Supporting the trans community
Mar. 27 — With International Transgender Day of Visibility coming up on Monday, I expect the conservative right will use the annual event to double down on its hateful, divisive rhetoric.
I encourage everyone in the LGBTQ+ community to show their solidarity with our trans friends. Be sure to check out the story below on how you can get involved.
🩸 Also making headlines are potential cuts to HIV work at the CDC, which has experts worried that recent progress in cutting HIV rates will come to a halt. My colleague Rebecca Grapevine at Healthbeat has more on this life-threatening development.
🪩 In more uplifting news, I’m thrilled that a new bar, dance, and drag space called Lore is opening this weekend on Edgewood Avenue. We need more spaces and places to have fun and commune, so go and show those queens some love.
🪷 As I mentioned a couple of newsletters ago, I am obsessed with “The White Lotus,” and good googly moogly did it go there on Sunday night. Saxon and Lochlan are certainly testing the boundaries of brotherly love.
Thanks for reading!
Collin
Transgender Day of Visibility is March 31
🏳️⚧️ Since 2009, March 31 has marked International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), a day celebrating the trans community’s resilience and contributions to history and society.
Sixteen years after its inception, trans advocates find TDOV to be even more crucial – albeit difficult – than ever before, with near-constant attacks leveraged against the trans community coming federally and locally since inauguration day. A number of events to mark TDOV will take place this weekend and on Monday.
➡ Find out more about the events here.
IN THE NEWS
🗞️ Transgender student athletes would be banned from female sports under two bills in the Georgia legislature. A House committee passed Senate Bill 1 on Tuesday.
Embark on a prehistoric adventure!
SPONSORED BY THE FERNBANK MUSEUM
🦖 Journey through time at Fernbank Museum to discover what made dinosaurs that once roamed the Southern Hemisphere unique from their better-known relatives in North America. With stunning skeletal displays and augmented reality, the new exhibit Ultimate Dinosaurs reveals how the breakup of Pangaea shaped the evolution of dinosaurs. See life-sized casts, fossils, and hands-on specimens like Eoraptor and Giganotosaurus.
➡ Visit the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit daily during regular hours, plus select after-hours events until May 4. Plan your visit today and step into the prehistoric world!
Atlanta Roller Derby is an aggressive and accepting queer haven
🛼 Atlanta Roller Derby has become well-known as a sanctuary for queer people.
“You join the sport and immediately know what community you’ve walked into,” Mac Attack, the President of Atlanta Roller Derby said. “I look around and I know that I’m gonna have common interests with everyone there. I don’t have to ask what people’s views are because we’re in this community together. We chose to be here.”
ARD is holding an open recruiting event on April 28, where you will be taught the basics of skating. You don’t need any experience – you don’t even need skates.
➡ Read Katie Burkholder’s feature story here.
Out actor Ramone Nelson talks about the relevancy of ‘Parade’
🎭 It’s a case that long-time Georgians know all too well: the 1913 trial of Jewish American Leo Frank, a pencil factory manager who was accused and then convicted of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan.
The trial serves as the basis for the musical “Parade,” written by Alfred Uhry with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, which will run at the Fox Theatre April 1-6. The show stars Ramone Nelson (pictured above, right) as Jim Conley, a janitor at the factory and a witness in the case against Frank.
Nelson, who grew up in Lithonia and whose family now lives in Conyers, was looking to go on the road with a show and also for a different kind of role after his Broadway debut in “MJ: The Musical.” He wanted a role that would be thought-provoking and would lead to a conversation afterward. “Parade” checked all the boxes.
➡ Read Jim Farmer’s interview with Nelson here.
💚 Love is Love Co-op Farm Spring Plant Sale is April 5. With pop-up chefs, free gardening and foraging workshops, farm tours, music and more, it’s not your average plant sale! Pre-order plants online or browse and shop on farm. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Best Bets
🪩 The new bar and club space Lore opens this weekend at 566-B Edgewood Ave. There will be dancing, drag shows (including Lexi Love from “RuPaul’s Drag Race”), and much more. See the grand opening weekend lineup here.
💃🏾 Femme Frequency: An R&B Dance Experience for Women Who Love Women is Saturday, March 29, starting at 10 p.m. at Baba’s Kitchen, 2184 Cheshire Bridge Road.
🎤 Out Loud Open Mic & Music Show is back on Friday, March 28, from 8 to 10 p.m. at My Sister’s Room in Midtown.
Social Follow of the Week
📸 If you love books and literature, then be sure to give Lambda Literary a follow on Instagram. The nonprofit celebrates queer and trans books “all day, every day.” The organization also hosts the annual Lambda Literary Awards handed out to the best LGBTQ+ books each year.
