Kazoo Magazine, an award-winning publication for girls ages 5 to 12, features vogue dancer and LGBTQ advocate Leiomy Maldonado in its latest issue—one of the first times a transgender person has been featured in a children’s magazine.
Maldonado is a choreographer for FX’s award-winning television show Pose, about New York City’s Black and Latinx LGBTQ ballroom culture. In 2009, she became the first transgender woman to appear on MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew” (Season 4) as part of the dance group “Vogue Evolution.” She also starred in this 2017 Nike ad. In Kazoo’s issue focusing on “Confidence,” she appears in a key section in which four experts talk about where they find confidence and share their advice for getting it. Dancing, Maldonado says, “makes me feel superhuman, like Wonder Woman.” She then relates:
When I first started dancing, people were telling me how I should look, act, and move. I was shunned for being too high-energy and acrobatic. But I wasn’t dancing for them, I was dancing for me. If we allow other people to tell us who we can’t be and what we can’t do, we’ll keep ourselves from growing. Besides, standing out and being different is much more special than standing in the background and blending in with everyone else. If you have a light, turn it up and give yourself some room to shine.
Other experts in the section include politician Stacey Abrams, Paralympian athlete Tatyana McFadden, and roboticist Henny Admoni. While there’s nothing in the piece to indicate that Maldonado is transgender, mentioning that might have been seen as “othering,” separating Maldonado from the rest of the (all cisgender) women profiled. This way, she’s just one of four very accomplished women. We shouldn’t force queer people always to forefront the queer part of themselves. Having said that, I hope some readers are inspired to look up more about Maldonado—a quick Internet search will show them she is trans and an LGBTQ advocate.
I’ve been a fan of Kazoo for a while now—here’s my 2018 interview with founder Erin Bried, herself a lesbian mom, who explained how her own daughters were the inspiration for the magazine. Kazoo also won the National Magazine Award earlier this year, the first children’s magazine to do so. While it’s not specifically a queer magazine, it’s included a number of pieces by and about queer people, including a story about a girl with two moms, a queer-inclusive search-and-find puzzle, another search-and-find showing a two-mom family, drawn by non-binary cartoonist Chan Chau, and pieces by or about queer people, including writer and cartoonist Alison Bechdel, singer Lea DeLaria, photographer Catherine Opie, artist Mickalene Thomas, writer Jacqueline Woodson, singer Ani DeFranco, swimmer Diana Nyad, biologist Lynn Adler, and comedian Cameron Esposito.
Kazoo isn’t the only children’s magazine to have queer content. It is, however, to the best of my knowledge (leave a comment if I’m wrong), the first children’s magazine for this age range to feature a trans person. (Cricket Media has had a such few pieces in publications for somewhat older age brackets.)
As I’ve said before, while the publication of LGBTQ children’s books can take years, children’s magazines like Kazoo offer a way to get these stories into people’s hands (and hearts) in a shorter timeframe. Additionally, including LGBTQ-inclusive content among non-LGBTQ content in the format of a magazine makes it more likely that non-LGBTQ families will encounter it and read it. That’s a way to build bridges. I’d love to see more recognition from the LGBTQ community for these efforts. Hello, GLAAD?
Kazoo is available in Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores nationwide and to new subscribers. (If it’s not available in your local bookstore, ask them to stock it!)