Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

So I started this fun little project, researching queer people from the 15th and 16th centuries. Cool, right? At first I was like, "I'm gonna go prove that queer people always been here! 😘 Take that TERFs and homophobes!!!!" And at first, that was super fun because, guess what! I found TONNNNNNNNES of queer stuff from 500 years ago. The 2000 year old Chinese cutsleeve tradition (still in full swing, go look up "Danmei" on tumblr dot com, YOU ARE WELCOME), with romantic epics about powerful men and their beautiful male lovers, even with its own GOD of same-sex love, Tu'er Shen 兔儿神. The 8th century Japanese Buddhist priest Kūkai 空海 went to China to study Vajrayana Buddhism and allegedly learned the art of monastic gay love. He invented the Kana writing system still used today, established the Japanese state religion of Shingon Buddhism, and established the Japanese insitution of wakashudo-- the way of desiring beautiful young men. Then there's those Flore...