In the era before the internet, queer communities were localized, each one unique to its geographic area. When the AIDS pandemic spread throughout the world, killing an estimated 1 in 15 gay men in America by 1995, it not only came with a horrific loss of life, but also decimated communities and networks of queer people across the country.
Marigold Memories
Illustrated by Mieko Tsurumoto/OutWrite This piece was originally published in our Winter 2023 print issue “Culture.” Your Love Lives On Willi Ninja Chavela Vargas Stormé DeLaverie Ernestine Eckstein Jackie Shane Ifti Nasim Amelio Robles Avila Lorraine Hansberry Gladys Bentley Marsha…
Performative Pride, Capitalism and Conservative Hate: The Downfall of the Target Pride Collection
“What do you mean they’re out of stock in all sizes? I’m wearing it,” I grumbled from the confines of a Target fitting room. My girlfriend was trying to find me a different size of the bright green Pride jumpsuit that has circulated TikTok, but, as we looked for more of the Pride collection items in different sizes, it became evident that many weren’t available online for pickup, delivery or shipping, despite being available in very small quantities in Westwood’s City Target.
Araki and the Apocalypse
It’s not every day that your new gay crush climbs through your window, confesses their love, and then promptly explodes in a shower of blood “Alien” style, leaving behind a cockroach-like extraterrestrial. But it happens in Gregg Araki’s surrealist sextravaganza “Nowhere.”
Queer Fashion Staff Features
Photos by Zoë Collins/OutWrite Interviews by Min Kim/OutWrite This series was originally published in our Winter 2023 print issue “Culture.” Min Kim (They/Them) “Trends never really do dictate whether you’re dressing fashionably or not.” “[Fashion] enables me to put into…
Letter From The Editor (Winter 2023)
Dear Reader, OutWrite was founded 44 years ago as an underground beacon for community in a hostile world. We are far from hunky gay daddies taking out ads in our paper and dozens of “Homo Happenings” gracing our pages like we did in the 80s and 90s (unfortunately). We are far from cruising in the third floor Ackerman bathrooms, where queers were desperate to skirt anti-gay sex laws that weren’t repealed until 2003. We are also far from being a publication that excluded transness from its collective identity until the mid-2000s.
Ronald Reagan and Creating the Conditions for Satanic Panic
The Satanic Panic almost perfectly coincides with former-President Reagan’s term, beginning in 1980 and dying out by the early 1990s while Reagan’s presidency lasted from 1981 to 1989. While Reagan himself did not acknowledge the moral panic, he created the perfect conditions for it and knew how to champion himself as its hero.
To Walk A Mile in Her Shoes You Must First Wear Her Skin
The horror genre has a transphobia problem. I’m an avid horror fan whose apartment requires a warning to enter with all the horror villains plastered to my walls. I am also a transgender person who knows that negative depictions of my community, however unintentionally harmful, do have an impact. To understand these consequences, I will be discussing four horror films that feature transmisogynist tropes and explore how their portrayal causes real harm to the trans community.
Demonic Domesticity
Illustrated by Steph Liu (She/Her) This illustration was originally published in our Fall 2022 print issue “Satanic Panic.“
Under the Synth and Glitter: A Review of Queer, Autistic Artist Elliot Lee’s “Fun” and “Easy To Be You”
Elliot Lee is an unapologetically LGBTQ+, nonbinary, and neurodivergent dark pop artist. In the past month, they released two new singles: “Fun” on May 19 and “Easy to be You” June 9. Both of the songs deal with feeling like an outsider and wanting something you don’t have but ultimately coming to the conclusion that being yourself is the only way to live life.