Be gay do

"Be gay do crime" is a catchphrase often evoked during Pride Month by LGBTQ+ people, allies and activists alike. While the phrase predates meme culture as we know it, its repetition in hugely popular memes makes it worthy of analysis through a memetic lens. Ah, yes: “Be Gay, Do Crimes,” the rallying cry of a generation. But how did this slogan (and sentiment) come to be? The history is weirder (and shorter!) than you might expect.

In September of , Instagram user @absentobject posted a photo of some graffiti they’d seen in France. Far as I know, it dates back to an old comic in a cartoon that says "be gay, do crime" and I know no other context other than it was from the time way back when, when gay was often used to describe happiness. Be Gay Do Crime is a catchphrase and protest slogan used by activists, members and allies of the LGBTQIA+ community, promoting freedom from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or being non-cisgender.

"Be Gay, Do Crime means breaking the rules and challenging authority. At a time when ‘gay’ has been used as a slur to mean weak or lame, this repositions it as rebellious and dangerous. Available for preorder. Packed with daily snapshots of radical queer history, this book celebrates the bold, the brave, and the beautifully defiant moments that have shaped the fight for justice.

Ever wonder why the Stonewall protests became an uprising or what the earliest acts of queer resistance looked like? How about the ways queer communities have organized against oppression across the globe? By situating readers within a larger pattern of struggle, these everyday acts counter the erasure of queer people from history and serve as a reminder that our struggles are part of a broader fight against systemic violence and dehumanization.

Flip to any page, soak up some inspiration, and join the legacy of resistance. Be Gay, Do Crime explores the strategic use of arrests and police violence as tools to suppress individuals who bravely refused to go back into the closet. This almanac highlights incredible acts of defiance in the face of power and shows us all on whose shoulders we stand. This book of days names the names—some renowned and many forgotten—and celebrates quotidian victories, one day at a time.

This daybook is a keeper!

be gay do crime movies

Be Gay, Do Crime offers insight to forge queer and trans revolt and inspires new futures by naming our collective past. Use this book! Be Gay, Do Crime is illuminating, eye-opening, and a much-needed text to understand our past and present. It serves as an excellent reminder of those who have come before us and what they have endured. What if learning about queer and trans histories was an everyday practice?

What if we marked time by honoring the lives of queer and trans activists past and present, instead of the birthdays of saints or s? What if queer and trans people had an accessible way to place themselves in the larger story of liberation? Organized like a daily calendar rather than a history textbook, this unique and useful book brings together stories that are usually separated by centuries: the birth of Emma Goldman in Lithuania on June 27, , for example, appears alongside the launch of the first Trans Pride March in Toronto on June 27, By disrupting our commonplace ideas about chronology and progress, Be Gay, Do Crime offers a way to think about history differently: not as a straight line leading to a single inevitable present but as a queer tangle, spawning multiple possible futures.

Help get queer and trans history out of the ivory tower and into the chaotic share houses where it belongs: buy this book for everyone on the Signal chat, have arguments about it, and let it inspire your next wave of mischief. The love, compassion, empathy, and rage of the queer community in the face of white supremacist violence and ignorance shows us the way forward.

Learning and sharing this history of radical resistance is as urgent now as it has ever been. Do yourself a favor—steal this book and learn our history that has been hidden for far too long. The historical repression of the Gay community runs so deep, and the resistance to that repression rises so high. This book reminded me of so many things I had forgotten and taught me so many things I had never had the privilege to learn.

I am emboldened by the historical and continued refusal to quietly go into the closet or shadows, to love and exist openly and freely. It is an honor to read this history and stand with the gay community as the struggle against bigotry continues to this day. Up the Queers! This book reminds us that we are bound across time and space with others who challenged and continue to challenge the criminalization of difference.

Ours is a collective struggle over what is possible. Their work focuses on care ethics critique of neoliberalism as well as analyses of political rhetoric. They have also written extensively in the public sphere, particularly about movements to disarm campus police and confronting trans antagonism in the university. Working Class History is an international collective of worker-activists who uncover our collective history of fighting for a better world and promote it to educate and inspire a new generation of activists.