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ulysses 🦢🌞

@ulsw.bsky.social

independent public historian & glam (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) odd jobber 🌞 28, he/him, mn

24 Posts97 Follower43 Folgt
ulysses 🦢🌞@ulsw.bsky.social · 2w ago

I like Roberto's essay writing style so much. Best adjectives I can think of are pensive and intellectual, but that doesn't really capture how haunting "Operationalizing Bias" is. "I am clearly a classification problem, and one that appears to have never been an issue before on this campus..."

murmurations@murmurationsjrnl.bsky.social · 2w ago

🪶New in Murmurations: K.R. Roberto's “Operationalizing Bias.” In this piece, the author describes "the problems in classification that I was personally experiencing" during an LIS PhD program, "namely, the ways in which my transness inexplicably led to medical issues and confused classmates."

Promotional graphic for Murmurations showing a bright red summer tanager perched on a leafy green tree. Large text reads, “Operationalizing Bias” with the author's name, “K.R. Roberto,” underneath. At the bottom, an arrow points to the website “murmurations.space.” The Murmurations logo is in the top-left hand corner of the image.
ulysses 🦢🌞@ulsw.bsky.social · 2mo ago

An early and clearly influential interpretation of the queer origin of The Little Mermaid (in English anyway) was written by the late Wilhelm von Rosen for the HC Andersen entry in Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II (Routledge, 2001).

Black serif text on a white background aka a page from the cited book that reads: "[Hans Christian] Andersen himself wrote to Edvard [Collin] in 1833 that it was his own 'softness and half womanliness' that made him cling to Edvard, and in the draft of an 1835 letter to Edvard that was not sent, he wrote that his love for him was not overwrought sentimentality but 'a pure, noble feeling'. Edvard's wedding in August 1836 made Andersen review their relationship. The fairy tale The Little Mermaid (1837) is an existential and poetic reflection and clarification of his love for Edvard—the impossible and fatal love of a little mermaid for a prince who never really sees her, except for her art, her dancing on the small feet that hurt as if she were treading on knives. Andersen wrote no more love letters to Edvard."Black serif text on a white background aka a page from the cited book that reads: "Although Andersen cannot be labelled 'homosexual', his personality and his lifestyle make him easily identifiable as a precursor of the homosexual man who emerged soon afterwards."
Vis_N1_Simp@caitlynhamato.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Since its pride just thought I’d share this little trinket about the little mermaid because it’s a neat piece of queer history that I think everyone should know!

The original 1837 fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen is widely interpreted by literary scholars and the LGBTQ+ community as a metaphor for unrequited queer love. Andersen wrote the story after the man he was deeply in love with-Edvard Collin-became engaged to a woman. The mermaid's sacrifice-losing her voice and enduring pain to be part of a world she cannot truly belong to-is seen as an allegory for the silenced queer experience of the 19th century.
ulysses 🦢🌞@ulsw.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I wish FindaGrave or BillionGraves had an extension/plugin to make it possible to find markers bearing multiple names, esp. with different surnames. I want this for LGBTQ #genealogy reasons, but there's definitely other ways a tool like that could be useful for other #familyhistory research.

ulysses 🦢🌞@ulsw.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I find bittersweet joy in articles like these, where 19th/early 20th c. US-based journalists related examples of gender nonconformity across time and place to each other. Not to say that journalists were thoughtful or respectful at all, but they did inadvertently write trans history cheat sheets.

The first three paragraphs of the newspaper article “Litet om ‘Lasse-Major’” published in the Svenska Amerikanska Posten (Minnesota) on January 29, 1901 (page 7). The full article mentions 6 people: Swedish memoirist Lasse-Maja (1785–1845); American politician Murray Hall (1841–1901); Pope Joan/Pope John VII, an alleged 9th century pope from Mainz (which is now in Germany); Christina of the House of Vasa, Queen of Sweden until she converted to Catholicism (1626–1689); Hungarian writer Sándor Vay (1859–1918); and a Swedish-American immigrant harassed by Minnesotan police throughout the 1890s known as Swede Pete/Cowboy Pete/Annie Hedstrom/Annie Johnson/Charles Parker. Note the Swedish-Americanisms, including the archaic “qvinna” rather than modern kvinna. Transcript: Litet om "Lasse-Major." ¶Hvem minnes icke ännu från sin barndom den sorglustiga historien, föröfrigt sann till punkt och pricka, om den beryktade stortjufven Lasse-Maja, hvilken på sin tid spelade stadsfiskaler och poliskonstaplar, länsmän och fjerdingsmän större spratt än efter honom någon annan illgerningsman. ¶Den illfundige bofven, hvilkens namn var Lars Molin, uppträdde under hela sin långa, brottsliga bana som fruntimmer, och var det antagligen derför, som han lyckades så väl. ¶Som herrskapet ser af en notis i nyhetsafdelningen, afled nyligen i New York en figur som under de senaste 30 åren gått och gällt för karl, under namnet Murray Hall, men efter döden visade sig vara en till alla delar fullt utbildad qvinna.The first paragraph of the article “Women in Men’s Clothes” as published in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (Hawaii) on March 27, 1901 (page 5). The full article mentions 34 people, including but not limited to: American forger Ellis Glenn, whose trials were national news in the 1890s; American journalist Jack Garland (referred to as “women who served as soldiers…one of these…from the Philippines”) (1869–1936); French diplomat and spy Chevalière d'Éon (1728–1810); Italian soldier Antonio Masanello (1833–1862); English tavernkeeper James How (né East) (c. 1716–1780); American physician and activist Mary Walker (1832–1919); and Irish surgeon James Barry (c. 1789–1865). Notably, this end of the shown paragraph brings up Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who pathologized trans people in his Psychopathia Sexualis. I highly recommend Marc-Antoine Crocq’s “How Gender Dysphoria and Incongruence Became Medical Diagnoses – A Historical Review” to learn more: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9286744/ Transcript: Careers of Feminine Advocates of Masculine Attire. ¶The case of Murray Hall, the woman who so long deceived New York in regard to her sex, is by no means without parallel. About a year ago "Ellis Glenn," who had fled from debts and an engagement to Ella Duke of Latennerd, Ill., confessed when arrested to being a woman, and yet she had lived for some time in a small town, doing a man's work and awakening no suspicion whatever. There are many tales of women who served as soldiers, and one of these, thoroughly authenticated, was reported only a short time ago from the Philippines. One Maggie Curley served before the mast; Minnie Briggs, a trapeze performer, worked as an expert telegraph linesman, and "Otto Schaffer," a Kansas hermit and soldier, turned out to be a woman, though given, nevertheless, a military funeral. History furnishes numberless examples from ancient times to the more modern instances noted by Kraff-Ebing.The first two paragraphs of the newspaper article “Forty-Three Women Who Have Passed As Men” as published in the St. Louis Republic (Missouri) on April 27, 1902 (page 7). The full article mentions 17 people, including but not limited to: American painter Charles Winslow Hall (1860–1901); American Civil War veteran Malinda Blalock (1839–1903); Irish soldier Christian Cavenaugh (1667–1739); and French Revolutionary War veteran John Taylor (né Talbot) (1778–1808). This article is notable to me for its use of the terms “passing” and “men-women.” This article is also available on the Digital Transgender Archive, where names are linked: https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/gq67jr480 Transcript: Written for the Sunday Republic. ¶Within a year six women have been discovered in America alone, who have successfully masqueraded as men; have gone through a legal form of marriage and even posed as the fathers of families. Upward of a score of similar cases have come to public attention recently in different parts of the world. There have been forty-three instances of women posing as husbands within the last ten years. One medical authority claims that one woman in every 3,000 is a victim of this peculiar mania. ¶Two new instances have been added recently to the amazing list of women who have lived and died disguised as men. In both cases the women had been "married," and had reared and educated children.The first paragraph of the article “Hombes Que Han Pasado Por Mujeres” published in La Prensa (California) on December 27, 1919 (page 2). This article differentiates the “degeneración” of Elagabalus and Henry II from honorable “men who wear women’s clothes,” including: Achilles in the Iliad; Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (1640–1701) of France; Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1772—1822); and French diplomat and spy Chevalière d'Éon (1728–1810). Transcript: Dejando a un lado los hombres que como Heliogábalo o Enrique II de Francia, al adoptar el traje femenino demonstraban la degeneración, ha habido otros muchos que por las circunstancias se han visto obligados a hacer lo mismo. La leyenda griega nos ofrece un ejemplo en la historia de Aquiles. El oráculo habia profetizado que el niño seria el conquistador de Troya; pero que moriría en la empresa. La madre, temiendo por su hijo, le visitió y crió como niña, y lo entregó a Nicodemes, Rey de Soyeros, para que lo educara entre sus hijas.