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- Title
Fair Bosom/Black Beard: Facial Hair, Gender Determination, and the Strange Career of Madame Clofullia, “Bearded Lady”.
- Authors
TRAINOR, SEAN
- Abstract
This essay examines public response to Madame Josephine Clofullia, the United States’ first famed ‘‘bearded lady,’’ who toured the country in the 1850s. It argues that, though most contemporaries found Clofullia’s appearance unusual, few found it transgressive. With the exception of America’s cultural and medical elite, few believed that Clofullia’s beard compromised her claims to womanhood or confounded the categories of man and woman. What explains this response? Considering the public’s reaction to Clofullia in light of scholarship on intersex bodies, I contend that Americans—especially nonelites—continued to give priority to behavior over sexual characteristics in determining the gender of persons with ambiguously formed bodies. The essay concludes by emphasizing the plasticity of gender norms, arguing that even the most ‘‘natural’’ biological markers of sex have an unpredictable, historically constructed relationship to gender.
- Subjects
TRANSGENDER history; NINETEENTH century; CLOFULLIA, Josephine; FREAK shows; GENDER identity; FEMININE identity; ANTEBELLUM Period (U.S.); HISTORY
- Publication
Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2014, Vol 12, Issue 3, p548
- ISSN
1543-4273
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1353/eam.2014.0019