Queer destabilises everything around it, laughs until all that is set becomes disrupted. It is a political force, an identity, a blurring of fixed lines, of ideals, of hierarchies – a way of seeing the world and seeing yourself. It is big and complex and messy and joyous. It is a personal identity, an insult remoulded, an idea moving in relation to whatever is considered ‘normal’. It’s fun, sexy, present and – revolutionary.
It could express a person’s sexual, gender, political or social identity. As a gender-queer person I would use it to describe all of those things. Not in a ‘I’m living in Peckham and I’m totally fluid’ kind of way (I do live in Peckham and I do describe myself as fluid…), BUT also a way which is like waking up and feeling, genuinely, like a guy, or like a mix, even though my body looks more female. I feel comfy in the word queer, there’s room to manoeuvre, to spread out, to backtrack and change.
I run Milk Presents with Ruby Glaskin and Adam Robertson and we’ve put together a queer reading list to alongside Taylor Mac’s Hir. Have we read them all? No. We’re working on it! We put out a call out and asked as many people as we could to contribute and here’s the list so far. Feel free to tweet over suggestions to @milkpresents or @bushtheatre and we’ll add them on.
Podcasts
Zines
- Issue #1 of Working Class Queers debuted at Queer Zine Fest London 2013 and is available in hard copy for £2.00 (postage included).
- Paypal money (and include yr address) to charlotte.richardson.andrews@gmail.com
- Freeing Ourselves: A Guide to Health and Self Love for Brown Bois- Brown Boi Project
- Mixed Up!: A Zine About Mixed and Queer Feminist Experience by Lil Lefkowitz, Lee Naught & Lior Hadar (2013)
Graphic Novels
- Fun Home- Alison Bechdal
- The Wicked + The Divine, Gillen McKelvie and Wilson Cowle
- Black Lodge Press
Non-fiction
- Devamitra – confessions of a transvestite Buddhist
- Close To The Knives – David Wojnarowicz.
- The Descent of Man – Grayson Perry
- The Velvet rage – Alan Downs
- Oh Joy Sex Toy – Erika Moen
- 101 alternatives to suicide – Kate Bornstein
- Redefining Realness – A Trans Girl’s Memoir | Janet Mock
- Elephant Mag https://elephantmag.com/product/elephant-31-summer-2017/
Academia | Theory
- riki wilchins queer theory: An Instant Primer gender theory
- Performance in America: Contemporary U.S. Culture And The Performing Arts (Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe)
- In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (Sexual Cultures) Jack Halberstam
- Trans: A Quick and Quirky Accounts of Gender Variability – Jack Halberstam
- The Queer Art of Failure Jack Halberstam
- Queering the Renaissance Jonathan Goldberg
- ASC Queer Theory: Disidentifications by Jose Muñoz
- Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity Book – José Esteban Muñoz
- An archive of feelings – Ann Cvetkovich
- Feeling Backward – Heather Love
- Auto-Theory
- Testo Junkie – Paul Preciado
Fiction
- Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi
- Cool For You – Eileen Myles
- The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson
- The Well of Loneliness – Radcliffe Hall
- Carol by Patricia Highsmith
- Under the Udala Trees – Chinelo Okparanta
- (Re)sisters published by For Books Sake
- Skin Lane – Neil Bartlett
- Don’t Let Him Know – Sandip Roy
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Mundo Cruel: Stories by Luis Negrón
- Tipping the Velvet, – book/play Sarah Waters
- The Female Man – Joanna Russ
Comics
- Kim Reaper – Sarah Graley
- Axolotl
- Transgender Step Parent – Mama Lips – BlackLodge Press
- Rat Queens
- Paper Girls
- Nimona
- Plays
- Fun Home- Alison Bechdal
- Some Explicit Polaroids- Mark Ravenhill
- Pronoun – Evan Placey
- Angels in America – Tony Kushner.
