However, the biggest issue with this book is that there are ZERO REFERENCES! Not one piece of information has a source cited nor is there an actual reference list at the end (only a further reading list, which is not the same thing) and I'm sorry but that is absolutely appalling or something proclaiming to be a history book. As my first foray into learning about queer female history, this book was a flop, I'd advice anyone who wants to learn more about this topic to try literally any other book than this one - and specifically one written by an actual reputable academic or similar who understands the value and importance of REFERENCING. Kirsty Loehr comes to Bristol to discuss her book A Short History of Queer Women, with Noreen Masud (A Flat Place).

But it was the nineteen-year-old widow Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy who was Marie’s personal favourite. Marie was so charmed by Marie Thérèse Louise that she regularly showered her with gifts and made her the superintendent of the royal household, which sounds more like a punishment than anything else. This is where I think this book falls short. I don’t think you can purport to write a “short history of queer women” and neglect an analysis of gender within that. No, we don’t know how these people might have identified, whether they thought of themselves as women or not, whether they even had the words to express not-womanhood—we are likely never to know, unless they wrote about it (although I maintain we might make educated guesses, such as those individuals who elected to live as men). But even in writing such a book, we are subconsciously imposing our modern ideas of gender onto it, whether we mean to or not. To act like we might remove the concept of it entirely defeats the point. Can lesbianism itself, for example, not have a dimension of gender, as much as it does sexuality? As we submerge into the depths of winter, it’s only natural that we look for some warm, cosy comfort, and what’s better than snuggling up in a big blanket with some hot tea and a variety of interesting queer books? i keep seeing that this book is getting a lot of hate for the humorous tone, millennial jokes, lots of swearing, and endless comments about having sex. i invite everyone to lighten up!!!

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Loehr attempts to infuse a comedic tone throughout the book and it's quite frankly extremely bizarre. I can see what she was aiming for but it was very poorly executed to the point that it just made certain parts confusing. Honestly not one attempt at comedy was remotely funny - but I guess humour is subjective. As part of the 2023 Farsley Literature Festival, hear author Kirsty Loehr in conversation about her hilarious and informative book, A Short History of Queer Women.

Marie and Louis were hardly love’s young dream, and initially got together to form a political alliance between France and Marie’s home country, Austria. The pair were utterly ill-suited. Louis was painfully shy, indecisive and cold. On the other hand, Marie was lavish, outgoing and extremely shallow. They were so uninterested in one another that it took them a whopping seven years to consummate their marriage. It’s stuffed full of glorious titbits of info, meticulously researched, deliciously contextualised and done with real flair and humour. Who says lesbians can’t be funny? Here we have much proof, along with excellent historical insights into lives lived fully openly and loving without fear, and Loehr shared the stories of some wild women who lived and loved with urgent, stunning brilliance. That was superbly frustrating. The author kept trying to inject humour in the book, which wouldn't be a problem if her sense of humour wasn't the lesbian equivalent of a horny fifteen year old boy repeating the same joke over and over (The joke was variations on "lesbians amirite"). The second issue I have is the bigger one, namely the decision detailed at the start of the book which I shall lay out here in the author’s own words:Let me wrap up here then (not least because this is starting to feel less like a book review and more like an essay) and leave you with this, the list of names mentioned in the book and one final point. If the job of a nonfiction book is to make you think, this has certainly done that. As we all know, things didn’t quite work out for Marie, as she famously met a grisly end with the guillotine during the French Revolution. But, before her death, Marie was allowed one final goodbye with her lover, not Louis XVI, but Marie Thérèse Louise. Marie Thérèse Louise had earlier been arrested and put on trial, where she refused to swear hatred to the King and Queen. She was then taken outside to a baying mob who murdered her. They cut off her head, took it to where Marie was being kept and demanded that she give her one-time lover a final kiss. Bloody hell, that’s unnecessary! Given Loehr’s propensity for labelling AFAB non-women as women, you might be wondering about the reverse: does she recognise the existence of trans women in the past? The answer would be no, at least not up until the Stonewall riots, when she brings up Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Perhaps this is unsurprising.