Tipping the Velvet explores different expressions of sexuality and gender in late-19th-century Britain. The 19th century is foundational for contemporary ideas of sexuality and gender expression. German sexologists coined the terms “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” in the 1870s. In England, sexuality and gender expression were the subject of legislation and moralization, including laws in the 1890s that criminalized sex between men. Britain is also notorious for exporting anti-gay and anti-transgender biases to many other places in the world through colony penal codes. As a result, Victorian England is often viewed as sexually prudish and conservative. This common misconception doesn’t match all the available evidence. The novel explores often-forgotten history that suggests sexuality and gender were freer and more diverse in Victorian England than believed. Tipping the Velvet offers a nuanced version of sexuality and gender, showing that class and location in Britain affected how non-normative forms of gender expression and sexuality could be expressed.

Victorian law restricted sex acts and gender expressions outside of cisgender and heteronormative standards; current ideas about normative gender expression and sexuality are often traced back to Victorian England. Sodomy (any sexual act that does not involve vaginal penetration with a penis) remained a criminal offense in England until the 1960s, when sodomy was decriminalized.