1./ What can we learn about "gender identity" from the past? I was wondering about this when I paid a visit to one of the strangest places in Britain; one where you can simultaneously pay homage both to a pioneering feminist and one of the most fascinating of trans icons. π 
2./ Old St Pancras church near King's Cross dates back to at least the Normans. Thomas Hardy worked clearing graves here during the building of the station. A tree has since engulfed some of the piled headstones to create a Hammer Horror type memorial. πlondon-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/β¦
3./ The graveyard is a geographical Forrest Gump, marking almost every serious event in the capital's history. William Blake used to walk past it regularly as he followed the Fleet River on his long trips to Hampstead. The river is now entombed under the road beside the church.π
4./ Rimbaud and Verlaine lived nearby during their absinthe soaked exile from Paris. And it was here in 1814 that 16 year old Mary Shelley met Percy Bysshe Shelley to elope. Their rendezvous was her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's grave. Today, visitors often leave flowers. π
5./ Wollstonecraft spoke highly of someone whose individual grave was cleared from the same graveyard but is now marked in a collective memorial to important people whose headstones were lost. You can just see the name of Chevalier d'Eon etched on the now shabby memorial.π
6./ At the time D'Eon claimed to be a woman who had hidden the fact she was female to pursue a career as a noted diplomat, warrior and legendary swordsman. Once safe in London he'd reverted to being she, or so she said. The National Gallery has a famous portrait of "her".π
7./ Wollstonecraft used D'Eon as an uplifting example that proved women could do anything if given the education and skills. The Chevalier became a celebrity in in London in part by exhibiting her skills in swordsmanship dressed as the woman she said she was. He invariably won.
8./ I say he because when D'Eon died it was discovered his body was male and he was denounced as a trickster. Ever since people have argued about his significance. For the trans movement D'Eon is an early high-profile transgender icon. Some historians think that's simplistic.π
9./ Gary Kames prefers to place D'Eon in the context of the times, noting it was much more gender-bending than we might imagine. D'Eon was sent on a mission to the Empress Elizabeth I's court in St Petersburg where a weekly cross-dressing ball was held. πvogue.com/article/catherβ¦
10./ Female power was highly visible and contested with Madame Pompadour in France, Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and Catherine the Great all in D'Eon's lifetime. Bridgerton's real Queen Charlotte in Britain was no cipher either. vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifesβ¦
11./ And then there were the Macaronis, a wildly effeminate and theatrical contemporary subculture with towering wigs who shocked Britain by out-dandying the dandies. They were so called because they preferred foreign pasta to good English roast beef. Guilty as charged.
12./ Women playwrights were writing for the stage. And while that awful grump Rousseau denounced the "feminisation" of society, D'Eon demurred. His library was full of books celebrating women and he wrote many letters proclaiming women superior.π
13./ During the French Revolution he even offered to raise a regiment of Amazons to fight for the cause. So what should we think now of this remarkable character? Did he really think he was a woman? Who knows, but there's a much more important point.
14./ Whatever D'Eon believed 'they' (let's give them the benefit of the doubt) tried to increase the space for women and their options. D'Eon wasn't invading the few spaces women had carved out for themselves, like some notable trans icons of today. πtheguardian.com/sport/2021/junβ¦
15./ And who can deny the courage and individuality it took to make your own way in life like the Chevalier d'Γon? It was admiration for a similar attitude that would later win trans people their rights, not LGBTQ+ policing of other people's behaviour, views or zir/zie pronouns.
16./ Next time you're near King's Cross pop along to @OldStPancras where you can nod in respect to both a great feminist and a gender-bending trans icon; united by their shared loathing of limiting stereotypes as well as their determination to break free of them.
17./ In the end though try as she might Wollstonecraft could not hope to break free entirely of the limitations imposed on her; while D'Eon could embrace or play with them. Biology also brought its own dangers (she died in childbirth) which he would never face or understand.
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