We've always been here — 13 gay photos from the dawn of photography

Courtesy of Walter Rubin Inc.

As long as there have been cameras, there have been gay folks recording our queer lives!

Trudy Ring

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Trudy Ring

April 11 2025 2:42 PM EST

April 11 2025 3:47 PM EST

Being gay is nothing new. As long as there have been humans there have been members of our LGBTQ+ family. While we could certainly have more examples, we are fortunate still have plenty photos of gay couples and lesbian couples, as well as the drag queens and even gay motorcycle clubs who prove that we have not only existed by thrived in our queerness throughout history. In other words, as long as there has been photography there have been gays who have wanted snap pics.

These images from Walter Reuben Inc.'s collection depict same-sex couples and groups expressing affection, friendship, and other forms of intimacy. Many are from the earliest days of photography, and the bulk of the collection consists of images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"In the images one has the sense that the subjects are very informal and intimate with each other," says a statement from Reuben, the curator. "Their body language, dress, and positioning display indications of intimacy of coupling in most cases. As many are from a period in which photography was not common, that these people choose to be photographed together for formal photos and for real-life postcards indicates that they are couples wishing to celebrate their union." Some of the postcards are addressed to family members, who likely were fully accepting of the unions, Reuben notes. Several of the early candid shots are from the time of westward expansion, when most of the migrants were men; in the absence of women, they turned to each other for companionship, a scenario that played out during wartime as well. Past centuries "were perhaps more sexually fluid than one may think, and it was not till later that certain stigmas came to be realized," the curator concludes.