A Few Thoughts on Queer History
How our history shapes us, and we shape it.
In another post from a few months ago, I outlined a few ways that narratives can be forces for oppression or for liberation. Historical writing, in particular, is often a site where people define the meaning of human existence by selecting what things are important and what is not.
Queer history is no different. In fact, because of the increased marginalization of queer folks in general, LGBTQ+ histories are especially important for revealing how and why oppression has taken place and how people have lived queer lives in different eras.
Today’s post will unpack a few key reasons why queer historical research is important for the theorist, the historian, and the everyday LGBTQ+ person.
What to Expect:
- Queer History’s History
- The Chosen Family Tree
- Pre-Lesbian, Pre-Gay, Pre-Bi, Pre-Trans, Pre-…
Queer History’s History
History as a field of study dates back to at least the Ancient Greeks. From then on, historians chronicled events from their society that they thought were important to remember. As can be expected, there has been much written about different religious leaders, military happenings, and economic situations. Little, however, was written about the history of queer folks until about a century ago.
Beginning with European sexologists, a new research project developed that centered on understanding the role and importance of sex. This project also included the role and social importance of gender and sexually nonconforming folks as well.
Researchers like Karl Ulrichs and Edward Carpenter, in particular, sought to situate the place of gay men in society. If the social utility of queer folks could be proven, Carpenter argued, then legislatures would take an active role in protecting and promoting them.
His social evolutionary theory heavily depended on the anthropological research available to them at the time. This research, in turn, marks the first real look into queer world history.
Since then, we have moved on to asserting our inherent value as people instead of trying to convince the straight world of how we can help them out, but the early sexologists paved the way for future queer history research.
The Chosen Family Tree
While there are good reasons to consider history a social science, I have always viewed it through a humanistic lens. As part of the humanities, history allows us to see what makes us human by showing us how we are similar, yet different, and different, yet similar.
For queer folks, this allows us to see what connects us to other gender and sexually nonconforming people, even if they didn’t think of themselves in quite the same terms.
If you’re studying Benedetta Carlini, the men of Dante’s Inferno, or more recent examples like Marsha P. Johnson or Harvey Milk, there is something familiar about each one because of a shared sense of queerness and exclusion from heteronormative society.
That sense of familiarity is especially beneficial for LGBTQ+ people who grew up in places or families that were especially anti-queer. Our history, then, is a family history stretching back thousands of years.
Pre-Lesbian, Pre-Gay, Pre-Bi, Pre-Trans, Pre-…
Queer historians have been working hard to unearth more stories about gay men, lesbians, trans folks, and queers of all kinds. While this is great news for representation and filling in our family tree, there’s more.
Representation can only go so far. What I mean by that is that sometimes the “queer” people we read about aren’t really in the LGBTQ+ community, technically speaking.
Before Gay Liberation and similar movements gained traction, people used multiple other names and identities to understand their gender and sexuality. In short, “gay” people didn’t quite exist because we didn’t have the terms to think of ourselves as “gay” or “bi” or anything.
Thinking of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, he describes his homoerotic feelings as “adhesiveness.” This term contained much of our idea of “gayness,” but was broader and more ambiguous. This ambiguity resisted the classification into specific identities that is common today, allowing for a more fluid sense of self and sexuality.
This ambiguity and fluidity are often what many queer folks are looking for, having been burned by the strictures of the Straight Mind. Historical research, then, allows us to contemplate other queer realities and identity constructions different from the ones we have been taught are natural and unchanging.
In the end, whatever makes it in the history books is there because someone thought it was important. For underrepresented populations, this comes as no surprise. Yet, with the ever-growing body of knowledge on queer folks out there, we can come to a better understanding of who we were in the past and who we are capable of being today.
