Case Studies of Cross-Dressing Throughout the Ages "The Mysteries of Sex: Women Who Posed as Men and Men Who Impersonated Women", First U.S. Edition 1974

C J. S. Thompson

First Edition

[LGBTQ][Drag and Cross-Dressing][Transgender] Thompson, C.J.S. The Mysteries of Sex: Women Who Posed as Men and Men Who Impersonated Women. New York: Causeway Books, 1974. First U.S. edition. Cream cloth boards, purple spine titles, in original illustrated dust jacket. 256pp., illustrated with plates.

First American edition of this historical survey of gender impersonation, originally published in the U.K. by the noted medical historian and curator C.J.S. Thompson in 1938. The volume offers a narrative compendium of documented cases in which women assumed male identities and men lived or performed as women, spanning antiquity through the 19th century. Thompson’s subjects include celebrated figures such as British soldier Hannah Snell; Confederate soldier Loreta Velazquez; pirate Mary Read; and the Chevalier d’Éon, the 18th-century French diplomat and soldier whose life in women’s dress gave English the term “Eonism.” Organized into three sections: “Women Who Posed as Men,” “Men Who Impersonated Women,” and “Claimants to Royal and Other Titles”. The book combines biographical sketches with discussions of the psychological and social aspects of cross-gender presentation.

While framed through the pathologizing lens common to mid-century sexology, The Mysteries of Sex remains a valuable compendium for the historical documentation it preserves, particularly on figures whose public personas challenged rigid binary understandings of gender in their time. Thompson draws on medical case histories, court records, popular ballads, and memoirs, with an antiquarian’s interest in the theatrical and sensational. As such, the work intersects with LGBTQ+ historiography and women’s military history. Dust jacket shows moderate edgewear with small chips at spine ends and corners, some rubbing to panels; binding and inner pages tight and clean. Near fine book in good only jacket. An engaging early historical survey of gender nonconformity.

Item #22506

Price: $285.00