The defamation lawsuit brought by Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie against Lady Cumming Gordon in the early 19th century is often cited as concerning accusations of lesbianism against the two women. But This article looks at the details of the cause as illustrating points of Scottish legal procedure.
19th c
LHMP entry
The central premise of this chapter Is to examine how the law came to acknowledge the existence of sexual “indecent assault” by one woman against another. But the case used to illustrate this concerns a midwife who was hired to examine the virginity of an underage girl being procured for prostitution. The case had a number of complicating factors. The men doing the procuring were anti-prostitution activists and journalists, working to demonstrate how easy it was to obtain such victims. One focus of such campaigns was to raise the female age of consent from 13 to 16.
Changes in understandings of Lesbianism in the 18th century can be illustrated by newspaper and legal accounts of “female husbands,” for example, the famous case of Charles/Mary Hamilton. Hamilton’s case was not particularly unusual, but the attention given to it was. Hamilton was working as a quack doctor, who courted and married the daughter of his landlady. Two months later, the bride announced that her husband was a woman and a legal inquiry resulted, including depositions by both partners.
Derry begins by contradicting the myth that Queen Victoria was the reason there were no laws in England against lesbianism. There are three problems with this myth: no such law was proposed; if it had been, the queen wouldn’t have any power to block it; and such a blockage wouldn’t explain the earlier absence of such laws. But the lack of specific laws doesn’t equal the “benign neglect” suggested by some historians. The main policy against lesbianism was silencing. Laws would recognize lesbianism as “a thing,” whereas silencing was aimed at preventing it from being imaginable.
A brief survey article discussing how the author came to study lesbian themes in Chinese history. Around the turn of the 20th century, Chinese women studying in Japan formed a mutual support organization that also had feminist and nationalist goals. Leadership included the fascinating Qiu Jin, who transgressed gender in clothing and behavior. But the question arises whether such organizations and figures fit into lesbian history.
In addition to the economic dynamics of domestic employment, the mistress-maid relationship as depicted in 19th century fiction brings in themes of loyalty, devotion, and female alliance, although the last is mostly a fictional invention. When servants feature in fiction (which is rare) these conditions create a homoerotic potential. Two women, separated by class but existing in close physical proximity, invite images of unrequited love and yearning, and sometimes their fulfillment. Conversely, the appearance of an employment relationship may serve as cover for a queer relationship.
This chapter looks at two creative movements that intersected strongly with queer representation. Of these, the decadent movement was more pervasive. While centered in France, it was international in scope, while the aesthetic movement was primarily British. The author is interested in these movements in how they expressed the complexities and contradictions of developing “queer modernity.”
This article works through a lens of the sexualization of Black identities and Black bodies, as well as how desire is constructed in Black writing. The content is not limited to writers with same-sex desire and covers up through 1930, looking at three distinct eras: antebellum, later 19th century, and Harlem Renaissance. [Note: the Harlem Renaissance is a rich historic and social era, but falls outside the time scope of the Project.]
The article begins by tackling the complicated question of the correspondence between 19th-century, intensely affectionate, same-sex friendships and current understandings of same-sex desire. Based on the emotional language (and domestic arrangements) of many 19th-century, same-sex pairs, the urge to identify these feelings and people as “homosexual” is strong. And (the question I always want to ask.) does it matter whether we can clearly categorize people in this way?
Although this article is placed in the “Enlightenment Culture” section of the book, this survey article begins with references to several modern horror/gothic works that connect the themes of hidden supernatural terrors with hidden sexualities. But despite the modern recognition of how these themes are connected, and despite the graphic depiction of a wide range of “forbidden” sexualities featured in the historic gothic genre, male homosexuality is startlingly absent in historic gothic works (though not in historic pornographic works).
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