By Karen Mizoguchi — 2021
“I can’t wait for people to laugh along with me as I attempt to make sense of some of our most pressing issues,” Jonathan Van Ness tells PEOPLE.
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CLEAR ALL
At 25, Harnaam Kaur holds the world record as the youngest woman to have a full beard. For years, she was bullied. Now she’s an Instagram star.
At Documenta 14, the 2017 edition of the touted art festival that takes place once every five years in Kassel, it was an artist heretofore unknown to much of the art world who stole the show: Lorenza Böttner, a German painter, dancer, and performance artist who, in the ’80s and ’90s, began...
It’s no secret that certain segments of the gay community hold high, near-oppressive standards of what counts as sexually attractive. Countless gay men have struggled to see themselves within it as a result.
After generations in the shadows, the intersex rights movement has a message for the world: We aren’t disordered and we aren’t ashamed.
For LGBTQ youth in particular, the Internet can be a refuge—a safe place to feel less alone. For queer youth to feel normal, they need to see, read and hear the voices of others who look like them and use the same identifying labels.
Queer culture and the arts would be much poorer without the presence and contribution of butch and stud lesbians, whose identity is both its own aesthetic and a defiant repudiation of the male gaze.
“Representation and visibility is given to us by larger power structures, but what do we give ourselves? I’m more interested in that. What questions are we asking ourselves to grow and heal? To challenge the ways this world constantly teaches us to hate ourselves?”
What began as a proud assertion of identity has itself become a trope; the stereotype of a gay man now is one who goes to the gym and takes care of himself.
Body image issues aren’t unique to bi or gay men, but toxic thoughts pertaining to self-worth and physical care have become dangerously prevalent within the MSM (men seeking men) community.
Body image is particularly important to discuss in the context of the LGBTQIA+ community, due to the prevalence of eating disorders and similar issues that disproportionately impact those who identify as LGBTQIA+.