Brittani’s Team Pick:
The July issue of The Advocate features stories from black LGBT identified people for a series of essays, excerpts, and interviews called “Black, LGBT, American.” The female subjects include Wanda Sykes, Laverne Cox, and Janora McDuffie. There are also great pieces on intersectionality; Don Lemon delves into the interconnectedness of race and sexuality and why so many coming out speeches start off with, “I’m black and I’m gay.” The magazine’s editor states the need for conversations about race and identity but will they continue to cover these topics in future issues?
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Brittani Nichols is a Los Angeles based comedy person. When she's not tweeting about white people or watching television, she's probably eating pizza. Actually, she's probably doing all three of those things concurrently and when she's not doing THAT, she's sleeping. Brittani also went to Yale and feels weird about mentioning it but wants you to know.
Brittani has written 328 articles for us.
Thank you for that concluding question! I’ve noticed over the years that magazines such as Out and The Advocate produce really great issues like this where there is a focus on a marginalized community within the queer community (as if there is no overlap). Sometimes it is the trans* community, sometimes the asexuality community. And this issue of The Advocate is no exception. It is a great and worthwhile effort. But I always wonder why does it have to be an entire issue, and not just become integrated into the conversation of every issue The Advocate produce? The way this is produced and presented almost feels as if they won’t cover or comment on these stories for the rest of the year.
To me a far bigger issue is how come the Advocate doesn’t have regular trans and person of color contributors and why so many of their trans-themed articles are written by cis writers who seem pretty oblivious about many issues in that community?
I also want to ask, what’s with that photo of Laverne Cox with her essay? This is a serious discussion of race, not some calendar shot, and to me, that just shows how much the editors of The Advocate objectify the participants in these discussions.
That Darnell Moore article is excellent. Thanks Brittani for the team pick! I hope the Advocate continues to push for intersectionality year round, though.
Thanks for this post! I will definitely read the article when I am NOT at work.