“Glen or Glenda” is a 1953 transgender exploitation film directed by Ed Wood. It was made incredibly cheaply and quickly and is full of out-of-date ideas and terms about gender and transitioning, with film critic Leonard Maltin describing it in his 2004 movie & video guide as “possibly the worst movie ever made.” That being said, as a transgender woman, I have never felt more seen while watching a film than while watching “Glen or Glenda.” The movie’s critical panning has held it from the fruitful examination it deserves due to its radical stance on gender as it relates to the self and society.
What “Red, White & Royal Blue” Gets Right About Being Queer in Politics — And What It Doesn’t
“I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us.”
Casey McQuiston’s debut romance novel “Red, White & Royal Blue” has recently been adapted into an Amazon Prime movie, bringing the love story between the American First Son and the Prince of England to the big screen. The film is a winding tale of controversy and copulation, but ends happily with Alex Claremont-Diaz (played by Taylor Zakhar Perez) and Henry Windsor (played by Nicholas Galitzine) stepping into Alex’s childhood home to start the next chapter of their lives together.
Commitments to Queerness: A Review of Netflix’s “XO, Kitty”
“XO, Kitty,” the spinoff of Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” was released in May of this year with decent ratings; with a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 81% and an audience score of 58%, the show has started off on the right foot. That being said, with all the good aspects of the show, there are also bad ones. Let’s start with the good.
Queer Summer 2023 Favorites
Our OutWrite staff loves queer media! Here are some of our favorites from this summer:
Gay Wrongs, and Why I Support Them — On “Bottoms” and Queer Irreverence
Lesbians have never looked as hot as when they are covered in the blood of football jocks like the characters of “Bottoms,” the instant classic lesbian rom-com movie of the year. “Bottoms” — directed by Emma Seligman — follows Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and PJ’s (Rachel Sennott) attempt to woo their respective love interests, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber), with a faux all-women’s self-defense fight club. The film screams of a dark humor and irreverence rarely seen in LGBTQ+ media — a refreshing new take that presents audiences with queer, gray morality, or what I lovingly call ‘Gay Wrongs’.
Heartstopper Season 2: Grieving Something I Didn’t Know I Lost
When Season 1 of “Heartstopper” came out in April 2022, I was a senior in high school. I was coming out of yet another situationship with a straight guy. My story was classic: grow close to him, develop feelings, question whether or not he’s straight, confess.
Beauty, Past Blood and Shame, in “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”
“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong (he/him) unearths the life and history of a young gay Vietnamese-American man, Little Dog. Though the novel moves between his grandmother’s and mother’s lives in Vietnam to his life in the U.S., it isn’t only an “immigrant story” or a “gay story.” Rather, it encompasses his queerness, race, class, family, and humanity.
Letter From The Editor (Spring 2023)
Illustrated by Charis/OutWrite This letter was originally published in our Spring 2023 print issue “Color.” Dear Reader, I stand at the end of an era. To be entirely dramatic, I have put my heart and soul into this magazine for…
Queering Masculinity in “Stone Butch Blues”
Leslie Feinberg’s historical novel “Stone Butch Blues” voices the experiences of many butch and transmasculine individuals. In a transformative exploration of queer recognition and the way it damns and redeems us, the novel unearths critical queer history and underlines the importance of intersectional solidarity. Courage, loneliness, and understanding echo through the story of the butch protagonist, Jess Goldberg.
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.”
