Full citation:Perry, Mary Elizabeth. 1999. “From Convent to Battlefield: Cross-Dressing and Gendering the Self in the New World of Imperial Spain” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
Perry - From Convent to Battlefield
The two articles that deal most solidly with Project-related topics are both about trans-masculine individuals. Both are solidly within the fuzzy scope of the Project, but it does continue to point up how absent certain content is from this collection.
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(For other publications on this topic that have been reviewed in more detail, see this tag.)
This article reviews the rather unusual experience of Catalina de Erauso, whose gender-crossing received far more acceptance than usual. The author considers the interpretation of Erauso as a trans man. The discussion covers both Erauso’s biography and the fictional versions of their life and discusses the process of “becoming male.”
Both types of sources include women being romantically/sexually attracted to Erauso, but Erauso avoided such entanglements, evincing some degree of erotic interest in women but never carrying through to a sexual relationship.
Fictional accounts tend to dodge the question of Erauso as a colonial warrior, focusing instead on Erauso’s confession of identity and the receipt of official approval and license to continue presenting as male. Erauso’s past life as a nun may have helped mitigate moral concerns regarding the gender-crossing. Despite having lived a rather contentious and violent life as a soldier, Erauso could be depicted as “pure and virginal.”
Erauso became something of a folk hero due to this open category-crossing, but this was enabled by official approval and there being no aggravating sexual factors.
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