As an 18-year-old newly arrived in New York City, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Zackary Drucker encountered a photograph of European disco icon Amanda Lear and—like so many before her, including David Bowie—was immediately captivated by her beauty, crediting her as her "original trans archetype." Twenty years later, the director was approached by producer Noah Levy with the... Continue Reading →
Rising New York ballroom legend and trans icon Venus Xtravaganza was killed aged 23 in December 1988 and her murder remains unsolved. Venus has lived on as a gentle, captivating, playful, and vibrantly indelible light in Jennie Livingston's 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning, which featured Venus describing her life as it was and her dreams... Continue Reading →
Writer-director-editor Jules Rosskam's Desire Lines, which received its world premiere in the NEXT section at the 40th Sundance Film Festival and won the NEXT Special Jury Award, boldly forges its own hybrid form to explore intimate stories of transmasculine sexuality from the past and present. In the narrative fiction strand of the film (written by... Continue Reading →
Following its award-winning world premiere at Sundance in January, directors Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s outstanding feature The Stroll went on to open London's prestigious LGBTQ+ film festival BFI Flare, and last week the filmmakers were recognized with the John Schlesinger Award for Best Director of a Documentary at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Rich,... Continue Reading →
Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing, interviewing, and advocating on behalf of transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people for five decades, following a chance meeting with a group of cross-dressers in the late 1970s in New Orleans. Through her artistic practice, she has been a pioneering force in gender consciousness, contributing to cultural and academic... Continue Reading →
As we face an onslaught of regressive legislative attacks on LGBTQIA+ life, focused on trans rights, along with reproductive, and voting rights, book bans and restrictions on school curriculums, it can be empowering to look back at the organizing and methods of grassroots trans and queer resistance in previous decades. That was part of the... Continue Reading →
Actress and activist, Shakina, made television history on NBC’s Connecting as the first trans person to play a series regular on a network comedy. She had a memorable role in Amazon's GLAAD Award-winning Transparent Musicale Finale, which she helped write and produce, as well as playing the scene-stealing trans truther Lola on Hulu’s Difficult People.... Continue Reading →
Some movies are so forgettable that a few years later we might even struggle to recall whether we've seen them or not, while others make such a lasting impression with one viewing that they become seared into our very beings. For me, Kimberly Peirce's late 1990s indie Boys Don't Cry is one of the latter.... Continue Reading →
A Strange Loop became the most Tony Award-nominated production of the season today, receiving 11 nominations including Best Musical. On Friday night the show's Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, composer and lyricist, Michael R. Jackson, gave a powerful and moving performance of Memory Song from the musical on stage at the 33rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards. Ahead... Continue Reading →
From now until Monday, March 21st, London's Bishopsgate Institute takes over The Curve at Barbican Centre, with Out and About!, an archive installation of objects, ephemera, and media highlighting 40 moments and stories in London’s LGBTQ+ history. Bishopsgate Institute has been collecting the lived experiences of everyday people for over a century, and their unique... Continue Reading →
