Is it time to ban Shakespeare?
The American Republican Party is now trying to rewrite history by banning any kind of literature that may teach kids and youth something about what the LGBTQ community is really about.
However, being traditionalist white people who believe that they represent “European” culture, they have so far been reluctant to touch the classics, William Shakespeare included.
But what if I told them that Shakespeare was in love with the transfeminine Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624, depicted above)? Would they ban Shakespeare too?
Shakespeare’s sonnet number 20 is addressed the Earl, and it is a poem truly celebrating gender variance.
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.
The word “prick” had the same double meaning as it has today, so the sexual pun is deliberate. Naughty William!
We do not know how the Earl truly identified gender wise. Both Shakespeare and others used the pronoun “he” when referring to them. But that they were some shade of trans or nonbinary, in the sense of “gender variant”, is clear.
For more about Shakespeare, his bisexuality and transgender issues, read our article “William Shakespeare’s Love for a Transfeminine Crossdreamer”
By the way, the Republicans should probably also ban the Bible, as it is full of sex and violence.
Illustration: Painting of Henry Wriothesley.
Jack Molay
