For years, scholars have uncovered facts and feelings about Lincoln’s sexual and emotional orientation while his supporters suppressed them.
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A new documentary coming out today Man’s Lover: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln This is the latest assessment of the 16th president’s “love life.”
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Leading queer scholars and writers have addressed this issue, including gender studies scholar Jack Halberstam. When Brooklyn was queer Also participating were author Hugh Ryan, artist Alok Vaid Menon, and Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D).
Their answer to the question “how gay” is “very gay,” but the truth depends on what angle you look at it from.
In the 20th century, as scholars like Sigmund Freud explored the subconscious, sex, sexuality, and gender roles became more strictly defined. As a result of this rigidification, the notion of emotional fluidity between men and women disappeared.
The idea that a man like Abraham Lincoln, a president, a folk hero, and the savior of the Union, could enjoy any sort of other than platonic association with other men, disappeared from any discussion.
But love between men wasn’t always so dangerous.
Throughout the 19th century, it was an accepted fact across cultures that the most intimate relationship between a man and a woman was same-sex. Sexual orientation was far more fluid, and that truth existed alongside marriage between a man and a woman.
Lincoln’s relationship with Joshua Speed was a living, “tangible” example of that general phenomenon.
When Lincoln arrived in Springfield, Illinois, to take up his law position in 1837, he met Speed, his general store partner. He moved into the burly storeowner’s home that very same day, and the two shared a bed for the next four years.
Lincoln did not hide his feelings.
“Dear Speed, I will miss you so much,” his bedmate wrote during his long absence. “Forever yours Lincoln.”
After Speed returned home, Lincoln was distraught: “I am now the most miserable man on earth,” he wrote. “If what I feel were equally distributed among all mankind, there would not be a single bright face on the earth.”
The film argues that there was a “dashing, daring” type to Lincoln that continued to appeal to him throughout his life.
Another brave and daring man was Captain David Derrickson, who accompanied the President as Commander in Chief.
“We have a soldier here who is loyal to the President,” one staff member revealed in the letter. “When Mrs. L. is away he sleeps with him. Holy crap!”
Derrickson was once seen wearing a presidential nightshirt.
Other “evidence” includes letters revealing that Lincoln “did not have much company with women,” “did not care much for them,” and “did not enjoy the company of the opposite sex.”
One scholar claims that Lincoln’s alleged lover wrote a hymn in praise of his thighs, suggesting that the future president may have had a penchant for thigh-fucks, frottage, or, in modern terms, “flirtation.”
The film portrays the fact that while sex, sexuality, and gender are certainly fluid, more importantly, they have always been that way. Someone came up with the word “side” in 2013.This doesn’t mean some new liberating position, we’re just finally putting a name to something people have been doing for years.
So too are Lincoln’s heartfelt words about his fellow men, which speak as powerfully today as when they were first written.
