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The Advocate: The Joy of LGBTQ+ Reading ClubsIn a composite photo, at left, three people gather with books outside the Little Gay Book Club. In an inside shot, about two dozen people gather around long tables to discuss a book.
Courtesy of the Little Gay Book Club
September 24, 2024
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The Advocate: The Joy of LGBTQ+ Reading Clubs

Posted in Austin, Journalism, LGBTQIA, and The Advocate

The ever-evolving membership of the Little Gay Book Club in Austin, Texas, gathers several times a month to read together, to celebrate their love of literature, and of course to debate the latest selections. They’re one of a small, but growing number of LGBTQ+ book clubs springing up across the United States—from Philadelphia to Richmond, Virginia, among others—that meet regularly to share books and dish about their lives.

I first met Lex Loro, the genderqueer manager of the Little Gay Book Club, in the sumptuous roof garden on top of Austin Public Library’s main headquarters during a book fair. We spoke under the shade of solar panels as Loro took a break from slinging books on behalf of their employer and the book club’s sponsor, the Little Gay Shop. Lex was dressed in a casual-yet-fab Barbie-pink-themed outfit, complete with dangly earrings declaring her pronouns: ‘They’ down one ear, and ‘She’ down the other. In addition to managing the shop’s book club and other literacy programs, they’re also the director of community health at the San Antonio Pride Center.

“Book clubs create an opportunity for queer people in particular, or just any minoritized people, to access stories about our realities that are similar to us and access stories about people in our community that are different from us,” Loro told me.

Read moreThe Advocate: The Joy of LGBTQ+ Reading Clubs
Austin Free Press: Transgender Community Responds to Shut Down of Texas Driver’s LicensesA drag queen sings into a microphone in a hot pink faux fur jacket, with bright, sharp yellow nails and bright red hair.
The Trans Era is one of the performers at the upcoming 'Transistence' drag show.
September 19, 2024
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Austin Free Press: Transgender Community Responds to Shut Down of Texas Driver’s Licenses

Posted in Journalism, and LGBTQIA

Austin’s trans community is girding itself to fight back legally – and on the catwalk – against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to stop transgender and gender nonconforming Texans from updating their genders on state identification documents.

On Sunday, the Local Queer Foundation is organizing to help its community apply for passports to thwart Paxton’s draconian measures to collect the names of anyone asking the state for a gender update, said Caleb Armstrong, a founder of the Austin nonprofit.

“I think it’s very dangerous, and people are scared, mostly because having mismatched documents can affect their work, their ability to get on a plane, or to show someone who they are,” Armstrong told the Austin Free Press.

Until last month, trans Texans could update the name and gender on their driver’s licenses or other state records by presenting the Texas Department of Public Safety with a court order. A similar process existed for updating birth certificates through the Department of Vital Statistics. That changed in August, when DPS began refusing court orders for gender marker changes, under orders from Paxton. Reports soon surfaced of the state refusing to update birth certificates, too.

Read moreAustin Free Press: Transgender Community Responds to Shut Down of Texas Driver’s Licenses
GLAAD: Drag Show Celebrates LGBTQ SeniorsAn older white drag queen in black clothes clasps her hands in front of her as she dramatically lip-syncs, standing before a stone wall with the backdrop for the Austin Eagle leather bar behind her.
Kit O'Connell/GLAAD
April 16, 2024
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GLAAD: Drag Show Celebrates LGBTQ Seniors

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and LGBTQIA

We’ll always be bosom buddies, friends, sisters and pals. We’ll always be bosom buddies; if life should reject you, there’s me to protect you. If I say that your tongue is vicious, if I call you uncouth, it’s simply that who else but a bosom buddy will sit down and tell you the truth …

At first, you might think that just another drag show is taking place on a Sunday afternoon, in the small leather bar tucked away unobtrusively in the corner of a strip mall at the northern edge of Austin, Texas. It takes a lot to stand out in a city that’s in love with drag, where you can catch a different drag show, packed with talented young queens and kings, every day of the week. 

But there’s something different about the Absolutely Fabulous Sunday Brunch at the Austin Eagle, beyond just the retro choice to open the show with drag queens Minnie Bar and Martini DeVille dancing and lip-syncing to “Bosom Buddies,” from the 1956 Broadway hit Mame. The difference is that every queen that Sunday is a drag performer over 50.

Read moreGLAAD: Drag Show Celebrates LGBTQ Seniors
Texas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be HeardAn outdoor photograph of a person wearing a purple mask, with brown hair past their shoulders. They are wearing a white dress with black polka dots, and supporting themselves with a cane. Tattoos are visible on their arms.
Jordan Vonderhaar/Texas Observer
March 25, 2024
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Texas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be Heard

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Most people survive the Coronavirus with their kidneys intact. But not 34-year-old Austin resident Vanessa Ramos. 

An experienced community organizer with nonprofits like the Sierra Club, Ramos was healthy and active before she got infected. Then she caught the COVID-19 virus in December 2021, and symptoms lingered through the new year despite her efforts to focus on healing and recovery. 

“I was trying to prioritize my physical health because I couldn’t lift things; I couldn’t open things,” Ramos recalled. “I didn’t understand why I was getting weaker.”

Read moreTexas Observer: Long COVID Sufferers Demand to Be Heard
Deceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW ConferenceProtesters lock arms at the front of a conference roon, holding a banner reading Andre Dickens GOP Stooge. Stop Cop City
Kit O'Connell
March 12, 2024
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Deceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW Conference

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and SXSW

On Monday, a group of protesters at a conference in Texas challenged  the mayor of Atlanta over the city’s ongoing plans to build a massive  training center for police and other law enforcement agencies,  eventually forcing Andre Dickens to leave the event entirely.

The direct action took place at South by Southwest (SXSW),  an annual conference, film, and music festival in Austin, Texas, at a  ballroom of the downtown Hilton hotel (one of several sites where the  conference occurs). The panel discussion was intended to be about conflict between city and state governments. Instead the audience received a very different lesson in civic engagement, as the Austin chapter of the Weelaunee Defense Society, an activist group devoted to the national “Stop Cop City” movement, would soon dramatically change the agenda.

Read moreDeceleration: ‘Viva Viva Tortuguita!’ Atlanta Mayor Chased Out of SXSW Conference
A Tour of Texas BookshopsThe storefront for Bookwoman in Austin, Texas shows an angel with a halo of curly brown hair, reading a book, her wings outstretched and wearing a golden dress with white stars. She's flanked on either side by female symbols which are in flames or silver electricity.
Bookwoman in Austin, Texas is one of just a handful of feminist bookstores left in America. (Kit O'Connell)
November 28, 2022
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A Tour of Texas Bookshops

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Big-city traffic and a resolution on New Year’s Eve of 2020 led Pflugerville resident Kelsey Black to become a bookseller.

An avid reader, she disliked the hour round trip required to get from  her suburb of 65,000 to downtown Austin to browse a bookstore. “OK,”  she told herself, “I think it’s just going to be easier for me to …  start my own bookstore.”

Turned out, it wasn’t easy at all, “but it’s OK because I have now found my calling,” Black said. The Book Burrow began as a pop-up and online business and finally, on August 6, opened  as a brick-and-mortar store. She said the 200-square-foot space has  become a haven for those who don’t feel like they fit in elsewhere,  drawn by the store’s motto: “Embrace your weird.” For her, the phrase  means cultivating love for whatever makes you unique: “Embrace your  gender identity; embrace your sexual identity; embrace your racial  background; embrace your spiritual path.”

Read moreA Tour of Texas Bookshops