Lesbian Vampires | Queer History Ep. 36 | May 26, 1897

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]It is May 26th, 2026, and on this day back in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula was published. If you like Queer Facts and history dropped every single day, remember to like and subscribe so that I can keep teaching on the internet once they make it impossible for trans women to teach in classrooms. Now, you might be saying to yourself that Bram Stoker's Dracula isn't a queer book, and you're right about that. However, the book that inspired it definitely is. It is called Carmela. It is from 1872 and it is a lesbian vampire novella.

[00:00:29]That's right. Lesbian vampire fiction goes back over 150 years. While Bram Stoker gave no credit saying that his book was inspired by this one, it 100% was. Both of their vampires pretend to be the descendants of royals from hundreds of years ago. And it turns out that they're actually just the same person from hundreds of years ago.

[00:00:49]Carmela here turns into a cat. Dracula turns into a dog. It gets down to the granularity of detail to where the Dr. Van Helsing equivalent here is another doctor with a Germanic last name and to where Dracula was originally not supposed to take place in Transennylvania. It was supposed to take place in Syria. And this is Carmela of Styia. Because it turns out that just as old as the tradition of queer literature is, so is the tradition of stealing from the queer community and inspiring oneself from the queer community without giving any sort of credit back to our community. That's why in Pride Month, I'm going to be doing a queer book a day for the entire month, looking at the author, looking at the book, and looking at generally what people don't seem to know really exists from our community.

[00:01:35]My name's Courtney. I'm posting queer history every single