Table of contents for September/October 2022 in OUT

Buy some peanuts and Cracker Jack, because once you start watching A League of Their Own, the new historical drama series from Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham, you’ll never want to come back. The Amazon Studios show is based on the beloved 1992 Penny Marshall film of the same title, which starred Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Rosie O’Donnell, and Madonna as players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which existed from 1943 to 1954. The new A League of Their Own boasts a more diverse roster. Instead of the all-white Rockford Peaches seen in the movie, Jacobson and Graham made sure to create a show that celebrates all types of women. “One of the goals of the show was to really open up the lens from the inspiration of…

My coming-out in the early 2000s was sheepish, a clean cut. Just do what it takes to get to college and start fresh as a gay man, I would think a 100 times a day. Growing up in rural Illinois — and not (knowingly) seeing or interacting with any gay people as a young person — the allure of going far away from home for college was worth any sum of money to me at the time. This wasn’t just about pursuing an education; it was about having space to discover my identity. The sentiment is one echoed by many queer people, some of whom grew up in tumultuous family environments. “I was outed in high school. My mom read my journal and found out I was gay, and had…

We’re writing today with some wonderful news for our LGBTQ+ community as well as women and people of color. We are pleased to tell you that Out and all of its assets have been acquired and are now operated by an LGBTQ+ certified company, equalpride! Along with Out Traveler, The Advocate, and Plus magazines and Pride.com, Out is now part of equalpride, the leading LGBTQ+ voice reaching more than 90 percent of the queer media audience every month across digital, social, TV, print, experiential and soon, a streaming TV channel! We are Mark Berryhill and Michael Kelley, and we are honored to be among the LGBTQ+ principal owners of equalpride. Additionally, Mark serves as chief executive officer and board member and Michael serves as board chair and president of Global…

This year, Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop became the most Tony-nominated production of the season. Produced by Black royalty like RuPaul, Billy Porter, and Jennifer Hudson, the groundbreaking musical follows Usher, a Broadway usher and aspiring playwright. Audiences watch him (accomplished, questioned, and encouraged by his thoughts) go through the process of writing a “big, Black, and queer-ass American Broadway show” about a Black gay man writing a musical about a…well, you get the point. The project is irreverent and poignant, dealing with the macro through the perspective of hyper-specific experiences. Its very existence is a critique of common discourse on Blackness, queerness, fatness, and communities living with HIV, and Jackson confronts each of those issues explicitly in the text. In this piece, three Black gay men…

It was a Dior death match at Out’s photo shoot of Bros stars Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane. On a recent Saturday afternoon, the actors arm-wrestled in designer plaid shirts before jumping into a freestanding copper tub in the middle of Bathtub Gin LA, a Prohibition-style speakeasy located in the middle of Tinseltown. Framed by butterfly wallpaper and a wall of booze, the pair then toasted glasses of brown stuff (which was, in fact, just iced coffee). The space was filled with eclectic vintage items: a taxidermy possum, an Imperial typewriter, a yellowed 1929 issue of the New York Times. Music piped in, alternately, between a Bluetooth speaker and an old grand piano, from which a team member played a few bars of Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” and the…

If you have a house or apartment, you can have a sex party. And sex parties are great. Where on the “party” spectrum do sex parties fall? The idea might sound extreme or hard-core, but in truth, a sex party can feel more like a casual cocktail party among friends or, on the other end, like a bacchanal European sex club. You choose what you want. Sex parties are endlessly customizable, appealing to all ages and sexual orientations. They are accessible to singles and couples (depending on their openness — more on that later), and can be as vanilla or hard-core as you like. In a stranger turn of my life, I was the lead copywriter for a major sex toy company that I can’t name. But if you’re a…

Kicking off Pride Month in style, Out and its sister magazine The Advocate joined forces with GLAAD and Google Pixel to celebrate the #SeenonPixel program with PRIDE: A Night with Google Pixel + GLAAD + Out + The Advocate. Held on June 9 at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, the event brought together the diverse minds and personalities of the LGBTQ+ community in a sleek and tasteful rooftop bar setting, decorated in the current Google floral theme. Notable guests included Braunwyn Windham-Burke, Nick Adams, Christine Chiu, Shea Diamond, Raquel Willis, Mollee Gray, Jeka Jane, Kent Boyd, Wils, Robinick Fernandez, Howin Wong, Jacob Tobia, Vincint, Billie Lee, Greg Mathis Jr., Elliott Cooper, Bunny Barbie, Kodye Elyse, Anna Shumate, Kelsi Davies, Daniel Franzese, Gregory Zarian, and more. In a surprise teaser…

When Sarah Carson launched Leota, a 10-year old inclusive fashion brand, the queer founder wondered if being open about “being an inclusive, LGBTQ-owned brand” was “worth the risk of potentially losing customers?” She’d been out personally since she was 19 and kept her personal life quiet. “I’m not sure how much of it was sexism and how much of it was homophobia, but fear of both kept me compartmentalizing,” she says. “I found my covering to be exhausting and it made me angry after a while. It struck me as quite unfair that some people got to show up and be themselves and some of us had to leave a part of ourselves at the door. This inspired me as an entrepreneur. What if there were a workplace where you…

John Deeriere is a man of many contradictions, at least on the surface. He is at once wholesome and raunchy. He is both a top OnlyFans performer and an avid churchgoer. He is unabashedly and vocally queer as well as completely and totally embraced by his family and the rural Ohio area in which they live. He is, to some, the goal. “It’s weird to talk about John Deeriere as if it was a third person and not myself, but it’s what feels the most natural to me,” says Blake Jacobsen, the 29-year-old artist behind the persona. “He was a version of myself that I always wanted to be but didn’t think I could be.” For four years, Jacobsen built an aspirational alter ego of sorts under the name, itself…

Certified fitness coach Joe Andrews believes exercise should complement and improve your life — not take it over. The queer San Franciscan sees working out as part of a personal wellness routine nurtured year-round. In keeping with his approachable (and somewhat ribald!) social media presence, Andrews shares post-summer fitness advice that is informative and achievable. And make sure to follow him on Instagram (@rebel.warrior_x) for more pro tips. How can we keep up our regimens as the weather gets cooler? Many people work out for the summer and burn out in the fall because that approach to health and wellness is not sustainable. You gotta fall in love with the process and the journey of becoming stronger. Fitness, or health and wellness, is a lifestyle. If your “why” is just…