At the instigation of @jessica and other trans and queer siblings, my ADHD has compelled me to assemble a basic guide or primer on LGBTQ+ Media, Literature, and Culture for those getting their footing in our community. This is not authoritative, this just one rando queer trans gal's perspective on the keys to queer culture and art.
This will be very loosely organized and potentially chaotic...do not be afraid, my brain is just weird. Also, once the whole thread is up, feel free to add your own notes on key artists, media, moments, and more.
One of the best documentary / video essay creators around right now for learning about LGBTQ+ cinema and TV is James Somerton (https://www.youtube.com/@JamesSomerton).
I would suggest starting at learning about "camp." Camp and campiness is a core concept of queer art and culture, but it is something many don't have a great grasp on or know the history of. Heck, I've met young LGBTQ folk who aren't even familiar with the word!
As for Queer Literature...I don't have a great youtuber or easy guide to start with that (if anyone has suggestions, please add in the comments!). There are a lot of compilations and anthologies of LGBTQ+ poetry, literature, etc...but I'm not sure which to suggest.
In lieu of that, I'm going to start with some key writers one would benefit from reading.
Sappho: A greek poet from the isle of Lesbos and the reason why we're called Lesbians and Sapphics! Her poetry speaks to not only the timelessness of sapphic experiences (Too gay to function: "Sweet mother, I cannot weave – slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl."). Some translations have erased or minimized her queerness, but her role in allowing lesbians to envision and express ourselves is undeniable.
Shakespeare: Many of his sonnets are often read as being about a man he loved and expressing homoeroticism. Of course, he is on of the key writers of the English language cannon.
Walt Whitman: His lifelong work of poetry, "Leaves of Grass," is unrelentingly erotic and many of the pieces are about both male and female lovers. There is often also a transgression of gender as Whitman expresses a connection across gender, race, class, and more.
In 20th century American poetry, some key figures in queer literature are:
The beat poets: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others discuss and celebrate bisexuality and homosexuality throughout their work. Many of these have been influential upon queer culture in the 20th century and are powerful and liberating to read.
Audre Lorde: Her impact on lesbian poetry is vital, especially in pushing art beyond a white normative gaze. She also wrote an essay that has been powerful for me about how creating poetry and art is not frivolous but essential to survival for the marginalized and oppressed.
Jumping over to the 21st Century Trans Lit movement:
Imogen Binnie's novel, "Nevada," is often cited as helping really launch and inspire the current explosion in trans literature and fiction. It's complicated and it is unapologetic about its transness.
Torrey Peters is the first trans woman to win many key literature prizes, and her novel "Detransition, Baby," has helped cement ideas like "juvenile elephants" in the queer public consciousness. Importantly, her novella, "Infect your friends and loved ones," made a really big splash and has inspired countless t4t tattoos.
I also want to suggest Casey Plett, as she has been key to helping platform and publish trans literature in recent years. Her short story anthology "A Safe Girl to Love" is honestly one of my favorites of any writer period.
It covers a lot of the important pieces, both by trans people and transphobes that influenced the discourse in queer intellectual culture. Among these are archival pieces like the first discussions of transvestism in Psycopathia Sexualis, an excerpt from Janice Raymond's TERF screed "The Transexual Empire," and Sandy Stones response, "The Empire Strikes Back," which helped set the stage for a lot of modern trans thought and theory.
Alongside this, everyone should read Leslie Fienberg's "Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come." I think this is one of the most critical pieces of theory for the trans liberation movement and marks the popular adoption of the term "transgender" in the community. I honestly think a lot of community in-fighting could be side-stepped if people just read the dang thing already rather than going off about opinions formed in their first 6 months of being on trans twitter. 😅 https://archive.org/details/transgender-liberation-a-movem-leslie-feinberg
Jack Halberstam's "A Queer Time and Place" gave us the term "queer temporality," but also talks about queer geography and more. For me, it's deeply personal as he discusses the queer mythologizing of Brandon Teena's death, a trans man whose murder in Nebraska (my home state) was central to trans activism against hate crimes.
Okay, this has already gotten completely out of hand. Apparently my ADHD is extra unhinged today. So I'm going to jump to a completely different topic: MUSICAL THEATER!
Broadway and musical theater have been cornerstones of US queer culture for more than a century. And people may not know this, but I am a nerd about musicals...because gay?
The two titans of Broadway musical theater in the 20th century that have defined two very different approaches are Andrew Lloyd Weber and Stephen Sondheim. Usually people really like one or the other, but both of their impacts are undeniable.
Andrew Lloyd Weber's work is camp spectacle. What he is probably the best at is the over-the-top and ridiculous moments. He is most famous for "Phantom of the Opera" and "CATS."
To get a sense of what people love about the stage version of CATS (and it's problematic origins), I suggest Maggie Mae Fish's great video on it: https://youtu.be/6tYcPuVYDHw?si=Dzs0UvdZStluFvb_
Stephen Sondheim on the other hand is near and dear to my heart. My wife and I first fell in love discussing his work over text...because we are utter dorks.
Sondheim was a gay man and you see how queerness influenced him throughout his work.
One of my favorites is "Company," which it is hard to not see as being about a queer man in New York City who is wrestling with the queer temporality of being the single bachelor in the lives of his friends who are married and straight (though Bobby is never actually shown to have same-sex attraction).
Sondheim's other works are all ones you may have encountered.
Sweeney Todd is about a barber seeking vengeance that murders the rich and then his downstairs neighbor Mrs. Lovett turns the bodies into meat pies that she sells, so the poor of London literally "eat the rich."
Watch one of the stage productions, not the Tim Burton movie (Johnny Depp is awful and doesn't get the character, and Burton messed up directing his wife as Mrs. Lovett)...for example, national treasure Patti Lupone singing "A Little Priest" where she is proposing turning the dead body of a man Sweeney murdered into meat for her pies: https://youtu.be/CnnVd3wgTX0?si=Ej0ntnGohEmfItFb
Into the Woods is absolutely fantastic and campy. The Disney movie was actually quite good, surprisingly. One of my favorite pieces is "Your Fault" and "Last Midnight." It highlights one of Sondheim's best techniques, giving each character their own melodies and bringing them together: https://youtu.be/sve1K1AspTk?si=rZy_kF5FpuFmS7c8
Of course, Sondheim's first big piece of work on Broadway was writing the lyrics for "Westside Story." He was always critical of his work, having to do has Leonard Bernstein directed him to do with the writing, since Bernstein was composing the music.
Westside Story has long been symbolic of the way Broadway, camp, and musical theater play a role in gay culture. And I mean, how could it not with choreography like this? 😅 https://youtu.be/20myPs_-E1I?si=02V9wvY72Wzg2nAl
Moving beyond Sondheim and Webber, the musical "RENT" is, of course, a big one in queer culture. It has queer characters, characters living with HIV, and starving artists. And, of course, it is the reason so many gays know exactly how many minutes are in a year: https://youtu.be/PgBjMZ4IeKY?si=hs0XoAGewGLNA3N2
Another important piece of musical theater (and non-musical film) for gay culture is "The Birdcage" or "La Cage Aux Folles." It's about two gay men who are partnered whose son is bringing is fiancee and her parents home to dinner and is worried about what they will think of his two gay dads. So one of them attempts to pretend to be a butch straight man, and the other who performs as a drag queen at the titular Birdcage, pretends to be their son's mother.
Of course, another key musical in queer culture and film is "Rocky Horror Picture Show." This is the epitome of camp, written by Richard O'Brien who is messy as a creator, but is gender non-conforming and has said would likely have identified as non-binary if that was an option when he grew up.
For a modern audience, it's hard to understand what it meant to people when it came out. It was shown in theaters in small town America and was one of the few excuses people would have to dress up in gender non-conforming and queer ways. It plays with horror trope of queer as villain and the transforms that into a celebration of queerness. Dr. Frankenfurter calls themselves a "sweet transvestite" from "Transsexual, Transylvania" and it's important to understand 1) "Transgender" didn't really exist as a term and 2) "Transvestite" was used for any trans person who didn't get surgery, basically.
Okay, this has become complete chaos....going to take a break, and try to corral my ADHD brain into organizing this and being a bit more systematic. Apologies for the absolute ridiculousness this morning