What is New York if not a city of night, as John Rechy titled his classic 1963 novel chronicling Times Square’s underground world of hustlers and social outlaws? The city’s reputation is built on its dynamic nightlife—particularly a dynamic queer nightlife, embodied by a community of drag queens, go-go boys, bartenders, promoters, and so-called “personalities” that have sung the siren’s call to many a small-town gay from around the country, and the globe. Read more…

For months during the filming of American Crime Story, Ricky Martin found himself back in the closet—this time playing Antonio D’Amico, the longtime lover of the late Gianni Versace. In the pilot episode of the FX series, a detective with the Miami Police Department interrogates D’Amico after the designer is murdered. Unsure what D’Amico means when he refers to Versace as his “partner,” he questions the nature of their relationship, invoking the young men D’Amico would procure for him, some of them duly compensated, and asking, “Did he pay you?” Read more…

For the most part, awards don’t mean anything, particularly awards that come with elaborate ceremonies and decades of tradition. Those awards rarely hold significance except for the people who win them—the culmination of a concerted effort around a singular vision, embodied by a glistening gold statuette that will spend the remainder of its days on a shelf somewhere, away from the public eye that afforded it its significance to begin with. Read more…

The elevator doors open to the fourth floor of World of Wonder studios. I’m half an hour early, but RuPaul is already there, in his plaid coral-and-aqua Mr. Turk suit, engrossed with his iPad. A part of me wants to scurry back into the elevator—the domineering image of Mama Ru from nine seasons of his titular Drag Race writ large on my imagination—but finding the appropriate nerve, I introduce myself, extending a hand in greeting. He shakes it for a second, before letting his shoulders collapse in disappointment. Read more…

How many young actors, let alone young black actors, would choose a gay movie as their first real introduction to the world? Regardless of one’s orientation, Hollywood, for all its left-leaning bloviation, is still homophobic — and pretty racist. Once upon a time, not so long ago, playing gay was a shortcut to either obscurity or an Oscar, depending on how well you died at the end of the film.

But Moonlight is not just any gay movie. And Trevante Rhodes is not just any young actor. He is a black man in 2017. And he is completely at home in his skin, obsidian dark and carrying the weight of America’s sins; in his sexuality — straight, if it matters, and it somehow always does; and within his body, powerful, gladiatorial, that of a college and lifelong athlete. It was this body — both his comfort in it, and its discomfiting presence — that earned him his breakout role as the adult version of Moonlight’s central character, Chiron. Read more…

Trans women of color don’t often have happy endings. According to the latest numbers from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 72% of the victims of hate-violence homicides are transgender women, 67% of whom are transgender women of color. As one of the most vulnerable groups in America, trans women of color are also more likely to experience police violence and sexual violence, and face higher levels of discrimination in housing, employment, and access to health care.

All of this is why Tracey Norman’s story is so remarkable. Read more…