Gal Pals and Gentlemen of the Bedchamber : En begreppshistorisk undersökning av historiebruket runt queera kungligheter på sociala medier

Sammanfattning: This G-3 essay aimed to study how people on three American left leaning social medias appoint queer identities to historical people and the discourse around this appointment. This was studied through the theoretical lenses of queer theory and the use of history. The source material consisted of posts from Tumblr, Twitter and Reddit and it was studied both quantitatively and qualitatively through the method of conceptual history. The historical people examined were Queen Christina of Sweden and King James VI and I of Scotland and England. This essay discovered that a wide variety of queer identities were appointed to the royals. However, all queer identities appointed were identities that matched the discoveries scientists have made about the royals’ lives. Furthermore, between one third and half of all posts used sources to justify the appointment of queer identities. The use of history in all posts were found to be either existential in nature – showing a desire to find connections with other queer people through history – or moral – using history to argue against current injustice against queer people.