#Queer History

[theinternetarchive]

gay and transgender life in provincetown, massachusetts. chris korda, 1991.

[vintagesapphics]

Diane Israel and Ivette Visbale as photographed for Mona Holmlund's 1999 book Women Together: Portraits of Love, Commitment, and Life

[justdavina]

Pretty Gurl!

[dresshistorynerd]

I don't know what motivated you to write out that super detailed response to the Choctaw kindness to the Irish, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your dedication to sharing humanitarian acts of kindness. I'm a trans guy in the US american south and I feel so alone and despised, but things like that story give me hope that someone, somewhere, will understand and give compassion. Thank you for sharing humanity.

Thank you very much for this lovely message. I'm really sorry things are looking so bleak for you. I'm not USAmerican, but I've been watching the the situation there spiral into fascism with horror. Things are not looking so good here in Europe either, in general, it's quite a dark moment in history.

I write about history because it gives perspective for times like these. Every time I read about a horrific moment in history, the horrors are not what stay with me but the endless human resilience that lead humans to endure and build something beautiful from the ashes. Human kindness, bravery and resilience - humanity - shines brightest in inhuman times. We have survived so many terrible times and we will survive this as well. One of my best friends is a trans masc German, a proof that even genocide can't erase trans people, so neither will this US administration. Knowing we are not the first people to face such times, nor to survive such times, makes me feel less alone. So maybe I can tell you some stories of trans and queer history in the US, and perhaps that'll make you feel tiny bit less alone.

The period of New World chattel slavery is one of the darkest periods in history, but Black people were able to survive even that and create vibrant cultural expressions from the ashes. People always resisted slavery. There was not a moment, when everyone gave up. In Caribbean, slaves escaped all the time and became Maroons, who found home in the insular communities of the surviving indigenous Taino people of the genocides against them. They formed mixed settlement of indigenous people and escaped slaves, where their languages and traditions were mixed together to create a new culture, that preserved two traditions under threat of annihilation. They resisted constantly the tyrannical colonial powers, waged guerilla warfare against them and assisted in slave rebellions even when the punishments for them were extreme and severe. There were maroons in US as well. They didn't have dense jungle islands where they could hide their settlements in the US South, but they had swamps they used in a similar way. In the swamp settlements the maroons also were joined by indigenous people escaping the genocidal onslaught as well as other outcasts of the colonial society. Together they survived and resisted. In US too the slaves didn't just escape to freedom, they orchestrated numerous slave rebellions from the very beginning to the bitter end.

There were also some white abolitionists too, who did the right thing. John Brown was of course one of them. He believed it was his secret duty as a Christian to wage war against US until slavery was abolished and he gladly died for it. But I want to shout out a trans masc abolitionist, Public Universal Friend. Public Universal Friend has possibly the most wild and interesting story ever. The Friend was a Quaker. Quakers have always been abolitionists, even in England before slavery was banned there. The Friend lived from 1752 to 1819 in New England, dressed mostly masculine, rejected gendered pronouns and used instead The Friend and PUF as pronouns (though some of the Friend's followers referred to the Friend with he/him), became a Quaker cult leader, made the Friend's cult followers to free their slaves and preached about gender equality, universal salvation and abolition of slavery. Basically the Friend was a cult leader for good. Truly chaotic good alignment. I write about the Friend more in my post about some cool historical queer figures.

Another story starts with a pioneering American trans man, Alan L. Hart. He was born in 1890 and presented as a boy from a very young age. His parents and grandparents accepted him as a boy. In school he was forced to present as a girl, but in college he fully presented as a man. He became the first recorded trans man to surgically transition in US in 1917-1918. He was not only pioneering as a trans man, but as a doctor as well. He was instrumental in developing x-ray screening for tuberculosis, which at the time was one of the leading causes of death. His contribution has saved thousands of lives.

He was undoubtedly a trans man (he expressed it to his doctors to gain access to medical transition and in an interview after he was outed once and in all the possible ways he could really), but still couple of decades after his death in 1980s and 90s, trans-exclusionary lesbians "reclaimed" him as a historical lesbian figure. This caused a battle in the Portland queer community. Trans people, who had of course been part of the community forever, did not take such blatant erasure lying down and protested the organizations, who insisted on misgendering Hart and touting him as a "lesbian hero". They were not alone though. After being presented with the historical facts, the Lesbian Avengers joined their trans siblings in the fight. Eventually the organizations, which had kept misgendering him relented, but some trans-exclusionary lesbians still kept bringing doubt to his very clearly expressed gender identity even afterwards.

Lesbian Avengers, a direct action group, has many amazing stories in their history. One of those is told in Weird Little Guy's podcast episode Fire Will Not Consume Us. The podcast is about fascists, and this particular episode tells the story of how KKK waged a war against a rural gay bar kept by a local elderly straight couple, who had lost a child to AIDS. Their gay patrons called the lady their mom. The Lesbian Avengers showed up to stand with their gay brothers against the KKK. They chanted "Fire will not burns us. We'll take it and make it our own." to burning crosses and a KKK preacher telling them they would burn in hell. They had an fire-eating act, during which they chanted that chant, they had started after Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock, a lesbian and a gay man, had been murdered with a Molotov cocktail thrown into their apartment. I really recommend that episode, it's a beautiful story of solidarity and resistance.

The lesson I take from these stories, and history in general, is that survival is resistance and we survive with solidarity. Alone we are outcasts, but together we are strong. I can only imagine how lonely it must be for you right now, but you are not alone. You have never been. Behind you is a long line of trans and queer ancestors, who stood in the same ground before you. Around you are so many facing the same enemy.

[nerdygaymormon]

[alexseanchai]

*pokes nose out from behind shit-stained umbrella* hey is March over yet?

anyway, this is no longer a dragon shoelace project, it is a stripy strap project with a super subtle ace pride border, bc 20 cards of crochet thread is too wide to be a shoelace, and I am having too much trouble keeping the tablets rotating both easily and in unison

(please don't mind the horrible white balance in photo 1)

—wait no, if I alternate several forward and several backward of all the cards at once, it's reminiscent of queer pride violet-lavender-white chevrons

[desimonewayland]

Sadao Hasegawa (長谷川 サダオ)

Untitled, 1980s Pencil, ink and collage on paper, in 3 parts Inserts for the magazine Barazoku

a. SQUIRE, London

[spectrallydistracted]

Guys, guys (gn)!!! This is fantastic!

Please reblog this.

Rocky Horror is turning 50 next month and people still act like being gay was invented by Ellen in 1997

[moon-kissed-corner]

Extract from a letter (dating to 1939), which is featured in the book Jean Cocteau: Lettres à Jean Marais "Jean Cocteau: Letters to Jean Marais" (Éditions Albin Michel, 1987).

The text was translated by Alexandra Trone, for Rictor Norton's book My Dear Boy (1998).

[amielbjacobs]

Queer/LGBTQ History in the Soviet Union

Since I started working on my novel, I’ve done a lot of research on LGBTQ history in the Soviet Union, which became a special interest for me. Since I always love to spread my special interests, here’s a bibliography of useful sources about queer history in the USSR. I believe this to be reasonably complete (I scoured JSTOR for articles and books) but I’d love to hear if I forgot anything. I’m also down to answer questions or help people access these resources if you DM me. 

Books

Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia - Dan Healey (2001)

Focuses on 1917-1940s. If you only read one book off this list, make it this one. Despite some outdated terminology, this remains the most central and accessible text on this topic, and it’s a good choice to read first to get a basic grasp. It combines a good sense of the broader context with a lot of fascinating details. 

Russian Homophobia: From Stalin to Sochi - Dan Healey (2017)

Effectively a sequel to the above book, a series of historical anecdotes which cover 1945-2017. 

Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956-91: A Different History - Rustam Alexander (2021)

This book examines Soviet queer history through the lens of official discourse, i.e., the police, Gulag officials, the secret police, and doctors. This is useful both for understanding people in these professions, and for understanding people who were subjected to official control. 

Gay Lives and ‘Aversion Therapy’ In Brezhnev’s Russia, 1964-1982 - Rustam Alexander (2023)

Red Closet: The Hidden History of Gay Oppression in the USSR - Rustam Alexander (2023)

This book attempts to bridge popular history and academic history, and doesn’t quite succeed - it has a lot of interesting information in it, but if you can, read Alexander’s other work (including the articles below) first. 

Lesbian Lives in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia - Francesca Stella (2014)

Chapter Two, “Lesbian Relationships in Late Soviet Russia,” contains a lot of valuable information. I admit I found the writing style rather dry. 

Out of the Blue: Russia's Hidden Gay Literature: An Anthology - Kevin Moss (1996)

This anthology of literature in translation mostly features pre-Revolutionary and post-Soviet fiction, but it’s the only source for English translations of several valuable Soviet artistic works and primary sources, including Mikhail Kuzmin’s diaries and works by Gennady Trifonov. 

Soviet and Post-­Soviet Sexualities - Edited by Richard C.M. Mole (2019)

Queer History of Belarus in the second half of the 20th century: a preliminary study - Uladzimir Valodzin (2016)

Forced underground: homosexuals in Soviet Latvia - Rita Ruduša (2014)

Articles

The Queer Life of Lieutenant Petrenko: The KGB and Male Homosexuality in the Ukrainian SSR of the 1960s - Rustam Alexander (2023)

"With a Shade of Disgust": Affective Politics of Sexuality and Class in Memoirs of the Stalinist Gulag - Adi Kuntsman, Slavic Review, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Summer, 2009), pp. 308-328

“Not a Personal Matter”: Soviet Conservative Discourse on Homosexuality in the 1960s and 1970s - Irina Roldugina (2024)

An inconspicuous sexual dissident in the Georgian Soviet republic: Subjectification, social classes and the culture of suspicion in the late Soviet period - Arthur Clech (2021)

Gay in the Gulag - Yaroslav Mogutin (1995)

Using the Past to Save the Present: Soviet Transgender History and Its Implications for Present-Day Trans Rights in Russia - Yana Kirey-Sitnikova (2025)

Transsexual and intersex individuals in Soviet medicine and jurisprudence - Yana Kirey-Sitnikova (Date of release unclear - recent)

The Trans Man Whose Pioneering Surgery Was A State Secret For Decades - Daniil Turovsky, Buzzfeed News (2018)

Documenting the queer self: Kaspars Aleksandrs Irbe (1906-1996) in between unofficial sexual knowledge and medical-legal regulation in Soviet Latvia - Ineta Lipša (2021)

Taming the desire: Pavel Krotov’s “bisexual” closet - Rustam Alexander (2021)

The inner lives of queer comrades in early Soviet Russia - Artem Langenburg interviewing Irina Roldugina, openDemocracy.net (15 December 2017)

‘Why are we the people we are?’ Early Soviet homosexuals from the first-­person perspective: New sources on the history of homosexual identities in Russia - Ira Roldugina in Soviet and Post-Soviet Sexualities (2019)

Criminal Prosecution of Homosexuals in the Soviet Union (1946-1991): Numbers and Discourses - Uladzimir Valodzin (2020)

"With a Shade of Disgust": Affective Politics of Sexuality and Class in Memoirs of the Stalinist Gulag - Adi Kuntsman (2009)

“Not a Personal Matter”: Soviet Conservative Discourse on Homosexuality in the 1960s and 1970s - Irina Roldugina (2023)

Political Homophobia in Soviet Lithuania Revisited: The Case of the Dissident Viktoras Petkus - Rasa Navickaitė (2024)

Translating queer texts in Soviet Russia: A case study in productive censorship - Brian James Baer (2010)

[kavuma-blog1]

Let me make this clear to every hater

[my-deer-friend]

‘La Poste, comme on sait, console de l’absence’ - says the old man of the mountain; it is however but a poor consolation, & I would prefer seeing you half an hour to half a dozen letters.

Francis Kinloch to Johannes von Müller, 27 October 1777

Adieu, my dear friend; while circumstances place so great a distance between us, I entreat you not to withdraw the consolation of your letters.

John Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, July 1782

Bluets, Maggie Nelson

[magicfemme]

“we think not a friend lost because he has gone into another room."

AIDS QUILT SERIES | VIEW THE QUILT

[vintagesapphics]

Laurence Jaugey-Paget, Untitled, 1994

[imminentinertia]

kinda funny when online discourse can be refuted with ‘I was literally there’

[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