There are more ways to affect change than most will credit. For any queer person living in a society that villainizes and stigmatizes their very existence, simply living and finding moments of happiness can be enough to shift public discourse. Openness about one’s identity has never been a qualifier for this type of life, neither historically nor contemporarily. There have been, and still are, queer people who had a deep and lasting impact on their communities without ever being explicit about their identity and desires. While there is some part of this reality that is a tragedy, a life unlived, a possibility for radical acceptance never experienced, the whole of the situation is not bleak. Public knowledge of someone's sexuality or gender identity does not equate to happiness, and the reverse is just as true.
It’s unfortunately common in our community for people to be forgotten, so much so that projects like ours work just to remember. Sometimes that erasure is purposeful and sometimes it is only a matter of time. And other times still, we remember the important work that people have done without remembering them and the lives they led, such as in the case of Gilbert Baker. Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, was a creative and an activist for many causes, but he is most known for having designed the rainbow pride flag.
If one were to pause and look at any single inflection point in Toto Koopman’s roller coaster of a life, there would always be one adjective apt to describe her and her actions, and that would be “brazen.”
There have been times when a person who is unfairly maligned in their life is still around to witness a rehabilitation of their image in their later years—to see the beginnings of a new legacy forming and taste the fruit of their labours. This is not a common phenomenon, unfortunately, and Manar is among the majority who never get the apology that they so dearly deserve.
There are no videos of Vaslav Nijinsky dancing. Known as one of the best dancers to ever live, the lack of footage was a choice made, as video recording equipment at the time was jerky and the quality could not be guaranteed. His dancing is conveyed mostly from memory, people telling of the times he flew on stage, the riots over his movement, a word often used is angular. There are photos of him posing, both in costume and out, and there is a certain charisma there. Even in stillness, he has a kinetic energy to him.
The halls of surrealist art are inherently queer in certain ways, not just because of the number of queer surrealists there happened to be, but because of the boundary challenging nature of the genre. With few rules, and even more rule-breaking, it can’t be surprising that queer people flock to this particular style - what is more surprising is how queer people have been and continue to be erased from the history of the movement. Even within the golden age of this movement, the inherently queer works of artists such as Leonor Fini were shocking, not only in traditional art circles but to the same people who made their names challenging norms. It seemed that even in the most transgressive of spaces, the mastery of women, androgyny, and queerness, in general, were enough to make the likes of Andre Beton and Salvador Dali clutch their metaphoric pearls.
What does it mean when the memory of your existence has been documented solely through the eyes of others? When it comes to Féral Benga, the handsome performer did not write or record anything about himself, nor leave behind anything of his own that could help elucidate his true essence. Instead, there are images; photographs and paintings, sculptures and film clips, all created by artists inspired by his beauty, hoping to capture it in their uniquely creative styles. From these, as well as from textual anecdotes by those who knew him, we can begin to put together a more complex image of Benga, a dancer who navigated life fearlessly, living an openly gay life while still opting to play the part and jump through the hoops of others to pursue his own particular aspiration.
Queerness, by its very nature, changes the world around it. This is not a simple sentiment but a provable fact. Simply by existing, queer people are making history. While there have been queer radicals, anarchists, and activists who have chosen to dedicate their lives to the betterment of the world, queerness alone is, by its very nature, transformative. While Zeki Müren did not spend his life fighting for the acceptance of queer people, he was able to transform the world around him through his choice to exist publicly and unapologetically as a queer man.
Agnes Noyes Goodsir is neither well-known by studiers of queer history nor unfairly shunned. Instead, she falls into the familiar category of quiet lack of acknowledgment. Living from 1864 to 1939 and moving to France during the 1920s, it was not impossible for lesbians to be open about their sexuality, nor was it uncommon for them to choose to keep such information private. She made the completely normal choice of keeping her sexuality more or less under wraps. That is not, of course, to say that it was a well-hidden secret. With a beloved ‘companion’ she lived with and publicly said to be her muse, her frequenting of lesbian spaces, and connections to the lesbian community in France, she was not working particularly hard to hide this fact. Neither was she advertising it.
A certain level of cognitive dissonance is required to continue with the violence of colonialism, and racism is often both the source and excuse for this. As with any lie, conflicting facts and disproving observations will begin to appear over time. Within the life of Ngola Nzinga, the cracks begin to appear rather quickly, and though much of the truth is likely out of reach, the lies have begun to peel away.
In just a few years and with only a handful of short stories and brief writings under her belt, Qiu Miaojin went from being an educated schoolgirl doing freelance journalism to a Taiwanese household name as one of her country’s most famous and celebrated LGBT figureheads, countercultural voices and innovative authors. For most, it takes a lifetime to build a legacy of work to be remembered by, but Qiu Miaojin was able to accomplish just that by her mid-twenties, and is a name that is still being brought up again and again as a trailblazer and an essential contributor to the queer canon of the Far East.
To learn about queer history is to be in constant need of context. To look at what queerness meant to one society or another, how those within a given profession or period viewed gender nonconformity, or how a specific artistic movement understood gender as a whole, can be absolutely necessary to understanding even a single thread of the great tapestry of queer history. It can all become relevant depending on the story. In this project, we have been challenged to learn about the history of whistling as a profession, the philosophy of tropical modernism, and the evolution of queer cinema as a whole. One of the more difficult tasks that we have been set upon has been learning the history of a country. Suppose one can spend their entire life learning all the ins and outs of a single life. In that case, the history of an entire nation is a massive undertaking and one that has to be taken seriously. This is why it is one that this project often avoids. When possible, it is simply easier to avoid diving down that particular rabbit hole and learn only what the article demands about a country.
At 5’11” with a 76-inch reach, “Panama” Al Brown was one of the tallest and rangiest boxers in bantamweight history who died with a career of accomplishments that spoke for themselves but took a lifetime to achieve true recognition. Throughout his life, Brown pushed through adversity as a result of being Afro-Caribbean and the lifestyle choices that he made. Still, his skills and talent in the ring made it impossible for Brown to be ignored or erased, and via victory after victory he managed to win numerous championship titles and achieve numerous firsts in his sport of choice. With a life marked by constant tragedy and struggle, Brown persisted and pursued his dream job by day and the pleasures of life by night, ultimately living an unabashed and flamboyant life.
Being queer in the public eye is a whole different domain from being queer as a regular person. We are not usually representatives for our community—though queer people of color and particularly black queer women are especially punished through hypervisibility. Choosing to be open or not is a personal choice, and it’s especially hard when most of your life is up for public consumption. Are queer people in the spotlight required to be open about their identity and experiences? Absolutely not. More importantly, are queer celebrities who don’t publicly “come out” living any less openly than your average queer person?