“ "You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us"-Sappho
I actually hadn’t until you mentioned it, but once I got this ask I did a bit of research, and went ahead and did it!
So now along with us being on Podbean, Itunes, and our website, we are also now on Spotify!
Thank you so much for messaging us!
Of course. Truly, I believe this should be the standard, but I am glad we can be here for anyone who may need it when others are being so destructive.
We also always want to be better, so please do tell us if we have done anything wrong, or if there is anyone in history you think we should look at. Though we have gotten the chance to cover some asexual and aromantic people, I really would like to be able to cover more, so we are open to suggestions.
“There are also many people of same sex relationships in this country, who have been violated and have also suffered in silence for fear of being discriminated,” Masisi said. “Just like other citizens, they deserve to have their rights protected.”
No. I really don’t, coming up with terms to describe experiences is a vital part of why language exists, and that extends to gender. And honestly there were already a huge amount of words to describe different gender experiences before the last couple of decades so anyone pretending like this is entirely new is provably wrong.
Honestly the sooner we divorce ourselves from the idea of the human experience being one of two things the better. And creating words to describe these variations are endlessly helpful because the more words we have the more nuance we can convey, which means we can have a greater overall understanding of each other when we speak which always helps.
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.
Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, and Occam’s Razor
Josephine Baker, a Woman with Eclectic Talents
Queer Women and AFAB People During the Holocaust
Magnus Hirschfeld, the Founder
Institute of Sexology, a Place of Learning
The Bitten Peach and the Cut Sleeve
The End of the World War 2 Series
Vita Sackville-West: Creating a Legacy
The Marriage of Jane and Paul Bowles
Bjornstjerne Bjornson, the Advocate
Frida Kahlo: Lover of Self and Others
Queen Christina, Queer Codes and Queer Coding (Part 2)
Queen Christina, Queer Codes and Queer Coding(Part 1)Different from the Others, the Beginning
The Story of the Ladies of Llangollen
Wilfred Owen: Dating Your Heroes (And Writing Through Hard Times)
Virginia Woolf: Struggling (And Never Being Perfect)
Federico Garcia Lorca: Words that Scared a Country
Bricktop, and the Happy Ending
Sophia Parnok, Russia’s Sappho
Defining Identities in North America, Part 2
Defining Identities in North America, Part 1
Billy Tipton and the Question of Gender
Catherine Bernard: A question in studying asexual history
Redefining the Dandy: The Asexual Man of Fashion
I hope this helps!
All right, my answer may be long because I think it is important to make sure we have a nuanced discussion around this.
The answer to this question is not a clear one. There are instances where asexual and aromantic people have been excluded from the queer community, but there are also instances where they have been included.
The problem with saying “Aces have always been a part of the queer community” or “Aces have never been a part of the queer community” is that you will be wrong either way.
Asexual and aromantic people have historically had to face exclusion from the queer community, and they still do today. They have also historically been a part of the queer community (I will always point people to The Golden Orchid because I think it is one of the most clear examples of asexual and aromantic inclusion in the queer community).
So to have this discussion in a clear and healthy way we need to first divorce ourselves of the idea that the queer community is some monolithic thing.
We have always had division; and in every place and in every time period the queer community is different. Queer people haven’t generally been able to organize on a global scale, so there is no truth of the queer community that is true everywhere and in every time.
The internet has given us an advantage in that we can have discussions internationally within the queer community, which has never happened before to the scale it is happening today. Which makes right now a turning point for the queer community.
The decisions we make today will be recorded in the history books of tomorrow. So it is time for us all to decide what kind of community we want to be.
Throughout history we have examples of when our community has been exclusive and catered only to a select few identities, and we have examples of the opposite happening. We have examples of people coming together to fight for the rights and the safety of not only people who share their exact struggle but for people who face a whole different set of obstacles. And it is time for us all to decide what type of people we want to be remembered as.
The very word queer is vague which many people now find issue with but I think is a distinct advantage. It does not narrow our community down to a series of labels we care about.
And if I have learned anything from my ongoing study of queer history, it is that how society has treated different sexual and gender identities has changed throughout time. And to assume that will stop with us seems pretty arrogant.
There have been times when being gay has been accepted in certain societies. But because of these times does that mean that gay people don’t deserve a place in the queer community? Of course not.
I fully believe there have been times when asexual and/or aromantic people have been fully accepted in society at certain points. But now is not that time. So we include them. We fight for them because right now that is what is needed.
I love the queer community. For all it’s many flaws I have faith in it. One of the reasons I love it is because of how inclusive we have the power to be.
I cannot make this decision for anyone else. But as someone who studies queer history, I can say that while the past can give us much, it is ultimately the present and the future we must make our decisions for.
According to Pat Barker and Stephen MacDonald, Wilfred Owen was born on March 18th, 1893. His youth included an education at Shrewsbury Technical School, and he would eventually pass the entrance exam at the University of London, but his family’s poverty would prevent him from attending (Barker). Owen would go on to work as an English tutor in France up until World War I began (Barker). He didn’t enlist in England’s army, however, until October 1915 at twenty-two years old (Barker). All of this information suggests that Owen had a fairly standard English childhood. He didn’t distinguish himself from his fellow students in school, though he did show signs of intelligence, and after he had left the school he did what he had to do to survive. Wilfred Owen was something of an everyman up until the beginning of World War I.
Hi there!
Yeah, it can be hard to come by trans history, and it’s super frustrating! Fortunately, there are more and more queer historians and academics working to research and share trans history. We’ve written a few articles about trans folks ourselves! I’ve listed them here from oldest to most recent and noted the ones with happy endings. Enjoy!
Billy Tipton and the Question of Gender*
Almost Forgotten Voices: The Transvestite Magazine of Weimar Berlin
Chrystos* (Note: Still Alive)
Maryam Khatoon Molkara, a Woman Who Changed her Country*
Anderson Bigode Herzer, the Poet
Rita Hester, the Beginning of the Transgender Day of Remembrance
“What should the daughter of a great prince expect? Her fate is unquestionably most unhappy. Born the slave of the people’s prejudices, she finds herself subjected to this weight of honours, these innumerable etiquettes attached to greatness…”
— Isabella of Parma
I’m so glad you asked this! I’m from Chicago, and I have so many feelings about Jane Addams. She did so many great things for our city and she was a big ole lesbian.
That’s all, of course, my personal feelings (aside from Addams being a lesbian—while she may not have used the label for herself, I feel comfortable saying it’s the one that most accurately describes her).
The woman you’re thinking of is Mary Rozet Smith. She and Addams were together for more than three decades, and their closest friends described them as being married.
Her most notable work, Hull House, was settled by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in September of 1889. Starr was also a lesbian, and Addams’ partner for many years. Their relationship ended around the time Addams met and started her relationship with Smith. Hull House housed social, educational, and artistic programs. It was a center for social reform. Both women worked especially with new immigrants and women—they campaigned and promoted education, autonomy, and the destruction of traditionally male-dominated fields.
The fact that Hull House existed in a poor neighbourhood wasn’t an accident. There were classes in literature, art, history, current issues, and more. All were free, and they drew in the working class folks in the surrounding neighbourhood. Addams didn’t just create those programs though, she worked with the community and led studies and surveys on the causes of poverty and then shared these with folks in the neighbourhood. She also shared them with legislatures, who she pushed for social reform.
Additionally, queer folks are typically have lower income, especially lesbians who wouldn’t have the benefit of a man’s income. Women were discouraged from working, and Addams fought against that with her classes and her push for reform. Because of this, Hull House was also a meeting spot for lesbians at the time.
Now, despite the good she did, Jane Addams was not perfect by any stretch. She was a supporter of the prohibition, mainly because of her whorephobic rhetoric. This is regularly overlooked, and I refuse to pretend that she had no flaws. I love and appreciate all of the work she did, but she still had the issue of looking down of poor folks she felt were doing something “wrong.” She had the same issue we find with early feminists (and feminists today, let’s be honest) in that she was staunchly anti-sex work.
Hull House still partially exists as the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Years ago, the museum had a project called “Was Jane Addams a Lesbian?” I’m uncertain if it still exists; it’s been a while since I’ve been to the museum. The director of the museum does believe she was a lesbian. In fact, there are few scholars who believe she wasn’t a lesbian. One scholar, for example, believes that we should focus elsewhere, because focusing on whether a lesbian was a lesbian might “overshadow” the good she did. We at Making Queer History believe straight historians should move on and let queer folks have fun.
I hope that was educational and helpful! Jane Addams is a wonderful part of our history, and she means a lot to me as a queer Chicagoan.
Supported by Oxfam, VOVO provides a safe space for LBT women in Zimbabwe to connect, share stories and raise the visibility of women’s issues within the broader LGBT community. For more information visit: https://www.oxfamireland.org/yes
A Scottish lesbian journalist who was frequently underestimated, Evelyn Irons was a prominent member of the queer community in the 1900s. Given her influence, you might see some familiar names from the era. We have the pleasure of going over some prominent women loving women and seeing the tangled lines that connect so many lived.