Read for Queer Your Year 2024 - Queer History

I’m not sure how it’s possible to make a book about queer villains of history boring, buttttt Bad Gays somehow manages it, much as it pains me to say it 🥲 Particularly the further back in history they went, it just did not keep me engaged. I did like the later chapters a bit more, such as Margaret Mead, Ronnie Kray and Pim Fortuyn. It was extremely interesting to see how their sexual orientation intersected with the other - terrible - aspects of their lives, from colonialism and the white gaze, to organised crime, and outright fascism. The writers acknowledge their white gay cis identities, and this is definitely reflected in their choice of subjects (though tbf this might actually be representative of the historical baddies lol).

Also the narrator?? He didn’t sound at all interested in the subject, and the delivery of the occasional campy one liners was bloody awful. 

Haven’t listened to the podcast, but I can see this being a vastly more interesting, short podcast ep than a full book.