 | |
| Born | Andrew Ellis Evans |
| Occupation | Author |
| Language | English |
| Education | Brigham Young University, Oxford University |
| Genre | |
| Notable awards | Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers; Stonewall Book Award from American Library Association |
Andrew Evans is an American travel writer, author and television host. [1] [2]
Evans was born in Texas and raised in Ohio. [3] He began traveling internationally at the age of 16 when he moved to France on a Rotary Youth Exchange, and later to the Ukraine as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [4] [ non-primary source needed ]
Evans was raised as a Mormon, but had struggles with expressing his gay identity at Brigham Young University. [3] [5] In an article for Outsports, Evans discussed the compulsory year of conversion therapy and "traumatic moments" BYU made him undergo in the late 90s as a student after he was caught kissing a man by his roommate. BYU told him he could be expelled or visit weekly with his bishop, turn in fellow gay students, cut off contact with any gay friends, and have frequent visits with a BYU therapist until he was heterosexual and "safe" for other students to be around. Included in the therapy was weekly dates with women as an additional attempt to change his attractions. [5]
He got his Master's degree at Oxford University where he studied Geography and Russian Foreign Policy. [3]
Evans began working for National Geographic Traveler on a real-time digital story-telling assignment in 2009 on an assignment called "Bus to Antarctica". He traveled overland from Washington DC to Tierra del Fuego by bus and the last leg to Antarctica by boat. [6] When Evans reached the island of South Georgia, he encountered a black emperor penguin, which was described to be as rare as "one in a zillion". [7] It later became the namesake of his 2017 travel memoir The Black Penguin, which expands upon his blog posts and tweets and includes insights from Evans about his struggles regarding family, religion, and sexuality, [8] The memoir received a Stonewall Book Award honor. [4] [9]
He was given the moniker of National Geographic's "digital nomad", [10] as he continued on other assignments, and also contributed to the compilation book Four Seasons of Travel. [11] [12] [13] [14]
Evans is married to Brian. [15] They live in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains near the Washington DC metro area. [3] [16]
Evans has hosted several travel shows on the National Geographic Channel
2020 Turkey's Hidden Gems series: [19]
World's Smart Cities series:
The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall, were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.
Andrew Thomas McCarthy is an American actor, travel writer, and television director. He is most known as a member of the Brat Pack, with roles in 1980s films such as St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink, and Less than Zero. He is ranked No. 40 on VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars of all-time list. As a director, he is known for his work on Orange Is the New Black.
The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which is widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.
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Stormé DeLarverie was an American woman known as the butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to DeLarverie and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall uprising, spurring the crowd to action. She was born in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a white father. She is remembered as a gay civil rights icon and entertainer, who performed and hosted at the Apollo Theater and Radio City Music Hall. She worked for much of her life as an MC, singer, bouncer, bodyguard, and volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village." She is known as "the Rosa Parks of the gay community."
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