In 1825, Harriet Moore, a native of Sligo, Ireland, found herself the subject of national publicity after it emerged that she had lived as a man for the last six or seven years. At age 14, Harriet’s parents died and finding herself without protection, she donned her brother’s clothes and began working as an Irish grazier. She later came to England as a drover’s lad and went to work in the stables, where she got promoted to groom, then footboy. After two years Harriet was discharged and went to work in a salt yard, lodging with a woman named Lacy who discovered her sex by accident. Lacy blackmailed Harriet into marriage with her pregnant daughter Matilda, promising a never-received dowry. While successfully managing to work in the male guise, Harriet found that marriage unmanned her. Supporting a wife and child, and a wife’s mother into the bargain, was no easy matter- especially once Matilda became pregnant for a second time! Harriet left home to find work elsewhere, but found herself being prosecuted for wife desertion by the parish officers. As the law bore down, Harriet donned her petticoats, extricating herself from the obligations of marriage and fatherhood, and began looking for a job in domestic service.
Harriet was not alone in trying to pass as a member of the opposite sex. The history of cross-dressing and transgendering has highlighted both the numerous instances of individuals who dressed as the opposite sex and the multiple reasons for doing so. In the eighteenth century, there were numerous tales of female soldiers and sailors who enlisted and had long-successful careers in male guise. Their motives were varied from those who enlisted as it paid better than female occupations, to those for whom it was the only way to follow a male lover, to those who wished to fight for their country. There were often very practical reasons for donning male clothes with women, like Harriet, finding that being a lone woman was an unwelcome prospect and that male clothes offered a degree of protection against rape, seductions or other forms of violence. In Ireland, where the abductions of young women to force a marriage were common in the early nineteenth century, many a girl donned her brother’s clothes to protect her from raiding parties who invaded homes during the night. Some women may have been forced to cross-dress- the daughter who was born in place of a longed for son and dressed in male garb by parents was not just a modern phenomenon.
For other women, like Eleanor Butler and Anne Lister, cross-dressing marked their desire for other women, their affinity to a culture of like-minded women, and perhaps even suggested they wished to explore or challenge constructions of gender (like modern transgendering). Similarly, in the eighteenth-century dressing as women or behaving in effeminate ways began to be associated with some homosexual male sub-cultures, and some men chose to live their whole lives as women. Yet, men, like women, could have economic reasons for disguising themselves as women- a number of male thieves were found operating in female dress; there were male prostitutes who dressed as women, while men who wished to get access to a lover trapped by a family may seek employment as her maid. A number of men also dressed as women to escape detection- like Bonnie Prince Charlie who clad himself in a maidservant’s outfit to escape capture.
Even when women dressed as men for more ‘practical’ reasons, the act of cross-dressing was a challenge to the status quo, destabilising the gender norms so central to cultural hierarchies. The woman who became a successful man disrupted traditional notions of women as the weaker or second sex. Indeed, that transgression was at the heart of cross-dressing meant it was often central to early modern festivals, where the ‘world turned upside down’ was a key theme. Women dressed as men, men dressed as women, children dressed as kings and queens, beggars disguised themselves as rich men- the powerless became the powerful, if for a day. Cross-dressing was often a key component of the carnival, allowing people to vent frustration at social hierarchies- seen as natural or God-ordained- and at the same time, reinforcing their importance to community order.
Part of this tradition also saw men dressing as women in order to participate in social protest. Across Europe, it was common for male peasants to dress as women when participating in acts of vandalism, violence, theft or kidnapping that were committed in the name of social justice. Their clothing made them difficult to identify and perhaps made them seem less threatening from a distance- but also highlighted the symbolic nature of their actions. It was not violence committed by individuals for personal reasons- but an act of resistance towards or punishment upon those in the community who had transgressed social norms or failed in their responsibilities.
Far from cross-dressing being a sexualised or secretive act performed in private bedrooms (although no doubt examples of this also existed!), cross-dressing could be central to social order within the community. It could be used to transgress gender norms, but also to reinforce them. It was a vibrant social phenomenon that held different meanings in different times and places- and perhaps leads us to ask complex questions about its role in the modern world.
Further reading
Ballina Impartial, 13/07/1825.
Alison Oram, Her Husband was a Woman: Women’s Gender Crossing in Modern British Popular Culture (Routledge, 2007).
Dianne Dugaw, Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850, (Cambridge U.P., 1989).
David Jones, Rebecca’s Children : a study of rural society, crime and protest (Clarendon Press, 1994).
Katie Barclay finds it fascinating that women could pass as men for decades, working alongside them, without raising raising questions of identity. She wonders what this tells us about appearance and constructions of gender in the past.
