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Bad Gays

Bad Gays

By: Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller
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A podcast about evil and complicated queers in history. Why do we remember our heroes better than our villains? Hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. Learn more: www.badgayspod.comCopyright 2019-. All rights reserved. World
Episodes
  • Jacob Israël de Haan
    Nov 25 2025

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    Today's subject, Jacob Israël de Haan, wrote one of the first gay dutch novels. "What is it that I long for," he asked. "The sanctity of Israel or an Arab male prostitute?" Born in 1881 in the Netherlands, he was assassinated by the Haganah paramilitary at the age of 42 in Palestine, having moved there to establish Zion, and then having turned on the Zionist project because of its treatment of the Arabs. His love of young Arab men was both a source of scandal and a very troubling source of evolving solidarity.

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    SOURCES

    https://archive.ph/wkF8y#selection-1069.0-1074.0

    https://www-literatuurgeschiedenis-org.translate.goog/teksten/pijpelijntjes?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_5/critical_urgencies/giebels.htm

    https://www.gerthekma.nl/ewExternalFiles/Jacob Israël de Haan. Pederast poet between Amsterdam and Jerusalem.pdf

    https://rabbidunner.com/assassination-in-the-holy-city/#_edn12

    https://glreview.org/article/article-964/

    https://archive.ph/wkF8y

    https://www.the-low-countries.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/TLC_24_Chronicle_WASSING_NASSAU.pdf

    https://www.the-low-countries.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/TLC_24_Chronicle_WASSING_NASSAU.pdf

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/jacob-de-haan-political-poet

    https://glreview.org/article/article-964/

    https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/haan-jacob-israel-de

    https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/c9843d1e-4703-45eb-a317-4de724d686a1/The multiple lives of Jacob Israel de Haan.pdf

    https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/Jacob Israel de Haan - A Queer and Lapsed Zionist in Mandate Palestine.pdf

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    46 mins
  • Charles Hitchen
    Nov 18 2025

    Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays on Apple Podcasts or Patreon to support our work, get monthly bonus episodes, and join our community of listeners!

    Let us take ourselves back to a very exciting time: we’re talking London, at the turn of the 18th century. The city is the largest in Europe, and growing - it’s passed the half a million mark and by the end of the century will have doubled. Crime was rife, and getting worse. The law was administered by a pay-to-play criminal justice system: and today's subject, Charles Hitchen, got rich playing both sides while touring through London's infamous "molly houses," back rooms of taverns or gin houses, where queer men could meet, cruise, and even fuck. These developed a much richer culture, with their own slang, faux marriage rituals, and drag performances including a queen giving birth to a wheel of cheddar cheese.

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    SOURCES:

    Gerald Howson, Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption as a Way of Life in Eighteenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985)

    Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime And Civil Society In The Eighteenth Century (Verso, 2006)

    Rictor Norton, The Georgian Underworld, https://rictornorton.co.uk/gu00.htm.

    Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. This podcast may contain copyrighted material, and its use is under the principles of fair use for purposes such as commentary, criticism, and parody. All rights belong to the respective copyright holders.

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    54 mins
  • Dorian Corey
    Nov 11 2025

    Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays on Apple Podcasts or Patreon to support our work, get monthly bonus episodes, and join our community of listeners!

    Many people in our audience will have seen Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, an exploration of Black and Latinx ball culture in New York City. One of the film’s primary interview interlocutors is Dorian Corey, who is one of the film’s most quotable characters. Corey's life helps us explore the history of drag from balls for enslaved people in the 1870s to today. And did you know that Corey knew, during all those serene interviews in Paris Is Burning, that the man she had murdered in self-defense and not trusted police to handle it (would you?) was mummified in the closet behind her.

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    SOURCES

    https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19931218/1737662/deceased-drag-show-star-leaves-mummy-mystery-behind-in-closet

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/burning-down-the-house-debate-paris-is-burning

    https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5381/2016/06/16101213/hooks_paris-is-burning.pdf

    https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/style/paris-has-burned.html

    https://www.swervmagazine.com/entertainment-2/pioneers/

    https://queermusicheritage.com/drag-pearl.html

    https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2005/The-Gay-30S/

    https://www.thenation.com/article/society/drag-queen-slave-ball/

    https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/the-legendary-hamilton-lodge-ball-home-at-the-rockland-palace-dance-hall-in-harlem/

    https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/queens-and-queers-rise-drag-ball-culture-1920s

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935316?seq=1

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/burning-down-the-house-debate-paris-is-burning

    https://zagria.blogspot.com/2010/08/dorian-corey-1937-1993-performer.html

    Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

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    59 mins
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