CONTENT WARNINGS: 🤬 Slurs, ⚔️ Colonization, 🗨️ Misgendering

The presidential election of 1800 put former Vice President Thomas Jefferson into power under the Democratic-Republican Party against the Federalists. It marked the first shift of political power between two major parties – accomplished without the bloodshed and violence typically associated with such moves in European monarchies. Jefferson’s party valued free markets, individual liberty, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state due to the influence of the French Revolution. Jefferson’s party filled the void as the dominant party while the Federalist Party collapsed, despite its mixed views on slavery. They also led the United States to war again against the United Kingdom through the War of 1812, even though it ended in a draw with the Treaty of Ghent.

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All-Time Prosecution Highs

The Jeffersonian Era gave rise to an increase of sodomy-related persecutions, such as the case against John W. Morse in 1816. The National Advocate wrote about the New York case, “Amongt the civil prosecutions at this circuit were to [sic] of uncommon importance, and which had excited a good deal of interest in some parts of the country. The one was the case of John W. Morse vs. Roger Adsit; a slander suit on the charge of sodomy. Verdict for the plaintiff 600 dollars.” More sodomy cases come up in court reports, even if they failed to make it into published newspapers like Morse – there are six cases between the years of 1802 to 1807 in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina.

What exactly is sodomy? Also known as buggery, it comes up a lot when referencing queer history as well as modern politics. Derived from the ancient Greek word Σόδομα or sódoma and the Hebrew word sədom based on the biblical city of Sodom, sodomy is any human sexual activity that does not intend to create children. Essentially, sodomy is all sex that is not penis-in-vagina intercourse.

Within queer history, sodomy cases are some of our best-documented records of LGBTQIA+ people existing in centuries past. While dominant writers refused to include queer people in history textbooks, we still managed to be recorded in court documents. In the early years, sodomy laws related more often to criminalizing beastility than same-sex activity – but these laws evolved to their current status today. The criminalization of sodomy still exists throughout much of the world, and today’s version of sodomy generally penalizes only same-sex activity rather than non-procreative heterosexual sex – although individuals are pushing for sodomy’s stricter definition based on hyper-religious beliefs like traditional Catholicism.

Today, same-sex activity is overwhelmingly legal throughout most of the world – the only countries that have sodomy laws are centralized in Africa and the Middle East. As of 2025, 12 of the 61 countries that criminalize sodomy use the death penalty as punishment: Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The United States utilized the sodomy laws imported from Europe to criminalize same-sex activity – and our victory in the Revolutionary War did not change these laws, leaving them largely in place for years to come. South Carolina was the last state to repeal the death penalty for sodomy in 1873, but it remained a criminal offense until Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. John Geddes Lawrence Jr. and Tyron Garner were arrested in a Texas apartment and charged with a misdemeanor – which Lambda Legal used to take their case to the Supreme Court on the basis that consenting adults have legal privacy in their homes. When the Court sided with Lawrence and Lambda Legal, all sodomy laws in the United States were immediately nullified and same-sex activity became legal – a major step in American queer rights.

Lawrence v. Texas has hit major news headlines again in recent years due to conservatives advocating for the Supreme Court to revisit the case and overturn the ruling similar to Roe v. Wade. Such a decision would recriminalize same-sex activity in all states that have not repealed former sodomy laws – even though current polls show that Americans overwhelmingly favor same-sex marriage by 69%.

Antebellum America: Transgressing Gender

Between the years of 1776 to 1861, countless children’s books and magazines were published in the South featuring atypical gender behavior, especially remarkable for the period. Most of these publications aimed to instruct youth about how to correctly adhere to their gender assigned at birth, as Jen Manion writes, “There were an abundance of publications aimed at instructing children on all manner of subjects from politics to cleanliness to morality. No realm of life was spared such scrutiny. Children were told how to behave with family, at school, and on the playground… Not surprisingly then, children’s literature provides a rich window into the malleability of gender, including the ways and reasons that children claimed gender identities, expressions, and activities for themselves.”

Some of the most notable examples come from the mid-19th century: Lucy Nelson and Billy Bedlow were children’s stories published in 1831 and 1832, following the adventures of two genderbending youth written by Eliza Leslie as they saw the errors of their ways by failing to adhere to traditional gender roles. Other accounts aren’t as cruel – McGloughlin Bros.’ The Tom-Boy Who Was Changed Into a Real Boy centers on a tomboyish girl who becomes a boy after years of engaging in male behavior, eventually becoming a sailor after his transition. The story is meant to be a light-hearted cautionary tale, it tells a more hopeful existence as a gender-variant individual where the protagonist wasn’t forced to give up their identity to conform.

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Native Americans in Jefferson’s America

One of President Thomas Jefferson’s crowning achievements while in office was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, expanding the American empire further west of the Mississippi River that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark would explore from 1804 onwards. While Jefferson respected Native Americans as individuals, he and his political allies viewed Indigenous cultures as inferior and worthy of American conquest.

This expansion and numerous expeditions created more encounters between American colonizers and Native Americans. Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clark to record as much detail as possible while traveling Louisiana – first and foremost meant to establish an American presence further west and deter European powers, and secondly to make positive trade relations with Native American nations in the west while documenting Louisiana’s geography.

Lewis and Clark’s expedition journals were edited by Nicholas Biddle, a Pennsylvania senator who served as the final president of the Second Bank of the United States. Biddle’s diary notes in the Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expeditions reported Minitaree people who accepted gender-variant people within their tribe, “Among Minitarees if a boy shows any symptoms of effeminacy or girlish inclinations he is put among the girls, dressed in their way, brought up with them, & sometimes married to men. They submit as women to all the duties of a wife. I have seen them – the French call them Birdashes.”

Claude E. Schaeffer gives a detailed account of the acceptance of gender-diverse individuals that explorers encountered among the Kutenai of western Montana in 1811. Referred to as Madame Boisvert, this individual had been previously married to a Canadian servant of David Thompson – while Madame Boisvert had been unusual in their youth, they were surprised when Madame Boisvert returned as a man, claiming to their relatives, “I’m a man now. We Indians did not believe the white people possessed such power from the supernaturals. I can tell you that they do, greater power than we have. They changed my sex while I was with them. No Indian is able to do that.” Changing their name to Kauxuma Nupika, he sought a wife despite being assigned female at birth and joined Kutenai men in warfare – where he was later discovered as still biologically female by his brother. Changing his name again to Qanqon Kdmek Klatda, he was later purposely exposed by his brother – leading the entire camp to deny Qanqon of his masculine identity. Schaeffer’s entire account refers to Qanqon with the (modernly offensive) outdated term berdache.

Schaeffer’s account of Qanqon illustrates the evolving dynamic between Native Americans attempting to appeal to white colonizers – two-spirit and gender-diverse identities were accepted and celebrated in historical Native cultures, but continued European and American contact alongside Christian conversion imported transphobia. Schaeffer published his findings based on collected oral legends in 1966 – meaning Qanqon’s story likely warped through several generations. In the legends, he is depicted as brutal, nonsensical, and “bereft of her senses.” His brother is valiant for exposing Qanqon’s biology, and Qanqon himself deserves his punishment after years of beating women in camp.

The Adventures of Lucy Brewer

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Knowledge Check

1. True or False: The purpose of early gender-bending children’s stories in Antebellum America was to teach Southern youth that being transgender and nonbinary was okay.
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2. Fill in the Blank: During expeditions into Louisiana, American colonizers came into contact with _____, a gender-variant person among the Kutenai people.
   –
3. True or False: Sodomy is currently criminalized in the United States.
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4. The Adventures of Lucy Brewer follow a young woman who fought in the War of 1812 as a male _____.
   a. Doctor
   b. Soldier
   c. Marine
   d. None of the Above
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5. The Supreme Court ruling that overturned sodomy laws in the United States was _____.
   a. United States v. Marcum
   b. Obergefell v. Hodges
   c. Bostock v. Clayton County
   d. Lawrence v. Texas

ANSWER KEY

1. FALSE / 2. QANQON / 3. FALSE / 4. C / 5. D

Further Reading

DISCLAIMER: While the links below work at the time this article was originally published, they may not forever – especially when government officials are intentionally purging official-reviewed research and censoring mainstream media.

Map of Anti-LGBT Laws by Human Rights Watch

Native American LGBTQ+ People by Jonathan Ned Katz

Sodomy Cases Appealed by Jonathan Ned Katz

The History of Sexuality and Gender History by OutHistory

Transgender Children in Antebellum America by Jen Manion

US History #10, #11 and Black American History #12 by Crash Course