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Festering frustration
Activists say police abuse is common link to gay, black riots
Some in the LGBT community questioned why Baltimore black youth would riot in their own neighborhoods, ignoring their own community’s history of rioting against police injustice. (Photo by Victoria Macchi/VOA News public domain)
The Stonewall riots triggered by a police raid on a New York City gay bar in 1969 and three other lesser known gay riots in San Francisco were reactions to police abuse and perceived societal oppression, according to LGBT activists familiar with those incidents.
San Francisco gay and AIDS activist Cleve Jones, who witnessed two of the gay riots in his city in 1979 and 1991, is among those who say there are similarities between the police abuse experienced by young gay men back in the 1960s and 1970s and young black men today.
Jones and other LGBT activists point to the incident involving 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray, whose death on April 19 from a severe spinal cord injury he sustained while in custody of Baltimore police triggered riots and looting.
Officials with several national LGBT rights groups, including the National Black Justice Coalition, have joined African-American civil rights leaders in denouncing the action by six Baltimore police officers who detained and arrested Gray on a charge of possessing a small knife that was later found to be legal to carry.
The groups said Gray’s death in a police-related incident, after officers reportedly ignored his pleas for medical treatment while being transported in a police wagon, highlighted similar instances of reported abuse by police against young black men in Baltimore and other parts of the country, including Ferguson, Mo.
“Where you can draw a parallel is with police relations,” Jones says. “I think to be a young gay person in San Francisco in the late 1970s, you would have many of the same kinds of feelings as young African Americans feel toward the police today.”
“When I got to San Francisco, the cops hated us. And they made it very, very clear every day,” Jones says. “I’m an old white man and unlikely to be singled out for my appearance for abuse by the police. But my memories of it from my youth are fresh.”
Jones was a student intern working for San Francisco Board of Supervisors member and gay rights advocate Harvey Milk in November 1978. It was at that time when Dan White, a disgruntled former police officer who had just resigned from his position as one of Milk’s fellow supervisors, shot Milk to death in Milk’s office at City Hall.
White killed Milk minutes after assassinating pro-gay San Francisco Mayor George Moscone in the mayor’s office in a fit of rage over Moscone’s refusal to reappoint White to his supervisor’s seat. White had announced he changed his mind and wanted to remain in office. Milk was among his fellow supervisors who urged Moscone not to reappoint White, who was part of a conservative faction on the Board of Supervisors that opposed Milk on many policy matters.
In May 1979, gays and other San Franciscans became outraged when a jury ignored prosecutors’ calls for convicting White on a first-degree murder charge and instead found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, the most lenient possible charge for shooting two people to death.
Similar to the turn of events in Baltimore 36 years later, gays responded by holding a protest rally in the gay Castro neighborhood, which was Milk’s home base. They marched peacefully through the streets as the crowd swelled from about 500 to more than 1,500 people, according to news media accounts.
When the gathering of mostly LGBT people reached City Hall its ranks had increased to about 5,000, and violence broke out.
Police cars were set on fire, windows of nearby buildings were smashed and overhead wires for the city’s street cars were pulled down. Some of the rioters took tear gas canisters from damaged police cars and threw them at police, who initially stood on the sidelines at the direction of the police chief, again similar to the Baltimore disturbances this year, before the chief directed them to confront the rioters and force them away from the City Hall area.
About two-dozen arrests were made and more than 140 protesters and as many as 60 police officers were injured, news media reports said. The rioting caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage to the City Hall building and nearby buildings and vehicles.
Jones, who was present when the rioting unfolded, said the longtime police hostility toward the gay community combined with the shock of a lenient jury verdict for the man who murdered Milk, a gay icon, prompted normally peaceful gays to embrace violence.
“I saw people who were known to be very well mannered who were completely consumed with rage and hatred of the police department,” he said. “It was a real desire to fight back, a sense that we had taken this kind of crap for far too long. … I think the LGBT people who were there that night — within all of us — the memories of prior abuses, the reality that we had been beaten up and called names and put down for so long — and then it was the last straw — that this all white, straight jury basically gave him a slap on the wrist.”
Compton’s Cafeteria Riot pre-dates Stonewall
New York’s Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in 1969, where gays and transgender people fought back against a police raid, is considered the historic development that started the modern LGBT rights movement.
But three years earlier, in August 1966, a confrontation between a police officer and a person witnesses described as a drag queen inside Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin section erupted into what has become known as Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.
Transgender historian Susan Stryker, who co-wrote and co-directed a documentary film about the incident in 2005 called “Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria,” is credited with helping piece together a comprehensive report on what happened.
LGBT activists are now calling the incident one of the first known transgender riots in U.S. history based on reports that Compton’s was a hangout for people who today would be considered transgender women.
Also patronizing Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin were the trans women’s gay male and lesbian friends. Nearly all of them, the documentary film says, were struggling to survive at a time when they were considered outcasts. Most lived in nearby cheap rooming houses and many engaged in prostitution. Most were also often harassed by the police at a time when cross dressing was against the law, Stryker reports in the documentary film.
According to the film, the riot started when a police officer threatened to arrest one of the male-to-female cross dressers inside Compton’s and she threw her coffee in his face. People interviewed in the film, which can be viewed on YouTube, said a melee then broke out among police and as many as 50 people inside the establishment, with windows shattered and dishes and furniture tossed around the room.
The fighting soon moved outside the restaurant, people in the film reported, creating a disturbance considered a full-fledged riot on the street.
“The violent oppression (and riot) of transgender people at Compton’s Cafeteria did not solve the problems that transgender people in the Tenderloin faced daily,” said transgender activist Autumn Sandeen in a 2010 article about the incident in gaylesbiantimes.com. “It did, however, create a space in which it became possible for the city of San Francisco to begin relating differently to its transgender citizens — to begin treating them, in fact, as citizens with legitimate needs instead of simply as a problem to get rid of.”
AB 1 Riots triggered by veto of gay rights bill
The fourth known gay riot in the United States took place in San Francisco on Sept. 30, 1991, after then-Republican Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed Assembly Bill 1, a gay rights measure that called for banning discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on sexual orientation.
The bill had been stalled in committee for years before both houses of the legislature finally passed it in September 1991. Gay activists and their supporters in the legislature were outraged over Wilson’s veto, saying he acquiesced to the anti-gay faction of the state’s Republican Party.
“As was the case in the White Night riots, a large crowd assembled in the Castro and stormed the civic center,” says Jones, who was present as the crowd grew and became increasingly angry. “But instead of stopping at City Hall they went to the state building and did their best to set it on fire.”
A short documentary film on the AB 1 Riot, which included TV news footage of the incident, says about 2,000 protesters marched to the state building, where Wilson had an office. Protesters can be seen in the film using sections of metal barricade fences as battering rams to smash through the building’s glass doors.
The film also shows a protester using a large pole with a rainbow flag attached to it to smash through the glass doors on the building. It says the rioting caused over $250,000 in damage to the building, but no arrests were made and no serious injuries were reported.
‘Intersection’ between Baltimore and LGBT rights movement
Officials with some of the national LGBT groups talked about what they called the intersection between the Baltimore riots in late April of this year and the LGBT civil rights movement.
“The recent events in Baltimore and throughout the nation have been emotional, hurtful and even traumatic for so many in the black community,” says Sharon Lettman-Hicks, executive director and CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition, an LGBT civil rights organization.
“At the National Black Justice Coalition, we are dedicated to changing the mainstream narrative around socially marginalized black people, especially young people, because issues like police brutality and economic injustice are also LGBT issues that disproportionately impact LGBT people of color.”
“Black LGBT people cannot separate their blackness from their sexual orientation, gender expression or gender identity,” she says. “Issues that confront black people — like structural oppression, classism and racism in America — impact black LGBT people twofold.”
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, says transgender people often face “brutal victimization, mistreatment and violence at the hands of law enforcement.”
She says NCTE works to address police abuse not only for transgender people but for everyone in its quest for “a more just society.”
According to Keisling, at least one transgender woman who was arrested during the Baltimore disturbances was placed in a men’s jail after police learned she was transgender. She was “forced to remove her undergarments and made to reveal her body to officers,” Keisling says.
“Our hearts go out to the family of Freddie Gray and to those people whose hearts are broken with grief,” says Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. “Police-related killings of young black men have become a regular occurrence across our nation. So in a very real way what is happening in Baltimore is a predictable reaction to appalling injustice, deep mistrust of police and a real sense that nothing will be done about it.”
“The beauty and responsibility of the LGBT community is that we’re at the intersection of everything,” says Human Rights Campaign Vice President Fred Sainz. “We’re black, Asian, Latino and everything in between.
“Because of the stigma we face and the lack of legal protections, LGBT people are also more likely to face economic disenfranchisement,” he says. “What all of this means is that this must be a shared struggle and we also have a responsibility to make life better for all Americans.”
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Local, last-minute holiday gift ideas
Celebrate the season while supporting area businesses
The DowntownDC Holiday Market is bustling. Union Station is decked out with its annual Christmas tree. Washingtonians have wrapped their houses and apartment balconies with festive lights and holiday decorations. The holiday season is here. And with stockings to fill and empty space under the tree, Washington’s local shops and artists have plenty to offer.
Show your LGBTQ and D.C. pride with the Washington Blade’s annual holiday gift guide.
To embrace the holiday buzz: The Blanco Nwèl cocktail from Alchy Cocktails. This Caribbean eggnog is one of Alchy Cocktail’s seasonal holiday cocktails. The flavor profile is similar to coquito, a traditional Puerto Rican Christmas drink with a coconut base. As a queer and Caribbean-owned business, Alchy Cocktails has been based out of Washington since 2021. Blanco Nwèl is available in both cocktail ($24) and mocktail ($12) online and at a variety of holiday markets, including the Tingey Plaza Holiday Market, the Flea Market at Eastern Market, Union Station’s Main Hall Holiday Market, and more. ($24)
A spicy bite: Gordy’s Cajun Okra from Salt and Sundry. These spicy, tangy pickles pull on Southern Cajun-style flavors, packing a punch with paprika, cayenne, and more. Gordy’s is an LGBTQ-owned and Washington-based brand, making this gift an opportunity to support a local LGBTQ business straight from the jar. This pantry staple is available on Salt & Sundry’s website and at its locations in Union Market, Logan Circle, and its Georgetown holiday pop-up store. ($14)
To celebrate Washington pride: The DC Landmark Tote Bag from The Neighborgoods. Native Washingtonians, visitors, friends and family alike will find something to love about this Washington-themed tote bag. Food trucks, the 9:30 Club, the Metro logo and pandas from the National Zoo are just some of the city’s landmarks depicted across the tote in a red, white, and blue color palette. The tote is a part of the DC Landmarks collection, which donates 10 percent of its sales to the American Civil Liberties Union. The Neighborgoods itself is a local, woman-owned business built out of a passion for screen-printing in 2013. The 100 percent cotton canvas tote is for sale online or at the DowntownDC Holiday Market. ($22)
To give friends and family their flowers: The Flowers Bandana from All Very Goods. This 100 percent cotton bandana was designed in Washington and hand printed in India. Its uniqueness comes in being covered with the faces of Black women, representing a “love letter to all women but especially Black women,” according to All Very Goods. The Black woman-owned and operated business, based out of Northwest Washington, has a mission to celebrate diversity and representation through its products. The bandana intends to give Black women their “flowers.” The Flowers bandana is available for purchase online. ($24)
To unlock culinary creativity: The Curious Chef Gift Collection from Each Peach Market. This customizable collection of kitchen oddities — ranging from tinned fish to chili oil — is a quirky gift for the most inventive chefs. The collection is available in a Standard Santa, Extra Goodies and Super Holiday Size for up to $165. The Washington-based market, founded in 2013, permits customers to make the collection special by specifying what unique ingredients are packaged, including products made by local or LGBTQ brands. Each Peach Market offers assembly and pick up in-person at its Mount Pleasant shop and also offers local delivery and nationwide shipping via its website. ($85)
To give a touch of sweetness: The DC Landmark Chocolate Covered Oreo Holiday Cookies from Capital Candy Jar. Wrapped in a festive red bow, this box of nine cookies embraces love for Washington and the holiday season in one. Among the dark and milk chocolate covered cookies are images of the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and festive hollies. The treat, packaged in a Hill East facility just a few blocks from the Capitol, is available for purchase online and at the DowntownDC Holiday Market. ($23.95)
To celebrate queer gaming: Thirsty Sword Lesbians from Labyrinth Games & Puzzles. This roleplaying game embraces lesbian culture by unlocking a world of swords, romance, and battle. Ideal for group settings, the book presents a system of world building and character identities that are best brought to life by creative minds. Labyrinth, which has been a local Washington business for more than 15 years, celebrates non-digital fun through games and puzzles that connect the community. This gift is offered online and at Labyrinth’s Capitol Hill location. ($29.99)
To make a bold statement: The “Resist” T-shirt from Propper Topper. This locally screen-printed black tee features the Washington flag designed within a raised fist, symbolizing both Washington pride, and political resistance. The shirt is made exclusively by Propper Topper, a local Washington business that evolved from a hat shop to a gift store since opening in 1990. The tri-blend unisex shirt is available both for pickup at Propper Topper’s Cathedral Heights location and shipping via the online site. ($32)
To keep it c(g)lassy: The Glass Ball earrings from Blue Moon Aquarius. Gifting can rarely go wrong when it comes to a new pair of earrings. The unique statement earrings — made of polymer clay, glass, and 18k gold plating over surgical steel — are hand cut, sanded and assembled in Washington, meaning each set is unique. Blue Moon Aquarius, a local brand, is known for its small batch jewelry and home decor designed with clay materials. Available in oxblood, hunter green, lavender, and bluestone color palettes, these earrings are available for purchase on Blue Moon Aquarius’ website and at the DowntownDC Holiday Market. ($48)
To elevate a holiday tea or charcuterie party: The Honey Flight: Tea Lover’s Selection from BannerBee. This local honey company presents the ideal gift to make cozying up with a cup of tea slightly more special. The Honey Flight contains three types of raw wildflower honey infused with fair trade Ugandan vanilla bean, chai spices, and locally sourced lemon thyme herb. The gift is also an opportunity to uplift a family company based in the Mid-Atlantic that offers all-natural, sustainable products. The flight is available online, at the DowntownDC Holiday Market or at the Arlington Courthouse and Dupont Farmers’ Markets. ($36)
For Baltimore shoppers: If you’re in Charm City, don’t miss Balston Mercantile, opened by a gay couple in June. Their gorgeous shop in the Hampden neighborhood offers an array of unique, upscale finds, from barware and artwork to cookbooks and home decor and more. (849 W. 36th St.)
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Have yourself a merry John Waters Christmas
Annual holiday show returns to Alexandria and Baltimore
When it comes to iconic Christmas scenes in movies, none can top the tree-toppling tantrum thrown by cha-cha heels-deprived Dawn Davenport in John Waters’s fifth full-length feature “Female Trouble” from 1974. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Waters continues to make art out of Christmas, performing his spoken word Christmas tour in cities across the country. Waters has even more reason to celebrate with the release of his new red vinyl 7” single, a cover of Little Cindy’s “Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child’s Prayer)” on the A-side, and “A Pig Latin Visit From St. Nicholas” on the B-side. If you’re still looking for unique Christmas gifts, consider this record. As always, John was kind enough to make time for an interview in advance of his tour dates.
BLADE: John, in preparation for this interview with you, I went back and listened to Little Cindy’s original rendition of “Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child’s Prayer)” on your “A John Waters Christmas” CD.
JOHN WATERS: One thing I did, if you notice, I make the same stumble in my recording that she did in the original.
BLADE: It sounded to me like she got choked up.
WATERS: No, I think she just stumbles over a word, so I stumbled over the same word. It’s appropriation, insanely.
BLADE: Is this a song you first became aware of in your youth or when you were an adult?
WATERS: When I was doing the Christmas album, I had this friend named Larry Benicewicz. He was kind of my idea man with music. He knew every single old record. I would say to him, “Weird Christmas songs,” when we were doing a soundtrack, or a song about bears, or a song about this, and he would give me all these tapes. It was one of the ones he played for me. A lot of the songs I put in my movies and on my records, I did know as a kid. I did not know this one, but I immediately embraced it. I don’t think it’s campy. I think it really is spiritual in a weird way. My doing it makes it a novelty record. I am really for novelty records, and there aren’t any anymore. Why was there not a COVID novelty record? That’s insane. The dance “The Bug” that’s on the “Hairspray” soundtrack would be perfect for COVID.
BLADE: The thing that struck me was that for a Christmas song in the voice of a child, a kind of death pall hangs over it, with lines like, “If I was good you’d let me live with you” and “they nailed you to the cross, they wanted you to die.”
WATERS: All of it! When I see children at midnight mass kneeling in front of a nude man nailed to a cross, I feel like I’m at The Eagle! It is S&M, it’s creepy. I took the same cover (photo) from her record to parody and put my face on it. The same thing I did with The Singing Dogs last year when I covered (their version of) “Jingle Bells.” I’m really into novelty records. I love them and I’m trying to bring them back. I don’t expect anybody to ever play these records. Even The Singing Dogs one said on it, “Please do not play this record” [laughs]. And the flipside, the Pig Latin version, is almost impossible to listen to.
BLADE: I’m so glad you mentioned that. “A Pig Latin Visit From St. Nicholas” reminded me of the lost art of speaking in Pig Latin. I also recall watching the PBS series “Zoom” as an adolescent and learning to speak “ubbi dubbi,” a distant relative of Pig Latin. Do you think that the time is right for a Pig Latin or ubbi dubbi revival?
WATERS: Here’s the thing, I never could pick up any language, except Pig Latin. I’ve been in every foreign country. Foreign countries have given me money to learn to speak the language. I can never do it! But Pig Latin…my parents and other parents in the ‘50s spoke Pig Latin so kids couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then my mother taught it to me, and I used it. The hardest take to shoot in “Pink Flamingos” was not eating the dog shit. It was when the cast skipped, in one take, saying “E-way, are-yay e-they ilthiest-fay eople-pay in-hay e-they ole-hay ide-way orld-way.” We’re the filthiest people in the whole wide world in Pig Latin. We had to do so many takes so they could do it once without screwing it up. In “Polyester,” Edith (Massey) answers the phone, “ello-hay.” I did a photo piece where it was all subtitled in Pig Latin. Like “osebud-Ray” (from “Citizen Kane”) or in “Streetcar,” “ella-Stay!” [Laughs] All the iconic dialogue translated into Pig Latin. My assistant who helped me do it, had never heard of Pig Latin. She really got good at it because she lived in many foreign countries and can pick up languages. But it’s not that easy to do it correctly and read it. Your computer will translate into Pig Latin.
BLADE: AI understands Pig Latin?
WATERS: I guess that’s AI. It wasn’t 100% right, but it was close. I can speak it if I look at it, but just do a bit at a time. It was a challenge that no one would possibly care about or want to do.
BLADE: I think you pulled it off very well.
WATERS: If you want people to leave on Christmas morning, you put it on. That’s how you get your guests to leave. It’s time to go.
BLADE: Ood-gay i-bay! How did your relationship with record label Sub Pop, which released 2021, 2022, 2024, and new 2025 holiday singles, come about?
WATERS: I believe the first thing I did for them was “Prayer to Pasolini.” They came to me through Ian Brennan. He’s won a couple Grammys for World Music, but he is also is one of my agents who does the Christmas tour and a lot of my shows, anything with music. He helped me arrange each one of the songs. He had a relationship with Sub Pop. It was perfect. My friends in Baltimore, (the band) Beach House, have had huge success.
BLADE: That’s right, they’re on Sub Pop!
WATERS: Yes! I’m happy to be on it. I’ve even been to the warehouse and posed for pictures like Jackie Suzanne used to do.
BLADE: Is there any chance that “A John Waters Christmas” might be reissued on vinyl by Sub Pop?
WATERS: No. It’s such a nightmare to get the rights and to renew them. You have to find the publisher and the writer, and they usually hate each other. It doesn’t matter if it’s obscure or famous, it’s hard to get. You have to make the deal. The singer doesn’t get anything unless they play it on the radio. It would be so complicated legally, and there would be such a [laughs] tiny audience for it. I hope it will come out again. The same thing with the one for Valentine’s Day. I had two of them that did quite well when they came out; “A Date With John Waters and “A John Waters Christmas.” The “John Waters Christmas” album is still the soundtrack that plays whenever I’m doing my spoken word Christmas show as people are entering the theater.
BLADE: Aside from your annual Christmas show tour, what else do you do for the holidays now, and are there any traditions that you’ve carried over from your family?
WATERS: Certainly! I have two sisters, my brother’s widow, and me, so there are four and we take turns each year to have the Christmas dinner. Mine was last year. An entire sit-down dinner. Mom’s China, the silverware, the entire full dinner. It’s pretty traditional. I don’t have a Christmas tree, but I do decorate the electric chair from “Female Trouble.” That is a tradition in my family. We do have Christmas decorations, but they’re usually weird ones that fans sent me. I have one with Divine knocking over the Christmas tree, and the Christmas tree lights up, all sorts of amazing things. There is definitely a tradition here that might be a little altered, but it is definitely a tradition. I used to have a giant party every year, but COVID ended that. I still wouldn’t want 200 people in my house breathing right now.
BLADE: I was looking at your tour schedule and wondered if there are any new cities in which you’ve never performed the John Waters Christmas show that have been added to this year’s schedule?
WATERS: I don’t think there’s a city in America in which I haven’t done one show! The only places I haven’t been to are Hawaii and Alaska. I could do it there, but it’s too long on a tour. I can’t think of a city I haven’t played in in America over the last 50 years. The Christmas show is completely different every year. It doesn’t matter if you saw it last year.
Some gifts scream practical, others whisper luxury, and a few flat-out blur the lines. From cocoa that feels ceremonial to a cologne that linger like a suggestive smirk, this year’s ultimate gift picks prove that thoughtful (and occasionally naughty) presents don’t have to be prosaic. Welcome to your holiday cheat sheet for festive tangibles that get noticed, remembered, and maybe even result in a peck of gratitude planted under the mistletoe. Consensually, of course.
Amber Glass Champagne Flutes
Pop the champs – but make it vintage. These tulip-shaped stunners in amber-tinted glass bring all the Gatsby vibes without the Jazz-age drama. Whether you’re toasting a milestone or celebrating a Tuesday, their seven-ounce capacities and hand-wash-only care make ‘em as practical as they are pretty. Pair with a thoughtful bottle of bubs and gift with a glittering wink. $18, NantucketLooms.com
Disaster Playbook by Here Comes the Apocalypse
Because the end of the world shouldn’t be a solo act, this spiral-bound guide is your step-by-step roadmap to surviving and thriving when everything else goes sideways, which might be sooner than you think. Packed with checklists, drills, and a healthy dose of humor, it’s like a survival manual written by your most prepared (and slightly snarky) friend. Whether you’re prepping for a zombie apocalypse or, more realistically, REVOLUTION!, this playbook’s got your back. $40, HereComesTheApocalypse.com
Wickless Vulva Candles
Bold, luxurious, and completely flame-free, CTOAN’s wickless candles melt from beneath on a warmer, releasing subtle, sophisticated fragrances, like sandalwood or lavender. The vulva-shaped wax adds a playful, provocative element to any space –perfect for a bedroom, living room, or anywhere you want elegance with an edge. A gift that celebrates form, intimacy and self-expression, no fire required. $39, CTOANCO.com
Villeroy & Boch Royal Classic Christmas Collection
Every meal is a mini celebration – with whimsy at every place setting – in Villeroy & Boch’s Royal Classic festive dinnerware collection that hits all the right notes. Made from premium German porcelain, it features nostalgic little toys, nutcrackers, and rocking horses in delicate relief, giving your holiday spread a playful but refined twist. Dishwasher- and microwave-safe, it’s luxe without the fuss. Gift a piece to a special someone, or start a collection they’ll use (and show off) for years to come. $22-$363, Villeroy-Boch.com
Greenworks Electric Lawnmower
You a ’hood queen who considers lawn care performance art – or just wants to rule the cul-de-sac in quiet, emission-free glory? Greenworks’ zero-turn electric mower has the muscle of a 24-horsepower gas engine but none of the fumes, drama or maintenance. Six 60V batteries and a 42-inch deck mean you can mow up to two-and-a-half acres on a single charge – then plug in, recharge, and ride again. It’s whisper-quiet, slope-ready, and smooth enough to make you wonder why you ever pushed anything besides your queer agenda. The perfect gift for the homeowner who loves sustainability, symmetry, and showing off their freshly striped yard like that fresh fade you get on Fridays. $5,000, GreenworksTools.com
Molekule Air Purifier
For the friend who treats their space like a sanctuary (or just can’t stand sneezes), the Molekule Air Pro is magic in motion. Covering up to 1,000 square feet, it doesn’t just capture allergens, VOCs, and smoke – it destroys them, leaving your air feeling luxury-clean. FDA-cleared as a Class II medical device, it’s serious science disguised as modern design. Gift it to your city-dwelling, pet-loving, candle-burning friend who likes their living room as pristine as their Instagram feed. $1,015, Molekule.com
Cipriani Prosecco Gift Set
Effervescent with stone-fruit sweetness and a touch of Italian flair, the Cipriani Bellini & Prosecco gift set brings brunch-level glamour to any day of the week. The Bellini blends rich white-peach purée with sparkling wine, while the dry ’secco keeps things crisp and celebratory. Pop a bottle, pour a flute, and suddenly winter weeknights feel like a party – even with your pants off. $36, TotalWine.com
Woo(e)d Cologne
British GQ recently crowned Woo(e)d by ALTAIA the “Best Date Night Fragrance,” and honestly, they nailed it. Confident without being cocky – smoky gaïac and Atlas cedarwood grounds the room while supple leather and spicy cardamom do all the flirting – it’s a scent that lingers like good conversation and soft candlelight. Gift it to the one who always turns heads – or keep it for yourself and let them come to (and then on) you. $255, BeautyHabit.com
Lococo Cocoa Kit
Keep the run-of-the-mill mugs in the cabinet this Christmas and pull out Lococo’s handcrafted Oaxacan versions that demand you slow down and sip like it matters. Paired with a wooden scoop, rechargeable frother, and Lococo’s signature spice hot-chocolate blend (vegan, gluten-free, with adaptogenic mushrooms), this holiday kit turns Mexi-cocoa into a mini ritual you’ll look forward to. Perfect for anyone who loves a little indulgence with a side of ¡A huevo! energy.
Manta Sleep Mask
Total blackout, zero pressure on the eyes, and Bluetooth speakers built right into the straps, this ain’t your mama’s sleep mask — but it could be. The Manta SOUND sleep mask features C-shaped eye cups that block every hint of light while ultra-thin speakers deliver your favorite white noise, meditation, or late-night playlist straight to your ears. With 24-hour battery life, breathable fabric, and easy-to-adjust sound, it turns any bed (or airplane seat) into a five-star sleep suite. Perfect for anyone who treats shut-eye like an art form (or just wants to escape their roommate’s late-night bingin’ and/or bangin’). $159, MantaSleep.com
Shacklelock Necklace
Turn the industrial-chic vibe of a shackle into a sleek statement. Mi Tesoro’s platinum-plated stainless-steel necklace sits on an 18-inch wheat chain, featuring a shackle-style latch pendant that’s waterproof, tarnish-free, and totally fuss-les. Beyond style, it nods to a classic gesture in the queer leather community: replacing a traditional Master lock with something elegant to quietly signal belonging to someone special. Wear it solo for a minimalist edge or layer it like you mean it; either way this piece locks in both your look and your intentions. $90, MiTesoroJewelry.com
Parkside Flask Mojave Edition
Wine nights get a desert glow-up with Parkside’s limited-edition 750-milliliter all-in-one flask draped in sun-washed bronze and badland hues like sage, sand, and terracotta – with magnetic stemless tumblers that snap on for effortless shareability. It keeps your vino chilled for 24 hours, pours without drips (no tears for spilled rosé, please), and even lets you laser-engrave your own mantra or inside joke. Perfect for picnics, surprise rooftop clinks, or gifting to your favorite wine (or desert) rat. $149, HighCampFlasks.com
Mikey Rox is an award-winning journalist and LGBT lifestyle expert whose work has published in more than 100 outlets across the world. Connect with him on Instagram @mikeyroxtravels.
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