Transgender lives, lesbian histories? The reception of transmasculine figures from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first
By AJ Birt, MA History
The following article is an edited chapter from AJ’s undergraduate dissertation, ‘Transgender lives, lesbian histories? The reception of transmasculine figures from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first’, submitted 2023. Gale’s online resources, particularly their primary source archives for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were invaluable throughout this work. All of the primary sources below were accessed through Gale’s fantastic online library with the aid of their advanced search.
This article looks at a nineteenth-century figure, who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) but presented as male: James Allen. Rather than study their sexuality, I endeavour to examine their gender presentation, engaging with the methodology of Jen Manion and Susan Stryker. For example, this article uses gender-neutral pronouns, following the style of Manion’s pioneering study Female Husbands.
By interrogating the contemporary response to Allen’s gender presentation this study both returns agency to them, and rectifies the work of prior studies that continued to see transmasculine individuals as lesbians.
Allen was outed after their accidental death in 1829, and the subsequent revelation was reported in newspapers across the country. This broad curiosity around Allen came from the fact that they had successfully passed as cisgender throughout their life.
Despite having some incongruent traits, such as a lack of facial hair and a ‘weakly voice’, Allen compensated for these through their behaviour. (1) They took on male employment to consolidate their masculinity, particularly because the employment consisted of tough physical labour that could change their physique through the building of muscle. Despite physical discrepancies being noted, contemporaries ‘never for a moment suspected her of belonging to the other sex.’ (2)
It is evident that despite their sex, Allen’s gender performativity was enough to legitimise their transmasculine identity, suggesting that contemporaries in the nineteenth century understood gender as largely legitimised by one’s actions and lifestyle. This perspective on gender reinforces Judith Butler’s assertions that gender is based on cultural norms of performed and learned, daily practices.
The style of the articles on Allen reflects typical attitudes to other transmasculine individuals, such as Charles Hamilton and James Howe, through the use of changing pronouns. The authors of the articles I have examined are reluctant to legitimise Allen’s masculinity once their sexed body was known. Examples of this can be seen in Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette; whenever Allen’s masculinity is complimented, such as their ‘excellent’ work as a groom, female pronouns are immediately used in the same sentence or the following sentence. (3)
When Allen was alive, they were just another one of the guys; once their sex was outed, they became a spectacle. This approach, coupled with the consistent use of adjectives such as ‘extraordinary’ and ‘mysterious’, demonstrates how contemporaries were unwilling to legitimise gender-non-conformity in the nineteenth century, instead viewing it as a dramatic performance. (4) This fascination was exacerbated by contemporary ideas of binary gender and systems of power. To successfully assume a male role without causing all of society to collapse was something truly impressive indeed.
Whilst the overall attitude to gender deviance as an astounding event may seem concurrent across the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the reports that surrounded Allen we see how attitudes to gender deviance were further changing, beginning to be medicalised. Joseph Bristow argues that sexology debates influenced how gender-non-conforming individuals were responded to, something we see reflected in the newspaper reports on Allen. The papers are obsessed with attempting to find a reason for Allen's transing gender. How and why would someone choose to reject society in such a way? What could inspire them to endeavour down a path of such unnaturalness?
One of the earliest articles on Allen, from the 23rd of January 1829, reports that the reasons ‘will probably never be discovered’, yet in a paper only two days later an alleged explanation was printed. (5) Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle claimed that Allen presented themselves as male due to being ‘violated when a child’, the impact of this causing their mind to explore the path of gender deviance. (6) This explanation for Allen’s gender-non-conformity reflects contemporary, medicalised concerns about sexuality and gender; sexual deviance equated to gender deviance. A need to concoct an explanation for why Allen had transed gender reflects contemporary anxieties about understanding sexuality and gender, a desire that stemmed from a need to regulate and control a socially and politically turbulent society.
The responses to female husbands such as Allen have a consistent theme: attempting to explain away gender-non-conformity. Transmasculine presentation is not enough to legitimize their gender identity; scholars and contemporaries have always sought something deeper, an economic, social or psychological reason for transing gender. To impose a motivation, such as economy or lust, erases transgender identities and ignores the importance of gender presentation throughout the lives of transgender individuals. The ‘female husband’ has had their autonomy erased by scholars attempting to explain away or label a gender-non-conforming life. This issue can only be rectified by works such as this study that engage with transgender methodology.
References:
1 Anonymous, ‘Extraordinary Investigation; Or, the Female Husband,’ Leicester Journal, 78 (1829) p. 4, found via Gale Resources Archive [accessed 8 April 2023]
2 Ibid, p. 4
3. Anonymous, ‘Extraordinary Investigation; or, the Female Husband,’ Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 38
(1829) p. 4, found via Gale Resources Archive [accessed 8 April 2023]
4. Anonymous, ‘Female Husband,’ Lancaster Gazetter, 28 (1829) found via Gale Resources Archive [accessed 8 April 2023]
5. Leicester Journal, p. 4
6. Anonymous, ‘The Female Husband,’ Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, VIII (1829) found via Gale Resources Archive [accessed 8/4/2023]