Int1.1 - Edward Carpenter’s Intermediate Types. How to uncover LGBTQ+ History

2024-09-06

I explore the ideas contained in Edward Carpenter's book Intermediate Types. He described how if you study LGBTQ+ peoples within cultures dominated by Christianity you will get a distorted picture due to Christian anti-gay prejudice. Unfortunately European colonialism from the 15th to 20th Century CE has spread this Christian anti-gay influence, forcibly, right across the world. But if you make the effort to examine cultures across the world and across history before Colonialism and Christianity g...

I explore the ideas contained in Edward Carpenter's book Intermediate Types. He described how if you study LGBTQ+ peoples within cultures dominated by Christianity you will get a distorted picture due to Christian anti-gay prejudice. Unfortunately European colonialism from the 15th to 20th Century CE has spread this Christian anti-gay influence, forcibly, right across the world.

But if you make the effort to examine cultures across the world and across history before Colonialism and Christianity got there then you will find a different story. There are countless examples of cultures where "intermediate type" people (what we might today label LGBTQ+) were accepted by the society they live within, and in many cases valued for what they offered and how they lived.

This is part 1 of a 3 part introductory series introducing these ideas. Later recordings will give much more detail.

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