Out 297 June 2021 digital

JUNE 2021

PRIDE

BREAKING FREE WITH

JEREMY POPE

BY DANIEL REYNOLDS

HARVEY GUILLÉN STEVEN CANALS ANGELICA ROSS INDYA MOORE STEPHANIE BEATRIZ NAOMI ACKIE TODRICK HALL CHEF KYM NGUYEN

No 297

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contents

OUTMAGAZINE

COVER

ART & DESIGN

66 Simply by being himself,

Janania utilizes the beauty of nature to create surreal art.

JUST JEREMY

Hollywood star Jeremy Pope is changing what it means to be Black, queer, and gifted in the entertainment world. He talks about racism in the industry, gender fluidity, and coming out to his religious family.

FEATURES

30 COME OUT, COPENHAGEN This

year, all eyes are on Denmark’s capital city as it prepares to host WorldPride and the LGBTQ+ EuroGames.

34 THE FINAL SASHAY As groundbreaking series Pose heads toward its conclusion, creator Steven Canals and stars Angelica Ross and Indya Moore reflect on its cultural impact.

ST YLE & BEAUT Y

10 THROWING SHADE These hot sunglasses will keeping you looking cool all summer long.

58 METAMORPHOSIS

Todrick Hall teams up with Morphe to help LGBTQ+ youth.

60 SEXY SUNSHINE

The best skin care to own the summer heat.

80 LOUIS ON THE BEACH Sun, sand, and Louis Vuitton Men’s 2021 Spring Summer collection.

COMMUNIT Y

A centuries-old crystal maker gets a modern makeover.

96 GOT YOU COVERED Looking back on our fave Pride covers.

FOOD & TRAVEL

22 RETURN TO CRUISING Vacaya’s queer cruises are sexy and safe.

24 KICK IT IN THE KEYS The secluded beauty of the Key islands is just what we need.

46 THEY CAN COOK Meet Top

Chef’s first nonbinary contestant.

TV, FILM & BOOKS

42 BABY DADDIES A new book details how one loving throuple became a beautiful family.

44 GAY COUNTRY

Journalist Hunter Kelly reminds us how queer country music is.

50 LATINA LOVE

Stephanie Beatriz on playing the love interest of Daphne RubinVega in In The Heights.

52 MASTER OF THE HOUSE

Naomi Ackie takes on roles as Lena Waithe’s lover in Master of None, and as Whitney Houston in an upcoming biopic.

LOVE & LIFEST YLE

33 NYC PRIDE This year, Pride takes on a speical meaning.

venturers found love in NYC.

Lovitz bring change to the City of Brotherly Love? june 2021

18 THE CRYSTAL METHOD

32 AN EPIDEMIC EVOLVES One organization reflects on 40 years of HIV and what’s to come.

48 FIXING PHILLY Can Jonathan

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14 BONITA BOTANICA Artist Lutfi

54 THE FIRST BITE

What We Do in the Shadow’s Harvey Guillén recalls finding his “tribe” in theater.

28 OUT WEDDINGS These two 92 HOROSCOPES

See what’s in store for you this summer.

94 LAST CALL

Has the pandemic killed kink or just changed it?

LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S 70s Peak Lapel Jacket, Distorted Dornier lntarsia Turtleneck, and LV Distorted Sunglasses Photographer E A S T ON S CHIR R A Model E R IK S AT HR UM

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editor’s letter

OUTMAGAZINE

Time to Fly...

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In my life, birds have always represented hope, rebirth, and the start of a new chapter. I’ve thought a lot about this in recent weeks as memories of last year’s Pride month continue to flood my mind with both grief and renewed purpose. In June 2020, the Black Lives Matter protests permeated our lives at the same time Pride marches turned virtual, many small LGBTQ+ businesses were foreclosed, and we were either forced to the frontlines or into quarantine away from our chosen families due to safety precautions. At the time, there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. A lot has happened in a year.

For nearly 15 months, most of us have stayed connected with our loved ones through Facetime or Zoom. Now, after a tumultuous election and a committed vaccine rollout plan, we’re breaking free of our screens and stepping our sexy toes back in the real world — and it feels so good!

Of course, we at Out magazine don’t reserve Pride to a single month. Living out loud, honoring our queerness, and fighting for equality and justice is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. But this year is clearly different. A new wave of questions have emerged as we crawl out of our laptops: What will my community look like now?

Will the world embrace me differently? What kind of person will I be? What kind of life do I want to live?

The truth is, yes, life is always going to be full of questions, but the joy comes in the search to find those answers. That journey is what inspired this issue.

I can’t think of a better person to grace the cover than Jeremy Pope. In his queerest photo spread to date, the Hollywood and Pose star, who’s set to play Sammy Davis Jr. in the Janet Mock-directed biopic, Scandalous!, took control of the creation himself. Alongside his devoted squad, the actor opens up to writer Daniel Reynolds about life in quarantine, how his family came to terms with his sexuality, and the experience of being a gay Black actor in Hollywood (page 66).

Plus, our in-house astrologer Cary Chandler takes a nosedive into Pope’s birth chart to find what makes him tick. What she discovered may surprise you. (Read it on page 92.)

As some chapters begin, there are also several that are closing. On page 34, writer Tre’vell Anderson speaks on the legacy of Pose, one of the most groundbreaking shows in recent history documenting the Black trans experience.

Currently airing its final season on FX, the Steven Canalsco-created show birthed stars like Mj Rodriguez, Ryan Jamaal Swain, Dominique Jackson, Angelica Ross, and

Indya Moore. It won an Emmy Award for Billy Porter, the first out gay Black man to win the honor. Like other queer shows before it, Pose will live forever in television history and will undoubtedly inspire future queer storytellers. For the record: our stories are, in fact, bankable. Never forget that.

With this issue you can be inspired by What We Do in the Shadows star Harvey Guillén, who writes about collecting bottles when he was 6 years old to pay for acting classes (page 54) or get hungry reading about how London-born chef Kym Nguyen became Top Chef ’s first nonbinary contestant in the franchise’s history (page 46). I’m encouraged by journalists like Hunter Kelly who documents queer artists bursting on the country music scene for Apple’s Proud Radio (page 44), daring to bridge its historically conservative audience with today’s progressive listeners.

In a nutshell, if you’d have told me last year that for this year’s Pride month, we’d all have access to the COVID-19 vaccine, that our lives would be returning to a somewhat normal state, and that art, culture, and fashion would be seeing a resurgence (check out our Venice Beach shoot highlighting Louis Vuitton’s latest collection on page 80), I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are.

The birds are chirping, honey. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and it’s certainly a new life. Enjoy it, friends. It’s the only one we have. Stay safe!

Sincerely yours,

David Artavia

Editor in chief

L UK E F ON TA N A

june 2021

One of my favorite parts of summer is waking up to the sound of birds. It reminds me of when my family and I would vacation at a Texas lake near an old dirt road. I remember waking up to the smell of buttered jam biscuits, sunlight at the foot of my bed, and an orchestra of birds that seemed to be chirping only for me.

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Go ahead. Rock the boat.

Here in Key West, we show our Pride 365 days a year. But each and every June, we literally go all out. Key West Pride is back. And this year’s celebration of LGBTQ+ freedom and diversity is one gala you won’t want to miss. From pool parties and street fairs to a drag brunch, wine tastings and the unhinged Fetish Ball, one thing’s for sure. Key West Pride will leave you even prouder than you were before. fla-keys.com/gaykeywest 305.294.4603 For the latest protocols on health & safety in The Florida Keys, please visit our website.

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Key West Pride June 2-6, 2021 keywestpride.org

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This Pride season, support LGBTQ+ health and wellness with a “Healthcare for Every Body” t-shirt featuring original art by illustrator Ben Wiseman! Visit callen-lorde.org/shop.

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OUTMAGAZINE JOE VALENTINO Executive Vice President, Group Publisher, and Corporate Sales

DAVID ARTAVIA Editor in Chief

STUART BROCKINGTON Vice President, Brand Partnerships and Associate Publisher

EDITORIAL Mikelle Street Digital Director Marco Medrano Grooming & Beauty Editor Trudy Ring Senior Copy Editor Desirée Guerrero Managing Editor Donald Padgett Associate Editor Mey Rude Staff Writer

BRAND PARTNERSHIPS Jamie Tredwell Director, Brand Partnerships Michael Lombardo Creative Director, Brand Partnerships Tim Snow Senior Manager, Brand Partnerships Dean Fryn Manager, integrated sales & Brand Partnerships Keighton Li Coordinator, Advertising & Brand Partnerships

CONTRIBUTORS Barry Hoy, Dan Clapson, Tre’vell Anderson, Cary Chandler, Harvey Guillén, Alexander Cheves ART Raine Bascos Executive Creative Director Ben Ward Art Director Christopher Harrity Editor at Large Digital Art PRINT PRODUCTION John Lewis Production Director Jacob Anderson-Minshall Production Editor PRIDE MEDIA EDITORIAL Tracy E. Gilchrist Editor in Chief, The Advocate John Casey Editor at Large, The Advocate Neal Broverman Editor in Chief, Plus and Editor in Chief, Advocate.com Jacob Anderson-Minshall Editor in Chief, Out Traveler Raffy Ermac Editor in Chief, Pride Daniel Reynolds Digital Director, Pride and Senior Editor, Advocate.com Taylor Henderson Deputy Editor, Pride Jeffrey Masters Director of Podcasts and Special Projects EDITORIAL Email letters@out.com SUBSCRIBER SERVICES (212) 920-2844

ADVERTISING Stewart Nacht Senior Director, Ad Operations Tiffany Kesden Manager, Ad Operations DIGITAL Eric Bui Vice President, Technology & Development Laura Villela Digital Media Manager Christine Linnell Social Media Manager Javy Rodriguez Social Media Editor CIRCULATION Argus Galindo Director of Circulation FINANCE / ACCOUNTING Betsy Skidmore Vice President, Finance Lorelie Yu Accounts Receivable Controller Paulette Kadimyan Accounting Manager

DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL Chief Executive Officer and Editorial Director

Tank Top MENAGERIÉ INTIMATES Pearl Necklace DIOR Gloves MENAGERIÉ INTIMATES Rings MCKENZIE LIAUTAUD Pants

MENAGERIÉ INTIMATES

Creative Director & Talent JEREMY POPE Photographer SOPHIE CHAN ANDRE ASSEND

LOS ANGELES ADVERTISING P.O. Box 241579, Los Angeles, CA 90024 Phone (310) 806-4288 Fax (310) 806-4268 Email adinfo@out.com NEW YORK ADVERTISING P.O. Box 2660, New York, NY 10108 Phone (212) 242-8100 Fax (212) 242-8338 Email adinfo@out.com Out is a registered trademark of Pride Publishing Inc. ©2021 Pride Publishing Inc. Founders Michael Goff, Bob Hardman

June 2021. Volume 29, Number 6 Out (ISSN 1062-7928) is published six times a year by Pride Media, P.O. Box 241579, Los Angeles, CA 90024. Telephone: (310) 806-4288. Entire contents © 2021 Pride Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

Reproductions in whole or in part without express permission of the publisher are strictly prohibited. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Subscription rate: $19.95 per year. Annual subscription rate outside the U.S.: $54, payable in U.S. currency only. Postmaster: Send changes of address to Out magazine, PO Box 2660 New York, NY 10108. Out is distributed to newsstands by Curtis Circulation Co. Printed in the United States of America.

SUPPORT QUEER MEDIA — ­ OUT.COM/SUBSCRIBE AVAILABLE IN PRINT & DIGITAL EDITIONS One Year Six Issues For $19.95 When Ordering Add THE ADVOCATE For The Best Deal Of $29.95

june 2021

For new subscriptions, renewals, bill payments, and address changes Go to Out.com/Services. To contact us go to Out.com/subcontact Or write to: Customer Service, Pride Publishing Inc, PO Box 2660, New York, NY 10108 out.com

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BARTON PERREIRA These brilliant Akahi Sulcata Heroine Chic/ Julep sunglasses combine a classic silhouette with luminous colors and make my no makeup, no filter, bedhead days still look polished. ($430) bartonperreira.com.com

EXPRESS YOURSELF SLIP ON THE GENDER-NEUTRAL SUNGLASSES WE’RE DIGGING THIS SUMMER.

SUPREME inside out wool sweater

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by diane anderson-minshall photographer santiago garfunkel model micaela eyewear courtesy luxottica

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Lots of names are making offbeat fashion choices and you know what? I love it! rn atte et p t. r f s k ree owie its G its sh h t wi ce at air, E SAC 401 p Versa om R E V VE4 sa, is ut.c This Medu glassh and 0) sun ($23

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picks

From the revived Prada Linea Rossa line comes another ’90s-inspired frame while Italian luxury brand Persol (one of the oldest eyewear makers in the world) topped their evolutionary Steve McQueen model with a runway of new shades.

Barton Perreira’s new Akahi Sulcata Tortoise/Smokey Topaz frames redefine gender neutral to include big and bold like never before and their tortoise counterpart (left) are my new summer obsession. But they get a run for the money from this season’s other hot models:

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PRADA LINEA ROSSA This PS01XS frame screams precision and tech, making them perfect for summer sports. ($300) sunglasshut.com

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P ER S O L Their whole spring P 0 3 26 1 / angle S perfectly summer lin s, and e is cla comb t in ($260 ) pers hose paten e new colo ssy as hell, ol.com bu ted fle r xible M s, offbeat r t the et eflect o tem ro ples.

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home “Creating a new world is a constant exercise in my work...”

NATURE’S GIFTS

june 2021

Lutfi Janania’s botanical sculptures are a representation of the earth’s precious offerings.

by david artavia photographer ricardo rivera 14

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Honduran botanical artist Lutfi Janania knows how to create opulence using distinguished dry and dehydrated natural materials that convey a sense of multiple spaces between life, the divine, and ourselves. Creating these magical designs from his Brooklyn studio, the queer creator pushes boundaries with his handcrafted sculptures through his design studio, Rosalila, which showcases and sells his most recent works.

Out sat down with the designer to talk about what inspires his artistry. Check out a selection of his work below.

Out: What drew you to botanical design? I’ve been surrounded by nature for as long as I can remember. I was fortunate to grow up in a bio reserve in Honduras and was able to be in touch with this kind of beauty firsthand. This luscious, tropical environment was the backdrop of my childhood and informed my ongoing sense of curiosity. I spent hours in the adventurous rainforest, falling in love with the natural curves and unusual shapes of the trees and flowers in my backyard. I found beauty in the unexpected — in what was alive and what was no longer. As a queer person growing up in a conservative country, I was able to create my own universe through the fantasy of the natural world.

It wasn’t until I decided to leave the fashion industry that I discovered botanical design as an art form. It all happened very organically. I was styling for editorial shoots and using flowers as accents and backdrops and realized that my passion for creating fantasy through experiences could be harnessed through botanical design. One thing led to another and I founded my design studio, Rosalila (Rosalila.co). Today we work with botanicals and flora to create objects, sculptures, and installations.

june 2021

What inspires your work? My inspiration is rooted in nature, always. That is where it starts, and then I begin to create new worlds. For me, fantasy and experience drive everything we do. Even as a child, I always sought to explore something new and outside of my day-to-day life, perhaps out of survival, but that ultimately led me to this creative exercise. I want my work to evoke emotion, whether that’s joy or longing or sorrow, and to capture memories through physicality. The otherworldly pieces are meant to be a portal to another world, a surreal one — a new place entirely that is romantic, adventurous, and unlike anything you’ve experienced before.

My time in the fashion industry was hugely informative to my process, both in terms of inspiration and execution.

Through fashion, I learned construction, color, and texture, all of which are crucial elements to my work.

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Corallia ▲

What I love about this piece is its versatility. As one of our core offerings for interior design clients, the Corallia is available in three sizes, depending on the client’s space and budget. It was born out of our partnership with the Rockaway Hotel and is an exploration into the main inspirations I take from my home in Honduras. The pumice base ref lects the beaches of my town, while the dehydrated grasses represent the lush vegetation. Photography by @maksimaxelrod

The Mirror ▼ Creating a new world is a constant exercise in my work. For me, the mirror looks to provide the viewer the ability to be in touch with their own fantasy. It is a portal to another world but also a reflection of what’s inside the viewer from their own eyes. The exuberance of the palm leaf fibers aims to frame the viewer with a sense of joy and curiosity, something that I often try to evoke across my body of work. Photography by @equatorproductions. Housed by @ashya.co

What are you most excited about in the coming year? The past year and several months have been incredibly challenging. To put it simply, I’m looking forward to continuing to create objects and sculptures that will live in people’s homes across the world. I see it as a way of sharing my vision and passion for beauty, inviting people to experience my fantasy world. That is indeed very real for me. I have several projects in progress and the studio has never been busier, so I am deeply fortunate to be looking towards the future with optimism and enthusiasm for what’s ahead. @lutfi_janania

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Leafy Seadragon This sculpture, to me, is the very essence of what we do at Rosalila. With hand-preserved botanicals, manzanita wood branches, and crystals, the piece explores negative space, grandeur, and fantasy with an emotional connection.

I’m really proud of the collaboration that went into it. I worked with a family-owned fabricator in Queens to create the Italian rainforest marble base and a metalworker in Brooklyn to weld the brass stand before creating the botanical work in our studio.

Photography by @ojeras.pm

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Whip out the Baccarat, honey, because it’s having a comeback thanks to its rock star CEO.

@baccarat

Pictured: Baccarat’s Pride promotion “COLOR OF LOVE” (top right) utilizes the rainbow across several categories including décor and glassware, while the company’s recent pieces — light fixtures, sculptures, and more — unite the past, present, and future in a dignified, refined way.

june 2021

Jim Shreve, the gay president and CEO of Baccarat, North America, has spent the last five years rejuvenating the 257-year-old French-based company to bridge the gaps between old and new, luxury and necessity, niche and mainstream. A former executive at Diesel and Façonnable, Shreve has used his fashion background as well as his own life experiences with his partner of 25 years, Mark Brashear, the first gay executive at Nordstrom, to create new lines of products, marketing campaigns, and internal business structures that appeal to younger customers and a more “cool” crowd.

Still, despite the shift in creative direction at Baccarat, including exciting collaborations with Martha Stewart and a few unnamed 20-something superstars set to announce later this year, Shreve almost didn’t take the job when he was first offered it in 2016. It wasn’t until he received encouragement from Brashear that he accepted the position, which was fitting given that Shreve’s plan to reshape Baccarat mirrors the couple’s own trajectory with the brand.

“Mark and I have owned Baccarat for many years,” says Shreve. “We bought it 25 years ago and all we could afford were six glasses. Then at the next dinner party, we had eight people and were like, ‘Oh my god, what do we do?’ I wanted new champagne flutes and I didn’t want Baccarat because I felt it was at Macy’s and it was overexposed and you could get it marked down. I didn’t want it. So [in 2016] I said to my boss that I really wanted to put some shine back on this brand and wake the Sleeping Beauty up. I look at it as a consumer, what’s desirable to us, so I started doing stuff that made it desirable for me and made it desirable for my friends.”

For Shreve, it was not about changing the integrity of the product itself, but rather how we use it. Two years ago, for example, the company joined forces with Lady M for the world’s first luxury cake truck, with stunning Baccarat chandeliers hanging from both sides. New shifts of high-end events (pre-pandemic) to switch from glass plates to Baccarat plates have also helped those efforts as well as recent promotions introducing bold new designs.

Though Baccarat products have been associated with the wealthy for over 250 years, Shreve’s plan is to make luxury more accessible to the everyday person by intersecting the concepts of splurging on expensive gadgets and accessories with that of crystal décor.

“As Americans we are very good at exposing our passions,” he says. “My shirt today is a name brand and we’re not afraid to wear that. We have fancy cars. We have the gold and nice jewelry and all this stuff. We’re not afraid to show this, but within our homes we don’t take care of ourselves. Coming from fashion, I wear sweats at home that aren’t designer sweats because no one sees me. Who needs designer sweats? Why waste money? It’s the same with our plates and our glassware. I have an obsession for fashion and clothes. I used to work at Diesel so I have a lot of denim. But why do we have one set of plates?

Some days I don’t feel like eating off white. Some days I want to eat off blue. The answer is always space, so I get it, but our closets are also space constrained. Yet, we have one glass and one plate and one fork. I don’t need variety; I need change.

So I think how we look at ourselves in the home should [evolve].”

Shreve is making big changes behind the scenes as well, hiring a forward-thinking team that ref lects today’s cultural mindset and society — from the processes in which they hire internally to how they’re directing their inclusive visual campaigns.

“It’s having an open mind,” he says of the creative process. “Whether we’re talking about a social issue, whether we’re talking about a like or dislike or a comic book or a sweater, let’s not judge everything. Let’s learn. Let’s have a desire to learn in new, different ways.”

“I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care how tall, how short you are. If you like beautiful things, you are our demographic.

And because you like beautiful things, you can aspire and desire,” Shreve says. “For me, if I can help impact one person by showing them and exposing them to something that they didn’t think about before, we’ve done a good job.”

“...because you like beautiful things, you can aspire and desire.”

For many of us, crystal has been associated with a “look, don’t touch” policy. Though gorgeous to observe and feel, my family treated crystal as a special affair meant only for weddings and holidays, tucked away in my grandmother’s display case. But, thankfully, that was then and this is now.

home

CRYSTAL CLEAR

by david artavia product photography by philippe garcia jim shreve photograhy by chris chapman out.com

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If you want to plan your next memorable getaway, you better book now.

TAKE ME AWAY!

R OM A S P HO T O / S HU T T E R S T OCK (S UN S E T )

You’re not the only one dusting off your suitcases and dreaming of future getaways.

It’s never too early to start planning your next trip — but if you’re truly looking to relax, why not do it with your queer fam?

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sponsored content photographer gabriel goldberg

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travel ships ahoy!

“It’s so exciting the LGBTQ+ community is leading the way in bringing travel back,” says Vacaya CEO Randle Roper. “And during Pride Month, all of us here at Vacaya are so proud of the work we’ve done in leading that charge and advancing LGBTQIAPK unity. For so long, we’ve been segregated into our own tribes — only really coming together with any consistency during Pride month. With Vacaya’s mission to throw the doors of LGBTQ+ travel wide open to our entire community, we all get to unite regularly throughout the year as we travel the world together.”

“Vacaya continues to push the bounds of what’s possible, with nearly every cruise or resort adventure we do being a first in the world of LGBTQ+ travel,” adds Vacaya chief marketing officer Patrick Gunn. “From our takeover of P-town’s historic inns this month for our Summer Jamboree [June 14 to 20]; our circumnavigation of Iceland [September 3 to 10]; our Mexico Resort holiday over Halloween and Day of the Dead [October 30 to

November 6]; and our New Orleans River Cruise [the first U.S.-based river cruise, November 14 to 22], to our 2022 lineup of trips including our Caribbean Cruise [January 10 to 17, 2022], Seychelles Cruise [February 15 to 23, 2022], Costa Rica Resort [June 5 to 12, 2022], Greek Isles Cruise [August 18 to 25, 2022], and our Antarctica Cruise [December 6 to 17, 2022], Vacaya is resetting the bar for LGBTQ+ travel, fulfilling bucket list travel dreams trip after trip!”

MyVacaya.com Opposite: Vacaya’s first charter in 2019 with Celebrity Cruises Above: Two travelers being cheeky at the outdoor showers on the pool deck Below: Kristin Chenoweth takes the stage on Vacaya’s first charter out of Provincetown

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R OM A S P HO T O / S HU T T E R S T OCK (S UN S E T )

Leading LGBTQ+ travel company Vacaya has seen record-breaking bookings for its trips since the U.S. election and vaccination news turned the tide on travelers’ perspectives.

That being said, its travel packages are exactly what we need to start our postpandemic life on the right track.

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travel | south florida Nothing like a trip to the Keys, darling.

The closest you can get to a Caribbean vacation without leaving the U.S. is on the strip of land between Key Largo and Key West, a chain of tropical islands that stretch 120 miles off the tip of Florida, with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. by diane anderson-minshall

A New Way to Vacay

june 2021

Our newest hotspot is Playa Largo Ocean Residences, an exclusive gated enclave of private vacation houses with distinct Florida Keys architecture that’s part of—but secluded from—Playa Largo Resort & Spa.

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These new vacation rentals utilize gorgeous designs (with Florida’s indigenous materials like capiz shell, sponges, and coral rocks) and they sit directly across from the resort, between a nature preserve and the Atlantic Ocean. These new three and four-bedroom Ocean Residences offer all the perks and privacy of a home of your dreams including private pools, lux soaking tubs, and huge kitchen and dining areas. Plus, it has the benefit of resort chefs and servers who’ll come cook for you or at least pre-stock the kitchen with your favorite foods.

But this isn’t your bro’s Airbnb. These rental homes are perfect for our socially distanced times. With contact-free check in, you can drive in and interact with no one your whole visit if you prefer. But being attached to a world-class resort offers all the extra perks you may desire when you travel. Playa Largo Resort & Spa has three restaurants, including Sol by the Sea on the water and Las Olas – the Upper Keys’ first ceviche bar – along with a zero-entry pool, fitness center, sports courts, the Ocean spa, beachfront hammocks and fire pits, and a marina with lots of watersport options. (Best bets include the excellent eco tours and parasailing trips with Caribbean Watersports.)

If you want to skip all that, you can at Ocean Residences.

The exclusive enclave has its own clubhouse and plunge pool that you rent for destination wedding parties and the resort team can curate bespoke experiences. (One option is a cocktail party pairing rum tastings and Cuban cigar rolling.) Every

COUR T E S Y K E Y L A R GO R E S OR T (O T HE R S); DI A NE A NDE R S ON MIN S H A L L (K AYA K )

From a world famous Key Largo resort comes a secluded enclave of rentals that’s a bit like a vacation friend with benefits.

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39 MILES AWAY...

On the secluded island of Duck Key, the 60-acre HAWKS CAY RESORT is home to a pod of bottlenose dolphins in their natural environment. Hawkscay.com

16 MILES AWAY...

ISLAMORADA BREWERY & DISTILLERY boasts an array of made on site IPAs and spirits. Grab a tasting flight in the beer garden and have the most fun.

Islamoradabreweryanddistillery.com

residence gets a picnic basket of continental breakfast each morning and a private chef can come in and cook your meals if you ask. Love to fish? They’ll cook your catch, too!

Of course, I could spend weeks here. This is a place stocked with my favorite foods where the concierge has prepped everything my dog needs for a week away from home, in a private three-story Keys house on the ocean where I can also ask someone to draw me a mermaid bath, teach me yoga poses on my private deck, and queue up old episodes of The Wire on HBO while I eat mangos someone else has sliced for me. But, while it’s more affordable than many private residence rentals ($900 a night) it’s more expensive than this gal can afford for a month-long workation. Alas, I went home full of fun, drinks, and photos to brag about. OceanResidencesVacations.com and PlayaLargoResort.com Opposite: A kayaker on the water at Playa Largo Resort & Spa during their Eventide celebration Above: Views from the resort Right: A seductive balcony at Ocean Residences

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4/29/21 11:58 AM

by barry hoy

june 2021

At the end of the Florida Keys, the southernmost point of the continental United States, is a colorful tropical LGBTQ+ paradise: Key West. The Florida Keys begin at the edge of the Florida peninsula and stretch 113 miles across a series of islands connected by bridges to the tiny island town that is only 90 miles north of Cuba (closer than Miami).

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Key West has always been an open-minded, inclusive community that is friendly and welcoming to LGBTQ+ people. It doubled down on that in 2000 when “One Human Family” became Key West’s official motto, which eventually became adopted by the rest of the Keys. In fact, Key West was one of the first municipalities in the U.S. to elect an out gay mayor and has since had a number of out elected officials. The island’s “come as you are” atmosphere allows queer visitors to be out and proud. And believe me, they are.

There are many hotels, bars, and clubs that welcome everyone, but cater primarily to the LGBTQ+ community.

Equator Resort (EquatorResort.com) is an all-male, clothing-optional resort that is tucked away in the heart of Old Town Key West and prides itself on guest privacy as well as being a place where you can connect with others. Island House (IslandHouseKeyWest.com) is another men-only, clothing-optional resort with a new

café, bar, and health club. The Marker Key West Harbor Resort (TheMarkerKeyWest.com), located on the pristine waterfront of Key West’s historic seaport, is welcoming to all and offers luxuriously appointed guest rooms.

Duval is the main street in Key West and the heart of all nightlife and activity on the island. Most of the gay nightlife is in the “pink triangle” area, around the 700 and 800 blocks of the iconic Duval Street. This is also home to the permanent rainbow crosswalks. The most popular nightclub is the Aqua Key West (AquaKeyWest. com), dubbed the “Aquaplex” because it includes a side bar, back bar, Poke in the Rear (food stand), and the main stage where the club hosts sold-out drag performances every evening. Along the strip, you can also check out 801 Bourbon Bar, Bourbon Street Pub, Bobby’s Monkey Bar, and One Saloon.

If you are looking for a paradise full of life, sun, and fun, Key West is the key (pun intended). In between the beach, bars, and restaurants, you will always have something exciting to experience — clothing or no clothing!

BARRY HOY is a travel, food, and lifestyle writer who showcases great destinations, their local experiences, and all of the must see places around the world. If he’s not travelling, he’s most likely already planning his next trip. @asianmapleleaf

COUR T E S Y B A R R Y HOY A ND T E R A J (COUP L E ); COUR T E S Y M A R K E R K E Y W E S T H A R B OR R E S OR T ( T OP R IGH T )

The Gayest Little Town in Florida

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4/28/21 2:32 PM

Opposite: The author (left) and his boyfriend Teraj, enjoying the sun in Key West Right: The Marker Key West Harbor Resort Below: The couple having fun on a jet ski

160 MILES AWAY...

PALACE BAR is a Miami Beach staple popular for its drag brunches, all day-breakfast, bar food, and cocktails.

PalaceSouthBeach.com HOTEL GAYTHERING is located in the heart of a Miami Beach gayborhood, catering exclusively to queer guests. Gaythering.com

190 MILES AWAY...

ROSIE’S BAR AND GRILL is a gay bar that has a quirky and festive environment with comfort food.

RosiesBNG.com

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june 2021

HAULOVER NUDE BEACH is Florida’s best-known and oldest officially recognized public nude beach, located between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. HauloverBeach.org

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4/28/21 2:32 PM

by mikelle street photographer ellie mckinney

Love In The City A chance meeting in the Big Apple was only the beginning for this couple.

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weddings “It means the world to us to be married and legally be seen as one...”

Adrienne and Brittany Glover’s love story begins in a New York City nightclub, an unlikely place given that neither of them were from the Big Apple. Adrienne was from Philadelphia and Brittany from North Carolina, and yet they found themselves in the right place and time...

june 2021

“I said to a friend how gorgeous I thought Brittany was and he encouraged me to go talk to her and I did,” Adrienne recalls of that first meeting out at a gay bar. “I walked over to her and just started talking. She dissed my drink, but I didn’t mind.”

Brittany was actually on her way out, but not before the pair exchanged numbers.

When Adrienne invited her to brunch the next day, Brittany was already on a plane back home. It was gearing up to be “the one who got away” kind of fairytale, but not this time. The pair married October 2020 and now live together in the Southern state.

The two were engaged in the fall of 2019. It was a private affair, with Brittany popping the question during their morning routine. While the couple generally hugs and kisses every morning, this time, Brittany was bearing a ring when she asked Adrienne to be her wife.

After a tearful “Yes,” and a long chat, Brittany ran her bride-to-be a bath while a private chef poured champagne and cooked a luxurious brunch. Now that’s love.

“Our original plan was to elope in May but to have a small celebration by the fall with family and friends,” Adrienne says. “Once COVID hit, it felt better to postpone the elopement and cancel the celebration with friends and family.”

The two were married in a private ceremony planned by The Gathering Co., a local wedding planning and coordinating company. Calvin Lockett sang their favorite songs and the newlyweds “danced and drank and ate like royalty.”

“It means the world to us to be married and legally be seen as one but we have been a strong unit for a long time,” Adrienne says. “This was just a celebration for the two of us.”

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4/28/21 5:48 PM

world pride

by david artavia

june 2021

Global Citizenry 30

After a devastating year, queer activists will unite in Copenhagen to speak out and build bridges.

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4/28/21 7:19 AM

COUR T E S Y L E F È V R E (L E F È V R E ); COP E NH A GE N , DE NM A R K DR A G NIGH T A C T IONP I X / S HU T T E R S T OCK (B A CKGR OUND)

As the world continues to recover from the trauma of 2020 and Pride flags begin to unfurl across gayborhoods foreign and domestic, all eyes are on Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. Both cities will host WorldPride. Copenhagen will also host EuroGames, an LGBTQ+ sporting event that draws thousands of open-minded, free-spirited athletes and fans every year. However, this year’s WorldPride is particularly meaningful.

For the first time, WorldPride will use its platform to raise awareness of injustices across the globe, particularly as it pertains to equality, queer migrants, transgender rights, and discrimination. While there have been similar forums at past WorldPride events in New York, Madrid, and Toronto, it’s never been integrated within the general program as it is this year.

The Human Rights Conference, a three-day event from August 17 to 19 in Copenhagen and broadcast virtually, aims to be the most significant LGBTQ+ conference this year, featuring African-born activist and journalist Omayra Issa as host. In partnership with the United Nations, the event will have speeches, panels, and breakout sessions with dignitaries to discuss the problems LGBTQ+ people face around the world — and most importantly, what we can do to solve them.

“The pandemic has shown the entire world that freedom and liberty can be taken away from anybody, at any stage, at any time,” says Aron le Fèvre, director of human rights at Copenhagen 2021 (pictured). “We want to use the forum to magnify issues the community faces around the world, focusing on agenda points that we share with a lot of executive partners and international organizations — for instance, decriminalization, banning conversion therapy, the rise of LGBTQ+ refugees, and parliamentary cooperation. Those are elements that are extremely important on a world level.”

Le Fèvre, whose résumé includes a stint with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he found his calling as an LGBTQ+ activist, explains that now is the moment for us to seize an opportunity to change hearts, minds, and systemic injustices.

“In over 70 countries, the community is still being put in prison for being [LGBTQ+]. Twelve countries are still sentencing community members to death,” he explains. “It’s very important we’re making sure the focus on human rights is not getting lost somewhere in all the other events being organized. The money that we use for an event like WorldPride is money we could otherwise have been using to develop and support communities in the global south. It is the responsibility of organizers of these kinds of events all over the world to make sure this message keeps on popping up. Governments are also extremely important, and we’re very lucky to have a pro-LGBTQ+ government in the United States right now, but it’s also quite a burden. There’s some weight on the shoulders of the United States government because they are a country in the world that has the most power to get this message out there and to put pressure on countries that are not obeying these basic human rights.” Copenhagen2021.com

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3/18/21 9:42 AM

40 Years of HIV

Gay Men’s Health Crisis started as one of the only national agencies helping people living with HIV. Now, thanks to partners like NYC Pride, it continues that fight with a little extra flair.

Forty years ago, an unnamed illness began to disproportionately impact members of the LGBTQ+ community, specifically gay and bisexual men.

The disease, which later became known as AIDS, caused by a virus dubbed HIV, devastated our community, becoming the leading cause of death for men between 25 and 44 in 1992. During the 1980s and early 1990s, those diagnosed were largely ignored by the medical and political establishments and were often shunned by family, employers, and health care providers. Despite the lack of support from our government, our organizations rose to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters who desperately needed support.

Before there was a name for HIV or government money to research it, Gay Men’s Health Crisis became the first to mobilize a community and provide treatment, care, and prevention education. From the beginning, GMHC knew HIV was not just a medical issue but that it had psychological and social implications as well. At the height of the epidemic, GMHC served one in four New Yorkers living with HIV. This year, 40 years after the first

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confirmed case of the disease in the United States, it continues the fight as one of the leading organizations dedicated to end the epidemic in our lifetime — but the journey wasn’t easy.

Out spoke with Kelsey Louie, GMHC’s CEO (top right), and Krishna Stone (top left), a revered HIV activist and GMHC’s director of community relations who is featured in NYC Pride’s 2021 visual campaign, to discuss the 40th year of the HIV epidemic, Pride, and their hopes for a post-pandemic world.

Out: It’s hard to believe that this June marks the 40th year of the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Tell me more about the evolution of GMHC and how the agency has evolved.

Kelsey Louie: Throughout the 1980s and much of the ’90s, the disease devastated the city’s gay, bisexual, and trans communities. In addition to a hotline where people could obtain accurate information about HIV, GMHC launched the nation’s first peer support program for people living with HIV/AIDS called the Buddy Program. Volunteers, many living with HIV themselves, helped clients with everyday tasks such as shopping, laundry, dog walking, as well as providing companionship. Buddies also acted as intermediaries when

people living with HIV or AIDS were turned away from hospitals or refused services from other agencies. The Buddy Program set the stage for GMHC to implement an array of psychosocial and advocacy services for their clients, including financial, legal, counseling, and home care. GMHC’s comprehensive approach endures today and includes prevention, care, advocacy, and research. Our model has helped inform the design of other HIV/AIDS service programs around the world. The agency’s contributions have helped reduce the number of new [HIV diagnoses] in New York City to below 2,000 in 2019 for the first time in decades. While HIV continues to disproportionately affect the LGBTQ+ community, the epidemic is now concentrated in Black, brown, and low-income communities. In addition, people ages 50 years and older now account for the largest demographic of people living with HIV. By 2025, they are expected to account for 60 percent. Our programs will continue to evolve to meet the needs of this community and also those who continued to be affected by HIV. Krishna Stone: I remember in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, there were so many people dying and too many memorial services to attend.

4/28/21 2:33 PM

This year’s Pride is particularly meaningful given the year we’ve had. What does Pride mean to you?

KL: Pride is immensely important to raise awareness about HIV and the services that GMHC provides. While we have much to celebrate with the continual decline in new [infections], the epidemic is not over. Our participation in Pride also provides an opportunity to connect people with our prevention programs. Each year when the event can be held in person, we offer free HIV testing and distribute prevention education materials and information about our services. In addition to the Manhattan Pride events, we participate in many of the Pride events in the five boroughs. It also serves as a time to celebrate being LGB and T as well as all of the progress we have made, and to remember and honor the pioneers, activists, and brave people who have made having LGBTQ+ pride possible.

KS: Each year I coordinate GMHC’s participation in the annual Pride events, including parades and a march, rallies, festivals, and more.

I have also volunteered as one of the announcers along the route of the NYC Pride march for over 20 years, sending out unconditional love to hundreds of thousands of people each year. In 2017, I had the extraordinary honor of being one of four grand marshals for the NYC Pride March. Yes, I am royalty! I

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also represent GMHC in the annual Pride parades and festivals in the boroughs outside of Manhattan.

What are you hopeful for this year?

KL: I’m hopeful that we can reopen our facility sometime later this year and resume in-person services. I am proud that our staff has been able to continue meeting the needs of our clients during the pandemic.

While we’re staying connected to our clients through weekly wellness checks, we know the sense of community that characterizes GMHC has been diminished due to the lack of in-person interactions during the pandemic. I’m also hopeful that the new Biden-Harris administration will continue to restore the values of compassion, tolerance, and social justice, while refocusing attention and resources on what it will take to end the AIDS epidemic. Their leadership will hopefully help all of us heal from the deep wounds created by the previous administration, and we will see an end to the violence against Black people, Asians, and other groups.

KS: I very much look forward to returning to our offices and inviting press and donors to come and learn more about our services as well as hosting visits from people all over the world who want to learn what we do. I also look forward to continuing my work helping to plan community events outdoors and at other venues, particularly for World AIDS Day. I miss the live candlelight vigils, gatherings, and rallies. I also look forward to volunteering again with other community-based organizations such as NYC Pride.

Do you think society’s growing inclusiveness has changed the significance of Pride? Are straightqueer alliances still relevant?

KL: Partnerships are essential to our work to end the HIV epidemic and advance the rights of LGBTQ+ and underserved communities. No movement has ever been successful without the support of allies. We need the support and participation

of people of all sexual and gender identities to accomplish these goals.

Two of our most generous donors were straight women — Judith Peabody and Joan Tisch — who also volunteered to visit people dying of AIDS and helped out in our offices.

We won’t forget their generosity along with others who have passed and those who continue to support our work.

KS: As a Black woman and mother who is a straight ally to the LGBTQ+ community, I appreciate the importance of straight people being a part of the solutions to overcoming homophobia, transphobia, racism, and other social injustices. I think it is critical to foster discussions with the straight community about these issues. Being an ally, supporter, or activist comes in many different forms.

What will it take to end the AIDS epidemic in our lifetimes?

KL: We must recommit ourselves to what it will take to accomplish that goal, from prevention to care to advocacy. We all have a role in this fight whether taking steps to [prevent new HIV diagnoses], fighting stigma against people living with HIV, or supporting organizations like GMHC working to ensure all people living with HIV have access to the services they need for healthy lives. We have had the data and we have had the science. We need the will of the government, and that often translates to dollars.

KS: There is still work to be done that will allow our country to move forward in healing from the tragedies of 2020. We also continue to reel from the decades-long loss and suffering created by the HIV epidemic. We all must embrace our collective responsibility to end the epidemic. This work has to include partnerships with other organizations both in the public health and social justice spaces. I remain committed with Kelsey to achieving this goal.

— Out Editors

4/28/21 2:33 PM

A L E X I R O S E NF E L D

s

When I was hired at GMHC to work in the volunteer department, one of my first tasks was to recruit more volunteers for the Buddy Program.

Our clients were so isolated then because their families and friends were abandoning them. We also received requests for Buddies from clients in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. It was challenging to recruit volunteers who were willing to go to the boroughs outside of Manhattan. The Buddy Program continues to help our clients to break the isolation that people living with HIV still feel, especially older clients who experience stigma, discrimination, and loneliness.

Pride returns to New York City in 2021 as a hybrid of in-person and virtual events, but also with a broader theme and heightened sense of purpose.

NYC Pride returns for 2021 with a theme that seems to perfectly capture the state of the LGBTQ+ movement as well as the times in which it takes place. Organizers are quick to point out how “The Fight Continues” reflects the need to carry on the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights and protections even after our win at the ballot box. But it also acknowledges the parallel struggles of the Black Lives Matter movement, the fight against climate change, and of course, adapting to life amid a global pandemic.

june 2021

“We’re fighting for ourselves, fighting for the BIPOC and trans members of our community, and fighting for future generations,” says André Thomas, cochair for NYC Pride. “By making [“The Fight Continues”] the 2021 theme for NYC Pride, we acknowledge all that we’ve accomplished and look towards what still needs to be done. NYC Pride events offer an opportunity to gather in community and highlight the diversity, resilience, and power of the LGBTQIA+ community, giving us the energy and spirit we need to continue the fight.”

There will be virtual events, such as The Rally on June 25, and those designated as a mix of virtual and in-person elements, like the NYC Pride March on June 27. Organizers have yet to work out the details of how to conduct a large-scale event like the annual Pride March while ensuring responsible social distancing practices. The same can be said for PrideFest and Pride Island, scheduled to take place on June 27. Also on tap virtually are Pride Presents, Family Movie Night, a Human Rights Conference, and the second annual Black Queer Town Hall.

“In 2020 our world dramatically changed very quickly and in a matter of weeks we were forced to pivot to virtual programming and cancel many of our events,” David A. Correa, interim executive director of NYC Pride, said in a statement. “With much more time to prepare in 2021, we’re bringing back many of the events we were forced to cancel last year, most notably Youth Pride which will engage LGBTQIA+ youth, many of whom are grappling with the absence of in-person connection.”

NYC Pride has also teamed up with photographer Cait Oppermann for the 2021 visual campaign. In line with the more inclusive theme of this year’s event, the campaign centers an intersectional portrait of the larger queer community, including trans, queer, BIPOC, allies, and more, with names like Gia Love, José Thomas, G Xtravaganza, Krishna Stone, and Reid Jefferson.

Pride events in New York City hold special significance within the queer community, as many Pride celebrations around the country are a direct response to the Stonewall Riots, which took place there in June 1969. The riots are generally regarded as the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

Pride holds even more meaning this year, after the isolation of 2020.

If there’s one thing the LGBTQ+ community knows how to do (besides throwing one heck of a Pride party) it’s to persevere and battle against adversity. Certainly, the fight continues. nycpride.org

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A L E X I R O S E NF E L D

NYC Pride

nyc pride

The Fight Continues for

by donald padgett

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4/28/21 9:08 PM

pose

FX’s Pose changed television forever.

Now, as it airs its third and final season Steven Canals, Angelica Ross, and Indya Moore reflect on the lasting impact it’s had on culture, society, and our lives.

june 2021

by Tre’vell Anderson

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Simply put, no show to date has done for Black and brown queer and trans visibility and opportunity what Pose has done since its 2018 debut. Picking up a mantle largely abandoned on television since Patrik-Ian Polk’s Noah’s Arc, the series changed a game that often minimized the stories of the sassy gay best friend or nameless sex worker on the margins of white, cis, and straight narratives. When the glitter settles and tears have dried, countless words will be used to describe the impact of a scripted show that centered the experiences of the Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ people who made up and make up New York’s ballroom scene.

For example, “industry-defining.”

Even before the first episode aired, with the casting of Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore, Hailie Sahar, and Angelica Ross (the largest cast of trans series regulars ever), Pose proved that trans actors could and should be hired to play trans characters.

Or “authentic,” to describe the necessary utility of writers Our Lady J and Janet Mock, along with ballroom experts Jack Gucci, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, Hector Xtravaganza, Leiomy Maldonado, and more who served as consultants, collaborators, and extras, in ensuring that what made it to screen accurately reflected the real world the show was based on.

Or “historic,” to highlight the show’s award-laden run, which included an Emmy Award for Billy Porter, making him the first out Black gay man to win Best Actor; an Emmy nomination for Best Drama that made Mock, Our Lady J, and Silas Howard the first transgender producers nominated for the Television Academy’s top prize; and a 2018 Peabody

Award. The show also led to Mock being the first out trans woman with a major studio deal with Netflix, Ross the first trans actress to have two series regular roles (with Pose and American Horror Story: 1984), and Moore the first trans person to cover Elle magazine.

Still, no matter the terms we’ll use to try and give such a legendary show and its creators the flowers they’re due, it is those closest to the production that will serve as proof of its impact. In honor of the series’ end, we highlight three of them — Canals, Ross, and Moore — who, in their own words, discuss how Pose changed their lives.

Opening spread: Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, Angelica Ross, Dyllon Burnside, Sandra Bernhard, Hailie Sahar, Angel Bismark Curiel, Indya Moore, Jason A. Rodriguez, and Billy Porter in Pose Above: Burnside, Sahar, Rodriguez, Moore, and Curiel’s characters have changed television landscape forever

E R IC L IE B O W I T Z / F X (PA GE 3 6); A L L IM A GE S COUR T E S Y F X (OP E NING S P R E A D)

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When an iconic television show ends — think A Different World, Scandal, or The Wire — a small hole is often left in the television landscape. But as the third and final season of the Steven Canalscreated, Ryan Murphy-produced Pose takes its final bow, it’ll leave behind a crater-sized cavity that will be felt for years to come.

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4/28/21 5:45 PM

The character of Damon came to me in 2004 after watching Paris Is Burning for the first time as a college student.

june 2021

MICH A E L B ECK E R / F X

I didn’t write the first draft of Pose until 2014, after a full career as a college administrator.

But at the time that I wrote that first draft, the two things that were at the forefront for me were, one, my writing professor who’d always say, “Write the show you want to watch,” and, two, something I brought with me from my time as a student affairs practitioner, which had everything to do with assessing the college landscape and filling in gaps where necessary. The thing that kept coming up for me was: I don’t see Black and brown queer and trans people anywhere in scripted television. I certainly was not thinking about being groundbreaking, changing the television landscape, and accolades.

When the first season began airing and we were being showered with all these accolades, folks were asking, “What does that mean to you?” I remember saying, “Success to me will be something that I can reflect on,” because it’s hard to be in it and see the forest through the trees. But I know Pose will be a success when all of the incredible actors that we hired who happened to be having a trans experience or are queer get to go off and play other characters who aren’t necessarily queer or trans, when they just get to be actors and are considered for all the roles that their white contemporaries are. I also think Pose would be considered a success when we see more content creators who happen to be trans and nonbinary pitching their shows and seeing those shows be made. Yes, Pose has absolutely been successful in many ways and we’ve done what we needed to do, and there’s still more road to walk down.

When I think about the show, I think about every person who’s ever taken the time to tune in and has been impacted by that narrative. To have created a show that people love and feel affirmed and seen by, to create a show that has educated some folks, one that has opened up the possibility for queer and trans Black and brown people to say, “I absolutely have a right to stand in my truth unapologetically and to dream regardless of what the outside world is saying.” That to me is beyond words. It’s such a gift. @stevencanals

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STEVEN CANALS CREATOR WRITER & DIRECTOR

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4/28/21 7:15 AM

INDYA MOORE AS ANGEL EVANGELISTA

Before Pose, I was a sex worker. I wanted to be in the entertainment industry, but I wasn’t really sure how possible that would be for me. I worked as much as I could to be a model and actor, to meet with people who were in those spaces and looking to create.

june 2021

PA R I DUKO V IC / F X

Pose was something different for me because it told a story about family and love and humanity through the lens of queer and trans people, during a time when queer and trans people were struggling to find ground in this world. Pose captured that during a time when we were all moving into selfactualization, where we realized we get to be visible and dream and build careers too. With this show, Hollywood opened up and can now see us less as the identities we hold and more as the talent that we bring. I hope that it continues in a direction where the only people who are benefiting from this shift aren’t just trans people who are cis-assumed and that we’re also uplifting people who come in trans bodies that aren’t only thin or lightskinned. We need to hear and see more darker Black trans women, and also trans folks who are bigger and fat-identifying. There’s so much work to do, and I have a lot of hope in the ways that people of privilege are revisiting how they contribute to these systems by ignoring us and not including us and breaking up the pattern of how they choose to see us.

With this show, I am proud of deconstructing the shame around sex work within myself. I projected a lot of that and was reluctant to play Angel

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because she was a sex worker. I had just finished playing one in [Damon Cardasis’s] Saturday Church and was worried about the dominance of sex work in our narratives of trans people in the public space. It was something that I was trying to turn my back on and be as far away from as possible. Taking on Angel helped me to feel more confident about my path and also to speak up about it with more pride. I hope that it translated outward and was able to do the same for a lot of other trans people who may be struggling with feeling their identity and value and futures are reduced to sex work and the desires of cis men and women. I see it in my DMs every day, the way that people’s lives are changed by Pose. I feel full and happy and complete knowing that anybody was able to benefit from something I offered through my role. @indyamoore

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4/28/21 7:15 AM

ANGELICA ROSS AS CANDY FEROCITY

Even before Pose, I felt that I was on the rise. I was getting auditions and opportunities based on my performance in the web series Her Story. I felt that I was on track to make a difference. Then came Pose, which hit a lot of marks. Not only was it trying to tell an authentic story with trans people in the writing room and in the director’s chair, but it had trans actors playing trans characters — not cis men playing us. So not only were we bringing across an authentic story, but we wanted to also say, “These aren’t just niche actors.”

While I had experience on my résumé as far as being an actress, I had not experienced being a series regular or really having a thoughtful story arc and having to show up the way that I had to show up. What the show unlocked for me was what happens when I rise to the occasion. It unlocked this thing where I don’t have any fear anymore when I go to audition because I know that I’m where I need to be. I’m going to stay booked, and I’m not going to give you a niche.

Pose takes your whole soul and holds it tight and caresses it, and also makes you feel a little bit of the pain that we’ve been feeling.

My character Candy resonates with what’s real. What I’ve realized by everyone sharing all of those memes from Candy, this Black trans woman, is that we’re coming full circle where my reality doesn’t have to be so different than yours. Because the reality is that Black trans people are brilliant and valuable and funny and honest and trustworthy and beautiful and attractive and worth loving and all of those things.

I’m most proud of creating a vision of Blackness that is better and more expansive than what we’ve been offered. The soundtrack with Stephanie Mills and Whitney Houston and Anita Baker and all the songs that you grew up listening to in the house when your mom was cleaning, that’s what we share with our cis-het counterparts in the Black community. For too long, we’ve allowed them to dominate the narrative that being Black and being LGBTQ+ are mutually exclusive. But with Pose we’re, again, coming full circle to a place where my reality is more similar to theirs than it is different.

I know that the show is going to live well beyond its fi nale.

I know that lives have been and will continue to be changed because we can’t help but be changed by this story. We can’t help but be enlightened and informed in ways that make you behave differently, that make you think differently, that make you move and talk differently. Those are the actions that will truly change the world. @angelicaross

Angelica is wearing a LAQUAN SMITH Dress ALIETTE Belt and VERSACE Sandals. Photographer MALIK AAMIR @KinggMalik Fashion Stylist & Creative Director BRANDON M GARR @BrandonMGarr for @crowdMGMT Makeup ADRIAN RIOS @ARartistryfor @crowdMGMT

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This past year many people realized that nothing is more important than family. At the same time, our definition of family is expanding — chosen families are becoming more popular, some folks are coparenting, single parents and same-sex parents are gaining more rights, and families featuring three or more adults raising children are stepping out of the shadows.

books june 2021

“Every one of us brings something different to the equation...”

My Three D

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Dr. Ian Jenkins (top left) first met his partner Alan (center) in medical school, and at first the two kept things

professional despite their attraction.

Once their rotation ended, though, Alan asked Ian to hang out.

“It was a little bit of a situation, it wasn’t clear. Is this a date? Are we hanging out? What’s the situation? So I kind of ended up making it a date,” Jenkins says with a laugh.

That first hangout-turned-date happened to be on Valentine’s Day, and after Jenkins cooked A lan homemade pizza, the two were in love. It wasn’t until later they would realize that within that love, they had space for another partner. This was the start of another journey.

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In the new book Three Dads and a Baby: Adventures in Modern Parenting (in bookstores now from Cleis Press), Jenkins writes about his life with his two partners and the children that the three of them are raising together. Piper, age 3, and Parker, almost 2, are believed to be the first children in the U.S. to have three polyamorous parents listed on their birth certificates.

Previously, all of Jenkins’s relationships had been monogamous, but he wondered if that was just because he didn’t know being polyamorous, or having multiple partners, was possible. “My f irst boyfriend and I dated for six years. We were each other’s first boyfriends and we spent six monogamous years together,” he says. “I didn’t know that this really was an option when I was a kid. That six-year-long relationship ended because he needed to date other people. He had never kissed anyone but me.”

Jenkins eventually broke up with him, assuming monogamy was the only option. Now he knows differently.

“You don’t necessarily have to give up a wonderful thing to have another wonderful thing,” he explains.

When, after a little over a decade together, Ian and Alan decided to add a third person to their relationship, they found dating apps the best option. That’s where Ian and Alan met their second partner, Jeremy. “It just goes to show you that online is kind of how people are meeting these days,” Jenkins says, “and it can be a wonderful place to start a beautiful new relationship.”

by mey rude photography sweet me

That was eight years ago. Once Jeremy became a long-term member of the nowthrouple, the three started discussing adding kids to the family. Ian and Alan had always talked about eventually having children, but when Jeremy joined them, the conversations started getting serious.

“Every one of us brings something different to the equation,” Jenkins says of the decision. “And without the three of us, we wouldn’t have the kids.”

The three knew a pair of women who had two leftover embryos from their own IVF journey and were looking for someone they trusted to donate them to.

The women knew the men were looking to expand their family, so they went to Jeremy and told him they’d be willing to donate their embryos to the throuple and create an extended family.

“We didn’t just jump right into it immediately,” Jenkins says. “But we started having conversations like, ‘Do we want to do this? That seems like a good option for us.’ And we had long conversations about, ‘What are our values? How do we want to raise these children? Are we concerned that they’re going to be picked on because they’ve got not just two gay dads but three?

And is this the right thing for us and for them?’”

Once they were sure they knew the answers, they went back to the women and said yes. And that, Jenkins says, was the best decision they ever made.

“Well, the dad thing’s really easy,” he says. “I was actually really worried before doing this; that I wouldn’t love the kids

Pictured: Dr. Ian Jenkins and his two husbands, Alan and Jeremy, are proud co-parents of two adorable children

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You don’t necessarily have to give up a wonderful thing to have another wonderful thing

right away. You know, I’ve never been a baby person…. But I’m going to tell you when you actually have a kid, the first thing is like, if anyone had come after that baby, I would’ve fought 10 bears.”

Right away, he says, he was willing to give up anything to keep his baby safe. It’s the little moments that make fatherhood so valuable, he says: “When you’re doing baby talk with an infant, and they’re smiling at you and talking back.

Or now that the kids are older, it’s when they’re cuddling and you get the weight of an affectionate kid on you and they say sweet things to you,” those are what end up being the big moments.

“She came up to me one time,” he says of Piper. “It was out of the blue and [she] was like, ‘Papa, I just wanted to tell you that I love you so much,’ And I was like, Oh, my God. It’s OK if I get cancer tomorrow, it’ ll be fine, because I have this experience with my kid.”

Now Jenkins is living his dream, and he wants others to know they can too.

He says the joy of being in a throuple extends beyond the experience with parenthood. “Sometimes people want this for themselves, but it makes them uncomfortable to imagine that their partner might see someone else,” he says.

“You really have to let go of some of that jealousy and think about what’s best for your partner and be able to find joy in their joy and celebrate the great things that happened for them too.”

Once you do that, anything is possible. “Learning to support someone and their happiness is a great feeling for me regardless,” Jenkins says. “So if people think about that and have those discussions as their relationships are getting started, it sort of opens up a whole new possibility for them.”

And as this throuple and their children show, it’s a beautiful possibility indeed.

e Dads

Dr. Ian Jenkins talks about his two partners and the beautiful children they’re raising as a throuple.

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by david artavia photographer hunter berry

music

Has the historically conservative audience of country music changed their tune when it comes to out, proud artists?

Country music is having a moment. Since singer Chely Wright’s widely publicized coming out in 2010, the industry has dragged its feet in welcoming a new class of queer artists to the radio waves.

However, in recent years, thanks in large part to Wright’s shining example, artists like Brandi Carlile, Cody Alan, Ty Herndon, Brandy Clark, and country-rap star Lil Nas X have been embraced by a progressive audience who’ve rewarded their authenticity instead of punishing it.

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Queer country stars are now proudly stepping into the light, which is why in 2019 Apple announced a global radio channel, Apple Music Country, which has a slew of new programs including veteran journalist Hunter Kelly’s Proud Radio, a monthly one-hour show on Apple Music 1 highlighting queer artists, their evolution, and their influence in country music.

The show has welcomed guests like Carlile, Clark, Wright, Dolly Parton, Paisley Fields, Waylon Payne, Olly Alexander, Brooke Eden, and more. But for the affable host, Proud Radio is not only about uplifting LGBTQ+ artists and queer history. It’s meant to be a bridge toward a brighter future in country music.

“If we are not keeping up with where America is, where the world is culturally, we’re leaving all kinds of money on the table,” says Kelly (pictured right), who has a degree in music business from Belmont University, the same college stars like Trisha Yearwood, Brad Paisley, and Josh Turner went to. “When I grew up, Will and Grace was on TV. Ellen DeGeneres was on TV every afternoon. Gay people or not, this is not some foreign concept, you know? It really is exciting. We need this representation to build a bigger tent to be able to build a wider audience.”

For lifelong fans like Kelly, the queer elements of country music have never been unnoticed, especially in the women.

The glitz, the glamour, and the outfits from legends like Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Reba McEntire, who’ve inspired countless artists with their bold, raw storytelling is often a way in for many queer men.

“There was a vulnerability there,” he recognizes in the female artists. “There is a kind of thing where women in country music still have to work so much harder to get the same opportunities as men. I think that really carried over for me into working in country music. Women [were] kind of the surrogate for us as gay men, especially as I started to come out and started having experiences of romance and heartbreak and all the drama. I could put myself into that position a lot easier.”

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Kelly, who started as an intern at Billboard magazine before working at ABC News for nine years with radio gigs in-between, has seen firsthand the progress historically conservative artists have had in accepting LGBTQ+ breakout stars. Still, there is more to go, and many can do a better job at vocalizing their support. One example is the 2019 Country Music Awards, which Kelly was covering for Rolling Stone. Brandi Carlile and Lil Nas X did an incredible performance, which went untelevised, and it was during this event that Kelly noticed an overwhelming support from country legends.

“I’m in the lower level so that I have a view of the stage, but also how the artists interact with each other,” he recalls. “Other artists were really happy to have Brandi Carlile there. She was with [singer] Maren Morris.

Marin and Brothers Osborne, even before TJ Osborne came out [in February], they were really breaking this mold, this stronghold that we’ve had ever since the [Dixie Chicks] situation happened in country music.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Kelly suspects we’ll have a wider understanding of people’s lived experiences that will, surely, transfer over to country music.

“Proud Radio is breaking new ground, but it’s also documenting a really exciting time in country music,” he says. “When the show debuted, and people heard it, they’re were like, ‘I had stopped listening to country music because I thought that there was no place for queer people’ or the fact that there wasn’t clear representation for people of color. It turned them off, they didn’t see themselves represented and they thought they were getting the message: I’m not welcome here. I don’t want to see that....

There’s so much more out there than [what’s] played in those slots on terrestrial radio.” @nashvillehk

M A R Y VA L E R Y, NE T KOF F, 8 6E R IC A N T HON Y MI S CHK E 8 6 (ICON S) / S HU T T E R S T OCK (B A CKGR OUND)

“If we’re not keeping up with where America is... we’re leaving a lot of money on the table.”

COUNTRY ROAD

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M A R Y VA L E R Y, NE T KOF F, 8 6E R IC A N T HON Y MI S CHK E 8 6 (ICON S) / S HU T T E R S T OCK (B A CKGR OUND)

by dan clapson photographer juno kim

Table Talk

How a London-born chef became the first nonbinary contestant in Top Chef history.

june 2021

Queer representation on culinary competition shows is not entirely new. We watched chef Tiffani Faison ascend to acclaim after her runner-up finish on Top Chef’s first season in 2006. Plus, who doesn’t love a Ted Allen moment à la Chopped?

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That being said, it’s rare that a nonbinary chef is given time in the food television limelight, but Top Chef Canada has risen to meet the need. Vancouver chef Kym Nguyen proves they are a culinary force to be reckoned with as the first out nonbinary competitor in Top Chef franchise history.

“I have never viewed myself as a role model...I have always been just myself, living my life and my own story,” says Nguyen.

“After deciding to [compete on Top Chef Canada], it made me realize that this is actually a great thing for the community. It lets so many people see who I am as a person, a chef, and what it means to be nonbinary.”

Born and raised in London, Nguyen has been cooking professionally for over 15 years. When an opportunity arose for the chef to move to Canada with a previous partner back in 2009, they jumped at the chance to cross the pond in search of a more progressive-minded restaurant culture.

After spending eight years in Toronto, Ngyuen settled in Vancouver in 2017. It was there the chef embraced their nonbinary identity and found success working as the sous-chef at the acclaimed eatery Pidgin (PidginVancouver.com). They credit both the queer and restaurant communities for helping them gain a new outlook on themselves.

“It took me a long time to figure out what my true, authentic self was, so living in Vancouver really helped me discover [that],” explains the 34-year-old chef. “When I moved to the city, I didn’t have anyone, and I had to put myself out there and make new friends, discover what the community was, and what it meant for me to be queer.”

At Pidgin, Nguyen uses their worldly experience, ChineseVietnamese roots, and open-mindedness to help guide a small but mighty team. Working with a nonbinary person may be new for many in the restaurant industry, but just like making a mistake on the line during dinner service, Nguyen says the simplest remedy to pronoun missteps is to realize the mistake, correct yourself, and move on. Their accepting approach to kitchen management — a stark contrast to the screaming and pan throwing of an older generation of white cisgender males — has proven a recipe for success.

“I have a different connection with every single person in my kitchen,” says Nguyen. “They all come talk to me about

different things that they may not have the comfortability to talk about with someone higher up than me.”

The biggest notch on Nguyen’s culinary belt to date is their spectacular showing on the current season of Top Chef Canada. The show’s ninth season has been its most diverse yet, highlighting an array of Canadian talent including its first Indigenous female competitor, Siobhan Detkavich, and of course, its first nonbinary chef in Nguyen.

“I sat down with the whole cast [on the first day of filming] to talk to them about being nonbinary,” they say. “We had a conversation about it, how I identified, what it meant for me to be nonbinary, and about using the pronouns they/them. All of the chefs made a conscious effort and so did the production crew as well.

Everyone was really accepting and they were also thankful to me for sharing my story.”

Regardless, Nguyen went into filming having some doubts in terms of how they would be portrayed being the first on one of Canada’s most popular culinary competition programs.

They remained hopeful that the show would provide a platform to share their story with a nation. And that’s exactly what happened.

“I’m always really open about who I am and my gender, but...I did have doubts because I was scared if I was going to be ready to, you know, deal with what was going to come afterwards,” says Nguyen. “Looking back now, I think me being on Top Chef Canada has helped make Canadians be more open and to better understand the queer community.”

It’s Nguyen’s hope that diversity continues to improve at all levels of the restaurant industry, from the prep cooks to the restaurateurs and, of course, to all of those future seasons of Top Chef too — American, Canadian, or otherwise.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from or who you are,” they say. “It’s just a kitchen, and if you can cook, that’s all that should matter.” @kymcoming Dan Clapson is a queer food writer based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is The Globe and Mail’s restaurant critic and columnist for the Canadian Prairies region, and the creative director of Eat North. When he’s not traveling or helping uplift diverse voices through his writing, he’s likely eating something delicious. @dansgoodside

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eat and drink

“I have never viewed myself as a role model. I have always just been myself...”

june 2021

4/28/21 7:32 AM

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community

Buildin

“Equality of opportunity is key to everything.” june 2021

ther ge

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k c a , To B

Jonathan Lovitz wants Philadelphia to be a thriving center for opportunity and growth, but will he succeed?

by david artavia photographer joe mac creative

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“Think of the moment we’re in, coming out of COVID, trying to rebuild our middle class, trying to help the least [privileged] among us get back on their feet,” he says. “When we help our small businesses succeed, that helps our big businesses do better, which allows us to hire more people to put more resources into the community. We will not solve the systemic inequities, the systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and all the hate that is out there until people start feeling comfortable, once again, just leaving their front door after 6 P.M. Crime and poverty and societal unrest are all inextricably linked to a rigged system. One of the ways to get there is to make sure we have the most equitable recovery possible.”

Lovitz argues that, “The most important thing an elected official can do is improve the quality of life for the people that they work for. As we’re looking at recovery, it cannot just be those who have access to websites and portals and the most privileged access to their representatives that can get help.”

He wa nts to create ha nds-on assistance, including helping people “handwrite and fill out forms to get resources. We have to take care of our neighbors in a way that I don’t know America has seen since the Great Depression or World War II.” “I have seen and experienced firsthand the power of building a bigger table, adding chairs to that table and coming together to bake more pie to share with everyone at that table. That is how you have an equitable recovery.”

We need to keep LGBTQ+ representation and we need to continue building a class of new, young, progressive, diverse candidates who are as good at galvanizing their community as they are at organizing, business, and making change

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Jonathan Lovitz was among several Philly queer activists — including the LGBTQ Victory Fund’s Sean Meloy, organizer Jason Evans, politicians Bria n Sims, Ma lcolm Kenyatta, Jessica Benham, and more — who banded together to create sophisticated approaches to voter registration, which made all the difference when nowPresident Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump there by about 80,000 votes.

As senior vice president of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce for the past six years, Lovitz has helped pass nearly 20 laws over a dozen states to elevate queer small business owners and advance opportunities for marginalized communities. Now he believes he can make an even bigger change. This spring, he announced his run for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he could join a growing number of out officials in the state.

“This moment needs someone who can be simultaneously a megaphone for those who need to have their voice amplified but also a key to unlocking resources that many people don’t know were available to them,” says Lovitz. “ We ne e d to k e ep L GBTQ+ representation and we need to continue building a class of new, young, progressive, diverse candidates who are as good at galvanizing their community as they are at organizing, business, and making change. To come to the table, we need people who really value hard work in fixing the system.”

If elected, L ovitz would have his work cut out for him. In 2019, Philadelphia, known as the “poorest big city” in America, had a poverty rate of 23.3 percent. Repercussions of the pandemic have made life worse for those disproportionately impacted by corrupt economic and political systems, including

LGBTQ+ people, women, and people of color. The situation is ironic given that the city was, literally, the birthplace of the American dream. However, that dream, even today, is dependent on a system that only benefits a certain kind of group. Lovitz, who is also Jewish, says he’s determined to change that.

“Equality of opportunity is key to everything,” says Lovitz, who’s been married to his husband for three years.

“I joined my first union almost 15 years ago and I have seen what happens when we don’t take care of workers’ rights, when we don’t take care of living conditions for those who we expect to to take care of us and our kids and our families. Society breaks down and those systems fall apart. We have to reaffirm the power of unions, the power of good living wages, and everything that comes with that. Health care and education are basic human rights that anyone who pays into the system at any level should have unfettered access to. And when they get access to it, they shouldn’t have to jump through hoops or prove who they are. One of the most important lessons I learned in the union was standing shoulder to shoulder with people who come from different walks of life than you. You understand that you all want the same thing, which is a better way of life for you and your family.”

Lovitz argues that if we want stability, it starts with our pocketbooks. In order for that to happen, we need to prioritize jobs and higher wages, things that historically have been hard to achieve for low-income households in Philadelphia.

A post-pandemic recovery, he says, is the perfect opportunity to course-correct.

The blue wave ain’t over just yet. In one of the most intense election years we’ve seen in the history of the United States, newly activated voters showed up to the polls in droves, voting in a wave of LGBTQ+ legislators, many of whom are first-time officeholders. One city that led the charge, helping turn the state of Pennsylvania blue, is Philadelphia.

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film “Your [queer] family really is your safety net...” june 2021

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Out actress Stephanie Beatriz hopes her In the Heights role ignites conversations about queer Latina culture. by mey rude photographer kevin scanlon

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Stephanie Beatriz is intimately familiar with the power of media representation. Growing up, she was inspired to become an actor by Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was the first Latina on Broadway she connected with. Now, because the universe has a wonderful sense of humor, she’s starring as Rubin-Vega’s partner in what’s sure to be the movie of the summer, Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights, based on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony Award-winning musical about a Latinx community in Manhattan’s Washington Heights. fluent emotion and was able to translate his emotions through what he saw and give it back to me,” she remembers. She hopes In the Heights can serve as that translator for others. As an immigrant herself, she knows how much colonialism and religion have shaped many Latinx people, especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues.

“There’s a disconnect there for some people, and generationally it kind of affects people that are a little bit older much more because they feel like, well, this is my faith and that’s a huge part of me, and yet my faith tells me that I cannot accept my child because they’ve come out to me as gay, as lesbian, as queer, as trans,” she says. “But I do think that it’s shifting and changing.”

She sees the film as helping that shift occur. “One of the things that art does really well is that it creates these pathways for conversation and social change and societal change and shift that you might not be able to have it if you were to, for example, sit down one-on-one and talk with your abuela,” she says. “But now that might be able to happen if the two of you sit together in a dark theater and watch a film that you both enjoy, and love and laugh at and cry at and feel a connection to the characters.”

The conversation that moment might spark, Beatriz says, can be like a seed “planted there and [it] can be tended, and it can grow over many conversations that are still to be had. That’s one of the greatest gifts that art gives us. It ignites in us the desire to discuss that art with our fellow human beings.”

She adds, “I think that’s what’s really thrilling for me about In the Heights.

There’s so many things I think that will be sparked by this film, in families and friend relationships, in love relationships, in people that have seen the movie and want to talk about it together.” @stephaniebeatriz

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shapes of people, and different sexualities, and different expressions of self. That’s a safe space,” she says. “I think in many communities, the beauty parlor is a safe space, especially in Latino communities.”

It’s refreshing for the film to invite viewers into the life Daniela and Carla have created where everyone around them is accepting, “whether or not we know about their extended families is not the point of this,” Beatriz says.

“It’s really the family that they’ve created, the home that they’ve created in Washington Heights, is an accepting, loving place where they thrive.”

That’s a way of building family that Beatriz understands. “This movie is a celebration of a specific neighborhood in New York City and the people that inhabit it, but in its specificity, it becomes this universal story about what it means to define family and belonging at home,” she says. “That is something I think, no matter where you come from, you have an attachment to home and family. Whether that’s the home that you grew up in or the home that you’ve created for yourself, everybody wants the feeling of belonging.”

The actress ack nowledges, “as somebody who didn’t always have the strongest connection to my family, I know what it’s like to build your own family. To collect people, friends, [and] mentors around you and build yourself this safety net, and I think that’s what is so clear in In the Heights, like your family really is your safety net.”

Beatriz knows that that message of family will connect to audiences of all generations and beliefs. In her own life, she’s seen how media can create a bridge between not just generations, but languages. After her character Rosa Diaz came out to her parents on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Beatriz’s own father texted her, “I just want you to know, I love you no matter what,” quoting her character’s father on the show.

“I mean, my dad speaks f luent English, but he doesn’t always speak

“The soundtrack of Rent [in which RubinVega played Mimi] really provided me a doorway in to see the musical,” Beatriz remembers. “My family didn’t have money to go take a trip to New York so I could see a Broadway show, but I could get the soundtrack at the library and listen to it over and over.”

Unlike in the stage version of In the Heights, in the film, Beatriz’s character Carla is in a lesbian relationship with Daniela (Rubin-Vega), the owner of the salon she works at. For Beatriz, it was a full circle moment.

“I grew up with a poster of [RubinVega] on my wall,” the bisexual actress confesses. “I had the cover of Newsweek that she was on with Adam Pascal taped to the back of my door in high school.

And to me, she’s really legendary. So to make the jump as an actor to being in love with her was not hard for me at all, because she’s charming, very distinct, specific, beautiful.”

Beatriz adds, “I layered that in as much as I could, especially if Daniela is talking.” So it wasn’t difficult for Beatriz to portray her character Carla as “enraptured, glued, like it’s a master class, just watching it all unfold, watching Daniela’s personality take over the space of a room and the ambience.”

She continues, “Any time Daniela might have a doubt, it’s Carla who steps up to the plate and tells her, whether it’s in her ear or out loud to everyone in the room, ‘You got this.’ I just loved that very much because I think that’s a real characteristic of a healthy relationship — one in which your partner sees the possibilities in you, sometimes when you don’t even see them yourself, believes that you are incredible, amazing, talented, the Lady Gaga list.”

Beatriz is especially excited to play a queer character in a movie where there’s no homophobia. When you see scenes with Carla and Daniela together, especially in the salon, you see, “lots of different shades of people, lots of different

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Rising star Naomi Ackie on channeling her power in Master of None and her highly anticipated role as Whitney Houston in the upcoming biopic.

Since she first landed on folks’ radar with her BAFTA award-winning performance in 2016’s Lady Macbeth (not to mention another stellar performance in 2019’s Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker), actress Naomi Ackie’s talent has been impossible to ignore. Now the performer is preparing for the role of a lifetime, as Ackie is set to play legendary (and beloved) songstress Whitney Houston in the highly anticipated biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody.

The London-born Ackie, 28, attended the esteemed Walthamstow School for Girls. She knew early on that she wanted to act, landing her first role as the angel Gabriel in a school play when she was 11 years old. She went on to study at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where she graduated in 2012.

Though Ackie has been quite private about her personal life as her star continues to rise, and has not made any grand declarations of identity one way or another, she certainly has not shied away from queer roles in her blossoming career. She starred in the British TV series The Bisexual in 2018 and this year gives a powerful performance as Lena Waithe’s love interest in the upcoming third season of the Netflix series, Master of None, co-created by Aziz Ansari and writer Alan Yang.

Without giving too much away, some of the scenes between Ackie and Waithe (who is also a writer and producer on the show) are so gripping and real that you can easily see why Ackie was chosen to play someone as iconic as Houston. In Master of None, we witness an intimate portrait of two women falling in love in the beautifully quiet countryside of upstate New York (as pictured below). The actress reflects on the cultural impact of the setting, especially in terms of two queer Black women existing there.

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“Really, I think Aziz and Lena were always really aware of that and wanted to not only bring up this story about these two amazing characters, these two women, but also place them — these two Black city women — in the countryside setting and not have that be the butt of the joke,” says Ackie. “They actually fit into this space and they make it their own and their home, which, oh my gosh, [the characters’] designing of the home is my favorite thing! They’ve been able to incorporate this feeling of their Blackness, their queerness. It’s a quaint setting that we usually only see white people in.”

Working on Master of None with the enormously talented and diverse cast and crew was also an eyeopening experience. “Getting to work with [Lena], I felt like I had to, in the best way, up my game,” admits Ackie. “I was like, Wow, I’m really dealing with some clever, witty, funny, super talented people. And there was such a great creative energy in the space…it was a great collaboration between the three of us — me, Aziz and Lena. So there was a real teamwork effort to tell the story from an authentic place.”

With filming wrapped on Master of None, Ackie says she is now devoting all of her focus and energy to preparing to play Houston in the biopic. With filming yet to commence and a release date set for Thanksgiving 2022, Ackie can’t say much about the project — including whether or not the biopic will address the singer’s sexuality or her romantic relationship with friend and former assistant Robyn Crawford. (Crawford broke her long-held silence on the subject in her 2019 book, A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston, where she confirms their relationship.) However, Ackie speaks on her feelings about playing the larger-than-life icon and the challenges it will involve.

“Right now I’m making sure that I am looking after myself, because I think it’s going to be a really big journey,” says Ackie. “To tell the story in the way that I really want to tell it, I think it’s going to take a lot of energy. So I’m doing that and I’m preparing and I’m trying to learn as many songs as possible, and learn as much about Whitney as I can.”

In her of portrayal Houston, Ackie hopes people will see “this legendary woman…as a human being.

My main focus is about telling her story, not imitating Whitney Houston — really reaching the crux of her humanity because I think that’s the way she deserves to be seen and shared with the world.”

COUR T E S Y NE T F L I X (COUP L E ); K IR S T IN S INCL A IR /GE T T Y IM A GE S ( A CK IE )

She’s Every Woman

june 2021

“I’m making sure I’m looking after myself, because it’s going to be a big journey...”

television

by desirée guerrero

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MAKING MY OWN WAY by harvey guillén photographer justin wu

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What We Do in the Shadows star Harvey Guillén on the first time he found his tribe.

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When I was 6 years old, I lived in Santa Ana, California with my single-parent mother. While my mom worked two fulltime jobs so we could afford our small apartment and make ends meet, I found solace in television. But one moment in particular changed my life forever...

june 2021

On the last day of Christmas break, Annie (the 1982 version) was playing on TV. I remember watching the children running around singing and dancing, having the time of their lives. It was in that moment where everything finally made sense.

I looked over at my mother and said, “Mom, I want to be that. I want to be an orphan!”

She gave me a funny look and said in Spanish, “Que? Estas loco? (Are you crazy?)” before glancing at the TV and saying, “Oh, son actors! (They’re actors!)”

“Well, that’s what I want to be,” I replied. “I wanna be an actor.”

“No mijo, es para niños ricos,” she said, explaining, “That’s for rich kids.” Those kids had training — training we didn’t have the money for. I learned in that moment to place my dream on hold, but a couple weeks later something wonderful happened.

A fellow thespian at school informed me the community center was doing a kids’ improv class for only $12.50. My friend, who may or may not have himself been a niño ricos, had asked her parents about it and they gave her a $20 bill. I went home and asked my mom for a $20 bill, but she shook her head, saying, “No mijo. No ay dinero para eso.”

I understood: There was no money for that.

After all, that money could buy us food or launder

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our clothes. It hurt me knowing that she saw the disappointment on my face. I asked, “Well, if I can make the money myself, can I take the class?”

“Mijo,” she said, “if you can make your own way, you can do anything.”

For a brief moment, I felt optimistic. Then I realized: What kind of job would hire a 6-year-old?

Later that week, my mom and I were walking home from school when I saw a man rummaging through a trash can. “What’s he doing?” I asked her.

She replied, “Oh, bende los botes.”

“Wait, he sells the bottles? You can make money from trash?” I asked. She nodded.

That was all the confirmation I needed. When we arrived home, I ran straight into the closet and grabbed a wire hanger. I unhinged it to make it a long skinny metal finger. For nearly two weeks, I was unstoppable. It became my mission to collect as many bottles as I could, and I was totally fearless in doing it. I crashed quinceañeras and all sorts of gatherings. I was on fire!

Finally, I went to the local Food 4 Less dragging huge garbage bags of bottles behind me. They weighed all my bags of recyclables and gave me $6.42.

All that fucking work for $6.42? It was so disheartening. Still, I had my heart set on that improv class so I took to the parks and parties once more and in another two weeks, I earned the remaining balance — the exact amount I needed to register for the class.

The class changed my life. I remember like it was yesterday. The teacher would shout out an animal and the kids pretended to be a lion, a tiger, a bear — you know, all the cliché actor games and exercises. I could hear people enjoying my renditions of each animal, not laughing at me but laughing with me. I knew this was where I belonged. I had found my tribe.

When the class was over, I had adrenaline I’d never experienced before. I spent nearly a month collecting recyclables to pay for this hour-and-a-half class. I asked myself right then and there, Do I want to do that again for another class? The answer was yes.

Yes, I did.

I collected cans for years, using that money toward classes and training, all before I was 10 years old. I did it to find my community. In hindsight, I realize I was also searching for my own identity.

This felt right, and if the only way of getting there was by fishing for bottles and cans, so be it.

I learned a big lesson. There’s no shame in getting a little dirty to make your dreams come true. It’s like my Ama said: “If you can make your own way, you can do anything.” @harveyguillen

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by david artavia photographer jon sams

Pride season is all about the colors, honey!

While every year there’s a righteous debate about the involvement (and motivation) of corporations during the month of June, it’s always important to magnify companies who are doing it the right way. Enter Morphe.

“I think it’s something to enhance you so you can fully express who you are,” he continues. “I don’t think I realized that growing up. I thought makeup was for one certain thing, and now I know it to be something completely different.”

Growing up in Plainview, Texas, Hall remembers being bullied by both his male and female peers for being too feminine, which created an internal battle between doing what he loved — dancing and cheerleading — or giving in to the pressure and skipping those things that gave him joy.

“It was very strange for me to be the only Black person, the only boy in a dance studio where girls didn’t want me there, and where people didn’t want me at the school,” he recalls. “But when the music turned on, there was a fire that was undeniable inside of me. I don’t know how to explain it. It was like nobody else existed.”

Hall found oasis at home. “I had a family that shielded me from so many things,” he says, “which is why I like to be that support system for so many kids — a lot of kids who don’t get supported at school, don’t get supported in their extracurricular activities, if they have one, and those who don’t feel support at home either. Those are the kids that really tug at my heartstrings and that I try to reach with my music. I try to write lyrics in my songs that inspire those kids or make them feel confident or make them feel like they can escape and that they can be anything they want to be.” morphe.com

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june 2021

The beauty brand recently teamed up with the Trevor Project, creating a limited-edition collection called Live With Love. A full 100 percent of the collection’s proceeds go to help the organization’s suicide prevention and crisis intervention services for LGBTQ+ youth, a group more likely to self-harm and experience bullying than their straight and cisgender counterparts. To make things even more perfect, the company brought in Broadway and music-fashion star Todrick Hall, who opened up about finding his own true colors.

“I’ve been a fan of Morphe for years,” says Hall, who is gearing up to debut new music this year. “I feel like more than ever people want to be motivated and want to be uplifted. They want to be reminded how beautiful they are. So for me to be doing my first collaboration with a beauty company was perfect timing.”

Morphe’s Live With Love collection includes a limited-edition artistry palette (pictured above) that puts a new twist on the fan fave 25L from 2019’s Pride collection. From bright pops of purple to joyful shades of yellow, its vivid vibrant hues are ready for any statement you want to make (names like “Spark Ideas,” “Spread Kindness,” “Use Your Voice,” and “Be Heard” are among the shade names).

The collection also includes an eye brush set with a set of seven synthetic brushes for blending shades to perfection as well as a sleek hand mirror to piece it all together.

For the performer-turned-activist, having fun with makeup is about more than colors and brushes and shades. It’s about expression and the search for identity.

“I think expression is truly being the version of yourself, who you are, the version of yourself that you want to be, and the version of yourself that makes you feel the most fabulous,” Hall explains. “I think a lot of people are under the strong misconception that makeup makes you beautiful, but I think that makeup just enhances you — and it’s a cool thing. It helps you express things that your natural skin tones could never express.”

“Makeup is something to enhance you so you can fully express who you are.”

BEAT TO THE GODS

beauty

This beauty company’s latest collection is giving all its proceeds to help LGBTQ+ youth, and it has the perfect glamazon to help spread the message.

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HERE COMES

THE SUN

— AND WE’RE SO READY

by Marco Medrano photographer Easton Schirra model Alex Polcyn

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When it comes to skin care science advances, every year is a leap year.

Now SPF-protecting luxury brands are performing a disappearing act. That is, we hardly know the products are on our body or face even while we’re lifting, brightening, and tightening. The days of dealing with chalk-white, one-trick-pony products are over. Finally!

As I toggle in the Baby Boomer/ Gen-X zone, I find many younger people don’t realize the sunscreen formulations were so inferior in my day that sunbathers would have to literally decide if they wanted to risk an acne breakout or a bad sunburn.

As anti-aging becomes more of a 24/7, year-round endeavor, should anyone stop skin perfecting until the fall? No way.

I’d say this year is the first time where retinols, vitamin C, exfoliating acids (such as AHA/BHA) and other skin-enhancing topicals have been incorporated into powerful yet sheer sunscreens, with ratings from 15 to 75 SPF matching the strength of a product’s protocol — premixed.

T h es e d eve l o p m e nts may n ot sound important, but trust me, SPF products will never be the same.

Of course, even the mildest facial procedure requires doctor’s orders for outdoor exposure. With Earth’s depleted ozone and so many blue screen devices in our lives, sunscreen is an absolute must. That pimple or razor nick that cleared three days ago? Walk a mere four blocks in direct sunlight and you’ll have an unseemly dark spot appear. Y ikes! Done properly, we can keep treating our skin or even revving up our routine safely, without harmful sun exposure or hyperpigmentation. Here are some of the very best products that can age you backwards and protect you from the sun’s powerful, harmful rays at the same time.

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Luxury SPF is rare as a serum, as is Megashade Sunscreen Serum SPF 50 ($40). Also consider GooGetter Spot Clarifying Dots ($19) for masterfully hiding and healing pimples that can’t be exposed to the sun. ZitSticka.com Well-moisturized doesn’t have to mean shiny. Sisley Paris’s luxe solution is Mattifying Moisturizing Skin Care With Tropical Resins.

Redefine eyeopening with Black Rose Eye Contour Fluid and its cold ceramic applicator tip that’s both oil-free and rare rosewater-infused for tautness. Need a rock star protection cream? Sunleÿa SPF 50+.

That’s the stuff. ($158-$315) Sisley-Paris.com Are you still assertively treating your winter skin in summer?

Dr. Susan Obagi and Obagi Medical practically invented luxury skin protection with products that allow you continue a four seasons protocol. Textured skin needs Retivance Skin Rejuvenating Complex with retinaldehyde, C and E. Professional-C Suncare SPF 30 for brightening or its velvety HydraFactor Broad Spectrum SPF 30. Need serious outdoor matte coverage? Sun Shield Matte Broad Spectrum SPF 50 delivers. Obagi’s Skinclusion Ambassador, Dr. JoAn Monaco, doubles down: “Always wear SPF when using your computer and phone as blue light ages us,” the Manhattanbased specialist says.

“Also, men are susceptible to sun damage because dead cells are shaved away so men absolutely need sunscreen, too. Every day.” ($53$133) Obagi.com

Origins really nailed it with A Perfect World SPF 40 Age-Defense Moisturizer With White Tea ($47) and Plantscription SPF 25 Power Anti-Aging Cream ($64). Purity in a jar. The brand’s vegetarian/vegan formulations also treat and anti-age, making this another must-have SPF. Origins.com Mineral-based sunscreens (usually powder, brushed on) are great. Want to keep an orange stripe off your white shirt collar? Try Protection Powder SPF 50 ($49) TheAMethod.com ColorUp is widely respected for its CBD education, spa-level services and serious skincare products. Elemental Zinc Moisturizer ($40) provides environmental and UV protection and over time can shrink large pores, even out skin tone, and boost collagen production with a long list of polyphenols and plantbased extracts, fixing prior damage and preventing new. ColorUpCo.com Alt-tanning keeps getting perfected.

Enter Blue Saint Instant Self-Tanner ($39), a (free) mittapplied, plant-based foam formula with Italian probiotics and a “zero orange” guarantee.

Helpful website, great reviews and availability.

BlueSaint.com NudeSkin’s NudeStix is a snappy set of citrus detox, brightening clean, enzyme exfoliators, hydra-washes, and express masks that cover every assertion level of cleansing, pre- and post-summer sunscreen. And the brand’s 5% Citrus Fruit & Glycolic Glow Toner perfectly sets the stage for more great skin care. ($18-$38) EmerageCosmetics.com

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Lumin offers hydration and nongreasy, mineral-based SPF 30 with UV-Defense Moisturizing Balm ($26). LuminSkin.com Alex is wearing EMPORIO ARMANI cotton brief DAVID YURMAN rings and chain bracelet GILES & BROTHER cuff bracelet

If you’re in an “I can’t quit you” mode of spot brightening, tightening, and wrinkle-fighting, StriVectin presents these results-oriented “fixers” with elegant sun protection. Super-C SPF 30 Vitamin C Moisturizer and Super-C Retinol Brighten & Correct Vitamin C Serum. My new favorite? Advanced Retinol Day Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 30. For a safe, sheer finish use Full Screen Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Clear Finish. ($39-$99). Strivectin.com

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Writer M A R CO ME DR A NO is a multi-state licensed cosmetologist and beauty/grooming expert. @mrmarcomedrano A r t Director B E N WA R D @_benjaminward_ Photographer E A S T ON S CHIR R A @eastonschirra eastonschirra.com for @theonly.agency theonly.agency Model A L E X P OL CY N is an actor, model and producer. He currently works in development at V ICE S tudios but also creates his own content @apzander Grooming C AT B OY L E S @_cat_b_ Photo A ssistant S OP HIE CH A N A NDR E A S S E ND

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Vibrant color tattoos need protection too. Enter Jack Black’s solution treatment duo, MP10 Nourishing Oil applied over Oil-Free Sun Guard SPF 45. Clean Break Oil-Free Moisturizer and Double-Duty Face Moisturizer SPF 20 have potent, daily hydrators containing white tea, niacinamide, and blue algae; 1.5-8.5 oz. ($25-$48) GetJackBlack.com

Timeless Face Defense - Nutrient Rich Repair uses red raspberry, carrot seed oil, and chaga mushroom as a stellar alternative to chemical sunscreens while infusing full-spectrum hemp extract (CBD) and reishi mushroom for all-in-one luxe hydration. To further your urban detox and treat redness or inflammation, start with Timeless Calm - Soothing Face Serum. ($50-$60) GnomeSerum.com

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A STAR

by DANIEL REYNOLDS photographer SOPHIE CHAN ANDREASSEND

IS BORN THIS WAY

JEREMY

POPE HOLLYWOOD AND POSE STAR JEREMY POPE’S RISE TO FAME IS A TESTAMENT TO THE POWER OF PRIDE AND BLACK LGBTQ+ VISIBILITY — AND IT’S ONLY THE BEGINNING.

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early every morning this past year, Jeremy Pope — the star of Netflix’s Hollywood and Broadway shows like Choir Boy — sat down and wrote in his journal, a new ritual he adopted during quarantine. In the past, he was never an ardent lover of writing. But in a tumultuous time, he felt the need to “get all the gunk out” through journaling in order to “stay sane.”

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The act was at once purgative of toxic thoughts and an opportunity of “realigning what my priorities are, what it is I want from the universe,” Pope shares.

And what does he want? “I want to be safe. I want to be healthy.

I want to feel love. I want to give love. And that’s really it. That’s the foundation, I think, of why I do all the things that I do,” he affirms.

“I just happen to use art to do that.”

Pope details these intentions to me via phone from the front porch of his mother’s home in Orlando, Florida, where he was raised. At the time, he was on break from projects in New York City, where the final season of Pose is being filmed. For a while, at least, he is “letting my parents take care of me” before production begins on Scandalous!, a biopic in which he will star as Sammy Davis Jr. “I really feel like I’m in a season of alignment right now,” he reflects.

“And kind of recharging, the calm before the storm.”

While much of the entertainment industry was suspended due to the pandemic, Pope had a banner year. He was a breakout star of Hollywood, Ryan Murphy’s Netflix miniseries, which reimagined a more inclusive history of Tinseltown. In it, he portrayed Archie Coleman, a screenwriter dating Rock Hudson (played by Jake Picking).

Art has a funny way of imitating life. While his character received an Oscar in the series, which challenged Hollywood’s racism and homophobia, Pope garnered an Emmy nomination for the role. He enjoyed the virtual ceremony with his family, an experience that was “better” than in-person because they were able to watch together while enjoying his grandmother’s “Southern food ready for us to eat” during a milestone career moment.

“It’s awkward, you know, but it’s beautiful,” he says of having such success in a surreal, distanced year. “That nomination or any nomination is just a reminder that you’re in the right place, and to kind of keep moving forward.”

Today, the 28-year-old is receiving fans and acclaim for roles he once believed would never exist. When he first arrived in New York City as a green actor a decade ago, Pope feared that being an out gay actor, who is also Black, would inhibit his career.

“There’s just a tricky way in which you have to move, especially in an industry that is predominantly white,” says Pope of first navigating the stigma surrounding his intersectional identities.

“Black men, I feel like a lot of times, our masculinity is our armor,” he says. “We’re meant to be built strong and tough because we’ve had to endure so much. So when you tell someone that you’re gay or you’re queer or you identify within the community, it’s like, do you lose that badge of honor? Do you lose that respect? Do you lose your safety because people feel like you’re vulnerable or you’re fragile?”

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As the younger Pope grappled with the meaning of coming out to his career, he also weighed its potential impact within his family.

Pope’s father is “extremely hypermasculine,” he shares, traits rooted in his dual callings as a pastor and a professional bodybuilder. Pope’s parents are separated, but he was close enough with his father growing up to consider him a best friend, a partner.

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“I didn’t want to lose that dynamic,” he says of his coming-out fears.

“I watched so many of my cousins and a lot of my Black friends maybe not have a relationship with their father.”

Being the son of a pastor also came with its own expectations in his faith community. “There’s an image that you have to uphold,” Pope says, adding, “You feel like you can’t make mistakes, because you are the example.

You are the first family, especially in the Black community — what everyone is striving to essentially be, or your relationship to God is supposed to feel the closest.”

A breakthrough moment for his career and personal life came in 2013. At the time, he was the lead in the New York debut of Choir Boy, a play by Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney about an effeminate gospel choir singer grappling with his sexuality at a preparatory school for Black students.

Offstage, Pope felt “a burden” by not telling his family members about his own gay identity.

So, he called them — first his mother, then his father — to share his truth.

Pope “blacked out” about the details of those initial phone calls. But he found that his parents had open hearts and ears, and a series of conversations ensued. In these talks, he and his father even talked Scripture and how “religion can be sometimes very dangerous,” particularly when it is used to demonize LGBTQ+ people.

“The fact that he was open to…having these conversations and expanding his heart and his mind, to learn and to love me further, it’s so precious and important,” Pope says. “And I feel very grateful to have that because I know so many people who don’t have that, who end up getting shut out.”

Rather than the term “coming out,” Pope sees the process as a longterm invitation to “coming in — let me bring you into the beautiful world that we have.” This not only means making phone calls, but also letting family meet LGBTQ+ friends, boyfriends, and, say, coworkers like Janet Mock, the transgender multihyphenate who directed Pope on Pose and will collaborate with him again in Scandalous!

Today, he knows he makes his family proud. “There’s nothing like seeing the twinkle in your parents’ eyes,” he attests.

Being true to himself paid off professionally as well. Pope went on to reprise his role in the 2019 Broadway run of Choir Boy, which garnered him a Tony Award nomination; he also received a nod that same year for the Temptations-inspired musical Ain’t Too Proud. His theatrical

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success literally opened the doors to Hollywood. He counts the miniseries’ gay co-creator, Ryan Murphy, plus McCraney and Mock, as mentors who helped him find “the ultimate freedom path,” where he found his footing as an out artist. Their support has helped assuage a fear he still sometimes harbors about being a Black gay man in the entertainment industry.

“Is there space for me?” he asks. “I feel like I’m at the beginning of my career. So far, a lot of times I’m occupying the space as a first. The more I’m aligned with myself, the more I see the world showing me the spaces and the people that do value and respect me and want to see us win, want to see me win, want to see me soar.”

Even in 2021, however, when some actors like Pope can flourish by being authentic, the glass closet persists. In a recent interview, Kate Winslet acknowledged that she knew at least four actors who won’t come out due to fears that doing so would kill their careers. And while there are far more out LGBTQ+ actors today than at any point in history, there are few, if any, out “leading men” carrying major movie franchises.

For Pope, the cost of being closeted — or working in anti-LGBTQ+ settings — just isn’t worth it. He shared that he recently left a project after he “wasn’t being valued and respected” due in part to his queerness, and he has no regrets about that call.

“I think a lot of people have had to sacrifice a huge part of loving themselves at the cost of wanting to be, quote-unquote, successful, whatever that looks like to you,” he says. “Success to me doesn’t look like ‘I have all the money, I have all the opportunities, but I can’t be myself.’” For Pope, success means having love and respect from “my tribe of people, and we’re kind of pouring into each other, we’re wanting each other to win.”

Pope now feels like his work as an actor is intertwined with his activism; championing for equality “feels very spiritual” and “part of my purpose,” and also a reflection of his background with faith. “I’ve had to create my own kind of way of looking at the world and who God is to me and my relationship in that,” he says.

Watching television, a film, or a play is “an opportunity to bring people in on a journey or a narrative that they maybe don’t understand or that they don’t see enough of …to think differently, to expand their minds and their hearts, to empathize more, and to also activate, to make a change, whether that’s in your community or in your family,” he says. It’s a privilege for him to star in productions like Hollywood and Choir Boy that can spark that kind of change.

“I didn’t go out initially looking for those roles, but those are the type of roles and stories that found me,” he says. “And ultimately, those stories and those roles are the ones that…fulfill me the most.”

Pope also feels the responsibility to help others on that “freedom path” in the entertainment industry. Portraying the love interest of Mj Rodriguez’s Blanca on Pose, he felt he was “joining the family” of a pioneering cast of transgender and queer

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people of color. On set, he felt a love and a need to “protect them at all costs.” But he knows the season is not an end, but a beginning in the movement toward greater trans representation. (Read more about Pose’s legacy on page 34. ) To help in this movement, Pope successfully advocated to help bring on Mock as a director of Scandalous!

She is “one of the best” he’s ever worked with, and a necessary voice in a filmmaking landscape that is still dominated by white straight men.

He’s also “honored” to work with her in telling the story of Davis, “the ultimate entertainer” who, like him, was a first, navigating a space where he had to be “four times as good as everyone…just to be in the room.”

This Out cover story — and his self-directed gender-f luid photo shoot of himself adorned in fishnet and pearls — is also a testament to “how far I’ve come.” In releasing these images, Pope says he asserts to the world that his body “can be lucid, it can be free, it can be broken, it can be masculine, it can be feminine, and…I’m allowed to possess all of those things.”

“A couple of years ago, I would have been scared to be on the cover of Out,” because of what it would do or what that will mean or how people will take him in, he says. “But now, it feels like a whole different season and a whole different journey.”

Pope says he hopes “for anyone out there who sees the images or reads the article…[to] feel that affirmation…and maybe feel a little bit clear, free to be themselves, to lean into whatever direction they feel on any given day.”

Pope fondly recalls the freedom he felt at his first Pride celebration in New York City. He was standing in Jeffrey’s Grocery in the West Village while a nearby reveler whipped a fan in rhythm to Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.” In a still socially-distanced world, though, he envisions this year’s Pride as “a moment for us to take in how far we’ve come, who we are, who we are striving to be” and to “continue to push these barriers — to keep pushing, and fighting, and believing for more.”

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 Suit and Shoes

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Necklace MINA STONES

LV Mixed Chains Necklace LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Shirt Pants MENAGERIÉ INTIMATES Creative Director & Talent JEREMY POPE @jeremypope Photographer SOPHIE CHAN ANDRE ASSEND @sophieandreassend Stylist UGO MOZIE @ugomozie Special Thank You HD BUT TERCUP STUDIOS Event Venue # 6 hdbuttercupvenues.com

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VENICE BEACH 80

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Classic Shirt Silk Print, Keepall Bandouliere 50, LV Balloon Set of 3 Rings, LV Ash Sunglasses

MODEL ERIK SATHRUM ESCAPES TO THE CALIFORNIA SUN IN LOUIS VUITTON’S SPRING SUMMER 2021 COLLECTION photographer EASTON SCHIRRA out.com

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S 70s Peak Lapel Jacket, Bootcut Trousers, 1.1 Millionaires Sunglasses, Keepall Bandouliere 50, and a Speedy Soft Trunk 82

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Clock lntarsia Pullover, white Bootcut Trousers, Chain Links Patches Necklace, and LV Volt Upside Down Bracelet with yellow gold, white gold, and diamonds

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Classic Shirt, Cigarette Pants, 1.1 Millionaires Sunglasses, Printed Hat, Keepall Bandouliere 40, and LV Ollie Sneaker 84

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Slant Lapel Suit Jacket, Classic Shirt in Vert Sapin, Bootcut Trousers, Outdoor Slingbag, and a Tambour Street Diver in Pacific White

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S 70s Peak Lapel Jacket, Distorted Dornier lntarsia Turtleneck, Cigarette Pants, Steamer XS, and LV Distorted Sunglasses

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Classic Shirt, Bootcut Trousers, 1.1 Millionaires Sunglasses, Tambour Moon Dual Time Graphite 44

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Puppet Baseball Jacket, Louis Vuitton Staples Edition Regular DNA Poplin Shirt, Rainbow Charms Necklace out.com

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LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S Half Cardigan Stitch Teddy Pullover, 1.1 Millionaires Sunglasses, Rainbow Charms Necklace.

All pieces available at Select Louis Vuitton Stores. louisvuit ton.com

A r t Director B E N WA R D @_benjaminward_ Photographer E A S T ON S CHIR R A @eastonschirra eastonschirra.com for @theonly.agency theonly.agency Model E R IK S AT HR UM @eriksathrum for @photogenicsla photogenicsmedia.com S t ylist D AV ID G A NGE L @davidgangel for @theonly.agency Grooming M A R I B O W R ING @mariwonhee using @amika anti - humidit y spray & @ibizahair tools On - Site Producer A L E X P OL CY N @apzander Photo A ssistant S OP HIE CH A N A NDR E A S S E ND S t ylist A ssistant A B B Y K R IE CK H A U S

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by cary chandler

horoscopes

What Are The Stars Telling You?

It’s a new dawn.

Big change is coming, but are you ready?

ARIES March 21 – April 19 You are starring in a movie about your own life, magnetic Aries, and the soundtrack is vibing! Mars in Leo will carry you through June’s retrogrades and you will stay upbeat. You will feel especially fired up on June 12th but remember to hold off making any big decisions or moves until Mercury goes direct on the 23rd. The full moon on the 24th illuminates you as the effective leader you are.

TAURUS April 20 – May 20 It’s OK to feel all the feels sometimes Taurus, but it will only be harder if you dig those bullhorns in. Try to ride the wave out until the end of the month when Venus enters Leo in your 4th house. Home life could get dramatic, but you’ll charm the birds out of their trees and have your way in the end. The full moon on the 24th brings a spiritual love connection.

june 2021

GEMINI May 21 – June 21 The new moon on the 10th is a birthday wish just for you, so go ahead Gem, wish big! What do you want to manifest? If others don’t quite seem to understand you just keep doing your thing, they haven’t caught up to you yet. You can cast a charm spell on anyone once Mercury goes direct on the 23rd. The wish you made comes true on the 24th, but how may surprise you.

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CANCER June 22 – July 22 Your innermost desires may be calling to you in your dreams, intuitive Cancer, acknowledge them by the new moon on the 10th. June is your month to reflect on all you have accomplished this year, on everything you have earned and obtained — it is time to decide what is actually valuable to you.

The full Strawberry moon on the 24th shines lights on your house of relationships. Flowers and wine for bae?

LIBRA September 23 – October 22 Been searching for a bit of meaning or higher purpose amongst it all lately, Libra? Well, this month it finds you and it hits you right in the feels. You will receive confirmation that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, and exactly who you are supposed to be. As Venus and Mars transit into Leo in your 11th house you will be feeling especially connected to your family and community revitalizing you.

LEO July 3 – August 22 Don’t fret Leo, nothing will stop your hot queer summer, even if others aren’t on board yet. Find your lion pride and stick with them. By the time Mars enters your sign on the 12th, no one will be able to resist, and others will follow in your stride. You will be especially desirable with Venus energy on the 28th but check your dramatics, you already have it all, no need to be so extra.

SCORPIO October 23 – November 21 You are the Luna moth this month, metamorphic Scorpio.

Pluto and Mercury in retrograde may have you over thinking but lean in. If you could re-do a part of your recent life, would you?

Set the tone the way you want it. Inviting in the dark will help you find the brightest light. Mars and Venus fire up your house of career this month and by the full moon on the 24th, your transformation is complete.

VIRGO August 23 – September 22 If you think 2021 is all about your 10th house of career and your moment in the spotlight, Virgo, you’re not wrong, and this month brings even more action in this area. Get ready. The stars are asking you to align, not with work, but with your life’s work.

Set intentions during the new moon on the 10th and be patient.

Pleasure, fun, and love find you during the full Strawberry Moon on the 24th.

SAGITTARIUS November 22 – December 21 Planetary retrogrades in your 4th and 7th houses want to know: which relationships in your life need a reset, Sagg?

Remember the best times you had with your favorite people, what were the circumstances?

Everything is different now and so are you, but what can you harvest from those good times and bring back? Return to the bare bones. Harvest rewards for all your hard work this month with the full moon on the 24th.

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THE STARS ARE ALIGNED, HUNTY!

Our cover star Jeremy Pope’s chart shows that after his groundbreaking roles in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood and the upcoming Janet Mock-directed Sammy Davis Jr. biopic, the actor will continue to rise.

CAPRICORN December 22 – January 19 Are you working for a goal, Capricorn, or just…working?

Ruling Saturn’s retrograde in your house of values and Mercury’s retrograde in your house of work invite you to reflect on the why and the who. Reassess your values and your time and ask yourself to return to what is most important, even if it seems small! The full Strawberry Moon in your sign on the 24th is extra powerful for you Capricorn. Be spontaneous.

AQUARIUS January 20 – February 18 You are not quite like the rest of your family, free-spirited, queer, Uranus-ruled Aquarius, and that is OK. They already know this about you, so there is no need for you to explain yourself to anyone!

Remember this last fact when you hesitate to spend any money this month on pleasurable activities.

What you desire is important! As Mars and Venus move into your house of relationships this month you radiate enticing energy.

PISCES February 19 – March 20 The conscious and the unconscious, Neptune and Jupiter, have been collectively bringing you to the next level, dynamic Pisces. As these two major planets enter into retrograde this month, remember that although things may not be moving as fast as you would like, sometimes the bigger rewards take more time to manifest. Water energy gives way to fire as Mars and Venus move into Leo in your house of work mid-month to reenergize you.

JEREMY POPE’S BIG THREE: CANCER SUN, SCORPIO MOON, SAGITTARIUS ASCENDANT Jeremy’s sun is in Cancer with a conjunction to Venus within eight degrees of each other, therefore Venus is a part of Pope’s identity. This SunVenus conjunction belongs specifically to highly creative minds. We know Pope is a gifted actor and a singer, but this conjunction shows that he is a gifted writer as well. Not surprised!

A Scorpio moon shows a person motivated by emotion who is extremely intuitive and empathetic. Pope has probably experienced prophetic dreams or visions in his life. His moon is conjoined with Pluto, which brings in even more powerful water in this chart.

This Plutonian Moon energy in the 11th house is mover and shaker energy. Pope is someone who can help others to grow into who they are supposed to be.

Pope’s moon is about to cross into his 1st house in June and it will remain here for three years.

This will mark a time when he will be pushed even more into the spotlight or feels he is coming into the spotlight and leaving behind-the-scenes life. His rising Sagittarius is the mark of someone with a strong desire for learning and one key to this learning is travel. This is the energy that will direct his life. It will be getting out of his comfort zone and leaving the place where he is from, which will help his soul develop and grow.

MIDHEAVEN (MC) IN VIRGO IN THE 10TH HOUSE Pope’s midheaven, the highest point in his chart — the point that he will constantly aspire to his whole life — is in the 10th house of career, ambition, and public image. His purpose for his ambitious career is not completely about himself, but about the gifts that he can offer to the world and to society. When Pope is offering himself in the public eye he is operating at his highest vibration. He will continuously hone in on his craft, constantly working on perfecting it.

Pope’s MC in Virgo emphasizes his perfectionist side, in his craft but also

in the way he presents himself. This placement belongs to someone who stays on top of the latest fashion, not to excess or extreme, but always presents as put together.

SAPPHO SEXTILE TO VENUS Sexual preference in a birth chart, especially a same-sex preference can be evident with the placement of Sappho, the asteroid of attraction. In Pope’s chart, Sappho is in sextile to Venus, which is an indicator of wanting to merge or connect with the same sex.

PROGRESSED VENUS Pope has a progressed Venus, which shows us that his love language is shifting from Leo energy to Virgo energy. In the past, He may have looked for an outgoing, perhaps dramatic lover, someone who had flair. This will soon evolve to a preference for someone more humble, someone more willing to be there for him, to show up, and to serve. This person will be well put together and more down to earth. This type of partner will be attractive to him going forward for quite some time.

A FULL 8TH HOUSE Pope’s 8th house is packed! His Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Chiron are located here in his natal chart. This is indicative of someone who has experienced the more hidden aspects of life and one who desires deep understanding and connection. Jeremy may be drawn to interests such as psychology and astrology and may have met with psychics or mediums. This is the same energy that might attract Jeremy to perform in roles such as Archie in Hollywood. Pope will be drawn to roles that are catalysts for change. If he wasn’t a performer, he would probably make an excellent therapist or psychologist.

CARY CHANDLER is a queer,

bisexual astrologer and witch. @themoonis_out Read the rest of Jeremy Pope’s chart on Out.com out.com

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june 2021

“What is sexual identity without sex...?”

last call

by alexander cheves illustration @christiaagram

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Come Out and Play Getting back into the sexual saddle is harder than many of us would like to admit.

A vision of our future appeared in April when Twitter user @bestinsio sent this out into the world: “Writing a screenplay about the post-vaccination world. It went like this: BARISTA (hornily) Good morning.

CUSTOMER (hornily) Good morning. I would like one iced coffee with milk and sugar.

BARISTA (hornily) Are you okay?

CUSTOMER (hornily) Yes, of course.

BARISTA (hornily) You’re crying.

CUSTOMER (hornily) Thank you for my one iced coffee with milk and sugar.”

I thought the tweet was funny and so did my WhatsApp thread of besties — the pandemic-era gay bar. Online, memes have been circulating about post-vaccine life for months. The general consensus has been that everyone will be aggressively down to fuck. My favorite meme so far was when someone took stills from one of President Biden’s speeches and replaced his words with new captions: “I promise life will be back to normal soon. This summer’s going to be a nonstop fuckfest.”

Since the start of the administration’s more cohesive vaccine rollout, a nonstop fuckfest in the near future finally seems to be something not only hoped for but actually possible. But the truth is, I’m not excited about this. I’m nervous. I never thought I would feel what I’m feeling now, during what is supposed to be the prime of my life: massive performance anxiety.

Before the pandemic, my identity as a slut was so established among my friends that it was a steady joke. I was expected to sneak off to the bathroom at gay bars and skip brunch for sex parties. Would that version of me return after all this?

Was it allowed to?

Before COVID, summer for many queer men often came with a host of social and sexual expectations — pressures to have a summer body, summer looks, summer party tickets. I almost always had more sex in the hotter

months. As summer has approached this year, that pressure has felt increased tenfold given the restraint we’ve been forced to show over the past year. And I’ve been buckling under it.

I’ve hoped, perhaps unrealistically, that gay men will be gentler and more forgiving with each other this year. Many of us gained weight in lockdown, lost our gym routines, and went without sex for months on end. For some of us, the pain of losing loved ones to COVID-19 put that sort of intimacy far from our minds.

But let’s be clear here: Not everyone has been abstaining. Various regions have relaxed health restrictions, and factions of our communit y have completely abandoned precautions, which may be understandable given the botched governmental handling of this public health crisis. For some, life has already been a nonstop fuckfest.

But I have not fully joined in yet. As of publication, deadly variants are battering the U.S., and despite our vaccine rollout, cases have been climbing. But this is not the reason I’ve held back. I simply haven’t felt very sexy. My former self — my former confidence — has felt like a distant dream.

I asked some queer folks who I consider sexually confident if any of them have been feeling the same way. To my amazement, nearly all of them have.

“I have some intense anxiety over getting back out there,” says Storm Elliot, a queer writer and reviewer of sex toys for her website, VanillaFreeSex. com. “I’m out of practice both socially and sexually. I believe my best bet is to dip my toes back in by looking for friendships that may have the potential to lead to more.”

The “cumpuppy” known in the gay fetish world as Bamm Bamm had only three sexual encounters in 2020, all with the same person. “My world kind of fell apart in 2020 with divorce, moving, dynamic changes,” he said. “Now I’m vaccinated fully. But when I get messages [for sex], I just can’t bring myself to follow through.”

My first post-Moderna hookup, on advice from a friend, saw me return to

a regular buddy. I met up with a former hookup I last saw over a year ago. After one meetup, we started talking about this becoming a regular thing. This itself was a change. Before COVID, I didn’t do regular things.

I’ve feared for months that the pandemic would do more than change my sex life — that it would change my sexual identity. I don’t like the vulnerability of getting to know people.

More than that, I just get bored. But against my expectations, something Elliot said rang true for me: “If this last year has taught me anything, it’s that I want connection and intimacy.”

Many queer people see their queer identities as fixed things. Many sex people — kinksters, load queens, sex workers, sluts — see their sexual identities the same way. But what is a sexual identity without sex? For a year, I felt like mine was at risk of eroding, that what I’d lose in the pandemic was not just great sex but a certain perception of myself as someone for whom sex comes easily.

Race Bannon, a prominent kink writer from San Francisco, came to my rescue. He believes that kink is an identity, not just a sex practice, and exists regardless if a person is having kinky sex. “You know how you’re gay even when you’re not having gay sex?

Well, you’re still a slut even when you’re not fucking all the time.”

His idea was such a simple one, but I had not put it together on my own. Sex is not about what you do. It’s about who you are.

I decided to make that my mantra in 2021. I was still nervous, but I decided that instead of trying to deliver the person I was, I would focus on discovering what I am now. Whatever sexual being I was before COVID, the pandemic came along and changed me, and the only thing that matters now is what I am becoming.

ALEXANDER CHEVES is a writer and sex expert whose book debut is expected in late 2021 from Unbound Edition Press. @badalexcheves

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by donald padgett

pride rewind

OUTMAGAZINE

Pride Rewind June is the queerest time of year,

so in recent Pride months we’ve used our covers to honor the birth of the gay rights movement at Stonewall Inn and embrace our celebration of Pride with community members and allies alike.

Take a short trip with us down memory lane as we revisit our recent issues. We can’t wait to see you next year!

june 2021

From top clockwise: June 2017, MATT BOMER June 2019, MJ RODRIGUEZ; and June 2009, PET SHOP BOYS

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From the Compton’s Cafeteria riot to the Stonewall uprising, sex workers have always led the way in our movements. Still, sex work remains stigmatized, with women of color – especially those who are trans – facing disproportionate profiling, policing, and violence as a result.

Pride as we know it wouldn’t exist if not for the bravery, vulnerability, and tireless efforts of sex workers. And keeping them safe means ending these injustices, not the trade.

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Learn more and join the fight at stonewallfoundation.org/sex

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