LGBTQ+ Identity Quotes

So much of what I do is inspired by and for the LGBTQ community and for everyone but, just, being a theater kid and wanting to do stuff that represents us in a positive light.

I look to an out gay man or woman as pretty much what I would aspire to. The strength that it takes to do that and the floodgates that open and what they pay for it.

The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

Remember that I was out of the closet at the age of sixteen. My parents knew I was gay; I'd had to tell them.

My gay audience has been with me from the beginning.

Before the word gay had really been invented, was there's no such thing. Only a country, basically as mindless about these matters - based upon our peasant superstitions, religious superstitions - would they make categories. Everybody's everything.

Gay people - generally speaking - have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.

My views on equality are pretty obvious. I mean, I did play a highly complex lesbian techno DJ on TV, but I know it's not always easy to come out and tell the world where you stand.

At one campus where I was lecturing, I asked a friend, "How many of my colleagues know I'm gay?" He answered, "All of them." I wasn't surprised. But, just the same, it was kind of spooky, because not one of them had ever given me the faintest sign that he or she knew. If I had spoken about it myself, most of them would have felt it was in bad taste.

Then there's the in-between, not a lipstick lesbian, not a butch dyke. I think that is what I'd be, a sweatpants lesbian.

I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn't understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.

You build up coming out to this horrible moment. It's so stressful, there's so much adrenaline, and there's so much primal fear - even though I know my parents to be good people - that they're going to reject you.

Back in the day, coming out was something very personal. You began by acknowledging the truth, first to yourself, then to close family and friends. Those of us more in the public spotlight, though, also had to 'come out' to the press.

If I had had someone like me who had chosen to live their lives out and proud, there would be no need for the Tyler Clementis of the world.

Because I'm not a nice lesbian, I'm a big dyke!

I'd rather not be known as the Vice President's lesbian daughter.

While I learned, I hid out largely in the gay community, and overall it kept me very safe.

Being from New York, if you're gay, you're gay. I think it's important that if you are gay, you not be afraid to say who you are.

I've been so blessed to work with all my favorite artists as a gay man.

I kind of live my life as an example, and I just never felt like I had to be on the cover of a magazine announcing that I was gay; it's just who I am. I just live my life, and I never really thought about it.

I'm just going to jump and say:hey Mom, Dad, I'm gay, What's for dessert?

My mother said to me, 'Why do you have to call yourself a dyke? Why can't you be a nice lesbian?' 'Because I'm not a nice lesbian, I'm a big dyke.'

I knew I was as gay as a goose. Then I ended up in West Hollywood, where the queers hang from the trees. I was home. I had landed.

I don't belong to the straights now - they didn't get me back.

Even before I knew I was gay, I knew I didn't want to have a child. I knew I didn't want to have one. I never want to have to release it from me. Listen, I love babies. I love children. And I melt when I'm around them. I also love my freedom and I love that I can sleep at night.