#tommies

This seriously happened in 1726😭 During planned executions of Catherine Hayes(for being complicit in a murder), and Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin, and Thomas Wright, all three for "sodomy"... Three latter were what folks called "mollies", a term that encompassed gay men and gender nonconforming people.

Sexual activity between women, which had previously been ignored, glossed over or referred to only in discreet private letters, started to be discussed more widely, and gossip and accusations published. Women lovers of women were called 'tommies' in slang, but the classically educated spoke of 'sapphists' – from the Greek poet Sappho who wrote of her love for women.