True Sex. Emily Skidmore

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СКАЧАТЬ here today when it was proven beyond dispute that ‘William C. Howard,’ for years the ‘husband’ of Mrs. Dwyer Howard.”43 At no point in the article did the Tribune acknowledge that they had published a very similar story the day before, nor was there any discussion of the similarities between the two cases. Similarly, the Washington Post opened their coverage of George Green’s story as follows: “One of the most remarkable cases that has ever been known in this section is alleged to have come to light in Ettrick, Chesterfield County to-day.” Yet the following day, when the paper reported on William Howard’s story, no reference was made to the similarities.44 The Chicago Tribune and Washington Post were two of at least ten newspapers nationwide that reported the stories of both Green and Howard, and, like the Tribune and Post, most of these newspapers made no connection between the two cases.45

      What can be made of this lack of connection, of this seemingly willful refusal to link these two cases? Perhaps it reveals the reality of the fast-paced newsroom of the early twentieth century, where editors were not allowed the time to step back and think about the day’s news (especially news that appeared as a simple reproduction of an AP newswire) in relation to what they had printed just days before. However, the stories were so similar that it seems like perhaps the lack of connection was deliberate.

      By characterizing the stories of both Green and Howard each as “one of the most remarkable cases that has ever been known,” newspaper editors of metropolitan newspapers were able to present the rural countryside as the bastion of wholesome “American” value, untainted by the corrupting influence of the city. As such, they maintained the constructed binary of rural/urban, whereby rural spaces were pure, and urban areas were potentially corrupting of innocence. This binary—which became even more visible during the 2016 presidential election, with constant discussions of coastal cities constituting “bubbles” out of touch with “real America”—was also an effective structuring device in the early twentieth century. At the time, U.S. cities were changing rapidly in both economic terms (e.g., industrialization and the increased inequities of wealth it brought with it) and demographic terms (e.g., fast-paced immigration). In the context of such swift change, it is perhaps unsurprising that newspaper editors sought to utilize the symbol of the “rural” to represent the nation’s past, as the space wherein “American” values remained unchanged by the tides that were reshaping the nation’s urban centers.46 Further, with anxiety surrounding the “New Women” and the woman’s suffrage movement, perhaps it is unsurprising that newspaper editors might want to imagine gender transgressions as a phenomenon isolated to urban centers.

      However, the local coverage of George Green and William Howard reminds us, once again, that binaries are often constructed and incomplete representations of reality. In Howard’s case, the newspaper accounts published in the local context provide us with clear evidence that the rural communities of western New York afforded William, Edith, and their children a supportive environment, both during William’s life and after his death. In fact, the Ontario County Journal even reported that Howard’s gender expression was respected after his passing, as the paper stated that his body was buried in male clothing.47 Thus, just as George Green’s community found it acceptable for his funeral to be held at the Catholic church and his body to be laid to rest in the adjacent Catholic cemetery, William Howard’s community was willing to tolerate the queer choices of their community member, even in death. These cases both suggest that rural communities had more elastic understandings of masculinity and the relationship between sex and gender than have previously been understood. For both the people of Ettrick, Virginia, and Canandaigua, New York, the behavior of Green and Howard mattered more than their genitalia.

      Of course, some might dismiss these two examples as evidence of a tendency to not to want to speak ill of the dead, or a reflection of a respect for one’s elders (both George Green and William Howard being older than fifty). No doubt, the fact that both men were dead rendered them less of a threat to their community, and their age likely allowed their actions (particular with regard to sexual encounters) to be seen as harmless. Nevertheless, the fact remains that both George Green and William Howard chose to live their lives in rural communities, and those choices must be taken seriously. Both men moved several times throughout their adult life, and neither one chose to relocate to an urban area.48 These deliberate choices, I argue, reveal to us a side of queer history that has been obscured by an over-emphasis on metropolitan areas and urban enclaves. In order to prove this point a bit more forcefully, the following case study provides an opportunity to explore the aftermath of a “true sex” revelation on an individual who was still living. Indeed, the case of Willie Ray provides an opportunity to assess the level of acceptance afforded to individuals who transgressed gender expectations in the early twentieth century.

      Willie Ray

      Willie Ray first emerges in the public record on the 1900 federal census, which lists Ray as a twenty-five year-old white male born in Tennessee. At the time the census was taken, he was living as a boarder and working as a farm laborer in Booneville, Mississippi, a town of about one thousand people in the northwest corner of Mississippi in the predominantly rural Prentiss County.49 There are no known records of Willie Ray’s life prior to 1900; it is likely that he moved to the Prentiss County area between 1890 and 1900, and perhaps it was during this time that he began living as a man (although it is more certain that it was in this period that he began living under the name Willie Ray). The facts surrounding Willie Ray’s life in Mississippi become a bit clearer in 1903, when he was part of a lawsuit that received attention in newspapers across the nation.

      In July 1903, Willie Ray filed charges against a man named James Gatlin, who allegedly “got after Ray with a horsewhip.”50 According to the newspaper reports of the trial, Gatlin was upset with Ray for being “too attentive to Mrs. Gatlin.” Thus the stage was set for a classic love triangle that certainly would have attracted attention in at least the local papers, which frequently covered such interpersonal dramas. However, a startling revelation that emerged in Willie Ray’s cross-examination ensured that the story would be covered in newspapers across the South.

      During the trial, Willie Ray was placed on the stand and cross-examined by the defense lawyer. The lawyer asked Ray to comment on the accusation that he had maintained an improper relationship with Mr. Gatlin’s wife. In response, Ray revealed to the courtroom that he was biologically female. Now, why would Willie Ray choose this moment to reveal his “true sex”? The Jackson Evening News reported that Ray revealed his “true sex” “when it was necessary … to deny an allegation.”51 This account suggests that once the Prentiss County court realized that Ray was biologically female, the idea that he was flirting with Mrs. Gatlin would be debunked because same-sex desire between two biological women was inconceivable. However, this logic relies on the idea that people in Prentiss County were ignorant of the possibility of same-sex desire, and that they were completely isolated from the nascent discourse of sexology or popular representations of gender and sexual transgressions that appeared in the national press.52 While it is probable that some people in Prentiss County were unaware of sexology, to suggest that they had never conceived of affection between two members of the same sex is to discredit the savviness of individuals in rural communities.

      Instead, it is more likely that Willie Ray chose to reveal his “true sex” on the stand as a way of incriminating Mr. Gatlin and avoiding punishment for having an improper relationship with his wife. Indeed, whereas Gatlin’s behavior (whipping Ray with a horsewhip) may have seemed justified to the court when it was done to protect his wife from an unscrupulous man, Ray was likely aware that the court would view the same action very differently if the victim of his attack were a woman. This calculation proved to be accurate; once Ray disclosed his “true sex,” Jackson’s Daily Clarion-Ledger reported that Gatlin was “was bound over to the circuit court under a bond of $250, which he was unable to give, and was sent to jail.”53 For his part, Ray was also arrested and held for a brief period of time—not for improper sexual conduct, but for masquerading in male attire. However, in 1903, there was no law in Booneville (or anywhere in Mississippi, for that matter) that prohibited wearing the clothes of the opposite sex, and Ray was quickly released from custody.54 Thus assured of the СКАЧАТЬ