160

Rotha Lintorn-Orman, WW1 ambulance driver, lesbian, and founder of the British fascists - history is strange. Photo from 1916 (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyporn@lemmy.world

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Source that she was a lesbian?

Theres an article that talks about some signs that she was but i cant find anything that couldn’t be interpreted as being non binary and asexual.

[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/30/m-maxwell-knight-mi5s-greatest-spy-master-henry-hemming-biography-review-robert-mccrum

After some unpromising beginnings as a naval reservist, London clubman, and jazz band leader, Knight’s first undercover job in 1923 was to penetrate the extreme right “British Fascisti” movement. The BF was a far cry from the jackboots of Hitler or Mussolini. Its founder was a lesbian former ambulance driver named Rotha Lintorn-Orman. Its membership included the captain of the England cricket team and the Irish fitness fanatic William Joyce, who would resurface later in Knight’s career as “Lord Haw-Haw”.

[-] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 33 points 5 months ago

Thats a mention but it has no source of its own.

I found this on the wiki:

“Lintorn-Orman was dependent on alcohol and drugs, and rumours about her sexual orientation began to damage her reputation. Eventually her mother stopped funding her after hearing lurid tales of drink, drugs and orgies. Lintorn-Orman was taken ill in 1933 and was sidelined from the British Fascists”

A rumor isn’t the same as “it been know she slept with other women at these parties” it could also stem from “have you realized she has never dated a man?”

But i also understand that with historical things like this you cant exactly ask the dead what is and isn't true.