Crossing the Century: Cross-Dressing in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century San Francisco

Crossing the Century: Cross-Dressing in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century San Francisco Jin, Alexander This paper explores cross-dressing in the San Francisco Bay Area at the turn-of-the- twentieth-century (c.1890-1910) and narrates the extraordinary lives of Edward James Livernash and Milton Matson, two individuals who were arrested on cross-dressing related charges in 1891 and 1895/1903 respectively. I attempt to show how the criminalization of cross-dressing was closely intertwined with the rise of modern sexuality, arguing that anti-cross-dressing laws operationalized the policing of bodies, the creation and maintenance of (fictionalized) fixed identities vis-à-vis binaries, and the reassertion of male power. I further argue that these shifts in how the state defined and regulated bodies demonstrates one of the ways in which modern sexuality emerged unevenly along the axes of gender, race, and class.