Billy Porter calls out LGBT+ community for “neglecting their own citizens”
July 24, 2018In an interview with Vulture, the Tony and Grammy-winning Billy Porter (who most recently stole the show in Ryan Murphy’s Pose) called out the LGBT+ community for ignoring those who aren’t cisgender and white.
“For me, as a 48-year-old gay man, when I came out, we had to fight for our lives. Because the fight was so intense—and this is what this show has taught me—the T in LGBTQ was almost invisible,” Porter said. “The fight was about something else. I equate it to the idea of the civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King Jr. and his relationship with Bayard Rustin. He was the gay man that taught him and set him up to be the civil rights leader that he was, and was erased from the conversation because that wasn’t the fight.”
Read our profile on Bayard Rustin.
Porter says his work on Pose has really helped him reflect on the struggle for trans rights, and the struggle of people of colour within the LGBT+ community.
“I sat on the board of the Empire State Pride Agenda for six years, and that’s an organization that really was influential in lobbying and fighting for gay rights, during the AIDS crisis all the way up through marriage equality. When these white, cisgender, rich boys got marriage equality and the organization’s focus turned to transgender rights, those motherfuckers closed their check books, and the organization of 25 years had to close.
“If we don’t take care of the least among us, it doesn’t matter how rich we are, it doesn’t matter how fabulous we are. It doesn’t matter. If you’re neglecting your citizens, you are inhumane. The end.”
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