A digital illustration of a black-haired, light-skinned femme in white tanktop, jeans, and black boots in a wheelchair, an older black-haired, light-skinned femme in a green vest holding hands with a brown femme with blonde hair and wearing a blue shirt, a lounging brown masc with glasses and an asexual heart t-shirt, a lounging femme in a pink dress and draped in a progress flag, a black femme child in a pink dress holding hands with a bald black person in a green bikini top holding a progress flag, a white masc with white hair wearing a harness, and a white person with a white undercut mullet kissing a brown person with blonde hair. The background is a pastel rainbow gradient.
Community
Why Pride This Year?

Picture this: it’s June 28, 1970, nearly a year after the monumental Stonewall riots, and you’re attending the first Pride Parade in New York City. Except it’s not a parade, and it’s not entirely about Pride: it’s the Christopher Street Liberation Day March. Here, we recognize the familiar names of Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and the lesser known names of the march’s organizers Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, Linda Rhodes, Brenda Howard and many more. Unlike today’s Pride Parade, this march in New York was dedicated to Gay Liberation in the forms of political speeches, demonstrations, and gay visibility.

illustration of Angie Xtravaganza, Erskine Christian, Paris Dupree, Crystal LaBeija, and Dorian Corey
Illustration
Portraits of the House

Illustrated by Steph Liu/OutWrite This illustration was originally published in our Winter 2023 print issue “Culture.” From left to right: Angie Xtravaganza, Erskine Christian, Paris Dupree, Crystal LaBeija, Dorian Corey Thanks to “A History of Ballroom: Documenting the Era of…

illustration of two skeletons in a dia de los muertos style
Art & Illustration
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…

cover of OutWrite's winter 2023 print "culture"
Community
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.

an illustration of the Public Universal Friend from the 18th century in a yellow monochrome color pallette
Community
The 250-Year-Old “Fad”: The Public Universal Friend and Gender Nonconformity Then and Now

1776 was a chaotic year: so hectic that barely anyone noticed that a young woman named Jemima Wilkinson lay dying. The person who awoke the next morning bore a different name and a different purpose: The Public Universal Friend was born.

cartoon graphic depicting five figures in community with each other under a red HIV AIDS awareness ribbon threaded with a rainbow flag. light pink background
Community
The History and Stigma of HIV/AIDS: HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day

Graphic by Christopher Ikonomou (Xe/He) In 1981, the first cases of what would later be known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) were reported in America. In hindsight, there had been deaths that would later be attributed to AIDS as early…

illustration of a pile of dirt. i'm thinking of the seed dropped far from the forest.
Art & Illustration
Uprooted

A comic about feeling disconnected from queer community, history, and elders.

collage of newspaper clippings featuring headlines from important legal battles in queer history. multi-colored hands gesture to the pile.
Politics & News
The Lavender Laws

A deep dive into the history of legal rights for the LGBTQ+ community in the United States

Archives
From the Archive: To Live and Get Bashed in America! (October 1988)

Welcome to OutWrite’s new “From the Archive” series! This series is designed to provide an opportunity to interact with our organization’s archives, assess the opinions and relevance of our past content, and bring that content into the present. In doing…

Arts & Entertainment
Work! A Queer History of Modeling

Elspeth H. Brown, Professor of History at the University of Toronto, visited UCLA on Jan. 23 for the second event of the 2019-20 QueerCurrent Lecture Series.  The talk was named “Work! A Queer History of Modeling,” after Brown’s most recent…

Featured Posts
A digital illustration of a side profile of various characters. Crowley, a white masculine person with red hair and black round sunglasses, is in side profile in the top left corner. To his side, is a small Aziraphale, a white white-haired person with a haloe in a cream coat. Beneath him, is a rainbow flag. On the right side, there are two white masculine people. One has white hair, andone has dark hair. Various question marks and hearts surround them.
Arts & Entertainment
Queerbaiting to Queer Couples: The Evolution of Queerness in 21st Century Media
A black and white still where a white blonde woman sits on a couch while a masculine-presenting white individual sits next to her. Her legs are draped over their legs, and they smile at each other. Above them, the devil is a stereotypical caricature with horns and a goatee smiling gleefully.
Arts & Entertainment
“Glen or Glenda”: Feeling Seen Through Art
A photograph of a smiling Alex, a Latino man with light brown skin and black hair wearing a gray suit and American flag socks, sitting on a couch with a smiling Henry, a white man with blonde hair, wearing a black suit, blue slash, and Union Jack socks. The photograph reads, "Love who you want. It's good foreign policy."
Arts & Entertainment
What “Red, White & Royal Blue” Gets Right About Being Queer in Politics — And What It Doesn’t
A digital illustration of a young masc person with tan skin and dark hair wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. They stand in front of a weapon rocket that has a rainbow ribbon tied around it. Behind them, a city is burning. They ask, "This makes it ok, right?"
Politics & News
Rainbow-washing Genocide
The cover of "Little One," an EP by Amelia Day. It is divided into eight sections with each section being in a different color of the rainbow, colored in with crayon and watercolor paint. It reads "Little One. Amelia Day" in various crayon colors; there is a smiley face in the "O". All around the centered text are black and white images of Amelia, a white girl, as a young child.
Music
Childhood, Silliness, and Photo Albums: An Interview With Amelia Day on “Little One”
An edited photograph of Jericho, a person with brown skin and short black hair smiling with their hands tucked behind their head. They are emerging from a pink lotus flower. Behind them is a gradient of color ranging from brown to white to blue to purple.
Community
Why I Hesitate to Introduce Myself With Pronouns
A photograph of Kabalikat Kore members against a blue wall. From left to right, top to bottom: a femme person with brown skin and long black hair wearing round glasses, a masc person with brown skin and blonde and black hair wearing a dark blue shirt, a masc person with brown skin and short black hair wearing a dark gray shirt, and a femme person with brown skin and dyed brown hair wearing glasses and a light flannel.
Campus
Interview with Kabalikat Kore – Honoring Queer Filipinos During Filipino American History Month
A Netflix poster for "XO, Kitty." Besides the title, it reads, "From Jenny Han, a new 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before' story begins..." and "Only on Netflix | May 18." Five young people stand in front of a city with blooming cherry blossom trees. From left to right, there is a young man with light skin and dark hair in a jean jacket, a young man with light brown skin and dark curls wearing a dark gray shirt, a young woman with light skin and brown hair in a white tanktop, a young woman with light skin and black hair wearing pink, a young man with light skin and black hair wearing a mint jacket.
TV
Commitments to Queerness: A Review of Netflix’s “XO, Kitty”
A slanted polaroid collage of queer media posters, album and book covers. From left to right, top to bottom: Shygirl's "Nymph," "Happy Together," Tinashe's "Songs for You," Ashnikko's "Demidevil," The Dead Texan's "The Dead Texan," "Good Omens," "Heartstopper," All Time Low's "Tell Me I'm Alive," "Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse," "Bottoms," "Gideon the Ninth," and "Nana."
Arts & Entertainment
Queer Summer 2023 Favorites
A digital illustration of two people, one with light brown skin and shoulder-length dark brown hair in a gray suit and one in a blue hoodie with light skin and bob-length blond hair. They stand under an orange umbrella in a green hazy forest.
Creative Writing
The Umbrella 
The "Bottoms" poster which includes PJ, a white girl in green making a muscle, and Josie, a black woman in teal making a muscle. Clinging to each of them is a young white woman and a young Wasian woman both wearing pink clothing items. Two football players lounge beneath them, another white woman and a Black man.
Film
Gay Wrongs, and Why I Support Them — On “Bottoms” and Queer Irreverence
Formal group photograph of the Supreme Court as it was been comprised on June 30, 2022 after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Court. The Justices are posed in front of red velvet drapes and arranged by seniority, with five seated and four standing. Seated from left are Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito and Elena Kagan. Standing from left are Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
Politics & News
The Supreme Court on Queer Rights: A Checkered Future
A graphic with the colors of the trans flag, white, pink, and blue running diagonally across the image. It reads, "How to Be a Trans Ally 101."
Community
How to Be a Trans Ally 101
A photograph of Nick and Charlie staring lovingly at each other from Netflix's "Heartstopper". Charlie is a young white man with black hair and a red plaid shirt. Nick is a young white man with blonde hair wearing a yellow shirt. Charlie cups Nick's face.
TV
Heartstopper Season 2: Grieving Something I Didn’t Know I Lost
A photograph of yellow sneakers with red and black socks.
Community
A Trip in Westwood
A digital illustration of a black-haired, light-skinned femme in white tanktop, jeans, and black boots in a wheelchair, an older black-haired, light-skinned femme in a green vest holding hands with a brown femme with blonde hair and wearing a blue shirt, a lounging brown masc with glasses and an asexual heart t-shirt, a lounging femme in a pink dress and draped in a progress flag, a black femme child in a pink dress holding hands with a bald black person in a green bikini top holding a progress flag, a white masc with white hair wearing a harness, and a white person with a white undercut mullet kissing a brown person with blonde hair. The background is a pastel rainbow gradient.
Community
Why Pride This Year?
illustration of three women of color wearing face masks and holding violet flames
Opinion
to live, not just to survive: the queer indomitable spirit
Sports
FIFA Banned Rainbow Armbands at the World Cup: Here’s How Players Showed Pride Instead
photo of lorely, an agender person with curly black hair and a blue outfit
Community
in pursuit of peace
illustration of christopher and judah as freshman looking at their senior selves
Community
Our Final Farewell: Generate Inspiration
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