- On the podcast | Which LGBTQ+ histories get told \u2013 and which get overlooked?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Tim Wingard:<\/strong> I focus on the later Middle Ages, and encounter many of the same issues that Florence does. The lack of source material is a huge problem: there\u2019s not much evidence offering insights into people\u2019s own experiences of their sexuality. Instead, we often have to use legal records drawn up in the different courts, particularly in England, in which you can see LGBTQ people interacting with the law. There are a couple of famous examples. One is the questioning of Eleanor Rykener, a \u2018cross-dressing\u2019 sex worker, in one of London\u2019s courts in 1395.<\/p>\n
The limitation with this material is that it\u2019s very much written about LGBTQ individuals by other people, and tends to take a very hostile stance towards them. So we have to work quite creatively to actually understand these people\u2019s own experiences of themselves and their identities.<\/p>\n
![\""Chevalier\"]( "\\"\"The\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The Chevalier d\u2019\u00c9on, an 18th-century French soldier and spy who lived as a woman in later life. (Image by Alamy)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Channing Joseph:<\/strong> As Tim says, you have to be creative with the records in order to understand people\u2019s experiences. I often start with journalistic sources that offer glimpses into early queer culture in the United States, including drag balls and arrests of their participants. I then try to learn as much as I can about the people described in those reports and, through them, about the world in which they lived and the communities of which they were a part.<\/p>\n
Even if you did have letters or diaries written by LGBTQ people, it\u2019s unlikely they would have written \u201cI identify as\u2026\u201d, with the blank filled in. The focus in previous centuries was not on identity or emotion, but on how they were enacting their identities in the world. We often approach the past from a single contemporary perspective and ask: \u201cHow did these people identify? Were they gay, were they trans, were they non-binary?\u201d And the answer to that is there is no answer. It\u2019s a bit like asking: \u201cWhat was New York like 500 years ago?\u201d There was an island, but no New York City. In the same way, our modern terms for identities may not have existed in the past, but people behaved in recognisable ways. This approach can offer us insights into what I call queer ancestors and the precursors to identities we use to make sense of the world today.<\/p>\n
Fleur MacInnes:<\/strong> My research looks at the 1970s and 80s, so a lot of the people I focus on are still alive. That in itself raises a whole set of historical issues, especially when it comes to ensuring that I don\u2019t cross any boundaries by telling stories about people in a way they might not agree with, or put them in danger by revealing information they don\u2019t want made publicly available. Because even though the events could have happened 40 or 50 years ago, those are still people\u2019s lives, and the way in which their stories are told can still affect them to this day.<\/p>\n
Anthony Delaney:<\/strong> I\u2019m generally quite lucky in my area of expertise, because there was a fair bit of discussion about gender and sexuality in the Georgian era. This means there are quite a lot of 18th and 19th-century sources on LGBTQ people, and in many cases they echo a lot of the discussions we\u2019re having in the present day.<\/p>\n
![\""Chevalier\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/06\/2K7FATGcmyk-e0ff901.png?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"The\\"")
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