List of passing women and women in drag in SF
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The female character has some compelling reason to live as a male, often to avoid physical danger while traveling, or to take advantage of greater adventure or job opportunities. This is a particularly common way for YA fiction to explore gender issues. "Passing women" have shown up in plenty of non-SF works as well, again, particularly in YA fiction. "Passing women" are part of a broader phenomena of, usually, members of discriminated-against classes "passing" themselves as members of the privileged classes. Passing is full-time and intended to pass, as opposed to cross-dressing, which may not be intended to "pass". Examples:
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Examples in Prose
Characters
- Alanna of Trebond, in Tamora Pierce, Alanna: The First Adventure (girl disguises herself as boy in order to get education as a knight)
- Eowyn, disguises herself as male in order to fight in battle, in Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Works
- Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hawkmistress! (1982) (runaway girl disguises herself as boy and passes for male)
- Louise Marley, The Terrorists of Irustan (1999)
- Maureen McHugh, Mission Child (woman lives and passes as man)
- Slayer Elizabeth Weston, slayer 1812-1813, Somerset England, lives as nobleman Edward Weston in Jane Espenson, "Presumption" in Tales of the Slayers
- "Red Tornado" (Abigail Mathilda "Ma" Hunkel) was a golden age DC superhero who wore longjohn-style tights and a pot on her head. (She has since gone on to play a woman in her 80s who acts as a parental figure to the Justice Society of America members)
- Lythande series by Marion Zimmer Bradley:
- "The Incompetent Magician" (1983) Greyhaven (a lesbian magician passes as a man)
- "The Wandering Lute" (1986)
- Lythande (1986)
- Vonda McIntyre "Looking for Satan" in Thieves World III: Shadows of Sancturary ed. by Robert Lynn Asprin (1981)
- Carol Guess. Switch</I> (1998) - magic realism novel, with a passing woman as one of the narrators and characters
- Gwyneth Jones . Divine Endurance (1984) (the character Cho, a female, sometimes passes as a boy, although this is by no means a primary aspect of the plot)
- Ursula K. Le Guin "Mountain Ways"
- Louise Marley The Terrorists of Irustan (1999) (one of the characters, strongly implied to be a lesbian, is really a female)
- Maureen McHugh . Mission Child (on another planet, a woman begins dressing as a man for safety during war, and then continues to explore her male side, ultimately identifying rather androgynously)
- Vonda McIntyre, . "Looking for Satan" in Thieves World III: Shadows of Sanctuary, edited by Robert Lynn Asprin (1981) [part of Bradley's Lythande series; see above]
- Cris Newport,. Queen's Champion: The Legends of Lancelot Retold</I> (1997, Pride Publications)
- Delia Sherman . Through a Brazen Mirror< (Ace, 1989; Circlet Press, 1999)
- Tanith Lee. "The One We Were" in Elsewhere Three, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (New York: Ace, 1984).
- Tanith Lee "Southern Lights" in Amazons II, edited by Salmonson (1982)
- Virginia Woolf. Orlando (1928)
Examples in Comics
- "Red Tornado" (Abigail Mathilda "Ma" Hunkel) was a golden age DC superhero who wore longjohn-style tights and a pot on her head. (She has since gone on to play a woman in her 80s who acts as a parental figure to the Justice Society of America members)
Examples in Films
- Valerian (Caitlin Clarke) in Dragonslayer (1981)
- Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) in Return of the Jedi (1983)
- Jack (Rhiana Griffith) in Pitch Black (2000)
See also
Further reading
- Sweet Polly Oliver @ TVTropes
