One hundred and thirty years ago today, Radclyffe Hall was born in Bournemouth, England. The author of eight novels and seven volumes of poetry is best known for The Well of Loneliness, her 1928 novel about a butch lesbian, Stephen Gordon. Although the book’s handling of lesbianism seems archaic at times (calling it “sexual inversion”), it was for many years one of the few books that dealt in a sympathetic way with LGBT characters. Its history indicates both how things have changed — and how they haven’t — over the last century.
Although The Well described nothing more salacious than a kiss “full on the lips,” the book faced obscenity trials in both the U.K. and the U.S. In the U.K., among those pushing for the book to be banned were Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Chancellor Winston Churchill. They were successful, and the court ordered that all copies of the book be destroyed. In the U.S., copies were confiscated and charges brought against the publisher, but a New York court eventually allowed publication.
Although it is unlikely that a judge today would order the destruction of all copies of a book, LGBT-themed books still face challenge and censorship. Some come under fire for being sexually graphic, but others are attacked simply for including a character who has two moms, even if they play little part in the book.
The U.K. trial of The Well also shows that the search for “scientific” evidence to support anti-LGBT measures has a long history. Sir Archibald Bodkin, Director of Public Prosecutions, said to one doctor, according to the Guardian, “I want to be able to call some gentleman of undoubted knowledge, experience and position who could inform the court of the results to those unfortunate women (as I deem them) who have proclivities towards lesbianism, or those wicked women (as I deem them) who voluntarily indulge in these practices — results destructive morally, physically and even perhaps mentally.”
