The Problem With LGBT History
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2018
- Why is queer history so difficult to find out about? A twitter thread about gay WW1 soldiers went viral this week with the hashtag #emilyxaver - and then turned out to be fake. Here's why that matters...
The thread: / 1071151411436666880
The confession:
guillemclua.com/comunicado-so...
Resources:
/ queer_britain
/ lgbthistoryne
www.vam.ac.uk/event/bgBXMpPl/...
/ gaystheword
www.thelesbiantalkshow.com/cat...
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Guess who’s tired of people saying that bisexuals “didn’t exist when I was your age” 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️
Frida Kahlo was bi!
"It was called the Gay and Lesbian community."
Connor Mark Rk800 according to Alfred Kinsey, a shit ton of bisexuals existed.
Hans Christian Andersen was bi. He wrote romantic letters to men and women :3 yep, the author of 'The Little Mermaid' Don't let old dillweeds get you down, they're just ignorant/rude
Cough Bessie Smith cough
Something you didn't mention in this video is that there was actually a huge LGBT movement in Berlin in the 1920's. There was actually a decent body of research on LGBT people, especially trans people, and there was a prominent LGBT nightlife. But the Nazi's destroyed much of this in WW2. Also, as for historical figures, Frida Kahlo was bisexual.
Yeah if you go back and look at the art of that time period, damn they were further than you think before it got totally obliterated.
I think she did slightly mention it in talking about histories being erased
@@kielanhd Yeah she did :) She didn't mention the name of the leading scientist however: Magnus Hirschfeld of the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee).
Yeah, Frida kahlo was a well known bisexual woman, but she was more for her own gender, as many bi's are. Frida Kahlo is on a long list of gay/bisexual/trans ppl in history.
Kadin Zanga Hamilton was
This video reminded me that I really need to scan and upload my great uncle's Christmas cards. He was one of the many gay men who died during the AIDS crisis. He was also a phenomenal artist who sent everyone in his extended family these beautiful hand-drawn, handpainted Chrismas cards. They were always original, creative, and I spent my whole childhood staring at them during the holiday season without knowing the history behind them. He arranged for the last one to be sent out a year after his death, with an astronaut woman (possibly him in drag?) wishing everyone a "Merry Christmas from beyond the stars". I know its a recent and very minor piece of LGBT+ history but the cards really showcase one example of the generation of gay men the world lost. I think since there isn't a family lineage in the history way other marginalized groups have, it should be the responsibility of younger generations, LGBT+ or not, to preserve the personal LGBT+ history from their families
Did you ever end up scanning them?
@@chrisashtonlightell-west1189 Not yet, as they are packed away at my parent's house with all of our Christmas stuff. I'm definitely going to scan them when the holiday season comes around, I'm still not sure what the right medium for putting them online would be. A few years ago I might have put them on Tumblr, but its kind of dying out these days. And I wonder if I should do something more formal? I might look into LGBTQ+ academic/historic/artistic preservation projects before just putting it somewhere random on social media
Following this thread. Beautiful story.
That would be amazing to see!
link them if you ever get scans. It's such a sweet and beautiful memory that deserves recognition
Just a little note here, for those who are interested in looking up any female queer people from history might I suggest Julie D'Aubigny. She was an openly bisexual French woman from the late 1600's.
And from what I remember, truly iconic!
I looked her up on wikipedia and wow, it sounds like she was a total badass! She apparently knew how to fence too and beat several people in swordfights. Thanks for the info!
I vaguely recall hearing about "Boston Marriages" (between two women).
Yeah, she was incredible! Extra History did a video about her, and I thought she was amazing.
That woman was a gift to this Earth, and my biromantic heart.
A thing I hate about LGBT+ history is how neglected ancient history outside of the Greeks and Romans seems to be because I think ancient history is so important when discussing homosexuality/transgenderism in relation to it being as natural as being straight/cis and when discussing how our society came to be so homophobic/transphobic over time.
Learning about the massive negative effects missionaries and monotheistic religions (Christianity/Islam) had on Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, Native American, African, Japanese, Indian, Egyptian and MOST other older societies and cultures when it came to their views on LGBT people and issues not only helped me accept my own sexuality more but it helped me realize how much this type of information gets swept under the rug, how critical this information is and how many minds it could potentially change if they knew about these things. The sheer amount of societies that recognized third/nonbinary genders in particular was astounding and fascinating to me.
The worst part of all this is, if you belong to any of the cultures that I mentioned like I do, chances are you know how rampant bigotry can be amongst them. I am part Islander myself and it's a horribly common belief for older people in Maori, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tongan, etc., communities to believe thoroughly that homosexuality and transgenderism was something that didn't exist in their societies and that it was something "brought in" by effeminate and weak white Europeans despite the long existence of takatāpuis (a term that dates pretty far back used by Maoris to describe a devoted same sex partner), Fa'afafine (people who identify themselves as having a third-gender or non-binary role in Samoa), māhū/maohi (same as fa'afafines but in Hawaii and Taihiti), and Aikāne (homosexual/bisexual relationships had by both men and women in pre-colonial Hawaii and one of the best examples of a nominally heterosexual community also accepting homosexual and bisexual relationships, it was common for chiefs to be a part of aikanes and their partners would often receive rank, respect and influence among the village).
So yeah, as someone who's only found out by some chance google searches (of some slurs I had often heard growing up, by the way) the sheer extent that so many cultures including my own were corrupted by homophobia and how many LGBT+ people had to suffer because of lies, ignorance and misinformation I'm _really_ grateful for this video. LGBT+ history is important and in this day and age we can't let it go erased, fabricated and ignored anymore.
Yea. You get some stuff about famous people in or from France since it has been legal there since the French revolution (except during the Nazi occupation). Still, not that much.
@@trekadouble757 read right it says "outside of Greek and Roman"
Knoxville Craggins I belong to a similar culture and here also people believe homosexuality etc. are "Western influences".
Thank you for this. I'm Maori, live in NZ, have spent the last few educating myself of the lgbt+ community and identies, but all the resources and dominated by Americans and western POV, so it's only being last year i discovered the term takatapui - something i would of loved to embrace years ago, but i had no idea it was there, that māori even had a queer history or stories.
I'm Indian and a lot of people here think that LGBT was brought in by Westerners. In fact the people of the LGBT community who were already living in India were suppressed and made to change their expression by the British colonialists and missionaries, not encouraged.
how many times can I shout "preach" in my room before my housemates come to investigate?
How many?
We need a follow up
Update: 12
I hope the Gestapo investigate you.
One intersection of gay and POC history is the colonization of countries/cultures where homosexuality was accepted - or at least not persecuted. For instance, ancient China homosexuality was quite normal and there is actually good amount of documentation of this. None of the 3 traditional Chinese religions have religious text that calls for killing homosexuals and quite a number of Chinese emperors had homosexual relations. However, the colonization by Western powers introduced anti-homosexuality religion - i.e. Christianity - and modern governments felt the pressure to conform to Western anti-homosexual laws.
There is indeed a gap in queer history. In Taiwan, you can find ancient Chinese records of homosexuality, then nothing for the 19 and 20th centuries until the 21st century when LGBT activists quickly changed the laws (fighting against the conservative Christian lobby) culminating in legalization of gay marriage.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China
Edwin Peng thanks, I didn’t know that! I’d read that in neo-Confucian Korean society (before western influence/Christianity was accepted by anyone with power) homosexuality was considered immoral. (Although some noblemen had male lovers). I’d just assumed that was also true in China.
Same for Japan! Homosexuality was even a “thing rich and noble people do”, a lot of samurais, and most shogun of the edo period had male lovers, the one who exclusively had female lovers was considered weird for it. Greece as well! Bisexuality is the “default” sexuality in many of their stories and legends. It’s Christianity that introduces homophobic beliefs to these cultures, and they took it in as a part of the “western, progressive values”. And now a lot of Chinese people think it’s “Chinese tradition” to be so heteronormative because we have internalise this foreign concept, and a lot of people it’s anti-colonialism to not be more open to lgbt like modern west. When in fact it’s the other way around, it’s so sad.
WeiYinChan interesting. When and why did heteronormativity become considered Chinese and anti-colonial? Was it Pre-communism?
I think Judaism prohibited same sex sexual relationships before Christianity existed, but you’re right a lot of ancient cultures at least somewhat accepted it.
nachtegael W maybe heteronormativity isn’t the best word, China has always been heteronormative, that’s just a natural thing that would happen where heterosexuality is the majority, which is everywhere. But same sex relationship or sex wasn’t considered a bad or abnormal thing. It’s pretty much how most people see golf now, sure most people don’t play golf and are not into it, most people who are doing it are rich people, and sure, there are certain stereotypes associated with the it and the rich people who do it, but no one cares if you like it. It was never a moral problem, it was seen as kind of a hobby or even a trend in the rich men circle. Of course, there would well be peasants and women engaging in gay sex and are in same sex relationship, but we can’t know for sure because their lives are not well-documented as rich men.
And yea there are religions predating Christianity that are homophobic, but it was Christians and Muslims (mostly Christians) who introduced outright homophobic ideas into China. Before it was considered as something that has nothing to do with morality, but now suddenly these foreigners are saying it’s wrong, and it slowly catches on and spread around China. Homophobia never identified as an explicitly foreign or religious idea, because as it spread it kinda just became a part of the cultural norm, and people forget how the past was like and thought Chinese culture has always been homophobic.
Fast forward to now when the west is becoming more accepting of homosexuality, the new pro-LGBT views, along with the the rainbow flags and people with brightly coloured hairs and the sexually opened attitudes seems like the foreign, western thing that’s contrasting the “traditional” Chinese values. People resist it because they think it’s colonist to “conform to western norm”. But if we look closely to our history, we would realise that it was colonist ideas that brought about homophobia in the first place, homosexuality has always been a part of Chinese culture.
WeiYinChan gotcha, that’s a good analogy with the golf example.
I’m a bit surprised that Christianity had that much of a cultural influence on Chinese culture as to shape those views.
I thought at least some of the lgbt prejudice would be due to Marxism, since at least under Mao there was a lot of persecution.
I think what irks me is that museums like the British Museum and Ashmolean have evidence of LGBT history in their archives, shown by their LGBT history exhibition during Pride month - however if they can show these artefacts at certain months of the year why can they not show them all year round and give visibility to LGBT people
I am a straight male. It never occurred to me that the LGBTQ+ community was NOT a powerful, strong force in our society. Many of the greatest minds throughout history have been LGBTQ+. If you do open an LGBTQ+ museum in London, I would certainly pay it a visit. Keep strong, and don't let the 'phobes get you down! 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
I remember when I was a kid my mother and I had to clean out my grandmother and grandfather's house after the death of my grandmother and my grandfather's subsequent move to a nursing home. We came across the diaries my grandfather's uncle Watt wrote during WWII. In them, among all the vague info about what the war effort was up to, was his maliciously recorded notes about his love affairs with the other soldiers. Some were serious love relationships, some were just records of one-night stands. Watt wrote very matter of factly about it all, and believe me he did not hide behind euphemisms. One would think he was "out" but I think it was because it was only because these private writing. However, one page had a list of male names with some sort of coded letters beside each. Truth be told I'm not sure if that was about his love life or something with the war. Inside the diaries and among Watts things were also photos of naked men. Not porn, but photos of naked men hanging out on rocks by a swimming hole. My grandfather had kept the diaries safe but hidden all those years. And even though this was the 90's and my mom was blunt and told me, "yeah, everyone know uncle Watt was gay. No one talked about it though." she still took the diaries from me and VERY SADLY they ended being thrown out. I think about those diaries often and wish I had kept them.
whaaaaat??? That's such a shame :/ especially as they could have been offered to archives if you had no space for them then again they might not have taken them in. They sound incredible :)
Wow 😳
😱😱😱
I am sorry for your grandparents passing and that your mother undid all of your grandfather's loving work.
I love hunting down LGBTQ+ history and you know what? Let's share some of the best ones in this video's comments. Some of the best stories I've heard or read about which I believe are reliable is Making Gay History which is a podcast I would really recommend and an obscure bushranger who happened to be bisexual called Captain Moonlite (there is a great book about him and his crazy life and how his own personal accounts were basically hidden by the Australian government). Julien D'Aubiney is another great history story.
Hello Rowan,
I recently began reading a book called Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric. It goes into detail about the politics and personal life of Queen Christina. She was dubbed the girl king, the girl prince etc. Because she had a very masculine way of going about her life.
In the book, the author goes into a bit of detail in a few things, one of them being the possibility that Queen Christina was a lesbian. Christina had a very close relationship with one of her ladies-in-waiting Ebba Sparre, whom she dubbed "la belle Comtesse". The queen often talked about how hot Ebba was to everyone around her, and by an English ambassador described as "bedfellows". When Ebba was carted off and married, the queen never recovered and suffered a lifelong battle with depression. This in conjunction with the fact she never married and have a strong distaste for marriage (she described married women as sows for men, only there to birth children and heirs), and men may allude to something more than a close friendship.
On the other hand, the book briefly discusses the possibility that Christina was intersex. It is rumored (source seems to be Christina herself, but in the source, she is complaining about how prevalent this story is at court) that Christina was born and mistaken for a male baby. There are two versions of this story, that her cry was very deep and so they just assumed she was male (?), or that the midwives confused her... private bits with male genitalia. After a day or two, her aunt told her father that Christina was, in fact, female and that everyone who delivered this child was a moron. This leads to modern speculation on Christina possibly being intersex, with points such as "why did trained midwives make such a mistake" and "this may explain her masculine behavior". Though the author of the books says she spoke to experts on this and they do not believe this was the case, but the confusion caused by something called a Caul.
There's a movie about Christina called The Girl King. They make her explicitly queer in the movie. I don't know how well it lines up with her actual history but I really enjoyed it.
@@makari8884 that movie is so 50/50 for me I love and u hate it lol. they really misses a lot about Christina's politics and completely mangled her relationship to Descartes (he visited. They hated each other and fought. He later died) but it's also hilarious I often say I BEG OF YOU TO CALL UPON YOUR CLEVERNESS to my friends who have seen the film
It's also obviously very good at portraying her sexuality which was refreshing.
We also have Gustav V, the current kings great grandfather, who was probably bi, had a longtime lover whos wife divorced him because of it and caused a scandal.
That is also true, Swedish monarchs seem to have that lil spice of lgbt in them
@@ThePwnzerWillDie btw, if you're Swedish or can read swedish, there's a great play about Christina called Dissekering av ett snöfall, by my absolute favorite author Sara Stridsberg. It doesn't try to be historicaly accurate, it's hard to describe but it's more about how things feel. And it centers around her relationship with Ebba Sparre, her discomfort with womanhood and her role as ruler.
I agree with this but London is getting an LGBT museum in 2021 apparently so that's kinda cool.
Joshua Creel I swear, if it's true, i will be the first person to visit it.
@@uwuvision3211 i googled because i was shocked and there were a couple things that said it was (though thats a while off so it could cancel etc)
Joshua Creel It might be a small scale museum but i think if it gets enough recognition in the next 2 years, there are many lgbt charities that will be willing to fund it.
Why isn't there any hetero museum in London then?
MatsmedD Because most of LGBT history got erased. Hetero museums are most museums.
Totally agree that there are not enough spaces for intergenerational connection, however where I live (Melbourne, Australia) we have elders dances. They are specifically for LGBT+ elders to meet up with younger people about once a month and learn a dance and dance together. Connects us to one another and also works against the isolation older people, especially those who are LGBT+ experience.
I've heard of it and it sounds so cool. I'm going to have to see if there is something similar in Wollongong and/or Sydney.
thats lovely!
Last year, I read this book called Queer, there, and everywhere: 23 Queer people who changed the world. It was such an amazing book filled with queer people of varying genders/sexualities making their mark in history. In all of the history classes I've taken, I have never really learned about much in regards LGBTQ+ history. That has to be one of my favorite books to read.
I absolutely adore that book!
I read that book. Elagabula was awesome.
Here's one for your queer history where homosexuals have changed things. The book is Strange Relations, and the first chapter is dedicated to stories where homosexuals have changed things. The sad thing is all 167 cases recorded, homosexuals' have forced non homosexuals to do what they wanted them to do and if they didn't, they would lose their jobs, go to prison, forced an organization to sack them, or spread rumors about them all over the internet or made them close down their business.
Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens are a great example of there being a lot of evidence that supports they were a couple but still people try to disprove it
My God some of the letters I swear
Something vaguely on topic. I grew up in a very staunchly unionist area in Northern Ireland with a subculture based on obsession with the victory of the protestant William of Orange over the catholic King James II. The most popular political party in this town is the DUP, who are notoriously homophobic and the people who vote for them very often agree with that. However, there's very strong evidence to suggest that King Billy himself had male lovers (Not 100% on the details, haven't read the wikipedia page in a while). Knowing this sort of thing absolutely sucks because you know full well a unionist will twist any part of history to fit their agenda (like ignoring the fact that Presbyterians were oppressed by the British government in the exact same way as the Catholics - to oversimplify 800 years of history). And if you were to suggest to a staunch unionist that King Billy was gay they'd dismiss it immediately as some kind of "gay-Sinn-Féin-IRA-space-communist" propaganda.
I'm just having flashback to English class when we talked about Shakespeares Sonnets and first of all:
I was the only one in class that knew that over 100 of them are about a man and after I brought it up one time we had to do some research on it. Even though my teacher is super open and liberal we still had a discussion if they were just about friendship. Even going as far as talking about the theory (many actual 'experts' believe in) that all of those sonnets about this man he desired were just a "writing exercise" while the other sonnets about the black lady were looked at as canon.
Come on he joked that this man had the "wrong parts" for his "Willi", that's what I call platonic feelings. Also why make this difference between the sonnets? He even wrote more about a guy, like????
I mean, I'm lucky that we even talked about this in class but I just don't understand why those things are only brought up(like those crazy explanations and basicly blindness on what he actually saying), when talking about a man having feelings about an other man.
Also I have English advanced(I'm from Germany). All the normal English classes didn't even talk about the fact that the world's most known writer probably was queer.
How can I find these sonnets?
@@user-jz7vp7kg1u Maybe I am late but I think they are talking about a collection of Shakespeare sonnets called the Quarto. I think you can find them easily on the internet. If I am not wrong the first 126 are addressed to a "fair youth" identified by most as the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's patron.
Making Gay History is a FANTASTIC podcast and it goes all the way back to the 1930s and 40s in the USA. I think another barrier that keeps LGBT+ history from the community is just the geographic isolation of LGBT people. We are all over the world but our individual countries and cultures keep us from having a collective history let alone LGBT+ history within our own countries and societies
You wanna know something sad? I didn’t even realize before this video how messed up it is to have basically 0 queer history represented in history education. I guess I didn’t really think about how I wasn’t seeing anyone like me, but now that I do see it it’s really strange.
I read a really good book, a microhistory, about gay life in Finland in the early 1900s. The impression I got from it is that it's very difficult to find empowering survival stories about oppressed and marginalized people, because the only places where those people could exist was precisely there, in the margins. Things mostly got written down when someone ended up in the courtroom, and what then unfolded was often a story of abuse, exploitation and class differences. There's very little beauty and empowerment to be found there, but as depictions of society in general and the survival strategies of marginalized individuals, they are very interesting.
I’m really lucky that I go to a school which has an entire library section dedicated to LGBT+ books. We have lesbian and gay books, bisexual books, books BY transgender and gay people as well as books about gender. That’s one of the lovely things about my school.
ROWAN THANK YOU FOR THIS you put so skillfully into words something I think many of us have been feeling for s o l o n g
Rebecca Shoptaw Yes!!
"If you know your history, then you will know where you're coming from" - Bob Marley
The guy who made up the story said that he wrote it in honor of the thousands of queer people that will never be told and are forever buried or forgotten, invisibilized. I think that’s actually a very noble cause.
You’re left with this very bittersweet feeling, because the story is too perfect and amazing and you want, really want it to be true. But it isn’t. Yet, there are possibly many similar ones. It’s just, they’ll never be told.
I acutally know quite a lot about LGBT history that other people may not so I wanted to share some of what I've found. I'm sure you've covered some of it but before I watch the video I wanted to write down this because there is plenty of LGBT history that is not fake.
This all started last year when I was super into the musical Hamilton and I found out that the American founding father Alexander Hamilton was allegedly bisexual. At first I thought it was completely ridiculous and made up for the fandom but it turns out, after some pretty extensive research, he was in a sort of relationship with John Laurens.
John Laurens was a patriot in the American Revolution who has been proved time and time again to be gay. Of course, there is no actual way of knowing if he was because sexuality is about what you choose to identify as but in short the proof is: he married a girl only because he got her pregnant as a way to fit in to 18th century society but showed no other sexual/romantic interest in women. At age 13 (when ppl are figuring out who they like) his father basically said that he wasn't interested in women. Then the most convincing evidence is the letters between Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens which are very very gay. I'd love to go more in depth about these letters but I have more to say but if you're interested then look on tumblr.
Then of course possibly one of the most famously known historical gay person is Oscar Wilde. He wrote the book A Picture of Dorian Gray in the 19th century and it was banned for a while because it was too suggestive about homosexuality and hedonism as well. It has been edited as well but some of the unedited paragraphs are available now and here's an example: "It is quite true I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow I have never loved a woman." So that speaks for itself. But Wilde himself was known to be very very gay and was sent to prison because of it.
Another famous person who is lesser known to be gay/bi was Virginia Woolf. She had a relationship with the aristocrat Vita Sackville-West (who was in a open marriage but more on that in a minute). Woolf was sexually abused by her stepbrothers when she was young which contributed to a lifelong sexual fear but especially with men. So her most fulfilling sexual relationship was with VSW. They have some wonderful letters which I'll link at the end of this comment as well as other sources if you want to find out more. Vita Sackville-West herself was married to Harold Nicolson and they both had same-sex affairs whilst staying married and they were both open about it. Once VSW and Violet Keppel ran away from their husbands to France together and their husbands chased them to France essentially. This is 100% true because the National Trust property Sissinghurst has a whole section about Vita being gay because she lived there and there's just way too much evidence for it. (side note: there is going to be a film about VSW & VW coming out soon!!)
Another lesser known historical lesbian was Colette. She was a french novelist and known for her same sex affairs. Once at the real life Moulin Rouge she performed a play with her lover/girlfriend at the time and they kissed but it was very scandalous at the time and people were completely shocked. There's also a film on this that came out in the US and is coming out in January in the UK called Colette about her life (it also has Keira Knightley in so it's definitely worth watching.)
I mean there are a lot of gay historical people and I could spend ages writing about this but if you want to look further into detail about these people then I'd recommend these sources:
If you want to look at John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton you'd have to look at @john-laurens on tumblr because nowhere is it published that they were in a relationship because it's too much of a 'bold claim' to say that a founder father was gay.
If you want to look at Oscar Wilde honestly wikipedia is alright but idk maybe a biography and the picture of dorian gray
If you want to look at VW & VSW then read their letters
And look at Colette's wikipedia
I appreciate this comment ❤️
I'm both bisexual and disabled (autistic) and there is hardly any history to find for both of these identities.
On a more wholesome note: I know of at least two instances of ancient Egypt graves of LGBTQ people. The first is a couple of two men who are always depicted as a couple on their wall painting and had been buried together. The second is someone who's body is amab but for whom the inscriptions on her mummy, her sarcophagus and her wall paintings are all for a woman. Sadly I don't remember their names, which would make it much easier to find articles about them, but so wonderful to know that at least back then people were more reasonable about that topic.
Your videos are so refreshing to watch. It's cathartic to listen to someone out into words what I've been feeling for years. Thank you!
whats sad and makes me mad is that we don't even get told about lgbt+ people in the Holicost in some places any more. I know I had to learn about it on my own. (sorry I forgot how to spell holicost)
Hi - first time I've ever seen your channel! Aside from being a joke, theres no way two gay soldiers would have been buried together in WW1. I worked for a gay magazine, Outrage, here in Australia in the 90's. Back then we were covering a nearly 50 year long battle for 2 soldier's the right to bequeath their "war pensions" to each other - they met serving our country & never left each others sides. Sadly they died before it happened, but it helped pave the way for this to now occur. Thankfully we had the privilege to document their struggle & its archived in the National Archives of Australia for posterity!
When I read that twitter thread I was already like "Ah yes. This is made up isn't it" but it was really well-written
There was always something really off about it for me too
the guy who wrote it is a Spanish playwright. I never expected it would be made up and was also disappointed :(
The points you made are extremely enlightening and well explained as an LGBT+ teen myself. I do think there are some ressources we can find in other cultures, if they weren't already destroyed by western culture. The two examples I can think of right now are Japanese culture, which has records of famous bisexual generals. Otherwise native Americans are known to have various gender identities. But it is very scary and disappointing to see that we can only rely on the future, and very little on the past to build our identities. Also correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Ireland added LGBT+ history to the teaching curriculum?
I feel that a large reason for the upset is that as queer people we know we have always existed however a consistent argument used in order to persecute us is that it's a 'fad' or a new thing and when we think we have something tangible to evidence that we have always existed that we will always exist it is normal to cling to it. Also as you mentioned the expense of being photographed historically means the working classes could not access these things. As those with money were often under more scrutiny and would have been at even larger risk of persecution as a result there is an even narrower likelihood that we will have tangible evidence of queer people prior to stonewall
I think part of that lack of tangible evidence is that the only really permanent outward signs exist in transsexuals and obviously those (the outward signs resulting from surgical or hormonal changes, not the transsexuals themselves) only really exist in recent decades with the medical technology advancing enough to make them possible. Wearing clothes not typical for your sex is temporary and was probably hidden by those who did at times when their life was visible to others who might disapprove (e.g. in photographs or when reporters showed up to write newspaper articles,...) and sexual attraction can obviously be hidden as well in those situations. Meanwhile, Christianity and similar religions that do disapprove of them have been dominant for a large part of the time when technologies like the printing press and photography existed and writing down everyday things was a lot less common back before they became so due to the difficulty in writing down anything (lack of writing skill, materials were expensive, writing was more effort,...)
In the diary of Anne Frank, she says that she has feelings for her girlfriend/best friend
she also said she wanted to kiss her and that she liked naked female bodies
true, wasn't that actually intentionally cut out from a bunch of re-releases too?
Thanks for this. An LGBT museum sounds like a fantastic idea. The "invisibility" concept is certainly valid.
I am the only openly gay member of my family, and I get a lot of flack from them for refusing to watch tragic gay movies. You summarized my feelings so well. It's heartbreaking when a vast majority of the media made about your people is just tragedy. As if to be gay is a death sentence. Yes, there is a great deal of sadness in our history, but that doesn't mean it's all we are. I just want to see gay people be allowed to be happy and sure of themselves
The Radical Faerie international group are amazing at bringing LGBTQ intergenerational people together. I have been going to their events for about 4 years and now have amazing older queer friends and role models, as well as much younger than me, friends, I have met 18-85 year olds there. I think it is so important for us to learn and mix with our elders and for me it has been such a loving exchange I truly cherish.
just got this channel as a recommendation...so glad that CZcams's figured out my sexuality lol. this is interesting stuff, been meaning to read up on LGBT History for awhile so this is kind of timely.
Also your tangent about being gaslit whenever you try to look into a particular individual or couple honestly rings true personally....I've become kind of fixated on the actor Jonathan Frid (he played Barnabas the Vampire on Dark Shadows) who was by all accounts gay but to this day his family denies it as do many Dark Shadows fans, trying to rationalize there way around it. I dunno why I'm so interested in him in particular but trying to find information has always had to be done while reading people trying to deny it
This video really hit a cord for me. I really appreciate that you brought up the generational divide that exists in the community. I am extremely fortunate to have an Uncle who is also gay and it has helped me bridge my understanding of myself. It is because of him that my family was more open to me when I came out. There is around a 40 year age difference between us and it has been a real eye opener to listen to his stories. We often have very different opinions on various topics, but I have begun to better understand his viewpoints from understand the vastly different environments we grew up in. I know it will be a difficult task to build up our history, but I believe that it is just a integral for us to make present inter generational connections and learn from the history that is still with us. Thank you Rowan for making such great content!
OK so, very late comment, but I litterally just discovered you (and it made my day, I'm gonna watch every single one of your videos). About that thread about the two soldiers, I like to believe the frustration we all felt upon realizing the story was fiction has been the point of it all along. I can't say wether i was more sad or angry at the end, but somewhere I was also so very proud. I think the storyteller was reminding us of how we have been robbed of our history, how countless actual stories like that one have been forgotten or litterally erased. To me it was a call to take up responsibility for the preservation of our own history, and a gut-wrenching reminder to our cis/straight friends that being queer equates fighting for mere existence. The fact this story is fictional makes it all the grander, and that fact actually spoke more to me and many of my straight friends than so many sad, actual stories they had encountered.
Love you, keep up the great work
One thing I hate about being gay is how alone I feel. I want to have gay friends to interact with and relate to in ways that I can't with my straight friends. However I live in a coastal/country town in the West of Scotland, which is pretty sparse in itself to meet other gay people. The only place I have to socialise in an lgbt+ environment is an hour away into the city and they are clubs - it means I have to stay overnight in the city if I want to go because of transport and it's not really the place for the kind of socialising or connecting that I'm really looking for. Also any guys I meet in my area just want to have sex with me and don't seem interested in friendship. The only other gay connection I get besides the internet, is through sex. So I often feel that I'm on my own when it comes to the gay side of me. I wonder how many other people in the LGBT+ community feel alone in it despite wanting to connect more... we definitely need more places to do it besides clubbing and sex.
I feel you so much. I have two gay friends though. But I ABSOLUTELY HATE that the only way of meeting people is online and it's only about sex. It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me for not wanting sex but a date or a relationship. But all I see is sex sex sex. Why is it all that men think? ( I am a boy)
I don’t want to be patronising but I do want to say that you will have this one day and I’ve been there. I’m Scottish (now in an urban area) and there is a great LGBT+ scene and community. Definitely more isolating if you’re rural but hankfully some great organisations are now focusing on rural LGBT+ inclusion so hopefully we’ll see the fruits of this soon :)
I know how you feel, I'm in Caithness and their are gay people here but no gay spaces
I feel exactly the same way. I've always wanted to connect to other gay men like myself and lgbtq people in general, but I haven't been afforded the opportunity. I've no interest in night clubs or dating apps, as I've been in a monogamous relationship for the past 6 years, and that's never been my thing anyway. It's definitely lonely to have no lgbtq friends with whom you can share a kinship regarding the lgbtq experience. I love my straight friends, but I really wish I had lgbtq friends.
I related to this more than I thought I would. I was raised Mormon and it goes back generations, all the way to the founder Joseph Smith. At family reunions and stuff we talk about that family history and I always just felt distant from it, and I've always felt way more close to LGBT history. I'm much more invested in reading about the Stonewall Riots than the trek across the plains because people didnt like Mormons because of polygamy. Because that trek never really seemed to be part of my history, it seemed to belong to my parents. It really saddens me that while I'm able to read the journals and see the photos of my family's Mormon history, I can't really have those methods of communication with the part of my history that I value a lot more.
The lack of sources can definitely be depressing, but I'm glad there are people out there working to find some and uncover some truths about lgbt+ history. Thanks for this video
That’s why I love CZcams, even tho it’s not a safe lock place for media (it could shut down at some point) and hopefully someone will start using and saving these videos for future education and museums
Just found your channel! I love how informative and put together this is. I can see the time and effort you put into these. I love this. Subscribed!
this video made me cry, for some reason. history is a huge passion of mine and i just love to soak up as much as i can, and in school, like you, all i've gotten is one line in a textbook about the holocaust. it makes me really sad that there will probably never be an lgbtq history curriculum in school, and it's just made me feel invisible my entire life, like our history doesn't matter. and it's so frustrating at how finicky online lgbtq history is, rampant with mislabeled images and a lack of reliable primary sources.
hey hi hello 👋thank you for making this video, I love seeing people talk about this. I'm currently studying to become an historian of gender and sexuality (specifically the Gay Kind) so I'd like to add a few things:
I can only speak from my own personal experience and background, as someone who lives in the States and is therefore, much more familiar with American history than English history; but if you have the time or interest I'd recommend getting your hands on Susan Stryker's "Transgender History" or Leslie Feinberg's "Transgender Warriors" which are fantastic reads. Obviously it's centered more around trans people in American history, but they still prove to be excellent resources.
Additionally, you're absolutely correct when you say that LGBT history is difficult to define because of constantly adapting terms & language. With regards to that point I'd like to bring up how LGBT history is directly tied with the history of colonialism. There are dozens of instances from journals kept by European colonizers who make note of gender variant peoples, or familial structures they're not familiar with (to my knowledge, mostly in the Americas, the Indian subcontinent, SE Asia, and Oceania).To these indigenous people, the members of their community a European would consider "queer" are just part of their culture. The structures and definitions what it means to be "straight or gay", "man or woman", "cis or trans" are largely, if not entirely, of Western origin. Is it fair of us to put a modern descriptor, that comes from the Western lexicon, onto colonized people? Especially when, through colonization, those aspects of their culture were degraded and destroyed? Is including non-Western indigenous folks under the umbrella of LGBT history contributing to upholding the wrongdoings of colonialism? I'm both white & American, so I don't have the insight, nor the authority, to answer these questions. But it's important to include indigenous, non-Western interpretations of history when trying to decipher the past.
(This got a little longwinded, but if anyone read this whole thing then tysm!)
The only time LGBT history was mentioned in school for me was also in the same context. "Homosexuals" in a text about the holocaust. But for me it's even worse: I live in Germany. And we did a lesson on every single group the Nazis hated, Sinti and Roma, jews, the church etc. Every group but LGBT people. And if you are German you know who Hans Scholl is. Everyone knows about his resistance without violence and him dying for the cause. But here is what no one teaches: He used to supportive of Hitler until he was put on trial for homosexuality. Hans Scholl is remembered as a Hero, his last words "Long live freedom!" repeated in school every day. But no one feels the need to mention the first time he went on trial.
I took a Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity class at my college in California. The only thing I learned is that there are very few studies on sexual orientation that don't focus on white, middle class or rich, lesbian women and gay men. I had to write a paper about how I didn't actually learn anything from the class except that (I could've made something up, but I like the teacher, who also heads the GSA, and didn't want to lie to her.) The few studies that ARE intersectional usually focus on "normalizing" us for straight cis people. I can't help feeling helpless and incredibly sad about that and searching through history for glimpses of anyone in the LGBTQ+ community is probably even more devastating because at least with psychology, if we can get the funding, we can provide the community with the studies we deserve and need. There's nothing that can be done for history, short of a time machine.
That's why I'm proposing an LGBTQ+ funded time machine project!
Just kidding, I was just feeling really sad and wanted to make a joke.
this made me so emotional, thank you for making this!!
someone in history i’ve been hugely fascinated by is alice austen, as well as eleanor roosevelt. x
I'd like to shout out the "Making Gay History" podcast! A really well curated collection of oral history!
Well I wasn’t expecting to cry but here I am! This is The Thing that my soul’s been missing and you articulated it so amazingly. It makes me so sad and yet I also feel reconnected with the LGBTQ+ community just reading these comments of everyone else saying the same. Like if we can’t bond very well over our shared history because so much of it is destroyed and suppressed, we can bond over the deep desire to have it and to find pride in it. Thank you so much for this, Rowan!
I think there's a problem with the 21st century lens, and the way we look back on history. As someone who regards literature highly, even I have been affected by my perception. When looking at older literature, especially within the novel genre as it developed, I've found it quite easy to impose a homosexual/romantic/erotic reading of a text or relationship between two characters. Part of that could be wishful thinking, but the fact of the matter is I am not reading these texts from a fully objective view. I read them for entertainment after all, but it's not altogether impossible that I wouldn't project or even attempt to skew the relationship between two characters to fit my interpretation of them.
Suffice to say, not everything you read will be as explicit as The Picture of Dorian Grey or Carmilla -- in fact, a purely homosexual view regarding many classic texts may well be impossible to define. Even so, I think many readers of these texts will hold out hope -- or again subject themselves to wishful thinking -- on account of the fact that even in the 19th and 20th centuries homosexuality was so taboo that hiding such ideals within literature was almost mandatory by default, if it is indeed there at all. Context is important, though. We have to understand the time periods these texts were written in and try to be as objective as possible.
In a lot of cases, we will never truly know the intent an author may have for writing some characters the way they were or rather how close the relationships are. Regardless, we must not misinterpret the kindness and empathy a character may have for actual homosexual characters just because these qualities are pointed towards someone of the character's own sex. Another problem we have as 21st century readers, is many of us will conflate the stories these authors write with the authors themselves. Just because Bram Stoker wrote scenes in Dracula that may be considered highly sexual or at least coded in some homosexual manner doesn't necessarily mean he had homosexual tendencies in his own right.
Every time I argue with my dad over lgbt people, you know, existing, he always says "you know that this stuff didn't exist until recently, right??" and I'm like "sure Jan :) "
Thank you for putting what we’ve been thinking in such an eloquent way!!
There's a book sold at The British Museum called A Little Gay History. Peter Ackroyd did a book on it in London. I wish there was more too. A few English kings, one of which was originally Scottish had at least gay leanings.
great vid! only strange mentioning of not having lgbt museum because there are some, even quite old, around the globe (in berlin for example)
I wrote my english research paper about transgender rights. I huge part of it was about a majority of people don't know much about LGBT history. There's a huge lack of education about the LGBT+ community but imagine if most everyone got educated about this kind of stuff.
At my school, we do sometimes talk a little about queer history when it relates to what we’re studying.
In Latin, we discussed it a lot because we read poems by Catullus, who wrote love poetry to both men and women and who actually wrote a poem to a woman that referenced a poem by Sappho.
We’ve had conversations about Shakespeare being queer, looking at some of his poetry, like his well known sonnet that begins “shall I compair thee to a summers day” which was addressed to a man, and his plays and how progressive he was for his time.
In history, we talked about how King Edward II of England was queer, probably gay, and continuously promoted his gay friends to positions of power that they shouldn’t have been granted.
I wish we learnt more about queer history but I am at least glad that we are taught some
ancient Greek's were very gay in many ways, Hercules and protrogoleus and the lovers of many male and female goddesses, but that was because being a bisexual male was the norm. oh and stories on non binary people in ancient history, Overly sarcastic productions do a video on gay myths for pride, it is beautiful and slightly sad though as well
I've never really thought about this. It sucks to think about all the gaps in our history. As a white latina, I like learning about all facets of my identity, and others' identities for that matter. The resources are out there for learning about my father's people's history as well as my mothers, but when it comes to me being a lesbian, there isn't much for me to go on. Generations of LGBT people being persecuted and erased from history has left us in the present with little to go by. It sucks that we live in a world where we have to cling onto what little LGBT representation there is, regardless of quality. The lack of a recorded history for the community just makes it worse. Thanks for the vid though, you make some good points.
“They lived together for 50 years, in a bungalow in the countryside of Yorkshire, with 2 toilets, a living room and one bedroom with one bed, and their favorite activity was playing naked twister, and baking cookies”
Historians: just friends tho
to be honest the ambiguity within language usage is probably related to the generational gaps
I discovered the lgbt history podcast Queer As Fact and I absolutely love it! It's entertaining and well researched and a surprising number of the stories are actually pretty happy.
Good shout! Thanks I can't wait to check it out x
I love the phrase "come out or come into their selves" , will definitely utilise that in the future!
Completely agree
Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were a interesting (kind of) couple.
Rainer Fassbinder was an... interesting bi figure too. Made some pretty gay movies, and he was sleeping with a man from Morocco that was the main actor in 'Fear Eats the Soul' (good movie btw). That relationship did not end out well.
Hi Rowan! I realise I'm late, and I don't know if you were already aware of this, but one of my country's most famous authors, Astrid Lindgren, had during her lifetime exchanged some 600 letters with Louise Hartung, who was a german singer. From these letters it is explicitly stated that Louise was in love with Astrid, though it was an unrequited love as Astrid was married and straight. Just... in case you were unaware, Louise was at the very least bi. Or gay for Astrid. I don't really know anything about her, just wanted to let you know that there are some visible lesbians out there in history. I'm sure other people know about other examples where it is explicit and undeniable.
I'd definitely go with my daughter to an LGBTQ museum. My daughter was oblivious to LGBTQ even though we watched the imitation game, she ra helped and me telling her I'm attracted to men as well as women. Education is rubbish
Just saw that you have a few videos I have not seen; though I do have the "bell" clicked, I didn't get a notification. Is somebody in the admin possibly playing games with content again? At least I did see an advert before your video started. Like you had mentioned with your Anne Frank talk, there are plenty of people who may have been LGBT+, but stayed closeted either for their career's sake or family reputation.
There are some fantastic books, anthologies and oral history out there but you really need to dig for it. In 2017 a book called 'Fighting Proud' by Stephen Bourne looks at the lives of queer WW1 and WW2 veterans. The British library has a section online called 'Observing the 1980's' with audio interviews with gay men discussing the AIDS epidemic; which anyone can listen to here: sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Observing-the-1980s
I recently just finished the book 'Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache: how music came out" by Martin Aston and it explores music from the Victorian era, all the way to the present day and the queer people who sang, played, wrote and produced it. This stuff is limited but it's out there for us. Hope some of this helped.
Jacques Vautrin aka Trompe-le-mort (fools the dead) is a character in some stories of Balzac. He is perhaps the first openly gay character in literature.
Fools the Death is the correct translation.
Thank you so much for this video and highlighting on this story, which I never heard of until now. It is despicable, cowardly and shameful when people fabricate details, places and people in order to take a stab at different communities and peoples feelings on certain topics (this case being gay WWI soldiers buried together). You certainly addressed the frustrations on finding concrete evidence of LGBT relationships throughout history. Missing/destroyed physical evidence, the lack of education on the subject and negative perceptions of LGBTQ people all have their roles to play in why our community's history is largely unknown and has been suppressed to a large degree. It is uplifting with the acceptance that has come that light is being shed more on LGBTQ History and that it is being discussed and shared more, not just the unpleasant and tragic eras but those that made positive differences. The female lesbian heroines, those of color and binary ones certainly deserve their due credit and recognition-their stories would be role models and eye openers for many. While haters, skeptics and doubters will always exist somewhere, the LGBTQ past is as important a part of human history as any other. Thanks for the places you highlight as well!
Maybe off topic but their's still a really lack of representation of lgbt families in advertising, particularly at xmas
We have the Campbell's soup as, thats... Something.
I think that the queer youth has a lot of power in their hands to do so much that hasnt been done or has been done very little when it comes to lgbtq+ education.
We are are a time where so much more people are now at least aware of the community and we have to use this as the starter to educating, learning, helping, etc. One of the things that i think are the most important is creating spaces for young queer people to learn and share things with each other because we still have a long way to go and again, have a lot of power in our hands to create change and having an inside community to teach each other as well is important if we also wanna teach the people outside of the community
Lovely video! I don't have anything specific to ass about LGBTQ+ history, but just about history and historical research in general and what traits on those circles might affect what gets counted as queer history or not.
Historians are basically researching things that don't exist; past is the past, it isn't here in the present as something truly tangible. It used to be here at some point, but in the end, historians are building puzzles, from whatever pieces they can find. Sometimes a new source is discovered, sometimes not. Sometimes something gets destroyed on accident or on purpose. Sometimes a new interpretation comes in, maybe sweeping over the old ones, or it gets buried beneath them. Sometimes someone looks at an old piece of information, tilts their head and connects it to something else. Maybe there is more queer history but no one has made the connection yet, maybe they can't make the connection, because the marks of LGBTQ+ people were different back then. No one knows.
Nothing is certain in historical research. The further back we go, the more certain we can be that it is uncertain. It's theories, that are more or less accepted based on what evidence there is. And there being no sources for queer history or other marginalised groups definitely plays into that. Historians can't know anything on certain. All of those puzzles they build, are build at least partly upon how their own time views these things - you brought up the language used and how it changes. They might have "just talked like that back then" and that judgement is made based on all the written materials available - no matter how large or small the sample size, although more "maybes" are employed the less material there is. Do all sources use similar language? And how anachronistic is any historians interpretation of it? And then one must ponder who wrote the source, why was it written and why was it written in that manner.
It's all guessing. In my view, historians are unlikely to say definitely that this or that historical figure was LGBTQ+ unless that person has personally written it down somewhere themselves, where they would have a reason to be honest about such things. And like you pointed out, doing something like that wasn't always possible. Some probably didn't know how to read or write so finding proof of their queerness is even more impossible. Maybe not everyone even realised that something else besides cis and straight (forgive the use of anachronistic concepts) existed, maybe they just lived with it because everyone else seemed to do the same. Maybe some realised that there was something off and went off to be nuns or monks to avoid the whole issue (this last bit is wild theorising, I've never read anything that hint at something like this, but it would work as a way to fit in if one was repressing their identity).
But if there are enough irregularities from other sources from the era, enough hints and enough knowledge to make a judgement… a historian will grant it a maybe, because they cannot be certain, like you pointed out. It is all conjecture - and unless someone invents a time machine, immerses themselves into the lingo of the period, and goes back to ask the person in question - then there never will be certain answers. It is sad and unfortunate but by building up strong sources from now on and going forward, then finding that history in the future will be easier. And as a history student, that is what I urge you to do. We will dig into old sources when and how we can, and into what is available, but you, build up those sources for the future and pass that information, and your legacy, on.
this video was great!! will try to go to this bookshop in London this weekend
Do you know the makinggayhistory NPR podcast? It's a really amazing set of interviews and stories that are really well done.
also just some fluff my grandmother's cousin and her wife have been together for at least 50 years and ran a summer camp together and in the 80's ran programs for kids whose families had been affected by the Aids crisis
In the states during the latter half of the 80s we had resources like the Gay Book of Days Calendar that sadly only lasted a few years but it was rife with glbt history. As the series came to its close the authors and publishers published a coffee table book summation of their efforts. We also have the GLBT History Project/ Museum based in San Francisco which also has an online presence.
my favorite gay historical figure is tchaikovsky and there’s a TON!!! of historical records on him and his sexuality. many of the letters he wrote are available online and in print. it’s really great to have an undeniable and unambiguous source of first hand evidence to the life of an lgbt person in the past.when i first came out was around the time i started orchestra, and it was amazing to have this easily accessible and unambiguous history to relate to and connect and really help me come to terms with myself.
Yeah a guy who had sex with his brother and nephew sounds like a great gay hero.....
@@richienyhus there’s basically no evidence for either of those claims lmao. as far as i’m aware those claims come from alexander poznasky who backed them up by using tchaikovskys generally effusive writing style as the sole evidence. i’m not an expert but i’ve read the guys books and the original texts of the letters he referenced and to me it looks more like homophobic stereotyping than legitimate academic research. i’m not going to act like tchaikovsky was a perfect person and obviously i have literally no way of verifying or denying poznaskys claims with 100% accuracy but imo much of the scholarship around tchaikovskys life needs to be re-examined with fewer homophobic biases. please correct me if there’s a more up to date/accurate/unbiased source that you’re aware of
We need more queer historians! We need queer people to do that work! (That’s literally what I am in school for, so yay?)
Comrade, we really don't, we really really don't, who gives a crap about this, kids in schools dont, we're more worried about better topic like the Warring States Period in China and Japan, and the Soviets, to be honest, dont spread this cancer, or kids will start a Crusade against this, this is your warning
EmperorShadow cute.
@@itstriplem2069 Actually, yes, we do care about this history !! If you actually cared about history at all, you would care about alllllll history !! Erasing history is fucking stupid and annoying !! Don't do that shit !
@@itstriplem2069 Chinese history is fascinating but we also care abt lgbt history
Yo fam yasss I would love that!
this video inspired me to do a history project that had to be about “lesser known” aspects of world war 2 about lgbt people!
love this video!! (also what is your lipstick)
I wiiiish everybody would have learned about our history in school 😞that would stop me from having to be a Question-answering machine for anyone who's got a stupid question but actually doesn't care enough to look it up
I feel the lack of representation in education. I am doing a level sociology, and in the topic “families and households” less than 1% is lgbtq+ related (most of that comes from a study we looked at about lesbians adopting children). We have done a whole subtopic on roles and relationships and there was ZERO queer representation, none!!!! I was outraged but sadly not surprised
I agree with a lot of this, but LGBT+ education is getting marginally better. At my school, we get occasional lessons on IDOHOTB, where we study small parts of LGBTQ+ history (although a lot of the school doesn’t get this, our English teacher is just particularly passionate). Recently, all of year 8 were off timetable to trial some “homopoly” resources which are basically lessons about LGBT+ history and way of life in general. It’s definitely not covered in the way that it should be, but it is improving. I also hear that London is getting an LGBT+ history museum in 2021 which is great.
Thanks for this video, Rowan, this was great!
there is actually a great podcast thats on spotify and itunes called always here: an lgbt podcast. its hosted by 2 lgbtq+ people and has the first segment about a lgbt historical figure and a second segment that they call “round table” where they talk about midern issues and their own experiences. just a great podcast :)
For those of you who understand Spanish, here's the story of Marcela and Elisa, who got legally married (and at the church no less) in 1901. You can check their wedding photos in the link too: elpais.com/diario/2010/03/14/eps/1268551610_850215.html
This is so important, the amount of people who think the LGBT community is some new fad when it's been there for millennia! If you have a story in a period setting, regardless of whether it's fiction or based on a true story, you can't have anyone LGBT because "people didn't do that back then!" And if you find records hinting otherwise, it's "just a rumour!"
(Waves in History PhD grad student) Hi! I study LGBT history and finished my preliminary exams so I can give LISTS of books and articles. Unfortunately, it will be more U.S. oriented, but I also have some good recommendations if you're looking for Latin American and Carribean LGBT history.
Hi! I am from Denmark, and this video inspired me to make a project about LGBT history in US. I would like to explain, how the conditions were for transgenders in the 1920's. Do you think, you are able to help me? Regards Emma
Thank you! I'm 70 a gay cis gendered male retired activist (of sorts.) A lover of history. I too am skeptical of proof of pre Stonewall LGB QT+ couples' photos. Men in other countries, even today, are not hesitant to show physical affection to other men. Pre WW 2 even in the west, men were not too scared to be affectionate in front of others.
I literally just did a presentation on queer lit in our sixth form litsoc and it was so hard to come to any kind of answers abt what is the queer canon? etc. There's just so much ambiguity and having never been taught about it makes it even harder! :(
Great video, great video. Our culture and our community is one in constant persecution and question, the very name of it, LGBT, is amorphous and people who say part of us are not real are allowed to express that but our response falls in deaf ears.
This may be a good place to post this: I live in the U.S. & was involved in the "ex-gay" movement in the mid-80s. I have a lot of documents & audiotapes I saved from that era b/c I thought they'd be valuable as part of an archive. I could totally see someone making use of this material for a thesis or research project. Based on how hard it is for me to find even the pro-gay Christian electronic & printed material that came in the '90s online," I'm sure I have to only existing copies of some of these newsletters, featuring material written by several other EX-"ex-gays". Do you know anyone who would like to have these materials? I really need to get rid of them, but I've never recycled them b/c I have a sense of history and someday people will look back on these documents & recordings as we would look back on church documents defending slavery, vilification of Jews, or other types of oppression.
There's a great lgbt museum in Berlin! It's called "the gay museum" or " das schwule Museum" in German and it's actually really amazing. I've visited it last year and because of its name I was a little bit worried it would only focus on cis gay men, but it was the complete opposite. The actually redid the gay men section while I was there and most of the museum I saw, focused on lesbianism especially in collation with feminism. As far as I remember it's also really English friendly, I visited it with an English speaking friend and she understood everything! I would encourage you-all to visit if you're ever in Berlin!
I'm a classical historian (in the middle of my master's right now) and this is actually a real challenge, even in very early history. Being called homosexual or allegations of (thinking specifically of Rome here) it were often meant as slanders, and as such tend to be lumped in with other reported 'moral failings' or figures in history. Basically, if the guy writing the history didn't like the emperor, statesman, general, or other writer they would debase their legacy and image with whatever negative characteristics might come to hand. As a result, trying to figure out who was LGBT and who was being accused of it as slander is rather difficult. And in any case, views on gender and sexuality were different at different points in history, so (at risk of being graphic) a Roman statesman was not considered gay if he indulged in sexual intercourse with his young male slaves, but would get accused of a being a 'patheticus' if he was not the active participant. Long rant short, I just think LGBT history in general is a mine field of false hopes and let downs simply from the fact that the modern version of LGBT hasn't existed for as long as we'd like and because stories relating to LGBT individuals tend to get muddled by other 'moral failings' ascribed to them.
That said, check out the story of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, who was probably trans and defiantly had a thing for guys.
For the historical maybe bi maybe lesbian: I'd likely just use woman loving women
About queerness in the armed forces, I can recommend „Fighting Proud“ by Stephen Bourne. It mostly focuses on gay men but it’s brilliant if you want to start looking at confirmed (as in, first hand statements) queer folks from history.
I feel that. I only really have on kinda good source but its german... qwien.at and stichwort.at for women and lesbian movements
For german speaking peeps: check it out. maybe even visit! as these are libraries
And for Rowan...sorry that it aint better, if you are ever here in vienna...
Danke für den Tipp :)
Loved your video....very intelligent, but I do wonder how you will keep history from isolating gay people into chapters on gay people and the rest of the time everyone is assumed to be straight.