Her husband was a woman! : women's gender-crossing in modern British popular culture / Alison Oram.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oram, Alison.

Series:

Women's and gender history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cross-dressing--Great Britain--History.

Cross-dressing.

Male impersonators--Great Britain--History.

Male impersonators.

Trans men--Great Britain--History.

Trans men.

Lesbianism--Great Britain--History.

Lesbianism.

History.

Female-to-male transsexuals.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xii, 192 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2007.

Summary:

'Astonishing' reports of women masquerading as men frequently appear in the mass media from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1960s.

Alison Oram's pioneering study of women's gender-crossing explores the popular press to analyse how women's cross-gender behaviour and same-sex desires were presented to ordinary working-class and lower middle-class people. It breaks new ground in focusing on the representation of female sexualities within the broad sweep of popular culture rather than in fiction and professional literature.

Her Husband was a Woman! surveys these engaging stories of cross-dressing in mass-circulation newspapers and places them in the wider context of variety theatre, fairgrounds and other popular entertainment. Oram catalogues the changing perception of female cross-dressing and its relationship to contemporary ways of writing about gender and desire in the popular press. In the early twentieth century cross-dressing women were not condemned by the press for being socially transgressive, but celebrated for their trickster joking and success in performing masculinity. While there may have been earlier 'knowingness', it was not until after the Second World War that cross-dressing was explicitly linked to lesbianism or transsexuality in popular culture.

Illustrated with newspaper cuttings and postcards, Her Husband was a Woman! is an essential resource for students and researchers, revising assumptions about the history of modern gender and sexual identities, especially lesbianism and transgender.

Contents:

1900-late 1920s : the traditions of gender-crossing

Work and war : masculinity, gender relations and the passing woman

Sexuality, love and marriage : the gender-crossing woman as female husband

The 1930s : entertaining modernity

Gender-crossing and modern sexualities, 1928-39

'The sheik was a she!' : the gigolo and cosmopolitanism in the 1930s

The 1930s 'sex change' story : medical technology and physical transformation

Gender and sexual identities since the 1940s

'Perverted passions' : sexual knowledge and popular culture, 1940-60.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [184]-187) and index.

ISBN:

9780415400060

0415400066

9780415400077

0415400074

OCLC:

138341556

Online:

Publisher description