A lot of this is historians using a euphemism in a time when homosexuality was/is still frowned upon or outright illegal, and contemporary audiences not picking up on it.
Eg. “confirmed bachelor” or “he never married.” Wikipedia:
If you want your paper published you better find a heterosexual explanation
Well, most of history is full of powerful leaders who were either bisexual or gay, so I wouldn’t say history is anti-homosexual. The farther you go back the more openly they were about sexuality. Only when politics decided to use it as a tool (several hundred years ago) to separate people did it become taboo.
Maybe this is a US joke I don’t get, but nobody else really has “dont say gay” laws, and historians especially don’t abide by them, not reputable one’s anyway.
As a history major, even a lot of academic papers from 40-50 years ago were stunningly intentionally blind to homosexual subtext. It was never universal, but it definitely was common enough to be worthy of mention. Nowadays most publishings are pretty open about the possibility of someone being homosexual.
Exactly. 40-50 years ago is not a long time and plenty of homophobia then. There was less homophobia a 1000 years ago and right now than there was 50 years ago.
My point wasn’t academic papers either, it was historical records washing away the gay parts. That’s a modern problem, no idea why ppl downvoting my original comment. It’s pretty clear what I was saying
In modern russia, there is a criminal charge of “LGBT propaganda”
Lmao russia is a developing country and a shithole. I meant developed countries with human rights don’t have “dont say gay” laws.
Russia is also not the only country where they persecute LGBT folks
