All the Audacity and None of the Moans

VICTORIA VON BLAQUE- June is Pride Month, a time when our corporate overlords engage in performative “allyship,” distracting tweaking Twinks and newly blossomed gays with the latest rainbow paraphernalia. As much as I despise the capitalist agenda that hijacks this month, it's equally troubling to see the L, G, and B communities erase the fact that there would be no Pride without the black and brown trans women—often sex workers—who fought for our rights, even when the very community they supported later turned its back on them. This is reminiscent of organizations like THEM Magazine and Pink News.

Until this year, THEM was owned by Condé Nast, a massive conglomerate that also owns Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and more. This year, it was acquired by Equal Pride after Condé dropped all its LGBTQ publications. Equal Pride now owns THEM, OUT, The Advocate, and every other major LGBTQ media outlet. Alarmingly, their team lacks a single Black queer or trans person. I apologize if I misspoke and there is a THEYfab on the team; unlike some, I’m not trying to erase anyone’s identity.

When I covered Miss Major’s funeral, I was told to “let a real news outlet break the story first, not my little magazine.” We are a legitimate news source—that’s why YOU steal from us. If it weren’t for the community pressuring THEM, they wouldn’t have cited us when we covered Persia Amara Conway story.

Due to disappearing grants and advertisers under political pressure the staff at Blaque/Out do not get paid, so the least you can do is credit our work to create opportunities for us to receive financial support. We do this out of passion and a sense of duty to our community, yet this company, which lacks representation, profits from our stories.

Now that I’ve expressed all of that, I wanna talk about the other side of the coin. I want to make it clear: community, you are not exempt from this critique. Many of us began our activism because large corporations have been systematically crushing, erasing, and silencing small Black and brown queer and trans outlets to dominate the narrative. I work for my community; I am a reflection of my community, which means I carry a responsibility to it. This responsibility extends to my fellow activists, entertainers, celebrities, and public figures who also hail from this community, yet often forget to reach back and support the very people who helped them rise to prominence—those who provided a platform or inspired them to claim their voices.

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t seek out larger platforms with expansive reach that can lead to new opportunities. However, why not prioritize the community first or at least include us in the conversation? Engaging with grassroots organizations and voices can enrich your work and provide a fuller understanding of the issues at hand. 

Since it’s Pride Month, I suppose it wouldn’t be right not to quote a line from one of my favorite problematic gay movies from my youth, Trick: “Am I bitter? Absolutely.”