Watch these five Pride Month TV news stories about incredible LGBTQ people of color

From founding mutual aid groups to producing documentaries on trans representation in media, queer people of color slayed in June

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Alex Paterson

Published 07/01/20 10:07 AM EDT

Pride Month 2020 was far from what many LGBTQ people may have expected when the year began. Already this year, members of the LGBTQ community have faced disproportionate impacts and health risks during the coronavirus pandemic, helped lead a nationwide uprising against police brutality, and won an unexpected victory at the Supreme Court in a decision protecting LGBTQ workers from discrimination.

From an activist who helped coordinate a historic march for Black trans lives to a queer couple cooking and delivering meals to elderly Asian Americans, here are five TV news stories from June that featured remarkable LGBTQ people of color:

1. Ianne Fields Stewart and Angelica Ross on LGBTQ people’s belonging in the Black community

On June 22, MSNBC held an hour-long Pride + Protest special hosted by openly gay anchor Joshua Johnson and which featured Black trans activists Ianne Fields Stewart and Angelica Ross. Stewart founded The Okra Project, which “pays Black Trans chefs to go into the homes of Black Trans people to cook them a healthy and home-cooked meal at absolutely no cost.” Ross is an activist and actor who started TransTech Social Enterprises, which “provides education, support, and jobs for trans people facing high levels of discrimination.”

The two joined several other Black LGBTQ activists, including Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins and Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David, highlighting the intersections of Pride Month and ongoing protests against police brutality.

During the June 22 event, Stewart noted that LGBTQ people have been part of the Black community “longer than we’ve had language for it,” saying that “there is an indigeneity to queerness and Blackness.” Ross added that it is important to recognize that assumptions that Black families are more conservative are often “rooted ... in white supremacy.”

From the June 22, 2020, episode of MSNBC’s Pride + Protest

IANNE FIELDS STEWART (FOUNDER OF THE OKRA PROJECT): It's interesting. I think that in many ways, we forget the indigeneity of queerness -- and therefore we sort of erase the fact that Black transness has existed for far longer than we've had language for it. So, I guess that my reaction to that is that perhaps we're expanding the narrative of what family looks like when it comes to Blackness, both including chosen family as well as including biological family. But also recognizing, right, that in the Black communities that I've operated in, you know, in the Black communities that I’ve seen, there's always that person, that auntie, that uncle, that, you know, that someone. Whether it be like, you know, the head of -- the music director at the church, you know? There's always someone who’s in the community who’s got just like a little extra sugar in the tank, or a little -- whatever words that we use. And so I think there is an indigeneity to queerness and Blackness that we're not quite ready to talk about yet. But it has always been there. And so I think that in that way, I do understand that there is a narrative about the conservative nature of Black households. But I think it's also important to recognize that we've been here for a much longer time than we're ready to talk about.

...

ANGELICA ROSS (ACTOR AND ACTIVIST): On the whole idea of Black families being, you know, socially conservative or what have you, I just want to point out that I think that this is rooted, again, in white supremacy, and to call, you know, sort of the roots what they are. Because I know that what’s really happening is that so many mothers and fathers are so concerned about their Black child's safety, cis or trans. That's why every Black child gets a talking to about how to survive in America. What not to do. How to dress. How to talk. All of these different things. And that extends to the LGBTQ community. They tell us, “Why would you want to put one more layer of oppression or one more difficult thing to get into this world? Don't you know how the world is going to treat you?” When they don't understand that at home is the first place where you can model showing love for your LGBTQ child.

2. Yin Chang and Moonlynn Tsai created Heart of Dinner to feed NYC’s elderly Asian American population during COVID-19

In response to the rise in anti-Asian racism linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, queer Asian couple Yin Chang and Moonlynn Tsai founded Heart of Dinner, a mutual aid group that delivers handwritten letters and hot meals to Asian American seniors in New York City. They aim “to bring awareness to Asian-owned restaurants and to stimulate a resurgence of interest in supporting the mom-and-pop shops.”

The couple’s relief efforts were featured on NBC’s Today on June 18. During the segment, the two reflected on the importance of supporting elders in their community during a public health crisis, with Chang noting that “food is a huge love language in our culture.”

From the third hour of the June 18, 2020, edition of NBC's Today

YIN CHANG (HEART OF DINNER LEADER): We lean into what hurts the most, and it really hurt us the most hearing people that reminded us of our own grandparents being hurt and not having access to food. And Moonlynn always loves to say that food is a huge love language in our culture.

ALEX FICQUETTE (CORRESPONDENT): Every Wednesday since April, Yin Chang and her girlfriend, restaurant owner Moonlynn Tsai, have been preparing and packaging upwards of 1,000 meals. The food isn't your typical takeout. It’s part of a community relief program the couple founded called Heart of Dinner that provides home-cooked meals and groceries to New York City’s elderly Asian American population.

Where did you see the need to begin helping?

CHANG: We saw these videos of elderly in Chinatown here all the way to Chinatown in the West Coast being violently attacked, beat up, burglarized, punched, spit on.

MOONLYNN TSAI (HEART OF DINNER LEADER): It’s insane to me that people have the heart -- lack of heart to do something like that. It’s so heartbreaking to see

...

FICQUETTE: What does it mean to you to not only be recognized for your work but to be recognized as an LGBTQ Asian couple

CHANG: Wow. I just got chills on my cheeks, just from you saying that, just goosebumps. I think we understand, like, you know, the work that we're doing, but, woha, how contradicting it sounds because of the stigmas that come with the Asian culture that's wrapped around the LGBTQIA community, and that we're not hiding it.

3. Raquel Willis on the historic Brooklyn Liberation march for Black trans lives and the need to shift thinking around gender identity

ABC’s Good Morning America featured Black trans activist Raquel Willis, who helped coordinate the Brooklyn Liberation -- an action and march for Black trans lives that took place in New York City on June 14. At the event, she spoke to a crowd of 15,000 people, proclaiming that “we’ve been told we’re not enough [by] … parents, lovers, johns, schools, and institutions. But the truth is, we’re more than enough.” Willis is a trans activist and writer who has worked against anti-trans violence, including through Black Trans Circles, a program she founded with the Transgender Law Center, and Out magazine’s Trans Obituaries Project, which she produced.

During the June 26 Good Morning America segment, Willis reminded viewers that Pride began as “a queer militant uprising against police brutuality” and called for more inclusive gender norms that allow “men and boys move up into a healthier version of masculinity.”

From the third hour of the June 26, 2020, edition of ABC's Good Morning America

RAQUEL WILLIS (ACTIVIST AND WRITER): We can't really have a real conversation on Pride without talking about the Stonewall riot, which was a queer militant uprising against police brutality.

...

JUJU CHANG (ABC NEWS ANCHOR): Raquel Willis is hoping to unite those movements, helping organize a massive Brooklyn rally calling out violence against Black trans women. She says it’s time to shift our thinking around gender identity so new generations inherit a more inclusive, safer world.

WILLIS: We need one where men and boys move up into a healthier version of masculinity, the women and girls being strong and capable leaders, and all of those folks that kind of are in-between or have more expansive experiences can be heard.

4. Disclosure documentary executive producer Laverne Cox on the legacy of trans people in media

Actor and trailblazing trans activist Laverne Cox explained on NBC's Today how her new Netflix documentary Disclosure documents Hollywood cinema’s decadeslong mistreatment and villainization of the trans community.

During the June 26 segment, Cox explained that since over 80% of Americans don’t personally know someone who is trans, depictions of trans characters in film “affect the ways in which we see ourselves and how other folks see us.” She added, “There was such a huge gap between the real-life trans people that I met and what I was seeing on television. And I couldn't accept myself based on that representation.”

From the third hour of the June 26, 2020, edition of NBC's Today

LAVERNE COX (ACTOR, PRODUCER, AND ACTIVIST): I learned so much, and it was fascinating to learn that the history of cinema and trans people, we were there from the very beginning. And that, and we look at, through the memories of all trans people on screen, how those representations affect the ways in which we see ourselves and how other folks see us. And I think it’s important to note that 80% of Americans, according to GLAAD, report not personally knowing someone who’s trans. So the information that folks get about trans people in the media is what most Americans will have. And so for our community, media representations are so much more crucial.

...

COX: When I saw trans representation on screen, I didn't identify with it, I think, because of internalized transphobia. But also because mostly what I saw on television was extremely disparaging. I was a straight-A student. I was public speaking champion in eighth grade. I was just like this kid who was being groomed to be very successful. And what I saw on television was not that around trans folks. So I never identified with anything trans that I saw on television as a kid.

I didn't really come to terms with my transness fully until I moved to New York and I met real-life trans people. There was such a huge gap between the real-life trans people that I met and what I was seeing on television. And I couldn't accept myself based on that representation, but when I met real people, I was like, “Oh, my god, that's me. That's me.” And that gave me the strength and the courage to live my truth.

5. Billy Porter on rejecting the masculine standards of the acting industry

Emmy-winning actor Billy Porter joined the hosts of CBS This Morning to discuss his upcoming role in The Twilight Zone reboot. Porter, who has been attacked by right-wing media and extreme anti-LGBTQ groups for his sexuality and gender expression, wore a Michael Kors sweater that said “VOTE” and explained that his sense of fashion stemmed from his experience growing up in “the Black church.”

During the June 25 segment, Porter recounted his struggles with not being “masculine enough to sort of succeed traditionally” as an actor and how he found success by removing himself from those standards and “really stood in my own truth and chose myself.”

From the June 25, 2020, edition of CBS's CBS This Morning

GAYLE KING (CO-HOST): You know, you did a great letter to yourself -- to your younger self, Billy. I was so touched because you said this, “You are what you say you are, so say what you want. Speak what you want from life into the air and into the universe." And my point about that is you always seem to have been a very strong sense of self, even as a little kid, based on this letter. Did you ever have time when you had self-doubt about yourself and who you are?

BILL PORTER (ACTOR): Oh, I have self-doubt all the time.

KING: Do you?

PORTER: And especially in the middle -- especially in the middle of what I call “my valley.” You know, I spent a long time unemployed and not working. And my -- the masculinity game, you know, I was in that masculinity game. And I was never masculine enough to sort of succeed traditionally in the way that the business was set up. And it wasn't until I took myself out of that game, out of that race and really stood in my own truth and chose myself regardless of the consequences that things turned around.

ANTHONY MASON (CO-HOST): Billy, how did you maintain your sense of self, your strength through all that then?

PORTER: You know, it's my faith. It's my spiritual practice. It's my mother. You know, my mother is a disabled woman who has, who has had a degenerative condition her entire life. She resides at the Actors Fund nursing home right now with no mobility. And the biggest fight we had when we moved her into the nursing home was that they weren't waking her up early enough to get out of bed so that she could enjoy whatever life she had. That is the human being that raised me. So I always refer and defer to her when I'm in spaces and moments where I feel discouraged.

Watch these five Pride Month TV news stories about incredible LGBTQ people of color

1. Ianne Fields Stewart and Angelica Ross on LGBTQ people’s belonging in the Black community

2. Yin Chang and Moonlynn Tsai created Heart of Dinner to feed NYC’s elderly Asian American population during COVID-19

3. Raquel Willis on the historic Brooklyn Liberation march for Black trans lives and the need to shift thinking around gender identity

4. Disclosure documentary executive producer Laverne Cox on the legacy of trans people in media

5. Billy Porter on rejecting the masculine standards of the acting industry

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