I see you, and it makes me so happy to see you. There is such a disconnect between what we say America is about and what it is right now. True freedom is the freedom to be who we are, and it hurts my heart so much that in some parts of this country, it is unsafe for trans people to do that right now.
Playwright Mikki Gillette—described once as 'the Joan of Arc of the trans community in Portland theatre' by actor and critic Bobby Burmea—sets the work in the lead-up to and immediate aftermath of the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot. We're dropped into the lives of four trans people practically begging the world to care about their pain, but with very different ways of approaching a brighter future.
Billed as 'the world's biggest, most comprehensive festival celebrating women, girls and non-binary people', Women of the World festival, or WOW for short, has announced its return to the Southbank Centre next year. WOW is the brainchild of theatre director Jude Kelly CBE, who launched the festival in 2010 when she was artistic director at the Southbank Centre.
What began as a passion for collecting became a responsibility. She not only believes in the artistic genius of women, but she wants society in general to hold men and women artists in equal esteem-and to place the same monetary value on their work.
I didn't hear Deceptacon by Le Tigre when it was released in 1999, but I was at a friend's house while he was out, going through all his records, and played it by random. It shook me to the core and I think I played it 100 times in on repeat, dancing around, completely excited. I had never heard something so angry and feminine.
It's so important that we have equal work for equal value. It's something that we need to continue to push for together. While Toronto is leading the way to close the gender pay gap, more work lies ahead.
Carolina Botero and Karisma helped connect indigenous peoples to the internet and made it possible to contribute content to Wikipedia in their native language, expanding access to both history and modern information. They built alliances to combat disinformation, pushed for legal tools to protect cultural and heritage institutions from digital blackholes, and were, and remain, a necessary voice speaking for human rights in the online world.
I do not turn to celebrities for trenchant political takes or honestly really expect them to know what's actually going on in the news. However, I also think that most good art engages with the world in which it's being created, and now that we're in good-art-naming season (aka awards season), ignoring that world is privileged at best and evil at worst.
I think regardless of being an ally, just on a personal level I'd say 80 per cent of my success is down to the gays. Like, not even just from a fan-based perspective, my team around me, the people I grew up with, the people in my life when I moved to London, my close friends,
I didn't know who knew and who didn't, and I didn't know that everyone who wasn't under NDA wasn't going to be retained. But it did seem suspicious, because I was like, I know not everyone knows about the sale. I don't know why some people are being told ahead of time. This seems fishy to me, and it was a fishy, weird time period.
Whether it's fueling our time on the treadmill, getting us through yet another errand, or helping us dance our cares away on a Friday night, music is a huge part of our lives. And in 2025, we've seen an embarrassment of riches in the music department. To honor that, we're nominating musicians in three star-studded categories: Breakout Musical Artist, Anthem, and Music Video.
Art, at its very best, reminds me that there is a world out there that I not only belong to but trust - perhaps even love. Sandra Vázquez de la Horra's beeswax-dipped drawings of erupting women, mystical landscapes, and hallucinatory flora in The Awake Volcanoes at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, did just that. Oh, that old mystery of finding oneself reflected in the material fragments of someone else's private imaginary.
In response, Williams said he didn't think there was an easy answer, noting "there are straight women, there are trans women, there are gay women, like queer women" who are fans. However, in the clip initially shared by Quinn, Williams says: "There are straight women, there are gay women, like queer women," with "trans women" edited out. On 3 January, the Quinn X account responded to a user who called out the edit.
Madonna, Confessions Tour 2006 at Wembley Arena in London. It was the first concert I had ever went to on my own, as the tickets even back then were so expensive and none of my friends wanted to go. Before it started I went to a shoddy, back street pub nearby and had three pints of beer to build up some Dutch courage.
Rap music has long been framed as a genre of excess: too loud, too violent, too vulgar. From its beginnings, it has been associated with anger, confrontation, and a form of hypermasculinity that leaves little room for alternative expressions. In France especially, rap has often been perceived as the voice of male youth from working-class neighborhoods, carrying narratives of struggle, rivalry, and domination.
Wang was on the edge of 17 when she arrived at Nashville International Airport with her entire life packed into three suitcases and a carry-on. She had traveled all the way from Zhejiang, China, chasing a dream that would ultimately shape her future: studying music business at Belmont University. Now 26, Wang is an Artist Development Manager at Sony Music Entertainment.
When director Emerald Fennell needed to hire a musician to score her Wuthering Heights adaptation, only one person came to mind: Charli XCX. Not only did the British pop star accept the offer, but she used her soundtrack to capture love in all of its grandiose, moody, and elusive ways. As she described the soundtrack on her Substack, it's a "dive into persona, into a world that felt undeniably raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured and full of actual real sentences, punctuation and grammar."