Instagram’s queer historians share their meaningful LGBTQIA+ moments

While queer histories have often been erased from the archives, belittled in classrooms and overlooked by mainstream audiences, social media has provided ways for new generations to connect with our long and storied histories. A range of accounts have emerged which allow queer history heads the chance to connect LGBTQIA+ audiences hungry for representation with examples of ancestors – and trancestors – they can carry in their hearts.

Here in the UK, we're celebrating LGBTQIA+ History Month: a time to celebrate our long lineage of resistance, love, community and self-expression. To coincide with the festivities, we've tapped our fave queer history accounts to hear about the meaningful moments, films, snapshots and figures they hold dear.

Keep reading for what @takweer_, @dressingdykes, @bihistory and @transmascstudies had to say.

Leslie Feinberg's speech at the Al-Fatiha retreat, 2002

Ellis Jackson Kroese, @transmascstudies

"I wholeheartedly credit the best thing I have ever been part of to Leslie Feinberg, the legendary lesbian transgender activist and author. More specifically, I credit it to hir speech at the Al-Fatiha retreat in 2002, about the vital importance of queer solidarity with Palestinians. After reading hir powerful words last year, I launched a fundraiser for the cause, which has since raised over £20,000 for families and activist groups across Palestine and Lebanon. This success belongs to the generosity and friendship that is the core of our community, but my small role in it remains my proudest achievement. I will always be grateful for the wisdom of my trancestor for being the driving force behind it."

Miss Hanafi, 1954

Marwan Kaabour, @takweer_ and editor of The Queer Arab Glossary

"Miss Hanafi is an Egyptian comedy from 1954 that explores gender and their roles vis-a-vis prevailing societal norms. It was the first film in the Arab region to have a central transgender character, and to explore its protagonist’s gender identity and its challenges at length. Despite it being a comedy, the film offered a relatively progressive view of gender reassignment, as it did not criminalise it or poke fun at it, but rather showed it as normal, and was treated as such by the film’s other characters. The film went on being a smashing success."

Brigid of Kildare and Darlughdach

Mel Reeve, @bihistory

"A moment in history that means a lot to me as a bisexual person that’s passionate about LGBTQIA+ history is the story of the sixth-century Irish nuns Brigid of Kildare and Darlughdach. They shared a bed and their lives together, and this intimate bond was a foundational aspect of their faith. We can see many aspects within that relationship that speak to contemporary queer experiences. It reminds me how rich, interconnected, and long the history of the LGBTQIA+ community is, and that we can see representations of it throughout history, if we take the time to look."

The Gateways, c. 1930s - 1985

Eleanor Medhurst, @dressingdykes and author of Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion

“This image is a snapshot from The Gateways, a lesbian club that was open from the 1930s until 1985 in Chelsea, London. It was a haven for so many British lesbians – a place to be themselves, to find friends, a partner or a one-night-stand, a place of pilgrimage and recognition. As a lesbian fashion historian, this 1953 photograph is particularly meaningful: it’s proof of a place where women could love each other, and where butch identity, in particular (so vilified in mainstream society) could thrive. It wasn’t perfect – nowhere is – but it’s a crucial part of lesbian history in the last century.”