A revolution at 132 beats per minute

Before all-gender restrooms and “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” before Laverne Cox adorned the cover of Cosmopolitan and Billy Porter stunned with his jaw-dropping tuxedo gown at the Academy Awards, there was Sylvester.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he was one of disco’s most dazzling divas, churning out such hits as “Dance (Disco Heat),” “Do You Wanna Funk” and “Someone Like You.” Yet he was so much more than his soaring falsetto and ear for hip-shaking hooks. Sylvester was a quasar of black queer ferocity who illuminated a path for many LGBT people. He was out-and-proud long before department stores started selling rainbow flag T-shirts. There was never a closet big enough to contain him.

Now the Library of Congress will.

Sylvester’s 1978 classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” has been inducted into the Library’s National Recording Registry. Each year, 25 recordings are chosen for preservation “because of their cultural, historic and aesthetic importance to the nation’s recorded sound heritage.”

Take that, disco demolitionists.

“The National Recording Registry honors the music that enriches our souls, the voices that tell our stories, and the sounds that mirror our lives,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said. Sylvester’s signature song is cited for “his highly personal and emotional performance [that] gave [disco] gravitas while also pushing gender-bending (which Sylvester reveled in) further into the musical mainstream.”

Other recordings inducted this year include Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”; Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” soundtrack; Ritchie Valens’s “La Bamba”; “The Blueprint” by Jay Z; Cyndi Lauper’s “She’s So Unusual”; and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” (Take a bow, BoSox fans.)

Regardless of the occasion, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” is my go-to celebration song. Raised in a Pentacostal church, Sylvester worked that musical sweet spot between Saturday night and Sunday morning, the secular and the spiritual. When he repeats the line, “I feel real, I feel real,” it’s like a declaration of identity and release from all the ways we mask our true selves. I’ve been so caught up in the rapture of this song, I swear I was levitating.

Whether solo or with his back-up singers Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes Armstead – Two Tons O’ Fun, later known as The Weather Girls – Sylvester was an American original at a time when most Americans had no idea what to make of him. More than 30 years after his death from AIDS complications, he’s getting the mainstream recognition he always deserved.

Well, almost.

Of course, Sylvester is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Though eligible since the early 2000s, he’s never even been nominated which is hardly a surprise given the hall’s anti-disco bias. After missing the cut for years, Donna Summer was finally inducted in 2013 – posthumously. And, yes, the Bee Gees are in, but they weren’t a disco group as much as an established pop trio that achieved its greatest success during the disco era.

Sylvester represents everything certain rock fans (some of whom grew up to be rock critics and hall voters) despised about disco – its unabashed embrace by black, Latinx, and LGBTQ people, and an ebullient sexuality that swapped macho swagger for joyous inclusivity.

From Little Richard and Grace Jones to Prince and Janelle Monae, pop music has often provided a canvas for artists to provoke and play with gender identities. Whether it was David Bowie’s alien androgyny or Annie Lennox butched up with a buzzcut, suit, and tie, such cultural dynamism has a profound impact well beyond rock & roll. More than an entertainer, Sylvester was a social alchemist.

Especially for those of us born black and queer, we felt seen. But not everyone was buying what Sylvester was selling. Some black radio stations refused to play his music.

“He was informally blacklisted because he was gay,” Leslie Stoval, a longtime California DJ, told Joshua Gamson for his 2005 book, “The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The Seventies in San Francisco.”

“Black radio is just very macho,” she said, “and they weren’t ready to give this gay man his place.” My own father made me remove a Sylvester poster from my bedroom wall, the first and only time he ever made such a demand. Later, perhaps as an apology, he bought me a Sylvester single.

Certainly, there’s been progress since Sylvester’s death. Same-sex marriage is law. Nearly 50 years after the Stonewall riots, a majority of Americans support broad nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQ community. At the same time, President Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military is expected to go into effect next month, and hate crimes against the LGBTQ community have spiked. At least 26 trans women and men were murdered last year.