Cincinnati has always been at the forefront of the push for gay rights, thanks to several legal incidents and tragedies across the last few decades: the infamous Mapplethorpe obscenity trial, the death of Kings Mills teenager Leelah Alcorn that became a rallying cry for trans rights across the globe, and local hero Jim Obergefell’s Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage in the U.S., just to name a few.
But Cincinnati has actually been one of America’s gayest cities since its inception, according to local historian Jacob Hogue’s new book “Cincinnati Before Stonewall.” In the book, Hogue challenges the prevalent idea that homosexuality is a modern invention by examining the city’s queer history from 1820 all the way up to the Stonewall Riots in 1969.
Hogue, who has a master’s degree in history from NKU and currently works in the Kenton County Library’s department of history & genealogy, began working on the book as part of his dissertation. Throughout, he details everything from queer Cincinnatians fighting for the Union in the Civil War to the country’s first famous “male impersonator” (what we’d now consider a transgender man) choosing the Queen City as his permanent home.
“If today’s LGBTQ+ movement is represented by the rainbow, then my book represents the storm that preceded it,” Hogue said. “We have plenty of queer activism today, but there’s a prelude to that, and that’s surviving. It’s a testament to the struggles and resilience of the queer individuals who paved the way before us that we can tell their stories today.”
Indeed, Hogue’s book is full of tragic violence and death. While there are several happy endings for the people mentioned in the book, there’s plenty of sorrowful moments too.
“If you’re going into this book expecting there to be a bunch of gay people draped in a rainbow flag skipping off into the sunset, this isn’t the book for you. This book is an early exploration of queer people and, sadly, of queer discrimination,” Hogue said. “But it’s also an examination of tons of queer individuals from centuries ago or how Cincinnati was at the forefront of ideas like drag performers and intersex identities, for example.”
The first chapter of Hogue’s book details Julius Dexter, a Harvard-educated lawyer and philanthropist who fought as part of the 106th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War before coming back to Cincinnati and constructing some of our most famous buildings and attractions, like the Cincinnati Zoo and Music Hall. (“When you see a building as beautiful as Music Hall, you just know a gay person had something to do with it,” Hogue jokes.)
Dexter wasn’t the only gay soldier in the 106th regiment, as detailed in the book, but he was probably the most famous. In the mid-1860s, another Harvard graduate named Eugene Bliss moved into the Dexter family mansion. He never left. Correspondences among their friends referred to the two as “Mr. and Mrs. Dexter,” Bliss frequently referred to Dexter in writing as “Jules,” and Rookwood Pottery founder Maria Longworth Storer acknowledged the couple in her own letters before hosting queer icon Oscar Wilde when he visited the city in 1882.
Another chapter in the book, cheekily titled “Be Gay, Do Crime,” opens by revealing how men and women choosing to live as the opposite gender had become so prevalent in late 1800s Cincinnati that a local newspaper deemed it “an epidemic.” Further on, Hogue details how Frank Goldsberry—a master thief born with female genitalia—evaded conviction for his crimes thanks to quick wits, dozens of aliases and costume-changing gender-bending exploits on the run.
“I knew trans people had always existed, but I didn’t expect to find this many in Cincinnati. But Goldsberry… he’s fascinating because he was the biggest criminal around,” Hogue said. “There were wanted posters up of him in every Midwestern state. And he dressed as a man and openly dated women while committing all these thefts and robberies.”
The Cincinnati Enquirer romanticized Goldsberry’s exploits at the time and turned him into a local legend, writing that the thief was known for chewing tobacco, drinking bad whiskey, and having “quite a romantic history” thanks to his many “admirers among the fair sex.”
Several other chapters go into detail on popular watering holes for Cincinnati’s queer community, like the Gibson Hotel or the Sinton Hotel. (“Even back then, gays loved a hotel bar,” Hogue said.) Yet another chapter describes how the West End became a safe haven for Black, queer individuals from the late 1800s all the way up until the 1960s.
Hogue took particular care to point out his favorite person he researched for the book: Mary Ann Jefferson, a Black trans woman who lived near what is now Smale Riverfront Park and was well-known for her violent clashes with police. A Cincinnati Enquirer reporter set out to the poor neighborhood known as “Rat Row” to detail Jefferson’s life in 1889, where he made the “shocking discovery” while Jefferson was near the end of her life in a city hospital that she was not born a woman.
“And with her dying breath, she’s resisting the authority telling her she’s something she’s not, saying ‘I am a woman. I am a wife.’ Even in her last moments, she’s standing up for herself. That, to me, is activism,” Hogue said. “And now we have Cincinnati Pride just steps from where she lived.”
As Hogue grew up, he didn’t have many queer role models, and was taught that being gay was a “modern invention.” His goal with the book is two-fold: to establish that queer people have always been around—”You’re gonna tell me being gay or trans started in the 1960s when I’ve found hundreds of examples from a century before?” he said—and to humanize people of historical record who were made out to be “villains” or “freaks.”
“People will comment on my posts and say, ‘Oh, it’s history of people having sex with each other,’ and I find that so reductive. Being gay or transgender has nothing to do with sex, and never has,” he said. “Back then, these people were treated like monsters, when they were actually just regular people like us. And I’m trying to write them back into Cincinnati’s historical narrative.”
Sometimes, he imagines what the subjects of his book could say if they knew they were now being labeled as “pioneers.”
“Back then, there was no vernacular or vocabulary to describe these people. There were no ways for them to even understand themselves. I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been. Yet they still persisted,” he said. “It makes me happy to know that these people who lived their lives on the margins of society can now be recognized. They weren’t trying to be famous. All they were doing was being themselves.”
In the end, though, Hogue hopes “future historians” will continue his work.
“That’s why I put all these dates and addresses and references in there. Honestly, I probably put in more than I should have. I want people to research it themselves. I want them to go find more,” he said. “Hopefully it’s a call to arms, you know? If this guy can write a book about this, maybe I can do it too.”
“Cincinnati Before Stonewall” is available for sale now both online and in-stores around the Cincinnati area. Author Jacob Hogue is hosting several book signings around the city during the month of May, and also hosting many guided walking tours showcasing the places from his book. For more information, visit his Instagram page.
