Todd Haynes Quotes

The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

Historically a publicly unaccepted but incredibly rich culture, queer love was only able to exist privately for a long time, expressed in society through coded art forms.

America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

We need to talk about representation for queer people in the media and also in law. And there's a long history of drag queens leading those discussions in marches on the street and even in bars going back to the time of Stonewall and before.

I've always been a huge 'Divine' fan. He was so iconic and so ground-breaking, especially for the time that he was around, because he was not only breaking barriers in the regular world, just being openly gay, but in the drag world as well.

Gay culture is in a coming-out process of its own. From out of the closets in the '60s, the culture moved onto the disco floors of the '70s and through the hospital wards of the '80s and onwards to the streets.

The death of anti-gay hate speech is no doubt being hastened by the head-spinning speed with which gays as a group - to say nothing of gay marriage - are becoming an unremarkable and even quite traditional parts of American life.

When I grew up, there were no songs about gay people.

I think it's interesting: What is the generational effect of the experience of being a gay person in America? For my generation, it was very difficult.

Part of the new morality of the '60s and '70s is a new attitude toward homosexuality. The homosexual men and women have organized to fight for acceptance and respectability.

A triumph of consciousness-raising has been the homosexual hijacking of the word 'gay.'

I read everything and anything related to being queer. I found solace in reading authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, who would become my activist staples - their words helped me grow up and taught me how to be bold and courageous. By studying them, I came to understand that being young and queer and black would not be easy.

When 'Drag Race' first began, it seemed like a fun window into an underground culture, but over the nine years it has aired, the show has evolved to reflect America's changing relationship to queer rights and acceptance.

I grew up in a time where there were no queer digital references.

When I meet gay kids and they know who we are, I remember that's amazing because literally every gay person in every gay story I knew growing up was doomed to die. There weren't any positive gay stories and it's incredible that has changed.

What we do is provide a suggestion. We say, 'We're queer. We're going to do this; we're going to open up the space to queer thought.' People don't have to show up, but they do.

I love St. Vincent. She is like our queer rock goddess and that's so needed.

We are traumatized by growing up in a world that doesn't really accept us. Obviously, we've made great leaps and bounds, but I think there's a tendency to force a narrative onto queer people that once you come out... you have to be really happy and really successful and proud all the time.

My brownness is something that I can't hide. There are some straight-acting or straight-passing queer people out there, but I'm not one of them. This is something I would rather not have to hide.

I get a real thrill for being 'overtly queer' in my aesthetic.

I think, from the beginning, I was healed and inspired by queer culture, and Christine and the Queens, as an idea from the beginning, is queer because it questions the norm.

It's so important to recognize that there have been fabulous queer artists all throughout our history.

We must be vigilant in sharing our stories and our truths as queer parents of color at every chance we get if we hope to see art imitate real life.

The stories I grew up with, whether it came to queer representation or representation of anyone that was different, it was always a story of, like, very sad, usually ended up with somebody dying, and it made the idea of being queer or different really scary, actually.

The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay. The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.