Queer As Fact

Today's episode is on Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic consulting detective! Join us as we talk about aromanticism, turn-of-the-century masculinity,and whether Watson is, in fact, a woman. Link to the article Watson was a Woman? discussed in the episode Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Illustration of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson by Sydney Paget. Source]

In today's episode, we're discussing the Circle of Sex, a 1960s astrological representation of sexuality, and its eccentric creator Gavin Arthur. Join us to hear about how to have sex à la Walt Whitman, how to figure out if you're a Sappho or a Club Woman, and whether there is a faint possibility, just maybe, that the Circle is a tiny bit flawed.  If you would like to follow along at home, please have a look at the Circle of Sex diagram. We do our best to explain it, but it will hopefully make things a little bit clearer if you have a look yourself! Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: The Circle of Sex, a diagram of a circle cut into twelve segments, with a Yin-Yang symbol at the centre. Each segment has a label such as 'Hyperheterogenic - Don Juan' or '3/4 homogenic - Lesbian'.]

Today's marathon episode is about the French revolutionary figure Maximilien Robespierre, whose apparent lack of sexuality has been a point of discussion for scholars ever since his death. Join us as we try to find the real man behind more than two hundred years of conflicting propaganda, explore methods of approaching history on the asexual spectrum, and add to the pantheon of Queer As Fact historical pets. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Wikimedia Commons, Portrait of Maximilien Robespierre, c. 1790, anonymous artist]

Today's episode is on the Haitian Revolutionary religious leader Romaine-la-Prophétesse whose identity as a prophetess of the Virgin Mary was key to his leadership of an insurrectionary camp in pre-revolutionary Haiti. Join us to learn about Romaine's divine mission to abolish slavery, a definitely legitimate and not at all excommunicated priest, and the implications of getting topped by the Virgin Mary for your gender identity.   Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image source: Romaine's signature, found in Terry Rey's The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World]

Today's episode is on the 3rd-century North African saints, Felicity and Perpetua! Join us to hear about queer dreams, the mysterious absence of Felicity and Perpetua's husbands, and why early Christians wanted to abolish gender. Read the 3rd century Passion of Saints Felicity and Perpetua, discussed in the episode, here. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Mosaic of Felicity and Perpetua, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC, USA]

In today's episode, Jasmine, Irene and Alice discuss the 2017 Academy Award-winning Chilean film Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman). This film's grounded and sometimes surprisingly hopeful depiction of a trans woman's grief provided such a realistic depiction of legal barriers facing trans people in Chile that it contributed to positive changes in legislation around gender transition. Join us to talk about a three-dimensional trans protagonist, how queer suffering is not inevitable, and what made us genuinely love this sad queer movie. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: A poster for the movie A Fantastic Woman featuring the face of lead actress Daniela Vega as main character Marina, with a rainbow lighting filter over her face]

Today's episode is on asexual and aromantic history! We're talking with Luciella Scarlett, the curator of Nonlimerent // Monosexual: An Aromantic and Asexual History. Join us to hear about the first self-identified ace person, the evolution of ace and aro terminology, and how much we can learn from looking at history through an asexual lens. You can check out Nonlimerent // Monosexual: An Aromantic and Asexual History online here and see Luciella talk more about her work in the Aces Never Ever Sleep stream here. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Luciella Scarlett, smiling, in front of a progress pride flag]

Today's Queer as Fiction episode discusses David Lowery's 2021 adaptation of Arthurian legend, The Green Knight. Join us for a romp through allegorical adventures of identity, whale-like giants and dissapointingly unsexy ents.  If you'd like to read Jude Doyle's review (that we discuss fairly extensively towards the end of the episode), you can do so here: https://judedoyle.medium.com/the-green-knight-is-the-existential-queer-folk-horror-we-need-843be5fbd1d6 If you never got around to our episode on the original Arthurian legend that this movie is based on, you can check that out here: https://queerasfact.podbean.com/e/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight/ Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Sir Gawain raises an axe on a hilltop, in front of the film's title which sits on a plain red background.

Today we’re talking about the Nigerian performer Area Scatter. Learn about her successful career as a trans performer in 1970s Nigeria, gender diversity in Igbo culture, and how we approach research when academic sources are limited. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. (Image credit: Still from Jeremy Marre's Beats of the Heart: Konkombe (1979))

Today's episode is on Italian-British sculptor Fiore de Henriquez, whose art reflected her own complicated relationship with gender and sex as an intersex person. Join us to hear about Fiore distracting Nazis with crepes, seducing everyone around her whether she meant to or not, refounding a town, and ruminating on the gendered nature of clay. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky.

Today we're bringing you a little bonus episode to tide you over until March! We're chatting with George Savoulis, the curatorial director of Qtopia, Sydney's centre for queer history and culture. Join us to hear about queer shoes, the complexities of sharing queer history in an old police station, and why you should visit Sydney! Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky.

Today's episode is on Jane Schoenbrun's breakout 2024 horror film - I Saw The TV Glow. Join us for a discussion that is alternately haunting and deeply silly, featuring playground parachutes, TV-based queer awakenings and Alice's love of soup.  Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: A cropped poster for the movie I Saw The TV Glow, featuring our protagonist Owen sitting down, facing away from the camera staring into the pink static glow of an old TV set]

Today's episode is on the Spanish-Chinese pilot, diplomat, and concentration camp survivor Nadine Hwang. Join us to learn about Parisian lesbians, the skills of the ultimate modern women, and Nadine's war-time romance with her life-partner Nelly Mousset-Vos. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Black-and-white photo of Nadine Hwang amongst refugees arriving in Malmö, Sweden, April 1945. Still from the documentary Nelly & Nadine]

Today we're talking about Megillus, a trans-masculine character in the 2nd-century text Dialogues of the Courtesans. Tune in for three separate queer characters, the complexities of discussing transness in the ancient world, and a whole host of mythological examples of ways to be queer. If you want to listen to the episode on Roman women for some background, you can check it out here.  If you want to read the dialogue we're discussing, you can find it here.  Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: text in Greek from the Dialogues of the Courtesans, centering on the name 'Megillus'.

Today's episode is on the 17th-century nun, saint, and religious leader Walatta Petros. Join us for Queer as Fact's first visit to Ethiopia, as we learn about 17th century religious conflicts; discuss Walatta Petros' lifelong relationship with Eheta Kristos; and wade into scholarly debate on exactly what the nuns in her community were getting up to. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Illustration of Walatta Petros, an Ethiopian nun wearing an orange patterned shawl. She is holding a cross, and has a halo above her head. Source.]

Today’s episode is on 2021’s Rwandan/American science fiction musical, Neptune Frost. Join us for a discussion of cyberpunk fashion choices, technomagical gender transitions and some of the worst pigeon acting you’ve ever seen.  Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: A poster for the film Neptune Frost, featuring the two words of the title in distinct yet equally fantastical fonts, as well as actors Cheryl Isheja (playing Neptune) and Bertrand "Kaya Free" Ninteretse (playing Matalusa)]

Today's episode is on the US Civil War soldier Albert Cashier. Tune in for some heartwarming trans acceptance in the 1910s, a wild genealogy trip, and an unpleasant discovery about how often Civil War soldiers bathed. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: Portrait of Albert, a young man in Civil War uniform, c.1864]

Today's episode is on the mystery of Australian banker and rower John Lempriere Irvine. Join us to hear about rollerskating balls, rowing drama, and the possibilities of gay life in 19th century Australia. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: tintype photograph of John, who has large mutton chops and a moustache, from Wayne Murdoch's The Mystery of the Handsome Man: The Double Life of John Lempriere Irvine]

Today we're joined by Lazou from Nuances: Our Asian Stories to discuss her series Queering Premodern Asia. Join us as we chat about the complexities of queer history, the importance of non-Western stories, and queer Chinese ghosts. You can check out Nuances here. Visit out our website, where you can find everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky.

Today's episode is on a passage from the work of 14th century French Jewish writer and translator Qalonymos ben Qalonymos. Join us to learn about Qalonymos' life, explore their understandings of gender through a passage from their work the Even Bochan, and discuss its connections to historical and modern Jewish practice. Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: A close-up photo of a Hebrew manuscript; the text is the opening of the passage discussed in the episode, Internet Archive.]