The Gentleman Jack Effect: Lessons in Breaking Rules and Living Out Loud

Part One

Gentleman Jack 1.0

The Story Behind the Stories

Gentleman Jack, a period drama based on the diaries of Anne Lister, a land-owning lesbian, prolific diarist, world traveler, and businesswoman in northern England in the 1800s, made its debut on HBO in the United States on Monday, April 22, 2019, and on the BBC in the United Kingdom four weeks later during Sunday night prime time. HBO and BBC affiliates worldwide also broadcast the series. The series was created and written by Sally Wainwright, and it stars Suranne Jones as Anne Lister and Sophie Rundle as Ann Walker.

The top hat was Sally Wainwright’s idea.

It’s a safe bet that very few viewers had ever heard of Anne Lister. That changed in dramatic fashion during the first few minutes of Gentleman Jack, when a stagecoach behind a team of four black horses comes barreling down a dusty, cobblestoned street in 19 th century Halifax, its driver clad in all black. The driver pulls hard on the reins to bring the coach to a sudden stop and cries,Whoa!

That’s our reaction too.

Whoa! Is that a woman holding the reins of that stagecoach?

This clearly is no ordinary female. High hat perched squarely above her brown curls and decked out as richly any gentleman of the gentry class, this woman bounds down from her perch high atop the coach and goes nose-to-nose with a male passenger who has the audacity to chide her for her recklessness, staring him down until he bows and backs off. She’s tough, fearless.

Moments later she looks straight into the camera and directly at us, a sure sign that what we’re in for is not our mother’s costume drama.

This is our first glimpse of Anne Lister, the title character of Gentleman Jack. This Anne Lister is the result of Sally Wainwright’s decades-long dream to bring to life on television one of the most fascinating women in 19 th century England. While historical Lister isn’t known for wearing a top hat, the distinctive headgear is Wainwright’s signal to her audience that this character is someone who, brazenly and stylishly, is challenging gender and social norms.

Gentleman Jack takes place in 1832, in the confines of pre-Victorian England where women in Anne Lister’s social class are expected to marry well; bear an heir; live quiet and demure lives; and bow to the wishes of their husbands and the men who run the country, own the businesses and most of the property, and make all the rules.

This is not a world that aligns with the sensibilities of Anne Lister. We are about to get a crash course in the art of rule-breaking.

In the first episode of Gentleman Jack, it becomes obvious that Miss Lister is a woman of strong opinions who has no qualms about expressing them. She is a take-charge landowner who doesn’t balk at assuming the man’s job of collecting the annual rents from her tenants when her male estate manager is too ill to do it for her. She has no interest in a traditional marriage, determined instead to spend her life with a woman she loves and who loves her in return.

Her steady confidante is the diary in which she records the details of her daily life. Written in mostly what she calls her plainhand, her script switches to the crypthand secret code she devised to protect her most private thoughts and tales of her conquests.

As her friend succinctly described her, Miss Lister had a clever mind and an adventurous spirit. Mother Nature cannot be blamed, the friend also pointed out, if she was in an odd freak when she made Anne Lister.

As the remaining seven episodes of Gentleman Jack’s initial season unfold, Anne’s self-described oddity, her optimism, business acumen, and quest for happiness are running themes. She navigates a man’s world with aplomb. She charms the petticoats off Ann Walker, her future wife. She never once falters from living a life true to what she considers her God-given nature.

When Season 1 comes to its romantic happily-ever-after conclusion, I was left awestruck, unhinged, and unable to put aside what I’d just seen. I couldn’t understand what was going on with me and the other fans on social media who seemed equally bewildered.

What was driving the binge-watching and the cosplay and the pilgrimages to Halifax? What was motivating the relentless curiosity about every detail in the life of a lesbian in the 1800s who wrote in her diary in secret code, chased skirts, climbed mountains, and broke every rule in the book?

I put my 25 years of experience in research and social marketing to good use in hopes of finding out the extent to which other fans were as dazzled by the series as I, and what effect Gentleman Jack might have made in how they see themselves.

I started my investigation with the Gentleman Jack HBO and BBC One TV Show Facebook group and its 10,000 fans of all ages from 100 countries. I narrowed my queries down to a list of 42 questions, and, in mid-September 2019, with permission from the Facebook group’s administrators, I posted a survey link and crossed my fingers that I’d get at least 150 responses.

I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

Within two weeks, more than 600 fans from 44 countries had responded to my 15-page questionnaire, many going far beyond simply checking the provided boxes for Yes or No. Hundreds wrote me lengthy, searingly emotional accounts of the impact that Gentleman Jack/Anne Lister had had on their lives. In the end, I was swimming in spreadsheets and printouts and confessions that all pointed to the same conclusion: Gentleman Jack is a life-changing period drama, and now I had data that clarified and quantified its extraordinary impact.

My initial findings made it clear that Gentleman Jack had electrified lesbians worldwide by positively representing us and validating the way we think and feel and whom we love.

We’ve never seen anyone remotely like Anne Lister on television before, and it both shocked and thrilled masculine-presenting women to see themselves so well-portrayed in prime time. That Anne Lister and Ann Walker are women who actually lived two centuries ago made the Gentleman Jack storyline all the more compelling.

As many fans have observed, it’s the show we didn’t know we needed. When I saw that hundreds of women reported experiencing the motivation to make significant changes in their lives, I knew there was an important story to tell.

What I discovered is that virtually every respondent was experiencing some degree of obsession with Gentleman Jack, watching the show again and again with an all-consuming interest in finding out more about the characters in the show and the production team behind it. Gentleman Jack got A-pluses for its authentic lesbian storyline, its first-class production quality, and the performances of lead actors Suranne Jones and Sophie Rundle. For many, it ranked first place on their list of the best TV shows they’d ever seen.

Most telling, however, is that 100% of the lesbians in my survey—regardless of age or nationality—expected the impact of Gentleman Jack to last. Hundreds said Gentleman Jack significantly changed the way they feel about themselves for the better. Gay women reported that the show validated their identity as a lesbian and gave them a surge in self-esteem and self-confidence. They said that as a result, they’re more willing to take risks, to be more open about who they are and whom they love.

While this overview of fans’ reaction to Gentleman Jack gave me a better understanding of what was happening among its global audience, what I still didn’t know was how Gentleman Jack was making a difference in people’s lives, or why. So for 18 months—throughout the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and early 2021—courtesy of Zoom, I talked to dozens of Gentleman Jack fans around the world in search of answers.

There was no algorithm for whom I chose to interview. On Facebook, I asked for volunteers who’d be willing to talk to me about any effect Gentleman Jack may have had on them, and often they suggested others. I contacted people whose social media posts caught my attention. I talked to organizers and administrators of popular Facebook Gentleman Jack fan groups.

I looked for people involved in the emerging world of All Things Anne Lister. I reached out to those engaged in new Anne Lister and Ann Walker research, as well as enthusiasts transcribing Anne Lister’s diaries. I got word of a group of 14 women planning an Anne Lister-inspired mountaineering expedition and I talked to each one of them. I tracked down key people in Halifax whom I believed would have an informed opinion about Gentleman Jack and its effect on their work and their community.

This book is about them, the 69 remarkable people from 16 countries, who watched Gentleman Jack and told me about what happened next.

I found the answers I was looking for.

Part Two

Confidence & Courage

If Anne Lister Could Do It 200 Years Ago, We Can Do It Now

Patience Kamau

Nyeri, Kenya & Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA

A FOOT IN TWO CONTINENTS

For thousands of years, her Kikuyu ancestors roamed the sunbaked, equatorial highlands of central Kenya, stalked game in the fertile Great Rift Valley, and made their homes in the shadow of Mount Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa. Patience Kamau—called Njeri wa Kamau in her native Kikuyu language—belongs to the largest ethnic group in Kenya.

Tribal affiliation is central to African culture, Patience says. The advantage is that you always feel you belong—to your tribe and your clan within the tribe—but there are stereotypes and expectations that are very detrimental. I will always love my country, but it is a highly, highly patriarchal society. Everything is gender-normed. You must do this because you are a man, you must do that because you are a woman. I’m like, ‘shoot me dead.’ It’s a blessing that I left just in time because I believe those expectations would have broken me. And I definitely would not have done well as a gay woman in Kenya.

It’s been more than 20 years since Patience moved to the United States for her studies and became a permanent resident. But in the US, then and now, she continues to experience a different and insidious version of limitation: racism.

Having grown up among black people, it is kind of shocking to realize that almost everywhere I go, people see me first and foremost as black, Patience says. I have come to realize that’s the way this country will always view me, even though that’s not the most important part of who I am or how I see myself. I still haven’t gotten used to it. I very often will forget that my skin is black because where I grew up, everyone looked like I do. Even so, I thrive here.

Thanks to Gentleman Jack, Patience has blossomed in ways she could never have predicted. A short trailer for the show during the final HBO season of Game of Thrones kickstarted her transformation.

I caught a snippet of Anne Lister when she adjusts her top hat with her stick, and I remember thinking, ‘What is that? That looks gay.’

She made a mental note to watch it and then promptly forgot all about it.

Seven weeks went by before Patience, bored and looking for something to watch on television, recalled the character with the crazy curls and top hat, and queued up Gentleman Jack.

It was in the afternoon, she recalls. I pushed play on Episode 1. I had no intention to keep watching, but I was there for seven hours straight. I had to wait a few days for the last episode to air, and I was just blown away. I sat there thinking, ‘Who can I talk to about this?’ and that’s how I ended up on the HBO/BBC Facebook fan page.

Besides Patience’s entry into the world of people as ravenous for information about all things Gentleman Jack as she, other developments quickly followed.

First, her friends with benefits arrangement with a male acquaintance came to an abrupt end.

I had fallen into this curiosity streak of wanting to discover the heterosexual side of me, though it wasn’t really satisfactory, Patience says. "I think it had something to do with my body’s biological drive to reproduce, which was different from my own intentions. And then I watched Gentleman Jack, and I recognized I had strayed so far away from who I am. It was like I got lost in the wilderness before this show pulled me back."

Wardrobe changes came next. Something as simple as getting rid of clothes that no longer suited her set Patience on a new path.

I cleaned out all the feminine shoes in my closet that I never wore that weren’t really me, and I started buying what I actually liked, she explains. Wearing different clothes then caused me to actually show up at my job in ways that I felt more comfortable and more self-assured.

A fierce sense of self-worth was a byproduct of her new confidence, and that, in turn, led Patience to challenge decisions imposed upon her at work. She had what she describes as her 226 pounds, 17 shillings, and 6 pence moment (reminiscent of Anne Lister’s well-reasoned explanation in Gentleman Jack as to why she was entitled to this specific amount for her coal lease).

When the pandemic began, I was very quickly furloughed from my job, Patience says. I had no problem with being laid off, but the reason given didn’t match the reality of the situation. Later when the same rationale was given for eliminating my position, I came back rather ferociously, challenged the system’s blind spots, and made my case for what I believed was best for the institution’s future, and my role in that. I thought this was the time to shape the position that was needed and that I wanted to have.

Her boss was eventually won over by Patience’s arguments, and in the end, Patience not only saved her job, but refashioned it into something new, more challenging, and considerably more rewarding.

"I had to really wrestle and fight, and I know I would not have done that prior to Gentleman Jack, she says. I don’t know how I could have."

Patience says all the credit goes to the example set by Anne Lister.

My mind is blown by the fact that she knew who she was, she says. She wasn’t looking to be validated by other people. She just knew it—in an environment where the culture didn’t even have words to describe who she was.

Gentleman Jack has played a pivotal role in Patience’s awakening to her true self.

A show like this helps us live more fully as who we are, and then we present ourselves to the world that way, she says. It has made a huge difference for me. I feel like I have stepped into a comfortable bodysuit that was made just for me, and I never want to remove it. Now it is part of my skin.

Kenya will always be where her heart resides, but other than extended visits to see her family, Patience has no plans to go back and settle there. Gay rights are virtually nonexistent in Kenya, and laws are still on the books that classify sex between same sex partners as a gross indecency punishable by five years in prison.

It’s not that I am hiding any part of who I am, Patience says, but when I am in Kenya, the side of me that becomes apparent is the side my family is more apt to see and understand, and they don’t know anything about gay culture. It’s no different when I am with my gay friends here who don’t share my African upbringing. For either one, it’s like speaking a completely different language that the other person can’t understand. It means I sometimes find myself in a place where nobody truly knows the full me, except me.

To her credit, Patience has mastered the ability to coexist in different worlds.

I feel that I flourish in the United States, but when I go to Kenya, I’m all the other identities that I know myself to be. Both countries are my home. When I am in East Africa, people see me and recognize me as African in a way that no one in the US sees at all. But here I can live the other part of me fully without fear or intimidation.

Patience says any remnants of self-doubt about her identity have disappeared, and her self-confidence has soared.

I feel like I flew out of some kind of jail that I didn’t even realize I was in, she says. "I know I have many sides to me, and I also know being a lesbian is central to who I am. I feel far surer of myself in the ways I interact with people. I have many new friends. The creativity I now bring to my work is different and better. But to this day, I can’t quite articulate all that has happened to me because of Gentleman Jack, or why. What I do know is those eight hours of television had a profound impact on my life in many ways, and I’ll never be the same."

Kate Brown & Diane Miller

Mullica Hill, New Jersey, USA

Age Becomes Us

As young women, they were polar opposites. Out and outspoken at 17, Kate Brown found comfort and a sense of belonging among a group of lesbians in Baltimore, Maryland during the mid-1970s. Diane Miller was cautious and closeted, a dutiful daughter who fell for a high-level female government employee who had a reputation they were both determined to protect.

By 2005, Diane and Kate each had experienced long-term relationships that came to an end. They met online and maintained a long-distance romance for five years before moving in together and sharing the same home for the past decade. Now in their late 60s, they have more in common than they have differences.

Although Kate has always worn short hair, neither Kate nor Diane feels her own appearance to be particularly masculine or butch. Yet for most of their lives, both have been subjected to a steady stream of misgendering and verbal abuse primarily because of how they look.

I was very out when I was young, Kate says. "I always got shit, always—name calling, bottles thrown at me. I mean constantly. But I would just say ‘fuck you,’ or I’d wear a t-shirt that said Dyke, or Matriarchy is the Answer or A Woman Without a Man is Like a Fish Without a Bicycle. And I think now, how could I do that?"

Diane can relate.

When I was younger, I used to think I can’t wait until I’m in my 60s and then maybe people will stop making fun of me or looking at me or making snide comments, she says. And now I’m in my 60s and on occasion there are still people who make rude comments and I’m like, ‘Why are you bothering me?’ I’m just one woman trying to get through life and this space without being harassed.

When they watched Gentleman Jack and were introduced to Anne Lister, everything changed. For the good, they say.

Here was an unconventional woman from the past who also loved women, who had to put up with the same kind of disrespect Kate and Diane had endured for decades, who was brave and strong and kept marching forward, and who, in the end, triumphed and got the girl, too.

"We watched Gentleman Jack maybe three times—we loved Episode 3, the hilltop scene, and Anne playing cards in the pub. Oh my God, exclaims Diane. I’m in love with this woman!"

Kate says, for her, it was seeing the courage that Anne Lister had.

Seeing that, on TV this late in life and knowing there was a real person who experienced what we’ve experienced and she did it 200 years ago, was so validating for me, she adds.

Overcome with newfound and life-altering courage, Diane felt compelled to go to Halifax to visit Shibden Hall and feel the presence of Anne Lister in her home and hometown.

I just had to be there, Diane says, and by October 2019, she was on her way. But to suddenly pick up and travel alone to a country where she had never been before?

For Diane to go to Halifax when she did is so extraordinary, Kate explains. "This is a woman who does not make decisions in a minute. This is a woman who makes lists, and agonizes, and plans, and accounts for any and all events that could possibly happen. But she just packed up and went because of Gentleman Jack and Anne Lister. That she just took off, flew over, and stayed by herself—it was truly remarkable."

Diane agrees.

I’m so glad I went when I did, she says. It was just astounding at Shibden Hall—the vibration, the connectivity. I was so happy there. I’m hoping I knew Anne Lister in a past life because that’s how strongly I felt to the location and her story. And I can’t wait to go back.

A quick transatlantic adventure wasn’t the end of Gentleman Jack’s influence for either woman. Diane and Kate made plans to travel with friends to the Anne Lister Birthday Weekend in Halifax in the spring of 2020. When the global coronavirus pandemic forced its cancellation, they were as heartbroken as the hundreds of other lesbians whose dreams were dashed.

Diane had looked forward to taking a bold step during her second trip to Halifax. For 20 years she had envisioned buzz-cutting her hair, and she had made arrangements with Gentleman Jack Barbers to do the honors at Shibden Hall.

I came up with every reason not to do it for all of those years. What would my mother or people at work think? she says. "Now my hair is very gray white, and I just thought I’m going to do this. Gentleman Jack is why. It’s all about just becoming who I really want to be, really who I have been all along."

Busted plans are hard to swallow. But Diane’s courage hadn’t waned. So, 31 days after her buzz cut appointment had to be cancelled, she picked up a pair of clippers. Then she cut a swath down the middle of her head from the top of her forehead to the nape of her neck. In a matter of minutes, years of resistance lay piled on the ground.

Look at my hair! she exclaimed and stuffed the clippings in a jar like a hard-won trophy.

Gentleman Jack profoundly touched Kate, too.

"Watching Gentleman Jack brought up a lot of thoughts I’d had when I first came out, memories of the abuse I experienced and how I handled it, she says. It gave voice to something really hurtful I had gone through. Anne Lister went through similar experiences hundreds of years ago, and she survived beautifully. I didn’t feel as alone as I have sometimes felt, and that did something to me. It made me feel strong and proud again. I’m no longer the in-your-face-fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-it kind of person the way I once was. But I’m not afraid, and I’m certainly not ashamed. Hurtful things aren’t as hurtful any more. Anne Lister and Gentleman Jack did that for me."

Having withstood painful decades of being mistaken for men, taunts, stares, and the prejudice leveled at generations of lesbians, Diane and Kate have arrived at a place where self-acceptance comes easy.

If I had known about Anne Lister when I was 25, I would have chosen a totally different path for my life, Diane says. I think I would have packed up and moved to Halifax, and I would have been interested in doing research, maybe even transcribing her journals.

She can’t help but wonder how the lives of so many older gay women would have been different had they had strong lesbian role models.

Friends were—and still are—an important source of support.

After my 15-year relationship ended, Kate says, "I thought I would never be in another relationship. I decided I would concentrate on making friends. I didn’t know any of them, but I heard about a picnic that a lesbian group was having in Buffalo, New York. I was living just outside of Buffalo and I drove up and met five women. From that day, even though we are so different, we just clicked and have stayed close friends for 19 years—and now they love Diane too. In addition to the other things that Gentleman Jack has done for us, it has also given us something else we value—a new community of online friends."

Diane looks forward to the day when all of Anne Lister’s journals will be transcribed and available to read. She hopes it happens in her lifetime.

Anne Lister will have a long-term effect on me, one I know I’ll carry until I die, she says. I am just overwhelmed that she existed. She connected me to a different part of myself. She changed my life.

Perennial Optimist

United Kingdom

MY UPSIDE-DOWN LIFE

During a midlife crisis, a woman might experiment with a drastic new haircut. Maybe she’ll paint the kitchen turquoise. She could take up skydiving. She might train for a triathlon, buy a sports car, have an affair. But it’s the rare woman who is brave and adventurous enough to change every single thing in her life all at once . . . because of a television show.

I never saw it coming, Perennial Optimist, mother of two young adults, says. "At this time two years ago (May 2019), I had no plans to do anything different. I wasn’t going to give up my job. I wasn’t going to move houses. I certainly wasn’t going to move to Yorkshire. It all happened as a result of Gentleman Jack, and it happened really quickly."

Even in retrospect, she can’t quite put her finger on why she decided to buy the Gentleman Jack DVD boxed set in the first place. When the series first aired in the spring of 2019, she hadn’t heard anything about it. Now it was September, and her 19-year-old son had left Gloucestershire in southwest England to go to university. She was alone at home, with no responsibilities for looking after anyone else. With plenty of free time on her hands, she started watching the series. Her reaction was instant.

I felt like I was going home, she says. "Watching Gentleman Jack for the very first time, everything just fell into place for me. Until then, I’d never really noticed I had always been attracted to women. But now looking back, I can see that those feelings were always there. What Anne Lister felt—her feelings about herself and her situation—all resonated with me."

On the heels of watching Gentleman Jack came a quick trip to Shibden Hall.

I loved it, Ms. Optimist acknowledges. "There is a sense of Anne