Our next FoWT monthly meeting will take place on Monday 7th October 2024 – 7.00 pm (19.00 hrs) via Zoom.
“Cross-dressed to Kill” – “Cross-dressing Women Soldiers” by Vivien Morgan.
Our guest speaker on the night will be Vivien Morgan, who will talk about “Cross-dressed to Kill” – “Cross-dressing Women Soldiers”.
‘Vivien Morgan is a former TV News Journalist and Documentary Producer, who picked up a camera to become a TV Video journalist pioneer. Travelling undercover she reported from the closed Communist countries, from Tibet and Myanmar and later from much of Sub-Saharan and West Africa as well as the Middle East and Iran.
Her fascination with these historic young women who cross-dressed in the 17th-20th centuries came from her own experience of what it meant to hide your identity to get your story, but not going as far as swapping skirts for trousers and signing-up for the army to fight! Fascination turned into research and ended up with this book to commemorate them
“Cross-dressed to Kill” – “Cross-dressing Women Soldiers”
‘Cross-dressed to Kill’ is a book featuring a unique collection of extraordinary stories by twenty women cross-dressers of English, Irish, French, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, American and Israeli nationalities.
There were literally hundreds of known women cross-dressers in Britain across Europe and in the Americas yet they have been erased from both social and military history.
The bravery of these women masquerading as men and the risks they took were great. The penalty for cross-dressing in this period was harsh, including the death penalty because it was seen as an unnatural act that threatened society and offended social morality.
The talk answers all the questions of why young women dressed as men to fight as soldiers in the 17th to 20th centuries?
I tell some of the fascinating women’s stories: fearless, ‘tomboys’, early feminists and decidedly full of what was called ‘pluck and spunk’. For them ‘patriotism had no sex’, determined to fight for their country. What did society think of them? Why was cross-dressing illegal and punishable by death? Were some lesbian or transsexual- as we debate gender today? What happened to them after they were discovered, their sex revealed while dying on the battlefield or wounded? Answers to these questions and how, unafraid to kill, their bravery was rewarded by the army and royalty.
Medals, money and fame came. Their legacy? Some are hailed as the first female sailors and soldiers like Deborah Sampson and Lucy Brewer. As the late author Hilary Mantel wrote ’ their story is our story’, to be included in the re-telling past events.
If you would like to take part in this, or any of FoWT’s future monthly meetings, you will need to register your interest. Once registered, we will e-mail you the details you will need to join the meeting on the night.
To register, Fill in the form on our FoWT Monthly Meeting page and we will do the rest. Once you are on our mailing list to take part in our monthly meetings, look out for our e-mail a few days before the meeting, which will give you all the details you will need to join the meeting.
See the complete list of this years talks, presentations and speakers