Gay History and Glowing Lemonade

For three years now, I have been a proud member of my high school's GSA/Pride club/LGBT+ alliance. Although we weren't very good at picking a name, it was a lot of fun. We held awareness events, picnics, etc. One particular event that my friend J.P. had been pushing for since his freshman year was a glow-in-the-dark tea party. And this year, the year when he and I both graduated, we managed to pull it off.

Obviously, this was kind of a big thing to try and pull off. If you've been following me for a bit, you may have worked out that I tend to bite off a little more than I can chew. You can probably see where this is going. I wound up as the head of the catering division, and I volunteered to give a presentation about gay history all by myself. So, over the course of three weeks, I researched queer identity through the ages and also how to make food glow in the dark, and then I stayed up until 1 AM the morning of the big party finishing up glowing sugar cookies.

Here, then, are the fruits of my labors. We'll start with making food glow. Lots of food glows by itself under blacklights, which is what we used at the party. Bananas glow blue, ketchup, honey, and vanilla ice cream glow various shades of yellow, lots of freshly-sliced vegetables glow various colors, and hard-boiled eggs can vary between violet and red. But for making anything and everything under the sun (or rather, not under the sun) glow, you need tonic water. Yes, it's bitter and hard to mask, but it can be covered up with other strong flavors. Here are the recipes I used.

Glow-in-the-Dark Buttercream
You will need:

• 1 cup butter, softened (or 1 cup shortening)
• 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
• 5 tablespoons tonic water
• 6 to 8 cups confectioners’ sugar
• Food coloring, if desired
• 3 ounce package Jell-O (in the color and flavor desired)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 cup chilled tonic water

STEP 1:

Start by preparing the buttercream. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on medium speed until light and very fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.

STEP 2:

Stir in the vanilla extract, 5 tablespoons of tonic water, and 4 cups of the confectioners’ sugar. Mix on low speed until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary with a rubber spatula.

STEP 3:

Add the remaining confectioners’ sugar, one cup at a time, until a spreading or piping consistency has been reached. Stir in the food coloring until combined, if using. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for the moment.

STEP 4:

Ice whatever you’d like to ice with the buttercream, and set it in the freezer for at least an hour, or even overnight, so the buttercream can get quite firm, even a bit hard. For this project, we tried both cupcakes with white buttercream and a cake with green buttercream.

STEP 5:

Once the buttercream is very firm to the touch, prepare the glaze. Place the Jell-O powder in a bowl that will allow you enough room to dip your cupcakes or cookies; otherwise, you can use a pastry brush to apply the glaze.

STEP 6:

Boil one cup of water, and then add it to the Jell-O mix. Whisk for about 1 minute, or until thoroughly combined. Add the chilled tonic water and continue whisking. Basically, you’ll be preparing the Jell-O per the package instructions, but instead of one cup of boiling water and one cup of chilled water, you’re using boiling water and chilled tonic water.

STEP 7:

To help the Jell-O mixture cool, you can place it in an ice bath to hasten the process. Or, simply wait until it is cool to the touch but still liquid. You just don’t want the Jell-O to start setting.

STEP 8:

It’s time to brush or dip your buttercream-topped treats. Take several of the treats out at a time from the freezer. Either dip in the Jell-O mixture, so that only the buttercream gets dipped, or brush it on top of the buttercream. Try to avoid the cake or pastry as much as possible, focusing on the icing. Let excess Jell-O drip off, and transfer back to a plate. Put each treat back in the freezer between dippings. For thorough coverage and the best results, you will want to dip each treat six times.

STEP 9:

Once they’ve all been dipped six times, place them in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes so that the Jell-O glaze can set. For best results, serve under a couple of black lights, and be sure to have the cake or cupcakes quite close to the light. Watch your friends’ faces light up as they see your treats glow.

Source (with pictures): Craftsy

Some notes on this: White icing glows the best. I took the time to make mine all the colors of the rainbow (this was a pride event, after all), and while they were pretty, they didn't glow too well. I also paired them with homemade sugar cookies, which tasted quite good.

And of course, what's a tea party without a nice glass of lemonade? I couldn't actually find a good recipe (read: uses actual lemons instead of inst*nt p*wder), so instead I modified a family classic.

In a medium pot, mix 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup tonic water, and 1 lemon rind. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Discard lemon rind. Add 4 cups ice water and 1 cup lemon juice (in my experience, requires 4-6 lemons, depending on size). Refrigerate in a pitcher until cold.

Notes: Amount of tonic water can vary, so long as you get a total of 1 cup water being boiled overall. By all means, do experiment with this recipe. I certainly did. At the end, when I found it was still too bitter, I added a little mint extract to give it a julep-like flavor. It was very popular, and it glowed like crazy.

And finally, my hastily researched and very informal report on queer identity throughout history.

I’m here today to talk to you about the history of being gay. This is a topic which would, under normal circumstances, be a pretty decent idea for a college course, but we don’t really have the time to make this into a semester-long series of lectures. The tea would get cold, for one thing. Therefore, I’m just going to give you a quick overview on the basics, starting with ancient civilizations and running up to today, touching base on only the most major historical events and interesting figures.

Before we begin, though, here’s a quick little lesson zero on gayness throughout history. Lots of people say that a number of sexualities and genders are made up, recently invented for a number of frivolous reasons. This is not true. Humans don’t really work like that. We don’t change as much as we’d like to think. If someone is feeling a certain way today, chances are strong that other people have felt the same way before, in the Victorian Era, in the Renaissance, in the Middle Ages, in Ancient Greece, in Sumeria-- people tend to experience the same sorts of things over and over again. Asexuals, like myself, have existed since long before the pyramids. The difference is, they didn’t always have the words to describe it like we do. For lots of civilizations, same-sex attraction wasn’t really that much different than opposite-sex attraction, except with one, you could get kids. Ancient Greece is well-known for this, as is Japan, and a number of Native American and African cultures. This means that there are a lot of historical figures who were very Not Straight; however, they wouldn’t have described themselves as such, at least not in terms we could understand. This doesn’t make them straight, however. It’s quite important to remember that, whenever you’re looking through the history books. Now that’s settled, let’s jump right in.

The ancient civilizations, as I’ve said, tended not to care too much about heterosexuality v. homosexuality. The Greeks in particular have left behind some tales of same-sex love and romance that are still remembered today. In particular, they gave us two words, “Achillean” and “Sapphic”. We would translate those words today as ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’. Sapphic comes from Sapphos, who was a female poet who tended to write a lot about how beautiful girls were. She was also, from what we can tell, tremendously relatable. “Dear Aphrodite, I cannot do my chores today because girls are so beautiful.” Unfortunately, much of her writings were lost to the ages and some… unfortunate ideals of censorship. Looking at you, fourteenth century Catholic Church. What we do have, though, is quite impressive. And get this; she was from the little Greek island of Lesbos. She was, in every sense of the word, a Lesbian. As for Achilles, you don’t need to be very into Greek mythology to know him. He was a mighty hero, son of Zeus, invulnerable except for a little tiny spot on his heel. He fought and died in the Trojan War after a very, very lucky shot. He was also tremendously gay for his fellow soldier Patroclus, as the vast majority of translators agree. Really, read a translation of the Illiad. There’s not much good denying it. It was also a major part of life in real Greek life as well. Sparta in particular was known for bonding among the all-male army to turn into romance. This was actively encouraged, as it was felt that stronger connections between the soldiers would lead to greater comradery and discipline. And, hey, look where it got them; a reputation as the fiercest fighting force in the Mediterranean right up until the Macedonians conquered them.

We’ll skim right over that, except to mention that there is some evidence that Alexander the Great had some male lovers, and slide right into Rome. Rome was, in many ways, a lot like Greece except more militant and strict. Feelings on homosexuality were no different. Again, it was quite common among the soldiers in particular, and most of what has been recorded was about men. However, Rome does have one interesting woman recorded; the Empress Eligibus, likely the first recorded transgender individual. At least, she was the first that I could find. Frankly, she’s probably not an ideal role model; like a lot of Roman rulers, she was quite vain and frivolous, and her reign started with a lot of parties, continued with a lot of parties, and ended in a bloodbath. On the other hand, she was a teenager for all of her rule, so that may have contributed a little. Other transgender figures from history who are worthy of mention but not of major coverage include Jan Morris, who broke the story that Mt. Everest had been successfully scaled; Lana and Lily Wachowski, who wrote and directed the Matrix and sequels; and the Chevalier d’Eon, French diplomat, swordfighter, and spy who presented as a man for forty-nine years before suddenly transitioning to female and continuing to be as awesome as ever without missing a step. If you look up nothing else after this speech, research d’Eon, because she is awesome.

On that note, and because this speech turned out to be really Eurocentric, let’s turn away from the main storyline and discuss the gender binary. Now, a lot of people assume that gender works like a switch. You’re either male, or you’re female. No exceptions. Some of these people are willing to concede that your body might not match up with the way the switch is flipped, so transgender people are a thing; but only as long as they aren’t trying to convince people they’re some weird made-up gender. This is not correct. Gender is not a strict progression from male to female. It’s a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, socio-cultural… stuff. In modern society, the norm of male and female is commonly accepted as the only option. However, lots of other cultures see it differently. Egypt, for instance, listed three genders, male, female, and sekhet, though we don’t really know what sekhet was defined as. In India, ancient Hindu beliefs cover the existence of individuals who were neither male nor female. Sanskrit pronouns account for three different genders, and the two great Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, mention that there are three genders as well. Even the Illiniwek Native Americans had multiple gender roles for children, defined by which weapons the boys preferred to use in childhood. Men used bow and arrow; third-gender people used spades or axes. Other tribes also had multiple gender roles. The modern, pan-Indian term translates to mean ‘two-spirit’, as one who contains both male and female elements. In short, gender is weird and really not something people can define-- certainly not something I can define, the people at the ‘gender’ table might be able to do a better job.

Getting back to the story at large, we are now entering the Middle Ages, the era of the futile-- er, feudal system. It was during this time that people really started getting ‘into’ the Church’s doctrines. They saw the body as inherently sinful. This flowchart illustrates just a few of the hoops to jump through in order to have sex.

Although it isn't on here, gay sex was also seen as quite Classical, and therefore sinful. This was pretty much the beginning of homophobia, transphobia, aphobia, and so on, at least on a major scale. That lasted for… well, it’s still going on, to be honest. However, there have also been those activists who wrote about and supported gay and trans rights. One of the earliest was 19th-century German Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, wildly popular near the end of his life. His efforts led to the opening of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, one of the earliest places to study sexology. Unfortunately, the archives of that building were among the books burned by the Nazis, which set the field back decades.

In America, opinions were highly divided and tended to change dramatically with the times. For example, after WWI, there was a bit of a craze for gay singers. There’s always been a strong connection between LGBT+ and the stage. A lot of famous gays have been musicians, Ma Rainey Baker during the ‘20s, David Bowie, and more. Some artists have been gay as well; have you heard of Frieda Kahlo? Her relationship with Diego Rivera was tumultous and violent, and she had a number of affairs with men and women. In sports, there’s Glenn Burke, the first openly gay MLB player. He’s also credited with inventing no less of a cultural phenomenon than the high-five. Even some of our most famous political figures, such as Abraham Lincoln or Eleanor Roosevelt, have been known to be quite intimate with friends of the same sex. Let’s be frank, history’s a straightwash as well as a whitewash. Much of the time, these people faced a great deal off oppression from society, assuming they were out at all. Take the example of Alan Turing. Without him, we wouldn’t have the computer, and his worked saved hundreds of lives in WWII, and yet he was placed under house arrest and medicalized therapy just for being gay. This and other struggles led to him taking his own life.

The LGBT community lived in fear much of the time. Sure, they had their gathering places, their clubs and backrooms and such, but they were constantly under threat of police raids. So, what exactly changed? Much of the growth happened with relatively little fanfare, such as in the case of Lili Elbe, one of the first transgendered individuals to recieve surgery to match her body with her gender. Her wife was quite supportive, and the surgery helped to alleviate many of Lili’s mental health problems, but it wasn’t really a national story. No, the really major turning point came in the form of a woman named Miss Major Griffon-Gracy.

The Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, was many things; Mafia-run, lacking in safety regulations, even more lacking in good drinks. But it served alcohol, welcomed drag queens, and allowed dancing, all extremely uncommon in the sixties. It was raided every so often by the police, but clientele was usually tipped off well in advance. Not so on the morning of June 28, 1966. Thirteen were arrested for various charges, including possession of bootleg liquor and violation of the gender-appropriate clothing statute. But the clientele had had enough. Rather than dispersing, they clumped around the bar, watching their friends and compatriots be manhandled and brutalized by the police. Miss Major was among the first to start throwing stones. A huge riot erupted, waxing and waning for five days. This was considered to be the first protest for gay rights, which evolved into modern Pride. It even led to the creation of the rainbow flag.

Notes: This ended somewhat abruptly, due to the fact that I was still composing this essay during lunch on the day of the party. Queer identities throughout history, as I mentioned, are a massive subject, and this was my attempt to cram what would probably be a year-long college course into a simplified fifteen-minute speech. If you want to read more, I recommend the book Queer, There, and Everywhere by Sarah Prager, and the ongoing podcast Queer as Fact for more true stories about historical figures who were, for a change, not straight. Also, Glenn Burke is one of two people credited with inventing the high-five. The other one is Dusty Baker, a basketball player who was not, as far as I'm aware, gay. However, he did only have nine fingers, which is interesting.

I hope that this has been informative, and I hope I managed to make you laugh at least a little bit. History deserves to be fun.
-6&7

Comments

[Coyote de La Mancha]

Very cool.