Stories of Pride 2022: Part 2 (1800-1899)

June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in the United States. This month was chosen because it commemorates the Stonewall Uprisings which began on June 28, 1969, when a group of queer folks - led by Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Stormé DeLarverie, and other members of the QTBIPOC community - fought back against the systematic police brutality and abuse they had lived with for decades.

Today, Pride is about so much more than this one moment in time. We’ve always been here, and we always will be. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most sacred ways of preserving and advancing culture. You cannot spell history without “story.” Each Wednesday of this month I’ll be rounding up stories of LGBTQIA+ people, moments, and movements throughout history and from around the world.

This is our culture. These are our stories. And this limited series is just the tip of the iceberg. May it inspire you to seek and share even more of our robust, beautiful, challenging history as a movement, community, and culture.

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Kaomi & King Kamehameha III (1814-1854)

King Kamehameha (full name Keaweaweʻula Kīwalaʻō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa) took the throne as king of Hawaii at the age of 9 years old. Because he was still a child, the title was largely in name only for his first decade as king. Most of the power stayed with the queen regent, Kaʻahumanu, who had recently converted to Calvinist Christianity. Despite unrest and rebellion during these early years, he worked hard to formalize government within the island nation. By 1840 he established the nation’s first constitution. He also managed, during the entirety of his reign, to stave off ever increasing pressure and threat of annexation and colonization by outside nations.

Like many indigenous nations prior to colonization, Hawaiian culture at the time was relatively tolerant and accepting of same-sex relationships. Many of the rulers, including Kamehameha III, were involved in aikāne, a type of long term non-exclusive same-sex relationship that typically began in your teen years. This relationship would have little to no impact on whether or not you went on to have an opposite-sex spouse, children, etc. Although this was the tradition of his people, several documents reflect that Ka’ahumanu would discourage Kamehameha when he appeared to be romantically or sexually interested in boys his age. Nonetheless, Kamehameha rebelled against this newly imported stigma and went public with his ongoing relationship with a man named Kaomi in 1831.

Kaomi, who was half-Tahitian, had been a Protestant minister prior to his relationship with the king. The missionaries on the island were outraged by his leaving his post to be with Kamehameha, and many Hawaiians objected to the relationship because of Kaomi’s Tahitian ancestry. Eventually Kamehameha would place Kaomi in a seat of power, leading to several years of political backlash from the council of chiefs, a failed assassination attempt, and further disdain from the missionaries. After Kaomi’s death in 1835 Kamehameha married Kalama Hakaleleponi Kapakuhaili. He and Queen Kalama had two children, both of whom died in infancy. Eventually he adopted his nephew Alexander Liholiho as his heir. At the time of his death, he had ruled Hawaii as king for nearly 30 years, making his the longest reign over the island nation in its history.

Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876)

Charlotte Cushman, known by many as America’s first real celebrity actress, was a radical force from the very start. As a young woman, she came of age in a time when theater was a raucous place that “proper ladies” wouldn’t dare be seen (at that time the balconies were predominantly used by sex workers and their clients), and nobody believed that anyone born in America could ever amount to any kind of artistic success.

As a teenager, Charlotte took on the role of breadwinner for her family. She moved away at age 19 to pursue a career as an actress, and found success with her portrayal of Lady Macbeth. With the depth, intellect, and intensity she brought to the character, she changed the way it would forever be played. Later, her star power rose to new and unforeseen levels with her portrayal of Romeo. Women playing men, or “breeches roles,” was pretty common, but the combination of her six-foot stature and the empathy with which she played the hero made audiences fall in love. Many love letters sent to her, addressed to “Romeo,” from women who saw this portrayal survive even to this day.

It wasn’t just on stage that she was winning women’s hearts. Charlotte captured (and broke) many women’s hearts offstage, too. She never hid her love affairs with women from the public, nor did she hide the fact that she was often in multiple relationships with women at the same time. Using a portion of the wealth her successful career afforded her, in 1850 she established an artist colony in Rome where she lived with and supported female artists of the day. The interracial household’s residents included Harriet Hosmer and Edmonia Lewis, both of whom were also open about their lesbian identities and relationships.

In 1869, Charlotte Cushman was diagnosed with breast cancer, which prompted her to move back to the United States. She continued to give dramatic readings to adoring sold-out audiences for the final years of her life until her death in 1876.

William Dorsey Swann (1858-1925)

William Dorsey Swann was born enslaved in Hancock, MD, in 1858. Living through the Civil War presented many challenges, but his parents were determined to give their children a happy childhood. Their household was filled with music, dancing, and storytelling. Swann carried this sense of unity and joy in the face of oppression throughout his life.

After Emancipation, Swann took a job as a janitor in Washington D.C. where he learned to read and write in his spare time. During this time he also began throwing events that he called “drags”. A drag consisted of men gathering together to don dresses and corsets, compete in dance competitions, and connect in friendship and romance. Inspired by the Black women wearing crowns atop the floats in the annual Emancipation Day Parade, Swann began taking the title “queen” and quickly became known amongst his friends as “queen of the drag.”

In 1888 the police raided one of Swann’s drags. By this point these events were deemed scandalous for several reasons, one of the biggest being that they were interracial gatherings (in the South just a few decades after the Civil War). During the incident, Swann met the police at the door where he fought them off as long as he could to allow others to escape. He and others in attendance were arrested and he was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Despite the risk in continuing to gather, the drags went on even after this incident.

Upon his death in 1925, officials burned his house to the ground, taking with it all documents and relics that would have provided further insights to the life and experiences of America’s first self-declared “queen of drag,” and one of the earliest known organizers and activists of queer unity and resistance.

Mathilde “Max” de Morny (1863-1944)

Mathilde de Morny was born into a well-known aristocratic family in 19th century France. (Her uncle was Napoleon III.) From an early age, she defied social norms of gender roles and sexuality. As a young woman, she began going by the name “Max” amongst her closest friends and dressing in masculine clothing. At first she had outfits custom made with tear-away skirts that would reveal trousers when she was safely in open-minded company, although after her mother’s death she gave up the facade of conforming to the expected fashion for women of her day altogether. At the time, women dressing in suits wasn’t all that uncommon in Paris, but it was nonetheless still technically illegal. (Fun Fact: It wasn’t until 2013 - yes, you read that right - that the law was officially changed to allow women to wear trousers instead of skirts in public.)

Although several of Mathilde’s romantic relationships were highly publicized, none came under more scrutiny or scandal than that with writer and actress, Colette. In the public eye, their relationship began as simply one of business associates and theatrical colleagues as they performed opposite one another in plays and pantomimes. However, the illusion that this relationship was strictly professional had fully dissipated by the time Mathilde wrote a sensual pantomime for her and Colette portraying an archeologist’s fever dream of being seduced by a mummy (yes, you read that right also).

Mathilde’s pantomime, Rêve d’Egypte, caused a public uproar and would live in infamy for years. Although the show ran without incident for several weeks at different locations, its run at the Moulin Rouge went sideways. With the press leading up to the Moulin Rouge opening filling gossip columns, protesters arrived ready to disrupt the show from the moment the curtain lifted. Eventually the police were called to break up what turned into a full-scale riot, an incident that would provide even more fodder for the newspapers and cartoonists for weeks to come.

Der Eigene, Gay Magazine (1896)

Widely considered to be the first gay magazine, Der Eigene (which translates roughly to “His Own Man”) was founded by Adolf Brand in Germany in 1896. Most of its philosophy is centered around the Greek ideals of same-sex relations and interactions, with a large focus on optimal masculinity. It would run for nearly 40 years, coming to an end as the Nazis rose to power in the early 1930s. It’s estimated to have had about 1,500 subscribers at its peak in the 1920s.

This magazine was the first of several publications that would advocate for homosexual rights in Germany around the turn of the 20th century. Its messages were seemingly radical for the time, despite failing to include women, but speak to the non-linear trajectory of what we consider social and political progress. While we often consider Stonewall the start of the gay liberation and gay rights movement, the fact is there have been many gay rights movements in many places throughout the span of history. What was known as the homosexual rights movement in the period between the fall of the German Empire and rise of the Third Reich is just one example.

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*AUTHOR’S NOTE: Language around what we identify as queerness or homosexuality today has changed a lot throughout history. Nuance over labels and terms is still a hot and ever evolving topic. For the sake of telling these (hi)stories, I have utilized different terms as I saw best fit to convey the meaning and context to a general audience. If you choose to carry these stories with you to share with others (and I hope you will), please feel free to update or change these terms if and when you see fit.

More From This Series

Stories of Pride 2022: Part 1 (Roman Empire through 1799) Stories of Pride 2022: Part 3 (1900-1969) Stories of Pride 2022: Part 4 (1970-2015) Stories of Pride 2022: Part 5 (Tomorrow's History Books)