Queercore: How To Punk A Revolution (2017) - full transcript

♪ Summer's here ♪

♪ And I jump into my car ♪

♪ Take a drive down a highway ♪

♪ To the local queer bar ♪

♪ Pull your back, bar ♪

♪ We're going to a fag bar ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

- If you tell
yourself a lie over and over,

you start to believe it.

When imagination takes over,

when we close our eyes,



ideas and fantasy worlds start to form.

Daydreams, moments free
of constraints and rules.

Truth can be thrown out of the window

or rearranged in a new image.

Homocore, Queercore,
started as a secret society,

a make believe world, a
farce that became real.

Conceived a generation before the internet

by a couple of frustrated 20-year-olds.

They punked a revolution
on their own terms.

♪ Are you a boy or are you a girl ♪

♪ In your bleached blonde hair ♪

- The early roots of punk were actually

quite sexually radical and diverse.

There was a lot of sexual experimentation,



sexual ambivalence,
bisexuality, transsexuals.

♪ You put the boys and girls
in some kind of trance ♪

♪ In your skintight pants ♪

The problem with the gay
scene in the mid-80s was that

for us the gay scene
was completely bourgeois

and conventional.

There was a lot of conformist behavior.

It was also very divided
in terms of male and female

and we didn't feel welcome.

I mean, I would get kicked
out of gay bars in Toronto

for wearing swastika earrings.

My style wasn't recognized
as part of the gay movement.

So I was actually looked
at with a lot of suspicion,

like they thought I was
going to beat them up.

- Corner of Wellington and Portland.

Probably some sort of domestic dispute.

Looks like a couple of fag, homosexuals.

We're just going to let them sort it out.

- We were influenced
by The Situationists

and Society of the Spectacle

and The Revolution of Everyday Life

and books like that, so our
idea was to create a spectacle,

create personae, invent
characters, invent a whole scene.

- Gays, lesbians,
bisexual, transgender people

were living outside of the law.

It wasn't technically illegal

but in every other way
behavior was still policed.

Gender representation was still policed,

not just by neighbors,
friends, schoolmates,

associates, but by the police.

People were being arrested.

My friends were being
beaten up on the street.

- So we decided that
we would form a rag tag gang

of queer revolutionaries.

You had to be queer,

an outlaw by birthright so to speak.

There would be no dress code, no style,

no fixed symbol or logo.

We'd be more like a pack of wolves

than a full-fledged existing gang.

And that was fine by us.

We wanted to be a circus, not a church.

♪ Be a fag ♪

♪ Be a fag ♪

♪ Be a fag ♪

- Occupying a position
where you are outside

of the laws of the
country that you live in

gives you an entirely
different perspective than

having legal status.

Because you develop a critical

faculty in order to look at
the society you're living in,

and you don't just take
everything for granted.

You learn how to examine things

and navigate through a hostile landscape.

♪ Be a fag ♪

♪ Be a fag ♪

♪ Be a fag ♪

- I was rejected by two subcultures,

which was the gay subculture
and the punk subculture.

So I've always felt like I'm
on the fringe of the fringe.

In Toronto in the 80s there
was a hardcore punk scene

but there wasn't an alternative
scene for queer kids,

so our strategy was to
pretend that Toronto

had a full fledged crazy gay
punk scene already happening.

And it was dykes and faggots together,

and transgender people and
everyone already fighting

against not only the bourgeoisie within

the gay orthodoxy, but
against the macho punks

who weren't as radical
as they claimed to be,

who couldn't deal with homos and dykes.

- Look, you say
you wanna be in this movie

but there is no roles for skinheads.

Skinheads are too neo-Nazi to
hold the fascination of, say,

a new, revolutionary youth cult.

So, what's it gonna be?

Skinhead, or a star?

Say Doc Marten.

- Part of our modus operandi
was to go to punk shows

or have straight punk
boys over to our house

and get them drunk, and then we'd get them

to take their clothes off
and take pictures of them

and put them in our
movies or our fanzines.

- We had the bases covered.

An upfront cult style allegiance under the

banners of good old punk
rock, sex, and violence.

And we were convinced that no one was

gonna take us seriously.

But people did.

Dozens of them.

- And it actually worked.

I mean people thought that Toronto was the

hub of this hardcore gay punk movement.

And it turned out to
just be me and two women,

who sat in their basement and churned out

alternative publications
and experimental movies.

- I had read a lot
of Situationists theory

and I had certain ideas about what happens

when you push situations in a
culture to the breaking point,

And when you reach a point
where society can't contain the

contradictions any longer,
it forces a change.

If the theory was right, and it was right.

- I met G.B. and
Fifth Column, the girl band

that G.B. Jones was a member of.

They were, in their way,
deeply feminist as I was.

And then I just started
go-go dancing for them

shortly after that.

- What did you bring?

- Oh, I brought my new go-go boy.

Put on a song, he'll prance for us.

- Really?

♪ Oh you insecure little bitch ♪

- And then I moved in with them.

G.B. Jones already had
amazing, kind of unorthodox

punk fanzines that had a
lot of homosexual subtext.

So they were much more broad minded

and they were into all
sorts of doing kinds of

alternative culture.

- Zines are
self-published magazines,

the analog predecessor to
blogs and social media.

They were huge in the 80s and 90s.

Traded at concerts, sold for
change at cool book shops

or mail ordered and delivered
in a brown envelope.

Inside the small photocopied
pages were stories

about loud bands, punk scenes
and Do-It-Yourself politics.

- I thought it
would be really exciting

to start a zine for our
crowd so I asked Bruce

if he wanted to do a zine with me

and we started doing J.D.s.

- We lived in
this really ramshackeled

kind of squat like building
that was really falling apart

and decrepit.

It was like this little punk
community, and G.B. and I

would sit upstairs and we'd do J.D.s.

We'd cut and paste and
write our manifestos.

♪ If I do that, the tabloids
will have a field day ♪

♪ I wanna go and have some fun ♪

♪ Go where the action is ♪

♪ So who the hell are you to tell me ♪

- Bruce LaBruce
was also an invention.

He claimed J.D.s stood
for Juvenile Delinquents

but later for James Dean, J.D. Salinger,

and Jeffrey Dahmer.

He claimed he himself was
a creation of G.B. Jones,

having described himself
as Frankenstein's monster.

- My philosophy of
homosexuality has always been

to embrace the things
that make you different,

to embrace the more radical

aspects of gay identity.

We even went as far to say, in J.D.s,

homosexual is criminal,
and kind of like actually

embraced the criminality of homosexuality.

- Yes, tons of shock value,

'cause it wasn't activism,
it wasn't protest,

it wasn't about legalities
and mechanism of the state.

And on the other hand,
it was about culture,

aesthetics, glamour, stardom, freedom,

all the things that can be
used as opposition to a state.

- It had a lot of different elements.

It was very politically
serious on one hand

and very frivolous on the other.

There was a certain amount of camp.

There was a lot of auto-critique.

And that's part of the strategy
of building up a spectacle,

so you can create a spectacle
and then tear it down,

and that was done through
laughing at yourself.

A lot.

"You're a skinhead, aren't you?" I said.

I could tell right away.

I happen to know a fair
bit about skinheads,

believe it or not.

It's kind of a hobby with me.

An obsession, almost.

You see, I'm a hairdresser.

- We really started
in the anarchist community,

we didn't really start
in the gay community.

That was our milieu
really, and the punk scene

and the post-punk scene,
and experimental filmmakers

and artists.

Like that's really where we came out of.

- This isn't your movie
anymore, it's our movie.

- Now you're in our movie.

Why would we wanna be in your movie?

We can make our own movies now.

- Yeah, we're gonna
make our own movies.

- Yeah.

- We know just as
many perverts as you do.

- Yeah.

- You don't wanna make
communication an elite thing.

And I think that's really a
lot of what punk was about,

you know, a hands on, do what you want

of the people type of thing, you know.

You didn't have to worry about
that you didn't have access

to the media, to television,

book publishing or
whatever, you made your own.

You made your own record,
you make your own fan zine,

you made your own scene.

- We talked a lot about
how the roots of punk

were very queer.

And the original
etymology of the word punk

was based on jailhouse
slang where punks were

the passive boys in jail
who got fucked up the ass.

- Punk when started it
really was the potential for,

you know queer stuff, and
it was definitely there.

I mean it kinda just under
the surface, you know.

♪ Be quiet or be killed ♪

♪ He said ♪

♪ In front of you and in front of me ♪

♪ He made the pilot get on his knees ♪

♪ Made him crawl, made him whimper ♪

♪ Made him cry out for his mother ♪

♪ Wow, what a show ♪

♪ 122 hours of fear ♪

♪ Wow, what a show ♪

♪ 122 hours of fear ♪

♪ 122 hours of fear ♪

- The So Cal punk scene had Nervous Gender

and Phranc and The Germs
and Catholic Discipline,

and bands that represented
alternative sexuality.

♪ A homosexual nymphomaniac ♪

♪ A homosexual nymphomaniac ♪

♪ A homosexual nymphomaniac ♪

♪ Walking in the streets of Galilee ♪

♪ Walking the streets of Galilee ♪

- By the end of the 70s and the early 80s,

the first wave of punk
which had been pretty open

and accepting to weirdos of all kinds,

it got replaced by more
and more stereotypical

kind of violence and
shows became very scary.

- I think mid to late 80s,
punk had become very macho

and it was homophobic,
and I would get beat up

at hardcore shows for looking queer.

J.D.s was really a revenge zine,

it was a revenge against the macho punks.

Of course it was pre-internet,

and we sent it to people.

We advertised it in Maximumrocknroll

and Factsheet 5 and Forced
Exposure or whatever

fanzine that had a larger circulation.

- When we were
touring we were kind of like

this travelling circus, practically.

"Here's the band, and here's the zines

"and here's the movies, and..."

And that's really how it
spread so quickly because

people were encountering it
on so any different levels.

So then Bruce and I kind
of put across this idea

that this is like a huge
international movement

and people believed it.

- Thank you for coming
to the show to actually see

the DIY bands play.

We don't need the corporate bullshit.

- Although the kids in Toronto

are mostly credited for creating Homocore,

they weren't the only ones.

In Los Angeles the punk
drag queen Vaginal Davis

ruled the scene.

In San Francisco, two
anarchists, Deke and Tom,

started a zine they called
Homocore, solidifying the name.

- In San Francisco, at
that time, there was like

this layer of like arty
weirdos and we were less

concerned with who was gay or not

than having like, a
cohort to hang out with.

Punk and gay overlap was at the fringes.

- Tom expressed a lot of discontent over

how he felt marginalized,
it just felt like there

was something missing.

- We found J.D.s, you know, it didn't have

any straight forward manifesto
or statement of purpose.

It was an aesthetic
created in images and text,

we were like, "Fuck yes!

"I don't know why this is
good, but this is really good."

It started with anarchist bookstore crowd.

We went to this anarchist
conference in Toronto and,

when we got there and I met Deke.

- Within the first couple
days they had a queer

anarchist circle.

- And when all the straight
boys were throwing rocks

and getting all righteous, we were like,

hanging out like "Wow,
queer punks, oh cool!"

- Everybody wanted, you know,
scene reports if you will.

What's going on in your town?

When it came my turn
I said something like,

you know, I'm the only person in my scene

who is willing to be out
and Tom Jennings heard me.

He was the one in the crowd who thought,

"Yeah, you know, what about
all those isolated kids

"out there?"

- When I came back from
the anarchist conference,

I did the first issue of Homocore in

response to my experience in Toronto,

where I met Bruce and all that stuff.

- In true punk rock
fashion we disseminated

our ideas through a zine.

Photocopied communiques,
cut and paste collages.

Pornography, blasphemy, anarchy, sodomy.

Sure it's been done before.

But the best thing that could
happen is not to be unique,

but to be part of an ongoing history.

- G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce
had been putting out J.D.s,

they had a couple of
issues out and that's where

Tom swiped the word Homocore from.

- The core was important
as the homo, you know,

so it was about hardcore punk.

- I thought it was
funny to play on hardcore

and I thought it would being
really upsetting for people.

♪ Rebel rebel on the street ♪

- We did a show at the
Deaf Club, which was a venue

for the very early punk scene
and then it kind of gone away.

It was clubhouse for deaf
people and they let people

put on punk shows there
'cause the noise didn't

bother them, but they would
use to dance to the vibrations

and the stomping of the floor.

And so for the first time in a few years,

we did a Homocore benefit
show there with MDC

and that was kind of the launch.

- I didn't do this
consciously, I'd love to take

credit for these things.

No, in fact we set it up
to end up making the world

we wanted to live in, 'cause
you can either complain

or you gonna do something.

So basically Deke and
I became sort of cohort

and worked on Homocore together.

We were selectively
documenting things that

we liked in the world, and
intentionally or otherwise,

creating this mythology of
queer punk in San Francisco

that did not exist.

That was the point.

It really didn't exist.

- We had a Homocore
top 10 list of bands

that we really liked that
had gay themed songs.

- Some of the songs
were very homophobic.

I had no problem like
putting in a band writing

a homophobic song claiming
they are part of a movement

of queers that wanted to do punk music.

What a better way to get revenge on them?

- We were grasping for stuff
that was musically compatible.

Like, "Look, this is a great punk song!

"Oh, you're a bunch of dickheads.

"Oh, well that's less interesting now."

Unless you're really cute

and that last for like 15 minutes, right?

So there was a bunch of that.

♪ Fuck you, say my name ♪

♪ Fuck you, say my name ♪

- Anti-Scrunti Faction,
A.S.F, I think it was

the first real dyke band.

The name Anti-Scrunti
Faction makes fun of like

the straight girls that
would go to the shows

just to blow the guys in the band.

They made up a name for
those girls, scrunti.

And then their band was
Anti-Scrunti Faction.

- Donna was trying to form bands

and find compatible
people, and review records,

and a few times we just went
off and sort of made stuff up.

We just found records that seemed

like they'd be compatible.

- It's no mistake, that in every society,

in every tribal structure there
are laws governing sexuality

and to us that suggests that sexuality

has in itself some power and energy,

which is, these societies
and controls have

a vested interest in suppressing.

That freedom is taken away
when there is a threat,

therefore there is a threat
to control from sexuality,

therefore it ought to be
investigated and liberated.

There was a disconnect
between the roots of punk

and how it has been
expressed and revealed,

it was the same old fear of
exposure went for a while.

So for me it was just really
liberating and refreshing

when it finally became
integrated again with queer.

Because, if a community
has any right to shout

about inequity, it's
the gay queer community.

It certainly has been for a long time, so,

it just seemed to me completely
logical that at some point

that outrage at inequity,

would also be expressed more
in terms of gender politics

because there was so many
queer people involved.

That it would start towards
on them, it's not just

about mundane, day-to-day party politics.

It goes much deeper.

It's about human rights,
it's about the right

to be whoever you want to be,

which is was what some
of the earlier songs

were saying over and over.

- Meanwhile, AIDS had already
devastated the gay community.

- The US government
wanted all queer people

to be dead and they were defunding our art

and saying that we were
just going to burn in hell

and people showing up at performances,

protestors, right-wing
fanatical Christians,

harassing us and trying to silence us.

- I was just
wondering, do you think

I'll be the next the gay
celebrity to die of AIDS?

I mean, I've been lying
here thinking of them all.

- Well, I wouldn't worry about it.

You're not that famous yet.

- Some people were doing ACT UP,

and felt like the first thing
was to try to save our dying.

Some people felt like it's
important to fight for

the sick among us, but it's
also important to have a life,

here and now.

We can't just be reduced to dying of AIDS,

we have to have our own culture,

our own spaces, our own movements,

our own, you know, positive
part of living, too.

And that's were I think groups
like Queer Nation came from.

It was a much more
proactive agenda, that said,

"Okay, let's get back to Gay Liberation."

- Queer Nation was a relatively
diverse organization,

and I joined it in San
Francisco, and it was all about

queer visibility.

It just became an intentional,
political choice to go out

and be seen, and be queer,
and be in-your-face,

and have people know that we
existed and what we were about.

- We had been with ACT
UP, we had been political,

we'd been roaming around but we hadn't yet

found that community, and we
went to that gay pride parade,

oh, I remember it.

- Two, four, six, eight,

gays and lesbians educate!

Two, four, six, eight, how do you know

your teacher's straight?

- And here it comes!

- I was by myself, I hadn't
made that many friends

at that point.

I said, "I'm gonna go,
and I'm just gonna stand

"at the beginning of the parade route,

"and when I see a float or an organization

"or some people that I feel
like I can fit in with,

"I'm just jumping in the parade."

- We did a float at the
Gay Pride Parade in 1989

in San Francisco where

a rich benefactor rented a
junk car and a tow truck.

And we painted the car to look
vaguely like a police car,

and somebody made a giant
papier maché high heel,

which we stuck in the top of
the car as if was crushing

the police car.

And we towed this thing down Market Street

as our parade entry.

And just sort of let it all
hang out that we were the punks,

he hated the police,
because they hated us.

- And all the sudden, around
the corner comes this.

- They pulled the cop car,
they all were around it,

and I remembered that it
was like a bunch of punks

pulling out baseball bats
and proceeding to smash

the cop car and I was just like, "Yes."

- Then on the trunk they
had taken an apple crate

and bolted it to the trunk,

and filled it with high heels.

So then I just jumped into the parade,

and grabbed a high heel and started

pounding this police car
and we just basically

destroyed this police car.

- Which I just love that we have these

butch and femme memories.

For me it was the baseball bat,

so for Justin it was the high heel shoe.

- And so all of these
people became my friends,

and then I had a community.

It was a life-changing day,

it was really amazing.

- It was a crystallizing
moment because we were like,

"That's our people."

But we didn't look like
them yet so we went home

and cut our hair into
Mohawks and like went

and found that scene, but it was that day

and like seeing that action.

It was like falling in love.

Here comes another one of

those quiet groups.

- It's their subtlety!

That's what this parade
is all about, subtlety.

- In front of that was a banner that said

"No apologies, no assimilation ever,"

which caused some frontally
debate in the group

because some people
thought that assimilation

was maybe not for them, but
culturally the right way to go

to take the animus out of homophobia.

Others of us felt like assimilation

into a death culture
was itself a death trap.

You know, you demand the
right to serve in the military

and you're gonna end up
dropping phosphorous bombs

on Afghani kids, and
really, is that liberation?

Is that freedom?

We didn't feel it was
the spirit of the early

gay rights movement and
in a wider cultural sense

was always something that
punk rock actively critiqued.

- Gays now are really selling
themselves short, I think.

Because they traditionally have
had such a great opportunity

to be different and to be
the avant-garde, you know,

and to be glamorous,
and to be outsiders who

look at the dominant culture

or the dominant ideology from
a distance, and they can be

like spies or double agents.

That's much more glamorous than trying

to convince everyone
that you're just the same

as everyone else and you
have the same feelings

and you just want to raise a family,

and, you know, be a well
balanced individual.

- A person who functions normally

in a sick society is himself sick.

- That's what's happened
a lot in the gay movement,

The oppressed have become the oppressors.

- In the late 70s,

mid-70s actually, people started
coming out of the closet.

People who dragged their feet
coming out of the closet,

came out of the closet
and immediately started

forming committees.

Where they tried to tell the rest of us

who were never in the closet

what we could say and what we could do.

Oh, they wanted to be professionally gay,

they wanted to be gay.

They had meetings where they decided that

we couldn't say dyke, we couldn't say fag,

we couldn't say queer.

Oh, they hated the word queer!

Ooh, ooh.

Losers, freaks, and deviants started

the gay liberation
movement, not these fuckin'

control freaks.

We wanted them to go back in the closet.

Now all of a sudden these
same kind of people,

now they all wanna be queer.

Well, they're not queer.

Queer means you have no friends.

Queers means that you have
sustained a period of rejection,

isolation and exclusion so profound

that it marks you as an outsider forever.

Yeah.

You know, in the 60s
when we said straight,

we never meant heterosexual.

We meant narrow-minded.

And the gay world has
gotten to be a straighter,

and straighter and a straighter place.

And I don't have any
preparation or any inclination

to live in a completely straight world.

- This journey of freedom
can only really begin

when all are one sex,

one gender,

one true experience.

Queer to me means refusing
to be part of the status quo,

refusing to accept the
mantle of so called normalcy.

- Actually this time really
rejecting gay in general,

the gay community must be destroyed.

- The thing is, that they
want to be separate by equal.

- I think that identity
politics are for people

who don't have an identity.

You know, because to me,
why you would describe

yourself only by your sexuality?

- You see, they never talk about anything

but their sex life.

That's why they have to be separate.

- I'm still more at home in a punk bar

than a gay bar if you
want to know the truth.

I'd get laid better.

More my type, the few maybe,

not everybody's gay but
they're more well rounded.

So, the punk community is always, I feel,

very safe with and very at home with.

Like the straight gay people I know today

that are more conservative
than my parents were,

there's more rules in the
gay world now than there

was in the world I rebelled from.

But I don't know any straight
punks meaning that way.

You know, that look punks,
but they are very conservative

in real life.

I don't know too many of them.

- We hated nice gay people,

we hated the fake friendliness
of our supposed community.

We hated the homogenization
brought on by years

of shit dance music and designer clothes.

Of course you could commodify each other,

you all look the fucking same.

We hated the sexism, the
racism, the classism.

We hated their drugs, their
bathouses, bars and clubs.

More than anything, we
didn't want to fit in.

Like the tattoo says, we
wanted to be godless, lawless,

and nomadic.

You alienated us before
we even got started.

But you know, when all was said and done,

when all of this was over,
when the blood and spunk

had dried and there is
nothing left for us to say,

what we came up with,
no matter how dogeared

and fucked up it all was, what we came up

with was better than any of this.

When you realize that you're queer,

and you look back at the
way you've been treated

or the things that you've been told about

the way society is allowed to treat you,

the way you are supposed
to think about yourself

in relationship to
society that say you're,

you know, perverse or
you're evil or like any

of these kind of like

pejorative terms that
have been thrown at you.

When you realize that that's wrong

fundamentally, and that you
know innately in yourself

that you're connecting
with something that's

not only correct but natural,

I think that there's a
process that one goes through

where one starts to analyze
all of the other systems

that one's involved in,

and then we go through and
analyze them as stringently.

What else I've been told that's not true?

What else have I been convinced of

that's actually false?

What else is supported
and sustained by society

that maybe is artificial?

And so I think that this
alignment of queer and punk

was a really, really
natural kind of alignment.

Punks have always been
questioning the status quo

and, you know, queers very
naturally should be, too.

- It's true that there
will be no revolution

without sexual revolution.

But, it's also true that there will be

no be sexual revolution
without homosexual revolution.

Do you know what I mean?

- The idea of a homosexual
agenda sounds like you're

actively trying to recruit straight people

into homosexuality, for
example, which I think is

a great pastime.

You know, I think it's a
really worthy goal so, why not?

I mean, there's always
been this perception

that gays are this kind of
predatory kind of animal,

which I think is quite exciting.

- Heterosexuality is the
opiate of the masses.

- Yes, Gudrun.

- Join the homosexual Intifada!

- I know, Gudrun.

- I like the idea of embracing

the negative stereotypes that

straight society has about homosexuals

and really sticking it to them.

- We felt that at its
strongest queer culture

represented a standing
critique of the entire society

and its illnesses and what
needed to be overthrown,

you know, a much more
revolutionary take on the

potential of queer liberation.

And that in fact, queer
liberation represents

a sexual liberation for
everyone including straights.

And Homocore is an expression
of that in its time and place,

that liberation, not
assimilation, critique.

We kind of felt like we were putting

the punk back in the homo movement,

and the homo back in the punk
movement at the same time.

- It brought a lot of people out

because up to that time it
was, you, people felt trapped.

They felt "Well, okay.

"I like guys, but does that
mean that I have to like disco?

"They all go together, right?

"Those horrible clothes, and disco music?

"So if I like guys I gotta like disco

"and have bad taste in clothes?"

Homocore, Tom's magazine, and the stuff

that Bruce LaBruce was doing
freed people from doing that.

"Yeah, I can like guys and
have a black leather jacket.

"All right!"

So, it was like a great leap forward,

and it really lead to the
freedom and liberation

for a lot of people who
were kept in the closet,

not from the society's "Oh, you're bad if

"you're a homosexual", but
they were kept in the closet

because they liked stuff that wasn't gay.

And, what could they do?

They had to choose, and Homocore let them.

"Oh, you don't have to choose.

"You can have your cock and
eat it, too."

♪ Just you and I ♪

♪ In a dream ♪

- All these celebrities
coming out of the closet

has contributed to gay culture
becoming very mediocre.

It's taking the mystique
out of homosexuality.

- Why can't homosexuality
be an invisible influence

on art and culture and the media?

That's what I don't understand.

- You know, I'm gay but I
don't like all gay things,

sometimes they're terrible.

So I think the gay punk rock
movement was brave enough

to admit that, that gay is not enough.

- I think queer
culture has to step back

from the really narrow
definition that people

in the last century have imposed upon it,

and open itself back up
to what it used to be,

prior to the narrow focus
that's been forced upon it

because of the necessity
of political activism.

- Oh, those queers.

They're fuckin' political.

- Oh, so political.

It's time to get apolitical,
back to our gay roots.

- The artist is more
important than the activist.

- Let's round up the
bitches and kick some ass.

- I thought, "I wanna
do some kind of activism

"that sort of picks up
where ACT UP left off.

"I wanna do cultural activism."

I'm a musician.

I'll form a band.

Turns out other people had the
same idea at the same time.

- We created this little world
that was kind of fictional,

but then it did start to
develop into something real.

So in the early 90s bands
actually started forming

and contributing original music to J.D.s.

- Before the Sex Pistols
formed Malcolm McLaren

had this idea of what he
wanted a band to be like,

before there was a band like that

and before there was a scene.

It's kind of the same
way with Homocore with

G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce in Toronto

dreaming up this scene
when there wasn't any.

But, it culturally seemed
like it was a ripe idea.

- Almost all things, including
electronic inventions

are responses to culture.

So while I was doing this
and Deke was doing this,

the people in Toronto had been doing this,

the people in Philadelphia had.

And then there's a moment
when there's simultaneous

discovery, or simultaneous invention.

- We became known as the Homocore movement

and then the Queercore movement.

- Yes dear, yes ma'am.

♪ Femme ♪

- Tribe 8 are really great
parallel to Pansy Division.

They had a different set of issues,

but they're really parallel issues.

Like Chris and Pansy Division used to say,

they were kind of the
Stooges to our Ramones.

♪ When you're on your
knees looking up at her ♪

♪ You know she looks so magnificent ♪

♪ She looks down at you ♪

- As far as I know kind of we
were the first doing, like,

what we were doing, which
is saying "We are all dykes,

"only dykes are allowed in the band,

"and we are gonna sing about being dykes".

Period, dot.

- There weren't that many songs, about,

songs about love.

I mean, can you imagine
thinking that there

is a problem because there
aren't enough songs about love

that you can relate to?

I mean, that's crazy.

It was a real desperation, I mean it was,

it felt like life or death to me.

I felt like if I didn't find some dykes

to play music with, like to
play, not just any music,

but music that was like
the music that I just,

that was like my soul connection
to the universe, you know,

that I couldn't imagine living.

I couldn't imagine actually

going on.

Going on.

I couldn't imagine it.

I couldn't imagine how I
would be able to do that.

So it felt like life or death.

That made me cry.

- Part of the reason I
wanted to do the band

was because nobody was out,
there was nobody saying

"I'm gay and I'm playing this music" or

"I'm gay, fuck you" or whatever.

I mean, the only people
that I knew were out were

people like Sylvester
and Jimmy Sommerville.

So there was this idea that gay culture

seemed really limited so I felt alienated.

I had so many more
friendships and acceptance

being gay from straight
people in the music scene.

And being musical and being
into rock 'n' roll in the

gay scene just made people
act really shitty towards me.

- We love rock, we wanted
to go to rock shows

where there are other people
that we can like have fun with

and make out with, and we wanna
hear what they have to say.

♪ 'Cause I'm a Jewish lesbian, you see ♪

♪ And fascism isn't anarchy ♪

When I saw Phranc playing
for the first time,

tears just started running down my face,

and I didn't realize why
at first and I think later

I remember like driving
home after the show,

and just saying like I don't think that

I'd ever seen someone who I could be

who is older than me.

When life in front of you is that empty,

like you just are desperate
to just tell your story

and hear other peoples stories.

- Do you guys know
Phranc, the all-American

Jewish lesbian folksinger?

Oh, good.

This song is basically
about me wishing that

Phranc were my mom.

Phranc has the really good advice like,

not to have crushes on straight girls.

And, uh, it's about choosing
your own family when

you're gay 'cause you
have to because probably

your own family didn't
treat you very well.

- We were like angry dykes on stage.

It was an angry time, we were angry.

♪ Yes ma'am ♪

♪ Femme bitch top ♪

And we were totally hypocritical,

half the time we would sing a song about

straight girls thinking
you wanna sleep with them

and the next song would be like

"Hey, straight guy I'm
hitting on your girlfriend".

Just had to be constantly
unbalancing whenever possible.

For a young straight man to come up

and suck Lynnee's dick.

- Besides that, it
proves how punk rock you are.

- It does.

The best thing was like
getting a straight guy

to get up on stage and
give Lynnee a blowjob.

It was amazing, you know,
and they got really into it

because, not always, not in Texas.

It became like a badge
of honor to give Lynnee

a blowjob on stage as a straight guy.

- Good boy.

♪ Jealous cowards try to control ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ They distort what we say ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ Try and stop what we do ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ When they can't do it themselves ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

- They had never seen
it, but they also weren't

like against it, they were
like embracing it immediately.

They were like this is punk rock:

fucking with gender is fucking with the

dominant paradigm and so that
means it's punk rock, so yeah.

♪ We're born with a chance ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ I am gonna have my chance ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ We are born with a chance ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ And I'm gonna pull down your pants ♪

♪ Rise above, we're gonna rise above ♪

♪ We are tired of your abuse ♪

♪ Try to stop us, it's no use ♪

- Okay, you've got all these macho guys

who slam around and take their shirts off

and show off their pecks, so
you've got these macha girls

who go on stage and take their shirts off

and show off their pecks.

So Homocore is exactly that,

playing on homo-tude, to be punk.

- The definition of punk is to
subvert the dominant paradigm

through art or culture, through music.

And, we were turning gender on its head,

we were turning sexuality on its head.

We just took what we were
doing and sang about it.

- Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.

I just have to introduce them.

Oh my God, oh my oh, oh.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

sucker devotees, they're the incredible,

they are the magnificent, Team Dresch.

- It was just really
simple, we just said what

we needed to hear and we just
did what we wanted to see.

♪ Well how did I do ♪

♪ Not good, fuck me ♪

♪ I spent the last 10 days of my life ♪

♪ Not getting any sleep ♪

♪ Well how do I do ♪

♪ I don't, fuck you ♪

♪ I spent the last 10 days of my life ♪

♪ Searching for you ♪

♪ What have you ♪

♪ I heard, I heard ♪

♪ Everything ♪

- There was something missing that wasn't

being talk about and to
be as blunt about the

sexual aspect as we were,

to me it was a real fun
way of saying fuck you

to the right wing who
just want us to go away,

and also to gays who are assimilationists

and just wanted us to be nice and behave.

And my ACT UP experience taught me, no.

Don't compromise, don't
behave, push the envelope.

♪ 'Till never again will you look twice ♪

♪ At a butch boy top, you
know is too damn nice ♪

♪ She's the one who extracts ♪

- You know, it was new.

We were on the break of
this third wave, you know.

It was like "We're doing
something different here.

"We're not lesbians, we're dykes."

I mean basically lesbians
were pissed at us.

They were all like
"You're stomping around on

"all this work that we've done.

"You're like wagging rubber
dicks, gettin' blowjobs,

"talking about boinking, fisting."

Whatever, you know it was
the opposite of what they

had been doing.

And we were making fun
of them, we were like,

"Haha, Birkenstock babes, whatever."

♪ Is that enough emotion for you honey ♪

But of course at the same time we totally

admired everything that they'd done,

and we would read everything that they had

written and we had their
books on our shelves,

and we studied very
carefully everything that

they had said and done.

And then we went to
build on that, and say,

"Okay, well that's, how
that isn't working anymore

"and this isn't working anymore,

"and we're gonna take these
things and then we're gonna

"create the next level.

"We're sex radicals."

If you're saying that we have,

we're in charge of our
bodies, that's what feminism

is all about, then great.

Then I should be able to
run around with my tits out,

and say stop looking at my tits.

It's just like an elbow, a tit, what?

It's my pecks, and what?

I should be able to get a blowjob,

I should be able to
fuck with a rubber dick,

I should be able to do all that
stuff because it's my body.

And whatever like attachments,

you know, becomes my body.

I'm in charge, right?

That's what you said, mom.

How many queers are there?

Oh see, you had heterosexual parents

and you turned out queer.

- Fuckin' perverts.

- So let's see if if
it's okay queer people

to raise these kids 'cause
it might turn out to

be fuckin' heterosexual,
like most fuckin' fuck

fucked up fuckin'
heterosexual fuckin' world!

And we had the power
of the mic and we'd go,

"Oh look at this guy throwing
his elbow in girls faces.

"Oh gee, that's bad, dude.

"You shouldn't be doing that."

And dykes would just jump on the guy

and beat the crap out and
throw him in the back.

- Oh my god, did you hear what he said?

It doesn't matter what gender you are.

Huh?

I guess the fact that most
women in this room get paid

a lot less than men do for the same jobs,

it doesn't matter though, it
doesn't matter what gender.

I mean, it doesn't matter, I mean,

that one in four women are
raped or that domestic violence

exists or that women are serial killed or,

or that aren't many women
in, oh, I've heard it,

I've heard it, I've heard it.

It matters to me.

It matters to me.

And there's also a thing that said,

women should be in the front
and men should be in the back

and you should respect that.

- The Homocore was to
punk as gay liberation was

to hippie in the same way
that around the same time

came riot grrrl, which was
kind of the women's liberation

movement of the punk scene.

- Some dumb hoes,
these punk rocker bitches

walking down the street.

They were asking for it and
they deny it but it's true.

- Bullshit!

This song is dedicated to him.

Suck my left one!

- Riot grrrl expressed
it in similar terms,

like "I'm not gonna
hold your leather jacket

"at the back of the pit anymore, you know,

"I'm gonna be in the pit
and I'm gonna make it

"a safe place for people
my size and for all people

"of all sizes and you
know, all attitudes."

Riot grrrl and Homocore/Queercore,

it rose up of the same energy.

- We were actually
really inspired by J.D.s

and by Homocore and
especially by Double Bill

by G.B. Jones which changed
my life because I was like,

I can be a feminist and have
a fucking sense of humor,

I can talk about rape with like a weird

fucked up smile on my face.

There would be no Bikini
Kill without J.D.s

and without Homocore
and without G.B. Jones.

I would have no career.

Bikini Kill started because
we were frustrated that

when we would talk to women in bands

they would say they weren't feminist.

And there was this kind
of like moshing culture

that was very anti-gay and very anti-women

and it made it so only
certain people were invited

to the party and that
was straight white men

who wanted to touch each
other but didn't know how

else to touch each other
than to being violent.

And that's what riot grrrl
was reacting against.

It's like actually this is our party,

not your party, you know.

It's like Patti Smith said,
"We started it, we own it,

"we're taking it over."

Something like that.

- Because viewing our
work as being connected

to our girlfriends politics
real lives is essential

if we are gonna figure out
how we are doing impacts,

reflects, perpetuates, or
disrupts the status quo.

I actually feel like I had
a lot of women role models

when I started.

In a way the 80s, there
was less women really.

I mean I was really hard
just to actually think of

other women in bands.

- 'Cause there were like
two girls at every show

when we first started playing
and guys totally hated us,

and so I was going around the clip board

and getting peoples
addresses' and inviting every

girl to the show and saying,
"Please bring your friends,

"please bring your friends."

And you create that,
you're a part of creating

that community.

Because we are interested
in creating non-hierarchical

ways of being and making
music, friends, and scenes

based on communication and understanding,

instead of competition.

♪ That girl thinks she's the
queen of the neighborhood ♪

♪ She's got the hottest trike in town ♪

♪ That girl she holds
her head up so high ♪

♪ I think I want to be
her best friend, yeah ♪

♪ Rebel girl rebel girl, rebel girl ♪

♪ I think I want to take you home ♪

♪ I want to try on your clothes ♪

And later on when I did one
of the only mainstream press

interviews I did, for the LA Weekly,

and I was asked about riot grrrl

and we had just had two meetings in DC

and I said "Oh, yeah
riot grrrl is like all

"over the country, there's
meetings happening everywhere."

And that article came out and
then girls started looking

for the meetings like I was
like Minneapolis, Chicago,

you know like LA, wherever.

I was like, San Luis
Obispo, like whatever.

I just made up a bunch
of places and I was like

"Yeah, there is meetings
taking place like all over,

"like we started this thing,
it's totally a phenomenon."

And then it became a phenomenon
'cause like I said it was.

And I remember having
that feeling that that's

what the girls in Toronto were doing.

That they were like five people

but they made it seem like it was so huge.

I liked that, I liked that
they felt like they could

do that, that they were such bitches,

that they thought they could
just like take over everything

and more than anything that influenced me.

- Hello.

- Oh hi, Candy.

- Are you up for something?

- Yeah, what do you mean?

- Do you wanna join a gang?

- Yeah!

- It's all girls.

- Really?

- Okay?

- Okay, sounds great.

- Oh, yeah man, I
wanna fuck your tight ass.

- That reminds me,
you boys buy toilet paper?

- Boys don't use as
much toilet paper as girls do

so I shouldn't have to buy any.

- What?

What about the shit at
the end of your dick

while you're packing that
fudge, brownie hounds?

- Because we recognize fantasies of

Instant Macho Gun Revolution
as impractical lies

meant to keep us simply
dreaming instead of becoming

our dreams and thus seek
to create revolution

in our own lives every single day

by envisioning and creating alternatives

to the bullshit Christian
capitalist way of doing things.

♪ You spread ♪

♪ My legs ♪

♪ Apart ♪

♪ Apart ♪

I've always considered
Queercore and riot grrrl

a part of the larger thing of punk rock.

We all were a part of
questioning how large punk rock

could expand to include
feminism and queerness.

And I think that a lot of
times punk rock in general

gets talked about as a musical genre

and I always thought of it as an idea,

an idea that like anybody
can do with they want to do,

if we could create our own culture.

♪ While we were crying ♪

♪ I guess didn't give a fuck ♪

Bands could sound different
and still be a part

of the same thing 'cause
we don't all have to

like each other or sound the same

in order to be a community.

- I think mostly what we had in common

was that our lyrics were a lot about like,

"Hey, fuck you, we're pissed off,

"this is the new feminism,

"and this is how we're doing it now,

"and if you don't like it suck my dick."

- Riot grrrl and Queercore
bands were totally tight

and they toured together
and they were absolutely

comrades in arms.

♪ Aw fuck ♪

♪ Women's love, it's so friendly ♪

♪ Women's love like herbal tea ♪

♪ Women's love empowers me ♪

- This is my Tribe 8 star.

So this was given to me by Stacie Quijas,

also known as Quedge at
Leslie Mah's apartment

and everybody else from Tribe 8 was there.

It was one of the coolest
moments of my life.

I was literally like laying on a blanket

getting a tattoo with
India ink and needles

from the most beautiful punk
girl I'd ever seen in my life,

and I was such a fan of their band.

Seeing Tribe 8 was a big life changer

and we toured with them.

- What was amazing about
being a queer band on tour

in the 90s is you're in this little bubble

with these other queers,
and you're just like

so fuckin' grateful
that you're in this van

with four or five other queers because

you're traveling through
this cultural waste lands

and there's no fuckin' queers.

And when you pull up
to the club and there's

the fucking queers standing out front,

and you can see 'em, you know.

They got funny color hair,

they got the facial piercings,
they have the Mohawk,

they have the wifebeaters
or pleasers, or whatevers,

you know, and the combat
boots, and you're like,

"There's our people, yes."

♪ I just wanna tie her to the bedposts ♪

♪ And call her nasty names
like you evil bitch from hell ♪

♪ It's such a sin, it's so wrong ♪

And even when we played
with like other bands

that were like straight, they
were totally supporting us

and lauding us, and going like

"Yeah, we're behind you 100%,
we love what you are doing."

♪ Well I went to school in Olympia ♪

♪ And what do you do ♪

♪ With a revolution ♪

- I felt so comfortable in my band

and safe to come out publicly because

I felt that what all the bands were saying

and what Kurt was saying
was, it's okay to be gay,

and if you don't like it that's not cool,

and just standing up for gay rights.

And Kurt doing lots of
gay press was important.

- I started being proud
of the fact that I was gay

even though I wasn't because
I almost found my identity.

- Kurt was hanging out
with our drummer Toby Veil

and she was best friends
with Donna Dresch.

We were all reading the same fanzines

so I can't imagine that
he never picked up the

Homocore with Donna's picture on it.

I mean I think that might
have been why he started,

you know graffitiing
"God is gay" everywhere.

- "'Cause god is gay.

"The whole goddamned world's a fag."

He made a comment in The
Advocate about liking my films.

I was totally stoked when he
wrote that, that was so cool.

- They did write about us
for a very brief second.

We were just, they couldn't
hold the gaze on us too long.

I don't think we were like
made for primetime in that way.

- One of the great attracting
forces in Queercore

at the time was it was
basically indigestible.

You know the last thing
that people wanted was

a bunch of fags that only
know three chords or less

banging away on their guitars
and saying how great it is

to fuck dudes or anything like that,

or like, chicks chasing
each other around with

dildos on stage only to
cut them off with chainsaws

and things like that.

Capitalism was not
really prepared for that.

- I think that riot grrrl got
picked up by the media because

it was a bunch of the way
that they portrayed it was

it was like these hot white
girls who were pissed off

but it was sexy.

I do think it was more palpable
and it was way less gay.

I don't think at that
time the media was ready

for anything that was gay

and they could say like we are bisexual

but that was sexy to straight men.

- It is so much easier for
capitalism to use a female body

that a man might want, to sell shit,

than it is to use queer
people and queer bodies.

You know Jack Halberstam
actually has this whole

riff about how everything in the world

can be used by capitalism to sell things

except the butch lesbian body.

♪ Don't mess with the best
'cause the best don't mess ♪

♪ Don't put me to the test
before I lay you to rest ♪

♪ Don't get wise, bubble-eyes ♪

♪ Before we knock you
down to peanut size ♪

The lack of media spotlight glare,

helped Queercore have more
natural, less conflictual life

as a culture.

Because there weren't
like huge things that you

had to constantly be
defining yourself against.

Gender non-confirming people
and queer desire generally

sort of like operates at
the margins of that stuff

which I think is like, awesome.

Like I think that's a great
position of liberation

for queer art except when
you are like being liberated

from ever getting a decent
wage for your creative product.

But you know, Queercore is punks.

They weren't trying to
get the big record deal.

Maybe Pansy Division was, I don't know.

- I'm Kurt Loder with MTV News.

Queer punk, Homocore,
whatever you call them

there's a new breed of
proudly gay punk bands

making a big noise these days.

Chief among them, San
Francisco's delightfully poppy

Pansy Division, which got
a lot of attention after

Green Day hired the
group as its opening act

on a US tour last fall.

- Green Day, when they
reached that major label level

wanted to show where they came from

and so they were taking all
these different lookout bands

on tour with them, but we happened to be

on the tour where they broke.

- Green Day kind of were
ahead of their time too.

They represent that kind
of punk consciousness where

they're not gay, but
they knew it wasn't right

to pick on somebody for
being different in any way.

And I think they got a big
kick out of Pansy Division's

lyrics because some of
them were pretty funny

and they got even a bigger
kick out of shocking

their suburban fans in these
fairly generic audiences,

last year they were
watching whatever other

mainstream that came through.

- I just thought they're
just a great band,

you know they're really catchy, and, uh,

I think it, you know, there's
a lot you know more to

punk rock than Green Day
and The Offspring videos,

that's for sure.

- Green Day were kind of
like, "They need to know

"we're not like one of
those mainstream rock acts.

"We're something different
and if you doubt that,

"here is Pansy Division."

- That was the biggest
thing in popularizing us

'cause we had never expected
to play at 15,000 seat arenas.

We were thinking that 150 people to see us

was a really big crowd.

♪ Unless you'd rather
go home and masturbate ♪

♪ Reciprocate, reciprocate ♪

- A lot of Pansy Division
audiences are straight punk kids,

and it always bewildered me,
they have more straight fans

than gay ones.

But, other times they got
stuff throwing at them and all,

but Green Day were like "As
long as you can take it,

"we're are proud to have you."

And I know Pansy Division
they treasured that

until this days, and Green Day,

they still remember it, too.

I think it was a pretty awesome thing.

- Everybody is a fag,
haven't you realized it?

The whole goddamn world's a fag,

don't you know that even yet?

- As far as I know no one
called this movement Homocore

until it was kind of over, really.

And people who weren't
involved, got involved.

And the Queercore thing I'm
pretty sure specifically came

out of Chicago.

- There was a kind of crossover between

the idea of a gay punk movement and

these kind of queer radicals

who were more within the gay scene.

So there was a kind of a
merger at a certain point.

- I just started
out with the name Homocore,

but it began to be obvious
that a certain type

of male audience thought
it was only about gay men.

So I thought, "Oh my god
I gotta do something.

"It can only be interesting
and valuable if it

"includes everyone, so if
we have to change the name,

"we'll do that."

- From about 90, 91,
'til about '95 which is

contemporaneous with riot
grrrl, there really was

a more finite number of
bands, but then there

was just an explosion.

♪ Cross-dressing punks will
make Jayne County cream ♪

♪ Orgasm addict with Pete Shelly I sing ♪

♪ Dicks like Gary Floyd I truly adore ♪

♪ I want Biscuits from the
Big Boys knocking on my door ♪

♪ For You ♪

♪ For you ♪

♪ Limp Wrist sings this song for you ♪

♪ Put me in a pit with
Mike Bullshit, let's go ♪

♪ Want the kids from Warpath
hanging at our shows ♪

♪ Nikki Parasite can
sing a medley for me ♪

- By the
mid-1990s, thousands of people

belonged to the international movement.

They changed the name from
Homocore to Queercore.

The band Extra Fancy was
signed to a major label

and then dropped a few months later

after news outlets
published the lead singer's

HIV positive status.

Record stores had an ever
expanding Queercore section.

Some musicians tried to
reclaim the pink triangle.

The bands didn't really
have a unifying sound,

but they shared a strong political vision.

What had come to be was maybe
something that G.B. Jones,

Bruce LaBruce, Tom and
Deke hadn't intended,

the first generation was ready to move on.

At the height of its
popularity Bruce wrote:

"Queercore is dead, our son is dead.

"I killed him.

"Utopian ideologies hatched
in cold basement apartments

"on long lonely nights
never really stand up

"to the light of day."

But it didn't really matter
to the audience or the bands,

they kept playing and
the message was loud.

- Action!

- I always had the drive of cinema.

When I did Queercore
I made Queercore films

and then I still make
Queercore style films.

And there's still a lot of
cool people doing cool music.

♪ Suckin' on my titties
like you wanted me ♪

♪ Callin' me, all the time like Blondie ♪

♪ Check out my Chrissy behind ♪

♪ It's fine all of the time ♪

♪ Like sex on the beaches ♪

♪ What else is in the teaches of Peaches ♪

♪ Huh ♪

♪ What ♪

♪ Fuck the pain away ♪

♪ Fuck the pain away ♪

♪ Fuck the pain away ♪

♪ Fuck the pain away ♪

♪ Fuck the pain away ♪

♪ Fuck the pain away ♪

- I definitely started
Peaches thinking about

how can I bring back
the riot grrrl attitude

and the, um, just rock
riffs but new, new sounds

from really arty electronics
and things like that.

But I felt really sad
about riot grrrl culture

because it became such
a media hype and then

of course it had to die
out in the media sense

and then it turned into the Spice Girls.

♪ No matter how old, how young, how sick ♪

♪ I mean something, I mean something ♪

♪ You can push me, no stare down ♪

♪ Plug it up, no me, no shut down ♪

♪ I'm on a rampage, it's my new rage ♪

♪ Crisis but I'm singing
in the mid-range ♪

- Peaches and Beth Ditto and The Knife,

and I mean they've all broken through

slightly more mainstream, which is great.

- I feel really fortunate to
be a part of the queer scene,

because I came from a place where there

wasn't a queer community, it was like

me and another kid and maybe
a couple of other kids.

♪ First you tell me you're hurting ♪

♪ Then you tell me you
don't even need me anyway ♪

Stay strong and find your people.

That's what I did, I found
people that were fucking rad

and amazing, I can't believe I found them,

I can't believe I even
met them in Arkansas.

Find your people, stick to our people,

trust them and stay together.

- When the Gossip first started
out they were definitely

more of a punk rock sound and now I think

it's more of, a like disco,

housey-soul kind of sound,
pop almost, in a sense.

But definitely the idea

and the identity of punk rock
is still really huge with us.

♪ I knew that it was ♪

♪ In the picture perfect world ♪

Through music I think
there is so much to say,

and queer music definitely saved my life

when I was teenager so
I know that it has that

affect on other people,

and when I meet fans
and they tell me that,

it is the best feeling in the world

to know that I've inspired
somebody or helped them

through their experience,
like helped them feel not

so alone or not so stigmatized
or to see a person in

the public eye being who they
are and talking about it,

not being ashamed.

Getting out there to a
wider audience is awesome.

- I definitely think that
a lot of us would have

kept on doing drugs and would
have died, and wouldn't have

ever put a band together if
we hadn't of had the support

of an entire community the way we did.

It was super.

It was really brilliant,
and healing and amazing

to have that happen
when you grow up queer,

and like you're all having
crushes on girls and stuff,

and everybody is like not really.

You know there is a lot
of damage that happens

and like, you kind of hate yourself.

That's why I did drugs
and drank, I was like,

"Oh, I suck, everyone thinks I suck."

And then jumping on stage and being like

"Actually we don't suck,
we're fucking awesome",

and having everybody go
"That's right, you are."

It's like, we're awesome.

It's awesome to be queer.

It changed everything, you know.

- Queercore was probably
the last cultural movement

that queers participated in.

The amazing thing I think is
that it was not just zines,

not just music, it was
pretty much every medium.

And as a cultural movement I
don't think it can be rivaled

by any other queer
movement that's happened.

- Queercore was a
socio-political movement really.

I mean, it brought a lot
of cultural visibility

to the gays, to the queers, to the freaks.

And that definitely helps
with all the people working

on the political angles,
political representation,

and civil rights issues.

And people that they are
doing the technical work

to move those things forward,

they need the freaks on the
edges doing the cultural work.

That was us, freaks on the edges.

- It's very tempting, I think,
to say that the revolution's

been won and now just everybody
live happily ever after.

I think that's a dangerous
way to, to, to look at it.

On one hand, you can think
, well, that's great,

you know you no longer
need to live in a ghetto,

you no longer need to only
hang out with your own kind,

and yet something seems to
be lost at the same time too.

What I feel is that people
are still gonna have

to keep reinventing themselves,
and I would really hope

that people keep pushing and
keep you know, challenging.

I think there's still
plenty of room for that,

I don't know if somebody
is gonna start, you know,

the 21st century version
of queer punk or Homocore

or if it's necessary or even possible,

but people need to keep moving boundaries

and exploring new territories.

That's kind of what it
is to be a human being.

♪ Listen to the girls,
listen to the girls ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, are you listening ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, listen to girls ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, are you listening ♪

♪ Take it like a man, girl ♪

♪ If that's what you are ♪

♪ And your second rate opinion ♪

♪ Won't get you very far ♪

♪ Now is it time to pretend
you've got the winner's blues ♪

♪ Or is it time to up end 'cause
you've got nothing to lose ♪

♪ Before you choose ♪

♪ You ♪

♪ Listen to the girls,
listen to the girls ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, are you listening ♪

♪ Listen to the girls,
listen to the girls ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, are you listening ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh, what ♪

♪ Now all the boys in the band
who were holding your hand ♪

♪ Should take a good
look down into the shit ♪

♪ Where they stand ♪

♪ What about the girls in Vietnam ♪

♪ What about the bitches in Vietnam ♪

♪ This aint no house of style ♪

♪ Better get out your
phones and start to dial ♪

♪ 1-900-Punk-Punk-Punk ♪

♪ What the fuck rhymes with punk ♪

♪ Listen to the girls,
listen to the girls ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, are you listening ♪

♪ Listen to the girls,
listen to the girls ♪

♪ Listen to the girls, are you listening ♪

♪ Listen to the girls,
listen to the girls ♪

♪ Are you listening ♪