Having grown up and lived in Atlanta most of our lives, we've watched the South's gay capital grow and change dramatically.
We met in the early 1990s in the sixth grade while attending a private Christian prep school in Atlanta. Like many gay youth, we stuck out from everyone else but gravitated toward each other.
Both of us shared a fascination with pop-culture and apparently, everything gay. When the movie Fried Green Tomatoes came out, we visited the Whistle Stop Café in Juliette, Georgia, the actual restaurant where the movie was filmed to celebrate our birthdays.
When we were old enough to drive, we snuck off to meet Atlanta native RuPaul at the now-closed Oxford Bookstore in Buckhead, then accidentally ended up on the evening news with her signed autobiography in hand.
Anytime a celebrity was in town promoting a new movie or CD we would skip school or leave work early to meet them. We also fell in love with Annie Leibovitz's celebrity portraits, and went to the High Museum of Art to see her first Atlanta exhibit in 1994. Back then we had no idea that more than 15 years later we would still be friends, or that Annie Leibovitz would later give us a personal tour of her second exhibit at the same museum.
Both of us went to college in different cities, Jordan to the University of Miami in Florida and Matt to Georgia Southern University. We still managed to talk almost every day. Finally, we came out to each other toward the end of our freshmen year and even went to our first gay club together in Ft. Lauderdale. After graduating, Jordan moved to Los Angeles and Matt moved back to Atlanta. Three and a half years later, Jordan came back to Atlanta as well.
While browsing through Outwrite Bookstore one night, we realized that there wasn't a book solely dedicated to gay life in Atlanta—so we decided to write one. A year later, ATLANTAboy: An Insider's Guide to Gay Atlanta was born. Along with hundreds of people, openly-gay state representative Karla Drenner attended the book's “coming out” party at Outwrite along with a member of the group Sugarland. Charlie Brown, Bubba D. Licious and Baton Bob—three of Atlanta's most famous drag performers—also attended.
With this book we delve even deeper into gay Atlanta's history, bringing you little-known stories from the 1800s to the present day. Like ourselves, Atlanta has grown and changed over the years into something we can be proud of. Today it is an open, accepting, and ever-improving gay mecca—the largest in the South. Have fun, be safe, and enjoy the city we call home!
- Matt Burkhalter & Jordan McAuley
* Photo: Matt Burkhalter, Annie Leibovitz, and Jordan McAuley at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
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