The Men Behind the Man: Abraham Lincoln’s Gay Lovers

Back in 2010 I wrote a two part piece on this blog and another pieces all focused on Abraham Lincoln's likely same sex sexual orientation.  As noted, two pieces appeared as posts on this blog and the third appeared in the old Bilerico Project to which I was a contributor for a number of years.   The pieces elicited both positive and negative reactions.  At the time I noted that the pieces had "created quite a bit of commentary and several personal attacks in comments (which I did not approve for publication because of their nastiness). I was particularly surprised by the number of comments by authors who were incensed that I referred to Lincoln as “gay” as opposed to “bisexual.” . . . to these folks it was nothing short of heresy to recognize that someone gay can have sex with an opposite sex partner – even if it is merely only the result of trying to do “what’s expected by church and society” - and still be GAY.  I continue to believe that the issue IS relevant and it is through accurate history that minds can sometimes be opened and prejudice defeated."  Ironically, after writing my first 2010 post, a reader forwarded me a copy of the last segment of William Hanchett’s piece in the Lincoln Herald (which apparently is not available on line and the contents of which can be found summarized here).  Now, Mark Segal has republished a 2011 piece on the issue in the newly revived Bilerico Project that looks further at the men who were Lincoln's likely gay lovers.  Here are lengthy article excerpts (read the entire piece):

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) may likely be the most studied and researched of the United States presidents. The first reference to him possibly being “homosexual” came from notable Lincoln expert Carl Sandburg in his 1926 biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. In describing the early relationship between Lincoln and his close friend, Joshua Fry Speed, Sandburg wrote “a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets.” This line got historians talking about an issue from which many had previously shied away.

Still, the biography was written in the early 20th century, a time when such topics were only discussed in whispers. But by including the line, Sandburg felt the relationship deserved acknowledgement. It wasn’t until 2005 when the first book was published on Lincoln’s relationships with men, C.A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.

Detractors of Lincoln’s possible homosexuality, such as historian David Herbert Donald, often say there is no new evidence on Lincoln. Yet historians continue to draw fresh conclusions from Lincoln’s letters. Those who attempt to refute Lincoln’s possible “homosexuality” usually focus on one particular incident — of the many — that supports the theory: his relationship with Speed.

Yet history, like everything else, is open to interpretation and influenced by new findings. Bias also motivated the retelling of historical events. The best example of bias in American history is the story of Thomas Jefferson and his slave/concubine Sally Hemings, which was not accepted as a truthful account until 1998 — and only after DNA proof. African-American citizens — not historians — led the effort to give Hemings her rightful place in history. Likewise with Lincoln, most historians have referred to isolated facts rather than the pattern of events in his life to tell his personal story. Will history once again prove historians wrong?

This poem, about a boy marrying a boy, is thought to be the first reference to gay marriage in U.S. history. A 20-year-old man in rural Indiana wrote it 182 years ago. That young man was Abraham Lincoln. . . . . The poem was included in the first major biography of Lincoln, written by his law partner, William Herndon. Revisionists omitted it in subsequent editions. It didn’t reappear in Herndon’s edition until the 1940s.

In 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield, Ill., to practice law and enter politics. That’s where he met the two men who would be his greatest friends throughout his life. One, Joshua Fry Speed, became his bed partner for a while; the other was law partner Herndon. Beyond the revelation that Lincoln and Speed had an intimate friendship, little has been written about how diligently Speed worked for Lincoln’s legal and political career. Speed’s name popped up in many of Lincoln’s legal filings and on the Illinois Whig Party’s central committee. The two were almost inseparable. Most Lincoln historians agree this relationship was the strongest and most intimate of the president’s life. What they don’t agree on is why they slept in the same bed together for four years when they had the space and means to sleep separately, as was expected of men their age.

Both bachelors reportedly were hesitant to tie the knot, but it was a de-facto requirement to have a wife if you wanted to move in political circles — or at least create the perception of interest in marriage. Both Speed and Lincoln dreaded this “requirement,” as evidenced by Lincoln’s letters. Speed takes the marriage plunge first . . . . At this precise time, Lincoln suffered a mental breakdown. Historians have been all over the map as to what caused the breakdown, but it was so intense that friends, including Herndon, worried he would take his own life. Lincoln only recovered after Speed invited him to visit him and his new wife in Kentucky.

Lincoln’s most emotional and intimate writings were contained in his letters to Speed. From the time they lived together until shortly after Speed married and moved to Kentucky, Lincoln always signed his letters “forever yours” or “yours forever.”

In 1862, Lincoln met Capt. David Derickson, who served as his bodyguard, providing protection for the president when he commuted from the White House to his cottage at the Soldier’s Home. Lincoln spent about a quarter of his presidency at the cottage, which allowed him some escape from D.C.’s summers and from public interruptions at the White House.

Lincoln and his bodyguard became close, and historians Tripp and David Herbert Donald noted two recorded mentions that Lincoln and Derickson slept in the same bed: Derickson’s superior, Lt. Col. Thomas Chamberlain, and Tish Fox, the wife of Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus Fox, both wrote about it. Tish wrote in her diary that Derickson was devoted to Lincoln and “when Mrs. Lincoln was away, they slept together.” . . . . The Bucktails witnessed the relationship between the president and his bodyguard, which was public enough that they knew Derickson kept him company when Mrs. Lincoln traveled, and wore his nightshirt. Historical interpretations aside, why would the president, then in his 50s, sleep with his bodyguard?

Taken individually, accounts of Lincoln with other men may not offer enough proof that he was gay. But the pattern reveals a man who, in his sexual prime, slept exclusively with another man for four years — two of those years (according to Donald) without romancing someone of the opposite sex; who wrote a poem about a boy marrying a boy; and who, as president, slept with his bodyguard.

From historical records, one can conclude that Lincoln enjoyed sleeping with men. He did so when it was acceptable in youth and poverty, and also when he was older and successful. While it is documented that Lincoln slept with several men, there is only one confirmed woman who shared his bed — Todd.

Of the men, we don’t know how many reciprocated with emotion. To find one same-sex soul mate in the culture of the 1800s seems a miracle; Lincoln may have sought others when Speed went on to have the life that was expected of men of the time. In that period, only one man in 300 did not marry. 

And Speed was apparently the love of his life. Lincoln resisted marriage as long as he could, only marrying after Speed was well-entrenched in his own marriage — a phase that coincided with Lincoln’s “mental distress.”

The debate - and denial of some - will continue.  Personally, I find it sad that many are afraid to embrace accurate history because it disturbs the neat little patterns they like in their world view.  An unrelated example is a 1960 book on the generalship of Alexander the Great written by military historian British General J.F.C. Fuller (among other things, his awards included Order of the Bath, Order of the British Empire, Distinguished Service Order) who while lauding Alexander's generalship, statesman ship and political acumen has a near conniption fit over the suggestion that Alexander was what we would now consider gay.  Like Lincoln, the love of Alexander's life was Hephastion, a male friend and lover who for a time ranked only below Alexander in Alexander's imperial regime.   One has to wonder about the reflex reaction of those who prefer to protect their prejudices rather than embrace the truth and accurate history.

California Governor Signs Bill Requiring Schools to Teach Gay History

"History should be honest," Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown said about the gay history legislation.

One of the reasons I believe that gays are so easily maligned by the "godly folk" is that so few Americans know about our contributions to society.  And too often the local media and even entertainment outlets censor news and movies that have positive gay themes.  A case in point?  The Imitation Game which looks at the role of Alan Turning in breaking the German enigma code in WWI has hit the theaters.  Is it playing anywhere in Hampton Roads, Virginia, an area with 1.7 million people? Nope, not at a single theater.  In fact there is an online effort to demand that the movie be shown in the region.  California Gov. Jerry Brown seeks to change this problem in his state and has signed a bill that will require public schools in the state to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.  One can already hear the spittle flecked rants of the Christofascists over having accurate history of gays portrayed.  A leading mouth piece is the hate group, Traditional Values Coalition ("TVC") which regularly disseminates baldfaced lies about LGBT individuals..   Here are highlights from CNN (which true to form fails to note that TVC is a hate group):

Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday he had signed a bill that will require public schools in the state to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

The bill, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, will also require teachers to provide instruction on the role of people with disabilities.

"History should be honest," Brown said in a statement.

"This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books. It represents an important step forward for our state, and I thank Senator Leno for his hard work on this historic legislation."

"Today we are making history in California by ensuring that our textbooks and instructional materials no longer exclude the contributions of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Americans," Sen. Leno said in a statement.

The bill, which passed the state legislature this month and the senate in April, according to the senator's office, is not without controversy.

It has drawn criticism from some religious and conservative groups, like the Traditional Values Coalition, a lobby organization that says it speaks on behalf of more than 43,000 churches.

"It is an outrage that Governor Jerry Brown has opened the classroom door for homosexual activists to indoctrinate the minds of California's youth, since no factual materials would be allowed to be presented," Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, said in a statement.  "If parents don't already have their children out of public schools, this should cause them to remove them," he said.

The true outrage is that hate merchants like Sheldon - who makes a nice living fanning hatred - are afforded any respect or deference whatsoever.   As for honesty, no one lies more than the "godly Christian" crowd.

Has Hephaestion's Grave Been Found?

Jared Leto as Hephaestion

I love history and I've read everything I can get my hands on about Alexander the Great and by extension, Hephaestion, Alexander's life long friend, second in command of the empire for a time,  and many believe Alexander's lover.  It is well documented that when Hephaestion died, Alexander was inconsolable and his mourning was extreme.  Alexander's own tomb which was in Alexandria, Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty, has been lost, but now some suggest that Hephaestion's tomb may have been discovered.  Discovery has details.  Here are excerpts:

A skeleton has emerged from the Alexander the Great-era tomb in Amphipolis in northern Greece, according to a news announcement by the Greek Ministry of Culture on Wednesday.

At least one archaeologist has suggested that the remains, if male, could belong to Hephaestion, a close friend and possible lover of Alexander the Great -- or someone like him.

Archaeologists led by Katerina Peristeri found the human remains in a box-shaped grave. The 10.6 by 5.1-foot limestone burial was found at about 5.3 feet beneath the floor of the third chamber in the massive tomb site.

According to Dorothy King, a classical archaeologist not involved in the excavation, . . . . noted the finding points to the deceased being someone uniquely important.  “A burial like this in a sarcophagus, a whole body rather than a box with ashes, is unusual in Macedonia,” King told Discovery News.

According to the scholar, most people who died abroad were buried in foreign land and only very important people like Alexander and Hephaestion, Alexander the Great’s close friend and possible lover, were embalmed to be returned.

“I think that if the bones are male, they are most likely to be those of someone like Hephaestion,” King wrote in her blog.

“The remains show that the sarcophagus was very elaborate and made of precious materials, as the sources say his funerary cortege was,” she added.

Hephaestion was a Macedonian nobleman and a battlefield general in the army of Alexander and was Alexander’s closest friend since childhood. The two were tutored under Aristotle.

Although more than one historian has suggested that the handsome Hephaestion had a physical relationship with his emperor, no contemporary source states that Alexander and Hephaestion were lovers.

Yet, according to Guy MacLean Rogers, professor of history at Wellesley College and the author of "Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness," modern sexual categories like homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual did not exist at the time.

Whatever the nature of their relationship, when Hephaestion died in Ecbatana (modern Hamadan) in western Iran in October 324 B.C., Alexander mourned his loss by shaving his own hair, not eating for days, executing Hephaestion's doctor, and commissioning an expensive funeral.

King on her blog also notes in part as follows:

I have been wondering for a while whether Hephaestion could also have been buried at Amphipolis. The size to me makes people like Nearchos unlikely, and whilst the idea that it was built for Alexander the Great is still the most likely possibility now that most other suggestions have been discarded, the one other possibility has been Hephaestion. 

Alexander the Great modeled himself on his hero Achilles, and visited his tomb at Achilleion. Achilles had Patroclus, and Alexander had Hephaestion.

Hephaestion died before Alexander, and Alexander ordered his body returned to Macedonia in an elaborate funerary cortege to be buried in a magnificent tomb there. We know that if the tomb had been started, Perdiccas cancelled work on it once Alexander died (here).

Also we know that Alexander ordered a cult to Hephaestion - not as an important god like Alexander, but still honours and so forth.

In Egypt the cult of Alexander is very well attested, and Hephaestion was often honoured alongside him.

So that's why I think that if the bones are male, they are most likely to be those of someone like Hephaestion.

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

As noted in one or more previous posts, much of the disaster which is today's Middle East stems from the aftermath of World War I when the victorious French and British carved up what had been the Ottoman Empire and drew boundaries to nations such as what became Iraq with no regard to the ethnic and religious divisions of the region - much to the dismay of T.E. Lawrence, a/k/a Lawrence of Arabia.  Even the ongoing violence in Gaza traces in part back to the bad decisions made in 1919-1920.  A book, "Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East," looks at this reality and also the troubled life of the real Lawrence of Arabia who may have suffered from what we now know as post traumatic stress disorder.  Here are excerpts from an introduction to the book:

On the morning of October 30, 1918, Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence received a summons to Buckingham Palace.  The  king had requested his presence.

The collective mood in London that day was euphoric. For the past four years and three months, Great Britain and much of the rest of the world had been consumed by the bloodiest conflict in recorded history, one that had claimed the lives of some sixteen million people across three continents. Now, with a speed that scarcely could have been imagined mere weeks earlier, it was all coming to an end. On that same day, one of Great Britain’s three principal foes, the Ottoman Empire, was accepting peace terms, and the remaining two, Germany and Austria-Hungary, would shortly follow suit. Colonel Lawrence’s contribution  to that war effort had been in its Middle  Eastern theater,  and he too was caught quite off guard by its rapid close. At the beginning of that month, he had still been in the field assisting in the capture of Damascus, an event that heralded the collapse of the Ottoman army. Back in England for less than a week, he was already consulting with those senior British statesmen and generals tasked with mapping out the postwar borders of the Middle East, a once-fanciful endeavor that had now become quite urgent. Lawrence was apparently under the impression that his audience with King George V that morning was to discuss those ongoing deliberations.

He was mistaken. Once at the palace, the thirty-year-old  colonel was ushered into a ballroom where, flanked by a half dozen dignitaries and a coterie of costumed courtiers, the king and queen soon entered. A low cushioned stool had been placed just before the king’s raised dais, while to the monarch’s immediate right, the lord chamberlain held a velvet pillow on which an array of medals rested. After introductions were made, George V fixed his guest with a smile: “I have some presents for you.” 


Except Lawrence didn’t kneel. Instead, just as the ceremony got under way, he quietly informed the king that he was refusing the honor.  There followed a moment of confusion. Over the nine-hundred-year history of the monarchy, the refusal of knighthood was such an extraordinary event that there was no protocol for how to handle it. Eventually, King George returned to the lord chamberlain’s pillow the medal he had been awkwardly holding, and under the baleful gaze of a furious Queen Mary, Colonel Lawrence turned and walked away.

TODAY,  MORE  THAN  seven  decades  after  his death,  and  nearly  a century since the exploits that made him famous, Thomas Edward Lawrence—“Lawrence of Arabia,” as he is better known—remains one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures of the twentieth century. Despite scores of biographies, countless scholarly studies, and at least three  movies, including one considered a masterpiece, historians have never quite decided what to make of the young, bashful Oxford scholar who rode into battle at the head of an Arab army and changed history.

One reason for the contentiousness over his memory has to do with the terrain he traversed. Lawrence was both eyewitness to and participant in some of the most pivotal events leading to the creation of the modern Middle East, and this is a corner of the earth where even the simplest assertion is dissected and parsed and argued over. In the unending debates over the roots of that region’s myriad fault lines, Lawrence has been alternately extolled and pilloried, sanctified, demonized, even diminished to a footnote, as political goals require.

[T]he cardinal sin of these debates is that they obscure the most beguiling riddle of Lawrence’s story: How did he do it? How did a painfully shy Oxford archaeologist without a single day of military training become the battlefield commander of a foreign revolutionary army, the political master strategist who foretold so many of the Middle Eastern calamities to come?

The short answer might seem somewhat anticlimactic: Lawrence was able to become “Lawrence of Arabia” because no one was paying much attention.  Amid the vast slaughter occurring across the breadth of Europe in World War I, the Middle Eastern theater  of that war was of markedly secondary importance. Within that theater, the Arab Revolt to which Lawrence became affiliated was, to use his own words, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” . . . .  in the view of British war planners, if a young army officer left largely to his own devices could sufficiently organize the fractious Arab tribes to harass their Turkish enemy, all to the good. Of course, it wouldn’t be very long before both the Arab Revolt and the Middle East became vastly more important to the rest of the world, but this was a possibility barely considered indeed, it could hardly have been imagined—at the time.

But this isn’t the whole story either. That’s because the low regard with which British war strategists viewed events in the Middle East found reflection in the other great warring powers. As a result, these powers, too, relegated their military efforts in the region to whatever could be spared from the more important  battlefields elsewhere, consigning the task of intelligence gathering and fomenting rebellion and forging alliances to men with résumés just as modest and unlikely as Lawrence’s.

[T]here remain at least two compelling reasons why T. E. Lawrence and his story should reside firmly at its center. The  modern Middle East was largely created by the British. It was they who carried the Allied war effort in the region during World War I and who, at its close, principally fashioned its peace. It was a peace presaged by the nickname given the region by covetous Allied leaders in war- time: “the Great Loot.” As one of Britain’s most important and influential agents in that arena, Lawrence was intimately connected to all, good and bad, that was to come.

Second, and as the episode at Buckingham Palace attests, this was an experience that left him utterly  changed, unrecognizable in certain respects even to himself. Victory carries a moral burden the vanquished never know, and as an architect of momentous events, Lawrence would be uniquely haunted by what he saw and did during the Great Loot.

Though not mentioned in the introduction, relevantt to me at least is the fact that Lawrence is considered to have been gay - he once wrote that the love of his life had been an Arab youth who died during the war and left Lawrence emotionally devastated.  Despite the Christofascist and Catholic Church efforts to denigrate gays, we have played critical roles through out history and on many occasions, perhaps the world's future would have been better if others had listened to our insights.

The Middle East - What We Should Have Learned from Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence's plans for the Middle East included separate areas for the predominately Kurdish and Arab areas in present-day Iraq.

As the violence and sectarian hatred in the Middle East continues, some are recognizing that much of today's problems trace back to disastrous decisions made in the wake of World War I when the victorious allies carved up the former Ottoman Empire based on their own needs and rivalries with little regard for the religious and ethic divisions that spread across the region.  It's not that they were not warned about the dangers of what they were doing.  Rather, hubris and colonial ambitions overrode what should have been common sense if one wanted long term stability in the absence of overwhelming outside forces such as the Ottoman Empire had provided or local dictators who could at least temporarily keep the lid on the sectarian and ethnic rivalries.  A piece in The Raw Story looks at the advice of T.E. Lawrence, a/k/a Lawrence of Arabia, that should have been followed.  Here are excerpts:

In America, if we reflect on World War I at all, we think mostly about the battlefields and trenches of Europe and tend to forget another front in that war — against the Ottoman Empire of the Turks that dominated the Middle East. A British Army officer named T.E. Lawrence became a hero in the Arab world when he led nomadic Bedouin tribes in battle against Turkish rule. Peter O’Toole immortalized him in the epic movie, “Lawrence of Arabia.”

At war’s end, Lawrence’s vision of Arab independence was shattered when the Versailles peace conference confirmed the carving of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine into British and French spheres of influence; arbitrary boundaries drawn in the sand to satisfy the appetites of empire – Britain’s Foreign Office even called the former Ottoman lands “The Great Loot.”

The hopeful Lawrence drew his own “peace map” of the region, one that paid closer heed to tribal allegiances and rivalries. The map could have saved the world a lot of time, trouble and treasure, one historian said, providing the region “with a far better starting point than the crude imperial carve up.” Lawrence wrote to a British major in Cairo: “I’m afraid you will be delayed a long time, cleaning up all the messes and oddments we have left behind us.”

[T]hen and now, Lawrence’s understanding of the ancient and potent jealousies of the people among whom he had lived and fought generally was ignored. In 1920, he wrote for the Times of London an unsettling and prophetic article about Iraq – then under the thumb of the British. He decried the money spent, the number of troops and loss of life, and warned that his countrymen had been led “into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information…. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It… may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.”

Not for the last time in the Middle East would disaster come from the blundering ignorance and blinding arrogance of foreign intruders convinced by magical thinking of their own omnipotence and righteousness. How soon we forget. How often we repeat.

Far Right Flips Out (Again) Over Gay History Month

As with anything that challenges their house of cards belief system or counters their deeply loved prejudices - be it climate change, demographic changes, the growing aversion of institutional religion in the under 30 generations - the far right/Christofascists' approach is to demand that no facts or information be disseminated that shows that they are in fact living in a fantasy world detached from objective reality.  And nothing upsets these folks more than being reminded that gays have existed throughout history, often accomplishing notable things and having an impact on the course of history.  With October being gay history month, the usual eruption of anti-gay batshitery is in full swing and spewing from many of the usual demagogues.  Towleroad looks at the verbal diarrhea spewing forth:

October is LGBT History Month and schools across the nation are educating their students on key historical figures and events such as Stonewall and Harvey Milk. Right on cue, mouthpieces of the far right are engaging in histrionics with Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver claiming that the "innocence of our children is under assault."

If parents think our school children should be focused on science and math, not sex and murder, they need to talk to teachers, principals, and school boards to ensure that this program is stopped.

The funny thing about sex and murder is that they make up a very, very substantial part of history. Black History Month, for example, would have to go because black history in America is riddled with the rape and murder of slaves, as well as the murders of many prominent black leaders who fought for equality. History is not pretty, but it must be examined warts-and-all to be learned from.

Over at the Cherokee Tribune, Roger Hines similarly bemoans Georgia's Kennesaw State University embracing LGBT History Month. Rather than claiming assault on children, he says that the university is "instead of honoring the hand that has fed it, has taken a cultural stand that is anathema to those who foot its bills." Because evidently not a single LGBT person or ally has paid taxes or tuition to the university, ever. The crowning moment in his piece is when, in the middle of defining each of the letters of LGBTIQ, he says:

“I” is for intersex. Don’t ask me about this one, and if you know, don’t tell. I don’t want to know.

Nothing adds to one's credibility in the debate of a social issue quite like open and proud ignorance worn as a medal of accomplishment. Hines snidely concludes that he hopes that KSU provides services for conservative Christians amidst all their inclusivity . . .

The Impact of Homosexuality on Fashion

Fashion Week

If all the gays who working the fashion and beauty industries suddenly disappeared, the world might not come to an end, but things would certainly be more drab.  Imagine for a moment the Southern Baptist Convention crowd or folks from Family Research Council designing the new spring or fall fashion line ups.  It's scary - just like the Christofascists in these foul organizations.  As the Washington Post reports, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City is putting on an exhibit called “A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk” which will run through the end of the year holidays.  Here are some article highlights:

The stereotype of the gay designer is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it is often assumed to be a fact. Whether industry insider or casual observer, people often presume that a male designer is gay until he announces himself otherwise. And while there are a host of successful, brand-name women in the industry, lesser-known ones have gone on record about feeling disadvantaged because of decision makers’ subconscious belief that gay men make better designers.

There are no statistics about the numbers of gay men in the fashion industry. And, as fashion historian Valerie Steele once noted, “there is no gay gene for creativity.” But the fashion industry has been undeniably more welcoming of openly gay men than other fields have been.

Yet no one in the mainstream has ever tried to examine the impact of homosexuality on fashion, says Steele, who is director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. 

 

From an academic, historical and cultural point of view: “It’s like an open secret,” Steele says. “Gays and lesbians had been hidden from [fashion] history.  “We’re putting them back in.”

Steele and co-curator Fred Dennis spent two years researching the extent to which gay men and lesbians worked in the fashion industry and the ways in which their participation shaped aesthetics. By far, however, gay men received the bulk of the exhibition’s attention.

The exhibition begins in the 18th century, when both men and women dressed to reflect their place in society.  Men styled themselves to display power and wealth. Their ability to bed anyone they pleased, whether male or female, was an extension of that omnipotence, Steele says. To be a peacock — with the flourish of a patterned handkerchief, a colorful bow tie or a jeweled brooch — was to be an influential aristocrat.

But soon, cross-dressing “mollies” and effeminate “macaronis” from meager circumstances began to gather in secret societies, private clubs and dark corners — causing a stir by blurring gender lines. Dandified style started to become egalitarian — far too democratic for the power brokers’ taste. Capitalism’s rising industrialists rejected color and frippery, leaving it associated with homosexuality. 

The 21st century brought gay men who were crafting traditional styles yet assembling them with more glamour and greater sex appeal. And, wearing them with more confidence.
The sensibility was not part of some secret, coded language among outsiders; it was the accepted language of fashion — definitive and admired.
The FIT exhibition seeds a conversation about the way in which designers — whether gay or identifying somewhere closer to the middle of the sexual spectrum — have used fashion as their own form of self-definition and have wrestled with notions of femininity vs. masculinity in their collections. Ultimately, it asks how those machinations have altered the culture at large. Today more than ever, people are comfortable addressing sexuality.

The exhibition is a reminder that it’s just as important to look at what is being said, as it is to listen. “Fashion is communication in a way other than speaking,” Steele says. And when people are silenced, whether in New York in the 1950s or Russia today, fashion can be the only way for them to tell their story.

Bayard Rustin – Openly Gay Activist who Mentored Martin Luther King, Jr. and Planned the March on Washignton

Martin Luther King, Jr., left, walks with Bayard Rustin in this 1956 photo. Rustin was King’s mentor and was the architect of King’s 1963 March on Washington.

On this 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a Dream Speech" on the Washington, D.C. mall, there has been all kinds of coverage and descriptions of reminiscences in the so-called main stream media.  Sadly, throughout most of it contains no mention of Bayard Rustin who not only planned much of the march on Washington in 1963, but who also mentored Martin Luther King, Jr.  Unfortunately, this omission is typical of the effort to "de-gay" history and deny prominent out gays their places in history.   A piece in the Press Telegram looks at this overlooked history.  Here are excerpts:

Bayard Rustin, a leader of the civil rights movement, mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. and chief organizer of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, struggled much of his life against racism and homophobia..

Openly gay, he remained in the background for the sake of the movement, only to be sacrificed by its leaders as a political liability. Nevertheless, Rustin made crucial contributions to the civil rights movement and emerged as a gay rights activist.

BAYARD RUSTIN had a dream.

As a tireless and pioneering crusader for civil rights, social justice and economic equality, his life rested on the bedrock conviction that ordinary people could change the world.

Rustin also practiced what he preached – He helped create the civil rights movement, mentored Martin Luther King, Jr. on the practice of nonviolent protest and was the architect of the historic 1963 March on Washington
However, Rustin was openly gay and deemed a political liability. Many advisers in the civil rights movement told him to sit at the back of the bus.

“Rustin hardly appears in all the voluminous literature produced about the 1960s,” says John D’Emilio, author of the book “Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin.”  “He’s a man without a home in history.”

Rustin has been lost in the shadows of history at least in part because he was a gay man in an era when the stigma attached to this was unrelieved.”

Adds Angela Bowen, assistant professor of women’s studies at Cal State Long Beach, “He was ostracized particularly by black leaders because they were homophobic. They said he would bring disgrace on them because he was gay.

“Bayard knew they were little minded, and he was ahead of his time,” she says.
Long before King, Jr. became a national figure, Rustin routinely put his life on the line as a crusader for racial justice.

Rustin spent three years (1943-46) in a federal penitentiary as a conscientious objector to World War II (He was a Quaker).

A year later, Rustin organized the first “freedom ride” through the South. The riders were beaten, arrested and fined. Rustin served 22 days on a North Carolina chain gang.

In 1956, during the initial stages of the Montgomery bus boycott, Rustin met the 26-year-old King, Jr. Rustin schooled the young leader in the mechanics of running a nonviolent protest.
 
[I]n 1963, A. Philip Randolph, president of the powerful Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, tapped Rustin to organize the March on Washington.  Rustin and Randolph saw the event as far grander than ending the ruler for sitting at the back of the bus.

They envisioned is as a “catalyst which mobilizes all workers behind demands for a broad and fundamental program of economic justice.”

Rustin was attacked by segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond as a “homosexual, a draft-dodger and a member of the Communist Party,” but this time the civil rights leadership stood by Rustin. After the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Rustin advocated a shift in strategy from protest to electoral politics – precisely at the moment when a more militant generation was taking to the streets in protest. Rustin was attacked as an “Uncle Tom” and viciously gay-baited by younger black nationalists.

Bayard Rustin to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

Speaking of learning from history, President Obama is taking a step that one can only hope will open the eyes of some of the cretin like black pastors who continue to be the willing water carriers - dare we say trained circus dogs? - for white supremacist leaning anti-gay organizations.  He has announced that Bayard Rustin - Martin Luther King's gay right hand man who organized the 1963 march on Washington - will receive a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.   Sadly, Rustin has been largely hidden from the history of the Civil Rights movement because of his sexual orientation.  A piece in Bilerico Project looks at the news.  Here are excerpts:

The White House announced today that the venerable Bayard Rustin -- a pioneer in the African-American and LGBT civil rights movements, confidante and advisor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington -- will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor.

A press release from the White House notes that the award, which will be presented in a ceremony later this year, is given to individuals who have "made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

The press release gives the following biography for Rustin:

Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all. An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights.

LGBT organizations reacted with praise. HRC:

"Bayard Rustin's contributions to the American civil rights movement remain paramount to its successes to this day," said HRC President Chad Griffin. "His role in the fight for civil rights of African-Americans is all the more admirable because he made it as a gay man, experiencing prejudice not just because of his race, but because of his sexual orientation as well."

Rustin was active in the struggle for civil rights for sixty years, from organizing early freedom rides in the 1940s, to serving as key advisor to Dr. King, to helping found the A. Philip Randolph Institute. But his advocacy was far from limited to the rights of African Americans. He worked to end apartheid in South Africa, fought for the freedom of Soviet Jews, worked to protect the property of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, and helped highlight the plight of Vietnamese "boat people." And in the 1980s, he also spoke up for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, testifying in support of anti-discrimination legislation in New York. "Bayard Rustin dedicated his life to advocating for fairness and equality and overcame prejudice to help move our nation forward," added Griffin.

It is sad that Rustin did not receive the recognition he deserved while he was living.