Some writers object to examining cross-dressing dramas from a homoerotic viewpoint, noting that the act of changing clothes does not change orientation. But Walen emphasizes that the female homoeroticism in cross-dressing plays is situated, not necessarily within the sexual orientation of the characters, but in the dramatic tropes enabled by the cross-dressing motif. It is the audience, more than the characters, who experience the female-female desire.
The Doubtful Heir (James Shirley)
17th century English play in which a woman courts a woman cross-dressing as a boy in order to make a man jealous. Despite the same-sex courtship, it is not driven by desire.
