Honestly, nothing makes me frustrated with the “historians will say they were friends” thing quite like running across reasonably clear suggestions of queerness in my own work and realizing that they simply aren’t that relevant to what I’m arguing about this particular figure.
My internal monologue: “I’m not the first person who’s suggested this man was queer. He has a few very intimate male friendships. He was overly familiar in a mutual way with his subordinate officer who became his adjutant. He had a statue of Ganymede at his home. But none of this is relevant because I’m talking about diplomacy and politics and as far as I can tell, these relationships were discreet enough to have no bearing on that. So I’ll call it friendship to not go off into the weeds.”
I’m not hiding things. I just am not writing a biography and don’t have a way to weave this in.
And it’s not like I can’t bring this up with my advisor. He knows that I think this, but also thinks it isn’t that central to what I’m arguing. Not “don’t say that about a historical figure” just “well, is it relevant?”
There’s also the complications of things people won’t say outright. And the fact that most of the people involved had the chance to go through their correspondence and remove things before it went in the archives (not saying for sure that they did, but there is the chance that they did.)
Add in some hefty social status things, social stigma, and a not unwarranted need for discretion and you get “I feel strongly that this is the case, but proving it past a shadow of a doubt would take a lot of work that isn’t worth doing because there isn’t an argument to attach to it. ”
But you know, that isn’t as appealing as conspiracy.
amhrancas 