“During Anne's Time, ‘Lesbian' Was Not An Identity Category...”

Cosmo’s monthly columnist on how Anne Lister, a businesswoman in the UK, re-defined female sexuality and identity—breaking norms, refusing to conform, and even having a lesbian ‘wedding’ more than a century before it was legalised.

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I love and only love the fairer sex, and thus, beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts for any love but theirs.’ The joy and heartbreak of watching Gentleman Jack, HBO’s eight-part TV series by Sally Wainwright, starring Suranne Jones, is a sort of a cathartic thrill. Anne Lister (1791-1840) is often described as Britain’s first modern lesbian. And a wondrous real-life account of her, living her brand of extraordinary life, is a necessary reminder of female desire, which, unlike lust, is a complex alchemy of thought and feeling.

So, while purists might describe Anne as the gender-disrupting trailblazer of the Regency-era, I’d like to believe she was actually a rather skilled seducer of women.