Regional nonfiction: Cross-dressing on the frontier hardly unknown

[Shana A]

Regional nonfiction: Cross-dressing on the frontier hardly unknown
Posted: 01/29/2012 01:00:00 AM MST
By Sandra Dallas
Special to The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_19829326

Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past  by Peter Boag (University of California)

I thought there was nothing new to write about the American West. I forgot cross-dressing.

In a scholarly account, Peter Boag writes that not all who came west were manly men or feminine women. He reveals that cross-dressing, while not exactly common, was far from unknown on the American frontier.

Some cross-dressers were homosexuals, ->-bleeped-<-s or transgendered folks. But many women who dressed as men did so primarily for safety or comfort, to escape family or vengeful husbands. Some committed crimes, but most, perhaps, wanted jobs that were unavailable to women. Men, on the other hand, dressed as actresses or explained, when caught, that they cross-dressed as a lark.