The first two words that come to my mind when I think of Abraham Lincoln are “Joshua Speed,” not “Emancipation Proclamation.” If the former is pulling up blanks for you, the cause is probably queer erasure. Yes, Abraham Lincoln was queer. For a period of four years, the president lived and shared a bed with "close friend" Joshua Speed.
Queer men and women are scattered throughout popular history, but in most cases, those parts of their identities have been glossed over in favor of less controversial personas. Walt Whitman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant -- all famous icons whose queer identities, for which there is plenty of evidence, have been erased by popular history.
The point is not that there is ample evidence for any one of these figures to have been queer. The point is that you assumed until you heard the evidence, and possibly are still insisting, that any one of them was straight.
Clearly, history has not been kind to queer people -- history, in this case, not referring to days past when gay men had to sneak into bars and talk in code, but to the generally accepted view of everything that came before us. For as long as there has been historical theory, there has been bias in the study of history. Much of our history is seen through the lens of a very specific identity: Western, Christian, capitalist, and almost certainly male, white, and yes, straight. Perhaps the most damaging of these biases that still exists in our culture is the erasure of queer identities among historical figures.
Not only does this erasure completely dishonor the identities of queer figures, it becomes harmful for those being kept from the figures’ full identities. Unfortunately, there seems to be a worldwide initiative to make this the experience of LGTB youth. Queer history, or queer topics at all, are hardly ever mentioned in educational settings.
It could be argued that the sexuality of any historical figure has no place in a public education, whether they were gay or straight. But LGBT don’t have the luxury of assuming that any important figure they come across shares their sexual orientation. It is extremely significant to have queer figures to look up to, to have their identities validated through history.
Of course, it is important to bear in mind that queer people as we think of them today are not the same as queer people of the past. Gender theory is a very new field, but cross-dressing and trans identities have been real for centuries. The word “homosexual” was not even in use until after 1890, but in no way does that mean that gay people didn’t exist. What it does mean is that historians cannot rely on modern indicators of orientation to interpret the past.
And that's exactly what has been done for centuries in historical study. This "straight until proven gay" assumption has been inarguably damaging to the identities of queer historical figures, and the lack of education on queer history accentuates the idea of queerness as a fad or unworthy of respect. In an era of acceptance and freedom of identity, this outdated perspective should be replaced with a sense of openness in the examination of historical figures.
