Arts & Entertainment

2019 DC Brau & Washington Blade Pride Can Design Contest Finalist Voting

Published

7 years ago

February 27, 2019

WBadmin

DC Brau Brewing Company and The Washington Blade are excited to announce the Top 3 designs for a special can of Brau Pils to be released during this summer’s Pride celebration. This year’s release is extra special as the LGBT community celebrates 50 years since Stonewall, as well as the golden anniversary of The Washington Blade, the nation’s oldest LGBT newspaper.

Voting on the Top 3 designs will be open to the public through March 7, 2019. Approximately 1,200 cases of Brau Pils will be re-packaged as PRIDE PILS for distribution during PRIDE 2019 this June in Washington, D.C.

Finalist #1: Maggie Dougherty

This design is about celebrating 50 years of incredible progress, while acknowledging the inequality that still exists and recognizing the need to address it. When I was reading about Stonewall to get inspiration for this project, I learned about Marsha P. Johnson. Not only was Marsha beautiful and striking, but she was a badass. When people asked her gender, she would reply flippantly, “Pay it no mind.” She was a leader during Stonewall and worked with the Gay Liberation Front to improve conditions for LGBTQ citizens by ending homophobic legislation. She started Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR) which is still active today and helps homeless LGBTQ youth. She was active during the early 1980s when AIDS was ravishing the gay community, protesting to increase accessibility to new HIV/AIDS medication for all. She did it all.

As an African American transwoman, sex worker and drag queen in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s, Marsha faced incredible discrimination, marginalization, sexism, violence and barriers to employment and mental health. Marsha, unfortunately, died mysteriously in 1992. Originally ruled a suicide, Marsha case has recently been re-open. The actual cause of death is still unknown.

What struck me deeply as I thought about Marsha, was how transgender people still face many of the same challenges and barriers today. And – horrifically – the same violence. In 2018, 26 transgender people were killed by violence. In 2019, there’s already been one reported death. According to HRC, “…fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable.”

This same sentence could have been written in Marsha’s time. It’s important to celebrate all that’s changed in the 50 years since Stonewall, but it’s also important to recognize what hasn’t and reprioritize that as we go into the next 50 years.

Finalist #2: Sarah Muse

The design for this Pride Pils 50th Anniversary celebration can is inspired by images of bouquets of various flowers, flags and tokens left at the Stonewall Inn in NYC and the beautiful flowers that adorn the archway and gardens at Stonewall National Monument across the street. Visitors from all over the world travel to these special places to remember and to honor those that started the modern fight for LGBTQ rights. The neon letters of the name are representative of the neon sign that glows brightly in the window of the Stonewall Inn. I imagine anyone who holds this celebration can to be remembering and honoring what happened at Stonewall in the summer of 69, and also taking and active part in the pride celebrations that continue, 50 years later.

Finalist #3: Wenny Dong

The jewel-encrusted PRIDE beer can pays tribute to resilience and strength under pressure, irreverent glamor, and the power of crafting one’s identity. Inspired by drag queens, club kids, and artists, the DIY design plays on shapes, colors, and volume—transforming a muted 2-dimentional background with bedazzled movement and vibrancy. Each gem is unique. The forms flow into, envelop, and even run up against another; they celebrate the LGBTQ community’s diversity, complexity, and ongoing dialogue. An eye-catching display and conversation piece, it embraces big personalities and hearts, as well as creative possibilities in the everyday.

Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

3 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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