Yawar Charlie isn’t kidding. He and husband Jason were among the 33 couples who got married in a very public ceremony featuring Madonna — as well as Queen Latifah, Macklemore, and Mary Lambert — during the 2014 Grammy Awards, broadcast to an estimated 150 million people worldwide. It was a very public coming out for Charlie, who stood out by wearing the traditional garb of a Pakistani Muslim man.
“My mom called and said, ‘Well, everybody knows now,'” Charlie recalls. “It was very touching and heartwarming to get phone calls and emails from people all over the world — from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to Iran.” Many of these strangers conveyed a similar message: Charlie’s wedding “was inspirational to watch, and especially to see someone in traditional clothing.”
Charlie, who grew up in San Francisco as part of “a very strict Muslim” immigrant family, was further encouraged by the largely positive reactions of his broader family and community. “When Jason and I had what I call our friends and family wedding, several months after the Grammys, there was a section of my family that didn’t attend,” he says. “It was very simple, and I realized why they weren’t there and I didn’t make a big deal about it. I said, ‘You know what? I’d rather focus on who is here.’ Again, I wore traditional clothing. We had the traditional aspect to it because I felt that I deserved the same as anybody else getting married in my culture.”
Charlie is returning to the public spotlight of television, this time as a member of the cast of Listing Impossible. The new CNBC weekly reality show centers on a team of top-selling realtors in Los Angeles attempting to sell languishing luxury properties. “A lot of real estate shows are drama-oriented or scripted reality,” Charlie says. “This show is not that. This is about business, and it really truly is an organic unfolding of the process.”
With the show, Charlie becomes the first openly gay South Asian season regular on CNBC. It’s the chance to once again be a positive LGBTQ role model that motivates him most about the show.
“It’s important to see reflections of diversity succeed in a luxury market where you don’t necessarily see that representation on TV,” he says. “I really want to show that someone from the LGBTQ community can be a success in business, in a competitive field, in a major city, and still be their authentic self and still be visible. I think that is the biggest gift that I’ve been given by being on the show.”
A recent study has found that lenacapavir, an injectable medication administered twice a year, is more effective at preventing HIV among gay, bisexual, and transgender people than a daily regimen of Truvada, taken orally, as a form of pre-exposure prophylaxis.
The study examined cisgender men, transgender men and women, and nonbinary individuals who have sex with partners assigned male at birth. The participants hailed from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.
Participants in the trial were randomized to either receive lenacapavir or Truvada on a placebo-controlled, double-blind basis -- meaning that neither they nor the researchers were aware of who was getting which drug.
Metro Weekly is an advertiser-supported magazine and website. It's free to read. Subscribe here.
Please support our advertisers and help keep independent LGBTQ journalism strong! Click the links below to the individual advertisers in our most recent issue or browse the magazine above.
Former U.S. Congressman George Santos (R-N.Y.) pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
Santos, a one-term congressman first elected in 2022, had previously been charged with 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, credit card fraud, identity theft, theft of public funds, and making false statements to the U.S. House of Representatives. Those charges were in connection to various financial misdeeds and campaign finance violations that Santos had engaged in, which ultimately led to his expulsion from the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2023.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.