Ask any queer person and you will likely get a different answer and a compelling story about their own close personal relationship to unicorns. How can a one-horned horse mean so much?Īfter seeking out scholars on the subject of queer unicorns, I came to the conclusion that there’s no consensus on how the unicorn became a gay icon. And somehow, the unicorn is also a self-selected icon that we have used to replace centuries of ugly stereotypes. To me, the ubiquity of pink fluffy unicorns feels like a commodified avatar for the "gay means happy” stereotype - that fatal insistence that queer folx be sparkling and content no matter how frequently society rejects us. On more cynical days, I attribute the link to the fact that we have always been fetishized outcasts that the cis-het capitalist overlords want to brand into profitability. But how did this connection happen - the one between a glowing, colorful mythical creature with bedazzled headgear and queer culture? Some people might venture to say that it's because unicorns are mystical creatures and, well, so are queers. Peruse the internet for a few mere minutes and you’ll find photos of me squished happy and half naked between two women on a unicorn float on my birthday. Some time in the past ten years, unicorns became gay icons, second only to the rainbow flag in symbolizing queerness.
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