Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

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floatingmetal
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Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by floatingmetal »

Primarily of interest to some of us in the UK, the Gender Community Lending Library has "an informal Zoom talk followed by a Q&A session discussing the progress on GCLL's first public history project". From the Eventbrite listing:
"About this Event
For around two months I've been immersed in the British Newspaper Archives, reading about the historical crossdressers who found themselves subject to public scrutiny between 1750 and 1850. I noticed a number of fascinating trends and case studies. This talk will summarise a few of them in an informal, accessible way, in addition to giving people the chance to ask about the research, its presentation, and about GCLL in general.

This talk will include discussions of misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia. Some of the material covered is violent." (Cost is 5 of our Sterling Pounds)

(I'm not involved but I am "going". I filed this in Off Topic as it's not "presenting in a masculine context" (necessarily) and not contemporary news either so I couldn't decide where else to put it!)
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by STEVIE »

Hi Floatingmetal
I won't be able to attend but you raise an interesting question.
I have dabbled into the historical aspects of cross dressing too and I cannot recall any sort of reference to "masculine context".
I'd be very interested to hear if you discover anything different.
While there is plenty evidence of androgyny in various guises, the very concept of gender fluidity is very recent.
My own experience was simply that to wear a skirt or dress I had to look as much like a female as I possibly could.
The largest part of my journey was discovering just how wrong that actually is.
Thanks
Steve.
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by rode_kater »

Will there be a recording made?
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by floatingmetal »

It wasn't recorded but I did scribble a few very incomplete notes afterwards:
Bearing in mind this is newspaper and court reports between about 1750 and 1850.

There are many reported incidences of women dressing as men to either follow their partner e.g. to sea or to war, where women would not have gone openly. It would seem that these wouldn't have been transgender as we understand it today as they were doing it to gain access to areas of society that were closed to them.

Criminals would often dress as women because they would wear thick veils. Also, women would go out in groups so equally criminal gangs could go about as a "group", dressed as women, without attracting the same attention.

There were particular mentions of Welsh farmers dressing as women as part of a (sometimes violent) protest campaign. Didn't pick up what they were protesting about but don't think it was the right to wear dresses...

Early news reports often mentioned men being arrested while dressed as women then released, whereas in later similar reports the men were transported to Australia for 10-15 years. They did not necessarily mention the exact reason for the deportation.

There were several examples where someone was referred to by different names, such as "James, known as Betty" where the person had lived in a particular role for many years but there was no indication about their reason for doing so. Sometimes though the person only cross-dresses for a couple of years, then reverts to their expected gender presentation for the rest of their life.

It was common for an early news report to be fairly straightforward on a particular story, then another publication would take it up, making it a bit more salacious, then again with each re-publishing making the tale a bit more lurid.

Because none of the sources that could be accessed so far were personal diaries (which would require a visit to Kew records office, currently closed), information so far is based on reports rather than personal experiences and the state of mind of the subject, i.e. whether they were a transvestite or transgender.
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by Sinned »

I see that those in Congress are mising up sex with genderas evidenced by Marjorie Taylor Greene utting up a sign saying "There are two genders" as part of a transgender squabble. As we on this site know gender and sex are two completely different things and in fact she is wrong - there are more than two genders.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by moonshadow »

Sinned wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 3:29 pm I see that those in Congress are mising up sex with genderas evidenced by Marjorie Taylor Greene utting up a sign saying "There are two genders" as part of a transgender squabble. As we on this site know gender and sex are two completely different things and in fact she is wrong - there are more than two genders.

Indeed, complete with a "TRUST THE SCIENCE" slogan across the bottom of the sign....

Hrmmm.... rather ironic.

Hey... that's not the national motto! :wink:
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by Stu »

Sinned wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 3:29 pmAs we on this site know gender and sex are two completely different things and in fact she is wrong - there are more than two genders.
As a linguist with a particular interest in semantics, I think the problem with the word "gender" is that it has such a wide range of meanings.

Grammatically, there are three genders. If you apply the word "gender" to human disposition, I don't think it's accurate to say that there are "more than two", but rather that gender is a gradation - a scale between hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity. For the vast majority, these chart fairly closely onto the male/female dyadic - i.e. men tend to be masculine and women tend to be feminine. But there are complications and exceptions with this model.
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by Wesley »

Stu wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 5:28 pm
Sinned wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 3:29 pmAs we on this site know gender and sex are two completely different things and in fact she is wrong - there are more than two genders.
As a linguist with a particular interest in semantics, I think the problem with the word "gender" is that it has such a wide range of meanings.

Grammatically, there are three genders. If you apply the word "gender" to human disposition, I don't think it's accurate to say that there are "more than two", but rather that gender is a gradation - a scale between hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity. For the vast majority, these chart fairly closely onto the male/female dyadic - i.e. men tend to be masculine and women tend to be feminine. But there are complications and exceptions with this model.
I'm an Electrical Engineer. There are only two gender: plug and socket.
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by pelmut »

Wesley wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:23 pm I'm an Electrical Engineer. There are only two gender: plug and socket.
If you were an electronics engineer you would have come across 'plockets', they were the signal connectors used on the Rhode & Schwarz "Polyskop".
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by moonshadow »

Wesley wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:23 pm I'm an Electrical Engineer. There are only two gender: plug and socket.
I need to color all of my household outlets blue, and cords pink.... just to piss everyone off...! :twisted: :lol:

:hide:
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by pelmut »

moonshadow wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 2:04 pm
Wesley wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:23 pm I'm an Electrical Engineer. There are only two gender: plug and socket.
I need to color all of my household outlets blue, and cords pink.... just to piss everyone off...! :twisted: :lol:

:hide:
The I.E.C. mains connectors might benefit from some sort of colour coding like that.  The hole in the appliance contains pins and the projecting fitting on the flex contains sockets.  In electrical function the plug is on the appliance, but in mechanical function it is on the flexible lead.  If there is a biological equivalent, I shudder to think what it would look like.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by moonshadow »

pelmut wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 4:03 pm
moonshadow wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 2:04 pm
Wesley wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:23 pm I'm an Electrical Engineer. There are only two gender: plug and socket.
I need to color all of my household outlets blue, and cords pink.... just to piss everyone off...! :twisted: :lol:

:hide:
The I.E.C. mains connectors might benefit from some sort of colour coding like that.  The hole in the appliance contains pins and the projecting fitting on the flex contains sockets.  In electrical function the plug is on the appliance, but in mechanical function it is on the flexible lead.  If there is a biological equivalent, I shudder to think what it would look like.
Indeed, and despite my jab about making outlets [female] blue and plugs [male] pink, there is some logic in it, as pink is close to red, and red is considered the color of "danger".

A male plug, if not wired correctly can be dangerous if there is live voltage on the cord. It's not common, and certainly not legal, but I have run across things like homemade generator cords that are male on both ends, thus, upon energizing the generator, provides a live voltage on outward projecting conductors...

No, the business end [hot side] of an extension cord needs to be female.

Additionally, in the U.S. anyway, actual wires are color coded, with three phase 208v being blue, red, and black. 480 3ph is yellow, orange, and brown. White is neutral, and green is ground. In a single phase application, black is hot.

And so we move from a discussion of crossdressing to the electric code.... :lol: :wink:

I love this site! :mrgreen:
-Andrea
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by pelmut »

moonshadow wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 5:55 pm Additionally, in the U.S. anyway, actual wires are color coded, with three phase 208v being blue, red, and black. 480 3ph is yellow, orange, and brown. White is neutral, and green is ground. In a single phase application, black is hot.
In the U.K. the live used to be red (for danger), the neutral was black (a sort of neutral colour) and the earth was green (for no obvious reason).  In Germany, the earth was considered important, so that was red -- you can see where this is going....

When it was decided to harmonise the colour codes across Europe, every country had a system which seemed logical to themselves and was easy to remember, but was different from all the others.  The only way to avoid favouritism was to standardise on a system that had no logic whatsoever and was difficult to remember: live = brown, neutral = blue, earth = green & yellow striped.

My mother's comment on seeing it for the first time was: "Well obviously the brown one is earth, the blue one is probably sky but I've no idea what the stripey one is supposed to be".
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Re: Historical Crossdressing - 27th Feb 18:00GMT webinar

Post by moonshadow »

Well, back to pink, I stumbled across this today on FB, our Democratic candidate for the 38th Virginia Senate seat (special election) made a stop in Buchanan County VA today...

This guy's rocking him some pink... complete with homemade apple butter!
Screenshot_20210307-204428_DuckDuckGo_resize_93_compress78.jpg
Now I don't wanna hear no more of this nonsense that "pink is only for girls"... :wink:
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