Innehållsförteckning för June/July 2019 från The Advocate

The world’s most famous transgender pageant, Miss International Queen, has been drawing contestants from around the globe to Thailand for the last 15 years. This time, the pageant made history by honoring its first winner of African descent. Miss USA Jazell Barbie Royale, a passionate full-time HIV awareness advocate from Orlando, took home the crown and gained a valuable platform for furthering her mission. First runner-up and second runner-up (pictured above) were Miss Thailand, Kanwara “Esmon” Kaewjin and Miss China, Yaya, respectively. This year’s theme was World Equality, and the pageant saw 20 semifinalists representing countries such as Canada, Peru, Brazil, and Vietnam. Royale, 31, became emotional when she heard her name. Just 24 hours earlier, as The Advocate chatted with her over a Thai lunch in the seaside town…

This spring, leading HIV experts convened at the 2019 National HIV Prevention Conference to address the year’s theme, Getting to No New Infections, and unveil the nation’s plan to eliminate HIV within a decade. At the event, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, highlighted some sobering data, indicating that the number of new HIV diagnoses has plateaued since 2013 rather than continuing to decline. Gay and bisexual men continue to account for the largest portion (about 70 percent) of new diagnoses, but while white gay and bi men saw a 16 percent drop from 2010 to 2016, and new diagnoses leveled off for Black gay and bi men, the rates for Latino gay and bi men grew 30 percent. Data presented at the conference…

As we sit in our small boat, headed to a snorkel at the magnificent Marietas Islands, Miguel explains the difference between Punta Mita and Punta de Mita. Miguel and his parents—and all of his ancestors before him as far back as he knows—grew up in a small fishing village on an island known as Punta Mita. They were mostly Mexican fishermen, though the Aztlan culture was there as early as 200 B.C.. Then in the 1990s, real estate developers worked with the Mexican government to buy Punta Mita, which is now the luxury Four Seasons resort (famed for its Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, with a 19th hole that requires a boat to reach). The villagers were all moved off the island of Punta Mita, down a few miles from the…

Alabama Quentin Bell, a 31-year-old trans man, devotes his life to making sure queer and trans folks in Selma have the community, resources, and safety that he never had growing up. “Selma needed a change,” he says. “You have to create the things you need and want to see in your community.” This led him to create the Knights and Orchids Society (TKOSociety.com), which is devoted to increasing visibility and improving the lives of LGBTQ people, specifically those living in the rural South. The society opened the Black Sheep Relief Center in 2017, where Bell serves as the executive director. Doing this work in Alabama—where a majority of residents are opposed to same-sex marriage—isn’t easy, Bell says. “They don’t like it when we speak up. I can tell you that…

this spring, several out lesbian mayoral candidates made history in sizable U.S. cities. The big prize was Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, which is now the most populous American municipality ever to have an out LGBTQ mayor after Lori Lightfoot’s groundbreaking victory. Beyond being the Windy City’s first queer mayor, she is also only the second female mayor and third African-American to hold the position. (Read more about Lightfoot in our annual Champions of Pride section, which begins on page 50.) Madison, Wis., also saw a major victory when lesbian Satya Rhodes-Conway became the first out gay mayor in Madison city history, beating incumbent Mayor Paul Soglin. The state’s capital is home to the main campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison and is known for its progressive politics. It’s…

Everything You Wanted to Know About Trans * But Were Afraid to Ask is an accomplished and thorough resource by trans activist Brynn Tannehill, founding member of SPART*A, and board member for the Trans United Fund. A naval aviator, Tannehill left the reserves and began her transition in 2010. Spanning trans 101 to more in-depth discussion of gender nonconformity and fluidity, Tannehill’s urgent and timely offering debunks myths and talks sex and dating, history, and legal policy in direct, accessible language cisgender people will understand. What led you to write this book? I was writing for years with the The Huffington Post and The Advocate, and as I built up this body of work, people started to say, “You should write a book.” By 2016, I realized I could write…

For every generation, there’s a teen comedy that defines it. Booksmart—about teen girl best friends who discover on the eve of graduation that, while they were busy studying, their party-happy classmates were racking up life experience—is poised to become that era-defining comedy for Gen-Z. The film’s first-time director Olivia Wilde and its stars, Beanie Feldstein (Molly) and Kaitlyn Dever (Amy), fire off names of some of their favorite classic comedies including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Breakfast Club, Clueless, and Mean Girls, renowned for capturing the essence of high school in the decade in which they were made. But unlike those films, Booksmart features a central love story not between the prom queen and the rebel—but between female best friends Molly and Amy, who happens to be gay. Amid…

There’s probably a good reason why the Beach Boys put Aruba first in their 1988 song “Kocomo.” From then on, folks from around the world arrived their fast so they could take it slow. But many visitors to this Caribbean desert island never make it beyond the beach resorts to the destinations that make Aruba an extra special place for discerning travelers. Located only 15 miles from Venezuela, but in a whole other world, Aruba is part of the ABC islands (situated between Curaçao and Bonaire). Colonized by the Dutch, today Aruba boats 95 different nationalities on the island and locals of color report that racism isn’t as widespread as it is in other countries Most Aruban hotels are LGBTQ-friendly. Crimes against LGBTQs and same-sex couples are extremely rare, and…

Opening Ceremony: Join host Whoopi Goldberg on June 26, to ring in Pride at a special benefit concert at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, with performances by Cyndi Lauper, Chaka Khan, Ciara, Billy Porter, and Todrick Hall. Proceeds from the ticket sales will support Ali Forney Center, Immigration Equality, and SAGE—three leading queer organizations in New York City. (June 26 7-10 p.m.) Youth Pride: DJ Nhandi will spin at Youth Pride on Summer Stage in Central Park. Join hundreds of LGBTQ teens and their allies. Free to those under 21. ($10 registration fee for those over 21.) (June 29) The March: Put on your (breathable) Sunday clothes for the annual Pride march, which stretches from Madison Square Park to the West Village. The cast of FX’s Pose are grand marshalls along…

In “Are Queer People Making Marriage Better?” (May/June 2019) editor in chief Zach Stafford (above) posits consensual nonmonogamy is key to changing the institution. A 2005 study showed more than 40 percent of gay couples were openly nonmonogamous (vs. fewer than 5 percent of lesbians and heterosexuals), but it was gay men who responded the most to Stafford’s piece. Here’s a few (read more at bit.ly/qrmrgbtr): MARK LASTRA If you are not going to be monogamous why get married? We have been faithful for 35 years. Neither one of us wants it any other way. JERRY BREAULT Each relationship is unique. I won’t tell you how to run your relationship. In return, don’t tell me my more traditional version is less valid. JORGE MORALES To each to their own. How…

IT’S NOT EASY managing a work-life balance in Hollywood, but Matt Bomer makes it look effortless. The Texas-born heartthrob is easily one of Tinseltown’s brightest stars, and history will show him to be one of the first modern gay actors to challenge the norms of what out LGBTQ performers can play on-screen. Since launching to fame in USA Network’s White Collar, Bomer has played a stripper in Magic Mike, a closeted writer in the TV adaptation of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, a 105-year-old man in the Justin Timberlake-led science fiction thriller In Time, and recently Larry Trainor/Negative Man in Doom Patrol, based on the DC Comics title. He’s managed, with surprising ease, to transition from queer roles to straight ones, with virtually no backlash from conservative audiences. That in…

From the moment he began seeing doctors, former actor and current storyteller Don Cummings understood his medical team. “They had two goals,” recalls Cummings, who many might remember from his time playing the gay waiter on Dharma & Greg. “The first was to diagnose whether or not I had Peyronie’s disease. They get you erect by injecting your penis with a drug and handing you pornography—old-timey, a magazine. They do, sweetly, ask you whether you want the gay or the straight porn.” Once hard, the medical professionals, “cream up your penis and take an ultrasound, looking for plaque. If they find plaque, well, you have Peyronie’s disease,” he explains. Then goal two: treatment. “In my case… it was Verapamil [in] saline injections. This has the effect of trying to turn…

IT’S ANOTHER YEAR. It’s time again to slice and dice what it means to celebrate Pride. LGBTQ elders might shame younger folks for not knowing how good they have it, while independent queers might shame corporate ones for poisoning our culture. Ultimately, everyone will struggle to discuss what Pride should be. But no matter how many think-pieces you may read, the truth is Pride is nothing and everything at the same time. Pride is something that should be taught from birth. It is being able to own the identity you were born with as individual, yet equal to everyone else. We’ve turned a human right into a holiday because the LGBTQ community has continued to be denied equality for decades. As we win acceptance, the essence of Pride changes, but…

LIGHTS UP. Colton Haynes breathes cautiously and steadily as if every exhalation releases a veil he spent years hiding behind. For the first time in his public life, the young gay actor is exposed, even defenseless. But despite his vulnerability, it’s evident by the power in his words that he’s not broken. And he never was. The Hollywood darling has come a long way from being one of MTV’s most promising talents, launching to superstardom on the network’s highly rated and meme-able Teen Wolf, which averaged nearly 2.5 million viewers each week. Ever since he played Jackson Whittemore, Haynes’s star quality has endured. He eventually landed the role of Roy Harper, i.e. Arsenal, in the CW’s superhero series Arrow, playing Green Arrow’s sexy sidekick, which solidified his place in TV…