The Year of the Black Queer Revolution

I married my love at the Penn Museum, Philadelphia in October. More than 100 guests made the wedding feel like a miniature Met Gala, with towering Asian statues and an Egyptian sphinx replica. The Pride flag, including black and brown stripes, was draped around our cake by a transgender baker. A mixed-gender group of us was also present. “groomspeople.” The Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. HodgesOne of the readings in our ceremony was about legalizing gay marriage. Our officiant, a Black queer woman, was ordained to inclusive ministry.

The party started. The party continued. The crowd was energized by the opening hook. The triumphant superhero horns evoked the sound of change, the dawning of something new. The track was Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby,”He would make it his third Number One hit, just days later.

“And this one is for the champions,”The room roared in unison. “I ain’t lost since I began, yeah.”

Here we were in a diverse crowd of family, friends, journalists, doctors, politicians, and lawyers chanting the lyrics of an unapologetically Black gay artist — at the wedding of two unapologetically Black gay men. It’s no longer taboo to do what once was. My entire life I have read about Black queer men such as Bayard Russell, a civil rights leader who faced adversity because of his sexual orientation, and his race. James Baldwin, a legend who had to travel to another country to embrace his sexuality. Langston Hughes is another legend, whose queerness is still a mystery 100-years after the Harlem Renaissance.

“It was an absolute necessity for me to declare homosexuality, because if I didn’t, I was a part of the prejudice,”Rustin stated this during an unaired interview. Washington BladeHis death in 1987. “I was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part of the effort to destroy me.”

Decades later, we were gathered doing something that so many of them couldn’t have fathomed during their lives. I felt like I had won an Oscar. This must have been the long-awaited breakthrough for men like me, who were often told that they would never see it. “tone it down.”Black queer men were expected hide their sexuality and to integrate. This must be how it feels to be at a tipping points: Two Black queer millennials get married in an Ivy League museum and then blast another number one Lil Nas hit. All of this would have seemed impossible a decade ago. Back then, we didn’t have a Supreme Court ruling that made marriage equality the law of the land, people asking you what your pronouns were, or homophobes being “canceled”On a regular basis. It was still breaking news. “come out”In pop culture. Now, I feel the world has changed at the age of 30, thanks to the insurgency of Black queer males in pop culture.

It was almost a decade ago.The summer 2012 was like a breakthrough in audition: The president, a Black man, ran for the United States presidency. Hip-hop genius Frank Ocean had said to his fans that his debut album, Channel Orange,It was, in part about a boy.

Contrary to popular belief, Frank didn’t come out as queer at the time. The truth is that Frank wasn’t queer at the time. “Bad Religion”The artist has never identified himself as LGBTQ. But that didn’t stop the media and the rest of the world from giving Ocean the bold title of being a Black Gay Icon that We all wanted hip-hop. His later work His sophomore masterpiece was a continuation of the trend of baiting, but without bold declarations. Blonde, “Said the word “gay”Only once, when referring to a bar

By 2016, progress felt contentious: The first woman to ever earn a major American political party’s presidential nomination was facing a billionaire who had a storied history of racism and sexual assault allegations. That fall, I was 25 years old and two years into my marriage to the man I would marry five more years later. MoonlightJust a few days ago, a groundbreaking film called “The Exceptional Film” was released. It would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture..It was beautiful, stunning, and Black. But Moonlight wasn’t the outright, definitive Black queer film that I had hoped for. Just as with Frank Ocean, much was left to our imagination on expressions of Black queerness — in which visibility was exchanged for nuance.

This was praised by the public and critics, but I felt dissatisfied. Why was the representation of Black queer men in pop music so inconsistent, discrete, fleeting and/or invisible? There was. RuPaul’s Drag Race,The Black queer TV characters played in reality by Karamo Brown, and the late Michael K. Williams. We had hope for Jussie Smollett, actor EmpireIt ended in disappointment and everything seemed to be in limbo. This wasn’t it — the subtleness of Black queer masculinity being treated as tolerable and respectable rather than disruptive and inspiring. Black queer masculinity was either something that should not be seen or heard or something to be depised for being flamboyant or overtly feminine. It is unfortunate that the racist and patriarchal restrictions on Black men’s sexuality date back to slavery. I did not realize that it would take another half-decade for a paradigm shift to become a reality.

“Who could have fathomed that Black queer men would be at the top of the charts, in Congress, and on TV and movie screens? We’re living in a world where not only is the Black queer community being embraced, but those who show us hate are being disgraced.”

January 2021 was progress reemerging: For the first time ever, Congress had two openly Black gay men in its chambers as the nation recovered from a racist president who wouldn’t leave the White House without an insurrection.

The pandemic brought with it a mix of cultural highs as well as lows. EmpireIts final season featured the first ever Black gay marriage on prime-time TV. This was the sleeper hit of P-ValleyStarz revolved around a fiery Black queer love affair. With the return of Lil Nas X, what felt like a new era in Black queer masculinity was relaunched with the event that Was “Montero (Call Me by Your Name).”My generation finally got the unapologetic Black queer star they had been aspiring for with the viral music video.

Lil Nas X wasn’t a musician who so happened to be queer, but an artist who was intentional in demanding that his work let you know such without a doubt. This was his transition from his more secure life. “Old Town Road”Days to the brazen, sexually-confident Montero ones shattered the rainbow-stained-glass ceiling that nobody saw coming. Lil Nas X was the hip hop queer hero that I never imagined we would see, someone who did everything like the other cis-het men and told us that his actions would end his career. After he kissed a man in Egyptian-pharaoh attire, he went to the BET Awards. He would later make history as the first male, solo, gay musician to ever win the VMA for Video of the Year for the record that had confirmed he wasn’t a one-hit wonder.

Billy Porter, an Emmy- and Tony-award-winning actor, introduced him during the VMAs to perform what would be his second Number One single of the year. Porter, an older Black queer icon who has resurged since his unforgettable role in Pose.Porter, 52, declared that he is HIV-positive just a few days after the season ended. Normally, such details would have a negative impact on a Black queer creator or cause a lot of fear, worry, and stereotype. But unlike many before him, Porter leaned into his truth, becoming a new voice for an epidemic that continues to disproportionately impact many Black queer men who aren’t as influential and seen as him.

Who could have ever fathomed that in this moment Black queer men would be out loud at the top of the charts, in Congress, on the front covers of major magazines, and on TV and movie screens — all at the same damn time? We’re living in a world where not only is the Black queer community being embraced, but those who show us hate are being disgraced. The instant takedown of rapper DaBaby following his anti-LGBTQ and HIV-phobic remarks last summer, seeing Black Twitter drag rapper Boosie Badazz every time he attempts to troll Lil Nas X, and the pushback Dave Chappelle continues to get for his transphobic remarks tells me that Black queer power isn’t going away anytime soon.

As my wedding ended on a high note (I had nearly ripped the pants of my custom tuxedo doing a tipsy rendition of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”With my man of honour, I took the time to reflect on how far my own life has come and the world around.

It was progress reimagined. My generation lived the wildest dreams that Hughes, Baldwin, and Rustin right in front of our eyes.