On this month's episode of Asking for a Friend, host Dr. Laura McGuire sits down with Dr. Erin Atkinson, a prenatal genetic counselor in Houston, Texas, to discuss queer family building, access to competent sexual healthcare, and the nuance of sex chromosomes.…
As a queer Texan, Elisheva Fox’s debut poetry collection, Spellbook for the Sabbath Queen, moved me in recognizable, yet surprising ways. If you have any relation to the area, you will adore the scenery of this book, not only in familiarity (sometimes lacking in poetry) but through the handling of queerness in Texas. The poet draws you into an array of colors, from violets to bluebonnets, from gray-green waters to golden grass. Fox cycles between the vibrancy of the “Texan…
The Austin-based queer transmedia festival OUTsider, founded by Curran Nault and co-founded by filmmaker PJ Raval, has long been known for pushing artistic boundaries. Last year, I was delighted to profile three of the festival’s BIPOC artists, focusing on how each found moments of liberation in their art during the era of COVID. Although I’ve since moved to my new home in Richmond, Virginia, I was excited to virtually reconnect with my Texas ties to interview a few of the…
On January 25, as part of the Festival of Films From Iran, the Texas Asia Society, in partnership with Rice Cinema, MFAH Films, and the Normal Anomaly Initiative, will present producer and director Saeed Gholipour’s 'This Is Not Me,' a moving documentary portrayal of the lives of two young transmasculine youth in Iran, Shervin and Saman, as they pursue the gender realignment options available to them.…
I first came to know of T Lavois Thiebaud—and became immediately obsessed—upon discovering their collaboration with musical duo Merel & Tony for the video Matroesjkpop. So I was delighted to learn about their new collaboration, ALMOST PERFECT WORLD, a musical film “rendered righteously imperfect” and meant as a New Year’s offering for 2023. This new film is whimsical, melancholic, wild, thoughtful, frenzied, and contemplative, which is also the perfect way to describe this magical collaboration. ALMOST PERFECT WORLD was conceptualized and…
As a gay youth living in a small house in the middle of a cotton field in Needville, Texas, Tye Blue never dreamed that he would one day have the chance to produce and co-write an Off-Broadway musical that would earn the praises of none other than the Andrew Lloyd Webber.…
Loving Highsmith, playing September 16–18, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, depicts the career of author Patricia Highsmith through the intimate lens of her love life. Patchy and irregular, the film encapsulates the aloof nature of queer love in a time gone by. Highsmith is perhaps best known for writing the Tom Ripley novels, as well as Strangers on a Train (1950)—the basis of Hitchcock’s 1951 film—and The Price of Salt (1952). The latter was first published under a…
The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to get creative—in the ways we work, the hobbies we adopt, and the art we make. For queer Houstonian Chuck Ohamara, that creativity birthed Paradox Moth, a fully inclusive, LGBTQ-focused, minimalist streetwear brand. Along with fellow co-creator and queer model Alex Sundstrom, Ohamara set out with a simple mission: to build a fashion brand for everybody and every body. “It started as a side hustle,” Ohamara explains. “We wanted to test how to run…
Between the leaked Roe v. Wade draft opinion, horrific attacks on trans kids from the state’s legislature, and the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texans have experienced immeasurable trauma these past few months. The Houston-based, women-led organization I’ll Have What She’s Having (IHWSH)—composed of women chefs, hospitality professionals, entrepreneurs, physicians, scientists, artists, and other professionals united in social activism—is turning pain into action.…
This weekend, Blackness and queerness will be at the center of Houston’s music scene. On Saturday, April 30, Black and queer people from all over the nation will gather in Space City for the Black Queer AF Music Festival, an unforgettable night of celebration, empowerment, and community. …
