Comments

1
Human nature doesn't change. How we deal with it can and should evolve. History can help us do that. Great article. Thanks.
2
hotttt.
3
Nell made life rough for Nell. If you hang out with prostitutes and criminals, fight cops and create problems for other people the social problems you create for yourself are your own.

That this person suffered from an inability to recognize her gender is just one of her mental issues.
4
@3: Actually Nell recognized the gender that he really was. You're the one with the mental issue.
5
@4

"He" was a she. Any 4 year old kid could tell you the difference. It's only the deeply disturbed and apologists for them that fool themselves on something this blindingly obvious.
6
"Forced marriage" for "seduction". The slut-shaming of the 19th century. I'm surprised Rick Santorum isn't campaigning to bring it back.
7
Nell sounds like one sexy, scary scoundrel.

I have to say I agree with the first part of SB's post (before the inevitable disappointment) inasmuch that the prostitutes, gang ties, cop-fighting and the like probably made things a lot tougher on Nell than cross-dressing/genderfuckery alone. There were women, even film starlets, in the early 20th century who cross-dressed while not being "jugged" by the cops all the time.

Take Marlene Dietrich, for example; who also looks fucking hot in a man's suit.
9
@5:

Considering your own penchant for obtusely resisting the "blindingly obvious" in thread after thread, you might want to rethink your position here.
10
@8,9

If I ever "grow up" to a point where clear objective facts like the physical gender of a person get muddled, and I may in 45 or so years, there's a medical term for the condition. Senility.

So, what's your excuse?
11

Reading "The Ultimate Book of Imposters".
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Book-…

There's a large section on women -- mostly from the 19th and early 20th century -- who lived nearly their entire adult lives posing as men, and were only "outed" on their deathbeds. Stagecoach drivers, sailors, and so on...many were married. Some did it from economic necessity, and some were born that way.
12
Oh, I've loved Nell's story and am mostly happy to see someone more productive than me do an article about her. For awhile I've thought Nell would make for a good play or graphic novel.

Your "in the Late 1800s" is a little misleading though. Yes, she was born in the late 1800s, but was still a child when 1900 hit. And most of her "crazy" actions took place in the 1900s.
13
Theft, vagrancy, selling liquor to the Indians, resisting arrest and other offenses including human trafficking of prostitutes... Yup. Role model material.
15
@14

LMFAO..coming from you that's funny, CluelessSausageFest - as most things seem far above your head.
16
@10: What gender is someone who is XXY?
17
@10: You need a juicebox and a nap, junior.
18
Gotta love the trans-washing of any gender non-conforming women throughout history by both the idiots who hate transpeople and the cheerleading "allies" who are even more reductive than the transphobes.

A century and longer ago, women who wanted some degree of autonomy often had no options other than to pretend to be men or to go by a male name even as their close associates knew their actual sex. Was George Eliot actually trans? No, she wasn't. No one has any business making assumptions about Nell.
19
@18: Word.

@10: That's rich coming from a guy with no background in biology who has refused to learn anything on the subject. What gender would you assign to someone who's 47XXY? Or someone who's 46XY but has CAIS? Or someone who, regardless of karyotype, is born with ambiguous genitalia?
Actually, it's that last one that is most telling. If someone is born with both sets of genitalia or with one set that has characteristics of both, how do you know what gender to assign them? It's pretty simple; you wait until they're old enough to have some societal concept of gender (starting usually around 6 by my estimation) so they can tell you what gender they feel like they should be. This is because gender is not just in the crotch but also in the braincase; men and women have substantial differences in how certain parts of their brain are built. Research on transsexuals is spotty so far due to a dearth of subjects, but the evidence at this point suggests that a transsexual is, in the simplest case, someone who has the genitals of one gender but the neurological architecture of the other.
Do you agree that the brains of men and women differ substantially in certain places? If not, you're willfully ignorant on that issue, as on many others. If so, what makes you think that nobody's ever born with mismatched body and brain?
20
@18: Yeah, that bothered me too. Thank you for articulating it so well.
21
We could just provide Subhumanblues with a web address for a tran porn website so it can go beat off there.
22
@21:

Assuming he doesn't do that already.
23
@16 Male
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter…
24
@18

...But did you read? Read what Berger wrote. Read the chapter about Harry Allen in the book Berger bases his story on. Harry Allen was an actual trans man. He loved women, he lived as a man because his identity was male.

Please wait...

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