Billy Porter helps examine origins of gay rights movement

Billy Porter is busy, pandemic or not. He’s just appeared in a virtual play about nurses on the front lines. His series “Pose” is returning to production. He’s soon to appear in the “Cinderella” remake. He’s writing a memoir — a project he calls the hardest thing he’s ever done. And starting this week, he narrates “EQUAL,” a new docuseries on HBO Max that traces the history of the LGBTQ movement through the Stonewall uprising in 1969. Porter was born just a few months after Stonewall. He learned about that galvanizing moment for the modern gay rights movement as he grew up.

Still. he says, there was a lot about the movement’s earlier history that he didn’t know, and was able to learn through the docuseries. In four episodes, the series, premiering Thursday, looks at the rise of early gay rights organizations like the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis; the 20th century transgender experience; the role of the Black community in gay rights; and then Stonewall. Porter sat down recently to speak to The Associated Press about the project, his other work, and how he’s been coping during the pandemic. (The interview has been condensed for length.) AP: […]

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