Matthew Papa’s image of himself on his 50th birthday, for example, tells how the day was an even bigger milestone because, after the AIDS crisis, he never expected to reach that age. After all, it’s still rare for the oft-tokenized queer community to be the ones to represent themselves, which is why this Pride Month W asked 35 queer photographers to illustrate how they personally define pride and queer identity. True queer representation is still all too real a problem today. His experience is just one example of how the queer community has gained less mainstream acceptance over the years than it has appeared on the surface level. His snapshots are now a staple of queer imagery, but it took Bianchi years to publish them. Four decades ago, the photographer Tom Bianchi began capturing the nearly 10,000 gay men who every summer flocked to their Eden in a specific part of New York’s Fire Island.
