Bisexual Singer Sia Splits from Husband

Bisexual Singer Sia Splits from Husband

Sessions Disavows KKK and Vows to Protect LGBT Rights

Sessions Disavows KKK and Vows to Protect LGBT Rights

He Cried Mentioning Michelle, But We Cried When Obama Mentioned Us 

He Cried Mentioning Michelle, But We Cried When Obama Mentioned Us 

In a moving speech delivered on Saturday at the HRC North Carolina Gala, Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood emphasized the importance of queer visibility.

The 29-year-old singer and actress, who came out as bisexual in 2012, recalled the first time she heard the word "bisexual," an identity she would later come to embrace.

"A light bulb went off," she said at the Human Rights Campaign fundraiser, where she was honored with the LGBT group’s Visibility Award. "The word didn’t make me feel marginalized. It made me feel less crazy. It made me feel less alone. It gave me hope. An actress just said a word, but it made a world of difference in my life and in my identity."

She explained that learning to use her voice, despite being taught to stay silent, gave her hope. In a speech with quotations from civil rights leaders Audre Lorde and Nina Simone, Wood stressed the importance of artists using their voices to reflect the times. 

"Because of the voices I listened to, because of the people I identified with, the films I had watched, the music I had heard—because of words like 'bisexual' and the doors that it opened — I’m still here,” she said. "And I didn’t miss out on the most beautiful thing I’ve seen yet… my son. Visibility creates hope."

Wood ended her speech by paraphrasing a powerful quote from E.E. Cummings: "To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting."

Watch the full speech, below.

Evan Rachel Wood: Bisexual Visibility 'Creates Hope'

Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide, died on Saturday in Texas, according to the Washington Post.

McCorvey, 69, passed away from a heart condition; she was living in an assisted living facility and was believed to be destitute. Her life was defined by her role in Roe v. Wade, where she was initially known by the pseudonym Jane Roe. By the 1980s, McCorvey was open about her identity and her sexuality; she had a 35-year relationship with a woman named Connie Gonzalez. While McCorvey identified as a lesbian in one of her memoirs, she had numerous relationships with both men and women.

McCorvey was 22 when she found herself pregnant and broke; living in Dallas in the early '70s, she had no option to terminate her pregnancy and could not afford to travel to a state where it was legal. She eventually met attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who wanted to challenge the Texas law. McCorvey's lawsuit would eventually reach the Supreme Court as a class action suit and, in a 7-2 ruling, legalize the right to an abortion nationwide. By the time that happened, McCorvey had already delivered her child and given it up for adoption.

In the years to follow, McCorvey would struggle both to make ends meet and to define her role in the women's rights movement. In the 1990s, she described her attorneys as bullies who viewed her as a pawn. McCorvey would eventually meet anti-abortion advocates and be drawn to their side, becoming a born-again Christian and then a Catholic. She was involved in anti-abortion protests and was arrested for disrupting the 2009 confirmation hearings for then-Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotamayor.

But McCorvey didn't necessarily fit amongst her fellow anti-abortion foes, who also judged homosexuality as inherently wrong.

"Neither side was ever willing to accept her for who she was," author and Roe v. Wade expert David J. Garrow told the Post.

Lesbian Plaintiff in Roe v. Wade Dead at 69

In some ways, maintaining sexual health as a bisexual is just like maintaining sexual health as someone with any other sexual orientation. 

For example, Denarii Monroe of the Bisexual Resource Center says, “Staying sexually healthy for me personally means making sure that I’m getting regular STI and HIV checkups, preferably before starting a new sexual relationship with someone.”

“In terms of tips for the happy, healthy bisexual, my number 1 tip for sexual health is to maintain [it] by getting those exams,” says Amy Andre, who works with the Bisexual Research Collaboration on Health at The Fenway Institute in Boston. She argues that routine screenings and preventative medicine are essential for long-term health. 

“Unfortunately,” Andre acknowledges, “studies show that compared to women of other orientations, women who identify as bisexual are less likely to get cancer screenings like Pap smears and mammograms.”

It’s one of the many health disparities between bisexual women and men versus their non-bi counterparts. 

“Bi+ sexual health means recognizing the specific systemic obstacles that bi+ people have to [overcome] obtaining adequate health care, including sexual health care,” says Monroe, who prefers the more inclusive “bi+” — a moniker meant to include pansexual, polysexual, and other orientations beyond gay, lesbian, or straight.

One of the main impediments for bisexual health is the “biphobia, bi invisibility, and the discrimination that people face who are out as bisexual,” says Andre. That stigma “impacts our physical and mental health, and even our ability to make choices around sexual health screenings.” 

Andre sees being out to healthcare providers as an essential part of maintaining sexual health, but acknowledges, “the unfortunate reality is that many people do experience discrimination in healthcare settings when they come out, so it’s kind of a double-edged sword.”

Monroe says she fights this using “my community as resources to find doctors and other health professionals that aren’t just ‘LGBT’ friendly, but that are specifically bi+ friendly, so that bi+ antagonism doesn’t creep into my doctor’s visits so much when my sexual history and sexual desires are being discussed.”

Andre says health care providers truly committed to serving bisexual clients should publicize that they are nondiscriminatory — and then live up to that promise. 

“For so many of us, even within the LGBT community, there are still enormous areas of discrimination. Just because this doctor has a rainbow sticker, or the [Human Rights Campaign] equality sign, does that necessarily mean that I’m welcome? Or that I can come out to them as someone who has male and female partners? Or as someone who identifies as bisexual regardless of the gender of a partner? I think that healthcare providers really need to go the extra mile to make it very clear that they [offer] a welcoming environment for their bisexual patients and clients.”

Preventative sexual health screenings are just the tip of the iceberg, when looking at the health needs of bisexuals, Monroe argues, because “we have higher rates of poverty than both straight people and gays and lesbians, [and] lower rates of health insurance coverage.”

Andre agrees. “There’s very little research on this, but what research there is shows that we tend to have less money, have higher rates of unemployment and underemployment. As we all know, healthcare in the United States can be expensive, and for many people, prohibitively expensive.”

Meanwhile, Andre says, bi folks have perhaps even more need for competent health care. “Bisexual women in particular, have higher rates of being victims of domestic violence. We have higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality, alcoholism, and other addiction behaviors. We already have a whole mess of things that we’re dealing with, and then to think, Oh, I better schedule my mammogram. That might not be at the top of someone’s list when they don’t have money, and they’re trying to escape from an abusive relationship, and they’re feeling like shit, and they’re thinking about suicide. I think that all of these things kind of snowball on each other and make it difficult for us to take care of ourselves. That’s just the unfortunate reality.”

“The majority of bi+ people are people of color and the majority of transgender people are bi+,” adds Monroe, who notes that the unique socioeconomic issues that bisexuals face impact “how much we’re able to access to adequately address our needs in a very oppressive set of systems, especially when we’re multiply marginalized. For me, addressing bi+ sexual health means addressing these specific needs, which means specifically acknowledging and then tackling bi+ erasure, bi+ antagonism, and monosexism.”

H. Sharif “Dr. Herukhuti” Williams, Ph.D., who cofounded both BiRCH and the Center for Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality, says he tries to “practice acceptance and self-love for my sexual fluidity. Part of that also means being able to resist external societal pressures that aim to confine and limit my sexuality, and to pathologize it.”

“If I choose to be with a particular person of a particular gender,” Herukhuti maintains, “the outside world will want to place labels on me that can be internalized. I must stand in the power of my own truth, and give myself the space to be moved sexually across genders.”

Sexual health, for many bisexuals, also involves establishing and maintaining healthy relationships. 

“I make sure that I understand my own relationship needs so that I can communicate them clearly and confidently to my partner or partners,” says Monroe. “I stay sexually healthy by only engaging in sexual encounters with sober people when I’m sober.”

Herukhuti adds that “when seeking a relational partner,” he tries to be prepared “for their lack of knowledge, their biphobia, their fears and prejudices that have not been explored. Being able to counter those things and stand in my own truth is a part of my sexual health. I grew up in the ’80s, in the height of fear-based HIV messaging, so I must continue to stand in the power of my own truth, to be rigorously honest about my own fears and anxieties in seeking a partner, and be able to work through those.”

“There are different sexual cultures that exist in our society between men and women,” Herukhuti concludes. “I have learned how to swim in both of those cultures and recognize the problematics of both. The ways that men are not socialized to be emotionally intelligent, or how women are socialized to limit their sexual agency. That also has an impact on my social interactions and relationship possibilities. As a bi man, I am often challenged by the patriarchy and misogyny that men are socialized to uphold. I am personally attracted to women who are sexually empowered — who don’t limit their sexual agency — and to men who have developed their emotional intelligence in ways that are deeply moving. All of these things are involved in maintaining my personal sexual health and wellness.” 

By all counts, Kristen Stewart is a bona fide star, an A-list actress with the box-office receipts to prove it. And now she’s unapologetically out of the closet. The Twilight star and critical darling had been trepidatiously out about her relationships with women, beginning with a 2015 Nylon cover story in which her response to questions about her sexuality was “Google me, I’m not hiding.” And she was right. To Google Stewart then and now is to discover dozens of paparazzi pictures of her holding hands or sharing an intimate moment with girlfriends she's had since then. 

But it wasn’t until her Saturday Night Live hosting gig in early February that she ripped off the coming-out Band-Aid, during her opening monologue in which she roasted Donald Trump’s obsession with her ex-boyfriend Robert Pattinson. She noted that if Trump didn’t like her back in 2012 when she dated her Twilight costar, he really wouldn’t like her now because, “I’m, like, so gay, dude.”  

Die-hard fans and new converts alike celebrated the 26-year-old actress’s super-queer hosting job that also included her starring in a deeply sapphic Totino’s Super Bowl commercial opposite Vanessa Bayer. While kissing scenes between female characters on TV shows have become more commonplace over the years, with such scenes on Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife,Supergirl, and others, Stewart’s declaration of queerness, followed by a full-on makeout session with Bayer, was something altogether groundbreaking. Now Stewart is likely the reluctant test case for whether wider audiences will accept her as a romantic lead and if she’ll hang on to her A-list status after flinging her closet door off of its hinges. 

Since Stewart began acting as a child she’s enjoyed a mix of massive box-office success and foreign and indie film critical acclaim. Her first big success was as Jodie Foster’s daughter in the David Fincher thriller Panic Room. Subsequently, she appeared in well-received indies like Adventureland, Into the Wild, The Runaways, and On the Road, while also starring as the ultimate ingenue love interest Bella Swan in the $1.17 billion–grossingTwilight series (there were five films in all). Since 2012’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, the last in the series, Stewart’s appeared in only one popcorn flick, 2015’s hilarious stoner/secret government agent action movie American Ultra.

While her work of late has not necessarily been blockbuster material, she’s carved out a name for herself at the Cannes Film Festival with exceptional notices for Olivier Assayas's 2014 character study Clouds of Sils Maria (with Juliette Binoche), for which she won the Cesar, the French equivalent of the Oscar, and Woody Allen’s Café Society (2016). She also received critical acclaim for her role in Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women, a hit at Sundance in 2015. Her latest collaboration with Assayas, Personal Shopper, was released in theaters in the United States last weekend with some mixed reviews for the film but with consistent praise for Stewart's intense, ethereal ennui.

Considering that big box office often appears to correlate with large fandoms, as is the case with superhero franchises, Star Wars, and the Hunger Games and Twilight series, it remains to be seen if audiences will accept a queer leading lady in a romantic role with a man. Franchises like The Hunger Games and the Divergent series have featured autononomous female characters, but their strength is often tempered and digestible to audiences through their relationship to the male love interest. Consider that, despite four movies in which Katniss Everdeen kicked ass and saved her world, she was fated to end up married to Peeta and raising children in a traditional picture of domesticity. Since scopophilia, the act of looking at and identifying with the characters on the screen, is a part of suturing audience members into the story, will the straight audiences who fanned out over Bella and Edward (Pattinson's Twilight character) both on and off the screen see themselves in her now that she's openly queer? 

Prior to Stewart, there’s never been an out A-List movie star to test the queer glass ceiling. Angelina Jolie came out as bisexual as her star was rising in the late ’90s, but she hasn’t talked about bisexuality in public like actresses Amber Heard and Evan Rachel Wood, who are outspoken advocates for bisexual visibility. Jodie Foster hasn't carried a film since before she came out in 2013, and the critically acclaimed Sarah Paulson and Kate McKinnon are known primarily as TV stars.  

The only out actress to come close to hitting the big-screen benchmark was Anne Heche, who entered into a very public relationship with Ellen DeGeneres at the height of her film career. Before she and DeGeneres (who came out publicly in life and on her sitcom in 1997) became a couple, Heche had been a respected soap actress who eventually landed plum roles in the indie Walking and Talking and HBO’s If These Walls Could Talk (both from 1996). 

In ’97 Heche starred in three films with some of the biggest male box-office stars of the time: Donnie Brasco with Johnny Depp, Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones, and Wag the Dog with Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro. That year, Heche also appeared with DeGeneres in a famous interview with Oprah Winfrey in which they openly discussed the details of their meeting and falling in love. At the time, she was slated for two major upcoming roles to be released in 1998, one in Return to Paradise with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix and in the stranded-on-a-desert-island-style pas de deux Six Days, Seven Nights with Harrison Ford, in which their characters argued and sniped at each other until they eventually fell in love. 

By the time Six Says, Seven Nights was released, Heche and DeGeneres were a premier Hollywood couple, although that didn’t mean the public was ready for them. DeGeneres’s show was canceled the season after her coming-out episode due to low ratings, and the media endlessly pondered whether the public would buy Heche as a love interest for Ford. According to one columnist for The Independent, who wrote the offensive piece “Out of the Closet, Into the Fire,” Ford had been dogged with questions about playing opposite a lesbian prior to the film’s release, and according to a poll at the time, 68 percent of the moviegoing public said that casting Heche opposite Ford had adversely affected their decision to see the film. 

If that weren’t enough of an excoriation of her coming-out, an executive at Disney, the company that produced the film, said, "The only way Six Days, Seven Nights works is if you buy into the premise that the couple are falling in love. But that's almost impossible to do because you have a female lead better known for her sexual preferences than for her screen persona,” according to The Independent. 

Two years later, Heche and DeGeneres broke up and Heche suffered a breakdown that resulted in her telling her story in Call Me Crazy: A Memoir. But her film career had begun to wane prior to the breakup and her subsequent personal break. She has since enjoyed a storied career in television in respected shows including Men in Trees and Hung. But she’s no A-lister; she never reached the likes of Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Lawrence, or even Stewart. 

Of course, Heche began her rise to fame 20 years ago before there was a proliferation of queer characters on television and before marriage equality became the law of the land. There’s hope that audiences and studios have progressed past fixating on the personal life of a film’s star. 

Last week the Internet exploded with pictures of Stewart with close-cropped blond hair for her role in the upcoming Underwater, a disaster flick in which Stewart plays a mechanical engineer at an underwater scientific lab who is forced to escape with her crew when an earthquake hits. Her character enters into a romantic relationship with another crew member, according to Deadline (although it's not clear which gender that other character will be). 

Underwater, which begins shooting this month, could prove to be the movie that changes everything for out A-listers moving forward, if the box office receipts are big. Stewart has proved she's got the acting chops for indie, foreign, and popcorn flicks; now we just have to show up.  

March is Women's History Month, and with Donald Trump and his administration in power, there's never been a better time to honor all women. Throughout the month The Advocate will feature queer pioneers whose strength, resilience, and ingenuity paved the way for others. 

Today we feature, Gladys Bentley, a popular and very out lesbian blues artist of the 1920s and ’30s.

What she accomplished: While the Harlem Renaissance era of the ’20s and ’30s saw a bounty of lesbian and bisexual blues singers — Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters — no one was more open about her love for women than Gladys Bentley. Bentley wore tuxedos and top hats, flirted with women in her audiences, improvised risqué lyrics when performing, and proudly wore the label of “bulldagger.” Bentley was born in Philadelphia in 1907, and while growing up she was subjected to the treatment familiar to so many LGBT young people: Other kids ostracized her for her gender-variant appearance, and her parents took her to doctors to try to “cure” her of her crush on a female teacher. At age 16, she moved to New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, where African-Americans were making music, art, and literature in an explosion of creativity that would become known as the Harlem Renaissance. The environment was accepting of all types of sexuality and gender expression, and Bentley soon became an in-demand singer and pianist at Harlem nightspots including the Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, and the Clam House as well as midtown jazz clubs. Known as “the Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs,” she was a powerful performer: “When Gladys sings ‘St. James Infirmary,’ it makes you weep your heart out,” one fan wrote of her. The great Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes called her “an amazing exhibition of musical energy,” and fiction writer of the era based characters on her. At one point she had a marriage ceremony — obviously without legal standing — with a female lover.

In the late 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance waned, and Bentley moved to California, where she sang at gay clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles. By the 1940s she was finding less social acceptance; the L.A. police required clubs to get permits to allow her to appear in men’s clothing. Eventually she also ran afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee, for her lesbianism and interracial affairs rather than any political associations. In the 1950s, in an article in Ebony magazine, she claimed to have been converted to heterosexuality through female hormone supplements. This “is written off as a fabrication to save her career during the McCarthy era,” wrote Ms. blogger Shantala Thompson. Bentley then had at least one marriage to a man — she claimed two, but one of the supposed husbands denied the marriage took place — and became a devout Christian. She studied for the ministry, but she died (in 1960) before she could be ordained. A 1957 article in the Chicago Defender, however, indicated that she had not renounced same-sex love. An interviewer asked her about photos of a man and a woman on her dresser, and she replied, “That’s my husband [pointing to the male] and that’s my wife.”

Choice quote: “From the time I can remember anything, I never wanted a man to touch me. ... Soon I began to feel more comfortable in boys’ clothes than in dresses.” — Bentley in Ebony

For more information: The reference book Harlem Renaissance Lives has a thorough entry on Bentley, and there’s a lengthy, excellent article in the journal Ninepatch. Bentley is featured in filmmaker Robert Philipson’s documentary T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s, which has been a hit at film festivals over the past few years. And you can get a sample of her singing below.

March is Women's History Month, and with Donald Trump and his administration in power, there's never been a better time to honor all women. Throughout the month The Advocate will feature queer pioneers whose strength, resilience, and ingenuity paved the way for others. Today's woman to know is Carson McCullers. 

Who she was: One of the preeminent American authors of the 20th century.

What she accomplished: McCullers (1917-1967) was the acclaimed author of fiction sometimes described as “Southern gothic,” tales of outsiders and misfits, told in a lyrical, sensitive style. A native of Columbus, Ga., she moved to New York City at age 17 to pursue a writing career. She had a huge critical and commercial success with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, about a deaf and mute man in a small Southern town who becomes a magnet for lonely and isolated people who want to share their stories. It received widespread praise upon publication in June 1940. A New York Times reviewer wrote of the young author, “Reading her, one feels this girl is wrapped in knowledge which has roots beyond the span of her life and her experience.”  

McCullers followed this with Reflections in a Golden Eye, published in Harper’s Bazaar in August 1940 and in book form the following year. It had a mixed reception, with some readers and critics being shocked by its depiction of repressed homosexuality on a military base. More popular were 1943’s The Ballad of the Sad Café, about a love triangle involving unusual characters in a small mill town, and 1946’s The Member of the Wedding, focusing on a lonely young girl whose brother is getting married. McCullers adapted the latter novel into a play, which was a major Broadway hit in 1950, giving her the biggest commercial success of her career. The play starred Julie Harris and Ethel Waters, who re-created their roles in the 1952 film version.

McCullers’s personal life was marked by love affairs with both men and women. She was married twice to James Reeves McCullers, who was also bisexual. He had a drinking problem, as did Carson, and was envious of her talent. In the early 1950s, while he and Carson were living in France, he tried to persuade her to commit suicide with him. She fled to the United States, but Reeves did eventually kill himself, in 1953 in Paris. Carson McCullers’s “deepest attachments,” according to scholar Jan Whitt, were to Reeves, composer David Diamond (who was in love with both the author and her husband), and Swiss writer Anne-marie Clarac-Schwarzenbach. In Whitt’s view, the complex romantic relationships in McCullers’s fiction are a reflection of her life.

The author was in poor health for much of her life. She had rheumatic fever as a child, and it was not properly treated, with the result that she had several strokes in adulthood. She died of a stroke in 1967 in Nyack, N.Y., which had been her primary home since the 1940s. Her body of work consists of five novels (the final one being Clock Without Hands, published in 1961), two plays, 20 short stories, numerous nonfiction pieces, a book of poetry for children, a small number of other poems, and an unfinished autobiography.

Choice quote: “'My life has been almost completely filled with work and love, thank goodness. Work has not always been easy, nor has love, may I add.” — McCullers in Illumination and Night Glare

For more information: The Carson McCullers Center at Columbus State University in Georgia has an extensive website with a biography and bibliography. The center maintains an archive of materials related to McCullers and operates a museum in her childhood home. It also grants fellowships to writers and composers, who have the opportunity to stay in the home.

McCullers’s novels are still widely available, and there are film versions of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Ballad of the Sad Café, and Reflections in a Golden Eye, in addition to The Member of the Wedding. Biographies of McCullers include The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers by Virginia Spencer Carr, published in 1975 and reprinted in 2003, and Carson McCullers: A Life by Josyane Savigneau, which came out in 2001. Her autobiography was published as Illumination and Night Glare: The Unfinished Autobiography of Carson McCullers in 1999.

Words are weapons or tools depending on how you use them, and while many lesbians cling to their labels, other queer women want nothing to do with them. 

Language Matters

Butch Lesbian

Femme

Gold Star Lesbian

Stud

AG

GTG/LUG

Pillow Princess

Bull Dyke

Lipstick Lesbian

Chapstick Lesbian

Power Lesbian

Diesel Dyke

STEM

Hasbian

Gayby

Baby Dyke

Celesbian

Boi

Tomboy Femme

Stone Butch

20 Vocab Words that Describe Queer Women — For Good or Bad 

Words are weapons or tools depending on how you use them, and while many lesbians cling to their labels, other queer women want nothing to do with them. 

Less than a week after former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez hung himself in his solitary jail cell, the details of his short and unhappy life are coming more into focus.

Newsweek confirmed that Hernandez, 27, left a suicide note for his female fiancee, his daughter, and the boyfriend he met at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass, where he was serving a life sentence for murder. Hernandez's boyfriend, who has not been named by the media, is under suicide watch.

Hernandez was convicted for the murder of his one-time friend, Odin Lloyd. A motive for the 2013 killing was never clear, but Newsweek and other outlets reported that Lloyd was aware Hernandez was bisexual and had carried on a long-time affair with a male friend from high school. At the time of his death, Lloyd was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee; it's believed Hernandez was fearful word of his bisexuality would reach his fiancee.

Lloyd also allegedly called Hernandez a "smoocher," which the football star believed was an antigay slur. Later, a man accused of helping Hernandez attempt to conceal Lloyd's murder told his girlfriend he would not have helped him had he known he was a "limp wrist."

Hernandez, born in Bristol, Conn., in 1989, lost his father at the age of 16. Even with a promising football future at the University of Florida, Hernandez could not escape a life of crime and violence. He was accused of taking part in a 2007 double-shooting that left two men injured in Gainseville, Fla.; he was not convicted. Five years later, he was connected to a shooting in Boston that left two men dead, but was found not guilty of that crime five days before he committed suicide. 

Even before Lloyd's murder in 2013, Hernandez was accused of shooting another friend of his and leaving him to die on the side of a south Florida road. The victim survived.

When Hernandez's body was discovered this week — the same day his former teammates traveled to the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win in February — he had a Bible verse scrawled on his forehead and red ink on his hands and feet, imitating the stigmata.

For all the lesbians and bisexual women out there in deep despair about how they came to be attracted to people of the same gender, your burning questions have been answered by a “researcher” out of Cyprus who’s offered up, essentially, the frat party explanation for why women make out with other women — to catch the attention of men, of course. Men’s desire for women to be sexual with one another is the driving force behind lesbian attraction, Menelaos Apostolou of the University of Nicosia argued in his study, according to the International Business Times. 

"Why does same-sex attraction happen in women, why did it evolve, and does it serve some purpose? A lot of men indicate a desire to have a partner who also experiences same-sex attraction," posited Apostolou, an author whose books include the gripping titles Feeling Good: An Evolutionary Perspective on Life’s Choices and Sexual Selection Under Parental Choice: The Evolution of Human Mating Behavior. 

According to a survey that Apostolou conducted online with 1,509 heterosexual participants, he concluded that approximately “15% of heterosexual men in long-term relationships say that they would want their partner to have a sexual encounter with another woman. This figure goes up to about 30% of men in short-term relationships,” IBT reports. Thus, Apostolou extrapolated that to conclude that his gender helped create women who are attracted to other women through positive selection, because, you know, the guys were so turned on by it that it became an evolutionary imperative. So, according to Apostolou’s highly scientific method, lesbian and bi women have ancient dude bros, and not their own free will or biology, to thank for their sapphic tendencies. 

What’s nearly as maddening as his hypothesis itself are the conclusions drawn by the woman the IBT called on to refute it. "The paper totally ignores a lot of other possible hypotheses and makes claims that are really not supported by the evidence they provide," Diana Fleischman, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth, told IBT. But Fleischman then dismantled Apostolou’s conceit that his gender helped make queer women by pointing out that he failed to take into account the fact that men tend to have more relaxed attitudes about women’s sexuality than women do about men and that he negates the effects of “lesbian” porn on men. 

"I can't really see how cultural factors would make some men be turned on when their partners tell them I want to have sex with another woman," Apostolou wrote. "These kinds of sexual traits are more instinctive. It's a mechanism that has been selected to serve a purpose — to make you reproduce. For me, these things are expressions of old mechanisms.” 

But Fleischman, in her equally tone-deaf response to Apostolou’s thesis, disagreed, arguing instead that cultural factors, namely porn, did in fact influence the men Apostolou thinks created queer women through positive selection. 

"I think this paper is showing the effect of pornography. Men see a lot of porn where a woman has sex with another woman, and then a man gets to have sex with that woman," Fleischman said. "Two women having sex with one man is such a common theme in pornography that I think it is very difficult to parse out that particular variable."

What both of these “scholars” failed abysmally to do was to interview real-life women who are or have been physically and/or emotionally attracted to other women — not that Apostolou’s study was even remotely necessary, as if the evolution of female same-sex attraction needed to be placed under a microscope because the threat of women abandoning men sexually had reached such a fever pitch that the population of the planet were at stake. 

For anyone with a deep desire to understand the mysteries of female same-sex attraction as viewed through the lens of an academic who doesn’t care enough about lesbians and bisexuals to ask them about their experiences, the study is available here for $35, or you could better spend that on a couple of copies of Carol on Blu-ray. 

Last September, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert announced on Facebook that she and her best friend, Rayya Elias, had fallen in love. And this Tuesday she posted a beautiful photo of the two of them from what she called a “Ceremony of Love” that depicts the deep bond she has with her friend of 15 years, who has been battling cancer of the pancreas and liver since before they went public with their relationship. 

 

A post shared by Elizabeth Gilbert (@elizabeth_gilbert_writer) on Jun 6, 2017 at 2:17pm PDT

While Gilbert and Elias did not officially tie the knot at their ceremony, Gilbert explained the inspiration for it in her Instagram post: 

Over the last year, Rayya Elias and I have been through some really difficult days together — but not today. Today was precious and perfect. A simple and spontaneous ceremony of love, surrounded by a small handful of friends and family. Our ceremony was nothing legally binding (no need to alert the authorities, folks!)...just a quiet and private celebration of what we have long known to be true: We belong to each other. More difficult days are to come. It doesn't get easier from here. Her illness is grave. But our love is strong. We will walk together as far as we can go together. After that, it all gets turned over to God. Create beauty with every day you are given… 

Prior to announcing that she and Elias were in a relationship, Gilbert was married to Brazilian businessman José Nunes. Gilbert was forthcoming in her Facebook post that her relationship with Elias precipitated her divorce from her husband. 

"For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes," Gilbert wrote last fall. "Here is where we stand now: Rayya and I are together. I love her, and she loves me. I'm walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner."

Elias is a Syrian-born musician and filmmaker and the author of the memoir Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post Punk, From the Middle East to the Lower East Side, for which Gilbert wrote the introduction in 2013. 

Last September, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert announced on Facebook that she and her best friend, Rayya Elias, had fallen in love. And this Tuesday she posted a beautiful photo of the two of them from what she called a “Ceremony of Love” that depicts the deep bond she has with her friend of 15 years, who has been battling cancer of the pancreas and liver since before they went public with their relationship. 

 

A post shared by Elizabeth Gilbert (@elizabeth_gilbert_writer) on Jun 6, 2017 at 2:17pm PDT

While Gilbert and Elias did not officially tie the knot at their ceremony, Gilbert explained the inspiration for it in her Instagram post: 

Over the last year, Rayya Elias and I have been through some really difficult days together — but not today. Today was precious and perfect. A simple and spontaneous ceremony of love, surrounded by a small handful of friends and family. Our ceremony was nothing legally binding (no need to alert the authorities, folks!)...just a quiet and private celebration of what we have long known to be true: We belong to each other. More difficult days are to come. It doesn't get easier from here. Her illness is grave. But our love is strong. We will walk together as far as we can go together. After that, it all gets turned over to God. Create beauty with every day you are given… 

Prior to announcing that she and Elias were in a relationship, Gilbert was married to Brazilian businessman José Nunes. Gilbert was forthcoming in her Facebook post that her relationship with Elias precipitated her divorce from her husband. 

"For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes," Gilbert wrote last fall. "Here is where we stand now: Rayya and I are together. I love her, and she loves me. I'm walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner."

Elias is a Syrian-born musician and filmmaker and the author of the memoir Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post Punk, From the Middle East to the Lower East Side, for which Gilbert wrote the introduction in 2013. 

Point Foundation, the nation's most prominent scholarship-granting organization for LGBTQ students, has announced its 2017 scholarship recipients, and it’s by far the largest and most diverse group in the organization’s history. 

From more than 2,000 applicants, 52 recipients were chosen — 27 LGBTQ students were chosen to be Point Scholars, while 25 LGBTQ students were chosen from community colleges to expand Point’s Community College Scholarship Program. This year’s scholarship recipients include veterans of the armed forces, award-winning artists, international LGBTQ rights activists, creators of nonprofit organizations, and young scientists. 

Two-thirds of Point Scholar class are people of color, nearly half of them identify as transgender, gender-nonconforming, or intersex, and eight were formerly homeless. In the group of community college recipients, 60 percent of the students are the first in their families to go to college, nearly half of them identify as transgender, gender-nonconforming, or intersex, and one-third identify as bisexual, polysexual, or queer. 

Here’s to a great school year ahead!

Learn more about the Point Foundation at PointFoundation.org. 

Adil Mansoor
Carnegie Mellon University, Theater

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, and raised in the Chicago area, Adil Mansoor is a Muslim-raised and queer-identified theater director. What began as bullying in high school and ostracism from his community evolved into a commitment to marginalized folks and dismantling structural oppression. As a director, Adil believes that centering the stories of LGBTQA+ people and folks of color will shift the dominant narrative away from heteronormativity and white supremacy. Adil began his journey as an artist educator at Northwestern University, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 2008. After graduating, he has worked with many organizations including Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Chicago/Pittsburgh Public Schools, and the Andy Warhol Museum. Since 2012, Adil has been the program director for Dreams of Hope, an arts education organization supporting LGBTQA+ youth. Each year, he works with a youth ensemble to create an original play exploring LGBTQA+ history and experience. In 2013, he started Dreams of Hope's sQool program, bringing social justice centered arts programming to schools and community spaces. In its first three years, sQool engaged over 3,000 people in art making and conversations about the LGBTQA+ community. Adil is also a founding member of Hatch Arts Collective, a performance group committed to creating socially engaged art. In addition, he has directed for Quantum Theatre, Bricolage Production Company, Pittsburgh Playwrights, and others. Adil is pursuing an MFA in directing at Carnegie Mellon University as a John Wells Fellow and will further develop his capacity to honor underrepresented voices. 

Bodo Lee
Wells Fargo Point Scholar  
Yale University — Ethics, Politics, and Economics

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Bodo Lee was born in Dallas and moving to Oro Valley, Ariz., in fifth grade. There, he has attended a charter school for grades 6-12 where he found a community that became a second family to him. Although his high school career involved a liberal arts education with an emphasis on STEM fields, he found a passion for economics and politics primarily during his junior and senior years. At school, Bodo served as treasurer of the National Honor Society, and he founded Peer Diversity, a group that works with the Anti-Defamation League to train student leaders to identify and combat discrimination, hate, and bias. This experience gave him an outlet to challenge injustices of all kinds including the prejudice often facing the LGBTQ community. Outside of his high school studies, he served on his town’s Youth Advisory Council before becoming president in 2016. Along with this, Bodo was a board mrmbrt the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing care and education for those living with HIV or AIDS as well as the LGBTQ community. It was these two organizations that ignited in Bodo a passion for politics and advocacy. Bodo is a student at Yale University, where he plans to study ethics, politics, and economics while continuing to be an advocate for equality and justice. 

Donna Scaffidi
University of Michigan Law School

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Donna Scaffidi has committed her life to serving and supporting marginalized communities. A first-generation college graduate who overcame poverty, Donna graduated magna cum laude with a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where she was actively involved with several organizations to cultivate positive social change for black, Latinx, and LGBTQA+ communities. Due to her civic engagement and desire to pursue a career in law, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute selected Donna to join the Congressional Internship Program in the spring of 2015. Through this opportunity, Donna worked for U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), focusing on technology, health care, education, poverty, and LGBTQA+ policy issues. This experience fortified Donna’s desire to become a lawyer and led her to explore the intersection of public interest/government and private practice. After graduating college, Donna began working in the legal recruiting department of a preeminent global law firm where she served as an LGBTQA+ leader and advocate. Then, prior to law school, Donna was selected to be an SEO Law Fellow, and she worked during the summer before law school at another leading international law firm. She has been working to create and sustain a pipeline of diverse talent for those interested in pursuing a legal career. One of Donna’s goals after law school is to return to a law firm to continue these efforts, combining her passion for creating justice for all with her desire to work on sophisticated legal issues. 

Eric Gonzaba
George Mason University — History

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Despite proud Texan parents, Eric Gonzaba is thoroughly Midwestern. Born in Missouri and raised in Michigan, Eric attended high school in rural southern Indiana, where he came out as gay sophomore year. Backed by supportive family and friends, he became deeply involved in LGBTQ advocacy. At Indiana University, he served as outreach coordinator for the school’s LGBTQ+ Culture Center and the GLBT Alumni Association, tasked with organizing programming and educational events for the wider university community on queer issues. While organizing an event on the history of LGBTQ Hoosiers, Eric became interested in uncovering and telling the histories of queer people outside the coastal gay landmarks of San Francisco and New York. He curated an exhibit on Indiana’s LGBTQ history using only T-shirts archived in a local gay library. Later, as a graduate student at George Mason University, Eric developed the T-shirt project into a digital archive and museum titled Wearing Gay History. The site contains nearly 4,000 historical LGBTQ T-shirts from around the world, spanning five decades of vibrant history. The site earned a 2016 National Council on Public History Award. Eric’s research focuses on the cultural politics of the late twentieth century United States, with a particular interest in African American and queer history. His dissertation, titled "Because the Night: Nightlife and Remaking the Gay Male World, 1970-1990" examines the politics of racial discrimination at gay nightlife establishments in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Eric’s dissertation argues that sites of gay nightlife divided queer communities along racial, sexual, and class lines. Eric hopes his career as a historian will help empower others to uncover the complicated and often overlooked histories of LGBTQ people. 

Felipe Gomez
Wells Fargo Point Scholar
University of Pennsylvania — Mathematical Economics 

Pronouns = He/Him/His

During fall of 2004, Felipe and his mother immigrated from Colombia to the U.S. in hopes of an improved future. However, what they received was a life full of belittlement, homelessness, adversity and poverty. Having grown up in the ghettos of Chicago and Miami, Felipe knows what it means to have absolutely nothing. He invested his time and energy into school, but when high school began, Felipe’s only safe haven was destroyed by the constant bullying and hate he received for being different. After a year of horrid experiences, he decided he had to make a change. Felipe became the first student in his school to come out as gay, and then also became the first student in his school to create a Gay-Straight Alliance. At first, his fellow students were not accepting of him. However, when Felipe began implementing the GSA’s mentoring program as well as educating the school on gender/sexuality topics and debunking popular misconceptions, the GSA’s membership grew. His school eventually became extremely tolerant, and Felipe graduated in 2017 with summa cum laude honors. His life goal is to create a nonprofit that caters to abused, queer Latinx teens from demotivating households as well as creating a society more socially aware and accepting of queer people and immigrants. 

Harper Zacharias
George Benes, MD & Michael Mallee, EdD Point Scholar
Bard College — International Relations

Pronouns = They/Them/Theirs

Growing up in a conservative neighborhood in Chicago, Harper struggled with their sexuality and gender identity. When they were 13, they moved to Deerfield, Ill., as their parents went through a traumatic divorce. It took them until the age of 15 to come out. That same year, their father disowned them. They sunk into a deep depression but eventually recovered through the support of friends and teachers. They quickly realized they had a capacity to create meaningful change in the world and decided to start with their high school. Harper became the president of Deerfield High School’s Gay Straight Alliance their junior year and spearheaded the first campaigns for gender-neutral bathrooms. Before they finished high school, they decided to expand their activism nationally and joined Trans Student Educational Resources, a youth-led nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the educational environment for trans and gender nonconforming students through advocacy and empowerment. Since joining, Harper has risen to the role of program director. Harper is the first trans athlete at Bard College, where they study Global and International Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies, and has worked to make athletics more accessible for queer and trans students. In addition to serving on the Educational Policies Committee, they are Ppresident of the Queer Student Association and Trans Life Collective. As a result of their work, Bard awarded them with the Ralph Ellison Award, a prestigious privilege given to a student who has shown a dedication to eliminating discrimination in the community. Harper is also a research assistant for their adviser at Bard as well as at the World Policy Institute. After graduating, Harper plans to pursue their Ph.D. and continue their activism. 

Kerri Cecil
University of Southern California — Film and Television

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Kerri Cecil is a filmmaker who was born in Southern California but raised by her mother in rural Minnesota in an extremely conservative Christian household. She struggled with her gender identity from an early age, and when it was discovered by her mother that this was no mere "phase," she was cast out from her home at a very young age. After 20 years of homelessness, survival sex work, and drug addiction, which led her to some dark places including jails and prisons, she was finally able to learn how to live a productive life with some help from the Emerging Leaders Academy. Kerri was introduced to the realm of possibility, and she decided then and there to follow her dream of becoming a filmmaker who can empower others and help create social change for the transgender community. Enrolling at Los Angeles City College, she completed its film and television program with honors and with her first short film won her first award. While at LACC, Kerri helped create and lead an on-campus LGBTQIA organization called the Spectrum Alliance club, which now has an annual Trans Awareness week, including a Trans Day of Remembrance. Even though she is the first in her family to graduate from college, her family still ostracizes her because she is transgender. But Kerri has built an amazing life for herself and is now attending the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she is pursuing her undergraduate degree. 

Kevin Contreras
Wells Fargo Point Scholar
Pitzer College — Pre-Med

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Raised in Los Angeles by a traditional Mexican family, Kevin became well acquainted with discrimination at a young age. Throughout his adolescence, he was often bullied for being the only openly queer student among his peers. Despite his unsupportive community, Kevin has worked to combat the effects of discrimination by organizing LGBTQ+ acceptance events, hosting antibullying forums, and even convincing school administrators to make designated restrooms gender-neutral. As president of both his school and the Gay Student Alliance, Kevin regularly met with school district officials to discuss LGBTQ+ related issues, racial equality, and other social justice topics. In addition to his community efforts, Kevin provides resources, as well as support, to over 80,000 people struggling with their sexual and gender identities on his blogging platform. Aside from his work with the LGBTQ+ community, Kevin also cofounded a nonprofit organization, the Engineer Factory, in the summer of 2014, which serves to inspire marginalized children to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Suffering from an eye disorder that will eventually lead to blindness has motivated Kevin to study to become a researcher and a doctor so that he can help thousands of people in need. As an undergraduate at Pitzer College, he will further LGBTQ+ causes, pursue community outreach for LGBTQ+ youth, and use his knowledge to become an agent of change within all marginalized communities. 

Khushboo Panjwani
Rim-Freeman Point Scholar

University of Texas at Austin — International Relations, Anthropology

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Khushboo Panjwani is an international relations and anthropology double major at the University of Texas at Austin. Having witnessed many human rights abuses from a young age, Khushboo's passion for human rights and protecting others manifested early on. What Khushboo values most in her academics is exposure; to knowledge and ideas that she does not yet possess, and to experiences she has not yet acquired. It was with this mindset that she entered university. She worked with refugees as an intern for the International Rescue Committee in 2014 and served as an ambassador for the Aga Khan Foundation | Partnerships in Action in 2015. In the summer of 2015, Khushboo interned for Impilo Phambili in South Africa, where she conducted research in townships that were formally designated for black occupation by apartheid legislation. This is where her passion for cultural understanding and the intersectionality of oppression grew. In the summer of 2016, she fell in love with the language of Arabic at the intensive Arabic Summer Institute at UT. It was not until the fall of 2016 that Khushboo realized she was part of the LGBTQ+ community. After coming out to her friends, family, and entire Muslim community, she faced much discrimination, and as a result became a financially independent student. As of spring 2017, Khushboo is the vice president of Amnesty International UT Chapter. A Pakistani, Muslim, queer, independent student, and woman, Khushboo has experienced and witnessed marginalization in many forms. She hopes to focus her academics on the intersectionality of oppression and bridge gaps in cultural understanding.

Kuhan Jeyapragasan
HSBC Point Scholar
Stanford University — Applied Mathematics

Pronouns = They/Them/Theirs

Kuhan Jeyapragasan is a Stanford University student from Toronto, Canada. Their involvement with the LGBTQ community started in high school, after speaking to a teacher who shared their experience as an LGBTQ South Asian individual. This discussion made Kuhan realize how few South Asian LGBTQ individuals are well-known, and the importance of sharing stories to reduce isolation and provide support to the LGBTQ community. Kuhan’s activism started in school, as executive of the Queer Straight Alliance, Pink Day Crew, and Gender Equity Club. They also became heavily involved in community service, volunteering and doing advocacy work with organizations including the 519 Queer Community Center, Delisle Youth Services, LGBT Youthline, and Supporting Our Youth. In Toronto, Kuhan also conducted research on LGBTQ youth homelessness, suicide prevention, and mental health challenges faced by the LGBTQ community. At Stanford, Kuhan’s field of study is mathematical and computational sciences. Coupled with a minor in economics, Kuhan hopes to apply technology and data to solve large-scale social problems. Kuhan is also heavily invested in student activism and has been involved with the NAACP, private prison divestment work, effective altruism, and social justice groups. In total, they have accumulated over 2,500 volunteer hours and will continue to volunteer to ground the policy work they hope to be doing in the future. Outside of social justice work, Kuhan loves playing chess, singing South Asian music (classical and Bollywood), learning new languages, and traveling. 

Kylie Blume
Novo Nordisk Point Scholar
University of Minnesota Medical School — Medicine

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Kylie Blume is a student at the University of Minnesota Medical School, where she is pursuing her dream of being a fierce advocate for the LGBTQ community through medicine. Driven by her own experiences with transphobia in medical settings, she is passionate about reforming medical education to welcome aspiring LGBTQ physicians and train all health care providers to be competent in caring for LGBTQ patients. Kylie grew as a leader through her efforts to challenge University of California Davis Health to better care for its LGBTQ patients as community representative on the Vice Chancellor's LGBTQI Advisory Council and as a core planner of the UC Davis Improving OUTcomes Conference. Upon matriculating to UMN Medical School in 2016, she harnessed her passion and leadership skills to establish the first annual UMN MedED LGBTQIA+ Health Care Symposium. She is working to establish a free student-run trans hormone clinic, TRANSform Hormone Clinic. Kylie’s efforts are inspiring her peers to join her in improving the medical school’s capacity to train LGBTQ-sensitive and competent physicians. She is also collaborating with the administration to improve the school’s curricula and support of diverse students through her roles as chief diversity officer on the Medical Student Council and president of Pride in Health Care. Kylie is engaged in national LGBTQ health advocacy through her board position on GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Health Equality, where she creates resources for health professional students nationally so that they can collaborate and contribute to deconstructing LGBTQ health inequities. 

Landon Marchant
HSBC Point Scholar
Williams College — Computer Science

Pronouns = Them/Them/Theirs

Born and raised on a flower farm in rural Wisconsin, Landon Marchant has traveled a long way from their conservative religious upbringing. At the age of 18, Landon enlisted in the United States Air Force, hoping to suppress their gender identity and sexuality. However, instead of turning Landon cis and straight, the military introduced them to countless successful and happy LGBTQ people. Since an honorable discharge in 2011, Landon has devoted their time to helping LGBTQ troops and veterans. Landon has held numerous leadership roles in SPART*A, an LGBTQ military organization, since its inception in 2013. In particular, Landon has supported fellow transgender service members by connecting troops with educational and health resources, emergency housing, and employment assistance. They also cochair the SPART*A fitness group, a personal passion that has led to improved member morale. Landon has built an expansive network of nonprofits, veterans’ organizations, and individuals dedicated to supporting LGBTQ service members and veterans. In order to pass on this wealth of knowledge, Landon maintains a comprehensive index of resources for LGBTQ veterans and for any veteran hoping to continue their education. Acceptance into Williams College has only served to deepen Landon's passion for helping LGBTQ individuals succeed. As a disabled veteran and former trade union apprentice, they know the importance of strong support networks and economic stability. Landon intends to continue supporting LGBTQ veterans achieve their post-military goals, as well as work to change the way we think about socioeconomic mobility, skilled labor, and military service. 

Le’Priya White
Oberlin College — Sociology

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers or They/Them/Theirs

Le'Priya White was born and raised in Chicago. Being an openly queer woman of color, Le'Priya knew that she wanted to help foster healthy spaces for queer and trans people of color. Creating a sense of community through activism and education is the goal she has set for herself to accomplish during her time at Oberlin College. During her freshman and sophomore years, Le'Priya has taken on several leadership positions, such as being cochair of La Alianza Latinx, a group dedicated to providing a space for Latinx students, and Zami, a group that operates as a safe space for queer and trans people of color. She is the co-coordinator of Queer Beers, a monthly community gathering for queer and trans students. At the end of her sophomore year, Le'Priya cofounded Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC) Hall, ensuring a community for QTPOC to live in a space dedicated to the love and support of queer/trans folks.

Le’Priya was awarded the Mellon Mays Fellowship in March — a program dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented minority groups and supporting those students on their path to pursuing a Ph.D. Her research will focus on the accessibility of health care for marginalized groups living with HIV and their experiences with institutions due to social factors such as housing instability, poverty, lack of employment, and education. 

Logan Alcosiba
Wells Fargo Point Scholar
San Francisco State University — Humanities

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Learning to live for love instead of to die from hate, Logan Alcosiba came out as transgender once her sophomore year began. When she was greeted with open arms, Logan made it her mission to ensure all kids were treated the same. To spread awareness and acceptance, as well as build a better understanding of diversity for her peers, Logan became as involved as possible in her community, dedicating her time to school, leadership, athletics, drama, and clubs. This would lead her to become the first openly transgender athlete, ASB president, and homecoming queen for the city of Newark, Calif., a proud achievement for her community considering the loss of Gwen Araujo a decade and a half prior. In the middle of her high school career, Logan founded her school’s annual Transgender Presentation to teach students and staff about the transgender experience as well as her school’s first LGBTQ+ Support Club, where students could safely express themselves while organizing school events and learning about the community’s history. Because of this, the welcoming environment surrounding Newark Memorial High School improved and still continues to grow. All the while, Logan was physically transitioning, breaking down barriers in transgender health care. With much perseverance, Logan became the first minor in Northern California to be approved for and undergo any gender-related surgery, allowing future youth the same opportunity. Her personal transition allowed a community to transition. Being herself allowed others to do the same. This, Logan knows, will continue. 

Michael Arellano
Western Michigan University — Dance/Behavioral Science

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Michael Arellano was born in Shelby Township, Mich., where he lived until moving to start school at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Being a dancer since age 3, Michael experienced a lot of harassment at a young age and became ashamed of both his craft and his sexuality. Toward the end of high school, Michael began to embrace being a dancer and a proud gay man. While in high school, Michael danced at Suzette’s Masters of Dance and became an instructor in 2013, teaching students in styles such as jazz, ballet, contemporary, and more. He was also a member of the National Honor Society and volunteered his time by tutoring at Malow Junior High, packing food at Gleaners Food Bank, and helping at Frasier Villa Nursing Home. In 2015, Michael received the Medallion Scholarship from Western Michigan University. Through the Medallion Scholarship Program, Michael has cofounded a registered student organization called Blessings From Broncos, which is a branch of the national nonprofit organization Blessings in a Backpack. Blessings From Broncos works to provide food for underprivileged children during the weekends. Michael is excited to continue his studies in dance and psychology and to broaden his activism to the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. 

Molly Griffard
New York University — Law

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Molly Griffard is an aspiring civil rights and liberties lawyer studying at NYU School of Law. She was born and raised in Saint Louis, Missouri. She got her start as an activist and organizer as a teenager by volunteering on campaigns to stop the use of the death penalty in Missouri. In 2009, Molly graduated from Macalester College, where she majored in political science. As an undergraduate, she spent many hours outside of the classroom campaigning for progressive candidates and causes like voting rights for students and low-income people and higher education affordability and access. Before law school, Molly worked at the American Civil Liberties Union as a state advocacy strategist on the LGBTQ-focused Out for Freedom Campaign. In this role, she worked on legislative, ballot, and public education campaigns to advance policies including marriage equality and LGBTQ nondiscrimination, while fighting back against anti-LGBTQ measures. Before joining the ACLU's Out for Freedom Campaign, Molly worked on numerous LGBTQ state campaigns, including the 2012 ballot campaign in Maine and legislative campaigns in Washington, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Utah. In law school, Molly is focusing on gaining advocacy skills and a deeper understanding of the legal system to put to use for social change. 

Nolan Boggess
Grinnell College — Theater and Dance

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Nolan grew up in Des Moines, where he attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through high school. Although Nolan knew his family would accept his sexual identity, he was worried to come out as gay at his predominantly conservative high school. After coming out his senior year, he was disheartened to learn that his high school had denied a teaching job to an openly gay man. Vowing to stand up for those who don’t feel comfortable in their schools because of their sexuality, Nolan decided to attend Grinnell College and get involved with the Queer Mentorship Program that creates mentor relationships between LGBTQIA+ students. Now serving as the co-coordinator, he has the opportunity to match student mentees and mentors through a program of education, advice, and support. Nolan is a theater & dance and anthropology double major who participates in all facets of the Theatre and Dance Department at Grinnell. In the spring of 2017, Nolan directed and produced a student musical theater production on campus. Nolan’s goal is to create a nonprofit theater company in the Midwest dedicated to producing shows by LGBTQIA+ playwrights or focused on LGBTQIA+ topics that would also offer educational and outreach programs to the community. 

Oliver Stabbe
University of Rochester — American Sign Language / Psychology

Pronouns = He/Him/His or They/Them/Theirs

Raised in the Washington, D.C., area, Oliver had inadequate exposure to LGBTQ-relevant education. When he realized he was transgender at 15, Oliver struggled with finding information that would help in discovering and supporting his identity. Oliver realized that in an age where the availability of information is so largely based on environment, disability status, race, gender identity, sexual identity, income, and other identities that have minority statuses, accessibility can drastically improve a person's life. Since then, Oliver has committed himself to researching and advocating for people of diverse intersectional identities and mental health. He has continued his advocacy in a variety of ways: by researching LGBTQ and disability history at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, working in disability policy in D.C., helping coordinate the 2017 Women's March on Washington, conducting an honors thesis in psychological flexibility, and answering calls and promoting accessible options for a peer-to-peer crisis hotline. Oliver is a double major in psychology and American Sign Language with a minor in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. He plans to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology and to continue his advocacy for the LGBTQ community. 

Omar Salman
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine — Medicine

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Omar Salman was born in Kuwait to two Palestinian refugees. Due to violence in the region, he became a refugee himself when his family fled the Gulf War. He came to the U.S. at age 8 and lived in Tennessee, where he faced a great deal of stigma as a gay Muslim immigrant in the South. Omar pursued a career in medicine and eventually studied biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University. During this time, he was outed and experienced a period of homelessness until eventually being connected with resources to regain his footing. After this experience, Omar became passionate about minority and LGBTQ+ health. He spent a summer in Sierra Leone working with a program for HIV patients. He then founded and facilitated a support group for HIV-positive men of color at a health center in Massachusetts. In medical school, he became vice chair of LGBTQ+ issues for the American Medical Association. In this role, Omar wrote a resolution to end the discriminatory deferral period for MSM blood donors that led the AMA to oppose the ban and write the FDA to reconsider the policy. He also facilitated sexual health courses for LGBTQ+ teens, set up a health fair and screenings at Pride, created and led LGBTQ+ provider competency workshops for students and providers, and launched a mentoring program for medical students to mentor ELL students in the region. He also currently serves as an associate director for the MSV Foundation, a philanthropic organization for Virginia’s medical society and conducts research on medical devices for children with neuromotor impairments such as cerebral palsy. When he is not studying, Omar enjoys distance running, vegan cooking and baking, and volunteering with kids. Omar hopes to eventually work in pediatrics and advocacy to address health disparities faced by LGBTQ+ immigrants and people of color. 

Sarah Daoud

University of Chicago — Social Work

All Pronouns

Sarah is a queer, gender-fluid femme of color and the child of Muslim refugees. Working to better their communities through internal, interpersonal, and systems change has been vital to their resistance and existence. Sarah made the decision to pursue social work after reporting from refugee settlements abroad, where they intended to promote human rights through investigative journalism. Steadily, Sarah realized the limitation of a journalist’s work and felt called to a different kind of action. Since then, Sarah has dived into social work through several different avenues: performer in educational theater, abortion clinic escort, teaching artist in Chicago Public Schools, organizer with the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, director of Take Back the Night at Northwestern University (where they also helped reform campus policy on sexual assault to be more inclusive of queer survivors). Of great importance to Sarah is the work they did as a resource advocate at the Broadway Youth Center from February 2015 to June 2017, where they supported queer and trans young people experiencing homelessness. While in school in Chicago, they will be interning at the Chicago Women’s Health Center, a feminist health care collective that serves people of all genders at a sliding scale. After graduating with their master’s in social work from the University of Chicago in 2018, Sarah hopes to start a program for LGBTQ youth of color that integrates mental health care, popular education, and creative learning to provide youth access to activism, emotional tools, and life skills to succeed despite inequitable conditions. In our increasingly harmful world, Sarah is dedicated to supporting queer and trans youth as they learn to love themselves, radically and unapologetically, and gain a healthier understanding of their resilience and power. 

Shannon Moran
University of Michigan — Chemical Engineering

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Shannon Moran was born and raised in Michigan in an Irish Catholic family. Her parents supported her love of math and science, and in 2012 Shannon received her BS in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, Shannon discovered an aptitude for scientific research, resulting in multiple high-impact peer-reviewed publications and a research fellowship at the National University of Singapore. After spending three years in management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group after college, Shannon began her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan in 2015. Her research focuses on the computational study of non-equilibrium material fabrication. Despite her academic successes, Shannon remained closeted until the end of college. After volunteering with the O4U (Out for Undergrad) Business Conference in 2013, Shannon came to appreciate the importance of authenticity in the workplace. She continued to volunteer with O4U, eventually organizing the second-ever O4U Engineering Conference as programming director and establishing a foundational curriculum for future conferences. During her Ph.D. studies, Shannon has spearheaded a series of communications workshops on research project management through the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering and Center for Entrepreneurship, reaching hundreds of engineering students. Through her work with O4U and oSTEM (Out in STEM), she is deeply committed to serving as a mentor to LGBTQ students in STEM fields, developing networks of LGBTQ individuals in these areas, and enabling students with the skills needed to be successful leaders in STEM. 

Tony Vo
Seattle University — Doctorate in Educational Leadership

Pronouns = He/Him/His

Tony is the son of Vietnamese refugees. His parents political persecution in Vietnam to provide the family a brighter future. His upbringing, Tony realized, was a pattern seen in many Southeast Asian communities — low-income, first-generation, and limited English. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, Tony founded a student organization named Asian Coalition for Equality that highlights invisibilities of the Asian community. He also advocated at local, state, and national levels for resources and data that captures the realities of Southeast Asians and organized panels and presentations debunking the “model minority myth.” Tony believes in the power of communities to heal themselves. From 2009 to 2012, he took part in participatory action research for the Vietnamese community and learned their strengths and needs, culminating in a report used to advocate for resources for his community. In 2012, he founded an annual 5K walk/run with neighborhood friends to foster health, build community, and raise money for local nonprofits. This belief in communities led him to student leadership work in the community college system where he advised the Queer Straight Alliance and other organizations. From there he pursued an Ed.M. at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. He plans to continue work in higher education providing pathways for underrepresented students to enter, graduate, and leave as critical leaders. Tony is inspired by the resilience of his mom and sister who ground him in his identities and roots, supporting him on his journey in pursuit of higher education. 

Valerie Weisler
Muhlenberg College — Inequalities of Education

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Valerie Weisler was a shy high school freshman when she came across a student being bullied and said two words that changed both of their lives: “You matter.” The student’s response that her words “validated” him planted the seeds for the Validation Project. Having experienced bullying herself, Valerie launched the project to help other teens gain confidence, believe in themselves more deeply, and develop the skills to address social justice issues. Teens identify their skills and passion, partner with mentors in their field of interest, and then design campaigns making a positive impact in their community. Valerie has been recognized with the National Jefferson Award for Peace and Justice and the Princess Diana Award from former Prime Minister, David Cameron. She also serves as a Human Rights Campaign Ambassador. Valerie's self- designed entrepreneurial curriculum has replaced government-led anti-bullying courses in nearly 1,000 schools across the globe. Leading The Validation Project kindled Valerie's interests in education. Now a student at Muhlenberg College, Valerie is dedicated to learning about the inequalities in education. She seeks to work for the U.S. Department of State, where she has served as a speaking ambassador since August 2016, the U.S. Department of Education, or another platform to make sure every child is provided with the resources and supportive environment to pursue their passions. 

Vanessa R. Watson
Barbey Point Scholar
Fashion Institute of Technology,
Production Management in Fashion and Related Industries / Technical Design

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Vanessa Watson is a fashion engineer on a mission: connecting you to clothes that fit your personality and your bum. Innovation and diversity are themes that inspire her as she works tirelessly to create systems that facilitate access and equality. Vanessa and her younger sister were raised in rural New Jersey by their mother in a single-parent home with tremendous support from their maternal, extended family. Though resources were often scarce, access to and the pursuit of academia was a constant. Acknowledging her Queer identity revitalized her desire and ability to thrive after an arduous battle with depression and as a survivor of suicide. Vanessa is an entrepreneur, a creative individual, and most importantly a student of life. An undying passion for fashion led her to enroll at FIT. As a production management and technical design student, Vanessa is working to revolutionize the apparel industry. Her applied focus looks at how 3-D technology can empower both the retail consumer and supply chain management channels. She is also the founder of UnBoxxed, a platform that integrates fashion and technology, “providing access to apparel that reflects who you see yourself to be — without rules, boxes, or constraints.” One thing is for sure: Vanessa's journey from medicine to fashion has taught her to see far beyond the fold. 

Wandi Che
Duke University — Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Wandi Che was born and raised in China. Since childhood, Wandi witnessed her mother fighting for girls’ education rights in a conservative area. Although her mother eventually gave up due to the overwhelming pressure, she has profoundly influenced Wandi to care about others and things beyond oneself. Wandi is determined to carry on serving more people in need.

In high school, besides being holding leadership positions in several school clubs and the student government, Wandi began to actively engage in feminist and queer activities and activism outside of school, despite all the political pressure and difficulties along the way. She devoted substantial efforts to building the queer community and raising public awareness on queer and feminist issues, in a homogeneous culture of conformity. She volunteered at Beijing LGBT Center, Third China Women’s Film Festival, and Gay and Lesbian Campus Association of China. Based on her experience, she cofounded Audre Lorde Feminist Club to bridge the gap between different communities and extend the impact to high schools and colleges. Moreover, Wandi has been actively involved in social justice advocacy including national campaigns against gender discrimination in the college recruiting process along with other activists.

At Duke, Wandi plans to major in women’s studies and international comparative studies to better understand transnational feminist and queer theories and issues. She works at the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity at Duke, volunteers at Dove House for homeless women in Durham, N.C., and goes to all kinds of events and activities on campus and in the local community. In the future, Wandi aspires to become a leading activist in feminist and queer activism in China. 

Ximena Ospina Vargas
KPMG Scholar
Columbia University — Business

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Ximena is an undocumented trans activist and student seeking to amplify the visibility of the queer immigrant community. She was born in Cali, Colombia, but raised in the United States after moving to Elizabeth, N.J., with her family at the age of 5. Growing up in a mainly urban impoverished setting, developing comfort with a queer identity was a difficulty at home and school. Much of the inspiration for a fight for queer justice is Ximena's own experiences with reparative therapy, bullying, and homelessness, which taught her the value of solidarity and belonging to a community. Before attending Columbia University, Ximena paid her tuition in cash due to FAFSA being denied to undocumented students. To sustain her education, she has worked in varying industries such as manufacturing, retail, travel, and nonprofit. Ximena's favorite experiences were internships at United Airlines, which taught her how to be proudly queer in such a corporate setting, and her role in Community Access Unlimited, a nonprofit for the disabled. Ximena prides herself in her volunteer work for her communities; she is a regular Section Leader in New York's Pride March and a regular translator for the New York Immigration Coalition. Since attending Columbia, Ximena has been involved in the creation of the school's first formal undocumented student group. 

Yingyi Wang
Kevin Hummer Point Scholars
University of Washington — Gender, Women and Sexualities Studies

Pronouns = She/Her/Hers

Yingyi grew up in a traditional Hakka family in southern China, Guangdong. She came to experience in early childhood the intersections of oppression for being an ethnic minority in China and for her gender identity as a woman in a patriarchal Hakka family. Upon realizing her bisexuality and after coming out, it became even more difficult for her to reconcile between her family and sexuality. These lived experiences have helped Yingyi reflect upon the intersectional inequality for LGBTQ persons and ignite the fire in her to engage in change and organize toward social justice in China. Yingyi started her activism as a young feminist in college in 2011 to campaign for gender equality. She believes that hope lies ultimately in education. In order to effect change, from 2011 to 2014 she became a sex education peer trainer for Marie Stope International China. In 2013, Yingyi cofounded the first national bisexual organization, r&B bisexual group, to raise the awareness of the Chinese queer community and beyond on issues pertaining to bisexuality, intersectionality, nonbinary sexualities. In 2016, the group published the first handbook on bisexuality in China. Yingyi also serves on the steering committee in a regional LBT organization from 2015 to 2018. Yingyi received her master’s degree from the University of Hong Kong with her pioneering research on cooperative marriage between gay men and lalas in mainland China. Her doctoral research looks at the precarity of nongovernmental organization workers, including LGBTQ activists, in neoliberal China. Yingyi is always finding ways to bridge her activism and scholarship so as to help promote a just society. 

Point is also welcoming 25 LGBTQ students to its expanded Community College Scholarship Program, thanks to continued support from Wells Fargo.

They are as follows: 

Alexander Kees Bomgardner

North Lake College
Irving, Texas — Accounting

He/Him/His

Alexander "Sander" Kees Bomgardner began life in Colorado Springs, Colo. At the age of 16, he moved down to Texas and began attending North Lake College. While there, he joined the Gay-Straight Alliance on campus and became heavily involved with the LGBTQ community at the college. Due in part to the support he had with the North Lake family, Sander came out as transgender to his family, friends, and the world. Sander also continued to lean on the support of North Lake as he became the president of Student Government for 13 community colleges in Northwest Texas, and vice president of the college's Gay-Straight Alliance. He plans on transferring to Texas A&M Commerce to complete a bachelor's of science in accounting.

Amme Lahaie
Bellingham Technical College
Bellingham, Wash. — Process Technology, Mechanical Engineering

She, her, hers, he, him, his

Amme Lahaie was born in California to teenage parents. Her family moved to Elma, Wash., when she was a freshman in high school. She came out to her family at the age of 14. It was a tough road being a young lesbian in a small town, so she sought acceptance within the LGBTQ community at organizations as Queer Youth and Stonewall Youth. At age 37, Amme finally made the commitment and sacrifice to pursue her dreams of a college degree and a stable future. She is currently attending Bellingham Technical College, where she is a dual major student in process technology and mechanical engineering. She works as a peer navigational coach and tutor for the Trio & STAR Programs. Amme also helped establish the Gender and Sexuality Alliance on the BTC campus and will start a position this fall as a student life coordinator.

Andrés Bautista
Glendale Community College
Glendale, Ariz. — Psychology and Gender & Women's Studies

He/Him/His

Andrés Bautista is a first-generation Mexican-American student. He is studying sociology and gender & women's studies with plans to transfer to University of Arizona in the fall of 2018, where he will continue his studies and involvement in the LGBTQ+ community. Andrés is the 2017-2018 president of the LGBT+ Club at Glendale Community College and has been participating in several projects to help the LGBTQ+ youth community. Andrés wishes to expand his knowledge and create a strong LGBTQ+ youth organizing presence in central Arizona.

Bryant Couvillon
Georgia State University Perimeter College
Atlanta — Public Policy

They/Them/Theirs

Bryant Couvillon is out and proud as a non-binary, transgender, and pansexual person. Bryant was born in Pittsburgh. At age 9 they moved to Birmingham, Ala. Coming out at 12, they faced discrimination and bullying throughout middle and high school. This helped motivate them to become very active in the world of LGBTQ+ advocacy. Bryant won the Stephen Light Youth Advocacy Award in 2012 at the age of 15 after facing a potential lawsuit with their high school due to LGBTQ+ discrimination. Struggling to find acceptance for being transgender, Bryant moved to Atlanta at the age of 18 to finally start embracing their true self. They are pursuing a degree in public policy with ambitions to run for public office in the near future. They are passionate about all things civil rights, human rights, animal justice, and environmental justice.

Bryant is also in the process or working to revitalize a nonprofit in Atlanta with goals of creating a center or community healing, love, and advocacy for the queer and trans communities. They have a strong love for children, and they are also a nanny. They plan on becoming a foster parent to LGBTQ+ teens, because they believe in radical mothering and that children are the light of the future. Bryant has two main life goals: create meaningful political change, and become a strong and loving parent.

Bryce Taylor
County College of Morris
Morristown, Ill. — Dental Hygiene

He/Him/His

Bryce Taylor was born in Sioux City, Iowa, and grew up in the small town of Jefferson, S.D., with his two brothers (one a twin), and three older sisters. He attended the same school, Elk Point–Jefferson, for elementary, middle and high school. Throughout high school, he participated in drama, choir, show choir, as well as all-state choir, all while working hard to maintain good grades and making time for family and friends. After graduating high school in 2015, Bryce enrolled in Western Iowa Tech Community College. In spring of 2017, Bryce came out as gay to his family and friends. He received positive feedback from his loved ones, who continue to support and love him. Bryce plans to enroll in the dental hygiene program at the University of South Dakota in 2018. He also plans to become a more active member of the LGBTQ community.

Celene Reyes Aparicio
Long Beach City College
Long Beach, Calif. — Psychology

All pronouns

Celene is a first-generation college student, born and raised in beautiful Long Beach, California. From the moment they started kindergarten, they fell in love with reading & learning, so much that they would often get teased for always carrying a book. Unfortunately, toward the end of their fifth-grade year, they began their battle with depression for a few reasons, one of them not knowing how to come to terms with their sexuality. This, along with their parents’ divorce, took a toll on their academic career for almost a decade. Although they came to terms with their sexuality right before entering high school, they soon started to struggle with their gender identity, not knowing exactly what they identified as, until one day they stumbled upon the term “genderqueer” and everything clicked. Finally being able to identify themselves, Celene returned to Long Beach City College in 2016 after a four-year gap with a renewed passion for their education and fell in love with the LGBTQ+ club on campus, Queer Space. Having been elected to a second term as President of Queer Space for fall 2017, Celene plans to reach out to LGBTQ+ Youth in Long Beach while working on their associate degree in psychology, which is only a steppingstone to their doctorate of psychology. As a psychologist, Celene will work with LGBTQ+ youth & their families to help them during times of confusion, doubt, and isolation.

Chloe Lannes
Diablo Valley College
Pleasant Hill, Calif. — English

She/Her/Hers

Chloe Lannes was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. The eldest in a blended family, Chloe spent much of her childhood helping her parents care for her four younger siblings. As she aged, she found it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between her life at home and the personal changes she underwent. Eventually, she turned to academics as a means of coping and, with the immeasurable support of her teachers, found herself within the material of her English courses. Today Chloe is a highly accomplished student. She is an English tutor in Diablo Valley College’s writing lab, where she meets with a diverse population of students, many of whom are learning English as a second language. Chloe also volunteers in her community and works part-time.

Through her experiences as a student and a tutor, Chloe has learned to appreciate the wide variety of perspectives a diverse learning community offers. Chloe is passionate about helping others find their voices, and she hopes to build a career in education with a focus on the LGBTQ community. She believes in empowering marginalized populations of society through a model of education that values each student's unique experience. In the future, Chloe would like to see an academic environment that acknowledges and cherishes the experiences of LGBTQ students and intersectionality in student identity.

Christina Quiñonez
Berkeley City College
Berkeley, Calif. — Social Sciences

She/Her/Hers

Christina Quiñonez was born to a single mother who had migrated to Los Angeles from Guatemala to flee a civil war in her native country. At age 12, Christina began to embrace her true identity as a female, only to receive a lack of affirmation and support from her family. While navigating her teens as a minor without a stable home or family, she met Cris Beam, who provided much needed moral support and continually encouraged Christina to steer her personal narrative through education. To support herself financially, she took a part-time job with an HIV epidemiology program, which helped her understand how critical HIV prevention is for the transgender community as well as socioeconomically disadvantaged communities of color. Her passion for preventing HIV led to continued professional service within marginalized communities, such as Bienestar and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. In 2007, Christina was nominated by her peers to be featured in the first Angels of Change calendar and fashion show, which raised funds, awareness, and support for transgender youth. She also joined the California Mental Health Service Act (Proposition 63) Multicultural Coalition to help bring new perspectives to mental health systems. Christina is currently working at the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at the University of California, San Francisco, while attending Berkeley City College, majoring in psychology. She eventually hopes to obtain a bachelor’s degree and work as a trainer and program developer.

Daffodyle Milka Lexine Saget
Miami Dade College
Miami — Sociology

She/Her/Hers

Daffodyle Saget was born in Haiti, but when she was 5 years old her family emigrated to America so that they could give her all the opportunities that their country could not provide. As she grew up, she soon learned that access to those opportunities was not easy and that her race, class, sex, and sexuality would become barriers and burdens. Daffodyle felt isolated in her predominantly white schools, humiliated by her financial circumstances, lacking in her femininity, and upon realizing her bisexuality, ashamed. The treatment she received from her peers, family, church, and society took a toll on her. She internalized all of that negativity, and it started to affect her grades and social interactions. With the help of an observant counselor, she was able to overcome her depression, and become brave enough to get involved in her school GSA and become more active in the LGBT community. Daffodyle took a year off after graduating high school. That year she officially came out and gave back, traveling to Haiti to work at an orphanage who's children she was able to relate to and pass the baton of healing. She later enrolled at Miami Dade College majoring in sociology. Daffodyle wants to examine the barriers she and others face and educate others on these issues using multiple platforms and focusing on social issues by making documentaries, creating art installations, and putting these issues into context in films and novels.

Daniel Gomez|
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, Calif. — Neuroscience

PGP: male/he/him/his

Daniel Gomez is a 21-year-old gay man who was born and raised in east Los Angeles. He became cognizant of the importance of empowering and raising awareness for the LGBTQIA+ community when he faced severe criticism from a religious household when he came out at the age of 15. Realizing that the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation in communities of color was apparent in his neighborhood, Daniel joined several organizations on campus to advocate for the rights and respect of all students. Daniel is currently an honors student at East Los Angeles College, and he is pursuing a degree in neuroscience. He is also involved in several academic enrichment programs such University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Community College Partnership, Loyola Marymount University Undergraduate Research Scholars Academy, and the California State University, Northridge, Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research program. Daniel hopes to transfer to a university by fall of 2018, and upon completing his undergraduate degree, he plans to go to medical school and become a surgeon.

Diana Campos
Richard J. Daley College
Chicago — Engineering Science

She, her, hers

Diana Campos is a native of the south side of Chicago. In spite of all the stereotypes and negative imagery connected to the city she loves, Diana still works to create a world of value through her actions in her community. Diana’s academic and personal goals are fundamentally based on her desire to be of service to others. In two decades as a teaching artist and nonprofit administrator, she has worked to make the arts accessible to youth all across the city. Diana has developed a unique dance curriculum through her own company, BreakThrough Movement, in which the performing arts are a vehicle for activism and self-exploration. BreakThrough Movement students have created work that reflects their unique perspective on immigration, LGBTQ bullying, and gun violence. It is Diana’s fervent determination to create safe space for more youth to embrace their innate potential. Diana is currently seeking an associate in engineering science degree and plans to pursue degrees in math and physics at Illinois Institute of Technology. Ultimately, her desire is to create a new education model that combines her artistic and STEM worlds into a curriculum designed to elevate the quality of education, thereby helping break the cycle of poverty that plagues the most violent communities in Chicago.

Gramoz Prestreshi
Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C. — Social Work

He/Him/His

Gramoz Prestreshi was born and raised in Kosovo, part of the former Yugoslavia. At age 21 he came to America, was granted political asylum, and later became a citizen of the United States. In his new country, he is has committed himself to getting a higher education degree and making a difference in the lives of others. Gramoz is an honor student at the Catholic University of America. He has been an important international resource to the LGBTQ communities of Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Gramoz hopes to be a social worker helping the LGBTQ community when he finishes school.

Justin Deal
Cleveland State Community College
Cleveland, Tenn. — Pre-Nursing

He/Him/His

Justin Deal is from Copperhill, Tenn. He is an incoming sophomore at Cleveland State Community College. Justin takes part of many aspects of the college; he is an honors student, serving as the 2017-18 Student Senate president, and is a member of many clubs. As someone who has taken great interest in extracurricular activities, Justin utilizes his leadership skills to help recruit new students into different organizations, including the newly introduced Allies program at CSCC. After receiving an associate degree, he plans to transfer to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and major in nursing.

Kevin Canton Mancia
Santa Monica College
Santa Monica, Calif. — Mathematics

He/Him/His

Kevin Canton Mancia was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, and was raised in the small town of Quezaltepeque. Six months after his birth, his parents departed his home country for America, leaving Kevin under the care of his paternal grandparents. Little did he know that at 6 years old, he would reunite with his parents in Los Angeles,  which would prove to be a critical turning point in his life. Learning a whole new language and culture proved difficult as Kevin was forced to adapt quickly to his new environment. Despite these challenges, Kevin’s persistence and passion for learning allowed him to pick up English quickly and excel academically. In addition to growing up in America as an immigrant and a person of color, Kevin would also come to terms with his sexuality as a teenager. After coming out in the summer of 2015, Kevin began to look for ways to contribute to the LGBTQ community. When he started college, Kevin along with some friends founded Santa Monica College’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance. Since then, Kevin has been a proud member and has helped provide a safe and welcoming environment for LGBTQ students through his involvement as a club officer and as a commissioner in student government. As Kevin pursues his undergraduate degree in mathematics, he hopes to ultimately apply his degree in law, medicine, or academia while continuing to give back to his LGBTQ, immigrant, and Latinx communities.

Barovier Kevin Allybose
Norwalk Community College
Norwalk, Conn. — Liberal Arts

He/Him/His

Barovier Kevin Allybose (“Kevin”) migrated from Jamaica, where he was born, to the United States in December 2014. He has since been seeking asylum in the United States, the country he now calls home, due to homophobic persecution in Jamaica. Having lived experience of homelessness, he now dedicates a lot of his time to work with LGBT youth who have been in similar situations, particularly in areas of mental health and homelessness. He plays an active role in the social life at his local LGBT center, Triangle Community Center, where he also volunteers at different fundraising events.

Kevin enrolled at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut in the fall of 2016 as a full-time student. Though he is also working full time, Kevin plans to complete his second and final year at Norwalk Community College in the spring of 2018. His hard work and dedication have earned him honors status at the school. Kevin plans to complete a bachelor’s degree in economics and then pursue a career in a field related to his degree.

Lucas Dickerson
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College
Perkinston, Miss. — Art

He/Him/His

Lucas Dickerson was born in Hattiesburg, Miss., and raised in various southern states. He grew up with his dad and sister and at age 16 decided he would be happiest living as a transgender male. Although living as a gay, transgender man in the southernmost area of Mississippi proves to be a challenge, he strives to enjoy his new life. Lucas is attending Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and hopes one day to teach digital arts at a college level. After finishing school, he plans to be politically active to help bring equality to LGBTQ people, as well as provide awareness and resources to those who live in poverty.

McKenna Palmer
Santa Monica College
Santa Monica, Calif. — Gender Studies

She/Her/Hers

At just 20 years old, McKenna Palmer already has extensive experience advocating for the LGBTQ community. McKenna came out in high school and promptly became president of her school's GSA There she witnessed the sometimes-horrific struggles that today's queer youth encounter. She made it her life mission from there on to advocate for LGTBQ youth and began an internship at the It Gets Better Project. That affiliation has helped her become an internet personality. She has interviewed drag queens and LGBTQ activists, and even covered the red carpet at Buzzfeed’s first Queer Prom. McKenna plans to use her public speaking skills to be a voice of empowerment for LGBTQ youth and minorities.

Nia Clark
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles — Communications

She/Her/Hers

As a transgender youth of color who spent most of her childhood in foster care, Nia Clark consistently struggled to find acceptance and support from the adults around her. While most would understandably distance themselves from such rejection and intolerance, Nia has spent over a decade changing the system from within as a child welfare professional and LGBTQ youth advocate. Nia currently works at LifeWorks, the youth development and mentorship program at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. As mentoring coordinator, she is responsible for overseeing more than 50 active one-on-one mentorship matches between LGBTQ youth and adults each year. She is also a part-time trainer for the Human Rights Campaign's All Children - All Families Project, an initiative that provides a framework for child welfare agencies to achieve safety, permanency, and well-being by improving their practice with queer youth.

Thoroughly impressed by Clark’s hard work and extensive background in child welfare, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) enlisted her help in launching a two-year national pilot project to provide more inclusive mentoring services and resources for LGBTQ youth by using the best practices of Nia’s own mentoring program. To date, she has trained BBBSA sites in Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Diego, as well as the national headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Nia is a communications major at Los Angeles City College. She eventually plans to obtain her MSW and become a social work professor so she can continue teaching adults to affirm and support LGBTQ youth in systems of care.

Nina Lockshin
Diablo Valley College
Pleasant Hill, Calif. — Sociology

She/Her/Hers

Nina Lockshin is a young professional artist who loves to engage in the fine arts, musical composition, and filmmaking. She has a goal of becoming a college professor and a sound editor for film. She is the first on her maternal side to attend college and considers herself a representative of the potential of her ancestors and family that were held back due to finances, prejudice, and immigration statuses. Nina currently attends Diablo Valley Community College in the Bay Area, with hopes of transferring to Mills College for women in Oakland. She is a strong activist in the LGBT+ community, having worked for the HRC and other political groups. She is an out and proud queer woman of color and strives every day to break the societal boundaries around her.

Preston Shatwell
Rogers State University
Claremore, Okla. — Marketing

He/Him/His

Preston Shatwell is a native Oklahoman, born and raised in Tulsa. Preston is a first-generation college student attending Rogers State University, where he is seeking a business marketing degree. He plans to use the professional skills gained to advance causes of great importance to him. Growing up in a conservative state, still considered hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, Preston experienced marginalization and discrimination throughout his upbringing. He uses every experience, negative or otherwise, to inspire his work for better opportunities for future LGBTQ+ generations. Preston leads the longest-running intercollegiate legislature in the country working to promote political efficacy and leadership in college students around Oklahoma. He serves as chair of the National College Democrats of America’s LGBTQ+ Caucus and works to elect progressive candidates to the Oklahoma legislature. Preston is committed to being part of the progress for the LGBTQ+ community and wants to share the same love, support, and empowerment Point Foundations gives him with the LGBTQ+ community.

Robert Darkwood
Fullerton College
Fullerton, Calif. — Pre-Nursing

He/Him/His

Robert Darkwood is an undergraduate student at Fullerton College with a passion for nursing and an interest in law. The resilience of overcoming an impoverished childhood that included alcohol/drug domestic violence has inspired him to study human health, as well as explore the impact of emergency medicine volunteers in communities overwhelmed by natural disasters. Robert has held internships in medical/surgical care and student health outreach, cofacilitating blood drives with the American Red Cross, and received a 2017 Exemplary Service Award from Community Outreach Education and Prevention Health Scholars. He represents the 24,000 students of Fullerton College in various, important student government committees as well as the community service-based honor society Alpha Gamma Sigma.  He was chosen to receive the 2017 Associated Students Senator of the Year Award and 2017 Gay and Lesbian Association of District Employees scholarship for the North Orange County Community College District. Robert dreams of applying his strong resolve to help solve health problems. He would like to earn nursing and law degrees to improve health care policies with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Sergio Tundo
Harry S. Truman College
Chicago — Pre-Nursing

They/Them/Their

Sergio Tundo was born in Wayne, N.J.. They went to college for a year before deciding to take some time off. Sergio devoted two years working as an AmeriCorps member, first doing disaster relief and then HIV prevention outreach in Chicago. They also previously worked with the Global Network of Sex Work Projects as a regional coordinator, engaging with current and former sex workers on stigma they face when receiving care for HIV and STI testing and treatment. Sergio is currently a program coordinator for an HIV program in Chicago and is in school working toward their degree in nursing. Sergio’s aim is to complete their degree program and go on to improve LGBTQ+ community health care.

Stevan Perea
Santa Monica College
Santa Monica, Calif. — Political Science

He/Him/Has

Stevan Perea was raised in the San Francisco Bay area, but he currently resides in Santa Monica, where he is a political science major at Santa Monica College. He is a member of Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor Society and Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society as well as a Presidents’ Ambassador. Additionally, Stevan is a youth education advocate at the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center where he is a mentor and tutor to at-risk youth. Stevan is passionate about providing support and encouragement to those with limited options and he is driven to assist at-risk and homeless youth build a better and brighter future through education and academic achievement. Stevan is deeply fascinated with the workings of the American government and public policy and plans to attend graduate school for a dual JD/MBA.

Tomás Castillo Bukakis
College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, Calif.
Santa Monica College, Santa Monica, Calif. — Film

He/Him/His

A native of Costa Rica, Tomás Bukakis was at age 17 lost, alone, and forgotten in the “foreign” land of the United States; a place where he never intended to end up. He spoke no English, didn’t know his rights, and hardly had any. He couldn’t legally work or enroll in school. For months he was homeless, living on the streets and moving between many shelters until he landed in a transitional living program at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. During this time he managed to learn English by carefully listening to others speak, by reading every piece of literature he could lay his hands on, and by watching every episode of How I Met Your Mother. In 2015 he became a legal permanent resident of the United States. He put himself through school by working several jobs. Today, Tomás is well on his way to completing a film degree at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, Calif., where he has become a member of the student government by being voted the cultural coordinator for the student body. He continues to improve his English and is also studying Chinese. His second major is communications. He hopes to take his communication studies into an international relations major and to apply that knowledge to the media and entertainment businesses. Tomás is an active member of Hollywood’s LGBTQ community. He is involved in causes that include HIV awareness, human trafficking, Native American, and immigration issues.

Tremaine “Trey” Jones
Miami Dade College
Miami — Social Work

He/Him/His

Tremaine “Trey” Jones is a native of Miami. Trey identifies as an Afro-Bahamian American queer and prefers masculine pronouns. As early as age 5 he recognized his queerness. However, due to his Catholic and Episcopalian background and Bahamian heritage, he believed that exploring his queerness was not a possibility. However, due to his supportive mother and sister, Trey has been able to expand his thinking and explore queerness. After graduating high school, he organized an effort to end the criminalization of youth of color in Miami with Power U Center for Social Change. Soon after, he was introduced to Pridelines, an LGBTQ organization in Miami. Over the years Trey took on various roles at Pridelines. After Trey’s transition out of Pridelines’ youth programs he continued to be involved with organizations to provide support groups for LGBTQ youth in shelters, coordinated events for gay, bisexual, and queer men of color, and co-created a summer long social justice leadership institute for youth. In 2017 Trey became the community relations manager at Pridelines.

Trey is a past board member for the Alliance for GLBTQ Youth, has been a part of the Miami-Dade Department of Health’s Miami Collaborative, PrEP Workgroup, and Black Health Initiative, has facilitated workshops at the United States Conference on AIDS, and has been nominated for HIV counselor of the Year by the Florida Department of Health. In 2016 Trey created and was chair of South Florida’s first intergenerational conference focusing on HIV and its impact on the community. In his free time Trey enjoys taking care of his godson, Michael, in-line skating and practicing the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira.

Johnny Depp's Former Managers Say He Abused Amber Heard

* Article updated July 5 to clarify Meyers' prior relationships. 

From the outside looking in, Nico Tortorella doesn’t seem all that different from the straight cisgender character he plays on the sweetly addictive hit comedy Younger, which had its fourth-season premiere in June. From Sex and the City creator Darren Star, Younger began as a rom-com that follows a middle-aged woman (pretending to be a 20-something) who falls for a man in his 20s (Tortorella). TV Land has already renewed Younger for a fifth season, ensuring the show (and Tortorella’s reign as one of TV’s hottest men) lasts at least through 2018. And as the show has grown, so too has Tortorella’s public openness.

There’s no doubt Tortorella is leading man material — tall, beefy, and what my Latino grandmother used to describe as “a very nice-looking white man.” But once he starts talking about love and defying the gender binary, having sex with men, and how he “would give it all up, everything in my life, to be able to carry a child myself,” you get the sense that this is a very different kind of Hollywood star.

Tortorella is also the guy behind the super popular podcast TheLove Bomb, now in season 2, where each week he interviews one of the many, many people he loves. He’s committed to shaking up norms around gender and sexuality. His decade-long polyamorous romantic partnership with Bethany Meyers, a fitness and lifestyle entrepreneur (who identifies as gay) is proof. It’s a different kind of queer relationship, they admit, one that is thoroughly open and modern and enduring.

“There are those pockets of the world, in so many places, that ‘gay’ just doesn’t exist, where there’s no representation,” Tortorella says, speaking of a gay man who escaped North Korea and discovered that gay people exist elsewhere. “And it’s not that different than the representation that existed in Hollywood for the last hundred years. … There’s like one love story and it’s between a white man and a white woman.”

Tortorella — who has been described as queer, bisexual, demisexual, and sexually fluid — and Meyers, who usually dates women and identifies as gay — are open with each other and the public about their romantic relationships with other people. They may defy labels, but Tortorella is absolutely fine if you want to give him one.

“I think for so long there’s been like one quote-unquote normal way of life,” he says. “And anybody that doesn’t live in that structure needs to find a home of sorts. And I think labels are really important for kids, especially, [who] can’t find their tribe where they are, and need to go find their people, their family. For that reason, I think labels are extremely important.”

An increasingly staunch and vocal LGBT advocate, Tortorella may have initially gotten ribbed as a closet case, but there’s no closet large enough to hide his emotional sophistication and unbridled sexuality. Just as the actor is very different from the dashing men he played in The Following and Odd Thomas (and the recent Menendez: Blood Brothers with Courtney Love), fitness guru and former pro cheerleader Meyers is far from a stereotypical cuckolded girlfriend of a rising star.

Tortorella and Meyers have been in love for over a decade, and their relationship seemingly has but one rule: to love each other. Boundaries are more or less nonexistent when it comes to having additional relationships outside their own. It’s an idea founded on trust, and a notion that has yet to be fully understood across the cultural mind-set. Even they don’t have a word to describe it, except for possibly being “witnesses” to each other.

It’s this idea of love that inspired Tortorella’s The Love Bomb, in which he explores love and the labels attached to it.

His first guest, and arguably the most important, was Meyers.

The first episode sparked a much-needed dialogue on what it means to be part of a polyamorous arrangement as well as the fluidity of love and sex.

“I think the way I use the word fluidity is like fluid in everything, fluid in train of thought; not this, not that; beyond definition. It doesn’t always have to be one thing,” he explains. “The one thing anybody can talk about, no matter race, religion, sexuality or gender, is love. Everyone has some sort of explanation, feeling, memory, backstory, or idea of love. The most magical thing about [The Love Bomb] has been no matter where you come from in the world, no matter who you’re sleeping with, or who you’re in love with, the last question I always ask is: ‘What is love?’ And for the most part, they all sound exactly the same.”

Polyamorous relationships have been around for centuries, yet it’s only now that people are becoming less afraid to speak openly about them. Tortorella and Meyers's relationship is 11 years in the making and survives on what they refer to as a “day by day” pace, knowing that no matter what happens they’re always going to be in each other’s life. As Tortorella explains, this type of trust needs to be sealed before exploring such nonconventional avenues. It doesn’t happen at the beginning: “It’s not like you can jump on Tinder and look for a Nico or Bethany,” he says.

Meyers also admits that due to a lack of examples of similar relationships, she had to teach herself how to navigate the rules. “I think we’re raised with this idea that you’re supposed to go and find ‘the one,’ especially women,” she explains. “You’re looking for your Prince Charming. You need to be proposed to. There’s this one person you’re searching to find, so the idea of finding a stability partner, and having other things on top of that, feels too messy. Then the dating apps make sense because now it’s easier to find ‘the one.’ You can swipe back and forth. You can do a preliminary screening. It’s [like] a business tool.”

Though Tortorella and Meyers fight to live their truth beyond labels, they understand the world’s necessity for words. Identifying as “more of a pansexual,” Tortorella embraces calling himself bisexual to help battle bi erasure. “I can be emotionally, physically attracted to men. I can be emotionally,  physically attracted to women. The ‘B’ in LGBTQ-plus has been fought for, for so long. I’m not going to be the person that’s like, ‘No, I need a ‘P,’ I need another letter!’ I stand by people that have paved this way for somebody like me."

He says he originally thought "the term bisexual very much so lives in the binary of gender, and which I don’t believe in." Most bi activists argue bisexual simply means attraction to your own and other genders.

"I believe in the spectrum, the full universe of gender and sexuality, and probably I fall more into the pansexual fluid terms which fall into the umbrella of bisexual in LGBTQ-plus," Tortorella says. "I think when I was first having this conversation, I didn’t like the term bisexual because I think it was a little dated for this generation; people weren’t using it. It kind of puts people into this box. [But] I respect the term bisexual. I use it because I respect it.”

Meyers identifies as gay (“I know more women who call themselves gay than they call themselves lesbian,” she admits), but also embraces the queer label. She says Tortorella is the only man she can imagine having a relationship with.

Love and sex, says Tortorella, are just two different things, though Meyers’s family tends to disagree.

“That was the hardest thing about coming out to my family,” Meyers recalls. “When I did it, I broke up with my girlfriend and then decided to come out. So because I wasn’t in a relationship, it was like, ‘I don’t want to know what you’re sleeping with.’ They didn’t talk to me for a long time, this is years in the making of things, but that’s when I was like maybe I should have done this when I had a girlfriend, just to feel validated. It’s so annoying that in your sexual preference that a relationship needs to make you feel validated.”

Tortorella agrees, adding that nobody imagines straight couples, like Meyers’s brother and sister-in-law, having sex; but if the person is queer, it’s a different story.

“No one thinks about them fucking,” he says. “But the second I tell them I’m dating a dude, the first thing he thinks about is my dick in his ass. It’s disgusting. Like what the fuck is wrong with you that that’s what you’re thinking?”

“Whereas you’re not like, ‘Oh, you guys are getting married?’I bet he’s going to stick his penis in her vagina,” Meyers jokes.

Tortorella says, “We need to get our head out of that place. I really think that that’s the biggest harm that we have done. Even the word ‘sexuality.’ What’s your ‘sexuality?’ It shouldn’t even be about sex. Sex is a by-product.”

Despite Tortorella and Meyers’s understanding that jealousy is part of being human, for them it’s different. In fact, they told me they never get jealous when the other is dating someone of the same sex, like Tortorella’s highly public relationship with Los Angeles-based hairstylist and Instagram star Kyle Krieger. It’s only when they’re dating someone of the opposite sex that jealousy intervenes, mainly because there’s a chance of having a child, and they both desperately want to have a baby together.

“I really want to be pregnant,” she says. She plans on freezing her eggs in the next few years.

Tortorella turns to her and adds, “I think if you’re dating another woman and you talk about adopting a kid, or using [my semen] to have a kid, outside of us, yeah, I totally can get behind that. But the thought of you getting pregnant from another dude that you were dating, I don’t know, it hurts in a different way.”

When the first episode of The Love Bomb was recorded, Tortorella was in a relationship with another woman. He starts off the first episode with a poem he wrote: “This isn’t selfish, it’s free. I’m not gay. I’m not straight. I’m me.” Ultimately, he admits, that relationship crumbled because there was no space for him and Meyers in it, though he thought (or hoped) there would be.

The love they have is evident in their charged glances, which have likely gone unchanged since the night they first met at a college party in Chicago. It was their confidence that drew each other at first. From there, they were on and off again for years, never actually breaking up officially (though he attempted a half-ass breakup when they started dating, it lasted only seconds).

It was at the beginning of Tortorella and Meyers’s relationship when they realized their love didn’t need to be sanctioned with names or labels. Even when they lived together as a couple in Los Angeles, they never called each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.” (“We’re family,” Tortorella says.) That was when, they both admit, they knew their relationship was something much more evolved, much more enlightened, and much more real. They credit meeting each other with finding their destinies in life. After all, it was Tortorella who introduced Meyers to yoga. Now she’s one of the preeminent fitness influencers, known more for her gorgeously tattooed and butchy beautiful body than her relationship. Soon, she’ll be launching a new fitness at-home app designed for women called Be.Come.

“Labels can be very frustrating,” Meyers says. “They’re evolving because people always make new words. Part of me wants to say we’re going to move to a label-less society, but I don’t know. Maybe [in the future] we’ll just have more words.”

Admittedly, Tortorella and Meyers are still inventing the constructs of their relationship, and labels are the least of their struggles. The duo don’t live together. (“We live together great but we live better separately,” he says.) The biggest hurdle, thus far, is other people.

“I tried to create a relationship along these lines with other people I’ve dated,” she says. “We’re still figuring it out.”

“We’re still figuring out the best way we can bring other people into our relationship,” he agrees. “I think we’re in the best place now [that] we’ve ever been, but we’re definitely still on an amateur level.” Then he urges, “If anybody is reading this and wants to give us some advice, and has been living this way for a long time, seriously, we’re sponges! We’re so down to hear stories because these stories aren’t told often.”

The truth is Tortorella and Meyers know their relationship is a threat to others. “[Past partners] didn’t fully realize and understand who we are and what we mean to each other,” Tortorella admits. “Like, ‘OK, you have Bethany, [but] where do I fit into the puzzle?’ ‘Am I ever going to be as important as Bethany is?’ And what’s the answer to that? How do I best answer that question?”

“So many people have this idea that if you can love this, you cannot love this,” she adds. “And I don’t understand, because I do. I can have feelings for two people. There are different kinds of feelings, they fulfill different needs. I don’t find it very realistic to think that I’m going to get everything I need out of Nico.”

Despite the depth of their love, they share this notion: It’s impossible to get everything they need — nurturing, care, support, sex — from the other person alone. For example, Meyers makes it clear Tortorella is the person she goes to when she needs a dose of encouragement, but not necessarily the person to whom she’ll spill her guts when she needs a good venting session. She can find that elsewhere. And that’s OK with him.

Their sexual needs exist along the same lines. Tortorella says he’d rather wait to have sex until the love blossoms in a relationship, while Meyers has no qualms about her love of casual sex. The best part is, despite their contrasting approaches, their goals are ultimately the same: to reach empowerment, fulfillment, and satisfaction. So what if they happen to take different avenues to get there?

“For me, sex is such an explosive exchange of energy between two people that if you’re not connected, energetically, before you have sex, it can be damaging,” Tortorella says about the rising hookup culture on apps like Grindr and Tinder. “If you open yourself up to somebody on that level it can be damaging to yourself and damaging for the other person if there isn’t trust there. … That being said, I totally understand people who want to have casual sex. I think what you have to do in this scenario is stay in your lane. Find people who want similar things — physically, energetically, and emotionally. If some dude wants to fuck this girl but she wants to do something else, that can be an issue.”

Meyers, who was raised in an ultra conservative Christian family, has a different opinion: “I think sex can be really fun and really empowering. I think for someone who’s raised in a culture where sex is so bad and you can’t orgasm… I find a lot of empowerment. And I do think there’s a lot of responsibility to be up front and honest. I’m proud that as I’ve aged, I have been [honest]. I think women haven’t gotten to feel super empowered with sex for a very long time.”

In spite of what Tortorella’s Instagram photos may suggest, he is quick to say that, at 29, he too is still trying to discover his own empowerment when it comes to sex.

“I don’t think I’ve hit my sexual prime at all,” he confirms. “As sacred as I look about sexuality, I’m so obsessed and passionate about learning more about sexuality. I’ve been talking about making The Love Bomb into a TV show and what it would be like. Right now, what it looks like is me going into the field and looking at all sorts of different types of sexuality and energy connections with people so I can get a better understanding. I don’t think I know enough, I don’t think I feel enough, and I don’t think the world knows enough of it.”

They’re both still learning how to navigate this brave new world, they admit. But as a Hollywood leading man, one of the most valuable lessons Tortorella has learned was about his responsibility now that he has this place in history. He’s one of the first actors who plays a straight leading man and love interest on TV to come out as bisexual. It was an epiphany that came two years ago after becoming sober.

“In the last 50 years … for somebody like me, that plays more of the leading man role, there has been an unwritten set of rules that exist,” he says, arguing that gay and bi actors have been limited in what TV producers have allowed them to do. “To be honest, I think when I got sober two and a half years ago, I took a look at my life, and what I represented in Hollywood. And what I wanted to represent outside of Hollywood. I [decided] there’s no room to not be myself in all of this. If people are going to be having a conversation [about my sexuality] for whatever reason, if that’s even a possibility, I’m going to be the one leading the conversation. If there were somebody when I was growing up talking like we’re talking, things would’ve made so much more fucking sense.”

He thinks kids today can eschew labels because LGBT leaders have been so successful at making a place in the world for them. He can talk about this for hours he says, but insists, “I think that if we all just saw each other for people and individuals and didn’t try to give each other these [labels], the world would be such a more beautiful place. There would be so much more love if we just saw each other. As much as I love getting worked up in these conversations, imagine how much energy we’d save if we weren’t having them, if it didn’t exist, if we were all just people and we could love [who] we wanted and it wasn’t an issue. Granted, is that some utopian idea? Yeah, sure, but what if? What if we allowed ourselves to just be ‘me?’”