NOTE: You can see all my collage artwork and other graphic designs on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/seradrakethebookwyrm/

I start the second half of Pride Month off with a M x M gay meme. It uses a still from the Merchant-Ivory film Maurice - which is amazing, if you haven't yet seen it, see it. 

The film, in turn, was based on E M Forster's book by the same name. Maurice was not an autobiographical novel, but it did deal with what was then a taboo subject: gayness. Men were not supposed to fall in love with other men a hundred years ago. It was illegal. When "the love that dared not speak its name" involved two men of different social classes (this was a term coined by Oscar Wilde, by the way, who served hard time in prison because he had an affair with a young lordling named "Bosey," whose father, the Marquess of Queensbury, was not at all happy with the company his son kept, and was powerful enough to take retribution) it was especially taboo. Maurice was published posthumously. It was too dangerous for E M Forster to publish in his lifetime. 

Which would have been true even if Forster hadn't been gay himself.

Consensual sex between two people of the same gender was not legalized in Britain until 1967, and even then they had to both be over the age of 21 - well over the age of legal consent for heterosexual couplings. Certain sex acts that were considered to be queer, despite the fact that heterosexual people also indulged in them, were not legalized until 2008. I'll get to Britain's Spanner laws in a later meme. And yes. I broke the Spanner laws many times over when I lived on that side of the pond. It was absolutely queer in context, even though my usual partner was someone who presented as the "opposite" gender from mine.

Without further ado, 

June 16 - "The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Part 1)"

June 17: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow Connection," mashing together two classic pieces of gay show tune culture. Fun fact: before queerness was decriminalized, gay men used to call each other the "friends of Dorothy." As in Dorothy Gale. Gee, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas. (Thank goodness).

June 18: Pan-damonium (two puns at once!)

June 19: Bi pride collage - glitter and the bi pride flag on top of lace

June 20: Another bi pride meme

June 21: "Butterflies In Transition" - transgender pride 

June 22 - Another transgender pride meme

And a bonus drop! BDSM pride. 

Let's talk about the other love that dare not speak its name. (Thanks, Oscar, for that turn of phrase).

The meme below focuses on the fight to repeal Britain's Spanner laws. For a decade and a half, consensual kink was illegal in England. 

Mostly the law that made it so targeted queer men who played in club settings, but other people could get caught in its dragnet, too - and did.

There was a certain thrill to taking part in activities with my boyfriend and girlfriend, knowing that I was violating the law and could possibly wind up deported back to the USA, felon that I was. 

It wasn't a very nice thrill, though. It felt great to violate an unfair, oppressive law. The fact that the law existed at all was something else all over again.

Operation Spanner's history is part of LGBTQIAP+ history. You can find it through Wikipedia's portal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner

For more information on the queer roots of the leather/BDSM subculture, meanwhile, there are worse places to start than here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_subculture

I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that there are many different facets of the BDSM subculture, some of them more queer-friendly and trans-friendly than others. 

Some parts of the community are heteronormative. 

Some, such as people who belong to right-wing fundamentalist movements and who see D/s and BDSM as a reflection of God's "mandate" that women submit to men, and that the purpose of sex is procreation, actively oppress queer, trans people like me.

But it should nevertheless go on the record that at least some parts of the are actively queer-friendly. And queer. And for us, kink is part of being queer, therefore, it is queer itself.

June 23: Another transgender pride meme

June 24: We Are Family!

June 25: Oscar Wilde

June 26: Another terrible pun. But aren't these lions fabulously festive?

June 27: Something sapphic. "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me"

The title is inspired by a song by The Cure. The song is awesome, but it is not queer, so I won't embed it the way I usually do when I make art that's inspired in some way by music.

June 28: Another sapphic art tile. "Darling, Let's Pet Swans!"

June 29: 

Neuroqueer theory (for those of us queer, autistic people who have double rainbows)

June 30, in case the thunderstorm over here knocks out our power and I can't upload: Gendervague identity (another autistic double rainbow thing)

And my bonus tile to end the month of June: ME! TOO QUEER EVEN TO FIT IN ANYONE'S QUILTBAG!