Around the World in Another 80 Gays: Part 33) An Enlightenment Triangle

Previously on “Another 80 Gays”: 67) Baron Friedrich von Steuben (1730-1794) suggested the throne of the newly independent USA should go to 68) Prince Heinrich von Hohenzollern of Prussia (1726-1802), the brother of 69) King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia (1712-1786), who fell in love with 70) Count Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764).

70) Count Francesco Algarotti was the same age as 69) King Friedrich II of Prussia and they first met when Friedrich was still a prince. They became lovers and when Friedrich became king he showered Algarotti with appointments and honours, including creating him a Prussian Count. Their relationship lasted for two years though they remained close for the rest of their lives.

Before arriving in Prussia Francesco Algarotti travelled all over Europe visiting many Enlightenment figures. One of his acquaintances was Voltaire, the French philosopher who would also later spend a lot of time at the court of King Friedrich. Voltaire gave Algarotti the nickname “The Swan of Padua” because of the way he seemed to glide from one city to the next.

When Algarotti, who had not yet met King Friedrich, arrived in London in 1736 he was a well-known writer, philosopher and scientist. He was in the process of writing a book called (in translation) “Newtonism for Women” on the theories of Sir Isaac newton. It wasn’t long before Algarotti was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Algarotti’s arrival at King Friedrich’s San Souci residence got him out of a love triangle in England. The woman involved was one of the most free-thinking intellectual women of her time, 71) Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu (1689-1762). For more information on Lady Mary go to my two articles on her Extraordinary Life.

The third person in this Enlightenment love triangle was 72) John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey (1696-1743). It was Voltaire who introduced Francesco Algarotti to Lord Hervey in Paris. Hervey was the son of the 1st Earl of Bristol and was elected a Member of Parliament in 1725. As heir to his father’s earldom he was known as Lord Hervey, one of his father’s junior titles. He wasn’t an actual peer of the realm because he was, basically, only “borrowing” the title until his father died. This is still customary in British peerages.

Lord Hervey was such an important member of the government that the Prime Minister of the day didn’t wait until the Earl of Bristol died before Lord Hervey could enter the House of Lords. So Lord Hervey was “accelerated” to the Lords as Lord Hervey in his own right. His father, the Earl of Bristol, relinquished his title of Lord Hervey to his son, and they sat in the House of Lords together. Lord Hervey, sadly, predeceased his father so never became Earl of Bristol.

Although married with 8 children Lord Hervey was well-known for his camp and effeminate personality. His style of dress was flamboyant, in a style that became known as “macaroni” because it was as fashionable among the aristocracy as was the Italian food they encountered on their Grand Tour of Europe. If you remember the song “Yankee Doodle” and wondered why he put a feather in his cap and called it “macaroni”, that’s why – it was fashionably flamboyant.

Lord Hervey was infatuated with Francesco Algarotti from the moment they met, and it was when Hervey later introduced him to Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu that things started to get “interesting”. Lady Mary was well over 40 years old by then, 20 years older then the two men. Her failed marriage and unhappy family life needed some pleasantness and Algarotti provided it.

The three of them spent a lot of time together in England. Algarotti read his Newton book to them and Lady Mary helped him to improve his English. In September 1736 Algarotti went back to Italy leaving the two English aristocrats heartbroken. They both wrote love letters to him urging him to return. Algarotti, probably conscious of the complications that might arise, gave polite excuses and encouraged them to continue writing.

Lord Hervey was content to bide his time but Lady Mary was truly infatuated. Her letters became more agonising and she made known her intention of visiting Algarotti in Italy. By this time, however, Algarotti was dating a young man from Milan, so you can almost hear the alarm bells going off in his head when he read that letter.

Algarotti visited England briefly in 1737, staying with Lord Hervey for a while before continuing on his graceful travels around Europe. By this time Lady Mary was virtually stalking him and she travelled down to Turin to meet him. This was in 1741, by which time he had met King Friedrich of Prussia and had been created a count. It was obvious to Lady Mary that she couldn’t compete with a king for Algarotti’s affections and gave up trying.

So what became of our Enlightenment love triangle? Lady Mary spent the next 20 years in retirement in Europe before returning home to die in England in 1762. Count Algarotti died two years later in Italy. Lord Hervey predeceased them both in 1743. His final years were clouded by an unhappy marriage, despite having 8 children. He virtually disinherited his wife in his will.

Throughout his short life Lord Hervey attracted much attention for his effeminate appearance and personality. As well as becoming a famous “macaroni” Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu once remarked that there were three genders in England – male, female and hervey. Other slang terms and names were given to him in his lifetime and he was an obvious target for political satire and caricature. Alexander Pope in his satirical “An Epistle From Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot” made no attempt to hide his contempt for Lord Hervey by portraying him as the castrated youth who was married Emperor Nero, a youth called 73) Sporus (c.51-69).

Next time : We watch Rome burn then go to a pantomime.

De-flowering the Pansy

Aarr, Jim lad! Shiver mi timbers! It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day! No, I’m not kidding. Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

In recent decades there has been a reinterpretation of some of the ways of the pirates. No longer do historians believe that pirates were the lawless, indiscriminate marauders of legend but had an organised set of rules and regulations, ranging from the distribution of captured booty to the time all pirates must be in bed every night.

Part of that reinterpretation has been to rethink the gender and sexual stereotypes that pirates have been given over the centuries. The famous female pirates Anne Bonny (c.1700-c.1782) and Mary Read (c.1690-1721) have gone from being female mavericks to same-sex lovers.

Another pirate who caught the attention of lgbt historians in the 20th century was an acquaintance of Anne Bonny who has come to be known as Pierre the Pansy Pirate.

The Pansy Pirate’s real surname is uncertain. Various sources give it as Bouspeut, Bosket, Delvin, or variations of any one of them. What little we know about him comes from stories about Anne Bonny. However, what concerns me about Pierre is why, when, and by whom did he start to be called The Pansy Pirate? And what does the name mean? If, as I suspect, it means he was an effeminate gay man then it is one of the most disgraceful attempts to put a modern, out-dated, stereotype onto a historical character ever. I can find no use of “the Pansy Pirate” being applied to Pierre before the year 2000. I’ve spent five years trying looking.

In my first “Flower Power” article way back in 2012 I looked at how the word “pansy” came to be associated with effeminate gay men. I’ve looked again for earlier uses and still can’t find any source printed before the 1920s.

So why do people call Pierre the Pansy Pirate? To me it looks like a very clear case of “gay-washing” – putting modern stereotypical interpretations and a derogatory name onto one individual with no historical foundation. It’s a modern fake name. It appears all over the internet, with everyone copying each other when it comes to describing who he (allegedly) was.

Pierre lived on the pirate paradise of New Providence on the island of Nassau in the Bahamas. The internet tells us that he owned a coffee shop, a hairdressing salon and dressmaker’s shop. From this information someone has assumed that owning these makes a man a “pansy” or effeminate. Why? There’s nothing effeminate about these occupations except what was created by the often offensive stereotypes popular in film and television in the last century (and in many so-called comedies the US still make).

Let’s look at what Pierre was more likely to have been and we’ll start with his hairdressing salon. Hairdressing salon? They didn’t exist in his lifetime, at least not as we would recognise today. Pierre would have owned a regular barber-surgeon’s shop just like any other, and probably made wigs as well. He didn’t sit his customers in front of a mirror to clip and style someone’s hair, and he would certainly not have used shampoo and conditioner. The life of a barber in Pierre’s day is well documented and can’t be termed a “pansy” profession by any standard.

Next there is Pierre’s dressmaker’s shop. In reality he would have been a tailor. Most of his clothes were made for men. He would have made dresses as well, but so did all tailors. Again, at the time and place in which Pierre lived women didn’t make clothes (trust me, I worked in a costume museum for a while, I know these things). Women often span yarns into cloth, and some on New Providence may even weaved them into fabric. Tailored clothes were for rich people, and only men made them. Poorer people made their own clothes at home from whatever fabric they could afford - they were basic and easy to make, unlike the fancy men’s fashions of Pierre’s time.

Which brings us to the only story of Pierre being involved in piracy. It’s an apocryphal story and who knows if it is based on fact. Anne Bonny got to hear of a French merchant ship carrying rich fabrics and silks heading for the Caribbean. She persuaded Pierre to join her on a raid on the ship. To Pierre the prospect of getting him hands on lots of free fabric must have been heaven-sent.

The story goes that Anne used one of Pierre’s tailor’s dummies, dressed it up and put it at the helm of her ship. Two problems with that are that Anne had no ship of her own, and that tailor’s dummies weren’t invented until after Anne was imprisoned and “retired”. It is more likely she used an abandoned ship and made a dummy figure herself. Anne covered the dummy in blood and stood over it brandishing an axe. When the French ship saw this they surrendered and handed over their cargo.

There’s no actual evidence that Pierre was on Anne’s ship. As a tailor he probably stayed in his shop and waited for her to bring the cloth to him. There’s no evidence that he was ever a pirate, but that’s the whole mystique about pirates – their legends are more exciting than facts.

Anne Bonny was closely associated with the famous Calico Jack Rackham. There have been rumours, again first mentioned only recently, that Pierre was Jack’s lover. There’s nothing to indicate this in the large amount of factual information there is about Calico Jack. Although it is well known that he was a flamboyant dresser, which is how he got his nickname, that doesn’t make him camp or effeminate. It was a fashion of that time. It’s likely that Pierre the Non-Pansy Non-Pirate made all his clothes for him.

Pierre Bouspeut/Bosket/Delvin has become a victim of a misunderstanding of historical society. The person who first put the Pansy Pirate label on Pierre does not seem to have had any knowledge of past attitudes and social conventions. He/she put a modern version of a hairdresser and dressmaker onto a barber/tailor.

That’s my opinion. You may have your own. Further research may well prove me wrong. Until more evidence surfaces about Pierre I cannot see how he can be considered to be anything like a “pansy” or a pirate. Nothing about his known life indicates he was either.

Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 20) The 41

Previously : 39) Ivor Novello (1893-1951) failed to become a Hollywood sex symbol, unlike 40) Ramon Novarro (1899-1968) who had escaped Mexico City after 41) Amelio Robles Avila (1889-1984) and the Zapatistas took it over in the Mexican Revolution, one of whose origins was in a scandal involving 42) The Dance of The 41 (1901).

Unlike the Sacred Band ofThebes in January I can’t represent 42) The Dance of The 41 with a single representative because their names have not been revealed. Only one name has been linked to The 41, that of Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, the son-in-law of Mexican President Diaz. Some of the allegations of Diaz’s corruption centred round the cover-up and conspiracy of silence that surrounded this homosexual scandal in 1901.

A contemporary satirical leaflet about the Dance of The 41.

The identities of The 41 was suppressed and removed from Mexican history, though the significance of their number as a derogatory term for homosexual men continues in the public consciousness today. There is no conclusive proof that Ignacio de la Torre y Mier was one of The 41 (or The 42), only rumours of his participation after the media began to report the incident.

Lgbt history is full of anonymous victims of persecution and the Dance of The 41 is a perfect example. All we know about them is that police raided a private address in Mexico City in the early hours of 17th November 1901. There the police found 41 men, 19 of them dressed as women, having a dance party. This was enough for them all to be arrested.

Most of those present at the party were probably members of the highest social levels in Mexico City, so there was enough pressure on President Diaz from powerful families to keep the names of those present secret.

No-one is sure what happened to The 41. It is said that half of them were released without charge through the influence of their wealthy families. The others were said to have been sentenced to hard labour in prison. Ever since then the number 41 has been stigmatised and associated with homosexuality. Even some hotels in Mexico have no Room 41. Over a century later the number 41 was reclaimed as a mark of honour by the lgbt community in much the same way as the Nazi pink triangle was in the 1970s.

43) Alberto B. Mendoza (b.1971), an activist living in the USA, was bullied at school in his native Mexico because of his sexuality. He was called “41” but didn’t realise the true origin of this insult until his 41st birthday when he decided to find out why. This led him to discover the story of the Dance of The 41 and to create a charity named after them which campaigns to combat homophobia in the Latin American and Hispanic communities.

Alberto’s charity, Honor41, produces an annual list of 41 lgbt Latin American pioneers and heroes from all walks of life. The first list was published in 2013. With over 200 names from which to continue my 80 Gays I took one at random. The name I chose was 44) Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba (b.1958).

Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba appeared on the 2016 Honor41 list. She is an academic at the University of California Los Angeles which she joined in 1994 and specialises in Hispanic studies and is a prolific writer on the subject.

Dr. Alicia was born in El Paso in Texas near the Mexican border. One incident near El Paso in the 1990s inspired her to write a mystery novel. The incident concerned the very real unsolved murders of over 500 Mexican women. Alicia spent several years researching their deaths. With so many questions and few answers Alicia decided to write a novel based on the murders. The novel, “Desert Blood” (published 2005), featured the murder of Mexican women and the problems of immigration and treatment of female immigrants by the authorities.

For “Desert Blood” Alicia received the Lambda Literary Award for the Best Lesbian Mystery. Murder and mystery is genre in which women have always been prominent. Writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, among others, have produced some of the most popular mystery novels. Leading the lgbt contingent of female mystery writers are Val McDermid and Patricia Cornwell.

The person generally credited with starting the modern lesbian mystery genre is 45) Katherine V. Forrest (b.1939). Katherine’s 1984 novel “Amateur City” featured a lesbian homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department by the name of Kate Delafield, the first lesbian detective to feature in her own series of novels. Of the nine published books in the series Katherine Forrest has won 7 Lambda Literary Awards.

Katherine was also the fiction editor of Naiad Press for ten years. Naiad Press was one of the first publishing houses which concentrated on books by lesbian writers founded in 1973. In 2003 the founders retired and sold their stock and titles to another publisher specialising in lesbian literature, Bella Books.

Bella Books also produces foreign translations of their books. These include into French, German and Spanish. Some translations of Bella Books became the first novels published by LePress. Despite sounding French, this publishing company is based in the Czech Republic. The founder of LePress is 46) Markéta Navrátilová (b.1975).

Next time : Czech Pride takes to the air.

Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 12) Roman Dykes and Daggers

Previously : 20) Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956) defied male expectations of femininity in sport by winning an Olympic gold medal in 1932, as did 21) Stella Walsh (1911-1980) who hid her intersexuality for her entire life, unlike 22) Favorinus of Avelate (c.85 AD-c.160 AD), a Roman intersexual who escaped the customary fate of being killed at birth, as did the anonymous 23) the Harper Road Woman (living c.50 AD-70 AD).

Whether the 23) Harper Road Woman hid her intersexuality during her lifetime is one of the mysteries that surround her. Her remains were discovered in 1979 by an archaeological team excavating a plot of land in Southwark, south London, just a stone’s throw from the Elephant and Castle tube station.

The woman’s skeleton was found in a wooden coffin with various burial items which indicated that she was of high status. There was a necklace at her feet and a bronze mirror, an object not possessed by lower ranks of Roman society. From the bones of the pelvis archaeologists determined that the skeleton was that of a woman, as would be consistent with the burial objects. It was also suggested that she died between the ages of about 26 and 35. Nearly forty years later DNA analysis revealed another fact about her that was a surprise.

The Harper Road Woman was one of four Roman Britons whose DNA was analysed in 2015 by scientists led by the Museum of London. Samples were taken from the teeth of all four skeletons, which were discovered from various parts of London over the years. We are probably all familiar with the idea that a lot of physical traits are contained with the DNA sequences, so more personal information was obtained for all four.

What surprised the scientists was that the DNA of the Harper Road Woman contained male Y chromosomes. Females typically have XX chromosomes and men have XY chromosomes. The new evidence seemed to indicate that Harper Road Woman may have been either intersex or had a condition similar to androgen insensitivity syndrome, a condition that still causes much controversy in modern sports gender verification processes.

It is known that Roman London was a melting pot of cultures but the revelation that it could also have included gender and sexual diversity adds a new angle to historical research of the period.

The remains of the Harper Road Woman in display at the
Museum of London 2015.

Other information revealed in the Harper Road Woman’s DNA was that she had northern European ancestry. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes, indicating an ancestry that excludes Scandinavia. It is believed that it was her parents who came to London and that Harper Road Woman was a first-generation Londoner, being born in the city and living around 50 AD to 70 AD. This means that she could easily have been a witness to one of the most important events in Roman Britain, the revolt of the Celtic leader Boudicca in 60 AD.

Boudicca is seen as a pioneering example of the power of woman in the ancient world. She was the wife of the chief of the Iceni tribe in modern East Anglia who had accepted Roman supremacy in exchange for peace. However, on his death the Romans took over in full force and had Boudicca flogged and raped her daughters. This spurred her into armed revolt. While the majority of the Roman army was over in Wales Boudicca led successful attacks on the major Roman settlements on Colchester, London and St. Albans. London was burnt to the ground.

The Harper Road Woman was buried south of the Thames outside Roman London so it if difficult for archaeologists to determine if she was laid to rest above or below the recognised destruction layer that marks Boudicca’s burning of the city north of the Thames. Dating evidence only suggests she was buried sometime in the ten years either side of 60 AD.

Boudicca’s reputation as a strong female leader reached its height in the Victorian period. She became a role model for strong female leadership, echoing that of Queen Victoria herself. Ironically, Boudicca would have been a more appropriate role model for the opposition to colonial occupation than for a colonial power.

In the 20th century Boudicca re-emerged as a role model in feminist movements, and her name became associated, wrongly, with the origin of a slang name for a lesbian – dyke.

In 1984 the writer 24) Judy Grahn (b.1940) published “Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds” in which she suggested that the word “dyke”, through it’s earlier form “bull-dyke”, comes directly from colloquial American accent renditions of Boudicca (e.g pronounced as Boa-dyka). Grahn had heard the word “bull-dyke” pronounced as “boa-dyke” and claimed an origin in Boudicca’s name. Linguists don’t support this theory, though it is more than possible that Boudicca could have been used to refer to a strong masculine lesbian.

Grahn also makes the assumption that a strong Celtic woman like Boudicca must have been a lesbian. There’s no evidence of this and Grahn came up with a theory about the worship of bulls and Celtic queen-priestesses for which there is no archaeological, documentary or social evidence.

So, if “bull-dyke” didn’t originate with “Boudicca” where did it come from? It is generally accepted that “bull-dyke” comes from the same origin as “bull-dagger”. They both seemed to have emerged as slang terms for a lesbian in 1920’s America. They were particularly prevalent in the black American culture around Harlem and the Harlem Rennaissance. Their ultimate origins are uncertain. Another writer, 25) SDiane Bogus (b.1946) suggested an origin in the American cattle farms where bulldagger was used to describe a bull who attempts to mate with another bull. It is probable that the contraction “dyke” became more popular than “bull-dyke” very early on. Another derivation that emerged was the term “Queen B”, short for “Queen Bulldagger”. This term was used more specifically to designate a black lesbian.

SDiane Bogus wrote an essay in “lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions” in which she traced the presence of Queen Bs in black literature in the 20th century. Through this essay and other writings SDiane became a leading figure in the study of black lesbianism in American culture. She earned her PhD from Miami University by writing a dissertation on Ann Allen Shockley, the novelist SDiane credits with being the first black lesbian writer to include a modern black lesbian character in American fiction.

As an educator SDiane has written books, essays and papers covering black lesbian history and culture, and was the founder of a New Age feminist publishing company called Woman in the Moon. She published various genres under the Woman in the Moon title, including some of her own poetry.

In 1990 SDiane Bogus published “The Chant of the Women of Magdalena and the Magdalena Chants” which was nominated in the Lesbian Poetry category of the 3rd Lambda Literary Awards. She didn’t win (the winner was Marilyn Hacker’s “Going Back to the River”), but neither did another poet whose ethnicity is major influence of her poetry, 26) Irena Klefisz (b.1941).

Next time : From the Ghetto to Hollywood.