Emilio Rodriguez thought nothing of it when he handed a cache of unproduced scripts to an Ann Arbor artistic director four years ago. Rodriguez isn’t new to Michigan’s theater scene — he teaches screenwriting at [...]
Back-to-school time is here, so why not get your kids in the mood with some LGBTQ-inclusive picture books set in schools? There are now many such books, but here are a few of my favorites, [...]
Tuc Watkins hasn’t just seen how gay relationships have evolved on television — he’s been a part of that evolution. On “Desperate Housewives,” Watkins portrayed one half of gay couple Bob and Lee, who became [...]
Kevin Bacon is back at camp. Not Camp Crystal Lake, where the 64-year-old actor met his gruesome demise in the original 1980 horror classic “Friday the 13th.” But at the kind of camp that is [...]
Part issue movie and part throwback slasher, Blumhouse’s new horror film “They/Them,” out Aug. 5 on Peacock, aims to flip the script for how queer characters are treated in horror films onscreen. Since the gender-bending [...]
While “A Strange Loop” — celebrated as a “Big, Black, Queer-Ass American Broadway Show” — has some similarities to its creator Michael R. Jackson’s life, it’s not an autobiography. The Detroit native has seen his [...]
When Jaida Essence Hall gets to Michigan for the Werq the World tour, her visit will mark the first time she’s been anywhere in the state outside Detroit Metro Airport. “I can finally touch down [...]
Michigan’s first LGBTQ-owned and operated marijuana dispensary, Green Koi, is committed to the community. Based in Douglas/Saugatuck and right next door to The Dunes Resort, the dispensary’s founders are raising funds to support two [...]
LGBT Detroit Social Justice Engineer Jerron Totten has been “getting out the vote” in various capacities for decades. Totten, 33, a native of Reidsville, North Carolina, located just outside of Greensboro, had worked on the [...]
What better way is there to answer questions your kids have about gender and sexuality than to find some books to read together or recommend to them? Be it books that include targeted educational messages [...]
Diversity a core focus at this large southeast Michigan company Many LGBTQ+ workers seem to live double lives. Off the clock, they might feel comfortable to relax and express themselves freely, but once the workday [...]
In Partnership With Jennifer Barrett, Comerica Bank LGBT Business Resource Group Chair No matter how much you earn, financial literacy is an essential life skill. Financial issues impact all people, and members of the LGBTQ+ [...]
This summer marks a milestone anniversary, yet most people don’t realize there’s an anniversary to mark. A half century ago, Michiganders who united in a bond of sexuality and gender that diverged from the so-called [...]
For Davison Sarai, a 46-year old queer transwoman from Michigan, wrestling was a way to escape what was happening at home. An alcoholic father and a home life marked by domestic violence did not make [...]
Lea DeLaria is coming to Michigan, and she has a message for the mitten state’s LGBTQ+ community: “Be here. Be queer. Get used to it.” On Thursday, June 23, she will headline Equality Michigan’s (EQMI) [...]
For now, at least, it’s the end of “Venji.” Many watched Victor (Michael Cimino) and Benji (George Sear), the romantic heart of “Love, Victor,” to find a much-needed love rush amid pandemic weirdness. The series [...]
Maybe Bowen Yang will just forever live the Fire Island fantasy wherever he is. Is that what happens when you make a movie in what many consider gay paradise? Who knows, but based on Yang’s [...]
Personal and professional partners Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas are flippers with heart. They do it to the delight of TV viewers across the country on their hit HGTV show “Bargain Block,” which returns for [...]
If you think you’ve heard the name Johnny Sibilly, you have. Or at the very least you’ve seen him, whether on FX’s groundbreaking trans-focused series “Pose,” where the 34-year-old actor had a three-episode stint as [...]
It’s still open to interpretation whether Moana is on the queer spectrum, but Auli’i Cravalho, who voiced the Disney princess, can assure you of one thing — she’s a proud bisexual. The 21-year-old actress portrays [...]
For Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, better known as Sofi Tukker, it doesn’t need to be Pride for it to feel like a Pride show. The duo has been promoting and practicing the values of [...]
Alone in the desert, three men, wearing nothing but thongs, do cat-cow stretches on a blanket for nearly two minutes. Tour cities, including Detroit, are read in a faint tone that, as the vintage video [...]
There still aren’t enough trans actors in Hollywood, but at least there’s Patti Harrison. Harrison is currently starring in the big blockbuster rom-com caper “The Lost City,” alongside Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, as the [...]
For 20 years now, Focus Features has been distributing and funding queer-focused movies, marketing them successfully to a wide audience even early on. As a specialty distribution and production company responsible for works as disparate [...]
What could Joe “Tiger King” Exotic and fictional genderqueer arthouse punk-rocker Hedwig Robinson possibly have in common? John Cameron Mitchell. And so, the Farrah Fawcett wig comes off the 58-year-old actor who created Hedwig and [...]
Black History Month — the shortest month of the year, sadly — is quickly coming to a close once again. But before the month is over, take some time to check out some of the [...]
Leslie Jordan and Cheyenne Jackson, co-stars in the Fox multicam sitcom “Call Me Kat,” are in separate locations on Zoom, tenderly admiring each other. As an openly gay actor, Jackson (“30 Rock” and “All Shook [...]
Before I talk to Jonathan Van Ness about their new Netflix show, “Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness,” they take me on a little on-camera adventure that involves them “needing cuter light.” They do a [...]
Writing and directing for the first time in his filmmaking career, Antonio Marziale didn’t make “Starfuckers,” which he also acts in, with the intention of it being among the short films to premiere at Sundance [...]
“We’re not like them,” says one man to another, laying atop him on a dirty roadside. “We don’t have as much time — so we’ve got to grab life by the balls and go for [...]
Bridget Everett is surrounded by queer people in her everyday life. She’s got queer friends, queer family, queer fans — the latter of which she courted while performing her alt-cabaret (alt as in she’s been [...]
It took Donna Personna a long time to get up the nerve to put on a dress. “It took me 59 years to have the bravery to be who I really feel that I am: [...]
If you’re still wondering about those homoerotic undertones 25 years after Billy Loomis and Stu Macher terrorized Woodsboro in Wes Craven’s “Scream,” you’ve been on the right track all along. Ahead of the new “Scream,” [...]
As Sidney Prescott, fierce fighter of the knife-wielding Ghostface since the mid 1990s, Neve Campbell has represented strength and survival to generations of LGBTQ+ people. When she first appeared in Wes Craven’s groundbreaking “Scream” in [...]
Philemon Chambers can’t believe he’s in a queer Christmas movie. It’s the kind Chambers, recently named “Next Big Thing” by the Hollywood Reporter, could only dream of watching when he was a little queer [...]
This time of year can be isolating for many, especially if they’re not close to their blood family. That’s why many in the LGBTQ+ community find comfort in their chosen family. So, for this holiday [...]
You can call 2020 Latin Grammy nominee Gina Chavez a lot of things: Queer. Catholic. Bilingual. Singer. Songwriter. Pop rock artist. Social justice advocate. She’s also very much in love. All you have to do [...]
If you were expecting more of the same from “Saved by the Bell” when Peacock revived the series in 2020, you wouldn’t just be mistaken — you’d be pleasantly surprised. A staple of TV for [...]
Chucky is no Harvey Milk, but the killer doll with fire-red hair from openly gay creator Don Mancini is, at least, a good queer-affirming dad. Dad, you ask? Let’s back up: So, yes, Chucky, Mancini’s [...]
Growing acceptance has created a new suite of possibilities for queer storytelling in mainstream films. The sly, charged and freely oppositional work of the New Queer Cinema that dominated Hollywood in the late ’80s and [...]
It’s a Jane Fonda kind of day for Robin de Jesús. The 37-year-old actor says so on Zoom, where he appears from Beverly Hills, his face beaming in that Fonda light, for a day of [...]
This year, JoJo Siwa made history as the first “Dancing with the Stars” contestant to compete with a same-sex partner. With Jenna Johnson, she performed the Argentine tango to Britney Spears, did the cha-cha to [...]
No, Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme aren’t roommates. But the "RuPaul’s Drag Race" alums get that you might think so. After all, during our recent Zoom call, they were sharing a physical space. “We’re just together [...]
In the late ’70s, Chicago-born Marsha Warfield started her career by writing for comedy legend Richard Pryor. Then, in the ’80s, she rose to fame in her own right starring as Roz on the popular [...]
Cassandra Peterson, famously known as pop culture Halloween icon Elvira, isn’t scared anymore — at least not when it comes to saying that, yes, she’s a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Peterson came out in [...]
You can’t keep Shangela down. Seriously, she came back to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” three times. And now, along with co-stars Bob the Drag Queen and Eureka O’Hara, she’s back for Season 2 of HBO’s “We’re [...]
Casie Jones, a leadership trainer at United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) in Pontiac, is a straight shooter with a single-minded goal: fostering a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment through education and awareness. “Diversity is [...]
Ferndale Pride performer and Detroit-based Reginald Hawkins is living a double life. By day, they’re a college student worrying about a looming lab deadline. By night, they’re becoming a pop and dance music sensation, expressing their [...]
Jason Misleh is not a magician, nor is he a puppeteer. He is, however, an expert in making bodies move. Misleh, better known on the club circuit as DJ Jace M, has 20 years of [...]
On the heels of his Oscar-nominated role as Jack Hock in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” alongside Melissa McCarthy, actor Richard E. Grant takes on another aging gay man who embodies AIDS-era homosexuality. This time, [...]
