sweetest sheep

QUEER HISTORY MONTH, DAY 15:

Ella Wesner (1841-1917) was one of the premiere male impersonators of the late nineteenth century. Wesner, who was known to have female lovers, performed bawdy routines and had a popular act in which she appeared tipsy while getting a shave.  The New York Clipper wrote of her in 1870, 

“Nature has liberally endowed her for this specialty with an almost faultless form, a face quite masculine and jet black curling hair, which she wears cut short. She might easily walk Broadway in male attire without her sex being suspected.”

She commanded several hundred dollars a week performing, and when she died she requested to be buried in men’s clothing.

Sources: Gillian Rodger, “‘He Isn’t a Marrying Man’: Gender and Sexuality in the Repertoire of Male impersonators, 1870-1930,” in eds. Sophie Fuller and Lloyd Whitesell, Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002; Lawrence Senelick, The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre. New York: Routledge: 2000.

Hiroshi Yoshida 

One of my friends in high school changed his named as soon as he turned 18, so that the ethnic name his family gave him was finally the name reflected on all of his paperwork. He told me that he understood why his parents had given him an “English” name, but that he felt that if he needed to assimilate in order to succeed, then that was a type of success that he didn’t want.

When I was on my way home from the courthouse after changing my own name, I got into a conversation with my rideshare driver, who was extremely interested once I told him what I was in court for, and wanted to know how I’d done it, how much it cost, was it difficult, etc. It turned out that his girlfriend had chosen the name “Yo-yo” when she came to the United States, unaware of how rare that was as a name, and that she was frequently made fun of because of it. Neither one of them had realized that a name change was so easy, and he told me he was excited to let her know that she had options.

There was an intern at a summer job I had once, who changed her name to be the same name, but a different spelling. She said that she had no idea why her parents had spelled her name so oddly to begin with, and suspected that it was just an honest mistake either by them or by some nurse, but it had been a headache for her entire life, and it was a huge relief to not need to be correcting people’s spelling on important documents anymore.

One of my exes legally changed his name to have an exclamation point, because he liked to sign his name with an exclamation point.

Swimmers and Life Saver Viewed from Above

Nakazawa Hiromitsu (Japanese, 1874–1964) 1907, Japan

Color lithograph; ink on card stock

spider in the corner of the bathroom, r.m.s

plain text under cut