Whenever a new project comes from queer Welsh screenwriter and producer Russell T Davies – who created the original “Queer As Folk” in 1999 before spearheading the revival of the classic BBC sci-fi series “Dr. Who” as head writer and showrunner in the mid-2000s – it generally leaps to the top of every queer “must watch” list, and with good reason.

A genuinely versatile creative force who can move easily between genres without losing the core of humanity that keeps us engaged, he’s particularly known for his unequivocal, unsentimental, and always fearlessly candid narratives about queer life, set within a social context that’s barely tolerant, at best. He has a knack for capturing both the transient beauty and persistent hardships that seem to define our beleaguered community. His most recent such endeavor, 2021’s “It’s a Sin,” took us back to the harrowing years of the AIDS epidemic, following a group of gay young Londoners as the disease – and the societal homophobia that surrounded it – wreaked its merciless havoc, even as they began to break free from their closets and embrace their queer identities; and while it may have broken our hearts, it was also somehow empowering, a tale that reminded us not just of what we lost, but of what we have survived.

His latest miniseries, however, takes place in the here and now, and it offers a markedly bleaker assessment of the state of things.

“Tip Toe,” which appeared on the UK’s Channel 4 last summer, debuts on U.S. screens via the Starz streaming service on Oct. 2, and it lets us know from its first few minutes that things are not going to end well; that’s not a spoiler – it’s a warning, because if you’re looking for a happy ending, you’re not going to find it here.

A tale of resurgent and emboldened homophobia in a modern-day Britain where open hate for the queer community has surged at an alarming rate, it’s the story of two men whose intertwining destinies feel almost like a tragic accident of fate. Leo (Alan Cumming) is a Gen-X AIDS survivor who has become a beloved figure in Manchester’s queer community, the owner of a popular gay bar that has always been a safe space for the queer, trans, and questioning souls who are struggling toward self-acceptance; his next-door neighbor, Clive (David Morrissey), is a working-class electrician with a floundering marriage and two sons who live secret lives he knows nothing about. He’s an old-school “macho man” whose ingrained misogyny and homophobia have grown increasingly unfiltered with the rise of online “culture war” rhetoric; and while there’s a kind of forced “neighborly” friendship between himself and Leo, there’s also a clear-cut line of judgement – on both sides – that gives their interactions a sense of barely concealed hostility.

When Leo is locked out of his apartment after a messy hook-up gone wrong, Clive comes to his rescue, but uses the opportunity to impose himself on Leo’s privacy. He levies the situation into an opportunity for work – an electrical revamp of Leo’s bar, where he makes no secret of his  disdain for the queer “lifestyle” – and the tension between them continues to build despite Leo’s best efforts at being polite. The escalation reaches a boiling point when the secrets and lies in his own household lead Clive to suspect Leo of being a sexual predator, turning their precarious relationship into a minefield of hostility and inevitably pushing both men into a confrontation that will end in a shocking act of violence.

It might go without saying that “Tip Toe” is not the kind of show most of us would watch “for fun.” Russell’s script starts the relationship between its two antagonists at the threshold between a simmer and a boil, and shows us the outcome before either of them has even said a word, so it’s mostly impossible to avoid the sense of dread that hangs over everything that comes after. This is not a weakness; instead, aided by Peter Hoar’s masterful direction, it gives the show’s five episodes a slow build of tension that keeps us watching with morbid fascination, like the scene of a horrible road accident we’re forced to drive past in slow motion. We’re allowed to feel some hope along the way – after all, we’ve only had a glimpse of what is to happen, and there are other characters with storylines in which we can become invested along the way – but it’s a kind of grim hope, and it perfectly captures the fearful cultural zeitgeist-of-the-moment that the series is ultimately about.

The characters, too, are richly drawn and layered enough to avoid a simplistic “good guy/bad guy” dynamic. Clive is a brute – arrogant, uncivil, and forcefully antagonistic with a hair trigger that responds to anything or anyone that doesn’t meet his approval – but there’s enough broken humanity underneath all that to allow us to see a glimmer of potential for redemption. Likewise, Leo is mostly good-natured and likable, but he has an arrogance of his own, as well as some bitter resentments (most of them related to his ex-husband Curtis played by Charlie Condou), who left him for a woman), which – more than occasionally – surface to provide him with some ugly moments.

There are others, too; Melba (Paul Rhys), Leo’s gender-bending longtime bestie, who sees the growing danger in the world around them and voices it with the resigned stoicism of a reluctant Cassandra; Steph (Elizabeth Barrington), Leo’s straight friend who is not afraid to let him know when he’s too full of himself; Saul (Joseph Evans), Clive’s 20-something son who has evolved a more tolerant and easy-going outlook than his father, and teenaged George (Jackson Connor), Clive’s other son, whose struggles with his own identity take him on a roller-coaster ride of conflicted emotions; Marie (Pookie Quesnel), the wife who despises Clive but is unable to escape her unhappy existence with him; and Zee (Iz Hekseth), Leo’s employee who is trying to choose a name for herself after coming out as trans – along with a variety of other young, queer supporting players who have found refuge at the bar. All of them are written with depth and nuance, even those who remain more or less in the background, and brought to life through excellent, measured performances.

It is, however, Cumming and Morrissey who give the show its irresistible pull, their complex, bristling characters endowed with a palpable authenticity that makes us forget they are merely actors playing roles. They fully inhabit these two thorny men, creating a dynamic between them that feels like a force of nature, and it’s they who provide the terrible power that keeps us from looking away, no matter how much we might occasionally want to.

That’s a good thing, because “Tip Toe” is less a television event than it is a grim reminder that being “out” may no longer be as safe as we were finally beginning to think it was – and just because the alarm bell is coming from the UK, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t heed its warning on our side of the Atlantic, too.

“The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay: Essays”
By Eliot Glazer
c.2026, Gallery Books
$28.99/240 pages

You try and you try.

Once, twice, you go back at that thorny issue, the dream you have, the punchline that’s not hitting quite right. Sometimes, time is all you need to make it better, or a new approach, or a second look. And then there are days when you actually get things right, as in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” by Eliot Glazer, and it’s all good.

Throughout his life, Eliot Glazer has made mistakes. And it’s OK, everybody trips and falls now and then. In his case, though, he’s perfectly willing to document his failures, foibles, and whoopsies in this book.

He writes of his mother, Sandi, “a Queens-born balabosta” who wouldn’t tolerate laziness in herself or Glazer. He found work as soon as he was legally able to do so, and he had many jobs throughout high school. He was a gardener, ice cream scooper, camp counselor, golf caddy, chocolatier, telemarketer, and video store clerk. The one that fit him best, however, was working at Talbots, a department store for older women, where he found his people.

Even with all those jobs, he was a theater kid in his time off, little though it was. Back then, he was just a boy growing up on Long Island but swagger was important, so swagger he did. He still appreciates a good Broadway show, even the silliest ones.

Glazer says that he had just recently come out when gayness exploded on TV with “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” with which he was obsessed. It helped him feel not othered, he says. Producers of the reboot asked him to be a second-generation Eye, but Glazer turned them down, though he thinks he’d have been good at it.

The show helped him with love of décor. His unexpected advisory skills came naturally, through age and wisdom and learning that wild partying isn’t really so much fun.

As for finding love, well, that’s a long, boy-meets-boy-meets-boy story…

So you’re looking for something to easily pick up and put down, something that speaks to your inner impatience? You’ll find that in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay,” a book that’s practically meant for you to skip around and you don’t have to read everything.

Essays can be like that, which is nice, even refreshing. Author Eliot Glazer is entertaining enough to make things work, engaging enough to keep it moving, and funny enough to make you want more of what he has to say. He’s open with his life and, despite his fame, his writing isn’t lofty; you can expect stories that’ll make you snort and ones with spice, but also some surprisingly tender moments that soften this book in a way that’s just right.

Readers who want a quick, mostly light book to finish will find something appealing in this collection of essays. If you don’t mind a bit of non-linearity and you need a laugh, “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay.” is worth a try.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

In his career, Joey Zauzig has built a unique space in our online community. Self-branded as “the internet’s best friend,” a title that stuck after an appearance on Good Morning America, Zauzig has created a digital place where humor, food, fashion, and advice all come together. Whether he’s encouraging someone to leave a relationship that no longer serves them, sharing a skinty recipe, or making his audience giggle, Joey has a way of keeping folks engaged. At the core of it all is the idea that showing up as yourself and making others feel less alone can be impactful.

Having experienced bullying for being gay before he was ready to come out, Zauzig understands what it means to search for acceptance and not find it when you need it most. Rather than allowing those experiences to own him, he has transformed them into a commitment to creating the kind of supportive space he wished he had growing up. In our conversation, Zauzig reflects on finding purpose through his platform while staying authentic and continuing to evolve. He also shares his love of food, his dream collab (you’ll have to read to find out), and what folks can look forward to as he takes his next big step with Bravo.

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What does that title “the internet’s best friend” mean to you personally, and how did it come about?

It was coined when I was on Good Morning America a few years back and it just stuck. I love giving advice and being a virtual shoulder to lean on for my audience. I hope that people feel like I am a safe space for them when they come to my page and make them feel good and that I’m a friend they can rely on to be there for them.  

You were bullied for being gay before you were ready to come out. In hindsight, how did these experiences impact the person and creator that you’ve become?

Those were some really tough periods in my life, but looking back, they shaped so much of who I am today. Going through that helped me develop a stronger sense of who I was and taught me the importance of accepting myself, even when it feels like the world isn’t ready to. I also didn’t have someone I felt I could look up to or turn to during those years. Because of that, I’ve always wanted to create the kind of space I wish I’d had growing up, where people feel safe, supported, and accepted exactly as they are. If sharing my experiences helps even one person feel a little less alone, then those difficult moments have found a greater purpose.

Instead of allowing those painful experiences to overtake your narrative, you’ve built a platform centered on positivity and empowerment. Was there a specific moment when you realized your story could help other folks?

I wouldn’t say there was one moment in time, but overall, as I went through these times, I found myself always wanting to make people feel good and smile. I have been so fortunate to have a platform where I’m able to give that to people, and I can’t wait for it to grow into something even bigger. 

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What’s the biggest responsibility that comes with being someone that thousands of people genuinely turn to for support?

I think the biggest responsibility has been being intentional with the content I make and finding a balance between putting out content that resonates with people and staying true to myself. I don’t want people to follow me because they think I have life figured out. I want them to feel like they’re hanging out with a friend who’s figuring it out too. 

What’s the most meaningful message you’ve ever received from someone whose life was changed by one of your videos?

I receive messages every day, and it truly is the most meaningful part of what I do and makes it worth it. Those messages remind me that content is about so much more than entertainment. You never really know what’s happening on the other side of the screen, and it’s incredible to think that something as simple as making someone laugh, sharing a meal, or being honest about your own experiences can make another person feel seen.

You often encourage people to leave unhealthy relationships and believe in themselves. What’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were a wee one?

I wish someone had told me that the way people treat you is never a measure of your worth. When you’re young, it’s so easy to think that being rejected, judged, or made to feel like you’re “too much” or “not enough” means there’s something wrong with you. It took me a long time to realize that other people’s opinions are usually a reflection of where they are, not who you are. The right people will never require you to shrink to be loved. They’ll celebrate who you already are.

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How do you protect your own mental health while constantly giving emotional support to others online?

I’ve learned that I can’t be there for everyone if I’m not taking care of myself first. I try to set healthy boundaries, spend time with the people I love, and remember that social media isn’t real life. I care deeply about the messages people send me, but I’ve also accepted that I can’t solve every problem. The best thing I can do is show up authentically, offer encouragement, and remind people, including myself, that it’s okay to ask for help and protect your own peace.

Your Skinty recipes have developed a fan base of their own. Where did that idea come from, and what makes a recipe Skinty?

Skinty came from me wanting to enjoy the foods I love while making them the healthiest version possible. I’ve never believed that eating well has to mean giving up the meals you’re craving. To me, a recipe is “Skinty” when it feels balanced. It’s satisfying, packed with flavor, made with better-for-you ingredients where it makes sense, and still feels indulgent enough that you actually want to make it again. That’s always been the goal: healthy without feeling restrictive.

Your content blends humor, fashion, dating, wellness, and food. How do you stay creative while producing content that feels green and not yet seen every day?

I think the biggest thing is that I create from my actual life instead of chasing trends. If something makes me laugh, inspires me, or feels like a conversation I’d have with my friends, that’s usually where the best content comes from. I also don’t put pressure on myself to reinvent the internet every day. I just try to tell familiar stories in my own way. If it feels authentic to me, it’ll feel fresh because no one else has my perspective.

You’ve covered plenty of viral food trends. What’s your humble opinion on folks queuing up for the latest candy-coated culinary creation sweeping TikTok? 

I honestly love that food brings people together. If standing in line for the latest viral dessert or trying a crazy new food trend makes someone happy, I’m all for it.

I think the best meals are usually the ones you keep coming back to, not just the ones getting millions of views. I’ll always try the viral spot, but I’m just as excited to find those hidden gems that deserve the same attention. At the end of the day, if it tastes good, brings people together, and creates a fun memory, that’s what really matters.

Social media has blurred the line between creators and their audiences. What’s your take on parasocial relationships, and how do you balance being authentic without feeling like you owe followers access to every part of your life?

I think it’s a really interesting balance. I’m incredibly grateful that people feel connected to me; that’s honestly one of the best parts of what I do. If someone feels like they’re catching up with a friend when they watch my videos, I’ve done my job. At the same time, I’ve learned that authenticity doesn’t mean sharing everything. Some parts of my life are just for me, my family, and the people closest to me. I think it’s possible to be open, honest, and genuine while still having healthy boundaries. The goal has never been to let people into every part of my life. It’s to make people feel seen, entertained, and connected without losing myself in the process.

If you could collab with any celebrity chef or food personality, who would you be stepping into the kitchen with?

Without a doubt, Martha Stewart. She’s an absolute icon. I feel like we’d be the perfect duo; she’d be teaching me the proper way to do everything, and I’d be over there trying to convince her to make a Skinty version of one of her legendary recipes. If I could leave with one hosting tip, one recipe, and maybe an invite to Thanksgiving, I’d consider it a successful day.

Without giving away any surprises of course, what can your followers expect from you over the next year that they haven’t seen before?

Lots of exciting things are coming. You can expect to see me on Bravo, which I’m incredibly excited about. Beyond that, I’m continuing to expand my brand and platform.

When you think of LGBTQ travel, you may think of hard-bodied gays off to Mykonos or Ibiza or queer family unit in some Disney World ad. However, many queer people are traveling. According to travel writer Lindsey Danis, “LGBTQ+ Americans are more than twice as likely as the general population to have valid passports. LGBTQ+ travel market is valued at over $320 billion.”

That being said, all queer people face many of the same concerns when navigating new, potentially homophobic, cultures and environments. Financial feasibility can also keep some LGBTQ people from even considering international expeditions or restorative getaways. Danis hopes to change that with her new book, (Out) On the Road. She confesses, “The main reason I wrote my book is to move the conversation on LGBTQ travel beyond what’s scary and bring in joy.”

“The mindset work is really transformative for queer and trans people who want to travel more but either feel like they can’t afford it or the world isn’t safe for them.” Danis shares. (Out) On the Road collects stories of various queer travelers and invaluable advice to help the wayward queer traveler, whether it’s your first time or you just want some fresh insight into traveling today.  

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While the growing conservatism sweeping the globe may affect how safe some queer people might feel when traveling, we still deserve the chance to get all the deep benefits of inspiration, joy, and cultural experiences that come with traveling. Part of fighting conservatism is prioritizing and sharing queer joy, which is what Danis highlights with her book. 

In Danis’s words, “Queer people operate with a joy deficit, in bodies that carry heightened sensitivity to potential threats. So allowing ourselves to feel more joy and carving out time/space for joy in all its forms is revitalizing for us.” She continues, “Traveling to queer-friendly places is especially important now, given the ongoing erasure of LGBTQ+ rights in many states. Getting out of an unsupportive place and going somewhere, even for a few days, where they can be themselves, is tremendously freeing and empowering. We can embody who we want to be.”

“When I lived in San Francisco, and I’d go to the Castro,” Danish confesses, “I’d always see these starry-eyed gay couples walking around holding hands, and I could tell from their emotion that this was something they did not do back home, that they were quietly careful not to touch in public, but here on vacation they could be themselves.” That moment served as inspiration for the book, she continues, “Ever since, this has stayed with me as a tangible reminder of what queer joy in action looks and feels like, and how important it is to have places we can access that.”

Danis highlights the importance of traveling to better be oneself, adding, “For queer people who aren’t able to be open in their daily lives or who live in unsupportive places, travel offers them an escape and a chance to be themselves, which is healing on so many levels. I’m thinking of the scene in Will & Harper [Will Ferrell’s documentary with trans writer Harper Steele] where Harper is talking about the house she bought in the Eastern Sierras specifically so she could have one place in the world she could be herself.” She continues, “How she first thought she could only be herself behind closed doors, but slowly built the courage to be herself in daily life, and learned to advocate for herself, too, such a lovely model of strength.”

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What are some of the valuable experiences in traveling that Danis has found for herself? She shares,  “Traveling inspires me. Having new experiences and seeing new things gives me energy; it feeds me, and it inspires me creatively as well. Travel also builds skills and confidence, whether that’s learning a new language or confidently navigating (my weakness).”

She admits, “I caught the travel bug early, after a trip to Egypt and Israel with my YMCA summer camp. It was my first time outside the US, and to be able to see these ancient cultural relics that I’d read about in my history book come alive in front of my eyes, to be in the ancient temples and tombs and riding camels in the desert was incredible.”

While the inspiration of the book is nuanced, the genesis of the book was fairly straightforward. Danis shares, “There was very little information by and for queer travelers, and most of what existed was for cis gay men; I didn’t see myself in that for multiple reasons.” She adds, “Most of the information out there doesn’t even break down the kinds of challenges we can experience at all. Often it takes a cis gay traveler as the/stand-in for the community as a whole. In other words, putting the most privileged part of the queer community as a stand-in for everyone else with less privilege.”

Danis was able to fill that gap by specifically focusing on the LGBTQ community at large, also incorporating the unique travel needs and experiences of queer women and non-binary people: “I thought of this book as all the information I wished I had when I first started traveling – the things I never would’ve known to Google because it would never have occurred to me I needed to.”

Like many LGBTQ people, Danis had an employment history that didn’t always afford her the chance to travel. She shares, “For years I worked multiple jobs that didn’t have any benefits, including vacation days or sick days. I lived paycheck to paycheck, and the idea of taking a vacation was laughable. The norm in the culinary industry where I worked was that when you were ready for a break, you would just quit your job, travel, and get a new one when you came back.” After some time, Danis switched careers and became a writer specializing in food and travel. 

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Her previous financial limitations helped define who she wanted to include when she wrote this book. She confesses, “While I am now self-employed with the freedom and flexibility to travel, it was a priority to me to speak to the economic realities that keep so many queer and trans folks from feeling like they can afford a vacation, and to redefine what vacation can look like instead of the glossy fantasy splashed all over social media.”

Many of these stories explore different inspirational queer experiences with travel. Danis shares, “In (Out) On the Road, I share the story of an extreme budget traveler who bicycled across the US with a budget of $300. They used Couchsurfing apps, tent camped, and stayed for free in churches and other places. Most people are not going to travel like that truly, but I love this story because it shows that frugal travel is possible when you have the right mindset.”

“(Out) On the Road is full of inspiring examples like that of queer people breaking through limitations or finding greater self-acceptance because of the space that opens up when traveling, and getting a break from daily lives.” Danis adds. So what are some of her favorite stories profiled? “A white female vanlifer, raised in a conservative religious family, who had a lesbian awakening and built the courage to come out, and now is happily partnered. And a South Asian gay man who found freedom from the rigid body ideals in gay culture while exploring Berlin’s nudist scenes, and was able to bring that mindset shift home with him.”

In writing and researching this book, Danis did find some surprises: “I imagined cis gay men had more freedom and were less worried than women, nonbinary and trans people, but this wasn’t always the case. I spoke with 2 gay travel couples; even though they tend to have more privilege and be less at risk moving through the world, their concerns were very similar to mine.” 

She adds, “Another surprise, talking to Aisha Shaibu-Lenoir about LGBT travel to Africa, people in the West tend to think of Africa as being dangerous or unwelcoming (or a single country rather than a continent), and while that’s true for some African countries, there are growing pockets of hospitality.” She adds, “I was excited to learn about the work she is doing to educate African hospitality professionals about the queer community, teach them what they need to know to be inclusive and welcoming, and it made me hopeful.”

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At its core, (Out) On the Road is a self-love letter inspiring queer people to travel and feel more joy by exploring the world. Danis adds, ” Joy is seeing what’s possible for us, rewriting limiting beliefs, visiting places that are more freeing than where we live – participating in the world as our full selves, without having to hide.” She concludes with an inspirational message, “I like to think of travel as a way to reclaim our power and pleasure – we forget that we have power in where and how we spend our money, but we do.” 

(Out) On the Road is available where all books are sold. You can find out more about Lindsey Danis on her website.

Uncloseted Media published this story on Sept. 29

By ERICA ROSE and THE LESBIAN BAR PROJECT | As a professional lesbian and Massachusetts native, I’ve recently been asked by a lot of folks what I think about the saga unfolding at Last Ditch. The now-viral story, first reported by the Boston Globe, centers on a Western Massachusetts lesbian bar that lifted its mask requirement for one night a week to help drum up business.

The decision ignited an intra-queer controversy that has been feasted on by media outlets across the political spectrum — from the New York Post to LGBTQ Nation — and is even reportedly being eyed for a Hollywood adaptation. Apparently nothing is more entertaining than a bunch of lesbians and queers fighting with each other over KN-95s.

What has been lost in all of the chatter and media coverage is the very real possibility that Last Ditch, which just opened in April 2025, will have to close its doors. The venue’s one remaining founder, Jackie Matellian, revealed in a community Zoom meeting that she’s working four jobs, is now solely responsible for the bar’s $50,000 business loan and is struggling to keep up with the bills. So as we laugh about the controversy’s similarity to a “Portlandia” skit and how one of the bar’s founders left to enroll in clown school, we forget that yet another lesbian bar is facing an existential crisis — and this time the call is coming from inside the house.

In 2020, my friend Elina Street and I created The Lesbian Bar Project, an Emmy-, Webby- and GLAAD Media Award-winning docuseries and initiative that tells the stories of lesbian queer bars around the world. We were moved to act because at the time there were only an estimated 16 lesbian bars in the United States, and the pandemic threatened to bring that number down even further.

There are now more sapphic bars than there were just before the pandemic — about 36 of them in total — but this is down from approximately 200 in 1980. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but for the millions of sapphics living in the U.S., this number is calamitous.

As the world laughs at lesbians and sapphics, I want to take a second and tell you what I feel when I walk into one of these bars, which are all unique and irreplaceable in their own way: I feel seen.

Sometimes I think Cubbyhole in New York City’s West Village neighborhood knew I was gay before I did. When I walked in there for the first time, before I was even out, I was transfixed by the colorful array of tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling and how the women standing next to me were completely unafraid to express their desire for one another. I knew the minute I was ready to come out, I had a home. I also felt the joy of a new couple falling in love at Seattle’s Wildrose, the quiet confidence of a short king lining up her shot at the pool table at Ginger’s in Brooklyn and the kick of cayenne pepper in Julie Mabry’s crawfish at Houston’s Pearl Bar.

Lesbian bars don’t just serve lesbians; they serve queer folks across the spectrum, including bisexual, pansexual and trans people. As Elina and I traveled across the U.S. and Europe and to parts of Latin America to document the bar owners, staff and patrons that make up the ecosystems of these spaces, we also became uniquely acquainted with the factors that threaten their existence: gentrification, wage gaps, sexism, environmental disasters, gun violence, rising insurance premiums and political administrations working to annihilate queer people and their families.

Lesbian bar owners, like all leaders and entrepreneurs, are imperfect. There have been significant issues over the years at lesbian bars: employee harassment, racism, lack of accessibility, sexual assault and transphobia. All bar owners should be held accountable and should listen to their communities to evolve into safer and more equitable spaces. I also acknowledge my privilege: I am able-bodied, white, cis and from a family system that loves me for who I am. Not everyone has that.

Queer people, especially trans and bisexual people, are suffering from disproportionately high levels of depression, and our mental health system isn’t equipped to support them. Immunocompromised people and long COVID are real, and many of my friends are suffering to this day. The people with the least safety net are often the ones for whom a bar closing costs the most. And yet, as we’re seeing with Last Ditch, the queer community often lashes out at each other. It’s also the mainstream media taking the internal conflict and making a mockery out of it, distracting from the real possibility that this bar could close due to financial pressures. A bar that many people loved and needed is facing extinction. Perhaps it’s safer to dissent with one another than with the larger forces trying to eradicate us, but in doing so, we risk destroying the few spaces we have left.

Due to the constraints of purity politics — some in good faith, some not so much — lesbian bar owners, almost all of whom are queer women themselves, are forced to be everything for everyone, similarly to how women are forced to be everything for everyone. By asking these bars to uphold impossible standards — standards very few other third spaces are asked to consider — we all end up losing.

I want to move as a community toward dialogue, compassionate dissent and collaboration to make our spaces better with the goal of keeping them OPEN and thriving, rather than destroying them from the inside with expectations that are arguably unattainable.

While I have your attention — for this fleeting second of the news cycle — may I urge us to spearhead a way to keep these small businesses afloat without attacking our own community along the way? Bar owners are left with an impasse: They want to be community-centered, but they also have to make money to keep their doors open. Sometimes they might make business decisions that don’t work for everyone — and that’s partly because different patrons have different priorities and want different things — but these owners deserve the opportunity for productive dialogue. We have to work with them and with each other to keep our spaces open, to keep them growing.

Lesbian bars raised me into the queer woman I am today. One thing I think about as I reflect on the six years of work we’ve done to document these spaces is that shared, unspoken language I have with a stranger the moment we both walk into one of these bars: the nod, the ease, the not having to explain ourselves. I don’t want to lose that, and neither should you.

California runs the largest tribal casino market in the country, with more than seventy properties generating over nine billion dollars a year, plus licensed card rooms, the state lottery, and a racing calendar that still fills Santa Anita and Del Mar. What it has not had, until the rules were settled this year, is a clear answer on which casino-style games are fine to play from a phone in Los Angeles. As of 2026, that answer exists, and it points to one format.

Free slot tournaments, where entrants spin with contest credits and compete for a place on a leaderboard, fall outside what California law prohibits online. No stake, no payout, nothing to redeem: the two elements the law targets are absent, so the format sits outside the prohibition rather than being expressly permitted by it. For a reader who enjoys slots at Pechanga or Yaamava’ and wants that competitive edge at home, this is the format built for the state’s rules.

What AB 831 Changed for California Players

Assembly Bill 831, signed by Governor Newsom on 11 October 2025 and in force since 1 January, settled the online question. The bill defines a prohibited online sweepstakes game by its dual-currency structure, one coin for play and a second that converts to cash, and then adds a sentence that matters more to a casual player than the rest of the statute: the paragraph does not make unlawful a game that does not award cash prizes or cash equivalents.

That is where free tournaments sit. The best free online slot tournaments give every entrant a fixed number of spins, convert each result into points under a published scoring rule, and rank the field over a day or a week. There is one currency; it exists only inside the contest, and the reward is a standing on the board or free spins on the site itself. Every element of that format sits outside the prohibition the Legislature drew, which is why it has moved from a side feature on operator sites to the main event for California players.

A Regulated Real-Money Market Is Being Built Toward 2028

Real-money online casino, online poker and mobile sports betting have never been offered in California, and the path to them runs through the state’s tribes, who hold gaming exclusivity under their compacts. The California Nations Indian Gaming Association has set November 2028 as the target for a unified tribal initiative covering retail and online sports betting, a timetable the association has publicly supported. The 2022 experience, when tribal and commercial campaigns ran competing measures, is the reason the tribes are building one proposal this time rather than rushing a second attempt.

This November’s ballot is a busy one, and the political stakes heading into the midterms are real for readers of this paper, but gaming is not on it by design. In the meantime, the in-person market carries on at full strength, and the online side has a format that needs no ballot, no compact, and no license to enjoy. Free tournaments of this kind fall outside what current law prohibits, and the 2028 timetable gives the state two full seasons to get the larger framework right.

The Prize Table Tells You Everything About Whether a Tournament Fits California

Because the law turns on cash equivalents, the one thing worth checking before entering any tournament is what the winner receives. Contests that award leaderboard standing, badges or free spins on the site are the California version. Formats offered in other states sometimes pair free entry with a deposit option or pay cash to the top finishers, and those are a different product built for a different rulebook. A quick read of the prize table settles it, and a well-run tournament site puts that information on the entry page rather than in the terms.

The full text of AB 831 is short and worth ten minutes if a site’s terms are unclear. For a Californian who enjoys slots, the practical picture in 2026 is a strong in-person scene, a regulated online market taking shape for 2028, and a free tournament format available today that turns a favorite game into a competition with other players across the country. Help for problem gambling is available around the clock at 1-800-GAMBLER.

With the midterms fast approaching and Donald Trump’s malignant whimsy dictating the American agenda, many of us feel unsafe as scraps of hard economic and political news randomly swirl around our lives like debris in the swelling tornado outside Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz window. What’s happening? Will I get hit? Who can I trust to help me?

But all may not be what it seems. As America faces a reckoning with Trumpism and Trump’s cratering approval ratings, new leaders are emerging, standing in the breach to help reclaim our common humanity.

Anti-trans political spots blight the airwaves, for instance, driven by Elon Musk’s America PAC, “which has dropped $100 million on anti-transgender ads targeting Democrats,” trans columnist Erin Reed writes in her Erin in the Morning Substack.

The ads are proving largely ineffective. “Anti-trans ads may scare Democratic candidates, but among the general public, polls consistently show that voters rank transgender issues among the lowest-priority issues they care about and vote on, with less than 1% of respondents naming ‘wokeness/transgender issues’ as a top issue,” Reed notes.

However, by saturating the airwaves, trans people are constantly bombarded by “hateful messaging” that also hits unsuspecting viewers.

“They paint transgender people as predatory and disgusting to a national audience in a cheap attempt to win votes, and every viewing raises the temperature of the hate and abuse directed at a community that is already a target,” Reeds writes.

While trans people make conscious existential choices every day, many also live fulfilling lives and seek to be of service in unexpected ways and places.

Take the purple state of Wisconsin. Out lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin has won 17 general election races since 1986. Out trans candidate Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford recently won her Democratic primary for a State Assembly seat representing the 76^th District in Madison. And TikTok star and New York Times best-selling author Mercury Stardust, an expert in home repair, also lives in Madison with her trans spouse.

“I was a burlesque and drag entertainer, and I was also a maintenance technician for a property management company and for various companies in tropical Madison, Wisconsin,” Stardust says during an interview while on a book tour for her second book, Lost and Found, A Compassionate Guide to Home Repair.

She became well known on the internet for helping strangers learn how to fix their pipes and drywall, helping a lot of renters – which led to her first book, Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair.

Stardust now lives in a home in Madison with her “wonderful spouse, Mouse ZZ” to whom she has been married for 10 years. ZZ (Ari) was also born and raised in Wisconsin, went to Cleveland, Ohio, for their undergraduate college degree, and returned home to get their master’s degree at UW-Madison.

“My trans journey is a fairly small part of my entire journey as a content creator, but I have kind of been really public about me raising money for gender-affirming care and helping other trans people access gender-affirming care” through Point of Pride, Stardust says.

And with confidence, you get to show up as all of who you are. “It’s like being a maintenance technician in those spaces, you know? And there is no joke there. It’s like, this is a real aspect of who I am,” Stardust says, “where I’m gonna show up as who I am and just live my life the way that anyone would, because I’m just a human being. There’s nothing necessarily uniquely special about that. It’s just the fact that I’m also a trans person who happens to be really good at maintenance and is also very good at educating people” on DIY home repairs.

But Mercury Stardust’s big laugh and positive attitude, teaching DIY as The Trans Handy Ma’am, is also quietly empowering, building confidence for vulnerable people that they can fix something and not have to rely on a landlord or strangers. And if the need for maintenance is greater than their capabilities, learning how to pick professional help is important, too.

Practicing self-confidence and showing up safely can also be developed as skills to help build community at this dangerously precarious time when more and more tornadoes, real and imagined, increasingly swirl around us.

The tornadoes are a shared common problem that supersedes petty divisiveness while at the same time elevating and listening to the intersectional experience of those hit the hardest.

Here are some scraps of hard news swirling around in today’s tornadoes, issues we all have to deal with now and whenever Trump crashes.

In the last two years, the Trump administration’s enforcement of Project 2025 has resulted in trans people receiving greater hostile visibility and political scapegoating, in addition to shared cold, hard healthcare issues, food insecurity, housing insecurity, and high home heating and gasoline prices.

Right now, it’s hard to know who’s telling the truth and who’s offering credible ideas and solutions.

Since his first term, Donald Trump’s Orwellian version of truth as “alternative facts” has poisoned the well of discourse and promoted cruelty and division. Journalists were finally forced to call him a liar, question his mental stability and acuity, and peg him as a wannabe dictator.

“We do now live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge. We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country,” out MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow said Monday night, Aug. 4, 2025. “The question is no longer how to prepare for this risk or how to try to avert it, but rather how to fight it now that it is here and in effect.”

Just over a year later, Trump banned broadcast TV press pool coverage from the White House campus while his Justice Department essentially lied for him in court proceedings. Trump launched his own authoritarian-like Trump TV programing to try to control the narrative. On Sept. 24, a Trump-appointed judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring the restoration of press passes.

But with the specific issue of pool coverage still unresolved, the Oval Office meeting between Trump and China’s dictator Xi Jinping was covered by Chinese state media but not covered live by US cameras, with BBC reporters noting, “we’re not sure exactly what they spoke about.” Reminder: at a two-hour private meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in 2018, Trump told the press that he believed Putin over US Intelligence.

Vice President JD Vance’s announcement of the administration’s intention to remove 760,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees from public healthcare exchanges adds to the five million people who dropped their ACA insurance after Trump and the Republican Congress let premium prices skyrocket. “Give us another chance — or, give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we’ve been doing for the past two years,” Vance said on the All In podcast.

Meanwhile, more than 4 million people lost access to critical food aid between last July and April — many of whom are children – because of cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food stamps), which the White House called “bloated.” More cuts are expected by the end of 2026, NPR reported last month.

Meanwhile, more than 160,000 pounds of raw meat with fake USDA inspection labels were recalled on Sept. 24; the CDC reports that as of September 17, 2026, 3,471 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026; and university scientists think outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola, hantavirus, bird flu and COVID-19 are on the rise.

And as Trump’s war of choice in Iran expands throughout the Middle East, home heating oil and gas and diesel prices continue to climb. An estimated 4 million to 5 million households use heating oil for homes during the winter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Massachusetts is already reporting that for the week of Sept. 21, 2026, the average retail price for heating oil hit $6.15 per gallon. That’s a 74.7% jump compared to last year, or a $6,000 bill compared to previous years of maybe a $3,500 or $4,000 bill.

And what’s going to happen when the nor’easter storms hit the East Coast? California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already declared a state of emergency to prepare for being the epicenter for a predicted “historically intense El Niño,” according to a news release from the governor’s office. There’s a 75% chance this super storm will become the strongest since 1950, according to the latest reliable forecast.

While Trump is bored with the war and calls the affordability crisis a hoax, community grassroots organizations such as Indivisible help produce No Kings protests nationwide, and individuals like Mercury Stardust help empower people to show up as who they are where they live.

Maybe they will also show up and share common ground over a common issue and create a new kind of real equality-based intersectional democracy, a more perfect union, in the process.

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That famously cynical quote from the 1962 Western movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” could easily have been the mission statement behind the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s controversial anthology series, “Monster,” which retells the story of America’s most famous axe murderer – Lizzie Borden, who, in 1892, “took an axe” to her father and stepmother at their family home in Fall River, Mass.

Except, officially, she didn’t. Borden was acquitted of the killings in a trial that was a national sensation; the crime remained unsolved, and despite rumors and theories that have proliferated over the last century, nobody really knows what actually happened nor who was responsible for it.

Yet in the popular imagination, Lizzie is still remembered as a killer who got away with one of the most notorious murders in American history. Though she walked free and lived a life of wealth and high social position for another three decades after her trial, she never truly escaped the scandal; she would be forever branded as guilty, her alleged crime even immortalized in a children’s schoolyard rhyme, and all but a few die-hard theorists assume, unequivocally, that she was the killer. In other words, the legend of Lizzie Borden, axe-murderer, has “become fact.”

“Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” like most other retellings of this gruesome crime saga, “prints” the legend – and indeed, goes even further to canonize her into something like a radical feminist saint.

With Ella Beatty (daughter of Hollywood royalty Warren Beatty and Annette Bening) in the title role, the show frames Lizzie as the repressed and disregarded adult child of wealthy businessman Andrew Borden (Charlie Hunnam) and stepmother Abigail (Rebecca Hall), who married her father after her mother’s death; both of them treat her – and indeed, almost everyone around them – with dismissive cruelty. Andrew is an alcoholic who openly disdains both wife and daughter, while Abigail takes out her own frustration with the marriage on Lizzie, whom she has branded as a “simple” child that she never wanted to have – and a difficult one at that.

The arrival of a new household maid — Bridget Sullivan (Vicki Krieps), who goes by the name “Maggie” — changes Lizzie’s outlook and her destiny. Well-traveled, worldly, and deeply independent, Maggie befriends her and becomes both her companion and mentor, introducing her to new ideas and cultivating her sense of self-worth; they become lovers, their bond deepened by a dissatisfaction with the cultural limits imposed upon them by their status as women. As conditions within the household grow increasingly unbearable, they formulate a gruesome plan which, if they can succeed, will liberate them from the patriarchal subjugation that relegates them to the level of chattel while puffing a pipe full of expensive tobacco.

From there, writer/creator Ian Brennan takes us through an effectively grisly re-enactment of the famous murders and onward through the trial in which Lizzie, ironically benefitting from stereotyped male assumptions about what women are or are not capable of doing, is ultimately acquitted of the gruesome crime she absolutely DID commit. It then follows her – and Bridget – into the aftermath of the scandal, where a kind of imprisonment awaits them both, anyway.

Boldly crafted with cinematic flourish (six episodes were directed by Max Winkler, the two others by Sarah Adina Smith) and continuing the series’ tradition of lavishly depicted violence, one can’t deny that it’s a wild ride. It flaunts its contemporary attitude through fiercely eclectic musical choices in the soundtrack, from the lushly romantic classical tones of its late 19th-century period to ferociously feminist ‘90s punk; it includes graphic sex both tender and aggressive, juxtaposed with scenes of pastoral beauty and genteel refinement; and, as always in Ryan Murphy’s “true story” productions, it plays fast-and-loose with the facts, choosing instead to lean into artistic license in order to expand on the “hotbed” themes woven into the narrative.

In this case, Brennan’s version of Lizzie’s tale mines the historical record to incorporate lesser-known factual details while veering into speculation to fill the blanks elsewhere; it creates incidents that didn’t happen, alters incidents that did, and embellishes what’s known of its characters’ private lives with details that no one could know; and, like other seasons of “Monster” have done, it finds a way to introduce extra real-life killers into the mix – blood-bathing 16th-century Countess Elizabeth Báthory (also played by Krieps) and hitchhiking 20th-century serial murderer Aileen Wournos (Sarah Paulson) – for good measure. The result, of course, is a work of complete fiction.

These are the things that have consistently made “Monster” one of Murphy’s most controversial television franchises. The excesses of gore and brutality, though they might seem gratuitous to some and are certainly hard to watch for many, is arguably justified by the show’s branding as a “horror” series; less easy to write off, however, is the criticism of many detractors that the series spreads false information and perpetuates myths, whether to “push” an agenda or in the name of “artistic interpretation.”

“The Lizzie Borden Story,” consequently, has already been met with such objections – though in today’s political climate, it’s hard to know if they are really about the blending of fact and fiction or the feminist social commentary that runs through the show like a vein of molten lava. Brennan’s vision of Lizzie’s presumed crime casts her as woman suffering from a life of psychological torment by her parents, and Bridget – who has experienced more than her own fair share of mistreatment at the hands of aggressively toxic men – as her savior; the act they concoct and execute together is a radical act of defiant rebellion against an ingrained system of patriarchal domination, and we are set up from the start to be completely on their side.

That radical feminist thread pops up everywhere: through Lizzie’s stepmother (despite her own monstrosity), who is granted a share of empathy for the sake of her own stifled existence; through famous actress Nance O’Neil (Jessica Barden), who steps in to become an ally at a crucial juncture of Lizzie’s trial; even through her estranged sister (Billie Lourd), who sets aside her own doubts to support Lizzie in sisterly solidarity. Brennan even imagines Lizzie as an activist in the fight for women’s suffrage.

Of course, if one is inclined to view “Monster” as a documentary crime series, occupied with discerning facts and providing an objective overview of the case, that’s a perfectly good reason not to watch its latest installment. For those who realize that it is instead a vehicle for artistic expression, a series devoted to finding the kind of truth that transcends facts and challenges viewers to examine the cultural conditions that create these “monsters” in the first place, this might be its best season yet.

Exquisitely realized, shrewdly written, and featuring outstanding performances across the board, it’s not really a crime story, nor really even horror: it’s an exhilarating, satisfying, and thoroughly transgressive fantasia on an American legend that puts the blame for the Borden family murder squarely where it belongs – on the oppressive cruelty that drives otherwise good-hearted women to commit unspeakable acts.

For most of history, performers have been forced to hide their queer identity to succeed — Rosslyn Luke is determined to do the exact opposite. 

The past few years have been a professional whirlwind for the actress; she just starred in NEON’s Paper Tiger alongside Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, and Miles Teller. This comes after almost a decade of Rosslyn making a name for herself in the indie filmmaking world. It’s promising to be the first in a new wave of large-scale features, with Luke being announced alongside Emma Roberts and Leslie Bibb for a new film focused on renowned advocate Hal Donaldson. 

It’s been amazing for Luke’s many longtime fans to see the actress finally receive the appreciation she deserves. And, especially for LGBTQ+ film-lovers, it’s so much better when viewers learn she’s doing all of this while being openly, proudly queer. 

“Getting the role in Paper Tiger was a dream come true,” raved Luke. “My first day on set, I was sitting at a kitchen table with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver — my heart still kind of races when I think about it — and there was very much a feeling of, ‘Oh, I’ve done it.’” 

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It was a defining success for Rosslyn’s long career, with the actress joking about her first big role: starring in her Washington state elementary’s school’s Christmas play. Little Luke instantly fell in love with the versatility that acting entailed, a passion she still feels in every role today, saying, “I think it’s the exploration…I’m really curious about what makes everyone who they are. I really enjoy research and trying to figure out who my characters are, and all of the humanity that exposes me to. I think that is a huge gift.” 

This sense of exploration not only fuels Rosslyn’s love for acting but also helped her realize and embrace her truest self when she came out seven years ago. 

“I didn’t come out until I was 30,” the actress reminisced, thinking about the journey it took to understand her sexuality. “And the exploration it took to get there [is] a lot like the exploration I do through roles. I would take characters that weren’t necessarily gay and twist them to have queer backstories. And I think that was…my way of exploring in this safe world as an actor, before bringing it into the real world.”

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And since bringing it into the real world, Luke has refused to hide her sexuality. She remembers that moment at the table with Driver and Johansson and how invested each actor was in her upcoming nuptials, with Rosslyn laughing, “It was very present in the room, my queerness. They both asked a gazillion questions — Adam was extremely invested in my engagement and how I was going to do the proposal. Yeah, it was very sweet!”

Luke’s genuine excitement over being able to pursue these large roles as an out queer woman is refreshing within an entertainment industry that still struggles with homophobia. It’s a fact that may shock some viewers; we’ve been lucky to see many queer-centric projects in the last few years. But there is still a great stigma against LGBTQ+ performers and creatives, with these people not only facing immense hurdles, but outright discrimination when trying to get their art made while being open about who they are. These lingering stigmas are ones that Rosslyn knows well and refuses to put up with in this new phase of her career, stating, “It’s such a big part of my identity, being a queer woman. And I feel like every time it’s ignored, it’s kind of… it feels like this huge boulder that I have to go around as I’m talking about myself.”

“As a queer person now, you know, years after coming out, I’ve spent so much time rediscovering who I am. Re-finding bits of myself that I now understand better. And that just brings so much more clarity to each of my performances and each of my characters. Because I feel like the more that I understand myself. the more that I can understand the world around me, and hopefully represent it in a…more accessible way.”

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Luke’s deeper understanding and love for her sexuality clearly show in the powerful performances she’s offered in recent years, ones that are gaining her more attention than she’s ever had before. It’s clear that the actress is preparing for a whole new wave of big features like the ones she’s been proud to work on. And Rosslyn knows that not only do these projects mean so much to her, but also to the many viewers who want nothing more than to see an LGBTQ+ person winning today. 

To these fans, Rosslyn says, “I hope…I hope they feel seen. I hope that I can present an authentic version of myself as I go out into the world, as I move forward in my career. And I hope that having my performances be respected and grounded in reality will allow other girls to know that they can do whatever they want to do. Even if they’re gay, even if they’re from a small town in Washington where there’s not a lot of representation. You can do it…you can kind of be whatever you want to be.” 

And then, after thinking a moment, Rosslyn laughed and added, “You might have to get out of that town, though.”

At long last, Celia Rose Gooding can talk about the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 finale. And it’s a finale that belongs almost exclusively to her.

In the finale episode, now available to stream on Paramount+, communications officer Nyota Uhura (Gooding) comes face-to-face with an older version of herself.

In order to save Scotty (Martin Quinn), Uhura must uncover a mystery and confront the leader she was always destined to be.

It’s one step closer to Strange New Worlds closing the gap between The Original Series, where fans were first introduced to Uhura through Nichelle Nichols’ iconic performance back in 1966.

“We see them confront each other and love each other in a way that can only breed more self-acceptance, self-understanding and self-actualization, which is what fans have been hungry for this whole time,” Gooding says of Uhura’s interaction between past and future self.

Gooding spoke with The Blade to break down the emotional final episode, why she was hesitant to pay homage to Nichelle Nichols’ beehive hairdo, and her hopes for the future of Black and queer representation on Star Trek amid the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. This interview has been edited and condensed.

I know you’ve already finished filming the upcoming fifth and final season, so first of all, congratulations! This finale is such an exciting showcase for you. Can you break down this time travel twist and how you approached playing these two different versions of Uhura?

So much of what this episode meant to me was about honoring everything Uhura means — not just to me, but to Trekkies across the world, to people who’ve seen themselves in Uhura, and most importantly to Nichelle Nichols. I didn’t get the opportunity to meet her, although I’m desperate to have had that. But I think there’s something really special and unique about being able to have a conversation with a version of yourself that you no longer recognize in the past, and also a version of yourself that you do not recognize in the future. So much of the conversation between the two Uhuras in the beginning is filled with tension; they’re not super fond of each other just because they are so different. There’s so much growth and separation between their two mentalities. Given the stakes of the episode, Strange New Worlds is hearing things and is called on in a way that she does not understand. And so much of Uhura’s job, as a communications officer, is to understand — especially the things that she’s hearing, the conversations that are going on. When she is detached from that understanding, she’s left floating in this really uncomfortable space. The first thing that she can reach out and grab onto is something that should not be happening; she should not be able to speak to a version of herself that exists in the future. It breaks so many directives; she is breaking a lot of rules about time travel and temporal anomalies.

And then on the flip side, we have TOS [The Original Series] Uhura, who gets back on this mission, and something has gone terribly wrong. That tenacity, that perseverance, that reminiscent characteristic between both of these Uhuras is that they’re not going to give up. I love that in Uhura’s mind, if something doesn’t make sense to her, it’s because something is wrong. And not because she is incapable of understanding what’s happening; it’s that something has happened and it must be corrected. I love the confidence that we see in TOS Uhura of talking to her friends and crewmates and being like, “You aren’t listening to me. You need to listen to me!”

What was the most challenging part of playing these two parts?

The time jump between the two of them. Originally, it was three years, but now in the edit it’s just one. And playing Strange New Worlds Uhura, who knows all of this time has passed but doesn’t know what’s in it that makes her future self so unrecognizable — at first, I was trying really hard to make sense of that tension, trying to establish something. I kept coming up against the obstacle of, “How can I make this make sense?” Even when we only had 16 hours until shooting, I was down to the wire. I had conversations with director Chris Fisher, and he really implored me to not focus so hard on trying to make it make sense; the moment it makes sense is the moment we don’t have a story anymore. So much of the tension and conflict is that we don’t understand how this has happened; these two characters have to make it make sense together, and they do, because they always do! But it was a real challenge as an actor to live in that liminal, unknown, uncharted space and let that discomfort be the fuel for the engine that is the story. Even as I talk about it now, I fear that I’m not making any sense!

Finally, I think fans of Uhura have been so hungry for her to just inch closer and closer and close that gap, and I think while [the Season 4 finale] doesn’t completely close that gap all the way, we see them confront each other and love each other in a way that can only breed more self-acceptance, self-understanding, and self-actualization, which is what fans have been hungry for this whole time. 

And you get to pay homage to Nichelle Nichols with that iconic beehive hairdo.

Story-wise, it was important for us to give the audience a way to immediately recognize who was talking because they’re both me, with my face. And it wasn’t just my hair that established the timeline change — it was the lighting, color grading, and everyone else’s different looks and costume changes. But the conversation around that iconic beehive- at first, I was a little resistant. I’m not gonna lie to you. I didn’t love the idea of recreating this iconic hairstyle because I have such admiration for Nichelle Nichols. God, I owe her so much for this era of my career. It is all thanks to her and what she has done, and so it felt like blasphemy, sacrilege. I was like, “I don’t know if this is right, guys; I think some things are just meant to be precious.” And then I saw it on camera, and I was like, “You know what? Maybe there’s a reason why they’re the showrunner, and maybe I should just do my part and let everybody else do their part.” It’s so recognizable, iconic, and immediately present.

I’m just filled with pride. I’ve been holding on to this episode for so long. I’ve been dying to talk about this episode because we shot it a year and four months ago, in June 2025. And I’m just really excited for fans to see it. It was a labor of love. It is an ode to Nichelle, but it’s also an ode to the version of Celia that said yes to playing Uhura because she had no idea what she was fucking in for. She had no idea, and just as Uhura held her hands and said, “You’re doing great,” I just want to hug that version of myself who was so hard on themselves, the same way the Strange New Worlds Uhura is, and just tell her to exhale and be like, “Baby, you got it. The hard part is behind you now. You get to just show up, do your job, and learn the lessons day-by-day.

As we’re celebrating Star Trek’s 60th anniversary this year, it’s been a moment to recognize the show’s diversity and inclusion. There are, naturally, some fears about what the future of the show will look like considering where the industry is going amid the Paramount merger. As a queer person, how do you feel about the potential for the show to continue embracing diversity and perspective?

I know my publicist is holding her breath right now! I am really excited to be surprised about the future of Trek because right now, realistically, there is no Trek in production. We have another season of Starfleet Academy to release, and another season of Strange New Worlds to release, and then it gets quiet for live-action Star Trek. I know there’s a Nickelodeon show coming; there’s a lot of animated Trek happening, but when it comes to Gene Roddenberry’s vision, I don’t know what the future holds. The unknown can mean so many different things, and I am really excited about what I’ve been able to donate to this franchise. I’m so excited about what it means as a dark-skinned, Black queer individual to exist in Trek, to have my vessel that Uhura lives on in, and what it means for me and my community.

I can’t imagine that Strange New Worlds is going to be the last of Trek. I hope that is not the case because Trek has done so much for how people think about the future and how people embrace the future. There is so much positivity and diversity embraced in Trek, and the world is only going to get more diverse, despite what the powers that be want you to believe. We’re not going back, and I am excited for Star Trek to continue to be at the forefront of the stories that are told about how we do not go back, about how we move forward and embrace each other and embrace the unknown, embrace the diversity of opinion and experience. I’m just really excited to be surprised. I want to wake up one day and be like, “I could never have imagined this for Trek!”