When out performer and former “Glee” star Alex Newell came to Philadelphia, he said it was “amazing” and “brilliant” to be around other LGBT activists.
“It’s like the meeting of the minds,” Newell said. “We’ve all come together for a special purpose. It’s like that movie, ‘The Witches.’ But we get shit done. I love it.”
Newell was in attendance for the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference, a national traveling conference dedicated to LGBT equality. Newell performed five songs following a Jan. 22 awards ceremony at the conference. The songs included “Basically Over You (B.O.Y),” “Collect My Love,” “Nobody to Love,” “Stronger” and “This Ain’t Over.”
Newell performed during the same weekend as President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day. While the LGBT community has mentioned fears under a Trump administration, Newell chooses to sit back and wait to see what happens.
“It just began,” Newell said. “That’s where I’m at. We can’t keep putting lipstick on a pig about it. So we’re just going to see and wait. Wait it out and once something goes wrong, we will make a noise.”
Newell began playing Wade “Unique” Adams, a transgender character on “Glee,” during the show’s third season and continued to play the character until the show’s sixth and final season in 2015. He recognized how his character provided trans visibility in the media.
“If we don’t recognize how time progresses and how time makes things happen,” said Newell, who also noted the efforts of transgender actress Laverne Cox and “Sense8” star Jamie Clayton. “[There] was a time in television where I wasn’t allowed to be on TV and when they did portray me, somebody else was playing me that didn’t know my struggle, didn’t know anything about it.”
Newell said “Glee” continues to shape conversations around the LGBT community because of one reason: music.
“Music brings everyone together,” Newell said. “Music is therapeutic. It’s cathartic. Whether you’re going through something completely different from someone else, it draws up a conversation. When I hear ‘Don’t Stop Believin,’’ it’s something that I affiliate with me working so hard to obtain my goal. Other people might have a different thought about hearing that song and [people] do have other thoughts about hearing that song but we still go back to the common ground of why we heard that song in this time.”
Newell mentioned what he calls the most rewarding aspect of playing his “Glee” character.
“When you talk to someone and you look them in the eye and [they] say that you helped them through something, that’s the most gratifying thing in the world,” Newell said.
When it comes to the LGBT community moving forward, Newell said there is only one thing to do: “accept one another.”
“In order to move forward, we have to be accepting of each other 100 percent and be steadfast in our community, truly,” Newell said.