Takia Canty, 40, is aware that lesbians have a reputation for moving quickly into relationships. She hadn’t dated her then-girlfriend Nastassja Canty, 38, a full month before she was certain that Nastassja would be her wife. To many onlookers, their relationship appeared to be moving at lightning speed, but for the Canty’s, the whirlwind romance that led them down the aisle in an intimate Las Vegas ceremony in June—after being introduced by a mutual acquaintance in 2004—and then losing contact for 17 years, felt like fate.

“It was an underlying attraction between us that we never played on,” said Takia, who tells The Reckoning that both women were in relationships when they initially met but waited until those relationships ended before they explored their mutual attraction.

“And then I kind of slid in her DM, maybe three or four years later. But I was tipsy,” Takia jokingly recalls.

The DM from Takia to Nastassja (pronounced N ah - S t ah - S ee - ah) was short. She simply wrote: “Missing you.”

Corporations jump at the opportunity to capitalize on cultural moments.

This has especially been true with Pride Month over the past few years. Pride Month—recognized in June in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Riots—has become heightened, in some respects, because of the support of corporations like Apple, Nike, and the like. While some members of the LGBTQ community welcome the Pride corporate support, with the addition of Juneteenth as a national holiday, there is a refusal to jump on the corporate support bandwagon for the new federally recognized commemoration.

“I resist it,” said Curtis Lipscomb, LGBT Detroit Executive Director. “My approach on Juneteenth is to use that as an educational moment.

President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in June 2021. The origins of Juneteenth can be found in Galveston, Texas, where Union soldiers informed enslaved Africans that they were free two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. During the civil rights movement, Juneteenth began experiencing a sort of resurgence which has continued through Biden’s signed order, declaring it a federal holiday.

From pampers and potties to pimples and proms, anyone who’s raised another human will tell you there are a lot of “Ps” that come along with parenting. Among the most useful “P," many would agree, is a partner—someone to nudge at night for their turn to bottle feed, take on soccer practice duties or handle any of the other million tasks that come with raising a child to adulthood.

And yet for Black gay men, the dearth of marriage-worthy partners has put the dream of a nuclear family far out of reach.

That’s changing.

This spring, millions of men will celebrate Father’s Day as single dads, part of a trend that has exploded over the past few decades. Among them are an increasingly visible number of gay men and male figures, many of them casting aside traditional timelines and methods of creating their family and redefining when and how one should become a parent.

They’re men like Alexander Langford, an Atlanta-based author and baby boomer who, at age 40, felt the importance of raising a Black child in America mattered more than whether he had a mate along for the ride. More than two decades later, adopted son Xee Langford is a thriving musician.

Sandwiched in an alleyway on the northeast side of Washington D.C., Black queer, gay, and lesbian artists like Wayson Jones cultivated fertile ground in a coffeehouse. What they did in the cramped space is the stuff of legends, yet the coffeehouse is long gone—much like the city of old. A documentary recently released online captures what the coffeehouse meant—and continues to mean—to Washington, D.C. as well as to Black and queer histories.

"Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse" has been making its rounds at select screenings. The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse was a performance and rehearsal space for a cohort of artists, a gathering spot; plus a meeting place for political organizations. This was almost hallowed ground for Black artists to share and workshop their craft. Jones, Essex Hemphill, Cheryl Clarke, Audre Lorde, Blackberry, Casselberry-Dupree, and Pomo Afro Homos all stepped foot into the former carriage house-turned-coffeehouse between 8th, 9th, I, and K Streets, NE. The space at 816 Eye Street, NE was brick, the size of a large walk-in closet, but had great acoustics.

"The intimacy lent itself to that feeling of being part of the family," Jones said.

The film "Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse," celebrates this time.

CNP applauds the passage of SB 164—the bill that modernizes Georgia’s decades-old statute criminalizing people living with HIV. The updated legislation introduced by State Senator Chuck Hufsteler (R-52) received bipartisan support and was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on May 9, 2022.

Before the passage of SB 164, a person living with HIV (PLHIV) could face a felony and up to 10 years in prison for not disclosing their HIV status prior to any sexual activity. The degree of risk of HIV transmission was not a factor in the statute—including circumstances where there was no HIV transmission, nor even any risk of HIV transmission.

Gerald Garth’s calendar is bursting with meeting invitations ranging from monthly check-ins to festive outings. He is a man-about-town wearing several hats, lending his advocacy along his travels. This afternoon, he’s taking it easy—a Zoom call here and there, a coworker dropping off items, and a hard stop at 2 p.m. He’s wrapping up his to-do list before attending a string of holiday parties and year-end celebrations.

Garth had a good 2021, personally and professionally. He describes prioritizing joy, setting boundaries, and tweaking his work-life balance. Sounds like sage advice, considering he’s stepping into multiple new roles in 2022. For one, he will be Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with the Los Angeles LGBT Center. He was elected to two positions: vice president of community initiatives and programs with LA Pride and the head of media and communications for Global Black Pride.

“I start [at The Center] at the top of the year, building strategies,” Garth said. “We are taking a robust view, looking at the hiring practices, programs, protocols, staffing structures, opportunities, next steps, and so forth.”

The 800-employee-strong Los Angeles LGBT Center sprawls over nine locations. Close to 50,000 Angelenos receive services ranging from primary care, HIV specialty care, and legal assistance to gender-affirming services through the agency.

As the temperature heats up, so do the cultural programs offered by CNP and our partners. As the only Black, gay nonprofit committed to using storytelling to shift narratives about the lives of Black gay men to influence policy and save lives, our mission is deeply embedded in the stories, events, and national observances filling our calendar over the next few months. We’re excited to share a preview of some of the hottest CNP events that we hope you will add to your summer calendar. They are curated to inform, entertain, and celebrate the Black LGBTQ+ community. At CNP and on The Reckoning, we believe in elevating the best of who we are. These events reflect the brilliance that we hold. We hope to see you there!

There was a bedtime and morning ritual in the Malebranche household. A kiss from the family patriarch to his son David and daughter Michelle that was so routine—his decision to replace David’s kiss with deafening silence—reverberated loudly throughout their home in Galway, NY, in the summer of 1992.

Despite being an exceptional student with degrees from Princeton, Emory, and Columbia Universities, Malebranche, now 53, had become accustomed to achieving a level of success that appeared to impress everyone but the Haitian-born surgeon he called dad. Yet he was not accustomed to being viewed as a disappointment by the man he idolized.

“Donna, is our son trying to tell us something?” Malebranche recalls his father asking his mother almost daily, particularly after getting his ears pierced, and choosing to wear an earring in the right ear only on this particular day, which in the early 90s was a cultural indicator that a man was not heterosexual.

“He would ask her that question every morning. He would not let it go,” Malebranche said. “So after the third or fourth morning, she'd say, ‘What do you want me to do? I can’t cover for you.’”

“I'm 23. If he's not man enough to ask me directly, he’s not man enough to hear it from me, so you tell him,” he said. “And so she did. Those three days that I was home, he didn’t speak to me at all.”

Before meeting her wife, Paulette Martin worried about aging alone.

She was 40, single, and recently out to her children. What she knew was that she didn’t want to become a burden in her golden years. She was worried about who would take on the responsibility of caring for her.

Fast forward some years, Paulette moved from Hawaii to New York in 2014. She desired connections with other Black LGBTQ elders and heard of SAGE, a national organization committed to advocacy and services for LGBTQ elders. They were having a party and needed volunteers for setup. It was also where she met Pat, her wife of four years.

“I was helping to put together swag bags for the party which Pat was hosting,” Paulette told The Reckoning. “As we were putting things together, I noticed that people were talking over Pat.”

Somewhat frustrated, she spoke up.

“I told them you all should submit to Pat. She knows what she is doing. I didn’t even know her.”

While much of heterosexual Black America has spent the spring debating the impact of Will Smith’s slap, a quieter event has taken precedence in the minds of many Black gay men: The April 1 release of “Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel,” comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s latest HBO special and, unexpectedly, his coming out story.

Married couple David Wilmott and Darnell Morgan, co-owners of the successful Kennesaw, GA restaurant “Forks & Flavors,” will step onto the national stage during their television debut on the May 12 episode of “Restaurant Impossible” on the Food Network.

The Chef Robert Irvine-hosted reality show, now in its 19th season, works to turn around restaurants that are facing impending demise within 48 hours on a $10,000 budget. On day one, Irvine assesses the business by observing the staff and kitchen during a full service. He then updates the menu and makes aesthetic changes to the restaurant in preparation for the grand reopening the following day.

But there’s one thing that separates “Forks & Flavors” from the majority of restaurants in crisis that have appeared on the show; they are thriving.

The twice-married gay couple who first appeared in a feature story on The Reckoning in March 2021, says they experienced a significant increase in business after their story was published, with old and new customers clamoring to experience their cuisine or to get the tea on their interesting relationship journey directly from the source. So when Morgan says the Food Network contacted them in August 2021, to apply to be on “Restaurant Impossible,” instead of the other way around, it’s not surprising.

Playwright Robert O’Hara knew exactly what he was doing when he named his hit 2011 play “Bootycandy.” The provocative title generates interest and all kinds of assumptions about the semi-autobiographical comedy deeply entrenched in the Black queer experience. On May 14, Atlanta audiences will be able to experience O’Hara’s play when it opens at Actor’s Express.

”Bootycandy,” tells the story of Sutter (Damian Lockhart), who is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursing homes. O’Hara weaves together scenes, sermons, and sketches to create a kaleidoscope that interconnects to portray growing up Black and gay.

Charlotte-based director Martin Damien Wilkins is at the helm of the Atlanta production. Wilkins has a long history with Actor’s Express and “Bootycandy,” having directed the show for Actor’s Theater of Charlotte in 2017. Like O’Hara, Wilkins is intentional about amplifying the Black gay experience in "Bootycandy," particularly after a 2017 performance where he says an audience member rejected the existence of a Black gay experience during a post-show talkback.

It’s been 40 years since Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker released her magnum opus “The Color Purple,” and since then, the critically acclaimed novel has been adapted for the screen and the Broadway stage, winning the prestigious Tony Award for Best Revival of A Musical in 2016. Now, Walker’s story is being presented to Atlanta audiences in a new production at City Springs Theatre currently running through May 22, that harnesses the brilliance of Walker’s words, the cultural shift propelled by the film, and the unrestricted celebration of the Black and queer experience on stage.

With a soul-stirring score featuring jazz, ragtime, gospel, African music, and blues, “The Color Purple” tells the story of Celie (Felicia Boswell) in early 20th century Georgia as she is subjected to and ultimately triumphs despite physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of both her father and husband, Mister (Gavin Gregory). The all-Black cast and creative team are led by Kamilah Long (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), in a rare appointment as a Black woman director of a show traditionally led by white men.

Dating in Atlanta is serious business. While many singles are swiping left or right on dating apps to find their person, those who can afford to are turning to Atlanta’s elite matchmakers to find love. And Black gay men are no exception.

On “Love Match Atlanta,” the new reality show debuting on Bravo on May 8, viewers are given a look into the professional and personal lives of a group of highly-sought after matchmakers as they use their charm and skill to compete for the hearts and dollars of Black Atlanta’s most eligible singles. The cast includes professional matchmakers and business owners Ming Clark, Joseph Dixon, Kelli Fisher, Tana Gilmore, and Shae Primus.

In a city that has developed a reputation for simultaneously being an oasis of Black wealth and opportunity, and for some Black gay men, a consistent disaapointement where quantity outweighs quality in terms of finding a potential partner, the dating experiences of both gay and straight singles in Atlanta provides more than enough source material for the one-hour show.

With so many podcasts to choose from, it can be incredibly difficult to listen to all the less-than-stellar podcasts to get to the good stuff. Similar to the Black LGBTQ+ blog explosion that occurred in the early aughts—if you have a computer, a microphone, and a closet to generate the best sound quality, anyone can produce a podcast. But it takes a unique personality along with great content and a distinct point of view to attract listeners and keep them engaged.

It should come as no surprise that Black LGBTQ+ podcasters are dominating the podcasting scene and are behind some of the most listened to and culturally relevant podcasts in the market today.

On The Reckoning, we’d like to eliminate the chore of listening to multiple episodes to determine if a podcast is a good fit. So we’ve compiled a list of eight Black LGBTQ+ podcasts that we think should be added to your rotation if they’re not already. While this list is not exhaustive, the consistency in publishing new episodes, along with dynamic content and consistently engaged listeners, landed all eight of these podcasts on our list. Get into our picks inside.

For most, intimate partner violence (IPV), historically known as domestic violence, is defined as some form of physical abuse enacted on a woman by a man in their life—usually their husband or boyfriend.

However, there is so much more to the issue that causes many experts to consider IPV an epidemic.

The recent altercations between Grammy award winner Kanye West and social media influencer, Kim Kardashian, in the wake of their divorce proceedings have ignited a new conversation about IPV.

According to Ruth Glenn, president, and CEO of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the events surrounding West and Kardashian highlight the complications of people’s understandings and definitions of IPV, while at the same time shining a light on the contradictions and double standards.

For many Black gay men, there are certain films in the Black theatrical cannon that continue to resonate decades after their release—” Waiting To Exhale,” the 1995 blockbuster based on the best-selling novel by author Terry McMillan and directed by Forest Whitaker, is one of those films. The impact of the original goes far beyond the popular gif of Bernadine (Angela Bassett) flicking a cigarette as she walks away from her husband’s torched luxury car. Now, writer and director Anthony Green (Cagebird Productions) is taking the commercial and cultural success of the film and adapting it for the stage in “When Boys Exhale,” an original reimagining centering the experiences of Black gay men inspired by the classic film.

After a sold-out premiere run in 2019 at Anacostia Arts Center in Washington, D.C, Green, in partnership with Tre Productions, is bringing “Exhale” to the Atlanta area on April 22. It’s an exciting time for the D.C.-based artist and his cast, who says he never imagined his play would mount a full production, only to have the pandemic completely halt all plans for the show’s immediate future.

“After we had those sold-out shows, we were going to do some more in DC because the demand was high, but then COVID hit and we had to cancel that, and I had to put When Boys Exhale on the shelf. I wasn't going to even touch it again,” Green says.

Upon learning the play’s origin, it’s plausible that Green’s “Exhale” would have been placed on the shelf following its initial success and not given a second thought by the man who penned the script.

“Black Is The Color of the Cosmos," was the theme for the 2022 CNP Summit, held virtually on Saturday and Sunday, March 19 and 20. In framing this year’s Summit, CNP offered the following quote to describe the work at hand; “So often, we’ve looked to the past, but where our liberation lies is in our future. This summit is for us to prepare for the movement of tomorrow.” While there is much within this quote to unpack, what resonates most with me is the pointed emphasis on the importance of preparation for [the movement of] tomorrow. In the simplest of ways, it all boils down to one significant point we’ve all seen and heard demonstrated time and time again; representation matters.

However, when it comes to the lives of Black queer people (and Black gay men in particular), there’s far more nuance and context to consider, simply because of how our existence has always been toyed with. Our Black gay lives have almost always had an ongoing (and extremely toxic) relationship with silence, shame, secrecy, and fear. Thankfully, that is why organizations like CNP and so many others exist; to combat such pointed attempts at erasure and humiliation, while ensuring that none of those attempts are successful in trying to dim our light or silence us, as they are structurally intended to do.

Spring is known as the season for love for good reason. Everything around us is thawing out and firing up, including our moods thanks to a springtime burst of dopamine scientists say often sets the stage for romance. But for every couple that begins a five-alarm love affair in the spring, experts say there are many more that find themselves in dry dock.

Call it libido gap, a dead bedroom, or the more clinical term “sexual desire discrepancy.” By any name, the shortfall between how much physical intimacy two partners want is one of the biggest sources of tension in relationships.

“It’s a lot more common than most people will discuss,” says Machel Hunt, an Atlanta psychosexual therapist and one of two experts who spoke to The Reckoning about getting back that lovin’ feelin’.

The cause of a libido gap can be physical, such as hormone imbalances or other conditions that lower desire. Other times the cause is mental, including stress and a history of subtle sexual trauma experts say can be particularly common among gay men.

For Black gay filmmaker Micheal Rice, 2020 was a tipping point.

Like the rest of the world, the Brooklyn-based documentarian (“party boi,” “black diamonds in ice castles”) began the first quarter of 2020 avoiding transmission of the coronavirus by isolating himself under strict quarantine guidelines by state and federal officials as COVID-19 cases and deaths in New York City soared. It was a safety precaution implemented to curb the spread of one deadly virus while another continued to rage, leaving Rice and other Black and queer people susceptible to state-sanctioned violence and a never-ending loop of Black trauma on the evening news. Although Rice says he felt powerless at the time, he knew he had to use his artistry to respond. “Black AS U R,” Rice’s new documentary film premiering at Outfest Fusion QTBIPOC Film Festival in April, is his response.

“BLACK AS U R” weaves through the complexities of Black queerness by taking audiences on a journey through the homophobia that penetrates many Black spaces. The film examines the impact of HIV stigma, sex work, suicide, bullying, and acts of violence against Black trans people, including the vicious mob attack of Iyanna Dior at a convenience store in St. Paul, MN only days after the fatal killing of George Floyd in neighboring Minneapolis. The film also features the first time a documentary has highlighted the story of Dominque Rem’mie Fells, a young Black trans woman whose murder reignited the “Black Trans Lives Matter” movement of 2020.