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From Woroni, 1986. 

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Dyke Pride Sampler, by Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith, 1976. Cotton embroidery floss on kettle cloth. From Lesbian Herstory Archives.

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Lani Ka'ahumanu, co-founder of BiPol (the first bisexual political organization), marches in the San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Freedom Day, June 24, 1984.

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did you know that in 1953 eisenhower issued an executive order which banned gay people from being employed in government

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“‘Gay,’ however, made its first appearance in the late 1920s and, among homosexuals, had secured its meaning as we know it long before the beginning of World War II. The purposes the word served were many, its value inestimable. Straight society had plenty of terms to describe men who liked men, either emphasizing their gender-role deviance (birdie, buttercup, fairy, flit, flutterer, nancy, pansy, yoo-hoo) or aiming to be more general in its characterization and disgust (faggot, homo, queer). Homosexuals used some of these words themselves, particularly faggot, pansy, and queer. The advent of ‘gay’ was a step in a new direction. Homosexuals had appropriated an existent word that had proved especially malleable over the last hundred years. The ‘gay’ women of the nineteenth century were the fancy women, the fallen women, the terrors of the virtuous middle class. By the early 1920s, “gay” had evolved into a less charged adjective. Any fun-loving person might have a gay time at a party or on vacation. (‘gay’ tenaciously retained its sexual edge in other forms - falsies were ‘gay decievers’ and a ‘gay cat’ was a ladies’ man.) Conscious of their status as fallen men, of the view of their lives as barren and joyless, of the stereotype of flippancy and silliness that attached to pansy culture, homoseuals latched on to a word that played off all of these different ideas and the word’s own sly history. Best of all, it could pass undetected in its double meaning among heterosexuals. ‘Is he gay?’ or ‘Did you have a gay time?’ sounded like innocent questions to much of America before 1960. To homosexuals, they epitomized the power of coded language and effectively, or intermittently, moved away from the belligerence of ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’.”

— The Other Side of Silence - Men’s Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History by John Loughery (via deermouth)

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BTW, the high five was invented in 1977 which means your parents probably didn’t grow up with it.

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Hal Fischer’s Gay Semiotics ♂ (1977)

Hal Fischer began photographing the subtle codes employed throughout San Francisco’s gay community in February 1977. Fischer observed this semiotic system first hand while living in the Castro Street and Haight Ashbury neighborhoods. As his series on gay male signifiers progressed, the photographer expanded the scope of his project to include a wider view of the gay experience, resulting in an exhibition and publication of Gay Semiotics ♂ in 1977.

Hal Fischer successfully illustrated a pocket manual for traversing the gay community in the Castro of San Francisco in the 1970s and published an ethnography of sorts. He produced a resource with explanatory captions and narratives that sheds light on the marginalized group during the rise of the gay liberation movement, a group who pushed for heightened visibility at the time. He divided the book into sections: signifiers, essay, archetypal media images, fetishes and street fashions providing a taste of various components of gay society at the time.

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Pride, West Village, New York City, June 1982 © Barbara Alper

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Pride, New York, June 1990

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Jean-Michel Basquiat drawing on Keith Haring’s shirt.

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So you said queer history didn't start with Stonewall, which is not even surprising at all. However, that's all I've ever been told, so I don't know anything about the time before Stonewall. Do you have a tag, a masterpost, or some articles or something for me to read so I can learn about queer history before Stonewall? And I'm sorry if this comes off as rude or anything; I just genuinely want to learn the untold history of the community I'm a part of. Thanks 😊

First, thank you for coming to us, you didn’t come off as rude at all. 

Well, we don’t have a tag or masterpost, but I can create a list of articles we have up at this point (May 14, 2018) that focuses on queer subjects from before Stonewall.

Sappho, the PoetessKristina, King of SwedenKhnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, and Occam’s RazorJosephine Baker, a Woman with Eclectic TalentsQueer Women and AFAB People During the HolocaustMagnus Hirschfeld, the FounderInstitute of Sexology, a Place of LearningSan Domino, Gay IslandThe Bitten Peach and the Cut SleeveThe End of the World War 2 SeriesVita Sackville-West: Creating a LegacyLangston Hughes: the PoetThe Marriage of Jane and Paul BowlesBjornstjerne Bjornson, the AdvocateOsh-Tisch, the WarriorThe Trials of Oscar WildeSir Ewan Forbes, the DoctorFrida Kahlo: Lover of Self and OthersAlbert D.J. CashierThe Golden OrchidQueen Christina, Queer Codes and Queer Coding (Part 2)Queen Christina, Queer Codes and Queer Coding(Part 1)Different from the Others, the BeginningThe Story of the Ladies of LlangollenWilfred Owen: Dating Your Heroes (And Writing Through Hard Times)Virginia Woolf: Struggling (And Never Being Perfect)Tamara de Lempicka’s LegacyTamara de Lempicka’s LifeFederico Garcia Lorca: Words that Scared a CountryBricktop, and the Happy EndingBricktop, the FabulousFrank KamenySophia Parnok, Russia’s SapphoAnnemarie SchwarzenbachAlan L. Hart, Part 2Alan L. Hart, Part 1Defining Identities in North America, Part 2Defining Identities in North America, Part 1Alan TuringHatshepsutHamish HendersonElagabalus, the EmpressBilly Tipton and the Question of GenderTakatāpuiYukio MishimaKitty GenoveseCatherine Bernard: A question in studying asexual historyGyörgy FaludyEdward CarpenterDawn Langley HallZimri-Lim, King of MariCoccinelleLesbia HarfordKarl Heinrich UlrichsFrieda Belinfante Part 2 Frieda Belinfante Part 1Eleanor RykenerRedefining the Dandy: The Asexual Man of Fashion

I hope this helps! 

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I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have been in the queer movement for 20+ years, to have studied queer theory, to have contributed to you potentially enjoying the rights you have today because I was part of a groundswell of lobbying and direct action in the 1990s….

…to have a 15 year old who’s spent maybe 8 months being political and has never inquired about queer history anonymously message me, “EXCUSE ME QU**R IS A SLUR LMAO OMG EMBARRASSSING AN aCTUAL ADULT WHO THINKS IT’S OKAY TO USE QU**R!~!!!!”

Dude, we are a slur. Queer folks are a slur to conservative straight people. Everything we are will be used as a slur by everyone who hates us. Gay is a slur. Lesbian is a slur. People will try to use all of our words against us. Don’t fucking let them get into your head to the point at which you’re telling actual queer people not to use the words we’ve used to unite ourselves and empower ourselves for decades. 

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ok this is “earring magic ken” who was introduced in 1992 (and discontinued shortly thereafter)

basically mattel had done a survey and discovered that girls didn’t think ken was “cool” enough

SO someone had the bright idea to research coolness by sending people to raves which, at the time, were mostly hosted & attended by gay men. so they went to these raves and took notes on what the fashions were and finally landed on this outfit, mesh shirt & all 

this doll became the best selling ken doll in history, mostly because gay men bought it in droves. (many of them said his necklace was supposed to be a cockring) but mattel and a number of parents weren’t very amused and discontinued the doll 

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A DIY button from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archive’s Instagram. https://instagram.com/p/BZerpR9gEzZ/