Recipe for a Loud but Proud Feminist Queer

Recipe for a Loud but Proud Feminist Queer

Ingredients: Around 12 songs from LGBTQ+ folk and ally artists

Serves: 1 and some

Prep time: 9 Months

Bake time: 22 years

Step One: Start by preparing your Childhood

You are raised by parents who love the classics. You’re lucky because they have always been progressive, accepting allies. And you realize that being called ‘lucky’ to have accepting parents really sheds a light on homophobia. By early elementary school you and your mother have already made dancing to Madonna in the basement a weekend ritual. It’s one of the reasons why you always knew how to “Express Yourself.”

You have also learned of the gay icon Sir Elton John and that’s why you dress up like a superstar and convince your friends to sing “Benny and the Jets” at your 5th grade talent show. You do not win, but losing builds character and teaches you to never give up. That’s a trait you’ll need with an identity like yours. You wonder who Benny is and if you’ll ever have as much support as she gets from the Jets.

At every Italian wedding you attend, the song “Y.M.C.A” by the Village People is requested. All of your great-aunts and uncles know the moves as you and your cousins scream “it's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. / It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. / They have everything For young men to enjoy. / You can hang out with all the boys.” It is not until years later when you find out the true meaning behind the song. The irony of your immigrant Italian Catholic family annually dancing joyfully to a gay anthem is not lost on you.

Step Two: Preheat your Sexual Awakening

Two words: Lady. Gaga. In Junior high, you make it a pastime to watch all of her music videos on YouTube. You buy magazines with her on the front cover, dress up as her in an icy blonde wig and fishnets with shorts for Halloween at school, and perform her songs in a makeshift musical that you and your sister put on for your family. She is your idol, your queen, and “Bad Romance” is your sexual awakening. It is not until university where you learn that “Love Game” was the sexual awakening for your gal and guy friends alike. Gaga is confident in her sexuality, a powerful woman who amplifies the voices of all identities, empowering us to be ourselves because we were “Born This Way.” That’s your dad’s favourite Gaga song. If you start singing “my mama told me when I was young / We are all born superstars,” without fail he will belt out “ooo there ain’t no other way / Baby I was born this way / I’m on the right track baby I was born this way/.” The proudest you can be is of yourself. Thanks, Gaga.

Step Three: Sprinkle some raging Feminism into the mixture (my cap fell off the shaker while sprinkling. If this happens, do not panic, your mixture is not compromised. It only means that your Queerness will be even louder and prouder).

In high school, you go back to the classics. “Killer Queen” by Queen becomes your angsty teen anthem. It’s one of the first songs you burn onto a CD for your car. You love songs with women who exude power and seduction: “to avoid complications / She never kept the same address / In conversation / She spoke just like a baroness.” You don’t know if you want to be the Killer Queen or be with her. Or both. You love Freddie Mercury and you think that to be genius, you at least have to be a little Queer.

You grew up listening to Prince’s “Kiss” and “Dove’s Cry,” but it’s not until 16 that you discover “Darling Nikki.” You can’t help but show all your friends the provocative lyrics: “I knew a girl named Nikki / I guess you could say she was a sex fiend / I met her in a hotel lobby / Masturbating with a magazine / She said how’d you like to waste some time? / And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind.” Your family is conservative about ‘sex talk’ and so you are enamoured with songs and lyrics depicting sensual women who are so confident in their sexuality. You’ve been taught this is a bad trait for ladies to have, but you can’t help but admire Nikki’s unapologetic sexual prowess and Prince’s own playfulness with gender and sexual expression.

Your Canadian lesbian identical twin icons, Tegan and Sara, have many popular songs in Canada that you jam out to in the car with the windows rolled down in the summer. But it isn’t until “Boyfriend” where the lyrics really hit: “you treat me like your boyfriend / And trust me like a- like a very best friend / Kiss me like your boyfriend / You call me up, like you would your best friend / You turn me on, like you would your boyfriend / But I don’t want to be your secret anymore.” You think that there are many members of the LGBTQ+ community that relate to this song and when you hear your gay best friend’s predicament with his crush and his crush’s girlfriend, you both sing this song loudly and off key to one another.

Sometimes the misogynist homophobes are too much to bear. Sometimes in explaining gender expression, feminism, and sexual identity, you just want to throw your hands up and say “F**k You.” Which is why when you feel this way, you listen to the badass Brit, Lily Allen’s song of the same name: “So you say it’s not okay to be gay, well, I think you’re just evil / You’re just some racist who can’t tie my laces / Your point of view is medieval.” You particularly like the part of the song where she tells the racist homophobes to ‘get slew.’

Step Four: Bake at a liberal University for four years

It is in first year of university when your gay best friend and his bisexual roommate introduce you to RuPaul’s Drag Race. You become infatuated with the queens, their talent, make up, and dresses. Mama Ru immediately becomes another one of your Queer idols. “Born Naked” is the first of his songs that you download, and it isn’t long before you are doing your best to embody the lyrics of “Kitty Girl” or practicing your best runway walk at Toronto Pride with your friends to none other than “Sissy That Walk.” Ru’s songs will continue to teach you important lessons on self-love and pride, but most importantly “unless they paying your bills pay those bitches no mind.”

Speaking of Drag Race, one of the guest judges is where you first see Lizzo. She is so confident and talented and teaches you to love yourself no matter what. Before the pandemic hits in the Winter/Spring of 2020, you and your friend attend Lizzo’s concert in the Fall of 2019. You dance and sing along at the top of your lungs as she belts out “Better in Colour” and “Like a Girl.” When she sings “Boys” (“I like big boys, itty bitty boys / Mississippi boys, inner city boys / I like the pretty boys with the bow tie / Get your nails did, let it blow dry / I like a big beard, I like a clean face / I don't discriminate, come and get a taste / From the playboys to the gay boys / Go and slay, boys, you my fave boys”) you laugh a laugh that comes from your belly as your friend shouts ‘that’s me!’ when Lizzo sings “to the gay boys.” And throughout the pandemic, you go back and listen to her album to remember that even in the darkest of times to continue to love yourself.

When the pandemic hits, so does the infamous app TikTok which popularizes songs such as ppcocaine’s “Three Musketeers.” Not only is the song rapped by lesbian couple ppcocaine and NextYoungin, but it is finally a popular song about woman on woman love and sexuality. You, your friends, and your partner can’t help but play this song on wine nights, dancing around the living room. You're finally seeing more representation for the LGBTQ+ community. You are even more proud when ppcocaine calls out all the hetero men using the song to glorify their hetero relationships with their girlfriends, claiming that the song is first and foremost about lesbian love.

Step 5: Take out of the oven to cool. Then decorate with some Pride and Fierceness.

When elections and politics pose threats to LGBTQ+ rights, you are pissed. You write emails and send letters. You post stories and reach out to your fellow Queers. You can’t understand why everyone can’t be loved and accepted. You don’t understand the hate. Like Taylor Swift, you wish you could just tell the homophobes “You Need To Calm Down.” And that is the song you listen to to block out the haters and continue to spread love. T-Swizzle, an ally and icon, belts out your frustrations to those who live in hatred and ignorance. Some days, you just want to send this verse to the haters: “You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace / And control your urges to scream about all the people you hate / 'Cause shade never made anybody less gay.” PERIOD.

Step 6: Serve to the ones you love and the ones that love you for you.

Cher. Gaga. Diana Ross. Madonna. LP. RuPaul. All these artists and many more give me a whole lot of love and pride for my identity and the identity of people around me. Spread the pride and spread the love. Be you and be proud of you!

Some honourable sprinkles:

Trixie Mattel “Girl Next Door”

Labrinth “Still Don’t Know My Name”

Lil Nas X “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”