Photo collage in Prof. Theodore Kerr’s Queer Features column. LOTUSMAGAZINE.ORG/ COURTESY
Sarah Rolka Asst. Features Editor
Lotus Magazine and the Pride Center have collaborated to create a section called “Queer Feature” as a part of the “Featured Voices” column on their official website. This new column allows queer voices to be highlighted in relation to fashion and other related topics.
So far, five voices have been featured, including Sadie Fox, Eloiza Sanchez, Visiting Professor Theodore Kerr, Kristina Bopp and an anonymous submission. Each participant wrote on the topic of the intersection between fashion and queer identity, highlighting it as a medium for self-expression and authentic individuality.
Sienna Gallus, a junior psychology major, student worker at the Pride Center and asst. editor-in-chief at Lotus Magazine, spoke to The Quadrangle on why it’s important that this collaboration was created.
“Fashion has always been such a big thing in the queer community,” Gallus said. “It was how we could recognize each other… And it’s how we can kind of escape the binaries of the world, the expectations of the world, really just live on the outside as we are on the inside … It’s [also] a way to reclaim your identity, especially in spaces where your identity might be overlooked.”
Theodore Kerr, a visiting professor of sociology, commented on why it’s important to help highlight these voices through forms of written or spoken dialogue.
“I think it’s important because it’s a way to bear witness to how people are already using fashion to name their identity,” Kerr said. “When we write about it, when we talk about it, what we’re doing is we’re honoring the fact that people are already doing it. It’s a way of supporting existing customs, traditions and norms.”
Kerr also noted that it is to show up and support those finding their way in life, however it may be.
“All people deserve to be affirmed in the way that they’re choosing to figure out how to live this life,” Kerr said. “If fashion is the way that some queer people are asserting their identity, then I want to be able to bear witness to that and help it out.”
Throughout history, fashion has allowed individuals to be able to express themselves freely. Sadie Fox, a junior communication and English major, wrote to The Quadrangle on how fashion is a way of expressing oneself.
“Fashion is a way to express yourself and your identity, which can often be difficult for members of the LGBT+ community, especially when first coming to terms with their sexuality and identity,” Fox wrote. “I feel like when I was first coming out, I relied heavily on queer media and influences to help me navigate what it all meant. I hope someday to be able to influence others in a similar way.”
New York has, throughout time, been a refuge for all kinds of people, especially the queer community. Some areas of New York were safe havens for the community that allowed affirmation of one another, and have allowed the culture to develop and grow into what it is today.
Kerr agreed with this statement and added his own thoughts on how New York is a big hub of so many cultures, where one can feel safe and build a community.
“The writer Sarah Schulman often talks about how queer and trans people almost come here [to New York] as a form of refugees,” Kerr said. “It’s like they can’t be out in their hometown, they can’t be their gender, their sexuality in their hometown. But in New York, they can.”
Fox adds to this by writing how, recently living in New York, there are no “bounds” that constrict people to dress a certain way, and that this allows for experimentation within style, but also how finding that style adds to finding your identity as a person.
“As someone who recently moved to NYC, I feel as if it has also allowed me to freely express myself and my sexuality, especially through fashion,” Fox wrote. “There isn’t a specific style or aesthetic to living here, which allows for greater expression and experimentation.”
This collaboration between the Pride Center and Lotus Magazine highlights these queer voices and brings attention to the ways that fashion and queer identity are so intertwined with one another.
Fashion allows individuals to express how they’re feeling and how they want to be seen. For queer people, it helps them affirm themselves in their identity, as well as recognize each other when needed.
“All of us have constructed a poem, and that poem is based on the choices we made about our outfit,” Kerr said. “So, what we wear or don’t wear is telling a story. That’s the poem we construct about ourselves visually every day.”