You've probably seen this piece of Tumblr lore around. I don't think it's true, for any meaningful value of "true," and I thought the process of deducing that might be a fun post about media literacy and critical thinking.

So, starting from the beginning, what we have here is a declaration, or allegation; a statement of purported fact. Specifically: "In the 80s, lesbians who were more interested in cuddles and kisses rather than sex were called bambi lesbians." It seems fairly unlikely that a tumblr (founded 2007!) user with the handle "nonbinarysapphic" was an adult in the 1980s, so where did they learn this from? And when?

Googling brings up a significant clue - this wiki cites a 1990 book called The Alyson Almanac.

As it happens, it's on the Internet Archive and full-text searchable. And so, on page 61, in the section of the book titled "A Dictionary of Slang and Historical Terms," what do we find, between definitions of "BALLS" and "BASKET?"

Do you notice what's different here, compared to the original tumblr post?

First, there's no indicated gendering of the term. As other entries in this section are specific when referring to (sigh) (only, most of the time) gay men or lesbians - the definition for CLOSET starts with "The place where gay men or lesbians hide, figuratively speaking" - that's curious. It seems like the writer of the original entry didn't intend in any way to suggest that this was something specific to lesbians.

Second, there is no indication of when, in what context, or by whom this term was ever used, compared to the tumblr post declaring that the time period in question was "in the 80s." This book was published in 1990, and this section covers antiquated historical terms like HOMOPHILE, COUNTERJUMPER, MOLLY, SWAFFONDER, and PUNK (the latter extremely not in the context you're probably thinking). It's not clear in the slightest whether, in 1990, this would be terminology in contemporary common parlance.

Second and a half, I suppose, entirely speculatively... hey, you know Disney's Bambi - almost certainly the source of this, given the connotations - is a boy, right? A very feminine, queer-coded boy? It's kind of a whole thing, in the fucked-up gender politics of this 1942 adaptation of a 1923 novel (I can highly recommend this podcast on its production history), that to become A Man, Like His Father, Bambi has to be dominant and violent.

So again, just hypothetically, what seems more historically likely? That "Bambi" was used as a term of self-description by ace lesbians, or as term applied to femme gay men by others? In the absence of further corroborating evidence, I feel like one line of speculation seems as plausible as another.

Except... as it turns out, there is more evidence. May I introduce Toronto's former monthly local queer community newsmagazine, one that would eventually become the periodically-updated Xtra:

In the December 1979/January 1980 issue of The Body Politic, also on the Internet Archive, there's a letter to the editor, criticizing an article in the November 1979 issue. (I read it. It's not interesting, and the only mention of Bambisexuals is quoted in the screenshot.) And, lo and behold - what was the first mention of Bambisexuality here? It was cited in a derogatory, shaming way, applied to men (specifically men!) the author felt to be insufficiently kinky. And then, what's the second mention? Whoever's signed their letter as the Bambisexual Liberation Front, my word, in this letter to the editor, asserting that they oppose the "straight identified (STIFF) gay men's scene."

It's amazing where checking citations gets you, isn't it? Here, in "Bambisexual," we have what's clearly a term of derision (reclaimed by at least one letter-writer!) applied to insufficiently kinky gay men, when it was in common enough parlance to be mentioned in a community news source in 1979. By 1990, someone's compiling a glossary of historical slang, and the political edges have been worn away; "Bambisexuality" is memorialized in a simplified, twee, cutesy way that omits any specific mention of its application to gay men or lesbians.

And - here's where I'm hypothesizing again - I think I know exactly where nonbinarysapphic made the connection that this referred to lesbians, specifically: this 2012 Autostraddle article. The text is clearly (and cited at the head of the article!) drawn directly from The Alyson Almanac, 22 years later. But now the context has been stripped away, because Autostraddle - a lesbian-focused publication - compiled this brief excerpt. And Autostraddle - a lesbian-focused publication - must surely always be discussing lesbians whenever it's not specified otherwise, right, and...

So, yeah. The fact that there are people right now who identify as Bambisexual, and they're principally ace or aro-spec lesbians - I think that's new. That was invented fully anew, sometime in the 2010s, with an incorrect historical sheen. And, last part aside, that's great! More power to anyone for whom that term vibes. But - just speaking from the perspective of a history major and lawyer - I think it's important not to invent fictitious queer history, or erase real queer history, generally.

I pray to my Lord God to give me the moment to kiss my dear friend and the moment to desire my desired one and to bite him[...]for those who feel love bite not so much so that they may harm but so that they may desire all the more. Pray therefore for the moment to come so that we may satisfy our desire.

--Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos, writing to Theodoros of Kyzikos (Letter B3)

This is an article about gay and trans people in the Byzantine empire, but it's about a bunch of other stuff too, so just follow me here as I ask you a question.
How do we have the Iliad?
How do we have Caesar's De Bello Gallico?
How do we have, in fact, any writing from antiquity?

Unless it's lucky enough to be preserved on papyrus in a dry desert country, manuscripts do not stand a very good chance of surviving two to three millenia on their own. You've probably heard before about how, prior to the invention of the printing press, copying out books to preserve them was arduous work. But there's something that usually gets glossed over when discussing that: Who copied it, and why?

There is a perceived divide in the popular view of history between the ancient and medieval worlds. The ancient world, it is seen, is vibrant and colourful and full of joy and diversity and free thought; the medieval world, dull and dreary, moralistic and hidebound. The visual aspect of this we can put down to Hollywood in recent decades making everything in medieval movies brown and grey, to the point they're now a lot less accurate than movies from decades ago that showed off the full garish range of colours that era loved to splash on everything. But the ideological aspect remains a sticking point. Ancient knowledge is framed as having survived the censorship and condemnation of the narrow-minded medieval world.

This is curious, because if the medieval world was set on censoring--for instance--ancient Greek expressions of queerness, how would we know so much about the queerness of ancient Greece, when most of our oldest surviving ancient Greek manuscripts are copies made by medieval Roman (Byzantine) scholars? Can such a blindly theocratic world have produced the scholar who carefully copied out the Iliad's thousands of lines, meticulously preserving the rituals and misadventures of gods that hadn't been worshipped for centuries?

It was allowed to the men of ancient times and especially in the times of Kronos to enjoy any food they might desire[...]may it be that you do well for a long time, strengthening through more lavish gifts[...]my love which is very hot.

--Theodoros Daphnopates, writing to Basil Ouranos (Letter 31)

Byzantine writing, in fact, is full of allusions to ancient deities. The fact that they did not believe in them anymore did little to diminish their value as cultural touchstones. Falling in love is being "struck by Eros", dying is being "taken by Hades", and so on. This was the past that formed the bedrock of their culture. It's frequently present in their original literature and poetry, but one medieval work of particular interest is a compilation of older writing. The Greek Anthology, composed by Constantine Kephalas around 900, collects hundreds of ancient epigrams, many of them pertaining to classical mythology, categorised by type. There is, for instance, a section this medieval author devoted to cataloguing those about love between men. Queerness, too, was discussed openly.

This is the case especially in the "middle Byzantine" period starting around 7-800¹. Earlier centuries, particularly the 500s, had been more repressive; emperor Justinian, so often praised by armchair military historians, outlawed relations between men outright. But this did not last. Byzantine law codes intentionally followed the principle that when common custom conflicted with a law, the law should give way, and as attitudes relaxed, there is currently no evidence for the anti-gay laws theoretically still on the books ever being enacted even once across the centuries of the middle period. And not because queer culture retreated behind a don't-ask-don't-tell veil. Quite the opposite!

Prominent men wrote freely to each other of the love they shared or wished to share, making playful use of classical and Biblical allusions to build complex innuendo--though "complex" doesn't necessarily preclude "crude". I included one of the more direct ones at the start of this article to set the tone, but examples abound². Some even jokingly mimicked the language of the (practically defunct but still on the books) old laws to make clear what they were talking about.

This frankness shows itself in chronicles, too. Courtiers are recorded as having sought out the most attractive men to surround themselves with, dressing them in fine silks to show off and lavishing praise on their physical beauty and prowess. And then some people were more direct, like the way emperor Michael III treated his favourite, a former peasant and stablehand named Basil who--via getting everyone Really excited to watch him win a wrestling match--rose to become the emperor's right-hand man, and eventually co-emperor.

But right before crowning him as such, Michael did...this?

Having locked Basil in one of the imperial sleeping chambers, he [Michael] with a nod orders those with him to strip him naked and to stretch out both his hands. When this had happened in accordance with the order, Basil is shocked, but all the same, being vigorously youthful, he recovers from shock. He is positioned by the emperor himself and is whipped by him with a double whip thirty times, to provide him with an engraved memory of loving goodwill toward him. And then having gone to the greatest church that very early morning, he presents a crowned leader to the people on the 26th of May in the fourteenth indiction. He gives to him all the things appropriate to the second in rank in the imperial office. And giving to him in addition much affection, he also bestows equal prerogatives, and even things in excess.

--Genesios, On Imperial Reigns

Just a quick S&M session between bros on your big day, no big.

All this is not to say homoeroticism was a uniquely upper-class affectation. People have been gay as long as there has been a construct of "straight" to be different from. This is to say queerness was acknowledged at all levels of society, and was not shunned by the "proper" idealised higher echelons.

We can also find open discussions exploring gender. Byzantine gender was somewhat complicated, being the medieval (Roman) development of asymmetrical ancient Roman attitudes around sexuality; in addition to "male/female" categories, it also had (symbolically) "bearded/beardless" categories. Sufficiently gender-nonconforming behaviour could change one's gender³, and eunuchs always occupied a malleable place in this matrix.

This is not to say everyone was consciously pushing boundaries; just as warm exchanges of homoerotic letters existed alongside theoretical injunctions against homoeroticism, there were normative gender models and prejudice against nonconformity, and public-facing figures were often keen to assert that they were being properly manly or womanly⁴. But these in turn existed alongside people more willing to explore their identity, such as Michael Psellos, often considered the greatest of Byzantine philosophers, who wrote:

Now if this pertains to a feminine soul, I do not really know; at all events, my character has been stamped in this way all along[...]I am not like the strings that are either only high-pitched or in harmony, but contain every melody, now more bright and sweet-sounding, now taut and noble.

I've been very fond of this quote since I discovered it. I think it's a beautiful description of genderfluidity. I'm also now going to have to explain to every other Byzantine enthusiast I talk to why I'm they/them-ing Michael Psellos, but it's for a good cause. While discussing gender, I should mention that the relationships between elite men described earlier tended to be between two men of the "bearded" class (mature, in modern terms you might say masc-presenting?), while ancient Greek homoeroticism often occupied itself with an asymmetrical dynamic between mature lover and beautiful beloved, sometimes simply an effeminate twinky adult, but sometimes someone young enough to disturb us in the modern day. Byzantine homoromantic letters frequently invoke this imagery of erastes and eromenos, but again, applied in practice to relationships between like, two bearded men in their 40s. Sitting on the bed giggling and kicking their feet, comparing each other to Ganymede or whatever. Innovative?

I'd like to continue and talk about queer women, and we can, and someday I will, but the sourcing there is sparser on account of The Patriarchy (no as in, like, the idea of sexism, not the Ecumenical...well, I mean, also kinda that one I guess), so that will have to be another, more speculative article, with more research behind it. Look forward to it, but for now it's time to come full circle.

Byzantine society was not monolithic. Thoughtful acceptance existed alongside more repressive discourses⁵. But it was certainly not the closed-minded dullard popular depictions spin the medieval world as. Queerness existed and was discussed openly, as was the classical, pagan past. Statues of old gods decorated Constantinople, and sometime in the tenth century, some nameless medieval scribe sat down to copy out what is now the oldest surviving manuscript of the Iliad; to transmit to their present and future the memory of the rage of Achilles, and his grief for the man dearest to him.

Thus I always spurn the one I hold, ever exchanging one for the other in the shifting embrace of my arms. I seek the riches of Aphrodite. If anyone blames me, let him remain stuck in monogamy.

--Epigram 232: Paulos, 6th century, recorded in the Greek Anthology

1. Anthony Kaldellis once noted (in Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood) that we should be cautious about saying any kind of trend began here, as "Perhaps not coincidentally, it is also in the late eighth century that we begin to have sources" after a significant gap, but law-codes and epigrams attest reasonably to the trends I'm describing.

2. For more examples, and an extensive breakdown of each, see Mark Masterton's Between Byzantine Men.

3. For a discussion of this, see Roland Betancourt's paper Where are all the Trans Women in Byzantium?, published in the journal Trans Historical.

4. Or at least, to twist the facts to present whatever they already wanted to do as properly manly or womanly, and do it anyway. Official rhetoric, for instance, held that many professions and forms of ownership were Masculine for Men Only, but actual records show the presence of numerous women working in specialised jobs such as doctors, owning businesses, and owning/buying/selling property in practice; in the latter case the deeds get around the supposed impropriety by simply starting with "treat me as a man for the purposes of this contract".

5. This applies to more axes of society than those discussed in this article. There were, for instance, multiple mosques in medieval Constantinople, built and funded by the government to serve the needs of the Muslim minority.