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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 298 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 15: Gender Disguise - transcript

(Originally aired 2024/10/19 - listen here)

Usually I like to intersperse the trope shows with other topics, but I realized that the show I’m working on about “lesbians and the law” is going to need more time for background reading, so I thought I’d toss in another quick-and-easy trope topic: gender disguise.

To recap about the trope shows: I’m examining popular historic romance tropes and how they work differently for female couples as opposed to mixed-gender couples, and in some cases in contrast with male couples. As used for romance novels, tropes are a motif, a character type, or a type of relationship that repeats across multiple books and which creates certain types of reader expectations and experiences. In general I’m focusing on tropes that do have a gendered element to them, either in terms of the types of activities engaged in by women versus men, or where the social dynamics of a situation rely on assumptions about gendered interactions and their implications.

Today, I’m going to talk about gender-disguise plots, where one (or sometimes both) of the romantic leads are moving through the world as a different gender than the one they identify with. I want to be clear that I’m focusing very narrowly on situations where the character considers what they’re doing to be a disguise—usually a temporary one—and not situations of trans identity or gender transgression. Those are both important topics when developing sapphic historicals, but they’re out of scope for today’s discussion.

Gender Disguise in Male-Female Romances

So let us consider the gender disguise plot in male-female romance novels. Most typically this involves the heroine disguising herself as a man, or often as a boy, to account for issues of physical appearance. This disguise can serve various functions in the plot. It can give her access to greater agency and the opportunity to pursue adventures (or escape perils). It can give her access to masculine social spaces that enable her to interact with the hero more closely than would be acceptable for a woman. And it can remove the assumption of romantic or sexual potential from her interactions with the hero.

From a narrative point of view, another consequence of a disguised heroine is the introduction of the concept of male-male romance, within a framework where the reality of that possibility will be defused by a heterosexual resolution. When the hero is aware of the disguise (or becomes aware of it in the course of the plot), then the homosexual implications may be displaced onto the perception of side characters who sense that there’s something more than friendship going on. During the portion of the story where the hero is not aware of the disguise, that tantalizing possibility may appear as his confusion or ambiguity about his response to the heroine.

Georgette Heyer makes creative use of gender disguise plots, as in The Corinthian where the hero abets the heroine to cross-dress in order to escape an arranged marriage, with the two then having adventures and falling in love, traveling as a man and his young male ward, with the public masquerade put off until after the final scene when the two kiss passionately in view of a coach full of travelers. More complexly, in These Old Shades the hero is well aware of the heroine’s identity when he first encounters her disguised as a boy, but he helps maintain the masquerade as part of a complex revenge plot until his strategy requires him to re-introduce her to society as a well-bred young lady. But the most complex disguise plot—and the one best illustrating the social implications—is The Masqueraders, in which a brother and sister both cross-dress (in order to hide from political enemies) giving each social access to the characters who will become their romantic interests. Having a male character believably disguised as a woman, without making it a subject of ridicule, is something of a bold move. After all is revealed, the story acknowledges that his interactions with his beloved during the period when she believed him to be a woman were potentially problematic, but his recognition of this helps regain her trust.

In summary, gender disguise within a male-female romance creates the illusion of a lack of sexual tension and a lack of social impropriety, while creating the reality of actual impropriety and the probability of suppressed sexual tension.

Gender Disguise in Female-Female Romances

This situation is reversed in most gender disguise plots involving two women. We once more have several variables. Is the non-disguised woman aware of the disguise? Are either or both of them awake to the possibilities of same-sex romance before they’re thrown together? After all, in a male-female romance, it can generally be assumed that both characters are aware of the romantic potential of different-sex pairings. But that can’t always be assumed for same-sex pairings.

So let’s look at some possibilities. First of all, when one of the women is disguised as a man, that constrains the approved social interactions they can engage in. The disguised character won’t have the automatic access to privacy and intimacy with the non-disguised character that another woman would be granted. So either any courtship will need to develop along the same lines as it would for a male-female couple, or the disguised character may reflexively assume that she can interact as she would as a woman, resulting in misunderstandings or social scandal. If the non-disguised woman is aware of the disguise, she too may forget to behave appropriately for interactions with a man.

If the disguised woman is aware of having a romantic interest in women, then the disguise may well be part of a strategy to further this interest. Or she may try to resist falling in love, knowing that the disguise means the other woman can’t fully consent to the courtship. Alternately, it may be that unintentionally attracting the romantic attention of a woman (due to the disguise) is what awakens the disguised woman to the possibility of loving someone of the same sex.

From the point of view of the non-disguised character, does she think she’s falling in love with a woman or with a man? If she thinks that she’s attracted to a man, then at some point when the disguise is revealed there will be a reckoning not only about the deceit but about her emotions. If she is aware of the disguise but had not previously been attracted to women, the illusion of interacting with a male character may create a space where she can imagine and act on same-sex desire. Or in a different twist, what if she has only previously been attracted to women and now is reconsidering that when she believes she’s attracted to a man? There’s a lot of potential for a complicated resolution if the disguised woman believes that revealing her identity will mean losing her love, when in fact it’s a source of relief and joy on the other side.

Any gender disguise plot will need to account for why the masquerade exists, which will have plot implications. Was it meant to be a brief lark, as for a fancy-dress ball or theatrical performance? Was it driven by some necessity that means there are more dangers in dropping the masquerade than its impact on the romance? Was it done for practical purposes and will create logistical complications if abandoned?

Will the masquerade be abandoned? Has our cross-dressing heroine painted herself into a corner where she needs to contemplate continuing it indefinitely? At this point we’re edging into transgender territory regardless of how the character views her identity. But what are the consequences of returning to presenting as a woman? Is she returning to a previous identity or creating a new one? And how will that identity now interact with her beloved?

Since we’re talking about romance novels, we assume that the two characters will end up together, regardless of how they met, but their circumstances should make sense as a natural consequence of what came before.

What About Gender Disguise in Male-Male Romances?

I don’t always include a consideration of how these tropes work for male couples, but there are some interesting considerations to that aspect. For one, there were definitely historic contexts where a man disguised as a woman might intersect romantic attraction. Theatrical contexts are one obvious situation where the fuzzy border of playacting could provide space for negotiating something more serious. During various eras, cross-dressing was an accepted aspect of gay male culture, so the ambiguity between cultural cross-dressing and sincere gender disguise could create interesting plot possibilities. The same issues of knowledge, consent, and betrayal are present as for female couples, but perhaps with awareness of the greater social taboo for men. But conversely, the practical advantages of male cross-dressing are much smaller, so the motivation for doing so needs careful attention.

Conclusions

Today, the use of gender-disguise plots carries a number of considerations that might have been absent even as recently as a decade or so ago. Many readers will want to know that the story is not erasing, appropriating, or mocking trans identities. There’s also a tricky line to walk between what your characters would reasonably think about gender identity and presentation within their own historic context, and how your readers think about those subjects today, with our broader views on gender identity and presentation. But the dynamics of gender disguise still offer some great fodder for romantic complications if done in a thoughtful manner.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• My definition of gender-disguise plots
• The dynamics of gender disguise in m/f romance
• The dynamics and considerations of gender disguise in f/f romance
• Some considerations of gender disguise in m/m romance

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 297 - On the Shelf for October 2024 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2024/10/05 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for October 2024.

 It’s supposed to be fall, but here in California we’re having some of the hottest days of the year. And of course that’s nothing to what folks in hurricane country are dealing with at the moment. Climate is getting more extreme, but there are historic novels as well that deal with climate disasters, like the Galveston hurricane of 1900, or the “year without a summer” in 1816 when volcanic ash caused temporary cooling all around the globe and crop failures across Europe. And, of course, there’s an entire sub-genre of romances set around the great quake of San Francisco in 1906. When they’re safely fictional, a disaster can be an inspiring setting for historic fiction.

Wherever you look for inspiration, its time to get those juices flowing for next year’s fiction series on the podcast. I’ll get the new Call for Submissions up shortly, but the rules are essentially the same as in past years. Short stories of up to 5000 words, set in a historic time and place before 1900, centered around a character or characters who fall within the broad definition of lesbian. And historic fantasy is welcome as long as it’s anchored in an actual time and place. As usual, submissions will be open during the month of January. This will be the 8th year of the fiction series and the 9th year of the podcast. And we’re coming up soon on the 300th episode, which I hope to do something special for. Usually I do some sort of bonus fiction episode for these milestones, unless I get a brilliant idea for something new and different.

News of the Field

While putting together the "new sapphic historicals" book list this month, I turned up two phenomena I hadn't encountered before (but which I know are common in other genres). Both got me thinking about how I want to handle such things with respect to what books I mention on the podcast.

The first one was two translations of an (English-language) book I'd included in a previous podcast. The translations were explicitly marked "translated using Deep-L," which is a well-respected machine translation service that has an open license for people to use its output with appropriate credit. (I used Deep-L for much of the grunt-work of translating the trial records of Anne/Jean-Baptiste Grandjean for my blog.) This is a separate issue from the spate of translation-plagiarism that has shown up in discussions lately. The books are published by the original author and, as I say, explicitly note that they are machine translated.

There are still ethical considerations as well as considerations of writing quality. Machine translation eliminates the (valuable and highly skilled) job of human translators, in much the same way that Audible's "virtual voice" function eliminates human narrators. As a creative professional myself, I want to make mindful choices about how I support or undermine fellow creatives. So I thought a lot about whether I wanted to promote machine-translated fiction.

And then, as with machine narration, there's the question of whether machine translation creates a work that meets the reader's esthetic standards. For non-fiction translation (such as my use with historic records, or when people use Deep-L for business correspondence) the primary consideration is "does this accurately render the meaning of the original?" But when translating literature, there's also the question "Does this produce a result that aligns with the literary quality of the original?"

The second issue that I tripped over in putting together book lists this month is a clear case of books generated from large-language-model software. A book turned up in my search that had all the right keywords and a cover blurb that sounded interesting, but I got an "off vibe" from it, in part because the author's background seemed completely unrelated to sapphic historical fiction. So I did some more digging. The author appears to have released about 120 books in the last two months across a wide variety of genres. And while review numbers aren't a reliable sign of quality, they're a good metric for how seriously the market takes the book. Only 5% of those 120 books had any reviews on either Amazon or Goodreads. So I pulled up a few "look inside" views and found the text to be repetitive and simplistic. All the hallmarks of large-language-model text.

It was much easier to decide how to handle the second case in the context of this podcast -- the books don't get included and I put a note in my file not to bother with any books from that author in the future. The translation case took bit more thought. I like to include non-English titles when I'm able to identify them. But while I offer no judgment on an author using machine translation on their own work, I'm not sure I want to promote it actively.

The field of publishing never stands still. There are always new questions, new challenges, and new considerations. Ignoring them only means we’re leaving the future of the field in the hands of quick-buck artists, scammers, and monopolists. Every choice each of us makes in what we write, what we publish, what we buy, and what we promote contributes to shaping the future of the literature we love.

Book Shopping!

I’ve once more gone a month without blogging any new publications, but I’m working on another essay that will require additional reading and hope to remedy that soon. You might get a clue as to the topic from the book I just bought: Caroline Derry’s Lesbianism and the Criminal Law: Three Centuries of Legal Regulation in England and Wales. Only the first couple of chapters cover the pre-1900 period, but the author tackles the general question “can something be legally suppressed even if there are no laws against it?”

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

But nothing can suppress new lesbian and sapphic historical fiction! So let’s look at new and recent releases.

A July release that I somehow missed the first couple of times is the somewhat generically titled A Victorian tale of Life and Love by Nicole Kotoman.

In Victorian London, a tale of unlikely love unfolds between Andrea Sutton and Madeline Pearce. At twenty-one, Andrea inherits a vast fortune and the grief of losing her parents and twin brother. She adopts his identity, dressing as a man to navigate society's constraints. Madeline, at thirty-nine, is a twice-divorced mother of ten-year-old twin girls, facing eviction due to her second husband's gambling debts. Desperation leads her to hastily strike a marriage deal with Andrea. What begins as a practical arrangement blossoms into profound love. Andrea matures from a spoiled heiress to a compassionate spouse and parent. Madeline, once burdened by life's hardships, finds solace and partnership in Andrea's love. Their daughters discover the joy and passion of music, adding another layer to their family's story.

August gave us a Viking fantasy, My Beloved Viking by Victoria Valberg. There isn’t really cover copy for this book, just a series of breathless publicity statements. But evidently we get a “dark” romance between two women turned into a love triangle by a man, plus some supernatural creatures within a frozen northern landscape.

If you’re the sort of reader who prefers to wait for an entire series to be available before starting to read, you may feel vindicated with regard to Rachel Dax’s trilogy The Legend of Pope Joan, as the final volume Rome was just released in September, more than a decade after the first two books in the trilogy. Pope Joan was the subject of an actual medieval legend (though unlikely to have been historic truth) about a woman who lived as a man in order to become a scholar, who then rose through the ranks of the church and was elected pope, only to be discovered due to an unintended pregnancy. Rachel Dax spins this legend into a detailed story set in the early medieval period, tracing the protagonist from France to Athens to Rome. Dax’s Pope Joan is pansexual, and evidently the second book has the most focus on a same-sex romance. The cover copy for book 3 reads:

After five years of living in Rome as a scholar, Joan is called to serve as the Archdeacon and Special Advisor to Pope Leo IV. Although she longs for her lost love Thea and the simplicity of her life back in Athens, Joan is increasingly drawn to the epicentre of the Papal Court. When her private fantasy of becoming Pope is presented to her as a genuine possibility, she is soon faced with stark competition from two shadowy figures – her arch enemy Cardinal Benedict and the oleaginous Cardinal Anastasius who both want the Papal Throne for themselves. Ultimately, however, it is love that proves to be the most dangerous force in Joan’s life.

Her Fair Lady by Catherine Stein from Steam Cat Press is described as a mashup of Shakespearean comedy and Regency romance. There is a parallel, but independent, novella Boy Meets Earl that follows a different storyline of the same adventure.

Helena Wright has a single goal: retrieve her mother’s heirloom pearls from the Earl of Fenwick. When her brother decides to crash the earl’s house party disguised as a Bavarian lord, Helena has no choice but to play along. But the ruse throws her into the path of the beautiful and intriguing Amabel, Duchess of Mirweald. Amabel’s suspicions are quickly roused, drawing the two women into a game of lies and flirtation. Soon they’re spending more time together, peeling away more layers, and growing more intimate. As more truths are revealed, Helena and Amabel will need to confront their own buried desires in order to unearth the secret of true love.

Remember what I said about San Francisco earthquake romances being a subgenre all their own in lesbian historicals? The newest addition is All Bets Off by Jaime Clevenger.

Bette Lawrence is about to find out how hard life can be for someone of low society standing in the 1900’s. Helping take care of her family is expected and Bette steps right into the challenge. When Bette meets Sarah Douglas, the daughter of a wealthy importer and a past employer of her father, Bette is snubbed. Then a chance meeting at a masquerade party allows them to explore a friendship without Sarah knowing Bette’s identity.

When an earthquake sets San Francisco on fire for three days, Bette is forced to take care of not only her own family but Sarah’s as well. Will Bette be able to rebuild her family’s lifestyle and still develop a relationship with Sarah.

I really must get back to running statistics on settings and eras, because I want to see the actual numbers behind the current fashion for jazz-age novels like Hearts in the Shadows by Zara Voss.

Follow Maggie Sinclair, a spirited journalist, as she navigates the electrifying jazz clubs and suffragist rallies, where passion and purpose collide. In a whirlwind of friendship and desire, Maggie finds herself torn between her childhood confidante, Evelyn, and the fierce suffragist, Clara. As the Women's March for Equality approaches, Maggie's heart battles societal expectations and her longing for authentic love.

Experience a tale of forbidden romance, where every secret kiss and stolen glance ignites a revolution within her soul. Will Maggie choose the safety of her past or the exhilarating unknown with Clara?

Peril in Provence (The Mary Grey Mysteries #4) by Winnie Frolik from NineStar Press adds another adventure to this series set between the world wars, featuring a nurse, her girlfriend, and a friendly detective.

When Mary Grey hears that Harriet West has been arrested for murder in the beautiful and quaint French town of Munier they take the next train out. To their shock, Harriet confesses to the killing but swears it was self-defense. As they try to piece together the truth, more than one skeleton is unearthed in this seemingly sleepy community.

There are a lot of October releases, perhaps to make up for how scanty September’s list was. We start off with a dark romance from mythic Greece, Gentlest of Wild Things by Sarah Underwood from Harper Collins.

Desire binds them. Hunger compels them. Love will set them free…

On the island of Zakynthos, nothing is more powerful than Desire—love itself, bottled and sold to the highest bidder by Leandros, a power-hungry descendant of the god Eros.

Eirene and her beloved twin sister, Phoebe, have always managed to escape Desire’s thrall—until Leandros’s wife dies mysteriously and he sets his sights on Phoebe. Determined to keep her sister safe, Eirene strikes a bargain with Leandros: If she can complete the four elaborate tasks he sets her, he will find another bride. But it soon becomes clear that the tasks are part of something bigger; something related to Desire and Lamia, the strange, neglected daughter Leandros keeps locked away.

Lamia knows her father hides her for her own protection, though as she and Eirene grow closer, she finds herself longing for the outside world. But the price of freedom is high, and with something deadly—something hungry—stalking the night, that price must be paid in blood.

I think one of my favorite sub-genres of historical fiction are stories that take real-world biographies that hint at sapphic possibilities and fill them out with imagination. Stories like Sor Juana, My Beloved: The Poetry, The Passion That Is Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz by MaryAnn Shank from Dippity Press.

This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that.

Then one day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in pure ecstasy, a romance that neither had anticipated. When Maria Luisa returned to Spain, she took some of Sor Juana's writings with her, and had them published. Mexico City fell at Sor Juana's feet in adoration; the demonic Archbishop wanted her head, forcing her to answer for her crimes in front of the Inquisition.

There is a great deal that we do not know about this historical poet/dramatist. There is also a lot that whispers to us over the centuries. She lived through a colonial period of Mexican history bursting with creativity, followed by a period of mass massacres and desolation. Through it all is a woman who is certain of herself and her destiny, one not afraid to challenge authority, one who will go to any lengths to protect those she loves.

This gothic short story packs a lot of suspense into a small package – The Greymere Cliffs by Anne Knight from ARKA Publishing.

Mary Phelps wants, more than anything, to freely and openly love her bosom friend, Camilla. But she settles for second best: visiting Camilla at her new home in remote northern England during the final weeks of Camilla's pregnancy. But when she arrives, things are not as they seem. Camilla's nightmares bleed into the day. Servants scheme in dark passageways. Camilla's husband is distant and mysterious. And every time a wave hits the seacliffs, the very foundations of Greymere Castle quake.

One night the remnants of a terrible curse emerge from Greymere's tragic history--a curse that threatens to take Camilla and her unborn child as vengeance. Mary will do anything to protect her friend and love of her life, even if it means sacrificing herself to do so.

Mash-ups of Victorian adventure fiction are always popular, like this one that draws on Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and possibly more: Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris from The Inky Phoenix.

At the dawn of the twentieth century in Paris, Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, works as a researcher for the Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. But no one realizes how abnormal she is. Sam is a channel into the minds of monsters: a power that could help her solve the gruesome deaths plaguing turn-of-the-century Paris—or have her thrown into an asylum.

Sam finds herself assigned to a case with Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the criminal mastermind and famed nemesis of Sherlock Holmes and a notorious detective whom no one wants to work with on account of her previous partners’ mysterious murders. Ranging from the elite clubs of Paris to the dark underbelly of the catacombs, their investigation sweeps them into a race to stop a Beast from its killing rampage, as Hel and Sam are pitted against men, monsters, and even each other. But beneath their tenuous trust, an unmistakable attraction brews. Is trusting Hel the key to solving the murder, or is Sam yet another pawn in Hel’s game?

The title of Moonshine by Olivia Hampton tells us everything we need to know about the setting.

In the heart of Prohibition-era America, the lives of rough-and-tumble big-city girl Mae and small-town girl Jilly collide after Jilly accidentally stumbles into a clandestine meeting between Mae and her violent moonshine connection. To keep Jilly alive, Mae pretends that she and Jilly are secret lovers, going so far as to give Jilly a kiss. A kiss that was supposed to hold no heat. To mean nothing. But Mae feels instant sparks that threaten to thaw the freeze she keeps over her heart, and she can’t seem to stay away from the gorgeous blonde with the sweet smile and the habit of making Mae wish that things were different. That she was different.

Jilly is stunned when she stumbles into that meeting and finds herself first on the business end of a gun and then on the receiving end of a fiery kiss that leaves her weak in the knees. Jilly knows that the way that kiss made her feel is dangerous. But she can’t. stop thinking about it, or Mae, even though Mae is even more dangerous than that kiss. Mae, with her big city ways and her hazardous profession, has a bad habit of making Jilly wonder if the life she's always lived is the one she wants to keep living. Jilly also can’t seem to stop herself from helping Mae even though she knows what Mae is doing is dangerous, and illegal. That Mae will likely get them both arrested—or killed.

Mae knows she should just find another supplier. Stop heading off to that small town filled with dangerous men with dark secrets and a woman who has a perilously tight grip on Mae's heart. Mae knows, maybe better than anyone, that love leaves scars, and people can't always be trusted to be who they say they are.

Then a brutal act sets off a chain of events that reveals secrets, tests loyalties, and forces them to choose between love and survival. As moonshine flows and danger looms, can Mae and Jilly escape their pasts and find a fresh start together?

The jazz age returns to center stage in Her Last Secret by Renee Bess from Flashpoint Publications. While the cover copy isn’t very specific, subject tags identify this story as sapphic.

In 1930’s Paris the music is jazz, the art is experimental, and American ex-patriots of color are welcomed. Aspiring journalist Vera Clay packs her suitcase and travels from Philadelphia to France, where her Aunt Evangeline set new roots a decade earlier. While the language, culture, and self-acceptance feel foreign to Vera, the possibility of love is familiar. It is Paris during the 1930’s. Cigarette smoke curled above the heads of café, book store, and jazz club habitués carry rumors of an approaching firestorm. Some Parisians prepare to defend their lives and country. Others join the tidal wave of hatred threatening to immolate most of Europe.

I love it when authors drop me a note to let me know about their upcoming book—but it’s equally fun when I get to tell them that I already have it on the list! That’s what happened with Islands of Mice by Lucy Jacobs from Alma & Albany.

Norway. 1942.

The islands of Smøla are darkened not just by the long nights, but by blackout and Occupation. Solveig Eik dreams of being a hero. She’s bored of her everyday life, of tearing propaganda posters off walls, listening to hidden radios, and arguing with Liv Sunde – the islands’ glamourous schoolteacher and the girlfriend of the German colonel.

Opportunity steps out of the shadows when she finds a man, hiding from the Germans in a cave. As Solveig navigates treacherous waters and her plans spiral out of control, she finds that all too often the line between patriot, hero and traitor is razor thin.

I wasn’t entirely clear on the representation in The People Next Door by Anna Woiwood which has tags indicating polyamory. But the author has been a Golden Crown finalist so I’m inclined to trust the tags that say it has sapphic content. No clue what date the setting is but the cover art looks mid-20th century.

Having taught the history of art for more than four decades, Madelyn finds she is a voyeur of life. She watches as a new, young couple moves into the house next door once inhabited by her dear friend, Carole. The new neighbors ignite something new within Madelyn, a curiosity that she finds she cannot shy away from.

Other Books of Interest

I have a couple of books in the “other books of interest” category this month.

I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner from Harper Collins is a graphic novel featuring a loose retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma with a transmasculine character who could be read in various ways.

George has major problems: They’ve just inherited the failing family estate, and the feelings for their best friend, Eleanor, have become more complicated than ever. Not to mention, if anyone found out they were secretly dressing in men’s clothes, George is sure it would be ruination for the family name.

Eleanor has always wanted to do everything "right," including falling in love—but she’s never met a boy she was interested in. She’d much rather spend time with her best friend, George, and beloved cousin Charlotte. However, when a new suitor comes to town, she finds her closest friendships threatened, forcing her to rethink what "right" means and confront feelings she never knew she had.

The website Reads Rainbow categorizes this next book as sapphic, though you couldn’t tell it at all from the cover copy. The book is Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery from Harper Via.

The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.

The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.

What Am I Reading?

And what have I been reading in the last month? Just like the new releases, I’m making up for my pitiful September list with a vengeance. Unfortunately the numbers are inflated somewhat by several titles that I gave up on, something I’m reluctant to do.

I loved Joanna Lowell’s A Shore Thing, a cute Edwardian romance between a widowed naturalist and a transmasculine artist-turned-bicycle mechanic. The writing was beautiful and it has a much more complicated plot than a simple romance. The tensions and uncertainties between the main characters felt realistic, though I sometimes felt like the book was trying to touch base on entirely too many progressive issues at the same time.

Another great read was Lotte R. James’s A Liaison with Her Leading Lady, which turned out to be far more promising than the title suggested. Set among a late 18th century English rural theater company, the plot has something of a “hey kids, let’s put on a show!” vibe as the daughter of a late theater owner tries to save the company she considers family by luring a famous female playwright out of early retirement. I liked the writing even when it verged a bit over-the-top and the story and characters were well grounded in history, though sometimes the concrete everyday details felt a bit thin, and some of the theater culture aspects felt like they’d been transplanted from the current day.

Natania Barron’s magical Regencyesque fantasy Netherford Hall (featured recently in an interview) has some intriguing worldbuilding and a very cute slow-burn romance.

Two D&D-flavored fantasy novels with sapphic relationships simply failed me in terms of catching my interest. Django Wexler’s How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying and Rebecca Thorne’s Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea. In both cases, the main characters just never managed to make me care about them.

I had picked up M.C. Beaton’s Victorian romance The First Rebellion as part of a three-for-one deal in a new audiobook app I was trying out, but I found the characters by turns childish, obnoxious, and annoying. Neither the male nor female leads seemed to deserve the happy ending they would no doubt get eventually.

I’ve embarked on a program of filling in some of the gaps in my K.J. Charles reading and read the related novels Any Old Diamonds and Gilded Cage, revolving around a pair of jewel thieves with intriguing backstories and hazardous romances, one gay and one straight. There were a number of casual cross-over characters with the Sins of the City trilogy, which had me wanting to make character relationships diagrams to sort them all out.

Also from K.J. Charles was Rag and Bone, a lovely sweet romance set in the midst of deadly peril (in her Charm of Magpies universe) in which people keep doing questionable things for good reasons and it all turns out for the best in the end. (I should note that I don’t mean “sweet” in the “no sex” sense, but rather in that the two characters genuinely cared about each other and were willing to sacrifice for each other, which isn’t always the case with Charles’s couples.)

Finally, I listened to Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton which can be described—though not at all adequately—as “Regency romance, but dragons.” There’s a lot of fascinating worldbuilding stuffed into this fantasy-of-manners in which 19th century aristocratic mores get mapped onto creatures who gain power and status by literally eating each other. I felt the conflicts in the plot were all wrapped up a bit too neatly in the end, but as I said, Regency romance. And only a few central characters got eaten along the way.

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

• Disaster fiction
• Announcing the 2025 fiction series and some milestones
• The challenge that large language models present to publishing
• Book Shopping
  • Derry, Caroline. 2020. Lesbianism and the Criminal Law: Three Centuries of Legal Regulation in England and Wales. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-35299-8
• Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
  • A Victorian tale of life and love by Nicole Kotoman
  • My Beloved Viking by Victoria Valberg
  • The Legend of Pope Joan - Part 1: Frankia by author
  • The Legend of Pope Joan - Part 2: Athens by author
  • The Legend of Pope Joan - Part 3: Rome by author
  • Her Fair Lady by Catherine Stein
  • All Bets Off by Jaime Clevenger
  • Hearts in the Shadows by Zara Voss
  • Peril in Provence (The Mary Grey Mysteries #4) by Winnie Frolik
  • Gentlest of Wild Things by Sarah Underwood
  • Sor Juana, My Beloved: The Poetry, The Passion That Is Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz by MaryAnn Shank
  • The Greymere Cliffs: A gothic romance short story by Anne Knight
  • Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris
  • Moonshine by Olivia Hampton
  • Her Last Secret by Renee Bess
  • Islands of Mice by Lucy Jacobs
  • The People Next Door by Anna Woiwood
• Other Titles of Interest
  • I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner
  • Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
• What I’ve been consuming
  • A Shore Thing by Joanna Lowell
  • A Liaison with Her Leading Lady by Lotte R. James
  • Netherford Hall by Natania Barron
  • How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler
  • Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne
  • The First Rebellion by M.C. Beaton
  • Any Old Diamonds by K.J. Charles
  • Gilded Cage by K.J. Charles
  • Rag and Bone by K.J. Charles
  • Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 295 - On the Shelf for September 2024 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2024/09/07 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for September 2024.

I usually start off these episodes by commenting on the passage of time or noting something about the season. This month, you get to hear about What I Did On My Summer Vacation. Ok, not all the things I did, but the ones relevant to the podcast.

As regular listeners may know, I go to science fiction conventions, and I make a big effort to get to the annual World Science Fiction Convention, which is held in a different location every year. This year, Worldcon was hosted in Glasgow, Scotland and when I took a look at how much accrued vacation I need to use up before my retirement, I decided to take an entire month off and do some serious sightseeing.

In addition to the convention, the organizing theme of my travels was doing some deep-background location research for various writing projects. So I took advantage of Icelandair’s free lay-over offer and started by spending half a dozen days in Reykjavik, with a tour to see various sites like the Thingvellir that will feature in a Viking-era fiction project. The week after that was the convention in Glasgow where I had the chance to see all manner of international friends whom I mostly only meet on the internet. My one piece of programming at the convention was a panel discussion entitled “Sword Lesbians: Discuss” with Ellen Kushner (author of The Privilege of the Sword), Samantha Shannon (author of The Priory of the Orange Tree), and Em X. Liu (who was a finalist this year for the Astounding Award for best new writer). It was a fabulous panel discussion with intense energy and too many good points to be able to summarize at all.

My next stop after Glasgow was Halifax, to make a pilgrimage to Shibden Hall. Halifax has really embraced Anne Lister tourism wholeheartedly. The staff at Shibden Hall were passionately knowledgeable about the site and its history and ready to educate and engage with visitors on whatever level was most suitable. I was particularly interested in seeing how the building had evolved across the centuries, the changes that Anne Lister made to it as part of her program of sprucing up “shabby Shibden,” and the ways the site has been conserved to best illustrate that history. There’s also a lot of explanatory material, not only about Anne Lister’s life, but about the use of Shibden Hall as a location when filming Gentleman Jack. I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the neighborhood.

After that I stayed with friends in London for a week and went on a program of visiting buildings that survived the Great London Fire in 1666, as location research for my Restoration-era series, Diana’s Band. (Of which the first story was published recently in the Bella Books anthology Whispers in the Stacks.) Since many of the surviving buildings are currently pubs or restaurants, I made it a side quest to eat a meal every day in a building that existed in the 17th century. (I started that quest in Halifax and continued it later in the trip in York.) While it made for a fun theme, the experience also reminded me of how there’s no such thing as a building frozen in time, and historic research always needs context and interpretation. While it was possible to trace the original oak beams in the building interiors, and make a good guess at what parts of the footprint were original and which parts were later modifications, it was always the case that the interior decoration and many aspects of the structures dated to more recent centuries.

After London, I returned north to York to meet up with a friend and visit the Portal Bookshop, a queer bookstore that may be the only place in the UK that regularly carries all my books. (I even hand-sold a copy of The Language of Roses to a customer while I was there.) York was even richer is historic landscapes than London, and you could get a real sense of civic planning as a “character” in how the layout of streets and the relationships of the buildings reflected the deep history of the town.

After York, I returned to Glasgow for a day’s recuperation before flying home again. So my month has been full of memorable experiences…but not a lot of other productive activities!

Publications on the Blog

As expected, I didn’t blog any new publications in August due to travel.

Book Shopping!

But I did pick up a couple new books from the gift shop at Shibden Hall. These are two of Jill Liddington’s shorter publications about Anne Lister. Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax 1791-1840, is an overview of the history of Anne’s diaries and the various researchers who worked to bring them to the attention of the public. When I was discussing the topic with one of the staff at Shibden Hall, he very emphatically corrected me that the diaries were never “hidden away” in any deliberate sense. They were always just sitting there on the shelves and people knew they were there, but since all the “juicy bits” were in code, a superficial look suggested that the content was primarily financial and household records.

The second book is Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire, which is a focused look at the year 1832 in Anne’s life, a key period in her refashioning of her life and her courtship of Ann Walker. Liddington has compiled key diary entries and strung them together with a narrative providing context. This is the book on which the tv series Gentleman Jack was based.

There were, of course, a number of other books relating to Anne Lister in the gift shop, but I already owned all the rest of them!

I also picked up a non-text item: a CD of music from Anne Lister’s personal sheet music collection, recorded live at Shibden Hall.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

We have a good selection of new and recent releases to talk about this month, with a better distribution across the centuries than we often get.

One July book that only just came to my attention is the medieval adventure Chivalry in the Shadows by Meg Merriet Wahlberg from Parkwood Manor Press.

Chivalry, for Rowen, is more than a code of honor. It is a culture of fraternal love that elevates a person in spirit and heart, an errant way of life that knows no bounds. Chivalry, though, belongs only to men, and as a lady, Rowen lives completely under the control of her father. Longing to carve out an identity as a warrior, she compels her brother, Roland, to teach her the way of the sword.

When Amarys, Rowen's dearest friend and secret beloved, is to be married to the victor of the midsummer tourney, Rowen entreats Roland to compete and prevent her from marrying a stranger. Fortune’s ever-turning wheel trembles, though, as the reality of Roland and Amarys together unearths Rowen's true feelings. Can she bear to watch her brother marry the woman she loves? Or does chivalry have its limits, after all?

August releases start off with the Regency fantasy Netherford Hall by Natania Barron from Solaris Books, which I saved to include in this episode in order to coordinate with our interview with the author later in this podcast.

After a mysterious fire at their home in Regency London displaces Gentlewitch Edith Rookwood and her now much-reduced family to their ancestral seat of Netherford Hall in Kent, she faces a new threat in the form of her tenant—the chaotic and lovely Poppy Brightwell.

The repairs on the old pile are prohibitive, Edith’s standing is uncertain, and her inheritance has been challenged by a forgotten American branch of the family. It is clear she needs to marry, soon and wisely—but the lively girl from Harrow House gradually comes to occupy all of her thoughts.

As tenants, rivals, suitors and enemies start to circle Netherford, and dark secrets about both women’s pasts come to light, Edith and Poppy must confront what it means to fight for love and family, and to be their authentic selves.

The gender-crossing Western Generations by Madison Locke is tagged as a fantasy, but it’s unclear to me from the cover copy whether there are, in fact, fantasy elements. The description of the main character’s gender identity is a bit ambiguous, and I don’t know how the Native American love interest is handled, so if these may be important elements for you, perhaps check out reviews before reading.

Generations follows Sam, a woman forced to live as a man in the late 19th century. From a young age, Sam navigates the complexities of a male-dominated world, facing unparalleled challenges as she transitions from boy to man. Tragedy strikes when her father dies, leaving her to carve out a solitary existence on the harsh frontier of Colorado Territory. Enduring the unforgiving elements and the dangers of the Wild West, she builds a homestead from scratch. A pivotal moment comes when she rescues a Native American woman, igniting a forbidden love that defies societal norms.

Generations later, Jordan, a descendant of Sam, finds herself stifled by societal expectations. Much like her ancestor, Jordan yearns for a life outside of traditional boundaries. Through unexpected connections, she discovers a long-lost relative, offering a lifeline and a deeper understanding of her own identity.

The novel explores how the experiences of one generation echo through time, shaping the lives of those who follow and illuminating the enduring power of human resilience, love, and the complexities of identity.

September books start off with a story from the late Roman Republic: Between Feud and Treason by Francis Grash from Improwizacja.

Cassia's life turns upside down after she discovers her father was involved in the plot against Caesar. She needs to learn how to function in the new reality, trapped between political unrest and her own ambitions. Always passionate about writing, she tries to follow her heart. The more she descends into the artistic world, the greater obstacles she encounters, one of them being a newly uncovered desire. What choices will Cassia make to free herself from this den of lies? Will she be able to abandon one goal in favour of another?

The next title ties in with my interest in Restoration London: The Pudding Lane Witch by A.W. Jackson from Cranthorpe Millner Publishers

On the run from the mob who killed her mother, young pyrokinetic witch Gweneviere Baxter is running out of options. Surviving as an unmarried young woman in the 17th century is challenging enough, let alone when you are a witch. So, when the opportunity to wed the local baker is presented to her, Gweneviere feels she has no other choice, if she wants to survive.

Tragically, marriage is less peaceful than Gweneviere had envisaged, and she struggles to keep her witch identity hidden as she suffers through her husband’s daily abuse. But everything changes with the arrival of a young slave woman, Kambili, and Gweneviere falls hard and fast, her love for Kambili shining brightly in her otherwise hellish life.

But with both witches and mortals working against her, will Gweneviere ever be able to make a life for herself and her true love? Will she ever have her paradise?

Given the reference to the protagonist as a pyrokinetic and married to a baker, I have to wonder if there’s a very direct connection to the Great London Fire, which started out in a bakery on Pudding Lane.

Renee Dahlia has a short story on offer: The Pirate's Willing Captive (Swain Cove #1).

There are two things Tzipporah MacJohn can’t resist. A beautiful woman and an adventure. When her brother asks her to kidnap his sister-in-law to help her escape an abusive husband, Tzipporah is keen for the adventure.

She doesn’t expect Lady Abigail Coxspeckle to be so brave under her polite porcelain façade. Soon their kisses, the murder of Lord Coxspeckle, and the little matter of an accidental pregnancy all threaten to destroy Tzipporah’s pirate smuggler lifestyle.

Can Tzip keep her freedom if she falls in love with the most inconvenient of her lovers?

Major romance publishers continue to test the market for sapphic Regencies with The Duke's Sister and I by Emma-Claire Sunday from Harlequin Historical.

She’s supposed to wed a duke…

But it’s his sister she can’t keep her eyes off!

As the ton’s most in-demand debutante, it should be easy for Miss Loretta Linfield to find the perfect husband. So the reason why she is embarking on her third season unwed is a puzzle that nobody can solve. Not least Loretta! Until she meets Charlotte Sterlington… The sister of her new suitor, the Duke of Colchester, is everything that prim and proper Loretta isn’t—bold, daring and rakish! But Charlotte is also everything that Loretta finds herself desiring…

Faye Murphy describes her novel The Dishonest Miss Take from BHC Press as “Enola Holmes meets X-Men meets Warrior Nun.” So if that stirs your interest, check it out!

Clara Blakely has left her days as Miss Take, the notorious villain of Victorian London, behind her. She is a reformed, law-abiding citizen using the superpower given to her by industrial pollution to pay her debt to society. Or that's what she would have the authorities believe. Clara has no intention of helping anyone but herself, and the last thing she wants is to be dragged into a fight against a new and murderous evil that's stalking the streets.

Yet, despite the Hero Brigade thwarting her every move, she must take on the city's powerful and corrupt elite by joining forces with a cheat, her hapless landlord, and a trio of trained killers, including an assassin whose skill with a knife is matched only by their skill at creeping into Clara's heart. With stakes so high, Clara must become what no one, least of all herself, expects: a hero.

Rounding out our tour of the centuries, we have The Market Women of Diamond Square by Jan Ellen Kurth from East Enders LLC.

When Katherina “Katya” Wessel takes over a fruit stand at Pittsburgh’s Diamond Market House, she assumes she’s simply working to support herself and her invalid father. But she finds something else.

A sisterhood of hucksters.

Shrewd, outspoken, hardworking—and hard drinking—market women. Women who congregate in the saloons around Diamond Square and make them their own.

The election of 1913 throws this world into turmoil. The new mayor announces that the market house will be demolished. With encouragement from the Billy Sunday revival, the mayor also cracks down on “vice.” By “vice” he means liquor, motion pictures, pool halls, dancing, street musicians—and women gathering in saloons without a male escort.

The market women fight back, but taking on city hall is an uphill battle. For Katya, the battle is complicated by her often-confusing attraction to Ester, a Russian Jewish immigrant. After Ester is arrested and disappears, Katya makes it her mission to find her. When the city of Pittsburgh decides to tear down the “new” market house almost fifty years later, Ester’s fate is finally made clear.

Prolific author Robin Talley has a new YA title, Everything Glittered, from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

It’s 1927 and the strict laws of prohibition have done little to temper the roaring 20s nightlife, even in the nation’s capitol. Everyone knows the booze has never stopped flowing, especially amongst the rich and powerful, and seventeen-year-old Gertrude and her best friends Clara and Milly are determined to get a taste of freedom and liquor, propriety be damned.

 But after sneaking out of the Washington Female Seminary to visit a speakeasy, they return to discover that their controversial young headmistress, Mrs. Rose, has been murdered.

 Reeling from the death of her beloved mentor, Gertrude enlists her friends in her quest to clear Mrs. Rose’s reputation, while trying to keep her own intact. But in Prohibition Washington, it’s difficult to sidestep grifters, bootleggers, and shady federal agents when investigating a murder. And with all the secrets being uncovered, Gertrude is finding it harder and harder to keep her attraction to her best friends hidden. 

 A proper, upscale life is all Gertrude has ever known, but murder sure makes a gal wonder: is all that glitters really gold?

Pre-war Berlin is the setting for Beyond a World Apart by Caitlin E. Myers from CEM Publishing LLC.

Cara O’Shea encounters her first look at a fully nude female figure in Die Freundin, and her life is never the same again. When her strict Catholic family finds the magazine in her closet, she is forced to flee to the liberating streets of Berlin, where she finds herself at the heart of the city’s queer cabaret scene. She gets a job at the famous club Eldorado, and finds joy in creating extraordinary costumes for her new queer friends.

Her world darkens as the Nazi’s shadow looms over Berlin, and Cara faces new fears when her newfound community and future become threatened. As the fascist regime strengthens its hold, impossible choices arise, with tragedy waiting just around the corner.

Set against a backdrop of historical upheaval, this novel weaves a compelling story of resilience, identity, and the enduring power of community amidst adversity.

Other Books of Interest

I also want to give a shout-out to the re-issue of a book I loved that’s been unavailable for some time. Frederica and the Viscountess, by Barbara Davies, has been reissued by Bedazzled Ink Publishing. If you’re a fan of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, you’ll love this tropey Regency romance, originally published in 2010. I don’t usually list re-prints in this segment of the podcast, but I’m willing to make exceptions on a whim for books I really love.

What Am I Reading?

And what have I been reading? You might think that with a  month’s vacation I would have really torn through my to-be-read list, but I find I have a hard time concentrating on new material when I’m traveling, so this month’s reading list is limited to the audiobook of Paladin's Faith (Saint of Steel #4) by T. Kingfisher, and I finished it before my vacation started. This is the latest volume in a fantasy romance series featuring earnest, good-hearted but soul-damaged paladins and the people who love them despite sense and their best interests. A good read and very much in line with the previous books in the series.

Author Guest

As mentioned previously, we have an author guest this month. To coordinate with the release of Netherford Hall, we’re happy to welcome Natania Barron to the show.

[Interview transcript will be added when available.]

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• What I did on my summer vacation
• Book Shopping
  • Liddington, Jill. 2010. Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax 1791-1840. Pennine Press, Hebden Bridge. ISBN 978-873378-02-1
  • Liddington, Jill. 2019. Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire. Pennine Press, Hebden Bridge. ISBN 1-873378-48-9
• Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
  • Chivalry in the Shadows by Meg Merriet Wahlberg
  • Generations by Madison Locke
  • Netherford Hall by Natania Barron
  • Between Feud and Treason by Francis Grash
  • The Pudding Lane Witch by A.W. Jackson
  • The Pirate's Willing Captive (Swain Cove #1) by Renee Dahlia
  • The Market Women of Diamond Square by Jan Ellen Kurth
  • Everything Glittered by Robin Talley
  • Beyond a World Apart by Caitlin E. Myers
  • The Dishonest Miss Take by Faye Murphy
  • The Duke's Sister and I by Emma-Claire Sunday
  • Frederica and the Viscountess by Barbara Davies
• What I’ve been consuming
  • Paladin's Faith (Saint of Steel #4) by T. Kingfisher
• This month we interview Natania Barron and talk about:
  • The historical and fantasy contributions to Netherford Hall
  • The structure of the series
  • Natania’s Arthurian series
  • Netherford Hall by Natania Barron
  • Queens of Fate (series)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Natania Barron Online

• Website: NataniaBarron.com
• Bluesky: @natania.bsky.social
• Threads: @NataniaBarron
• TicTok: @NataniaBooks

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 293 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 14a: Actresses and the Stage - transcript

(Originally aired 2024/08/17 - listen here)

This episode is part of the series “our f/favorite tropes,” examining how popular historic romance tropes work differently for female couples than for mixed-gender couples. As used in discussing romance novels, a trope is a recurring literary device or motif—a conventional story element that is used regularly enough that it carries a whole context of meaning, and connects the story to other works that employ the same trope. The trope could be a character type, like the knight in shining armor; it could be a situation, like the moment when the detective reveals the murderer; it could be a mini-script, like “experienced mentor trains novice to be an expert.”

One subset of tropes particularly popular in contemporary romance are those focused on specific careers or jobs. In historic romance, you’re more likely to find tropes based on social roles than professions, but occupational tropes are still a feature.

When I started thinking about doing a show based on actresses, I realized that the situation was more complicated than simply talking about the dynamics of a romantic relationship involving a particular profession. Dramatic performance—especially the aspect of playing out roles with other people—adds in a whole other angle to romantic relationships, especially when those relationships aren’t well represented in ordinary society. It can overlap the “fake relationship” tropes, except that the fakeness of the relationship is overt. But it also overlaps hidden identity or masquerade tropes, except—again—the masquerade aspect is overt.

So this trope episode is split into two parts representing those different aspects. This first episode will look at various ways in which dramatic performance can create space for same-sex female relationships. The second episode will look at the history of women in theater and the points at which the profession of actress intersected with the experience of sapphic relationships, whether in the popular imagination or in the lives of specific people.

Dramatic performance can create spaces for same-sex desire in several different ways. The most obvious one is by depicting women loving women in the script. But even if sapphic desire isn’t written in to the story, the use of cross-gender casting can bring it on stage, as the distinctions between the performer and the role become blurred and overlaid on each other. This may happen in contexts where all the performers are women, but the roles involve heterosexual romantic relationships. But some of the most exciting contexts come with the rise of what came to be called “breeches roles”—that is, when women in mixed-gender acting companies deliberately took on male roles on stage, deliberately taking on a character who romanced women, and becoming an object of desire for male and female spectators alike. And apart from these contexts that create the image of desire between women on stage, there is the opportunity for self-discovery, when an actress who takes on a cross-gender role finds that the situation resonates more strongly than she expected. We’ll take a look at each of these in turn.

Same-Sex Romance in the Script

One of the most obvious ways that theater can enable same-sex romance is to tell women that such a thing exists and can be imagined. There are depictions of same-sex desire in prose and poetry, but those are often limited in terms of who has access to them. Theater is usually aimed at a general audience. Sometimes the stage is more private, and sometimes it’s open to all viewers—or at least anyone who has the admission price.

That isn’t to say that all portrayals of same-sex desire on the stage are positive, much less that they have what we’d consider a happily-ever-after ending. But if you want to give your protagonists the idea that love between women is imaginable, then these plays can be their first step.

The most common motif that enables same-sex possibilities on stage is some sort of gender bending. The structural framework of the relationship appears to be heterosexual, but the supposed man is a woman in disguise. A strong runner-up is situations where we are shown what appear to be two women in love…but one of them is actually a man in disguise, thus offering propriety a way out. Far more rarely does a play show us two women in love as women.

Several philosophical principles lie behind the ways same-sex love was presented. One was a belief that beauty—and so attraction—is not necessarily gendered. This might be thought of as the principle that everyone is potentially pansexual. A beautiful person will be loved and desired by everyone, and if someone is attracted to beauty in the same gender it can be understood and forgiven, especially if they have the plausible deniability that they thought they were falling in love with the opposite sex. Related to this is the idea that women are prone to fall in love with someone, and if men are not present, then they will fall in love with each other.

A second principle is that like tends to attract like. That it’s natural and understandable for someone to desire a person who is similar to them in some way, potentially including similar in gender. But acting in concert with these philosophical principles is the safety valve of situating same-sex desire somewhere other than the here and now. It might take place in the distant past, or in a far-off land, or in a fantasy world. There are exceptions, but for the most part, sapphic desire on stage is deliberately distanced from the world the audience inhabits.

At the other end of the scale, same-sex desire may be played for laughs or derision. The idea of women loving—or simply making love to—each other may be treated as a joke, or be used to shock, or to satirize some group of people by associating them with lesbianism. The tone of the dramatic work will affect which of these options are used. Is it a high-minded drama? A fun-loving pastorale? A low-brow farce? Each has its motifs and stock characters.

To explore the range of material, let’s take something of a geographic tour. The material I’m discussing is largely from the Renaissance and early modern eras, which isn’t to say that we don’t find sapphic themes in more recent centuries. As I’m drawing from materials covered in the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog, there is also some skewing toward English material. But many of the themes—indeed often the plays themselves—were shared across Europe. In some cases, this is due to adaptations of plays from one language to another, but theatrical plots based on female cross-dressing seem to have become generally popular across western Europe in the early modern period, even when no direct connection can be traced.

Classical Greek & Roman

The available material is also constrained by whether the scripts of plays—or at least descriptions of the plot—were recorded for posterity. For the most part, this means we’re looking at a small amount of medieval material, then primarily the 16th century and later. But there are two records of classical-era plays that have suggestive content.

One of the sources for the early roots of the myth of Callisto and Artemis is a 4th century Greek comedy by Amphis that makes explicit the fact that Callisto believes she had sex with the goddess. The matter is played for laughs as the character protests naively that she has become pregnant by a woman.

Somewhat more obscurely, in a classical Roman play, Truculentus, a character puns on two similar-sounding words to suggest that a female character “fuck your mistress”, though the bit is a passing joke rather than a significant plot element. But the joke would not have landed without the audience considering the possibility of the action.

Italy

Several Italian plays of the 16th century have a central element where a woman cross-dressing as a man attracts the romantic interest of another female character. In La Calandria by Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, published in 1513, and based on a play by the Roman author Plautus, the romantic comedy centers around male and female twins, separated in their youth. Santilla has been living disguised as a boy since she was 6 years old and has taken on her lost brother’s identity. Her brother, meanwhile, has fallen in love with a married woman and takes on Santilla’s identity to seduce his love without her husband’s knowledge. The real Santilla (in male disguise) is tapped to marry the daughter of the man who has become her patron. Both of these contexts create either the illusion or the reality of a woman expressing desire for another woman.

Slightly more familiar is the Commedia dell’Arte play Gl’Ingannati (published in 1531) which is considered the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. As in Twelfth Night, a female twin takes on her brother’s identity and finds herself being the go-between for the man she loves with the woman he loves, who then falls in love with her (in disguise).  I’m going to talk about both the Italian and Shakespeare plays together, because the contrasts are interesting.

The Italian play is far more overt about the possibility of the disguised heroine standing in for her brother sexually as well as socially. Where Shakespeare’s cross-dressed heroines often emphasize their conventional feminine natures and desires, the Italian heroines focus more on the social constraints and expectations of gender roles, and the potential legal consequences of carrying the role into another woman’s bed. The homoerotic tension in this genre of play is resolved via the “convenient twin brother” motif, but also by creating a familial bond between the two women, typically mediated by marriage of one to the other’s relative. Homoerotic desire is not repudiated, but is diverted to an acceptable form.

When Gl’Ingannati was first performed in Italy, it would have been by an all-male company, but commedia troupes were incorporating women across the later 16th century and by the time Shakespeare’s play was written, an Italian equivalent would have had actresses playing the female parts.  The original performance of Gl’Ingannati was produced and dedicated to a primarily female audience. From this, we must assume that depictions of female homoeroticism must have been expected to entertain and please women. And some scenes in the play imply that sex between women might be accepted and excused.

Frequently, in plays with this motif, the women initially cross-dress for the safety and mobility it affords them, or even in support of heterosexual desire, which gives them a realistic and excusable motivation. The plays embrace both tragic and comedic potential in the motivations and consequences. The desiring women of the Italian plays express more physicality, whereas Shakespeare’s heroines feel a more diffuse, romanticized yearning. In Gl’Ingannati, Isabella, in her desire for the disguised Lelia, is described as being “in heat” and masturbating when thinking of her beloved.

While female homoeroticism is treated more openly in Italian theater than on the English stage, it was more closely policed in Italian culture and law, which provided a clear vocabulary for such acts. English society and law expressed anxieties about cross-dressing and gender roles, but shied away from overtly acknowledging female homosexuality, and had no laws addressing it.

Another difference is that Shakespeare’s Olivia has far more social power and freedom than her Italian counterpart. Olivia has power over her potential suitors, while Isabella (in Gl’Ingannati) is under others’ control and seeks her goals through deceit. In the Italian play, the cross-class nature of the forbidden relationships is more highlighted than the cross-dressing. Thus Italian cross-dressing comedies are “translated” for an English audience in a variety of ways, while still retaining the central motif and ambiguous sapphic desire.

Another Italian play that was exported multiple times to other cultures was Il Pastor Fido by Giovanni Battista Guarini (published 1590) and translated into English by Richard Fanshawe in 1647 as The Faithfull Shepherd. One minor incident involves the shepherd Mirtillo, who has disguised himself as a woman in order to gain access to Amaryllis, the woman he desires who is hiding out with an all-female group of nymphs. The nymphs decide to hold a competition to see who is the best kisser, which Mirtillo wins. Thus we have a set-up for women engaging in passionate kisses with the escape valve that the best kisser is actually a man.

France

Ovid’s myth of Iphis and Ianthe, in which gender disguise leads to two girls falling in love, thus requiring a divinely-mediated sex change to enable their marriage, shows up in medieval literature in a number of forms, including the medieval French chivalric romance of Yde and Olive. But the latter was also adapted in the 14th century as a miracle play. The main character (here named Ysabel) takes on male disguise to escape from her father's incestuous advances and becomes distinguished as a knight in the court of the emperor of Constantinople. The emperor requires Ysabel to accept his daughter's hand in marriage. Ysabel reveals her secret to her bride on the wedding night, who promises to keep the secret and to honor and cherish Ysabel as she would a husband. All is well until an eavesdropper betrays them to the emperor who demands that the pair take a bath before him in the garden to confirm or deny the accusation. The miracles involve Ysabel’s several narrow escapes from detection, but not—contrary to the earlier versions of the story—a magical sex change. Instead there’s a rather awkward resolution in which both women marry each other’s father.

Iphis and Iante, in its original form, was adapted as a play in the 17th century by Isaac de Benserade. Benserade was writing for a libertine audience (both male and female) and dares to depict happy lesbian relations. The two are allowed a happy wedding night as women—and Iphis’s secret is known and discussed by many characters before the wedding—but a sex-change is still required to validate the marriage. In contrast with Ovid’s original, which considered love and marriage between women to be impossible, Benserade’s play is clearer that it is social rules, not rules of nature, that stand in the way.

Spain

In 17th century Spain, desire between women was depicted on stage using several different framings. The real-life story of Catalina de Erauso, who ran away from a convent, took on a male identity, and went adventuring in South America, was fictionalized in Juan Pérez de Montalbán’s 1626 play La Monja Alférez (The Lieutenant Nun). Somewhat in contradiction to the events documented in Erauso’s own memoirs, Monalbán centers his plot on a romance between Erauso and a woman named Ana. Erauso’s desire is depicted as hopeless, and Ana ends up with a man, but the love is depicted as genuine and self-sacrificing.

Alvaro Cubillo de Aragón’s play Añasco el de Talavera (written around 1637) depicts lesbian desire without the mechanism of male disguise, though through a lens of female masculinity. The butch Dionisia’s desire for her female friend Leonor is an open topic of discussion within the play. Dionisia complains about the restrictiveness of female gender roles and has a serious case of “not like other girls”. She specifically expresses the desire to be touched sexually by Leonor and says she loves her. Leonor is uncertain about the concept, but Dionisia presents her argument in terms of platonic love, and argues for the supremacy of same-sex platonic love over heterosexual desire. The dialogue acknowledges that women may “sin” together, making it clear that that Dionisia is proposing a sexual relationship. Leonor, alas, is irredeemably heterosexual.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca wrote a 1664 play, Afectos de Odo y Amor, based on the life of the Swedish Queen Christina. He gave a wink and nod to Christina’s sexual reputation by naming her lady in waiting in the play “Lesbia.” The character in the play is defending her right to rule as a woman, in conflict with the antagonist Casimiro. The play sets up a bait-and-switch marriage plot in which Queen Christina agrees to marry Casimiro’s sister (that is, within the play this is overtly a same-sex marriage plan). But after the marriage is contracted, the sister substitutes her brother Casimiro and Christina rather inexplicably capitulates.

England

Late 16th and early 17th century English drama is rather rich in depictions of female homoerotic desire—a noteworthy feature even though the plays overwhelmingly have heteronormative resolutions. In general, the plays presented desire between women as suspect and threatening, but simultaneously as tolerable and pleasurable, particularly if viewed through the lens of friendship and homosociality rather than implying sexual activity. In general, expressions of explicit sexual desire are presented negatively while depictions of romantic love are most accepted.

I already discussed Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night when talking about its Italian roots. Here is a brief summary of other plays with notable female same-sex desire, listed roughly chronologically.

John Lyly’s 1585 Gallathea is yet another spin-off From Ovid’s Iphis and Ianthe, but with the spin that both women are cross-dressing, both initially believe they have fallen in love with a man, and both hold to that love as they come to realize that they love a woman. The conclusion of the play confirms their love and, although a magical sex-change will be required for their marriage, it falls outside the action of the play.

Two plays interpret the Greek myth of Callisto and Diana, in which Jupiter disguises himself as Diana in order to seduce Callisto, but Callisto believes herself to be loved by the goddess. William Warner’s 1586 Albion’s England and Thomas Heywood’s 1611 The Golden Age both portray Diana’s band of nymphs as engaging in same-sex erotics, setting up the context for Jupiter’s trick. Thus, within Diana’s band, the “chaste” opposite of heterosexuality is not an absence of sexual activity, but an embracing of lesbian sexuality.

In The Roaring Girl by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker (published 1610), fictions of the stage intersect with real-life personalities in the character of Moll Cutpurse, a gender-bending character who alludes to the possibility that she engages in sex with both women and men. The character’s namesake was probably in the audience and regularly wore a combination of male and female clothing, though it’s unclear whether she had any sapphic leanings.

Both pretended and sincere desire between women is depicted in The Female Rebellion by H.B., published 1659. Using a mythological setting with warring Amazon groups, the play associates genuine lesbian desire with the villains while the heroines only pretend to a sexual relationship as a strategic trick.

In Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure, written 1668, a group of aristocratic women go on a women-only retreat—no boys allowed. Gendered role-playing and romantic play are evidently part of their activities and a newcomer enthusiastically begins to court the central figure, Lady Happy. Their courtship progresses to kisses and embraces and pledges of love…at which point it is revealed that the newcomer is a man who disguised himself to infiltrate the retreat. Unlike many similar disguise plots, the audience is not clued in to the gender-disguise motif until this reveal, thus they would have been shown a genuine and convincing love story between women, only given a heteronormative resolution at the very end.

Even plays that don’t make apparent same-sex desire a central motif either introduce or reinforce the knowledge that women can engage in sex together. In Aphra Behn’s 1681 The False Count, a character acknowledges this potential, saying, "I have known as much danger hid under a petticoat as a pair of breeches. I have heard of two women that married each other.” The 1684 libertine play Sodom or the Quintessence of Debauchery (attributed to John Wilmot) has sexually frustrated women using dildoes on each other.

Theatrical opportunities for female homoeroticism also included a fashion for assertive female characters who—as part of the script—seized on excuses to cross-dress for extended periods and to flirt with other female characters in this guise. Less formal theatricals, such as masques, were another context where cross-dressing might lead to same-sex flirtation and more, and several early 18th century pamphlets warned against the practice for exactly this reason.

Cross-Gender Roles in Single-Sex Contexts

Homoerotic content in the scripts of the plays themselves is the most obvious way for audiences of plays to “get ideas” about sapphic possibilities, but just as gender-disguise plots were a mechanism for introducing those possibilities to the characters, performers in cross-gender roles could create similar possibilities—for both players and audience—even when the script itself was utterly heterosexual.

As we’ll discuss in the second part of this episode next month, women emerged as professional actresses at different times in different countries, largely during the 16th and 17th centuries. But women acted in non-professional contexts across a much wider span of time, whether it was local religious pageants, private entertainments, or formal masques at court and in the houses of the aristocracy.

When plays were staged by all-female groups, it would naturally fall out that male roles would also be played by women. There is plentiful evidence for plays being staged in convents. The 12th century abbess Hildegard of Bingen was a prolific writer and composer and wrote at least one play. Spanish convents of the early modern period staged plays not only for their own entertainment, but for invited guests and visitors, with the nuns performing the roles. In pre-Reformation England, the evidence for plays staged in convents includes the occasional condemnation of them.

Convent theatricals tended to lean towards morality plays, rather than the sort of romances that might include suggestive interactions. A more fertile ground might be court masques and private theatricals. Masques were a stylized type of performance, usually to commemorate a special event, but that often served a secondary purpose of propaganda or political persuasion. The “story” would be told via narrative poetry and song, while the cast acted it out with dance and gesture. They might involve elaborate costumes and sets, and a constant motif was that the players wore thematic masks that were understood to conceal their identity—usually members of the court and even the presiding royalty.

In the 17th century, English masques became more narrative in style and both Queen Anne of Denmark (queen to James VI and I) and Queen Henrietta Maria (queen to Charles I) were frequent sponsors and directors of court masques, performing in them with their ladies in waiting. As the style shifted to something more like a play than a tableau, classical stories and chivalric adventures were favorite sources to draw on. These provided ample opportunity for romantic encounters between the characters, all of which were typically played by women.

Somewhat different in tone were private theatricals staged as seasonal entertainment, or to entertain an important guest. There are records of plays performed for royal progresses, where the aristocratic host family contributed part of the cast. Or of girls’ schools staging a play for an important patron.

All these contexts provide opportunities for a romantic storyline to be staged with women playing both members of the romantic couple. Both the cast and the audience could be aware of the potential double-meanings at seeing one woman wooing another on stage, even with the excuse that all the roles were played by women.  It’s particularly worth noting that masques and private theatricals are a context where women of the upper classes are participants, making theatrical-based romance tropes available beyond the professional performer class.

Breeches Roles on the Mixed-Gender Stage

But with the introduction of actresses into professional, mixed-gender companies, a new phenomenon arose of great interest to our examination of same-sex romance tropes. More or less as soon as women began participating in mixed-gender acting troupes, we find the phenomenon of the “breeches role,” that is, when a male character is portrayed by a female performer even though male performers are present and available. Here the character on stage is meant to be understood as male, but the audience is fully aware that a woman is playing the part, dressed in male clothing and interacting with the other characters as a man. Breeches roles were especially popular for characters meant to be young romantic heroes, as a woman was considered to be better able to portray the androgynous beauty of youth.

Somewhat ironically, even as women playing male roles on stage increased in popularity, the previous fashion for boys playing female roles on stage all but disappeared, except for characters meant to be parody.

Due to the theatrical context, it wasn’t necessary for an actress to be able to pull off the masquerade perfectly—in fact, a certain amount of the appeal lay in the audience’s awareness of her gender, while relating alternately to the masculinity of the role or to the femininity of the performer. Theater historians often suggest that a driving motivation behind this phenomenon was the ability to put female bodies on display without resorting to undress. And the idea that women wearing masculine garments and styles signaled moral looseness—or at least a disdain for propriety—had already been circulating. But actresses in breeches roles were not simply passive objects of the male gaze, and they became romantic icons for female spectators as well as male ones.

Breeches roles attracted criticism from moralists for the same reasons that women wearing masculine-coded styles off-stage attracted criticism. It blurred gender boundaries and signaled that women might want to claim other male privileges as well.

Theatrical female cross-dressers were often described by contemporaries in ways that indicated that a large part of the appeal was the chance (for men) to appreciate women in form-fitting lower garments, or the frisson of an androgynous sexual appeal. But while male fans of female beauty might be offered a visual spectacle, the possibilities offered to a female audience were even more daring. Breeches parts frequently included romantic male heroes, creating a scenario where women were openly courting (and winning) women on stage and audiences (of both men and women) were expected to enjoy seeing them do so. Some have argued that the increasing anxiety about female homoeroticism in the later 18th century was part of why breeches parts fell out of fashion, but if so, it was a brief lull because there were plenty of women playing male parts on stage throughout the 19th century and later.

We can look at what writers were saying at the time about the phenomenon. In Delarivier Manley’s early 18th century satire The New Atalantis (something of a roman a clef featuring identifiable women in English and French society) she describes how one aristocratic woman “fell in Love with one of the Comedians, when she was acting the Part of a young Lover and a Libertine.” The woman courts the actress with presents and tries unsuccessfully to seduce her, just as a male theater patron might. A theater-goer’s memoir written in 1766 notes, with regard to a cross-dressing actress, “It was a most nice point to decide between the gentlemen and the ladies [of the audience], whether [the actress] was the finest woman or the prettiest fellow.”

Reactions to women in breeches roles were not always overtly sexual. One reviewer, after seeing 19th century actress Charlotte Cushman playing Shakespearean romantic leads, suggested that Romeo should only be played by a woman, because two women together could best portray passionate love “without suggesting vice.” (Cushman’s personal life indicates that “suggesting vice” was definitely a bonus for her with respect to her adoring female fans. But I’ll get into that more in the second episode on this topic.)

The dramatic fiction that cross-dressing actresses were “men” in their roles gave license for women to find them desirable, as well as for others to deny the same-sex aspect of that desire. In some cases, the actresses’ male performance was also available as a way to solicit or signal (or engender) same-sex desires in other women, whether indirectly in the audience or via general public awareness.

Self-Realization on Stage

The use of actresses to play male romantic roles on stage not only has the potential to “give women ideas” about erotic possibilities, as well as creating a context for an erotically-tinged, but socially acceptable, admiration of female stage icons, but for women performing in cross-gender roles, the experience of performing a romantic or erotic relationship opposite another woman—with the social sanction of it being “just a play”—could be the context for recognizing one’s romantic interest in women offstage as well.

Theatrical performances at all-female schools and colleges in the 19th and early 20th century played a part in many a school crush developing into an off-stage romance. As a mechanism in a historic romance for a character to take the first experimental steps toward expressing her love—always with plausible deniability in case it doesn’t work out—the play rehearsal offers rich possibilities. In a recent episode on 19th century poetry about love between women, I included the poem “Private Theatricals” by American author Louise Guiney, written in 1884, where she depicts the experience of playing the romantic lead opposite the woman she loves and contemplating how much of their actions and reactions were only “in the play” or might be true.

Conclusions

In conclusion, The ways in which theatrical performances played with gender—whether in the script, in the staging, in the casting, or in the relationship between cast and audience—provide multiple opportunities for women to learn about same-sex desire, to experience it vicariously, to recognize their own desires, and to act them out in a safe framework. While the specific forms and opportunities varied by time and place, western culture has reliably offered some version of this trope since the middles ages, and at times even celebrated it.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• Historic romance tropes on stage
  • Plays that include or suggest f/f desire
  • Contexts for women playing romantic roles opposite women
  • Breeches Roles and f/f desire
• Bibliography
  • Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
  • Bruster, Douglas. 1993. “Female-Female Eroticism and the Early Modern Stage” in Renaissance Drama 24: 1-32.
  • Clark, Robert L. A. & Claire Sponsler. 1997. "Queer Play: The Cultural Work of Crossdressing in Medieval Drama" in New Literary History, 28:219-344.
  • Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4
  • Drouin, Jennifer. 2009. “Diana’s Band: Safe Spaces, Publics, and Early Modern Lesbianism” in Queer Renaissance Historiography, Vin Nardizzi, Stephen Guy-Bray & Will Stockton, eds. Ashgate, Burlington VT. ISBN 978-0-7546-7608-9
  • Duggan, Lisa. 1993. “The Trials of Alice Mitchell: Sensationalism, Sexology and the Lesbian Subject in Turn-of-the-Century America” in Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader, ed. Robert J. Corber and Stephen Valocchi. Oxford: Blackwell. pp.73-87
  • Gonda, Caroline. 2015. “Writing Lesbian Desires in the Long Eighteenth Century” in The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature, edited by Jodie Medd. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-107-66343-5
  • Gough, Melinda J. 2005. “Courtly Comédiantes: Henrietta Maria and Amateur Women’s Stage Plays in France and England” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
  • Hallett, Judith P. 1997. “Female Homoeroticism and the Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature” in Roman Sexualities, ed. By Judith P. Hallett & Marilyn B. Skinner, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
  • Katritzky, M.A. 2005. “Reading the Actress in Commedia Imagery” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
  • Klein, Ula Lukszo. 2021. Sapphic Crossings: Cross-Dressing Women in Eighteenth-Century British Literature. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville. ISBN 978-0-8139-4551-4
  • Kranz, Susan E. 1995. The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse in Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl and in London in Renaissance and Reformation 19: 5-20.
  • Krimmer, Elisabeth. 2004. In the Company of Men: Cross-Dressed Women Around 1800. Wayne State University Press, Detroit. ISBN 0-8143-3145-9
  • Lanser, Susan S. 2014. The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-18773-0
  • Merrill, Lisa. 2000. When Romeo was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and her Circle of Female Spectators. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. ISBN 978-0-472-08749-5
  • Orvis, David L. 2014. “Cross-Dressing, Queerness, and the Early Modern Stage” in The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature ed. E.L. McCallum & Mikko Tuhkanen. Cambridge University Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-107-03521-8
  • Poulsen, Rachel. 2005. “Women Performing Homoerotic Desire in English and Italian Comedy: La Calandria, Gl’Ingannati and TwelfthNight” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
  • Rose, Mary Beth. 1984. “Women in Men’s Clothing: Apparel and Social Stability in The Roaring Girl,” in ELR: English Literary Renaissance 14:3 (1984): 367-91
  • Stokes, James 2005. “Women and Performance: Evidences of Universal Cultural Suffrage in Medieval and Early Modern Lincolnshire” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
  • Straub, Kristina. 1991. “The Guilty Pleasures of Female Theatrical Cross-Dressing and the Autobiography of Charlotte Charke” in Body guards : the cultural politics of gender ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-90388-2
  • Traub, Valerie. 2001. "The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England" in GLQ 7:2 245-263.
  • Trumbach, Randolph. 1991. “London's Sapphists : From Three Sexes to Four Genders in the Making of Modern Culture” in Body guards : the cultural politics of gender ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-90388-2
  • Velasco, Sherry. 2000. The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire and Catalina de Erauso. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-78746-4
  • Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
  • Velasco, Sherry. 2014. “How to Spot a Lesbian in the Early Modern Spanish World” in The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature ed. E.L. McCallum & Mikko Tuhkanen. Cambridge University Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-107-03521-8
  • Wahl, Elizabeth Susan. 1999. Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, Stanford. ISBN 0-8047-3650-2
  • Walen, Denise A. 2005. Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6875-3

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