Last updated on February 21, 2022
Content Warnings: Homophobia, References to the Death Sentence and Institutionalisation.
For decades, the idea has persisted that lesbians were not criminalised legally or prosecuted in the same way gay men were because Queen Victoria did not believe that lesbians existed.
This is a myth. But a myth that, when you tracked it back, you could see how it came to be, because there is an inkling of truth buried there. It wasn’t Queen Victoria who was trying in anyway to deny the existence of lesbians, but some people most certainly were…
Lesbians, lesbianism, and women-loving-women were certainly prosecuted under other, vaguer laws, but direct prosecution using specific terminology was kept out of law because the men who made those laws did not want “respectable women” finding out about female homosexuality for fear that it would encourage them to try it.
In the 1880s, the ‘New Woman’ — women who were career minded and independent — had started to enter both Parliament and the legal profession, bringing with them the intention to make changes. These social changes combined with a renewed stance against the predatory sexual behavior men often exhibited towards women, meant some legislators felt threatened. The first world war then brought even more social upheaval.
In amongst all of this social development, wartime had made all extra-marital sexuality a matter of national concern, but MP Noel Pemberton-Billing created an especially menacing aura around homosexuality. Billing ran a journal called ‘The Vigilante’ and alleged in his writing there that a ‘black book’ belonging to a “German prince” existed which detailed the names of 47,000 homosexual Englishmen and women known to and blackmailed by the German government.
Figures as high up as the wife of the former prime minister, were linked to this alleged book, and fear mongering about this being an attempt to “exterminate the British empire” started and spread. As ridiculous as it may sound written down here, it worked to some extent. It didn’t just happen in Britain either; you may have come across postcards such as the one linked here: ‘Girls are doing all the fellas jobs now’, which circulated in America post-war and fueled social tension.
By the end of the first world war, lesbianism was linked with foreign influence, espionage, and threats to the security of Britain. So much so, that even once World War I was over, the matter persisted. However, rather than focus on the threat of foreign influence, the suspicions moved to “symptoms of moral and national degeneracy”, which would “mark the beginning of the nation’s downfall” (spoken by Frederick Macquisten in parliament, 1921) and would “cause our (British) race to decline” (spoken by Ernest Wild in parliament, 1921). Thus, relationships between women were considered a long-term menace and an immediate threat to the sanctity and security of everyday men’s homes. (Who would have thought that women who were attracted to other women had such power. I know I didn’t know I could bring down an entire nation! I could have wielded this power for the greater good had I known…)
So, lesbianism was certainly debated in parliament and sometimes at length, away from the public ears. There was a common line of thinking running through parliamentary debates that once women heard of lesbianism, not only would they be likely to try it but, having done so, they would turn away from marriages and husbands entirely (one must wonder whether any of these male legislators comprehended just what a bad light they painted themselves in with these claims!).
The very concept of sex between women was considered not just a moral danger but an outright menace to the patriarchal family as a whole. Conservative MP Ernest Wild claimed that: “It is a well-known fact that any woman who indulges in this vice will have nothing whatever to do with the other sex.” (It must be presumed that as little as British society as a whole knew of lesbianism at the time, they clearly knew even less about bisexuality, pansexuality, or indeed anything outside of the dichotomy of heterosexual/homosexual.)
As part of these debates, they considered historic and proposed “solutions” to the “problem of lesbians”:
Death Sentence — This had been tried throughout history and while many of the MPs in the 1920s, even those with the most bigoted of views, considered it drastic, they also felt it did achieve the required outcome of “stamping out” homosexuality. Ultimately it was decided that it was not likely to garner public support, even if homosexuality was still considered a sin by vast amounts of the population.
Condemned to asylums — “Sapphism” was a cause for condemning women to asylums throughout history and in many countries, not just Britain. Lesbians (or women-loving-women regardless of sexuality) were considered to be “lunatics” and sent away from “decent society”. Many people in the 1920s considered this far more acceptable than the death sentence as they “got rid” of their problem without outright killing anyone. This practice continued in some ways well into the 1960s and 70s, and “treatment” for homosexuality was still being openly practiced in some hospitals as late as the 1990s. In fact, GALOP (the anti-abuse LGBT+ charity) report still receiving a significant number of referrals, to this day, to support people who have experienced versions of conversion therapy in the UK.
Ignore — This was perhaps the most commonly used approach. Society as a whole, and certainly legislators, just refused to acknowledge that lesbians and women-loving-women existed. I suppose this was a societal and political wide attempt at “if you ignore them long enough, they’ll go away”. No doubt, they were sorely disappointed that it didn’t work.
Proposed Legislative Measures – Colonel Moore-Brabazon suggested that a charge for the offense of “gross indecency between female persons” be created and a law passed to criminalise all sexual contact between women. This passed the House of Commons but failed to pass the House of Lords, therefore preventing it from entering legislation.
The bill within which the legislative measures mentioned above were placed did not pass for (arguably) two main reasons.
Firstly, the bill also contained measures which would have closed loop-holes in the law used widely to prevent rapists from being charged. Men could and did use a wide “reasonable belief of age” defense for girls under 16 that was embedded in law, and there was a six-month time limit that had to be adhered to from the date of the crime and the prosecution occurring. The changes proposed would have made prosecution easier for the victim and would have brought the age of consent for all sexual activity (not just intercourse, which was 16 in 1921) up to 16 from 13. Members of parliament deemed these, and other loophole closures, as an “attack on young men” (and the “young men” they had in mind were by and large much older than 16 so this was not mostly a consideration of sexual contact between same/closely-aged teenagers…) and so many legislators did not want the bill to pass.
Secondly, while many legislators across the political spectrum agreed that “sex between women was both real and wrong”, but they also felt as though “female knowledge of lesbian sex was tantamount to contagion”. Obviously, if women learned of lesbian sex, they would all abandon their husbands and male partners (who we must assume from this prediction of theirs were not only awful people but utterly inadequate in bed) and run off to find women to sleep with. (This is indeed very much how sexuality works…)
So, ultimately, the bill did not pass. Reform to sexual offenses and age of consent for other sexual acts took place later on, starting in 1934.
And this is the root of the matter, really. Lesbianism has often been left out of discussions about homosexuality in British history and the law, in no small part due to this historical fear that even discussing it would cause women to immediately become lesbians. This exclusion certainly wasn’t because lesbians were any more accepted that gay men. The Earl of Desart once asked of lesbianism: “How many people does one suppose really are so vile, so unbalanced, so neurotic, so decadent as to do this?” and women who were in relationships with other women or had sex with other women were certainly prosecuted under other laws and sent to asylums. It was just never named in law the same way male homosexuality was.
Finally, whilst the bill did not pass into law for fear of it “encouraging” women in the public, its discussion certainly generated suspicions within parliamentary and legal worlds about women who had previously just been considered spinsters. Spinster status began to be suspected as a cover for lesbian relationships and women who lived together for any length of time were regarded with suspicion. The romantic friendships or close, intimate friendships between women of the 1800s and early 1900s (some of which were undoubtedly lesbian relationships, whether sexual or asexual in nature) were also regarded with increased suspicion.
Notes taken primarily from:
“Lesbianism and the Criminal Law: Three Centuries of Legal Regulation in England and Wales” by Caroline Derry
Lesbianism and the Criminal Law of England and Wales (https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/law/lesbianism-and-the-criminal-law-england-and-wales)
Also linked and used:
The Suffragette Postcard Project (https://thesuffragepostcardproject.omeka.net/items/show/1154)
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