Happy Birthday, Grace Jones!

LQQKS for DECADES

Her and Dolph Lundgren Naked in the '80s

Her and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Loincloths in the '80s

"Pull Up to the Bumper" and Other Hits

'90s Rap

The Baddest Bond Girl

Muse of the World

(Hail Mary, full of) Grace Jones turns 68 today. 

A video of Christina Aguilera dueting with a hologram of the late Whitney Houston on The Voice leaked Thursday, leading the internet to close one more door because we don't want to hurt anymore. It's hard enough living in a post-Whitney world as it is, but a hologram of the original The Voice smacks of disrespect. I get it, it's the future, and the technology is there. But for Whitney, someone who dedicated her life to public consumption, shouldn't death give her some much-deserved time-out?

Sure, holograms of dead celebrities may seem like a good idea, having clearly learned nothing from 2Pac's cameo at Coachella, and will most likely be an inescapable thing in the future, but not too soon. The Whitney Houston Estate put the kibosh on the Xtina performance, slated to air during The Voice finale. 

In a statement to ET, Pat Houston, executor of the estate, explained their decision:

We are so appreciative of the opportunity for the Whitney Houston hologram to appear on NBC’s The Voice with a talent pairing as extraordinary as Christina Aguilera and Whitney Houston. We were looking to deliver a ground breaking duet performance for the fans of both artists. Holograms are new technology that take time to perfect, and we believe with artists of this iconic caliber, it must be perfect. Whitney’s legacy and her devoted fans deserve perfection. After closely viewing the performance, we decided the hologram was not ready to air. We have much respect and appreciation for Christina, and she was absolutely flawless.

The video has already been removed by NBC Universal, so who knows if it will ever see the light of day again, but I will say this: hologram or not, Whitney will always live on; Xtina sounds great, though this is the only way she and Whitney will have ever shared a stage, at least on Whitney's watch; and it gave me a lot of feels, not all of them grossly uncomfortable.  Grossly being the key word.

EGOT-er and dyed-in-the-wool ally Whoopi Goldberg is bringing a new series about Slay Model Management, the world's first exclusively transgender modeling agency with clients such as Out100 alum Isis King and current Attitude cover boy Laith de la Cruz, to Oxygen later this year. 

"Strut follows a group of inspiring and resilient trailblazers who are working to change the modeling industry, and the world around them, by simply being true to themselves," Rod Aissa, executive vice president of original programming and development at Oxygen Media, said in a statement. "These individuals will empower viewers as they live their lives fully and unapologetically, despite facing many obstacles throughout their journey."

The show will add even further LGBT representation to the cable network, which saw a hit with The Prancing Elites Project, about a troupe of queer and gender non-conforming dancers from Mobile, Alabama. 

Related | The Prancing Elites, Prancing Towards Change

"This show is important right now, because for all of the positive advances the community has made and continues to make, transgender is still a hot-button word that gets people hysterical," Whoops said. "People tend to focus on the stereotype instead of the person, and this series will give viewers a unique opportunity to spend time with real people who are struggling with the same challenges we all face as we make our way through the world. You may even be surprised to discover that you have been seeing and interacting with transgender men and women in ways you didn't even realize!"

Whoops has been doing a lot of moonlighting from The View lately, having recently signed on to the ABC miniseries When We Rise, produced by Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black. And of course, who can forget her legendary cameo on this season's Broad City?

Joyful, joyful indeed. 

Whoopi Goldberg Producing New Series on Trans Models, Strut

Whoopi Goldberg Producing New Series on Trans Models, Strut

Just when we thought Neighbors 2 was just another rote retread of dick jokes punctuated by man-child shenanigans, Seth Rogen and co. surprise us with some genuine affection. Man-on-man affection.

In a newly released clip, Pete—played by the hotter, less problematic Franco, Dave—gets engaged to his boyfriend with the help of his frat bros, digging up that god awful Jason Mraz song (ukulele and all) to really drive home the feels.

Related | Rejoice! Dave Franco's Character Will Be Gay in Neighbors 2

The filmmakers made a concentrated effort to not be...what's the word I'm looking for...shitty when it came to Pete's character.

“Clearly, we’re playing with the homoerotic tension [in the first film]," director Nichoals Stoller said, "and I was like, 'He should just be gay.’ Then in this one, it came up again. [Co-writer] Evan Goldberg brought it up, and he said, 'I think he should be gay, and part of [his arc] should be the proposal.’ It was kind of all of us coming to the same conclusion.”

Rogen, who co-wrote the movie, called some of the jokes from his and Goldberg's Superbad"blatantly homophobic" while promoting Neighbors 2, and took the sequel as an opportunity to show some emotional growth.

“The Greek system seems a little sexist,” he said. “The sheer fact that the women and the men don’t have equal rights and opportunities I think by definition makes it sexist, so that’s something we talked a lot about while we were making the movie.”

Still, at the end of the day, this movie will be remembered for Zac Efron grinding shirtless on a sedan, but who's to say we can't have some social commentary with our thirst traps? 

Check out the adorable proposal below:

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is currently in theaters. 

Dave Franco Gets Engaged to His Boyfriend in Neighbors 2 And It's Friggin' ADORABLE

Dave Franco Gets Engaged to His Boyfriend in Neighbors 2 And It's Friggin' ADORABLE

It only took 25 years, but Paris Is Burning's one-woman Greek chorus Dorian Corey (née Frderick Legg) is getting the musically dramatic treatment she deserves.

Dorian's Closet is a musical written by Los Angeles-based playwright Richard Mailman with music by Ryan Haase, the artistic director of Stillpointe Theatre in Baltimore. The production, directed by Joseph Ritsch, will run from April 26 to May 14, 2017 through Columbia, Maryland's Rep Stage. 

"It is not a musical version of the documentary," Ritsch told The Baltimore Sun. "This really spans Dorian's life, especially the incident after she passed away from AIDS, when they found a mummified body in her closet, the body of a man who had been dead 15 years. That part is really intriguing. There is a whole bunch of theories trying to explain it. [Mailman] is exploring his fantasies about what really happened and why."

The musical is based on a real-life incident involving the death and subsequent mummification of Robert Wells, as Michael Cunningham recounts in "The Slap of Love":

...several months after Dorian’s death, a few of her former children were going through her sewing room looking for Halloween costumes when they found a trunk that contained a mummified human body. It was wrapped in strips of leatherette and covered with baking soda. It proved to be the corpse of a black man in his thirties, who had died of gunshot wounds and who had been dead more than twenty years (which meant the body had been moved out of and into several different apartments). Pinned to the body was a note that said, "This poor soul broke into my apartment and I was forced to shoot him."

The story even made the cover of New York Magazine, bearing the imaginative title, "The Drag Queen Had a Mummy in Her Closet."

Meanwhile, can we talk about what's happening with that "Blacks vs Jews" headline? Oh, the '90s.

Dorian's Closet serves as an interesting but ultimately fitting epitaph to Corey's life. Remembered for interminably applying her makeup while doling out gems of wisdom in Paris Is Burning, Corey's final words in the film reveal the heartbreaking reality lying just beneath the surface of the glamor and opulence of the ballroom community:

"I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you’ve made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you’ve left a mark. You don’t have to bend the whole world. I think it’s better just to enjoy it. Pay your dues, and just enjoy it. If you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you."

She made a mark on the world, she shot an arrow and it went...well, high enough. Hooray for her.

[h/t] NewNowNext

Hooray for You: There's a New Musical Based on Paris Is Burning's Dorian Corey

Hooray for You: There's a New Musical Based on Paris Is Burning's Dorian Corey

I hate romantic comedies.

I hate romantic comedies because people like me are never the stars of romantic comedies. I'm a sassy black gay so I'm the sassy black gay friend. Or neighbor. I'm a great sassy neighbor. But no one cares if the sassy neighbor is getting some. We just add a little, ahem, color to the main action, the love story between What's Her Face and That Guy from Whatever. Our romances are left in the background, off-camera, or on the cutting room floor.

But I didn't always hate rom coms. My favorite growing up, because I'm 800, was The Philadelphia Story, starring Katharine Hepburn as a frigid bitch who, thanks to the competing affections of Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, learns she's not so frigid or such a bitch after all. 

I could easily relate. Back in those days, 1940, they knew how to make romantic comedies. They didn't feel like tedious exercises in cliché—by the way, thanks for that, Kate Hudson. Films like The Philadelphia Story, or 1960's The Apartment—in which a charmingly neurotic Jack Lemmon falls in love with a charmingly suicidal Shirley MacLaine—gave me my first ideals of love. They made love seem reparative; life-changing, life-affirming, life-saving.

They made love seem possible.

For a romantic comedy to work, there must always be the possibility of love. Despite any and all obstacles, the audience must believe that true love A.) exists, and B.) will conquer all.

I started dating comparatively late, around my early-20s, but I soon became accustomed to love's impossibility. Here I am, 30 (or 800, depending whom you ask) and I've never been in love, never been in a relationship, never had a boyfriend, serious or otherwise. Whenever I tell people that, reactions range from pity to abject horror. More than once I've thought I would have to escape to a castle tower with torch-wielding villagers gaining at my heels simply because I was an unconfirmed bachelor.

The reasons for this chronic singledom are myriad and complex, but in short, love remained only something I read about, sang along to, repeated lines from; something I experienced only secondhand, or in short, all too fleeting, but ultimately disingenuous bursts. With each failed attempt, I divined that my desire drove people away.  So I became afraid of my own feelings and their unwavering intensity.

It was just too much—for me, let alone any boy on whom I set my voracious sights. But those boys, they never saw me anyway. Not really. They didn't see or care to see my complexities, or the vein of hurt that ran deep, but not as deep as the wellspring of love that bubbles up with joy within me from time to time without reason or provocation. 

Then for the last two months, I felt seen. I felt like I was finally the star of my own romantic comedy. I felt that love was possible. Because he was possible, this boy of my dreams that somehow manifested himself before me, not on Grindr or Scruff where dreams are just that, but in the real world.

Who are you?

Where did you come from?

Where have you been?

I didn't know boys like you existed.

The question then inevitably turned to, When are you leaving? Of course—the impossibility of love—I met him two months before he had to leave the country. He was here doing research, his time was finite, he was well aware, and I was well aware, but I fell anyway, as I knew I would. How could I not? And why shouldn't I? He made me want to believe, despite the impossibility of the situation, that not every boy is a potential hurt waiting to happen.

If this was a romantic comedy, I would have flown halfway around the world to be with him, showing up at his front door with just one suitcase looking flawless despite a 13-hour flight.

Then, I would've found out he's secretly engaged, or his family hates me, or there's a curse preventing us from being together. We'd breeze through some shenanigans, some hackneyed comedic devices, maybe a musical number (definitely a musical number), and I win him over before the closing credits. 

But life is not a romantic comedy, and nothing is that easy. While I played out these various fantasies in my head, I slowly came to terms with what him leaving would mean. It wasn't love, it couldn't be, I was smart enough to know that. Because he was leaving and he knew he was leaving, dating and certainly love were not options—he's far more pragmatic than I—so it wasn't love. It was hope. I had found hope in him, this dream made reality, and I worried that with him my hope would also leave the country for an indeterminate period of time. 

I saw him for probably the last time last night, we went to a book reading. Some author, her name escapes me at the moment, read a short story by Haruki Murakami, "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning." I thought it was new to me, until it seemed all too familiar. As he stood next to me, the author read: 

They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

I was too shy or too afraid to look over at him and wonder if he thought I was that 100% perfect other, or who had been that in his life. Had it been anyone else in mine? No, not that I had met, no matter how much I had wanted to believe it at the time. 

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves—just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

And so we parted. 

I don't know if he was my 100% perfect other, but he made me believe again that such a person exists. It's not the best ending—I didn't even get my damn musical number—but it'll have to be enough. At least for now.

GIFs and schmaltz |Les Fabian Brathwaite

Stephen King, Michael Chabon, Edmund White and some 400 other writers lent their names to an online letter taking Donald Trump—presumptive Republican presidential nominee and the living embodiment of the downfall of American culture—to task.

"An Open Letter to the American People" lays out some very reasonable reasons for opposing Donald Trump's candidacy:

Because we believe that knowledge, experience, flexibility, and historical awareness are indispensable in a leader;

Because neither wealth nor celebrity qualifies anyone to speak for the United States, to lead its military, to maintain its alliances, or to represent its people;

Because the rise of a political candidate who deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society, who encourages aggression among his followers, shouts down opponents, intimidates dissenters, and denigrates women and minorities, demands, from each of us, an immediate and forceful response....

Of course, this is kind of preaching to the choir at this point since it has been determined time and time again that Trump's followers are swayed neither by reason, truth, or a general lack of knowing what the hell's going on. Still, it's a much more eloquent argument than my de facto, "I mean, you guys, he's just the fucking worst." 

You can add your name to the petition here. 

What is "the love that dare not speak its name"?

After unsuccessfully suing the Marquess of Queensberry for putting him on blast as a homosexual, Oscar Wilde was arrested for sodomy and gross indecency in 1895. The trial against Queensberry, who was the father of Wilde's lover Lord Alfred Douglas, aired Wilde's dirty laundry, which included his penchant for rough trade.

In the trial following his arrest, Wilde was asked by prosecutor Charles Gill about "the love that dare not speak its name," a phrase in the poem "Two Loves" by Douglas:

Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the Love that dare not speak its name.' 

"It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect," Wilde responded, in part. "It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it."

Modern audiences have since taken up the phrase as a euphemism for homosexuality, though as Wilde describes it, "the love that dare not speak its name" is more like the pederasty of Ancient Greece—wherein an older man and a young boy form a homosexual relationship, basically the roots of gay-december romance. Or, if we're pouring some Socratic tea, NAMBLA. 

Anyway, Wilde's testimony only further incriminated him and on May 25, 1895, Wilde and his friend Alfred Taylor were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years of hard labor. 

The presiding judge, Sir Alfred Willis, was so disgusted by the nature of the trial, he would've thrown them both behind bars for the rest of their lives, calling their sentence—the "severest" the law allowed at the time—"totally inadequate":

Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor, the crime of which you have been convicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's self to prevent one's self from describing, in language which I would rather not use, the sentiments which must rise in the breast of every man of honor who has heard the details of these two horrible trials. 

[...]

It is no use for me to address you.  People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them.  It is the worst case I have ever tried.  that you, Taylor, kept a kind of male brothel it is impossible to doubt.  And that you, Wilde, have been the center of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men, it is equally impossible to doubt.

Wilde, amid shouts of "shame!," replied sheepishly, "And I? May I say nothing, my Lord?"

Wilde's career, reputation, and life never fully recovered and he died penniless and alone on November 30, 1900 at age 46. 

The witch hunt over Oscar Wilde bears eerie similarities to the witch hunt currently taking place in public restrooms across America. Just today, on the 121st anniversary of Wilde's conviction, eleven states decided to sue the Obama administration over federal guidleines that would allow transgender students to use restrooms and other facilities that correspond to their gender identities. 

Though sodomy has been legal in the U.S. for, well, 13 years, we still have a lot to learn about respecting people's privacy—everyone's privacy, trans or otherwise. And that includes the freedom to go to the bathroom in peace. If anything, we should have learned the importance of privacy from the trials of Oscar Wilde—that, and to never take on anyone named Queensberry—because if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it.

Remember how the Marquess of Queensberry outed Oscar Wilde back in 1895, essentially ruining his career and life? Well, fast forward a hundred years, throw in a pro wrestler, and a couple billion dollars and we have the 21st century equivalent. But this time, Queensberry is (probably) not going to come out on top.

Related | Today in Gay History: Oscar Wilde Convicted of Gross Indecency

So, back in 2007, Gawker outed tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early Facebook investor. According to Thiel, that article, and a series of others about him and his friends, "ruined people’s lives for no reason.” 

Owen Thomas, the writer of the original Gawker piece—which really beat around the bush with the headline, "Peter Thiel is Totally Gay, People"—insists, however, that he did not "out" Thiel.

“I did discuss his sexuality, but it was known to a wide circle who felt that it was not fit for discussion beyond that circle," Thomas told The New York Times. "I thought that attitude was retrograde and homophobic, and that informed my reporting. I believe that he was out and not in the closet.”

Still, even if Thomas thought that attitude was "retrograde and homophobic"—and even if the intent of his article was to celebrate Thiel and highlight that in Silicon Valley, “a gay investor has no way to fit into the old establishment"—what or who gave him the right to clap back by shattering Thiel's glass closet?

Sure, everyone should come out, because visibility helps destigmatize queerness and helps the children—won't someone please think of the children?! But coming out, publicly or privately, is a personal decision and no one deserves to be outed. Well, with the possible exception of closeted bureaucrats passing discriminatory laws against oppressed groups, and really, in the age of Grindr, that all kind of just works itself out. Pun intended.

[On a not-completely-unrelated note, Peter Thiel is also a staunch Ted Cruz supporter and is a pledged delegate for Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, so we might just have to officially add "evil" before his "billionaire" title.]

Anyway, Thiel's public outing really got under his (I'm assuming) luxuriously soft (evil?) billionaire skin, so when Gawker released professional racist wrestler Hulk Hogan's sex tape, he saw his chance to strike. Thiel funded the wrestler's lawsuit against Gawker, to the tune of about $10 million he found (I'm assuming) between some sofa cushions. 

“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” Thiel told The Times on Wednesday. “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”

Thiel went on to call his involvement with the Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit, and other suits that he refused to name, as one of his "greater philanthropic" efforts. That philanthropy, however, opens up a whole can of worms about First Amendment rights and the role of hedge funds and investment firms financing other people's lawsuits, not to mention the morality of outing people, and the sanctity of celebrity sex tapes.

So, over 100 years later, Oscar Wilde, as usual, was right: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." And those stars are in sex tapes. 

The Wachowski sisters are trying it on their own, at least for a little while. Lilly Wachowski, who came out as transgender about four years after her sister Lana did the same, is stepping back from the second season of Netflix's Sense8.

Related | Power 50: Lana & Lilly Wachowski

Lilly is reportedly taking some time off to focus on her well-being, though she may return for the third season, if Netflix decides to renew it.

“Lilly needed to take some time off,” Jamie Clayton, who plays badass trans hacktivist Nomi Marks on the show, told BuzzFeed News. She assures, however, that the show is in good and capable hands.

Related | Sneak Peek: The Making of Sense8 Season 2

“Lana is absolutely a superwoman,” Clayton said. “The way she channels her energy and her creativity… it keeps me in absolute awe whenever I’m in her presence. She’s an absolute force.” 

The Wachowskis have worked together for over 20 years, churning out such hits as Bound and the groundbreaking Matrix triology, as well as some recent not-hits, like 2015's Jupiter Ascending. Their first foray into television, Sense8, however, proved popular enough for a second season.

Related | Sense8's Sexiest Scenes Part 1 and 2

Lilly's is only the latest departure from the show. In April, Aml Ameen, who played bus driver and Jean-Claude Van Damme enthusiast Capheus, left the show over creative differences. His role was recast and will be played by newcomer Toby Onwumere.  

Netflix has not yet set a release date for season two of Sense8, but it's expected to return some time next year. 

Lilly Wachowski Leaves Sense8 Season Two

Lilly Wachowski Leaves Sense8 Season Two

At Recode's Code Conference, Tinder CEO Sean Rad announced that the dating app will follow in the steps of Scruff and Grindr before it by increasing their focus on the needs of the transgender and gender nonconforming communities.

Related | Love in the Time of Tinder

Tinder is working with leading LGBT experts and organizations, including GLAAD, to better address these needs, as Rad said in a statement:

"One challenge we face at Tinder is making sure our tens of millions of users around the world have the same user experience. No matter who you are, no matter what you’re looking for, you should get quality matches through the Tinder experience. There’s an important transgender (and gender nonconforming) community on Tinder who haven’t had that experience... yet. We haven’t delivered for them, so we’re working with LGBTQ advisors, including transgender activist Andrea James and GLAAD to help us address this important demographic. This is not only the right thing to do for our users, it’s the right thing to do, period.”

Good for Tinder, because everyone deserves to know the heady pleasure of finding one's perfect match—and then never emailing them. 

11 Landmark Moments in the History of Twerk

The Ying Yang Twins Whistle While They Twurk (2000)

Beyoncé Twerks Up On It (2005)

The Twerk Team Drops It Low on YouTube (2009)

Ciara Rides to Twerk (2010)

Julian Serrano, Twerking King

Miley Cyrus Twerks of Age at the VMAs (2013)

Rihanna Pours Up Some Twerk (2013)

Baseball Twerker Hits a Home Run (2013)

Twerk Added to the Oxford Dictionary Online (2013)

Big Freedia and Crowd of Hundreds Set Guinness World Record for Twerking (2013)

Nicki Minaj Twerks Out in "Anaconda" (2014)

Prepare for Twerk 101

Last Thursday night, the New York City Health Department held a special kiki at the cheekily named bar C'Mon Everybody, at the intersection of the Clinton Hill and Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhoods of Brooklyn, which have traditionally been majority black but with the ever-looming presence of gentrification have become pretty gay over the last few years. 

I eschewed my usual Thursday evening plans of hunkering down, chainsmoking blunts, and watching TV till I passed out on the couch to join 100 or so other queens of color to discuss the crisis facing our community.

In February, the CDC released a study that predicted, at current rates, that one in two black men who have sex with men (MSM) will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. It was an alarming statistic, but that was the point—to ring the alarm, to bring some urgency to the still very real threat of HIV/AIDS. Between 2005 and 2014, HIV infections rose 87% among young black queer men, aged 13 to 24.

Related | The Miseducation of the Young Black Gay Man

Though PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, a once-a-day pill, usually Truvada, that helps prevent the transmission of HIV) is revolutionizing the way we perceive and talk about HIV, the most vulnerable populations—namely, MSM and trans women of color—are the ones least likely to be taking it.

According to the CDC, 1.2 million people should be taking PrEP, including one in four gay and bisexual men—something like 492,000 of those million-plus people. However, much like Frasier and Gwyneth Paltrow, PrEP's audience is predominately white. Over 80% have PrEP paid through private insurance, while 80% of people on PrEP are white gay men.

The reasons more queer people of color aren't taking PrEP is due to both lack of awareness about the drug and a lack of insurance. But there's also an added degree of stigma. Out of 544 black MSM surveyed in a study published in the February 2015 edition of the American Journal of Public Health, 29 percent reported experiencing racial and sexual orientation stigma from heath care providers, while 48 percent reported mistrust of medical establishments.

So with these factors in mind, the NYC Health Department invited black and Latino MSM from around the city to C'Mon Everybody. I heard about it the way I get all my hard news: a pop-up on Grindr. 

Hostess Harmonica Sunbeam—a vision in head-to-toe cerulean and serving you "It's Not Right but It's Okay" Whitney in both face and hair—got the program started and kept the ball and the queens rolling throughout the night. We broke into groups where reps from the Health Department led discussions on how to better address the health needs of our community.

The main problem it seemed, at least concerning Brooklyn, was a dearth of convenient facilities where black MSM felt safe and comfortable getting tested. Often, facilities in and around the neighborhoods where C'Mon Everybody comes on everybody are underfunded and understaffed, with random hours (like 9am-1pm). That, and fears over confidentiality lead folks to either go to Manhattan or simply not go at all.  

When we reconvened as one big hunty family to go over our responses, another debate arose entirely. This one also concerning stigma, but stigma within our own little community. From the moment PrEP hit the market, opponents of the drug have warned that it would create more problems than it solved, essentially giving gay men carte blanche to do away with condoms and fuck bareback. For those who lived through the AIDS crisis, PrEP seemed less like a miracle drug than a slap in the face. 

Related | Intergenerational AIDS Activists Endorse PrEP, Call Out Gilead

With the rise of the so-called "Truvada whore," as well as a recent dramatic increase in syphilis infections, those fears became reality, and some in attendance voiced those concerns. Still, others were wary of "slut-shaming" and excluding PrEP as a form of safe(r) sex. It was exciting, really, to witness this debate because it reminded me of the variations in, and diversity of, not only our collective queerness, but our collective blackness as well. Here was a room of people ostensibly like me, but all in different shades and with different ways of identifying—whether gay, or bi, or same-gender loving, or trans, etc—and we were all here for the same purpose. 

So how do we address HIV among queer people of color? For the government, that means throwing more money at inner city clinics so they can better serve the community. And it also means doing a better job at informing the community about testing, about PrEP, about PEP, about treatment as prevention—not for nothing, a Grindr or Jack'd or SCRUFF pop-up ad is a highly effective way to grab attention. The only things those apps are good for are disseminating information and promoting divas' album releases anyway.  

For the community itself, we all need to do a better job at being informed and protecting ourselves, because ultimately the onus is on us. Even as someone who writes and is informed about PrEP, I'm still confused as to how to get on it. Well, I was on it for a while, then my insurance changed, and suddenly it was super expensive so I stopped taking it. I had heard about Gilead's co-pay program but after jumping through a number of hoops with my insurance people—and taking into consideration that I have sex about once a year at best—it didn't seem worth the time to figure it out. 

Still, for those interested in learning about getting tested and about PrEP and paying for it, there are a number of resources:

Where to get tested
Where to get tested in NYC
What is PrEP?
NYC DoH on PrEP
Truvada Cost Assistance

On the train ride home, with my NYC Health Department safer sex kit in tow, I was joined by the department's #PlaySure subway ads, promoting PrEP and condoms—but none featuring the couple at the top of this story, or any queer men of color for that matter. The irony, though bitter, was not lost. 

Absolutely Fabulous may be the gayest show of all time. At least top five. As fans of the iconic show wait with bated breath and powdered nose for the movie to premiere this summer, stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley reminisced on Ab Fab's gayssez-faire attitude towards the LGBT community.  

Related | Patsy and Edina Kill Kate Moss in the NewAbsolutely Fabulous Movie Trailer 

“You go back and pick through it, the amount of gay references and ease with which it’s been put into the story, without it being dragged along like a great log of plot," Lumley told V Magazine. "It’s really normal that one of [Edina’s] ex-husbands now lives with his young boyfriend. It’s completely normal that [Edina] wants Saffy [Edina’s long-suffering daughter] to be a lesbian or that Serge [Edina’s long lost son] is gay and living in New York. It’s completely normal that Patsy is transgender.”

While this has been a revelation to some, Patsy's often been depicted outside the gender binary from the show's earliest days. In season two's "Morocco," we're taken back to the '60s (via flashback) when Patsy had a little work done and was serving Sgt. Pepper and the Lonely Hearts Club Band realness:

But as Edina explains:

“We tried very hard but [gay people] refused to be offended—and I admire them for that," Saunders added. "Thank God you’re hanging on in there.”

Or at the very least, hanging over. Meanwhile, the Ab Fab movie hits theaters July 22. 

GIFs | Les Fabian Brathwaite

Absolutely Fabulous Has Been LGB and T for 25 Years

Absolutely Fabulous Has Been LGB and T for 25 Years

The screen's greatest living actress took on America's greatest waking nightmare when Meryl Streep dunked her face in a vat of Cheetos to channel Donald Trump during the annual Shakespeare in the Park Public Theater Gala in New York last night.

Streep was joined by perennial scene-stealer and Mamma Mia co-star (never forget) Christine Baranksi for a duet of "Brush Up on Your Shakespeare" from the musical Kiss Me, Kate.   

At least one Twitter user was on the ball and captured the moment for posterity and retweets: 

More of Meryl and Christine Baranski doing Trump and HRC pic.twitter.com/t7jgNsf74d

— Jacob Bernstein (@BernsteinJacob) June 7, 2016

Last night, the queer literati turned up at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts for the 28th annual Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating the best in LGBT literature. Comedian Kate Clinton served as host.

Actress and noted fashionista Tavi Gevinson presented Hilton Als, whose White Girls should be required reading for everyone, with the Trustee Award for Excellence in Literature. "Powerful feelings rise up in me as I stand before you," Als said. "Other people are my art."

Native poet Natalie Diaz introduced the prodigious poet and author Eileen Myles, who received Lambda's Pioneer Award. In accepting her award, Myles said, "I go forward with confidence."

Check out the entire list of winners from the ceremony last night below: 

28th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners

Lesbian Fiction
Under the Udala Trees, Chinelo Okparanta

Gay Fiction
God in Pink, Hasan Namir

Bisexual Fiction
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, Anna North

Bisexual Nonfiction
Irrepressible: The Jazz Age Life of Henrietta Bingham, Emily Bingham

Transgender Fiction
Tiny Pieces of Skull, or a Lesson in Manners, Roz Kaveney

LGBT Debut Fiction
A Love Like Blood, Victor Yates

LGBT Nonfiction
"No One Helped": Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, Marcia M. Gallo

Transgender Nonfiction
Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: A Voice for Cultural Competency, Willy Wilkinson

Lesbian Poetry
Life in a Box is a Pretty Life, Dawn Lundy Martin

Gay Poetry (TIE)
Crevasse, Nicholas Wong
Reconnaissance, Carl Phillips

Transgender Poetry
succubus in my pocket, kari edwards

Lesbian Mystery (TIE)
Ordinary Mayhem, Victoria Brownworth
Tarnished Gold, Ann Aptaker

Gay Mystery
Boystown 7: Bloodlines, Marshall Thornton

Lesbian Memoir/Biography
Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, Kate Carroll de Gutes

Gay Memoir/Biography
James Merrill: Life and Art, Langdon Hammer

Lesbian Romance
Making A Comeback, Julie Blair

Gay Romance
When Skies Have Fallen, Debbie McGowan

Lesbian Erotica
The Muse, Meghan O'Brien

Gay Erotica
Érotiques Suprèmes, Miodrag Kojadinovic

LGBT Anthology - Fiction
Beyond: The Queer Sci-Fi & Fantasy Comic Anthology, Sfé R. Monster (Editor) & Taneka Stotts (Assistant Editor)

LGBT Anthology - Nonfiction
Glitter and Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy, Edited by Damien Luxe, Heather M. Ács, Sabina Ibarrola

LGBT Children's/Young Adult
George, Alex Gino

LGBT Drama
Bright Half Life, Tanya Barfield

LGBT Graphic Novels
The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal, EK Weaver

LGBT SF/F/Horror
The Gracekeepers, Kirsty Logan

LGBT Studies
A Taste for Brown Bodies: Gay Modernity and Cosmopolitan Desire, Hiram Pérez
 

It's been over four years since Whitney Houston's death and while I'm certainly not over it, there's no end to the rumors surrounding the troubled diva's life. One of the longest and most stubborn rumors concerned Whitney's sexuality and, specifically, her relationship with best friend and assistant Robyn Crawford.

In his new memoir, Every Little Step, Houston's ex-husband and anthropomorphic caution sign Bobby Brown alleges that Whitney did indeed have a romance with Crawford and that she was bisexual, among "other shocking revelations." 

“I know,” Brown told Us Weekly, discussing Houston's relationship with Crawford. “We were married for 14 years. There are some things we talked about that were personal to us.” 

Whitney always denied the lesbian rumors, telling Out in a 2000 interview that if she was gay, she'd be "proud" to admit it:

"If I was gay, I would be proud to tell you, ‘cause I ain’t that kind of girl to say, 'Naw, that ain’t me.’ The thing that hurt me the most was that they tried to pin something on me that I was not. My mother raised me to never, ever be ashamed of what I am. But I’m not a lesbian, darling. I’m not [laughs].”

Related | Whitney Houston's 2000 Out Interview

Brown adds that Whitney's public denial might have been due to her family, especially her mother, OG shadester Cissy Houston, who, Brown says, didn't accept her daughter's relationship with Crawford and insisted on her being fired.  

In a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey promoting her own book about Whitney, Cissy Houston admitted she didn't like Crawford, but could not (or would not) categorize their relationship. Cissy could, however, definitively say that she would have disapproved of her daughter being a lesbian. 

“I really feel that if Robyn was accepted into Whitney’s life, Whitney would still be alive today,” Brown said. “She didn’t have close friends with her anymore.”

Considering all the tragedy that has befallen the Houston family these past few years—RIP Bobbi Kris—that may be the saddest thing I've heard yet. Of course, with Bobby Brown—noted spectrophiliac— some things he says should be taken with a grain of salt. But the thought of Whitney Houston suffering all those years in the closet adds yet another layer of complexity, and yes, tragedy, to her already profound legacy. 

BBC journalist Ali Hamedani visited Istanbul, Turkey where Taha—an Iranian mullah, or cleric—has fled after performing same-sex wedding ceremonies in one of the most dangerous nations on the earth for LGBT people. 

Homosexuality is illegal in 73 countries, nine of which prescribe the death penalty, including Iran. Mullahs are highly powerful and respected in the Islamic nation, advising people on religious matters, which also means enforcing homophobia. So for Taha, life became very difficult when his fellow mullahs became suspicious of him and the gay men with whom he was associating.  

Taha is one of the over 1,000 Iranian LGBT refugees the UN estimates is in Turkey waiting to be resettled abroad—his final stop, much like many Americans should Trump win this year's election, will be Canada. Istanbul is one of the few places in the Muslim world that's tolerant of homosexuality, and Taha takes Hamedani out on the gay town—but not before applying a nighttime face (same).

Get 'em, daddy.

Though life in Istanbul isn't easy by any means, Taha's presence is comforting to fellow queer refugees, who seek out his services to wed them. For two such refugees, Ramtin Zigorat and his partner, a gay mullah is a big fucking deal. 

Ugh, get into all these feelings in the BBC's investigative report below: 

For the past two days I have been living. My best. Life. Thanks to M.O (pronounced M-point-O) and their earworm bop "Who Do You Think Of?" It sounds very 2016, meaning it sounds like '90s R&B with hints of dancehall—i.e. perfect and you're welcome.

It's a great little ditty for slaying a sidewalk, for sweeping a dancefloor with your hindquarters, or just playing over and over again until you hate all music. 

And the video is cute too, featuring a number of fierce black girls shouldering the heavy dancing duty, as they are wont to do.

It's just your good old Saturday night in a laundromat that doubles as a dance clurb solely for you and your sisterfriends. 

Check out M.O's "Who Do You Think Of?"—on the first listen it'll twerk its way into your heart: