True Sex. Emily Skidmore

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СКАЧАТЬ the gender assigned to them at birth to the one with which they identified. I refer to them as “men” because they all expressed the sentiment that they were men despite their anatomy.24 Additionally, I chose to use the prefix or term “trans” rather than “transgender” since the latter as a category did not emerge until the late twentieth century and as such was not an identity category available to the subjects of this book. Also, I am wary that the use of today’s terminology would render less visible the historical specificities of the lives of the subjects discussed in this work. Of course, the term “trans” was similarly not available to the subjects of this book, but I have chosen to use it instead of “transgender” in hopes of conveying the open-ended nature of gender being made and remade.

      In addition to the term “trans men,” throughout this book I also use the terms “true sex” and “queer embodiment.” I use “true sex” to refer to the sex an individual was assigned at birth. I place this term in quotes throughout the text to trouble the assumed connection between the sex assigned at birth and gender identity, and to make clear that I am not suggesting that biology is (or should be) destiny. Additionally, I use the term “queer embodiment” to refer to nonnormative forms of gender embodiment. This term also signals the dissonance between the sex assigned to the historical subjects at birth and their gender presentation (i.e., the gender their community took for granted). I find the term “queer embodiment” particularly useful because it helps to register the nonnormative quality of certain bodies yet refuses to fix them in the strict identity categories. The term, therefore, exists in productive tension with “trans men,” and it suggests the impossibility of any modern term conveying the historical reality of the subjects of this book. Of course, these choices are contentious, as a great deal of scholarly debate has occurred within queer and transgender studies regarding the “true” identities of historical cross-dressers, with some scholars arguing that they should be considered butches, and others maintaining that they represent transgender men.25 My terminology choices of “trans men” and “queer embodiment” therefore attempt to thread the needle, highlighting gender transgression and utilizing the insights of transgender studies while also being cautious about applying modern terms to people and situations in the past.

      Organization of the Book

      Chapter 1, “The Last Female Husband: New Boundaries of Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century,” centers on the 1870s and 1880s, the period during which sexology first emerged in the United States. This chapter analyzes the impact that the emergent discourse had on popular understandings of sexuality, embodiment, and gender. It argues that this period marked a new awareness of the possibility of same-sex intimacy but that no one framework became hegemonic to replace the “romantic friendship” model that had been dominant in the early and mid-nineteenth century. Chapter 1 discusses the cases of Joseph Lobdell and Frank Dubois, two trans men who gained newspaper attention in the 1870s and 1880s. Both of these individuals are notable in their own way: Lobdell was the first individual to be referred to as a “lesbian” in an American publication, and Dubois has the dubious distinction of being the last person referred to as a “female husband” in the mainstream, mass-circulation press. Through an analysis of the popular and medical representations of Lobdell and Dubois, this chapter reveals that the mass-circulation press of this period was far less squeamish when it came to discussing female sexuality than has previously been described. Additionally, the chapter analyzes the demise of the notion of the “female husband” and argues that after the 1890s newspapers (both local and national) were far less apt to describe trans men as a singular, definable group—even in light of the invention of the new term “lesbian.”

      Chapter 2, “Beyond Community: Rural Lives of Trans Men,” discusses the cases of four trans men who deliberately chose to live their lives in rural communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: George Green, William C. Howard, Willie Ray, and Joe Monahan. Whereas most of the existing historiography on queer history has portrayed rural areas as inherently repressive, this chapter illustrates that, at the turn of twentieth century, many trans men did not seek refuge in the bustling anonymity of large cities but chose instead to live within the nation’s small towns and rural communities. As such, this chapter’s subjects provide a means to meditate on the meaning of community for trans men during this historical period. Rather than seeking the community of other queer individuals in urban enclaves, these trans men were able to find support, tolerance, and, at times, acceptance from their rural neighbors. This chapter asserts that the structure of small-town communities, wherein community standards were policed through regimes of familiarity, provided tolerance for the gender transgressions of trans men in ways that urban communities, wherein behavior is more often policed through impersonal means, could not. On the whole, this chapter explores what queer history can look like when the framework of queer community is abandoned.

      Chapter 3, “ ‘The Trouble That Clothes Make’: Whiteness and Acceptability,” tackles an issue that the historiography of the LGBT past has been hesitant to take on thus far: the power of whiteness in transferring acceptability to all individuals perceived as white—even queer ones. This chapter looks at four of the most widely circulating stories of trans men in the early twentieth century (Murray Hall, Frank Woodhull, Eugene De Forest, and Ellis Glenn) and notes not only that each trans man was white but also that he was lauded in the press for his successful mastery of the tenets of white masculinity. “The Trouble That Clothes Make” contends that stories of white trans men became a means through which newspapers could extol the virtues of normative citizenship—to celebrate the importance of hard work, economic productivity, independence, and service to the community. In a context in which much was changing, newspaper editors mobilized stories of trans men to assure their readers that patriarchy, citizenship, and white supremacy still regulated who had access to the power of self-determination.

      Chapter 4, “Gender Transgressions in the Age of U.S. Empire,” moves from examining local responses to trans men to meditating on the impact that global phenomenon had on national representations of trans men at the turn of the twentieth century—a period of rapid U.S. expansion abroad. This chapter argues that the context of the growing U.S. empire provided national newspapers with a ready-made discourse to pathologize gender transgressors: the notion of “foreignness.” “Gender Transgressions in an Age of U.S. Empire” focuses on four trans men who were either nonwhite or immigrant or who were otherwise associated with “foreign” elements such as non-Western religion: Jack Garland, Ralph Kerwineo, Nicolai De Raylan, and Peter Stratford. In each case, the individual’s alleged “foreignness” proved to be a liability. This chapter reminds readers of the power of empire in shaping perceptions of gender and argues that acceptance of one’s queer embodiment is all too often a privilege of whiteness.

      The final chapter, “To Have and to Hold: Trans Husbands in the Early Twentieth Century,” circles back to a topic discussed in the first chapter: “female husbands.” Though the mass-circulation press had ceased using the phrase in the 1880s, trans men persisted in marrying women into the 1920s and beyond. Indeed, between 1890 and 1930, almost half of the newspaper articles about trans men mentioned the fact that the individual was married (or planned to marry). This chapter finds that many trans men sought marriage as a means to illustrate their status as “good men” in their communities—a commonality that illustrates their distance from the growing urban queer subcultures. In addition, this chapter finds that, in most cases, local newspapers (and courts) responded with indifference when a trans man’s marriage became public knowledge. However, as the story circulated away from the local context, the act of getting married was increasingly portrayed as pathological, and the stories became overtly sensationalized. For example, national headlines published after the 1929 arrest of Los Angeles resident Kenneth Lisonbee included “Suave, Trouser-Clad Barber Turns Out to Be Damsel,” “Posing as Man, Girl Weds Two,” and “Trousered Tomboy Bleats in СКАЧАТЬ