Hello and welcome to Queer's Fact, the podcast bringing you queer history from around the world

and throughout time. I'm Irene. I'm Eli and I'm Jasmine. And today we're going to be talking

about Maximilian Robespierre, a controversial French revolutionary figure who is often rumoured

to be asexual.

Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the Boon-Wong-Bun-Wong-Bunnerong people of the Kulin Nation,

on whose land we record this podcast, and pay our respects to their elders' past and present.

They are the custodians of an oral history tradition far older than this podcast.

We have some content warnings for this episode before I get started.

They include stillbirth and death and childbirth, execution and discussion of the ethics of the death penalty, slavery, anti-Semitism, revolutionary violence, near-death by suicide,

ableism in a quotation, sexual content in quotations, and a very brief mention of alleged

cannibalism.

All right.

It's a bit of a wild ride.

Another thing I want to note, which is not a content warning, is that I don't speak French.

I've done my best.

I'm sorry.

If badly pronounced French is something you want to avoid skip this episode.

Sources on Robespierre often suggest that he was incapable of sexual intimacy.

That's a direct quote from Peter McPhee, who you will hear about some more later.

The idea that Robes Pierre was asexual is also a rumor I've just seen around a lot over time on like lists of

famous asexual historical figures and that kind of thing. He never married. He never had any

children. I do want to be honest up front though that I'm not going to be able to give you any

...