Words Owen Myers Photography Markus Bidaux at Gay’s The Word bookshop
‘Touch this skin daahhling, touch this skin honey, touch all of it”, trills Venus Xtravaganza, the whip-smart trans woman star of Paris Is Burning. Filmmaker Jennie Livingston’s stunning 1990 documentary captures the witty barbs and steely resilience of the characters of New York’s ball scene — the LGBT+ subculture that originated with queer people of colour in Harlem in the 1960s.
Ball culture gave the world throwing shade, voguing (that’s where Madonna got it), and the art of reading someone for filth.