#there’s countless stories of women who dressed as men and assumed male identies but not all of them would agree with the trans id | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bethisblogging · 2 years

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There’s another post going around vaguely shaming historians for not saying historical people were gay when the signs are there so this is a reminder that

1) the idea of gay as we modernly conceptualize it was Not a thing, historically,

2) they may have been more than friends. They may have fucked. They may have been true life partners. Or they really were just dear friends. A lot of times it’s not very easy to have all the nuance AND come out and be like “yes they were queer.”

3) just because a historian can’t declare someone as gay doesn’t mean they aren’t part of queer history!

Also this is NOT a defense of historians who ignore when someone straight up came out. Like by the time you get to the earth 20th century the modern ideas of sexuality were pretty much established. There are people who were imprisoned then for being gay. They deserve to be fully recognized with their identities.

#this is probably really badly worded but it’s incredibly frustrating #like gay sex was super prevalent in Ancient Rome! that does not mean they were all gay because the understanding of sexuality was different!#there’s countless stories of women who dressed as men and assumed male identies but not all of them would agree with the trans id #there’s one story I know off the top of my head where a woman assumed a male id to fight in the American Revolution and lived as a man #and then in older age kinda came out and said look what I did and was living as a woman again #but that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of queer history! that doesn’t mean you can’t use the evidence to say we’ve always been here!!!#history #listen I’ve got a degree in history I can say these things #mine

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