Solo Mission: A Lesbian Spy Story

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THE PERSON I THINK DOESN'T GET ENOUGH CREDIT FOR THEIR ACTIVISM"[Activist] Sir Lady Java. Her self-advocacy in the 1960s, years before the Stonewall uprising, set a blueprint for us to fight for our right to show up in spaces unapologetic and proud." The comic vet (under a rich overall deal with Warner Bros. TV) punctuates his youth-skewing slate (The CW's Riverdale and Katy Keene and Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) with LGBTQ characters and storylines — including a transition arc on Sabrina, mirroring the life of genderqueer star Lachlan Watson. Sitting in meetings with her at the prominent literary agency where we both worked left me feeling weak. Usually never short of things to say, in her presence, I’d marvel at her ability to drain all quips from my mind, leaving my mouth bone-dry. But I knew the cliché and I refused to succumb to the stereotype of being the young, ambitious 25-year-old who screws the boss. Tilly: They didn't want it to be a man's version. There's a male version of what lesbians are, and you see it in the soft-core porn movies all the time. They really wanted to get it right. They wanted to be very respectful of the lesbian community. They wanted it to be very, very authentic and raw, not pornographic. Although it was pornographic because we're hot. [ Laughs] Few have done more for LGBTQ representation in Hollywood than Murphy. The prolific creator, who has two children with photographer husband David Miller, has devoted his career to telling the kinds of queer stories he never saw on TV growing up. From Glee to American Horror Story to Pose, Murphy has succeeded in building his own inclusive content universe — and he's continuing to add to it at Netflix, where he's dropped queer-centric shows like The Politician and Hollywood and has the upcoming movie The Boys in the Band.

THE PERSON I THINK DOESN'T GET ENOUGH CREDIT FOR THEIR ACTIVISM "Everyone already knows her greatness, but I deeply admire [ Pose's] Mj Rodriguez." I'LL FEEL GOOD ABOUT HOLLYWOOD'S LGBTQ REPRESENTATION WHEN"All members of the LGBTQ community feel represented. We are a wide and varied bunch." Tilly: Somebody said, "Oh, you know, females don't have any sex organs." [Susie] goes, "Yes we do; it's called a hand." So they did do a lot of shots of hands. Gershon: As soon as I met Jen, I thought, "Oh my God, all I have to do is watch her." She was so amusing and so fun. It's just so easy to watch her, like her butt and her legs. It made my job easy to kind of objectify her. We liked each other as soon as we met. The WGA Award-winning creator of Netflix's Dead to Mehas gone to great lengths to infuse an LGBTQ voice into her work. Creator of the NBC sitcom One Big Happyand her own YouTube talk show This Just Out, Feldman recently made her Netflix comedy outright queer, as Dead to Me's sophomore season revealed a lead character to be bisexual.Tilly: Everyone's positive that they're so in love, and they're going to live happily ever after, but I really think in Violet's nature, she's a predator. I do not think it's going to end well. Violet's in love with Corky, but she's very damaged and I just don't think it's going to be like one of those, "50 years ago, we met cute," you know? MY MENTOR IS "I'm not sure I have a mentor, but Mike Leigh is a good friend and a constant source of inspiration." MY MENTOR IS"James Anderson, who held down the fort at SNL by writing so many queer sketches over the years that shaped my sensibility. He’s gone out of his way to be a good friend, and the same goes for B.D. Wong after I worked with him. It’s all crazy wish fulfillment." Gershon: I just thought I'd be inspired. I certainly was inspired with tattoos and stuff. I ended up choosing my own tattoos and where I wanted them and all that stuff. Tilly: I did have so many girls come up to me—and so many drag queens saying their drag name was Violet. It really made me feel, in a weird way, like I had a responsibility when all these girls would come up to me and say that they came out of the closet and realized they were gay after they saw this film.

I FELT MOST PROUD TO BE PART OF THE COMMUNITY LAST YEAR WHEN"Seeing the cast of Pose thriving and enjoying the respect and admiration they deserve." While her banner has been marred by financial woes, Ellison remains one of the most prominent producers of director-driven features. Notoriously press-shy, she is not an outspoken member of the LGBTQ community, but she has boosted films led by queer characters, including such recent features as Olivia Wilde's Booksmartand Miranda July's Kajillionaire, and hired other queer women among a diverse staff.The actor turned director is a new voice in queer indie film, having broken out with God's Own Country, which earned the world cinema directing award at Sundance in 2017. Lee's sophomore film, period lesbian love story Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, is due out late 2020 from Neon. Schitt's Creekpaddled off into the sunset after six seasons, but not before it cemented its pop culture status late in its run with four 2019 Emmy nominations. Levy, who co-created the show with dad Eugene, earned legions of admirers in fans and critics alike for crafting a same-sex love story in a series that was free of homophobia. LGBTQ STORY I'D LOVE TO SEE ONSCREEN"All of them. Romeo choosing Mercutio. Juliet and the Nurse. West Side Story with the Jets and the Sharks at it like knives. Batman on Superman. Gay it all up! Everything!" THE TOP OF MY QUARANTINE BINGE LIST" Feel Good. My good friend Ally Pankiw directed it. And my fellow Canadian Mae Martin wrote and stars in it. Lesbian female director directing a lesbian hero in a story is the perfect remedy to a down day in quarantine."

Gershon: There was one take that all four of us were like, "That's the one." It was like a real love scene. You didn't see a boob. You didn't see anything; it was all suggested. It really played on our face more than anything. Gershon: Every guy actor I've ever seen on set does pushups and stuff if he doesn't have his shirt on. I was like, "Oh this is what the dudes do, so this is what I'm going to do," because it kind of pumps your arms up. It's all very macho too. You know Corky had a lot of armor on, she was very protective of herself. The more I could feel that, the better I felt as Corky. Tilly: It was a classic film noir, except instead of the lead being a male, it was Corky. A studio offered the [Wachowskis] a lot more money to make the movie, but they said that they had to make Corky a man.I'LL FEEL GOOD ABOUT HOLLYWOOD'S LGBTQ REPRESENTATION WHEN "You no longer have to ask that question and I no longer have to answer it. And when it's just a movie about a love story and not a gay love story." I FIRST FELT REPRESENTED WHEN I SAW"My character Lionel in Dear White People. I literally couldn't find myself in the culture." Gershon: I really liked the hip [tattoo] that wrapped around my hip and crept up. You saw the top of it coming out of my pants sometimes. I thought that was really sexy. I had seen that on some girl at a bar, and I was like, "Oh that's hot." I'LL FEEL GOOD ABOUT HOLLYWOOD'S LGBTQ REPRESENTATION WHEN"Representations can facilitate changing the material conditions of LGBTQ folks on- and offscreen across the globe." Besides being a genuinely considerate movie with some thoughtful meditations on religion and culture, it has the added thrill of having super erotic sex scenes, made possible because:

BERK"Taylor Swift. To watch some of our community come after her for speaking up in support of equal rights was very sad and frustrating to me." I'LL FEEL GOOD ABOUT HOLLYWOOD'S LGBTQ REPRESENTATION WHEN"We have the kind of representation in big-budget studio films that we do on TV." Tilly: This scene here it was all [advisor and feminist sex writer] Susie Bright's friends. That's why the bar scene is so authentic—it's all lesbians. Tilly: Once they got the two of us in the room, I thought, "This is a girl that I can really see being in a relationship with."I FELT MOST PROUD TO BE PART OF THE COMMUNITY LAST YEAR WHEN"An openly gay man became a true contender as a presidential candidate." Gershon: It was like the four of us having sex. It was like: "Foot! Wall! Head!" It was so choreographed. The camera [is] moving around, and you have one wall go up, another wall went down. With a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding comedy series and a Rising Star nod from the Outfest Legacy Awards, Saracho has been praised for creating opportunities for Latinx and LGBTQ voices and for showcasing them on camera on the Starz series Vida.