- Hello, lovely people.
And welcome back to Queer History 101.
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I'm Jessica, and in this series I unpick LGBTQ+ history
across the ages to share with you some bits
you might not have heard of or discovered.
It's all about making history
just that little bit more colorful.
Today, I'm going to be talking about the Victorian concept
of the lesbian third gender.
Huh?
And the history of how gender and sexuality were discussed
and classified in the 20th century.
Why are we looking at the Victorians specifically then?
Well, other than having a vast and glorious selection
of top hated women, which (snaps), fabulous.
This period in time, beginning from the early to mid 1800s
and lasting into the early 1900s has been described
as pivotal in its contribution to modern language
and attitudes around sexuality and gender norms
for Western based cultures
and the cultures that they just decided
to stamp their own culture onto, obviously.
Essentially it was a time
where there were very strict rules for women.
Don't wear your hair down,
don't ride a bike, and definitely don't wear trousers.
Ah, and just the thought of an ankle!
(Jessica gasps)
But it was also a surprising period in history
full of experimentation, rebellion,
and bending of gender expression
across the spectrum of society
no matter how you identified.
Interestingly, the notion of a third category for gender
has been around for a long time.
Within Victorian society, many rules of behavior
tied together gender performance and status
with strict codes covering what was socially acceptable
and what wasn't.
It wasn't that these were necessarily lists of rules
literally written on a wall
trying to think of it more as a,
"No shirt, no service" sign.
You don't need to say it unless you're one of the places
that really needs to say it.
This of course included how women styled their hair
being of the utmost importance.
If you are below the marrying age,
then it was perfectly acceptable to wear it down.
And they actually styled it pretty much the same way
for boys and girls.
Good luck working out which one is the prince
in this painting.
But once girls from good families have reached a certain age
and certainly would not be down in public
or else they might be mistaken for (gasps) a sex worker
or you know, just a working class woman
who did not have the time to stick 5,000 pins
into her head today.
Oof! I'd love to see them read a copy of Vogue.
I reckon they'd have heart palpitations.
In fact, the Victorians were so obsessed with social status
that as long as you kept up appearances in the streets,
whatever you did in the sheets,
I mean unless someone reported you,
which I'll talk about a bit later, was your own business.
In their eyes, gender was more important than sexuality
and not adhering to social norms
was enough to un-gender you
and place you in this third category
which they called "inverted" making someone an invert.
If you are an invert, you didn't belong to either gender
and thus we're an outcast from society.
And yes, I imagine you can see the echoes
with the old fashioned homophobic argument
that same sex attraction is just inverted narcissism
which is bizarre because no.
But here's the list of things that could place you
in the invert category.
Riding a bike as a woman, having short hair as a woman,
studying in a man's field as a woman like finance,
law, or business, and going to university as,
you guessed it, a woman.
It was thought that such acts,
if women were allowed to pursue them,
would arrest the development of their reproductive system
and then just render them incapable of birthing
and raising a family.
Again, another excellent, accurate observation of the time.
And cross-dressing, especially for men,
were not only ungendered
but given the nickname fairy.
Interestingly, in the Victorian period
before the rise of psychological and sexual studies,
effeminate men who were attracted to other effeminate men
were thought of as masculine
as they were still technically attracted
to the stereotypical female aesthetics
and tropes in their love interest of choice, albeit male.
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Like all periods of history, however, people did not adhere
to a strict binary.
The gender spectrum existing since always.
Chevalier d'Eon, a French spy and diplomat
who was born in 1728 had a very fluid gender expression.
They spent nearly half of their life presenting
in masculine clothing and identifying as male
but the Chevalier in their older years
appeared in Queen Elizabeth's court
dressed in feminine clothes,
requesting recognition from the French government
in their identity as a woman.
Transgender people struggled to be recognized
and respected in a world where gender
was fully black and white,
partially because it wasn't understood.
And partially because it was seen as an act
rather than an identity.
Now, interestingly in the Americas
the cultures of indigenous people at that time
were incredibly diverse.
In fact, tribes across the country had complex languages
to include multiple genders and sexualities.
Whilst each tribe is different,
common phrase has emerged in modern times
to note some native Americans who feel
they have multiple genders inside of them
and fulfill a third gender or gender variant ceremonial
and societal role in their cultures.
And that phrase is two spirit.
Of note though,
that is an umbrella English language term
that can serve as a unifier and be helpful
to a general audience
sort of specifically in distinguishing between native
and non-native LGBTQ+ people
and the kind of culturally-specific roles
that people fulfill.
One very famous two spirit was an Apache
known as Lozen who was born in 1840
and described by her brother to be as strong as a man,
braver than most, and cunning in strategy.
Lozen is a shield to her people.
Lozen actually acted as a mediator
between the US Army and Geronimo's Band
until she was sadly imprisoned and died of tuberculosis.
Another famous two spirit was We'wha
of the Zuni who was born in 1849.
We'wha was an ambassador for her people
and highly respected by her community.
Two spirited people held prominent positions
within their tribes
but sadly maintaining their traditions was very difficult
during the 1800s and 1900s
due to colonialization and the opposing views on gender
that were imposed by Victorian society.
Many two-spirit people were tragically forced to adhere
by missionaries boarding schools and the US government.
Back in England, expectations around intimate
and marital relationships had become very strict,
putting pressure on Victorian LGBTQ+ folks.
This is when we saw a lot of social fronts being put on
including things such as lavender marriages,
where a gay man and a gay woman present publicly
in a heterosexual manner
but be free to explore their own identities
behind closed doors.
Hidden signals within clothing, such as green
and red neck ties amongst the queer community of New York
to indicate sexuality and many more.
And this is just scratching the surface.
Did you know the green Carnation became a queer symbol
in 1892 when Oscar Wilde encouraged a few of his friends
to wear them on the opening night of his comedy,
"Lady Windemere's Fan"
and from there on wearing one was a hint
that you liked other men.
Also during this time period,
we started to see an uprising of the anti-suffrage movement
a counter movement opposing a widespread group of women
who were working hard to have their voices heard
and ultimately allowed the right to politically vote.
This movement was not just comprised of men
but also women who believed that they themselves
should not be allowed an opinion
in what was ultimately a political realm
devised and run by heterosexual cisgender men
for heterosexual cisgender men.
At this time, around the late 1800s,
several proclaimed sexologists Richard Von Krafft-Ebing
and Havelock Ellis were also working
on their own research and announced to the world
that they had piloted the so-called,
"Scientific Study of Sexuality,"
creating categories for homosexuality and heterosexuality.
So unfortunately these categories
were entirely socially constructed concepts
where folks were kind of deemed to be the normal or perverse
and is entirely unhelpful
and damaging announcement that has ultimately paved the way
for many people to be justified
in their homophobic attitudes
in the decades that followed.
So nice work, gentlemen, thanks for that.
Brilliant.
It is important to note, however,
that this classification, which started in the Victorian era
is incredibly pivotal in gender
and sexuality studies globally.
Labels can be a bad thing if they're applied to us
by other people, but labels can also be a really good thing
if there's something that we are owning,
we are choosing and we're deciding, "Hey, yeah, that's me."
Prior to the development of these concepts.
We'll call them concepts.
There's no more to it than that.
If you enjoyed the company of the same sex,
didn't play into your assigned gender role,
or were a woman who just god damn
wanted to wear your top hat,
pedal down to the shops on your bike.
Then such a thing may have been viewed more as actions
and behaviors.
However, after these studies,
these actions became identities that were subject
to the judgment by society.
So to put it simply cross dressing
or having intimate relations
to the same sex used to be a thing you did
rather than what you were.
And obviously there are pros and cons to identity.
And it's important to note here
that one of the things that this perhaps accidentally
did help our community with is that your LGBTQ+ identity
is about you.
One of the things I really hated when I was younger
was being questioned with,
"How can you know you are gay
if you've not kissed a girl?"
And I was like, well, I've not kissed a boy either,
so why do you think I'm straight?
Because your sexuality doesn't necessarily have to be
about you in relation to other people.
It can just be about you
because in fact it is.
It's you as a human being.
It's not how other people perceive you.
Unfortunately, though, the development of psychology
and sexology is fields of study lent critical voices
a highly pathologized foundation
upon which to build their arguments.
The anti-suffrage movement, whether by intention or not,
integrated the frameworks of homosexuality
and gender expression established by these fields of study
into their media and public statements.
The result was a campaign which effectively attacked
not only the women's movement, but all forms
of gender variants, further,
the notion of androgyny put forth by the movement
reflected a misogynistic hostility
towards any form of gender bending expression.
Oh, you want to vote?
You must hate your husband and children.
In the Victorian era,
lesbian or bisexual acts by women were not uncommon.
And they were never actually made illegal.
Unlike their male counterparts whose homosexual acts,
even those done in private,
were strictly criminalized against
by the introduction of something
called the Labouchere Amendment.
The Labouchere Amendment came about after series of events
in Los Angeles during the 1890s called All Fool's Night
where men and women could attend an evening
in lavish outfits, masquerading as opposite genders
expressing their creative sides, dancing, drinking
and partying.
Think Victorian pride.
But instead of people eating a donna kabob
outside of a night club at 3:00 AM,
they had ball gowns and a peacock platter.
So a group of people really didn't like this
and accosted the LA city council to draw up something
called ordinance 5022, which made it illegal
for men to masquerade women and women to masquerade as men.
This was in place all across the west
until the mid 20th century.
It meant that anyone convicted of sodomy
or buggeries as they were called,
were subjected to years of imprisonment
with hard labor and spirit breaking abuse
or they could be sentenced to death.
One of the most high profile victims
of the Labouchere Amendment was the famous playwright,
author, and aesthetics lecturer, Oscar Wilde.
In 1891 after keeping his sexual identity a secret,
Wilde entered into a relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas
the son of the Marquess of Queensbury.
The Marquess aggressively harassed Wilde
until she accused him of the illegal act of sodomy
where he was sentenced to two years in prison.
He was never the same when he returned.
And his creative spark had completely burnt out,
leading to his early death
only three years after his release.
So why weren't lesbians included in this then?
Well, instead that the authors
of the amendment may have excluded lesbianism
for fear of alerting more women in society
to the possibility, thus rendering an influx
of top hated lesbians coming outta the closet
and sending the fear of God through the straight women
in Victorian England that they would be turned
to a life of Birkenstocks, dogs,
and shopping for house plants.
Sounds dreamy to me.
Claudia just bought some Birkenstocks, I know.
There's also a rumor that lesbians weren't included
because Queen Victoria just didn't believe in them.
Peak Queen Victoria.
And thus, they found that the best way to deal
with the lesbian problem
was just to consider them "an other."
Desexed, if you will.
Not quite women, but not men.
Just sort of there.
And whilst it's never great to be ignored,
at least these lesbians who were just considered
the third gender weren't suffering like many,
many of their male counterparts.
Many roots of homophobia can be traced back
to this time period stem from the fear of the unknown
and nonconformist attitudes
of those who we now know were part
of the LGBTQ+ community.
As time progressed,
these Victorian laws and amendments have transformed
into the modern day legislation that we were aware
of across the globe.
The Labouchere Amendment and following legislation
that criminalized same sex relationships between men
was finally scrapped in 1967 in the United Kingdom
allowing freedom for the LGBTQ+ community
to finally have their voices heard.
For me, pride month is about more than just celebrating
where we're at right now, but also looking back to the past
to see what we can learn from in terms of how much further
we have to go in the many places around the world
where acceptance is not where it needs to be.
Studying LGBTQ+ history is an important tool
to help those of us with greater freedoms appreciate them
and also not take them for granted.
I'm aware I personally live in a very accepting bubble.
I'm able to marry the woman I love.
We have a gorgeous baby together.
We're not even the only same sex parents at his nursery.
And we're certainly not the only parents
in our LGBT cross friend group
but we also live in a very accepting city.
And even though our country as a whole is very progressive
we do factor in that when we eventually live our dreams
of moving to the countryside, it will just be the outskirts
of this same very accepting city.
Because we feel comfortable here.
Pride month is for the whole community,
whether you're out to everyone,
whether you've told no one,
even if you're still questioning your feelings yourself.
So happy pride month to you.
If you've enjoyed this video
and you'd like to see more queer history content from me,
then firstly, subscribe.
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Thank you so much for watching.
Please let me know in the comments
if you knew about the history of Victoria lesbians already
or if you learn something new today.
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