Historical Homos Has a Trailer?! (OK we've made it...) /  by Sebastian Hendra

Look. We all agree we’re hilarious, right? RIGHT?

Then why would you NOT listen to me and my (admittedly Irish) co-host Donal explain the faggocious, the vaginavoracious, the transistential queer history of the world on our new podcast and web series?

Because you’re profoundly homophobic? Fair enough. Please take a goodie bag on your way out.

But to the few who subscribe to this e-mail list and actually care about hysterical, homosexual “who-dun-who” history, welcome. Welcome to the Gayest Stories Never Told. You’re safe now.

We are launching the Historical Homos show next month WITH OR WITHOUT YOU, and crucially, just in time for Pride. So while you’re douching this Saturday in preparation for Memorial Day – support the troops! – or wondering why your June budget includes a line item for “Unprofitable Homo Support,” make sure you remember to tell people about the REAL news:

Queer history is human history. We should all know it and, even when it’s not Pride month, celebrate it.

If this trailer doesn’t get your nonbinary boner excited about that, then I don’t know what will.

Finally, please make sure to send to all of your most homophobic friends. If anything this series will confirm how dangerously intelligent, hilarious, and SICK gay people really are.

And we all know how bigots love to be right.

Historical Homos Live! Podcast & Web Series Announcement /  by Sebastian Hendra

OK yesterday we literally BROKE the Internet when we posted this April Fool’s announcement about landing a deal with Amazon Prime:

Obviously this was a deeply well-thought-out, hysterical, and viral PR stunt that we’ll all be talking about at the water cooler for some time.

But what you don’t know is that it’s also half true. (OK fine — a quarter at least.)

Sir Ian McKellen is not yet attached (ANSWER THE PHONE IAN), but we’re not waiting around for his rich narratorial baritone to launch this puppy.

Over the past few months, we’ve been working with an incredible team on a shoestring budget to create the first ever iteration of Historical Homos on video. It’s amazing what you can achieve with people who have good intentions, good taste, and a high tolerance for my clumsy come-ons.

Check out the teaser for our beautiful little show below, which is launching in two months (!) in time for Pride 2023. We are so excited to show you more.

But for now, tell your friends, tell your lovers, tell your homophobic aunts and uncles! Everyone is welcome at Historical Homos, especially those who think us criminally perverted (they kind of have a point!). 🥰

Historical Homos Live! Cumming to a small screen near you for PRIDE 2023.

Tu'er Shen: The Chinese "Rabbit God" of Gay Sex and Love /  by Sebastian Hendra

“Kiss of the Rabbit,” short film, 2019 / © Andrew Thomas Huang

Happy Chinese New Year — only one week late — to all my loyal, rapidly aging followers!

It’s the Year of the Rabbit and that of course got me thinking: what or who exists at the intersection of China, gay sex, and rabbits?

And yes — there is an app for that.

Of course by “app” I mean a full-throated GOD of GAY that actual people actually worship in actual temples.

Ladies and queers, allow me to introduce you to Tu’er Shen, a little-known, but highly-demanded god of Chinese folk religion, who reigns supreme over male-on-male love, sex, and relationships.

Tu’er Shen (兔兒神) literally means “Rabbit God” in Chinese, so it feels pretty significant for homosexuals everywhere that this is the Year of the Rabbit.

Because there are no coincidences: as the literal app Co.Star reminds me every morning: our fates are scientifically determined by the stars, moon, and other meddlesome planets.

Which means you need to read on so you can figure out who this Rabbit God is, what he wants, and how you can secure his good favor in the (hopefully) fun-and-cum-filled year ahead.

“Kiss of the Rabbit,” short film, 2019 / © Andrew Thomas Huang

Homosexuality: A Not-So-Ancient-Chinese-Secret

Imperial china – i.e. China before the end of the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century – was no stranger to the heavy, sensual petting of man on man.

Emperor Ai having his sleeve cut, so his lover Dong Xian could continue sleeping (and ruining the STATE) / Wikipedia

In the early empire, during the Han dynasty (200s BC to 200s AD), more emperors than not were said to have had male favorites.

One of the most famous was Emperor Ai of Han, who elevated his favorite (and lover) Dong Xian to never-before-seen heights of social status and political power. The couple coined the first euphemism for male homosexuality in China: “the passion of the cut sleeve”.

The story goes: the Emperor and his Dong 🍆 (can’t resist SORRY) were snuggling one day, and eventually the Emperor had to wake up and do some…Emperoring. Dong was asleep on His Majesty’s royal robe, so instead of telling the gorgeous twunk to get the hell up, Emperor Ai called for the Imperial Scissors Boy (actual name) to cut the sleeve off his robe. Ai slipped out most serenely and Dong went on snoozing and schmoozing his way to the top of the ancient Chinese empire. Until of course Ai died and Dong’s entire life came crashing down around him.

Fast forward a millennium and change: people were still talking about the passion of the cut sleeve. They’d even developed a few new words and phrases to refer to their homos, including “the bitten peach,” “the pillow tree,” and more derogatorily, “rabbit” (兔子).

(Let me interrupt myself here and be perfectly clear: There is nothing, NOTHING in the current culture stopping us from replacing “f@ggot” with “rabbit.” For example: “Wow, look at how that rabbit is slaying the house down” or “Oh yeah, bitch, you wanna be my little rabbit?” It just WORKS.)

In many parts of imperial China, and particularly amongst the upper classes, it appears male homosexuality was broadly tolerated. We know, because European visitors arrived in the Middle Ages and were immediately scandalized by the prevalence of that deliciously addictive pastime they called “sodomy.”

One Portuguese explorer from the 1500s, Galeote Pereira, noted in his letters back home that “the greatest fault we do find is sodomy, a vice very common.”

Hot boys from a new “danmei” (“boys’ love”) show in China called “Word of Honor”

In certain parts of China, more elaborate, formal systems of male homosexuality existed. This was especially true in Fujian province, a region in southern China just opposite the island of Taiwan. Here, male homosexual relationships were not only tolerated, but actively celebrated.

Li Yu (1611-1680), one of the great playwrights of the Ming dynasty (which lasted from 1368-1644), tells us that the practice of “bond brotherhood” (read: gay marriage) was widespread in Fujian province. In these arrangements, an older man (qi xiong “elder bond brother”) would court a younger man (qi di “younger bond brother”), and if the latter’s family agreed, pay a sort of bride price to take him into his household. (Virgins apparently – obviously – fetched higher prices.)

There would even be a traditional ceremony and as Li Yu notes:

"They do not skip the three cups of tea or the six wedding rituals – it is just like a proper marriage with a formal wedding."

Tea-spilling, organized rituals, and special outfits? Yeah…sounds gay. I’m in.

These unions could last for a decade or two, until both men were eventually expected to take wives and procreate. It’s unclear whether the relationships were always sexual, but the age difference and whole “bride price” thing doesn’t exactly smell like roommates to me. #YouDecide

Tu’er Shen: A God is Born

© Andrew Thomas Huang / Scribd

Out of this absolutely faggocious utopian dreamscape in Fujian province arises the hero of our story: Tu’er Shen. But! He wasn’t always the god of gay.

It all started when Hu Tianbao – who may have been a real dude – fell in love with a dashing new imperial official. This hot, educated, rich bureaucrat (why am I hard already?) had come to the province to root out corruption. Hu Tianbao immediately fell head over balls with him, and made no secret of staring longingly as the object of his lust went about his day.

The imperial censor was a bit confused by the unabashed ga(y)zing, but he had a job to do. Some smitten little rabbit wasn’t about to stop him. Until things went a little too far one day:

Not long afterward, the censor went to inspect another county, and Hu followed him. Along the way, he secretly hid in a toilet to peek at his buttocks. The censor, more suspicious than ever, summoned him for questioning.

At first Hu remained silent, but after three strokes of cane he confessed:

“The truth is I was taken by His Excellency’s good looks, and could not get you out of my mind. I realize you are heavenly cassia, out of bounds for common birds. But my heart already runs away, so without meaning to, I have behaved so improperly."

Hearing this, the censor flew into rage. He immediately ordered his subordinates to kill Hu Tianbao beneath a dead tree.  (Translated by Nathaniel Hu)

And they didn’t just kill him dead under a dead tree (bit overkill, innit?). The imperial fuckboy had Hu Tianbao savagely beaten to death because he had offended a person of higher rank. (Note how the crime is not being gay itself, but rather overstepping class boundaries.)

So poor Hu Tianbao dies for his love, but all is not lost! A month later he visits an elder from his village in a dream – in the shape of a rabbit, OBVIOUSLY, keep up! – and lets him know that things are actually pretty sweet in the Afterlife.

The gods of the Underworld, including their ruler King Yama, have determined that as a crime rooted from love, Hu’s crime was actually no crime at all. In recompense, the gods decide to appoint Hu the Rabbit God (“Tu’er Shen”) so that he may watch over the amorous affairs of men evermore.

Hu also casually tells the elder that he’ll be needing a temple in order to do this very important job, so everyone should get to steppin’ and buildin’ and fundraisin’.

An extremely hot print of divine dom daddy Dragon King / Wikipedia

This tragicomic story was preserved by a scholar-official named Yuan Mei (1716-1798) in his work, Zi Bu Yu or Things the Master Did Not Say. It’s a collection of supernatural and folk tales, which was part of an ambitious and somewhat radical project to collect Chinese folk culture through social and oral history. Yuan was an accomplished scholar and imperial bureaucrat, but had retired early from his posts to pursue painting and poetry. (Yes, king.)

By preserving the things the “Master” (i.e. Confucius) did not say, he was broadening the scope of literature and history, including peripheral matters of love and sex that traditional Chinese learning loved to ignore. The story of Hu Tianbao comes down to us in large part thanks to this anti-establishment, bohemian king.

The Qing dynasty was famous in this period for corruption in all its forms – financial, bureaucratic, and of course, moral. In fact, a real-life imperial official, Zhu Gui (1731-1807), eventually toured Fujian province in 1765 and tried to standardize the morality of the common folk by outlawing what he called “Licentious Cults”.

The cult of the Rabbit God, which was already established by 1765 in the province’s capital of Fuzhou, became the target of Zhu’s anti-corruption crusade. The Prohibition of Licentious Cults effectively amounted to one of China’s first-ever laws explicitly targeting gay people and sex. We have evidence from Zhu’s writing that explains what the cult of the Rabbit God was like in 18th century Fuzhou:

The [cult] image is of two men embracing one another; the face of one is somewhat hoary with age, the other tender and pale. [Their temple] is commonly called the small official temple. All those debauched and shameless rascals who, on seeing youths or young men, desire to have illicit intercourse with them pray for assistance from the plaster idol. Then they make plans to entice and obtain the objects of their desire. This is known as the Secret Assistance of Hu Tianbao. Afterwards they smear the idol's mouth with pork intestine and sugar in thanks.

After making his proclamation, Zhu had the plaster idol smashed to bits and thrown in the river. The cult was forced to go underground at that point, though we know it survived well into the 19th century – because the Qing government never stopped persecuting it.

Awakening the Faggot Rabbit God

What I imagine Tu’er Shen might have been wearing in 2005 © Shiy De-Jinn / BBC

Although the cult of Tu’er Shen was eventually abandoned, the Rabbit God would one day rise again.

That day finally came in 2005, when a gay Daoist priest named Lu Weiming announced he would open a shrine in Taiwan for gay believers to come worship at the shrine of Tu’er Shen.

Taiwan lies just off the coast of Fujian province, and there are strong ancestral and cultural ties between them. Taiwan also has a much more progressive track record when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues. It’s possible that some of Tu’er Shen’s worshippers emigrated to the island and preserved his memory – not to mention Fujian’s lenient attitude to queer men.

In any case, the shrine is now located in New Taipei, and 9,000 pilgrims visit each year to pray to Tu’er Shen to help them find partners. Lu Weiming has also started performing gay love ceremonies for partners looking to affirm their commitment to one another.

According to Lu Weiming’s temple:

The Rabbit God is … an affable deity who is willing to assist his followers in every aspect of life. Since he works for Cheng Huang (城隍), the City God, he has both the erudition and social network in the spiritual world to solve any problem mortals have.

Are you even surprised that our girl is a fucking INFLUENCER in the spirit world?! (Jesus could never.)

The temple is truly a breath of fresh air for the LGBTQ+ community in Taiwan. Although the island is more progressive than many Chinese-majority societies on the issue of homosexuality, Lu Weiming believes gay life in these regions is still an incredibly lonely experience. He started the cult so that gay Chinese people would “understand that there are still so many gods in the world who love and care for them.”

We could learn a thing or two from that kind of thinking.

Look! Even white gays are worshipping at the altar of Tu’er Shen / © Nomadic Boys / Facebook

Visitors to the temple are invited to pray before the shrine of Tu’er Shen and address him as “Da Ye” or “Master.” You can write names, addresses, birthdays, and prayers on little bits of paper and then burn them so they reach the Rabbit God. Some believers throw jiao bei – divination moon blocks – to see if their wishes will be granted.

And even more importantly: you can bring any item for Tu’er Shen to bless. Some pilgrims bring skin care products, because the blessing makes them more effective in creating beautiful, poreless, boyfriend-quality skin. (I wonder if he does Grindr profiles…)

The Rabbit God also appeared in a popular Taiwanese show about matchmaking and much more interestingly, in this incredible short film by queer director Andrew Huang. It’s a beautiful meditation on coming to terms with your sexuality, and Tu’er Shen appears in the sexiest, Gen-Z, underworld-influencer get-up you could ever imagine.

(Watch “Kiss of the Rabbit God” here and please share the film!)

Thankfully, things are changing in China for gay people: 67% of Chinese people support gay marriage (compared to 61% of Americans). But media remains a target of censorship and Pride celebrations are routinely canceled or shut down without explanation.

If we all focus a little more on the message of love and spirituality that Tu’er Shen represents, maybe this Year of the Rabbit will bring all the world’s gays a little more fortune.

Or at the very least: a nice, pork-intestine-and-sugar-smeared dicking.

Check out the little rabbit - bottom left! © Xiadiye / BBC

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day: A History of Queer, Indigenous Resistance /  by Sebastian Hendra

Osh-Tisch (left), whose name translates to “Finds Them and Kills Them,” was a Crow warrior, artist, and shaman who lived from 1854-1929. She was also a “badé,” a Crow word that historically referred to AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) people who lived, worked, and dressed as women. Image via Whores of Yore (Twitter).

The colonization of Indigenous queer life

When European explorers and conquistadores first arrived in the Americas, they encountered no shortage of queer people in the continent’s indigenous tribes and empires.

Men who lived, dressed and worked as women were particularly common in the tribes of North America. Whereas in the Aztec empire that spanned Mexico and Central America, much harsher laws around male and female sexuality and gender identity appear to have been in place (at least in theory, if not always in practice). There is still plenty of evidence that homosexuality, lesbianism, and transvestism were known and named in these more southerly nations.

Already in the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans condemned the “unnatural” sexual practices and identities they “discovered”. As more and more settlers, missionaries, and soldiers made their way through Indigenous territories, the reports of what we would today call queer or Two-Spirit people increased.

The French word berdache became particularly common to refer to individuals who were male-bodied and — for a variety of reasons — had chosen to live, work, and dress as women. Every tribe in North America had their own name for the berdaches. The Crow called them badé. The Cheyenne used the word hemaneh. The Lakota said winkté. All of these words typically referenced a fluidity of gender or an active desire to transgress it. (I’m only using the French word as a general catch-all to refer to this tradition across Indigenous nations, but keep in mind there was much variation and it is difficult to generalize.)

Detail from George Catlin’s Dance to the Berdash, 1835-1837, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum. This was apparently an annual religious dance that honored the berdache(s) in the community.

A berdache’s femininity did not typically map onto Western ideas of binary gender identity. In many tribes, European observers remarked that the berdaches were taller and huskier than cis-gendered men. Many of them were also extremely skilled at hunting and soldiering, while also becoming expert in more traditionally feminine crafts like pottery and weaving.

One Jesuit missionary who traveled through French Canada in the 18th century attempted to explain this phenomenon in a chapter of his work titled “Men Who Dress as Women”:

If there are women with manly courage who prided themselves upon the profession of warrior, which seems to become men alone, there were also men cowardly enough to live as women. Among the Illinois, among the Sioux, in Louisiana, in Florida, and in Yucatan, there are young men who adopt the garb of women, and keep it all their lives. They believe they are honored by debasing themselves to all of women’s occupations; they never marry, they participate in all religious ceremonies, and this profession of an extraordinary life causes them to be regarded as people of a higher order, and above the common man.

From “Customs of the American Savages, Compared with the Customs of Ancient Times” (based on travels conducted in 1711-17) by Joseph François Lafitau

You can tell Lafitau had plenty of opinions about whether the berdaches were actually “people of a higher order” or not. His European, misogynistic worldview that “female” activity debased men was almost certainly not shared by most Indigenous communities who welcomed berdaches. But equally important is that his observation is echoed in many other sources: Indigenous communities seem to have attached a special status to the men (and occasional women) who transgressed their assigned genders and still operated as vital members of the religious, military, and artistic orders of their tribes.

The Europeans who first encountered the berdaches alternately believed them to be hermaphrodites, sodomites, or plain old moral degenerates. But the fact that the tradition of the berdaches persisted well into the 19th and early 20th centuries, as Indigenous populations were simultaneously systematically destroyed by encroaching Americans, demonstrates how important the institution was to many tribes.

We’Wha, a Zuni lhamana, works at a loom. “Lhamana” was the Zuni word for people assigned male at birth who lived as women. We’Wha was one of the most famous “berdaches” of her day, and even represented her people on an embassy to President Grover Cleveland in 1886.

Just like European colonists in earlier centuries, we cannot understand the berdaches along traditional Western conceptions of gender and sexuality. Their identities existed within an Indigenous matrix that acknowledged more than two genders. In fact, there is evidence that five fundamental gender identities were shared by many Indigenous tribes: male, female, Two-Spirit male, Two-Spirit female, and what we would today call transgender. Men and women who lived outside of their assigned gender’s boundaries were not always exclusively transgender, but sometimes they could be.

There was much more room for fluidity and ambiguity with Indigenous conceptions of gender — a hallmark of Native culture that Westerners eventually succeeded in diminishing almost to the point of total destruction.

One other source we have demonstrates the continued clash between Western ideals of gender and propriety and the ease with which Indigenous people flouted them. An American named John Tanner wrote an autobiographical account of his life with the Native peoples of Kentucky, who had captured him as a boy in 1790. He sometimes worked as an interpreter and lived much of his life according to Indigenous customs. In this excerpt he describes the arrival of a royal berdache to his lodge:

Some time in the course of this winter, there came to our lodge one of the sons of the celebrated Ojibbeway chief, called Wesh-ko-bug … . This man was one of those who make themselves women, and are called women by the Indians. There are several of this sort among most, if not all the Indian tribes; they are commonly called A-go-kwa … . This creature, called Ozaw-wen-dib (The Yellow Head), was now near fifty years old, and had lived with many husbands. I do not know whether she had seen me, or only heard of me, but she soon let me know she had come a long distance to see me, and with the hope of living with me. She often offered herself to me, but not being discouraged with one refusal, she repeated her disgusting advances until I was almost driven from the lodge.

Old Net-no-kwa was perfectly well acquainted with her character and only laughed at the embarrassment and shame which I evinced whenever she addressed me. She seemed rather to countenance and encourage the Yellow Head in remaining at our lodge. The latter was expert in the various employments of the women, to which all her time was given. At length, despairing of success in her addresses to me, or being too much pinched by hunger, which was commonly felt in our lodge, she disappeared, and was absent three or four days. I began to hope I should be no more troubled with her, when she came back loaded with dry meat. She stated that she had found the band of Wa-ge-to-tah-gun, and that that chief had sent by her an invitation for us to join him. …

[B]efore night the next day, we arrived at Wa-ge-to-te’s lodge, where we ate as much as we wished. Here also, I found myself relieved from the persecutions of the A-go-kwa, which had become intolerable. Wa-ge-tote, who had two wives, married her. This introduction of a new inmate into the family of Wa-ge-tote occasioned some laughter and produced some ludicrous incidents, but was attended with less uneasiness and quarreling than would have been the bringing in of a new wife of the female sex.

from John Tanner’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, U.S. Interpreter at the Sault de Saint Marie, During Thirty Years Residence among the Indians,” 1830, p. 105-6.

This is such a fascinating excerpt because Tanner, who is writing for an Anglo-American, white audience that shared his prejudices, clearly takes pains to demonstrate how “disgusted” he is by the 50-year-old berdache and her advances. He wants his audience to know that even though he lived with Indigenous communities most of his life, he doesn’t share their moral worldview. But at the same time, the story reveals how the status of the berdache allowed her to seek shelter in various families, without causing disruption to the other kinship networks established by additional wives. Even at 50, she was still a desirable marriage prospect for Indigenous men.

We also see genuine respect for the expertise of Ozaw-wen-dib in hunting, tracking, and of course the “various employments of women.” We have to read between the lines of this source, but when we do, it becomes clear just how multidimensional the lives of the berdaches must have been.

Lukas Avendaño’s “Lukas y José ” (2017). Photo: Mario Patiño. Image via New York Times.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, European and American missionaries attempted to stamp out the tradition of the berdache. And many Indigenous communities in the 20th century became hostile toward queer people and identities in their communities.

Thankfully this has changed a great deal in the past several decades, and there is now widespread acknowledgement of the importance and sanctity of Two-Spirit identities — a term that obviously refers to the duality of genders at play in us all.

Re-writing history from an Indigenous perspective is not only fascinating in its own right — who knew there was a sacred gender nonconforming role for people in Native American tribes?! — it’s also a fantastic way to resist the Eurocentric readings of history we all grew up with.

And particularly in America, where the myths of Manifest Destiny and the Founding Fathers continue to obscure the violent, treacherous history of nation “building” we all must reckon with. Nation-building always entails a cost of nation-destroying, and the memories of the people who resisted — particularly the queer people who stuck to their traditions — deserve to be kept vividly alive.

Sources

https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/two-spirits-one-heart-five-genders

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13845330/5-two-spirit-heroes-who-paved-the-way-for-todays-native-lgbtq-community

Katz, Jonathan. “Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.” 1976.

TAKING BACK OUR HISTORY: How to Celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month /  by Sebastian Hendra

Credit: Ted Eytan for HRC.

Protesters in Florida campaigning against the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” (Image source: HRC)

(3 min read)

It’s October 3rd, which means Mean Girls memes are so fucking fetch today aaaaaand … it’s been LGBTQ+ History Month in America for two. whole. days.

As some of you may know, a few weeks ago a school board in Florida decided that the Don’t Say Gay bill legally entitles them to bar any recognition of LGBTQ+ History Month for all grades K-12.

And I am … pissed.

I’m pissed that queer people’s right to their own history is still up for debate.

I’m pissed that queer history is seen as disposable. 

I’m pissed that children are once again being used as bargaining chips in political battles that distract us from MUCH MORE PRESSING ISSUES IN THIS WORLD LIKE THE IMPENDING HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE.

Ahem.

For those who don’t know, LGBT History Month was founded in 1994 by a Missouri high school teacher. The point of it has always been to increase visibility and alert students to the role of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in history.

This is a history that has been intentionally suppressed or bowdlerized for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

2,000 or so years ago, Christian bigots were busy burning the lesbian and bisexual poetry of Sappho, one of the greatest poets (female or otherwise) of the ancient world.

When the sonnets of Michelangelo were originally published in the 1600s, his grand-nephew changed the pronouns to prevent a gay reading of the text.

When you read Shakespeare’s considerably more famous (and better) Sonnets in high school, nobody mentions the fact that a good portion of the sauciest ones about love, beauty and sex are addressed to a young man. Many scholars now believe that Shakespeare was in fact bisexual.

Alexander the Great, Emperor Nero, King James I, Queen Anne, Emperor Ai of Han, Frederick the Great, Queen Christina, a handful of POPES – all of these stuck-up royals were queer in one way or another and presided over major kingdoms at pivotal moments in history.

Nobody mentioned that either in the 8 years of college-level history courses I took. (I apologize for that insanely uncool brag.)

All this is to say: we’ve had plenty of time to be silenced. In the literature we create, the culture we contribute to, and the history we make. We can’t let that continue.

Personally, I barely remember registering LGBTQ+ History Month in my high school years. There are of course many other important things that teenagers have to worry about these days, like getting into college, successfully rolling a joint, and building social media empires.

I GET IT.

But I also believe we all, as queer people and as allies, have a responsibility to present this month in engaging ways so that the 2% of queer kids who are paying attention have a chance of accessing their own history.

Here is a picture of me as a young, smiling, very beautiful history student circa 2014.

It’s taken me the 8 years since I left university to appreciate the extent of humanity’s queer old past and what it means for me as a gay man. Which I might summarize thusly:

  • Queer people have existed in their own queer ways since the beginning of civilization. The past is a strange place, but meeting strangers is good for you. Try it.

  • Modern, Western ideals of queerness are not the only valid ones. Human sexuality and gender have been explored, transgressed, and policed for all of history – there isn’t one way to understand either correctly. And we are kidding ourselves if we think we’ve figured it all out for all eternity.

  • Gender non-conforming identities and same-sex desire are fundamental to society and culture: they have informed politics, law, religion, mythology, social class, psychology, art, sport, music, film, literature, economics, and biology in one way or another over the past 5,000 years. Challenging what is considered normal in sex or gender is a fundamentally human (and civilized) act.

  • Remembering queer people from history – whether they’re famous or not – allows queer people today to see themselves as part of the human story, and not just as modern inventions. Our sexualities are constructed by the societies we live in to some extent, but the essence of what we feel, how we fuck, how we love – that is eternal.

These are my running thoughts, as I continue to learn about the queer origins of mankind. And I’m proud of the insights I’ve gleaned so far. It’s important we help all young people on their own journeys of self-discovery in any way we can.

So this month, please consider how you’re contributing to the queer historical effort. Whether that’s creating content, amplifying other voices, educating yourself, donating, supporting artists with cold hard cash or WHATEVER. 

Do something. Because it may provide a lifeline to a kid in Florida who actually really needs it.

For my part, I’ll be working on some more youth-friendly content that I hope to share with the audience that needs to hear about this stuff most.

Tell your friends and families, and make sure we don’t let Florida schools dictate what our children can and can’t learn.