Female Husbands
A Trans History

A timely and comprehensive history of female husbands in Anglo-America from the eighteenth through the turn of the twentieth century.

Jen Manion (Author)

9781108718271, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 May 2021

350 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.53 kg

'Female Husbands cultivates and enriches the terrain of trans history. The successes of Manion's book hinge on its ability to chart a collective premodern and modern history of trans livelihood and archival presence … Manion models trans care work … as it further legitimates and makes known trans pasts, presents, and futures.' Jeremy Chow, ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Long before people identified as transgender or lesbian, there were female husbands and the women who loved them. Female husbands - people assigned female who transed gender, lived as men, and married women - were true queer pioneers. Moving deftly from the colonial era to just before the First World War, Jen Manion uncovers the riveting and very personal stories of ordinary people who lived as men despite tremendous risk, danger, violence, and threat of punishment. Female Husbands weaves the story of their lives in relation to broader social, economic, and political developments in the United States and the United Kingdom while also exploring how attitudes towards female husbands shifted in relation to transformations in gender politics and women's rights, ultimately leading to the demise of the category of 'female husband' in the early twentieth century. Groundbreaking and influential, Female Husbands offers a dynamic, varied, and complex history of the LGBTQ past.

Introduction: extraordinary lives
Part I. UK Husbands, 1740–1840: 1. The first female husband
2. The pillar of the community
3. The sailors and soldiers
4. The wives
Part II. US Husbands,1830–1910: 5. The workers
6. The activists
7. The criminalized poor
8. The end of a category
Conclusion: sex trumps gender
Epilogue: the first female-to-male transsexual.

Subject Areas: Gay & Lesbian studies [JFSK], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]