Photograph by Frederick Spalding
Content warning: Transphobia, discussion of misgendering; mention of suicide and suicidality
I first witnessed a transgender character misgendered by her own author in “The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman,” a short story published anonymously in 1857. Despite the lack of information and terminology regarding transgender people at the time, the story depicted many elements of the transgender experience, albeit from a confused perspective. The text was assigned for a queer short stories course at UCLA, and while I wasn’t surprised that a transgender character was misgendered by a writer in 1857, I was surprised that a professor of queer studies in 2023 would as well. When I suggested using she/her pronouns, he objected and cited the title as evidence that the protagonist was merely confused. While I do not argue for censoring the text itself, it is essential to challenge and correct these misgenderings in academic discussions. Misgendering transgender characters ignores our modern understanding of gender and has the potential to perpetuate harmful stereotypes that transgender people are confused or mentally ill.
Transgender characters were not represented in literature until the late 19th century. An early example is “The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman,” a story about a social outcast named Japhet Colbones who was assigned male at birth. The men in the family are described as “queer freaks” that the women have to put up with. Japhet rejects school, takes on sewing, and, at 19 years old, marries an older woman named Tiddy. Over time, the Colbones sisters notice various garments disappearing: a petticoat, a gown, and more. Years later, they realize that Japhet had stolen them. Shortly after, the story ends with Japhet committing suicide, leaving behind this note:
I think I am a woman. I have been seven years making me a perfect suit of garments appropriate for my sex. As I have passed so long, falsely, for a man, I am ashamed to show myself in my true colors; therefore, I hang myself… I have prepared every thing for the funeral, and desire that I may be laid out in the clothes I have on.
Several aspects of this passage mark a clear awareness of female identity. Japhet uses the words “my sex” and “true colors,” and the word “man” is declared as false. She lives in a world that cannot honor her identity. Aware that she will never be treated or seen as a woman by others, she chooses to die in her authentic, feminine presentation. As this story illuminates, intentionally or not, misgendering is painful. Having one’s identity invalidated and repressed, both in 1857 and today, can often result in suicidal ideation. A recent study at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that 81% of transgender adults in the U.S. have considered suicide. Continuing to define gender by assigned sex at birth instead of one’s gender identity makes transgender existence far more difficult by denying the subjective reality and self-determination of trans people.
“Nightwood” by Djuna Barnes presents a character similar to Japhet. Published in 1936, this novel features a character named Matthew who expresses extreme discontent with her male gender assignment. Like Japhet, Matthew dresses in feminine garments in secrecy along with makeup and a wig. There are several lines of dialogue which exemplify a sense of gender dysphoria. She refers to herself as the “girl that God forgot,” and she repeatedly refers to herself as a woman:
Am I not the girl to know of what I speak? We go to our Houses by our nature—and our nature, no matter how it is, we all have to stand—as for me, so God has made me, my house is the pissing port… In the old days I was possibly a girl in Marseilles thumping the dock with a sailor, and perhaps it’s that memory that haunts me. The wise men say that the remembrance of things past is all that we have for a future, and am I to blame if I’ve turned up this time as I shouldn’t have been, when it was a high soprano I wanted, and deep corn curls to my bum, with a womb as big as the king’s kettle, and a bosom as high as the bowsprit of a fishing schooner?
Not only do we see Matthew express frustration over how God has made her, but the frequent phrasing of “Am I to blame?” demonstrates an awareness, once again, that Matthew cannot exist in this world as a trans woman. She turns to a past life because the present will not allow for her to live truly.
Despite these characters’ descriptions of gender dysphoria that reflect what we might call transgender identity today, my perspective was refuted by the UCLA professors who assigned these pieces. They argued that calling these characters transgender is anachronistic and changes the meaning of the text. It is not my intention to condemn or alter these works. I firmly believe their historical value lies in how they reveal the experiences of people who identify as transgender today as well as the societal attitudes toward gender nonconformity at those specific times in history. However, it is unfair to justify calling characters like Japhet or Matthew men when doing so ignores the explicit passages that reveal gender misalignment.
Continuing to validate the misgendering in these texts ignores the harm it possesses in the real world. Misgendering characters who express clear gender dysphoria normalizes denying a person’s knowledge of self in favor of cisheteronormal, patriarchal, essentialist understandings of gender. The perspective is uncritical and ignores the reality that we wouldn’t misgender a transgender character in a piece of literature written today. When considering how much transphobic ignorance continues today, there is no reason to prioritize the limited perspective of an author who didn’t know any better over the harm it causes the queer community.