Was Anne Lister's Sexual Identity Represented, Constrained, And Eventually Uncovered?

How was Anne Lister’s sexual identity represented, constrained, and eventually uncovered? Feminist historians have cautioned not to look for ‘lesbians’ in the nineteenth century, yet Anne Lister (1791-1840), a wealthy Yorkshire landowner, who successfully ran the Shibden Hall residence in Halifax clearly was one, even by a modern definition. However, discussing historical lesbianism can be difficult, partly because historians of homosexuality have suffered repression and marginalisation much like homosexuals themselves, but also since female sexuality has often been repressed altogether and is still mostly uncovered before the early modern period. Furthermore, the notion of sexuality as a part of identity, rather than a ‘collection of acts or eroticised bodies’ is only a part of our modern history, and the development of Lister’s lesbian identity seems to have been mostly subconcious.

In fact, Liddington, who published a close textual analysis of Anne’s diaries in 1833-36, openly warns her readers about secondary sources that misrepresent Lister’s sexuality. Her diaries, in fact, are evidence against quite a few historical misconceptions about lesbianism in the nineteenth century. Evidently, there were many educated women who had covert sexual relations with other women, independent of their marital status, whereas Lister herself is notorious for unapologetically rejecting heterosexual marriage: when her uncle chastisised her for it, she replied, ‘I see no shame in consulting your own happiness.’ After Lister went to visit a famous lesbian couple, the Ladies of Llangollen, she concluded that sexual love between women was not only possible, but also likely in the context of romantic