The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939

The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939 explores a sea change in how society regarded homosexuality in the wake of the coining of the term “homosexual” in 1869. Before this watershed moment, same-sex desire marked something you did, not necessarily something you were. The First Homosexuals examines how, for the first time, homosexuals were cleaved from the rest of the population and given an identity which turned on their sexuality. Since the invention of the “homosexual,” sexuality has become totalizing, determining who you are at your core. A little over two years ago while still in the midst of the global pandemic, Wrightwood 659 offered a taste of this upcoming exhibition’s approach and scope in a small preview entitled The First Homosexuals: Global Depictions of a New Identity, 1869-1930.

The exhibition is unprecedented with more than 300 works by more than 125 artists from 40 countries, on loan from over 100 museums and private collections across the world, including the Musée d’ Orsay, The Tate, The Courtauld, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kunsthaus Zürich, National Museum of Denmark, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Museo Gregorio Prieto, and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, among others. A number of works are national treasures which have never before been allowed to travel outside their countries.

Because images were capable of representing nuances for which there was literally no language, this innovative exhibition is able to describe one of the great ironies of the moment: while language was constricted to only two options—hetero- or homosexuality—art picked up the slack and came to represent an enormous range of identities, sexualities, and genders. The massive research program underpinning the exhibition has underscored how the advent of the “homosexual” followed the same route as colonial conquest, with the same destructive consequences. Because homosexuality signified sex between people of the same gender, it implicated not only sexuality but gender as well. Indeed, early definitions of sexual difference often turned on gender as much as sexuality, such as having a soul of one gender in a body of the opposite gender. Throughout the early history of the homosexual, as this exhibition demonstrates, same-sex desire and gender identity were twinned to the point of being inseparable; thus it is no surprise the rise of homosexual imagery also spurred the rise of non-binary or trans representation in its wake. Put otherwise, modern gay and trans identity were actually born together. It is our fervent hope this exhibition will aid in the reclamation of gender to the story of sexual difference.

The project has also uncovered a number of firsts, including the earliest known representation of a homosexual couple in the history of European art, the first modern trans representations, and a number of other discoveries by celebrated artists never before exhibited in this context. More than a third of the works on view were produced by women and artists of color.

Content Advisory:  The First Homosexuals contains sexually explicit content.  For mature audiences only. Some portions of the exhibition contain sexual violence, violence against Indigenous peoples, and racist depictions.

The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939 is presented by Alphawood Exhibitions.