[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.]
cross-dressing
Any context where an individual wears clothing that is socially designated for a different gender than the one they are assigned. The tag includes instances where clothing is used as an overt symbol rather than an overall presentation.
LHMP entry
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 (sahq, sihaqa, musahaqat, al-nisa’, sahiqa) hasn’t resulted in a vibrant field of study. This is particularly disappointing given the significant surviving literature on the topic.
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.
[Note: Content advisory for coerced physical examination to determine sexual category.]
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.
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.
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.
[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.]
This article is an examination of the intersection of private and public morality within the ancien régime of France (i.e., the monarchy prior to the Revolution), and how the image of the family as a “miniature kingdom” created parallels such that transgressions against the state and transgressions against family members could be considered parallel.
This is not so much a biography or historical study as it is a mystery novel. Rather than taking the results of a years’ long research project, organizing it logically, and then presenting it in a systematic manner, Bennett leads us step by step through the process of her research, from the first dangling threads that she tugged on, all the way through to pinning down the last details.
Krantz primarily focuses on the character of Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl, with a secondary consideration of how that image relates to the historic Mary Frith. [Note: to keep the two clear with the least effort, in this summary I’ll use “Moll” for the dramatic character and “Frith” for the historic person.] She examines Moll’s ambiguous identity through three framings: prostitute, hermaphrodite, and bisexual ideal.
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