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#LGBTQ+  #queercafés #Cuties #VirginiaBauman  #IrisBainumHoule  Across the country, queer cafés, mixers, and stores are providing options that aren't gay bars — and that's revolutionary. On any given day in Los Angeles, LGBTQ+ locals and tourists have few choices when it comes to finding other queer and trans people — at least, in a space that’s not a bar. The go-tos , especially for cisgender gay men of legal drinking age, are gay bars, largely found in the tony city of West Hollywood. But for everyone else who identifies as LGBTQ+, such spaces are less than ideal, and for youth and those who are sober or in recovery, they aren’t an option at all. That's one reason Virginia Bauman and her business partner Iris Bainum-Houle opened  Cuties , a queer-owned, operated, and focused café in East Hollywood. Open daily from mornings into late afternoons, with events often hosted in the evenings, Cuties is an accessible, alcohol-free spot for LGBTQ+ people to just  be —  s

Storme DeLarverie, Marsha P. Johnson and Bayard Rustin.New York Times, Netflix, Getty Images By Gwen Aviles and Ariel Jao From 1960s civil rights activist Bayard Rustin to Chicago's first black female and LGBTQ mayor, Lori Lightfoot, black LGBTQ Americans have long made history with innumerable contributions to politics, art, medicine and a host of other fields. “As long as there have been black people, there have been black LGBTQ and same-gender-loving people,” David J. Johns, executive director of the  National Black Justice Coalition , told NBC News. “Racism combined with the forces of stigma, phobia, discrimination and bias associated with gender and sexuality have too often erased the contributions of members of our community." In celebration of Black History Month, we honor black LGBTQ pioneers of the past and the present and celebrate their oft-forgotten contributions. Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987) Nugent was one of few openly queer