Gentlemen Jack - Anne Lister on the BBC

I have been watching Gentleman Jack religiously, If you know me you know why. It is bigger for me than Game of Thrones, as a GoT fan, this is almost sacrilegious. So this woman, in a time where there was no word for women who were attracted to other women and men were hung for loving each other. Although I do wonder if in today's world she would have identified as a lesbian? The modern spectrum is more complex. Anyways to me, she is my lesbian superhero. I am watching this woman blatantly be herself. This woman dares to be herself.

What audacity, I suppose she couldn’t help it. To be as natural as nature intended. You can see she is torn and feels deeply, you can empathise with her frustration at the injustice of her position. To not be able to love who you want, out here in the open, to be outlawed from voting by your own society but the drunk abusive ignorant tenant can. Not able to publicly show affection but her groom can marry her ladies maid who he has just met and can’t communicate to (with her permission of course).

To say we know about her because she was rich and landed in that era would be a disservice to her. There has always been more of us queer folk than society acknowledges. In gentlemen jack, this lesbian hero is clever, intelligent, comfortable in her skin. She shows her appreciation without vulgarity. Charming women in plain sight, she has been rejected since her teens to womanhood, losing several affairs most of which lead to marriages to men.

Men, a whole nother topic. Gentlemen Jack was erased from history, hidden away, as an embarrassing aberration from 1800 until a few decades ago. But even today, how many of us can walk with Anne Lister’s confidence and not be overwhelmed by shame and inferiority as Anne Lister seems to be impervious to in the faceoff hostility and gossip. Oh, gossip, that vile, diseased entertainment of the discontented human.

I have to go now. Time for therapy where I can continue to not explore the self-loathing from within and without.

Back from Anne Lister and Ann Walker and Halifax. It is impossible to totally submerge myself into the fantasy of two women making it out there together. I wonder if Anne Lister wasn’t a modern icon if I would like her as a person. I suppose credit must be given to the makers of the show, there is patricide, rape, child labour, domestic abuse, arranged marriages and miscarriages.

The loss of a pregnancy, that took me out of the lesbian fantasy. The pain of two women, one telling her histories the other living the pain and guilt of losing a baby she was not sure she ever wanted. As I cried and watched I wonder how many women out there were watching the same scene on this TV show and feeling the gut-wrenching nausea I felt. I am on this journey again, with my family this time to try and produce a healthy baby to term. It is going to hurt more this time if it fails, there are more hearts to burden with the sorrow or joy.

I wonder how many women who empathised with Eugenie’s miscarriage felt the numbness when it seemed Ann Walker was going to leave Anne Lister for a man. To be left for another again and to be powerless. There is a connection there somewhere, the loss of hope.

To be able to love another woman as naturally as if she were a man. I am in Africa now and Anne Lister’s time does not seem as far fetched now I am not in the decadence of Europe. Isn’t it curious how perceptions change? Yesterday I was in London and life was as is. Today I am in Africa and European values seem quaint, exotic and naive. Anne Lister’s Halifax is not much different from Africa now except for the mobile phones and air-conditioned carriages. A woman said to me yesterday night, you remind me of my cousin, you are just like her. Was that code? She went to boarding school and teenagers are at their most natural at the mercy of hormones and discoveries. Do all lesbians seem alike? We don’t age as much or do we remain childlike for longer? I am in a place where it is illegal to be me, to borrow from Trevor Noah. There is an actual law against my nature. I should be bold like Anne Lister but who has the energy. Who has the fortitude to be all in and lose and lose again? Anne Lister was an aberration.

Sally Wainwright is a genius.

A redundant statement if ever there was one. I have just seen episode 7 of season one. I have combed YouTube comments and clips of Gentleman Jack searching for the eloquence to describe the resonance I fell when Anne Lister gives us permission to understand where Ann Walker is coming from. "I have trained myself to rise above the looks and comments when I enter a room or walk on the road", to paraphrase Anne Lister. She gave me permission to forgive and understand Ann Walker calling the relationship "queer and against God's...". I read an article yesterday about episode 6 where the writer mentioned how Ann Walker's rejection of Anne Lister was because of how difficult it was in those days to be in a relationship with a woman. In those days? A privilege viewpoint indeed. 

A seven-year-old boy asked me last week why I wasn't married and I looked down into his young eyes a felt sadness. I could have said because it is illegal for me to do so. I would probably be put in jail. I could have said your mom and dad would not be very happy with me if I told you that to paraphrase Sally Wainwright's words, "I love only the fairer sex" although I am pretty sure I would not bravely face a noose around my neck. I think rather I would very cowardly run back to the cocoon of western Europe with all its racism and veneered bigotry. I think I do prefer the pretence of the acceptance of all to the raw danger of being a lesbian in Nigeria. Like Anne Lister, I have certain "perks" that insulates me from the worst harm. Perks of privilege, education, independence without which I would surely be completely relegated to a curiosity, a fetish, a disgusting salacious oddity. My sister said to me, be careful it is illegal here and I wonder would you stand by me. She probably would to a point. Have courage Anne Lister said to Ann Walker it was almost of though she was talking to me.