Writer asks if 'Little Women' author Louisa May Alcott identified as a man

Back when this editor was a teen, there were two kinds of trans: there were transvestites, who were men who dressed in women’s clothing for a sexual thrill, and there were transexuals, who had undergone surgery to become the opposite sex. One of the most woke shows around, “M*A*S*H”, had a guy who cross-dressed to prove he was too crazy to serve in the armed forces — now the Marines are doing away with “sir” and “ma’am” to avoid misgendering officers.

The New York Times notes that the word “transgender” didn’t exist when Louisa May Alcott wrote “Little Women,” but if it had, wouldn’t have been the proper word to describe her … um, him?

The word “transgender” did not exist during the life of ‘Little Women’ author Louisa May Alcott. But @peytonology asks whether it might be the best word to capture the experience of an author who wrote about having a “boy’s spirit” and a “man’s soul.” https://t.co/7728p9aAv2

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) December 24, 2022

Author Peyton Thomas writes:

It’s a name that she didn’t use all that often in her personal life. To family and friends, she was Lou, Lu or Louy. She wrote of herself as the “papa” or “father” of her young nephews. Her father, Bronson, once called Alcott his “only son.” In letters to her close friend Alfie Whitman, Alcott called herself “a man of all work” and “a gentleman at large.”

All this leads me to wonder: Is Alcott best understood as a trans man?

I became curious about this question while conducting archival research for my next novel, a contemporary interpretation of “Little Women.” As I pored over letters, journals and personal papers, I found evidence that Alcott thought of herself as more of a man than a woman — someone, as she wrote, in one letter to Whitman, “with a boy’s spirit” under her “bib & tucker.”

By the time you folks are done, every strong, interesting, powerful woman in history, fictional or real, will have been redefined as some kind of man.

And I guess that's the point of your politics: foreclosing the aspirational horizon of every girl born who doesn't hate her body

— Stuart Parker, Vivah Bandhan (@stuartlosaltos) December 24, 2022

This editor’s wife was preparing her dissertation for her Ph.D. in literature, but her sponsor rejected her reading list because it didn’t have enough “feminists” on it reinterpreting everything through the lens of third-wave feminism and assuming all 18th-century women authors were lesbians. She told them to shove it and dropped out.

Rewriting history to be fanfic for sexual fetishes is like an entire academic and journalistic specialty now https://t.co/MOearkEaUg

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) December 26, 2022

Sorry, feminists. you had a good run for a few decades, but the misogynists have found a way to beat you, and even make you applaud as the return you to second class citizenship.

— Latin X (@RealLatinX) December 25, 2022

In the year 2167, the @nytimes reports on the last living woman: “Xer believes that now, at 98 years old, xe finally accepts xe, too, has a man’s soul.”

— גי דוד – Super Free Man (@DBCWriter) December 25, 2022

Alcott was rejecting the sexist stereotypes & socially-reinforced limitations synonymous with being female at the time—the same brand of sexiest stereotypes & socially-reinforced limitations that arise from suggesting that spirited women must be men. 🙄

— AJ Kay (@AJKayWriter) December 25, 2022

Sign of the times that there was exactly 1 day between my silly 𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰 𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘶𝘮 parody👇 and @nytimes doing in all seriousness exactly what I was parodying. https://t.co/Q8O4tiZQze

— Daniel Hadas (@DanielHadas2) December 26, 2022

This is actually sexism.

— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) December 25, 2022

Likely all the great women in history were likely trans men. No way women could do great things. 🙄

— Kevin – Classical Liberal 🇺🇸 (@gov_fails) December 25, 2022

No. The best word to capture the spirit of a woman without boundaries is…woman.

— Meredith (@Opportunitweet) December 25, 2022

Way to reanimate the sexist stereotypes she lamented. 🙄

— AJ Kay (@AJKayWriter) December 25, 2022

You actually hate women don’t you?

— Nate Ardle (@NateArdle) December 25, 2022

She identified with qualities that were ascribed to men in her time and place. They were associated with men, so she referred to them as men's qualities. That doesn't mean she identified as a man.

— Maggie Kelly (@margaretbkelly) December 25, 2022

For heaven’s sake, just stop.

— JayJay McMaster, CD (@tantrumblue1) December 26, 2022

A masculine woman? Must be a man then. Welcome to the progressive 21st century.

— Kroquegg Overon (@kroquegg_overon) December 25, 2022

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Related:

Admiral Rachel Levine wants teachers and others to be ambassadors and truth-tellers about trans issues https://t.co/3DmrmHqsLZ

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 5, 2022