In some ways, this chapter feels like Manion is happy to play fast and loose with the theme of "female husbands" in order to cast a wider net on the subtitle "a trans history". The people transing gender to take up roles--whether temporary or long-term--as a soldier or sailor generally did not end up in marriages with women, though they might use flirtations with women as a strategy for gender acceptance. One perhaps unusual feature of the figures covered in this chapter is that they all had (auto)biographies published about their trans experiences. Though of course we wouldn't know as much about them if they hadn't. But those biographies often tell us more about the accepted shape of gender-crossing narratives of the time than they do about the actual experiences of their subjects. We know this because there's enough supporting evidence from other sources to point out where they diverge from history in favor of standard tropes. While their actual lives were diverse in details and ambiguous in meaning, the biographies create a standard narrative of essential femininity, constant risk of discovery due to female physicality, flirtatious but ultimately futile romantic encounters with women, and eventual resolution into a normative female life.
Comments