People who are like "Iggy Pop and David Bowie and Prince and all these other 80s artists did XYZ and no one cared!" are... so clueless.
They cite "dude looks like a lady" being a hit as evidence, but, like, so many people did not know the actual lyrics to songs or used the song as a joke, despite the song being about having no problem with the stranger they're hooking up with being femme, in drag, or trans (since its ambiguous).
Now, the response to it by the LGBTQ community of the time is much harder to find, you'd need to ask them, and a lot of them are dead. Song came out in 1987. We lost so much of that generation to the AIDS crisis. But to think that it and other similar songs or artists were considered the norm and the cultural standard at the time is so wildly incorrect.
They got the "entertainer exception," where it's fine for them to "be like that" because that's how "those types" are, but your average person better not or they'll be run out of town (at best). There was conservative outcry and campaigning against rock musicians to the point of congressional hearings. It was both the most popular music genre and also still counter-culture depending on where you lived and what artists you listened to.
"Dude looks like a lady" was received by a huge amount of people as a joke with LGBTQ people as the punchline. A "omg that's so gross" gag. People still hear the song that way.
The writers' story is that it came from having thought Vince Neil's long blonde hair belonged to a woman, hearing Motley Crue use the word "dude" constantly, and a song they'd already been brainstorming about "cruising for ladies." "Dude looks like a lady" fit what they already had, and they purposefully created a story to use the phrase but not make it an insult. The song's protagonist meets someone he thinks is a hot woman, that person is a man, and the protagonist is still totally into it.
Honestly, there's still no problem with that song, imo. If it were made to be clearly about a drag queen? Zero issues there. Have a bit in the video where the song cuts and the drag queen pauses and says "You know I'm in drag, right? I'm a dude," and then Steven Tyler goes "oh, hot" and they carry on.
It's 100% the type of song that a current, bi or pansexual artist could make. Or even a gay man with the concept being that he's looking for a beard but finds a guy in drag or a man who likes to present as femme instead as a happy accident. The point that dudes can look like ladies and people can have zero issue with that is timeless, really.
A lot of younger queers outside of evangelical majority areas have zero concept of how any ounce of gayness was (and still is some places) a potential death sentence, and so when people did embrace the ways the were different from the norm, there was an all or nothing, might as well get weird with it, attitude. If kissing your partner on the cheek has the same penalty as experimenting with gender presentation, if that's something that interested you, then you might as well.
The progression of social acceptance of queerness created this "right way to be gay," intercommunity policing that says that the closer to heteronormative you are, the better, because that's easier for the hets to understand.
There's where the "LG without the B or T," "non-monogamy isnt LGBTQ," "non-binary trans people are misogynists/misandrists," and "queer is a slur" stances come from. People who are afraid that being associated with people that they don't personally understand will damage their reputation with the heteronormative majority.
Shaping yourself closer to heteronormativity to avoid discrimination and violence is not acceptance. It is not pride. What we need is for people recognize that they don't need to understand someone else's experiences or choices for them to be valid and respected.
People in those exclusionary circles pander to the overall fear of difference embedded within our society. They fear difference as well, but they want acceptance of their own difference. "It's okay for me, but not for you."
If we want true liberty for all, we must reject the idea that different equals bad. We must reject that being queer - literally weird or strange or not understood - is inherently harmful to others. When a person's strangeness only harms them in a social way via rejection, then that is actually society harming that person.
When a person's unique experience only harms them according to a religious standard, then it is their decision if they want to follow that standard or not. If a religion tells people that one group gets to control another and that we are judged based on the actions of others and not just our own, well, that religion is trash, frankly, and the diety that would judge in that way can get fucked.
Telling my dad he owns me and that his salvation is based on how much he makes me follow his rules and his religion? Yeah, that doesn't sound like an abusive manipulation tactic at all 🙄😒 Literally a hostage situation. Slaver type shit. "If you don't do what I say, the boss is going to 💀 both of us." Except there is zero evidence that the boss exists at all. So the only one benefiting is whoever the religion puts in charge. So "if you do what I say, I will get more social status and leisure time and capital, and if you don't our imaginations will be tortured for eternity."
Tl;dr: Ronald Reagan let our LGBTQ elders die horrible deaths because he was a slaver, and now people don't know their history and continue to empower the very structures that are used to enslave them in hopes that someone else will get enslaved more than them. And slavery exists because of greed.
We're still here. We're still queer. People who still can't deal with it do not need to have their discomfort platformed. Different is not bad.
