LGBTQ+ blog for positivity, history, flags, art, etc. Feel free to send in requests for any type of content you would like to see! This is a simple side blog and my main is uncultureddoubloon
demisexuality can be so hard to explain because it’s misconstrued as you just wanting to trust the other person before you have sex with them. and I get why the misconception happens. But demisexuality differs in that there isn’t sexual attraction at all before that bond forms.
I think what people have difficulty with is the idea that there are people out there who aren’t experiencing sexual attraction at all until a certain point, if ever, because we’re taught that sex, libido, and sexual attraction are all the same, both in and out of queer spaces.
And when you’re learning about asexuality and demisexuality, you may learn that people have romantic and aesthetic attraction separately from sexual attraction, and that sexual and romantic attraction aren’t necessarily intertwined, and that may challenge your worldview on sex.
But “I trust you enough to have sex with you” isn’t the same as “I’m not sexually attracted to anyone but you, and the reason I’m sexually attracted to you now after we’ve established this close bond is literally because of the bond of trust we’ve been able to form”.
It’s easy to see how those can get conflated. On the surface, if you’re unfamiliar with asexuality, they may sound the same. But it’s important to acknowledge the difference between “no sex until I trust you” and “no sexual attraction unless I trust you and maybe not even then”.
Demisexuality is housed under the asexuality spectrum. It’s part of the gray area between being allosexual and asexual. It’s part of why the definition for asexuality includes “little to no sexual attraction”. It’s a mostly asexual experience with an asterisk.
While being demisexual may have impacts on a persons sexual activity, even demisexuals have a varied relationship to the act of participating in sex. Libido and sexual attraction are not always intertwined either, which can make telling the difference tricky.
I think of sexual attraction as libido that has a compass. Since I rarely ever experience sexual attraction, but do have libido, it’s noticeable for me when that libido actually has a direction to go, rather than being a floating, nebulous, independent thing.
Remember, not everyone is demisexual. There’s a difference between waiting to have sex and not having sexual attraction at all until a certain point. This also inherently ties demisexuality to romantic attraction and relationships, and not all demisexuals are alloromantic.
But if you read what demisexuality is and think “everyone is like that” or “that’s just being a woman”, you either 1) are demisexual 2) don’t understand what it is or 3) both. And it’s okay to not know. Just as long as you’re willing to try to learn.
I wish I was as eloquent as you OP many years ago when people were constantly clowning on demisexuality. I was always nervous about reblogging demisexual positive posts because of how angry people got at them. It was absolutely ridiculous
Me, baby aroace: Hmmm I don’t know if I feel comfortable saying I’m queer or part of the LGBTQ+ community. I don’t want to speak over others’ oppression…
Me, after reading ten pages’ worth of Tumblr ace discourse, now older and wiser: I love being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Being queer is awesome. What a great day to be queer. Queer queer queer queer queer I’m so queer.
When I say the transmisogyny affected/transmisogyny exempt thing is binaristic, I really do mean that literally: there are two options, so it's necessarily a binary. You could say that's a pointless observation, trivially obvious with no value beyond semantics, but there is a reason I bring it up.
Consider the following set of characters:
Cis woman with a beard
Drag queen
Butch transfem who doesn't shave her face
Genderfluid person whose gender presentation and conception of gender varies from day to day
NB who isn't really fem but isn't really masc either
Cis guy who always wears a skirt
Intersex NB
Transfem who goes by he/him
Someone who refuses to give pronouns entirely and exclusively identifies as a "faggot"
Which of these people are TMA, and which are TME? You could invent an arbitrary grouping that would sort them into one box or the other, but it would be just that-- arbitrary. Each of these characters will have such a different experience of gender and their gender will be percieved so differently that to try and sort them into a mere two categories is just plainly absurd. Even two people who are both in the same dot point here will have wildly divergent experiences with transmisogyny!! No matter how you arrange it, the terms TME and TMA will miss so many nuances of each person's experience that they fail to have any explanatory power at all. Zero utility in actually telling you anything about these people and their lives.
And this is why I use "binaristic" specifically as a criticism. The world is not binary! Nothing on this Earth is so simple as to have only two possible designations that can adequately describe them. Trying to cram human beings into neat categories always ends up flattening down people's lived experiences into easily digestible narratives instead of actually working to describe the world accurately. To quote that one post, "nice dichotomy idiot, what lies outside it?"
@lumsel on the (fairly realistic) chance that you didn't already know: Even binary isn't that binary - bits being 1 or 0 is an abstraction over a significantly more complex reality, and if you do EE work to actually design chips, you'll find that the VHDL spec for the std_logic type (think: boolean) has 9 different values for what higher levels just think of as "true/false" (And even that is still a simplification of the actual switching characteristics of the underlying physical circuit instantiated in reality.)
And it's not like simplifying assumptions are never useful or valid, but it drives me up the wall when people insist they're dealing with platonic base reality and you can see the layers and layers of assumptions they're ignorantly or willfully blind to.
"Does this matter at all?" Well mainly I wanted @lumsel to have this post to refer back to in case some chucklefuck pushed back on "nothing on this Earth is so simple as to have only two possible designations" with "haha what about binary."
IEEE 1164 std_logic values:
‘1’ Logic 1
‘0’ Logic 0
‘Z’ High impedance
‘W’ Weak signal, can’t tell if 0 or 1
‘L’ Weak 0, pulldown
‘H’ Weak 1, pullup
‘-‘ Don’t care
‘U’ Uninitialized
‘X’ Unknown, multiple drivers
Which approximately translate into
true
false
whatever you want (effectively: this pin is disconnected right now, so nobody will disagree with it)
If 0V is false and 5V is true, some bitch set this wire to 2.5V
defaults to false when not actively forced to true
defaults to true when not actively forced to false
Fuck off
Fuck off
Like Z but opposite - the pin isn't disconnected, and it's disagreeing with whatever it's connected to
I remember when it was a big shared sentiment in the queer community that "sex =/= gender =/= pronouns =/= physical appearance or expression" and. I feel like everyone even other trans people have forgotten about all that except the first part. and in many cases people forget the whole thing entirely
The first asexual person I met outside of the internet was a 65 year old woman.
I’d been interning with her as an artist/executive assistant for some time. To put a long story short she’d developed a tremor that kept her from doing a certain amount of studio work, so in between sending emails and invoices for her I’d chip in and help with line art or drafting on longer projects. A lot of it was the two of us sitting in her basement studio, doing our own thing, waiting for the phone to ring. We got to talking a lot. I’d just moved across the country and was still finding my footing.
There was a handyman she had over occasionally — he was a personal friend who enjoyed her company more than she enjoyed his. She didn’t dislike him by any means, but he definitely had feelings for her that she didn’t reciprocate. One day, after he’d come over to repair something-or-other and left, she and I started talking about relationships.
She asked if I had a boyfriend. I told her I wasn’t interested in being in a relationship with anyone and that I’d never had a desire to be in a relationship. Admittedly, I was bracing for the “You’ll meet the right person someday” response. I knew it generally came from a place of care, but it never changed how much I dreaded to hear it. I really respected my mentor and I was prepared to nod along to whatever response she gave me. Instead of anything I expected her to say, she just kind of nodded and said, “Me neither. I think I’m — what’s the term — asexual?”
I was ecstatic. I told her I was asexual, too. I saw her sigh in relief, the same way I did. I couldn’t believe it.
We didn’t get much work done that day, we just started talking about our experiences. She’d been married once when she was younger and even during that period of her life her disinterest in a sexual relationship didn’t change. She had a roommate after graduating college who confessed to having feelings for her and she had to tell her “It’s not that I don’t like girls, it’s that I don’t like anybody.” The roommate harbored enough bitterness over this that they had to split ways. Her mother told her that she would quote “rather have a gay daughter than a daughter who didn’t fancy anyone at all” unquote.
I didn’t have nearly as many experiences as she did, but I was able to share my own for the first time. I shared how it was easier to say I was taking time to work on myself than to say I had no interest in being in a relationship. We talked about the words “You’ll meet the right person someday” and “You’ll know when you’re in love” and “Don’t worry, one day you’ll meet some guy that changes everything.” As if something was broken.
“I’ve been alive for sixty five years,” my mentor told me, “and I’ve never felt like I was missing something, even if everybody told me I was.”
Currently, my mentor lives with her parrot, her cats, and her backyard-wildlife pals in a house that she owns. She makes art and hosts community art groups and volunteers at care homes and is the most self-fulfilled woman I’ve ever met. And she loves her life. She loves the people she knows and they love her, too. If I could be half as cool as she is when I grow up, I think that’d be pretty amazing.
“Asexuality” isn’t a problem to be fixed or a phase to grow out of. Sometimes you’re fifteen and sometimes you’re sixty-five. I knew in my heart that older asexual people existed but it changed me completely to meet one. We were here before and we always will be.
The 'villain' antagonist being like, "true love doesn't exist," expecting the 'good guy' protagonist to refute it (*cough* disney movies *cough*) only the protagonist is also aromantic and the two of them have a really deep discussion about not understanding (and being confused by) romance as a thing that unfortunately exists. Bonus points if they're in the middle of a fight.
"You think you can wake her up with a kiss?" the villain sneered. "She's a princess, and you're nothing more than a little blacksmith."
"True," the blacksmith said, swinging his sword to block the villain's, and striking in the gap it left. "But you didn't say she has to be woken up by royalty."
"Nothing can wake her now." The villain swung down again and the blacksmith dodged and blocked once more.
"The curse said she would wake up."
"At true love's kiss. You think that line of men waiting have any hope? True love doesn't exist."
"I know," the blacksmith said, dodging the blade again. "That's why I'm here. It's pretty fucked up people are planning on kissing her while she's asleep and can't say no, I want to know what the actual way to wake her up is before she has to deal with that happening."
"I beg your pardon?" the villain asked, lowering the sword.
"They're calling princes and nobles to try and kiss her while she's sleeping and if one wakes her up the king has promised she'll be married to them, but none of these people are going to wake her by true love's kiss. She was raised by a seamstress to hide her from you, she doesn't even know them, there's not going to be some magically chosen soulmate in there. You have another way to wake her up, I'm here to find out what it is."
"They would never let a blacksmith try for her hand."
"I'm not in love with her."
"Then why come all the way out here to duel me?"
"Because she's my friend and I miss her and don't want her to have to go through with this? I'm not in love with her, I'm aromantic."
"What?"
"Aromantic? I'm not romantically attracted to people. I don't fall in love."
"Everyone falls in love."
"No. Society might say everyone has their one true love who they'll meet and break any curse or whatever, but in practise that's not actually how it works."
"What did you call this thing?"
"Aromanticism. It gets shortened to aro, and because there are scales and different people feel different we also talk about being arospec."
"Aro," the villain mused. "This is not uncommon."
"No. I don't know exact numbers but we have a group in town, there's a few of us. We're always willing to talk with people who want to stop by and learn more."
"I see," the villain said. "You don't believe in love."
"Me personally? I believe in it as a thing other people feel is important but it isn't for me, I'm never going to fall in love and I don't want to either."
The villain's sword was by their side now, almost forgotten.
"Why did you curse her?"
"I was angry," the villain said. "My younger brother stole my throne and turned everyone against me."
"It had nothing to do with her?"
"No."
"Everyone hurt you so you wanted to hurt them back," the blacksmith said. The villain nodded. "I think I understand why you would feel like that, but it also isn't her fault, and it isn't fair to punish her to hurt someone else. How do I break the curse?"
"It's an enchantment. I can make a potion, but I will need to gather the ingredients."
"I can help and tell you more about aromanticism."
How to Make Your Own Binder that Fits Well and Looks Good
A while back I was in need of some new binders and thought hey, I bet I can make one way cheaper than buying it from somewhere (especially cus some of the ones I’ve bought in the past didn’t really fit right). Except when I started looking for a binder patterns online, I was very surprised that I really… couldn’t find many that looked very nice lol. Most of them had really wrinkled necklines, or didn't bind well, or just overall looked weird. A lot of the patterns also required a serger, which I don't have.
So I just said fuck it and made my own pattern! And it ended up being relatively easy! And the binders fit REALLY WELL and are comfortable to wear, even for long periods. The neckline doesn't show under shirts with loose collars, and the bottom hem doesn't gap or stick out. Here's me wearing one:
(plus I was able to make myself 5 of them for a total of like ~$50.)
So I figured I could throw together a guide to help out anyone else who wanted to make their own binder but was dissatisfied with the patterns available!
Disclaimer: This tutorial is going to assume a baseline level of sewing experience, and also will require access to a sewing machine. It is not a complicated pattern, but it will most likely require some tweaking and adjustments after you make the first one. Don’t be afraid to make alterations to make it fit better!
This tutorial is for a gc2b-style half-tank binder. It could be altered to be a full-tank binder, but all instructions will be for the half-tank design.
Materials needed:
Stretchy fabric, probably listed as 'athletic fabric' (I use this kind from Joann’s. Most athletic stretch fabrics should work, look for around 80% nylon/20% spandex blends)
Stiff fabric (I use this shirting cotton because I like how lightweight it is. If you want something a little stiffer with more structure, you can use a cotton or cotton/poly blend twill like this. gc2b binders use twill for theirs.)
Lightweight fusible interfacing (I use this kind) (get FUSIBLE not sew-in)
Fusible webbing like Pellon Wonder-Web (this is technically optional but it WILL make your life easier when you’re sewing - just make sure to get the kind with the paper backing!!!)
“But kiwisoap thats 4 whole kinds of materials, surely I don’t need that many!” Ok sure, you can probably get by without the fusible web and interfacing, but consider: they are both dirt cheap (im talking like $1-2/yard), they will make it much easier to sew the final product, and will give you an overall better-looking result. This tutorial is written with the assumption that you’ll use them.
"How much fabric will I need?" Measure the circumference of your chest below your armpits. Add 6 inches just to be safe. This is the yardage of stretch fabric you’ll need, and should give you enough material to make at least 3 binders without much excess left over. You will need around half as much stiff fabric.
Other supplies:
Big Paper (for drawing the pattern)
Flexible measuring tape
Sewing machine
Iron
Pins
Step 1: Measuring
You will need 4 main measurements for this pattern.
A) Measure the circumference of your chest just below your armpits, then divide the number in half. This will be the widest part of the pattern.
B) Measure from the top of your shoulder down to where you want the binder to end. For most folks, this will usually be around the natural waist (narrowest part of the torso), about 3-6 inches above the belly button. This will be the overall height of the pattern.
C) Measure the distance from below your armpit to where you want the binder to end. This will determine where the arm hole starts.
D) Measure the circumference of your waist where you want the binder to end, then divide the number in half.
So for example, after dividing A and D in half, my measurements are 17", 15", 7", and 14.5".
Next:
Subtract one inch from measurement A - This will help provide some compression. You might need to take it in even further depending on how it fits, but one inch is a safe starting point. I take mine in around 1.5 inches.
Subtract half an inch from measurement D. This will help prevent the bottom edge of the binder from gapping. Again, you may need to take it in more or less, depending on your own body.
Add 1.5 inches to measurement B and one inch to measurement C. This is to account for the hems and armhole placement.
This makes my final measurements
A = 16"
B = 16.5"
C = 8"
D = 13.5"
From here on out, we are only going to be working with the measurements that we have added/subtracted to, NOT the ones we initially took.
Step 2: Drawing the Pattern
You will need a piece of paper large enough to accommodate the entire pattern. This may involve taping multiple pieces together, or using a piece of newsprint, etc.
I recommend folding the paper in half to ensure that you get a symmetrical pattern. However, this means you will need to divide measurements A and D in half again, or else you’ll end up with a pattern that’s twice as wide as it should be!
Also note: the pattern is drawn with the seam allowance built in! You don’t need to add any seam allowance.
To draw the pattern:
Begin with your folded paper. Measure and mark B and C on the paper, and draw a line extending across the paper. These will be your guidelines.
Measure and mark A and D along the middle and bottom guidelines, respectively. Remember, the paper is folded, so you only use half of the measurement for A and D.
Draw a loose curve connecting the endpoints of A and D. If needed, you can also just draw a straight line between the two.
Mark the opening for the neck hole. Depending on your size, it will measure around 6-8 inches across at the top (remember to divide this in half for the folded paper) and about 5-6.5 inches deep. (mine is 6.5" across and 5.5" deep) Draw a curve to connect the two points. This part will take some tweaking and adjusting to get it to look right lol.
Measure the width of the strap - this should be somewhere between 2.5 - 4 inches wide. They will end up about 1/2” to 3/4” narrower once you sew them. Draw the line at a slight angle, as shown.
Connect the endpoint of the strap to the endpoint of line A with a curve like in the diagram.
This will be the pattern for the front piece.
To make the back piece, trace the front pattern, but make a very shallow curve for the neckline instead of a steep one, as shown:
The last piece is the stiff front panel. This is what provides the flattening effect of the binder. To make the pattern, trace the front pattern again. Trim 3/8” in on the sleeves and neckline, and 3/4” to 1” along the bottom. This gives a flatter hem. Then trim the straps shorter by a few inches. This helps the binder lay flatter along the shoulders.
When you're done, you should have 3 pattern pieces that look approximately like this (stiff panel shown overlaid on the stretch fabric to show how it fits together).
NOTE: If you want more compression or just want to make it a bit sturdier, you can add a second panel of stretch fabric to the back piece. Just use the bottom half of the back pattern (from the widest part down to the bottom hem) to cut out another piece of stretch fabric. Attach it to the back piece with a strip of fusible webbing and a zig-zag stitch along the top.
Step 3: Putting It All Together
Once you’ve made the patterns and cut out the pieces of fabric, you should have something that looks like this:
The next step is adding interfacing and fusible webbing. Use your pattern to cut out 3/8" strips to fit on the top of the straps for both pieces, and to the neckline, sleeves, and bottom hem of the back piece, as shown:
If you want to add it to the bottom hem of the front piece, it will help keep that hem flat when sewing it down later, but it's not essential.
If you choose to also use fusible webbing (WHICH I RECOMMEND), you will apply it to the stiff front panel similarly to how the interfacing was applied, ~3/8” strips along the neckline, sleeves, and top of the straps. Cut out two strips for the neckline and sleeves, because we'll use those later too.
Iron the strips onto the front panel as shown:
Once it's on, just peel off the paper, position it webbing-side down on the stretch fabric, and iron it to fuse the two pieces together so everything stays in place while you sew. THIS MAKES IT WAY EASIER TO SEW.
After the stiff front panel is fused to the stretch fabric, you’ll sew the straps of the front and back pieces together, then join the pieces along the sides. Pin the hell out of it to keep everything in place -this type of material is VERY prone to puckering.
When sewing, USE A ZIGZAG STITCH. A straight stitch will NOT WORK for stretch fabric. I adjust mine to 1.3mm long and 3.5mm wide which has worked well. If your machine doesn’t let you adjust stitch length or width, well. That sucks, I don’t really have any advice.
After you sew the front and back pieces together, you can add more fusible webbing to the front panel to help hold the hem down flat and prevent it from puckering while you sew it. Just add the strip, peel the paper off, then fold the hem over and iron it down. This part isn’t really necessary, but it does make the hems look nicer. If nothing else, I would recommend adding it to the neckline.
After that, you just fold & pin all the hems and sew them up with a zigzag stitch, then go over the raw edge at the top of the stiff panel (where we cut the straps shorter).
And that’s it! You’re done! And now you can make your own binders whenever you want!
And hey! If you used this tutorial and wanna throw me a dollar or two on ko-fi, I wouldn't complain.
a long time ago i was struggling with being transmasc because i felt like i was betraying womanhood somehow. then one of my best friends came out as a trans woman and i realised "ah... there will always be so many beautiful women in the world, so it's okay that i'm not one of them". what i'm trying to say is you need to love each other or there's no point to any of this
in a reversal of this. when i came out as transfem i was almost dissapointed because i spent so long trying to be a truly good man. i was raised with a lot of shitty guys so i tried to be the most pro-feminist comfortable dude i could be for the women around me. when my egg cracked, i almost felt this feeling of "shit, are the only men who think like this secretly women inside?" and it feels nice to see that proven so utterly and completely wrong by the trans men i know in my life. i love seeing people take on the masculinity i hated and do amazing shit with it, god bless trans dudes
The thing for me is that I'm so disconnected from my sexuality that it almost doesn't occur to me that *any* of it applies to me. Someone finds me sexually attractive? How? Why? I'm just here. What's my sexuality? You talking to me? I don't have one. Can't you tell? Do I date? Do I look like I date? Is that the impression you get from me?
If I'm not actively having a moment of trying to work out what the hell is going on with me, I am not thinking about it. It's like I have object impermanence about my sexuality. I will put it down after looking at it for a while and forget about it. And what's more? I will be suspicious that you're asking me about it. How do you know about that? I think I left it in my kitchen. What have you been doing in my house?
Can artists STOP dressing up like religious figures just to be provocative? They are disrespecting all christians and yes, I am referring to Chappell Roan singing dressed up as a nun or Joan of Arc.
Stop it. Nuns and Joan d'Arc aren't your LGBT+ icons. They are religious women the first and a beloved saint the second.
Joan of Arc was literally killed for her cross-gender presentation. She was accused of blaspheming by wearing men's clothes and was offered the chance to live if she renounced wearing men's clothing. But she said "for nothing in the world will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man's dress." Only under torture did she desist, but returned to men's clothes again.
Joan of Arc chose to die rather than return to a gender performance that wasn't right for her. Yes she IS our LGBT+ icon and she is the martyr of every queer person put down, hurt, and killed by the church. The church's co-opting of the French peasant and folk heroine cannot stand above her reality. The story of Joan of Arc belongs to the people even more than it belongs to the church that killed her and then posthumously presents her in the garments she refused, even to the point of death.
As for nuns, there have been many lesbian nuns. Sor Juana Inez immediately comes to mind. More importantly, you don't control how the people your institutions have grievously harmed respond to that harm.
Signed, a practicing, faithful, queer Christian and current seminarian.
She was wearing men's clothes for comfort in battle, not because she was genderfluid or trans.
Also, claiming that the Catholic Church and not the English killed her is so wrong, even historically speaking, she was not killed because she was considered an eretic, she was killed because the English wanted to execute her at all cost!
The men's clothes was not the motivation, they had to find a ridicolous one because she was very devoted and they couldn't condemn her at first. She accept to wear female clothes to continue attend Mass, she asked to have back men's clothes because she was molested by the guards, not because she actually wanted to wear men clothes or feel different than her actual gender. Then, she was accused and condemned.
Thank you, I am familiar with this argument, and I was hoping you would try this with me. Let's talk history.
1. It's an entirely modern convention to consider being trans an identity. From a theory standpoint, trans identity is created when someone transgresses gender norms. The words that Joan used for herself don't change the fact that she and I share the fundamental experience of transgressing gender boundaries. I have every right as a trans person to celebrate the people who lived the way I do, even with different language.
No one who hates trans people hates us for our identity; they hate us for our behavior. Likewise, Joan was not executed for any unknowable "identity" but for her cross-gender behavior.
2. Joan's motivations for wearing men's clothing are unknown. She never spoke of her motivation herself (Hotchkiss). Although witnesses arrested that she endured guards attempting to assault her, there is no unified witness on why she returned to men's clothing or even if she did that herself or if guards forced her to. (Guards forcing her to wear men's clothing does not negate my point, I'll get there in a second.) The assertion that she wore men's clothes to protect against sexual assault is nonsensical, as scholars have pointed out that men's clothes don't afford a lot of protection when you're shackled in a jail cell (Hotchkiss, Schibanoff). Personally, I don't know what people who perpetuate this myth think men were wearing at the time that was assault-proof. She was in a tunic, doublet and breeches. Furthermore, if men's clothing made women so impervious to rape, why didn't ALL women crossdress in the middle ages? Analyses of Joan's crossdressing that treat it as a minor detail rather than central to who she was fail to deal with the fact that very few women crossdressed!
Joan initially wore men's clothing to fight in battle. Why she wears men's clothing outside of battle she never comments on, except that it was her call. She only desisted under torture. Accepting women's clothes in order to go to mass after being tortured doesn't indicate that wearing men's clothes was not personally important to her but the exact opposite. After she returned to wearing men's clothes, which triggered her execution, she told the judge that she never intended to swear off men's clothing! (Warner). Joan herself never stated that it was to avoid assault; this is extrapolated from witnesses who described guards assaulting her.
Only recent scholarship has dealt meaningfully with Joan's cross-gender behavior. The Catholic church, on the other hand, has a vested interest in myths like "she wore men's clothes to avoid rape." The Church must dismiss Joan's crossdressing as inconsequential in order to both canonize her and denigrate trans people simultaneously. But it is not a serious historical argument.
3. Historically, Joan was killed by the church, not by "the English king." Joan suffered a military defeat and was captured by Burgundians allied with the English. Charles VII of France did not attempt to ransom her, which is a significant betrayal, because the ransom of knights was so rote and standardized that there were set prices for it. The Burgundians sold her to Henry V, the English king, who did not kill her, but handed her over to Bishop Cauchon in France. She was then charged with heresy and tried in an ecclesiastical court in France, under the supervision of Cauchon, for heresy. 131 clergy members presided over her trial and execution. Five articles of accusation against her in the trial were related to cross-dressing.
You're right that there was a political angle to Joan's death-- Charles VII had no more use for a peasant after he was crowned king, so he didn't ransom her, and everyone involved in her execution, although French, was pro-English. However, it was very much the church that killed her.
Why do it through the church? If Henry V wanted to kill her "at all cost" why didn't he simply execute her as a prisoner of war, as he did to the prisoners of war at the Battle of Agincourt just 15 years earlier? (Hollinshed)
4. Because Joan's execution was explicitly punishment for transgressing gender boundaries. It was both misogynistic and queerphobic violence carried out by church authority. This would never have been carried out against a male knight. The trial was rife with hatred of Joan's cross-gender behavior. Even her execution was an act of humiliation specifically for crossdressing. After her men's clothes were burned away and she was presumed dead, they extinguished the flames to display her naked body and posthumously humiliate her for her cross-dressing (Warner).
You cannot separate Joan's cross-gender behavior from her betrayal and execution. Doing so is historically and intellectually dishonest. Given that Joan only desisted under torture, said she never intended to recant wearing men's clothes, and chose to die rather than stop, the only reasonable assumption is that wearing men's clothes was important to Joan. Not as a defense, since it is a completely inadequate defense, but for some reason particular to her internal experience. The only reason she herself gave was that it was God's call.
Joan spent nearly 500 years as a folk hero before she was canonized in 1920 and, I would argue, co-opted by the Catholic church. You do not own her image or her history. You cannot erase that she was executed for cross-gender (what we would now call transgender behavior). You cannot claim her for the church at the exclusion of generations of queer people that she inspired. You cannot ask us not to see ourselves in her. You do not own her and you do not own queer responses to repressive institutions.
Hotchkiss, Valerie R. (2000). Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe
Schibanoff, Susan (1996). "True Lies: Transvestism and Idolatry in the Trial of Joan of Arc"
Warner, Marina. (1981). The Trial of Joan of Arc.
Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland.
So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history.
Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service.
Chapter 1: Prologue: Why LGBTQ Historic Sites Matter by Mark Meinke
Chapter 2: Introduction to the LGBTQ Heritage Initiative Theme Study by Megan E. Springate
Chapter 3: Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History in the United States by Leisa Meyer and Helis Sikk
Chapter 4: The History of Queer History: One Hundred Years of the Search for Shared Heritage by Gerard Koskovich
Chapter 5: The Preservation of LGBTQ Heritage by Gail Dubrow
Chapter 6: LGBTQ Archeological Context by Megan E. Springate
Chapter 7: A Note about Intersectionality by Megan E. Springate
Chapter 8: Making Bisexuals Visible by Loraine Hutchins
Chapter 9: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands by Will Roscoe
Chapter 10: Transgender History in the US and the Places that Matter by Susan Stryker
Chapter 11: Breathing Fire: Remembering Asian Pacific American Activism in Queer History by Amy Sueyoshi
Chapter 12: Latina/o Gender and Sexuality by Deena J. González and Ellie D. Hernandez
Chapter 13: “Where We Could Be Ourselves”: African American LGBTQ Historic Places and Why They Matter by Jeffrey A. Harris
Chapter 14: LGBTQ Spaces and Places by Jen Jack Gieseking
Chapter 15: Making Community: The Places and Spaces of LGBTQ Collective Identity Formation by Christina B. Hanhardt
Chapter 16: LGBTQ Business and Commerce by David K. Johnson
Chapter 17: Sex, Love, and Relationships by Tracy Baim
Chapter 18: LGBTQ Civil Rights in America by Megan E. Springate
Chapter 19: Historical Landmarks and Landscapes of LGBTQ Law by Marc Stein
Chapter 20: LGBTQ Military Service by Steve Estes
Chapter 21: Struggles in Body and Spirit: Religion and LGBTQ People in US History by Drew Bourn
Chapter 22: LGBTQ and Health by Katie Batza
Chapter 23: LGBTQ Art and Artists by Tara Burk
Chapter 24: LGBTQ Sport and Leisure by Katherine Schweighofer
Chapter 25: San Francisco: Placing LGBTQ Histories in the City by the Bay by Donna J. Graves and Shayne E. Watson
Chapter 26: Preservation of LGBTQ Historic & Cultural Sites – A New York City Perspective by Jay Shockley
Chapter 27: Locating Miami’s Queer History by Julio Capó, Jr.
Chapter 28: Queerest Little City in the World: LGBTQ Reno by John Jeffrey Auer IV
Chapter 29: Chicago: Queer Histories at the Crossroads of America by Jessica Herczeg-Konecny
Chapter 30: Nominating LGBTQ Places to the National Register of Historic Places and as National Historic Landmarks: An Introduction by Megan E. Springate and Caridad de la Vega
Chapter 31: Interpreting LGBTQ Historic Sites by Susan Ferentinos
Chapter 32: Teaching LGBTQ History and Heritage by Leila J. Rupp
Let me explain what is happening here, because I don’t think that this post is very representative of why this matters.
The purpose of the theme studies, this one included, is to locate the physical remnants of the past, so that they can be properly preserved by governmental and nonprofit entities. They are not just descriptions of history, they are documents that can be used for grant work, for preventing places from being destroyed, or for promoting the restoration of those places. This theme study is a statement from the federal government that the preservation of these places is important, and that can be translated by the states into these places being legally required to be protected.
The theme studies are also really important because they recontextualized what it means to locate history in a place. This started before the LGBT theme study, there’s a lot of this in the Latino theme study, but they present a reconsideration of what you can call historic when the actions of a group left no physical traces on the spaces that they used. We are now seeing the possibility of considering places like cruising areas as historic properties because they represent the patterns of a culture.
This is the Park Service’s job. This is what you should be expecting from them. There are theme studies and special resource studies on dozens of things. A really important Civil Rights one dropped like last week. The Park Service is charged with running our national parks, sure, but the bulk of their work is like this. This is the type of shit that you can and should expect out of your National Park Service. Nobody else is gonna do it.
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