Male-to-Female Cross-Dressing in Yorkshire: 1870-1939

This thesis examines male-to-female cross-dressing in Yorkshire between 1870 and 1939. It analyses the relationship between cross-dressing and masculinity in the criminal justice system, on the stage, in carnival and on film. By analysing cross-dressing in spaces in which it could be accepted this thesis demonstrates that cross-dressing had the ability to reinforce hegemonic constructions of both femininity and masculinity. In doing so, it demonstrates that binary narratives of masculine vs. effeminate behaviours do not reflect the majority of experiences of cross-dressing and masculinity in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Yorkshire. Instead, cross-dressing is best understood as existing on a scale of acceptability.
Historical and regional specificities were important in defining where an act of gender transgression was positioned on the scale of acceptability and deviance. The regional focus of the thesis develops histories of cross-dressing and masculinity by drawing attention to how regional culture shaped attitudes towards gender, sexuality, and the masculine body. Yorkshire was a space with a very specific set of traditions that significantly influenced understandings of masculinity, community, and identity, which in turn influenced experiences of male-to-female cross-dressing. The experiences of the men discussed in this thesis were shaped by the fact that they lived and worked in Yorkshire.
The broad time frame of this thesis also exposes the endurance of cross-dressing in popular entertainment culture alongside changing technologies. The move from music hall to silver screen emphasises the relative normativity of cross-dressed men in a range of entertainment forms. Tracking the decline in the popularity of the act also demonstrates how changing entertainment technologies, developing understandings of gender and sexuality as binary identities, and the increasing conflation of the two, complicated the ability of cross-dressing to be enjoyed as family entertainment.