“Vibes. It’s all about the energy I share, the energy we share with one another. Whether in public or in private, in romance or otherwise. I think about the deepest times in my life and how I dealt with them through music with a bounce, catchy melodies and poetic sentiments.”
Shraya’s lyrics tease apart the ways in which trans girls’ emotional lives are drawings rendered in chiaroscuro, the play of light and shadow: The power and relief of discovering one’s identity in private intertwined with the pain of objectification and sexual violence.
Boy? Girl? BOY OR GIRL?
Defeating this bill is a matter of life and death to the transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex people of color who depend on Medicaid to survive.
“Soft butches everywhere? I don’t know what your heaven looks like, but this is mine.”
Scarlet isn’t interested in acquitting itself to any man. And as the magazine repeatedly rejects the reductive assumption that sex and feminism and fashion and politics can’t coexist, so does the show itself.
“Whether it’s metallic details, leather-y looks, or fabric that’s slashed or bound together with laces, Robbins often has a spectacular Mad Max: Thunderdome-type thing goin’ on. Hot.”
Claws is not Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is not Breaking Bad if Walter White isn’t a white man cloaked in respectability. You share that narrative through the eyes of a struggling black woman, a recent parolee, a recovering addict, a lesbian and a former sex worker, and the story changes completely.
I went all the way to New York to get in bed with Gabby Rivera last week, and we talked all about body image, summertime feelings, and America Chavez. It RULED.
I will not celebrate a country in which 11 of the 14 trans people of color murdered this year have been black women. I will not celebrate a country currently run by fascists and white supremacists. I will not eat your bland potato salad. I will not celebrate a country that does not celebrate me.
Beyoncé’s husband released a new album, but what I’m excited about is the track titled “Smile” where his mother, Gloria Carter, comes out as a lesbian.
As millions of people lined busy streets in gayborhoods across the world for Pride weekend, 1.7 billion people began celebrating Eid al-Fitr — where after a long hot month of fasting from dawn to sunset Muslims throw a three-day party (in some places it lasts over ten) celebrating community, good food and impeccable outfits. As two holidays intersected and Queer Muslims began celebrating life at the intersection, a new holiday was born: PrEIDe.
Hollywood’s reluctance to tell the stories of brown girls has always been rooted in — well, racism; but more precisely— the myth that white stories are neutral and, as such, are more relatable to the broader audience. Brown Girls disproves that myth, creating an imminently relatable coming-of-age story.
“The conference serves as a portal to collective dreaming and scheming where barriers become bridges to a more just future.”
“I loved the Church, and I loved the gospel. I was the kind of Mormon who politely dismissed myself from classrooms when teachers showed R-rated movies. At my first and only high school rager, I texted my mother to pick me up because I felt out of place amidst the drinking and smoking. That was me, Straight-Edge Dera, except apparently I wasn’t so straight.”
Unlike Orange Is the New Black, Queen Sugar’s approach to Black Lives Matter storytelling works because it doesn’t resort to excessive violence or torture porn to make its point.
In a time when the word “healing” feels thinner than ever, affixed as it is to too many pictures of skinny, silhouetted yogis on beaches, we need to reacquaint ourselves with the severity of that process. This book is a generous offering to a society that may not know what to do with it.
“It is, and I say this without any hyperbole or doubt, the closest I have EVER come on television to seeing a love that looks mine and looks like how I express it. Ever. Ever. EVER.”
“It’s important to honor and remember the 49 people who died one year ago today. We should remember their spirit and be moved to better support their communities in their honor without erasing all of their identities.”
This weekend, LA showed its pride by marching in resistance of oppression.