Full citation:Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
The introduction reviews the background and thematic connections of the papers in this volume. The focus is overwhelmingly on masculinity and sodomy, although several articles in the section “The Body and the State” focus on women (or female-coded figures). There are a total of 15 articles of which four have at least marginal relevance to the Project. However the two that have the strongest focus on female-coded individuals both concern transmasculinity.
This collection evolved out of a set of thematic sessions at the International Medieval Congress (Kalamazoo) and the contents point to the hazards of how scholarly networks silently constrain the scope of interest for such projects. If particular areas of interest are not included within a scholarly network, it becomes difficult to solicit work on those areas—or even to notice that they are not covered.
This article discusses genres of poetry that reference homosexuality, especially “songs of scorn and malediction,” though these are sometimes more teasing in tone than slanderous. The article discusses 36 poems, of which 3 make brief passing references to the potential female same-sex encounters of prostitutes in military camps.
A soldadeira (camp prostitute) has an older female companion “a que quer ben, e ela lhi quer mal (whom she loves but who doesn’t love her)”. Dona Ourana (a prostitute) is warned off of sex with women (not quoted). Maria Leve (another prostitute), it is suggested, prefers living among young women.
A fourth poem has a more extensive reference in which the poetic speaker addresses a woman named Mari’ Mateu, comparing their shared desire for cunts in a teasing and relatively neutral way that is unambiguously sexual.
E foi Deus já de conos avondar aqui outros, que o non an mester,
E ar feze-os muito desejar a min e ti, pero que ch’ és molher.
Mari’ Mateu, Mari’ Mateu, tan desojosa ch és de cono com’ eu!
(And it was God who made cunts in abundance here, for there is no lack, and Who also made both you and I want them even though you’re a woman. Mary Matthew, Mary Matthew, as desirous of cunt as I!)
OK, I guess I’m spite-reviewing this. Despite there being a female homoerotic encounter in a key scene in Celestina, Gerli’s article fails to take any notice of it at all. (Other articles in the collection do make reference to it.) See this tag for background.
(For other publications on this topic that have been reviewed in more detail, see this tag.)
This article reviews the rather unusual experience of Catalina de Erauso, whose gender-crossing received far more acceptance than usual. The author considers the interpretation of Erauso as a trans man. The discussion covers both Erauso’s biography and the fictional versions of their life and discusses the process of “becoming male.”
Both types of sources include women being romantically/sexually attracted to Erauso, but Erauso avoided such entanglements, evincing some degree of erotic interest in women but never carrying through to a sexual relationship.
Fictional accounts tend to dodge the question of Erauso as a colonial warrior, focusing instead on Erauso’s confession of identity and the receipt of official approval and license to continue presenting as male. Erauso’s past life as a nun may have helped mitigate moral concerns regarding the gender-crossing. Despite having lived a rather contentious and violent life as a soldier, Erauso could be depicted as “pure and virginal.”
Erauso became something of a folk hero due to this open category-crossing, but this was enabled by official approval and there being no aggravating sexual factors.
As might be expected given the author and subject, this article covers much the same ground as Burshatin 1996. The current article focuses on Céspedes’ position as a challenge to various sovcio-political doundaries: gendr, race, national, and sexual.
The official structures that documented and prosecuted Céspedes’ case both framed the narrative in specific ways and documented the subject’s own framing and identity claims that constructed a very different story.
Born female to an enslaved Black mother, Céspedes achieved freedom, became male, served in the army, and trained as a surgeon. After marrying a woman, Céspedes was recognized by a former army comrade who knew of the gender crossing, and was then charged with sodomy—specifically, engaging in penetrative sex using an instrument. In contrast to that secular offense, church authorities were concerned with the act of marriage. This latter became the focus of the trial. In the end, the conviction was for bigamy, because Céspedes could not offer proof that the husband they had married (prior to gender-crossing) had died before their subsequent marriage to a woman.
[Note: This is reminiscent of a similar instance in England, where the conviction for bigamy can be interpreted at some level as recognition of the “validity” of marriage between two assigned-female people.]
There were a number of complicating factors. Céspedes offered a defense of being a “hermaphrodite” who had undergone a physiological sex change. But medical examination contradicted this claim. There were side charges that the appearance of masculinity was due to magic. Céspedes’ sentence was harsh in absolute terms (two sessions of public whipping, a public confession, then public service as a surgeon), but this was aligned with typical punishments for bigamy at the time (and to some extent, more lenient than usual).
The article traces several parallel processes of “self-fashioning,” not only of gender but of occupation and economic status. Racial self-fashioning was beyond Céspedes’ ability, but they moved across a permeable racial boundary by manipulating other aspects of identity.
The article goes into much more detail regarding the racial/religious politics of 16th century Spain and how Céspedes maneuvered through them.