Abraham Lincoln, gay icon? A new film makes the case clear

Abraham Lincoln embodied everything that makes America great: he was brave, compassionate, wise and most likely gay.

“Lover of Men” (now in theaters) is an insightful new documentary that explores the idea that the 16^th The US president had several male partners throughout his life, even after he married Mary Todd Lincoln. The radioactive topic has been discussed on the fringes of academia for decades. Scholars have combed through letters and eyewitness accounts from that time and found not inconspicuous evidence that Lincoln had significant relationships with homosexuals.

But questions about his sexuality were mostly dismissed as mere “urban legend.”

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WFK Travers' 1865 painting of Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated that same year at the age of 56.

“We live in a homophobic society,” says producer Rob Rosenheck. “People keep talking about Lincoln's queerness as a 'theory' or a 'myth,' but you have to acknowledge the fact that it keeps coming up over and over again. The reason for that is because it's part of our history and it's not going away.”

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Some people ask, “Do we really need to delve into his personal life?” adds director Shaun Peterson. “For me, it always has a homophonic undertone. There are thousands of pieces about Lincoln and Mary's broken marriage. People like to write about a heteronormative relationship, but when it comes to the possibility of his love for men, it's like, 'Well, we shouldn't dig that deep.'”

New documentary suggests Abraham Lincoln was sexually flexible

The documentary claims that Lincoln had long-term relationships with several men. The first was Billy Greene, whom he met in a general store in Illinois, where he lived as a young man. Greene later told William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner and earliest biographer, that he shared a narrow cot with the future president for about 18 months. Greene also described his physique in striking detail, telling Herndon that Lincoln's “thighs were as perfect as a human being could be.”

Co-sleeping was relatively common in the 19th century and did not always have the sexual connotations it does today. But even as his status as a lawyer and state representative rose, Lincoln continued to share beds with other men, suggesting that sleeping in a bed was not a matter of financial necessity but something Lincoln enjoyed.

“Why is it so hard for people to accept that physical intimacy can be pleasurable?” asks Tom Balcerski, a presidential historian at Eastern Connecticut State University. “We're not in the Victorian era, and yet sometimes it feels like we are in terms of reticence on this issue.”

Lincoln's most intense romantic relationship was reportedly with storekeeper Joshua Speed, whom he met in 1837. They shared room and bed for four years until Speed was called back to his family home in Kentucky, which devastated Lincoln. According to experts interviewed in the film, he fell into a deep depression and his close friends issued suicide warnings that took away his shaving equipment.

Speed eventually married a woman but stayed in touch with Lincoln through love letters, which are preserved at the Library of Congress and can be read online. Lincoln regularly signed his correspondence “forever yours.”

“You can see the passion on the paper,” says Peterson. “Lincoln wrote things like 'I miss you' and 'I'm jealous of your new wife, Joshua.' In these letters he pours his heart out. Nowhere else in Lincoln's work has you seen anything like it.”

Lincoln married Mary in 1842, but “it was primarily a political marriage,” says Balcerski. “Was there sexual passion and excitement in the marriage?” And here's where it gets complicated: The couple slept in separate bedrooms in the White House and had four children over the course of ten years.

When Mary was away, Lincoln's bodyguard, David Derickson, often shared his bed, according to a diary entry by Elizabeth Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln's naval aide-de-camp. An 1895 book by Thomas Chamberlin, an officer in the regiment that guarded Lincoln, also mentions the sleeping arrangement and that Derickson wore Lincoln's nightshirts.

The president, like many people at the time, was probably what we would today describe as sexually flexible.

“This next generation of Americans, what we call Gen Z, is queerer and more fluid than ever before. They understand that argument,” Balcerski says. “But if you try to have that conversation with older people, you're banging your head against a wall.”

“Lover of Men” has already sparked controversy among online trolls

Coincidentally, Lover of Men is being released at the same time that Cole Escola's Oh, Mary! is playing to a sold-out audience on Broadway. The black comedy takes a very silly look at Civil War history, portraying Mary as an alcoholic wannabe cabaret star and Lincoln as a closeted homosexual who longs for his bodyguard.

Abraham Lincoln, gay icon? A new film makes the case clear

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