Celebrating LGBT+ Women's History?
If your women's history is saccharine-sweet and easy as pie, you're doing it wrong.
Hello to you and happy February! đđ»
Yesterday marked the beginning of LGBT+ History Month and I wanted to drop into your inbox and talk about women from these communities.
The thing about people from LGBT+ communities is that they donât conform to the patriarchal standard. Remember that patriarchy started between heterosexual men and women in the home. Its whole ethos is getting people to fall into the heterosexual line. If you donât conform, then you donât fit in. It follows that if patriarchy didnât exist then homophobia wouldnât exist, either.
Iâm always squeamish about assigning labels to people from the past. I posted a carousel about women youâve never heard of from the British LGBT+ communities yesterday. I deliberately did not describe any of them with a reference to their sexuality.
Why?
With history, I live by this rule: if they didnât say it, it didnât happen.
Yes, itâs clear that those women were part of what we now describe as the LGBT+ communities. Iâm not debating that, nor am I trying to erase anyoneâs history. But unless she tells me how she identified, unless her voice is accessible, Iâm not going to put a label on her.
My job is to analyse the past. That means that I work with what I find. Â
Thatâs it.
No more, no less.
So, letâs talk about what we can find.
Finding LBGT+ Women
Weâve talked before about the privilege of doing history, havenât we? Specifically, that not all of our ancestors had the necessary education and the resources to leave behind a record of their lives.
As a single, homogeneous group, women were already at a disadvantage in that regard. (Hello, Patriarchy đđ») When we start to hone in on that group, then the chances are often further reduced.
For example, an upper-class, heterosexual woman will be much easier to locate in sources. One of the reasons for that is she probably left behind some material that documents (at least a part of) her life. Letters and diaries are pretty much guaranteed.
Compare this with, say, a queer woman from a working-class background.
You need to sit yourself down in a comfortable chair and mentally prepare to hit every brick wall in historical existence đ§±
Iâm not saying itâs impossible because itâs not. But you do have to be mindful that many of the sources that might document that womanâs life are not coming from her directly. Youâll be smacked in the face by the absence of her voice.
Often, what you get instead is a glimpse of her in official records. The census is a good example. But, again, youâll face limitations because the census is a (relatively) modern invention that really only got going in 1841. Today, the census records so many aspects of our lives, including sexuality, but that wasnât the case historically.
Letâs not forget the wider issue here, either: that history perpetuates the cycle of marginalisation and invisibility for all women, but for some groups of women more than others.
The LGBT+ Legal Framework
Another thing we canât ignore is the legal framework. This framework is like patriarchy. Itâs our wider understanding. Itâs the big picture.
Ignore it at your peril.
Now âŠ
Fun fact: sex between women has never been illegal in Britain.
If you look at the legislation youâll find that British lawmakers targeted men who had sex with men.
In 1533, Henry VIIIâs Buggery Act made sex between men punishable by death. That law expired after a few years but returned to the statute books in 1541. Henry extended it to Wales in 1542. (It was also illegal in Scotland and Ireland).
If you want to learn more about the men who were killed under this law, go here.
As for women, we know that women engaged in relationships with other women. Obvs. Women also married other women. In 1707, for example, Hannah Wright and Anne Gaskill are recorded in the marriage register from the parish of Prestbury in Cheshire.
Could be a fluke, yes.
Clerical error, maybe.
But the next year, another marriage between two women in that parish is recorded: that of Anne Norton and Alice Pickford.
And there is no corresponding evidence to suggest that these marriages were later deemed unlawful or that the authorities intervened in any other way.
However, you should think about this situation as the exception, not the rule.
Navigating public spaces was a challenge for women in LGBT+ communities.
In the late 18th century, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, AKA the Ladies of Llangollen, left Ireland and settled in a remote part of Wales so that they could be together.
In the early 19th century, Anne Lister wrote a five-million-word diary that contained coded messages about her sexual and romantic relationships with women. The diaries were hidden behind panels in her home and not discovered until the 1890s.
There are many recorded instances of biological females adopting male names and clothing in order to (respectably) cohabit with or marry women. Itâs tempting to label these people as trans and it may well be the case but, again, letâs be careful here about superimposing modern ideas onto people who have left behind no record of their thoughts and feelings.
Whatever the case, British courts treated these people as women who disguised themselves as men. They were mocked. They were laughed at. And then they were prosecuted for fraud, indecent assault or lewd behaviour. Some were whipped, some were paraded through the streets, some were imprisoned.
In 1829, a story appeared in English newspapers about a âfemale husbandâ who had lived as a man for 21 years. James Allen had married Abigail Naylor in Camberwell, London, in 1801. James died in a workplace accident one day in January and when his body was taken to the hospital, doctors found that he had female anatomy. Abigail claimed to know nothing about it.
Is it possible that Abigail didnât want to admit to knowing this because of the condemnation and judgement that would follow? And if their marriage was deemed illegal, what might her financial future look like if she was no longer Jamesâs widow?
Food for thought, right?
So, although, sex between women has never been illegal, it didnât mean that women were not subjected to discrimination, condemnation and punishment. The nature of these experiences will change across time, place and identity, but they will be there nonetheless.
Thereâs also the issue of how we interpret LGBT+ women from the past and their relationships. As they lacked the required safety for authentic self-expression, how do we find them, describe them and represent them in a way thatâs accurate and reflective of their historical reality?
Theirs, not ours.
Celebrating LGBT+ Women
Weâve covered some heavy stuff today, I know. And I donât want you to think that this month isnât a time for celebration because it is.
But if youâre doing womenâs history and it only ever makes you feel all lovely and warm inside and all the answers are right there on a plate, then youâre not doing it right.
Trust me.
Womenâs stories are stories of celebration by theyâre also stories of invisibility marginalisation and discrimination. Theyâre all part of that complex tapestry that is womenâs history.
If anyone tells you otherwise, dear reader, go right ahead and ignore them.
Then, email me and Iâll also ignore them đ
Until next time,
Kaye x