Queer people have always been there, as well as people who supported them
Just as there were happy queer couples throughout centuries, there were also relatives and friends who supported them and did their best to understand them.
Like Heinrich Hössli, a simple Swiss milliner, but also the father of a gay son who sadly died in a shipwreck. This already made him sympathetic, because the son talked with him openly about homosexuality, but in 1817, Hössli read about the execution of Franz Desgouttes who killed his male lover. Impressed, he wondered why the kind of love that Greeks admired became so condemned. He read a lot about homosexuality and ended up writing two volumes of Eros. Die Männerliebe der Griechen (1836 & 1838). The books offered an early look into the history of homosexuality and also defended it.
At that time in Russia, Alexander Alexandrov was a famous war veteran. He could also be called Russia's first known trans man. He lived as a man, got upset when his son called him mother, and asked to be buried as Alexander, not Nadezhda. While the wish sadly wasn't granted, in his life he enjoyed love and respect from locals of Elabuga where he resided. No doubt some regarded him as a curiosity, but nevertheless they addressed him as Alexandrov, attended his small parties, and knew they could rely on him if they needed help from the government. Alexander Pushkin himself eventually learned to address him as a man, and the name was given to him by Tsar Alexander I. [From a 1911 article in the Russian military magazine Вестник русской конницы, №№17-18, 19-20, 21-22, 23-24]
Some decades later, German parents found out that their son was homosexual. Initially upset, the father, who was a doctor, talked to his colleagues and consulted psychiatrists, but what they advised never satisfied him. The man started reading more about homosexuality and realised that his son was born homosexual, so it's not a big deal. More importantly, he gave a blessing to his son's union with his partner (whose parents weren't so understanding), and they all lived together. The parents saw that the two were perfect for each other and knew that their happy life was much better than suffering alone.
That story was told by Magnus Hirschfeld, and among other people, he consulted Adine T., a trans woman from Switzerland. Adine managed to get a permit to wear female clothes in Zurich, the first person in Switzerland to do so in 1914. Her wife was a seamstress and made dresses just for her. Yes, the wife, Marie, fully supported Adine, and so did their daughter. Alas, a few years later the authorities revoked the permit. Adine fought for her right to be herself with Marie by her side, who said, “Our conjugal love is based on faith in the almighty and omnipresent God, under whose wing, we know, we are well protected. [...] Beside Him, there is no authority to judge us.” Although Adine lost, she moved to another town with her family and continued to live as she pleased.
The residents of a Ukrainian shtetl of Krivozer were more accepting than many people in Zurich, apparently. According to a Jewish immigrant, in his shtetl, there was Berel-Beyle, who returned from Odessa one day, “and she wasn't called Beyle anymore: now she was Berel. [...] Before our eyes was a handsome, healthy, redheaded man. Anyone who didn't know Beyle previously would never have known that he had been a girl.” The shtetl accepted Berel, who attended synagogue daily and later married his old girlfriend.
During the Second World War, Jean Mormont joined the ATS and saw many lesbians there. “I never knew what a lesbian was, and I met some girls in there, and it used to puzzle me, I couldn't make it out, you know, till I was told like, you know, by the other girls, what it was all about. I thought to myself, well, you're learning all the time, and I thought to myself, good job me mother don't know. After the girls told me what it was all about, they used to lay on the bed there cuddling one another, and I thought to myself, that's funny, you know.” She concluded, “You know, after a while you just don't take any notice of it. It's their way of life, and that's it. They don't interfere with you, or they don't try it on me, I didn't mind.”
Gay activist JJ Belanger served in the war too, but back when he was in high school, he was lucky to have an understanding father. When JJ brought his lover Archie home, his father walked in on them when they “were doing our thing in front of the fireplace without a thing on”. All he said was, “Hi, fellas, see you in the morning at breakfast!” Later he provided JJ with several books on homosexuality and promised to help him figure out anything that was confusing to him.
And so on and so on. Simple longshoremen did not mind if their friend fisherman lived with a poet, parents in the East End attended their boys' drag performances, New Yorkers welcomed fairies in the Bowery saloons, and thus queer people could enjoy some peace, love, and respect, if only for a while.
