Five Ways to Engage with Queer Culture
A guide to a queerer life for the newly out, the lonely queer, or those who need just a little more gayness in their life.
I came out in my last year at my Christian college. My school was small. The “city” it was in was smaller. As a result, the gay culture, though there, didn’t have the economic power to support any businesses that could serve as our hub.
So what was a new baby gay to do? Grindr was out of the question, the pool of guys was too small plus I was still too shy for all of that.
I was having a great time with the friends I had pre-coming out. But still, I had not a single gay friend in my life to tell me how to live my new gay life.
I wish there was a resolution there, but there wasn’t. In my last semester, COVID hit, and my undergraduate career was effectively over—along with the possibility of forming any new in-person queer friendships for the next several months.
Now, however, things are much different. I have a solid group of queer friends, I am in graduate school studying LGBTQ+ literature and theory, and probably 70% of the content I consume from all different directions is queer or queer-adjacent.
In this post I’ll share a few of the ways that I was “initiated” into queer culture and how it has made me not only more comfortable with my identity but proud to be a part of this community.
What to Expect
- Background — The Need for Cultural Literacy
- Read Queer Books
- Watch Queer Films and TV Shows
- Listen to Queer Music
- Interact with Queer Social Media
- Meet Other Queer People
Background—The Need for Cultural Literacy
Back in the early 2000s, a group of scholars called the New London Group redefined literacy. With the expansion of technology and the seemingly limitless ways to communicate with one another, a person cannot be considered literate unless they understand how to communicate using all of those tools.
Moreover, understanding how culture influences, impacts, and constitutes the meaning of shared symbols, ideas, and values, being culturally literate was also added as a requirement.
Bridging the gap between rhetorical theory and queer culture, being a flourishing member of the queer community necessitates understanding our culture.
This doesn’t mean that there’s a citizenship test to enter the community. Rather, it means that as LGBTQ+ people, we have created a vibrant culture full of art, music, film, etc.
This culture, since it was created by us, can help us better understand not only each other but ourselves.
Read Queer Books
Like I said above, I was looking to interact with gay culture at the same time that COVID hit. So, like the rest of the world, I was restricted to contactless culture. Being the bibliophile that I am, my first choice for consuming queer culture was to buy books.
I mean I paid someone’s salary with how many books I bought.
While my desire to join queer literary culture had an academic aspect to it, you don’t need to be an all-A student to get into the queer book scene. There are plenty of YA, graphic novels, children’s books—even Star Wars comics that feature queer storylines.
Getting into LGBTQ+ books is, I think, the best way to really understand and grapple with how we can interact with and in the reigning heterosexist culture.
Watch Queer Films and TV Shows
I get it. Books take a lot more effort than reading. Some of you reading this might balk at that, saying that you much prefer reading a good, hard-to-crack novel to a night spent on the couch eating pizza and watching the Kardashians.
Sure.
However, LGBTQ+ shows and movies are easily the cultural artifacts that are experienced by the widest variety and highest number of queer people.
RuPaul’s Drag Race takes the cake for popularity. While some have moral qualms with RuPaul, the show can introduce you to a good number of other drag queens who have moved on to other projects. Schitt’s Creek and Queer Eye also have a wide audience, both straight and LGBTQ+.
Thinking films, movies such as Call Me by Your Name, Love Simon, and Fire Island, are fairly popular. These can provide a similar feeling to reading—in a lot less time.
However, I would wager to guess that engaging with queer film culture is less likely to serve as the foundation for a chat with any given gay man at the bar than any of the shows mentioned above.
Listen to Queer Music
Another way to connect to LGBTQ+ people from a distance is by listening to their music. Now, this can be a little tricky, as what counts as “queer music” is slippery. On the one hand, there is music by queer people. On the other hand, there is music that has traditionally been a part of queer culture because of the influence of ballroom and club culture on gay culture.
The first category includes artists like Hozier, Troye Sivan, Ryan Beatty, and Jake Wesley Rogers. While these artists create and perform fantastic songs that encapsulate and distill different aspects of queer experience, they aren’t always the most well-known. (Comment below if you’ve ever listened to the last two artists.)
Speaking for specifically American gay male culture as opposed to the broader queer world, female artists that fit the diva category are listened to far more often by far more gay people than any LGBTQ+ artist.
Regardless of the reason for this trend, trying out this specific variety of music could help you make connections with other LGBTQ+ folks and understand certain references in popular shows and films.
Interact with Queer Social Media
Assuming you’re interested in at least one of the three types of content we’ve talked about, try finding them on different social media platforms. Authors, musicians, actors, and reality tv stars are on social media just as much, if not more than regular people. For many, it’s part of their job.
If you take a liking to a particular celebrity personality (A-list or otherwise), find their socials.
If you already like them, chances are you’ll like their personal content even better. There are thousands of pages and profiles dedicated to queer humor, fashion, literary culture, and even some that give specific advice to finding your way as a queer person.
That’s not all, though. Check the comments on different posts, check out suggested content, and check out who your selected stars are following. Soon enough, your Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, or whatever else you use will be full of LGBTQ+ content.
Following a variety of different types of people is even more helpful. The differences in content can reveal just how vast our community is and help you find which particular cultural niche you yourself might fit into best.
Meet Other Queer People
Lastly, the most obvious way to engage with queer culture is to make friends with other queer people. Since we’re everywhere, you can meet others, well, anywhere. Moreover, there are a number of apps and online spaces that facilitate meeting other queer folks. This last point is especially important if you live somewhere smaller and think there are no people like you around.
Making queer friends is different from the other cultural practices above because, here, you participate in the creation of queer culture.
If you aren’t into Drag Race, or reading, or Call Me by Your Name, chances are there are other LGBTQ+ folks out there that feel the same way. Whatever you’re interested in, there is another person from our tribe that thinks the way you do.
Overall, experiencing queer culture allows us to flourish as queer people.
Just as any culture finds meaning, enjoyment, and companionship in what members of that culture create, learning about LGBTQ+ culture helps integrate us into the community.
Without understanding the passions, concerns, values, and languages of our community, how can we come to understand one another—or ourselves?
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, be sure to follow, leave a comment, a clap, a note — anything! Check out my profile for more LGBTQ+, literary, or habits for reading and writing content.
