I Guess Nothing Is Really New

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Transgender and Civil War history converge on a day trip to Saunemin, Illinois

For more than 40 years after mustering out of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War, Albert Cashier led a quiet life in Saunemin, a village of just 450 souls in Livingston County, Illinois. An illiterate immigrant from Ireland,…

www.chicagotribune.com

For more than 40 years after mustering out of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War, Albert Cashier led a quiet life in Saunemin, a village of just 450 souls in Livingston County, Illinois......Wherever he went — from walking the sidewalks at dusk to marching in the annual Memorial Day parade, proudly wearing his soldier's uniform — Albert carried with him a deeply hidden secret. On Christmas Day 1843, Albert had been christened Jennie Hodgers. But at some unrecorded stage, he became Albert Cashier and lived that way for decades.

 

[jackt62]

It is common to hear about cases of females enlisting in the CW armies. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those cases were of transgender individuals, which was probably another taboo subject during that era.

 

[dlofting]

I wonder if part of the reason for Albert's modest lifestyle was a need to keep his secret, which probably meant that some better paying and more permanent jobs weren't open to him.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

I wonder if part of the reason for Albert's modest lifestyle was a need to keep his secret, which probably meant that some better paying and more permanent jobs weren't open to him.

The article hinted at that too. He would have lost his pension and his better pay if he was seen as a woman. It was interesting that the community so respected him that they built him a small one room house. And after his accident, the doctor and his employer kept his secret.

 

[DBF]

modest lifestyle was a need to keep his secret,

with good reason as the story of Frances Thompson a former slave unfolds. In 1866 she along with her housemate Frances Lucy Smith's testimony about their assault, rape, and robbery during the Memphis Riots. In 1876, Thompson was exposed for cross-dressing. For twenty years she successfully passed as a woman. Southerners trumpeted this case as evidence that widely documented cases of violence, sexual and otherwise, were fabricated.

So compelling was her story that she is believed to be the first transgender woman to testify before the United States Congress.

https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/reconstruction/a-case-of-sexual-violence-during-reconstruction-1866/