I don't know much about Sylvester, other than a handful of his Extremely Catchy songs, but I admire his commitment to gender fluidity, his bravery as a performer and as a queer person, and his style--what a badass! And I remember I once read/heard somewhere that, when he died (sadly, from AIDS complications), he left the royalties from his songs to some LGBT+ NGOs/charities, is that right?

I like that he writes stuff like 'A Prisoner Passes', where the story of Jesus is significant both in itself and in the queer context that he puts it in, while not necessarily being conventionally Christian himself—that goes well with my own feelings about religion, I suppose, and it's nice to see that reflected in fiction.

My thoughts exactly (but way better expressed, haha!) and I always find it vindicating for queer people to reclaim religious symbols like that, while not necessarily being/wanting to be religious.... if that makes sense?

You're so right about his portrayal of female characters being very much typical of male writers of the same time. I also wonder about the rest of "Sunrise water", because it was definitely an intriguing story. And he seems to have had a thing for concealed identities, right? There's also a dramatic relationship between women in his novel "Janus" (I should re-read it, because that's basically all I remember about it--that, and music... so much music...)