This chapter historicizes the work of the New Queer Cinema (NQC), a term coined by the author to describe a group of groundbreaking films that emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It argues that the NQC sensibility fueled subsequent imaginative film and television, from makers as diverse as Ang Lee, Todd Haynes, Silas Howard, and Celine Sciamma. At the heart of the chapter is the conviction that contemporary politics demand a new framework for queer and trans media, namely the idea of intersectionality, demonstrated by makers and artists such as Janelle Monae, Allie Logout, Wu Tsang, The Nest Collective, and the trio of Mika Gustafson, Olivia Kastebring, and Christina Tsiobanelis. Intersectionality enables mutuality, recognition, and alliance in a time of deep division and terror; it asks queer media makers to take transgression beyond personal expressions and identity into collective acts of world making.
