Was L. frank Baum secretly gay/gender dysphoric
His Oz books were all about girl power. The main character is Dorothy. The man she goes to seek help from turns out to be a charlatan. In the end, it’s Glinda, the Sorceress of the South, who helps her get home.
Book Two has an apparently male protagonist named Tip. Book Two also has an all female army who dethrones the Scarecrow from ruling the Emerald City. But at the end of the book, Glinda saves the day and reveals that Tip is really a girl, Princess Ozma.
The rest of the books all seem to be about Dorothy and Ozma having adventures and Glinda showing up to save the day at the end.
The Oz books didn’t really have a lot of strong male characters. It was all princesses.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | December 8, 2024 9:06 PM
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The original friend of Dorothy.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | December 6, 2024 9:36 AM
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His PHOTOS all scream-COOKIE SMELLER
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | December 6, 2024 12:41 PM
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I think he was in support of strong females. "On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women's suffrage and feminist activist." His wife sounds like a badass.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | December 6, 2024 1:19 PM
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He just seems like someone who really hated the way women were treated and wanted to do something about it. His books were an allegory about guided age assholes stealing from decent people
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | December 6, 2024 1:31 PM
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Had no idea he was hot either
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | December 6, 2024 2:06 PM
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It also might be that he discovered that his primary audience was young girls and he was writing to his market.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | December 6, 2024 2:08 PM
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His female secretary wrote most of the books
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | December 6, 2024 2:11 PM
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His mother-in-law was Matilda Joslyn Gage, a prominent suffragist. He and his wife lived at his mother-in-law's house for many years. It was she who encouraged him to write down his Oz stories. He made them up as bedtime stories for his kids.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | December 6, 2024 2:30 PM
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[quote] On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women's suffrage and feminist activist." His wife sounds like a badass
His wife sounds like a beard.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 6, 2024 2:33 PM
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It's not so weird to write about females. There are quite a lot of them
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | December 6, 2024 3:00 PM
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For sure Maude was a bearded lady.This is a silly confession-all my life I confused L Frank Baum with Frank Gumm-Judy's real father.I had to constantly remind myself the Baum was NOT Judy’s father but to me they were very similar. Varying histories of closet gay/bisexual behavior or rumored behavior. Both alive at the same time-maybe they would have hit it off?
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | December 6, 2024 3:41 PM
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Ruth Thompson was the author of most of them, including seven under her own official authorship after he died.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | December 8, 2024 6:05 PM
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Try as I might I could never get into those books.So many characters-so much chaos. The artwork was scary and off putting. Just the1939 MGM movie for me.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | December 8, 2024 7:22 PM
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This was a man who was not afraid to hold space while standing in his own truth.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | December 8, 2024 9:06 PM
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