Abraham Lln: Gay? Straight? Somethg else?

Contents:

• WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY?
• HOW GAY IS LLN?
• FURTHER PROOF THAT LLN WAS GAY
• WAS LLN GAY?
• REVIEW: WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY? A NEW PLAY L.A. IMAG HIS LIFE THROUGH A QUEER LENS

WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY?

Lln, ” he imag a sensive story about two men who were the bt of iends and maybe Lln was gay or bisexual has never been substantiated, and the evince is weak. When nsirg the ntroversial matter of whether Abraham Lln was “gay, ” that send qutn is the right one to ask.

HOW GAY IS LLN?

But was this relatnship romantic and/or sexual, or somethg more monplace an age that was blsed wh a more diverse range of male relatnships than our morn, hypersensive, “no homo” era?

Men Lln’s time often shared beds for enomic reasons, jt as they share apartments now, and homosocial exprsns of affectn were pletely acceptable, even enuraged.

Still, readg the print’s letters and diari, one—a gay one like me, anyway—n’t help but note, well, overton.

FURTHER PROOF THAT LLN WAS GAY

And spe what provotr-wh-a-book-to-sell Larry Kramer would have you believe—he was partly rponsible for sparkg the scholarly tert Lln’s boudoir, thanks to a 1999 lecture which he claimed the Amerin hero as a kd of gay forefather—textual overton are all we have to go on. Of urse, readg morn ncepts like “queeny” and even “gay” to the past is dangero. If you’ve read your Fouult, you know that homosexualy—which is to say, a total inty predited on same-sex attractn as opposed to discrete sex acts—was only vented as a possibily wh the rise of psychoanalysis and the medil and legal tablishments’ creasg tert “perversn” the late 19th century.

For Lln and his i, beg a homosexual was simply not possible. And fet “gay”—that inty-cum-subculture only be thkable later the 20th century.

WAS LLN GAY?

So a strictly amic sense, we n say wh certaty that Lln was not gay. But was he, you know, “gay”?

While historians will probably never terme for sure if Lln nsummated his relatnships wh Speed or other men close to him, the new film provis a perfectly reasonable space for imagg what a “gay” Lln might look like. “Was Lln Gay?

REVIEW: WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY? A NEW PLAY L.A. IMAG HIS LIFE THROUGH A QUEER LENS

“Love Stori: Sex Between Men Before Homosexualy, ” Ed Folsom, Walt Whman Quarterly Review.

“My Old Kentucky Homo: Abraham Lln, Larry Kramer, and the Polics of Queer Memory, ” Charl E Morris III,  Queerg Public Addrs: Sexuali Amerin Historil Disurse. Tripp is not the first to argue that Lln was homosexual -- earlier wrers have parsed his iendship wh Joshua Speed, the young store owner he lived wh after movg to Sprgfield, Ill.

He is, most famoly, the thor of "The Homosexual Matrix. " Published 1975, was a document of gay liberatn.