It’s basically impossible to talk about public health in St. Louis right now without mentioning Dr. LJ Punch. The genderqueer genius has their hands in all the region’s most pressing issues, slicing through red tape and getting it done with brilliance, warmth, humor and grace. After years as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore and St.…
Heather Brown-Hudson: The Teacher
A fired-up teacher who believes in you can make all the difference. Dr. Heather Brown-Hudson is the chair of the gender studies program at Lindenwood University. Her time there began in 2010, teaching in the French and English departments. In 2013, she pitched a gender studies program, and it took off. “The program began and…
Brandon Reid: Turnaround Artist
Brandon Reid is a youthful 33, but don’t let the babyface fool you — he’s packed a lot of life into those years. He puts all of it to good use in his personal and professional quests for bettering his fellow humans. “I was actually incarcerated,” Reid says. “So, eighteen years old, I caught a…
Grayson Chamberlain: Fashion Fixer
Figuring out what to wear on a date is tough enough. Throw in a closet full of clothes that don’t reflect your true gender expression (and a strapped student bank account) and the task becomes that much tougher. Grayson Chamberlain loaned some natty button-downs to a fellow trans man on his dorm floor for a…
Carrying a Community: the Journey of Pastor Tori Jameson
Pastor Tori Jameson’s life had long been trending toward their unique place as a pastoral care provider for the queer and kink communities. But it was physically carrying a dead woman’s children during a march in her memory that brought Jameson’s life’s mission into sharp focus. Jameson was serving at the church that did the…
Welcome Flow: The Bee’s Knees Yoga Offers Accessible, Inclusive and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in O’Fallon
Yoga has come a long way from its origins in centuries-ago India. No longer solely the purview of impossibly twisty young boys bound for the meditative life, it’s moved into something else, and that something — skinny cisgender white ladies in $90 pants, for instance — may not be an improvement. But one woman in…
Venus in Furs: Inside a Man-Free BDSM Play Space with GutterGlitter’s Elizabeth Van Winkle
On a rain-threatening Wednesday night in August, the Crack Fox downtown has a few indicators that something unusual is happening inside. A hand-lettered sign bears the quote people posted in the ’70s supporting Angela Davis: “Sister, you are welcome in this house.” Another right by the door handle is less subtle: “No Men.” Inside, past…
The Influencers
Meet fifteen LGBTQ community members making a major impact in St. Louis Where do we get off, telling you who the influencers are in this town? Well, we’d like to think we keep our ears to the ground and watch who’s moving and who’s shaking, who’s driving the discussion and who’s pressing buttons. This collection…
Cami Thomas: The Storyteller
Cami Thomas wields her influence in gentle but powerful ways. She’s a journalist, with bylines in HuffPost Black Voices and this very magazine, and a documentary filmmaker lending her unique perspective to issues in a post-Michael Brown world. “I grew up in Florissant, the tippity-top of north county,” says Thomas, 25. “I went to middle…
Kameo Dupree: No Boxes
Mister Kameo Dupree is that suave, debonair gentleman who opens your doors and brings you flowers. You may have fallen under the classic male illusionist’s spell at the Grey Fox or other venues, sharply suited and slaying tunes by Jessie J, Brad Paisley or Jason Derulo. “I just don’t do that heavy metal,” the musically…