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Author Chesser, Lucy Sarah

Title Parting with my sex : cross-dressing, inversion and sexuality in Australian cultural life / Lucy Chesser
Published University of Sydney, N.S.W. : Sydney University Press, 2008

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  306.7680994 Che/Pwm  AVAILABLE
Description xxix, 347 pages : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles ; 21 cm
Contents 1. 'Extraordinary case of concealment of sex': Edward De Lacy Evans and the management of disruptive knowledge -- 2. 'If he's a woman he's a fine ploughman': public regulation, private tolerance and 'passing women' in colonial Australia -- 3. Mary Rutledge's mad freak: masquerade, disguise, theatrical impersonation and cross-dressing -- 4. 'Mere bundles of clothes': cross-dressing and inversion in colonial cultural expression -- 5. 'She won't be happy till she wears 'em': cross-dressing and sexual politics in the contested 1890s -- 6. 'I felt no difference between him and other women': sexual (mis)representation and cultural anxiety in the 1863 prosecution of John Wilson -- 7. Abominable crimes and strange manias: cross-dressing and homosexual transgression, 1863-1900 -- 8. 'Women in a suit-of-male': working women in male 'disguise', 1890-1920 -- 9. 'When two loving hearts beat as one': same-sex marriage, subjectivity and self-representation in the case of Marion-Bill-Edwards, 1906-1916 -- 10. Brazen beauties and erotic males: cross-dressing, sensationalism, sexology and the law, 1902-1920 -- Conclusion
Summary "In this original and unusual work, Lucy Chesser explores the persistent recurrence of cross-dressing and gender inversion within Australian cultural life. Examples of cross-dressing are to be found in almost every area of classic Australian historical enquiry, including Aboriginal-European relations and conflict, convict societies, the gold rushes, bushranging, the 1890s and its nationalist fiction, and World War One. This book compares and contrasts sustained life-long impersonations where women lived, worked and sometimes married as men, with other forms of cross-dressing such as public masquerades, cross-dressing on the stage, and the prosecution of men who sought sexual encounters while disguised as women"--Provided by publisher
Notes Includes index
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Subject Cross-dressing -- Australia -- History.
Cross-dressers -- Australia.
Sex -- Australia.
Homosexuality -- Australia.
ISBN 9781920898311 paperback $ 39.95