Be Gay, Do Crime
Edited by Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley
Dzanc Books, 2025, 203 pages
$17.95

Reviewed by Ash Lev

Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos is the second anthology by editors Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley, a follow-up to Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women. The sixteen queer-authored short stories of Be Gay, Do Crime are less concerned with getting bogged down in the details of the law and more interested in exploring the catharsis, necessity, and queerness of rule-breaking. As someone who’s not a big reader of typical crime or heist novels, this struck the perfect balance for me. From stealing dogs and drugs to shooting politicians, every morally objectionable act performed by these characters offers an unexpected thrill, echoing the sentiment of the John Waters quote in the book’s early pages, “You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book” (v).

I was hooked from the title alone, immediately recognizing the phrase from its frequent use in online queer circles. The sentiment is an important reminder, especially at a point in time when queer and trans existence is increasingly criminalized, that the law was not made with our safety or wellbeing in mind. With its equally delightful title and cover, Be Gay, Do Crime is a celebration of a new generation of queer anarchism. As Myriam Lacroix writes in the opening story, “The Meaning of Life,” “They loved breaking the rules in the name of their love, and they especially liked getting away with it” (7).

“It’s a Cruel World For Empaths Like Us” by Soula Emmanuel is told entirely in second-person perspective—almost as if to challenge John Waters’ earlier quote—and forces readers to walk a mile in the criminal protagonist’s pinching, too-tight shoes. The story opens with a jolt of pain as “you,” an unnamed trans woman, undergo a round of laser hair removal. The treatment intended to ease the distress of gender dysphoria only worsens it when it leaves behind a painfully obvious facial rash. When you are dismissed by a customer service representative after expressing concern about said rash, you decide to retaliate. Your weapon of choice? Hoax threats.

So near and so far, it is, so nothing and yet so everything, so diminutive and yet so responsible for a small but significant portion of your problems. You endeavor to deepen your voice, in the hope that it will give you a kind of ambient authority, although it’s been so long that you can barely do it without sounding like you are doing a bad impression of yourself. You find the phone number and you dial, careful first to turn off the caller ID.
But you don’t complain (26).

In another case of dysphoria-driven crime, Aurora Mattia’s “Wild and Blue” tells the story of Peach and Sandy, who are on the run with a stolen vial of Dysphorable™. This fictional hallucinogenic drug was manufactured by a private pharmaceutical company with the intent of mass market distribution, but had not yet received FDA approval. Desperate, dysphoric, and drunk in love, the couple use the drug carelessly, and soon learn the consequences.

[Peach] was a woman. It was so simple. She was a woman because she was in love. It could be enough. One day it could be enough because she was a woman and it didn’t matter if Sandy was a man or a woman or some kind of secret thing. She was Sandy’s woman and it was enough (110).

Among its many strengths, Be Gay, Do Crime succeeds in portraying trans people not as sad, helpless victims, but as relatable, resourceful, rightfully angry, and ready to fight back.

Ash Lev is a butch writer and media artist currently living in Tkaronto. In Ash’s free time, you’ll find him kissing his cat’s head, overanalyzing TV shows, or contemplating grad school.