Female crossdressers in history

[Mike von Bek]

Strange question, but then - these are strange days! Was discussing this with a friend the other day - and I had a faint recollection that there was a woman, possibly during the time of Napoleon, who pulled off a successful military career, and wasnt discovered until she died.

Since I have no further clues than that faint remembrance, Im throwing out the net - are there any females in history who dressed as men (the obvious Joan of Arc need not be mentioned), and more importantly - fooled everyone into thinking they were men.

I must know!

 

[Apollon]

there was george sand, but i doubt she fooled anyone...
and there was an alleged popess, but that's just a myth.

how about that mother of an ancient greek athlete at the olympic games? she dressed as a man, so that she could watch her son (women weren't allowed in the stadium). she was uncovered, and there was a severe punishment waiting for her, but she was spared because her son actually won.
but i'm afraid that's just a legend as well. not sure...

another legend: clorinda, the mortal enemy and at the same time beloved of the crusader knight tancrede de nerac (or tancredi) was a woman. he only found out when he killed her.

 

[Arilou]

There was a (spanish?) General who was actually a woman... She was even married.

 

[Apollon]

Originally posted by Von Bek
there was a woman, possibly during the time of Napoleon, who pulled off a successful military career, and wasnt discovered until she died.

i've heard of that woman too, now that i think of it. she wanted to stay close to her husband, so she enlisted too.
she was discovered eventually, but by that time she had become so popular, and the officers were so impressed by her faithfulness to her husband, that they allowed her to stay.

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by Von Bek
Strange question, but then - these are strange days! Was discussing this with a friend the other day - and I had a faint recollection that there was a woman, possibly during the time of Napoleon, who pulled off a successful military career, and wasnt discovered until she died.

Are you thinking of Nadezhda Durova, the "Cavalry Maiden"?

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/Amazon/The_Cavalry_Maiden.htm

 

[brandnew70x7]

Joan D'Arc of course.

 

[Apollon]

Originally posted by Dark Knight
Are you thinking of Nadezhda Durova, the "Cavalry Maiden"?

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/Amazon/The_Cavalry_Maiden.htm

the one i was speaking about was a french lady, and she was in the infantry. so there were two of them. i would love to see the epic battle that would arise if the two were to meet

 

[unmerged(7924)]

Except those listed, I've heard of some female-pirate... Can't remeber her name thought, think it was Jane, or Joan or something...

 

[Spirus]

If I remember correctly there were quite a few women who dressed and enlisted as men to fight in the American Civil War.

There's also that fable about Pope Joan.

 

[Aetius]

A bit OT but...
There was some crossdresser (British I think) that faked war injuries (WW1) and was married with a woman for 30 years or so. She wasn't discovered until her death.
There was one Swedish woman who dressed up and had a drunken binge across the country and claimed to be the crown prince once (18th century). She was caught and imprisoned

The funny thing was that it was a crime to dress up counter to one's nature (which was one of the charges that Joan of Arc was actually convicted of, unlike the heresy charges which were thrown out). The legal question was of course if you did a man's job then do you have the right to wear male clothing? And if so were you allowed act as a man when you wore male clothing? There was a case about this were a woman defended herself by arguing that she didn't break the law since she always acted as a man when she wore men's clothes and acted as a woman when she wore women's clothes. Thus she changed her nature to match the clothes.

 

[Malthus]

Originally posted by Mormegil
Except those listed, I've heard of some female-pirate... Can't remeber her name thought, think it was Jane, or Joan or something...

There was indeed. Here is a list of a bunch of them:

http://www.katyberry.com/Dorianne/pirates.html

Perhaps the best known were Anne Bonny and Mary Read - female pirates and, amazingly, friends. Anne is well known for her taunt of her male lover, Calico Jack, for not putting up more of a fight when they were captured (in contrast, Anne and Mary apparently fought fiercely):

"if you had fought like a man, you need not have been hanged like a dog!"

 

[PMLF]

In Brazil there was Maria Quitéria who fought in the Brazilian War for Independence (1822).

 

[Dakar]

In Spain there was Catalina Erauso "La monja alferez" (The nun-lieutenant), a nun in the XVI century who escaped from the convent and went to America to figth against the indians, IIRC she was discovered but didn´t suffer any punishment.

 

[Mike von Bek]

There should be more information on this sort of thing!

I have a vague idea that she was British or French, and Im quite certain that she wasnt discovered until her death.

I was contemplating working in some events for her, assuming she was in our game period.

 

[w_mullender]

It happened a lot (well more often then you'd think) in mercenarie armies. Every army had a fair share of women following them and a few of them always tried to become soldiers themselves. Usually they were found out immediately, but sometimes not. As an example at the siege of Bonn by the dutch a tamburin (A guy who hits on some sort of drum) got hurt and the surgeon discovered he was a she.

 

[unmerged(2943)]

In Serbia there was Milunka Savic, bomb woman of WWI, they discovered that she was a woman in late 1917

 

[unmerged(7924)]

Originally posted by Malthus
There was indeed. Here is a list of a bunch of them:

http://www.katyberry.com/Dorianne/pirates.html

Perhaps the best known were Anne Bonny and Mary Read - female pirates and, amazingly, friends. Anne is well known for her taunt of her male lover, Calico Jack, for not putting up more of a fight when they were captured (in contrast, Anne and Mary apparently fought fiercely):

"if you had fought like a man, you need not have been hanged like a dog!"

Anne Bonny! I remember now! I've heard of that other women aswell. Didn't they rob (do piracy) togther?

 

[unmerged(5089)]

Not so glorious - but stil ....

A few weeks ago I read a story in my news paper - a strange story indeed....

---

I don't remember the exact the date, but I think it was sometime in the beginning of the 20th century.

A young boy mysteriously died in an orphanage in Copenhagen. No one really expected it to be a murder case, but inquiries still had to be made. The lady running the orphanage was of course questioned, too, although she wasn't suspected to have done anything wrong. During the questioning she finally had a nervous breakdown and admitted to have killed the boy. And now the story unfolded....

It was soon revealed that she had had a sexual relationship to the young boy, and as he was about to leave the orphanage to start as an apprentice in a local business, she feared that he would reveal their secret and ruin her career as leader of this well reputed orphanage. Thus she killed him the night before he should move out.

A trial was scheduled and she was of course being held in custody in a prison and then the inevitable happened: It was finally discovered that "she" was a male!!

It seems, her mother had been a very little knowing woman (to put it nicely). At the birth of her child she had seen the very little penis of the new born boy, and as she knew that grown up males have much bigger penises, she seriously believed she had given birth to a girl. So she treated, dressed and raised her child as a girl, and he of course grew up to become - in every aspect but the physical - a woman. Wheather or not he/she knew that "something" was wrong with his sexuality, the story tells nothing about, but at least the authorities "accepted" his abnormality that far that he was allowed to spend his time with female activities while being in prison. In the end he married a female prison guard.

---

Of course this story made headlines in all national papers and it also reached international news papers, as well. I don't know if anything can be found on the internet about this story, but the paper (Politiken) declared as its main source The Criminal History Museum in Copenhagen.

So I don't know if he/she qualifies as a "female cross dresser" - and certainly not as a glorious one - but I still think the story fits nicely in this thread, and it's so astonishingly strange, that I just had to share it with all of you.

 

[unmerged(16641)]

In the British army, there is the strange story of Dr. James Barry, http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/barry.html

 

[Syt]

Originally posted by Mormegil
Anne Bonny! I remember now! I've heard of that other women aswell. Didn't they rob (do piracy) togther?

Well, but they didn't crossdress.

Btw, some of the female pirates escaped hanging (including Anne Bonny) by getting pregnant.