Pride month: Finding the Queer History We Weren’t Taught

Pride Month: Finding the Queer History We Weren’t Taught

I wrote very briefly in my other post about the Stonewall riots and some hints about LGBTQ history by gender. Today I wanted to expand on what happened at Stonewall and other informational events along with historical figures and stuff you may not know about. This may be a bit of a grab bag but should show you that what you think is rather old.

Why is Pride in June?

Well that is due to the Stonewall riots or uprising which happened over a number of nights. Stonewall Inn in New York in 1969 was raided by the police. They would often raid queer or gay bars and clubs. This night which the picture below is from shows a bunch of drag queens, trans, gays and more fighting back against the police. It was a popular bar with the most marginal people within the community. One or two figures involved here later became Black trans activists.

After that, June was picked to be Pride Month. To be out, proud, and protest the lack of rights. The movement became more radical. Two figures here one should know are Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Both were trans women as we know them today.

The Global Spread of Pride

Pride marches happened the next year and soon spread across the world. The first ones happened in 1970. Within three years London had its own march and it just spread even further. By the 1980s less radical activists took over these marches rebranding them away from Gay Liberation or freedom towards Gay Pride.

• Israel had one in 1993.

• 1994 was the Philippines.

• Japan Tokyo 1994 in August.

• Taiwan had its biggest one for East Asia in 2022.

• India in 1999.

The point is with time these marches spread and Pride marches became global. The latest one was in San Marino 2024 which would be number 97.

Language and Origins

Thing is you can find LGBTQ history all over the world and now it is time to look at that I guess.

Lesbians The name comes from a Greek island, Lesbos. Why? Well… Greek poet Sappho. If you are curious where “sapphic” comes from, it is due to her. She wrote about women and intimate relationships they could have between each other. It took until the 19th century for the English version “lesbian” to take on the meaning. 630 to 570 BCE she is meant to have lived on the island.

Gay On the other hand is French 12th century. For a while it was used to describe somebody who is happy or vibrant. Later it evolved to meaning same sex relations. By the 19th and 20th century the LGBTQ community used the term to replace more clinical terms like homosexual. Unfortunately there is no island of men so it is not named after that.

Modern Backlash and Ancient Roots

I am going to try to be brief here. This section is inspired by a line in my other post where I mentioned trans folks existing 4,000 years ago. Here is the proof.

The current backlash against trans folks is, in part, a reaction to the acceptance and victories of gay rights. The battle has moved on. Some people complain about “outsized representation,” arguing that it makes it seem like there are more of this minority than there actually are. It is a common charge people also leveled at gay people. It is a bit like complaining about there being background dancers in a music video. You may remember certain dancers more due to them being so colorful. Like with the animal kingdom, somewhere between 5% to 30% of a population can be part of the LGBTQ spectrum. Still a minority.

The oldest records we have of trans and non binary folks come from Egyptians. Various texts that date back 4,000 years or more list three genders: tai (male), hmt (female), and sekhet (sh’t). Stories exist too which talk about it. We also have texts from China, mainly regarding eunuchs in the royal court, along with same sex relations being a thing. Hindu texts talk about something similar over 3,000 years ago, and we see the same in ancient Indian and Egyptian texts. Ancient Egyptians tolerated and accepted queerness; no records show it was ever punishable.

Notice a trend? North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia… you find it everywhere. Bronze Age, Romans, Vikings, the Middle Ages… no matter the time period, fingerprints of these identities exist across all societies and cultures. An Egyptian ruler from the Bronze Age called Hatshepsut dressed like a man. European explorers reported trans masculine and trans feminine people in local populations in the 16th century, though it is worth pointing out that such people existed in Europe at that time too. Native populations across the world had their own words to describe these people, like the Two Spirit individuals in North America. We even see it in leaders, from Chinese Emperors to Egyptian Pharaohs.

It was not until recently that these identities and people went underground. The real question should be why. We should not be questioning if trans folks exist, but how we can be better at telling the story. So, what happened?

Why the Ignorance?

If these identities have existed for thousands of years across so many cultures, why is so much of our history unwritten?

A huge part of it is that we are living with the aftermath of historical erasure. Much of this knowledge was intentionally flattened by European colonization and religious institutions that forced a strict binary on cultures that had thrived for centuries with third genders. There is likely a sexist element here too, rooted in a desire to control women. But plenty of this history has been rewritten or destroyed.

Even in more modern times, this knowledge has been actively destroyed. It becomes even harder to track when society moves on but the language remains hidden in the past. During certain periods, people had to hide themselves, leaving only clever little clues that are easy to miss if you are not looking for them. The examples I have given are just a tiny subset; there are endless records of this if you look.

As it turns out, non binary and trans identities have existed for centuries across various cultures and societies. This modern bigotry is the part that is actually new. Just like with racism and other social issues, we lived together for a long time without this level of conflict. For the most part, nobody really cared until these systems of erasure were put in place.

Hidden in Plain Sight and History

Chevalier d’Eon (1728–1810) A French spy, diplomat, and soldier. Lived as male and female before being recognized as a woman. Hard to sum things up, so really go look up this wonderful woman.

Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh (1871–1942) A Suffragist and lesbian with her governess Lina Schäfer. A queer woman of color who helped Jews escape the Nazis. She advocated for womens rights and was the goddaughter to Queen Victoria.

Queen Nzingha Mbande (Angola, 1583–1663) Unfortunately we only know her due to the accounts of white Europeans, but she fits the mold. From what we know she was a queer queen who viewed gender in a very modern way. Like most rulers she has a grey history really.

King Mwanga II (Uganda, 1868–1903) He was bisexual and resisted efforts to convert him. As it turns out, like I mentioned, Africa has a history of queerness and LGBTQ people too.

What about hidden in plain sight? Well we have photos of people together with small nods and clues. As it turns out, gay and lesbian couples expressed themselves openly in the 19th and 20th centuries by taking photos. Women had an easier time here; social norms allowed it to happen without people raising an eyebrow about it. “Boston marriage” was a term used in America for women living together in long term partnerships. The look of love, the closeness to each other, clothing choices of a similar nature, and the setting all tell a story. They existed but were not very loud about it. Even language tells a story here, with certain secret words being used to find each other.

The thing is, we usually only hear about what happened in the upper classes. It is possible the middle and working classes really did not care for the most part. “Eccentric” people were often just accepted. Researching this has been a bit wonderful. I have only touched the surface but you can find examples all over. It could be easy to be depressed but really one should find hope. No matter what happened, there was always a way. And if we could be inclusive in the past, we can be so in the future. In many ways, it feels like we have gone forward again to how things used to be. It is not a Western ideal or a trend, but a human one that has been around for centuries.

There is so much more history I wish I knew. This is just one thread you can pull. This is part of human history and more common than one may think. It is a spectrum of humanity, and boy does it look great when you shine a light on it.