If you’ve ever marveled at how sometimes a rainbow appears after what seems like the darkest day and the wildest storm, then you’ll appreciate what it’s like at a time like this, to discover “American Teenager” — an honest chronicle of diverse, complex, and completely real transgender and nonbinary youth, struggling to live their authentic lives all across America.

“I think the more that we can remind people that these kids are just kids, that they’re just people, the better off the world’s going to be,” author Nico Lang, told the Washington Blade.

Lang is an award-winning journalist, who was recently honored by NLGJA, The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, with the Al Neuharth Award. Lang, who is nonbinary themself, has been touring for nearly a year since the publication of the hard cover first edition, a 2025 Stonewall Book Award honoree. 

Lang’s bestselling ethnography has now hit bookstores and online booksellers in paperback. And, they said, they are exhausted. 

“In 12 days, it will be 12 whole months of being on the road, with tiny breaks every now and then,” Lang said. “I just got nine days off to be home with my husband. They felt very short. I’ve been to 110 stops so far, in 39 states and the District of Columbia. I plan to make it to all 50, but to be honest, I’m not sure when traveling will be over for me, when it feels like I will have done enough.”

Before the book tour, there was their odyssey across the country, spending days, sometimes weeks, with eight families who opened up to Lang about their challenges, their pain and also their joy. Lang spoke with the Blade in 2024 as well as last month about that journey, during which they also struggled.

“I was just completely living off what little savings I have, being really scrappy,” they said, pausing to reflect on what it took to write the book; not just the financial challenges, but emotional ones as well. “I don’t want to ever overemphasize my own struggle here, but being present with these families all the time, and doing that emotional labor and just, you know, being a human, around humans who are really struggling, was a lot.” 

And the people they interviewed told Lang, that weight was plain to see. 

“All of the families kept telling me, over and over again, ‘You sacrificed a lot for this. You really gave up your life for this.’ This wasn’t easy for me. This wasn’t easy for any of us.”

So why do it? Especially given that the most recent Gallup opinion poll, published in June, showed a slim majority of Americans believe changing one’s gender is “morally wrong.” The tide is high right now for the transgender community, especially families raising trans kids. 

“A friend who is a civil rights attorney told me something recently that stuck with me: namely, that the movement for LGBTQ+ equality lost for years before we won anything,” said Lang. “Every court battle ended in defeat for decades until the tide started to turn slowly, and then quickly. Then, we became so used to winning that we always thought it would be that way. We’re finding out the hard way that that was never true, but it’s a reminder that tides can change. We can still fight to change them. That’s what this book is: the fight.”

And the fight is just beginning.

Lang told the Blade the book — subtitled “How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in A Turbulent Era” — is aimed at countering narratives spread by opponents of gender affirming care and transgender inclusion in schools and sports, with an emphasis on what they call “the universality of the stories here.”

“It’s about their resilience. It’s about how they survive in the world,” they said. “But it’s also about them being kids and about them being humans.”

Each of Lang’s seven chapters introduces readers to a new family in a different city, focusing on eight individuals and their everyday lives. One centers on homeless trans siblings in Pensacola, Fla. — Augie, who is both nonbinary and neurodivergent, and Jack, as well as their mom.

“Homelessness is such a part of the trans experience,” Lang said. 

There’s also Wyatt of Sioux Falls, S.D., Rhydian in Birmingham, Ala., Mykah in Charleston, W.Va., Ruby in Houston, Clint in Chicago and Kylie in Torrance, Calif. 

“More than anything, it’s just a book that centers the humanity of these kids,” said Lang. “It’s not always about them being trans. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s just us talking about, like, Kierkegaard on the balcony, you know? And there’s a universality there that, even if people have that kind of initial apprehension to the subject matter of a book like this, I hope that universality is able to sneak past that, and remind people, why these kids’ stories are important, and why their lives are important. I think that we can, when we put that humanity first and we remind people that these kids are just people, we can stop forcing our preconceptions onto them. We can just let them live their lives.”

After daily doses of negative mainstream media reports mentioning transgender people, Lang said their goal for the paperback is to provide positivity.

“I hope this book brings people optimism, that it brings people comfort, and that it gives others joy on hard days, of which we have collectively had many recently,” they told the Blade in an email Thursday.

“I struggle with those concepts myself,” wrote Lang. “Right now, I have really lost touch with hope. I sometimes say that ‘I hope to hope.’”

After this break with their husband, Lang vows to return to the road to resume promoting the book, right into the new year, and beyond. 

“I’ve thought about traveling all the way through 2028, through the next election,” they said. “I don’t feel I did enough to try to stop the second Trump presidency. In regards to what could be coming next, I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t put everything I had into that project.”

Looking back on the project that produced “American Teenager” — they said the title is borrowed from a song by Ethel Cain — it’s clear they put everything they had into the 304 pages, including the dedication.

“In our journalism,” Lang told the Blade, “we make connections beyond what general cisgender journalists do in terms of covering the stories.”

Lang’s dedication is to what they called, “lost souls,” like Terri Bruce, a trans man and South Dakota advocate, who died by suicide in 2018, and to HRC staffer Henry Berg-Brousseau, both of whom “gave their lives to us,” wrote Lang. And to Nex Benedict of Oklahoma, whose death after bullying made national headlines. And to Acey Morrison, a Native American killed in 2023 after meeting a man from a dating app, all of whom “deserved better,” they wrote. 

“For me, the book is a record of the fact that we were here, we are here, and we will be here,” said Lang. “Trans people have always existed; they will always exist. Try as they might — and they will try very, very hard — they cannot will us out of being.”

WorldPride 2025 in D.C. may have come to a close, but Pride continues in the region with celebrations planned throughout October.

Winchester Pride is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (901 Amherst St.) in Winchester, Va. King Molasses is the headliner for a packed schedule of drag performances. More than 40 vendors are slated to participate and there will be food trucks, garden tours, and book signings. A 21+ Pride Afterparty is planned that evening at 50/50 Taphouse (29 West Cork St., Winchester, Va.) with doors opening at 9 p.m. and the drag show starting at 10. Find more information at winchesterpride.com or on the Winchester Pride Facebook page.

The Upper Chesapeake Bay Pride Festival is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 4 from 1-6 p.m. at Concord Point Park (352 Commerce St.) in Havre de Grace, Md. For more information, visit the Upper Chesapeake Bay Pride Foundation website.

Staunton Pride is slated for Saturday, Oct. 11 from 12-5 p.m. at the GHP Bandstand (600 Churchville Ave.) in Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton, Va. Find more information at stauntonpride.org or by visiting the Staunton Pride Facebook page.

The Southwest Virginia Pride Fest is slated for Saturday, Oct. 11 from 12-7 p.m. at the Salem Civic Center (1001 Roanoke Blvd.) in Salem, Va. The event will feature vendors, food and beverages, drag performances and a family zone. For more information, visit swvapride.org.

The annual southern Maryland Pride celebration, Pride SoMD, is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 12 from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Lexington Manor Passive Park (Three Notch Rd.) in Lexington Park, Md. The theme this year is “Existence is Resistance.” For more information, visit pridesomd.com or the Pride SoMD Facebook page.

HoCo Pride in Howard County is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 12 from 12-4 p.m. at Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods (10431 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia, Md.). The family-friendly celebration will include vendor booths, performances, games and more. For more information, visit howardcountypride.org and register on Eventbrite.

Pride Franklin County is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 12 from 12-5 p.m. at Wilson College (1015 Philadelphia Ave.) in Chambersburg, Pa. For more information, visit pridefranklincounty.org.

The 2025 Annapolis Pride Parade and Festival was rescheduled following inclement weather and will now take place on Saturday, Oct. 18. The parade begins at 10 a.m. at the corner of Bladen St. and Clavert St. The path of the parade continues along West St. and terminates at Park Pl. The festival runs from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. and will be at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts (801 Chase Street) and Bates Athletic Complex (935 Spa Rd.). There will be entertainment stages, food trucks and over 190 vendors, according the the Annapolis Pride website. For more information, visit annapolispride.org.

As the Halloween season approaches, many queer horror fans will surely be revisiting “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” And given its 50th anniversary, the timing couldn’t be better, with a new restored version in 4K courtesy of Disney, and events and screenings happening around the country.

To discuss the many merits of “Rocky Horror,” you’d be hard pressed to find somebody more passionate than screenwriter, producer and filmmaker Michael Varrati (credits include “Christmas with You,” “The Wrong Stepmother” and “The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula”). He’s also the co-host of the biweekly podcast Midnight Mass alongside Peaches Christ, where they dig into their favorite cult movies and bring on guest stars.

Varrati sat with the Blade and recalls the first time he watched “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in his rural hometown, dishes on the film’s specific impact on the LGBTQ+ community, and explains why 50 years later, we’re still talking about Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

BLADE: Where did you first discover Rocky Horror, and how did that influence your career and overall taste in film?

MICHAEL VARRATI: When you think of cult fandom, especially in the film space, in the movie space, Rocky Horror is very singular. In so many ways, it led the charge. My first sort of interaction with Rocky was when MTV was doing coverage of one of the anniversaries — I imagine it was probably for the 20th or around that time. I was a teenager living in rural Pennsylvania and I would see this coverage around Halloween, and I was fascinated as much by the movie as I was by the fact that people were dressing up and going to the cinema to participate. And when you’re living in small town America where there are no theaters to be found doing that, there was some sort of sense of the forbidden, or it was just out of reach. But I obsessed about it, so I got a copy of the movie on VHS, and I used to gather friends — probably the theater kids, the drama club, any associated weirdos. And I say this lovingly, because I was one of those weirdos. And we would watch it in friend’s living rooms and in basements, and we would try and do our own version of celebrating the movie in a theater style at home. It wasn’t until I went to college at Kent State University that I started going to the midnight screenings in Cleveland at the Cedar Lee Theatre, and I immediately connected with the vibe of what was going on. I loved that this was more than just a movie to the people who gathered. In many ways, that fundamentally helped me understand that the art we connect to can be so much more than a passive experience.

I actually recently graduated from Ithaca College, and they always had midnight screenings around Halloween. I got to go to one of those and it was really fun. I’ve never quite had an experience like that.

They really are one of a kind. Obviously, midnight movies existed before Rocky, and now exist sort of in the wake of Rocky. I believe the original midnight movies were “Night of the Living Dead,” “El Topo,” “Pink Flamingos.” But Rocky was sort of the first time when that programming became a tangible experience. People were going to the movies, they were dressing up as the characters, they were shouting at the screen, and people weren’t getting mad about it. They were shouting too! And it created this interesting economy of celebration that we see a lot of other places and films try and mimic. … I think the reason Rocky is singular is that it was totally organic. You can’t manufacture the experience after the fact. People found the movie and the movie found them.

BLADE: Especially knowing the iconic place it has within the LGBTQ+ community, and the aspect of people dressing up and going to see these shows in full costume. Could you speak to that?

VARRATI: When I think about the significance of Rocky, I, of course, love the movie. But I think one of the most powerful things about it, especially for a particular moment in time, was that it provided a communal space a lot of people didn’t otherwise have. It’s really easy in the modern era, even in rural places, to use the internet to connect with your community if you know where to look. We know now about queer spaces and platforms and sites, but at a specific time when those were not readily available — and in many places, it was very scary to go looking for those things because you didn’t know how you were going to be met — there were few places that felt like safe harbors. And when “Rocky Horror” started becoming that space, I think that became really significant to its history because it became a gathering point for LGBTQ+ people. For punks, for goths, for anyone who felt marginalized or othered by society. When you walked through those theater doors, you belonged, and everybody accepted you, and the thing that made you feel like a freak was celebrated. You got to let your freak flag fly, and so I think for so many people of a certain generation, Rocky was the first place where they got to go find chosen family. They got to find and develop a sense of community. Because for so many, it was not a viable option. And to the outside world who maybe didn’t connect with that aspect of the movie, it was a good way to fly under the radar if you didn’t want people to fully know why you were going because you’re just going to a midnight movie. It’s not like you’re going to the gay bar that everyone in town knows or vilifies… you’re just going out with some friends to a movie. But secretly, you’re finding your community.

BLADE: I think that’s a great way of putting it. The movie is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and there are quite a few events happening, including an Academy Museum screening on the 26th with some of the cast. Could you speak to the legacy of this film over time and why people are still finding so much enjoyment in it?

VARRATI: In so many ways, it is as bold as ever. There are aspects of it, of course, to the modern audience that maybe haven’t aged as well or are problematic. But nonetheless, there are things about the movie that are so celebratory. This movie isn’t just a place where outsiders can celebrate — the movie itself, in the pantheon of film, is sort of an outsider. It is this subversive anomaly. It was a critical failure, and it was kind of a commercial failure, yet somehow it persisted. Its persistence is, in a lot of ways, akin to resistance. The idea that queer joy is an act of resistance. Queer persistence is an act of resistance. By being the strange movie, by thriving in spite of an industry that said it couldn’t, it’s something people really appreciate that history of and continue to gravitate to. But then for newer audiences who see it, the music’s fun, the characters are fun, and it still feels pretty audacious as ever. But also, the message of “Don’t dream it, be it,” is timeless. 

BLADE: I’m curious to hear about this movie’s relationship to camp, because now I think that word gets overused a lot, and some films try to manufacture it. And as you said, this film was able to capture an experience so organically.

VARRATI: There is, to some folks, a prevailing idea that you can’t intentionally make camp. But I don’t know that that’s entirely true, because we see people like John Waters — he can intentionally make camp. There are folks who get the DNA of what camp is. But a lot of times, camp happens by accident. Because I think most camp, all camp, in a lot of ways, is born out of earnestness. And I think that’s what happens when people try to manufacture camp and it fails because they’re missing the fundamental element of earnestness. If you look at any of these movies that have become camp classics, they’re not winking at you. They’re not trying to say, “Hey, this is so bad, it’s good!” They’re not trying to make you know that they’re in on the joke. They’re presenting something with their whole chest and they believe in what they’re putting out there, and it just is what it is. And we find the ridiculousness through the heightened presentation. Rocky is really special in that it is truly camp, because it is, in so many ways, an homage to classic monster movies, classics and drive-in cinema. It is through the experience of these two small town people who are sheltered and are now experiencing something that they consider to be so other and overwhelming — but for everybody inside the castle, that’s every day. A really fun way to experience Rocky is understanding that the camp is not necessarily intentional, but also absolutely intentional. It’s sort of a lampooning of the normalcy of the world outside, because the truth is normalcy is the ultimate camp, because it’s a fallacy.

BLADE: Recently, there was a CBS Sunday Morning Special featuring Tim Curry, but of course not all of the actors are with us to promote the anniversary. What do you think of the cast’s relationship to this film over the years and what performers like Curry are able to do for new generations?

VARRATI: I love that Barry Bostwick, when he speaks about this movie, says there’s no happier place to be than a midnight screening of “Rocky Horror.” I think that there’s something significant about somebody who made this, who can see that it has gone beyond him, but has created so much love, community, and celebration for people. A couple years ago on Midnight Mass, we had Patricia Quinn, who plays Magenta. But of course, when you’re talking to Patricia Quinn, “Rocky Horror” invariably comes up. From my perspective, it seems that she is constantly amused and grateful for the fact that this movie rings perennial in her life. It is a constant. The cast’s overall embracing of this film has been crucial to its success as well. We often see folks who make these movies that are initially rejected by culture at large (Faye Dunaway and “Mommie Dearest” is a great example) not get to appreciate the celebration and reappraisal as it’s happening. And so I almost feel bad because they miss out on this thing that has become important and meant so much to so many people. It’s really great to know that so many cast members of “Rocky Horror,” from the beginning, saw the movie didn’t do super great, and then became a thing within five years, and they just said, “Hey, it’s going to be what it’s going to be, and we’re along for the ride.”

BLADE: Lastly, as someone who loves film, what are some other projects that you feel have been especially inspired by “Rocky Horror” and authentically embraced its spirit?

VARRATI: You know what’s funny? I think about the influence of “Rocky Horror” in the landscape of cinema, especially cult cinema, often because — I think directly or indirectly — we see the film’s impact through the work of people who were probably at one time audience members. For example, Darren Stein, the writer and director of “Jawbreaker” (which itself is a cult classic) is a huge fan of “Rocky Horror,” and has spoken openly about Rocky‘s influence on him and how it creeps its way into his work. And when you watch Jawbreaker, Courtney, the character played by Rose McGowan, has an energy akin to Frank-N-Furter, and some of the lines that she delivers are verbatim Frank-N-Furter lines. I’m sure that was intentional on Darren’s part, but there’s so much of that in pop culture. 

I know that when Richard O’Brien was doing voices on “Phineas and Ferb,” of all things, something that’s so far from “Rocky Horror,” when they would do Halloween episodes, the creators — themselves “Rocky Horror” fans — would include commentary and Easter eggs into this Disney show that relate back. And so whether it’s through direct cast involvement or creators, I see the level of influence it’s had. And even in shorthand, I remember talking to someone recently about the movie Showgirls and the comment came up that Elizabeth Berkley’s commitment to performance was a Frank-N-Furter level commitment — that’s become a shorthand for how we describe certain performances. And that, to be clear, was a complimentary comparison. For people who are invested in these kinds of movies, to be compared to something like “Rocky Horror” with its longevity is maybe one of the greatest compliments of all, because no one’s ever going to make a cult film like “Rocky Horror,” right?