Not a Fad: A Trans History Lesson

Chapter 11: Male-to-Female Cross Dressing

Admittedly, in graduate school I spent less time researching about male-to-female gender transgressions. Part of this is personal interest and bias, but from what I have studied, male cross-dressing was also documented less often than female cross-dressing.

[The one exception might be eunuchs. However, this is a topic I literally know nothing about, so I'm going to move along....]

As discussed previously, men were seen as inherently better that women, so, it made sense that a woman might aspire to be more male-like. But any man who desired to lower his status by dressing like a woman was baffling. Due to this logic, men who cross-dressed had to have some ulterior motive. In most stories of medieval male cross-dressing, the individual was suspected of either trying to gain sexual access to women, or of participating in witchcraft.

Invading all-female space was an unacceptable transgression for a biological male. Any man who cross dressed and entered female-only space was accused of sexual impropriety. An example of this was already shown in the aforementioned Le Roman de Silence. In this fictional tale there is a male nun who in fact is cross-dressing to gain sexual access to the Queen; he is executed for his crime. Cross-dressing was a serious offense.

An early historical account of a cross-dressing nun appears in the sixth century writings of Gregory of Tours. He reports that the Abbes of the Saint Radegund's nunnery was accused of keeping a cross-dressed man around for her sexual pleasure. However, at the trial, "a man stepped forward, dressed in woman's clothing [not as a nun]... he said that he was impotent and that was the reason why he dressed himself up in that way" (X:15). A doctor was called to testify, and he recounted how as a youth this boy had suffered from pains in the groin, and that the child was castrated in order to cure his suffering. The child was then raised by his mother, who happened to live in the countryside in the vicinity of the nunnery.

The Abbes was cleared of the charges, but the initial reaction reflects the assumptions of the time period that the only reason why a man would degrade himself by wearing female clothing would be to gain sexual access to women.

The other common stereotype for why a man would wear women's clothing was that he was participating in witchcraft. This was also not a trivial issue, and if found guilty could lead to severe consequences.

The connection between male cross-dressing and magic can be found in the ninth century book of penance from the Spanish monastery of Silos. It states that, "those [men] who in the dance wear women's clothes and strangely devise them and employ jawbones and a bow and a spade and things like these shall do penance for one year" (McNeill 289).

There are of course examples of male cross dressing beyond trying to gain sexual access to women or to participate in witchcraft.

In 1394 a cross-dressing male was picked up for prostitution on a London street. The authorities did not know what charges to press (Karras and Lorenzo 101-116). They took a statement and then released this individual; no further documentation exists.

The statement begins by saying that John Rykener, who called himself Eleanor, was discovered in an ally way with another man, "committing that detestable, unmentionable, and ignominious vice" (Karras and Lorenzo 111). The language here is so strong can it can be understood to refer to sodomy, although it is interesting to note that neither the word "sodomy" nor "sodomite" appear in the testimony. Nor is Ryekener explicitly accused of prostitution.

While in today's terms a prostitute is anyone who commits sexual acts for money, the term used during the Middle Ages better correlates to the word "slut," a derogative word for someone perceived to be an over-sexual woman. A male prostitute could not be conceptualized according to the contemporary discourse.

But Rykener was guilty of self-feminization –- both in dress and in sexual activity – to unacceptable levels. The combination of both cross-dressing and engaging in sodomy, however, did not conform to anticipated expressions of criminal behavior. What likely interested the prosecutors most was the admission of sleeping with members of the clergy, "Rykener further confessed that many priests had committed that vice with him as with a woman ... he accommodated priests more readily than other people because they wished to give him more than others" (Karras and Lorenzo 111).

There were not very many positive associations with male cross-dressing. Only under two circumstances was male cross-dressing acceptable, and that was either in jest or on the stage.

Theater lost popularity after the fall of the Roman Empire, and only began to reemerge during the late Middle Ages, first in the form of dramatic reenactments of biblical stories and the life of Christ. Most of these productions were put on by the church, and acted out by the clergy. Because women were not allowed to go beyond the alter, they were not allowed to participate in these plays. Therefore male clergy members had to perform the female roles. There is a story of a youth who preformed the role of Saint Barbara so beautifully that everyone who watched his performance wanted to take him home and feed and educate him. Unfortunately for this boy, his voice changed the following year, and his acting career was put to an end (Mentzius 2:89).

When secular plays became popular again the actors who participated in them came from the lower classes (Jusserand 177-218). These vagabonds were of such low standing already that their gender-transgressions on stage were not considered significant.

Cross-dressing among the masses may have been culturally acceptable at very specific times. The Cronica of Salimbene de Adam reports that in the Italian town of Reggio during a Carnival held in 1287:

Many of them borrowed some female clothing, and dressed in it they began to play and to charge around the city jousting, and the better to look like women, they whitened some masks with lead-white, and put them on their faces, not expecting punishment for such acts (Dean 199-200).

This account sounds very similar to modern celebrations of Mardi Gras or Halloween. During these celebrations people who would normally never transgress culturally prescribed boundaries let lose for one day. As a mass celebration, many people took part, and one person couldn't be singled out for breaking the rules. It also may be a factor that this is depicted as a popular festival, and that lower standards of social behavior were held for peasants. Though there is an account of a nobleman who went on an adventure while dressed as a woman.

During the early thirteenth century Ulrich von Liechtenstein chronicled his numerous adventures, including one tale of cross-dressing. There is scholarly debate over to what degree this account is either an exaggerated autobiography or pure fiction. Either way, this story depicts a nobleman who cross-dresses in order to fulfill a chivalric quest, and he is not judged for his behavior.

He describes what he wears, "I had some woman's clothing made to wear throughout the masquerade ... I bought two braids for my disguise, the prettiest they could devise" (Liechtenstein, stanza 473). His shield and helmet are completely white, and he presents himself as the Goddess Venus throughout his journey. In his verses he describes how daintily he tries to act, and how over the top he tries to go.

The descriptions of his behavior sound very similar to contemporary Hollywood films about macho-men who for one reason or another go under cover and dress in drag. The result is not an actual representation of a female gender performance, but of a humorous gag, or jest. Ulrich von Liechtenstein is realized to be a man several times, but the reaction he receives is always complementary, such as, "all ladies everywhere should be grateful that you in friendliness have put on you a woman's dress and thereby honored womankind" (Liechtenstein, stanza 604). This reaction is probably produced because he is an obviously masculine knight who agrees to go on this journey as a display of his love for a woman. He is therefore not trying to actually live as a woman or give up his social status, but instead is going on this humorous journey as some sort of romantic gesture, or chivalric deed.

In summary, male cross dressing was seen either as deviant behavior or as a joke. There are some uncomfortable parallels between medieval attitudes towards male gender transgressions and the discrimination that many male-to-female transgender people face in modern American society. This is a topic that in retrospect I wish I had focused on more. There is definitely more to explore!