Ran across this little tidbit in Gender & Women Studies Film Class

QuoteRecent historical work on the lesbian subject in turn-of-the-century
America offers useful ways of thinking about the implications of Otis's
account, and perhaps in the culture at large. In a compelling analysis of
the highly publicized 1892 murder of Freda Ward by her lover, Alice
Mitchell, Lisa Duggan has argued that what initially pushed the women's
relationship beyond what their peers accepted as normal was Mitchell's
decision to pass as a man. Passing, according to Duggan, was "a strategy
so rare among bourgeois white women that their plan was perceived
as so radically inappropriate as to be insane.

Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the Homosexual Body
Author(s): Siobhan Somerville
Source: Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Oct., 1994), pp. 243-266
Published by: University of Texas Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3704199

There's cases all over history of "women" who led their lives as men, dressing in male clothing etc. ... some at great risk, others were known and "accepted" as much as could be in the society that they lived in. I'm sure there's an equal amount of "men" who led their lives as women. There's an interesting book on just the topic of gender reversals in society from an anthropological perspective: Gender Reversals and Gender Cultures: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. I think Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History also kind of deals with this type of gender-bending through history.

If you look into history there are many, many cases of people passing as male without incident. In some middle eastern countries where a family didn't have a son, they would sometimes raise their daughters in male roles to gain societal standing. It was more desirable to have a fake son than a daughter in their culture.

Quote from: Ayden on September 05, 2012, 09:29:38 PM
If you look into history there are many, many cases of people passing as male without incident. In some middle eastern countries where a family didn't have a son, they would sometimes raise their daughters in male roles to gain societal standing. It was more desirable to have a fake son than a daughter in their culture.

I recall reading something a while back about this.  Apparently it's still a common practice in Middle Eastern countries to allow a young girl to cut her hair short and dress like a boy so that they can do things like play sports and walk the streets by themselves.  I remember they interviewed a couple of the girls; some hated that they had to pretend to be boys just to be able to play and have fun, others seemed to actually be trans.