Edward Carpenter was born in 1844 in Brighton to a middle-class naval family. He grew up with nine siblings. All of his brothers pursued careers in the armed forces, while he decided to go to university. He was admitted to Cambridge University in 1864. In 1867 Carpenter was offered a clerical fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He accepted and was ordained into holy orders.
Great strides have been made towards stronger representations of queerness both in law and in the media, yet further work is needed to achieve a more intersectional approach. Whilst television programmes like Heartstopper are fantastic, and should be celebrated for their ability to show queer joy, they point towards a trend of representing dominant white narratives of queerness.
