By Emily Moore [Edited by Georgia Wood and Tertia Bloor]
Anne Lister (1791-1840) was an avid explorer, heiress and Yorkshire landowner who, according to Chris Roulston, was Britain’s ‘first modern lesbian’.[1] The gentlewoman’s four-million-word diary, written between 1806 and 1840, has provided incredible insight into upper-class life within the Regency period. What makes Lister even more incredible, however, is her frankness concerning her subversive sexuality, declaring through encoded passages that she ‘love[d] and only love[d] the fairer sex’ in an era dominated by rampant homophobia.[2] This love for ‘the fairer sex’, which eventually accumulating Lister partaking within ‘the first lesbian marriage to be held in Britain’, accounted for over ten percent of her angst-ridden entries concerning her relationships, erotic encounters, and queer selfhood.[3]
Jerrold Seigel defines relational and reflective selfhood as the understanding of subjectivity in relation to others and the internal consciousness respectively. In her sustained focus upon both erotic experience and reflections upon emotional trauma amidst her stiflingly orthodox society, Lister successfully constructs her own.[4] This essay will therefore closely examine Lister’s navigation of queer selfhood within her writings, and how her linguistic and cultural limitations impacted upon this. In doing so, I shall place particular focus into internalised homophobia, trauma and self-loathing experienced by upper-class queer women throughout the early nineteenth century.
Until the widespread publication of Lister’s diary at the end of the 1980s, it was widely assumed that nineteenth century women ‘could not develop a lesbian identity, because no such notion existed within their culture’.[5] In 1811, for instance, a judge had declared homosexual behaviours between women to be an ‘impossible’ feat, and therefore unpunishable under the law, a sentiment still echoed years later by Queen Victoria following the passing of the omission of lesbianism within the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.[6] This is not to say that lesbian relationships did not widely emerge throughout this period; as Clarke observes, women of all classes were certainly able to engage in ‘passionate friendships’ with one another, often involving ‘kiss[ing], embrac[ing], and increasingly exchanging romantic letters’, even if they were unable to coherently express such desire through semantics.[7] This general lack of awareness for such ‘passionate friendships’ within both the self and society therefore led to the limited development of lesbian subculture and community within Regency Britain; if such subcultures did exist, there were extremely limited to bourgeoisie lesbians, and even then only those within the ‘sophisticated and cosmopolitan circles of intellectuals and theatre people in London and Bath’.[8]
Even if Lister had encountered such subculture, Clarke notes, it would only have been long after her ‘intense sexual relationships’ with other women, only ‘after she had begun trying to develop her own sense of a lesbian self’. If Lister had encountered any explicit notions of lesbianism prior to this, it would most likely have exclusively been through studying the Sapphic Greeks through her classical education.[9] Of course, such an education was only available to very few privileged women, highlighting just one limitation of Lister’s diary as a means of investigating queer identity and selfhood; Lister’s experience was by no means indicative of the average woman, so cannot provide an accurate insight into the life of every queer individual. With the construction of queer identity and selfhood within the nineteenth century only truly accessible to the intelligentsia, such awareness within itself truly was a privilege.
Such context brings us to a widely debated issue within modern historiography that is no means exclusive to her - that is, the correct way to refer to Lister’s identity from a modern analysis. Facing linguistic limitations due to a lack of knowledge and discourse surrounding
contemporary queer identity, Lister was severely limited when it came to labelling her desires. Subsequently, Lister frequently referred to herself as ‘quere [sic]’, despite its contemporary usage as a homophobic slur, and used she/her pronouns throughout the duration of her diaries.[10] By modern standards, there is no denying that Lister would most certainly be considered to be ‘lesbian’ by critics such as Peter Ackroyd for exclusively experiencing attraction to ‘the fairer sex’ whilst seemingly identifying as a woman.[11] Lister, however, certainly exhibits many of the modern DSM-5’s characteristics of gender dysphoria; the landowner seemingly exhibited signs of gender dysphoria through her abject distress of being ‘womanis[ed] too much’ and experiencing phenomena such as ‘feeling unwell’ (menstruation), as well as ‘presenting’ as male through her decision to adopt the name of Gentleman Jack and dress in male clothing within her daily life.[12] The debate surrounding Lister’s identity is complicated further if the methodologies of modern critics such as Fienberg are considered, who argued that cisgender women could still experience gender dysphoria and present as male whilst identifying as a ‘butch lesbian’, a label that may seem more fitting for Lister’s identity.[13] By all means, Lister may have chosen to identify as either a ‘butch lesbian’ or as a transgender male if such labels were available to her, but they were not. For the duration of this essay, therefore, no label will be retrospectively assigned to Lister; instead, she be referred to using the pronouns and label of ‘quere’ in which she adopted for herself within her diary.
Unfortunately, such confusion surrounding queer identities was a recurring motif within the
life of Lister, although one that seemed to delve much deeper into the gentlewoman’s psyche.
Whilst Lister herself did not doubt that she exclusively experienced attraction to the same sex, observing that she ‘had always had the same turn from infancy’, she certainly appeared to experience an internalised sense of self-hatred as a result of such an identity, perceiving herself as the ‘other’ within her stiflingly conservative society.[14] In one of her earlier passages from 1816, Lister notes how she ‘lament[ed] her fate’ and ‘ought not to like women’, expressing such destructive thoughts to her long-term partner Anne Belcombe to the point that she too was ‘roused to tears’.[15] Even if Lister was confident within her sexual interests, and was fortunate enough to be within a loving long-term relationship with another woman, her reflective sense of self was certainly struggling to accept the true extent of her queer identity. The fact that this aforementioned extract was written in code, and craftily juxtaposed with a diary entry in which she had reflected upon ‘an exhausting day’s sightseeing’, indicates great conflict between her outward, corporeal projection as a confident, Anglican gentlewoman and internalised sense of queer self-loathing.[16]
As Roulston observes, Lister’s ‘transition back-and-forth between’ these two spheres result in the diarist only ‘partially [belonging]’ to ‘the normalcy of [her] present’ to which she so desperately attempts to adhere to.[17] This genuine lack of community, combined
with the lack of lesbian culture that Lister would have been exposed to, may suggest just why
she struggled so much with these feelings of self-loathing and hatred, ones that certainly evoke feelings of sympathy and pity within the modern reader. Through this analysis of Lister’s fragmented reflective self, therefore, one can also establish the importance of community and cultural identity within the development of a healthy and stable sense of reflective selfhood.
Lister’s overt disgust at her queer identity, combined with the linguistic limitations, suggest why great emphasis was placed upon her sexual encounters when forming her sense of relational selfhood. Initially, one may interpret Lister’s extensive documentation of her ‘kisses’ (orgasms) throughout her diary as a hedonistic trophy of her sexual encounters, but the truth may in fact be more simplistic.[18] Typically, individuals lacking in linguistic or cultural awareness often rely on physical, rather than emotional or intellectual, experiences through the construction of selfhood, a phenomena particularly seen within working-class life writings of the nineteenth century.[19] By no means was the privately-educated Lister - whose extensive property portfolio not only included the sprawling Tudor manor of Shibden Hall, but also extended well beyond the local market town of Market Weighton - working-class, but she was nonetheless limited in terms of self-expression. This heavy focus on the physicality of orgasmic pleasure, therefore, could be interpreted as Lister trying to make sense of her confused sense of selfhood and emotional state. For instance, Lister remarked that despite receiving a ‘kiss’ from her ‘friend’ Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe, ‘[Tib] cannot give [her] much pleasure’ unlike her lover Anne Belcombe, the only woman Lister stated she could genuinely ‘feel real pleasure’ with.[20] Clearly, Lister was able to recognise an emotional difference between these two encounters but was unable to coherently differentiate such an experience beyond the boundaries of her linguistic limitations. Instead, faced with no choice but to heavily rely on her physical experiences, Lister attempts to navigate her queer identity through these obstacles, resulting in the somewhat stunted development of her relational self; had she been equipped with our modern vocabulary and ideas around sexuality, it is unlikely that she would have relied upon the physical when reflecting upon herself. This diary, therefore, provides great insight into just how important the accessibility of language is within the construction of relational selfhood.
Although Lister’s reliance upon sexual experience within the construction of her selfhood may not initially appear too troubling, one can also interpret such a phenomenon as highly
destructive regarding her internal consciousness. As Distiller observes, queer women within a stiflingly oppressive environment have often relied on the use of both psychoanalysis and
language when constructing their own identities concerning their desire and pleasures, due to their very autonomy existing ‘beyond the normative grids of representation provided by a
patriarchal society’, subsequently leading to great fears of distress and self-hatred.[21] As
previously observed, Lister was unfortunately no stranger to such feelings, and desperately
tried to find a scientific explanation for her queer identity. In one passage, for instance, after
being told by Belcombe that she did not wish to label their sexual relationship as ‘love’, tried
to find an ‘exterior formation’ to explain her queer desire, admitting that she ‘could not
understand [herself]’ and her attraction to the same sex ‘was all the effect of the mind’, or even the result of some sexual deformity.[22] Through this literal denial and disgust towards her true sexuality within the face of emotional dejection, one can truly see the extreme confusion Lister was faced with as she attempted to navigate both her emotional sensibilities and reflective sense of selfhood amidst relative social isolation. Unable to fully accept her sexuality even to herself, it is clear that her fragmented internal consciousness was genuinely struggling with comprehending her sense of selfhood, even if she did exhibit a ‘powerful sense of identity’ according to Norton.[23] By analysing this extract, therefore, one can use the Lister’s diary to reflect upon the differences between queer identity and selfhood; just because an individual was relatively confident regarding their sexual preferences, it certainly did not necessarily reflect within their sense of self.
Overall, there is no denying that Lister’s diary, whilst at times an emotionally challenging read, is an invaluable source in investigating queer identities and selfhood within nineteenth century Britain. By reflecting on the erotic and romantic, Lister, despite the contemporary linguistic limitations, successfully crafts her queer identity throughout her diary, establishing herself as an eccentric, subversive individual full of love and appreciation for other women. By recognising herself as a societal ‘other’, Lister uses her romantic and sexual encounters to both comment on the emotional consequences of her oppressive society and construct her sense of relational selfhood through the overt yet private sexualisation of her identity. Even if the gentlewoman was clearly insecure and somewhat troubled by her identity, as exhibited by her reflective self, Lister nevertheless provides great insight into some of the sentiments
experienced by an upper-class queer woman in early nineteenth century Britain. The analysis
of Lister’s diaries, therefore, is quintessential in understanding the internalised struggles of a
queer individual, despite any wealth societal privilege she may have externally exhibited,
desperately trying to navigate the very oppressive, conservative society that allegedly
benefitted her.
Notes
[1] C. Roulston, 'The Revolting Anne Lister: The U.K.'s First Modern Lesbian', Journal of Lesbian Studies, 7 (2013), p. 267.
[2] Anne Lister, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister ed. Helena Whitbread (London, 2010), p. xxiii.
[3] Harriet Sherwood, 'Recognition at Last for Gentleman Jack, Britain's 'First Modern Lesbian', The Guardian, (2018) <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/28/anne-lister-blue-plaque-lesbian-marriage-church> [Accessed 07 April 19].
[4] Jessica Patterson, The Making of the Modern Self-Introduction (Queen Mary University of London, 2019).
[5] Anna Clark, 'Anne Lister's Construction of Lesbian Identity', Journal of the History of Sexuality, 7/1 (1996), p. 24.
[6] Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (London: Harper Paperbacks, 1997), p. 281.
[7] Clark, 'Anne Lister's Construction of Lesbian Identity', pp. 23-24.
[8] Clark, 'Anne Lister's Construction of Lesbian Identity', pp. 26.
[9] Clark, 'Anne Lister's Construction of Lesbian Identity', p. 26.
[10] Lister, 'The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister', p. 5.
[11] Peter Ackroyd, Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day (London: Chatto & Windus, 2018), p. 121.
[12] 'American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)', 5th Ed. (Washington DC and London, 2013), pp. 451-460.
[13] Leslie Fienberg, Stone Butch Blues (Ann Arbor: Firebrand Books, 1993), p. 341.
[14] Lister, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, p. 5.
[15] Lister, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, p. 2.
[16] Lister, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, p. 1.
[17] Roulston, 'The Revolting Anne Lister: The U.K.'s First Modern Lesbian', p. 272.
[18] Roulston, 'The Revolting Anne Lister: The U.K.'s First Modern Lesbian', p. 4.
[19] Patterson, The Making of the Modern Self.
[20] Lister, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, p. 85.
[21] Natasha Distiller, 'Another Story: The (Im)Possibility of Lesbian Desire', Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 2/63 (2005), p. 44.
[22] Rictor Norton, Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity (London: Cassell, 2016), p. 200.
[23] Norton, Myth of the Modern Homosexual, p. 200.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
'American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)'. 5th Ed. Washington DC and London, 2013.
Lister, Anne. The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister ed. Helena Whitbread. London, 2010.
Secondary Sources
Ackroyd, Peter. Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day. London: Chatoo & Windus, 2018.
Clark, Anna. 'Anne Lister's Construction of Lesbian Identity'. Journal of the History of Sexuality. 7/1, 1996.
Distiller, Natasha. 'Another Story: The (Im)Possibility of Lesbian Desire'. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity. 2/63, 2005.
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissancee to the Present. London: Harper Paperbacks, 1997.
Fienberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. Ann Arbor: Firebrand Books, 1993.
Patterson, Leslie. The Making of the Modern Self. Queen Mary University of London, 2019.
Norton, Rictor. Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity. London: Cassell, 2016.
Roulston, C. 'The Revolting Anne Lister: The U.K.'s First Modern Lesbian', Journal of Lesbian Studies. 7, 2013.
Sherwood, Harriet. 'Recognition at Last for Gentleman Jack, Britain's 'First Modern Lesbian'. The Guardian, (2018) <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/28/anne-lister-blue-plaque-lesbian-marriage-church> [Accessed 07 April 19].
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