Neither ‘queer’ nor ‘beginnings’ are easy to pin down. Queerness is infamous for its ability to slip away from definition; it encompasses – but is not reducible to – sexuality, gender, race, ability, class, politics, and more. Beginnings, too, wriggle from our grasp. Choose a beginning for any historical event, movement, or narrative and there is always something which precedes it. Are beginnings focused into an inciting event, or do they reside in the feelings which precipitate such events? Who gets to decide?
Of many possible forms, queer beginnings could resemble false starts, abandoned ventures, or aberrant paths. False starts occur when we must repeatedly justify our queerness, ask for hormones again and again, or order our lives in supposedly unnatural ways (Freeman, 2010). On the other hand, we abandon ventures when our hope is revealed to be cruelly against our interests, an elected gay politician turning his back on the trans community (Berlant, 2011). And we embark down aberrant paths, towards a life of political protest or polyamorus relationships, for instance. That first step off the path well trodden is often the hardest (Ahmed, 2006).
So far few scholars have questioned the queerness of the beginning. Creatives, however, know openings, starts, and launches well. Every artwork must have a beginning and even static works like painting and sculpture make an impression on first look. Queer beginnings can be puzzling, like the inscrutable swishing sound SOPHIE chooses to open her album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES (2018). They can be funny, like the rubbish-laden ‘Burger Queen Blues’ number which starts Rosa von Praunheim’s film City of Lost Souls (1983). Or queer beginnings can be bracing, like: ‘The war was all over my hands,’ the line that launches Donika Kelly’s poem ‘I Never Figured How to Get Free’ (2019). Aesthetic beginnings are different from historical beginnings, however. An artwork’s beginning is here in front of us while historical beginnings are diffuse and emerge only in retrospect. A focus on the tangible queer beginnings in art might prepare us for the political beginnings to come.
At the present moment, a new beginning is needed. The world is beset with transphobia and racism, genocide and war, extractive capitalism and ecological collapse. But, as postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha (2004) teaches us, ‘the state of emergency is also always a state of emergence.’ This year, two decades deeper into global turmoil, Paul Preciado (2025) echoes this sentiment in his ‘Letter to a New Activist’, finding optimism in the collectivity afforded by new global networks. Are we on the cusp of something new? How might we make its beginning queer?
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For its inaugural issue, OffKilter is seeking writing and creative work which explores ‘Queer Beginnings’. We invite you to approach this subject in any way you see fit. You might, however, choose to address one of the following questions:
- How do queer artworks begin? What is queer about these beginnings?
- What are the key beginnings in queer history? How do they figure in queer art?
- What are the key beginnings in a queer life? How do they figure in queer art?
- How does queer liberation begin? Has it already begun, and if not what would it take to get it started?
- What political potential is latent in queer beginnings manifest in false starts, abandoned ventures, or aberrant paths?
- How do we begin to tackle the major political issues of our times? In what ways is art useful for this process?
- How do global shifts in technology, environment, politics, and aesthetics allow for new forms of queerness to emerge?
The deadline for submissions to OffKilter Issue 1: Queer Beginnings is 1st March 2026. Submissions should be full, that is, not abstracts or proposals. In order to make OffKilter accessible to submitters and readers alike, all of the journal’s publications will have a maximum reading time of 15 minutes. This means writing cannot exceed 5000 words, nor can time-based submissions (music, films, performances etc.) exceed 10 minutes. Creative works must also be submitted with a short commentary detailing their aesthetic and political contexts. More information on submission guidelines are available on our website at offkilter-journal.org/submissions/.
If you would like to discuss your submission’s suitability for the journal, please don’t hesitate to contact the editors at offkilter.artsjournal@gmail.com along with any other enquiries.
When you are ready to submit, follow the link on our website at offkilter-journal.org