Gay Icons: GI Blues

Both Garland and Houston, sang songs of sorrow from such great heights, and the meaning willed out. Having fought to be the huge stars they became, and finding themselves locked in a fight to the death with their own celebrity, Garland and Houston invested their material with such devout sincerity that queer ears the world over pricked up. The combination of exploited naivety, mournful foreboding, relentless repression and utterly unique singing voices, gave unprecedented authenticity to their work...

On the first anniversary of her death yesterday, Independent Voices, runs a piece on Whitney Houtson comparing her threat pre-Stonewall gay icon, Judy Garland.
Usually when you see the phrase "gay icon" in print, it's used about people who aren't - maybe a "diva" who had a minor hit in the 80s, or a famous chap who's quite good-looking - and the article tells you nothing apart from the writer is clueless.
Or it'll be some whiny anti-gay snob with nothing more to say than; "Why are the gays still doing this?"
But this piece by performance artist, La JohnJoseph is thoughtful and sympatico.
Brava.

Plug! 'La JohnJoseph will be touring his autobiographical, raucously political and accidentally profound, Boy in a Dress which follows the life story thus far of La JohnJoseph, a third-gendered, fallen Catholic, ex-fashion model from the wrong side of the tracks, from the council estates of Merseyside to the strip clubs of New York. 
'The show will be running in London at the Battersea Arts Centre from the 14-16th March, after a UK tour through Liverpool (26th Feb) Bristol (28th Feb - 2nd March), Manchester (5-6th March), and Brighton (8th March).'