Historical Homos

• A Queer History of Vampires (feat. Sacha Coward)

  Hot, rich, European, emotionally unavailable... sound familiar?It's your Hinge profile all over again.No, silly, it's vampires!We are thrilled to welcome back folklorist and queer historian, Sacha Coward (author of Queer as Folklore) this week, as we trace the gloriously queer history of vampires—from ancient blood-sucking demons to modern brooding bisexuals.Drape your capes and get ready to dive into:Lilith, the original bad girl who got kicked out of Eden for not sleeping with Adam.The juicy backstory of Lord Byron, a chaotic bisexual whose life inspired the first mean, cold, sexy vampiresCarmilla, the 19th-century vampire lesbian who walked so Pam and Tara inTrue Blood could one day suckHow Hollywood turned queer people into monsters so they could portray them onscreenWhy vampires got hotter, more leathery, and more counterculture in the aftermath of the AIDS epidemicPlus, how vampires got from Dracula terror to Twilight trysting, from cursed to cool, from monsters of the fringe to main characters with fangbanging stans.As Sacha eloquently puts it:"Vampire here. Vampire not going anywhere." (Direct quote)🩸 Whether you’re a Lilith stan, a Buffy devotee, or just into emotionally repressed men with centuries of baggage–*raises hand violently*–this one’s for you.🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your blood.📚 And grab Sacha Coward’s book Queer as Folklore in sexy new paperback form—wherever fine, gay books are sold.You can follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people at all.And if you like what you hear, please do leave us a (FIVE STAR ONLY) review. Praise, not blood, is what Bash feeds on.Episode CreditsWritten and hosted by Bash. Guest: Sacha Coward.Edited by Alex Toskas. Produced by Dani Henion.

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• Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender (feat. Kit Heyam and Marty Davies)

  Heads up! This is the episode where we solve gender.Famously a "construct," it turns out Mx. Gender has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.This podcast is only 70 minutes long so we're sticking to the last 5,000... but still. Not bad.Join Bash and his honoured guests this week – Kit Heyam and Marty Davies – as they delve into the deep-cut history of gender, long before we had words like cis, trans, or nonbinary.Kit Heyam is the author and historian behind Before We Were Trans, our guiding text for this episode. And Marty Davies is the founder of Trans+ History Week, an award-winning initiative now in its third year in the UK.You might think – like Bash did for an embarrassingly long time – that gender and sex binaries have been the norm since the beginning of time. Everyone has "male" and "female" right? Husband and wife, penetrator and pregnancy-haver. And that's that.That's actually wrong. It's waaaay messier than that. As long as there have been humans, there has been what Kit Heyam calls "gender disruption."This essentially experimental and creative approach to gender is in fact the norm – the one thing we find in almost every civilisation.As if that weren't enough, here are some other essential things you'll learn about in this episode:Ancient Egypt's female pharaohs, who insisted on wearing their beards(Plus, why their high priests didn't like gender creativity – spoiler alert: it fucked with their revenues!)A 17th century stand up comic who once wore trousers in St. Paul's Cathedral (WITCH!!!!! KILL IT!!!!!)The elegant and silk-draped wakashu, who were a third-gender class of adolescent sex workers in early modern TokyoAnd the truth of why writing trans+ history is so fucking hard but so necessary.As always thanks for listening, and if you love what you hear, please leave us a FIVE STAR ONLY review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.You can follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people at all.You can also listen to the QueerAF podcast on Apple, Spotify or your fave podcast app, including all the episodes that came out this season with Trans+ History Week. And subscribe to QueerAF's free newsletter to understand the LGBTQIA+ world every Saturday, or find them on Instagram and Bluesky.Episode Credits:Written, researched, and hosted by Bash. Special thanks to guests Kit Heyam and Marty Davies. Edited by Alex Toskas and Jamie Wareham.A QueerAF and Historical Homos Production.

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• Was Marie Antoinette A Lesbian? (feat. Eleanor Herman)

  She was young, she was hot, and she was hated. But did she eat pu$$y?Marie Antoinette was many things: a teen bride, a fashion icon, and according to Sofia Coppola, a big fan of The Strokes (I knew I liked this bitch!)She's famous nowadays for losing her head, but did she also give it? And to whom / with what degree of relish?In this week’s episode, Bash is joined by bestselling author and royal dirt-digger Eleanor Herman (Sex with Kings, Off With Her Head) to untangle the messy myth and misogyny surrounding France’s last queen.From bedroom rumors to an actual revolution, we trace how Marie’s alleged lesbian love affairs and slutty reputation helped take down the French monarchy.But how much of a labial libertine was dear old Marie?Did she really let they/them eat cake, or did she prefer to have hers eaten? And why did the revolutionaries care so much about who she was (or wasn’t) shtupping?Get ready to cover:👑 Marie’s teenage trauma: a 14-year-old Austrian girl dropped into horny French court politics👑 Her disastrous marriage to Louis XVI, France’s least sexy locksmith👑 Count Axel von Fersen: the hot Swede who became her baby daddy and was the only man in France who loved her👑 The lesbian propaganda: 18th-century porn pamphlets and political smear campaigns that took Marie down👑 Marie’s tragic downfall—and why she still makes us feel some kind of way about money, sex, fashion, and powerPlus: masquerade balls (aka cruising for cis-hets), Versailles orgies with her stepbrother, and the story of how Marie Antoinette's lesbian reputation became a 19th century pickup line for aspiring sapphics.You can find out more about women in power by reading Eleanor Herman's books at her website.Please also follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people at all.Episode CreditsWritten and hosted by Bash. Guest: Eleanor HermanEdited by Alex Toskas. Produced by Dani Henion.

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• Gay Marriage Was The Gayest Love Story Ever Told (feat. Jeremy Atherton Lin)

  Once upon a time—aka the 90s, when I bravely decided to be born—gay marriage was the only thing we queers could talk about. But why? Why were we so hell-bent on getting married? And how did the fight for marriage equality impact real people on the ground?In this episode, Bash is joined by writer and memoirist Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told, to explore the long, messy, and horny history of gay marriage in America—from deportation threats in the 1950s to a rainbow-lit White House under Obama.Along the way, we ask:💍 Who decides what a marriage is? Who gets to say who/what you are?🏳️‍🌈 What happens when a bi(coastal) relationship collides with the full force of the U.S. immigration system?🐴 Is a man marrying a man the same as a man marrying a horse? (The question, historically, was asked.)Also featuring:– Clive Boutilier, the Canadian gay man deported for being a “psychopath” (1950s medical slang for "gay")– A 1996 government letter from the Department of Justice that literally said to two gays: “A legal marriage cannot exist between two faggots.”– Bill Clinton wriggling out from under the S&M grip of DOMA– And one very filthy reading from our beloved guest...Not to mention this very real quote:🗣️ “Ordinarily a homo is psycho, but many are not.” — actual Supreme Court justice, 1967You can follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people at all.Episode CreditsWritten and hosted by Bash. Guest: Jeremy Atherton LinEdited by Alex Toskas. Produced by Dani Henion.

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• Tchaikovsky Comes Out To Mother Russia (feat. Simon Morrison)

  Imagine a world where you're Russian, gay, and happy about it.No this is not propaganda from the ultra-secret "Pinko" department of the Kremlin (they def have one of those).This is the very real story of the magnificent Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the world's greatest composers and a big old homosexual.He wrote the 1812 Overture, The Nutcracker, and the world’s gayest violin concerto (because it's "exuberant"). He also did Swan Lake, by the way, so perhaps most importantly, we wouldn't have Natalie Portman calling herself a WHORE on a mirror in red lipstick without him.This week, Bash is joined by Princeton professor of music history Simon Morrison — author of Tchaikovsky’s Empire — to explore what it meant to be gay (and fabulous) in 19th-century Russia. Together, they dismantle the myth of the tortured, closeted genius and paint a much queerer, more joyful picture of Tchaikovsky’s life.💅 Topics include:Why Tchaikovsky thrived as a gay man (in certain elite Russian circles, of course)His disastrous lavender marriage to Antonina MilyukovaThe kinky rumors, the tragic myths, and the straight up gay lies about his deathHis read on Wagner (who made him yawn) and the dish on the famous Violin Concerto, dedicated to his hottie violinist crush, Iosif KotekAlong the way, we ask the hard questions: Where were the best gay bars in St. Petersburg? Is Eugene Onegin queer-coded? And why does being gay make us better artists?Stick around at the end for a special conversation with Oliver Zeffman, founder of Classical Pride, about this year’s line-up of queer classical music events in London and LA.You can follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people at all.Written and hosted by Bash. Guest: Professor Simon Morrison. Edited by Alex Toskas. Produced by Dani Henion.

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