Lucy Nelson; Or, The Boy Girl (part 1)
A pair of articles published two months apart feature two tales of transgender children – one a boy who identified with being a girl, another a girl who identified with being a boy. In “Lucy Nelson: Or, The Boy Girl (1831)” the author Eliza Leslie portrays a typical tomboy and possibly transgender figure. Lucy’s gender is significant both for what it rejects – “girlish amusements” such as dressing dolls, making feasts, and reading with her sisters – as well as what she embraces: kite flying, top spinning, ball tossing, hoop driving and, rather specifically, walking on stilts. Furthermore, Leslie describes Nelson as so active at boyish feats that she becomes both dirty and sunburn – “she might almost have been mistaken for an Indian child.” And so the first signal of disapproval from Leslie seems to be one of racial significance – the rejection of gender appropriate play for white girls might affect one’s loss of whiteness and transformation into an Indian racial identity.
Nelson had three brothers and it is significant that she was the leader of them: “Lucy proposed to her brothers to ascend the ladder and get up to the top of the wall…Lucy mounted the ladder first, the three boys followed.” And so Lucy was not simply mimicking her brother’s masculinity – she was leading them in their antics, teaching them how to be boys. When her father witnessed the group atop the frame of a barn under construction, at great risk to themselves, he had enough. He ordered the gang of his children home and refused to allow them to watch the roof being raised on the barn – a popular ceremony in the community. But Lucy would receive further punishment that the boys were spared. Her parents “Determined that their boy-girl daughter should wear boy’s clothes for a whole month.”
This was an interesting punishment. At first, Lucy thought this would be great and not really a punishment at all. But it quickly turned when she was made fun of by her brothers - and so right away we see the social value of gender. Alone, in her thoughts, Lucy embraced the opportunity to wear pants; but the laughter of her brothers – humiliation and social isolation – caught her by surprise. Furthermore, they adopted an aggressive attitude toward her, one seemingly condoned by her parents. “They said that now she was dressed as a boy they would treat her like one.” In effect they were saying, “You really want to be a boy? We’ll show you!” And so Lucy was subject to harassment, humiliation, and intimidation by her parents and brothers.