Top 290 Queer Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

I hope people realize that drag queens and queer people, we're not just archetypes and stereotypes. We're human beings with a lot to share. And a drag queen doesn't have to just be a clown, she can also be like a cooking TV personality or like a DJ, or a talk-show host. We should be able to infiltrate TV everywhere.

I think that because I struggled and did get very bullied, that definitely made me learn how to be funny and let things roll off and be able to laugh, and I think that has definitely helped me when it comes to being in the public eye with 'Gay of Thrones' and 'Queer Eye.'

The word queer first started being used in the late 1980s by members of the community who wanted to reclaim something negative and turn it into a positive. It's still a painful word for some, and lots of people don't identify with it. But for me it's a helpful and empowering term that unifies an ever-growing community.

The more queer characters I play over my years of working as an actor, and the more I see other young artists stepping up with the same intention I have, to make space for the voices of a generation of people who may not fit the status-quo, the more it inspires me to keep going.

I personally always have a hard time relating to queer characters in media because I didn't really see myself in them. They were kind of pigeonholed early on as the gay character, and they would naturally end up with the other gay character who would emerge at some point as their love interest.

You know, in this industry, being an openly queer actor or entertainer, you can play the game your way, or you can play it the industry's way. And I decided to play it my way. I played it the industry's way far too long.

I would like to encourage hip hop artists to invite those of us who are in the queer spaces in, so we can have those conversations. I love hip hop. If you bring me in the studio, I know how to act. And we can talk about what's not cool because, clearly, there's still homophobia that penetrates in all these areas.

Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Jeff Sessions are using their powers and offices to make life as difficult as possible for everyone from the transgender worker to the gay widower to the queer undocumented immigrant. These efforts are not about bathrooms or religious freedom; they're about driving LGBTQ people out of public life.

I've known I was gay since I was young, I think. And I mean young - like, young - like 5 or 6. I think most gay people or queer people know there's something different about them very early, but I didn't know what to call it.

Even though I'm a hairdresser and I love doing hair, I feel like I don't look like a groomer. When I think of how a groomer would look in relation to the first version of 'Queer Eye,' I feel like I don't fit in that box.

All my friends were doing just dumb stuff that kids do, like making out with people at parties and starting to date... I didn't know any gay people growing up or any queer people growing up, and so I just really felt alone and kind of lost, and I just wasn't experiencing life.

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.

A lot of times, when parents overdiscipline their children, especially when they're queer, their intention isn't to hurt them. They think they're saving their children from harm. But they don't realize that they're causing harm, that they're doing to their kids exactly what they're afraid of the world doing to them.

I think that's the place ideally we'd like to get to as well, as queer people, where you can just judge the music for what it is and not just because it's gay. I think it's important that until we get to that place, statements have to be made, and we have to be loud and outward, so that's where I'm coming from.

From my youngest brother to immigrant women to black queer folks, those are the people who keep me going. When I think about their various acts of courage, it reminds me that I am not alone and that we can do even more, and we deserve more, so we have to keep going.

'RuPaul's Drag Race'... is very little about boys who dress up in girls' clothing: it's very much about grit, integrity, heart, power of perseverance, and the power of love. It's also opening a dialogue up about the persecution and the marginalization of trans people, of queer people, of gender non-binary and gender fluid people.

My friend and I were talking about the band Limp Wrist, and how cool that name is, so we started bouncing other queer-punk band names off each other. The first one I thought of was The Power Bottoms, which I later shortened to Power Bottom.

I hope we see more avenues for representation. More TV shows and films starring queer people, especially QPOC and nonbinary folks, more mainstream press coverage of our artwork and fashion, and more representation of our interests within politics.

To see queer people keeping each other down makes me so sad because I've been around for a long time - I've seen the people who came before us fight for what we have right now, and they did not fight like that for us to go backwards.

If you're writing a bi character, did you look at a lot of bi actors for the role? Did you really go and find people that identified as queer? If you did, then great, and if you didn't find anyone you liked in that pool, well, that's surprising. If you write a character that's trans, the time is now - cast a trans actor.

I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so not the case when I was a kid.

'Moonlight' is a story that hasn't been told. Whether placed as queer black cinema or urban male cinema, the lack of coming-of-age films featuring people like Chiron and set in places like inner-city Miami is pronounced and unfortunate.

What I didn't tell her was that I distinctly remember walking out of my junior year English class reading, 'Amandla Stenberg comes out as queer.' She unknowingly set a precedent in my life, a gold standard of how to be proud and exist in the intersectionality of multiple identities that were one thought of as being conflicting.

The Malays have many queer notions about tigers and usually only speak of them in whispers, because they think that certain souls of human beings who have departed this life have taken up their abode in these beasts, and in some places, for this reason, they will not kill a tiger unless he commits some specially bad aggression.

I knew marriage was not the answer to changing the conditions for poor, black, queer folks. So I never felt compelled to get married - it just didn't seem important. But even if marriage wasn't right for me at the time, or a quick fix toward black empowerment, I found it repulsive that loving same-sex couples were refused the right.

Yes, it's called 'Queer Eye' and there are five gay men on it, but we're also tackling real issues. The conversations we have on our show would be just as valid if they swapped us out with straight guys. What we do is important, not just because we're a niche gay show.

'Queer as Folk' is gay gay gay gay gay.

I just didn't like the word 'gay.' I still don't like it. It's a dumb way of describing sexuality. I like 'queer' or other words, but 'gay' is a word that had a completely different-meaning word and has been reappropriated. I just don't like it.

I think that I'm, like, an introverted extrovert. At the end of the day, when I get done doing hair at the salon or shooting a day of 'Queer Eye' or whatever, I definitely want to come home and, like, order pasta and sit with my cat or just one person or no people.

I really do pride myself on being able to help other people tell their stories and bring out the best in them. But I still, every song I'm writing, I still need to relate to it. I still need to find my true self in it, or else it'll feel dishonest. I mean, everything has a queer meaning as far as I'm concerned.

We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk - we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative.

I'm not going to force your participation in a conversation, I'm going to say I can be an example that these things can exist and don't have to be mutually exclusive. Like being a queer artist and being a Christian. Those things don't have to be mutually exclusive and I'm just going to be honest about them so that you know.

I would want to do a cooking show. But I want to honor the opportunity that's been given to me with 'Queer Eye.' I feel like my work is cut out for me with the show alone. If it ever goes bust, then I'll explore that possibility.

Drag Race' was, like, my outlet and finally being able to see myself in television and that was through Manila Luzon, who was a 'Drag Race' contestant. Manila was the first Asian queer person that I ever saw on mainstream media and 'Drag Race' really did that for me.

I want to do something that is not just a pastiche of drag that's come before but is really authentically me. I try to tune out all the drag that's out there and tap into the drag that I was doing when I was a little kid - when I didn't even know the word 'queer' or that gay people were out there.

I want to follow in RuPaul's footsteps, which is that combination of not just personal stardom but to really transform myself into a producer of drag. That's the way to make a lasting impact on the world of drag and... to make actual differences in the queer community. I think there's no better model for that than RuPaul.

Coming of age as a young queer man of color, it was a rarity to see any reflections of myself portrayed in mainstream media. Turning on the television or going to the movies was an escape into the imagination, yet it did not allow me a place of true connection to what I was viewing on the screen in front of me.

For queer people, the personal is very political, just to talk about it in a public space. It's very political just to come out and take up that space and be like, 'This is my narrative. It's not an outsider narrative, and it's not a fetish narrative; it's just my story, and it's worth being told and listened to.'

I don't want to be a queer icon. I want to be an icon.

It's not called 'Queer Eye For the Straight Guy' now for a reason. We want to be able to help more and more people, and why wouldn't we help women, and why wouldn't we help a trans man? I want to help as many different groups as physically possible with this show.

In some ways, I value specificity. I think that there's power in, once you know who your fan base is, being able to speak to them. I hope to cultivate a fan base of black girls and black people and people of color, women of color, queer people, people who are are marginalized in general.

A friend told me about the casting notice for 'Queer Eye.' I was in Chicago and I had a contract with 'Esquire' magazine, so had been coming to New York City regularly and thought I'd catch a cheap flight, crash on a friend's sofa and do this hilarious audition that I had no chance of winning.

Of course I was bullied and of course I was called names - my last name is Weir. That's very, very close to 'weird,' or 'queer' and any of those words. But I've never been anyone to cry over spilled milk or be upset because kids don't like me, or people don't like me... It makes my skin stronger and thicker. And why cry? Your mascara runs.

I think any time we do drag, especially in 2018, it's a political statement. Because we're living in a world where people don't see drag queens as equal. They don't see queer people as equal. They don't see people of any minority as equal.

Drag, at its core, is about honoring yourself and your own unique way of being a gendered, queer person. Your own unique way of using fashion to express yourself.

I'm just trying to blur this very clear line we've drawn and are drawing over and over and over again between communities. Saying those are queer films and those are films. I would love for that line to disappear. For that frontier to be abolished once and for all.

We still live in a country where there's disproportionate violence faced by our community, especially trans people and trans people of color. I think activism within the queer community continues to need to focus on those issues first.

I actually don't label myself, but... Some people call me queer; some people call me bisexual, whatever it is now. I'm happy with all of it 'cause it all sort of represents me, in a way. I spent a majority of my life in the closet.

Growing up as a queer child in Mississippi, I got my Nintendo in 1985, and I've been lost in this world ever since. When I was scared because my church said people like me were going to burn in hell, 'Final Fantasy,' 'Dragon Warrior' and 'Super Mario' offered a lifeboat.

I'd only been out for, like, six months before I booked 'Insurgent'. It was my first role in America, and it was a huge movie franchise. All I'd ever hear at the time was how Hollywood treated gay men or queer men, so I was, like, 'Well, I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot before I've even started life here,' you know?