Gender transition and forced genital exposure (fifteenth-century France)

Gender transition and forced genital exposure (fifteenth-century France)

Abstract

Forced nudity in medieval images is often associated with the deployment of evidence in a legal context. Les Cent nouvelles nouvelles, a collection of stories written in Burgundy in the 1450s, presents a singular case of nudity in Story 45, an image of which exists in a manuscript held in Glasgow. A transgender laundress, Madame Marguerite, after being accused of sexual relations with a young girl, is exposed semi-naked in the marketplace of Rome, revealing their male sexual organs. The article compares this case to other instances of transgender trials involving issues of sexuality. It also compares this case to a fabliau and a short story by Giovanni Boccaccio raising issues of gender transition and illegitimate sexuality. The case of Madame Marguerite is one of many in a long history of the forced unclothing of transgender people.

Keywords

• Transidentity
• Transfemininity
• Trail
• Unclothing
• Middel Ages
• Burgundy
• Cent nouvelles nouvelles