American Queens and Kings

Amidst waves of devastating anti-Queer legislation, we need to remember the United States’s past attempts to “protect kids” from the menaces of Queerness — and how those attempts have always backfired. In the 1950s, during the Red Scare, our government perpetuated a subtler (but no less devastating) attack on its Queer citizens: the Lavender Scare, which culminated in the use of taxpayers’ money to publish and distribute gay porn and images of child sexual abuse. How could this happen, and how does the Queer community insulate and heal itself from a government and society that seeks to destroy it? Read this essay in print, in Autre’s FW24 Citizen issue.

Detail from “Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida,” anti-gay government propaganda that brought public outrage.

The Anti-Autonomy Device: The Hays Code, Tits, and Le$bean Poetry

Imagine you’re a film censor, dedicated to protecting the morality of American cinema from such threats as “sexual perversion.” Which of the following would you flag as objectionable?

  1. A man is chased through the streets by a group of homeless boys he has sexually assaulted and is cannibalized by them

  2. A cop hunting a gay serial killer turns gay and begins to murder gay men himself

  3. Two adults pursue a Queer romantic relationship

Find the answer in the essay.

(This piece landed in Artforum as one of artist Clarity Haynes’s Top Ten!)

Joanne Leah. Skin-Encapsulated Ego.

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