David Bowie’s genr-bendg performanc and cultural fluidy spired a generatn of gay, lbian and transgenr people.
Contents:
- WAS HE GAY, BISEXUAL OR BOWIE? Y
- “I’M NOT GAY!” HOW BOWIE BACKTRACKED ON HIS BISEXUALY FOR LET'S DANCE
- BOWIE: ‘I’M GAY AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN’
- WAS DAVID BOWIE GAY? RUMORS OF HIM BEG GAY
WAS HE GAY, BISEXUAL OR BOWIE? Y
* was david bowie gay *
Bowie, 69, was not jt a pop idol but a the days sce his ath, lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr fans have shared how the rocker fluenced their liv and helped brg queer culture to the mastream the 1960s and 1970s. “Feelg those sentiments was important, pecially as a gay youth who was not out at the time. “I’m gay, ” he said to the journalist Michael Watts 1972, “and always have been, even when I was David Jon, ” his name at years later, an article for Rollg Stone tled “Straight Time, ” Mr.
Bowie, who married two women and had two children, would still face the qutn terviews years later: Was he gay or bisexual? ” In other words, he was not a mpaigner for gay rights, but Mr. Lowr ntued, “but, pecially at the begng of his reer, he was regnizably ‘gay.
"I'm gay, " clared David Bowie, "and always have been, even when I was David Jon. “I’m gay, ” clared David Bowie, “and always have been, even when I was David Jon.
“I’M NOT GAY!” HOW BOWIE BACKTRACKED ON HIS BISEXUALY FOR LET'S DANCE
"I'm gay," clared David Bowie, "and always have been, even when I was David Jon. * was david bowie gay *
The Brish Parliament had only crimalized homosexualy 1967; post-Stonewall U. Gay life was not yet 3 years old.
The Hunky Dory song “Queen Bch” is sung gay vernacular (“She’s so swishy her sat and tat! ”) om the perspective of a participant gay life and set to buzzg guar chords clearly cribbed om The Velvet Unrground, which earlier chronicled this genr-mutable world through s ti to Andy Warhol, who had a Hunky Dory tune wrten about him too.
And through his R&B rad succs wh “Young Amerins” and “Fame, ” Bowie bolstered dis’s early lk between clanste gay dance halls and fiantly upsle soul. 1972: Comg out an terviewIn a magaze terview 1972, Bowie said he was gay. It had jt eight songs and, of them, the tle track and Cat People had already been released, Cha Girl was a new versn of a song he'd wrten wh Iggy Pop 1977, and Crimal World was a ver versn of another 1977 release by Brish band Metro – a song that had been banned by the BBC for allns to gay sex.
BOWIE: ‘I’M GAY AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN’
“He is not gay, whatever he may have blurted out 1972, ” wrote terviewer Kurt Lor, “nor was he ever a transvte, thank you. Released as a sgle 1977, Metro’s Crimal World had been banned by the BBC for s ‘sexual ntent’: allns to cross-drsg and gay sex. Wrten 1974, jt five years after England and Wal legalised homosexual sex between men over the age of 21 (and six years before Stland would do so), Crimal World raised a playful eyebrow at a (supposedly crimal) world where “the boys are like baby-faced girls” and “the girls are like baby-faced boys”.
“It was a satire on androgyny, sexual ambivalence, posturg, pretendg to be gay or whatever, ” says Godw. I'm straight but I have a lot of gay iends and I'm very fortable a gay, or cross-genr i, always have been. Suggtively gay.
WAS DAVID BOWIE GAY? RUMORS OF HIM BEG GAY
” In the words of Bowie expert Chris O’Leary, he had “turned a gay-themed le to one that Vce Neil uld’ve wrten. A generatn of gay fans had felt liberated by Bowie’s claim to be bisexual a earlier.
”I thought, 'He don't want now to be associated wh somethg that is too gay-iendly or suggtive'. A lot of people the mic bs were gay or at the very least bisexual, but the biggt taboo you uld break those days was to e out and say, y’know, ‘I swg both ways’. Mick Jagger was quick to dismiss the whole thg as "plete bbish, " and a public letter om David Bowie's lawyer stated that any "implitn that there was ever a gay affair between Mick Jagger and David Bowie is an absolute fabritn.
) gay or, even worse, (fat! Failed love affairs as exprsed song lyrics only hold tert for so long, but a salac mor about famo people engagg a homosexual uplg will live as long as there are people to repeat . When David Bowie died 2016, many gay, bisexual, and transgenr fans and performers paid their rpects, often notg his fluence their liv and quasi-mastream queer culture, particularly the '70s.