Today on “The Q Agenda” — Vampires and Transmasculine Representation

We’re back with another episode of The Q Agenda tonight on LATV!

Filmmaker Billy Clift gives us the inside scoop about his upcoming gay vampire TV show. Flux’s Lucas Rojas reflects on the the lack of transmasculine representation. Finally, we walk the red carpet at this year’s Outfest Film Festival, where our favorite queer celebrities tell us why they keep showing up.

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Billy Clift was born in Hollywood into a family of entertainers. It was never a question if he’d go into entertainment. The question was: which role will you play?

He was an actor first. Then, a model. In his twenties, he decided to go to hair school, walked into a salon in Beverly Hills, and got himself a job that stuck. As a hairstylist, he built himself a celebrity book of business, headlined by the renowned Elizabeth Montgomery — most famous for her work on the show, Bewitched.

“I did all that stuff, but I was never honestly fulfilled,” Clift remembers. “And something I really wanted in high school was to become a writer. That was the first thought. But then I was working with so many amazing directors and writers that I felt intimidated.”

When Montgomery died in 1995, Clift moved to San Francisco for a change of scenery. It was there he was diagnosed HIV-positive and sent home to die.

But he didn’t. He survived. And in piecing his life together, he felt he had no choice but to follow the dreams had been harboring for so long.

So, he started making documentaries. Short films. With each new project, he dove deeper into his vision and cultivated his creative flow. Then, he crossed the feature film threshold, which earned him reviews and nominations.

Currently, he has a series called Not So Straight in Silver Lake, which airs on HERE TV and Amazon Prime. He is also in post-production for another HERE TV series, The Lair: Hollywood, which features LATV’s own Enrique Sapene in the cast.

The sexy show follows Landon Scott (Emrhys Cooper) — a centuries-old gay vampire last seen in the 1920s — to contemporary Los Angeles to re-populate the city’s vampire community.

Set to premiere in January 2024, The Lair: Hollywood will cast under genre made queer on Clift’s multi-faceted, colorful career.

His advice to emerging artists:

“You can’t give up in this industry. That’s what people see right away. How are you going to stick with it? As soon as I made that decision to do what I do, I never wavered. And I always went forward. And I know that’s why I’m succeeding in this.”

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Next on the show is Flux’s Lucas Rojas. As Director of Operations for the organization, Rojas oversees logistics, conducts research consulting, and works with trans and nonbinary youth.

As a first-generation Latin transmasculine individual with his own story and a background in mathematics, Rojas understands how numbers ought to accurately reflect experience, especially when trying to get funding.

Rojas first came out as a lesbian. Later, when he came out as a trans man, his parents kicked him out of the house. Only 16-years-old, grappling for ways to take care of himself, he was forced into sex work.

“Transmasculine folks do sex work, too, and it’s something that’s not often talked about,” Rojas says. “Often, we’re left out of those conversations. We’re not invited to those tables. It may not be malicious intent, but often we’re forgotten in the forefront.”

Rojas transitioned without support from his family, so he had to persevere solo, come into his identity independently.

“It wasn’t until I met my chosen family, and I created that bond, that I felt at home,” Rojas says. “I think, for those years that I was by myself, there was a lot of anger. I realized it’s okay to ask for help, to have that support group, that they might not be blood family, but they’re family.”

Today, Rojas is empowered in his work. He links services to community needs through campaigns, events, and resources. He is most interested in ensuring that the queer and trans folks he serves are not just living—but thriving.

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On our show today, we’ll also be taking you to this year’s Outfest Film Festival, where we mingled with some of our favorite artists and community leaders on the red carpet. And, as always, are hosts will get into what they think about the next round of anti-queer legislation. Don’t miss out! Tune in.