On This Day in Queerstory: Joanna Russ is born

May 1st, International Workers’ Day, is historically associated with the labor movement, red flags, and the roar of the picket line. But for the queer community, “May Day” is also a reminder that the struggle for labor rights is, and always has been, the struggle for queer liberation. Today, we celebrate those who stood on the picket line with a rainbow hidden in their overalls and those who wrote the radical future we are living in now.

1937: The Birth of the Female Man—Joanna Russ

On this day in 1937, the world gained Joanna Russ, a titan of feminist and queer science fiction. Her seminal 1975 novel, The Female Man, wasn’t just a book; it was a detonation. In it, she explored the lives of four women from different parallel universes who meet and shatter the gender binary.

Russ was an out lesbian in an era where sci-fi was a “boys’ club,” and her writing provided a intellectual safe haven for generations of queer geeks. She dismantled the patriarchy with laser-sharp prose, proving that the most radical way to change the world is to write a new one from scratch.

The Labor-Queer Connection: Bayard Rustin

May Day is the perfect time to honor Bayard Rustin, the queer architect of the Civil Rights Movement. Rustin, who organized the 1963 March on Washington, was forced to remain in the shadows, constantly sidelined by the fear that his sexuality would discredit the movement.

Rustin understood that economic justice and sexual freedom were two sides of the same coin. He spent his life fighting for unions, for the marginalized, and for his right to be a Black, gay man in the public square. On May Day, we recognize that the “queer story” is also a story of the working class—the people who built the world but were told they weren’t welcome to live in it.

1990: Paris Is Burning and the Radical Gaze

While its wide release came later, the early May period of 1990 was thick with the anticipation of Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning. The documentary, which captured the Harlem drag ball scene, became a global phenomenon. It brought the terms “vogueing,” “realness,” and “shade” into the suburban lexicon. It was a watershed moment for visibility, even as it sparked complex debates about race, class, and who gets to tell a community’s story. It remains required viewing for anyone who wants to understand the “adult” reality of queer survival: that joy, in the face of poverty and bigotry, is an act of defiance.

May Day reminds us that rights are not given; they are demanded. Whether it’s Joanna Russ fighting for a future where gender is a choice, or Bayard Rustin organizing the masses, the history of May 1st is the history of people refusing to accept the “natural order” of things.