Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2022 i Attitude Magazine

Leon Tran, Photographer Overcoming my anxiety and finding a balance between life and work has been my biggest achievement of this year. By taking a step back from everything to work on my physical and mental health, I’ve improved both my quality of life and my level of productivity. Will Stroude, Attitude, web editor Covering the return of UK LGBTQ venues on Netflix’s I Like to Watch tour and commissioning features on LGBTQ+ people living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan are among my proudest achievements of 2021. Despite 20 months of distance and separation, it’s these stories that remind me of the intangible strength of our community. Tom Stichbury, Attitude, features editor Swallowing my pride (sadly not much else) to stick out living back at home with my folks — and…

GOOGLE PIXEL 6 PRO We are totally hung up on the new Google Pixel 6 Pro mobile phone, which comes with an array of gee-whizz features. The most impressive is the picture-perfect camera, now armed with a 50-megapixel sensor, and a ‘magic eraser’ that makes distractions in photos — voilà! — disappear. Basically, you can get rid of any unwanted objects in your snaps, like, say, an ex-boyfriend. Also, with ‘Real Tone’, Google’s team collaborated with image experts celebrated for their work with communities of colour to help limit bias that prioritises light skin. Now that’s what you call ringing in a more progressive future. Price: from £849. store.google.com THE GROTTEAUX Grab the holigay season by the baubles with a trip to see The Grotteaux, a Christmas cabaret show unlike…

What were your rejected drag names? I considered Emma Grant – get it? Describe yourself in three emojis. Describe your drag style in five words. Sexy Mamma Queen of Drama. Best pick-up line someone has said to you? “And you have a meaty tuck, gurl!” How would (or does) your Grindr profile read? “Yes, my accent is thick, but much more is my dick.” Biggest turn-on? Double penetrations. And turn-off? Double eliminations. What is your safe word? “Yahoo!” If you could be any inanimate object in the world, what would you be? I would be Veronica Green’s dick piercing. Just because. What would a film of your life be called, and who would star as you? Choriza and the Giant Peach, starring Rowan Atkinson as Choriza May. What would your…

On 27 October, Australian footballer Josh Cavallo made a life-changing and, he hopes, game-changing revelation. In a clip posted on Twitter, the Adelaide United defender explained that he is gay. The video has now been viewed more than 11 million times on Twitter alone, while his Instagram following has spiked from 10,000 before his “coming out” to almost 150,000 by the latter part of November. In a flash, he has become the world’s only openly gay footballer competing at the highest level of football. As a result, his voice has, overnight, claimed authority and relevance. He is now invited to opine on the polemic debates of our times, whether they be a World Cup in the deeply homophobic environs of Qatar or the ongoing culture war inflicted upon transgender people…

“There’s a lot of transphobia and homophobia in science. There’s sexism, a lot of pervasive racism, and to change those things requires a constant, steady effort” Dr Jessica L Ware is an evolutionary biologist, whose work seeks to reconstruct the past 400 million years or so of insect evolution, with a particular focus on dragonflies and damselflies. A curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and co-founder of Entomologists of Color and #BlackinEnto, she has spoken at events such as the inaugural March for Science – created to protest against the Trump administration. Previously featured on the Getting Curious podcast presented by Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness, Ware is the empowering juncture at which scientific excellence and queer activism meet. Was there anything in…

SUPPORTED BY There is a chill in the air – well, at SHERELLE’s pad in Dalston, that is. Hopping onto our video call, the DJ and producer, aka Sherelle Thomas, explains that she is having a “mare”. Her boiler is broken, and she apologises in advance for any interruptions to the interview, as an electrician is due imminently. “I’m rushing around the house like an absolute mad bitch, making sure my radiators have nothing near them,” she sighs. “This always happens; every time I have an important interview, something seems to go wrong.” Few things though have gone awry for Sherelle since she broke through with her viral Boiler (how fitting) Room set in 2019. Now one of the country’s most in-demand DJs, the “speed demon” came out of the…

SUPPORTED BY There are many exceptionally talented artists on this earth, and Principal of the Royal Ballet, Marcelino Sambé, is certainly one of the brightest stars out there. The Portuguese dancer is at the forefront as the world of ballet changes in leaps and bounds, enticing a new generation of fans as it does so. Alongside the popular classic ballets, new productions by the likes of Wayne McGregor and Cristal Pite are pushing the boundaries of the art form with revolutionary choreography and epic, sweeping scores that wouldn’t be out of place in a Christopher Nolan blockbuster. International beauty and fashion brands are recruiting ballet stars to front their campaigns, and the dance discipline is reaching a new demographic through cinema screens around the globe. Marcelino was promoted to the…

BOOK OF THE MONTH ADDRESS BOOK Neil Bartlett/inkandescent No one captures intimacy, longing and desire as beautifully as Neil Bartlett. Address Book is an artfully composed collection of connected short stories inspired by real places the author has lived and known over the course of his life in London and down on the south coast. Some are autobiographical, others fictitious. The brilliant opening story, 14 Yeomans Mews, begins with a slip of blue paper falling from a doctor’s old address book as he’s packing up to move department during the pandemic. The scrawled handwriting takes him back to August 1974 — he is 15 years old and catches the eye of a smiling older man in the mirror of the gents toilets at Waterloo station. The second story, 103 Cavendish…

If you thought the Christmas season was murder at the best of times, wait till you see who’s back on screen in December. Yes, Chucky — everyone’s favourite demonic doll! Queer film icon Jennifer Tilly reprises her role from the classic film series as Tiffany Valentine, while actor Zackary Arthur plays the lead character, Jake Wheeler, a gay teenager in a small American town who recently lost his mother and has to deal with his abusive, alcoholic father and bullies at school. (We told you it was festive!) After Jake finds Chucky at a local yard sale, the redheaded reprobate finds itself at the heart of a series of horrifying murders that slowly expose the town’s deep hypocrisies and hidden secrets. Sounds like a regular family Christmas Day at our…

FINE NEEDLE WORK New treatment from ViiV Healthcare offers a bi-monthly jab to keep HIV positive viral loads undetectable SHE GOT A MAN! Smithers finally gets a boyfriend — and he happens to be a billionaire. All right for some! SCOT IT ALL Lorraine Kelly steps up and challenges professor TERF Kathleen Stock. We love to see it FORMER CHILD STARS No, please tell us one more time how you auditioned for Harry Potter GAGGING FOR IT Giant lizards in Gran Canaria are dying after choking on used condoms at cruising spots. Gays, take your dribbling Johnnies home with you. And the condoms CATES HATES Tory MP Miriam Cates targets Stonewall and Mermaids in misleading attack in the House of Commons…

CAN’T SEE YOUR FRIENDS OR FAMILY FOR WHATEVER REASON? Just being a grinch? Either way, fret not. Just be thankful that you don’t have to listen to a pissed-up uncle or prick of an in-law spluttering about why all lives matter. VOLUNTEER FOR CHARITY. Christmas is about giving, not receiving — remember that, bottom huns. Pay it forward with an act of kindness. That unfamiliar feeling is the warmth emanating from the cold slab of meat you call your heart. HAVE A CRIMBO MOVIE MARATHON: Home Alone, Love, Actually and It’s a Wonderful Life. Then think about the times you’ve been abandoned by your parents, why you’re single and how often you’ve been ghosted. Feeling cheery yet? MAKE A MEAL OUT OF IT. Unleash your inner Nigella, darling, and give a turkey a…

You’ve graced the pages of Attitude magazine before, but pretend we have never crossed paths. How would you introduce yourself? Hi, I’m Darkwah Kyei-Darkwah, a non-binary, multi-disciplinary artist and creator based in London. I’m 27 years old, a Scorpio – vital information – and share the same birthday as RuPaul. What is your mission statement as an artist? To connect authentically. I don’t know if that sounds a bit wet, but I moved through life when I was younger feeling very disconnected from everything, what with having to hide parts of myself to get by as a queer Black kid. So, I want everything that I create to connect people: to connect themselves to their innermost selves, to those around them, to the issues that may or may not directly…

On behalf of Bentley Motors and our BeProud colleague network, thank you to the lovely team at Attitude magazine for letting us empower the reveal of the second list of LGBTQ+ trailblazers in the Attitude 101 issue. In November 2020, we announced our intention to be a trailblazer in sustainable luxury mobility. It’s a plan we call Beyond100. We were the first in our sector to state our aim to become end-to-end carbon neutral by 2030; the first to introduce plug-in, electrified, true luxury cars you can drive today; and now our factory in Crewe, Cheshire, has just been certified as carbon neutral for the third year running. But Beyond100 isn’t just about sustainability. We also want to become the most diverse luxury car company, with colleagues as extraordinary and…

Intelligent, grounded and ridiculously wise for his 20 years, Woody Cook has been blessed with a handsome visage and parents, Zoe Ball and Fatboy ‘Norman Cook’ Slim, who were the epitome of 90s cool – he is also someone who wants to do good with his platform. Woody was scouted by a modelling agency at a festival a few years back, but quickly realised that the lifestyle wasn’t for him – “I smiled too much,” he says, with a chuckle – before rising to prominence on hit Channel 4 reality show, The Circle, where he essentially came out twice: both as the son of famous parents and as bisexual. Growing up in the liberal oasis of Brighton and in close proximity to that strange, exotic neighbourhood known as Celebland, Woody…

Belmond’s new Global Brand & Corporate Communications director, Frenchman Nicolas Streff is no stranger to premium brands. Before joining the firm, he worked for some of the famous names that make up its parent conglomerate, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy). As its travel arm, Belmond creates luxury experiences across five continents, from trips on the British Pullman train and African safaris to river cruises and swish hotel stays. Here, Streff discusses the challenges brought by Covid, creating an LGBTQ+ group within LVMH, and how what we are looking for in a holiday is changing. Firstly, can you tell us a bit about your role at Belmond, and who and what the company is? My role is head of Global Communications, so I do everything from brand communications and PR to…

Drivers loudly honk their horns and passers-by pause to stare as Shon Faye poses on a pedestrian-friendly island sandwiched between queues of cars on a busy main road in east London. Traffic-stopping, indeed. The journalist and writer isn’t afraid to cause a bit of a commotion, mind, and this summer made some much-needed noise with the release of her debut book, The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice. Rising above the toxic smog of transphobia, particularly in the UK, where media ‘discussions’ are literally bogged down by cis anxieties about access to public toilets and changing rooms, Shon – featured in our Third Sector and Community category – course-corrects the conversation around trans lives and the matters that actually affect them, such as healthcare, education, class and race. Does 33-year-old…

Yay! FREE BRITNEY! So, what’s the plan now that she has been released from her conservatorship? Brit told a source she’s excited to make music again, but “it’s not her top priority.” I want BS to prioritise pleasure. Truly, that’s all her fans want. I can’t wait for Work Bitch (Britney’s version). In other news, dreamy avant-garde pop-hun NEO 10Y has followed up summer’s release of sexy, cerebral single [God Is] The Camera by releasing their own fragrance, GODDEX. I ran into the singer in a sleepy west London coffee shop this month and felt a twinge of excitement as they launched themselves towards me, enveloping me in the scent. Just like their music, it’s non-binary and designed to embrace your inner God energy. Breathe it in. Another emerging non-binary…

If there’s one question that I get asked almost weekly, it’s, “How was it for you?” No, you filthy-minded toad, I’m not talking about bumping bussies. (Although, now that we’re on that topic, how was it for you, anyway? Slide your answers into my DMs, with pics…) But I digress, what I am, of course, referring to is coming out. I guess it happens less as you get older and your friendship circle becomes more fixed, but certainly back when I was a yoof there would be an inevitable exchange of coming-out stories with every new queer person I met. It’s also true that most of these conversations happened at 3am in a friend’s kitchen across a counter strewn with bottles of Blossom Hill. I never said I was fancy.…

I’m currently in Los Angeles, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to come back to London. It’s not just the sunshine (though it helps). As a femme drag queen, I’ve found dating gay men in London very tricky – I’m often made to feel “too much”. It’s not just the number of men on Grindr who say they are into “straight-acting men” only or are strictly “no femme”, but the general British attitude that being too expressive or emotionally forward is a little bit, well, “cringe”. As someone who is emotionally very open and forward – and a hundred times camper than Kamala Harris screaming, “We did it, Joe!” – my outgoing nature when it comes to dating seems to put people off in London. I’m finding…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Which track are you loving right now? I love Josh Caffé’s new single, According to Jacqueline. It’s just come out on Phantasy Sounds and it’s really raw-sounding and gay. Which song introduced you to dance music? My dad used to work for Obsession Rave, so he would bring tape packs home for me and I used to play them on my hi-fi system. I must have been the only eight-year-old on the planet whose favourite tune was Bizarre Inc’s Playing with Knives. It made me want to go out clubbing. Which dance record changed your life? I think the record that has always stayed with me is Westbam & Nena’s Oldschool Baby (Piano mix). I just love everything about it; the lyrics, the melody. It’s so beautiful…

Sliding down a pole into hell to give Satan himself a lap dance, Lil Nas X delivered the synapse-sizzling visual of 2021 in his MONTERO (Call Me by Your Name) video. If us homos are destined to burn in the flaming abode of eternal damnation, well, it looks like a real giggle, tbh. Attitude’s Person of the Year really does have a devil-may-care mentality. Rather than subtly nod to his sexuality, the rapper practically buries his face in between the proverbial butt cheeks of his queerness, gleefully stoking the fires of conservative, pearl-clutching critics. One of the few ‘out’ artists taking up space in the homophobia-stained hip-hop/rap genre, Lil Nas X, aka Montero Lamar Hill, is blazing trails by being his most mischievous, joyful and unapologetic self. At the BET…

In this year of political polarisation and sleaze, it’s interesting to note the influence that those operating outside Westminster can exert. Prominent LGBTQ+ evangelical Anglican Jayne Ozanne is a case in point. In March, the 53-year-old forced the government’s hand on a long delayed ban on the insidious, scientifically debunked practice of ‘conversion therapy’ — which seeks to change or suppress a person’s sexuality or gender — by quitting the government’s since-disbanded LGBT+ advisory panel over the issue. Her experience of government on the panel of unpaid volunteers was a tale of two halves: “Excellent, engaged, positive, a sense of ‘wow!’” under ex-Women and Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt; then “a change of guard” under Liz Truss. “To be fair, Liz Truss did meet with us on Zoom during the pandemic,”…

Dean McCullough is on top of the world, in both senses, when we meet on the roof terrace of one of London’s swishest private members’ clubs on a chilly October afternoon. There are few people with a more infectious air of positivity — as anyone who previously listened to the DJ during his years on Gaydio or who follows this crazily effervescent young man on Instagram will know. And today he’s got even more to smile about, as the 29-year-old Irish broadcaster has just begun presenting his own weekly show on BBC Radio 1. Bagging a gig on the UK’s biggest radio station is the holy grail for any broadcaster, but it’s also a landmark for British radio, for Dean is the first gay male DJ on the station to…

For ten years, consultant Iain Anderson hid his sexual identity from his clients despite being out to his friends and family. Working with a range of collaborators including politicians and CEOs of international firms, he did not dare be himself in the boardroom. Decades later, the public policy and corporate communications expert, who is a co-founder and executive chairman at Cicero/AMO, wants to use his new role as the UK government’s first LGBT Business Champion to make workplaces more inclusive so that no one has to put on an uncomfortable disguise in the office. Anderson certainly has the credentials for the job. A Financial Times Male Champion of Women in Business and a Stonewall Ambassador, he is on the Queer Britain advisory board and is also a trustee of global…

Born in New Mexico, author and poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz is best known for his beloved LGBTQ+ YA novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2012). In October, Benjamin, 67, published the much-anticipated follow-up, Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World. “This book reminds the characters – and readers as well – that we must grapple with the cruelties of the world and learn to understand that the cruelties of the world mostly come from our fellow human beings,” he says. “And that we must confront the world around us because we have no other choice.” Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World, published by Simon & Schuster Children’s Books, is out now [The author I most admire is] James Baldwin,…

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Primark’s menswear collections with TV personality Kem Cetinay have been a runaway success — not only have they sold out, but they’ve scooped up awards, too. Now the ex Love-Islander is bringing out a new grooming line with the brand. Leaning into Kem’s experience as a barber — tbf, this man has glorious locks — Kem Cuts is a range of cruelty-free hair, beard, skincare and fragrance products that’ll put you on the fast track to fierce. Although it’s not fully launched until next year, Kem is giving us a sneak preview this November with grooming kits and electricals that will be available in select Primark stores. That’s your stocking fillers sorted. primark.com…