Table of contents for May/June 2023 in The Advocate

As the spring season unfolds, I am delighted to share some exciting happenings at equalpride. I am thrilled to announce our recent Out March/April fashion issue cover launch featuring the incomparable Billy Porter. His passion and unique perspective on the LGBTQ+ experience is truly a testament to the power of representation in the media. We are also elated to share that The Advocate has won Outstanding Magazine for Overall Coverage at the 34th GLAAD Media Awards ceremony. This recognition is a testament to our team’s dedication to telling inclusive, accurate, and impactful stories about the LGBTQ+ community. Our mission at equalpride is to amplify diverse voices, and we are proud to work alongside the talented individuals who bring this vision to life. As we come together to celebrate Pride, let’s…

The American LGBTQ+ Museum continues to evolve as the organization prepares to open at the New York Historical Society in 2026. In March, the museum announced a new addition to its team: Suhaly Bautista-Carolina will join the organization as its first director of public programs and partnerships. Bautista-Carolina will oversee the museum’s efforts to unify the institution’s vision, museum officials say. “Suhaly will grow the museum on the national stage while ensuring it stays connected to local communities as a valuable resource,” according to a statement from the museum. The museum’s executive director, Ben Garcia, says, “I could not be happier to have Suhaly as a partner in this work. They bring deep experience, kindness, and creativity to our vision for a museum rooted in LGBTQ+ liberation. And a sprinkling…

The political situation for LGBTQ+ Americans in the U.S. feels perilous as of late, with book bans, “grooming” smears, and an unhinged political party happy to use queer people as scapegoats. Still, for many LGBTQ+ people around the world, life in America and other Western nations is still preferable to the homophobic and transphobic terror they face in their countries. As pointed out by Asylum, the new photo book shot by Italian fashion lenser and director Umberto Nicola Nicoletti, more than 40 percent of the world’s nations still impose prison sentences or the death penalty just for being LGBTQ+. Asylum tells the stories and shows the faces — that display fear, hope, determination — of individuals desperately trying to escape their circumstances and make their way to better lives. But…

112 seconds. Ellen Trawick’s 32-year-old son, Kawaski, was killed by New York Police Department officers in less than two minutes on April 14, 2019. After more than a year and a half, the Bronx District Attorney investigated and cleared the officers of criminal charges. There was a hallway security camera and a body camera recording the event. However, yet another month would pass before the NYPD released the video. Six months later, a civilian review board recommended firing officers involved in the shooting. Officer Brendan Thompson and his partner, Herbert Davis, entered Kawaski’s Bronx apartment improperly, the police oversight agency found. The fatal interaction between NYPD officers and the person they were supposed to protect unraveled within 112 seconds, but the disciplinary process has taken nearly two more years. Finally,…

photographer NELSON CASTILLO @nelsonncastillo photographer’s assistant JHENDI @jhendi groomer TIM MACKAY @timmackaybeauty stylist BRANDON GARR @brandonmgarr video AUSTIN NUNES @austinunes producer STEVIE WILLIAMS @beingstevie of X2 Production Why was Chasten Buttigieg DMing my husband? Oh right, he’s married to the transportation boss, I remembered at the time. Chasten’s message came in April 2022, after a man nearly assaulted my husband, my two children (then aged 5 and 6), and myself on an Amtrak train near San Jose, screaming — in front of all of us and half a dozen passengers — that we were groomers who stole these kids to rape them. After Amtrak personnel finally intervened and told the man to leave the train, he refused, saying he would die before getting off. Forty-five agonizing minutes later, a phalanx…

“I’VE BEEN A swimmer for as long as I can remember,” Schuyler Bailar says. “I learned how to swim when I was 10 months old… and swimming’s just been such an important part of my life since before I could really remember.” From there Bailar went on to become a decorated competitive swimmer, and eventually became the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer. He is also the first documented NCAA Division 1 trans man to compete as male in any sport. But he admits the road to his success was rocky. “I went through a lot of difficult things in my 18 years before I realized that I was transgender,” he says. “I was bullied a lot for not looking girly enough. I was always kind of different from…

PIDGEON PAGONIS’S LIFE was shaped by one lie after another. It was always shrouded in secrecy, and they struggled with their identity as they constantly tried to fit in with “the other girls.” A secret haunted their childhood, one that Pagonis wouldn’t discover until they went off to college and pieced things together after they attended a lecture about what it means to be intersex. A call to their mother confirmed Pagonis’s suspicions: They did, in fact, have their genitalia surgically altered as a child in order to fit them into the binary definition of a “female.” This then became their driving force to stop the nonconsensual mutilation of intersex people. “I hated what they did to me,” says Pagonis while discussing what it was like to find out about…

Pop singer Hayley Kiyoko more than successfully adapts her iconic music video for the song “Girls Like Girls” in her debut novel, expanding on the characters and deepening queer themes. Just like the music video of the same name, Girls Like Girls follows Coley, an Asian-American teen who moves into a new town in the 2000s and falls in love with her charismatic new best friend — despite the fact that said best friend has a boyfriend. As she tries to find her place in this new environment, she also has to deal with the fact that she’s falling in love in a time and place where it isn’t easy to be queer. While this could’ve been nothing more than a vanity project from a pop star, Kiyoko is actually…

FAT WESTBROOK AND CEDRIC ST. LOUIS With a smooth as hell flow and hilarious punchlines, Cedric St Louis and Fat Westbrook’s new remix of “That Bitch” will be your new getting-ready-for-a-night-out anthem. “I loved the song, but I knew it hadn’t reached its full potential…it was time to go harder,” Cedric said about remixing the song. “Where the old meets the new, the message remains the same: You are that bitch, and we’re here to let everyone know.” Both rappers bring the heat, the sex, and the fun in this empowering jam that will have you singing your own praises in the mirror as you get ready for a cute date, hookup, or night on the town. “That Bitch (Remix)” is the third single off the duo’s upcoming EP, Castor…

THE ACRONYM FOR the LGBTQ+ community continues to grow and evolve alongside our community — and debate continues as to which letters (and colors on the Pride flag) should or shouldn’t be included. While it may be difficult to represent all the varying identities in one term, what we can do is try to celebrate each other and our differences. For this year’s Champions of Pride (page 29), our annual list of amazing out people making a difference in the world, we are honoring nine individuals who express this wonderful diversity. Our cover star, Chasten Buttigieg — an author, activist, teacher, and husband to Pete Buttigieg, the current U.S. secretary of transportation — is proving to our youth that being gay shouldn’t hold one back from living an incredible life.…

Rather than hunting for colorful eggs, thousands of demonstrators in West Hollywood took to the streets in colorful outfits this Easter. They marched to show their support for trans and drag communities currently under attack — as of April 9, at least 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the U.S. in 2023, including one in California. The American Civil Liberties Union reports that this is more than double the number from last year. In support of queer people nationwide and as a protest against recent anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, organizers pulled off an inaugural “Drag March” in Los Angeles’s gay epicenter. Opening remarks were made at 10 a.m. in West Hollywood Park. West Hollywood mayor Sepi Shyne, Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendoner, and Los Angeles county supervisor Lindsey Horvath…

ACHEBE BETTY POWELL Achebe Betty Powell, a trailblazing Black queer activist, died in late February at the age of 82. She was a founding member of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice and remained active in the organization for the last 45 years. She was among the small group of multiracial, multiclass, feminist activists who came together in 1977 to create a new way of bringing resources to movements led by lesbians and women of color, to, in her words, “generate the justice that our communities need, right here, right now.” She was the first Black lesbian to serve on the board of directors of the National Gay (now LGBTQ) Task Force and was cochair of that board for several years and attended the historic meeting of lesbian and gay…

VONTÉ ABRAMS IS AN Atlanta-based writer, visual concept artist, classical singer, spiritualist, and “LGBTQ+ philosophe.” They recently added the role of brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton to this impressive list, and even got to sing in the choir for Sam Smith’s stunning debut of “Gloria” on Saturday Night Live. Abrams confesses that “every time I heard [Smith sing], I practically melted. It was so hard to concentrate.… I get chills just remembering it. It was magical and hit in all the right places, especially when you dissect the lyrics. ‘Be yourself so loud tonight they’ll hear you from the stars.’” As an ordained interfaith spiritualist, Abrams says, “Art to me is sacred, and essential to the human experience. If money were no object, I would spend my days practicing art that…

OVER THE COURSE of their stellar career, Sam Smith has never stopped pushing boundaries. Not content to be anything less than their authentic self, the English singer-songwriter came out as nonbinary in September 2019. “I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out,” Smith wrote on Instagram. Smith has been in touch with their gender nonconformity since childhood, and music was a means to tap into their femininity. “When I was a child, I put in my earphones and I became the woman of my dreams [for] a little bit. I came out when I was 10 years old, and music was my safe space,” the star told Out shortly after coming out as nonbinary For Smith, being themself also means being one of the greatest pop…

SO, LET US take a journey down the road of the origins of my bisexuality … starting with the phrase girl crush. Such an interesting term! Both as a whole and when we look at the two words individually. “Girl” has an obvious definition, but when you deep it, it seems rather redundant to put in front of the word crush on its face; since “crush” is merely describing a brief, yet intense infatuation to a certain someone and doesn’t even particularly hint at the gender of the someone in question. Still. Growing up and then subsequently heading to high school meant that I quickly learned that “girl crush” functioned as shorthand for a couple of things. The first included giving someone like myself—sometimes girl, sometimes woman—the opportunity to express admiration…

New York QUEER EXCELLENCE WAS on display at three recent events held around the country. In New York, Out (a sister publication to The Advocate), threw a March fête in honor of Billy Porter, the magazine’s spring cover star. Porter, celebrating his infectious new single, “Baby Was a Dancer,” shined like the star he is, while ballroom legend Kevin Aviance spun tunes for the fabulous crowd. The 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards Los Angeles ON THE WEST Coast, the recent GLAAD Media Awards honored LGBTQ+ representation in film, television, and journalism, with The Advocate winning the award for best Magazine Overall Coverage. Aside from us, stars like Bad Bunny, Jeremy Pope, and Christina Aguilera were also honored for their positive contributions to LGBTQ+ depictions and allyship (not bad company!). The media…

Glenn Magpantay has spent his life advocating for LGBTQ+ Asians and Pacific Islanders to have a seat at the table. Now, Magpantay himself is sitting in one of the most powerful chairs there is. The civil rights lawyer and former executive director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance was recently appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency guiding Congress and the White House on civil rights laws and policy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Magpantay’s appointment earlier this year and he was sworn in by the Commission’s director, Mauro Morales. Taking time from his packed schedule — he’s also a professor of Asian American Studies at New York City’s Hunter College — Magpantay explained his work at the commission and what he plans…

It was during the 1990s that queer activists first adopted the term “LGB” (lesbian, gay, bisexual) to unify as a community and describe their sexual identities. However, over time, the acronym has continued to grow to include the vast diversity this community encompasses. But the ever-evolving acronym has not been without controversy. Many feel the many extended variations — which include LGBTQIAA, LGBTQIA2S, and one of the longest of all, LGBTQQIAAPPO2S — are confusing, overcomplicated, and can actually cause division within the community. Is it really possible to represent all sexual, gender, and queer cultural identities in one word or acronym? The good news is, whether it’s possible or not, the growing acronym proves our community is beautifully diverse. It demonstrates our thinking is evolving along with the term; that…

Fern Brady always knew she was a little different. She found herself sexually interested in both men and women while growing up in a working-class Scottish-Catholic family, and says she always struggled socially but never quite understood why. Over the last few years, Brady has begun making a name for herself in the U.K. comedy scene, known for being brash, honest, and talking about things most would consider taboo. At 34, she was officially diagnosed with autism, and since then, everything has clicked. “I hate socializing in large groups,” she says. “There’s way too much going on to be able to follow a conversation and I almost always say the wrong thing.” In her new memoir, Strong Female Character, Brady details the years between her diagnosis, as well as the…

When Vicky Pasche started the genderless clothing brand Dapper Boi with her wife, Charisse, in 2015, she admits, “It really started selfishly, for my own personal reasons. You know, shopping in the men’s department is not a very fun experience socially, and I realized along way that the fit was never really there either.” Not only did the menswear options rarely fit her body properly, Pasche says she was tired of getting “sideways looks” in both the men’s and women’s departments. To get their business idea off the ground, the couple invested a lot personally, even sacrificing their four-bedroom townhouse to live in a 630-square foot apartment (“termites included,” they joke). They started with a simple pair of jeans (which stretch!), as Pasche explains jeans were the first piece of…

IN HIGH SCHOOL, Michele Kirichanskaya took a trip down a Google rabbit hole that led her to a word that perfectly summed up what she’d been feeling: asexuality. “Honestly, in terms of figuring out I was ace, it was relatively easy,” the queer Jewish writer and proud child of immigrants says. “I know this isn’t the case for a lot of aces who grow up thinking they’re ‘broken’ for being who they are.” Which is why Kirichanskaya decided to focus on asexuality — the experience of not having sexual attraction toward individuals of any gender — in their writing. They explain that their passion for writing started in high school, “just writing some notes and story ideas in notebooks when I was bored, or when I saw something about the world…

AUTHOR, YOUTUBER, AND podcaster Matt Baume is a born storyteller, and in many ways, a queer historian. The Seattle-based writer says he has “a passion for telling fun stories about the history of pop culture,” which is evident in his informative videos that reveal fascinating facts and anecdotes often buried by time (and homophobia). Though his documentary-style videos are certainly educational and well-researched, Baume keeps things light, always adding a bit of wit and whimsy into the mix — as evidenced by many of his video’s titles, like “Condoms! Condoms! Condoms! Why Do Gay Men Love The Golden Girls?” and “Hitchcock’s Homos: The Secret Gay Love Affair Behind Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope.” Baume is also the creator of the podcast The Sewers of Paris, which, much like his YouTube channel, “explores the…