Dance or Die

This introduction contemplates the 2025 moment of queer studies by looking at the past, present, and future of queer and trans living through apocalyptic crises. From queer, queer of color critique, transgender, and feminist studies’ reflections on social, material, and institutional ruins and death, to the art and music that serve as catalysts and content of queer experience, we assemble a scholarly survival guide of sorts that traces a rich range of queer engagements to help get us through the apocalyptic present. This palimpsest forms a fundamental understanding of racialized, sexualized insecurity as the very grounds of queer studies, and shows itself in the introduction through discussions of Lady Gaga's call to occupy the category of “dance or die” in a video that debuted at the 2025 Grammys and in a rumination on the queer art of exile by the Ugandan lesbian sculptor Leilah Babirye.