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Why I Never Trust Official Nonsense

So remember when I was coming down to the wire on retirement and trying to get my Flexible Spending Account balance sorted out? To recap: I'd had a Flexible Spending Account (pre-tax medical expenses) for some years. The balance had always rolled over to the next year (though the instructions on that were unclear). I hadn't renewed the account for 2025 due to retirement, so to keep things simple I was identifying things to spend the ca. $500 balance on (since I can't schedule root canals for my convenience).

I picked up a second CPAP battery (to enable the possibility of using it for up to 3 nights off-grid) and went to charge it to my FSA. No-go, it said. That was a 2025 expense any my FSA could only reimburse 2024 expenses.

Many phone calls and run-arounds later, it turns out part of the problem is that my employer changed FSA administrators between 2024 and 2025. So my existing account couldn't reimburse 2025 expenses because that was out of scope for them. And the 2025 FSA administrator couldn't reimbuse a 2025 expense because I didn't have a balance in their account.

So what happens to my balance? How do I get my money? The 2024 administrator says, "We send it back to your employer. No idea beyond that." And my employer, after tracking down someone who claims under understand FSAs says, "Oops, sorry, your money is gone. No recourse. Use it or lose it." Eventually, I shrug and chalk it up to experience.

The 2025 benefit adminstrator (who also administers my IRA) at some point sends me an ATM card for my FSA. I check in with them: "Hey you sent me this card, but I don't have a FSA with you so there's no money in it and there won't be any money in it, should I just trash the card?" Yes, they say.

A month or so later, I get a notification: "Hey, you know your FSA balance? We've rolled it over into New!Administrator Account." So now I have to request a replacement ATM card (since it's the only way I have to use the money). With some trepidation that I was still being jerked around, last week I submitted the receipt for my CPAP battery. And--voila!--yesterday the money was deposited to my checking account.

So everyone who carefully explained to me that the FSA balance was use-it-or-lose-it and that they were just going to keep my money, thank you very much, was utterly wrong and didn't even know they were wrong and will continue to be ignorant of their wrongness. But me? I got my battery covered and have another $200 of medical money to spend, after which I will be done with the confusing nonsense that is the Flexible Spending Account.

And I will continue to disbelieve official opinions when they do not align with logic or justice.

Sexology as Chicken or Egg?

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

http://alpennia.com/blog/sexology-chicken-or-egg

Tuesday, July 15, 2025 - 08:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

This is the second of the two papers on the history of sexology that I pulled out in preparation for a podcast.

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LHMP #493 Chauncey 1982 From Inversion to Homosexuality

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Chauncey, George, Jr. 1982. “From Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance” in Salmagundi 58-59 (fall 1982-winter 1983).

This article focuses on the end of the 19th century as the era when a medical model of homosexuality replaced a religious/moral model, creating the conditions for the idea of belonging to a sexual minority. Starting with the first publication of a medical paper on “sexual inversion” in Germany in 1870, the next few decades saw increasing interest from medical professionals in the topic. However Chauncey argues that a direct connection between medical publications on the topic ad the rise of self-conscious identities is far from established, or that homosexuals accepted the medical model uncritically. In particular, that view—that sexology invented homosexual identity—ignores preexisting evidence for subcultures and concepts of identity, even when documented in the medical literature itself. The author notes other issues that complicate this connection, such as the restricted social class that most medical studies were drawn from. He recommends non-medical and more personal records, such as diaries and letters, as a field that would provide balance.

Rather, Chauncey suggests, medical literature in America (the article’s focus) could be understood as a response to social change around sexuality at the turn of the century, rather than a driver of it. Medical literature initially conceived of “sexual inversion” as a broad and diffuse category of behavior that deviated from normative sexual and gender roles. Only later, several decades into the development of sexology, was homosexual desire distinguished in this literature as a distinct concept, rather than being considered a simple consequence of an underlying gender identity.

Further, sexology did not develop in a social vacuum. The challenges that the women’s movement made to normative gender roles and the increasing awareness of urban gay male culture are among the factors causing social anxiety that medical sexology claimed to explain and manage. A parallel is drawn between the rise of the idea of “social Darwinism” and challenges to racism and colonialism. One of the implicit purposes of sexology was to justify male supremacy as biologically determined. And this helps explain some of the differences in how the field treated male and female homosexuality.

The heart of this article is a review of 85 medical publications in the USA between 1880 and 1930, discussing how they reflected and responded to changes in society.

The medicalization of sexuality can find roots in pseudo-scientific theories that shaped the Victorian era about male sexual agency and female sexual passivity. Within this framework even women who expressed active sexual desire within a heterosexual marriage were seen as suspect. This lesbianism was inherently deviant as it required at least one of the female partners to experience and express active sexual desire. Active desire was a masculine trait, therefore a woman expressing sexual desire for a woman was behaving in a masculine fashion. [Note: This idea dates far earlier than the Victorian era, of course.] As a consequence of this pre-existing framing, sexological literature described the sexuality of lesbians as a sort of pseudo-male aggressiveness. A corollary was that just as male sexuality was understood to be aggressive and uncontrolled (the onus was on women to “control” men either by being virtuous and untouchable, or by being prostitutes and unconditionally available), lesbian desire was assumed to be uncontrollable and thus required professional treatment to suppress it.

Nineteenth-century gender roles went beyond what happened in bed, therefore the required “feminine passivity” extended to social roles and interactions, and “inversion” was assumed to apply to all manner of behavioral interactions and personal presentation. This could be identified even in childhood by a preference for play associated with a different gender. A 1921 article asserted that female “inverts” could be identified by wearing male-coded garments like tailored suits (even those that included a skirt), certain hair styles, an aversion to corsets, by drinking, smoking, whistling, and being “very independent in her ways.” (Similar assertions were made about identifying male inverts.) In this all-encompassing view of gender identity, researchers could be contradictory. Havelock Ellis, while claiming that transvestism was separate from homosexuality, nonetheless claimed that lesbians typically had some degree of “masculinity” in their clothing, alongside “…brusque, energetic movements…direct speech…masculine straightforwardness and sense of honor…” alongside “a dislike and sometimes incapacity for needlework and other domestic occupations.” [Note: It’s hard not to connect these opinions with the classic “not like other girls” traits of supposedly progressive literary heroines, who habitually reject corsets and despise needlework. Gender essentialism comes in many forms.]

Early versions of the “inversion” theory of homosexuality meant that the object of desire was less relevant than gender presentation. A “masculine” woman was an invert even if happily married to a man (who then would be assumed to be effeminate to some degree, or else he wouldn’t be attracted to her). But by 1900 this had shifted to distinguish homosexuality more clearly from gender presentation, as in Freud’s language about “sexual object.” But this shift was more solidly and earlier applied to men than women and became part of arguments for tolerance and acceptance of male homosexuals, while the same was not argued for lesbians. Even as men were allowed to be “manly” and yet desire men, women were still being characterized as generally “masculine” if they desired women.

Early sexological literature functionally ignored the femme partner of women identified as “inverts,” treating them as passive objects who simply accepted the attentions of their partner, much in the same way that the wives of “female husbands” had been viewed over the previous couple of centuries. Toward the end of the period under consideration, these femme partners were increasingly viewed as actively choosing to engage in lesbian partnerships, rather than being hapless “victims” of the aggressive sexuality of the “actively inverted woman.” But the underlying assumption supported the idea that a femme partner could be “saved” by the intervention of a Real Man.

It can be easy to see how this assumed gender-role-binary works to reinforce itself by ignoring or shoehorning likely counterexamples. If lesbians are always inherently masculine, then a femme-femme couple will be overlooked by those trying to identify lesbians. A quote in the article from Havelock Ellis notes, “we are accustomed to a much greater familiarity and intimacy between women than between men, and we are less apt to suspect the existence of any abnormal passion.” [Note: And if both partners participate in female masculinity—whether in dress, or in behavior—it was common to assign one partner as the more masculine, based in minor differences in occupation or personal habits. This can be seen even before the application of sexological frameworks when partners in Boston Marriages are analyzed to determine “which was the husband and which the wife.”]

Once the shift from “gender inversion” to “sexual object” became established in the first decade of the 20th century, and “passive lesbians” became a topic of greater interest, the medical establishment turned their attention to pathologizing intimate same-sex friendships in single-sex institutions such as schools, convents, and gender-segregated work environments. Now that these relationships were a topic of study, surprise! researchers found that partners might alternate the “husband/wife” roles, or even claim “that they did not think of it in that way.” (Quoted from a 1929 study.) Such relationships had, of course, existed previously, but had been outside the scope of study due to not overtly challenging gendered behavioral norms.

The medical approach to homosexuality shifted in parallel with general medical trends. Where doctors in the 1880s had ascribed inversion and other “nervous disorders” to a physical cause with physical symptoms that could be treated, and argued that homosexuality was pathological rather than criminal, as the 1890s progressed, the “somatic cause” of nervous disorders was increasingly ascribed to congenital defects, which could be managed but not cured. An extreme version of the congenital theory was to classify inverts as biological hermaphrodites, with “structural cellular elements of the opposite sex.” This helps explain the undue interest doctors took in recording the genital anatomy and menstrual habits of patients being examined for lesbianism. This physiological approach faded early in the 20th century but lingered in a form of “psychic hermaphroditism”—the “male soul in a female body” explanation (initially raised as early as the 1860s by Karl Ulrichs). As eugenics became a popular theory, homosexuality was frame as part of a general “degeneration” of civilization to a less evolved state. [Note: Of course, eugenics and theories of degeneration applied to many other social anxieties, such as non-Anglo immigration.] Early proponents of gay acceptance in the 1910s countered this with arguments from Classical civilizations, which of course focused only on male-male relations.

Class issues infiltrated the medical literature in how patients from different social strata were differentially diagnosed: middle-class patients being identified as suffering from illness, while working-class patients were written off as immoral. Lesbianism was claimed to be rife among domestic servants (who might teach it to the children of their employers) and especially among prostitutes where it was assumed to go hand-in-hand with general criminality.

The congenital theory of homosexuality promulgated by Havelock Ellis and others was in the ascendent around 1900, but began to be challenged by Freud and his followers who saw it as an acquired condition due to interactions of family dynamics. (Though many professionals worked with a mixture of the two approaches.)

The article most to a conclusion with a consideration of why gender/sexuality became a topic of medical interest at the specific time when it did, and why the focus shifted in the ways it did. The author focuses strongly on the lesbian angle (in addition to the increasing visibility of gay male subcultures), in the context of challenges to Victorian sex/gender stereotypes and the “resexualization” of women at the beginning of the 20th century. The women’s movement in the late 19th century challenged social and political limitations placed on women (and were achieving a certain amount of success in that field). Declining marriage and birth rates among the white middle class and the intrusion of women into previously male-only fields, created what some identified as a “masculinity crisis” in the decades around 1900. There was a perception that women were having undue influence on society and in the workplace. Within all of this, the identification of women’s challenge to assumed norms as a “disease” enabled authorities to undermine and stigmatize it, rather than having to address the challenge on its merits. Not only were the women who challenged gender restrictions themselves “diseased” but their dismissal of domestic and material duties produced another generation of degenerates. Within this framework, gay men, rather than joining the crusade against the New Women, were rejecting their own masculinity and contributing to the degeneration of society. And to a limited but meaningful extent, the women were “winning.” Meaningful female employment increased. Campaigns for suffrage and prohibition were successful. [Note: Whatever one might think about the advisability or lasting impact of Prohibition, it was a symbol of female political power.] Women were once again recognized publicly as sexual beings. And professional attachment to the idea that gender roles were natural and inherent began to weaken. Within this context, shifting professional concern from “inversion” to “homosexuality” allowed a backing off from the unstoppable aspects of these changes while narrowing the scope of persecution to more marginalized groups. Women could be actively sexual, even outside marriage, but only heterosexually. The homosocial bonding that had supported suffrage and other aspects of the women’s movement could be stigmatized, weakening political momentum. Homosociality was replaced by a greater acceptance of mixed-sex socializing, including “dating culture” and the promotion of marriage as a woman’s primary social context.

Thus, Chauncey concludes, while the shifting medical discourse from 1880 to 1930 did not drive these social changes, it provides a fertile field for studying them in all their intertwined complexity.

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Two weeks, two cons

I need to remember that if I want to see more content from other people on Dreamwidth, I really should post a bit more myself.

Our con activity has been -way- down since 2021 for the obvious reasons, so it was something of a trip (as it were) to do two cons in two weeks.

Dexlite was a dizzying array of games, separated by semi-scheduled bits of relaxation. Lisa and I volunteered to run our Good Society hack, Dangerous Refuge, twice -- once on the official schedule and once for Sparks (the rebranded "games on demand" non-scheduled games system);

drcpunk ran one session and I ran the other. Interestingly, both of these sessions differed from our core concept and how our previous sessions have gone, in that the players constructed a world and session that was replete with external threats/problems and light on internal ones.

On the one hand, we could probably reduce this frequency by writing a deck of suggested Desires that pushed players towards internal tension. And should; not only can we not, in fact, use the base desires without either permission or referring to them by number (and I'd rather have the option to publish a complete game rather than a supplement, since I really like how playtests have gone), but obviously, dark fantasy school adventures do have notably different core motivations, typically, than regency romances.

On the other hand, it was really fun seeing how, despite the PC group being less strive-driven and more focused on external dangers and threats, whether they were from the Connections (who are, in fact, intended to do exactly that and the players were brilliant at bringing that) than our core setup, the games worked quite well -- in Lisa's game, the players dreamed up a Problem where the previous graduating glass had all failed to graduate, and in less than four hours, played themselves into a stunning conclusion where the PCs had to, despite difficulties, graduate One Year Early, freeing the school from Doom.

And in my run, the players doubled down on YA Dystopia, building a school that was a prison/indoctrination camp for teenage psychics the entire world was afraid of, whose greatest enemies were the faculty themselves and the school building itself, and whose allies were...well, the school building itself and and one another--if they could be trusted. The game climaxed when the players decided that the Newcomer PC would allow his connection to DIE in a challenge set for both of them (while she saved him; the player playing the connection signed off on this, of course), and that the faculty would decide, after the telekinetic PC intervened to save the matter-transmitting PC from a humiliating pop quiz, that she needed to die, resulting in a Danger phase full of menace and culminating in the students BREAKING OUT OF THE SCHOOL to be airlifted to a secret rebel base. I'd definitely read that first of a trilogy book!

I also played a small array of board games, other RPGs, and even a LARP of course, including getting to try a session of Daggerheart, but I think RPGs were thinner than they've been at previous Dexlites (not to mention Dexcons). In order to reverse this, we'd need more larps I like on the schedule--having some on Sparks is great, of course, but those serve as an outlet for players that don't have enough games to play--for the players to even be there there need to be games for them on the schedule.

The following weekend, I went to Summer Larpin', a rocking, larping convention, which I've been doing as an extra larping convetnion for...quite some time now. I was signed up for three games and played in four (sunday is unscheduled for SL); S.U.F.I.E.T.R.A, a fighting game-themed game (this time using a Street Fighter playset complete with a martial arts tournament) with a solid plot core that got elaborated on a bit with workshops where I played The Monster (character names were workshopped here so my name was unique to this run and ended up inspiring an extra relationship, though I forgot to get resolution there but did use one of my flashbacks on that), Shadow Soiree, a dark fantasy secrets and powers and quests game with solid inspiration from the Witcher, among others, where I played the Flame Reader (character names actually were usually titles here, which honestly made them way easier to remember; the only "names" I remember were Prospero and Pandora, both of whom were exactly what it said on the tin), Arabian Days where I played Aladdin's Djinn (which means I'm not going to say what name was on my badge, as that was not public information at the start of the game, although that Aladdin was in the game was)--which was also a secrets and powers and quests game, and as my one "signed up at the con becauese the game had lost players game, also played in Jubilee, which was an interesting psychological game--you played both your own character, who had two "voices" governing your behavior and future, and also were one of the representatives for those voices for the other three players who had the same voice as you had. It was a fun experience!

I also showed up late to the Dance, but still got to dance for over an hour, which just goes to show how much my endurance has improved--I did take breaks, but mostly not because I was tired but because the pairs people had formed didn't include me--or just because my face was running with sweat and I wanted a chance to cool off a bit.

Sexology: When It All Changed

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

http://alpennia.com/blog/sexology-when-it-all-changed

Monday, July 14, 2025 - 09:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

In addition to tackling some USA-related articles, I've picked the rise of sexology as this month's podcast topic, hence the choice of a couple of items on this topic to post. Sexology and its consequences are about half the reason why the Lesbian Historic Motif Project cuts off around 1900. The other half of the reason is that information on lesbians in the 20th century is so much more plentiful that it would swamp earlier material (and the earlier material is where my heart is). But mostly, models and understandings of lesbianism changed significantly around 1900. It wasn't an instant change or an unprecedented change, but it marks a difference that writers and readers of sapphic historicals should keep strongly in mind. (Listen to the podcast next week for more on this.)

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LHMP #492 Black 1994 Perverting the Diagnosis

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Black, Allida M. 1994. “Perverting the Diagnosis: The Lesbian and the Scientific Basis of Stigma.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201–16.

This is an overview of the rise of sexological theories about female homosexuality. The field consistently made connections between homosexuality and neurosis in women, as well as connecting the former with “inversion” or masculinity. Different part of the field gave different weight to ideas of genetic versus behavioral causes. There were also systematic ways in which the sexological approach to homosexuality differed for men and women. But the overall concept pressured women with homoerotic feelings to consider themselves mentally—and perhaps physically—ill.

Much of the theory came out of the idea of “neurasthenia”—an idea that ills in one part of the body could produce effects in a different part. Thus “unnatural” exertions of the mind (i.e., women thinking too much) or reproductive system (i.e., non-normative sex including masturbation or lesbianism) could cause chronic physical ailments of all sorts, and conversely, that all manner of physical ailments could be traced back to objectionable mental or sexual activities.

This combined with eugenicist theories that some women had a genetic predisposition to “sexual inversion,” which encompassed both female masculinity and homosexuality. To varying degrees, this genetic predisposition was thought to produce masculine attributes or even create a “third sex” that was no longer female but not fully male. In any degree, it was considered to predispose the woman to homosexuality.

Such was the acceptance of these theories within the field that diagnosis ignored possible non-biological factors. The genetic aspect led sexologists to believe they were arguing for tolerance of a condition that the woman couldn’t help, but in practice, homosexuality was depicted as a dangerous “disease” that could, at best, be suppressed in the individual. The only cure and only moral path was complete abstinence.

Due to this connection being made between lesbianism and mental illness, there was a general social shift to suspicion of any emotional relationships between women that were viewed as symptomatic of lesbian potential. And it was considered impossible for lesbian relationships to be happy and successful, even if deriving from an inherited predisposition. (For that matter, any behavior that deviated from the norm could be classified as “neurotic.”)

These theories of lesbianism as mental illness driven by genetic predisposition, developed by male professionals, based on case studies of women who had sought treatment for unrelated reasons, were then promulgated as fact. Any apparent contradictions could be explained away due to the inherent complexity and ambiguity of the theories.

(Male) sexologists such as Krafft-Ebing, Ellis, and Hirschfeld, while arguing for tolerance and compassion for male homosexuals, exhibited a distinct hostility toward lesbians and saw them as imitating men. This theoretical framework created a stereotype of the lesbian that included male-coded personality traits, an interest in active sports, a preference for male-coded hairstyles and clothing, and which fastened on the old myth of clitoral enlargement as either a cause or consequence of sex between women. Even when specific case studies of their patients contradicted this stereotype, sexologists dismissed their own recorded observations and searched for evidence of “neurasthenia” or “morbid” behavior.

Freudian theories of sexuality developed out of the field of sexology, further elaborating them based on the supposed dynamics of parental-object attachment. As with his predecessors, he could not work past the assumption that women’s resistance to gender-based social repression was itself a psychological “problem” to be cured. Thus, one patient’s “masculine” attributes and her desire for women was connected in his diagnosis with her feminism and “rebell[ion] against the lot of women in general.” The Freudian position that lesbianism was a toxic and “irreversible” abnormality persisted from the 1930s to the 1970s. Contrary evidence made no difference, as when one client of a prominent Freudian psychologist resolved her depression and suicidal thoughts only after accepting and embracing her lesbianism, but was dismissed with “but she’s still a lesbian.”

The basic Freudian position was that lesbianism was driven by envy of the penis (and what it stood for) leading to appropriation of masculinity to the extent possible, especially in terms of sexual object. Thus, went the theory, even if a lesbian achieved a successful relationship with a woman, she would be unhappy because her entire nature stemmed from an unaddressed (and unaddressable) frustration).

Some historians posit that by the early 1920s, lesbians were internalizing the message that not only were their sex lives dangerous and perverse, but their underlying love of women was equally perverse even if never acted on sexually. Interviews with women in this era give evidence of pervasive internalized homophobia that was not generally prevalent in society in earlier decades. The iconic example of this is Radclyffe Hall’s fictional alter ego in The Well of Loneliness. This era saw the rise of greater covertness and secrecy about lesbian relationships, even by those who had not succumbed to negative views of themselves. This, combined with socio-economic patterns regarding public socializing, contributed to the illusion that lesbians were less common than male homosexuals, and made lesbianism less easily studied (and thus, less studied).

[Note: One aspect of the sexological theories that is given little consideration in this article, but is discussed in other articles, is femme invisibility.]

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New Research in Trans Studies

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

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Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 19:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

Today's article is a survey of recent research in trans (and to a lesser extent, intersex) research on the middle ages.

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LHMP #478 Wingard 2024 The Trans Middle Ages

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Wingard, Tess, 2024. “The Trans Middle Ages: Incorporating Transgender and Intersex Studies into the History of Medieval Sexuality”, The English Historical Review, cead214, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cead214

This article is a survey of recent work in trans and intersex historical studies covering the medieval period. Wingard notes that these topics have only been seriously included in book-length studies since 2020, following something of a hiatus in queer medieval history publications in general since the early 2000s. This particular survey focuses on work that studies “lived experience” via documentary sources and non-fiction texts, rather than a broader scope that includes literary and artistic materials.

Queer medieval history has revolved around three topics: identity, community, and repression. The first involves identifying individuals where there is probable evidence for sexual, romantic and intimate acts classifiable as queer, though the evidence rarely addresses interiority. Wingard notes the debt owed to approaches developed for women’s history to identify methods and approaches for marginalized subjects.

The field involves several significant theoretical disagreements of approach and method. One position argues against the concept of “persistent sexual identity” being meaningful in the medieval period, much less a clear binary classification of homosexual and heterosexual. In this context, “heteronormativity” is not a useful interpretive framework. Another position (which the author holds) is that while medieval concepts do focus more on acts than identities, there is a clear privileging of male-female relations, which are uniquely classified as “natural.” The result is difficult to distinguish from heteronormativity.

Studies into medieval community again hit a clear divide between those who reject Boswell’s image of an “international gay subculture” and those who more narrowly identify specific contexts for networks and normalized practices among queer men. [Note: And with regard to “communities” the discussion is entirely focused on men.]

The third theme relates to repression and persecution and the forces and logics that drive fluctuations in official attention to queer practices.

Having laid out the map of the field of queer history in general, Wingard discusses a number of very recent publications that explore new ground specifically with regard to trans and intersex studies. [Note: I’m not going to list individual titles, but many of them are on my shelves and will be blogged at a later date.] This field is moving on from anecdotal studies of specific individuals, to studies that address larger theoretical questions, such as philosophical and medical understandings of transness and intersex. These questions are relevant to the study of sex and gender in general because they challenge the nature and definition of sex and gender categories.

Trans history is based on several key principles: that gender is socially constructed, that biological sex itself is—to some extent—socially constructed (i.e., that societies have had different focuses and frameworks for determining how to classify someone as biologically male or biologically female), and that “individuals whose gender identity does not line up with their assigned gender at birth have always existed in all human cultures,” and have used various strategies to negotiate that mismatch. Wingard notes that using a trans history approach to these questions is productive regardless of whether the subjects of study can be considered “transgender” either by modern definitions or by some medieval analog. The parallel to Judith Bennett’s “lesbian-like” approach is noted. Several specific historic individuals are discussed to illustrate these points.

Intersex history also speaks to the social construction of sex and gender, as well as the agency that intersex individuals had to manage their own classification, within certain limits.

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Did Someone Say Pirates?

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

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Friday, July 11, 2025 - 15:59

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

When I see pirate novels in the new book listings, I sometimes sigh over how all of them are based on a Hollywood-fantasy version of history. But then, this is part of a grand tradition, because the story we have about Anne Bonny and Mary Read is, itself, a fantasy version of their lives, written within existing fictionalized genres and carefully tailored to audience expectations.

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LHMP #477 Klein 2021b Busty Buccaneers and Sapphic Swashbucklers

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Klein, Ula Lukszo. 2021. “Busty Buccaneers and Sapphic Swashbucklers” in Transatlantic Women Travelers, 1688-1843 edited by Misty Kreuger. Lewisburg PA: Bucknell University Press.

This article is something of a cross-genre, cross-temporal look at the representation of Anne Bonny and Mary Read as “sapphic pirates” and what part their stories have played within the constructed image of 18th century piracy and colonialism. (The introduction makes reference to their appearance in the video game Assassin’s Creed IV as well as the tv series Black Sails, and these depictions are also referenced later in the article.) It should be emphasized that pretty much everything we know about them has come through dubious sources created as both entertainment and as cultural propaganda, so while there is no doubt of the historic existence of the two women, the specific details that we “know” about them are of questionable historicity.

The women’s stories combined a number of established tropes prevalent in 18th century literature and media: the cross-dressing warrior, criminal biographies, and sexual narratives. These motifs are trans-national and typically work to “other” the women involved in order to comment on (and police) ideas about the role and proper place of women. As pirates, they participate in a culture defined by movement, independence from law and nationality, adventure, and danger. Standing outside social norms along several axes, their transgressive gender and sexuality in the stories are available to be viewed as entertainment, rather than a challenge to those norms. At the same time, certain elements of the stories strengthen and emphasize those norms and work to integrate the two women into a racialized image of white femininity even as they perform masculinity. In this, they illustrate the assimilation of pirate culture into a fictionalized world of (predominantly) white adventure and freedom.

The article gives the background of what it refers to as the “transatlantic” world and its relationship to, and contrast with, national structures and cultures. It also gives a brief background to the publication General History of the…Pyrates in its several editions by Charles Johnson, which is almost the sole source for information about Bonny and Read. The work was first published in 1724 and then republished across the 18th century with increasing modifications to the content. The initial edition appeared very soon after B&R’s convictions for piracy in 1720 and was based on the official trial report, as well as contemporary reporting. But even this earliest version, which can be suspected to be the closest to reality, includes details not present in these sources, including “origin stories” (a motif not included for any of the other pirates discussed in the publication) that parallel stock passing woman biographies, in which they are said to have cross-dressed as girls for somewhat implausible reasons. Due to the questionable veracity of the biographical material, the present article focuses solely on the narratives present in the General History. In particular, the article examines how the narrative emphasizes and supports their status as women and thus—despite the hints at homoerotic possibilities—situations them within a solidly heterosexual framework.

This work flourishes during a transition period in fictions of female adventure, between the adventurous heroines of Defoe and Aubin and the less transgressive ones of the later 18th century. They are allowed to represent themes of “female autonomy…[and] ambiguous virtue.” They are agents in their own stories, in contrast to the status of most women, constrained whether by class or propriety. Their stories can be compared to military passing women such as Hannah Snell, with B&R status as vicious outlaws contrasted with Snell’s image as a heroic and patriotic soldier. These differences stem, in large part, from their participation in pirate culture, even when the shape of the narratives parallel stories not involving outlaw status.

Both women were said to have begun cross-dressing at a young age, at the guidance of their mothers, and for deceptive purposes. Both were stymied in their ambitions by both gender and class and leveraged gender disguise to seize opportunities: Read volunteering as a sailor, in which context she was then briefly married to a fellow soldier, and Bonny to leave a problematic marriage and join Jack Rackam’s pirate crew in male disguise (with his knowledge). Both are framed as brave, fearless, and comfortable with violence. Although the initial version of the text indicated that Rackam purchased Bonny from her husband, later versions suggest that she was the one who arranged the move, reinforcing the image of agency.

The stories about the two women created a probably-invented contrast, with Read being the “virtuous” one, not entirely enthusiastic about pirate life but constrained by necessity, and Bonny being volatile and vicious, embracing piracy eagerly, and constantly contemptuous of men who she considered less able and bold than her. Neither woman is depicted as being subjected to an ultimate punishment for her deeds, with Read dying of illness in prison before sentencing and Bonny—after a temporary reprieve due to claiming pregnancy—was not executed but simply disappears from the historic record.

Despite Bonny and Read’s stories being firmly rooted in heterosexual partnerships with men, they are presented narratively as a pair and their interactions with each other are told more vividly than those with their male partners. The anecdote of particular interest to the Project occurs when Read first joins Rackam’s crew, when both women are presenting as men, and only Rackam knows Bonny’s underlying sex (and not Read’s). Although, textually, the interaction does not proceed to an erotic encounter, the reader not only is offered that as a possibility, but is relied on to consider it as legible and possible. This legibility is bolstered by the standard tropes of cross-dressing narratives (both those purporting to be biographical and those in outright fiction, especially in theater) in which the existence of a cross-dressed woman (much like Checkov’s gun) heralds an evitable incident of mistaken desires.

Bonny, supposedly believing Read to be a man, desires her and makes an advance. The truth of her motivations is made somewhat ambiguous by the phrase “for some reasons best known to herself” rather than describing the purpose as directly sexual. Read, supposedly believing this to be a (male) homosexual advance, deflects it. Bonny then reveals her sex to Read. At which Read reveals her own sex and the momentary erotic potential is converted into humor. The text notes that Read’s motivation to this deflection of the sexual advance is due to “being very sensible of her own incapacity in that way,” that is, knowing that she couldn’t “play the man” for Bonny, but with no overt indication that the idea itself was objectionable. Thus, on both sides there is an implied possibility of sapphic desire, carefully obscured by the ambiguities of disguise. After this mutual revelation, evidently their behavior toward each other changed sufficiently to arouse Rackam’s jealousy, forcing them to let him in on Read’s secret.

[Note: I’m going to summarize a little out of order in the following.] Both women have established heterosexual bona fides before this encounter: Read with a Flemish soldier, to whom she covertly revealed her gender, and Bonny via her initial abandoned marriage and then her relationship with Rackam. Both women are described as having other covert erotic encounters with men while still maintaining their gender disguise, but always with a gender reveal as preliminary. In these other encounters, the women reveal their gender by exposing their breasts “which were very white.”

Klein follows up in detail on one aspect of how this breast-revealing described: the whiteness of the breasts involved. This, Klein argues, is a key signifier that allows the audience to identify with the two women as characters worthy of freedom and agency, within the multi-ethnic (and racially stratified) transatlantic world. Their possession of white breasts establishes them firmly as women, and as acceptable sexual agents within the otherwise all-male pirate milieu. And the emphasis is not simply on having breasts (which one might think was sufficient to establish female identity) but on having breasts which signaled a specific ethnic and even class status.

This identity then provides the titillating contrast between B&R’s courageous and violent behavior (coded masculine) even as they are able to use their feminine status strategically (including after capture when they were able to invoke the possibility of pregnancy to defer judgment). But this strategy—as well as their acceptability as romanticized protagonists—rested strongly on whiteness and in turn served as part of the process of establishing the pop culture version of the golden age of piracy as a white domain, in contradiction to historic reality.

The article concludes with a discussion of the treatment of Bonny and Read in various modern media depictions, including leaning in to the sapphic potential.

[Note: Blogging this article has inspired me to track down the original source materials for what we “know” about Bonny and Read and I’ll put together an entry about that in the near future.]

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female comrades/friends

sexual/romantic desire

court case

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Mary Read

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My Worldcon Schedule

The Worldcon programming schedule is out and I'm on a number of interesting panels.

Wed Aug 13 - Horrible Histories: A Way to Make Learning about History Fun (Room 343-344)

A discussion about shows, podcasts, and other media that help make learning about history fun. After all, it isn’t just lists of numbers and names! How do you take that dry text and make it engaging enough to reach an audience that isn’t necessarily interested in history?

Thu Aug 14 - Medieval Characters—Women Authors (Room 420-422)

A look at the legacy and influence of Marjorie Kemp, Christine de Pisan, Marie de France, Hildegard of Bingen, the anchorite Julian of Norwich, and more. Their works continue to have relevance today.

Fri Aug 15 - Conlangs 101: How to Get Started Making Your Own Language (Room 322)

Building language goes beyond just putting funny sounds together or making a word that looks cool. Learn what’s needed to make a basic constructed language and how to find the resources and tools to get started in language creation.

Plus autographing on Fri Aug 15 at noon, a (limited attendance) table talk on Sun Aug 17 at 9am and...

Hugo Awards Ceremony - Sat Aug 16 (time TBA) where I will be trying not to chew too hard on my fingernails as I wait for the Best Related Work category to come up.

More details on my blog: https://alpennia.com/events/worldcon-seattle

My Worldcon Schedule

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Friday, July 11, 2025 - 15:41

Planning to be at Seattle Worldcon? Want to know what I'm doing there? Check out my schedule!

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Conventions

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Current Mood: grumpy
Current Location: Rat te Kāinga

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Embodiment requires sacrifice

Stupid little walk for stupid little brain chemicals in stupid heat.

It was either heat or humidity, so heat.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 318 - On the Shelf for July 2025

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

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Tuesday, July 8, 2025 - 19:08

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 318 - On the Shelf for July 2025

- Transcript

(Originally aired 2025/07/08 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for July 2025.

You might think that retirement means I’d never have a late podcast ever again, but here I am uploading it several days past the first Saturday. A certain amount of it is finding myself in the middle of “Time? What even is time?” But there’s another factor at play. They say that in retirement, every day is a weekend. Well, my weekends used to be jam-packed full of projects, and now every day is a weekend. On the plus side, I’m making a lot of progress on a lot of projects.

Publications on the Blog

I fulfilled my pledge to blog a publication every day in June for Pride Month, focusing mostly on materials relating to US history, which I’ve tended not to prioritize in the past. This included surveys of Colonial-era legal issues and cases, such as:

Richard Godbeer’s “’The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England”
Robert F. Oaks’ “"Things Fearful to Name": Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England”
Alden Vaughan’s “The Sad Case of Thomas(ine) Hall”

and

Greta LaFleur’s “Sex and ‘Unsex’: Histories of Gender Trouble in Eighteenth-Century North America”

or similar issues in the post-Colonial period, such as:

Estelle B. Freeedman’s “Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America: Behavior, Ideology, and Politics”

Several articles looked at literary themes, such as:

Lillian Faderman’s “Female Same-Sex Relationships in Novels by Longfellow, Holmes, and James”
Mary E. Wood’s “’With Ready Eye’: Margaret Fuller and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature”

and

Kristin M. Comment’s “Charles Brockden Brown’s ‘Ormond’ and Lesbian Possibility in the Early Republic”

Several articles examined transmasculine topics, such as:

Jen Manion’s “The Queer History of Passing as a Man in Early Pennsylvania”

and

Rachel Hope Cleves’ “Six Ways of Looking at a Trans Man? The Life of Frank Shimer (1826-1901)”

And of course I spend over a week blogging Cleves’ book Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America.

Several articles tackled the process of researching queer lives or the historic resistance to doing so, such as:

Sylvia Martin’s “'These Walls of Flesh': The Problem of the Body in the Romantic Friendship/Lesbianism Debate”
Pamela VanHaitsma’s “Stories of Straightening Up: Reading Femmes in the Archives of Romantic Friendship”
Lillian Faderman’s “Who Hid Lesbian History?”

and

Linda Garber’s “Claiming Lesbian History: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction”

And due to the vagaries of my process, some non-US topics slipped in, such as Theresa Braunschneider’s “Acting the Lover: Gender and Desire in Narratives of Passing Women.” It’s been a while since I covered that much material in a single month, so I guess I can be excused for getting distracted from writing podcast scripts!

News of the Field

Before I move on to the new book listings, I wanted to give a shout-out to that rare instance of sapphic characters in a historic tv series. Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel The Buccaneers follows the careers of a group of American heiresses looking to marry into aristocratic English society. There was a previous miniseries based on the same material in 1995 that stayed somewhat closer to the original material. The current show plays a bit more fast-and-loose with historic accuracy, introducing some race-blind casting and modern party-girl sensibility, but most pertinent to our interests, we get a sapphic romance that develops with the same scope and detail as several of the other relationships. This particular plot point does not exist in the original text, so we must be grateful to the producers for acknowledging that a female same-sex romance was solidly accurate for the period and working it in. We can’t yet know whether they’ll be allowed a happy ever after ending, but as the heterosexual pairings in the story don’t all get one, it’s probably a toss-up.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

While pulling together this month’s new book listings, it felt like I was finding a lot of titles on the theme of unsent or lost letters, though some of them were part of the current flood of publications that smell like AI, so they won’t be mentioned here.

I’ve been doing some initial stats for this year’s books and one interesting—or possibly concerning—trend is the dearth of historicals from the small queer presses, though in exchange we’re getting a startling number from major publishers. I hope to get back to doing a deeper analysis at some point, though it means I have to go back and do a lot of data-coding.

There are a couple of May books that only just came to my attention.

The Housekeeper's Ledger by Allison Ingram has a solidly gothic feel to it, but it’s difficult to guess exactly when the story is set.

When Anna Hale takes a humble position as housekeeper at the sprawling Ashmore estate, she expects long days, silent halls, and the cold indifference of Lady Catherine Ashmore. What she doesn’t expect is a trail of secrets hidden behind locked doors, a crumbling legacy haunted by old debts, and the sharp undeniable pull between herself and the woman she serves.

As whispers of betrayal and scandal echo through the estate, Anna and Catherine must navigate a web of lies, dangerous rivals, and the looming threat of ruin — all while confronting the fragile, fierce love blossoming between them. In a world eager to break them, Anna and Catherine will risk everything to stand side by side, but surviving the storm will take more than trust. It will take a choice.

I’m not sure that I can give a recommendation to A Truthful Companion By My Side by Claudia Haase, although the historic setting looks solid, but the writing feels like a very awkward translation from some other language.

Princess Agatha is alone at court with her cultural interests and intellect. She does not find any suitable conversation partners in her companions and ladies-in-waiting. Her curiosity is aroused all the more by the smart Ernestine and her unconventional lifestyle - and finally she finds the person with whom she can share all her passions.

The young Countess Ernestine doesn't think much of the aristocratic goings-on at court. She represses the thought that she was once promised to a crown prince as his wife. However, she could imagine a life together with Princess Agatha. But no sooner have they become close than the royal family insists on an early wedding ceremony with Agatha's brother.

Immerse yourself in the love story of two aristocratic women who lived at Bergfels Palace and Sturmstein Castle in the transition from the 17th to the 18th century!

June books cover a fairly wide spread of eras, including some unusual ones.

Secrets at the Ambrose Café by Carryl Church from Choc Lit Historical Romance is set in England just after World War I.

Two women. Two different worlds. One secret that could ruin them both.

Exeter, 1925. Della Wilde has set aside her dream of moving to Paris to study at the renowned Le Cordon Bleu, choosing instead to support her family torn apart by war. By night, she works at the prestigious Ambrose Café, serving the city’s elite — she feels utterly invisible.

Until a chance encounter with rebellious Alice Winters, the daughter of a powerful MP, upends Della’s world.

Alice is a woman caught between duty and desire. She secretly yearns to be an artist but is expected to marry a respectable suitor and raise a family. Della, with her sharp wit and quiet strength, is unlike anyone she has ever known. She makes Alice feel alive.

So she draws Della into her orbit — first as a muse for her secret art, then as something infinitely more intimate. But in a world where reputations are easily shattered, their growing bond is a danger that threatens not only their futures, but those around them.

As Alice risks scandal and Della faces the consequences of following her heart, they must decide: will they allow others to choose their path, or dare to forge their own?

Salt in the Silk by Delly M. Elrose sounds like it’s telling a Titanic story in an alternate form, set a decade earlier on a fictional ship.

1898. Aboard the RMS Victoria’s Grace, bound from Liverpool to New York, two women from opposite worlds collide: one born into ivory and etiquette, the other into soot and survival.

Catherine Ashbury, a refined upper-class heiress, is being shipped off across the Atlantic for an arranged marriage to save her family’s dwindling fortune. Cloaked in silk, obedience, and unspoken longing, she’s resigned to her fate—until she meets a girl who lives with no rules at all.

Nell Nolan, a tough and clever third-class passenger from East London, is an orphaned pickpocket disguised as a seamstress. With calloused hands and a pocket full of stolen coins, Nell isn’t afraid of breaking laws—or hearts. She boards the Victoria’s Grace with a stolen ticket and nothing left to lose, desperate to start a new life in America.

Their first meeting is accidental. Their second, unforgettable. What begins as curiosity becomes defiance—then desire. But love is dangerous in the shadows of a ship ruled by class, reputation, and silent codes. And when disaster strikes in the icy Atlantic, Catherine and Nell must face a choice no woman should have to make: Love, or survival.

A couple years ago I listed the first book in the Lavender and Foxglove series by Hilary Rose Berwick, set in a medieval convent in a world with a bit of magic. Somehow I missed books 2 and 3 when they came out—A Bounty of Bitterwort and A Rondel of Rosemary—but now book 4 turned up on my radar once more: A League of Lavender. Now I only wish the series was available somewhere other than Amazon because it sounds intriguing but not quite intriguing enough to drop my ethical objections.

Within the convent walls, the pestilence has largely passed, and Prioress Emmelot des Étoiles has a new conundrum: how, exactly, do bones become relics, and what will it mean for her convent when the pilgrims come to see them? Of more concern is the king's increased interest in those with magic sheltered by holy orders, including Emmelot's beloved, the novice Ysabeau.

But before she can solve those problems, Emmelot discovers the infirmary holds an unknown body with no signs of pestilence: a young woman clutching a posy of lavender — a sign of the conflict between followers of the old gods and the new. Now Emmelot must solve this murder before a longstanding feud erupts into open warfare.

In Her Own Shoes (The Ferrier Chronicles #1) by Mark Prime is another book with a medieval setting. I was a bit thrown by the title, because I’ve never encountered any adage similar to “in her own shoes” and can’t quite figure out what spin it’s trying to give.

In a castle built on legacy, one woman dares to claim her own name.

England, 1425. Tamworth Castle stands as a fortress of stone, secrets, and centuries-old power. When Elizabeth de Ferrel arrives to marry into the Farrier family, she isn’t stepping into a life of privilege—she’s walking straight into a battleground.

To secure her inheritance, Elizabeth must wed Sir Thomas Farrier, the ambitious heir of a noble bloodline now clinging to its influence. But she brings with her more than a title—she brings a dagger, a sharp wit, and a past she refuses to bury.

Inside Tamworth’s walls, every gaze has weight. Elizabeth forms an unexpected bond with Mae, a dark-haired scullery maid whose loyalty cuts deeper than her silence. Meanwhile, Griselda, the stone-faced housekeeper with more secrets than the cellar, watches Elizabeth’s every move—not as a threat, but perhaps as a guardian. And in the shadows, young Jonah, a servant boy marked by trauma, carries a truth that could set the castle ablaze.

When a bishop dies under mysterious circumstances, and Elizabeth receives a lock of hair as warning, alliances fracture, hearts are tested, and no one escapes untouched. Whispers rise of a Black Nun haunting the chapel—a spectral reminder that Tamworth remembers every sin carved into its walls.

At the heart of it all: a woman who refuses to shrink. Elizabeth isn’t interested in being the lady of the house. She wants to rule it. And she’ll do it in her own shoes.

The Letters Beneath Her Floorboards by Mira Ashwyn is one of those “unsent letters” stories I mentioned above, this time with a supernatural twist and stories in parallel timelines.

One letter. One mystery. One chance to heal.

When Rae Ashcroft returns to her late grandmother’s coastal estate, she isn’t looking for closure—she’s looking for silence. Haunted by a past she’s tried to bury, Rae just wants to escape. But the creaking old house has other plans.

Beneath a warped floorboard, she discovers a letter.

Written decades ago by a woman named Elise, the message unravels a forgotten love story between two women—one that was silenced, hidden, and never resolved. Drawn deeper into the mystery, Rae begins uncovering secrets Elise took to her grave… and uncovers echoes of her own.

At the heart of it all is Camille: the fiercely gentle, storm-eyed artist living next door. Rae doesn’t want to fall for her—but Camille is patient, kind, and maddeningly persistent. As the two grow closer, past trauma rises like a tide, threatening to drown the fragile trust Rae is learning to rebuild.

But someone is watching. The more Rae uncovers, the more dangerous things become. And the more she realizes—Elise never left. And maybe… she never meant to.

We get another medieval romance with lots of danger and angst in House of Ash and Honor by W.S. Banks.

When duty demands sacrifice, love demands everything.

Lady Avilene Northcliff has always been the perfect noble daughter—until her family arranges her marriage to the cold and calculating Lord Westmark. Desperate to escape a loveless union, she flees to the one place no one would think to look: the estate of her family's sworn enemies.

Lady Elara Blackwood should turn away the Northcliff daughter seeking sanctuary. Their houses have been locked in bitter feud for twenty-five years, built on lies, betrayal, and bloodshed. Instead, she offers shelter to the woman who ignites feelings she never knew existed.

As forbidden attraction blooms between them, both women discover that the enmity dividing their families rests on a devastating deception. When explosive family secrets surface, Avilene and Elara must choose between the safety of silence and a love that could cost them everything.

In a world where women's hearts belong to others, two enemies will risk everything to claim their own destiny.

The July books are mostly 20th century settings, or close enough. And as usual, the rhythms of pre-publication publicity mean that they’re almost all from major publishers.

Lavender & Gin by Abigail Aaronson leans in to the current fashion for Prohibition stories.

Taking on her brother’s identity has given Kasia almost everything she wants: money, power, a gang to call her own in Prohibition-era Detroit. Until a new police chief threatens to destroy everything she’s worked for, and a beautiful woman tempts her to expose her secret.

After a decade disguised as her missing twin brother, Kasia leads a gang running liquor for the most powerful mob in the city. The ruse gave her a foot in the door, but in order to keep her position—and more importantly, to keep money flowing in for her and her sick mother—she has to be willing to do whatever it takes. And what it takes is cold calculation and a ruthless hand. She needs both in spades when a new police chief is determined to eliminate Detroit’s mafia, a threat to destroy everything she’s built.

When Kasia learns Sophia—a glamorous flapper who owns an underground queer club—has an unusual hold on the supposedly-incorruptible chief, Kasia wants in on Sophia’s secret. Blackmailing Chief Harding could protect her gang and give her a leg up in the mob’s ranks. But her plan unravels when she falls for Sophia’s fiery spirit and sophisticated charm. After years of avoiding relationships to protect her identity, her feelings for Sophia lead Kasia to take bigger risks than ever. Risks that endanger her gang, her secret, and her life.

Emma-Claire Sunday follows up on last year’s Regency romance The Duke’s Sister and I with another Regency, The Fortune Hunter's Guide to Love once more from Harlequin Historical.

How can Lady Sylvia save herself from financial ruin?

Step 1: Move to the seaside for the summer, where there will be no shortage of wealthy bachelors holidaying.

Step 2: Strike a deal with local farmer Hannah. If Hannah can help Sylvia bag a rich husband, Sylvia will fund Hannah’s dream of opening a cheese shop.

Step 3: Charm their way into luncheons, parties and exclusive balls, but do not start to confuse friendship with romantic feelings for Hannah.

Step 4: Focus on her fortune-hunting scheme and do not let her heart get carried away by her unexpected and magical kiss with Hannah!

With a title like The Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor from Harper Collins, one might guess we were looking at a classical setting, but this one is a dual-timeline story set during World War II and the contemporary era.

Now:

Grieving the loss of her mother, college student Lilah is hoping to reconnect with a grandfather who refuses to talk about his past. Then she receives a mysterious letter from a fellow student, Tommaso, claiming he’s found a lost family heirloom, and her world is upended.

Soon Lilah finds herself in Rome, trying to unlock her grandfather’s history as a Holocaust survivor once and for all. But as she and Tommaso get closer to the truth—and their relationship begins to deepen into something sweeter—Lilah realizes that some secrets may be too painful to unbury…

Then:

It’s 1943, and nineteen-year-old Bruna and her family are doing their best to survive in Rome’s Jewish quarter under Nazi occupation. Until the dreaded knock comes early one morning, and Bruna is irrevocably separated from the rest of her family.

Overcome with guilt at escaping her family’s fate in the camps, she joins the underground rebellion. When her missions bring her back to her childhood crush, Elsa, Bruna must decide how much she’s willing to risk—when fully embracing herself is her greatest act of resistance.

Another story using that popular motif of dual timelines via historic research is The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick from Harper Collins.

When Kerensa is sent by her father’s auction house to catalogue a neglected house overlooking the sea in Newlyn, Cornwall, it’s a welcome escape. Once the home of two female artists, Harbour House is a treasure trove, but one painting in particular catches Kerensa’s eye – a hypnotically sensual portrait of a beautiful young woman which dominates the hallway.

Captivated and intrigued, Kerensa finds herself piecing together the enigma of Bathsheba Kernow, a fiercely talented young artist who left St Ives almost a hundred years before, eager to escape a society that wouldn’t understand her, and her sweeping journey from the underbelly of Paris to the heady luxury of Venice, where a chance encounter would change her life for ever, drawing her into the most dangerous and forbidden of love affairs.

For Kerensa, still reeling with a grief of her own and facing an uncertain future in love, Harbour House will have secrets that will change her life too, and in ways she could never have imagined…

It’s fairly rare to find sapphic stories set in non-Western cultures written from within those cultures but there have been several in the past year. This month’s candidate is Whispers Beneath the Banyan Bath by Moon Heeyang, set in Korea, although I’m not quite sure of the date as the reference is to a dynasty that lasted for five centuries.

In a world where lineage rules and silence is survival, two women in a noble Joseon household discover a forbidden love that defies rank, custom, and time.

Soona, a humble maid, and Lady Hyeon, the daughter of the house, share stolen glances in the steam of the bathhouse. What begins as duty unfolds into desire, and soon into a secret bond.

But when their love is seen—by the Lord himself—everything changes. A proposition is made. A second wife is named.

And both women find themselves pregnant.

Whispers Beneath the Banyan Bath is a lyrical, emotional, and unflinching tale of queer motherhood, silent rebellion, and love that grows like magnolia in the cracks of stone.

The Original by Nell Stevens from W.W. Norton & Company has a twisty plot that looks like it has a lot of layers.

In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

An unwanted guest of her uncle’s family since childhood, Grace has grown up on the periphery of a once-great household. She has unusual predilections: for painting, particularly forgery; for deception; for other girls. Her life is altered when a letter arrives from the South Atlantic. The writer claims to be her cousin Charles, long presumed dead at sea. When he returns, a rift emerges between family members who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. Grace, whose intimate knowledge of fakes is her own closely guarded secret, is forced to decide who to believe and who to pretend to believe. In deciphering the truth about her cousin, she comes to understand other truths: how money is found and lost, and who deserves to be rich; what family means to queer people; and the value of authenticity, in art and in love.

Skating the edge of my definition of historical fiction, we have Wayward Girls by Susan Wiggs from William Morrow Paperbacks, where the lesbian is one of a large cast of characters.

In 1968 we meet six teens confined at the Good Shepherd—a dark and secretive institution controlled by Sisters of Charity nuns—locked away merely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly.

Mairin— free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants, committed to keep her safe from her stepfather.

Angela—denounced for her attraction to girls, sent to the nuns for reform, but instead found herself the victim of a predator.

Helen—the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China, she saw her “temporary” stay at the Good Shepherd stretch into years.

Odessa—caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident, she found the physical and mental toughness to endure her sentence.

Denise—sentenced for brawling in a foster home, she dared to dream of a better life.

Janice—deeply insecure, she couldn’t decide where her loyalty lay—except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency.

Sister Bernadette—rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her.

Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption...and justice.

Finishing up this month’s books we have a mid-century rural English romance: Miss Veal and Miss Ham by Vikki Heywood from Muswell Press. This is another book where my impulse is to buy it, but the publisher makes that difficult, not because of my Amazon blockade this time, but because they only distribute ebooks through one particular obscure phone app. Ah well.

Public companions, private lovers.

It is 1951 and behind the counter of a modest post office in a leafy Buckinghamshire village Miss Dora Ham and Miss Beatrix Veal maintain their careful facade as respected local spinsters. But their true story is one of passion: suffragist activists who fell in love at a rally in the 1900s, danced in London's secret gay clubs between the wars, and comforted one another during the first night of the Blitz. Together they have built a life of quiet dignity and service in rural England. Now over the course of one pivotal day their carefully constructed world begins to fracture. Through Beatrix's wry perspective we witness the severe impact of post-war changes on their peaceful existence. Changes that will lead to heart-breaking decisions for Miss Veal and Miss Ham. At the heart of this intimate, moving and witty novel is a story of resilience, the dignity of love that cannot be spoken, and the challenges that come when the future no longer feels safe.

What Am I Reading?

So what have I been reading this month, once I get past the complex logic of how I want to acquire and read books? I often have three novels going at a time: one in hard copy, one in ebook, and one in audiobook. The different formats help me keep the stories separate in my head, but that was a bit trickier than usual this time because Joanna Lowell’s A Rare Find (my audiobook) and Lindz McLeod’s The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet (my print book) are both Regency romances and overlapped so solidly in feel and reading period that I kept having to remind myself which story I was in. Not that the stories are that similar in plot or characters, but if I had it to do over I’ve have avoided overlapping them. A Rare Find has a lot of resonances with the author’s Victorian-era story A Shore Thing which you may have spotted if you listened to my interview with the author. In addition to interesting gender choices, they share a tendency to pack the story full of subplots. So if you like a lot going on, this could be your thing. The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet is a fairly standard “let’s pick a couple of characters from the Austen Cannon and make them sapphic.” McLeod’s Mary Bennet is quite different from the book’s character and gets a complex queer community supplied by the author’s imagination.

A sale on the Chirp audiobook platform let me to pick up a series starting with The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman about which I’ve heard good things from friends. Like magical school stories, there’s an entire subgenre of magical library stories, which should be solidly my jam. In retrospect, I did definitely enjoy the book, but somehow in the middle of it I kept forgetting that it was waiting for me. Not sure why, but it meant it took me over a month to finish.

Wanting something a bit more bite-sized, I browsed through my to-be-read bookcase (yes, I have an entire bookcase with lonely hard-copy books waiting for me to pet them) and picked up Servant Mage by Kate Elliott. This fantasy novella managed to pack in enough plot and action for an entire novel—maybe even for a trilogy. A masterpiece of telling you just enough about the world and setting that you can fill in large spaces on your own.

Author Guest

One of the things I’ve wanted to work harder on in my theoretically greater free time is doing more interviews. I’ve made a good start this year, but from the other dropped balls you might guess that I don’t have one in this show. I do have several interesting people lined up for later this year—not all of them authors—and I’m always interested in doing companion interviews for new releases. In the last couple years, that means most of them have been for books from major publishers, because those are the books I know about enough in advance to set up the interview. I’d love to work with more small press and indie authors, but you have to let me know that you’re going to have books coming out!

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

TV series: The Buccaneers
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Faderman, Lillian. 1978. “Female Same-Sex Relationships in Novels by Longfellow, Holmes, and James” in The New England Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 3: 309-332
- Godbeer, Richard. 1995. “’The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2: 259-286
- Manion, Jen. “The Queer History of Passing as a Man in Early Pennsylvania” in Pennsylvania Legacies, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, pp. 6–11.
- Vaughan, Alden. 1978. “The Sad Case of Thomas(ine) Hall” in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86: 146-48.
- Oaks, Robert F. 1978. “"Things Fearful to Name": Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England” in Journal of Social History, Vol. 12, No. 2: 268-281
- Wood, Mary E. 1993. “’With Ready Eye’: Margaret Fuller and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature” in American Literature 65: 3-4.
- Comment, Kristin M. 2005. “Charles Brockden Brown’s ‘Ormond’ and Lesbian Possibility in the Early Republic” in Early American Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 57–78.
- Freedman, Estelle B. 1982. “Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America: Behavior, Ideology, and Politics” in Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, No. 4, The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects: 196-215
- LaFleur, Greta. “Sex and ‘Unsex’: Histories of Gender Trouble in Eighteenth-Century North America.” Early American Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, 2014, pp. 469–99.
- Cleves, Rachel Hope. 2014. Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-933542-8
- Martin, Sylvia. 1994. “'These Walls of Flesh': The Problem of the Body in the Romantic Friendship/Lesbianism Debate” in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 20, No. 2, Lesbian Histories: 243-266
- VanHaitsma, Pamela. 2019. “Stories of Straightening Up: Reading Femmes in the Archives of Romantic Friendship” in QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Vol. 6, No. 3:1-24
- Cleves, Rachel Hope. “Six Ways of Looking at a Trans Man? The Life of Frank Shimer (1826-1901).” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 27, no. 1, 2018, pp. 32–62.
- Faderman, Lillian. 1979. “Who Hid Lesbian History?” in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Autumn 1979, Vol. 4, No 3. 74-76.
- Garber, Linda. 2015. “Claiming Lesbian History: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction” in Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19(1), 129-49.
- Braunschneider, Theresa. 2004. “Acting the Lover: Gender and Desire in Narratives of Passing Women” in Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 45, no. 3: 211-29
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
What I’ve been consuming
- A Rare Find by Joanna Lowell
- The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
- The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
- Servant Mage by Kate Elliott

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

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http://alpennia.com/blog/lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-318-shelf-july-2025

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photos

neat sky!

Last night I looked out the window a few minutes after nominal sunset and saw an unusual and impressive color in the sky. Naturally, I ran outside to snap a few pictures before it disappeared.

These are unedited cell-phone photos, hastily framed because I know things like this don't last long. ( Read more... )

Holiday Delays

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

http://alpennia.com/blog/holiday-delays

Friday, July 4, 2025 - 08:04

bookreview.jpg

After the flurry of postings in the last month, I'm taking a brief break for the holiday weekend. In fact, the "On the Shelf" podcast episode will be delayed probably until Tuesday, since I'm not going to try to record it in a hotel room. (I'm currently at BayCon/Westercon.) If you're at the con, make sure to find me and say hi.

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Conventions

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BayCon

http://alpennia.com/blog/holiday-delays

Under What Circumstance is She Allowed to Be a Man?

Posted by Heather Rose Jones

http://alpennia.com/blog/under-what-circumstance-she-allowed-be-man

Thursday, July 3, 2025 - 07:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

I did one of those things where I started out writing a blog intro to the LHMP entry and ended up with an essay that needed to move into the entry commentary instead. (I really do need to do an explainer on the underlying structure of the data here.)

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LHMP #476 Braunschneider 2004 Acting the Lover

About LHMP

Full citation:

Braunschneider, Theresa. 2004. “Acting the Lover: Gender and Desire in Narratives of Passing Women” in Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 45, no. 3: 211-29

I sometimes provoke outraged reactions in certain quarters when I claim that it isn't possible to disentangle lesbian history from transgender history. But this article gets into the type of reason why I say that. (And I'll have an entire chapter in my book digging deeper into this topic.) What lies at the heart is that one strain (and there are others) of historic understanding of and reaction to a female-bodied person desiring another female-bodied person is to simultaneously force them into a heteronormative framework and then punish the "designated male" participant, not for homosexuality, but for gender transgression. We see this in contexts like the one discussed in the present article, where behavioral gender-crossing of some type is involved, but we also see it in the long history of investigating women expressing same-sex desire for signs of physiological masculinity.

Under a heteronormative framework, transness is far more legible and comprehensible than homosexuality. Thus, regardless of what identity models the people involved had available or adopted as their own, there has been a regular (though variable in strength) pressure to accept a trans framing. (This continues up through the late 19th century sexologists' conflation of trans and homosexual experiences under the "gender invert" label.) Even apart from the anachronism of applying current identity categories to historical people, this complicates attempts to neatly categorize historic people with regard to degrees/types of "female masculinity." If a female-bodied person could be labeled "masculine" for being intelligent, brave, strong, tall, athletic, honorable, independent, politically savvy, not conventionally pretty, etc. etc., then how do you trace a line between transmasculinity and accepting cultural brainwashing? (Please note: I am NOT implying that transmasculine identity is due to "cultural brainwashing." I'm saying that some people are trans men and some people have been labeled "unfeminine" for not aligning with certain cultural stereotypes.)

When I get negative reactions to my (admittedly provocative) statement about the entanglement of lesbian history and trans history, my impression is that some of it comes from assuming that I'm talking about trans women in lesbian spaces, whereas mostly I'm talking about the ambiguous classification of female masculinity. But when you come down to it, the historic people who reacted to a female-presenting person desiring a woman by accusing her of being "really a man, in some fashion" aren't that different from the modern bathroom police who see a female-presenting person who deviates in some way from a narrow definition of femininity and accuse her of being "really a man." And I wish more people were more familiar with the deep history of gender policing and the damage it causes.

# # #

Narratives of the lives and “adventures” of passing women were popular in 18th century British culture, purporting to provide biographies of women who lived as a man for some period of time, including: Hannah Snell, Christian Davies, Jenny Cameron, Anne Bonny & Mary Read, Charlotte Charke, Elizabeth Ogden, an unnamed “apothecary’s wife” whose story is appended to the English translation of the life of Catharine Vizzani, and Mary Hamilton whose story inspired the label “female husband” for those passing women who engaged in relationships with other women.

Despite being based on actual lives, and despite the assertion that each was “unique,” the stories as published became highly conventional, with certain fixed elements. One such element (the focus of this paper) is some type of erotic interaction between the passing character and another woman, either actively courting the woman or becoming the object of the woman’s interest (and usually delighted in so being).

There are two other contexts in popular culture of the time that feature cross-dressing women but do not include these erotic encounters: the “woman warrior” plot in which a woman typically dresses as a soldier to follow (or pursue) a male lover; and cross-dressing subplots in novels.

These erotic encounters in passing woman narratives raise and address questions about the relationship between gender and sexuality, and not always in ways that align with the supposed “lesson” such stories provided to the public. Previous scholarship on the genre usually addressed one of two angles: the challenge to stereotypes of gendered ability (Friedli, Dugaw, Wheelwright, Dekker & Van de Pol); or their situation within ideas of female homoeroticism in general (Lanser, Donoghue, Moore).

This article looks at how passing woman erotics disrupt an assumed correspondence between gendered social role and the object of desire. The author notes that 18th century attitudes did not assume an automatic connection between cross-dressing and homoeroticism and, in fact, to some extent passing woman stories act to reinforce heteronormativity, even as they question it. Further, they support an assumed principle that “gender difference must precede desire.”

The author cautions that passing woman narratives should neither be assumed to represent homosexual desire nor that they should be assumed to erase it entirely. Further, she argues that rather than “gender norms [being] defined through sexuality” these texts are part of an active process of creating those norms. The stories’ insistence on making erotic connections between cross-dressed women and normative women in pseudo-heterosexual relations act to separate masculinity (as a gender), with its concomitant orientation of desire toward women, from biological maleness. And it is this separation that creates a potential reading of female masculinity as tied to homoeroticism.

[Note: I’m skeptical about the claim that this is a process being established in the 18th century, because there is a very long historical tradition of associating desire for women with an assumption of masculinity, such that female-oriented desire triggered investigation into the potential masculinity of a female-presenting woman.]

The formulaicness of passing-woman erotic plots creates an expectation within the audience for such an encounter at any time a cross-dressing woman is introduced. In one version, the passing woman decides to court a woman (or women) either as a test of her passing, as a lark, or in active support of the strength of her disguise. And in the standard narrative, she is successful. The object of the courtship falls in love and pledges herself to the passing woman, often preferring that relationship to other rivals. The courtships may be presented hyperbolically or with a certain sly satire on conventional courtship rituals. But the essential element is that the courtship and its reception occur within a context where the two are understood to be man and woman.

This same formula holds when the normative woman initiates the courtship; it occurs within a context involving gender difference. An interesting doubled example is the brief description of the pirates Mary Read and Ann Bonny, when both are cross-dressing and each believes the other to be a man. In order to shift from desire to an active relationship, Bonny reveals her sex to Read (thereby establishing an assumed gender difference), only to have Read reveal her own sex, thus negating (within the narrative) the erotic potential. [Note: Compare a similar double-disguise plot in the play Gallathea, in which desire is sparked in both disguised women when they believe the beloved is male, that desire is challenged when both reveal their sex, but the desire outlasts the reanalysis that it is same-sex.]

The usual resolution of a gender reveal is that the normative woman’s desire evaporates and the previous desire is either reanalyzed as a good joke or an act of fraud. Here, though, we start seeing cracks in the façade. In the Jenny Cameron narrative, after Jenny reveals her sex to avert a duel with her rival for the girl’s affections, the girl immediately decides to marry the rival, lest she make a similar mistake in the future—that is, acknowledging the potential for her to again fall in love with a female-bodied person under the necessary masculine presentation.

A second type of resolution occurs when the passing woman concludes that the relationship is “impossible” (despite wishing that it were possible) and breaks off the courtship concluding that it “could not go beyond a platonick Love.” That is, the passing woman reciprocates the desire but chooses not to pursue it (and may or may not reveal her sex to her beloved). Here we find another distinction in how the narratives are presented. A passing woman who steps back from a homosexual relationship is typically presented as heroic and admirable (at least in that context, even if she may not be in other contexts).

In contrast, the third type—stories in which the passing woman continues to pursue the relationship, up to and including marriage and a sexual relationship—frame the passing woman as deceptive and fraudulent if the sexual relationship shatters the myth of "impossibilities." The classic example is Mary Hamilton.

Type 2 and 3 both challenge the idea that sexual difference is necessary for erotic desire (although the type 3 may frame the passing woman as mercenary rather than besotted), even if gender difference is still presented as essential. If is rare for the passing woman to reject the courtship or reveal her sex due to being horrified, disgusted, or simply uninterested. An essential part of the narratives is to depict the normative woman as desirable and (for all practical purposes) eligible. Rather, when the passing woman breaks things off, it is due to believing the next step (consummation) to be “impossible.”

Here, the passing woman narrative confronts the female husband narrative, in which that supposed impossibility is overcome. Now a different contrast in reception emerges: condemnatory narratives in which the female husband uses an artificial penis to overcome the “impossibility” and more neutral narratives in which some other means is used to side-step the question of consummation. It is this distinction in reception, Braunschneider argues, that works to help construct the normative relationship of gender and sexuality. It isn’t that desire can never precede gender difference, and it isn’t that the consummation of female homosexual relationships is literally impossible, but that when these principles are violated the narrative condemns them and frames the passing woman as monstrous and unnatural.

The judgement of the narratives is not based on the biological sex of the persons involved, but on the performed gender. The texts clearly assume—indeed, depend on—the audience knowing that the supposed “impossibilities” are, in fact possible, for key aspects may be provided only by implication or circumlocution. Thus, they create and acknowledge a space in which female-bodied people can desire each other and can consummate that desire. They simply define those possibilities as unacceptable.

A particularly convoluted example is offered to demonstrate the reductio ad absurdum of this program, contrasting what the participants in the scenario “know” versus what the narrator and the audience “know,” and how that knowledge shapes the presentation of the scenario. As long as the participants in the narrative “know” that an interaction is male-female, it is treated positively by the narrator, or at least as natural and expected, even though the narrator (and audience) “know” that the interaction is same-sex. At the same time, the passing woman is given a pass [pun intentional] on behavior that would be unacceptable in a man (such as abandoning their girlfriends without a qualm) because the alternative (continuing the relationship) would be unacceptable in a woman. The audience reception of the character shifts between treating her as a man and as a woman in inconsistent (but formulaic) ways, sometimes following the narrator’s “knowledge” that she is a woman, sometimes following the other characters’ “knowledge” that she is a man.

The same formulaic inconsistency occurs when it comes to sexual relations. When Mary Hamilton’s narrative follows her through one wedding night in which she doesn’t have her “device” available, wherein her flustered embarrassment is treated sympathetically (although in a mocking way), followed by clearly condemnatory descriptions of the sexual relations she engages in when the “device” is involved—but only after her wife discovers the truth. Her relationship becomes “vile” and “criminal” not only when one specific sexual technique is employed, but when it is known by the partner to be employed. That is, so long as Hamilton’s wife believes she is married to a man, the marriage is successful. When the relationship is known to be same-sex (by both participants) its nature is treated as being materially changed.

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gender disguise f>m

female sodomy

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sexual/romantic desire