As this chapter focuses on male cross-dressing, I will be skimming it more briefly. As in the first chapter, we begin with an extensive case history. “M” began dressing in female-coded clothing as a youth, and left home for the West at age 15 due to family conflicts. M preferred playing with dolls, cooking, and sewing rather than male-coded activities, but didn’t back down from fighting his bullies. Further questioning indicated that M’s mother had initiated both the cross-dressing and needlecrafts.
cross-gender roles/behavior
Any context where a person engages in actions or fulfills a social role that is socially designated for a different gender than the one they are assigned. This may be a covert part of an overall presentation or may be in open contradiction to their assigned gender.
LHMP entry
This chapter is probably the one of most interest in the book, cataloging and discussing cases of female cross-dressers. The text alternates between detailed case studies and general discussion.
In 1912, in Portland Oregon, Harry Allen (alias Harry Livingstone) was arrested and eventually charged with violating the Mann Act (transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes) due to having written to her partner (who presented herself as his wife) Isabelle Maxwell in Seattle, asking her to come to Portland, where she then engaged in prostitution to support them both.
The chapter opens with an anecdote about Horace Greeley (tagline: Go west, young man!) in 1859 checking out those who had actually followed his advice and speaking with a Colorado gold prospector who had decided to return back east. After the interview, he was informed that the prospector he’d been talking to was a woman.
This chapter looks at a variety of ways that women associated with the suffrage movement “performed queerness” in public. Obviously, not all suffragists took part in the following, but those who did helped create the image of the transgressive “unfeminine” suffragist. The following is something of a catalog of these transgressive activities, which the book describes in connection with specific women who embodied them:
Opposition to suffrage was largely fueled by fears that if women engaged with the male-coded world of politics, it would be to the detriment of female-coded concerns and activities. Home life would suffer. This ideal of “separate spheres” was never more than a stereotype, especially among the working classes. But all manner of social woes were pinned on the upending of the “natural order” in which women were excluded from public life.
Part of the overarching theme of this study is the tension between “respectability politics” and the essential reliance the suffrage movement had on women willing to disrupt social norms, specifically including norms of sexuality and gender presentation. The resonances with the “lavender menace” confrontations of the 1970s are inevitable (and noted specifically in the conclusion).
Introduction
The author points out that this is an inescapably political book and should be read in that context. He points out that the question of “who is queer” is not at all straight-forward [pun intentional] in a historic context, and that queer figures have been silently and invisibly embedded in US history far deeper than most people are aware.
We start with an overview of the events of the story. A medieval Irish abbot falls asleep on a hill at Easter, wakes up as a woman, encounters a supernatural female figure, goes to a nearby monastery where he meets, marries, and has children with the “erenagh” of the monastery. [Note: “erenagh” was a post, often hereditary, that served as a sort of business manager for the monastery.] On another Easter, he falls asleep on the same hill as previously and wakes up as a man. He returns to his original home and is told by his wife that he’s only been gone an hour.
Introduction: Who is the Lesbian?
For the purposes of this book, “British lesbian history” begins in the late 18th century. It was unclear to me if this was simply a chosen scope based on the source material they wanted to present, or if the authors believe there is no lesbian history prior to that date. They assert that “lesbian identity” is a late 20th century concept. “Women…did not necessarily have a language to describe themselves as lovers of women.” [Note: we can take it as given that I disagree with that position.]
As might be expected given the author and subject, this article covers much the same ground as Burshatin 1996. The current article focuses on Céspedes’ position as a challenge to various sovcio-political doundaries: gendr, race, national, and sexual.
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