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…
It’s about 5:30 a.m. and I’m up early trying to finish the final task of the massive, unwieldy undertaking that is the Out in STL Influence Issue: a profile on theater guru and activist Joan Lipkin. “You’re writing the Joan piece? Good luck with that,” laughs a mutual friend I will not name. So much…
We’d be hard pressed to think of a local LGBTQ+ celebrity who fell as far and as publicly as Jeff Small. A household name in St. Louis due to his years as a KDSK reporter and anchor, his January 2018 drug arrest made for shocking headlines and viral posts. While his life had seemed ideal…
In 2010, Christine Elbert was walking through the Pride Festival with a friend, and it took her 45 minutes to get through the throngs of folks wanting to say hello. Impatient to get another drink, the friend quipped, “We gotta wait for Lesbian Moses over here parting the Red Sea.” Somehow, “Lesbian Moses” quickly morphed…
It was the early ’90s when a fourteen-year-old Nicci Kincer came out of the closet. And what she found outside that closet was hostility and fear — and, ultimately, inspiration for her life’s work of making the way easier for the kids coming out today. “Back then if you were gay, you were the reason…
At the age of 24, Alex Cohen has organized more marches and actions than many older LGBTQIA folks have been to in their entire lives. Even if you’re not the kind of person to be found on the front lines of a protest, you may have noticed Cohen around town. His big smile, political T-shirts…
Outside Basil Kincaid’s porch, the skies are wet with rain-soaked clouds, but the chill of another winter day ends outside the door. Inside the white cottage, a rainbow of technicolor fabrics line the wooden walls and floors. Deep violet velvets, bleached denims and moss green textiles mix with the sounds of low-fi instrumental jazz and…
“There’s no liberation for some of us without liberation for all of us,” says LadyAshley Gregory. Kentucky-born and St. Louis raised, Gregory carries the torch of activism and community everywhere she goes on her “simply human” journey. She’s got a family lineage of speaking truth to power — the late civil rights activist and writer…
The theme for the soon-to-be rescheduled 47th annual Miss Gay Missouri America pageant is “Viva Las Vega.” It’s an homage to the reigning MGMA 2019, Vega (John Michael Tabakian), who will give up the crown after a banner year as our state’s symbol of excellence. Pattaya Hart, Miss Gay America 2020 is expected to co-star.…
In the early days of Shameless Grounds, there was confusion. Michelle Mueller, who co-founded the business with her husband Andrew in 2011, recalls that people were often puzzled over what exactly makes a café sex-positive. “I think some people expected we were going to make them eat on the floor, or wear a collar or…
