Top 125 Queer Quotes

From my youngest brother to immigrant women to black queer folks, those are the people who keep me going. When I think about their various acts of courage, it reminds me that I am not alone and that we can do even more, and we deserve more, so we have to keep going.

I think the earnestness of what we’re saying and what other bands like us are totally saying – or other queer bands – is ‘We exist.’

I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so not the case when I was a kid.

At first, I didn’t even realize how low on the totem pole I am. First of all, I’m a woman. Second of all, I’m of color. Third of all, I’m queer.

Queer Eye is a makeover show, meant to help our straight brethren.

The fact that I’m able to portray these complex, fully realized, queer Asian characters? I never thought it would be in this position. You just never see those types of characters and that type of representation.

My brownness is something that I can’t hide. There are some straight-acting or straight-passing queer people out there, but I’m not one of them. This is something I would rather not have to hide.

All the world old is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.

I have a direct hand in the queer zeitgeist, and what I’m putting out there has to be something I’m proud of.

I really want queer kids to know that our experience is universal.

Historically a publicly unaccepted but incredibly rich culture, queer love was only able to exist privately for a long time, expressed in society through coded art forms.

I adore ‘Broad City,’ but the one Latino is queer for jokes. You see queerness of Latinos in this emasculated with an accent or fez on a set ’70s show. It’s always like, ‘Ha, ha, funny emasculated immigrants.’

Being young is hard. Being young and queer is even harder, regardless of how accepting your parents or community are.

These names: gay, queer, homosexual are limiting. I would love to finish with them. We’re going to have to decide which terms to use and where we use them. For me to use the word ‘queer’ is a liberation; it was a word that frightened me, but no longer.

Being queer you’re supposed to adore figure skating. It’s a sport, not an art. I love the costumes and hate the music and of course I worship Johnny Weir because so does he. Also he’s real. It’s a full gay thing and it always has been.

I hope we see more avenues for representation. More TV shows and films starring queer people, especially QPOC and nonbinary folks, more mainstream press coverage of our artwork and fashion, and more representation of our interests within politics.

Unfortunately, a lot people still don’t understand queer culture.

Everyone who passes through ‘Drag Race,’ and especially the people who are able to have really big careers after the show, has a responsibility to the queer community to do a good job of representing queer people across the board to be kind and loving.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

I prefer men who are queer. Not gay men, but queer men – guys with an open mind. Bisexual men, because they’re able to understand the different elements of the body without judging that I don’t conform to a certain ideal.

I think as queer people, we were very used to accommodating.

Drag Race’ is giving visibility to our community. It’s on TV and you can see RuPaul, who is a black, queer, powerful figure who has run this empire for years, and I think that’s an amazing thing.

I won’t do press anymore unless I can talk about the homophobia and let queer people know our ideas are mainstream.

Learning that someone is gay, queer, trans, doesn’t tell you much by itself. They could be any kind of person aside from that particular slice of identity.

Bob Fosse, even though he wasn’t gay. He was certainly queer and had a huge effect on the ‘Hedwig’ film, as did Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, who had a weird butch queer feeling about him. His films almost flirted with camp but in an extremely realistic acting way.

I went to Vassar College for undergraduate and studied literature and queer theory, and all of the above. And then I took a Fulbright scholarship in Russia.

It’s not called ‘Queer Eye For the Straight Guy’ now for a reason. We want to be able to help more and more people, and why wouldn’t we help women, and why wouldn’t we help a trans man? I want to help as many different groups as physically possible with this show.

To see queer people keeping each other down makes me so sad because I’ve been around for a long time – I’ve seen the people who came before us fight for what we have right now, and they did not fight like that for us to go backwards.

It’s important to tell queer stories and to show queer relationships in a very normal setting.

That’s what Pride really is: A chance for people who are extremely queer to feel, once-a-year, extremely normal.

I think the original ‘Queer Eye’ definitely started us on the journey to normalize the LGBT community and make people realize that we are just people just like everyone else. It started the road to acceptance.

Off the top of my head, Alan Cumming was probably my biggest inspiration, as an actor and as a queer person.

Because I didn’t have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn’t hand us enough variety to choose from.

Any increase in surveillance of marginalized communities for the sake of security theater have expanded the cycle of criminalization that queer people – especially queer people of color – are forced to navigate.

High school is already an academic and social pressure cooker, and the forces that make it stressful are amplified for queer students.

Racism is a problem everywhere, especially in this country, but all over the world, and especially within queer space.

I’ve known I was gay since I was young, I think. And I mean young – like, young – like 5 or 6. I think most gay people or queer people know there’s something different about them very early, but I didn’t know what to call it.

I always was missing that female brown queer perspective, and I think in ‘Vida’ we have that. A lot of things I wanted to touch on and deal with, I get to do here.

A queer fellow and a jolly fellow is the grasshopper. Up the mountains he comes on excursions, how high I don’t know, but at least as far and high as Yosemite tourists.

I don’t want to be a queer icon. I want to be an icon.

We need a lot more visibility of queer people in public life. People gotta get used to it.

I’m determined to only work with women or queer people because it’s always a straight dude at the soundboard. I just don’t want to do that anymore! It dilutes the fruit-ness!

Taking care of your mental health is important, and being able to model that for queer people who are out there every day dealing with their own struggles is very significant.

You know, in this industry, being an openly queer actor or entertainer, you can play the game your way, or you can play it the industry’s way. And I decided to play it my way. I played it the industry’s way far too long.

I identify as a gay man all the time, but I also like to identify as queer.

We must be vigilant in sharing our stories and our truths as queer parents of color at every chance we get if we hope to see art imitate real life.

I think that’s what happens when drag starts to go mainstream: All of a sudden, you’re watching ‘The View’ and there are three drag queens on there and it’s not a joke. Yes, we’re here, we’re queer and you better deal with it. ‘Cause we ain’t going nowhere.

If you listen to PWR BTTM, or to Gloss, If you look at me on stage, it can make you feel less alone. It makes you feel like you’re a queer person and you have this singular power, but it’s not like we’re a brand. We’re just real.

A lot of times, when parents overdiscipline their children, especially when they’re queer, their intention isn’t to hurt them. They think they’re saving their children from harm. But they don’t realize that they’re causing harm, that they’re doing to their kids exactly what they’re afraid of the world doing to them.

Sometimes you have to see the thing to know that it exists. Maybe there’s a queer person in a town, but they don’t feel comfortable or safe coming out, frankly, and the only representation they feel that they have or connection they have is on television or in a movie, and that’s really powerful.

When I was working at Trio, I was pitched ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ and I knew, whoever gets this, this is a game changer. When I started at Bravo in 2005, it was a hit, and Season 1 of ‘Project Runway’ was in postproduction.

Drag Race’ was, like, my outlet and finally being able to see myself in television and that was through Manila Luzon, who was a ‘Drag Race’ contestant. Manila was the first Asian queer person that I ever saw on mainstream media and ‘Drag Race’ really did that for me.

I want to do something that is not just a pastiche of drag that’s come before but is really authentically me. I try to tune out all the drag that’s out there and tap into the drag that I was doing when I was a little kid – when I didn’t even know the word ‘queer’ or that gay people were out there.