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Although my viewpoint characters are all non-normative in their sexuality in some fashion, Barbara is the only one who habitually pushes at the edges of gender performance boundaries in her appearance. It began when she served as the late baron's armin, and wore masculine clothing for practical reasons. Given that her inheritance of the title might also be seen as a minor transgression--Alpennian inheritance law allows for women to inherit, but social practice strongly prefers male heirs--she also chooses to use gender-crossing garment styles as a marker of status and authority. She tends to be hyper-aware of the usefulness of using gender performance as part of her public persona, especially when interacting with the primarily-male movers and shakers of Alpennian politics. (Some day maybe someone will do cosplay of her military-style gown for the New Year's Court! I'd love to see how people interpret that description.) When she decides to to track down and interrogate the Austrian spy Kreiser, she chooses to do so in public, at his club, and so girds herself in a gender-blending outfit appropriate to the task. But Barbara isn't the only person who has been analyzing the way she uses gender as a tool...

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Mother of Souls - Chapter 9

Tavit was far more perceptive than Brandel in the nuances of her dress. His surprise was not for the purpose of her excursion but its venue. “I thought women weren’t allowed in clubs.”

“It depends,” Barbara said. “In most, it isn’t actually forbidden, it simply isn’t done. Back before the succession debates, the dowager princess was quite familiar in the Zurik and Jourdain’s.” It was a thin precedent, but not the only one she was relying on. “I hope not to provoke a fuss, so I will be enough of a man for their comfort and enough of a woman for my respectability.”

Tavit looked puzzled but asked, “Have you any special instructions?”

Barbara picked up her gloves and hat and turned to him. “If anyone should object to my presence, don’t take it as insult or threat. I have no right to entrance. And though a man without membership might visit a friend with no comment, it will spoil my purpose if too much notice is taken. This one time, resistance shall be met with retreat. I’ll let you know if you need do anything beyond standing and waiting.”

He nodded in acknowledgment, and then after some hesitation, “Mesnera, may I ask you something?”

The edge of tension in Tavit’s voice caught Barbara’s attention. Under the strict rules of her own service, she had always asked permission to speak, but she’d never demanded that of those who served her. “Yes?” she said.

The question came haltingly. “Mesnera, have you ever thought…have you ever wished you had been born a man?”

Barbara turned the idea over in her mind. She was accustomed to the awkwardness that came with playing a man’s role as often as she did. So many things would have been easier, so many paths smoother, and yet…

She cast her mind back even further. If her father’s bastard had been a son, would he have thought it worth the cost to acknowledge him and regularize his position? How would all their lives have changed if she had been raised as heir-default to Saveze? And yet…then there would have been no reason for the old baron to bring Margerit into his plans. They never would have met. Even as an unacknowledged son, their lives might have run more like that wretched novel that had stirred so much gossip. The lost heir of Lautencourt, indeed! What if her rise in society had given her the chance to offer Margerit, not this private promise and the risk of scandal, but marriage and the rank of baroness? And yet…

They had met and loved as women. That much was certain. Who could say what else would have changed, what would have remained?

“Forgive me, Mesnera. I should not have asked,” Tavit said quietly.

Barbara shook her head. “I think…I am more than content—no, I am joyful—to be in the place I find myself. And I don’t think I could have come to this place by any road but the one I’ve traveled. If there are limits to what this body can do—” She gestured to take it in. “—they are limits made by others, not my limits. No, I wouldn’t choose to be other than what I am.”

Tavit seemed disquieted by her answer, but how could he understand? It would be a strange man indeed who could accept that one might prefer to be female despite those limitations.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 1 - Ordinary Women

(Originally aired 2016/08/27 - listen here)

Let’s start this series with some ordinary women. Nobody special: they weren’t scandalous aristocrats or dashing adventurers or women who set out to transgress the rules of society. All they did was love each other. Perhaps not wisely, perhaps not always well.

In southern Germany, almost on the border with Switzerland, there is a town called Mösskirch. It has relatively few claims to fame: a composer, a philosopher, a painter whose name hasn’t actually survived, a few talented brewers. In the 16th century, it was the residence of the Counts of Zimmern. But we aren’t concerned with any of them. We’re interested in a different 16th century resident, a servant-girl named Greta, who came to the attention of history in 1514 because she kept falling in love with girls.

Much of the solid historic evidence we have from medieval Europe about women who loved women is rather depressing, because the authorities only tended to pay attention to them when they’d stepped so far outside acceptable behavior that drastic penalties were invoked. And, well, we’ll talk about them some other time. But Greta’s story--as much as we know of it--is happier.

It is recorded that she loved young women and pursued them romantically as if she were behaving like a man. There’s no mention that Greta was masculine in any other way than falling in love with women--no indication that she dressed as a man, or tried to take on a masculine occupation, or that she made love to them using, as they called it, an “artificial device”. Those were the sorts of things that could draw harsh consequences. In fact, the only concern her neighbors seem to have had was to make sure that she actually was a woman.

The concern wasn’t that she might have been a man disguising himself as a woman--that would have been a roundabout way to court girls at the time! No, the problem was that her neighbors thought she might have been a hermaphrodite--something halfway between man and woman--and that this might be the reason why she felt erotic desires for women.

The idea of hermaphrodites as understood in that era is one of those odd social inventions. It probably derived in part from trying to understand intersex persons, who might have anatomy that seemed to be part male and part female. But it also derived from an inability to imagine anything other than heterosexual desire. So, as the thinking went, if a person who appeared female fell in love with or desired a woman, then that person must actually be a man in some fashion.

The idea of hermaphrodites also overlaps with transgender history. Some historic individuals used the social belief in hermaphrodites as a legal tool to gain recognition as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth. Some even succeeded. We’ll talk about that in another episode.

But all that is a side-note to Greta’s story. The midwives of Mösskirch, who were given the responsibility of examining Greta medically, proclaimed that she was “a true proper woman”. And as far as we know, that was an end of it. There is no mention of any legal charge against her. No mention of any consequences or punishment. And so we are free to imagine Greta von Mösskirch flirting with other girls at the market fair, perhaps saving her money to buy a hair ribbon as a gift in hopes of being thanked with a kiss, and living her life fairly happily.

Now, the second example I want to tell you about has a bit of a less happy end, though it’s likely that the women in question only came to the attention of the authorities because they got involved in a domestic dispute.

Our story happens at the very beginning of the 15th century in France. To set the stage, this is about a decade before the birth of Joan of Arc. In fact we’re concerned with a different French peasant woman named Jehanne. This Jehanne was married, as one was at the time, but it seems that at some point she had discovered the entirely different joys of making love to women. She was friends with another married woman named Laurence. One day they were walking out to the fields together when Jehanne ventured a proposition. She whispered in Laurence’s ear, “If you will be my sweetheart, I will do you much good.”

Laurence may have been a bit naive, or perhaps she’d never had the occasion to consider the question of whether enjoying a roll in the hay with a woman would be a sin--a literal roll in the hay, as the testimony indicates. She told people later that she didn’t think that there was anything evil in it, and presumably Jehanne’s offer sounded like a bit of fun. They made their way to a convenient haystack and Jehanne lay on top of her and made love to her, rubbing against her “as a man does to a woman”. The end results were satisfying enough for the both of them that the two continued to meet for erotic encounters: sometimes at Laurence’s house, sometimes in the vineyards outside the village, or sometimes even near the village fountain.

But eventually things turned sour. We don’t know whether Laurence started to get nervous about what they were doing, or if one of their husbands started asking questions, or perhaps it was just one of those things.

So one night, when Jehanne came to Laurence’s house, Laurence told her she didn’t desire her any more. Jehanne, let us say, took the breakup rather badly. She attacked Laurence with a knife and then ran away.

Although the records don’t say so in as many words, it’s likely that this attack and the consequences of it are the only reason their relationship came to the attention of the authorities. In fact, the record skips entirely over any original accusation or trial and brings us in to the story when Laurence is appealing for a pardon on the basis that the relationship was all Jehanne’s fault.

People are people, no matter what the century. And if society and the law imagines that forbidden sexual relationships to involve an aggressor and a naive victim, then there will always be a temptation to throw one’s partner under the bus when push comes to shove. Laurence’s appeal was successful and she was pardoned. This is no small matter, given that the original sentence might well have been execution. It happened that way to other women. There is no word in the record about Jehanne’s fate. It would be nice to fantasize that she ran away entirely, changed her name, got ahold of her anger management issues, and found happiness in some other woman’s arms eventually. It probably isn’t the way to bet, but we’re free to dream.

Show Notes

The debut episode of a podcast about women loving women in history and literature and the fiction we write about them.

In this episode we talk about:

• Greta von Mösskirch who loved girls in 16th century German
• Two 15th century French peasant women, Jehanne and Laurence, whose love affair ended in violence and a lawsuit.

This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:

• Greta von Mösskirch
• Jehanne and Laurence

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Having downloaded the Comixology app in order to read Heathen, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was about to start reading more graphic stories. I've been hearing a lot of praise for Monstress, so it was a natural choice for my next set of purchases. Monstress is set in a secondary world built with a flavor of several Asian cultures as well as original invention, and a somewhat steampunky esthetic. Two conflicting peoples: one superficially "human", and one the "Arcanics"--descendents of human-Other lineage, manifesting in a variety of "monstrous" physical forms, many with zoomorphic characteristics. Arcanics also share a hazardous property: their flesh can be harvested and processed to produce "lilium", a mystical substance with various uses. That harvest can be done in whole or piecemeal, so many of the Arcanics in captivity are portrayed as maimed. At some point in the past, peaceful relations between humans and Arcanics broke down, horrendous wars were fought, and the land was divided. Arcanics in human lands are treated as dangerous but useful animals. In this world, a young Arcanic named Maika sets out on a quest...

What I liked

The art is breath-taking. The story-telling punches all my favorite buttons for being plunged into a world with no explanation and revealing details with no coddling or hand-holding. Up until the last page of this first volume, you're learning new things about the characters and events you thought you'd figured out. The plot twists and turns like a snake, destroying your understanding of what's going on even as it reveals. The focus on female characters similarly hits my sweet spot, as do the plentiful same-sex relationships. I love how the story combines familiar, but not over-used tropes from non-Western cultures, while still being an entirely invented secondary world. The stakes start high and get stratospheric.

What I didn't like

I'm  really not attracted to stories with lots of gratuitous violence, dismemberment, casual slaughter, and the like. This is a very intense story where it's not a good idea to get emotionally attached to any particular character. Content warnings for graphic, gory violence, dismemberment, child abuse and death, and threats of sexual violence. Maika is strugling against a literal monster inside, and often loses that struggle. I find this work heartbreakingly beautiful and at the same time repulsive. It's beautiful enough and engaging enough (not in the "cute and pretty" sense of engaging--more in the "fish hook in your flesh" sense of engaging) that I will almost certainly continue reading the series, but some may find it too intense to enjoy.

I think that Chapter 13 "One of the Populace" is my favorite part of A Little Princess. You know that tv commercial a couple years back--I think maybe it was for an insurance company but I could be wildly wrong--showing a long chain of people doing random kindnesses for a stranger in passing, which was witnessed by a third party who was then inspired to do a random kindness for a stranger in passing, which was witnessed...and so forth? Chapter 13 it a bit of that, showing how an act of selfless charity can touch and chance the hearts of others unknown.

The chapter begins with a contemplation of the power of imagining, when Sara and Becky are commiserating after a hard day and, instead of telling stories reframing their lives as The Prisoners in the Bastille, Sara paints an idyllic story of the life the Indian Gentleman's monkey led before being captured and brought to England. When Sara asserts, "What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else," Becky question whether that's really possible. In a very human moment, Sara admits, "Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't." Then she talks about the power of her princess persona. This segues into "one of the strongest tests she was ever put to" which forms the rest of the chapter.

We are shown the depths of Sara's most dreadful day, when the weather conspires against her, and Miss Minchin has refused her food as a punishment for some unstated transgression, and she's trying desperately to imagine herself into warm clothing and the most luxurious meal she can imagine: six penny-buns hot from the oven at the bake shop, which she would buy the a sixpence she imagines herself finding. And then...she finds a coin. (We learn later that she still has the sixpence that the Carmichael boy gave her for charity. But I have suggested that to actually spend it on such basic necessities would make it charity, and not the keepsake of a friend that she chooses to consider it.) The coin isn't even the meagre fortune she has imagined, but only fourpence. But there it is, right in front of a bakery, with hot buns just been put into the window display. Surely it is A Sign.

And then she sees the second Sign: a barefoot, rag-clad, freezing, starving beggar girl sitting on the steps of the bakery. Sara speaks to her and is struck to the heart at how much worse off the girl is than she herself, and her Princess Nature kicks in. If she is truly a princess, then it is her duty to give largesse to her people, even at great cost to herself. So she decides to share her small fortune with the girl.

This is the exact point at which the balance begins to assert itself. The owner of the bakery, impressed by Sara's honesty at first asking if anyone has lost the coin she found, and noting Sara's hungry look, impulsively gives her sixpence worth of buns for four. Sara, instead of splitting the six buns evenly, gives five of them to the beggar girl and keeps only one for herself. And when the bakery owner notices this--though not in time to speak to Sara again before she leaves--she is touched and a little shamed to think that a girl who was herself cold and hungry could give so much when she had barely noticed the presence of a starving child literally on her doorstep. So she invites the beggar girl inside to warm herself and tells her to come back any time she'd hungry. As we will learn much later, this is the first step toward a deeper relationship where she takes the beggar girl on as an apprentice and gives her a home. To be sure, it's only one beggar out of no doubt many on the streets. But it will turn that one person's life entirely around.

Though Sara doesn't know it yet, everything is looking up from here on. But there are diversions to endure first. Sara will undergo one more crushing disappointment before The Magic comes. And in echo of that, she passes Mr. Carmichael leaving his house on the trip to Moscow in a vain quest to locate Captain Crewe's lost daughter.