Tom's treasures of fiction, poetry, literature and more...

The end of the month approaches and I am gutted that we are finishing pride month. It seems the month has raced past in a flash. Still, I have read some good stuff this month. Here are some of those things... 1: My chess... The chess learning is still going. Some of the terminology I have been getting to grips with lately is actually quite cool. Before I started practising chess on my phone, I had never heard of forks or pins for example, even if I might have used them before. 2:  ‘'A Girton Girl on a Throne': Queen Christina and Versions of Lesbianism, 1906-1933’ by Sarah Waters. With Sarah Waters being author of the month, this journal was what I decided to read and review first. You can check out my review on the blog here to see what I truly thought of it. 3:  Social media . Even social media is owned by rich, selfish and horrible men (in my opinion) it has its uses and helps to keep me updated on important stuff. There is a lot of hope that I get from using social media ...

Today's blog post takes a look at an article that author of the month, Sarah Waters did for the journal Feminist Review . The article entitled "'A Girton Girl on a Throne': Queen Christina and Versions of Lesbianism, 1906-1933" examines Queen Christina of Sweden and the ambiguity around her gender and sexuality. From reading the article I have discovered that queen Christina was many things, including ‘something of a misogynist - she claimed she liked men, not because they were men but because they weren't women - she spent time with women who, like her, had a reputation for cleverness.’¹ This surprised me considering that she went through a lot and I never considered her a snob, nor a hater of women. Especially as she had affections women as well as men.  Christina was expected to find a man to marry and produce an heir. But this was not what she wanted. One of the people she had an attraction to was a woman called Ebba Spare. There were men too which highlig...