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The Barbed Wire: Jonny Garza Villa on Censorship & Writing for Queer KidsJonny Garza Villa, an nonbinary Latine person with thick dark hair in a top knot and bandanna and short beard and moustache, wearing a khaki jacket over a white tee. They are sitting on a bench with red and blue pillows behind them along with a potted palm.
Jonny Garza Villa in Austin Kit O'Connell
September 20, 2024
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The Barbed Wire: Jonny Garza Villa on Censorship & Writing for Queer Kids

Posted in Austin, Journalism, LGBTQIA, and The Barbed Wire

“The most rewarding part of stories,” said author Jonny Garza Villa at a book signing hosted by Austin’s Little Gay Shop, is “realizing that I can write something that’s hyperspecific, a Mexican-American experience in a specific city in Texas, and how what that character is going through can relate to anyone, anywhere.”

Garza Villa’s young adult fiction is imbued with rich cultural details of Latiné Texas life, including the perhaps unlikely queer joy one can find here, despite the hostility that LGBTQ+ Texans face. One rising form of such hostility is book bans. Since 2021, Pen American found Texas has banned more than 1,500 books in public schools and libraries, many of which featured LGBTQ+ identities. In the U.S., only Florida has banned more books. And, as Garza Villa has experienced first-hand, that antipathy may be extending to authors.

Read moreThe Barbed Wire: Jonny Garza Villa on Censorship & Writing for Queer Kids
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
In Print: Long COVID feature out now in Texas Observer!An 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. Text: Clearing the Air. Long COVID sufferers advocate for a healthier world.
Photo by Jordan Vonderhaar
March 8, 2024
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In Print: Long COVID feature out now in Texas Observer!

Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Millions of Texans are suffering from long COVID and you might be surprised to learn that many of them are young and formerly healthy. Studies show that the more often you get infected, the more likely you are to have lingering, potentially life-changing health effects.

Look for it in print in the Texas Observer magazine now, and online later this month.

Read moreIn Print: Long COVID feature out now in Texas Observer!
Before ‘Lawrence’: From Sodomy to Queer LiberationA man waits for customers behind the front desk of Dallas' historic Village Station gay bar, in this black and white photo.
(Courtesy of Dallas Gay Alliance)
February 9, 2023
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Before ‘Lawrence’: From Sodomy to Queer Liberation

Posted in Journalism, Media, Reviews, and The Texas Observer

On August 17, 1982, LGBTQ+ Texans celebrated “Gayteenth,” as activists called it at the time—a reference to Juneteenth, which commemorates news of slavery’s end reaching Texas. On that day in Dallas, a district court judge ruled in favor of plaintiff Don Baker in Baker v. Wade, declaring our state’s sodomy law unconstitutional. Baker, who lost his job with the Dallas Independent School District after coming out on TV, had sued the state for violating his right to privacy and equal protection under the laws.

“I want gay people in Texas to understand that this is their victory—that they should internalize this and feel good about themselves,” declared Baker, who became a figurehead of the struggle to decriminalize queer relationships.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision. The Supreme Court, which had recently ruled such laws constitutional in Bowers v. Harwick, declined to hear the case. Anti-sodomy laws in Texas and elsewhere would remain on the books and in effect until Lawrence v. Texas 21 years later.

Read moreBefore ‘Lawrence’: From Sodomy to Queer Liberation
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