What We Inherit When We Learn Our History

Recently, I’ve been learning more about queer history and queer theory (12 years into being out—turns out it’s never too late), and I came across something that really stuck with me. Unlike many other marginalized communities, queer people often don’t inherit our history through family or oral tradition. We don’t grow up hearing stories at the dinner table about who came before us or how they survived. Our history is rarely passed directly from parents to children.

I’m half Mexican, and I grew up with stories from my mom’s side—cultural memories shaped by migration, resilience, and struggle. Those stories rooted me in something larger than myself. But as queer people, many of us don’t have that same experience. We usually find our history later in life—through books, podcasts, documentaries, community spaces, or older queer folks willing to share.

That means it’s up to us to seek out our past: to learn about Stonewall, the AIDS crisis, and the queens and activists who first rose up and fought for our rights. There is so much powerful—and often suppressed—queer history out there. Did you know Eleanor Roosevelt almost certainly had a woman lover for decades? Much of our history exists between the lines, hidden in footnotes, letters, and coded language.

As I’ve spent more time learning this history, I’ve felt increasingly connected to the queer community in a way that surprised me. Last summer, walking through the Boston Pride Parade, I kept getting emotional every time I saw an older queer person. These are the people who risked their jobs, their safety, their families, and their freedom simply to exist openly. People who marched when it was dangerous, who loved when it was criminalized, who survived when so many didn’t. And the thing that hits hardest is how recent all of this is. This isn’t ancient history.

Learning about our past gives me strength—especially now, during this difficult time in America, when rights feel fragile and hard-won progress is being questioned or rolled back. The queer community has always known how to survive, how to organize, how to care for one another when institutions failed us. We have always known how to find joy in the middle of uncertainty, and how to fight back when people come for us.

That resilience is part of our inheritance, even if we had to go searching for it. Knowing our history reminds me that we’ve been here before—and that we know what to do.

Happy Pride. Take care of yourself, and if you can, try to take care of someone else too.

If you’re interested in learning more, here are some podcasts and books I’ve enjoyed on queer history:

The Stonewall Uprising — You’re Wrong About Podcast
Before Stonewall — Throughline Podcast
The Lavender Scare — Throughline Podcast
Queer — A Graphic History Book
Eleanor and Hick — Book

Written by

Deanna “Dee” Sassorossi
EPRI

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