Ladies wearing pants.

Instead of discussing LJ being stupid again (I will assume I don’t have to actually ask anyone to not crosspost my comments in locked posts) because everyone else is, and I’m determined to be chipper-ish I will instead pose a question I was pondering last night.

Is there a specific fannish term for the type of crossdressing where the character in question (A) identifies as hir biological sex and (B) is not trying to pass hirself off as the opposite sex, but rather is dressed that way for practicality, comfort or protection. While I tend to use “crossdressing” for pretty much any case where a character is wearing attire that is gender-coded in hir society and the opposite of hir gender, when I hear the term, my assumption is that the referenced character is deliberately portraying hirself as being of that gender for whatever reason, as opposed to for comfort/practicality.

Have a visual aid:



For examples of what I mean:

In Cutthroat Island and Against All Flags Morgan and Prudence are pirates who live among pirates, were raised among pirates, and go into battle. Both women wear traditionally masculine attire and seem to be more comfortable that way than in traditionally female attire, but there’s no attempt to disguise their biological sex, and both are obviously women and never taken as anything else.

Elizabeth Swann spends most of the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies wearing traditionally masculine attire. While she does briefly pass herself off as a boy, her situation is mostly the same. Ditto for Zoe Saldana’s character in the first movie whose name I always forget despite loving her muchly. (ETA: Anamaria. I always think I'm wrong about that for some reason.)

In The Flame and the Arrow Anne wears feminine attire at court or when out with her uncle, but masculine attire when she goes out alone. This seems to mostly be for riding horses, and the masculine attire is considerably less prominent than in the other cases mentioned.

In La Femme Musketeer, Valentine wears masculine attire save for special occasions, and frequently keeps her hair tucked into her hat. Characters frequently mistake her for a man because of the clothing, but she never claims to be male or seems to be perceived as such, and most realize their error a few moments

In Queen of Swords Tessa’s Girl!Zorro outfit is masculine attire (specifically the traditional Zorro costume made for a woman) but she’s obviously female and never taken as anything but.

The heroine of Misty Massey’s Mad Kestrel is another “woman wearing pants on a ship” case, and the inventor in Gail Carriger’s Changeless, IIRC, did it for comfort.

Then, of course, there’s real women like Jeanne d’Arc, who wore male attire because she felt it gave her more protection, and George Sand, who wore male attire initially for financial reasons, and later for comfort and because it gave her more freedom to move about in society. As far as I know, neither is believed to have identified as male.

Interestingly, most of these are in swashbucklers. (I am sure that there are plenty of others who aren’t of both genders, and you should mention them in comments.) I thought I had a couple examples for male characters, but realized both likely identified at least somewhat as female, or seem to have been originally conceived that way as I read them, and both were from shoujo manga (Ritsu in Fruits Basket and Ito’s cousin in W Juliet). I thought about Oscar from Rose of Versailles, but (A) couldn’t remember if she ever actually attempted to pass as male, and (B) believe she actually identifies as both genders.

Any thoughts/ideas?



A sometimes-pertinent vid that everyone should watch.