Queer Love in History
Queer Love in History
An interview with an Instagram archivist
This is the Sunday edition of Paging Dr. Lesbian. Plus, this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet. If you like this type of thing, subscribe!
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This week I had the pleasure of talking with Kate, who runs a popular Instagram account called Queer Love in History. Kate started the account a year ago and uses it to share images and stories of queer couples from the past century or so. Kate’s archival project has become quite popular, and the account currently has over 33,000 followers. New posts are uploaded at least once a week and depict queer people of all genders (some of whom may have considered themselves trans had they been alive today).
As she shares below, Kate started the account to make up for the lack of happy stories about queer couples from the past. Many of the stories Kate posts are about couples who were or have been together for several decades. Below is the caption for a series of photos depicting Jean and Sharon:
“Wanna go for a ride and raise a little hell?”
Jean Baker and Sharon Colter met in 1966 at a gay bar. Jean was a 26 year old single mom of two toddlers and it was her first time visiting a gay bar. She stated she sat at the bar for nearly two hours and no one said a word to her. Defeated, she was about to drive away when she “saw this lady, who was walking like John Wayne.” She circled the parking lot three times before she got the nerve to speak to the other woman. When she finally did, she rolled down her window and said “Wanna go for a ride and raise a little hell?” The woman’s name was Sharon. She got into the car and they drove around talking for 5 hours. They moved in together the day after and have been together ever since.
They moved to a small town in Manitoba, Canada called Garson. Here, they raised their son and daughter together but did not tell them they were a couple out of fear their children would be bullied. It was when their daughter, Allison, asked them when she was 12 years old that they finally told her.
Their relationship was an “open secret” in the town. Jean and Sharon compared it to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation. They were active in the community and never experienced hatred for their relationship.
Once their children grew up, they moved to Winnipeg, Canada where they ran a catering business for decades.
In their free time, the pair participated in dance competitions and won a silver medal in Ballroom dancing in New York in 1991.
Through their life together they raised children, ran a business, became grandmas and then great-grandmas, danced as much as possible, and battled Jean’s cancer (which she won). The one thing they never did was get married. They were together for 40 years by the time it was legalized and they view it as “just a piece of paper.”
Jean and Sharon celebrated their 50th anniversary in December 2016.
In an interview Jean referred to Sharon as “the surprise of a lifetime."
Most photos on the page include captions like this, although some photos depict people who very little is known about. I spoke to Kate about her inspiration for the account, her research process, and why queer archives matter.
Why did you start the Queer Love in History Instagram account? What was your inspiration?
I started Queer Love in History in June of 2020 on a whim, to be completely honest. I have always been extremely interested in history, and when I was starting to accept my sexual orientation in high school and my early 20s, I felt the need to learn as much about LGBTQ+ history as possible. In doing this, I came across many digital archives and would spend hours looking through photos. I started a Pinterest and found even more photos there and saved them all to a board dedicated to same sex couples. Then, one day last June I was sitting at home bored during lockdown and had the idea of making an Instagram where I would post the photos I had found throughout the years. And the rest is history!
Where do you get these stories from? How do you compile all of that information?
I get these stories from everywhere and anywhere! I collect books about LGBTQ+ history, I have a Newspapers.com subscription and search through old newspapers for stories of "scandalous!" same sex weddings, I have had the honor of a few couples coming to me to share their stories [this story about Gerry and Judy is an example of this], I look through local news websites, and I still love digital archives like the Lesbian Herstory Archive and the ONE archives. I have a list on my notes app where I write down names of couples I come across for future stories. Right now, I have 75 on my list!
Does your work or school experience have anything to do with the topic of the account? What do you do outside of running the Queer Love in History account?
My school work does have a lot to do with the topic of my account...but it didn't originally. As I've stated, I've always loved history and archiving. However, I didn't think that could be a realistic career goal. I got my undergraduate degree in Psychology this past December and had already been accepted into a Masters of Social Work program when I realized through running this Instagram, it can be a realistic career and I can help others doing it. So, I applied to the Masters of Library and Information Science program at the school I was set to attend and got in! I'm currently in my first semester and could not be happier with my decision. And I have this Instagram to thank for it!
The account has become pretty popular over the last year. Why do you think so many people are drawn to this content? What particular needs or desires do you think it fulfills for people?
Honestly, I am still in shock (and so overjoyed) at the response I've gotten in the last year. But, I think the lack of representation has a lot to do with it. We aren't shown examples of same sex couples who lived long and happy lives together, on tv or in real life. We were never told that that exists. Nearly every period drama we get fits the narrative of two thin, feminine, white women who have a very chaste love affair and never see each other again. And while that is one form of reality, it was not and is not the reality for thousands of others in our history. And even when you decide to do your own research, it's hard to come by. If it wasn't for the tireless efforts of LGBTQ+ archives, many of these stories would be lost forever. I'm so grateful for them. And as for my page, I think there being one easily accessible place that shows the many different types of LGBTQ+ love stories across time makes people feel validated in their identities. It definitely does that for me, at least.
Apart from the obvious – the specific research you've done to find and compile these stories – what have you learned from running the account for the past year? In terms of understanding the queer community more broadly, the function of digital storytelling or archiving, how you perceive the impact the account has had, or anything else that comes to mind.
Running this account has made me understand the queer community more broadly than I ever have. An unanticipated result of running this account has been being able to interact with thousands of queer people from around the world. People have shared their own experiences in the comments of my posts or messaged me privately, and it has been the best part of this for me. Up until meeting my girlfriend about two years and a half years ago, I did not feel a part of the queer community. Most of the people I know are straight and I was always way too shy and awkward to go to gay bars or clubs, so I always felt as if I was on the outside looking in. Having all of these incredible conversations about the similarities and/or differences of our experiences is something I'm so grateful for.
You can check out the Queer Love in History Instagram page here.
Welcome to this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet.
To begin I wanted to draw your attention to an initiative called The Lesbian Bar Project. The project – which includes this 20-minute documentary you can watch on YouTube – aims to preserve the remaining lesbian bars in the United States. As the documentary states, there were 200 lesbian bars in the U.S. in 1980, and now only 21 remain. You can donate to the project here – the fundraising campaign is open until July 1st. Watch the documentary below.
In other lesbian history news, the German film Mädchen in Uniform (1931) is now available to watch on The Criterion Channel. Mädchen in Uniform follows a teen girl who is sent to boarding school, and is often considered one of the first-ever explicitly lesbian films in the history of cinema. You can also read the accompanying Criterion essay about the film, which considers the context of its production. For example, the queer scene in Germany at the time (prior to Hitler’s rise) was booming – when the film was released there were more than 50 lesbian bars in Berlin alone. Nonetheless, Leontine Sagan, the director of the film, was only able to make it when she did because Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexuality, was repealed in 1929 and then reinstated again in 1935 with the rise of Nazism. (The code was only repealed a second time in 1994). As it was, the film was so powerful that Hitler’s cultural minister, Joseph Goebbels, ordered all copies of Mädchen destroyed. Luckily, many copies were already circulating outside of Germany, which is why we are still able to watch the film today. Check it out on Criterion Channel.
In other news, chaotic Hollywood sapphic Cara Delevigne is up to her usual shenanigans. Earlier in the week, she did a Dior shoot with Anya Taylor-Joy in which they fixed each other’s dresses and held hands. On Tuesday, her second Architectural Digest video (in as many years) premiered on YouTube, in which Delevigne showed off the many oddities in her L.A. home, including her plushy pink “vagina tunnel” and a room with floor-to-ceiling carpets she calls “the pussy palace.” If you ever get bored all alone in that big house, Cara, just know I’m available.
In wonderful news this week, 21-year-old golden-haired sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson qualified for the Olympics last Saturday with a time of 10.86 seconds in the 100-meter dash. All of the images and videos of Richardson at the event are just stunning (check out this one of her embracing her grandmother), and some of us were even more enthused to learn that her vibrant hair color was picked out by her girlfriend. She is truly the most powerful femme in the universe!
In perplexing casting news, it’s been announced that Keira Knightley is in talks to star in a sci-fi drama set in the future. This is perplexing because as you may know, Knightley is the queen of period pieces, and this casting choice may fundmentally alter the time-space continuum. If you are wondering why this news is relevant to us (me), I am contractually obligated to comment on Keira Knightley news because 1. My name is Kira 2. She played an iconic real-life sapphic in Colette, slept with Hayley Atwell in The Duchess, and played one of the iconic non-lesbian lesbians of all time in Bend It Like Beckham. So what I’m saying is that she is queer canon. (And Kira/Keira/Kyra canon).
That’s all for this week, folks! Please stay tuned for the next installment. I will leave you with this photo of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis celebrating the 30th anniversary of the legendary film Thelma and Louise.
