Tolkien Tuesday: The Perils of Being a Queer Tolkien Fan

Even though Tolkien's works have a lot of appeal for queer folks, the fandom can, at times, be less than welcoming.

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Welcome to Tolkien Tuesdays, where I talk about various things that I love about the lore and writings of Tolkien, whether in a chapter reading or a character study or an essay. I hope you enjoy reading these ruminations as much as I enjoy writing them and, if you have a moment, I’d love it if you’d subscribe to this newsletter. It’s free, but there are paid options, as well, if you’re of a mind to support a struggling writer. Either way, thank you for joining me!

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for any amount of time, you no doubt know that I’m a passionate fan of Tolkien. I’ve loved his works since my mom first put The Hobbit into my little paws when I was 9 years old, and in the intervening decade my appreciation for what he was able to create has only grown richer and deeper. At the same time, I’ve been reluctant to become a more prominent part of the broader Tolkien fandom, both because I tend to be wary of fandom in general and in particular because, as a queer person, I’ve always felt like a bit of an outlier when it comes to the broader Tolkien fan community. This isn’t to say that there aren’t more inclusive Tolkien fan spaces, but it is to say that, in the 2020s, such spaces have become increasingly fraught as toxicity on social media has increased in both volume and intensity. 

There’s no doubt that Tolkien’s Catholicism deeply infuses his writing, both in terms of the world he created and in terms of the actual stories that he tells (particularly though not exclusively in The Lord of the Rings). This can lead to some complicated mental gymnastics when it comes to reconciling one’s love of a profoundly Catholic work–with all that entails–with one’s own queer identity. Then again, there’s no doubt that The Lord of the Rings contains many notable examples of male intimacy that either have queer overtones or have extra meaning for gay men in particular. Most notably there’s the bond between Sam and Frodo, a relationship that is as loving and devoted as anything one might find a gay romance. Did Tolkien intend for this to be read as queer or as romantic? Almost certainly not, but that doesn’t preclude those of us who are queer from finding those resonances there. That’s precisely what makes work like Tolkien’s so fascinating and so endlessly engaging. 

After all, it’s not as if Tolkien’s biography and intentions are the only thing that matters when it comes to how we engage with a text like The Lord of the Rings, or any of the other parts of the legendarium, for that matter. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that we must queerness into the text, per se (not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with that, for we all know that texts are by their very definition polysemous). Instead, what I’m saying is that we all bring something of ourselves when we engage with a text, and the more complex and textured it is, the more we’ll find in it that resonates with our lives, our identities, and our feelings. 

Thus it is that queer people have always found themselves enraptured by the beauty and, I daresay, by the melancholy that permeates Middle-earth and its stories. Queer people have a better understanding and appreciation of sadness because, unfortunately, so many of us have led lives marked by loneliness and defeat (often, though not always, because the societies in which we live remain virulently and sometimes violently queerphobic). With the resurgence of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and laws across the US and the UK, one could even say that we members of the queer community are facing our own Long Defeat. With each passing year and each piece of anti-trans of anti-queer legislation that makes its way into state houses, I find myself sympathizing more and more with the Elves as they grapple with the the fact that the world is a fallen one and that the battle against evil is one that can never be won but must instead be fought again and again.

At the same time, The Lord of the Rings also reminds us that one must still engage in the fight. To riff off our dear Sam (the film version, not the novel one), there is good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for. If there’s one group that has learned how important it is to never give up no matter the odds, to always persevere even when it seems as if defeat is inevitable, it’s queer folk.

All of which brings us to the present. We are now smack dab in the middle of Pride Month, and there was recently a bit of a Twitter dustup when someone rightly pointed out that many of the bigger Tolkien Twitter accounts had not issued their usual Pride Month celebration posts. Many of said accounts defended themselves by claiming that they were reluctant to do so after their feeds were flooded with homophobic idiots, but that is itself the problem, isn’t it? The more venomous and ugly parts of the fandom know that they can get what they want by dogpiling on anyone they perceive to be not towing the line and upholding their vision of what Tolkien and the fandom should look like. If an account dares to deviate from their very restricted and toxic form of orthodoxy, then they know all they have to do is flood the Pride post with enough vitriol to discourage anyone, particularly queer people, from daring to raise their heads again.

And it’s not as if Tolkien and Lord of the Rings are the only properties to have attracted such ugliness. The Wheel of Time–another Amazon effort–was bludgeoned by book readers (nicknamed Bookcloaks) who hated the way that the series made a point of diversifying its cast and bringing out some of the queerer elements of the story. Then there’s The Acolyte, the newest Star Wars series that has aroused truly extraordinary (and depressing) amounts of vitriol and review bombing from a rabid part of the fanbase that is driven to truly apocalyptic amounts of rage by the very fact that a woman of color is the main character and that there are, so I’ve heard, lesbian space witches (I haven’t caught up yet). Fandom has a real problem, and I don’t know how to fix it. 

There is hope, however. For all of the toxicity that has bubbled up and now threatens to take over the Tolkien fandom, there are still those who are proud to be openly queer and are happy to celebrate both Tolkien’s original works and their various adaptations. Podcasts like Queer Lodgings are havens in this storm of ugliness and vitriol, if you know where to look. There’s a lot of bad in this world of ours but, to reference Sam again, there’s a whole lot of good, too.