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Monday, August 9, 2021 - 07:00
It's hard enough trying to untangle the interesections of gender identity, sexuality, economic necessity, and sexism without tossing a completely unreliable narrator into the mix. The narrators of gender-crossing stories already have enough motivations to be unreliable, even setting aside the question of the language and concepts they have to work with. They may be motivated by identifying the narrative that will make their audience most sympathetic (which may change with the audience). They may be motivated by trying to protect a spouse, by presenting her as naive and ignorant. They may be motivated by trying to fit their experiences into existing familiar tropes. (And that's without getting into the motivations that the press and biographiers have for adjusting and modifying their stories.) But sometimes their stories go beyond immediate practicality.
In reading the biography of Albert Guelph (which Manion reveals in a convoluted tangle), I'm reminded a bit of the 17th century biography of James Howard/Amy Poulter and Arabella Hunt. In both cases, a Person Assigned Female initially struck up a relationship with a woman while presenting as female, then claimed that they were a man who had been using female disguise for some strategic purpose and transitioned to presenting as male in order to enter into a marriage. In both cases, the wife's family was actively involved in questioning the marriage when the story started to fall apart. The eventual outcome varied (including different outcomes from Guelph's two marriages).
Guelph presented a romantic back-story: a secret descendent of King George IV and his estranged wife Caroline, forced to live in disguise as a woman for safetey's sake, and supported by income from mysterious benefactors. The themes are less clear in Howard/Poulter's case: a witness at the trial said they had justified the female disguise for reasons relating to a family inheritance which would be resolved when they came of age. In both cases, this raises the question of why the bride and her family would find the story of female disguise so plausible that they were shocked (shocked, I say!) to later discover that the person in question was, in fact, assigned female. The unreliability of all the participants comes into play. Was the bride initially ok with being married to a female-bodied person? (In the case of Guelph's second wife, she continued to support her spouse through the trial instigated by her father, and may well have been a knowing and willing participant.) What role did the parents play either in accepting the original framing or in challenging the marriage after the fact? Can we trust their claims of surprise? (In the case of Guelph's second father-in-law, he does seem to have been opposed to the marriage from the start, and given that he evidently had met Guelph in both gender presentations, one perhaps can't blame him for being suspicious, though one can blame him for not trusting his daughter's choices.)
In any event, if you want some inspirational fodder for plotting the possibilities of queer lives in history, these stories are useful in remembering that truth can be stranger than fiction.
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Full citation:
Manion, Jen. 2020. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-48380-3
Chapter 6: The Activists
[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]
It's hard enough trying to untangle the interesections of gender identity, sexuality, economic necessity, and sexism without tossing a completely unreliable narrator into the mix. The narrators of gender-crossing stories already have enough motivations to be unreliable, even setting aside the question of the language and concepts they have to work with. They may be motivated by identifying the narrative that will make their audience most sympathetic (which may change with the audience). They may be motivated by trying to protect a spouse, by presenting her as naive and ignorant. They may be motivated by trying to fit their experiences into existing familiar tropes. (And that's without getting into the motivations that the press and biographiers have for adjusting and modifying their stories.) But sometimes their stories go beyond immediate practicality.
In reading the biography of Albert Guelph (which Manion reveals in a convoluted tangle), I'm reminded a bit of the 17th century biography of James Howard/Amy Poulter and Arabella Hunt. In both cases, a Person Assigned Female initially struck up a relationship with a woman while presenting as female, then claimed that they were a man who had been using female disguise for some strategic purpose and transitioned to presenting as male in order to enter into a marriage. In both cases, the wife's family was actively involved in questioning the marriage when the story started to fall apart. The eventual outcome varied (including different outcomes from Guelph's two marriages).
Guelph presented a romantic back-story: a secret descendent of King George IV and his estranged wife Caroline, forced to live in disguise as a woman for safetey's sake, and supported by income from mysterious benefactors. The themes are less clear in Howard/Poulter's case: a witness at the trial said they had justified the female disguise for reasons relating to a family inheritance which would be resolved when they came of age. In both cases, this raises the question of why the bride and her family would find the story of female disguise so plausible that they were shocked (shocked, I say!) to later discover that the person in question was, in fact, assigned female. The unreliability of all the participants comes into play. Was the bride initially ok with being married to a female-bodied person? (In the case of Guelph's second wife, she continued to support her spouse through the trial instigated by her father, and may well have been a knowing and willing participant.) What role did the parents play either in accepting the original framing or in challenging the marriage after the fact? Can we trust their claims of surprise? (In the case of Guelph's second father-in-law, he does seem to have been opposed to the marriage from the start, and given that he evidently had met Guelph in both gender presentations, one perhaps can't blame him for being suspicious, though one can blame him for not trusting his daughter's choices.)
In any event, if you want some inspirational fodder for plotting the possibilities of queer lives in history, these stories are useful in remembering that truth can be stranger than fiction.
# # #
The feminist movement of the later 19th century tackled questions of the differences and similarities between the genders, however feminism had an uneasy relationship with transing gende, due to the use of gendered criticism of both feminist ideals and feminists themselves. It was a common tactic to accuse feminists of being masculine. Both for philosophical and practical reasons there was a sense that gender crossing undermined their arguments for the equality of women.
[Note: There are a number of historical intersections with themes that are currently showing up in TERF rhetoric, and it can be useful to understand the deep background of some of those themes and ideas. There’s also cross-over here with the “lavender menace” phenomenon, where the accusation that feminists were all lesbians led some parts of the feminist movement in the ‘70s to try to purge lesbians from the movement. Conversely, this chapter points out that while those who transed gender were implicitly critiquing gender norms and boundaries, that does’t mean they consciously challenged sexist social structures. In some ways, it feels like the bringing in feminism as a sub-theme in this chapter is another case of Manion shoehorning her biographical studies into an artificial chapter structure. But the topic is definitely worth exploring, whether or not it relates to the specific female husband biographies in this section.]
In general, female husbands were not understood or depicted as political actors or as gender activists. They were seen not as critiquing the institution of heterosexual marriage but as subverting it for individual benefit. Feminists, in contrast, agitated for the right to enjoy the freedom of dress, movement, and employment that men enjoyed, but as women, not by becoming men. Nonetheless, this chapter explores how the two groups were conflated in the popular imagination.
The first focus biography in this chapter is John Smith, a tinker in New York in the mid 19th century. Smith courted and married a widow named Mrs. Donnelly. We know essentially nothing about how they met or their personal life, although Manion is happy to speculate certain biographical details. Donnelly became unsatisfied with the marriage, evidently due to the lack of sexual intimacy. She appears to have expressed the suspicion that her husband was not a man to a male acquaintance who then challenged Smith on that basis and forcefully determined that Smith’s physiology was female. Unlike some other cases of female husbands in the US, the newspaper coverage was hostile and negative, though not very prominent. However although Smith was arrested on the basis of Donnelly’s charge, it was determined that there was no applicable law that prohibited cross dressing or transing gender. Furthermore, Smith could not be charged with the vague vagrancy laws due to being gainfully employed and part of the social fabric of the community.
New York state had no laws specifically against cross-dressing at that time, so an arrest on that basis might result in embarrassment and but unless some other charge were involved could not result in imprisonment. Some commenters on cross-dressing arrests offered sympathetic objections that women wearing male attire were accepted as ordinary in other communities and should not be prosecuted.
To some extent the rise of a visible feminist movement and the use of accusations of masculinity against them created a new hazard for those who transed gender, because it elevated the visvibility of gender issues in the popular imagination. Those who felt there should be legal barriers to the appropriation of masculine prerogatives that feminists called for set about creating the very laws the absence of which had protected gender crossers. The chapter spends several pages discussing the intersection of the feminist movement and abolitionism. This provided another topic on which feminists were considered dangerous, and were attacked as intruding into the male sphere. Femininity was used as a weapon to try to force feminists into silence and passivity.
The accusation that the support of feminism made women masculine resulted in a backlash of respectability politics within the feminist movement, where some felt the needed to emphasize that they did not want to become men. This undermined what might otherwise have been a natural alliance between feminists and trans men.
The next focus biography is of Albert Guelph, which begins in England. Guelph’s story is a peculiar one. They first came into contact with their future wife while presenting as a woman. After becoming friendly with the family, Guelph revealed a curious family history: that they were a secret descendent of King George IV and queen Caroline but had been hidden from the world and disguised as a girl from a young age, even though assigned male at birth. But Guelph asserted they were revealing this out of love for Mary Ann Robins. At that point Guelph transitioned into living as a man and married Miss Robins. Shortly after the marriage, Robins came to her mother complaining that she had discovered her husband was a woman. Her mother took the story to the police, who were understandably confused by the twists and turns. Guelph seems to have been fairly well off and always had plenty of money, which may have been part of the inducement to overlook the strangeness of their original story. At any rate after the matter came into the open, Guelph disappeared. But wait…!
Like many female husband stories, the press coverage was not confined to the location where the events occurred, and the US press picked it up only a month after it came out in England. This is relevant, because Albert Guelph moved to New York (evidently in company with their married sister and children, and at least one of Guelph’s only children). Guelph contracted yet another marriage. In this case it was the bride’s father who became suspicious of the nature of his son-in-law and--against the bride’s wishes--he confronted Guelph about their gender and elicited an admission of sorts that they were female.
Guelph was arrested and put in prison, where their wife visited with expressions of affection and protestations that the arrest had been a conspiracy by her father, who had disapproved of the marriage. In the trial Guelph refused to identify themselves by gender referring the question to the arresting officers, who they said could tell the judge the facts of the matter. Guelph was still appearing in male clothing for the trial. The charge was vagrancy, which is a bit confusing given that Guelph had a fixed residence (with his sister and sister’s family, who also offered a home to Guelph’s wife after the marriage). Guelph also clearly had money.
The family connections make Guelph’s case unusual, as does the fact that Guelph changed gender presentation regularly, depending on circumstances and this was well known by their family and local community. In fact, as with Guelph’s previous marriage in England, they first got to know their New York wife’s family while presenting as a woman and only later changed into male attire with the knowledge of that family. The same rationale seems to have been used to explain this: that Guelph was assigned male but was wearing women’s clothing as a disguise on occasion. This may go some distance to explaining why the bride’s father had certain objections to the marriage.
Guelph seems to have been comfortable in both gender presentations but used the male presentation as a context for sexual intimacy and love. Guelph’s wife’s acceptance and support after the arrest suggest strongly that she was well aware that Guelph was assigned female and that this was perfectly acceptable to her. The newspapers vacillated between two theories: that Guelph had tricked their wife into thinking that they were biologically male; alternately that this was a same-sex relationship that was disguised for public acceptance. There were jokes about women being so desperate for a husband that they took to marrying each other.
At the trial, Guelph’s lawyer argued on two points: that vagrancy carried a maximum sentence of 60 days which had already passed, and that there was no state law prohibiting cross dressing. The judge had invoked an existing law against disguise but the law had been clearly implemented to address political agitators who disguised themselves to avoid identification. After being acquitted Guelph continued to appear in the clothing of both genders, although public criticism of this was noted in the papers. And some used the case as a spur to arguing that there should be laws against gender cross-dressing.
Another thread in the question of wearing the clothing of a different gender came in the form of the bloomer movement. (We get back to the feminists here.) It could not be said that women wearing a bloomer costume were wearing “male clothing” as the style was one that no man would have worn. However due to the use of loose trousers as part of the outfit, bloomer wearers were accused of being masculine. And bloomers were strongly associated with the feminist movement, even though not all feminists embraced the concept. They were part of a general movement for dress reform that argued that women should not be required to wear physically restrictive clothing.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of conflicts between feminist activism and trans masculinity.
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Saturday, August 7, 2021 - 14:55
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 207 - On the Shelf for August 2021 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2021/08/07 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for August 2021.
I’m getting to the point in the pandemic where I feel like I’m living too much inside my own head. All the days feel exactly the same. I’ve been doing a little more going out and about, but even now the thought of sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by unmasked people with who knows what sort of vaccination status still freaks me out too much. I’m not ready to go back to how things were in the Before Times, but I’m also not ready to decide that this is just how it is now. Well, except for the working from home part. I’m delighted that my employer is including a permanent work-from-home option. I hope the ongoing restrictions of the pandemic aren’t hitting you-all too hard.
I don’t know if it’s the pandemic malaise or what, but I’m still on something of an unplanned vacation from podcast tasks that involve outreach to other people. I still hope to do all of the interviews that I’ve contacted people about, so we may have some interview-heavy shows once I start getting caught up. The malaise has also affected scheduling of the fiction episodes. You may not have noticed, but last week there was a fifth Saturday, which should have been a fiction episode and I just…failed in terms of having my act together in the last couple months enough to get the stories out to the narrators for recording. There, too, we will cover all the planned material, but on a slightly adjusted schedule. Maybe I’m taking a tip from Simone Biles and adjusting what “winning” looks like.
I’ve been doing a couple of fun research things lately related to the blog. One was a request from a comedian for some examples of queer women from the European middle ages to use as inspiration for a routine she’s putting together. I really enjoyed putting together a list of mini biographies and resources, and eventually I hope to give you more information about the show when things get to that point.
The other fun research is perhaps my most ambitious primary source project for the blog so far, and it’s all due to the wonders of the world wide web. Several of the podcasts have mentioned an individual from 18th century France who provides a unique look into attitudes toward the intersection of sexuality and gender in that era. Anne Grandjean, also known as Jean-Baptiste Grandjean, was assigned female as a child, but during adolescence they experienced sexual desire for women and confessed this to their priest. The priest told Grandjean that if they desired women, they must be a man and instructed them to change gender presentation. This they did, with the full knowledge of their family and community. They courted several women, married one of them, and established a household. Then one of their ex-girlfriends, from unknown motivation, started making trouble about Grandjean “actually being a woman”. The court, having established Grandjean’s female physiology, charged them with “profaning the sacrament of marriage” by being a woman married to a woman. Grandjean was all “I’m just doing what my priest told me to do,” but that didn’t cut it. Fortunately, Grandjean got a clever and sympathetic lawyer who argued, in essence, that Grandjean was some form of intersex except in a way that was only detectable via their experience of sexual desire. Which, in a way, was a more medicalized version of what the priest had concluded: that a person who desires women must, to some degree, be a man. The lawyer’s argument, looked at from a different angle, could be seen as trans-affirming: that is, that it was possible for someone’s gender identity to be misaligned with their physiology and that this was not a sin or a crime, simply a “trick of nature”. The judge split the difference, to some extent, ruling that Grandjean was innocent of “profaning the sacrament of marriage” as the marriage had been entered into in good faith, but also ruling that Grandjean should return to presenting as a woman, the marriage would be dissolved, and Grandjean was not allowed to continue cohabiting with their wife. Not exactly the happiest of endings, but definitely not the sort of tragedy that happened to others.
The question of how Grandjean might have categorized themselves in modern terms is not at all clear, and I don’t have an interest in trying to pin down a definitive answer. It wasn’t so much that 18th century French society didn’t have a category for “a woman who sexually desired a woman”—that it did is demonstrable from other sources. But that wasn’t a category that a priest or a sympathetic lawyer was willing to place a respectable, well-meaning young woman in. And so Grandjean was pressured into several other categories in turn. But Grandjean’s story would easily and comfortably fit a trans narrative, and the lawyer’s arguments could be seen as applying equally to the transgender experience, even if couched in different language than we would use. I pass over the intersex option because there doesn’t seem to be any direct evidence for that interpretation, except as a conceptual framework for arguing the possibility of contradictory gender features.
In any event, getting back to the research question, I had previously read about Grandjean’s story through several articles discussing various aspects of queer history, and like any historian I wanted to take a look at the primary sources myself. I had questions that were different from what other people were asking and there’s nothing like going to the source. The original source for the information was a write-up of the court case, with additional background information. But I could find no evidence that it had ever been published in English translation. What I did find, was a Google Books scan of a 1765 edition of the work, and a moderately good OCR conversion of a slightly different edition of the work with some additional material (primarily some verses appended to the end).
That was a solid starting point. I wouldn’t have had the time to transcribe the scans myself (and the images would have needed a lot of cleaning up from OCR), but it was the work of a few hours to do a comparison of the scans to the existing conversion and clean up the errors: fixing lots of long-s’s that had been interpreted as f’s and so forth. So now I had a clean text of 18th century French. Um…I have never actually studied French, so where does that leave me? I mean, I’ve picked up enough reading familiarity from studying other Romance languages and from cognates and just from osmosis that I can figure out what a French text is about. But not enough to do a confident translation. I could have asked my girlfriend to translate it, since French is one of her languages. Let’s not talk about Google Translate – it can manage basic stuff, but I know from having run novel cover copy through it that it has some serious limitations. But my girlfriend turned me on to a much better online translation resource and it turns out to be perfectly happy with 18th century French (which evidently isn’t too far from modern literary French). That got me a solid starting translation, which I am now going through in more detail, looking especially at points where the alternation of gender reference may have confused the AI. By the time I’m done I just may have mastered a knowledge of French pronouns. Then I only need to work on the rest of the language! Once I’m done with the analysis, my girlfriend is going to check over the results and then I’ll put it in the blog.
I’ve done a few of my own translations for the blog before: German, Latin, Greek—though for the Greek I was using someone else’s translation as a start and just focusing on specific words and phrases. But this is the longest text I’ve ever tackled. The other source text that I have on my to-do list for the blog is a medieval Welsh love poem, written from one woman to another. Now, medieval Welsh definitely is something I’ve studied—it’s what I did my PhD on—but poetry is…hard. So that’s a challenge waiting for another day and a lot more time.
News of the Field
If you’ve paid attention to my annual publishing analysis, you know that all it takes to be “one of the most prolific publishers of sapphic historical fiction” is to put out at least 2 books a year in the field. So when I’m updating my spreadsheet of new books, I tend to pay attention when a previously unfamiliar publisher or imprint shows up a couple times in the same year. Given that, I wanted to take note of three publishers who just caught my attention in this way. They all have very different relationships to queer content, and especially to sapphic content. But at the very least, they show the growing normalization of women loving women characters among publishers of all sizes.
Kalikoi is a very new press that specializes in books about women loving women, whatever label the characters might use. They focus on a variety of genre literature and a delightfully high proportion of historical stories. I haven’t had a chance to read any of their output yet, but I strongly recommend that my listeners check them out and see if you find books to your taste. Because a new press can use all the encouragement they can get, and it would be nice to see them stick around and grow.
Entangled Publishing has been around since 2011 but my database doesn’t have any sapphic historicals from them earlier than 2020. They appear to be incredibly prolific and specialize in romance for both adult and YA markets. They have a number of specialized imprints for particular flavors of books and their website has a fairly powerful set of search filters. The filter for LGBTQ books doesn’t apply independently of genre, so there’s no way to search specifically for sapphic historicals. But on the other hand, there are only 32 books in that filter, so it isn’t too much to scroll through. Only one of their books in my spreadsheet is already out, so the selection doesn’t look like much currently, but that book was Diana Pinguicha’s A Curse of Roses, which was excellent, so I have high hopes for their future output.
Feiwel & Friends is an imprint of MacMillan, specializing in books for readers up to age 16. There’s no particular focus on queer characters, and the two books from them that I have in my spreadsheet for the upcoming year were both ones where I had to reach out to the authors to get confirmation of sapphic content. But the stories look fascinating and we can always hope that they’ll publish more like these – even if they don’t seem to care if the books are discoverable.
In focusing on these publishers recently entering the genre, I don’t mean to slight the presses that have been putting out even larger numbers of titles for a long time. But it’s always great to see a growing backfield of sources for the books we love.
Publications on the Blog
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog continued reading through Jen Manion’s Female Husbands: A Trans History in July and will finish the book out in August. I have another book in the relatively recent set of studies on historical transmasculine identities that I’d like to cover while I’m on a roll. And the source material on Anne Grandjean will fit into the current theme nicely, so the blog looks like it’s set for a while.
Book Shopping!
No new books picked up for the Project this month. I have a couple newly on order, but I’ll wait to blog them when they arrive.
Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction
That brings us up to the new and recent fiction. We have one June book to catch up with. I knew about it last month, but the website was unclear on publication date so I wasn’t aware it was already out.
A Lady's Fine Companion by Margaret K. Mac from Kalikoi is a short story with an unclear setting in space and time, but my guess is maybe late 19th or early 20th century? This is predicated on the central role of a typewriter in the protagonist’s career, plus her brother’s insistence that she have a female companion in her household. So…um…you can guess what comes next. A workplace romance of sorts. The description makes it sound fairly spicy.
There are two July books I didn’t spot earlier. Another short one from Kaliloi: All Manner of Hats by Elva Birch. This has a magical steampunk-flavored setting with two rival milliners, distracted from their business truce (and from the quest for a marriage of convenience) by the need to collaborate on a mystery…and on something more personal.
We also have the start of a series by J.E. Leak, from Certifiably Creative which appears to be the author’s own imprint. In the Shadow of the Past (Shadow Series #1) is a World War II romantic thriller with spies, night clubs, and a slow burn romance that continues on into the next installment.
I’ve found seven August releases at this point, all set in the 19th or 20th century. Let’s take them in roughly chronological order.
Jane Walsh has another Regency out from Bold Strokes Books. In Her Countess to Cherish, a runaway bride encounters a dashing rogue, but the rogue has another life as an upper class bluestocking. Both women have secrets that could destroy their growing attraction, and the problem of how to achieve their hearts’ desire while staying true to themselves. From the cover copy, it appears that this is definitely a gender disguise story, rather than a transgender story, with consideration of how the character understands her identity.
I’m not quite as certain on that point about Kate Hershberger’s self-published Blackpoint. In a wild west setting, the town sheriff is an outsider along multiple axes and doesn’t need the complication of falling in love with a beautiful runaway, fleeing an abusive home. But the town of Blackpoint has provided a haven for many people and maybe it can provide the two a place to be themselves and be together. The book is tagged as “lesbian romance” on Amazon, but the cover copy consistently uses male pronouns for one of the protagonists. So it’s unclear how the gender identity issues are handled within the story.
The Fiend in the Fog by Jess Faraday from Bold Strokes Books is something of a supernatural gaslamp adventure set in London that…well, this is complicated enough that I’m going to step out of my usual briefer summary and just read the cover copy.
Abigail and Gideon are under siege. Noxious fogs have been bringing their clinic waves of indigent patients with inexplicable symptoms, telling wild tales of a demonic presence in the fog. If that’s not enough, someone wants the clinic for themselves, and they’re using the force of law to get it. On the other side of town, heiress Meg Eisenstadt and her brother Nat live a life of well-intentioned aimless luxury. She dabbles in social justice causes and he pursues alchemy. And in a secret lab in the depths of Whitechapel, disgraced physician Jin Wylie attempts to rebuild his shattered life by performing dubious research for a shadowy cabal. They live in separate worlds on different trajectories until the mysterious fiend in the fog brings them together. Abigail and Meg discover a shared passion for social justice, and for one another. But where does that leave her plans with Gideon? And what of the future of the clinic? Gideon has his own monster. Can he keep it in check without Abigail’s constant presence? Does Dr. Wylie’s research hold the solution to Gideon’s problems, or is it the cause of them? And could Nat’s own dabblings be the key to defeating the vicious killer in the fog?
I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go slightly out of chronological order and pair another “fog” title. In A.L. Lester’s self-published The Fog of War (Bradfield #1), Dr. Sylvia Marks is trying to find equilibrium as a village doctor after returning from a World War I field hospital. It isn’t just a matter of leaving the war behind; her lover disappeared while driving an ambulance and some strange events are making her question Anna’s fate. Will everything change with the arrival of another close friend from the field clinic? There seems to be a bit of mystery here—perhaps a supernatural one—as well as the potential for romance.
Backing up a smidge to the disastrous voyage of the Titanic, Charlotte Anne Hamilton’s The Breath between Waves from Entangled follows two strangers who are thrown together as cabin-mates on the doomed voyage. A shipboard romance helps them put aside the sorrows of what they left behind and the uncertainty of what lies ahead. And then…well, we all know what happens next.
Shifting gears from the more common romance fare, Shannon Carr’s self-published The Haunting of Meade Manor falls solidly in the horror genre. In 1933 England, Mary Meade has unexpectedly inherited her great-uncle’s manor house, complete with a lurking murderer and the spirit of the woman he killed. But there are more spirits inhabiting the house and one of them can cross back into the physical world. Can Mary find happiness in the arms of a woman who’s been dead for half a century? And what will it take to rid Meade Manor of the evil that is haunting it from both sides of the grave?
The last book for this month isn’t actually a historical novel at all, but is of tangential interest because it features two women working at a living history museum, portraying the Australian gold fields. The Commitment by Virginia Hale from Bella Books is very much a contemporary romance, with themes of marriage of convenience, unspoken pining, and the unexpected appearance of a not-entirely-ex girlfriend. I don’t know how big a part the historic re-enactment aspect plays in the book, but listeners might find it an intriguing setting.
What Am I Reading?
And what have I been reading lately? I feel like I’ve slowed down a little since last month’s dam-breaking. I had a listener request that I include the books I mention in this segment in my show notes, so I’ll be doing that from now on. There was the pirate-themed short story “At Word’s Point” by Carolyn Elizabeth, which is a spinoff from her forthcoming novel from Bella Books. I’ve been listening to some SFF audiobooks as part of working on my Hugo Award ballot, since I can fit them into odd moments. This month’s books were volumes from the best series finalists: Network Effect by Martha Wells, Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire, and City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. No lesbian content, alas. I also really enjoyed Gail Carriger’s non-fiction The Heroine’s Journey which dissects a deep-rooted story structure that exists in parallel to, and in contrast with, the “Hero’s Journey” promulgated by Joseph Campbell. I think my writing has strong elements of the Heroine’s Journey, but it’s also interesting to see how individual characters in an ensemble cast can be living out different journeys, and how that creates conflict within the story. I mean, in the Alpennia series, Margerit Sovitre is definitely on a heroine’s journey, but her partner Barbara Lumbeirt keeps trying to follow a hero’s journey and it definitely causes problems at times. Carriger’s book isn’t a “how to write” book. I have an uneasy relationship with books that feel like they’re telling me how to write. It’s much more of a “how to think about writing” book, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s analyzing things!
Show Notes
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- Delays in the interview and fiction segments
- Processing a primary source for the blog
- Publishers on our radar
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Manion, Jen. 2020. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-48380-3
- New and forthcoming fiction
- A Lady's Fine Companion by Margaret K. Mac
- All Manner of Hats by Elva Birch
- In the Shadow of the Past (Shadow Series #1) by J.E. Leak
- Her Countess to Cherish by Jane Walsh
- Blackpoint by Kate Hershberger
- The Fiend in the Fog by Jess Faraday
- The Fog of War (Bradfield #1) by A. L. Lester
- The Breath between Waves by Charlotte Anne Hamilton
- The Haunting of Meade Manor by Shannon Carr
- The Commitment by Virginia Hale
- What have I read?
- ”At Word’s Point” by Carolyn Elizabeth
- The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger
- Network Effect by Martha Wells (audiobook)
- City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (audiobook)
- Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (audiobook)
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)
Major category:
LHMPMonday, August 2, 2021 - 07:00
In this chapter, Manion touches on--but doesn't fully explore--a couple of key differences between the trans-masculine experience in England and in America. English social structures around marriage, employment, charitable support, and rights to residence were deeply embedded in an assumption of static location. The parish you were born into was obliged to support you if you were indigent, which meant other parishes could be hostile to if they felt you might be (or become) a burden. Marriage laws were in a state of flux, but relied on communal familiarity with the couple's history to validate their status (reading the banns). But in America, everyone was on the move and many were very recent arrivals to the continent, to say nothing of a particular community. Changing one's presented identity in any respect was easier. And if people were not always automatically taken at face value when they showed up in a community, the residents were often willing to let their deeds and work speak for them. You were what you could do, whether it was a specific occupation or a gender. Americans also seemed a bit more willing to shrug and accept the situation when it turned out someone had a different background than originally believed. But in contrast to all that, the increasing professionalization of the police force, and social suspicion of "others", whether along class, nationality, race, or religious boundaries, meant that official scrutiny was often turned on the details of someone's life if they were morally suspect, not simply if they were legally suspect. This legal interest in controling gender presentation would increase across the 19th century and well into the 20th.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Manion, Jen. 2020. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-48380-3
Part Two: US Husbands, 1830-1910 - Chapter 5: The Workers
[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]
In this chapter, Manion touches on--but doesn't fully explore--a couple of key differences between the trans-masculine experience in England and in America. English social structures around marriage, employment, charitable support, and rights to residence were deeply embedded in an assumption of static location. The parish you were born into was obliged to support you if you were indigent, which meant other parishes could be hostile to if they felt you might be (or become) a burden. Marriage laws were in a state of flux, but relied on communal familiarity with the couple's history to validate their status (reading the banns). But in America, everyone was on the move and many were very recent arrivals to the continent, to say nothing of a particular community. Changing one's presented identity in any respect was easier. And if people were not always automatically taken at face value when they showed up in a community, the residents were often willing to let their deeds and work speak for them. You were what you could do, whether it was a specific occupation or a gender. Americans also seemed a bit more willing to shrug and accept the situation when it turned out someone had a different background than originally believed. But in contrast to all that, the increasing professionalization of the police force, and social suspicion of "others", whether along class, nationality, race, or religious boundaries, meant that official scrutiny was often turned on the details of someone's life if they were morally suspect, not simply if they were legally suspect. This legal interest in controling gender presentation would increase across the 19th century and well into the 20th.
# # #
While the first half of Manion's book focuses primarily on female husbands in England, the second half moves across the ocean to the United States. People who transed gender in 19th century America for economic reasons operated not only within the binary of male and female, but within a racial context that largely categorized work along racial lines. The white male worker had the best economic opportunities, but the frequency with which people assigned female could trans gender to access those opportunities undermined the theory of a clear gender divide, and highlighted the opportunities for those who were willing to trade female gender presentation for economic access.
One of the greatest contrasts with the situation in England was easy geographic mobility. Mobility made transing gender easier, and economic motivations tended to be taken at face value at discovery, especially in contrast to the usual alternative of sex work.
The one context in which transing gender as part of identity change was looked askance was for Black workers who were suspected of using gender change as a disguise when escaping slavery. Black mobility was more constrained even in the North or after Emancipation, so several of the advantages to white gender-crossers were eliminated.
This chapter also focuses on the increasing importance of a professional police force to the identification, pursuit, and management of gender transgression.
The first focus biography in this chapter is George Wilson, a factory worker who was accosted by the New York City police in 1836 for apparent public intoxication, in the course of which Wilson’s assigned gender was identified. Wilson presented a life history that was significantly fabricated and designed to elicit sympathy, but which was undermined somewhat when Wilson’s wife Elizabeth turned up at the station, willing to provide further details.
The couple were both from working class Scottish families and had likely met in Glasgow when Wilson was working in the same factory as Elizabeth’s father. They married in 1821 and emigrated to North America, settling first in Canada where they were joined by Elizabeth’s father, and then the whole family moved to New Jersey where father and son-in-law again worked in the same factory. When that factory went out of business, they moved to NYC where Wilson worked in a hat factory. Manion speculates that Elizabeth may have been a factory worker as well, though no specific evidence is given.
At the police station, Elizabeth’s goal was to gain Wilson’s freedom, as his continued employment was essential for the family’s financial security. The magistrate’s goal was to satisfy his curiosity about Wilson’s personal history. Elizabeth stated that she hadn’t known her husband’s assigned gender before the wedding, but Wilson told her afterward while they were in the middle of the voyage to America—a context that would have reduced her options for response. She reported that she accepted the situation and was content to continue as husband and wife. And certainly, after they were joined by her father, her options would have been somewhat wider if she had objected.
Several versions of Wilson’s history prior to the marriage were offered, but all revolved around the desire to leave an undesirable family situation around age 12 and taking up life as a boy in the context of leaving home.
The consideration of George and Elizabeth Wilson's fate leaves off without any resolution and the thread picks up with other examples of transing gender, particularly as sailors (which Wilson was originally thought to be by the arresting officer). Accounts of “female sailors” were common in American newspapers of the time, even as they were growing less common in British accounts. Their stories were popular tabloid fare and some related that it was other such accounts, or biographies like Deborah Sampson’s, that inspired them to take up the profession.
Although nautical jobs were more open to Black workers than many other professions, the treatment of Charles Wilson in the press shows that the journalistic category “female sailor” was inherently categorized as white. Charles Wilson was variously described as Black or colored, but was never offered the label of “female sailor”. After serving in the navy, Wilson was convicted of stealing pigs in New York City and their assigned gender was identified when they were forced to change into prison clothing.
Several other examples from nautical contexts are discussed, including George (Ann) Johnson who signed on with a whaling vessel after being abandoned by a lover. (Abandonment by a lover or fiance was a common motivation offered in trans biographies. The motif was guaranteed to elicit sympathy and may not always have been rooted in truth.) When Johnson's assigned gender was discovered while at sea, the captain decided to enforce gender norms by requiring Johnson to return to a female presentation, to cease working as a sailor (against Johnson’s wishes), and to be confined to a private cabin until they could be returned to land. But having gotten a taste for a different life, after returning to New York, Johnson again took up working as a man in a whip-making factory, with occasional ventures into working on a riverboat or setting up a confectionary shop. When an accident once more revealed Johnson’s assigned gender, their friends and coworkers had only positive reports of them and although it is suggested they were no longer able to continue in their profession(s), no one could find any complaint to press legally.
Manion concludes the chapter with a consideration of the sexuality of these 19th century laborers. Most of their stories don’t involve intimate relationships. (Manion calls them “asexual” but a more accurate description might be either celibate are unpartnered.) Manion suggests that within the American context, masculinity could be established purely by laboring at male-coded jobs, and the establishment of a marriage was less relevant as evidence than it had been in the Old World. (Note that George Wilson’s marriage was established before emigrating.)
Time period:
Saturday, July 31, 2021 - 16:21
By the usual calendar schedule, given that this is a 5th Saturday, there should have been a fiction podcast today. I've gotten behind on the podcast activities that involve reaching out to set things up with other people, and that includes lining up my narrators. Be assured that all the planned stories will be podcast, but perhaps not on the planned schedule. I'd rather put out a great episode than be chained to a specific format.
Major category:
LHMPTuesday, July 27, 2021 - 07:00
A short (novella?) historic romance between an impoverished middle-class woman trying to eke out a living on the fringes of the propertied class, and her childhood friend of that class who is struggling to find a way to be himself without losing everything. A Christmas masquerade ball provides the context for the masks to start slipping as our heroine connects the dashing man she meets at the ball with the eccentric young woman she thought she knew. A delightful happily-ever-after trans love story that threads the hazards of historic plausibility very neatly.
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ReviewsMonday, July 26, 2021 - 07:00
One of the themes that emerges from the individiaul biographies in this book is that the "female husband" phenomenon was primarily associated with working class people. (There are a few exceptions, such as Mary Diana Dods, as well as those who transed gender without marrying, which includes a few more examples of professional-class people.) On the one hand, the types of occupations these "female husbands" had challenged myths about gendered abilities even more strongly than middle-class professions would have. Myths that rarely took into account the physicality of many female-coded professions in pre-industrial times. But the social context also came with attitudes and prejudices common to working class communities.
The husband held social--as well as legal--power over the wife, and systems were designed to support that power. Husbands who employed financial, emotional, or physical abuse within the home were rarely held to account, as long as they didn't "go too far." A willingness to disrupt gender expectations on a personal basis didn't mean that someone held progressive ideas about gender equality on a more general level. And to the extent that performance of gender expectations may have been essential to their success, they may have had incentives to embrace male sterotypes.
Their wives, as Manion notes, were in a contradictory position. Assuming that they were aware of their husband's assigned gender, they held a unique power in the relationship. The wife was the "normal" one, not the transgressive one. She could present herself as naive, or as tricked, but there were no legal consequences looming over her. Except, of course, the consequences of suddenly becoming an unmarried woman--indeed, perhaps treated as a never-married woman--in a society that disadvantaged unmarried women. And, of course, there was love. Again assuming that she went into the relationship with full knowledge, there must have been some degree of affection or camraderie that made the marriage attractive, despite the hazards of discovery. That, too, might make her hesitant to use the power of her knowledge, regardless of provocation.
But overall, these stories point out the variety and ordinariness of the people involved in "female husband" marriages. If some of them behaved badly (on either side), others lived the quiet, ordinary lives that their friends and neighbors described to sensation-seeking journalists after the fact. For every "female husband" whose story ended up in the news, we can know that there were many who never had the misfortune of public exposure. We see glimpses of them between the lines, as in Henry Stoak's second marriage where evidently the community was well aware that someone once known as Harriet, and once outed in the context of a divorce, was living among them as a happily married man--and nobody thought it was their business to do anything about it. Now there's a story prompt.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Manion, Jen. 2020. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-48380-3
Chapter 4: The Wives
[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]
One of the themes that emerges from the individiaul biographies in this book is that the "female husband" phenomenon was primarily associated with working class people. (There are a few exceptions, such as Mary Diana Dods, as well as those who transed gender without marrying, which includes a few more examples of professional-class people.) On the one hand, the types of occupations these "female husbands" had challenged myths about gendered abilities even more strongly than middle-class professions would have. Myths that rarely took into account the physicality of many female-coded professions in pre-industrial times. But the social context also came with attitudes and prejudices common to working class communities.
The husband held social--as well as legal--power over the wife, and systems were designed to support that power. Husbands who employed financial, emotional, or physical abuse within the home were rarely held to account, as long as they didn't "go too far." A willingness to disrupt gender expectations on a personal basis didn't mean that someone held progressive ideas about gender equality on a more general level. And to the extent that performance of gender expectations may have been essential to their success, they may have had incentives to embrace male sterotypes.
Their wives, as Manion notes, were in a contradictory position. Assuming that they were aware of their husband's assigned gender, they held a unique power in the relationship. The wife was the "normal" one, not the transgressive one. She could present herself as naive, or as tricked, but there were no legal consequences looming over her. Except, of course, the consequences of suddenly becoming an unmarried woman--indeed, perhaps treated as a never-married woman--in a society that disadvantaged unmarried women. And, of course, there was love. Again assuming that she went into the relationship with full knowledge, there must have been some degree of affection or camraderie that made the marriage attractive, despite the hazards of discovery. That, too, might make her hesitant to use the power of her knowledge, regardless of provocation.
But overall, these stories point out the variety and ordinariness of the people involved in "female husband" marriages. If some of them behaved badly (on either side), others lived the quiet, ordinary lives that their friends and neighbors described to sensation-seeking journalists after the fact. For every "female husband" whose story ended up in the news, we can know that there were many who never had the misfortune of public exposure. We see glimpses of them between the lines, as in Henry Stoak's second marriage where evidently the community was well aware that someone once known as Harriet, and once outed in the context of a divorce, was living among them as a happily married man--and nobody thought it was their business to do anything about it. Now there's a story prompt.
# # #
This chapter looks at the experiences of the people fulfill like the role of wife to a female husband. The first case is that of James Allen who was killed in an industrial accident in 1829. Allen’s wife Abigail then had to deal with the fact not only of her husband’s death, but of public knowledge that her husband was a person assigned female. They had been married for 21 years.
There is discussion of the circumstances of the autopsy and the coroner’s attitude toward this discovery. Although Allen’s assigned gender was made public knowledge by an assistant and medical students observing the autopsy, the coroner systematically referred to Allen with male pronouns and justified this on the basis that it was impossible for Allen to be a woman as he had a wife, after all. He had seen the actual marriage certificate. The coroner refused to support further inquiries into Allen’s identity, arguing that the only purpose of the autopsy was to determine the cause of death and that further inquiry was not within the scope of his job. Whether this may have been a rationale to protect Abigail’s privacy or whether the coroner genuinely couldn’t cope with the cognitive dissonance of a person acting in society as a man and yet with female anatomy is up for question. In any event, the coroner prevented further examination of Allen’s body and ensured that they were buried in a secure location, safe from the curious or from body snatchers.
Nonetheless there was public curiosity about the story, with former coworkers of the deceased being interviewed about their impressions of Allen’s gender presentation. Abigail insisted that she had never had reason to question her husband’s gender. There is no indication that the marriage was for ulterior purposes. The two had worked together in service in the same household for three years before their marriage. In order to establish themselves independently, like the Hows, they pooled their savings and went into business running a public house. However they met with misfortune due to a robbery and abandoned that line of work. Allen took up the trade of ship-building while Abigail worked in the bonnet-making trade.
After Allen’s death, Abigail was assailed by public accusations, due to the nature of her marriage. She was bullied and harassed and rumors were spread that her own gender might be up for question. It was vitally important for her good name as a respectable woman to establish that she was not a knowing participant in a same-sex marriage. Abigail needed the insurance money for Allen’s death and already had to deal with insurers who tried to reject the claim on the principle that Allen had committed fraud via gender disguise.
In the end Abigail succeeded in being granted the life insurance she was due as a widow. But her continued assertions that she was ignorant of the nature of her marriage may have been essential for that success. Public opinion came around to that position as well. It must have been easier for people to except that Abigail had not knowingly married a woman disguised as a man there by maintaining the gender status quo rather than believing that a woman was capable of entering deliberately into a same-sex marriage.
The second case presented in this chapter is that of Henry Stoake, who was a bricklayer in the 1830s in England but aspired to make their way up in the world by apprenticing to a master builder. By the end of the decade stock at earned enough at the trade that they claimed they no longer needed to work and could live off their earnings.
Stoake ‘s wife Ann had been the accountant and bookkeeper for the bricklaying business and played a crucial role in Stoake’s success, but legally all the wealth of the household belonged only to the husband, and Ann became concerned about maintaining her property rights. Ann sought the advice of a lawyer in seeking a legal separation that would ensure her financial stability. Ann’s concerns appear to have been valid, as Stoake had regularly refused to recognize her value in the business and would punish her by withholding money for housekeeping expenses. Ann also alleged that Stoake was physically abusive to her when drunk. She wanted a divorce and her attorney pressured Stoake to grant her the house and furnishings as a start.
It was not an obvious strategy to use Stoake’s assigned gender as leverage in the divorce settlement, as the risks to Ann’s reputation and standing as a wife eligible for a divorce settlement were equally at risk.
The two had been legally married in 1817 but once Stoake’s assigned gender was revealed the very status of the marriage, as well as questions of appropriate measures for legal separation, came under question. Conversely the reluctance that Ann brought to revealing the truth of the marriage argues that initially she had entered into it willingly and knowingly. This was not a decision to separate due to a sudden revelation. They had been married for 21 years.
In the end, it was something of a split decision: she received public support in her claims to leave the marriage with a proper share of the couple’s property, however she was stigmatized for what was believed to be her stupidity or ignorance at having married someone who turned out not to be male after all.
Similarly to the somewhat less conflict-driven case of Abigail Allen, the public was eager to believe that a woman could be naïve enough to go through two decades of marriage without realizing that her spouse was a woman, rather than believing that a woman would knowingly enter into such a relationship. In the case of neither Stoake nor Allen did any information come out that soundly established a reason for the initial gender-crossing.
Interestingly, after the Stoake divorce, Henry Stoake was not required to take up a female presentation. And although they were the target of some public hostility, they continued living in the same general region and eventually married another wife. After their death by drowning, some 21 years after the divorce case, a witness at the inquest testified that they were aware of Stoake’s original assigned gender and birth name. This suggests that this knowledge may have been available to Stoake’s second wife when she entered the marriage.
The chapter concludes with a consideration of the concepts of a third gender and of intersex bodies and how those concepts might be raised in certain cases of female husbands. There was a public willingness to believe that living a male profession and life could cause a person assigned female to become more physically masculine--a belief that reflects earlier medieval attitudes to some extent. The question of homoeroticism, as such, was rarely an overt part of public concern in these cases. The public was interested in how a female-bodied person could physically and socially perform masculinity successfully, but romantic attraction to a woman was not really part of the equation that people constructed for these cases. But after the fact, people might express (or discover) suspicions about a person’s gender in terms of “possibly belonging to a third sex”, by which they generally meant some type of intersex condition. What is interesting is that—until confronted by proof of the gender-crossing—these co-workers and neighbors were evidently mostly content to keep their suspicions to themselves. Mostly.
By the 19th century, intersex anatomy (labeled “hermaphroditism” at the time) was going out of fashion as an explanation or signifier of cross-gender behavior. But intersex conditions might raise questions about a person’s alignment with their assigned gender, as in the case of Pennsylvania stagecoach driver James Carey whose gender was questioned due to observations by the woman who prepared their body for burial. In this case, the autopsy board included an artist who illustrated the board’s findings and collected additional community information about Carey’s life. Although these findings supported a conclusion that Carey’s physiology was ambiguous (in general, not only with respect to genitals), the community testimony was positive and accepting, with a distinct lack of judgment regarding contradictory features. (Carey falls outside the core category of “female husband” in not having a partner, as well as not being clearly assignable as female.)
Sunday, July 25, 2021 - 10:55
If you've found your way here from the GCLS panel on historical fiction, let me give you a quick tour. The Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog has an introductory page here, or you can just browse the bibliography of works we've covered so far. The best place to start with the podcast is with our chronological index. It has links to both the audio versions and the transcripts. For my own historical fiction (as well as my fantasy publications) check out the publications tab. And if you want to follow me on social media, your best bet is Twitter, where I have a personal account as well as an account focused on the Lesbian Historic Motif Project.
If you find the LHMP interesting or valuable, the best thing you can do is tell all your friends about it. The second best thing you can do is interact with me about it in social media. The third best thing you can do is support the Patreon. (The Patreon doesn't offer much in the way of access to extras because I mostly put stuff out for free.)
And if you like my fiction and want me to continue writing it, recommend it to your friends, post reviews, send me fan mail. (I also have a Discord, for a more personal experience and hanging out with other fans. Contact me for an invitation.)
Major category:
PromotionSunday, July 25, 2021 - 07:00
I’m never going to complain about the hints and beginnings of an openness in mainstream romance publishing to consider f/f historical romances. Hopefully we will eventually have so many that I don’t find myself pinning all my hopes on each individual title. Sebastian’s entry into the field branches off from an existing series, matching a lady’s companion with a haunted past and a maid with a suspicious present in something of a revenge caper. The romance worked for me, but there were a number of improbabilities in the depiction of the social context that kept throwing me out of the story. Including the resolution to the revenge-caper. So: enjoyable, but not quite up to what I always hope for.
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ReviewsSaturday, July 24, 2021 - 07:00
All of the Dominion of the Fallen books have their harsh and horrifying moments, but this one feels like the darkest going in (though maybe not so dark coming out). If anyone with less skill than de Bodard were writing this series, I might have noped out after the first book, but she gets past my uneasiness around horror with gripping characters and masterful worldbuilding. The fallen angels, dragon kingdoms, and loose-cannon magical creatures of Paris are plunged into something close to all-out war. Each character finds themselves having to decide what and whom they would save, if they had the power, knowing they can’t save everything. If, like me, you reach the 90% mark and have no idea how the story will end in anything other than complete obliteration, I’ll just say: keep reading.
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ReviewsFriday, July 23, 2021 - 07:00
A free short story set in O’Dell’s “Janet Watson” series. Following the framing motif of journaling that features in the main series, this story takes the format of a diary of a teenage Janet Watson during the year that inspired her to pursue medicine. Something of a character sketch in form, we’re offered more background into the near-future worldbuilding that underpins the series. For those who love Janet, this shows the girl who will become the woman, already facing a dangerous and frightening future but without quite as many smashed dreams.
Major category:
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