Billy Porter: 'My humanity has always been up for legislation'

Billy Porter remembers a friend pulling him into his first Pride march back in 1989.

"He threw a shirt over my head that said, 'Silence equals death,'" Porter tells TODAY.com in a sit-down interview. "All of a sudden, I found myself marching down the street, chanting, 'Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS,' and I was in the middle of Act Up. I didn't even know what it was."

Even so, it left an indelible mark on the 19-year-old. "That was what shaped me as a queer man overall," Porter says. "Specifically in the Pride Month protest space."

A space, he says, that was motivated by anger back in the '80s.

"I remember it when we were going through the AIDS crisis. The energy was rage that fueled the movement, the whole thing, and we have to understand how to get back to that," he says.

At 53, the actor, writer, producer and musician, has earned a dazzling array of accolades, including being named to Time’s list of the 100 most influential people, two Tony awards, a Grammy and a lead-actor nod for his portrayal of Prey Tell in the TV drama series "Pose," making him the first openly-gay black man to win an Emmy in history.

If you aren't doing the math, the collection puts Porter merely an Oscar away from joining the ranks of luminaries like Viola Davis, Jennifer Hudson and John Legend in the ultra-elite EGOT club.

However, it's not only his considerable talents that have made him a household name, but also Porter's groundbreaking fashion. From the 2020 blue velvet Grammy outfit, paired with a jeweled curtain-closing hat, to the legendary tuxedo gown he wore to the 2019 Oscars (now in a museum), Porter's style puts him in a league all his own.

When asked about it, he tells TODAY.com that having always been a person "on the fringes," the freedom to unabashedly be himself is transcendent.

"My ideas have always been questioned. My worth has always been questioned. My humanity has always been up for legislation," says Porter. "So, in my 53 years on Earth, I have found the space to simply just be.

He calls the ability to "just show up and be myself," "magical."

"That’s my work. That’s what I get to do. It’s just be. It doesn't matter what anybody else says. I don't care about what anybody thinks," he says.

"I’ve done it when nobody was listening," he continues. "And I’m grateful that I’ve lived long enough to see the day where now folks are listening."

Marking Pride in 2023

More than three decades after his first march, Porter is leading New York's Pride march this year as Grand Marshal. Much like the first time he participated, Porter says the time has come for the movement to once again embrace its true spirit.

"Pride has always been a march and a protest for me. We've made some strides, a lot of strides, I keep saying the change has already happened, because it has, and therefore there's now a lot of pushback again. And so Pride must be about protest again," he says.

That 'pushback' includes an unprecedented amount of anti-LGBTQ legislation, including the passage of more than 70 new laws (this year alone), leading the Human Rights Campaign to declare its first-ever state of emergency for LGBTQ Americans.

"We forget this is the fight. This is what it’s always been. There ain’t nothing new about this," Porter says. "But there’s a whole generation of young people that were birthed into these rights that our generations, and the generations before us, fought for. So, now it’s time for the young people to step up, get back in the arena and make sure that we don’t go back."

While he'd like to see younger generations step up to the plate as threats against their rights grow, at the same time he says he's awestruck by the autonomy of today’s LGBTQ movement, especially given that he spent decades trying to be perceived as "masculine enough" just to put food on the table.

“(These kids), I am mesmerized by their existence, by their freedom. They’re already free. That’s what we fought for. And it can’t go back. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. You can slow it down, but the change has already happened.”

But the change has ushered in backlash and along with anti-LGBTQ laws, there's also been an alarming rise in hate crimes.

In fact, according to a recent bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. is at a "heightened threat environment" with LGBTQ individuals marked among "likely targets of potential violence."

Rather than being intimidated by it, Porter says he's angry.

"My existence has been up for legislation from the moment I could comprehend thought. F--- that," he says. " I'm infuriated. I'm not scared. I'm not terrified. I'm enraged. And that rage is what fuels the work that has to be done."

What that work looks like still needs to be figured out in real time, he says. "It's not 1963, so have to find different ways of engaging, use what we've learned and move forward."

Social media is one tool, which Porter says "means nothing and everything" given that it "elected Barack Obama and Trump at the same time."

While he doesn't have all the answers, Porter says one thing he does know how to do is engage.

“I do know how to show up and make sure that we make our voices heard. We are the people that have the power," he says.

'My art is my voice'

"How do we motivate everybody?" he asks. "It’s not just queer people. It’s everybody. We’ve seen what has happened. The things that could never happen have already happened. So, what are we going to do about it?”

To start, every person can put one foot forward, every day, and “show up in our truths and speak them out loud is the first step,” he says.

“I have my art. That’s how I engage,” Porter says. “My art is very present. My art is very political. My art is in your face. My art is my voice.”

Having begun his career in music, Porter is releasing a new album later this year entitled "Black Mona Lisa," and he says that the return to where he started is something that makes him emotional.

"I've been able to circle back to this mainstream music space, with 27 years in between, and the world has changed. It has. I was not possible in the '90s as I am now."

Of the 14 songs that comprise the record, Porter wrote 13 and says that all of them are a reflection of his life.

"Look at me. I was told 'no.' I was put out for a long time. Not a couple of years. For decades. Now, all of a sudden, my black gay a-- is a superpower. They told me my queerness would be my liability and it was."

But no longer.

"We win," he says. "That's the greatest feeling of all, is that I get to sit in the space where folks can look at me and go, 'OK, I can win, too.' (It) took me a long time. It's not easy. You've got to put in the work."

For those who feel as though that work is "insurmountable," Porter reminds that while the ongoing challenges can lead to fatigue, "continuing to show up in our truths and speak them out loud" is the first step.

"We have to do that with everybody in our lives. We have to hold our people accountable first. Families who reject us, whatever. It’s like, no, we’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it and get over it. Cause we’re not going anywhere — ever."