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Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and express oneself.
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician, sexologist and LGBTQ advocate, whose citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and World League for Sexual Reform. He based his practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg during the Weimar period. Performance Studies and Rhetoric Professor Dustin Goltz characterized the committee as having carried out "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights".
The white feather is a widely recognised propaganda symbol. It has, among other things, represented cowardice or conscientious pacifism; as in A. E. W. Mason's 1902 book The Four Feathers. In Britain during the First World War it was often given to males out of uniform by women to shame them publicly into signing up. In the United States armed forces, however, it is used to signify extraordinary bravery and excellence in combat marksmanship.
Women have been serving in the military since the inception of organized warfare, in both combat and non-combat roles. Their inclusion in combat missions has increased in recent decades, often serving as pilots, mechanics, and infantry officers.
Many people have engaged in cross-dressing during wartime under various circumstances and for various motives. This has been especially true of women, whether while serving as a soldier in otherwise all-male armies, while protecting themselves or disguising their identity in dangerous circumstances, or for other purposes.
Helene Stöcker was a German feminist, pacifist and gender activist. She successfully campaigned to keep same sex relationships between women legal, but she was unsuccessful in her campaign to legalise abortion. She was a pacifist in Germany and joined the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft. As war emerged, she fled to Norway. As Norway was invaded, she moved to Japan and emigrated to America in 1942.
Women in World War I were mobilized in unprecedented numbers on all sides. The vast majority of these women were drafted into the civilian work force to replace conscripted men or to work in greatly expanded munitions factories. Thousands served in the military in support roles, and in some countries many saw combat as well.
Brita Christina Hagberg, née Nilsdotter, alias Petter Hagberg, was a woman who served as a soldier in the Swedish army during the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790). She is one of two confirmed women to have been decorated for bravery in battle in Sweden before women were allowed into the military in the 20th century.
Flora Sandes was a British woman who served as a member of the Royal Serbian Army in World War I. She was the only British woman officially to serve as a soldier in that war. Initially a St John Ambulance volunteer, she travelled to the Kingdom of Serbia, where she was welcomed and formally enrolled in the Serbian army. She was subsequently promoted to the rank of sergeant major, and, after the war, to senior captain. She was decorated with seven medals.
As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany by soldiers from all advancing Allied armies, although a majority of scholars agree that the records show that a majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet occupation troops. The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence.
Ruth Margarete Roellig was a German writer, she is known for documenting Berlin's lesbian club scene of the late 1920s during the Weimar Republic. Additionally she published support of Nazism starting in the 1930s, and she stopped writing after the end of World War II.
Mary and MollyBell were two young women from Pulaski County, Virginia who disguised themselves as men and fought in the American Civil War for the Confederacy. The pair successfully managed to keep their gender hidden from their fellow soldiers and the military for two years while fighting in several major battles, until they were discovered and incarcerated. Soon thereafter, the women were released from prison and forced to return home.
The treatment of homosexuality in Latvia has varied greatly throughout its history, as the country has gone through periods of conquest and independence. Typically, laws targeting the LGBT community and particularly gay men have been harsher under periods of Russian or Soviet control than during periods of independence. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, homosexuality in Latvia was decriminalised in 1992. However, homophobic attitudes remain entrenched, and Latvia is considered one of the least hospitable countries for the LGBT community in the EU.
Karl Giese was a German archivist, museum curator, and the life partner of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Dora Rudolfine Richter was a German trans woman and the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender-affirming surgery. She was one of a number of transgender people in the care of sex-research pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld at Berlin's Institute for Sexual Research during the 1920s and early 1930s. She underwent surgical removal of the testicles in 1922, followed in 1931 by removal of the penis and vaginoplasty. Richter died at the age of 74 in Allersberg, Bavaria on 26 April 1966.
Leslie Joy Whitehead, known as Josephine, Joy, or Jo, was a Canadian female soldier during the First World War. Whitehead was one of a number of women from the western world to enter the frontline as a combatant during World War I after she enlisted as a man in the Royal Serbian Army at the age of 22. During her time on the Balkan Front, she would go on to work as a military engineer, a guard for the Scottish Women's Hospitals, and become a prisoner of war under the Bulgarian Army following the invasion of Belgrade on October 8, 1915.
Haritina Evstafievna Korotkevich was a Russian soldier who served in the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. Volunteering to serve disguised as a man under the pseudonym Khariton Korotkevich, she soon gained a reputation as a fearless leader as a woman in her own right. She was killed by shellfire on the front line during the Siege of Port Arthur.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, that began on 24 February 2022, has had a significant impact on women across Ukraine and Russia, both as combatants and as civilians. In Ukraine, the invasion has seen a significant increase in women serving in the military as well as a significant number of women leaving the country as refugees. In Russia, women have led the anti-war movement.
Gerda von Zobeltitz was a German dressmaker, noblewoman, and one of the first recognized transgender people in the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic.
References
- Hirschfeld, Magnus (1930). The Sexual History Of The World War (revised edition 1946). Cadillac Publishing. Page 100.
- Jones, David E. (2000). Women Warriors: A History. Washington D.C.: Brassey's. p. 134 ISBN 1-57488-206-6
- Salmonson, Jessica Amanda (1991). The Encyclopedia of Amazons. Paragon House. Page 236. ISBN 1-55778-420-5
- "Young Girls Fighting on the Russian Front". Current History. May 1916. Retrieved 6 March 2014. This article was first printed in the Russian Journal Novoe Vremya, then in the London Times, and finally in Current History, Magazine of The New York Times, pp. 365–67.