I know I wasn’t the only baby queer who bought red eyeliner from Hot Topic so I could look like Gerard Way.
In middle school, I made it my business to make My Chemical Romance my entire identity. My misfit friends were the other kids at school who dyed their hair and probably thought too much about death, and together, we printed out pictures of Way to put on our ring binders, pasted the band’s lyrics into our AIM away messages, and discussed rumors that Way and his bandmate Frank Iero were dating (there was, and still is, a lot of Frerard fanfic). Way has never explicitly confirmed his sexual orientation, but during a 2015 Reddit AMA, he revealed that he had long experienced “gender identity issues,” “always identified a fair amount with the female gender,” and used his “look and performance style” in MCR to express those feelings. (Though some fans refer to Way as nonbinary, there is no known source where he has called himself that.)
There was something about Way’s queerness, in particular, that drove me and my friends’ obsession. Inspired by queer rock icons like Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and Placebo’s Brian Molko, Way was unafraid to bend the expectations of masculinity and play up his gender fluidity in his ripping performances. Even before cis male pop stars were being praised for making more “feminine” fashion choices, Way spoke out against misogynist “shitty ass rock dudes,” gave makeup tutorials in video interviews, kissed male bandmates on stage during shows, and wrote queer-coded songs. But it was much later, after I came out as pansexual as a young adult, did I realize that my love for Way was one of the first indications that I was queer.
MCR broke up in 2013, but their fanbase didn’t really dissipate. After the band announced their reunion on Halloween 2019, I saw tweets from LGBTQ+ folks around the world claiming, in some way or another, that MCR either served as a queer awakening or fostered their queerness. What about MCR made them such an iconic queer band, and how did Way forge that?
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