I received in the mail a few days ago the DVD We Are Scissor Sisters and So Are You, a collection of materials by the band Scissor Sisters, including live concert footage, their complete videos to date, and a documentary charting the origin of the band.

Scissor Sisters, like most “trash” artists, should not be dismissed as brainless kitschsters. The documentary segment, called “Return to Oz,” provides the band a creation myth on par with the greatest collaborative stories: each member of the band entered the fold individually until there were five, and each of them share the common experience of feeling outside or on the margin.

They are a truly spectacular, intelligent, and crazy-creative group of people. Their music (if you’ve never heard it) is all over the map sonically, but whatever guise it wears, it deconstructs notions of pop music genre. Although it would be easy to fall into simple this-equals-that kitsch, Scissor Sisters’s songwriting skills really are impressive, even as Jake Shears prances all over the stage in nearly no clothing—a seemingly at-odds recipe for destruction that ultimately transcends the conventional.

I find myself in Scissor Sisters. Their music and their unapologetically queer persona make sense to me, and, even as my friends James & Aaron and I watched the DVD together, we agreed that there was something we connected to about them that isn’t present in most other musical artists—a recognition.

I want a Scissor Sisters t-shirt.