@ulsw.bsky.social
"real-life community historian from Minnesota" lmao 🌞 27 🌞 he/him https://ulyssesswanson.carrd.co
That's great! Good books to start with are Susan Stryker's Transgender History and Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States. I believe both have audiobook versions!
12.02.2026 02:22 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0For those who want to know what queer history actually looks like, here's the actual comic from 1976 and art that ties the character Andy Lippincott to the discussion of AIDS.
Images from the WaPo strip archive and user The Doonesbury Collector on artworkarchive.com . Neither are useless AI junk!
We're honored to partner with Dr. Benjamin Rieth on the Queer Wisconsin Storybook Project—a statewide effort to document and celebrate queer lives in every corner of Wisconsin.
This project will feature 72 stories from 72 queer Wisconsinites -- every county in the state! #BeSeen🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
A thin elder white cat with gray spots and green eyes walks towards the camera. Motion blur around her face makes the picture look intense.
A white cat with gray spots lays in the shape of a shrimp on a yellow carpet. She is smiling.
Personally and otherwise, the last two weeks have been a lot, but I do now have a 15-year-old cat named Izzy now, so that's something. Great even!
20.01.2026 23:37 — 👍 11 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0And oh my god, today's the 125th anniversary of Hall's death. The timing.
16.01.2026 20:08 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Potato Salad, Probably
Megan LeForte
2023
Just realized I picked two examples that are direct responses to the death and outing of Murray Hall in 1901, and another is essentially a "year in review." Tbf, his death galvanized journalists in the US to write about this topic more than any other outing I can think of (e.g. Burnham in 1868).
14.01.2026 19:22 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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.
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.
14.01.2026 19:14 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0Montréal. This May. I'll share the fascinating history of a queer restaurant on the border of Minnesota and North Dakota. And sample so much food. And meet rad people. I'm so f'n excited.
09.01.2026 20:14 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
The artist's left hand, a cross of green-pink-gray-white under the florescent light, stretching away from the camera, fingers curling towards the palm. The pinkie is the closest to the viewer, and the nail is covered in spots of blood orange, dandelion yellow, pale rose, and solid white. They remind the artist of delicate little flowers, like lantana.
The artist's hand held towards the camera. The pad of the ring finger has a smudge of light green and blood orange. Behind the fingers is the out-of-focus reflection of the artist in a dark gray hoodie.
Sometimes when you paint...you become the art
07.01.2026 00:03 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Nova, that was our secret 😖
06.01.2026 03:01 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I've been looking for a book on 20th century Scandinavian trans history! This thread also mentions Sam Holmqvist, whose works on 18th century Swedish trans history I also recommend.
21.12.2025 17:29 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0My husband's crab army grows (and two more people are converted to painting minis mua ha ha).
24.11.2025 16:44 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Two books covers. The first (left) is titled QUEER CLOUT: CHICAGO AND THE RISE OF GAY POLITICS. The cover includes lavender, yellow, and white sans serif text in all capitals over a black-and-white photograph of two white men protesting at a park c. 1970s; one of the men carries a flag with two Venus symbols and two Mars symbols overlapping under the illustration of a raised fist, indicating gay and lesbian solidarity. The second (right) is for the book CREATING A PLACE FOR OURSELVES: LESBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL COMMUNITY HISTORIES. The cover includes black and green serif text over a black-and-white photograph of a city street packed with cars and wide sidewalk packed with people walking in the United States c. 1945. The photo has been recolored in sepia tones/yellow except for a rectangle that is still in black and white; this relief is a visual metaphor, suggesting both that historic queer spaces existed alongside, even blended in with, non-queer spaces and that the authors in this collection of essays will highlight these spaces specifically.
Two screenshots of websites. The first (left) is of the table of contents for QUEER BRONZEVILLE, 1900-1985, BY TRISTAN CABELLO, a digital exhibit hosted by OutHistory. Pink and black serif text is on white and gray backgrounds, and white serif text is on a pink background. The second (right) is the abstract of the academic article ONLY IN THE BIG CITY: ISOLATION, RURALITY, AND LEISURE IN LESBIAN CHICAGO, 1971-1996, published by the Journal of Urban History. Black and blue sans serif text is on a white background, and the name of the journal is in white sans serif font on a dark green background at the top of the screenshot.
Two books covers. The first (left) is for OUT IN CHICAGO: LGBT HISTORY AT THE CROSSROADS. Red and black mixed font styles sit atop a beige background, along with two rainbow stripes (one above the title, the other above the subtitle) and four six-pointed red stars between "in" and "Chicago." The second (right) is for QUEER LEGACIES: STORIES FROM CHICAGO'S LGBTQ ARCHIVES. Black and pink text in mixed font styles sits on a white rectangle, and the white rectangle sits on a collage of three photographs: two black women and a white man blowing up balloons on a sunny day c. 1980s (top), buttons with slogans on them on a turquoise background (bottom left), and a black-and-white photograph of three women in black skirts sitting on a couch and white drapes c. 1950s (bottom right).
Two book covers. The first (left) is for CHICAGO WHISPERS: A HISTORY OF LGBT CHICAGO BEFORE STONEWALL. The background is a dark sepia toned photograph of a wet, busy urban street surrounded by tall brick buildings c. 1910s. The title is written in a sand or beige serif font that blends into the photograph and positioned at the top of the cover. The subtitle is written in a white serif font in all capitals on a black background towards the center of the cover. The second (right) is for OUT AND PROUD IN CHICAGO: AN OVERVIEW OF THE CITY'S GAY COMMUNITY. The title is written in white and gray sans serif fonts and positioned in a stripe of black between the top and center of the cover. Above and below the black stripe are 10 photographs separated by thin black stripes; the photographs represent multiple eras (from the early 1900s to the 2000s) and include portraits of singular people and couples, shots of protests and prides, and images of buildings. The use of photos from a variety of eras and showing a variety of subjects is meant to emphasize the breadth of Chicago's queer history.
I've been putting together a list of regional queer history writing for every Midwestern state for ~reasons~, and literally every monograph, academic article, dissertation, even popular press book I've found for the state of Illinois is about fucking 20th century Chicago.
22.11.2025 17:22 — 👍 10 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
For the last day of Transgender Awareness Week, I want to share my 3+ year project Transgender Ancestors, a guide for genealogists on Wikitree (@wikitree.bsky.social). It links ~50 profiles of everyday trans people born before 1930, these trans life stories reconstructed from vital & census records.
20.11.2025 02:12 — 👍 7 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
