The OutCrowd Fall 2021 by The OutCrowd Magazine

FALL 21//ISSUE 23

@THEOUTCROWDMAG 2

BEHIND THE COVER: How to visually represent the evolution of LGBTQ2IA+ history at SU and SUNY ESF? Here’s what we came up with: a collage of elements cut (literally) from past editions of the OutCrowd. If you saw Em Burris, Amanda Paule, Yzzy Piñeda Liwanag, and Tori Sampson huddled around an artsand-crafts project in Bird Library, this probably explains a lot. And if we’re talking the evolution of queer storytelling, we knew there was no better vibe than the ‘zine aesthetic at the heart and at the root of queer print publication.

Amanda Paule (she/her) EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Brogan Thomas (she/her)

Eden Stratton (they/them)

Payton Dunn (he/him)

MANAGING EDITOR

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

MANAGING EDITOR

EDITORIAL FEATURES EDITOR: Ash Murray (they/them) ASST. FEATURES EDITOR: Gillian Follett (she/her) SOCIAL POLITICS EDITOR: Sophia Moore (she/her) ASST. SOCIAL POLITICS EDITOR: Alex Naumann (she/her) SEX AND HEALTH EDITOR: Reagan Sanchez (she/they) ASST. SEX AND HEALTH EDITOR: Erika Mosso (she/her) ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Payton Dunn (he/him) ASST. ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Maria Nido (she/her)

DIGITAL SOCIAL DIRECTOR: Yzzy Piñeda Liwanag (she/they) ASST. SOCIAL DIRECTOR: Asher Pomeroy (they/them) SOCIAL TEAM:

Gray Reed (they/she)

Taylor Byrne (she/her) Eva Newhill-Leahy (she/her) WEB DEVELOPER: Kimberly Mitchell (she/they) DIGITAL DIRECTOR: Alejandro Rosales (he/him) DIGITAL EDITORS: Cade Kaminsky (he/him)

Eva Balistreri (she/her) Julia Pryor (she/they)

CREATIVE PHOTO EDITOR: Em Burris (she/they) ASST. PHOTO EDITORS: Ashlyn Graham (she/they)

Tori Sampson (she/her) STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: Valerye Hidalgo Garcia (she/her) VIDEO EDITOR: Phoebe Ellen Sessler (they/she/he) ASST. VIDEO EDITORS: Gray Reed (they/she)

Meredith Tokac (she/they) STAFF VIDEOGRAPHER:

Maclara Cardoso (she/her)

DESIGN EDITORS: Casey Fairchild (she/her)

Amanda Paule (she/her) ASST. DESIGN EDITOR: Amelia Flinchbaugh (she/her) STAFF DESIGNERS:

Alex Ryberg Gonzalez (she/they/he), Eleni Cooper (she/they), Ben Harteveld (he/him), Valerye Hidalgo Garcia (she/her), Sophia Moore (she/her), Tori Sampson (she/her) STAFF WRITERS:

Abi Greenfield (they/she), Sam Baylow (he/him), Jacob Laros (he/him), Morris Gelbart (he/they), Conrad Schmidt (he/him), Valerye Hidalgo Garcia (she/her), Alex Ryberg Gonzalez (she/they/he), Ben Harteveld (he/him), Peipei Liu (she/her), Franklin Wang (he/him), Gibby (any pronouns)

TABLE OF CONTENTS SOCIAL POLITICS 7

A Timeline of LGBTQIA+ Activism by Conrad Schmidt & Valerye Hidalgo Garcia; Design by Amanda Paule

Myslice’s Pronoun Limits Leave Trans & Gender-Expansive Students Feeling Unseen by Abi Greenfield

SEX & HEALTH

Queering a New Major by Sam Baylow

Legalization vs Normalization by Morris Gelbart

Blurbs of Biphobia by The OutCrowd

Abortion Rights are Trans Men’s Rights Too by Jacob Laros

Debriefing the Split Attraction Model by Phoebe Ellen Sessler & Gibby

Trickle-Up Politics by The OutCrowd; Design by Amanda Paule

FEATURES

Nonlinear by Phoebe Ellen Sessler

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 36

Lil Nas X, pt. 2 by Alejandro Rosales

Queer Coding in Luca by Alex Ryberg Gonzalez

Back to Butch by Eden Stratton

Madonna by Franklin Wang

A (Recent) Queer History of SU by Gillian Follett

José Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Camacho Xtravaganza by Eden Stratton

Queer Spaces and their Evolving History by Ben Harteveld

Trexx - Syracuse’s Gay Bar by Em Burris

¡Yo soy Latinx y queer! Queer Latinx Artists by Maria Nido

What the FUCK is Hyperpop? by Payton Dunn

In The OutCrowd’s spring 2021 edition Queer in Quarantine, we grounded our focus in the close present. We endeavored to respond to the question, “How do LGBTQIA+ people at SU and SUNY ESF fit into the story of the past year?” And from that ultra-present exploration, we now shift to Evolution of Inclusion, an exploration of LGBTQIA+ life and livability grounded in the past. If last semester’s magazine was a window into queer and trans experiences during a year of global pandemic and social upheaval, this semester’s magazine represents the reflections that follow from those experiences — reflections on where we might find inspiration to better understand, bear witness to, and engage in the upheavals and the quotidian of our time. A word on temporality. Scholars of queer theory have produced a plentiful and galvanizing body of literature on how we might perceive and wield time differently; how we might queer (as a verb) time to disrupt the domineering constructs of heteronormativity. We’re often told that time is linear, that it moves from past to present to future in an unchangeable flow. We’re often told that our world is always evolving in the sense of inevitably progressing toward a “better” future without much of our say in the matter. Let’s queer that. In these pages, you’ll find expressions of time in all it’s unstraight, dynamic, messy glory. We explore history not as a concrete past but as a radical act that we in the present are responsible for (re)counting, (re)framing, and (re)learning (Timeline, pg. 7-13; Xtravaganza, pg. 41). Phoebe Sessler meditates on dating as a survivor of sexual assault and the cyclical, tangled temporality of living with and healing from trauma (pg. 28). Our social-politics writers grapple with processes of inclusion continuing to evolve in the present, like problematics surrounding support for gender-expansive pronouns (pg. 6). Gillian Follett frames LGBTQ history at SU as a network of change woven both by initiatives to form community and by resistances to rally against discrimination (pg. 18). Features writer Eden Stratton reclaims historicities of butch lesbianism from the jaws of current-day vitriol (pg. 16), and Ben Harteveld links queer time and queer space as constructs that thrive in the in-betweens, the voids of normative society (pg. 24).

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Photo by Em Burris

And to close out the magazine, Payton Dunn reorients us from blast-to-thepast to blast-to-the-future with an analysis of the hyperpop music scene (pg. 46). We must remind ourselves that past and future are not mutually exclusive but, rather, expressions and extensions of the vast and multifaceted present that we all inhabit and create. “For as much as much as we would like to think of time as something out there, external and other, we are always aware on some deep level that time resides within us, that we ourselves are time, and that time binds us to others in intimacy.” (Thomas M. Allen, Time and Literature) d

Amanda Paule Editor-in-Chief 5

MYSLICE’S PRONOUN LIMITS LEAVE TRANS & GENDER-EXPANSIVE STUDENTS FEELING UNSEEN Article by Abi Greenfield (they/she) As an incoming freshman to Syracuse University, the part of college I was most looking forward to was using this new environment to fully come out as agender, using they/she pronouns. Throughout my college admissions process, Syracuse had been one of the schools that most consistently oriented itself as a safe space for LGBTQIA+ students, touting its wide range of resources and emphasis on an inclusive community. I entered my first week of classes excited to introduce myself with my chosen name and pronouns, able to finally turn over a new leaf. Within two days, I was disillusioned. Out of six classes this semester, with five being seminar-sized, I only had one professor ask us to introduce ourselves with our pronouns. I was disappointed, until my First Year Seminar professor informed our class about the setting in MySlice that allowed students to indicate their preferred pronouns. Finally, I had a way to make sure that my pronouns would be known and respected. Except, I didn’t. When I logged into MySlice and found the pronoun tool, I clicked on the drop down and was greeted with six options: she/her, he/him, they/them, ze/hir, use my name, and ask me. For a brief moment, I thought maybe the menu would allow me to select more than one option, but this quickly proved untrue. The tool I thought would be the holy grail of inclusion and respect in my classes (and beyond) simply did not have a space for my identity.

I understand and respect that mixed pronouns, or the use of more than one set of pronouns by an individual, are a relatively new practice in the mainstream. They’ve gained prominence in the past year or so, and thus may not be one of the more well-known pronoun options. Mixed pronouns, though recent, are also prevalent. A great deal of Syracuse students use mixed pronouns, some of whom have shared similar experiences and feelings surrounding this blind spot. One of those is Ben Webster, a freshman who uses he/they pronouns, who felt “a bit less seen” by MySlice’s exclusion.

THE TOOL I THOUGHT WOULD BE THE HOLY GRAIL OF INCLUSION AND RESPECT IN MY CLASSES (AND BEYOND) SIMPLY DID NOT HAVE A SPACE FOR MY IDENTITY. “It’s a big topic — but I was surprised at how few options there were,” they said. Other students have expressed that the lack of options limits their expression of gender identity. “I’ve felt really frustrated, simply because it feels as if MySlice is asking for me to pick between two parts of my identity,” explained Gray Reed, a freshman who uses they/she pronouns. “It’s really important for me to have this option because my gender is very fluid and I feel as if one set of pronouns does not capture this for me.” This sentiment is shared by Evelina Torres, another member of the class of 2025 who uses she/they pronouns.

When asked about their feelings on the tool, she expressed frustration over the ways in which it serves as a limitation on her gender identity and expression, saying “I feel very invalidated… sometimes I feel that I will never be able to present and be seen as genderqueer. To me, it cements the idea that I must be certain in my gender, or that gender expansiveness is unprofessional.”

“

TO ME, IT CEMENTS THE IDEA THAT I MUST BE CERTAIN IN MY GENDER, OR THAT GENDER EXPANSIVENESS IS UNPROFESSIONAL.

These students also expressed that very few, if any, professors have asked for their pronouns. One member of the class of 2022 who uses they/he/ze pronouns said that only one of their professors had asked the class to share pronouns, which was about the same for most other students interviewed. Many students who used mixed pronouns noted that even when professors did ask for pronouns, they then defaulted to using only the student’s binary pronoun (if they used he/they, she/they, etc.) or the pronoun that best aligned with the student’s outward appearance, even if that was not the student’s only pronoun. It’s clear that faculty don’t have much experience with mixed pronouns—which is perfectly understandable, considering how new they are. But, this serves as another example of the continued erasure that students who

use mixed pronouns face on campus. If the university updated the pronoun tool and provided faculty with basic information on mixed pronouns, it would take the onus off of already marginalized students to have to explain their identities every semester. MySlice’s lack of inclusive pronouns is not the only problem with the pronoun tool. One Syracuse professor informed me that he had no idea he could access student’s preferred pronouns through MySlice. He described how he has, in some semesters, bought pronoun pins for his students to indicate their chosen pronouns in class and beyond. While this is an admirable solution, it shouldn’t have to be one. The University needs to not only update the MySlice pronouns tool, but also to make it clear to students and professors how to find it, and how to use it in a classroom setting. Until it does so, it is failing our trans and gender expansive community while simultaneously preaching the prioritization of inclusivity. The update would not need to be complex, either. The university could follow a model similar to that of Instagram, which recently implemented a pronoun selection tool where users can type in up to three pronouns of their choice. On the platform there is a list available for users to auto-fill their pronouns, but users are also free to manually enter other pronouns. An even simpler solution would be to program the MySlice drop down to allow multiple selections, or to add an “other” option that allows students to manually enter their pronouns. A small fix, but it would provide a big impact, creating space for trans and gender expansive students to be respected and visible. And that, to me, is what inclusivity really means. d

1959

1924 1958

QUEERING A NEW M AJOR THE LGBTQ STUDIES MINOR IS A HIDDEN GEM AT SU, BUT THE UNIV ERSITY’S SUPPORT A ND STR ATEGIC PLA N FLUNKS OUT. In fall 2021, only nine students were enrolled in Syracuse’s LGBTQ Studies minor. And due to “budget constraints,” the creation of an LGBTQ Studies major is unlikely.

course selection allows students to uncover topics they’ve never heard of, to expand their queer vocabulary, and to collaborate with a diverse group of academics.

The often-concealed topics of LGBTQIA+ histories and cultures have fostered critical discussions and insights that allow students to learn together, explore queer and trans subjects with depth and care, and develop queer studies literacy, explained William Robert, the program’s director.

At the same time, classes can also end up being limited by the make-up of students’ demographics and social or academic backgrounds. Required classes for the LGBTQ Studies minor are either 100-level introductory courses or courses cross-listed with other majors. None of the courses require prior queer studies knowledge. Klaver said that this creates a phenomenon where LGBTQ Studies students must attempt to create meaningful discussion with non-LGBTQ Studies students who took the course out of interest or just to fulfill a requirement.

“The most tangible effects are when students ask questions or investigate concerns they wouldn’t have thought to ask or investigate before taking an LGBTQ Studies course,” he said. So, how can a minor that facilitates meaningful discussions about LGBTQIA+ issues be swept under the rug, to the point that many students (including students from these communities) do not even know about the minor? Even general LGBTQ history has only been acknowledged on campus by individually-motivated professors and students; SU has failed to comprehensively represent queer studies and students. Coran Klaver, associate professor and department chair for the English program, said that there are many talented professors involved in queer studies and queer literature in her department. Although challenging, Klaver and her colleagues worked to build a more progressive course catalog that incorporates queer literature and art. “We reshaped our whole curriculum,” Klaver said. “Instead of classes in British literature, you can take classes in literary theory, or you can take classes in gender and sexuality studies.” The LGBTQ Studies minor funnels courses in the humanities and social sciences departments that incorporate queer topics into an 18-credit minor focused on aspects of queer and trans experiences and academic theory. One semester students can take a course on “Queering Documentary,” and the next they can dive into the depths of all things “Queerly Religious.” The minor’s diversity in

Article by Sam Baylow (he/him)

“I’m only going to have three people in the minor taking a course about queer studies,” Klaver said. “It doesn’t create a critical mass of people who have that vocabulary.” This inexperience in LGBTQIA+ issues or academic theory halts the potential for energetic discourse that people in the minor, who often have better vocabulary and understandings related to gender and sexuality subjects, could have with each other. But the minor doesn’t have the funds, resources, or bandwidth to create those courses independently. It’s even difficult to make the title of the minor accurate, dynamic, and inclusive. One LGBTQ-Studies student said that last year she

EVEN GENERAL LGBTQ HISTORY HAS ONLY BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED ON CAMPUS BY INDIVIDUALLYMOTIVATED PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS; SU HAS FAILED TO COMPREHENSIVELY REPRESENT QUEER STUDIES AND STUDENTS.

asked about the prospect of adding “Queer Studies” to the title to reflect the program’s focus on queer academic theory, a focus not always apparent in the term “LGBT.” Her professor responded that “Queer Studies” had been included in an original proposal for the minor, but that SU had rejected it. And as of right now, the official title of the minor does not include a “+,” something Robert objects to, but would have to spend a year to change. “Officially adding a + would involve a lot of paperwork, and the process would take the better part of a year,” Robert said. “I’m not exaggerating. That’s what it took to add the Q, which just happened, finally, in 2019.” There is one clear way to dynamize the future of LGBTQIA+ studies SU: add a major that would allow its students to collaborate with no vocabularic interruptions. But talk of a new major aside, even the current draft of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategic Plan, a five-year plan that started in 2020, falls short. The only “LGBTQ+” specific clause in the Plan is to expand identity, theme-based, and gender-inclusive housing options on campus. In the current draft of the plan, Goal #2 to “recruit, support, and retain diverse students, faculty, and staff” does not contain an explicit strategy to include LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff in this effort. In addition, an LGBTQIA+ representative, such as the director of the LGBTQ Resource Center, isn’t listed as an accountability partner for any of the plan’s five goals.

1960s

Continuing today, ballroom provides a space for trans, gender non-conforming, and queer people to express their creativity. The modern scene was founded by mostly Black and Latinx people, and Houses began to form as chosen families who would also participate in underground ball competitions. Voguing became the signature dance style of ballroom, rising to fame through the documentary Paris is Burning (1991) and Madonna’s song “Vogue” (1990). The House of Extravaganza and House of Ninja are legendary houses and still compete today.

Klaver is overseeing a one-page cheat sheet of the DEIA and encourages students to read the DEIA Strategic Plan draft and offer feedback. She is horrified at the fact that many informed LGBTQIA+ students do not know that it exists. “I don’t have the answers, but this draft doesn’t as well,” Klaver said. Considering the absence of recent LGBTQ+ hiring, and an intended hire of a new queer studies professor that fell through with the start of the pandemic (according to a former professor in the LGBTQ Studies program), we need to revise the DEIA Strategic Plan to contain more specific LGBTQIA+ support, and SU needs to provide funding and personnel toward establishing an LGBTQ+ Studies major. Morphing this minor into a major may be challenging, but its impact would be irrevocable. d

Read the DEIA Draft Strategic Plan:

1966

In August 1966, transgender women and drag queens fought back against police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria — a popular gathering spot for transgender people (who were often unwelcome even in gay bars) in San Francisco’s working-class Tenderloin district. The night of the riot, a staff member called the police on the women, but the women fought back when the police tried to arrest them for the “crime” of “female impersonation.” The riot drew attention to intersections of transphobia, police violence, and economic class.

LEG ALIZ ATION VS NORMALIZ ATION It is undeniable that the past half century has seen huge leaps in the realm LGBTQIA+ rights. Thanks to the work of activists from the gay liberation movement to the AIDS crisis to today, LGBTQIA+ lives and perspectives have broken into the mainstream, earning us recognition and successes in the battleground for our civil rights. These successes cannot be understated. But why then have we stopped short of greater, queerer acceptance? After years of media coverage and painful legal procedures, we have secured the right to marriage, a precedent often hailed as a crowning achievement. We often don’t think twice at the queerphobia rooted in the institution of marriage itself, and the rampant, systemic homophobia and transphobia concealed by the act of considering marriage the “ultimate” queer right. For example, when we examine what the de jure legislation of some of our states has to say, there are still concerns. This past year, a bill introduced to the Pennsylvania legislature seeking to revoke an obscenity law (a ridiculous subject on its own) was shot down by the Republican majority. This obscenity law cunningly includes “homosexuality” as a type of “act” of “Sexual Conduct,” of which a depiction in a “motion picture show or other presentation or performance” is “unlawful for any person knowingly to exhibit for monetary consideration to a minor.” Essentially, it can be illegal to depict queer people in media that is distributed to minors. A law like this serves as a prime example of legal, state-sponsored homophobia. IN THE REALMS OF LEGALITY AND SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE, LGBTQIA+ RIGHTS ARE MADE TO SEEM CONDITIONAL, MALLEABLE, OR EPHEMERAL, WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF ALWAYS BEING CALLED INTO QUESTION. In general, it isn’t so easy to say that we have reached an era of true LGBTQIA+ “acceptance.” Even with the numerous “achievements” in the world of legality aside, it is obvious that LGBTQIA+ people endure constant acts of discrimination — from workplace harassment, to obstacles in the adoption process, to lack of access to life-saving medical procedures; the list goes on. This past year

ON LGBTQIA+ ACCEPTANCE DE JURE (BY RIGHT) AND DE FACTO (IN RE ALIT Y), AND ON QUEERING LEGITIMACY AND LIBER ATION . Article by F. Morris Gelbart (he/they)

alone has seen a surge in transphobic legislation and talking points within the media. The spring of 2021 garnered more anti-trans bills (introduced to various legislatures across the country) than the past three years combined, most of which would have a disastrous effect on trans youth. It requires little explanation to show how abhorrent the situation is — even if the bills don’t pass. Direct, targeted violence against trans and gender non-conforming people is legitimized by lawmakers and the media (framing it as “the trans debate”). In the realms of legality and social acceptance, LGBTQIA+ rights are made to seem conditional, malleable, or ephemeral, with the possibility of always being called into question. We see the violent consequences of this mindset time and time again with jarring statistics of how many trans or gender nonconforming people, and BIPOC trans women in particular, are murdered every year. We can also see the violent consequences lack of understanding and resources has on the mental well-being of LGBTQIA+ youth. Under these conditions, is true “acceptance” even possible? We can consider representation in media to further belabor this point. When we laud films such as Disney-Pixar’s Luca, for example, as some bastion of representation, it is easy for us to ignore how frequently queer romance (especially when presented for and/or represented by children) in modern popular culture is immediately “othered” in that it is considered inherently sexual in nature (and therefore can’t be shown to kids), and something that is distinctly an exception to the “rule” of heteronormativity. By performing “representation” in a way that avoids counteracting queerphobic beliefs, companies like Disney can sell our desperation for a miniscule amount of representation directly back to us, while still holding on to some semblance of plausible deniability in the eyes of the homophobic crowd among their general audience. While we are all starved for meaningful representation, we should remain diligent in being critical of what we are given. In our own spheres, it is vital that we consider the space we have carved out for ourselves within the context of neoliberal capitalism. It is also important to consider how the pressure and the desire to assimilate

BY PERFORMING “REPRESENTATION” IN A WAY THAT AVOIDS COUNTERACTING QUEERPHOBIC BELIEFS, COMPANIES LIKE DISNEY CAN SELL OUR DESPERATION FOR A MINISCULE AMOUNT OF REPRESENTATION DIRECTLY BACK TO US, WHILE STILL HOLDING ON TO SOME SEMBLANCE OF PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY IN THE EYES OF THE HOMOPHOBIC CROWD AMONG THEIR GENERAL AUDIENCE.

Drag queens including Crystal LaBeija and Flawless Sabrina starred in The Queen, a groundbreaking documentary which captured drag culture and its language, much of which is still relevant in media today.

1968

can deteriorate our greater well-being, and actively excludes people within our community. As Peter Drucker points out in the introduction of his book Warped: Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism, the modern conception of what he calls the “Homonormative-dominant regime,” a sort of new “gay normality” in the regions where LGBT rights are most established (especially among the middle class), is characterized by “growing ghettoization, gender conformity, the exclusion of trans people and sexually marginalized queers, a racist and Islamophobic integration in dominant nations, and the formation of normative families founded on marriage.” Drucker quotes Lisa Duggan, who points out how legal equality has been “an empty shell that hides expanded substantive inequalities,” one “concealed behind a ‘truce’ between the gay mainstream and capital,” where we can become “consumers and professionals” in exchange for “acquiescence and accommodation.” The simple fact is that we can never be “legitimate” under a cisheteronormative social order that lives and breathes reproductive futurism (that is, futurity defined by reproduction) — a social order where anything that deviates is but an exception to the rule. What are we doing when we uphold such desires for preserving the queerphobic institution of the “traditional” nuclear family unit? By subscribing to the patriarchal institution of marriage? What does it mean that we constantly seek approval and validation from, as well as acceptance into, the systems that continue to oppress us? The path to queer liberation is long and far from over, and it is time to examine where we truly want to go. d LEGAL EQUALITY HAS BEEN “AN EMPTY SHELL THAT HIDES EXPANDED SUBSTANTIVE INEQUALITIES,” ONE “CONCEALED BEHIND A ‘TRUCE’ BETWEEN THE GAY MAINSTREAM AND CAPITAL,” WHERE WE CAN BECOME “CONSUMERS AND PROFESSIONALS” IN EXCHANGE FOR “ACQUIESCENCE AND ACCOMMODATION.”

1969

1970s

Disco music, culture and nightlife dominated the late 60s and the 70s. Black artists like Donna Summer and Sylvester frequented the airwaves with their lavish and proud music, and the movement came to embody openness about sexuality and empowerment of women, queer people, and Black and Latin artists. Many LGBTQ people used disco to reclaim nightlife, which had been violently oppressed, especially prior to the Stonewall Riots.

RIGHTS, TOO

TRANS MENS’

RIGHTS ARE

ABORTION

For over 50 years, reproductive rights have been labeled as women’s rights in the United States. Since Roe v. Wade, the right to privacy has shaped the process and infrastructure for abortion rights and assisted millions of Americans with making one of the most difficult choices they could ever make. However, these liberties are slowly being uprooted across the country with the Republican Party hellbent on the repeal of a constitutional right. States like Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Indiana have either passed or are planning to pass restrictive bills that cut down on Americans’ right to choose, making it virtually impossible to receive an abortion in those states. With the debate of reproductive health back on the Supreme Court docket, it’s necessary to illuminate the severity of the issue, and to show that this will affect every single person with a uterus, not just women. Our society has acknowledged the rights of trans and non-binary people, but hasn’t accepted them as actual people. They are constantly discounted, undercut and treated as lesser than their cis counterparts (see, for example, the results of GLSEN’s 2015 National School Climate Survey). One way this can be seen as exclusion is within the conversation of abortion itself. The vast majority of trans men and non-binary people have something in common with cis women: the ability to reproduce and carry a child to term. These people are by no means women, as they have either come out as male or don’t fit within the binary gender construct. However, they still need safe and humane reproductive rights, just as women do. The conversations we hold for abortion are erasing, excluding these groups of people and diminishing their legitimacy.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF L ANGUAGE AND INCLUSION WHEN DISCUSSING ABORTION RIGHTS . ARTICLE BY JACOB LAROS (HE/HIM) DESIGN BY SOPHIA MOORE (SHE/HER)

1987

The “Silence = Death” Project, known for its iconic poster based on a work by New York artist Keith Haring, started as a consciousness-raising group during the AIDS crisis. The theme was later taken up by ACT UP in their campaign against the AIDS epidemic.

“By using women-specific gendered language around reproductive health care, we reinforce and perpetuate systems of harm and exclusion that affect trans men and nonbinary people every day,” writes a group of Boston University faculty members in an opinion piece published on BU Today.

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) formed out of social neglect for AIDS in 1987. The group has been fundraising and lobbying for AIDS recognition, treatment, and destigmatization since then. The organization is known for active resistance against queer oppression.

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was including 1,920 panels dedicated to family, friends, and loved ones who died from AIDS. Today, the quilt includes nearly 50,000 panels dedicated to more than 105,000 individuals who died of AIDS. The quilt is the largest piece of community folk art in the world.

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas recently passed SB8 (Senate Bill 8), the most restrictive abortion ban currently in the U.S. This law makes it illegal to receive an abortion after 6 weeks, a time frame within which most people don’t realize they are pregnant. The fight against this bill has been labeled as a “fight for women,” but using the word “women” disregards the other lives affected by the bill, perhaps to an even greater extent. Trans and non-binary communities are also subject to this six-week rule, but likely have a reduced chance of receiving care (for example, data shows that among cisgender women seven percent of abortion attempts are done without clinical supervision. The same number for trans people is 19 percent). “Anyone who is poorer in Texas is now going to find it harder to have an abortion, harder to get out of state to have an abortion and they’re going to be more likely to have to deal with the ramifications of that,” said Cassing Hammond, an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, to the site Northwestern Now. “It means more self-sourced abortions, more later abortions for those who can make it to safety (procedures which put individuals at greater risk) and in the long-run in Texas, exacerbate maternal mortality.” The LGBTQIA+ community is prone to suffering from poverty — in the southern states, one in every four LGBT people live in poverty,

ABORTION RIGHTS AREN’T JUST FOR WOMEN AND THE LANGUAGE WE USE TO EXPRESS THIS NARRATIVE MUST CHANGE, REGARDLESS OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S OPINION ON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

1990s

according to Forbes — and the price for abortions is usually unviable. With this new restriction, queer folk will be put at an even larger disadvantage, as it makes abortions more expensive and more exclusive. There are also severe mental health consequences that a forced pregnancy can have on trans and non-binary people due often to gender dysphoria. Body and identity insecurity runs deep within these communities, and restrictive laws serve as catalysts for these painful thoughts that harm millions of Americans across the country. Abortion rights aren’t just for women and the language we use to express this narrative must change, regardless of an individual’s opinion on reproductive rights. If we continue to refuse trans and non-binary people the legitimacy they deserve in this issue, it will cascade down further, stripping queer, trans, and GNC people of their rights and liberties. These roadblocks can be found in every facet of daily life. There are body examinations for any trans child looking to join a sport. We have seen a strong push to ban gender inclusive restrooms in public areas. Conservatism has found a new enemy within pronouns. Every day, there is a new aspect in our world that has become more transphobic and this all has to do with how American culture views trans and non-binary people. It’s unfortunate that large chunks of this country see trans and non-binary people as illegitimate because the more we exclude them from resources like healthcare, the more we feed into the process of ravishing these millions of lives. Every single person with a uterus in this country should have access to safe and affordable abortions. But, as we label this fight solely for women, we refuse to see the bigger picture and how pressing this matter is for those put at the largest disadvantage. d

2015

In Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide (some states allowed for gay marriages and civil unions prior). The decision was cause for widespread celebration, but many queer theorists and activists don’t champion the decision on the grounds that it prioritizes the rights of primarily middle-class, cis, white gay men and lesbians, and that it serves to further marginalize other queer and trans activism.

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Thoughts from “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” You may have never read Cathy Cohen’s article mentioned here. Cohen, a political scientist, feminist, and social activist, wrote it in 1997, building on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s writings on intersectionality that first appeared in 1989. We’ll give you some key points: Cohen saw in queer politics at the time (and still today?) that activists were often flattening the dynamics down to identity politics: an “us v. them” model that often pits homo v. hetero with a total disregard for actual power dynamics. In terms of intersectionality, one way to think of these power dynamics is that not all “straight” people have power, and not all “queer” people are marginalized and invisible. “I am suggesting that the process of movement building be rooted not in our shared history or identity, but in our shared marginal relationship to dominant power which normalizes, legitimizes, and privileges,” Cohen writes.

Reducing queer politics to identity politics is the kind of politics that wanted gay marriage — the kind of politics organized around incremental change. The problem with incremental change, though, is that formerly marginalized folks can reach their goal and then opt out of the movement. So here’s our take: Radical queer politics isn’t a trickle-down effect. Try a trickleup queer politics, where everyone (LGBTQIA+ and ally alike) coalition build across identity lines and focus on helping the least powerful first, knowing that those efforts will uplift everyone in return. —The OutCrowd

Design inspired by Donald Moffett’s 1987 poster for an ACT UP demonstration “He Kills Me.” Give it a Google.

Back

Butch Butch lesbians have been queering history for centuries. Article by Eden Stratton (they/them) Design by Casey Fairchild (she/her) 16

merican writer Judith Halberstam once said that “female masculinities are framed as the rejected scraps of dominant masculinity in order that male masculinity may appear to be the real thing.” As someone who identifies as masculine, I can guarantee that I didn’t get it from a dude.

Butches often get a bad rap. In some cases, for good reason. Toxic masculinity often permeates younger butch communities and leads to some not-so-great takes and trends — remember “hey mamas”? Despite the second-hand embarrassment I often feel on behalf of our younger half, it’s not an invitation to bully a visor-wearing butch off of TikTok. Butch lesbians in general are scrutinized, made fun of, and worst of all, compared to straight men. What people don’t realize is that the butch identity is more than short, croppped hair and a Nike sports bra. In fact, masculine presentation in the lesbian community has a rich and deep background, filled with individuals who dared to explore outside the confines of their perceived gender. Butchness, and gender nonconformity in general, directly oppose standards imposed by centuries of societal

Masculine presentation in the lesbian community has a rich and deep background, filled with individuals who dared to explore outside the confines of their perceived gender. conditioning. In Danielle Kerr’s thesis entitled “Butch, Femme, Dyke, Or Lipstick, Aren’t All Lesbians The Same?” she recognizes the way that gender presentation affects the outside world. In her words, “doing gender” often catagorizes individuals based upon perceived sex and sexual orientation. However, butch lesbians and gender nonconforming people redefine themselves outside the perception of others: “Women, including lesbians, are using their bodies in ways that are chameleon-like in that there are no longer strict displays that allow us to assume their gender identity or sexual orientation.” Butchness can trace its roots as far back as history itself. In the mid-1800s, crossdressing was the most prevalent way to express gender nonconformity, though it was often met with public scrutiny and ostracization. Unless, of course, you were wealthy. Anne Lister, whose diaries endowed her with the title of the “First Modern Lesbian,” was said to have sported men’s clothing quite often, most notably her top hat. As a “well-to-do” capitalist lesbian, Lister was able to have her various flings with relative ease, despite the times and 19th-century English society. However, even she was met with discrimination and ostracization in various instances. Natalie Clifford Barney, an American playwright and rich girl from Ohio, was famously photographed in men’s trousers, and once dressed as a page boy to win the heart of her female lover. Radclyffe Hall, who penned the banned lesbian short-story “The Well of Loneliness,” dressed in men’s clothing almost the entirety of her adult life.

She was also very rich. “The absolute rigid expectations for femininity, and what women were to do in their lives, are classed, too,” says Katherine Kidd, an assistant teaching professor in SU’s English department. After the turn of the 20th Century, lesbianism began to become more explicit in society, despite continued discrimination. Unlike the aforementioned ladies, butch idenities became synonymous with working-class occupations, as many would look for work in garages, factories, and farms. Such women found solace in lesbian bars, where they could be out without fear. While women were barred from saloons and bars in the early 1900s, this did not stop lesbian bars from opening and catering to their patrons. “Mona’s 440 Club” was the first of such establishments, making a home for itself in the queer capital of San Fransisco.

wearing at least three articles of clothing that were “for” their assigned gender. As she later explains, “sumptuary and masquerade laws that prohibited impersonating the opposite sex and wearing disguises respectively were loosely interpreted to target gender-bending homosexuals. In the early 1970s, many lesbian feminists rejected butch/femme roles, stating that they were no different than heterosexual women. Because TERFs are timeless, they argued that by entering relationships with butch lesbians as a “femme” party perpetuated patriarchal values. In many cases, such “feminists” argued that patriarchal standards motivated butch women to take on a masculine appearance, often equating them with men themselves. However, in the 1980s, many lesbians began reclaiming butch/femme relationships as a way to challenge conventional feminist values (yay!). By doing so, they redefined traditional roles, and allowed for more freedom in regards to the label that each party took.

Butch identies began to emerge in their contemporary form in such spaces. “Butch” eventually arose to refer to “masculine” presenting women, and “femme” similarly became a “feminine” foil. Butch/femme relationships today are often scrutinized by individuals outside and inside the community as “heterosexual” in their construction, even though men are noticeably not present in such couplings.

Today, butchness continues to evolve. With the gradual acceptance of nonbinary and genderqueer identites, butch has become a label that encompasses more than just women. As a non-binary lesbian, my butchness is intrinsic to how I perceive myself and my gender. I could not be ‘me,’ without being butch too. Going forward, butchness will continue to evolve just as we do. As American author and activist Leslie Feinberg wrote in hir novel Stone Butch Blues:

Conversely, since butch lesbians often dressed in men’s clothing, they were subject to physical and sexual violence at the hands of the police. In Alix Genter’s essay “Appearances Can be Deceiving,” she describes the “three-article rule,” which was an anti-crossdressing law that enforced someone’s arrest if they were found not

“You’re more than just neither, honey. There’s other ways to be than either-or. It’s not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people who don’t fit.” d 17

uring LGBT History Month October 1997, members of Syracuse University’s Pride Union gathered to chalk drawings and messages on the sidewalks of the quad to promote various Coming Out Week events. The next day, they discovered the chalk drawings had been washed away by facilities staff. The chalkers weren’t sure it had been an intentional act targeting Pride Union, and they met the next night to replace their art — only to walk to the Quad the next morning and find the chalk hosed away once again, while messages from other organizations were left untouched. “We didn’t say the Pope is gay or Mother Teresa was a lesbian. … We were staying away from offensive messages when we chalked the Quad,” Joyce Toh told The Daily Orange in the days following the incident. At the time, Toh was serving as president of Pride Union, an organization for queer and trans SU students that was first established in the early-1990s. She argued that the incident served as a “message that we’re still not accepted at Syracuse University.” In 2014, Syracuse University was first recognized as one of the Campus Pride Index’s “Top 50 LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges & Universities.” According to Campus Pride, the schools that place on this annual listing possess policies, resources, and academic programs that are inclusive and supportive of the LGBTQ community. But how did SU beat out the thousands of other colleges and universities in the United States to make the cut?

SU’s queer and trans community, support systems, and academic programs have expanded dramatically over the past 20 years. Article by Gillian Follett (she/her) Graphic by Valerye Hidalgo Garcia (she/her)

Only a few decades ago, being queer at SU meant students had to closet their true identities to be accepted. In a 2019 interview with Syracuse.com, Michelangelo Signorile, a journalist, author and queer activist who attended SU from 1978 and 1982, described being a gay student at SU as living “undercover.” When a student journalist interviewed him while he was attending SU for a news report about the daily experience of gay students at the university, she obscured his identity in the video to preserve Signorile’s anonymity — “none of us questioned it. That’s just how you were … back then.” A noticeable shift began in 1997 after the chalk controversy galvanized Pride Union and brought new energy and participation into the organization and served as a pivotal moment in the organization’s history, Toh said. In addition to drawing attention to Pride Union and the university’s LGBTQIA+ community as a whole, it helped multiply the organization’s membership and gave Pride Union the influence to launch several beloved events. For example, the organization held its first annual Drag Show in 2002 and led an annual “Blue Jeans Day,” a national event where students are encouraged to wear denim to show their support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Other student groups — including Open Doors, the graduate student counterpart to Pride Union — also expanded during the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2003, James Kaechele helped found SU’s chapter of Delta Lambda Phi, a fraternity for gay, bisexual, transgender and progressive men that was registered at SU from 2003 to 2010. He said that the turn of the century

“It made us feel like it was important what we were doing. It probably wasn’t going to help any of us, but it was certainly going to be important for future students.” 20

sparked a type of “queer moment” at the university, where a bursts of queer energy took hold of campus and more non-LGBTQIA+ students began gaining interest in allyship. Kaechele also found refuge in SU’s Pride House, a cozy, university-owned house located at 750 Ostrom Avenue that, beginning in the 1990s, served as the headquarters for LGBTQ student organizations such as Pride Union and Open Doors. The Pride House had served as a hub for queer and trans students, a literal home where they could meet other members of the LGBTQ community. The three-story house featured a kitchen packed with snacks and a living room stuffed with plush couches and queer media, including books and VHS tapes. “If you were even remotely involved in the executive board of any queer organization, you had that code and keys and you’d let yourself in,” Kaechele said. “This was a place where we could have socials and mixers and where you could be unabashedly queer. And that was the first time that a lot of people could do that.” In the late 1990s, another homebase for LGBTQIA+ students on campus was in the making: the LGBTQ Resource Center. In January 1997, Jordan Potash’s junior year at SU, his mother told him about a new faculty and staff training program to support LGBT students launching at Arcadia University, where she worked as a secretary. After completing the “Allies Program” training, she would receive a sticker for her office door that labeled her as a “safe” person for these students to come out to or share sensitive information with. Potash, who had come out as gay a year earlier, quickly latched on to the concept of a support system for LGBT students and began envisioning how he could develop a similar initiative at SU. “Everyone should have that,” Potash said. “Everybody should know who they can go to. And almost immediately the thought was ‘Well, if a small college like Arcadia University has this program, how come a massive, major university like Syracuse does not?’” Although Potash was abroad in London at the time, he rushed to email Barry Wells — the then Senior Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Student Relations, who Potash knew from his time working as an orientation leader — to propose creating a similar allyship program at SU. Potash explained the importance of such allyship initiatives in his email to Wells: “From my experiences talking with students on this campus, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals do not always feel comfortable approaching the Counseling Center or the chaplains. It is our responsibility to

provide the necessary services to students in order to make SU a comfortable community for all.” Wells agreed to Potash’s proposal, and Potash spent that summer on campus closely researching existing ally programs at other colleges and universities. As he conducted his research, Missy MathisHanlon, Wells’ assistant, encouraged Potash to investigate if other universities were pursuing any additional initiatives. He discovered that other schools — including Pennsylvania State University, New York University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst — had established entire centers to support LGBT students on campus.

“Obviously, things are different — mostly for the better — compared to 18 years ago. But, I have to say, the thing that is the same is that people are looking for community. And I see that same fire in people now that I did then.”

According to an article from BestColleges.com, although the first LGBT center on a college campus was created at the University of Michigan in 1971, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the movement to establish these centers swept across the U.S. Today, roughly 250 colleges and universities in the U.S. have a dedicated resource center for LGBTQIA+ students, as identified by an online map created by the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals. Potash immediately shifted focus and began to research how to establish LGBT center at SU. At the end of the summer, he summarized his findings in his “Proposal for the Rainbow Task Force Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues at Syracuse University.” The 33-page document detailed his conviction for LGBT support programs at SU. “At a university that holds diversity and caring as two of its five core values, I hope that you will see this task force as a vital and necessary component of our university,” he argued in the proposal. Potash spent the entirety of his senior year at SU working to push his proposal through SU’s administrative processes, attending meetings with various school administrators, and completing dozens of forms, until his efforts culminated in an approval by the University Senate on April 15, 1998. On that damp, overcast day, Potash stood on the stairs of Hendricks Chapel with a small group of SU students, faculty, and staff who had supported him and his proposal — including Wells and Mathis-Hanlon; Joyce Toh, the president of Pride Union; and Dana Sachetti, president of the

Student Government Association — and celebrated the victory he had achieved with their help. “It wasn’t a massive amount of people, but it was certainly enough that [it] made us feel like it was important what we were doing. It probably wasn’t going to help any of us, but it was certainly going to be important for future students,” he said. A few months after Potash’s graduation, the University Senate formed the Ad Hoc Committee on LGBT Issues, which picked up his research. According to SU’s LGBTQ Resource Center website, the committee spent just under three years gathering information until, in the spring of 2001, the members formally recommended that the university establish a resource center — a recommendation that the University Senate unanimously approved. The resource center was officially established on October 1, 2001, headed by Adrea Jaehnig, an associate director in the Office of Residence Life and a member of the ad hoc committee. She chose to situate the center in the Pride House. Establishing the LGBTQ Resource Center was unquestionably a crucial milestone in laying the foundation for an inclusive and welcoming campus environment for LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff at the university. However, leaders in SU’s LGBTQIA+ community, including Jaehnig, made it clear from the start that the resource center was only a minor step in creating a university that supports and accepts different LGBTQIA+ identities.

“There is way too much separation between what happens in the classroom and what is happening locally. Students don’t experience that separation. They are actively thinking about what’s happening in Pride Union or the student center or hearing about another blackface incident or gay-bashing and wondering how that all connects to the curriculum. All of this stuff is shifting in radical ways, and it’s hard to believe we’re not studying this and there isn’t space in the curriculum to do that.”

“Establishing the resource center was a great place to start, but it is just the beginning,” Jaehnig told Syracuse University Magazine the year after SU established the center at the Pride House. “If 750 Ostrom Avenue is the only place LGBT students feel safe, we haven’t done all we need to do.” Much of this early SU LGBT activism centered on the experiences of white students and didn’t always address the other aspects of queer and trans students’ identities, such as race, ethnicity or religion. When Amit Taneja came to SU in 2005 to serve as the LGBTQ Resource Center’s associate director, he set out to change this gap in the campus’s support systems. While leading a coming-out discussion group at the resource center in his first few months as associate director, he noticed that white students would often steer the conversation away from topics of race, ethnicity, and racism when students of color in the group started to share how their sexuality or gender overlapped with their racial or ethnic identities. The white students would say that the group was only there to talk about LGBTQIA+ issues, Taneja said. Taneja knew queer students of color deserved a space where they could freely and fully discuss the different aspects of their identities, and he worked with the then-associate director of the Counseling Center, Tanya Bowen, to launch a discussion group specifically for LGBTQIA+ students of color called Fusion. Taneja himself had faced racism within the queer community in the past, and he sought to provide a space where LGBTQIA+ students of color could feel comfortable. “We had to really work to create a culture at the resource center where Adrea [Jaehnig] and I were very clear that this was not a place where we tolerate misogyny, racism, or transphobia,” Taneja said. During his time as associate director, Taneja also oversaw “Cafe Q,” a series of weekly social programming events held in the resource center that spanned everything from casual events where students chatted and drank coffee, to live acoustic performances, to dance parties with a DJ. These events, along with providing an opportunity for LGBTQIA+ students to have fun, also allowed him to check in with students frequently to ensure they felt comfortable and accepted on campus. “Obviously, things are different — mostly for the better — compared to 18 years ago,” Taneja said. “But, I have to say, the thing that is the same is that people are looking for community. And I see that same fire in people now that I did then.”

When Andrew London first arrived at SU as a sociology professor in 2002, he too was seeking a community that shared his interest in LGBTQIA+ issues, particularly in an academic sense. Although the university was making progress in establishing more inclusive and equitable policies for LGBTQ faculty, staff and students, not much headway had been made in terms of evolving the academic landscape to represent the community.

are actively thinking about what’s happening in Pride Union or the student center or hearing about another blackface incident or gay-bashing and wondering how that all connects to the curriculum. … All of this stuff is shifting in radical ways, and it’s hard to believe we’re not studying this and there isn’t space in the curriculum to do that.”

At the time, queer academic theory and studies of LGBTQ history and culture were an “emerging and potent space for scholarship,” London said, and he wondered how this burgeoning area of study could be brought to SU. He soon discovered this interest was shared by Margaret Himley, a professor of writing studies, rhetoric, and composition.

After roughly two years of planning, the LGBT Studies program officially launched at SU in the fall of 2006, with London and Himley at the helm as co-directors. A small but passionate group of students, many of whom had been part of the group calling for the creation of the program, jumped at the opportunity to take the new courses; and from day one, these courses consistently met their 50 student cap, London said.

As co-chairs of the University Senate Committee on LGBT Concerns, London and Himley worked closely with Jaehnig, the director of the resource center, and collaborated with her to gather queer students’ thoughts and perspectives about various “pain points” the campus LGBTQIA+ community was facing. They repeatedly heard one resounding request: a dedicated academic program focusing on queer and trans studies.

The LGBT Studies program sprung from a labor of love, he said, bringing together professors from across all disciplines and lacking the same resources distributed to other departments at the university. Still, the program has persisted over the past 15 years, although the movement to create a major in LGBTQ studies has been impeded by budget limitations, according to an article in The Daily Orange in February 2021.

“[Queer and trans students] just didn’t find very much LGBTQ content in their courses,” London said. “There didn’t seem to be space in the curriculum to learn about the community or history or think about their identities. There were sporadic courses but there weren’t core classes. So, we talked with a lot of colleagues about what we could do to try to create academic spaces where LGBTQ students were more accepted — spaces particularly oriented toward those people, and, of course, others who wanted to learn about the LGBTQ community and its history.”

Although the progress to create a major in LGBTQ studies has stalled, the development of further resources and support services for SU’s queer community continues. According to Jorge Castillo, the current director of the LGBTQ Resource Center, several committees and organizations on campus are working to implement new, more inclusive policies on campus, such as a syllabus statement that encourages professors to ask students for their names and pronouns at the start of the semester. The Pronoun, Gender, and Preferred Name Advisory Council — of which Castillo is the co-chair — was created to collaborate with Information Technology Services on ensuring technology systems on campus, like MySlice, are inclusive of queer students and their identities. Additionally, the Barnes Center at the Arch has begun providing gender-affirming care to transgender and non-binary students, he said.

London and Himley, inspired by this emphatic support from students for an LGBTQ studies program, soon led a campuswide effort to gain insight and faculty input about the program and what it should look like at SU. In 2004, the Graduate School of Syracuse University published a journal titled “Interrupting Normativity,” which contained a series of writings by graduate students and various professors focusing largely on how LGBTQ studies should be incorporated at the university. One chapter in the book features a transcription of a conversation between London, Himley and Jaehnig about their enthusiasm for the establishment of courses at SU focusing on LGBTQ issues. “I think there is way too much separation between what happens in the classroom and what is happening locally,” Jaehnig said in the conversation. “Students don’t experience that separation. They

Certainly, there is always more work to be done. But today, 20 years after the establishment of the LGBTQ Resource Center, the center’s recent relocation to the Schine Student Center from Ostrom Avenue represents the progress that has been made over the past several years in creating an environment that is inclusive for LGBTQIA+ students. While the Pride House was located at the very edge of campus, out of the way for most students, the new resource center resides in the heart of the university, reflecting how queer and trans students are no longer made to exist on the fringes or hide in the university’s shadows. d

UEER

S PAC E S

EVOLVING

HISTT O R Y

Article and design by Ben Harteveld (he/him)

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hat is queer space, but a void that sits between the systems and structures of heteronormative society? Is queer space solely a place or environment one can occupy, or is it more like an expression of something intangible and abstract — something boundless beyond the four walls which make up physical space? Is it not relative, making it something with infinite possibilities? The nature of the word ‘queer’ complicates this idea, as its definition refers to off-center, strange, different, odd, and “not normal.” Re-reading those words, it is not hard to realize that they are all subject to the hegemonic, heteronormative gaze. Queer space is only defined as such because of straight, often-white society setting the standard in our patriarchal society. Thus queer spaces are boundless and relative to their period. They operate outside the bounds of normative societal forces, and to do that, they exist in the voids of our historical environments.

The closet has been called the original queer space by many scholars throughout time. If one were to try to come up with a list of criteria that would be required to fit the definition of queer space, they would probably start with the notion that it must be occupied by queer people. Since the closet caters specifically and exclusively to them, it serves as the epitome of queer space. For me, the closet was an internal world — though emotionally damaging, it held the imaginative worlds I was too scared to play out in reality. For most, it is the place queer people learn about who they are, and it acts as an escape from a reality which desperately tries to convince them they are wrong. Constructing what the closet really is reveals it as an assemblage of narratives that queer people want to experience in the public world but are forced to explore only in private, as a result of negative dogma set by toxic and queerphobic society. Queer people are thus (in)advertently othered and, as a result, create spaces in which “other” is

Queer people are constantly exploring and searching for a place where desire is neither defined nor scrutinized. I visualize this as the negative spaces of society, the in-between, the void.

normal. The closet’s existence as a shared space among queer people allows it to settle as the base of this narrative. The creation of queer space is a gasp of fresh air, found outside the confines of society. A historian who ruffles through the limited archives of queer history can begin to realize that space where queer people populate is often found between the boundaries that mainstream society sets.

ake a Roman bathhouse, a pirate ship, or a ballroom, for example. These spaces were homes and existed outside the lines of order. Roman bathhouses, constantly cited as the ultimate queer space, broke down social hierarchies. They were a place for all to exist freely without the boundaries that had been set in place by class, wealth, or skin color. People could move freely through space, performing their true roles, rather than the ones assigned to them by society. This theme spreads over to the narratives of pirates as well. Trade ships or pirate ships were homes that existed quite literally in the voids between societies: the seas. For many, the walls of a ship provided a free life — a life not tied down by the structures of mainland society. The sea thus represents just one space in our society that acts as a void, and we can begin to wonder what other voids exist in our world today. What other spaces are serving those who seek a reality

closer to that which exists in our imaginations? In some ways, queer people are constantly exploring and searching for a place where desire is neither defined nor scrutinized. I visualize this as the negative spaces of society, the in-between, the void. In addition, as we construct a definition of queer space throughout history, we must build upon the void and add that these spaces — independent from the outside world — allow for an absence of stigma and societal standards. Looking at the more contemporary example of ballroom culture of the late twentieth century, and how this conceptual space allowed for the amplification of drag culture, we reveal a critical part of this dialogue. For queer and trans people, having a space outside of our childhood bedrooms — somewhere we can let go and truly explore who we are, free of the burden of whether or not society deems us acceptable — is vital to our metamorphosis into the beings we truly are. Our definition thus has evolved into the notion that queer space operates at many levels, divorced from mainstream culture while still aiming to alter that same culture into a safe place for destigmatized free radical expression. Ballroom culture created a space where

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Image References

people connected with themselves and were able to rewrite their own narratives. It was a place where the defining lines of society did not regulate creation.

Fire Island a Qu eer Sa n ct ua ry 01

o what is queer space? Is it a gay bar? The Stonewall Inn? Is it a pride parade? A street alley? Is it the bathhouse? It is not one thing. It has no specific category, because queer is about the appropriation of what is “normal” at present. Queer is about expression. Beyond its concept as an identity, queer speaks to the relationship people of the LGBTQIA+ community share with space and its creation.

https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/fire-island-cherry-grove-exhib it-new-york-historical-society

N o t Married bu t Willing t o Be

Sappho and E r inna in a G a rden a t M yt i l e n e

1 7 t h Cent u ry Pirat e Ship E t chi n g

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/20/oct/16/ men-in-love-from-the-1850s-nini-treadwell-in-pictures

https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/simeon-solomon/sappho-anderinna-in-a-garden-at-mytilene/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copper_engraving_titled_%27Port_ View_With_Two_Flute_Ships%27_by_Reinier_Nooms,_late_17th_cen tury..png

How can you make a place free from the structure of society? How can you make a space FOR people who know the closet; how can you make a space that is open to the most radical forms of expression? Might we examine less the placement of queer spaces throughout history, and more the reasoning for their creation? 05

The Crit ic s, Henry Sc ot t T uk e

B allroom Cu lt u re

AID S Memorial Qu ilt

R oman B at hs Paint ing

D r ag Cu lt u re

R u pau l and D r ag

L esbian V i sibilit y t hrou g h Pa i n t

Marriage E q u alit y

L esbian Avengers

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/nyc-kiki-communi ty/59830/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/aids-memori al-quilt-now-online-1809753/

https://www.wikiart.org/en/fyodor-bronnikov/in-the-romanbaths-1865

Beyond its concept as an identity, queer speaks to the relationship people of the LGBTQIA+ community share with space and its creation.

https://www.artrenewal.org/artworks/the-critics/henry-scotttuke/58314

Queer space is about creating a utopia where being yourself ultimately doesn’t feel wrong, and the act of selfreflection and discovery is a celebration, not a funeral. d

https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/g20845/-photos-thatspotlight-the-dramatic-rise-of-ballroom-and-drag-culture/

https://www.anothermanmag.com/life-culture/10832/rarely-seenphotographs-capturing-a-young-rupaul-1980s-drag-con-johnsimone

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/late-180s-famous-art ist-produced-several-lesbian-paintings/

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/god-and-mar riage-equality

https://www.nytimes.com/201/65style/lesbian-aveng ers-pride-gap.html

CONTENT WARNING: discussion of sexual assault

Article by Phoebe Sessler (they/she/he) Graphic by Alex Ryberg Gonzlez (she/they/he)

Healing the scars of a body / I was so long unable / to claim as my own / does not have a timeline.

NONLINEAR

I take a detour after teaching a yoga class one fall afternoon this semester to People’s Place Cafe. Iced coffee in hand, I make my way up the stone steps of the chapel to perch atop the side, taking in my favorite view of Syracuse’s campus with cool coffee on my tastebuds. Until now, this past summer was the first time I attempted drinking an iced coffee since my junior year in high school where I would down one each morning before AP Bio classes. The first sip of that summer coffee made me violently nauseous, thrown back into that year of highschool. Twenty pounds thinner, veins and colon and liver picked dry from “just one more test,” I was in no position to say no to my then boyfriend.

So I said, “Yes.” “Ok.” “Sure.” Again. And again. I would go home and cry. Go home and tell my friends just enough to avoid what my brain so desperately wanted to scream. Go back to school and lay on the ground, as our mutual best friend told me I was selfish to break up with the boy who thought it was hot that I also liked women. Cut to: Freshman year at Syracuse, a school so large and steeped in rape culture that I was unsure I

would ever feel safe in a relationship with anyone ever again while on campus. I was thrilled I had the immunocompromised excuse for going out in a time of Covid. I was paralyzed by fear that leaning away from the bisexual label to lesbian to pansexual to queer meant I simply was avoiding men out of PTSD, and not an actual attraction to women. I feared that I was conflating my comfort around women and enbys with attraction, a spiral so inaccurate with such masquerading powers. Whilst I reached for each new label out of the fridge and felt it for a second to see if it felt good in my outstretched hands, I always worried (and still often do) that my queerness grew and evolved from my fear and disdain of men. I hate that nagging worry in the back of my head that survivorship may define and inform every aspect of my life, especially my sexuality. This turns into the scariest imposter syndrome and internalized biphobia ever. At the same time, I had to remember that men were not the only gender that could hurt me, but that made me worry I was acting from that biphobia. Cue the ensuing heap of panic attacks. Drinking iced coffee rocketed me back to the worst year of my life, by the vaguest of association. Dating at all felt dangerous, even though I 29

did it again after. Dating all genders at a huge university felt like a death sentence, but my hopeless-romantic side ultimately won out, forcing me on exposure-therapy dating apps. Setting my preference to all genders, I continued learning to trust men again and trust myself in my very real attraction to women.

ago, I remembered some details that my subconscious had kept under protective lock and key for three years. But even now with these new old memories resurfacing, writing this I want to scream at myself, “Don’t include the word ‘rape’ because the reader won’t believe you.”

Healing has come with being incredibly open with friends and any/all types of romantic/sexual relationships about my assault. Becoming radically vulnerable has allowed me to reclaim my body and control over what happened. More times than not, I’m met with a similar story from the friend, acquaintance, or partner I have confided in, especially on this campus, which breaks my heart every time.

Healing is very much nonlinear. For years I have said I want to date a bisexual or queer man if I am to date a man. Logically, they are still men and very capable of repeating my past for me. Last year I helped a bisexual boy who matched my height pick out a dress to wear. Feminine men can be assholes too, but his layer of softness and vulnerability helped me trust him in a way I never expected to trust a man ever again.

Becoming radically vulnerable has allowed me to reclaim my body and control over what happened. Even when I’m open and vulnerable about being assaulted, I rarely tell people the details, feeling like they will be too much for others to handle and at the same time like they will prove my experience doesn’t really count as assault. Worried it does not count as rape because I said yes. A few weeks 30

Last semester before a video class, I called him, lying numb and teary in my bed feeling the effects of a nonlinear anxiety attack. He came up to my room and lay over the covers holding my hand in silence. I said my first “I love you” to him the same morning. It was something I’ve never quite been able to mean with any partners since I felt forced

to say it to the boy in high school after being pushed down on my knees because that’s what I was told I owed him. I never thought I would get to a place where I am able to trust my partner enough to say, “no kisses tonight,” or, “let’s stop here,” and trust that they will. A place where I can also trust myself enough to be with someone who won’t cause me any more of that variety of suffering. That does not mean I am not terrified most days on this campus. That doesn’t mean that if I have to watch one more graphic rape scene for “analysis” and “its storytelling attributes” in a film class here I won’t lose my mind. As if the media we study does not directly correlate with this continued culture— but I digress. Healing the scars of a body I was so long unable to claim as my own does not have a timeline. But even though I stay away from coffee because of the caffeine-inducing headaches, every once in a while now I can treat myself to a good, simple, oat milk iced coffee. I’ve finally given myself permission to realize that love and my sexuality does not have to feel violent, volatile, or unsafe. d

RE: Bi folks, we asked you to tell us your worst. Here’s what you said. Requirements: -IDENTIFY AS BISEXUAL. -HAVE AN EXPERIENCE. -BE UPSET!

I was talking to this guy I liked and he asked if I’ve been with other girls. I told him yes, and he started asking specific details about how far I went with them and what it was like. The whole thing felt like he was fetishizing me.

I went out with some other students after a Pride Union event, and I didn’t tell them I was bi. A lot of them spent most of the night making biphobic comments and talking about “gold star” lesbians. I felt very excluded.

I still feel like I’m not a valid part of the queer community, like I don’t have the right to call myself queer.

Design by Alex Ryberg Gonzalez (she/they/he)

I came out to my mom saying I was bisexual and she immediately said, “So you want to have sex with women??” It was so vulgar and I was in middle school not thinking about sex, just romantic attraction... then she assumed I just wasn’t getting enough male attention.

People keep trying to correct me on the label I use. I’m not pansexual, I’m not polysexual, I’m fucking bi. And I’m the ONLY person who gets to define what that means for me.

Bisexual people are real and valid and I wish they understood that. He really believed kissing me would make me straight. Lol, so rude. My girlfriend is hot asf.

We were in the car. “I don’t really think bisexuality exists,” my mom said. “You’re either gay and don’t want to call it that, or you’re straight.” I was planning on coming out to her that day. I changed my mind.

I never felt comfortable coming out to my friends during high school because they always said things like “bisexuals aren’t real” “they’re just experimenting” “they have to pick if they are gay or straight.” Now they are more accepting, but I can’t get over the past, simply because of the toll the comments had on my own coming out experience and mental health.

It’s not that I don’t think that they would be unaccepting or love me less. But some of the things they say without thinking make me wary of coming out to them. These comments, while not directed at me, make me feel invalidated and like they would see me differently.

I’ve heard from them that bisexual people aren’t real or that they’re doing it because it’s a “trend”, whenever we’re on the topic of the LGBTQIA+ community. Besides my parents, I’ve heard peers, friends, and even other members of the LGBTQIA+ community at college say similar things.

Split Attraction Model Article by Phoebe Sessler (they/she/he) and Gibby (any pronouns) Design by Casey Fairchild (she/her) So often in an amournormative, allonormative society, romantic and sexual attraction are seen as inherently intertwined, if not as the exact same thing. But anyone who identifies on the aro or ace spectrum would tell you otherwise. So many aro-ace-spec people utilize the split attraction model to understand their romantic or sexual orientations. 34

Amournormative: the idea that all people experience romantic attraction

Allonormative: the idea that all people experience sexual attraction

Now, you may be asking yourself, what is the split attraction model, or SAM? We’re so glad you asked. The split attraction model refers to the theory that different types of attraction are fundamentally separate

regardless of orientation. For example, someone can be a biromantic homosexual or an aromantic pansexual and the list goes on and on. But attraction is not limited to just romantic and sexual, there is:

Aesthetic attraction: attraction to the way someone looks or presents themselves, like they are a beautiful painting you want to admire all day (but not fuck).

Platonic attraction: the desire to form a deep friendship connection with someone. This is also called a squish! Like a softer form of a crush :)

Sensual attraction: The desire to hold, cuddle, kiss, or otherwise engage the senses physically with another person, but does not go into sexual territory.

Alterous attraction: Described as an attraction that is more than platonic, but not quite

romantic. It is mainly utilized when describing the nature of Queer Platonic Relationships or QPRs.

Romantic attraction: The desire to be romantically engaged with someone, such as going on dates, emotionally investing in them, and being exclusive.

Sexual attraction: The desire to be sexually intimate with another person, not to be confused with libido.

Libido: A person’s overall sexual drive or desire for sexual activity. Someone can have a high libido and no attraction i.e. they have a biological drive but do not have a person/gender to focus that onto. And there are of course many more types of attraction than the ones listed here! These terms offer us a way to better define the types of attraction, but are not a new concept within themselves. In the late 1800s, German lawyer and writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs wrote about men who enjoyed sex and sensual relationships with other men, but also had profound romantic and sentimental relationships with women. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov also wrote about the separation of love and sex, offering a guide in her 1979 book, Love and Limerance — the Experience of Being in Love.

It can be very overwhelming to realize that these many types of attractions are all happening separately yet continuously. But they simply are a way to guide you on the path to understanding yourself. You do not have to fall under anything one hundred percent in order to relate or connect to it. You can be a label hoarder or shy away from a strict definition for your identity. At the end of the day, there are as many sexualities as there are people in this world. d 35

Lil Nas X Article by Alejandro Rosales (he/him) Design by Casey Fairchild (she/her)

Lil Nas X is breaking boundaries for the LGBTQIA+ community in ways foreign to the music and public mainstream, pushing the envelope in blunt, brash, and boisterous ways that have become a trademark of his music and social media influence. The guy who was once a cowboy-hat-wearing, horseriding, societally-proclaimed “one-hit wonder” has 36

pt. 2

become a social and queer phenomenon. Although our spring 2021 OutCrowd issue featured his single “Holiday,” where he exclaimed how he “might bottom on the low” but still top shit, Lil Nas X has shown he is worthy of a revisit. After coming out publicly in 2019, the young artist has made it a point to be wholly unapologetic: in his fashion, in his media presence, in his music and lyrics. He expresses feelings of growing up as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community to an audience starved

this cowboy is shedding his boots and pole-riding his pride and talent to the top.

public an internal conflict with his sexuality and simultaneously putting on blast the systems and upbringings that teach that queerness or nonwhiteness are lesser, immoral, or unfaithful because they go against preconceived societal norms. For myself and many LGBTQIA+ individuals who grew up with mass Internet access, another line from the song hits incredibly close to home. “Stanning Niki mornin’ into dawn / Only place I felt like I belonged / Strangers make you feel so loved, you know?” elicits memories of growing up gay and in the closet. Many young queer people don’t have outlets or resources to express themselves outside of the Internet, especially in a society and school system that shuns and shies away from teaching anything other than heteronormative standards.

for recognition and music that resonates. In “SUN GOES DOWN,” a single off his newest album MONTERO, Lil Nas X depicts a younger self struggling with depression and loneliness. Lyrics such as “Don’t wanna lie, I don’t want a life / Send me a gun and I’ll see the sun” depict contemplations of suicide and the hopelessness of growing up in a society that is not welcoming to differing sexualities or ways of being, especially when compounded A lot of personal reflection and with non-whiteness. understanding of sexuality, He sings about the crushing relationships, and whether I was thoughts he grew up with, worrying “normal” happened online, through about a world that would look down idolizing these strangers, and even on his race and appearance: “Always through talking to strangers on the thinkin’, “Why my lips so big? / Internet who in some way shared Was I too dark? Can they sense my characteristics, background, my fears?” He then transitions into and concerns. This is perhaps not thoughts on the intersectionality of the safest or most quality source his race and his sexuality. He sings for queer youth to have these about his younger self, how “These conversations, but it is sometimes gay thoughts would always haunt the only community we have. me / I prayed God would take it from me.” Here he’s making

The music industry is just one area where Lil Nas X is stirring up the status quo; TikTok hosts another side of his meteoric rise. His content serves as marketing gold for new releases, as an outlet to express his creativity, and a forum to carve space for the LGBTQIA+ community. On the account, you can find Lil Nas X shooting down critics, making fun of lawsuits thrown against him, sharing content joking about or highlighting his music, and in general forgetting that he is a celebrity. Lil Nas X has not only used his music as a point of change and expression but is also changing the music-marketing game. Lil Nas X’s vulnerability and ambition to portray LGBTQIA+ and racial issues are essential for community representation. Nobody but Montero could make a music video giving a lap dance to Satan, could go out on national television and kiss another man on stage, could make a song that has straight frat boys singing at the top of their lungs “I don’t fuck bitches, I’m queer.” This only breaks the surface of all the new media Lil Nas X is producing that seeks to give an unrepentant representation of himself as a norm-shattering force for more young LGBTQIA+ artists to follow. If anything is for certain, this cowboy is shedding his boots and pole-riding his pride and talent to the top. d 37

QUEER

CODING

IN LUCA

Article by Alex Ryberg Gonzalez (she/they/he) Design by Ben Harteveld (he/him)

@meeplord via DeviantArt

he first time I watched The Little Mermaid, I felt something I had never felt in my life. Suddenly I was mesmerized by this beautiful expression of a red-headed character. Slowly but surely, I realized that this was not just an “I want to be Ariel” moment, but a full-on crush. It wouldn’t be until later in life that I’d come to accept liking people other than who I was expected to like: men. Any loving expression I ever saw throughout my childhood and into my teen years was influenced by a cisnormative, heteronormative standard, as it still is for the most part. This expectation, placed by years of a conservative society, weighs heavily on those of us who feel different. These ideas are perpetuated through the media, shown strongly in entertainment targeted towards younger audiences — especially throughout Disney movies — having a lasting impact on many generations’ perspectives of the world.

Lets cut to the chase,

LUCA is a wholsome version of

Call Me by Your Name

great number of tropes in Disney movies are coded, many times in queer and/or derogatory ways, hiding away secret meanings that society as a whole may not accept. The recent Disney movie Luca is one that has been received into the arms of the queer community. Luca is the story of a boy who feels different, someone who doesn’t belong. He sets out on an adventure to explore the world in order to figure out who he is and what he wants, while “friends” accompany him along the way. Though there is a sense of fear towards the unknown, as his family kept him sheltered for many years, he strives to learn and grow. Throughout the movie, there is an incredible amount of queer coding. The main characters, Luca and Alberto, are two sea creatures exploring the human world. They quickly form a tight bond, setting the goal of running away together. Alberto, Luca’s new “friend,” is a very flamboyant guy, who, for some reason, constantly has his hands on his hips. As the movie progresses, so does their “friendship,” showing many longing glances of adoration between the two as they blush and quickly look away.

“Some people, they’ll never accept him. But some will. And he seems to know how to find them.” (1hr20, Luca)

“We underdogs have to look out for each other, kids who are weird, dressed different...” (32mins, Luca) The queerness of this movie stands out in its characters and stylistic choices, in addition to its storyline that closely resembles the LGBTQIA+ experience in the real world. For example, it just so happens that the town that Luca and Alberto venture to despises sea creatures, painting them as monsters before taking even a moment to listen. As the movie comes to an end, the boys get “outed” as sea creatures and a couple of older women who are constantly shown together, come out in solidarity. Luca ventures out on his own adventure, with the support of his family (finally) and friends. The visuals of the last scene, when the rain begins to fall as Luca and Alberto say goodbye to each other, show their true skin. This moment of acceptance sends the movie into the credits sequence as they go their separate ways.

any people don’t believe there is a need to put labels on art, especially a kids’ movie. However, at the end of the day, cartoons aren’t just cartoons. What the media chooses to represent is what will be normalized. Labelling everything shouldn’t be necessary, but labels hold so much power in representation of marginalized groups. Kids, just as much as adults, should be able to express themselves in whatever way they feel is right. However, after so many years of queer coded Disney villains and other derogatory representation of queerness in the media, coming out — pun intended — and saying what needs to be said is more important than ever. As a society, we should not have to label things, but history has made it nearly impossible to not. We need these labels just like we need pride. d

MADONNA Article by Frankln Wang (he/him)

Design by Eleni Cooper (she/they)

“C

Photo by Herb Ritts, “Madonna (True Blue),” 1986.

hange equals challenges. I think it’s in my DNA to fight for the underdog, go against the norm, and defy convention,” “He was only twenty-three / Gone before he

had his time / He was like a father to me /

said Madonna while being interviewed by the Today Show about her recognition as an advocate for change at the 2019 GLAAD Awards. The best selling female artist of all time according to Guinness World Records, Madonna was catapulted to fame during a highly conservative time, but her musical talent, avant-garde reinventions of her self-image, and advocacy for positive social change all helped her sustain a 40-year-long career and a loyal following to this day.

The heartfelt ballad was written in a solemnly respectful and sonically melancholic tone in remembrance of Martin Burgoyne (Madonna’s confidant and roommate) and Christopher Flynn (a ballet instructor who encouraged Madonna to follow her dreams when she experienced severe self-doubt).

In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic left a dreadful mark in the United States, stereotyping sexual intercourse within the LGBTQIA+ community to be the leading cause of the deadly transmission. Madonna was outraged by this narrative. Her peers in the industry barely stood up to combat the discrimination surrounding “gay cancer” — which was the nickname that AIDS received at the time — or even cared to raise awareness and become human rights activists. Madonna was disheartened witnessing the loss of friends to AIDS, a traumatic experience that inspired her to compose “In This Life.” Madonna sang,

Fast forwarding to 2021, the majority of Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t know that Madonna’s discography helped shift the narrative around the AIDS epidemic and pay tribute to her queer friends. As one of the last few standing music trendsetters from the ‘80s, Madonna utilizes her social media platforms to discuss important humanitarian issues, such as anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes, and continues to be vocal about being at peace through her poetic and introspective lyricism. Like her or not, Madonna single-handedly reset American pop culture on another level and still influences a myriad of LGBTQIA+ artists today. d

Taught me to respect myself.”

Xtravaganza LUIS & JOSÉ

Addendum by Eden Stratton (they/them) Design by Kimberly Mitchell (she/they)

Photo by Len Prince, “Luis and José,” 1991. Courtesy of the LSU Museum of Art. At the same time, Madonna has been a point of controversy for her role in appropriating ballroom culture. Ballroom, the LGBTQ+ Black and Latin American underground subculture that still persists today and whose modern era originated in NYC in the 1960s, was the initial starting point for voguing. But the dance wasn’t recognized by wider pop culture until Madonna’s music video.

But many within the queer community are dissatified with the lack of recognition that the ballroom scene and the original creators of voguing have recieved. In an article for the digital magazine them, author Elyssa Goodman argues that “the singer was minting money off of a culture she had only just been introduced to, while many in that culture still struggled.”

It begs the question: Why did we need Madonna to be the face of voguing for it to be palatable?

Professor Akwugo Emejulu, a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, explains that the solution to such issues “necessitates a transformation in thinking and action that subverts existing power relations linked to race, class, sexuality, disability and legal status.” In order for ballroom culture to be properly recognized, we must give proper attribution to the BIPOC creators behind it, especially since voguing has become a touchstone of modern pop culture.

If we take a closer look, Madonna did enlist the help of two ballroom staples (among others) in its creation: José Gutierez and Luis Camancho of the House of Xtravaganza. The two powerhouse dancers exposed Madonna to voguing and taught her the basics. They went on to create the choreography for the “Vogue” music video. Their hard work earned them a nomination for Best Choreography at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards.

Madonna will remain a focal point in the music industry, that much is clear. Her status as an ally is often unquestioned. But in the words of Katherine Kidd, a professor in the English and Textual Studies department at SU, ultimately “it’s up to queer people to decide who is an ally.” d

TREXX: SYRACUSE’S GAY BAR “Trexx is a gay bar located in downtown Syracuse known for its drag performances and colorful scenery. It was the first queer club I had ever been to and I immediatley felt valid and welcomed after walking through its doors. As someone who doesn’t identify as male or female, it’s hard navigating spaces where I feel comfortable expressing my gender identity. Trexx is a place where I feel at ease and can interact with people in my community.” - Em Burris (she/they)

Photography by Em Burris

The music industry has seen an increase of queer Latinx artists pushing back against machismo culture by making music that is authentically them. Article by Maria Nido (she/her) Design by Amelia Flinchbaugh (she/her)

hough I’ve always proudly identified as a queer Latina, I didn’t truly experience what living as a queer person in a fully Latinx society was like until I spent a couple months living in Puerto Rico this past summer. I found myself censoring my queerness in certain spaces out of fear of hateful judgement from certain family members and, at times, strangers. This is a reality that up-and-coming Chilean artist Jonah Xiao faced when he would purposely write his songs in English, just so that his friends and family did not know he was gay. Being a queer individual in Latinx society poses its trials and tribulations. This is especially because there’s two collective cultural experiences that are embedded in it: a poignant influence of “machismo,” and of hypocritical Catholicism. Machismo, within the context of Latinx society, can be defined as toxic masculinity that perpetuates not only an ideology of

cis-male superiority, but also demeans the possibility of men being open with their emotions. Hypocritical Catholicism, in simple terms, is the justification of Catholics to treat queer people with hatred and contempt due to opposition against same-sex relations by the Church. However, despite these realities, in recent years the surge of openly queer Latinx artists has skyrocketed. Eder Diaz is well known for being a radio personality in Latin America and a host for his podcast, “De Pueblo, Católico y Gay,” which means “From Community, Catholic and Gay.” In his podcast, which has more than 100 episodes, Diaz explores stories surrounding the discovery of the sexual and gender identities of the queer Latinx individuals he interviews. The podcast often focuses on how their family dynamic affected or did not affect their self-discovery process. “There was always queer expression, but never outspoken queer identity,” Diaz told the OutCrowd when asked about his observations of queer Latinx individuals in the music industry.

their audience, as the label no longer is the mediating connection between artist and fan,” Diaz said. “No longer can [an] artist be told by their teams that being openly queer is going to be rejected, because the proof is in the support they receive in media.” “The idea of the closet needs to begin being referred to as an issue of mental health. Furthermore, there needs to be change in the way we talk about the closet. The closet is society, it’s the industry, and it’s the media—it’s the responsibility of the public to eliminate the idea of the closet, not the queer individual. If an individual is “in the closet” it is because a safe space hasn’t been created for them to be their authentic selves.” d

Next page for Q&A’s with Latinx artists Jonah Xiao & Villano Antillano

“What’s helped the modern-day queer artist is having a direct line of communication to

This fall, OutCrowd editor Maria Nido (she/her) connected with Jonah Xiao and Villano Antillano to hear about their experiences being queer and Latinx in the entertainment and music industries. These responses have been edited for clarity, and segments conducted in Spanish have been translated for the final text.

Jonah Xiao (he/him) is a Chinese-Latino artist from Chile that makes urban/pop music that looks to represent his experience as a queer man through narrating his life experiences in his music and visuals. Can you pinpoint the first time you realized you wanted to work in music? When I was in high school, I always knew I wanted to do something related to music. However, when I went off to college, it was difficult to find time for music, as I was busy getting my undergraduate and master’s degrees. It wasn’t until the pandemic that I finally had the time to work on my music, which is when I released my first song. People seemed to really like “Inhala Inhala” and soon enough I was put in connection with Cactus Music management and Warner Chile.

What do you want people to think when they hear a Jonah Xiao song? I simply want to be taken seriously as a musician and songwriter. I’d rather focus my efforts on the quality of my music, rather than flooding my social media platforms with meaningless content just for the clicks. Who are your current sonic inspirations? Frank Ocean is a consistent fave. Funnily enough, I grew up listening to a lot of American music, but recently I’ve been getting into the artists from my country and from the region. I love all the Latin artists of today too, like Bad Bunny, J. Balvin, Karol G just to name a few. Tell me about your recording process during your San Diego 18 EP. In 2018, I did an exchange program in San Diego, California. I wanted to sonically capture the feeling of being young, being with my friends, being gay, and just simply existing in San Diego. Transparency was really important for me in this project. I really wanted to dive deep and talk about my romantic and sexual relationships freely. The San Diego 18 EP was actually the first time I was 100% open about being

gay. Initially, when I would write about my gay experiences, the lyrics would be in English so that my peers wouldn’t be able to understand what I was saying. However, for this EP, I fully let myself go and spoke about my honest truths. What’s next for Jonah Xiao? So, I’m currently working on production of another body of work. Plus, I have a single that is coming out soon called “En Tu Celly,” which I’m very excited about. d

“

I really wanted to dive deep and talk about my romantic and sexual relationships freely.

The San Diego 18 EP was actually the first time I was 100% open about being gay.

Villano Antillano (she/they) is an urbano/trap artist hailing from Puerto Rico. They purposefully inserted themselves in the most violent genre that they could: Latin trap, which can be heard loud and clear with their “malianteo-esque” lyricism. What is Villano Antillano’s sound? So, I grew up in Puerto Rico, which is one of the birthplaces of reggaeton and Latin trap. I’m very influenced by the Caribbean and my home so it made sense to create with those influences in mind. There was always this aggressiveness to me. As an LGBT person, I went through a lot and was forced onto the streets very early in my life. I feel like I grew up in a lot of rage and it all flows out in my music. Who are your current sonic inspirations? I actually listen to a lot of house music. But I’m very into malianteo, which is a subgenre of Latin trap that is focused on the stories of drug wars and how hard life is on the streets. I have a very big thing for Luar La L and Ankhal — both are malianteo artists. I fuck with their lyricism and think they are really talented. How have you found the courage to be openly LGBT in face of homophobia? Being LGBT is everything I’ve known. At some point I recognized that I could not let the fear of getting hurt get in the way of me living my life authentically. In the grand scheme of things, I want to know that I did what I wanted to do. In keeping that mindset, that’s how I mustered the courage to transition and insert myself

to a genre that is known to not accept individuals like me. When I first started, I thought to myself, I’m not making this for straight people, and I don’t care what straight people think. I was quickly surprised by a lot of the older generation MC’s and DJ’s who have come up to me and told me that they fucked with my shit. It’s a nice feeling, but I don’t need it. What kind of songwriter are you? I feel like I’ve lived the experiences that require you to have enough range to honestly rap. Rap, to me, is a weapon of social change that is used to denounce fucked up shit in society. I truly believe that the music I make is tied to the fundamentals of hip-hop because it’s looking to reform and change society for the better. How did the pandemic affect your artistry? The pandemic was the year that I decided I was going to medically transition. I was lost in my head and living alone. I did a lot of shrooms and listened to a lot of music. I sat down with myself and admitted a lot of realities and parts of myself that I was subconsciously suppressing. It was the year I let go and really let myself flourish. My grandmother also passed away during this time, and she was a very important part of my life. In accepting what death

truly is, I think it further strengthened the fearlessness that I lead my life with. What’s next for Villano Antillano? I’m very excited for the release of my upcoming single “Vocales.” The song has so much energy. It’s like doing a line of cocaine from the track to the lyrics. Also, I’m completing an album. It’s the soundtrack to my transition. It feels really good to be making the music I’ve always wanted to put out. After that project comes out, I look forward to beginning planning a tour and hitting all the spots I’ve wanted to perform in. d

“

Rap, to me, is a weapon of social change that is used to denounce fucked up shit in society.

I truly believe that the music I make is tied to the fundamentals of hiphop because it’s looking to reform and change society for the better.

e h t t ha

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packed mosh pits I’ve ever been in. After the show, I squeezed my way out of the pit and began mingling with other fans outside of the venue, even meeting a handful of artists who’d come from all over the country just to see their friends perform. Right as my friend called our Uber, I noticed someone across the street who I recognized from Twitter — Billy Bugara. Bugara, who was only 21 years old, had already become the creative director of SoundCloud, the social media manager of the music blog Masked Gorilla, and had written for the website of the music video channel Lyrical Lemonade. They also recently went on to help start the independent label deadAir, whose artists include quinn, dltzk, and saturn. Bugara and I stayed in touch, and on a call I asked how they’d define hyperpop. “In the most basic way you can put it, hyperpop is just contemporary future pop,” they said. “It’s taking pop music to levels it hasn’t been to yet as far as experimentation, creativity, and overall embodying the modern sentiment in general.”

with queer, trans, and ally people around the world. Hyperpop — which utilizes highly electronic and glitchy sounds to create music so extreme that listeners often interpret it as self-parody — has transformed digital queer and trans niches into full on parties.

“It’s taking pop music to levels it hasn’t been to yet as far as experimentation, creativity, and overall embodying the modern sentiment in general.” -Billy Bugara, Creative Director of SoundCloud

The word “hyperpop” was popularized in 2019 by a Spotify editorial playlist of the same. Spotify had used the term in its metadata since 2014, and even though it took them five more years to create the playlist the company still went on to take ownership of hyperpop in Hyperpop can also be seen as a musical reflection of the chronically many listeners’ minds, despite the scene’s origins on SoundCloud. Bugara admitted that to this day, SoundCloud will “recognize what online LGBTQIA+ Gen-Z experience. If we’re talking the scenes are brewing on their platform but [won’t] capitalize on historical experience of “the Closet,” the advent of the Internet them,” leaving platforms like Spotify the opportunity to swoop in. digitized those closets and equipped them with portals to connect The hyperpop scene as we know it today was essentially started in 2013 by the trans producer Sophie Xeon with the release of the track “BIPP,” which instantly received praise from outlets like Pitchfork, who declared it the best new track of that week. A year later, SOPHIE shook up the musical landscape yet again with the track “LEMONADE,” which combined the producer’s usual earcandy refrains with a bubblegum pop melody so sweet that it rotted the teeth of some critics. Both “BIPP” and “LEMONADE” would be featured on SOPHIE’s debut album PRODUCT. Despite overwhelming acclaim from other outlets, the budding scene wasn’t without deriders. Pop critic Alexis Petridis from the Guardian wrote in 2015 that SOPHIE’s album was nothing more than “slappingly obvious pop provocations.” Petridis would go on to write that “Sophie and PC Music have nothing new to say in response, not a single idea that hasn’t already been explored to the point of exhaustion.” PC Music is the record label and collective started by the British producer A.G. Cook, who’s most known for being Charli XCX’s executive producer and for dividing critics straight down the middle with his avant-garde pieces of sonic exploration.

PC Music, which was made up of signees that Cook discovered on SoundCloud, frequently collaborated with SOPHIE, and the music they put out can only be described in culinary terms: It sounds like they went into a kitchen from the year 3021, put bubblegum pop, trap, crunkcore, 8-bit, and dubstep in a blender, and decided to keep that blender running at the highest possible setting while they banged their pots and pans against the chromium metal countertop to make the drums. To make things even more confusing, after PC Music solidified themselves in the musical ecosystem, artists not signed to the label started drawing influence and collaborating with them, with each artist bringing their own set of esoteric influences into the mix. Dorian Electra — a genderfluid artist from Houston, Texas — will add in baroque organs, harpsichords, and Gregorian chants, creating an end result that sounds straight out of the Halo soundtrack. The duo 100 Gecs will add in hints of ska to create some of the most annoyingly catchy melodies you’ll ever hear. Just in case things weren’t already chronically online enough, Laura Les from 100 Gecs will pitch their vocals up after recording them. The technique comes from “nightcore,” which was a form of remix on YouTube and SoundCloud where users would speed up and pitch up popular songs. Many different artists in the hyperpop scene have taken on the technique, making for vocals that sound like SpongeBob SquarePants ranting to you about ketamine while already tripping on LSD. Despite its seeming novelty, the technique actually serves a deeper purpose for many of the artists using it. In June, quinn — an artist originally from the DMV — tweeted out, “i don’t pitch up my voice because of hyperpop, i’m just transgender.” Pitching up the vocals helps many trans artists relieve the gender dysphoria they get from hearing their voice back on the recording. This form of vocal manipulation may sound uncanny and artificial to new hyperpop listeners, but it’s actually helping those in the community create a more authentic version of themselves on the recording. quinn’s musical work would go on to start an entire new scene called “digicore.” Digicore spun off from hyperpop in 2017, and in 2018, Bugara came across its beginnings while scouting out artists for the blog UVC. Even though Bugara wasn’t an artist themself, they got sucked into Discord servers with digicore artists and became great friends with them, curating their music into a playlist for SoundCloud.

Payton Dunn with Billy Bugara in Philadelphia after the Overcast hyperpop concert on Oct. 9, 2021.

“What that term embodies is a community of artists that have all gone up together,” Bugara told the OutCrowd, emphasizing that each digicore artist comes in with a wide variety of inspirations. If you click play on Bugara’s digicore playlist, you’ll hear one song that sounds like emo rap, one song that sounds like plugg (an emerging subgenre of hip hop that features minimalist drums and an 808 so fat that it completely envelopes the airy synth melodies lying underneath), and even a song that sounds closer to folk than it does to any form of hip hop at all. The community was created with a culture of acceptance that has made it a home for queer and trans teens expressing themselves with music. “It’s almost a crime not to be accepting,” Bugara said. Bugara hopes that, going into the future, less “industry-ready acts” will be able to see more success. “This time last year, if you told me, ‘hey, who’s gonna be the biggest star in the scene,’ I would’ve definitely said quinn. And to be honest, I wish it was like that because nobody deserves this more than quinn just because she’s been here from the start.” Bugara went on to add, “quinn could’ve signed for eight gazillion dollars at this point, you know? But quinn doesn’t want to do that. quinn wants to do her thing the way she wants to do it and that’s all gonna pay off one day and it’s gonna open doors for these people — these independent musicians — to really have an easier way of breaking into the mainstream.”

Another thing Bugara emphasized was just how fast hyperpop and digicore grew within the last two years. When the pandemic hit, while it halted many aspects of the entertainment industry, it actually turned hyperpop and digicore from small flames into bonafide bonfires. Hyperpop and digicore, with their lyrics revolving around mental health and LGBTQIA+ experiences, gave a sense of community to queer and trans teens struggling mentally even harder than they were before the pandemic. The music’s hyped up instrumentals provided distraction. Just as hyperpop’s growth seemed uninterruptible early this year, the community experienced its biggest tragedy to date. SOPHIE died. The producer at the heart of hyperpop’s creation had been staying in Athens, Greece at the time and climbed up the balcony to get a better view of the full moon before slipping and falling on January 30, 2021. SOPHIE left behind a huge legacy and an entire new generation of artists who had the influence of tracks like “BIPP,” “LEMONADE,” and those that followed as a core inspiration to everything they made. SOPHIE also left behind a huge list of collaborations, including work on Vince Staples’ 2017 album Big Fish Theory and Charli XCX’s 2016 EP Vroom Vroom. This level of mainstream success was unprecedented for trans woman producers. Out of all the songs featured on the Hot 100 and in the Grammy Awards from 2012 to 2018, only 2% of them were produced by women, and the stigma placed on trans creatives only further compounds the issue. SOPHIE broke down barriers, and in doing so created a community for LGBTQIA+ artists on a level that’s never been seen before. A scene and a community accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Hyperpop still retains a niche audience, but if its success during the pandemic is any indication, that niche is sure to grow even more in the coming years. It’s only a matter of time before the scene, which was once called “future pop,” actually becomes the future. d

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