Stop Queerwashing the Past

Were the Vikings gay? Was Queen Elizabeth I nonbinary? Was Jesus ‘queer’? 

Probably not. Yet these are the questions being asked by LGBT activists all the time. The latest victim of this historical queer-washing is 19th-century naval commander Admiral Lord Nelson. A taxpayer-funded gallery in Liverpool called the Walker Art Gallery included two paintings of Nelson’s death at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar as part of its online exhibition on the “history of LGBTQ+ love.” The reasoning for this was Nelson’s purported last words to his close friend, Captain Thomas Hardy. On his deathbed, Nelson said, “Kiss me, Hardy,” and Hardy then kissed Nelson on his hands and forehead. According to the gallery curators, historians have “speculated about the exact nature” of their relationship. “Regardless of the truth,” the text accompanying the display reads, “for many, Nelson’s famous request is symbolic of the sometimes hidden queer history of life at sea.”

You don’t have to be an expert in Napoleonic maritime history to guess that Lord Nelson was almost certainly not any flavour of ‘queer.’ For starters, he had been married to a woman, Frances Nisbet, for 18 years by the time of his death. He had also had a passionate affair with another woman, Emma Hamilton, making it highly unlikely that Nelson preferred male company. In any case, his reported last words alone are not compelling evidence. Historically, male platonic relationships have looked very different—and often more affectionate—than what we’re used to seeing today. 

Nelson’s exact final words have also been contested by historians. Last year, a letter from George Sievers, master at arms on HMS Belleisle, appeared for sale. He claimed Nelson instead said, “Thanks be to God, but I have lived this day and now I die content.” If true, this would blow any claims of Nelson and Hardy’s supposed homosexual relationship out of the water.

Nelson isn’t the only historical figure that activists have desperately tried to claim was gay, bisexual, or transgender. In fact, there is a growing trend of simply asserting that anyone famous throughout history must have been hiding or in denial about their gender or sexual identity. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was apparently gay. Jesus Christ himself, it has been argued, was both gay and transgender.  

Many of these claims rest on shaky readings of the past. Consider North Hertfordshire Museum in the UK, which in 2023 started labelling the third-century Roman emperor, Elagabalus, as transgender. The museum even uses female pronouns in its displays. The rationale comes from ancient sources that describe Elagabalus as wanting to be called a ‘lady’ and even requesting fashioned female genitalia. But classicists have long noted that such passages were likely smear tactics from his enemies, designed to paint Elagabalus as feminine and weak. 

Not that material evidence makes any difference to these activist historians. Last year, a PhD candidate and tutor at the University of Liverpool made the astonishing claim that some seventh-century Anglo-Saxon warriors might actually have been biological women who identified as men. He pointed to graves on England’s south coast, where skeletons and bone fragments previously identified as female were buried with weapons—swords, spearheads, and shields—typically linked to male status. From this, he suggested that early Anglo-Saxons “identified” as trans. 

Of course, there are plenty of more plausible reasons why these graves contained weapons. These could have been family heirlooms passed down to daughters. Or the women might have been a very rare example of female warriors. Alternatively, the bones could have simply been misidentified as female, given they were so damaged. All of these explanations are far more likely than the idea that people living 1,500 years ago were operating in line with modern beliefs about gender identity. 

This points to a particularly egregious trend of transwashing historical women purely because they had male-coded interests or strong personalities or simply didn’t fit the mould of femininity while they were alive. Hatshepsut, for example, is sometimes pounced upon by trans activists because she was a female pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. She has been posthumously declared “the first documented transgender figure in history” but the evidence for this is shaky at best. Yes, she did defy the gender norms of her time and culture, often being depicted wearing men’s clothing. But that’s it. According to the warped beliefs of gender ideologues, it’s not possible for a woman to be vaguely masculine without her actually wanting to become a man. 

This just goes to show how backward and regressive trans ideology really is. And it’s not just ancient, somewhat obscure historical women that are given this treatment. Even Joan of Arc, potentially one of the most famous women in history, is no longer allowed to simply be a woman. In 2022, the Globe Theatre in London announced a new play, reimagining Joan as nonbinary. In an essay accompanying the play, academic Dr. Kit Heyam (pronouns apparently they/he) claims that conventional understanding of Joan being a woman denies the “historical existence of trans experience.” Heyam goes on to suggest that Queen Elizabeth I might also have been nonbinary, because wearing armour could have had a “profound impact on their sense of self.” This practice isn’t anywhere near as progressive as activist academics like to think it is. According to them, women can’t act in traditionally masculine ways without secretly wanting to be men. Nor can men have close friends without being considered ‘queer’. What a narrow, depressing worldview. 

It should go without saying that this is all nonsense. History was not teeming with gender-non-conforming people. Claiming that people who lived hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago would have any idea what ‘queer’ or ‘nonbinary’ meant is absurd. But as the Lord Nelson display inadvertently admits, reality is optional here. “Regardless of the truth,” it says, these people will continue to assert that Nelson was gay, Jesus was trans, that Joan of Arc was nonbinary, and whatever other lies or exaggerations they feel like spreading. 

Trans ideology has already taken over our scientific, cultural, educational, and political institutions. We can’t let it rewrite history, too.