Browsing through Lee Jackson’s “The Victorian Dictionary,” I found an article under Women’s Sexuality about a “Man-Woman”. The article, titled “Hatton Garden. Extraordinary Case – A Man-Woman,” was written and published in 1835 as an investigative report. The article, essentially, tries to investigate a transgendered woman who goes by the name, Bill Chapman. Bill Chapman dresses in male clothes, is a ballad singer, and lives with Isabella Watson whom are “considered to be man and wife.” Bill is arrested for tricking the inspector into believing Bill is a man (at least it is suggested). Just from the article title alone, the author seems amazed by such a person. It seems there wasn’t a word for “transgender” so the very concept seemed very confusing, the author acts as if he has come across an important discovery for which he calls a “creature” in the first sentence. The author does not seem to condemn Bill Chapman, but just seems very confused on how to react or call him which reflects the time’s slim understanding of transgender people.
The characters in the article dehumanizes Bill because they are unsure what to call him since they cannot accept his identified gender. As I mentioned before, the author calls Bill a “creature.” The inspector, Oakley, calls Bill a thing: “…although the thing before them, that called itself Bill Chapman, was attired in man’s apparel, he had ascertained that it was a woman.” Because there is no word for transgender, the author and characters of the article don’t even identify Bill as human with their mention of “it,” “creature,” and “thing.” They dehumanize Bill in their lack of accurate diction. Oakley then attaches the pronoun, she, to address Bill before revealing he’s known Bill for ten years. Oakley did not realize Bill was a woman until recently which (it is suggested) is what leads to his arrest.
Transgender people were not only neglected under any form of gender identification, they were also outside the law. Bill is arrested for “being a common cheat and impostor, and creating a disturbance.” When comparing this statement to Oakley’s long-belief that Bill is a man, it seems Bill is arrested because Oakley felt tricked. Yet, Bill did not break any law as Mr. Bennet states: “I know of no law to punish her for wearing male attire.” However, this does not mean society accepted transgender people. As Oakley points out, he would like to punish Bill, but he has no valid reason to do so. Bill and transgender people are so outside of society there is no law against their choice in attire.
To even make the reporter’s account of the story more unreliable, the author points out that the reporter got the height of Bill and Isabella wrong. This odd note at the bottom emphasizes how confused society was of transgender people.
Yet, we still have this confusion of transgender people today because the English language lacks gender-neutral pronouns. I found this piece very intriguing because of that correlation. Even take the last line of the article, “…although this strange being had lodged for a number of years at the house alluded to, it was never known it was a woman, though at the same time it was never supposed that the creature was a man.” I often find people calling a transgendered person a “he/she” because a gender-neutral pronoun is uncommon. The lack of inclusion of queer people in society is still very relevant today.
Work Cited
“Sinks of London Laid Open.” Victorian London Dictionary. Web. 13 February 2016.
http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm