https://www.historyextra.com/period/vic ... onetheless, Anning’s real descendants have questioned the decision to portray her as queer, with Barbara Anning – Mary’s distant niece –
being reported as saying: “The lesbian storyline is pure Hollywood as far as I know and there was no suggestion that she was a lesbian at all.” In an online forum, she goes on to comment: “Mary Anning was abused because she was poor, uneducated and a woman. Is that not enough?”Defending his choice to create a fictionalised relationship, director Francis Lee states that he wanted to give Anning a relationship that elevated her: “There is absolutely no evidence Mary ever had a relationship with anyone, whether that be heterosexual or same sex, but I knew I wanted to give her a relationship that felt worthy of her. It is well documented that she had close friendships with women and in the society of the time, where women were the subjects of men and where Mary had been virtually written out of history because of her gender and social status, it didn’t feel right to give her a relationship with a man.”