Queer is Here? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Histories and Public Culture

Museums and Sexuality

“…The historian Robert Mills has argued that some recent LGBT exhibitions have offered an overly simplistic narrative, from repression to outness, or that they have reinforced the assumption that people are either completely straight or gay (Mills ). Queering the Museum took a more nuanced approach that sought to reflect the diversity and complexities of LGBT (or queer) experience, rather than offering a simple linear narrative or progressive history from repression to equality.…”

Sexuality in Heterotopia: time, space and love between women in the historic house

“…16 Commentators have noted that the histories of sexual minorities have been the most contested and difficult of the marginalised histories to present publicly, and that on the occasions when this is achieved, there are problems concerning the anachronism of 'lesbian' or 'gay' as identities in the past. 17 When historic houses focus on a prominent former inhabitant, then biographical interpretations can add another form of history to curatorial decision-making. Since the early 1970s, a new form of biographical writing has delved more deeply into its subjects' sexual lives: their feelings and relationships were not to be kept hidden or private, but were part of the life story that produced their achievements.…”

Going on an outing: the historic house and queer public history

“…In a perceptive analysis of recent museum exhibitions on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history, Robert Mills identifies a common theme within them of the historic oppression of lesbians and gay men, superseded by their increasing visibility and political influence, a progress narrative long critiqued by scholars of sexuality. He notes the importance of such exhibitions in challenging the implicit heteronormativity of museum spaces, but questions the projection of contemporary sexual identities onto the past, arguing that public history needs to take on the complexity of sexual subjectivity in the past by developing new ways of queering museum display (Mills 2006(Mills , 2008. In his view, there are problems associated with a biographical approach to the past, including the temptation to assign ahistorical identities to queer individuals (Mills 2006).…”

“…He notes the importance of such exhibitions in challenging the implicit heteronormativity of museum spaces, but questions the projection of contemporary sexual identities onto the past, arguing that public history needs to take on the complexity of sexual subjectivity in the past by developing new ways of queering museum display (Mills 2006(Mills , 2008. In his view, there are problems associated with a biographical approach to the past, including the temptation to assign ahistorical identities to queer individuals (Mills 2006). This article explores these issues within another genre of public history, the historic house, and in doing so questions the distinction (and often implicit hierarchy) made by academic historians between identification and queering, between similarity and otherness, in public history.…”

“…Focusing on the cultural contribution of their former owners, historic houses such as those discussed here are sites which tend to invoke dominant narratives of class, national identity and the heteronormative family. While curators try to promote and work with a sense of connection between the visitor and the site, the interests of lesbian and gay visitors were largely ignored until the 1990s and queer histories suppressed, for fear of causing offence to a conservative market and potentially falling foul of the law after the notorious 'Section 28' of the Local Government Act 1988 prohibited local authority spending on the 'promotion' of homosexuality (Vanegas 2002;Mills 2006). In this context, the agency of lesbian and gay visitors in experiencing these historic houses as sites of queer history created an alternative history of sexuality and desire by calling up the ghosts of the past.…”