shephaestion:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

aphony-cree:

sp8b8:

class-isnt-the-only-oppression:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

Happy Pride Month Eleanor Roosevelt was queer, the Little Mermaid is a gay love story, James Dean liked men, Emily Dickinson was a lesbian, Nikola Tesla was asexual, Freddie Mercury was bisexual & British Indian, and black trans women pioneered the gay rights movement.

Florence Nightingale was a lesbian, Leonardo da Vinci was gay, Michelangelo too, Jane Austen liked women, Hatshepsut was not cisgender, and Alexander the Great was a power bottom

Honestly just reblogging for that last one

Probably not historically backed but fuck yes

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote love letters to Lorena Hickok

Love letters Hans Christian Anderson wrote to Edvard Collin contain elements that appeared in The Little Mermaid, which he was writing at the same time

Several people who knew James Dean have talked about his relationships with men 

Letters and poems allude to a romance between Emily Dickinson and at least two women 

Nikola Tesla was adverse to touch. He said he fell in love with one women but never touched her and didn’t want to get married 

Freddie Mercury is well known for his attraction to men but was also linked to several women, including Barbara Valentin whom he lived with shortly before he died. Friends have talked about being invited into their bed and walking in on them having sex (documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender) 

Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are two of the best-known activists who fought in the Stonewall riots

Florence Nightingale refused 4 marriage proposals and her letters and memoir suggest a love for women 

Leonardo da Vinci never married or fathered children, was once brought up on sodomy charges, and a sketch in one of his notebooks is 2 penises walking toward a hole labeled with the nickname of his apprentice 

Condivi said that Michelangelo often spoke exclusively of masculine love

Jane Austin never married and wrote about sharing a bed with women (Jane Austen At Home: A Biography by Lucy Worsley)

Hatshepsut took the male title Pharaoh (instead of Queen Regent) and is depicted in art from the time the same way a male Pharaoh would have been

“Alexander was only defeated once…and that was by Hephaestion’s thighs.” is a 2,000 year old quote

I want to hire you to follow me around and defend my honor with meticulous research

#hatshepsut likely did this in order to hold the office of authority  #and leonardo was accused during a time in which everyone and his dog in florence was accusing everyone of sodomy  #i’m not saying they weren’t gay #just that this isn’t evidence #but alexander was definitely a power bottom
THANK YOU!!! 

most of these are Good and Factually Sound and super, except Hatshepsut. guys no.  according to Egyptian tradition, ‘Pharaoh’ and ‘Queen’ were not the same and could not rule the same. ‘Pharaoh’ was a special title with special powers and privileges, and was a dudes-only station. no woman could assume the full power of pharaoh, because pharaohs were men. so in order to be Pharoah and rule as such, she chose to be depicted as a male pharaoh in statuary and reliefs – because the iconology of ‘Pharoah’ had to be male, and she still always referred herself as female in her inscriptions. talking to a culture in a language it understands/seizing & holding power through playing by its rules, is not in itself evidence of queerness. 

also, in addition to being unsound history, it’s….very uncomfortable to take this super intelligent woman who found a way to bend and loophole her society’s rules in order to assume power and say ‘must’ve been a man’.  like, ‘did what had to be done’ =/= ‘was a dude’. 

trans history is both amazing and woefully under-known; let’s celebrate all the actual and very rad historical trans figures like black trans pioneer Lucy Hicks Anderson, the Chevalier d’Eon, Civil War vet Albert Cashier, Wild West figure One-Eyed Six-Horse Charley Parkhurst, tuberculosis superhero Alan Hart, 15th century Valencian Margarida Borràs – there’s so many to learn about and be inspired by !!! 

– as for leonardo, i will definitely go to bat for his gayness. during this period everyone and his dog in florence was accusing everyone of sodomy because sodomy was in fact so widespread – sure, some used it as a handy and very plausible accusation to attack a rival with, but renaissance florence was just an absolute bonanza of gay activity.  the Office of the Night wasn’t just established for fun’n’profitable witchhunting, and in fact didn’t seem to really care thaaaat much about how profoundly gay the city was: 

renaissance florence is THE BEST AND GAYEST and I could talk about it ALL DAY but this is already long

– re: Michelangelo, just see literally any of his paintings of women. not an appreciator of the female form, that one 

– AND FINALLY alexander the great being ‘~defeated by hephaestion’s thighs’ just means they banged; the question ‘who topped’ has been debated LITERALLY for centuries lmao. Aelian seems to suggest hephaestion was the eromenos bc he referred to himself as ‘beloved of’ alexander ‘as patroclus was of achilles’ but that opens a whole other can of worms and like. they banged so do we really need to get specific 

ANYWAY queer history is the coolest and best ; please enjoy responsibly!