For the queer community, 2021 was a historic year, but all too often for the wrong reasons. We continue to live in a time and place — the world over — that’s dangerously hostile to our existence. And the pandemic continues to keep us apart from each other, when sharing space as friends and lovers is what heals and affirms.
As always, pop culture lends us the virtual and emotional space we need to celebrate ourselves and to reflect on icons that inspire our artistry, our charm and our vibrance. Even as our structural goals — sometimes for something as fundamental as physical protection from harm — often remain frustratingly out of reach, we find relief in little moments that sow the seeds of queer joy.
Whether we squealed over them at winter pod watch-parties, chatted about them at the beach during a decidedly sapphic summer or came together online to agree that yes, Lil Nas X giving the devil a lap dance will live rent free in our minds forevermore; these were the moments that brought us closer as a community in 2021.