Reporting by The InQueery staff
Illusgaytions by Annelise Capossela

As this year comes to a close, it’s important to take a moment to look back and see how far your little research corporation has grown since last holigay season. We’ve been hard at work to not only uncover upcoming queer trends, but to preserve our hard-hitting research for posterity in uncertain times. In the past year, we formed a committee to nominate gay sounds, developed a guide to joining queer sports leagues, redesigned our company uniforms to include iconic leather jackets, and crafted a diplomatic treaty with a group of merpeople. We also strengthened our brand partnerships this year, including collaborating on a series of salad recipes with Sweetgreen, creating a queer-focused workout app for Nike, and embarking on a business plan that would upgrade Zenni Optical to more than just a Warby Parker wannabe. Research into the “emotional support gay” archetype revealed a whole subculture of such helpers, and initial studies of the digital Cloud suggest that it may be a homophobic assault on queer analog devices. We touched on decorating trends, designer dogs, and queer modes of vacationing. Most crucially, we returned to our pioneering research on queer caffeination and were the first to report on the “flaming” nature of drinking hot coffee in the summer months.

With these kinds of breakthroughs in the field of queer trend forecasting and analysis, it’s apparent that our investigaytors are well credentialed with deep reserves of knowledge. This comes as no surprise, as our team has devoted their lives to this study, going all the way back to their childhoods. In this season of reflection, our writers and illusgaytors are sharing their “queer roots,” their earliest queer fixations and identity shapers.

Aaron Fernandez
‘Charles,’ the little blue Mini Cooper. My queer life started with that vehicle. I always had to pray he would start. Even when he got vandalized with slurs, I never felt more proud than when I had everyone I loved crammed into the back of that tiny, gay car.

Felicia Fitzpatrick
Rent. This musical introduced me to the concept of chosen family, which is a pillar of my queer experience. Plus, it was the soundtrack to the summer starring my first queer crush. We bonded over our love of it,  singing “Take Me or Leave Me” at karaoke quickly became *our thing.* Kiss, pookie!

Reese Bice
Howl Pendragon from Howl’s Moving Castle. My transgender icon as a young, closeted trans man, his hypnotic combination of utter fruitiness and fragile masculinity spoke to my experience of manhood: magical, aspirational, yet slimy and monstrous. In Howl’s words: “I give up! I see no point in living if I can’t be beautiful!”

Dylan Marron
Britney Spears’ wardrobe change at the 2000 VMAs. A rip-away suit that revealed a bejeweled skin-toned bodysuit beneath  left me breathless every time I rewatched it. RIP to the innocent VHS tape I recorded that moment onto. I hope it survived the rewinding but I know it didn’t.

Meg Steinfeld-Heim
Yoshi. That joyful, genderless dinosaur was multitalented and chaotically neutral. When Yoshi wasn’t gobbling up enemies with his long tongue, they were laying eggs that doubled as projectiles. Mother ate!

Sam Bolen
Playing “House.” I was not just a daycare kid, I was king of daycare. As such, no one flinched when I called dibs on the role of “Mom” every time we played “House.” You don’t just wake up one day with a “Soccer Mom in the Hamptons” aesthetic. It takes practice, kiddo.

Jared Fresch
Lisa Frank stickers. From decorating my binders in Jewish Day School to vandalizing my friends’ faces at college parties, these have always been a staple of my queerness. To this day, the psychedelic, high-chroma work of Lisa Frank has influenced the jewel-toned color palette within my art practice.

David Odyssey
Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD box sets. Prized above all else in my childhood bedroom, each season was beautifully encased and designed, surely by some homosexual at 20th Century Fox: season two in a smoky scarlet; season three in gold and green; the actors posing for photoshoots to adorn the discs and covers. I could sit in my bed and stare at the sets, the denizens of my first mantlepiece, and feel harmony in my private world.

José Rojas
Campy dark villains and queer and female outcasts from 90s movies. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman? Raw sensuality with a dash of brokenness. Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her? Hilariously delicious and daringly grotesque. Anjelica Huston embodies eerie sophistication in The Addams Family and The Witches. And Pedro Almodóvar’s absurd characters were a perfect blend of suffering, sassiness, and magical realism.

Colin Verdi 
Dollar-store mermaid doll. I was obsessed and refused to do bathtime without it. I lost her in the ocean, which was devastating, but at least she is back with her friends.

Ricky Tucker 
Designing Women. As a young gay North Carolinian, they were the blueprint for my gay Southern aesthetic. No, the women of Sugarbaker’s design firm aren’t gay per se, but their dedication to wearing distinctly separate primary colored outfits every episode, the show’s creator writing one of TV’s first very special AIDS episodes (circa 1986), and of course Julia’s drag-queen-inspiring monologue, “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia,” places them in the Homosexual Hall of Fame.

Ali Romig
Ms. Sara Bellum. This cartoon bombshell may have spent the majority of The Powerpuff Girls‘ run in the background, but whenever she was onscreen, I couldn’t look away. Too tall for her face to be seen, all we were treated to was her mass of red hair. While she likely gave other little girls complexes about what women were supposed to look like, I was more drawn to her mystery than her figure…and that is gay.

Jack X. Zhou
Sakura’s Clow Card. As a boy who was fond of sorcery, the cards from Cardcaptor Sakura were the most prized items among my collection. A deep bond was formed between myself and a girl who had the Clow Wand. We came together to practice magic, followed by a Daidouji-styled tea party.

Stephanie Rudig
Fried Green Tomatoes. This 90s classic was on heavy rotation in my family’s VHS player, but I’m pretty sure the thinly veiled queer subtext went right over my Midwestern parents’ heads. Mary Stuart Masterson plays an iconic badass “tomboy” who is clearly meant to be with Mary-Louise Parker. I was also fascinated by a scene in which Kathy Bates goes to a women’s sexuality workshop where the participants are meant to lie back in BarcaLoungers and examine their pussies with hand mirrors—who hasn’t been there?

Greg Kozatek
Holographic Pokemon Cards. These pieces of  ‘queer currency’ gave me the playground prowess to dominate the str8 kids into showing some goddamn respect. “You want to gaze upon my first edition Charizard? First, bow down, bitch.”

Tom Vellner
My Little Pony. There’s a home video my mom recorded during a family visit; as she pans around the room, the kids are all playing, and then there’s me: a lil’ gay boy, blissed out in the corner, Rubbermaid tub open, my older sister’s My Little Pony collection overflowing, carefully brushing all their colorful, sparkly manes, harnessing their rainbow power.

Rob Wilson
Hugo puppet. This doll, known as a Man of a Thousand Faces, came with all kinds of accessories—plastic noses, chins, beards and glasses. But he became a magic dancer once I put a wig on him and wrapped him in a makeshift dress.

Brian Britigan
Disney’s Hercules. When I was in elementary school I stayed home sick and watched the VHS on repeat for 48 hours straight, and I’m still sometimes surprised that this movie actually exists and is not just an elaborate fever dream concocted by my little gay eight-year-old brain.

Annelise Capossela
Barbies. Woefully outdated hand-me-downs from my cousins which I lovingly “fixed” with buzzcuts, heavy eyeshadow, and hand-sewn tube tops and camo pants (yes, they were cargo).

Weston Wei
Card Captor Sakura. When I was in primary school, every night after dinner I sat in front of the TV waiting to see the newest episodes of the Japanese animated show. It inspired me to create my own magical comics. I was chasing the love.