Famous gay american authors

Visibility. It’s one of the most crucial needs of the queer community. To be understood, to be accepted, the LGBTQIA+ community needs first to be seen. This has meant that centuries of authors writing about the experiences, love, and pain of the queer community have been crucial in making progress towards a radical acceptance.

From the delicate art form of the semi-autobiographical novel — a life story veiled behind fictional names and twists — to the roar of poetry to a dense dive into the history that has too often been erased and purged, queer literature has helped to challenge, move, and shape generations of readers.

As a pansexual, demisexual cis noun on my way into another Pride Month, researching and crafting this list was a singular joy. I have many books to put on hold at my local library. Many stories to encounter. Many histories to educate myself on.

Because queer texts help to increase our visibility to the “outside” world, but they also increase internal visibility and acknowledgment. Today, transphobia is rampant among the queer community, and there are still

From Sappho to Stonewall, and beyond: how fiction tells LGBTQ+ history

Fiction tells us so much about the time we live in – and LGBTQ+ writers own been writing since the prior days of literature. Their stories have often, but not always, been marginalised, but they own always said something about the era in which they were first told or published. Here, we take a look at the evolution of queer fiction across the ages – for brevity’s sake, focusing on the Western world – and what it reflects about that moment in history, from Sappho, to Stonewall, and beyond.

Queer stories in antiquity

Madeline Miller’s hit The Anthem of Achillesis a moving queer retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of young prince Patroclus that simultaneously reflects pride in same-sex relationships (Achilles remains adamant throughout that he and Patroclus be seen together) and modern anxieties about romantic relationships and masculinity – how men can be gentle, how to manage family expectations.

But being queer wasn’t always coded as different, and many myths don’t require retel

Prominent Queer Writers Throughout History

  • Walt Whitman was an American poet, author, essayist, and journalist. He wrote well-known works such as Leaves of Grass and Tune of Myself. Although he never confirmed his sexuality to the public, those close to him say he was very unlock about being queer.
  • Oscar Wilde was an Irish novelist and poet. He is remembered by his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. This novel was largely criticized for having homoerotica. He is well-known for his "the love that dare not speak its name" in which he said "it is attractive, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it." He is one of the novelists that claim Whitman was queer, stating that they shared a kiss once.
  • Virginia Woolf was an English writer and poet. She is adj known for publishing Mrs. Dalloway, A Room of One's Possess, and Orlando. She was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of literary figures who encouraged being liberated about sexuality and sensuality. She had a long-term relationship with female poet and wri

    20 Queer Authors from History Who You Need to Know

    Given the scarcity of satisfactory LGBTQ representation, one might be inclined to think that LGBTQ people haven’t existed for the bulk of human history. Nothing could be further from the truth. Queer folks have been around since the dawn of time, and we aren’t going anywhere. Discrimination, violence, and oppression have contributed to the erasure of queer individuals who have been blazing the trails since before your grandparents’ grandparents were born, and here is just a miniature drop in the ocean of queer writers throughout history.

     

    1. Walt Whitman ()

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    Walt Whitman was a American, poet, author, essayist, and journalist. His prolific career is perhaps best remembered for his epic poems Leaves of Grass and Song of Myself. Biographers have continually debated Whitman’s sexual orientation; his poetry, particularly Leaves of Grass, which faced serious censorship after its publication, contains several homoerotic images, however others argue that this was unintentional. Whitman himself was ca