It isn't a huge leap to imagine these folks banding together in common cause-not something the patrician Hall ever envisioned, though she did plead for tolerance and understanding of the inverts in our midst. In short, they partake of an "identity" that begins to satisfy the gold standard of what we mean by "gay" (or "lesbian," "GLBT," etc.). The suggestion is that a class of such persons exists who share certain characteristics and life experiences. What may be the Well's most radical element is precisely Hall's use of the categorical term "invert" to label her central character-and herself in real life. Whether Stephen Gordon was a "lesbian " in our sense remains an open question some critics have argued that she would be considered a transgender person in today's sexual taxonomy-which only means that Hall was pushing a different set of social buttons, those governing gender conformity. WHILE The Well of Loneliness has generally been granted pride of place as the first lesbian novel, can a case be made for it as the first "gay" novel, broadly defined to include both men and women? Published soon after Proust's magnum opus was translated into English, Radclyffe Hall's novel, unlike Proust's, had an "invert" as its central character and dedicated itself almost exclusively to recounting her same-sex relationships.
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