Some people, assigned female at birth, transcended gender and lived as men in the 18th and 19th centuries, despite tremendous risk of violence. Amherst history professor Jen Manion provides examples of such people and the women they married. Press reports on these relationships exposed dynamic, contested, and varied stories of love, courage, and loss.

Jen Manion is Associate Professor of History at Amherst College and author of Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America.

Underwriter: The Samara Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation

Series Underwriter: Chroma Technology Corp.

Statewide Underwriters