All in Happy Endings

Billy Tipton

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

Gender is strange, and when looking back in history it can seem doubly so. Between constant language shifts, the erasure many transgender people suffered from cisgender historians, and—for safety and privacy reasons—trans people themselves staying hidden, it can seem impossible to identify transgender people in history. With transgender men, there is an additional wrench thrown in the works.

Sophia Parnok

Sophia Parnok

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

For our last article in this year’s women’s history month celebration, we focus on a woman known throughout Russia as one of their first openly lesbian poets. Sophia Parnok was a Jewish poet born in Russia in 1885 and has grown a small reputation for being one of the first out lesbian poets in her home country. Though her work is not widespread, it is impactful. And while the government tried to curb that impact with censorship, today we will work to continue to spread that effect by sharing her story.

Bricktop

Bricktop

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings, World War 2

To wrap up Black History Month, we are going to do another two-part article looking at a woman who was the center of the night scene in Paris during the 20’s. We will look at a woman who was not only talented in her own right, but also fostered the talent of the people around her, and made connections with some of the most incredible rising stars of her day. We will discuss the impact of a woman who was loved by almost everyone she interacted with. 

Tamara de Lempicka

Tamara de Lempicka

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings, World War 2

When writing an article about an artist, one expects to have some discussion of the art created by the person in question, but in this case, that is going to be avoided. Tamara de Lempicka was a highly controversial artist, and there is no lack of people studying her work, no matter which side they fall on in regards to its worth. But we are not going to be looking at that, as we are not art experts, and have never claimed to be. We are going to be looking instead at her life, and it is an extraordinary one to discuss.

The Ladies of Llangollen

The Ladies of Llangollen

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

This week, we find ourselves again surrounded by political turmoil. In moments like these, we always have to consider if our voice is needed in the dialogue. If we could say anything that hasn’t already been said. This week we found there is nothing we need to add, so instead we will take this time we have with our dearest readers and tell you all a love story. The story of the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler, and Sarah Ponsonby, two Irish women who fell in love, and lived happily ever after. A type of story that is all too uncommon in our history, but we are happy to share with you now.

The Future of Queer Media

The Future of Queer Media

Harper-Hugo Darling
Queer People in Media, Happy Endings

With this final article in our series on queer representation in media, we will look at where we want to see queer media go in the next decade, wrapping up our queer media series. Researching this final leg of the series was difficult, as it's hard to research the future, but we did our best. We interviewed the main team of a project in production, and the Executive Director of Represent, all of whom gave us insight into the present state of queer media, and using our research into the patterns of our past we can get a glimpse of what the future holds.

The Golden Orchid Society

The Golden Orchid Society

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

After a long stretch of Grace stepping up and saving the day by writing the articles, Laura is back and excited to talk about Golden Orchid Society. The Golden Orchid Society was a collection of organizations in South China that began during the Qing dynasty and existed from approximately 1644 to 1949 when they were banned because they were associated with an attempt to overthrow the Manchu Emperor. Over the course of 300 years, however, they created an order of women who stood in solidarity with other women against heterosexual marriages that were oppressive at best and far too often abusive. While some of the women may have been heterosexual and avoiding marriage for reasons unrelated to their sexuality, it was common for members of the association to be lesbians or bisexual. They found the safety and family in the Golden Orchid Society that their biological relatives had never provided them.

Sir Ewan Forbes

Sir Ewan Forbes

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

Sir Ewan Forbes was born into a noble family, and later in life gained the title of baronet. From a young age, Ewan was not interested in conforming to gender norms. Through most of his childhood, Ewan was able to avoid acting and dressing as Scottish society expected him to and was only seen in traditionally female clothing on special occasions. Most of his life, that easiness followed him as it did for most people who were born into a privileged family like his.

Osh-Tisch

Osh-Tisch

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

A warrior, artist, and incredibly valued person in the Crow nation, Osh-Tisch was a baté person and is remembered as one of the last baté people to have existed before colonizers committed genocide against this part of Crow culture. A baté person is a person who is born with a body that many European cultures of the time designated as male, and later is discovered to be a woman and is accepted as a woman in Crow culture.

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker

Harper-Hugo Darling
World War 2, Happy Endings

This week we move to Josephine Baker, a renowned dancer, singer, mother, spy, and bisexual woman of colour. It is rare for us to identify a historical figure so clearly, but with some help from her son, historian Jean-Claude Baker, we can. Born on June 3, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Baker’s life was never without its share of obstacles. Josephine Baker, however, wasn’t familiar with the word “stop”; she worked as an entertainer, an activist, a military woman, and a mother, and did not rest. Summarizing her life in a brief, concise, and full manner is next to impossible, but we will do our best.

Kristina King of Sweden

Kristina King of Sweden

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

We've so far looked at simple stories, in that their identities are clear. This is not the case with Kristina of Sweden. There is far more interpretation at play, as there are many labels Kristina may have fallen under. Without her to clarify, we do our best with the information at hand. What we know for certain is that she was not heterosexual, cisgender, and dyadic.

Sappho

Sappho

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

We thought it best to begin as close to the start as possible, though we're certain the project will jump throughout history. While there is no way to know who was the first human to experience same-gender romantic attraction, we will go back as far as recorded history allows. We begin with the origin of the word Sapphic and one of the most recognizable figures in history: Sappho.