Of mermaids and monsters: Transgender history and the boundaries of the human in eighteenth‐ and early‐nineteenth‐century Britain
Onni Gust
Abstract:The figure of the monster has long been used by trans and intersex scholars, artists and activists to articulate their sense of being in a world dominated by binary, cisgender norms. Yet what does it mean to embrace ‘the monstrous’ and how might that embrace inform the construction of transgender history? This article examines the specificities of ‘the monstrous’ in eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century Britain and empire by focusing on two figures at the boundary of the human: ‘the mermaid’ and ‘the hermaphrodit… Show more
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