Manion’s book Female Husbands: A Trans History came out in 2020. This is something of a “teaser” article in what appears to be a local history magazine (rather than an academic journal) presenting information from that research that is specific to Pennsylvania. See the Project’s coverage of the later book for a broader picture.
18th c
LHMP entry
Introduction
The author points out that this is an inescapably political book and should be read in that context. He points out that the question of “who is queer” is not at all straight-forward [pun intentional] in a historic context, and that queer figures have been silently and invisibly embedded in US history far deeper than most people are aware.
Introduction: Who is the Lesbian?
For the purposes of this book, “British lesbian history” begins in the late 18th century. It was unclear to me if this was simply a chosen scope based on the source material they wanted to present, or if the authors believe there is no lesbian history prior to that date. They assert that “lesbian identity” is a late 20th century concept. “Women…did not necessarily have a language to describe themselves as lovers of women.” [Note: we can take it as given that I disagree with that position.]
Among the political propaganda published during the French Revolution against Queen Marie-Antoinette (MA, for convenience) was a prominent theme of her sexual profligacy, and in particular the charge that she engaged in lesbian sex (as well as other sexual charges). In this context, her lesbian relations were depicted, not an accompaniment or “appetizer” to heterosexual acts (as often presented in pornography of the time), but as a preference.
Following a long tradition of framing f/f sex as “something newly prominent,” the French Mémoires Secrets of 1784 asserted it had “never been flaunted with as much scandal and show as today.” But while male homosexuals were arrested by the hundreds, far less attention was given to women, leaving fewer traces for historians to reconstruct. One notable exception is the actress Mademoiselle de Raucourt.
In 18th century France, philosophy and pornography intersected to a degree such that “philosophical texts” became a euphemism for sexual content, including a regular interest in same-sex relations. Among critiques of society and politics, enlightenment philosophers debated traditional understandings and condemnation of homosexuality. This included the radical idea that all sexuality was natural and morally neutral, and that the state should not regulate it.
The title of this anthology is a call-back to Donoghue’s non-fiction work Passions Between Women. In contrast to the previous blog on The Defiant Muse, pretty much the entire contents of this collection are relevant in some degree to the Project. So I won’t be citing specific poems. (Several have been included in various of the poetry podcast episodes.) This book makes a nice compare-and-contrast to The Defiant Muse. It is entirely Anglophone authors and specifically focused on poems about relationships between women—erotic, romantic, and platonic.
The introduction reviews the history of feminist literary criticism and notes that it has tended to focus on prose. Multiple filters and gatekeeping mechanisms stand in the way of presenting non-Anglophone feminist poetry to a larger audience. Feminine stereotypes have pressured women poets into restrictive genres: domesticity, romance, religion, etc. This collection seeks out pets and poems that operate against this restriction.
[Content note: This article and the text it discusses use the word “hermaphrodite” in contexts where it may be applied to people with ambiguous genitalia, as well as applied to people with queer sexuality. My use of the word in discussing the article is not endorsement of these uses and I recognize that this word is considered offensive (as well as inaccurate) by many.]
It might seem odd to cover this article after covering Turton’s book (Before the Word Was Queer) that functionally includes material about Anne Lister, but “The Lexicographical Lesbian” goes into a bit more detail. And besides which, I’m a completist.
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