cross-dressing en LHMP #296 Garber 1992 Vested Interests <div class="field field-name-body"><p><em>Introduction - Clothes Make the Man</em></p> <p> Garber opens with a brief history of gender coding or lack thereof in children’s dress, shifts in the pop-culture color-coding associated with homosexuality, and their relationship to both the practice of cross-dressing and popular fascination with the topic. She reviews medical discourse, both in the context of transgender issues and of viewing cross-dressing itself as representing mental illness. She notes that regardless of motivation, these distinctions are unimportant to those who want the ability to find clothes in their desired styles and sizes without being stigmatized.</p> <p>The history and culture of cross-dressing is inseparable from the history of homosexuality, even when clear distinctions between the two topics are desired. Cultural anxieties around cross-dressing almost always invoke the specter of homosexuality. There is a detailed discussion of the movie <em>Tootsie</em> as an illustration of these issues and concerns.</p> <p>Academic study of the history of cross-dressing often looks “through” the phenomenon to explore the arbitrary construction of gender, rather than looking “at” the people involved. [Note: another distinction--which seems to be overlooked in this work--is between analyzing cross-dressing and cross-dressers from the outside and presenting a participant’s understanding of the phenomenon.] Cross-dressing is of interest in how it represents a “third sex” outside the gender binary (even when intended to be read as one of the binary genders). The iconographic use of specific garments to represent bodily sex (or gender identity) can be seen in bathroom signs that use pants/skirts to separate bodies by (presumed) anatomy, not by clothing preference or appearance, even as they assume a correlation between appearance and gender.</p> <p>This book is organized in two sections, roughly distinguishing how transvestism creates culture and how culture creates transvestites. [Note: I would describe the division more as “the performance of transvestism” and “the representation of transvestism”.] Overall, the book revolves around how cross-dressing creates a “category crisis”--the cultural inability to draw clear dividing lines between distinct social groups. Garber notes how often in cultural productions transvestism parallels other category contrasts and crossings (race, ethnicity, class).</p> <p><em>Part I - Transvestite Logics</em></p> <p><em>Chapter 1 - Dress Codes</em></p> <p>Cross-dressing is analyzed in the context of sumptuary codes (both historic codes and modern laws with similar effect). Sumptuary codes assume that clothing both reflects and shapes social behavior. “Correct dress” is both a shibboleth and a regimen. Medieval and Renaissance sumptuary codes attempted to make category distinctions legible. They largely focus on class, but also on religious categories (e.g., identifying non-Christians). In Elizabethan England, clothing statutes also addressed gender confusion, but the concept of “effeminacy” when applied to dress was more about the concepts of excess and luxury than gender identity. Men are accused of “effeminacy” for excess in clothing, while women are similarly chastised for excess but not using the language of effeminacy.</p> <p>The prohibition in Deuteronomy on cross-dressing was invoked against cross-gender clothing, especially by women, but also to denounce theater in general (as a site of cross-dressing). Stubbes’ <em>Anatomy of Abuses</em> is cited, which singles out women. Male cross-dressing was also condemned as leading to or enabling homosexuality, either by creating attractive objects (cross-dressed boys) or because putting on “feminine” clothing creates fetishistic desire in a man.</p> <p>Cross-dressing was also associated with criminal status in both men and women. Cross-gender clothing motifs were also tied, in curious fashion, to Protestan-Catholic conflicts.</p> <p>Under King James I, popular unisex fashions drew on styles taken from both genders, even though James himself argued against “masculine” women (see the tracts of this era <em>Hic Mulier</em> and <em>Haec Vir</em>).</p> <p>Cross-dressing on stage was a focus for those opposed to theater in general. The text digresses for a while into eulogizing the career of Laurence Olivier and discussing his cross-gender roles. This leads into a discussion of cross-dressing in Shakespeare’s comedies and the general use of clothing as category markers. In modern theater, the use of women in male roles in Shakespeare is seen variously as a gimmick or as portraying some underlying gendered nature of the characters. Garber emphasizes the long embedded history of cross-gender performance on stage and how it relates to the concept that “all gender is performance.” [Note:  this book comes back regularly to cross-dressing in the context of performing arts in general. It appears to be a central research interest of hers.]</p> <p><em>Chapter 2 - Cross-dress for success</em></p> <p>This chapter starts with the conflict between women wearing “masculine” clothing to blend in / dress for the job in male-dominated fields, versus pushback that sees this as carrying unwanted messages. Women in male-coded clothing may be interpreted as inherently “sexy” (according to male business “experts”).</p> <p>But this prescriptive approach to women’s presentation in the workforce is eroded by the continuing deployment of male-coded clothing by women and new associations with assertiveness and authority. Local norms in professional clothing can send mixed gender/sexuality signals when used in other contexts, regardless of the specific gender coding.</p> <p>But prescriptive dress advice--enshrining inherent prejudices--can be useful for transgender people trying on new styles to be read in particular ways. Existing prejudices can be worked to advantage.</p> <p>There is a discussion of distinctions between “fetish” cross-dressers who are aroused by wearing clothing of a gender they don’t identify with, and “transsexuals” (Garber’s term) wearing clothing to be read as the gender they <em>do</em> identify with. There is a confusing discussion of opinions prevalent at the time that female “fetish cross-dressers” were rare, but the text then seems to challenge this. Garber cites advice manuals on breast-binding and crotch-stuffing, but it’s unclear which functional category these fall in. [Note: although “butch” fashion and identity is discussed later in the book, there are many places in these early chapters that appear to be unaware that such a thing exists, or at least how to categorize it.]</p> <p>There is a general discussion of “passing advice” literature, primarily aimed at trans women. [Note: “trans women” in the current definition of the term. The quoted literature of Garber’s era regularly uses “transgender/transsexual X” to mean “assigned X at birth but now identifying otherwise.” The terminology “assigned X at birth” was not in currency at the time this book was written, so any use of it in this summary is my translation.] Garber points out how relentlessly normative this literary genre is and the literal “construction” of gender it recommends. “Passing advice” literature overwhelmingly was written for those wanting to be read as female, rather than those wanting to be read as male. There is a suggestion that the behavioral gender stereotypes of women and men reinforce this skewing, with feminine-presenting people looking for community support and sisterhood, while masculine-presenting people expecting (or expected to express) individualism and a solitary experience.</p> <p>The chapter moves on to the carnivalesque use of obvious male-to-female cross-dressing for entertainment purposes, where the performer is meant to be read as “crossing” not as passing. There is a long history of privileged men openly cross-dressing, either as humorous entertainment or as personal idiosyncrasy (more rarely). At the same time, powerful men may be caricatured as cross-dressers to “un-man” them. Powerful women, on the other hand, are more likely to be accused of “really being men” (i.e., of <em>also</em> being “men dressed as women,” but this theme isn’t followed up on in the text in the same way that the male topic is).</p> <p>Drag shows in military or nautical contexts could be a way of defusing the homoerotic potential of all-male cultures. Cross-dressing theatricals in such contexts could re-affirm male privilege and solidarity, creating misogynistic caricatures of the feminine roles being portrayed, as well as mocking the underlayer of m/m eroticism. Such theatricals were also popular in all-male privileged institutions such as colleges and men’s clubs. The theatricals negotiated the boundaries of gender even as they blurred them. Institutions might go through phases of suppressing humorous non-normative dress, as Harvard did in the 18th century, later returning to the “norm” of embracing such gender play. In the early 20th century, male collegiate institutions dismissed the idea that cross-dressed theatricals either reflected or caused “unmanliness.”</p> <p><em>Chapter 3 - The Transvestite’s Progress</em></p> <p>This chapter begins with a reference to long-term gender crossing, especially AFAB read as male, most of whom would be understood as transgender rather than transvestite today. Billy Tipton is noted as being far from a rare example, even for the 20th century. Examples of AMAB read long-term as female are also noted.</p> <p>Given the relative frequency of such individuals, why was Billy Tipton’s story singled out for fame? In part, because the story dodged topics of anxiety. Tipton allegedly crossed for economic reasons (musical performance in a male-dominated field) and his marriage was reported as non-sexual, using the excuse of a “medical condition” that allowed Tipton’s wife plausible deniability. Tipton was thus a “safe” example that didn’t invoke the specter of homosexuality.</p> <p>The “progress narrative” where cross-dressing is for professional or social advantage is popular in film and stage. And these fictional narratives often reinforce heteronormativity by bringing in a m/f romance that is hindered by the cross-dressing (see, e.g., <em>Victor/Victoria</em>). But in real life, this “progress narrative” is problematic. It erases the complex, interacting motivations and reinforces the idea of a clear gender binary.</p> <p>There is an extensive exploration of fictional cross-dressing narratives, especially in the Early Modern period. More recent fictional examples are Gautier’s <em>Mademoiselle de Maupin</em>, Barbara Streisand’s film <em>Yentl</em>. Garber discusses the relationship of the motif to the “changeling boy” motif.</p> <p>The gender-crosing nature of Elizabethan actors and its homoerotic potential is compared to Vecellio’s description of Venetian prostitutes and courtesans wearing masculine-styled upper garments (and even breeches under their skirts).  Aretino describes a courtesan willing to interact with clients either as a woman or as a man. This context could add to the fictional trope of “respectable” women being embarrassed by the need to cross-dress in a “progress narrative.” [Note: this chapter is one of the ones that feels structured like an independent research paper that has been stitched into a larger narrative.]</p> <p><em>Chapter 4 - Spare Parts</em></p> <p>This chapter addresses the cultural context of how gender is “made”, especially focusing on the asymmetry in which only masculinity needs to be actively constructed, whereas femininity is either passively acquired or is imposed on one. One may “become” a woman but one must be “made” a man. Even in a sexual sense, “making a woman of her” is something that is imposed on the woman by her partner, rather than being an active achievement.</p> <p>Within this context, cross-dressing and transgender lives test the limits of gender construction. The ways in which masculinity and femininity are treated differently in this context test the conflict of gender theory and practice. Garber discusses the phallocentrism inherent in the boundaries of male and female. Male-bodied “fetish” cross-dressers, may be reassured of their masculinity by the possession of a functional penis, while AMAB trans women find the possession of a penis traumatizing. The experiences and perceptions of early post-surgical trans women re: psychological implications of surgery go beyond hormonal changes. But for both groups, the penis is essentialized as the marker of maleness.</p> <p>For assigned-female people, the question of essential symbols of gender is reversed. But even the context is asymmetric: the desire for “masculine” authority and power is seen as “natural” with no need for justification. Some authors, in fact, denied the existence of assigned-female “fetish” cross-dressers at all, as this desire for masculinity was considered an expected condition rather than a psychosis. The dividing line between trans men and the “natural” desire for male subjectivity is the question of whether one desires to possess a penis. [Note: This analysis seems to entirely exclude butch identity, or to set it aside as having nothing to do with cross-dressing.]</p> <p>There is a discussion of psychological issues around surgery and its place in gender identity treatments.  It is claimed that sex reassignment (or in more current terminology, gender-affirming) surgery is less popular among trans men than trans women due to the greater difficulty in achieving a “satisfactory” result, i.e., a functional penis.</p> <p>Garber considers the blending of anatomical and stylistic markers of gender in the context of transition, and the emphasis on behavioral performative gender to achieve the desired status. The transgender discourse of the book’s era essentialized anatomy as the key attribute defining gender, but there was a shift to medical markers like hormones and genetics as more “test cases” emerged. [Note: this is not specifically in the context of transition, but rather in determining what someone’s “true” gender was. That is, as gender-affirming surgery became more available, anatomy could no longer be used by those who wanted to define “true” gender.]</p> <p>Garber points out the contrast that the public imagination is fascinated with trans women while they are alive, and with trans men after they are dead. She connects this to the tradition of literary/artistic fascination with womanhood as either dead or culturally constructed.</p> <p>As transgender stories began to be depicted in cinema, there was a focus on pathology that revolved around the desire for and the trauma of surgery.</p> <p><em>Chapter 5 - Fetish Envy</em></p> <p>This chapter looks at “the phallus” as a concept in contrast to the penis as a biological organ. It discusses the historic position that women did not engage in fetishism -- that “penis envy” was not a fetish but a displacement of a natural desire for male power. Garber discusses the relationship of lesbians to straight women with respect to phallus-envy. She uses Nancy Friday’s survey of women’s sexual fantasies in <em>My Secret Garden</em> as evidence against the position that women don’t have fetishes.</p> <p>There is a discussion of the use in Renaissance theater of the codpiece as a site of humor as a clearly constructed extreme signifier of masculinity that can be appropriated by women.</p> <p><em>Chapter 6 - Breaking the code, transvestism and gay identity</em></p> <p>This chapter discusses the evolution of an understood distinction between cross-dressing as a practice and homosexuality as an identity. There is conflict in gay (male) culture over “drag” representing effeminacy, and “drag” cross-dressers as distinguished from transgender identity. Advice columns and talk-shows of the time (Phil Donoghue, Girealdo Rivera, etc) had a fascination with this nexus. Mainstream culture tends to inextricably conflate gay men and cross-dressers, seeing each as implying the other. There is an emphasis on “legibility” -- difference should be visible, and visible otherness should be meaningful.</p> <p>Compare Alan Bray’s look at (male) cross-dressing in various pre-modern eras in <em>Homosexuality in Renaissance England</em>. Did the cross-dresser want to be “read” as the visual gender, or to use cross-gender appearance to signal sexual identity?</p> <p>Garber discusses the vast array of motivations for cross-dressing and the history regarding which were recognized by sexological scholarship in the field, starting with Magnus Hirschfeld. [Note: One key feature that is almost unremarked here is the driving need to classify and categorize -- to draw clear distinctions and boundaries between types of people and behaviors. This ties in with some of Foucault's observations about the drive to distinguish and categorize sexual deviancies.]</p> <p>Attention shifts to the development of pathologizing “masculine” dress on women as representing gender identity. Hall’s <em>The Well of Loneliness</em> is contrasted with Woolf’s <em>Orlando</em>. This pathologizing creates the female “invert.” There is a discussion of how one era’s “pathological” appearance/presentation becomes another era’s fashionable ideal.</p> <p>Garber looks at the inherent misogyny in differential attitudes toward cross-dressing, even among those who participate in it. And <em>finally</em> we get a discussion of butch-femme culture in the context of cross-dressing.</p> <p>There is a discussion of the long history of using marriage ceremonies as a context for cross-dressing (either for one participant or both, as a temporary or permanent practice). Wedding dresses are the ultimate female object. This interacts with internal conflicts in the gay (male and female) community over the extent to which marriage as an institution is inherently heteronormative. [Note: keep in mind that when this book was written, marriage equality was barely imaginable.]</p> <p>There is a long history of associating “mannish” clothing worn by female couples with suspect sexuality, as with the habitual fashions of Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby as commented on by their contemporaries. But here, styles such as Gertrude Stein’s distinctive non-normative dress can be contrasted with truly “mannish” outfits like that sported by Radclyffe Hall. The Parisian lesbian set played with gendered clothing but did not adopt uniformly male styles.</p> <p>Finally, the text takes on butch-femme as a topic: the conflict over whether it counts as “cross-dressing” and how class affects its reception. (E.g., compare the upper class “stylish” butch look of Natalie Barney with the working class butch look of the mid-20th century bar scene.) The changeability of the precise features of fashion signals the distinction between butch-femme as identities and the gender-coding of clothing. There is a comparison with “drag” as performance and in other contexts.</p> <p>Garber takes a close look at two lesbian-coded accessories in the post-WWI era: the monocle and the cigarette holder. Parisian lesbian culture revolved around the images of tuxedo, cigarette, cropped hair, and monocle. These all derived from the male “Dandy.” They were class markers, whose use by upper class lesbians marked their privilege to transgress social and legal prohibitions against cross-dressing. (Legal prohibitions were relevant in France, more subtly in England and America.)</p> <p>Havelock Ellis asserted that female “inverts” had a tendency to wear male dress, engage in athletics, and to smoke. But are these symptoms? Or are they deliberately adopted as signs? (And did Ellis simply ignore women who didn’t fit his stereotype?) There is a discussion of the social politics of smoking and images of how cigarettes were marketed to women.</p> <p>Gender-crossing styles “flow” between genders and communities. Visible “lesbian fashion” undergoes shifts in how specific styles are interpreted. The use of lesbian-associated fashions by celebrities dance around making their (queer) identity public. There is a consideration of the “sex appeal” of cross-gender fashion.</p> <p><em>Part II - Transvestite Effects</em></p> <p>This half of the book looks at how cross-gender performance and appearance are integrated into various pop culture themes and motifs. The chapters read like independent papers revolving around the general topic. The popular culture aspects are, in general, quite modern (20th century) and I have skimmed this part of the book much more lightly.</p> <p><em>Chapter 7 - Fear of Flying, or why is Peter Pan a girl?</em></p> <p>This chapter revolves around the traditional casting of a female actor in the character of Peter Pan. In part, this is a practical trick to enable the use of adult actors for all the child roles. The traditional cross-gender roles in English pantomime are discussed.</p> <p><em>Chapter 8 - Cherchez La Femme - Cross-dressing in detective fiction</em></p> <p>Disguise in general, and cross-gender disguise in particular are used in detective fiction (starting with Sherlock Holmes) to enable the detective to identify the “subtle wrongness” that gives away the suspect. Disguise is always “legible” to the skilled observer.</p> <p>Other tropes that reveal disguise are “only one bed” which is popular in fiction in comparison to the more prevalent real-world revealing context of doctor/undertaker. Cross-dressing narratives also indulge in “mirror scenes” to reveal identity, both in fiction and biography.</p> <p><em>Chapter 9 - Religious Habits</em></p> <p>Christian (male) ceremonial garments have long been coded as “feminine” due to their inherent conservatism combined with shifts in gender coding of garments. But the ceremonial “performance” aspect carries over into “drag” performers characterizing their stage clothing as “robes, vestments.” This is not the only context where “othered” religions’ ritual clothing is feminized. Christian society has regularly feminized styles associated with Jewish culture, and more recently the image of the hippie “Jesus freak” is strongly feminized.</p> <p>The shift over time of gender signifiers and the tendency of ritual clothing to be static can create a mismatch of readings. Another interesting case is the gendering of fashions in wigs (see, e.g., the retention of wigs for men in British legal culture, harking back to the 17/18th centuries).</p> <p>The legends of transvestite (female) saints are more a site of male fantasy than female reality, including the repeating motif of accusations that the (disguised) woman had fathered a child. Joan of Arc falls somewhat in this tradition but cross-dressed openly. Joan is commonly used as a lens for theorizing about gender and presentation.</p> <p>More than clothing was involved in the feminization of Catholic priests, whose status set them apart from secular men, in ways that could superficially align in responsibilities and image with secular women. With the Reformation, anti-Catholic fantasies, combined with attitudes toward the gender segregation of Catholic religious institutions, not only created the image of the feminized priest but focused on the nun as the subject of transvestite mockery. In cinema, men cross-dressed as nuns are popular comic figures.</p> <p>Anti-semitic stereotypes conflated Jewish (men) with both women and homosexuals.</p> <p><em>Chapter 10 - Phantoms of the Opera</em></p> <p>This chapter is a loose survey of “famous” transvestites who were actors, diplomats, and spies. Garber discusses the real life story behind M. Butterfly, which combines Orientalism and cross-dressing theater. The gender presentation/interpretation of operatic castratos is discussed. Among famous spies who changed gender presentation are the Abbé de Choisy and the Chevalier d’Eon.</p> <p><em>Chapter 11 - Black and White TV</em></p> <p>This chapter looks at the intersection of cross-dressing and “blackface” performance, including the feminization of black men. But it also considers black women whose cross-dressing performance was an expression of their queer sexuality. Other racial gender disguise motifs are considered, such as the real life slave narrative of Ellen Craft in which she posed as a white man to escape to freedom with her darker-skinned husband presented as “his” slave.</p> <p><em>Chapter 12 - The Chic of Araby</em></p> <p>This chapter reviews several contexts in which the traditional dress of Arab men is reinterpreted as a type of cross-dressing (both gender and cultural). Examples include Lawrence of Arabia (both the movie and the historic figure), who embraced the ability of his use of Arabic dress to unsettle British compatriots, also various interpretations of that clothing as reflecting his “sexual ambivalences.”</p> <p>Another cinematic example is Valentino’s role in <em>The Sheik</em>, which retains the cross-cultural as well as cross-gender themes, not only in the use of a non-Arabic actor for the role, but in that the character is revealed to be a “lost aristocratic heir,” thus preserving his “exotic” allure without the threat of miscegenation. At the same time, the female lead of the movie is masculinized, wearing pants and wielding a pistol, expressing feminist positions but “converted” to conventional femininity by her desire for Valentino’s character.</p> <p>The female associations of trousers in Middle Eastern culture are played on in Woolf’s <em>Orlando</em>, but also historically, as for Lady Mary Montagu who adopted Turkish trousers in the 18th century after spending time at the Ottoman court. In the 19th century, western women used Turkish trousers as a jumping-off point for “reform” clothing that bridged the gap between skirts and pants. This resulted in some complex interactions. When Flora Tristan--enraged that women were not allowed in the House of Commons--approached various male acquaintances to borrow men’s clothes to get in, she was refused except by a Turkish diplomat who enthusiastically supported her and provided her with an outfit. Despite wearing (Turkish) male clothing, she was easily read as female during this escapade.</p> <p>There is a discussion of how Byron and his friends, when guests of Ali Pasha, were entertained by transvestite male dancers, and the linking of cross-dressing and homosexuality in that context. There were multiple threads in Byron’s life linking him with women dressed as young men who were serving as a man’s companion or lover. On one occasion, Caroline Lamb disguised herself as a male servant to visit him.</p> <p>Richard Burton’s translation of the <em>Thousand and One Nights</em> reinforced themes of cross-dressing in “Oriental” contexts. He adopted Arabic clothing during his travels and continued wearing it by preference afterward. Compare this with his countrywoman Gertrude Bell who wore English style clothing in her travels in order to retain foreign privilege, as she wouldn’t have the same freedom and access as a man would if she “went native.” In a sense, by <em>not</em> passing as an Arab, Bell was able to claim “male” privilege as someone outside the rules of local society.</p> <p>The chapter concludes with an assortment of other examples of combining cross-gender and cross-culture performance, such as the use of veiling (by both men and women) as a means of gender-crossing. Marlene Dietrich’s cross-dressed performance in the film <em>Morocco</em> adapted the existing association of cross-dressing with Arabic culture. The motif of wearing/removing veils in the Biblical story of Salome became an icon of Oriental femininity but was regularly chosen to be interpreted by male performers, especially in the context of an “unveiling” dance with a gender reveal.</p> <p><em>Chapter 13 - The Transvestite Continuum</em></p> <p>Garber argues the position that transvestism is essential for the creation of culture as it defines the distinction between the symbolic and the “real”. Her focus here is on open, performative transvestism and how it relates to definitions and boundaries of “masculine” and “feminine.” There is an extensive exploration of the “flamboyant” though not strictly “transvestite” stylings of Liberace, Valentino, and Elvis to explore this question.</p> <p><em>Conclusion</em></p> <p>The book sums up with some fairy tale analogies, anecdotes from Freud, and a brief summary of the work’s themes.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Garber, Marjorie. 1992. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-91951-7</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>296</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-introduction"><div class="label-above">Introduction:&nbsp;</div><p>This book was originally written in 1992, though regularly reprinted since then. This is relevant, as the use of terms like “transvestite” or “transvestism” in the sense they are used in this book are likely to strike the contemporary ear as odd. Even more, the handling of transgender identity, and language around it, is extremely dated and does not follow current practice. Consider this a content notification--perhaps even a content warning.</p> <p>I found this book simultaneously detailed and fascinating...and hopelessly outdated to the point of being more of a museum piece for late 20th century attitudes than a resource for social analysis. The ways that clothing and gender are understood, categorized, performed, and discussed today have changed so drastically that Garber’s content may have as little relevance as works published in the first half of the 20th century.</p> <p>One of the reasons I chose <em>Vested Interests</em> to blog is because I’m working on expanding a paper I presented on medieval cross-dressing narratives for publication, which means being familiar with the literature in the field. But as a resource for the writing of historical fiction, I see this work as being very limited in value (unless the historic era being written about is the last quarter of the 20th century).</p> <p>In one way, it makes sense to consider all the varieties of cross-gender presentation as a whole, as Garber does. But the book does not always draw clear lines between gender presentation as an expression of gender identity, shifts in popular fashions that trade elements among genders, the use of gender-coded clothing to signal group membership, cross-gender dress in serious theatrical contexts, “drag” as satire or mockery, “drag” as performance art, cross-dressing as a sexual fetish for those with no transgender identity, or any of the other possible contexts. Further, medical/surgical issues around transgender identity are both conflated with clothing and reflect the era when medical transition and strict adherence to gender stereotypes was an expectation rather than one of various options.</p> <p>In content, I found the book to read like a loosely-connected series of topical essays (especially in the later chapters), as if it were a patchwork of publications with a thematic connection but without necessarily having an overarching thesis.</p> <p>All of this is to say that I would advise only reading this book if you have an existing historic context for language and attitudes that would be considered offensive today, and if you are in a solid emotional place to translate and filter the content for your own use.</p> <p>In my summary, I have “translated” a lot of the terminology Garber uses to current idioms in order to try to filter out some of the problematic verbiage, so be aware that my summary is not a good guide to how the text may strike the reader. In other cases, I’ve retained Garber’s terms because “translating” them would change the scope of her intended meaning. This particularly applies to her use of "transvestism" for a variety of contexts that would be unlikely to be conflated today.</p> <p>* * *</p> </div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-aba2f51cc6b63fd0a6e3ee6d59aa46bf"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-isbn"><div class="label-above">ISBN:&nbsp;</div>0-415-91951-7</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>A Window on Vast Changes in Perceptions of Cross-Gender Clothing and Performance</div> Tue, 03 Mar 2020 15:53:16 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5783 at LHMP #299 Hindmarch-Watson 2008 Lois Schwich, the Female Errand Boy <div class="field field-name-body"><p>In 1886 Lois Schwich was tried and sentenced in London for stealing expensive clothing from her employer. But the bare facts of the crime were not what attracted extensive media attention. Schwich had done this while passing herself off as a fifteen-year-old boy, and had done so for several years. Her case illustrates the various narratives around crossdressing in Victorian England as well as the intersections of gender, criminality, sex work, and competing images of masculinity.</p> <p>We have almost nothing of Schwich’s own voice regarding her story, but Hindmarch-Watson has attempted to reconstruct as much as she can. Schwich started crossdressing at 17 and took odd jobs doing errands and deliveries, eventually specializing in working for clothiers. Across several jobs she began stealing and re-selling clothing from her employers, usually deflecting the crimes (when detected) by accusing others before she could be accused. There is clear evidence that Schwich’s mother not only knew about her crossdressing but supported her by providing references for her “son”. And part of Schwich’s explanation for her actions in general was that her work was needed to help support her family. But access to employment was not the only male prerogative Schwich claimed, and during the trial her habits of smoking, drinking and participating in other male-coded leisure activities were woven into the charges against her.</p> <p>The author considers whether Schwich could reasonably be identified as transgender and is hesitant to do so, at least as the concept of transgender is defined today, and in the same sense that it is ahistorical to use the concepts of “gay” or “lesbian” to identify historic figures. [Note: which is to say that the whole discussion is problematic on many levels, including the assertion that one must use modern identity concepts as the benchmark for evaluating historic identities.]</p> <p>Historic “passing women” are traditionally divided between those who had erotic relations with women who are then appropriated by lesbian history, and those who have erotic relations with men who are assumed to be cross-dressing purely for pragmatic reasons. Historically, passing women typically had working-class backgrounds. Alhough the male-coded professions they entered were spread across the social ranks, the majority tended to remain working-class. That history of cross-dressing women was invoked in Schwich’s trial.</p> <p>Like many other cross-dressing women, Schwich had a disdain for the law, but this stereotype is skewed by the problem that our evidence for (known) passing women tends to come from criminal records. Those legal conflicts were not always due to a criminal profession, but might arise out of acts of passion, anger, or desperation. Perhaps a few cross-dressing women did adopt disguise specifically to pursue a criminal career, but that doesn’t appear to be the case for Schwich. There are hints--including the age at which she began--that for her cross-dressing may have been a way of claiming sexual agency (or perhaps more precisely, agency in avoiding becoming sexualized). The article examines the context of Victorian sex work and how it offered it’s own sort of sexual agency, as well as noting some social parallels in the image and opportunities of sex workers and passing women.</p> <p>One notable aspect of Schwich’s career is the obvious support from her family, especially her mother, but from other community members as well. Her mother clearly accepted her cross-dressing and provided references for Schwich’s male persona. There are other examples from the same era of cross-dressing women either asserting family support, or reporting that the presentation had originally been a mother’s idea. This may shed a different light on theories (by e.g., Dekker and van de Pol) that female cross-dressing more or less disappeared in the early 19th century. What if, instead, it simply became less visible due to community acceptance and support? [Note: Another possibility is that cross-dressing shifted into modes and contexts that were different enough from previous modes that they were not recognized as the same phenomenon.] Since the majority of the hard evidence for passing women comes from criminal records, perhaps a larger proportion avoided activities viewed as criminal. Regardless of speculations concerning causes, there are plentiful anecdotal examples of passing women in the Victorian era.</p> <p>Another factor that became relevant in Schwich’s trial was the particular style of masculinity that she adopted: not a “respectable” upwardly-mobile presentation but that of the more flamboyant “swell” characterized by working-class hypermasculinity. She may have been negatively influenced by the stylings of theatrical “male impersonators” who adopted specific styles and mannerisms that advertised their underlying gender as feminine. Due to the nature of the evidence, it’s difficult to assess whether Schwich’s male presentation reflected some degree of male self-identity.</p> <p>But heart of this article is an evaluation of how Schwich was treated in three different categories of the press that illustrate the complexity of how women were both admired and condemned for passing as male. Press treatments of her are regularly contradictory but cluster according to the audience and purposes of the publication.</p> <p>Proto-feminist presses initially championed Schwich as a hero for women’s rights, emphasizing that cross-dressing had provided entry to a livable wage (shared with her family). She was used as a poster child for providing wider employment opportunities for women. They also viewed her cross-dressing as a means of resisting sex work, and therefore a symbol of chaste feminine virtue. This set of narratives faded away as Schwich’s self-confessed stealing and false accusations came out, as well as being undermined by her habits of drinking and smoking.</p> <p>The latter were emphasized by politically conservative papers, which played up her criminality and anti-social behavior. These, too, dropped interest in the story once the basic facts had been established.</p> <p>The sensational police tabloids, which presented Schwich as a spectacle, form the majority of the coverage. Her attempts to claim male privileges and status were treated as a matter of amusement and mockery, sometimes colored with respect. That mockery extended to other aspects of the trial, in which regular jokes were made about witnesses or jurors being unable to distinguish male and female, as all identities were called into question. Interestingly, these sensational papers never raised a comparison with theatrical male impersonators, possibly because it would tarnish people's ability to enjoy the latter.</p> <p>The sensational tabloids were the ones who connected Schwich with a historic tradition of cross-dressing--not of everyday working-class passing women, but of prominent fictional or high-culture “heroines” such as Shakespeare’s Rosalind, Mademoiselle de Maupin (the fictional one created by Gautier, not the historic one), the Chevalier d’Eon, and James Barry.</p> <p>But the tabloids also made a different connection, suggesting that Shwich’s male disguise was not as sexually innocent as it might seem. That, rather than having the purpose of avoiding male sexual attention as a woman, it might have been intended to solicit male homosexual attention. This is insinuated in various articles, though not stated outright. This framing follows a long tradition in England of associating female gender-crossing with sexual licentiousness in general. Upper-class Victorian attitudes toward working-class sexuality saw it as dangerously uncontrolled and degenerate, in contrast to the myths about upper-class sexuality.</p> <p>One element that is nearly entirely absent from the coverage of Schwich’s trial is a medicalized sexological take on her identity and presentation. Although sexological theories were prevalent on the continent already, they had not yet taken root in the popular understanding of sexuality in England.  Only a few decades later, a woman’s predilection for wearing male attire and smoking would be taken as solid evidence of deviant psychology and lesbian tendencies.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Hindmarch-Watson, Katie. 2008. "Lois Schwich, the Female Errand Boy: Narratives of Female Cross-Dressing in Late-Victorian London" in <em>GLQ</em> 14:1, 69-98.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>299</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-introduction"><div class="label-above">Introduction:&nbsp;</div><p>Contrary to the suggestion in Dekker &amp; Van de Pol, “passing women” did not fade out of sight after the 18th century, but perhaps their contexts shifted. This article examines a case in late 19th century London that was well-documented in the papers, due to the criminal aspects. In fact, the nature and variation of that newspaper coverage is itself of interest in exploring Victorian understandings of the phenomenon.</p> </div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-c852e9e457f67a22e1bf5341822a1224"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Cross-dressing in Victorian London</div> Mon, 16 Dec 2019 00:29:12 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5719 at LHMP #298 Herrmann 1992 Imitations of Marriage <div class="field field-name-body"><p>Herrmann tackles the question of self-knowledge and performance of homosexual identity within the context of cross-dressing tropes in lesbian historical fiction. The performative theory of gender suggests that all gender presentation is artificial, that the state of being “man” or “woman” is an effect, not a cause of gender presentation. But a gender-neutral approach to performative gender overlooks the observation that masquerade itself is perceived as “feminine”. Thus the performance of masculinity has contextual differences depending on whether the body performing it is understood as male or female.</p> <p>This analysis also touches on the question of “closetedness”, in which knowledge is not the same thing as acknowledgement. Sexual orientation may be an “open secret” without ever being voiced either by the subject or the perceiver.</p> <p>Gender as performance is most obvious in the context of cross-dressing, when clothing calls into question the ability of the body to signal “true” gender But much of the theorizing on the concept of the closet has focused almost exclusively on male homosexuality, and theories of gender performance destabilize the entire concept of gender identity. So neither approach is well equipped for explaining the popularity of crossdressing plots in lesbian historical fiction. How can an “essentially” lesbian sexuality be presented when one of the women presents a masculine performance? IThe “open secret” of the relationship is a marriage that creates the understanding of erotic possibilities. In this fictional context, lesbian identity is constructed by the existence of the couple: a “butch” (to introduce sexual possibilities) and a “femme” (to reframe the butch’s masculine presentation from “male” to “lesbian”).</p> <p>At the same time, crossdressing performance introduces the risk, not that the same-sex nature of the relationship will be discovered, but that the role-playing will turn into the realities of heterosexual hierarchies within the context of a ideally egalitarian same-sex couple.</p> <p>The three books Herrmann chose for this study are Isabel Miller’s <em>Patience and Sarah</em> (1969), Jeannine Allard’s <em>Légende: The Story of Philippa and Aurélie</em> (1984), and Shelley Smith’s <em>The Pearls</em> (1987). [Note: I’ve read the first two but not the third.] All three deal with the performative aspect of gender roles and the ability of cross-dressing performance to enable two women to live openly as a couple while concealing the lesbian nature of their relationship. All three invoke the theme of a “pastoral retreat” but unlike the mythic image of the Ladies of Llangollen, break the potential illusion of passionlessness by the introduction of a “masculine” participant.</p> <p>The “reason” for crossdressing in the books varies: as physical protection (<em>Patience and Sarah</em>), as legal protection (<em>Légende</em>), and for the purpose of professional advancement (<em>The Pearls</em>). This is paralleled by a chronological function from the ability to create a lesbian domestic arrangement “under the radar” to the ability to engage in same-sex desire separate from a politicized lesbian feminism. [Note: it isn’t clear whether Herrmann’s “chronology” refers to the settings of the stories or to the dates of composition, as the two attributes are parallel in these three works.]</p> <p>Although all three books use crossdressing in order to appropriate the appearance of a heterosexual husband-wife pair, they produce different understandings of lesbian identity. All of them center in some way around the question of what “natural” means in terms of gender and sexuality. For the “natural” love between two women to be enabled in these stories, one woman must perform masculinity. But in all three stories, the “butch” is introduced to masculine performance as a “natural” consequence of life circumstances: raised as a substitute “son” in the context of gendered agricultural labor, adopting gendered performance for a preferred career, or accepting role-playing for the purposes of espionage where gender is only one facet of the roles required. All three stories culminate in the discarding of the “masculine” role and a rejection of pseudo-heterosexual coupling in favor of same-sex egalitarianism.</p> <p>At the same time, the “butch” role is centered not only because she introduces an awareness of sexual potential, but because she symbolizes the deception necessary for the success of the union. The crossdressing character is <em>not</em> a “butch” in the sense of an eroticized public butch-femme subculture, but rather a symbol of that deception. Curiously, in two of the three stories, a gay male figure appears as a “mentor” to initiate the crossdressing character into successful masculine performance.</p> <p>The article goes into a detailed analysis of each of the three books and how the crossdressing motif is used. In <em>Patience and Sarah</em>, Sarah initially crossdresses only when separated from Patience. An excess of honesty has led to the need to learn to dissemble, which occurs during a “wander year” when she meets the aforementioned gay male character. (Sexuality confidences are exchanged after he interprets Sarah as a sexually desirable adolescent boy.) But the resolution to Patience and Sarah’s relationship negotiations is more about class difference than sexuality, reconstructing the socially questionable butch-femme presentation into an acceptable ideal of desexualized middle-class femininity with complementary but non-hierarchical roles.</p> <p>Philippa/Philip in <em>Légende</em> crossdresses from an early age for protection against male violence but later for access to a profession as sailor. She is initiated into the life by her late mother’s lover who covers for her change of presentation and helps her enter the male professional world. After a shipwreck, she is rescued by Aurélie. They fall in love and construct a marriage to enable their public relationship. There is a twist in which Philip(pa) muses on how, living as a man, she is now locked out of the social world of women that she longs to inhabit. There is also a subplot about an adopted daughter of the two and her own same-sex romance which provides a counterpoint of an openly same-sex couple with no need for disguise.</p> <p><em>The Pearls</em> takes up the genre of detective story, in which two female agents agree to a “cover” as a heterosexual married couple in order to be assigned a prestigious case -- roles that lead to recognizing their mutual attraction. Unlike the couples in the earlier settings, they are quite aware of the possibility of same-sex attraction, but only recognized their own lesbian potential within the framework of the fictitious male-female roles--roles that originally had been intended solely as a road to career advancement. Their experience raises the possibility that any woman can discover same-sex attraction given the right context.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Herrmann, Anne. 1992. "Imitations of Marriage: Crossdressed Couples in Contemporary Lesbian Fiction" in <em>Feminist Studies</em> vol. 18 no. 3 609-624.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>298</div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-47e54d32b32eca74971791032c848495"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Gender-Disguise Romance as a Topic of Academic Study</div> Mon, 16 Dec 2019 00:25:47 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5718 at LHMP #274c Dinshaw 1999 Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Post-Modern - Chapter 2 <div class="field field-name-body"><p>The chapter begins with a summary of the legal records concerning John/Eleanor Rykener who was arrested for prostitution and who confessed to having sex with men as a woman, and with women as a man. [Note: The primary publication concerning this historic record is <a href="">Karras &amp; Boyd 1996</a>] Of particular relevance to Dinshaw’s theme, Rykener specified having sex with both clerics and nuns. (There is no explicit mention of being paid to have sex with women, as there is when having sex with men.) The court records date to two months prior to the posting of the Lollards’ “Conclusions” (their manifesto of principles) and the Rykener case reads as if designed to illustrate their claims about sexual corruption in the church.</p> <p>Rykener’s story also has echoes in Chaucer’s “Cook’s Tale,” involving themes of casual prostitution among London’s working class in the late 14th century. But Rykener holds an unusual position in the English legal record, which is generally devoid of accusations of men for prostitution. Prostitution was understood to be an inherently and essentially female crime.</p> <p>Although originally arrested for suspicion of prostitution (due to female dress and appearance), the investigation shifted to being for sodomy. And yet Rykerer’s entry into the trade involves feminization not only with regard to sexual activity but in occupation (embroiderer).</p> <p>Using this jumping off point, Dinshaw uses this chapter to explore the questions Rykener’s interrogation raises, comparing this with Chaucer’s queer character of the Pardoner, and with Foucault’s essay on “the life of infamous men.”</p> <p>Rykener’s crime is described in the text as “vitium...nephandum” (unmentionable vice) which traditionally alludes to sodomy. Yet there are regular references back to “the aforementioned vice”, highlighting it as unspeakable and yet referenced by previous utterance. The interrogatoin involves many layers of “translation”: an English proceeding recorded in Latin, possibly rendered into the formulaic language of confessional manuals. Our ability to retrieve Rykener's own voice is questionable. [Note: I have been shifting to a practice of using they/them pronouns when discussing individuals whose lives crossed gender lines. However this approach has it's own hazards, especially in flattening the data about how their gender was performed and perceived. The transcript of the trial evidence shifts between male and female pronouns for Rykener in ways that reflect both the speaker's attitude and the interpretive layer of the clerk.]</p> <p>The emphasis on clerical offenses might come from the concerns of the questioners, or from Rykener’s focus in answering, or from the clerk’s own focus in recording the procedings. Rykener appears to cooperate eagerly, but may have shaped their testimony out of fear of the legal penalty for sodomy. (Technically, the death penalty was called for, but very rarely implemented.)</p> <p>Rykener presents a category crisis. Despite the initial emphasis on male/male sodomy, the emerging details blur categories of gender and sex acts. Rykener’s description of their own actions strictly follows a heterosexual framing: female with men and male with women, dodging the strict definition of sodomy entirely.</p> <p>Sodomy isn’t the only queer element present. Why would Rykener choose prostitution as a woman (or even embroidery as a woman) over the more profitable options available to even the poorest of men? Practicality and logic suggest this was not simply an economic strategy. Did Rykener’s male clients all believe themselves to be having sex with a woman? Or did they desire sex with someone falling between categories? Women taught Rykener how to be read as a woman and how to play on gender expectations. To what purpose?</p> <p>Laws that expected a clear gender binary had no way to address the situation. Despite the detailed interrogation, no formal charges were recorded against Rykener--which doesn’t preclude more informal hazards now that their story was out.</p> <p>Dinshaw compares Rykener’s categorical indeterminacy with the way Chaucer’s Pardoner is presented (and mocked, in-text) as anomalously masculine (with hints that he might be a eunuch). [There follows a great deal of analysis of Chaucer’s use of language and imagery in general.]</p> <p>The chapter ends with Foucault’s essay “The Life of Infamous Men” on the context and problems of doing history on persons whose lives emerge only from (often antagonistic) texts. [Note: Foucault seems to be playing on both the derogatory sense of “infamous” and a literal sense of “not famous,” that is, men for whom we don’t have multiple textual sources due to the obscurity of their lives.]</p> <p>Foucault was struck by the power that such ordinary “real existences” have in contrast to the more mythologized lives of the famous. Although his essay is not specifically commenting on queer history, Foucault’s observation is powerful in the context of trying to document and understand queer lives. Texts such as Rykener’s can create affective relations across time that stand apart from any objective unknowable “truth” of their lives.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/chapter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Chapter</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-parent"><div class="label-above">Parent:&nbsp;</div>Dinshaw, Carolyn. 1999. Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2365-6</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Dinshaw, Carolyn. 1999. <em>Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern</em>. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2365-6</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>274</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-letter"><div class="label-above">Project ID letter:&nbsp;</div>c</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-sub-reference"><div class="label-above">Sub-reference:&nbsp;</div><p>Chapter 2: John/Eleanor, Dame Alys, The Pardoner and Foucault</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/john-eleanor-rykener" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">John (Eleanor) Rykener</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-7db8a593823fb5a4060021cda04849fb"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-isbn"><div class="label-above">ISBN:&nbsp;</div>0-8223-2365-6</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>The Aforementioned Unmentionable Vice</div> Sun, 10 Nov 2019 02:32:46 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5678 at LHMP #274a Dinshaw 1999 Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Post-Modern - Introduction <div class="field field-name-body"><p>This is not fundamentally a book about queer sex in history, it’s a book about the place of sex in the construction of certain historic communities in 14-15th century England, and specifically the place of sexuality in community-identification in relation to Lollard ideas. [Note: it may be useful for the reader to get <a href="" rel="nofollow">a brief background in Lollardy from Wikipedia</a>. Basically, it’s a pre-Protestant reformation movement inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe and his translation of the Bible into English.] Some examples involved in this study are queer or have resonance for modern queer communities. And Dinshaw’s approach includes a queer-aligned examination of how people connect with historic communities across time. So it’s not so much a contribution to queer history as a topic, but to the act of doing queer history as a project.</p> <p>The introduction (as is usual for a book of this sort) provides a survey of the topics and texts that will be discussed. It begins with a late 14th century verse manual for parish priests. In discussing sexual advice, the manual suggests with regard to sexual sins: “Also written well I find, That of sin against kind [i.e., sin against nature], Thou shalt thy parish nothing teach, Nor of that sin nothing preach.” Dinshaw examines how we can understand what “sin against kind” means in a context where its unspeakability was an essential characteristic. This will be explored further in chapters 1 and 2.</p> <p>The definition and discussion of types of sexual sin--with the understanding that under some theologies, all sex was inescapably sinful--creates an indeterminate understanding of where same-sex practices fell within it. Some sex acts were simultaneously “against nature” and something that people might fall into through innate desire, as in Gower’s version of the story of Iphis and Ianthe.</p> <p>Dinshaw discusses the theoretical landscape she’s working in, with a review of existing studies, including the uses of cross-historical affective identification as a type of dissidence and agency. That is: the desire of modern people to identify with people in the past as “like them” gives those modern people both a way of challenging the modern narratives they’re forced into, and a way of taking charge of their own transhistorical identities.</p> <p>Although viewing cultural phenomena (such as sex) as “fundamentally indeterminate,” Dinshaw does not see this as incompatible with identifying a “usable history” for queer people. In terms of providing identification for community formation, connections across time need not be complete or identical to create “community.”</p> <p>John Boswell’s <em>Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality</em>” opened an ongoing debate on this topic and is analyzed as a community-building force of its own in Dinshaw’s book. Boswell assembled evidence supporting a conceptual shift in the mid 13th century from a relatively tolerant Christianity and a flourishing self-consciously “gay” urban subculture to a more repressive, intolerant Christianity. Boswell was accused of “white-washing” the church out of a desire for a sense of acceptance (i.e., a desire to find a historic Christian church that allegedly had accepted and embraced homosexuality, as a path to influencing modern Christians to “return” to that state). Boswell’s work serves as an example of the public side of “doing history” in the late 20th century.</p> <p>Boswell participated in a debate on whether one can say there were “real” gay people in history, or whether sexuality is always an ephemeral cultural construct--the former being an apparent prerequisite for the existence of “gay history.” Apart from the essentially cultural critique, Boswell’s approach has been accused of glossing over institutionalized age-difference aspects of male-male relationships, and of unwarrantedly assuming that his overwhelmingly male data applied to women as well.</p> <p>Dinshaw discusses Foucault’s reception of Boswell’s work and how it interacted with his own work and approach. She surveys other historians working across the field of the history of sexuality.</p> <p>Dinshaw uses an analysis of the Lollards as a light on the complexity of identification--how such cultural conflicts are complex, with the sides often having far more in common than not, even while people yearn for simple tests and metrics of truth and deviancy.</p> <p>One chapter uses the case of John/Eleanor Rykener as an illustration of the elusiveness of categories.</p> <p>There is much philosophizing to finish up the introduction.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/chapter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Chapter</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-parent"><div class="label-above">Parent:&nbsp;</div>Dinshaw, Carolyn. 1999. Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2365-6</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Dinshaw, Carolyn. 1999. <em>Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern</em>. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2365-6</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>274</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-letter"><div class="label-above">Project ID letter:&nbsp;</div>a</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-sub-reference"><div class="label-above">Sub-reference:&nbsp;</div><p>Introduction</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/john-eleanor-rykener" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">John (Eleanor) Rykener</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-40d10bb92e80c014b022c56180299226"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-isbn"><div class="label-above">ISBN:&nbsp;</div>0-8223-2365-6</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Getting Medieval on Sex and Sexuality</div> Sun, 10 Nov 2019 02:20:20 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5675 at LHMP #253 Perret 1985 Travesties et Transsexuelles <div class="field field-name-body"><p>This article looks at four heroines in French literature of the 13-14th centuries whose stories involved either transvestite or transsexual elements or both. What the stories dance around, without treating it directly is homosexuality, both male and female. Cross-dressing motifs, either men disguised as women or women disguised as men are not rare, and create an ambiguous situation where homosexual possibilities can emerge.</p> <p>The ambiguity, in both cases, revolves around relations with a woman. The man disguised as a woman wins her love with the appearance of homosexuality but the underlying “reality” of heterosexuality, while the woman disguised as a man wins a woman’s love with the appearance of heterosexuality but the underlying “reality” of homosexuality. In the first case, the plot typically resolves with proof of the heterosexual nature of the union in the birth of a child. But in the second case, the resolution may take one of two forms: either the disguised woman becomes, in truth, a man, or she returns to her original sex and thus loses her autonomy in marriage. The social freedom that the cross-dressing woman gains creates a problem of identity that can only be resolved by reinforcing the status quo by one means or another.</p> <p>In literature, the reasons for male and female cross-dressing are different. The male characters take on the disguise to facilitate access to the desired woman. The cross-dressing women seek masculine privileges: the right to inherit, to travel alone, to have autonomy. While the cross-dressing episode for men is a period of intense sexuality, for women the disguise requires a non-sexual life.</p> <p>In the case of <em>Silence</em>, the cross-dressing is for the purpose of inheritance. She attracts female desire but does not respond. For <em>Yde</em> it is to escape her father’s incestuous desire. When she is forced to marry the emperor’s daughter Olive, she laments that she has no means of fulfilling the duties of marriage. Silence, like the figure of Grisandole in <em>l’Estoire de Merlin</em>, returns to her original gender presentation. But Yde doesn’t return to female garments, as God transforms her into a man. A similar divine miracle resolves the case of Blanchandine in <em>Tristan de Nanteuil</em>. Her disguise was originally to facilitate escaping her family to stay with Tristan, but believing him dead, she is pressured into marrying the daughter of the sultan and accepts a transformation of sex to resolve the conflict.</p> <p>The change of sex is signaled not only by taking on male clothing but also by a change of name. Blanchandine, Yde, and Silence use only a grammatical transformation from feminine to masculine, while Grisandole is the male name taken on by Avenable. There is a discussion of how these name changes are treated in the text, with particular attention to the case of Silence, where there is also a secondary adoption of the pseudonym “Malduit” for part of her adventures.</p> <p>The author compares these heroic figures with a different genre of crossdressing women in fabliaux, such as the woman in <em>Berengier au lonc cul</em>, who takes revenge on her cowardly husband by disguising herself as a knight and tricking him into kissing her ass (literally).</p> <p>There is a technical discussion of the complexities of gender reference in the texts and how word play is used to emphasize the multi-layered identities and relationships of the disguised women. In the story of Silence, this duality is highlighted by the disputes between the personifications of Nature and Nurture who each claim the right to define Silence’s identity.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Perret, Michele. 1985. “Travesties et Transsexuelles: Yde, Silence, Grisandole, Blanchandine” in <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality</em> 25:3 pp.328-340</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>253</div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/roman-de-silence-heldris-de-cornu%C3%A4lle" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Roman de Silence (Heldris de Cornuälle)</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/yde-and-olive" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Yde and Olive</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/tristan-de-nanteuil" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Tristan de Nanteuil</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/l%E2%80%99estroire-de-merlin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">L’Estroire de Merlin</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/berengier-au-lonc-cul" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Berengier au lonc cul</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-9a093008087878562cd811f75effc404"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Gender Transgression and the Status Quo</div> Mon, 10 Jun 2019 04:00:14 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5515 at LHMP #252 Roos 2017 Cross-dressing among medieval Ashkenazi Jews <div class="field field-name-body"><p>Roos examines an interesting Jewish legal commentary from 13th century Germany that discusses the contexts in which Jewish people are permitted to cross-dress, either in terms of gender or in terms of religious affiliation. The thesis of her study is that, rather than being seen as transgressive, these licensed contexts serve to reinforce category boundaries, both of gender and of religious community.</p> <p>The 13th century ethical tract, Sefer Chasidim, discusses a variety of contexts in which Jewish people are granted permission to dress and behave in ways that disguise their identity. The clause of clearest relevance to the Project is one that permits women to disguise themselves as men (even to take up weapons), or to disguise themselves as gentiles (even as nuns) in order to avoid assault, and in particular sexual assault. Perhaps surprisingly, this allowance includes permission to assume Christian disguise as protection against assault by Jewish men, even if it results in the death of the Jewish attackers.</p> <p>These cross-category disguises appear to be in conflict with existing Jewish law, especially Deuteronomy 22:5 (also cited by Christians against cross-dressing) which states “A woman shall not put on a man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear a woman’s garment.” Roos examines the dynamics of this allowance via Judith Butler’s theory of gender as performance--that is, the theory that gender categories must be created and maintained by performance, rather than existing on their own.</p> <p>The cross-category allowances were not offered only to women. Preadolescent boys are also given permission to disguise themselves as women for protection, though in this case the threat seems to be robbery rather than assault. The picture that emerges is that Jewish men were perceived as targets of robbery (and were granted allowances to protect against that possibility) while Jewish women--more as women than specifically as Jewish--were perceived as targets of sexual assault, with their allowances aimed at deflecting that possibility.</p> <p>The article looks at the evidence and context of gendered distinctions of clothing around the 13th century, as well as distinctive elements of dress that identified the wearers by religion. A key distinction is made (for both the gender and religious contexts) between cross-dressing purely as a disguise to escape oppression, versus cross-dressing as an expression of identity or a desire to explore other identities.</p> <p>Roos examines the text from Deuteronomy in linguistic detail and suggests that it is less clearly an absolute prohibition on cross-dressing than the usual understanding. But regardless of the nuances of interpretation, the Sefer Chasidim allowance is clearly a special exception to a general prohibition.</p> <p>Christian versions of the Deuteronomy text erased the possible nuanced readings and turned it into a clear and simple prohibition on cross-gender clothing. But even so, similar allowances for women to dress as men for protection are noted, e.g., for travel. And the motif of cross-dressed saints is discussed. Reasons for why Joan of Arc was not considered to be covered by these allowances are discussed. Other accepted (though disapproved) forms of cross-dressing included those associated with carnival and theater. There was no similar license in Christian society for situational cross-dressing by men, and male cross-dressing was associated with witchcraft or with deception to gain illicit access to women’s spaces.</p> <p>A similar consideration is given to texts discussing Jewish prohibitions on wearing gentile clothing, including what types of transgressions might result (for example, mixed fibers) and under what circumstances they would require atonement. Roos presents historic data on both the existence of distinctions in dress between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and the exact nature of those distinctions.</p> <p>The use of cross-gender clothing as a protective disguise, within a larger context that prohibits cross-dressing can be seen to reinforce gender (and religious) categories by precluding an ambiguous territory between them. Clothing disguise requires that clothing be accepted as an unquestioned gender marker, and this is only possible if ambiguous clothing is forbidden. Similarly, protective pretense to a different religious identity is only effective if boundaries between religious communities are considered inviolable.</p> <p>But if this combination of prohibition and situational allowance for gender disguise is a reaction to strengthen a gender binary (which Roos suggests), were there challenges to the gender binary that it might have been reacting to? The author explores a number of shifts in gendered behavior that occurred during the middle ages, such as women adopting traditionally male ritual responsibilities within the Jewish tradition (with some interesting parallels in Christian traditions at the same time). In the same texts that discuss permitted cross-dressing practices, these shifts in religious participation by women are criticized, as well as criticizing practices that appear to blur the boundaries between Jewish and Christian religious practice. Thus cross-dressing allowances are firmly embedded in a conservative (and even reactionary) response to an era when the blurring of those categories was perceived as a threat.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Roos, Lena. 2017. “Cross-dressing among medieval Ashkenazi Jews: Confirming challenged group borders” in <em>Nordisk judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies</em> vol 28 no. 2. 4-22</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>252</div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-970a502df96c17530e61e6ef5b088c15"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Emergency Cross-Dressing in Medieval Jewish Communities</div> Mon, 10 Jun 2019 01:48:17 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5514 at LHMP #251 Abbouchi 2018 Yde and Olive <div class="field field-name-body"><p>Abbouchi tackled creating this edition and translation of the more complete of the two versions of the romance as a master’s thesis. [There are three related texts of the core story of Yde and Olive, two variants as part of the Huon of Bordeaux romance cycle, and one adapted (with different character names) as a miracle play. The second version of the romance is more abbreviated. The three vary in the details of how the relationship between the two women is presented, and in how the “problem” of a same-sex relationship is resolved.]</p> <p>The story of Yde and Olive is a stand-alone episode consisting of  1062 lines of verse within the larger 13th century genealogical narrative of Huon of Bordeaux. In brief, Yde is the granddaughter of Huon and the daughter of Florent whose story is given in the preceding section of the overall romance. Yde’s mother dies at her birth and Florent refuses to re-marry out of grief, until Yde approaches marriageable age and he decides to marry his daughter. Horrified by this prospect, Yde flees in male disguise and engages in a number of military adventures as a man, finally coming to the attention of the emperor of Rome. Yde’s efforts on the emperor’s behalf inspire him to offer his daughter Olive’s hand in marriage and to make Yde his heir. Yde is conflicted about the marriage but agrees. After putting off consummating the marriage for two weeks, Yde reveals her secret to Olive, who agrees to be loyal to her and maintain the marriage. They are overheard by a servant who tells the emperor. The emperor prepares a test to force Yde to reveal her true sex, but she prays for salvation and an angel appears to the court and tells them that God has transformed Yde into a man. That very night, Yde and Olive’s son Croissant is conceived (who will be the hero of the next section of the romance).</p> <p>The motif of the female knight or the cross-dressing woman is not uncommon in medieval French literature, but stories of sex change are rare. [Note: The motif was most likely adapted from Ovid's <em>Iphis and Ianthe.</em>] The ambiguity of Yde’s gender identity and gender presentation are handled in the text by alternating feminine and masculine forms of her name, and by using gendered pronouns that reflect the appearance or point of view being highlighted in the scene. This approach is not always consistent, however, and sometimes is overridden by poetic considerations. In addition, the author sometimes deliberately highlights Yde’s feminine identity in the midst of masculine-coded activities (like battle) for narrative effect. Yde’s ability to perform as a man is never questioned or dwelt on. Function follows form.</p> <p>The translator specifically acknowledges the transgender themes in Yde’s story and supports the choice to refer to the pre-transformation Yde as female as this is how the character herself identifies in internal monologues and when telling her story to Olive. Yde never expresses a male identity or desire to become a man, only a fear of punishment for entering into a same-sex marriage. The sex change is not presented as a re-alignment of personal identity, but as a mechanism to escape execution. [In this version, the change is also presented as being necessary to produce the next generation of the heroic lineage. A different mechanism for this is used in other versions of the story.]</p> <p>Abbouchi discusses other cross-gender figures in medieval and Renaissance literature and how they treat gender difference as performance. The abilities, habits, and appearance of a man all follow from the initial disguise, rather than being deliberately learned. Her prowess in battle is automatic. Despite being initially described as a beautiful girl (though one still young enough that her breasts haven’t developed), Yde is perceived by others (after her disguise) as being physically masculine. In particular, Olive perceives Yde as a handsome and desirable man and enthusiastically consents to the marriage.</p> <p>Abbouchi contrasts the treatment in medieval literature of women disguised as men (who always pass successfully) with that of men disguised as women (who are presented as always failing in some essential way, with the disguised treated as comic).</p> <p>Language is another key element of how Yde’s gender is perceived. Not only the way the narrator plays with pronouns and gendered descriptions, but in how the other characters accept Yde as male until it is contradicted verbally: by the servant overhearing Yde’s confession, and by the rest of the court hearing the servant’s accusation. Even the sex change in the resolution relies entirely on verbal assertion (by the angel) that Yde now has “everything that makes a man” with no bodily confirmation being required or received. A close reading raises the question of whether a bodily transformation has, in fact, occurred. (Apart from the conjectural evidence of Olive’s son Croissant.)</p> <p>There is discussion of the three elements of transgression that are central to the narrative: incest, cross-dressing, and same-sex marriage. The proposed incest is not only forbidden in itself, but is not consented to by Yde. (Consent by both parties had only recently been recognized as essential to a valid marriage contract at the time of composition.) This contrasts with the proposed marriage between Yde and Olive, where Olive’s father explicitly seeks her consent and she enthusiastically gives it.</p> <p>There is a discussion of philosophical/theological texts that make allowance for women cross-dressing “without sin on account of some necessity, either in order to hide oneself from enemies, or through lack of other clothes, or for some similar motive.” (Thomas Aquinas) This certainly fits Ydes original impulse to cross-dress, though not necessarily her continued practice of it.</p> <p>The text frames Yde as a reluctant participant in the same-sex marriage, and excuses the emperor on the basis that he believed Yde to be a man. The narrative treats the (somewhat unintentional) same-sex marriage much more sympathetically than the attempted incestuous one, though there are references in the text to fatal consequences for discovery of the former (whereas King Florent appears to have been only imperiling his soul, not his life). This highlights that the potential for consequences derives more from the gender of the participants than the seriousness of the “sin”. As an apparently heterosexual married couple, Yde and Olive operate at the highest levels of social and political power; once Yde is known/believed to be female, both women lose their agency and sexual freedom and do not regain it until after the transformation.</p> <p>The remainder of the introductory matter discusses the poetic structure, the relationship and history of the various manuscripts of the Huon of Bordeaux cycle, the physical nature and history of the key manuscripts, and the illustrated miniatures that accompany key scenes (including one relevant to the story of Yde and Olive).</p> <p>The remainder of this entry will be detailed descriptions of passages specifically relevant to the motif of cross-dressing and to the romantic and sexual relationship between Yde and Olive.</p> <p>* * *</p> <p>When King Florent summons his daughter to inform her of his decision to marry her (which she is entirely ignorant of at that point), there is an extended description of her appearance and clothing. Details include “blond hair that fell in curls on her back” and that she “was a full fifteen years of age yet had no breasts that could be seen.” (This is the only concession to physical attributes that might support an inability to identify her sex visually.)</p> <p>Once Yde knows what her father plans, she waits until he is distracted by the arrival of an important guest, at which “she quickly put on some men’s clothing, and so disguised she went to the stables and made for a destrier, mounting it without delaying one moment, nor was she seen or spotted by anyone. So she left Aragon.”</p> <p>There are scattered references to her appearance during her initial adventures (though none to cutting her hair, which is often a trope in this sort of story). “Dressed in men’s clothing out of fear ... She was well disguised as a boy and had bought hose and hood and the finest linen breeches. She wore her sword at her side, and also carried a rod.” “She will suffer greatly if she is found out. ... She who was dressed after the fashion of men.”</p> <p>Yde takes service with Oton, Emperor of Rome. “The king of Rome regarded Yde; he saw that he [sic] was big, brawny, and well built. For this reason he immediately grew to like him [sic]. At that moment, crowned King Oton’s daughter entered the hall. There was none so beautiful in all the kingdom. Her name was Olive, and she was full of kindness. ... She sat next to Oton affectionately and looked sweetly at the squire [i.e., Yde].”</p> <p>After some conversation in which Oton discovers they are distantly related, he says, “Olive, daughter, did you hear? I will retain this praise-worthy squire for you. He will serve at your pleasure.” And she replies “Five hundred times thank you, I have never heard anything that pleased me so much.” Oton confides to Yde, “I have a daughter who is very beautiful and who will inherit my land and my kingdom. Be mindful of how you conduct yourself. If you serve her well, you will be well rewarded.”</p> <p>There hasn’t been discussion of marriage yet, but we are shown Olive’s growing attachment and Yde’s growing discomfort.</p> <p>“From that time, Yde remained in Oton’s house, and the good king of Rome rewarded her, for she was always mindful of serving well and worked so tirelessly day and night, that everyone was pleased with her service. Olive gladly watched her. Yde prayed to the Holy Virgin to protect her from being suspected, lest she be put to death.”</p> <p>After winning a major battle on behalf of Oton, Yde returns from the battlefield: “Yde was much beheld and admired, for Olive watched her return from the battlements. Her whole body tingled with joy, and she waid softly to herself, ‘He will be my love. I will speak to him tomorrow. I have never been so taken with a man, so it is fitting that I should tell him so.’” There is, of course, a possible double-meaning here that Olive “had never been so taken with a man” but that may be only in the mind of the modern audience.</p> <p>After more battles: “The king’s daughter was so enamored of him that she confessed it to him, for she could no longer hide it.” And then King Oton calls together his nobles and tells them, “I have a daughter who is most worthy of praise, I want to see her married before I die, so I will give her to my knight, Yde. And with her [i.e., Olive], Rome and my vast kingdom, for I know no other man like him.” Another double-meaning, perhaps intentional. He tells Yde, “I wish to reward you. I have a very beautiful daughter; you will have her as your wife and companion, as well as my kingdom, when I am gone.”</p> <p>Yde protests, pleading her poverty, but King Oton insists and Yde says, “I will take her gladly and willingly, if that is her wish. Call the maiden here right now.” Perhaps Yde was hoping she’d say no? But Olive’s response is, “Now my wishes are fulfilled. Indeed my time on this earth will not have been wasted since I will be granted what I have so desired. ... Father, please consider making haste, for every day, it feels like he will leave.” Definitely no shrinking maiden here!</p> <p>But when Yde hears the confirmation of the marriage offer “her blood ran cold, she did not know what to do, for she had no member with which to touch/live-with/have-sex-with her.” (The word has multiple possible meanings in French.) And she begs God, “Have pity on this wretch who is being forced to marry. ... Better to have had me burned!” (This may be a reference to burning as a punishment for heresy, under which same-sex relations were sometimes categorized.) “...the king’s daughter has fallen in love with me; I do not know how I can escape this. If I tell them that I am really a woman, they will tear me to pieces...for despite everything else, I have told lies.” But she resigns herself, “I will marry the crowned king’s daughter, and put myself in God’s hands.”</p> <p>There was a month of feasting and then the wedding. Notice that in this passage, the text gives Yde male pronouns. “...they went to the church...Yde was in the front, sighing heavily; nevertheless, he proceeded until they reached the church, and that day they had him marry the maiden. He took Olive for his wife and companion. The king had given his daughter to a woman because he thought Yde was a man.” This passage is illustrated with a miniature with two scenes: a marriage ceremony and a couple in bed with a witness standing at the foot of the bed. There is a caption stating, “Thus Yde, daughter of Florent of Aragon, married Olive, daughter of Othon the emperor of Rome.”</p> <p>After the marriage feast, the two are taken to the bedchamber. “And they led Olive to the paved chamber, laying her down and reclining her on the bed. Yde came into the chamber, in tears. Securing and locking the room, she came to the bed where her wife lay and spoke to her privately thus: ‘My sweet love and faithful bride, I must bid you good night, for mine will be difficult, I believe; I have an ailment that troubles me greatly.’” The implication here is that some illness has made her impotent. “With these words she embraced Olive, who, being very wise, answered, ‘Fair, sweet friend, we are here in private, and you are what I have desired most of all because of the goodness I have seen in you. Do not think that I have thought about wanting to take our pleasure. I have never had an interest in such things.’” The literal phrasing of what Olive rejects is “that I wish to play with raised feet” which is an amusing euphemism.</p> <p>But Olive is also thinking of the expectation that the wedding guests will expect some evidence of consummation. She continues, “Rather I ask that you give me a reprieve of fifteen days until the guests have left, so that I won’t be teased and chided for it. By then we will have recovered our spirits.” There is an implication that Olive simply thinks Yde is shy and that she’s trying to protect her husband’s self-image by pretending that she’s the one who wants to put off sex. She offers, “If you please, I would be exempted from everything but kisses. I would like to be embraced, but as for that love they call intimate, I ask you to release me from it.”</p> <p>Yde agrees, “And with that they kissed and embraced one another.” At breakfast the next morning, “Oton examined his daughter closely that morning to see if she was at all altered or changed. ‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘how do you find yourself married?’ ‘Sire,’ she said, ‘exactly to my liking.’ At that, there was a great burst of laughter in the palace and Olive was showered with gifts.” Olive has succeeded in acting like a newly sexually awakened bride to convince the wedding guests.</p> <p>But after a fortnight, when Yde still maintains a non-sexual relationship, there is a suggestion that Olive takes the initiative, “she pressed and prodded her companion.” Yde sees that she can’t keep up the pretense any longer “so she turned toward her and no longer hid the truth from her. She told her the whole story from beginning to end: that she was woman--begging for mercy--that she had run away from her father...”</p> <p>Olive is alarmed at this, but she comforts Yde, swearing, “I will not tell my father King Oton...take comfort, for you are safe in loyalty. I will face my destiny together with you.” That gives us a brief glimpse of an entirely different possible story, but at that very moment, a servant overhears their conversation and tells Oton. The emperor is outraged and decides to get proof by demanding that Yde undress to share a bath with him. When Yde demurs, he hints and what he’s been told and warns Yde, “If what I was told is true, I will have you both burned at the stake.” A second reference to burning as a potential punishment for same-sex marriage.</p> <p>Just as the entire court is crying, “Burn them! Burn them!” an angel shows up and announces, “I am telling you the truth, that you have a good knight in your vassal, Yde. God in his benevolence has given him everything that makes a man. And let the boy go.” That is, the servant who carried tales. The angel continues, “He spoke truthfully to you, but all that is past. This morning she was a woman, but now he is a man incarnate. For God has power and might over everything.” Although, interestingly, the angel continues to refer to Yde with the feminine form of the name while finishing the prophecy of the birth of Croissant. And with that, the story is finished.</p> <p>There is an interesting ambiguity in the gender resolution. One view might be that God has magically transformed Yde into a man physiologically. Another view might be that the angel is simply saying, “God considers Yde to be a man; get with the program.” To be sure, the conception of their son might argue for the magical transformation, but if God could change a person's biological sex God could also arrange for a magical pregnancy. (Hey, it's been known to happen.) The first interpretation is more of a transsexual resolution than a transgender one, but even the second sidesteps the matter that Yde has not expressed gender dysphoria, simply an aversion to being killed for being pressured into what turned out to be a same-sex marriage. Conversely, Olive--who at first is framed as a woman falling in what she believes to be heterosexual love--is the one who renews her pledge of love, devotion, and loyalty knowing Yde to be a woman (as Yde at that time considers herself). Those looking for resonances with modern understandings of gender and sexuality will find a complex picture, susceptible of a variety of readings.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Abbouchi, Mounawar. 2018. “Yde and Olive” in <em>Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality<em>, vol 8.</em></em></p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>251</div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/yde-and-olive" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Yde and Olive</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-7554b14613a58dbdc400f5a9f01cd95e"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>My Favorite Medieval French Romance</div> Thu, 06 Jun 2019 05:02:33 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5511 at LHMP #247 Horváth 2011 Of Female Chastity and Male Arms: The Balkan ‘Man-Woman’ in the Age of the World Picture <div class="field field-name-body"><p>[Note: I have followed Horváth’s treatment of pronouns within the article’s content, which is somewhat inconsistent and leans toward using female pronouns for individuals in the “man-woman” role described in this article. Although the cross-gender social role discussed here does not correspond fully or precisely to modern definitions of transgender, and not all such individuals occupied fully male-presenting roles, it is clear that most or all of the specific individuals discussed in the article identified as male and were unremarkably treated as such by their community.]</p> <p>Horváth reviews several accounts of a formal gender-crossing role in the Balkans within the social and political context of the turn of the 20th century. This was an era when western culture defined itself in terms of a scientific understanding of the world, but simultaneously interpreted and categorized non-western cultures and phenomena in terms of a pseudo-scientific hierarchy of experience, particularly with respect to issues of gender and sexuality. But during this era, western view of gender and sexuality were far from value-neutral, imposing a strict “virgin-whore” dichotomy on female sexuality and expressing deep anxiety about sexual “deviancy”, as analyzed in works such as Krafft-Ebing’s <em>Psychopathia Sexualis</em>.</p> <p>Horváth’s specific topic is how this late 19th century western gaze interpreted and “translated” the figure of the Balkan “man-woman” (her term, intended as a neutral translation), an accepted and ritualized cross-gender role in which a female-bodied person renounced a female social role and became an honorary man, especially including social responsibilities relating to warfare and feuding. This role was present in a number of variations and using a variety of terms among tribal, pastoral communities of Montenegro and northern Albania.</p> <p>This role was first recorded by outside observers in 1855 by a Serbian ethnographer who described meeting a woman named Milica who had vowed to remain unmarried and fulfill a surrogate male role in her family, due to having no brothers. She wore male clothing, carried arms, and was treated socially as a man within her community. A similar account was recorded in 1860 by an Austro-Hungarian consul who described meeting four Albanian women who had renounced marriage and changed their gender. Other scattered accounts can be found in following decades. Part of Horváth’s focus in this article is to compare the interpretations and purposes of these accounts, and the differing ways in which they engaged with their subjects.</p> <p>The Balkan region was undergoing a significant transition as the receding borders of the Ottoman Empire opened up greater contact with western travelers and governmental officials. In reading the various descriptions of this practice of gender change, Horváth notes distinct differences between relative cultural insiders, and more external observers who interpreted the phenomenon through the lens of highly sexualized western perceptions of gender roles. She notes that, in common with other travel literature, such reports are often about defining the traveler’s own culture in contrast to the Other.</p> <p>As a general characterization, western views of cultural and racial progress at the time focused not only on the development of reason, but on the repression and control of sexual impulses. Western men viewed themselves as the pinnacle of rationality, including the ability to repress the impulses, especially including sexual impulses. Women were lesser, not only for lacking the same capacity for reasoning, but for being subject to impulsive behavior of all types. The control of women’s sexuality was a prerequisite for civilization and one of the main purposes of Christian marriage. Women held a constant potential for disruption in parallel with the disruptive power of “uncivilized” cultures and races. Women were part of nature; men part of science and culture.</p> <p>Ethnographic descriptions and even living exhibitions were popular during this era. The display--especially of women--in what amounted to human zoos particularly focused on the inversion of western roles and values. “Wild women” or “Amazons” were a particularly favorite topic, providing both fascination and anxiety that helped to reinforce ideas of civilization versus the Other.</p> <p>This context supported the interpretation of western observers that the Balkan man-woman should be categorized as “war-like women” rather than being understood as men, despite the unremarked acceptance of them as such within their own cultures.</p> <p>The Balkans had a liminal status at the edge of the Orient and Occident, or as the nearest lands that were part of the Orient (and geographically part of Europe). Early western travel literature describing the region in the 19th century focused on the image of penetrating and revealing a mysterious, closed society. Descriptions often projected static antiquity onto the Albanian culture and emphasized practices such as honor feuds that were considered backwards and primative.</p> <p>These aspects were emphasized in descriptions of men-women, as in an 1885 account in a German newspaper of Maruk e Col-Doz, which emphasized military attributes and accomplishments, while describing her as a “virgin” who “acts as the lord of the household” when no other male relative is available.</p> <p>Such accounts often focused on the subject’s “virgin” status, although renouncing marriage and (heterosexual) sexuality was only one part of the model. Taking on the role was one of the few socially acceptable ways for a woman to evade a family-arranged marriage (sometimes arranged in infancy for reasons of inter-familial bonding). It could be done with the father’s permission and involved a formal declaration before the (male) trival assembly, after which she would be according certain male-only privileges and would typically take on some behaviorally male attributes including name, hair style, and clothing. If she were found to have broken the vows relating to sexuality (e.g., by becoming pregnant), she would be executed along with her partner, if known.</p> <p>Some women may have taken on the role to avoid an unwanted marriage, but in other cases the choice seems to have begun with parental choice when no sons were available, due to the strongly patriarchal structures of inheritance. Some observers speculated that women may have taken on the role in reaction to the restricted and repressed status of women in the culture, though this argument was tainted by language equating civilized status with the elevated treatment of women.</p> <p>This German account reported a possibly exaggerated count of 200 men-women among 10 parishes in northern Albania, but with only 10-15 of them going armed and wearing full male dress, while others wore symbolic male headgear with otherwise female garments. But the focus (and all the photographic evidence) was on those who had taken on the full military role and male presentation. That is, the individuals who best fulfilled the fantasy of the “wild warrior woman.”</p> <p>The German writer universally describes his subjects with female pronouns with a single exception, using the male pronoun in scare-quotes when contrasting a “pretty” appearance with the attribution of violent deeds. Bringing in the western fascination with an anatomical explanation for cross-gender behavior, he carefully notes that all the women in question had “normal” female genitalia. This was part of a systematic strategy of confining the men-women into a female classification and solidly part of a binary gender system.</p> <p>Despite a wealth of vernacular terms to describe this role-change, the German writer consistently refers to them as “virgins”, focusing on the renunciation of sexuality to the exclusion of other factors. This allowed them to be viewed as virtuous (while still deviant) in contrast to gender-transgressing western women who were assumed to be sexually voracious. The word choice inherently sexualized the phenomenon while appearing to desexualize it. (A footnote provides 22 different local terms, representing perhaps 10 different linguistic roots in both Albanian and Serbian. The author’s gloss “man-woman” is a literal translation of several of these.) Labeling the men-women as “virgins” was a means of controlling the sexual danger of the “monstrous female.”</p> <p>The second documentary source that Horváth examines comes from a relative cultural insider--a Serbian physician making a public health survey in Montenegro in 1885. He introduces the topic with a dramatized conversation with his hosts who hint at something unusual about one of the soldiers he is to examine the next day. The doctor had an advantage over other reporters in that he was somewhat familiar with the local culture and needed no translator to speak with the local residents. But at the same time, he was emotionally invested in the culture of glorification of military prowess and nationalist pride in the liberation from Ottoman rule.</p> <p>As the doctor performs his examination (which is largely visual and by interrogation, not as intrusive as the phrase “medical examination” might imply), his hosts keep teasing him with hints about one particular soldier. Finally they say outright that “Miraš is a woman.” The village hosts expand on Miraš’s story: born Milica, the only child of a famous warrior who was killed shortly after the birth, her mother re-named her Miraš and raised her in male dress in order to provide her dead husband with a son. When later offered the opportunity to return to living as a woman, Miraš declined. [Note: this suggests a different tradition than the one in which reversing the role-change was punished with death.]</p> <p>The doctor was able to have a private interview with Miraš to satisfy various technical interests (such as the topic of menstruation-- Miraš attested to having had only a couple of periods at puberty which then ceased) but declined to be too intrusive. Throughout, the doctor addresses Miraš as a man, in contrast with other reporters who frame similar individuals as women. Local people, he reports, shrug and explain, “He is, and he is not,” indicating some ambiguity to the classification.</p> <p>Horvath concludes with a contrast of the two reports: one emphasizing the cross-gender role as aberrantly female and a symptom of the otherness and primitiveness of the local culture, the other focusing on personal experience and individual identity and allowing the subject of his study self-representation.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Horváth, Aleksandra Djajić. 2011. ‘Of Female Chastity and Male Arms: The Balkan ‘Man-Woman’ in the Age of the World Picture” in <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality</em> vol. 20 no. 2 358-381.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>247</div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-16ca2f44d642b31fc639a12e851cc780"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Crossing Genders in the Balkans</div> Tue, 02 Apr 2019 13:53:43 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5459 at LHMP #240 Amer 2009 Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like' <div class="field field-name-body"><p>Amer begins by tackling the Whorfian-tinged assertion that the lack of a specific terminology for lesbianism in medieval Europe contributed to a lack of modern scholarship about same-sex desire between women in that era, by noting that the existence of a diverse and specific vocabulary for the topic in medieval Arabic (<em>sahq, sihaqa, musahaqat, al-nisa’, sahiqa</em>) hasn’t resulted in a vibrant field of study. This is particularly disappointing given the significant surviving literature on the topic. Further, Amer notes, if you broaden the field of inquiry to include “lesbian-like” women (following Judith Bennett’s definition), the literature is even richer. The structure of cultural and social life in some medieval Arabic courts may contain unstudied spaces in which same-sex activity occurred that--if not “lesbian” by a strict definition--certain fall into the category of “lesbian-like.”</p> <p><strong>Medieval Arab Lesbians</strong></p> <p>The medieval Arabic vocabulary for “lesbianism” (<em>sahq, sihaq, sihaqa</em>) and “lesbian” (<em>sahiqa, sahhaqa, musahiqa</em>) arise from describing a behavior rather than an identity or orientation, coming from the root <em>s-h-q</em> meaning “to pound” (as with spices) or “to rub”, and thus being semantically connected to Greek <em>tribas</em> and Latin <em>fricatrix</em>.</p> <p>Medieval Arabic medical theories included the idea that lesbianism was caused by an itch of the labia that could be soothed only by rubbing against another woman’s genitals. (These medical writings included versions of the 2nd century Greek writer Galen, and included a tradition that Galen’s daughter was a lesbian and had provided him with data on the topic.) This theory included humoral concepts of heat and cold to explain why sex with a man couldn’t scratch the itch in the same way. (al-Kindi, 9th c)</p> <p>The scientific view of lesbianism in Arabic literature was as a medical category, with theories about the underlying cause that included maternal consumption of specific plants. (Yuhanna ibn Masawayh, 9th c) In this context, it was seen as innate, lifelong, and as morally neutral.</p> <p>But although the etymology of <em>sahq</em> indicates an activity, the cultural context of the range of terms in medieval Arabic literature associates <em>sahiqat</em> with love and devotion, and in some contexts with an exclusive and supportive subculture of women who loved women. Legendary tales identify the “first lesbians” as an interfaith couple (Christian and pre-Islamic Arabic) in what is now Iraq. The earliest surviving Arabic erotic treatise (10th c) includes this tale of Hind Bint al-Nu`man and Hind Bint al-Khuss al-Iyadiyyah and places them in the 7th century. They were held up as an icon of love and loyalty.</p> <p>The historicity of this story is less important than how it was presented in the Arabic literary tradition as a symbol of the greater love and devotion women have for each other than men have for women. Arabic literature embraced stories of female couples, twelve of which are named in the literary catalog <em>Al Fihrist</em> (al-Nadim, 10th c) although nothing except their names and the fact of their relationships is preserved. Amer provides a list of the titles of the twelve books (which are the names of the characters) with translations of what the names mean, if relevant. I’ll reproduce it here because I’ve never seen it spelled out before.</p> <ul><li>The Book of Rihana and Qoronfel (“Basil” and “Clove”)</li> <li>The Book of Ruqayya and Khadija</li> <li>The Book of Mo’ees and Zakiyya</li> <li>The Book of Sakina and al-Rabab (“Calm” and “the Mistress of the Household”)</li> <li>The Book of al-Ghatrifa and al-Dulafa’</li> <li>The Book of Hind and Bint al-Nu`man (“India” and “the daughter of al-Nu`man”, the “first lesbian couple” mentioned above)</li> <li>The Book of `Abda al-`Aqila and `Abda al-Ghaddara (“the Wise Slave Girl” and “the Treacherous Slave Girl”)</li> <li>The Book of Lu’lu’a and Shatira</li> <li>The Book of Najda and Zu’um</li> <li>The Book of Salma and Su`ad</li> <li>The Book of Sawab and Surur (“Justice” and “Happiness”)</li> <li>The Book of al-Dahma’ and Ni`ma (“the Dark One” and “the Gift from God”)</li> </ul><p>Amer notes parallels with the Kama-sutra (from which some elements may have been borrowed) where lesbians formed groups, held meetings, and led schools of pleasure for other women. The 13th c Tunisian writer al-Tifashi offers descriptions of such a community and the teachings of its leader Rose [note: I assume this is a translation of her name]. Organized communities are also implied in the (otherwise negative) writings of Leo Africanus (15th c, from Granada but writing about Morocco) about a community of female diviners in Fez for which he uses the name <em>suhaqiyat</em>.</p> <p>Al-Tifashi describes teachings about sexual practices, such as the a woman should “snort heartily while wiggling lasciviously” during sex and that lovemaking should be accompanied verbally by “wheezing, panting, purring, murmurs, and heartbreaking sighs.” He also includes a detailed, step-by-step description of a sexual technique called “the saffron massage.” [Note: I’ve included a translation of the full passage in this entry for <a href="">Amer 2001</a>.]</p> <p>The presence of this material in medieval Arabic literature does not negate the predominance of a male focus in that literature, or the phallocentric point of view from which much of the lesbian material is written. But what is notable is that lesbianism is not presented as a sin or crime, and that it is included as a topic worthy of intellectual discussion. It is included under the generally positive attitude toward eroticism, including the view that sexuality is essential to religious piety. This contrasts with Christian ascetic attitudes toward sexuality which influenced Western attitudes in general.</p> <p>Within the larger picture of Islamic sexual morality, the most vehemently condemned sin is adultery (<em>zina</em>) which is defined specifically as a man having heterosexual vaginal sex with a woman he does not have legal rights to (i.e., she isn’t his wife or concubine). <em>Zina</em> is universally condemned while homosexuality (<em>liwat</em>, which refers to male relations) is treated more ambiguously even when viewed negatively. The social focus on the cult of female virginity and preserving the “sexual honor” of women, meant that lesbianism was at times encouraged (as in ibn Falita, 14th c) as helping to preserve women’s sexual honor, because only heterosexual activity could damage that honor.</p> <p>Legal attitudes began to shift in the later medieval period. In contexts where homosexual behavior did come under scrutiny, attitudes varied widely, as the Qur’an did not mention specific penalties for it. Local custom might treat it harshly, or distinguish between married and unmarried, active and passive, when assigning penalties. But note that this discussion applies specifically to <em>liwat</em> which was defined specifically as anal penetration by a man. Activities such as kissing and caressing or intercrural intercourse did not fall under the same penalties even if discouraged.</p> <p>Within this context, <em>sahq</em> was generally classified as less serious than <em>liwat</em> and the least serious form of <em>zina</em> (if classified as <em>zina</em> at all) and penalties--if they existed--were much less severe. In many legal compendia, <em>sahq</em> is not addressed at all.</p> <p><strong>Sexual Categorization</strong></p> <p>All of this being said, it’s important not to equate medieval Arabic concepts of female same-sex sexuality with modern Western concepts of lesbianism and sexual identity. Despite the proliferation of terms for various sexual practices and identities (ones relating to women that were not previously mentioned include <em>mutazarrifat</em> “elegant courtly lady-lovers”, <em>nisa’ mudhakkarat</em> “masculinized women”) there are no medieval Arabic terms for the unmarked state of bisexuality or for heterosexuality. (That is, a specific orientation toward homosexuality was considered a marked state in terms of vocabulary.) The contemporary Arabic word used generically for “sexuality” didn’t acquire this meaning until the early 20th century, when it was used for Arabic translations of Western sexological texts. The adoption of Western medical/psychological theories of sexuality has led to the replacement of traditional Arabic terms for sexual variety with terms that offer literal translations of concepts like “homosexual”, “heterosexual”, and “queer”.</p> <p><strong>Medieval Arab Lesbian-Like Women</strong></p> <p>When we expand the scope of interest to “lesbian-like” women in medieval Arabic literature, we encounter entire genres of cross-dressed heroines, female warriors, Amazons, slave girls dressed up as boys, sufi rituals, and women’s courtly traditions, all of which may have provided space for homoerotic expression. Many of these contexts have been recognized in medieval European writings as related to homosexual expression (“second-degree homosexuality” as labeled by one scholar) but have not been viewed similarly in the study of medieval Arabic writings.</p> <p>One could argue that, given the direct and explicit treatment of homosexuality in Arabic literature, the need to search for it in more tangential forms is unnecessary. But such writings provide a richer and more complex understanding of same-sex sexuality.</p> <p>Such examples include the 9th c tradition in the caliphate court of Baghdad for <em>ghulamiyyat</em>, slave girls who dressed as boys. The superficial purpose was to hijack male same-sex desire and bend it toward <em>de facto</em> heterosexual practice. While the fashion did not directly include women’s desire for <em>ghulamiyyat</em>, it could have offered a context for stepping outside gender expectations (and was imitated by some upper-class women of Baghdad).</p> <p>Female cross-dressing is relatively common in medieval Arabic literature, not only poetry addressed to <em>ghulamiyyat</em> but also folk romances (in the same genre as the Thousand and One Nights) dating from the 11th century on, which include many examples of cross-dressing women warriors and Amazons. These include characters in the story of Qamar al-Zaman and the Princess Boudour, or stories of the island of Waq, inhabited exclusively by women. (A list of story titles covering similar themes is given.) The presence of cross-dressed heroines typically gives rise to ambiguous situations of desire or identity, and sometimes include women who express disinterest in marriage alongside erotic interest in women. “I do neither long for marriage nor for men, but my heart has an inclination for the ladies,” says the character Alûf in one tale. (These characters often end up marrying men anyway, given the nature of the genre, but the tales offer same-sex love as an alternative, if only in theory.)</p> <p>One of the most significant and interesting cultural practices in this context is that of <em>zarf</em>, a tradition translated as “courtliness” or “refinement” that had its origins in Medina in the pre- and early Islamic era and spread to major urban centers. The tradition (practiced by both sexes) focused on sophistication in clothing, food, language and home decoration, as well as valuing intellectual debate around topics of love, expressed through poetry, song, dance, and stories.</p> <p>Women were important in the development of <em>zarf</em> culture, holding literary salons in which the elite of different classes mingled. While these women did not necessarily have homoerotic interests, they enjoyed an independence from male control that created possibilities. And in some contexts, the term <em>mutazarrifat</em> (reined/courtly ladies) was clearly used as a synonym for (or at least an allusion to) “lesbians”. The 11th c Andalusian Wallada, daughter of the caliph of Cordoba, was an archetype of the upper class praticioner of <em>zarf</em> and an example of the degree of women’s sexual freedom that was possible in that era. She is known to have had at least one named female lover as well as male lovers.</p> <p>More common among the known practitioners of <em>zarf</em> were <em>qaynas</em> (“singing slave girls") who, because of their social status, were more free to express themselves as part of public culture and who achieved fame via intellectual skills and beauty. Their connection to lesbian-like categories comes from being described as <em>mutazarrifat</em>, the same terms applied to cultured upper-class women with lesbian-like interests. [Note: Amer doesn’t give specific examples, but if you follow the tag “<a href="">zarîfa/tharifa</a>” more specific textual examples can be found.]</p> <p><strong>Modern Implications</strong></p> <p>Amer concludes with a discussion of the difficulty of researching homoerotic topics in historic Arabic literature--and especially the difficulty for female scholars--due to censorship, suppression, misogyny, and the historic dominance of male scholars in the field of translation and publication. Works that touch on lesbianism have been made unavailable, have had those sections removed during publication, either due to modern prejudice against homosexual topics in general, or because the material was being translated and published by men who were narrowly interested in male homosexual topics. All this means that there’s an untapped wealth of medieval Arabic material about women’s same-sex eroticism waiting to be shared.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Amer, S. 2009. “Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like'” in <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality</em>, 18(2), 215-236.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>240</div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/book-hind" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Book of Hind</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/nuzhat-al-albab-fima-la-yujad-fi-kitab-diversion-hearts-what-not-be-found-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Nuzhat al-Albâb fîmâ lâ Yûjad fî Kitâb (The Diversion of the Hearts by What is Not to Be Found in Any Book) (Ahmad Ibn Yusuf al-Tîfâshî)</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/leo-africanus" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Leo Africanus</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/qamar-al-zaman-and-princess-boudour" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Qamar al-Zaman and the Princess Boudour</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/wallada" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wallada</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-33037618ba1e7e0605cdfae3f2ca30f0"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Someone Write me a Tale of Witty Elegant Lady-Lovers in Medieval Andalusia</div> Sun, 20 Jan 2019 19:39:22 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5412 at LHMP #231 Lucas 1988 ’Hic Mulier’: The Female Transvestite in Early Modern England <div class="field field-name-body"><p>This article looks at the fascination with cross-dressing women in popular culture in 16-17th century England. “Cross-dressing” in this context doesn’t necessarily mean serious gender disguise, but includes ritualized cross-dressing in the contexts of celebrations, as well as partial cross-dressing where the use of specific male-coded garments was viewed as transgressive.</p> <p>Among the literary figures cited are Mary Frith, Long Meg of Westminster, and Frederick of Jennen, whose celebrated (although mostly fictionalized) adventures are co-opted to defend women’s chastity and promote traditional concepts of marriage.</p> <p>Festival cross-dressing is more familiar from traditions in which men take on female roles, as with Maid Marian in Robin Hood plays. But an example is cited of a Welsh tradition, given in an early 19th century book on folk customs around marriage and courtship, where a bride would be concealed in men’s clothing on the eve of the wedding and there would be a ritual “search” by the groom’s friends to discover her before they all settled down to party. Also mentioned are Christmas mumming and various gender role reversals that were part of carnival celebrations.</p> <p>Outside of festival license, women’s cross-dressing was often treated as part of a pattern of “ungovernable” behavior, indicating insufficient control by husbands or fathers. Even when done in jest, this might be addressed in criminal court, as for Susan Bastwick who, in 1578, came to her father “in a merriment...on horseback in a cloak disguised and demanded of him if he had any good ale.” Or a female servant in 1585 who “did wear man’s apparel disorderly in her master’s house.”</p> <p>Wearing male garments was associated with sexual misconduct, as when a woman was accused of unchastity with a man not her husband in 1592 and part of the testimony was that she wore “young men’s garters” and challenged an unspecified person to try to take them from her. Another married woman in 1585 “put on man’s apparel and went forth from one house to another...with other naughtiness of words.”</p> <p>These are specific anecdotes that provide context for polemical tracts and satires that condemned female transvestites, asserting that by wearing male clothes, such women wanted to transform themselves into men. John Calvin took up the argument that God had ordained gender-specific clothing, and Philip Stubbes, in <em>The Anatomie of Abuses</em> (1583) argues that an essential function of clothing was as “a sign distinctive to discern betwixt” the two sexes. Preacher John Williams in 1619 sermonized against women who distracted men in church by wearing such masculine accessories as points (ties that attached one piece of clothing to another), feathered hats, daggers, and having short hair. Some unspecified set of such attributes, described only as “man’s apparel” was worn in church by Joan Towler in 1596, resulting in charges.</p> <p>One underlying theme in the objections has to do with transgressing categories, “none being content with their own estates and conditions,” and was also leveled against men wearing “effeminate” garments. It was not the specific garments themselves, but they way they contradicted category membership. A feathered hat becomes “ruffianly” and “wanton” only if worn by a woman in <em>Hic Mulier</em> (1620). Nor was it necessarily the wearing of breeches (and exposing the shape of the legs) that was being criticized as such women might be described as wearing a male doublet or male accessories in combination with a skirt.</p> <p>The association of cross-dressing with loose sexual morals was taken up as a signifier in the theater, where characters depicting prostitutes are often put in situations where male disguise is called for.</p> <p>A regular theme is that women who wear male garments want to change themselves into men, though reading through the accusation, we see an anxiety by the (invariably male) writers that women bold enough to cross-dress will claim authority over their own lives (as with a character who cross-dresses in order to run away with her male lover) and further will tyrannize over men. Cross-dressing characters on the stage were depicted as man-beaters and brawlers.</p> <p>To the modern eye, the distinction between approved feminine garments and prohibited masculine ones may be difficult to understand. As an example, many tracts specifically mention the doublet as an inherently male garment: “manlike doubltes”, “the loose, lascivious open embracement of a French doublet, being all unbuttoned to entice”. But the doublet is, to all intents and purposes, simply a sleeved jacket, buttoned up the front, and with a higher neckline than most feminine bodices boasted. The offence was not in the objective nature of the garment, but its assigned gender.</p> <p>Gender disguise to defend chastity is a regular literary motif, appearing in several early medieval stories of transvestite saints. It still appears in the early modern period, as in the 1560 tale of Frederick of Jennen where a woman falsely accused of infidelity disguises herself as a man in order to investigate and prove her virtue. (This motif appears in a number of earlier stories as well--I think there's a version in the Decameron?) Heroines of this group are admirable as the purpose of the cross-dressing is to restore honor within marriage.</p> <p>This type of cross-dressing figure may also be portrayed as admirable if she acts to protect other women’s honor and chastity, as in the case of the carnival figures of Long Meg of Westminster, or one of the theatrical incarnations of Moll Cutpurse. These women represent the feared anti-male tyrant but with her aggressiveness soften by the purpose she puts it to. Men are still beaten and humiliated, but only those who deserve it for doing wrong to women.</p> <p>Even within these motifs, a strain of misogyny asserts itself. Acceptable femininity is defined in terms of a lack of masculine virtues, and the transvestite warrior women too often punish their male victims by forcing them to take on feminized roles or tasks.</p> <p>The play <em>Love’s Cure, or, The Martial Maid</em> (by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, 1606) demonstrates this view with a pair of siblings each raised as the opposite gender. There is some exploration of whether gender performance is inherent or socially conditioned and initially the second position seems to be supported, until each falls in love with a member of the opposite sex and then instantly embraces traditional gender performance.</p> <p>The article concludes that female transvestism in early modern England was socially significant because it challenged existing sexual hierarchies--an act that might be permitted in a carnival atmosphere to “blow off steam” but must be suppressed and renounced in everyday life in order to maintain the sexual status quo.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Lucas, R. Valerie. 1988. “’Hic Mulier’: The Female Transvestite in Early Modern England” in <em>Renaissance and Reformation</em> 12:1 pp.65-84</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>231</div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/mary-frith-aka-moll-cutpurse" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Mary Frith aka Moll Cutpurse</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/saint-pelagius" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Saint Pelagius</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/hic-mulier" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Hic Mulier</a><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/long-meg-westminster" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Long Meg of Westminster</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-a2e949daba9c0c3cc250f65a55166ac7"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Disorderly and Wearing Man&#039;s Apparel</div> Sun, 20 Jan 2019 00:38:43 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5409 at LHMP #230 Brown 1995 Changed...into the Fashion of a Man <div class="field field-name-body"><p>[Note: Content advisory for coerced physical examination to determine sexual category.]</p> <p>In 1629, in a small settlement just across the river from Jamestown, Virginia, 22 years after the first settlement at that location, Thomas Hall was accused of fornication with a servant girl. This fairly ordinary offense became more complicated and interesting after the community took it on themselves to investigate exactly what had happened.</p> <p>Hall was a recent arrival (though there’s some confusion due to another individual of the same name being recorded earlier) and Warrosquyoacke was a small community, so it’s understandable that the residents were dismayed to find that they didn’t know their neighbors’ business as well as they thought they did. As well as the local investigation, the case was eventually taken to the Virginia Colony’s general court at Jamestown and the following story emerged.</p> <p>In England, Hall had worn women’s clothing and practiced the traditionally female trades of needlework and lace making. After emigrating to Virginia, Hall sometimes wore male clothing and performed traditionally male occupations, but also sometimes wore female clothing. (Virginia still had a fairly low female population at this time.) During the investigation of the fornication charge, Hall was asked “whether he were man or woman” and replied “both.” When asked further what the reason was for the women’s clothing, Hall answered somewhat obliquely, “I go in women’s apparel to get a bit for my cat.” [Note: Google does not turn up any other context for the phrase “get a bit for my cat” but that doesn’t mean it may not have been an obscure bit of slang that had a clear meaning to hearers, even if we are befuddled.]</p> <p>As was typical in the early modern period, the primary social crisis that Hall sparked was the need to determine exactly what gender category to place them in. Ambiguity was not acceptable and alternation was right out. In any event, whatever Hall’s true gender, it was clear that some sort of punishable offence had been committed. It just needed to be determined which one.</p> <p>Eventually the local officials in Warrosquyoacke threw up their hands and sent the case to Jamestown, where the details of the existing investigation were recorded for posterity, including efforts by community members to obtain physical evidence on the question. Hall provided a detailed and candid personal history and these records are essentially all we know of the case. But the records include details of the responses of Hall’s community that shed light on popular beliefs among ordinary people about sexual difference, in contrast to the opinions of professionals, which are the more common source of information for this period. In the absence of relevant medical and/or legal professionals in the colony, community members did their best to gather physical and behavioral observations and interpret them in light of their understanding of what constituted male and female identity.</p> <p>The scientific/medical understanding of sex difference in this era still followed the Galenic “single-sex” model that emphasized physiological parallels between men and women and the belief that women were “imperfect men” but had the potential to undergo spontaneous sex change. This theory held that strenuous activity or masculine performance could cause a woman’s organs to “emerge” from the body as a penis and testicles, constituting a genuine change in physiological sex. At the same time, the clear legal distinction of personal status based on sex made it necessary to establish a person’s “true sex.” But the means of establishing this was left to community custom and individual performance.</p> <p>Performative gender was established through customary distinctions in clothing, names, occupations, and the participation in heteronormative relationships. [Note: This last is one of the things that complicates applying concepts like “homosexual” or “transgender”. If heterosexuality is considered a fixed universal, then participation in apparently same-sex relationships can only be considered as evidence for gender identity, not for sexual orientation.]  Medical literature recognized a physiological continuum of sexual morphology (treated under the concept of the “hermaphrodite”) but the law did not allow for such ambiguity. As Brown notes, “the courts, which were mainly concerned to preserve clear gender boundaries, rather than explore anomalies, had the power to coerce individuals to alter their gender performances.” The legal pressure was to pick one clear gender identity and stick to it, rather than to identify a “true” anatomical sex.</p> <p>In the 16-17th centuries, transvestism was recognized as different from the anatomical ambiguity of “hermaphroditism” and treated, perhaps, as even more threatening to society, as it undermined the ability for clothing to define and stabilize gender identities. [Note: Brown simultaneously claims that transvestism was primarily a matter of women dressing as men, but then notes the English tradition of transvestite theater, which would have been primarily men dressing as women. So I’m a little confused in this section.]</p> <p>Returning to the legal records of Hall’s case, one confounding aspect in interpreting the records is that the language followed the needs of the legal setting, which dictated certain elements of the descriptions. The court pursued Hall’s personal history and past performance to answer the question of their gender identity, while the community investigation had inquired far more directly into what was in Hall’s breeches. Curiously, their investigation was inconclusive as there was disagreement as to the meaning of their findings.</p> <p>Perhaps the most interesting feature of Hall’s testimony is that Hall treats gender identity as malleable and opportunistic. Gender identity could be claimed by the simple expedient of a change of clothing, and justified by the opportunity for gender-segregated employment. Hall’s narrative does not align with a sense of stable, internal gender identity from which public gender performance was a passive consequence. Rather, Hall seems to treat gender as an actively chosen self-presentation that is distinct from any issue of personal identity. And given the overtness of Hall’s gender transgression, the legal penalty that eventually was applied was comparatively mild.</p> <p>Brown discusses at length the social and political context of the community that underlay certain of the gender dynamics of Hall’s situation and resulted in the responsibility for investigation falling in the hands of ordinary community members, including the gender politics of women claiming responsibility for the task.</p> <p>The Warrosquyoacke settlement had existed for less than 7 years when Hall arrived and--like most of the English colony in Virginia at the time--was focused primarily on the economic project of producing tobacco for export. Most of the population were recent arrivals, including a number of enslaved African people diverted from a different destination. A few had been in Virginia  for a longer period, which helped to establish personal authority among the residents. Among the named individuals in the court record was Alice Long, a married woman who had been in Virginia since 1620, and Dorothy Rodes, another married woman who assisted her with the physical investigation, who may have been there for several years. Another key figure was John Tyos who was a former employer of Hall’s at a time when Hall was presenting as a woman. (To complicate the historic trail, several years earlier, Tyos had shared living space with a different Thomas Hall, a man, at a time when the relevant Thomas Hall was hypothetically present in the colony. This is presumed to be a coincidence of names on the assumption that Tyos would have recognized his former servant even if presenting as a different gender.)</p> <p>Female authority in the investigation was claimed by Long and Rodes in their roles as midwives and matrons, with the responsibility to perform physical examinations of women for legal purposes. (Legal purposes such as determination of pregnancy or childbirth, or to identify evidence of sexual activity if, for example, a husband were accused of impotence.) Their roles depended on the acceptance of sexual categories and gender boundaries and assumed that women who interacted with female bodies in intimate ways (e.g., childbirth) would have special authority in interpreting those bodies. But this authority only applied to the extent that Hall’s body was accused of being female.</p> <p>At the time Hall was accused of fornication with the maidservant of Richard Bennet, John Tyos claimed that his servant Thomas Hall was female (evidently despite wearing male clothing and performing male work). This provoked the community matrons to take the authority into their own hands (without the request of a court) to examine Hall with regard to this question. The matrons asserted, based on this examination, that Hall was a man. Tyos continued to maintain that Hall was female and the question was escalated to the local landowning authority, Captain Bass.</p> <p>Bass took the perhaps radical approach of simply asking Hall “whether he were man or woman” to which Hall, as noted above, replied “both” and explained further that this answer was based on having what was described as a very small penis but that “he had not the use of the man’s part.” Bass chose to define maleness in terms of the ability to successfully perform penetrative sex with a penis and assigned Hall a female gender on this basis, ordering Hall to put on women’s clothes. This aligned, to some extent, with the Galenic view of gender: Hall might be a little bit masculine but insufficiently male to be granted categorical male status.</p> <p>This decision was challenged by the matrons who had performed the examination and were still convinced of Hall’s male nature. To them, a male Hall now going about in women’s clothing (per Captain Bass’s legal requirement) was an insupportable breech of gender categories. They demanded a second inspection from Hall’s new employer (who was convinced enough of Hall’s female presentation that he referred to Hall with female pronouns in the record, where everyone else used male pronouns). On further interrogation of Hall, this time with regard to the presence of female anatomy, rather than the inadequacy of the male anatomy, Hall claimed to have “a piece of a hole” but the investigating women failed to confirmed this on examination.</p> <p>This shifted the official position. Hall’s new employer then ordered that Hall “be put into” male clothing and be punished for impersonating a woman. When Hall had been classified as female (or even potentially female), social rules had restricted the physical investigation to women, but now having been officially categorized as male, Hall was subject to some spontaneous (and forcible) confirmatory investigations by men. These did not contradict the male classification.</p> <p>Setting aside the appalling nature of the investigation methods, we see a whole sequence of attempts to define the nature of maleness and femaleness. Was maleness something that had to be achieved above a certain threshold? Or was there a clear and uncrossable physiological dividing line between male and female? The result had major consequences for Hall’s day to day life, determining what occupations were allowed, what responsibilities were imposed, and what socializing was permitted. (Brown also hints that being classified as male protected Hall from sexual advances from his new employer and others, that might have been a hazard when classified as female.)</p> <p>Brown provides a discussion of the socio-political stake the various parties had in both the process of the investigation and its conclusions. She notes that one key party--the maidservant that Hall had been accused of fornication with--was not called as witness, with several speculations on why this might have been the case. In any event, the question of gender transgression was more important to them than that of irregular sexual activity.</p> <p>Having come to a decision on Hall’s gender categorization, the authorities in Warrosquyoacke were stuck on an appropriate punishment and passed the case along to Jamestown. The governor reviewed the testimony and then elicited Hall’s own biographical narrative.</p> <p>[Note: at this point, I’m going to follow Brown’s lead and shift pronoun gender in alignment with Hall’s shifting presentation, except when quoting from Hall’s testimony. I hope this finds a balance between clarity, sensitivity, and narrative function.]</p> <p>Hall was christened Thomasine (an unambiguously female name) when born in England and grew up living a female life and wearing female clothing. At age of 12, she was sent to London to live with an aunt (it was typical at that time for adolescent girls to be “placed out” to learn the skills of a housewife) for the next ten years. When Hall was 24, her brother was pressed into military service and she “cut off her hair and changed his apparel into the fashion of a man” to join the English forces supporting the Huguenots in France. On returning to England, Hall “changed himself into women’s apparel” and took up the (feminine) profession of needlework. She lived in the port of Plymouth, which may have inspired the next step in 1627 when she “changed again ...into the habit of a man” and sailed to Virginia.</p> <p>After considering all the evidence and testimony, the court imposed the following sentence: Hall was required to take a male identity and wear male clothing, with the exception of being required to wear a (feminine) coif and apron. That is, the court enforced Hall’s gender ambiguity, not in the serial form that Hall had performed, but as a permanent hybrid presentation. The judgment that Hall was “a man and a woman” was to be published to the inhabitants of Warrosquyoacke so that they “may take notice thereof.” This suggests that rather than following the long legal tradition of requiring a fixed and unambiguous identity following the gender binary, the court had to some extent recognized Hall’s elusive non-binary nature and, instead, chose to enforce that non-binary identity.</p> <p>The question of the original charge of fornication was not addressed, but neither was the question of the consequences for Hall’s future sexual activity. The ruling also problematized how Hall was to be treated within the gendered work and social environment of the community.</p> <p>The article concludes by situating Hall in the context of other gender transgression narratives of the 16-17th century, including Elen@ de Cespedes, Catalina de Erauso, and Mary Frith. Unlike most such narratives, rather than the eventual conclusion being that the subject was a “hermaphrodite” or female transvestite, Hall was concluded to be male.</p> <p>I want to focus on part of Brown’s analysis that I think needs to be interrogated. She says, “Hall’s atypicality...alerts us to another possible explanation for his otherwise difficult-to-fathom behavior. In a world in which dressing as a man brought women expanded economic and political opportunities, Hall found it difficult to suppress his female identity. ... Despite the attendant risks and disadvantages of being female in the seventeenth century, Hall found it personally useful, necessary, or comfortable to dress occasionally as a woman.” And then, after further discussion, “Perhaps ‘his’ female identity was so deeply embedded as a consequence of a childhood and adolescence of female training and identification that he could not shed it.”</p> <p>I think this analysis overlooks two key aspects. One of them is what Brown notes: Hall was raised from birth to adulthood in a female role, treated as a woman and interacting with the world as a woman. To require some extraordinary explanation for Hall being comfortable returning to that performance smacks a bit too much of gender essentialism for comfort. To the extent that gender is performance--and Hall’s life story suggests a personal sympathy for that position--is it the historian’s place to impose a judgment that performing the gender one was raised as is “difficult to fathom”? The second aspect that is absent from this article is a consideration of Hall as potentially intersex. Brown invokes the early modern concept of the “hermaphrodite” as it was used in the discourse around gender categories and gender performance, but doesn’t seem to recognize the most plausible context in which an infant would be classified as female but then would present with under-developed male genitalia as an adult. Setting aside the question of whether physiology does (or should) attract one to a particular expression of gender performance, being intersex might well have motivated Hall to “try on” different genders and feel equally comfortable (or equally uncomfortable?) in each.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Brown, Kathleen. 1995. “’Changed...into the Fashion of a Man’: The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Settlement” in <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality</em> 6:2 pp.171-193.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>230</div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/thomasine-hall" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Thomasine Hall</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-c6fbe646981fab2a25a0fefa7707f3a5"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Male, Female, or Non-Binary in the Jamestown Colony?</div> Sun, 13 Jan 2019 18:29:13 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5403 at LHMP #227 Vanita & Kidwai 2000 Same-Sex Love in India <div class="field field-name-body"><p>This is an anthology of literature, rather than an analytic text. The organizing principle for selection is examples of love between men or between women who are not biologically related. Literary texts often don’t overtly show the truth of relationships or how those participating in the relationship understood themselves, but they can show how such relationships were represented and expressed.</p> <p>The passionate attachments represented in these readings may or may not be sexual, but that applies to similar male-female relationships as well. The focus here is on love, not necessarily sex, and the distinction is not treated as important. It also should be noted that same-sex relationships were considered compatible with participation in male-female marriage and with procreation. (Though, at least in the legendary material, procreation doesn’t always require the former.) Only in modern times has an expectation developed that a heterosexual spouse will also be a person’s primary emotional outlet. This collection is also not concerned with depictions of sex that have no emotional or erotic content, for example, the use of sex in power dynamics or same-sex rape.</p> <p>For the purpose of this collection, “India” is defined geographically, even though the writers of the material often wouldn’t have seen that as their identity.</p> <p>Same-sex history is often studied in a gender-segregated way, due to the different experiences of men and women. But some approaches identify common factors, hence the decision to include both in this volume. And some of the included texts support the idea of looking at men’s and women’s same-sex experiences together in the context of Indian history, for example, the Kamasutra’s catalog of sexual practices suggests parallels, and texts involving cross-dressing and gender ambiguity are most usefully considered in a common context.</p> <p>The editors have found no evidence that same-sex love generated significant disapproval or persecution before the 19th century (i.e., before the colonial period) thought it was often treated as inferior to male-female love, or simply ignored.</p> <p>All the texts in this collection are translated into English (except those originally written in English, of course) and represent most of India’s major languages. The volume has been arranged roughly chronologically. In order to avoid the problem of bias or bowdlerization, the editors have done their own translations of the Hindi and Urdu texts, as well as most of the Persian ones, and have worked closely with the translators for other languages.</p> <p>There is a discussion of how sexual terminology is handled, both in the discussion and in translating the texts.</p> <p>The material is presented in three periods: Ancient, covering ca. 1500 BCE through the 8th century CE; Medieval, covering the 8th century up to the British colonial period (roughly the late 18th century); and Modern, covering the period beginning with British rule. There are some absences and asymmetries in the source material, in part due to differences in availability and in part due to access, based on the editors’ own cultural and linguistic backgrounds.</p> <p>The collection is aimed at general as well as scholarly readers and tries to challenge the myth that same-sex love is a “Western import” to India.</p> <p><strong>Ancient Texts</strong></p> <p>This material tends to focus on the ideals of friendship and the intertwining of same-sex friendships with male-female relationships. Many are stories of divine heroes and their extended families. They deal with the relationship between friendship and marriage, or with asceticism and friendship. A prominent motif is miraculous births, including birth from a single parent (female or male) or from a same-sex couple (of either sex), or with the nurturing of a child by a same-sex couple. A related motif may be group marriages or group parenting where same-sex relations are included. Creation myths in the Rig Veda regularly include dual mothers or a group of mothers. Another motif is pairs of mothers who co-nourish each other’s children.</p> <p>Same-sex relationships may involve or arise from cross-dressing or sex-change situations. A cross-dressed woman may enter into a relationship with another woman, but commonly there is also an element of supernatural sex-change, especially involving the intercession of a forest spirit. A relationship may begin as the marriage of two women and then subsequently involve one of them becoming a man.</p> <p>In sex-change stories where women become men, the change is generally permanent, while in those where men become women, it is often temporary (for the purpose of procreation) and then later reversed. These gender-change motifs are treated differently in the medieval period.</p> <p>In Buddhist texts, sex-change may be a symbol of liberation from the expectation to marry. Religious communities were often gender-segregated and the same-sex attachments that developed within them were felt to be less “worldly” than male-female relationships. Gender may be treated as an illusory construct (in some ways, like the modern idea of gender as performance) but within a system that aligns “male” with “enlightened”. This created a space for allowing non-heterosexual relationships.</p> <p>Sexual categories in legal and medical literature had a different approach. There was a long tradition of recognizing a “third sex”, primarily for men who desired men. Legal texts about sexual crimes tended to focus on sex with an inappropriate subject or with the loss of virginity, and women’s actions were considered less problematic than men’s. Same-sex acts are treated as a minor issue unless rape or loss of virginity was involved. Most same-sex acts were not treated as criminal. Compare,  for example, with cross-caste sex acts which were far more stigmatized.</p> <p>Pseudomedical theories addressing the causes and consequences of same-sex desire are contradictory and unsystematic. This literature provides some terminology for same-sex topics, but nothing that suggests an established concept. They also reflect a general tolerance for same-sex desire. There is more distinction made between sexual activity and celibacy than between same-sex or male-female relations.</p> <p>Erotic and medical texts provide some explicit references to same-sex acts. Women are described participating in embraces, oral sex, and gender play.</p> <p>The motif of re-birth is sometimes used to justify unexpected love or desire, whether same-sex or cross-caste. Attachment in a former life was thought to carry over to persons who, in their current incarnations, would be considered inappropriate partners.</p> <p>(I won’t be listing the specific texts and their contents in detail.)</p> <p><strong>Medieval Texts</strong></p> <p>While the ancient texts are represented only by Sanskrit literature, in the medieval period there are several different cultural traditions to consider, in particular, the introduction of Islamic culture, but there is a general diversity of regional and religious cultures. Arabic, Persian, and Urdu traditions join Sanskrit, and the topics include religious stories, epics, historical chronicles, and devotional poetry. Some specific genres include the Bhakti tradition, involving mystical loving devotion to a specific deity (that is, one selected from a number of options, not a type of monotheism).</p> <p>The medieval literature includes commentaries on older texts. The Puranas introduce a new pantheon who edge out the Vedic gods, among other religious shifts. The everyday observance of sexual taboos coexist with stories of divinities who exist outside those taboos. There is a re-emergence of veneration of mother goddesses which provides a context of bonds between female divinities.</p> <p>The literature continues themes of sex change and of the children of same-sex couples (of any gender) as well as same-sex marriage.</p> <p>The depiction of devotional relationships to divinities is more fluid. For example, the female Janabai mystics envisioned god as a loving female companion.  Religious monasticism often took the form of marriage resistance, but did not preclude sexual relations and allowed for same-sex relations. Female devdasis entered into a spiritual marriage to a deity (either male or female) and lived outside the marriage structure. This sometimes resulted in matrilineal religious communities.</p> <p>The emphasis on procreation in marriage could be used to sanction same-sex marriages that produced offspring (either miraculously or via sex-change). Love between women was also depicted in the context of polygynous marriage, and stories told of female lovers marrying the same man in order to stay together, or love developing between co-wives after the marriage.</p> <p>Within the Persian/Urdu tradition, there is a significant increase in same-sex material in the later medieval period, but it is overwhelmingly male-oriented and associated with Islamic culture. Islamic legal traditions were officially against same-sex relations but cultural traditions contradicted this and elevated love between men. Islamic communities in India did not adhere to conservative Islam, possibly in part due to being always in a minority position. The Sufi tradition focused on love as the core of spirituality. A common poetic motif was for male poets to use a female voice to address a male beloved.</p> <p><strong>Modern Texts</strong></p> <p>A great deal of the introduction to this part of the book covers they ways in which British colonial culture altered attitudes toward same-sex love, as well as discussing recent social and political activism.</p> <p>One curious genre is that of Rekhti poetry, an Urdu form in which a male poet writing in a female voice addresses love poetry to a female beloved. Scholars disagree on the extent to which this reflects the lives of women in same-sex relationships as opposed to the male imagination, but material from the courtesan tradition of “aliyan” (female friends) suggests that women performed Rekhti poetry for each other, and accounts of female same-sex relationships from colonial reports include terminology that matches the vocabulary of Rekhti poetry. So the tentative conclusion is that the genre has some use for understanding women’s lives.</p> <p>There is a discussion of sexual techniques as reflected in this literature. Then a long discussion of changes in same-sex culture in India under British rule. Modern fiction has introduced a number of tropes that reflect the realities of same-sex relationships, such as the married woman who yearns for her (female) childhood sweetheart. But western influences have also introduced negative depictions of same-sex relations.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. 2000. <em>Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History</em>. St. Martin’s, New York. ISBN 0-312-22169-X</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>227</div><div class="field field-name-field-event-person"><div class="label-above">Event / person:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/rekhti-poetry" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Rekhti poetry</a></div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-ec1a087c448ab413d1a4b8e375e6e207"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-isbn"><div class="label-above">ISBN:&nbsp;</div>0-312-22169-X</div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>A Sampler of Same-Sex Love in India</div> Tue, 18 Dec 2018 04:56:23 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5394 at LHMP #226 Garber 2005 Where in the World are the Lesbians? <div class="field field-name-body"><p>Garber details the thought process that went into developing an LGBTQ course for her university’s “global” core requirement, resulting in a course on Asian Gay and Lesbian Cultures. Garber’s academic focus was 20th century US lesbian writers so she worked in collaboration with a colleague with a focus on Asian history and literature.</p> <p>Developing the curriculum ran into two major challenges: needing to use source material available in English (based on the target student body) and what Garber introduces as “the Woman Problem in Queer Studies”, that is the historic overwhelming focus on men and male issues in both academic and politically-oriented groups addressing issues of sexuality. This has regularly become a viscious circle where male domination of supposedly inclusive groups and fields has resulted in those interested in female topics branching off and forming separate, woman-focused groups, which only intensifies the tendency for the “general” field to be left to men’s issues (which then intensifies the impression that men's experiences are the "default" while women are a special case). These twin issues of participation and representation have shaped the nature of both academic queer studies and political activism.  The study of the history of homosexuality too often becomes the study of the history of male homosexuality, with women relegated to footnotes or ignored with a shrug as being a complication. (In the introduction to one author’s book on same-sex sexuality in Japan, he notes that “female-female sexuality in Japan demands a more thoroughgoing treatment than I am able to give it here.” after devoting an entire tome to male-male sexuality.)</p> <p>This tendency has been recapitulated as queer studies and politics expand into a more global focus, even as many non-western cultures resist the hegemony of specifically western images and understandings of variant sexuality. What Garber found while developing her syllabus was that nearly all book-length studies about queer topics in Asia were written by and about men, and even anthologies favored men over women significantly. The connection between male authors and male topics is not solely one of personal interest: there are often social barriers to men doing sociological research among female homosexual communities.</p> <p>The authors frequently excuse their exclusive focus by noting that the cultures they study did not view male and female homosexuality as having common factors (and therefore that it doesn't make sense to treat them together), or simply that material on women is scarce (which it is, when you're looking in male-oriented spaces). This last argument, made by Bret Hinsch in <em>Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China</em> is contradicted by the sources discussed by Sang Tze-lan in <em>The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China</em>.</p> <p>Another hazard of the field is studying the ways in which non-western approaches to sexuality differ from western ones, as well as how the introduction of western medical and psychological theories changed those regional understandings. Thus, for example, the problem of interpreting Japanese discussions of women’s same-sex or cross-gender behavior without forcing it into English terminology. Another face of this problem is in using Foucault’s approach to the definition of homosexuality, which, when applied in a strict sense, excludes any consideration of sexuality prior to 1870 or outside the West. That is, if one defines the topic of one’s study as “homosexuality” and defines “homosexuality” as a concept of fixed personal orientation specific to post-1870 western culture, then it isn’t possible to research, for example, “homosexuality in pre-modern China.”</p> <p>There are historic traditions of acceptance of same-sex love in China, Japan, and India, but in all cases these traditions were disrupted by the introduction of western pathologizing of homosexuality, enforced via colonialsm. Or, alternately, by a transfer of association of same-sex love to western influence, which erased the pre-existing tradition of tolerance. The “Foucauldian Orthodoxy” is being challenged by scholars of sexuality working within their own cultures and rediscovering those pre-existing historic traditions, such as work by Ruth Vanita and Gita Thadani on India.</p> <p>Vanita points out that works such as the <em>Kamasutra</em> treat male and female sexuality in parallel, and work to develop a categorization of identities based on sexual behavior and desires. Other literary traditions from the subcontinent include medieval Perso-Urdu poems in the <em>ghazal</em> (love poem) genre (though usually involving love between men), or the use in Urdu poetry of the term <em>chapti</em> (clining or sticking together) for sex between woman and for women who engage in it.</p> <p>Considerations of terminology and the categories they imply are central to any study of this type. Garber notes Judith Halberstram’s discussion in <em>Female Masculinity</em> about how to develop a framework for studying pre-modern cross-gender behavior in a way that doesn’t evaluate individuals against a modern template of the “lesbian”. Issues of anachronistic application of terminology are always present in historical studies, of course, even when working with more everyday concepts like “family, marriage, slave, master, law, woman, or man.”</p> <p>This approach to historic subjectivity can come in conflict with modern social movements that see the claiming of international identity terms like “lesbian” as a refusal to accept a social tolerance that requires silence and anonymity. But at the same time, the development of a culturally-specific vocabulary for queer sexuality can founder on the rocks of a multitude of nuanced terms with no clear agreement on umbrella terms. (Examples are given from Japan and China.) The study of this vocabulary and its cultural context--even when it fails to align with western concepts of homosexuality--provides a path for the inclusion of women’s lives and voices in studies of sexuality.</p> <p>Garber closes with a literature review of resources she considered for her syllabus. I’ve included the ones that look relevant and interesting to my readership below (as well as adding them to the “shopping list” for the Project). There is also a catalog of modern (20th century) writers who represented their own love for women in their work, such as Japanese poet Yosano Akiko, feminist Miyamoto Yuriko and her partner jounalist Yuasa Yoshiko. Authors from India include Kamala Das (writing in English and Malayalam), Urdu novelist Ismat Chughtai. Diasporic writers mentioned include Anchee Min’s memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Gail Tsukiyama’s historic novels, and Margaret Topley’s historical essays.</p> <p>Garber also discusses representations of same-sex love in modern television and cinema in Asia.</p> <p><strong>Readings mentioned that are of particular interest</strong></p> <p>Tze-Lan, Sang. 2003. <em>The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China</em>. Chicago. pp.44-45</p> <p>Robertson, Jennifer. 1998. <em>Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan</em>. Berkeley. p.68</p> <p>Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. 2000. <em>Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History</em>. St. Martin’s, New York.</p> <p>Vanita, Ruth (ed). 2002. <em>Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society</em>. New York.</p> <p>Thadani, Giti.  1996.  <em>Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India</em>.  Cassell, London.  ISBN  0-304-33452-9</p> <p>Ng, Vivien. 1997. “Looking for Lesbians in Chinese History” in Duberman, Martin (ed) <em>A Queer World</em>. New York.</p> <p>Robertson, Jennifer. 1999. “Dying to Tell: Sexuality and Suicide in Imperial Japan” in <em>Signs</em> 25, no. 1: 1-35.</p> <p>Robertson, Jennifer (ed). 2004. <em>Same-Sex Cultures and Sexualities</em>. Malden MA.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Garber, Linda. 2005. “Where in the World are the Lesbians?” in <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality</em> 14.1-2: 28-50.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>226</div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-73f61760533995cf045f9a862ce2e6b4"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>An Introduction to Studying Lesbians in Asia</div> Sun, 16 Dec 2018 20:46:59 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5392 at LHMP #229 Penrose 2001 Hidden in History: Female Homoeroticism and Women of a ‘Third Nature’ in the South Asian Past <div class="field field-name-body"><p>[Note: I have some reservations about this article because it feels very much like a western outsider using primarily western/translated sources to try to say big-picture things about gender and sexuality in South Asia.  There is a fair amount of speculative language (“such women could have...”) and conflation of historic evidence from wildly disparate times and places whose primary common theme is “not part of western Christian culture.” Take it for what it’s worth.]</p> <p>Penrose looks at a variety of evidence to see if he can reconstruct a picture of variant gender and sexuality roles for women in South Asia (primarily the Indian subcontinent) in the pre-colonial past. In modern India, colonial attitudes (to some extent, reinforced by the interests of Hindu nationalism) have suppressed traditional roles falling outside a gender binary. Traditional roles such as <em>hijras</em> have been re-framed as falling into western concepts of transgender rather than being seen as distinct and independent from male or female.</p> <p>Modern Indian society has no role parallel to <em>hijras</em> for women (or to be more precise, for persons assigned female at birth “AFAB”) and modern Indian women who identify as lesbians come into conflict with strongly patriarchal cultural imperatives toward marriage. But Penrose traces historic remnants and suggestions of “third gender” and gender-variant roles for Indian women in the past, starting with anthropological data from isolated traditional societies, references in ancient Sanskrit texts, and later historical documents.</p> <p>Penrose begins by reviewing a theoretical framework for studying third/fourth-gender roles in indigenous North American societies which can be defined by the following characteristics: economic specialization (that is, specific economic roles apart from those associated with men or women), special ritual/religious functions, and gender difference or same-sex relations associated with non-procreation. Within Native American societies there are a variety of gender role systems that may include either a third gender or both a third and fourth gender, depending on whether AMAB and AFAB non-binary people are treated as a single category or two different categories. When considering third/fourth gender categories worldwide, it becomes clear that the development of variant gender categories is not related to the degree of gender difference within the society as both highly patriarchal and more gender-egalitarian societies may have them. Further, non-binary gender roles do not automatically correlate with non-heterosexual activity, as variant genders may include the renunciation of sexual activity.</p> <p>The first category under consideration for India, and the one with the strongest surviving tradition, is the <em>hijra</em>, most typically involving AMAB (assigned male at birth) people who typically undergo castration, but can also include intersex people or non-menstruating women. <em>Hijras</em> typically dress in female-coded clothing or a mixture of male and female garments and engage in special ceremonial roles associated with births and weddings, as well as in prostitution (with men). Social attitudes towards <em>hijras</em> have changed under colonial influence and <em>hijras</em> themselves may be redefining their understanding of their identity. Historically, the role was an accepted part of society in part because it was viewed as a group identity rather than an individual one, and in part because it was viewed as being part of individual spiritual evolution within the cycle of reincarnation.</p> <p>When looking for parallel or equivalent female (or AFAB) roles, one encounters the strong pressure on women to marry and the negative social implications of refusing or failing to do so. But there are remnants of established roles for non-married women in some isolated traditional societies, such as the <em>sadhins</em> among the Gaddhi people in the Himalayan foothills. The root of the word means “a holy person” but unlike the masculine <em>sadhu</em> it doesn’t identify someone with religious obligations but rather a “sworn celibate woman.” Such women renounce marriage but continue to live with their families, retain female names, and are referred to with feminine language. They may socialize as women but may also on occasion socialize as men. The renunciation must occur at puberty, in contrast to other female ascetics who may change their status later in life after marriage or widowhood. A <em>sadhu</em> who later changes her mind and has sex with men is stigmatized.</p> <p>The more common form of Hindu female aseticism involves a renunciation of the material world performed later in life, which does not follow the usual understanding of a separate gender role.</p> <p>There are records in the 1890s of a category of Hindu women called <em>basivis</em> who would be given male privileges and be allowed to wear male clothing in order to bury their parents and pass on the family name, which by definition also involved being permitted to have sexual relations and bear children. (It isn’t clear whether this would be a life-long role or a temporary one.)</p> <p>The <em>sadhins</em> don’t meet the three-part framework for a “third gender” established above as they take on male economic roles (rather than a specialized separate economic position), do not perform ritual functions, and are not associated with same-sex activity.</p> <p>A different context is associated with a group of “transvestite” men and women in southern India associated with devotion to the goddess Yellamma who change gender presentation in terms of clothing and are considered to have changed sex (rather than being a distinct and separate gender category), and are known respectively as <em>jagappa</em> (for those AMAB) and <em>jagamma</em> (for those AFAB). Membership in this group is considered to be divinely mandated and is signaled by a set of conventional physical symptoms. On accepting membership, a <em>jagamma</em> will typically change to wearing male garments, but they do not typically adopt male names, use male pronouns, or take on male professions. Both <em>jagammas</em> and <em>jagappas</em> participate in public ritual functions associated with membership.</p> <p>Leaving the possible modern examples, Penrose looks for deep historic roots for third-gender functions, starting with physical artifacts from the Indus Valley civilization and then looking for potential connections with Mesopotamian and Sumerian traditions from the Bronze Age. [Note: In my opinion, this is reaching a bit and smacks of “all ancient civilizations can be equated with each other. Penrose suggests similarities between <em>hijras</em> and the <em>galli</em> associated with various mother goddess cults in the Mediterranean region. Like I say, I think he’s stretching here.]</p> <p>Early legendary material from India includes divinely mediated change of sex, in contexts where the change is motivated by misogynist or heteronormative imperatives. A queen who had given birth to seven daughters and no sons was told her next child must be a son. The resulting daughter, Amba, was raised as a boy. When she married, her true sex was discovered but she was able to become physically male by exchanging sex with a supernatural creature. In various stories, a princess is disguised as a prince and changes sex (by entering a body of water) in order to marry another woman. [Note: if I were reaching widely across cultures and time periods for thematic connections, I might note the motif of the bath in the context of magical sex-change in the story of Yde and Olive.]</p> <p>Sanskrit religious and medical texts provide ambiguous and confusing hints at possible third-gender roles for women. The confusion is increased when western translations of the works impose ill-fitting categories on them via vocabulary choice. References to a <em>tritiya prakriti</em> (third nature) “one with neither masculine or feminine nature” have been interpreted as applying only to AMAB people who may take on female clothing or may undergo castration, but other interpretations suggest it includes cross-gender roles for both sexes. As the term appears in the context of sexual texts (the <em>Kama Sutra</em>), the term may be concerned specifically with roles associated with sexual activity. Within this context, the female term <em>purushupini</em> for a “third nature” may be connected with terms discussing “virile behavior in women” or women who take a “masculine role” in sex (e.g., penetration of either male and female partners). But much of the ambiguity comes from the focus in the text on male sexual activity and appropriate sexual partners for men, thus the possible implications of female same-sex relations are not explored.</p> <p>The <em>Kama Sutra</em> does explicitly discuss female same-sex activity as a situational behavior when men are not available (e.g., in sex-segregated environments), but this doesn’t invoke a distinct gender category.</p> <p>Another social category with sexual implications is <em>sanvahika</em> “women who do arduous work, women who carry burdens” but it isn’t clear that this is a gender category rather than an economic/class one.</p> <p>The sexual role of <em>svairini</em> (who can take on a penetrative role) is problematic in translated works, which generally try to shoehorn it into meaning “lesbian”. Contextual examples seem to imply a meaning more like “a woman who operates sexually outside the normative female role.” For example the <em>svairini</em> is listed as a type of prostitute (or, at least, a type of woman with whom it’s permitted to engage in certain sex acts). But elsewhere it’s noted “<em>Svairini</em> are independent women who frequent their own kind or others.” (But does the “own kind/others” distinction mean “other <em>svairini</em> / non-<em>svairini</em> women” or “women/men”?) In another passage, “The <em>svairini</em> is one who refuses a husband and has relations in her own home or in other houses,” which could imply simple marriage resistance while rejecting celibacy. And elsewhere the <em>svairini</em> is specifically described as engaging in sex with women, but specifically in a penetrative role. So is the <em>svairini</em> a gender role or a sexual one?</p> <p>Sanskrit medical literature touches on categories of variant women who may be infertile or who lack sexual desire (treated as functionally equivalent) due to actions by the parents during conception or before birth. But these are not consistent with a concept of a distinct gender role.</p> <p>Penrose follows this with a long discussion of various gender-linked occupations that contradict traditional gender roles, such as female bodyguards and warriors, or “wandering nuns” who were not bound by traditional restrictions of female movement and association. The various passages on female guards/warriors are fascinating, but fall more in the category of occupation than gender category, despite the masculine coding of the underlying activities. There is, however, a passing reference to an Indian tradition of a (legendary) Amazon society known as <em>Strirajya</em> whose members engaged in same-sex erotics.</p> <p>Women entering various ascetic religions traditions often left behind feminine-coded behaviors, e.g., by cutting their hair and no longer being considered sexual objects (though not necessarily renouncing sex).</p> <p>The next section of the article discusses same-sex relations within homosocial environments such as harems and other sex-segregated palace arrangements. These institutions might recognize (and in some cases try to regulate) sex between women and might have institutionalized systems for women to educate each other in sexual techniques (either for their own satisfaction or for the benefit of their husbands). This might include some of the women or their female attendants dressing in male garments as part of sexual relations. (Which is the tenuous connection with the theme of the article, i.e., variant gender roles.) Examples are brought in from similar social arrangements in the Mediterranean Islamic world (of questionable relevance). This section includes a lot of speculative language regarding sex between women in harems that I’m skipping over.</p> <p>Under British colonial rule, many of the social structures around variant gender roles were deliberately eliminated and traditions disrupted to the point where modern Indians often consider female same-sex relationships to be a Western import. This suppression on western “moral” grounds has, to some extent, been continued in the interests of Hindu nationalist identity, emphasizing hyper-masculine identity for men and an image of self-sacrifice and chastity for women.</p> <p>But there is enough evidence to support an understanding of a variety of “separate gender” roles for AFAB people in the past, some with religious functions, some with economic basis, and some associated with specific sexual interests. The degree to which these roles were self-chosen may have varied. While the concept of a “third nature” was viewed, in some circumstances, as an inherent trait, there is no clear unifying single model, nor do the Indian examples clearly align with “third gender” roles in other traditional societies worldwide. The Indian subcontinent was settled by successive waves of invasion or migration across a long period and the disparate “third gender” roles may represent the remnants of many different traditions (and tend to be geographically localized). Even before the effects of colonialism, cultural influences that resulted in the decline of Buddhism and those associated with the Muslim invasions altered the nature and understanding of third-gender roles.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-entry-type"><div class="label-above">LHMP entry type:&nbsp;</div><a href="/lhmp/lhmp-entry-type/stand-alone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stand-alone</a></div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-full-citation"><p>Penrose, Walter. 2001. “Hidden in History: Female Homoeroticism and Women of a ‘Third Nature’ in the South Asian Past” in <em>Journal of the History of Sexuality</em> 10:3-39.</p> </div><div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-project-id-number"><div class="label-above">Project ID number:&nbsp;</div>229</div><div class="view view-lhmp-sub-entry view-id-lhmp_sub_entry view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-789eda78d0d744f0426c1388a16a9341"> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-lhmp-blog-post"><div class="label-above">Blog post:&nbsp;</div>Looking for a Third Gender on the Indian Subcontinent</div> Thu, 22 Nov 2018 21:17:54 +0000 Heather Rose Jones 5381 at