BAD GAYS - HUW LEMMEY AND BEN MILLER

Bad Gays collects the lives of those gay characters we would struggle to define as champions of Lgbtq+ rights: the liars, the powerful, the social climbers, the criminals. From Alexander the Great to Ernst Röhm, from Yukio Mishima to Lawrence of Arabia, our history is littered with them. 

Every minority fighting to escape marginalization, for recognition, or for survival eventually has to confront the question of who should be the face of their struggle, which voices and perspectives within the group should be highlighted to adequately reflect its existence. The authors of this book evade this question to pose an even sharper one: what untold facets does queer history have? Why does everyone remember Oscar Wilde and no one remembers Bosie, the man for whom he ended up in the dock? Perhaps we have reached the point where it is necessary to also talk about bad gays, the ruthless and cruel gays, so that the picture is complete. We would rarely mention the homosexuality of a Nazi general or a nefarious FBI agent, yet their lives were influenced by their sexual orientation just as much as those of Alan Turing or Audre Lorde. 

Lemmey and Miller have reconstructed the fourteen incredible lives of some of the most controversial figures in history to dismantle traditional stereotypes of sexual identity.

Translation by Goffredo Polizzi.

Huw Lemmey (Barrow-in-Furness, 1986) is a writer, artist, and critic; he lives in Barcelona. He collaborates, among others, with The Guardian, Flash Art, The Architectural Review, Art Monthly and L’Uomo Vogue.

Ben Miller (Massachusetts, 1992) is a writer and PhD student at the Freie Universität in Berlin. He collaborates with The New York Times, Literary Hub, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He is a board member of the Schwules Museum, a queer museum and archive.