Hugh Ryan

Freelance writer

Is Gay Singer Steve Grand Really Country Music’s Frank Ocean?

First published on The Daily Beast, March 25, 2014. Read the original, with video, here.
On July 2, 2013, little-known singer-songwriter Steve Grand YouTubed the video for his indie single “All-American Boy”, which the now 24-year-old Illinois-native made for a little over $7,000. “I’d never used a credit card before,” he recalled with a laugh. The [...]

The Leslie-Lohman Museum Is a Haven for Artists Who Are Too Gay for Art School

First published on Vice.com, March 2, 2014. Read the original, with images, here.
As we unwind the bright red packing tape that joins the two coffee cans together, Hunter O’Hanian, the director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, explains what I’m about to see.
“We think this is his only finished work,” he says, [...]

What Does Trans* Mean, and Where Did It Come From?

First published on Slate, January 10, 2014. Read the original here.
It’s widely accepted that computer-mediated communication—emailing, texting, sexting, commenting, chatting, and so on—has changed the way we speak, even when we’re away from the keyboard. But a new label being embraced online by some transgender people may represent a linguistic first: borrowing from [...]

We Can End AIDS Without a Cure

First published in Slate, November 29, 2013. Read the original here.
This Dec. 1, as we mark yet another World AIDS Day without a cure, a vaccine, or an intelligently interdependent global response to the crisis, I’d like to propose a thought experiment based on a radical—yet commonsense—proposition: We can end AIDS without [...]

The Quest to Build a National LGBT Museum

First published in Slate, October 18, 2013. Read the original here.
Someday, somewhere in Washington, D.C.—perhaps on the National Mall, kitty-corner across Maryland Avenue from the sinuous, sandy-colored Museum of the American Indian, or tucked behind the sprawling complex of the Natural History Museum—there may sit a National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Museum. [...]

‘On The (Queer) Waterfront: Brooklyn Histories’: Pop-Up Museum Of Queer History’s Hugh Ryan On New Exhibit

I was interviewed on October 8th, 2013 by the Huffington Post, about the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History’s Brooklyn show. Read the original (with photos) here.
“On the (Queer) Waterfront: Brooklyn Histories” kicked off this weekend, a unique and collaborative art and performance show curated by The Pop-Up Museum Of Queer History. A multifaceted intersection [...]

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