...
Early and mid-19th-century American legal authorities knew that gender could easily be changed. Gender was defined largely by one’s outward expression – chiefly indicated by hairstyle, clothing, physical deportment and particular habits. Men and women were easily distinguishable by these cues – which made it rather easy for someone to visibly trans gender. So when authorities found someone assigned female who was living as a man, they didn’t see it as something distinct or pathological. They didn’t think it signalled cross-gender identification to realise same-sex attraction. They believed that it could be ‘undone’ just as easily as it was ‘done’ in the first place.
...
Female husbands in general were different from other groups who transed gender (such as soldiers or sailors) because they were in longterm committed relationships with women. Usually, these were legally binding marriages. This posed a much more dramatic threat to [the status quo* in] society, raising two different troubling possibilities: first, that female husbands were able to realise homosexual desire and participate in a same-sex relationship under the guise of a heterosexual one. This was a violation of both religious edicts and civil laws against sodomy [given that females are anatomically incapable of relying upon the act of sodomy, this necessarily signifies 'homosexuality']. Second, female husbands threatened the notion that only those assigned male at birth could become men and enter into fulfilling sexual and romantic relationships with women. Whether husbands had strong identifications of themselves as people of masculine gender and/or same-sex desire was never clear. But it also didn’t matter because neither was welcome in society.
status quo* = since such instances were very rare, the perceived threat greatly exceeded the actual threat to the stability of society.
Female Husbands ..
