Female Husbands: A Trans History

Written by Jen Manion

Narrated by Kate Harper

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Release date: Mar 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781108828031

Reviews for Female Husbands

[Kevin Lee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fresh and healing history of female people inhabiting male roles and lives in British and American history. This history lends profound validation to the experiences of modern transgender men.

[freeknowledgenow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So incredibly insightful, a must read for anyone interested in queer history or anyone for that matter. The fact that there were people who lived as a different gender than the one assigned at birth during those times may be hard to imagine today, but it proves that gender was and will always be a social construct.

[Damienne Lachat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A well researched and well developed historical look at trans men, spanning the UK and US. A vital read for anyone interested in the history of evolving gender categories.