hearts & minds

These queer media stars are helping save America from itself

Never has the fourth estate been under greater threat. From false cries of “fake news” to Facebook’s refusal to stem the tide of antigay propaganda to the demise of local newspapers across the nation, it is a scary time for communities who depend on media to propel the truth of their cause and expose right-wing attacks on their equality and their lives.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of LGBTQ media talent striving to revive and enlighten Americans not just on our causes but far beyond.

In honor of pride season, we bring you just a few of our favorites doing life-saving journalism this year.

1. Hilton Als

There is little Hilton Als has not accomplished.

After stints at the groundbreaking print publications Village Voice and Vibe, he landed at The New Yorker, where in 2017 he won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays whose ostensible topic was theater but ranged widely beyond it. His autobiography, The Women, and a collection of essays, White Girls, show off not just the elegance of his prose but the uniqueness of his ability to bring sexual, gender, and racial identities–basically his queerness–into creative non-fiction narratives that envision a better world.

In his June 29 essay on our current state of race relations, My Mother’s Dreams for Her Son, and All Black Children, Als describes the put-downs he has faced at the hands of white people even as his reputation as a journalist grew to new heights. Only the shame of Donald Trump performance, the global recession, gun violence, and the opioid epidemic have caused some Americans to rethink their white privilege:

You get it only when the shit happens to you, too; we all know that. And now the effects of our segregated democracy are happening to you. And now you can see or understand that, all along, I’ve been trying to get along, just like you. The way Ma taught me. To be independent and help my chosen family. I’ve tried to make a living at something I love and to explore the intricacies of love, just like you. I’ve lost friends and forgotten to pay a credit-card bill, just like you. But I wasn’t allowed to be like you. And now my “other” is happening to you. Now degradation and moral compromise and your body breaking down are happening to you. Because Donald Trump has happened to you. Oxycontin has happened to you. Broken families have happened to you. Gun violence—in schools, in supermarkets, in movie theatres, at concerts—has happened to you, along with riots, and frustration, and cops who can’t pass up an opportunity to flash their guns and their batons in your presence, even as you search for home, even as the dream comes tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down.

2. Monica Roberts

In 2006 Monica Roberts launched TransGriot, and she has been writing the blog with her unique brand of sweet conversational style, unapologetic advocacy, and sharp political analysis ever since, making it required reading for anyone who wants to truly understand LGBTQ life in America. Her own tag line says it better than we can: “A proud unapologetic Black trans woman speaking truth to power and discussing the world.”

In the process, she has earned a passionate following–and just about every media award, from the IFGE Trinity Award for meritorious service to the transgender community (2008) to GLAAD’s Outstanding Blog (2018).

Fans of the site will see Roberts, who grew up and resides in Houston, expound on everything from friends lost too early to ruminations on the culture wars to the everyday challenges facing trans people in the south. But the blogger, who boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of Texas politics, is most passionate when talking about electoral politics and the need to run for office and to get out and vote. She’s been predicting a blue wave for years, and in 2020 she might be on the verge of getting her wish.

On June 19, she wrote “We STILL Need a Trans Juneteenth“:

I am always rooting for our community trailblazers, whether it is on a pageant stage or a Hollywood sound stage.  Any trans person who is breaking a barrier makes it easier for the next one following in their footsteps. And yes, I see you trans peeps whose major accomplishment is just getting out of bed and stepping into the world as your true selves.  You are loved, valued and needed in our community. We not only need to make this trans Juneteenth happen not only for ourselves, but for the trans kids who look up to us as their possibility models. Happy Juneteenth! But more importantly, time for us to in the spirit of this day, strive to emancipate ourselves as well.

3. Jonathan Capehart

There are few Americans better able to make sense of today’s world that Jonathan Capehart, and he is making the most of the opportunity. As a columnist for the Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog, host of the daily newspaper’s Cape Up podcast, and political commenter at MSNBC, he offers up sharp insights about the intersection of queer and black politics. His podcast interviews with Kamela Harris, civil rights icon John Lewis, Joe Biden, Billy Porter, Susan Rice, Chasten Buttigieg, and Dr. Ruth are must-listen.

Listen to the Cape Up interview with Billy Porter

4. Jennifer Finney Boylan

The point at the heart of Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, Jennifer Finney Boylan’s 2020 memoir of how a boy grows up to become a middle-aged woman, is the exact opposite of what we often assume about a human’s best friend. That we train dogs, and they serve us. In fact, Boylan shows, dogs teach humans what sometimes seems impossible for us to find: love. “Everything I know about love,” she writes, “I learned from dogs.”

It’s not exactly the message we expect from one of the country’s leading transgender writers. But it is one we have come to expect from Boylan, who has enlightened us through thirteen published books of memoirs, novels, and short stories. Today, she is perhaps best known as a New York Times contributor, where she opines on everything from Susan Collins to Coronavirus.

About a trip to London, she reflected on the unfairness of how where you happen to reside can determine whether you are allowed to love whom you chose–no matter how many dogs you might own.

“Living one’s life without fear or shame ought not to be a matter of luck, or of nationality,” she writes in Loving Freely. “All of us — men and women, gay and straight, cis and trans — deserve to be loved.”

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Pride50Welcome to Queerty’s Pride50. We’re celebrating the members from our community who are responsible for some of the most inspiring and extraordinary moments for LGBTQ people over the last year. See all the honorees

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