Video transcript: Fanny & Stella
The 1871 trial of Queen versus Boulton and Park entailed Miss Fanny Graham and Stella Boulton being charged with committing buggery – sex between men.
Even before their arrest, Fanny and Stella were placed under surveillance for openly challenging conventional assumptions about gender and sexuality in the street outside of their theatrical performances in the south of England.
The trial didn’t just include Fanny and Stella. Charges were pressed against Louis Hurt
and John Stafford Fiske. There was also Lord Arthur Clinton, who wrote love letters
to Stella Bolton but unfortunately had died before trial.
While under arrest, Fanny and Stella were both forced to undress and be examined by a number of doctors against their will. During the trial, the prosecution focused on Boulton and Park’s cross-dressing. A witness was called to the stand to testify on seeing Fanny and Stella enter a jewellery store despite never seeing them buy anything.
Women’s dresses and gloves were used as evidence in court. These items were displayed for inspection and often mocked by spectators. Throughout the trial, they were referred to by their birth names despite their families testifying with them identifying as females from a young age.
The defence argued Boulton and Park were engaged in acting female characters in order to portray their innocence. Wearing clothes made typically for women wasn’t a crime, yet it was still used against them. The judge urged the jury to overcome their prejudices. The jury, after one hour’s deliberation, found all four defendants not guilty.
But the successful ending for Fanny and Stella was believed to inspire the 1885 Labouchere Amendment, which convicted Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing. The amendment ensured that if sodomy couldn’t be proven individuals could still be charged
with gross indecency, meaning Fanny and Stella’s clothes could meet their arrest again in the future.
We must remember how others like Fanny and Stella existed in Victorian queer culture who weren’t as wealthy. Terms like transgender or anything even equivalent to that weren’t used in the 19th century meaning it’s important to understand that identities were more complex than men choosing to dress as women.