FROM THE EDITOR

Queer Providence Is Building The World Of The 21st Century

Dear Reader,

Welcome to this year’s edition of Options Magazine. You may have noticed Options has a new Parisian Art Deco look inside, with a cover inspired by the Dada movement. Options took inspiration from 1920s Paris for 2020s Providence because it was a place and time filled with young Queer activists, artists, poets, and troublemakers who rejected the elites of the times and created the cultural basis of the modern era of the 20th century.

1920s Paris was a sanctuary for artists, writers, thinkers, and Americans looking to escape prohibition and the violent repression of Black and Queer peoples. Out Black American Josephine Baker dazzled Parisian audiences before becoming a French freedom fighter during the German occupation. 1920s Paris was where a young journalist named Ernest Hemingway refined his minimalist writing style – partly to reduce the cost of wiring his reports back home. Paris is where out Jewish American writer Gertrude Stein held salons and sponsored up-and-coming modern artists from the wise and colorful Henri Matisse to the passionate communist Pablo Picasso.

Paris was a place filled with youthful creative energy while also reeling from the trauma of WWI after politicians, generals, and intellectuals eagerly pushed Europe into the horrors of war. It was a place where poets and artists challenged the failure of the elites by questioning society’s core values. They responded to the absurdity of their times with even greater absurdity in what became known as the Dada movement.

Our writers went searching for the stories and ideas that tell us the happenings of Queer and Trans peoples in Providence today and found troublemakers, poets, leaders, and a community that challenges the elites of today. Providence is a place alive with Queer and Trans art and activism that questions authority. Our community is building the new cultural and political ideas for the 21st Century and Options is the magazine that will cover it.

As editor-in-chief, it is my pleasure to present Options Magazine’s The Community Edition.

Rhode Island’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community news source since 1982.

June 2023

Volume XLI, Issue 1

Editor-in-Chief

Alex Morash editor@optionsri.org

Resources Editor & Social Media Coordinator

Derek Sherlock resources@optionsri.org

Copy Editors

Kwana Adams, Ryan Vigneau, Mike Marrapodi, Gil Pontes, Grant Pike, and Patty Hayes

Graphic & Layout Design

Harini Rajagopalan

Advertising & Development Director

Gil Pontes advertising@optionsri.org

Contributors

Kwana Adams, Grant Pike, Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Ryan Vigneau, and Gil Pontes

Directors

Ryan Vigneau, Jackie Goldman, Patty Hayes, Dr. Mike Marrapodi, Kwana Adams, Daniel Byrnes, and Grant Pike

Cover: Options Cover Collage by Alex Morash and Harini Rajagopalan

PO Box 6406 Providence, RI 02940 401-217-3939 www.optionsri.org