Thread by @siandocksey

🌸GOOD MORNING🌸 because UK LGBTQ+ news this month has been basically terrible, please enjoy a daily helping from the archives of Great Gays of the Past.

🌈FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE🌈
In what is textbook queer erasure, Florence Nightingale is depicted as a chaste, angelic figure who refused all romantic relationships with men because of her saintly devotion to nursing.

Florence’s memoirs reveal that she massively fancied her female cousin “I have never loved but one person with passion in my life, and that was her” but being resourceful and generous by nature, she managed to distract herself by bonking loads of other women:

“I have lived and slept in the same beds with English Countesses and Prussian farm women. No woman has excited passions among women more than I have."

Oof, Florence!⚡️BIG. LAMP. ENERGY.⚡️

She also rescued and hand-reared an owl called Athena who lived in her pocket🦉.

🌈JOSEPHINE BAKER🌈

In a frankly outstanding display of bisexual indecisiveness, Josephine Baker not only divorced four different men while having numerous affairs with women (including Frida Kahlo), but also threw in her American citizenship to become French.

She acted as a spy and resistance agent for France during WW2, attending embassies as an entertainer to gather information from high-ranking officials about locations of German troops that her assistant would record in invisible ink (classic bi move) on her sheet music.

And somehow between continuing to also support the American civil rights movement and raising twelve adopted kids she dubbed “The Rainbow Tribe” she also found the time to take pictures looking THIS cute and silly.

💜BICONIC💜

🌈CLAUDE CAHUN🌈

Claude was surrealist artist, writer and anti-fascist who described their gender as “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.”

While male surrealists got preoccupied with eroticising womens’ bodies, Claude experimented with disrupting traditional divides between male and female and occasionally disguised themselves as a big block of tarmac, just for kicks.

Their life partner was their stepsister who also adopted a more gender neutral name, “Marcel”, & during WW2 the couple took flyers and artwork detailing Nazi crimes to German military events and slipped the pamphlets into soldiers’ pockets, on chairs and inside cigarette packets.

In the last few years of their life together, Claude and Marcel switched to using their female birth names and lived on an island where they were known as “les mesdames”, which on a queerness scale of one to ten is rated “Enya.”

Least likely to say: “Hi” to male artists.
Most likely to say: “hey babe goin out to bash the fash but first let me take a selfie.”

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

🌈MICHELANGELO🌈

Michelangelo was an antisocial weirdo who, even when he was minted, led an austere lifestyle and actively chose to live in squalor. He was very rude to other artists, was described as “bizarro e fantastico” by Italian society, and often slept in his boots.

Possibly this is because he was preserving his energy for writing to the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another, to Tommaso dei Cavalieri. Although there are✨ NO 🎉 HINTS 💖OF 🌈 HOMOEROTICISM 🦋 IN 🔥 HERE 💜 AT 💖 ALL 🌈 -

(Cavalieri wrote: "I swear to return your love. Never have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship more than I wish for yours."), historians were so irked by this that they subsequently changed the genders to make it all seem a lot more hetero.

Although it is now clear that “Tommasina dei Cavalieyeah-I’m-Definitely-A-Woman” was an attempt to make this relationship less queer, is unclear what Michelangelo’s sexual orientation was, or if any of his relationships were consummated - something that the severity of 15th/16th

- century sodomy laws might have played a part in. He also in the later end of his life developed a deeply loving penpal relationship with a wealthy widow lady where they conducted detailed examinations of their spiritual issues.

So although it all screams very queer now, he may have just had the hots for very intense, frequent and emotional email exchanges, which no modern queers can relate to at all.

🌈GWERFUL MECHAIN🌈

In medieval Wales where sex for anything other than procreation was frowned upon by the Church, Gwerful encouraged rampant polyamory and told everyone off for not paying detailed attention to womens’ pleasure.

She was very grumpy with jealous wives for not sharing their husbands with other women (especially her) and her imaginative, detailed dirty letters show that sexting since the 15th century has really gone downhill.

Her most famous poem “To the Vagina” is an ode to the wonders of womens’ private bits: “Lovely bush, you are blessed by God above.”

YES it is, and you know it Gwerful! 🙌🎉

🌈SAPPHO🌈

Sappho was an ancient Greek bisexual poetess who can also be credited for inventing the Cosmic Dread Aesthetic™. Much of her work has been lost but her hobbies seem to have been: yearning, organising female-led art collectives, yearning, playing the lyre, & yearning.

If she was alive today she would probably be releasing angst-folk music on bandcamp about falling for straight women and how difficult but sexy it is to be a Scorpio.

🌈NYANKHKHNUM and KHNUMHOTEP🌈

Possibly the oldest-recorded same-sex couple in history✌️Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were ancient Egyptian court officials in the 25th century BC whose job titles were “Manicurists to the Pharaoh” -

either because it was high-status to be in such close contact with the King - or because Ancient Egyptian politics had their priorities in order when it comes to nail art 💅 . The two of them ALSO had families and children

but this was not treated as an obstacle to them being lovers, and the pair were buried in a tomb together represented in the same manner as husband and wife. All records of Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep feature them touching noses which is the the Ancient Egyptian equivalent of PDA

you know what they probably had whatever the hieroglyph equivalent is to a wedding hashtag and honestly the whole thing is so wholesome and sweet I am absolutely livid. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💖

🌈JULIE D’AUBIGNY🌈

Essentially a 17th-century Arya Stark/Villanelle, plus opera and rampaging bisexuality. Julie was married off to some Duke at an early age who conveniently left for the sea, allowing her to attend to her important duties of:

starting swordfights, sleeping with all her opera co-stars and fulfilling the job description of “Legend.” She enjoyed seducing men’s wives at parties so their husbands would challenge her to a duel, which she is believed to have won at least ten times.

When one of her girlfriends’ parents were so horrified by their daughters relationship with Julie they entered the girl into a nunnery, Julie also entered herself to sneak in and kidnap her, using the stolen body of a dead nun as a decoy while they escaped.

Apart from a star opera career & fencing career & apologising for stabbing men by inviting them to bed with her (no one is known to have said no) her chief legacy is having an entire Wikipedia subheading for “Youth & Wild Reputation” which is A+ queer activism 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 👏👏👏

🌈 LITTLE AXE 🌈

Willmer “Little Axe” Broadnax moved to Southern California in the 1940’s with his brother “Big Axe” to find fame and fortune as a gospel singer.

Both brothers had strong tenor voices, and by the 1950’s Little Axe was performing with one of the most impressive line-ups in gospel quartet history: the Spirit of Memphis Quartet. In the 60’s Little Axe fronted a quartet called “Little Axe and the Golden Voices”, and -

he recorded music with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi through the 70s and 80s. It wasn’t until his autopsy that anyone knew he was assigned female at birth, or known that he was a trans man until after his death.

🌈 SOCRATES 🌈

Socrates was described - in Plato’s words - as “boy crazy”. When Socrates was in the company of gorgeous youths, it is thought that a sort of mania took hold of him.

He often complained about the fact that he was helpless towards them, and said he could only cope with the situation by asking difficult questions to these beautiful boys and teaching them philosophy.

Full marks for restraint but also, pretty awkward to be SO bad at flirting you accidentally invent the system of Western philosophical thought.

🌈HILDA MATHESON🌈

If you’ve ever listened to radio, you have listened to the work of Hilda Matheson.

While the BBC was in its infancy she ran a department called “Talks”, and trained up writers, journalists, activists and artists who were used to public speaking on how to communicate over this new, weirdly intimate medium.

Her boss was a Full-Time Loud Man at the BBC who got annoyed with Hilda for wearing lots of excellent high-waisted trousers and being really good at her job. Hilda basically ignored him, brought various nutters into her studio and quietly revolutionised broadcasting.

Her most well-known romantic relationship was with the writer Vita Sackville-West who was mysteriously invited in to talk on the radio A Lot. Otherwise Hilda just got on with being very gay but mostly at work and imho is the original poster girl for Radical Normcore ✊

Most likely to say: Hi Vita um would you like to spend several hours in this room together as definitely a Work Thing and absolutely not a pretext for a date haha what is that no way.
Least likely to say: Please tell me about your podcast, I’m really starved of opinions from men.

🌈ELAGABALUS🌈

Elagabalus was a Roman Emperor who would be described even by modern UK leadership standards as “ a messy little b*tch who loves drama.”

He was notorious for such extreme eccentricity & decadence that eventually his own grandmother arranged to assassinate him.

Elagabalus enjoyed appointing his male lovers to government positions, insisted on being circumcised so he could become high priest of his own religion, and forced senators to watch him dancing around the temple of the sun.

He caused uproar by abandoning his emperor duties to wear womens’ clothing and become a sex worker in the local brothels. Eventually he set up rooms so he could continue to solicit from inside the imperial palace, employing men to act as “passers-by.”

His most stable relationship seems to have been with his chariot driver Hierocles who he referred to as his husband, therefore setting the world precedent for using Uber as a substitute for therapy.

🌈 AUDRE LORDE 🌈

Audre Lorde spent her artistic and activist life refusing to be lumped into one single box, and fighting the marginalisation of categories such as “black woman” or “lesbian.”

As a poet, writer, educator and agitator, she was central to many queer, feminist and liberation movements and what we now talk about as intersectional politics, asserting that “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

She also wrote about self-care as a radical act of resistance and if she knew that had been co-opted into the marketing #selfcaresunday trend to sell Lush bath bombs she would be really annoyed.

🌈EDWARD CARPENTER🌈

Sometimes called the “gay godfather of the British Left,” Edward championed workers’ rights for 100% political reasons & no interest in “the thick-thighed hot coarse-fleshed young bricklayer with a strap around his waist" he described at length in his poems.

After being a tutor to princes and lecturing on astronomy, sun worship, the lives of ancient Greek women and music, he got bored of the middle classes and decided the élite were a social disease, and started campaigning for industrial workers and working-class liberation.

Edward eventually met sexy Sheffielder George Merrill and the pair shocked everyone by moving in together, wearing lots of jumpers and gardening. They had a nice life together being very Left & going to lots of boring meetings etc until they both died in the same year.

Edward and George were the inspiration for E.M. Forster’s gay romance novel “Maurice”, translated into heterosexual by D.H. Lawrence as “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

🌈 LUCY HICKS ANDERSON 🌈

From a very early age and before the term “transgender” existed, Lucy was adamant that she was not male and on her doctor’s advice, her parents fully supported her living as a girl.

Chef, hostess and socialite, Lucy married twice, and was repeatedly fined and jailed by the government for alleged fraud - claiming the benefits of being in a married couple although the law considered her “male” and therefore her marriage to another man invalid.

She managed to evade long prison sentences due to her social connections and being really fun at parties 🎉 After one arrest, a banker friend promptly bailed her out because he had scheduled a huge dinner party which would have collapsed dismally with Lucy in jail.

In defiance of the charges, Anderson declared, "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman."

Many people consider Anderson one of the earliest pioneers for marriage equality, despite her approach to her own marriage being resolutely hetero. A true radical normcore icon 💍

🌈SOR JUANA INEZ DE LA CRUZ🌈

17th Century Mexican Nun rumoured to be having a love affair with the wife of a Spanish Viceroy. Juana chose the Nun Life because she didn’t want a husband or job, and her mother refused to let her disguise herself as a boy and go to university.

An intellectual prodigy who had learned to read and write in Latin by age three, she quickly turned her rooms into a literary and philosophical salon where she would meet other brainiacs and publish her writing on Literally Everything.

Juana was famous across New Spain for her work and also condemned for its raunchiness, which she refused to tone down. She wrote extensively about liberating women from traditional roles, and creating women-only teaching spaces to stop men interfering.

An early proponent of bringing women into all-male writer’s rooms, it’s safe to say that “Late Night” with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling is probably really all about her.

🌈THE DANCING MARQUESS OF ANGLESEY🌈
After inheriting a huge sum of money, Henry Cyril Paget, Fifth Marquess of Anglesey, built a theatre in his home and became famous for staging extravagant productions of everything from Little Red Riding Hood to Aladdin - all starring him.

A cosmic bisexual, he lavished equal attention on his two loves in life: acting, and jewels. He toured solo productions that were hampered by wild overspending on costumes: he gained the nickname “Dancing Marquess” from a costume for a “butterfly dance,” costing £10,000.

Henry’s personal life remains mysterious, but his legacy of tanking parents’ money on extroardinary pursuits is rigidly observed every year at the Edinburgh Fringe.

🌈 AMRITA SHER-GIL 🌈
Known as India's Frida Kahlo for her distinctive combination of Western and traditional art forms, Amrita Sher-Gil used painting to give voice and validity to people's experience of 1930’s India, especially women.

She often revealed womens’ steely resolve, but also hopelessness - rarely seen at the time, when women were typically portrayed as happy and obedient.

Amrita was known for her many affairs with both men and women, who she also frequently painted. Her work Two Women is thought to be a painting of herself and her lover Marie Louise, and one of her lovers is rumoured to have been India's future prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

She is thought to have sometimes entertained up to seven romantic partners a day, with two-hour intervals in between trysts. The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge spent a week with her that reportedly reduced him to a "limp rag". "I could not cope," he later admitted.

Thanks @Suna_Dasi for this recommendation ! 🌸🌸

🌈 MARSHA P. JOHNSON 🌈

Marsha P. Johnson was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, an AIDS activist for ACT UP, a model for Andy Warhol, a sex worker and, amongst other art projects, part of drag performance troupe Hot Peaches.

She never self-identified with the term “transgender”, but as gay, a transvestite, and a queen. Co-founder of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) with Sylvia Rivera, Marsha was one of the first to fight against institutional prejudice after the Stonewall uprising.

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