butchify

Two respectable 1950s butches would surely never date each other, but nobody ever said anything about a friendly game of pool... ---

Queer Love in Color / Brown, Black, Queer and Invisible, Jamal Jordan.

Why do no gay people look like me? Jamal Jordan, a black digital editor at The Times, lamented growing up. So as an adult, he decided to give a gift to his younger self: the imagery of queer love. Jordan traveled tens of thousands of miles across the globe intent on meeting queer people of color. What started as a photo series for the New York Times burgeoned into Queer Love in Color, a collection of 40 families’ stories and portraits.

“I have always envied straight people for their total dominion over happy love stories,” Jordan writes. “In stories about queer people of color, particularly trans people of color, sub­jects are often presented as victims.” The people he encountered did share stories of trauma, isolation, and feeling invisible. But the book is really a celebration of how each person (and pair) eventually learned to love themselves—despite “every cue in the world tell[ing them] it’s impossible.” Get to know a few of them, here.

"When It's All Said n' Done", Olivia Morgan, 2024.

The series, titled "When It's All Said n' Done," seeks to depict an intimate scene between two Black masc lesbians, showcasing the romance, vulnerability, and femininity that exists between them. It also captures the moment after they have shared their most sacred parts, questioning whether they need to resume the facade of heteronormative masculinity and revert to the gender-normative roles imposed on them by others.