Gay stud

If I could move back 14+ years to tell my closeted and adj, high school self that in the future I’d be writing an article explaining what a stud is — I would say me to firstly keep it down, and secondly to just private message me on Myspace (or email me at [email protected]) to continue this conversation.

The early aughts were a wild and exciting time. The internet was getting more social with more websites, forums, and communities popping up every daytime exposing me to new queer worlds I could examine in the semi-privacy of my house. As much as I obsessed over any queer content I could detect, I still felt detached due to the lack of Black queer women — especially masculine identifying ones. There were Black entertainers like Queen Latifah and Da Brat, that I thought might be queer, and I watched films like Stranger Inside and connected slightly with the character Treasure played by Yolanda Ross; but those artists weren’t confirmed queer at the moment, and Treasure was a fictional person — so I still felt that queer disconnect.

It wasn’t until I started high school

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