Cross Dressed To Kill Women Who Went To War Disguised As Men

'Cross-dressed to Kill' is a collection of extraordinary stories by twenty women cross-dressers of English, Irish, French, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, American and Israeli nationalities. The book answers the questions of why young women dressed as men to fight as soldiers in the 17th to 20th centuries? There were literally hundreds of known women cross-dressers yet they have been erased from both social and military history. It also contributes to the current debate about binary versus non-binary sexuality, for these women defied their birth sex and social gender assignation by assuming male disguise. The penalty for cross-dressing in this period was death.So, the bravery of these women masquerading as men and the risks they took were great. They watched their fathers, husbands and brothers head off to war, before breaking free from domesticity and joining the army too. Betty Friedan, doyenne of the feminist movement asks 'why should women have a half-life?' The cross-dressing women answer that by their actions. Fearless, 'tomboys', early feminists and decidedly full of what the newspapers called 'pluck and spunk'. They were young women for whom 'patriotism has no sex', determined to fight for their country. What happened to them in countless battles and wars around the world? Many were killed in combat, their sex discovered while dying on the battlefield. None were afraid to kill men and their bravery was rewarded by their officers and by royalty too. Medals, money and fame came to them when they told their stories to newspapers and book publishers. Were they lesbians or transsexuals? Some women like Maria van Antwerpen felt that they were 'in appearance a woman but in nature a man'. The book has the intimate details of how they disguised themselves and kept their sex secret for so long. They bandaged their breasts, used metal pipes to urinate, cropped their hair and adopted male mannerisms to deceive recruiting sergeants, their military companions and other women. Oscar Wilde wrote that what you wear 'penetrates to the very soul of the wearer...' So that 'the mind changes its sex' and you can behave as a man if dressed like one. What is the legacy of these courageous cross-dressers? Some are now hailed by the Army as the first female soldiers- like the American Deborah Sampson and Lucy Brewer. Statues have been erected in towns across Europe. Their bravery recognised by medals and life-long annuities from an admiring and astonished Royalty. Women soldiers today trying for the elite forces and demanding equality in the ranks can look to their historic sisters in arms. For they were iconic and spirited fighters for a right to full lives, crashing the barriers of society's prescribed roles for women. There are contemporary songs and poems written about them, for they were in their heyday minor celebrities. The Appendix lists for the first time those women recorded in military, archives and the law courts. Once forgotten but now remembered. As the writer Hilary Mantel says of women in history, ' their story is our story'.

All games are potentially transformative experiences because they engage the player in dynamic action. When repurposed in an educational context, even highly popular casual games played online to pass the time can engage players in a way that deepens learning. Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources examines the learning value of a wide variety of games across multiple disciplines. Organized just like a well-made game, the book is divided into four parts highlighting classroom experiences, community and culture, virtual learning, and interdisciplinary instruction. The author crosses between the high school and college classroom and addresses a range of disciplines, both online and classroom practice, the design of curriculum, and the transformation of assessment practices. In addition to a wealth of practical exercises, resources, and lesson ideas, the book explains how to use a wide and diverse range of games from casual to massively multiplayer online games for self-improvement as well as classroom situations.

Presenting Mayan history from the perspective of Mayan women--whose voices until now have not been documented--David Carey allows these women to present their worldviews in their native language, adding a rich layer to recent Latin American historiography, and increasing our comprehension of indigenous perspectives of the past. Drawing on years of research among the Maya that specifically documents women's oral histories, Carey gives Mayan women a platform to discuss their views on education, migrant labor, work in the home, female leadership, and globalization. These oral histories present an ideal opportunity to understand indigenous women's approach to history, the apparent contradictions in gender roles in Mayan communities, and provide a distinct conceptual framework for analyzing Guatamalan, Mayan, and Latin American history.

Handcuffs, paddles, whips—the words alone are enough to make a person blush. Even by our society’s standards, the practice of things like BDSM is still very hush-hush, considered deviant sexual behavior that must be kept hidden. But the narrow view of what is thought of as “normal” sex—a vanilla act performed by one man and one woman—is more and more contested these days. And as Julie Peakman reveals, normal never really existed; for everyone, different kinds of sex have always offered myriad pleasures, and almost all sexual behaviors have traveled between acceptance and proscription. The Pleasure’s All Mine examines two millennia of letters, diaries, court records, erotic books, medical texts, and more to explore the gamut of “deviant” sexual activity. Delving into the specialized cultures of pain, necrophilia, and bestiality and the social world of plushies, furries, and life-size sex dolls, Peakman considers the changing attitudes toward these, as well as masturbation, “golden showers,” sadomasochism, homosexuals, transvestites, and transsexuals. She follows the history of each behavior through its original reception to its interpretation by sexologists and how it is viewed today, showing how previously acceptable behaviors now provoke social outrage, or vice versa. In addition, she questions why people have been and remain intolerant of other people’s sexual preferences. The first comprehensive history of sexual perversion and packed with both color and black and white images, The Pleasure’s All Mine is a fascinating and sometimes shocking look at the evolution of our views on sex.

TransAntiquity explores transgender practices, in particular cross-dressing, and their literary and figurative representations in antiquity. It offers a ground-breaking study of cross-dressing, both the social practice and its conceptualization, and its interaction with normative prescriptions on gender and sexuality in the ancient Mediterranean world. Special attention is paid to the reactions of the societies of the time, the impact transgender practices had on individuals’ symbolic and social capital, as well as the reactions of institutionalized power and the juridical systems. The variety of subjects and approaches demonstrates just how complex and widespread "transgender dynamics" were in antiquity.

Performing Menken uses the life experiences of controversial actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken to examine the culture of the Civil War period and what Menken's choices reveal about her period. It explores the roots of the cult of celebrity that emerged from crucible of war. While discussing Menken's racial and ethnic claims and her performance of gender and sexuality, Performing Menken focuses on contemporary use of social categories to explain patterns in America's past and considers why such categories appear to remain important.

This volume examines and theorizes the oft-ignored phenomenon of male-to-female (MTF) crossdressing in early modern drama, prose, and poetry, inviting MTF crossdressing episodes to take a fuller place alongside instances of female-to-male crossdressing and boy actors’ crossdressing, which have long held the spotlight in early modern gender studies. The author argues that MTF crossdressing episodes are especially rich sources for socially-oriented readings of queer gender—that crossdressers’ genders are constructed and represented in relation to romantic partners, communities, and broader social structures like marriage, economy, and sexuality. Further, she argues that these relational representations show that the crossdresser and his/her allies often benefit financially, socially, and erotically from his/her queer gender presentation, a corrective to the dominant idea that queer gender has always been associated with shame, containment, and correction. By attending to these relational and beneficial representations of MTF crossdressers in early modern literature, the volume helps to make a larger space for queer, genderqueer, male-bodied and queer-feminine representations in our conversations about early modern gender and sexuality.