The LGBTQIA+ community is a historic home for camp, with drag queens and kings exaggerating and poking fun at the gender binary (looking flawless while doing so). Black transwomen, pioneers of gay and queer liberation, understood the power of glitter and color to interrogate the boxes that we’ve created around white heteronormativity — Marsha P. Johnson exemplified these intersections of theater and politics in her own work and activism. As we continue the interrogation, the rebellion, the fight, we carry on her legacy by singing louder, dancing wilder, loving harder.
In our call for submissions, we encouraged our contributors to explore the far reaches of their creativity and to continue challenging the social norms that attempt to limit and define us. The work we present here are reflections of these explorations and include difficult topics such as slut shaming, homophobia, transphobia, body dysmorphia, gender dysmorphia, insinuated sexual assault, colonization, and racism, and vomit imagery, among others. Please read with your well-being and safety in mind. In addition, due to explicit content, we’ve applied an advisory logo to this issue. Reader discretion is advised. Guardian guidance suggested for nonadult readers. This issue contains a BEHIND THE CURTAIN section for sexual content, nudity, and gore.