june: beyond parades
a monthly curation: this queer cultural moment
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ Happy Pride month! 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 (and happy birthday to two extraordinary women: my BFF, Emily, and Brandi Carlile!)
In honor of Pride (which is every single day for many of us!), in lieu of the rainbow-washing that happens, I was inspired to curate a piece on what’s alive in my little corner of the queer world.
What does being queer look like right now, amidst the fuckery of the timeline we’re living through? Well, it’s certainly much richer than any corporate Pride scaffolding might suggest. There’s new music, new art, new writing, and a general sense that queer people (especially the younger generations) are doing something more subversive than the mainstream visibility of Pride month would suggest. Just ask your queer kids. Here are 10 things in queer culture I’m paying attention to at the moment:
In my earbuds: Okay, first. How am I sooo late (like a decade late?!) to the Las Culturistas party?!? I saw that Brandi Carlile was on the podcast in April, which got me curious… and I’ve since listened to Bowen and Matt interview Brandi, Lena Dunham, Chappell Roan, SJP, Allison Williams, Mike Birbiglia, Taylor Tomlinson, Tyler Henry, Amy Poehler, etc. It’s a gay ol’ time…
Streaming: If you’ve somehow missed Everything’s Gonna Be OK, and you’re into quirky, queer content, I recommend it. Josh Thomas plays a young, queer, autistic man who becomes the guardian of his two teenage half-sisters. It’s funny and strange and genuinely moving. This show treats neurodivergence and queerness with matter-of-fact tenderness that feels so normal to me, but perhaps radical to have on TV…? Two seasons are available to stream. Then the beloved show Heartstopper ends this summer, but instead of a fourth season, it’ll be a feature film, Heartstopper Forever, out on Netflix July 17. If you have a young queer person in your life, watch it together.
Archives: As queerness is one of the main themes of my Substack, I’ll share with you a few favorite, queer-centric posts from my archives:
gen(der)ation gap (for my fellow elder queers + all other humans - please don’t be TERFy)
my kid is non-binary (it’s not a trendy phase + pronouns aren’t too hard)
queer joy as resistance (on feeling ‘queer enough’)
the irritation + the immunity of invisibility (queer femme invisibility and inviting in vs. coming out)
queer as a verb (finding hope + freedom in creative thinking)
why people don’t come out as straight (the harm in heteronormativity)
queer media (recs for tv, movies, podcasts, books, stand-up comics, music, etc.)
Visual art: Hortensia Mi Kafchin is a Romanian trans painter (based in Berlin) whose work is currently (thru the end of 2026) exhibited at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York. She uses classical oil painting to render the contemporary trans experience. It’s like this futuristic, surrealist, somewhat apocalyptic vibe centering gender as transformation. I’m hoping to go to the exhibit when I’m back in NYC this summer.
God Choosing the Shape of Earth, 2019. Oil on canvas. From nicodimgallery.com A staple: ALOK Vaid-Menon! If you’ve been on my Substack for a minute, you know I’m always going to mention ALOK in these posts. They’re such an essential voice at the intersection of gender expansiveness, art, humor, and public education. Their comedy special Biology! and their documentary film ALOK have brought them into wider visibility (by way of some big name producers) without softening their edge, thankfully! Follow them everywhere. Read Beyond the Gender Binary if you haven’t. Click the image below to see to a clip:
On my coffee table: The Lesbian Bar Chronicles by Rachel Karp. This book was just published at the end of May. It’s the living history of lesbian bars in America, how they almost disappeared entirely (from around 200 in the 1980s down to roughly 16 by 2020), and why they’re coming back now. As a queer woman who lives to create spaces, it’s heartening for me to read about how queer women have always created physical space for each other and why that’s so important.
