All tagged United Kingdom
Being queer in the public eye is a whole different domain from being queer as a regular person. We are not usually representatives for our community—though queer people of color and particularly black queer women are especially punished through hypervisibility. Choosing to be open or not is a personal choice, and it’s especially hard when most of your life is up for public consumption. Are queer people in the spotlight required to be open about their identity and experiences? Absolutely not. More importantly, are queer celebrities who don’t publicly “come out” living any less openly than your average queer person?
Described by her friend Beatrice Webb, Charlotte Payne-Townshend was “an anarchist – feeling any regulation or rule is intolerable – a tendency which has been exaggerated by her intolerable wealth. She is romantic but thinks herself cynical. She is a socialist and a radical, but not because she understands collectivist standpoint, but because she is by nature a rebel. She has no snobbishness and no convention. She has ‘swallowed all formulas’ but has not worked out principles of her own. She is fond of men and impatient of most women – bitterly resents her enforced celibacy but thinks she could not tolerate the matter of fact side of marriage. Sweet tempered, sympathetic and genuinely anxious to increase the world’s enjoyment and diminish the world’s pain.”
In the creation of art, many different elements are necessary. There are plenty of arguments and books written as to what these elements are. One that is inarguable is also the most quickly ignored. There needs to be an artist who can create. For an artist to be able to create they generally require food, water, and shelter. Such needs are usually met with money, and that is the part of the artistic process where we find Winnaretta Singer.
It is not uncommon within our research to find someone as deeply unappreciated as Bajazid Doda, but we find a first in that Doda's murderer overwhelms any story about his life. Doda was an Albanian ethnographer and photographer who watched the destruction of his culture and took action against it, recording the landscape and identity of the Upper Reka Valley within Albania. His work has served as a touchstone within academia surrounding the Upper Reka Valley. Still, he is most well-known for his relationship with the man who would ultimately take his life.
There is a demand of queer people to be respectable; to please the dominant society, to conform, to hide that which is seen as other. They draw contempt from inside and outside of the community. However, it is those queer people who abandon respectability who provoke change. Algernon Charles Swinburne was not one to hide who he was, nor was he quiet about his beliefs. Oscar Wilde called Swinburne “a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestialiser.” While it’s true Swinburne often encouraged and even started rumours about himself, sometimes to draw attention and other times for humour, his sexuality was anything but.
Any time we look at the life of a transgender man throughout history, there are a number of hurdles we must first overcome. There are many reasons for a person assigned female at birth to wear clothes associated outside of that assigned gender. Historically, there is a precedent for women to dress as men to gain economic status or to more comfortably live in a relationship with another woman. It's important to untangle these threads in order to find the motivation. Victor Baker is a clear example of how these threads can weave a complete life story. If given access to our modern labels, we can see how he might have identified.
Queer people played a significant role in the winning of the second world war, from the famous story of Alan Turing to the hundreds of names behind the scenes. One of those names is Elvira de la Fuente Chaudoir. In any remembrance of this woman’s work, it must be noted that while her work was done below the radar, her life most certainly was not. The daughter of a Peruvian diplomat, she was a woman who loved parties and “favour[ed] the companionship of women who may not be careful of their virginity” according to Deputy Chief Constable Josef Goulder. She was not well-respected, but she was well-known. Considered to be a beautiful “good-time girl” who loved the spotlight and was dismissed because of this, her identity was only revealed years after the war had ended: Agent Bronx.
"[...]spinsters were seen as queer, not because they were not mothers or wives, but because they wanted to go into the public sphere and to break the gender boundaries between the private and the public." — Hellesund Tone
There is a fine line historians must walk between being thoughtful in using contemporary language for historical figures and erasing queer people from history. While someone from ancient Sumer wouldn’t have used the word “bisexual”, for example, we can discuss how their sexuality and experiences fit this modern term. We walk that line with every article, and we try to do so respectfully. There are, however, those who act under the guise of historical accuracy only to deny queer persons our history, particularly those stories of trans women.
“Because you have, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually in my heart … For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest instinct of their nature. Women are beautiful; but to some, there is that which passes the love of women.”
— Edward Carpenter in letter to Walt Whitman
Dawn Langley Hall is a rarity in our research, in that she has an autobiography. A writer herself and an experienced biographer, she took on the challenge of summing up her own life not one, but three times. Because of this, we are lucky to have access to fountains of information about her; unfortunately, much of it seems to be more fiction than non.
Hamish Henderson is not widely known, despite his contributions to Scottish culture. Despite being a proud bisexual, and greatly contributing to LGBT activism, this facet of his identity is largely ignored in discussions of the man himself. A folklorist, poet, and activist, Hamish Henderson (1919-2002) was one of the major forces in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th Century, a period of time where Scottish art and political thinking flourished. His song ‘Freedom Come-All-Ye’ is probably his most well known piece of work, has been suggested as an alternative national anthem and was sung at the Scottish Commonwealth Games in 2014. Beyond this, his contributions to the promotion and preservation of Scottish Culture can still be seen today.
There are a myriad of accounts about Alan Turing's life. You can read biographies, watch films, and browse entire websites dedicated to the man dubbed 'the father of artificial intelligence'. But many of these accounts fail on a number of fronts. Some downplay his sexuality, others ignore it outright, and only a handful recognize that Alan Turing's achievements are as much down to his early romantic experiences as they are to his intellectual prowess.
As our celebration of Black History Month continues we have the privilege of looking at another incredible black queer person in the queer community’s history: Rotimi Fani-Kayode. As with many of the people, we write about, Rotimi was an artist. A photographer, more specifically, whose work was revolutionary for his time and remains so today.
Wilfred Owen was a war poet who served in the First World War; his experiences on the field led not only to the aforementioned mental illness but also to some truly evocative, anti-war poetry and a romance with fellow poet, Siegfried Sassoon.
