Hidden Love: The Untold Stories of Queer Couples Throughout History

Janani Pattabi

Valentine’s Day has become a worldwide staple and synonymous with romance. Despite its link to hyper-consumerism in the past years, there’s no doubt that February 14th represents the most public expressions and celebrations of love in the eyes and hearts of many. Even Central High School's red, white, and pink spirit is shown this year with heart balloons, bouquets, and candy grams.

To celebrate the holiday this year, I wanted to highlight stories of love that have long gotten pushed to the sidelines or erased from history due to not fitting the norms of society. These are accounts of those who dared to live outside the boxes they were put into.

1. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum (Around 2380 to 2320 B.C, 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom)

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum are believed by some to be the first recorded same-sex couple in history. The two were servants of the royal court and acted as manicurists for King Unas, an honored position. While not much is known about their lives, their deaths have caused controversy in Eygptologist circles for years. Their tomb was discovered in 1984 near the famous Step Pyramid outside of Cairo. Such mortuary temples were usually used as resting places of a prominent man, his wife, and children; it’s rare for two men of the same social standing to have been buried with each other, as neither could serve the other in the afterlife. Throughout the tomb, images of the couple carved in stone depicted them embracing each other, their bodies intertwined. Others showed them holding hands or facing nose-to-nose, a tradition called nose-kissing which was the favored form of kissing in ancient Egypt and marked the dead as married couples. Egyptologists also believe that their names, which would have been what others had referred to when strung together, roughly translated to “joined in life and death.”

While both men seemingly had wives, these women were usually cast to the background of images, with the face of Niankhkhnum’s wife even being obscured in a banquet scene. Khnumhotep is pictured in the place that denotes a wife in many of the images.

Over the years, there has been much speculation over the nature of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum’s relationship. When the tomb was first discovered, the immediate statement was that they were brothers (though it was unlikely that the bond between brothers would be placed above that between a husband and wife or their children) and later consensuses proclaimed them conjoined twins (though they were never depicted to be joined to each other in one spot and their positions on each side frequently switched) or close friends. However, partially due to San Francisco Egyptologist Greg Reeder, (who helped pioneer the conclusion that the two were a couple) more and more people are beginning to believe that there was a romantic relationship between the two. “They are so close together here that not only are they face to face and nose to nose, but so close that the knots on their belts are touching, linking their lower torsos,” Mr. Reeder stated. “If this scene were composed of a male-female couple instead of the same-sex couple we have here, there would be little question concerning what it is we are seeing."

2. Emperor Ai of Han (27 BCE – 15 August 1 BCE) and Dong Xian (23 BCE - 1 BCE)

It is generally agreed that while most emperors in the Han Dynasty were married to women, they also took on male lovers, and Emperor Ai of China was no exception. Crown Prince Lui Xin of the Han Dynasty became Emperor Ai at the age of 20 after the death of his uncle Emperor Cheng. Dong Xian was a 19-year-old minor official in his royal court. The two began a romantic relationship in 4 B.C.E, and Dong and his wife moved into the imperial palace quickly after.

Emperor Ai began showering Dong with promotions and honors, rising his partner to the rank of marquess in just the first year of their relationship (though Dong did little to no commanding of the actual army, as he spent all his time in the palace with the emperor) and even replacing his own family members with Dong’s for important government positions. By 2 B.C, Dong had become Prime Minister, Supreme Commander of the Army, and the capital’s security chief, who all other officials reported to. Anyone who objected to these promotions was severely punished as shown by palace secretary-general, Zheng Chong, being arrested and dying in prison, and Sun Bao being stripped of his station (not for opposing Dong Xian, but for attempting to free Zheng Chong).

Emperor Ai requested a lavish residence of equal standing to his own palace to be constructed for Dong and his wife along with a tomb for Dong right beside his own. He regularly gifted the most expensive jewelry in the imperial treasury and the best weapons in the army. While all previous Han rulers produced heirs despite relationships with men, Ai never had children with his empress. Han historian Bān Gù quipped that “by nature, Emperor Ai did not care for women.”

In 2 BCE, the famous story of Emperor Ai and Dong Xian surfaced. According to the tale, Dong Xian “was often in bed with the emperor” and during one instance Emperor Ai awoke to find Dong Xian’s head resting on his sleeve. Wanting to get up but not wanting to wake Dong, Emperor Ai cut off his own sleeve to allow his partner to keep sleeping. Allegedly, after ministers found out about this act, a fashion trend was started. The sweet tale has outlived centuries and led to the Chinese term “the passion of a cut sleeve,” as a euphemism for intimacy between two men.

3. William Dorsey Swann (1858 – 1925) and Pierce Lafayette (Unknown)

Former enslaved person William Dorsey Swann was born fifth in a family of thirteen children in Hancock, Washington County, Maryland. He was born on the plantation of a woman named Ann Muray and lived there until Union soldiers arrived in the winter of 1862 and after the Civil War, his parents were able to buy a farm. Pierce Lafayette was born enslaved in Georgia by Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States of America. Lafayette’s prior relationship with an enslaved man by the name Felix Hall is the earliest documented same-sex relationship between two enslaved men in the United States.

During the 1880s and 90s, Swann organized some of the earliest drag balls in history in Washington D.C. Most attendees at these events were formerly enslaved men who gathered to dance in satin and silk dresses, one of them being Swann’s partner, Lafayette. Swann himself donned his own gown and called himself “the queen of drag”. The celebrations would include singing, dancing, and a “cakewalk” where a cornmeal pancake was awarded as a prize to the best dancer (a racist tradition rooted in plantation slavery and minstrel shows, Swann and his friends reclaimed the cakewalk and helped cement its place in mainstream entertainment). These events were very secretive with invitations being made in places like the YMCA.

On April 13, 1888, the Washington Post published an article detailing the events of a police raid where Swann and 12 others were arrested while in drag during suppertime. According to another account, Swann tried to stop the officers, telling the police lieutenant in charge, “you is no gentleman.” A fight ensued, marking one of the first known instances of violent resistance in the name of LGBTQ+ rights.

In 1896, Swann was wrongly convicted for holding balls on a false charge of running a brothel. Swann demanded a pardon from President Grover Cleveland for holding a drag ball, making him the earliest recorded American to take legal and political action to defend the queer community’s right to gather without the threat of violence or punishment.

In 1900, William Dorsey Swann retired from the drag scene but his younger brother Daniel J. Swann continued his legacy in Washington by providing costumes for the drag community. Much of Swann’s impact on the drag community has been retained with balls still featuring competitive walking dances, and the drag community still being organized around family-like groups with “mothers.”

4. Marcela Gracia Ibeas (born 27, 1867) and Elisa Sánchez Loriga (September 8 1862-1909)

Throughout history, marriage has been something queer couples have fought for, mostly unsuccessfully, until the 21st century when countries began to legalize same-sex marriage. This ongoing battle didn’t stop Marcela Gracia Ibeas and her lover Elisa Sánchez Loriga from defying all odds and had the first-ever same-sex marriage in Spain.

Marcela was studying to become a teacher in the mid-1880s at a school in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, which is where she met Elisa who worked there, some historians believing that she too was training to become a teacher. They soon fell in love and when her parents discovered that the relationship was more than platonic, Marcela was sent away to Madrid to continue her studies. Nearly a decade later, Marcela completed her studies and was sent to teach at a school in Dumbría, unbeknownst tht Elisa was teaching in the neighboring village of Calo, 7 miles away. For two years, Elisa walked every night to visit Marcela until the pair got tired of having to hide their relationship and came up with a plan to get married,

Elisa cut her hair short and began wearing men’s suits. She renamed herself “Mario” after her cousin who was killed in a shipwreck and posed as him. She asked the parish priest of San Jorge to baptize her under the pretense of being born to an atheist father in London who had refused to let his son get baptized as a child, to which the priest unsuspectingly did on May 26, 1901. He then proceeded to marry the couple in the following month with Marcela and Elisa being officially and legally married on June 8, 1901. Marcela was pregnant at the time of the wedding through an unknown man and while very little is known about the pregnancy, a few believe it was premeditated to help the validity of the marriage.

Unfortunately, after the wedding, the newlyweds’ secret was sold to the press by their neighbors, and newspapers in Spain, France, Belgium, and Argentina began to headline this story as “The Marriage Without a Man”. Their own local newspaper posted their wedding portrait on the front page for all to see. As a result of their marriage making international news, Marcela and Elisa were both fired from their teaching and excommunicated from the parish church.

To avoid being tried in the Spanish court, they fled to Portugal where Marcela gave birth to a daughter. They were quickly caught by the Portuguese police and arrested. The Portuguese government planned to send them back to Spain but before they could take action, Marcela and Elisa were cleared for their crimes in Portugal and released, using this occurrence as a call to flee to Argentina to avoid another chance of being extradited. In Argentina, Marcela changed her name to Carmen and Elisa changed her name to Maria. Both started working in the domestic service industry. Later, Elisa married a man by the name of Christian Jensen and invited Marcela and their daughter to live with her and pose as her sister. However, Jensen grew suspicious at Elisa’s unwillingness to consummate their marriage, figured out the truth, and took Elisa to court again, before the court found their marriage was valid since it was between a man and a woman. Little is known about what happened to Marcela and Elisa after this.

Historian Narciso de Gabriel, told Spanish newspaper El Mundo in 2011 that the “wedding still stands as legal” in A Coruña's civil register.

5. Dorothy Arzner (January 3, 1897 – October 1, 1979 and Marion Morgan (January 4, 1881 – November 10, 1971)

LGBTQ+ couples have always existed in every aspect of our societies; even in cinema! Dorothy Arzner was the only successful female director during the golden age of Hollywood. She helped launch the careers of actresses like Katherine Hepburn and Lucille Ball and became the first woman to join the Director’s Guild of America and direct a film with sound. Arzner was very open with her sexuality, infamous for pursuing romances with actresses in her films like Alla Nazimova and Billie Burke and wearing straight dresses and suits, clothes unconventional for women of the time. Her films often featured strong feminist and lesbian undertones and themes.

Marion Morgan was married to Mattew A. Morgan in 1900 before the two separated in 1905 and Morgan and her son moved to Long Beach, California. Morgan found a job as a physical education teacher at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. She began recruiting girls for a dance troupe when hired for the summer program. Morgan’s career only grew from there when she became a vaudeville dancer and the lead of her own performance troupe before exploding onto the Hollywood scene as both a movie choreographer and screenwriter.

The two met on the set of Man-Women-Marriage and quickly began a passionate relationship, collaborating on films throughout decades. Their first job together was on the set of Arzner’s directorial debut, Fashions for Women, and Morgan was hired to choreograph the fashion show. She also choreographed the tableau with her dancers in a wax museum scene for Arzner’s Get Your Man the same year. In 1928, the couple worked together again on The Manhattan Cocktail with Morgan choreographing the opening prologue.

The two decided to move in together in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, and commissioned architect W.C. Tanner to build them a Hollywood Hills Estate. The residence was completed in 1930 and the couple remained in that home for 21 years. After Arzner’s retirement from the industry in 1951, she and Morgan moved to a community called La Quinta. Photos discovered revealed that the house had a lush atrium suggesting the couple’s love for natural light and greenery and Arzner’s reported green thumb as an avid gardener. The pair entertained many famous stars in their home like Marlene Dietrich. Arzner and Morgan remained faithful to each other for 40 years until Arzner’s death in 1979. Morgan’s close friend and theatrical writer and actor George Brendan Dowell would later write to Arzner: “You understood her, you loved her so dearly. What a monument to your own love was that princely house, Armor is marked in the cornerstone and you shared so much of its beauty with others.”

6. Mabel Hampton (May 2, 1902 – October 26, 1989) and Lillian Foster (1906-1978)

Political activism quickly became intertwined with the lives of queer people worldwide as more and more members of the community urged for better treatment and recognition. Mabel Hampton was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1902. Losing both her mother and grandmother at a young age, she was forced to live with her abusive aunt and uncle. At 8 years old, Hampton left for New Jersey, where she lived until the age of 17, working as a dancer in Coney Island and living openly as a Black lesbian (when asked when she came out, she promptly replied, “I was never in!”). She performed with stars like Mabel Mobely and Gladys Bently before eventually becoming a housecleaner for Jewish lesbian, Joan Nestle, the creator of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, when her passion for the art form faded.

By this point in time, Hampton had become immersed in the thriving life and energy of Harlem, from living through the Renaissance when she was in her 20s, to fighting in movements for black and gay liberation. Hampton went to an abundance of historical marches including the first national gay and lesbian civil rights march on Washington. “I would like all my people to be free in this world,” she proclaimed. “My gay people and my black people.”

Lillian Foster, the less documented of the pair, was born in 1906 in Virginia to a large family. She spent her whole life working in “white-owned dry-cleaning establishments.” She enjoyed a more feminine aesthetic and according to Hampton loved to “dress, dress!”

Hampton met Lillian Foster in 1932 while waiting for a bus, a moment that changed her life. “She [met] a woman even smaller than herself, ‘dressed like a duchess,’ as Ms. Hampton would say.” Nestle described when asked about their meeting. The couple stayed together for 45 years until Foster’s death in 1978. Foster once reminisced that “Forty-four years ago I met Mabel. We was a wonderful pair. I’ll never forget it. But she’s a little tough. I met her in 1932, September twenty-second. And we haven’t been separated since in our whole life. Death will separate us. Other than that I don’t want it to end.”

Hampton and Foster worked together in hopes of preserving the histories of their communities. Hampton cut up newspapers, took photos, saved letters, and kept all the books she owned relating to her sexuality. When the Lesbian Herstory Archive opened, she donated her saved collection and spent her time volunteering in the museum to help spread her experience as a lesbian as well as the stories of others in her community. Hampton and Foster helped ensure that their love and the love of so many like them would remain preserved, as much as society wanted to erase it, for the hope that someday, it could be shared with the world.

Usually, I’m standing here on my digital soapbox, shouting about the importance of queer representation in all facets of our society, but today I just want to revel in the warm fuzzies all this research has given me. Learning about the heartfelt bonds these couples shared was both validating and inspiring—the tapestry of love in our big world would be incomplete without these brave stories of queer love.

Sources:

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

https://www.advocate.com/love-and-sex/2018/8/13/16-iconic-same-sex-couples-throughout-history#media-gallery-media-3

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/science/a-mystery-locked-in-timeless-embrace.html

Emperor Ai of Han and Dong Xian

https://daily.jstor.org/in-han-dynasty-china-bisexuality-was-the-norm/

https://worldqueerstory.org/2020/11/21/emperor-ai-of-han/

https://supchina.com/2021/04/19/chinas-gay-emperor-known-for-his-cut-sleeve/

William Dorsey Swann and PIerce Lafayette

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/drag-queen-slave-ball/

https://qspirit.net/william-dorsey-swann-queer/

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/william-dorsey-swann-from-enslaved-to-queen/18722/