THE SUPERMODEL: ‘Gia Carangi was the first supermodel, but hers is a tragic story. Born in Philadelphia in 1960, her Italian / Irish parents were often violent and unstable; her mum walked out when Gia was just 11. At high school, Gia befriended a group of kids who were obsessed with David Bowie. She too was drawn to him, with his weird glam style and his waft of bisexuality that bent the hard lines that defined gender. How could you not be?’

Illustration by Fernando Monroy

POWDER: ‘Long before Elio and Oliver were lingering among Crema’s porticos in Call Me by Your Name, Johnny and Omar were sharing stolen moments around Wandsworth… They laugh. They kiss in alleyways, in Omar’s car, even in the laundrette. They craft a universe that is theirs and theirs alone, and that was, and still is in queer cinema, so radical.’

 Illustration by Surya Shekhar

THE KISS: ‘In 1994 Brookside’s Beth Jordache made British TV history, with the first pre watershed lesbian kiss. It was an iconic moment for me and the UK TV viewing population when Beth, played by Anna Friel, kissed the family nanny… A simple and tender kiss paved the way for my coming out, the start of better on screen LGBT+ representation and the gradual acceptance of lesbians in mainstream society.’

Illustration by Nova Dando

THE PIONEER: ‘Barbara Hammer questions the boundaries of what a lesbian avant-garde can look like and be. It is not just an aesthetic but a way of caring for and loving other women, be it in the form of an interpersonal relationship or a wider network of intimacies.’

Illustration by Elena Durey.

THE POLYMATH: ‘Koestenbaum’s sprawling body of work across criticism, poetry and art has constantly pushed up against and expanded the limits of the queer canon, whether he realises it or not.’

Illustration by Sam Russell Walker

OUT OF THE WOODS: Author Luke is the perfect Queer Bible subject. He ticks both ‘queer’ (on account of his bisexuality) and ‘biblical’ (due to his Methodist Vicar father) boxes… He is stricken not just by his desire for women and men, but by that unique curse of independent thought in a generic capital.

Illustration by Jon McCormack

THE MARTYR: This week marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of campaigner Harvey Milk. ‘One of the conversations that people like Desmond Tutu always say about Harvey is this is someone who martyred themselves, who knew they were putting their, that they would likely… I mean it was not Hollywood. Harvey knew that he was gonna be assassinated. He knew that was the trajectory of the civil rights movement.’

Illustration by Sam Russell Walker

SMALL TOWN BOYS: EXCLUSIVE! We are publishing Paul Flynn’s sleeve-notes written for the anniversary re-release of Bronski Beat’s ‘The Age Of Consent’. “This record came out when I was 13 years old. It laid out documentary emotions, song by song, beat by beat, on how to navigate life as a gay man, at a time when turning into one felt like it might be just about the most ostracizing thing in the world.”

Illustration by Fernando Monroy 

LOVE SHACK: "Not until 1992 did someone ask us about being gay… It was almost more subversive that we didn’t talk about it. We were just trying to be ourselves. Being gay was just a part of it. That’s really how we wanted the world to be, you know? You just do your thing and your sexual orientation is just a part of it. I think it was kind of more revolutionary because of that.“

Illustration by Sam Russell Walker

THE FIRST: 'As the first queer British novel, E. M. Forster’s Maurice is a powerful story about pain and loss, self-realisation and finding one’s place in the world… Don’t be distracted by the period anachronisms; Maurice is a radical and subversive call to the future, it’s message as urgent now as it was a century ago.'

Illustration by Sam Russell Walker

VOGUE: ‘The House of Impossible Beauties is an audacious undertaking. It is a felt history, an imaginary retelling of the back-stories of The House of Xtravaganza, the prominent Latino Voguing collective who form a cornerstone of Jenny Livingston’s biopic of the late 80s Harlem Ballroom scene, Paris is Burning.’

Illustration by Fernando Monroy ​​​​​​​

THE LEGEND: ‘In retrospect Elton’s persona never wholly straight or gay. He always been ambiguous—hyper masculine to the point of brutishness, and yet so deeply in touch with his bubbling emotions. He’s a metronome ticking back and forth, ready to slap you or kiss you.’

Illustration by Fernando Monroy 

THE SHOW WOMAN: 'Ellen Morgan, the titular character of Ellen the sitcom, couldn’t hold a guy down, so bigwigs at ABC suggested she get a puppy. But Ellen - the person - had better ideas. After all, her character’s unconvincing straightness had caused a wane in the show's popularity, and the tabloids, armed with an inkling of Ellen’s true sexuality, had long used rumours to paint in the gaps. She was done trying to thicken the line between her public and private lives.' 

Illustration by Elena Durey

GENDER FUCK: "I was a young boy coming to terms with being effeminate, queer and trans who desperately wanted to escape the chastity of my small village life and find my own place in queer culture just like they had done. Through Pete’s femme presentation I was able to begin piecing together my own queer identity, and an idea of what my future might look like."

Illustration by Elena Durey.

THE MOOMIN CREATOR: ‘I’ve adored Tove Jansson for a long time. Like plenty of kids, I spent hours in the company of Little My, Snufkin, Snork Maiden, and the whole Moomin clan. As a teenager recovering from spinal surgery, I was drawn back to that world of valleys, storms, theatrical antics, proprietary Hemulens and perfect stretches of sea, finding it deeply comforting when so much was beyond control.’

Illustration by Louise Pomeroy. 

THE REV: ‘Murray was, in a sense, prophetic in her early analysis of racism, sexism, and heterosexism. The prescience of her vision has caused her to become a patron saint, of sorts, for black queer people who often feel erased in fragmented conversations about race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. ‘

Illustration by Sam Russell Walker

THE TENNIS STAR: “I was daydreaming about my little tiny universe of tennis, and I thought to myself: ‘Everybody’s wearing white shoes, white socks, white clothes, playing with white balls, everybody who plays is white. Where is everybody else?’ That was the moment I decided to fight for equality and freedom and equal rights and opportunities for everyone. Everyone. Not just girls. Everyone.”

Illustration by Elena Durey 

‘When you come out you become politicised because you start making connections with other people. So we don’t know each other but we’re intimate because we’ve both been on the same journey, different sorts, but it’s been the same journey. It’s the same if you met somebody in South Africa or Moscow. You become an internationalist and you begin to see that the local laws here don’t fit in with your view of human nature and what it can be. Then life becomes really exciting, thrilling and in changing your own life you’re changing the lives of other people.’

Illustration by Fernando Monroy

'But everyone’s frightened society’s gonna collapse, can you imagine? People having children and then having affairs with the opposite gender, how does that work? Well let them work it out. Did you want to become mainstream, did you want to get married, did you want to behave like a straight person even though you were gay, or did you want to change society and make it different and encourage all the straight people to be like us? Have sex with whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted, however we wanted. A whole new world.’

Illustration by Fernando Monroy