Historiography Saturday: Gladys Bentley

The tux-wearing, blues-singing, self-described bulldagger known as Gladys Bentley played a somber tune in her recordings but switched out the lyrics to popular melodies at her New York City live performances to make the audience blush (and enrich her flirting with the available ladies). When the Depression hit and prohibition ended, taking with them the popularity of her music and the tolerance for outspoken lesbianism, she found a brief resurgence in the gay bars of San Francisco, but retired to become a minister.

Bentley’s dramatic retirement, marked by an article in Ebony magazine entitled “I Am Woman Again”, was a public departure from both show business and homosexuality. In the context of high-profile McCarthyism witch hunts her decision made sense; looking back it makes for a striking example of how an individual’s insistence on a certain identity is not above questioning. (One possible explanation for her subsequent marriage is that she was attracted to men as well as women, but given her claims to have married a woman in a civil ceremony and her bookings in lesbian bars, heterosexuality seems unlikely, and in a subsequent interview she implied that she was having a relationship with both a man and a woman.)

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley, the man who called himself “The Great Beast 666” and became known in the British press as “the wickedest man in the world,” was an infamous cult leader who founded his own religion dedicated to the mantra, “Do what thou wilt.” After finding the Hermetic Organization of the Golden Dawn lacking in its dedication to the occult (and himself unpopular due to his bisexuality and sexual libertinism), he set out to outdo it, and wrote the first of many texts while in Egypt. His practice turned to a focus on sexual magic (part of his overall philosophy of Magick) and he opened up a house for his disciples that was later seized upon by tabloid journalists. He was also a poet and a skilled (though callous) mountaineer. His popularity spiked in the 1960s after his death, and he even appears on the Beatles’ album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hears Club Band.

A full-length documentary on Crowley, complete with spooky music and handheld camera footage, is available here.

Historiography Saturday: Ardhanarishvara

Ardhanarishvara, the “totality that lies beyond duality”, is a fusion of the Hindu deities Shiva and his wife Parvati. The full mythology surrounding Ardhanarishvara is vast, stretching through multiple religious texts and several cultures, but there are commonalities among the varying accounts: Shiva and Parvati share one body, with Shiva on the right and Parvati on the left; and their union is meant to symbolize a divine (and healthy) balance of masculinity and femininity. One of the more striking origin stories for Ardhanarishvara comes from Tamil: There was a priest who worshipped Shiva but refused to venerate Parvati, which outraged her. She tried to humiliate him by turning him into a skeleton, but Shiva gave him an extra leg so he could stand and so escaped his humiliation. Shiva and Parvati then fused together, and the priest escaped the dilemma of having two gods in one to worship by turning into a beetle and burrowing into Shiva’s half of the body.

Deities who are in some way androgynous or intersex are common in mythologies worldwide due to the associated symbolism of creation and fertility. Depictions vary broadly, but there are several described in Wikipedia’s page on LGBT themes in mythology as transgender or intersex. However, a god composed of two different people who can join together and split apart at will has very little in common with a contemporary transgender or intersex individual, who is (in addition to being only one person) not always interested in being both male and female. It may be more correct to connect the various myths to specific terms such as “gender fluid” or – in the case of Ardhanarishvara – perhaps “bigender”, or to not attempt to translate them into anything contemporary or even human at all.

Hit

Hit is a character who makes a brief appearance in the Sunan Abu Dawoodan, an early Islamic religious text. As the hadith goes, the Prophet Muhammad encountered him when he was calling upon his wives. Hit, a mukhannath who was acting as an attendant, made a saucy remark describing the attractive rolls of belly fat one of the wives had on her. Muhammad was outraged that someone whose job required him to have no interest in women could tell what caused men to lust over them, and Hit was subsequently banished from the household.

Considerable debate exists as to whether Hit and other mukhannathun should be viewed as homosexuals, transsexuals, transvestites, or eunuchs. The word itself translates to ‘men who resemble women’, but the definition is too expansive for easy classification. Male pronouns are used for Hit in accordance with the consensus of the linked sources, though the mukhannathun bear a close resemblance to the contemporary category of trans women, and so should arguably be referred to with female pronouns.

No images of Hit were easily available online; the above tapestry depicting an Arab music scene is the closest depiction that could be found, though it has no characters in common (unsurprising, given the prohibition on depictions of Muhammad).

 

Hastiin Tłʼa

Hastiin Tłʼa (sometimes written as Hosteen Klah) was a master Navajo weaver and medicine man who was instrumental in preserving records of traditional rituals through his contact with anthropologists and pioneering work in translating the sacred art of sandpainting into other media. Although sources seem to disagree on whether he was gay or intersex, Tłʼa fit into the broader category of nádleeh (“one who changes”) and was permitted to learn both weaving (normally for women) and singing (normally for men). He became a master of both, and was invited to host an exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Because of the difficulty he experienced in locating suitable apprentices, Tłʼa took to preserving his chants and sandpainting by integrating the symbols into his weaving and permitting outside observers to draw and paint them, a practice that was – and still is in places – considered heretical. Much of his work is stored with the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, which he helped co-found.

Ānanda

Ānanda, whose name means ‘bliss’ in Sanskrit, was the cousin and permanent attendant of the Buddha in Buddhist mythology. He was tireless in his efforts and compassionate in his spiritual services; as the story goes, it was at his urging that the Buddha permitted women to become bhikkhunis (monastics). For his exceptional memory and wisdom to process the Buddha’s words, he was known as the Guardian of the Dharma, and his enlightenment came just in time for a conference of monks after the Buddha’s passing.

Accounts of Ānanda’s past lives indicate that he had at one point been a paṇḍaka, a term that encompasses everything from intersex individuals to men who perform fellatio. One story tells of his romance with a cobra king (Nāga): Although their relationship was a happy one, Ānanda was forced to end it because their sexual entanglements were interfering with his spiritual development.

Lee Harrington

Lee Harrington is one of a rare breed of individuals who manage to make their living entirely from writing and lecturing about kink. He started rolling down the career track as a peer sex educator, later becoming an adult film star and an internationally-known D/s speaker. Authenticity is a prominent theme in his work; here, he discusses the deliberation that predated his surgical transition, including the limitations of the various options and the social pressures both for and against transition, along with a few moments of camera time dedicated to the treatment of femme and gay trans men. He was selected to deliver the keynote address at the 2010 Transcending Boundaries conference, available for viewing here.

Harrington also runs a spiritual practice as a shaman that he links to his BDSM. One of his books, Sacred Kink, compares traditional tools in kink (such as floggers) with their historical religious uses, and offers advice on integrating spirituality and sex.

Florence Nightingale

While it would be misleading to refer to Nightingale as a nurse – he ceased practicing altogether after the Crimean war due to ill health, and his accomplishments there may have been exaggerated for propaganda purposes – he can certainly claim credit as a public health theoretician and statistician, as well as a legal reformer targeting overly restrictive prostitution laws and the founder of the world’s first secular nursing school. He invented the polar area diagram, charted the course for sanitation improvement in India, and wrote extensively on feminism and theology. (This obituary offers an additional summary, though it has the disadvantage of being somewhat melodramatic.) Nightingale also has a museum named after him in London, along with numerous other honors.

Nightingale’s place on this blog is somewhat controversial. While GayHeroes.com claims he was a lesbian, all the evidence presented is circumstantial, and at least one biographer believes the rumor is entirely without historical backing. While it is true that Nightingale never married, that may have been due to any number of causes: some permutation of asexuality; an overpowering passion for his work; incapacitating pain; religious motivation; or, perhaps, an exclusive attraction to women. However, as per a book cited on Wikipedia, Nightingale allegedly preferred male pronouns, which is enough to – with the usual disclaimers about ambiguity – qualify him for a position here. While it is impossible to know for sure how he saw himself and whether that identity would map onto a contemporary understanding of transgenderism, it is at least a possibility, and seems to be backed by more evidence than the lesbianism conjecture.

Benedetta Carlini

Sister Benedetta Carlini was well on her way to becoming a saint when her canonization was derailed by an affair with either Jesus or a fellow nun. She had all the signs of sainthood going for her: stigmata, visions, even an alleged death and resurrection, all diligently inspected by Church officials. The various internet accounts of her downfall vary widely, but a New York Times book review gives the most complete summary, adapted from Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy.

As an extension of the traditional view of nuns as brides of Christ, Carlini staged an elaborate wedding between her and the Son of God, with one of her fellow Sisters as a stand-in. During the ceremony she allegedly spoke with Jesus’s voice, proclaiming herself “empress of all the nuns.” Her hubris, combined with the sexual relations she had with aforementioned fellow nun, were enough for the Church to declare her visions the work of the Devil rather than God, and to have her detained in her convent for the remaining 35 years of her life.

How Carlini’s story is interpreted depends on the religious beliefs of the reader as well as historical fact. From a Christian viewpoint it is not necessarily impossible for Carlini’s miracles to have been authentic, which puts a very different spin on her affair with the other nun. She is listed here as a lesbian because it is the closest term available, though the term defies the historical context that encouraged elaborate miracles and legitimized sexual relationships with Christ.

Abd-ar-Rahman III

Abd-ar-Rahman, also known as “al-Nasir li-Din Allah” (“the Defender of God’s Faith”), was the founder of a short-lived caliphate line in the then-Muslim-controlled Iberian peninsula. He inherited the lesser title of emir in his early twenties from his grandfather, who selected him as a successor instead of his father or uncles. At the time, his family’s emirate was collapsing under the triple pressures of a nearby Christian kingdom that was part of the early reconquista, a rival Muslim caliphate, and a rebellion within its own borders. Through a combination of firm military leadership and political wiles Abd-ar-Rahman was able to suppress his rival parties and solidify his rule over al-Andalus (the Muslim-held territory in North Africa and Iberia); declaring himself caliph, a title traditionally held only by the rulers of Mecca and Medina, brought him new respect as both a political and religious leader.

Although the caliphate he founded lasted only a short while after his death, Abd-ar-Rahman’s patronage of the arts and sciences shaped his domain into a cultural capitol that boasted expansive libraries and religious tolerance. His legacy was somewhat marred by a story of him executing a Christian slave boy he allegedly attempted to seduce; though the tale may be fictitious – or an exaggeration of a true event in which the boy refused to convert to Islam -, Abd-ar-Rahman did have a male harem as well as a female, which was not unusual for upper-class Andalusians.