hankycode magazine is a print and digital publication dedicated to sharing queer stories.

For the past three years, Taylor Mac and Matt Ray's queer rock opera, Bark of Millions, has dazzled stages across the world. The opera is comprised of 55 songs, dedicated to 55 different historical queer figures, and in remembrance of the 55 years that have passed since the Stonewall Riots. In September, Black Dog & Leventhal published Bark of Millions: Queer Songs for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme, a two-volume book that includes 50 of the show's songs and personal essays by Taylor Mac. hankycode is thrilled to bring you an excerpt of Queer Protects the World, an essay about Mac's personal experiences with queer activism and the historical figures that have helped shape him.

“Excerpted from Bark of Millions by Taylor Mac and Matt Ray (Black Dog & Leventhal). 

Illustrations by Zach Blumner. Copyright © 2026.”  

I discovered this year, in therapy, that I wasn’t a cowardly kid, like everyone from my childhood assumed.

I was experienced. When I was four, I witnessed my father die in a motorcycle accident, and it made me conscious of loss. The other kids, at least the ones I knew, didn’t know you could die from what they called courage. In fact, it wasn’t simply courage that sent them leaping off of cliffs on dirt bikes; it was also their ignorance.

All these wasted years assuming I’d been less than the other kids (and why not, when those around me kept insisting it was true?), when in terms of experience, I was more. Though if I’d grown up thinking I was brave, I might not have pushed myself to be more so. Then no drag, no epics, and worst of all, no crowd-surfing! And no political protests. Here’s a story:

It was around six a.m. on the dirt road leading to the nuclear Nevada Test Site. I’d locked my neck down to a cattle guard—a hard, cold, dew-damp, not-so-comfy cattle guard—along with a ragtag group of what might now be called eco-terrorists. That’s when the caravan of test-site workers arrived. In the front truck was a man—a worker going to work, unable to get through because my body was blocking the road as part of an anti-nuclear-proliferation protest—a burly working man with a body the size of his monster truck. In fact, let’s call him Burl.

I thanked the coldness of the morning for the smokescreen to my shaking. Because I was frightened. Especially when, after cursing me out, Burl got back in his truck and revved his engine (his attempt at intimidation). Oh, the bestial power. Beowulf had arrived!

All I would have had to do was call out to the aging hippie assigned to release me. The one over the ridge, tripping the light fantastic to welcome the sun, while tripping his balls off on peyote. He had the key to my lock, tucked away in his patchwork pants (the ones with the coins sewn into the sides, so his jingling dance wouldn’t give away the jingling key). Burl presumed if frightened enough, I’d call out to my key bearer and say, “Enough! I am through! A world free of nuclear testing for half a day is not worth the anticipation of Beowulf.” But I didn’t. I wanted to, but I’m stubborn, which ultimately stems from my fear of embarrassment. How embarrassing it would be to give up to the sound of an engine, to the far-off possibility of him racing forward and crushing my limbs? How embarrassing to walk back defeated, with the test-site workers taunting me and cheering their victory? How weak would I be? They always win, the bullies, because they’re always meaner.

And let’s face it, the action, for me, wasn’t just about a global need to end nuclear proliferation—radiation and waste and environmental destruction— it was also about high-school water-polo star Rob Waters calling me faggot, while I said nothing (secretly wishing for his suntanned skin on top of me). This was about my need to show courage, finally, and by mother-fucking God I was going to stay put.

And then Burl drove his monster truck toward my locked-down head. At first slowly, stopping two inches short of me, so I could have stuck my tongue out and licked the desert off the rubber. Then he’d back up, only to do it again. And again. Getting faster each time, until the wheels began screeching as they stopped.

Meanwhile, the peyote-tripping hippie began singing Peter, Paul, and Mary songs. I couldn’t help but feel a little animosity toward him. Wishing the monster truck would swerve at the last second, missing me, while silencing . . . at least Peter.

Dear god the karma from such a thought! I was sure it meant the next round of scare-the-queer would lead to a fatal collision. Burl would put a little too much pressure on the gas and crush my skull—boof. And the papers would say, “Activist Killed in Protest.” And they’d call me stupid. They’d blame me for wanting to make a change: “What an idiot, locking his neck down to a cattle guard. Even cows are smart enough to stay away from those.” And Burl would get off scot-free. He was only defending his job, only defending his family, only defending the American way. He was protecting our protection from the millions of evil-doers eager to destroy our way of life. “Don’t you know they want to take away McDonald’s!”¹

Instead, the Wackenhuts showed (rent-a-cops hired specifically for protests). They arrived with their air-pressure, u-lock-breaker pump in hand, attached it to the metal around my neck, and I felt the buildup of an explosion—KUNK—as it broke me free. The Wackenhuts carried me to a paddy wagon, the workers—never so happy to go to work—drove off to make America safe, and my aging hippie held up two fingers as they passed, “Peace, Man.” Indeed.

After that experience, I tried a different activism, called life. Of course, this approach is just as life-threatening. As Marsha P. Johnson could attest to, if someone hadn’t murdered her and thrown her in the Hudson. To Marsha, life was activism, and it clearly took courage. Not to throw the first brick at Stonewall, considering she said herself she wasn’t there the first night (and no one ever used a brick), but the thousands of her personal Stonewalls, before and after 1969, when she took to the streets as herself (and later when she cofounded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, STAR). To see Marsha P. Johnson walking down the street was to see a love revolution. She was unique (so divinely singular I thought about including her in the Fairy Gods chapter, as it’s clear her spirit embodied divinity). And uniqueness takes courage, especially as she didn’t do it ignorantly. She knew what the consequences could be, as so many of us do.

In the early aughts, in the East Village, a man offended by my drag pulled a gun on me (I like to pretend, because of the aesthetic rather than the gender confusion). Who knows if he intended to kill me, but he certainly wanted to frighten me, and he succeeded. My drag mother, Mother Flawless Sabrina,² calmed my shaking later that night by saying, “He must have wanted to be part of the show.” She spoke from experience. Someone shot her. In the ass. She often bragged, “I have two holes in my ass.”

After the third time a man held me at gunpoint for having hairy legs while wearing high heels, I found my activism shifting from the mass market of the street to the niche of a stage. It wasn’t a decision, but I can’t help but notice I changed my behavior. It’s rare that you’ll see me walking down the street in drag these days (unless with a posse). Am I smart, a survivor, or have I simply succumbed to the intimidation? I think this essay (and the songs in this chapter) might be my way of finding my way out of intimidation. Experience changed me, perhaps for the better as I know more now, but I certainly don’t want to let it isolate me. And so, I look to others. A posse of queers to walk the streets with me. If not literally, then in spirit.

I like to think we all can be as brave as Bayard Rustin, who went at his civil disobedience over and over and over again, throughout his whole life. Or Madeleine Pelletier, a first-wave feminist (meaning, lesbian and feminist) who, in the 1930s, got confined to a mental-health facility for performing an abortion. I know I’m not as brave as Madeleine, who gave all for her cause, eventually dying while institutionalized. Nor are any of us, it would seem, as brave as Frances Thompson, the first trans woman to testify before the United States Congress. Frances, a formerly enslaved woman, went to the authorities to declare that white supremacists had raped her during the Memphis Riots of 1866. Rather than sending her rapists to prison, the judge imprisoned her for impersonating a woman. If you’re looking to spur your courage on while denying the tragedy of experience, Frances’s story is not the example. She was called a devil and tortured, simply for being the bravest person in the room, while the judge set the veritable devils free to propagate themselves into our White House.

Logically, I know that an active hope is the only way forward, but sometimes . . . sometimes I just want to take a taxi to the gig. Assuming the taxi’s safer than the street. Or the gig. The performance artist Penny Arcade³ once told me about a woman who roamed Max’s Kansas City⁴ with a hypodermic needle she used to stab unsuspecting patrons. Penny said, “It wasn’t safe, but you learned to keep an eye on her.”

Really, whoever claimed the stage to be a safe space hasn’t been on tour with me through the Bible Belt, the Rust Belt, or the Panhandle. Or New England! Especially in a day and age when open-carry laws are as prevalent as mass shootings. So, the choices I make to be safer could simply be fallacies. It’s possible that being queer means there are no safer ways around. What’s courage then? If the alternative to bravery is the worst-case scenario (torture or death), is it brave to be brave or simply the only option? I’m often called brave by the kind allies because of the work that I do. But am I? Is the use of the adjective a kind of denial, used by those not in the circumstance of the courageous? Is it their way of not having to change? Of putting the onus on the oppressed—on our courage, or lack of it? Or are we all just looking for role models to keep us going on this slow arc to justice? Then back to the heroes.

Stormé DeLarverie was a Black and butch queer bouncer in downtown New York, known as the Guardian Angel of the Village. Like Marsha, she (he/they?) treated her life as grassroots activism (she may have actually been the one to start the Stonewall Riot, though we’ll never know). For Stormé, activism most likely took many forms, but one of them was the simple escort home. She made herself the posse for the lesbian, the sex worker, and/or the queen on the street. She freed those she came in contact with from the fear of their experiences.

And once free, we look to tough-love Daddy Kramer. He shows us that our experiences make us more capable, not less. Larry Kramer was so full of rage over what was happening to us, because he always knew we were “better” than the inexperienced kids of our youth. He used his rage to push us into action. He taught us we don’t have to ask for permission to participate in the creativity of our survival. Some claimed he shamed us into action. Maybe. I prefer to think he freed us from shame. And he often did it with humor. The man was hysterical (it’s not something many people associate him with, but read his novel The American People after freeing yourself of the assumption of him, and you’ll see what I mean). It is the full range of us that liberates us after all. It’s not simply the action on the streets but the action on the cattle guard, stage, and even runway.

Tracy Africa Norman and Jenny Shimizu are pioneers in the world of out-and-proud runway models (Tracy for the T and Jenny for the L). Not being a fashionista myself—it only seems that way because our costume guru Machine Dazzle makes me fabulous—I’m less excited by Tracy and Jenny’s career path than by the notion that while some use fists to fight for revolution, others use glam. Wham bam thank you ma’ams!

May we all use all the tools available to us—those tools we’ve learned and earned from our experience. Larry, Bayard, Marsha, Madeleine, Stormé, Tracy, Jenny, and, yes, Frances, too, certainly used theirs (humor, rage, intellect, style, subterfuge, persistence, gentleness, expertise, arms, dicks, pussies, eyes, hearts, and love, love, love—to name a few). They had the experience to do so. It was their entitled crusade—that the world needs our experience— that led them to it. If we leave the solutions to the inexperienced, we get where we are now (whether you’re reading this in the era of MAGA or some future race to the bottom). The kids who claimed courage when it was ignorance are too often in charge. And it’s not going well for any of us. So, for Frances, for Madeleine, for Marsha, for all their sisters, for you and the world, grab a posse or become the posse—use the songs here if they help—but let’s get to it.

¹ Is McDonald’s even a thing now? I don’t remember the last time I saw one, but maybe 

that’s because I don’t watch TV or drive, so I simply don’t have access; does that mean the Big Mac is more niche than the little one?

² See Chapter II for Mother Flawless Sabrina’s song. 

³ Penny Arcade is on the ever-growing list of queens who’ll inspire future songs for our Bark 

⁴ Max’s was a 1970s bar/club/performance venue the glitterati would congregate in. If it 

existed today, it might be considered a queer “safe space.”