Malinda Lo
Blog
Mar 16, 2011
On cross-dressing and queerness
Earlier this month, the March newsletter from the Sirens Conference arrived in my in box1, and to my pleasant surprise, it included a review of Ash! And what a lovely, smart (and extremely flattering) review it was, too! You can go here to read it if you’d like.
One part that jumped out at me was an analysis of a particular scene in Ash, and I’ve been thinking about the reviewer’s perspective for days. And then S. Jae-Jones blogged about cross-dressing, and I thought: OK, this is a sign. I’m just going to blog about this.
Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t read Ash, there are lots of spoilers in this post!
I hesitated because you know the rule: Authors aren’t supposed to respond to their reviews. But in this case, I’m not really responding to the review, but rather to an assumption that I think underscores many readings of cross-dressing. OK, here’s that part of the review I’ve been pondering (emphasis mine):
My favorite scene is towards the middle of the book, in which Ash wears pageboy clothing, and sees herself as a boy “with a proud profile and dark, long-lashed eyes.” In this carefully crafted moment, Ash confuses her gender and class roles in favor of seeing herself as someone else. Someone who is not meekly following the unreasonable demands of her family. At the same time, it seems troubling that she sees herself as powerful when she is a man, but I think this is a trick. Ash is really learning that appearances do not make a person powerful because power lies in emotion and knowledge.
When I first read this I thought: Wow, what an amazing analysis of that scene! I’m constantly surprised and delighted by the meaning that readers find in Ash, and I thought this was a very interesting interpretation — especially the part where “it seems troubling that she sees herself as powerful when she is a man.”
The review immediately notes that she thinks this is “a trick,” but I want to focus on the “it seems troubling” part. It struck me that this interpretation of cross-dressing seems based in a predominantly heterosexual reading of the scene (and in that case, yes, it would be troubling). This isn’t unusual; I think that a lot of times, when cross-dressing comes up in fiction, it is engaged with on a heterosexual level.
In this understanding of cross-dressing, a heroine, temporarily disguised as a male, is allowed to taste the freedom of masculinity without ever truly straying from her inner femininity. She may, for example, struggle with menstruation while disguising herself as a man. Her feminine body is always in danger of being revealed through bathing or through accidents, etc. A lot of the time, cross-dressing heroines in fiction wind up falling in love with a man who awakens in her a desire to throw off the masculine mask and reveal her natural (read: feminine) body and being.
I personally hate this kind of cross-dressing story. Why? Because it ultimately underscores heteronormativity. The woman is a woman; she can never be anything other than woman, and that always involves loving a man.
But for me, I appreciate cross-dressing for its queerness. Lesbians have often cross-dressed to disguise their femininity (from the straight public, not from each other) in order to carry on relationships with other women. Out of that necessity was born the butch/femme cultures of the 1940s and ’50s, and also a specific eroticism based on female masculinity.
For me, when Ash puts on the boy’s clothing and sees herself in the mirror, I see her as reappropriating masculinity for herself. Reappropriating masculinity is, I would argue, different than seeing oneself as powerful only when appearing as a man. It is actually about taking masculinity and reinterpreting it through a female experience. Part of that reappropriation leads to shifting one’s perspective about what is erotic.
When I wrote that scene, I knew that it was an erotic experience for Ash. She gains a new awareness of her body when putting on trousers, and the whole night is about the freedom to look — to gaze — on others, including Kaisa, the woman she ultimately falls in love with.2
I think that when a cross-dressing narrative is also a queer narrative, the heterosexual interpretation doesn’t really work. The heterosexual cross-dressing narrative raises the specter of potential same-sex eroticism, but ultimately vanquishes it in favor of a traditional heterosexual union. It is a heteronormative story in the end. Even though the lady was disguised as a man, her true heterosexuality was never altered by wearing men’s clothing.
But a queer cross-dressing narrative does more than flirt with homoeroticism; it foregrounds it. After that scene, Ash is increasingly conscious of her attraction to Kaisa. And, I might add, Kaisa (who is basically cross-dressing the entire time) helps Ash to cross-dress3 a bit, too, by providing her with a riding outfit that also involves trousers.
Anyway, Ash isn’t really about cross-dressing (bummer!), but I just wanted to point out that cross-dressing in a queer context has a different set of meanings than it does in a straight context. One of the primary differences is erotic. For a clear example of this, read Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet, which is all about queer cross-dressing.
I’m all for cross-dressing, as long as it’s in a queer narrative. And yes, someday I’m going to write a real, honest-to-goodness queer cross-dressing story! It’s been waiting on the backburner since before I wrote Ash, but I haven’t felt like I was ready to write it yet. Soon!
- I had a fabulous time last year at Sirens, and if you’re interested in issues around women in fantasy fiction, I strongly encourage you to go! It’s totally YA-friendly, and this year’s guests of honor are Justine Larbalestier, Laini Taylor, and Nnedi Okorafor. I am SO BUMMED that I won’t be there this year [barring unforeseen time and money falling from the sky], but I still read the newsletter. *sob* [↩]
- In an early draft, Ash spent a lot more time cross-dressing. There was a whole story line that I cut in which she dressed as a boy and went to the palace to research whether or not her father actually left her stepmother in debt. This ultimately became irrelevant to the story, but the cross-dressing helped me to understand that Ash’s perspective on who she was falling in love with was changing. [↩]
- Admittedly they’re not disguising themselves as men, but they are women wearing pants in a society where women typically don’t. [↩]
Malinda,
This is such an articulate and sharp post – thank you for it and for pointing to the heterocentrist assumptions of one kind of reading of cross dressing!
I’ve been thinking a lot about the cross dressing traditions in Hindu myths and Indian folkstories – all align themselves with the hetersexual narrative you mention (oh, she’s still “a woman” and shows this by becoming romantically involved with a man). The Indian Chitrangada story (part of the epic The Mahabharata, then reinterpreted by Rabindranath Tagore) actually ends with the cross dressing warrior woman going back to her ‘masculine’ clothes and fighting alongside her lover/husband Arjun. So heterosexual narrative, yes, but she actually is dissatisfied with feminine gender performance (which doesn’t make room for her as a warrior) and so goes back to ‘masculine’ dress. (more here: http://storiesaregoodmedicine.blogspot.com/2010/12/eowyn-i-am-no-man-woman-warriors-and.html)
Sayantani
I’ve only just started reading ASH so maybe I’m not entirely accurate in saying this, but couldn’t this scene also be read as sort a combination of a heterosexual reading and a queer reading? Unless she is entirely self-aware about her sexuality in this moment, I feel like it could go in both directions. She could be attracted to the power associated with being dressed as a male, which may still be troubling and/or uncomfortable (for the reader looking for gender equality, and for Ash who wants to reject a system that is in place that automatically assumes the feminine as weak) , and at the same time, finding that discomfort sidelined by a growing excitement (sexual and other) with donning the clothes of the “stronger” sex, as she re-appropriates masculinity for herself.
Just a thought? I can’t wait to keep reading.
This was exquisite.
As a lesbian, your book is one of my all time favorites, and your perspective is awesome and so inspiring. Thank you so much for this post–I appreciated it.
I hate the trope of cross-dressing as a rite of passage; that is, girl dresses as boy, falls in love with another boy, discovers her femininity, casts off boyish clothes. I HATE THIS. I HATE THIS SO MUCH. RAAAAAH. (I also dislike incidental transvestism. It depends on the context, but I dislike it when a character says/thinks “it’s easier for me to be male in this instance!”. Grrr!)
It is actually about taking masculinity and reinterpreting it through a female experience. Part of that reappropriation leads to shifting one’s perspective about what is erotic.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head about what fascinates and excites me about cross-dressing, which I have identified in my post as gender performance. One of the reasons I latched onto Alanna so much as a child was that she never did take her place in society as a woman; she was mostly known in Tortall as “Sir Alanna” and continued to live in a liminal space she carved out for herself. I also appreciated that she was also someone who was aware of gender performance, that she sometimes wore dresses and makeup because she wanted to feel feminine. (One of the things that bothers me about the general perception of makeup and femininity is that women do it to be attractive to men. Oh god, that makes me so angry. Some of us like to explore the gender performance of it.)
Sure, you could certainly interpret it that way — it’s a totally valid way to look at it.
I don’t think that being attracted to masculine power is necessarily evil, in and of itself, especially if that attraction is in the context of reappropriation. I feel like it gets a little slippery here and it’s difficult to clearly articulate this, but if women aren’t ever allowed to take “masculine” characteristics (and power) and use them to their own benefit, then women are stuck in a culturally constructed (and usually sexist) box of the “feminine.”
Hope you enjoy the rest of the book!
Okay, so I was also just thinking about the idea of a heterosexual reading of cross dressing some more…and maybe it also comes down to, Does the cross-dressing primarily serve the function of the plot arc or the character arc? Hetero narratives have typically used cross-dressing as a plot device but *then* the conflicted sexually is transferred onto the leading male, as in Twelfth Night (which I haven’t read in a really long time so forgive me if I’m way off base). The guy can’t understand why he’s having feelings for another guy, which is an interesting angle as well. Cross dressing in queer narratives are typically a turning point, or at least an important moment about sexual identity.
I like both, though I like it best when the cross-dressing is linked to a character arc – even in a hetero reading, where the heroine gains/learns something (emotional freedom, greater sexual confidence, whatever) from the act. Hetero cross dressing I think can be a powerful plot device, so long as it isn’t *just* a plot device.
Okay…I’m sorry I went post happy! This is interesting!
“A lot of the time, cross-dressing heroines in fiction wind up falling in love with a man who awakens in her a desire to throw off the masculine mask and reveal her natural (read: feminine) body and being.”
Something in that statement reminds me of (in contrast) the phenomenon in which (some) trans men end up dating men after hormonal transition, when they dated women before that. I’ve read that sometimes that’s specifically related to being seen as a man – that they *didn’t* want to date men before physical transition because they wouldn’t be seen as men, by other men. That kind of plays into the problematic idea of equating being feminine with loving a man (or maybe vice versa, that loving a man is a feminine act.)
(Obviously being trans is not precisely the same as cross-dressing, but there are similarities, surface or otherwise. )
This is a really important discussion for me to read, because I’m considering using cross-dressing (more like entertainment/impersonation, but still cross-dressing) in a new novel, and I hadn’t considered these POVs. Thank you all!
This post makes me all nostalgic for classes I took for my English Lit degree. Great insights! I’m happy to say that’s pretty much exactly how I read that scene.
Can’t wait to read that story!
What an incredible post and comment thread! I just want to say how grateful I am that you’re bringing this kind of insight and depth into YA. I find myself really alienated by much of YA because of the simplistic and unimaginative approach to gender. It’s been hard for me to identify with female characters; I find myself more drawn to books about boys, if only because the boys are “allowed” to do things the girls aren’t. Thank you for letting your characters do whatever they want!
Thank you for this post. Honest and beautifully stated. I love that we’re getting to a place in YA where it’s becoming acceptable–*necessary*–to look at books through a queer lens. I’m anxious for the day that genderqueer YA because something possible, something actualized. YA has been a pioneer in a lot of ways. We can make queer themes mainstream in a way adult books can’t. We need to take advantage of that. I’m doing what I can over here.
Man, you are some kind of brilliant thinker, analyzer. I don’t entirely understand all that you wrote in your post, but I do agree that there are so many lens with which to view stories, and I’m glad you’re showing readers that they don’t have to the SAME lenses.
Excellent post. Honestly, that scene was one of the ones that really cemented my love for Ash, that and Kaisa’s all-around beautiful queer non-gender-normativity (and yet in a societially acceptable way).
(Tipping the Velvet is an amazing book.)
“And yes, someday I’m going to write a real, honest-to-goodness queer cross-dressing story!”
When that happens, I’m going to pre-order a dozen copies and give eleven of them away. I’m not even exaggerating; I did that with Ash (well, not pre-order, but after I read it, I’ve been buying and giving away copies to friends and others who Need to Read It).
It’s so, so rare to see an author–especially in a YA sphere–play with gender in a queer way and actually Get It. I really wish 12-year-old me, trying to figure out what was going on, had access to books like Ash and others like it.
I’ve never really thought about cross-dressing in stories much but after this post I know I’m going to be looking at them much more closely, this post just made so much sense! Actually, I’ve seen two anime recently that had at least one cross-dresser in each and I feel like I understand one of them a little better after this post, and I want to read your cross-dressing upcoming book too!
Yes, yes and yes.
All of my fiction involves major cross-dressing characters. It is historical fiction, so it can’t be labeled as trans or butch-femme but it is definitely queer and my characters who live as men part-time, full-time or only briefly as a disguise are an important part of queer history.
But even plenty of queers get confused about what cross-dressing–or reappropriating masculinity–means to real people, let alone fictional characters.
I’m a femme myself, married to a butch, and we get tired of hearing other lesbians refer to our genders as “role-play.” But it happens frequently. And even in lesbian books that feature non-normative gender and cross-dressing there is a certain “return to center” principal of gender as the final truth of the matter. (I’d argue this about “Tipping the Velvet” which I LOVE, don’t get me wrong!)
The fact is that many people have quite binary notions of gender, even within queer circles. But plenty of other people would argue that there are really as many genders as there are people alive on the planet. And that’s my own view.
It’s true, and it’s something I love to see acknowledged in fiction–that there are more than two genders and that we as living beings are far more complex than a simple dichotomy. Gender exploration and expression not only helps us be who we are, but it makes our society and our species more interesting as a result.
Great post! I never really thought of this very much while reading Ash, but it definitely made me think much more deeply about the story. Congrats on the reviews!
I feel as if the problem with looking at cross dressing though a heteronormative lense is that it confuses gender with gender performance. Masculinity and feminity are, in many ways, social constructs. For a woman to connect with and feel empowered by the masculinity within herself is a wonderful thing – that masculinity, or the qualities that we label ‘masulinity’, are hers naturally, just as feminine aspects of her personality are. Masculinity is not essentially or naturally ‘male’ anymore than feminine qualities are naturally or essentially ‘female’. The names are misleading. Seeking to take strength/pleasure from both masculine and feminine aspects of your personality is not Anti-feminist. Many *straight* men feel sexy and empowered dressing in traditionally female clothes – it’s hardly surprising that the same would be true for woman, both gay and straight.
This. This comment has so much love from me. <3
Why, thank you. *Adjusts fedora to rakish angle*
First, if you write that cross-dressing book I will totally buy it. And in Ash, I kept wondering if her father really had left her in debt and what the law really said about that, so I’m happy to hear that I was picking up on some authorial intent there.
I had typed out a really long comment about my own experiences, but what it boiled down to was “cross-dressing is different from wearing the opposite sex’s clothes” and I think everyone here knows that
are there spats along with that fedora? I’ve always been partial to spats…
Brogues. I wish I could find spats in my size!
totally fine choice. but no cravat, please.
In all seriousness – I happen to have a crossdressing character in mi next WIP (for top sikrit reasons) – and Malinda your smart smart post has made me think so much deeper about how she and my MC feel about her gender performance… thanks for the great inspiration and insight! (And Zoe, for the fab fashion!)
That scene didn’t even seem odd to me. I grew up in a family and went to a school where cross-dressing was considered fine. Girls dressed like guys. Guys dressed like girls. Yeah, I have a rather odd (but completely awesome) family and had an equally odd (but awesome) high school. I totally get where you’re coming from Malinda, though. Dressing like a guy or girl does give you some kind of freedom sometimes. If everyone thinks you’re a guy, when you’re a girl (or the other way around), you sometimes get some sort of freedom.
as my favorite new twitter feed (after feminist hulk of course), trans hulk says “smash sex and gender binaries.”
heteronormativity – should be in Websters
“Even though the lady was disguised as a man, her true heterosexuality was never altered by wearing men’s clothing.” –
Would the same thing true for a lesbian who dresses up as a man? People are attracted to who they are attracted to no matter what they wear.
Or is it that when some lesbians cross dress it brings out their sexy and that’s the difference?
Interesting. I wonder what the reviewer would have said about Tamora Pierce’s character, Alanna. My first conference ever was Sirens, but I didn’t make it last year. I went the year before when the authors included Tamora Pierce and Kristin Cashore. It was a great, small conference. I almost submitted an idea for a glbtq panel for last year but decided to go to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference instead. Maybe I’ll consider going again to the conference.
There were many discussions about female characters not conforming to the stereotypical female roles. I liked them even as someone who rarely writes female characters.
Interesting! Thanks for the link.
Aw, I’m glad you enjoyed Ash.
Very interesting observation about the plot device vs. turning point thingie! I think in the hetero version, the thing that bugs me is that when it’s a plot device and the hero is conflicted about his attraction to this boy (who is actually a girl), the revelation of the boy as a girl actually serves to reject homosexuality. Everybody’s relieved that the boy is actually a girl, especially the hero, who now doesn’t have to deal with the fact that he really was attracted to a person of the same sex. Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent …
Thank you for doing that with Ash! I’m afraid it’ll be a while before I write that cross-dressing story, though — I’ve got two novels to write before then. But it’s coming!
Yes, I hear you. I agree, sometimes queer folks can be just as judgemental as straight folks. It’s frustrating!
“Masculinity is not essentially or naturally ‘male’ anymore than feminine qualities are naturally or essentially ‘female’.” <– Definitely!
Absolutely! I think there’s probably a continuum of cross-dressing; it’s not always done one particular way.
That’s incredible that you had that family and school experience! And very cool.
LOL! I’m not sure I understand the question, but I do agree that sometimes when lesbians cross-dress it brings out the sexy.
If you have the time and ability to go this year, you should go! I led a roundtable on queerness in fairy tales last year, and it was chock-full of people who were dying to talk about lgbtq stuff. I think they would love an lgbtq proposal this year too.
Okay, I couldn’t stop thinking about this since you raised it. I had to go and say more at greater length on my own blog.
http://shannonlccate.com/2011/03/19/crossing-dressing-queering/
Thanks for bringing it up. I also need to do a round-up of cross-dressing themed books I have loved (besides Tipping the Velvet).
xox
I think that’s totally true. If the mc’s leading love interest is going to be attracted to the mc regardless of his/her sex, that needs to be explicitly addressed from both a *HELLO? plot hole/emotional cliff hanger/etc!* point of view, and from a gender/sexuality inclusion pov. This makes me think of movies like She’s the Man (saw years ago), and books like Babes in Boyland (which I haven’t read) but I’d like to go back and see what they do.
Please please PLEASE read Through a Brazen Mirror, by Delia Sherman! It addresses this issue sooo perfectly.
Really, really interesting post, but I’m just not so sure about this:
“I personally hate this kind of cross-dressing story. Why? Because it ultimately underscores heteronormativity. The woman is a woman; she can never be anything other than woman, and that always involves loving a man.”
That just seems unfair to the many writers who’ve produced amazing, complicated, gender binary-challenging books in which heterosexual romance is just not the point! Like Freedom Beyond the Sea, by Waldtraut Lewin, about the survival of a Jewish girl during the Inquisition; Girl in Blue, by Ann Rinaldi, about fighting and spying during the Civil War; Dove and Sword, by Nancy Garden (of Annie on My Mind fame!), about a girl fighting alongside Joan of Arc; Daughter of Venice, by Donna Jo Napoli, about getting an education in Renaissance Italy; The Folk Keeper, by Frannie Billingsley, fantasy about a girl who discovers that she’s repressing her magical powers by disguising her femininity; and Jackaroo, by Cynthia Voigt, about a female Robin Hood making a stand.
I wrote my master’s thesis on female to male cross-dressing in YA fiction, so this subject is very near and dear to my heart. I have read dozens of books about girls dressed as boys, and while many, even most, feature romantic sub-plots, I can only think of one in which the girl gleefully abandons male dress for the love of a man: Samantha and the Cowboy, by Lorraine Heath — dreadful and entirely offensive. Otherwise, these books do subvert gender constructs, and they definitely serve a feminist purpose. Of course these stories usually end with the girl being discovered or self-revealing and returning to outward femininity. Outside of fantasy, is there any alternative possibility?
If there is a lack of mainstream ftm cross-dressing fiction books in which a girl falls for a girl (I can only think of one other than Tipping the Velvet, and it’s also not YA: Patience and Sarah, by Isabel Miller. Also, Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent, is a great non-fiction book about a lesbian passing for several months.), I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. As far as I know, there were no queer genre YA books before Ash!
I’m all for cross-dressing, period. And I’ll get off my soapbox now.
“Otherwise, these books do subvert gender constructs, and they definitely serve a feminist purpose. Of course these stories usually end with the girl being discovered or self-revealing and returning to outward femininity. Outside of fantasy, is there any alternative possibility?”
I think we are coming at this from different perspectives here. Sure, they could serve a feminist purpose — there are many feminist purposes.
It is my personal taste to dislike books in which the characters seem like they might be gay for a while, but ultimately turn out to be straight. Obviously gender can still be subverted along the way, and there’s probably plenty to analyze about how it’s subverted and pushes boundaries.
But I maintain that I WANT A GAY HEROINE in the end. That is my preference! And I think it’s one of my responsibilities, as an author, to imagine alternatives. There were many women who lived as men and had relationships with other women prior to the 20th century in the real world. There are certainly alternatives. Simply because those stories haven’t been widely told doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Ms. Lo,
I’m genderqueer, and I want you to know how much it meant to me to have that scene. The whole book has become very dear to my heart, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the story unfold the way it did — turning heteronormative clichés and tropes on their head.
I appreciated that you took the time to blur the line, because there aren’t only two genders in the end, are there?
Huntress came in the mail the other day from Amazon, and I can’t wait until I have time to read it. Keep up the amazing work. You inspire me.
I thought it was really interesting that you said “Kaisa (who is basically cross-dressing the entire time)…”
This surprised me at first I think because I was so thoroughly drawn into the Ash world. There, it was normal to have the woman huntress. It was a role that seemed to me designated for a woman, so I didn’t think of the hunting trousers as being masculine. Sure, many of our world’s gender roles are present in Ash world as well, but in the case of huntresses it’s an accepted role for women in that world. But certainly, for a reader used to our gender ideas of trousers=masculine, I see your point.
For me, putting on that outfit was more of stepping into a different class- dressing as part of the King’s entourage rather than being a servant from the country.
Now I feel like I need to reread Ash and think about this some more.