Jan. 13, 1896, the Washington D.C. police court judge sentencing William Dorsey Swann for his crime of ‘Keeping a Disorderly House’ ( a euphemism for brothel) told the man he, “would like to send you where you would never see a man’s face again.” The judge was angry, “I would like to rid the city of all other disreputable persons of the same kind.”
Swann was a Black man, and it was 1896 so one might imagine
that his race caused this outburst, but no race played no part in this. Swann
was ‘The Queen of Drag” at a time when doing so was life-threatening.
On this day the judge sentenced Swann to 300 days in jail for
his crime, which was basically hosting a ‘Drag Ball’. Washington D.C. Police
invaded Swann’s home on January 3rd and according to the Evening
Star newspaper, “found a number of men, both white and colored to be the same
character as Swann”
This wasn’t the first time Swann had been arrested and sent to
jail for being ‘The Queen of Drag’ he had previously been arrested for holding
one of his balls in 1888 and spent the night in jail. The difference is that in
1888 Swann was celebrating his 30th birthday and was wearing a
beautiful cream-colored gown which the police tore and Swann fought back in a
rage. His employer at the time paid his bond.
He had also been arrested in a raid in 1887, in fact, Swann had
a reputation and played up his nickname as ‘The Queen” so when there was a
crackdown by authorities on immorality or perversion in the District, Swann was
often under surveillance.
Swann took to this role as well, he organized these balls even
knowing there could be raids and was always in front ahead of his guests and
gave female names when arrested. In the 1880s, however, homosexuality—then
known as sexual inversion or erotopathia was as nearly unanimously looked upon
as both a moral abomination and a serious mental disorder; however, Swann still
held a good reputation among employers and was spoken of with respect by them.
In July of 1896, Swann requested a pardon from the Office of
President Grover Cleveland. Supposedly his health was deteriorating while in
jail. This petition became one of the first, if not the first, request to
recognize the rights of the LGBTQ community as equal to others. The pardon was
denied, primarily because US Attorney. A. A. Birney gave a fierce and extreme
disapproval of the life that Swann lived, stating:
“This petition is wholly without merit. While the
charge of keeping a disorderly house does not on its face differ from other
cases in which milder sentences have been imposed, the prisoner was in fact
convicted of the most horrible and disgusting offences known to the law; an
offence so disgusting that it is unnamed. This is not the first time that the
prisoner has been convicted of this crime, and his evil example in the
community must have been most corrupting.”
Swann served the rest of his sentence and continued to throw
balls and live as the ‘Queen of Drag’, he died in Maryland in 1925
.
1888 Arrest
Sources:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57778963/the-first-drag-queen/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98640188/national-republican-washington/
https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2020/06/29/william-dorsey-swann-the-queen-of-drag/
https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/channing-joseph/drag-party
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/slavery-voguing-house-of-swann
Much of what we know about William Dorsey Swann comes from respected international journalist Channing
Gerard Joseph and his tireless research
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