Later, she wanted to present ordinary pictures of queer life as a retort to the notion that the gay lifestyle was somehow deviant, and in doing so she produced insightful and intimate portraiture that has been wholly absent from mainstream media. Oscar Wilde, whose middling likeness by the American artist Robert Pennington had to be sold during Wilde’s bankruptcy (its new owner’s husband still wouldn’t allow it on the drawing-room walls).

The term "queer" is situated in the politics of non-normative, gay, lesbian and bisexual communities, though it is not equivalent to such categories, and remains a fluid identity.US law prevented any federal money being used to "promote, encourage or condone homosexual activities," which also led to the defunding of AIDS programs.

Activist groups were a significant source of advocacy for legislation and policy change, with, for instance, the formation of ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power in 1987.While created in 1979, the work wasn't installed until 1992, and one made for Los Angeles was not accepted by the city. He is also an inspiration for contemporary queer artists in their own projects to reclaim and retell queer “art hirstories.

Details such as adhesive visibly used to attach fake facial hair on female bodied people foregrounded the performative nature of gender. More recently, however critics have questioned the validity of Identity Politics that casts the self or group as an identity defined by its opposition to an "other. A continually-growing piece of public art, it allows people to commemorate loved ones lost to the disease through quilt squares.

His work was especially daring, as he explored notions of gay sexuality in painting before sodomy was decriminalized in the United Kingdom in 1967.