#Queer History

[thosemotivationalquotes]

I saw something in the news today that truly took my breath away. If you have been paying attention to U.S. politics over the past few days, you’ve most likely seen this woman:

This is Bishop Mariann Budde, and on Monday (Trump’s inauguration) she led an interfaith prayer for Trump and the incoming administration. During the service she asked him to have mercy for LGBTQ+ Americans and undocumented immigrants. This was badly received by the Trump administration (as expected).

After seeing headlines about this woman, I read something that I wanted to share. In 1998 a man named Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay. I’m not going to get into the details of his death on this post, but please be warned it is extremely triggering if you do choose to read more on your own. Matthew Shepard’s death caused a lot of change in the U.S. regarding how LGBTQ hate crimes are handled, and laws that were passed to protect LGBTQ+ people.

Now you’re probably wondering what Matthew Shepard has to do with an Episcopal bishop. For years after Matthew Shepard’s murder, his family had held onto his remains, too scared to lay him to rest in fear of his final resting place being vandalized. In 2018, Budde had his remains interred at the National Cathedral, which is also the place where the interfaith prayer for Trump and his administration took place. The impact of this really had an effect on me. Budde could have led a non confrontational prayer service, and chosen not to mention the harm that will come to the people Trump and his administration are going after. Instead she chose to call out hate and fear in front of some of the most powerful people on the planet, and at a place that has such a large historic meaning to the LGBTQ community.

In the next few years there will be many challenges in protecting free speech, standing up against hate, and protecting those in our communities. But I would like to believe that for every Donald Trump and Elon Musk, there are people like Marianne Budde. There are those of us who can’t speak up for themselves, so it’s important for those of us who can to amplify our voices, even if it’s not the ‘popular’ thing to do.

“And he said you should apologize. Will you apologize?

I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others.” - Mariann Budde’s response in a Time interview

Link to articles: x x x

Link to the Matthew Shepard Foundation if you would like to donate

[makingqueerhistory]

I talk a lot about requesting queer books from the library, but someone reminded me that requesting queer smut is specifically important.

So please recommend queer smut books for me to request from my library!

[notruevampire]

Also, language changes rapidly (no, seriously, if you haven't been in this community for literal decades, you may not realize that the changes happening, particularly online, are so fast even people completely entrenched in it can't keep up). Not everyone can keep up, and for some people, using those outdated terms or even terms born of bigotry are all they know. We all take the first step somewhere. Some of us do it where no one else can see. Some get carried further before it happens. Some people don't have any coordination and will always stumble.

Be proud of them for growing.

i feel like it's absolutely crucial in the social justice world to take "he a little confused but he got the spirit" and similar sentiments/situations as a Win. intent is so much more important than saying it right the first time! if someone is approaching with scuffed language and incorrect terms but they're visibly being as polite as they know how, that person is a friend and should be treated better than what their words might invite in someone else's mouth.

[taliabhattwrites]

Is "hijra" a slur? Contextualizing South Asian (trans)misogyny

A note on the sheer cultural diversity of the subcontinent

There is no realistic way for me to exhaustively examine the context of every South Asian transfeminized population (though believe me, I’d like to). As such, I’m going to limit my scope to India, but make a quick initial note about Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Pakistani transfeminized communities, according to my partner’s sisters who are in the community, do consider ‘hijra’ more derogatory than their Indian counterparts necessarily do and refer to themselves as part of the ‘khwaja sira’ community.

I have sadly not been able to speak to any transfeminine people from Bangladesh, but I have spoken to cis queers who have told me that they use ‘hijra’ in a manner similar to India.

If there are desi queers from those communities who would like to add their perspectives, please feel free to reblog. And for the South Asian communities I haven't mentioned (such as Sri Lanka), please feel free to add your perspectives too! I'm curious to hear from you all.

Etymology and Usage

‘Hijra’ in its meaning and usage amongst the cis is most similar to the word ‘naamard’ (NAH-murd). The ‘naa’ is prefixal, a negation akin to ‘non’, while ‘mard’ is the word for ‘man’. It is a way of unmanning a man, of calling him lacking in the essential quality of manhood, of labelling him, in spirit if not in body, impotent.

As such, you can see how it’s an implicitly third-sexing construction (even before you account for how these communities are explicitly third-sexed, denied the epistemic autonomy to be recognized as women and now third-sexed by law). When Nanda called them emasculated homosexuals, it was not far off from how Indian culture forcibly categorizes and marginalizes them.

Members of the community have told me about their frustration and anger at being referred to as such, even though the word has now become a term through which they organize the community and sometimes advocate for themselves, a political reality that does not inherently contradict their campaigns to be recognized as women, and allowed to self-ID as such. (Recall, the Indian government currently mandates legal third-sexing of the hijra: they must first obtain a “Trans Certificate” and be documented as a third sex before they initiate the process of being recognized as women—a process that is contingent on subjecting themselves to transmedicalist scrutiny and gatekeeping!)

Others, however, have pointed out to me that the term is undergoing a process of reclamation. The term ‘hijra’ has a certain degree of legibility in Indian society even as it is a pejorative with degendering and dehumanizing connotations. It is being reclaimed intracommunally, but also by allies who speak of them without the usual stigmatizing connotations that cis society has saddled the term with.

Even still, I have also been told that the manner in which cis and especially Western academics use the term in scholarship—and I’m quoting here—"makes me want to tear my skin out". The fictions of “recognized gender role in Indian society” and “oppressed only after colonialism” are further simplifications and fabrications that obfuscate the role South Asian ruling-class collaborators eagerly played in petitioning for those colonial-era laws, and ignore such easily available empirical evidence as the Manusmriti mandating punishments for anyone who sleeps with—ugh—“eunuchs”.

Conclusion

In sum, I’d liken the use of the word “hijra” as analogous to the usage of “queer” in the 90s, as a slur in the contentious, contextual process of being reclaimed. As Aruvi put it to me on Bluesky:

We cannot allow cis people to dictate the discursive and epistemic terms of transfeminine culture. At the same time, the term “hijra” still carries with it heavy baggage due to South Asian transmisogyny as well as the academic misrepresentations and epistemic extractivism that Western scholarship has subjected South Asian transfeminized demographics to.

If you want to know how best to use the term, try to do so without third-sexing, and without promulgating fictive ideas of South Asian cultures being “gender-expansive” and “recognizing more than two genders”. Erasing the marginalization of the hijra is endemic to the way the term is used in the West, and that must absolutely be combatted.

On a final, personal note, I also wish to clearly state that I do not reject the label ‘hijra’ because I consider myself essentially different from them. Many Indian (usually upper-caste) trans women wish to distance themselves from the hijra, as though reproducing our society’s disgust for them will spare them from the same fate. That is not an attitude I share, or wish to normalize. The hijra—both those who affirmatively identify with the term, and those who wish to distance themselves from it—are my sisters.

I have simply not been granted the honor of being part of the communities and kin structures, and I do not wish to appropriate their struggles out of respect. Even still, their struggles are and will always be mine.

[macleod]

Why does no one in the trans and queer community ever bring up that Sophie Wilson, a brilliant engineer, was:

The inventor of ARM/RISC architecture!

=> one of the most popular and groundbreaking processor types, used now in all smartphones, that you are likely using right now!

One of the key people behind Acorn Computers

=> one of the first major computer companies, rivaling in many ways IBM and Apple from '78-90, developing the BBC Micro for example

One of the founding directors of Eidos,

=> which bought and created Eidos Interactive, notable for gaming hits like Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Thief, and Hitman.

We all talk about the engineering prowess of others such as Lynn Conway, and I always bring up Martine Rothblatt (inventor of satellite radio, founder of Sirius XM, and now a leading pioneer in xenotransplants and biotechnology), but I feel like Sophie is a very notable person to mention from time to time.

She appears to be rather semi-reclusive and private, but recently gave a presentation on the future of microprocessors.

[transastronautistic]

By the end of Thursday some 1,832 same-sex couples had married nationwide, according to the Department of Provincial Administration.

…While he did not mention Trump by name, [former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin] said “a powerful country’s” new leader “announced clearly that there are only two genders in his country.”

Striking a comparison between that “powerful country” and Thailand’s mid-sized population and smaller economy, he said, “I believe our heart is bigger.”

fuck yeah !!!!!!!!!

[queerasfact]

Invasion Day

On January 26 1788, the First Fleet of convicts from Britain arrived on the lands of the Eora Nation and the establishment of a British colony in Australia began.

Although the day is now official observed as Australia Day, it is, to quote Victorian community organisers, “an annual reminder of invasion, occupation, genocide and the ongoing impacts of colonisation that continue to destroy our land and waters”.

Keep reading under the cut - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that below is an image and names of deceased persons.

First Nations people have publicly marked 26 January as a Day of Mourning since 1938. The photo above comes from 1988, when, on 26 January, Australia officially celebrated its bicentenary. In response to public celebrations of the day, gay Aboriginal and South Sea Islander man Malcolm Cole and artist Panos Couros came up their own way to mark the occasion – a float in Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade a month later.

The float, known as the “Aboriginal Boat”, took the form of a sailing ship manned by Malcolm, dressed as Captain Cook, the British man who “claimed” the lands of First Nations people along Australia’s east coast for Britain. Narungga and Kaurna man Rodney Junga-Williams played botanist Joseph Banks, who was also instrumental in the decision to colonise the continent. The float was pulled by their white friends.

As Australians ourselves, living on the stolen lands of the Kulin Nation, we encourage you to spend the day doing what you can to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation is one organisation working to support queer First Nations people, that you in turn can support.

[Image source: Photograph taken by Ken Lovett, Australian Queer Archives, via ABC]

[victusinveritas]

For 20 years Matthew Shepard had no permanent resting place due to concerns his grave would be vandalized, and when Reverend Budde learned of this, she invited the Shepards to inter him inside the Washington National Cathedral. She co-officiated the service which stated Matthew was now and forever home in the church where he was loved.

Here's a piece from 2018 on the interment.

[goddamnshinyrock]

Does anyone have a link to that quote from a female officer (circa WWII or just after?) telling her commanding officer that if they want to get rid of all the gays in the US military, he'd be loosing a large percentage of his staff, starting with her. It's in (iirc) a book (or oral history project?) on 20th century queer history, but title, the exact quote, names of author or of the woman quoted, and any other actual searchable details are eluding me rn. I know it went around on tumblr, though, and I'm hoping someone's memory is better than mine.

[alexseanchai]

tag by sunderwight: #'careful ladies feminism can lead to—' *checks notes* '—lesbian gambling dens'

“madame est au cercle! (madam is at her club!)” by albert guillaume, 1892

[spirk-trek]

The Admiral's Scrapbook | Beryl Hodson, 1986

The Adventures of T'Ming {A Vulcan Tomboy}

Whenever T'Ming saw a Starfleet uniform, the memories would come flooding back. Now, here she was surrounded by them, after having not seen one the whole of her long holiday. She had managed to obtain her father's permission to make a tour of America, turning away all offers of easier forms of transport and choosing instead to travel by road. Now, at the end of her sojourn, here in this Chicago bus station, T'Ming was waiting for the long distance bus that would carry her back to San Francisco.

T'Ming had enjoyed herself, though she would normally never have dreamed of showing it or any other kind of emotion, no matter what she felt. She alone knew what that could cost. The loss of her gentle young friend had taught her the price of being a Vulcan.

The only child of her all Vulcan parents, T'Ming knew deep down that she had not been exactly what they had wanted her to be. Then on that morning, so long ago it seemed now, her father had brought her the news that that gentle creature had died as the direct result of Klingon hands. The sunshine outside had seemed to mock her.

T'Ming had taken the crushing news in the time honoured, outwardly straight faced and unfeeling manner that had been expected of her, but, in her heart and mind, she had wanted to scream in pain at the loss of the younger girl, whom she had looked upon as a sister.

"Excuse me."

The tap on the shoulder and the sudden intrusion of another voice into her thoughts, brought T'Ming out of her reverie. She looked quizically at the young man standing before her.

"Will you be going all the way to San Francisco?"

"Yes," she replied, wondering whose business it was but hers.

"Well," continued the young man in Starfleet Uniform, "I wonder if you would do me a favour? I was going there myself but have been posted to somewhere else at the last minute. I was to have delivered this suitcase to a friend who was to have met me there, so, I wonder if you would take it for me? You see, my friend left it behind by mistake, then got in touch and asked if I would bring it with me when I joined him."

-------------

"If you won't be requiring my daughter further and she has quite recovered, I think it best we return to the Embassy where I have some pressing business to attend to." T'Ming's father took her hand and bowing slightly to Admiral Turner, led his daughter out of the room.

"I know, my daughter, you are wondering how I knew of your strange mode of dress when away from home," Zanok raised a quizzical eyebrow at her.

"I was wondering, my father," T'Ming ventured.

"Your mother and I have known for some time but decided to say nothing because an escape of some kind seemed to be what you needed and was therefore, logical. A great deal of good has now come of your disguise so no more will be said on the subject."

Zanok extended the Vulcan two fingered mark of affection and T'Ming returned it, resolving never to wear her disguise again. "Just look what it got me into!!!" she shuddered at the possible alternative outcome of the adventure.

[makiruz]

Since everyone's talking about how Gay Wicked is I think we should bring back "Friend of Dorothy" as in "is he, you know, a friend of Dorothy?"

[curse-king]

Yeah. People seem to talk only about trans women when they say "Trans PEOPLE".

"PEOPLE" means there are more than just trans women, folks. Stop erasing trans men.

I’m going to get so much shit but this post but I don’t really care.

We know that transfems and trans women are hypervisible and are often seen as the “default” when people talk about trans people. And I’ve noticed that because of that, transmascs and trans men are not only forgotten from very real issues but also from what is considered as trans culture as a whole.

When people talk about trans people making art, science etc, it’s almost always transfems and trans women only.

And I’d like y’all to reflect on that and remember that transmascs and trans men have also contributed, and to include them when you talk about trans people’s contribution to the world.

A few example:

Music: Hyperpop is a trans subculture, and we love Sophie and 100gecs, but don’t forget about Dorian Electra, and, more recently, Tobre.

Science: there's a lot of names here but pleasd do not forget about Ben Barres, neurobiologist, the first openly trans scientist in the US Academy of Science. Alan L. Hart, who was a pioneer in X-ray photography used for turberculosis detection, and the first trans man to receive an hysterectomy.

And regarding queer history, please, for the love of God, remember Stormé DeLarverie. I still consistently see Marsha P. Johnson named as the one who started the Stonewall Riots when she has said multiple times that it wasn't her. It was most likely Stormé DeLarverie, a genderqueer butch and male impersonator.

I’m not trying to be bitchy, it’s just important that we do the work because cis people sure as hell won’t.

If you have any other names you’d like to add, please, please do !!!

[taliabhattwrites]

So in case my essay's too long and y'all have trouble believing what I've said about "third genders".

Here's a thread about a WaPo article from 2016 that clearly was cribbing from Serena Nanda without citing her. Enjoy.

Bonus comment cuz I'm feeling MEAN

[nerdygaymormon]

[beanthebugboi]

Seriously, every time I hear bullshit like "there were no trans/nonbinary people in (insert time period)" I get so pissed because yes there were. Whether they were lost to history or simply didn't have the vocabulary and/or acceptance to come out, we have always existed.

Just because the word "trans" didn't exist yet, doesn't mean trans people didn't exist. There were just different words: two-spirit, māhū, fa'afafine, hijra.. hell, it goes back to the very beginning of human civilization- Inanna, a Mesopotamian goddess, had gender-nonconforming followers, including AFAB people who lived as men and AMAB people who lived as women.

Another statement I hear pretty often, especially from certain American bigots, is "imagine what WW2 veterans would think of this." Well, I think that WW2 veteran Christine Jorgensen, the first person in the US to undergo a successful medical transition, would be pretty fkn proud of how far we've come!

We are inextricable from human history.

People in history identifying as a different gender instead of male or female. People in history feeling deeply connected with animals. People have been like this since our very beginning. We’re just doing it in a different way.