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.
“I have always envied straight people for their total dominion over happy love stories. In stories about queer people of color, particularly trans people of color, subjects are often presented as victims." But the book is really a celebration of how each person (and pair) eventually learned to love themselves—despite “every cue in the world telling them it’s impossible.”
All photos courtesy of Jamal Jordan.
Kay and Blaine, who now live in Oakland, California, first met at a party in Philadelphia in 2018. A few months after that, Kay was physically attacked. “Like, yeah, you read the statistics,” Kay told Jordan. “You hear this is the most violent year for transgender people in recorded history. You know that, statistically speaking. But then it’s you. I never thought I would be physically beat the fuck up in public in New York City.” Friends came to their support, but the only one they wanted to see was Blaine. “We have worked through a lot of trauma, a lot of things that we’ve experienced individually,” they continued. “But we’ve built our relationship through that, supporting each other and growing through the most difficult times of our lives.”
Enchantra and Antwanette photographed in Mobile, Alabama.
Nadine and Sze’s meet-cute in 2003 couldn’t be more different from Mike and Phil’s. Nadine caught Sze’s eye when she left a bell hooks quote in the comments section of her Ani DiFranco fansite on LiveJournal, at which point she sent Nadine a mix CD. Upon receiving it, she told Jordan, “I was immediately wooed.”
Sofia Berger, left, and Sekiya Dorsett. “We love being lesbians,” Sekiya says. “Where I grew up, we didn’t have these types of images. So it’s very powerful for me.”
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