A brick appears in his hand as if by magic. This corn-fed white cis straight-passing Ken doll in a torn Gap T-shirt fresh off the bus from Indiana looks down, realizing that history has its eyes on him–not the gender-nonconforming street kids of color he just met and whose brick he just swiped. No, this … Continue reading
Happy Gay Pride, friends! Happy BIG 50 to the Stonewall Riots! I mean, Uprising. No, I mean, Rebellion! Yes, rebellion! The New York Times recently provided a series of pieces on the many conflicting narratives about Stonewall. Who threw the first brick–or stone–or rock–or coins? Surely, it wasn’t Roland Emmerich’s cornfed midwestern white boy laughably … Continue reading
The memorials in New York City that supposedly relate to the LGBTQ+ community are terrible. Uniformly god-awful. Just plain cringe-worthy. Epic fails. And that these opinionated observations aren’t even close to being controversial, just proves my point. Whether stymied by political posturing, proximity to real estate developer cash or just plain lack of aesthetics, New … Continue reading
“It might trigger an education!” quips Lady Bunny in her ongoing one-drag queen show Trans-Jester at Stonewall. While a punchline addressing the eye roll-inducing demand for trigger warnings in college classes (What book do you start with–Grapes of Wrath? That ending does deserve some sort of warning), Bunny could be referencing her entire show, which takes … Continue reading
Is it possible to look back to that gold lamé-draped, handlebar moustache-wearing, disco-dancing, cruising post-Stonewall era of the 1970s without the lens of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which would irrevocably alter the course of LGBTQ life? Can you look at artwork, photographs and other documentation from that decade without searching for the images and names of those who would disappear in the decades to come? Or of the others who would become continual caregivers to friends and lovers? Or the clubs, bathhouses, piers and others spaces that would be shuttered for fear of transmission? Continue reading