#gay historical figures

[shit-sorry-fuck-mybad]

Finally I’ve found two Chilean historical figures that were just very gay for each other

Or at the very least slept together once

Like it’s for sure giving Achilles and Patroclus

My life is complete and I can die happy knowing our government was a bit fruity in the 19th century

[pixiealamode]

I think the next historical figure that's yassified (al a Catherine the Great) should be my boy "Mad" King Ludwig of Bavaria. This man built the most famous fairy tale castle in the world, was as gay as the day is longer, and died a mysterious death in the lake he swam in daily.

[a-maniac-making-art]

[venacoeurva]

Before Red Mountain

This took me about 10 hours, freehanding the frame takes a WHILE. If you know what classic painting this is inspired from you win a Scrib*

*I can't actually give you a scrib😔

X Prints here! Other print form options also available X (cropping is a bit cut off on some like the canvas, I can’t help that sadly. There are a variety of print types to get this on, though!)

Edit: For Teepublic Link-- X

-Please do not reupload, edit, or use without proper credit or linking back. Ask first please.-

[maemil]

Oh my god, they were right... the Soviets really are sending spies to fuck national secrets out of our soldiers 😭

Alan Scott: The Green Lantern (2023) Issue 4

[dadbastiandisaster]

What is it about Black Butler that sticks with you so much? Like, I read all of death note about the same time as I watched Black Butler for the first time, and much as I have boundless love for the series it just didn’t alter my brain chemistry on the same level as Black Butler did. I have a another friend who has broadly moved on from a lot of her old fandoms but is still in the kuro fandom. What is it about kuro?

[fizzycherrycola]

I hope I’m just late to the game on this. But does anyone else think that Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon Bonaparte would have made a fantastic (albeit tragic) gay ship or have I just completely lost my mind.

I mean look at this.

The very first thing Alexander said to Napoleon was probably well-calibrated: “I hate the English as much as you do”. Their meeting lasted two hours. Despite waging wars against each other the two Emperors were very much impressed and fascinated by one another. “Never,” said Alexander afterward, “did I love any man as I loved that man.”

And this.

Napoleon was charmed by Alexander, describing him as “especially handsome, like a hero with all the graces of an amiable Parisian.”

And wow.

“If Alexander were a woman,” Napoleon wrote to Josephine, “I would make him my mistress.”

There’s even fanart of them from the 1800′s.

This complicated historic bromance has Enemies-to-Lovers-to-Enemies written all over it.

[thebeesareback]

Frederick, the potato king

I am not a monarchist. I do, however, occassionally look at monarchs and think, huh, they seem pretty cool. Meet Frederick the Great.

Frederick ruled Prussia from 1712 to 1786. During this time he:

was woken up by a cannon each morning, because his father wanted him to be a military leader

wrote "Anti-Machiavel", a rebuttal to Machiavelli's The Prince

was gay

married a woman to keep his father happy, then separated from her, gave her a palace and visited her once a year for her birthday

was friends with Voltaire

was king of Prussia but wrote exclusively in French. Frederick was a bit of a Francophile, mostly because his dad hated the place

introduced potatoes and turnips to Prussia, and was known as "Der Kartoffelkönig". Potatoes were initially unpopular, so Frederick had them planted and guarded so they looked expensive and desirable. However, the guards were told to let people steal the potatoes

his head was permanently tilted to one side because he spent so long playing his flute

opened the first veterinary school in Prussia

gave everyone free entry to the opera

sheltered Jean-Jacques Rousseau

was bad at spelling (a relatable icon) (also, he was writing in French, and French spelling is even more ridiculous than English)

drank eight cups of coffee each day, mixed with mustard and peppercorns. The cannon alarm clock was discontinued after his father died, so I guess eight cups of coffee would probably be just as effective for waking one up

his lasts words were "cover the dog, he's shivering".

wanted to be buried with his greyhounds. This didn't happen, but now he had a nice gravestone and people leave potatoes there

[chamerionwrites]

Because I am back on some very specific bullshit I am ofc also thinking about how Joseph Conrad and Roger Casement met (were very briefly roommates in fact) in the Congo, and seem to have really liked each other. Conrad wrote glowingly of Casement in his diary ("Made the acquaintance of Mr. Roger Casement, which I should consider as a great pleasure under any circumstances and now it becomes a positive piece of luck. Thinks, speaks well, most intelligent and very sympathetic"). Six years later Casement made a point of looking him up in London and they apparently talked until three in the morning.

And then two decades later Casement was hanged for treason because he tried to run guns from Germany to the Easter Rising, whereas Conrad prominently refused to sign the petition for clemency.

[somethings-afoot]

You know, sometimes I think The Great Gatsby is unrealistic and then I remember that Thomas Jefferson kept a bust of Alexander Hamilton in his house, Oscar Wilde once pulled a gun on a guy because he told Wilde to break up with his son, the Makita Lafayette was once gifted an alligator, which he then re-gifted to John Adams, and Mary, Shelley found Lord Byron in a gutter in Venice, dehydrated because he had had too much sex. And that I learned all of this from various Tumblr posts.

[housecatclawmarks]

It feels important to note that while there can be very healthy age gap relationships between adults and there are ppl in their 20s who seek out much older partners (which im not gonna tell them not to! they’re adults w a right to fuck & it’s none of my goddamn business), there is not a ‘positive tradition of gay age gap relationships’ and I think it’s good to asses that statement critically when someone says it to you.

The historic frequency of age gap relationships in Western gay culture specifically, especially Britain, does not come from roots that have anything intrinsically to do with homosexuality. What it comes from is specifically rich, mostly white queer men doing what many, many rich white men have done throughout history regardless of sexuality-using their racial & class power to have consensual or coercive sex with young working class people & people of color. The power imbalance between age&experience AND financial status was romanticized a Lot by these rich gay men in the late 19th and early 20th century (think about ppl like Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Edward Carpenter, etc) and relationships with poor young men & sometimes teenaged boys were sought out enthusiastically under the guise of imitating ‘the Greek acceptance of homosexuality’-which makes sense when you consider where & how a lot of these men were educated.

The illegality of gayness & oppression of lgbt people definitely made it hard to find examples of same-gender attracted people in society, which helps contribute to the Greek imitation thing but also more importantly created situations where young lgbt people who were working class, who were immigrants, who weren’t white were facing the most severe consequences under the law for their sexuality & gender expression, were living the hardest lives, & were easier to exploit by rich and powerful men because of it. The ones doing the exploiting weren’t doing it because they were gay, the criminalization of homosexuality just made it easier for them to take advantage as they did the same thing their heterosexual peers did to young women & girls who were working class, immigrants, & women of color.

If anything the fact that conditions in the UK & US have improved so much legally and socially for cis gay people has made it much more achievable to have ethical, healthy age gap relationships between people who want them, even though these issues do still exist. Again, it definitely can and does happen, and adults have the right to date & fuck each other if they want to, but that type of relationship does not need to be culturally tied to something unhealthy, coercive, & produced by classism and racism.

It’s a subject I think a lot of western gay people & historians shy away from talking about and really seeing as what it was because we’re so often wrongly smeared as pedophiles & gay sexuality is accused of being predatory to children & teens as way to harm and criminalize gay people, and I understand the fear of playing into that, which is why it’s so important to me to emphasize again that this exploitation was a product of class and racial inequality and homo/transphobia, not an innate quality of gay or trans society. But we do need to talk about it! We need to address it! And (saying this As one) white gay men NEED to find queer history & role models who aren’t rich, imperialist pedophiles-there have been SO MANY OF US who aren’t that! the majority of queer people in history have not been that! We have a rich culture and history to draw from here without glorifying or toning down really gross, predatory behavior from a handful of wealthy men & the class that enabled them.

[tubularfem]

Don’t let the propaganda fool you

Gay people were responsible for gay liberation in the US.

Gay people started Pride and were absolutely instrumental during the Stonewall riots. We do not owe trans people anything, nor did they GIVE us anything. We were allies, but we fought for our own liberation (and this was during a time that most trans people were homosexual males).

Storme Delarverie, a black butch lesbian is widely credited with being the one who ”started” Stonewall, by asking the crowd if they were going to do anything.

The first Parade was organized by two gay men, Fred Sargeant and Craig Rodwell, and two lesbians, Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes.

Gay history is made by gay people! They didn’t just sit around and twiddle their thumbs, and I’m tired of historical appropriation and misinformation.

Trying to reframe a gay rights movement as not led by gay people is dishonest and ahistorical at best, homophobic erasure at worst.

[a-maniac-making-art]

Yes, I know John Laurens was REALLY flawed.

[thecaduceusclay]

Hey if I made a little informative post about like the gay culture the stranger things kids would be exposed to and stuff in the 80s (like focused on helping out fanfic writers and stuff) would anyone be interested?

[acanthemp3]

the degree that the fanwar that started because of the wataei vs lightbrush poll escalated was kind of horrible but that doesnt change the fact that the funniest diss ive ever seen is still "i hope when enstars ends wataru and eichi both marry women"

[emerson-diary]

Edit: I just realized I spelt Patroclus’ name wrong 😑

This has been sitting in my drafts since the beginning of June, so I’ve finally decided to post it

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's Iliad. Patroclus was his childhood friend, wartime companion, and presumed lover.

Do not use/repost

10/07/2022