In the age of the internet, recording queer history has never been easier; not only in sharing stories as we do at Making Queer History but in preserving stories that may otherwise be lost. Blogs, social media, videos, newsletters, and more have become the means by which we commemorate and celebrate one another and ourselves. Researching someone’s life is much easier when they’ve recorded it on their own blog, as is the case for tatiana de la tierra.
In honour of Lesbian Day of Visibility recently, we wanted to look at a woman whose music is incredibly well-known, but whose queerness is often erased. Her music has been used in PSAs and presidential campaigns alike, and she worked hard to become a prolific singer, songwriter, actress, and LGBTQ+ activist. Lesley Gore was a vibrant and proud Jewish lesbian. Unlike many of the people we write about, she was fortunate enough to have the language to talk about her identity—and did. It’s an unfortunate truth that one of the rare people we’ve written about who used clear terms to describe their experiences still had her experiences erased.
It’s easy to view history as a single continuous line of progress, especially when looking at it through a queer lens. This, however, ignores the complexity of real cultures and beliefs. This approach to history often exists as a comfort from the harms of modern society, highlighting the growth and change for marginalized people today.
Reality continues to be much more complex and beautiful. Though some may take comfort in the idea of a steady uphill climb, neither the caverns and dips nor the steep spikes of our past and future are without precedent. Sometimes these changes come from the embrace of tradition and cultural values that have been forgotten or erased from popularity. One well-maintained tradition, though it does not fit into the modern narrative of queerness and growth within the country, is Kenya’s custom of women-to-women marriages.
The memory of Florence Nightingale still ripples throughout Europe and North America. Documents about her life still exist and uphold her legacy; in many ways she has become something of a mythological figure. Even in life there was merchandise relating to her, but it’s taken on a new life in books, valentines, and even colouring pages. She’s remembered as a no-nonsense feminist icon, a tender motherly figure, the founding of modern day nursing, and even the hero of nursery rhymes. Less discussed in the possibility that she was a lesbian and/or asexual.
Any person who stands on the intersection of multiple marginalized identities can recognize this struggle. It's not an easy one to manage, but it is that balancing act that Nkoli the leader he was. He was the first in many regards, and he made the room for the seconds, thirds, and fourths who came after him.
The internet has been enveloped in a lovely celebration of Black History Month (US) and LGBTQIA+ History Month (UK). Black queer history not only in the US and the UK but throughout the world is rich and boundless. We will take this opportunity to look at one of Cameroon's fiercest advocates: Joël Gustave Nana Ngongang.
Grupo Chaclacayo was a queer art collective from Lima, Peru active from 1982-1994. Through their subversive happenings, processions, photography, drawings, artifacts, and sculptures, they used their bodies as a site to critique issues within Catholicism, military violence, the mistreatment of indigenous communities, and homophobia. Grupo Chaclacayo was comprised of three central members: Helmut Psotta, Sergio Zevallos, and Raul Avellaneda, although they occasionally collaborated with others including Jorge Angeles, Sixto Paniora, Frido Martin, Klaus Wittkamp, Cesar Guerra, and Piero Pereira.
— Tom Cohen
The life story of Salim Halali is one with countless branches. His experiences as a gay Jewish man in Paris in the 1930’s are as eventful as one would imagine, and his music career is not only well known but well remembered, what with being crowned the “King of Shaabi” at the height of his popularity. He lived just as extravagantly behind closed doors, often throwing lavish parties with his two pet tigers. There's much to be said of his storied life.
Anna Freud is not the most well-known name in the Freud family. Intentional or not, there is a heavy shadow hanging over her story. Sigmund Freud is a well-known man, but he is not well-loved in the queer community. His homophobic and transphobic ideas taint his already largely disproven theories. Worship him or despise him, he is remembered and still discussed in most psychology circles. The same cannot be said for his youngest daughter. One of the founders of child psychology and an open lesbian, Anna Freud was not always in line with her father’s teachings. Despite all of the conflict one would expect between them, one fact is clear: Anna Freud loved her father.
2018 was a year full of triumphs and tribulations, and we’re sharing 18 of the nicest things that happened for the queer community this year.
The Philippines is one of the most LGBT friendly countries in Asia. A 2014 poll found that 73% of Filipinos said that gay and lesbian people should be accepted by society—a shockingly different opinion from other nearby Asian countries with Malaysia coming in at 9% and Indonesia at 3%. This is surprising in a majority Roman Catholic country like the Philippines. There is a long history of acceptance for queer people in the Philippines, dating all the way back to pre-Spanish colonization and conversion to Catholicism. In Filipino mythology, there was always a queer presence.
Historians erasing queerness from the narrative isn’t new. Jane Addams’ story has gone another way; her queerness is known, and cannot be erased. Without it, her legacy would not exist in the same way. Instead, scholars and historians have attempted to use her work to overshadow her queerness while claiming the opposite was happening. Acknowledging one part of her life does not erase another; we must look at all the parts of her life to understand who she is and why she lived the life she did.
It is not uncommon within our research to find someone as deeply unappreciated as Bajazid Doda, but we find a first in that Doda's murderer overwhelms any story about his life. Doda was an Albanian ethnographer and photographer who watched the destruction of his culture and took action against it, recording the landscape and identity of the Upper Reka Valley within Albania. His work has served as a touchstone within academia surrounding the Upper Reka Valley. Still, he is most well-known for his relationship with the man who would ultimately take his life.
The study of queer history is frequently stalled by one debate: is it fair and reasonable to label a historical figure with language that they did not exist for them? Our project has long answered yes to this question, and we still do. We acknowledge that there is complexity in that task, and Ljuba Prenner, a Slovenian lawyer and author, is one of the clearest examples. There are layers of societal understanding, cultural differences, and personal experiences that all tie directly into how not only we see queer people but how queer people see themselves. The question we ask now is this: how many layers can be removed before you begin to erase a person's right to self-identify?