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Female Cabin Boy

This tag indicates a specific literary motif where a woman takes on male disguise to take up a nautical profession. The motif shades more generally into disguise for any sort of martial profession. Although stories and songs employing this motif may tease at homoerotic potential (both ff and mm) there is almost always a clearly heterosexual resolution.

LHMP entry

Chapter 5: Condemnation and Praise

Two extremes show the range of reactions to women passing as male soldiers who were discovered only after death. Aal the Dragoon was handed over for medical uses (a fate reserved for serious criminals) and ended as a taxidermy display. Trijntje Simons (serving as Simon Poort) was buried with full military honors with both military and civic dignitaries in attendance.

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historical