#Queer people through history

[bodhrancomedy]

I think one of the things concerning me about the response to Hogwarts legacy and discussing the antisemitism that pervades the entire story is people either apparently not being able to grasp what propaganda is or how it works, or being so desperate to absolve their childhood nostalgia that they’re swarming Jewish, trans, and POC’s comment sections with the most ignorant bad faith comebacks that make me ache for proper education.

“Are you saying that’s what Jewish people really look like? 😈”

No, you fucking waste of skin, I’m saying that a core element of propaganda against marginalised groups is caricature whereupon you take features that are more common among that group (like curly hair and bigger noses for Jewish people, or bigger lips for Black people, or epicanthal folds for Asian people for example) and exaggerate them to invoke feelings of disgust and separation.

These traits are completely positive/neutral on their own until bigots get a hold of their colouring pencils and set them up alongside fabricated or exaggerated slights to “the norm” like accusing Jewish people of killing Jesus or blood-libel or demanding money or stealing children - for fucks sake, Jewish children that could “pass” as Christian were regularly abducted in various time periods like the Ottoman Empire or goddamn Nazi Germany so it’s a projection - to create an image people wouldn’t get out of their heads.

And sometimes these piece of propaganda work their way into folklore and children’s tales because bigotry has a sticking power because you get to feel righteous and strong and we forget where they came from. Some people using goblins in the way JK Rowling did don’t know what they’re using is antisemitic propaganda, but the people whom the propaganda is aimed at have long memories for these things.

You gotta get acquainted with it and with it well so you can survive, so you can get the hell out of Dodge or stand up and face it.

So, once again…

Take a history class, I am BEGGING you.

[razzek]

One thing that's starting to really get to me with the James Somerton stuff is a real strong undercurrent of disdain toward his fans. And yeah, I was one of them. A good scam artist isn't as easy to spot as y'all seem to think. You forget that you have all the information right now. Two days ago most of you had never heard of him and it would have kept going. Anyone can fall for a scam, nobody is immune. I would love to have had whatever resources you guys think we all should magically know about so I could have kept my sad $5 a month I really needed but thought was going to something worthwhile. Some of us can only devote so much energy into things and when you have no idea whatsoever that something is amiss of course you're not going to go digging for sources, why would you when everything is fine as far as you know? I really wish I could have seen the dissenting opinions on him but for many, many reasons that aren't just that the dissenting voices weren't widely circulating at the time all I had was the thought every now and again that "huh that doesn't seem right" and then go on with my day. And I think that happened to a lot of us. So yeah. Say what you gotta say about Somerton, he has more than earned it with the damage he's caused, but maybe don't shit so hard on his former fans because that is going to be you someday with something, it happens to everyone sooner or later.

[deramin2]

I don't know how to really express this except to come across as a "kids these days" scold, but so much of the criticism of queerness in Good Omens would simply not be a thing if kids these days watched more 20th century queer media. Or more complex indie queer media in general.

People seem to want a show that's like the straight stories they grew up with but gay. Or the gay fanfiction they grew up with. But that's not really the tradition it's coming from. First off the novel was released in 1990. Queer film classics of the time are Dead Poet's Society (1989) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). The TV miniseries Tales of the City (1993) wasn't made until 3 years later and it was so far out there it never had a huge audience. Philadelphia (1993) is also 3 years out and was basically the first big studio queer film. The first fluffy queer Hallmark-style romcom wasn't until Big Eden in 2000, a full 10 years after publication.

Queer stories from the time it was written were about complex and often fraught relationships between people who the world was trying to force apart. There is an incredibly strong tradition in queer films of relationships with no guarantees they will work out both in the face of their personal baggage and the weight of the world. Take a film like Torch Song Trilogy that's about the two great loves of Arnold Beckoff's life over 9 years and how homophobia shapes them. Both externally (especially Allen) and internally like Ed struggling with his bisexuality and being terrified of being publicly out. Written and starred in by Harvey Fierstein, who identified as a gay man at the time and only came out as nonbinary last year.

The Boys In The Band (1968 play, filmed 1970 and 2020) was a monumental moment in Broadway history where finally there was a play about gay men in their own words where no one died and very strongly showed that homosexuality doesn't make people miserable but homophobia sure does. But that homophobia also throws their personal lives into constant turmoil and none of them are in happy relationships, although Hank and Larry are devoted to each other in their own fucked up way.

"Relationships are complicated and hard to make work and sometimes a struggle against the odds" is an aesthetic of classic queer film making. Partly it was influenced by the Hays Code (although independent films were not bound to it), partly influenced by the rampant queerphobia in society at the time that was inescapable. But it's also an aesthetic choice to resist the banal and unrealistic relationship depictions of straight media. There are actual stakes to the relationship. Queer people were actively resisting a world that said "Romance is seeing someone across the room and instantly falling in love with each other and little conflicts happen along the way but ultimately they're destined to be together and everything is happily ever after." Recall that "stalking as romance" was a completely inescapable trope in 1980s straight romance films, and every goddamn movie was being turned into a romance film.

So queer people in film and television when they can make what they please have a long tradition of saying instead "People don't always realize the feelings they've developed for a queer partner right away. They may have reasons for denying those feelings that are both a reflection of the cruelty in society and of their own insecurities. People struggle with where they belong and their relationships reflect that. Loving someone doesn't mean they don't also drive you crazy and you might fight with them constantly. But that doesn't negate the love or that feeling that even if things aren't okay, they're better with that person around. But maybe that person can't stay around. The world may be against you. And also maybe you don't just want that one person in your life. Soulmates is a very flawed model. Sometimes the strongest love is a struggle with yourself and the world and your person. You have to overcome yourself first. Happily ever after is a lie. You may be happy for a while, and hopefully for a long while, but everything ends. And you have to be ready to love again. Also your platonic bonds are just as important and life-altering as your romantic ones. Sometimes those platonic bonds include fucking if you want them to. Real life isn't a bunch of platitudes and world-altering moments, it's daily work to better yourself and the world around you. Especially when things just fucking suck. But also remember to have fun and fuck the haters. People who don't support you can eat rocks and you should yell at them more to shut the fuck up."

That is a fundamentally different outlook on what a "good relationship depiction" looks like. Personally, I thought I hated romance movies and then I started watching queer romance movies and discovered I love them and watch them all the time. Because it turns out what I hated was relationships being shown that had nothing at all to do with reality and privileged incredibly toxic ideals. Finally there was complexity, there were stakes, and there were people who had to truly want to be together enough to fight the world for it and not because they happened to be there. There were people actually talking out their problems and looking for resolutions. (And sometimes that resolutions was "I can't fucking deal with this bullshit anymore and I'm out.") For the first time it felt real.

I'm an aroace trans gay man. Nothing about relationships or being in relationships has come easy to me, and the whole paradigm of straight patriarchal romance depictions makes absolutely no sense to me. It's completely alien. Queer romance stories actually feel human.

And that's the tradition Good Omens is coming from, even as it's being retold in 2019-2023 and hopefully beyond. Gaiman's work has always been based in that queer media paradigm. (I've been remiss and daunted and haven't read Pratchett but from what I do know his work also seems to sit more in that world view.) It's a beautiful cinematic tradition and it's baffling to me that people would resist it instead of embracing it for being honest.

And that's when I turn into a crotchety old man complaining about the youth not connecting with the history of their beautiful culture and instead begging for assimilation into a shithole allocishet media landscape that doesn't actually want them except for their money and has nothing at all interesting or valuable to say. But it's very funny (annoying) to me when people claim Good Omens is someone against queer culture when it's so thoroughly bathed in the best of queer media's storytelling traditions and what people are asking for is straight media with the serial numbers filed off. Like, stop being boring please and know literally anything about the culture the adults in the room lived through and were influenced by. The world didn't begin in 2015.

EDIT: I also want to add that in straight media arcs are linear. Traditionally in queer media arcs are cyclical. Queer media very often depicts people going around in circles relearning the same lesson over and over as they inch towards it sinking in. But every time they go through the cycle they gain just a little bit more enlightenment and slowly move towards a better place. From the comments this is an immensely important distinction. People don't actually have cathartic moments where suddenly all their past bad programming is shed and they saunter forward a new person with none of their old baggage. In reality people fall into the same patterns over and over even though they have had every opportunity to learn better. "People magically get better" is a trope of straight media that's an outright and frankly dangerous lie. Again, Good Omens follows the queer tradition not the straight one and it's depicted 6,000 years of that cycle. The world didn't end, and the wheel keeps turning, as it always has and always will. That's so fundamental to queer storytelling traditions I forgot to even mention it.

[my-deer-friend]

To understand historical queerness, you must first understand the sexual and gender norms of the time and place you are studying.

[science-lings]

I wanna be able to know about queer history and different cultural views of queerness partially because I just really wanna know it and partially bc I think it would make fiction set in historical settings more interesting. I also think it would be cool to incorporate real past queer culture in writing without having to include the Horrors (homophobia, transphobia, etc).

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

Listen up you idiot zoomers who think people can still make meaningful queer art past the year 2000. We all need to sit around and read USamerican comic strips from the 90s because those are pretty much the only true capture of the universal gay experience now and forever, and anything past that is unimportant schlock. And like pinkwashing I think. We have to learn queer history, thats why we need to all ignore that what Im talking about is joke comic strips from the 90s and instead revere them as the most important work created, with nothing capable of surpassing it. Anyway

[repurposedmeatlocker]

If there is one thing I learned this week, it's that you really can just say something absolutely untrue, and there is a strong chance barely anyone is going to check it.

[fobnsfwdoodlesbackup]

pride asks woo !!

12, 15, 25

and for 35:

how do you deal with frustrating people like homophobes and transphobes or people just being generally shitty towards the lgbtq+ community?

Answers under the cut!

12) Name some queer artists/bands or songs you like most:

Dog Park Dissidents!!!! June Henry!!! Against Me!! Fall Out Boy!!! I definitely recommend finding as much queer music as you can, it's incredibly impactful to engage with art that shares your experience.

15) How has your identity changed overtime?

Overtime the main change is just that I've gotten more comfortable gobbling up any labels I want haha. When I was a teenager I identified as Bi, and then later as Pan. I came out as trans when I was 14 and that hasn't changed, but to me it coexists with identifying as lesbian/sapphic/dyke. Oh reclaiming of dyke/faggot is also a more recent change. Relating to the point below!

25) What queer discourse frustrates you the most?

The thing is. Queer history has to be sought out, and so many young queer people (or older, sure!) don't really have context around queer community struggling together and being intertwined. Discourse that feels very on-paper to me such as transmascs and lesbians not sharing community, bi vs pan, or discourse that weaves in other kinds of oppression like cis gay men being transphobic/misogynistic/racist etc. is frustrating. Our struggles are all woven together, and so is our liberation. And so is everyones!! Seeing in fighting online about how to appeal to cishet people or who's allowed to use what terms or be in what spaces feels like we're going backwards sometimes. We have important things that can be learned from one another, we have overlapping experiences and battles, we have been called overlapping slurs, and we must help one another to get anywhere in this god damn world. Talk to queer people that are older than you, younger than you, live in different parts of the world than you. Read anything you can online or at the library about queer history. We're all in this thing together and you can disagree with someone and still be in community with them.

35) How do you deal with frustrating people like homophobes and transphobes or people just being generally shitty towards the lgbtq+ community?

If it's online block their ass. Some Marco lore is that a guy in highschool stalked me for about 7 years and posted details about me on 4chan including pictures of me and where I went to school and worked. Just because I'm trans. Block them. I do think there is some value in arguing online, to practice getting uncomfortable and to signal to others that there's someone on their side, but I wouldn't recommend it generally.

A lot of my answers here are going to intertwine, but the best thing I can recommend is a robust support system. Friends, family, coworkers, pets, therapists, etc. Having people who love you helps with emotional battles, and with physical safety.

[cowboyhorsegirl]

Steve is most likely to end up in a lavender marriage and Tony's most likely to end up in a “married for tax/immigration/inheritance fraud” reasons.

They meet as married men and pine for each other hardcore and are also trying not to read too much into how their interest seems reciprocated and oh nooooo both Immigration/the IRS and the the Church/in-laws/DADT era army dudes or whatever are snooping around at the same time at each of their marriages and they have to be so good at being married at the people they are married to oh noooooo and they other guy doesn’t know why they are suddenly being iced out and maybe they were just imagining things? maybe it’s for the best with all these eyes around on them…

[freebooter4ever]

I think they didn't read the rest of Baker's letters because they just weren't really that gay lol. The "dirty" bit was probably the gayest they could dig up 😭 the evidence in this doc is really shoddy. Then again, if it was solid it wouldn't take a century to clock him

Sigh, yeah. Its so complicated. :( Like im all on board to accept any gay sports heroes who tear down the stereotype of gay men having to be effeminate and non athletic. And I absolutely hate when society will blatantly erase a very out and open historical figure's homosexuality or queer identity for mainstream stories/movies (cough stupid effing bendydick cucumbersnoot). We see this happen especially to women who were known to be lesbians during thier lifetime, and then modern biographers just gloss over that. So it's believable that it could have happened to this hockey star!

Unfortunately i kind of doubt it. The ONE big 1917 quote they actually gave from the letters between the supposed lovers was the hockey guy overseas writing to his friend back home about how he never understood the huge amount of affection his friend bestowed on him until now when he's missing him so much. And then he talks about the photo. This totally sounds romantic, and like someone discovering their sexuality for the first time (he was in his TWENTIES it is completely plausible if he was anywhere on the demi or ace scale that this guy just never thought about romance till now). But i think it ruins the 'researcher's theory that he and his friend were living as open lovers in 1914-1916. And it definitely feels in the podcast as if they are glossing over details in order support their theory and hoping nobody bothers to actually go do the research themselves. Another thing i found in my very cursory research last night is that apparently his friend introduced him to the woman he would get engaged with back in 1915 - she didnt meet him in the war!!!. And this guy wrote home to his dad about how he wanted to have a 'long talk' with his dad about his failed engagement. That totally sounds like the set up for potentially being a beard situation. But instead of presenting the facts and speculating on those words and letting the listener put them together the podcast barely uses the real words of the hockey guy's letters and tries to spin a narrative around it that doesnt feel real.

And i 100% do not believe this man committed suicide because he was afraid to return home and face homophobia. And the podcast just presents this like it's plausible and not their own wildly subjective opinion.

This is why it's so important to check sources and to always seek out as close to primary sources as possible.

[magentagalaxies]

i really want to start making a table collecting statistics on the audience demographics i'll perform my aubrey material for (like what generation most of the audience is, whether i'm performing in a predominantly queer space, etc.) and how well the jokes land bc like. i need to collect more data points before i can properly present my findings but the results so far have been fascinating

[mishtershpock]

.

[seilon]

no like when I say any answer on the queerest city poll that’s not San Fran is wrong I mean it is factually and historically WRONG

[dordey]

,

[likedbyuarmyhope]

queer armys could literally just be like “as a queer person many of the themes and symbols bts use prominently in their art feel very familiar, personal and comforting” and would still get jumped by cishets/bootlicking lgbt armys calling them freaks. Oh wait  that literally does happen

[terrainofheartfelt]

Ohhhh i cant wait for you to watch s3 of YOU lmaooo

I'm sure it will break my poor bisexual brain