a&e features
Autistic poet’s work layered with ‘multiple levels of awareness’
Leslie McIntosh on coming out and learning he is neurodiverse
(Editor’s Note: One in four people in America has a disability, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Queer and disabled people have long been a vital part of the LGBTQ community. Take two of the many queer history icons who were disabled: Michelangelo is believed to have been autistic. Marsha P. Johnson, who played a heroic role in the Stonewall Uprising, had physical and psychiatric disabilities. Today, Deaf/Blind fantasy writer Elsa Sjunneson, actor and bilateral amputee Eric Graise and Kathy Martinez, a blind, Latinx lesbian, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy for the Obama administration, are only a few of the numerous queer and disabled people in the LGBTQ community. Yet, the stories of this vital segment of the queer community have rarely been told. In its series “Queer, Crip and Here,” the Blade will tell some of these long un-heard stories.)
Before he could even read, Leslie McIntosh knew he wanted to be a writer. “My Dad got me this little desk with a drawer in it,” McIntosh, 38, who is Black, male presenting, male attracted and autistic, said in a telephone interview. “I was learning the alphabet when I was two.”
McIntosh, who was born in Newark, N.J. and grew up in Atlantic City, had a precocious ability to decode words. “I would scribble in this notebook until I learned how to write and form words,” he said.
This scribbling – this desire to be a writer – wasn’t just a childhood thing for McIntosh. The writing bug stuck to him. Today, McIntosh is a poet and “fictionist” whose work has received national recognition. He has been awarded residencies and fellowships from Breadloaf, Callaloo, Millay Arts, The Watering Hole, Zoeglossia and other programs.
His poetry has appeared in “Beloit Poetry Journal,” “Foglifter,” “Obsidian,” the forthcoming anthology “In the Tempered Dark: Contemporary Poets Transcending Elegy” and other publications. He is an assistant poetry editor at Newfound.
McIntosh, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Montclair State University in 2006 and a Psy.D. from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2019, is also a psychologist with a private practice. He lives, he wrote in an email to the Blade, “on the stolen land of the Munsee Lenape, currently known as Hudson County, NJ, USA.”
This reporter read with McIntosh (and Avra Wing) last fall at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. McIntosh is a vibrant performer with a mesmerizing presence. (The reading was an event held by Zoeglossia, a fellowship program for disabled poets.)
In a wide-ranging conversation, McIntosh talked with the Blade about coming out, learning he was autistic, poetry and Bayard Rustin.
Growing up was complicated for McIntosh. “People would read — understand — that I was queer and on the [autism] spectrum,” he said, “before I even knew what that meant.”
There was a lot of repression in the early part of his life. “A lot of what you think about coming out didn’t happen to me,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh wasn’t diagnosed as autistic until five years ago. But, looking back, he reflected that he was different from neurotypical people.
“I would invent these alternative realities in my brain,” McIntosh said, “I would give these people sexual adventures and things like that.”
McIntosh would compartmentalize. “I wouldn’t attribute what was happening to me,” he said. “It was a lot of world building about what having a boyfriend would look like.”
College was a new start for McIntosh. There, his universe expanded. He met people, who he said, were “separate from the toxicity of high school.”
The characters in the alternative realities in his brain couldn’t keep up with the intensity and speed of the people he was interacting with in real life. “I had to experience things in real time,” McIntosh said, “It had to be me. That’s when my coming out began.”
Being queer in the early 2000s wasn’t easy for McIntosh. He didn’t feel quite at home in Southern New Jersey. “It’s hard being gay anywhere,” he said, “especially, where I come from.”
Even a college campus in the aughts wasn’t perfectly safe for a Black male. How do I frame myself? Who do I tell? When do I tell them, McIntosh wondered.
McIntosh went into psychology because he wanted to be of service. “Here’s a secret,” he said, “what’s helped me to be successful wasn’t the degrees I’ve earned.”
“What’s helped me clinically and humanly,” McIntosh said, “to relate as one person to another are things I learned outside [of his degrees].”
McIntosh can evaluate and diagnose his patients. “I can quote unquote treat them and bill insurance companies,” he said, “but that isn’t a lot of my practice.”McIntosh works with patients to help them conceptualize their lives and what their needs are. “I feel like a lot of therapists being directive discourages patients from relying on their own wisdom,” he said.
McIntosh was going through his training in psychology when he began to think he might be autistic. He felt a bit shameful about this because of the way the behavior of autistic people is often pathologized.
“They treat the behavior of autistic people – such as stimming – as needing treatment,” McIntosh said, “they create a behavior plan to make them stop doing it.”
Being diagnosed as autistic was freeing for McIntosh. It gave him a feeling of control. “I can advocate for myself,” he said. “I can say I have this condition. This is unfair. We need to have a conversation.”
Race has always been at the intersection of his life as a Black, queer, autistic man, McIntosh said. While he was earning his Psy.D, the one Black faculty member in the program left it. “After that it was all white hetero cisgender people,” he said.
Thankfully, his family has always been supportive of him. “I’ve been out to them forever,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh got into poetry when he was preparing to go away to his first year of college. He became entranced by “Def Poetry Jam.” “I saw myself in it,” he said, “looking at that screen, I knew I was a part of it.”
Poetry makes his neurodivergence livable for McIntosh. “It gives me a place where it isn’t something I have to navigate around or over,” he said, “It gets center stage. Without poetry, it would be a burden.”
Every creative person has a quirk about them, he added.
“Leslie McIntosh’s poems mean a great deal to me because of the original and even visceral way they navigate the personal and the historical,” Sheila Black, a poet and Zoeglossia co-founder, emailed the Blade. “Making abundant use of historical fact and context but always shaping this toward a personal lyrical vision.”
“The world of Leslie’s poems is layered with multiple levels of awareness – the double and even triple consciousness of race, sexuality, disability,” Black added. “His poetry is always animated by an acute sense of human vulnerability and the longing for a better, brighter more just world.”
When he was just out of college, McIntosh learned about Bayard Rustin, the queer, Black civil rights icon. “His existence blew my mind and my heart,” he said. “Here is this unsung civil rights hero – a mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Virtually unknown because he was Black and openly gay in the 1950s.”McIntosh wanted to know how this could be. Being a poet, he imagined a story.
McIntosh wrote poems in the form of letters — “epistles” — from Bayard Rustin. For these poems, he created Imal, an imaginary character. “I didn’t want to be part of the story,” he said. “It was easier to imagine the story without me in it.”
Later, McIntosh thought leaving himself out of the story was due in part to his neurodivergence. “I was using Imal to create a version of myself that deserved to be loved,” he said, “and who cared back.”
“I had rooms of people fight for my coat, letters from Martin Luther King with my name on them,” McIntosh writes in the voice of Bayard Rustin in his poem “Epistle: The Verisimilitude of Ruin,” “But that didn’t matter — I wanted a forgotten alley or a dim phone booth … Make believe you haven’t drowned at the drag of a man’s thinly carpeted thigh, the gravity of the smell.”
McIntosh isn’t interested in reading the poems he might have written if he’d been neurotypical. He’s proud to be neurodiverse. “I like the poet that I am,” he said, “I don’t think any other iteration of myself could have written these poems.”
a&e features
Yes, chef!
From military service in Syria to cooking in coastal Delaware, Justin Fritz delivers comfort and connection
Driving down the long stretch of road that connects Rehoboth to Bethany Beach, I’m thinking about the morning ahead of me. I’ve done tough jobs before on subjects I knew nothing about. But when it comes to this assignment – profiling a local chef – I can’t help but worry that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.
I eat food. I love food. Ironically, I can’t cook.
Sure, I can make a passable meal in a pinch, but when it comes to innate culinary skills, I don’t have the gene. That means I eat out often. Even when the food is good, the experience is rarely inspiring. I have no doubt that the guy I’m about to profile can cook, but for me, food is fuel, not fun. Writing about eating feels like reading about dancing. You can understand the mechanics, but the magic is harder to capture.
Sooner than I expected, I reach my destination. Rising quietly from the dunes, the weathered cedar shingles and wraparound porch of The Addy Sea Inn gives off the kind of understated confidence money can’t buy. Built in 1904, it doesn’t try to impress you. It just does. I pull into a gravel parking space, step out of the car, and take a breath. Already, I sense that I’ve misjudged what this morning will be.
Inside, breakfast service has just wrapped, but the dining room is still humming with energy. Plates clink. Fresh coffee is brewing. After a quick round of introductions with the staff, I’m ushered back to the kitchen, where Executive Chef Justin Fritz is waiting.
The room is modest, only slightly larger than my kitchen at home, anchored by a narrow stainless-steel island that serves as the operational center. Whatever the kitchen lacks in space it makes up for in technology. The appliances are state-of-the-art and the multi-tiered glass oven on the wall looks smarter than I am.
There’s no brigade of line cooks. No shouted orders. No “Hands” or “Yes, chef!” echoing off the walls. There’s just me and him. It’s a one-man show.
His first wedding tasting is less than an hour away, but instead of rushing, Justin offers me the grand tour. Pride radiates from him — not ego, but something quieter. We move through the inn, past guests and staff he greets by name, out onto a porch overlooking the beach and Atlantic, where meticulously planned weddings unfold like carefully choreographed dreams.
“This whole place transforms,” he says, gesturing toward the lawn. “We pitch a 90-foot tent in a yard that can accommodate 150 guests. We set the DJ and the bar up in the back on a floating deck that becomes a dance floor.”
On our way back inside, we stop to see herbs growing in a double row of hanging planters — mint, basil, strawberries trailing down the wall like decorations you can eat. It’s not performative. It’s practical. Everything here has a purpose.
Back in the kitchen, the tempo shifts. There are no printed-out recipes or neatly arranged mise en place. Justin stops talking just long enough to consult the whiteboard hanging on his refrigerator. There are notes – words, not sentences – cueing him on all the things he needs to remember.
When he finally goes into action, it’s intense, but controlled. Justin knows every inch of his kitchen and moves efficiently to gather what he needs to get five different entrees into the oven. I try to be a fly on the wall, but I’m the elephant in the room. I try, and fail, to move out of his way.
After our fifth near-collision, he laughs. “You just stay there,” he says. “I’ll move around you.” And he does.
Justin’s path to The Addy Sea Inn wasn’t linear, and in many ways, that’s what defines him. After culinary school and early professional success, he made a decision that shifted everything: He enlisted in the Army Reserves alongside his younger brother. In an unexpected twist, Justin completed the enlistment process first, while his brother’s path was delayed pending a medical waiver.
Initially, Justin’s role had nothing to do with food. He worked as a computer technician, repairing advanced equipment — a technical, methodical position that stood in stark contrast to the creative environment of a kitchen. Then, as often happens in Justin’s stories, his circumstances changed. A casual conversation with a commanding officer one afternoon led to a sudden reassignment.
“He said, ‘You’re supposed to be at the range. Get in the car — I’ll explain on the way.’” Justin recalls. “Next thing I know, I’m deploying.”
The destination was Syria. And instead of working with electronics, he found himself back in a kitchen — only this time, under conditions that redefined what cooking meant.
“They didn’t want military cooking,” he says. “They wanted home cooking.”
That expectation, simple on the surface, became extraordinarily complex in practice. Ingredients had to be sourced from local markets where quality and safety were inconsistent. Refrigeration was limited. Water couldn’t be trusted. Meat arrived butchered in ways that required improvisation rather than precision.
“One time I ordered lamb,” he says. “It came back as bones. Just bones. I scraped the meat off and turned it into sausage because I couldn’t waste it.”
So, Justin adapted. He baked bread from scratch, created meals that could be eaten days later, and found ways to bring a sense of normalcy into an environment defined by uncertainty. French toast, burritos, pretzels, tiramisu — dishes that, under different circumstances, might have felt routine became something else entirely.
“I think people underestimate what food means,” he says. “It’s not just eating. It’s memory. It’s comfort. It’s safety.”
That last word lingers.
By the time Justin arrived at The Addy Sea Inn, he carried more than just professional experience. He brought discipline, resilience, and a perspective shaped by environments far removed from coastal Delaware. But he also brought uncertainty.
The new role required something different from what he’d done before. Here, he wasn’t executing someone else’s vision — he was responsible for creating one.
“I realized I get to do this,” he says. “I get to build this.”
What he has built is both ambitious and carefully controlled. Under new ownership and with a growing team, The Addy Sea Inn has evolved into a sought-after destination for weddings and events. The scale has increased, but the operation remains intentionally lean, which puts more pressure on Justin to deliver.
A single day might include breakfast service, take-away lunch preparation, afternoon tea, wedding tastings, and a full-scale event execution. Layered on top of that are cooking classes, early-stage digital content, and a catering business Justin has deliberately paused so he can focus on something more cohesive.
“I want to grow the culinary side of this place,” he says. “Not just more events, but better experiences. Classes, tastings — things that bring people into it. I love teaching. I love sharing it.”
It’s a vision rooted less in expansion and more in depth. Not more for the sake of more, but more meaningfully.
When I return a few days later for breakfast service, the experience feels both familiar and entirely new.
The day begins with sunrise. Before anything else, Justin pauses and brings his team outside. It isn’t a long break, and it isn’t framed as anything formal. It’s simply a moment — watching the light shift over the water, occasionally catching sight of dolphins moving just beyond the shoreline.
Then, without ceremony, the work begins.
Eggs crack. Bacon sizzles, potato pancakes bake on the grill. Orders move in and out with steady consistency. There’s no frantic energy, no sense of scrambling to keep up. Instead, there’s a flow — continuous, measured, almost meditative.
“It doesn’t always feel like work,” he says.
Watching him move through the morning, it’s easy to understand why.
Hours later, after the hustle and bustle of the first meal has ended, Justin turns his attention to a larger, albeit more creative task — cupcakes for two themed parties. Already inspired, he lifts a heavy electric mixer onto the counter and pushes a flour-dusted binder in front of me.
“I’ll bake the cupcakes. You make the butter-cream frosting,” he says, flipping to the page with the recipe. “Double it.”
The request sends me into a mild panic, especially since it requires math. But Justin believes I can do it. To my surprise, so do I. The first batch of chocolate cupcakes are already out of the oven before I finish the first bowl of frosting. Since all I have to do is repeat the process, I’m starting to feel relieved and maybe even a little cocky. That’s when it hits me.
“Chef, I made a mistake…I forgot to double the amount of vanilla. I need to do it over.”
“It’s fine,” Justin says casually, swiping a small disposable plastic spoon across the silky surface. “It tastes great. Focus on the next batch.”
The result, two exquisitely decorated cupcakes, are almost too pretty to eat.
“These are yours to take home,” he says as he carefully packs them away in a to-go box.
I start to protest, to tell him he should save the best for himself or the other guests. But I stop myself and pause and savor the moment. This one, I keep.
Chef Justin Fritz resists easy categorization, and that may be part of what makes him so compelling. He is classically trained, but without pretense. His military background suggests rigidity, yet his approach is flexible and intuitive. He carries himself with a quiet confidence, never needing to announce it. Part Jason Bourne, part Willy Wonka. Justin isn’t just cooking food, he’s making magic.
By the time I leave, my understanding of the assignment has shifted. What I expected to be a story about food has become something broader, more nuanced. It’s about care. About connection.
That sense of purpose extends beyond the kitchen. When I ask Justin what’s next, he speaks not just about growth and ambition, but about balance — about building a life that allows space for both. There’s a quiet acknowledgment of Cheyenne, his partner of five years, woven into that answer. Not as a headline, but as something steady and grounding, part of how he measures what comes next.
I arrived thinking I would write about a chef. What I found instead was someone who uses food as a language — a way to communicate, to connect, and to create something that stays with you.
The only way to experience Chef Justin’s cooking is to step inside his world — by checking into The Addy Sea Inn (www.addysea.com) or securing a ticket to one of the inn’s limited public events, including the Spring Soirée and the Toys for Tots Holiday Fundraiser. There’s no standalone restaurant, no reservation to book online. His food exists within the rhythm of the inn itself.
In louder, larger kitchens, “Yes, chef!” is a command — sharp, immediate, unquestioned.
But here, at the edge of the ocean, it lands differently.
Not as an order.
As trust.
And maybe that’s the real story — not the food, not the title, but the quiet, deliberate way Chef Justin Fritz makes people feel something they don’t forget.
a&e features
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
Loraine Hutchins remembered as a ‘force of nature’
The Montgomery County Pride Center will host a celebration honoring the life and legacy of Loraine Hutchins, Ph.D., on May 2. People are invited to attend the onsite memorial or a livestream event. The on-site event will begin at 10 a.m. with a meet-and-greet mixer before moving into a memorial service around the theme “Loraine a Force of Nature!” at 11 a.m., a panel talk at 12 p.m., break out sessions for artists, academics, and activists to build on her legacy at 1 p.m. and a closing reception at 2 p.m.
Attendees are encouraged to register for the on-site memorial gathering or the livestreamed memorial. The goal of this event is also to collect stories and memories of Loraine. Attendees and others can share their stories at padlet.com.
An obituary for Hutchins was published in the Bladelast Nov. 24, where people can learn more about her activism in the bisexual community. A private service for friends and family was held in December but this memorial service is open to all.
Alongside her groundbreaking work organizing for U.S. bisexual rights and liberation including co-editing “Bi Any Other Name: BIsexual People Speak Out” (1991), she also integrated faith into her sexual education and advocacy work. Her 2001 doctoral dissertation, “Erotic Rites: A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary U.S. Sacred Sexuality Traditions and Trends,” offered a pointed queer and feminist analysis to sex-neutral and sex-positive spiritual traditions in the United States. Her thesis was also groundbreaking in exploring the intersections between sex workers and those in caregiving professionals, including spiritual ones.
In an oral history interview conducted by Michelle Mueller back in August 2023, Hutchins described herself as a “priestess without a congregation.” While she has occasionally had a sense of community and feels part of a group of loving people, she admitted that “I don’t feel like we have the shape or the purpose that we need.”
“I’ve often experienced being the Cassandra in the room, the Cassandra in the community. Somebody who’s kind of way out there ahead, thinking through the strategic action points that my community hasn’t gotten to yet, and getting a lot of resistance and hostile responses from people who are frightened by dissent and conflict and not ready for the changes we have to make to survive,” she said.
“For somebody who’s bisexual in an out political way and who’s been a spokesperson for the polyamory movement in an out political way, it’s very exposing. And it’s very important to me to be able to try to explain and help other people understand the connection between spirituality and sexuality,” she explained citing how even as a graduate student she was “exploring how to feel erotic and spiritual, and not feel them in conflict with each other in my own spiritual contemplative life and my own sensual body awareness of being alive in the world.”
“Every religion has a sense of sacred sexuality. It’s just they put a lot of boundaries and regulations on it, and if we have a spiritual practice that is totally affirming of women’s priesthood and of gay people, queer people’s ability to minister to everyone and to be ministered to be everyone, what does that do to the gender of God, or our understanding of how we practice our spirituality and our sexuality in community and privately?”
“There’s no easy answer,” she concludes, and she continued to grapple with these questions throughout her life, co-editing another seminal text, “Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual, and Polysexual Perspectives,” published in 2012. Her work blending spiritual and queer liberation remains groundbreaking to this day.
Rev. Eric Eldritch, a local community organizer and ordained Pagan minister with Circle Sanctuary who has worked for decades with the DC Center’s Center Faith to organize the Pride Interfaith Service, is eager to highlight this element of her legacy at the memorial service next month.
a&e features
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Modern creative talks nightlife, coming out, and his personal queer heroes
John Levengood (he/him) describes himself as a modern creative with a wide‑ranging toolkit. He blends music, technology, civic duty, and a sharp sense of wit into a cohesive artistic identity. Known primarily as a recording artist and performer, he’s also a self‑taught music producer and software engineer who embodies a generation of creators who build their own lanes rather than wait for one to appear.
Levengood, 32, who is single and identifies as gay and queer, is best known as a recording artist who has performed at Pride festivals across the country, including the main stages of World Pride DC, Central Arkansas Pride, and Charlotte Pride.
“Locally in the DMV, I’m known for turning heads at nightlife venues with my eye-catching sense of style. When I go out, I don’t try to blend in. I hope I inspire people to be themselves and have the courage to stand out,” he says.
He’s also known for hosting karaoke at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va., on Thursday nights. “I like to create a space where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, building community, and showcasing their talents.”
He also creates social media content from my performances and do interviews at LGBTQ+ bars and theatres in the DMV. Follow the Arlington resident @johnlevengood.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I have been fully out of the closet since 2019. My parents were the hardest people to tell because my family has always been my rock and at the time I couldn’t imagine a world without them. Their reactions were extremely positive and supportive so I had nothing to fear all along.
I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, dad, and sister in our hotel room in New Orleans during our winter vacation and being so nervous to tell them. After I finally mustered up the nerve and made the proclamation, I realized my dad had already fallen asleep on the couch. My mom promised to tell him when he woke up.
Who’s your LGBTQ hero?
My LGBTQ heroes are Harvey Milk for paving the way for gays in politics and Elton John for being a pioneer for the fabulous and authentic. My local heroes in the DMV are Howard Hicks, manager of Green Lantern, and Tony Rivenbark, manager of Freddie’s Beach Bar. Both of them are essential to creating spaces where I’ve felt welcome and safe since moving to the DMV.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Trade tops the list for me because of the dance floor and outdoor space. It’s so nice to get a break from the music every once and a while to be able to have a conversation.
We live in challenging times. How do you cope?
I’m still figuring this out. What is working right now is writing music and spending time with family and friends. I’ve also been spending less time on social media going to the gym at least three times a week.
What streaming show are you binging?
After “Traitors” Season 4 ended, I was in a bit of a show hole, but “Stumble” has me in a laughing loop right now. The writing is so witty.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
At 18, I wish I would have known how liberating it is to come out of the closet. It would have been nice to know some winning lottery numbers as well.
What are your friends messaging about in your most recent group chat?
We are planning our next trip to New York City. If you can believe it, I visited NYC for the first time in 2025 for Pride and I’ve been back every quarter since. Growing up in the country, I was subconsciously primed to be scared of the city. But my mind has been blown. I can’t wait to go back.
Why Washington?
It’s the closest metropolitan area to my family, but not too close. I love the museums, the diversity, the history, and the proximity to the beach and mountains. It’s also nice to live in a city with public transportation.
Honey, have we been priced out of gay paradise?
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Jason Collins dies at 47
Polish government to recognize same-sex marriages from EU countries
European Commission says all EU countries should ban conversion therapy
Pride faith services in Washington, D.C.
