LHMP #575 Gonda 2023 Labels, Plaques and Identity Categories

This article discusses the installation of commemorative plaques for Anne Lister at Shibden Hall and at the church in York where she and Ann Walker solemnized their marriage. The focus of the article is on the discussions and controversies around how to describe Lister – whether using the word “lesbian” was anachronistic, or whether omitting it was erasure; whether to describe her with language that implied transmasculinity or gender nonconformity. Modern people of a variety of identities are invested in seeing Lister as “one of us” and no specific wording choice was going to satisfy everyone. The length of the text available on the plaques didn’t leave room for extensive nuance. The versions eventually settled on use the word “lesbian,” but space is given in the article to discussions of the wider issues in such labeling, including the point that Lister is not recorded as using that word, nor seems likely to have done so. [See Shannon 2023 earlier for Lister’s rather solipsistic approach to identity.] This article is very much a summing up of many views – both academic and popular – on what Lister’s identity may have been and how it related to other women-loving-women of her era.

[Note: this article expands on the discussion with Emma Saltmarshe about the Ladies of Llangollen mentioned in McHugh 2023 earlier. Emma complained about the artificiality of the Plas Newydd environment. “Everything evidently done for effect.” But Lister notes that Emma tended to see meanings were none was intended. Gonda suggests that Emma’s intent in “a pity they were not married” is that their romantic friendship is for show and would be better as a sincere marriage]

Much of this article is Gonda’s thoughts and personal engagement with the underlying issues and the conversations that Lister’s newfound popularity of engendered.