LGBTQ

The first episode sees Elizabeth Hurley join RuPaul, Michelle and Graham. (BBC) We’ve seen the Drag Race UK season two opener and believe us – it couldn’t come at a better time. You don’t need us to tell you 2021 has, so far, been every bit as horrific as the-year-that-shall-not-be-named. And, frankly, a new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK isn’t going to cure the many ills of this world – but it’s a damn good distraction nonetheless. Season two of Drag Race UK comes to BBC iPlayer Thursday (14...

Olly Alexander has compared between his character’s AIDS-denial in Russell T Davies’ new series It’s a Sin to COVID conspiracy theorists. The new Channel 4 and HBO Max series from the iconic Queer as Folk and Cucumber creator takes us back to the beginning of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and shines a light on many gay men’s early attitudes towards the crisis. The series focuses on a group of three young gay men who are all affected by the 1980s AIDS crisis after moving to London and renting a flat together, which...

A trans woman must pay for her own children to be relocated to live with their other parent abroad. (Stock photograph via Elements Envato) An Ontario, Canada, court has ruled that a trans woman must pay the travel costs for her two children to move in with their mother in Washington, US. Increasingly isolated from her family, the upshot of a legal custody battle has seen Darcy feel she is drifting from her children after her former spouse divorced her in 2017. Her ex is now remarried to a man...

We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation. (Amazon) If you’re looking for something to do during lockdown that isn’t constantly scrolling through social media, then maybe you could try picking up new books online? More specifically, and even better, books that put the spotlight on LGBT+ people. From personal memoirs to fiction novels both classic and modern, there’s plenty to add to or start your collection. This list features sci-fi young adult novels that centre queer characters, books that celebrate being unashamedly queer and...

Jim Parsons. (Frazer Harrison/Getty) Jim Parsons has gracefully waded into the long-simmering debate over whether straight, cisgender actors should play LGBT+ people in film and television. Parsons, 47, reflected in an interview with the Los Angeles Times newspaper on his role in The Boys in the Band, the Netflix flick with an all-queer cast that centred on the lives of a group of gay men in pre-Stonewall-era New York City. But how would the film have played out with a patchwork cast of non-LGBT+ and LGBT+ actors? Parsons offered a vastly...

A rainbow Pride flag can be seen waving amid white supremacists firing pepper spray at the police. (Twitter) Gays for Trump waved rainbow Pride flags amid the Capitol riots as crowds of violent white supremacists laid siege to democracy yesterday (6 January) as the Electoral College votes were counted by Congress. Armed and angry Trump supporters breached the US Capitol, stormed the rotunda, and broke into the Senate chamber firing tear gas at senators in a bid to overturn the US election result – which has now been certified by...

Trans politician Addison Perry-Franks. (Facebook) Addison Perry-Franks, a talented filmmaker and steadfast trans Texan Democrat who sought a career in politics to combat transphobia, has died. She was 39. Her wife, Lacey Franks, confirmed her death in a Facebook post 1 January. “The love of my life has passed away today,” she wrote. “I don’t have all of the details till the autopsy comes back. The world is a darker place without her light shining in it.” Perry-Franks died at Cogdell Memorial Hospital in Snyder, per reports, after her wife...

The reality of Black gay love in the time of slavery is explored in a heart-stopping new novel that’s already won praise from Mariah Carey and Oprah Winfrey. The Prophets is a gripping tale of two enslaved men, Isaiah and Samuel, who live as lovers on a plantation in antebellum America. Their forbidden love blossoms in spite of the brutality that engulfs them, and together they find a small haven where they can be alone – until a fellow enslaved person grows suspicious and reveals a truth that threatens to rock...

Owner John McAffrey describes the bizarre moment his staff found his bar bespattered with blueberries. (Screen captures via OKC) A queer bar in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has been targeted by an anonymous homophobe who has vandalised the site across two nights. But it’s the bizarre ways in which the bar has been defaced that has exasperated owners as they capped off an already dispiriting year. Partners, a beloved midtown nightspot that has for years drawn both the younger and older sides of the LGBT+ community, was smeared with an assortment...

The LGBT Foundation in Manchester denied donating $10 million to a political party in Uganda, as was claimed in a fraudulent letter. (Twitter) The LGBT Foundation has categorically denied donating $10 million to a political party in Uganda after a fraudulent letter was widely shared on social media. The Manchester-based charity, which supports the LGBT+ community across the UK, was the subject of a bizarre letter circulated online claiming they had pledged support to the National Unity Platform (NUP), a Ugandan progressive political party. The letter, shared on Twitter, was...

Queer people in all 50 states now have equal protection from domestic violence under the law. (Envato Elements) Queer victims of domestic violence are finally protected by law in all 50 states after a historic court ruling in North Carolina. North Carolina had been the only state that did not offer equal protection to queer people in same-sex relationships – but that changed in a court ruling delivered Thursday (31 December). The Court of Appeals of North Carolina ruled that people who are in same-sex relationships should have the same...

Queer As Folk was Britain's first gay TV drama. (Channel 4) Russell T Davies puts the AIDS crisis front and centre in his new drama, It’s A Sin, something he says he was unable to manage until now. The producer and screenwriter made his name in bombastic fashion with the seminal 1999 drama Queer as Folk. Across two series and 10 episodes, it focused on gay characters with fully fleshed-out lives – a first for television – and taught a generation of adolescent gay men the wonders of rimming. One...

Things got, er, odd in the first trailer for RuPaul's Drag Race UK. (Screen captures via Twitter) Drag queens, start your engines – the official trailer for the long-awaited second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK dropped Sunday evening (3 January) and yup, we are absolutely gagging for it. Immediately sparking hope that maybe 2021 won’t be a truly cursed dumpster fire like the year prior was, the trailer was released on BBC Three’s official Twitter and we’re honestly suspect David Lynch directed it as it is weird. Very weird....

Jonathan Van Ness and Mark Peacock. (Instagram/@jvn) Jonathan Van Ness has opened up about his relationship with Mark Peacock after the pair quietly married in 2020. Taking to Instagram Saturday afternoon (2 January), the Queer Eye star shared adorable photographs of them together, his “favourite moments” of last year, he said. They ranged from re-enacting Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” to ringing out the new year with pals and what appeared to be snapshots of their secret wedding ceremony together. Dressed in white suits, the pair gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes...