The Chevalier D’Eonposed as a woman.
Actually, according to the article, Le Chevalier D’Eon posed as a man, same as Catalina de Erauso.
The article says:
Oh, OK, so they recognized him as a woman without any examination, but examined the body after death? Weeeeeeird.
Well, it said there were rumors and people betting either way but that he never confirmed it. And then it said he started living as a woman and acting as though he were biologically female.
She’d be at least a little more believable as a man if she wasn’t making that face.
I used to live in Boystown in Chicago for many years and have seen plenty of men in drag.
While most are over the top and can be spotted a mile away every so often you see one who not only looks like a woman but looks like a hot woman. I always thought I could spot the fakes but I can remember two instances in particular where I was 100% fooled (and no, not learned in a Crying Game manner). My girlfriend was fooled too. Someone had to point it out to us and my GF was actually a little pissed that he (as a she) looked so stunningly hot as a woman. My GF felt that was just unfair in a cosmic way (i.e. the universe should not allow such a travesty).
So, it can be done.
I wonder though if a guy tried to “sneak” around as a woman for 18 months to write a book if they’d be reviled as a poser and get a lot of “how dare he!” kind of things (e.g. I suspect a guy posing as a woman in a woman’s support group would be viewed as a violation of…something). Just my sense that the feminine “mystique” does not want a light cast on it.
You are probably right about that. I think if a guy genuinely wanted to pass as a woman or felt he was a woman or had some motivation that wasn’t “check out naked chicks in the locker room” or something, that would be fine with me. Of course I don’t spend too much time in women’s locker rooms.
I’ve read the book. Vincent eventually revealed her identity and true sex to most (although not all) of the people she interacted with as a man, and all of them were genuinely surprised to learn the truth. Some had suspected that she was a gay man*, but none claimed that they’d suspected “Ned” was really a woman.
Vincent also says in the book that a large part of passing as a man was having the attitude and body language of a man, which wouldn’t come across as much in a photo as it would in person.
*Vincent is actually a lesbian, and says in the book that it was interesting and surprising for her to realize that while she’d always been considered rather butch for a woman she came across as rather femmey for a man.
I don’t know why that should be surprising: After all, she is female. It would be more surprising if a woman passing as a man didn’t look femmy, wouldn’t it?
Well, maybe not if she’s a 5’10" butch lesbian who was apparently never considered “feminine” in her whole life. Vincent says in the book that going into this project she’d had the idea that for once in her life she’d seem gender normal – that rather than being a butch or mannish woman she’d seem like just a regular guy. I think she also found it surprising and somewhat amusing that people suspected she was gay whether she was presenting as a man or a woman. One man asked her outright if she was gay, and she (truthfully if misleadingly) replied with something like “Well, you might say that, but it’s not what you think…I had sex with men a few times when I was young, but I’ve always preferred women.”
Speaking of which, Vincent also thought it would be easier to pick up women as a man, but quickly learned that men didn’t have it as easy as she thought. She says in the book that she gained a lot of sympathy for straight men and how difficult it is to always be the “aggressor” when it comes to the dating game and have to deal with the “I know you’re only after one thing” attitude from women.
Many, many years ago I read an article in which a male college student pretended to be a female in some online venue (maybe AOL?), and then documented how differently he was treated. “That’s interesting,” said I, and so I registered a clearly female name on an online chess server and played under that ID for a year.
Chess servers are a drastically male-skewed population, so I’m not sure what happened was representative of the world at large, but basically: 1) when males lost to me they privately messaged me some amazingly crappy/crude things; 2) males flirted with me non-stop…I basically couldn’t comment publicly on anything without getting several private messages in the hey-sweetie vein; and 3) all sorts of high-rated players wanted to give me free chess lessons.
The last part reminded me of a joke: “Doctor, my wife thinks she’s a chicken!” “Really? Why doesn’t she see a psychiatrist?” “Well, you know…we can use the eggs.” On one hand I felt pretty skivey…on the other hand, well, I did enjoy the lessons.
Still…at the end of the year I dropped that ID.
Usually on the Scrabble ISCR where I play, there’s very little chit chat, but just now, I had some guy who wasn’t interested in playing but rather in talking and seemed pretty pleased when he found out I was pretty young. Blech. What’s the point? For all they know, I could be some hideous warty young female.
TS Garp came to mind as well. Didn’t work out to well for him.
Do you mean Roberta? I don’t remember Garp ever posing as a woman. Unless I’m remembering wrong.
I’m not at all surprised. We . . . especially straight people . . . live in a very binary society, and there’s a huge chasm separating what a “real woman” is, from a “real man.” Even a butch woman is very different from a femme man. It’s very rare that we encounter someone who’s totally androgynous. Vincent was trying to make that leap, and found that she couldn’t leap far enough.
His mom’s funeral. Didn’t go so well.
Oh, I remember now. He was sneaking in because no other men were allowed. Isn’t that where he also meets Ellen James? Like, the real one?
Yep, she rescued him and said thank you. Excellent scene IMHO.
Or so she claims.
Of course since she is making lots of money based entirely on the scam being successful I there’s no real reason to believe what she says. Nobody would buy a book if it was about a bungled attempt of a woman to pass as a man, who was routinely identified as a ropey transvestite for the entire course of the experiment.
I have only seen the book cover, but I can safely say that if I saw that “man” in person i would immediately identify him as either gay or transvestite. If he claimed not to be then I would simply assume “closeted gay” or “closeted TV” and say no more. Men are like that. Outside of high school nobody is going to call someone gay or a cross dresser if the deny being so, even when we are convinced they are.
I suspect women may have had a similar reaction, hence the reason for her difficulties picking up women.
Of course all this is just speculation, but when the author has such a huge incentive to lie I’m not inclined to believe them without corroborating evidence.