Photo: Anita Khemka
Out's October music issue features our first ever Top 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time as decided by polling over 100 musicians, writers, filmmakers, and critics. All month long Popnography has been rolling out the individual top 10's from some of our favorite respondents.
Today's list comes from transgender author, playwright, and performance artist Kate Bornstein, perhaps best known for her books Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us and My Gender Workbook, both of which have been taught in classes at over 120 universities around the world. (We're huge fans of the latter especially as a fun, funny way to get the most serious of binary thinkers to open their minds a bit.) You can also check out Kate's recent blog post on helping the Stonewall Democrats spread the word about today's cyber day of action during which trans folks and their allies can show Senator Obama both their numbers and their support.
Kate Bornstein's top 10 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time:
10. Tegan and Sara, So Jealous, Tegan and Sara: These grrrls and this album give me hope for a very sweet, strong, and fun queer future.
9. Helen Kane, The Original "Boop-Boob-A-Doop" Girl: This album taught me most of what I needed to know about expressing myself as high femme.
8. Blondie, Parallel Lines: This album bends sexuality and gender with no apologies. I can still listen to it beginning to end and fully enjoy the strength it gives me as a queer.
7. ABBA, Gold: Oh come on. Joy, joy, joy.
6. The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: My first taste of life outside the white, heteronormative, middle class box I'd been living in all my life to that point.
5. Pacific Overtures, original cast recording: Sondheim's musical about the westernization of Japan is a brilliant illustration of the means and effects of assimilationism, seen through the filters of race and citizenship. The principles apply to gender and sexuality as well.
4. Cris Williamson, The Changer and the Changed: It's a classic pioneering album of lesbian feminist activism and spirituality.
3. The Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground and Nico: First time I ever heard SM set to music. Holy poop!
2. Ferron, Shadows On A Dime: I came out as a tranny dyke in the mid-80s, and Ferron's music touched every single chord of strength I needed to overcome my vast quantities of self-pity.
1. All That Jazz, original film soundtrack: Bob Fosse's musical comedy salute to sex, art, ego and death. What could possibly be more queer than that? This is also my favorite film of all time.
Get all the rest of the music, fashion, interviews, and more from Out's October issue at Out.com. And while you're there, take a second and weigh in on your choice for the Greatest, Gayest Album of All Time.
Previously > Chris March's top 10 > Justin Bond's top 10 > Murray Hill's top 10
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