Queer as Folklore by Sacha Coward

Author:Sacha Coward [Coward, Sacha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800183377
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2024-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

Even beyond official operations, Jack the Ripper’s crimes were associated with a sudden spate of cross-dressing among members of the public; similarly to the police force, men were dressing up as women, with the motivation of entrapping the murderer. The Yorkshire Gazette in November 1888 described how ‘John Brinkley was charged with being drunk and causing a crowd to assemble in Goswell Road last evening by wearing a woman’s skirt, shawl and hat over his ordinary clothes. He was drunk and said he was going to find “Jack the Ripper”’.44

But as well as vigilantes in drag, there were those who may have got mixed up in the panic through no fault of their own, merely because of the perceptions of the queer nature of the serial killer himself. Some may have simply been going about their daily lives, dressed in a way they felt comfortable, but, because of wild theories and gossip, were viewed suspiciously for breaking gendered norms. Sixty-one-year-old Edward Hamblar ‘was charged with disorderly conduct and being dressed in female attire’. It was later stated that ‘All the people around the prisoner imagined he was “Jack The Ripper” and the excitement was very great in consequence.’45 Unlike John Brinley, Hamblar did not claim to be trying to hunt down the killer, but was arrested and humiliated all the same: ‘The prisoner gave no explanation of his conduct. The prisoner said it only was a freak. Mr Saunders said the prisoner had been guilty of very foolish conduct. He did not make a handsome woman.’ The fact that a gender-nonconforming person simply walking down the street was almost enough to be ‘torn to pieces’ by an angry crowd, shows the level of hysteria. It also demonstrates a genuine public belief that Jack the Ripper might be caught wearing women’s clothing.

It is true that in both fact and fiction physical deformity is often used as a synonym for internal or moral darkness; a murderer or killer who is ugly, strange-looking or misshapen is an ableist trope that comes up over and over again in films, books and on television. But as a secondary trait used to insinuate a twisted or deadly mind, perceived sexual or gender deviance can work just as well. A queer-coded, lisping, feminine man with a malevolent, high-pitched giggle can come across as the behavioural equivalent to a facial scar, burn or hunched back in implying insanity and a closeness to death for any media-savvy audience.

These fictional ideas have a direct impact on our understanding of real-life criminality. The case of Jack the Ripper shows that it is easy for people to create entire theories and suspicions based on biases around a person’s sexuality, or gender nonconformity, meaning that Jack the Ripper as a symbol or archetype for all serial killers has a queer slant to him that can cast a shadow even today.

The image of the queer serial killer is a popular one. Fritz Haarman, John Wayne Gacy, Dean Corll, Dennis Nielsen, Jeffrey Dahmer and Aileen

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