Charley Parkhurst's Brothers
Tuesday, June 3, 2025 - 07:00
I haven't blogged this chapter in as much detail, as it runs crosswise to the topics the Project is interested in. But it's always useful to see the ways in which structurally parallel topics in male and female queer history (if you will forgive me for applying an inappropriate binary) are so very non-parallel in how they played out. A very brief slice of very recent history has convinced us that queer history can be viewed as a unified subject. But apparent/assigned gender has always been a stronger force than any theoretical similarity in non-normative experience. This continues to play out in the study of queer history. In another publication by Boag that I'll be blogging after I finish this book, he notes that when he was studying the 20th century history of same-sex relationships in the Pacific Northwest, he found so little data on women that he decided to focus his book entirely on men. Thus, an initial disparity in data becomes compounded to complete erasure. That disparity in data is why it's so important to have historians working specifically on women's experiences (and those assigned female). Because otherwise there's a temptation not to do the extra work to hunt down the relevant data and to make erroneous assumptions that conclusions about male data can be generalized. There was a delightful explosion of work and publications on lesbian history specifically in the first decade or so of the 21st century, but it's as if the fashion has passed. (Oh well, maybe I can get caught up on the reading?)
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Full citation:
Boag, Peter. 2011. Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 978-0-520-27062-6
Chapter 2 – “I have Done My Part in the Winning of the West”: Unveiling the Male-to-Female Cross-Dresser
As this chapter focuses on male cross-dressing, I will be skimming it more briefly. As in the first chapter, we begin with an extensive case history. “M” began dressing in female-coded clothing as a youth, and left home for the West at age 15 due to family conflicts. M preferred playing with dolls, cooking, and sewing rather than male-coded activities, but didn’t back down from fighting his bullies. Further questioning indicated that M’s mother had initiated both the cross-dressing and needlecrafts. A similar story is found around the turn of the century about a different boy whose mother had strongly desired a daughter and treated him as one. Regardless, M expressed a strong preference for living as a woman.
Male cross-dressing occurred in a variety of contexts, including Native American alternate genders, temporary cross-dressing during dances and entertainments in all-male communities, as well as those doing it out of personal preference or identity.
Theatrical cross-dressing was performed for audiences who also enjoyed blackface acts, as well as “exotic” acts by Chinese performers, so the interest was part of a general taste for disruptive and non-normative performance.
Outside of performance contexts, local laws might prohibit male cross-dress as noted in 1882 in Nevada. In mid 19th century San Francisco, arrests for cross-dressing document its prevalence. While reasons given to the authorities must be viewed with some skepticism, they include evading pursuit, “for a lark,” as a disguise during criminal activity, to escape prison, but also some more unexpected reasons, such as to avoid the constriction and warmth of male clothing for medical reasons.
The gender imbalance in the West meant that someone presenting as a woman with female-coded skills such as cooking, sewing, and housekeeping might make a good living with few questions.
Moving into the 1890s, cross-dressing men came under greater scrutiny with regard to sexuality and mental health. The idea of the “sexual invert” was spreading and might be applied or even adopted as an understanding for cross-dressing. In this context, those who cross-dressed for theatrical performance came under pressure to present a more normative image off-stage.
There is a discussion of the dynamics and hazards of male cross-dressers inspiring, encouraging, or pursuing flirtations or sexual relationships with men. There is a discussion of certain cases that may have involved intersex people who presented as different genders at different periods of their life.
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