Engaging with queer futures
Past meaning + future dreaming = present scheming
CW: Systemic and legislative homophobia/transphobia; queer self-harm/suicide
Despite all the progress the LGBTQ community has made in recent decades and conservatives’ insistence that “The Gay Agenda” has taken over and everything is woke now, living as a queer person in a cisheteronormative society remains challenging.
Not to depress you, but these are just a handful of the things queer folks are up against currently:
Many countries lack any foundation of legal or cultural protections for queer people, and in 64 UN Member States it’s illegal to be queer.
In the U.S., legislation targeting the LGBTQ community—including drag bans, transgender bathroom and sports bans, and gender-affirming care bans for both minors and adults—has been introduced in droves this year (and has only gotten worse since I wrote about the state of things back in March).
Internationally, studies have shown that queer and trans people experience higher rates of self-harm and suicide than their heterosexual and cisgender peers, and The Trevor Project found in a 2023 survey that, within the past year, “41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide” and “14% of LGBTQ young people attempted suicide.”
Many LGBTQ people (especially LGBTQ youth) experience verbal harassment, threats, bullying, and violence due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Despite overwhelming evidence about how harmful it is, conversion therapy is still legal in many states and countries.
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults are more likely than straight adults to experience mental health conditions, like depression, and abuse substances, according to 2021 and 2022 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
PEN America reports that in the first half of the 2022-23 school year, there was a 28% increase in individual book bans compared to the previous six months, and those bans overwhelmingly targeted books that feature LGBTQ characters and themes (as well as books on race and racism and books with characters of color).
LGBTQ people experience economic disparities relative to their cisgender and heterosexual peers, including being more likely to live in poverty, experience homelessness, be unemployed, and get paid less, and less likely to have access to generational wealth.
Fun, right?
Even though present queer existence may at times feel bleak, I believe that better queer futures are not only possible but also worth dedicating intentional time to hoping and dreaming about.
Dreaming about the future is an activity that parents, caregivers, and teachers usually encourage in us as children, giving us space to dream big without limitation. But it’s a practice we tend to abandon in adulthood, seeing it as a waste of time or unrealistic. That’s a travesty for several reasons.
First, connecting to our dreams for queer futures is a way to nourish our imagination and creative muscles. The practice itself can be a gateway to experiencing pleasure and flow, which is something that we as queer folks often don’t get to enjoy as much as our cishet peers do. Queer futurism can also offer us an escape from present circumstances (without the side effect of numbing us that comes with alcohol and drugs) and help us conjure hope.
Second, imagining queer futures is an act of resistance, and it’s not a new one. There exists a rich history of queer worldmaking and visioning throughout decades of queer theory, art, and activism. The LGBTQ community of today was built on a foundation of pushing back against narrow societal views of what is “normal” and “natural” and what it means to be happy and live a “good life.” The life paths of queer people have long been cast as being harder than those of straight or cis people, and queer futurism declares, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Finally, orienting toward queer futures provides a blueprint for present action. If we as queer people do not allow ourselves to hope and dream up new possibilities for our community, we will lose sight of the collective power we have to change the status quo. Radically reimagining what can be is a precursor to making it so. Through fantasizing about alternatives, we can also more clearly see the ways in which current institutions and systems are failing us.
Consider that there are many aspects of LGBTQ life in the U.S. today that once seemed impossible or extremely distant to queer folks of past generations. An HIV diagnosis is no longer automatically a death sentence (though I don’t want to minimize that HIV remains a major global public health issue). “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law which outlawed gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military, was repealed in 2010. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2015. SCOTUS ruled in 2020 that Title VII protects LGBTQ workers from workplace discrimination. Plus, people are coming out as queer and trans at the highest rates ever recorded, there are more openly LGBTQ state and federal lawmakers than ever before, and there are far more queer characters and storylines in media than at any previous time.
What all of those things have in common is that they started out as queer futures before becoming living, breathing reality.
Accepting that conceptualizing queer futures is meaningful work, let’s talk about how to actually do it. Truthfully, the options are endless, but I can provide some places for you to start.
The first thing you might think about is all the different areas of queer futures you could immerse yourself in and play around with. Without letting judgment or disbelief take over, consider what queer futures could look like:
For gender, sexual orientation, identity labels, and pronouns.
For romantic relationships, friendships, biological familial relationships, chosen familial relationships, and community relationships.
For values, morals, laws, and the criminal justice system.
In education, employment, and the economy.
In religion and spirituality.
In physical health, mental well-being, exercise, and nutrition.
In self-care, community care, pleasure, leisure, and rest.
In art, music, literature, fashion, makeup, and overall self-expression.
In technology, social media, and AI.
Then, you might think about the different tools available to you for engaging and experimenting with queer futures in the present. Options include, but are not limited to:
Writing (queer happy endings; queer speculative fiction; queer goal-setting; journaling about queer futures; overtly queer social media).
Art (inventive queer music-making; queer TV and movie scripts that buck harmful tropes; queer vision-boarding or Pinterest-boarding; queer collaging; queer poetry; queer-affirming comedy; queer self-expression).
Technology (analysis of queer data, including the creation of charts, graphs, and spreadsheets; queer coding and hacking; building queer-friendly algorithms).
Activism and advocacy (visible queer representation; queer peer mentoring; protesting anti-queer legislation; education around queerness and queer history; volunteering with queer organizations; queer involvement in government; donating to queer causes; fighting queer book bans).
Community support (hiring queer people; patronizing queer businesses; funding queer leisure; queer community conversations, especially with queer elders; designing queer community gathering spaces; centering more marginalized queer voices).
No matter how you choose to connect with queer futures, there are two things I’d ask you to keep in mind when doing so. The first is the balance between individual and community futures. Your own queer future matters and deserves your creative consideration. Painting yourself a picture of who you want to be and where you want to go is powerful. And, we fall or fly, live or die as a community. So it’s critical to envision your place within the collective.
To that end, the second thing is intersectionality. Our queer identities do not exist in a vacuum. We must be aware of the effects of race, age, body size, ability, class, etc. on the lives and future outcomes of queer folks. What queer futures will require depends heavily on the distribution of power and privilege across the community. It’s crucial that we look to a future that’s just and equitable for all queer people.
If we can prioritize those things and keep ourselves open to the possibilities of a better world, queer futures may be realized sooner than we think.
One of the reasons I believe so strongly in queer futures is that my own saved me. I spent decades trapped in the heteronormative life that had been prescribed for me because I didn’t know I had any other options. I felt deeply lost and unhappy, but I couldn’t figure out why that was when I had everything I was supposed to want. It was only once I was able to imagine a queer future for myself that I could muster the courage to choose a different, more fulfilling path.
If I hadn’t believed it was possible—if queer potential hadn’t been modeled for me by other queer folks—I would probably still be married to a man and miserable. And I know plenty of other queer and trans people for whom the same is true.
Fighting for queer futures also benefits more than just queer people. When we as queer folks break down barriers and expand societal notions about sexuality, gender, and beyond, it gives everyone permission to live more authentic lives. When we as queer people make more space for our own existence through innovation in language, art, music, literature, science, technology, relationships, and all facets of living, everyone’s lives improve as a result.
This world may not have been built for us, but queer folks across generations have demonstrated how we can use creative solutions and community action to give us the best chance to survive (and, hopefully, someday thrive).
Believe in bold queer futures, y’all. It’s worth it.
Queerly yours,
Shohreh
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