A much better visual report than the first written one I posted. This shows just how really bonkers this whole thing is. Hugs
Michigan high school student defends her mural which parents called satanic and anti-Christian because it contained a Genshin Impact character and a person wearing a transgender flag t-shirt. The Majority Report crew discusses outraged comments made by parents, like “fix their brains” and how such attitudes by the Right were once parodied years ago.
Many thanks to Ali for dropping a note about this and the link in a comment. I find many of the people who read the blog have great suggestions of news they found that I missed. This article on silencing the teaching of abortion is similar to the don’t say gay laws in republican controlled states, it is about making something / people disappear from society and keeping it / them hidden with no information about them available to the people effected by / needing the information. Think of it, if you can control the information students at all levels get you can direct the culture in any way you wish. No freedom of expression creates what is happening in China and other authoritarian places where the people have only lock step ideas because it is all propaganda driven by the political class / government. It is a scary time where the republican party / right wing wants to deny advances in society in all categories such as medical, biological, knowledge of the planet, basically the right / republicans want to drive the country back to what they feel was a simpler time when they were in charge and people were not bothered by things different from them. Got news for them, they will have to go back much farther than the 1950s to find that, the idea that the 1950s were the great social golden age where the stereotypes they love were true … is completely wrong. That time was horrible for any minority or those who were not white cis men. Women had little or no rights, blacks / non-whites were without rights and being killed or harmed with impunity, kids were mistreated with no way to complain or stop it, people were dying of health issues we have solved now, and lastly the fact that forced patriotism of kids being made to recite the pledge and forced Christian prayer in schools / public events did not make things better all it did was make clones who felt obligated to go to church and give money while hating it at the same time. I did not live then, but I thank the Dogs That Love Gravy I did not.
Now one last thing, lets talk about what is meant by “woke”. The right is trying to demonize the word. I keep hearing interviewed right wingers saying they have to stop the left pushing woke in schools. While I don’t really know of anyone on the left that uses the term I can tell you what it means. Ready for this. That scary word is another way of saying “to be nice”. Yup that is all it is about or means. It means not using slurs, not trying to hurt other people’s feelings, it is not being deliberately cruel or mean. So when people claim I am being woke, I think them. I want everyone to understand the goal of the right, which is to make the cruelty of the regressive times they claim were better a reality again. I am woke as much as I can be, where ever I can be, when and to as much as I can be … because I love being nice to others. Hugs
Seeking to control what can be taught at public universities—including abortion—is dystopian and grim. It’s what conservatives have always wanted.
As we’ve seen in Idaho and Florida, expect more public university systems in red states to start being tentative, worried, and self-censored when talking about reproductive rights. Cage Rivera/Rewire News Group illustration
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, conservatives scored a victory decades in the making: controlling pregnant people’s bodies. They’re not satisfied with just that, though. The next step is to control any speech they don’t like.
Just as ever-shifting abortion bans leave people unsure as to the laws that govern them, there’s now a distinct lack of clarity as to what can and can’t be said—and what can and can’t be taught—in schools.
Witness the dual speech and behavior controversy that has roiled the University of Idaho. In 2021, the state passed the “No Public Funds for Abortion” law, prohibiting public university employees from “counseling in favor of abortion.” That’s painfully vague, but definitely inhibits speech. For instance, can you talk about ectopic pregnancies in a biology class without implying abortion? Things got even more opaque following the reversal of Roe in June, when Idaho’s near-total abortion ban kicked in. The university provided guidance to employees that they could now face felony charges if they provided birth control to students.
Two weeks later, everything got reversed. Sort of. University President Scott Green complained that the memo issued to employees “quickly took on a life of its own with misinformation.” He then proceeded to, ostensibly, reassure employees, but those reassurances were vague. To his credit, Green made clear that the university can continue to offer birth control, but he didn’t directly address whether people could or could not “counsel in favor” of abortion. All he really said was that current academic freedom policies had not been changed and that the university cannot and does not prosecute people.
Neither of those reassurances gets at the heart of the issue: Can employees talk about abortion without running afoul of state law?
A similar story is unfolding at the state university system in Florida. The University of Florida may be hiring Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to be its president. Sasse is a big fan of “religious liberty” when it comes to dismantling the line between church and state, so his hiring likely doesn’t bode well for a university already under siege by conservative elected officials. The state recently asserted in a court document that curriculum and in-class instruction are government speech—not individual speech—and therefore it can regulate what public university teachers say.
The document was filed in a lawsuit regarding the constitutionality of the state’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which at root prohibits professors from teaching about the country’s pernicious history of racism. The state even tried to extend these speech restrictions to private companies, but that got tossed out by a federal court.
Seeking to control what people teach at public universities is impossibly dystopian and grim. It’s also the logical endpoint of what conservatives have wanted forever: public money free from the conditions that used to go along with taking public money—that religious institutions shouldn’t be funded with taxpayer dollars and groups that receive public money shouldn’t be able to discriminate.
Dismantling that line between church and state and enshrining bigotry into law has been quite a successful project of religious conservatives. They prevailed in an Iowa case where a student group at a public university, taking public dollars, excluded a gay student from leadership and won in court. They scored their biggest victory this past Supreme Court term in Carson v. Makin: The justices ruled that K-12 private religious schools can get public tuition money. And it’s just this sort of thing that allows a Christian K-12 school in Florida to take $1.6 million in public money while having a policy that they will expel LGBTQ students.
Conservatives have always embraced schools like Bob Jones University and Liberty University that completely control their students’ behavior and speech. The former went up to the Supreme Court in 1983 to fight for the right to receive IRS tax-exempt status while maintaining a policy of only admitting white students. The university lost. Bob Jones University also banned interracial dating until 2000.
Rolling back abortion rights is just the latest weapon in the religious right’s ever-growing arsenal. When you control what people can do, it’s just a short hop to controlling what they can say. When bans prohibit “aiding or abetting” an abortion, such as that in Texas SB 8, it directly leads to controlling speech. For example, can you donate to an abortion fund if you live in Texas? In theory, that should never be restricted. Donating money is free speech and is therefore protected under Citizens United v. FEC and is one of the sacred tenets of modern conservatism.
But modern conservatism has become very comfortable with “free speech for me, but not for thee,” and they’ve captured enough of the federal courts that they’ll continue to get their way. Meanwhile, expect more public university systems in red states to start being tentative, worried, and self-censored when talking about reproductive rights or racial justice. Idaho and Florida may have started this trend, but it certainly won’t end there.
There has never been a recorded verified case of a trans person attacking or harming anyone in a bathroom or locker room. But there are many cases of trans people being attacked and harmed trying to simply use a bathroom. Even cis women have been assaulted by vigilantes when trying to use the bathroom because they did not look female enough for the self-appointed bathroom police. This is not about protecting kids from sexualization, knowing that gay / trans people / same sex couples exist is not sexualizing kids any more than letting them know that straight people / straight couples exist does. Talking about the issues of gay / trans kids really means the right wing haters don’t want anti-bullying promoted and talked about. That is what that means, a teacher cannot stand up for a bullied kid by talking of acceptance and tolerance without breaking that law. The entire law is meant to revert the country to a more restrictive time when the LGBTQ+ were not seen in society, were villains and bad people, a time when equality for the LGBTQ+ was not an issue so the hateful bigots could attack / harass the minorities as much as they wanted. Tell me how kids knowing teacher A is in a same sex marriage is dangerous or sexualizing kids any more than the kids knowing teacher B is in an opposite marriage. It doesn’t, but to some people one of those is a horrible sin and shouldn’t be allowed, forcing their incorrect regressive views on everyone. If Tommy dates girl A it is fine and not sexualizing kids, but if Tommy dates boy B it is a crime for it to be known or talked about in school because of protecting the kids? From what? Understand what this law is about. It is about doing what was done in Russia, driving the LGBTQ+ out of society and destroying any acceptance / tolerance that have been earned and gained. It is about making the LGBTQ+ illegal and removing all our rights. They want us gone. Starting with the kids makes it seem sort of reasonable, but in truth it is the younger generation that was driving the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ because they were friends with known LGBTQ+ people. Stop that acceptance by making the LGBTQ+ stay hidden and we go back to when no one knew that their friends, doctors, a lot of other people in their lives were members of the LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
In a state that already has a Don’t Say Gay law, the rules just got even tougher.
The Florida Board of Education has approved new rules that will make life harder for LGBTQ people and allies.
One of the rules requires schools to post on their websites and notify parents by mail if they allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In a statement, Equality Florida’s Senior Political Director Joe Saunders called this policy an “attempt to bully and intimidate school districts that are providing these accommodations.”
“The Board of Education’s facilities separation rule does not and cannot prevent transgender students from accessing facilities aligned with their gender identity — we know Federal law and the constitution protect these rights,” Saunders said.
“Florida school districts have been following federal law for more than a decade, establishing policies we know will continue to work long after this politically-motivated proposed rule…[Gov.] Ron DeSantis’ war on transgender Floridians must end. All students deserve access to school facilities that are inclusive and safe.”
In the wake of the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that outlawed anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, President Joe Biden signed two executive orders that said federal agencies should “fully implement” the decision by applying the reasoning that anti-LGBTQ discrimination inherently involves sex discrimination. His order included the Department of Education, meaning it has become a violation of federal law for schools to discriminate against trans students.
But the new policy from the Board doesn’t direct schools not to follow the law. It just makes them have to jump through more hoops to do so and also potentially puts them in the crossfire of angry parents who won’t support inclusive policies.
The second new rule instituted by the Board of Education is in relation to the state’s Don’t Say Gay Law, which prevents teachers from mentioning LGBTQ people in elementary schools.
The rule takes the law a step further by directly punishing teachers who violate it. It says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.
According to Equality Florida, the rule contradicts a recent ruling on the Don’t Say Gay law that found violations are the responsibility of the school district and not individual teachers.
“The Board of Education’s move to target individual teachers’ jobs and licenses is another cruel attack from an administration that has spent months punching down at Florida’s LGBTQ youth and families,” Saunders said. “Qualified, effective teachers are fleeing the profession in Florida thanks to the constant politicization of their roles and discrediting of their characters by the DeSantis Administration.”
“Rather than help to clarify the Don’t Say LGBTQ laws scope, the Board of Education has taken this bigoted law to yet another extreme, threatening teachers if they dare to acknowledge LGBTQ families in the classroom. This escalation in deference to the far right agenda of the governor makes our schools less inclusive – and less safe.”
The chairman of the State Board of Education, Tom Grady, defended the rule, stating, “It’s parental notification. It’s not mandating what a particular bathroom looks like or doesn’t look like or who can use it. It’s about parental notification.”
No child or staff of a school should feel unsafe or be without food, comfort, or needed medical care. It is hard enough to learn and some kids have a lot of issue that make it harder for them. Anything that can make it easier for them to process the information learning to thing / reason is something we as adults / a society need to do. Teachers need to feel safe. Teaching is a skill, not everyone can do it or do it well. I use to teach people unfamiliar with operating windows some basics and how to set some settings. I got good at doing this even over the phone. But it takes being able to see in your mind what should be and also what the other person is seeing and talking in a way that limits confusion. I have had great teachers in my life that I still remember what they taught and how they kept me interested and I have had teachers I couldn’t learn from and sleepwalked through the classes. Teachers need to focus on their students and the lessons. The idea that teacher have an easy job and don’t work much is so wrong an entire post could be made to debunk it. Teachers shouldn’t be providing the needs students have for supplies, yet a lot do now. When I was a kid our communities were proud to show how well the local schools were funded and had everything they needed. That is not happening today. Public schools have been starved for so long they are nearly skeletons of their former selves. Education is the way we improve life and progress for all. Our youth / children are the future of our country and they will one day be the leaders of the country, if our 80 and 90 year old will ever step aside. If we don’t want to backslide into a less educated / less progressive time we need to fund public education and treat the idea of schools with the seriousness / importance it needs / should have. These don’t say gay and the removal of supportive acceptance posters / clubs Hugs
More than 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ students reported feeling unsafe at school last year (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
More than 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ students across the United States reported feeling unsafe at school in the last year, a new survey has found.
An annual report from the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), found that 81.8 per cent of LGBTQ+ students surveyed felt unsafe at school because of “at least one of their actual or perceived personal characteristics”, with nearly a fifth of these students (16.2 per cent) reporting that these feelings led them to change schools.
The study, published on Tuesday (18 October), also found 32 per cent of LGBTQ+ students across the US had missed at least one full day of school over concerns for their safety.
Disturbingly, LGBTQ+ students reported experiencing increased high levels of verbal and physical harassment from their peers in the past year, with more than 75 per cent reporting in-person verbal harassment at school due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and a horrific 12 per cent saying they were physically assaulted in the last year.
GLSEN said the findings indicate “specific school-based supports” including “an LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum and supportive student clubs” are sorely needed in the country.
The organization’s chief of staff Aaron Ridings said findings come at a time when students have reported “a decline in school resources” to tackle LGBTQ+ discrimination, as well as “the COVID-19 pandemic [creating] a period of mass disruption and trauma”.
Supportive resources for LGBTQ+ students have decreased. Harassment has increased. And the majority of LGBTQ+ students don’t feel safe in school. Our latest National School Climate Study shows that now more than ever, students need us.
Teachers in Florida have spoken out about the damaging implications of the bill, with educators fearing “legal action” if they defy the bill to teach children about LGBTQ+ families.
Cory Bernaert, a Florida elementary school teacher, told PinkNews at the time of the bill’s passing that it was hurtful both “personally and professionally”.
“I do feel that teachers are going to be mindful because it is now law, and the last thing that an educator wants to worry about is any sort of legal action taken against them,” he said.
“The fear is there… I don’t blame them. It feels as if we have been bullied.”
Ensure ‘safe and affirming schools’
GLSEN wrote that despite this, an LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum, supportive educators, and LGBTQ+ clubs is a way forward to ensure queer youth feel safe in a school environment.
“Instituting these measures can move us toward a future in which all students have the opportunity to learn and succeed in school, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression,” GLSEN wrote.
“Especially given the decline in LGBTQ+ supports in schools that we found in this year’s report, it is imperative that all who are committed to ensuring safe and affirming schools for all students intensify their efforts in policy, advocacy, and classroom practices.”
Cruz knows what the maga base will do next. They will hound this teacher and this school with threats and intimidation until the teacher so afraid for their life they leave voluntarily forever hounded by right wing thugs, or the school in fear has to fire the teacher. LGBTQ+ are being made into villains, sexual predators and made social pariahs by the right including elected officials with the job of protecting all people in the US. Plus what Cruz is mocking is the tolerance, acceptance, and positive way the pregnant teacher is framed by the school. Which is a good thing. The society is changing and should be more accepting of diversity and differences. Medically trans people exist, they are here, they have lives they should live freely and openly, they are not evil or sinful. If you at home want to teach your kids that trans people are sinful or evil fine, but the schools must & should teach non-discrimination against people that are not committing any crime and have legal rights regardless if you think they are evil or sinful. The religious trans haters have a right to their opinion, but not to take actions against people simply because they don’t like them. Hugs
The Republican senator has been roundly criticized for potentially exposing a private citizen to anti-LGBTQ harassment and violence.
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz Photo: Shutterstock
Texas Sen.Ted Cruz (R) is one of several right-wing figures who invaded the privacy of a pregnant preschool teacher by exposing his name on social media.
Earlier this week, Cruz quote-tweeted a tweet from conservative activist Phil Kerpen that included screenshots of an email from a Washington, D.C., preschool outlining how parents should discuss a trans teacher’s pregnancy with students. Kerpen, who has over 100,000 followers on the platform, included screenshots that mentioned both the name of the school and the teacher.
The email reportedly framed the teacher’s pregnancy in positive terms and advised parents of “kids who may have associations with pregnancy and a certain gender, (‘only girls/moms can have babies’)” to echo the teacher’s own language around his pregnancy: “‘some boys have bodies that can have babies, and I have the kind of body that can have a baby, isn’t that cool?!’” The school also reportedly offered other resources to help facilitate discussions of transgender people, gender identity, and pregnancy with preschool-age children.
Cruz retweeted Kerpen’s post exposing the teacher’s name to his 5.3 million followers with the caption “Not satire.”
Kerpen’s tweet has been deleted, but right-wing media outlets like the Washington Examiner, the Citizen Free Press, and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s The National Desk seized on the story, further exposing the teacher’s name.
Cruz’s tweet, which does not include the name of the teacher or the school, remains up. The senator has been roundly criticized for exposing a private citizen to potential anti-LGBTQ harassment and violence.
Sir, you are a sitting US Senator. You need to behave with the decorum that title demands rather than putting individual citizens in danger for some base points in an imaginary culture war. This is beneath the office you hold. Shame on you. These are real people with families.
Why shouldn't a trans man be a teacher? Why shouldn't a teacher be allowed to get pregnant and bear a child? Why shouldn't students be told what's going on with their teacher so they don't worry?
All y'all "pro-life" folks are really mad about this happy, healthy, pregnancy.
— Russell Zimmerman (abortion is a human right) (@RussellZee) October 19, 2022
this is a private citizen. you're a sitting US senator. what is your problem here
Republican candidate Randy Gene Kaufman has been arrested for publically masturbating in his truck next to a preschool in Arizona. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET.
“Randy Gene Kaufman, a Trump-loving Republican candidate for the Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board, was arrested for public sexual indecency after he was caught allegedly watching porn and masturbating in his car near a preschool on Oct. 4.
According to an affidavit, a Maricopa County police officer noticed a Ford F-150 parked across three spaces with a shade screen across the front windshield. The officer wrote that he approached the car and “immediately became alarmed as I saw [Kaufman] had his pants down mid-thigh and was exposed showing his fully erect nude penis,” Kaufman was reportedly so engrossed in his activities that he did not notice the officer at his passenger side door until he moved around the car to the drivers side window.
The officer wrote that the car was parked “with a full view of the Wirtzels Preschool and Child Care Center,” about 190 feet away, and that he saw “several preschool age children having outdoor activities in the playground,” as well as vehicles passing within 10 feet of the car.
Kaufman was asked to step out of the vehicle and was questioned by the officer. Kaufman claimed he had been in the area buying rebar and that he didn’t normally do this. “I’m just really stressed out. I have a lot of things going on,” he told the officer, admitting to having been watching intteracial porn in his car. When questioned as to if he knew he was so close to a preschool he responded, “I didn’t notice it until you came up and I got out of my truck.”
“I really fucked up; this is bad. You have no idea, Kauffman told the officer, “I’m running for the Governing Board for the colleges. I didn’t even know this was one of your sites but now I see the signs all over in the parking lot.””
Most Americans support teaching about controversial topics in school, except when those controversial topics deal with LGBTQ people.
According to a new study from the University of Southern California (USC), majorities of both Republicans and Democrats supported teaching about numerous controversial topics in high school, including racial inequality, immigrant rights, environmental issues, and even about pro- and anti-choice positions.
Only four topics USC asked about got less than majority support from Republicans: gay rights, sexual orientation, gender identity, and trans rights. Between 30% and 40% of Republicans supported high school students learning about those topics in school, compared to between 84% and 86% of Democrats.
And the issue isn’t human sexuality in general. Over 90% of Republicans and Democrats supported teaching sex education in schools.
The findings come after conservatives have been working to pass “Don’t Say Gay” laws in several states. Florida passed one such law, which bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in young grades and restricts such discussions in higher grade levels.
Supporters of the bill have said that any discussion about sexuality around children is a form of “grooming” or child sex abuse, and they have often stressed that their views on the matter aren’t discriminatory. But those statements contradict the survey’s findings that Republicans are generally fine with schools teaching kids about human sexuality, as long as that sexuality is heterosexuality.
The Brookings Institution, which worked on the study, noted that a majority of Americans support teaching about all of the 24 topics they asked about.
The study was part of the Understanding America Study and involved a representative sample of 3751 adults surveyed between August 15 and September 12.
Charles Hamilton was described as being “bold and impudent” and continued to defy the world even as the world closed in.
By Laura Linham
Image from a copy in Bristol Library of the pamphlet “The Female Husband” (1813 edition) by Henry Fielding. Cartoon is attributed to George Cruikshank. Text on the image says: “The Prisoner being convicted of this base and scandalous crime was sentenced to be publically and severely whipped four several times in 4 Market Towns, and to be imprisoned for 6 Months.”Photo: British Newspaper Archive
Charles Hamilton, a traveling doctor in 18th-century Somerset, UK, was a dapper, charming suitor who could have his pick of the ladies – and according to some accounts, often did.
But it was love at first sight when the doctor laid eyes upon his landlady’s niece, the beautiful but naive Mary Price.
On July 16, 1746, at St. Cuthbert’s Church in Wells, Somerset, Charles (or, as the parish register has it, James) Hamilton and Mary Price were married by the Reverend Mr. Kingstone.
For two months, the couple traveled through Somerset as husband and wife selling quack remedies – unproven cure-alls that often had little medical value. Still, on September 13, in a nearby town called Glastonbury, Mary denounced her husband to the town authorities.
It turned out that Charles was missing a vital piece of equipment for Mary’s long-term happiness – a penis.
Charles’ story scandalized and titillated society, courtesy of Henry Fielding’s hurriedly-written – and mostly fictionalized book – The Female Husband.
But who was Charles Hamilton?
The person first known to the world as Mary Hamilton was born in Somerset, a rural farming county in southwest England, in about 1725, the daughter of William and Mary Hamilton.
When still a child, her family moved to Angus in Scotland until, at about 14, Mary put on her brother’s clothes and set out on the road back to England alone. From this moment, Mary lived as a man, going by the names of James, George, and Charles Hamilton in the years that followed.
In Northumberland, as Charles Hamilton, he entered the service of Dr. Edward Green, a ‘mountebank’, or seller of quack medicines. He then worked for Dr. Finly Green before setting up independently as an unqualified doctor.
In May 1746, he arrived at Wells in Somerset and lodged in the house of Mary Creed, meeting her niece and falling helplessly in love. This fateful act led to the marriage that would cast him into infamy.
A deposition from Mary Price says that she and Hamilton traveled selling medicines after marriage.
During their time together, Hamilton “entered her body several times” and “so well did the imposter assume the character of man, that she still believed she had married a fellow-creature of the right and proper sex.”
But after gossiping with her neighbors, Mary soon began to suspect her husband was harboring a secret. She confronted her husband when they were in Glastonbury – a town just a few miles away from their home in Wells. Hamilton admitted the truth to Price, who, in turn, instantly ratted him out.
The story was unusual enough at the time to attract the attention of the local newspaper, the Bath Journal.
According to those reports, after news of the arrest, many people visited the prison to gawp at Hamilton, described as being “bold and impudent”.
It added that “it is publickly talk’d that she has deceived several of the Fair Sex by marrying them.”
Another report says that at the trial, the prosecuting attorney, Henry Gould – misspelled as Gold in the newspapers – claimed that Hamilton had been married fourteen times.
The scandalized magistrates struggled to agree what the crime was – or even if one had been committed.
British Newspaper Archive
Records show that it was not so much that Hamilton dressed and worked as a man that was a problem as much as the fact that he deceitfully contrived penetrative sex.
After much debate Charles Hamilton was labeled an ‘uncommon notorious cheat’ and was charged under the vagrancy act of 1744; an act meant to prosecute lack of employment or deceitful attitudes.
During the trial, members of Hamilton’s community wrote a letter to the clerk asking for severe punishment. They demanded public humiliation to ensure that Hamilton would never be able to live as a man again.
The severity of Hamilton’s sentence, and the terms in which the court delivered it, reflected the outrage and perplexity the case had aroused: ‘and we, the Court,’ they said, ‘do sentence her, or him, whichever he or she may be, to be imprisoned six months, and during that time to be whipped in the towns of Taunton, Glastonbury, Wells and Shepton Mallet.’
The newspaper recorded that the ‘bold and impudent’ Hamilton remained at that time ‘very gay, with periwig, ruffles, and breeches’, still defying the world as the world closed in.
He continued to sell his remedies surrounded by fascinated crowds who flocked to see him.
British Newspaper Archive
At three-week intervals, until Christmas 1746, Hamilton was whipped publicly in four different towns. That might have been the end of the saga for Hamilton if it weren’t for the novelist Henry Fielding.
Now considered the founder of the English novel, Fielding hurriedly cashed in on the salacious scandal, claiming he had his information “from the mouth” of Hamilton himself.
However, he likely never met the person he satirized in his work and it was instead cobbled together from court reports and his own (filthy) imagination.
The obscure – and pornographic – pamphlet was published anonymously. Like a Georgian-era 50 Shades of Grey, it was badly written, salacious and sold out almost immediately. Unlike 50 Shades of Grey, only four copies are known to exist today.
In his story, Fielding claims Mary Hamilton was born in 1721 on the Isle of Man, the daughter of a former army sergeant who had married a woman of property on the island.
In his version, she had been brought up in the strictest principles of virtue and religion but was seduced into “vile amours” by her friend Anne Johnson, an enthusiastic Methodist, and “transactions not fit to be mention’d passed between them”.
When Anne leaves him for a man, Hamilton seeks another female lover. He meets Mrs. Rushford, a wealthy 68-year-old widow who takes her to be a lad of about 18. He pretends to be a Methodist preacher and promptly marries the widow.
According to Fielding, he deceived his bride by means “which decency forbids me even to mention.” The bride eventually discovers Hamilton’s birth sex, and Hamilton is forced to flee. Hamilton uses various other aliases to marry other women but is repeatedly forced to run when the ruse is discovered.
Finally, posing as a doctor, he marries Mary Price.
Gendering Hamilton as a woman, Fielding also claims that “on the very evening she had suffered the first whipping, she offered the gaoler money, to procure her a young girl to satisfy her most monstrous and unnatural desires.”
British Newspaper Archive
Historian Louis Crompton describes Fielding’s account as “one part fact to ten parts fiction” – so what did happen to Charles Hamilton once the storm had passed?
In July 1752, an unsigned letter appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette, sent from Chester, just outside Philadelphia. It recounted the story of Charles Hamilton, an itinerant doctor living as a man, who was discovered to be biologically female.
According to the letter, Hamilton said he had been brought up in the business of a doctor and surgeon in the UK.
He said he had set sail for Philadelphia in Autumn 1751, cast away from North Carolina and made his way towards the city, selling medicine and treating people along the way.
Hamilton confessed he had used the “disguise” for many years.
So perhaps, Hamilton headed off to the New World and continued to live his life as he always had – true to himself and unashamed.
Laura Linham is a freelance journalist based in Somerset, UK. You can find her on Twitter, @midsomlaura
As we’ve seen in Idaho and Florida, expect more public university systems in red states to start being tentative, worried, and self-censored when talking about reproductive rights. Cage Rivera/Rewire News Group illustration
Photo: Shutterstock
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
Image from a copy in Bristol Library of the pamphlet “The Female Husband” (1813 edition) by Henry Fielding. Cartoon is attributed to George Cruikshank. Text on the image says: “The Prisoner being convicted of this base and scandalous crime was sentenced to be publically and severely whipped four several times in 4 Market Towns, and to be imprisoned for 6 Months.”Photo: British Newspaper Archive
Scottie's Playtime 