Vivien Morgan
’Cross-dressed to Kill’ is a book featuring a unique collection of extraordinary stories by twenty women cross-dressers of English, Irish, French, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, American and Israeli nationalities. There were literally hundreds of known women cross-dressers in Britain across Europe and in the Americas yet they have been erased from both social and military history.The bravery of these women masquerading as men and the risks they took were great. The penalty for cross-dressing in this period was harsh, including the death penalty because it was seen as an unnatural act that threatened society and offended social morality. The book answers all the questions of why young women dressed as men to fight as soldiers in the 17th to 20th centuries? I tell some of the fascinating women’s stories: fearless, ’tomboys’, early feminists and decidedly full of what was called ’pluck and spunk’. For them ’patriotism had no sex’, determined to fight for their country. What did society think of them? Why was cross-dressing illegal and punishable by death? Were some lesbian or transsexual- as we debate gender today? What happened to them after they were discovered, their sex revealed while dying on the battlefield or wounded? Answers to these questions and how, unafraid to kill, their bravery was rewarded by the army and royalty.Medals, money and fame came. Their legacy? Some are hailed as the first female sailors and soldiers like Deborah Sampson and Lucy Brewer. As the late author Hilary Mantel wrote ’ their story is our story’, to be included in the re-telling past events.
