The Guardian interview profiles Del LaGrace Volcano, a US-born photographer whose once-controversial images of LGBTQ+ communities, drag kings and sexual desire are now entering museums. Volcano reflects on a career shaped by defiance of gender and sexual norms, arguing that public fascination with their intersex identity often overshadowed the artistic quality of their work. The piece matters because it shows how attitudes to queer art and identity have shifted over time, while also highlighting the personal and financial costs of being ahead of that change.

Now 68 and living in Örebro, Sweden, Volcano contrasts their quiet present-day family life with an earlier period in London spent in squats, fetish parties and lesbian cruising scenes that informed major series such as Queer Dyke Cruising and Love Bites. Volcano describes being raised as a girl, undergoing an unwanted breast implant after doctors judged their development atypical, and later embracing an intersex identity in the 1990s, including through the 1995 image Self Portrait with Blue Beard. They say earlier media coverage was mocking, and note that Love Bites was briefly banned by US customs because of its explicit lesbian content; despite the work’s influence, Volcano says they have still struggled to receive the recognition and financial reward they believe it merits.