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In Carytown, Tea and Sanctuary for Closeted Teens

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When you enter The Tottering Teacup, you’re immediately welcomed by displays of pride. Various coordinating colors string together to create a handmade knit hat on each of the workers in the tea shop. The hats’ color combinations symbolize a different identity, from bisexual to genderqueer. The way owner Anatash Werne describes it is, “We all have our own hats for our own flags.” And even if you don’t feel comfortable displaying your own flag as boldly, Werne wants you to feel welcome at The Tottering Teacup.

Opened in 2016 by Werne, The Tottering Teacup is a tea shop located in Carytown serving hot tea and small sandwiches, along with other drinks and foods. The shop offers a variety of teas including black teas, green teas, white teas, oolong teas, fruit teas, and herbal teas. Depending on how long you may be staying, you can order a single pot, either in small or large, or an endless pot, also featured in small or large sizes. And as the humidity continues into fall, hot tea isn’t the only thing one can get. There is also iced tea and iced coffee along with sandwiches and homemade baked goods.

Werne, who uses they/their pronouns, says that they’ve always been baking, ever since they were a child. But baking wasn’t the only childhood memory that convinced them to start their own shop. “My mom opened up her own business so I saw her go through that whole process,” they said. “I’m sure that kind of emboldened me.”

Childhood offers an enduring source of creativity that is often lost in adults. Pointing to their childhood experiences of baking as inspiration, Werne said, “I have always wanted to be a baker.” And now they are making such creative goods as lavender bread and Pride-themed macarons. Each year, during Pride month, the sales from their Pride-themed macarons go to Richmond LGBTQ youth outreach organization, Side By Side.

In the two years it has been open, the Tottering Teacup has had enough success that they are hoping to branch out with new events and new food. Every first Wednesday between 6pm and 8pm, they host an event called “Tea & Tarot,” in which three different tarot card readers are available to read your fortune. The business will be introducing salads soon, to help create a more inclusive menu for vegan patrons.

However, beyond the events, food, and even the tea, Werne would say their favorite part of running the business has been making connections with customers. “We have a lot of people who come in here who see the word ‘pride,’ and I think everyone expects a generic rainbow,” they said. But the Tottering Teacup goes far beyond the rainbow flag, displaying a number of other Pride flags that aren’t as well known.

“They’ll see the purple, grey, and white [asexual Pride flag], [and] they won’t necessarily understand what all the Pride flags mean,” they said. Werne is happy that they’ve been able to spread some “good, educational moments” about the lesser-known Pride flags within the LGBTQ community as a result of such conversations.

For Werne, the most important goal for the Tottering Teacup is to create a safe haven for young queer folks. Their hope is that LGBTQ youth who may not be comfortable being out yet will recognize the hats of the workers without having any of the paraphernalia boldly labeled with LGBTQ+ words or phrases. In this way, Werne hopes to make the Tottering Teacup inviting, without being overwhelming. Werne said, “I think this has been a long time coming.”

Invading the Narrative: Aaron McIntosh’s Invasive Queer Kudzu Project

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“I’m not usually this busy,” says Aaron McIntosh when I finally track him down at Baltimore’s School 33 Art Center. In the process of setting up the first public showing of his Invasive Queer Kudzu project, he’s been hard to pin down. It’s no surprise — the multi-layered installation of cloth leaves sewn together into quilts designed to look like kudzu vines is the culmination of three years’ work for McIntosh, an artist and professor in the Craft and Material Studies Department of VCU’s School Of The Arts, and he wants it to be perfect.

The article originally appeared in RVA #33 Summer 2018, you can check out the issue here, or pick it up around Richmond now. 

Invasive Queer Kudzu is bigger than just McIntosh, though — it incorporates thousands of stories from the LGBTQ community of the American South. “The project tackles the intersectional ways that queerness and oppression function in the South,” McIntosh explains. “[It uses] kudzu as a metaphor to talk about exponentially growing queer stories across the South, invading the dominant Southern narratives that often don’t include stories like yours and mine.”

To bring the project to fruition, McIntosh has spent the last three years crisscrossing the South; facilitating workshops, collecting stories from LGBTQ archives, and setting up booths at Pride festivals in cities all over the region. He has collected thousands of stories, in the form of kudzu leaves — enough to create a huge quilt of kudzu vines.

Quilting comes naturally to him. “I’m a fourth-generation quilt-maker myself. All of the craft processes I grew up around were for the useful and the purposeful,” he says. But as he grew, McIntosh was drawn to a more artistic approach. “I got into making clothes, and initially wanted to go into fashion design,” he says. “I also painted in high school and am just as interested in painting and sculpture as I am in quilt making. I feel like my primary focus is hitting its stride, combining and conflating all of those things.”

His decision to do so in the form of kudzu was inspired by his experience helping elderly relatives tend their gardens. “Pulling a lot of weeds, and being back in that space, that activity, with my family,” he says. “Particularly pulling things that I do know have nutritional value, and some people eat them in fancy salads, but my family pulls them and speaks of them in negative ways.”

Kudzu is often discussed in negative ways, due to its tendency to overtake fields, trees, and even buildings, under the noses of unwary inhabitants. But McIntosh views it through a different lens. “These are plants,” he says. “Weeds have been here for aeons; these are things that grow of their own natural volition. People grow and do things of their own natural volition. And culturally, there’s a framework for deciding what is different, and what is other.”

The metaphor for queerness here is obvious. And that drew McIntosh in. “Since I was a child i’ve been interested in why something’s different,” he says. “The second I learn that it is, I want to know more. I think that’s the root of my queerness, the roots of my interest in being an artist in general, and my gravitation towards fiber arts — which are ‘wrong’ for my gender, to think in traditional norms.”

Now that McIntosh, with essential help from volunteers, has assembled the many different contributions into vines, he’s taking the project’s public installations to the next level. For Invasive Queer Kudzu’s first appearance in Baltimore, McIntosh and volunteers assembled a nearly full-scale replica of Club Hippo — a now-defunct gay bar that opened in Baltimore in the late 70s — right in the middle of the gallery. “It’s built as a monument in memoriam to itself,” McIntosh says.

This is the ultimate aim of the Invasive Queer Kudzu project: “taking over problematic monuments to the South,” in McIntosh’s words. “That’s very loosely and broadly defined,” he explains. “When you think of a monument you probably think more readily of the Jefferson Davis monument [on Monument Ave] — or the Alabama State Capitol building, which is the former Confederate Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. Now I’m staring at the Club Hippo, which is a different kind of monument — a monument to a gay bar that is no longer.”

In the coming years, McIntosh will be bringing site-specific installations to cities all over the South — and Richmond is next on the list. 1708 Gallery will host Invasive Queer Kudzu in 2019, when the vines will be reconfigured to cover an as-yet-unrevealed Richmond monument. McIntosh is also working on a project with Side By Side and the Visual Arts Center, to bring LGBTQ youth and their families together for what he calls “a really humongous queer quilting bee.”

“I had always hoped that this project would highlight different queer organizations that are doing the same thing I’m doing, but with more tangible results,” McIntosh says. “What Side By Side is doing is in many ways more important than what I’m doing, and I’m really excited for the project to connect with these kinds of organizations.”

“I’m excited most of all to bring different generations together,” he says. “That’s something that is really present in this project. You’re looking at archival documents from a queer past in the South, and all these contributions from people in the present. I think intergenerational queer activities are something we could all use right now.”

 

Community Out of Tragedy: Virginia’s First Black Pride Celebration

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This story was originally published on GayRVA.

After the horrific 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub, Richmond’s LGBTQ community tried to come together for unity, but instead, found division. Vigils were organized locally by leading LGBTQ advocacy groups, but as happens all too often in American society at large, Black and Latinx leaders felt underrepresented and excluded by an event that was supposed to mark a tragedy that had touched them personally.

Remembering the aftermath, local activist and minister Lacette Cross said she wondered, “Why didn’t they call us? It’s not like the organizers don’t know queer Black leaders.”

Cross felt the slight was unintentional, but it inspired her to create an intentional space for LGBTQ people of color in the city. At a post-event meeting, she says, “I said, ‘We can complain, or we can do something about it.’ Folks said, we can do something.”

That something is Black Pride RVA, a first of its kind event in Virginia, to be held this weekend in Richmond. Cross stresses that it’s not a competition with other local Pride events — she attends them all — but simply a way to provide representation to a group that faces additional challenges and discrimination. “This is not a homogenous world, and LGBTQ people are not homogenous. We’re not all the same gay, the same bi, the same queer. There’s a beauty in our diversity.”

The event is “a party with a purpose,” she says. Among the entertainment — highlights include a drag performance hosted by Alvion Davenport and Heaven-Leigh Kennedy on Friday night, a ballroom dance competition, and local rapper McKinley Dixon headlining on Saturday — Black Pride RVA will also feature a range of family-focused activities and educational classes. From a workshop on mental health, subtitled Navigating Your Truth in a Trump Era, to financial wellness classes and Black LGBTQ history, Cross has prepared a diversity of programming to make sure that the event serves the community it represents.

It has taken time to plan the event from those early discussions in September of 2016. After the talks, Cross founded a non-profit, Us Giving RVA Connection, and by February of the next year, the loosely-formed group had put together programming around Black LGBTQ history, creating the first Black LGBTQ History Month celebration, hosted by Diversity Richmond. They kept meeting monthly, knowing they wanted to do something bigger, and Cross took steps to make the process as inclusive as possible. “We wanted everybody to come to the table who wanted to be involved,” she says.

What she kept hearing was an interest in hosting a Black Pride event. While Virginia has never had a Black Pride event, they aren’t new; the first one was held in Washington, D.C., in 1991. It continues to this day under the umbrella group the Center for Black Equity, which plans other Black Prides around the country, and Cross knew who to turn to as she worked out the details on Richmond’s inaugural event.

“I got the Black Pride bootcamp, and it was amazing,” she says, talking about a series of training sessions she took in May of last year. That training introduced her to Black queer leaders from around the country, and helped her to schedule Richmond’s event to avoid conflicts with events both near, like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s June 24 event; and far, like the Black Pride held earlier this month in Paris, France.

Cross has a videographer and photography team who will document the event, and with her awareness of Black Pride on the national scene, I ask her how big of an event we should expect. “This is our first year, but I see Black Pride RVA as a tourist destination, especially over the next two years,” she says. She turns dreamy for a minute, talking about future events, before she laughs, exclaiming, “Don’t print that! I’m dreaming big. Right now, I just have to get through this weekend.”

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Black Pride RVA’s first official event is “Dinner and a Drag Show,” hosted by Godfrey’s this Friday. Tickets are $12 online, $15 at the door. For more info, click here.

Admission to the main event, the Day Of Purpose, hosted by Diversity Richmond on Saturday, is free of charge, but attendees are encouraged to get a free ticket online. For more info, click here.

Saturday night is an after-party hosted at The Speakeasy Grill; tickets are $15 online and $25 at the door. Tickets to this event, as well as VIP passes and more, are available at Eventbrite.

The weekend will close with a worship service at Third Street Bethel AME on Sunday morning at 11 AM.

For more info on all events, visit Black Pride RVA’s website at blackpriderva.com.

RVA Mag Exclusive: Q&A with Democratic Candidate for Governor, Ralph Northam

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2017 has been a pinnacle year for politics in Virginia. Not only has the Commonwealth entered into the national conversation because of this year’s gubernatorial election, but also because of the tragic events in Charlottesville. How this comes to define the future remains to be seen. Yet one thing is for certain, Virginia is changing and entering into a new phase of national prominence that is set against a political landscape where uncertainty is the only real certainty.

Because of this, all eyes are now on Dr. Ralph Northam.

Northam, the current Lieutenant Governor and Democratic candidate for Governor, has been a bedrock of Virginia politics since running for Senate in 2007. He has been a solider, doctor, seasoned legislator, and the progressive voice in an election where national politics are connecting locally and challenging the Commonwealth’s otherwise-genteel status quo.

RVA Mag’s political director, Landon Shroder, chatted with Northam to get a feel for how the campaign season was shaping up post-Charlottesville and how his platform of job creation, support for the LGBTQ community, and fighting climate change is resonating with young people in Virginia.

Shroder: Dr. Northam, it is a pleasure to speak with you again. I know you are busy so we’ll just hop right into it. Because of the Unite the Right rally, Virginia is now in the national conversation. How do we move forward after a domestic terrorist attack, like the one which happened in Charlottesville? 

Northam: I think your point is well taken. These individuals, these white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazis that marched into a beautiful city, Charlottesville, [and] our wonderful University of Virginia. [They] brought in torches and shields and flags and semi-automatic weapons, spewing hatred, bigotry, and violence. You know, I commend Governor McAuliffe’s leadership and also Attorney General Mark Herring’s. And I spent a lot of time in Charlottesville, giving the message to these folks that they are not wanted and we don’t condone that kind of behavior–hatred, and bigotry in Virginia. That’s not what we’re about, and to please go to wherever you came from or go home and don’t come back. I think that’s good leadership to give that message.

We’ve also started the healing process. We’ve been to three funerals: Heather Heyer, and two of our state troopers which lost their lives. Again, I think it is important for our leaders to step up and call it what it is: just as you said, domestic terrorism. This one individual weaponized his vehicle and ran over 19 people, killed one person, and that’s just not what this Commonwealth is about. We need to make sure to send that message out there loudly and clearly.

Shroder: You’ve now signaled support for removing Confederate monuments in Virginia, yet polling for them to remain is split almost evenly. That doesn’t really provide a solid basis for reconciliation on both sides. Where is the balance in this argument?

Northam: I think we have to look at the principle of it. Certainly if a statue in Charlottesville, Virginia gave these white supremacists an excuse to come in and spew their hatred and bigotry and left three people dead, then that has to lead to a discussion. Personally, I think that these monuments should be placed in a museum. If people want to go look at them and put that history in context, then that is their prerogative. If people chose not to, then that is also their prerogative.

I think that needs to be at a local level, and I think there needs to be legislation to give localities the ability to make those kinds of decisions. And I think also, Landon, we need to tell the rest of the story. A lot of civil rights leaders that come to mind are Barbara Johns and Oliver Hill. We need to do a better job of telling their story. We as society need to look at these statues. And when they are symbols of hatred and bigotry and an excuse for these folks to cause this kind of violence and loss of life, then this is certainly a discussion that needs to take place.

I have recommended that this be dealt with the localities.

Shroder: The general feeling on the campaign trail, does the incident in Charlottesville now become the central issue in which voters make their decision in the remaining two months of the election?

Northam: I think there has really been an awakening. Not only in Virginia, but in this country regarding race relationships, and again, it is a discussion we need to have moving forward. I would also say there are other monuments, Landon, that are not built out of bronze that need to be dealt with and those are inequities in income, inequities in access to education, access to healthcare, and voting rights. These are all issues that we need to discuss in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Also, we need to talk about other things that we are focused on such as work force development, such as jobs and the economy, access to healthcare, clean environments. All of these things are important. A lot of things will be talked about regarding this campaign for governor between now and November.

Shroder: That leads me into my next question. You have spoken extensively on rural economics and have proposed a plan for accelerating jobs and economy in these spaces. You’ve talked about “new collar” jobs. Can you explain what those jobs are?

Northam: Absolutely. First of all, our unemployment rate in Virginia, we’re very proud, has gone from 5.4 to 3.7 percent, the lowest that its been in nine years. We’ve brought in over 200, 000 new jobs. If one goes though to the Eastern Shore, where I’m from, or the Southwest, the unemployment rate is nowhere near 3.7. So we still have a lot of work to do. I have a plan on the table to restore and really bring back rural Virginia and we need to talk about the jobs of the 21st Century, which are STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics] related jobs. There are some very good high paying jobs in areas like cyber-security, unmanned aerial systems, bio-technology, artificial intelligence, data collection and data analysis.

These are the jobs of the 21st Century so we have to really think outside of the box on how we’re educating our youth and preparing them for these 21st Century jobs. So when I refer to jobs not as white or blue collar, but ‘new’ collar jobs, these are jobs that you don’t necessarily need a four year college or university education. And that’s why we’re promoting the G3 program: get skilled, get a job, and give back, which allows Virginians to go to community college for two years without incurring any debt, with the understanding that once they become certified they will give back a year of public service, with pay, or will work in a high demand area or high demand job in the Commonwealth. This allows people to continue their education, to prepare for new collar jobs, while not incurring any debt.

Shroder: Just a follow-on question from that, a lot of our readers understand that there is innovation happening in urban spaces. How do we connect that innovation with the growth potential of rural spaces?

Northam: There are a couple other things, Landon. Obviously there are still pockets throughout Virginia that don’t have access to broadband, this is something that I find unacceptable. Some still don’t have access to cell coverage, this is very important to rural Virginia. And one of the things that is part of my plan is to expand University of Virginia. Why? To bring talent into that area. When out of state students come to Virginia this is a great opportunity for them. When you bring talent to an area like that, talent attracts talent, and businesses will start up. And that will hopefully rejuvenate or jump start the economy in rural Virginia.

Shroder: Speaking about young people, I think it is fair to say that a lot of young people now feel estranged from traditional party politics. How do you, as the most senior progressive voice in this election, reach them? What are you offering to get them re-engaged?

Northam: That is a great question. Pam and I have two children, they are both millennials. One went to University of Virginia one went to William and Mary. And so I am very much in tune with our millennials. You know, there are several things we need to talk about: one is college affordability. We need to make sure that everyone can achieve the American dream. We also need to talk about the importance of a job, and prepare our youth for 21st Century jobs. So when our youth graduate from high school or college, they have a skill and that they are able to enter the work force.

Again, things like healthcare should be important to all of us, but especially millennials. They need to know that they have access to affordable quality healthcare. Millennials are also very in-tune with our environmental issues and we’ve made a lot of progress in Virginia promoting renewable energy. And we’re planning by 2030 that 30 percent of our energy that is generated in Virginia is from renewable energy. Millennials also care very strongly about living in safe communities, where there are not guns on every street corner. These are a lot of the things I talk about with millennials, our children. I am certainly going to make a tremendous effort to get around to our colleges and universities and listen and hear with what’s going on with millennials and make sure we can attract them. We want them to they stay in Virginia, work and raise a family – that is very important to us.

Shroder: As you know Dr. Northam, we also run GayRVA, and as I am sure you are very aware as of yesterday the president has issued guidelines on transgender soldiers. You were also a soldier, and one of those requirements will be removing them from the military altogether. I know this is a national  issue, but how do we protect our transgender service members in Virginia?

Northam: It starts with leadership. As you said, I served in the US Army for eight years, I fought beside folks from the LGBTQ community. I am very proud to have served with them, they have served their country just like everybody else and I think it is very short-sighted for our president to pick and choose who should be in the military. I will do everything I can, and I have in the past, to support our LGBTQ community. We understand that we live in a diverse society. That means we need to be inclusive, and as long as we continue to elect Democrats in Virginia, our lights will be on and our doors will be open, and we will welcome people to the Commonwealth.

Shroder: You are taking a bit of heat for not coming out against the proposed Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines. There does seem to be a myriad of issues surrounding these pipelines: property rights, how they impact on low income communities, in addition to the Commonwealth subsidizing methods of energy that are becoming obsolete. Doesn’t Virginia have a responsibility to lead nationally by opposing this planning?

Northam: I appreciate the question, and I hope that people will look at my environmental record. I think I was the first elected official statewide to be outspoken against off-shore drilling. I have been opposed to fracking, opposed to uranium mining, I have done so much to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay and taking phosphorous out of fertilizer.

I hope people look at my environmental record and compare that to my opponents. I want to do everything I can to make sure I am a good steward of our environment. I have written a letter to the DEQ [Department of Environmental Quality] regarding the permitting process. We need to work with our DEQ and corps of engineers and I want to make sure it is done with transparency with public input, with science, and with environmental responsibility. Also taking into account people’s property rights. That’s what I want to do as the next governor. I will do everything I can to make sure that as the process moves forward it will be done with transparency and responsibility.

I have said that all along and I will stand by my word.

Shroder: Just one more on climate: the rate of sea level rise in Virginia is at three to one vs the national average. Not only is that an environmental crisis, but an economic crisis. Naval Station Norfolk has already signaled they might have to re-deploy the fleet. We’re all aware of what’s happening to Tangier Island–what practical things can we do?

Northam: I took the lead on this Landon, several years ago when I was in the Senate. I put in legislation to study sea-level rise, especially in Hampton Roads. And because of that we’ve been able to apply for federal grants, which we have received, and we have a resiliency plan in place. I have been very involved with sea-level rise and will continue to be. As you said, it is not only a national security issue, but an economic issue for Virginia, and we need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to deal with this. So we need to have a resiliency plan and look at ways to decrease the amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere.

As I said earlier, I have a plan to move 30 percent of our energy to renewable energy by 2030. And I think if we make that a priority, that is something we can make happen in Virginia.

Shroder: That’s all from my side. Thank you for taking the time to chat with us and always a pleasure to speak with you.

Northam: I appreciate everything your doing and keep up the good work!