Abraham in 1863
There are literally thousands of books about Abraham so you have a lot of reading to do to learn more. I’m not a Lincolnist, and there are lots of interpretations out there on his sexuality. Until recently, those interpretations were often tainted by biphobia/homophobia (ie “he couldn’t have been gay because he accomplished things in his life and gay people don’t do that”).
In Abraham’s chapter I try to acknowledge that the social constructs around sexuality in his time and culture were very different than today’s. That’s important to remember for every person’s chapter!
Decide for yourself:
- Was Lincoln Gay?, New York Times review of C.A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln
- Debunking the Myth that Lincoln Was Gay, interview with Charles Strozier on The Daily Beast
- Was Abraham Lincoln Gay?, Keith Stern bonus content for the book Queers in History
- Did Abraham Lincoln Sleep with His Bodyguard? Another Look at the Evidence, Martin P. Johnson in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
- The Men Behind the Man: Abraham Lincoln’s Gay Lovers, a non-academic blog post by Mark Segal for the Bilerico Report
- Finding Homosexual Threads in Lincoln’s Legend, Dinitia Smith’s response to C.A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln in the New York Times