there's magic in a bard's song

here’s a long list of LGBT+ historical events worth googling and learning about. i’m not sure if all the dates and details are spot on, but, again, this is really just a guide for what to research on your own. to warn you, a lot of this history is ugly, including things like the conflation of pedophilia and LGBT+ people, genital mutilation, homophobia, transphobia, nazis, and wide scale persecution.

Free Resources:

an interactive timeline of LGBT+ world history

The 1950s and the Roots of LGBT Politics (American-centric)

Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (warning: this documentary was made in the 80s and is dated in a lot of respects as a result; it also features quotes from Allen Ginsberg, who we now know was a pedophile, but it’s still very informative in terms of history)

a brief history of the bisexual movement from the 1960s-early 2000s (American-centric)

Bisexual.org has a TON of resources on bi (and often pan) history, historical figures, research, and media

“Here’s A History Of Bisexuality, From Ancient Egypt To Stonewall”

a brief timeline of trans history, beginning in the 1890s (European and American-centric)

“Gender Variance Around the World Over Time”

Some Purchasable Resources:

(most of these can be bought used online for pretty cheap and some can be found in libraries)

Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context by Vern L Bullough (it’s a bit dated, but still informative)

A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World by R. Parkinson

Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women (Intersections) by Leila J. Rupp

Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (Blacks in the Diaspora) by A.B. Christa Schwarz

The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David K. Johnson

Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism edited by Uriel Quesada, Letitia Gomez, and Salvador Vidal Ortiz

Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution by Susan Stryker

flipped across this show on PBS the other day. it’s a donkey and her name is hodie. donkey hodie. don quixote. okay, that’s cute. but the bear…

it’s a bear. it’s a panda bear. and it’s in a show called donkey hodie. what do you name a panda bear in a show called donkey hodie? i’ll give you one guess.

…

You must be Canadian to sign, but please share

• a customer asking me if boys like coloring

• a customer telling her daughter she can’t give out ice cream stickers for party favors because there will be boys there

• an older couple laughing about how there’s a pink toy sword because a boy would never play with a pink toy sword (because i guess boys can’t like pink and girls don’t play with toy swords. also it wasn’t even pink it was red lol)

• a customer refusing to buy a snail robot kit for his nephew because it was “too cute for a boy”

• a customer sharply reminding me she was buying a gift for a boy when i suggested play food

• a customer telling her daughter she needed to pick a different birthday card for her friend because the one she chose had a pink envelope (her friend was a boy)

• a customer asking what a boy would like for valentine’s day instead of the stuffed dogs she was getting for the girls

• a customer getting upset when my coworker used blue ribbon on a gift bag because the present was for a girl

• a customer saying a toy guitar was “too girly” for her grandson, based only on the fact that the box had a picture of a girl playing with it (the guitar was red with yellow music notes)