To his coworkers, Dr. Christopher Lewis is known as the gender doctor. But to the LGBTQ community in the city, the region and beyond, he’s known as a great influencer. Lewis co-founded the Washington University Transgender Center clinic at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, a cutting-edge center of care for trans youth. “[St. Louis] is…
Bryon Dawayne Pierson Jr. is driven in the way someone is driven to escape a burning house. At just fifteen, the Alton native ran away from his dysfunctional family, determined not to succumb to their lifestyle of guns, drugs and sex addiction. Despite bouncing through six foster homes, Pierson excelled in O’Fallon (Illinois) High’s wrestling…
Maxi Glamour is our indigo demon queen, dancing the polka and burning Satanic rites down the Mississippi River. For ten years they have summoned plagues of glamorous disco punk to St. Louis that defy attempts at binary categorizations. To simply label Maxi a “drag queen” would be to incur their fiercest voodoo curse. Maxi’s scales…
If you’ve done any work learning about positive female sexuality in St. Louis in recent years, you probably know Nikia Munson. The educator, facilitator and explorer has long understood the importance of creating safe and respectful spaces for sexual self-discovery and learning. In 2014, Munson joined Sex Positive St. Louis, the community resource for discussion,…
Sayer Johnson is a busy dude, to put it mildly. The executive director and co-founder of the Metro Trans Umbrella Group, or MTUG, always has another project in the works to serve his community — to make life easier, safer or better for his trans siblings. MTUG, founded in 2013, offers meet-ups, trainings and panels…
Sean Michael is the mastermind behind the socially conscious theatre troupe the Q Collective. Founded in February 2018 in the context of the #MeToo movement, various protests and the Women’s March, the Q Collective has a mission of “exploring the spectrum of gender, sexuality and romantic orientation” through the lens of intersectionality and acceptance. Before…
Sitting in the garage with family in 2012, Shawn Jennings Kohrs stumbled upon a Facebook post that changed his life. A woman in Kentucky wrote with intimate details about how her thirteen-year-old son knew he was going to die, but still worried about her well-being. “Two seconds in I was invested, and knew I had…
Tony Corso — better known around these parts as Boo Boo — revitalized the Bartender Revue at Just John a decade ago, making it the hotly anticipated annual event it remains today. The annual drag comedy event, held in January, raises money for charities handpicked by Corso and Just John co-founder Jeromy Ruot. Founded in…
Mo Costello, the Mo in MoKaBe’s Coffee House, insists that her establishment’s standing as a community cornerstone has nothing to do with her. “I get a lot of credit for this, but we’ve literally just allowed the space to be the space,” says Costello, a youthful, angular mother of three adult children who has been…
Years ago, dining out as a vegetarian meant lots of limp pasta topped by wan microwaved mixed vegetables. Questions about ingredients yielded a rolled eye or a too hastily supplied answer. The bad old days are over, and leading the charge locally is Tree House (3177 South Grand Boulevard, 314-696-2100), the South Grand mainstay that…
