A lot of you younger readers who think that Boy George didn’t invent rock ’n’ roll androgyny believe that Prince did, or Michael Jackson, or even Dee Snider. The fact of the matter, though, is that we’ve had effeminate male rock ’n’ roll stars as long as we’ve had rock ’n’ roll.

Little Richard was wearing more eyeliner than Prince wears now before Prince was so much as a tingling in his papa’s loins. Before Black ’n’ Blue’s lead singer or Dee Snider was a tingling in their pops’ genitals, Jerry Lee Lewis was outraging his audiences by lovingly combing his own blond curls on stage. And in May, 1972, my first professional group opened up for a Hollywood trio of male barbiturate abusers in garter belts, seamed nylons, false eyelashes, and feather boas called—who’d believe it?—Queen.