Hello, it’s me, Valerie Anne the Tired, back from two weekends in a row of being at conventions comprised either mostly or entirely of queer people, and I’m here to tell you that the exhaustion is worth it.
I’ve been going to cons for about five years now; I started with New York Comic Con, because I’m a dive-into-the-deep-end kind of person, and it was overwhelming, but very fun. And also very, very straight. One con (pun intended) of writing professionally about queer TV is that sometimes you forget that straight people watch TV too, and are fans of it, and are plentiful. So I’ll admit it was my own fault, but I was surprised when Orphan Black cosplay was few and far between, for example. And while there was some really cool gender bending going on, a lot of the shows my friends and I loved the most felt underrepresented. Granted, it made for a fun scavenger hunt (finding a Cosima amongst the Negans that first year was a DELIGHT, let me tell you), especially while walking the vendor hall, and after my initial slap from reality, it felt just like any other day. These might be mostly straight nerds, but they’re still nerds, so they’re still my people.
Cut to a few years later when I discover FlameCon. It was a pocket-sized NYCC but only for queer people! Queer nerds everywhere! It was my heaven. The vendor hall was full of the ships I shipped, all was well. This year’s FlameCon was no different, and it had no shortage of Anne Lister and She-Ra/Catra cosplayers. And the weekend before I was at EH Con, a Wynonna Earp convention, where there was an entire panel dedicated to the two queer couples on the show, and the room was filled to the brim.
So I want to hear about your queer con experiences. (Spoiler alert: You being queer and at any con counts, it doesn’t have to be a queer con.) Tell me about the queerest coolest cosplay you’ve ever done or seen, tell me about a time you thought you were in a panel for a show you assumed would be super straight and you got some bonus gay (for me it was Legacies), tell me about how you carved out a queer corner for yourselves in a not-explicitly-queer con (I find traveling in packs helps with this). Basically I want to talk about cons with you because I’m a big nerd and these two cons I went to were only cons 4 and 5 of the year, I’ll have hit 7 by the time the year’s out. OR if you really want to go to a con but have questions or concerns, throw them out there and we’ll help each other the best we can!
How To Post A Photo In The Comments:
Find a photo on the web, right click (on a Mac, control+click), hit “Copy Image URL” and then…
code it in to your comment like so:
If you need to upload the photo you love from your computer, try using imgur. To learn more about posting photos, check out A.E.’s step-by-step guide.
How To Post A Video In The Comments, Too:
Find a video on YouTube, copy the URL, and paste the link on its own separate line in your comment. You no longer need to use the “embed” code!
