the team didn’t care. But it was only this summer that Darrow was ready to go public with his coach, Bob Surace, and the rest of the world. “The gay community is often generalized as this one specific subgroup, whereas in reality it’s a very diverse community” Darrow says, “and I wanted to show another side of that.” Like everyone else, Surace took the news in…

The music of the 1980s looms large over Escape From Evil, the mesmerizing third album from Jana Hunter and her band, Lower Dens. But if the Baltimore group’s latest channels New Wave titans like the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, it also confirms Hunter’s own status as a formidable force in gothic indie pop. The singer-guitarist’s frigid tales of human yearning feel at once relatable and otherworldly, her delivery both fragile and commanding. She conjures lust, fear, and emotional catharsis like it’s her calling. “If I play a really great show, there are moments where I’m so in it, there is no self,” Hunter says. “That’s the purest form of being I can think of.”…

When San Francisco-based soprano Breanna Sinclairé belted “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a stadium of thousands at an Oakland A’s game this summer, she became the first transgender woman to sing the national anthem at a professional sporting event. “The experience was surreal to me,” Sinclairé says, adding that she felt like she was “part of the revolution” in a year that saw unprecedented trans visibilitity. “It was such an honor to perform as my true self, especially as a trans woman of color, singing for a mostly hetero-populated stadium. I can truly say it taught me that all things are possible.”…

For Aydian Ethan Dowling, the joys of June 26, 2015, were twofold. On the same day the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, Dowling was welcomed into the Men’s Health Ultimate Guy contest, becoming the first trans man to join a mainstream men’s magazine competition. He went on to become a top-five finalist, landed the cover of FTM magazine, appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and watched his clothing company, Point5cc.com, “grow enormously in sales.” Looking ahead for the queer community, he cites mental health as a key issue. “It’s important that we get doctors and mental health workers educated on the transgender experience,” Dowling says. “I hope the visibility of my story impacts that in a positive way.”…

What does a story look like? That’s a question Chip Kidd has been asking himself since 1986, when he arrived at the art department of the august publishing house Knopf. Kidd, whose iconic book jackets include Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, David Sedaris’s Naked, and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, likes to describe a book cover as “a haiku of the story.” Some of those stories have been his own, including his coming-of-age novel, The Cheese Monkeys, and The Learners. His achievements in 2015 included delivering his second TED talk (1.3 million views at press time), being honored at Comic-Con with an Inkpot Award for Achievement in Comic Arts, and celebrating his 20th anniversary with his husband, poet and librettist J.D. McClatchy. This fall he also published Only What’s Necessary, a coffee table…

“I’m most inspired when thrown off balance,” says Yve Laris Cohen. “If I’m at ease, then something’s wrong.” The transgender Brooklyn artist continues to apply this mantra to his work, a jarring, immersive blend of dance, architecture, sculpture, and installation. His May 2015 show, Fine, featured a team of his collaborators discussing a piece, in a theater-style setting, that never came to fruition. The result was novel, meta, and compelling, but Cohen, who’ll unveil a new solo exhibit in New York in January, still plans to revisit that initial, unrealized performance. “It may be an impasse,” he says, “but it’s a generative one.”…

When Roland Emmerich learned of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality, he was shooting the sequel to Independence Day. It was a moment in which history rubbed shoulders with Hollywood, and that’s precisely what happened with Stonewall, Emmerich’s 2015 film about the start of the LGBT civil rights movement. Stonewall’s many detractors have panned Emmerich for whitewashing the 1969 riots, depicting them through the eyes of a stereotypical corn-fed lead (actor Jeremy Irvine). Yet too few have acknowledged that he’s made the first mainstream, unabashedly gay popcorn epic. Emmerich, who’s “very proud” of Stonewall, may or may not have made historic and artistic missteps. Still, it’s momentous that he’s crafted a traditional saga that wears its rainbow flag on its sleeve—that a man known for making movies…

If Brad Goreski’s breakout turn on The Rachel Zoe Project showed he was good TV, his current gig as a co-host on E!’s Fashion Police has proved that he’s also a sharp, reliable arbiter of all things red carpet. “I always want my critiques to be based on expertise,” he says. “I know if a cut is wrong, if that Prada gown has been around for two years, and if it should’ve been kept in the closet for another two years.” It helps that he’s dressed everyone from Jessica Alba to Demi Moore, and has acted as the exclusive brand stylist for Kate Spade since 2011. In August, Goreski was named creative director of C. Wonder, and appointed the QVC ambassador for the recently revived women’s wear label, a post…

Two short years ago, Hari Nef was just another New York kid, hitting Lower East Side parties between modeling gigs. But this year, her profile exploded when she headlined the Agender campaign for the British department store Selfridges. Soon after, Nef became the first trans model to be signed for worldwide representation by the prestigious talent agency IMG, and she landed a role in season 2 of Transparent. “It’s been a lucky year” Nef says. “In New York, you don’t always get to be what you want you to be. That changed for me.” The 23-year-old Ivy League grad—who has also shown up in an all-trans campaign for H&M’s sister label, & Other Stories, and in a music video for the band the Drums—is determined to use her profile to…