Called Fred by her wife and “Gentleman Jack” by her neighbours Anne Lister (1791–1840) was a woman who lived openly as a lesbian in Yorkshire, England, and who wrote journals which documented her life.  She is often referred to the ‘first modern lesbian’.

Looks like Gentleman Jack is now the subject of a one off BBC Two special.  Maxine Peake (Shameless) will be playing the leading role in the drama which is to be called ‘The Scandalous Diaries of Anne Lister’.  Lister lived with her wife in Halifax and the couple were ‘married’ so it seems that she was well ahead of her time in more ways than one.

Lister was no fool, she encrypted her diaries (don’t you just love her) and some of her story was only decoded in the 1930′s. She even used this code in her letters to her lovers Eliza Raine and Marianna Belcombe Lawton, the latter of whom was married but with whom she maintained an affair for 16 years.  In October 1820 she wrote:

“I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs.”

Later she wrote:

“Yet my manners are certainly peculiar, not all masculine but rather softly gentleman-like. I know how to please girls.”

I bet you did Anne!  So much for the idea that we lesbians are a new fad, I love this woman!

If you’d like to read more, have a look for her published works:
I Know my own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister
No Priest but Love: The Journals of Anne Lister

Filming is due to start next month (Nov 09) and I look forward to seeing when this drama will be programmed and how it will turn out.  Let’s hope they do this inspirational woman justice.

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