In 2015, joyful crowds hugged outside of the Supreme Court Building when the Justices inside struck down same-sex marriage bans, making it legal across the country. It was the latest restriction to LGBTQ+ rights to fall after sodomy laws were struck down in 2003 and the military allowed people to serve openly in 2011. For…
Features
Portrait of a Drag Friendship: Big, Queer and Female
In the dressing room at St. Louis’s newest gay bar, Prism, nine drag performers are in varying stages of undress. They pass around duct tape to secure their genitals and help each other shimmy into breast plates. Their voices are low, and they always need something: safety pins, concealer, eyelash glue. Usually, I have whatever…
Sex Work: The MO Ho Justice Coalition Is Here to Help us Get Free
Many in the queer community are quick to remind us that Stonewall was a riot and that it was started by trans sex workers of color. Images of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera flood Instagram all year round, but especially during Pride Month. We love to cry out that Pride exists because of the…
Matters of the Divine: Bishop Deon Johnson’s Open Invitation to Dream Big
If you find yourself in a conversation with Deon Johnson that veers toward matters of the divine, don’t expect declaring yourself “not really religious” to provide an exit route. “You can have a profound experience standing in your backyard watching your chickens,” Johnson says. In an era of DIY spirituality, the sentiment isn’t particularly unusual.…
Putting in the Work: Jae Shepherd on Closing the Workhouse and Shaping St. Louis
On November 18, local activists rejoiced as mayor Lyda Krewson announced that she would not be seeking reelection in St. Louis. Krewson lost favor in June with any left-leaning St. Louisans she may have still had on her side after publicly announcing full names — and in some cases, exact addresses — of citizens who…
Saint of the Streets: Dr. Punch saves St. Louis
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.…
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…
Nailing Down Nancy
As Nancy Novak Returns for a Final Farewell, One Writer Seeks to Understand her Polarizing Legacy Less than a week after I signed up to profile Nancy Novak, I realized it would be anything but reporting as usual. For starters, there’s absolutely no need to dig for dirt or persuade sources to talk. Even five…
Strike a Pose: St. Louis has a storied ball scene — and its stars are ready to strut their stuff at Pride
It was 2001 when Mechee Harper took her nineteen-year-old friend Meko Lee Burr to Chicago for his first ball. “We ended up taking over a KFC as our dressing room,” Harper recalls. “And the employees were like, ‘Well, alright!’” The underground, largely black and Latinx LGBTQ ball culture has mostly existed out of mainstream awareness…
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…