Queercore is a cultural history book that explores the origins and legacy of the queer underground punk movement. It officially got its name in the mid-1980s when G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce named it in their revolutionary zine J.D.s, but the movement began years earlier with bands like Wayne County and the Electric Chairs, Nervous Gender, and Fifth Column. The scene further developed through the spirit of DIY resistance that guided earlier feminist artists as queer musicians pushed back against the homophobia and sexism that remained pervasive in hardcore punk.

The movement then exploded into the next decade with the popularity of bands that often crossed over into the riot grrrl scene, including Tribe 8, Team Dresch, Sister George, and Huggy Bear. Their revolution took the form of zine and cassette creation, which they distributed far and wide. Those documents became like guidebooks for queer punks in small towns throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan.

This book explores queercore as a genre that was never intended to be a genre, but instead an underground resistance movement centered around punk. It identifies the key players in the queercore lexicon, from musicians and filmmakers to record labels and zine-makers, and it documents their histories through original interviews and archival research. Ultimately, the book guides readers through the beginnings of queercore into the present, where the legacy of this unlikely genre looms loudly for LGBTQIA+ artists and all those marginalized by the mainstream.

Available from Bloomsbury

Audrey Golden is an arts and culture writer with a focus in music, cinema, and politics based in New York, USA. She is the author of I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records (2023) and Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats. 

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.