Searching for special deliveries for that special someone? Consider these elf-approved, consciously curated presents perfect for everyone from roommates to soulmates. 

Star Wars Home Collection

Movie nights in bed get a comfort upgrade from the Force – for those who uphold Jedi code in the streets but embrace the Dark Side in the sheets – with Sobel Westex’s Star Wars Home Collection, five- to seven-piece twin, queen and king sets suitable for either alliance. Cop a bootleg of the infamous “Star Wars Holiday Special” (legal copies don’t exist, nor has it been rebroadcast since its one-and-only airing in 1978) and settle in for a snacky screening with premade Johnson’s Popcorn (a Jersey Shore staple) or Pop ’N Dulge’s DIY gourmet kits. SobelAtHome.com, $350-$390; JohnsonsPopcorn.com, $27+; PopNDulge.com, $23

Bird Buddy Smart Feeder

Avian enthusiasts get up close and semi-personal with feathered friends thanks to the Bird Buddy smart feeder that allows safe viewing via a solar-powered, app-enabled camera, along with adorable add-ons like a suet ball holder and three-in-one nutrition set to keep the neighborhood’s population happy and healthy. MyBirdBuddy.com, $299-$415

Link x Lou Permanent Jewelry Pop-Ups

Jewelry – but make it an experience. That’s the premise behind Link x Lou, a quick-fitting accessory service providing recipients with in-person appointments for custom-linked, clasp-less 14-karat white- and yellow-gold necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and rings that wear until they’re worn out. Money’s on ’em lasting longer than the situationship you’ve got goin’, but may the odds be ever in your favor. LinkxLou.com, $55-$500

Orttu Shelton Puffer

Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s you as an alt-timeline Tom of Finland in Orttu’s fully quilted, oversized Shelton Puffer comprised of double-layered high-sheen fabric and press-stud fastening that results in a slick style statement vers-er than you are. Orttu.com, $203

Winter Discovery Mini Scented Candle Set

Apotheke takes the guesswork out of choosing just the right ambiance-inducing aroma with its Winter Discovery Mini Scented Candle Set, featuring six fragrant two-ounce tins in seasonal smells that include birchwood apple, black cypress, blackberry honey, cardamon chestnut, charred fig, and firewood (with a combined 90-hour burn time), and packaged in a nostalgically illustrated gift box accentuated by festive gold detailing. ApothekeCo.com, $64

Polaris General 1000 Sport

Resort communities across the country have adopted golf carts as a preferred mode of transportation, and you can establish yourself as a local baddie in Polaris’ General 1000 Sport – in ethereal colorways like ghost gray – equipped with a four-stroke DOHC twin-cylinder engine, 100 horsepower, 1,500-pound hitch-towing capacity, and enough street cred for Boomers to shake their fists at. Polaris.com, $17,500+

‘Arquivistas’ Crystal Book

Brazilian crystal devotee Tatiana Dorow has curated an impressive collection of more than 1,000 rare and exquisite minerals – ranging from one ounce to over 5,000 pounds – the comprehensive record of which is now compiled in the sizable coffee-table tome “Arquivistas” (Portuguese for archivist) that’s sure to satisfy, delight, and provide endless holiday-party talking points to the New Agers in your life. (You know they will.) ArtAndAnthropologyPress.com, $350

Bovem Globe Trimmer 2.0

There are plenty of manscaping tools on the market, but perhaps none are designed with your delicate bits in mind like the handsome second-gen Bovem Globe body and groin trimmer with its ergonomic textured grip, powerful 6500 RPM with low vibration, varying guards, and replaceable TrimSafe blades that tidy you up without cutting skin or pulling rough hair. Deck the halls! – no more bloody Christmas balls. Bovem.co, $60-$87

Lexington Glassworks Decanter Set

Pour one out from Lexington Glassworks’ hand-blown whiskey decanter, each one individually crafted in the company’s Asheville, N.C., studio and detailed with an elegant crackle finish that lends an air of sophistication to any home bar cart. Pair with a set of LG’s complementary rocks glasses, in the same distinguished style, for a cherished gift. LexingtonGlassworks.com, $280

Joule Turbo Sous Vide

Your fave chefs’ autopilot cooking technique hits home countertops in Breville’s sleek Joule Turbo Sous Vide stick, which cooks seasoned-and-bagged meats and veggies to a faster-than-ever optimal internal temperature (unattended, no less) before a lickety-split sear and serve results in restaurant-quality dishes deserving of at least a couple Michelin stars for your minimal-mess kitchen. Breville.com, $250

Outlines Shower Liner System

Holiday hosts can practice responsible replenishment amid our planetary plastic-waste crisis when you gift Outlines’ thoughtfully designed Shower Liner System that provides users with a machine-washable cotton top piece and fully recyclable bottom to replace when it’s time to ditch the grime. Set it and forget it with three-, six- or nine-month auto-deliveries. LivingOutlines.com, $50

Barbie Perfume

Fight the patriarchy doused in Barbie’s sweet-and-fresh fragrance that, from top to bottom, features notes of strawberry nectar and red cherry, peony and pink magnolia, and sandalwood and soft musk for an extraordinary scent that’s more than Kenough. DefineMeCreativeStudio.com, $65

AiRROBO Pet Grooming Vacuum

Posh pets enjoy salon-style luxury in the comfort of their homes when treated to a grooming session by the AiRROBO vacuum (think Flowbee for cats and dogs), a five-tool, one-stop solution for keeping furbabies’ hair, dander, allergens and mites to a minimum. The portable pamperer includes an electric clipper, crevice and de-shedding tools, and grooming and cleaning brushes housed in a space-saving, HEPA-filtered capsule. US.Air-Robo.com, $110

Aura Smart Sleep Mask

What does the future of total relaxation and deep sleep look like? Blackout darkness and complete serenity in a dream-state sanctuary when you spend your nights in the Aura Smart Sleep Mask with built-in speakers for guided meditation and snooze-inducing ASMR, zero-pressure eye cushioning, and light and sunrise therapy to help you wake rested and refreshed at home and (especially) away. Indiegogo.com, $190

Mikey Rox is an award-winning journalist and LGBTQ lifestyle expert whose work has been published in more than 100 outlets across the world. Connect with Mikey on Instagram @mikeyroxtravels.

Editor’s note: One in four people in America has a disability, according to the CDC. Queer and Deaf/disabled people have long been a vibrant part of the LGBTQ community. Take two of the many queer history icons who were disabled: Michelangelo is believed to have been autistic. Marsha P. Johnson, a hero of the Stonewall Uprising, had physical and psychiatric disabilities. Today, Deaf-Blind fantasy writer Elsa Sjunneson, actor and bilateral amputee Eric Graise and Obama administration Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy Kathy Martinez are just a few of the people who identify as queer/Deaf/disabled. The stories of this vital segment of this queer community have rarely been told. In its series “Queer, Crip and Here,” the Blade is telling some of these long unheard stories.

“My ‘coming out’ story looks more like me telling someone my favorite cookie flavor is chocolate chip,” Bobbi-Angelica Morris, a Gallaudet University graduate student, activist, poet, photographer, videographer and visual artist, told the Blade, “than an emotional roller coaster.”

“I’ve always embodied this carefree energy pertaining to who I am, what my purpose is, and how I show up for others,” added Morris, who is Deaf/Hard of Hearing and identifies as a Black, nonbinary, queer and abolitionist artist.

Earlier this year, Morris, 23, received the Mary Bowman Arts in Activism Award from the National AIDS Memorial, the San Francisco organization that displays the internationally acclaimed AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Over the phone and in email, Morris spoke with the Blade about a range of topics – from her “Deafhood” to how she felt safe at a queer Halloween party.

Morris, who uses she/they pronouns, grew up in different parts of the East Coast. They spent most of that time in Richmond, Va.  

“Growing up, most of the people around me would ask if I was gay,” Morris said, “because I fit into the stereotypical realms of present day msc [masculine] presenting dykes.”

“No one questioned me when I actually came to terms with my queer identity,” they added.

Before enrolling in Gallaudet, Morris spent most of their time as a student with hearing people in schools, where most teachers and students didn’t communicate in American Sign Language (ASL). Morris was the only Deaf student in their classes until they graduated from the University of Virginia in 2022 in Charlottesville. There, they majored in global development studies and minored in ASL with a concentration in disability studies and community development.

Growing up, Morris didn’t know about ASL or the creativity and history of Deaf culture.

“It wasn’t until I was in elementary school,” Morris said, “that an audiologist said I qualified for hearing aids.”

In their poetry, Morris, who speaks and signs their work, reflects on their family and their experience of being Deaf.

“I reflect on my own Deafhood:/ my playground fights/ with uneducated parents,” Morris writes in a poem, “When little Black Deaf girl doesn’t hear someone speak to her,/that someone thinks little Black Deaf girl is disrespectful.” 

Like many Deaf/Hard of Hearing people, who go to school when they don’t know American Sign Language, and there are no ASL interpreters, Morris felt isolated.

“I had no knowledge of the Deaf community or of Black Deaf history,” they said.

Some in Morris’s family and community couldn’t accept that Morris is Deaf. “Some, not out of maliciousness, prayed for my healing,” they said.

What Morris calls her “Black Deafhood,” has been a long journey at the intersection of sexuality, Deafness, disability, Blackness, gender, activism, and art. 

Deafhood is a “journey that a Deaf person undertakes to discover his, her or their identity and purpose in life,” according to a Deafhood Foundation statement on deafhood.org.

Hearing people often perceive of Deafness as a disease that should be cured, and of Deaf people as incompetent, second-class, less-valued, citizens.

Just as coming out helps queer people to affirm their sexuality and connect with the LGBTQ community and history, Deafhood empowers Deaf people to have pride in themselves – to connect with the Deaf community, history and culture.

As it often goes with finding and loving your queer self, Deafhood is a process. 

In middle school, Morris watched “Switched at Birth,” the popular TV series. The teen and family drama features Deaf and hearing actors and scenes in ASL.

The show jump-started Morris’s interest in Deafness and the Deaf community. “But, I still didn’t understand my connection [with the Deaf community],” Morris said.

Curious to discover something about Deaf culture, Morris started an informal class – a club. There, they and their friends learned signs from YouTube videos.

At the University of Virginia, Morris took a sign language class. They studies abroad for a time in India.

At Gallaudet, Morris began to feel connected to the Deaf community. They are a student in the Master of Social Work program at Gallaudet’s School of Civic Leadership, Business, and Social Change. Morris will graduate with an M.S.W. degree in 2024.

They are equally committed to making art and activism – to working for social justice for Black, Deaf/disabled, queer, and other marginalized groups. A love of art and social change is etched in their bones.

“I am an abolitionist and an artist,” Morris said, “I cannot be one without the other.”

Their abolitionist identity is connected to how they experience intersectionality. Morris sees their life as connected “to the movement for total liberation of all our people, beings, and non-beings in this present day and beyond,” they said.

Because they are an artist, they have a responsibility to use their skills to educate, inspire and protect “everyone and everything that abolitionists fight for daily,” Morris said.

From early on, Morris loved being creative. During an unstable childhood, art helped Morris to express their feelings.

Fortunately, art ran in Morris’s family. “My bio-mom is an amazing artist,” Morris said, “so we would draw things together.”

Later, Morris’s god-mom gave Morris materials that sparked their interest in painting and photography.

In middle school, Morris got into spoken word poetry when one of their Boys and Girls Club mentors showed them a spoken word video. At the University of Virginia, Morris participated in poetry slams. In their Gallaudet social work program, they impressively deploy their artistic and activism chops.

Their advocacy projects are numerous. Morris is developing ASL G, a non-profit organization. The group’s mission “is to develop community garden coalitions and programming for art and health wellness through disability justice,” Morris said.

Morris was the former creative outreach coordinator of VOCA, a non-profit that supports BIPOC, Deaf artists.

“I have family members that have been incarcerated,” Morris said. “Because of that, I want to fight the injustice of the prison industry and mass incarceration.”

Morris is the president of Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI), a student club at Gallaudet.

Ableism, audism (discrimination against Deaf people), homophobia and racism are issues for Morris. “The white presence is prominent in many institutions,” they said, “often they’re predominantly white.”

Morris likes being a Gallaudet student. But, “there’s a lack of racial competency at Gallaudet as there is in the whole of America,” they said.

The queer community has provided safe spaces for Morris. 

Once, Morris and their partner attended a queer Halloween party in Charlottesville. “Half the people in attendance knew or were learning sign language,” Morris said. “I think it was then that I realized how connected the queer community was in ensuring no one was left out.”

Morris went to the party as Beast Boy, and their partner went as Raven from Teen Titans.

Follow Morris on Instagram @Blckrainbow5

“Charles, I’m telling you, I go to plays in rat-infested basements where I’m the only one who shows up,” the late queer icon Joan Rivers once told the queer, legendary playwright, actor, director, novelist, cabaret performer and drag icon, Charles Busch. “I can see the actors peeking through the curtain and groaning, ‘Oh God, that old bitch in the fur coat is here. Does that mean we’ve gotta go on?’”

Busch reminded Rivers that she’d seen him perform in a rat-infested basement.

This is just one of the many stories that Busch, born in 1954, tells in his riveting memoir, “Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy,” which comes out on Sept. 12.

“Leading Lady” is a page-turner. Some of its tales of Busch’s life and career, such as his account of a Christmas party with Rivers as a guest, are dishy. Others, like his memories of trying to care for his beloved Aunt Lil, when he knew she was dying, would make even the Wicked Witch in Oz tear up.

The memoir, is, as Busch says on his website (charlesbusch.com), the story of “a talented artist’s Oz-like journey.” 

“Leading Lady” isn’t linear. This isn’t a detriment. Busch deftly intertwines memories of his life and career from his mom dying when he was seven to being raised by his loving Aunt Lil to being the author and star of the cult classic “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” to watching Kim Novak handle fans to being the Tony-nominated writer of “Tales of the Allergist’s Wife” to being creative during the pandemic.

“Storytelling is a huge part of my life,” Busch told the Blade in a lengthy phone interview, “I get into various adventures and, I think, this could be a good story to tell.”

Interviewing Busch is like chatting with a fab storyteller over coffee or a glass of wine. Except that you’re talking to a legend who’s entertained and inspired queers (and discerning hetero audiences) for decades. (I’m wearing my “Vampire” T-shirt as I write this.)  

As a playwright, Busch writes “linear” plays, with a beginning, middle and an end, he said. As a cabaret singer, “the way I sing songs is telling a story,” Busch said.

Since childhood, he’s been creating vivid scenes in his imagination. From early on, Busch has felt as if he’s both a spectator and star in the movie of his life.

It seemed inevitable that he’d write a memoir. It’s the ultimate form of storytelling. “You reach a certain point in your life,” Busch said, “where you’re more reflective and see your life as a whole.”

“You reflect on the paths you didn’t take,” he added.

Busch spent his childhood in Hartsdale, N.Y. He had two older sisters, Betsy and Margaret. His mother’s death was devastating for Busch. His Aunt Lil and Joan Rivers have been among the women who have been “mothers” to Busch since his mom died.

Once, Busch said he and Rivers dined with friends. “Joan Rivers said ‘I wish I had a gay son I could phone at midnight and discuss whatever movie was on TCM,’” he recalled.

Busch would have loved to have been Rivers’s “gay son.”

Life in Hartsdale was hard for Busch after his mother passed away. His father was often absent and showed little interest in his children.

Things were miserable for Busch when his grandmother, for a time, cared for the family. He knew, as a boy, that he was gay and hated going to school where a movie-and-theater-loving kid who liked to draw wasn’t one of the cool kids.

Yet Busch forgave his “father’s failings,” he writes in “Leading Lady, “because he gave me the theater.”

Busch became entranced with the theater when his father, an aspiring opera singer who performed in summer stock, took him to the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City to hear Joan Sutherland sing the role of Amina in Bellini’s “La Sonnambula.”

Busch was saved from a life of boredom and bullying when Aunt Lil, his mother’s sister, took him to live with her in Manhattan. There, like Auntie Mame, she raised him. She prodded him into applying to the High School of Music and Art in New York City. He was accepted there.

After high school, Busch graduated with a bachelor’s degree in drama from Northwestern University in 1976.

“My Aunt Lil is the leading lady [of the title of his memoir],” Busch said, “she was the most influential person in my life.”

One of the reasons why Busch wrote “Leading Lady” was to paint a full portrait of her. “It was important that it not be this kind of gauzy, sentimental memory piece,” he said, “making her out to be a saint.”

Aunt Lil adopted Bush when he was 14. Her goal was that he would go to college, become independent, be a survivor – make a place for himself in the world.

“I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t stepped in,” Busch said.

“She was very intellectual,” he added, “I’ve never met anyone [else] with such a pure devotion to thinking. It was a little intimidating.”

Aunt Lil’s standards for caring – for giving of oneself – were so high that it was almost impossible to meet them. “She believed that you should anticipate what people would need,” Busch said, “before they told you.”

Looking back, Busch is most proud of himself when, “I’ve gone past my natural self-absorption,” he said, “when I’ve thought of someone else.”

Busch is being too hard on himself. In “Leading Lady,” and when interviewed, he’s caring and curious as well as witty, savvy, and as you’d expect, a bit campy.

His sister Margaret died recently. “She declined gradually over nine months,” Busch, said, choking up, “I gave her my bedroom and I slept on my sofa.”

Like many of her generation, Aunt Lil didn’t understand queerness or drag. But she loved Busch. She didn’t go to see his productions, he said. “She could have gone like other parents,” he said, “and been tight-lipped. And said something nice that she didn’t believe.”

But “she didn’t want to lie or be hurtful,” Busch added, “so, for her, it was: can’t I just love and support you, and not go?”

Aunt Lil didn’t get Busch’s sexuality. But she knew about secrecy. Busch learned of a terrifying secret that his aunt had long kept hidden. In the 1930s, during the Depression, Aunt Lil worked as a nurse. One day, when she worked overtime, one of the patients suffered a burn. She had to leave nursing. “Her sister in a nasty mood revealed this,” Busch said, “Aunt Lil never discussed it.”

In the 1970s, Busch had trouble getting into theater because there were only roles for actors playing straight male characters. “The only way I could get on stage was to write my own roles,” he said, “I have a rather androgynous nature.”

Busch found that the feminine within him was a place of authority and strength. “I’m fine when I play male characters,” he said, “but I’m better when I play female characters.”

Why this is so liberating for him is a bit of a mystery to Busch. “But I accept and love it,” he said.

Times have changed since Busch made his first big splash with “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom.” “In 1985, being a drag queen was considered a negative,” Busch said, “my generation of drag performers bristled at being referred to as drag queens.”

Busch no longer bristles. “I feel like the characters,” he said, “I enjoy costumes and getting the right wig.”

“But, I go from male to female not through trickery or anything visual, I transfer through my soul.”

In “Leading Lady,” Busch recalls AIDS and other dark moments from the past. Many of his friends and colleagues died from AIDS. “AIDS was the World War II of our generation,” he said.

But Busch, in his memoir and in his life, isn’t only looking back. He’s very much in the present. Busch is embarrassed to say he was lucky. During the pandemic, devastating to many, he made art. He did play readings on Zoom and finished writing “Leading Lady” which he’d worked on for 14 years.

During the pandemic, Busch with Carl Andress co-wrote and co-directed the movie “The Sixth Reel.” The film’s cast includes Busch, Julie Halston (Busch’s longtime muse), Margaret Cho and Tim Daly.

Busch describes the film, an homage to the Hollywood madcap movies of the 1930s, as “a comic, caper movie.” 

“I play a disreputable dealer in movie memorabilia,” Busch said, “a legendary lost film is found, and I see it as my ticket out of debt.”

The “Sixth Reel” is playing from Sept. 21 to Sept. 27 at the LOOK Dine-In Cinema West 57th Street in New York City.

“I hope the run in New York will encourage people to distribute this little movie,” Busch said.

(Editor’s Note: One in four people in America has a disability, according to CDC. Queer and disabled people have long been a vital part of the LGBTQ community. Take two of the many queer history icons who were disabled: Michelangelo is believed to have been autistic. Marsha P. Johnson had physical and psychiatric disabilities. Today, Deaf-Blind fantasy writer Elsa Sjunneson, actor and bilateral amputee Eric Graise and Kathy Martinez, a blind, Latinx lesbian, who was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy for the Obama administration are just a few of the people who identify as queer and disabled. Yet, the stories of this vital segment of the queer community have rarely been told. It its series “Queer, Crip and Here,” the Blade is telling some of these long un-heard stories.)

Everything comes full circle: back to Britney Spears for Eddie Ndopu, 32, a queer, Black, disabled man who is a wizard with advocacy and glam.

“I knew I was queer early on,” Ndopu whose memoir “Sipping Dom Perignon Through a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever” (Legacy Lit) is just out, told the Blade recently in an extended interview, “though I didn’t have the language for it.”

Ndopu, whose mother fled from South Africa because of apartheid, was born in Namibia. At age nine, he and his family moved to Cape Town, South Africa. He was raised by his mother, a single mom.

When he was two, he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy. He was expected to die from this degenerative disability by the time he turned five.

Decades later, Ndopu knows what it means to live with declining strength, and the knowledge, that while we’ll all die, he’ll likely die sooner than most of us.

At the same time,through his queerness, disability, and imagination, Ndopu said, he embodies what it’s like to live a fabulous life.

It began when he was a child watching and listening to Spears. “Britney was the first pop star I encountered as a young boy,” Ndopu said. “She was iconic in so many ways. I adored her! I watched her dance.”

His mother gave him an album by Spears. “It was my thing,” Ndopu said, “The first thing I owned.”

Spears seemed unstoppable to Ndopu. It triggered something in him. “It made me want to be on the global stage,” he said.

Years later, Ndopu empathized with Spears when she fought to be released from the conservatorship she was under from 2008 to 2021. 

“Disabled fans, especially, were with Britney in her battle to be free,” Ndopu said, “because often, disabled people, particularly intellectually disabled people, have been denied agency. Have been denied their autonomy.”

We owe Spears an apology, Ndopu said. “It’s analogous to what disabled people go through,” he added, “we’re owed an apology for all the ways in which we’ve been made to endure so much [through ableism].” (This reporter is queer and disabled.)

Since childhood, Ndopu has loved beauty, fashion and glam. “My first dream was to be a designer,” he said, “I sketched in art classes in school.”

Ndopu daydreamed about living in the United States – about being based in New York City. He watched the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful.” “I didn’t watch for the stories about the characters,” Ndopu said, “I watched for the fashion! It gave me glimpses into a world where I wanted to be.”

But as his disability progressed, Ndopu lost strength in his hands. He could no longer draw. “I had to dream a new dream,” he said, “I knew I wanted to do something extraordinary. I imagined an escape.”

One day, he looked through a magazine and saw a story about a school, the African Leadership Academy, that was going to train young people in Africa to be future leaders. He applied to the school.

“They rejected me. Because they didn’t know what to do with me,” Ndopu said, “I wrote to them and got in.”

“I don’t know if I’d do that today,” but I did then,” he added, “that was my saving grace.”

Going there was Ndopu’s first big break. When he was only in his teens, Ndopu was speaking about disability justice.

After graduating from the Leadership Academy, Ndopu graduated with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from Carleton University in Canada in 2014. In 2017, Ndopu was the first African student with a degenerative disability to graduate with a master’s in public policy from the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. Based at Somerville College, Ndopu received a full scholarship from Oxford.

Today, Ndopu, known for his fab oversized, bejeweled sunglasses, is an award-winning global humanitarian and social justice advocate. Time magazine has called him “one of the most powerful disabled people on the planet.”

Ndopu, fulfilling his childhood daydream, now, lives in New York City.

He is on the board of the United Nations Foundation, a group founded by Ted Turner to support the work of the UN. He works for the UN as a global advocate for sustainable development on issues from climate change to hunger.

Ndopu likes to identify as queer because, he believes, the word “queer” embodies all of his identities – from race to disability to sexuality to being fabulous. “I love to identify as queer,” he said.

In college, Ndopu was infatuated with a guy on the basketball team. He was heartbroken when his affections were unrequited. “That was the moment when I fully embraced my queerness,” Ndopu said, “I came out with my first heartbreak. There was no sitting with it. I went from zero to 100!”

Ndopu became one of the directors at Carleton’s gender and sexuality resource center. He studied queer theory.

There’s a critical contradiction for queer, disabled people, Ndopu believes. At its best, queerness (and the queer community) celebrates the full spectrum of bodies, sexuality and gender from nonbinary to pansexual to two-spirit. “The body is at the center for queer folks,” he said, “that’s something to celebrate.”

On the other side of the coin, though, the queer community doesn’t want to accept, “doesn’t want to have a conversation about bodies that aren’t the socialized idea of the body,” Ndopu said.

That often boils down to ableism toward queer, disabled bodies, Ndopu said. If you’re queer and disabled, you go through “the tension between acceptance and desire,” Ndopu said.

There are many “inspirational” memoirs by disabled people – tales of “overcoming” disability – of overpowering insurmountable odds. 

Thankfully, Ndopu’s memoir doesn’t fit this bill at all. “Sipping Dom Perignon Through a Straw” is searing and intimate. Ndopu describes his family: what it was like to grow up with an absent father, how oppressed his mother was by apartheid and how loving and caring she was of him. But much of the memoir is focused on his year at Oxford. 

For most people, queer, non-queer, disabled or nondisabled, being at Oxford would have been like being in a fairy tale. Like living the fantasy of your life.

For Ndopu, it was a crowning achievement. He had friends, studied what he wanted to study at a renowned university, and, even became student body president of his program.

Yet, from the get-go, his time at Oxford was riddled with ableism. The physical inaccessibility of the buildings was bad enough. But, Ndopu needs help 24/7 with activities of daily life from getting dressed to going to the bathroom. Finding and paying for caregivers at Oxford was a nightmare for him.

“A sharp, illuminating debut memoir,” Publishers Weekly, said of Ndopu’s book, “…Ndopu shines a light on ableism both conscious and unconscious.”

His experience at Oxford made Ndopu realize that being successful wouldn’t protect him from disability-based prejudice and discrimination. Being brilliant wouldn’t guarantee that you’d have a caregiver to help you pee. He came to believe exceptionalism is used against disabled people (and other marginalized groups).

 “The idea that we have to be resilient – that if we have enough grit we’ll overcome all obstacles is used to oppress disabled people,” he said.

You might think that, given his shortened life expectancy and experience of ableism, homophobia, and racism, Ndopu would give up hope. But you’d be wrong.

“I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!” queer and disabled icon Audre Lorde says in the epigraph to Ndopu’s memoir. 

“I deliberately chose this quote from Lorde’s Cancer Journals,” Ndopu said, “I hope I’ll die in as close to a transcendent experience as possible.”

No matter what, Ndopu will be fabulous. “It’s not a frivolous thing,” Ndopu said, “being fabulous makes me, visible.”

For too long, queer and disabled people have been invisible, he added.

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

These days, it seems that gay rom coms are as prevalent as right-wing religious fanatics protesting said movies. There is even a preponderance of gay Christmas movies. On the Hallmark channel, no less. So, does “Red, White & Royal Blue” have what it takes to stand apart from the pack? Based on the popular novel by queer writer Casey McQuiston, “Red, White & Royal Blue” isn’t just notable for its storyline involving the budding romance between Alex, the bisexual First Son of the first female POTUS, and gay British Prince Henry. “Red, White & Royal Blue” marks the directorial debut by Tony and GLAAD Media Award-winning gay playwright Matthew López (“The Inheritance” and “Some Like It Hot”). Matthew generously made time in his busy schedule for an interview in advance of the movie’s release, which premiered last week on Prime Video.

BLADE: Matthew, considering your long and lauded history in the theater, was the prospect of directing your first feature film daunting, thrilling, or both?

MATTHEW LOPEZ: Generally thrilling, occasionally daunting. But it was only daunting in that there was just a steep learning curve. I was acutely aware of the things I didn’t know, and on occasion, there were things I didn’t know I didn’t know until I had to know it [laughs], at the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld. But it was mostly thrilling, and it was great fun, really. I’d do it again if they let me.

BLADE: With actors such as Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine in the lead roles of First Son Alex and Prince Henry, “Red, White & Royal Blue” will have no trouble drawing gay men. Do you think the actors could have the same draw on straight audiences?

LOPEZ: I hope so. I’ve spent a lifetime as an avid consumer of straight love stories, and not just because I had no other options, but because I genuinely wanted to see any of those particular films. I don’t see any reason why the stream doesn’t flow in both directions. This is as unapologetically a queer rom com as “Moonstruck” was as unapologetically an Italian rom com. It is part of what makes this movie unique. It is inescapable, but it also is, we hope, if we’re successful and if we’re lucky, it becomes part of the larger canon of rom coms, rather than simply kept in a corner. We want as many people to see this movie as possible, but we also knew that we wanted to make a movie that was as specific as possible. We never tried to hide who we were in order to find an audience. I think that kind of specificity is what people are really desiring these days.

BLADE: There are some powerful and emotional scenes in “Red, White & Royal Blue,” but the one that hit me the hardest is when Alex, son of the first female POTUS, came out to his mother Ellen, played by Uma Thurman. What was it like to work with Uma?

LOPEZ: I adore her. She was so very happy to be in this movie, which was so wonderful. She really understood Ellen. She and I had so many wonderful conversations about her before production. I involved her in a lot of costume design decisions. She was really wanting to understand this woman holistically. That scene was just so beautiful. By the time we shot it, she and Taylor had really bonded, and they had shot a lot of scenes together at that point. It was the loveliest, warmest environment on set. I mean, it was a very lovely, warm environment on set every day, but that day you can just see in that scene the genuine affection that these two actors have for one another. It was real.

BLADE: Ellen is a staunch Democrat. As a Florida native, and considering what has occurred here during the reign of the current governor, was that in any way what appealed to you about directing and co-adapting the screenplay for “Red, White & Royal Blue”?

LOPEZ: No, I loved the story, and I didn’t give a shit what the governor of Florida thinks about it. I couldn’t care less what that man thinks, only as it relates to the health of the union. I didn’t have this story growing up. I didn’t have access to characters such as these when I was younger. It took until I was in my 40s to read it, to get a novel that had a character like Alex. That I knew implicitly was really special. To me, it was really powerful to read a novel that had a queer, Latino, young man at the center who was a very positive characterization of a queer Latino man. Someone who was filled with hope and possibility. I wanted to bring that into the world. The politics in the novel and in the movie are a hopeful one. It’s not something that is, I hope, too much of a fairy tale.

BLADE: I loved seeing out actor and writer Stephen Fry’s name in the credits at the beginning, and without giving anything away, was surprised to see him, very close to the end, in the role he plays. What did it mean to you to work with Stephen?

LOPEZ: I’ve always been such a fan of his and really admired him greatly. We had had some sort of communication through other people over the years because he had seen “The Inheritance” in London. He got word to me, through our producers, how much he loved it. I had been working at one point on another film that I thought I was going to make, and when he found out that I was working on it, he was like. “I’d really love to be a small part in it if you have anything.” But I never talked to him and never met him. When this role came around [laughs], we thought, “Let’s see if he really means what he says!” He jumped at it! It didn’t take long at all for him to say, “Yes.” That was fun. Just to watch him and work with him is just a great thrill and a pleasure. It was for everybody. Everybody was really excited the day that he came on set.

BLADE: “Red, White & Royal Blue” is being released at a time when, following the passing of Queen Elizabeth and the situation surrounding Harry and Meghan, questions about the necessity of a monarchy have gotten more attention. Do you think “Red, White & Royal Blue” is a help or a hindrance in that regard?

LOPEZ: I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other about that because I think that the movie isn’t actually about the royal family. It uses the royal family as a vehicle to tell the story of a person trapped in a circumstance. I think the thing that is so amazing about Casey McQuiston’s novel is that Casey actually gives us a character that, historically, we haven’t had too much sympathy for. And yet, because Casey draws this character in a way that a lot of us can relate to, which is a person trapped against their own will and circumstances that they are powerless over, you really care for Henry and you really feel deeply for Henry. I also knew that, as we were making this film, I didn’t want the audience to think about the actual royal family when they were watching the film. Because I think if they did, they would be taken out of the story. I think we use the trappings of royalty as a way to tell our story, but it doesn’t take an opinion one way or another, because that’s not what the movie is about.

BLADE: The movie begins with a storybook royal wedding, but the real love story is the one between Alex and Henry. In recent years, the UK has begun taking actions such as the posthumous pardoning of thousands of gay men for gross indecency, and such, as well as Prime Minister Sunak’s recent apology to LGBT members of the military. With that in mind, do you think that the characters of Alex and Henry could also have a storybook wedding?

LOPEZ: Absolutely! I think the British people would support it. The British people are no different than the American people in many ways. There are, of course, great pockets of resistance to change. There is an adherence to traditionalism. I live in London, I’m a resident of the UK. The people that I know there are good and accepting people by and large. I think that Alex and Henry absolutely could have the wedding that they wanted if they wanted it.

BLADE: Have you started thinking about your next film, theater, or writing project?

LOPEZ: I’ll honestly tell you that the thing I’ve been thinking about lately is getting a fair deal from the studios for writers and for actors. As a striking writer who also happens to be a non-striking director, beyond releasing this film, my primary concern is making sure that we can go back to work with a fair contract.

LOS ANGELES – Like many people born with an inclination toward creative expression, Carl Hopgood has known from a very young age that he wanted to be an artist.

Growing up on a small farm in rural Wales, the Cardiff-born Hopgood spent his childhood surrounded by animals and nature, letting his imagination run wild and creating worlds he envisioned with baskets, fruit boxes, flowers, stones, tabloid clippings, and other items that struck his fancy. Then, at 7, he was invited to spend an afternoon with his best friend, whose cousin was visiting; that cousin happened to be Richard Burton, and he happened to be accompanied by his even more famous wife, Elizabeth Taylor.

Hopgood was not just star-struck, he was inspired.

“My world was never the same after that day,” he tells the Blade. “They told stories about Hollywood, London, glamorous parties, movies, photography… and Andy Warhol! Andy Warhol was my first artist crush. He was also born on a farm, so I felt an immediate connection.”

After that experience, he knew he wanted to embark on a path toward a “bold, exciting life” among other “creative people” while “doing amazing things and living.”

Four decades and one continental transplant later, it can safely be said that Hopgood has accomplished his goal.

A successfully established LA-based artist, he’s created a unique body of work that includes pieces in Neon, Sculpture, Film / Video Installation, and canvas painting; his collectors include Morgan Freeman, Eugiono Lopez, The Vinik Family Foundation, The Groucho Club and Rupert Everett; and recent exhibitions of his work – like his neon art installations ‘Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places’, ‘My Heart Is Open’,  and ‘You Changed My Life’ at the Maddox Gallery in West Hollywood, and ‘Chair Therapy’ at United Talent Agency’s UTA Artspace LA – have garnered a flurry of enthusiasm and increasing national attention.

The latter installation created a particular stir with its inclusion of a controversial neon sculpture called “Just Say Gay”, Hopgood’s response to the draconian anti-LGBTQ legislation championed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; that work was acquired by prominent collector Beth Rudin DeWoody and will be on display from December 2023 at her Bunker Art Space in West Palm Beach, Florida.

When talking with the Blade, Hopgood is keen to focus the discussion on a new goal – the completion of a documentary about the creation of “Chair Therapy” – but he’s certainly willing to start the conversation by talking about the sense of queer defiance behind “Just Say Gay” and many of his other works, because the two subjects go hand in hand.

“Being a gay man of Welsh and Greek heritage,” he proudly proclaims, “the fight against bullying, repression, injustice and discrimination became central themes of my artistic expression.” 

As he explains, that fight is rooted in a traumatic childhood experience. “I was bullied by classmates,” he remembers. “They would chase after me, push me to the ground and kick me in the groin. I managed to escape and found sanctuary under a stack of chairs in the school assembly hall. The school therapist helped me cope by using a technique called Empty Chair Therapy, where you would talk to an empty chair about your feelings.

“I decided turn this pain into something positive and use art as my therapy.”

Much later, the young Hopgood would be inspired by the confrontational aesthetic of Damien Hirst – after reading a scathing criticism of one of his works in the paper – and follow in the controversial artist’s footsteps to Goldsmiths College in London, eventually becoming part of a movement with fellow graduates like Steve McQueen, Jason Martin, Ceal Floyer, Angela De La Cruz and Alessandro Raho. 

“It was an incredible moment to be a young artist in 1990s London.”

Nevertheless, after 20 years in the London art scene, he decided it was time for a change.

“I had just watched a documentary featuring David Hockney,” he explains. “The freedom and possibility of David’s work was clearly inspired by Southern California with its beautiful palette and open, sunny skies. It was a stark contrast to the gloomy weather of the UK, and the anxiety and depression that accumulated over the years. I had heard about the growing LA art scene –LACMA, MOCA and The Broad were beginning to attract an international audience – and I decided that moving to Los Angeles would be good for both my mental health and creativity.”

The choice was a fortuitous one for him – “It was the perfect time to go,” he says, “and I was ready to work in new mediums and expand my repertoire.” Then, like the rest of us, he had to put all his plans indefinitely up in the air.

“In early 2020, when the pandemic hit,” he tells us, “I would see all the bars and restaurants shuttered in West Hollywood. It was like a ghost town. Looking through the store front windows, all I could see were chairs stacked on top of each other – and that image took me straight back to my unhappy childhood.”

He decided to use it for inspiration and began work on the first sculpture in the “Chair Therapy” series (“My Heart is Open”) – which as he describes, addresses “toxic masculinity, oppression and queer identity, themes I’ve always championed.” 

Those themes are doubtless also at least partly behind his desire to see the planned documentary – titled “Fragile World” – reach fruition. Filmed during the pandemic, it profiles Hopgood by charting his personal artistic journey, but centers on the development of “Chair Therapy”, in which he combined found and vintage wooden chairs with neon lights shaped into positive words to provide hope, love and support for a community who were hardest hit by Covid and the shutdowns it necessitated.

“Seeing those stacked chairs and tables, in those empty establishments, I knew some would be forced to close for good. I felt so helpless, but I knew there was something I could do.”

Now, with his own hard-hit community – alongside many others – facing aggressive legislative oppression from the extremist right, he’s determined to see the film finished, so that the same empowering message of optimism embodied in his work can be spread to a larger audience as a reminder not to let the bullies break their spirit. To that end, the documentary’s director and producer, LA-based British filmmaker Kate Rees Davies, has set up an Indiegogo campaign to raise the funding necessary to finish the project.

Another motivation, perhaps even more personal, might be found in Hopgood’s revelation of a hidden influence in another work from the “Empty Chairs” series: “Twelve Steps”, which explores the massive financial success of a California citrus industry made possible by the hard work of a segregated Mexican immigrant labor force. “I was also inspired in that piece by a line from Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos,” he says, “who was sidelined by the Greek literary community in the 1970s because he was gay. It’s a small but powerful couplet which was included in the collection ‘The Body and the Wormwood’ that reads, ‘What didn’t you do to bury me, but you forgot that I was a seed.’”

For Hopgood, perhaps, the documentary also represents a seed, one that he himself has planted in hope of spreading its positive power into the world – and he’s counting on the support of his patrons through Indiegogo for the water, light and nourishment it requires to grow.

Renowned queer historian, playwright, author and LGBTQ activist Martin Duberman, 93, began writing stories when he was four. “They still exist,” Duberman, Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at City University of New York (CUNY), told the Blade in a telephone interview. “They’re with my papers at the New York Public Library.”

Duberman doesn’t understand what drove him to create. “I’d write these moralistic tales,” he said, “hand-sewn inside covers. About how Alice learned to do what her mother told her to do.”

Duberman who has written some two dozen books as well as plays, hasn’t stopped writing. 

Name most anything or anyone and he’s written about it: from the Stonewall Uprising to actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. His memoir “Cures” recounts how mental health professionals tried to “cure” him of his “homosexuality.”

When he was 70, he wrote “Haymarket,” a novel set in 1886 in Chicago during protests by labor activists.

His newest book “Reaching Ninety,” is a memoir. In it, Duberman recalls the people, events and work of his life – from coming out to his student years – to his relationships to his beloved puppy Emma (named after iconic feminist and anarchist icon Emma Goldman) to aging.

In “Reaching Ninety,” Duberman quotes the dictum “aging is not for sissies.” But, “The trouble is that I am one,” he adds, “It’s part of my cultural heritage.” There’s a thread running through his work, Duberman, who founded CLAGS: CUNY’s Center for LGBTQ Studies, the first university-based LGBTQ research center in the United States, said. “I’ve been trying to reinvent historical writing.” 

It’s essential if you’re an historian and you’re presenting an account of past events, to remain true to the known evidence, Duberman said. “But you have to be clear,” he added, “the evidence that has come down to us is  partial and skewed.”

At the beginning of his career as an historian, Duberman wrote with a more traditional view of history: that history could be known and chronicled objectively. As if the historian’s background had no impact on how they wrote history.

Duberman’s early work was well-received. His 1961 biography “Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886″ won the prestigious Bancroft Prize.

But, as he matured personally and professionally, Duberman began to question the pretense of objectivity. He came to see that subjectivity is an essential part of writing history.

“The historian – with their own background  – in their own time – is always present in the history they write,” said Duberman, who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1957.

Historians must adhere to the evidence, Duberman emphasized. “But, they need to decide to come clean about who they are even, in part, to write in the first person. To explain their reaction to evidence.”Historians’ reactions to the evidence they uncover about the past could impact how they write history, he noted.

Historians don’t always know the full extent of how their backgrounds contribute to their interpretations of history. But they should take it for granted that at least some of their eras and views are present, Duberman said.

“To me, the choice comes down to how explicit I should be,” he said, “and how am I going to make it known.”

This was a new way of thinking and writing about history. Take Duberman’s 1972 book “Black Mountain: an Exploration in Community.” In the 20^th century, Black Mountain College was a community for artists. But it was, as per the times, homophobic. A faculty member of Black Mountain was arrested for having sex in a car with a minor, Duberman writes in “Reaching Ninety.” He was let off with a suspended sentence. He became an “instant pariah,” resigned immediately and no one from the community at the college offered any help, Duberman writes.

When writing his Black Mountain book, Duberman felt compelled to come out as gay. To be, as an historian, transparent about how his biography impacted his view of history.

“It’s hard to think well of a place that could cooperate as fully as Black Mountain did in an individual’s self-destruction,” Duberman wrote in his Black Mountain book about how the college treated the gay teacher, “indeed to have assumed it as foreclosed.”

“But perhaps I exaggerate, a function of my own indignation as a homosexual, a potential victim,” he added.

In 1972, when the book was published, Duberman’s coming out in his reaction to an incident in the history of Black Mountain College received mixed reviews.

He was denounced in historical journals. “The New York Times reviewer dismissed my coming out as a vaguely unclean bit of business,” Duberman writes in “Reaching Ninety.”

“Other people were well-disposed toward the book,” Duberman said, “they were academics, not historians.”

Historians are a conservative group of people, Duberman said. “They devote their lives to preserving — underline it — the past,” he said, “They’re not likely to be interested in any combined format that merges the past with the present.”

Duberman doesn’t have a clue as to what got him hooked on history. “It was inescapably an unconscious decision,” he said. “I was torn between literature and wanting to be a writer. To find out more about the past and how come we’re at the point of time that we are.”

When Duberman was a freshman at Yale University, the man who taught his history class was only five years older than he. “At his very first class we took to each other,” Duberman said, “and became friendly. He became a role model for me.”

“He just died at 99,” Duberman added, “we never talked openly about homosexuality. But I got the strong impression that he, too, was gay.”

Duberman, who was born in New York, wasn’t out in college or graduate school. Though, he checked out the two gay bars in Boston when he was at Harvard.

Coming out wasn’t an option for people in Duberman’s generation who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s. You could be arrested, expelled from school, kicked out of your apartment or fired from your job if you were open about who you were. People warned him “against coming out to any degree,” Duberman said.

Duberman and his older sister were raised in a secular Jewish household. His father, as a young man, escaped from working in a beet plantation in Russia to Germany and then to New York. His mother went to high school at night while working as a secretary. 

From childhood on, Duberman was bitten by a love of theater. He went to theater camp and performed in high school plays.

As a student at the (then) boys prep school Horace Mann, he played female as well as male roles. One night, his friend Bob’s girlfriend noticed that Duberman was the “actress” who portrayed a “stewardess” in a play that evening, Duberman recalls in “Reaching Ninety.”  “‘But you can’t be,’ she gasped, ‘you have such beautiful legs!’” Duberman remembers her telling him.

Duberman, a polymath, would grow up to become a privileged insider while remaining an observant, critical outsider.

His many honors include: the Vernon Rice/Drama Desk Award, three Lambda Literary Awards, a special award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters for his contributions to literature and the 2007 lifetime achievement award from the American Historical Association. He’s been a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist.

He and his life-partner, Eli, a psychoanalyst, have just celebrated their 35^th anniversary. He’s revered for his pioneering work in queer history.

Yet, even though he’s white, cisgender, and privileged, Duberman hasn’t ever been complacent or content. He still remembers how horrified he was back in the 1960s when he taught at Princeton. “I taught about slavery,” Duberman said, “I was thunderstruck! The white, privileged undergrads were on the verge of defending slavery.”

“It shocked me,” he said, “I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was.”

The more he taught, the more discontented Duberman got with, what he saw, as the authoritarian system of education at universities. “I didn’t see the teacher as an authority figure,” he said, “but as a fellow learner.”

Though he had tenure, Duberman resigned from Princeton because of this. Also, he dared to move from Princeton to New York. “Then, people at Princeton thought: How could you leave the loveliest town in the world,” Duberman said.

Duberman deplores Trump and anti-queer right-wingers. But he also has been a long-term critic of the LGBTQ rights movement. Queers should be less concerned about marriage equality and more concerned about issues of race, class, and economic justice, he believes.

“There’s resistance to Trump’s lies,” Duberman said, “and it’s appearing in the mainstream – in The New Yorker – even The New York Times.”

The electorate is the greatest roadblock to social change, Duberman said. “The LGBTQ community, like a lot of the country, is conservative,” he added.  

Duberman isn’t feeling terribly optimistic at this moment. But, “I keep hoping that one of the upcoming generations will turn out to be different,” he said.

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(Editor’s Note: One in four people in America has a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Queer and disabled people have long been a vital part of the LGBTQ community. Take two of the many queer history icons who were disabled: Michelangelo is believed to have been autistic. Marsha P. Johnson, who played a heroic role in the Stonewall Uprising, had physical and psychiatric disabilities. Today, Deaf-Blind fantasy writer Elsa Sjunneson, actor and bilateral amputee Eric Graise and Kathy Martinez, a blind, Latinx lesbian who was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy for the Obama administration, are only a few of the numerous queer and disabled people in the LGBTQ community. Yet, the stories of this vital segment of the queer community have rarely been told. In its series “Queer, Crip and Here,” the Blade will tell some of these long unheard stories.)

Corbett Joan O’Toole, 71, a queer, disabled elder and a Ford Foundation 2022 Disability Futures Fellow, knew one thing for sure growing up in Boston: She didn’t want to be a nurse. 

O’Toole has had a physical disability since she was 12 months old. “I sometimes joke that my becoming disabled was my birthday present when I turned one year old,” she said in a phone interview with the Blade.

O’Toole has used a wheelchair since she was 30. Before that, she walked with crutches and leg braces.

As a child, she’d had surgery, O’Toole said. “I saw what nurses did,” she added. “Men told them what to do. I knew nursing wasn’t for me.”

Even as a child, O’Toole could tell that male employers had the same attitude toward secretaries. “Sitting in an office all day didn’t seem like fun,” she said, “The only other thing a white woman in my generation could be when they grew up was to be a teacher.”

“I decided to be a teacher,” O’Toole added, “where I’d have my own classroom and no man would be telling me what to do.”

When she was young, O’Toole led, by her account, a sheltered life. She didn’t know then that she was queer. “I didn’t know if I met any queer people,” O’Toole said, “but I always knew that I liked strong women. I thought they were interesting.”

And, O’Toole, like many kids and teens with disabilities then (and, even often, now) knew that little was expected of disabled people. That disabled lives weren’t highly valued. “I was in school all the time with nondisabled kids,” O’Toole said.

Nearly everything was inaccessible then from libraries to courthouses to movie theaters. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) wouldn’t be passed until decades later. “You were expected to adapt even if things were inaccessible,” O’Toole said.

If you couldn’t make it in an inaccessible world, the attitude was “you don’t have to be here,” O’Toole said.

O’Toole didn’t meet other disabled people except during the summer, when she’d spend a month at a camp for disabled kids. The director and staff were nondisabled, O’Toole said. But at camp, she got to hang out with 90 other disabled kids. O’Toole got to interact with people like herself – disabled kids living vibrant lives. “We explored nature,” she said, “we collected blueberries. Made pancakes.”

There, O’Toole developed her life-long love of sports. As an adult, she has played competitive wheelchair basketball and power soccer. At her childhood summer camp, “We did archery,” O’Toole said, “and played baseball.”

At a time when sexism was the norm, O’Toole got to do things that girls usually couldn’t do at camp. “We went fishing,” she said, “We used power tools in a woodshop,” she said, “It was empowering!”

At camp, if the kids wanted to do something, they’d figure out a way to make it accessible  – to make it work, O’Toole added.

O’Toole, author of “Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History,” a groundbreaking book that was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, graduated in 1973 from Fitchburg State University with a bachelor’s degree in education and her teaching credentials. The summer after graduation, she moved with a friend to Berkeley, Calif.

O’Toole was eager to go to California. It would get her out of the cold of New England, where getting around in ice and snow if you’re using crutches or a wheelchair is difficult. “It sounded like fun,” she said. “I’d be in a part of the country where it’s a Mediterranean climate – it’s spring or summer. No snow.”

The move to California was transformative for O’Toole.

There, people thought about disability accessibility. She met queer people and disabled people as well as many nondisabled and disabled lesbians.

“At 23, I came out,” O’Toole said, “I met a woman in a women’s workshop.”

She got to know Kitty Cone, an out disabled lesbian and disability rights movement leader. (Cone died in 2015.) She connected O’Toole to the burgeoning independent living movement. “She brought me to the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley and to the disabled lesbian community,” O’Toole said.

The independent living movement believes in self-determination and self-respect for disabled people. It fights disability-based discrimination and views disability from a cultural and social, rather than a medical perspective. Independent living centers are community-based, non-profit organizations, organized and controlled by disabled people. They provide advocacy, information and other services.

“The Berkeley CIL had a lot of lesbians who were nondisabled,” O’Toole said, “we are the wives of every movement.”

O’Toole came to California at a pivotal moment in disability history – at the beginning of the modern disability rights movement. She quickly became a vital part of that history.

O’Toole, along with Cone and Judith Heumann, the disability rights movement founder who died last month, was a leader in a 1977 nearly month-long occupation by disabled protesters and their allies of a San Francisco federal building known as the “504 sit-in.” As a result of the protest, the Carter administration signed the ‘504′ regulations, which prohibited schools, hospitals, and other entities receiving federal funds from discriminating against disabled people. These regulations were the precursor to the ADA.

“Berkeley became like Mecca,” O’Toole, who is featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp,” said. “Disabled people came to Berkeley from all over the world.”

In the years since the 1970s, O’Toole’s life has contained more multitudes than even Walt Whitman could have fathomed.

She is a single mom. Her daughter, whom she adopted, has a physical disability. O’Toole was a founder of the Axis Dance Company, an acclaimed ensemble of disabled and nondisabled performers. Currently, she’s working on a novel and traveling in a self-built camper van.

But things haven’t always been easy for O’Toole. Like many disabled parents, especially those who are disabled and queer, she’s encountered prejudice.

O’Toole’s daughter is now 30. Raising her daughter, O’Toole often feared that because she was a single mother, disabled and queer, she’d lose custody of her physically disabled child. It was fraught, O’Toole said, because of the bias against queer and disabled people being parents.

“The courts – the social service system – are all too happy to take your kids away,” O’Toole said.

O’Toole had to fight to get her daughter the services and education she needed.

“Because I was a lesbian, I had to constantly be in the closet,” she said, “our of fear that they’d take my child away if I was out.”

Her lovers, if they were around school system staff, would have to pretend to “just be my friends,” O’Toole said.

For decades, long before intersectionality was a fashionable buzzword, O’Toole, who is white, has thought about the intersection of class, queerness, race, and disability.

“I grew up in a working class neighborhood,” O’Toole said. “My Dad was a firefighter. I was taught a lot about class.”

“But there was a lot of racism embedded in my world,” she added.

It wasn’t until she went to Berkeley and became part of the lesbian community that she was “in rooms with lesbians of color,” O’Toole said.

White women need to listen better to women of color, she said. “We need to follow their lead.”

O’Toole couldn’t believe how much she didn’t know about what women of color experienced. Take just one thing: “I didn’t know that parking tickets could turn into jail sentences,” she said.

“I have to do the work,” O’Toole added, “it’s not their job to educate me. It’s my racism that’s blocking me from the truth.”

Despite all of the difficulties, O’Toole is hopeful. People are resilient. They love and care for each other, she said. “What are you doing to spread hope,” O’Toole asked.

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LOS ANGELES – The pandemic is over (in award show world anyway), and glitz and glamour have returned. That is the prevailing impression from this year’s 74^th Annual Emmy Awards. The show was stunning and exciting from the outset, but even with the pomp and loud noise of celebration, a queer presence was not to be drowned out.

The tone of representation was launched immediately as announcer, queer comic, Sam Jay, looking sharp in her black tuxedo, took the mic. On camera even more than host Kenan Thompson, Jay was a presence and a personality and decidedly queer. If her gay power was not enough, the point was made when Thompson and out actor Boen Yang joked on stage. Thompson accused Yang of a comment being “a hate crime”, Yang retorted “Not if I do it. Then it’s representation.”

Representation was going to be made this evening. The visibility was significant considering, according to the GLAAD Where We Are on TV Report, out of 775 series regular characters only 92 are LGBTQ (less than 12 percent). That 11+ percent is a record high of LGBTQ characters in all of TV history. The record was set by an increase in lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters, but a decrease in gay male characters from the previous year.

For the Emmy nominations, 50% of the best drama series nominees, 25% of the best comedy, and 60% of the best limited series featured LGBTQ characters or plot lines. As far as queer talent, that was more sporadic, heavily slanted towards “supporting categories” and often with queer talent all in the same category against each other.

Regardless, we showed up, as did other individuals who scored recognition for their identities. Some of the key LGBTQ representative moments included:

• Early in the show, Hannah Einbinder did a hard flirt from the stage for Zendaya, saying that she was not on the stage to present, but rather to stare at the beautiful actress.
• Gay actor Murray Bartlett won Best Supporting Actor for a Limited or Anthology Series for The White Lotus. He thanked his partner Matt, but strangely did not mention the famous “salad scene” (Google it…)
• The White Lotus also won the Best Limited or Anthology series category, and bisexual Mike White won Best Director for Limited Series as well. White is the son of gay clergyman, author, and activist Mel White. They appeared on the Amazing Race as a father and son team.
• Jerrod Carmichael won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing of a Variety Special for his heartfelt Rothaniel in which he comes out as gay as part of the show. Carmichael wowed in a brilliant white, flowing fur coat over his bare medallioned chest.
• Out actress Sarah Paulsen and Shonda Rhimes, who singlehandedly is responsible for 17% of all LGBTQ characters on TV, presented the Governors Award to Geena Davis for her organization Institute of Gender in Media.  The mission of the organization is representation of women in media. Davis stood before a video featuring various women artists including transgender actress Laverne Cox. The organization is the only public data institute to consistently analyze representations of the six major marginalized identities on screen: women; people of color; LGBTQIA+ individuals; people with disabilities; older persons (50+); and large-bodied individuals in global Film, Television, Advertising and Gaming.
• Lizzo broke RuPaul’s streak to win Best Competition program. RuPaul showed up later in the show do present a major award anyway. Lizzo has not felt the need to label herself in the LGBTQ spectrum but has said, “When it comes to sexuality or gender, I personally don’t ascribe to just one thing. I cannot sit here right now and tell you I’m just one thing. That’s why the colors for LGBTQ+ are a rainbow! Because there’s a spectrum, and right now we try to keep it black and white. That’s just not working for me.”

Beyond the rainbow scope of queer representation, intersectional, iconic and historic representation was also on hand:

• LGBTQ icon Jennifer Coolidge won Best Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series for The White Lotus. It was her first award win ever. Squeals of delight could be heard in space from gay Emmy watch parties. OK. I don’t know that for a fact, but I would put money on it.
• LGBTQ icon Jean Smart won Best Actress in a Comedy Series for Hacks, a series of which its producer called about “women and queer people.”
• Lee Jung-jae became the first South Korean actor and first Asian actor to win Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Squid Game. 
• Zendaya became the youngest person ever to win in the leading acting categories two times as she won for the second season of “Euphoria”
• Hwang Dong-hyuk became the first South Korean to win Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for Squid Game
• Sheryl Lee Ralph won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Abbott Elementary becoming only the second black woman in history to win in this category after 35 years.  Jacké Harry won for 227 in 1987. “I am an endangered species,” she sang as her acceptance. “But I sing no victim’s song.”

Yes, there was a day in the not long ago past where the mention of a single same sex spouse, or a renegade pro-lgbtq comment, made our queer hearts spill over. Those days are passed. We are getting a place at the table. Representation is starting to stand up and be heard.

For those who rightfully seek it, and seek more of it, the best advice came from Sheryl Lee Ralph: “To anyone who has ever, ever had a dream, and thought your dream wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t  come true, I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like, this is what striving looks like, and don’t you ever, ever give up on you.”

Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie: 74th Emmy Awards:

Daisy Edgar-Jones is an actor whose career is blossoming like her namesake. In recent years, she seems to be everywhere. LGBTQ viewers may recognize Edgar-Jones from her role as Delia Rawson in the recently canceled queer HBO series “Gentleman Jack.” She also played memorable parts in a pair of popular Hulu series, “Normal People” and “Under the Banner of Heaven.” Earlier this year, Edgar-Jones was seen as Noa in the black comedy/horror flick “Fresh” alongside Sebastian Stan. 

With her new movie, “Where the Crawdads Sing” (Sony/Columbia), she officially becomes a lead actress. Based on Delia Owens’ popular book club title of the same name, the movie spans a considerable period of time, part murder mystery, part courtroom drama. She was kind enough to answer a few questions for the Blade.

BLADE: Daisy, had you read Delia Owens’s novel “Where the Crawdads Sing” before signing on to play Kya?

DAISY EDGAR-JONES: I read it during my audition process, as I was auditioning for the part. So, the two went hand in hand.

BLADE: What was it about the character of Kya that appealed to you as an actress?

EDGAR-JONES: There was so much about her that appealed to me. I think the fact that she is a very complicated woman. She’s a mixture of things. She’s gentle and she’s curious. She’s strong and she’s resilient. She felt like a real person. I love real character studies and it felt like a character I haven’t had a chance to delve into. It felt different from anyone I’ve played before. Her resilience was one that I really admired. So, I really wanted to spend some time with her.

BLADE: While Kya is in jail, accused of killing the character Chase, she is visited by a cat in her cell. Are you a cat person or do you prefer dogs?

EDGAR-JONES: I like both! I think I like the fact that dogs unconditionally love you. While a cat’s love can feel a bit conditional. I do think both are very cute. Probably, if I had to choose, it would be dogs.

BLADE: I’m a dog person, so I’m glad you said that.

EDGAR-JONES: [Laughs]

BLADE: Kya lives on the marsh and spends a lot of time on and in the water. Are you a swimmer or do you prefer to be on dry land?

EDGAR-JONES: I like swimming, I do. I grew up swimming a lot. If I’m ever on holidays, I like it to be by the sea or by a nice pool.

BLADE: Kya is also a gifted artist, and it is the thing that brings her great joy. Do you draw or paint?

EDGAR-JONES: I always doodle. I’m an avid doodler. I do love to draw and paint. I loved it at school. I wouldn’t say I was anywhere near as skilled as Kya. But I do love drawing if I get the chance to do it.

BLADE: Kya was born and raised in North Carolina. What can you tell me about your process when it comes to doing a southern accent or an American accent in general?

EDGAR-JONES: It’s obviously quite different from mine. I’ve been lucky that I’ve spent a lot of time working on various accents for different parts for a few years now, so I feel like I’m developed an ear for, I guess, the difference in tone and vowel sounds [laughs]. When it came to this, it was really important to get it right, of course. Kya has a very lyrical, gentle voice, which I think that North Carolina kind of sound really helped me to access. I worked with a brilliant accent coach who helped me out and I just listened and listened.

BLADE: While I was watching “Where the Crawdads Sing” I thought about how Kya could easily be a character from the LGBTQ community because she is considered an outsider, is shunned and ridiculed, and experiences physical and emotional harm. Do you also see the parallels?

EDGAR-JONES: I certainly do. I think that aspect of being an outsider is there, and this film does a really good job of showing how important it is to be kind to everyone. I think this film celebrates the goodness you can give to each other if you choose to be kind. Yes, I definitely see the parallels.

BLADE: Do you have an awareness of an LGBTQ following for your acting career?

EDGAR-JONES: I tend to stay off social media and am honestly not really aware of who follows me, but I do really hope the projects I’ve worked on resonate with everyone.

BLADE: Are there any upcoming acting projects that you’d like to mention?

EDGAR-JONES: None that I can talk of quite yet. But there are a few things that are coming up next year, so I’m really excited.