Quistory

Queer and Trans History! 🏳️‍🌈

[acidgirl]

never shouldve smoked that shit, now i’m on the july 17th 1995 cover of newsweek

[acidgirl]

[peduin]

Happy 30th birthday bisexuality

[fluentisonus]

Anything That Moves 1996 issue #10 cover

[makingqueerhistory]

Sharing the story of King Kristina, a contradiction always.

Read the full article about King Kristina here.

[crowned-prince-of-pavement]

Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a highly decorated Vietnam

War veteran (awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart) and a prominent LGBTQ+ activist, is buried in the Congressional Cemetery beneath a grave stone that reads, "A Gay Vietnam Veteran." He designed the headstone himself before his death from HIV/AIDS complications in 1988. The stone features pink triangles, which were used to mark gay people in Nazi concentration camps. Matlovich intentionally made the headstone an anonymous monument to all gay veterans.

[makingqueerhistory]

Making Queer History Podcast: Marsha P. Johnson

Our second episode of the rebooted Making Queer History podcast, covering the incredible Marsha P. Johnson.

Read the full article about Marsha P. Johnson here.

[makingqueerhistory]

Justin Chin — Making Queer History

Chin’s work also resists treating identity as stable or coherent; instead, it presents it as unevenly acquired and structurally constrained,

Born in 1969 in Malaysia and raised in Singapore, Justin Chin came of age before establishing himself in San Francisco in the 1990s as a poet, essayist, and performer. Over the course of his career — cut short in 2015 following a stroke linked to complications from AIDS — he developed a body of work that persistently examined how the languages surrounding sexuality, race, and identity are produced and circulated through culture. These vocabularies, rather than emerging organically, appear in his writing as learned systems that are absorbed, repeated, and often imposed in ways that obscure their underlying power. Chin’s work also resists treating identity as stable or coherent; instead, it presents it as unevenly acquired and structurally constrained, frequently at odds with lived experience. Across his poetry, essays, and hybrid prose — both published and performed — he refused both simplification and the pressures of respectability that often shape how minority subjects are expected to appear.

[makingqueerhistory]

Support Making Queer History

[homoidiotic]

Gary Bowen in Transgender Tapestry 1997 (read some of his books free here)

[wiigiwaamcore]

omg, did not know his books were on archive.org, I went through so much trouble finding paper copies via ILL and scanning them hahaha. heads up if you're going to read Diary of a Vampire, it IS vampire erotica (with some interesting gender shapeshifting involved) but uh, trigger warning for incest. Queer Destinies has some fun short stories in it, esp scifi/fantasy type of things. You can also read a personal essay he wrote about being a mixed-race Apache gay trans man online here.

[queerasfact]

Giovanni’s Room | Queer as Fact

In today's episode of Queer as Fiction we delve into James Baldwin's 1956 novel, Giovanni's Room. Join us as we discuss 1950s gender roles,

Written by Black, queer activist James Baldwin, the 1956 novel ‘Giovanni’s Room’ explores questions of masculinity and sexuality through the eyes of its main character, David, a queer American living in Paris. It is considered one of the most influential novels of the 20th century.

Want to hear more about it? Check out our podcast!

[idiot-haul]

Why is it referred to as coming out of the closet? 

[idiot-haul]

It could be coming out of anything. What wasted potential.

[idiot-haul]

Coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just guys

[kingohats]

#if you want the pedantic answer bc I’ve actually researched this for my thesis#there doesn’t seem to be a for sure agreed upon origin of the phrase BUUUUUT#it seems to be a combo of two earlier phrases ‘coming out’ and ‘skeletons in the closet’#coming out started to be used by gay men in 1920s new york bc a “coming out” was the 1st time a debutante would debut into the dating scene#so gay men would have their “coming out” when they first went onto the gay dating scene#a skeleton in your closet is a shameful/dirty secret that would often only be revealed once a person died#for a lot of queer people their queerness was something they literally took to the grave#so being ‘in the closet’ meant you were the skeleton in your closet#I couldn’t find an exact confirmation of when the phrases began to be combined but it seems to be around early 1970s gay liberation movemen#at the time a popular protest chant was ‘out of the closet and into the streets’#which I think also helped to popularize the term#I’m putting all this in the tags bc I realize this is a silly post that is meant as a joke and I didn’t wanna ruin the punchline#but I also wanted to provide an answer for those who were curious

[makingqueerhistory]

Berto Pasuka — Making Queer History

Arriving in Britain on the eve of the Second World War, Berto Pasuka stands as one of the most innovative and overlooked figures in twentiet

Arriving in Britain on the eve of the Second World War, Berto Pasuka stands as one of the most innovative and overlooked figures in twentieth-century performance. A queer artist from Jamaica, he entered a cultural landscape that left little room for Black dancers or Black creative leadership, yet he refused to be restricted by the narrow expectations and offerings of his time. Instead, he insisted that Black movement, Black stories, and Black aesthetics belonged on major stages, and pushed to create a dance language rooted in the rhythms, histories, and expressive traditions of the African diaspora. His vision not only challenged the limits of European ballet but also reshaped what dance in postwar Britain could be, ultimately laying the groundwork for a new chapter in Black performance.

[tamara-kama]

Davina Anne Gabriel; a trans activist. Carrying a sign saying Proud Transsexual Lesbian

[dramaticpokemonpictures]

Rest in peace Akihiro Miwa (1935-2026)

I haven't seen anyone talking about this and just wanted to make a quick post on here.

Akihiro Miwa recently passed away peacefully june 20th, and was not only a drag queen and a queer icon, but also the japanese voice of Arceus in the movie Arceus and the jewel of life, as well as the witch from Howl's moving castle and Moro from Princess Mononke.

Rest in peace and thank you for the wonderfull impact you made in this world.

[makingqueerhistory]

Instead of Leaving This Hate Comment You Could Read This Book!

People Without History Are Dust

Queerness remains one of the most stigmatized and overlooked aspects of Holocaust history, often erased due to the lingering homophobia of survivors. People Without History Are Dust challenges this silence, weaving together compelling stories of German, Dutch, Czech, and Polish Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors - including Anne Frank, Molly Applebaum, Margot Heuman, and Gad Beck - whose experiences help illuminate the hidden history of queerness in a time of genocide.

Drawing on extensive archival research, this groundbreaking book uncovers the lives of those who were doubly marginalized, not only persecuted as Jews but also as queer individuals. In doing so, it confronts the ways in which history has excluded or minimized their experiences, urging us to question normative accounts of the Holocaust.

By shedding light on these long-overlooked stories, People Without History Are Dust deepens our understanding of identity, survival, and memory, reminding us why an inclusive and complex approach to history is essential - not just for the sake of the past, but in service to the present and the future as well.

*Affiliate link above*

[trangoldin]

NYC Dyke March 2026

[gatheringbones]

that thing miss major said about fighting groups and how you need to spot the ringleader and attack his ego in a way that makes his underlings automatically start slashing at each other while jockeying for power and escape in the confusion they all create

[gatheringbones]

[“You learn to think on your feet. The amazing thing is how a sense of humor and sarcasm can take you right across the bridge [to safety] before they ever know what happened. You've got to read a group to see who is the real agitator. Mob mentality always has one person leading everyone else on, and they're rarely at the front. You need to make fun of that person. Then he'll need to [turn his attention to his friends and] defend himself to restore their respect.”]

[gatheringbones]

[“We’d sometimes carry two bricks in our purse. Two red bricks, and reinforce the purse straps so that it wouldn't snap off when you'd hit someone with it. If girls had cars, we'd get little kids' baseball bats (about a foot long), soak them in water for two weeks. This way when you use it, it won't break. Then dry it, cover it with electrical tape just the exact width of your hand. One side of tape down, one side up so that once you grabbed it, it was in your hand till you were through. We'd keep these under the front seat. Necessity is the mother of invention. We would go to bars, take cue balls and put them in two socks. Girl, it takes ass to whip ass—if you're gonna take a piece of mine, I'm gonna take a piece of yours. Some of the girls would match the socks to whatever they were wearing. Had to be flashy!“]

[boyscoundrel]

I had the honor of meeting Miss Major earlier this year and getting to thank her for her work 🥺 I wish I could’ve thought of more to say, but I was so awed by her presence.

Another person asked her how trans people can protect ourselves in these times.

Without skipping a beat, she told us we needed to remember to put our thumb on the outside, not the inside of our fist, when throwing a punch. That way, our thumbs won’t break. I was so grounded by the physicality in her response. No dancing around ideas and civility: our community needs to physically fight for our right to survive. We need to know how to defend ourselves.

She also said, “FUCK EM, we’re still here.”

[adorned-femme]

this broke containment on instagram but i’m glad people are so stoked about leather history & grateful for @tslurcollective for all the work that went into this

[makingqueerhistory]

"Asexual Resonances in History" - A Queer History Zine | Making Queer History

Get more from Making Queer History on Patreon

Titled "Asexual Resonances in History", this queer history zine contains quotes from historical figures who may have been asexual or on the asexual spectrum.

Inspired by Ela Przybylo and Danielle Cooper's paper Asexual Resonances: Tracing a Queerly Asexual Archive, the zine contains quotes that resonate with the modern understanding of asexual identities. Featuring real, historical people like King Kristina of Sweden, Emma Trosse, and Zinaida Gippius, this zine is an attempt to show how asexuality has always existed and will continue to do so.