#queer-history

#queer-history

If filmmaker Matt Nadel is being honest, when he first set out to make a film about the viatical settlement industry, he had planned for it to be a "dad-bashing doc," he says with a tentative laugh. In 2020, he had discovered that his father Phil had once bought into the industry which, during the early 1990s at the peak of the AIDS crisis, profited by purchasing the life insurance policies of people with the illness in exchange for a portion of the payout up front.

Jack Rowe, senior art director and Solomon Thomson, managing director of Gay Times, shared the stage at October's Nicer Tuesdays event and gave an insightful talk about the responsibility of spearheading a magazine about a long history of queerness, the history of Gay Times (including its "salacious covers" and a tidbit about how archival material was destroyed by poppers!) and finally its grand return to print media.

How much history can you cover in five miles? Quite a bit, according to locals Anthony Vidal Torres and Brian Boisvert, the hosts of a Halloween-themed queer history running tour coming to Brooklyn next month. "Queer Ghosts of Brooklyn: A Halloween Fun Run," will serve as a sort of crash course through an oft-overlooked but critically important part of the borough's past.

Have you ever wondered what to do with the piles of Advocate or Out magazines you've collected through the years? Or swag you've collected at Pride events that you keep in storage boxes in closets? What about those ticket stubs to Melissa Etheridge concerts you kept religiously? LGBTQ+ archives throughout the country seek to create a home for those artifacts to help preserve queer history.

a bad bitch,

The cabaret bar at The Marsh Berkeley: It's a low-lit, convivial room where stories feel personal, laughter bounces off the bar glasses, and conversation lingers long after the curtain call. This fall, it's the stage for cultural firebrand and renowned playwright Terry Baum's Lesbo Solo: My Gay History Play, her chronicle, love letter, and rallying cry to gay revolution across five decades and counting.

Paget was actually a queer trailblazer, at risk of fading into obscurity like so many LGBTQ+ figures from our past, until his story was resurrected by the Seiriol Davies, the creator of How To Win Against History, and brought to life as a spectacular, all-singing, all-dancing, musical extravaganza with more glitter and sequins than an auction of Elton John's old stage outfits.

Matthew Carlsen expressed excitement for the opportunity to showcase under-represented groups in queer history through his portrayal of a female impersonator in The Gilded Age.

The piers transformed into underground spaces for cruising and creativity, empowering a community in a burgeoning era of self-expression following the Stonewall Riots.

Kinnard never expected the Brown Bomber to appear anywhere other than his sketchbook until the editor of his college newspaper asked him to contribute comics weekly.

I keep watching people discuss events that I've lived through, and the way those histories get twisted or disappear entirely.