Subversion is an innately queer skill; a unique tool that keeps our hearts, bodies and minds a step ahead of a culture stuck in its ways. While the othering of queerness puts us in a hypervigilant position, it enables us to refine our craft through analysing the weak spots of the majority. 

As seen in Jennie Livingston’s queer bible Paris Is Burning (1990), fashion has been a tool of subversion for a long time; exemplified in the ball competitions where gay male contestants were judged on their success at dressing as straight archetypes.

Deemed as ‘banjee realness’; these competitions would see men dress as sailors, business executives, wrestlers; roles that queer people were already fulfilling outside of the ballroom but beneath a layer of heterosexual costume.

When I came out as gay in ninth grade, outsiders were being embraced as mainstream in an unprecedented way. The combination of hyper-acceptance of gays in music and film, the singularity of my black-queer identified life, and the embrace of my relatively conservative community—all made me feel hypervisibly special. 

While acknowledging that we were few and far between in our immediate communities, it was the visibility factor that Born This Way, Glee, Ellen DeGeneres and the U.S. Supreme Court encouraged us to build our identity around. We were now meant to take this target on our backs and centre it on our faces. 

The space that felt the most authentic in its championing of singularity was fashion. In the mid 2010s I rocked tie-dyed crop tops from Etsy, loud chunky jewellery, violent neons and galaxy prints. As a gay man, to co-opt aesthetics of traditional femininity was a manifestation of owning your otherness, and it felt like a huge style achievement. 

This was corroborated by luxury menswear, from Riccardo Tisci’s affair with kilts during his time at Givenchy, to the rhinestoned underwear appearing on The Blonds runways every season. This pedagogy of queer fashion taught me that a hyper-feminine look was a signifier of fashion prowess and social desirability, and I was a faithful student until 2023.

The more I went out this year, the more I noticed that the subversion I’d known had changed its subject again: this time campily adopting the dress codes of the straight community. As opposed to the flashy clothing I was used to, I was now seeing polos; low ridden Wrangler jeans with boxers peeking out; and tops with gothic, religious imagery at queer nightlife events. 

Frat boy chic is being embraced by the likes of pop culture icons like Troye Sivan with basketball shorts and tank tops playing a starring role in the music videos for ‘Rush’ and ‘Got Me Started.’ Marc Jacobs had divested his focus from his maximalist name brand and funnelled it into the tomboy-ish, Y2K inspired Heaven line. 

Queer fashion has made a pivot from a focus on looks that get you attention for standing out, to ones that understatedly reclaim spaces we weren’t allowed to belong to. This new approach to subversion makes me wonder, if given the space to explore these aesthetics in the past, would I have wanted to?

The co-opting of these aesthetics and their modification by our community is a way of overcoming yet another attempt to label us. What makes this current subversion meaningful is how it exposes just how subtle bigotry can be when it takes the form of tokenist and micro-aggressive behaviour. 

While the mid 2010s put us on a pedestal: it was space allotted to us by straight people with a myopic view on how and what we should be praised for. That era brought a slew of straight-washed queer media, films like Stonewall (2015), that position white men as the heroes of queer stories and reduce the real people of colour who lead the fight to sassy sidekicks. 

We were used as spokespeople to exonerate the homophobic actions of our straight peers. Kim Kardashian, Dave Chapelle and J.K. Rowling are among many who’ve said a version of the cursed phrase “some of my closest friends are gay.”

Even more disheartening was seeing celebrities use our support and likeness only to turn around and betray us: gay people built Paris Hilton’s career and yet she voted for Donald Trump, knowing his anti-LGBTQIA politics. Our visibility morphed into a harsh spotlight, and from that frustration and loneliness comes a desire to obscure oneself using the tactics of our oppressors.

However, what sets this iteration of ‘banjee realness’ apart from the camouflage of the 20th century is the queer-focused modifications designers are making to these pieces. 

One of my favourite pieces in my closet that I acquired following this subversion renaissance, is a Paloma Wool tank top with a weekly cat calendar printed along the side of the stitch line. This traditionally masculine item becomes versatile by maintaining its structural integrity but communicates an air of playful femininity through its graphics.

Brands like Barragan and Eckhaus Latta make androgynous statements by using fabrics and constructing silhouettes reminiscent of sportswear, but rewrite the narrative by incorporating intricate cutouts in the fabric.

One piece I love from the former is the high crewneck ‘Brazos’ t-shirt, an SSENSE exclusive made from stretchy modal fabric with the brand name printed down the left side in bold, hollowed out Arial font lettering. Everything evokes the air of a jersey tee made for running, but is manipulated by the cutouts above the bust that figure eight around the shoulders to the back; not to mention the belly button crop.

Big luxury names are catching up all the same, Balenciaga sent male models down the runway in running leggings and thin knit sweaters with tiny lace collars for their FW24 show.

No matter the price tag or influence behind a name, there is no titan that can get ahead of the queer community when it comes to fashion. We’ve lived too long letting other people decide our lifestyles for us; there’s not much that can hold us back from a better future once we’ve gotten a glimpse of it.

At this point there’s not much left to lose, and fashion is freshest when it’s fearless.

This article is from Youthquaker Magazine, a print arts & culture publication pushing youth-driven journalism on untapped multidisciplinary subject matter.