“ “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott was a transgender man”

Radcliffe Hall has been co-opted already. Haven't seen any chat about Stein yet.

I'm just waiting for Radcliffe Hall and Gertrude Stein to be co-opted. I wonder what is keeping them?

Jo March, Henny from All of a Kind Family, Caddie Woodlawn, Laura Ingalls...all girls who loved to defy convention and stereotypes. They were my childhood heroines who showed me I could have choices and independent thought, be rambunctious and adventurous...it's maddening to think that anyone would denigrate them like this...as if women are only true women if simpering, submissive and demure.

The quote used “I am more than half-persuaded that I am, by some freak of nature, a man’s soul put into a woman’s body.” has been taken out of context. The whole thing is 'I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body.... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.'

I suspect she was attracted to women in an era when it was not accepted by society. She at no point says she wants to be a man...ffs

It’s particularly irritating because Alcott came from a reforming Transcendentalist family who were very active in mid-19th century American progressive social movements, including abolitionism, early Transcendentalist feminism, veganism, communitarianism, and so on. There was a first flowering of American feminism and women’s rights associated with progressive abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Margaret Fuller (who wrote one of the first feminist rights manifestos - and certainly the first serious American statement of women’s rights - Woman in the Nineteenth Century).

Alcott’s family was very much of that circle. Retrospectively transing Alcott is incredibly disrespectful to that significant intellectual and political tradition of women’s rights and education, and really massively writes out of history her links to progressive Christian and Transcendentalist women’s movements. It’s historically deceitful and mendacious, basically pretending that these complex intellectual and social histories didn’t exist. It proper boils my piss (as Jo March surely would have said if she had had the opportunity 😂)

Her books were autobiographical. If she believed that she was a man, why would she use the title "little women"?

Sudden realisation when caught sight of myself in the mirror that my current favourite outfit was a nod to Gentleman Jack - black jacket and very skirt-like culottes/baggy trousers. I love the style but am a straight woman who when much younger and skinnier used to scour second places for men’s suits that fitted over my hips. I also wore ridiculous ball dresses as day wear. Dress up is fun as is mucking around with stereotypes but nothing more

Any rush to claim Enid Blyton and Elinor M Brent-Dyer ?

I was just about to post about Enid Blyton! George in the Famous Five doesn't use her full name, wears her hair short and is most definitely a tomboy. EB obviously can't have cared for women or girls because Anne is such a soppy character. But EB as a trans something or other? I don't think so.

Any rush to claim Enid Blyton and Elinor M Brent-Dyer ?

Well if the author is a transgender male they will go trying to justify their life choices by finding and 'identifying' with historical figures to show they are justified in their actions and beliefs. Dead people cannot argue back.

Never mind Alcott fought for women's rights and is probably shuddering in her grave.

What a load of regressive bullshit.

The historical role models for women are frequently posthumously transed now. Joan of Arc, George Eliot, George Sand, Hatshepsut, Rosa Bonheur etc. have all been transed after death.

I assume the idea is that once 'woman' is just an abstract feeling of femininity or a preference for retrogressive gender roles applied to the female sex, then that new type of 'women' probably wouldn't need any historical role models. Stepford Wives or Barbie dolls would suffice.

The transing of the famous women after death is one of the first things which made me start researching the gender identity ideology, because it angered me so much! What those doing this were really saying that almost any woman who did anything at all that made her famous must have really been a man.

The reason those women had to fight against additional obstacles was their female sex. It's irrelevant how they 'felt' inside their heads.

This ideology is extremely anti-feminist, bringing back outdated gender roles and rigid rules about proper ways to behave while also erasing all terms for our sex.

What a lot of utter nonsense.

This hurts me to read. Woman bucking against oppressive societal gender norms = must be a man. It is beyond offensive!

Isn't it because LMA has written about wanting to be a man? But isn't that as a pp has said, to enjoy the freedoms of a man in a more restrictive age?

I've wished to be a man as recent as a few years ago as I worked in a massively male dominated industry and thought I would be getting better opportunities as a man.

I hate all this retro transing, but I think it does a good job of peaking as it's largely taken as very regressive.

My immediate reaction "oh fuck off".
And I don't usually swear.
As other pps have said, I was a boyish little girl. Most of all, though, I was just myself - being fortunate to have sensible grown ups for parents who let me do what I liked (mainly climbing trees, but also reading, singing, and playing Robin Hood)
I am less empathetic and more spatially aware than my husband, and yet it was i who bore the children, and neither of us is trans. How did that happen?

Has anyone leapt on Elizabeth 1 saying 'you will find a man in me!' yet? Surely soon to come.
Such blinkered thinking.

For the second time this evening I am reduced to looking like I have been peeling onions. I'm so sorry life was so awful for you.

“she loved to participate vicariously in the adventures and discoveries of boyhood.” From childhood to old age, Alcott repeated the same sentiments in her letters and journals: she didn’t care for girls’

Alcott also supported the vote for women.

I hated playing with dolls when I was a child - it was boring. Playing with my brothers train set & scaletrics was more fun and I learnt got more of my parents attention as they also though playing with dolls was a bit pants. I now take part in sports which would be considered more 'male' but I have absolutely no doubt to my female gender.

Seriously, society has dictated gender behaviours since the dawn of time when woman were married off for money to produce children and men were allowed to smoke and drink and get an education. We are just getting over that as many woman (not all) can get an education, have their own money & chose their own lifestyle and 'these people' are now trying to say if you are a girl and like 'boys' things you must be trans. No, it is just people not having their lives dictated by their gender..😠

Cos only a man could have written such great literary works. Misogynist codswallop.

Fantastically disrespectful.

No one has any idea how Alcott may have chosen to identify if they had lived in 21st Century USA/England and if they had been fully au fait with all this.

Merely using well known figures to prop up personal choices and desires. Rather like the many ways this politics shows zero respect to others and wishes to use them to whatever purpose suits it.

Fucking ridiculous

Jo, written by Louisa, was a Tom boy and was certainly a woman, who married a man and had two sons. So it doesn't hang together for me.

Based on the evidence put forward, an argument could perhaps be made for her being today a (possibly butch) lesbian. I guess we don’t need to ask why this is skated over in the rush to conclude she was trans. Or maybe, when society insists on strict sex/gender roles, it’s natural for a tomboy type woman to question if she is a man on the inside.

How can you retrospectively identify that someone who can’t speak for themselves was “a transgender man”.

It's fashion not history, real evidence not required. For years now all sorts of famous dead people have retrospectively had autism, and remember Mr "Everything Comes from India" from "Goodness Gracious Me"? "William Shakespeare? Indian!"

Now it's transgender. A friend of mine went on some inclusion training at work and she got told the same about Joan of Arc.