Welcome to GLAMOUR’s Beauty of Pride June issue. This month, to honour and celebrate Pride, the team and I wanted to spotlight important voices in the LGBTQIA+ community to show how every part of the rainbow is different. This is reflected both in our choice of coverstars and also behind the scenes, in the journalists who interviewed them.
On to the stars themselves: Kim Petras is an LGBTQIA+ icon of the pop world. At just 14, she campaigned for her native German government to allow her to have gender confirmation surgery aged 16 rather than 18, and since transitioning she has become a world-famous popstar. Now 28, she talks of her pride in her trans identity, but also her wish for it to become a footnote in her story, and her desire to be recognised first and foremost as an artist.
Antoni Porowski is one fifth of the most famous group of queer men in the world. We’re talking, of course, about Queer Eye. Antoni has always been open about the fluidity of his sexuality and has worked to challenge stereotypes; he grew up being assumed straight, a ‘privilege’ he discusses with us, and shares how this has shaped his queer idenity and pride. As part of Queer Eye, the famous five have been influential in changing the way the world views beauty, and continually show the power of LGBTQIA+ representation on screen.
American makeup artist Kade Gottlieb, AKA drag queen Gottmik, made history as the first trans man on RuPaul’s Drag Race. As a trans man and drag queen, Kade and Gottmik refuse to fit into any boxes and present themselves as they choose, using makeup and artistry as a tool box.
Madison Bailey, the American actress who stars in the hit Netflix show Outer Banks, has become a leading voice of the queer Gen-Z community. Last year on TikTok, she told fans that she identifies as pansexual, and was clear to note that this was not a ‘coming out’. The openness and fluidity of her sexuality is aligned with the new wave LGBTQIA+ youth, and differs from that of our other coverstars’ stories; we hope this is a sign of times changing.
Ruby Rose, the actress, model and activist came out as lesbian at aged just 12. Ruby has spent her career challenging the perception of what women in Hollywood ‘should’ be and present like. Having had her breakthrough moment in Orange is the New Black – a show that portrayed female relationships as we’d never seen them before – she has gone on to be an advocate and spokesperson for the LGBTQIA+ community in every role she takes.
As always, our focus for this issue is beauty, and the important role makeup and beauty plays in our coverstars’ journeys to self expression and identity. In a time of so much division in the world, I wanted to use the GLAMOUR platform to show allyship and to take time to both celebrate the voices who have risen up to change the narrative, but also to help educate myself and those not part of the LGBTQIA+ community, to build a more inclusive future.