A recently announced show at Seattle’s Queer/Bar, featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Sharon Needles, has stirred up a firestorm with claims that Needles is both racist and transphobic.
Robert Roth
Robert Roth (he/him) is a working-class queer nerd and author helping to overthrow the capitalist patriarchy one wry comment at a time. Besides writing stories and novels, he’s written hundreds of magazine and news articles, dozens of published film and video scripts, and a four-act play. He lives in Seattle with his partner, where he enjoys reading and writing science-fiction.
A Frank and Fabulous Looking Freak Show
As with a lot of its indie, queer film cousins, the strength of a movie like Freak Show lies in its heart. Based on the young adult novel of the same name by former club kid and current World of Wonder bon vivant James St. James, it’s an earnest story that makes up for its lack of surprises with a star studded cast and an excellent performance from The Imitation Game’s Alex Lawther.
Something Like Love: Something Like Summer
Something Like Summer is a sometimes delightful, sometimes heart-wrenching look into how identity and acceptance both informs and complicates our love lives. Directed by David Berry, the movie follows the trials and tribulations of characters that folks might be familiar with from Jay Bell’s Something Like series.
Totally Unofficial Queer Guide: GeekGirlCon 2017
This year’s GeekGirlCon schedule is jam packed with panels, events and meetups, so we’ve picked out a selection that go a little further down the diversity path, addressing race, gender, and/or sexuality in the world of geek pop culture.
Creating Change: Weathering the Troubles at GeekGirlCon
Championing diversity, and trying to uplift the voices of marginalized and oppressed communities in a field dominated by straight, white, cisgender men, is hard. It requires strength and resilience to persevere. Also, it can’t hurt to make sure you know who’s got the keys to your email server.
Queen Victoria Ortega: Building Relationships That Matter
Queen Victoria Ortega was an activist since pretty much the beginning. Growing up in L.A.’s Boyle Heights, a neighborhood characterized by it’s Mexican American population, made it difficult to be trans, says Ortega. But being the child of activist parents taught her a lot of lessons that sit with her to this day.
SNL: A Sketch Too Far
I was left with a strange feeling yesterday after watching the replay of last weekend’s Saturday Night Live. Part of it was from the fact that Chris Pine had to sing almost every time we saw him in the episode, which was weird. But it was mostly due to the sketch where a group of tough, masculine auto mechanics all came out to each other as closet RuPaul’s Drag Race fans.
Totally Unofficial Queer Guide to Translations Transgender Film Festival
Frankly, it’s hard to look through the festival schedule without seeing something worth attending or watching. But, for those who can’t commit to attending 10 days worth of films and activities, we’ve put together a Totally Unofficial Guide of our picks.
It’s Time For Lady Bunny To Grow Up
It must be hard being Lady Bunny, always being surrounded by people who don’t get that her brand of shock value humor isn’t meant to offend. Constantly having to explain that it’s her audience’s job to not be offended by her jokes, rather than her job as a performer to edit what she says out of decency and human kindness, must be tiring.
Mayor Murray and the Fall of a Guardian
Today The Stranger published an editorial submission from Mayor Ed Murray. That sentence is, in itself, troubling without taking into account the fact that Murray’s guest editorial was a blathering, vile screed in which he stated what powerful, white men always say when they’re in danger: look at the alleged victim’s criminal record, they must be lying.
Doing Spit Takes with Trixie Mattel
It’s been nearly two years since Trixie Mattel graced the TV stage of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and it’s time that she’s made the most of. Since her initial appearance, elimination, re-appearance, and re-elimination from RuPaul’s queen-making machine, she’s become a YouTube celebrity, both solo and in partnership with her best squirrel-friend Katya, toured with her own live stage show, and even made a guest appearance on the most recent season of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story.
The Good Witch Tara Hardy
Words have long held power. From the past days of witches and shamans, to the present day were a single tweet can make or break a career, the power of words, of language, is undeniable. One of my favorite wordsmiths (and, full disclosure, one of my favorite people) is the author of a recently released collection of amazing words called My, My, My, My, My.