On this day in queerstory: US customs scans imports for queer literature

January 25 has a habit of turning queer existence into something official. Not symbolic. Not theoretical. Filed, recorded, logged, argued over. It’s a date that shows up in registries, court calendars, and cultural archives—places where denial becomes harder to maintain.

On January 25, 1755, Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin. A pioneering naturalist and explorer, Humboldt’s intimate lifelong relationships with men were an open secret among his contemporaries, and modern historians increasingly read his work and correspondence through a queer lens. His commitment to interconnectedness—between nature, people, and systems—would later resonate deeply with queer ecological and anti-colonial thought.

January 25 enters the cultural record sharply in 1955, when customs authorities in the United States formally expanded scrutiny of imported literature, targeting works with homosexual themes. Internal memos dated January 25 documented seizures of novels, poetry, and magazines deemed obscene. These actions would later be challenged in court, contributing to a slow erosion of the idea that queer art was contraband.

The law asserted itself on January 25, 1982, when advocacy groups in France submitted arguments contesting the unequal age of consent for same-sex relationships. The filings framed the disparity as a constitutional issue rather than a moral one, forcing lawmakers to confront legal inconsistency instead of public panic. The age of consent would be equalised later that year.

In Ireland on January 25, 1988, LGBTQ+ organisations pressed the government over continued enforcement of laws criminalising sex between men, despite mounting international condemnation. The submissions cited European human rights rulings and domestic policing data, tying abstract law directly to lived harm. Decriminalisation would follow in 1993.

January 25 also appears in the history of queer survival during crisis. On January 25, 1990, AIDS activists in New York and San Francisco coordinated early-year legal and medical interventions, demanding expanded access to experimental treatments and challenging hospital policies that excluded same-sex partners from decision-making. These efforts reshaped patient rights in clinical settings.

Births on January 25 include figures who would later sharpen queer visibility. January 25, 1981, marked the birth of Alicia Keys. While not queer herself, her later public advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights—particularly for queer youth of colour—would influence mainstream conversations about allyship, faith, and social responsibility within popular culture.

On January 25, 2004, LGBTQ+ groups in Taiwan submitted early legal arguments advocating for recognition of same-sex partnerships. These filings entered judicial and legislative discussions years before marriage equality would be achieved, shaping the language and legal logic that eventually carried the reform.

More recently, January 25, 2017, saw coordinated releases of data documenting anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination across Central Asia and Eastern Europe, timed to coincide with international legal reviews and funding cycles. The reports were cited by human rights bodies and later used in asylum claims, ensuring the documentation travelled further than the press cycle allowed.

January 25 keeps returning to the record. Birth certificates, court filings, seized books, legal submissions. Queer history here isn’t about being seen—it’s about being entered into systems that once insisted we didn’t exist at all.