On This Day in Queerstory: Met Gala time
By Sofia | Last Updated: Apr 24, 2026
May 5th is a day of extreme contrasts. It is the date of the ultimate “insider” event—the Met Gala—and the departure of a man who spent his life analyzing why people are so obsessed with the “outside.”
1994: The Met Gala and the “Invention” of Modern Glamour
While the Met Gala happens every year in early May, the 1994 event (under the theme “Madame Grès”) marked the beginning of the gala’s transformation into a queer cultural holiday. Under the stewardship of figures like André Leon Talley, the gala became a space where queer designers and muses could flex their cultural muscles. For the queer community, the Met Gala is our Super Bowl—a day where we celebrate the fact that the world’s most exclusive party is essentially built on queer labor, queer vision, and queer “extra-ness.”
1813: The Birth of Søren Kierkegaard—The Queer Existentialist?
Born on this day in 1813, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard has become a fascinator for modern queer theologians. While he lived in the 19th century, Kierkegaard’s obsession with “the individual,” his refusal to marry, and his deep, emotional letters to male friends have led many to read his work through a queer lens. Whether he was a “closeted” thinker or simply a man who couldn’t fit into the heteronormative structures of his time, his philosophy of “the leap of faith” has provided a spiritual blueprint for many queer people navigating their own paths toward authenticity.
2011: The Death of Claude Choules—A Silent Link to the Past
On May 5, 2011, the world lost Claude Choules, the last combat veteran of World War I. Why does this matter for queer history? Because Choules’s passing marked the end of an era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that had lasted for centuries. His generation carried the secrets of the trenches—the intense, often romantic “comradery” between men that sustained them through the horror of war. On this day, we honor the millions of queer veterans of the Great War whose stories were never told and whose loves were never named.