However, Hall switched out of men’s clothing and dressed and presented as a woman before agreeing to a contract to serve as an indentured servant to John Tyos and Robert Eyres. Hall arrived at Jamestown in late 1628 dressed as a man. After the General Court hearing, Hall disappears from the historical record. The court ruled that Hall was “a man and a woeman” and ordered Hall to wear men’s clothing but with an apron and female headgear to indicate Hall’s distinct gender identity. On April 8, 1629, the General Court convened at the statehouse at Jamestown to review the question of Hall’s gender identity. Under questioning, Hall averred that “hee was both” a man and a woman. Both women and men took it upon themselves to examine Hall’s body, without permission, to determine whether this indentured servant was a man or a woman and how this sexually ambiguous individual would fit into the social order. Hall became an indentured servant presenting as a woman, but questions about Hall’s gender identity spread throughout the community. Hall resumed using a female identity upon leaving the army until 1628, when Hall again donned men’s clothing and sometime thereafter journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean to Virginia as Thomas Hall. In 1625, Hall joined the English army using the name Thomas Hall and dressing as a man.
Hall was born in or near Newcastle upon Tyne in the northeastern part of England in about 1603, christened with the name of Thomasin, and raised as a girl. Thomas/in Hall was an intersex individual who lived in seventeenth century Virginia.
0 kommentar(er)
