uranianrights

[uranianrights]

Key to this complexity is the rhetoric of friendship that Western culture articulates, most vividly, perhaps, in the writings of Michel de Montaigne. His essay "On Affectional Relations" articulates the concept of loving-friendship between men, which Montaigne sees as a "perfect union and congruity." He says:

"In the friendship which I am talking about, souls are mingled and confounded in so universal a blending that they efface the seam which joins them together so that it cannot be found. If you press me to say why I loved him, I feel that it cannot be expressed except by replying: 'Because it was him: because it was me.""

Although Montaigne distinguishes this model of loving-friendship from the pederasty of the Greeks, he connects it to marriage:

“For the perfect friendship I am talking about is indivisible: each gives himself so entirely to his friend that he has nothing left to share with another. . . . [I]n this friendship love takes possession of the soul and reigns there with full sovereign sway.”

Does this articulation render the affectional relations either more or less erotic? Can a marriage be more erotic than inter-generational sexual aggression? I would argue that it could and that the kinds of relationships that Montaigne describes are a sign that male intimacy often defies the category of "friendship" that Halperin and others have articulated.

It remains for those of us doing the history of sexuality to look at those sources and consider once again how it might be possible to talk about love that means more than the non-erotic bond that these historians insist upon. I sometimes think the erotic is so central to friendship that the burden of proof should be on the other side. After all, who is to say that sexual attraction depends on hierarchy and/or that men who see themselves as equal cannot be motivated by an emotional bond that is also erotic? I think there are cycles of salience in the male English tradition as well. There are times when friendships seem tantamount to love affairs, and there are other times when they do not. That does not mean that friendship excludes the sexual; doesn't it rather suggest that friendship may exclude erotics at times and include it at others?

-- The History of Homosexuality Reconsidered, George E. Haggerty (x)

#friendship #romantic friendship

[uranianrights]

Poet Else Lasker-Schüler on Magnus Hirschfeld: 

“Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld

On Thursday, 11 July you will hear Magnus Hirschfeld speak in Zurich at the Schwurgerichtssaal; it is an evening to which you can look forward. I should like to tell you something about our doctor in Berlin. He is not just our doctor, he is also our host; his consultations end in beaux jours, the ailing forget their neuroses and for the healthy patient an afternoon in his delightful waiting rooms provides pleasing stimulation for the nerves. There in the middle of the Tiergarten amid stout chestnut trees and whispering acacias lives Medical Councillor Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. Not that he likes us calling him that. ‘Children, just call me “Doctor”.’ Nevertheless, he confessed to me that his appointment to the Medical Council on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, greatly disputed and contested among the medical profession though it was due to his exceptional position, had pleased him. Beaming like a child, he showed me all his presents. We call him our doctor. And unto our doctor my playmates and I delivered an exquisite serenade on the eve of his birthday revels. Touched, the revellers came out onto his balcony to hear our songs accompanied by accordion and drum. The concluding chorus: ‘I should like to carve it in every crust…’. He is amused by our exuberance, because – being earnest – Dr Hirschfeld understands jest, he is not some serious professor with an oak-leaf beard. Now, I must confess to you dear students that, to my shame, I am not familiar with any of the many famous books that the doctor has written (essentially I only read my own), but can nevertheless judge them from his incomparably interesting lectures, these thrilling medical, historical novels, standard works that never turn stale. Doctor Hirschfeld is the advocate of sincere love of any kind, opponent of all forms of hatred. A gentle forensic physician who seeks to understand everything. All compassion, he sacrifices his strength, his time, his good heart to the departing soldier. At the railway stations one often sees our doctor cultivating entire tobacco plantations, distributing numerous boxes of cigars and cigarettes as he farewells them in their field grey. He is a man whose goodwill is truly blind to class. He rushes to those who summon him. I once ambushed him myself, and managed to get him away from his great practice to accompany me to a wounded friend in Pomerania. Gentlemen, I am pleased to sing the praises and wonders of our Doctor Hirschfeld. When he is away from Berlin it is as though our father confessor were missing. We all long for his words of comfort, for his cosy, warm green chambers which are as soothing as the man himself.”

(source)

[uranianrights]

" As one perceives the masculine character in the man, and the feminine character in the woman, as the main thing, so also in the Uranian the Uranian manner, his overall character, stands at the center, this peculiar mixture of masculine and feminine properties, which are admittedly not apt for procreation, but are not for that reason unfruitful. Anyone who thinks that being homosexual merely means feeling drawn toward one's own sex, or even that a person who performs sexual acts with persons of the same sex is homosexual, would have to adhere to the following definition to be consistent: A man is someone who loves a woman, and vice versa, as if there were not a plethora of other mental and physical criteria that were part of the masculine and feminine nature."

- Causes and Essence of Uranism, Magnus Hirschfeld, x

As I've said before, Uranism was related to both sexuality and gender. Uranian cannot be simply translated to gay or trans, but must be understood on its own terms as a related but distinct identity of that time around the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century.

[uranianrights]

It was an attack on Hirschfeld that first led me to articulate some of the questions that prompt this project. During a visit to Munich in October 1920, at the height of his fame, the sexologist was ambushed on the street by right-wing thugs who viciously beat him and left him for dead in a gutter. The impression of Hirschfeld’s death must have been convincing, because international newspapers soon afterward published obituaries, with the English-speaking press announcing the death of what the New York Times called “the well-known expert on sexual science.” Three days later, the newspaper was forced to publish a correction, explaining that the “noted German physiologist” was alive after all but that he had fallen victim to “a beating given him by some Anti-Semites because he was a Jew.” In Germany meanwhile, right-wing newspapers openly bemoaned the news that Hirschfeld, whom one paper called “this shameless and horrible poisoner of our people,” had not come to “his well-deserved end.” While Hirschfeld claimed to have embraced the “opportunity of reading his own obituary,” there is little doubt that the verbal attacks compounded his physical injuries. The events indicate the precariousness of Hirschfeld’s situation in Germany, where, rather than pursuing his attackers, prosecutors charged him “with the distribution of obscene material, mainly dealing with homosexuality.” The assault on Hirschfeld in Munich marks the rising antisemitism that would escalate so horrendously when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, and it also indicates how deep-seated antihomosexual sentiments denied justice to a victim of violence.

-- The Hirschfeld Archives (2017) Heike Bauer, p. 7

#magnus hirschfeld #the hirchfeld archives #1920s #germany #hate crimes

[uranianrights]

An excerpt from the trial of Elinor Crane, who was arrested in Middlesex in 1693 on suspicion of burglary. A witness claimed one of the burglars was a woman in men's clothing, and Elinor had previously been seen in the area dressed as a man.

"But the Court asking her why she went in Mans Apparel, the Prisoner replyed, She went to Wooe a Widow. Upon the whole Matter the Jury brought her in not Guilty."

(source: Old Bailey Proceedings: Accounts of Criminal Trials, April 26, 1693.)

[uranianrights]

Paola Revenioti: The Greek transgender activist on blowing up sexual taboos in the name of art

During the 80s, transgender Greek artist and prostitute Paola Revenioti published the trans-anarchist fanzine Kraximo. Funded by her own prostitution, the zine pioneered the fight for gay and trans rights, combining interviews with Greek poets and intellectuals alongside Athens street hustlers and her own photography, since compared to the work of Larry Clark and Walter Pfeiffer. Today she continues to work as an artist and activist, making Athens-based documentaries with her "Paola Projects."

#greece #20th century

[uranianrights]

Gay transgender activist Lou Sullivan spent years researching the life of Jack Garland, an obscure early 20th century transgender man who evidently loved men. He rifled though archived newspapers and letters in local libraries for any scrap relevant to Jack, and finally managed to get the completed novel published only very shortly before his death by AIDS in 1990. The book made a single run from a now-defunct publishing company, so a very limited number of copies of the book exist today. Approximately 30 libraries carry it across the US and certain sellers have another handful of copies available for upwards of $200+ each. However, I could afford to shell out that $200, and I think Lou would want his book to be accessible to the modern trans population. So I've bought a copy and scanned it and converted the pages into a PDF,

which is now public on google drive

and also Archive.org

#jack bee garland #louis sullivan #trans history

[uranianrights]

i'm currently researching butch identity in mid-century america! here's a fact about post-WWII LGBT communities in port cities that blew my mind today. from lillian faderman's odd girls and twilight lovers: a history of lesbian life in 20th century america

#usa #20th century

[uranianrights]

Polari

If you want to learn more about Polari, check out the fun book Fabulosa! The story of Polari, Britain’s secret gay language:

#polari #the link from mollies to drag queens <3

[uranianrights]

"Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts: Are not they, however constructed, and consequently impelling, Nature? Whatever Modes of Thinking the Mind from Objects receives, whatever Sensations pervade the Body, are not the Mind and Body Parcels of Nature, necessarily receiving those Thoughts, necessarily pervaded by these Sensations? Nature sometimes assumes an unusual Appearance; But the extraordinary Pederast seeking Fru-t-on, is as naturally acted as the ordinary Woman’s Man in that Pursuit. The Pleasure, all Beauty gives, is even of Necessity follow’d by Desire, when Process of Time has stor’d Man with those Lights, which are the only Erudition and Accomplishment. Nature is boundless, comprehending all animate, and inanimate Things; the Libyan Marvels, with their bak’d Sands, are no less natural than Peasants whistling in the verdant Vale. I am not yet out of your hands. Licens’d Pederasty, you say, would at least defeat Nature’s manifest Design of continuing Mankind. This is the scarce specious Rant of those, who, by Reflection, know not themselves; nor by Observation the wide World. Man’s ruling Passion is the Love of Variety; you might safely trust this single Principle with peopling the Globe."

Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd, A Contradiction in Terms by Thomas Cannon (1749)

#ancient and modern pederasty investigated and exemplify'd #thomas cannon #18th century #uk

[uranianrights]

when you read original sources or modern books with quotes from original sources you come to realise that all the arguments in favour of homosexualuty being fine and not a big deal have been made over and over again for the last several hundred years. the specific flavours of homophobia in play feel like they are more specific to certain times and places than the sort of counter arguments gay people have made. at least from the 1700s and after, there really doesn't seem to be such a thing as a too modern argument that Gayness Is Literally Fine, Relax

#not sourced not reliable just my musings

[uranianrights]

Reading Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex is fascinating for a number of reasons but it has put at the forefront of my mind more than ever how much this quirk of English of having the sex/gender distinction affects rhetoric, both because some people find it a useful construct for talking about trans people and here in Laqueur where he's looking at the historical conceptualisation of biological sex as both distinct from and interrelated with social gender, because like obviously there is a distinction between biology and social role, but in what ways does this quirk of English shape that understanding?

Most languages would use an adjective to modify the same word, the same essential thing, but English gives them different nouns and thereby, perhaps, suggests a different essence?

#was looking for this and couldnt find it because it wasn't on this blog #two sex model #one sex model

[uranianrights]

"The commonplace psychology -- that men want sex while women want relationships -- is the exact inversion of pre-Enlightenment notions that, extending back to antiquity, equated friendship with men and fleshliness with women. Women, whose desires knew no bounds in the old scheme of things, and whose reason offered so little resistance to passion, became in some accounts creatures whose whole reproductive life might be spent anesthetized to the pleasures of the flesh. When, in the late eighteenth century, it became a possibility that "the majority of women are not much troubled with sexual feelings," the presence or absence of orgasm became a biological signpost of sexual difference.

The new conceptualization of female orgasm, however, was but one formulation of a more radical eighteenth-century reinterpretation of the female body in relation to the male. For thousands of years it had been a commonplace that women had the same genitals as men except that, as Nemesius, bishop of Emesa in the fourth century put it: "theirs are inside the body and not outside it." Galen, who in the second century A.D. developed the most powerful and resilient model of the structural, though not spatial, identity of the male and female reproductive organs, demonstrated at length that women were essentially men in whom a lack of vital heat -- of perfection -- had resulted in retention, inside, of structures that in the male are visible without. [...]

In this world the vagina is imagined as an interior penis, the labia is a foreskin, the uterus is a scrotum, and the ovaries are testicles. The learned Galen could cite the dissections of the Alexandrian anatomis Herophilus, in the third century B.C., to support his claim that a woman has testes with accompanying seminal ducts very much like the man's, one on each side of the uterus, the only difference being that the male's are contained in the scrotum and the female's are not."

-- Thomas Laqueur (1992) Making Sex: body and gender from the Greeks to Freud, p. 4 (emphasis mine)

[uranianrights]

Something just slotted into place for me – discourse about gay sex in the renaissance came from a concern with sin, while discourse about gay sex during the enlightment came from a broad movement of documenting the natural world

in the first case you have renaissance classicists trying to position an enlightened chaste homosociality in opposition to both "base" heterosexual desire and to the "vice" of gay sex

in the latter, you have the rhetorical category or Nature and Natural and trying to position gay sex in relation to that rhetoric, as well as a the desire to categorise the natural world extending to a desire to categorise sex and sexual acts in a scientific sense. As in sex became a category for scientific inquiry in a way it hadn't been previously, meaning that gay sex was then included in a broader documentation of human sexual practices

This enlightment and early 19th c trend then led into the specific medical preoccupation with homosexuality in the mid to late 19th century and into the 20th where we get terms like "homosexual" and other sexuality terminology, which was probably also tied to the preoccupation with a healthy national population which dominated a lot of 19th century thinking (by which I mean both the moral panics about prostitution and STDs and the ways this relates to eugenics being mainstream science in this period)

[uranianrights]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's a really fascinating document and helps lay out what Robinson was referring to in a clearer/more expansive manner and gives context to how Gay Liberation movements compared to both earlier and later movements.

Interestingly, the way this shapes language of course also depends on the terminology available to be shaped -- in Danish, "homoseksuel" is the respectable term for gay, while also being signifcantly more sterile than "gay" which of course affects it's usage. The term used by the Danish Gay Lib movement was "bøsse" which then retains some of that older, gay lib-style broadness while also excluding lesbians and bi women. There is proably and extend to which it has lost less broadness because it started off less broad in the first place as compared to "gay."

Language also reveals that the homophile movement must have been very strong in Norway, because the standard term for sexualities in Norwegian is -phile -- homofil, bifil, etc.

“"Glad Not To Be Gay" shouted an Independent headline a few weeks ago - illustrated with a huge picture of my family. The article wasn’t even about me. I don’t want to keep harping on about it, but ten years of this kind of media bollocks is really starting to wear a bit thin. Everyone repeat after me: no-one ever stopped being homosexual by sleeping with a member of the opposite sex. God knows enough sad, deluded people have tried. I love my partner and kids more than anything in the world, but I’m still gay, glad and queer as a bottle of Crisps. Come on guys, you’ve been there. It’s not unknown for a gay man to mistake a boyish woman for the guy of his dreams across a crowded room. So what do you do if the woman then grins and throws you a cruisy look ? Sure, you can always look away, muttering “I don’t do bi”. But since we gay men are notoriously fun-loving sexual adventurers who’ll try almost anything, another possibility is to grin back and see what happens. If that makes me (or you) bisexual, well, worse things have happened at sea. What it doesn’t make you (or me) is “Glad Not To Be Gay”. “Gay activist turns straight” is such an irresistible headline, though, it gets written again and again - without reference to any more complex human truths that may underlie the story. Even ‘Don’t Panic’ make a T-shirt with the slogan “The Artist Formerly Known As Gay”. OK, bemoaning the old, lost meaning of “gay” is the usual preserve of Telegraph and Spectator columnists, but 25 years ago the “gay” in Gay Liberation Front covered pretty much any deviation from the hetero norm: homo, lesbian, butch, fem, leather, drag, vanilla, transgender, whatever. “Gay” was an inclusive, liberating concept that welcomed bisexuals at its marches and parties alongside everybody else - and I for one mourn its passing.”

This is a really interesting article about the shifting meaning of “gay” by Tom Robinson, a bisexual man who hass been a musical activist since the 70s.

He actually used to not want to identify as bisexual because he had a strong preference for men and the general attitude was that “bisexual” was a cop-out. 

#gay liberation #terminology #australia #1970s #1980s

[uranianrights]

Glad To Be Gay performed by Tom Robinson at the Secret Policeman's Ball benefit concert for Amnesty International, 1979

This is the best (video) version of Glad To Be Gay in my opinion, as you can practically feel the indignation seething out of him.

For this version, Robinson restored this verse cut from the demo:

Have you heard the story about Peter Wells Who one day got arrested and dragged to the cells For being in love with a guy of 18 The vicar found out they’d been having a scene The magistrates sent him for trial by the Crown He even appealed but they still sent him down He was only mistreated a couple of years Cos even in prison they look after the queers

He did this because:

[S]pecifically with the Secret Policeman’s Ball, Amnesty had ruled that gays did not count as political prisoners and therefore they didn’t support gay prisoners. That’s why I was singing it and that’s why I was so angry, because I was singing it to an Amnesty audience. Hence the venom. Amnesty asked me to come and perform, OK, well have this then.

You can see their point, it’s not a political statement to be gay, but at the same time it’s common humanity that you would support someone who was in prison just because of the fact that they were gay. So specifically, Peter Wells was relevant to Amnesty supporting prisoners or not.

Link to full lyrics and comments

#tom robinson #uk #1970s #glad to be gay #Youtube

[uranianrights]

A version of Tom Robinson's protest song "Glad To Be Gay" which includes both a reference to the Spanner Trial and Robinson's frustration at the biphobia he was being met with at the time (other versions can be found here all fascinating historical documents).

The British Police are the best in the world I don’t believe one of these stories I’ve heard ‘Bout them spending three million to bust up a ring Of consenting leathermen doing their thing It might have been private, where no-one complained But the judge put an end to their fun and their games He sentenced the members to four or five years I can’t believe that sort of thing happens here

Sing if you’re glad to be gay Sing if you’re happy that way

The liars of Wapping are really the pits Commissioned by bigots and written by shits They plaster their pages with bingo and tits Then add all the scandal and slander that fits They pick out their victims, destroying their lives They sneer as they smear as they damn and despise If it’s paedophile teachers or lesbian nuns If it’s filth and it’s fiction it’s there in The Sun

Sing if you’re glad to be gay Sing if you’re happy that way

And now there’s a nightmare they blame on the gays It’s brutal and lethal and slowly invades The medical facts are ignored or forgot By the bigots who think it’s the judgement of God Attacked by the Vatican, bashed by the bill With cheap politicians all making a kill The message is simple and obvious, please Just lay off the patients and let’s fight the disease

And sing if you’re glad to be gay Sing if you’re happy that way

For 21 years now I’ve fought for the right For people to love just whoever they like But the right-on and righteous are out for my blood Now I live with my kid and a woman I love Well if gay liberation means freedom for all A label is no liberation at all I’m here and I’m queer and I do what I do And I’m not gonna wear a ‘straight’ jacket for you

No, I say – Sing if you’re glad to be gay Sing if you’re happy that way

#tom robinson #uk #1990s #glad to be gay #spanner trial #aids epidemic