The Greenbrier Historical Society continues to find the diverse voices of the past that have always lived in Greenbrier County and West Virginia. Its latest history, “Early Queer History of the Greenbrier Valley” sheds light on gay, lesbian, and transgender people living, loving, committing crimes, fighting for the rights of workers, and more right here.
The history was authored by Archive Associate Sarah Shepherd, who previously authored “200 Years at the North House,” a book detailing the museum’s history, and contributed to the North House 200, Echoes of Slavery in Greenbrier County, and The Life and Work of Anthony and Fanny Carter exhibits.
Shepherd does not consider herself an expert on queer history, saying much of the history came from snippets discovered during other research.
“It’s always been in the back of my mind,” explained Shepherd. “A lot of this stuff I didn’t find recently — I would find it while looking for something else, mark it, and just kind of remember. I’ve been wanting to compile it for a long time but never got a chance to. Then I got this kick in the butt of ‘it’s Pride month!’ Let’s do something! We always talk about diverse perspectives and that’s just a beginning point. There’s always more work to do.”
However, when looking specifically for more, the most obvious and most unfortunate place to look is the criminal public record. Much of the criminalization of homosexuality took the form of prosecuting those assigned male at birth engaging in “sodomy.”
“They were called sodomy laws, they were prohibiting sodomy,” Shepherd said. “It’s really interesting looking at queer history because there’s so much more of an emphasis on sodomy, [sic]. … It’s interesting in my mind, the avenues people had. If you were a women, you were restrained, if you were a queer women, or a queer woman of color, there’s all these layers. For men it was much easier to be a bachelor and just not be married, like James Buchanan, our early president who was never married.”
Another possibility Shepherd considered was consent — to what extent is any given conviction of “sodomy” a consenting act between adults or the state prosecuting a victim of assault?
“[The state and histories] really doesn’t delineate consent,” Shepherd said. “Because everything is illegal, you don’t know if it was consensual or not. In a lot of cases, I’m sure it’s perfectly consensual sex, but we also don’t know that for sure. It’s not like rape doesn’t happen between men, but because everything is criminalized,” a victim of an assault could have gotten sentenced for it.
Not every person found in Shepherd’s research was named in the history either.
“I did not name the people convicted of sodomy in the 50s and 60s,” Shepherd explained. “They were very much publicly listed in the newspaper. It felt like they had already been forcibly outed to the community and I didn’t want to continue that, especially because these people could still be alive.”
The history explains “in Greenbrier County, there were five known convictions of sodomy. Five men were convicted from 1950 to 1963 with their names and crime posted in the public newspaper, the Greenbrier Independent. At this time, the Greenbrier Independent’s motto was “Nothing Shall be Indifferent to Us Which Advances the Cause of Truth and Morality or Which Concerns the Welfare of the Community in Which We Live.” These men were forcibly outed to their community as all indictments were listed on the front page. West Virginia did not repeal its sodomy law until 1976.”
Abby Smith, another member of the Greenbrier Historical Society team, laughed before explaining how she stumbled into a part of Shepherd’s research.
“I came into the archives a few weeks ago when you were doing the research and every computer [in the archives] was running a search for [variations on the word] homosexual and I was like ‘what is going on,’” Smith said. “In retrospect, it makes sense because you have to run an overnight search.”
“I was looking at lots of words, I can say that,” Shepherd said with a laugh. “Figuring out language is really interesting – like with Max Curry and Maynard [Best], they’re not coming up as [transgender]. It’s just ‘Max Curry.’ I’m sure there’s stuff we missed.”
Smith also contributed a story to the history – in 1915, the Pocahontas Times’ language coverage of an arson trial brought against Max Curry allowed him to be identified as a transgender man, in today’s lexicon, while also respecting his gender identity in coverage.
“In Lincoln County, West Virginia, a girl grew up by the name of Mattie Curry. … She went to Mingo county and taught school and afterward opened a store at Dingess, a little village of that county. The store was burned and she soon after moved from that county. About this time [Curry] went to Cincinnati and … thereafter Miss Mattie Curry became Mr. Max Curry.”
After this point, the Pocahontas Times continues to use he/him when speaking of Curry to the end.
“At this point the court turned to Mr. Curry and the judge’s voice broke and tears streamed down his face. … From the prisoner’s wife there came a great burst of sobs and weeping … The court said … ‘whenever our paths have crossed you have been my friend, but no public official can pay the debts of friendship when it interferes with his public duty. You are more guilty in the eyes of God and man than this boy. I therefore sentence you Mr. Curry to six years.’”
“For me what stuck out is how the newspaper treated this man, respected his pronouns the whole time, and were just way more respectful than a lot of modern media,” Smith said.
The history dive ends before taking a look at more modern LGBTQIA+ history, such as locally elected members of the community in government, the passage of Lewisburg’s protection ordinance, and, most recently, the first Greenbrier Valley Pride. This is due to Shepherd’s desire for that history to be told in full.
“I ended relatively recently because I didn’t feel qualified to talk about more modern history,” Shepherd said. “I would want to go talk to people in the community and we just didn’t have enough time to give that justice.”
In addition to modern history, Shepherd also believes there is much more to be discovered in the archives.
“We often hear a lot about oppression throughout history, and that’s definitely true and definitely happening, but you also have people who are living their lives,” Shepherd said. “… Like with Maynard [Best]. He had a whole family. He’s buried in the family graveyard. It’s really interesting.”
The full piece, Early Queer History of the Greenbrier Valley, can be found on the Greenbrier Historical Society’s website, under the Blog section.
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