The Rise of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde is arguably one of the most famous and lasting playwrights since William Shakespeare — and his work was popular to boot. He was a celebrity in his time, known even then for being an extremely quotable master of one-liners.

He was born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. His parents, Sir William and Jane Wilde, gave him the most Irish name they could: Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. Just try yelling out that entire thing when you’re mad at your kid. That’s a chore. Anyways, he was the second child of three — his older brother Willie and younger sister Isola. His parents were part of Dublin’s intellectual elite — Sir William was a doctor notable for taking care of the city’s poor and who had also written and published numerous works regarding medicine, archaeology and folklore while Jane was an Irish nationalist publishing revolutionary poetry for the Young Islanders under the pen name Speranza. They instilled a love of poetry and folklore in all of their children.

Until age of nine, Wilde was educated at home by his mother, a French nursemaid, and a German governess. As such, he became fluent in French and German very early. Then he was enrolled at the Portora Royal School — a free school. While he was there, Isola Wilde died of meningitis in 1867.

Wilde graduated from the Portora Royal School in 1871 and began attending Trinity College in Dublin. There he studied classic literature and Greek alongside his older brother Willie and joined the University Philosophical Society. Through this society, he became an enthusiastic member of the Aesthetic Movement — an intellectual movement prioritizing the appreciation of beauty over social and political themes in literature, fine art, music, and other arts.

While at Trinity, he also befriended Edward Carson — a name you’re going to want to remember for later. They stayed very close friends throughout their college years, but drifted apart in adulthood. Wilde proved to be a gifted student — coming in at the top of his class in his first year of studies and eventually winning Trinity College’s highest academic award, the Berkeley Gold Medal. In 1874, having out-nerded everyone in Ireland (and with encouragement from his teachers who were probably tired of being shown up by him), he applied for and obviously received a scholarship to Magdalen College in Oxford.

At Magdalen College, Wilde reinvented himself. He explored several organizations, religions and philosophies. He toyed with joining Roman Catholicism — despite threats that his father would cut him off financially if he was baptized into that faith. Wilde ultimately decided, at the last minute, not to do it, and sent flowers to the ceremony in his place. He said he liked their aesthetic, rather than their beliefs. Wilde also replaced his Irish accent with an upper class British accent, began to dress in formal wear literally all of the time and lavishly decorated his room with peacock feathers. It was about this time — no surprise — that he became involved in the Decadent Movement.

As anyone who’s ever been to school knows, standing out isn’t always a popular thing. People attempted to beat up or bully Wilde on more than one occasion — but Wilde was 6’3″ and really strong — especially for someone who pretty much hated sports. He once beat up an entire group of students who attacked him, then invited onlookers to go to the room of one of his assailants where they drank all that student’s liquor. He did, at some point (before or after this, I’m unclear), take up boxing — probably not so much as a sport but as a means of self-defense.

The lifestyle he’d adopted was not conducive to studying, and Wilde did not remain the star pupil he had been at Trinity. After returning late from a trip to Greece with a professor, Wilde was even temporarily expelled. Despite this, when he graduated in November of 1878, he received double first (the highest possible honor) for his Bachelor degree in Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores (basically, literature, just made to sound fancier.) In the same year his poem “Ravenna” won the Newdigate Prize, a high honor for students at Oxford.

Wilde settled in London after graduating, though he spent a good amount of time in Paris. In 1881, a collection of his poems (now having been published in various places since roughly 1871) was published. The first print run of Poems was 750 copies — it sold out and had to have a second run printed in 1882. Despite the book’s undeniable popularity, reviews were mixed — the British magazine Punch was notably unenthusiastic. Their review stated: “The poet is Wilde, but his poetry’s tame.” (Don’t you sometimes wonder if people write intentionally bad reviews just so they throw in some solid gold zingers like that one?)

Because the aesthetic movement was becoming popular in the United States thanks to Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience (which features a character satirizing Wilde), talent agent Richard D’Oyly Carte booked Wilde for a lecture tour in America coinciding with the tour of Patience. The press in the United States was even more critical of Wilde than it was in Britain. T.W. Higginson wrote that Wilde’s “only distinction is that he has written a thin volume of very mediocre verse” and expressed concerns about the influence Wilde might have on people’s behavior.

Wilde was also subjected to some incredibly bigoted anti-Irish attacks in the press — on January 22, 1882 (just twenty days after he landed in the country!) the Washington Post published a drawing of Wilde next to the Wild Man of Borneo (one of P.T. Barnum’s “freak show” performers) and asked “How far is it from this to this?” Despite the press, Wilde’s actual lectures were very popular and his tour was extended from the original four months to almost a year long.

Wilde interacted a lot with Irish-Americans during this tour. They were, perhaps, the most critical of him out of everyone in America for abandoning his Irish accent. As a result, he actually did reconnect with his Irish roots (though not his accent) and began to get more involved in politics. He was a staunch supporter of Irish independence (despite not going back to Ireland much). He also spoke out on behalf of socialism, although his actual beliefs — which he described as anarchy — were probably closer to communism than anything. (Apparently, for all his studying, Wilde never read the Communist Manifesto.)

Between the tour and publishing The Duchess of Padua, Wilde was making a good amount of money by 1883. In that same year his first play, Vera, was produced in New York City. As his celebrity grew so — of course — did rumors that he might be a sodomite — probably more because of his entire lack of romantic attachments and his super flamboyant clothes. Some historians suggest, therefore, that it is not a coincidence that he started seeing Constance Lloyd — a woman and fellow Decadent writer who he met at a lecture in Dublin. They married on May 29, 1884. Because of the philosophical and literary values they both represented, they spent tons and tons of money on having an incredibly stylish house in London. Like, even though they were both well-off, they ended up having basically no money.

Lloyd and Wilde had two sons — Cyril (born in 1885) and Vyvyan (born in 1886) — proving beyond any doubt that celebrities have always given their kids bizarre names. During the second pregnancy, their marriage began to fall apart. According to the biography written by Daniel Mendelsohn, Wilde became “physically repelled” by his wife. It was also about this time that Wilde met Robert “Robbie” Ross — a seventeen year old university student who was pretty much openly and unashamedly gay. That was a really big deal at the time. Robbie was determined to seduce Wilde — he had recognized allusions to “Greek love” (that’s a classy way of saying gay sex) in Wilde’s work and had decided to introduce Wilde to it. And he was very successful at that. While Ross and Wilde had a fairly short-lived romantic affair, they remained very close lifelong friends. Wilde’s marriage continued to devolve, although they never divorced.

Wilde’s star as a writer continued to rise after this. Over the next several years, he published a number of short stories — most of which alluded to “Greek love” more openly than his works had before. In 1890, Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray — a novel that catapulted him to an even higher degree of fame. (Incidentally, Dorian Gray was likely inspired — at least in name, if nothing else — by Wilde’s next ex-lover, John Gray. Gray did his best to deny this rumor.) It was publicly trashed by critics, particularly for the hedonism depicted in the novel — and the rather obvious references to homosexuality. It was heavily edited, some of the more transparent homo eroticism taken out and six new chapters added, and re-released in 1891. It was in this year, Wilde was introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas (aka “Bosie” to his friends), a student at Oxford at the time but with a great interest in literature — and the two struck up a friendship. This friendship would ultimately change the trajectory of Wilde’s life — and impact the entire underground queer community of Europe.

….for the thrilling conclusion, click here.

Fricke v. Lynch

So, as you may know if you’ve been reading these for a while, I’m a Rhode Islander through-and-through. And I love when I can do an article about local queer history. So that’s why I’m so happy to be sharing this story.

It starts in Cumberland, Rhode Island, in April of 1979. Paul Guillbert, a junior at Cumberland High School had been dating a senior at Brown University, Ed Miskevich. Guillbert sought permission from the principal, Richard Lynch, to bring Miskevich to his prom — Lynch denied the request, citing a concern that the pair might be endangered by the reactions of the other students. Guillbert attempted to move his request up the “chain of command,” but when they learned that Guillbert’s own father did not support him the School Board refused to allow Guillbert a public hearing. I suppose they thought that was the end of the matter.

But the next year, Guillbert’s friend Aaron Fricke — who had recently come out of the closet and begun dating Paul — asked to be allowed to bring his boyfriend to prom. Again, Lynch denied the request — claiming he was concerned that the other students might react violently and that might prove dangerous for Fricke and his “male escort” but also mentioned that approving the request would have an “adverse effect” on the other students, the school, and the town itself. Like Guillbert, Fricke was not satisfied with this response — and so, with the help of the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, he went to court.

They were looking to file a preliminary injunction that would allow Fricke and his beau to go to prom together. They appeared in the United States Court for the District of Rhode Island. Judge Raymond J. Pettine presided over the case. The Court ruled that the school was violating Fricke’s freedom of speech — that “even a legitimate interest in school discipline does not outweigh a student’s right to peacefully express his views in an appropriate time, place, and manner.”

The Court also decided that threats of violence against Fricke would create a “heckler’s veto” — further violating his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Citing the 1968 Supreme Court case United States v. O’Brien, Pettine noted that the school had failed to meet the legal requirement to seek the “least restrictive alternative” before reaching its decision.

Going even further, the Court also stated that the school had created a second class of students by creating unequal policies between those who wanted to bring different-sex dates to the prom and those who wants to bring same-sex dates.

This picture was on a Buzzfeed article about this. I’m assuming that it’s Frickeand Guillbert at prom but technically that wasn’t stated anywhere so don’t hate me if I’m wrong.

Having soundly won the case, Fricke and Guillbert attended the prom together on May 31, 1980. They were driven there by, according to People magazine, a “protective member of the Gay Liberation Task Force.” The media were outside the school in full force, which prompted Fricke to stick out his tongue at them on his way inside. The school — under the Court’s directions — had six security guards, rather than their traditional two, in order to ensure the safety of the two boys. Though they were definitely heckled, this was a very clear victory for queer teens throughout the United States. According to Fricke’s later writings about the event, the “contagious enthusiasm” of the B-52s song “Rock Lobster” helped dissipate the tensions when he and Guillbert hit the dance floor in a scene that sounds like it’s right out of a cheesy 80’s movie. I guess the 80’s really were like that.

Although this landmark case has made this a very clear-cut case for public schools — the issue has persisted. Fortunately for queer students unwilling to take “no” for answer, the legal precedent is pretty undeniable. As a result, more and more public schools allow students to bring same-sex dates to school dances. This case was cited against Murray High School in 2004, forcing them to reverse a decision regarding same-sex students at prom. Fricke v. Lynch was confirmed in 2010 in a law suit against Itawamba Agricultural School in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, Aaron Fricke has gone on to become an accomplished writer and activist. His best known work — an autobiography entitled Reflections of a Rock Lobster — details his experiences leading up to the court case and subsequent dance. This book was adapted into a play by Burgess Clark, which was presented by Boston Children’s Theater in 2012 and 2013 — the first children’s theater production in the US to tackle LGBTQ+ rights issues. Fricke also worked with his father on the book Sudden Strangers: the Story of a Gay Son and his Father.

In 1994 — the same year Fricke received his associate degree from City College of San Francisco — he donated a collection of documents known as the Aaron Fricke Papers which include letters, files, notes, and even drafts of Rock Lobster and Sudden Strangers. I haven’t read these (I don’t think they’re available online, and I have yet to actually go to San Francisco) but I’m particularly interested in an undated file entitled “Gay Terms” and another item entitled “To Sir, Fuck You.”

As for what happened to Paul Guillbert? I know he kept in touch with Fricke at least until 1981 (because there’s letters in the Aaron Fricke Papers) but I haven’t been able to find anything else. I would assume no news is good news, that he’s alive and well and content in the part he played in securing the legal right of LGBTQ+ kids to take whomever they want to prom.

Lavender Scare

Most Americans are aware of the Red Scare — the witch hunt for Communist agents in the US led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Despite the infamy of that event, there was a notable queer element that often gets overlooked, despite lasting longer and impacting a greater number of government employees: the Lavender Scare. Gay men and lesbians were said to be communist sympathizers and dangerous security risks. Given that the 1947 Sex Perversion Elimination Program had already seen to legally labeling homosexuals as dangerously mentally ill, so these assertions fed into growing public unease. There was a national call to fire them from employment in the Federal government — which made it even more difficult for queer people to be out of the closet anywhere in the United States. Though the official Lavender Scare was focused on Federal government and armed forces employees and contractors, you can be sure that thousands more across the country lost their jobs simply because of the fear that McCarthy and his allies were stoking.

In February, 1950 McCarthy announced that he had a list of Communists that worked for the government. Two names on that last were homosexuals who had been fired and then rehired. Senators Kenneth S. Wherry and Senator J. Lister Hill interrogated these two individuals — called “Case 14“and “Case 62“. I can’t find real names for those two, but they were dismissed from their positions — the first official victims of the Lavender Scare. A week later Deputy Undersecretary of State John Purefoy testified before the Senate Committee on Appropriations that the State Department had actually fired, and later hidden, 91 suspected homosexual employees they had flagged as security risks. In truth, the Senate Committee was not shocked to learn this, since they had essentially given the State Department leeway to purge homosexuals from employment in 1946. However, the testimony revealed this information to the public and granted legitimacy to all of McCarthy’s claims — strengthening public support for his Red Scare.

On April 15, 1950, the Republican National Chair Guy George Gabrielson (a name that truly sounds fictional, but it isn’t) made the claim that “sexual perverts” who had infiltrated the government were “perhaps as dangerous as actual Communists.” He argued that homosexuals were susceptible to blackmail and therefore a great risk to national security. (Later investigations found that not a single person who lost their job during the Lavender Scare ever revealed classified information, and most never had access to any. In case there was any confusion, this was never actually about national security!)

In a somewhat ironic twist, McCarthy hired Roy Cohn — a closeted homosexual — to be the chief counsel of the Congressional subcommittee. (Cohn was also a terrible, terrible human being. We can’t all be winners, I suppose.) Working alongside J. Edgar Hoover, they fired multitudes of accused gay men and lesbians. They also used rumors of homosexual activity to coerce their opponents and to smear those they suspected of being communists.

In March of 1952, the Federal government fired 162 employees because they might have been gay. On April 27, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 which — among other effects — led to a ban on gays and lesbians working for the Federal government of the United States altogether and even more heightened drive to uncover homosexual infiltrators. Suspected homosexuals were interviewed and surveilled for signs of gender non-conformity — as were their roommates and friends. Investigators relied on “guilty by association” — anyone with ties to homosexuals must be one as well. People were given lie detector tests and grilled with questions about their personal sexual history. Police were asked to raid gay bars and homosexual meeting places, and then share their arrest records. Within its first year 425 suspected homosexuals were fired from the State Department alone. Over 5,000 Federal employees were fired because of suspicions that they were homosexuals. Every single one of them was not only lost their job, but was publicly outed as well. Many more were pressured into resigning.

McCarthy effectively convinced the government and the media of a connection between homosexuality and Communism — calling them both “threats to the American way of life” and even blatantly telling reporters “if you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you’ve got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker.” He repeatedly referred to homosexuality as an invasion. The rhetoric caught on. Those who’d been removed from their jobs found it impossible to get hired anywhere else — a few resorted to suicide. Federal investigators later covered up most of those deaths.

The effects of the investigations rapidly expanded out from just government work, leading to an untold number of homosexuals (and suspected homosexuals) being fired and denied employment from even ordinary, non-government jobs — even in Hollywood. Gay and lesbian bars were raided by police with an ever-increasing regularity. Even queer organizations like the Mattachine Society (which was founded partially in 1950 partly in response to the Lavender Scare) were forced to adapt by 1953, adopting specific policies that specified they were loyal to the United States and forcing out founder Harry Hays — who happened to actually be a gay Communist.

The discriminatory practices destroyed lives and families, even among the most powerful people in the country. After Lester “Buddy” Hunt Jr. was arrested for soliciting prostitution from a male undercover police officer, his father Senator Lester Hunt was blackmailed and attacked by his political opponents (which included McCarthy) — destroying his political career and tearing apart his family. On June 19, 1954, he sat down at his desk in his Senate office and shot himself in the head with a rifle.

It wasn’t until Frank Kameny was fired from the United States Army Maps Service that anyone sought to challenge these firings in court. He brought his case all the way up to the Supreme Court — making him the first person to argue in United States courtrooms that homosexuals were being treated as second class citizens. They decided against him in 1961. (This would be the beginning of Kameny’s profound influence over LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. — but he would never hold another paying job for the rest of his life, and survived only on the generosity of his friends.) In 1969, the Supreme Court had realized the error of its ways and ruled differently in a similar case. Of course, that didn’t help Kameny much.

Between 1947 and 1961, more Federal employees had been fired for being suspected of being homosexual than were fired for being suspected of being Communist. Records of the number of people who were fired as part of the Lavender Scare get more than a little fuzzy after that, but it was hardly over. Even after the end of McCarthy’s career in 1957, the tactics used in the Lavender Scare remained in effect for several more years. In fact, the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (aka the Johns Committee after state senator Charley Eugene Johns) officially began using these same practices to drive the queer population out of state universities in 1958. They pursued students and professors for doing such suspiciously homosexual behaviors as wearing Bermuda shorts on campus. Professors were immediately removed from their positions for even being suspected on queerness, students were allowed to remain on campus only if they routinely visited their school’s medical facility for routine psychological treatments. In 1964 the Committee began printing pamphlets entitled Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida — or colloquially known as the Purple Pamphlet. Because it included pictures of homosexual activity, it was immediately considered controversial and called “state-sponsored pornography” — ultimately leading to the dissolution of the Committee in 1965.

Executive Order 10450 was struck down in court in 1973 but not formally repealed. Parts of it were undone by President Bill Clinton, through the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and Executive Order 13087 — the latter of which officially ended the FBI’s and NSA’s discriminatory hiring practices. The Executive Order was not truly repealed until 2017, when — in one of his last acts in office — President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13764. At about the same time, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry finally issued a formal apology on behalf of the State Department for the discrimination that occurred.

The long-lasting effects of the Lavender Scare drove the queer community of the U.S. deeper underground, turned public sentiment against the LGBT+ community for decades, and to this day continues to impact hiring policies, and public ideas about homosexuality, around the country. Congress is, even now, preparing to decide on whether or not to pass the Equality Act — which would, among other things, protect LGBTQ+ people from employment discrimination. I would say that almost seventy years after the beginning of the Lavender Scare, it’s about time.

Matthew Shepard

I hope that almost anyone reading this site knows at least something about Matthew Shepard — whose face became a figurehead in the gay rights movement after his grisly murder in 1998.

Matthew was born on December 1, 1976 in Casper, Wyoming to parents Judy and Dennis Shepard. He was their eldest son — their other son Logan was born in 1981. He had a close relationship with his brother. He attended local schools through his junior year of high school, developing an interest in politics, and was generally friendly to his classmates even though he was frequently teased for being thin and not athletic.

In 1994, Dennis Shepard was hired by Saudi Aramco to be an oil rig inspector, and Shepard’s parents moved to Dahran, Saudi Arabia for the job. Matthew attended his senior year of high school at The American School in Switzerland (TASIS). While there, he started studying German and Italian and became interested in music, fashion, and theater. During February of his year there, he and three classmates took a vacation to Morocco — where Matthew was beaten, robbed, and raped by a group of locals who were never caught. The attack was traumatic for Matthew — afterwards he had bouts of depression, anxiety and paranoia and experienced flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts which lasted through the remainder of his life, despite his best efforts in therapy. When therapy seemed to fail him, he turned to drug use. He also began routinely being tested for HIV after this.

Matthew graduated from TASIS in 1995. Shortly after his graduation, Matthew came out to his mother. She was very accepting of him and apparently coming out was entirely without drama, so we’re just going to breeze by it now. After high school, Matthew began to study theater at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina until he briefly moved to Raleigh. He enrolled at Casper College in his hometown. At Casper College, he met Romaine Patterson, who became his close friend. Together, they moved to Denver where Matthew took on a series of short-lived part time jobs.

At 21 years old, Matthew enrolled at his parents’ alma mater, Wyoming University in Laramie. He felt that a small town environment would make him feel safer than he had in Denver. He began studying political science, international relations, and foreign languages. He quickly became an active member of the campus’ LGBTQ+ student organization and earned a reputation for passionately pursuing equality. Some time after beginning school at Wyoming University, Matthew tested positive for HIV — a fact he confided in a handful of friends, but kept from his parents.

And that brings us to October 6, 1998. Matthew was at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie. According to later testimonies, Matthew encountered two men — Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson — in the bar that night. They pretended to be gay to lure him out to McKinney’s truck. Matthew was expecting a ride home, but put his hand on McKinney’s knee, which set off a deep rage in McKinney. The two men robbed Matthew, hit him with a gun, beat him and tortured him until he was covered in his own blood and was virtually unrecognizable. They tied him to a fence in the middle of nowhere and left him there in temperatures that were close to freezing. According to later testimonies, both men were completely sober and, after finding out his address, planned on robbing Matthew’s home as well. First, however, they returned to the town and subsequently got into a fight with two other men. When police broke up the fight, McKinney was arrested and his truck was searched. They found shoes, a bloody gun, and a credit card also smeared with blood. The shoes and credit card belonged to Matthew.

Eighteen hours later, a man named Aaron Kreifels went past the fence on his bicycle. He initially mistook Matthew for a scarecrow, but upon realizing that it was a badly beaten, comatose person he immediately called the police. It’s reported that there was so much on Matthew’s face that the only places you could see his skin were tracks from his tears running down his face. The first officer to respond was Reggie Fluty. She arrived with a supply of faulty medical gloves, which she eventually ran out of while trying to clear blood out of Matthew’s mouth so he could breathe. When Matthew’s HIV status became clear to authorities, Fluty was put on a regiment of AZT for a month but she did not contract the virus.

Matthew was brought to Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, and then moved to a more advanced facility at Pudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. Even there, the doctors decided his injuries were too severe for operations. Matthew remained in a coma until October 12, when he was taken off of life support and pronounced dead.

During the six days, news of the attack had gained international attention. Candlelight vigils were held around the world — as well as anti-gay demonstrations. When Matthew’s funeral was held, the Westboro Baptist Church protested — gaining themselves national attention. (Which, of course, is all those parasites want or care about so I’m saying the bare minimum about them.) In response, Romaine Patterson organized a counter-protest where a group of people dressed as angels to block out the protest — this would be the foundation of the organization Angel Action.

Meanwhile, authorities arrested McKinney and Henderson. They were charged with attempted murder (later upgraded to first degree murder), kidnapping, and aggravated robbery. Their girlfriends, who had provided alibis and tried to help dispose of evidence, were charged with being accessories after the fact. McKinney’s girlfriend Kristen Price told detectives that the violence had been set off by how McKinney “[felt] about the gays” (a testimony she recanted in 2004) and the defense team attempted to argue that McKinney had gone temporarily insane when Matthew had come onto him. This is one of the most famous examples of the “gay panic” defense, but the judge rejected that argument.

Henderson took a plea deal, pleading guilty and agreeing to two consecutive lifetime sentences instead of the death penalty. In exchange, he testified against McKinney. McKinney was found guilty by a jury of felony murder, but not of premeditated murder. While they deliberating on whether or not he should receive the death penalty, Shepard’s parents arranged a deal — McKinney would serve two consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.

In the years that followed, this attack would remain in the minds of the American population. The events inspired a number of television, film, and theatrical works — the most notable (in my opinion) being The Laramie Project and Matthew Shepard is a Friend of Mine (go watch those if you haven’t seen them yet!) More importantly, Matthew’s death was a major part of the impetus for passing more comprehensive anti-hate crime legislation in the United States. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act (sometimes called the Matthew Shepard Act) became law on October 28, 2009.

Dennis and Judy Shepard have been staunch advocates for LGBTQ+ rights since the attack, and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which they founded, has become a massive force for education and advocacy regarding LGBTQ+ issues. This year — on the 20th anniversary of the attack — it was announced that Matthew’s remains will be interred in the Washington National Cathedral on October 26, 2018.

Mwanga II

Danieri Basammula-Ekkere Mwanga II Mukasa (Mwanga II for short) was born in 1868. His father was Muteesa I, the kabaka (or king, basically) of Buganda from 1856 until 1884. On October 18, 1884 Mwanga II became the 31st kabaka of Buganda (part of present-day Uganda). He was sixteen years old — and his reign was not at an easy time. Muteesa I had staved off the “invasion” of Christianity and Islam by playing members of three factions against each other — Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims. Mwanga II did not have the political finesse to keep that going for long after he came to power, and he was quite certain that these “invading” religions were the greatest threat facing his nation. Mwanga decided a more aggressive tactic was needed. British missionary Alexander Mackay, who quite liked the situation under Muteesa, did not like the changes under Mwanga and unfortunately, he’s the main source for the information I have on Mwanga’s reign — so, y’know, keep in mind that this is largely coming from a heavily biased source that definitely did include some absolutely false claims (like that Mwanga learned homosexuality from Muslims traders from Zanzibar — yeah, that didn’t happen).

Within his first year of ruling, Mwanga had ten Christians executed. Following that he had the archbishop James Hannington as he arrived at the kingdom on October 29, 1885. Like that old saying goes, “If you can’t stall them, have them die in mysterious circumstances near your kingdom’s border and hope no one traces it back to you.” (They did trace it back. Oops.) I should probably point out, for the sake of fairness, Hannington’s route took him through a particularly tumultuous area of Buganda’s borders and Mackay himself tried to warn him against going that way. Didn’t stop Mwanga from getting blamed.

Mwanga II depicted in stain glass at the Monyonyo Martyr’s Shrine, dedicated to the Uganda Martyrs.

To make things worse, Mwanga’s harem (which consisted of both men and women) had been infiltrated by these new religious ideas and they were superceding old traditions. In the old traditions of Buganda, the kabaka was THE authority. You couldn’t tell a kabaka “no” about basically anything. (It’s good to be the king, y’know?) So when Mwanga wanted to sleep with some of the boys in his harem — which was, according to Bugandan tradition, absolutely within his rights — and they told him no because it conflicted with what they were being taught about their new faith (that men had to lie with women), he was infuriated. He also discovered one of those pages teaching Christianity to his “favourite and so far always compliant toy” Muwafi. (I mentioned that a lot of this comes from biased sources, right? So like, take that quote with a grain of salt.). Fearing the Christian missionaries were turning his courtiers into spies, he decided the only appropriate action was to execute every practicing Christian in his court. All told, it’s estimated there were 30 people he executed between January 31, 1885 and January 27, 1887 (including the boys in his harem that refused him). Twenty-two of them were burned alive, and would later become known as the Uganda Martyrs — officially sainted on October 18 of 1964 by Pope Paul VI. One of them, named Kitzito, was only 14 years old making him the youngest saint in history.

In terms of public opinion, the executions backfired on Mwanga on a massive, international scale. They riled up a lot of powerful people — particularly in the British Empire — who decided to back a rebellion to depose Mwanga II and replace him with his older brother Kiweewa. This decision was met with widespread popular support from the British people. The rebellion succeeded in 1888 — although Mwanga escaped — and Kiweewa became kabaka — for forty days. A band of Muslims deposed Kiweewa and put his half-brother Kalema on the throne. Kalema lasted a little bit longer — but Mwanga was nothing if not stubborn. He made a deal with the British to give up some of Buganda’s sovereignty if they’d help him get his throne back. So they did – and he was back on his throne by the end of 1889 and in a formal treaty with the British by December 26, 1890.

In many ways, this worked out well for Buganda — they were given a generous treaty (compared to other treaties in Africa), and the people of Buganda were allowed to administrate over the other areas that the British were including in the “Protectorate of Uganda.” They imposed their language, clothing, and diet on the rest of the protectorate. However, not everything was in their control; for instance, in 1894 the British imposed a ban on same-sex relations between men. I don’t really have any evidence to support this theory, but I think that might’ve been a contributing reason why in 1897, Mwanga decided he didn’t like being a British protectorate and declared war on Britain.

The war lasted from July 6 until July 20. The British soundly beat him, and he he was forced to flee into modern day Tanzania (German East Africa, at the time). Once there, he was arrested. He escaped, raised an army, attempted to take his throne back and was defeated again on January 15, 1898. This time he was exiled to the Seychelles (which, if you suck at geography like me and didn’t know, is 115 islands forming an archipelago in the Indian Ocean). Since he was stuck on an island, he did not go back to Buganda and actually even eventually converted to the Anglican Church before he died on May 8, 1903. In 1910 his remains were sent back to Uganda where they were interred in the Kasubi Tombs, where his father is buried.

So, okay, I hear you. What’s the big deal about Mwanga? Consider this: in Africa, 36 countries — including Uganda — have criminalized homosexuality. All of them established those laws after being colonized by Europeans. And most of them currently justify those laws by saying that homosexuality isn’t part of their culture, that it was brought to them by Europeans. Aside from some really old, kinda kinky rock art, Mwanga II is some of the best proof against that claim. Also, is it just me or could Chadwick Boseman totally play him in a movie?

Scientific-Humanitarian Committee

Most of us are aware of some of the LGBTQ+ rights groups active throughout the ’60s and ’70s — the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, the Metropolitan Community Church, etc. But these kinds of organizations existed before that — in fact, the very first one was founded near the end of the 19th century. That society was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee or, in German, the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee. Wikipedia abbreviates that to WhK, so I’m doing that too.

The Whk was founded on May 15, 1897 — three days before Oscar Wilde was released from prison for homosexuality (not a coincidence) — by Magnus Hirschfeld, a German-Jewish sexologist and physician. Founding members also included Max Spohr, Eduard Oberg, and Franz Joseph von Bülow. At its height, the WhK would have nearly 500 members in 25 chapters across Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.

Magnus Hirschfeld, 1929

Hirschfeld is probably going to get his own piece written about him at some point, because he keeps showing up in events from that time period as I research them — the man did a lot for the LGBTQ+ community, and not just in Germany! But the reasons he had for starting this organization were primarily that he noticed his homosexual patients were most likely to commit suicide, and he believed that was largely because society told them that they were unnatural, and criminalized them for their natural urges and desires. (Smart guy.) Spohr was a publisher and was one of the first, if not *the* first, to publish LGBT publications (although he does not appear to have been queer himself — just an early and important ally!). Oberg was a lawyer, and Bülow was a writer and former member of the German military.

Kurt Hiller

They were soon joined by Kurt Hiller — a writer, Adolf Brand — a writer, significant also for basically inventing that thing where a writer outs a politician who is anti-gay but is secretly engaging in same-sex behavior, and Benedict Friedlaender — a sexologist and anarchist. You should note, at this point, that between Hirschfeld, Friedlaender, and Hiller the WhK has a pretty significant Jewish membership. Queer Jews. In Germany. At the beginning of the 20th century. Think about how damn brave these people were considering what that country was building up to.

Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types

The main goal of the WhK was to repeal Paragraph 175, which was a specifically anti-gay piece of the penal code of Imperial Germany. They gathered over 5,000 signatures on a petition to repeal the law — some of the people who signed it included Leo Tolstoy and Albert Einstein. The WhK was also committed to educating the public and so they hosted lectures on topics about human sexuality and gender. The WhK strongly supported the idea of a third gender outside the gender binary — which is pretty revolutionary for Europe at the turn of the 20th century. The WhK also helped in criminal trials, defending accused homosexuals. Lastly, they published a journal called the Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen (or Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types) which is considered by many to be the first scientific journal to deal with sexual diversity. The journal was published on a regular schedule from 1899 to 1923, and then published a sort of haphazard schedule for another ten years after that.

In 1929, Kurt Hiller took over as chairman for Magnus Hirschfeld — Hirschfeld was about to embark on a world tour speaking about his theories about human sexuality. The organization persisted until 1933 when its base of operations, the Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin, was destroyed by Nazis. Paragraph 175 remained in effect for another sixty years in East Germany, and was not repealed in West Germany until the two nations were reunited in 1994.

After World War II, there were efforts to reform the group. In 1949, Hermann Weber tried to restart the group — and even had the help of Kurt Hiller (who had survived being in a number of Nazi concentration camps before escaping to London). The group disbanded and then ultimately became the Committee for the Reform of Sexual Criminal Laws, which lasted until 1960. Hiller — after returning to Germany in 1955 — tried to resurrect the WhK in 1962, but was unsuccessful. Finally, in 1998, an organization was formed with the same name. The new incarnation of the WhK appears to still be around.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Sun-bin Bong

Royal Noble Consort Sun of the Haeum Bong Clan (or Sun-bin Bong) was the second consort of the crown prince Munjong of Joseon, who was crown prince of Korea for a record breaking 29 years before becoming a mostly forgettable king.  Munjong is remembered for a few things — none of them particularly good — but one of them is that he had terrible luck with wives or, as they were called when you were married to the crown prince, royal noble consorts.

See, part of Munjong’s problem is that he mostly favored one of his concubines who he couldn’t make his royal noble consort. His first wife tried some witchcraft to make him love her instead — which backfired because he banished her for it. That meant he still needed a wife though. So, Sun-bin Bong was made the Royal Noble Consort in 1429 CE. But he didn’t love her either — which was probably fine with her; it seems like she was mostly there because it was the most powerful position a woman could have in Korea at the time. She wanted to help the village she was born in (even though her family definitely seems to have been upper class), and she didn’t seem to care much about the prince.

She sent clothes — some her own and some which she had stolen from other people in the royal court — back to her home village. This was a serious problem, but no one knew about it for several years so she kept it up. When one of the prince’s concubines became pregnant (and I assume it’s the one he actually liked but I’m not really sure), she started to fear she would be replaced as the prince’s official wife — and she was not quiet about it. This — unfortunately for her — brought her to the king’s attention.

She attempted to salvage her place in the court by (possibly) faking a pregnancy and a miscarriage, claiming to have buried the remains. Servants went to dig up the remains but found only burial clothes. At this point, they discovered that Sun had been sleeping with one of her handmaids, So-ssang. So-ssang insisted that she’d tried to refuse, but Sun had insisted. When they questioned Sun about it, she claimed it was only because the prince didn’t love her, wouldn’t sleep with her and she didn’t want to be alone. She claimed to have also slept with a servant named Dan-ji to help with her loneliness. When pressed further, she went so far as to say that she was intimate with So-ssang “night and day”. The problem with this wasn’t just that she was sleeping with another woman, it was that she was a royal noble consort — a member of the royal class through marriage to the prince — sleeping with a slave. The fact that she’d been sleeping with a woman was bad enough — sleeping with someone so far out of her royal social class made matters much worse.

In the proceedings against Sun that followed, several more accusations were laid out against her. One was, of course, the theft of food and clothing that she sent back to her village. She was also accused of spying on people outside of the palace through a hole in the wall. Lastly, three months before the proceedings began, she had received a visit from her aunt’s husband — he reported that her father had died. The prince had never been notified of the visit, another breach of etiquette. The royal court determined this showed a lack of respect for the greater good, and decreed that she would be demoted to the rank of commoner. The decree mostly focused on her thefts, and really really downplayed the whole lesbianism thing that was, realistically, the true reason behind this whole ordeal. The royals were trying hard to save face.

Now, Sun’s fate after this is unclear. The popular version of events is that her father killed her in an honor killing. The problem with that story is that her father had died three months before — remember that whole breach of etiquette? The rumor-mill of old Korea apparently didn’t. It’s much more likely that she was killed before ever leaving the palace. Other women of the upper classes of Korean culture during that time period were executed with fewer accusations against them, so it would not be out of character.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

June 26 – SCOTUS Decisions

For the LGBT+ community in the United States, June 26th is a day of monumental importance. As I am quite sure we all remember, in 2015 the Supreme Court announced its decision on the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges and marriage equality was officially the law in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Most of the remaining U.S. territories followed suit swiftly thereafter, although the status of same-sex marriage in American Samoa is still under question two years later. (I’m assuming they’re a little behind on this mainly because they’re so freaking far away?)

But in 2003, a possibly even more important Supreme Court decision was made. One that made Obergefell v. Hodges possible to begin with. That landmark case was Lawrence v. Texas. By that year, only 36 states, four territories (including American Samoa) and the District of Columbia had done away with their anti-sodomy laws. As such, this case had a major impact across the country — finally officially decriminalizing homosexuality for the United States.

I know that I was in high school when that happened and I heard literally nothing about it, I’m sure most people my age and younger heard nothing about it at the time. So, I just want everyone to take a moment to consider the fact that homosexuality has only been legal in the United States of America, as a country, for fifteen years as of my writing this. If our legal standing in this country was a person, it would be just old enough to have a driving permit. Our legal rights in this country are younger than Harry Potter.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. The state of Louisiana was still including “unnatural carnal copulation by a human being with another of the same sex” in their legal definition of crimes against nature — which meant that homosexual intercourse was still punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 or a prison sentence that could be as long as five years and could include hard labor. In 2005, this was also overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, citing Lawrence v. Texas. There are still thirteen states that have not formally struck down their state bans on sodomy — and three of those bans specifically disallow same-sex intercourse. Of course, all of these are now unenforceable especially because of Lawrence v. Texas, but just to be precise here, it’s important to note that this is still in flux.

Then on June 26 2013, there was also United States v. Windsor which was the landmark Supreme Court case that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, the first step in getting marriage equality. And in case that wasn’t enough, on the same day in 2017 the decision for the case Pavan v. Smith was announced — striking down a law in Arkansas that kept same-sex couples from both having parental rights over their children. So, like, a lot of important gay Supreme Court decisions have happened on June 26.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

Lemme tell you about Karl Heinrich Ulrichs — who I briefly talked about in discussion of Karl-Maria Kertbeny. He is considered by many to be the father of the modern gay rights movement — roughly a hundred years before the Stonewall Riots would push the movement into the mainstream.

Heinrichs, like Kertbeny, came up with his own words to classify human sexuality. His word for a man who desired men was “Urning” which I, for one, am glad is not the word that made it to the mainstream, but since it’s how he identified himself I’m going to use it here. The term, for those curious, comes from the god Uranus, who was male. Totally weak explanation, I know, but that’s what we’ve got.

Ulrichs was born on August 28, 1825. As a child, he recalled, he preferred wearing girl’s clothing, playing with girls, and stated that he had wanted to be a girl. At the age of 14, he had his first sexual encounter with another man — his riding instructor. He studied law and theology at Gottingen University, and then studied history at Berlin University. All told, he finished his formal education in 1848 after which he took a job as a legal adviser for a district court in the Kingdom of Hanover. He lost that job when his sexuality became known in 1857.

In 1862, he came out as an Urning to his friends and family, and declared that his feelings were biological, and natural. He penned five essays under a pseudonym “Numa Numantius” that explained all of this, before he began publishing under his real name. This, of course, meant he was constantly in trouble with the law — though, usually for his words, which argued for decriminalizing homosexuality, and not his sexual activities — and had to keep moving around Germany. His books were banned and confiscated in Saxony, Berlin, and the entirety of Prussia.

In 1867, after a brief imprisonment in Prussia, he moved to Munich. There, he spoke to the German Association of Jurists and urged them to reform the laws against homosexuality. This was the first time in history that an openly homosexual (well, Urning) person publicly spoke on behalf of LGBT rights.

In 1870, Ulrichs wrote and published a book called “Araxes: a Call to Free the Nature of the Urning from Penal Law” which is particularly remarkable because of the close similarity it bears to the demands of the modern gay rights movement. In this book, Ulrichs vehemently decries not just anti-sodomy laws, but the unequal treatment of Urnings under the law. He calls sexuality a “right established by nature” and states that “legislators have no right to veto nature.”

In 1879, Ulrichs published his 12th book — entitled “Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love” and then went into self-imposed exile to Naples. He, apparently, felt he had done all he could for Germany and nothing had really changed. He continued to write prolifically in Naples, receiving an honor degree from the University of Naples. He died on July 14, 1895.

Ulrichs legacy would live on. Streets are named after him in Munich, Bremen, Hanover, and Berlin. (Berlin would go onto become something of a gay capital in Europe — as I think many of us know — in the 1920’s. I find it hard to imagine that that could have happened without Ulrichs.) In Munich each year on his birthday, a street party is held that includes lively poetry readings. In the city of L’Aquila, where his grave is, an annual pilgrimage is hosted.

The International Gay and Lesbian Law Association also awards the Karl Heinrich Ulrichs Award in his memory, recognizing those who have contributed to LGBT+ equality.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Newport Sex Scandal

As a native of Rhode Island, I do especially like to cover my state’s LGBTQ+ history, even when it isn’t always pleasant. This is an often forgotten piece of LGBTQ+ history: the Newport sex scandal of 1919.

It all began in February, with two patients at the Naval Training Station in Newport: Thomas Brunelle and Ervin Arnold. Brunelle told Arnold of a subculture to which he belonged, which centered on the Army and Navy YMCA and the Newport Art Club in which civilian homosexuals from the area would meet up with Navy personnel. This was a serious lapse in judgment on Brunelle’s part that I sincerely hope we can blame on heavy medication, but frankly I have no idea.

Now, other naval bases had reports of “moral depravity” including cross-dressing, homosexuality, drug use, etc. But there had yet to be any real sincere effort to investigate and stamp out this “depravity” at the source. That’s what Ervin Arnold decided was needed. He began a personal investigation into Brunelle’s claims, and was able to compile evidence of drug-fueled sex parties that included cross-dressing and “effeminate behavior”. He submitted his report to his superiors. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels was incensed, and immediately wrote to the Governor of Rhode Island, R. Livingston Beeckman, and implored him to clean up the city.

Meanwhile, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delanor Roosevelt pushed for the Department of Justice to launch a full-scale investigation into these allegations. The Department of Justice refused but Roosevelt would not take no for an answer. Roosevelt, planning out his route to the White House, believed that waging a war against “immorality” would skyrocket his political career — and since this was just before Prohibition would begin, that wasn’t a bad call. Roosevelt ordered an undercover investigation without DOJ approval. All the details for this secret operation including its funding and personnel were hidden in a document labeled “Section A, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy”.

Ervin Arnold, having been a private detective prior to his naval days, was placed in charge of the operation. He selected operatives based on their good looks, and instructed them to keep their eyes “and ears open for all conversation and make himself free with this class of men, being jolly and good natured, being careful to pump these men for information, making them believe that he is what is termed in the Navy as a ‘boy humper,’ making dates with them and so forth.”

In short, Ervin Arnold hired a bunch of good looking sailors to seduce other sailors. And the sailors he hired reported on their activities in great detail and seldom, if ever, mentioned hesitating at all in the sexual acts that their investigation “required” them to partake in. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer protected the operatives from facing any criminal charges for their own sexual conduct by stating that their actions lacked criminal intent. He called this the “feigned accomplice” principle.

The investigation led several Naval officers, including Thomas Brunelle, to desert. Several others were dishonorably discharged. 15 sailors were arrested for criminal acts of sodomy. Each one of these fifteen men was brought before a military tribunal where one of their former sexual partners testified in graphic detail of exactly what sexual acts they partook in. These testimonies led directly to their convictions. Some, such as a man named Frank Dye, were sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison. (Dye received presidential clemency, however, and only served five years and three months of that sentence.)

The trials received national attention — effectively ruining the lives of every single one of the accused, even those who had not been arrested. This attention only piqued more when Reverend Samuel N. Kent — the Episcopalian Navy Chaplain — was tried for “perversion”. Kent’s trial brought the attention of the American public. This turned out not to be a good thing for Roosevelt, as most of the population found the tactics to be abhorrent. When Kent was found not guilty, public opinion turned against the investigation even more.

The judge in Kent’s case did not buy into the “feigned accomplice” principal and insisted that either the operatives had engaged in unlawful conduct willingly, or had been given unlawful orders by their superiors. A group of clergymen from Newport wrote a lengthy and scathing letter to President Woodrow Wilson, which was published in the Providence Journal, condemning the Newport investigation. An investigation into the conduct and oversight of the Newport investigation was launched — over the course of that investigation, Roosevelt resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in order to be a Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, on the ticket with James M. Cox. They lost — and this ongoing scandal was likely a large part of that.

On July 21, 1921, the US Senate Committee on Naval Affairs renounced the tactics employed by Roosevelt and Daniels, calling the entire affair “reprehensible”. It was not, of course, because they were concerned about the homosexual men who’s lives had been ruined. The Committee further stated that using enlisted servicemen as they had “violated the code of the American citizen and ignored the rights of every American boy who enlisted in the navy to fight for his country.” It was not, however, a pure condemnation of all that had happened. The Committee stated that “immoral conditions” of Newport were “a menace to both the health and the morale of the men in the naval training station.”

Roosevelt, for his part, felt as though he was the victim of a mud-slinging campaign. He lamented that the Navy should not be used as a football in the game of politics, and even wrote to Josephus Daniels saying: “what is the use of fooling any longer with a bunch who have made up their minds that they do not care for the truth and are willing to say anything which they think will help them politically.” Ironic considering he was literally doing all of this to end up in the White House. Any long-lasting effect this might have had on his political career were negated when he contracted a paralytic illness in August of 1921. (Which may or may not have been polio, depending on who you ask.)

Although the public has by-and-large forgotten about this incident, it’s effects have been far-reaching. After all, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell — as oppressive as that policy was — was largely an effort to protect us from another one of these types of situations. (I just simplified our country’s military history with homosexuality a *lot*. But, even then, you couldn’t just let gay people be in the military. Sodomy was still against Federal law until 2003.) This was certainly one early and very recognizable case of the United States government formally treating gay men as second class citizens with less rights — even enlisted gay men.

I’ve also read that this was the first nationally recognized gay sex scandal — which may or may not be true. I certainly haven’t found any older ones but I’m also not a real historian, I just play one on the Internet.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)