One thing that can be easy to lose track of when researching gender-crossing histories is that, given the historic context, we rarely know about the people who lived happily-ever-after lives, being accepted as the gender they presented to the world, loved and supported by those close enough to know their histories. We may occasionally get a glimpse of those lives after the fact, if their history comes to light after death. But when I read about people like Lucy/Joseph Lobdell, I can't help but take note of all the turning points in their life where things might just as easily turned out differently.
In this chapter, once again, Manion identifies a theme in the chapter title (poverty) that seems only tangentially -- or at least, not uniquely -- associated with the content of the chapter. Yes, Lobdell had economic motivations. And at a key point in their life, poverty (and residence in a poor house) provided a significant turning point, although a positive one in that case. But I see the theme of this chapter being another point that Manion discusses, but does not make the official theme. This is the shifting attitudes toward those who transed gender, depending not only on how they were doing it (openly vs. covertly, to support a family vs. in isolation), but also on where and when they were doing it. The American frontier offered a lot of opportunities (and Manion touches in passing on the irony of those opportunities being at the expense of participating in settler colonialism and genocide), but for reasons of historic context it also institutionalized a religious-based morality into the legal systems more strongly than many of the older eastern states. On another track, the relatively greater acceptance of "masculine women" in the context of the demands of farm living was undermined as new psychological theories of gender performance began to spread at the end of the 19th century. One's personal situation determined how vulnerable one was to these shifting attitudes.
And there, perhaps, Manion's chapter theme does turn out to be relevant. To be poor was to be vulnerable. Vulnerability often took the form of having one's idiosyncracies criminalized. But Lobdell's life also illustrates another through-line of this book: the extent to which the public was fascinated by those who transed gender. Their lives were documented, mythologized, and widely publicized. And we know that at least in some cases, that publicity offered inspiration to others who were finding the lives they had been born to didn't quite fit comfortably.
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