Queercore

Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History is a comprehensive history of the queer punk movement, told through the voices of the artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and activists who created it.

Edited by Liam Warfield, Walter Crasshole, and Yony Leyser, the book traces queercore from its roots in the punk underground of Toronto and San Francisco through its emergence as an international movement that challenged both mainstream gay culture and the conventions of punk itself.

Built around firsthand interviews, Queercore features figures including Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Jayne County, John Waters, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8, and Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division, alongside many others who helped shape the movement. The book also includes archival photographs and reproductions of underground zines that document the art, fashion, film, music, and DIY culture surrounding the scene.

The oral history follows queercore from punk’s early queer presence through the creation of deliberately fabricated scenes and zines, the rise of bands like Pansy Division and Tribe 8, and its relationship with riot grrrl and other radical underground movements. It is both a history of queer punk and a look at how marginalized communities can create culture when the scene they need does not yet exist.

With an introduction by Anna Joy Springer and Lynn Breedlove.