Desmond Napoles | |
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 Desmond Napoles in Battery Park in 2023 | |
| Born | 2007 (age 16–17) |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Drag performance, LGBTQ activism |
| Website | desmondisamazing |
Desmond Napoles (born 2007) is an American former child drag performer known by the stage name Desmond is Amazing. Napoles has been performing since they were eight years old [1] [2] [3] and is an LGBTQ activist. [4] [5]
Napoles received early attention when they appeared in the 2015 NYC Pride March. [6] [7] As of 2019, Napoles had around 180,000 followers on Instagram, and had the largest online presence of American "drag kids". [6]
In October 2017, Napoles announced they would be organizing Haus of Amazing, the first drag club for child drag performers. [8] In 2018, Napoles walked in Gypsy Sport's New York Fashion Week show. [9] [10] Be Amazing: A History of Pride, a children's picture book with text by Napoles, was published in 2020. [11] [12]
A 2022 appearance at a Bronx library was cancelled due to violent threats against the Napoles family. [13] In a March 2023 interview, Napoles said that they were retiring their drag persona and had instead begun working on a line of skin care products. [7] Napoles has started a fashion brand, Be Amazing NYC, and is a LGBTQ+ influencer. [11] [13]
In 2018, Napoles lived in Brooklyn, [14] continues to live in New York City as of 2023 [15] and identifies as genderfluid. [16]
Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
A dyke march is a lesbian visibility and protest march, much like the original Gay Pride parades and gay rights demonstrations. The main purpose of a dyke march is the encouragement of activism within the lesbian and sapphic community. Dyke marches commonly take place the Friday or Saturday before LGBTQ pride parades. Larger metropolitan areas usually have several Pride-related happenings both before and after the march to further community building; with social outreach to specific segments such as older women, women of color, and lesbian parenting groups.
Heritage of Pride (HOP), doing business as NYC Pride, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that plans and produces the official New York City LGBTQIA+ Pride Week events each June. HOP began working on the events in 1984, taking on the work previously done by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee organizers of the first NYC Pride March in 1970. HOP also took over responsibility for the operations of NYC's Pride Festival and Pride Rally. It was that first march that brought national attention to 1969's Stonewall Riots. The late sixties saw numerous protests and riots across the United States on many social injustices and from general political unrest including the war in Vietnam.
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. The largest pride parade and the largest pride event in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June, and carries spiritual and historical significance for the worldwide LGBTQIA+ community and its advocates. Entertainer Madonna stated in 2024, "Aside from my birthday, New York Pride is the most important day of the year." The route through Lower Manhattan traverses south on Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, passing the Stonewall National Monument, site of the June 1969 riots that launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
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."
Peppermint, or Miss Peppermint, is an American actress, singer, songwriter, television personality, drag queen, and activist. She is best known from the nightlife scene and, in 2017, as the runner-up on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. In 2018, Peppermint made her debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels as Pythio, becoming Broadway's first out trans woman to originate a lead role.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
Abby Chava Stein is an Israeli-American transgender author, rabbi, activist, blogger, model, and speaker. She is the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community, and is a direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism's founder, the Baal Shem Tov. In 2015, she founded one of the first support groups nationwide for trans people with an Orthodox Jewish background who have left Orthodox Judaism.
Alexander "Sasha" Hedges Steinberg, known professionally as Sasha Velour, is an American drag queen, artist, actor, and stage and television producer, based in Brooklyn, New York. Velour is known for winning the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race, her drag revue NightGowns, and her one-queen theatrical work, Smoke & Mirrors.
Yuhua Hamasaki is the stage name of Yuhua Ou, a Chinese-born American drag queen, singer, actor and reality television personality who came to international attention on the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race.
The Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival is the second oldest and second-largest pride parade in New York City. It is held annually in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, located in the New York City borough of Queens. The parade was founded by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Queens and memorialize Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera. Queens also serves as the largest transgender hub in the Western hemisphere and is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.
The Queer Liberation March is an annual LGBT protest march in Manhattan, organized by the Reclaim Pride Coalition as an anti-corporate alternative to the NYC Pride March.
Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was a series of LGBTQ events and celebrations in June 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was also the first time WorldPride was held in the United States. Held primarily in the metropolitan New York City area, the theme for the celebrations and educational events was "Millions of moments of Pride." The celebration was the largest LGBTQ event in history, with an official estimate of 5 million attending Pride weekend in Manhattan alone, with an estimated 4 million in attendance at the NYC Pride March. The twelve-hour parade included 150,000 pre-registered participants among 695 groups.
The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes". Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty inductees were unveiled June 27, 2019, as a part of events marking the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Five honorees are added annually.
RuPaul's DragCon NYC is an annual fan convention and expo of drag culture held in New York City, which debuted in September 2017. It is based on the successful RuPaul's DragCon LA which was launched in Los Angeles in 2015 billed as a “convention that celebrates ‘the art of drag, queer culture and self-expression for all’”. The NYC event is considered the "world's largest celebration of drag culture" with 100,000 attendees. The event is an outgrowth of the internationally successful RuPaul's Drag Race, which generated Drag Race Thailand, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, and Chile's The Switch Drag Race. RuPaul's Drag Race and the two DragCons come from World of Wonder Entertainment (WOW), a production company based in Los Angeles. The first RuPaul's DragCon NYC was held in 2017 at the Javits Center, with over 40,000 attendees at the two-day all-ages event; it “garnered 687 million (online) impressions in 2018.” Based on the success of the original LA event, the NYC event expanded to three days in 2019: both had over 100,000 attendees in 2019.
The New York City Drag March, or NYC Drag March, is an annual drag protest and visibility march taking place in June, the traditional LGBTQ pride month in New York City. Organized to coincide ahead of the NYC Pride March, both demonstrations commemorate the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, widely considered the pivotal event sparking the gay liberation movement, and the modern fight for LGBTQ rights.
Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), Drag Queen Storytime, Drag Story Time, and Drag Story Hour are children's events first started in 2015 by author and activist Michelle Tea in San Francisco with the goals of promoting reading and diversity. The events, usually geared for children aged 3–11, are hosted by drag queens who read children’s books, and engage in other learning activities in public libraries.
Laith Ashley De La Cruz is an American model, actor, activist, singer-songwriter and entertainer of Dominican descent.
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