359 Jen Manion, Trans-ing Gender in Early America
Ben Franklin's World
Liz Covart
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2023
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
“People are complicated” is a truism that holds in the past and the present. Seldom do we find a person where all of their actions and thoughts are black and white. What we see instead is that people are colorful because they aren’t just one thing and they don’t think and act in one way.
Human identities are one area where we find a lot of colorfulness and complexity. Most humans have multiple Identities based in geography, nationality, religious affiliation, race and ethnicity, and also gender.
Jen Manion, a Professor of History and of Sexuality and Women’s and Gender Studies at Amherst College and author of the book, Female Husbands: A Trans History, joins us to investigate the early American world of female husbands, people who were assigned female at birth and then transed-gender at some point in their lives to live as men.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/359
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Complementary Episodes
- Episode 002: Cornelia King, “That So Gay” Exhibit at the Library Company of Philadelphia
- Episode 013: Rachel Hope Cleves, Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
- Episode 080: Jen Manion, Liberty's Prisoners: Prisons and Prison Life in Early America
- Episode 266: Johann Neem, Education in Early America
- Episode 292: Craft in Early America
- Episode 309: Philip Reid, Merchant Ships of the Eighteenth Century
- Episode 354: John Wood Sweet, The Sewing Gir’s Tale
- Episode 357: Eric Jay Dolin, Privateering During the American Revolution
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to an AirWave Media Podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | Ben Franklin's World is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios. |
| 0:17.0 | Hello, and welcome to episode 359 of Ben Franklin's World. |
| 0:22.4 | The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our |
| 0:27.1 | early American past have shaped the present day where we live in. |
| 0:31.2 | And I'm your host, Liz Covard. |
| 0:34.1 | If we think about all of the episodes we've ever had on this podcast, a big lesson |
| 0:38.2 | we can take away from them is that people are complicated. |
| 0:42.5 | This is a trueism that holds in the past as well as in the present. |
| 0:46.0 | Seldom do we ever find people where all of their actions and thoughts are black and white? |
| 0:50.9 | What we see instead is that people are colorful because they aren't just one thing and |
| 0:56.2 | they don't just act and think in one way. |
| 0:59.2 | Now think about this colorfulness in terms of identity. |
| 1:02.5 | How many people from the past have we met on this podcast? |
| 1:05.5 | Who identified as being part of a town, a colony or state, a region, an empire, a nation, |
| 1:11.3 | or any combination of those? |
| 1:13.7 | And think about how many people we've met who strongly identified as members of a religious |
| 1:17.8 | group or to a nomination. |
| 1:20.0 | Or how many people have we met who view themselves as more than just one racial or ethnic category, |
| 1:26.0 | such as they view themselves as both African and American, Indigenous and American, or |
| 1:31.2 | as African-Indigenous and American, and the same holds true for their aspects of human |
| 1:36.7 | identities as well, aspects such as gender. |
... |
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