Justin Elizabeth Sayre - From Gay to Z: A Queer Compendium

Text copyright 2022 by JUSTIN SAYRE .

Illustrations copyright 2022 by FREDY RALDA .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-8387-9 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sayre, Justin, author.

Title: From gay to Z / by Justin Elizabeth Sayre ; illustrations by Fredy Ralda.

Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, [2022] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021045719 | ISBN 9781452178028 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Gays. | Gay culture. | Gays in popular culture.

Classification: LCC HQ76.25 .S397 2022 | DDC 306.76/6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045719

Design by MICHAEL MORRIS

Illustrations by FREDY RALDA

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Dear friends,

Before we begin this journey together, I would like to get a few things clear:

The task of boiling down the entirety of queer culture into one book is impossible. It would take up several volumes, and while the lovely folks at Chronicle Books seem to like me, I dont know how many volumes they or I have signed up for. Also, because queer culture is continually evolving, as our awareness and our presence grows in the world, so too does our history. As we begin to learn about ourselves, we hope to hand that knowledge over to the next generation of queer people to do with as they will. This book is an attempt to pass along as much as I can.

Its also a book to make you laugh. The opinions in these pages are mine and mine alone. I am a humorist rather than a historian or a social scientist. I believe that a culture is made up of people, so in some ways this is a whos who of the LGBTQ+. I have concentrated on artists and activists who are gay, or have a gay following, to illuminate the compendium of art created by and for gay people, and because I think in many ways they tell the stories of the LGBTQ+ community. In these pages, I hope to celebrate all that we are and all that we can be, but in a very queer wayto throw a little shade and to make a little joy. To me, the core of queer culture is how a group of people maligned and mistreated come together and try to make the world more beautiful, more fair, and perhaps more loving.

It is with these two objectives that I begin this book and we begin our journey together.

I wish you lots of laughs, lots of insight, and lots of hope to go out and make more of the same. Queer culture isnt just what we have been but what we still can be.

Much love,

Justin Elizabeth

A Fantastic Woman

The visually brilliant 2017 film by Sebastin Lelio tells the story of a young transgender woman living in Chile. This groundbreaker took the world by storm, nominated for the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018. With a title right out of the golden era of Hollywood and a stellar performance by transgender actress Daniela Vega as Marina, this film became a modern classic in the LGBTQ+ cannon.

Written by Christopher Isherwood, this novel that was one of the first to openly deal with homosexuality and love. It sounds strange, but most novels until then dealt with homosexuality in terms of tragedy, even those by gay authors. Isherwoods novel broke the mold by having George, a bookish professor, deal with the loss of his partner not as some sort of redemption but as a genuine loss born from a deep love. It was adapted for film in 2009 by fashion designer Tom Ford, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. While this adaptation made some changes, it brought style, grace, and some of the best smoking in modern cinema, making this classic even more classy.

This Swedish supergroup of the 1970s, famous for songs like Waterloo and Dancing Queen, have become gay music you and your mom both like. ABBAs songbook later became the source material for the musical Mamma Mia, and you know how we love a musical. The film adaptations starring Meryl Streep (and in the sequel, Cher)have become gay hallmarks, or as I like to call them, movies you can see with your parents when visiting for the holidays and can be enjoyed by all for very different reasons.

Acker wrote books, plays, and poetry, sometimes using the works of other writers to create a new vision of the world as she saw it. She searched for new forms and was unafraid to talk about identity and politics, which, in some ways, were intermingled for her. Her 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School remains her most popular work, but in recent years all her novels and life have been reexamined as she finds a host of new fans and accolites to this day. Acker used a myriad of forms in her works, adapting other stories, illustration, playwriting, and prose, all to make a new form of storytelling. Who knows what she could have done had she only had more time. Acker died of cancer in 1997 at the age of fifty.

ACT UP stands as an example of how disenfranchised people can educate, organize, and mobilize themselves while fighting for their lives. Many in the organization were suffering with AIDS and knew they would not live to see the outcome of the movement, but fought nonetheless. Formed in 1987, this direct-action group took the AIDS crisis to the streets and showed America and the world that we were not going out without a fight. The group was founded by writer and activist Larry Kramer after he was asked to leave the GMHC for his cantankerous views about taking on the system. People were angry, and they were dying, and nothing was getting done. Out of this despair and righteous anger, ACT UP was born. Members created powerful images calling out the delinquency of the Reagan administration. They held protests on Wall Street demanding drug companies push for better research and development of new AIDS treatment drugs. They shut down the post office in New York. They debuted the slogan and image that would forever be associated with the organization: Silence = Death. They reappropriated the use of the Pink Triangle, now used to signify solidarity. They shut down the FDA, demanding that the organization approve medications for a dying population. They marched on Saint Patricks Cathedral in New York and shut down that hate-monger, Cardinal Spellman. These were angry queer people fighting for the life of a community. And they won.

Calpernia Addams

Addams is a groundbreaking trans actress and personality who brings wisdom and charm to everything she touches. She has been lighting up the screen for decades and encouraging the work of other trans actors. She coached Felicity Huffman for her role in