‘It’s my Florida too’: Pulse shootg survivor Brandon Wolf on beg Black, gay and the anti-Ron DeSantis | US news | The Guardian

Contents:

• WATCH VIRAL FOOTAGE OF KG VON ADMTG TO BEG GAY TO THE POLICE
• ‘IT’S MY FLORIDA TOO’: PULSE SHOOTG SURVIVOR BRANDON WOLF ON BEG BLACK, GAY AND THE ANTI-RON DESANTIS
• AMERI NEED A GAY, BLACK MAN TO TOP S UNTRY CHARTS. PROTECT LIL NAS X AT ALL STS
• KAPOW! GAY, BLACK SUPERHERO TAKE ON FATPHOBIA WHILE SAVG AN AOFUTURISTIC PHILLY
• OUT & PROUD: GAY BLACK CELEBRI
• YOUNG THUG AND FRIENDS CGHT WATCHG GAY FREAKY MOVI IN STUD
• 'AS A BLACK, GAY PHYSICIAN, I'VE SURVIVED IN AMERI BY EMBRACG MY ANGER'

WATCH VIRAL FOOTAGE OF KG VON ADMTG TO BEG GAY TO THE POLICE

In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Gay Water, however, is out and proud. The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny.

‘IT’S MY FLORIDA TOO’: PULSE SHOOTG SURVIVOR BRANDON WOLF ON BEG BLACK, GAY AND THE ANTI-RON DESANTIS

“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self,” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. He thought of creatg Gay Water about a year ago while on a vatn wh his iend that had got a job wh the beverage dtry.

The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail.

Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

AMERI NEED A GAY, BLACK MAN TO TOP S UNTRY CHARTS. PROTECT LIL NAS X AT ALL STS

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”.

KAPOW! GAY, BLACK SUPERHERO TAKE ON FATPHOBIA WHILE SAVG AN AOFUTURISTIC PHILLY

For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said.

Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea.

In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture. ” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub.

OUT & PROUD: GAY BLACK CELEBRI

He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor. “Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

YOUNG THUG AND FRIENDS CGHT WATCHG GAY FREAKY MOVI IN STUD

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak. In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek. ” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian.

” said Crisman, a 36-year-old gay Korean Amerin rearcher and artist. On this night, he had brought some female high school iends who wanted to experience the gay clubbg scene. The late rapper’s rerd label released one of his albums dubbed “Grandsos” last week, and this week there’s a viral vio of Kg Von admtg to the police officers that he was gay, and social media is gog nuts.

The vio first posted by DJ Akamiks saw Kg Von requtg that police officers put him protective ctody bee he was gay and hence uld be attacked a regular jail cell. The late 26-year-old never admted publicly that he was homosexual or gave any sign that fans would notice, hence the vio shockg fans.

'AS A BLACK, GAY PHYSICIAN, I'VE SURVIVED IN AMERI BY EMBRACG MY ANGER'

However, on Tuday, footage went viral of the “Took Her to the O” rapper claimg to be gay so that he uld be moved to PC, durg a stt behd bars.

”Wolf had sought refuge Florida 15 years ago when he was done wh ral Oregon, the childhood home where he suffered embedd racism and homophobia on a daily basis. Among his motivatns for wrg the book was to reclaim tersectnaly om DeSantis and others on the right who seek to hijack explas: “I wanted to give a human flavour to what tersectnaly actually looks and feels like and what feels like to experience racism and homophobia at the same time.

Growg up a nservative majory whe town was difficult bee the same kid who would ll me the N-word on one day would ll me a homophobic slur on another day and I was nstantly navigatg the tersectns of those two thgs. Last month DeSantis’s mpaign released an anti-LGBTQ+ vio assailg Tmp for his past support of gay and transgenr ments: “It is a sry time to be not jt LGBTQ but LGBTQ and Black this state and ultimately that’s the tent. Although other popular mic genr also rerce misogyny, rape culture, vlence, dg age and homophobia, the populary and -optg of hip-hop allows to be the spegoat for societal hip-hop is viewed as "black mic, " this narrative not only disurag black kids like me om branchg out but also puts a posn of sufferg a siar fate to Jordan Davis, 17, and most recently Elijah Al-Am, 17, who were both young boys of lor killed for listeng to rap Davis, murred 2014, was shot three tim his r by 45-year-old whe Michael Dunn who was annoyed by his "thug" mic.