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Welcome everybody to today's. panel- this is The Lie Became the Truth

Locating Trans Narratives in Queer History.

Everyone's been on lately. about revisionist history

and the inclusion of. narratives that don't privilege

straight white land-owning males in the historical narrative

Queer history, women's. history, African-American history,

Latinx history, and a whole. host of others have taken

advantage of this and made their contributions

to the field of history, making it richer.

However, within each of these subfields there's often controversy about narratives

that continue to be left out.

Within queer history,. many critics have noted

that there's a privileging. of the narratives of

gay men and women-

in other words, gay men. and lesbians. The papers in

the panel today are going. to explore how queer history

tends to ignore or outright erase the experiences of

trans individuals.

I'm Christopher Rose, with St. Edward's University in Austin,

Texas. and Our Lady of the Lake. University in San Antonio, Texas.

I'll be moderating today's panel, which features Matthew Schilling,

who is currently working as. a middle school educator and

previously completed degrees. at the University of Oregon and

Augustana University in economics and history

and Caitlin Hartweave, who is a doctoral candidate at George Mason University.

We're going to begin with. Matthew, whose paper "The Question

of Queerness and Soft Erasure". will be our first presentation.

Matthew has published "Political Failure and

Ideological Victory: Ida Wells and her Early Work"

with the New Errands Journal of American Studies

and other works at the. Augustana symposium.

His current research interest focus on early queer communities and the development

of shared queer identities and queer advocacy groups

as well as the intersection

between race-based civil rights movements and queer rights movements.

Before we begin this session,. however, we would like to acknowledge

that The AskHistorians digital. conference is taking place

on the ancestral unceded untreated territories of many indigenous peoples

who have stewarded this land since time immemorial.

We offer our gratitude to these peoples. and recognize that colonial nations

continue to benefit from. the brutality that enabled

the original settler-colonizers. to seize these lands.

The AHDC organizers acknowledge both the land upon which we are virtually

hosting this conference and a deep-rooted and long-lasting harms caused by white

imperialism and settler colonialism.

We invite you to read our full land acknowledgement

and the names of the peoples upon whose land is conference is taking place

in the video description below.

Alright Matthew, you're up! Take it away.

On October 24th 2014, Vine user @mattsukar uploaded a video that launched

a thousand memes:

a woman talking on the phone saying "and they were roommates"

followed by Matt looking into the camera and saying

"Oh my god, they were roommates."

The original Vine, now. inaccessible with Vine's

closing, was re-uploaded on. numerous other sites, namely Tumblr,

where it became used as a shorthand. meme for queer erasure both in

casual settings and, more perniciously,. among historical discussions.

Familiar with older narratives that

cast queer relationships as

mere friends or cousins, and cast

trans identities as merely

crossdressers, many online queer spaces

view academic history with a justified. suspicion.

And as of late there has been greater focus on trans identities

particularly within political contexts, and a greater ire from these communities

at the opposition to the mere use of words

like queer, trans, or lesbian in historical context.

At a time when such identities face political opposition to their existence,

fights over their use in historical discussions take on a new importance.

This presentation will. look at both trans and

lesbian histories and. their erasure in history

through a framework of hard erasure and soft erasure.

Hard erasure is the. active rejection of the

validity of a self-identified. category in general.

It's where they don't just deny that a

specific person was trans but that anyone could be trans.

By contrast, soft erasure doesn't necessarily argue against

someone's identity as. a whole but rather that

a specific individual. shouldn't be called trans

and does so using tools. that aren't necessarily

wrong but rather are. selectively applied

and create a different set of. standards for discussing queer histories

than for non-queer ones.

So this framework was discussed in part

by previous works such. as “Heterosexuality as

a Threat to Medieval. Studies” by James Schultz

and “Lesbian-Like and the Social History of Lesbianisms” by Judith Bennett.

These works presented the argument that. queerness and queer identity

including other sexualities and identities. that fit in a more heteronormative mold.

Schultz notes that it's common. for academics to use terms such as

same-sex attraction or same-sex. relations when discussing sexuality,

often with the note that homosexuality as a concept did not appear until

1868 in Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis

but these works contrast same-sex. attraction with heterosexuality

which also did not appear. until Psychopathia Sexualis in 1868.

Bennett in her article makes a similar objection for the term lesbian, noting that

even setting aside, historically, lesbian being a term

for women attracted to

women or who have sex with other women well throughout antiquity,

these concerns are selective and are applied to other

modern terms of identity such as capitalist

or Catholic or Democratic.

Bennett also observes. that the concern over

retroactively applying a. modern definition of lesbian

presumes a modern definition of lesbian,

arguing that when you actually. are in these queer spaces you see

that there's a great debate over. what the term lesbian actually

means and can encompass.

And thus these papers kind of. misleadingly narrow the discussion.

This in turn privileges the. heterosexual narrative, which is

free to be expanded into the. past where the queer cannot go.

An example of this can. be seen in Bev Roberts'

edited volume of. Anne Drysdale's diaries.

Drysdale recorded her experience living with

Caroline Newcomb for 13 years

and was later named Newcomb's heir

over Newcomb's surviving. family, and was buried

alongside Newcomb when. she died several years later.

These two were featured in an exhibit at Museum Victoria

focusing on queer history in. Australia, and the museum noted that

Drysdale and Newcomb. were described by friends

as close partners. and kindred spirits and

Her eulogy describe. them as

linked by the closest affections.

But Bev Roberts objected to this,

saying that the whole of the Museum Victoria's project was

fraught with conceptual and. methodological [unclear] problems and

calling all speculation about the sexuality of the two

futile as well as pointless.

But Roberts inadvertently revealed

a kind of incoherence in her position by noting that

she wrote to the museum with these objections

and the museum's. response was that

Roberts had not presented any. evidence that the two weren't queer, and thus

the removal of them would not be justified.

Roberts presents this is a kind of absurdity,

but this assumes that queerness would. require more proof than a mere friendship.

And here, rather than producing strong

scholarship or engaging in a strong debate,

this approach merely codifies heteronormativity

as the professional standard.

This erasure can also be seen in related fields.

As historians grapple more with the limitations of the written record alone

there has been greater reliance on archaeological evidence

to reconstruct parts of history. that would otherwise go unobserved.

But this approach still has its limitations and can still

contribute to erasure, as. seen with the lovers of Modena.

Originally discovered in. 2009, the lovers of Modena

were the remains of two. individuals buried sometime

during the Roman period in Modena.

Upon the first discovery the lovers were discussed

as evidence for burial practices in the region

for couples or lovers,. and academics in Italy

kind of used the two as

shorthand for discussing. romantic relationships.

But later work in 2019 found the lovers were,

contrary to their original belief,

actually two men.

And the paper that the research team that discovered this

immediately changed the interpretation from the two being lovers to being

cousins or perhaps comrades at war.

While there exist reasons to be skeptical that

the two were lovers

or that these remains should be interpreted that way,

these objections were only raised

after the discovery that both were men

and thus contribute to. the erasure.

If the concerns existed about

calling the two lovers without further evidence,

the only evidence being that they were buried together with hands linked,

those objections were just as valid prior to discovering that they were both men.

It's easy and more common to. see this within discussions of trans identities.

Murray Hall was a Tammany Hall politician

who garnered some attention on his death

in the early nineteen hundreds

as the coroner report determined that

Hall was biologically female.

But Hall's friends and family insisted

he was a man, with one testifying to the coroner, if he was a woman

he ought to have been born a man

for he lived and looked like one.

Nonetheless numerous scholars identified Hall instead as a lesbian woman

starting with Jonathan Ned Katz in his 1967. Gay American History,

arguing that Hall took on the identity of a man to escape the stigma of lesbianism

a claim that was later repeated. in Jeffrey Escoffier's 2004 article

"New York City." Such reports

failed to explain why Hall's family would identify him as male after his death

or why Hall himself. would have

presented as male even to his family.

But similar claims were made about others

such as jazz musician Billy Tipton

who lived from no later than 1940 until- his death is 1989-

presenting as a male. Tipton's case is perhaps more intriguing

because Tipton didn't just live as a man.

The idea that he would live so for the purposes of escaping lesbian stigma ignore that

he told his partners that he was disfigured in a car accident and

couldn't have sex.

He also forwent seeking medical treatment

to maintain his male. identity and ended up

dying of untreated. illnesses for that reason.

Explanations of Tipton as a lesbian don't really explain

why he would have chosen to deliberately lie to his partners and medical professionals

particularly when by the end of

his the stigma of lesbianism wouldn't have been that damaging.

And some alternative theories were

provided as well that. were also part of erasure.

Lillian Faderman in 1991 suggested instead that

Tipton feigned male identity to accomplish success as a jazz musician

but didn't explain why. he would have maintained

that identity after. retiring from jazz music.

Well this began as an academic endeavor,

the rising awareness of. trans identities brought with it

extreme political backlash,. especially in the United Kingdom and

erasure using the same tropes here against

trans people as a whole.

Prominent figures within anti-trans movements frequently

spoke about the. supposed erasure

of other queer identities by trans identities

such as Julie Bindel's complaints

in The Spectator in June of 2021

bemoaning a supposed suppression of. lesbian pride by the existence of trans rights

or Pride co-founder Fred Sargent who claimed in July of 2020 that

trans people have no early history

so they have to take LGB figures and

"trans them"

to create a history

citing Marsha Johnson as an example.

The unmistakable political. motives also join with

those opposing trans. identities for a vague claim of

feminism without specific. reference to other queer identities

such as author Helen Joyce.

Helen Joyce in her writings claims that trans identities represent some kind of

new patriarchy harming women

but also came with a racist narrative.

In a Quillette article published in December of 2018

Joyce insisted that a, quote, "true cross-sex identity"

did not appear until the 1930s. among male crossdressers in Germany.

This unfortunately mirrors previous academic. works that recharacterized trans figures

as merely cross-dressers, such as. Hall and Tipton.

Chase's particular stance against trans identities might be

extreme in comparison

but it is not a mistake. on her part that her

arguments against a. general trans identity

so closely match arguments against

identifying specific individuals in history as trans.

And just as erasure in the political sphere has real harms, there are real harms to the

innocent until proven queer. approach in historical fields.

For queer historians. seeing arguments deployed

presently against. their queer identities

be used in discounting historical examples

can send a message of. being unwelcome or not

fully a part of the. identity of the historian.

But there are further harms to. the field that, rather than engaging

in a robust discussion of these. identities and how they have evolved,

insistence on avoiding anachronism

has made these discussions stilted or just nonexistent.

While it's true that sexuality and gender identities

have changed over time, there are

inherent issues in identifying a

historical figure as being the same as

a modern trans identity,

the unique focus on. preventing the anachronistic

interpretation of trans,. lesbian, or other queer identities

stack the deck against queerness

and end up producing histories that are

just absent of what we know to have been there.

This ends up producing

rather than avoiding forcing a. modern interpretation on the past by

putting back queer identities, it forces a modern heteronormativity

upon the past where it was not present either.

These-

This erasure has both

consequences within the political-

the political sphere

and the historical sphere

and it's something that historians should be

more aware of and concerned about

when arguing against a specific interpretation of queer history.

Thanks Matt- I have so. many questions but we

have another paper to. get through, so let's turn

to Caitlin Hartweave. Caitlin is a doctoral candidate at George Mason University.

She specializes in the 18th. century Atlantic world and digital

history with a focus on gender. and gender non-conformity.

Her research examines the. recurring language in narrative

themes gender-nonconforming. individuals in the 18th century

British and French Empires used to

define themselves and their genders.

Through her research she. hopes to recover the stories of

oft-ignored gender-nonconforming. individuals as well as contribute

to the LGBTQ+ community's history beyond Stonewall.

Her paper is

"Warrior Women: The. Chevalier d’Eon and Trans

Narratives in the 18th. Century Atlantic World"

Caitlin, take it away.

In September 1777

patrons of the London Magazine

opened their papers to astonishing news from nearby France.

The headline article reported on the extraordinary life of the Chevalier d’Eon.

A French noble, former dragoon captain, and spy,

d'Eon appearing in the news was nothing new.

For service to France during the Seven Years War

d'Eon had been knighted and received the title of Chevalier,

French for "knight."

After the war d'Eon was sent to. London as a minister and frequently

appeared in dramatic public. squabbles with the French ambassador.

For all of these accomplishments. and affairs, the Chevalier

d'Eon was well known in. France, Britain and America,

but these were not the subject of

the London Magazine's interest.

In 1777

after living for 15 years as a man

d'Eon shocked the world by appearing at

the French royal court in full women's clothing.

She declared that she was and always had been a woman

and the British and French courts accepted her story.

She rewrote her life story

creating a narrative of a girl raised as a boy

by parents desperate to secure an inheritance

and elevated to great political success

until the ruse, as she put it, could go on no longer.

What the London Magazine was reporting on that September was an

astonishingly high-profile case of gender nonconformity

that fascinated the Atlantic world.

Stories of gender-nonconforming individuals fascinated 18th century society.

Scandalous stories of fops,. fribbles, and female husbands

spread across France, Britain,. and the American colonies.

These tales told of women passing as men to go to war or even to marry other women.

Others spoke of men. dressing as women to sneak

into the chambers of. their married mistresses

or spread rumors of a colonial governor who dressed like the Queen of England.

These widely-circulated stories

created a common vocabulary

through which these occurrences were understood.

To be recognized as a woman in 1777

the Chevalier donned feminine clothing

but she also donned a. narrative of her life story

that made sense of her. gender nonconformity.

When she sat down to write her memoirs

she mobilized this same vocabulary.

When we think of the. 18th century we tend to

imagine a society strictly. divided on binary lines

men wearing waistcoats, breeches, and tricorn hats

managing politics and business,. while women in petticoats,

gowns, and caps managed. the home and raised children.

I argue that not only did trans. and gender-nonconforming

people exist in the 18th. century Atlantic world,

but also they use of a common recurring narrative language

to explain and make themselves

acceptable when they expressed their genders in nonconforming ways.

We can identify this. language by comparing the

narrative the Chevalier. d'Eon produced in her memoirs

with other trans narratives from across the British and French Empires.

A modern example of the. kind of narrative tropes that I

would be something like the. phrase "coming out of the closet"

which everyone understands these days

but it is also a particular. linguistic way of

framing queer experience. that hasn't always existed.

As ubiquitous as the. phrase feels to us today it

only originated in the mid. to the late 20th century.

Everyone has a unique experience with their gender and sexuality

but the ways in which we communicate these experiences to

others have to be mutually understood.

I look at the words and. stories we use to make sense of

ourselves and to make ourselves. make sense to other people.

I argue that this kind of vocabulary, while very different from our modern day ones,

existed in the 18th century Atlantic world

There are a lot of these tropes for a broad spectrum of experiences

just like there are nowadays

So today I'll only be talking about one,

that of the warrior woman.

From her first account of her female life

d'Eon encouraged her contemporaries to

consider her as a member of the pantheon

of strong female warriors.

Warriors women were non-normative-

soldiering was a strictly masculine pursuit.

Women were not meant to take up arms, but war provided many individuals

perceived by society as women

the opportunity to experiment with gender.

For d'Eon, who had convinced the world of her female sex,

gender nonconforming stories served as a narrative vocabulary

she could use to explain her time as a man.

Her memoir,. La Vie Militaire, Politique et Privee,

opens with a portrait of d'Eon in armor

surrounded by the glories of her masculine life.

Surrounded by military flags, a dragoon helmet, and officer's sword,

this d'Eon proudly displays her service to her country.

A shield emblazoned with the French rooster and the phrase

"Vigilant and Bold"

rests atop a book open to a page

listing all of the battles she fought in during the Seven Years War.

On the other side of the portrait are her political achievements

including her secret correspondence. with Louis XV as a spy.

If the armor and helmet were not enough to liken her to the goddess Athena

the Latin inscription around her profile makes the comparison directly

by invoking the goddess's name.

Patriotic zeal could justify a woman in a man's role

especially one who disguised herself to join the military.

Warrior women took up arms for love of their countries.

These women were viewed as honorary men;

rather than chastise their female protagonists,

their stories chastised their male readers.

Like d'Eon, the British Hannah Snell and the American Deborah Sampson

mobilize this theme in their narratives.

In Hannah Snell's tale for instance, the men of Britain had so failed in their duties

that they gave the braver and more daring. Snell the right to dress and fight as a man.

In the absence of appropriately masculine men to defend their homes and countries,

an assigned female at birth individual like Hannah Snell

could be reasonably compelled to pick up the slack.

Patriotic fervor was at the core of the warrior woman trope.

According to her memoir

Deborah Sampson was consumed. by such passions while preparing

to join the Continental Army. during the American Revolution.

The Chevalier d’Eon. relied on similar justification.

Her memoir repeatedly makes. note of her love of king & country.

In her telling

Louis XV was aware of her female sex

and greatly approved of her accomplishments as an officer and a statesman.

Upon taking the throne, his successor, Louis XVI, discovered the secret.

He was so impressed by d'Eon that

he thought her talents were wasted abroad

and called her back to France in 1777.

Her duty done, she wrote,

"the king returned her to. her proper garments and life."

Specifically- feminine garments and life.

D'Eon's memoirs begin with one portrait

and end with a description of another.

This 1773 British engraving

once again depicts d'Eon in her military yet feminine glory

holding a spear and a shield bearing Medusa's head.

D'Eon is shown standing in front of a military tent

in full Greek attire

1 naked breasts protrudes. from the cloth draped

around her unquestionably. feminine figure.

In a camp behind her, a regiment of dragoons waits on horseback for her command.

In the foreground,. muskets, regimental flags, a

drum, a cannon, and. cannonballs lie within reach.

This was the woman whose valour and virtue her comrades honored.

Draped in the symbols of the. strong women of antiquity, this

was the image of herself that. d'Eon cultivated in her memoirs.

Though it does not reprint the image,

the memoir describes in great detail

and prints the inscription in full-

dedicated by d'Eon's military comrades,

the Latin inscription read

"To Pallas Athena

wounded but not defeated

famous in war and in negotiation

and always for the honor of her country. and glory

heroine whose valor few men could imitate

and whose virtue even her enemies could not attack.

Ending her first memoir with these. powerful words,

d'Eon highlighted her honor and love of king and country

things that surely society could not fault her for.

as they hadn't for warrior women before her.

At the Chevalier's death in 1810,

an autopsy revealed that d'Eon had male genitalia.

Because the Chevalier d'Eon was an assigned male at birth,

modern histories stubbornly continue to ignore d'Eon's self fashioning.

Most works on d'Eon use he/him pronouns.

This decision both critically erases. trans history and obscures much

of what we can learn about how. gender operated during d'Eon's time.

Highlighting d'Eon's self-fashioning and the self-fashioning of others

reveals a deep history of trans experience

and diversifies our understanding of

gender in the 18th century.

Even after her transition

d'Eon was unconventional

But not because of what was under her petticoats.

A proper lady would not have. found herself in a fencing duel

with the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. before the Prince of Wales.

Nor would she probably. petition the Revolutionary

government to lead an. all-female legion into war.

By presenting herself. as a virtuous and patriotic

warrior woman, however,. d'Eon made herself

acceptable to Atlantic society, even celebrated.

Gender nonconformity was surprising and intriguing

as d'Eon's fame shows shows, but it was not illegible or incomprehensible.

These alternative gender narratives were not prescribed

but they existed and they were widely understood.

They were not proper but they could be acceptable.

Many aspects of d'Eon's self-constructed narrative were invented

including the crucial detail that she was assigned female at birth.

However she did not invent the theme of the warrior woman.

Rather she mobilized it to her advantage.

She blurred the edges of gender norms

but did so in a way long. accepted and understood

in both the British. and French empires.

Thanks Kaitlyn and. thank you both

for your insightful papers.

Now that we completed. the paper presentations,

we'll be moving into the. moderated panel discussion

to expand on the theme of the panel and dive deeper into the topics

that you guys have discussed

and should any of our audience. members want to continue

this discussion, please. join us for our live Q&A

thread hosted on the r/AskHistorians subreddit dedicated to this panel.

And I also want to encourage. you both if you have questions

you'd like to pitch out as we. proceed please feel free to do so.

So the first thing is that. you two have described

almost complete. opposites- Caitlin, you have

a wonderful example of an out-and-proud trans- well I don't know if they would have

identified themselves as trans but definitely somebody who made a very public

spectacle of their transition, and Matthew, who is describing how

these identities are rejected and erased.

I think we've seen that

in a number of other places- and so my first question is

how could we reconcile or explain this spectrum that is developed

not in the sense that

I think either of you were wrong and we need to come to a middle

place but rather how do we wind up in- how have we

as a field of historians who are presented with such evidence

created this dichotomy in which we either have

spectacular exceptions

or people whose biographies need to be rewritten in a way that is more palatable

when the whole idea of

queer studies in the first place is to turn those narratives on their head.

So let me throw that out there and just ask you to ruminate on that for a bit

before we proceed

Thanks for the question Chris

Really it does feel like there is a

separation between our two papers but I do have to say

part of my challenge in my work

is even just using she/her pronouns to refer to d'Eon.

For me going into the research and reading her memoirs I was like

like, a trans woman, like, this is- this is awesome

and then looking at the. secondary sources which

you know for the most. part are relatively older

queer history as a field has been relatively new

and, you know, some places are just like, we're just using he/him pronouns

some places do question it, right

other historians gave reasons for it that I personally

do not agree with

and mostly boil down to

well, you know, she had a penis and therefore,

which we've all heard that before.

So definitely, when I was listening to Matthew's paper, I was like, yeah,

I feel this so hard

The fact that she feels it-

she is exceptional, I certainly will not say that she is not exceptional.

But part of the reason why. she comes off as so exceptional

and part of the reason why my. research is shaped the way it is

is that so few of these. gender-nonconforming trans people left

things behind as part of the historical record for us to look at

which is one of the challenges for my research and I think the best example of that

is just like, we have two. memoirs from d'Eon, a whole

archive full of papers, and. another person [unclear], I have

one piece of paper about him, and. it is two paragraphs and it's not even

written by him, it's written by. the court of [unclear], and that's it.

There's a totally understandable level. of, you know, we don't have enough

information about this one person to really. talk about him in this sort of detail

but part of what I want to do is bring those stories out and using d'Eon as sort of a

skeleton upon which we can attach other things

really allows me hopefully successfully to

really bring those stories forth

and hopefully combat the sort of erasure that Matthew's talking about.

Right- Matthew, would you like to add anything to that?

Yeah I think

what struck me- I think there's often

what I'd call a friends of Dorothy problem in the field

Randy Schultz wrote about this in his Conduct Unbecoming- there was a

very infamous chapter in US military history where

the naval investigative service kept finding that

there were these men who had enrolled in the Navy

and they were all homosexual- they kept referring to themselves as friends of Dorothy.

And the naval investigative service. spent

a large amount of resources

trying to find this woman. in Chicago named Dorothy

that all of these. homosexuals were friends with.

And you know that it wasn't actually that- it was

Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz because Judy Garland

was a famous gay icon.

I think often

the problem you hit in the field is

as Caitlin mentioned

there's often not a lot of sources that are written down

and some of this is

yes they didn't write it down but a lot of it is also

when you look at

queer history, I mean even today,

there's a lot of coded. language that gets used, I mean,

friends of Dorothy was

the example but

you know, if you are in. queer circles you know of

all of the different coded. language that gets used

and it can kind of

there can be a reluctance to accept this coded language as

actual queerness

but I think the other problem you hit on is

you know you have someone like the Chevalier d'Eon

she is very proud and she. will be very out about it and then

you have on the other spectrum. someone like Billy Tipton who-

he spent his entire

life trying to hide it

and that is a very-

that still is something that comes up a lot in queer circles

between people who try to

just pass and don't really

make a big deal of their. identity, and those for whom it's central.

The problem we hit is

for the people who aren't as

open about it and try to use that coded language

there's often this rejection of the idea

that coded language is valid

That is only really persuasive. if you aren't someone

existing in those queer communities

that's aware of that. coded language

Absolutely, I totally agree.

One of the things I. think about a lot in the

work I do with the coded. language is- I look at

like, a little bit less necessarily like

queer community language-. it's just a little bit harder for

me to find in the 18th century,. right- but there is still this

issue of like, oh, well you know,

is this valid, is this truly queer, and here I'm thinking a lot about the work of

Claire Sears and a lot of other trans historians who are really bringing this out

Well, for instance, right, I mention Deborah Sampson in my talk, a lot of people

would be like, oh, but you. know I think of her as a cis

woman and that's a totally. valid interpretation, right,

Her memoir only ever uses

she/her pronouns, she talked about being a woman in the army,

totally legitimate

I know I'm not in the business of. policing gender lines, right, what counts as queer.

I think that

the real importance of the work that we do

because you know, okay,. regardless of what someone

like Deborah Sampson. thought about her own identity,

the behavior, the action she took

in dressing as a man as in joining the Army

in how she spoke about it afterwards to make her

gender nonconformity acceptable

so she wouldn't be like reviled for it right,

those were all

transgressive actions in terms of gender, right, as all transgress gender lines

I think that by casting those as

not queer

does us more of a disservice, right

those are still really important especially. when- because actually I read Deborah

Sampson's stuff first- when I actually. got to the Chevalier d'Eon I was like

reading and like "wow, I've heard this song before"- and so that really allowed me to do something

I think it's more interesting if this is the sort of

you know, the vocabulary that these people are using,

and that are understood by people in the street

I've heard of the warrior women or these other mythical figures

they didn't say they were trans

they weren't necessarily. thinking of their gender

identity specifically- but. they were doing things

that we definitely should be considering as part of queer history.

Yeah, I think one of the things you just you just picked up on is the the concept of

transgression and I think there is

something transgressive about queer history itself

to a degree so I think for example- and this is by way of setting up my next question

in my own work I work. on 19th and 20th century

Egypt- at the beginning. of the 19th century

the complete opposite of today-

the Middle East was where. you went to be sexually

licentious whereas now it's. the place where you go to be

sexually deprived

and there's this very

famous sort of

pornographer, an Englishman who went to live there

and he was a bachelor

and of course this was

the Victorian era so immediately. the fact that he's a lifelong

bachelor immediately starts to. raise question marks in my head.

His sister came out

and visited for several. years, she was his best friend,

and you know wrote a. book about life in the harem

but you know he complains. to his male Egyptian friends

that he can't go further into. their home because he's not

married and many of. them offer to marry him to a

cousin and he refuses,. and finally later in his life

he marries a Greek slave woman

to whom he leaves all of. his property and of course one

of the [unclear] is that. under Egyptian law at the time

you know she'll be freed upon her-

upon his death

in order to inherit the property which you do

I start putting

she got her- and I'm like

okay so he doesn't want to marry any of his friends' relatives because

what he does in the bedroom might get back to them

and he marries a woman whose silence- whose inheritance is basically

contingent on her silence, right,

and I start, you know, searching around- has anybody put these pieces toget- no

no one has ever

ever suggested this

guy might have been a-. I'm not even going to say

gay, I'm going to say had. same-sex attraction, right

you know and it was just- it was- it was very

to me I'm like

hello

sorry, that is professional moderator speech- so here's my question

we can take it wherever we'd like but how should we approach some of these

historical individuals who may not

ever had openly acknowledged

same-sex attraction, same-sex behavior

living a preferred gender identity that did not match

with their biological

characteristics

How we approach these

people as modern historians insomuch as we choose to

ascribe to them identities they may not have taken upon themselves

Yeah, I think in my own. work, for instance, right,

like in my whole talk-. and I do this- I never

actually refer to the. Chevalier d'Eon as a trans

woman, right, like I. never actually was like

she was a trans woman

I said things like, you know,

she rewrote the story of-. she lived as a man and she

wrote the story of her. having been raised a girl, etc,

she was assigned male at birth but lived as a woman, all these sorts of things.

And part of that

is important to me in terms of this acknowledgement

the words "trans woman," right, didn't exist in the 18th century.

If you went back in. time and said this to her

she would be like I don't. know what you're saying

even if you said it in French, right

but at the same time

those experiences are still really important to acknowledge

as trans female experience.

because I think we've all had the,. oh my God how has no one seen-

have you seen this? I think everyone's. had that moment in our circles

I think that's part of- I personally balance

that between- I'm going to explain

and show how these experiences

did exist in history, how. they do have a history,

but at the same time I'm. going to avoid necessarily

using those modern identities in these discussions.

With my friends I always do the, like, she was totally trans!

But in a professional situation I kind of avoid using that- just the kind of

shorthand, this sort of [unclear] I'm doing right now

the words didn't exist, but the feelings did,

That's how I personally kind of balance

I try to keep my own

understandings and biases about gender in check while doing this history.

Yeah

You know when I

first started in history I was really interested in Byzantine history

it's interesting to me that the term we use for that is

Byzantine

because that's' not- that is a very modern invention

If- I mean

as Caitlin said about the. Chevalier, even if you could speak

to them in French if you called. them a trans woman they be like

what is that, what I'm talking about but like

if you went to the. Byzantines, if you went up and

you're like, oh yeah you're. the Byzantine emperor, like

like no I'm the Roman emperor, this is the Roman Empire

and that is something that

kind of struck me

in those works

you know what I- when I started. I would do Byzantine history

and they'd just be like, oh yeah,. they're the Greek Byzantines

and no one really batted. too much of an eye over the

fact that they would have. not thought of themselves

as Greek

or Byzantine

but that's what we use

and it's

kind of a double standard there where

we have all this preoccupation about

well they wouldn't have. thought of themselves as

transwomen so we can't. call them that, like, okay,

but

you know, they also wouldn't have thought of themselves

as Byzantine and

we've just accepted that that is the term.

I think the other part that struck me

I think there's a difficulty because

you know there are cases

like the Chevalier

she is more open about that

it did strike me as well

you know, for Byzantine history you

get very quickly that

you know later is-. more antiquity even-

you don't have a lot of sources

and the sources you do have are the ones that you know some

monk somewhere decided were important enough to pass down

Well there's a difficulty that

even if someone was using the language of "I am homosexual"

we don't know that that would have survived because

this is a history being recorded primarily by

you know, members of the clergy

they might look at him, go

nope we don't think that's worthy of

keeping record of it

which is where you. get the difficulty of- we're

trying to sort through a bunch. of coded language where

we don't know what's all missing, we don't-

we can't say for certain that they

didn't at some point refer to themselves

using these kinds of terms and then

it just got lost

because

ee have a lot of

things that went lost

and so it's kind-

for me it's

Usually a-

I like using the

phrase "queer" because queer's one of those

more umbrella things for- you can just say, this is not in the norm

and acknowledge that it's not in the norm even if we don't have-

you know, we might not be able to say specifically they were

lesbian or they were trans or whatever but we can at least acknowledge

they aren't

what we would expect.

It's that not fitting what. we expect that should be

noted and we shouldn't. feel so compelled to be like

what if they were actually just really good gal pals

that got buried together,

they were roommates,

and I think part of it as well for

you know, queer history is

dominated by queer people, that's just

that's just a reality, but I think

for queer people it's easier to identify like, okay yes

they didn't necessarily call. themselves that but you can

still see in their writings,. like, they're struggling

with how they're identifying and they're using this language

that's suggestive

and we can be familiar with that cuz a lot of us

went through it ourselves

I remember speaking with one of my friends who is a

trans

lesbian and she mentioned, like

you know

you look through some of these papers and it's like if I,

if I had been alive at that period and left the records I did,

they would be writing about me that no, I was a man

and I was totally

straight

And I'm not

And it's

I think there's a difficulty. there where it's- we don't want

to assign an identity to them. that they wouldn't have had

But at the same time

we do assign identities that they didn't have all the time,

it's just we assign the

cisnormative and the heteronormative identities

and those are more acceptable.

I think it's a really good point actually, as I think both of you have brought up

and it's funny because. we as queer people were

so used to this is that. heteronormative is-

it's like Napoleonic. law- it's like- you are

that until you prove. otherwise, right, you know

even though we have

so much documentation

to the contrary

so let me flip that around. and ask where the other

end of that line is- and. so for example- and I'm

thinking, the first person. that comes to mind probably

is John Boswell right with. his ideas about, you know

well you know, there were marriages in the medieval Church, you know, etcetera, which

a lot of historians have taken issue with

so is there a too far there

in some of our queer readings of history

I know so many people who are going to be mad that I asked this question by the way

I personally feel like- there's a part of me that wants to be like

no, we've had enough of cisnormative. history, I want everything to be

queer, right, and I think, you know-. but the concern is valid in terms of

the importance of that line is really an acknowledgement that gender

is culturally and. geographically bound and it's

also temporally bound-. I think that there's

we as historians have to acknowledge, right

that gender meant. different things to different

people in different. places at different times.

By kind of wholesale doing like

you know, let's take our things and put it on

a past history

does have

a problematic

issue there, right

I do think that the pendulum's gone too far the other way, right

that we've been taking our [unclear] and putting that on the past for so long

I think we're nowhere near that right now- the opposite happening, right

we've got a long way to go before that

becomes like a serious problem

but it's still an important

it's still important work we have to do as historians of, you know, sitting with

our understanding of gender and sexuality and acknowledging that these are

ours, they're bound. by- like, I am white, I am

in this time period, I. am in the United States

right, all of that sort. of stuff- one, it's just

useful for being a good. person in general, right

but then it's also really necessary to being a good historian.

But at the same time we. make narrative decisions-

we always do- everybody. does in telling our stories

and those will always be. informed at least a little bit

by who we are as people-. we can't completely forget that

But I guess more of- keeping it in mind.

The danger of it is- the. importance of it is keeping it in the

back of your mind, like yeah,. okay, reel it back in a little bit

I think

in general if you were to say

someone has gone too far in making a claim one way or the other, I mean

yes but

that's gonna happen

do I think there are. people who have gone and

been like, this person. is queer and had like

no real backing to stand on

of course- but, you know

identify a position that seems extreme and someone has had it-

I think it's

you know I remember

when I read

Bennett's "Lesbian-like" paper- one of the things that really stuck out

when I was reading that was she makes the point that

there is the part of history that is, you know, just

doing history for history's sake in this kind of

antiquarian view as she called it of just

we're documenting this because that's our job, we document things

but she also made the case there that

we don't just do history to do history- people have a

reason why they do history

and

if we go a bit far on making a claim we do need to evaluate

is there a purpose there even. if we are wrong- is there still a

purpose in making that claim. just so that it is combating [unclear]

One of the things that came to mind here was- I know this is

slightly afield but like the 1619 Project- I know that's

something that was deeply controversial among historians

there were a lot of

valid criticisms of the history of that project

but what struck me was then you get the 1776 Project

that's supposed to be in response- you can see like

they don't even have citations, they're. openly plagiarizing things to a point

it's kind of- I looked on it like, this is kind of illustrative where the 1619 Project

there were places where you could critique it but it wasn't overall

like it wasn't

just riddled with problems

and the response to it is

completely divorced from history and

so

there's a bit when

on that where

yes

I think there are some

histories that go too far and make too many claims about

historical queerness

but the default for so long has been there is no queerness anywhere

and you are only queer if you have

two forms that are notarized and signed in triplicate

affirming that you are queer

I actually remember one of the papers at- one of the articles

I came across early when writing this

was

an article by Danielle Scrimshaw where

she noted that

generally

to accept a historical figure is

queer, there's this standard like- you need to have evidence of explicit sexual contact

and even that sometimes isn't sufficient for people

but on the flipside, to. declare someone straight

you just need like evidence. that at one point they

that he looked at a woman and didn't vomit is sufficient there

I think it's just an awareness of what. level of evidence are we expecting here where

you know if we're saying

oh we can't conclude that they were queer but we can conclude they were great friends

why are you expecting more evidence for a romantic relationship than a platonic one

As you were speaking I was actually thinking- this is my master's thesis in a slightly different sense as well

and when I first presented my master's. thesis idea to the professors at George

Mason, I was like, this is my idea,. I'm very scared, please say it's good

and one of my favorite professors came up to me and was like hey, you know

even just the concept of

not taking gender for granted

like that's really cool

like I haven't thought about that, and I was like yeah, even if it does- you know-

where do we draw the line of what is truly queer, right,

the act of actually just. questioning- they're like oh, well

he was clearly straight because. he had a wife- and we're like

doesn't really prove anything

like, you know, just the act of questioning that

when it usually so far has been really

for the most part kind of not questioned

is I think an important historical task that we have to do

You know I

I thought it as well during this- there was

I remember in 2017 there was this burial site in Birka, Sweden

it was a very well-known one

because it's one of the most well-preserved

the person who originally uncovered it

was very thorough at documenting

this burial site that

was held up originally as

look at this great evidence we have for how warriors were treated in Sweden

because they were buried in-

with all of these

weapons, they had horses nearby, all of these

things we associate with

a soldier or a martial figure

and then research

led by Charlotte Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson. in 2017 said

they were a woman

and suddenly it became, well

what if someone else's bones got

mixed up in that burial site or

what if

they've just mislabeled it and

her response

in a follow-up paper was

if these objections were valid

they were valid when the initial discovery was made

that you're only bringing them up now that we're saying this was a

woman buried here

shows that you weren't really objective

those aren't really your objections

you're just objecting to that story in general and you're going to glom onto

anything you can use to dispute that story.

I think that's something very familiar. in queer history where it's

you're objecting to calling them

queer but you're doing. it in more neutral terms

to look like your objection isn't just that this is a queer story.

Absolutely

I think we've all sort of seen- like, you know, this is in the context of

history but like, we've. all seen this sort of

argumentation just vis. a vis queer people today.

We've all seen that sort of like

eell you're not

actually this unless you are also this other - this whole form in triplicate thing

so I think that it's important to do this in terms of. getting a good diverse history but also in terms of hey, like,

both these trans and queer. experiences have existed

and so too has this sort of back and forth

nobody can agree on where we draw the line thing

has also sort of existed through all the time

Well it's because the. lines are messy, right-

-they're not lines, they're more like vague blobs

Well you know one of my interests. is- it's not in my research field but

you know I work on early Islamic. history and there's this whole history of

speaking of forms signed in triplicate you know

men who literally write poetry about, you know, the male lovers they've taken

although there's this other school of thought that the lovers are really God

and which is true in some. of the Sufi poetry because

there is this idea of God. is the lover but there are

other kinds where they're very. clearly describing actual things

but they're like well, you know, but he was married and had-

he was married

and he had children

completely leaving aside the idea that there is this accommodation in society

but it exists as long as. you fulfill your filial duty

which is you will marry a. woman, you will produce heirs,

and then you can have all. the gay sex you want- but

you will do these other. things first, right, and so

again going back to that

what we were talking about. earlier, this sort of idea is

that those people will always. be coded as straight first

even though you know they themselves are out

"well I did him last week

"nd that one was a tough catch but I finally got him"- you know it's like, again

you start to ask yourself

god, really?

This is where all these-

because we've all been saying it is messy

right, the whole field is. messy and I feel like- I

think one of the things. that's interesting about this is

a lot of it- speaking again. of the triplicate thing- a

lot of the early studies really. were centered around sex

places people had it, you. know, but it was like, that- that

was the entree points I. think for a lot of queer history

And I mean like, as you were talking I was like, you know, there's the issue of just, you know, people can be bi?

Like just also speaking of erasure, right-. -we're mostly sitting here talking about trans issues but like

you have a wife and a gay lover at the same time, like

wow

which I think there also has to be more work on that but like, you know,

It's very much like not only are there-. not only is everyone's just straight

until proven otherwise- well, maybe. not- there's certainly no in between-

certainly not that . -no no, never

his poetry was about God and he only slept with his wife

and I

I have the thought there- I know

It was- it's funny to me that, you know, you can even look

there are plenty of historians that will say

well Sappho's poetry that is about women

was actually- she's just writing about them romantically because she was commissioned to do so and

Sappho had no sapphic feelings

it's literally the name

it's in the name guys. -I literally had the thought, you know

they're married and they have kids- . I'm like okay

so are half the guys that hit me up on Grindr so like

you know- . -you're not supposed to say that in front of the children Matthew

it's one of those things where

it is

I go back- I started in Byzantine history and I remember the Alexiad

it's a very famous work and

I was- the first time that I looked

through some of the debates

I remember just being floored that there are these people arguing

there's no way something like this. could have been written by a woman, it's too

detailed, she knows too much about troop movements,

how would she have this knowledge

finally I found someone that's like, no this had to have been

written by a woman

first I was really thrilled, then I read the next part where Edward Gibbon argues that

no of course the Alexiad was written by a woman

It's too egotistical and centers. the author too much- I'm like

And I think- that reminds me of the [unclear] where you know, it's-

there is kind of an assumption in a lot of circles

it is very unfortunate that

queer people are just

sexually lascivious and they just

unlike the good

pure straight people. they're just out everywhere

doing it all the time,. so if you don't see-

and as a result you end up with the judgment of, well if they're not out there

doing the sex all the time how could they be

queer because queer people do the sex all the time

you get into

a lot of things unfortunately end up being

just kind of stereotypical

they can't be queer. because this is our vision

of queer and they're. not matching that 100%

And I think that's the importance for us as historians of casting the net widely

right, to catch- to find these people

I mean the Chevalier. d'Eon provides an amazing

example of someone who. I see and I know who that is

right but at the same time it's just as

queer to be doing something. that might not necessarily

as easily line up with. what we might be looking for

And the other thing of. course that just springs

up is the question of. the silences in the archive

you know, and again I go back to, you know, I'm fairly

active on r/AskHistorians, you know, a lot of people always ask about

well, where is the. evidence and you know

there's a number of us. who keep trying to get in

the point sometimes

the fact that nobody wants to talk about it

or only speaks about it circumspectly, it's also evidence, it's, you know

and so it's about reading the silences because sometimes they're deliberate

and learning how to look for those clues

Most of the sources that I look at- a lot of them- are

were intended for public consumption

which inherently

there's going to be. elements of fabrication even

if it's a totally cisnormative. heterosexual person,

there are going to be. sort of fabricated- you

know, it's like social. media, we all want to look

really nice online, right, and so that

with these sort of stories of people like the Chevalier or Deborah Sampson or-

all of these stories were meant for public consumption so

what are they saying and what are they not saying-

what are they saying in a particular way- these are people who were

seeking acceptance, right, they were writing these stories to say, like, no,

I'm doing right. I'm a good. person, you should not

run me out of town or call. me a witch or whatever.

And so that inherently has

both issues in terms of, we have. to read the sources very carefully

and it's also very interesting in terms of how it allows us to see

not only what they're saying what they think society

expects them to say

I think one of the difficulties in our

archives is just the very-

it's the very brutal truth. that you're not going to

find, in a lot of history,. people speaking openly about

how they deviate from society

because that's just not something that people write about that often

for any kind of deviation from society

You know it's-

you'll find examples but

we don't have a lot of

I think to like early church history- our knowledge of a lot of

early Christian heresies

exists only because we have

people arguing against them

that survive

and similarly a lot of our records

of queerness in history is just records of people arguing against it

and that's something that we-

you know I remember in this

discussion it's

okay, if they

if it is something that they've outlawed and that they are speaking against frequently

That means it happened.

You don't go out and-

you don't go out and pass

you know, laws against. homosexuality and give sermons

against homosexuality if. homosexuality consists of

2 out of 1 million people

you know, you have bigger things to talk about

The difficulty becomes that

for a lot of it we only have records

from the people opposed to it

but the people opposed to it have a reason then

to be arguing that it's not real as well and it can become

you know, it's an unfortunate trap that I see frequently

where

if you have I think to like

the trans one in particular

the Roman Emperor Elagabalus

if the Roman emperor that was. described as trans, you know,

there's a lot of people who say,. well, only his political enemies

describe him as that so how do we know that he really did want to dress up as a woman

but you get the difficulty. of well yes, your political

enemies would describe. that but we also don't

we're not accepting that is real but we also wouldn't accept it as real if

you know, his political enemies

went destroyed all of his records

because they didn't

want there to be records of trans identities

It just becomes difficult when

you're trying to discuss something that

there's reasons why we would

expect it to not be present in the record

and we can really only

find it by looking for people arguing against it

The difficulty of finding things-. cuz we've been talking a lot about

how people spoke about [unclear]. is the word, and the fact that today

you can't go into an 18th century archive or online database and

plug in the word trans

and get anything

you might get "trains". misspelled or something

but you're not going to. find someone talking about

queer issues with the word queer or lesbian in the far past, right

because those words just won't- didn't- they weren't there.

So like you know

the fact like part of what. I started my research

on was just literally. keeping a list of like

these are words that I think we'll find something

and hopefully it'll be found, and some of the things

that I have found were only because of these long

strings of

"clothing" and such and such near five words of

man and/or woman- trying to find

the way they were- first I had to figure out how they would have spoken about it

and then actually finding them. if they're even still there

It's the added difficulty of actually, like

even if they did survive can we necessarily find them

Thank God for search tools- that's with the search tools-

A ridiculous thing I'm thinking of is a court record from Tennessee

and I personally have no reason to be in an archive

in Tennessee

and certainly would not have looked in whatever folder that was in

to try to find this one tiny document

Yay digital era

Yeah I was just- I was

just thinking of- you were. saying that one of the questions

that keeps coming up is why. is all this revisionist history happening now and

and that's why- it's because we have access, you know

we have access to things in. places we wouldn't necessarily- look,

you know I work on Egypt, it. didn't occur to me to be looking

at archives in Japan

right, but, you know, now I can do that if I want to

So I really want to thank you both- this is been a great discussion. I think this has

been a great example of what this

field can really bring to

the table in terms of

sort of giving us a new light on history especially

you know, for those of

us who are- really are hoping to see what-

who our antecedents were in the past and how they lived their lives

So I want to just give you both the opportunity to make some final thoughts before we

conclude. Especially. if you'd lik- if there's

anyone you'd like to. credit or or acknowledge- so

I will turn it over first

to Caitlin and then Matthew

Thank you- and first I want to. thank both you and Matthew- this was

an amazing discussion- I'm so. happy we were able to have this panel

thank you to r/askhistorians for even having- I still am so

thrilled that this kind of panel exists

that this kind of conference overall exists, but that this kind of panel

can exist and we can have discussions about these sorts ot things

And I also want to thank. all the people at George

Mason who have been. super supportive in this

Without their support- I thought when I first started my

grad school career that I wasn't supposed to be able to do this sort of research either because I couldn't say it or because it wouldn't be something I could find

so thank you to

my dissertation advisor and especially George Overly at the library for helping me with those

ridiculous search functions I had to come up with

I'd like to first

thank r/askhistorians and all those on the backend that are helping

to make this conference

I know

if you're not associated. with an institution there's not

a lot of conferences so I. would like to thank them for

just the openness there, on

letting in people from. other backgrounds that

normally wouldn't be in. conferences to present

I would also like to thank

those from previous work- the

professors I worked with at the University of Oregon and Augustana University that

helped me figure out a bit more how to do history well and how to

think on these questions and

the communities both at. r/askhistorians and the other

communities online that I. work with to develop some of this

research and that helped

kind of challenge some of the

beginning thoughts and developed the paper where it went

Also I'd like to thank my other panelist I know we had-

there's been a lot of changes here but

glad we could make this

get this panel up and

have people around to talk about an issue that I think is

really important right now

Okay well once again I want to thank both Caitlin and Matt

and organizers and to. all those of you who are

attending the r/askhistorians. digital conference

This concludes this panel session- please catch the other ones on the website