“...they think the gay community is an easy target. LET’S SHOW THEM WE’RE NOT!” These exclamatory words jump off the page of a 1995 advertisement in the Houston Voice, a Houston LGBTQ publication. The call to action? To join Q-Patrol.…
I turn off the rumbling window air conditioning unit at my apartment. It hasn’t worked in weeks, and I’m finally ready to come to terms with it. I open up the windows to my apartment, a building I tell people is 100 years old, but if I’m being honest, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I feel a breeze—warm, of course. It sweeps through the middle of my studio apartment, making my unopened mail join my dirty laundry…
Blue skies and warm light surround me, as the rich, delightful smells of a homemade breakfast fill the high-rise apartment. Across from me sits James Stevens, his warm, rugged mouth smiling as he talks. The only sign that we’re in the middle of downtown Houston is the low hum of the city below us. He tells me about the architectural and developmental differences between East and West Berlin, his European home for the past three years. Stevens is passionate about…
