Who was Lizzie Borden — and was she queer?

Who was Lizzie Borden

Borden was a 32-year-old unmarried woman who lived at home with her father and stepmother, whom she was accused of murdering in 1892 in a trial that made national headlines.

The brutal murders, which took place in broad daylight on the morning of August 4, 1892, rocked the town of Fall River, Massachusetts. Borden claimed she found her father’s body, whose face had been rendered unrecognizable by 10 or 11 blows to his face from a hatchet, after coming into the house from the barn. She immediately yelled for the Bordens’ 26-year-old Irish servant, Bridget Sullivan, and then they later discovered her stepmother, who had been struck 19 times with the hatchet.

Borden and Sullivan were the only ones home at the time of the murders, since the eldest Borden daughter, Emma, was away on vacation. No one saw anyone entering or leaving the residence, and no neighbors or passersby heard anything.

While the police first suspected a “foreigner” was responsible for the crime, Borden became a suspect when she was never seen crying, and her answers to questions seemed to be short when being interrogated by the police. One week after the murders, Borden was arrested, and she spent the next nine months in county jail until she was ultimately acquitted.

Despite being found not guilty, Borden was ostracized from society, and since the murders were never solved, many people believe she is guilty to this day.

According to the Smithsonian, Borden was an unmarried Victorian woman who lived the life of a spinster. For more than 130 years, rumors have persisted that Borden was actually gay, with some theorizing that she was having a relationship with her maid, Sullivan.

Relationship with Bridget Sullivan 

There is no direct evidence that Borden was queer or had a romantic relationship with Sullivan or any other woman, but that hasn’t kept speculation at bay. The theory that Borden was having an affair with her maid has persisted and captured the imagination of the entertainment industry, but it isn’t rooted in documented proof.

What is true is that Sullivan helped Borden during the trial. While her testimony placed Borden at home at the time of the murders, she also told the court that there was no bad blood between Borden and her stepmother, which weakened the prosecution’s case.

We’ll likely never know who killed Borden's parents or if she was queer, but the theory that she was a lesbian and killed her parents because they discovered her affair with Sullivan is one that persists to this day.

Relationship with Nance O’Neil

After the trial, Borden and her sister moved across town, where they were mostly recluses except for a friendship Borden formed with stage and screen actress Nance O’Neil. O’Neil is often referred to as a lesbian, and the two women had a close relationship that sparked rumors at the time, but it is unclear if there was anything more than friendship between the two women.

For some, this desire to paint Borden as queer is based on wanting historical figures to be seen clearly and not forced into the closet by historical homophobia. Like the meme of historians says, “and they were just friends.”

She also had a close relationship with her dressmaker, Mrs. Cummings, and frequently wrote her letters. Although there are no overt declarations of love or evidence of Borden being queer, she did once write, “I dreamed of you the other night but I do not dare to put my dreams on paper."

Queer portrayals of Lizzie Borden

There have been countless movies and TV series about Lizzie Borden, including The Lizzie Borden Chronicles starring Christina Ricci as the titular Borden, which hinted at her alleged sapphic leanings. However, 2018’s Lizzie, starring Chloë Sevigny as Lizzie Borden, was more explicitly queer and focused on her having a lesbian relationship with Sullivan, who was portrayed by sapphic icon Kristen Stewart.

There was also a 2010 play that focused on the friendship between Borden and O'Neil, which was critically panned by the New York Times for folding “facts and conjecture into a plodding account of their quasi-romance.”