June/July 2019

OUT

OUT magazine is America's premiere general interest and style magazine for gay men.

OUT3 min readGender Studies
Pride In Protest
MY EARLIEST MEMORY OF PRIDE TAKES PLACE right in front of New York City’s iconic Stonewall Inn in 2011. That evening, my group of friends from New York University learned that the state legislature was poised to make a landmark decision on marriage e
OUT5 min read
A Queer Imagining
BY THE TIME JAMES BALDWIN WAS 16, he was already creating the world in which he wanted to live, one where the words others used to describe him—Black, gay, poor—had little impact. “All of the American categories of male and female, straight or not, B
OUT5 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
The House That Sylvia Built
TWO YEARS BEFORE HER DEATH, Stonewall veteran Sylvia Rivera served as muse for a photography series captured by Valerie Shaff. The black-and-white images feature the outspoken activist dolled up with razor-thin eyebrows, a bold lip, and wind-strewn h
OUT2 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
Casting The First Stone
STONEWALL WASN’T DONE OUT OF A SENSE OF PRIDE. It was done after a buildup of shit from constant police raids in Greenwich Village. It just came to a head like a pimple—and it got popped. The memory of that first night doesn’t come to me with a sense
OUT3 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
The Queer Canon
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of the lineage of the queer ancestors that fuels my practice today. To discover Ifti Nasim, an openly gay Pakistani-American immigrant poet who wrote of queer love in our native tongue of Urdu, was mind-blowing. B
OUT5 min read
Viva Forever
CHRISTIAN MITCHELL WAS FRESH OUT OF the Fashion Institute of Technology when he first got a very coveted job working for MAC Cosmetics. In fact, before his employment, he was something of a regular at the Christopher Street location—stopping by for p
OUT5 min readPolitics
Sisters Of The South
ON A SWELTERING ATLANTA SUMMER DAY in July 2016, Southerners on New Ground (SONG) co-director Mary Hooks led her fellow community organizers—each clad in black T-shirts emblazoned with the names of the various organizations, including Black Lives Mat
OUT7 min readAmerican Government
Women On The Hill
NEARLY TWO DECADES AGO, a man detested the idea of same-sex marriage so much that he began a 13-year legal battle across the state of California and the nation. State Sen. Peter Knight of Palmdale tried to invalidate marriage equality five times and
OUT5 min readGender Studies
In Their Own Backyard
ACCORDING TO MARTI GOULD CUMMINGS, Kent County, Maryland, was once a place where stepping outside prescribed notions of being a man could be embarrassing for one’s family. So when the drag performer was preparing to go back to their hometown from New
OUT6 min read
Acting Up For All
FOR THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW much about ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), the storied AIDS activist organization founded in the ’80s, one of the go-to historical documents about the group is How to Survive a Plague, directed by David France. The
OUT4 min read
Ending The Epidemic
BY THE TIME ACTIVIST Phill Wilson stood in front of the International AIDS Conference in 2012 as an opening plenary speaker—immediately preceding then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—he hoped the reason behind his founding the Black AIDS Institute
OUT2 min read
Reclaiming Their Time
BALLROOM CULTURE IS EVERYWHERE. It’s at the center of television shows like FX’s Pose and Viceland’s My House, music videos like Teyana Taylor’s “WTP” and Sam Smith’s “Promises,” Kim Kardashian West’s Kimoji ads, and the upcoming Cannes premiere film
OUT7 min read
A Star Is Born
IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE POSE’S FIRST SEASON, the script initially centers on Damon, portrayed by Ryan Jamaal-Swain, who is kicked out of his house by his parents and eventually adopted by Blanca Evangelista (portrayed by Rodriguez), a tenacious y
OUT10 min readAmerican Government
Idea No.1
Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg would be the first openly gay president, if elected next year—but his campaign raises important questions about what it means to be a pro-LGBTQ+ candidate. JUST TWO DAYS BEFORE THE 2016 presidential election, Zoe L
OUT3 min read
First place
QUEER LIVES ARE A SERIES OF FIRSTS: the first time we realize we’re different, the first time we share that difference with someone, the first time we realize that difference makes us a part of something bigger. On a larger scale, major queer achieve
OUT4 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
ABOLISH & LEGALIZE
It’s heartbreaking to see that the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been in existence for 16 years, harming and terrorizing the LGBTQ+ community. ICE held an average of 42,000 folks on a daily basis last year. Detention cen
OUT3 min readGender Studies
Identity Is A Tricky, Complicated, And Often Messy Thing
FOR INSTANCE, THE LABELS USED TO DESCRIBE RACE HAVE EXISTED in many iterations throughout history—often first concocted by white leaders of a given location looking to stratify societies in malevolent ways. Nearly every generation in American history
OUT1 min readPsychology
26 Queer Nightlife Will No Longer Center Alcohol.
“MY GOAL AS A SOBER NIGHTLIFE PRODUCER IS TO CREATE an experience that doesn’t require you to be intoxicated to have fun,” says Oly Innes, who has been producing queer parties in Los Angeles, New York, and London for three years. For Innes, that look
OUT1 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
The Dictionary Will Be Gay(er).
THE TEA IS THAT THE GATEKEEPERS OF LANGUAGE and their “proper grammar” are often ableist, classist, elitist, and/or transphobic. Where queer people rarely get to define ourselves on our own terms, here are a few words we kindly submit to the Merriam-
OUT3 min read
No More Cops At Pride
THERE’S KIND OF AN UNSPOKEN RULE IN Columbus, Ohio: Black folks don’t go to Pride. I was planning a cookout with other queer Black trans folks as an alternative to the annual event in 2017. While I was shopping for the occasion, an activist friend ca
OUT2 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
We Will Be A Mandated Part Of School Curriculums.
EARLIER THIS YEAR, REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS in South Dakota introduced a series of bills that would have made life harder for transgender students. One of them, House Bill 1108, would have prohibited public school teachers in kindergarten through seventh
OUT4 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
Religions All Over The World Will Affirm, Accept, And Uplift Queer And Trans People.
RELIGION HAS PLAYED AN OUTSIZED ROLE in the persecution and marginalization of LGBTQ+ folks all over the world, practically since the beginning of what’s considered “modern civilization.” With its ties to and power over government, religious texts ha
OUT5 min readMedical
HIV Will Be Cured—by Medicine And Activism.
AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON APRIL 23, 1984, then-president Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Margaret Heckler, made a significant announcement: First, that scientists had identified the virus that caused acquired immunodeficiency s
OUT8 min readGender Studies
Cruising Makes An Analog Comeback
HOW QUEER FOLKS FIND EACH OTHER HAS EVOLVED with technology: classified print ads gave way to phone chat lines, which led to those infamous AOL chat rooms. And now? The power to hook up rests in the palm of our hands, with apps like Grindr and Scruff
OUT2 min readGender Studies
Remove Gender From Awards Show Categories
WHEN BILLIONS STAR ASIA KATE DILLON became a viable contender in the 2017 Emmy Awards race, Showtime had a groundbreaking consideration on their hands: in which category should the nonbinary actor be submitted—supporting actor or supporting actress?
OUT3 min readGender Studies
40 We’ll Expand The Definition Of “Chosen Family.”
When we think of the quintessential chosen family, we usually have a certain picture in mind. Some very Lost Boys- or Breakfast Club-type ensemble of cool misfits, eating Chinese takeout together on Thanksgiving Day in a dirty one-bedroom apartment.
OUT2 min read
Black Trans Folk Will (finally!) Lead A Major Hollywood Studio.
WHEN APRIL REIGN’S #OSCARSSOWHITE HASHTAG ballooned into a social media campaign with major impact—making headlines, galvanizing mass demonstrations, and prompting decisive change by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—a chief critique of
OUT2 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
Bandaids For Our Crumbling Capitalist World
Crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe and YouCaring are stacked with transgender people trying to raise money for essential medical care. Although trans people are perhaps more likely to resort to these methods to pay for their medical care than cis peopl

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