megwrites: Reading girl by Renoir.  (rainbow books)
megwrites ([personal profile] megwrites) wrote 2011-03-30 08:13 pm (UTC)

I have...mixed feelings. On the one hand, I don't think there's much point to a lot of the speculation, and I also don't like it being treated as scandalous. On the other hand, I think queer people need queer history, and it's natural to look for evidence of it.

I'm right there with you. As a queer woman, I want to read about other QUILTBAG folks in history, and I don't mind historians rethinking evidence, especially where figures who very likely were queer have been straightwashed (my high school English teacher did this to Oscar Wilde and tried to convince us all that any evidence of him being gay was pure propaganda) - but when there's good evidence, when there's reason, not just when it makes an "interesting" or "titillating" theory. I hope I'm saying this right.

It it really bugs me when people hang their hats on really, really flimsy evidence that's stripped of context, that's not treated with any sensitivity. Because context is another way of saying "lived experience". And stripping away that lived experience to shoehorn someone into an identity feels wrong - just as it's wrong to shoe horn those historical figures who were queer into being straight, the flipside is also wrong. It feels like saying you can boil down the complexities of sexual identity (or gender identity) and how people express it to a few things, that it's a simple equation.

In short: I agree.

Also, if you like this one, I'd also recommend The Princes in the Tower, which I think is actually her best work. Either that or The Children of Henry VIII.

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